The gray fog of early morning wafted over the downtown area of Ponyville as two lone figures scurried through the muddy streets. They trotted up to the front entrance to Sugarcube Corner, shivering from the cold mist pelting them from all sides.
"Twilight..." Cup Cake gulped. "I don't mean to copy the attitude of the Amethyst Star, but I-I'm starting to think that this isn't such a good idea..."
"Mrs. Cake, I'm not asking you to put all your faith in me," Twilight hushedly said. "All I'm asking is that you just open the door for us."
"But... but what if—"
"Shhhh..." Twilight gazed up at the undulating cloud beds hanging darkly above. "The less time we linger out here, the better. Please..."
Mrs. Cake exhaled long and hard. "Alright, Twilight. Alright..." She raised a shaky hoof to the front door and pushed. "I still think we'd be a great deal safer back at your lab... Nnnngh..." She gritted her teeth, suddenly struggling against a door that refused to budge. She shoved harder and harder, her lower legs scraping against the muddy front steps. "Come on! What in Celestia's name could possibly be—?!"
At last, the door snapped open. Mrs. Cake plunged inside. Instantly, she was assaulted with a wave of rotting scents. After her last excursion through the bottom floor of Sugarcube Corner, she had come to expect that. What she didn't expect, however, was the flurry of paper sheets blowing past her muzzle and landing in the wet puddles outside.
"What... H-huh?!"
"What is it, Mrs. Cake?" Twilight leaned in, hobbling on three limbs. She instantly winced, spitting up some bile. "Ungh! Goddess! What... what is that stench?"
"This is a confectionery, Miss Sparkle. It's rotting milk, along with other spoiled baking ingredients—Where are you going?" She stammered.
"Inside..." Twilight Sparkle said, limping as swiftly as she could through the doorframe and into the dimly-lit eatery. "To investigate..."
"Investigate what?! Nopony was here when I woke up!"
"Shhh... Close the door quietly and come inside, if you can."
Trembling, confused, Mrs. Cake did as she was told. She pulled the door shut and spun around—freezing in sight upon what greeted her in the foyer.
The tables were stacked to the brim with scrolls, written sheets of paper, and clusters of what looked like canvas-bound manuals.
"What... in Tartarus...?!" Mrs. Cake gasped, stumbling forward. "I... I don't understand! What is this?!"
Twilight panted, glancing tiredly back at the mare. "You mean you didn't leave the place like this?"
"Most certainly not!" Mrs. Cake murmured. As Twilight illuminated the room dimly with her horn, she glanced down to see a pile of thick tomes that had acted as a doorstop to the front entrance. "This place was empty when I left it! I can't possibly understand how..." She froze in place, her features paling. "Oh dear. Miss Sparkle..." She looked over, her lips quivering. "What if... what if somepony's been here since I left a day and a half ago?"
"Possible..." Twilight's face scrunched as she hobbled over the books and manuals. The sheets of paper rustled like leaves before them. "Huh... There's a cold draft coming from upstairs..."
"I can't understand why..." Mrs. Cake murmured. "All the windows were closed. Heck, they were even boarded up."
Twilight turned around. She calmly pointed at an exposed sheet of glass lining the front foyer. "You mean like that window?"
Mrs. Cake's mouth hung agape. "That... That's not right..." She trotted briskly over, squinting closely at the wooden finish lining the edges of the window pane. "Why, th-there aren't even any holes for the nails! Miss Sparkle, I have no idea how this could have happened?"
"I'm just as dumbfounded as you, Mrs. Cake," Twilight murmured, hoofing through one of the many sheets of paper atop the middlemost table. "Especially right now..."
"Hmmm?" Mrs. Cake turned around to look at her.
Twilight took a shuddering breath. "These... These books..." The unicorn slapped the papers down and turned to take another survey of the room. "These are the very same books that were stolen from my library."
"St-stolen?" Mrs. Cake murmured. A tremble ran through her body. "You mean... the ones about—"
"—the June Jet Effect and the vibrational frequencies—the whole kit and kaboodle." Twilight turned and looked around slowly. "I don't like this. Not one bit."
Mrs. Cake blinked, then gasped sharply. With one hoof rested over her mouth, she rushed over to Twilight's side and whispered into her ear. "Miss Sparkle, what if... what if the pony responsible is in here?"
"How so?"
"Wh-what if he took up residence overnight?!" Mrs. Cake wrung her hooves, trembling from head to tail. She gazed at the adjacent hallway and the steep stairwell leading to the second level. Every shadow was suddenly fraught with horror and suspense. "He could be here this very second! Watching us trying to undermine his plot! Ready to pounce on us at any second!"
"Maybe..." Twilight rubbed her chin in thought. She turned around, her nose scrunching. "Then again..."
"Twilight...?" Mrs. Cake made a face as the unicorn trotted towards the swinging doors to the kitchen.
