The voices dwindled with every passing step. By the time Alabaster made it to the fourth floor, they were nothing more than a whisper drifting out from the stairwell. All was silent when the door slammed shut. Alabaster assumed he had retraced his steps accurately, but there was no way to be completely sure. The halls in the castle appeared identical.
Alabaster made it partway along the corridor before stopping. He stumbled sideways, catching himself on a nearby table. The potted plant on the table rattled. Although Alabaster no longer heard the refugees downstairs, there was an ominous thump and drum echoing in his ears. It wasn’t until he touched his chest that Alabaster realized he was hearing his heartbeat.
Alabaster squeezed his eyes shut. Against the black canvas of his eyelids, his mind painted an image of Little Whisper as she was in the sitting room… motionless… swathed in a bundle of stained bandages. If only his imagination stopped there. Memories came, unbeckoned and unwelcomed, bleeding through into his thoughts like angry watercolors.
The images warped together. One moment the mare was the changeling, her perforated limbs laying limp at her sides and her bubblegum mane pooling beneath her head. The next… it was her. Instead of chitin, it was ruby fur. That mane, now a deeper pink, framed the mare’s vacant face like a corona.
Alabaster was transported from his early twenties to his early teens. Coarse sand grinded beneath his hooves, and the smell of burning sugar cane stung his nose. He was suddenly small... insignificant... useless.
Alabaster shuddered, his muscles twitching as if prodded with a hot poker. “No… It’s not the same. It’s not…”
In a flash of movement, Alabaster grabbed the table and flung it. It struck the opposite wall with a resounding crash. Chunks of wood and bits of glass pattered to the floor like heavy rain. Alabaster stood over the wreckage, swaying and panting.
There was a sickening relief at seeing the damage done. Reminded of his strength, the embers of Alabaster’s rage into were fanned into sparks. Alabaster kicked aside a table leg and stomped forward. Glass crunched under hoof.
A molten spike drove itself between Alabaster’s eyes, pinning all those painful memories to his mind’s eye. His ears were numb to the rattling of his heart. A steady stream of smoke followed Alabaster down the hallway.
*****
He moved through a blood red delirium. Alabaster would stumble only once more. Catching himself again, Alabaster blinked and saw the jewel encrusted balustrade holding him up. As the wind whipped back his mane, Alabaster realized where his was. He had stumbled back out onto one of the balconies. Alabaster’s shimmering gaze narrowed.
With a snap of his wings, the balcony fell away from Alabaster's hooves. Soon the entire castle was beneath him... as well as the churning moat of thrashing bodies.
Biting, yowling, brawling. The timberwolves had turned the castle yard into a bullpen. Even drifting alongside the tips of the castle's spires, Alabaster could smell their sick depravity. It made his insides broil.
"You hurt my friend..."
The words fell from numb lips, and were promptly swept away by the winds. They were little more than a drizzle compared to the ruckus below.
Teeth clenched, hot blood rushed into Alabaster's cheeks. His serpentine eyes flooded with firelight. The words returned louder.
"You hear me, you numbfuck mongrels? You hurt my friend!"
His words punched through the wall of noise like a ham's fist. A timberwolf scratching at a low window paused, ears twitching. It cocked its head up and sniffed the air eagerly. One would wonder how it could make out anything amid such chaos. Sure enough, it picked up the clear scent of pony. A second later the wolf spotted the pegasus hovering over them. It threw back its head and unleashed a throaty howl.
While some of timberwolves continued to brawl, others responded to their kin’s cry. More shaggy heads snapped up to attention. They would glance around, confused, before finally looking up. It wasn’t long before a pool of crusty, iridescent eyes glared up at Alabaster.
The response of seeing fresh meat was immediate. The timberwolves were wound up into a feeding frenzy. They scrambled over one another, as if they might actually be able to make a ladder to the pegasus.
Alabaster huffed. A steady stream of smoke curled up from his nostrils. When Alabaster opened his mouth to speak, his throat shone like a smithy's forge.
“Hurt her… hurt her…” Alabaster shook raw, untapped energy. “I’LL END YOU!”
That last word rose into a roar. Windows all along the castle shook in their panes. That budding coal at the center of Alabaster’s forehead burst into a comet, washing his body in an ion tail of fury.
*****
The pegasus painted a purple streak over the rooftops of Ponyville. Zigzagging over Honeysuckle Avenue, zooming past Sugar Cube, then finally came to a screeching halt. The pegasus studied the streets.
