What Came Before

by Rocket Blaze

The Calm After The Storm

Pinkie shot from her trance with a violent start that jarred the knife buried in her leg. "AIEEE!" she yelped. Clasping at her neck satisfied Pinkie that it was still in one piece, though icy terror still gripped her from head to tail.

They were outside among the withering trees of Sweet Apple Acres. Dawn was breaking just over the horizon; the clouds above glowed dull red and yellow in the pressing daylight. Scanning the area, Pinkie saw that she and Twilight were alone; Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Malice were nowhere to be seen.

"H-How did we get here?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight looked just as disoriented as Pinkie. "I think the pocket dimension collapsed. The Oth... uh, I mean, Malice... He must have transported us here."

"Why not just let us die?" Pinkie asked.

"I don't think he's done with us yet..." Twilight shrugged uneasily, examining her surroundings more closely. "Look! there-" She pointing in the direction of the farmhouse. It had fallen into a heap of rubble that threatened to be swallowed by the surrounding bog. "Oh, I hope Applejack's family got out of there okay..."

Before Pinkie could respond, Twilight was answered by a rustling noise off at the edge of the clearing. "We're over here," whispered a frightened sounding filly. "Is it safe to come out yet?"

"Is that Apple Bloom?" Pinkie double checked the area. "Y-Yeah, I think it's clear."

"Okay," Apple Bloom whispered. "Come on, brother." A short, pink tail peeked out through the underbrush, followed by the pony rump it was attached to. Apple Bloom crawled backwards from the cover, escorting a very weak Big Macintosh. Twilight rushed to their aid, limping across the clearing with the stallion leaning uncertainly against her flank.

Sitting next to Pinkie, Apple Bloom continued. "After you guys, uh... After that thing, uh... After what happened, it din't look like y'all were comin' back! When the whole place started comin' down, my brother - I ain't seen 'im fight so hard in a long time - He pulled down the door to my cage an' we scadaddled on out of there. But big brother's too weak to walk very far, so we hid out here. We was gonna wait until sunup."

"E-Eyup," Big Macintosh agreed warily.

Twilight glanced around. "What about Granny Smith?"

Apple Bloom hung her head. "Granny di'nt make it..." she sighed.

"Nope." The stallion hung his head low, a tear falling from his gentle eye.

Pinkie gasped. She wanted to rush to Apple Bloom's side and cheer her up somehow, but with so much adrenaline still coursing through her veins, she wasn't entiely sure she remembered how to make herself laugh. It'd have only felt wrong anyway.

Twilight studied Pinkie's wound. "We must report what we've seen to the Princess, but this needs to be taken care of." She helped Pinkie sit upright as much as she could without injuring her further, then cast a glance to Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh. "You two should definitely get medical attention, too. Hang on to me." Apple Bloom helped steady her brother as much as she could while he placed a shaky hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

***

In the next instant, they were in the sterile waiting room of Canterlot Clinic. Surprised ponies gasped at the sight of four ponies dropping out of thin air, and more than a few had jumped for cover. Still more cried out at the terrible shape the new arrivals were in.

"Oh, by Celestia how awful!" one shrieked.

"Is that a-a-!?" some mare started to cry before fainting.

"Somepony get a nurse!" Twilight pleaded. "These three need help, now!"

Almost instantly, the waiting room was abuzz with frantic ponies scrambling to clear the path for hospital attendants. The swinging doors to the inner areas of the hospital burst open as two brown-drab unicorns with red-cross cutie marks trotted quickly towards Twilight's desperate crew. One of them cast a glowing cushion of magic around Apple Bloom's shivering body, transferring her gently onto the gurney they'd brought with them.

"No, no! Get big brother first!" Apple Bloom cried.

"It's okay!" announced one of the attendants. "There's another one right behind them."

True enough, no sooner had the gurney carrying Apple Bloom disappeared through the hospital doors had another emerged to take its place. Another pair of identical responders carried off Big Macintosh, before a third crew arrived to take Pinkie Pie. The unicorns worked together to carry her, so as not to disturb her injury.