"That smell is really, really awful," Twilight muttered. She opened one door and peered in. "Just how much milk did you have sitting in your fridge, anyhow—?" Her voice was cut off. She stood absolutely still.
Mrs. Cake gazed at the many, many imposing books as she replied, "I... I-I can't say for sure. I c-can't be certain of anything anymore. It's been two days since I did anything in this kitchen... and yet it's been two weeks... and I'm just s-so confused..." She ran a hoof through her soaked pink mane. Gulping, she became aware of the silence that had consumed the moment. "Twilight?" Pale-faced, she glanced over. "Miss Sparkle?"
Twilight hung on one of the doors with her back to the mare. "Mrs. Cake..." she spoke in a cold, icy tone. "Just stay where you are..."
"Miss Sparkle..." Cup Cake trotted over, briskly. "What is it that you see?"
"Please, whatever you do, don't look in here—" Twilight reached a hoof out.
Cup Cake brushed her limb away, burst through the doors, and froze. A sharp breath left her. Tears welled up in her eyes as she gazed woefully at the tile floor. "C-Carrot...?" she stammered. "Carrot, darling?"
Twilight was silent as stone.
She wasn't the only one. Cup Cake fell to her knees, her lips quivering. She reached a hoof forward and shook his yellow shoulder. "Honey, move. Say s-something, sweety-bun. Carrot, it's me, your Cup Cake. Carrot...?" She turned her husband's head aside.
"Mrs. Cake, don't—"
"Mmmm!" Cup Cake covered her muzzle with two hooves. Her tearful eyes reflected a deep, deep slit cut across the stallion's throat. The tears obscured the image, falling to the floor with the same gravity as the mare's ensuing sobs. She teetered over, nuzzling him dearly, moaning into his blood-stained coat. "Nnnnnngh—Please! No! Please, Celestiaaaaaa, nooooooo..."
Twilight bit her lip, trotting forward from the swinging doors to lean against one of the refrigerators. The light from her horn shone across the floor, showing where the thick puddles of blood had run into the grooves of the tile and hardened.
"Mmmmmm-Goddessssss..." Cup Cake further wailed, shaking Carrot Cake's body with her constant heaves and sobs. "Mmmmm-Nnngh... Who... I-I mean how... Wh-when?!"
"It... It couldn't have happened that long ago," Twilight uttered in a dull, emotionless tone. Nevertheless, she gulped and steadied her own breath as she said, "I mean, from the way the blood has dried, and what shape the body is still in. I'd venture to guess that he was murdered over the last forty-hours. No more than three days ago, tops..."
"But... b-but that's impossible!" Cup Cake glared up at her, hissing through clenched teeth as tears streamed down her cheeks. "I was just here thirty-six hours ago at the most! And he wasn't here! Nothing was here!"
"You... you sure you were alone in this place when—?"
"Miss Sparkle, I know what I saw and what I didn't see! And this..." She whimpered, brushing the stallion's orange mane as she sniffled. "This travesty must have happened right after I-I left. Maybe the pony responsible for this t-took my beloved hostage! I-I don't know! I'm just so confused..."
"You're right, it doesn't make sense..." Twilight glanced around the lengths of the kitchen, warding off the stench of decay with flaring nostrils. "To be perfectly honest, nothing has made sense as of late. At least not since you joined—" She froze, blinking.
Cup Cake sniffled. She looked squarely up at Twilight. "What is it?"
"This... This is still downtown," Twilight murmured in thought. "It's still within the radius of what the detector told me..."
"Yes, so?"
"Mrs. Cake..." Twilight fidgeted, glancing down at the mare. "Isn't it... I mean..." She gulped. "Didn't Mr. Cake once tell me that you were one-quarter pegasus on your mother's side—?" Twilight suddenly turned her head and slammed it against the refrigerator.
Cup Cake gasped from where she sat. "Twilight! What are you—?"
Twilight rammed the refrigerator again... and again and again. She pummeled her skull against the metal surface at full force. Her body writhed and her neck fought the motions as she coughed and gurgled up blood.
"Miss Sparkle! What on earth?!" Cup Cake shot up, eyes wide. "You're h-hurting yourself! Stop it!"
Twilight answered with a sputtering shriek, then plowed herself into the nearby wall like a ragdoll. Her horn snapped off like a twig. With a spark of mana, her eyes rolled back. She fell down besides Carrot Cake's body, vomiting up teeth and chunks of her own tongue. After two or three fitful spasms, her body laid still, and she did not move again.
Mrs. Cake stared in horror. She slowly shook her head, her teeth chattering in the buildup of a monumental scream. Instead, she whimpered, "Twilight... Twilight, why did you... how...?" She reached towards the dead mare, but froze in place. Blinking, she raised her forelimb in the glow of the gray morning rising outside the windows. Then she raised the other forelimb.
