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// First Intermission:  The Return 
// Story: Escape From Canterlot 
// by No one is home 
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An earth pony with a coat the color of dirty cream, with a mane and tail the color of mud, and eyes the color of dead salmon strode across the streets of Canterlot.  But his eyes unfocused ever so slightly,  seeing instead his home city of Atlanta… not the human city he grew up in, but it’s burned and bloated corpse, ripe with the infection of the Pink Sin.

“This toxic homeland, of my tainted birth,” The pony’s surprisingly deep voice rang out, and a sickly smile spread across his face, “Where the poison bubbles softly from the great white tainted earth.”

He cantered past trash fires, and garbage, and all the filth of a pony slum.  In the near distance, the friendship express blew a lonely blast, like a last warning to those ponies still on the wrong side of it’s tracks.

“And the ghost train blows its whistle as it’s rolling through my head,” the pony chuckled softly, pulling a yellow unicorn mare closer to sing in hushed tones, “And it whispers in our ears that we might all be better dead.”

The pony practically strutted up to a seemingly idle warehouse, casually kicking open the door to expose what appeared to be a marriage made in hell between a pseudo scientific alchemy laboratory and a bottling factory.

“Let’s fire up Fire up our drug lab,” the pony strode into the veritable swarm of hole pocked worker changelings, grabbing a vacant eyed vagrant pony by the muzzle and locking his gaze, “Dig yourself a deeper pit… nopony nevermind, you live in your own shit.”

He grasped the poor addicted pony in his telekinetic grip and tossed him aside casually in a pile of emotionally devoid ponies, some still twitching spasmodically, and some just… still…

“Yeah!”  The mad stallion laughed in tune.  “A pony septic tank, and yet hellfire insists to burn.”

The pony threw his arms into the air rising to his hind legs to proclaim triumphantly, “Everypony spurn the lesson that we all refuse to learn

“My mother land spreads her filthy legs,” the mad stallion’s song continued, as a mass of clown faced, hole-pocked changelings joined in with a chorus of buzzing hums, “Where one thousand great white cockroaches all laid their bastard eggs.”

In the distance the lonely whistle of the Friendship express called out desperately in the darkness, but in the stallion’s mind it was a great diesel locomotive of his homeworld, come to knock the pain and evil of his life from his frail flesh.  He threw his hooves wide welcoming the coming release.  But still the terrible music continued, “And the ghost train blows it’s whistle as we pay the final call, and we all bite our bottom lip as we watch all the pieces fall.”

With a scowl, the stallion suddenly became aware of his surroundings, as sanity returned, and with it so many unwelcome memories.  Of the plague, of his escape, and subsequent rejection by the ponies who had brought his home to ruin.  His grin turned into a bitter sneer. “So… kiss your sister on the mouth and then blame it on war.”

His eyes glossed over with the memory of the horrors that he had witnessed, and survived.  He thought back on the ruination of humanity as he had known it under the deprivation of the Pink Step Plague… the Pink Sin.  The memory renewed his terrible purpose and his voice rang clear with a terrifying conviction, “After all that little girl was just a future pony whore!”

“Yeah!”  The Pony spat and was washed in the cleansing green flames of changeling fire, revealing a hole pocked changeling stallion with a bright blue mane, clad in a purple zoot suit.  He spread his tattered gossamer wings and flew to the warehouse’s rooftop where he leveled his baleful gaze on Upper Canterlot, and the Castle of the Two Princesses, and the hated Silver Prince who brought his world to ruin. “A rotting pony church… one that’s is just about to fall. You can open up the Church doors and watch all the roaches crawl!”

And as quickly as the music began, it was over, and the wicked changeling smiled gently on the skyline and whispered to the darkness itself, “I’m back, Canterlot… Didja miss me?  Because I certainly missed you…”