Flitter’s peripherals were stained by a hint of light blue. Her bow had tumbled off some time ago, and now her unruly mane was whipping about in the high winds. Flitter brushed it impatiently out of her face. It was hard enough to make anything out among the broken carts and chips of cobblestone.
Still, Flitter found the outlines of the limp corpses unmistakable. Her stomach lurched. She hoped dearly it wasn’t anyone she knew.
Yeah… but what’s the likelihood of that?
Other than the dead, the streets had grown ominously calm. Flitter still heard the din of rampaging timberwolves, but it sounded somewhat distant.
Whatever. At least the screaming stopped.
The beating of wings drew Flitter’s attention. She glanced around, then noticed the figure flying towards her. Flitter’s heart leaped when she heard a familiar voice cry out.
“There you are! Sweet Celestia, what are you still doing out here?”
The other pegasus streaked towards Flitter, not stopping until they collided with a fierce embrace. Flitter beamed, despite having the air squeezed from her. She held a near carbine copy of herself. The two mares would’ve been indistinguishable if not for the other’s spiky mane and lighter blue highlights.
Cloud Chaser stank like a stale sweat house, but Flitter couldn’t help savor the smell. It grounded her, told her what she was feeling and seeing was real. When they finally peeled apart from each other, Cloud Chaser held Flitter at leg’s length. Her face was colored passionately.
“Why the heck didn’t you catch up with us? For buck’s sake, I thought something happened to you!”
Flitter smiled weakly. “A colt got turned around on Baker’s Street… I couldn’t just leave him.”
Cloud Chaser’s expression softened. “Were you able to help him?”
“Yeah, he’s home safe. What about your group?”
“Holed up at city hall. I’ve mainly just been searching for you. We need to hustle back to the castle now.”
Flitter slipped out of Cloud Chaser’s grasp and looked back down. Nothing had changed.
“Should we?” Flitter asked, voice trembling. “What if there’s somepony-”
Cloud Chaser cut her off with a shake of her head. “I don’t think there’s anypony else, Flitter. The streets are empty… haven’t even seen any timberwolves for a minute.”
Flitter’s brow furrowed. “That’s strange. Where could they have gone? I still hear them. It sounds like they’re-”
Both mares turned towards the echoing madness. When they saw the castle at the other end of Ponyville, their eyes widened.
“No…” The word was little more than a gasp wrung from Flitter’s lungs. “How many ponies… I… those doors are strong enough to hold of timberwolves, aren’t they? I mean, it’s a fricken castle!”
Cloud Chaser’s mouth moved, but she said nothing intelligible. It was a long, piercing howl that snapped her back to her senses. This wasn’t the time to dawdle. Cloud Chaser didn’t know what they should do, but just floating around wasn’t it.
Putting a hoof on Flitter’s shoulder, Cloud Chaser said, “We gotta get going, Sis. Maybe there’s-”
“Who the hay is that?” Flitter blurted, pointing.
Slightly irritated, Cloud Chaser followed her sister’s hoof back to the castle. She squinted, not sure what Flitter was talking about. Finally Cloud Chaser saw it. Someone was taking off from one of the castle balconies.
“Probably a flier the Mayor’s sending out,” Cloud Chaser suggested. “We can see when we head back, okay?”
Not waiting for a response, Cloud Chaser sailed on towards the castle. Flitter trailed after her. The sisters were nearly at the castle when they heard a voice on the wind.
Flitter’s ears pricked up. “Are they… yelling?”
“Sure sounds like it,” Cloud Chaser said. “Wonder who they’re- holy crap!”
They nearly collided when Cloud Chaser snapped her wings to halt. Flitter was ready to scold her sister when she saw what gave Cloud Chaser pause. Her jaw dropped.
Flitter stared at the mass of lithe, lumber bodies through a fish-eye lens of terror. Waves of green eyes and flaring nostrils struck them like a spotlight, pinned them in place. A primal chill tickled her hackles. So enthralled by their own horror, the mares forgot of the pegasus drifting around the castle’s towers.
“I’LL END YOU!”
The mares’ heads snapped up. The stranger glowed like a flickering fuse. Flitter’s nostrils stung with the stench of sulfur and crackling ozone.
All of the senseless barking and yipping went silent. There was a sudden weight in the air that threatened to drag the mares earthbound. Flitter nudged Cloud Chaser onward, urging her. Something was wrong, and it was only going to get worse by the second. There would be no time for them to make it to a balcony, however. Everything vanished in one giant flash.
The world became an over saturated negative of itself as Celestia’s fiery right hoof punched through the canvas of the sky. For the first time in pony history, a second sun blossomed over Ponyville.