Twilight stared at the bodies and filled with dread as she started to realize her situation. There had been some bones of long past victims there as well with the newer victims laying down in front of her with their mold-covered flesh and with swarms of tiny black flies moving in and out of tiny openings in their bodies. Twilight turned over to a group of masked ponies that sat with blank featureless expressions as they stared at the campfire. None of them seemed to look at her but it just stared blankly into the flames. All of their nightmare masks were worn with age and dust. Twilight knew these were Ponyville citizens but she didn’t dare to take the masks off. Twilight’s breaths were getting more shaky and ragged by each minute as she slowly started to feel trapped. She looked at the darkness beyond the light of the fire then at the group of strangers with a weak trembling smile.
“I…I get it. If you’re here to test me, then test me. I know why you’re presenting this” she rasped before chuckling at the fire. “You want to prove that I have limits. I know you’re presenting me with the bodies I was looking for, but you got me… You got me really good” she walked over to the corpse of Lyra and lifted her head up with magic before slamming it with a glare of frustration and a chuckle of instability. “YOU GOT ME, I’M ALONE NOW. I know you’ve been slowly chipping away at my shell of perseverance and see my true state. So now you see it. You see it, how deeply afraid and frustrated I am. Are you happy now?! Are you happy your tall slender bitch?! YOU SLENDERMARE!” she cackled again and levitated out a piece of wood before bashing it against the ground in a hopeless fit of rage.
She continued smashing the wood as little splinters and embers flicked off of it until she felt the pain in her horn again. The fire started them as tendril-like shadows moved in the darkness. Twilight yelped with recognition as the ringing in her ears and the throbbing ache in her horn started up again. She crawled to the very edge of the room as the fire quickly faded and she was left with nothing but the sight of the tendrils surrounding her. Each strobing blink she saw the consuming black shadows surrounding her but yet they weren’t enclosing. In her fetal position, she wept and wept.
She was alone again. Friends separated and the same creature that haunted her now looming over her as it tested her. She could tell that it was standing over her now as a headache had reached its most extreme point. As she screamed from the burning sensation from her brain and horn she heard the slightest whisper.
“I understand you. Now understand me.”
Applejack moved around in the darkness bumping into tables she didn’t see, pushing metal chairs that she didn’t see either. Her voice echoed through the darkness but yet no response. The farm filly continued to blindly move about only relying on her sense of touch and smell. AJ knew she was in a cafeteria, but what floor? And what side of the star? She continued feeling about the room before touching a wet and slick tile wall. It felt nasty on her hooves, but at least she had a point of reference. She continued to walk while feeling around it and sometimes tripping over a chair leg that she didn’t see. She then, after a bit of fumbling and stumbling, reached what seemed to be where a door once was and with her other hooves she felt a lightswitch. She flicked it on and only two of the plate-shaped lights turned on. This cafeteria was smaller than what the first floor portrayed. The foldable metal chairs were missing their stuffing and the tables were splattered with old military meals that rotted under the light. Applejack looked down at her hooves with a flinch as she checked each one of them for signs of rotten schmuck. When she saw indeed, she did step in some, she entered a panic frenzy and started smearing her hooves on the dirty squared-shaped tiles on the wall. This only made things worse because now she got dirt and dust on her fur. The ick was gone but now she had little pieces of dust and grime covering patches of her orange fur. She quickly walked out the room and slammed her hoof into the old wooden floorboards.
“Damn it! Why did I get left here? I should’ev told Twilight about my thoughts about this whole journey, honestly, I hate what we’re getting into. My farm has been disturbed. My sister eaten by a damn vampony. But now I’m stuck by myself! Honestly, I haven’t been honest. I haven’t been honest about my cluelessness, about how I don’t know what my life will be after this. I know Twilight and probably Fluttershy has a plan for moving on but I just feel lost. Granny and Big Mac left. My friends and even the damn changeling are ignoring me… probably because I’m blubbering my mouth too much. Maybe I’ve been too honest about things.” She slammed her hooves into the floorboards again, which caused them to crack. “I’m alone and everypony ignoring me! Why can’t it just be like back in the days when we defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis?!!”
Suddenly AJ heard soft hoofsteps really close to her flank. In her rage-state mind she turned around to punch whoever was behind her but before she did she felt the powerful forehooves of the pony she was about to punch slam into her ribcage and toss her against a wall. She groaned in pain and winced up to see the attacker be illuminated by the cafeteria light. The figure was taller than her and wore a wornout yellow hoodie with a large black piece of wool clothing obscuring its face with a crudely painted frowning face. Strangely enough, it resembled the same frowning face that was in the mysterious letter AJ had received. Was this perhaps the pony who sent it?
