//------------------------------// // Where Do We Go? // Story: The Last Something Sweet to Bite // by Knackerman //------------------------------// "This is it?" asked Twilight Sparkle, eyeing the construction that had taken them less than a half hour to assemble through her goggles. It was no surprise that her lab, which despite it's disused appearance had been far better stocked with raw materials than she had suggested, had contained everything that they needed. What was surprising was just how simply and quickly everything had come together. "That's all there is to it?" "Well the interval between the two points is defined by the square root of the sum of the squares of the separation between the points along three spacial dimensions," replied Sunset Shimmer. "Essentially it should allow for the instantaneous transposition of matter between two equal planes of existence." "Well yeah, obviously I get that, but it's just some pieces of wood and metal attached to a pair of Tesla coils with a few cables," replied the science minded Twilight, knocking on the wooden slats that supported the array as though to demonstration it's simplicity. "I mean it doesn't even seem to have a power source despite the light bulbs that, as near as I can tell, are part of the device simply for show." "Trust me, if we do this right, it will open a portal that we can use to travel to another dimension," reassured Sunset confidently. Almost immediately after she said this, however, a look of doubt crept over her face. "I'm pretty sure. To be honest I really only recreated this based on something Twi...*ahem* a friend of mine said she had created and tested successfully before. Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure it would function without magic. Fortunately, we do have a small source at hand." "Hah!" laughed Pinkie Pie explosively. "That was a joke right? Because the power source we have at 'hand' is this little guy, right?" asked Pinkie, raising the jar that held the severed appendage that had nearly choked the life out of her. The hand, for its part, flopped around loosely in the jar before making a very rude gesture. "Hey, that's not nice," scolded the pink haired girl. "Just give that here Pinkie," replied Sunset taking the glass container. "Though you are correct. In my experience it takes a great deal of dark magic to subvert the will of a living creature. A dead or inanimate creature, however, is actually even harder to assume control of, as there is no basic consciousness that's available to move the body. To make a corpse move, speak, and act on its own, and not just wait patently for direct commands like a mindless flesh golem, would take a massive amount of dark magic. Even this little piece must be saturated with more than enough energy to power the portal several times over." "There is one problem though," said Maud from behind an old welding mask as she soldered the last of the wires together. Setting aside her soldering gun and raising her mask, she continued, "If I understand the basic dynamics of this construct, we're still missing at least one vital piece. The mirror that was in storage down here will serve fine as a gateway, but don't you require an item from your world to act as a conduit for a portal to form?" Sunset blinked slowly. She was unsure if she was more surprised that one of her friends had such a thorough grasp of what was essentially an otherworldly device, or that Maud had just spoken more than she had ever heard before. "Well, yes, that's where we're fortunate. You see, I don't actually want to go back to my world," she paused, thinking things through carefully. "Opening a portal to Equestria might just allow the Candy Mare access to my home dimension. I don't won't to risk inviting the same tragedy that has befallen this realm to another. Even if it would be nice to have the power of the Princesses on our side, there's no guarantee that they could act fast enough to stop what's happening here, let alone keep Equestria safe during the attempt." She placed the jar in the center of the array and clamped copper leads onto the metal lid. "Besides, I lost my journal. Even if I wanted to go home, there's a good chance we'd have to return to Canterlot High to retrieve the only item I can think of that could serve as a connection," she looked at her friends with a crooked smile that she didn't really feel. "For better or worse, we're on our own." "I don't understand," said Twilight apprehensively. "So where exactly is it you intend to go?" "To the Candy Mare's world," replied Sunset simply. "The hand may be originally from this world, but the dark magic invested in it is connected to the Candy Mare and, through her, her dimension of origin. There's no reason it cannot be both conduit and power source except... except the portal won't be able to remain open indefinitely. There may only be enough power for one of us to cross safely in this manner." "No no-no-no-no no, no! You can't be serious Sunset!" cried Pinkie Pie, grabbing the other girls jacket by the collar. "That would be way, way too dangerous! She made an army of flesh eating monsters from a single high school, imagine what an entire world of that would be like! Why would you even want to go there in the first place!?" "To put down the Candy Mare for good," said the fiery haired teenager as she gently, but firmly, removed her friends hands. "I told you and the others earlier, I spent a lot of my time studying dark magic. It's not something I'm proud of, but it has afforded me certain forbidden knowledge that may undo much of the harm that the Candy Mare has wrought. Not just on this world, but any other world she's touched." Sunset turned away from her friend, and gazed into her own reflection. "Her world shouldn't be that different from my Equestria. When I pass through the portal, I will regain the form of a unicorn and have control over the magical power that I need to defeat her. I should be more than capable of doing what needs to be done." The party girl looked down sadly, the curls of her pink hair visibly drooping. As she spoke, it was obvious from Pinkie's shaking chin