Arriving at Ponyville the girls decide to sneak past a crowd at the edge of the forest. Their current state and the cargo that they are carrying would scare everypony. There were too many questions that they didn’t know the answers to. Any questions they could answer would not be reassuring.
"What do you think that crowd is doing?" asks Pinkie.
"Probably waiting for us to come back and tell them what’s happening," replies Applejack. All the girls agree this is the most likely answer.
They manage to slip past the crowd and get to the Golden Oaks Library without running into anypony. All of Ponyville must be at the edge of the forest. When they reach the library Twilight opens the door and they all rush in.
“Spike! Spike! Where are you?” Twilight calls out, scanning the library for her assistant.
“I’m coming Twilight!” Spike yells back. They can hear his little feet scurry across the floor upstairs. He appears at the top of the stairs, “I’m glad you girls are back, I was getting worr...” He stops story when he see them.
Twilight is covered in black stuff so she looks very dirty. It would be funny if she is not also covered in dry blood. It is all down her neck, a large part of her back and the right side of her face. He can see a wound on her right cheek. Her hair looks like it has been hit by a tree into some mud and then slightly burnt, and the blood stains didn’t help either. Rainbow Dash has cuts and dry blood all over her body and her hair looks like she has been hit by lightning. There is a long cut across the left side of her body which also had been bleeding. Rarity has a huge bruise on her chest. She has obviously been hit by something hard. Her hair is also slightly burnt. Applejack has a huge bruise on the left side of her face and a lot of smaller bruises across her body, with her hair and hat both singed. Fluttershy looks fine! Except for her singed hair, until Spike looks down and sees all the dry blood on her legs and chest, like she has been jumping in puddles of blood. Pinkie Pie looks totally fine besides the general singeing, although she is not smiling! But one thing they have in common, they all look really tired.
“What happened to you guys!?!” Spike gasps, “I mean, all that blood!?!”
“No time to explain, Spike!” Twilight says, putting her bag and the mare’s armour and weapons down next to the stairs with her magic. “Just get me a clean blanket, the first aid kit, two icepacks, some clean rags, and some warm water!”
Spike looks confused for a second, and then his face become serious. Nodding, he runs off to gather the items. He comes back with the blanket first. Twilight takes it and places it on the floor.
“Applejack, put her down on this blanket!”
Spike eyes widen at the mare that she has not seen yet, as she’s placed on the blanket. She is looking even worse than the girls. She is covered in blood, has cuts all over her body, a bruise on her forehead and she is looking so pale and sick.
“Twilight, who’s this!?!” Spike says, alarmed.
“Listen Spike, I promise I’ll explain everything later,” says Twilight calmly, “but right now I need you to get the rest of the items.”
Spike looks at the mare, back to Twilight, nods and runs off.
“Twilight, I think we should treat her first,” Fluttershy says, as she approaches Twilight.
Twilight hesitates and then nods, “Yeah you’re right, she’s pretty bad!”
“What!?!” yells Rainbow Dash, “No, we should just tie her up and leave her like that!”
Fluttershy shoots a glare at Rainbow Dash, “Dash, you’re being a huge jerk today! She’s injured and needs help! If you were hurt you would want to be helped too!”
“She tried to kill us! We don’t owe her anything!” Rainbow Dash glares back.
Applejack walks between then and speaks seriously, “How about we fix her up and tie her up!”
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy continue to glare at each other for a few seconds and before they both nod.
“Spike, bring us some rope too!” Twilight yells up to Spike again.
Some rope gets tossed over the top the stairs, which Rainbow Dash catches mid-air and flies over to the mare. She starts to tie the mare’s legs up.
“Ya call that a knot, Dash?” smirks Applejack, “Granny Smith could get out of that!”
“If you think you can do better, cowgirl, then you do it!” grumbles Rainbow Dash.
“I think I will” Applejack says, with a smug look on her face, which she stops because it hurts. After a few seconds the mare’s legs are expertly tied up.
Spike arrives with the rest of the items. He gives a quick glance to the now-bound mare and places the items on the floor in front Twilight. “Thank you, Spike,” she says, smiling at her number one assistant, “Now can you please go back upstairs and unpack my bag.” Spike frowns. Twilight sighs, “Look Spike, I will tell you all about this later, but right now we’re busy. And I want you out of possible harm’s way.”