Both of her hooves were covered in blood. Fresh, slick, warm blood.
Cup Cake's jaw quivered. A familiar ringing noise filled her ears, the same tone that greeted her at every waking blink. She looked down at Twilight.
Two bloodstains marked the unicorn's neck just below her ears.
Mrs. Cake stumbled back. She clenched her eyes shut. The ringing in her ears intensified. No matter how hard she clenched her teeth, it would not go away.
Then, at last, like a tiny kitten mewling, a voice cried through the resonating silence.
She gasped, both of her ruby eyes flinging open. She heard the murmur again, this time pleading. Trotting about in a numb lurch, Mrs. Cake left the horrid smell of rotten milk. She pushed through the kitchen doors, gazing silently at the empty lengths of Sugarcube's abandoned foyer. Something rustled in the distance, like dry paper or falling leaves. At the end of it, the ringing tone undulated, then produced the whimper yet again. It was coming from upstairs.
"Hello?" Mrs. Cake trotted towards the bottom of the steps. She froze in place, waiting for the cry. It came, and her heart jumped. "Pumpkin?" She gulped. "P-Pound? My darlings...?"
She trotted up the steps. She galloped up the steps. She blurred past boarded windows and the prevailing shadows of that cold, cold sepulcher of a house. She came upon the upstairs hallway. She glided like a ghost past her bedroom and practically burst through the nursery door.
She skidded to a stop, exhaling in shock. The bright light of morning shone on her squinting eyes, followed by a cold draft of rainy wind. The entire north wall of the nursery was missing, blown away as if from some epic burst of magical power, and in its epicenter there levitated a vibrating orange crystal upon a black dais.
But Cup Cake's eyes weren't fixated on the chunk of reverberating Topaz. Nor was she eyeing the bubbling black clouds above for any signs of pegasi. Instead, she trotted towards a pile of pillows in the center of the room. There was a smell to this place too, but instead of rotten, it was musky, like year old leather being hung out to dry. She glanced in one corner and saw an overturned crib with some unicorn-shaped lump lying inside. Ignoring it, she looked at the other corner and saw a tiny casket, hanging open and spilling loose clumps of dirt.
She approached the throne of cushions, for situated upon it was a tiny figure wrapped in woolen cloth. Slowly, with motherly grace, she parted the blankets. She looked at what lay within. Her face scrunched up. When the next tears came, they were as solid as the rain, falling down and cascading over his dried-up face, his eyeless sockets, his tiny curled forelimbs, his stubby wings. She bowed down low and buried her face in his little belly with more adoration than she had with Carrot. The wails came in waves of hysteria, punctuated by one phrase and one phrase alone.
"My little cherub... my sweet, handsome little cherub..."
She hugged him. She cradled him. She would have devoured him, hadn't a gust of cold, blistering winds blown at her figure, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, ushering the ringing back into her ears. The vibration ran through her teeth, producing a deep-throated snarl from the back of her throat.
"Why did you do this...?" A breathy voice echoed across the walls that were left standing in the room. "Why d-did you let this happen to him...?!"
With a rising growl, she raised her face up and screamed towards the sky.
"I hate you!" the mare shouted, her eyes tiny and inflamed, like a demon's. "I hate you! Do you have any idea what I've lost?! You have no idea! You don't understand pain! You can’t!"
Seething, heaving, Mrs. Cake let her gaze fall, precipitating like cold sleet over the colorful, happy rooftops of Ponyville. The ringing in her ears intensified. Her eyes rolled back in her head, mixing the grayness with the black. She gnashed her teeth and flung a venomous glance at the hovering shard of Topaz.
The glistening crystal reflected a succubus' face, its facial muscles stretching to the breaking point.
Like a viper, she hissed into the deafening ring. The sound was splitting her head, so she split the room instead, crossing over in a single bound and shoving the magical crystal clear off the second story of the burnt, sundered building. All she heard for a few seconds was her panting breaths against the unstoppable bells. Then, there was a scrumptious crack...
And the ringing stopped.
Mrs. Cake fell to her knees, a look of pain ripping across her face. Against the silence she hung, almost as if she was nailed to it. Then, hole by hole, puff by puff, the clouds above parted.
She tilted her head up, gazing bravely into the zenith. Pure sunlight washed over the rooftops of Ponyville, and it was not alone. The blue sky brought with it shadows, and all of them writhing, falling, filling the air with thrashing, flailing limbs.
And slowly, unpeeling like dead skin, the first of many, many screams fell with them. The raindrops clinging to the buildings shook. The air echoed with a melody of terror, a hysterical chorus performed by the plummeting populace of that undeservedly happy landscape.
"Oh, my little cherub," Mrs. Cake murmured into the coalescing shadows of the corpses-to-be. "So beautiful..." A tear rolled down her cheek, stopping only at a wide, wide grin. "Just like Mommy promised you. The song of angels..."