that she was fighting back tears, "You're going alone and you don't plan on coming back. This is what they call a 'suicide' mission, isn't it?" "No!" cried Sunset, louder than she intended. She quieted her voice before turning back towards Pinkie and lifting her friends chin so that her down cast eyes met her own. "If there is a way, I will come back. This is my home now, and you, all of you, are my friends! It's the Candy Mare who will perish, not me... not us! We will beat her, for all of our friends who died, for the students and staff of Canterlot High. For our world! You and Rarity are precious to me. So don't think for a moment that I plan on dying in some Celestia forsaken zombie world!" "Where is Rarity anyways?" asked Twilight, interrupting the moment between friends. "She went to change cloths a long time ago. I hope she didn't get lost. I... kinda did once when I was little. It wasn't fun." "No need to worry, ladies!" came a bright cheerful voice, "Rarity has arrived!" As Rarity swept into the drab, dusty laboratory, the entire room seemed to brighten. It was, it must be said, mostly thanks to her dress. It seemed to be absolutely dripping with beads and jewels that caught the light and sent it sparkling back against the walls and into her friends eyes. She was positively radiant, which would be an excellent way of describing the smile that graced her perfect features. It seemed she had taken the time to shower, primp, and scrape the muck and grime from her hair and skin. Clothed as she was now, and in this somewhat drab setting, she appeared akin to the goddess Persephone come down to grace Hades underworld with her presence. "Wow Rare, you look gorgeous!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, shaking off her melancholy in an instant. "Don't I just, darling? I feel as though I could face a legion of Candy Mares!" she answered with a haughty laugh, "Hah-ha ha-hah!" "Wow, I didn't know my mother had a dress like that in her wardrobe," Twilight couldn't help but notice how perfectly it hung from Rarity's frame, as though it had been tailored specifically for the slim teenager. "Where ever did you find it?" "Oh-ho ho, as if you didn't know! Someone set out this magnificent gown for me while I was availing myself of a hot shower. It was ever so kind of you to provide such a regal work of art for me to wear." Rarity paused to take in the full view of herself in the large mirror that was part of the transposition array. "I almost feel ashamed for wearing it. Almost." "I didn't set out any cloths, I've been down here with the other this whole time," murmured Twilight before continuing speculatively, "Father must have purchased it as a surprise for mother. Looking at it, they must be arguing again. A dress like that could only be an apology gift. It must have cost him a fortune." "Not really," said Maud calmly. "What do you mean?" asked Sunset, the elder Pie sisters comment striking her as odd. "None of the jewels are real," said the Earth Sciences major simply. "Not a single one seems to be a naturally occurring or man made stone. It's very pretty, but also very cheap." Rarity ignored this, continuing to admire herself in the mirror and giving a little twirl so she could see the back. "Leave it to my big sis to spot something like that," beamed the younger Pie sister proudly. "If there's one thing Maud knows, it's rocks!" "It's not that big of a deal Pinkie. If you had a closer look you'd be able to tell too," replied Maud with what passed for sheepishness on her otherwise expressionless face. "After all, we both know what rock candy looks like." "Rarity take that dress off now!" Sunset Shimmer roared, her eyes wide with panic. "Wh-what!?" asked Rarity aghast. "Down here in this... this filthy workroom with all of you staring at me!? Why ever should !?" Even as she said this, she couldn't take her eyes off her own reflection. Perhaps that was why she was the first to notice what it took the others a moment to realize. She was bleeding. A steady drip, drip, drip staccato'd on the floor from beneath her dress, falling from between her legs. At first a look of intense embarrassment washed over Rarity's face, followed by a sudden twist of revulsion and pain. Blood gushed down her white legs in rivulets, and down her slender white arms. It happened so suddenly and without warning that no one even had a chance to move. "What's going on!?" Rarity cried out in alarm, "What's happening to me!?" At last she turned from her reflection, but already it was far too late for her. She clawed at the dress, trying to rip the jeweled gown off of her body. She frantically tugged and pulled, but to no avail. The dress continued to hug her curves snugly, in fact if anything it seemed to be squeezing tighter and tighter. Warm blood began to pool around her bare feet as she sobbed and groaned. Her friends reached out to her to help, but it was impossible to get a grip on the gore slicked dress. With one final scream, Rarity fell to the floor, curled in a fetal position, shivering and trembling violently from the sudden blood loss. She was barely conscious as the dress did, of it's own accord, what she and her friends couldn't force it to do. Slowly it peeled off of her fallen form, revealing that she had been completely stripped of her skin wherever the dress had touched. There was only shiny crimson muscle, still knotted in pain, wet and bright in the oxygen rich air. Rarity had been skinned alive, the cold feeling of the floor and the basements dank air on her exposed nerve endings was a shock to her system. Perhaps it was this shock that, blessedly, allowed her to pass into insensibility. The dress, for its part, maintained it's shape as it rose into the air above Rarity's flayed form, still dripping scarlet blood. In an instant, legs and arms burst forth from within the dress, while it lost its form and faded into the flesh of the creature that hadn't just been inside it, but had been the dress the entire time. Candy smiled wickedly as she hovered in midair, her grubby flesh and hair slick with the many pints of blood she had drained from Rarity in a matter