Pipsqueak rushed down the road, struggling not to trip on the lengths of bandage that encircled his legs as he dodged through the stalls. He was somewhat regretting his choice of costume, certainly a mummy was simple, but he was going to have to be careful in order to prevent his bandages from being unwrapped.
“Hey guys!” he called to the group who were waiting for him; Buttonmash (who was dressed as a changeling), Sweetie Belle (king Sombra), Scootaloo (Rainbow Dash, again), and Applebloom, who at first glance appeared to have fallen into some sappy twigs, until you realised she was disguised as a Timberwolf.
“There you are!” Scootaloo called, she was hopping form hoof to hoof, clearly impatient to get going.
“Right,” Applebloom said, “Everypony ready?”
They all held up their bags, everpony that is, except Sweetie Belle. “Oh no! I left mine at home!” she took off, calling over her shoulder; “I’ll be right back!”
“Seriously?” Scootaloo groaned, collapsing with her hooves over her head before snapping back up. “Nope, that’s it, I’m going now!”
Applebloom grabbed her shoulder as she tried to leave, “You’re not going anywhere on your own.”
Scoot shrugged her hoof off, “So come with me.” When Applebloom looked skeptical, she rolled her eyes, “look, we’ll just go off and do one house, then come back and do the rest with Sweetie Belle.”
Applebloom sighed, she knew their would be no dissuading her friend, “All right, just ONE house.”
* * *
“Not THAT house!”
“Why not?”
“Why not?!” Applebloom cried, momentarily speechless. Then she recovered, “That’s twilight’s castle!”
“So?”
“So, the others will want to visit this hou- castle,” She corrected, exasperated, “I mean, it’s only the home of the bucking princess of friendship!”
“Yeah, so we can come back later!”
Applebloom facehoofed, “Alright, let’s just get this over with.”
They walked up to the huge doors of the castle. Actually, they were pretty normal-sized, these being castle doors and castles — on the whole — being bigger then normal houses, so after being proportionally resized, the doors were slightly smaller than normal doors. But no one actually thinks this when the see the front of a castle, the just think Oh my Celestia, huge doors! and stop there, which is a wast of a perfectly good contemplative opportunity.
After reaching the huge-but-technically-not-huge doors, Scootaloo nocked by the simple expedient of applebucking the doors squarely in the crystal polish. They boomed.
“Scootaloo!”
“What?”
“You don’t announce yourself to the princess of friendship by bucking down her door!”
“How am I going to buck these down? Their huge!”
“You could break them! They could be delicate!”
“Their made out of honking great crystals!”
“Exactly!”
Their whispered fight was silenced by one of the huge (but technically not huge) doors creaking open.
“Huh?” Applebloom said, “Crystal hinges creak?” Scootaloo had already gone inside, “Hey! Wait for me!”
They were standing in a long corridor, the walls were lined with doors and fire brackets, barely visible in the shadow of the hall.
“Uhh… Hello?” Scootaloo called, her voice echoed down the corridor, bouncing back off the T-junction at the far end. Suddenly, the previously empty fire brackets burst into life, one by one, all down the hall and around the corner. Applebloom gulped.
“I-Is that suppost to happen?…” she asked.
And then the thudding came, like someone beating a great drum with a mallet. And then the rumbling, quiet, like breathing. A shadow moved across the wall at the far end of the hall, it was huge, distorted, but with the distinct points of spines and teeth. What more do you need for your mane to stand on end?
Then it roared, and the sound shock the fillies down to their hooves, they grabbed each-other and screamed before rushing out the door and cannoning through the streets, still yelling. Once they had left, Twilight stepped out form around the corner, still levitating the huge mallet that she had been using on the drum.
“Did it work?” asked Spike. Twilight turned to see him still standing in the fire light, the flames casting a distorted shadow over the wall. He was still carrying Fluttershy’s old bear whistle.
“Yes, Spike,” Twilight grinned, “I think it did.”
~ ~ ~
Sweetie Belle rushed into Carousel Boutique, slamming the door behind her, then she galloped over to the table and grabbed her Trick or Treat bag. She was about to leave when something bumped into the table leg.
“Huh?” she said before pulling up the table cloth to look under the table.
