Twilight Sparkle felt utterly disoriented. She didn't know where she was, or when. She didn't even remember who she was. That moment passed, of course.

It was probably just the contrast between this new sector of the labyrinth and the previous one, which had been a place of optical illusions and psychedelic colors. It would take the fillies forever to get that pink out of their minds. Had Rarity not been able to improvise safety goggles, they would all have been writhing in epileptic agony by now, or they would still be lurking through that place blindfolded, ready to be captured.

Still, they had lost some people from their group along the way. In fact, travelling through this labyrinth had broken up their once mighty swarm of rebells and dispersed them all over the place. At least some of the other groups were still alive, since they had been able to contact them occasionally. Sometimes they even met one of them and merged once again.

The fillies weren't sure how to feel about their particular group. Sure, it was good to be able to have an eye on Applejack's sister and her little friends for instance, to know for certain they were safe... But in the same time this safety was of a relative nature to say the least. Even with so many freed creatures swarming through the structure, Celestia seemed to focus primarily on them. Twilight supposed that was the plight of being a teacher's pet.

Twilight was just about to light her horn when a limelight appeared right in front of them. Now they were able to see they had somehow been transported into another dome-shaped structure with no discernible exits.

-

“Hello...?”, Rainbow Dash proposed.

“Greetings yet again, my beloved subjects.”

“It’s another trap. Let’s blast this place”, Applejack said.

-”No!”

It was the voice of a little foal, somewhere out there in the shadows. It made them all shiver.

"You really shouldn’t leave just yet. Applejack... I understand you're a real family pony. Would be a shame if something happened to that sweet little sister of yours..."

"You won't get even one hair of her as long as Ah'm around!"

She was standing above Applebloom, squeezing the foal between her front legs.

"Oh, but I already have. And one hair is all that it takes..."

Three robot arms rose from the darkness, holding a little foal in their claws. It looked exactly like Applebloom. Applejack looked down to confirm that the real Applebloom was still firmly in her arms.

But the little yellow pony in front of them was crying and sobbing. The metallic claws were slowly digging into her flesh. She was trembling all over, and the look in her eyes was as desperate as the sound of her cries.

"Sis...! Help me! She's hurting me..."

Applebloom shuddered at the sound of this voice which sounded so much like her own... No. It WAS her own. And in this very moment, she was really sharing that foal’s pain.

"Applejack, please, I..."

To the ponies' horror, the machines started tearing the little foal apart. Twilight tried forcing herself to stay alert, to pay attention to her surrounding to find a way out instead of giving into that gruesome spectacle or closing her eyes and her mind in horror, but it was impossible. The screams of that foal were her entire universe.

-

"STOP IT!"

Applejack fired her guns at the robot arms, but Celestia just greeted this with a metallic chuckle and retracted the arms back into the shadows.

There was a liquid, tearing sound, and then a bloody projectile was thrown at Applejack from the darkness. It was the foal's head. Her lips were still moving. The two Apple sisters cried out and hugged each other tight.

"Do not worry. It was just a clone, after all. A duplicate, created for just a tiny moment of... gory.. Oh, but what's this...?"

Pairs of robot arms appeared all around them. All of them were holding Applebloom-clones. And the gruesome game started all over again.

"My, so many little sisters! I got dozens of them. But it doesn't matter as long as you still have the real one, right? I mean, I couldn't possibly have played a cruel little switcheroo behind your back... even though this place IS under my complete control.... What do you think?"

"Help me, Applejack!!", the foals were crying,

"Please!”

“I'M THE REAL ONE!!”

“You've got to believe me!!"

The mane six were chasing after the arms, but no matter what they did, they weren't able to stop the slaughter. All Applebloom-clones were tortured and murdered, they were unable to save even a single one.

“Why are you doing this?”, Twilight cried, “What could you POSSIBLY gain from this?”

“Oh, shush. I’m just trying to make a point here, my faithful student. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

The purple unicorn was grinding her teeth.

“We’re nothing without you. Is that it? Is that what we’re supposed to believe?”