“Are you one of them!? Are you here to end my life? Damn it, if you’re gonna kill me just kill me!”
The stranger didn’t answer as the element of honesty glared daggers into its painted red dots. Then the stranger trotted up and looked down at the seething Applejack.
“Ehhh, nope!”
Applejack’s eyes and muzzle shifted from defensive fear to one of somber recognition. “Big…Big Mack don't tell me you’re one of them. Please tell me you’re not, just tell me you’re here to help.” She started to whimper mid-sentence as she spoke, her words sounded caught in her confused emotional state and almost matched her whimpers. She felt as if she was drowning in a large pool of grey dirty water, with the only thing she knew being her suffocation and that there was something waiting for her down below. This emotion was called despair.
“Neither, sis I care about you. I know you shouldn't be chasing things that you can never beat, speaking these words as your big brother. Granny and I are waiting for you to come back. We know ya’ll got a vendetta for this fuck’n thing, but ya’ll be none the wiser if keep trying to stop it.”
The younger apple farmer nibblely slammed her hoofs into her larger brother’s shoulders, only getting a minor flench out of him. “HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! APPLE BLOOM IS DEAD AND YOU’RE NOT BOTHERED BY IT?! Huh, I thought you had a fuck’en heart, but you an’t batting a single fucking eye.” she huffed with a smirk as she continued staring into the red dots,
Big Mack then swiftly turned around and bucked her in the ribs, making her fly back to the dirty tiled walls.” you think that I don’t care! A couple of minutes ago you were just blabbering on about your hidden pain, hopelessness, and fear. I’ve thought you would be reviled by my offer to head back, but instead, you just continued your suicidal quest, and also caught this bitch in the halls.” The stallion then walked back into the darkness and dragged out a limp Octavia who had her forelegs tied to her barrel with a long and thin rope.
“Mack…. that's our frien-”
“I DONT CARE! She helped in this, she an’t nothing but a rabid dog, bitting and foaming around in the dark with fear, Saw her during the war, she was nothing like this back then.”
The violinist turned slowly turned her head towards Aj, her mask was already off her face and there was clear confusion in her eyes, then there was fear. “I-I did it again..d-did I try to hurt him?? No no don't tell me I tried to, don't tell me, no no I'm sorry. Not again not-”
Big Mack then slammed his hoofs into her back, she screamed in agonizing pain as the force of his shock through her lungs.
“Fucking stop it, Big Mack! She dosent desver your rage!” Applejack quickly started to get onto her hooves before rushing to one of the chairs in the cafeteria before stopping as Octivia started to sniffle.
“He is right, I am cursed. Im tired of it all. Im tired of hurting ponies in my sleep. Just end my suffering here ok!” She screamed up to him with tears flowing down her eyes as she took in her self-hatred.
Applejack then bit around the chair’s hinges and charged at her brother with a muffeled battle cry as she slammed the side of the chair into his muzzle. The larger stallion fumbled back with blood leaking out of the cloth that covered his face, before he could recover she slammed the chair into his neck, causing him to limply fall to the floor. Before AJ could prepare another swing into her brother’s face, she could hear skittering hooves rapidly approaching down the hall. The sound stopped 13 feet in front of her before a bloody crimson light of a horn glowed, revealing the python-like face of Vinyl, with her jaw unhinged with nothing but darkens in her gapping mouth.
“LEAVE MY LOVE ALONE! LEAVE MY FOOD ALONE!”
Thorax awoke inside the darkness like everyone else, but he felt under his hooves the creaky soft surface of a mattress. As the violet glow of his spiked horn dimly illuminated the surrounding area. You could see that he was in the living quarters where all the wounded had originally rested. Dirt and grime had covered the beds with old leaves covering the floor that drifted in from the cracked window behind him. By the looks of things, he was on ground level again but forgot which side of the star he was currently located. As he slowly stepped off the bed he felt a presence of territorial hunger and heard the creaking of wood. In the darkness, four pairs of the fiery yellow eyes glared at him as they rose. The timberwolves appeared to have made this room their den. The wispy snarls echoed off the walls as they circled around the changeling. Thorax felt he understood their need to protect their plantlike cubs, but at the same time, he had places to be. As his mind focused on the energies in the area and the mathematical components as well, five metal glowing velvet disks slowly started to coalesce around him. The first timberwolf took the opening and opened its mouth as it charged at his forelegs before the sound of its wooden body splintering and cracking as the first disk glided through it. The second and the third backed up with caution as their eyes switched between the changeling and the thaumaturgical disk he weld. Thorax had a hard time maintaining and forming the disks. Their energy had to be tapped into a perfect shape as his mind kept trying to balance out the energy whilst creating new disks. He then threw the two that had already shaped into the other timberwolves as one cracked in half like the first one and the other at its backside sawed off as it tried to dodge. Thorax then turned his eyes to the last one as it stood in front of the cubs with anger and fear. Thorax disarmed the spell and walked away from the remaining timberwolf.
