Sweetie's Mansion

by Moon Shooter

Chapter 24: The Faker in the Fabric Factory (Part 4)

And... here we go! Applebloom gave the railing a running start, stuck the landing on the bar of metal and made the leap over to the machine attached to the wall beyond. It was only a distance of two or three feet -- likely so that any ponies working in this place (if there'd ever been such a time where this factory was used for more than disturbing fillies, that is) could reach and do maintenance on the machines for whatever their purpose once was.

Still, to a filly like Applebloom, even considering her superior applebucker strength, it was still terrifying. Especially with the ominous warning from Pinkie earlier.

"If you go down, you'll die immediately."

"Immmmmeeeeddddiiiaaa-"

She didn't land directly onto the machine like she would've liked, but hooked enough of her upper body onto it such that she could be sure she wouldn't fall. The tape recorder she held clasped in her hoof certainly didn't make things any easier from jump to climb, but she managed. She considered putting it under her hat, but couldn't help fearing it would slip from under and clatter into the unknown below.

As Applebloom climbed onto the machine sticking out of the wall and prepared to make another leap to the next machine, she wondered what the ghost-mare meant by that. She seemed to imply that she and Sweetie would go down there soon after the two met. Perhaps Sweetie was a key of some sort that would activate some new part of the factory. Or maybe Pinkie was just doubtful Applebloom would manage to survive, having next to zero experience with the GCD. That was the hopeful answer.

Or maybe she just wants to let me see Sweetie die first.

And that was the unhopeful answer. Applebloom pushed the thought from her mind as quickly as it came. She made the second jump. Then the third.

Applebloom had been thinking about death a lot lately. She hadn't grown so macrabe as to think about her own death specifically, but she couldn't help broaching the subject in general. It made sense of course -- it seemed to be among the only theme this mansion even knew. Or at least it was it's favorite, now that she thought about it. There was more than death, of course.

There was suffering.

There was hate.

There was loss.

Hopelessness.

Fear.

But in the end, didn't all those things lead back to death? Wasn't that the overall connection? Did all things, all the fears of the world not all lead in some way, shape or form back to the subject of death?

Well, perhaps it wasn't the whole connection as much as it was a connection. She sighed with another jump. Her mind was growing more morbid by every minute she was stuck in this place, but she hadn't been that far gone. The sooner she could get out of here, the better.

Applebloom made three more jumps, all in proper succession while maintaining some forward momentum.

Something else she thought about was Sweetie herself. Not current Sweetie -- the Sweetie that Applebloom was chasing and the one that thought she was another trick of the mansion (the poor thing). But she didn't think about the Sweetie before the mansion either. At least not yet. She thought about the Sweetie she decided in her head to call the "Pre Pinkie Capture Sweetie." The one that had allegedly been out capturing the likes of her sister, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Twilight and so on. For no reason in particular, she wondered if she could've just left at any time.

After a few moments, she figured it to be doubtful. If Twilight and the others couldn't have left, then it was doubtful she would've been able to leave either. Between the ghosts and the nonsensical layout of the mansion, even the idea of breaking a window intentionally seemed like a poor idea. Especially now she had all those cutie marks on her.

What was up with that, anyway? Why hadn't all this gotten them cutie marks? No, not Sweetie of course, but at the same time, maybe. Sweetie had all her friends' cutie marks, but like Applebloom and Scootaloo,

Gosh, I hope you're alright, Scoots.

she was still technically a blank flank, wasn't she? As Applebloom made another jump, she ventured to wonder if the mansion had some sort of "cutie mark keep away field" or something with a better name that did the same thing. Just their luck -- the night they would've been for sure to get them, some magic hoo-hah had foiled them. If that wasn't just super. Or maybe she had an invisible cutie mark. Because of all the ghosts.

What a useless cutie mark that'd be.

Then again, what a useless cutie mark a giant paper airplane would've been too. Scootaloo really hadn't thought that whole thing through. When they saved Rarity, beat Specter and got out of here, Scootaloo would never live down how her "last" cutie mark scheme almost ended the world.

Because we are gonna make it outta here. We are-

Applebloom stopped. In front of her was another machine sticking out of the wall, and above it was a hole -- just as Pinkie had promised. "If ah were a bad pony... that had her run a th' mansion..." Applebloom said aloud through the flashlight clamped firmly between her teeth. "Ah'dve put somethin' right there that'd make me slip and kill myself."

She didn't see anything where she pointed the light, but the paranoia didn't go away.

Her voice was drowned out by the sounds of the machine. She noticed all to suddenly how unsteady she felt standing still on one of these things. It was a strange thing to say, she knew that, but she felt it important to do so regardless, just to ensure herself that she wouldn't in fact, make the jump and would instead find the piping along the wall, and use that to cautiously shimmy over to the machine with the hole. She did just that, sticking the recorder in a tuft of her mane whilst constantly expecting it to fall and clatter into the "immediate death" zone below -- only to find that there was in fact, no oil slick or comedy gag waiting for her on the other side.

"Huh." That didn't seem good. Rather, it was good, but not in the good way the filly was hoping. Applebloom was hoping she'd dodged a bullet, but instead, she just got a chill down her spine. Jumping and slipping wasn't the main attraction here. In fact, besides the fall and the aesthetics of the factory, the factory on a whole was sort of underwhelming and that was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

Like it was all building up to something that was about to explode.

Something Sweetie related, Applebloom had no doubt.

"...if you have the will to live..."

Don't die Sweetie, Applebloom begged. Don't die.

Applebloom climbed in the hole. Sounds became more echo-y in what she found to be some sort of cave. The hole wasn't made of plaster but instead, it looked to be naturally (as natural as a factory in the middle of a mansion can get) set and made no sense in contrast to the industrial feel of the factory she'd just left.

If Sweetie had ever been through here, Applebloom couldn't imagine how. Even with the flashlight, it was so dark. The black spots in the walls -- she could only imagine they were coal -- seemed to be sucking the light away from the world around her, making it still next to impossible to see more than a few feet in front of her. Some vague notion of how this was the way light behaved around substances as black as coal, but Applebloom knew there was nothing "normal" about those things.

If the light was the enemy of ghosts, then that coal was the enemy of the light.

Applebloom did not and probably would never understand what kind of horror Sweetie Belle had survived that night, but somehow, just that quality of this place gave her a bad feeling that Rarity would be particularly hard to catch.

The tunnel was so long. Applebloom was getting flashbacks of the tunnel before the fight with Gilda and expecting to see apparitions in front of her. Applejack, or perhaps more likely, Sweetie Belle, calling her into a trap. But like the non-existent oil slick, there appeared to be no traps left for the filly.

'Cause they already got Sweetie. 'Cause they already got what they wanted. Ahm just a...

(a side character?)

Ah ain't important to Specter's plan... Sweetie...

