Beyond All Thresholds

by RoMS

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Tragedy, Dark, Alternate Universe, Romance
Length: 27164

Rainbow Dash survived Pinkamena’s muder attempt but was left in comatose. Meanwhile, the world is dangerously escalating to war.

With Twilight crowned princess, everything was said to be just fine. However, after Pinkamena Diane Pie revealed herself being a cold-blooded killer, the situation drifts away from everypony’s hooves. From now on, an escalation of events will bring the world to its knees and the ponies we know so well will go through Tartarus to answer this very simple question:

“Where will you be ready to go to save those you cherish and which sacrifice will you be eager to pay for it?”

This story is an alternative ending/sequel to the known, loved or hated Sergeant Sprinkles’s story, “Cupcakes”.

This is my first story any criticism is welcomed! It is not because it is a sequel to Cupcake that it is necessarily bad. Read it and enjoy the unfolding plot.

I would like to thank Neo Draco for the skilful editing this pony has performed on my story.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-30 23:45:08 UTC

Act I, What stands beneath, 2. Doubts never die

2.      Doubts never die

By the time Applejack had returned to Sweet Apple Acres, the sun was nearly down behind the western mountains. The events of the afternoon had disturbed her so deeply her mind was shattered and her heart utterly broken. She had now to tell Big Macintosh and Granny Smith, they needed to know. However she strongly believed incapable to tell them the harsh truth.

Applebloom was also an issue she had to raise. She and her friends idolized Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo was even close to worship the latter. And now, Applejack wanted to initiate action, to be responsible and announce the earth-shattering news to her family and her sister.

‘Sometimes a lie is easier to take’. Dredged up from years past, Discord's terrible words resurfaced in Applejack’s mind. Being a liar always brought problems, and the consequences had always been far-reaching. She was particularly aware of this truth. Yet in this particular case, lying was an easy way out.

“Don’t lie, never lie”, she convinced herself, or rather tried to.

A thought popped in her mind. She was not forced to tell a lie nor did she have to tell the truth. Silence was right now absolutely golden. Sorrow soaked her heart. She was pitiful, searching for an escape.

She climbed over the old fence surrounding Sweet Apple Acres. The sun finally disappeared in the edge of her vision. The sky darkened and the first star of Ursa Minor twinkled high in the sky.

Light was bathing the windows of the Apple Family’s farmstead. A sweet smell floated in the air. Granny Smith had made apple pie again, for Applejack’s greatest pleasure. But this enjoyable smell was not enough to chase away her mental goings-on.

On the doorstep, Applejack stopped. She was hesitant and doubtful. With a hoof on the door lock, she tried to calm herself, to mask her inner emotional turmoil.

She sighed, took a deep breath and opened the door. Stomping the doormat in the hallway, she hung her hat on the coat rack and stared at the neighbouring door, half opened.

In the kitchen, Big Mac was already washing the dishes. The Apple Family had dined before the sunset and Apple Bloom was finishing her dessert, a small frozen apple cake. The young filly granted her big sister a broad grin, crumbs stuck on her muzzle.

On the opposite side of the large table, Granny Smith was napping in her rocking chair, swinging back and forth.

“Hi everypony! Hi Winona! How y'all doing?” Applejack greeted, forcing an expression of good mood on her features.

Granny Smith half-opened her eyelids. She caught a drop of sweat rolling on Applejack’s forehead.

Applejack was clearly late. And as elders always disliked anything out of the ordinary, she gazed at the mare who stopped in motion. Granny Smith’s eyes narrowed, her stare pierced her grand-daughter from side to side. Applejack gulped with difficulty.

Granny Smith frowned, relying on her ancient sixth sense. Her gaze met Applejack's and the orange pony instinctively flinched.

“Apple Bloom?” Granny Smith asked gently.

“Yes Granny?”

“Take your pie with you and go to your room, I need to talk to your big sister.”

“But…”

Applejack’s faked smile deliquesced as she understood what Granny Smith wanted… a face to face discussion. She avoided her granny’s stultifying stare, obviously embarrassed.

“Listen to yer gran’ma Apple Bloom. Go up and no arguin’!” Applejack added without much conviction.

She had jumped on the occasion to speak up and turn to somepony who was not oppressing by with a mere gaze. However, Applejack’s words had been too harsh. Apple Bloom scowled at her sister and ran away, tearful.

Applejack took a seat in front of Granny Smith. She held her breath.

“What happened AJ?” Granny firmly asked with her twang voice.

Granny Smith’s forehead wrinkled even more as she sharp-eyed her grand-daughter.  Applejack sighed and did nothing but confess the terrible events of the past day. Big Macintosh started stomping the floor, nervously. His left hoof was unsettled.

“She’ll never fly again?” He queried hesitantly.

Applejack nodded. She was livid and thinking about the investigators’ photos still disturbed her. Her cutie marks had been ripped from her stifle. Even worse, she had also taken a look at Rainbow’s surgery report before leaving the hospital. Her eyes… Applejack had absolutely no idea whether Rainbow would ever recover from such ordeal.

The cyan pegasus was broken from now on. Everything that made her the mare she knew so well had been taken away, torn apart. No more awesomeness, no crazy dashing around, no more sonic rainbooms. She was nopony now. Her own identity had been snatched from her.

“You’ll have to be gentle with Rainbow when she wakes up. Watch upon her carefully.” Granny said, keeping her voice neutral. “Don’t be surprised if she tries… well you understand. You remembered what uncle Cidre Doux did when he lost his hindhoof.”

Applejack stuttered, thinking about this old family story.

“Gr… Granny, do yah have to be so crude?”

“But that’s the truth and you know it,” she hammered. “Look… I know you care about her, I just wanted to warn you about that.”

Applejack sighed. She could not argue with the facts. It was time to be honest and face reality.

“Ah...Ah need to think. Ah’m goin’ out!”

On the doorstep, she lit a lantern and put her hat on. She glanced back at the kitchen where Granny Smith went back to napping, then cantered off into the night, bound for the orchards. Ten minutes later, the Apple family could hear somepony noisily bucking apple trees.

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From her room windows, Apple Bloom watched her sister slowly fading in the darkness until the tiny light from her lantern disappeared. The moon had not yet risen.

“Why is she so mean to me?” Apple Bloom complained with eyes wet with tears. “What I’ve done wrong?”

Granny Smith had been so serious when her big sister walked in. Apple Bloom was resented being put aside like this, she was not a foal anymore. Would she always be the Applejack and her grandma’s “silly lil’ filly”?

Thinking, something was clearly afoot and she had to find out what. And this, she thought, was a quest she could not go on alone. She had to gather her fellow friends.

When the Cutie Mark Crusaders inherited Applejack’s old clubhouse, the Crusaders had decided to create a way to assemble. This mode was a signal similar to those “super stallions” had in the comics Twilight kept in Ponyville’s library. Applebloom remembered the joyful face of Scootaloo when she saw the calling signal of Batmane.

She kindled the wick of a candle and brought it to her window. There was a little box which interior was made up of mirrors. Putting the candle inside, Apple Bloom oriented it toward a reflector fixed on a distant tree. A complex system of reflections that the Crusaders had set up should do the rest of the job. Everything put aside, Apple Bloom had to admit that she never really tested it before. She repeated the procedure once more.

Apple Bloom waited for five minutes. Then a large smile cleared her face, she had received an answer. It was infinitesimal, but she could still see a flashing light glaring on the distant apple tree, redirected to her thanks to the mirror. A Crusader had responded.

On second thought, Apple Bloom pouted swiftly. The system had worked, it was an inescapable fact, but she had absolutely no clue about the identity of the filly who had answered. There was always the possibility that an ill-intentioned mare could have responded. That the creature was trying to trick her and keep her away from getting her cutie mark. Applebloom enjoyed imagining herself living a great adventure.

She put an end to her wishful thinkings, grabbed her saddlebags and put on her tabard sporting the Cutie Mark Crusaders heraldry. She faked her shape under her bed sheets with few pillows and then sneaked out of Sweet Apple Acres.

The night was dark and unsettling but Ponyville was not far away. At least she did not have to walk along the Everfree Forest like Fluttershy had to every day… Her cottage was located so close to this creepy place.

She crossed a plaque announcing Ponyville. The only thing she had to do now was to reach the meeting place.

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Anger was running through Rarity’s veins. She was throwing a fit of rage as she never did before, rumbling over her shop. She charged into her models. Carousel Boutique had ended into a monstrous mess since a couple of hours. The unicorn was terrifying.  She uttered, cried and was muttering.

Opal, her cat, hid beneath a chest of drawers, trembling and hissing.

She repeated martial arts holds and armlocks on her dummies. One even broke down. In the past she had surprised her friends beating Changelings and even trying to kick a manticore with techniques of her own devising. She, a delicate unicorn, did not fit the role of a powerful warrior. And she was fine with it, refusing to be tagged as an ‘unrefined’ lady. However, as said her mother, it was not a reason to be a complete ignorant in the sweet art of defending oneself.

She was a whirlwind roaring through the boutique. Unfortunately the din she had created was drawing attention. Somepony knocked on the door. Rarity snapped out of her destructive mood and stared angrily at her hallway.

“One moment, please,” She managed to say softly.

She brushed her mane as fast as she could. Her horn started glowing while her magic pushed away the obstacles in the path.

A guard was standing at the doorstep. The reflections of the stallion’s lantern were casting odd shadows on his tired face. With the light coming from below, its shades were utterly creepy. Rarity suddenly remembered some slumber parties where a filly had tried to intone a creepy song .

“Miss Rarity? Is everything okay in there?”

“Oh… Yes, yes, of course. I’m just doing… some spring cleaning.”

Obviously persuasion was not her cutie mark talent. The guard raised a brow, worried and unconvinced. Rarity hid her malaise behind a fake smile. Or at least she tried to.

“We understand what you’re going through,” The soldier reassured gently. “but please, don’t disturb the neighbourhood.”

“I won't…”

She slammed the door.

“Peasant.” Rarity grumbled.

She sat in the middle of the shop, looking at the chaos she had wreaked upon it. She had this horrible felling dwelling in her bowels, this unsettling impression of guiltiness. And she sought for the reason. What had she done to feel this miserable?

“Rarity? Why are you so angry? Have I done something ‘uncouth’… again?”

Sweetie Belle appeared upstairs. She lay low behind the wooden guardrail of the second floor hallway. Rarity sighed heavily and went up. Putting her hoof on the cringing filly’s shoulder she dried her yet-to-be tears and smiled.

“No, no! You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just… just me.”

Rarity’s hesitation made her sister uncomfortable. Rarity tried to be reassuring, toddling between useless excuses and hackneyed reassuring talks.

“Look, my dear, a particularly terrible event has put Ponyville in grieving. Something that hit my friends and I really hard happened and it keeps bothering me. But it’s absolutely nothing you need to worry about. Now go back to your bed. You need some rest.”

Indeed Sweetie Belle needed to sleep. She had school the next morning.

“Does it have anything to do with… dad and mommy?” Sweetie Belle said, tearful.

“No. Of course not. Now please go back to bed.”

Sweetie Belle was disappointed. Rarity was quiet as the grave about the incident and she would keep it that way.

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Back in her room Sweetie Belle’s anxiousness grew. Rarity had gotten back to her temper tantrum, rocketing heavy loads of dummies in her shop. Sweetie Belle covered up her ears. She hated when her sister was angry. It always made her wet her bed with tears.

Moreover something was afoot, Rarity had admitted it. Sweetie Belle convinced herself she had to get to the bottom of this story.

She paused as something drew her attention. From the corner of her eye she caught a tiny light.

“The signal! It worked! Cutie Mark Crusaders rally!”

Indeed, a luminescent spot was reflected on her wall, right inside the red circle she drew with one of her sister’s markers. It blinked twice for a short period of time and then stopped definitely. Sweetie Belle had to respond. Although to do so, she had to sneak into the kitchen to take the cooking lighter. Inopportunely, the room was downstairs, and she would have to hack through her sister’s mess.

It took her a long time. Sweetie Belle nearly stepped on a broken dummy, but with a lot of sweat and will did fine in the end.

She responded to the call and discreetly left the house.

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“Zecora, what do you think about this? It’s like an everlasting nightmare. I want to wake up.”

Fluttershy was miserably sitting in Zecora’s living room, deep inside the frightful Everfree Forest. As ever before, eerie masks were hung on the wall, doing nothing but saping Fluttershy’s morale.

“Fellow pony, you should not express such demand, Sometimes brash requests don’t go as planned,” Zecora replied, as serene as usual.

“But… I may be harsh, excuse me… but it feels like I’m day-dreaming. I can’t simply believe Pinkie had killed ponies. I simply can’t!” Fluttershy stammered, her cheeks soaked by her small tears.

Gravely, Zecora began alchemizing over her brass cooking pot. Her spatula was scraping and grating inside, making Fluttershy grind her teeth.

“Mop up those tears and cast away your fears. Sometimes nopony can be the right mare in the right place. And then we all shall have dark catastrophes to face.”

A timberwolf howled outside. The wild call echoed in Zecora’s hut. Fluttershy gasped, hiding her head under a pillow. Zecora was worried. It had been two days the creatures had kept shouting to the moon, but it was not the mating season or a period of migration. She was unsettled by these signs, which for sure were of ill-omen.

“Zecora, please. I need advices. What should I do when Rainbow wakes up? I… I’m so afraid she’ll be jealous.”

Zecora raised an eyebrow.

“I can’t figure why she would… I…”

Fluttershy cut off Zecora.

“With Twilight becoming an alicorn and gaining her wings and… that I still have mine… She is grounded now, only able to watch us from there. I’m sure she will be angry at me!” Fluttershy sobbed. “I don’t care about mine because I live on the earth. But Rainbow’s wings were everything for her. They were her life, and her life was up over the clouds, in the sky. I simply can’t look down at her. Life is so unfair.”

“… I can only advise you to let your fears go for what is in the future, we cannot know.”

It was nearly midnight and Fluttershy was afraid to return to her cottage. Getting aware of Fluttershy’s concerns, the shaman offered her hospitality for the night. Fluttershy was pleased, though she first refused the offer. She was kind and reserved and always tried not to bother her friends, hosts or everypony she encountered.

Zecora insisted, and after hearing a new creepy howling, Fluttershy finally consented to stay.

Even if exhaust was laying her low, Fluttershy had not slept since the “sorrowful event”. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Rainbow Dash, angrier than she had ever been before, pursuing her.

Zecora held out a cup of the brew she had mixed earlier. Thankful, Fluttershy accepted it but took nearly two minutes to start drinking its contents. It seemed to be tea. Bitterness flooded her mouth.

“Eww! What is it?”

“It’s a rare species from where I grew up. It’s a recipe I’ve thought up. It will help you think, making go away what’s kink.”

Fluttershy’s thoughts, which were still bothering her, slowly faded away. The strange potion made her feel better.

“I’m sleepy Zecora.” Fluttershy pointed out.

“My mixture is like a sleeping pill, it will give you a night without what makes you ill.”

Indeed, Fluttershy sunk into a deep and peaceful sleep on the couch of the living room. Zecora covered her with a warm blanket and blew out the candles.

Before she went upstairs, she stared through the windows and shivered.

“Sometimes we have reasons to dread, and thoroughbred monsters we must face head to head.”

Zecora’s hutt darkened as the last candle was blown out.

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Earlier, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had gathered under the city hall. Few weeks ago, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had found an open air vent which led to the archives of Ponyville. There, surrounded by old books and forgotten lists and reports, they had decided to put their mark on the “Z” shelf. For the crusaders, it had looked to be the most unused and remote location of the basement. Besides, Scootaloo had said it was an act of bravery to come down there.

Sweetie Belle sneezed, the dust was tickling her muzzle.

“I tried to find Scootaloo, but she wasn’t here,” Apple Bloom stated.

“Did you see all those guards around the town? Something crazy must be happening.”

“I know, Applejack was so angry this evenin’, she shouted at me. But I did nothin’ wrong! I swear. That’s so unfair.”

“Rarity was on a rampage too. She turned the boutique upside down.”

“Somethin’ is really messed up. We Cutie Mark Crusaders have to find out,” Apple Bloom harangued.

“Wait! We must meet up Scootaloo first!”

“Ah yes. She could be anywhere. Maybe she was caught!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“BOO!”

The two fillies screeched and jumped. Sweetie Belle bumped the “Y” shelf, making it crumble down. Somepony coughed. Standing among the fallen books, covered in dirt, was Scootaloo. Her prank did not end as she had expected. An open book was set upon her head. She snorted, launching dust at her friends.

“Stop it Scootaloo.” Apple Bloom said with a sneeze.

“How did you find us?” Sweetie Belle added, still in shock.

Scootaloo moved out of the pile of books.

“I’ve just seen you hanging outside of the air vent. I’ve been up all night. With all those guards on a war hoofing, I can try out my infiltration skills,” The young pegasus showed off.

“Infiltratin’?” Apple Bloom could hardly believe his ears. “I didn’t know spyin’ was within your league?”

Her ton was clearly ironic. Scootaloo had just showed how she can handle being discreet… and dusty.

“Don’t you see how fun this is? There is a huge mystery in Ponyville and we can figure it out,” Scootaloo emphasized. “Armed guards and a black and scary night. This is the occasion to find our cutie marks.”

The three ponies enjoyed the idea.

“Let’s go!” Sweetie Belle cried out after she had wiped her tears.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders pulled themselves out of the archives. The courtyard was so cold and the Crusaders shivered. A soft breeze started blowing through their manes.

From the corner of the street came the slamming of horseshoes. Lantern lights swept about.

“Guards! Run away.” Apple Bloom spoke in a low voice.

