1. Gone Girl

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What do you do when the only friends you have in the world turn against you? Not just away from you. Not just forget about you. But when they start seeing you as an enemy? What do you do when there’s nothing left?

I can't get my mind off of that line of thinking ever since the start of the Anon-A-Miss mess that’s been destroying what little bits of my life I’ve managed to scratch back together after the Fall Formal.

The more I think about it the more the whole mess makes a twisted kind of sense, though.

After all, I hurt so many people during my tenure as Queen Bee Bitch of Canterlot High, right? So there was bound to be someone who held a grudge. Even worse, it's probably someone I hurt pretty bad.

Well, at least bad enough for them to want to ruin my life.

Fair enough, I guess. I wouldn't be surprised if I ruined theirs at some point.

So what’s left for Sunset Shimmer: the once and future fuck-up?

I stare up at the thick, grey-white clouds. The snow is coming down harder than it was this morning. I originally came up to the roof of the school to get some air. The atmosphere in the school is pretty oppressive. Yeah, I'm skipping a class but, hey, at least no one's going to come out here to hassle me. Not in this weather anyway. Why harass me in the biting cold when they can just as easily shoot spitballs at the back of my head in the warmth of the hallways after I come back down?

So here I am, feet dangling over the edge of the roof as flurries of snowflakes dance around the air, and it’s bitterly cold. I’m sure the rest of the school body couldn’t care less but I’m also fairly certain none of them are squatting in an abandoned railway station office on the edge of town. It’s awesome in the summer—nice and cool—but the winters are bad. Sometimes really bad. Last year I managed things by sneaking into the school library and sleeping there. All it took was futzing with the library security camera’s swivel a little to make a blind spot and voila, instant winter getaway. That's not happening this year though; I'm too high profile.

Plus, with the generator in my basement being bricked, my current digs are pretty much unlivable. The only upside that shithole even has versus being out in the open anymore is the roof it puts over my head and, if I'm being honest, the leaks are starting to make that look questionable.

I briefly considered trying to find a new place to hole up in but, honestly, there's no way that would fly at the moment. It's the same problem there as it is with the library, I just can't go anywhere without someone keeping an eye on me and I don’t have my blackmail and extortion to fall back on anymore. Not that I regret that part, changing was... it was good. It needed to happen, I know that. My bad decisions just caught up with me is all.

That did mean, of course, that all that was waiting for me back 'home' was a cold cement floor, brick walls, a pile of ratty blankets on a military cot, and an empty belly. I really shouldn’t have skipped lunch but I just couldn’t bear to be in the cafeteria with everyone. With them. With my… my former friends.

I clench my eyes shut as the wet heat of tears start pushing their way out. It feels like I’m choking and drowning all at once as the tears track down my cheeks only to freeze before they even reach my chin.

“I… I just wanted friends…” I choke out, quietly. “I just wanted to be good…” No one hears me but I don’t need anyone to. I’m the only one who needs to hear it.

I think about the book Princess Twilight left me. I’d written to her about the mess I was in but her only response hadn’t been very useful. I mean, I get it, she’s a princess. She has more on her plate than resolving some stupid rumor-mongering but… but I’m her friend too right? Would it be that much trouble to help me?

“Sunset?”

I nearly jump out of my skin, wheeling my arms a little as my butt slides around for a second before I find my balance again. I turn to see Vice Principal Luna looking at me evenly.

“What are you doing out here?” Luna closes some of the distance, her arms crossed against the cold. “It’s freezing, and you have class.”

I swallow down the rest of my tears and do my best to wipe away the little trails of rime they’d left on my face. The look on Luna’s face when I turn to face her tells me I didn’t do a very good job.

“Y-yeah, I know, sorry,” I answer, trying to ignore the hitch in my voice. “It’s pretty bad down there, honestly. I figured I’d get some fresh air and some… some peace and quiet.”

Luna lets out a small sigh and nods. “I see, well, whatever you may think, I do understand your situation. More than you might expect. So I’m going to offer some advice: stop, apologise, and get it over with.”

Her words send an iron spike through my heart. Even the teachers think I’m guilty. Everyone thinks I’m guilty. Luna continues without pausing.

“My sister and I can’t really do anything given that the whole matter is happening over the internet, and you obviously don’t like or want this any more than anyone else.” Luna steps forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. I don’t even have the strength to flinch away. “I don’t know why you’ve returned to your old tactics but it’s clear you regret it. If everyone continues to lash back and forth at one another like this I fear there will only be broken hearts in the end. Someone has to break the cycle and I suggest that it be you.”

I try to say something, I swear I do, but my mouth doesn’t want to open. The words won’t come. I want to defend myself. To tell her it’s not me. It was never, never, me.

But why should she believe me?

The Vice Principal is right. This looks like exactly something the old me would have done: spread lies, make rumors, and try to tear everyone apart.

Except, from everyone else's point of view, it just… didn’t work this time. Written's Quill, it really must look like that from the outside. Like big bad bitch Sunset Shimmer was pulling the mother of all long cons to make herself a hero, then takes another swipe at ruling the school only to trip at the finish line!

Even the girls that called themselves my friends must have, even just subconsciously, been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Everyone was. Now this whole mess is just lining up with what everyone has been secretly expecting all along.

So that’s it.

I let out a slow, shaky breath, and nod. I look up at Luna, who’s giving me a small smile. I try to match it but I can feel how glass-fragile the expression is.

“Good, I’m glad you’ve made the right decision,” Luna says, patting my head. A few minutes ago the patronizing act would’ve made me mad. Now I don’t feel a thing. “Your friends should still be in class, I recommend getting it over with quickly, okay? We’ll see how things go after that.”

I nod, she’s definitely right. “Yeah, I’ll get it over with right away.”

“Good girl,” Luna says, a fuller smile on her face. “Now, I’m going back inside, you should too. It’s awfully cold out here.”

You have no idea.

“I’ll be off the roof in a minute,” I promise, “I just need to make sure I have everything.”

Seemingly satisfied, Luna walks back towards the door. I turn back to the roof edge where I left my backpack and pull out the Journal, opening it to the next empty page as I hear the door open and then close. I take out my pen and think for a moment before settling on the appropriate way to phrase my letter.

~O~

Dear Twilight,

I wanted to impart a lesson of my own today: “Sometimes Friendship Fails”. I’m not really sure it’s anyone’s fault either. Sometimes things just happen and the worst comes to pass. Bonds dissolve, Friendships fade, Trust is broken, and at the end of the day, we’re left alone. That might seem harsh but, I guess what I’m trying to say is that what’s going to happen now is not your fault.

Okay?

You tried and trusted, and the world failed you. Just like it did me. You can’t save everypony, y’know? Sometimes there’s just nothing left to save. Sometimes you do your best and it doesn't work.

Goodbye and Good Luck.

Yours Forever Faithful if not Successful,

Sunset Shimmer

P.S. I left my Grimoire in the Canterlot Station Office on the east edge of town if you want it. It’s probably the only thing I brought over here that’s worth recovering.

~O~

I close the book and as it snaps shut I feel lighter than I have in weeks. I clutch the journal to my chest and feel the tears track down my cheeks again. I’m taking Luna’s advice and just getting it over with quickly. I step up onto the edge and look down at the main entrance of the school.

"Oof, that’s not gonna be pretty," I mutter.

Oh well, not like it'll matter to me.

At least it’s cold, so it shouldn’t be too messy. Kind of ironic too, actually, since I can still see the discoloration of the cement—the new melded with the old—from where I’d been hit by the Elements of Harmony during the Fall Formal. I’m going to end it all today right where it all should’ve ended back then.

I turn on my heels. Better to land on my back, I think. Besides, I've always liked the grayscale winter skies.

Tightening my grip on my Journal, I tip and fall back, and as I do the roof access door opens back up. Oops, Luna must’ve had something else to say. I feel a slight twinge of regret as I drop over the edge. She saw me and I definitely saw the look on her face.

The look of horror.

I hear her scream my name.

Sorry VP. You tried your best. I appreciate it. I really, really do. But my past is not today. My future is not tomorrow. And my present is over.

I let the wind take me away.

“SUNSET NO!”

Rarity, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Pinkie hear the shriek from above where they were sitting in Algebra. Rarity seat is nearest to the window. She prefers it there, especially in winter, because it lets her look out over the beautiful snowy landscape.

She’s getting an idea for a new winter coat, something that flows and rolls like the hills on the edge of town with unbroken smoothness. Maybe some emerald green threading to evoke the idea of the evergreens, still rife with color even in the heart of winter.

All of them hear the shriek, but Rarity is the only one looking out the window when the shape passes by.

Just a flash of red and gold hair, dark leather, and boots followed by a dull, wet, crack.

The entire class is muttering, shocked and surprised at the sound, but most of them are looking out towards the hall or up at the ceiling in confusion.

None of them understand when Rarity starts screaming.

“SUNSET NO!”

Luna screams as the infinitely tired and disheveled-looking Sunset disappears over the edge of the roof, and suddenly Luna is running faster than she’s ever run before. She needs to get to the edge. Maybe Sunset is still there. Maybe she's hanging on for dear life. Maybe.

Maybe.

Luna doesn’t even get to the edge before she hears the sound of something hard hitting the cement with a meaty crack. The sound takes the life out of her, and Luna drops to her knees at the edge of the roof, feeling a sudden weight clenching her gut and gripping her heart.

Looking out over the city of Canterlot there’s a brief, brief moment where it's not quite real yet. Where Luna can just think about how beautiful the city is.

And about how she could look down. She definitely could.

She really, really doesn’t want to.

Then she hears a girl start screaming from a classroom below. Tears start pouring down Luna’s face. She failed. Failed as badly as any teacher—as any person—could fail. Luna turns her face down, forcing herself to look on final result of her negligence. To see whatever ruin was left on the front steps of her and her sister's school.

To see the reality of her total incompetence.

She looks down at the entrance to the high school and sees… a smear. A faint red smear on the cement and nothing else. Blinking in confusion, she leans over, disgusted but terrified that Sunset had somehow… slid. There's nothing.

There's no body.

No Sunset Shimmer.

But there is blood.

Casting all thought of her own safety to the winds, Luna sprints across the snowy rooftop to the fire access stair hanging from the edge of the building. The cold, aged, and poorly-cared-for steel bites hard into her hand as she careens down the loose slaloming stairs to the frosted grass below. She cuts herself on the ragged metal but she couldn’t care about that right now.

Sprinting for the corner, Luna turns hard, her converse digging through the manicured lawn of the school. There! The entrance to the school!

Luna reaches it just as Rarity comes tearing out of the double doors.

“Sunset! SUNSET!” Rarity was screaming at the top of her lungs, her face panicked and terror-ridden. Tears streak mascara across her face as she turns this way and that.

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SUNSET WHERE ARE—!?”

Rarity’s voice dies in her throat at the sight of the blood staining the cement. Her friends come out quickly after that, wearing expressions of worry and confusion. Luna approaches from the side but Rarity catches sight of her before she can say a word.

For once lacking a single thought toward propriety, Rarity grabs Vice Principal Luna by the lapels of her coat and shakes her as hard as her thin, teenage arms can manage.

“WHERE IS SUNSET!?” Rarity shrieks.

The other five are just staring in dumbfounded confusion at the girl yelling at their teacher. Then they look at the smear. That’s when Luna sees the panic really start to set in.

“WHERE IS MY FRIEND?!”

The Vice Principal just shakes her head.

“I don’t know. I saw her fall. I saw her and I… I thought I heard her… h-hit. But when I looked down it was just that.” Luna gestures at the smear.

The panic on the faces of the other five becomes truly intense at the Vice Principals words.

Whipping around, Rarity makes a slashing motion with her hand. “What are you all waiting for? Let's FIND HER!”

They searched long into the evening until the early winter night descended over them. The whole of the school grounds and beyond is scoured and at the end of it all the only trace of the girl with red and gold hair is the blood on the cement and a memory of a scream.

Sunset Shimmer had vanished.

2. The Awakening

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Warm, wet dirt presses into the back of my head, and everything hurts. That doesn't really seem fair since I’m supposed to be dead, right?

Right?!

I was ready! I let go! I was… I was ready to let it all go and to finally get some peace and quiet in a world that I’d managed to teach to hate me no matter what I did. I just wanted it to be over!

I clench my eyes shut as tears push their way past my eyelids as I curl up on the ground. I just wanted it all to be over. I know I’ve done so many wrong things but… can’t I be owed just a little bit of peace?

The peace of my own death, if nothing else?

Apparently not, or apparently death sucks way more than I had been led to believe. I push away the tears before they overwhelm me. I have a feeling if I start crying I’m not going to stop for a good while and, whether or not I’m dead, I clearly still have a corporeal body of some flavor so that means I need to get up and—

Pain slashes into my brain like a lightning bolt the moment I move my head, leaving me gasping for air.

Okay, so that’s not happening. I try rolling over instead, heaving myself to the side only to stop as something sharp jabs in my stomach, reminding me that I’m still holding onto my Journal.

Right, well, if that’s here then... that’s a plus, I guess? Now for the real sixty billion bit question:

‘Where in Tartarus am I?’

Balancing on my knees and one hand, with the other hand keeping my Journal close, I try to get my bearings. All around me are stalks of rotting corn, and the air is filled with the stench of a sodden farm; that unique odor of manure, unwashed animals, rotten vegetable matter, and... something else too, some kind of thick and coppery stink.

Slowly, I stagger to my feet and the pain in my head fades back to a dull roar as I find my footing. It’s terribly quiet and there’s something in the air… something that’s setting my teeth on edge. My vision swims again and I step backward, trying to get myself situated, and I very nearly trip on something protruding from the ground.

“Ah!” I wince at how loud my voice sounds in the silence out here as I look down.

A root is sticking out of the muddy ground, and I follow it with my gaze to its source, and the further I go the more I wish I hadn’t.

My jaw hangs slack and for a second my brain grinds its gears trying to comprehend exactly what I'm looking at, because however obvious it is, it's not something I can just wrap my brain around.

It's a tree, sure, that's the easy part. The rest of it isn’t so easy.

The corpses of massive swine hang gutted from the bare, dead branches, dripping gobs of viscous, rotting blood onto the ground making the source of the stink all-too-clear. Slaughtered animals would be one thing but what I really can’t tear my eyes away from is what’s strung up against the trunk of the tree.

A human, or at least what's left of it. Flayed and brutalized beyond anything I can imagine. Chunks of meat hang raggedly from its fractured rib cage, and every bit of it that's still there screams that it died in agony. All I can manage is a small choking sound in the back of my throat. I want to scream I want to—

The air is split by a scream that, surprisingly, doesn't belong to me.

I spin around, searching for the source. Another voice means another person which means I'm not alone in this nightmare horror-show.

Gripping my Journal hard, I take a guess at the direction the scream came from and sprint away from the gory tree. The muck and soil suck at the soles of my shoes as I run, it’s noisy and disgusting but I can’t afford to be slow. If someone is in trouble I want to help them. Just because I was abandoned…

Nope, not going there yet. Not now, and maybe not ever. C’mon repression, kick in, I’ve got more important things to do.

Another scream echoes from close by, so I stop running at the edge of the corn and drop to a crouch, peeking out from between the stalks and scanning for the… the...

“What the fuck.”

Once upon a time, I believed in monsters. When I was a little filly I would hide under my covers at the orphanage as the sisters told us scary stories on Nightmare Night. When I got older, I realised that monsters weren’t really real, and that it was just a word for something we didn’t understand.

Now… Now I remember why I used to believe in monsters.

It’s like a human but only in the broadest and crudest strokes. It must clear seven feet tall, but its body is lopsided and almost… melted. Its left arm is muscular but twisted and stretched while its face is a mangy waxen mess held together by surgical sutures and crude stitching. Two sharp, feral eyes peer out of the folds of mutant flesh and on its belt is a crude, heavy hammer stained with what can only be blood. Its twisted arm is gripping a brutal chainsaw, the teeth of which are clogged with what looks like bits of gristle, bone, and hair.

The thing is so imposing I almost miss what it’s carrying in its other arm; a young man with bright green hair, a red shirt, and brown cargo pants is struggling feebly in the monster’s grip, but the thing is so cartoonishly massive compared to the guy's smaller frame that all he can do is wriggle in its grip.

I stay crouched and quiet as the thing moves by. It has a weird, loping gait that’s almost graceful. No motion is wasted and it covers more ground than I would expect of something that looks so ungainly, and as it passes me by I turn to watch as it approaches something extruding from the ground.

What in Tartarus is that? It almost looks like a… a hook.

It’s a giant Sun-damned butcher’s hook. I don't need to be a seer to know what that monster's intention is vis a vis the hook and his struggling victim is.

In one fluid, gut-wrenching movement, the twisted creature swings its chainsaw down to a carabiner on its belt, then brings its huge, melted arm up to grip its struggling victim before heaving him up and slamming him down onto the hook with a wet, meaty, shunk that turns my stomach.

Even knowing what was about to happen, my jaw still drops open and I feel a scream work its way up my throat. I'm about to let it out by pure instinct, and earn the monster’s attention in the process, when a strong hand sweeps around my face to seal my mouth shut. I struggle for a moment but whoever it is has a grip like steel and pulls me away from the horrific scene.

My captor tosses me sprawling onto the damp ground, and I cough as I scramble around, looking for whoever it was that probably just saved my life.

Crouching low and holding a raised finger to her lips is a powerfully built young woman. Her face is twisted by a scar that runs the length of her right cheek in a crescent moon, from the corner of her mouth and up across her eye. The damage gives her a kind of permanent sneer that's half-eclipsed by her short, ragged red mohawk. The sides of her head are shaved and adorned with tattoos that even I recognise as gang marks, and they stretch down her neck and across her broad, muscular shoulders to vanish beneath what looks like a surplus military vest, and her trousers and boots are the same, surplus fatigues and heavy, worn steel-toes.

She raises a hand in a 'stop' motion in front of me before putting a single finger to her lips.

“Don’t move and don’t speak,” she whispers in an accented voice so low that I have to lean forward to catch her words. “It will hear you. Don’t let its stature fool you, it’s faster and sharper than it looks.”

I nod. I’m willing to take that advice as read given that I just watched that thing cold murder a guy with a butcher’s hook stuck to a lamppost.

She turns away from me and scowls in the direction of the hook.

“Dammit Spruce, I told you not to go for the basement box. Idiota," she mutters before gesturing sharply at me. "Come on bacon-head, follow closely.”

Okay. Hold up.

Bacon-head?!

Red and gold. Not bacon. Red and friggin gold. I follow her anyway though because, yeah, Butcherhook McChainsawface is presumably still tooling around this haunted-ass cornfield and this girl seems like she knows what’s going on. You don’t survive being a homeless teen girl in a cold city like Canterlot for long without figuring out who knows what and how to learn that stuff yourself, so I'm willing to endure some jabs as tuition.

“Where are we going?” I ask, trying to keep as quiet as possible.

“The generator,” she responds, gesturing out across the cornfield. “See the tall, metal towers with the high-powered lights rising out of the fog? They’re connected to generators. Getting them repaired and running opens the Exit Gates. Once we're through them and past the terminus, the Killer can't follow us. Killer can never leave their Trial.”

“Cool, so we just gas it up and go?” I whisper back.

She shakes her head. “No, there will be seven of them and the exit gates at the edges of the grounds need at least five running to power the system. We’ve got two of them going already but then Spruce got greedy.”

I let the knowledge that we need to get three more of them up and running in the dark, with a chainsaw-clad murder-hobo stalking the area sink in.

This does not feel good.

“Here, take this,” she shoves a torch into my hand. “If you see it try to shine the light in its eyes. The Killers live in the darkness of the fog, so bright light pains them.”

A weapon, then. I feel my first real surge of gratitude towards her. I mean, yeah, she definitely kept me from being butcher bait a second ago but now I have a way to defend myself... not well, mind you, but at least it’s something.

“Thanks, I owe you,” I say, testing the heft of it. It might make a decent bludgeon, too, if the battery runs out.

“De nada, just keep an eye out.”

We reach the generator and it doesn’t take a skilled mechanic to tell it’s in bad shape; the frame is busted up, with pieces hanging off in some places and loose wiring sticking out.

Apparently this isn’t unusual, though, because my new guide immediately goes to work putting it back together by sliding bits and pieces back into place, then pulling out batches of wiring and tying them off. I sit and watch her quick, sure movements for a few seconds, there’s something fascinating about watching someone who knows what they’re doing work with their hands. It’s mesmerizing enough that I almost forget I’m supposed to keep watch. I turn back and keep my head on a swivel.

Idiot, idiot. What would’ve happened if that mange-ridden psychopath had walked up while you were ogling? Dumbass.

Another scream splits the air, this one loud and feminine. I start to stand up and move but my guide's hand shoots out to grip my wrist as if she knows exactly what's going through my head.

“Don’t, that’s Star, and she’s doing it on purpose to keep Billy’s attention. She’s slippery and smart, I’ll know if she’s really in trouble, so sit. Do you know anything about generators?”

I turn back to her, letting the rock in my stomach settle. I hear ‘Billy’ rev his chainsaw in the distance getting the crows shrieking and cawing at the sudden noise.

At least that lets me know that he isn’t close by.

“Uh, yeah, before it bricked completely I had one in the train station I was… uh… squatting in. It got me through a rough winter before it died but it took a little love and a lot of percussive maintenance.”

Her mouth turns up in a grim smile that's cocked endearingly sideways by her scar. “Good, get to work on the other side while Star gives us some breathing room.”

I defer to her expertise. If she says we’re ‘safe’ then I'll go with that, I can only assume she'd know better than me.

A quick once-over shows me at least a few things I can easily fix. For one, the exhaust manifold is not even really connected anymore, it's hanging off of the main body by a couple of screws, so I set the torch down and start muscling it back into place.

I wince at every sound, and for a moment I'm forced to lament how fixing a generator is not a quiet process. Fortunately ‘Star’ has kept her scream game on point which seems to be serving as an adequate mask for our work. With that cover, I risk the noise of shouldering the manifold back into position, then start working on the coolant system. It’s crude but that’s good. Crude means mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering means it’s relatively simple to get it back in one—SHIT!

My shoe slipped. My stupid shoe slipped in the mud putting my angle off as I knock a cooling pipe the wrong way, clanging it hard against part of the chugging starter and sending a surge through the whole damn thing. It lets off a loud, blinding POP, staggering the pair of us back. I rub at my eyes and shake my singed fingers out. I can’t even see properly before my extra-toasty hand is grabbed by my guide and we’re off running.

“Vamos! Billy’s not going to ignore that,” she hisses.

I nod, angry at myself and at the mud and my shoes and everything else. It was stupid and it was my fault.

“Sorry, sorry, I slipped and—”

A finger presses against my lips again as she pulls us into cover behind some hay bales.

“Don’t apologize, just do better next time,” She answers evenly. I’m surprised at her calm tone, I probably wouldn’t have been as forgiving in her place.

We lean against the bale, catching our breath as we wait for ‘Billy’ to lose interest. He doesn’t seem to be coming this way, but we aren’t gonna break cover and give him a show just in case.

“What’s your name, by the way?” I ask, leaning in close to her to keep my voice as low as possible. “I’m Sunset Shimmer.”

“Tempest,” she responds. “Tempest Shadow.”

It fits her. Imposing, certain, and powerful, she moves like she avoids murderous psychopaths for a living. Who knows, maybe she does. I don’t even know how I got here but I have a feeling I’d be properly borked if I hadn’t run across this girl. Or, if she hadn’t run across me, I guess.

“How did you get here?” I ask as Tempest peeks around the bale to scan the area.

“We’ll swap life stories once we’re at the campfire,” Tempest answers cooly. “Until then, keep quiet.”

That’s a fair point. I nod and move along with her as she slips out from behind a bale of hay towards another stack near a run-down shack. We’re moving for almost a full minute, sidling around hay and rotting corn, passing four or five of those gut-wrenching hooks, until we come to a rusting collection of free-standing wooden walls.

I scan the area but don’t see any of the towers that would suggest a generator nearby. At least, nowhere close. I tap Tempest’s shoulder and give her a questioning look, but she just shakes her head and holds her right hand up, making a short chopping motion towards the corner we’re crouched at. I peek around and quickly stifle a gasp.

Mere meters away is Spruce, hanging from the hook.

We’d come around the long way to approach the post from the other side. I can hear him grunting and struggling. I want to go out, to try and pull him down, but something about Tempest’s wary look and the fact that she hasn’t done that exact thing yet keeps me rooted to the ground.

Finally, I start to lose patience. “What are we waiting for?” I ask softly, gesturing towards the corner. “He’s dying.”

Tempest brings a finger to her lip again, then points around the corner. “Look closer, in the Fog past the hook.”

I peek around again, this time focusing on the dark fields. It would be hard to see even in good light but the combination of dim, diffuse lighting and the fog was making it… wait… I see movement. Just barely, but I see it. Something big, loping, and, more terrifyingly, silent is there just out of easy eyeshot.

It’s a trap.

“Puta,” Tempest swore venomously. “It’s using Spruce as bait.”

I swallow back my revulsion and step back fully into cover before I risked him spotting me any more than I already had. “What do we do?”

Tempest closes her eyes and a cold, grim determination passes over her face.

“We leave him,” she says, and my mouth drops open. “If we’re lucky we can run up another genny and it will draw Billy away from the hook. If we’re not…”

“We can’t just let him bleed out on that fucking hook!” I say in disbelief. I know I don’t know her that well but even after everything that’s happened to me, I can’t imagine being that callous.

The look she gives me puts a chill in my heart.

“Don’t worry, he won’t. Now move, we either distract Billy with a genny and stand a chance of saving Spruce or sit here and let him die for sure.”

We track back around towards our generator, the one I’d botched a couple of minutes ago, and fortunately, it’s still in decent condition.

The fizzle and popping had stopped and Tempest immediately moved back into position, reached arm-deep into the guts of the generator to start fiddling with something. I went back around determined to finish that damn cooling pipe. This time I managed to push it back into place fully.

After a good minute of dedicated repairs, the throaty, palpitating chug of the engine suddenly gives a loud cough, a sputter, and I smile as it finally starts running with a steady thump-thump-thump of cylinders.

“Bien,” Tempest mutters, pulling away from the generator, "that’ll get Billy’s attention and—” A thunderclap drowns out Tempest’s next words and she slackens as her hands grip the railing of the generator hard, and she swears under her breath. “Dammit, I’m sorry Spruce.”

I’m about to ask what she’s talking about when a cold, heavy wind rolls over us coming from the direction of the hook that Billy had hung Spruce from. I turn reflexively to see what was causing it and I immediately feel Tempest’s hand on my shoulder.

She’s looking up.

“Don’t look away, chica, this is what is waiting for all of us, eventually,” Tempest says in a quiet, almost reverent voice.

I follow her gaze up and my jaw drops.

How do I describe it?

A coil of blackness. A storm of despair. A cloud blacker than the spaces between the stars reaches down from the sky, and twined among the rippling clouds are… things. Living, twitching, spindly claws that remind me of nothing so much as the legs of a black widow: long and thin, but needle-sharp and fast as a whip.

Without warning the twisting, asymmetrical claws jab down and I hear a scream. A shriek of mortal horror. Then the claws lift up with a disintegrating body I vaguely recognize as Spruce speared in their grasp. Faint sparks of light and energy flow out of his body and up into the cloud. The legs—or claws—twitch in what I imagine is ecstasy.

I can’t stop shaking. Tempest said he wouldn’t bleed out and she was right. Bleeding out would’ve been a dramatic improvement.

“W-what…” I start to stutter but Tempest grabs me by the hand and lights off with me in tow.

Another cough-and-chug in the distance breaks the tension as another generator goes online.

It must be the other girl, Star. The one who was covering us with her screams and quick feet must have been using Spruce the same way we did. One more generator, then? Yeah, one more. Five generators total and we had run up four, one more and then we could all get out. I swallow the panic-vomit that’s threatening to overwhelm me and pick up the pace, getting alongside Tempest and soon enough a light array tower resolves out of the fog—

—right about the time I hear the roar of a revving chainsaw behind us.

I experience a brief moment of blind terror right before Tempest shoves me to one side while she wildly dives to the other. A second later the huge, twisted monstrosity that murdered Spruce sprints right through the space we’d been in moments ago, his chainsaw swinging back and forth spitting blood and hot oil.

Scrabbling to my feet, I take off in a panic, sparing a quick glance back to spot my pursuer.

He's gone, but I don’t see Tempest either. The generator is nearby, though. I can see the tower so it can’t be more than a half-dozen meters. I can even hear it chugging. Someone must’ve been working on it not long ago. Hell, that ‘Star’ person might be working on it now. I turn to finish the generator, it’s what I have to do to survive. Tempest knows that and…

I hear her scream and every bit of resolve I have to work on that stupid hunk of junk ahead of me vanishes as I wheel around on my heels and sprint toward where I heard Tempest’s voice. She's saved my life more times in the last several minutes than any single person has in my whole life and I'm including Princess Celestia in that.

She had every reason to abandon me to ‘Beats-by-Chainsaw’ and she didn’t, even though I'm complete dead-weight. Instead, she took my hand and tried to teach me to survive. My friends might have abandoned me when I needed them most but I’ll be damned if I do the same thing to someone I owe that much to.

Sunset Shimmer always breaks even.

I burst out of the cornfield in front of complex series of ruined wooden walls that vaguely reminds me of a jungle gym just in time to see Billy bring his hammer down on Tempest while she's vaulting over a collapsed wooden pallet that lay cocked at a forty-five-degree angle between two bales of hay, and I wince at the sickening crack. I pray Tempest lands and keeps running but she hits the ground hard, staggered by the monster’s sharp strike.

As it moves around to her it hefts the hammer lightly into the air before catching it and shaking the blood off almost playfully.

It thinks this is a game.

I grit my teeth as it revs its chainsaw, splits the pallet, and then steps through the mess of splinters to seize Tempest by the scruff of her neck and heft her onto its shoulder.

There's a hook a few meters away and I know what’s coming but more importantly, I know where he’s going, so I slip around him, moving quickly but quietly through the corn along the edge of the beaten path and sidle around the hook. He’s moving towards me, huffing and grunting like a wild beast before stopping at the bloody post and planting his mismatched feet to prepare to heft Tempest’s muscular frame upward and onto the hook.

It puts his face exactly where I knew it would be as I step out and shine the flashlight directly into his eyes.

Billy staggers with loud, gurgling cry and Tempest lets out a wordless shout of shock as she's dropped straight past the hook and onto the ground.

She's only on her knees for a second before she’s up and sprinting away while Billy is rubbing at the blistery, melted flesh of his face trying to get to his eyes. I don’t waste any time. I flick the light off and sprint after Tempest to catch up. She’s got momentum but she’s still stunned and staggering every few steps. I wince at the bloody patch on her skull and try to pretend I can’t see the glint of bone.

“That was stupid, Sunset,” Tempest says as we duck into the corn and get low, moving quietly through the thicket of cover. “You could’ve gotten yourself—” Her words are cut off by the thunderous report of another bank of lights coming on. “—well, never mind, but still. That was a stupid risk.”

I give her a smug smile. “I’m Sunset Shimmer, I don’t take risks, I make plans.”

Before she can respond we hear a loud, harsh electric buzzing noise not far from us. I look up at her and she’s wearing that lopsided grin of hers. From this angle, it’s kinda hot, actually.

“There it is, the exit, come on Shimmer, move!” Tempest crows and takes off.

We sprint, and I try to ignore the stitch in my side as we pound towards the glowing lights of the exit. A jolt of panic spears up my spine as that familiar, horrible revving sound bellows from behind us, but before I can dodge Tempest grabs my hand and smirks at me as she drags me forward so we're sprinting at a brick wall. The chainsaw’s labouring carburetor roars from behind us. I want to move so badly but the look on Tempest’s face keeps me by her side.

As crazy as it sounds… I trust her.

I cotton on to her plan in the breath before we’re about hit the wall.

We split—me diving left and her to the right—letting Billy charge between us to impact the wall hard. His chainsaw grinds into the stone leaving Billy staggering backward while trying to find his footing and recover whatever few wits he has left in that malformed skull of his. He recovers quickly though, hefting his chainsaw and aiming it as we're turning on our heels and running again, crossing past the terminus of the Exit Gate.

His chainsaw roars again, but we're already through, and true to Tempest's words, a wall of thin, black bars, like thorns of dark iron, fire up between us and Billy, stopping his charge cold and staggering him back.

A moment later I’m beside Tempest again, running through the Fog and away from that rotting farm and she’s laughing.

Laughing!

We almost died and she’s laughing!

Only as we're sprinting down into the grass and forest beyond do I realise that I’m laughing too.

3. Campfire Tales

View Online

I’m warm, and it’s been weeks since I’ve felt like this; safe, comfortable, warm, and, most importantly, not afraid. It feels like much, much longer since I haven’t been afraid. First of disappointing Princess Celestia, then of being found out as a dimensional alien at Canterlot High, then of losing all my friends…

Now though…

“How long is she going to sleep?” A husky, feminine voice slips past my exhaustion.

It’s familiar.

My pillow moves, drawing a frown from me.

“As long as she needs to. She saved me from a hook, Ari', I’ve never seen fresh meat learn as fast as Shimmer, here.”

The husky voice scoffs. “Yeah, she’s a helluva thing. Kicked my ass, that's for sure.”

Another lighter voice speaks up. “What about Spruce? Has he returned from… you know… that place yet?”

My pillow moves again. “No, and I’m not sure he will this time. He’s been hooked a lot. Spruce. Idiota, always too greedy. Working on a genny too long, going for the boxes. Exploring the fucking basement.”

“Hey,” the lighter voice retorts, “in his defense, he found us some choice stuff in some of the basements.”

“And ended up on a hook for his trouble half the time,” the husky voice responds. “I’m with Tempest on this one, Spruce was going to get got unless he learned to play safe and he never did. Never will now I guess.”

I feel a warm hand settle on my head and stroke my hair. It’s soothing and almost lulls me back to sleep. Almost, because one of the voices immediately picks up again.

“Aww, how cute!” A new voice dripping with saccharine says before switching keys completely, “I think I just threw up in my mouth.”

“Cut her some slack, Sour,” Tempest says. “Sunset is brand new and got dropped into a bad run. Your first one was a lot better.”

I take a breath and open my eyes. It’s hard at first. My eyes feel sticky and heavy, and I have to work my mouth for a moment to get rid of the numb, semi-sore cottony feeling in my jaw. I glance down and blush as I realise I’ve been lying with my head on Tempest’s lap and, moreover, I’d left a little spot of drool. I lift myself up and Tempest pulls her hand away, and I wake up a little more at the sight of her crooked smile.

“Buenos dias, Mi Sol,” Tempest says wryly. “How're you feeling?”

I glance around at the semi-darkness of the woods we're in, a crackling campfire is the source of the warmth and it’s wonderful, but I would definitely not say no to a bed. Stretching I relish the cracks and pops of my back and limbs as the blood starts flowing again.

“Honestly?” I respond with a small smirk. “Better than I’ve felt in weeks.”

“Wow, your life must’ve gone to shit in the last month or so, huh?” The husky voice says. I turn to respond but the words die in my throat as I finally put a face to the voice.

“Aria?!”

The former Siren is different from my memory of her from the Battle of the Bands, but it’s definitely her. Gone are her two long pigtails, replaced with a short, sensible bob that's cut off at her shoulders. She'd also traded out her purple jeans and green cut-off jacket for a matte black jacket and trousers with a black tee.

“Yup,” she says dryly, “glad someone remembers me. How’s it hanging, Shimmer? I’m surprised someone like you ended up here. Thought you’d be spreading rainbows and fuzzy friendship hugs with your pastel friends.”

My face must have visibly dropped because her acidic grin turns down, and she reaches out to rest a hand on my shoulder. “Or… not, I guess? Sorry to hear that. Seriously, when you brought us down I thought you girls must be invincible.”

“Poor dear,” the painfully nice voice says from the other side of Tempest, that quickly warps into a contemptuous tone. “I wonder what she did to deserve it?”

It’s owner peeks around Tempest to fix me with a sharp look.

She’s definitely pretty; she has a heart-shaped face with a scattering of freckles, and her pink locks of hair streaked with aqua green are tied up in a pair of twin Neighjing style buns. Her expression is one of dry, caustic sarcasm though and I find that I kind of like it. She wears her emotions on her face.

Her outfit is a loose, tank-top blouse, sturdy loose-fit jeans, and running shoes. Where Tempest is built like a brick wall and Aria has a kind of lithe body-builder’s musculature, this girl is built like a triathlon athlete with slender and athletic runners' muscle.

“My name’s Sour Sweet! It’s such a pleasure to meet you!” Sour Sweet chirps, her expression turning up to match her tone. It immediately swings back down to sardonic a second later, though. “Here’s hoping you don’t get us all killed.”

Tempest reaches out and grabs Sour Sweet by her ear. “Cut her some slack, Sour. I’m not going to warn you again.”

Someone pokes me from the side and I let out an undignified yelp. Looking over I see who the last voice must have belonged to. Since I knew Aria, and I was pretty sure I didn’t recognize Sour’s voice as the ‘screamer’ this last girl must be—

“Starlight Glimmer,” the purple-haired girl who’d been sitting quietly beside me unnoticed holds out her hand with an easy grin. “Good to make your acquaintance, the fact that we’ll be working together while we’re all here is a given.”

I take her hand and shake it, a little unnerved at how easily she stayed out of my notice. She’s wearing a leather vest over a stained teal tee, and simple, loose, roughed-up jeans. Her hair is tied up and out of the way in a ponytail and she’s holding what looks like a beret or beanie in her lap. She’s cute, sure, but what draws my eye is more how she holds herself. Confident, sure, and a little… greasy if I’m honest. She’s got charisma but so did I before I reformed.

“Sunset Shimmer,” I reply. “So where exactly is ‘here’?”

Sour Sweet giggles. “Ooh! Ooh! Tempest, give her your spooky, ominous introduction! You do it the best out of all of us.”

“That’s because you can’t keep a line of thought going for more than two sentences, Sour,” Aria retorts with a smirk. “And Glimmer is the second newest here.”

“I’m not ‘spooky’, Sour,” Tempest responds grumpily and I can’t help but smile at her petulant expression. “Why don’t you do it, Aria?”

“Because that sounds a lot like effort,” Aria deadpans back.

Tempest scowls, then relaxes and shrugs. “Fine, fine. I’ll do it…”

This place, wherever it really is, is called the Trials and it has a master that we only know as the Entity. Don’t ask me what it is, because I don’t know anything about it except that it’s pure evil and that it wants us. The Trials, of which I think I’ve counted nine different ones since I arrived here, are something like proving grounds, or at least that's the case as near as I can tell. We're pitted against those horrors we call the Killers. They’re like something out of a slasher movie. Don’t think too hard about where they come from, either, just understand that they’re completely insane and exist only to hurt us, hook us, and then feed us to the Entity.

The Trials are important though. They’re like… little marbles of reality where the Killers feel most at home. It’s their turf.

What do you mean?

How do I put this? Imagine your home, si? Then darken it. Look at it through a smudged, cracked mirror where everything is dying slowly but endlessly. Like Billy’s cornfields.

But it’s still your home.

It’s still the place you grew up and lived in. You know all the little corners. The hidden paths. You know which slat on the wooden fence is loose enough for you to swing it to the side and let you through. You know what side of which building has bricks that jut out just so, giving you enough handholds that you can climb to the roof at speed. You know precisely which doors have locks and which of those locks are broken, which windows are wide enough to vault and which ones will catch you badly if you try it.

That’s… that’s terrifying.

Si, that’s the point. We have to survive on their terms, not ours. That will always be the case, no matter where we go or which Killer is stalking us. Remember that we’re in their home, even if we recognize where we are. I’ve been in the cornfields a dozen times now at least, but I can never assume I know it better than Billy does. That is their house and we are visitors. Albeit visitors they’re planning on bludgeoning into insensibility and then stringing up from a butcher’s hook in their basement.

And the generators? Why do they even exist if that… Stain… if it just wants to eat us? If the Killers are just supposed to kill us then what’s the point in giving us an out?

The point? Chica, the point is hope. These Trials don’t just test us, they test the Killers. The Entity feeds on our hope, but if we have no hope then it has no food. If we have no way out then there’s nothing for it to feed upon. The Trials aren’t just its playground. They’re its slaughterhouse. Its refrigerator. An all you can devour buffet of desperate hope. It’s a game and if the Entity wants to eat then it has to at least pretend to be playing fair.

Can… can we ever escape? I mean for good? For real? Can we ever go home?

“...No,” Tempest says after a moment of quiet.

As Tempest finishes her explanation even the two more upbeat members of our little campfire crew are looking subdued, though Aria is as stoic as she had been to begin with. I feel a comforting hand settle on my shoulder and look over to find Starlight smiling at me.

“As far as we know, anyway,” Starlight said. “Near as I can tell, not many survive the Trials for any period of time.”

“Yeah!” Sour Sweet chimes in with a grin that quickly drops away. “Except time means exactly diddly here.”

“Well excuse me for trying to find some brightness in this eternal shithole,” Starlight snaps back, drawing a petulant moue from Sour.

“Why? So you can baste yourself for the Entity?” Sour retorts with a grim smirk.

“No!” Starlight hisses, “So I don’t end up—”

Tempest’s right hand fires out like a piston, slamming over Starlight’s face and mouth, her left does the same to Sour Sweet. The towering young woman stands and lifts Starlight and Sour from their feet and they flail for a moment before finally seeming to give up on fighting the much larger and more dangerous woman.

