Something Sweet to Bite Too

by Knackerman

Prologue

The light's go out, a hush falls, and the spotlight flashes on with a clunk. Without any further warning, a pair of ponies twitch aside the curtain and take to the stage, both dressed in formal evening gowns.

"Good evening everypony! My name is Twilight Sparkle!"

"And I'm Pinkie Pie!"

"We're here tonight because the author of our show wants to greet all of you warmly and thank you for giving our performance your time and attention. He's been working hard on this story for a few years now-"

"Not really, mostly the last few months. He kind of wasn't sure there needed to be a sequel. Even the best horror stories have them these days though, so why not?"

"AHEM! He's been working hard, but he's aware not everypony will have had the pleasure of experiencing 'Something Sweet To Bite', so they may not be prepared for what 'Something Sweet to Bite Too' has to offer. In that spirit, he has asked Pinkie Pie and I to help bring the audience up to speed since, arguably, we were the main characters of the previous story."

"Really? I thought it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle played kind of a big part. Or maybe Fluttershy! She's the only pony who was in the story that didn't actually, you know, die."

"Pinkie Pie! No spoilers!"

"Why not Twilight? Isn't that what we're here for? Aren't we going to tell everypony what happened in the last story so they can be all caught up for the new one?"

"Well...yes actually, that is what we're here to do. But somepony might want to actually experience the first story before reading this one any further. If you feel that you'd enjoy this story more with the full background, we ask that you please exit the theater now. Don't worry though! Since we're beyond the fourth wall, as Pinkie Pie phrases it, we'll still be here when you get back. Bizarrely, we'll also be moving forward now for those that choose not to leave. I could write hundreds of research papers on the subject of the temporal anomalies created by this phenomena alone."

"Twilight..."

"Is the act of observation what causes time to move forward in this context? Or would time continue to move with or without the observer? Is it possible to perceive this chronological flux without being an outside observer?"

"Twilight!"

"Or does this reveal time just to be an artificial construct created by ponies to make sense of the laws of cause and effect? If these laws can be so easily bent by the mere act of observation, does this create or nullify the paradox of Star Swirl's cat? Maybe there's a book back in the Canterlot Archives that will..."

"TWILIGHT!!!!"

"What? Oh, ahem, right! Sorry! Sorry! Anyways, where was I? Oh the story! Time is actually an important element of our tale. The first thing you should know is this story takes place along what you would view as an alternate timeline. The first story was written before the airing of what, in your world, would be the final two episodes of season two of the My Little Pony cartoon show. As such, many of the events that happened in the show since then either never took place in our continuity or else occurred differently. For example, I am given to understand in your timeline I eventually became an Alicorn Princess! That, unfortunately, never occurred for us."

"And I never made a bunch of copies of myself using the mirror pool. Nope, nuh-uh, never happened. That would just be silly."

"Fun?"

"Shhh."

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing."

"Well anyways, as a result. the story is actually taking place sometime between what you would call 'seasons'. The second thing you should know is this story is tied up with the origins of the Equestrian holiday known as Nightmare Night, which I have been informed by Pinkie Pie would be considered analogous to another holiday called All Hallows Eve. It's the writer's love of this holiday that was the basis of both the first story and this sequel. What you might not know though is that, in the context of this story, how old the traditions of Nightmare Night truly are. Once upon a time the feast was held not out of fear of Nightmare Moon, but out of gratitude to Princess Luna. Over the years, after her banishment to the moon, ponies started to forget what the traditions were for and what they originally represented. Nightmare Moon became a boogie-mare that was used to playfully frighten fillies and colts."

"What started it all was a terrible tragedy that befell a little earth pony. It's an awful story and I can see where somepony's parents might like to make up another happier story to replace it. See, back in the old lands, before the different ponies came together and founded Canterlot, there wasn't much trust between the different tribes. Of course we eventually learned that it was only when we came together as friends that we could thrive as a society, those initial distrustful impulses weren't completely unfounded. The pegasi were warlike, looking for any excuse for a fight. The earth ponies were angry and discontent with their lot in life having to toil in the land for food. Then there were the unicorns, many of whom valued their own reflections more than the ponies who toiled and fought for them. One such unicorn was a real baddie by the name of Lemon Drop. You out there could kind of think of him as a diabolical Willie Wonka. He did all sorts of heartless experiments on earth ponies because he thought no pony would miss them. What was worse is he was mostly right. But one day one of his experiments back fired on him and instead of making candy for everypony to gobble up, the candy turned around and gobbled him up instead!"