The small group hurried up to the next house and hid behind big flowerpots. The guards were from the night watch, the Princess Luna’s personal earth guards. Their coats were dark grey and the plates of their armour were black and purple. They each carried spears except the head pony, who carried a banner displaying Luna's seal, a twisted and terrifying dragon.

Keeping in step, they crossed the place where Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were hiding. The three unfortunate fillies held their breath and waited as the guards disappeared around the corner.

“What did I tell you, infiltration! I’ve mastered it,” Scootaloo extolled.

“You still don’t have a cutie mark though!” Sweetie Belle remarked.

Scootaloo stuck out her tongue. Her friends responded with giggles.

Roaming the streets of Ponyville, the Crusaders were quite lost in the dark, trying to avoid being caught by the creepy guards of the Night Princess. It was really fun though. They passed some typical cottages of the city and crossed the yard in front of Golden Oaks Library.

After thirty minutes of roving and hide and seek, they heard a voice.

Crawling with caution, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle reached a large square in front of Sugarcube Corner. There were two silhouettes facing each other. One was clearly a pony, the other one was quite disturbing.

“Is that…” Sweetie Belle tried to say when Scootaloo cut her off.

“Shhh…”

Indeed it was the shape of Discord, the notorious spirit of chaos.

The three fillies also recognized the voice of Twilight Sparkle when she raised her voice.

“Discord, you should worry about Rainbow Dash…”

Twilight was far from the Crusaders’ safe haven which made her words difficult to understand.

“Did she say ‘Rainbow Dash’?” Scootaloo nearly exclaimed.

“Shhh, I can’t understand what they’re saying.” Sweetie Belle remarked.

“But what about Rainbow?”

Apple Bloom gave Scootaloo a menacing look. The pegasus quieted. Discord leaned toward his interlocutor. The three spectators were now clueless about what was being plotted in front of Sugarcube Corner.

After a few minutes, Discord disappeared. Twilight looked really depressed. Sweetie Belle caught her crying.

“Wow, something really bad must have happened,” she said in a low voice.

In the middle of the esplanade, Twilight sighed.

“Tomorrow I’ll see her at the hospital.” She said to herself.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle stared at their pegasus friend. Scootaloo enjoyed a near sisterhood with Rainbow. And now, she was livid.

“The… the hospital.”

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When she returned to Golden Oaks Library, Twilight found Spike as she left him, snoring loudly on his couch. She envied his peace. When she lay down, she, on the other hand, couldn't find sleep.

Tired of her own goings-on, she went downstairs. She was still thinking about Discord’s claims. With her magic, she picked books randomly.

“Mares and Colts of Ancient Times… no! Forgotten Plants from the Arctic Circle! Wait what… how could indexed flora could be listed as forgotten? That’s silly!?”

One by one, she threw books in a pile in the middle of the library.

“Necrodraconoponomicon!?” She exclaimed. “Another fake book... Be… Beyond the realms… I did not even know I had this one, who the buck wrote this… by Star… Star Swirl.”

The name was not written on the book’s cover but it was clearly the mage’s mark that was engraved on it.

Star Swirl the bearded, she could not believe it. How did this book end up here? Moreover, how could she not know about it? Thrilled about discovering absolute magic and knowledge she opened the book.

She only shook her head in disbelief, “How dumb I can be!”

She threw the book away, which fell opened on the floor. Each page was torn or written in a language she had never seen before. She remember to study it later.

Twilight was angry, exhausted and frustrated. Over all, she felt powerless. And she hated that feeling, she who was so organized. She pulled out a book from her shelves, “Nursery magic”. She searched for a spell.

“Sleep spell… Here we go.”

Fed up about the journey she had been through, she went upstairs. She lay on her bed and cast the spell on herself. She fell in a deep but troubled sleep…

She was running as fast as she can, fleeing from something. Was it a monstrous foe? A dark and purple smoke? Or something worse than whatever her imagination could breed? She was clueless and above all, she refused to know its nature.

There was nothing in the world that could compel her to turn and face the threat.

She ran as she never did before. The speed was blowing air through her mane, rustling her fur. She opened her wings and leaped in the air.

For a mere second she thought she would be safe, that the hideous thing could not follow her.

An invisible force broke her hopes instantly. The power tackled her down, shaking her limbs and wings, shattering her inner being. Stunned, she could only witness what was surrounding her…. Mist…. A light grey vapour.

Fear swamped her mind. She was suddenly deprived of all her magic. She shrunk to the size of the filly she was in kindergarten. Powerless, she could only cry. She felt so miserable. And the laugh of invisible bullies did nothing to help.

A well-known silhouette emerged from the haze. It was a deformed, crooked and crippled image of the pony she knew so well.

“Rainbow?”

The so-called pony’s eyeballs had been removed, her mouth was drooling a blackened blood and riveted to a bone necklace dangled both of her wings.

“I’ve no bounds now, but that means no boundaries either!”

Rainbow drew a knife out of her lacerated flank. Slowly she came closer to the young filly. The twisted grin spreading on her ravaged face was the most alienating thing Twilight had ever witnessed.

“Here comes the reward!” Rainbow laughed out loud.

The pegasus’ shadow was in the sobbing pony’s light. It had a weird shape, too big, too torturous, like a draconequus’. Two glowing red eyes gazed at the terrified victim.

“Had enough Twilight?” The monster asked.

Twilight sat up and took the deepest breath she ever took.  She was running with sweat and she had wet herself. That hadn't happened since she was a foal. The nightmare had been so… real. But as strange as it could be, she could not remember it well. They were just… Rainbow Dash.

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Once Twilight had gone out of sight, the Crusaders dragged themselves out of the shadows and stood in front of Sugarcube Corner. The warning yellow strips amused Scootaloo, the two others were surprised. They had only seen such bands in investigation movies and series.

“Twilight said Rainbow is at the hospital, we must hurry!”

Scootaloo insisted, shaking up Apple Bloom. The pegasus had started panicking and was on the verge of crying.

“Ah’lright, ah’lright, but stop please! You’re gettin’ spooky!” Apple Bloom conceded, slipping away from Scootaloo’s clutch.

Dodging a couple of patrols, the three novice spies headed to the northern part of Ponyville. The hospital was standing at the exit of the town. It was also surrounded by a large park where the convalescents could “enjoy” their recovery.

Even by night, some parts of the hospital were still lit up. Through the windows, the three fillies could see doctors and nurses in urge. Emergency happened at every moment of the day.However, the east wing of the building was plunged in darkness. It was reserved for the sleeping patients.

Strangely, there were guards here too.

“Not again,” said Apple Bloom. “They are everywhere, like if there are some dark mares hangin’ around the town.”

“There might be one,” Scootaloo spooked with a ghostly tone. “Rainbow Dash can’t hurt herself, she must have fight an enemy! She is super-ultra-extreme-awesomazing.”

“I dunno, but if we want to see her, we have to be quiet,” Apple Bloom stated.

“This isn’t a game… If we get caught, Rarity will be even more furious!” Sweetie Belle pouted.

Everypony except Scootaloo seemed to be on the back hoof in this situation.

The Crusaders hid behind a bush. Scootaloo drew a hardly matching scheme of the hospital. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had difficulty to see it. The stars’ light was not enough to lit up the garden.

“See there,” Scootaloo pointed out. “I think there is a back door, we could sneak in and make our way through the hospital… to find Rainbow. Are you with me?”

“I… I guess,” Her two friends answered.

Skirting around the principal entrance where two guards were standing, the Crusaders arrived to the mentioned door. It was the one for the medical service. Scootaloo took the lead. She was worried about her “adoptive big sister”. And each step which made her closer to the hospital did nothing but increase her anxiousness.

“You took me under your wing, I have to help you,” Scootaloo whispered.

“What did you say?” Sweetie Belle asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

The door grated on its rusty hinges, causing the crusaders’ fur to bristle out of fear of being caught red-handed.

“Shhhhh…”

“I ain’t the door!” Scootaloo responded with an ounce of irony.

The east wing of the hospital was really quiet and dark. Rainbow Dash loved telling horror stories about this kind of place when they used to go camping. They were white tiles everywhere and the smell of antiseptics was poignant. The small group faced dozens of doors and each one had a name on a stamp.

“Green Hoof… Shiny Nose… Light Den… Where is Rainbow?” Sweetie Belle gave up.

“We must split up!” Scootaloo firmly said.

“Sp… Split?”

Sweetie Belle was not amused.

After five minutes negotiating, Scootaloo went upstairs while Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had to stay together on the first floor. Each group had to find out where Rainbow’s room was. Scootaloo wandered about the hall of the second floor. They were four large rooms which could host ten ponies. The first three were full.

She was going to check the last one when clamouring came from downstairs. She heard the blabbering voice of Sweetie Belle. Crawling towards the stairwell, Scootaloo heard her friends verbally duelling.

“Let us go or I’m gonna buck you up!” Apple Bloom menaced.

The guard was on the brink of bursting out laughing. He had grabbed Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom by the scruffs of their necks.

“You can’t go in by night, trespassers shall be prosecuted. This isn’t the hour or the place for young mares. I’ll bring you back to your relatives. Did another filly come with you two?” the guard outlined.

Scootaloo held her breath. Apple Bloom’s hesitation had been explicit for a mere second.

“No! We went alone.”

The guard was not convinced but he did not try to question the youngsters for further information. The large stallion went outside with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

Alone, Scootaloo stayed stoic for a couple of minutes. She was waiting for something to happen. But the guard did not show up again. Slowly she got up, turned around and headed to the last room. There was a unique name… Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo panted, her wings buzzed. And the door was not locked.

In the dark, Scootaloo recognized Rainbow’s sleeping form. Close to her bed was a beeping heart monitor. Intravenous fluids were hanging on a metal stand.

“Rainbow?”

No response. Scootaloo slid towards her “foster sister”. She climbed on the bed. In spite of the dark, she clearly saw the bandages around Rainbow’s head, covering up her eyes. There were burn scars.

Shakes ran through Scootaloo’s limbs as her eyes filled with tears.

“Ohhh, what did they do to you big sis’?”

She cuddled up to Rainbow Dash. In a way, she was happy. Happy to be there, next to the one she adored, the one she wanted to stay with, the one she had always liked to be. Scootaloo hugged Rainbow, she wanted to fall asleep next to her and stay like this forever.

She groped around.

The wings! Where were Rainbow’s wings. Scootaloo checked two, three, four times. She started sputtering. Quivers invaded her body. Her fur ruffled. Where were they, for pony’s sake?

Scootaloo’s eyes lay, horrified, on the large and stained gauze and bandages wrapping Rainbow’s body. She started panting heavily, sweating her anxiousness.

She checked over and over again. This madness lasted for a long time.

“No! No! No…”

In the end, she had to admit the terrifying reality and face the facts. Her face turned ghoulish. She dissolved into tears and felt like vomiting.

“How will you teach me how to fly? What will you…”

“Please stop…”

Scootaloo jumped and fell from the bed. Getting up she put her front hooves on the bed linens. Rainbow's voice was weak and sickly.

“R… Rainbow, are you okay?”

Rainbow turned her head in Scootaloo’s direction in fits and starts. Even if they were damaged and covered up, the young filly felt like two wide opened bloodshot eyes were staring at her. Two glowing eyes seeking for a victim.

Rainbow’s voice was harsh. She lifted her hooves and scrabbled toward Scootaloo. Rainbow was drooling, unveiling few broken teeth. Her tongue dangled horribly. She crawled like an insect.

“I… want home… to go Home.”

Then the pegasus let out a long and discordant lament before passing out. Scootaloo had already run away. The fear had shaken her, refused her from loitering next to her hero. The complaint echoed for a long time in her twisted ears.

Act I, What stands Beneath, 3. When do the dreamers awaken?

3. When do the dreamers awaken?

The hallways of Canterlot were known to be part of the most majestic place in Equestria. Draperies of gold, silver and gemstones shone above the heads of countless guards tirelessly repeating their duty, day by day.

Two ponies were conducted to the chamber of the Throne. The terrified looks on their faces were blatant.

They were none other than Mr and Mrs Cake, the owners of the now notorious Sugarcube Corner.

Guards opened the last gate and left the couple standing alone in the huge anteroom. The palace was bright as the sunlight flooded through hundreds of stained glass windows depicting glorious heroes and deeds of the past. The Element Bearers and Equestria’s Princesses were among them.

Two Alicorns turned their heads toward their guests. The first one, the taller, was a white muse whose floating mane was made of pink, green and various nuances of blue and white. Wearing a golden necklace and a magnificent crown, she had a bright sun as a cutie mark. Her purple eyes were compassionate.

“Princess Celestia?” the couple gasped.

On the other hoof, Luna’s stare was harsh. For a moment, her very presence seemed to cast a pall over the regal chamber and any doubts that she was the warrior formerly known as Nightmare Moon were dispelled on the spot.

“And… P-P-Princess Lun-”

“Enough of this etiquette. Come, we have serious matters to discuss.” She curtly cut off.

Mr and Mrs Cake glanced at each other, “As you wish milady.”

Celestia leaned toward Luna, “Don’t dominate them. They are as shocked by these circumstances as we are.”

“It’s an important matter, my beloved sister. I can’t abide the idea that they have seen nothing, that’s utter nonsense.”

“Sometimes we have to listen and understand, not everypony possesses as much power as you or I.”

“You may be right,” Luna sighed.

The couple had moved close to the regal sisters. Celestia remained silent, staring through the large bay window. Luna looked at the two earth ponies, “Approach and gaze at the outside. Tell me what thou art seeing.”

They could see a courtyard. Dozens of fillies were playing. Their giggles were reassuring that not everything there in Canterlot was duty, royal matters, and intrigue.

“This is Harmony,” Luna cut off when Mrs Cake tried to speak. “Something that we must protect… preserve every day. A duty I failed to fulfil a long time ago.”

Luna stared into her audience’s eyes, “We do not wish to blame you, but to understand why and how.”

Mr Cake and his bride felt nauseous under the almighty look of the dark blue alicorn. His hesitant voice rose up, “We’re so… very sorry but we have seen nothing before it was too late… We had… complete confidence in Pinkie Pie. She attended every task related to the management of the stock. You know Pinkie is… was really good with numbers when she wanted to be.”

“You never went down? You never took a look at the basement?”

“No… Yes,” Mrs Cake said, Luna arched an eyebrow. “I mean two months ago I went down to help Pinkie and everything was normal. It stank like every basement you know. How could I have imagined for a second that such… horrible things were happening there?”

She began to sob. Mr Cake embraced her, trying to be comforting. Celestia glanced critically over at Luna.

The latter gave her big sister her spot. Celestia beamed and spoke with a melodic voice, immediately ceasing the tears, “You must know that today, the inhabitants of Ponyville are in shock.  You’ve lost your reputation and you must understand that going back to Sugarcube Corner is not the… wisest decision you could make. I…”

“So that's it!?” Mrs Cake erupted. “You want us to abandon everything we’ve built through the twelve last years, to leave those who count to us. How will my babies comprehend?”

Mrs Cake sobbed. She had lost her temper. She, who had always been authoritative and confident, had hit a new low. Her husband tried to comfort his “sunshine”. She pushed his hoof. Celestia and Luna did not feel at ease, witnessing this pitiful attempt to avoid the facts.

“Mr and Mrs Cake, we might have a solution,” Celestia concluded. “We can loan to you a safe and calm place in Manehatten for the time being. Applejack and her family really want to help you, at least until the scandal weakens. There, you could consider your future more clearly.”

“You want us to flee?” Mrs Cake tripped over her words.

“I just want you to consider that…”

“This can’t be possible,” she shot back. “I can’t believe you want us to flee. Get it into your head that…”

“Mind your tongue,” Luna exhorted before Celestia gave her an off-putting stare.

“…I’m not leaving Ponyville, my children and my patisserie.” Then she turned and left the throne room, tearful, attempting to keep some semblance of pride.

Celestia bit her tongue in an effort to keep from giggling. It had been aeons since somepony had stood up to her in such manner. It was… refreshing.

Luna, however, was exasperated. This pony was so narrow-minded, she thought, just like herself.

Mr Cake tried to call her wife back. A disregarding silent welcomed his complaint. He sighed and fixed with his tired eyes both of his monarchs.

“She is really upset… you know. But I would like to know, if we come back later, will this offer still be available?”

Celestia and Luna nodded as the stallion turned back and urged toward the gate. Mrs Cake could be a shrew when she wanted to.

“And sorry for the annoyance.” Mr Cake yelled as he raced out, chasing his wife.

The yellow and orange stallion disappeared. Luna and Celestia could hear the echoes of Mrs Cake’s grunts of anger.

The two sisters glanced at each other. They could not repress their laughter but it remained short-lived, this was a serious matter.

Following this strange and thrilling meeting, Luna excused herself and flew to Ponyville. It was her duty to assist in Rainbow’s awakening.

Ω  ϗ   ϡ    Ϙ  ϐ  Ϙ    ϡ   ϗ  Ω

The Mane Six were impatiently waiting in the neighbouring room. Fluttershy had just arrived. Her trip to Zecora’s house had lasted longer than she expected, and meeting a hydra when she returned did not make the trip any easier. Her mane was ruffled, and scratches covered her hooves.

Applejack’s hoof was frenetically stomping the tiled ground, unnerving everypony. Her stare was alternating between the clock, hung high on the wall, and the door. This wobbling movement was really noticeable and annoying.

Twilight put her hoof on her friend’s shoulder, “Calm down Applejack, she is fine right now. We just need… to wait for the nurse.”

“I know,” Applejack replied. “But those three guards outside of her room… I don’t have a good feelin' about them.”