“Did you know that you can be stored on a USB-stick? Everything that is making you? Your memories, your personality, your consciousness? We’re talking about a few hundred megabytes here. Isn’t that fascinating? Observe.”

A little further away, a body was lowered down from the ceiling. It was a purple unicorn pony. Something that looked like a forked, metal tongue was stuck into her ear, and she started twitching as if hit by an electrical charge. The unicorn raised her head and looked Twilight into the eyes.

With a sleepy, confused voice, she said:

“Wow. THAT’s not weird...”

Before Twilight could reply, a trapdoor opened up and swallowed the perplexed clone. There were buzzing and grinding sounds and a blood-freezing cry.

“You need to understand your true nature. You are expandable. Replaceable. But that’s also the beauty of it.”

Another light went on and revealed a pony that looked like Applejack in every way, contained in a display case like some exotic item. Or like a piece of meat.

“Rainbow Dash... I’ve got a little present for you.”

The blue pegasus was biting her lips. It was clear that looking at this imprisoned Applejack was almost unbearable to her. She glanced at the real Applejack, then back at the clone.

“Think about it... Without me, Applejack will die one day. You know that. You won’t be able to protect her against everything. But what if I told you that it doesn’t matter? What if I told you you can have as many Applejacks as you want? And she can have just as many back-ups for you. And if you’re concerned that it wouldn’t be the real Applejack... I’ve got news for you. They are as real as you are.”

Before they could stop her, Rainbow was hovering next to the container, putting her hooves on the transparent surface. The Applejack inside put her hooves up as well.

“You are ALL clones, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. Constructs. Figments. All that matters to you can be replaced, even yourself. You are all just ideas inside my brain. And that’s all you’ll ever need to be.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’ve got news for YOU”, Pinkie Pie said, “We’re the worst idea you’ve ever had. In case you haven’t figured that out yet.”

Rainbow couldn’t hear what the clone was saying, but she was able to read her lips. These lips that had grown so familiar to her during these last weeks... or month... or whatever.

First the orange pony was saying kind and reassuring things, but then her eyes turned into angry slits, she seemed to be shouting.

The pegasus turned away from the prisoner to look at her friends, especially at Applejack.

“The... Applejack says that Celestia is lying and that no matter how powerful she is, she can’t tell us we weren’t real. It doesn’t matter what we are made of, or where we come from... The only thing that matters is where we are going. And we’re getting out of this joint. For the sake of all of us.”

The eyes of the two Applejacks met, and they nodded at each other.

The display case dropped into the floor just as the Twilight-clone had before.

“Alright. I was afraid you might be that way. I suppose you’ll need a little more time before it will all sink in. But you know, the one I really wanted to talk to today is you... my dear Rarity.”

-

Countless camera eyes rose from the darkness until they had surrounded the white unicorn filly. Rarity was able to keep her composure, but it was obvious for everyone that she was absolutely terrified.

“You know what I’m getting at, don’t you...”

They heard the gentle clipping and clopping of hooves somewhere out there, and then a tiny filly entered the limelight. She was young, almost a foal. She was wearing a beautiful dress, rivaling the shapes and colors of exotic butterflies or tropical fish. A dress that looked all too familiar to Rarity, just as the foal herself.

“Who are you guys...?”, she asked with her snotty, teenage voice, “Where is this? I want to go home...”

She looked at Rarity and tilted her head. “Say... Aren’t you that weird dressmaker-lady...?”

Rarity’s eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of her head.

“No... I cannot be... Oh please...”

Suddenly, Rarity dashed forward. The perplexed little filly braced herself for the impact.

But when Rarity was about to close her front legs around her, a giant, silvery blade cut through the darkness like the claw of a gargantuan bird of prey and speared the tiny filly’s torso. In the very same movement, the blade and its victim disappeared out of sight, a silvery flicker and a colorful flutter. All that was left were two tiny drops of blood that landed on the floor right in front of Rarity’s nose.

“NO!!!”