Spike’s frown changes to an expression of worry. Glancing again at the bound mare, he grabs Twilight’s bag and heads for the stairs, only stopping quickly to have a look at the weird pile of items on floor.
With Spike gone the girls get to work. Applejack and Rarity pick up an icepack each and placing them on their bruises, wincing at the cold touch. Fluttershy grabs the bucket and places on the floor next to the mare. She orders Twilight and Rainbow Dash to clean their wounds, while she starts to clean up the mare’s ones.
“Wow, Twilight!” says Rainbow Dash, as she cleans Twilight’s neck wound, “The sides of the wound are burnt!”
“Really?” Twilight is shocked. “No wonder they string so much. Those projectiles must be pretty hot then.”
“Yeah, mine is burnt too!” Rainbow says, peering at her large wound and then at the pile of the stranger’s possessions, Twilight is looking at them too. Twilight grabs a chest with her magic, empties it and then places the mare’s weapons and armour in it. She closes the lid, locks it and hides it behind a shelf.
“Just in case,” she says, smiling.
Spike walks into the bedroom and sighs. What has happen in the forest? The girls look like they have been to Tartarus and back. He bets it is that mare’s fault. She must have done something. He starts to empty Twilight’s bag. As he sorts through the contents, he finds two things he did not recognize. The first is a black hoodie! Now Spike has never seen Twilight wear a hoodie ever! Or any other pony for that matter! Spike shrugs as he places it in Twilight closet. Whatever Twilight wears is not his problem even if he thinks it would look horrible on her. The second item is a silver looking necklace, with two bits of flat metal on it. There seem to be things carved into it. After looking at it for a few seconds, he shrugs again and puts it in Twilight’s mostly empty jewellery box. Maybe a lucky charm? He continues to put things away, until he hears shouting and loud noises coming from down stairs. He rushes to see what is happening?
The girls have finished tending their wounds. Twilight has cleaned her wounds and then bandaged her neck, and put a bandage patch on her left cheek. Rainbow Dash has also cleaned her wounds, as well as put bandages and band aids all over her body. And Applejack’s and Rarity’s swelling has gone down a lot. The room stinks of disinfectant.
Fluttershy walks up smiling, “I’m done. The wounds weren’t as bad as I thought.”
“What do you mean?” questions Twilight.
“All her wounds were already mostly closed and healing very fast, all I did is clean her up and disinfectant the remaining wounds, and bandage her up.” Fluttershy is happy that her patient seems to be ok.
Twilight eyes widen. “This is bad, very bad!” she says, panicking.
Her friends are confused, “What’s bad?” asks Pinkie.
“Don’t you get it?” Twilight says panic clear in her voice. “You saw how bad those wounds were! Wounds like that would probably keep a pony in hospital for a weeks! She has super strength, super healing ability, and she has the ability to wield those weapons. What do we have in Equestria military to combat a soldier like that? If she is a soldier imagine what an army of them could do!”
“You aren’t thinking of an invasion, are you,” ask Applejack, nervously.
“She might also have friends, who will come looking for her,” adds Rarity.
“They might think we shot her down somehow!” says Pinkie.
“And if they are anything like her, they might just start killing everypony they meet,” says Rainbow Dash.
But before anything else can be said, they hear a moan coming from the mare. The girls freeze and turn their heads toward the sound. The mare has started to move a bit. She speaks.
“Argh, why does it feel like I was head-butted by a Krogan,” she moans, and to their surprise they can understand her.
Twilight shoots a quick glare at Pinkie Pie, who looks sheepish, and walks over to the mare, whose eyes are tightly shut, maybe in pain. Twilight is about to say something when the mare’s eyes shoot open, revealing two beautiful red eyes. The eyes land on Twilight’s, and give a long hard glare. Twilight cannot tear her eyes away from them. Eventually the mare speaks.
“Who are you? And more importantly, what are you?” she says, in a strong commanding voice that was impossible not to answer.
“I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight says, nervously.
“And your species is?” she says, sounding annoyed, like she didn’t believe what Twilight said.
“I’m a pony” Twilight says, now sounding confused.
“A pony,” she says, giving a deadpan look. She shakes her head slightly as if to remove the thought, “Never mind, why can’t move my arms or legs?”
“That’s because we have tied you up” says Rainbow Dash, coming up beside Twilight.
The mare arches up to look at her legs, “With rope! How primitive!” she says, with a smirk on her face, which is suddenly replaced with horror. “Wait! What the fuck happened to my arms and feet?” Her eyes scanned the rest of her body, “What the fuck happen to my body? Is that a tail?” Her head whips around to face Twilight with desperation in her eyes, “Why do I look like you?”