But, before his hoof could press down on the lever of the door. The hoofs appeared to manifest before his bug-like eyes before slamming near said eye as he got knocked to the ground. He held the side of his face with a grunt of pain while squinting with his oily carapice lids. Out of the darkness, the scorched and twisted face of Iron Spade smiled down at Thorax with vengeful glee.
“You know, it’s kind of disappointing that I couldn’t kill the princess of friendship but I guess I’m standing in front of a suitable replacement for my rage. And don’t worry you insect, I’m not one with that faceless bitch. I just need some alleviation, something to satisfy my anger since the pony I was targeting prevented me from getting my way. You on the other hoof, I remember from the war and ache in pain from the past. I hate your kind and I hate that we’re in the same position as fugitives. So let me put you out of your misery before I do the same to myself.”
Before the serial killer veteran could thrust his combat knife into the Betrayer of the Hives head. The changeling tackled into his lower barrel with buzzing wings as Iron Spade’s back slammed into the wall from the momentum. Thorax smirked into the killer’s veiny red eyes.
“You know, for a changeling-hating specieist, you are somehow my type. I remember I had a crush on my brother’s thranxs even if he wasn’t the most accepting about and was a down right asshole about it. Somehow I just happened to find stallions of a “common shittiness” attractive, but for you, you’re anger fills me with even more joy because now I can taste my own victory with your anger. As the foals of Equestria put it nowadays, seethe and cope my friend.” Thorax reared back his head before slashing down his horn into Iron Spade’s head, or at least that’s what should have happened. Instead, the changeling slammed his head into the wall as the rest of his body hit the ground. Thorax let out an agonizing groan as he felt his horn still vibrating from the thud and the dent he had placed into the wall. As Thorax continued to rub his horn, he felt the moist hot stinking breath of Iron Spade brush against his fins.
“You forgot something bug, you ever wonder how I get around so quickly? Due to the partial infection from the silent queen. I got some of their symptoms. I can now physically become part of shadows in the darkness. Fortunately, there’s lots of darkness in this room. So, little bug, the odds are in my favor right now.”
Thorax then whipped a spell back at Iron Spade but yet, the kinetic bolt merely glided across him before its light showed that Iron Spade was seven beds down, laying down on one them as the light disaped.
“Have your fun catching me!”
Fluttershy was alone like the rest. She couldn’t really tell where she was at, but when felt the walls they felt metal and bendy as she pressed her hoof down on them. As she looked in the direction of her hoof that pressed down on the wall she guessed that the part of the building she had been teleported to was very narrow, this was confirmed when she placed her other hoof on the other walls and felt the same cold bending metal. She then decided to start moving her hoof across the walls while walking forward, as she did she the tips of her hooves landed on a softer surface before landing on cold steel. This happened about 16 times before she felt her face bump into a glassy surface. She groaned wearily as she rubbed her nose as she stared into the empty blackness in front of her and then tapped on it. It sounded like very hard glass and it was cold like the rest of the room. Her hoof then glided down the glass and felt a thin piece of sealed and bent around the glass with bumps of metal bolts nailed into it. She was in front of a door, she was in front of a locked door that she only knew was there because she felt it. She then kicked at it and felt only the hardwood vibrate from the kick. She turned around and stared back at where she first appeared. Her wings slowly flared out and as they did one of her feathers grazed against a light switch and suddenly her vision was flooded with light. She closed her eyes from the sudden burst of light and as her eyes slowly settled to the brightness she slowly opened them. Her vision was greeted with a morgue, a morgue that had been left untouched and clean for the last 10 years or so. She then turned back to the door and started out at the glass into the darkness. Even though if she was trapped she felt safe from whatever awaited her friends, But the thought of her being the only one in safety while her friends suffered made her cry. She hated the thought of her being the only one of her friends coming out of there alive. She didn’t want this, she didn't want to feel responsible for leaving her friends to die, this was going against who she was and the element she embodied. It then dawned on her that this safety wasn’t a blessing, it was an act of mockery. She cried and yelled as she scraped her hooves across the wooden surface of the doors with the fear of her friends' lives rather than her own.