What Came Before

by Rocket Blaze

Malice

The chasm that separated Pinkie and Twilight from their friends was too great to cover by hoof before the Other could act. Teleportation would have been the only way, but the Other had so far seemed to know every move they would make before they made it, and Pinkie couldn't see why now would be any different.

A sideways glance at Twilight confirmed that the she too had arrived at the same conclusion: It was a stalemate. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she turned her gaze pleadingly in the direction of her friends; a gaze which they returned without a shred of recognition.

"I'm so sorry," Pinkie whimpered, "I let you guys down..."

Despite the distance, the Other heard her well. "Yes you did, child, oh so completely," he grinned. "Believe me that, in time, you will certainly pay for that mistake. You see, everything happens in circles... Circles of anguish spin 'round and 'round across time. You hurt another, and they hurt you back. It's so... Magnificent."

"We will stop you! We have the Elements of-"

"-PEH!" he spat. "The 'Elements of Harmony'!? Useless rocks. Have you not seen the fruits of my work?" Pinkie could feel its pupilless eyes bearing down on her. "You surely think yourself innocent, but every being has a part of them that yearns to act on the basest desires that you bury so deep down, you forget they are there.

"You, child, submitted more readily than most. Do you remember all those nights you tossed and turned in the night, dreaming sweetly of the lives I willed you to take? While you were contented to blame me for your weakness, inside I could feel your essence grow with beautiful malice. Why? Because you liked it. Your so called 'Element of Harmony' is naught but a reflection of your own good nature... And now, it is mine."

He gave the ponies at his side a mocking pat on the head with the same dignity reserved for common pets. "Honesty and Loyalty are mine, as well." Throwing his head back, he laughed a terrible laugh that rumbled across the plain like a rolling thunder from a distant storm. "You can no more hurt me with your precious little 'Elements of Harmony' than you could burn the sun with a flame!"

"H-How?" Pinkie wondered aloud. "How could he-"

"-Oh, it's quite simple. This is my gift!" The Other's arms shot outward, bristling from his body like the spokes of a cartwheel. Darkness flowed from his fingertips and meshed together into a solid disk that spread across the sky. As the curtain closed around them, it morphed its color and texture into that of a mossy, cracked wall surrounding what must have once been a very grand throne room.

"The Castle of the Two Sisters!" Twilight gasped.

"Yes," the Other acknowledged, his voice pressing inward from all directions. "One year ago. The night you and your... friends-" he pronounced the word with distaste, as though the very idea of friendship was a poison to him. "-met one of my favorite little pets."

"-You mean-"

"-The sniveling whelp, Princess Luna. I prefer the name I gave her one thousand years ago. 'Nightmare Moon.'" Shadows leapt into the still air, twisting and bending into a ghostly Twilight Sparkle. She knelt across from a similarly rendered Nightmare Moon, wings extended in triumph.

"You little foal!" she gloated "Thinking you could defeat me? Now you will never see your princess, or your sun! The night will last forever!"

She was answered by the distant voices of Pinkie and her friends, echoing from the stairwell past the chamber's entryway. Their ghost forms gathered behind Twilight, standing united as she grinned to Nightmare Moon. "You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that? Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here!"

The past visions froze in place. "You..." the Other hissed. "...You practically handed me the Elements of Harmony on a silver platter." His bemused chortle reverberated through the walls of the castle.

"What!?" Pinkie cried. "You mean-"

"-Watch..."

The ghost forms shifted about the room before reanimating. Past Twilight had assembled with her past friends, and the Elements of Harmony glowed with their brilliant glow. "You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth Element: the Element of Magic!"

All at once, the Elements burst into action, reforming from their dusty shards as regalia about the necks of their rightful representees. The past visions levitated into the air, buoyed by the magical power of the Elements, which burst forth from their union as a great rainbow that arced through the air before striking its mark. "Nooo! Nooo!" Nightmare Moon cried as the past visions froze in place.

"I remember all of this." Twilight called, "But what does this-"

"-Twilight... Look." Pinkie pointed at the ground beneath where her past self, and friends, hovered amidst a halo of white light. A single shadow defied the radiance, and extended upward into the formation.