Then something hit her all of a sudden. A queasy feeling. Specter's plan didn't make sense if Sweetie died, if she was particularly important. If he had control any over the ghosts, he wouldn't! At first, Applebloom wanted to think that "of course Sweetie was going to be alright! Specter's model is too far in for his centerpiece to be taken out all of a sudden." But then she thought about in the relatively brief span she and Sweetie had been traveling together, how many times all it would've taken was a moment's hesitation for Sweetie to meet an untimely end.

It was almost like it didn't matter if Sweetie lived or died anymore.

Applebloom felt sick because she wondered if Celestia might've been wrong. Maybe it was really just a coin flip. And Sweetie had really only just turned up heads every time.

And in this game, all she had to do was turn up tails once before it would be-

(Game over, man. Game over.)

No... no, it couldn't be that simple, Applebloom thought. There'd been too many factors in Sweetie's favor that shouldn't have even existed. Pinkie's involvement. Specter saving her from Spiffy. For it to just "not matter" was contradictory.

All of it was contradictory.

And in the end, it didn't seem to raise Sweetie's chances of survival because the facts of the matter could no longer be trusted.

That thought only seemed to grow louder in her head as the monotonous machinery behind her seemed to grow quieter, and the sound of clockwork gears seemed to grow steadily louder in front of her. And in her gut, Applebloom knew Pinkie was telling the truth.

Sweetie was here. And she was about to die.

***

"I don't think we finished that talk we had earlier. How I'd planned to kill you."

Scootaloo knew very well that her time was up as the cold encroached upon her.

"At first I was thinking... ah, posh, look at this pitiful little thing," Specter explained. This was the old Specter. The one that she imagined saying "bucking" instead of "fucking". The perfectly emulated Canterlot-ian accent that was familiar to her and not the far, far away voice that seemed to rise out of the stallion from hell itself. The one that was, with its familiarity if nothing else, comforting.

"I wasn't going to get any pleasure out of killing you slowly. Not really." He said the word "really" with a grin that seemed to grow even wider. His teeth were so white. So perfect. Scootaloo hated it. It was like he hadn't even been touched -- if anything he looked better. "Life's already handed this poor filly a downer. She's an orphan! She can barely fly and is... what. 11? 12? Ah, what does it matter? And to top it all off she's a blank flank! Constantly checking to see 'duuh, i just took a poo, did I get er cutie murk? Dawww...'" The mocking tone was followed by a gale of cackling laughter.

"But after that little stunt? Right there? You know... I don't think I am going to go easy on you. You think you've made mistakes before?" Then he stopped smiling. As though he knew that would scare Scootaloo more than anything else. He changed again. "You done fucked up now, filly. I'm going to make Sweetie's night look like heaven when I'm done with you."

A feral, animalistic scream came from the side, and Specter was no longer standing over Scootaloo and now half buried into a wall off to the side. Celestia was standing there, panting as though she had lungs to pant with. She locked eyes with Scootaloo.

"Get out of here," she ordered.

"But-"

She turned her attention back to Specter. "I'm going to end this."

"Because that worked out so well before, now didn't it?" Specter said, climbing out of the hole Celestia had sent him into.

"You and the others need to get out of here," Celestia said quickly. Then, for the last time, she locked eyes with Scootaloo with a deadly serious look. "I'm bringing this mansion down. Now."

The words were sudden. Immediate. Those eyes said everything else. They said to Scootaloo, "this mansion is his power," and "He's stronger than I thought," and "So long as it's standing, he'll never be defeated. It's the only way to stop him from fulfilling his plan," all at the same time.

Scootaloo had plenty of objections to this, but she wouldn't have had time to say anything. Because as the mist returned to that basement, Celestia exploded in a flurry of magic that sent Scootaloo flying backward. How far she'd gone, she couldn't say for sure, but eventually, she did hit a wall. After that, things went dark for a few moments before she finally came too.

There was silence. Was she alone, she wondered.

Then the mansion moaned.

Then she started to hear things falling.

Scootaloo dodged to the side before a bit of the falling ceiling could hit her.

"Crap! Crap!" She scrambled to her hooves and sped down the hallway -- all of which appeared to be made out of wood, she noticed -- looking for something, anything that looked like it might lead somewhere anywhere but there. She could only assume at that point she was in the basement between the lack of windows and the fact Specter might've mentioned something along those lines. As such she had to assume the direction she had to go was up.

If she was right, she was right. If she was wrong, she'd just glide to the ground wherever she saw the window.

Provided some ghosts didn't snatch her out the air or something stupid like that.

Speaking of ghosts, Scootaloo had to skid to a halt as she saw something yellow dash past the far down hallway of the basement area. Scootaloo was drawing a blank on what that color meant. Butlers? Babies? Dogs? Celestia, she wished Sweetie was here.

Celestia, she wished Celestia were here. Was she still fighting Specter?

She imagined a hole, sending them both somewhere deeper into the mansion -- some cavernous area where they would have their final battle. And as awesome as it would've been, Scootaloo thought she might for once not miss witness something so "awesome" anyway. She'd just tell the others that she did see it when she and the other crusaders all got together. Rainbow too. Definitely Rainbow too.

Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do.

A white ghost zoomed to the right. Had Sweetie mentioned anything about white ghosts?

Wait. Rarity? Could that be Rarity down here? It'd make sense, for sure, considering that pervert Specter was creeping up on the mare and trying to marry her. It'd also mean one of two things: that either Sweetie (and hopefully Applebloom) were close by, or they were way off the mark-

A black ghost zoomed past.

Now Scootaloo was sure she'd definitely not heard of any generic 'black' ghosts. Well, they weren't as black as they were 'off black' or 'of a darker color' if she wanted to be politically correct as Cheerilee might put it.

It was after the black ghost crossed by that all three of the ones she'd seen started to-

They're floating backward...? Scootaloo squinted at them. Was she seeing that right?

They sure were. In an odd looking conga-line, no less, with their hooves on the shoulders of the one in front of them. There was the black ghost first, then the white ghost, then the yellow-orange ghost that-

That's... that's Spitfire, ain't it?

There was no "ain't it" about it. Even from that distance, even as a ghost glowing in the dark Scootaloo recognized the mare immediately. She was here. And with what looked like a guard from the Sun and Moon guard respectively. And they were all dead as fried chicken.

They flourished their shoulders at the filly in a manner she might have almost thought was seductive.

"Bump da bump bump," their gesture seemed to say. "We are comin' for that rump."

Then they started to laugh and fly at her, Spitfire leading the charge.

"Oh boy."

***

As Applebloom exited the coal tunnel and entered what she could only describe as a tower, the sound of gears became near deafening -- as though she'd opened a door to the cacophony of sounds of metal grinding hard against metal. The entire room was like nails on a chalkboard and she desperately wanted to cover her ears and return to the relatively less-awful comfort of the tunnel again.