Swiftly after that, she was being carted back through the swinging doors. Struggling to sit up enough to see past her hind legs, Pinkie waved weakly at Twilight, who returned the gesture with forlorn carriage.

Falling back onto the gurney, Pinkie was taken with how lightheaded she had become; even since waking up at the farm. Perhaps the adrenaline had worn off, or perhaps she had simply lost that much blood through the wound in her flank, but it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. "Please let me see my friends again," she muttered to the attendants as she allowed herself to pass out.

After that, Pinkie was seldom conscious to register what was happening. Most of the time, her eyes would flutter open for a moment and she would briefly glimpse some of the activity around her before slipping back into an uneasy syncope.

"We need plasma, stat!" called one of the nurses. "She's lost a lot of blood!"

A needle stuck into the cleft of her hoof, finding the vein that ran through it. Its prick stung like the bite of some large insect. She loosed a startled gasp, opening her eyes quickly only to be blinded by an oppressively bright lamp hanging overhead. She was at the center of a round room, surrounded by cloaked ponies wearing paper masks and mane-nets.

One of the nurses spotted her wandering gaze and met her with a reassuring "everything is going to be all right."

Another pony caught the nurse's attention with a gloved hoof, and spoke with an authority that marked him as the head doctor. "We have to get this out of her, and disinfect. Stand by with the gauze. Administer the local anesthetic."

There was another insect bite at her haunch, and soon after that the area went icy numb. She squinted down at where the doctors were carefully removing the blood-stained blade from her flank.

Even without the oppressive pain, the sight of it made Pinkie feel squeamish, and uneasy. A gush of smelly, red liquid flowed freely from the gash. "P-P-Please..." Pinkie muttered. The crew paid her no heed as he worked to stymie the flow with pads of gauze.

The stained rags piled up, and once more Pinkie lost consciousness.

***

"You did well, Ms. Sparkle," she had heard one of the doctors saying some time later. "If you had taken out that knife, she would have bled out more quickly and she might not have made it."

"I know," Twilight began. "I wish I could have acted faster but..."

"Yes?" asked the doctor inquisitively.

"I don't know..." She might have mentioned the demonic shadow monster who possessed her friends and trapped them inside their own heads, but Pinkie wasn't sure the doctor would have believed it. Pinkie could hardly believe it herself.

"Well, Ms. Sparkle," he encouraged. "I am certain that when Ms. Pie awakens, she will be very glad that you did what you did."

"I hope so!" Pinkie heard hoofsteps trailing away. "Wait!" Twilight called.

"Yes?"

"Can you move Pinkie to the wing with our friend, Fluttershy? They could use each other's company!"

"I will see what I can do," the doctor replied.

***

Pinkie wasn't sure when she had lost consciousness after that, but she eventually awoke in a lavishly decorated recovery room. The first thing that struck her was the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but as Pinkie sat upright (trying her best to ignore the dull throbbing at her flanks) she could see that the rest of the room was adorned in such trappings that would have made Rarity proud.

Violet curtains striped with shimmering silver covered the large, open windows through which Pinkie could see the bustling Canterlot Square below. Several paintings along the walls depicted idylic landscapes; the sunlight glinting off their heavy brush strokes gave them away as originals. The bedding, soft to the touch, conformed seamlessly to the curvature of her body.

As an autumn breeze flowed into the room, it brought with it the smell of fall leaves and pumpkin. Canterlot must be preparing for Nightmare Night, Pinkie thought. She was unsure how to feel about that; Nightmare Night had long been her favorite holiday, but lately her nightmares had been all too real. Perhaps a bunch of monsters running around scaring each other wouldn't be as fun this year.

"Is this what Malice meant?" Pinkie refused to let herself fall victim to his machinations again, but this resolve crumbled along with the illusion that the choice to be strong would indeed be hers. How much had she changed since that fateful day she uncovered the details of her own secret life?

