Diamond Tiara opened her eyes and looked around. Her room was dark; only occasionally a lightning was tearing the sky, making every detail of Diamond’s surroundings perfectly visible.
Diamond Tiara could feel the warmth of Silver Spoon’s body; her friend was breathing calmly in her sleep. When Diamond had first met her, she was surprised to find out that she wasn’t afraid of storms – she simply adored the nights like that one. From what Diamond knew, it was one of the many things Silver had inherited from her pegasus mother.
Diamond smirked when she thought about the pegasi. Although storms were usually large and complicated operations, many weather team members couldn’t resist an occasion to show their family and friends how fun their work was. Once again, Diamond Tiara thought about Silver Spoon – it was her mother whom she’d heard complaining about making storms a “bloody picnic”.
Interesting choice of words, Diamond Tiara thought. She freed herself from Silver Spoon’s grasp and reached under her bed. The paring knife was in the same place where she’d left it. She looked at the blade – it still looked as perfect as earlier. Diamond Tiara got out of bed and stretched her hooves. Silver Spoon muttered something and hugged Diamond’s pillow, but didn’t wake up.
Diamond Tiara sighed with relief. She took her saddlebags and put the knife in one of them. Then she put them on and trotted to the window.
She didn’t want to use the door that Silver Spoon had locked before going to bed. Even though Silver was able to sleep calmly through storms, clicking of the lock was enough to wake her up. Diamond Tiara had never asked her why she insisted on doing that – as she knew from her own experience, pony’s mind often worked in weird ways. Besides, Diamond Tiara knew exactly that it was one of the things Silver definitely wouldn’t want to talk with her about.
Well, now I have such thing too… Diamond Tiara thought and opened the window. Lightning struck somewhere above the Everfree forest, but she didn’t even flinch; instead, she jumped out of the window, landing in the wet grass.
Walking through the garden, she thought about yet another reason why she’d wanted to avoid using the door – Filthy Rich was often working at night; he’d probably be interested where his daughter was going in the middle of the night with a knife in her saddlebags.
Before she made it to the hole in the hedge, her coat and mane were soaked. She didn’t care about that. Silver Spoon was more important to her than any other pony in the world, including herself. Whoever dared to hit her had to be punished.
Diamond Tiara got out of the garden and galloped through the town, sliding on the muddy roads. Just like she’d expected, the streets were completely devoid of ponies. Cold rain was pouring on her; she felt awake as she’d never been before. She felt like she was unstoppable; her body was bigger; her hooves were stronger. She couldn’t see anything through the wall of water in front of her, but her legs seemed to know where to go.
Something in her head was telling her that the whole trip wasn’t making any sense; Rainbow Dash probably was taking care of Scootaloo, not letting her fall off the cloud. Diamond Tiara didn’t even know exactly where the weather team was. There were many variables she had to take into account, but it seemed that her mind was already calculating them.
Diamond Tiara trotted through Ponyville outskirts. For a brief moment she stopped in the place where she’d met Pipsqueak. His blood had been washed off of the ground by the rains, but when Diamond inhaled, she found out that she could still sense it. Her heart started to beat faster. She lowered her head and ran forward, to the silent wall of trees – the first outpost of the Everfree forest.
Another lightning struck a tree not far away from her. The roar was deafening; she fell on the ground, covering her ears. Then she blinked, trying to get her bearings. Large raindrops were pounding against her head, making it almost impossible to focus.
I should go back… she thought. What am I even doing? Scootaloo did a terrible thing, but…
Go back? Now? another voice in her head scolded. Do you want Silver to think that you’re too weak to help her?
No! she replied. But… But it’s crazy… I don’t want to…
No time for your whining! Look! Even though there was nopony to show her where to look, she knew the direction exactly. Through the pouring torrents of rain she saw a small silhouette fighting against the strong wind. It was hopeless – the pegasus’ wings were too small and too weak to resist the forces of nature. The thrashing filly hit the tops of the trees not far away from the place where Diamond Tiara was standing and disappeared in the forest.
Now it’s your chance… the voice in her head said.
She licked her lips slowly and trotted into the forest. Branches were smacking her face, but she didn’t pay attention to them, trampling the bushes with her hooves. Finally, she reached the clearing. She was standing knee-deep in mud; there were scratches on her face and loose branches in her mane. When another lightning struck somewhere above her, she saw her aim – an orange silhouette resting against a tree, not far away from the swamp.
Diamond Tiara approached Scootaloo and looked at her. The filly was unconscious; she had a black eye and one of her legs was bent at a weird angle. Only her shallow breath was indicating that she was alive.