In a way, Rarity’s cry of agony was even worse than the surreal scene they had just witnessed. The unicorn turned into little more than a sobbing, quivering puddle.

Her friends rushed forward to console her, but they didn’t get very close: The unicorn had created a force field around herself.

“WHY? WHY!”

“Oh but Rarity”, Celestia said in her most kind and understanding voice, “She is dead. The little shoplifter is dead. You of all ponies should know that.”

A tiny mechanical feeler descended from the ceiling and started caressing the surface of the force field, in a parody of compassion.

“Then again, what does ‘dead’ really mean? She was such a silly little thing. I was able to rebuild her in no time at all. In this world -my world- nothing has to be permanent. Unless you decide to leave me, of course.”

The machine was clearly savouring this. Right now, there were only Rarity and herself, both of them ignoring the pleas and curses of the other fillies as they were trying to get through to her.

“Down here, you can be with her forever. We can all be... floating... No past. No future. It can be as if nothing bad had ever happened. The young one, all the other creatures you have killed... If you leave the grand gala, you’ll leave all of them behind.”

“Floating...”, Rarity whispered.

“That’s right.”

Slowly, the white unicorn rose back to her feet.

“Come with me, Rarity”, Celestia whispered, “Come down with me. Your little  friends can go if they want to... For now. But you, you’re not like them. Your journey ends here.”

The robotic feeler was still there, wriggling over the magic bubble, increasingly snake-like.

“I have a very special place for you down there. A place where you and the young one can be together forever and ever.”

Another light went on and revealed an orange elevator which had inexplicably appeared right in front of Rarity. The filly started walking towards it, still ignoring the desperate cries of her friends.

-

She stepped into the elevator.

Several unicorns, including Rarity’s little sister, were trying to break down the force field. To no avail.

“RARITY!”, Sweetie Belle cried, “I need you! Please don’t go! Please don’t go away! You’re MY sister! You can’t do this to me!”

The white unicorn didn’t even turn around. “I’m sorry, Sweetie Belle. I can’t be your big sister... Not anymore. You need to forget me”, she sniffed, “I have gone a long time ago...”

Pipes appeared all around the elevator and started vomiting a pale, fleshy paste. In front of the ponies’ eyes, strange, misshapen things were emerging from the goo, walking and crawling and hopping towards them to keep them from reaching their friend. Unbearable to look at and almost impossible to describe, the twisted abominations were attacking with barbed claws and corrosive pus.

Twilight noticed that Rarity’s eyes and horn had started glowing. It were the very sparks of her magic that brought the monsters to life. Celestia had merely provided her with the psycho-sensitive raw material. Twilight had seen this before.

“Rarity! Stop doing this! That’s exactly what she wants! Let us help you!”

The white unicorn was shaking her head, sobbing. More and more monsters were created from the slime. Perhaps it wasn’t actually in her power to stop at this point. Whatever it was that tortured the filly so, it made her magic run wild.

Then the elevator started to descend.

“OH NO YOU DON’T!”

With one ultimate blow, Rainbow Dash broke free from the creatures that were trying to hold her down. She burst through the rows of monsters, splattering everything in her path, and then she plunged down the hole the elevator had disappeared into before Celestia could seal it.

-

Rainbow would remember very little of what happened next. She was following the elevator through the shaft. The strange pipes were all around her, and the fleshy goo was throwing ever new monstrosities in her way. She needed her reflexes to avoid solid obstacles and as much velocity as possible so that she could break through the slime. It was a potentially spine-breaking gamble, but this didn’t bother her much. All she could think of was her fear of Rarity getting out of her reach.

The shaft soon turned out to be not just a straight, vertical well, but a complex labyrinth. If Rainbow was to lose sight of the elevator, all would be lost.

