She had learned a long time ago that magic was the ability to recognize potentials and their relations to your self and to others. The trick was to develop the senses unique to unicorns and their alicorn cousins – beyond Aristrotle's classic five senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, beyond the further senses that arose from sensation and body – balance, pain, the countless twitches and twinges of the vegetative nervous system – and from feelings and mind and soul – empathy, significance, closure, or transcendence.
She was, strictly speaking, no longer Twilight Sparkle, but a passive receptacle for immediate experience, freed from the prison of self. With no ordinary senses or instincts to fall back upon, she perceived only reification and dissolution of possibility, a spider web of coincidence and synchronicity unifying lonely bubbles of being over vast distances.
She floated in a disassociated state, not thinking, not providing any fragment of narrative for the surroundings to build upon. Impossibly distant not-lights flashed, pulling worlds into this strange, hungry place. There was a mind here, but she was trapped inside its brain, watching the flashes as potentials built and returned to ground state.
Oh, hello, cosmic hyper-brain. Would you be a nice cosmic hyper-brain and not eat us all? I'll say “please” and ask politely. Then we can all be friends and have a little tea party and I'll write a letter to Celestia about how even vastly incomprehensible alien life forms can make good friends if you just give them a chance...
The disturbing thing about the spectacle that played out in her mind was the certainty that her message was, at most, some kind of autonomic twinge for the entity. It could no more understand individual minds than she could talk to an individual cell in her own body. She wondered what it was doing to her, if it was neither willing or able to communicate.
She felt dizzy and nauseous. It was like – No, don't remember it will –
Entheogens were often used to help unicorns learn to heed their other senses, poisons that sent the mind reeling, distorted perceptions, and, under the right conditions, forced the student to confront new ways to perceive. The most common one was a nasty brew, a tea made of dried witch-weed, that tasted rank and metallic.
Celestia has insisted on supervising Twilight's witch-weed trial personally. Young Twilight Sparkle was a problematic student – her history of powerful magical surges and difficulty controlling her talents made the faculty leery of her. Worse yet, it alienated her from the other students, who treated her like a show-off when she succeeded and an idiot when she failed.
Stop that, Twilight. You're remembering. This place is made of stories, and your life story belongs to you, not it. You can't let it –
The teapot hovered in the air, stopped over the low table, and set down. She looked at it and despaired. She looked at it and...
...somewhere far away was another teapot.
Twilight felt the hairs of her mane stand up as a terrible potential built up. Suddenly, not thinking was no longer a struggle. She was a part of the network, a sensory organ sent to look for something.
She had found it. Now it was her turn to forward the stimulus and await the response.
Have we finally found what we were looking for?
-------
“Like I told you, just a hop, skip, and a jump. Easy!” Pinkie Pie beamed and gestured towards the vaguely familiar-looking buildings on the outskirts of town. “This even looks like Ponyville!”
Fluttershy said nothing, sat down, and examined the scene carefully. Pinkie had trouble reading her face. She looked younger. The wrinkles were gone, and the streaks of gray had disappeared from her mane, but there was this haunted, distant look in her eyes, and that funny little bump on her forehead was still there, and she sometimes cried in her sleep.
“No. Not Ponyville. Layout's different, lots of empty lots and abandoned houses.” Fluttershy's voice was quiet, flat, and emotionless. “Rainbow Dash is here. I can feel it.”
Pinkie bounced over to Fluttershy. She had felt it, too! “Come on! Let's get her out of here, huh?”
“Yeah, before something bad happens.” Fluttershy frowned.
Pinkie bounced towards the first street corner, and Fluttershy slinked behind her. As they passed a boarded-up storefront, a canary-yellow mare and her little cyan foal stopped suddenly as they caught a glimpse of Pinkie.
“Hi there! Which way to Sugarcube Corner?” Pinkie beamed at them with the biggest, friendliest smile she had.
The yellow mare leaped up in the air, emitted a strangled scream, snatched her foal, and ran away in the opposite direction.
Pinkie Pie sat down and rubbed her chin as Fluttershy caught up to her.
“Wow. That's really off-putting, isn't it? Do I still do that? Like, a lot?”
-------
Rainbow Dash had had her share of bad mornings, and this looked like another one.
Pounding headache? Check.
Sore all over? Check.