Diamond Tiara sighed. Stabbing Scootaloo like that would be a mercy. If she died quickly right there, she’d never feel what Silver Spoon had felt; the fear deeply rooted in her mind, the fear Scootaloo had unknowingly awoken. Diamond Tiara couldn’t allow that. She trotted to Scootaloo, grabbed a hoofful of water from the nearby puddle and poured it on her face.
Scootaloo blinked and coughed. She hissed when she accidentally moved her injured leg and looked around groggily.
“Hello,” Diamond Tiara said.
Scootaloo’s eyes focused on her. “Diamond Tiara! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I was just passing by…” Diamond Tiara smiled innocently, playing with the straps of her saddlebags.
“Passing by?” Scootaloo exclaimed. “Oh fuck…” She groaned, holding her head. “Never mind… Go back to Ponyville and get someone to help me!”
“Don’t worry, there’s no need to hurry,” Diamond Tiara replied calmly. She sat next to Scootaloo, searching through her saddlebags.
“No need to hurry? Listen, there’s no time for your games! I can die here!” Scootaloo hissed and rubbed her leg.
“Funny you mention that…” Diamond Tiara looked directly into her eyes.
“Is that some kind of a sick joke?!” Scootaloo yelled at her as loud as her injuries let her. Diamond Tiara saw a spark in her eyes and realised that she wasn’t going to give up easily.
“Chill out, Scootaloo,” she said. “I’ll help you…”
In one swift motion, Diamond Tiara took a knife from her saddlebags. Scootaloo froze; she tried to dodge her, but she was too slow. The knife found its way to the base of her left wing.
A scream tore the silence. The blade, as Diamond Tiara noted with disappointment, was too small to sever the wing completely. However, piercing through the hub of nerve endings and arteries was surely painful.
“Don’t pull it out,” Diamond Tiara said to Scootaloo, who was thrashing in the mud, crying and choking. “You don’t want to bleed out, do you?”
“Fuck you!” Scootaloo yelled.
“Language, filly…” Diamond Tiara shook her head. She approached Scootaloo and kicked her broken leg, causing her to scream again.
“Are you scared now?” she asked, standing on Scootaloo’s left wing, which was twitching erratically. “I bet you are…”
“Shut up, you sick bitch!” Scootaloo hissed through gritted teeth.
Instead of reply, Diamond Tiara stomped on her wing, feeling delicate bones snap under her hooves. She continued to do that till she was sure that every single of them was crushed. More blood poured from Scootaloo’s wound, but the knife was preventing her from bleeding out.
“Try to fly now…” Diamond Tiara smirked. One look into Scootaloo’s eyes revealed that the spark disappeared from them; she was whimpering and shivering, trying to make herself as small as possible.
“Now I can see that you’re scared…” Diamond Tiara smiled triumphantly. “Now you know what Silver felt…”
“So, it’s about her?” Scootaloo’s voice was barely audible. It was slurred – she’d bit her tongue when Diamond Tiara had broken her wing. “If you didn’t tease Ruby…”
“So, it’s about her?” Diamond Tiara asked, mocking her. “I’m gonna surprise you… Silver had nothing to do with Ruby… Hell, Ruby didn’t even want to kill herself in the first place…”
She grinned widely seeing Scootaloo’s expression when she understood what Diamond meant. Scootaloo’s lips moved, but she couldn’t utter even a single word.
“Oh… you still feel for her, right?” Diamond Tiara asked. “Compassion is such a strange thing… I can see Silver’s fear and that’s why we’re here… But you… Do you want to feel what Ruby felt?” With these words Diamond Tiara grabbed Scootaloo’s mane and dragged her, screaming and thrashing to the swamp. She had to admit that Scootaloo was strong; she almost managed to free herself, but a quick kick to her mangled wing almost rendered her unconscious. She was barely able to resist when Diamond pushed her head under the muddy water. Her body started to thrash violently, fighting for breath.
Diamond Tiara winced when Scootaloo emptied her bladder, filling the air with the stench of urine. But slowly, the pegasus was losing strength; her moves became weaker and less coordinated.
“Diamond? What are you doing?”
Diamond Tiara froze. She released Scootaloo, who emerged from the swamp and lay on her back, panting and retching. Diamond Tiara didn’t care about her; she slowly turned around to face the pony who’d found her.
Silver Spoon was soaked to the bone. Her mane was hanging freely and the lenses of her glasses were covered in drops of water. Her face was pale, almost of the same colour as her hair.
“I’m avenging you…” Diamond Tiara said calmly.
“Avenging me? Are you crazy?” Silver Spoon exclaimed, her eyes widening in horror when she spotted Scootaloo who was still lying in the mud, her body shaken by dry heave.
