//------------------------------// // My handsome little cherub, close your eyes // Story: Herald // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------//         Pound Cake trembled, clinging to his mother's soft shoulder as thunder rolled beyond the windows to the nursery.         Cup Cake smiled, holding him close in tender-loving forelimbs. Soft orange candlelight danced across her features as she sat with the tiny infant in a wooden rocking chair. As the storm bellowed beyond the shadows of night, she nuzzled his little wings and hummed, producing a soft, soothing melody with her motherly voice. Eventually, Pound Cake relaxed, and his shivers settled as slumber took over.         Standing up, Mrs. Cake carried Pound as she slowly trotted over to the far end of the nursery. She approached the simple wooden crib where Pumpkin Cake already lay, curled up and sleeping.         "My handsome little cherub, close your eyes," Cup Cake breathily sang under the tremors of the storm. "Mommy's going to give you clear blue skies."         She tucked Pound in and pulled a woolen blanket over his diminutive figure. He curled into a fetal position, his infant lips smiling peacefully as she stroked his feather-soft mane with a loving hoof.         "So you’ll laugh and dance and play in the air..." Cup Cake's eyes sparkled with endearment as she gazed at his placid features. "And sing the song of angels everywhere..."         There was a horrible ringing sound in Mrs. Cake's ears, but that's not what woke her up. A loud crashing sound had gone off outside, as if a chunk of Sugarcube Corner had fallen off its foundation and smashed through a line of empty garbage cans. When she sat up in bed, it was with a startled shout, and all that her wide, brimming eyes saw were dark shadows.         It was nearly pitch black inside. No light came through the windows, as if the curtains hanging before them had grown thick as iron. There was a stuffiness about the place, like a dreaded vacuum had consumed the top floor of Sugarcube Corner.         "C-Carrot?!" Cup Cake stammered, looking left and right. Her bedroom was empty, save for her tremorous murmurs. "Carrot, honey bun, what time is it?" She glanced at the bedside table and trembled even more. The alarm clock was dead. She reached over and pulled the switch to her lamp, but no light came on. The power was off. "Carrot, wh-where are you, darling?"         There was no reply. Mrs. Cake was alone. Her ears still rang, but beyond that everything was dead silent. She still couldn't guess what had made the crashing sound from earlier. Was it something outside? Something downstairs?         With nervous shivers, Cup Cake kicked the covers off and limped out of bed. She was surprised at how sore her muscles were, as if she had run some marathon the day before. A wincing expression crossed her features as she spent the next minute and a half trying to stand up straight. While she did so, the room came into greater focus, as well as the reason for why it was so dark.         "What in Celestia's n-name...?"         The windows were boarded up. And from the inside too. She stumbled towards them, feeling the splintery planks of wood with a nervous blue hoof. The boards had been nailed into place, and quite messily too. It was certainly no carpenter's job, and yet, as she attempted in futility to pull and tug on one of the planks, it refused to budge. She squinted curiously at the seams between the wooden slats. Through the thin spaces, she saw muddy gray light, and the vaporous hint of a fog.         The house shook; there was another crash. Cup Cake spun with a yelp, her ears twitching. The sound had come from somewhere beyond the north end, as if rattling off the patio outside.         "Carrot?!" She shivered where she stood. "Carrot, I-I'm scared! Where are you? What's going on?! Why is our house so dark?"         At the tail end of her shouts, deader silence filled the air. She trotted briskly towards the door to the hallway and was surprised when it barely budged. As her heart began beating faster and faster, Cup Cake pushed and shoved against the door. It was like shoving against the entrance to a silo filled with dense flour. At last, she was able to burst her way into the hall. To her shock, she discovered a stack of chairs, tables, and other furniture lying up against the entrance to her bedroom. The hallway was just as dark, with many more windows boarded up and several bits of junk lying on the floor.         The ruby irises in Mrs. Cake's eyes shrank as her confusion was replaced with pallid fear.         "Dear Celestia..." She spun towards the far end of the hallway. "The foals..." She galloped speedily towards the other end, jumping and tripping over fallen piles of refuse. "Pumpkin! Pound!"         With a single bound, she slammed the nursery door open. The ringing intensified here, and a whimper escaped Cup Cake's lips.         "No... oh Goddess, please, n-no..."         She trotted limply forward and slumped down in front of the crib. It had fallen over and was completely empty. She lifted and tossed aside the baby blankets in numb disbelief. All was dust and silence. A cold draft billowed against her coat, even though the windows were all boarded shut.         "Carrot... Oh Carrot, the babies!" Tears sprang from her eyes as she cuddled a blanket to herself, nuzzling it, tasting of the faint scent of her colt and filly. "Carrot, the foals are g-gone!" She sobbed and wailed towards the ceiling. "Oh, my sweet, handsome cherub.  My darling girl.  Where are our babies?!"         Amidst her hyperventilating heaves, she glanced across the room. All of the toys were scattered in the corner. The changing table had fallen over, forming a pile of discarded hygiene products beneath a pair of boarded windows. The rocking chair she used to sing Pound Cake to sleep in was propped up in the corner besides a table with two completely melted candles. Once more, a cold chill washed over Cup Cake. The ringing in her ears intensified, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.         Just then, she ceased crying. With a determined breath, Cup Cake dropped the blanket, stood up, and trotted briskly out of the nursery. She stumbled her way downstairs, and it was just as dark there as it was on the top level. The confectionary was completely empty. A fine layer of dust covered the tables where ponies once chatted and laughed over tall glasses of ice cream. The pastries beneath the glass of the front counter had started to gather mold with neglect. All was still, save for a rustling sound, like leaves rattling across the tile floor of the eatery.  Cup Cake was confused by this, but a foul stench from the kitchen distracted her. She trotted anxiously through the swinging doors, and instantly felt like vomiting.         The air was pungent with a horrible odor, as if several cartons of milk had rotted over the span of a week. Cup Cake was only half-surprised to hear the splash of her hoof dipping into a cold puddle beneath the double refrigerators positioned at the end of the baking counter. She clenched her nostrils shut as she took her time stepping over the puddle and approached the rear door to Sugarcube Corner. Here, a chair had been propped up against the exit's handle. In the dim beams of light shining in through the thick window boards, she spotted the unmistakable glint of broken glass.         "Carrot," she murmured into the shadows. Her voice had a ghostly echo to it, like piles of paper rustling in a breeze. "Where have you gone...?"         This quiet moment of thought was utterly shattered by yet another crash. It was distant this time, but no less startling. It sounded like a hollow meteor had struck a rooftop on the far end of town.         Cup Cake trembled, her hooves rattling against the tile floor. She wanted to leave that place—to abandon the smell of rotten milk and loosen the ringing in her ears with fresh air. Her husband and foals were missing. By going outside, she might be able to find them, but the echoes of those crashing sounds still lingered in her mind, quickening her heartbeat.         Nevertheless, she thought of Carrot's warm green eyes, Pumpkin's golden coat, and Pound's soft brown mane. Before she knew it, she had pulled the chair out from where it had been propped up against the door. She brought her hoof to the handle, held her breath, and opened the exit to the world outside.         Naturally, she was blinded at first, but all too soon the sights of Ponyville came into focus. Everything was cold, wet, and gray. The first thing she saw was a thick coat of mud covering every inch of the street. She took one step, and her hooves made a squishing sound. The ground was positively saturated with rain water, and even then a fine drizzle was pelting her blue coat with frigid moisture.         Stepping out into the dripping grayness, Cup Cake took several deep breaths. There was nopony to be seen, no movement whatsoever. Every now and then, a cold draft would blow through the muddied street, kicking at her thick pink mane, making her teeth chatter. The village was bathed in a dull, monochromatic haze, and the wind tasted thick and stale like the air inside a sepulcher.         