That night, after the moon had been raised, Fanta slowly made her way across the street towards Sugarcube Corner. She slid through the double doors and braced herself for the inevitable onslaught of hot pink fur and sugary grins. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes. No pink demon. No proffered cupcakes. No deep, sparkling bright blue eyes and perfect, enthusiastic smile. Fanta shook her head and took this rare opportunity to slink into a corner of the bakery.
The party was already in full swing. Tables were piled high with cake of all shapes and sizes and colours, a DJ was playing some electronic music on her mixing table, and mares and stallions were everywhere, having a good time. Fanta felt sick and the music hurt her ears. She sighed and made her way over to a couple that she recognised. The two mares were having a great time and welcomed Fanta into their discussion concerning mint cake and marzipan icing.
After a few minutes, Fanta excused herself. The two mares nodded, knowing Fanta well enough to know that she needed to be given a bit of space. She slipped past Big Mac and looked over a stand of brownies. Something was wrong. That pink creature was nowhere to be seen and she was always the life and soul of the party. Fanta had very accurate hunches and this one was telling her that something wasn't right at this party.
Her eye scanned over the sea of faces, mentally blotting out heads with horns. That just left Pegasi and Earth Ponies, so she scanned the crowd again, this time looking for pink. Nothing.
Frustrated, Fanta threw a brownie at what looked like an alligator toy sitting on the counter. It fell off and hit something which squeaked. Fanta blinked.
"Pinkie has an alligator, right?” She mused to herself. “Dummy, I think its name was." She ducked under the table, carefully weaving through the forest of hooves until she could peak around the corner of the counter.
A pink mare was curled up, clutching the alligator to her chest, looking at Fanta with big scared eyes.
Fanta was having to comfort too many ponies lately. This was way out of her area of expertise.
"Hey, Pinkie. You okay?" Pinkie shook her head, and pointed towards a door that looked like the entrance to a storage room.
"Th-they d-didn't want my strawberry sliceeesss! Weehh-mmph!" Fanta stuck Gummy in Pinkie's mouth, muffling her bawling.
"You're upset because a pony doesn't want to eat your strawberry slices?" Pinkie nodded and spat Gummy out.
"And they're scary ponies, they're probably practising some kinda evil magic, but I mean, come on! Who doesn't like strawberry sli-mmmph!" Gummy was once again used as a Pinkie muffler. Fanta was fully alert. If there were ponies practising some kind of evil spell, everypony at this party could be in danger. She pushed Gummy further into Pinkie's mouth to keep her quiet for longer and took a small, grey box with a red button on it out of her mane.
"Sorry Pinkie, party is over." She pressed the button.
Outside Sugarcube corner, some asparagus bundles were half-buried in the ground. As Fanta pressed the button, the bundles exploded. They blew a fairly small hole in the ground, but made an overwhelming noise, accompanied by a bright white flash of light. This woke ponies, scared stray animals, and sent the partying equines inside Sugarcube Corner into stunned silence. Then they remembered that they were supposed to be terrified and started screaming and running everywhere.
As the mass of ponies fled through doors and windows, Pinkie turned to Fanta.
"Were those fireworks?"
"Nope! Flash-bang grenades!" Fanta grinned.
"Flash-bang gre-whats? Mmmph!" Fanta stuffed Gummy (who was silently protesting) into Pinkie's mouth and chucked her over the counter into the throng of terrified ponies.
"Now, to stop whatever they're doing..."
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Hearing a bang outside and muffled screams from just outside the door, the cloaked figures looked up from their chanting.
"What was that?" One asked, a mare's voice coming out from under her hood.
"Sounds like we've been interrupted." A grizzly voice emanated from a hood across the room.
"It mattersss not. Continue the sssssacrificcce." A forked tongue whips out from under the hood of the pony at the head of the circle of cloaked figures.
"One of you check we sssssstill have sssssomething to offer." The pony nearest the door nodded and left, closing the door to the small room behind them.
The cloaked pony looked up and down the hallway, then started to make their way to the terrified-pony-filled dining area. The last thing they heard was a soft whistle, then a *CLANG*. Then their vision went black.
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Fanta hoof-pumped, and sped over to her fallen prey. She pulled off the cloak and put it on. She then checked over the limp body, picking up the slightly dented frying pan in the process and hiding it under the cloak.
"Stallion.. Cutie mark is some bubbles and a chocolate bar.. Nothin' special. Hmm." She pulled the cloak over her head, and slowly opened the door to the small room.
It was roughly ten metres by ten metres. There were no windows, only one door, and the floors and walls were bare of any normal bakery items. Most noticeable were the four other hooded figures, gathered around a chalk circle on the floor, full of shapes and diagrams that Fanta didn't recognise. The ponies looked up at her from the rhythmic monotone chanting they were doing before she came in.
"Well, Bubble Bar? Issssss the coasssst clear? Are there ssssacricessss left?" The figure at the head of the table rasped at her. She nodded and took her place adjacent to the pony on the other side of the room.
"Good. Then let ussss begin again." The raspy pony made some guttural noises, and started chanting in an old style of speech that made Fanta's horn tingle.
"He who rulesss the dark world, and hasss vowed to return and ssslay the alicornsss of day and night-" The other ponies joined in, and Fanta mouthed the words. This was not good. She had absolutely no clue what was going on but she didn't like the sound of it at all. She had to do something, and fast. Slipping a hoof under her cloak, she readied her frying pan, formulating the best way to take out every pony in the room, except the leader. She wanted answers before the royal bomb squad arrived.
Flinging out her hoof, the frying pan sailed towards the pony opposite, landing with a *CRACK* as it knocked her down. Fanta jumped forward, grabbing the frying pan in her front hooves and sending the pony next to her flying with a well-aimed swing. The next pony tried to dodge, but Fanta hit them on the side of their head, knocking them out cold. Satisfied, she turned to the leader of the group.
"Who are you, and what are you doing?" She pointed the frying pan menacingly at the cloaked figure's head.
"You sssimpleton. Look down." Fanta glanced downwards at the chalk circle, which was now glowing with fierce, orange energy.
"Awww ponyfeathers." She cursed, before ink-black tendrils rose out of the glowing symbols on the floor and pulled her into a portal, raspy laughter echoing in her ears as she was sucked into a black abyss.