“Maybe…” Diamond Tiara replied. She staggered slightly when her vision blurred for a while. “How did you get here?”
“I… I woke up and saw an open window and traces…” Silver Spoon muttered. “Diamond… I told you I don’t want you to hurt her…”
“And do you remember what I told you?” Diamond Tiara asked. She approached Scootaloo and pulled the knife out of her wound. Pain woke Scootaloo up; she screamed and pushed her hoof to the gaping hole at the base of her wing, trying to stop the bleeding.
“No!” Silver Spoon exclaimed. “Diamond, stop it!”
“I… I can’t…” Diamond Tiara replied. Her vision blurred; she could barely see her hoof with the knife. “S-silver…”
She heard a scream. Almost immediately it silenced, replaced by coughing and the sound of something heavy falling on the ground. Then she heard someone’s laughter.
She opened her eyes and found that she was lying on the ground. The knife in front of her was lying in a red puddle. She still heard weak chuckling behind her.
“Why are you laughing?” she yelled.
“Avenging…” Scootaloo’s voice was barely recognisable. Diamond Tiara turned to see her. She was bleeding profusely from her wing and mouth, but despite that, she was laughing. “Avenging, protecting… And when she sees you… you just slit her throat?” Scootaloo laughter ended in a fit of coughing. “Best friends forever, huh?”
Diamond Tiara froze. She didn’t have to turn back – she could easily imagine Silver Spoon’s body lying in the mud, her head almost completely severed by the sharp blade.
“Shut up!” she yelled at Scootaloo. “Or…”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Scootaloo laughed. Her laughter was still echoing through the forest when Diamond Tiara picked up the knife and began stabbing her repeatedly, changing her body into an unrecognisable pulp.
Rain.
Rain was cleaning her body and her mind. The blood was mixing with water, flowing off her coat. Even the smallest spot had no chance; soon she was as clean and pristine as ever.
She was walking home, brimming with pride. Two ponies. Two lives. Their fate was in her hooves.
She looked at the sleeping town and smiled. The fate of every single pony in Equestria was in her hooves.
Diamond Tiara’s eyes shot open. She rolled out of bed, shuddering, and landed on the floor, curled in fetal position. She tried to stand up, but the world around her began to spin. She tried to inhale, but she couldn’t catch her breath. Her stomach was aching; she started to retch and threw up on the floor.
I killed Silver Spoon… Sweet Celestia, I killed Silver Spoon…
“Diamond?” She heard a sleepy voice above her. “Oh Luna, Diamond! Are you okay?”
I killed Silver Spoon…
Suddenly, Diamond Tiara blinked and looked around. The voice asking her if she was okay was familiar. She rolled on her back, carefully avoiding the puddle of vomit on the floor and saw Silver Spoon staring at her from the bed with worried expression.
“I… I’m okay… It must be something I ate…”
Silver Spoon put a hoof on her forehead.
“You’re cold… and wet,” she said, wiping her hoof in the blanket. “Did you take a shower?”
“A shower?” Diamond Tiara looked at her hooves. They were covered in scratches. The fur was indeed wet, which explained why she felt so cold. “Y-yes… maybe.”
“Strange, I didn’t hear the lock,” Silver Spoon said. She helped Diamond Tiara get up and lie down in bed. “You’d better stay here. I’ll tell your dad that you’re sick…” She looked at the floor. “And I’ll call someone to clean this.”
For a moment their eyes met and Diamond Tiara felt as if her head exploded. An image of forest appeared in her mind; she heard the sound of snapping bones and the sound of Silver Spoon’s glasses cracking when she’d stomped on them before throwing them into the swamp, as far as she could.
“Diamond?” Silver Spoon asked.
Diamond Tiara blinked and saw her room again. “I’m okay,” she said. “I… I think I had a nightmare or something…”
To her surprise, Silver Spoon smiled. “So, you managed to fall asleep tonight!” she exclaimed.
“I’d rather not sleep than have dreams like that…” Diamond Tiara muttered. Suddenly, she started to cough.
“You really should stay in bed…” Silver Spoon said, helping her wrap herself in the blanket.
“I told you…” the grey pegasus mare with light grey mane said. “I told you so many times: no ‘bring your kids to work’ days during the storms!”
“Silverspeed!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “That’s not the point! We need to find her…”
The door bursted open and another couple of pegasi entered the Royal Guard station. Most of them were nodding off; some of them were soaked.
“We didn’t find her,” said Helia. “Thunderlane and Cloudchaser are searching the northern part of the forest.”
“Crap…” Rainbow Dash muttered. “Flitter?”
“She’s not in the orchards…” Flitter replied, whimpering. Rainbow Dash trotted to her and embraced her with her wing.
“How’s Kicker?” she asked.