All these monsters... She didn’t have any time to stop and admire them in all their grotesque detail, but even the tiny glimpses she caught were echoing horribly inside her mind. Distorted faces, dislocated limbs, bleeding eye sockets, alien morphologies that she had never before observed in a living thing and that, in a way, seemed to have more symbolic than practical purpose. Ponies twisted into living scissors with bone blades, swarms of flesh-devouring needles, giant screaming skulls with snakes instead of teeth, dresses made of crying faces, and thousands more. They were constructs you didn’t expect to see outside of nightmares, the very worst possible interpretation of a Rorschach test come to life. Rainbow felt as if she was traveling through hell. Only that it wasn’t her own.

HOLD ON, Rarity!, she would have shouted had she been able to afford it, I’ll get you out of this! I promise!

And, at the very back of her mind, as she was bursting through a monster that looked like two slobbering,  half-melted ponies ramming their front hoves into each others ribcages: Has anypony ever told you you’re a real drama queen?

-

Meanwhile, the others were busy tearing the domed structure apart to expose the elevator shaft. It was tiresome and frustrating as Celestia seemed to be able to construct new obstacles at her leisure. At least the monsters had disappeared for now, as the goo required Rarity’s presence to produce them.

“Face it, my children... Your friends are out of your reach now. But sure, by all means... You too shall travel down. After all, that’s where you will all end up eventually.”

Twilight had gotten into a real frenzy, tearing screws and metal plates away with her magic faster than Celestia could hope to replace them. But she was getting tired, and it all seemed so...

Wait! What was that? Beneath another set of metal bars, she was able to see the actual shaft. She was almost there. And then she saw a rainbow-colored spec emerging from the abyss.

“Yes... YES! RAINBOW, come on! Faster! We almost got you! You’re almost there!”

The blue pegasus had reached the grille. She was holding Rarity with her legs, pressing her against her torso, that’s why she couldn’t help her friends with digging them out. Applejack made her understand that she should move to the side of the shaft, then the workhorse blasted the last remaining obstacles. Before Celestia could close the shaft again, Rainbow and Rarity popped out of it like a cork from a bottle. They were greeted by quite a massive cheer.

“Yes, sure, be proud of yourselves, why not. But I’m afraid you’ll regret recovering your little friend. You might find she has become quite the... liability.”

And really, as soon as the white unicorn had emerged from the shaft, the goo started moving again. Even in her half-conscious state, Rarity’s mind was giving birth to her nightmares.

-

The monsters had been following them for hours. Wherever they went, Celestia would open up these horrible pipes in an attempt to drown them in psychedelic horrors.

The fillies and their friends were doing their best to hold the creatures off while they would take turns talking to Rarity, gently rocking her in their arms, caressing her mane, whispering into her ear, trying to somehow calm her down and make her reveal her secret.

Finally, as Rarity was silently crying on Twilight’s shoulder, the purple unicorn said:

“You have done something that you cannot forgive yourself for.”

She kissed her friend on her cheek. “Let me enter your mind. Let me see.”

And then, under Twilight’s gentle, yet relentless pressure, she gave in.

-

The unicorn wasn’t able to process it at first. Somewhere in the distance, she heard their friends scream as the monsters seemed to have doubled in strength and ferocity.

She moaned in despair as she stared into the darkness of this mind, but she didn’t let go of Rarity, still pressing her against her chest.

“We need you, Rarity”, she whispered under tears, “I need you. So from now on, your memories are mine. One day, I’ll have to give this burden back to you, but you can’t carry it all on your own. We’ll take turns. You need to rest now.”

Their eyes met and she smiled. “I’ll carry it for you... At least for a while. So that you can be free.”

Rarity was slowly shaking her head, failing to comprehend.

“I mean it. You need to believe me...” And, reluctantly: “I am the murderer now. I, Twilight Sparkle, killed the young one. I have unleashed a monster inside me and allowed it to take her away. You cannot forgive me... But can you still love me?”

Once again, Rarity’s eyes were filling with tears.

“Alright, then. Now PLEASE, let’s stop with the monsters. They’re seriously starting to get on my nerves.”

-

"Sweetie Belle..."

"Way to traumatize your little sister. Again."

"I'm so very sorry... I... Do you think we can sort this out?"

Sweetie Belle sighed.

"We better get started."