“You have to remember that Rainbow is charged with three accusations of murder.”

“She is NOT a murderer.”

“I know, but the evidence…” Twilight saw Rarity staring at her from the corner of her eye. She was shaking her head pointedly. The purple alicorn took the hint.

“Look Applejack,” Twilight continued. “I’m sure she is fine. We’ll talk to her in few minutes… Princess Luna will come too. She has… questions to Rainbow.”

“Questions…” Applejack cursed. “Ain’t nothin' good about interrogations.”

She was right, Twilight knew that. Three guards were here to make sure Rainbow wouldn't escape… to make sure she would answer whether she wanted to or not.

Solving the argument, the door opened as Princess Luna and the nurse, Healing Rhyme, entered. Luna’s face was pinched by a long and sleepless night, or day in her case.

Each pony raised their muzzle, waiting for information.

“We’ve already begun the reanimation process. She will awaken in ten or twenty minutes,” the nurse stated. “But before we go into her room, I have some things to tell you. About her state…”

Every pony held her breath.

“Miss Rainbow Dash’s physical state is… abominable. She's lost her wings but I have no doubt you already know that. Every inch of her skin and flesh has been cut off or bruised. Recovery will take time and she may suffer her whole life. Even walking will be an ordeal.

She will need you… maybe forever…”

Nausea swamped their minds. The nurse kept going on the explanations, giving details about the wounds, the foreshadowing physical and psychological traumas. That she could suffer from amnesia, temporary comatose, muteness and suicide attempts. She faced Luna, mentioning that any interrogation could wreck her spirit more than it already was.

“When you enter, don’t be surprised if she is restrained firmly. We were forced to. She could react violently. She killed three ponies in that bas…”

“We already know that.” Applejack grumbled.

The nurse avoided the mare’s incriminating stare.

“Also, she has lost her eyesight. They have been burnt with acid. She will recover but she will be blind for a few weeks. Take care about her, make sure she isn’t overstimulated.”

A second time, Healing Rhyme glanced meaningfully at the princess. At the same time, Fluttershy hid her eyes behind her hooves, trying not to think about how painful this reunion would be.

“Finally, I also want you to know that Rainbow Dash woke up last night. One of her intravenous lines slipped out. She had been half-awake for a minute before we took care of her. I think she won’t even remember it.”

“Did she say anything, Nurse Rhyme?” Rarity demanded, hesitantly.

“She screamed.”

The nurse’s last sentence casted a chill over the group. She motioned everypony to follow her. They finally arrived at Rainbow’s room. From the window, they could see two doctors administering painkillers to the bruised body.

The nurse and her two colleagues went out once Luna, Twilight and her friends had gathered around Rainbow’s bed. The former pegasus was breathing loudly. But, it sounded more like a hissing in everypony’s ears. Her eyelids were slowly moving. Each pony could see it under the bandages circling her head. Her body gave small spasms as she was regaining her senses.

They could barely see her skin. She looked like a mummy, wrapped in countless bandages.

She woke up. Unable to see, she started hyperventilating, startling everypony. Hearing the audience’s sudden moves, she raised her hooves toward her closest watcher, carefully feeling the contours of the face.

She recognized Fluttershy when she touched her mane. This familiar and comforting pony made the intense expression on her face fade away. It was not Pinkie Pie… It was definitely not her. She was finally out of the basement. Everywhere else seemed like heaven compared to the underground hell where she had been brought from.

Rainbow tried to speak. At the first attempt, not even a sound came out of her mouth… just a pitiful squeal. Then she found her words and began speaking with a low, loose, and trembling voice, “Is everypony here? I can’t see you… I can’t see anything.”

Twilight, Luna, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy assented. Each pony gave her a hug. To the surprise of all, Rainbow harshly rejected everypony’s mark of affection with a sweep of her hoof.

“Don’t… Don’t touch me, none of you… nopony… ever.”

Fluttershy, whose feelings had been hurt, stepped back, accidentally knocking over a box of medical utensils. It all fell down the ground, causing an echoing metallic jingling and startling Rainbow Dash.

She screamed so violently, her friends had to cover their ears.

She shook under her bed sheets as she tried to find a way out. The pitch of her voice was so high… and lasted for so long.

“Calm yourself! STOP! Nopony’s gonna hurt yah, Shugarcube. NOPONY AT ALL. It’s over, yer safe now.” Applejack’s voice drowned out the chaos. “Nopony, yah heard me?”

Rainbow Dash started crying, cringing under the bedcovers. The rolling tears on her burnt cheeks intensified her pain causing her to scream again. It took a couple of minutes to bring her back from her panicked state.

Rainbow calmed herself and took a deep breath, “Twilight, Applejack and… Luna or Celestia I don’t know, you stay. Everypony else, get out.”

Rarity and Fluttershy looked at each other. They felt hurt from being sent away in such a harsh manner. They went out after Rarity tried in vain to contest the demand.

“Twilight, when you will get back to your library, I want you to send a letter, with Spike’s help, to Cloudsdale. I can get a pension from the Pegasus Resources Program for Injured Workers. Tell them to send it to my parents.”

She asked Twilight to leave. Only Luna and Applejack remained.

“Luna?” Rainbow’s interrogator stiffened. “I want to know why… why Pinkie did this to me… Why me… why?”

“I can’t respond to you, not until you’ve answered my questions to my satisfaction.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“It appears that you've killed Pinkie Pie as well as two stallions from the Royal Watch.”

Rainbow’s hooves started shivering. She remembered, the knife, home, Pinkie, the guards… the insanity, the basement. She shook her head between her hooves, squeezing hard enough to force small drops of blood from her wounds which soaked into her cyan coat.

“It can’t be…”

“But it is,” Luna cut her off. “Once you've been declared ‘stable’, I’ll come back.”

“Get away… Get out… I’m just a freak to your eyes, some experimental crap… another line in somepony’s agenda…”

“I…”

“Out!!”

Rainbow sobbed. Applejack was alone, silent and stoic, facing her broken friend.

“Applejack?”

The farm pony jumped. The pitch of Rainbow's voice was piercing and caused Applejack to wince.

“Ye… yes Sugarcube?”

“Never call me like that again…”

“Okay…” Applejack swallowed.

“I want you to tell me what you see. You’re the only one who would ever tell me the truth, the only one I can trust with this, the only one with enough integrity to give it to me straight. Describe what you see, draw me.”

Applejack listed each of the macabre and dreadful wounds, injuries, bruises, scars and marks that covered her friend’s body. In spite of the disgust it created in Applejack’s heart, she did not miss any details and made to Rainbow the greatest and most grotesque description that could have ever been done about her.

Rainbow’s face was indescribable, a mix of contentment, sadness, insanity and despair.

“Thanks Applejack. Now leave me alone, ain’t useful to talk to a dead mare.”

Applejack was on her way out when Rainbow called her back.

“Please, the bandages are so tight; can you undo the gauze around my head? I can't stand the sound of the blood pounding in my ears.”

Applejack nodded. She started removing the bandages. Her eyes widened as she noticed that the yellow strands of Rainbow's mane had turned black. She repressed her surprise at the sight, smothering the involuntary gasp it brought. She had already hurt Rainbow too much.

Applejack withdrew in the hallway. Everypony was waiting for her with Nurse Healing Rhyme.

“What did she say?” Luna asked.

“Nothing, she wanted the bandages around her head to be loosened,” Applejack turned to Healing Rhyme. “Have you notice the…”

Applejack mentioned Rainbow’s mane with her hoof pointed at her own. Twilight asked for clarification and what she got shocked her to her core.

“Black isn’t a natural colour for ponies.”

“Extraordinary situations bring incomprehensible consequences…” Luna observed.

“I hope yer wrong.”

“I would like to be, Applejack.”

Everypony heard Rainbow’s voice from behind the door. They gathered around Rainbow’s bed. The black lock of mane covering her head disgusted Rarity. She frowned but did not make a sound.

“What do you need, dear Rainbow.” Rarity initiated.

“There was somepony here last night.”

“Oh you remember it, I came to change your bandages,” The nurse replied.

“No, it was a filly… Scootaloo.”

Everypony gasped. The nurse pointed out that a guard had caught two fillies, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

Applejack and Rarity berated their sisters. “They were here!” They yelled.

Apparently the guard who had delivered the two fillies to their respective home had not mentioned where he had caught them.

Rainbow’s painkillers began to take effect and no pony succeeded in making her lucid again. They decided to let her rest, alone in her room.

“Where is Scootaloo at this hour?” Luna asked.

“At school for sure, with Apple Bloom and my sister,” Rarity responded.

Ω  ϗ   ϡ    Ϙ  ϐ  Ϙ    ϡ   ϗ  Ω

Sitting on her school bench, Scootaloo was shivering. Her two friends gave her worried looks as she was biting at her hooves. Cheerilee had also noticed and remarked Scootaloo’s strange behaviour.

It was nearly time for recess. The bell rang out and every pupil surged out of the classroom, except for Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom and their teacher.

“What’s bothering you, my little filly?” Cheerilee asked with a gentle smile.

Scootaloo turned to the crusaders before glancing back to her teacher, who understood.

“Apple Bloom? Sweetie Belle? Could you go out to eat your lunch, I must have a discussion with your friend.”

“But…”

They griped when Cheerilee made them go to the schoolyard. “What happened?” She started as she sat next to her pupil.

“Have you heard about Rainbow Dash, Miss Cheerilee?”

Cheerilee stuttered, “Hu… eh… Yes, I guess so.”

“I saw her last night at the hospital. I talked to her but she did not answer.”

Tearful, Scootaloo stood up and ran away, disappearing in the hallway. Taken by surprise, Cheerilee arched an eyebrow and sighed.

Once the little pegasus came out of the classroom and went to the playground, she was assaulted by both of her friends. They had decided to make her squeal.

“I… I can’t tell you…”

It was the only response they got. Disappointed, they let her stand up and wipe the dust from her flanks.

“Yes, the blank flank can’t say that Rainbow had lost her wings!”

Scootaloo turned around and faced the cynical face of Diamond Tiara along with her closest friend Silver Spoon. These two bullies were always in the wrong place at the wrong time, she thought.

Hatred flooded Scootaloo’s mind. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom stared at her friends with fear in their eyes. They could almost see the steam of anger hissing out of her ears.

“And you want to know how I know that? I heard my father talking about it last night. She has lost her wings and… her eyes,” Tiara giggled.

It was the straw which broke the manticore’s back. Scootaloo leaped toward Diamond Tiara before anypony could react. She bucked her up and slammed her against a wall with a powerful impact. Half-unconscious, Tiara could see her archenemy standing over her. Scootaloo raised her hooves and stomped the one who dared making fun of her foster sister, knocking her out. Her little wings buzzed with rage.

Cheerilee and another teacher had witnessed the fight and ran over Scootaloo, moving her aside from the motionless body of Tiara. Silver Spoon cowered in a corner, scared of Scootaloo’s sudden and violent fit of rage.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom did not move an inch, they could not, far too afraid of Cheerilee. They had never seen her so angry. The teacher disappeared into the school hall, dragging a struggling Scootaloo. The other professor carried Tiara to the infirmary.

Ω  ϗ   ϡ    Ϙ  ϐ  Ϙ    ϡ   ϗ  Ω

“Are you crazy Scootaloo?” The headmaster shouted. “You could have broken her leg, or worse.”

“She deserved it,” She mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?” The principal fulminated.

Scootaloo burst into tears, “She stomped on Rainbow’s honor. She spat on her as if she was… nothing. That bully deserved to be beaten, it's the only way she’ll learn her lesson!”

Cheerilee stated, “You can’t solve everything with violence Scootaloo. Violence calls itself.”

“I just responded.”

“And she ended up being hit and had to be sent to the infirmary, not you.”

Scootaloo stared at her hooves.

“I can’t even contact your parents,” The headmaster rose up.

“They won’t even raise a hoof for me,” Scootaloo snapped back, disrespectfully.

“Scootaloo… as you live in the boarding school I can’t expel you from here. But you won’t attend the classes until you’ve calmed yourself. Now leave us and go directly to your room.”

Cheerilee leaned toward her superior as Scootaloo went out, “What do her parents do that keeps them away from home so much? I don’t know much about them.”

“I don’t really know, but it has something to do with the Realm and the Crowns. If I want to send her parents a message I need to send it through the Department of Domestic and Foreign Security.”

Cheerilee's eyes widened.

“Some fillies don’t have the luck to know their parents very well. Circumstances tear families apart,” the principal added.

Ω  ϗ   ϡ    Ϙ  ϐ  Ϙ    ϡ   ϗ  Ω

Princess Celestia ran amok in her private apartment. Her rage made the wall of the Canterlot Palace tremble. The royal guards were shivering in their armoured pants. It had been a long time since last Celestia’s fit of anger, and no pony wanted to block her way at the moment.

She turned the castle upside down searching for an object that was nowhere to be found. The captain of the guard showed up, yammering, raising his hooves, trying to calm the rampaging monarch.

“Your highness, may I ask why thou hast succumbed to such agitation?”

“The Elements! They have disappeared.”

The captain’s face lost all of its colour, “That can’t be. The Elements were safe in the royal chest, the most unbreakable of the realm.”

“I know that, I’ve made it myself… But it’s not the Elements only which are missing, it’s the chest itself.”

“It… vanished?”

“Yes,” she said gravely.

The captain ran to the great hallway of the Canterlot court and shouted out orders to every guard he could find.

His voice echoed for hours in the Castle.

In her room, the princess of the Sun let her anger explode. The windows shattered with the force of her magical presence.

“Discord, if this is your deed, I won’t turn you in stone this time. I’ll find a more… appropriate punishment, you hear me!”

She tried to calm herself. It was either the ambience or the circumstances, but she had never felt this angry before. It was not ordinary. Convincing herself Discord could be innocent in this whole story, she yet surprised herself thinking up various cruel punishments for having deceived her and every pony in Equestria.

A tipping point was coming. She felt it. Things were going to change dramatically and she and everypony had to be ready. Unfortunately, without the Elements of Harmony, they were defenseless.

She collapsed onto her couch, rubbing her forehead with her hoof. She had a headache.

Somepony coughed. Opening her eyes, Celestia saw Unbendable Scroll, her chamberlain; an old stallion whose blue fur and orange mane had turned grey over the time. Fifty years of work in the Castle had marked the pony’s characteristics.

He had two sealed letter magically floating close to him. He bowed before Celestia.

“Excuse my intrusion Your Majesty, but unfortunately I've brought with me two more lines of bad news to add on thine agenda.”

“What are they, my old friend?” Celestia asked, trying to wipe the anger from her face.

“One letter came from the Griffon’s realm across the sea, brought by a diplomatic raven,” Celestia’s jaw nearly dropped, this hadn't happened in eons. “And the second one comes from the Bad Lands’ Marches. It concerns the Hive.”

Celestia grasped with her magic the two letters and broke open them.

Ω  ϗ   ϡ    Ϙ  ϐ  Ϙ    ϡ   ϗ  Ω

The school’s bell rang out. One by one each filly and colt went out. Applejack and her five friends were waiting for the three fillies they knew so well. Luna had to depart after she received an urgent message from her sister.

To their displeasure, they did not see Scootaloo coming along with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.

The two Crusaders told the story of the day. That Scootaloo ran into Diamond Tiara, that she was summoned in the headmaster’s office and that she was 'expelled' for three days.

“So where do her parents live?” Rarity asked.

“You don’t know?” Twilight was surprised. “Her parents are vassals to the crown. They are members of the upper reaches of power.”

“Like… the nobility?” Rarity went wild with ecstatic glee; her eyes glowed with jealousy and respect.

“Much more like… the army.” Twilight corrected. “We don’t know much about them, it’s quite classified.”

“We?” Applejack pointed out.

“Few months ago Rainbow asked me about Scootaloo’s parents. We made some investigations but we drew a blank.”

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom insisted on going to see their friend, restricted to her room in the dormitory. The Mane Six had nothing to do but to surrender to their “cuteness”. The two fillies could be unbearable when they wanted to.

After fifteen minutes of wandering around the boarding school, they found it.

Knocking at the door, they entered. Scootaloo’s room was cozy and warm. Its window opened onto the City Hall square. On its walls were posters of Rainbow Dash, old photos and, something that attracted Twilight’s attention, a photo of a mare and a stallion, carrying a foal that looked much like Scootaloo in their hooves.

Scootaloo’s father, if it was him, wore the ceremonial armour of the Sky Gusts, the military nobles of Cloudsdale. His stripes clearly meant he was a general. Drawing a clear distinction with this bombastic suit, the mare looked like Daring-Do’s doppleganger, a long and dark mane with the ensemble of an adventurer. Unfortunately, the colours had dried out, leaving a sepia photo.

They had one thing in common, a weird insignia stamped on their shoulder. It was a talon circling a scroll and a dagger. Twilight was perplexed. She was almost sure to know something about this mark. But she could not remember. During her studies with the princess, she had secretly leafed through old and classified scrolls in Canterlot library; occasionally, she happened across and read documents she shouldn't have.

Scootaloo was lying on her bed, looking dejected. Seeing her friends and their relatives brightened her mood a little. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle started jumping on her friend’s bed, trying to restore some happiness in her heart.

“Scootaloo, we know about you and Rainbow last night.” Fluttershy initiated.

Fluttershy’s first step surprised her friends. Maybe it was better that she was the one to speak. She was so kind. Scootaloo’s jaw nearly dropped, discretion was definitely not her talent.

“Is… Is she okay?” Scootaloo stuttered.

“Yes, she woke up, but she needs rest, lots of calm and rest…” Applejack specified. “I…”

“Yes she will be fine,” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom cut off. “She may have no wings now, but he eyes will heal and she will still be our Rainbow Dash!”