She was so distracted by the blindingly loud gears that she almost walked off the edge where the tunnel ended, and into a sea of rapidly spinning gears that looked closer to buzzsaws than anything else. The only thing that suggested they were gears were the significantly slower moving ones all along the walls going up infinitely toward the top of the tower. The top, notably, could not be seen, but Applebloom did see something that was equally terrifying.

Sweetie Belle. She could see her shadow hanging from a rope somewhere far above.

Applebloom took a few steps back, shaking her head. "Naw... naw... naw..."

She stepped back once. Twice. Once she was past the veil that separated the sound of the tower and the sound of the cave, she realized at some point that stepped on the recorder which she'd kept in her hoof in such a way that she made a mistake and hit the play button. And the first thing she heard was the sound of Pinkie's cackling.

"Naw... naw..." She kept saying.

"What's wrong 'bloom? See something scaaarrryyy?"

"Please," she said in a voice so soft she might as well have just thought it. "Just tell me that wasn't real. Tell me she's not dead."

"Okay! It's not reeeaaal. She's not deeeaaaaddd." Just as Applebloom was about to bawl, Pinkie added in a sort of eye-rolling tone of voice. "Sheesh, quit being a baby 'bloom. It's not like this would be the first fake out! Hey! Baby Bloom! Oh oh! Even better! Baby Bloomer! Ha ha! I gotta write that one down!"

As the sound of pencil against paper filled the speaker of the tape recorder, the words did coalesce to Applebloom's psyche, resetting the cracks that had started to form at the idea. She supposed it was possible: the distinct Sweetie shaped shadow could be anything -- or anypony that wasn't the filly. Then came the other, very real possibility in Pinkie's next words.

"Who knows if she's dead or alive, my little Baby Bloomer! But there's one sure-fire way to find out for sure!"

"Y...yeah," she said weakly. Pinkie was right. There was one way. But if Applebloom did see Sweetie hanging there, really, then dead or alive, illusion or disillusion, she would break. Perhaps not permanently, but certainly enough to fall to the bottom of the hazard that was the tower.

("You'll die immediately!")

"Yup! I sure did say that thing that got written!"

Applebloom took a deep breath. "...I'mma turn ya off now."

"Okaaaaaay! Careful! She's a hardboiled filly that doesn't play by the-"

Applebloom shut off the recording, put the tape recorder down and walked forward into the tower. The last thing she needed was to press play by accident here. She needed all four hooves and all of her focus if she planned to scale the tower in one piece.

She scanned the surroundings. She couldn't see what was actually making the shadow from where she stood. That was a good thing, she hoped. She also didn't bother trying to call Sweetie's name for two main reasons. For one, it was too loud. And for two, if Sweetie did hear her, there was a solid chance that if Pinkie was telling the truth, she may react in a bad way to her presence. She at least wanted some distance to be closed before that.

To her left, gears appeared to be functioning some sort of platform that could take Applebloom higher up the tower. From what she could tell, that was her best bet. First, she had to make her way along a narrow indentation that went along the circumference of the tower -- wide enough for her not to have to press her belly against the wall and risk pressing herself into the grinding gears that made them up, but certainly small enough to give her a fright or two if she looked too far down.

She moved slowly, but thankfully she didn't come across any problems along the way to the platform as she hopped on. The platform took her up a distance, allowing her to see past the apparatuses sticking out of the walls and previously blocking her view. She saw what was making the shadow.

When she first glanced, all she could see was the white coat. Applebloom's heart skipped a beat. Then she realized that it wasn't just the coat that was white. Everything on the pony hanging there was white.

It was a maneiquin meant to look like Sweetie. And it looked off. As though something sharp had been stuck into various places of the blank pony replica, and that it had been cut in certain places. Notably part of one of the ears were missing, as though, unlike other parts of the body that had been gone at with some sort of sharp object, it was ripped and frayed at the edges.

Applebloom would've felt relieved if she hadn't felt more disturbed. There was the first thought that came as a relief: "That ain't Sweetie." Then the second thought made it's way to the surface: "... but Sweetie saw that thing hangin' there if she came through." Applebloom didn't doubt the filly had seen her share of horrific things in the last however-long they've been trapped in here. She had to ask: had she seen anything as personal as this?

No, that was wrong. The better question was how Sweetie might contextualize an image like that so close to the pony she'd become so emotionally invested in.

As in, how would she feel knowing Rarity, or some ghost that pretended to be her, did or wanted to do something like this to her?

Before Applebloom could examine the new height further, as the platform approached it's top and was preparing to go down again, saw how pistons were slowly coming in and out of the walls going further up and around the tower until it reached a metal beam. They seemed to be all moving at once, if not so close that it looked like they would all go into the wall at once, and leave at the same time. The filly couldn't calculate whether or not once the platform reached its climax if it would be the best time to maximize the length of time she had to reach the top of the spiral before she no longer had pistons to stand on. What she could calculate, however, was that the platform she was standing on was never meant for her weight. The mechanics of the platform reached a snag that seemed to groan in place before she heard the distinct sound of something snapping.

"Gah!" Without thinking, she jumped toward the piston just as the platform fell down. As it hit the bottom, the winding grinding gears below ate the platform. The shreds of wood and metal made up the platform was eaten by those gears and disappeared to somewhere below. She didn't see it, too focused on the pistons and the fact they were already on their way into the walls, but the disconnected thought did cross her mind, is that what bones sound like in those things?

Go go go go! She thought to herself.

Applebloom sped her way up the pistons, running as fast as she could. She worried the GCD was slipping off her back as she did and thought of how the gears if given the machine, would leave nothing left if it were it to fall. She didn't have time to really check or straighten the thing on her back -- she could only pray that it just didn't fall.

With barely a hoof to spare, Applebloom made it onto the weak wooden board that served as a makeshift bridge over to what appeared to be a ladder on the other side. Almost out of breath, she made sure the little vacuum was still secure and indeed it was. Still no sign of Sweetie. Applebloom remembered what Pinkie had said -- she'd definitely suggested Sweetie was somewhere she could be killed by grinding gears. Wasn't that here? Or could she have moved on? If Ghost-Pinkie was as omnipotent as she pretended to be, surely she'd know that much.

It should've crossed her mind that there was a possibility that the mare had lied and just wanted to bring her here for shits and giggles, but right now the tension was too high for her to have the energy to account for it.

And then she heard the sound to end all sounds. A sound that, in Applebloom's ears, was all too clear, even with the gears all around her grinding away.

It was a hiccup. Sweetie's hiccup, she was sure of it.

She was only one level up. Applebloom wasn't too late after all.

(Or maybe she was, and didn't realize it.)