“Boo!” a refined voice cried, a badly stitched dress shook itself at her. Someone had sewn eyes and floppy felt teeth on it.
Sweetie Belle blinked for a few seconds, then recovered. “Rarity?”
The dress froze for a moment, “No?” It didn’t seem very sure of itself. It wobbled at her half-heartedly, “WooOOooo.”
Sweetie Belle brought a hoof to her forehead, just below her horn which she used to pull the dress away. Rarity grinned at her sheepishly, “Oh, hello dear.”
Sweetie Belle just stared at her around her hoof, which had slid down between her eyes, “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I was just, ah…” she waved the dress. “Nightmare Night,” she mumbled. Sweetie Belle just kept staring, “Oh fine! Myself and the others made a bet to see who could do the best Nightmare Night scare, and it was on short notice and…” she looked pleadingly at her sister.
“Yeah…” she said, “well, I’d best go join the others!” she quickly ejected herself form the room, candy bag in tow.
Rarity looked after her for a while, then at the monster-dress, then at her own fore-hooves. The later she smacked into her own forehead, “Stupid!”
As Sweetie Belle made her way back to the others, she thought to herself; I bet the princesses don’t have to deal with stuff like that.
~ ~ ~
“BOO!”
“Oh, greetings again, sister.”
Celestia deflated, “How did you know it was me?”
Luna sighed, “because this ist no less then the third time thou hast tried this?”
Tia pouted behind her Timberwolf mask, “oh come on, luna, this is meant to be fun!”
“Fun ist in the eye of the beholder.”
She rolled her eyes behind her mask, “whatever.”
“Hmm.”
* * *
Five minutes later, Celestia was once again hiding around a corner waiting for her sister. This time for sure! she thought, strapping on her hydra mask, Fourth time’s always the charm.
She waited for the distinctive sound of her sister’s hooves on the marbled floor, then launched herself around the corner.
“BOO!” she screamed. There was nopony there.
“Huh?” she said, pulling the mask off. There was a hoofstep behind her.
She spun round, and brought herself face-to-face with slitted pupils, black hide, and viciously sharp teeth. The thing screamed, a high, guttural, shriek that echoed down the halls and brought dust form the ceiling.
Now, Celestia had countless centuries of grace and monarchy to back her up, along with a thousand years of experience as the sole ruler of Equestria, and it showed. Every ounce of that experience was called on now as, gracefully, she screamed like a little school filly and fell over with her legs scrambling wildly at the floor. Luna grinned down at her as she dispelled the visage of Nightmare Moon she had conjured.
“Thou knowest what, sister?” she said as Celestia continued to propel herself in a little circle, “Thou wast right, this ist fun!”
~ ~ ~
“Trick or treat!”
“My!” Ms Cake cried, “what scary costumes you have!”
“Thanks!” Pipsqueak’s terminally english voice made it’s way out around the bandages covering his head.
“Enough chit-chat, time is candy!” Button remarked, he’d been steadily eating his way through his own candy as they collected, and it appeared the sugar rush was finally getting to him.
“It seems you’re channeling Pinkie Pie tonight,” Ms Cake laughed at the softly vibrating little changeling. “Speaking of, Pinkie Pie’s got the candy in the back, and I hope for your sakes she hasn’t eaten it all yet.”
Sweetie Belle smiled and took the lead as the trio traipsed inside, only slightly miffed that Applebloom and Scoots had left without her. As they made their way to the storeroom, she realised that the lights in the back had been put out.
“Hey, Ms Cake?” she called, “can we have a light?”
There was no reply.
“Ok…” she sighed, turning back to the door and following the others through.
Her first estimation had been incorrect, there was a light in the room, a single lamp stood on a wooden crate in the middle of the floor, the light flickering eerily across the shelves.
“H-hello? P-P-pinkie?” Pipsqueak, well, squeaked.
There was a sound of shifting hide on wood and a groan from across the room.
“H-hello?” Pipsqueak repeated, even quieter.
Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes as she tried to see past the glare of the lamp, then they widened at what she saw. Rainbow Dash was standing beyond the light, strapped upright against a huge X-shaped board, her entire body was limp and she looked barely conscious. “Help me…” she murmured.