Scootaloo smiled, she would like to be as sure as her closest friends.

Sweetie Belle turned to Twilight, “You could cast that spell you used on Big Sis’ at Cloudsdale that drove her into a crazy pegasus.”

Rarity blushed. She looked like a tomato.

“Sweetie Belle,” she hissed. “You said you would never talk about that again!”

“Sorry, it slipped out.” Sweetie Belle laughed.

“Miss Scootaloo?”

Everypony stared at the door. A stallion, a pegasus in a black uniform, was standing in the entrance. He had an envelope under his hooves. He gazed at each pony with his military eyes then slowly headed to the quivering filly, sat on her bed. The silent was heavy and pregnant. He sighed in awe. He had to force the words out of her lips.

“My deepest condolences. Your father fell on the battlefield this morning. Our hearts grieve with yours. Equestria will remember his sacrifice.”

A chill passed on each face. Scootaloo cringed on herself; her eyes were watery. A sob crackled between her cheeks. She curled on her linens. A long complaint rose slowly, eerily, painfully.

“How… how dare you?” Rarity erupted, pushing the stallion aside. “Haven't you ever heard of tact?”

The stallion sighed a second time. He put off his kepi.

“I’m sorry, but my superiors want me to return to the front line as fast as possible.”

He gulped. He was clearly anxious, ill-at-ease. And his feelings were easy to share with the mares circling him.

“You said… the front lines? As in, combat lines,” Fluttershy noticed.

The pegasus was surprised, “You all still don’t know. Equestria is at war since this morning.”

War… this word shook each pony. War was not a term used often in a pony's lexicon.

“The changelings have been on the move for ten hours and… I’m not allowed to tell you why for the moment, but the Griffon’s Kingdom, across the sea, has declared war on our nation. But they haven’t attacked yet. They are sending a delegation,” He swallowed. “We have been brought to bay. Terrible times are on the horizon.”

He knelt and looked in Scootaloo’s eyes, “Your father was an important stallion. He died a hero in the Bad Lands against Chrysalis’s army and…”

“What about my mother?” Scootaloo troubled.

“The foreign bureau still doesn’t know. She is missing in action… You know, my little filly, she has been in the griffin imperium for months. We don’t know where she is right now. She could have fled to the north or leaded to the South of the old continent.”

“My mother isn’t a coward,” Scootaloo convinced herself.

“I know… my deepest condolences for your father, my little filly. Chin up, be proud, he was a great stallion. The fiercest warrior I’ve ever known.”

He glanced at Twilight and her friends and left every pony. Applejack chased him out.

Scootaloo’s complain burst out. Trembling she tried to repel Rarity’s hug. But she had no strength left. She collapsed on her bed, wet with tears. Crooked, she was a pity. Fluttershy had burst into tears too. She was emotional and empathic. The sorrow was powerful and they all felt tears ran on their cheeks.

Applejack had pushed out the stallion. Tearful she stood in the threshold of the door.

“You! They didn’t teach you kindness in the army?”

“Sorry if this is a bit too fast for you… but I must be back on the front as fast as possible. And I don’t want her to recognize me,” The soldier confessed, a drop sprout under his eyes.

“Wait… why?”

“She is my brother’s daughter.”

“You’re her…”

The stallion nodded painfully.

“Yes, I don’t want her to remember who I am… I may feed the rodents tonight. Two deaths in the family in a row would put her down, especially since her mother is untraceable and that her model, Rainbow Dash has been… shot down.”

Applejack avoided an eye contact with the soldier.

“Eh… What’s your name?”

“Burning Spirit…” He said half-heartedly.

The pegasus left the boarding room. A strange felling plagued his eyes. It was the eyes of a stallion knowing he would die soon, hollowed, grieved, and lifeless. He might have been a burning spirit, he was no longer one.

In the room, a long silence had set up when Applejack came back.

Scootaloo was sobbing silently now, her muzzled hidden her a pillow. A dark cloud had passed on Applebloom’s and Sweetie Belle’s faces. Everypony was nauseous… The silence was unsettling.

“War… I can’t believe it,” Twilight rebelled. “How could Princess Celestia have let this happen?”

“The times, they are changing…” Rarity added mystically.

Act I, What stands beneath, 4. An old acquaintance of mine

4.     An old acquaintance of mine

The guards shivered in their horseshoes. Shouts echoed against the marble walls. Unbendable Scroll, the chamberlain, waited in the threshold of the room, silent as always.

“War… Doth thou believe it? War!” Princess Luna yelled. “We should wreak chaos upon them, as Sombra would.”

Arks of black electricity enshrouded her forehead.

“Calm yourself, my sister. You know this is the Griffon’s tradition to declare war when their honour has been trampled. They never attack unless their grievances have fallen into deaf ears.”

Luna threw a sheaf of papers to Celestia’s hooves, they scattered in the throne room.

“Stop hiding from the truth, Ponies. Are. Dying! Our ponytarian forces in Saddle Arabia had to move to the North to protect our immigrants. Their sole role should have been to help the country with irrigation and well-digging.”

Luna exhaled in anger then grunted, “Griffin citizens have gone mad, purging the… what they call the ‘pony scum’. And, as if that wasn't enough, We still don’t really know what is truly behind this. Why did they declare war upon us?”

Celestia nodded, “There’s been foul-ups in our intelligence services, war isn’t something they are… trained to. But we are certain that a high-ranking griffon, one of the Emperor's relatives was assassinated.”

Luna tried to keep hold of her remaining composure.

“And our forces are just protecting the refugees. They haven't attacked any Griffin battalions,” Celestia added. “We won’t give the Prince-Electors a reason to move to action.”

“This is what terrifies Us, We’re not ready if the griffons decide to invade, we are no match. And with the Elements missing… our proper reputation will be smeared if this comes to be revealed.”

Apart of their magical usefulness, the Elements had the same role as regalia for ponies. The loss of such powerful symbols was tragic and Celestia already had some of her closest and most efficient agents tracking the path of the thief.

“Not that the Elements would be useful now that we have one bearer dead and another out of commission,” Luna murmured through gritted teeth, a tear in her eye.

“I sincerely hope they won’t move to attack…”

Celestia paused. On second thought, she convinced herself that the Empire would not strike.

“You know how the Griffin Empire’s politic works. It’s a huge imbroglio of conflicted interests. The Imperator is not even a guide in his kingdom. He is more of a putative prince. And it saddens me to admit it. They will fuel their own strives and the war will be forgotten.”

A long silence settled down in the room, lasting for few minutes.

Their exhaustion was evident in the Regal Sisters’ eyes, both looked out through the stained glass windows of the regal room.

“Time to set the moon and raise the sun, I guess,” Luna sighed. “Another day, another step toward the End.”

“Don’t worry Lulu, the Griffin Emissary will be arriving in two days,” Celestia smiled gently.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. A usual trip between Equestria and the ‘Imperium across the sea’ took one week by boat. Either this meant that the Griffons had scheduled the declaration of war or…

“Remember that in five days, the Gathering will occur.”

Luna was surprised. A small smile cleared her face for an ephemeral moment. She even lost her etiquette for few seconds.

“Oh… It’s been so long since I attended one.”

“You were still banished when the last one occurred four years ago,” Celestia pointed out. “I just hope this one won’t be of ill-omen… again.”

“We can only entrust you of such sayings, my sister.”

And then, the two Alicorns walked through an arch, appearing on a balcony. Miles away, the first lights of Ponyville were switched on as bakers, milkponies and postponies started their long day of work.

In the horizon the sun and the moon transferred their place.

ϐ   Ϙ   Ͼ  ϕ    Ξ    ϕ  Ͽ    Ϙ   ϐ

Erlier…

Even before the sunset and the rise of the moon in the horizon, Scootaloo had already slithered out of her boarding school. Clouds had formed over Ponyville and an eerie wind had begun to blow through the narrow streets of the town. Weaving in and out between the patrols which were more numerous than ever before, she headed to the hospital.

The townsponies wore expressions of grief from news that Scootaloo did not understand. She did not care in fact. She wanted to see her “big sis”. Rarity and her friends had said she was doing well, recovering swiftly, she was wishing for it. However, she was also truly scarred by the traumatizing experiences of the previous night; when she faced this screaming remains of the one she adored.

She passed by SugarCube Corner and surprised to find herself staring for few minutes at the creepy place, fearful of what lay beyond the black threshold. The many yellow police strips surrounding the place had been ripped off by the wind and the shutters of the cottage were slamming on their hinges. If she had ignored the former function of the building, Scootaloo would have mistaken it with a haunted house.

The perfect pace of horseshoes on the next street alerted her to the imminent presence of a guard patrol. Scootaloo leaped to the closest shortcut and disappeared into the shadows.

The night was rapidly approaching and if Scootaloo was afraid of anything, it was surely to be left stranded, alone in the dark. She jumped over a fence marking the border of the town. She regretted having forgotten her scooter; the trip would have been faster.

‘No, it was a good thing’, she thought, she usually made a racket on her beloved vehicle.

The hospital stood there in the pitch black. Only the lights of the entrance indicated the presence of the rectangular building. Scootaloo was standing at the same position as last time. She first thought about infiltrating it by hijacking the back door again, but the guards should now know about it… since her two friends had been caught there.

Same place, different plan. She had only one solution, climbing the façade.

Twice she made a circuit around the hospital. She fought back a feeling of helplessness at the sight of the smooth, plain, walls, void of anything she might use to climb up.

Sitting on the grass she challenged her mind, searching for a solution. She remembered seeing a shed neighbouring the promenade in the surroundings. The Hospital had a huge park filled with flowers of every colour, it was necessary to get the services of a full-time gardener, therefore, she reasoned, the shed would hold some interesting and useful tools.

Her suppositions proved to be accurate. Opening the shack, she went over to a huge stepladder. It took Scootaloo fifteen minutes to understand how to work it, and ten minutes more to finally find a way to move it from the shed to the hospital soundlessly. She smiled.

The moon rose into the night sky.

In her bed, alone and yet surrounded by the stench of antiseptic, Rainbow was struggling with her wounds. Moving a mere inch would bring her agony. She sighed. She wished to stretch her wings, to fly high in the sky until she could touch the twinkling stars. These kinds of thoughts were, in the end, just another repugnant reminder of her current condition.

Groping her chest, she frowned and started sobbing. This feeling of agony running beneath her skin was coming back and forth. It was unbearable, driving her into bouts of madness. She wanted to keep her grasp on reality, but she had nothing to rely on. Helplessness and pity were the only things popping in her mind when she was picturing herself.

She wanted to ask for a painkiller. Unfortunately, nopony was around, and shouting out would be a waste of breath as a painful and useless call for assistance. It would not worth the effort and the torment.

She started at a noise.

Something had just knocked on the windows. Rainbow heard a slight grating, like those of rusty hinges. A cold breezed licked her face. She started shaking.

“Who?” She coughed, spitting lumps of clotted blood on her white bed sheets. “Who is it?”

She heard something falling on the ground. A groaning echoed in the room. Blind and helpless, Rainbow shivered. Had her tormentor returned? She wished for the strength to scream but she was only able to squeak miserably.

Then her twitching ears caught the high-pitched voice of a young filly.

“It’s me Dash, Scoot’!”

The voice of Scootaloo made something click in Rainbow’s mind. She started crying, but instead of tears of distress and suffering, tears of joy and respite slid down her scarred cheeks. Jumping onto the bed, Scootaloo’s fear vanished when Rainbow embraced her.

“How did you get here?”

“I climbed… the wall… with a kind of… ladder… I’m suffocating… Rainbow!”

Rainbow Dash released her foster sister from her deadly embrace, first due to Scootaloo’s complaint, second due to the pain flooding her hooves and arms. Doubts started invading her mind.

She had cast away her friends so harshly, only a few hours ago. And now she was greeting Scootaloo as if she was her sole friend. ‘What a poor loyalty bearer I am’, she thought. A shadow covered her face. The despair she felt was evident in her expression, even beneath the bandages. She was pitiful.

“I've lost everything and what I could have kept, I threw it away. Scootaloo, tell me what I should do,” Rainbow sobbed.

Small and still very young, Scootaloo could hardly understand Rainbow’s doubts. But seeing her idol in such state was painful. Misery was contagious.

“But you’ve got me. You said you would take me under your wing when we went camping with everypony. I’m not gonna let you down,” She assured as she nestled up to Rainbow Dash.

A thankful whisper crawled out of Rainbow’s thirsty mouth. From her position, Scootaloo saw the black strand of mane dangling under Rainbow’s gauzes.

“You changed your manestyle?” She asked childishly.

“Hue… Yeah, kind of,” Rainbow giggled. The nurse, Healing Rhyme had told her one of her locks had turned black. “Tell me Scoot’, what happened today. There’s been much agitation around her. I have no clue.”

“Dad is dead and mom’s lost somewhere outside… Rarity and the others have said we’re at war.

She paused.

“I don’t want to lose you Rainbow Dash,” She said simply, sadness was audible through her voice.

“I know, I know…” Rainbow tried to give back courage to her little filly.

Rainbow’s mind faded as she thought of Cloudsdale. Once again, she felt useless. During the epoch her homeland would have needed her most, she was bound to a bed, assumed guilty of murder after escaping a serial-killing freak.

“I want to search for for mommy,” Scootaloo mumbled.

These words sparked something in Rainbow’s mind.

“There's nothing left for me here or anywhere in Equestria. I’m free to go,” Rainbow stated, clearly knowing what this was implying. “But I still can’t move… I hate waiting.”

She thought herself as a coward. ‘Blind and wrecked… what help could I offer?’ she kept repeating in her mind, trying to convince herself of her powerlessness.

She was actually afraid to make a choice… the choice. She needed something, somepony to force her making it. Scootaloo was the trigger she expected.

“Come with me!” Scootaloo genuinely jumped for joy. “We’ll travel and explore dark places like Daring Do!”

“Like Daring Do…”

Rainbow giggled but a harsh pain burned her ribs, killing her laughter in the womb. A small tear rolled from her eye and, in each other's embrace, both mare and filly went on the unstained lands of peaceful dreams.

ϐ   Ϙ   Ͼ  ϕ    Ξ    ϕ  Ͽ    Ϙ   ϐ

Twilight woke up with a sensation of fur coating her mouth. She had drunk last night after coming back home. The previous day’s revelations had shocked her and she had carelessly emptied her wine cave, paying no attention to Spike. He must have suffered from seeing his friend hitting a new low.

Somepony once said that a hangover was just like having a peacock inside of one’s head. Absolutely wrong, at least from Twilight’s point of view. The truth was far more horrible. Her head was aching, unable to remember the last bribes of the night. Her thinking was wreaked by an awful ear pop and she felt uneasy on her four hooves. Toddling, she went to the bathroom and had a long, long… very long shower. Curled in the bathtub, surrounded by thick volumes of steam, she felt slipping away.

She vomited loudly.

She solemnly promised herself to never drink again. Sitting on the drain, she paid no heed to the rising water. The bath, as hot as Tartarus, numbed her mind. She closed her eyes, smiling.

A firm grasp brought her back from under the water's surface. She gasped greedily. She felt somepony haul her out of the tub. Her hindlegs fell hard on a wet floor. She heard the same person turn off the running water which was flooding the room.

“Snap out of it, Twilight!”

The small shout hurt her ears and made them ring. She curled up, begging for a rest. She was on the verge of bursting into tears.

Opening her eyes, she saw Spike, picking up towels into an attempt to dry the ground. The floor was flooded. His face was pale, angry at least, and he was tired. She must have put him through Tartarus last night.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight mumbled.

“You’re the least of my worries,” he said, sighing. “I received a letter from the Princess early this morning. She wants you and everypony to go to Canterlot the day after tomorrow. There is no matter of urgency apparently.”

He shrugged, war made everything relative. Twilight groaned, still lying on the tiled floor.

After having been dried by Spike, she was conducted to the kitchen where the kind dragon served her a strong cup of coffee. She never drank coffee or ever possessed some, how…

“I went to the market while you were still out,” Spike answered the forthcoming question.

“Thanks…” She muttered, gulping the bitter brown liquid, her face contorting in disgust.

It was awful. Celestia, who usually was drinking a lot in the morning, always said ponies did not drink it for the taste, but Twilight was not prepared for such flavour.

“I told you it was strong,” Spike said, drinking his own.

“You drink coffee? Since when?”

“Since we arrived to Ponyville, you know it’s hard to follow you a whole day and restart the same journey over and over again. Being an assistant is not a sinecure…”

“Eh…”

“At least, I learn new words every day.”

“True…”

She finished her cup and asked for another. Spike held out the percolator to the purple pony who could barely open her eyes. Her migraine was reluctant to go away.

It was nearly ten in the morning and a familiar shadow passed by the veiled windows of the living room. A series of knocks followed. Twilight tried to get up but Spike forbade her to move.

“Don’t bother; you’re in no shape to walk.”

He disappeared in the hallway. Spike’s voice rose up, greeting the welcomed guest.

Hoofsteps narrowed and not one but two mares entered in the room. They were none other than Applejack and Rarity. They both looked tired.

“Let me guess…” Twilight grumbled.

“Applebloom an’ Sweetie Belle ain’t given us rest last night,” Applejack answered, sick of the exhaustion.

“Spike! Pour these two rag-slouches a cup, and a new one for my sorry ass.”

It was apparent that the alcohol was still affecting her. Rarity gave a look at the surroundings, an amazing pile of empty green glass bottles were resting in a corner.

“Don’t ask,” Twilight hissed.

Rarity gave her an arched eyebrow.

“Where is Fluttershy?” Twilight squeezed, knocking back her cup.