“Enough,” Tempest says in a soft, deadly tone. “We’re done arguing. We work together or we die. That’s our lot now. Even if it’s just for one more Trial, we live. Even if it just means waking up to one more campfire in the long, endless night, we live! Ingloriously, messily, and dishonourably, we live! Even if it means dragging ourselves out of that gate on our ruptured bellies with our entrails hanging behind us while we scream ‘fuck, fuck, fuck!’

“We. Will. Live!”

Tempest drops both of the girls to the ground leaving them gasping for breath as the fight visibly drains out of them, only to be replaced with something… more. Something brighter and stronger. I can feel it as I watch Tempest; with her power and force of personality. Her savage beauty. It’s something I wanted to be for so long.

Looking at her, here and now, I can’t help but recall staring up at the great white cliffside expanse of the Canterhorn. The rising peak whose shoulders bore the greatest and brightest city known to Equinity: Canterlot. I remember seeing it from the hills just as Celestia raised the sun on a long-ago Summer Sun festival a year before I was taken in as her student. The sun struck those pure, white cliffs and shone like a thousand perfect pearl lights.

Right now, even in this cloying darkness lit only by distant stars and the dim, Fog-shrouded moon, I swear that she’s shining. And so am I, so is Starlight and Aria and even Sour. She’s casting a light bright enough to make us all shine.

Then the moment passes and the darkness closes back in. There’s something holding it just a little bit further back now, though. It feels like the campfire’s dim light shines just a little bit brighter, illuminates just a little more of the trees.

Starlight rubs her jaw but looks suitably chastised as she sits back down next to me. Sour Sweet just lets out a slow breath and sits down too.

“Sorry.”

Sour Sweet’s voice barely breaks over the crackle of the campfire. Even Tempest looks up in surprise. Pulling her legs up to her chest, Sour wraps her arms around her knees, buries her face, and lets out a soft sob.

“I’m sorry,” Sour says again. “I can’t help it sometimes, even now. My brain… it isn’t good. Everything is blinding, bright and dark. Flying or sinking. I can’t keep it straight sometimes and I say stuff I shouldn’t. So… I’m sorry.”

Starlight works her jaw a few times before finding the words. “Y-yeah… me too. I’m sorry too, I mean. I’m kind of a jerk, like, just in general.”

Aria stands up on the other side of the campfire and walks over to Sour’s side and sits down, reaching out and putting an arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulling her closer in a surprising act of closeness and warmth that surprises me. Aria was always the dour one among the Sirens. Adagio, Aria, and Sonata; Driven, Dour, and Ditzy. Seeing Aria reach out to comfort the Sour after her outburst makes me realise this isn’t anything like the same girl that the Rainbooms and I had defeated at the Battle of the Bands.

How much had she changed in this place?

How much will I change?

Hopefully… a lot.

When I sleep I don’t dream. Instead, there’s something else… lines of bloody thread like a spiderweb woven from viscera and sinew. It’s disgusting but fascinating.

I can feel something beyond where I’m standing at the center, too. Nodes? Something like that. I reach down and touch the mass I’m standing on and there’s a flicker of light that echoes down one of the lines to illuminate something beyond the dark. The light continues but not far. I see a light at the edge of the connective tissue. It’s glowing, flickering… it’s… my cutie mark? I reach out with my mind and it’s almost like I have my magic again and suddenly I feel spent as the light spills out of me and arcs down the veins and gristle of the web, lighting up the node between myself and the light at the edge.

Healing. Gauze and stitch and the stink of antiseptic.

I shake my head as the conceptual overload hits me, then fades just as quickly, and the light continues to strike along the web to the final node where I feel that familiar warmth of Equestrian magic. I reach out and touch the glow and a part of me expects it to burn. Instead, it’s cool to the touch and calming. It reminds me of when I used to stand in the presence of Princess Celestia. Her unbreakable expression of maternal affection and patience always made her seem so much higher above me. Here and now, though, in the deepest darkness I’ve ever seen, I pull the little light close to me and I feel the truth of it all. The connection between her and I and everypony else. Everybody else.

Aria’s even-keeled confidence.

Sour Sweet’s quick, fiery wit.

Starlight’s decisive charisma.

And Tempest… her… her everything. Strength, patience, power, and command. Just thinking about the imposing woman makes my heart beat faster. Teaching by example, the same way she leads. She makes my heart race and thinking about her makes me smile like I haven’t in a very, very long time.

Celestia, how long has it been since I really smiled? How long since I was content with anything? How long since I started pursuing power to the exclusion of all else? How long since nothing has ever been enough for me?

After power, it was pursuing forgiveness. Atonement. Friendship.

My hands grip hard over the light as the images of five girls flit through my mind’s eye. How long since I had anyone who really cared about me at all?

I open my eyes to the hot sting of tears, but they don’t burn as much as they used to. They feel a little farther away… or maybe there’s something between them and me now.

That's when the darkness of the pseudo-dream that’s encircling my mind thins a little and I see them.

In the distance, they shine like something more than mortal. A brilliant flashbang of effervescent red, purple, and pink lights. That’s Sour, I know it, something about it feels right. I look around scanning for the rest of my new companions. I spot a duller but much steadier glow of purple and blue, reaching out for it gives me a sensation like putting an ice pack on a bruise. A moment of burning cold followed by a relaxing chill. Aria… it’s definitely Aria. Turning around I look in the distance and spot a luminous gem of white and lavender; that’s Starlight, it shines like her namesake.

But where’s Tempest?

I expected her to shine the brightest but she’s nowhere to be seen. I feel a small bead of panic build in my heart. Where is she? She should be here with the rest of us, right? If she isn’t here then… did something happen while I was asleep? No… the others are fine right? But then…

Wait…

I hold up the little glow of warmth in my arms. This is me. It’s me just like those lights on the horizon are all of them. If it connects us then… I clench my eyes and summon up my will like I was taught when I first learned the arcane arts. I feel the power in the light. I feel everyone: Aria, Sour, Starlight, and…

“TEMPEST!”

The darkness rocks around me as I shout her name and thrust the light up into the dark, and a thrum of power tears the shadows away like a supernova. My hands tighten around the light and it resolves into the hard-backed, metal-bound frame of my journal. The insignia on the center, my cutie mark, is erupting into molten light just like the sun it represents.

Then I feel it.

A heartbeat in the darkness; slow and steady. Even and patient. And sick. Sick with hate and fear and worry and oceans of pain and tears. I follow the light, ignoring my eyes, and I try to find the thicket of thorns that my other senses are giving me. I dig my feet into whatever passes for ground in this place, steel myself, hold out the journal like a battering ram, and take off into the darkness.

My sprint into the shadows carries me across ground that’s uneven and shifting. Almost liquid and almost solid. Neither and both. I feel her though. Tempest Shadow. Her name is perfect for this place. A storm of darkness; but I can feel her. The eye of her storm.

There!

“Tempest!” I cry out from the darkness as I approach the thousand, thousand barbs and claws. What was it she had called it? The Entity. A cosmic predator that feeds on hope. It surrounds her web of red light and I can feel her struggling in there.

Scowling, I hold out the Journal. I’m no stranger to darkness. My heart’s been full of it for years., and this darkness is just a hungry animal.

“Get away from her, you old stain!” Sunlight erupts from my journal to slam into the twitching mass of claws, and there’s a palpable, rather than auditory, shriek as they recoil from the light.

From the pain.

I can feel it too. It burns but I don’t care. I can see her. I can see Tempest in the darkness. Her eyes are closed and a dark glow suffuses the air around her. I can feel her power thick in the air. I can barely keep the light going, it hurts so badly but the barbs and claws have almost burned away in front of me, and and just when I think I can’t keep it up anymore I pull the Journal to the side, letting the light go and dive through the hole I’ve burned the darkness.

Reckless? Sure. But so was diving through a magic mirror into a parallel universe. At least this time I’ve got a good reason: I’m not reaching for power.

I’m reaching for her.

“Tempest!” My voice finally reaches her. Her head snaps up with shock in her eyes as I crash into her and wrap my arms around her.

“I found you!” I cheer, and chuckle at her completely flabbergasted expression.

Then the darkness closes in. Not the Entity, but good old fashioned exhaustion. Whatever I’d just done had taken way too much out of me. I was pretty sure I was already asleep so hopefully I’m just falling into proper sleep and not into a coma or something.

Yeah… I doubt the Entity is going to give whatever it is I did pass. If nothing else it’s going to make sure I wake up just so it can spite me.

My still-closed eyes are burning with that stinging weariness of an unsatisfying rest. Whatever that dream-nightmare-thing was it definitely cut into my beauty sleep.

“Chica, are you awake?” Tempest’s voice is softer than I’m used to. I let out a groan in response and curl into my bed.

Or… not my bed.

I open my tired eyes to see Tempest looking down at me with a combination of amazement and concern. I have my arms draped around her collar and am currently nestling into her—… oops.

My cheeks burn as I quickly defibrillate my mental hamster and get it back to running the rusty wheels of my brain, and Tempest gives me an unreadable look as I open and close my mouth like a stunned guppy.

Finally, I remember how to work my limbs, and I damn near leap away from her and up to my feet at which point I promptly fall on my ass as the head rush gives me shit for standing up too quickly.

Tempest stands, dusts off her trousers, and holds out a hand. I shake the dullness from my head as I return her smile and take the proffered grip to lift myself to my feet.

“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my face partially to hide the furious blush I was sporting. “I’m not really sure why I woke up, uhm, there… I’m positive that’s not where I fell asleep.”

Glancing around I see the rest of the girls are all slowly rousing from sleep, but they look confused and about as rested as I feel. I guess nobody gets very good sleep in this place which, in retrospect, isn’t all that surprising. This nightmare is about as relaxing as getting a pop quiz on calculus in the middle of an artillery strike.

“How did you do that?”

I look up at Tempest when she speaks and she’s fixed me with those piercing eyes of hers, I feel like a moth pinned to a felt board. “I… how did I… do what?”

“The Bloodweb,” Tempest says firmly. “You found me in the Bloodweb. That’s not possible. We’re alone there, except for the Entity. It keeps us isolated in the darkness of our minds. How did you find me?”

“Well, I… uh…” I work the problem around in my brain for a moment. Tempest isn’t rushing me. She’s just standing there, arms crossed, staring at me with that alarmingly intense look on her face. “It’s… not exactly our minds, I guess? I didn’t just find you, I found all of us. Starlight, Aria, and Sour were there too. Lights in the darkness.”

“Seriously?” Aria says softly, standing up from where she had fallen asleep by the fire. “You could see us?”

“We-we’re not alone?” Sour Sweet chimes in, her voice almost painfully fragile.

Starlight doesn't say anything, she just watches me, her eyes carefully analytical. I get the feeling she doesn’t quite buy it. She’s skeptical and maybe a little worried. Although exactly what she’s worried about I can’t say.

“You fell asleep just across from me, si?” Tempest clarifies, her eyes still equal parts sharp and impenetrable. “But when I woke up you were… you were right where I remember you being in the Bloodweb.”

“Lovingly wrapped in your arms?” Aria remarks with a wry grin.

I fix my eyes firmly on the ground as I fight off another blush. “Technically I leaped through a hole that I burnt in the shadows to get to Tempest. She just caught me. It took a lot out of me though because I blacked out a second later.”

“How exactly does one ‘black out’ in a dream?” Starlight asks, finally entering the conversation. Her tone grimly suspicious.

Tempest shakes her head.

“We all know the Bloodweb is not just a dream, l’strella. Speaking of which, you dropped this, Mi Sol.” She tosses me a bag made of old, thick cloth with an old-fashioned wooden clasp handle.

It’s ragged and feels half-empty, but the stained and faded red cross emblazoned on the side leaves no question as to its purpose.

“What?” I hold up the medical kit and examine it. “Where the hell did this come from? I’ve never owned anything like this, the only thing I came into this place with was my journal.”

“It’s from the Bloodweb,” Aria answers dryly. “It’s one of the ways the Entity fucks with us. We can find things, like toolkits with spare parts for the gens, medical kits, maps, flashlights. Basic survival gear, y’know? None of us know why the Entity lets us get that stuff. I think it’s just another way of it hunting us. Spend enough time scouring the Bloodweb and it finds you there too. I guess it’s not enough to hunt us in the Trials, it has to chase us in our sleep too.”

“But we’ve always been alone,” Starlight says firmly.

“We always thought we were alone,” Tempest clarifies. “We never really had a way of knowing one way or the other, and it never mattered until now.”

“Yeah! But…” Starlight glowers at me and I pull back, surprised at the sudden vitriol. “You don’t think this is a little convenient?! Suddenly this girl drops into a Trial out of nowhere—”

“—like we all did—” Tempest cuts in, her voice growing lower.

“—and takes to it right away!” Starlight finishes, as if Tempest didn’t say a thing. “And then she can just walk through the Bloodweb!? I don’t buy it! This has gotta be another trick, the Entity has pulled tricks before! Who’s to say it can’t make a Survivor that’s meant to fool us! Nothing but the Entity can move through the Web at will!”

I step away as panic builds in my heart.

Not again. Please not again! Why is it happening again?! It’s just like Anon-A-Miss!

“I didn’t do anything! I swear, I didn’t even know where I was!”

“I don’t buy that for a second, Shimmer.” Starlight stands and stalks towards me, one finger up and in my face.

Tears track down my cheeks and my cheeks burn. I don’t want them to see me cry but I can’t push it back. It’s happening all over again and, just like before, I can’t do anything to stop it. I just back-peddle away from Starlight as she advances on me. I want to fight back but just like before I’m alone.

I’m always alone.

I… I don’t want to be alone anymore. Please. Please take me away from here. I don't want to be alone.

“You’re too suspicious,” Starlight says with a nasty scowl, “I don’t trust you and neither does anyone else!”

—take me away take me away take me away—

My panic-ridden thoughts are cut off by a peal of thunder that shakes me to my core. I remember that sound. It’s the sound of that guy getting dragged into the blackened sky by a hundred inhuman claws.

“A Trial,” Tempest whispers. Then she turns to me with real fear on her face. “You found me, chica, so this time I’ll find you! Stay still and stay safe! If you hear a heartbeat hide! I’ll find you!”

Darkness descends.

It’s cloying and bleak. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t… I can’t… Celestia, Luna, Twilight, somebody! Help me… please.

There’s no help coming for me though. There never is.

And in the distant dark, I hear the somber tolling of a bell.

Interlude I: Memories of a Certain Sunset

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Between the manicured neighborhood of Whitetail and the urban labyrinth of the Ponyville Commons is a small cafe and confectionary called Sugarcube Corner.

The lights are dim and the sign hanging from the doorway reads ‘Closed’ despite it being the early evening when a cafe might be at its busiest.

The owners, Cup and Carrot Cake, were more than understanding after seeing Pinkie Pie’s distraught state. Despite being their employee, the pair often thought her of as a daughter.

The dull grey pall of winter had settled over Canterlot City a week ago and is even now leaving its muted tracks over much of the landscape, such that even the determined snowplows can do only so much to mitigate the effects.

Seated around a table at Sugarcube Corner are two older women and five high-school age girls.

The silence in the cafe parlour is deafening and none of them have spoken since they arrived beyond a brief ‘hello’ or a hug. Each one is lost in a private world of self-recrimination broken only by the occasional sob from Vice Principal Luna, whose dark hair is still a mess from hours of scouring the school grounds, or from Rarity who had been doing the same.

Pinkie Pie, normally vivaciously bubbly, is uncharacteristically quiet, while Rainbow Dash alternates between pacing restlessly and glowering at the wall, looking ready to fight but lacking any meaningful target for her rage. Applejack, her frame heavy with farmer’s muscle and who normally stood tall and proud, sat with a defeated stoop to her shoulders and her face buried in her stetson on the table. Lastly, Fluttershy sat curled up in one of the chairs, her pale pink hair draping over her face as she cries quietly against her knees.

A heavy knocking interrupts the deathly stillness of the cafe, and in an instant Rainbow Dash is at the door and opening. At the threshold is a teen girl around her own age. The new arrival’s hair is deep purple with a bright streak of pink through it, and she’s wrapped up in a long lavender coat rimmed with fake white fur, and at first glance, she seems perfectly fine. All it takes is one long look for the flaws to start revealing themselves, though.

Her eyes are baggy, her hair is lank and a little haggard. She looks… tired.

Worn thin and exhausted.

“Rainbow,” Twilight says the word tonelessly, more in acknowledgment of the prismatic girl's existence than anything.

“H-hey, Princess Twi—” Rainbow’s sentence gets cut off as Twilight moves past her to the table, taking one hand out of her pocket to gesture for Rainbow to rejoin the others.

Turning to the older women, Twilight makes two short bows.

“Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, it’s good to see you both again, I wish it were under better circumstances.”

Luna rubs her hand across her face and nods.

“I’m sorry.” Are the first words out of the Vice Principal's mouth. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve seen… I should’ve known. Of all people, I should’ve known.”

Principal Celestia hushes her sister, pulling the distraught woman into a tight hug. “It’s good to see you too, your Grace, I’m sorry it happened this way as well.”

Taking a deep breath, Twilight turns to the rest of the girls who had remained silent through the exchange of greetings and, without a word, begins rifling through her small backpack, eventually drawing out a heavy-looking tome and setting it carefully on the table.

“Here,” Twilight remarks sharply, turning the book to face the girls and flipping it open to a page in the middle. “Read it.”

Glancing nervously at one another, it’s Applejack who finally works up the courage to lean in and begin reading.

“D-dear Twilight Sparkle… Ah want to impart a friendship lesson'a mah own today…” She falters at the next line, and tears start to well at the edges of her eyes. “...S-sometimes f-friendship fails…”

The rest of the letter was no easier to read; it was the last testament to an abject failure of communication and friendship, one that each of the girls felt down to their bones.

Finally finishing the short, halting letter, Applejack pushes the book away from her towards the scowling Equestrian Princess who picks it up and slips it back into her pack.

“Now, girls, you’re going to answer two questions for me and the answers had better be on par with a bardic retelling of the Sister’s War. “One: How could you abandon her as you did? And two…—” Twilight Sparkle, the gentle, soft-spoken Princess of Friendship, slams her gloved hands on the table causing the other five to leap out of their seats— “Where. Is. Sunset. Shimmer?”

“We failed,” Rarity answered softly. “That’s my answer to your first question. It’s the simple truth and no one here will deny it. You asked us to do something incredibly important and we failed to do that. I can only offer you my most sincere apologies on behalf of all of us.”

Some of the heat goes out of Twilight’s posture and she slumps, nodding at Rarity’s heartfelt answer. “And my second question? Where is she, Rarity…” Fixing the popular fashionista with an icy glare, Twilight takes another step forward. “Is she… did she…?”

Unable to bring herself to say the actual words, to ask the question that she was terrified of receiving the answer to. For a moment, no one spoke, but eventually, it was Vice-Principal Luna who spoke up.

“I believe that I should answer that.”

“Luna, no,” Principal Celestia says softly, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“W-what wasn’t…?” Twilight fixes the two parallels of the Equestrian sovereigns with a panicked glare. “What wasn’t your fault?”

“I need to do this, Celly,” Luna responds before turning back to Twilight. “We are educators, and we are responsible for our students, no matter what.” Wrapping her arms tightly around herself as if to keep out a chill, Luna lets out a shuddering breath. “I was the last one to see Sunset Shimmer al—... at all, actually. She… leapt from the roof of Canterlot High.”

The wind goes out of Twilight like she’d been struck a hard blow to the gut and she falls to her knees. Luna rushes to her side and grabs her by the shoulders. “B-but we never found her, or saw her after that! She fell off and then… she was gone. No body. Nothing.”

“There was blood.”

Twilight and Luna both look up at Rarity who is standing silently over them, tears running down her cheeks. “I saw her fall past the window, like a shadow… just a flash of red, gold, and black and then… and then she hit the ground. I heard it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop hearing that awful sound.”

“But there was no body,” Luna desperately insists, glaring daggers at the younger girl.

“That means nothing,” Twilight spits venomously as she holds up a hand to begin counting off. “Hyperion’s Ashen Repose is a spell that disintegrates the body upon death, developed during a time of plague it ensured that remains weren’t left to spread disease. Death Mask’s Graven Tomb instantly buries a body and encases it in a stone casket to safeguard it from corpse-robbers. Revenant’s Wandering Unrest commands a body to move a specific location after death. I know for a fact that Sunset knew every one of those spells and probably a half-dozen more besides. Sunset was my predecessor! I might be more powerful than her but her repertoire of spells outstrips mine by an order of magnitude.”

Getting to her feet, Twilight shoots a glare at other girls. “Setting a pre-cast spell to trigger upon brain death was something that was easily within her scope and being next to the Wondercolts Statue meant she had access to the portal’s arcane flow. If Sunset wanted to vanish, she wouldn’t have had a problem doing so.”

With every word, the look on Luna and the girls’ faces grows more hopeless, but before Twilight can continue her tirade, a pair of buttercream hands fixes themselves over Princess Twilight’s gloved ones.

“Please…” Fluttershy pleads softly, her eyes puffy and red from crying. “Please stop. We know, I promise, we know what we did. We all want to take it back but we can’t. I’m sorry, we know she wasn’t guilty, and that she wasn’t Anon-A-Miss.”

“Do we?”

The silence following that statement is deafening, and there is no sound at all as everyone turns their heads to stare at Rainbow Dash.

“I’m serious, do we?” She repeats. “Do we really know that she didn’t just mess up about how bad it would get and—”

Whatever she was about to say dies a quick death as Twilight thrusts out her hand and a lavender glow tinged with black lifts Rainbow bodily into the air by the throat. The athletic girl squirms and wheels her legs, choking and gasping for air as Twilight’s sorcery starts throttling her.

“TWILIGHT!” Principal Celestia stands, furious but shaking as she stands up to the furious sorceress. “Please! Let her down!”

The glow vanishes and Rainbow drops roughly to the tiles of the cafe.

“Fine,” Twilight spits angrily, “You still think it’s her? Let’s find out for sure.”

Tearing her gloves off, Twilight lifts her now bare left hand. On her wrist is an ornate silver bracelet studded with small white gems that shine with a fierce inner light. Fine, thin, chains of silver trail up from the bracelet and across the back of her delicate hand to affix to rings, each studded with their own shining gems on her pointer, middle, and ring fingers.

“You have no idea what this is so let me explain,” Twilight speaks in a soft, deadly tone. “This is the Infinite Arcanum of Clover the Clever. There’s a lot of arcane science behind it but in short, it’s basically a miniature generator. That means, so long as I let it recharge every so often, I can basically cast magic as a normal unicorn while I’m here and I’m going to use it to find out who Anon-A-Miss really is once and for all.”

“Wait,” Applejack steps forward, confused. “If ya had that thing this whole time why’d y’all make us deal with the Sirens like we did? Couldn’t ya’ve just blown’em to the moon or somethin’?”

“The reason,” Twilight continues darkly, “is because this has been locked in the Alabaster Vault under the throne of the Two Sisters for about a thousand years. It was considered too dangerous because in the wrong hooves it’s basically an infinite source of magic. Princess Celestia practically threw it at me when I showed her what Sunset had written.” Twilight let out a shaky breath, “I might be Princess Celestia’s ‘faithful student’ but Sunset is… was…. her daughter in all but name.”

Each of the girls, even Rainbow Dash who’s still massaging her throat, looks ashamed at her words, and Twilight looks about to continue when a choked sob came from the corner. Luna and the six girls looked over to see Principal Celestia bent over the table, her shoulders heaving and her face buried on her folded arms.

“I was so… so proud of her when she started getting better.” Celestia’s muffled words come through her sweater-clad arms as she trembles before lifting her head to look up at Twilight with tear-stained eyes.

“When I first saw Sunset, years ago, I saw a brilliant, gifted, beautiful young woman who just wanted to be acknowledged. When she started going down a dark path I felt like my heart was breaking. Then you and the girls brought her back into the light and I felt like I could breathe again. I know I can’t have favorites as a Principal but I wanted her to succeed so badly. I was… I was so, so proud of her.”

The rest of Celestia’s words dissolve into sobs, and Luna wraps her arms around her older sister, taking her turn at being the source of comfort.

“I’ve heard enough.” Twilight’s voice rings with certainty. “I’m going to find out who killed my friend.”

Raising her left hand, the gems go from the white glow of distant stars to an intense and fiery purple.

“Ocean Spray’s Distant Sight,” Twilight says softly, the words echo through the cafe, and a glowing blue stylized eye wrought in magic light appears in the middle of her forehead. “Wide Eye’s Mirror of Minds.” A shimmering mirror of molten silver coalesces in front of the group. “Soul Searcher’s Past Perfect Recollection.” A glimmering gold circle of magic embosses itself over the mirror.

Letting out a breath and sagging from the effort, Twilight points to the mirror with her glowing hand.

“Show me Anon-A-Miss!” Twilight’s voice carries a weight of command and instantly the mirror begins rewinding. Glimpses of the past flicker back and forth across its silver surface, blurring out until it finally fixes on an image.

There’s no sound but the picture is as clear as it is heartbreaking.

“A-Applebloom?” Applejack stares dumbfounded at the mirror.

Rarity just has her hands clapped to her mouth. “Sweetie Belle… no…”

From the floor, Rainbow lets out a dry, hacking sob.

“S-Scoots… why? Why would you have… WHY!”

In the image, three younger girls are talking amongst themselves, their mouths moving silently as the spell had no means of picking up audio. They log onto the infamous MyStable account and begin setting up a weeks worth of uploads; secrets, embarrassing pictures, and more all go onto the social media page.

“Stop,” Twilight mutters the word grimly, and the image vanishes as she turns back to Rainbow. “There you have it. The real culprits found at last. I hope you girls are pleased with yourselves. Now let’s do the really hard part… Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, you can look away for this one. Girls, if I see even one of you look away I will personally anchor whatever appears on that mirror to your dreams for the next ten years, got it?” Each of them nods. “Good, now, Mirror…” Twilight takes a deep breath, bracing herself for what she’s about to see. “Show me the resting place of Sunset Shimmer.”

The mirror shifts for a moment, searching and searching, vistas and horizons pass by and Twilight scowls.

“That shouldn’t be happening. Her… remains couldn’t have gotten far. Ashen Repose would just make the spell fizzle, and the others all leave some kind of trace.”

“What… what does that mean?” Principal Celestia asks, her voice almost painfully hopeful.

Twilight shakes her head. “I have no idea. It could be a spell I’m not familiar with, I suppose. Sunset delved into some pretty esoteric stuff in her day and she was no slouch at spellcrafting either, or—”

A knock at the door of the cafe silences Twilight, who waves a hand, moving the mirror behind the counter.

“I thought you were closed up for the day,” Twilight says to Pinkie who just nods in confusion. “Then who… who else knows we’re meeting here?”

“Ah didn’t tell a soul outside’a this room, Sugarcube,” Applejack swears, her hand raised up.

“H-hey,” a small, quavering voice comes from the other side of the door. “Are, uh, are you all in there?”

“Was that…?” Fluttershy steps past the still mildly catatonic Rainbow Dash to the door and leans against it. “Snips? Is that you?”

“Uh, yeah, and Snails is here too,” Snips says from the cafe porch behind the door. “Uhm, can we come in, I… we… wanted to talk to the Princess… if that’s okay.”

Twilight sighs before striding over to the door and resting her hand on it. “Look, guys, I’d be happy to talk with you later but right now the… the girls and I… we're in the middle of something really important, alright?”

“I-it’s about the boss, right?” Snails speaks up and there’s a dull thud and an ‘ow’ from the porch. “Uh, I mean, about Sunset?”

The occupants of Sugarcube corner all exchange surprised looks. Twilight turns back to the door and cracks it open to look down at the pair of Freshmen.

“Why?”

Snips and Snails glance at each other nervously, shuffling their feet under Twilight’s harsh scrutiny. Finally, Snips leans over and pushes Snails.

“C’mon, you’re the one who saw it when it happened, I had my back to'er. Tell Twilight what you saw!”

The Princess lets out a deep sigh and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Snails, Snips, I’m… I'm in a really bad mood. That’s no excuse though, please… anything you can tell me about what happened… I really need to know.”

Snails swallows the lump in his throat and nods.

“For the boss, yeah. Snips and me were… sorta playing hooky and sitting in the bushes outside the entrance. We play cards and stuff there. The snow doesn’t get in and it’s near a vent so it’s warm.” Twilight wheels her hand in a ‘move-on’ motion. “R-right, well, Snips had his back against the stairs and I was facing them and I guess I just… had this weird feeling. I looked up and… and there she was… falling. I wanted to yell or say somethin’ but…”

Stepping out of the cafe, Twilight leans down and pulls both of the younger boys into a hug. “It’s okay, you don't have to go on, I’m sorry you had to see something like that. I can't even imagine watching her d—”

Snails, to Twilight’s surprise, pulls away. “N-no, that’s not… Sunset didn’t die!”

Twilight pulls away from Snails and stares down at him with fire in her eyes. “W-what did you just say?”

“Sunset didn’t die,” Snails repeats sullenly. “She was taken.”

“What took her?”

Snails wrings his hands for a few moments before nodding. “A… t-thing… a monster. I dunno, it was like… like right before she hit the steps everything slowed down a little and this black oily thing came out of the ground. Like, a bunch of long black spiky claws stretched out and just… caught her. They swallowed her up and there was this weird, gooey cracking sound and then they were gone.”

Twilight stares at him for a moment before closing her eyes and nodding.

“Snails, I know this is asking a lot but… can you show me?” Lifting her glowing hand she gestured with the artifact. “It won’t hurt, I promise… I just need to see it for myself, please.”

The light of the Infinite Arcanum reflects off the fear in Snails eyes and he glances back to Snips who just shrugs. Swallowing another lump, he nods.

“F-for the boss, yeah. Sunset always looked out for us, even in her bad days. She might’ve been using us but it don’t matter. She took care of us. Made sure we weren’t bullied out of the lunch line, kept Gilda and her Griffons off our backs for the first time since grade school. After that, she always looked in on us. She gave us early Christmas gifts this year even though she… she doesn’t have much.”

Looking over Twilight’s shoulder Snail glares at the other girls.

“We never thought she was Anon-A-Miss! Not even for a second. Sunset was nice! And even if she went bad again she’d never do somethin’ like that! It was messy! Sunset hates messy! Sunset always told us: ‘If you gotta get yer hands dirty always wear gloves.’ That’s how we knew it wasn’t her! We just… we were big, dumb cowards and didn’t say anything cuz we didn’t wanna get beat up again.” Snails turns back to Twilight and nods. “Fer Sunset, do whatcha gotta, Princess. We weren’t there when our only friend needed us, so do it.”

Twilight gives the young boy a warm smile and hugs him again.

“Thank you, Snails, you’re the bravest boy I know.” Pulling back she presses her three-ringed fingers to his head and furrows her brow. “Memorandum’s Mindmeld.”

Both Snails and Twilight shudder as their minds synchronize. After a second of getting used to the feeling Twilight speaks again. “Okay Snails, I need you to remember. Go back to this morning. Go back to the moment when Sunset fell. Show me her falling… show me—”

—SUNSET NO

Someone is screaming. A girl is falling. She’s falling so fast. So very fast. And so slow at the same time. Everything was happening at once. My stomach is clenching. I watch her fall.

Sunny. Sunny Shimmer.

Boss. The boss is falling!

Then it happens.

Everything hitches and time grinds to a slow crawl. The boss is falling and the air underneath is splitting open. A crack in space. Claws like the legs of a spider, like a black widow from mom’s nature magazines, open wide from the hole. Sunset falls into them and they close around her. It’s a monster. A MONSTER.

Then it’s gone with a crack like wet bone snapping.

Twilight gasps as she falls away from Snails, and tears track down her face from the empathic link. The spell had worked, she had seen and felt everything Snails had at that moment in time with perfect clarity. She saw the monster rip its way out of the open air to swallow up her friend.

She saw Sunset try to kill herself.

Taking in a deep breath, Twilight stands and turns back to the dining room of the cafe.

“Alright girls, you want to make up for what you’ve all done then follow me.” Rainbow was the first to door, the determination in her eyes more intense than anything Twilight had ever seen. Giving the girl a sharp but accepting nod, she turns back. “We’re going to figure out what took Sunset and how to get her back. I won’t abandon my friend.”

Twilight is the only one close enough to hear Rainbow whisper to herself. “Neither will I, ever again.”

4. Rite of the Bell

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The tolling bell is deafening and mournful, like the call of a funeral procession. I’m almost annoyed that it takes a second to realise that’s exactly the point. The Killer is ringing the bell and the funeral is for us.

Subtle.

My feet hit solid earth as the darkness bleeds away to be replaced by the endless fog. The forest and campfire are gone, and all around is the stink of rust and engine oil.

This newest place is some kind of scrapyard; piles of old beaters, trucks, sedans, even buses, are everywhere. The filth in the air is as much a flavor as a smell, but where the Fields where I landed first tasted like rotten vegetable matter, this place tastes like the slow decay of civilization.

The moment my feet are stable I duck to a low crouch and press my back against one of the more sturdy walls of cars to take stock of my surroundings.

I’ve still got the medical kit bag that came out of my Bloodweb. It's not well stocked but it's definitely better than nothing. Taking care not to shift the weight of the stack, I start moving along the edge. Maybe it's sturdy enough to hold my weight, maybe not, but I doubt a tower of vehicles suddenly toppling over would go unnoticed by whatever is hunting us.

As I swivel my head, scanning the fog-shrouded yard, I find myself wishing I had asked Tempest—or really any of the girls—a little more about the different Killers. Things like which one hunts where, and how. What their abilities are. Strengths and weaknesses... assuming they have any.

But I was so tired at the time.

No excuses now, Shimmer. I just have to be extra careful and stick to what little I do know. If I hear a heartbeat, hide. If I hear a chainsaw, hide. Run up the generators, and avoid the hooks and the basement.

This one's going to be rough.

I slide around the corner and scan the area. I don't like this junkyard.

Where there aren’t stacks of cars there are the remains of wrecked ones. There's cubes of compacted junk, piles of tires, even a massive set of treads that looks like it belonged on a CAT at one point, and off in the distance is the towering silhouette of a crane, still sporting its dull, construction-yellow paint job.

Somewhere in the distance the wind picks up with a dull susurration that stirs the crows that are squatting in the trees and around the cars, and a bell tolls from somewhere nearby.

“What the hell is with that noise?” I mutter as I scoot slowly across the oily dirt of the wrecking yard. “You’d think it wouldn’t want to give its position away either, right?”

Unless it doesn't care which isn’t a happy thought.

I keep my head on a swivel as I move towards one of the towering light-topped spires that signify a generator, sidling around a wall of broken metal and rotting wooden pallets. The generator is cold and silent, meaning that none of my… that none of the others have worked on it yet.

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

Either way, I don’t have time to waste.

I pull aside one of the side plates and dive elbow deep into the cold machine to start feeling around for out of place parts. It’s not hard, this thing is a mess and there's plenty to fix. I’m making decent progress even if I do have to slow down every so often to make sure I don’t trip a loose connection or displace a grounding wire but overall it’s not difficult.

I’m about what I reckon to be a third of the way done when the wind picks up again and then dies.

“What the hell is with the wind in this…”

The words die in my throat as a bell tolls thunderously from directly behind me.

I shriek and pull my arms free of the generator, prompting a deafening pop of electrical discharge from the generator as I roll to the side just in time to avoid something heavy and stinking of blood from braining me as it swings down through the space my head had been occupying a second earlier.

Something impacts the generator hard with a dull clang, and I turn, swiveling on my heels in a low crouch, ready to spring away as I face…

Nothing?

No, not ‘nothing’...

There’s a faint distortion in the air at first and then it resolves into something horrifying with a grim languor.

The thing is standing on thin, almost birdlike legs. Its body is wrapped in a filthy black shroud and stained bandages. The Killer's face is a crudely daubed mask of petrified wood with two deep-set and baleful eyes like pinpricks of cold white light that are fixed squarely on me. The thing is so terrifying that I almost miss what’s in its hand.

“Is that a fucking spine?!” I shriek as I scrabble to my feet.

Whatever, not my circus not my monkeys, Sunset Shimmer out.

I take off running as the Killer hefts its weapon. It looks for all the world like a spinal cord layered onto what looks like a short-hafted, triple-bladed scythe topped with a skull. The organic bits are definitely the real deal too.

Sprinting for a collection of high-walled scrap, I vault over a low section as the Killer picks up the pursuit. The heartbeat thuds thunderously away in my ears, telling me in no uncertain terms that it is on my ass.

I rip past a leaning wooden pallet and kick it loose, earning a satisfying impact and a roar of frustration as it lands on the Killer’s head.

That buys me a moment as it breaks through the makeshift barricade, and I light off into another junk-pile maze, vaulting a shorter pile of junk to get onto the other side of the wall but catching my foot on some of the loose scraps and causing a racket.

“Shit,” I hiss as I take off again. "It definitely heard that."

The heartbeat isn’t as loud but it’s still there, vacillating between tolerable and deafening. It knows where I am and it knows I’m running from it. It’s trying to keep pace. My only solace is knowing that, so long as it’s chasing me, Tempest and the others are free to do their work.

A sudden clap of machine noise rings out and a spill of light from the distance tells me I’m right. One generator is already up and running. Good girls.

That low wind picks up again, rushing past my ears followed by the dolorous tolling of a bell. Time to test a theory. I reach another low rise of junk and vault over it, more slowly and carefully this time and drop to a crouch, moving as quietly as possible, slinking around the walls and through the twisting partitions of ruined chassis’, radiators, and engine blocks until I reach a tall storage cabinet.

Taking a risk, I peek inside.

It's mostly empty except for some random pieces of junk and—strangely—several old hatchets. I glance around, knowing it’s probably futile but doing it out of habit anyway, before slipping into the closet and pulling the door closed tight. It’s a risk, sure. A huge one. If that thing catches me in here then I’ve got nowhere to run, but if I don’t shake it now then I’ll get caught for sure.

The heartbeat is gone for the moment, but since there wasn’t one while that monster was properly crawling up my dock I can only assume that the heartbeat means nothing to this thing. Whatever this Killer is I figure that, so long as it’s invisible, the heartbeat won't tell me when it’s close by.

Cheater.

So I wait. I can't be sure it's not still in the area yet. If it hasn’t checked here by now it probably lost my track, but if it's still looking then I can… wait…

I narrow my eyes at the ground a few meters away from me. There! The grass wavers one patch at a time and there’s a faint distortion as it does so, and I smirk from my hidden vantage point.

“Not bad,” I whisper as I watch the haze shift around in a searching pattern. “Total aural and visual concealment… near perfect bending of light. If it were standing still it would be totally undetectable.”

It’s definitely not incorporeal, no matter what it looks like, but it had to come out of its concealment to strike me back when I was at the generator, suggesting it couldn’t attack while it was shrouded. There’s no other explanation for it. That thing is a hunter. It wouldn't doff its invisibility unless it had no choice.

So… it's not incorporeal but also not visible, but it can’t strike me, at least not with enough force to matter.

“It’s out of phase.” I grin, feeling certain I’d hit the nail on the head.

It phases partially out of this dimension and into another. The sound of wind is it peeling back into this reality or vice versa. It’s also why photons bend around it. It’s probably much lighter and faster in that state too. It’s literally not quite real until the moment before it kills you.

Except for the bell. The Bell must be how it goes in and out of phase.

Somehow it allows the Killer to translate between realities. If I can hear the tolling when it’s visible and invisible equally then the bell must have a presence in both phases of reality, making it a tool of Artifact-grade power at least.

That kind of thing should be sealed in the Alabaster Vault at Canterlot, not be carried in the hands of a murderous specter.

Another clap of machine noise splits the air and lights go on not far from my position. Immediately, the distortion and little shifting trail of grass moves away at speed.

Fair enough, I suppose. It can’t just hang around forever while the others are running around getting shit done. I slip out of the cabinet the moment it's clear and start to move around the edge of the junkpiles towards a distant tower of unlit lamps.

I don’t get far before I hear a scream.

“Starlight.” Her voice sounds different from when she was taking the piss out of Billy’s attention so it must’ve found her for real.

I didn’t hear the bell though which means she spotted its phased-out movement. She is good.

Still, something’s wrong. Why didn’t it come back into phase? I stand up uneasily and scan the area. I see movement not far from me, heading towards my position. Getting a sick feeling in my stomach, I swivel around and look towards the junk maze. “Shit, a hook. It’s herding her.”

I turn a corner and press myself against the wall, close my eyes, and sharpen my ears. Seeing won’t do shit for me against this thing, but it still makes a little noise when it disturbs the grass. The wind is my major hint though. It reenters coherent enough to land a strike before I can fully see it. Star screams again. She doesn’t need to at this point but she’s probably egging it on now. She knows she can’t shake it.

So now what?

I clench my teeth, knowing what’s about to happen. The bell tolls, the wind blows, and there’s a sharp, wicked crunch as the Killer buries its scythe in Star, she screams again, this time it’s real and filled with pain.

She’s not down though. It was a glancing blow, but her footsteps have changed. Starlight is staggering away while the Killer is taking its time and enjoying the hunt. A moment later I hear another heavy crunch and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

They’re close, and if it’s anything like last time…

I peek around the corner just in time to see it bending over to grab and heft Starlight onto its shoulder. I pull back around the corner and cover my mouth, trying to keep my breathing under control as it approaches the hook.