Her laughter was gone. Not just the Element she represented, but the very will to be optimistic; to laugh in the face of danger; to lift the spirits of every pony around her. It was as if the scars Malice had left on her spirit were still wide open and bleeding. The joy she once sought to spread, twisted into a distasteful mockery of all that was harmonious and good.

Was this the fate that was in store for her best friends? The rest of Equestria? "How can we stop him without the Elements of Harmony?" she asked herself. She had other questions, too, and still more branched off of those. The plethora of unknowable answers she sought only built upon the weighty pillar of doubt and uncertainty towering over her.

She was mercifully jogged from her grim thoughts by a muffled sigh from the next bed over. From beneath the opulent bedding peeked a small tuft of pale pink hair. As the huddled lump stirred, the covers slid away.

"Fluttershy?"

It was. The pegasus rolled over in her bed, eyelids parting slowly. "Y-Yes?" she yawned. "Do I kn-"

"-It's me, Fluttershy. Pinkie!"

Fluttershy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and squinted uncertainly. "Pinkie? B-But I thought you-"

"-It's a loooooong story!" Pinkie exclaimed, tabling the uneasiness she had felt just moments before. Being reunited with yet another friend was had already begun to raise her sunken spirits. "You wouldn't believe it even if I told you."

Fluttershy blinked. "I'm not sure I believe it now."

"What don't you believe!?"

"Are you real?"

Pinkie bit into her own foreleg and loosed a startled yip. "I think so. That hurt!" She pointed her tongue out at the bewildered pegasus, making her giggle.

"Well, I guess if you're here then you didn't really hurt Dashie? I'm glad. It felt so bad seeing her hurt like that, and I think we all wondered whether or not you could have really done what some ponies suspected you did."

Pinkie nodded. "I know. I wanted to tell everypony, but the princess had me here and-"

"-The princess?" Fluttershy gasped. "As in... Princess Celestia?"

"Yep! Luna, too."

"W-Why?" Fluttershy cocked her head curiously "What happened?"

Pinkie spent the next hour and a half explaining how the last several weeks had passed her by, and how she'd begun to remember things: The blackouts; the unexplained nightmares; the growing sense that she wasn't being true to herself; waking up in Canterlot; her house arrest; her daily discussions with Celestia; her night time bonding sessions with Luna; and, finally, her reunion with Rainbow Dash and Twilight.

Fluttershy listened faithfully, although some of the more distressing details of the story visibly frightened her as Pinkie recounted them. She smiled when Pinkie told her that she and Rainbow Dash had made amends.

"Wow," sighed Fluttershy after all had been said. "What happened after that?"

Pinkie didn't know how to tell Fluttershy about Applejack, and how Rainbow Dash had stormed off to rescue her. She certainly didn't know how to break the news of what happened at the farmhouse, even if she did fully understand it herself. Poor Fluttershy would take it so hard if she found out that Rainbow Dash had been brainwashed and disappeared into the night with It.

"Well, we, uh..." Pinkie shrugged. She didn't know how to lie about it either. What could she say? "We all went to a big celebration party without you. So sorry, but perhaps next time I come back from the dead you'll be invited?" Somehow, she didn't suspect that would go over very well.

Fortunately, Fluttershy seemed to get the idea. "You don't want to talk about it. I understand."

Pinkie nodded shyly, wishing to avoid the topic further. "What about you? Why are you here?"

Fluttershy looked up at the ceiling, fidgeting with her mane. "That's... Um... Well, didn't anypony tell you w-what-?"

"-A big scary, giant bear ripped up all of Ponyville!?"

"Well..." Fluttershy paused for several seconds. "Kind of. Yes."

"Nope!" She reflected on the various mentions of it, but realized that nopony had ever actually told her what happened. Where did it come from? How bad was the damage? How did Rainbow Dash manage to stop it? Fluttershy tried to answer her questions for her, but having been incapacitated for much of the incident left her with mostly second or third hoof information.