“She is still in her cottage,” Rarity answered first. “I think she had enough misfortunes for the moment. She wants to keep calm.”

“The calm won’t last,” Twilight said, twisting her mouth. “Celestia want to see us in a couple of days.”

A long silence welcomed this statement. For everypony, something was fishy. But none of them would confess this feeling.

“First time you’d got drunk, Sugarcube?” Applejack guessed with a smile on her lips, trying to ease the situation.

“No… but first time I blacked-out…” Twilight said, holding her head between her hooves, hiding her eyes from the sunbeams going through her curtains.

“How is Rainbow doing?” Spike asked eager to change the subject, unwilling to keep trotting out last night events in the library.

“She…”

Another knock on the door rose up. Twilight complained and before even Spike had moved a finger she was up. She stumbled on her first step but went to the door without knocking over and breaking anything.

ϐ   Ϙ   Ͼ  ϕ    Ξ    ϕ  Ͽ    Ϙ   ϐ

“Ow, ouch, ah!” The little filly cried.

She was dragged along the way by a powerful guard. His shiny armour, as with the houses all around, reflected the light of the rising sun. He was whistling an old well-known song of New Owleans. The young filly, a small Pegasus with an orange coat and a burgundy-coloured mane was fighting against the stallion’s grasp. She gave him a buck in the flank, making him stop his song.

“What is this obsession you fillies have with Rainbow Dash?” He grumbled.

“Don’t you dare insult my sister!”

“Rainbow Dash has no sister, it’s written on her report, you little liar,” He sniggered.

Scootaloo’s face lost some of her composure.

“She’s more of… a… foster sister,” she mumbled, turning silent. “An’ my name’s Scootaloo.”

The guard celebrated, in his mind, his victory against this noisy and agitating urchin.

“Where do you live?” He asked. “Where do your parents live?”

These two questions made Scootaloo lock herself even more in her muteness. The guard was now eaten up with remorse, knowing he had broached a delicate issue and callously hit a nerve.

“Take me to the sch… to the Golden Oaks Library,” she asked, disappointed. “Please.”

And so be it. They passed by Colgate’s office and bumped into Derpy and, in the end, they faced the library. Without correctness, the guard had Scootaloo sit up and stamped the door with his metallic horseshoe.

His jaw dropped when the door opened. Scootaloo, turning about, mimicked her temporary guardian, shocked.

Twilight Sparkle, former Princess of Dusk was standing in the wide open entrance. Her mane appeared dishevelled and washed-out and the light pink strand looked stranger than usual. It shone with a dark-green reflection which plagued the yellowish-black circles around her eyes.

One of her ears was straightened up while the other was dangling, hidden by her mane.

A light blue mug was magically hovering over her head. On it was engraved the quote “Best Princess”. A drop of coffee stained the ground.

Her enormous bloodshot eyes radiated exhaustion as they narrowed and pierced the uncomfortable stallion. Sweat fell off his chin.

“What’s the fuss?” She said, simply.

A strong smell of coffee and alcohol mixed and sprawled in the air. Both of her interlocutors frowned in disgust. Twilight blinked. When she opened her eyes again, one of her eyelids got stuck in the middle of its path. She went all Derpina. And as once said Rainbow Dash, “Never go full Derpina”.

The guard turned to Scootaloo.

“You sure this is her, the one you want to be guarded by?”

“Y… yeah, today is Saturday. I have nothing to do at the School.”

Applejack, Rarity and Spike appeared. The latter returned Twilight to her chair in the neighbouring room. After talking with the guard, he let Scootaloo enter and got back to his routine work.

“What have you done this time?” Rarity growled.

“I just slept next to Rainbow last night. I wanted to see her. I didn’t want to fall asleep but I did…”

She took a pause, her hoof on her lip.

“… and the guard woke me up this morning.”

The guard’s story did not matter, she had seen Rainbow. Scootaloo was assaulted by dozens of questions. Rainbow had been withdrawn when her friends went seeing her. Applejack asked about her wounds, Rarity about her appearance and Twilight ‘strangely’ was grumbling on her chair, griping over her nausea and headaches.

Scootaloo answered gently, replying that Rainbow seemed in better shape than the time she ended up screaming but that she was really depressed. She even mentioned that she was sorry for being mean with everypony. For a moment she hesitated, wrapping her chin. Then, thinking that truth would be better than hiding the fact she said.

“She wants to leave too… And I would like to go with her.”

The revelation struck every pony in the room. A heavy silence settled. They all looked at the hooves. Seconds passed, worsening the atmosphere little by little.

“Did she really mean it?” Applejack queried. “Do you?”

“I think so… Dad is… dead,” She shivered, the remaining happiness faded away from her face, her eyes tearful. “And I would like to see my mother… Or at least know where she is right now.”

Nopony questioned her logic. It was depressing but true. Twilight spoke. Her voice was a distorted grave imitation of Bon-Bon’s, “She does what she thinks the best… I won’t hold her back. I felt like we abandoned her that night.”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Applejack cried. “Rainbow Dash would not abandon us.”

“Don’t tell lies, she will leave. I don’t see her staying her, having everypony remind her of… her condition. You’re wrong thinking the opposite.”

“It’s t’ue!”

“It’s not!”

The conflict kicked-off, curses flew in the air. Rarity smiled, the scene was similar to any sitcom she liked to read or watch when she travelled to Manehattan.

The strife died as Spike separated the two upset ponies.

“Can’t you stop jumping to conclusions? You won’t decide for her.” He settled down the heated discussion.

Spike was holding his forehead in his claws. Applejack breathed out loud and calmed herself. She changed the discussion topic.

“So… how about Celestia’s appointment?” the orange pony asked.

“We’ll see tomorrow… I booked train tickets for tomorrow evening for every one of us.”

Spike’s cheeks inflated like a frog’s and he belched an emerald-green flame. A scroll bounced on the ground, a regal red symbol sealing it.

Spike opened it and started reading out loud.

“Dear Twilight,

I know this is far-fetched and thrown in your hooves but I must raise your awareness about an issue of the utmost importance. Besides my request for you to come at Canterlot I am sorry to announce you that the Elements of Harmony have disappeared from their chest…”

“Wait, wait… what?” Twilight shouted. “No, the Elements, I have had them since we reformed Discord…”

Twilight stumbled over her hooves, galloping to her personal library, picking up the Elements book and opening it with an assertive stare.

Empty… absolutely empty.

“Alicorns know better, it seems. Oh, faux pas!” Spike teased her up.

Twilight sent him a wicked stare, she was a princess now but sometimes she was trying to convince herself that she did not had signed up for this.

“Girls! I made up my mind,” Twilight said, ironically hesitant. “We leave for Canterlot now!”

Spike, Rarity and Applejack eyeballed their friend, taken aback. Twilight, using her magic, turned her maniacally-tidied home into shambles and, standing in front of her door, she shouted for everypony to come with her. Her voice was still high-pitched and hoarse.

“And what about Fluttershy?” Rarity asked, uncomfortable.

With her magic, Twilight grabbed each of her friends and dragged them to Fluttershy’s house. She took hold of the animal caretaker without any further ado and pushed everypony to the train station.

ϐ   Ϙ   Ͼ  ϕ    Ξ    ϕ  Ͽ    Ϙ   ϐ

On her bedside table was already piled up two books to read, but Rainbow had asked for the Daring-Do books.

Nurse Red Heart brought her one, the last of the series, making Rainbow Dash smiled a bit. The nurse was an angel, always trying to distract Rainbow from her current condition. Praiseworthy, but ironically it was making Rainbow feel worse. Being cradled was the last thing she ever wanted.

However Rainbow was still blind, for at least a couple of weeks more. Having books she was unable to read was a heart-rending sight.

“You’re getting better, Miss Dash, you’ll be able to stand up with some help in a week if not few days,” She stated. “Healing Rhyme’s magic is absolutely wonderful, painkilling, coagulation, recovery and scarring over. She won’t admit it but we’re all glad to have her here.”

“Could… Could you read me a story?” Rainbow stuttered.

Without working eyes, the crippled pegasus did not see the nurse looking down, avoiding a direct stare to the bed. It was her turn to stutter. Her hoof started shaking silently, worried.

“I… I am sorry, but other patients need me. I will try… to find somepony to keep you company. I can’t promise anything.”

Somepony called for Red Heart from outside the room. She went out a moment and came back.

“You’ve got mail Rainbow.”

Looking at the grieved face of the Pegasus, well hidden behind the bandages she went mute, opened the letter and started reading. It was a letter from Spike.

‘Dear Rainbow

We are currently on our way to Canterlot to attend an appointment with the Princess. The girls will not lie to you but everything has been very awkward around us since your incident and they haven't had much time to be with you with all of the escalation in Equestria.

The Elements have been stolen but apparently that is not the main point of the meeting.

Everything aside, we all hope you'll recover and be back on your hooves as soon as possible. We know how you feel and we’ll be always at and on your side.

Your friend

Spike’

“Thanks Red Heart, just… put the letter on my table and leave me alone.”

She did so and Rainbow found herself, again, alone in her cold and antiseptic-smelling room, crying. She felt like a drag, a burden her… friends tried to take care of, but finally having to leave her behind.

This feeling was overwhelming, ‘was it egotistical of her to want to have her friends next to her? And not just a bunch of few compassionate nurses and letters?’

Resentful, she was. Spiteful, she was. Revolted, she was. Stricken, she was. She felt so full of self-loathing.

ϐ   Ϙ   Ͼ  ϕ    Ξ    ϕ  Ͽ    Ϙ   ϐ

The trip to the Castle had been awkward. Everypony had been silent all the way, staring out of the windows. Twilight was trying to avoid being sick. Rarity had been mumbling she had not been given the time to take her most beautiful and fashionable clothes. Applejack was finally napping on one of the first class seats and finally Fluttershy and Spike was staring at everypony, waiting for something to happen.

The situation brightened once they stepped onto the Canterlot train station platform. Spike had sent a letter to the Princess, making her aware of the unscheduled arrival of her faithful student and friends.

Celestia, protected by two guards were waiting for them, greeting everypony with a gentle and radiant smile.

They all felt better from seeing a familiar face which was not affected by despair. Twilight, still sick from the trip, walked to her teacher and as usual embraced her.

“You smell funny, Twilight,” She giggled.

“Reality backfires sometimes,” Her student replied.

Celestia nodded, comprehending.

“Follow me. I’m sure you have plenty of questions.”

Accompanied by guards, the security had been enhanced since the latest developments had fallen into pony’s ears. They made their way to a meeting room adjacent to the North wing of the Castle. A huge table stood in the middle of it circled by at least twenty chairs.

Each pony took a seat and listened carefully.

“My little ponies, I didn’t expect you so soon but I think it might be for the better.”

She mentioned the theft of the Elements but it paled in comparison with the second bit of news she had.

“The Gathering will be held in four days,” She stated with a voice which could have been accompanied with a dramatic three tones music.

Twilight’s jaw dropped, everypony else arched a brow.

“We’re doomed,” Twilight gasped.

What? Why doomed?” Applejack hurled. “Explain y’all!”

“You truly don’t know what it is?” Twilight responded, disappointed by her friends’ ignorance.

Everypony shook their heads. She sighed.

“Aaaah… Okay, look. Equestria stands on this world as a neutral territory that no nations can harm because… ponies have magic and Alicorns are among the first born…”

She started wandering off in a mountain-like pile of historical, political and economic considerations. Everypony lost her train of thought.

Applejack cut her off and turned over, facing Princess Celestia.

“An’ in Equestrian?”

“In four days, every representative of each nation will come to settle down the conflicts which popped during last four years. And We, Luna and I, act as mediators. And it has been like this for eons.”

“So why Twilight is so stressed,” Rarity asked, pointing her friend with her hoof.

Celestia gave an amused smile to her student.

“Well, apart from your inclined nature to paranoia…”

Twilight frowned, crossed her hooves and turned her gaze to the next chair. Celestia restrained giggling. The princess looked back at Rarity.

“… However she is right. The tradition requires that the opening ceremony has to be held by presenting to every ambassador the Elements…” She let out a long breath. “…This is why this is quite an issue. Elements are meant to be harnessed to fight mighty foes, and are our regalia. I fear that the Gathering will turn into a mess once every diplomat finds out that we're missing both the Elements and two bearers.”

The day was passed searching for clues as to find where the Elements were, or at least who could have stolen them all. And, in the end, nothing was found. Twilight had in fact not so many hopes… The special services had already gotten ahead of them without finding anything relevant.

The Elements seemed to have vanished.

The evening was calm and everypony went to bed early, the next day would be a decisive and challenging one.

And indeed, it would be. On the morning, a messenger announced the Griffin delegation would arrive at noon. The matinée was stressful for everypony as the first discussion, and negotiations about the war-to-be between Ponies and Griffons would be discussed.

At noon, a flying chariot appeared in the horizon. ‘Only one?’ Celestia thought, standing with the remaining “Element bearers” and Princess Luna in the vast courtyard of the Palace. The ground was tiled of gold and silver, drawing a gigantic cardinal compass. Each was wearing their most magnificent clothes, ready to face the diplomatic mess which should be following the first contact.

Twilight and Rarity tilted their head toward Luna and Celestia.

“Aren't the griffons known for their exuberance, and compulsion to delusions of grandeur?” Rarity asked first.

“… and the size of their delegations?” Twilight followed.

Celestia nodded, perplexed.

The chariot landed softly on the drawn compass and its four stallions neighed, finally able to stretch their limbs and wings. Every spectator gasped and held their breath, waiting.

On the vehicle were two griffons, wearing purple and blood red togas sewed with gold and platinum. The first to step on the ground was young, very…

“CELESTIA!!”

The second one blasted out of the chariot and headed limping to the queen.

The guards spread their spears. Only to see their weapons repelled by a dextral talon.

Celestia gasped.

The regal griffon hugged her. It was one of those familiar and friendly embraces, off-putting the audience.

Jaws dropped, incomprehension could be read in each pony’s eyes.

Act I, What stands beneath, 5. A friend behind the enemy?

5.     A friend behind the enemy?

“You should see the look on your face, Celly!” He cackled.

Turning around, his smile grew as four ponies, a baby dragon and a group of guards were staring at him, mouths wide opened, pupils reduced to dots. With his talon, he closed the nearest pony’s limp jaw. The mare had a fur as white as Celestia's. Her mane was deep purple, undoubtedly smooth as it was alternating between curled and straightened strands of hair. She had a certain style for the griffon’s tastes.

“What? You really thought I would attack a goddess, my dear Rarity.”

She cocked her head and her ears perked when he spoke her name. Snapping out of her lethargy, Rarity’s stare ran over the griffon’s red and purple toga. Gold, silver, and platinum embroidered the magnificent cloth. She became starry-eyed, having never seen garments of this standing and regal was the only word she could use to define this masterpiece.

“I need this silk.” She mumbled.

The griffon smiled and inspected each of the ponies before him.

“Shall I close those dangling mouths of yours?” He asked amused, tickling Twilight’s chin with the tip of his claw.

Twilight batted the griffin’s talon aside and rubbed her fur where he had scratched it. The creature was tall. Taller than a pony of course, but also taller than the average griffon. She had read a lot of books about them. They were known to be a little larger than ponies, but this one was one and a half the size of his bretheren. The feathers on his forehead were even able to tickle Celestia's muzzle when he finally faced her and her sister.

The audience’s rational mind returned. Terrified, they awaited a clash

“Princess Luna. I’m so honored to meet the Goddess of the Night,” The griffon saluted, extending his talon after an impressively respectful bow.

Luna shook it. She felt she heard a degree of arrogance and contempt in his voice but kept these feelings to herself.

“The pleasure is all mine,” she replied with a forced smile.

“Of the small creatures wandering on this earth, you’re certainly the most mysterious and intriguing,” The griffon continued.

“Small?”

“And you…” the griffon looked to Celestia without heeding Luna’s last word. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“Excuse me,” Celestia finally had the composure to say. “But, who are you? How dare you act like this in front of my subjects.”

The griffon's jaw fell. It was not surprise which could be read on his face, but sadness… a true, moving, deep sorrow. He swallowed a gag.

“You don’t remember me?” He simply uttered with a sigh.

“Should I?”

He breathed out loudly, pouting.

“If I were to say War of the Apples, would that ring any bells?”

Celestia’s eyes became so huge that everypony thought they would swell to the size of bowling balls and explode.

“Andraste? But! But? How…”

“Gotcha,” He winked. “Ninety-five years we haven’t seen each other.”

Were Pinkie Pie present, she would have gone to extreme lengths for a spit-take, displaying the degree of surprise they all felt.

“How… OLD are you,” Twilight stuttered.

“Well…” The griffon drawled, rubbing his feathered beard. “Apart from your two princesses and plants of course, those cheaters, I could say I’m the oldest living being on this world.”

“This doesn’t answer my…”

“Two hundred and four years old miss Sparkle, or should I say, Your Highness.”

Everypony stared at him in disbelief. He was… extremely good-looking for a twenty decades old rag. Their eyes fixed upon him, the old griffon towered on his hindlegs and started showing off his muscles, and of course his claws, sharp as razors. His toga dissimulated his chest, back and wings particularly well, but under the folds there was no doubt of the powerful appendages within.

Once the ponies started studying him, they noticed, little by little, the marks of aging. The feathers on his head, usually white within Griffin’s kind, were silvered, the nut color of his arms were faded to a nearly white and his claws were seemingly beige instead of their natural yellow and brown. However, keeping in mind Granny Smith as an “aging” standard, Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight and of course Applejack and Spike had a hard time believing in it.