I could go. Easily. I could hide out, hunker down, and wait for it to lope off towards another side of the Trial in search of others, then make a run for the nearest generator. Starlight Glimmer doesn’t trust me any further than she can throw me, and after what happened at the campfire I have no doubt that she would leave me to rot on the hook.

She would abandon me to die with almost hundred percent certainty.

At least she’s straight with me though, not like the Rainbooms. She never pretended to be anything but what she was and the moment she suspected me she got in my face. I can respect that.

Shunk.

I flinch at the meaty sound of Starlight being hung from the butchers hook which is quickly eclipsed by her teary scream of pain.

The bell tolls and the wind blows and I hear the Killer drift away in the opposite direction. If I leave her, I'm safe. Rescuing is loud and obvious, and this bastard is really goddamn fast. If I leave her here I can almost certainly finish a generator.

All I have to do is abandon her.

“Fuck!” I cuss under my breath as I turn, break cover, and sprint for the hook.

Starlight is hanging despondently from the cruel barb, sniffling and shaking at the pain. The moment she sees me her eyes go wide, but before she can say anything I get under her feet and lift hard, levering her off of the impaling spike. Starlight claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the shriek of pain but nothing helps the creaking groan of the rusty hook.

She hits the ground hard but I can’t afford to give her any breathing room. It’s even odds as to whether or not that thing will come back after us or go harass whichever one of our little group has been running up generators and I don’t want to be here to find out.

So I grab Starlight’s hand and pull her down one of the aisles, and around the corner. I can’t trust the heartbeat because of the thing’s invisibility but at least we’ll have a second or two of warning if I keep listening for the wind.

We move at a dead sprint, and manage to get well away from the hook and make it to the wall of a dilapidated shack. Unfortunately, there's another damn hook posted against one of its corners. I’m really starting to hate how those things seem to be friggin' everywhere.

Both of us slump against the wall, breathing hard and, in Starlight's case, coughing up blood even as we try to remain wary and listen for the tell-tale tolling of the Killer’s bell.

“C’mere,” I say, pulling out my med kit, “let me see the damage.”

Starlight backs away from me like I just threatened her with a knife.

“Not a chance! You think after what happened at the campsite, that I’d trust you?” She hisses. “Why would you even help me at all?”

I open my mouth to answer but what can I say?

'It’s what we’re supposed to do?'

That sounds hollow. We’re really just supposed to survive, and I certainly don’t owe her anything. Why did I risk my life, or whatever it is I have here, to save hers? Even she doesn’t think I should have. For Princess Twilight? For the girls back home? Why did I help her? By all rights, I should have abandoned her. After all, that’s what everyone did… to me.

I close my eyes and let out a breath, realising I was overthinking things. In the end, I still want to be a better person right? I want to be better than I used to be, whatever that means.

“I don’t know, Star,” I say, finally. “Not… not that I don’t know why I would help you. I just… how do you explain to someone that you’re supposed to want to help other people? How can I explain that I just want to help you?”

“Because nobody just wants to help me!” Starlight practically chokes on her words to stop herself from screaming and giving away our position. “And you’re just like everyone else,” she growls, “except you're worse, because you’re trying to trick us. You’re working for that thing. You’re just a Killer in a cute skin. I will never, ever—”

Our only warning that we're not alone is the sound of two quick strides from behind us before Aria is at my side and swinging a hard slap across Starlight’s face. Starlight staggers, then shakes her head as she tries to work out what hit her.

“So, here you girls are,” Aria says quietly before turning to me, “I was trying to find you, Shimmer. No one deserves to run around the Wrecking Yard with the Wraith and not have the lowdown.”

I nod, a little stunned at Aria’s reaction. “I, uh, I think I pretty much worked out what he does. Rings a bell, goes invisible, hunts you. Doesn’t make that heartbeat sound while it’s phased out. That about it?”

The ex-Siren smirks at me.

“Yeah, pretty much. I always knew you were sharp, Shimmer,” Aria says before turning to Starlight and bringing a finger straight up to her face. “And you… listen and listen close, I know Sunset, so if you want to draw a line in the sand then you’ll find me next to her, capisce? I like you Star, I do, but I would trust Sunset with my life.”

Starlight opens and closes her mouth for a moment before finding her voice. “But… why? Even after all the Trials and fighting together, why?”

Aria glances back at me and gives me a small but genuine smile before turning back to Starlight. “Because I saw Sunset stand with her friends as they fell to my sisters and I. She stepped into a losing battle, put herself between three power-bloated Sirens and her friends, and then sang us down by herself. Anyone who can call up that kind of fire is someone I’d follow anywhere.”

“Girls, I get it, and Starlight doesn’t have to trust me right away,” I say, holding up my hands as I get between Aria and Starlight. “But I’m pretty sure there’s a better place to air this out than in the middle of a wrecking yard that’s being haunted by at least one murderghost, which is approximately infinity percent more murderghost than I’m comfortable with.”

They scowl at each for a moment, but Aria nods, thankfully. “You’re right, we’ll deal with this at the campfire. C’mon, let’s get to work, the Wraith is fast but only while it’s patrolling so we have to divide and conquer, move your asses ladies.”

Under Aria’s sharp direction we all get going. Starlight still refuses to look me in the eyes or work with me but I guess that’s a step up from a shanking, so I’m already in a better position than the first homeless shelter I stayed in.

Starlight scans the distance and her eyes fix on an unlit tower. Without another word she lights off in that direction, sticking to the edges of the walls and keeping low to let the fog cover her movement as much as possible.

I stick with Aria, and we turn in the other direction. Divide and conquer. That thing might move fast but so long as we kept working on generators it couldn’t do more than chase us. I follow the former Siren’s lead, keeping low and weaving around the little mazes of ruined vehicles.

“Never go directly through them unless you’re being chased or trying to break line of sight,” Aria whispers back towards me as we go around. “They’ll slow you down and if the Wraith catches you inside it can block you up and pin you down. Better to go around the outside near the wall-side edge.”

I nod. “Are we meeting up with Tempest and Sour?”

Aria gives me a strange look and then buries her face in her palm. “Right, I guess that never got covered. There’s only ever four of us at a time in a Trial, meaning someone always gets left behind, I just left Sour so…”

A cold weight settles in my stomach. Tempest isn’t here with us. She said she’d find me but… but the Entity wasn’t going to let her. I must have pissed it off by breaking it’s little ‘bloodweb’ rules. Well good. Let’s see how many more rules I can break.

I grit my teeth in annoyance.

“Last time it was Tempest, Starlight, Spruce, and myself,” Aria continues at a whisper. “This time it’s Tempest who was left behind. I bet she’s having kittens over you right now, I’ve never seen her get so worked up over a new arrival.”

I’m suddenly glad of the thicker mist and dim lighting.

“R-really? Why.”

Aria shoots me a smug grin as we weave around another jungle of twisted engine blocks and stop near a quietly thudding generator that was labouring just to fire two cylinders.

“Nodens only knows, Shimmer,” she answers in a tone that's drenched in sarcasm. “Let’s get to work.”

Watching Aria work is a little inspiring. She's not just good, she's better than Tempest. Her hands move with fluid surety, clicking each piece into place, crossing wires where they need to be crossed, and setting each pipe in place without hesitation. I probably learn more about how the generators go together just watching her for a minute than I did the whole time I was trying to bring that spiteful piece of pig iron in Canterlot Station back to life.

“So where’d you learn to repair stuff like that?” I ask after a moment of silent work.

“Before we got taken, I did all the grunt work,” Aria replies quietly without looking up. “Electrical, plumbing, wiring, auto-repair, whatever we needed. I like working with my hands.”

She wrenched a bit into place and we both winch at the grinding noise as another set of cylinders fire up and we wait a moment, both us listening in around us. There’s no wind or bell, though, so we continue.

“Anyway, ‘Dagi always did the talking and haggling and social stuff. I’m awful at that. 'Nata managed our money and did the cooking. We were a good team.”

“Really? Sonata handled your money?” I couldn’t keep the incredulous look off my face. Aria just gave a nod and a small smile.

“Yeah, she doesn’t seem the type, huh?” Aria chuckles, but I get the sense of something sad behind it. “Crazy math genius though, seriously. ‘Dagi and I weren’t bad but Sona was the reason we always had money.”

I try to figure out how to broach my next question gracefully. After a few seconds of dithering I decide that, since it’s Aria, the direct approach is best. “So, you said ‘we were taken’, what… what happened to—”

Aria wrenches a cylinder into place, there’s a sudden pop and the generator roars to life. Aria looks up at me with grim, haunted eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that, Shimmer. It’ll come up eventually, I guarantee it, but until then… don’t ask, please?”

“Y-yeah, sure,” I reply, put slightly off-kilter by her sudden change in her demeanor.

We take off towards the edge of the Trail after that, moving quickly between cover and keeping low to the ground. A few moments later two more gens go active almost simultaneously, and Aria grins.

“That’ll confuse him,” she mutters. “The Wraith is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing but if you keep running up generators and breaking shit, it distracts him. He gets frustrated easily, so if we time our intervals out right we can all get away from—”

The wind blows and the bell tolls from directly behind us.

"SHIT!"

Aria and I both take off as the Wraith resolves into existence.

As it reenters this reality the air around it blurs. One moment we’ve got a good couple of meters on it then suddenly it’s nearly on top of us.

Fast! Too goddamn fast!

I leap to the side and drive my shoulder into Aria, pushing her away as the Wraith’s scythe comes down and I scream as the cruel, cold blades bite savagely into my arm.

Adrenaline sends me bolting away from both the Wraith and Aria, who looks confused and shaken, but she’s still running in the same direction we had both been going. For a terrifying second it looks like the Wraith is going to pursue her, but then it fixates on the trail of blood dripping from my wound onto the ground and takes off towards me.

It takes Aria a good couple of seconds to notice the change in the heartbeat and I get a glimpse of horror on her face when she looks back and realises what I’ve done.

Sorry Aria, but you’re more useful than me.

I sprint away, gripping the deep cut in my arm. It’s basically useless. The limb is sagging loose and bloody from my shoulder. I can barely think straight with the searing pain coming from my side. That thing hits like a truck and it's all I can do to just keep moving. I duck and weave and bob, vaulting low edges without a care for what I knock over or how much noise I’m making.

It knows where I am, so subtlety is out the window at this point anyway.

In the distance, the last generator thunders live and the deep, electric growl of the doors going active echoes through the Fog.

Good, now they all need to get going. At least I know Starlight won’t have an issue with leaving me behind. If I can just keep moving I might even make it to one of the exits.

Just. Keep. Moving.

My only warning that I’m not moving fast enough is a stain of brutal red light cast from the Wraith's hateful gaze that spills over me before the Wraith buries his scythe between my shoulder blades. I’m driven to the ground and I try to scream but I can’t. My lungs are tight and burning and my whole body is shaking. Those blades definitely punctured something necessary, and I get the feeling that, if it weren’t for the fucked up rules of this place, I’d definitely be dead by now.

I have the vague sensation of being lifted up from the ground and hefted onto the Wraith’s shoulder. I wiggle feebly, desperately trying to defy it. To try and free myself. In my stupor, though, I’d managed to run almost directly next to a hook. The monster turns unerringly to one of the little junk mazes and enters, steps past several cabinets and stops in front of one of their sacrificial poles.

I can’t help it, I start crying. I know what’s about to happen.

With one arm, the Wraith lifts me up and slams me down on the hook.

A raw scream rips its way out of my throat as the hook punctures through my shoulder and hangs me from the meat of my chest.

Even now, I try to grip the hook to try and pull myself off of it, even though I know it’s pointless. The Wraith is standing there, its almost featureless face bobbing up and down as if examining its handiwork.

I can’t give up though, I have to keep struggling, right?

That’s what Tempest said. Keep trying to stay alive. I get a solid grip on the blood-slick hook and start to lift, groaning at the searing shots of pain firing through my arm. I barely manage a couple inches before the Wraith dives in like lightning. I feel a cold pressure slash over my gut and my gorge rises. My arm is shaking as it tries to keep the pressure off. I look down and nearly throw up.

Blood is spilling down my pants and there’s a brutal gouge in my stomach. I catch a glimpse of glistening and ropy… Oh no…

I swallow down the growing desire to vomit.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

Oh fuck.

The Wraith lifts its scythe and drags a thumb along the slick, stained blade, flicking off a smear of red blood. It lets out a raspy, grating noise that makes it shake in place a little. It takes me a second to realise that it’s laughing at me. I try to pull myself up again. Gotta stay alive… gotta… stay-

OH SHIT.

The black, spidery claws of the Entity erupt from the back of the hook. I barely manage the let go of the hook in time to stop the large, central claw from spearing me, gripping it in my hand.

But the jarring does something else. I feel something… fall out of me. I feel light, empty, cold, and sick.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

The Wraith laughs raspily again, then raises his bell and rings it, prompting a rush of wind as it falls out of phase with the Trial. I don't see the distortion though, meaning it isn't moving.

I can’t stop it. I can’t get myself off of this hook. I can’t… I can’t…

A flash of purple and black crosses my vision behind the Wraith's invisible form. It takes me less than a moment to recognise it and realise that—against all sanity and odds—Aria came back for me.

No… I can’t let her.

The Wraith is still here. She has to know that.

I flash back to Spruce. It's just like it was with Billy, except there aren’t any generators to turn on to distract the Killer. The door is already open. The only thing that makes sense is for it to treat me like bait. To draw in my… my friends. To draw in someone who wants to save me. To give them a reason not to go through the Exit.

I open my mouth to tell her to go, to leave me, but all that comes out is a dry crackle. I can’t stop her, I can’t warn her as she peeks around the corner and up towards me. I see her go pale and grimace at what she sees. I look down at her, silently pleading for her to leave. It’s too late, the Wraith has nothing but time to hunt us until we’re all gone.

Stop, Aria. Stop. Please. Just… go.

Except she won’t.

I saw the look on her face when I mentioned her sisters. I don’t need to ask to get the gist of what must have happened. She won’t leave me. I can’t help but smile at that. All of my friends up and abandoned me on practically no evidence, but the Siren that I beat and stripped of her magic is willing to risk her life for me.

With enemies like this, who needs friends?

Sorry Aria, but I won’t let you die on a hook trying to save a gutted fish.

Before she has a chance to move I let go of the claw. Aria’s eyes go wide and she starts to cry out to me, but thankfully her good sense keeps that in her throat. There are tears in her eyes as I feel the spike punch through my torso, and the sound of thunder fills the air around me.

It doesn’t even hurt, really. It feels like I’m being pinned to the wall. I guess all the pain is just… white noise now.

Oh look, I’m being picked up. I’m being lifted up and… and…

Written's Quill… it’s so dark. It’s so cold. And empty.

Tempest? Aria? Sour? Starlight? Where is everybody? Rainbow Dash? I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you mad. I promise. I’m not her. I’m not Anon-A-Miss. Please believe me. Applejack? Pinkie? Fluttershy? Rarity? ...Twilight?

Anybody?

5. The Wild Dance

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I come back to consciousness achingly slowly.

A deep, despairing part of me wants to stay in the dark. In the dark there’s nothing. No light. No hope. No pain or fear. Just the endless whispering comforts of the Entity and the numb, unfeeling void.

It's a voice that brings me out of my stupor. A soft, hushed voice singing in another language. And there’s a hot and crackling comfort of a fire somewhere nearby.

The gentle, uneven warmth of a campfire and the soft, lulling voice brings me back to consciousness. I open my eyes and look up at the scarred but beautiful face of Tempest, who’s staring sightlessly over me towards the fire and petting my hair in even strokes as she sings. Her voice is thick and raw, and not at all suited to singing, but it calms me nonetheless.

“It hurts…” I say, and my voice cracks like I haven't used it in days, but Tempest’s lullaby fades at my words. “It hurts so much, Tempest… I… I’m scared.”

“I know, Mi Sol,” Tempest answers in a sad tone. “The hook is a brutal, evil way to die, and the Wraith is merciless and spiteful. It is vindictive.”

“I don’t want to go back,” I sob softly, and hot tears start running down my cheeks as I think of being taken again. “Don’t make me go back… please?”

Tempest just continues to stroke my hair. “Lo siento, Mi Sol, if I could spare you I would, but the Entity only knows hunger and now that it has tasted you it will not release its jaws.”

I know that, of course. I know there’s nothing she or any of the other girls can do to keep me from being dragged into that hellscape again. They’re in the same boat I am, after all. None of them can escape this horrible place either. That isn’t helping me at the moment though. The memory of literally losing my guts is still way too fresh in my mind.

“I heard you saved Aria in the Wrecking Yard,” Tempest says, and I nod, wiping some of my tears on her stained pants. “You’re very brave, protecting her like that. When she came out of the Fog and back to the campfire she was furious.”

“Not surprised though,” Aria’s tired voice says from the other side of the campfire. She gets up from where she was resting on the ground and fixes me with a glare. “Still shouldn’t have done it, Sunny. You coulda gone at least another couple of Trials without having to endure a Sacrifice.”

Rubbing my eyes, I rise and seat myself next to Tempest. Sour Sweet and Starlight are both still sleeping by the fire, Aria is sitting up as well, cross-legged and weary. Aria has a point. If I had let her get hit I almost certainly would’ve made it out. The Wraith struck me as a petty creature, one that was more concerned with causing pain and indulging spite upon whoever it caught up to. The moment Aria began to bleed it probably would have pursued her across the whole Trial if it needed to, just to catch up and hook her.

Except…

“I’d never let one of you down like that,” I say wearily. “Even if I get hooked again, and I… I’m terrified of it because I’ve never been hurt like that before, I’d still do it. Even for Starlight, I’m not going to abandon one of you.”

“Sometimes you need to, chica,” Tempest replies. “We’re not all going to get out every time. It’s a fact. Sometimes, sure, maybe we will, other times… not. Being prepared to do what’s necessary sometimes means making sacrifices.”

“You mean letting sacrifices happen,” I retort angrily, and Tempest flinches. “Look, I get it, and maybe I’m just naive. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting jaded enough,” I stand and begin to pace. “But excuse me if I’m not at the point where I’m willing to just leave someone to get sucked into the fang-filled face-hole of an eldritch horror so they can be digested and shat back out by a campfire in the middle of these fucking woods!”

Tempest narrows her eyes at me, scowls, and stands to face me. “Every unhooking is a risk, it’s loud and ungainly, and the Entity informs its hunter when one of its snacks has been swept from its mouth. Each time you do it, you risk the Killer getting you instead, or even getting you both!”

“And?!” I shout, stirring Sour and Starlight awake. “If I have to get hooked to keep the rest of you off those fucking things what’s the big deal!? It’s not like it matters one way or the other! So what if I have to hang? I might as well! I got here by jumping off a goddamn roof so what’s the difference?”

The eyes of all four girls widen at my admission. I don’t care though, not anymore.

“Besides, Starlight’s made it clear she doesn’t give a damn if I go down, I figure the rest of you have the same doubts about me and you’re just polite enough to not voice them. I’d rather you did! At least Starlight’s just being honest! At least she’s not smiling in my face and waiting for me to fuck up so she has a reason to dump me on the floor and spit on me!”

“Woah, calm down, Red,” Aria says as she starts to stand from across the fire.

I round on her.

“And why should I?” I hiss as an old, bubbling rage wells up in my chest. “I’m just going to get left behind like always so why should I calm down? You guys don’t even want me here!” By this time tears are streaming down my face. “I sure as hell don’t want to be here. Seems like the best of both worlds for me to risk pulling your asses out of the fire. You lot get to live and get out, I get to do my damnedest to finally sink my teeth into the fucking void.”

“That… that’s not…” Sour starts but she trails off, unable to find anything meaningful to say. Good. There’s nothing she can say.

Instead, four pairs of eyes just stare at me, even Starlight looks sickened at my words and she hates my ass. Tempest and Aria both look stricken and the latter starts towards me. I recoil back and glare.

“Don’t, I don’t want your pity, Aria.” Wheeling to face the others, I slash my hand in front of me. “I don’t want anyone’s pity. Either take me at my word or just leave me to die. I should’ve been left in that fucking crater in front of the high school, but that night six girls lied to my face about the ‘magic of friendship’,” I say, making air quotes. “So yeah, no more sympathy for the devil, thanks. I’ll take the cold grip of oblivion.”

P-Please, Mi Sol, don’t say things like—” Tempest starts, her voice pained.

“Like what?” I bite back. “Like the truth? Don’t lie to me! Kick me, spit on me, ostracize me, leave me to bleed out and die in the snow, but don’t you dare lie to me.”

“I swear, Sunset,” Tempest says, approaching me with a hand out. “I swear I’m not lying. I do care, I don’t want you to get hurt I just—”

Thunder eclipses Tempest’s next words, drowning her out as the darkness begins to thicken around us. The campfire flickers and I stare up at the quickly blackening sky.

I can feel it again, the choking and cloying Fog crawling over my skin and slithering down my throat. I narrow my eyes up at the sky and fancy I can see the writhing claws of the Entity, eagerly awaiting its next meal. I look back down at the others and I see the terror in the eyes of Starlight and Sour, I see the fear in Aria and Tempest’s eyes too but they’re both looking at me, not at the Fog.

I realise why a second later.

It's because I’m grinning like a madwoman.

“Alright, yeah, c’mon you Old Stain. Take me to your Tartarus. I’ll hang on with both hands and my fucking teeth if I have to,” I spit as the Fog finally tightens its grip on me. “You’d better not leave me behind for this one or I’ll go out into the woods and find you my goddamn self.”

Then I feel it. The hooks sink into me, dredging me up from the campsite.

“Good,” I whisper bitterly. “Let’s do this, I’m gonna grab you by the throat from the inside.”

“Sunset!” Aria screams from somewhere in the darkness. “Don’t let it take you! Please!”

As if she really cares.

Nobody cares about Sunset Shimmer.

Live or die. Win or lose. Redemption or damnation. In the end, nobody really cares… In fact, I think to myself as my grin widens and the stink of rotting plants and mud fills my nostrils, I think there’s a certain argument to be made for that being the best part of being me.

Celestia knows there aren’t any other good things.

So let’s get started.

I hit the ground running as the Fog vomits me out.

This Trial looks like a southern swamp gone wrong, with rotting cattails and tree stumps sticking out of the ground all around me.

I scan the areas as the mud squelches unpleasantly under my boots and spot a couple of posts spearing up into the sky marking the location of some nearby generators. In the distance is a massive, decrepit steamboat looms half sunk into the sucking mud.

Closer to the ground nearby, though, is something tucked away near some fallen, decayed trees… a chest.

“Luck~y,” I sing to myself.

I can feel my grin turning manic as I rush over to the chest. It’s the work of several seconds to pry it open, and it’s mostly full of junk, there’s that saying about one pony’s trash… I sift through it for a few moments, not caring how loud I’m being. Hell, that’s part of the point. Ugh, just a bunch of junk… rotten clothes, junk, broken toys, more junk, and—

“Yahtzee!” I pull out a full medkit with a sharp grin.

Standing up from where I’d knelt at the chest, I scan the area again. No heartbeat. No movement. Knowing my luck the Killer is probably on the other side of the Trial.

Oh well, there are plenty of ways to get its attention.

I sprint to a generator. It’s cold so no one has worked on it yet, but that's ideal since it means I've probably come through into the Trial alone. I pull the side plate from the generator and start rooting around. I don't need to fix it, I just need to start it up a little, get that part there… this part here… and…

BANG!

“Hot damn!” I grin as I pull my hands out of the sparking generator, then put my pinkies to the sides of my mouth and let out several sharp whistles.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, where are you…” I mutter as I look around. No heartbeat yet… “I’m a goddamn happy meal, here, so come and get it.”

There.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.

The heartbeat of a murderous Killer, all for me. How kind of them.

It gets louder as I start backing away from the generator, and I keep my head on a swivel to try and get a bead on the direction. The cattails to my left sway violently just as the heartbeat kicks up a notch, and I turn on my heel to sprint for the wreckage of the steamboat in the opposite direction. The Killer is cutting through the rotten foliage towards me as I hit the first wooden planks near the boat.

Looking back, I get my first glimpse of this Trial's owner.

Tartarus spits but she’s ugly. The way she staggers when she moves reminds me of Billy’s uneven loping, although she's not quite as quick. Her wretched, wrinkled skin—that’s clearly missing chunks here and there—is the pallid grey of rotting muck, and her filthy hair is tied up in a ratty bun, but her right hand is the worst; her fingers have been broken and twisted into a bony claw, that fidgets and writhes independent of the rest of her.

Putting on a burst of speed, I sprint onto the steamboat, passing the faded and peeling lettering that declares the vessel as the Pale Rose. My footsteps strike the boards hard, making them creak beneath my weight. Hopefully, whatever black magic it is that keeps this shithole from rotting apart also keeps the timbers from breaking, that would be a miserable way to get caught.

“C’mon you ugly bitch!” I yell over my shoulder. “Try to keep up!”

The Killer lets out a gurgling shriek and charges me down as I scramble up the groaning stairs to the upper deck where a dead and soundless generator rests. That’s heartening, at least I’m not leading the Killer to the others. So I keep running towards it, hugging the edge of the deck towards the lamplight towers rising from the old machine.

As I take a hard turn around the upper prow, my foot slides along the slick, soggy flooring and I scrabble for purchase. The heartbeat is pounding in my ears telling me the Killer is right on my heels.

And I can’t stop grinning.

I spot my target as I run past the cabin, but I still have some distance so I take the Killer for another run around the wheelhouse before making for it. The old Hag scrapes across the sodden deck right on my back heel as I hang a left around the port side, then immediately pull another sharp left as the red stain of her gaze spills over my back, putting me right beneath a loose cargo pallet that’s been leaned against the wall.

“Grip it and rip it, granny!” I shout as I grab the pallet and pull it down on her head, earning a shriek of frustration as she staggers under the sudden impact.

I cackle as two generators roar active at almost the same time that I spot a hole in the decking and leap down, hitting the ground hard and flinching as I feel a bit of the wood give way.

Rotating hard on my heel I tear off towards the port side ramp. She’s still close. The heartbeat is deafening. She’ll cotton on to my turnaround in—

“HOLY SHIT!” I shriek as granny bad-touch bursts out of the ground with a wail. I try to stop but I skid on the mud and I… I pass right through her?

I come out the other side of the Hag covered in muck and swamp water.

An illusion? I grimace at the stinking mud... no, there’s substance and matter. A simulacrum, then. I recover my wits and I'm about to start running again just as the mud clones pulse and suddenly comes to life!

The heartbeat goes from a good distance away to right beside me in an instant, and I try to twist out of the way but she swings her bent and broken right hand with unnatural speed, carving an ugly gouge into my chest. I scream again, this time in pain as the wound sends a shot of adrenaline through me and I take off away from the Pale Rose.

“She can fucking teleport to her clones?” I hiss through the searing pain. “Cheater!”

My breath is coming in ragged gasps as I round a copse of trees, and kick loose another pallet of wood to cover my trail. That explains why she seemed slow. Who needs speed when you can blink everywhere? But how did she conjure her clone?

I rip off into the undergrowth, skidding down low and ending in a crouch, moving slowly as I backtrack to the Pale Rose. It’s a good landmark if nothing else. The heartbeat is still there but it’s dull and a little distant. She's lost my trail for now, which is fine by me.

Good thing I found that medkit at the start of all this. Cracking it open, I begin sifting through it. It's not bad. Certainly better quality stuff than the one I lost in the Wrecking Yard anyway.

I pull out some analgesic cream and gauze, along with a linen pad, and start lathering the cream on the pad, then shrug my jacket off and press it into the wound. I let out a quiet hiss as the medicine burns against the ragged cut, but I ignore it to start liberally wrapping the gauze around my chest and tying it off before sighing in relief.

It’s not great but it’ll have to do. At least the painkiller and bandages means I can get around without groaning and bleeding all over the place. I grab my jack and pull it back on.

Time to find granny again.

The heartbeat is gone, but no matter. She’s not quick so she can't have gotten too far. I crouch, sidle up to the side of the boat, and get onto the deck, making my way up to the generator on the prow. As I creep towards it, though, an odd pattern in the wood catches my eye. Three long, crude lines have been carved in a deliberate manner onto the wood planking.

“Wait, is that…” I mutter as I edge towards it, reach out, and run my fingers over the grooves. “That’s… sigilic arts. Wow, I haven’t seen that since—” I trail off and frown "—since I left Princess Celestia’s tutelage.’

“But what’s the trigger?” I tap one finger against my bottom lip. I can’t help but smile a bit as I hear another generator boom to life in the distance. Nice to know everyone is making use of my little cardio exercise. “Well, nothing to do but test it, right?”

My smile widens at the thought of Twilight experimenting on murder-magic. She’s such a nerd. Bracing myself to sprint in the opposite direction, I reach out and give the Sign a hard flick with my finger.

Nothing.

“Not a pressure trigger, then,” I mutter. I take a deep breath, then shout wordlessly at it. “Not an aural read either… that pretty much leaves proximity, which it’s obviously not since I’m right on top of it and…

Slowly I stand and make a sharp, heavy movement towards the generator. Sure enough, the sign issues a despairing scream and I’m showered with mud and swamp water as a clone of the Hag explodes out of the deck. I turn tail and sprint away just as the clone pulses and the heartbeat ticks up hard.

“She’s back, fillies and gentlecolts!” I shout, my manic grin back in place as I vault through the cabin and drop down to the deck. “And we’re off!”

I vault from the deck to the swamp and tear off with the Killer in hot pursuit. This time I’m sprinting towards the corner, right for a pallet that's leaning against one of the dead stumps. The heartbeat is getting closer, but only slowly, and I'm certain I have enough time to make it.

It occurs to me seconds too late that that is exactly what the Hag thought.

“Shit!”

One of her clones explodes out of the ground near the pallet and instantly she blinks to it and lashes out at me. I managed to turn on my heel but she carves a hot line of red pain down my back.

“Motherbucking mud scratches!” I snarl through grit teeth as I sprint away.

I run for the Pale Rose, it provides the easiest cover as I stagger up the gangplank towards the middle. She has me completely read by this point though, and another one of her clones bursts from the decking to club me across the face with her shattered hand. I go down hard, slamming my skull against the mouldering deck. My vision and senses are still swimming as I’m heaved up onto her shoulder. For such a spindly creature, she’s shockingly strong. You wouldn't think those stick-thin arms could pack much of a punch but that was like getting drilled in the face by the two back hooves of a career applebucker.

I’m barely cogent by the time I see the hook. I’d been futilely struggling the entire time, not able to do much more than force her off target a few times as she had to readjust her grip. It's pointless though. In the end, she reaches the ugly post, extends to her full height which is surprisingly tall considering I've only seen her hunched over, and slams me down onto the butcher’s hook.

I can't keep in the scream, and the old bat grins at me through that flayed-skull face of hers. For a moment I’m afraid she’s going to do the same thing the Wraith did, but a fourth generator thunders to life not far off. Hah, eat that you old swamp witch.

Her face twists and she lopes away towards the lights.

“Well, nothing for it now,” I say wetly, as blood leaks from my mouth. I remember what happened last time I tried to escape. The Old Stain himself came for me. “Guess I’ll just… hang out for a while.”

I chuckle dryly as I swing back and forth from the hook, almost relishing the searing burn.

“Ah, man, shoulda just skipped the whole magic schtick and gone into comedy, I’m a fuckin’ genius, I kill myself. Or at least I try.” I cackle again. “Oh yeah, this is gold. Fuckin’ gold!”

Well, I'm definitely going crazy but, hey, I’m running from murder witches in what is probably a literally godforsaken swamp, so who says insanity isn’t a fringe benefit at this stage?

“Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week,” I say to the drooping trees and swaying cattails. “Or however long it takes that miserable claw-faced freak to crap me back into the campsite, anyway.”

“Sunset?”

I glance up from my fevered ravings which I’d mostly been indulging in to amuse myself while I expired, and I scowl as Tempest Shadow emerges from the shadows of the treeline.

“Oh good,” I grumble. “Go away, Tempest, there’s only one generator left, so I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

Tempest glances around, then scans the ground at my feet. Looking for Hag marks I guess. Smart. She didn't mark me with one of her little signs, though. More fool her, I guess.

Satisfied that the coast is clear, Tempest edges towards me.

“Hold still, I’ll get you down, chica,” she whispers.

So she’s here to rescue me? I scan the area myself, now; there are two finished generators nearby and nothing else. That means she’s out here just to rescue me. I don’t know why but that… that makes me mad. No, actually, I take that back. That doesn’t just make me mad. That makes me furious.

“Get me down?!” I hiss as I jerk my feet away from her hands, and she gives me a look like I just gut-checked her. “Why?”

“What?!” Tempest looks genuinely confused.

“Did you go deaf, esé?” I spit at her. “Why. Would. You. Bother?”

“Sunset I don’t—” Tempest flails for words before settling on “—do you want it to take you?”

I grimace. Maybe, maybe not.

“I don’t really have an opinion there,” is what I actually say, “but you, specifically, can go fuck yourself.”

A pang of heartache hits me as hurt cuts across Tempest’s face, but I keep going anyway.

“What happened to ‘necessary sacrifices’?” I snap. “What happened to ‘every unhooking is a risk’? Huh? Where’s your pragmatism now? Where was your altruism when Spruce was hanging from his fucking perch?”

Tears start to tracking down Tempest's cheeks as she reached out for me. “Please, chica, just… just let me get you down. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said those things, lo siento, just let me—”

She gets close enough to get a hand on my leg and immediately a fire burns through me like I haven’t felt since the Fall Formal. Anger, rage, and fury contort across my face.

“Get away from me!” I hiss and lash out. My boot connects hard with Tempest’s face and she staggers back, stunned. “Leave. Me. Alone.” I say, glowering down at the bulkier young woman who’s holding her hand up to her newly broken nose.

There are tears in her eyes when she looks back up at me; maybe from the pain, maybe from something else. Glaring down at her is all I can do, I know she wants to get closer, to try again, but I can feel the Entity getting closer. Ash and embers are coiling up around me in the shapes of his claws.

Then the last generator roars to life and the Exits power up with a flanged, metallic howl.

“Get out, Tempest,” I say softly as the anger bleeds out of me. “Leave me here. I don’t need you—or anyone—to save me. Not anymore.” I wave my hand towards the nearest Exit. “I’ve learned that much by now. So go, get out, and… and I’m sorry I kicked you.”

Tempest gives me one last pained look, then nods, backs away, and sprints for the exit. Good. Let them go you old stain. You’ve got me now.

The heartbeat picks up for a few seconds and then fades and I watch the cattails sway violently back and forth with the passage of a hunched creature.

‘Bitch!’ I snarl at the hunched Killer before looking up at my own predicament. I wasn’t gonna let that thing ruin all my work. I figure I have one or two good pulls before the Entity snatches at me for my hubris.

Reaching up and grip the hook. “One, two, heave!” I pull up and the claws begin to twitch and resolve further into existence. “Shit! One… two…” I heave one last time and—

The legs lash out but I manage to slip past them by a hair’s breadth as, against all odds, I manage to tear myself from the hook and drop to the ground. Pain bellows through me as I snatch up my medkit and sprint in the opposite direction towards the other Exit, and the heartbeat immediately kicks back up again in my direction.

Oh, yeah, she didn't like that at all. The Exit is on the other side of the realm, but I don’t particularly care, maybe it’s open, maybe it’s not. Maybe I make it, maybe I don’t. I’m officially past caring. Much like my old ‘friends’ were.

‘There’s a friendship lesson, Twi’ I think with a grim smile. ‘Dear Princess Twilight, having friends taught me how to enjoy provoking supernatural murderers into chasing me down.’

Something shift in the air a moment later.

I’m alone. I can feel it. Something has changed in the space around the Trial. I don’t know how but I know. The others have left. Good for them. I’m sprinting for the exit but even as slow as this Killer is I know I’m not going to make it. That hag is still faster than me. I can feel her catching up no matter how many sharp turns I take, or how much debris I throw in her way.

It's as I'm clambering up over the deck of a smaller boat not far from the Pale Rose where I reason I can get a few good loops in that I hear it. There’s a dull, atonal groaning filling the air.

“What the hell is that?” I look back and forth as I skid across the deck.

I almost miss it as the heartbeat grows louder and the Hag gets closer. It's tucked under the kicked up prow of the smaller boat, and hidden in the shadows.

A hatch with a flipped up lid.

There's black, noxious-looking smoke pouring out of it, and the closer I get, the louder that groaning becomes. I glance back in time to see my pursuer erupt from the cattails, and shrug.

“Might as well,” I mumble as I sidle around, get into the mud, make a short hop, and drop into the hatch just as the witch reaches me.

The hatch slams shut after me with a deafening clang as I pass through it, and I’m falling.

There's Fog and darkness all around me, and I can feel the Old Stain somewhere in the shadows. It's distant and I think it's watching me, and for some reason it almost seems pleased. I can't say why, all I know is that this trip through the Fog isn't the same as getting ‘taken’ from the hook. There are no claws, no gripping monstrous visions, just… falling.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. This doesn’t feel like I won… no, it feels more like the Entity let me win. But why?

My falling eventually starts to slow as light blooms in the distance below me, sharp and defined in a familiar, crackling blaze.

The campfire.

I grimace as my fall slows to a crawl, the Fog ripples away, and my feet touch down gently on the dirt and dying pine needles. Four gasps of surprise and relief come up from around me before the Fog fades away fully, leaving Sour Sweet, Aria, Starlight, and Tempest all staring at me with shock writ across their features.

The moment my feet settle to the ground I let out a sigh. I’m back at the campfire. By sheer dumb luck, I escaped the clutches of the Entity at the last moment.

“C-chica,” Tempest approached with a cautious smile, reaching out for me, I let her pull me into a strong hug. “You made it?” she mutters in disbelief. “How?”

I made it.

“A hatch…” I say numbly. “It was a metal hatch.”

Tempest leans down and touches her forehead to my crown and I feel a slight wetness as her tears trickle down. “You got lucky as hell, then. But you’re safe, that’s what matters.”

I’m safe.

“Gave us all a scare there, Red,” Aria says a little uneasily from her seat as I reach up and pat Tempest on the arm. “Glad you found the hatch. It’s a last-ditch escape we shoulda mentioned before, but it can be a bitch to find. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Except I don’t think I am.

“Sunset?” Sour Sweet gets up from her side of the fire and approaches shyly. Starlight doesn't even look in my direction. “What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong is I think… I think I’m… disappointed.

Interlude II: Searching for a Certain Sunset

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Rainbow Dash

My name is Rainbow Dash, and I am officially the worst friend in the world.

Part of me wishes that Twilight had just finished the job when she hit me with that Lord Vader spell. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that my friends and I drove one of our other friends to… yeah… I can’t even think about it.

The stores and street signs pass quickly as I lean against the window of Fluttershy’s van. All of us had piled in it, while the Principal and Vice-Principal following behind us in their car. It's dead quiet. Normally we’d all be talking about… I dunno… something. But none of us can really work through what we just saw.

Plus, I'm not gonna lie, Twilight is furious. Not that I blame her. I just feel sick.

Sick to death about what we did and how we acted. Sick at the fact that the girl I’ve thought of as a little sister for years went behind my back to destroy the reputation of me and my friends and like, half the stupid school. Not to mention they drove Sunset to…

I clench my eyes shut. I still can’t think about it.

“You’ll have to face it eventually.” Twilight’s voice breaks through the silence and I look up. She’s looking at all of us, not just me, from the front passenger seat. “However this ends up going, I hope you’ll have to face Sunset at the end, you know?”

I nod. “Yeah,” my voice is still raspy and bruised. “Me too, whatever that means… at least it’ll mean she’ll have the chance to tear into us.”

Into me.

Rarity lets out a soft sob next to me and I put an arm around her. She leans into me and takes a shuddering breath. “I can only pray, darling, that we have the opportunity to tell her how sorry we are.”

“Ah ain’t even sure we deserve t'do that,” Applejack says darkly from the back. “If’n we'd just given'er a fair shake in the first place, this all coulda been avoided. But we let our own fool tempers get the better of us.”

“We don’t deserve it,” Pinkie agrees dejectedly. “We took away her smile.”

The falling rain neatly mirrors the light drumming of Twilight’s fingers against the arm of the passenger side door. After a moment she turns back to us, and some of the rage has bled out of her. She doesn’t look like she’s ready to kill us anymore, at least, which I guess is an improvement. I’ve still lost two friends today, though, and it’s no one's fault but my own.

“Can I ask you all… why did you just give up on her?” Twilight says finally, her voice isn’t angry. If anything, she just sounds hurt and confused.

None of us want to voice the answer to that. Especially not given what happened. Surprisingly, the one that finally does is Fluttershy.

“Because we didn’t trust her,” Fluttershy answers quietly from the driver’s seat. She sounds calm but I’ve known her all my life. I can see how her knuckles are white where they’re gripping the old steering wheel.

Twilight just nods. “Well, clearly. I mean, that part is obvious.”

“And… and I don’t think we ever really forgave her, either,” Fluttershy continues dourly. “I, uhm, I know it’s no excuse, Twilight, but you don’t understand just how bad she used to be. She made my life—all of our lives—miserable for almost three years, that doesn’t just go away.”

I watch the look on Twilight’s face change, going from recrimination and irritation to sadness, then crossing briefly into grief before she hardens her expression.