"You..." Twilight growled. "You were there!"

"But of course. Do you honestly think the weak and helpless Luna could have acted alone against her sister? Corrupting her was most entertaining. She screamed and begged me to stop the entire time. But I grew on her envy, and granted her the power she could never have had on her own.

"But the Elements of Harmony - those cursed trinkets - set my plans back by a thousand years... A thousand and one, that is." He chuckled knowingly. "The irony is that you taking the Elements into your own being helped me more than you could have ever imagined. Ineffectual though she was, I could never have taken the Elements from Princess Celestia directly... With you, though..."

Shadowy hands materialized from the floor beneath Pinkie. One draped itself tenderly across her shoulders, as another poked at her muzzle accusingly. "I simply latched myself onto the one I felt would be the easiest to corrupt. And what is laughter if not disdain disguised as delight? You, dear, fed me more than a thousand Lunas could have."

Pinkie tried to back away, but was stopped by a thicket of shadowy limbs. "Oh, I'm not done yet. Let's travel to some time a little more recent... Shall we?" Twilight and Pinkie turned in unison as the arms shot over them and wrapped them in a cocoon of darkness. Pinkie's eyes pressed tightly shut, and when she opened them a moment later they were in a different room entirely.

It was her kill room. Before her, Rainbow Dash lay mutilated on a drum-mounted table. Her wings cast carelessly into the shadows beyond. Blood streamed from her many wounds, and it was plain from her expression that she had little hope to live. It was a thousand times more vivid than any dream she'd had of it since, and yet a part of her was grateful to know that Rainbow Dash would be okay.

She was jolted from her introspection as the scene she remembered well unfolded before her very eyes. It was strange hearing herself sound so... "vile" was the only word she could think to match her behavior. Of course, she knew it wasn't her. It was this creature who took so much joy in manipulating them, trapping them, and feeding off of their inner hatered. Even so, as she watched the knife - her knife - lash out with the goal of ending her friend's life, she was overcome with guilt, and fell to the ground in time with her past self.

"Pinkie! Remember, this isn't real!" Twilight urged.

"She lies," the Other assured her. "You remember this well. I can sense that the memories have never left you. How surprised do you think I would be to find that you indeed miss the rush of taking another life?"

Pinkie shook her head, hiding behind her hooves. "No!" she sobbed. "No, I didn't ask for any of this!" She forced herself to face the scene once more. All of the past visions had frozen in place; the faintest flash of shadow suspended in mid-leap between her lifeless heap, and Applejack. "You've been hurting her ever since that day... Haven't you?"

"Yes..." the Other whispered as it seeped from the walls of the kill room. "With your Element mine, your usefulness to me had ended. Your precious Applejack, however..." Twisting and writhing, the other coiled around Applejack's likeness like a giant snake, susurrating venemously as it spoke. "Why else would I have led her to you, but to help her to see things as I do?"

"Impossible! She came to help us!" Twilight reasoned.

"You?" the Other slithered towards the pair, incarcerating them within in a wide spiral. "What do you honestly believe the odds are that she just wandered into your store on a whim? That she just happened to be there just in the nick of time to save the pegasus? Oh, but not soon enough to keep you from shattering her will to intervene. She was following a trail that I had left for her to follow! I can be quite subtle when I wish to be..."

The coil wound ever more tightly as the Other closed in. Its undulating movements set Pinkie off of her balance, though it was the violation that made her head spin.

For weeks, she had been forced to recollect every grusome detail of her actions. The barest modicum of solace she could take was in knowing that at least she had been stopped before she could take the life of anypony else. It may have been a cosmic coincidence, but at least it made Equestria a safer place!

Was all of it truly false hope? Yes, she realized, not willing to believe that she was just a vessel to bring this vile, evil, and incomprehensible thing straight to the friends she cared about the most. But the evidence was right there in front of her. She'd seen the shadow latch itself onto Applejack, and the other had made it fully clear that it wasn't going to let go this time...