When she looked up, the light seemed to be too bright, obscuring anything past several meters up beyond the ladder. Applebloom carefully walked across the wooden beam and over to the ladder. She ran through her head what she'd say to her, only stopping at the beginning.

Sweetie, I'm... no, that ain't right. It's alright Sweetie, it's... nah, nah... Ya don't gotta feel...

There was no telling what she'd say to Sweetie once she saw her. She'd just have to find out when she did. Every rung of the ladder she grabbed with her hooves felt like a lurch in her chest, like it was about to explode in any minute. She was going to see something terrible up there, past what she realized to be dust particles, reflecting light off light making it impossible to see anything inside of the cloud.

Then, Applebloom made it to the top of the ladder and nearly fainted. She was close to screaming, but even that she only barely managed to stifle.

There were more hanging maneiquins. That didn't surprise Applebloom, really. She'd seen the vague silhouettes hanging above and expected to see more, but that wasn't quite what the filly got to see. In reality, there were only two more manequins: one of Scootaloo, one of Applebloom herself, and one of Spike. All hanging in a way meant to look like they really were dead bodies.

But those replicants of herself and the friends she knew didn't hold a candle to the actual dead bodies hanging around them. The bodies of all her friends, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Pinkie and

A...pple...jack...

All with wounds that Applebloom could only hope were inflicted postmortem. They were dressed in their gala outfits, so the extent of their injuries was impossible to see, but by the blood covering the gowns, it certainly looked gruesome. Flies were already festering their snouts, their eyes, and whatever other open wounds they had because all throughout them appeared to be needles with aimless threads through the eyes -- like their bodies were some sort of sick excuse of a pin cushion. The only thing that kept Applebloom from screaming her head off was the quick conclusion that these were in fact, the old bodies -- as could be told by the faded white spots where their cutie marks used to be. At least on the mares who's dresses were ripped enough where one could see their flank.

As much as it may have been easier to excuse this as a trick of Pinkie's, besides the tape recorders, it was quite easy to see that as far as this display was concerned, the mare hadn't touched them. This was all one ghost's doing only.

And Sweetie knew it. Sweetie, the one curled up in a fetal position at the other end of the tower. The filly was sobbing and somehow Applebloom could hear that too.

Between the two fillies was another bridge, this one made out of metal. However, it didn't go all the way across. Between them appeared to be a 10-foot gap. The area that could be walked was barely two feet in width and about four feet in length, she supposed. The first things that came to Applebloom's mind were pirates and the planks that mutineers would be forced to cross by the captain in those stories. Only here, they weren't attached to a boat but a nonsensical tower. And there were two of them. Sweetie was on one and Applebloom on the other.

"Sweetie," Applebloom said impulsively forcing a smile.

All too suddenly, Sweetie stopped crying. She slowly looked up from between her legs and over to look at Applebloom.

There were a number of things that made Applebloom's smile fade into more of a twitch of the face that did everything in its power to keep from going down in complete horror. The first thing was the look Sweetie gave Applebloom. Even with the distance separating them she could feel the vacancy in those eyes.

(Gone, gone, gone, baby oh baby my Sweetie has gone.)

There were tears to be sure that were rolling down the filly's face, but that face betrayed that of simple sadness or fear. It was the same sense of resignation Applebloom had felt when she picked up Sweetie's things. Sure, she'd kept the saddlebags, Applebloom could still see the things slung over Sweetie's back, but it felt more like she'd forgotten they were there more than anything. Besides, they didn't have anything to do with the hunt. In a way, the fact she'd kept that, but left everything else was so intentional, so (gone, gone, gone) specific, it made Applebloom feel even worse.

Surely this was the first thing she noticed -- or at least it was the first thing she wanted to notice and not the second thing she only got a glimpse of as Sweetie raised her head.

"Applebloom... hey..." Sweetie slurred with no expression at all.

"Swe..." the words caught in Applebloom's throat. She doubted Sweetie had heard her at all.

Sweetie stood up, and Applebloom could see it indeed hadn't been a trick of the light at all. For behind her, stuck into the wall and pinned many times to a dead gear that sat in the wall was a rope. And that rope was attached to the filly -- wrapped around her neck.

She... put that there herself, the filly thought absently. For once, it looked like Pinkie had been wrong and her first assumption, her first fear had been right all along.

Applebloom was going to watch Sweetie hang herself after all.

***

It should have been a dream come true: A fantasy comes to life.

Scootaloo was being chased not by her idol, but her idol's idol. The one and only Spitfire. It didn't need to make sense why she was being chased by Spitfire, but the fact that she was, was a-bucking-mazing!

"Awesome," one might say.

That alone would've been great. But then she finds out Soarin is here too? Echo? What the hay, what did a filly like Scootaloo do to deserve this? Was it her birthday or something? When she'd entered the mansion, she was sure it was still at least a few months away, but now, she wasn't entirely sure. So maybe!

"You know!" Scootaloo cried. "I've had dreams of stuff like this! Wouldn't tell you- woah!" As Scootaloo rounded a corner and saw yet another ghost moon guard charge at her. She (completely and intentionally) ducked and slid under them just in time, but not soon enough for the ghost to run a nice chill down her mane. She felt slightly heavier as though the ice crystals on there was really enough to weigh her down -- but thankfully they weren't enough to slow her down.

"Yeah!" the filly continued. "Nothing quite as freaky as this, but... ya know! What are you gonna do? Supposed to be hitting puber-shit! Shit!"

Spitfire had already flown circles around the filly, so beating her or any of the Wonderbolts in a contest of speed -- especially in their superpowered ghostly forms was going to be beyond impossible. Thankfully as ghosts, they still appeared still follow the something resembling the laws of physics as any living pegasus had to live by -- meaning even with what appeared to be much more impeccable reaction time, speed and momentum needed to be equally acted upon over a distance proportional to the object the force of acceleration was acting upon.

A thing Scootaloo was proud to admit she had learned out of Cheerilee's class -- even if it was only a vague understanding and served to only to better understand Rainbow's flying statistics.

In more immediate terms, it meant that even with the bullet-like speed of the mares and stallions around her, particularly regarding the three Wonderbolts she counted so far -- Celestia I hope there's no more -- if she kept dodging just right, they would keep having to stop and/or turn around, allowing Scootaloo the chance to make more distance before another fly-by.

Sure there were, from what she could tell, seven different ponies making flybys now and three of them were the Celestia-damned Wonderbolts, and some of them were coming from the Luna-forsaken-bucking walls like the five that did just that a second ago-

But all in all, Scootaloo was pretty sure she had a good chance of not dying. Talking shit to the Wonderbolts was the only thing keeping her somewhat sane right now.

In regard to the sea of ghost ponies that came through the wall left of Scootaloo, she barely had time to think before she spied and jumped on an end-table that was mercifully just sitting against the opposite wall the five ponies had just phased through. They were headed straight and hadn't accounted for her being higher than her own height, so between the end table and her wings she used to glide the rest of the way, she cleared them with relative ease.