“Yeah.” I actually surprise myself as I agree, even though it feels like swallowing poison to be bad-mouthing Sunset given what happened. “I mean, like… I know she’s changed. Right? Like, I do… but… I didn’t, I dunno, feel it? Does that make sense?”

“I didn’t throw a party for months because of her,” Pinkie says softly, still flat-toned. “Those were some of the worst years of my whole life. I… I wanted to believe her, I really, super-duper did but… it just… it was really hard, y’know?”

“I admit,” Rarity began, still leaning against my shoulder. “As much as I preach allowing bygones to be bygones, a part of me always wondered if we were just being taken for another ride, as it were.” Lifting herself up a bit, Rarity looks Twilight square in the eyes for the first time since the Princess arrived. “Sunset is terribly intelligent, Twilight, and I mean no offense when I say this but she is also offensively devious. We all underestimated her once and, in return, she neatly sectioned off the school into easily manipulated fiefdoms organized by grudge and clique, all in under a year.”

Applejack leans forward from where she’d been reclining in the back with her stetson pulled down. “Eeyep, and she made it look dang easy too. Made a fool outta all’o us... students, teachers, everyone. Like Rainbow said, we… Ah… know she changed. Ah know she changed but… Fluttershy’s right, that feelin’… it don’t just go away.”

“Not that it matters,” I say, drawing a look from everyone. Even Fluttershy has her eyes on me through the rearview mirror. “We promised to look after her. We promised to give Sunset a chance. To be her friend. It was… it was rough, those first couple months, I really didn’t want to. I still hated her for all the crap she put us through.”

“Rainbow,” Rarity says from my shoulder, “may I remind you that you’re the one who started really spending time outside of school with her? Darling, you inspired the rest of us to do the same, that’s admirable.”

Letting out a breath, I rub at my eyes with the heels of my palms like I'm trying push away my memories of Sunset.

“Yeah! Because she just… just took it!” I shout. “She took all my crap! She turned herself into the whipping girl for pretty much the whole school. The only reason I started really hanging with her is because I saw her take it to the jaw in the hall and on the field every day without a single complaint. She took it like a champ and I… whatever grudge I was holding… it was still, I dunno, pretty cool.”

“What do you mean, ‘whipping girl’?” Twilight asks, narrowing her eyes.

I grimace. “Ugh, yeah, the rest of the school sorta spent the month after you left reminding her of her shit. Y’know how kids are. Graffiti on her locker, spitballs in class and in the hallway. It was… pretty rough.”

“W-Why?!” Twilight stammers before finally finding her voice. “Why would they do that?! Seriously what is even the point of that? Why are humans so… so awful?” None of us have an answer to that, but eventually Twilight lets out a sigh. “You know, I probably should’ve been more attentive… I knew that Humans were fundamentally different from Ponies. I've read enough of your history. You’ve basically been at war with each other somewhere on this stupid planet for your race’s entire existence.”

“Yeah… we kinda suck at the whole peace’n love thing,” Applejack drawls. “But it ain’t like it’s much better anywhere else.”

“That’s very ethnocentric, Applejack,” Twilight retorts angrily. “The last war that ponies actually started was the Nightmare Rebellions. That was over a thousand years ago. Our last actual war was the Griffon Incursions about three centuries back, and it was a defensive war that ended in a treaty and armistice that has lasted to this day.”

Turning back to me, Twilight sighs. “Anyway, that’s all academic. So, what happened that made you start treating her like a friend, Rainbow?”

I shrug. “I dunno, it wasn’t just one thing I guess. It was just… watching her weather the whole mess and like, keep pushing through, y’know? I kept thinking to myself: ‘I don’t think I’d be able to do that’. Like, I’d watch her scrub off her locker day after day without complaint. She'd get hit with a spitball and just wipe it off. But I guess… there was sorta one thing.”

All of the girls have their eyes on me at this point and I lean back and sigh. “It was… I was in the girls' locker room. I was gonna go home but I forgot some stuff so I went back. The shower was running when I got in which was weird because all the clubs were out. That's when I… I heard crying.”

Rarity puts a hand to her lips while Pinkie makes a soft strangled sound, and Fluttershy grips the steering wheel harder while Applejack just goes tense.

Sighing, Twilight nods. “I assume it was—?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I, uh, I went to check it out and I saw Sunset, just sitting under a running shower, crying her eyes out. She had, uh, these bruises on her arms, and these… these wicked scars on her back. Turns out that, back at the Fall Formal, when those wings and tail ripped out of her they uh, they literally ripped out of her.”

Everyone in the car turns away, looking ill, apparently even Twilight hadn’t realised that part, and the van shudders as Fluttershy struggles to keep her composure.

“I… I see,” Twilight finally says, her breath hitching. “That’s… I should’ve thought of that since it was dark magic that changed her form. It’s not exactly elegant.”

“So,” I continue, “we started talking, and it turns out she didn’t even think we wanted to be her friends, like… she figured we were just humoring her and, uh, and you, Twilight. So she didn’t try and do anything with us because she didn’t feel like she deserved to. She took whatever the other students dished out because felt like… like she deserved it.”

Twilight buried her face in her hands. “Written’s Quill, I’m such an idiot.”

I cough into my hand, clearing my throat. “A-Anyway, I pretty much felt like garbage after that. I helped her out, we went to grab some food, and uh, yeah. After that, I pretty much spent most of my time outside of school with her.”

For the first time in a while, I smile, remembering the days I spent when it was just Sunset and me. “Turns out, under all that ‘bitch’ we got used seeing to during Freshman and Sophomore year, Sunset was kinda crazy cool. Like, smart, sarcastic, stupid-pretty, and like, super sassy.” I laugh a little at the memories. “Seriously, we’d hang out all day most Saturdays, just chilling and walking around the mall and crap, and she’d snark on people in the lines and it'd be so funny I’d be snorting my soda out of my nose. It was… it was awesome. She was awesome…”

That’s when the tears start. I try and push them back but I can’t, all I manage is a choking sound in the back of my throat before they start falling. I sob and pull my legs up, curling against them and burying my face on my knees. I hate crying, I’m gross when I cry; I’m all raspy, with cracking sobs and snot. I sound stupid. Rarity wraps her arms around me and even Twilight puts a hand on my shoulder. Pinkie just leans on me from the other side and Applejack rubs my back.

“It’s… It's okay,” Twilight says finally. “For my part, I’m sorry too. I should’ve thought of—and acknowledged—how much pain Sunset caused the five of you and the school. I treated you all like ponies which isn’t fair. And even then, Sunset had a lot to make up for, so expecting you guys to just accept her was probably unfair too, even by pony standards.”

“I miss her, Twi’,” I choke out through my tears. “I miss her so much. I love all you girls, but… but Sunset? She and I were like, the same. No one, not even AJ, could keep up with me on the field like her, or when we’d be jamming in the band room… did you girls know Sunset’s like, stupid-good with a guitar? She even helped me learn Algebra! I’m an idiot, girls, and she still managed to teach me Algebra! I’d spend all day with her and then spend, like, the rest of the night looking forward to spending the next whole stupid day with her!”

“Then why did you leave her alone?” Twilight asks and I swear my heart breaks in half.

“Because…” I sob over the rest of my words. “Because it was like everything was falling apart all over again. Like the old Sunset was suddenly right there in front of me! I was so scared of her turning bad again, or… or having been bad all this time and I just didn’t see it. I just… I just ran like a fucking coward okay!?”

I scream the last words out, causing everyone else to flinch. It was dead silent in the car for several long minutes and eventually, the vehicle came to a stop.

“We’re here,” Fluttershy says softly, her voice barely piercing the quiet.

For a moment no one moves, but eventually Pinkie and Rarity file out, followed by Applejack and Fluttershy. I stay where I am, curled into a ball on the seat in the middle of the van with Twilight looking on sadly. As the doors close I feel Twilight move to the seat beside me and start to stroke the top of my head softly.

“Rainbow, I don’t mean to pry, but the way you talk about her…” Twilight says, her voice almost painfully gentle. “Were… were you in love with Sunset?”

I wipe my tears on my jersey and let out another wordless sob.

“I see,” Twilight says quietly. “Then that’s why you were so adamant about her being Anon-A-Miss when I came to the Corner. Because if she wasn’t then…”

“I killed her,” I say in a muffled voice. “I miss her so much, Twi, and it’s all my fault.”

“Sunset isn’t dead. She was taken, remember?” Twilight insists. “And besides, all of us made this mistake, not just you.” She’s still stroking my hair and as much as I hate to admit it, it helps. “I was party to this whole thing too. By negligence if nothing else.”

I lift my head up and stare at her with tear-stained eyes. “I’m supposed to be Loyalty though, remember? How can that be true if I can’t even be loyal to my… to the girl I…”

“You’re young, we all are,” Twilight says, her eyes firmly meeting mine. “We all made mistakes here. So now it’s time to go out there,” she points to the night-stained silhouette of CHS, “and try and make up for them, okay?”

CHS is way different in the dark. Like, spooky different. There’s almost no sound, and the whole place has this weird, haunted, vibe to it.

“Come on, girls,” Twilight says, stepping out of the van behind me. “Right up at the front steps, right? That’s what Snips and Snails said.”

Principal Celestia and VP Luna park right alongside the curb and get out to follow us, and Luna moves quickly to point out where Sunset fell while I follow behind. I can still see the red stain on the ground in the back of my head. If Sunset had actually been there, dead on the ground, when I came out of the doors, I don’t think I’d have made it. I really think seeing that would’ve killed me.

If it hadn’t, then finding out we fucked her over for literally no reason definitely would’ve done it.

“I saw her fall from there,” Luna says, pointing up at the roof of the school. “She’d been out in the snow avoiding other students. I voiced my own opinion on the matter because I... I also thought she was guilty and..." Luna shudders, "I said some awful things that, hearing them back in my mind, I can't believe they came out of my mouth, and to a student no less.”

“You were trying to protect you and your sister’s school, Luna,” Twilight says as we approach the steps. “I won’t pretend you owed her anything, but hopefully this teaches you that giving someone the benefit of the doubt isn’t a bad default.”

“The issue is that we did, at first," Celestia adds as she joins her sister and Twilight. "With her sterling grades, perfect attendance, and wonderful attitude, the few complaints from students which had no obvious basis or evidence were brushed aside. It was only much, much later that we realised that was Sunset testing the waters. Seeing just how far she could push.”

Twilight groaned. “Sunset really did a number on this place didn’t she?”

“I wasn’t joking when I called her devious, darling,” Rarity interjects with a grim expression. “It’s not terribly flattering but the shoe certainly fit at the time.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say as I step between all of them. “Here’s what matters: Sunset changed, she tried to make up for the crap she did and we threw her under the bus. We fucked up about as hard as we could, okay?”

“Does that make the scales even, Sugarcube?” Applejack asks, and I scowl.

“No!” I snarl, advancing on her and jabbing a finger into the farmgirl’s chest and backing her up. “No it doesn’t! It leaves the scales way uneven because, so far as I know, even at her worst, Sunset Shimmer never drove anyone to throw themselves off the roof! She might've been a huge bitch but she had rules she followed. She never went this far. So no, Applejack, the scales are way out of order, and we’re the ones in the red!”

Applejack does her best impression of a goldfish for a moment, try to find some kind of retort, but finally closes her mouth and nods.

Twilight walks up to the stained cement and grimaces at the ugly mark. Bringing her left hand up, violet light fills the air around her and coalesces into a ring that surrounds both herself and the stain. After a moment, she scowls, and the light redoubles in intensity. Then her brow furrows further and the light grows blinding in the darkness of the late evening. A moment later, the light fades out and she lets out a breath.

“Well, that’s not good,” Twilight says finally.

I run to her side. “What? What’s not good? What happened to Sunset?”

Twilight just shakes her head. “I honestly don’t know, exactly. She was definitely taken, I can confirm that much. This stain is the remains of a dimensional rift, but it wasn’t conjured. As far as I can tell there was no spell involved at all. It’s more like… like a crack in reality or something.”

“What does that mean?” Pinkie asks, teary-eyed. “Can we not get her back?”

Twilight looks pensive for a moment and shuffles her feet. She stares back down at the stain and waves her hand again, and light reignites around the rings on her fingers. The light drips down like liquid embers onto the cement and traces around the stain, once the tracing finishes it begins climbing up the air in strange patterns and Twilight backs away, carefully maintaining the flow of light from her spell. It takes several minutes but eventually we see what it’s creating. A split in the air, a mass of coiling darkness outlined in lavender light clawing its way out of the scar in reality with claws like spider legs and scorpion tails. All of them reaching upward towards…

“Sunset.” The name spills past my lips as I make out the tracery outline of our missing friend. “What the fuck is that?”

“I have no idea,” Twilight says grimly. “It’s more than a daemon, though. if I had to guess I’d say it’s some kind of demigod or at least something on that order of existence.”

I feel a cold stone drop into my gut. “H-How are we supposed to deal with something like that?!”

“That does sound like a mighty tall order, there,” Applejack says, “but Ah’m willin’ to knock the teeth outta some kinda demon-god if it means gettin’ mah friend back and payin’ mah dues.”

“I agree,” Fluttershy steps up beside Applejack. Pinkie joins them a moment later, her hair regaining a measure of its poof.

I clench my eyes shut and then nod. “Yeah, demigod, demon, whatever. We’ll get our friend back, for sure.”

Sighing, Twilight waves her hand towards the image of the creature. “As near as I can tell that… thing... is closely tied to forces that are antithetical to Interpersonal Bond Magic—that is, Magic of Friendship. It’s a creature of despair, violence, and death.” Twilight begins pacing around the light-made construct, scowling at it. “The thing is, the more powerful a magical entity is the more rules it has to follow. Think about it, if it could burst out right here in front of a smorgasbord of food, why did it wait until right now? And why just one person? Why not open its maw right as school got out and swallow up a whole swathe of teenagers?”

We look between one another, no one daring a guess, but for once something actually clicks in my head: “It couldn’t, right? It could only take someone specific?”

Twilight smiles darkly. “Right, someone who met its criteria. Someone riding the ragged edge of death or despair. Sound like anyone we know?”

I feel my heart twist. “Yeah, okay so how do we get her back?”

Letting out a slow breath, Twilight shakes her head despairingly. “I’m not really sure we can. Now that she’s in its realm she’s within its grasp. Even if we were in Equestria I’m not sure I could output enough power all at once to rip someone out of a place like that.” Then she looks up with a determined gleam in her eye. “But I might be able to get her a message.”

We all look up at that. For the first time in a while, I feel a flicker of hope. Real hope that Sunset isn’t lost to us completely.

“Keep an eye on me,” Twilight says as she approaches the twisting black rift. “I have no idea if this thing will detect my intrusion. It might be so alien that it won't even notice something as insignificant as me, or… or it might be exceptionally territorial. In which case, if something goes wrong you need to disrupt my concentration and immediately wake me up.”

Each of us nod. “We’ll be here for ya, Sugarcube.” Applejack swears, and all of us stand beside her, determined to see the matter through.

“Alright,” Twilight rubs her hands together and I see a glimpse of the sorceress and scientist in the glint of her eyes. “Let’s see if this works.”

Taking a deep breath, Twilight steps into the circle, disrupting the image. The stain on the ground burns with an unpleasant light that makes me want to hurl if I look at it too long. I can’t even imagine stepping into it on purpose.

Twilight does, though. She raises her hands up, palms out, and I can feel the power and magic gathering around her. Arcs of what looks like lightning spits and shoots from the bracelet and rings on her left hand as she starts chanting in a soft, stirring language. The chant goes on for a few minutes and when it reaches its peak we all hear and see it.

A thunderclap, and a swirl of fog.

Princess Twilight

The world is dark.

Until now I couldn’t have fathomed a place so bereft of any kind of warmth or hope. This place is so deeply against what I stand for as a person, a pony, and a sovereign princess of Equestria, that I want to leave immediately.

I can’t though, of course. My friend is trapped in this Tartarus and I plan to do my best to free them.

I… ‘stand’? I’m not a hundred percent sure where my body is in relation to myself. My proprioception is completely off for some reason.

Actually… I concentrate, imagining each part of my body in turn from my extremities inward. Fingers and toes, wiggle them, feel them… there they are… arms and legs, flex them and swing them… found those too… now…

“BREATH!” The word rushes out of me as I take a long, dragging breath. I look around, I’m hanging in the darkness, but it’s nice to know I was right.

I’m astral projected. Before, I’d just been a floating mote of consciousness, but now that I’ve resolved my shape I start to scan the darkness, looking for anything out of place, but it’s all just a meaningless void lacking in any distinguishing marks.

“Fine,” I mutter, scowling as I bring my hand up. “If that’s how you want it, I’ll light my own way.” Stretching out my senses, I take a grip on my magic and will it outward. “Finder’s Effulgence,” I whisper, and the air around me is suffused with the ambient light of the spell. “Find me Sunset Shimmer.”

The formless cloud of light that I conjure suddenly orients, stretching out in a specific direction, and I grin. Directing my mind in that direction, I drift along the path of light my spell is carving through the dark.

I don’t know how long I’m moving. Distance and time feel strange here. Eventually, though, I see something: a flickering red light that pulses irregularly. Narrowing my eyes, I accelerate towards it. Now that I have a landmark I’m not too worried about missing anything. I angle my approach and feel a sudden wave of revulsion as I realise what it is I’m seeing.

It’s like a spider's web, only instead of strands of silk, it’s stretched tendon, gobbets of flesh, and shards of bone. Gristle and fat cling to the strands like moss or mold. It’s a vile, horrific thing, and in the dead center of it is…

“Sunset!” I call out to the jacketed girl standing in the center of the web. She’s standing with her back to me, moving her hands like she’s directing an orchestra, and as she does the web beyond her is slowly lighting up in strange patterns. “Sunset can you—?!”

“I hear you, Sparkle,” Sunset says evenly without breaking her pattern of motion or even turning to face me. “I should’ve figured I’d see you here eventually. If anyone was going to figure out how to pierce the Fog it would be you.”

“S-Sunset?” As much as dislike the idea of touching any part of the web, I touch down near her. “Where are we? Where are you?”

Sunset doesn't answer. Instead, she jerks her hand back to point towards me. “I’d move if I were you, I’m about to feed that set of nodes to the Old Stain so he doesn’t chew up something I actually want.”

I turn around and scramble closer to Sunset just as she twitches her finger. A section past us lights up and almost instantly the section of webbing I was standing on jerks as something in the darkness lances out and bites into it, blackening and withering the strands, and it's followed by a sick, crunching, chewing sound that makes my gorge rise.

“What… What is that?” I turn back to her. Sunset still hasn’t moved, her concentration hasn’t wavered even once.

She twitches her fingers a few more times before answering. “The Entity. That’s what they call it anyway, I call it 'Old Stain'. S’far as I know it doesn’t have a name though, and I’ve never read about it either. Honestly, it’s pretty unobtrusive as far as all-consuming forces of planar entropy go. It sucks up a person here or there, bleeds out its hope as a form of sustenance from them over a long period of time, then rinse and repeat. Pretty efficient hunter, actually.”

“That’s… that’s vile,” I say, horrified at the implications that something like this just freely exists. “How have we never encountered it before?”

A hope-eater? It sounds like the Changelings but catastrophically more powerful.

“Pretty sure it’s because Ponies aren’t worthwhile prey,” Sunset responds, still guiding her red strands of light. I watch the ‘Entity’ chew up more nodes behind us as she does so. “My theory is that it's attracted to a cocktail of desperation and fear, or something like that. But it’s a creature of despair so that’s how it tracks its prey. Find something consumed by despair, give it hope, feed on hope, etcetera…”

I round on Sunset, scowling. “You sound strangely ‘okay’ with all this.”

“Yeah, well, I kinda am,” Sunset answers. “It’s pretty nice actually. Very straightforward. It tosses me into one of its Trials along with some other schmucks and a psychotic horror-beast called a ‘Killer’, and we try to survive. Either the Killer catches us and hangs us from a butcher hook to be drained, or we make it out. Then we end up back at our Campfire, where my physical body is right now, to rest up and prepare. Then we do it again.”

I stare for a moment, dumbfounded at the utter lack of… of anything remotely concerned in her voice. “Sunset… that sounds horrifying.”

“It was at first,” Sunset says. “After a couple of weeks of the same thing though, you get used to it. I’ve even started to enjoy it a little. The chase, I mean.”

“Wait… weeks?” I exclaim. “Sunset you’ve only been gone for half a day!”

“Time’s a little janky here,” Sunset replies stonily. Suddenly, she stops moving her arms and tenses up. “Brace yourself, we’re about to cycle webs.”

“What’s tha—AAAAAAHH!”

With no warning except Sunset’s cryptic words, the web we’ve been standing on collapses and falls away and we fall with it, and I shriek as we drop through the empty void. It’s as if my bodiless form suddenly has a weight of its own even though I know that’s impossible.

Sunset was prepared and her feet were angled down to accelerate her fall. Something seems off about her for the brief moment I have my wits about me while falling which, in fairness, isn’t very long. Sunset hits the web that coalesces underneath us first with an ease that suggests long practice.

I don’t hit it at all.

I let out a raw, croak as Sunset whips around hard and seizes me by the throat before I can land, setting my feet flailing in the air just above the grotesque webbing as I finally get my first real look at Sunset.

It’s horrifying. The sclera and pupils of her eyes are an empty, emotionless black that neatly mirrors the void around us, while her irises are burning iridescent blue embers.

“Let’s not get anything twisted, Sparkle,” Sunset says evenly. “I don’t want to leave, and I sure as Tartarus don’t want you to rescue me. I’ve had enough of your hypocritical homilies about love and tolerance and friendship. And who knows? Maybe it works out for other people, but it’s never panned out for me.”

There’s something wrong with the space around me, even my magic is sluggish and it feels like her hands are made of iron. I struggle but every movement feels like it drains something out of me.

“I don’t have a home, Twi’,” Sunset continued. “I was cast out by Celestia and exiled for my ambition, then I was cast out by my so-called ‘friends’ because no one believed in me enough to give me a real second chance, so thanks, but I’m not gonna risk a third strike. For once I’m gonna learn a real lesson: how to be content with where I am in life.”

Finally, she lets me go, dropping me to my knees onto the web to choke and gasp for air. I don’t even really have a physical body, this shouldn’t have been affecting me at all, right? Unless… I look out into the darkness and instantly I feel it. The thing that Sunset called ‘The Entity’. It’s looking at me and it’s hungry.

It’s trying to draw me in fully and I can’t let it.

“Sunset, please.” I turn to my friend. “I want to help you! I’m sorry I failed you before! I gave those girls a responsibility that they weren’t ready for, but it doesn’t mean you have to stay in this… this horrible place!”

Sunset cocks her head with clear amusement as she looks down at me.

“Did you miss what I said, Sparks? I’m fine here.” She gestures around to the void with a wry grin. “I don’t need your friendship or your sympathy. I sure as Tartarus don’t need your pity.”

She holds up her hand and there’s a faint reddish tinge to her flesh as she coils her fingers into a claw, and a hard pressure closes around my body. “Nobody cares if I come back, not really. There’s no love out there for Sunset Shimmer. I’m just the bad memory everyone wishes would go away. At least the Entity loves me if only for how I taste, and I’ll take what I can get. Now, get out of my Bloodweb, Sparkle, and don’t you dare come back.”

I open my mouth to try and protest. To beg her to listen. But my lungs choke on something and I feel myself being bodily lifted from the web.

“Take her away from me, Old Stain,” Sunset says softly, looking over my shoulder. “She doesn’t belong here anyway, you know that.”

Another clap of thunder echoes around me and I feel hooks and claws dig into my pseudo-flesh. “I’m coming back for you, Sunset!” I scream as it drags me away from her, Sunset just looks on impassively. “We do love you! We will get you out of here! Just hang on! I swear we will!”

She vanishes into the darkness as I’m ripped further from her, and a moment later I’m ejected from whatever horrible dimension that thing lords over. I’m sent rocketing painfully and inexorably back to my physical body.

Rainbow

One minute, Twilight is standing in the center of the circle, her eyes glowing white and her lips moving silently, and the next she arches her back like she’s being electrocuted and lets out a jarring scream. The illusions of the claws suddenly twitch to life and spear inward toward Twilight.

I move without thinking. Diving forward, I collide with Twilight and together we go sprawling out of the lit circle just as the claws snap closed with a vicious crack. The limbs are spasming and twitching, looking for a target, and I know it’s stupid but it’s almost like they’re angry.

Scowling, I pick myself up and pull Twilight to her feet. She looks like she just got done running a marathon wearing leg-weights. Her hair is hanging raggedly and her clothes are soaked through with sweat.

And there’s a look in her eyes, too… a look I don’t like one bit.

“Twilight,” I say as she stands up. “Did… did you find her?”

The displaced Princess nods silently at first, taking in deep breaths and shaking her head. “Sorry, astral projection isn’t easy. But yeah, I, uh, I found her.”

“Well don’t keep us in suspense, darling,” Rarity said stepping forward. “How is she?”

“Uh, that’s a complicated question, unfortunately,” Twilight says despondently. “Physically, she's okay, I guess? But mentally? Honestly, the short answer to that parasprite nest is: ‘no, not at all’.”

I don’t know what else I was really expecting but it still makes me sick to hear the words said out loud.

Twilight starts to pace as she continues. “It’s bad, really bad. She’s… regressing. When I talked to her she sounded empty, and when I tried to reach her Sunset told me that she wanted to be left where she was because… because no one loved her and she had nowhere else to go.”

Tears are streaming down Twilight’s face now, and she’s not the only one tearing up. This is my fault. I could’ve done something—anything—different, and I could have saved her from this, except I was too stupid and too cowardly and too scared. I was too full of myself, and because of that, I let Sunset go.

“So…” Twilight says softly, “I’m not sure what to do. I can’t get back in because she’ll just reject me. She says that at least the thing that wants to eat her… at least it wants her.”

Strangled sobs come from Pinkie and Fluttershy, and Rarity is doing her best to keep a semblance of what she calls a stiff upper lip but even I can tell she’s falling apart. Applejack just has her stetson pulled over her face. Not that it matters. She only does that when she crying or sleeping, we all know that.

After a moment, I stand up.

No way am I letting it end like this. This is too cruel. I refuse. I turn and put both hands on Twilight’s shoulders, looking her dead in the eyes.

“Tell us everything she said and everything you saw. Don’t leave anything out. I don’t give a damn if she wants to be left in that hellhole, she thinks no one loves her? Too bad. We’re getting Sunset back whether she wants it or not and then we’re gonna prove her wrong.”

6. Campfire Tales II

View Online

I drift out of the blood-web and back into waking reality, for certain definitions of reality, and like always I’m greeted by the warmth of the campfire as the half-sleep—which is all you ever really get in the Trials—rises into full consciousness, although lately, it’s starting to feel more refreshing than the sleep I remember getting back in the ‘real’ world.

Maybe that’s just because I’m not having to deal with endless streams of abuse from everybody and their goddamn dog.

Despite what I said to Sparkle, I don’t really know how long it’s been. I’ve been through better than two-dozen trials so far, though.

I’ve seen the Wraith the most, we usually make it out with at least two of us but I think he has a taste for me. Fortunately, he’s easy to deal with if you’re good, and I’m a lot better than when he caught me the first time. I’ve seen the hag a bit more, too, and quickly learned that she likes to plant little burning totems around her Trial realms that layer deleterious effects on us.

Fortunately, the totems are fragile. So long as I can find them, I can quickly render her ineffectual. She’s only managed to sacrifice me a handful of times, and usually it’s because she gets sneaky with laying a delayed totem to activate after the generators were all powered that allowed her to call on far more strength, speeding her up and letting her lay us out in one blow.

She got all of us the first time I had to deal with it.

One of the worst ones is the freak called ‘The Doctor’ though.

That guy is… rough.

Halfway through my first Trial against him, I couldn’t even tell what was real. I was seeing him everywhere, laughing at me and cackling in my ears. The heartbeat thundered from all directions. It was a miracle any of us made it out of that. I didn’t, but only because I managed to snap out of it long enough to rescue Aria from her hook and ended up taking her place.

I did tell them that was the deal, though, right?

Tempest and I mended things... mostly. We're rarely apart now but I know she doesn't agree with a lot of the things I do. She says I'm too reckless, and I can't get her to understand that it's not recklessness, I know exactly what I'm doing.

I just don't care.

And I never leave her behind. Not even when it's a bad idea to go for her, and I've ended up on a hook near her more than once because of it too.

At least this way, she doesn't go into the dark alone.

She hates it when I do that.

Vis a vis the Killer's, though, I have to say, Ol’ Doc is pretty bad but he isn’t the absolute worst. I mean, believe me, I hate not being able to trust my eyes, and the migraine-inducing electrocutions are no joke, but it’s at least understandable.

Like, I get it. That's his thing.

No, the worst one is the one that actually scares me.

Even now he scares me.

The thought of showing up on his street again makes me shake a little even now. He isn’t horrifying to look at like Hag, or a grotesque like Billy, or even sadistic like Wraith. No, the worst one is so… quiet.

Trial Ten

We land in the middle of an open street and I’m immediately wrong-footed.

I’ve never seen a Trial like this before; Normally, they’re some version of a fog-filled hellscape defined by rot and madness, but this is almost… suburban.

In fact, it looks just like the Whitetail neighborhood of west Canterlot. Dozens of cookie-cutter, middle-class dream homes perched side by side in neat rows. It would look almost normal if it weren’t for the butcher’s hooks hanging from street lights and the police cars silently sitting by the roadsides with their lights spinning.

“No…” I hear Sour Sweet say softly from my side. “Not… Not this thing again.”

I’d tossed one of the shrouds I’d claimed from my blood-web into the campfire as the darkness fell, one that always ensured I ended up next to one of my allies, or at least close by. It’s always better to start a Trial with an ally if you have a choice.

“What’s the deal, Sour?” I ask as I crouch low next to her near an abandoned car and survey the street.

“It’s the… the Shape” she replies shakily. “It’ll just watch you. It'll watch you right up until it kills you. It’s so fast, and you can barely tell he’s there.”

“Like the Wraith?” I begin swiveling my head, checking windows, and hedges.

Sour Sweet shakes her head. “No, no, there’s no warning. Nothing, just… just a knife and cold, empty eyes.”

Well, he certainly didn’t sound any worse than the other guys we went up against. Billy and his psycho chainsaw. Wraith and his horror-scythe. The Hag and her freakish twisted claw hand. This guy has, what? A knife? That’s almost quaint.

“Okay well, the longer we wait here the long he has to watch us, right?” I say, a little irritably. “Let’s go run up a generator.”

Sour nods and follows my lead. I’ve never been here before but I’ve gotten sharp at spotting the towers, and I see one in the backyard of one of the little mass-produced houses. We move towards it slowly, keeping our heads low and our profiles small, and sidle around the hedges that divide the houses. We move around to the generator right near the back porch of one of the empty houses.

As an added bonus, there are only a few places to approach from, and there’s a pallet nearby. It’s pretty much as ideal as it can get in a ‘getting hunted by a murderer’ scenario.

“Get on the other side and keep an eye on my six,” I say quietly as I position myself up front.

Sour moves around to the opposite end and we get working. I roll my shoulders as a weird chill runs up my spine when I get onto the generator. I flick my gaze around, but there’s nothing, so I do my best to ignore it. It goes well for a minute or so before, out of nowhere, the generator sparks with a thundering bang!

I pull my slightly toasty arms out, cursing.

“Dammit Sour wha—!?” I look over the generator and Sour is staring over my shoulder and shaking like a leaf while backing slowly away.

I swallow hard and turn my head to look behind me and… and there’s nothing. Just a hedge.

“Sour, what the fuck?” I ask, turning back to her.

She points up. I follow her finger and see it: standing, motionless, at the second-floor window of the house across from us, looking down is a dark figure with a pale and expressionless face. It moves slowly away a second later.

Okay yeah, that was… weird. That was genuinely creepy, actually.

“The fuck?” I mutter. “O-okay, whatever.”

I turn back to try and make up some of the progress that Sour had undone, occasionally glancing up to check behind her.

There was no hedge, just an honest-to-Celestia white picket fence. I feel around inside the genny for one of the loose parts, glancing down for a moment to situate myself then look back up and nearly shit myself.

It’s there—a little distant and outside of the range I might have heard the heartbeat—watching her and us both from one of the back corners of the adjacent house.

Then It leaves. Turning away and vanishing around the corner. My heart is beating like a drum. Something about that face just gives me cold sweats.

I hear the heartbeat then, just for a moment, and it sounds like it’s getting closer. Sour Sweet tenses up and I do the same. We’re getting ready to run the moment either of us sees the Killer.

Then it’s gone. Nothing. Just… silence.

“What the fuck is up with this guy?” I mutter, but I can’t help grinning as I hear two generators explode into life across the realm. This one is wasting a lot of time. Our own generator bursts online a moment later and we’re up. “Let’s go, Sour, we’re almost there.”

Sour turns on her heel and heads for the alley behind her but as she turns the corner she stumbles back. I catch up a second later and see why.

He’s already there. Staring down at both us like caught mice in a trap. I have just enough time to think ‘Where the fuck is the heartbeat?!’ before the Killer suddenly animates like one of the protector golems of the Canterlot Armory but infinitely more terrifying. It goes from inert to a hurricane of torturous motion and ragged breath in a split second as it bursts forward with impossible speed, the heartbeat thundering into existence as he drives a thick-handled kitchen knife into Sour Sweet.

There was no playing, no glancing wound, the Shape just nailed her straight to the ground. He’s on me a second later as I turn tail, and his knife hammers into my back. It’s like getting a two-hundred-ton stone dropped onto me with no warning.

His knife nails me to the earth as he breathes raggedly above me. I gasp soundlessly, trying to make a noise, but I can’t. All of the breath is driven from my lungs and the shock is paralysing.

The thing, the silent Shape, stands mechanically, ripping the cold, smooth blade out with a wet ‘schlick’ and then walks over to Sour, hefts her up by her neck, and drapes her over its shoulder before walking out of sight as I try and crawl away towards the street. A moment later, Sour Sweet shrieks as she’s hooked and then the heartbeat grows louder as he comes for me.

Then it dies again.

I’m surrounded by silence. I don’t know how he’s doing it but I can’t detect him. A couple of moments later Starlight rounds the corner. She looks down at me and I can see the emotions warring on her face. Does she help? Does she leave me? I try to gasp out a warning. He’s close. He has to be. I can’t make a sound though.

Then I see her glance towards Sour’s hook, and her features harden. She turns on her heel and leaves me on the ground. It was what I wanted right?

Right?

A few tears track down my face anyway as the heartbeat returns and the cold, powerful hands of the Shape that had been lurking nearby seize around my middle to lever me up and onto its shoulder. It walks towards the same hook it left Sour Sweet on and I realise what happened.

It was setting a trap. Either me or Sweet. It knew someone would come for us.

But… oh shit.

We turn the corner just as Starlight is lifting Sour off of the hook, and there’s stark terror on Star’s face as she hears the heartbeat get louder. A moment earlier and she could have abandoned the attempt to save Sour Sweet and run, but she’s already bearing the majority of Sour’s weight. If she let go and tried to run they’d fall in a heap.

I feel the thing’s face cock slightly as it slows down, almost purposefully, and then lunges forward just as Sour’s feet touch the ground. Slamming her ruthlessly back to the earth as Starlight staggers away with a cry of panic. He slams me onto the hook and I shriek as the stained metal pierces my flesh as see the Shape turns to pursue Star.

Just like before, he accelerates in the instant that he attacks. It’s like whatever unholy will is animating his body suddenly gets a jolt of juice. He roars silently forward and drives his knife into her, slamming Starlight brutally into the asphalt and spiking her there before hefting her up. He walks a few meters down the street and towards another hook.

Another Survivor is slammed on the unforgiving metal, another meal for the Old Stain’s larder.

Then It walks… away. It vanishes behind a hedge at the edge of a house, and I want to cry out a warning but I can barely move. Sour is beneath me, weeping as she crawls towards the backyard. The heartbeat is gone, but from where I’m hanging I can still see him where he posts up, standing painfully still in the window, invisible to the street but still watching us.

No… not again. Please, Tempest just finish the last two generators and go. Let at least one of us get out.

Please.

But, of course, she doesn’t. I see her edge around one of the cop cars towards me a moment later. From where she is on the other side of the street I know she can’t see It standing in the window. The Shape can’t see her yet either but that doesn’t matter.

He will.

As Tempest closes in on me I groan. “D-don’t,” my voice is a ghost of a whisper. “T-Tempest, don’t…”

“It’s okay, Mi Sol,” Tempest says quietly. “I’ll get you down, just hold still.”

It stares at her back with eyes that are cold and black.

“N-no,” my voice is still so painfully quiet. “You don’t…” Tempest gets under me and starts to heave. “You don’t get it. He’s here!”

It explodes into motion, tearing out of the house and lunging for Tempest who cries out, staggering back to try and run, but to no avail. His knife digs deep and drives her down.

No one got out that time.

Even now, I shudder as I remember the feel of his knife. Now I know why Sour Sweet was so scared. There was something about that… that thing that's different from the other Killers. The other are almost manic. They're physical, visceral even. But not that one. He was just a shape in the darkness. Watching and waiting. Patient and uncaring of whatever purpose the Entity commanded.

Every other Killer gives the impression that, while they enjoy their grisly work, they still act under the yoke of servitude to the Entity. Small-minded and brutal they might be, but ultimately they're tools of a greater malevolence.

That thing? That Shape? No. He doesn’t kill for the Entity. I don’t think he even kills because he likes it. I think he kills because it’s just… what he does. It’s an action without purpose. A means without an end.

A rote movement.

An obsession.

I think that’s the part that really scares me.

“You okay, Sunset?” Aria’s voice broke through my musing. I look up and see her staring at me through the fire. She looks a little more worn than when I first got here. We all do, though, I guess.

I nod. “Fine, just had an annoying experience in the blood-web.”

“Useless stuff?” Aria asks with her usual bitter grin.

“Pretty much,” I respond dryly. “No worries though, there’s always the next time.”

“Yeah, the next time…” Aria looks pensive as she stares at the flames. “Hey, Sunset… did I ever tell you how I got here?”

I shake my head. I didn’t really care, to be honest. Maybe before all this I would’ve but now it just seemed… unimportant.

“Back a couple—shit, maybe a lot of trials ago—you said you jumped off a roof, right?” Aria continues, and I scowl. I don’t like being reminded of that place. “Sorry,” she says, seeing the look on my face. “Just… I figured you deserve to know how I and my sisters got here.”

“I don’t think you ever told any of us,” Tempest's voice breaks in as she sits up, waking from her own blood-web. “Why the sudden urge to share?”

Aria shrugs. “Dunno, maybe I just want someone to know. Figure it might as well be all of you losers, y’know?”

“Sure, why not,” I answer, getting comfortable beside Tempest as Starlight and Sour Sweet join us as well. “At least it’ll pass the time til the next trial.”

Tempest's arm goes around my waist and I lean against her.

I'm not sure when this happened, but between all the Trials and life-or-death situations, we'd ended up finding more comfort than not in one another. It's not like we're banging in the woods or anything, but when we're at the campfire and between our Trials, I can't help but just... sit with her.

Something about Tempest's solid presence is reassuring, I guess.

“Right,” Aria agrees uneasily, “so… it was actually just a month after the Battle of the Bands, and we were in a… a pretty bad place…”

Aria Blaze

As always, Adagio was leading us, but Sonata and I could both see the loss of our magic along with all of our power and influence had hit her pretty hard. We’d been living in a small apartment that we’d acquired more out of convenience for its nearness to Canterlot High than anything else, and the last enchantment we'd tossed up that was keeping the landlord thinking we were paid up would fall off soon.

When it did, he’d realise we had no lease, no ID’s, no anything.

The moment that happened we knew we were screwed, so we’d been looking for another place to live. Sonata made sure we had money, but the problem was papers.

Our identities had never mattered before but that’s because we had our magic to slide past that little obstacle. Now though? Now we were literally illegal aliens who didn’t exist as far as the government was concerned. We could get to our money, but it was through some convoluted series of trusts only Sonata could navigate, and in the short term we’d be homeless.

That meant we had to squat, but at least we could do it in style, right?

“What is this place?” I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Adagio was grumpy enough as it was.

We were walking through a field, in the middle of the night I might add, towards this massive, groaning structure that looked like it was barely standing. It had an almost classically haunted look to it, y’know? Boarded up windows, ‘condemned’ signs, along with all the usual marks of urban decay.

Our fearless leader scowled back at me. “It’s called the Chateau D’if, and it’s a failed hotel venture that could prove quite useful to us.”

“Ooh, ooh, is it fancy?” Sonata, ever bubbling with optimism in the face of logic and reality, smiled as she pranced beside us. Even I could see some of it was forced, though. She was trying to put on a brave face.

“It was,” Adagio answered softly as we ducked under some chicken wire and onto the prohibited property. “Now it’s just a ruin. Fortunately, I have a feeling it could be made… more.”

I rubbed my chin as we approached, analysing it as much as I could from the outside.

Adagio wasn’t wrong, the place looked a lot worse than it actually was. I’d have to do a real walkthrough but it looked like most of the load-bearing supports were still intact. Assuming the foundations were solid I could probably manually collapses some of the weaker areas with a sledgehammer to take some strain off the main struts so long as the collapse wasn’t too extreme, but I’d have to be careful.

“Is there a basement?” I ask, starting to feel a little hopeful.