"Thus was born into this world, the Candy Mare, a creature made from equal part confections and the tortured soul of a very damaged filly. This creature would be responsible for the disappearances and presumed deaths of countless ponies over the centuries. It was usually around the anniversary of her creation that she became the most active, and that night became known as Nightmare Night. Eventually the passage of time made many think of her as nothing but an old ponies tale, but still she was greatly feared by all. It was Luna who would eventually end her annual reign of terror and banish her into the earth. In so doing she not only freed her subjects from a very real threat, but also banished the terror that had hung over Nightmare Night itself. The annual evening that had become an object of fear was instead transformed into a feast to honor Luna and her bravery."

Buuuuuut... destroying the Candy Mare's body wasn't entirely enough to keep her down. What Luna did that stuck was to put the Candy Mare's restless spirit to sleep. Only by trapping her in dark dreams, and forbidding the creation of certain old world candies, could the Candy Mare's banishment stay in effect. So ponies from all over Equestria gathered up the forbidden treats and offered them to Luna for purification. Which in this case really meant destruction. This would later become a traditional offering to statues of Luna in her guise as Nightmare Moon. Which I always thought was kind of weird, why have statues of somepony everypony was afraid of, right? What was also weird was how the Cutie Mark Crusaders kind of completely ruined everything. They made a bunch of the forbidden sweets to try and cheat at a bet they had made with Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara."

"To be fair, no pony remembered that these old traditions of sacrificing candy to statues of Luna, wearing costumes, or keeping jack-o-lanterns lit were meant to protect us from the Candy Mare. So what should've just been an instance of youthful ingenuity quickly snowballed into an episode of terror and death. Pinkie Pie, with her oddly suspicious knowledge of old legends and the contents of my library-"

"What can I say? My Granny Pie liked to tell stories and inspired in me a love of reading. I also know how to use the Derpy Decimal System."

"Arggh! Pinkie Pie suspected something bad would happen all along and we acted how we thought best to neutralize the threat. Sadly this wasn't before Applebloom and Applejack were killed. They were the first, but unfortunately not the last. In time the entire town succumbed to a curse we hadn't anticipated. Nowhere had anypony said why the candy was forbidden to be made or eaten, just that it was so, and we assumed it was purely to keep the Candy Mare from coming back. Instead it turned out the sweets were themselves cursed, and any pony who ate them would become a candy pony as well."

"Finding that out was kind of my bad. I thought that the only logical way to deal with candy was to, you know, eat it! What faster way to make it disappear than gobbling it up? I don't know how you deal with cursed candy in your neck of the multi-verse, but it seemed like an obvious solution to me. It didn't taste that bad either, even with it being a little bloody."

"Yuck! Pinkie, that's gross! Though I suppose that if the audience can't handle that, they probably shouldn't bother with either story. They both contain extreme violence and gore and may not be appropriate for fillies and foals. While I'm quick to point out the intrinsic literary value of any story that is well written, even I'm not sure that 'Something Sweet to Bite' or it's sequel hold any real literary value."

"Geez, Twilight, easy. It's just fan fiction. It's not meant to be taken seriously. This is what I keep telling you, it's the same at my parties, you need to loosen up! Live a little! Shake your pony thang!"

"Hehe...maybe Pinkie, maybe. I guess it's a little hard for me to remember that these stories aren't real sometimes. Anyways, all of Ponyville was eventually destroyed. To everypony outside of Ponyville it was like the town and it's populace just disappeared over the course of a single night. The only Ponyville resident left was one who hadn't been there that night. A rainbow maned flyer who had been invited to a Nightmare Night party in Cloudsdale that the Wonderbolt's were said to be attending. Our story follows her, almost a year later, and the new adventure that awaits her."

"New nightmare more like it..."

"Pinkie Pie, no spoilers!"

Comments

[AisheyruFox]

My very first thought when I saw this:
"...Something Sweet to Bite Too...this sounds like *Looks at description and gives a delighted Pinkie Pie Gasp* I'M READING THIS!"

[LuckyStrike777]

Quick pro quo and a normal rule for all z hunters : DONT EAT ZOMBIE MEAT though in this case candy, and by z hunter logic the candy mare is in fact a zombie . Though about the story, good use of two main char. to give a prologue, got a good laugh before the horror.

[Rainbowdashisawesone]

love it so far

[Synthetic Soul]

You out there could kind of think of him as a diabolical Willie Wonka.

Didn't Willie Wonka nearly kill all the children except Charlie?

[violet_star_267]

Love how the prologue is written Very anticipation inducing lol

[Fluttershy34]

Best disclaimer ever

[Emperorxeno]

7025020
That depends on which version, and what conclusion you draw to

[Moosetasm]

But what about Flutterbat?

[darklight731]

So... why HASN`T the candy mare continued her rampage across the lands? Why did she stop?