Twilight was not so easily disoriented. Stamping a hoof angrily, she cast an expanding wall of energy around them which burst the swirling shadow into a fine mist that vanished into the air. "I've had enough of this! Tell us what you did to Applejack!"

"Why, my dear. I did not do a thing! She was the one who poisoned those apples and fed them to your unsuspecting town. She was the one who tortured her own family. The only thing I can admit was that I told her to do it."

"You're lying!" Pinkie shouted. "You made her do it!"

"You ponies are all too content to wallow in your own denial. It makes it too easy to feed..." The shadow reformed and shot up towards the ceiling, spreading its arms with a victorious flourish seemed to visibly dim all light from the room behind it. "But feed I did!" it roared, "And, at long last, my true purpose can begin!"

"And what purpose is that!?"

Once again, the Other blanketed itself over them, twisting the setting into something new. When the darkness finally gave way to light, it was from the eclipsed sun hanging once more in a blood-red sky.

This time the ruins of Ponyville were far beneath Twilight and Pinkie. They stood in the palm of the Other's open hand, its fingers curled upward like the legs of a waiting spider. The beast itself glared down at them from a great height, its eyes regarding them with the same deference reserved for insects, or small rocks.

"My purpose..." it grinned "...Is to weaken you, one by one, at your very core. You think you know fear? I will see that you are swimming in it, until you serve me. The Elements of Harmony are possessing of an ancient and powerful magic, fundamental to this land. I will make them beautiful, and with them consume Equestria and all the lands beyond." With many other hands, it gestured in all directions at once. "This planet will be my feeding ground, and all those on it will suffer to my satisfaction!"

"We won't let you!"

The Other laughed in her face. "It doesn't matter what you do, child. Any effort you put forth to stop me would only serve to make you desperate, and in your desperation you will lose everything you hold dear.

"But now, I must leave you. Your friends are so vulnerable - I wonder which I shall enjoy first."

"YOU LEAVE THEM ALONE!" Pinkie roared.

The Other grimmaced. "No one makes demands of Malice."

Unceremoniously overturning his hand, the Other cast the two ponies away, many yards, to the ground below. Shrieking as her back hit, Pinkie was left stunned and unable to move. Somewhere past her tail she could see Rainbow Dash approaching her as Applejack closed in on a debilitated Twilight. The burning shimmer of hate was unmistakable in both of their eyes.

"Wake them up," Malice commanded. "Make it painful."

"Yes, master." Rainbow Dash agreed. Nodding, the towering shadow creature twisted into a dark whirlwind before vanishing into the sky above.

"R-Rainbow Dash?" Pinkie begged. She tried to edge away, but her paralyzed legs wouldn't let her. "Rainbow! It's- It's me! P-Pinkie? You remember me, right?"

"I remember when you tried to kill me." Rainbow Dash stomped her hoof harshly onto Pinkie's chest, knocking the wind out of her. Mounting her, Rainbow lowered her snarling face to Pinkie's and growled, "I'm gonna enjoy getting my payback."

Somewhere off to her right, she could see Applejack rearing up onto her hind legs. Twilight let out a terrified shriek cut short by an earthy crunch, and a fountain of squishy matter. Pinkie scrunched her eyes tightly as Applejack wound up for another blow. "Please, don't..." she whimpered.

"It's too late." Rainbow Dash replied pointedly.

Pinkie felt teeth close tightly around her jugular. Her eyes shot open as Rainbow Dash yanked hard, rending a mouthful of flesh from its rightful place, and casting a fountain of glistening red into the air. Pinkie tried to cry out, but the only sound she managed was a sickening gargle.

Instinctively, her hoof shot up to the jagged wound in the side of her neck, but she'd already begun feeling lightheaded. This isn't real, she thought urgently. Real or not, she was gripped by a numbness which spread from her extremities inward; searing pain gave way to an icy blanket of death.

Pinkie's gaze met Rainbow's, but while Pinkie writhed ever more slowly, Rainbow Dash stood tall and admired her handiwork. The last thing Pinkie saw was a proud smirk spreading across her long-time ally's blood-splattered face.