//------------------------------//
// Hello, Aunt Rarity 
// Story: Broken Blossom 
// by BronyWriter 
//------------------------------//

The next few hours passed like a blur for Blossom. 

She was only vaguely aware of the events around her, but she could pick up bits and pieces every now and again. She felt somepony take what was left of Diamond Tiara out of her forelegs and she felt herself being lifted onto Princess Celestia's back. The sun goddess carried her up the stairs, away from the basement and gently laid her down on the floor. Somepony put a blanket over her shoulders which she supposed she appreciated. It was a little better being a little warmer. 

She saw Princess Celestia standing in front of her. She was looking down at her and her mouth was moving so she must be talking to her. Blossom didn't respond. It was if her mouth was glued shut. Had Diamond Tiara done that? No, if she had then she couldn't have talked to her when she had...

Blossom pushed those thoughts out of her mind and just stared dumbly at Celestia. Aunt Applejack, Aunt Apple Bloom, and Princess Luna were all in front of her too. Aunt Apple Bloom was crying into Aunt Applejack's shoulder while the older mare simply looked dumbly at Blossom's head, paying particular attention to her mangled ear. Princess Luna just silently observed Blossom, hardly moving at all. 

Eventually the door to Carousel Boutique opened and Blossom slowly turned her head to see a team of medical ponies walking in, two of them levitating a stretcher in front of them. She was gently placed on the stretcher and carried into the back of a covered medical wagon. "Just hold on, Blossom, you're going to be just fine," said one of the medics. She sounded like she was miles away. Her voice sounded like quiet echoes and Blossom was hardly sure she had heard her at all.

Through everything that had happened she gained enough presence of mind to whimper out one solitary word. 

"Momma."


*  *  *  *


Applejack and Apple Bloom sat in the waiting room at the hospital, holding each other silently. Apple Bloom had stopped crying halfway to the hospital and Applejack merely stared into space, a haunted expression etched across her face. 

"Ah can't believe it," she whispered after a while. "Ah can't believe this had to happen again to that wonderful filly."

Apple Bloom wiped her eyes and sat up. "Ah've never seen so much blood in mah life," she whimpered. "It was everywhere and Ah didn't know what was Blossom's and which was Tiara's!"

"Now don't you be thinkin' 'bout that," said Applejack. "It won't bring ya nothing if ya do."

Apple Bloom wiped her eyes. "Ah was so scared for her when Ah heard that DT escaped," she whispered. "Ah thought that the worst had h-happened and it almost did!"

"But Blossom's alive and she's gonna be fine," said Applejack. "What happened was beyond unfortunate and it'll take a lotta time for her to heal but she's a strong mare. She'll pull through."

"It ain't that Ah'm worried about!" said Apple Bloom. "Ah'm worried that maybe Blossom's gonna get punished fer this!"

Applejack shook her head. "No. There is no way that's happenin'. You saw what was down there, even if Ah wished that hadn't happened, and Diamond Tiara was gonna kill her. Blossom defended herself, simple as that."

Apple Bloom nodded and the two sisters sat in silence for a few more minutes before the double doors leading to the E.R. opened in front of them and the Royal Sisters walked out. The Apples immediately got to their hooves. "How is she?" asked Applejack. 

"Blossom will be fine," said Princess Celestia "Both now and going forward. Based on the evidence what she did to Diamond Tiara was not murder. Blossom had knockout drugs in her system and wounds that Diamond Tiara inflicted upon her. Diamond Tiara took her down to that basement to kill her and Blossom killed Diamond Tiara to prevent that. I will not punish her for that."

Apple Bloom and Applejack both breathed sighs of relief. "Can we see her now?" asked Applejack.

"I suppose if you want to, though she is resting now," said Princess Celestia. "She's in room 13B."

Without waiting for another word from Celestia the two ran towards Blossom's room. It was thankfully only a short ways away from the E.R. entrance and the two of them walked through the door into Blossom's room. What they saw made them both gasp. Blossom was lying on a bed in the middle of the room. There was an oxygen mask over her face and an IV in her right foreleg. Her right ear was wrapped up in bandages, the tip stained red. Her right leg was also wrapped up in blood soaked bandages. 

A doctor was standing next to Blossom's bed, taking notes on a clipboard. He looked up when he saw the two mares walk in. "I know she looks bad, but she's going to be fine."

"What happened to her?" Applejack asked. 

The doctor sighed and looked down at his clipboard. "The upper sixth of her left ear was severed and she sustained a large knife wound just above her left cutie mark that required twenty-six stitches. There is of course the obvious damage to her mane and tail as well. Blood tests we did found knockout drugs in her system and she began hyperventilating when we took her in to get the stitches. We gave her a mild sedative and she's resting peacefully now. She'll have to take a few painkillers in the next couple of days to dull the considerable pain she's going to be in, but for now she's asleep." The doctor managed a weak smile. "If you look into her eyes you can see she's in REM sleep right now. She's dreaming."

"Ah hope she's havin' good dreams, doc," whispered Apple Bloom.


*  *  *  *


When Blossom awoke it was nighttime. She was in a room in the hospital, lying a a plain white bed. Her eyes scanned the room, searching for somepony who might be around so she could ask what was going on. Nopony was on her left side, so she turned her head to the right and that's when she saw it. A silhouette of a pony sitting on a chair beside her, watching her sleep. 