Before long, Cup Cake had trotted down a full block, gazing at every storefront, marveling at how empty and lifeless the neighborhood had become. Each house followed an eerily similar pattern: many windows were boarded up, and even chimneys had thick planks of wood nailed to their openings. Occasionally, Mrs. Cake would spot a house that wasn't sealed in such a fashion, and she would find the windows utterly shattered with curtains and pieces of furniture pouring out like entrails from a gaping wound.         "Hello?!" Cup Cake cried. It came out naturally, like there was nothing else left to do with the utter deadness of the moment. "Is anypony there?!" With each second of silence that followed her exclamations, her heart throbbed harder and harder. "Please, answer me! I-I'm trying to find my husband, Carrot Cake!" She gulped hard. "My f-foals... Pumpkin and Pound..."         The air shook suddenly. She recognized that sound in an instant. For the first time since limping out of Sugarcube Corner minutes ago, Mrs. Cake glanced up at the sky. A cold shudder ran through her. The clouds were miserably gray, churning and bubbling with dense moisture. They looked ready to burst with a monsoon of rain at any moment, and yet they lingered above the rooftops of Ponyville, undulating with tempestuous gusts of cold wind. Mrs. Cake couldn't help but feel as if the stormclouds were bowing startlingly close to the ground. She reckoned that if she stood up on the tallest hill, she could reach up and drag a blue hoof across the vaporous fabric.         "Why h-haven't the weather ponies cleared that?" she muttered. "How long has it been raining—?" Her voice trailed off as her eyes did, caught by a glimmer of color in the distance. Cup Cake's breath left her; a pony was sitting on the rooftop to the post office two blocks away. "Hello... H-hello?!" She broke into a trot which then broke into a gallop. Mud and water splashed in every direction beneath her as she charged the far end of the mist-pelted street. "Hey! You! Yes, you! What's going on here?! Why is Ponyville so empty?! Why is the weather so... ugly?"         She came to a bitter stop, her mouth agape.         The pony wasn't sitting atop the post office; it was draped over the edge of the rooftop, its legs dangling and swaying in the cold wind. Cup Cake couldn't tell if it was a mare or a stallion; her eyes were locked on the calcified spike protruding from its neck: where the pony's vertebrae had torn loose from its loose, mottled flesh.         "Wh-what... in Celestia's n-name...?"         Cup Cake collapsed on her haunches besides an abandoned stagecoach. She held a hoof over her mouth as she stared at the shattered body lying before her. In her peripheral vision, she spotted another flash of color. Against her better judgement, she turned to look. The body of a green-coated stallion lay before a house, his body punctured straight through the chest by a white picket fence. Beyond him, the dull blue body of a mare lay in a flower garden, the mud surrounding her caked with a deep crimson color. Then, off in the distance, Cup Cake saw several rooftops pockmarked with holes, and most of them occupied by a torso, a cluster of limbs, or a scrap of flesh clinging to the impact sites.         "They're all... th-they're all—"         Just then, the stagecoach beside her exploded. Cup Cake shrieked, shielding herself from a violent barrage of glass and wooden splinters. Sprawling in the mud, she rolled aside and hopped up, gazing breathlessly at the vehicle. The thing had collapsed down the center, like butter splitting from a hot knife. A twitching yellow hoof dangled over the side, just beyond view.         Cup Cake trotted around, grimacing. Her eyes twitched as she saw a mangled body occupying the fresh crater made in the heart of the stagecoach. A legbone jutted bloodily out of the pony's flank, leaking blood all over the rest of the mare's waterlogged coat. Then, beyond a mat of orange mane-hair, Cup Cake spotted a hideously familiar face.         "Oh Goddess! Golden Harvest!" She fell down to her knees and brushed the mare's sopping wet mane aside. "Goldie, stay absolutely still! I don't know how this happened, but I-I'm going to go get you some help! You're going to be alright! You're going—"         Cup Cake stopped in mid-speech. Golden Harvest's eyes were rolling back. Her broken body shook in quiet little spasms. At the last moment, though, there was a single, sickly glance cast towards the heavens. Golden's eyes centered on something, and she let loose a cold-hearted whimper before lying still altogether.         