Adagio shoots me a grin that’s almost normal. “There is, I checked the plans. It’s a spacious one too. There was supposed to be a bank of generators inside to provide emergency power in case there was ever a major outage.”

I actually smile, feeling a spark of hope for the first time in weeks. “Perfect, if even a couple of them are in good condition we could retrofit any of the bad parts using the scrapped ones and have all the electricity we need.”

Getting fuel would be the easy part, no papers required there. Just a big plastic tank and a bored gas station attendant.

We approached from the side and went around the edge to the back entrance loading dock. It was closed but the metal shutter sealing it off had partially collapsed some time ago. Thanks to that, we got in easily enough and started exploring the place and, I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty much a shit hole.

Seriously, it was bad. Not as bad as it looked from the outside, but still bad.

Mold was everywhere, the timbers were creaking, and there were whole sections I had to steer my sisters around because everything about it screamed: breathe wrong and you’re dead. I’ll admit, I didn’t like the place one bit from the moment we stepped in and, honestly, I’m pretty sure my sisters felt the same.

The second we got in there it was like everything was darker, more… empty. It was terrible. Still, we were desperate. None of us wanted to say anything but we knew we were walking a thin line in terms of places to live. No legitimate place would accept someone on a lease without some kind of paperwork proving their existence.

Even we know that’s shady as fuck.

So we kept going against our better judgment. No one wanted to be the one to voice a concern. Adagio wouldn't because it that would mean she’d screwed up and her pride wouldn’t let her face that humiliation again, Sonata was trying her damnedest to be optimistic, and I didn't speak up because I really thought I could make that place liveable. I was an idiot. I knew better than either of them and I should’ve said something.

It’s my fault they…

Fuck, sorry, anyways.

It all pretty much went to shit when we got to the basement. We went down and it was… it was bad, not like environmentally, I mean… ugh, this is gonna sound stupid but spiritually. Like, we’re Sirens, with or without our gems. We used to eat up bad juju for breakfast. That place though? It was sick. Of course, it wasn’t til we got down to the first sub-basement before we realised something was down there with us.

Even then, it wasn’t until we saw the generator room that we realised how badly we were screwed.

“What… what the fuck?” I knelt down in the middle of the hallway. “This is a bear trap, and an ugly one too, what kind of exterminator leaves bear traps?”

“A bear exterminator?” Sonata asked with false cheer.

Adagio and I practiced our synchronized facepalming technique. It was flawless after that many years of listening to Sonata ramble.

“No, dear ‘Nata,” Adagio remarked with an uneasy laugh. “It’s probably… just… uhm…”

“Adagio, I’m gonna level with you,” I said, standing up. “There is literally no reason for that thing to be down here. This could legit kill someone. Painfully.”

“But it’s… old right?” Adagio ventured, trying her hardest to remain in control. “We can just disarm it, put it away, and keep going, right?”

I let out a slow breath. “Uh, yeah, I guess? Gimme a sec and I’ll have it.”

It took longer than I thought. It was rusty as fuck and old as balls. That thing probably hadn’t seen real work since the friggin’ eighteen hundreds which lead me back around to my original question of ‘what the fuck?’.

So we went deeper.

We found a set of directions that pointed us towards the generator bank which was cheering. What wasn’t were the other four traps we found along the way. None of them looked any better taken care of or newer than the first.

Then we got to the generators.

Or at least where they were supposed to be.

Instead of generators, though, there was line upon line of those bloody, fucking hooks. Each one made with a weird kind of ritual care. They didn’t look good, but they looked like they were made purposefully. Even the junk that made up the main structure seemed almost religiously polished, and every one of them stank of blood.

I hate to think about it now but back then even we weren’t that jaded. We stood there and gaped at them like stunned sheep. None of us, not even Sonata could find the words for it.

We were so shocked we never even saw Him coming.

The meager lights went out immediately and I heard my sisters scream out in pain. I went down an instant later. I remember… a glimpse of something. A face. A smiling face. And then nothing. Then it was just the sinking darkness and the grip of the Entity.

“Wow,” I say, leaning back against Tempest. “That’s a pretty shit deal, I wish I’d known things were gonna get that bad for you.”

Aria shakes her head. “Nah, contrary to popular belief we never held any ill will towards you and your, uh, bandmates. Not even Adagio. She was just sore she got beaten. Sirens culture demands ‘survival of the fittest’ if you get beaten you get beaten. Griping only makes you weaker.”

I nod. “Huh, fair enough I guess.”

“That’s way more dramatic than me, though,” Sour Sweet pipes in with a small smile. “I was cutting through a section of the Everfree forest one day during a country retreat. I like getting around by myself, but… but I got lost. I wandered for hours and eventually it got dark. I found this place. Like a mining site, but old and abandoned. Thing is… Aria, what you said about the traps? Yeah, I found one. With my foot.”

We all flinch at that.

“Wow, that is some hot shit, Sour, sorry to hear that,” Aria says with a groan.

“I screamed for hours but no one came,” Sour frowns, absent-mindedly rubbing her left ankle. “I thought I was gonna die there. And then I… I heard a heartbeat and I felt something grab me from behind. It was a huge arm, stained red and covered in cuts. Then the Entity took me and dropped me here.”

“I…” Starlight starts in after Sour goes quiet. She looks terrified. “I wasn’t even sure anything I was seeing here was real for the longest time.”

“Huh?” I stare at Starlight for a few minutes in confusion. “I mean I get that it’s pretty fucked up here but that aside it’s pretty, uh, visceral, y’know?”

“I woke up here one day and… and I thought it was just another nightmare,” Starlight continues. “Sometimes they were really real, especially if I missed my meds.”

“What kind of medication did that, l’strella?” Tempest finally joins in, voicing the question that’s in my own head.

Starlight just chuckles bitterly. “Anti-psychotics. I was in a psych ward. My rich parents kept me penned up there. ‘For my own good health’ my mother would say on the rare occasion she’d visit. Right, more like so you don’t have a bat shit crazy daughter ruining your galas and social ladder-climbing.”

Tempest leans over and draws Starlight into a hug. “Lo siento, l’strella, no one deserves that.”

Tears start dropping from Starlight’s eyes as she keeps speaking. “I-I had a dream about something dark and hungry and when I woke up my room was cold and there was this… taste in the air. Like blood and rot. I thought I was hallucinating again.”

“That’s right,” Aria broke in, “we found you in Lery’s, the Doctor’s realm.”

I shudder at the thought of it. I hated that flash-fried bastard, Trials against him are like playing a rigged game. “That’s a shitty first Trial.”

“Not as bad as it could’ve been,” Tempest remarks. “We were almost done and the Doctor was on the other side of the realm chasing Adagio, this was… a bit after we lost Sonata.”

“Anyway,” Starlight took a breath, wiping her eyes. “I thought I was hallucinating at first and then we made it to the campfire… It took me to the start of the next Trial to realise I had actually gone somewhere real, though.”

“How about you, Shadow?” Aria asks with a grin. That question actually does perk me up a little. I can’t deny I wondered where she came from. “Since we’re all sharing and caring.”

Tempest stares into the fire for a few moments before she responds. “I… It’s a difficult question. It happened after my family died… and—”

The thunder comes and cuts off any other words. I grimace and spit into the flame, grabbing another shroud from my collection and throwing it into the campfire to make sure I was with someone when we entered the Trial.

“Later,” I say, looking at Tempest evenly. “I’m still curious.”

Then the darkness starts to consume us, I look around, wondering who’s going to be left behind this time. Then I hear it. We all hear it.

A wail of despair and pain that cuts to the bone. I’ve never heard that one before. A new Killer?

“No… please no.”

I spin around at the sound of Aria’s voice. I’ve never heard her so terrified. So distraught. Tears are streaming down her face as she looks around the darkness, swinging her arms to try and ward it off.

“Please! Not Her! NOT HER!”

The wail comes again, and then the darkness drags us away.

7. Rite of the Last Breath

View Online

The hooks of the Entity dig into my flesh, and I grit my teeth into a hard, angry smile.

Whatever Twilight thinks, I really am starting to enjoy my time here. The bite of the Entity means another Trial and another chance to survive—to prove myself in a ring where the only thing that matters is me.

I can’t help but worry about Aria’s reaction, though. That was alarming. I'd thought she was more like me by this point; accepting of the role she’d been given. After all, we aren’t getting out of this place anytime soon. We might as well have a little fun.

Oh well, I’ll find her when I land.

The darkness peels away from me and it leaves me feeling… exposed. I drop to a crouch and survey my surroundings. The fog is thicker here than normal, but one of the others might have poured one of those bottles of tarry blackness into the campfire before we entered. That offering is always a mixed bag. On the one hand, the heartbeat tells us where the crazy murder hobo of the day is, but I still prefer seeing it before I hear it. On the other hand, the thicker mist does mean that it’s easier to hide, even in the open.

There are ruined walls all around me, half-held-together structures of brick and rotting mortar. One large structure, a two-story, crumbling edifice, dominates what I presume is the center of the Trial. Tempest comes around a corner a moment later and gestures for me to follow, so I latch the Medkit I’d chosen to bring in with me to my belt and move.

“Have you been here before?” I ask quietly as we move through the fog towards a nearby light tower. “I don’t recognize this place.”

“It’s Crotus Prenn Asylum,” Tempest answers gravely. “And it’s Aria’s worst nightmare.”

I get on the generator, doing a quick scan around us to make sure we’re not being approached before giving up on the endeavor and hoping the fog covers our operations.

“Why?” I ask as I wrench away a side plate as quietly as I can and reach in to start reconnecting wires. “She seems pretty even-keeled most of the time. What’s the deal with this specific Trial?”

Tempest just shakes her head. “It’s not the Trial… not exactly.”

I’m about to ask what she means when a choked, ear-piercing scream splits the air. I stop working for a moment, looking around and searching for the hard, fast motions of the Killer. There’s nothing.

Another scream splits the air, it sounds… sick.

“What is that thing?” I ask, a little unnerved as I get back to work.

Another round of cylinders fires up as Tempest cranks some internal part into place. “It’s the Nurse. She seems slow, but don’t underestimate her.”

I’m about to answer scathingly when I see a disturbance in the fog. It’s Starlight, she’s fleeing in our direction with a look of terror on her face.

“Scram!” I hiss at Tempest as I back off of the generator and retreat behind some broken stonework. Tempest retreats in the other direction, towards the asylum, and presses flush to the wall.

The heartbeat approaches. She sounds relatively distant, but Starlight is running like the Killer is right on her ass. What the hell is she—

That scream cracks through the air again and there’s a snap of displaced air as a floating figure in an old eighteenth century nurse’s outfit erupts into the space directly behind Starlight and swings a rusty bonesaw down hard at her. Starlight ducks and spins hard on her heel, though, managing to sprint right past the Nurse on her left as the murderous weapon cuts through empty air. I can’t help but grin a little.

That was good.

Ballsy, but good.

The nurse turns but staggers for a moment and claws at her chest like she’s choking. There’s something about her that’s strange… I can’t put my finger on it. Her mask is a burlap cloth bag wrapped tightly around her head which is hanging at a sickening angle, and faded strands of arctic blue and violet hair spill out of the gaps around her neck. The Nurse recovers a moment later and holds out a pale, blue hand. Light spills from the cracks in her flesh and she grips her fingers tight like she’s throttling something and suddenly she’s gone. I see Starlight in the distance and I grimace.

I can guess what’s going to happen.

The bonesaw falls just as a generator goes online on the other side of the Trial. Starlight screams out as the cruel teeth of the saw bite into her back and she bolts away as the nurse raises the saw, staring at it lazily, entranced by the new ruby droplets on it before staggering again to catch her breath.

Still, she’s clearly in no hurry, why should she be? She can blink fair distances as far as I can read, but I’d have to watch her more. I move back the way I came to find Tempest already back on the generator.

“Go to the building,” she says without looking up, but pointing at the asylum's second floor. “There’s always a generator there and it’s best we get it early, otherwise it becomes easy for her to protect.”

I defer to her expertise and make a run for the entrance. The Nurse is already drifting away in search of Starlight, and I trust Tempest to make a run for her if she gets hooked. The asylum is a run down and ugly building with holes in the ceiling and shattered windows. I eye a few of them, fixing their locations in my mind as good escape routes if I get caught out.

Crouching to keep my profile low and hugging against the wall in case the Nurse looks in through the windows, I make my way to the staircase.

It’s in just as bad of a condition as everything else in this place, but I've come to trust that whatever dark magic the Entity works to craft these Trials will hold my weight. He’s a reliable sort, that Entity.

I get up to the second floor and pad around, looking for the generator while trying not to get too close to the windows. I don’t want the Nurse noticing me. As I weave around some debris, though, I almost smack right into Aria’s back.

“Woah, hey Ari’, guess we had the same plan,” I say, as I sidle around her. As she looks over at me, I can't help but notice how pale she is.

She moves past me, towards an entrance leading slightly deeper into the upper floor, holding a finger to her mouth. “Ssh, we’re getting out of here now, Sunny, I’m not staying here any longer than I have to.”

I nod. “I mean, yeah, that’s kinda the deal in general.”

I follow her in and smile, noticing the generator. “Yahtzee, let’s do this.” I get on a side opposite Aria and start working.

We get to work, but every time we hear one of those choked screams, Aria flinches. More than once I hear a part crank out of place but, thankfully, Aria’s practiced hands keeps the generator from popping or sparking, which would have given away our position. We're about halfway through when a scream follows sharply on the heels of the Nurse’s crym and I grimace.

Starlight got caught.

Seconds later a generator goes live, the one Tempest and I were originally working on if I’m not wrong. That’s one more, and that means Aria and I have probably got at least a minute of grace while the Nurse investigates that one and scans around for Tempest who, I hope, is long gone.

“So what’s your deal, Ari’?” I ask quietly. “You’re never this skittish.”

“There are only four Killers in the lineup I don’t wanna fight, Red,” Aria says shakily. “The Shape is one, the Nurse is another.”

“Why though?”

Aria shakes her head. “I’ve been to this Asylum before. In the real world, I mean. Most of the realms are shadows of real places, I think, and this one? It’s… it was bad. I’ve got some real bad memories, from the real world and this shit hole, when it comes to Crotus Prenn.”

“Huh,” I grunt noncommittal.

I guess it makes sense that these places are shadows of reality. It's always easier to conjure from a pre-existing template than it is to make something from scratch. As powerful as the Entity is, it makes sense that it would save power where it could.

With that said though, I have no desire to know what went in this shithole of an asy—

The choked scream and a second of heartbeat is our only warning as the Nurse suddenly rips through the air right beside me, I scream as I roll away from the generator and it sparks and spits at my sudden egress. Scrambling to my feet, I try to sprint away, but I barely get two steps out before the Nurse’s saw bites into my side.

I scream again, spitting blood and staggering from the blow while clenching my hand over the ragged wound as I slam into the wall. The Nurse wheezes and sags again, probably recovering from whatever magic lets her blink, and I try to make a run for it. I’m in a bad place, though, and I have to work around some debris as I run towards the exit.

It's not going to be enough. She’s already on me.

“LET HER GO!” Aria’s voice cuts through the air and I look back and my blood freezes.

The Nurse is hovering bare inches behind me with her saw gripped in a hand that’s white-knuckled, pallid, and poised high over my head for the killing blow. Her choked breathing is filling my ears.

She’s got me dead to rights but… but then she turns.

Her eyeless visage fixes on Aria and there’s something else that sinks into the air around her. A powerful rage. An uncountable fury animates the Nurse’s frail-looking frame as she glares at Aria who, to my shock, is crying. Tears are spilling freely down her cheeks as she stares back at the Nurse. She glances at me and mouths ‘run’ and then turns back to the Nurse.

“I’m sorry…” Aria says in a soft whisper, “I’m so sorry.”

Then Aria turns and sprints away, and the Nurse screams, this time with more vigor and fury than before. I back-peddle and sprint in the opposite direction as Aria cries out. The Nurse caught her, and now all I can do is hope that Aria can lose that thing through some of the blind turns of the Asylum.

I duck behind some debris and pull the Medkit off of my belt, retrieving some of the necessities, including some clean stitching—well, it's really just a needle and some dental floss but it counts. I fix myself up a little shakily before I move back to the generator that Aria and I had been fixing up.

As I get back to work I think about what I just saw.

Aria distracted the Nurse in a way I’d never seen before. The Killers are supposed to be single-minded tools of the Entity; glorified butchers and chefs serving up fresh veal to their hungry master. The Nurse had shown something different though… something almost like recognition. I wondered if the Wraith will start to recognise me that way? I wonder if they'll all start to recognise me.

Was that it?

Was it just that Aria was a familiar enemy?

No, I didn't buy that for a second. There was something else there. Aria had apologised. Not to me, though. No, Aria had been apologising to the Nurse.

But… why?

I crank the last piece into place and the generator coughs, barks, then roars to life.

With that done I move to the widow's walk that skirts around the edge of the asylum and look down, scanning for movement. I see it, or them I should say. Aria is darting through the blind corners of a long section of broken buildings clutching a bleeding wound on her arm. The Nurse is drifting around behind her, barely keeping up, and I can see what Tempest meant when she warned me not to underestimate her.

From a distance, she looks almost ponderous.

Her speed isn’t her movement, though. It’s her ability to simply be there, and Aria is about to get caught. I can read her path, there’s only one way for her to go and it involves cutting through the open in plain view of the Nurse.

I drop down from the second floor, hissing as I hit the ground hard and strain the new stitches at my side. I recover my footing just as Aria makes a break for it, and in that moment the Nurse raises her hand, brandishes her weapon, and closes her rail-thin fingers into a fist as a sickly light spills from her palm. I’ll only have one chance to do this, and that's while she's charging her magic, so I put on a burst of speed and sprint forward, banking on my predictive ability.

The moment the Nurse vanishes, I dive in behind Aria, and a breath later the murderous Killer reappears swinging her bonesaw with backbreaking force.

There's no holding back my scream as the rusty sawteeth rip through my flesh, sending a spray of blood across the ground. The Nurse screeches raspily and shakes the blood from her saw before staggering and gasping arrhythmically while Aria sprints into the building, and I use the burst of adrenaline from the shock and pain of the hit to get myself back to the debris Aria had vacated.

“Hey! Chokey!” I shout back at her. “Come get me!”

I dive into the maze, glancing back to track her movement. She’s not following, though. She’s just staring after me, and I get a tingle up my spine. It almost feels like she knows who I am, but more importantly is that she’s not following.

Instead, the Nurse turns and fixes her faceless burlap features on the asylum, seeming to measure with her gaze where she needs to go. Then she holds out her hand. Ignites the little light in her palm, and she screams.

Then Aria screams.

“Why,” I whisper. “Why won’t she chase me?”

I run around the Asylum, scanning the area, and I see them; Aria had made it almost to the other side before the Nurse caught her, and now she’s struggling feebly, trying to break the grip of the killer. It’s pointless though. There’s a hook right there. Right next to the Asylum. There’s several posted around the circumference of the decrepit building actually, and I brace myself.

I hate this part.

Aria screams again as she’s brutally impaled on the hook. A scream that’s drowned out by the remaining generators exploding into light and life. The Exit doors growl out their electronic screech as they go fully active and the Nurse turns with fury pulsing off of her in waves.

I duck down as she spins in place, floating idly above the decaying grass, searching with her red-stained gaze. Then she screams and vanishes, and in that brief window, I make a run for the hook. It takes the Nurse time to recover from a blink. Even if she thinks to come immediately back I’ll have enough time to pull Aria from the spike, so I get under her and brace her kicking feet against my shoulders.

“Deep breath, Ari’ time to go!” I say, straining as I heave upwards. Aria groans in pain as our dual efforts tear her free of the Entity’s feeding spike. “Let’s go!”

Aria coughs up a gob of phlegm and blood, spits, and nods. Together, we sprint for the nearest exit. I can hear the flanged metallic groaning of the rusty mechanisms desperately powering the doors. I swivel around as we run, keeping an eye out for the Nurse. I come around the corner to see Starlight holding down the lever.

“Come on, hurry!” Starlight shouts, gesturing with one hand while keeping the switch pinned with the other. “Tempest is at the other gate, get your asses over here.”

The old metal door shrieks as it opens, the gears turning to pry the heavy slats of steel to one side. We’re out.

We made it.

Then the Nurse screams.

I spin on my heel as I realise, to my gutwrenching horror, that Aria is behind me.

WHY IS SHE BEHIND ME?!

I screwed up. It’s basic, you always take a hit for the hurt one! Stupid, stupid Sunset! I turn just in time to see the Nurse drive her bonesaw hard into Aria’s collarbone and nail her to the ground. I slip to the side, behind one of the old red-brick pillars. She’ll pick Aria up. I might be able to shadow her and… and…

“What the fuck is she doing?” I whisper, horrified.

The Nurse brutally flips Aria over, and throws her bonesaw down to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Aria sobs, bringing her hands up, flailing weakly to try and fend off the Nurse. “I’m so sorry!”

Knocking Aria's hands away, the Nurse fixes her own hands around Aria’s throat and grips hard. Aria spasms, grabbing at something. Anything. Her thrashing grip finally finds the Nurse’s burlap mask, and with a heave of spasmodic strength, she rips it. More blue and violet hair falls free and as the mask comes off, the burlap falls to the ground, and my jaw drops with it.

I know her face.

I know her name.

Sonata. Dusk.

She’s dead… she looks dead. The ditzy Siren sister’s face is pallid and drawn, and her lips are cracked and parched. Every breath she takes is a wheezing, croaking, guttural heave of air. Her arms are strong though. Her eyes are wide and burning with hate and killing glee. They’re bright with madness.

Sonata—or whatever is left of her—grips Aria’s throat and squeezes. Wheezing over her dying sister, the softest and silliest siren shakes Aria violently by the throat, gripping and squeezing and throttling.

Through it all, Aria wheezes out the same words. “I’m sorry. I l-love you, I’m s-sor-ry…”

A sickening CRACK twists my gut as Aria's head wrenches violently to the left in a way no neck could support, and I let out a cry as I sprint out of the Trial grounds, far away from the wheezing, heaving thing that was once Sonata Dusk, who I leave sitting, crouched over her sister whose head was twisted at an odd angle, and whose last breath was croaking out of her like a stridor.

I stumble out of the Fog and to the ground by the campfire, breathing hard and staring into the dancing flames. What had I just seen? Sonata Dusk was a Killer? One of the monsters that tormented us? That fed the Entity?

Tempest and Starlight were both sitting by the fire looking somber

“Alright, Old Stain!” I scream as I shake free of the shock. “Time’s up! Give her back!”

I glare up at the roiling black clouds in the sky and wait, tapping my foot.

I’m not even sure what I’m waiting for, but after a moment of tension, a thunderclap resounds through the air and the faint, foggy outline of a humanoid figure drifts down from the sky in a translucent cradle of claws and spines. I move under her before any of the others can get up and the moment Aria resolves fully she drops into my arms. I cradle her close, feeling her shudder in familiar nightmares.

“Well?” I glare back at my ‘companions’ by the campfire, still holding Aria close. “What the fuck was that?”

Tempest lets out a weary breath and gestures for me to sit down. I keep up my glower for a moment before sighing and carrying Aria with me over near Tempest to take a seat. Aria is still collapsed against me, shaking and locked in the throes of the Entity’s mind-fuckery. The leftovers of its feeding process, I think.

“What you saw…” Tempest starts, trailing off as she scrapes for the words. “You saw what happens when a Survivor truly loses hope.” Starlight Glimmer and Sour Sweet both nod in response, looking forlorn. “Sonata was not the first to succumb, and will not be the last. It’s why it is so crucial for us to keep our hope alive. If we don’t…”

“We risk becoming the Killer,” I finish, feeling a little hollow at the idea. “That’s… does that mean that Spruce…?”

Tempest just shrugs. “I don’t know, Mi Sol, it doesn’t always happen. Some of us are taken and never come back, others… others do but they come back like poor Sonata... twisted and hungry just like their new master.”

I can’t do anything but nod again.

“So that’s why you thought I might be one of the Entity’s tricks, huh?” I say to Starlight, who flinches but nods back at me. “Because you already knew full well that the Entity was capable of twisting one of us into a murderous Killer.”

“Pretty much,” Starlight responds glumly. “Sorry about that, by the way. I get really stubborn and scared sometimes. When I latch onto something it’s like my fear just spins out of control. I… I don’t think you are anymore, I just didn’t know how to say it. I’m not good at apologies and I’m even worse at admitting I was wrong.”

“Yeah—” I open my mouth to accept the apology, to do what I’m supposed to do but “—well, keep thinking that then, I don’t give a damn either way.”

All three of them look pained at my response, but it’s Tempest who speaks up. “Mi Sol, Sonata wasn’t the only one, before the sisters arrived here, before Sweet and L’strella, I was taken with… someone else.”

“Have I met them?” I ask with a grim smile.

Tempest nods.

“Before this place… and before she met me… she was a quiet, kind girl,” Tempest explains softly, “We became close. Some of mi familia thought we were too close. They were not wrong, either. We didn’t care though, we were happy with each other.”

“What was her name?” I ask, feeling some of my now familiar anger ebbing a little.

Tempest sighs and hangs her head. “Her name was Summer Wind, we were in a gang together in Las Pegasus. We did a lot of bad things to a lot of people, and we knew the risks but, one day, our boss bit off more than he could chew.

“Storm was always a boisterous, loud, and obnoxious man, but he was smart,” Tempest scowls then shakes her head. “No, not smart, clever would be a better way to describe him. He knew who to hit and where and how hard. He knew a good mark from a bad, but he was greedy. He overreached and… and someone died who shouldn’t have.”

Tempest was a gangbanger? I almost laugh. It fit, actually. She has the build and the reflexes, and it definitely explains her weird collection of seemingly unrelated skills and knowledge. So… gangbanger and murderer?

“You killed someone?” I ask slowly.

“I’ve killed many people,” Tempest says darkly. “We had no shortage of rival gangs, so shoot-outs weren’t uncommon. Drive-bys, turf wars... it happens. The Barrios of Las Pegasus aren’t a good place to grow up.”

I’m not sure how I feel about that but I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it? “That’s fair, can’t blame you, I should have more than a couple ‘attempted murder’ charges on my own rap sheet. So what happened?”

Tempest raises an eyebrow but doesn’t pursue the question. Instead, she answers. “Storm marked a hit on a new, upscale bank on the edge of our turf... said he had an inside guy. We’d be rolling in it for weeks if we pulled it off. We were all amped to hit a spot like that. Show the gringos their little oases near our territory weren’t safe. Show them they weren’t welcome.”

“I guess it went wrong?” I say with a dark expression, and Tempest’s expression goes hollow.

“The hit went smoothly, actually,” Tempest says, her voice going low. “We rolled up, opened fire, aiming high to get heads down, and bolted in. Storm’s guy was a scummy, lean, alley-cat of a man who worked there. He passed us the keys and we got the cash. Problem was that, in that first volley, we hit someone.”

Hanging her head between her tucked legs, Tempest lets out a sigh. “It could’ve been any of us, someone aiming a little too low maybe. Or maybe it was just an unlucky ricochet. Doesn’t matter. We killed the son of a prominent politician and suddenly we were public enemy number one. A week later a SWAT brigade stormed our little headquarters and whoever was at the front didn’t have the good sense to give up, and opened fire.”

I grimace. “And it turned into a bloodbath, huh?

“Si, a massacre, blood everywhere…” Tempest’s eyes become distant and haunted. “Summer and I, we ran, firing behind us, and hid, but there was no way out. We were cornered in our room, and I kissed her, and told her not to look, then… then I heard the thunder.”

“The Entity,” I scowl. I get it though, they were probably the last ones alive, and they fulfilled its esoteric requirements. It needed them to be alone, in despair, ready to die. “So… who is she?”

“The Hag,” Tempest says. “Summer grew up in the bayous of New Chevalean, moved to Las Pegasus to make it big and get away from her empty little town with its judgmental persecution. She took a loan from our sharks, defaulted, and when I went to break her legs I fell in love with her accent instead. It was my fault she ended up with the Kings in the first place. Even if the rest of mi familia thought it was odd, she was my jeina, my girl, and no one messed with her. But now she’s worse than dead.”

“So, are all of them… all of the Killers…?” I trail off, not really knowing how to finish that, but Tempest just shrugs.

“I think so, but mostly they aren’t anyone we know,” Tempest says, “but now… we have a new problem.”

“Sonata never hunts alone,” Aria’s voice comes from my arms and I look down. She looks worn out and haggard, but she still has the fire in her eyes that I admire as she pulls herself up. “I didn’t come here with one sister, I came with two, and wherever Sonata goes…”

The peal of thunder rips through the air and Aria clenches her eyes shut. “Here she comes… big sis…”

I hear something… not a scream… no, it's…

What is that?

La-la la-la la-la-la~

Interlude III: Reaching For A Certain Sunset

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Twilight

I explain everything I saw, and everything that Sunset said to me, while I was astral-projected. I don’t hold anything back for the sake of propriety or softening the blow, because we can’t afford that kind of luxury right now. I see the pain I’m causing and I hate it, but right now we’ve quite literally got bigger problems to worry about than how it’s making everyone else feel.

“...then she catapulted me out of her ‘Bloodweb’ as she called it.” I scowl, thinking back. “No, that’s not quite right, she… she told that thing, the Entity, to take me and throw me out, and it listened to her.”

“That sounds mighty suspect t’me, Princess,” Applejack drawls, her expression steely even with her eyes still red from earlier tears.

“I can’t help but agree, darling,” Rarity broke in. “If Sunset is being kept captive then why would her jailer give her words any credence?”

“Is it a jail if the prisoner doesn’t wanna leave?”

I turn to look at Rainbow, whose expression is darker than the rest and I consider her statement carefully. That thing takes captives and drains them in some kind of vampiric ritual. Sunset mentioned some kind of ‘Trial’ where they were pursued by the Entity’s creations, a creature called a ‘Killer’.

It sounded pretty straightforward, then. The Killer acts as a proxy, like a high priest or a herald, and the captives have to survive. The struggle is a crucial part of the ritual then.

Which begs the question: what happens when the captive stops struggling?

“Ugh, we don’t know enough about this thing!” I say, scowling down at the ground. We’re all standing around one of the lampposts on the sidewalk in front of the school. “It’s not just some mindless monster! It’s got a purpose, a plan, and a complex set of rules it follows even if they… don’t… make… sense.”

I trail off and stare into the distance as I consider an option that hadn’t occurred to me until now. The girls and two school officials stare at me as I think over the repercussions. This could go badly, but I needed to know. The rules this thing followed didn’t make sense to me true but, as a friend of a friend likes to say, 'what’s the fun in making sense?'

“Follow me, ladies,” is all I say as I suddenly turn on my heel and sprint towards the Canterlot Wondercolts statue. “I’ve got to make a call.”

“Are you going back to Equestria?!” Fluttershy asks, worry evident in her voice as she catches up to me surprisingly quickly. “W-we need you!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassure her as we stop in front of the statue. “I’m going to see if a friend of mine will pop over here.”

Holding out the hand with the Arcanum still lashed onto it, I direct a pulse of magic into the portal. I send out what amounts to a distress signal. One that's designed to be detected by a very specific being and allow it to respond. I wait for several moments, begrudging every single second that passes, knowing that it means far more to Sunset than it does here.

“Come on…” I whisper under my breath. “Come on you old snake, where are you…”

I send another pulse, then another.

Finally, I get a response. Not the response I want, though. It’s like a mental version of a raspberry being blown in my ear and I go from frustrated to furious.

“Fine!” I yell at the portal, startling the girls. “You want to do it like this!? We’ll do it the HARD WAY!”

Arching my fingers I reach deep into my own well of magic, supplementing the Arcanum, then cast my fingers down and the cement beneath me cracks in an unwholesome shape.

“I invoke thee!” I cry out, and the air around me crackles and bends. The taste of bile builds up in my mouth and the girls, along with Luna and Celestia take an involuntary step back. “By five names of power, I command thee! By the elder sign, I compel thee!”

A wave of brackish energy ripples lazily out of me and suffuses the air with the taste of spoiled milk and ozone. I flinch at the unpleasant feeling but I continue. If he’s going to waste my time and endanger my friend, then he’s going to get one hell of a wake-up call.

“Five names, five points to the elder sign, the binding sign!” The symbol beneath me is suffused with azure light and the taste in the air begins to dissipate, replaced with a clean but bitter taste of saltwater. “I name thee: Soul of Disharmony! Haunter in the Dark! Faceless God and Crawling Chaos!”

“DISCOR-!”

“Alright, alright!” A sarcastic voice from directly behind me shocks me out of my ritual and I let out an undignified yelp as I stagger forward towards the portal. A hand shoots out and grabs me by the collar as I stumble, helping me right myself.

The blue light fades as I whip around, the rest of the girls blink and stare at the older man standing in the middle of us all. He’s tall, too tall, almost stretched out, and he's wearing a patchwork suit made of riotous colors clashing with drab shades that are intermixed in the most unpleasant way. His skin is a deep, tawny brown contrasted by his wild, curly hair, and matching goatee, both have a wiry look and a salt-and-pepper color.

Familiar mismatched eyes stare down at me, his right eye is too wide, and glowing faintly red around the jaundiced sclera. The other is normal sized but much more intense for its focus.

“An elder invocation? Really?” Discord grin is a little strained. “I thought we were friends, dear heart, but that was not unlike taking a chainsaw to my front door and setting my kitchen on fire.”

I let out a sigh, and nod. “And I’m sorry, really I am, Discord, but I need you to understand that I do not have time right now, alright? Sunset was taken and, wherever she is experiences a massive time dilation effect. Half a day here is potentially weeks over there.”

Discord frowns. “I see, and why should I help you if this is how you’re going to treat me, hm? Not very friendly of you, is it?”

“Please,” we both turn to look at Rainbow who approaches Discord from the side, teary-eyed. “I… I don’t know who you are, but please. We… I… I fucked up really bad, I got Sunset into this.”

Rainbow reaches out and grabs Discord by the arm, she’s shaking and, to my surprise, Discord doesn’t pull away.

“Please, we… I want her back,” Rainbow pleads, “if you can do anything, please. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

For a moment he stares down at her impassively, his eyes glittering with strange light and colour as he seems to consider her plea. Finally, he moves.

Wrapping his arms around Rainbow he lifts her into a powerful two-armed hug and lets out a bright guffaw of laughter. “Well of course I will! I just wanted to be asked nicely, that’s all! You said the magic word so I’m at your service!”

I scowl. Of course that was what he wanted. He didn’t want a deal or an apology. He wanted a please. Of course. The other stuff would’ve made sense and after all… wheres the fun in that?

Dropping a shell-shocked Rainbow the ground, Discord steps back in such a way as to suddenly be in view of everyone. It was like a teleport but there's no magic, instead space just bends around him for a moment, and Discord makes an exaggerated courtly bow.

“I am called many things, but the Ponies know me as Discord, God of Chaos and Spirit of Disharmony, now reformed, how may I be of service?” He glances up, fixes an eye on Celestia, and gives her a lascivious wink.

I scowl at Discord and try not to think too hard about the blush on this world’s Celestia’s face. “Can we please focus, a little? Every second, every minute, is an order of magnitude more dangerous for Sunset!”

Discord’s face falls almost comically and he shrugs. “Well, fine, if you insist, what exactly can I do for you oh mighty and powerful Princess of Friendship?”

I sag in relief, if anyone can help get Sunset out of this horror-show of a mess, it’s Discord. As difficult as he is to deal with, he’s also basically omnipotent. If he could focus long enough to have any kind of coherent goal it’d be terrifying.

Then again, if he could do that he wouldn’t really be Discord anymore.

“Over here,” I say and walk over to the front of the school and up the steps to where I’d performed my projection ritual. “This, right here? This stain is a crack in reality, I’m sure you can feel it.”

Sauntering over with his exaggerated, long-legged gait, Discord follows and looks down. Immediately I see his face fall into something… unreadable, and he stoops over to get a closer look. He’s staring at it and, for once, both of his mismatched eyes are sharply focused on the stain. That’s not good... if it was an easy fix he would have just mocked me and made Sunset appear with a snap of his fingers. The fact that he’s taking time means…

“Well, this is a problem, I’m afraid,” Discord says finally as he straightens out. “That is not something I’m capable of manipulating.”

I feel my heart fall, and I see the girl’s faces fall with it. “W-what? But you’re the God of Chaos! You can do anything that’s literally the point of your power!”

Discord shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid not, my dear, or rather, I’m afraid it’s not that simple. If that thing comes out here, then I can affect it just fine, but each of us writhing souls of chaos and entropy have our own little realms. Little marbles of pseudo-reality that hang in the cosmic web. It’s our stomping grounds, we can’t run amok with each other there, it’s an equalizer, you see?”

I sag in defeat. I do see. If a fallback or failsafe like that weren’t in place our universe would probably be nothing but an endless battleground for mad gods in an endless slap-fight for the fate of eternity.

“There’s nothing you can do?” I ask, begging, pleading with him to try.

He lets out a slow breath and crosses his arms in a thoughtful pose. “Well, I can’t manipulate him, but he still has to play by his own rules. Unfortunately, that means beating him at his own game.”

Applejack steps up from between the girls and fits her stetson firmly on her head. “Alright, ya’ll gonna clue us in on how’ta do that?”

“Oh Applejack, I always do love your quaint, sledgehammer approach to matters,” Discord says with a relaxed smirk. “But before anything, we have to know how we’re going to get to him. We can’t just headbutt our way in, cowgirl. We have to follow its playbook, at least for the most part. I’m not utterly powerless. As you said, I’m the God of Chaos! Where’s the point in that if I can’t at least bend the rules a little?”

“I guess that depends on which rules you’re bending, darling,” Rarity says in a grim voice as she steps past Applejack and comes around to stare up at Discord. “What are you planning to do that Princess Twilight hasn’t already done?”

Discord stares down at her with a grim grin full of mismatched teeth. “You’re sharp, good, you’ll need that, or at least, one of you will.”

I don’t like the sound of that at all. “What are you talking about? Why would you say that?” I come around to Rarity's side and stare up at him. “Why would one of us need that?”

“Because,” Discord says with a tight smile, “I am going to keep his door cracked open long enough to let one of you, and only one, into his realm. Once you’re there, it’s on you to find your way out, but I can only cheat my dear cousin here for so long,” he gestures at the stained pavement. “I can’t move all of you in, only one.”

“That’s unacceptable!” I glare up Discord, even knowing it’s childish. “I won’t let you condemn anyone here to a fate worse than death. You didn’t see that thing, you didn’t see what it did to Sunset!”

“Then would you prefer to leave her there alone?” Discord counters. He doesn't say it loudly or sternly, or even angrily. He just… says it. “I’m neither judging nor pushing, my dear, I’m asking you: what is Sunset worth? Is she worth potentially throwing a life into the hellish furnace of my cousin’s infinite hunger on the outside chance of rescuing the latest cut of meat he’s selected for himself? Will you risk it?”

“In an instant.”

I clench my eyes closed. Damn it Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash is standing behind Discord staring up at him defiantly. “If Twilight won’t risk any of us then I’ll go myself. Right here, right now. I’m not going to go on with anything until I have a shot at making this right.”

Discord spins on his heel and smiles down at her, clapping his hands together jovially. “Of course I’m certain you know what that means, right?”

“Uh, it means going into that weird horror-movie place, right?” Rainbow says, and the parking lot resounds with the sound of my palm hitting my face.

“No, Rainbow,” I start, then amend myself. “Okay, yes, but that’s not what Discord is talking about. The whole point is that the Entity isn’t coming for you.”

I stare at Rainbow for a few seconds as the rusty hamster wheel starts resolutely turning in her skull. Then it clicks and her face falls. “I… I have to follow someone else in? Someone that the Entity is going after?”

“Yahtzee,” Discord exclaims, snapping his finger, and suddenly a television set is sitting in front of him, an assortment of chairs crowded around it. “Now, let’s see who my dear cousin’s next meal ticket is… he might go after them himself as he did with poor Sunny, or, more likely, he’ll send one of his little errand runners to fetch them.”

“Killers,” I say, “by ‘errand runners’ you mean the Killers that Sunset mentioned, right?”

Discord slumps onto a creaky plastic chair and nods, pulling a remote out of one of the patch pockets of his vest. “Yes, that’s a crude but accurate term. He’ll be pursuing someone who has lapsed into despair, that’s his usual M.O. if I recall… so…”

He flicks the channel button multiple times, but the TV resolutely stays on static, and Discord scowls. “Now, the problem is waiting for the right person, that’s the rub when it comes to meeting criteria, sometimes you have to wait for mister right-about-to-die and that can take a bit.”

“How are you detecting him?” I ask, settling in the chair nearest Discord as the rest of the girls, along with Celestia and Luna take their own seats. “Can I help?”

“I’m just channel surfing for local trauma, my dear,” Discord says blithely.

I nod, then snap my fingers. “What if you look for rifts? Cracks like that one?” I point to the front entrance of CHS. “Maybe it’s scanning around, it probably knows where to look better than you, so why don’t we just follow its nose rather than ours?”

Discord stares at me for a few moments before grinning widely. “Marvelous idea, my dear! I daresay you have the makings of a halfway decent chaos witch in you if you ever put that enormous and painfully rigid mind to work at it.”

“I’ll try and take that as a compliment,” I groan.

“Let’s see… twist this, move that… a~nd…” Discord snaps his fingers and the t.v. reorients on… a farmhouse.