"There was this big flash... and a rainbow," Fluttershy mentioned. "It reminded me of Dashie's rainboom, but Princess Celestia said it was, um, some new magic that Dashie, uh, discovered... I guess?"

Pinkie mulled this over. Her first instinct was to doubt it, but she'd seen magic work in some truly surprising ways before. No other pegasus had managed a sonic rainboom until Rainbow Dash proved it was possible. Who was Pinkie to say that she hadn't earned her new destiny from this trial by fire that had been so unfairly thrust on her?

At least that thought gave Pinkie some hope for her own damaged spirits.

"Well, her thing is loyalty after all," Pinkie conceded. Or should I say 'was'? she wondered. No! Dashie's still out there somewhere, trapped inside her own head like I was. We have to help her!

Fluttershy continued to recount the events of the Ursa attack. In truth, however, Pinkie wasn't really listening. She continued to dwell on the whereabouts of her friends, wishing so desperately that she'd been able to wrest them away from Malice's shadowy clutches. But how could she have? He was everywhere, and nowhere at the same time; he knew their moves seemingly as they made them, if not before.

A trickle of blood wetted Pinkie's tongue when she realized that she'd been nervously chewing her lip. Fluttershy was proudly listing all of the injuries she'd sustained when the Ursa Major knocked her into the ground. "...two cracked ribs; punctured lung; dislocated wing; sprained- Um... Pinkie? Are you okay?"

"Oh! Yeah..." she forced a nervous laugh. Don't mention Rainbow Dash. Don't mention Applejack. Don't mention what happened at the farm. Don't-

"-So, um... You never said why you're here, Pinkie."

Crap! "Oh, uh... I just twisted my hip celebrating! Yeah... That's it."

Pinkie knew Fluttershy wasn't stupid, but it was an amusing enough lie that both ponies shared a lighthearted chuckle. "You don't have to tell me," Fluttershy offered. "I'm just happy all of my good friends are together again!"

Pinkie smiled in lieu of agreement. This time, Fluttershy bought into the lie.

***

The day came and went, with no visits from any pony except for the occasional checkup by the nursing staff. Pinkie realized that Twilight was probably briefing the princess on the events of the previous night, but where was Rarity?

At least Pinkie and Fluttershy had kept each other in pleasant company. When things got too boring, Pinkie tried to liven things up with a game of twenty questions, but Fluttershy kept guessing (or picking) animals as the answer, so that game got too easy.

As the sun descended for the evening, the nurse returned with dinner for two. The tray rested comfortably astride Pinkie's chest. On it was a veritable buffet of fruits and vegetables, a tuft of the most delicious-looking, golden hay Pinkie had ever seen, and a single red velvet cupcake with butterscotch frosting.

Pinkie had subsisted on a diet of pastries, cookies, cakes, and hard candy since she got her cutie mark, but she eyed the dessert item with suspicion and decided instead to start with the vegetables. The broccoli and asparagus made her gag on its way down, but she ate it anyway knowing she was probably dangerously malnourished, and needed some way of keeping up her energy. Besides, it was still better than anything she'd have gotten in Ponyville hospital.

The strawberries and hay more than made up for it. She scarfed them down in no time at all. "Nature's Candy," she explained to a horrified Fluttershy, before resuming her slaughter of a bunch of grapes. "Hey, Fluttershy. Do you want the cupcake?"

"W-What?" Fluttershy blinked. "I've never seen you turn down dessert before."

"Yeah. I know! I guess I just... Lost my taste for it, is all."

"Um... I guess, but it... it's just a cupcake, you know."

"I know that, but... Look, just take it. If you don't want it, I'm just gonna throw it out." She perched the offending confectionary on the end of her hoof and stretched her foreleg across the narrow gap separating their two beds.

Fluttershy submitted. "Oh... Alright, I guess," and she clamped down on the cupcake with her front teeth before drawing it away.

