//------------------------------//
// Blood and Brew 
// Story: Epica: The Fall of Harmony 
// by DaNumbahZer0 
//------------------------------//



The sky exploded.  Shimmering bouts of scarlet streamed through the treetops breaking apart the blackness.  The echoing blast rocked Equestria into seismic chaos, splitting the ground for miles while the deafening reverberation rang out ruthlessly into the night.

The ponies had nearly made their way to Zecora’s hut when the sky tore itself to ribbons.  The boisterous boom had them all writhing in pain; one of Twilight’s ears even dripped with dabbles of blood.  They rolled around helplessly in the underbrush of the forest waiting for the riotous ringing in their heads to subside.  The trees sneered and mocked them in their agony, dancing in the blood-lit night.

When at last the sonic blast had abated, the mares helped one another up.  Their equilibrium shaken, this was no easy task.  Twilight was particularly far gone.  She felt sick, the vociferous quake had certainly ruptured an eardrum, she was sure of it.  Fighting nausea and the ricocheting agony pounding in their heads, the girls pressed on into the tangling groves of the forest.

At long last, the group made their way through the thick brush to the zebra’s hut.  The sight that stood before them left their jaws limp and their mouths speechless.  The straw that lined the roof was a havoc of tangled weaves and bald splotches where the blast must have stripped it.  All the windows were shattered leaving shards of glass piled in heaps around the edgings of the hut and in the scorched remains of her flowerbeds.  Jagged cracks carved their way through the cobblestone walls.  Hulking bits and fragments of stone lay in piles in stretches of the perimeter where the toothy cracks had managed to chisel off segments of the wall.  Zecora’s ornate homeland décor now lay in crumbled pieces around the archway into her home, where her solid wood door had been wrecked and splintered, hanging loosely from its hinges. 

“Jeez!  What in tarnation y’all reckon happened here?”  Applejack asked, scoping out the scene with unbelieving eyes. 

“I don’t know, but we-ow-should go inside and make sure Zecora’s alright,” Twilight responded, still nursing her injured ear, “Come on everypony!”  They all nodded their agreement and Twilight led the way into the hut, stumbling a bit in her current state of disarray. 	
 
What lay in wake beyond the ruined walls proved to mortify the crusaders.  If the exterior was a mess, the inside was a torrent of malevolent discord.  Glass, phials, and other miscellaneous alchemic materials lay sprawled across the wooden floorboards.  A cracked cauldron lay on its side, having dispelled its bubbly contents across the room.  A fire flickered and crackled violently where the fractured iron container once sat atop metal grating, filling the room with a dense layer of smoke.  The chimney must have collapsed during the aerial contusion and was no longer allowing the fumes to escape the confines of the residence.

“Oh my goodness,” Pinkie shrieked, surveying the scene with searching eyes, “what in Equestria happened here?”
The weight of the situation was falling down hard upon the campaigning ponies as they treaded lightly through the wreckage, and Zecora was nowhere to be found.  The hut was deserted.  Every square inch of the place was in ruins, completely disassembled and in shambles.  Even the striped mare’s bed was destroyed, leaving tiny feathers hovering in the murky air, glowing like fireflies in the light of the flames.  

Although the zebra was nowhere in sight, evidence of her presence was written in the walls.  Literally.  Words and rhythmic passages were scored in the wooden halls, accompanied by deeply carven hieroglyphics and ancient script, the likes of which nopony in the room could understand.  

Twilight recognized bits and pieces of the deranged lunacy chiseled in the walls.  They were the lines that she had recited to her from her dream.  Other than that, it was all alien to her.  She was following the familiar text when a terrified squeal cried out from behind her, startling her.  

She whipped around to see Rarity backing away from the wall on the far side of the hut, a look of pure terror engraved in her face.  Rainbow hovered nearby, trying to get a better look at the cause of Rarity’s distress.  As her eyes fell upon the spot, all the color dissipated from her face.   She gasped, slapping both hooves over her mouth.

The others cautiously gathered around the twisted sight.  A familiar metallic scent hung in the smoky atmosphere.  Dripping globs of scarlet trickled down the wall, pooling in the crook of the floor.  Deep grooves were dug into the floorboards, trailing gleaming streaks of crimson from the puddle to the doorway.  
 
The girls cried out in terror and collected in the middle of the room.  They all wore looks of anguish and sheer fright, imaging what malicious fate must have befallen their dear friend.  Before they could begin to decide what to do, a dreadful sound tore through air.  A hoarse silence followed as everypony was too frightened to move.  Another thunderous roar split the night sky.

Fluttershy shrieked, blaring her petrified alarm next to Twilight’s bloody ear.  “Ow!  Fluttershy, what’re yo….” She fell silent, the words catching in her belly and expelled into the vacuum of the never.  Eyes wide as saucers fell upon the instigation of the yellow Pegasus’s terror, and her pulse throbbed in her temples.  And as Twilight stared on, two enormous orange eyes stared back with a black toothed grin….