The portal from the land of the dead opened in the center of Ponyville Square. Flames parted to reveal a hole sunken in the earth leading to the pit of damnation and vengeful spirits. While everypony around stared with fear and utter horror at what was apparently the entrance to Tartarus itself, five very familiar mares popped out of its depths, along with a shadowy figure close behind them.
“Why didn’t we take this portal the first time?” Twilight asked, wincing slightly as the portal closed behind her, cutting off the sounds of screaming from the eternally punished.
“What? You didn’t like the scenic route?” Hades asked.
Twilight reflected back on her experience in the Underworld and shuddered. “I definitely could’ve gone without seeing that.”
“I could’ve gone without going there altogether,” Dash concluded, flying up higher overhead and giving the town a quick scan. Other than a couple of panicking ponies from Hades’ frightful entrance, nothing was out of the ordinary. “What we really need to be doing is searching where those Fates guys ended up in.”
“Actually, they’re gals,” Hades explained, frowning slightly. “The ugliest, most putrid and vile gals you’ll ever meet, but now I’m getting off topic. Where they’ll probably be is snacking on fresh pony, since they always did have a sweet tooth for mythical meat.”
“Then we have to stop ‘em!” Applejack said, striding up to Hades. “And yer gonna show us where they headed up to, ya hear?”
Hades walked past her without a glance and muttered, “Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. I may be hundreds of thousands years old, but I ain’t going senile yet.” Rubbing his pointed chin with his thumb, Hades hummed under his breath. “Well… they’ll certainly be in a place with plenty of kitchen appliances. Most like a huge pot to boil water in as well. A hearty brew of their victim is their usual cooking choice. So the most likely joint they’re at is a place with a large kitchen.”
“Like Sugarcube Corner?” Pinkie asked, still lugging the enormous sack of gold coins on her back. Her legs shook like jelly under the bag’s heavy weight, but the mare didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was as giddy as a bright pink pony can be.
“Yeah!” Hades agreed with a snap of his fingers. Staring off to the side where the treat shaped bakery lied, Hades grinned in victory. “Those ancient cretins are probably hanging out there as we speak.”
“Then I suggest we stop them immediately,” Rarity said, already making a beeline to the bakery. “No need to have an innocent bystander be cooked by… whatever those things are.”
Hades shifted into his shadow form and snaked across the ground at lightning speeds to reform from a smoke cloud into his usual blue skinned demeanor right before the doors of the bakery. Opening them up with a small bow directed towards the others, Hades said, “Ladies first.”
Rarity smiled kindly at Hades, while Applejack simply rolled her eyes and Dash glared at him, with Pinkie Pie bouncing close behind in her usual obliviousness. Twilight was last, staring up at the imposing Lord of Death. “Are these Fates dangerous at all?” Twilight asked, glancing nervously in the bakery. “I mean, if they’re anything like you, do we have something to worry about?”
“Don’t worry,” Hades said, brushing her off with a waved hand. Walking into the bakery in a self-assured swagger, he called over his shoulder, “I’m the God with a plan. Not an official title, but it might as well be!”
Strutting into the main room of the bakery, Hades heard distant cries sounding from the kitchen. Sighing, he walked past the counter and entered the part of the bakery where the actual baking happened. Though now it was more like boiling.
“This one struggles too much!” Lachesis shouted, struggling with Dash in her grubby claws. Being the tallest of the three hideous sisters, Lachesis also had the longest nose, which could compete with Panic’s any day of the week. Rainbow Dash kicked and flounder in her grip, but was no use against the strength of a goddess. Holding the mare closer to take a sniff of her, Lachesis frowned as the spider who resided in her nose crawled onto Dash’s muzzle. “She’ll be too lean and chewy if you ask me!”
“Hey, who are you calling chewy?” Dash yelled, shuddering as the spider crawled further on her face before Lachesis sniffed it back up her freakishly long nose.
Clotho shrugged, holding both kicking Applejack and fearful Rarity in her tight grip. “This one will be sweet, I just know of it!” she cackled, large chin nearly poking Applejack in the eye. Glancing to Rarity, she licked her lips. “And this one will be squishy!”
“Did you just call me fat?” Rarity asked in revulsion, forgetting her dangerous situation for a moment.
“No, this one will be the sweetest of all!” Atropos called out, jumping and hugging Pinkie Pie close in her powerful grasp. Pinkie Pie took no mind to this, thinking it was a game as usual when she whooped and hollered in approval. Licking her lips, Atropos looked at her pink prize with the sisters’ only remaining eye. The smallest of the three, she resembled a devilish imp much like Pain and Panic, though her cyclops like eye made her appearance much more demonic to the eyes.
“By the gods…” Hades sighed, raking a hand across his face that revealed a large scowl of disapproval, and most importantly, annoyance. Glancing at the side, he caught sight of a bound and gagged Fluttershy residing in a pot filled to the brim with water and chopped up vegetables with a low fire blazing underneath, made from the chopped up pieces of wooden furniture found in the bakery. Pointing a finger to her in recognition, he said, “Looks like you got in on this scheme as well.”
“Hades, don’t just stand there! Help us!” Applejack called out. “We’re more hogtied than bulls in a rodeo.”
“Oh wonderful. Western sayings,” Hades grumbled.