The seat to my left clatters loudly to the floor as Applejack stands bolt upright, all of us stare with a cold weight in our gut at the image we’re seeing. We all know it, even I’ve been there once. At least on this side of the mirror.

Sweet Apple Acres.

“W-what the… why?” Applejack stammers out, staring at an image of her own homestead. “Why in tarnation is it staring at mah house?!”

“I’m not sure,” Discord says grimly, to my surprise his tone has shifted to a far more serious one. “I don’t detect any real despair or trauma there, at least nothing recent, certainly nothing that would draw the Entity’s interest or hunger. It’s a normal home, by all accounts, and it should be practically invisible to my dear cousin.”

“Then why!?” Applejack begs, turning with tears streaming down her face to look at Discord. “Why is he after mah family!?”

Letting out a slow breath, Discord frowns, and meets Applejack’s eyes. “Because, my dear, I suspect I’m not the only one bending rules, right now…”

That’s when I feel something inside my bag start to jerk, buzz, and snap.

“Ah knew Ah shouldn’ta let Scoots and Sweetie Belle go on like that,” Appleboom grumbles to herself as she tosses the final bucket of slop into the pigpen trough.

It would last them through the night. Now she just has to give the horses some hay and she’ll be done.

The chores aren’t what’s weighing on her mind though. The real weight is what she and the other ‘Crusaders’ had been talking about that evening on their Eris server.

Applebloom hadn’t meant for things to get this badly out of hand. She hated that the Anon-A-Miss profile had turned into such a sticking point for the school. The whole purpose of it had been to push Applejack and the rest of the girls away from Sunset Shimmer. Not only was Sunset monopolising all of Applejack’s time, Applebloom couldn’t figure on why any of them trusted that varmint.

It was like the last three years had just… stopped mattering! Like Sunset hadn’t made her sister, and herself, and her friends, miserable for three whole dang years.

Still… things had gone too far.

Sweetie Belle wants to shut down the profile, Scootaloo is kind of ambivalent about the whole thing in general, and Applebloom? She just didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.

The real problem was that Sweetie wanted to apologise to Sunset for everything.

I mean… yeah, these last few weeks looked pretty bad for the redhead. Folks from all corners of the school treating her like garbage. Graffiti on her locker. Gum on her chair. Scootaloo even heard that someone had seen Sunset getting beat up by some of the sports teams behind the school a few days ago.

Even Applebloom agreed that that was out of line.

Sunset was mean, but she never hurt nobody like that.

But if Sweetie apologised, then that would bring the wrath of the whole dang school down on her head. She’d said she knew, and that she was okay with it. She said at least she’d still have us, and that was more than Sunset had.

She even promised not to bring either Applebloom or Scootaloo into it.

“Hogwash,” Applebloom grunts as she stands and brushes the dirt from her hands. “If Sweetie’s goin’ down, we all are… either it’s the three’a us, or none’a us.”

With that settled in her mind, Applebloom turns to head to the barn.

And freezes.

In the distance, from the direction of the city, a massive fogbank was rolling in. There’s nothing natural in how it’s moving either. The rippling, pale wall devours the space in front of it yards at a time, like there’s something inside it driving it forward.

No. Not ‘like’ there’s something inside of it.

There is something inside it and-

Applebloom shivers.

“Hate…” She starts to back up towards the barn as a cold pit of ice settles in her stomach. “There’s hate in that Fog.”

It sounds right, even if she doesn’t know why she says it, and without another thought Applebloom turns heel and sprints for the barn. Behind her a lilting lullaby filters through the air. It twists the world around, turning the trees dark and the shadows darker.

“One… two… Sunny’s coming for you…”

Light from the old fluorescent in the barn turns dim and sullen as Applebloom sprints for the barn, dives, and covers the last several yards in a long skid before scrambling back to her feet and throwing the doors shut.

“Three… four… better lock your doors…”

Applebloom throws the crossbar down over the door, sealing it shut. Instinct tells her to keep running though, and she does. She sprints towards the ladder going to the loft where the low ceiling and blind turns would give her an edge.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha~”

Throaty, husky laughter ripples through the air, and something digs, painlessly but irresistably, into Appleblooms mind. The world drags and heaves, and she staggers as an unspeakable exhaustion crashes down over her head.

The world was dull, gray, and washed out.

The ladder… she has to get to the ladder. That’s where she was going… she remembers that much. Gotta… gotta get to the ladder.

The sound of blades scraping against metal approaches as the Fog bleeds through the cracks in the walls and barn door.

Applebloom reaches the ladder and starts to climb, glancing over her shoulder briefly as she does.

A shadow, tall and imperious, forms in the depths of the Fog. It passes through where the door should be like it’s not even there. Eyes like cerulean embers glare hatefully out of the obscuring wall, and Applebloom lets out a wracking, terrified sob as she turns away and starts to climb, hand over hand.

Panic is overwhelming her and her breath is coming in dry heaves as she scrambles up the ladder as fast as she can.

Three more rungs.

Two more.

One mo-

SHUNK

Blood wells up Appleblooms throat and spills from between her lips as four long, slender blades, like fingers, punch through her narrow chest.

She looks down and follows the blades with her eyes to where they attach to a gracefully twisted red hand. The arm it’s attached to belongs to a figure wrapped in swirling Fog, wearing a long dark jacket, that’s torn and ragged, who’s staring down at her with cold amusement.

The cruel blades jerk painfully inside of her chest, and Applebloom let’s out a noiseless sob as the figure lifts her, one-handed, by her punctured ribcage, until she’s hanging helpless from over the edge of the loft.

“Sssshhh…” The figure coos. “It’s just a dream.”

Applebloom can feel them smiling as they slowly lower her hand, and she drags backward against the blades that are inside of her.

A thunderclap splits the air, and… the monster… the thing in the fog lets its claw go fully slack and Applebloom scream as she falls from its grip, the blades of her claws slicing painfully over her ribs and flesh on the way out as she falls down from the ladder into…

Darkness.

Rainbow

I watch as the fog rolls in hard, sweeping over everything, and Applejack starts to panic. She’s yelling at Discord, at Twilight, for them to interfere, to do something.

Then I hear thunder emit from the t.v. set, it’s so loud it crackles like a set of bad speakers. Discord sighs and shakes his head. “Too late, someone’s been taken. There’s something is on the hunt, something that’s bending my cousin’s rules.”

“No…” Rarity and Pinkie dive in to catch Applejack as she collapses, the wind going out of her as she wondered who of her family had been the one taken.

Rainbow looked down at Twilight who was staring neither at the t.v. nor at Applejack. She was looking at her bag which was jerking and spitting purple sparks.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on with your bag?” Rainbow asks, walking over to Twilight as she pulls her Journal out. It’s shaking and spitting sparks like a malfunctioning like a piece of broken machinery. “Hey, isn’t that…?”

Twilight nods gravely. “It’s what I used to keep in contact with Sunset… Its sister copy is in use but there’s something wrong. It’s being misused.” Twilight’s eyes widen in horror. “Oh no... if that thing finally got Sunset and has its claws on Equestrian magic, especially a tool that is purpose-built to bridge distances…”

“That would explain how it’s breaking through in spite of not having anything that meets its requirements,” Discord says in a voice that’s little too upbeat. “Fascinating, well, I… oh, it’s happening again. Seems my cousin is planning to gorge himself.”

All eyes turn to Discord as he pulls the remote out again and clicks the channel button again, this time it reorients on a colorful little shop-stroke-flat, on the edge of town.

“No.” Rarity’s voice is a whisper as she sees her Carousel Boutique appear on the screen. “The only one home right now is Sweetie Belle!”

“The Crusaders,” Twilight says with a sharp intake of breath. “It’s going after the Crusaders, specifically! Rainbow, where does Scootaloo live?!”

“Shit! Uh… not far from here! She walks to school, so we can run it!” I reply before turning to Fluttershy. “Flutters, take Rarity and Applejack in the van to Rarity’s place, I’ll run to Scoot’s place!”

“I’m going too.” Twilight stands and moves with me as we all start going our separate ways. “Discord, you stay here and make sure whoever gets the opportunity gets through that rift!”

“If’n we can stop Sweetie from gettin’ taken, Ah’ll be the one goin’ in,” Applejack says in a deadly tone. “That thing likely took mah sister an’ Ah’m aimin’ t’get her back!”

Discord nods, snapping his finger so another TV set appears next to the first, this one fixing on Scootaloo’s location.

“Alright, Princess,” I say, as I limber up. Pinkie is already hopping up and down ready to sprint, that girl is always limber somehow. “Hope you didn’t skip leg day this week.”

The night had fallen properly an hour ago and Sweetie stretches, yawning as she crawls into bed. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have stayed up that long talking to Scootaloo and Applebloom, but the talk needed to happen. Sweetie didn’t want to be a part of Anon-A-Miss anymore, the mess had gone on long enough and it was causing too much strife.

What Sunset was going through wasn’t something she would wish on her worst enemy, and since the closest thing she even has to a worst enemy is Sunset Shimmer, that meant they were the ones in the wrong now.

“Should never have start this whole thing,” Sweetie mumbles as she pulls the sheets and covers straight. “We knew it was wrong… we shouldn’t have done it.”

Everything about the Anon-A-Miss idea had felt off from the start. Initially she had agreed with Applebloom. Sunset couldn’t be trusted and their sisters were so focused on doing what Twilight had asked them to do that they couldn’t see it!

This whole mess had started because everyone trusted perfect, pretty, Sunset Shimmer with her perfect grades and her perfect attendance, and her nice smile. None of them suspected that underneath it all was a lying witch who only needed an inch to take the whole nine yards.

Sweetie Belle sighs as she rests her head on the pillow.

No one changes that much, that fast… right?

Sunset is a liar and she was lying this time just like she’d been lying all those other times.

It has to be like that, right? So why did her tears seem so genuine that day in the hall when their sisters had abandoned her. Why did she look so distraught all the time?

At first, it was cathartic. Seeing Sunset get a taste of her own medicine after three years of getting off scot-free had been kind of spitefully energising.

But then the torment stretched from a few days into a week, and then two weeks, and then longer. They should have shut the profile down weeks ago, but Applebloom had refused to. It would look suspicious, she had said.

And besides, people kept sending in secrets to be posted.

That was the ugly part of the school that none of them had expected.

It was too much. Too much and too far. Whatever Sunset deserved, it wasn’t this. They owed her an apology. They owed her to make it right, and Sweetie had told the other two that she was going to make that happen, no matter what they did.

She wasn’t going to be able to live with herself otherwise.

Sleep approaches slowly with that matter settled in her mind, but when it comes it isn’t alone. A melody drifts on the wind. A husky, feminine voice reciting a sing-song verse, counting down.

One. Two.

Steps ascend the staircase, coming up from the boutique’s lobby and showroom. It isn’t Rarity… she would have announced herself. She always did. These footfalls are heavier too. They’re the slow, measured thuds of a bootheel striking hard wood.

Three. Four…

A shiver goes down Sweetie’s spine at the voice, and she rolls slowly over in her bed to face her door. The footsteps are getting closer, and the lights in the hallway are flickering.

Then the Fog comes.

Like smoke over water, drifting into her room from the cracks around the door, and with the Fog, another sound. Scratches, like metal blades being run along the plaster wall of the hallway.

scrrrrrrrtch

“Five… Six… grab your crucifix…”

A pall falls over Sweetie, like the worst kind of lead-limbed exhaustion. The panic doesn’t fade though as laughter fills her ears, and Sweetie rolls off the side of her bed furthest from the door, and scoots beneath the mattress.

The door slams open, and Sweetie claps a hand over her mouth to keep the scream caged inside as the Fog billows around the room. It fills the space under the bed in an instant, and everything is a pale, muted grey.

“Seven… eight… try and stay up late…”

The voice sings, and its owner is pacing around Sweetie’s bed with methodical patience.

‘It’s empty,’ Sweetie Belle tries to think the thought so hard that the intruder might believe it. ‘The room is empty and there’s no one here!’

Silence follows the thought, and the footsteps stop. The shifting shades of light stop too. Only the Fog remains as Sweetie Belle breathes, shallow and silent, against her hand.

The quiet last just long enough for hope, before a hand whose fingers end in a set of wickedly sharp silver blades pierce through the mattress and bedframe, rending wood and cheap metal with a tortured scream, hammer through Sweetie Belle’s gut and nail her to the floor.

A gobbet of blood and phlegm spills out of her mouth as the dark figure slices the mattress in half. Sweetie Belle jerks spasmodically in place as a hand wraps coldly around her spine, then lifts from the floor. Her eyes roll, unfocused as she’s carried into the hall like a gory piece of luggage.

“You never die in dreams,” the figure’s voice says in a deathly hiss. “That means I can hurt you for as long as I want~”

There’s a pounding in Sweetie’s ears that sounds like the clap of thunder, but maybe that’s just her labouring heart giving out under the strain of shock.

Whatever is carrying her stops at the top of the stairs and heaves, throwing her ruined body down, down, down into the darkness as the sound of tires screaming against asphalt comes from outside.

Sitting outside alone might be boring, but Scootaloo just… didn’t feel tired. The argument between her and Sweetie Belle, with Applebloom not really taking a side beyond not wanting Sweetie to get herself in trouble, left a bad taste in her mouth.

Thump, thump, thump.

Scootaloo glares at the wall of the wood shed she’d been tossing a rubber ball back and forth with for the past half hour since she’d walked home. She got it, she really did. Sweetie made a good point, things were getting out of hand at CHS. Anon-A-Miss is getting out of hand… things are worse now than they were even under Sunset Shimmer’s reign as Queen B of the school.

That fact makes Scootaloo’s gorge rise. She… she’d just wanted to have her big sister back, even though Rainbow wasn’t blood related she was the closest thing Scootaloo had to a sibling. Being an only child when your parents were always working is lonely and…

Sighing, Scootaloo catches the rubber ball as it rebounds back to her. “Maybe… we did go too far, maybe Sweetie is right. We should talk to Sunset…”

“One… two… Sunny’s coming for you…”

From nowhere, a low, melodic singing carries itself on the wind towards Scootaloo, who looks up, scanning around for the source of the sounds. What she finds instead is a wall of fog almost a dozen feet high rolling towards her from down the street and she scrambles to her feet.

“Hey!” A familiar voice calls out from the other direction just as the Fog swallows her house and yard. “Hey, Squirt where are ya!?”

Whipping around, Scootaloo calls back, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Rainbow! I’m in the backyard! What’s this fog!?”

“Three… Four… better lock your door…”

Rainbow Dash comes around the corner, her whole front stained with sweat as the Fog cascades over the fence, swallowing Scootaloo up as Rainbow pitches herself headfirst into it. Twilight and Pinkie follow around the corner quickly, both gasping for breath from trying, and barely managing, to keep pace with the athletic girl they’d followed.

Back in the yard, Scootaloo covers her mouth with her hands, coughing and choking as the stink of blood and smoke fills the air around her and the faint humming gets closer, it’s such a rich sound but it leaves a feeling of foreboding with each measure, more so that it seems to echo from all around her.

“Scootaloo!” Rainbow’s voice echoes from the fog, and Scootaloo turns around, scanning through the unpierceable density of grey that surrounded her.

“Five… Six… grab your crucifix…”

Then she staggers. Scootaloo may not have been feeling tired before, but now her limbs absolutely drag with exhaustion. The feeling grows like a weight on her eyelids. Then, like a cord pulled taut, it snaps. The weight is gone and the air around her distorts with a terrible, wicked laugh.

“Seven… eight… try and stay up late…”

“Scootaloo~!” Rainbow voice is distorted, echoing from where Scootaloo knows the shed is.

Spying it through the Fog, she staggers towards it just as the door opens. She makes it just to the entrance before Rainbow’s voice calls out again.

From behind her.

“Scootaloo, don’t move!”

Turning from where she stood, outlined by the door, Scootaloo sees Rainbow approaching from the Fog. She opens her mouth to speak, to say something to her idol, her sister, but…

Thunk

Blood comes from nowhere to splatter onto Rainbow’s face and front.

Blinking in confusion, Scootaloo meet’s Rainbow’s suddenly stricken face, then looks down. Five blade-tipped fingers are sticking out of her chest. Then they lift her up, hook around her ribs, and scrape her lungs and heart painfully. Tears spill out of Scootaloo’s eyes as she tries to make words.

To say something… anything.

She tries to apologise for saying the horrible things she’d said about Rainbow under the guise of Anon-A-Miss. For ruining her friendship with Sunset.

From Rainbow’s point of view there was… nothing. Scootaloo was standing there one moment, sagging like she was punch drunk, then out of nowhere, five hole tore out of her chest, splattering her face with warm red blood.

Then, a voice comes through the Fog. A painfully familiar voice, and for a second, just a blink of a moment, Rainbow sees something. A shape outlined behind Scootaloo’s body that's rising of its own accord. A figure, curved and beautiful. A glimmer of black eyes lit with aquamarine fire. A familiar silhouette.

“Nine… Ten…”

Thunder resounds through the air as the figure vanishes into the darkness of the shed, taking the twitching, struggling form of Scootaloo with it. With a cry, calling out Discord’s name, Rainbow Dash sprints at the open door of the shed and dives in just as it slams shut with Twilight and Pinking calling out her name.

She doesn't care, she can't afford to care, Rainbow has lost too many already and all of her friends are counting on her.

Rainbow falls into the darkness amidst the echoes of a haunting voice.

“...never sleep again…”

8. Rite of the Hatchet

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The soft, off-kilter lullaby plays in my mind as we’re ripped from the campfire. I try to keep a hold of Aria, and she tries to hold on to me, but it’s pointless. We both know it’s pointless. We try anyway, though. I guess that’s the whole point of the Entity’s little playground, right?

Trying and eventually failing.

The Entity is a patient fisherman, he knows that he’ll eventually get some hapless trout on his hook. He just needs to wait long enough, and he’s got nothing but time.

In time, he’ll get us all.

Me, Aria, Starlight, Sour…

And Tempest.

I close my eyes as I feel my boots hit the ground.

That thought turns my stomach more than anything else. Tempest has been through even more than me and she’s still standing strong, defiant, and beautiful. Right up to the black and bloody end, Tempest has been spitting in the Entity’s eye.

It feels wrong, obscene somehow, that all of that strength and beauty should just vanish.

“Mi Sol?” Tempest’s voice clicks me out of my inner thoughts and I realise I’d been standing still.

Stupid, stupid, that’s amateur!

“Sorry, Temp,” I say, snapping my eyes open. The Lullaby is gone but the fog is thick around us. “Where are we?”

“No hay bronca,” Tempest replies softly, “Mother’s Cabin is what Aria calls it, but I’ve never asked why.”

I nod as I move to an outcropping of rock, which I realise is actually a menhir, one of several, and there's a generator squatting in the midst of them. Dangerous. This is a dangerous one. There’s not a lot of cover beyond the stone menhir that are pretty evenly spaced around it. Looking past the stones, there's a cabin not far away, it looks… not abandoned exactly but unwelcoming.

Like there’s something there that’s dangerous or evil. Maybe not even evil.

Insane.

The madness of isolation.

Boy, can I relate to that.

“If Aria’s right,” Tempest continues, scooting over towards the generator while cautiously swiveling her head, “then we’ll have to be very careful. Listen for her lullaby; she can’t help but hum and sing it. It gives her away, but… be wary.”

I sidle in next to Tempest, getting my hands on the generator alongside her and get to work. “Why? If we can hear her coming can’t we just get away from her?”

Tempest shakes her head, her shorn, rose-colored hair falling across her eyes. “No, running from the Huntress is a much trickier matter, unlike the rest of them she has no need to close with you.”

I nearly stumble in my repairs but manage to keep going through the hiccup without causing any backlash.

“Uh, you’ll have to clarify that one a little for me,” I say uneasily.

Sighing, Tempest nods. “She carries hatchets on her belt, weighted and balanced for throwing.”

Well shit.

“So… don’t run in a straight line?” I say sardonically, peeking over the generator at Tempest with a grim smile. She returns it, and nods. We work in silence for a few more moments before I speak up again. “Hey, Tempest?”

“Qué tall?” Tempest responds, not looking up from her work.

“I’m… I'm sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately,” I say finally as I reach into the guts of the generator and wrench a piece back in place.

Tempest’s hands falter as she looks up at me, her eyes fixed on me in a way that makes my heart jump into my throat for a moment. After another moment, she smiles, and I get the feeling she’s about to say something when I hear it.

The lullaby. Gentle and insistent and getting louder with every second.

Carefully, we both extract our hands from the generator and Tempest motions for me to follow as she crouches low and moves around the stones that ring the generator. I follow her, getting behind the stone adjacent to hers and hiding in the lee of it as the lullaby gets louder. That tells me it’s not some kind of sorcerous effect meant to confuse us. It's physical, she’s really singing it.

It’s like… a fixation.

The lullaby is much louder now, backed by the thundering beat of the Killer’s heart in my ears. I dare to peek around the side of the menhir that’s hiding me and get my first glimpse of her.

Adagio Dazzle. Or, at least, what’s left of her.

I grimace at the sight of the former Siren. Even without Aria’s admittance I would have recognized Adagio by her hair, even from where she stood with her back to me. Her beautiful orange hair is kept barely in check by a faded black shroud that’s part of what looks like a mask. Curiously, I see two crude rabbit ears peeking over the top of her head and, even from where I’m crouching, it looks like Adagio is much larger and more imposing than I remember.

I wonder why that is? Aria still looks like the young woman I remember from the Battle of the Bands, but this Adagio looks like an adult, and a strapping one at that. As she kicks the generator, knocking parts loose and setting us back some progress, I look her up and down.

She’s wearing a thick, faded and stained linen top, and worn blue trousers. Her feet are bare and stained black with dirt. Lashed across Adagio’s waist and back and looping around to her chest is an old infantry belt that holds several well-cared-for hatchets. Her sleeves are rolled up revealing lithe, muscular arms and calloused hands that grip a well-used and bloody wood-axe.

Pulling away, I press my back hard against the stone and listen. The cadence of the lullaby never shifts or changes, but the volume and distance does. It’s not perfect, and it’s not terribly accurate, but I can get a sense of her moving. With as much care as possible, I track her motions by sound, sidling around the menhir as she weaves around the standing stones.

I see Tempest doing the same and I smile, her moves are fluid and careful, just like mine.

Finally, the Huntress turns to leave, satisfied that her prey must have absconded and unwilling to waste any more time on us. The heartbeat vanishes quickly as the lullaby recedes into the distance., and a moment later Tempest and I emerge from our hiding spots and get back on the generator, quickly pushing the damaged parts back into place.

“That was close,” I say, as I get my arm into the guts of the machine. “So, that’s the Huntress?”

“That’s her,” Tempest replies evenly. “Be careful that you see her before she sees you, Mi Sol, or you’ll find an axe in your back mas rapido.”

“About before though… Tempest,” I start, uncertain exactly how to say what I wanted to say. Tempest shoots me a grin as I stutter, and I smile back at her. “I saw an old acquaintance of mine in my last bloodweb, she managed to breach the Fog.”

Tempest’s eyes widen. “No me jodas,” she muttered in shock. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what she said but I got the gist of it. “How?”

“She’s… Her name is Twilight,” I say, grappling with how to explain that she’s a pony princess from another dimension. Sure the dimension thing might be easy to swallow considering our current predicament, but the pony part? Probably not. “And the short answer is magic, it’d take a while to explain, but she did it. She said she wasn’t giving up, that she’d find me and free me.”

Tempest looks shellshocked for a moment, then she smiles, wide and brilliant. “That’s fantastico!” she did her best to keep her voice low but the excitement in her tone was real. “You… you can get out! If she can get in then you can get out!”

I scowl and shake my head as I twist the last bit of the generator into place and it explodes into life. “Except I told her not to bother, and not to come back.”

Leaping to move, I grab Tempest by the arm and drag her along with me. My words had shocked her to paralysis, I guess because otherwise, she would’ve moved at the same moment I did. We rush away from the completed generator into a copse of trees, her hand in mine, and gripping it hard. I can practically hear the very pointed questions she wants to ask me, but we both know that now is not exactly the time.

Maybe Ada- no, Huntress- maybe the Huntress comes by the check the generator, maybe she’s chasing one of the others around. Maybe we’re in the clear and maybe we’re not, but you don’t survive a Trial by taking stupid chances. We drop low, and I drag her along with me, Tempest is still moving sluggishly, making mistakes, making a little too much noise. We’re well out of sight of the generator and I don’t hear the lullaby yet, though, so either she only swept by to scan and we were out of her range, or she assumed we’d be gone by the time she got there.

Then I hear a scream, and cry of pain, and both Tempest and I flinch.

That would be Sour Sweet. Well, at least we know we're safe for now.

“Are you loco, Mi Sol?!” Tempest spins me around and grabs me by my collar, staring at me with terrified, stricken eyes. “Nobody gets out of this hellhole, and you have a chance!”

“Quiet!” I hiss, putting a hand on her shoulder and bring her down low. “And no, I’m not crazy, and I don’t care about getting out of this hellhole.”

Tempest works her mouth for a moment before shaking her head in disbelief. “How can you not care?” she pleads, her eyes bore into me and grimace. “How?!”

“Because I won’t leave you!” I retort heatedly, backing her up a step. “I’m not going to leave you here while I go back to that… that place!” I gesture wildly outwards, even knowing there’s no sense of direction in these insane little marbles of reality. “There’s nothing for me out there! I don’t care if they feel bad about what they did! I can’t trust them! I can't trust any of them!”

The thunder of a distant generator goes off in the distance, and it's punctuated by the scream of Sour Sweet going down.

The second generator lights up the illimitable dark of the Trials briefly as I stare up at Tempest, panting, out of breath and feeling numb as she reaches out with her and strokes my cheek. Her fingers come away damp, and I realise I’m crying.

“I… I won’t leave you here,” I say, my voice choked. “You save me so often, as often as I save you, and I'm such an ungrateful bitch about it. You never leave me behind if you can help it. You’ve gotten hooked a couple of times because of that, I know, but… even when it’s stupid you always try.”

Tempest shakes her head, tears welling in her own eyes. “I… I don’t want to be the reason you stay in this place, Mi Sol…”

I smile a little sadly.

“You’re not the only reason… I… I have a purpose here. As sick as that sounds I feel like at least here I have a reason to live. But out there? Out there is just the cold pavement I tried to kill myself on. In here it’s bloody, and loud, and dangerous, yeah, but…” I look around, letting my eyes linger on the now-familiar Fog and the dull scent of copper I’d long since stopped noticing. The faint chill on my skin and the taste of pine and salty fear is almost a comfort.

“Here, I have a reason, and a drive, and-” I reach up with both hands and cup Tempest’s gorgeous, scarred face in them- “and I have you.”

I rise up and lean in to press my lips against hers and I feel her freeze in shock. Her lips are thin and hard, salty with sweat and a tang of oil from the generators. But they’re warm and they’re real and as I feel Tempest's arms go around my waist and her mouth open gently to return the kiss, her lips are suddenly so, so soft.

We pull apart and I smile up at her. “Maybe it’s the whole constant fear and terror, and surviving certain death thing we keep doing together, but I feel like this, right here, is worth living in hell for.”

Tempest lets out a sigh but she smiles. What a smile it is, too. I thought I’d seen her smile before but those were just grins. Twists of her lips to show mild amusement. No, this was a real smile. It's more charming than I expected. Her scar makes it cock-eyed, turning into something between a sneer and smirk, but the way her eyes crinkle just slightly, the way eyes gleam... that's all I need to see to know that it's real.

I stand up and scan around, spotting an unlit tower rising from a narrow labyrinth of wood walls. We move, staying low and trying to keep as many trees and rocks between us and the open space around the cabin as possible. Before we can get to it, though, a scream splits the air again.

“Sour Sweet,” Tempest says, standing up and looking around for the faint shimmer of aura that would give her away. “There! She’s hooked on one of the high hills not far from us!”

I glance around and confirm what Tempest had seen. Sure enough, there’s Sour’s silhouette hanging forlornly from the Entity’s feeding hook. “I’ll go, you get to that generator, I’m better at unhooking anyway.”

Tempest’s hand shoots out and grabs me by the shoulder, but before I can ask what she’s about she pulls me in and kisses me hard on the lips. “Be safe, Mi Sol, and be careful.”

Staring for a moment, stunned but happy, I just nod. “Y-yeah, you too.”

I can't keep the smile off of my face as I lower myself to a crouch and move along the wall. Pretty sure I’m a banquet of hope for the Entity now but I don’t particularly give a damn at the moment. Letting out a calming breath, I push away thoughts of Tempest and focus on Sour Sweet. I don’t hear the lullaby so I’m at least reasonably certain it’s safe. Still, I approach the hillock slowly, my ears trained for the sound of the Huntress’s song.

Nothing.

She must’ve headed off to patrol the generators anti-clockwise around the map, otherwise I’d have either seen or heard her head for the generator I’d left Tempest working on. Moving quickly I scramble up the hill and get my arms around Sour’s legs.

“Alright, girl, lift!” I say as I heave up. Just as Sour starts to lift I hear the first, faint strains of the lullaby approach from my left. It’s fine though, the Huntress is far enough off that-

My only warning that I’ve gravely underestimated Adagio’s throwing arm is a faint whistling sound I hear before a hatchet buries itself in the meat of my shoulder just as Sour drops to the ground. I scream, ripping the offending weapon out and tossing it away. Sour is already sprinting into the distance. Good girl, she knows the drill.

Scatter to give the Killer too many targets.

Never bunch together, especially when wounded.

I let out a low hiss of pain as I scramble off the hill and down the escarpment, even though I know it’ll let me off closer to where the Huntress is approaching. Off the edge is still in her line of sight and she could nail me with another hatchet while I’m getting my feet under me.

Gasping at the pain of the wound, I sprint around the edge of the hill away from her and towards the cabin. It’s got blind corners, windows, and everything else I need to break line of sight from-

“SHIT!” I swear as a hatch arches over the hill and lands with a harsh thud in a tree only a few feet from me. “Damnit the Battle of the Band’s would’ve gone way differently if you’d used that skill instead singing!” I yell out as I hobble as quickly as I can to the cabin.

Leaping roughly through a window, I land hard on the crude wood planks of the floor. A glance to the side shows me a staircase leading down. Oh yeah, not going anywhere near there, thank you very much. One trip to the basement is enough for me. That’s a nightmare to get anyone out of, much less yourself. I quickly take a look around, it’s a small, two-story cabin that might be cozy if it weren’t so goddamn creepy. I hear a generator chugging away raggedly somewhere above me. It lacks the steady cadence of a finished one meaning it’s one that was being worked on…

Or still is.

I grimace, it’s probably Aria, I can’t risk going upstairs and bringing Adagio straight to her. I sprint across the living room of the cabin and hurl myself out another window, landing face-first in the wet grass as a hatchet whistles overhead and thuds into the firewood pile across from me.

“Damn, she’s really good with those,” I mutter as I scramble back to my feet and start running clockwise around the building.

The lullaby gets louder as she enters the building and follows me through the window, I glance back and confirm that, yes, Adagio is, in fact, wearing a bunny mask. It should be comical, or at least a little disarming, but the cracked and faded paint, the splatters of old, rust-colored blood, and the dull, empty eyes staring out of the hollow sockets only serve to make it deeply unnerving.

I turn a corner and loop back towards the front door of the cabin, sliding in just as another hatchet goes flying past me. I swear I actually feel it brush my jacket as it passes. I make a dead sprint to the other end of the room, spotting the window and leaping through it. I drop, expecting another hatchet to follow me through, like before, but there’s nothing. The heartbeat is still there, and so is the lullaby, but neither is getting louder. Maybe she lost me?

Taking a risk, I rise slightly and peek through the window. The Huntress stopped in front of a cabinet, she violently wrenches it open and grabs at something. For a heart-stopping second, I think maybe one of the others took refuge inside.

Then she pulls out a new set of hatchets, fresh and polished they go onto her belt with practiced ease.

“So that’s where she gets them,” I mutter, dropping low again and sidling away.

Seems like Huntress gave up on me for now but that hatchet wound still hurts like a bitch. In fact, I’m bleeding, and badly. I needed to find a medkit or someone with a few odds and ends to help patch me up if for no other reason than it’ll be a hell of a lot easier for her to track me if I’m hemorrhaging all over the grass, and I'm not in the business of making this easy on them.

“Aria… I wonder if she’s still…” I haven’t heard the generator upstairs go live yet, there’s a chance someone is still up there.

Letting out a calming breath, I trudge back to the cabin window I vaulted out of and peek inside. All clear, or so it seems. Well, I’m not getting any younger sitting here, and if I keep bleeding like this I won’t get much older either, I slowly, carefully, and most importantly, quietly, vault the window. The stairs are close, fortunately, and I move up them, scanning around for any signs of the Huntress. I know she’s close, I can hear the lullaby, but it’s distant and muffled and what I can’t hear is the heartbeat. That at least means she’s a good distance from me.

I get to the top floor and make my way towards the sound of machinery. It’s coming from a mossy upper deck at the far end of the cabin from the stairwell. I move towards it, hearing the engine chug more steadily with each footstep, for once I really hope she doesn’t finish it right away.

Fortunately, I come around the corner and spot Aria’s purple bob and ponytail bent over the generator. As quietly as possible, I hiss a non-verbal warning at her to get her attention. She starts, and glances up, grimacing at my condition. Yeah, I probably don’t look so hot right now.

“Hey, uh, little help?” I ask, gesturing at the bloody ruin of my shoulder.

Aria nods, giving the generator a good twist of something inside before carefully extracting herself. “Yeah, gimme a sec, Sunny.”

Bless her, Aria has a medkit. I know she didn’t take one in so she must’ve grabbed it from a chest. Talk about lucky finds.

“Sit down, away from the edge,” Aria instructs softly, moving me away from the generator. “We’ve gotta do this fast.”

Poppin open the clasp on the kit, I let out a low whistle. That’s one well-equipped kit, good clean bandages, antiseptic, even suture needles, which Aria pulls out. It’s the work of a moment, Aria lathers on some antiseptic cream before ripping open the suture needle package and pulling the sterile tine of metal out, looping a thread and going to work. Keeping my grunts of pain to a minimum, I watch her quickly and carefully knit up the wound.

I can’t deny, I’m thoroughly impressed. If Adagio should’ve been a professional hatchet-tosser, Aria would’ve made a better-than-decent ED doctor. She’s just tying off the last suture when I hear it, though.

A scream of pain.

A very specific scream.

“Tempest!” I pull my jacket sleeve down over the sutures and scan around. “Get back on that genny, Aria, I’ll go see what’s what!” I point at the machine and don’t wait for her to answer. I barely see her nod as I leap down off the porch. “And thanks!” I yell as I drop.

I barely hit the ground before I hear another truncated scream of pain from Tempest, not far from me if the sound of the lullaby is any indication.

“Shit!” swear under my breath as I drop to a crouch near a tree and look around. “Don’t be there, don’t be there, don’t-”

Sun-dammit. Sure enough, there’s Tempest crawling away on the ground. Huntress stalks up behind her, humming and singing her lullaby as she kneels and wraps an arm around Tempest’s middle. She heaves Tempest to her shoulder and swivels her head for a moment before fixating on a point not far away.

“How the fuck do they always know,” I mutter angrily, as I follow the Huntress. They always know where the hooks are, no matter where you are when you fall. I keep a solid distance but always keep them in sight. “Yeah, there it fuckin’ is.”

The Huntress stops in front of a hook that’s protruding from a section of a wood labyrinth, her lullaby never hitching or slowing as she re-adjusts her grip on Tempest and throws her onto the rusty spike. I look away, I don’t want to see that part. I can’t help but hear it, but I don’t want to see it, at least. Maybe that’s selfish but I can’t just watch Tempest get hurt like that. Especially not after we… Ugh, I hate that scream, I grit my teeth as Tempest’s voice tapers out to dry heaves.

I let out a slow, calming breath. Breathing exercises, just like at the Academy, control your breath, control your magic, control your fire. That’s the ticket. Control your emotions. I focus on my ears and listen, I hear the loud, rusty creak of a cabinet being thrown open and the dull, wooden sounds of Huntress retrieving yet more ammunition. The Entity is very generous with his tools, it seems.

Wait for it… Wait for it…

The generator Aria was working on booms to life, and moments later, the lullaby starts drifting away from the labyrinth towards the cabin. Hopefully, Aria can keep her attention long enough for me to get Tempest to safety.

Not yet though, she’s got range, I can’t forget that again. Wait for it… Until the lullaby is gone. Just wait. I clench my eyes, I can hear Tempest struggling, her pained groans. It hurts, I can hardly bear listening but…

It’s gone. My eyes snap open and I tear out of cover towards Tempest. My arms go around her legs.

“C’mon babe, move!” I yell as I lift, feeling the new sutures straining and warm blood trickle down my arm.

Tempest lets out a grunt of exertion and pain as she drops from the hook, she hits the ground and a moment later we’re running. The lullaby is coming back and the Huntress swiftly behind, but thankfully there’s a lot of cover between us so long as we keep to the edges of the Trial grounds. Trees, wood walls, hills and stones keep us hidden from sight. We sidle through a copse of trees, circling around to keep her eyes off of us. Even if she finds us, that’s less important than her getting a bead on us.

If she can track us that’s, well, not good but it’s fine, but if she sees us…

“Gracias, Mi Sol,” Tempest’s breath is ragged, but strong. The lullaby is close, still loud and the heartbeat is thudding away in my ears. I don’t want to risk giving ourselves away so I lift a finger to my lips, even as I smile in response.

I can’t let her out of my sight again, I can’t let her go down again. Sonata didn’t need to hook Aria to kill her last time, there’s no telling whether or not Adagio can’t do the same. I’m not willing to risk it.

Not when I finally managed to…

“Hold still,” I whisper as another generator goes live, spilling more light into the hostile and imposing wilderness. I get to work patching Tempest up as best I can, it’s makeshift bandages and little more, I wish I had Aria’s medkit with me. “How ya feelin’?”

The lullaby starts to fade into the distance and I let out a sigh of relief. She’s going to check out that last gen. We’re only on one more and hopefully either Sour or Aria is already either there or working on it.

“Good enough,” Tempest mutters, grimacing as I tie off the worst of the wounds. It’s little better than triage, though. “You?”

“I ran across the karaoke rabbit, yeah,” I say with a sardonic grin. “She winged me but I managed to lose her around the cabin. Aria patched me up after.”

Tempest just nods. “Good, let’s go, there’s another generator in the Shack.”

“The basement is in the cabin,” I remark, remembering what I’d seen in my brief sprint through that creepy-ass house. “So it’s safer than usual.”

We start the walk to the shack, we’d passed it while we were between generators but neither of us wanted to risk running up an unsafe gen in this kind of place. Knowing the basement wasn’t there made it a lot more viable though.

I keep my eyes low. The cabin rises from the center of the Trial grounds like a sickness, like a pustule, something about it naturally makes me sick, but at the same time, I can’t help but… scratch at it. I can’t help but want to stare.

THUNK~

Tempest screams as a hatchet flies out of nowhere to nail her in the back and she staggers, slamming into a tree. I move around her and pull the notched hatchet free and stare around, scanning for the Huntress. I can’t hear her. I can’t hear the lullaby or the heartbeat! How is that even fucking possi-

THUNK~

I stagger backward as a hatchet slams into my shoulder and puts me on my ass. STUPID! I knew she had a lie of sight somehow and I still stood there like a fucking LEMMING! I haul myself to my feet and grab Tempest, pulling her up to drag her to the other side of the tree, maybe-

That’s when I see her. The cabin. She’s standing, massive and threatening, backlit by the glowing generator, her arm hiked backward gripping one of her deadly projectiles. Desperately, I pull Tempest to the side, trying to get to cover, but…

The Huntress, Adagio, whatever she is, lets the hatchet fly with that same unearthly precision and Tempest screams again as the hatchet finds its mark in her back, right next to the latest wound. The impact tears her out of my hands and throws her to the ground.

“Tempest!” I scream, turning to pull the hatchet out. I can hear the lullaby now. She’s coming for her prey. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay!” I mutter over and over as I try to tend to her wound and get her back on her feet.

“Get out of here, Mi Sol!” Tempest roars, coughing up a wash of blood as she swats at me weakly. “She’s just going to get you too!”

“Then I’ll let her!” I cry, tears running hot down my cheeks. “I told you before, I will not leave without you! I promised! I’m not going anywhere!”

La-la la-la la-la-la~

The heartbeat is deafening. Her lullaby is practically in my ear. I drop the crude bandages I’d grabbed and turn my head slowly. The Huntress’s breath is hot and feverish as she towers over me. She hasn’t swung. Why should she? I can see four fresh hatchets on her belt and even without them she could bring me to the ground with one swing of that brutal ax in her hands.

“G-go…” I say, for some reason, I can’t think of anything else but that. “Go away, she’s mine, I won’t let you take her away.”

Huntress’s masked head cocks to the side as if she’s confused. Or amused. Her full lips, once lush and soft-looking, are cracked and chapped as she smiles. I can almost make out the dim glow of insanity in the hollow sockets of her mask.

She moves around me. She ignores me and steps towards Tempest. I can’t do anything, I can’t hurt the Huntress any more than I could hurt the Wraith or the Hag. I can get away, sure, but… can I? Is she just toying with me? Waiting for me to run so she can turn and send an axe into my spine?

Or is it just cruelty. She wants me to watch her kill my…

No.