Cup Cake gulped. She followed Golden's last glance. Thunder rolled overhead as a pocket of the bubbling gray sky split open. For the briefest of moments, sunlight stabbed its way down, and Mrs. Cake thought she heard something—distant and high pitched—like a hundred tiny, tiny screams that bellowed in desperation and were silenced as soon as the clouds closed up. And when the light died, a single gray body fell—spiraling—from the heavens.         Cup Cake jumped with a shriek as the equine figure plummeted, fluttered with a spastic flapping of wings, and plummeted again, ultimately ricocheting off the edge of a rooftop, bouncing off an opposite wall, and landing with a dull crash through a pile of garbage bags. Everything was silent for a few paralyzed seconds, and then the body burst up out of the refuse, twitching involuntarily before breaking into a numb, limping trot.         Mrs. Cake's eyes narrowed. She leaned forward, squinting into the alley. "Cloud... Kicker...?"         The blonde pegasus didn't reply. She veered left and right in her serpentine strut, colliding with the wall beside her over and over again, jerking with loose spasms. Cloud Kicker shook her head several times, her gray ears twitching as if to ward off invisible mosquitoes. Then, with nostrils flaring, the pegasus looked straight up. Her mane was soaking wet from precipitation, and blood dribbled from skin that had been rubbed raw directly over her wing muscles. With utterly mute resolve, she lumbered towards Cup Cake, her glazed eyes looking past her.         "Cloud Kicker, pl-please, speak to me." Cup Cake gulped, backtrotting nervously. She glanced aside at Golden Harvest. The earth pony was dead-still. "What's going on?" She looked up. "Where were you flying just now—?"         Mrs. Cake's breath left her as Cloud Kicker plowed into her body. The world spun on a horizontal axis. Cup Cake shrieked, her voice forming rivulets in the muddy puddles as she was lifted upside down from the earth in the pegasus' forelimbs. Cloud Kicker's grip was limp, weak, and uncalculated. The two had barely traveled the span of two houses before the pegasus came back down, dropping Cup Cake as they both slammed through a wooden bench on the side of Ponyville's Main Street.         "Unngh!" Cup Cake grunted as she rolled head-over-flank into a lamppost. Wincing, spitting blood, she sat up and shouted towards the sprawling pony beside her. "Cloud Kicker! What in heaven's name has gotten into you—?!"         Her exclamation was cut short as soon as she heard the undeniable sound of a pony screaming. Flashing a look to her left, she saw a stallion slipping on a distant patch of mud in mid-gallop. He fell onto his side, scrambling to get up, whimpering in desperation. Before he could recover, a winged figure landed on top of him. In a flurry of fast limbs, a pegasus grabbed whatever part of the stallion she could afford to and lifted them both up as swiftly as she had landed.         "No! N-no!" The stallion's forelimbs clambered over a fire hydrant and the corner of a garden fence. His wet hooves slipped, and soon he was being lifted up, up, up into the boiling gray sky. "Please, Celestia, no! Nnnngh-Gaaaaugh! Nooo!" His screams were silenced by the misty bowels of the stormcloud as the pegasus carried him beyond sight.         Cup Cake's eyes twitched. In a cold sweat, she cast Cloud Kicker a horrified look.         The pegasus was finally standing up. The joints in her neck cracked grotesquely as she pivoted Mrs. Cake's way. Her bloodsoaked wings stood on end.         The world blurred, for Cup Cake was already speeding off in a panicked gallop. She heard the wet air slicing to bits as Cloud Kicker soared after her. Thinking fast, Cup Cake jerked right and sprinted down a thin alleyway. She hopped over puddles and fallen garbage cans. The ringing in her ears was replaced by a shrill whistle, followed by the chilling sound of Cloud Kicker's feathers scraping the walls on either side of them.         Taking a chance, Cup Cake dove straight forward, flattening her body. The world was bathed in splashing mud as Cloud Kicker's gray form soared closely overhead and past her. Cup Cake stumbled up, watching in petrified fear as the pegasus glided up and prepared to come about for a return swoop. Just then, a dumpster to Cup Cake's left thundered with a clattering thud. She felt a hot spray of blood on her coat and gasped, looking to the side.         