Frowning, Blossom turned on the light beside the bed and who she saw made her yelp in surprise. 

White body, dark purple mane, three blue gems for a cutie mark... Blossom's eyes. It was her. "Aunt Rarity?" Blossom whispered. 

Rarity merely stared silently at Blossom for a second before she slowly nodded and stood up, beckoning Blossom onwards. Blossom hopped out of bed just as Rarity exited the room and raced out after her aunt. When she was out of her room, she saw Rarity turn the corner down the hallway leading to the exit of the hospital. Blossom quickly ran after her, hoping to catch up to her so she could ask what was going on. But no matter how fast she ran she couldn't catch up to her aunt. She always seemed to be ten steps ahead of her. 

Eventually Blossom made it out of the hospital and into the streets of Ponyville. The entire town was covered in a thick blanket of fog and Blossom could only barely make out a purple blur in the distance that she ran after. Like in the hospital, no matter how fast she ran Rarity was always ahead of her, despite the fact that Rarity seemed to be trotting along at a leisurely pace. 

"Aunt Rarity slow down!" Blossom pleaded. "I can't keep up with you!" 

Despite her pleas Rarity did not slow down for her niece and instead remained ahead of her. Blossom was about to call out again but she saw a large, dark shape looming in the distance. A few seconds of running forwards revealed the shape's identity: Carousel Boutique. What's more, the front door was open. 

Blossom walked through the door and into the house. The door slammed behind her, covering the house in pitch black darkness so that Blossom could not even see her own hoof in front of her face. Growling in frustration, she illuminated her horn just in time to see a curly purple tail dart behind a doorway. 

The doorway that led to the basement.

Despite every internal warning bell she possessed sounding off, Blossom slowly walked towards the basement door and when she reached it, she trotted down the stairs. 

She reached the bottom, and Tartarus was revealed to her. 

It was decorated just like it had been in its glory days. Manes, tails, and hides decorated the walls which were caked in blood. A large workbench was placed against the opposite wall and it was popped open revealing a large compartment filled with knives of every kind. However, it was what was in the middle of the room that horrified Blossom the most. 

Her aunt Rarity was adjusting knives on a large tray that was similar to the one that Diamond Tiara had used when Blossom was strapped to the table. Next to the tray was a large metal table, fitted with leather straps. Straps that were securing...

"Lilly?"

Blossom's step-mother was strapped to the table, sobbing her eyes out. Where her horn normally was, now there was only an open wound oozing blood. Her severed horn lay on the ground at her hooves. 

Seeing Blossom come in, Rarity smiled at her and levitated one of the knives into the air. Blossom took an uneasy step backwards, unwilling to watch her aunt murder her step-mother. But Rarity did not attack Lilly. Instead she rotated the knife so that the handle was pointing towards Blossom. Rarity smiled at her niece and motioned towards the knife, then at Lilly. 

Blossom looked blankly at the scene before her for a moment before she slowly walked up to the knife. She examined it in the air. It was the same kind that she had used to kill Diamond Tiara. It seemed just as sharp as the one that she had used too so she knew that she was capable of using it to cut Lilly to ribbons. 

She shakily began reaching a hoof towards it, ignoring Lilly's sobs beside her. She didn't know how her aunt had gotten Lilly, but here she was. Here was a knife. They were alone in the basement with nopony there to stop her if she wanted to do this. 

As she continued reaching for the knife, she saw Rarity standing next to her, an increasingly large smile on her face. She turned to Rarity and Rarity nodded and motioned towards the knife. 

"No," Blossom whispered. 

With a snarl of rage Blossom batted the knife down and kicked over the tray of knives. "I'M NOT YOU!" she screamed. 

Rarity's grin faded and she took an uneasy step back. With another snarl, Blossom leaped forward and tacked Rarity to the ground. She got on top of her and began repeatedly slamming her hooves into Rarity's face. "Why does everypony think that I'm just like you?! You're evil; you're pure evil and you ruined my life!" Each blow brought forth only silence from Rarity, but Blossom continued on. "They kept saying it, that day in the woods, they kept saying that I was gonna be like you, and for one second I believed them and now look at me! Now look at your sister! Now look at everything you've done! Was it worth it? Was it worth it to satisfy your sick, twisted urges?!"

Blossom grabbed Rarity's head between her hooves and slammed it on the ground as hard as she could. "I. AM. NOT. YOU!!!!" 

Rarity slowly brought a foreleg to her face and wiped off the blood that had begun oozing from the various lacerations that Blossom had caused during her assault. She put her foreleg down and to Blossom's surprise, she began chuckling. "Of course you're not me, darling." Rarity turned her head towards the table and tapped one of the legs. "But why in Equestria does that mean you are incapable of doing this?"


*  *  *  *


With a scream Blossom bolted up in bed. It took a few seconds of looking around to see that she wasn't in Carousel Boutique's basement, but still in a hospital bed. 

Her scream had awoken Applejack and Apple Bloom and they were by her side in an instant. Applejack wrapped Blossom in a hug. "Shh. It's alright, sugarcube, yer safe now."

Blossom wrapped her forelegs around Applejack's shoulders and began sobbing. "I don't want to hurt anypony," she whimpered. "I'm not like Aunt Rarity; I'm not!"