Red washes over my vision as I turn to watch the Huntress advance on Tempest who’s crawling away, screaming at her incoherently. She’s trying to keep the Killers attention so I can get away.

She’s so sweet.

My hands clench into fists, and a sharp pain blossoms in my palm. It’s a good pain, it focuses me as I stride towards the Huntress.

The Huntress kicks out and knocks Tempest onto her back. In a single sharp motion, she takes a step forward, wood-ax raised like she’s getting ready to shear through an uncut log for firewood. It’s a practised, almost mechanical action so fluid in its perfection I barely get there in time.

The blade of the ax stops inches from Tempest’s face, caught in a cage of silver-stained claws tinged red with blood. Or maybe they’re not. Everything looks red right now. The Huntress is a wash of red, so is Tempest. She looks good in it.

Focus, Shimmer, ogle later.

Flexing, I grip the blade of Huntress' weapon and push against the usually inexorable might of the Killer. The axe rises slowly, inch by inch, against the Huntress’s will. She doesn’t look angry, enraged, or even furious. She’s gripping the handle hard with both hands, pushing down and I’m pushing her back. She just looks… confused.

“Mine,” I hiss, my voice distorted by… something. I don’t really care, I just need to get my point across. “She,” I point one long, sharp claw at Tempest, “is mine!” I point back at myself.

For a moment, we stare each other down. Like two apex predators fighting over a wounded hart. Her breath is ragged and mists in the air around us. I realise, for the first time, that she’s stopped singing.

Then she stands, releasing the tension on her axe as the final generator, wherever it is, thunders to life along with the exit doors. She doesn’t react, she just stares down at Tempest, then up at me, then back down at Tempest. Her head cocks to the side again. Suddenly seeming to come to a decision, the Huntress starts singing her lullaby again, turns on her heel, and moves away towards the exit that just lit up.

A smile stretches over my face and I look down at my hand. My claws. Good, metal claws that… wait…

What?

“M-Mi Sol?”

I stare down at my hand. Why does it look wrong? Why does it look like… like that? It’s… that’s not right is it? I’m not supposed to have claws… right?

Or am I?

I don’t… remember…

“Sunset?”

Someone is talking to me. Oh right, mine. She’s mine and I’ve been ignoring her and that’s rude. I turn around to face her and Tempest flinches. I frown, why is she doing that? I reach out and she stares at my hand. I look at it too, it’s… an ugly, rubbery shade of red shot with veins of icy blue. The fingers taper into cold silver blades. From my wrist up is a tattered black coat, similar to my favorite leather jacket but longer, it trails down to my knees, fluttering around my legs, and is buttoned all the way up from my waist to my neck.

That’s odd, I don’t remember having this coat.

Or putting it on.

Or…

Pain.

I clench my eyes shut, gripping my skull as the pain thunders through it. It’s like Billy caught his chainsaw on my head, set it to max revs and left it there. I scream I think, my mouth is open, I feel like… I’m making a sound. But I can’t hear anything. I can’t see anything.

I can’t feel-

I do feel.

I feel two warm, strong arms wrap around me and pull me tight against the warm, welcoming body they’re attached to. I hear… a voice.

“Come back to me, Mi Sol,” the voice whispers, I’m moving, I’m being guided. “Come back to me.”

The pressure in my head starts to fade, and the cold… Written's Quill, the cold. Why was I so cold? How did I not notice that? I feel frostbitten and sick to my stomach as I stagger into Tempest who catches me easily. My breath comes in harsh gulps as I open my eyes. It feels like I had the worst three straight days of hungover sleep in my entire life as I’m pulled towards what looks like an open exit. It’s hard to tell, everything is so bright.

I’m dragged out of the Trial, and as I look back I see her. Adagio. The Huntress. Whoever she is… staring at me from the threshold of the Exit Gate, approaching so close that the Terminus Bars of the Gate crash into existence to trap ensure she remains in her Trial.

Her hollow eyes boring into me. I can… hear her. Not her singing. I can her voice. Familiar and alien at the same time. Distorted by the Fog.

See you soon, sister.

I have a deeply unsettling feeling she’s not talking to Aria as the Entity’s thunder tears us away from the Cabin.

9. Mors Ambitio

View Online

There's a lullaby in the dark, and for a moment I’m back at the Cabin in the woods. The lullaby unceasingly intoned behind me, never wavering, never slackening no matter how fast I run. There's no sound but the lullaby, but I don’t need to hear her footsteps to know that her hatchet is raised, ready to fly from her expert fingers.

My vision flickers; I’m in the cornfields, Billy’s domain, and behind me the lullaby is replaced with the endless revving of an old, rusty, and blood-stained chainsaw. I don’t have to look to know that the irregular beat behind me is the uneven loping of the weapon’s malformed owner.

My vision flickers; I’m surrounded by the stink of engine oil and coppery blood. I’m sprinting between crushed cars and shattered machines. The wind is blowing ominously as a bell tolls away behind me, without rest or respite, reminding me with every dolorous tone that I too shall die.

My vision flickers; The stench of decaying vegetation fills my nostrils as my ever-running legs take me into the damp, wild cattails of the swamp. The foghorn of the Pale Rose moans thunderously over the thick Fog, and every other step evokes a scream and explosion of mud as hands, twisted and gnarled reach for my throat.

My vision flickers; I’m running through the twisting, blind turns of Lery’s. Behind me is that endless, cackling laughter and the sharp cracks of electricity sparking off of metal. I smell ozone and cooking flesh, the stink of sterile insanity. His laughter… it’s strange. It’s almost becoming comforting.

My vision flickers; To either side of me are rows and rows of houses, parked cars, and little parks, all empty. The road is smooth asphalt, and everything around me is so, so quiet. There is no sound here. There is no warning. Only the constant, omnipresent and choking knowledge that the only possible place that It could be is behind me. Knife poised high to slice down, cold and welcoming, into my flesh.

My vision flickers; the crumbling stone pillars and shattered windows of Crotus Asylum careen past me, everything is blurring but I know the sound behind me. That choking, grating scream. The harsh rasping of her stridor belying the knowledge that at any moment she will be upon me, hands on my throat, stealing my last breath.

My vision flickers.

Everything is dark and a lullaby is calling me home.

My eyes are gummy from my fitful sleep as I open them. I feel awful, my mouth is dry and I'm too warm. Is it possible to get sick in this place? I wouldn’t think so. The Entity has no interest in the sickly. He wants his prey strong and confident when they die. He wants them to know that all their strength means nothing, so he can drink in their hope as it floods out of them to be replaced with bitter despair.

Tempest's husky voice stops singing.

“Mi Sol?”

Warm, strong arms are cradling me near the edge of the campfire. Its warmth… that’s why I’m too warm. Strange, I’m used to the fire being a reassuring feeling, why does it feel so uncomfortable now?

“Tempest?” I try to rise, and her arms keep me down. “What’s going on?”

My senses start to come back, one by one; my vision clears up and my ears aren’t ringing with that infernal lullaby anymore. Tempest is looking down at me as the campfire crackles nearby, the whispers of the girls around me fill my ears. My head is resting on Tempest’s shoulder, where she’s cradling me in her arms. That in and of itself is perfectly nice except…

“Tempest, let me up,” I say evenly.

A glimmer of pain crosses Tempest’s face. “Lo siento, Mi Sol, but I can’t do that until we know what happened in the woods.”

“You changed, Red,” Aria’s voice says from my left, and I turn my head to look at her. Tempest lets up her grip a little so I’m not wrenching my neck but I know I can’t get out of her grasp. “Tempest said you looked… you looked like one of them. Just for a second but…”

I glare at Aria. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ari’, I saved Tempest! That’s all that matters!”

The rest of the girls are still whispering. It's starting to drive me up the wall.

“S-Sunset?” I look over towards Starlight who's staring at me from the other side of the campfire. She looks bad; ragged and red-eyed. She’s looking at me with a combination of terror and… guilt?

“What?” I ask, a little bitterly, still annoyed at my… whatever Tempest is… keeping me pinned like a misbehaving housecat.

“Was it me?” Starlight asks, her voice a little choked. “Was what happened… was it my fault? Because of how I was treating you?”

I blink in confusion. “What? I still… I’m seriously not even sure what you girls are talking about!”

Tempest lets out a ragged sigh. “When the Huntress had us cornered, Mi Sol, you tried to stand up to her, even knowing the Killers can’t be harmed. She ignored you to secure her kill, me, and then… you stopped her.”

My mouth hangs open for a moment. I… I what? You can’t stop a Killer. No one can stop them. That’s their whole fucking point. How did I-?

Pain.

I remember… fragments… bits and pieces of what Tempest is talking about. I remember the harsh, feverish breath of the Huntress at my back. I remember telling her to go away. Written's Quill, I sounded like an idiot. Then… she just ignored me, walked past me and… and I got mad. I followed her and, just as she was bringing down the ax…

“I caught it.” The words slip out of my mouth as I try to fight off the migraine edging its way into my skull. “I caught her axe,” I say in disbelief. “How the fuck did I do that?”

“I told you, Mi Sol.” Tempest says carefully. “You changed.”

I changed.

Claws like knives, silver and shining in the moonlight, reflecting the dancing lights of the Fog. Smooth, unpleasantly rubbery red skin with veins like blue fire.

I changed.

I… I clench my eyes shut. I feel like Wraith’s bell is tolling away in my head, and the whispering is getting so loud that I can barely even hear myself think.

“Will you girls SHUT UP for a second!?” I shout, gripping my head. The whispers don’t stop. They’re grating at the edges of my consciousness and it’s driving me nuts. “I SAID SHUT-!”

I turn to yell at them and they’re all staring at me. Their eyes are wide with worry and fear. I can hear their fear, their terror, their… despair. They’re whispering.

None of them are talking.

Swallowing the dry lump that’s suddenly taken up residence in my throat, I let out a slow, shuddering breath. Control… control… control your breathing, your emotions, your magic. Control your fire or it controls you. I cycle through my old exercises from back when I was a student. Things I haven’t done consciously since I left Equestria.

Concentrate, Shimmer.

I light a fire in the darkness of my mind. A little flame, small but bright, see how it dances? It dances in the dark, casting the shadows around it like partners in a play. But it needs to be bigger. Flames need fuel, everypony knows that.

I’m afraid. Scared of what’s happening, it’s making my mind race in all directions and I can’t keep track. Focus, Shimmer, focus. Fear is good in moderation but this is terror. Feed it to the flame. Let it grow and be brighter.

I throw the fear to the flames.

I’m angry. I’m frustrated. Tempest is holding me down, and I hate it. But I know why she’s doing it. Getting mad won’t do me any good. It’ll just make the girls more scared of me, it’ll just make everything harder. I’ve always had a temper. It's time to curb it.

I throw the fury to the flames.

I’m… uncertain. There’s a gnawing seed of doubt in my gut that tells me everything is my fault. What if Starlight was right all along? What if I am a monster? What if I was always just a monster and no one ever noticed but… but the Entity? What if that's why he called me here? Not to be food. But to feed. No, I can’t think like that, I can’t. If I do, I’ll never stop. I let out a breath.

I throw my doubt to the flames.

Opening my eyes, I let out another breath. My body is slack and loose. I haven’t felt this good in a while. For a moment I feel like all the tension is gone, even though I know it won’t last. Another clap of thunder, another trial, and that adrenaline will be right back to the fore.

“I’m okay, Tempest,” I say. “I promise, it’s me, I just… I needed a second to get a hold of myself.” For a moment I think she doesn’t buy it, but then I feel the iron in her grip slacken up.

I smile. She’s still holding me, but that part’s okay. I wiggle a little to get more comfortable but I don’t try to get out of her arms.

“What was it like?”

Sour Sweet’s voice comes from my right and I look over. She looks strange; not afraid, not angry, not… anything. Nothing except curious. “Changing, I mean, what was it like?”

Tempest’s rip hardens again, but not because of me, I raise a hand a stroke her arm to calm her and just shake my head at Sour. “I don’t really remember it all, to be honest. I don’t know if it makes you all feel any better, but that’s not the first time I’ve gone, uh… she-demon-y.”

They all look surprised, glancing at each other.

“It, uh… it was kind of a mess,” I admit, sheepishly. “Basically I’m a mage, I came to Earth from another dimension, way nicer than this one, by the way, to escape some pretty objectively bad choices that I’d made. I spent five years here plotting my return and it sort of involved stealing a highly specialized magical artifact and then jamming it on my head.”

They all stare at me in disbelief.

“Y-yeah…” I chuckle, scratching the back of my head. “Uh, in hindsight I probably could’ve thought that out better, but in my defense, I was a huge bitch and seriously up my own ass about a lot of stuff. Long story short, I got hit with some bad juju backlash from the artifact vehemently disagreeing with how I was using it and it made me go, uh… demon-y.” I wiggle my fingers for emphasis, getting a chuckle out of Sour Sweet.

Sour Sweet broke the ensuing silence with a question. “Is it true you might be able to get out of here? And that you won’t because you want to be here?”

I stare at Sour, then back up at Tempest. “You told them?!”

“Si, and I won't apologise,” Tempest retorts. “I still don’t agree with your decision and after what happened I think you need to get out of here more than any of us!”

“Yeah, Red,” Aria says before I can respond. “No offense, it’s nice having you here and all, it’s great having another solid teammate, but uh… I don’t know if I can deal with losing someone else like I lost my sisters…”

I stare at Aria, she says the words evenly but I can see the haunted look in her eyes and I can hear the pain in her voice.

“I swear I didn’t mean the things I said before,” Starlight says softly. “I don’t think you’re a spy or a plant by the Entity. It’s my paranoia, it gets really bad and… and I don’t want you to be hurt, Sunset, so please,” she pleads, “if you can get out then get out!”

“Girls I…” I work my jaw for a moment, trying to find the words. “I can’t leave you all here… I can’t! I don’t even know how or even if it’s actually possible to get me out but even if it is it’d be a one-in-a-billion shot! There’s no guarantee it would work twice, much less four more times and I will not leave you all here!”

“It’s not that bad,” Sour Sweet says, drawing looks from the rest of us. “What? You’re not the only one that doesn’t hundred-percent mind it here. I mean, yeah, that thing in the ‘burbs is pretty much the most terrifying thing ever, but it’s still better than the real world.”

“What?” Starlight says, her mouth hanging open. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m not as brave as Sunset,” Sour replies with a shrug. “But my life pretty much sucked out there. Sure my family has money but I’m fucking miserable. I’m basically a cocktail of disorders, Borderline, Bipolar, Schizo... all facts that my family likes to ignore whenever possible. I can barely keep it together most days. My mom and dad treat me like a dirty secret and push me to succeed at fucking everything because it’s Crystal Prep Academy,” she spits out bitterly.

I’m used to Sour’s sudden tonal shifts, but I’d just kind of passed it off as a personality quirk, I’d never really thought about it like that.

“In here it’s… not as bad,” Sour admits, a little shakily. “Maybe it’s just because here I know it doesn’t matter. The changes come when they come, but it doesn’t really matter because all that matters is getting to the next trial.”

Starlight nods. “I’m pretty much in the same boat, to be honest,” she says softly, “I hadn’t ever really thought about it too hard until now but… I don’t know how I’d feel about going back to the real world either. I hate my mom, and I’m pretty sure she hates me too. I’m an embarrassment because I’m delusional and paranoid. Except… here that’s almost a benefit. Here, paranoid is fine because the whole world is actually out to get me. Except with you, Sunset, like I said… sorry.”

“I can’t leave my sisters here,” Aria says evenly. “But that's no secret to anyone, Tempest knows where I stand and why. They’re my family, we’ve been together for centuries. I plan to keep it that way, even if it means running from them forever.”

The look on Tempest’s face is indescribable. It’s like she just had a rug pulled violently out from under her. I know she hates this world and I think she just assumed everyone else did too. I let out a sigh, and lean into her.

“It’s not their faults, you know, or mine,” I say quietly, keeping my voice low as I stare up at Tempest. “If you think about it, it makes sense…” I gesture to the other girls, “how we all feel about it I mean, it makes sense.”

“Sense, Mi Sol?” Tempest whispers dourly. “What kind of sense is this?”

I turn about in Tempest’s lap and loop my arms around her neck, draping them over her shoulders. “The sense that remembers how the Entity hunts by despair. How my ‘friends’ drove me to try to kill myself, how Star was put in a psych ward by her own mother, how Sour was running from her oppressive life, and how Aria, along with her sisters, were powerless and desperate in an alien world… it’s hard to argue why someone would want to go back to any of that.”

Tempest nods. “Si, Mi Sol, I can… understand that, then.” I smile, and I’m about to say something else when she cuts me off. “Then I have another question: why are you the only one that’s suffering like this?”

The girls look up at me, a little startled by the question, I am too. Why am I the only one who’s… changing? “W-well, I don’t know! It might be because unlike all of you I actually know magic? It’s no joke that I’m literally saturated in it… maybe that has something to do with it?”

“Wrong-o, Sunny,” Aria says evenly, her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Just because I can’t feed doesn’t mean I can’t feel or taste magic anymore, I’m still a Siren even if I lost my gem. I’m ancient, Sunny, I’m more saturated in thaumic energy than you’ll probably ever be, so it can’t be that.”

I look around to the other girls, feeling my heart starting to pound. Why… why was this suddenly coming apart? “B-but your sisters…”

Aria almost growls out her next words. “Don’t you drag my sisters into this, Red. Adagio was the eldest, then me, then ‘Nata, so if it had been 'Dagi and me, or just her, to go then I might buy it, but it was my baby sister that was taken.”

“And she was the first, right?” Starlight interjects, getting a nod from Aria. “Can’t be magic then, otherwise Adagio would’ve been taken first.”

“Then why?” Sour asks, turning her eyes to me. “Why is it you?”

“I… I don’t…” I struggle to find the reasoning, the words, whatever it takes to make them understand.

“I know why,” Tempest says gravely. “I don’t know why I didn’t realise it before. Maybe because… because of how I feel about you, but I think I know why you’re the one changing.”

Everyone, including me, is staring at her. My heart is thundering in my chest as her bright eyes meet mine and I can feel the sadness in them. Not judgment, or pity, or fear… just sadness.

“All the others, Mi Sol?” Tempest nods to Sour, Starlight, and Aria. “They have their reasons to hate their old life, like you, or their reasons to stay, like Aria. But it’s not about this place, it’s about the real world. You… I remember what you said in the woods. You told me this place gave you purpose and drive… it gave you a reason to live… and I think it only just got through to me what you meant.”

“I-I didn’t mean anything but what I said!” I cry out, bringing my hands back to clutch around hers. She grips my hands back but I see the change in her eyes. “Please, I swear it!”

Tempest shakes her head. “No, Mi Sol, you don’t understand. I think each of us here would leave if their lives would improve but… I’m not sure you would. You were offered a road out by someone willing to shatter the Fog to reach you. I think you’re staying because you actually like it here.”

The silence is deafening.

Tears fall silently down Tempest’s face as she stares into my eyes, unflinching. I can’t breathe, it feels like I’m drowning. “W-What?”

“So am I right, Mi Sol?” Tempest asks, her voice impressive steady. “Truth y nada, am I right or wrong?”

I want to tell her she’s wrong. I want to throw it in her face and ask her ‘how dare she even suggest such a horrible thing’, I want to get angry… furious that she’d think I was even capable of something like that.

I can’t… I just don't have it in me to lie like that.

“I…” What do I even say? What can I say? “I hate that world so much… I can’t go back there. I can’t. Everyone there… they hate me.”

“That’s not true, Mi Sol,” Tempest counters. “What about that girl? Twilight? She wouldn’t have come here if she hated you.”

“She’s the one who got me into this fucking mess!” I scream, staggering out of Tempest’s arms, and batting her hands away. “She’s the one who put me with those fucking liars! She’s the one who convinced me that I could atone! That I could be forgiven! She’s the reason I can’t stop hurting!”

I scramble away from the fire. It’s too hot, the whispers are too loud. I can’t hear myself think, I can barely hear anything at all. Aria and Sour have gotten up and they’re trying to come after me, but I can’t… I can’t let them, they just want to hurt me… to send me back!

“Get away from me!” I shriek, grabbing my journal from where it’s been gathering dust in my satchel since I stopped using it and swing it at the two girls. “If you want to go, then GO! I’ll even fucking help Twilight snatch you out. But I’m not going back to that place ever again!”

Tempest rises slowly from her seat at the fireside and approaches me, hands out and face impassive. “Por favor, Mi Sol, don’t make this choice. If you want us to… to be anything, we can’t be it in this place. Even if it’s impossible we need to try and escape. I need you to want to escape with me.”

Tears and streaming down my face, I want to vomit. I’m too hot and too cold at the same time.

“I can’t. Go back.” Every other word comes out in a heave of breath. I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams. “I won’t, I won’t go back there. Twilight can rot in tartarus for what she did to me! She should’ve just let me die!” The last words come out as an almost incoherent scream as I clutch the journal to my chest. “You want me to go back? Well, I can’t… I can’t do that.”

“I’m on your side, Mi Sol,” Tempest says, her voice choked with tears. “I swear to you I am, but I can’t watch you do this to yourself.”

I let out a shuddering breath, feeling a cold, almost alien calm flooding my body. For the first time since I got back to the campfire the whispers have died down and I feel strange kind of comfort. Like I’m on a road and I can see a familiar house approaching after a long trip.

“So that’s it then?” I say, opening my eyes. I don’t need the look of shock on her face to tell me that they’re black again. Maybe that’s not so bad.

I always did look good in black.

Maybe it’s time to end this all, then. I look up at the roiling black sky and somehow it feels more welcoming than the campfire. Come on then Old Stain… one more Trial…

Thunder explodes around us as if in answer to my silent prayer, and the girls jump in terror. The darkness is closing in fast with a kind of oily, unpleasant fervor that suggests sentience. It feels… pleased.

Tempest reaches out for me as the Fog closes in. “I’m not leaving you, Mi Sol!” She screams. “I promise I’m still fighting for you!”

I let the shadows cradle me, wrapping and dragging me into the coming Trial. I scowl at Tempest, feeling my heart cracking in two as she’s dragged away.

“Tell yourself whatever you need to, I don’t care anymore,” I say, my face twisting into a grimace. “Betrayal all tastes the same to me now.”

I let the hooks bite into my skin and rip me away from the burning light of the fire into the cool, welcoming shadows. For a moment I hear something in the darkness that I’ve never heard before. No screams or shrieks. No lullabies or bells or revving saws.

No, I just hear… breathing.

My feet strike the hard earth of a Trial ground that I don't recognise, and I have to roll as I hit the ground, hissing as my journal bites into my chest where the hard binding presses against my skin. As I get up, I scan the area.

The smell of coal and dry, upturned dirt, combined with the decay of masonry and stone fills the air. Can stone rot? Apparently, it can.

“S-Sunset?” I swivel my head and fix my eyes on Starlight, who’s peeking around a corner. She looks scared. Of the trial or of me, I don’t know. I don’t even know if I care anymore. “Are you… you?”

I scoff.

“Yeah, guess I am,” I snap, “for whatever anyone has ever cared about that. Maybe if I’d been someone else it would’ve been an improvement.”

Starlight sidles over to me cautiously and follows as I scoot around a pile of rubble towards a chest I’d spotted on my way down. I don’t see much on a glance around, and I don’t fancy rolling around a new Trial ground naked, so I pop the chest and start fishing around in it.

“Keep an eye out in case a murder-hobo decides to redecorate your face, will ya?” I say as I push aside from junk. “Or at least scream before it guts you.”

I pull out a half-empty medkit and grimace. Not the best pull. I can do better.

“Here,” I say, tossing Starlight the kit, “I’ll find something else.”

Before I get more than a few feet away, a warm body wraps itself around me, stopping me. I glare down at Starlight, who's captured me in a hug.

“I’m sorry…” she whispers, burying her face against my shoulder. “I’m sorry I hurt you, and I’m sorry that your life… it went so wrong… I’m just… I'm sorry.”

“Stop,” I say, pushing her off and heading towards a generator stack.

“S-Stop? Stop what?”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Pretending that you care. Stop it. I don't buy it anymore, go do something useful."

I push her off and head towards one of the unlit light towers. If Starlight follows me to the generator I’ll kick her off. I don’t need her messing up my work and I do not have the patience to deal with anyone right now. I scoot around, keeping low like always. More than once as I was creeping about I wished I had some kind of hat. My hair isn’t exactly inconspicuous in the dark. Not so bad if I’m covered by the Fog and have something between me and psychopath du jour, but it’s a goddamn liability when I’m on the move through open territory.

The busted generator is cold as I kneel at it, getting to work on the old machine while keeping my eyes open and my head up. I can do it mostly by feel now, but if I’m being honest, I’m not even sure why I’m doing it anymore.

Going back to the campfire is starting to become as unappealing as going back ‘home’.

it's while I'm glancing around that I notice something out of sorts on the ground nearby. It’s grimy and rusty and, at first, I took at as just another piece of debris inherent to the decay of this particular Trial ground, whoever it belongs to. Now, though, as I take a closer look, I get the feeling it’s more than that. It’s not broken, whatever it looks like. It’s in perfectly good condition in fact, if you’re willing to look past the fresh tetanus all over it.

“What kind of idiot steps in a bear trap, though,” I mutter with a faint grimace.

I get my answer a few moments later when I hear a harsh, grating SNAP of metal teeth and a scream I instantly recognize as Starlight’s.

“How the fuck-?” I swear, I could not fathom how someone could be that stupid as to step into one of those things. They’re huge, bulky, and friggin’ orange with rust. Whatever, she’s not near me, I can’t hear the heartbeat anyway.

Another snap and a scream tells me something has happened, probably she got caught. I shake my head and keep working. I’m not helping anyone by dilly-dallying, the sooner the generators get done the sooner… the sooner they can leave. I’m almost done with this one anyway, I turn and twist a few parts before reaching deep into the thing and wrenching a crucial piece back in place. The generator explodes into life just as Aria snaps around the corner and swears viciously.

“Fuck! We gotta move, Shimmer,” Aria says as she crouches and moves away carefully. She keeps staring at the ground with every step. “Don’t run, at least… not through the grass, and definitely not through any narrow spaces.”

I raise an eyebrow in question but nod and follow her around the edge of the Trial grounds.”Who are we up against? I thought I’d met all the Killers.”

Aria just shakes her head. “No, this one is… he's rare.”

“Yeah, no shit,” I respond dryly as we approach another generator. “Better than the Wraith though, at least I can probably see this mother fu-”

I grunt as Aria’s arm shoots out and stops me, thudding hard into my chest. I’m about to tear into her when I see her looking down at my feet. Slowly, she raises a finger and points to the grass I’d almost stepped into. Frowning I look closer.

A bear trap.

How in Tartarus had I missed that?

I’d almost walked right into it. If Aria hadn’t been keeping an eye on both of our path’s I’d be screaming my head off right now. Letting out a breath, I reach down to disarm it. Bear traps are crude but relatively simple. Just basic physics given teeth.

Aria puts a hand over mine and stops me. “Don’t, just leave it. Disarming a trap is loud, he’ll hear it, we know where it is, best to leave it alone until we’re ready to bug out.”

I nod. “Fair enough, you lead?”

She agrees, taking the lead and moving us around the trap.

“That’s why you don’t run, though,” Aria says as we get up to a new generator, “I’ve only been up against him… maybe twice? He’s brutal, careful, and just because you can’t see or hear him doesn’t mean you’re not in danger.”

“What is he?” I ask, going through the rote motions of repairing felt good, it felt familiar at least. “Other than just a crazy hunter?”

“I don’t know,” Aria answers sullenly. “But I think he’s important… He’s the one who took Sour, and my sisters and I. I think… I think he’s one of the oldest. That’s the feeling I get. I think he’s been here so long he’s almost as much a part of this place as the Entity is.”

Thump-thump, thump-thump

Both of our eyes widen as we glance up at each other. Ducking low, we split in opposite directions. I carefully move around the trap Aria had pointed out earlier and-

The heartbeat thunders as he turns the corner of a section of rubble and collapsed buildings. I feel my breath catch in my throat. He’s smiling at me. Only not really. That chipped and pitted white mask, so pale in the dark and the fog, has a wide, split-faced grin filled with sharp shark-like teeth. I don’t know why, but he scares me as much as the stalking Shape did. Maybe… maybe more.

I don’t think, I just turn and run.

Stupid, stupid Sunset.

I scream as the trap I’d just passed closes around my leg with a hungry snap, biting through the flesh and scraping the bone. What did Aria say? What did she just say?!

‘That’s why you don’t run.’

I try to pull it off of my leg, feebly gripping the rusted teeth and pulled, feeling the sharp blades shredding my fingers as I try to wrench it open. I hear breathing, not like the breathy whispers of the Huntress, or the choked stridor of the Nurse. It’s harsh, grating, like smoker's lung. It's air being dragged through a chest full of ash and fiber.

A massive, paw of a hand closes around my neck at the same moment a large and thick leather boot hits the mouth of the trap just so, bracing a heel between the teeth and leveraging his weight against the ground, he pushes the trap open with one foot and an unthinkable amount of practice.

I gasp as the trap’s jaws unclench from my leg. He slings me over his shoulder and I try to wrestle free of his grip but it’s pointless, there’s a hook only a few feet away. I brace myself, swallowing hard as I brace myself for-

SHUNK

I scream as the hook erupts from the meat of my shoulder, catching on bone to hang me for the Entity’s feeding pleasure. I gasp and struggle as I watch him just… walk away. A generator goes live and I smile, That’s fine, maybe it’s for the best. I’ll just… be here.

A yell in the distance makes me flinch. That was Aria, but that was definitely a ‘come get me’ shout. She hasn’t been hit yet, at least.

I still feel a little bad for the things I said to Starlight before, she probably didn’t deserve that but I’m so tired. I’m tired of trying and failing. I’m tired of talking and never being heard. I’m just tired. I hope they got Starlight down from her hook.

“Mi sol,” I hear Tempest and turn my head, she’s crouching towards me. “Any traps nearby?”

I shake my head. “Nah, he hauled off after hooking me. Probably keeping us off gens.”

She smiles. It’s beautiful, I love her smile. It’s so bright that it makes the dark so much darker. “Good, Aria is keeping the Trapper busy, I’ll have you down un momento.”

She rushes over to me and wraps her arms around me. I think about kicking out the way I did back at the swamp after we argued the first time. I don’t really have it in me, though. I like her arms, I like how it feels when she holds me. It feels… safe. Even if it’s a lie, it’s a nice one.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” Tempest says as she lifts and I grunt in pain as I’m dropped to the ground. I kneel to let her patch me up, her practiced hands moving fast to close up the hook wound. It’s a common one, and enough practice makes doctors out of all of us eventually.

A third generator thunders to life as I stand and test the range of my bandaged limb. Not great, but it could be worse. “I’m going this way, you go that way,” I say, point to generators on opposite sides of the grounds. “Let’s finish this.”

Tempest actually looks hopeful at my words and I feel a slight pang. I’m sorry, babe, I really, really am.

We split and I make my way to my generator, keeping to the edge of the map and sprinting along it, ducking between banks of fog and piles of rubble to keep my profile masked. There’s less high grass here and I figure he’d be crazy to trap the edge of the Trial. It’s not efficient, and the Trapper strikes me as a very efficient sort.

I’m almost to the generator when I hear the heartbeat. Aria is sprinting in circles around and around a block of rubble, keeping it between her and Trapper who seems content to keep smiling at her. I see the remains of a broken pallet near her. She’s in trouble, but it’s what she signed up for when she got that psycho’s attention.

Without warning, Aria turns on her heel and sprints towards a copse of trees, I grimace as I see Starlight crouching amongst them. Fortunately, she’s smart. She’s keeping the trees between her and the Trapper, who’s focused more on Aria anyway, she runs between the trees and away and the Trapper follows as planned.

Except…

His head never moves, his masked face never veers from Aria, so there’s absolutely no warning when he hikes his crude, brutal ritual blade up and lunges around the tree. Star is already wounded and his blade slams her hard against the tree she hiding beside, drawing out a coarse, grating scream.

“Shit,” I mutter, “one more hook for-” My eyes widen as Starlight tries to crawl away and the Trapper follows, then his boot comes down on her lower back, pinning her to the ground as he raises his machete. “No… not again.”

Once, twice, three, four, five times his blade hacks mercilessly into Starlight, flaying her back open and crushing her body against the cold, unforgiving earth of the Trial grounds. One down, dammit. He straightens and scans around for a moment before setting off in the direction that Starlight ran.

I step out of cover and sidle over to Starlight’s body, I already know what I’ll find but… I have to. She’s dead, and she died badly, I hope she gets back to the campfire. Sighing, I move to the generator a moment later, after I’m sure the heartbeat has faded enough, and start working. Shit, it’s just like it was with Sonata and Aria…

“One down,” I mutter as I chip away at the generator. I have to finish it, I have to get the others out. They don’t trust me, no one does, but… maybe here I’ll be welcome.

Maybe in the Fog.

There’s quiet for a time, no screaming or chasing, or running. Just the soft, clunking grind of the generator. I’m almost done when I hear the generator that Tempest headed off to go live and I smile. Good, maybe…

I hear Tempest scream a second later as my own generator thunders into full activation and I tear off in the direction of her generator. Damn it, he must’ve found her, he was probably close when she turned it on. I keep an eye on the ground, in as much as I can, I know Aria said don’t run, but I’m not… I’m not going to give up on her, even if she’s given up on me.

I sprint past the Killer shack and catch a glimpse of an exit. Aria is pulling the breaker switch down and powering it, good girl. I keep track of my twists and turns and soon enough I see Tempest make a beeline around the corner staggering and clutching at her side which is bleeding badly...

“Run!” Tempest shouts as she staggers forward.

I see what she means, the Trapper is right on her tail. He rounds the corner on Tempest’s heels, stalking forward like the march of death. I let out a breath of relief, though. There’s a pallet between us, she’ll make it, she just needs to-

Wait…

I narrow my eyes and feel my heart catch in my throat. No… it’s just like before. Probably just like it was with Starlight. And just like Star, Tempest is too concerned with getting away to see what she’s running into.

The Trapper isn’t chasing Tempest.

He’s herding her.

The moment stands still. What do I do? Disarm the trap? Not enough time, not nearly enough time. Throw down the pallet? It’ll be too late, either I’ll trap Tempest on the other side or she’ll hit the trap and I’ll just throw it down on top of her. She’s going to get got. No doubt about it that she’ll hit the trap unless…

I close my eyes and breathe. I run towards her, timing my sprint so we’ll meet right in the middle.

Well, not quite. I do get there a little faster.

SNAP.

“Mi Sol, no!”

Tempest cries out just as I scream when the bear trap closes around my leg, but I focus through the pain and heave Tempest over me and past me. She staggers straight forward, glancing back in abject horror. I smile back at her as the Trapper stops, almost… curious as he stares down at me.

“Get out,” I say. It’s the last thing I say before the Trapper’s stained hands close around my throat and he tears me free of the trap.

Tempest lets out a wracking sob and turns her back on me, sprinting for the exit. Good, that’s the only way this was going to end.

The Trapper heaves me up only to throw me right back down to the ground. The wind goes out of me as I land on my stomach. I start to rise by reflex, but I know what’s coming. His boot hits my lower back. It’s like a mountain’s fallen on top of me. I’d have better luck lifting the Canterhorn off of my back than the Trapper’s boot.

It shoves me harshly to the ground, and I smile.

It’s over.

The blade falls, it’s crude, flint-knapped edges bite and shred into me over and over.

And over.

It’s finally over.

Darkness.

I’m floating in darkness… but it’s not the same as before. The claws and hooks of the Entity biting into me.

Slowly… gently…

New Priest. New Hunter. New Daughter.

The alien thoughts intrude into mine like a leech slipping into a pool of tar. It’s comforting, like a prickle of electricity caressing my brain. I breathe and relish how my mind is finally free of all of that terror. I'm free of the doubt, and the fear. It’s all gone and I’m finally just… empty.

Thank the Quill.

Will you-Won’t you?

Those thoughts again, it’s… asking for my permission. I wonder what happens if I say no. Will I just fade away? Is that what happened to Spruce? Maybe that would be for the best. No more Sunset Shimmer. No more pain or failure. No more disappointment.

Except…

Will you be mine?

“What will you give me?” The words tumble from my lips, half-slurred. I know what I want. It’s maybe the only thing I still want. The only thing I’ve ever wanted: Knowledge. Only this time it’s not spells or incantations.

Vengeance.

I feel a smile crawl drunkenly over my lips. Vengeance. “That sounds good to me, Old Stain.” Rising from where I lay supine in the shadows, I raise my hand to caress one of the black and wicked claws. “Alright, show me then… show me Anon-A-Miss.”

He shows me, and I feel a rage like I’ve never felt before bubble up through my core and stick in my throat. My hand closes around the one thing I’ve kept with me all this time: my Journal, and I smile viciously.

Snapping the Journal open I reach through it to the place where I came from. Time to get mine. “Alright, a deal’s a deal, Old Stain, so let’s do this,” I say with a wild grin.

The claws snap forward, closing around me and piercing into my back like a dozen stingers from the world’s most horrifying breed of scorpion. Then I feel it, the change, it comes on slowly and gracefully, crawling over my skin like an army of cockroaches. My amber skin turns a dark, rubbery red. My veins flow blue with ice and cold fury. My coat lengthens into a tattered jacket caught on ethereal winds and my hair hangs lank and bedraggled around my face.

I’m smiling. I can’t stop smiling. Everything is so beautifully red.

I raise a hand and admire the sleek, silver claws that protrude from my fingers. They’re so beautiful, so shiny and sharp.

Finally, things are going my way.

“Alright,” I rasp, pressing my claws to the Journal’s pages and slicing into them, feeling for the glimmer of Equestrian magic. I find it and grip hard. “Time to meet your worst Nightmare.”

I flicker through between here and there

“Welcome to my world, bitches.”

10. Rite of the Nightmare

View Online

Rainbow

Bum-bum bum-bum bum-bum-bum-bum bum bum bum bum bum…

Mister Sandman… bring me a dre~am.

Make her the cutest, that I’ve ever se~en.

I stir awake to sound of an old song playing from a scratchy radio. One I barely remember my mom listening to, one that my grandma used to listen to too…

Ugh, it sounds like someone is screaming…. Wait… My eyes snap open and I look around. Someone is screaming. Where’s Scoots?!

“Scootaloo?!” I stand up, frantic, looking around. I’m… in a classroom? Whatever, no time now. “Scoots, where the hell are you?!”

“Shut! Up!” A voice hisses from the back of the room, peeking around one of the desks is a familiar young girl with apple-red hair, her face is taut with terror. “Get down and shut up!”

Mister Sa~ndma~n bring me a dre~am!

“Applebloom?” I yelp, drawing another terrified flinch from the younger girl. She looks ragged and scared out her wits.

Sweeping up a book she pitches it at me in a fit of anger.

“Ah said, shut up!” Applebloom snarls, backing me up a step at the fury in her voice. “Do ya’ll want’er ta hear ya?”

Lowering myself down and sidling over to Applebloom, I get next to her and scowl. “Who? And what’s going on?”

Applebloom shudders. “S-Sunset…” she answers. “She’s powerful mad at me n’the Crusaders… she’s turned into a demon again and… and Ah think it’s our fault.”

“Fuck yeah it is,” I practically spit back. “We found out you were Anon-A-Miss right after Sunset tried to kill herself.”

Whatever Applebloom had been expecting me to say, that wasn't it. She looks gut-checked, and she's staring at me in open-mouthed horror.

“S-she what?” Applebloom says dumbly, her mouth working and her brain fritzing out on the concept. “W-what’dya mean?”

Leaning against one of the desks, I just shake my head. “Vice Principal Luna said she pitched herself off of the top of the school building the morning of the day you all were taken. The only reason she didn’t die is that something… took her. Princess Twilight tried to get her out but it didn’t work. Time moves really fast in here I think, like super fast. A day out there is like two or three weeks in here.”

“S-so then… she’s not…?” Applebloom starts but can’t finish the sentence.

“Dead?” I ask grimly, earning a flinch from Applebloom, “I dunno… I don’t know what really counts in here as dead. The Princess thinks she’s still alive though, so, I hope not.”

A song penetrates the air around us, filling our ears and minds with the soft music sung by a familiar voice. A voice I still… I clench my eyes, I don’t have time to get all weepy in here. Scootaloo needs me. Sunset needs me… Applebloom looks even more terrified than before though and starts to stand up. I snap a hand out and grab her.

“Yo, where the hell’re you going?” I say, as she tries to violently pull away from me. “If you run out there she’ll see you right?”

Applebloom shakes her head. “N-no, you don’t get it, Dash! It ain’t that, it’s-”

Ha-haha-ha~...

The air shudders with a sudden low and throaty chuckle and the world cracks and shifts around me. The fog that sat low to the tiles is suddenly much thicker and everything is washed out in shades of gray. Everything feels… surreal and strange… like a dream…

Applebloom screams.

Or a Nightmare.

Five white-hot scars of pain slice through my back and throw me forward, stumbling past Applebloom as I stagger away, I turn to see what just hit me… Applebloom rips past me shouting for me to run.

“Run?” I choke out, there’s nothing there. “From what?!”

Then the air in front of me ripples and for a moment I see something. I see someone. A figure in a black and tattered coat is stalking towards me, her hand held up, displaying her blade-like fingers and the ruby droplets that are falling from their edges as she wiggles them at me mockingly. Her red and gold hair is pale and greasy like it hasn’t been washed in weeks, and it’s hanging over her face like a veil. But I can see her smiling. A crazy rictus that promises me things I’ve never, ever wanted.