Twilight is even more confused, “If you weren’t a pony, what were you before?”
“I was a human, dammit!” she says desperately, “Not a damn colourful horse!”
This shocked Twilight. This mare was once a human! Like from the world behind the mirror? Did humans really have these kind of weapons at their disposal? Twilight shook her head, clearing away these thoughts. Now is not the time for panicking, she needs some answers.
“Listen, I need you to answer some questions!” Twilight says, in her best commanding voice, which is not very good.
“Umm, OK, shoot,” says the mare, seeming to calm down.
But before Twilight can say anything Applejack speaks up, “Why did you attack us?” she asks angrily.
“I attacked you?” she says, looking confused, “No, I think I would remember attacking colourful horses.”
“You did!” Rarity says, coming up. “In the forest, you tried to kill us!”
“Nope, still don’t remember,” she says looking more confused. She then smirks, “No, that can’t be right!”
“Why not?” asks Twilight, getting more confused.
“Because you’re still alive,” she says smiling dryly.
“I think you hit her too hard, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash whispers into Pinkie’s ear.
Pinkie turns to her looking annoyed. “Oh yeah what about you, Rainbow Crash!” She wishes everypony would shut up about that.
Rainbow Dash glares at her and then turns away mumbling something.
“What do you mean, you don’t remember?” asks Twilight.
“Listen, the last thing I remember is waking up and then something hard hitting my head,” she says, getting annoyed by the questions.
“Ok, this is weird!” says Twilight, ignoring Pinkie’s mumbling.
“Speaking of weird, where is my armour? I vaguely remember having some. Also weapons?” she says looking down at herself. Then a blush appears on her face, “Wait, why am I naked?” She looks around at all of them and her blush increases. “Why are you all naked?” She narrows her eyes, “This isn’t some weird Lesbian cult is it?”
All the girls blush at this, “What!?! No! Of cause not!” Twilight says flustered.
The mare sighs in relief. “That’s good. I guess that means not wearing clothes is the norm then,” she says, the blush gone now.
“Yes it is,” Twilight says still blushing, “Excuse us for a second.”
“Fine, I’m not going anywhere. Yet!” she shrugs.
Twilight and friends huddle together so not to be overheard.
“Well, want do you think girls?” asks Twilight.
“I don’t know what to think, Twilight?” replies Applejack, “This is not what I expected her to be like.”
“She seems to be just as confused as us?” adds Fluttershy.
“Wait one minute,” says Pinkie in shocked tone, “We have not asked her for her name yet!”
Everypony look shocked, they had forgotten to ask such a simple question.
“Perhaps you should ask her, Twilight,” suggests Rarity.
Twilight nods and headed, “Hey, umm, I have another question”
“What is it?” she snaps.
“Umm, what’s your name” asks Twilight, giving a friendly smile.
And then everything went wrong.
“My name?”
“Yes, your name.”
Her eyes start to shake and mist over. She then speaks in a distance voice, “Jane.”
“Jane,” repeats Twilight politely, not noticing the change.
“No! John!” she seems to correct herself.
“John?” Twilight says confused.
The mare starts to breathe very quickly. “No Sarah! No Jack! No Raven! No Drake! No Luna! No Suzie! No Alex!” She screams and starts thrashing around, screaming other names.
The girls back off horrified at this sudden change.
“TWILIGHT!! What is going on!?!” yells Rainbow Dash.
“I don’t know!?!” gasps Twilight.
The mare suddenly stops thrashing about and lies still. Twilight slowly approaches her again.
“Are you OK?” she asks, fear in her voice.
“NO!! I’m not alright!” she says in a new harsh and aggressive tone. She sounded totally different. “I don’t seem to remember anything properly and there are voices screaming in my head!” She turns her head and the girls gasp in horror. Her face has those glowing scar again but they are bigger now. But that not the most horrible part. Her eyes glow like demon’s eyes, “What the FUCK did you do to me?”
“Now this is the kind of pony I expected her to be,” says Applejack quietly.
“She’s like a completely different pony!” says Fluttershy, hiding behind Pinkie.
“Answer me!” she yells, “Or I will get the answers out of you.”
“Yeah, right!” Rainbow Dash says, some of her confidence returning, “You’re all tied up and Twilight can block any magic you use.” Twilight nods.