Posing with his talons on his hips and still standing on his two lion’s legs, he laughed in front of his ‘old friend’ Celestia. It was an odd stance, like the ones Lyra was always trying to imitate, chasing her pipe dreams of being human. Like this, he stood taller than the princess. The guards gulped, their ability to face such monster, if they had to, conflicted with their instinct of survival.

“You thought I was dead?” The griffon named Andraste asked.

“I presumed you were,” She defended herself with a pinch of hesitation. “… even if I never got an invitation for your funeral. I confess I completely forgot about you.”

This confession embarrassed the princess. She felt like she had failed an old friend. She tried very hard to remember the names and faces of every being she met but she had lived a long time and there were so many.

“Oh come now Celly, dry those yet-to-be tears! Don’t show your weakness to…” He cleared his throat, widened his eyes, and took on a spooky voice. “… the enemy…”

The princess giggled. “At least you never changed.”

The griffon snorted approvingly, looking around him, worries in his eyes. He finally get back on his four limbs. He then took a glance to the chariot where he had gone off few minutes ago.

“Come on lad, get off that ‘charette’ and come here to present yourself.”

“I told you never call me… lad, tutor. Mind your rank.”

The voice had a strong accent and from the chariot stepped out a smaller griffon. Twilight, her friends, the guards, Celestia and her sister stared down at a griffin colt… Or griffon cub… they didn't know the usual griffin-related term. He was wearing the same outfit that his elder but at this shoulder was a brooch sporting a red and purple rose. He also had a strange black bracelet on his wrist, decorated with three big emeralds and one ruby. And pinned upon his left shoulder was a talisman depicting a globe hold between two talons. A sentence, in a too tiny font to read, was engraved upon it.

His claws clicked against the stone as he came forward. Greeted with a long silence, he rolled his eyes and bow as did the first griffon. The child put his claw on the pin and bent until his feathers touched the ground. Raising his head, he glared daggers at his guardian.

“Would you please be so kind as to introduce me to them?”

A heavy talon ruffled the top of the griffin cub’s head and a frank laughter followed. “You too will never change.”

The young griffon extracted himself from the unnerving endearment of his elder.

The older one glanced at Celestia who was standing behind everypony. She inclined her head at her surrounding subjects, trying to disclose the fact that she was the only one here to know who the griffon child really was.

“Oh, notoriety and celebrity don’t cross oceans I guess,” He cackled, stopping Celestia’s goings-on. “My name is…”

The youngster gave his forebearer an elbow to the ribs, his eyes firing bolts of discontentment. The tutor laughed, again.

“Before you stands above the mere beings of every lands his…” The griffon tried to choose his words wisely. “his highness Armand Horace d’Outrevent, son of Eric the sixth, First Heir of Griffonia, First Heir of the Western Marches of Prance, First Heir of the Eastern Marches of Ucrane, Second Heir of…”

“Okay, okay Gott in Himmel stop,” Armand finally protested.

The old griffon chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.

“And as said Celly, I’m Andraste. Telling you my whole title would take a complete day and would make my protégée’s look like a surname.”

Andraste gave back the poke to his dependent. He snapped, vexed.

Everypony was now obsessed with the youngest guest of Canterlot, and he was surely enjoying the situation. Being in the center of attention was something the Imperium Court taught him was an inborn right. And now, having multiple pair of eyes from another race staring at him was of the utmost pleasure.

“Andraste,” Celestia raised her voice, breaking the group circling the regal successor.  “What is he doing here?”

Her voice was saddened, hesitant and obviously stern. Being mentioned, the heir ducked his head in his toga and retreated two steps from the mighty white alicorn. On his own, the eldest griffon was smirking like a chess-player.

“I only am the liege of my King. And this is a game which is far more complex that it will ever seem to be in your eyes Celly.”

Imperceptibly, he had taken out a small pipe. And when he did, Luna saw, well hidden under the folds of his toga a long metallic tool which shape was strangely similar to a sword. There were also few scrolls and other objects she had not been able to identify. Andraste for his part had witnessed the wandering look of the Princess and gave her a wink.

The silence was starting to overwhelm the attendance, but somepony had other priorities in his mind.

“Andraste? Isn’t that a griffin female name?”

It was Twilight’s voice. She surfaced from the crowd in front of Andraste and with arched brows she was scanning the so-called griffon from tip to tail.

“And you don’t seem very feminine.”

The griffon burst into laughter, unable to stand up, holding his sides. Tears rolled off his cheeks.

Twilight on her own did not feel as easy as the griffon, after calming himself approached her, blocking the sunlight with his intimidating stature.

“You knowledge is amazing,” He said, making Twilight blush. “And indeed it is. My mother thought I would die soon after my birth. And weakness is not something appreciated in Griffon’s society. It is… girly.”

His last word came with a grin, revealing a sharped beak which slammed next to his interlocutor’s ear.

“Unfortunately, I survived and as a consequence, I had to get along with my name. Call it a mother's love mark of affection.”

He grinned again with contentment.

“Well I’m hungry. Celly, would you please show us the way to the banquet room and display this meal your cooks have been so eager to prepare.”

Wide opened eyes pierced him.

“Oh, just joking,” He added, still smiling. “You’ll soon learn that I’m rather unusual.”

He started heading to the castle with everypony in his tow. Rubbing his chin, he started studying his surroundings. Andraste was indeed a strange griffon.

“Let’s check if my failing memory is still good enough.”

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After having gamboled in every hallway of the castle, trying to keep up with the pace of the old griffon, they all stopped as Andraste stormed through a door. It was the Canterlot’s royal kitchen.

Screams rose.

Glancing inside with only their head breaking through the edge of the gate, everypony saw Andraste standing in the middle of the clean room. The prep-cooks were curled up in a corner, hugging each other in a fearful embrace. For sure the old griffon was scary. And this was even more so since technically, Equestria was at war with the Griffon Empire. But Andraste seemed to be that kind of being, able to make your forget he was your enemy.

“We had a restroom you know?” Celestia got ahead.

A frown wrinkled the griffon’s features.

“No thanks… sincerely I have to suffer this ordeal every day of every year since two centuries when I’m not on a battlefield. If I can enjoy a good time outside with a picnic and a blue sky to stare at without seeing arrows slashing across it, I’m not going to reject such opportunity.”

“Did he say battlefield?” Fluttershy trembled behind everypony.

He pointed his talon to a kitchen employee and ordered a compelling amount of commodities. One of the prep-cooks had the wise idea to take notes. The others stared at Celestia and Luna whose heads was still the only body part they could see in the opening of the door. Both alicorns nodded, indicating to accede to the griffon’s request.

Glancing over the surroundings, Andraste noticed a huge wooden door in the back. An even bigger smile sprung on his face. Narrowing the space between him and the entrance, he gave a smirk. He shattered the lock with his talon.

“Eh! What are you doing?”

His turn having come, the chef had stormed in the kitchen blowing through Celestia and Luna’s mane, anger in his eyes. The griffon raised a claw, asking for silence. The cook’s face went red, gritting his teeth. Once broken into, the door revealed stairs descending in a small whine cave. Everypony followed Andraste.

He started knocking on the tiles of the walls, causing everybody to raise their brows.

“Solid, solid, solid” *Clang* “Empty.”

The griffon sniggered. Sliding the tip of his claw in the joint of the tile, he ripped it off from the wall, snatching away dust and dirt. Plunging his talon in the hole, he took out an old bottle.

“I knew I would see you again, baby.”

Going back to the kitchen, the griffon grasped three glasses and a decanter pot. He showed up the bottle to Celestia, wondering if she was embarrassed because Andraste was becoming comfortable without any manners or because he had left behind him some unnoticed treasures nearly a century ago.

“It would be a shame if it stayed unopened.”

The cook hovered between the princesses and his eyes lay on the bottle. He read the title and nearly fainted, having a seizure. It was a one hundred and three year old Ponish wine, a vintage which was priceless as the product was unaffordable and too rare.

Andraste looked down to him. The cook was a white earth pony with a rolling-pin cutie mark. The griffon went back to the cupboard and took a fourth cup.

“You’ll have yours, as an indemnification.”

The cook fainted a second time. The griffon jumped over him and led everypony out to the garden.

Once they had arrived, they sat between the tall hedges of the few mazes the royal gardens had. Twilight remarked that Andraste had furtively split everypony in two groups. He had dragged away Luna and Celestia deeper in the maze and had left Armand to the care of her, her three friends and Spike, to the heir’s immense discontentment of course. Internally, the regal youngster was swearing.

“Isn’t he cute?” Rarity started.

“He looks like a big eagle.” Fluttershy muttered, hidden behind Applejack.

“Ah think he looks fancy.”

“Are you really the successor of Eric the sixth?” Twilight added to the hullabaloo.

The griffon bit his tongue, evidently pushed into a corner.

“Ruhe!”

His shout was loud, but ended with a squeak as he was still too young to have a grave voice that made every king proud. He started talking in a language nopony could understand. However, he was obviously swearing. It was a guttural language, harsh and rough in anypony’s ears. Seeing that he was not understood he sat and curled his talons around his knees.

“Freaks,” he finally muttered.

Fluttershy who, of course, was the shyest pony in Ponyville and probably in Equestria burst into tears, struck hard by the nastiness of the griffon’s statement, a malice that was not hidden by his strong and gruff accent. Everypony glared at him and he had clearly no will to apologize. The pressure on him grew little by little until he finally got up and walked into the nearest maze, muted.

“He’s like Gilda. Damn apples I thought that A’draste ain’t an exception,” Applejack growled, mispronouncing the emissary’s name.

“We should go find him,” Twilight guessed. “He is an heir. It would be bad if something happens to him, really bad.”

Rarity and Applejack gulped the newborn stress crawling inside of their throat. Fluttershy was still trying to dry her tears.

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Andraste conducted both Princesses in a remote place of the biggest maze of Canterlot. There was an old table circled by a couple of benches. On the right end of the clearing, a pedestal was surging off the ground but with no statue to host. The griffon stood up, silent for few seconds.

“You finally freed him.”

“I don’t know if it is for the better,” Celestia growled.

They sat. The griffon sliced the top of the bottle after becoming aware he had forgotten to bring an opener. He gently poured the dark red liquid in the decanting jar and started agitating it, twisting and turning the alcoholic nectar which smell was incredibly… chafing.

“Walls have ears,” he finally sighed surprising both Princesses. He raised a brow. “It’s an expression from Griffonia. I think in Equestrian it is… loose lips sink ships.”

“Why all this fuss Andraste?” Celestia asked, stern as always since he had stepped on Equestrian soil. “And why did you bring… him here.”

The griffon poured the wine in the four glasses and snapped with his claws. A waiter came out of nowhere, took the fourth and then withdrew to the castle.

“Things are getting pretty dangerous currently in Warclaw. You know that Griffonia, apart from being ruled by griffons is a cosmopolitan society. You can find ponies, zebras, minotaurs and so on. Two weeks ago a pony, a pegasus, sneaked in the Imperial castle and tried to kill Armand and his mother. The assassin killed the latter and nearly got my Lord’s son.”

Luna and Celestia were horrified.

“The pony slit his throat when we blocked him with a net,” Andraste’s talon went searching something in the folds of his garment. “He had this on him.”

The griffon dropped a heavy object on the desk. It was a necklace of gold and silver whose medallion was a small symbol polymerizing a sun and a moon into a single shape. Stupor etched Luna’s and Celestia’s faces.

“This is… so old,” Luna finally concealed. “Before even my banishment…”

The medallion glowed with a blue aura, the same as her horn. She wanted to examine it from a closer point of view. A harsh bang echoed. Andraste had encased it with his left talon.

“Sorry Princess Luna, but this evidence is too important to let you… touch it.”

Celestia nodded to her sister, forced to assent. The griffon returned the jewelry into his toga and drew out a small scroll, broke the red wax seal with a snap. He unfolded it and gave it to Celestia and Luna to view. It was a drawing replicating the medallion from every angle.

“Keep it for your own services.”

Luna inspected the whole parchment, she pointed out that something had been written on the other side of the symbol. She could not read it. She asked her sister for an advice, making Celestia frown once her stare lay on the notes. The griffon smiled internally, he could recognize genuine confusion when he saw it.

“Nopony, nogriffin and clearly nobody knows about this scripture. It could be a code but we haven’t been able to break it.”

Luna bit her lips, thinking deeply.

“By the way, we’ve got serious issues within the Empire. And a majority of the Prince-electors are searching for a scapegoat. Unfortunately the assassination of the Empress was far too tempting to use as a political means for them. Your kind was in the wrong place at the wrong moment.”

“You said you are having… problems?” Celestia tilted.

“The number of murders in the biggest cities has never been so low, but the rate has exploded in the majority of towns throughout the land. Cases of mass insanity has risen up for few months and…  the police and the army had to face uprising and maddened rioters.”

Celestia and Luna had glanced at each other when the word insanity had been brought in the conversation. And the griffon had clearly seen it. But he swept it off and shared the exquisite drink with his two interlocutors as a waiter came to serve them some commodities.

After a first look, the wine, red as brick, appeared rough and smelly, printing a burgundy mark on the wall of the cups. The alicorns, used to drinking sweet alcohol frowned when their nostrils took the leathery aroma of the old liquor. On the second try, a pinch of spiciness tickled their muzzle.

Bringing the cups to their lips, Celestia, Luna and Andraste drank a small swallow and took time to savor it.

Their first impression was right. The wine was raspy and acrid. But bit by bit, the unpleasant taste of oxidization gave way to hundreds of delightful fragrances. The flavor of nut, aroma of rose, hints of clove and pinches of aniseed was among the savors that enshrouded their taste buds and olfactory bulbs.

Its musk was glued to their palate and muzzle as the sweetness, the acidity and the tannin were perfectly melted and balanced in the core of the red liquid. First lively with mellowness, the strong wine unveiled itself as powerful and long-lasting once it was swallowed.

Andraste stirred the wine held between his cheeks a last time and spat it on the grass. Luna and Celestia looked at themselves, unable to say if they were expected to mimic him or not.

“I’ve had better… but it’s still a good one,” The griffon chortled.

He stared at the two Princesses, their mouth swelled by the wine rekindling their taste in oenology. They stared back.

“Wine is meant to be drunk you know,” he laughed.

They all took a second mouthful of the divine drink.

“Why did you come here with him?” Celestia finally asked.

“The child is safe while he is here with me or with the Elements of Harmony. By the way, I only saw four of them today. Where are the last two? I need… I need to talk to Rainbow Dash.”

Luna’s and Celestia’s eyes widened, surprised and horrified. Andraste understood that something was afoot. Something had clearly gone wrong in Equestria too.

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“Armand?” high-pitched voices called in the maze. “Armand!?”

“Where did he go?” Spike gritted.

“He walked in here for sure. His toga would not let him fly,” Twilight said to herself.

“You’re not helping Twilight,” Applejack grumbled. “You’d use ya fancy magic to find him.”

“Actually, it’s not stupid Applejack.”

Applejack’s features straightened.

“Does that mean I’m stupid most of the time?” She chimed.

Twilight blabbered a mediocre apology.

“One could say that you’re much of a short-tempered kind of pony.”

They rounded the next corner. The path ended up in a vast clearing in the maze. A massive pond sporting a mythical sea pony whose hooves acted as water jets, was built in the middle. The water was clear and with the sunbeams reflected on it as a mirror, the pond was spreading the multiple shades of a rainbow on the surroundings.

Sitting on the side of the fountain, the young griffin was looking at his own reflection, his lion’s paws soaking in the water. He had put off his toga.

His left ribcage was scarred by a long, relatively fresh, and disgusting slash which began above his groin to end at the mid-joint of his left wing. Rubbing it, he was winced. Apparently it still pained him.

Looking behind him, his eyes stopped on the four ponies and a baby dragon. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he rushed to his toga, quickly hiding his wound.

“You saw nothing,” he growled, lifting up one of his coat-tails.

He finally readjusted his black wristband and the golden regalia dangling around his neck. The heir was obviously mad at them.

“Would ya at least apologize to Fluttershy?” Applejack queried harshly, stomping the ground with her hoof, impatient.

The griffon shook his head.

“Will your kind be ever sorry for the unspeakable crime and shame you committed and spread upon my kin? This is the real question,” He spat back.

He then went mute and passed through the group of pony, bumping into Rarity and Twilight. He paused in front of Spike.

“I would never think a dragon would lower himself to serve ponies or even dare walk among us.”

Armand’s voice was a savant and strange mix between arrogance, respect for the dragon and disrespect for the ponies surrounding him.

“Hey! Twilight and everypony is my family, I would go through Tartarus for them,” Spike replied spitefully.

The griffon rolled his eyes.

“Peasants…”

A hoof smacked his forehead. Looking up, he saw… Rarity standing in front of him. She was frowning angrily. Armand’s eyes narrowed. Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy and Spike held their breath.

“How. Dare. You?” He hissed through his gritted beak.

“You’ll change this behavior! Even Prince Blueblood hadn't gotten this far.”

“How. Dare. You?” He repeated.

His anger was so obvious on his features that Rarity took a step back. He lifted his talon, only to see his wrist stopped in the severe grasp of Andraste, and there, before the horrified eyes of Luna and Celestia, the old griffon assessed the situation, scornful.

He ended the long-lasting silence which followed his miraculous intervention.

“You will apologize now, to all our hosts.” He spelled clearly, glaring daggers at his protégée.

Andraste’s voice was light years away from the joyful tone he had sported since his arrival. It was a soldier’s one, harsh, inflexible and assailing. The atmosphere cooled down instantly. Everyone gulped a gag and Armand started mumbling.

“I cannot hear you,” the old griffon vented.