Also something, something, the mansion was still kind of crumbling around her.

"Haha! Suck it, nerds- gaha!" A piece of debris fell on Scootaloo's head before her hooves could touch the ground and she herself could start running again. She saw stars as she was flipped front-ward onto her head and rolled the next couple of feet until she skidded to a stop. She felt blood trickle down her head and wondered for all of a split second if she'd gotten a concussion.

Then the spirits of the guards and the Wonderbolts were upon her. They surrounded her and Scootaloo saw there was absolutely no escape. They were all laughing at her with those insane grins she'd gotten used to that night.

"A heh..." Scootaloo laughed nervously. The words that came next were more automatic. She supposed if she was about to die, she wasn't going to waste such fire material for her last words. "D-d-d-don't suppose you'd just settle to give me your autographs and you just let me go, huh?"

The Guards' stares didn't waver, but the Wonderbolts looked at each other. Then Spitfire just said, "Like we'd give our autographs to a chicken like you!"

Welp, I got called a chicken by the captain of the Wonderbolts. I think I've lived a full life... The ghosts' laughter got louder as she felt herself being picked up by the mane while the ghost Sorin reached down her throat.

And just as Scootaloo really was done for, farther down the hall, Specter crashed through two walls with Celestia following close behind. She stopped in the middle of the hallway. "Scootaloo!"

"Lihhle helph!" she choked.

The ghost alicorn's horn flashed and all of the spirits were suddenly blown backward and were gone with a loud, DING! -- either phased through the floor or the walls around them. As Scootaloo coughed and got to her hooves, she was about to say "Thanks," when she caught the princess glaring daggers at her.

"What are you still doing here?!" Celestia screamed.

"Do I look like I know where I'm going?!" Scootaloo shouted back.

"Oh ladies~" The voice called through the hole. The mist was back. That terrible misty air.

"GO! THERE'S-" Scootaloo was telekinetically pushed off to the side and down to the ground as Celestia dodged in the same direction. Bullets flew through the walls, throwing splinters of wood everywhere. Most of the bullets didn't make it through the wall but the ones that did Celestia managed to deflect with some magic she shot out of her horn. At least mostly -- as a few bullets made it through, adding to her collection of holes and increasing the anguish displayed on her face.

Scootaloo stayed glued to the ground, frozen with the knowledge just an inch raised would put her in the path of that hail of gunfire. Eventually, it stopped, but something told Scootaloo that wouldn't last for long.

"Go!" Celestia repeated. And go, the little filly did, speeding forward with no real sense of purpose where. Thankfully this time, Celestia was following close behind with hopefully a better idea of where to go than her.

"Where?!"

"The stairs going up are ahead!" She went on. "The basement's about to collapse! You need to hurry and get everpony out! Before the rest of the mansion follows!"

Her expression really did betray her. This time, Scootaloo could most certainly read that same last sentence with the word "Twilight" traded out with "everypony" in the form of a brief twinge of shame betwixt the panicked expressions.

Or maybe it was the concussion that was making her delirious into thinking she'd just looked that.

In either case, just as she said that and turned around to face the hole she created behind them, Specter walked out of his new hole. He dusted some debris out of his mane and smiled. "You think knocking me around will do anything princess? Don't you get it? I can't die!" The mist was back. Scootaloo wondered if she'd make it all the way to that last stretch of hall in time while dodging the collapsing ceiling. "I'm already immortal, my dear Princess. That is my gift."

Definitely a concussion. The words sounded odd in Scootaloo's ears. Strange. ...fake?

Time to go! Scootaloo forced herself from a shakey trot into a full on sprint. One second. Two seconds. Three. Four.

"Even if you and your friends escape," he promised. "I will not die. I will never die. Never. NEVER!" Then the roaring laughter came from the stallion's throat.

Five seconds. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine-

Then Scootaloo heard the gunfire start up again followed by the electric sound of Celestia trying to keep any from hitting the filly.

She ran and ran and ran. Just as she made half the distance, more rubble appeared to be falling from above. All it would take was for one thing to hit her one more time and she would be buried with the rest of the mansion. She dodged left. She dived right.

Just a little further, and she would be home fr-

Two bullets whizzed by her. One of them grazed harmlessly through the top of her mane. The other one buried itself into Scootaloo's left hind leg. She screamed as she tripped and rolled to a stop. The mansion was still crumbling around her -- the ceiling just around the doorframe looked ready to collapse. She couldn't think about the pain if she ever wanted to know it past the next few seconds. So despite the blood which she quite nearly slipped in, she got to her hooves and kept on running in a fashion that was more of a limping trot than anything else.

The sounds of fighting were distant behind her now. Celestia and Specter had moved on to fight somewhere else.

Win, Princess... win.

She might have thought "win before he takes you over for real this time," but was too busy diving through the doorway just as the ceiling collapsed, blocking the way to that level of the basement. Now all she could hear was distant rumbling as she lay there, catching her breath and in incredible pain.

"Guh... guh..." she gasped. So far so good, she wasn't going to get crushed to death by the mansion. Still, there was the smallest, newest problem the filly had to deal with now: it looked like she was that it looked like she was going to bleed out right there.

Great.

Against her better judgement, Scootaloo looked down at her hind leg and moaned even more, seeing the blood gush out the way that it did. Through the red, she spied a glimmer of something green and deduced that it had to be the bullet that hit her. "G...reen bullets?"

Scootaloo knew absolutely nothing about guns besides what she saw in movies. Strange, she thought. Bullets were supposed to be orange, or silver, or copper, or gold, but green? She'd never seen a green bullet before. Not that it mattered. It hurt deep. And it was going to kill her.

"Get up," she ordered herself through gritted teeth. She didn't dare look up. There was light somewhere around, allowing her to see, but she didn't want to look up and realize how far she had to go. She didn't want to think about the odds. She just kept Rainbow in the center of her mind, and the intense desire to see her and everyone else again.

Rainbow... Twilight... Fluttershy...

Scootaloo climbed the first step.

Rainbow... Pinkie... Applejack...

Another step.

Rainbow... Spike... Applebloom... Sweetie... Rain-

"Ack!" Another jolt of pain shot through her entire leg causing her to collapse. She didn't realize that she was sobbing until the pain dulled into a numbness she couldn't quite call "healthy," now could she? She was going to die here. In this dark. Dank. Miserable place. She was going to-

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Scootaloo screamed. "HEEELLLP!"

She doubted it would do her any good. If anything, it would only serve to call ghosts to her and kill her that way. It wasn't ideal but, as much as she hated to admit it, it beat bleeding out.