“Magic?” she says smiling evilly, “Who the fuck needs magic!” Her body starts glowing blue, and then she nods her head towards them.
A blue explosion sends them flying backwards[1]. They scream as they hit the wall and collapse on the floor. The mare is now standing, the rope falling away from her hooves. Her left hoof has some sort of glowing red device on it.
“Next time use something better than rope!” she says, lifting her left hoof and glowing red armour appears[2] on her body and an incandescent red blade shoots out of the device. She walks slowly toward them. “Not there is going to be a next time.”
“Twilight, how is she doing that?” Rarity whispered, terrified at the demonic pony approaching them.
“I don’t know, Rarity?” Twilight replies, rooted to the spot.
“We’ve got to spread out around her,” orders Rainbow Dash.
The mare smiles as they start to slowly encircle her
“What? All six of you against me? That’s so unfair!” she taunts, her smile growing wider. “You should have brought back up.”
Suddenly with a burst of speed[3] that should be impossible from a standing start she knocks into Rainbow Dash whacking her hard into the wall. Rainbow Dash feels the wind getting knocked out of her lungs. She opens her eyes to see the mare standing in front of her, with a blue aura slowly fading. The mare’s hoof, now flaming, is flying towards her head. Rainbow Dash eyes widen in fear as she is teleported to Twilights side, just in time! They all gasp when the hoof hits the wall were Rainbow Dash had been. The spot explodes in a blast of fire, destroying a lot of books and badly damaging the shelf.
“Nice trick,” she says, shaking her unharmed hoof. “Now which one of you did that?”
No pony answers.
“No one? Fine!” she smiles. “It’s more fun this way.” She gallops toward them.
“Scatter!” yells Twilight “I have an idea.” The mare eyes the other ponies as they run past her, but continues toward Twilight. Twilight smiles at this. All is going according to her plan. She grabs the mare with her magic, lifting her off the ground. “Ha! Got you!” Twilight says triumphantly.
The mare struggles for a while and then looks at Twilight, “Oh, really!”
Before Twilight could answer, the mare’s hoof points towards Twilight and lights up again. Twilight eyes widen. She is hit by a surge of electricity[4] and screams in pain as it courses through her body. She falls on her knees, knowing that she was only saved because she had the Pegasus natural resistance to electricity. She looks up wincing in pain, and is horrified to see the mare already standing right in front of her, with her hoof stretched backward ready to punch, glowing blue.
“Night, Night, Princess,” the mare says smirking, as she punches Twilight in the chest.
Twilight’s friends watch as she is sent flying backward, hitting the wall above the stairs with a thud. She falls onto the stairs, rolling down them and to slump at the bottom when she hits the floor. She lies there motionless.
“TWILIGHT!! yells a voice from up the stairs.
It was Spike, fear in his eyes, he runs down the stairs to Twilight side.
“Come on, Twilight, move,” Spike whimpers, shaking her gently. She didn’t stir.
“Is she breathing?” asks Rarity, dreading the answer.
Spike looks up, “NO! I don’t think she is!” he says, tears in his eyes.
As they gasp, they hear laughing coming from the mare. They turn to her, rage boiling in their veins.
“What a weakling. Princess indeed!” she says laughing, one of her glowing red eyes twitching.
“YOU KILLED ARE BEST FRIEND!!” yells Rainbow Dash, her face set in pure rage.
“Yet you stood there and did nothing while I killed her,” she says, “Tut. Tut. Some friends you are.”
Guilt hit them like a brick. Yes, they had just stood there and watched instead helping. They were just so scared of this demon like pony, that fear froze them solid. But not anymore! They want revenge for Twilight.
The mare smiles at the determination in their eyes and says, “Any last words before send you to your friend.”
To the other girls surprise, Fluttershy speaks up, “Why are you doing this to us, we showed you nothing but kindness.”
“Why? WHY!?!” she yells, her face contorting with rage. The scars and her eyes seem to glow brighter. “Is kindness tying someone up? Is kindness interrogating someone? Is kindness stealing someone stuff? Is KINDNESS turning someone into a creature like you? And is KINDNESS putting thousands of voices in someone’s head so she can’t remember who she is anymore?” she spits venomously. “I don’t know what your definition of kindness is, but mine is a little different!”
“But we didn’t do…” Fluttershy tries to explain, but is cut off.
