They seemed to appear out of nowhere, almost materializing from the dusty, smoking ruins. The ghostly, horrible, tuneless humming surrounded the ruined city square, and the Lost Ponies came with it, their eyes glowing a deep, horrible purple. Cheerilee backed against the half-ruined statue of Celestia, biting harder on the rusted knife that trembled with her jaw. The filly she had met a week or so ago cowered down beneath her legs, her tiny orange pinions tickling Cheerilee’s knees. She couldn’t say exactly how long it had been, which bothered her more than she thought it would. After the sun had frozen, time had lost meaning. They ate when they needed, slept when they must, and moved while they could.
The awful humming got louder, and the purple glow in the Losts’ eyes grew fever-bright, searing. Cheerilee squinted and looked around. Above her, pegasi flew in a tight net. Behind the Lost earth ponies, Unicorns charged their horns their magic all tinged through with that same, haunting purple. One Lost mare took a heavy step forward. They looked to be three deep, surrounding the square and humming their horrible, tuneless murmur. Damn, damn, damn, damn... Cheerilee’s eyes darted around, looking for any place in the circle with fewer of the Lost.
They parted suddenly, the humming coming to a complete standstill. Then she walked through, and Cheerilee’s blood nearly froze. She was the leader of the Lost, once the brightest unicorn in Canterlot, celebrated for her many, many discoveries in the field of Magic, once Princess Celestia’s favored advisor. Now few dared to say her name, lest it call her upon them.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Cheerilee half-whispered, half-cursed. Sparkle smiled disjointedly, her eyes gleaming with a terrible manic light. Her head twitched momentarily, her ears flicked and her eyes spasmed before rolling back to show whites. After two long breaths, she blinked and returned to whatever passed as normal.
“Ms. Cheerilee, and Scootaloo,” she giggled. The filly between Cheerilee’s legs whimpered and shrank back further. “Such a pleasure to see you both.” Her voice resonated with strangeness, as if three voices all slightly out of sync were rushing through her mouth. “Will you accept my friendship?”
Cheerilee’s eyes raced over the gap behind Sparkle. It hadn’t closed yet. She lowered her head and pretended to scratch her ear. “Filly?” she whispered. the quivering pegasus didn’t answer. “Scootaloo?” she tried. the filly stood up between her legs, greasy, matted mane tickling Cheerilee’s belly. “Get on my back,” she whispered again. She took one hesitant step forward, towards the oddly-grinning Twilight Sparkle.
The Scootaloo filly buzzed her tiny wings and landed on Cheerilee’s back. She reared and galloped, through the slowly closing gap of Lost and into the serpentine streets of Canterlot. Like so many, she had gone to the Castle for help. Like so few, she had escaped the initial attack and made her way into the dark alleys and sewers, grabbing preserves from empty houses and weapons from dazed, Lost guards.
Cheerilee skidded around a corner and into a dead end. With a loud BANG! and a flash of light, Twilight Sparkle appeared before her. She backed into a corner, shifting her grip on the knife. She twitched the Scootaloo filly off and behind a dumpster, before scraping at the ground and charging. Maybe, if she could just take this Twilight bitch out, the world would be safe again. Strong, horrible purple magic picked Cheerilee up, crawling along her skin. Her hackles raised at the wrongness of it, and she thrashed her neck and knife wildly even as the cloud of horrible, wrong, painful magic pulled her closer to the still-smiling, unnatural unicorn before her.
“I just want us to be friends, Ms. Cheerilee,” Twilight pleaded with a childlike guile. “Life is so much better when I have friends.” Then her eyes glowed white, and the painful, horrible magic flowed into Cheerilee’s eyes, into her mouth, up her nose, into her heart and brain, buzzing and crawling and stinging like a colony of fire-ants.
Cheerilee’s rusty knife fell to the cobblestones as she screamed, and she could taste blood in her throat as she screamed and screamed and breathed in to scream some more... Her eyes filled with magic and tears and she had never felt so violated as it swarmed through her and she screamed and struggled and thrashed and cried and it was all SO WRONG SO VERY WRONG and then ….
...And then Cheerilee saw. She blinked and smiled in the bright, cheerful sunshine. All around her, the colts and fillies she taught everyday laughed and played in the rolling green grass and the cheery playground.
--TIME--
All around her, Ponyville bustled with another busy Tuesday, the vendors and the children all working together in Harmony to create a wonderful new day. Cheerilee was so happy she could teach her students to be such upright, stalwart citizens. She was happy she could help each one of them find out their own, personal Destiny. She was so very, very happy that Princess Twilight Sparkle was her very, very best friend.
Cheerilee was a very happy pony. So happy, she almost felt like singing...