A death rattle escaped a unicorn's lips from where the pony was draped over the edge of the dumpster, its ribcage exposed from the heavy impact. Barely five seconds passed before a pale blue pegasus landed loosely beside the corpse, drenched in rain water. Twitching involuntarily, the winged pony tilted her head until it glared through a snow-white mat of hair at Cup Cake.         "Wind Whistler, it's me!" Mrs. Cake spoke; she sobbed. She retreated from the pegasus' mindless march. "Please, snap out of it! Don't you see wh-what's happening—?!"         The muddy floor of the alleyway shrank beneath Cup Cake as Cloud Kicker hoisted her up from behind. The winged pony's forelimbs were weak, trembling, and Cup Cake took advantage of it without thinking. She bucked her rear hooves into Cloud Kicker's belly. Grunting, she struck her once... twice... and on the third impact, she was dropped ten feet onto a slick, wet rooftop.         "Ooof!" Mrs. Cake grunted, slid, and bounced roughly off the side of a chimney. When she finally fell off the roof, she tumbled through a muddied flower garden and collapsed against the decaying body of an earth pony, his entrails spilling out into a throng of water-logged dandelions.         Holding in the taste of her own bile, Cup Cake pulled herself to her aching hooves and limped forward. Her left rear hoof was numb from the hard tumble, and she dragged it loosely through the muddy street. Thunder rolled. Through the quivering puddles below, she saw the upside-down reflection of Cloud Kicker and Wind Whistler diving swiftly.         "Hey! Over here!"         Cup Cake gasped and looked to her right.         A mare stood in the open doorframe to a boarded-up house. A stallion was helping two blank flank foals into the building as the mare motioned towards Cup Cake from afar. "In here! Hurry! They're coming!"         Mrs. Cake gnashed her teeth as she limped and hobbled towards the building. Mud splattered on either side of her. The air echoed from distant crashes as more pony bodies fell to their doom amidst the rumbling thunder. Just as she felt the wind splitting from Cloud Kicker's and Wind Whistler's wings—         "Gotcha!" The mare's hoof grabbed Mrs. Cake's outstretched limb. She hoisted her inside while the stallion beside her slammed the door shut. Cup Cake fell onto the wooden floor, panting into sudden darkness as the whole house shook and trembled from heavy thuds.         "For Luna's sake, Ambrosia, h-help me!" the stallion grunted, pushing his entire weight up against the door.         "Nnnngh!" Cup Cake saw the shadow of the mare rushing up against the door and pushing her body against it. She and the stallion quivered as the two pegasi slammed and pummeled the entrance from outside. "Ugh—Goddess! Get a chair or something!"         "Way ahead of you!" The stallion reached out, slid a chair across the shadows, and propped it up against the handle. Once the door was anchored in place, he began propping up several wooden boards from the inside and hammering them back in place with partially bent nails.         Just then, Cup Cake was blinded by a flash of light. She sat up and spun around to see an elder stallion lighting a candle. The tiny orange glow illuminated two foals covered in fresh mud, clinging to each other in the corner of the pitch-black living room. The old pony calmly placed the candle on a table and sighed under the continuous thuds of the pegasi outside.         "That was far too risky, Ambrosia..."         "What would you have me do, Saddle Brown?!" The mare frowned at the elder. "Let them get dragged off into the heavens to Celestia-knows-where?!"         "Still, they could have gotten inside. Then what would have happened to all of us?"         "Cut me some slack, ya old fart!" Ambrosia grunted. "It worked, didn't it?"         "He's right, y'know!" The stallion at the door turned from the freshly-nailed planks and panted. "That was stupid, Ambrosia, and you know it! You almost got us all killed!"         "Darn it, Guilded!" Ambrosia frowned into the candlelight. "Am I the only one who remembers that we're all ponies and we should be caring for each other?!"         "Oh yeah?!" The stallion pointed in frustration towards the shaking doorframe. "Why don't you tell them that?!"         "Shhhh!" Saddle Brown hissed. "Quiet! Everypony!" He raised a hoof. "Listen..."         Everyone was silent as, slowly—thud by thud—the clamoring of the pegasi ended. There was a quiet hush, and soon the air sounded off with the rustling feathers.         The elder sighed. "They're gone." He turned towards the stallion. "Well done, Guilded Cage. Once again, your carpentry skills have saved our hides."         "Hmmph..." The stallion dragged a bucket of nails across the dimly-lit foyer, casting Ambrosia a glare as he passed her. "At least somepony's giving me the thanks I deserve."         "Hey! Don't forget this is my house!" she retorted.         Cup Cake's gaze glanced between the older ponies and the two foals trembling in the corner. She winced and sputtered, "Somepony, anypony... please... will you just tell me what is going on around here?"         "Pfft!" Guilded Cage gawked at her. "What, you've been living under a rock or something these past two weeks, lady?!"         "Hey!" Ambrosia frowned. "Treat her with some respect! Don't you know that this is the mare who runs Sugarcube Corner?"         "H-have we met?" Cup Cake stammered.         "Why, of course!" Ambrosia flashed her a nervous smile. "I used to come by there all the time after my work shifts."         "Please, tell me..." Mrs. Cake leaned forward. "Have you seen my husband?! Have you seen my darling Carrot Cake?" She gulped. "Or my foals, Pound and Pumpkin?"         Ambrosia bore a sad expression as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cake. I haven't seen your stallion anywhere. I've been hiding out in here ever since the crazy stuff started happening. As for your foals—"         "What do you mean 'since the crazy stuff started happening?'" Cup Cake remarked, still catching her breath. "It's like Tartarus has broken loose outside! There were bodies falling... and th-then Cloud Kicker and Wind Whistler—"         "Ugh... Goddess," Guilded Cage muttered from where he fiddled with a toolbox besides the fireplace. "Will you listen to her? She still calls them by their first name..."         Ambrosia groaned. "For the last time, Guilded, will you knock it off?"         "No, I won't knock it off! I knew something like this would happen for a long time!" The stallion turned and frowned at the group. "It's in their blood, you know. The will to kill? To go to war? Even back in the day, Commander Hurricane was all about terrorizing any equine on the ground."         "You're generalizing, and it's pathetic."         "No, I'll tell you what's pathetic! Walking outside my front door to see my own mother lying in a crumpled heap before the mailbox!" Guiled Cage stamped his hooves. "They're all demons, I'm telling you! Flying demons, and they finally chose a time to wipe us out!"         "They didn't choose anything, Guilded. Have you even seen the looks on their faces?! I don't think they understand what's going on anymore than we do!"         "Quiet, both of you," Saddle Brown muttered. "Arguing isn't going to help anything. This is a mystery to all of us. All we can do is wait it out."         "Wait what out?!" Guilded grumbled. "For them to get bored of playing hoofball with our skulls and lift this very house off its foundation?!"         "Hah!" Ambrosia folded her forelimbs and smirked bitterly. "Oh, that's soooo likely!"         "It's just a matter of time! You'll see! Heartless demons, I'm telling you..."         All this time, Cup Cake was looking carefully at everypony. In the dancing candle-light, she studied Saddle Brown's wrinkled skin, Ambrosia's silver mane, Guilded Cage's iron frown, and the mud-caked coats of the two foals. Not a single wing or feather was to be seen on any one of them.         "The pegasi..." Mrs. Cake murmured. She picked up an afghan from a nearby couch, trotted over, and wrapped it around the two little foals. "What's gotten into all of them? All of this just... just isn't natural..."         "Oh, it's natural, alright!" Guilded cackled.         "Guilded..." Ambrosia grumbled.         Saddle Brown cleared his throat. He trotted over in front of a boarded window and reached a gentlecoltly hoof towards the motherly mare. "Mrs... Cake, was it?"         Cup Cake took his forelimb in two hooves and nodded.         "Mrs. Cake, I'm sorry for how bleak things appear to be, but you must understand..." The elder gazed at her with sad eyes. "But we've been holed up in here for quite some time. Given the circumstances, we were hoping that you would be able to educate us as to what's been going on."         Slowly, Cup Cake shook her head. "I'm so sorry... I... I-I just woke up."         "She just woke up?!" Guilded remarked. Ambrosia silenced him with a wave of her hoof.         Cup Cake's eyes teared. She looked over and tried smiling at the foals. Instead, a tiny sob escaped her lips. "I know it sounds strange, but I... j-just woke up. And my husband is gone and..." She bit her lip. "Pumpkin and Pound... my pr-precious little babies..."         "Shhh..." Saddle Brown caressed her cheek. "Darling, look at me."         The mare sadly glanced over at him.         "I know that this is hard for you to take in..." He took a deep breath. "But, by this point in time, if you haven't seen a sign of your family, it's probably best to accept the fact that they're—"         "What?!" Cup Cake sniffled and frowned. "That they're gone?! My husband's no fool! He wouldn't have let himself and my children get in harm's way!"         "And yet..." Guilded Cage muttered with a bitter scowl. "...he left you on your own, didn't he?"         Cup Cake flashed him a glance. She looked at Ambrosia, and the mare was silent. "He... He loves my children as much as I do," Mrs. Cake murmured. She gulped a lump down her throat and shook her head. "He'd never abandon them... abandon us! It j-just doesn't make sense..."         "Try not to dwell on it, darling," Saddle Brown said with a calming smile. "Soon enough, we will all find an answer to what is—"         Light exploded into the room as the window behind him shattered. The boards split apart as Wind Whistler—bleeding profusely from the splinters scraped across her neck and shoulders—reached in and grabbed the elder from behind.         The two foals gasped. Ambrosia screamed. With a shout, Guilded Cage jumped over a couch and sprang for the old stallion.         But Saddle Brown was hoisted out of the pony's lunging gasp. Cup Cake watched in horror as the elder's hooves dragged across the carpet and fumbled for a grip of something—anything. Then, with a jerk, he was yanked out, his skull colliding hard with the window frame. Blood poured from his ears and mouth as he flew up with the pegasus into the blinding grayness beyond.         "Damn it!" Guilded shouted, pounding against the fresh bed of scattered glass. "You heartless freaks! Damn you all to—"         "Guilded!" Ambrosia yelled, but it was too late. With several well-timed thuds, the front door broke on its hinges. Cloud Kicker and two other pegasi struggled and bumped into each other, clambering blindly to cram their way into the exposed living room.         "Oh Goddess!" Cup Cake backtrotted, slipping on glass and puddles of mud. "We have to get out of—"         She heard a clattering of hooves. Glancing to her left, she saw Guilded Cage leaping out of the window.         "Hey!" She shouted. "Where are you—"         "You'll never get me alive!" Guilded's voice sounded off like a maniacal siren, lost in the rumbling thunder of the gray wetness beyond.  “You hear me!  Damn you for even trying!”         Another tumult—Cup Cake turned to see Ambrosia scrambling towards the kitchen several trots away.         "Wait!" Mrs. Cake shouted, hoisting the two tiny ponies up onto all fours. "The foals! Somepony think of the foals! We have to—"         The doorframe split open even wider as Cloud Kicker and her fellow wingponies lunged into the room.         "Oh dear goddess!" Cup Cake stammered and broke into a full gallop, tugging the children with her into the next room. "Hurry! Don't look back—!"         Her voice drowned in the sound of crashing furniture. Shadows stretched as the candle behind them was knocked over, casting the silhouettes of flapping feathers everywhere as heavy hoofsteps trampled over the floors, walls, and ceiling. The pegasi stampeded after them like skittering insects.         "Nnngh!" Cup Cake headbutted her way through a bathroom door and squinted into blinding daylight. The window here wasn't boarded up; in fact it was shattered from the outside, offering a space thin enough for a grown pony to squeeze through. "Quick!" Cup Cake flung the two foals in and slammed the bathroom door shut behind, pressing the weight of her own body against it. "Crawl out! Th-through the window frame! Hurry!"         The children didn't need any coaxing. One stood before the other while the second shoved her hooves against the companion's blank flank. With little struggle, she was able to shove him outside.         Cup Cake watched this, all the while the door behind her shook and rattled from the ponies pounding on the other side. She stifled a sob and leaned her whole body against it like a living crowbar. Panting, she watched as the younger foal struggled to climb up. She wasn't going to make it on her own.         Thinking fast, Cup Cake glanced aside at the toilet. She lifted the top off of and braced the ceramic slab between the tile floor and the door handle. At best, it would only last a few seconds—but it was all the time she needed to rush forward, stand on the tub's edge, and hoist the second foal out. Once she was through, Mrs. Cake breathlessly dove forward and squeezed her own plump self through the shattered frame, cutting her writhing flesh in multiple places from the loose shards.         "Nnnghh... Ghhhh—!"         Just then, the bathroom door behind her caved in. She shrieked and tried to wriggle faster. With a flurry of feathers and hooves, the winged ponies rushed across the room. She felt limbs clawing at her flank and tail, grabbing her legs in an attempt to yank her back. Grunting and yelping, she kicked and thrashed at them, her hooves bucking into a writhing mass of feathers, teeth, and more feathers.         Finally, she exhaled, narrowing her ribcage so that she could squeeze through with a bloody pop. She rolled across the mud, throbbing in pain. Cold rain pelted her face, but there was no time to gaze at the gray sky. Hobbling up, she reached for the nearest foal and grabbed the little filly.         "Quick! We have to move!" The house behind her creaked and groaned from the pegasi fighting to crawl out the window behind her. Cup Cake galloped through the muddy street, hyperventilating, looking all around. "Where's your little friend?! Can you see him—?!"         A dead weight plowed into the mud out of nowhere, knocking Cup Cake off her hooves. She rolled through a deep puddle, wincing. Her hooves were empty. She sat up, looking for the foal. The filly sat—trembling—on the other side of the freshly fallen corpse between them. Cup Cake had to stifle a shout, for the twisted face of Guilded Cage stared up at her in a silent scream.         Crawling over the battered stallion, Mrs. Cake scooped the filly up in her forelimbs. Before she could gallop anywhere, she heard a shrill cry. Spinning about, she saw the other foal—the colt—squatting beside a mare's crumpled body. He was crying, wailing, burying his muzzle in the corpse's bloodstained neck as his mouth mewled the word "Momma!" over and over again in rising pitch. Cup Cake grimaced, covering the filly's eyes in her embrace. Right before she could trot over to grab the colt, a yellow mass of feathers blurred down, grabbed the colt, and shot up towards the sky, muting his wails in a heartbeat.         Mortified, Cup Cake gazed skyward. Her heart fell as she saw the flailing body of Ambrosia being fought over by two drifting pegasi. At last, one winged pony kicked away the other, hoisting Ambrosia by his lonesome, carrying her up into the rolling thunderclouds as her screams were devoured by the heights beyond. The other pegasus veered left and right before flying blindly towards a far corner of the rain-drenched village, where more panicked screams awaited his diving figure.         The bathroom window frame shattered behind Mrs. Cake. The air filled with flapping wings and rain-slicked bodies. Hobbling, Cup Cake galloped across the muddied courtyard with the filly in her grasp. The foal was a sobbing mess at this point, stained with dirt and Mrs. Cake's warm blood. By the time they turned the corner leading to a familiar treehouse, it was too late, for the shadows of cold wings were upon them.         The first body plowed into Cup Cake's side like a swinging anvil. She rolled over in the mud and slammed hard against the base of Princess Celestia's statue. Two bodies dove upon her in a blink, their hooves clambering over Cup Cake, slipping, and ultimately grabbing at the foal instead. The filly gasped, her bright eyes reflecting Mrs. Cake's face as she was hoisted from her grasp.         "No!" Cup Cake shrieked, reaching up and yanking back on the helpless child's limbs. "No! Let her go! Curse you! Let h-her go!"         The filly's hooves slipped. Cup Cake lunged forward in desperation. She gripped onto one of the child's forelimbs as two pegasi tugged and tugged at her. A third pony tackled Cup Cake's ribs from the side, trying to lift her as well. Cup Cake snarled and shrieked into the flapping, wings. Thunder cracked. Raindrops fell coldly into her gaping mouth.         Suddenly, a flash of lavender light ripped through the sky. A bubble of energy knocked two of the pegasi away. When the filly fell out of Cup Cake's grip, she was being dragged away—not into the sky—but toward the library. Cup Cake turned to look, but was just then being hoisted by the pegasus who had tackled her. She lifted up into the gray haze, but was rescued by the same bubble of lavender light flinging past her and knocking the winged pony off balance.         Next thing she knew, she was plunging towards the earth. She spun about, decelerating atop a rising cushion of magic. Still, it was too fast, and the last thing she saw before her skull collided with the edge of Celestia's statue was a glint of light, like a candle's aura cascading off of Pound Cake's pale forehead.         Then nothing.