"HEEEEEELLLLPPP! HE-he-he-EEEELLP!" She scream-whimpered again, becoming less and less hopeful with every letter in the scream. She was full on crying now. If Rainbow could see her, ha, she would laugh. She could see it now. She would laugh and laugh and- "HEEEEELLLLLPPPP MEEEEE!"

Scootaloo's voice grew hoarse. She had about one more scream in her, she estimated. She was getting dizzy. The world was spinning. The dark itself was spinning in the opposite direction. So disorientating. She wished she could just sleep. Just sleep. The pain was gone now. Was it supposed to go that quickly? Was it already supposed to feel that cold? Or were those the ghosts encroaching on her? She could feel some presence getting closer. She could.

"Heellp..." Scootaloo said weakly. And then she was staring upward. Just staring. Staring.

"...heard... there..."

She could hear a voice now. Calling to her? Or just calling?

"...an... her... P..."

It was a nice voice. A nice voice indeed. Soothing to the filly. So soothing. And as Scootaloo shut her eyes for what she only supposed would be the very last time, she hoped that it was all over, that Celestia would win, and that at least everyone else would make it out alright.

Then she heard hoofsteps.

And then there was darkness.

***

Applebloom stared at Sweetie and Sweetie stared back.

"Are you... real?" Sweetie finally asked.

"Y-yeah!" Applebloom said immediately. She said it at the end of a breath, so the sound came out as more of a gasp.

"And... you've got the GCD I dropped."

"Yeah!" Again, more of a gasp than a real word. Her heart was beating so fast and large she wondered how her lungs were even able to find any air at all.

Sweetie then took a look at the bodies and manequins surrounding her. She sighed a depressed sigh. "No... no you're not real. Are you?"

"Ye-" the word came halfway out her mouth before she realized Sweetie's question. "Ah mean, no! Ah mean... Ah mean..."

"Who cares," she interrupted. "If you're the real Applebloom or not... who cares? ...that's funny, right? Aren't you going to laugh? Like the rest of them?"

"Ah ain't gonna laugh!" Applebloom called out. Tears were coming down her face. Sweetie was so far away. She was so far away and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. The jump was too far and the rope was too long. Long enough to snap a neck, Applebloom was sure. Maybe even worse than that.

"Why not?"

Hundreds of thousands of reasons ran through Applebloom at lightning speeds.

("Because we're friends!" "Because I'm here to help you!" "Because I'm real!" "Because you're about to... about to...!")

"You wouldn't remember," Sweetie went on. "But... earlier tonight something like this happened. Spiffy was trying to get Spike to do something like this... as an accident. To make it my fault. Maybe it would've been if I messed up. Or if you... the real you weren't there. You know?"

"Why are ya doing this?!" Applebloom cried out. She didn't know what else to say. "Why?! It don't make no sense!"

"Maybe not to you... if you're really you..."

Sweetie stared at Applebloom. The applebucker's heart lurched when all she did was take a step toward the edge of the metal plank. Applebloom put a hoof up in the universal gesture of "No!" but the word just wouldn't come out. Her throat was too dry.

"Why... you asked why, right?"

"Yeah Sweets! Why?"

Then she smiled a fake looking smile. It sent a chill down Applebloom's face -- that smile combined with those empty eyes. "Because I'm worthless."

The phrase was so bizarre, so out there that Applebloom had to blink a few times to let the words register in her mind.

What...? Worthless...? Sweetie...?

Again, a thousand thoughts flashed by. Ways to contradict such an insane combination of words.

"W-who in hay put that idea in yer head?!" A list of names pushed through Applebloom's mind. Specter? Spiffy? Rarity? Any of the other ghosts that had taunted her that night?

The smile faded and Sweetie shrugged.

"Nopony... not really," she sighed again. "They said it, last, yeah but, really... nopony but me. I just... tried not to think about it for a while. Tried to pretend the thought wasn't there, but it was. You can't catch a thought. You can't kill it either... not..."

She trailed off again, off into a deep part of her mind Applebloom feared she may never fish her back from.

Applebloom shook her head. "Rarity got ya thinkin' like that, didn't she?"

Then she was back.

"And what if she did?!" Sweetie snapped. The suddenness took Applebloom by surprise and nearly making her jump. She took another two steps towards the edge. "She didn't put the thought there though. She woke it up! She reminded me. I thought it and ignored it for months until tonight. But now..."

What in hay was she talking about? Applebloom racked her head, her thoughts interrupted by Sweetie taking another step towards the edge of the plank. She was so close. So close and yet so far.

"And now... I gotta make it right," she said after a while. "I talked to her tonight. Finally, I got to talk to her. For real. If I... I wasn't supposed to save her, you know."

"W...hat?"

"She was right. She didn't need saving. She never needed it. Crazy as it sounds, Specter was going to make her happy! And I screwed it up..." Sweetie took another step. One more and she'd be over the edge. She'd be falling and then- "But now I can make it right, you know? I can leave her be. I can let her be happy..." She stared into Applebloom's eyes for a long time.

(Gone, gone, gone, baby oh baby my Sweetie is gone)

"Are... you really... the real, Applebloom?"

"Ah... ah..." The words wouldn't come to the filly. If she did, she risked Sweetie calling her a liar and jumping. If she said she wasn't, she'd lose hope and end up jumping. If Applebloom said nothing, and kept on stuttering

"Ah... Ah... AAAAAAAHHHH-"

then Sweetie would go ahead and still end up jumping.

Applebloom fell to her knees. Her brain wouldn't work. It was short-circuiting as she saw Sweetie jump over and over. She heard that snap of her neck and again like a broken record that span so fast, if she touched and tried to stop the mad sound coming from

(the gramaphone)

(Sweetie's mouth)

(her inner voice saying she was going to kill herself. she was going to kill herself and it'll be all your fault)

she would catch on fire.

As the days passed, the years passed, and Sweetie's corpse just hung there. Rotting with the rest of her friends as insects and maggots festered all throughout her making her plump and purple and bloated until the flesh rotted off to be ground in the ever-turning gears below.

All while the applebucker's sister just kept going "Ah... ah... ah..." like the broken bucking record playing in her head.

"You... have the GCD. If you... really have to go after my sis... if you're really real... you can do it. You deserve to get out of here," Sweetie finished, her hoof over nothing but air. "You have the right to make your sister happy..."

And then Sweetie

"It ain't yer fault..."

Sweetie stared at the applebucker. She didn't say anything.

"Rarity... what happened with Rarity ain't yer fault."

"What... do you know...?"

"Ah know ya tried to kill somepony. Like ya wanted ta kill Specter," Applebloom went on. Shakily she got to her hooves again. The story Pinkie told her earlier reverberated in her head now. That was all the gramaphone played. That story. Her only chance. Yes, before it just seemed like more Pinkie nonsense, but now it was Applebloom's only hope. No more thoughts on how she could convince Sweetie -- just her honest thoughts on the matter.