Pinkie eyed her empty plate, feeling a little hollow after not having taken her own dessert. This whole thing began with cupcakes, she reasoned. Malice took something good, and delicious, and fun, and turned it into something that I used to terrorize my friends and the ponies I care about. She didn't want to contemplate the damage his actions had wrought on her.

"Thank you, Pinkie." Fluttershy smiled with a frosting moustache across her muzzle. "That was delicious!"

Pinkie wanted to laugh, but her mind was otherwise preoccupied with the recounting of the unpleasant memories she collected while separated from her friends. She caught herself in her worry, and even managed to allow a smile, but something was missing.

It wasn't until nightfall that she realized what it was. She'd been thinking so long and hard about her experiences over the last several weeks, that she had forgotten to account for Rainbow's! Oh, how selfish I've been... she worried.

Fluttershy was already starting to drift to sleep, but Pinkie decided to ask her anyway: "How did Dashie do it? Get... Feel better, I mean."

Fluttershy rolled over to face her, though half buried under the covers as she was, her tired voice was all the more difficult to hear. "I did the best I could to help," Pinkie caught.

"Yeah, but... How?" Outwardly, Pinkie was merely curious. Inside, however, she wondered if knowing Rainbow's path to recovery would provide insight for how to start on her own.

Fluttershy straightened, now fully awake. "Well, I tried to give Dashie her space for a few days. I didn't want her to feel self conscious about not having her wings, and I felt like being there would have just reminded her of flying, and Cloudsdale. So I took care of her pet tortoise for her, instead."

"But you did see her eventually, right?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, but... I almost didn't."

Pinkie cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"She almost..." Fluttershy whimpered. A tear shimmered in the moonlight against her big, teal eye. "She tried to come home too early. When I came back from getting some things, I found her at the edge of Cloudsdale..."

Pinkie gasped. "Then what!?"

"I startled her, and she fell... But I went after her. It was close, I mean... I almost... She almost didn't make it..." Her voice cracked, and soon she was sobbing lightly, where she couldn't quite find the words. Pinkie just watched, wishing to extend her hoof to help, but fearing that perhaps it would be inappropriate. After all, wasn't she at least partly to blame for everything that happened?

Finally, Fluttershy collected herself. With a heavy sigh, she straightened her sheets out and continued. "After that, we decided that it was for the best if she moved in... With me."

Pinkie felt relieved. If anypony would've been able to heal Rainbow Dash back to health, it was be Fluttershy. "Wha-What'd she say?" She already knew the answer, but she'd found herself gripped by the story her friend was telling.

"Oh, um... She said 'ok'..." Fluttershy paused. "But, she didn't go anywhere much after that. She wanted to help out around the house, and got along with the animals real well, but at night... She said she kept seeing... Oh."

"What!? What is it?"

"You..."

"Me!?"

"I asked her if, uh, maybe it was just bad dreams? But no. She said she was awake, and you were trying to hurt her."

Pinkie ground her teeth in anger. "It must have been Malice!"

"M-Mal-Who?" Fluttershy stammered.

Oh no! That's right. I didn't tell her! "Um... Do you remember those nightmares I told you about?" She paused for Fluttershy to reply with a tentative nod. "He... He's the one who did that... He's the one who did all of this!"

Fluttershy shivered despite the covers wrapping her. "H-How do you know that?"

"Because Twilight and I-" Oh, shoot... I said too much!

Fluttershy sank a little bit. "Y-You and Twilight... What?"

Oh, no. She's looking right at you. Quick! Make something up! Pinkie thought as a first instinct. She ruffled her own mane trying to find a suitable lie to cover it up. Don't lie, Pinkie... Fluttershy needs to know...

"We..." she continued uncertainly. "Twilight, Me... Rainbow Dash... We, uh... Ran into him... And Applejack."

Fluttershy blinked confusedly. "I'm... I'm so confused."

Pinkie cringed, knowing the hardest part was yet to come. "That's because... I might've fibbed... Just a little bit..." she sighed. "I have to tell you something, Fluttershy... I'm really sorry, but I don't think it'll be easy..."