“I’m deeply sorry for my previous behavior and hope you won’t keep resent against me and my past deeds.”

“Good.”

He released Armand’s forearm. Twilight caught out of the corner of her eye that he had ripped off the black bracelet from the heir’s limb. Andraste glanced at the two princesses and looked down at the ponies, his face was darkened by his anger.

“I want you to apologize too.”

Surprised stares greeted his demand.

“But… why?” Rarity asked, offended. “He hurt Fluttershy and disrespected us!”

Casting away his protégée Andraste brought his face closer to Rarity’s.

“He is a child,” He tilted his head, glaring at Spike, Twilight and Applejack, avoiding Fluttershy who was crying. “And I think he has seen and experienced things that you’ll never wish to. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want you to apologize to him or me, but to your Princesses, Celestia and Luna.”

Both Princesses jumped slightly when they heard their name.

“If it hadn’t been for me, your behavior would have settled the war between our two nations because you… couldn’t stand a stubborn child.”

A freezing silence blew between the remaining Elements Bearers and the diplomat. Finally Twilight and her friends walked half-heartedly toward Luna and Celestia and asked for their forgiveness. Celestia sought for a nod from Andraste. He shrugged.

“Never drift away again,” Luna commanded.

After the ambiance had calmed down, the old griffon pulled Twilight aside. His two piercing eyes were unpleasant and gave the young alicorn the impression he could read her mind.

“His mother has been killed,” he stressed on this last word. “…by a pony, few days ago. Keep this clear somewhere in your mind… Your Highness.”

He went looking after the griffon cub. Twilight felt dizzy and let out a long breath. The griffon was really intimidating. Celestia came closer to her faithful student.

“Are you okay Twilight?”

“It was nothing, he just shook me a little. He can be oppressive when he wants.”

“There is no doubt that he is the Marshall of Warclaw’s Armies. He had nations bent at his talons in the past.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, he casted a glance at Andraste. He was comforting the young prince.  ‘Him, a Marshall?’ She tried to picture him going to war, armored and armed to the teeth, slashing through his enemies. A question popped in her mind, ‘how many marks the griffon had on his tally?’

“By the way,” Celestia added, mindful. “Sir Andraste is going to Ponyville today and will come back tomorrow afternoon to be present the day after it for the Gathering. He has… business with… Rainbow.”

Twilight goggled. She wanted to protest but Celestia put her hoof on her lips.

“I want you to go with him while everypony else remains to look after the Prince,” She paused. “I don’t want you to spy on him, just to make sure he stays out of trouble.”

Twilight wondered how she could best such imposing being. She doubted even her magic would be any help. Glancing back to the griffon’s commander, she saw him tie back the dark bracelet on Armand’s wrist and ruffled his feathers, a paternal smile clearing his face.

He left his charge to the good care of the others and trotted to Twilight.

“Well, whenever you're ready to leave,” Andraste asked.

“But we haven’t booked a train or a chariot.”

“You’ve got wings, haven’t you Princess?”

She hesitantly nodded.

“Well here we go!” Andraste shouted.

Folding his toga, the griffon stretched his wings. Stares scanned him as he displayed multiples scars and old wounds he had masterfully hidden until now. Few seemed to be due to burns, other were clearly the traces of different kinds of edges and finally an eerie burned round mark plagued his shoulder. The weapon used had pierced him from side to side. Twilight thought a fine spear should have been used against him.

“I… I still don’t know how to fly.”

“Better now than ever!” He sniggered with an amused smirk on his lips.

He grabbed Twilight and held her under his arm. Spreading his wings, he took off in a heavy blow. Celestia giggled when she heard Twilight calling for help as she disappeared with the griffon behind the clouds.

“Dost thou think she will be okay?” Luna risked herself.

“Of course Luna, Sir Andraste is one of the wisest griffons. He won’t harm anybody and he owes me some favors. The only thing that titillates me is how he has pulled everything off. He didn’t even say why he wanted to see Rainbow.”

“He is rather… dangerous.”

Celestia nodded silently and then withdrew to Armand. And with everypony in tow, she led him to his suite.

High above the cloud, Twilight’s cry for help faded and, between the walls of the Canterlot mazes, only the chirping of the birds could now be heard.

Act I, What stands beneath, 1. Grey areas

ACT I   Ξ   What stands beneath

1. Grey areas

.

..

…

A lure?

Somepony was calling her.

A joyful, vividly colorful and modulated voice was echoing in her ears.

She had faded more than a few times, unable to keep her thoughts coherent. Pain was dwelling on and within her skin, flesh and blood. She was struck down, lying on an uncomfortable wooden chopping block.

Eerie flashbacks were bouncing in Rainbow Dash’s unconscious mind, melting in harmful memories, twisted laughter and floating smirks. She caught a voice whispering in the shadows.  She remembered a bloody scarf swung around a pink neck, some acts of terrific sickening cannibalism and of course this long-lasting nasty feeling of knifes and sharpened edges running on her skin.

“Waaake up Rainbow Dash… Wake up… Wake UP!!”

Pinkie laughed a deep, twisted and disrespectful chortle. Opening her eyes, Rainbow instantly glanced at her belly, driving her insane by the pain coming back and forth in her tortured bowels. The long, atrocious wound was sewn up. Regaining slowly her senses, the wingless pegasus shivered, terrified, disoriented and obviously agonizing in her own coagulating blood. She raised her stare of somepony facing her.

Pinkie Pie’s smile was nastily disturbing, like white fangs shining in the dark, thanks to moonlight… And right now, the moonlight was just the beams surging from small candles randomly scattered around in the room. Rainbow panicked, breathing hardly, searching for pure air, or at least some oxygen which was not corrupted by her own blood stench and her own reeking faeces.

“You shouldn’t rest, my dear pony, you’re missing the party! A party you won’t forget. Look around to our guests! Exhausting Flesh, Dying Life, Hale and Hearty Living Dead Corpses!”

Pinkie was gamboling around the table where Rainbow was shamefully displayed, tied up so tightly that her joints were bleeding. Rainbow gazed at her merciless foe. She was showing off a bag of limbs on which was badly painted a pair of eyes. She then slid her hooves inside a griffon’s head. Rainbow’s fur rose on her skin, she knew so well whose skull it was belonging to. She remembered glancing at it earlier but she had quickly forgotten. Her mind had been rapidly bathed by nothing but pain and pleas. Pinkie then showed up heads nailed on the walls of the basement.

“That… makes absolutely no sense!” Rainbow finally gagged.

“Of course it doesn't!”

Anesthetic was still running through Rainbow’s veins, pushing her relentlessly toward insanity. And it was only an outward ride. With her half-closed eyes, she sought to find a light in the chiaroscuro of the room. She was trying to find something to rely on, something that kept her mind free from the madness… a madness which had already begun running beneath her cranium.

Hallucinations from the pain and fear were driving her insane. Full of tears, Rainbow desperately searched for help. She was only able find a wooden roof where the Pinkie’s shadow was casted by the light of dying candelabras. Everything was hidden behind a dark veil, blurred, and Pinkie was the cause of all of this mess. The hopping pink pony gamboled back to the round table. Rainbow’s breath quickened. It was an uneasy and hesitant hiss.

Pinkie imitated quite well the voice of her dear Applejack, “Had enough Sugahcube?! Mah, this is still the b’ginning! So stahp that death rattlin'!”

Tears flooded Rainbow Dash’s cheeks. Pinkie had something in her hooves and Rainbow had no clue about the true nature of the object. Once again she struggled, trying to break the ties holding her. With an evil strength Pinkie grabbed her “friend’s” mane, biting it harshly.

She forced Rainbow’s eyes to open, and with a nightmarish tool dropped something into them.

Rainbow screamed as she never had before. The pain was agonizing. Something strange, something liquid, was being poured into her eyes. They were on fire and everything went black.

Rainbow Dash’s eyeswet with tears. This pain... The bloody drops were mixed with fresh scabs. Her voice faded in sorrowful hiccups.

“P… Pl… Please Pinkie, for Equestria’s sake, stop! P… p… please! Have a bit of…”

“Mercy? Why? That’s an awesome party, isn’t it? We can’t pause it! Who would want to stop such a cheerful celebration!? You promised it to me! And NOPONY breaks a Pinkie Pie promise,” Pinkie maintained with small shouts.

Rainbow Dash was whining while her tormentor was swiftly hopping about in a frenzy before she stopped. Pinkie Pie’s head was slowly swinging from left to right. She was now doing something on a large desk close to the stairs. Eerie sounds rose which echoed in Rainbow’s ears, only to amplify her dizziness and terror.

SHLACK! Shlack… Shlack… Crack… Shlash!!

Rainbow was absolutely blind. And the fear of the unknown bathed her mind, more vivid than ever as the metallic clatters sprawling from Pinkamena’s location were foreshadowing so many grim things. The mad pony was talking to herself, muttering freaked rhetorical questions and casting away dark threats to invisible foes.

On her own, riveted to the uncomfortable table, Rainbow was left to her hearing. Abandoned on the improvised scaffold she let the shivers roam over her skin. Pinkie erupted in joy, but Rainbow could not care less anymore.

“It would be a shame if OUR Rainbow dies too soon. We have a record to break, a cupcake to make, and the ingredient is not READY!

Pinkie paused. Rainbow nearly imagined the smirk growing on the maddened features of her so-called friend.

“Neither am I!” the party pony finally erupted.

The pink pony turned back to her blind and terrorized captive. How was she not dead yet? The pain was so unbearable, her will to end this mess so strong. Standing over her guest, Pinkie squeezed those scab-covered cheeks.

“Aren’t you so cute?”

“Why Pinkie?! Why do you keep doing this?! Kill me! Enough! ENOUGH!!!!! PLEEEAAAASE!!!”

Pinkie kept being mute. Dash sobbed again. Pinkie was bored now.

“I’m Pinkamena Diane Pie, Element of Laughter! Smile, smile, smile… Or I will carve it on your pretty face! I’m PINKIE, Pinkie, pinkie…” Covered in blood and carved up flesh, Pinkie found a sadistic pleasure in spelling her own name.

In Rainbow’s ears, each of her hoofsteps echoed like a countdown, a jangling mixed with a sharp metal clatter. Pinkie was carrying a knife, no doubt about it. And it was for sure new one that Rainbow had never felt running on her skin and penetrating her flesh. Mind fogged by the pain, the cyan pegasus wagered that the edge was calling her.

“…Cause the end is where we begin,” Pinkie whispered.

Clack… Clack… Clack… Clack…

The same kind of slamming, again. Rainbow Dash opened her blinded eyes. They were burning as if sand had been splashed onto them. And all around, there was nothing but darkness. She, the fearless Pegasus, started fearing this blackened fog enshrouding her. “When we are isolated from everything we have ever known, snatched from our home and unable to grasp what stands and occurs around us, who would not?” She tried to rationalize.

The sweat was dripping from her forehead while her tormentor was contemplating her plaything, a mere living toy. And of course, Pinkie imagined herself as the toymaker pulling the strings.

And then came the sharpness of the blade, slicing and cutting through the flesh, the muscles, carving the bones. The pain was so intense Rainbow Dash let her despair take hold of her spirit.

“KILL ME, KILL ME! NOW! NOW! Now… please! Set me free!”

The blood flowed of her legs, flanks and belly. The warm liquid rolled down her opened flesh. She tasted something in her mouth, was it blood or her own tongue that she was crushing, trying to ease the pain by inflicting herself a different one. Rainbow Dash fainted again.

“No, no… You can’t, it’s too soon! You’re not ready yet! I have to restitch you. You’re still incomplete. Shouldn't you be loyal? Don't leave my party then!” Pinkie said imperiously.

Pinkie re-sewed the wounds, again. Then she gave Rainbow another adrenaline shot. The unconscious pony quivered. And this time it was neither pain nor misery which overflowed her lost mind when she awoke. There was nothing but rage.

“I’ll KILL ya! You hear!? I’ll KILL YOU! I. WILL. KILL. YOU! I’ll shred you into pieces, I’ll break every one of your bones until you’re nothing but mash. There will be no ashes! I will erase everything, even your own existence!”

“Ooooh what a berserker. That’s the spirit, I like it! Help me now,” she ordered coldly.

She went to her “dining table”. Gilda’s skull was flung off the desk and broke on the ground. There was work to be done. When Pinkie came back, Rainbow Dash knew the time to pass out had arrived. She closed her eyes, greeting the death with open hooves, like she had always done with old friends.

Rainbow came upon the whistling of a knife lifted in the air.

“Do it… please.”

Pinkie struck four times and Rainbow Dash fell to the dirty and sticky floor. She was fluttering, defenseless, disoriented, without knowing what was happening.

Pinkie did not stab her but the leather restraints. Rainbow found no available reason. She could not get up; the nails in her hooves were unbearably painful.

“I know you want it,” her interlocutor answered back.

Pinkie’s hooves clasped Rainbow’s. She gave her playtoy the blood-soaked knife.

Holding it with difficulty, a tensed grimace printed on her face, Rainbow was disconcerted.

“Cause the end is where we begin!” Pinkie repeated mystically.

Rainbow was trembling. Her mind was twisted. ‘Why? What was happening? Why, Why? Why now after this entire dreadful and painful journey? What was the purpose of all of this? Had there ever been one?’ She was disbelieving.

“Dash… Dash… Dash… My dear, do you know what this lucky charm is called?” Pinkie whispered, insisting with a poke on the knife Rainbow was now in possession.

“No I don’t…” Rainbow cried, stuttering. Her tears dropped on the floor melting with her own fluids.

“Home… Home Sweet Home.”

A long, horrible and earth-shattering silence set up.

“Do it, Sugarcube. My dea’ friend!”

“DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT”

These words echoed in Rainbow Dash’s head.

“YOU’RE NOT MY FRIEND!”She replied with a scream.

Minutes passed, maybe hours and Rainbow struck, over and over again, stabbing, sinking deep this tool called “Home” in Pinkamena’s body. Nopony would have recognized the corpse. It was dismembered, mashed up, pulp-like. Her remains were a mess on the floor. And sitting in this puddle, the killer was laughing maniacally.

It was so terrible, so wrenching, that the guards who had just broken into the basement were stunned by such play: two eyes reflecting the light of dying torches were staring madly at an unknown cadaver. The place reeked, smelling like a graveyard. Some of the spectators blacked out, the others just threw up.

The wingless pony was palpitating. Standing still, transfixed, she was staring to the stairs, where the guards were located. Rainbow’s eyes were casting dark-red shadows, the coagulated blood spread over her face working as a catalyst.

“Miss… Rainbow Dash, are you okay? Miss…”

“Cause her end is where I begin… I, I, I! Only I!”

The ghoulish pony started moving forward to the white and grey stallions. Going further step by step, covered in blood and absolutely nightmarish, Rainbow was frightening.

“Miss, what happened? You can’t pass! Oh … Wait!”

“I WANT TO GO HOME!” Rainbow Dash screamed and charged drawn out knife-first toward the exit.

ϐ     Ϙ  ϖ    ϧ   Ξ   ϧ    ϖ  Ϙ     ϐ

“It’s a dark and stormy night, isn’t it?” Princess Luna said to herself.

“I couldn’t agree more Princess Luna,” the Royal Guard sergeant responded, coming from a crossing avenue.

He took time finding the right words, visibly shocked.

“Thank you, your highness for coming here. I thought it was necessary for you to see it, this is unprecedented… Would you be so kind as to keep your calm.”

Trotting through Ponyville, Princess Luna was already suspecting something when an old and, she feared, forgotten fear came up in her heart.

“Thou should not worry about it. Usually we would like this breed of night, but tonight, there is something wrong… d… dreadful.”

She was still having difficulty ridding herself of the antique etiquette of the Canterlot court.

Princess Luna casted a glance at the threshold of Sugarcube Corner’s door. She had a fateful look as she focused on the royal Guards breaking in. Screams were coming from the bowels of the earth, deep in the shop basement.

Luna was quivering on her slender limbs. Even her, the Almighty Night Alicorn, the Mare in the Moon was staggering from tail to hooves from just staring at a broken gate.

To add another straw on the griffon’s back, there was no Moon to reassure her. The black clouds were obstructing everything and the thunderstorm was rumbling far away.

“Sister what happened?”

Celestia had just teleported beside her in a flash. The opalescent princess fixed Sugarcube Corner. Disgust was the sole feeling Celestia felt, obvious through her wrinkled and horrified features.

“We haven't seen this atmosphere in a while, Luna.”

Princess Luna was muted. She was hardly able to breath, afraid even if she would never confess it. The youngest alicorn always had a stronger connection with the darkness and its mobs. And even so, she wanted to flee away from this accursed place.

Another scream resounded. It was clearly Rainbow Dash’s voice but its tone was desperate, full of fear and anger. A Royal Guard showed up in SugarCube Corner entrance.

“Call Emergency care, now!”

Some witnesses ran toward the horsepital as fast as the wind.

“Contact the morgue… And bring back as many bags as they have…” another voice called with despair.

Luna and Celestia stared at each other’s paled faces, frightened, holding their breath. Getting aware of the regal sisters’ presence, the shouting soldier came up with an awful truth.

He stuttered, “Your Majesties, we’ve discovered something atrocious down there… Ten, maybe twenty corpses… They are more or less rotten.”

He took a long-lasting, unsettling and heart-breaking pause.

“We also found Miss Rainbow Dash,” He finally managed to say. “She’s just killed Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie and mutilated her body. There’s too much grim gore to handle down here.”

Celestia nearly fainted, “Not her… them…”

Tear rushed to her eyes, her hooves started trembling.

Princess Luna glared at the ground as she tried to cast away this terrific revelation.