The group stiffened as someone giggled behind them, they turned slowly to see Pinkie Pie standing there, her hair was lank and lifeless and she had a glint of steel in her eye. There was also a glint of steel on the carving knife in her hooves.
“Hey hey hey!” she grinned maniacally, “Who wants a Cupcake?!”
~ ~ ~
Faust sighed.
The great alacorn creator of the universe and everything in it had worked hard. Did people think it was easy, creating entire realties? She had dreamed up every detail, right down to the minute little flaws in its laws of physics that allowed magic to exist.
But what was the point, if some… children, could just break the rules?
She had examined the situation over and over again, and she still couldn’t figure out how they had managed it. They hadn’t used magic, so it shouldn’t have been possible for three foals — three earth-bound, perfectly ordinary foals — to break the sound barrier whilst exiting a cake store. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they had also screamed at a pitch high enough to make the wax boil in your ears. A feat that a; shouldn’t have been possible and b; should have killed them outright, assuming they survived being accelerated to over twelve hundred kilometres an hour in less than three seconds, which they had.
She snorted softly and looked over at the viewing orb next to her.
It wasn't as if their friend had even been in danger, she could see her now, her and the pink one where rolling around on the floor practically screaming with laughter. Actually, the pink one broke the rules with infuriating rapidity, it couldn’t just… rub off on you… could it?
She sighed again, she was going to have to fix this wasn’t she? Yay…
~ ~ ~
“So, who won?”
Predictably, it was Rainbow Dash who had asked the question, even if it was on everypony else’s mind as well. After recounting the effects of their pranks on the fillies and colts that evening, they had all gathered at Carousel Boutique for a cup of tea and to decide who had won the bet. Rarity, their host, had been metaphorically eliminated almost instantly, as her prank had not only ensnared only one person, but also completely and utterly failed to traumatise them at all. Meanwhile both Twilight’s prank and Pinkie and Dash’s joint effort had caused trauma comparable to that of a blunt instrument. The only question was, who had done better?
“I call on Applejack as a neutral party to decide who was scarier!” Rainbow declared, “so, who was it AJ?”
Applejack shrugged, “Well ah don’t rightly know…”
Twilight sipped her tea, “Take as long as you need, I’m sure you come to the right decision.”
“Yeah! And when I win-” Dash started.
“Pardon?” Twilight interrupted.
“-both you and Rarity will owe me and Pinkie Pie five bits,” she continued, eyes narrowing, “each.”
“What!” Twilight and Rarity spluttered, “The agreement was that the winner would get five bits from each of the losers!”
“Yep!” Dash grinned, “and there’s two winners, so cough up!”
“You haven’t even won yet!” Twilight protested, “And I never signed up for ten bits!”
“Too bad! Pay up!”
Applejack had had enough of this, and said as much, “Enough! Rarity’s the winner!”
“WHAT!” both sides balked, “NO SHE’S NOT, I AM!” they turned on each other, “NO, I AM!”
Pinkie Pie turned to rarity, “Congratulations!” she said, pushing five bits across the table.
While Twilight and Rainbow Dash kept arguing, and while Rarity tried ineffectively to persuade Pinkie Pie that she had not, in fact, won, Applejack made her exit — or perhaps, escape — into the cool night air.
She whistled as she made her way home, the night breeze nipping at her fetlocks. She loved the orchard at night, the soft light of the moon painted the trees silver, a white glow reflected off her beautiful red-squelch!
She looked down, then moved her hoof. she had stood on the remains of a brown, rotten-looking apple. It had been sucked dry.
There was a rustle off to her right, she turned but as soon as she did, the rustle repeated itself on her left. She whipped round, something pink and yellow streaked across her vision. Oh no. Nononononononono, she thought. “Fluttershy?”
There was a soft thump behind her, and her entire body stiffened. She turned very slowly, a dark figure stood in the path before her, there was a soft sucking-crunching sound, and a brown, drained apple dropped to the ground with two large punctures in it’s skin.
“F-Flutershy? I-I-It’s me, A-Applejack.”
The figure moved slightly, “Apple?”
“Y-yes, that right, Applejack”
There was a whoosh, a shriek, and a strangled cry of; “Apple!”