"What... do you know...?" Sweetie repeated. She was more stunned than anything. It was the first real expression she'd shown since seeing Applebloom, though the filly didn't look up to face it.

"Ah know... ya were mad... and scared. Cause nopony saw it... not me... not Scoots... nopony and ya were alone..." Applebloom chose her words carefully. Treading ground from what Pinkie told her and what she knew about Sweetie into unknown territory. She swallowed. "...and... ya were scared ya'd lose Rare, cause she was all ya thought ya had. And... ya made a mistake... and did somethin' Rare turned sour over... and now tonight ya wanted ta save her. Tonight was yer big chance..." Applebloom put up a smile that would've done the Element of Honesty proud. "...am ah close?"

"...so what...?" Sweetie asked. "What? You're trying to remind me too?" She sounded as though a part of her was trying to be accusatory. Then there was the other part Applebloom vaguely recognized as somepony she actually knew.

The filly's mind grasped onto that "somepony she knew" with all her might.

"Ah'm tryin' ta get ya ta think, dang it!" she screamed. "Ah don't know nothin' about that whoever Rare was seein' but are ya really gonna look me straight in the face and say Specter wants ta make yer sis happy? Are ya out of yer freakin' mind?! Have ya had yer eyes shut all night? I ain't even been awake half the time you been, and I see that all Specter cares about is hurtin' you! You! You! You!"

Applebloom's fear had turned to anger, and she couldn't keep it in. "Yeah, ah think Rare got in yer head! And yeah! Ah think tonight's been hay on you in every way possible right now! But ya wanna know somethin' real? Ah think right now yer acting mighty worthless! Ya wanna run from what Rare's gotta say? Ya wanna run from whatever truth or lies she and Specter's got that ya think has truth in 'em? Because that's whatcha doing here! Ya ain't gettin' Rarity to forgive ya! Ya ain't bein' sorry! Yer just running away from her! Yer just running! 'Cause yer scared! Just like the rest of us! And that's all yer gonna ever do if ya... if ya..."

Applebloom hoped she could yell and scream forever as the words poured from her mouth. If only just to keep Sweetie there, frozen in place on that plank. She felt her knees wobble as the energy just went out of her all at once.

Keep going... she ordered herself. ...or she'll die.

"...do... ya still love her?" Applebloom asked.

"What?"

"Do ya still love her?"

"...Applebloom of... of course I do!" It was the most genuine thing she'd said since finding her. Applebloom resisted the urge to smile, lest it be interpreted as a laugh.

"Then why ya just standin' there when yer supposed to be savin' her?"

"Because..." Sweetie paused. "Because I really think... that's really her. Deep down... I really think she hates me."

There was a silence between the two. Sweetie didn't move forward, nor did she move back. Applebloom didn't avert her gaze. There was only one real answer that came to the filly's mind. One that came as sudden as the speech that spewed from her mouth only moments ago.

"...who cares?"

"...what?"

"Who cares if she hates ya. You love her, right?"

"Yes!" Sweetie said immediately. "Yes I do! I was doing this because I...! Because..."

"...then act like it. It ain't yer job to go dying for her. And it ain't my job to catch her! It's yours! As her sister, it's yer job to protect her. Whether you think she's happy or not, do ya think she's safe with Specter? Do ya really believe that?"

Sweetie didn't respond.

"Course ya don't. Ya wanna know why?" Applebloom went on. "Because that stallion's insane. His butler's insane. His kids are insane. Everything about him is insane and everypony around him follows. And he ain't safe to be around. Not alive. And not dead."

"Madame's not insane..." She muttered.

"Who?"

"...his wife..."

"Right... his wife..." Applebloom did remember mention of the mare. "He's married then. So ya ain't gonna tell me that makes sense he gonna have two wives now."

Sweetie wasn't looking at Applebloom anymore, but down at the whirling gears. Her mind was a million miles away for what seemed like a long time to both of them. Then she shrugged. "...I don't know. Some ponies are into that, I hear."

Was that a joke? A real joke? Or at least an attempt at one?

"Ah dunno Sweetie. Rare always crossed me as the uh... mono... mona... crap, how d' ya say it?"

"Monogamist," she said lowly and slowly.

"Yeah, that!"

She sighed. It was a healthy sigh. Not quite devoid of the depression of before, but Applebloom would take it nonetheless. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

There was another long pause before Applebloom dared speak again. "Are ya... feeling better?"

"...no... no, not really," she paused. "...but like you said. Who cares?" As she said those words, Sweetie took the noose from around her neck and held it in front of her. "How I feel doesn't really matter while Rarity's in Specter's hooves."

"Yer damn right." Applebloom nodded.

Sweetie tossed the noose to the side. However, instead of falling to the side like a rope attached to a wall is supposed to, it snapped from where it was attached to in the dead gear. Then the gear started to spin and it started to spin fast.

"Aw hay," Applebloom's ears went down. Sweetie did the same as she looked at the gear.

***

"It's a tra-"

Before Sweetie could get the words out of her mouth, the two metal planks gave beneath the two fillies. They screamed, but both managed to grab at the planks as they flew down and against the wall. Applebloom managed to hold on but Sweetie, upon the plank's impact with the wall was thrown off with force. Out of sheer luck however, she fell in the direction of her own hanging manequin and grabbed at it with all her might. This time, she managed to hang on.

"Sweetie! Help! Ah'm slipping!" Applebloom had both hooves hooked into the sides of the plank now hanging vertically. As she cried, she was indeed sliding down the plank toward the end. Below her was the wooden bridge, but between the narrowness of it and the bridge and the shoddiness of it's integrity, Applebloom would doubtlessly crash through it and fall down to the sea of death-gears -- and that was if she even touched the bridge at all.

"Hold on!" Sweetie wracked her brain for what she could do now. She looked over by the entrance to the tower. There was the platform above the tunnel that blocked anypony from seeing into the room besides the silhouettes. She remembered thinking she'd see her own corpse when first walking in the room because of that blinder and was willing to bet bits that Applebloom thought the same.

There was no way Sweetie would be able to catch Applebloom. The mock corpse was too high up and wouldn't have reached Applebloom. She considered using her talents, but was sure that even with Twilight's mark, she'd get too weak before getting either of them to safety, effectively killing them both. Fluttershy's and Rainbow's were pretty useless in this situation too. And all Pinkie's mark would do was just remind her how screwed the both of them were anyway. Almost like the real deal.

How about Applejack's then?

An idea formulated in Sweetie's mind. Using Twilight's mark for thinking alone, she calculated if what she was trying would even be possible, and as it turned out it was. Risky as hay, but possible all the same. Sweetie began to pump on her mock corpse, as though she were on a swing -- because effectively, that's what she was doing. She was swinging along the circumference of the tower toward Applebloom as far as the rope would allow. As she listened to it creak, she hoped it would hold long enough.