“Bad… She says it’s her fault…”
“Because it is!” Silverspeed exclaimed, earning nasty glares from the rest of the pegasi.
“Yeah, because you’re a role model when it comes to taking care of foals…” Flitter said. Rainbow Dash, Helia and Sassaflash had to contain Silverspeed before she managed to reach her.
Riot Control decided that it was enough. He approached the group, clearing his throat. Everypony looked at him.
“Can you tell me exactly what’s going on?” he asked. “Or did you just choose the station for a place to argue?”
“My little cousin is missing,” Flitter replied. “Her name is Alula.”
Riot Control thought for a moment. He remembered the small, yellow pegasus with purple mane. She was his neighbour and his granddaughter’s friend. He thought about Front Kick’s findings and shuddered.
“Alula?” he asked. “Cloud Kicker’s sister?”
“Yes, this one,” Rainbow Dash replied. “She was blown off the cloud by the wind during the storm at night…”
“If you didn’t violate the OSH, she wouldn’t even be there…” Silverspeed muttered.
“That’s not the point,” Riot Control said, staring at her carefully.
He knew everything about the ponies from Ponyville, but Silverspeed was still a mystery to him. For a long time she lived in Vanhoover and came to Ponyville with her daughter about three years before. She was still quite young; maybe twenty-seven years old. He didn’t know much about her husband – according to the gossip, he was rich and liked young mares.
Silverspeed was rich too. Although she wasn’t officially a part of the weather team, she was providing financial support and occasionally helping the pegasi in the most difficult operations.
“So… when did you see her last time?” Riot Control asked.
“About midnight, I think,” Flitter said. “Somewhere above the Everfree forest, I think…” She shuddered and sink her face in Helia’s coat.
“We wanted to look for her instantly, but it was too dangerous,” Rainbow Dash said. “We hoped she managed to land and went back home…”
Riot Control wanted to ask another question, but before he managed to open his mouth, the door bursted open again. Another group of ponies came in. Riot Control looked at it once more and thought that ‘group’ was a bad word. It was half of the town, lead by Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Minuette and Berry Punch. Among the rest he saw Applejack, Rarity, Derpy Hooves, Time Turner, Carrot Top and many other ponies he knew well. His friends, neighbours… All were chatting nervously.
“What happened?” he asked, seeing that Bon Bon is wiping her eyes. Lyra was trying to cheer her up, but apparently she was failing miserably.
“A-another foal went missing…” Vinyl Scratch stammered. Riot Control knew her well – numerous times he had been walking her home and locking her in the cell, drugged or drunk – but he’d never seen her so nervous.
“Alula?” Riot Control asked. “We’re already working on this case…”
“No,” Minuette said. “It’s Bonnie’s sister, Twist…”
“Sh-she just went to the garden for a moment and didn’t come back…” Bon Bon wept.
“We’re afraid that… that someone could… You know, like when Pipsqueak…” Carrot Top added. Murmurs spread through the crowd.
“Not only him!” Berry Punch shouted. Riot Control realised, to his surprise, that she was sober. “My daughter was murdered and no one did anything about that!”
Did Front Kick tell her? Riot Control thought. More ponies were yelling or whispering angrily. He rubbed his temples.
“I can assure you, we’re working on these cases,” he said.
“You’re working, but someone still foalnaps our kids!” someone shouted.
“Maybe it’s that zebra?”
“Alula disappeared in the Everfree! It must be the zebra!”
So it begins, Riot Control thought bitterly. Grab your torches and sharpen your pitchforks…
“It could be anyone! Scratch or...” Suddenly Berry Punch approached Minuette. “You were surprisingly effective with that sleeping spell... And when my daughter died you suddenly remembered about me…”
“It’s because I thought you’d drink yourself to death, you old, ungrateful plonker!” Minuette snapped. “If you cared about her…”
“Stop it!” Lyra exclaimed, stopping Berry Punch from attacking Minuette. “We’ll never find them if you keep accusing each other!”
“It’s a shame that this town only has two guards,” Octavia observed.
“Finally someone agrees with me…” Riot Control muttered.
“Dude, I never thought I’d say that, but we need to help the guards…” Vinyl said. “Okay, guys! Listen to me! DJ Pon3’s speaking!”
The crowd silenced. Not that Vinyl had any authority over them; she just could be really loud when she wanted.
“I think we should organise neighbourhood watch,” she said. “This way we’ll be able to find ‘em.”
The crowd began to articulate their approval. Vinyl smirked and leaned to Riot Control.
“See? That’s how you do it,” she whispered into his ear. “Soon you’ll have this fucker’s head on a tray…”
“That’s what I’m afraid of…” Riot Control muttered.