She opened her bleary eyes and tried to wriggle.
What? Oh, no...
It was embarrassing enough thinking about the last time she woke up stuck to the floor.
Then she noticed the straps. Her uncertain gaze followed the strap on her fore-hoof to the metal frame to which she was bound.
Ohmigosh.
She heard the mechanical grinding of a winch, pulling the frame upright. She slumped in her fetters.
“You dirty little bitch. When I kill you, you damn well better stay dead.”
Rainbow Dash looked at the figure standing before her on her back hooves next to a metal stand holding an array of surgical instruments – scalpels, saws, clamps, syringes, oh my!
Scanning her hips, Rainbow Dash recognized her cutie mark – but her tail was limp and straight, not a riot of curls.
Rainbow Dash kept looking. She saw a sallow pink chest, a straight dark magenta mane. She looked at the standing figure's face.
She saw tiny pupils in big watery blue irises, surrounded by a rim of dark blue on blood-shot whites. The figure's mouth was tight and grim, frowning darkly. This was a mouth that hadn't smiled in quite a while.
“Who are you supposed to be?” Rainbow Dash didn't care that she was tied to a rack, didn't care that the pony standing in front of her looked a little like Pinkie Pie. This was obviously not Pinkie, her face was too cruel and callous. She was standing perfectly still, like a snake waiting to strike, and didn't look like she was about to bounce off the nearest wall.
I don't think Pinkie Pie could do that even if she wanted to.
“Don't you recognize your old friend?” She stepped forward, her nose almost touching Rainbow Dash's. “Pinkamena... Diane... Pi–”
The introduction gave Dash a moment.
Rainbow Dash had never been the most disciplined pony, and she was all too aware that she had poor impulse control and often did not think before acting. However, she had always had an edge, an ability to sense opportunities and take them, and was observant enough to see them more often than not.
Her situation was clear. She had to defend herself, or she was going to die.
Her resources were limited. She could not move her legs – but her wings were free.
She had one chance, and in the instant Pinkamena came close enough, she took it.
She lashed out with both wings, swung them in a broad arc, and aimed the tips at Pinkamena's eyes.
Pinkamena sensed the beginning of the strike, and pulled back in the five milliseconds she had to react.
Pinkamena didn't get very far. The right wingtip just broke the sound barrier before it struck the tip of her muzzle, breaking her nose.
The left wingtip missed, and a sharp crack reverberated through the small, bunker-like chamber as it overextended, swiping into empty space. Pinkamena's head twisted, throwing out an arc of blood from her snout as she lost her balance.
Rainbow Dash was preparing for a second strike with her right wing when she saw Pinkamena crumple to the floor, blood gushing from her muzzle. Her left wing burned at the base, and her right wing smarted at the tip.
Oh damn. That's gonna hurt.
Pinkamena was down, but Rainbow Dash wasn't sure how long she'd stay down. Flapping her wings hurt terribly, but it got her enough altitude to grab the top cross-bar of the frame with her mouth. Hanging from her mouth relieved the strain on the straps attached to her fore-hooves, and gave her enough slack to try to release the strap's buckle.
Her first attempt didn't work, but she kept trying.
-------
The bakery didn't look right.
Sugarcube Corner was surrounded by empty lots overgrown with young shrubby crooked trees, towards the outskirts of town. The decorative facade was weathered and cracked and faded, and several of the windows were blacked out. The effect was desolate and frightening – the gingerbread house style bakery had been turned into a monster by abuse and neglect.
“What happened?” Pinkie Pie was close to tears.
“She's in there, isn't she?” Fluttershy narrowed her eyes and looked at the decayed building.
Neither of them wanted to come closer to the battered front door, but they did anyway. The window was blacked out.
“What do we do? Ring the doorbell?” There was a suspicious-looking dark brown stain on the button that probably wasn't chocolate.
Fluttershy's mouth tightened. “I think that might not be a very good idea.”
Pinkie Pie pulled a small key from her locks of mane and tried to unlock the door.
The door swung open.
The unfamiliar scent of formaldehyde and decay wafted through the open doorway. The girls entered the front room. The bell over the front door had been removed, but the bracket it hung from remained.
Fluttershy stared into the room, transfixed. Pinkie Pie turned green and rushed out to vomit on the front steps.