"Don't complain, okay?!" Sweetie called.

"What are ya-"

Then Sweetie executed the plan. At the end of her forward swing, she jumped off, and as hard as she could, bucked Applebloom off the plank she was holding on to. The filly cried out in pain, but the desired effect came to pass. Applebloom flew along the circumference of the tower -- thankfully not getting caught in any of the gears along the way -- before landing on the platform over the cave opening. She moaned in pain, but was still alive.

Now that left Sweetie Belle, who herself was still flying through the air and now after passing her own momentum onto Applebloom, was falling straight down toward the pistons, on their way out of their wall. She switched her focus from Applejack's talent onto Twilight's again, calling upon her levitation magic to slow her ascent ever so slightly.

She still hit the piston hard, but not nearly hard enough to break the bones in her legs, and just enough not to miss it as it went into the wall. She winced but knew she wasn't out of the woods yet. She went back as far as the piston would allow, and once it was at full length, she called upon Rainbow's talent and ran toward the end of the piston, jumping far and wide until she came to a rolling stop inside the mouth of the tunnel.

She was in pain. She imagined Applebloom was in pain. But the both of them were alive.

They were alive.

"Sweetie!"

She could see Applebloom's legs wiggle as she climbed over the lip of the platform. Then she swung inside of the mouth of the cave and joined Sweetie Belle. She stood over her for all of a second before joining her on the floor, the both of them out of breath -- albeit for different reasons.

"Hah... hah... You alright, Applebloom?"

"Hah... hah... Yeah... yeah, ahm alright... you alright Sweetie?"

"Hah... Yeah... yeah I'm okay... hah... hah..." Sweetie swallowed. "Hey... Applebloom?"

"...yeah...?"

"Thanks for yelling at me back there... I think I'm this close to... losing my mind..." She raised a hoof and pinched the air to emphasize her point.

Applebloom considered the present-tense nature of the statement, but decided it didn't matter with the filly breathing next to her. "Yeah... Ya... and every pony else..."

"Yeah... yeah... well they do say... crazy loves company... I guess... I don't know..."

The two of them laid there, breathing hard, saying nothing. Then Applebloom spoke up.

"...ya got... a kick like a mule though... ah'll tell ya what," she commented.

"Blame... your sister..."

They both breathed hard for another few seconds. Then both of them laughed.

Comments

[Comrade Bagel Muffin]

Two updates in two days your spoiling us.

[Luckysweep]

OH MY LORD IT’S BACK!!! And just in tone for Halloween!!
Praise the darkness! Ghosts are back to being sucked into a vacuum!

[Moon Shooter]

9262603
Because I'm lazy.

Maybe one day I will actually split them like I promised, but today is not that day. For what it's worth, the reason I haven't split them is because I intended to, when I do, heavily edit them to make them just a little less shitty.

For now, bookmarks are just going to have to do.

...and no. No I will never do that again.

Because that was insane. Chapters aren't supposed to be the size of novellas. That's stupid.

[Moon Shooter]

9262661
soon

[4428Gamer]

You know, I know it doesn't have much to do with what went on in this chapter, but am I the only one that thinks Discord might not like the mansion or Specter's plan? I mean, don't get me wrong, Discord would certainly like being brought back and he would like what became of Luna and Celestia but I don't think he would like the execution (pun intended) of the mansion. Murder, death, and fear isn't the kind of thing that Discord really did. I mean, when he took over Ponyville, he rubbed it in Twilight's face. Not only that but Discord never killed or put a pony's life in danger, persay. He more held a carrot on a string and kept pulling it from the victim until they gave up. Until they admitted defeat in themselves.

Specter's an amazing character and this story does well to paint him as something of a disciple or respected assistant of Discord but it's almost as though Specter doesn't truly understand what Discord wanted. It makes me wonder if Discord would give approval to the mansion, or 'spruce' it up a bit for his own version. Either way, both thoughts terrify me.

[Moon Shooter]

9262817
Interesting you mention that.

...thats about all I have to say on the matter. Be interesting to see if you still think so when the reveal comes through.

Depending on whether or not I butcher it anyway.

I'll let you come to your own conclusion until then.

[TheBrony]

I keep wanting to keep seeing what happens. But I know that takes time.

[Shipmun]

Some major butt clenches in this chapter, lemme tell ya.

It's a Halloween miracle

[Starlight Nova]

Look don't get me wrong, I love this story, but GOOD LORD is Pinkie written horribly in this story. She's even worse than how she was in, well, any story Justice3442's written! (especially that Dan Vs. crossover...) Please, just please just tell me this was intentional and she'll be back to normal by the end.

[wr1jeffey]

It is good to see you return...images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/602e4f9b-fb8a-4918-81bb-105e17c8e45e/dcskeo0-e90b6312-7786-42b4-ba0f-2ab0b9605baa.jpg

[Arcanum -Phantasy]

Welp, it was fun while it lasted. Hope the next update comes soon.

[Black Hoof]

It's alive!!

[Alex Warlorn]

I hope this story can reach a conclusion.

[Impure Diamond]

9711705
Maybe someday.

i.ytimg.com/vi/LQyDNs8ZzHI/maxresdefault.jpg

[Alex Warlorn]

9716731
Uh, I don't get the picture.

[Impure Diamond]

9716733
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXe-5mUeLC8

[Alex Warlorn]

9716735
ah

[Alex Warlorn]

I truly and sincerely wished this story was complete. I was waiting for it to be completed before reading it. :-(

[PactOfSkyranger]

The premise of this story always makes me go a little crazy.

Like, crazy as in (and for the purpose of this comment, I'm playing the role of Falak) "I want to lure the ghostly Mane 6, Gilda, Spike, Applebloom and Scootaloo into a statue room, turn their bodies into statues, bind said ghosts into said statues, create a ward bound to Specter's continued existence in the mortal world, bind Specter into a statue, put a ward on his statue bound to the essence of every portrait ghost and 51 miscellaneous ghosts made of chaos magic (the extra one is meant to parallel King Boo,) put the strongest of those miscellaneous ghosts into a pocket world behind a puzzle door bound to a piano that only opens if someone plays Totaka's Song, take the power to control the sun and moon away from the ghostly royal sisters, put the power to manipulate them into a dais that only responds to chaos magic, and then... curl up in a ball and mutter crazily until Sweetie Belle finds her way to the statue room."

Yes, the story makes me THAT mad/horrified/sad.

[Felix_13]

Is this ever gonna be completed?

[Mx Story Anomalax]

Lookin' forward to whenever you feel like comin' back to this mate.

[Asjwew]

Please continue please

[nightshroud96]

Did Spike ever broke free from his possession on his own.?

[Ash12sdee]

Please continue it please