“Miss Rainbow Dash has also been mutilated in such horrific ways.” He held his breath. “She attacked us in a fit of madness when we went down there. We seized her for her safety… and ours. She killed two guards.”

No response dared creep out of the two stunned princesses. The silence was unbearable.

“Should I contact the identifiable victims’ families and Miss Dash’s relati…”

“What is this all about?” a voice rose behind the sorrowful trio.

Luna, Celestia and the guard turned around. With tears running on her cheeks Fluttershy was standing behind them.

“What happened to Rainbow? And Pinkie?” she blabbered, becoming inaudible.

“Oh dear…” Celestia gulped, she had nothing to add.

Avoiding Fluttershy’s hopeless gaze, the princess started biting her lips. This was a kind of situation she had hoped to never encounter. She held back a painful gag.

Within ten minutes the remaining Elements of Harmony had gathered. Rarity collapsed once she went aware of the recent events.

Each one refused of course to accept the truth… that Pinkie was dead, that Rainbow might be the murderer and that the basement of the Sugarcube Corner was the set of the most monstrous rampage in eons. Everypony's expression was nothing but utter disbelief.

But everything really drifted away when Twilight arrived at last.

“Can you explain me what everypony is do…”

She was not given the time to finish her sentence. Glancing at Sugarcube Corner she looked deep inside something unspeakable, upon something she had never met before. It was a dark vision which came up as an already new experience for her.

Before her true eyes were two large claws of mere shadows, creeping out of the contours of the door and dragging themselves out of the basement. It was absolutely irrational and impossible. The talons were waving, attracting her, calling her, seducing her, sucking her in the abysses, down there in the darkness… down in the sickness. And she knew that the end of the path was nothing but madness. But Twilight kept moving forward.

She perceived a disembodied voice, “Come little foal. Let the shadows cradle your soul...”

Suddenly, Twilight was surrounded by greyish and thick smog and found herself trapped inside. Baffled and terrified, she kept advancing deep inside. Step by step she let herself circled by relaxing shadows. The silence was so absolute, so peaceful… It was fine staying there forever… forever.

“Twilight?”

“Twilight!?”

“TWILIGHT!!!!”

Twilight inhaled deeply, sucked out of this terrifying vision of despair. She fell flat on her right flank. During her trance she had narrowed the space between her and Sugarcube Corner ‘s broken entrance. And in front of her hooves were knocked-down two guards.

Tearful and quivering, she turned back to Celestia.

“What did I… Why?” she wept.

For everypony, the eerie play Twilight had performed in front of them had come as a horrifying surprise. All of her present friends were clueless about the way how to react to this strange outbreak. Luna instantly teleported Twilight back to her smoke. She hugged her gently, hiding Sugarcube Corner from Twilight’s with the back of her hoof.

“Don’t look at it, thou just had a hallucination, it happens somehow.”

Twilight managed to stare back to the thresholds of the shop gate. The “claws” were indeed gone.

Applejack was shocked. But as honesty was undoubtedly her Element she did not hold herself from asking a simple question.

“What the meaning of this all? She almost kill’d two guards in order to go down!”

“Thou can’t see it but We, alicorns, can gaze through the veils of this world,” Luna answered hesitantly. “Thou don’t want to know about… the things We can stare at... Thou might not be able to stand it.”

Bewildered, everypony examined the door with narrowed eyes. It was a simple wooden door, broken in half since the guards staved in. Twilight started sobbing. Her friends were totally abashed.

There were ponies gathering around the place while the emergency services were extracting a victim. They all without any doubt recognize Rainbow Dash, unconscious, lying on a stretcher.

Applejack tried to get closer, but the police’s safety belt and the doctors repelled her harshly.

“She is both a victim and a suspect,” an officer stated with a grim voice. “You can’t talk to her. Draw back to your home… a summer storm is coming. Go back home before it starts raining.”

As nopony dared make a move or step aside, he vented with a bit of irritation, “Everypony, move along, there is nothing to see.”

But there was. The morgue employees had just arrived and all the witnesses saw a big cart where was piled up empty body bags.

However the most disgusting spectacle given to watch was that, following the stretcher on which Rainbow was lying down, a surgeon was carrying in a bag containing a pair of light blue wings.

ϐ     Ϙ  ϖ    ϧ   Ξ   ϧ    ϖ  Ϙ     ϐ

Celestia, Luna, Twilight and the remaining Element of Harmony were standing in the horsepital waiting room. For ten hours the surgeons and doctors had been working on Rainbow, trying to save her… or at least to salvage what could have been. During those ten hours, no further developments were brought to them.

Everypony was afraid and the silence was exasperating their worry. Twilight was drawing circles with her hoof. Rarity was still crying, trying to quiet her sobs. Fluttershy who had collapsed earlier was struggling in her sleep against an unknown foe. Luna was watching upon her dreams.

Suddenly, Applejack bucked a bench. Each pony turned. Nopony dared speak. All of them had failed something or somepony today. Hqving an easy conscience was now a long-gone reality.

Applejack clearly was not doing any effort in holding back grumbles of rage.

“Calm down,” Twilight asked for with a voice betraying her pained thoughts.

“How can I!? Dashy is right behind that door and nopony can tell us… how she is doing,” she burst into tears. “Mah Sugahcube…”

Twelve hours had now passed and everypony was still standing in the room, exhausted. Noon had passed and nopony had leaved the room to even take a drink. The postman brought with him the Equestria Daily. Its claims were stupefying.

Murder in Equestria.

This night the Royal Guards found in the basement of Sugarcube Corner, a well-known patisserie of Ponyville, the greatest butchery ponykind have seen in history. Following the scarce Royal Guard’s statements, thirteen corpses have been pulled up from the bloody cellar, and among the victims, the name of Pinkie Pie, one of the Elements bearers has been mentioned.

Rainbow Dash, the sole survivor, has been taken to Ponyville Intensive Care.

Someponies outline she could be the kill…

“LIES! That’s all LIES!” Applejack yelled, her wrath exploding.

It took ten minutes to cool her temper down.

Twilight convinced her, “Don’t listen to gossips! Nopony knows what happened down there… We must wait for… Rainbow’s waking up.”

“Will she…” Applejack darkened the gloomy atmosphere a bit more. “Ah… Ah can’t stand to lose… fail two friends the same day. Ah…”

The door of medical bloc opened. A surgeon whose name was Dextral Hoof introduced himself to the group. Everypony stood up and held their breath, waiting for the news, good or not.

“She is safe… for now,” everypony felt better. “At least, physically. She… lost her wings. Both. We couldn’t do nothing, the nerves were already dead…”

The audience was ravaged. Tears fell to the ground.

“Does she…” Luna asked.

“No, she will never be able to fly again. She is wingless. Somepony snatched them with a rusty tool…” – he paused, trying to choose words less shocking for his audience – “Miss Dash must have suffered a lot. She has been stabbed nearly thirty times and her… tormentor has taken proceedings as she did not die from her wounds despite her blood loss. This is a master’s work.”

“She’d been… tortured,” Celestia stuttered, disbelieving.

“In the cruelest way. She’ll recover on a physical level but it is beyond my abilities to state that she will awaken without any psychological traumas. We’ve induced a coma due to the pain she is enduring now.”

No pony made a move, breathes still hold.

“All of you should go back home, we’ll wake her in three days. And don’t worry. We’ll keep an eye on her state.”

They were all disappointed but finally resigned to leave. And standing in the forecourt of the horsepital, a strange pony was there, waiting for the three princesses.

ϐ     Ϙ  ϖ    ϧ   Ξ   ϧ    ϖ  Ϙ     ϐ

“As captain of the Special Services of the Royal Court of Canterlot, may I request a meeting with Yours Majesties?”

The Captain gazed at the other ponies.

“Do not cast them away Sharpened Edge, they are the remaining Element Bearers. They can know the truth,” Princess Luna stated swiftly.

The captain sighed, ill at ease.

“As you wish Madame, but how will they take it?”

He drew a worried glance at everypony. His stared paused a long time on Fluttershy who dunked her head between her shoulders.

Everypony accompanied the captain toward the city hall. It was nearly five in the afternoon and the rain had stopped. But the clouds Rainbow Dash should have moved off in the morning were still standing high in the sky, hiding the sun.

h the assembly room of the Hall, two inspectors were impatiently waiting for the captain and his followers. They were wearing identical large brown tweed coats. Sunglasses were set upon a large oval wooden table.

After everypony had sat down, they started unfolding their version of events. This grim night had finally… maybe… an explanation. The first inspector, a large white stallion, moved forward.

“The basement of Sugarcube Corner was filled in thrash, flesh and blood when we arrived. What we found was your friend, Miss Rainbow Dash, standing over the corpse of what appeared to be Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie. The first one had a butcher knife in her hooves and instantly attacked us when we called her by her name. Miss Rainbow was visibly severely injured and had nails hammered in her hooves. She fainted from the blood loss right after a short encounter… but she had already managed to kill two guards who came to rescue what could have been saved.”

“One was my brother,” The captain said neutrally.

The second inspector brought on the desk a set of crime scene photos, pulling them from his briefcase. Pony’s remains, parts and pieces of flesh was noticeable. There were also knives, scalpels, blood stains and a table carved by hundreds of knife strikes and slashes. A photo showing a burning brazier with nails and pliers inside slid toward Princess Luna. Madness exuded from the photos, just an utter madness.

“Please take it away. I can’t…,” Fluttershy wept, hiding her eyes behind her hooves, her voice unable to go over a mere decibel.

“Neither can I,” Rarity added with a smirk of disgust.

“What is your speculations inspector?” Celestia asked, gulping back a gag.

“We can’t assume that we already have the exact answer about this night events. But with the evidences we’ve found down there it seems that somepony, and Miss Pie is our principal suspect, trapped the pegasus named Rainbow Dash in order to torture her and make her endure the most horrifying experiences. We also found a coat which was made of Cutie Marks…”

Unsettled by the multiple shocked stares fixing him, the inspector chewed his words quite a long time before continuing the creepy presentation.

“By the way… Miss Rainbow Dash’s cutie marks have been unfortunately cut off from her both flanks.”

Fluttershy hurriedly left the room, her face distorted by an expression of disgust. The surgeon had not got the courage to tell them.

“We also found cupcakes…”

“Cupcakes?” – Twilight arched her brows – “How can this be relevant?”

“Let me finish Your Majesty… cupcakes made of Pony’s flesh.”

A queasy Luna covered her mouth with her hoof in an attempt to fight back the irresistible craving to throw up.

“I don’t want details, be quick please!” Celestia implored, grieved.

“The basement is currently a twisted place. Nopony dares to go down there. The smell is untenable, and the place itself...”

The inspector developed his presentation, mentioned cannibalism, and outlined his suspicion about dark rituals.

There was only one unfolded question, the reason behind this insane deed.

“From now on and until Miss Dash’s wake-up, we can’t know. We have to wait. But one thing is clear now. Miss Dash killed your friend Pinkie Pie. The true question is really to know whether or not Miss Pie is Rainbow Dash’s tormentor. Or is she another victim?”

When the inspectors left with the evidence, Celestia gently asked everypony to go back home, to get some rest.

ϐ     Ϙ  ϖ    ϧ   Ξ   ϧ    ϖ  Ϙ     ϐ

Sleep was rejecting Twilight’s pleas. Whatever she did, however how many times she twisted and turned under her bed linen, she always pictured these two black claws creeping out of the Cake’s basement. She shuddered. Twilight knew how persistent a hallucination could be in somepony’s mind, but... this aftereffect had been lasting for so long she started questioning the nature of her vision. It was so vivid.

Each time she closed her eyes they were waiting for her, ready to strike. And the eerie shadows of a tree the moonlight was casting on the curtains of her window were not helping.

Ten other hours had flowed by since she had left the city hall, and she was not able to get past what she had witnessed. It was enough for her. Waiting for the sandman was over. She had to face the issue tickling her spirit again.

Spike was quietly sleeping on his couch; in order to avoid her assistant’s discontent, Twilight tip-toed stealthily toward the exit of the Golden Oak’s Library.

It was a cold night. The moon was high and some pegasi had the sky cleared during the evening. A soft breeze made Twilight shiver.  By night, Ponyville had the aspect of a creepy ghost town. No light was coming from the windows. The noise which gave life to any city unsettled the small alicorn by its overwhelming absence. Alone, she would have sold her wings just to get a friend close to her…

Such comparison pained Twilight, she would have preferred coming with another expression.

Sugarcube Corner was waiting for her, dwelling in the same street since its erection. Plunged into darkness and coldness, the usually colorful place had lost all of its haughtiness.

A large yellow strip tagged the place as a restricted area. “DO NOT CROSS, CRIME SCENE,” It read.

Twilight crossed the warning anyway. She found the entrance sealed by another strip.

There was no claw waiting for her, just a deep and dark room where Pinkie used to sell her cupcakes. Shakes ran under her fur. Cupcakes made of ponies’ flesh. She could not tell… Was she really relieved to face nothing but emptiness?

She quivered.

A strangled cough popped out of nowhere, coming from behind her back. Twilight flinched. Ready to defend herself she turned over in a jump, her horn glowing magenta. A well-known silhouette was sitting on a carriage. A mighty foe she had fought once.

“What are you doing here Discord? Is that another of your twisted schemes? Wrecking chaos does not suit you anymore? You have to make ponies kill one another?”

Gritting her teeth, only anger was readable on her face.

“Where is fun in all of this?” the spooky voice of the creature asked.

Twilight caught sight of tears rolling on the Draconequus’ face. In his hands laid the fragments of Pinkie’s necklace. Colorless, the jewel was as grey as marble and no magic was issuing from it.

“Where is fun in death? Nowhere.”

He paused and his two luminescent yellow eyes glared at the young purple alicorn.

“Tell me Twilight Sparkle, why would I have done such a thing? I’m Discord, a spirit of chaos, not Destruction. There is no fun at all here. It was not meant to be like this,” – he dropped the necklace and buried his head in his hands –  “Why Pinkie, she was so funny.”

Confused, Twilight’s mouth dangled wide open. Discord was a treacherous being. But now, looking so depressed and sincere, Twilight pitied him.

“Discord, you should worry about Rainbow Dash, she is the sole survivor.”

“She lives, others didn’t make out as well.”

“You… cynical!” Twilight burst out. “Why are you worried about a murderer! She killed… tried to kill Rainbow!”

“Why are you so confident about it? Did you witness it? No!” He enraged. “I liked Pinkie, I just… I just can’t believe she’s gone…”

He sobbed, “At least let me the benefice of the doubt… the bliss of ignorance.”

Struck hard by Discord’s claim, Twilight tried to rationalize. She always knew that he was fond of Pinkie. They shared the same hobbies after all, pranking and having fun. But… believing that the spirit of Disharmony could have had somehow, a kind crush on the Element of Laughter… she was aback.

However, it was obvious on second thoughts.

Discord spoke to himself, “Why was I not able to see this coming? I should have… I’ve always failed in everything.”

Twilight felt unpleasant and queasy. Discord used to picture himself as a nonsense folk, a being who laughed at rationality and what made sense. This was brand new, terrifying, or at least deeply moving.

Discord’s voice called her back from her confused thoughts.

“Why are you here Twi? This isn’t a place for a princess.”

His tone was frightening, heavy and stern. Discord was generally a funny creature, and even Twilight had to admit it. But right now, enshrounded by the dark, her former antagonist was just a crooked character, veiled by the night and sorrow.

“I… I saw something last night, just there,” – She pointed her hoof toward the entrance of the shop – “They were two claws, it was black, it was…”

“Calling you?”

“How do you know?”

Discord had already gotten up, his face revealing a strong resignation. The moon silhouetted his body as he fixed Twilight in her eyes.

“Never speak of it. To nopony! Do you understand? Seek for it, search for answers because you will try… even if I deter you to do so! Do it, but do not drag anypony with you.”

“But…”

Twilight burned internally to protest, to counter this warning. But Discord put a finger on her lips.

“Quiet! Here is a lesson your dear teacher never taught you. There is always something darker in this world, waiting for the right moment to strike, waiting for an opportunity. There will be no glowing red eyes or contemptuous sneer. The blackness will ambush you from the darkest corners of the earth without any indication. And it always shows up in the most horrific ways.”

Twilight kept her mouth closed, chewing over Discord’s wise words. He continued with a voice more oppressive than ever.

“Listen. Do not make a leap of faith into the unknown with your friends. They’ll be alone… alone in the dark. Do whatever you want, go deep but don’t drag them into it. They will end up wrecked at the end of this ordeal… because, compared to us the ‘powerful ones’, they’ll have no way to combat the power of the dark.”

Aback, Twilight tried to clear up the catch in Discord’s warning. The Draconequus was elusive and did nothing but troubling her more.

“I must go. I have something to figure out,” Discord stated, looking away.

“Discord you can’t abandon us, when we reformed you… you promised to help us.”

“I can’t, at least, not for the moment.”

“Don’t…”

“Sometimes you’ll have to fight alone, young alicorn. One day you’ll be left stranded, trapped or unable to reach your friends, because scary powers always splits apart the strongest links.”

Discord words started echoing magically.

“This isn’t a game. It has never been one,” he warned.

“Wait…”

And he vanished in a white flash.

“Don’t underestimate the dark,” His voice kept going, erupting from the void. “It has always waited for the right moment to strike back. Be ready because it shows no mercy… And remember, this world is frail…”

Now alone in front of Sugarcube Corner, Twilight was devastated with a broken necklace at her hooves, unanswered questions in her mind and a taste of bitterness in her mouth. Discord would never change. He had to bring confusion anywhere, anytime.

“I thought everything would be just fine,” the young pony whispered in the night.