Black flies buzzed through the foul-smelling, stale air. The tables usually piled with baked goods were piled with black-brown decayed things that neither of the girls wanted to examine too closely, covered with flies. Behind the counter...
Pinkie returned, wiping her muzzle on her fore-hoof. Fluttershy stared at the thing behind the counter.
“Fluttershy, stop looking at it. I mean it!”
The headless, mummified corpse of a pale yellow pegasus was propped behind the counter, wings spread. On a silver plate in front of her was a bleached pony skull decorated with a tanned scalp bearing strands of straight pink hair. Two blue glass eyes looked out from the skull's eye sockets.
“It's all right, Pinkie. I'm here with you, so that's not me.” Fluttershy was calm. “It's kind of reassuring. I went through a lot of stuff before you found me. I was hoping it all wasn't real. Now I know.”
Fluttershy may have seemed calm, but Pinkie Pie could see that she was a little unsteady on her hooves. They needed to get moving.
A muffled scream came from below.
-------
Rainbow Dash hung limply from a single strap.
Two barbed darts protruded from her chest, and two thin wires lead to the plastic gun Pinkamena held in a fore-hoof, a plastic device that resembled a little boy's toy ray gun. An arc of confetti-like colored discs were spread on the floor between them.
Rainbow Dash's muscles still spasmed, but she was dimly aware of her surroundings.
Pinkamena smiled smugly, two rivulets of blood trickling down from her nostrils. She was looking through the eyepieces of a periscope.
“Well, I'll be dipped – looks like the dead've come home.” She laughed mirthlessly. “It's a special reunion party. Looks like I'll even get to do myself. What a trip...”
Pinkamena put down the taser and retrieved a large, long barreled revolver from the metal stand next to her. She aimed the gun at Rainbow Dash's head.
“We're kinda running out of time. Looks like you'll miss the party.”
There was the crashing sound of a door being bucked off its hinges. A high, panicked voice cried out.
“Rainbow! We're coming for you!”
Rainbow Dash tried to smile. Pinkie Pie.
“Girl, you were always such a... party pooper.” Pinkamena cocked the hammer.
A relay triggered with a clunk. The lights went out.
“Fluttershy, what – ” Pinkie Pie panicked.
Wings flapped in the dark. Pinkamena aimed for the sound and pulled the trigger.
Her aim was thrown off. In the muzzle flash, Rainbow Dash saw a pair of back hooves connect with Pinkamena's chest, bucking her into the far wall. A metal stand fell over, and tools clattered on the concrete floor.
Pinkamena groaned, and then the sound of increasingly wet thuds filled the darkness. Something screamed incoherently, a guttural sound of pain and rage that echoed in the basement torture chamber.
The relay clunked again as Pinkie Pie found a light switch.
The sudden illumination caught Fluttershy by surprise, and she stopped pummeling the bloody and unconscious Pinkamena. The adrenaline was wearing off, and Fluttershy shook a bit. She turned her blood-spattered face to look at Rainbow Dash.
Pinkie had bound over to Rainbow Dash and was releasing her from her straps. Rainbow Dash returned Fluttershy's wavering gaze.
“Fluttershy, you have blood on your face.”
“I don't think it's mine.”
“Let's get out of here! I wanna go somewhere fun!”
The three friends were somewhat shaky as they made their way out of the bakery. On the way out the front door, Pinkie Pie leaped up and darted to the kitchen.
There was a loud crash and the sound and smell of gas joined the flies and the decay. Pinkie Pie seemed to be in a hurry to get out, and rushed her surprised friends out the door. Her face was a little green.
“Girls, be really, really, really glad you didn't go in the kitchen. We need to run!”
Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie rushed from the desolate bakery as the first detonation blew out the walls and lifted the gingerbread roof off the house on a column of flame.
Rainbow Dash looked back at the burning ruin. She was shaking, but also smiling and laughing.
“Knew you guys would come for me!”
-------
She looked at the teapot. Legal was contacted the team, and it looked like they'd have to redesign most of the main cast.
It was as good an excuse as any to write another draft of the pilot script.
Her fingers danced on the keyboard.
She turned to pour herself a cup of tea and took a moment to look at what she wrote.
“Gospel of John – no, that's too weird. Let's try 'Once upon a time...'”