Twilight was the last to enter the kitchen, and halted immediately in her tracks to take the sight before her in. Everyone stopped what they were doing, the Fates staring—or rather, one of them staring—at Twilight and Hades while their bound prisoners glanced between one another and finally. Hades and Twilight themselves were glaring at the Fates, one looking with mild annoyance and the other with disgust.
Clapping his hands together to break the silence as he took a few steps forward, Hades said, “Well, this little get together has been fine and all—really should schedule for a brunch sometime in the future—but I think it’s time for you three to skedaddle.”
“Who are you to tell us what to do, Hades?” Atropos asked, glaring upward at the much taller god while Pinkie kicked her feet in boredom. “We got our treats first, so go find something else to snack on!”
“You just can’t eat my friends!” Twilight shouted. “They’re ponies, not food!”
Snatching her sister’s eyeball from her socket, Lachesis scowled at Twilight with a one eye glare. “Food, pony, there is no difference. Both can be sliced, diced, and cooked right up!”
“Hey, I thought we agreed for a stew!” Clotho argued, shaking Applejack and Rarity willy-nilly in a fit of rage.
“I wanted a roast!” Lachesis yelled back, pointing Dash’s snout at her sister. “And now that we have more morsels of mortals to feast on, we can do that too!”
“Why hasn’t anyone listened to my suggestion?” Atropos asked. “We’re in a bakery, so why not bake them into delightful treats?”
“Like cupcakes and donuts and muffins?” Pinkie asked. “Ooh, maybe even pie!”
“Pinkie, not helping!” every mare around her shouted, except for Fluttershy. The pegasus was still bound and tied in the pot, looking over the events before her in horror.
“Hey now, no one is cooking anyone!” Hades said firmly, already growing agitated with the Fates’ bickering. “You let the ponies go, hightail it back to the Underworld, and no one has to nag anyone else. Got it, hags?”
“You’d know better than to mess with the goddesses of destiny, Hades,” Lachesis warned, pointing a long, skeleton finger at Hades with a devious grin.
“We are the interpreters of time and the present,” Clotho added on.
“Seers of the future,” Atropos said.
“And knowers of the past,” Lachesis said.
“We know all!” each sister spoke at once, clucking like the hags they are.
Growing more and more red with each passing moment, Hades had to suppress his usual reaction to burn the place down, with the Fates in it. While that seemed like the best way to deal with the situation, he wasn’t born last millennium. No bakery meant no treats for him in the future. Plus, you didn’t want to harm the weavers of the tapestry of fate. Just a bad idea on so many levels.
Moving his arm forward, Hades grabbed the last remaining eye of the sisters from Lachesis’ socket. Squeezing it slightly in his fingers, Hades said, “You know, for know-it-alls, you really didn’t see that coming.”
The Fates stopped their malicious cackling for a moment as this sudden change began to sink in. Immediately all three dropped their respective captives and crowded around Hades, jumping up and down to reach for their eyeball.
“No, do not squish it!” Lachesis begged.
“It is our last remaining sight!” Atropos shouted.
“We will be ruined without it!” Clotho said.
Holding the eyeball up high, Hades was hit with the sudden realization at how ridiculous this was. Him, holding a grimy eyeball in his fingers while three of the oldest goddesses in existence acted like whining children. Which, in hindsight, he discovered was how many squabbles between the gods amounted to.
Snapping his fingers so another blazing hole of fire appeared in the ground in the center of the kitchen, much like the one that appeared in town, Hades threw the eyeball down it. “Go get it, you disgusting crows!” Hades called out.
All three of the sisters desperately dived for the eye, each disappearing into the hole to the hellfire down below. Once each was gone, Hades waved his hand for the portal to quickly turn to a burn mark on the floor.
The mares stood silent for a moment, until, of course, Pinkie Pie spoke up. “Weren’t those guys great?” Pinkie asked.
“Pinkie, they just tried to eat us!” Twilight reminded her.
“Yeah, but they sure were funny,” Pinkie giggled, holding a hoof to her muzzle to hold back the laughter. “I mean, did you see how they bickered and argued? They should do standup for sure.”
“Like people need another excuse to drive forks through their ears,” Hades mumbled, already cooling down to his usual blue hue. “Also, is anyone gonna untie the yellow one, or do you want her to simmer for another half hour until the skin in tender?”
Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Rarity gasped and made their way immediately to Fluttershy to lift her out of the pot and put out the fire.
Twilight too a couple of hesitant steps before Hades, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Hades, I guess I should thank you for saving my friends like this.”
Hades raised a brow. “Yeah…” he replied, slowly nodding his head. “I guess you should.”
Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes. Already she could tell complimenting Hades would be a egotistical experience in any future encounters.
“Well then, maybe we should—” Twilight’s sentence was suddenly cut off by a loud crash happening outside.
The earth shook, a loud boom rattled the town, and a roar of monstrous sizes could be heard from somewhere in the center of Ponyville. And by the shouts of alarm from the numerous ponies already screaming their heads off and probably running for the hills, something really, really big, bad and dangerous just entered Ponyville.
“Oh great,” Hades sighed, facepalming in frustration.
“What is that thing?” Twilight asked, the rest of her friends stopping in their tracks at the first sound of whatever it was outside.
“I’m not sure,” Hades said, shrugging up the arm of his robe to reveal his blueish biceps. “But whatever it is, I’m going to feed Pain and Panic to it once I get done.”