“No more words! It’s over for the lot of you.” The mare lifts up her left hoof. It glows red again and from it a burning missile spins towards them[5].
The girls shoot off in different direction to try and avoid it. It appears to target Rainbow Dash, but its arc is too lazy so it only hits the roof. The explosion is so hot that they can feel it from where they are. When the light fades they can see the damage. That part of the roof is destroyed. It is such a small thing but it does so much damage! But they can’t give up! Because giving up means certain death.
“Fucking hell! Won’t you things just stay still,” snarls the mare.
“Like we are going to stay still and let you kill us,” Rainbow Dash retorts angrily.
“Why not?” she says, with another evil grin. “It will end a lot quicker, and you get to see your fr…”
Her eyes twitch again, and suddenly the scars and her glow in her eyes disappear. Her normal red eyes fix on them with maybe a hint of pleading in them, “Please,” she says desperately, “Kill me!”
What is going on?
“The voices,” she continues in frantic tones, “I can’t stop them. Half of them want me to kill you, and the other half want me to spare you!” Her eyes start to twitch again, “The kill side is winning!” She screams as the scars reappear. “Please kill me, and quickly.” She stops screaming and the girls are looking at those horrible glowing eyes once more. “You should have killed me when you had a chance.” She points her hoof at Fluttershy.
A swirling sphere appears in her hoof.[6] It floats off and starts heading toward Fluttershy. Fluttershy, who is not stupid, bolts. Luckily, for it fires a lance of energy at the spot where she had been. She gives a little meep of surprise and keeps running. It follows her still shooting at her, and missing. She looks over her shoulder as it fires one of those homing red missile things. She cannot outrun that as keeps homing on her location. She is panicking when Rainbow Dash comes down and picks her up. Rainbow Dash flies over the homing object, causing it to turn up toward them, but because of its lazy arc it just hits the celling, leaving other smoking hole.
“Thanks, Rainbow,” pants Fluttershy, who was now flying next to Rainbow Dash.
“Don’t thank me yet.” says Rainbow Dash. She turns toward Applejack and Rarity. “We need to stop that thing,” she yells.
Nodding, Rarity grabs the hovering red ball with her magic, which is still tracking Fluttershy. It whines as it tries to moves forward. Applejack kicks a book toward it. When the book hits, there is a breaking noise and the sphere disappears.
“We did it,” says Rarity, with a tired smile.
“Yes, well done,” says a mocking voice behind them. “You defeated a drone. Any fool with a pistol could have done that,” the mare smiles at them, “And now thank to this little game, I now know your roles.”
“What do ya mean,” asks Applejack, fearing the answer.
She smiles. “Well your role is strength,” she says, pointing toward Applejack. “You’re more of a support,” she points toward Rarity. “That purple one was your leader, most likely,” she adds as she gestures behind her. “You’re the really agile one,” she points to Rainbow Dash. “And you’re a useless hang on,” she finishes as she points toward Fluttershy.
Fluttershy cringes and looks sad at her hopeless.
“You can’t talk like that about my friend!” yells Rainbow Dash.
The mare ignores her. “Where is that Pink one,” she says, with increasing levels of annoyance.
The girls gasp. She is right, Pinkie is gone?
The mare shrugs, “Maybe she went to get help,” she says in bored tones, “But it won’t come in time, because in a minute you will all be dead.”
As the mare turns towards Applejack and Rarity, her body has that blue aura again. She nods her head in their direction. To Applejack’s and Rarity’s surprise they float upwards toward the ceiling, until a sudden and strong force hurtles them back down hard[7]. They scream as they hit the floor. But before Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy can do anything, a second force sends them crashing into the floor next to their friends[8]. As they all lie there in shocked pain, unable to move, they hear hoof steps approaching.
“Well, it’s been fun. But all good things it must end…” Her glowing armour fades as she walks toward them. She then halts, because her legs are stuck in a purple aura.
“No… Stop!” comes a pained voice from behind her.
It was Twilight. She is barely standing and only with the support of Spike. Her horn glows with her magic as she holds the mare hooves to the ground.
“Oh, you’re still alive then. I guess I didn’t give you enough credit then,” the mare says in an irritated tone.
Then to everypony’s horror, Twilight is pulled through the air toward the mare[9] until they were face to face. The demonic creature smiles at her, her eyes glaring into Twilight’s. Twilight tries to free herself, but she can’t seem to move.
“Now let’s end this!” the mare says triumphantly.
To Be Continued