of moments. She gave a bone chilling laugh as she licked some of the gore from the back of her hand like a cat cleaning herself. "Trick or treat~" she said musically, before bursting into a fit of amused giggles. Pinkie Pie grabbed her sisters arm with strength that surprised even Maud, "We need to run! Now!" she cried, eyes wild, hair long and straight. Charging across the lab, dragging her older sister in tow, she made it to the door that lead out of the basement in a flash. As Pinkie threw open the door, however, a wall of grasping reaching hands met her. The cramped hallway was flooded, floor to ceiling, with the hungry dead. Pinkie only had a moment to turn terrified eyes to her sister as the mob pulled her into their midst and started tearing her apart. Dead fingers and broken teeth dug into her flesh, snapping bone and popping veins so that hot blood sprayed in short, feeble bursts as the ravenous dead made swift work of their prize. The sounds of their hungry ripping and gnashing teeth were lost on Maud. All she could do was stair at the hand that still clung tightly to her own. It ended in the stub of her little sisters arm. She hadn't let go. Pinkie hadn't even had time to scream. Candy laughed all the louder, "Ah you led me on a merry chase 'Sunny', but now the game is over." She floated over to Sunset and Twilight, grinning widely. "I can't say it hasn't been fun, but I guess it's time for you to die." Without warning Twilight Sparkle lunged forward, a heavy spanner gripped with both hands raised high above her head. She brought it down with enough force to crack a human skull, but it whiffed harmlessly through the air. The childlike Candy had ducked beneath her guard and now stared Twilight eye to maddened eye. "Don't be rude," she said with a pout that swiftly melted into a smile, "You can wait your turn." With a single tap from her tiny fist, Candy sent Twilight flying across the lab where she landed on a shrouded machine with a crash that sent up an explosion of sparks. Her broken glasses lay on the floor where she had been standing only moments before. Sunset tried to dart around the Candy Mare to get to the transposition array, but the monsters attention had never truly left her. Moving so quickly that she seemed to materialize in front of Sunset out of thin air, the grinning ghoul blocked her path. "I won't let you stop me! I've lost too much... too many to let you stop me now!" cried the unicorn in girl form as she threw a punch that failed to connect. Again and again, she tried to strike the Candy Mare but, compared to how quickly the twitchy child could dodge, it was as if her fists were moving through molasses. "Hold still!" Sunset cried through gritted teeth. "If you insist," Candy replied with a giggle. She stood stock still as Sunset's fist finally made contact. Only, instead of a satisfying thwack, Sunset's fist actually sank into Candy's chest with a sickening slurp. Pain immediately shot down Sunset's right arm. It felt as if she had plunged her hand into a vat of boiling acid. "You shouldn't have kept that hand, you now. I am connected to every one of my candy children, down to the smallest piece... And it led me right to you!" Sunset watched in horror as Candy's rib cage opened like a hungry mouth. She was about to be swallowed alive, the same way Applejack had when her grandmother's corpse had devoured the country girl. "But hey, I don't mind lending you a hand, so long as you don't mind returning the favor," she giggled darkly as the gaping maw in her chest started to close. That was when Candy's head suddenly exploded. She roared and shrieked through her ruined mouth as she squirmed away, freeing Sunset's hand. The candy monstrosity didn't get far though, before the spanner that had scythed through her head smashed in her rib cage and crumpled her tiny body to the floor. Maud Pie, lab coat splattered with gore, stood over the Candy Mare with Twilight's heavy spanner gripped in one hand and her sisters arm still grasped in the other. In that moment, Maud's cold eyes and deadly calm were almost more terrifying than the Candy Mare's madness. From the look of the ragged bone at the end of Pinkie's detached arm, it seemed Maud had used it as a club to beat back the candy ghouls. It wasn't until Sunset realized that Maud had been crying that she felt the ice that had frozen the blood in her veins start to thaw. Using Twilight's dropped spanner, she threw a switch on the side of the array that activated the tesla coil's. Man made lightning surged through the device, electrifying the hand in a jar in the center of the array. It shook and smoked, but slowly a glow that Sunset recognized as magic surged through the device, and a swirling green vortex opened inside the mirror. "You need to go," is all Maud said. "What about you?" asked Sunset, eyes welling with tears of her own. She could see that whatever time Maud's rage and sadness had bought them was fading quickly. Already the candy ghoul's were starting to squirm their way over their broken comrades and surging up into the lab from the basement hall. Worse, she could see that Candy was piecing herself back together, using the shreds of Rarity's stripped flesh to bind her body back together. "You can come with me. We might not get where we need to go, but at least we won't be here." A fierce light entered Maud's eyes as she answered, "No, you need to go. Only you. I'll make sure they don't follow." Sunset still hesitated, one hand inches from the portal. "Just go!" cried Maud, raising her voice, for the first time in her life, and shoving the girl from another world through the portal. As soon as Sunset was through, Maud smashed the mirror with the wrench. For a moment the fragments of glass floated in mid-air, showing reflections not of the dead gathering around her, but of other worlds and possibilities. In one fragment, Maud saw herself and her sisters. They were all smiling... even Maud. They were all happy. That was the last thing she saw before the device exploded, sending out a shock wave that leveled the mansion and buried Twilight's lab under thousands of tons of rubble.