“S-Sunset?” The name tumbles out of my mouth as I back away.

I get it now. I get why Applebloom screamed and told me to run. I really get it as Sunset flickers back out of sight and I backpedal out of the classroom

Yeah, running now.

Sunset

The bitch is here.

The traitor. The betrayer.

“Wonderful, I didn’t even have to come for you,” I whisper under my breath as Rainbow turns on her heel and sprints away from me, putting those lovely runners legs to good use. She tears away, faster than any of the others as she puts on a burst of speed. “Run, run, as fast as you can…”

Reality is my toy as I stride through, into, and between the Fog. Have you ever tried to keep an eye on something in a dream? It doesn’t really work, does it? Dreams aren’t meant to be looked at… they just happen. Just like me. You can’t see me, Rainbow, or maybe you can, who knows?

Who cares?

I track her, my eyes scanning the floors and walls for the red scratches scored into the flesh of my little marble of reality. Every step they take scratches their fear, their hope of escape and respite, and their despair of my claws, into my world. I move and the world moves around me. Am I slow or fast? To me, I’m moving at a nice, leisurely pace. To them, it’s like every step of mine covers two of theirs.

Her prismatic hair bobs around a corner a few meters ahead and I close in. My fingers are twitching, snapping and rasping against one another like a school of piranha. They’ll bite in soon enough.

I turn the corner as Rainbow looks over her shoulder. I can see the fear in her eyes. I can taste it. Guilt, hope, terror, despair… I see why the Entity loves the flavor so much. Well, he’ll have to wait his turn. I get to break the rules for my own ends first. I feel something as I approach Rainbow, she’s moving so slowly to me, but I feel it. Every step I take towards her bombards me with memories.

Walking through the mall by her side; laughing, joking, talking. Stop lying to me you multi-colored bitch, stop it!

Water is pouring over my head and I’m crying my heart out. Everything hurts. My back, my arms, my chest. My heart. I just want it to end. Then she’s there, talking, smiling, a touch of softness in my hard world.

My world is brighter, it’s so bright and so dark, and all I can think about is her. Then she cuts my heart out. I still can’t stop thinking about her. Her smile, her laugh, her betrayal. She was everything to me. She is everything to me. She's my whole world and my unwanted obsession. I want to kiss her. I want to kill her.

I WILL KILL HER.

Two steps and I’m at her back.

“This my world, bitch, you don’t escape me.” The words hiss from my stretched, cracked lips as my blades dig into her back and drive her down. I kneel, driving my knee into the bloody wounds I’ve carved into her, and savoring her scream.

Lowering myself to her ear, I drag my tongue along the lobe and grin as she shivers beneath me.

“You’re going to remember me…” I whisper.

There’s a hook nearby, but I have time. Time to savor her pain. Someone will be by soon to get her off the floor, then we can begin again. Then I can hurt her again, just like she hurt me. I’ll hurt all of them.

But her, most of all.

I see a flicker of pale hair and I grin. immediately I’m out and striding through the halls of my palace of torment. Why shouldn’t it be here after all? This school? It's a place of lessons and I’m the teacher, professor, and the fucking headmistress.

No tardies in my class! I’ll nail them to the seats and carve my lessons into their skin!

I move forward and she’s there, just ahead of me, little Sweetie Belle still terrified of my claws. Good, I love a little fear in the morning. I reach out with one hand and feel for her mind, rigid with terror and frantic like a mouse about to be trodden on. I grin as I dig my mental claws into the frail, supple flesh of her brain, slicing through her brain stem, up to the thalamus and into the cortex, tickling the frontal lobe and plucking the strings of her gray matter.

One... two... Sunny's coming for you~

Her footsteps fumble as she staggers, falling into a half-lucid waking dream where I’m the master. My laughter follows her into my Dreamtime and I’m right on its heels, my claws driving into Sweetie's back and throwing her forward with a delicious shriek of pain.

“You can’t get rid of me this time,” I cackle, as I pursue her. “This is my school now, and I’ve got tenure, bitch!”

I feel Rainbow Dash get to her feet. Someone is helping her. Good, that means more blood, more pain, and more screams. They’re all delicious, but hers? Hers are a delicacy. Too bad I’ve got to finish this job first. Oh well, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Sweetie Belle barely makes more than a few steps before she makes a fatal mistake and turns into a dead end.

Sweetie screams as I turn the corner, her eyes unfocused with nightmare terror. There are words in her screams, I think. Apologies? I'm not listening to those anymore. She can bleed her apologies all over my hand as I drive my claws into her gut and nail her to the ground before lowering myself to her level.

“Too little, too late,” I whisper before seizing her by the throat and lifting her up, hauling her small body over my shoulder. She struggles, meaninglessly, as I glance about.

Now I get it. I see why they always knew where the hooks were. It’s all so red. The hooks shine with beautiful red light. They’re not part of my reality, they’re gifts from him, from that Old Stain, and he wants me to know where they are. What a sweetheart. I walk unerringly a few steps down the hall, then turn into a classroom where a hook protrudes from the corner near the blackboard.

One swift movement that feels as natural as breathing puts Sweetie Belle on the hook. She screams, and I purr at the sound.

“Hang out there, won’t you?” I grin as I stare up at her. “She came to save you once, I’m sure she’ll be here soon now that I’ve rung the dinner ‘belle’.”

I step away and leave the room, looking either way and listening. I don’t hear anything, but that’s not a problem. I stride away leisurely, scanning the hallways and classrooms. Any one could hide a veritable feast of hope and-

Oh, what was that?

A little bob of red hair ducks behind the teacher's desk as I pass one classroom. Smiling, I turn back and peek in at little Applebloom. What a love, waiting to free her friend. Moving around the room, I get a bead on her, then reach for her mind and grip it, driving my fingers deep. She sleeps to the sound of my laughter and immediately tries to run, but I’m on her, my claws driving her against her hardwood hiding place.

“Oh look, someone left an apple on my desk!” I slice her and she screams, scrambling away from me as I laugh. I flick the blood lazily off of my claws and pursue her.

She doesn’t get far before I slice her to the ground, like all the others. I stalk around her as she cries on the floor, tears mixing with blood.

I wonder… I reach down and pick her up. The world lights up with hooks like Christmas lights, but I don’t look around, I look down. I’m probably close enough, then I can… visit. I carry her to an open door that leads down into the bowels of my Trial. The dark, stained concrete steps ooze malice, and the moment I step in it’s like slipping into a cool bath after a hot day. This is where his realm and mine meet in joyous harmony. I enter the basement and grin at the two figures hanging between the hooks.

My magic lets me cheat, and I love it. I love cheating. Rules are for losers who are too uncreative to figure out where the loopholes are. I throw Applebloom on a hook almost as an afterthought and sweep around to the taller figure hanging between two of the hooks by chains forged from Fog and nightmares.

“Hello, lover…” I purr, reaching out to caress Tempest’s cheek, careful not to make any more scars on her beautiful body. It was hard enough for both us when I had to put her down to get her here. “Sorry I had to take off, but I’m back now.”

Tempest grimaces at me and I feel a pang of anger. “Don’t talk like you’re her. Mi sol has gone out, and all that’s left is a cinder.”

I bite back a snarl as my fingers reflexively grip to cut her, to hurt her for trying to hurt me. No… it’s not her fault. She’s been hunted for so long, she doesn’t know anything else.

“You’ll understand eventually,” I say, as I let out a calming breath before leaning in to put a soft kiss on her cheek. “I’m protecting you from him, from the Entity. I’ll always protect you.”

Stepping around the shrine of hooks I stop in front of Aria.

“You too, you deserve better,” I say as I reach out and brush a few stray locks from her face. “I’ll find your sisters too, I promise.”

Aria stares up at me, not angry just tired. “Sunset… this isn’t right,” she pleads, trying to reach for me with her chained hands. “You’re better than this.”

For a moment, just a brief, brief moment, I force the haze of red away. Aria’s face changes as my mood shifts. In her bright, mulberry eyes I see my own reflected; clear, sharp aquamarines on a field of healthy white. Then the moment passes and they’re shrouded in darkness again.

“No,” I say softly, cradling her cheek as I lean in to press my forehead against hers. “I’m not.” I lay a kiss on her forehead. “But that’s okay, I’ll save you anyway, I just need time and I’ll figure it out.”

I leave the basement and reach out with my senses. I curse, I’d been too distracted and at some point, they’d freed Sweetie Belle. Oh well, I’ll find them again and-

A generator thunders to life. Well, I guess that was inevitable. It’s a natural inclination here that they’re drawn to the generators. They feel it somewhere deep in their souls that they need to fix them. To bring light to the darkness.

To escape.

Except, no one escapes me. How dare they even think about trying? I’ll drag that stupid bitch back to my fucking basement by her goddamn rainbow hair for that. Let them fix the generators, it won’t make a difference! It just gets me fired up to beat their faces into the ground and cut them til they scream!

My whole body twitches with nervous energy as I stalk the halls of my phantom Canterlot High School, towards the now-live generator, scanning for them. I’ll find them and then I’ll hurt them and it will taste wonderful.

Scootaloo suddenly rounds the corner and sprints past me, I grin, she can’t see me yet, but it doesn’t matter. She will. I reach out and pluck the strings of her mind with a chuckle, and drag her into my world.

Three... four... better lock your door...

She staggers as my will overrides hers, driving her into a waking nightmare. I relish the look of terror on Scootaloo’s face as she glances back and catches sight of me for a moment as I flicker in and out of vision. She moves like a choppy stop motion film reel, slow then fast, as time weaves strangely around us. The world is a faded grey and red all about us as I pursue her at my leisure.

“No amount of running can save you, little chicken,” I call, laughing as she cries out for help that isn’t coming. “Squawk and flap all you like, I’d love to see if you can still do it with your head cut off!”

There’s a flash of cyan at the corner of my eye as I pass the empty hall in pursuit of Scootaloo. A fist is thrown through the air, and it slows as time melts around it. I grimace as I lean back, then swing my hand out and to the side, not bothering to look. I can feel her, I can taste her. My blades slide into soft flesh and athletic muscle, and she screams gorgeously. Her fist connects limply in her failed attempt to attack me. It’s almost like a caress. She’ll learn her place soon enough.

Rainbow staggers away from me with a cry, clutching the wound. I lift my fingers and watch the lovely red tears drip to the floor.

No, I’m getting distracted, I glance around but the little chicky is gone. I look back and, to my surprise, Rainbow is still here. Her eyes are bright but unfocused with slumber, they haven’t learned how to wake one another up yet, I realise. Or else they couldn’t. Whoever found her might’ve been in the grip of my spell.

“S-Sunset?” Her voice is cracked and raw from pain and screams. “What happened to you?”

I step closer… close enough to smell her. That faint rainy scent of her body wash, the aroma of fresh cut grass from the fields, and the taste of new winter snow.

“That’s a stupid question, isn’t it?" I say, smiling at her with a mouth full of shark-like teeth. “You, all of you, are what happened to me.”

She flinches. “I’m sorry, Sunset, I’m… I’m so sorry, we all are! We should’ve believed you! You were right it wasn’t you!”

“Don’t you think I know that!!?" I shriek, and she screams and cowers back from me.

I wonder what I must look like.

“Of course I know that! That’s not the point!” I run the edges of my blades down her face, slicing just through the topmost layer of skin and drawing out little beads of red. “It shouldn’t have mattered even if it had been me all along.”

“What?” Rainbow looks confused. It's a common look on her face.

I turn my lips down in an exaggerated pout and click my tongue.

“Aw, it’s a good thing you’re cute, Rainbow. Your lights might be on but the hamster is dead. Let me spell it out for you then…” I run my blades through her hair and push her against the wall. “Even if I was guilty as hell, it shouldn’t have mattered because you said I was your friend! Friends believe in each other! Friends fight for each other!” I scream, slamming my blades into the wall by her head, sinking down to my knuckles.

“I’m sorry!” Rainbow screams, flinching away from me as I drag my fingers down through the wood with a harsh, grating sound.

“You should’ve stuck by me until you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, but you didn’t!” I hiss, leaning in until I’m right by her ear. “I was your friend right up until shit went so far south we ended up in interdimensional Marexico and then you dropped me in the trash like a prom-night baby.”

Tears are flowing freely down her face by now. I wish it felt better but it doesn’t. Seeing her crying, begging for my forgiveness, spouting apologies… it just feels so hollow. I back away from her, pulling my fingers free with a dull thunk of wood as Rainbow slides down the wall til she’s sitting with her ass on the ground.

“It was just supposed to be them, y’know,” I say, gesturing behind me towards where Scootaloo had run away. Towards the basement where Applebloom is hanging. I grimace as I realise she’s gone. Was hanging. Oh well, I’ll find her again. “Guess I’m not the only one fucking with the rulebook. You stink of chaos magic, Rainbow. I don’t know where you found a chaos witch powerful enough to pry open one of the Old Stain’s rifts, but you’re going to regret it.”

Rainbow mutters something I don’t quite catch, and I lean in.

“Sorry, sherbet-head, but you’re gonna have to speak up,” I say, kneeling down and gripping her face so she’s looking at me. My eyebrows rise at the semblance of a fight that's still left in her eyes.

“I won’t regret it,” she says, through split lips. “Because either I save you… or I belong here with you.”

I sigh.

“How dramatic,” I say, shaking her head back and forth before jerking my hand to the side and pitching her to the ground. “Such a martyr complex, I guess it’s that guilt you’ve always had, huh? Let me be clear, lover-girl, we’re nothing. Not anymore, capisce? I want nothing to do with you six fuckups. I’ve got enough people to save.”

“Save?” Rainbow spits and I feel my temper rise. “Look at you! You’re hunting them like friggin’ animals and you expect me to think you’d save any-”

I don’t let her finish. My claws come down on her head like the hammer of wrath, slamming her into the ground and spiking her there.

“I don’t give a damn what you think!” I scream. I lose it then. My temper and my sanity briefly vanishes as I grip her head and slam it repeatedly into the ground, over and over until she's bleeding across the filthy tile, and I'm left breathing hard with exertion.

“You want to know the truth?" I snarl as I flip her over and plant a boot on her throat. "Fine!”

Reaching into my jacket I pull out my Journal. It’s smoking and leaking black smoke. There are black crystals growing along the edges that crackle with an unpleasantly brackish energy. I flip it open and turn it around, showing diagrams of arcane formula and figures etched in blood.

“I may be able to bend the rules, Rainbow, but no one can break the laws of magic,” I hiss, shoving the book in her face. “I can’t steal, because all magic has a price. I have to exchange! The Entity needs energy to stay coherent. Just like we need food, he eats hope, and when I came here I met people who were almost out of it. Almost, but not quite, and through it all, they still fought. For all their pain and anguish and sorrow, they’re still fighting.”

“M-more?” Rainbow chokes out around my boot. “What? How many?”

“Too many,” I answer grimly, “but I only care about four. I promised the Old Stain replacements with interest in exchange for my real friends. Two for three, a good deal for him, but it's the only way I’m getting them out of here.”

“You’re taking more people?” Rainbow asks, horrified, and I nod. “And you’re… you’re going to-”

“I’m going to do whatever I have to,” I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “You were right to drop me, Rainbow, because I’m not worth it, but I don’t care anymore. Once a monster, always a monster. That’s Sunset Shimmer, eh? Fine, I’ll be a monster. I’ll save who I want and damn all the rest to this pre-digestive Tartarus.”

I reach down and haul her up to my shoulder, slinging her over and walking towards the basement. We’re close enough, I might not’ve gotten Scootaloo but the Entity isn’t picky about whose hope he’s devouring, so long as he’s getting his dinner on time, I stay on his good side. So long as he gives me my friends, he stays on mine too. Also, I might’ve lied a little to Rainbow; I could steal from him, but there’s a price for that too.

One I have to be very careful about how and when I pay.

Rainbow

Did you know getting hung from a butchers hook really fuckin’ hurts? Because I didn’t.

I mean, I did, obviously. Like, duh, it’s a hook stuck through your meat. That’s gonna hurt like a bitch, right? But you don’t really appreciate that kind of pain until it happens to you, and I would’ve been super glad if I’d kept right on not being able to appreciate how much a butcher hook through the shoulder hurts.

I can’t really imagine a worse place than this basement, either. I don’t know why. Like, I’m sure there are worse places, but I can’t even imagine what that would be like. I don’t think I want to either. There are whispers all around me and even the air is like a thick, bitter syrup. The stink of death, all flavors of death, are all around me. The kind of coppery, salty taste of new death. The sickly-sweet rot and decay of old death. It’s all here.

“So what’re you two in for?” I say with a smile that’s really just grimace turned upside-down.

There are two other’s hanging between the hooks, weirdly, not on them. Girls I think, I didn’t get a good look. They’re chained up, I can see the weird, misty-looking shackles keeping them tied up.

I hear the shackles shake to my right as one of them moves around then a familiar voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm speaks up. “Oh, great, it’s the Rainboom’s poster girl, we’re saved.”

My eyes widen as I try to move around. I definitely know that voice. Groaning in pain as the hook cuts and jabs I manage to swivel myself enough to see her. She different than I remember, she looks worn out and more mature, who knows how long she’s been in here.

“Aria Blaze?” I gape at the siren who’s hanging adjacent to me. “What the hell’re you doing here?”

“I was taken, dumbass, just like everyone who ends up this shit-hole” Aria snaps back before giving a heavy sigh. “Just like Red.”

I wince. “Was that our fault too?”

Aria scowls but finally shakes her head. “Nah, as much as I wanna blame you pastel fuckups, this one was our mistake. I can’t exactly blame you for stopping us from turning your school into a negative emotion farm.”

“Uh, yeah, that was pretty uncool,” I say, breathing raggedly as the dull roar of the pain starts to pound in my shoulder again. “So, uh, who’s she?”

I nod to the other, much larger girl hanging to my left side who had remained silent this whole time. She’s big, like, powerlifter big. She could probably bench press six of me without breaking much of a sweat. She has a rad red warhawk that’s hanging along the side of her face and she’s just… ignoring us. I think she is, anyway.

“Tempest?” Aria calls out softly. “C’mon Tempest, you can’t do this forever, I need you to shape up.”

“Is she one of them?” The girl that Aria called Tempest finally says. Her voice is low and deadly, with a pleasant, rolling accent. “This girl, is she one of those puta that abandoned Mi Sol?”

Aria sighs.”Uh, yeah, that’d be them.”

The words are barely out of her mouth before Tempest moves like a surge tide, lunging for me. I scream, trying to jerk away but only end up digging myself deeper on the hook. The shackles stop her, but barely. The wood of the hook posts groans horribly as she strains to reach me, a rictus of rage on her face, and her fiery teal eyes, so much like Sunset’s, burning with fury as she reaches out grasping for my throat.

“You motherfuckers!” Tempest spits viciously. “How could you do that?! How could you?! You ruined her!”

A jab of pain hits me that has nothing to do with the hook in my shoulder.

“I know!” I yell back. “We all know, okay!? We… we fucked up really bad and we’re trying to fix it!”

Tempest just stares daggers back at me. “You can’t fix this, puta, once you change you’re gone forever. Sunset is dead. All that’s left is a Killer wearing her skin.”

I feel my heart break a little hearing those words, but before I can try to argue it, Aria speaks up.

“Is she?” We both turn, as best we can, to look at her. “Changed, I mean. The other Killers don’t talk, they don’t heckle or explain anything, or do anything but kill, really. What makes Sunset so different? It’s like she’s… lucid.”

Tempest just shakes her head but for once I think I actually have an answer.

“Her Journal…” I mutter, and both of them wrench their heads to look at me. “T-the Journal she keeps is like, a… a smartphone that can talk between dimensions. It’s some kind of Equestrian artifact, I think their Princess or Goddess or whatever gave it to them. Princess Celestia is like, an immortal ruler or something.”

Aria stares back at me dumbly. “Are you serious? The Journal she has on her? That thing is that powerful?”

“Uh, I dunno how powerful it is,” I reply, grimacing. “It’s just, like, long-distance texting right?”

The shackles on her wrists jerk as Aria presumably makes an attempt to facepalm. “No, you dingus, it’s a dimensional channel! It would have to be! It creates a miniature gateway between Equestria and wherever the Journal is. She must be drawing on Equestrian magic through the Journal to stay sane!”

"Five... six... grab your crucifix...

We all shut up as Sunset’s low singing voice comes through as she walks down the stairs, her dream-form shimmering and shifting until she was visible. Scootaloo hung limp and crying over her shoulder as she made her way towards the back hook.

“C-C’mon, Sunset,” I plead as I follow her with my eyes. “Don’t do that to her, she’s just a kid. She doesn’t deserve that.”

She glances back at me with those furious, black-and-aqua eyes, but doesn’t answer.

I brace myself for what I know is coming. There’s a harsh, meaty shunk and Scootaloo screams. She’s crying for her mom and dad, she’s crying for me.

"Seven... eight... try and stay up late..."

“It’s okay, squirt!” I shout, trying to move around to see her. “It’ll be over soon! I promise! I’ll get us outta here!”

A pair of sharp, metal blades come to rest on my cheek and guide my face back around to look straight at Sunset. She’s not smiling, or scowling, she’s just… staring.

“It will be over soon, the other two are hooked not far away,” she says softly. “Now he’s coming for you, and he’ll take you, and then he’ll rip you apart, turn you inside out, drain you dry, and then put you back together piece by rotten piece.”

I start shaking as I hear a thunderclap above us.

“And do you wanna know the best part?” Sunset says, a manic grin growing on her face as she leans in to whisper in my ear. “Once he’s done, he’s going to put you right. Back. Here. With me. Then we get to do it all over again. Over and over and over and over and over again.”

She lifts my head up and I see a dark stain of clouds above me growing and roiling as horrifying claws lower out of the ceiling like a twisted version of one of those prize machines at the county fair. I close my eyes as I feel them pierce into me. It doesn’t matter, I can feel that where I’m going is just more and more darkness.

"Nine... ten... never sleep again.

Sunset

I watch the Old Stain take them, and in that final moment, as they're passing through the dimensional rift between my realm and his realm, here where the walls are so deliciously thin, I reach out.

Their power is so damn bright. They’re still so full of hope. The Entity will like that, but so do I. They’re bright enough that he won’t notice if I siphon just a little for myself. Skim a bit off the top as it were. I need the power if I’m going to make this next part work. I take a deep breath and cut away a little sliver of hope from each of them and drink it in.

Written's Quill but that’s a powerful surge. No wonder the Old Stain’s addicted to the stuff. I only take a nibble, though. I just need enough to take a few sideways steps. Just a couple of trips here and there. I need to stack the deck before the next step in my plan.

Walking around the now partially empty shrine, I stop in front of Tempest and reach out to touch her. For once she doesn’t flinch away. She’s staring at me in suspicion and… hope?

“Is it true, Mi Sol?” Tempest asks, her voice low and fragile. “Are really, actually still you in there?”

My eyes widen a bit. I should keep playing the part. I can’t give anything away until the last moment. If I tip my hand too early then… then… I clench my eyes shut. Fuck it, the Old Stain is gorging himself like the fat ass he is right now, he's not looking at me. I can have a moment. Just… Just one.

Forcing the edge of madness away, I let the darkness fall from my eyes, and I nod.

Tempest’s jaw drops open. “H-how are y-”

I silence her with a finger to her lips and flinch as I accidentally cut her a little. My fingers are too sharp. They're forged from the unearthly immaterial matter of the Fog.

“Ssh… I promised, alright?” I lean in and press my lips to hers. “I promise I’ll save you all.”

Turning on my heel I pull my Journal free and siphon another fragment of Equestrian magic through it. The Crystals grow, solidifying. I won’t be able to keep doing this for long. If I fuck it up then that’s it, the Journal will crumble as the crystallized dark magic overwhelms it and turns it to dust.

Sunset Shimmer only needs one shot, though.

I raise my hands and close my eyes, falling back into my old training.

“Starswhirl’s Dimensional Doorway,” I mutter, sifting through the arcane incantations in my mind, as the air around me ripples.

I stab one of my blades into the open air, and it vanishes. Then I cut down, and reality peels away like a curtain. Time to start doing my rounds. I haven’t got long while he’s distracted. Not long at all. I rip space and time apart and fling myself across the darkness to another trial ground.

It’s easy to find.

Just follow the humming.

11. The Way of Light - Part 1

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Sunset

I step out of the rift gripping a small bundle in my hand.

Step one is complete, but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I reach out with the ragged vestiges of my mind to scan my realm. All quiet on the nightmare front it would seem. Good, but there's a tension in the air. The storm is about to break, and when it does the Fog will roll in carrying Rainbow and the little bitches with it.

Clenching my eyes shut, I try and hedge out the rage. It’s difficult to remain lucid right now, spending that much magic all at once was a tax on my limited reserves. I’ve only got a couple more trips in me, then I’m toast.

The cabinets will serve as an adequate hiding place for my prize for now. Not even Rainbow Dash is dumb enough to try hiding in one of those. It’s suicide. I go to the back and tuck it away on one of the little shelves.

“Mi sol?” Tempest calls out to me, but I don’t respond. I can’t afford to, not again, not when the old stain is back to paying attention. “Is it still you?”

I turn and give her my best glassy-eyed Killer stare. I have a lot of practice with that stare considering how much it’s been directed at me. A small, unhinged smile stretches my teeth into view.

“Hey lover…” My voice is a viper’s hiss, and a sharp pang cuts through me as Tempest flinches.

I approach anyway, and run the blunt, back edge of one of my fingers against her cheek.

“What’s wrong?” I lean in, inhaling her scent of engine oil and sweat. A pleasant, musky odor. “Don’t worry, it’ll a~ll be fine, I’m going to bring you some friends, okay?”

She chokes back a sob and I pull back, bringing my hand up to delicately trace the scar on her face from the top of her scalp to the edge of her lip. It was such a beautiful mark, a slash of pale, fibrous flesh against her smooth natural tan. I stare at it, tracing my finger up and down, getting lost in the hypnotising motion.

“AH!” Tempest flinches as my finger digs a little too hard on one pass and a small droplet of red leaks out, sliding down her face.

It snaps me out of my trance and I blink, I almost lost it there. It's getting harder and harder not to indulge my obsessions. Logic and focus are becoming more difficult to come by, and as my condition degenerates my impulses will start getting the better of me. I might have less time than I thought.

Oh well, one way or the other I’ve got to do it like this, I think, pulling my blade back and licking the ruby stain from my fingers. So many ways this could go wrong. The ritual could fail, time could run short, the other one might not even be reachable…

I watch the little river of red trace tributaries and canals over Tempest’s beautiful face as I give myself time to think. It’s a risk, there’s always a risk. That’s why you do it, though, right, Shimmer? What’s the fun in winning if the odds aren’t stacked against you? Can’t just beat’em, gotta give them the first punch so they know they’re losers.

Leaning in again, I lick the trail of blood from Tempest’s face with the tip of my tongue, savoring the salty-sweet copper taste. Licking my lips, I smile wickedly at my captive audience.

“It’ll all be over soon,” I say softly, caressing her cheek. “They’re coming back.”

The Fog is rolling in… time to fill it with screams.

Rainbow

My shoes slam into the ugly, stained tile floors of the school. I don’t know how long we’ve been gone, only that we went somewhere… somewhere dark. I shiver as I consider the ‘we’. I have no idea if the others were there too, I think they were but… All I felt while I was there was… not alone. Never alone.

If only.

I was alone with that thing. Sunset was right… he did things to me I can’t even think about. Literally, my brain just… can’t even process what happened. It was like getting skinned, inch by inch, over and over, only to be stitched back together again. It didn’t hurt, but only because it was worse than pain. It was like every time it happened I was losing something I needed. Something vital.

Some part of me that makes me who I am.

It’s like… standing here in the classroom I feel like I’m not even me anymore. Not all the way.

I shiver. I wonder how many times that happened to Sunset? How many times did she get torn apart and put back together with bits missing?

How long did it take before there was so much missing that she became…

I let out a shaky breath and look around.

“Who’re you?”

I blink, for a moment I think I’m hearing things then I spot a figure crouching behind the teacher's desk. Her pink and teal hair is done up in two messy buns, her face is freckled and she has a hunted look in her eyes. I wonder if I’ve got that look now too, or if it’ll just sorta come with time.

I get low and sidle closer to her. “Name’s Rainbow Dash, what’s yours?”

“Sour Sweet,” she answers, eyeing me up and down. “You’re one of the ones and turned Sunny into a monster, huh?”

Ouch, damn that was cold. Not inaccurate, I guess, but still cold.

“Y-yeah, me and the others,” I admit, letting out a sigh. “We fucked up, I know, you don’t have to remind me. It’s pretty much all anyone does anymore.”

Sour just smirks and shrugs. “Being an idiot isn’t a crime,” she says in a sardonic tone completely different from her first one. “But this shit is your fault and everyone else at this fuckin’ school. Here I thought Crystal Prep was bad.”

Wow, low blow. “It’s… it’s complicated.”

The only response I get is a flat stare. Yeah, that excuse sounded pretty weak even to me.

“Whatever,” Sour says, shaking her head. “Let’s go, we need to grind out the gens if we’re gonna survive.”

She moves and I follow her since she seems like she knows what she’s doing. We move carefully through the halls, dodging from classroom to classroom. It’s eerie, I know the halls and… I don’t. I recognize the lockers but it’s in a bad way. I bet I could find mine, but I don’t want to. Everything about this place is twisted and ugly. But Sunset said this was her place, right? I guess… I guess this is what CHS looks like to her now. Can’t really blame her for that.

We sidle into a room and Sour smirks again.

“There, see?” She points to a generator. It's old and scuffed up, but it looks like it might still work. “You have to get them running again, five of them, then the Exits go active. It takes a bit to open the exit, but then you can get back to the campfire.”

“Campfire?” I say as we move to the generator and start working on it. “What campfire?”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “This your first time in here? I thought you’d been hunted here before from how you act.”

I shake my head. “Second time, I got uh…”

“Hooked?” Sour fills in the space and I flinch, giving her all the answer she needed. “But after you got back from the darkness you landed at the campfire, right? Then you got picked up again and brought here.”

I shake my head again. “Nope, I went straight from, uh, here to there, the darkness, and then right back here.”

Sour stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “That’s… that’s fucked. That’s not possible. We always get a rest in between. Why the fuck would…”

A soft, insistent lullaby rolls through the air like a poison and we both freeze.

"One... two... Sunny's coming for you..."

“Is that…?”

I nod and peel off of the generator, Sour Sweet immediately follows suit and we run. The song slips through my ears and wraps around my brain. I can feel it clogging up my thoughts, everything gets hazy and I know what’s coming next.

Her laughter bites through all other sounds, deep, throaty, and menacing, and suddenly the world around me is distorted by shadows. I put on a burst of speed at the last minute, and barely feel the air slash behind me as her claws carve through nothing. I smirk, looking back at her, and feel my heart hitch. She’s smiling back at me, barely moving in the seconds before she vanishes again.

“Scatter!” I yell at Sour and she takes a hard left while I keep going straight.

A heartbeat pounds in my ears, only a little drowned out by that constant lullaby as I sprint past hallways and vinyl tiled crossroads. I look for anything, any kind of way out. Any-

It’s gone. I look back over my shoulder again expecting to see her- Sunset, or whatever she is now- flickering in and out of existence with that terrible smile on her face, but she’s gone. Both the lullaby and the heartbeat is fading, suddenly and without warning… I’m alone.

A scream echoes through the halls.

“Sour!”

I stop and turn back, scrambling on the smooth tile to get back to where we’d parted ways. Why did she go after Sour? Why!? I’m the one she wants! Me!

A few halls down I see Sour sprint down a hallway crosswise clutching a ragged, bloody wound. Seconds later Sunset flickers through the hall as well, flexing her bladed fingers as blood dripped from them, she licked a speck of red from the tip of one of the blades as she glanced down the hall, shooting me a sultry, heart-stopping grin filled with sharp, angular teeth, and mouthing the word ‘soon’ to me before turning back to her prey.

She’s gone a second later and seconds after that another scream from Sour Sweet splits the air, and I cringe.

Sour is down, but she said we had to turn on generators, right? I sprint back to the generator we were both working on, kneel in front of it, and start working. I don’t exactly know what goes where but I’ll just have to figure it out. Most of the problems are pretty fuckin’ obvious, really. Stuff just knocked out of place, wires pulled out, and unbolted plates.

But I can’t concentrate.

I shake my head trying to clear the haze from my thoughts, but trying to think about how to fix this metal piece of crap is impossible. I can barely keep my eyes focused on the parts and pieces, and inevitably it goes wrong. I scream as I trip one of the live wires, shock myself, and causing a deafening pop of electricity.

I shake my now extra-crispy hand, grimacing at the sharp pain.

“Well, that woke me up…” I say grimly before realising what I'd just said.

That woke me up.

It’s gone. The song, the washed-out colors, the hazy thoughts. I’m awake!

I hop back on the generator and start working, my mind finally clear. The work goes quickly once I figure out what I did wrong the first time. It was obvious, a stupid mistake I wouldn’t have made if I had been thinking clearly and, y’know, awake.

“Rainbow?” A small voice calls out softly from the door, I glance around and spot Sweetie Belle, and behind her is a girl I don’t know. Her hair is long and dark purple with a pale teal streak to it.

They both rush over and get on the generator.

“Hey, uh, I’m Starlight… Starlight Glimmer,” the girl says a little shyly. She looks worried.

“Rainbow Dash,” I answer, trying to keep my focus on the generator so I don’t make any more mistakes. “Thanks for looking after Sweetie, did you see any other younger girls around her age?”

Starlight shakes her head, but Sweetie pipes up before Star can say anything. “I saw Scootaloo, and she said she saw Applebloom a bit ago too and was gonna go find her.”

“I saw a girl named Sour Sweet earlier, but she got grabbed,” I admit, grimacing as I try not to think about where she ended up.

Starlight stares at both of us for a moment. “Wait, you mean… just now? Like, not a Trial ago but today? Tonight? Whatever time it is here? You saw all of them?”

“Well, yeah," I say with a nod. "She was working right where you were before Sunset showed up and chased us off, and I figure Sweetie knows her own best friends.” Sweetie Belle nods emphatically at that.

“That’s… that’s not right,” Starlight insists. “Four people! That’s the rule! Trials are four of us and one of them. The Killers. I’ve only ever seen an extra when the Entity grabs new blood and even that doesn’t happen all that often.”

I count off in my head; the three crusaders, me, Starlight, and Sour… right? Unless someone else got pulled in that made six. “Six people?”

"Three... four... better lock your door..."

We all stagger at almost the same time. We’d been talking so much we’d missed it. The lullaby. It had crept up on us like the Fog. As the exhaustion closes over my brain I spit out what I’d learned.

“Blow a generator! Or something! You can wake yourself up!”

Seconds. We’ve got seconds before she can touch us, All three of us trying to find a spare wire to-

Hahahaha~...

Too late. I feel her blades slice into my back and I scream as she pins me to the generator. Sweetie Belle and Starlight shriek and sprint away from her, but she doesn’t even bother trying to follow. Why would she?

She’s got me.

I try to rise but Sunset twists the blades that are impaled into my back and drives me down against the generator. Her breath is like an open oven as she leans forward until her cheek is pressed against mine, her whole body weight against me.

“Good mo~rning,” she sings the words into my ear, and I scream again as she twists her blades a little more. “Isn’t that what you dreamed of hearing one day?”

I close my eyes, trying not to listen, trying to push away the tears.

“How many times did you imagine this?” Sunset murmurs, grinding the blades of her fingers against what I’m pretty sure are my ribs. “My body against yours… the early morning fog hanging low on the ground, my breath hot on your neck?”

Her grip tightens and I spit a torrent of blood onto the generator as her voice loses all semblance of softness, turning hard and bitter. “Isn’t it everything you ever dreamed of, Dashie?”

I gasp as she rips her blades from my chest and I slump to the floor, coughing and hacking blood and mucus onto the ground as tears drip from my eyes.

“I shouldn’t be toying with you like this…” Sunset says from somewhere above me, the blood loss is making me woozy but I can hear her pacing around me, I see her boots pass in front of my eyes. “But I can’t seem to stay away from you… it’s like you’ve got a grip on some part of me and I hate it!”

Steeling myself, I brace my hands on the floor and try to lift myself up. I only get a few inches before she kicks my hands out from under me and I drop hard onto the floor. A second later her boot flies in again to connect with my face, breaking my nose and knocking me away.

“Why can’t you just forget about me,” she hisses, her voice raspy and furious. “Why can’t I just forget about you?! Why did it have to be you who came through? Why not any of the others?”

“I… I wanted to be the one…” I gasp out around cracked teeth and bloody lips. “I had to f-find you… I lo-!” I gasp and dry heave as her boot connects with my gut, flipping me over onto my back.

As I’m gasping to get my breath back, her weight drops on top of me. She’s straddling me, and I can’t help but chuckle darkly. I’d had this fantasy more than a few times but never like this.

Her hands come to rest on my cheeks, and I wince at the feeling of cold steel on my cheeks. Both of her hands are cupping my face, the blades sliding over my lips and scalp softly. I look up at her and feel my heart leap.

Sunset is staring down at me. Not the Killer. The monster that was hunting and hurting me with dark eyes that glowed like they were lit on fire. No, these are the same soft, cerulean eyes framed against clear white that I… that I…

Tears fall from her cheeks onto my face, they burn just like the rest of her as she glares down at me. “S-Sunset… I swear, I’m sorry… I know you’re in there. I’m here for you.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, I reach for her raising my hand to her cheek. For a moment I don’t think she’ll let me. I brace myself for her to slice into me with her blades, to stop me, to hurt me. Then my fingers touch lightly onto her cheek. She lets me touch her and I gasp. It’s like she has the worst kind of fever, she’s slick with sweat and burning up from the inside.

For so long I dreamed of touching her like this. Just… softly. Her and me. To my surprise, her hand slowly rises up from my cheek to cover mine, and she carefully laces our fingers together.

“Rainbow?” Sunset’s words come out in that same raspy, shattered voice. I hold her hand and stare up at her, silently begging her to keep talking. “I will never stop hating you.”

My heart stops in my chest. My jaw works silently but all I can feel is cold.

“My life is over,” she continues, “it ended when I leaped off the roof of Canterlot High. You… you and all of the students. Your little sister and her shitty fucking posse. My lying, worthless friends,” she spits the last word out like a curse. “You all killed me, do you understand? I’m dead, and thanks to you all I died alone, cold, and scared.”

Freeing her hand from mine, she stands up and steps away from me, idly brushing her skirt just like she used to. I can’t find the words to speak… to say anything. I… I can’t even beg, every apology turns to ash in my mouth, and my chest feels like it’s full of concrete.

“I’m dead, Rainbow,” Sunset says again, staring down at me with empty eyes. “You can’t love a dead girl. I can’t move forward or back. I’m a ghost and all I will ever feel for you is hate. I hate you so much that I won’t even kill you.”

Holding up her hand, she closes it into a fist. All but one finger. Sunset’s middle finger, blade and all, is raised at me as her face twists into an ugly scowl. Then her other hand comes up, grips the blade of her finger and with a wrench of muscle and the rending shriek of tortured metal, Sunset screams as something snaps and then clatters to my side.

A six-inch metal blade, gleaming and sharp with one ragged, broken end. I look up at her and she’s staring at her own self-mangled hand. It’s starting to regrow but it’s slow. After a moment, she turns her glare back to me.

“If you want to die,” Sunset says in a hollow voice. “Do it yourself.”

She keeps to her word and leaves. The soft lullaby fading as I lay on the ground, tears streaming from my face and blood leaking onto the floor. I reach for the shard and grip it hard enough that it slices into the meat of my palm.

The worst part isn’t what she said. It wasn’t her tone or even the way she hurt herself just to hurt me more.

It's that the whole time her eyes stayed the same; clear and unclouded. Sunset hated me so much that she found the strength to stay sane long enough to make sure I knew it was her talking. Not the ‘Killer’ Sunset, not the madness.

Sunset wanted me to know it was her, and her words from the first Trial come back to me in full force.

‘You’re going to remember me…’

Sunset

My right hand burns with electric pain. I don’t think the Entity ever intended Killers to mutilate themselves, but it was the only way I could get my focus back. I need to stay on track and I can't waste time playing with the little blue bitch. I already had Sour chained up in the basement, she would stay there in her Fog manacles until the end of it all, that way II can be sure that no one else gets to her.

Now I just have to find Starlight, I should have had her. I did have her.

Except Rainbow Dash was there.

I’m lucky I missed my first swing at her at the beginning of this Trial, or I would have been chasing her all around the school. I would have lost Sour Sweet and been even further behind. Except then she was back… and I couldn't keep focused this time.

The moment I saw her it was like my whole world tunneled in on her. Starlight and Sweetie Belle had sprinted past me and I hadn’t even given them a thought. I was attacking Rainbow Dash and that was all that mattered.

Her blood. Her screams. Her voice.

I needed to feel her hurting under my blades and it was clouding everything else. Still, the words I’d said to her, the promise I’d made… it left me feeling a little more clear-headed. I grimace as I glance down at my broken finger. It had been necessary but dammit, that hurt.

One of my top ten favorite fingers too.

I flex my hand and stalk forward, my vision picking out my prey in the distance. Sweetie Belle’s small form is sprinting towards a generator. Starlight is crouched… but not at a generator, so why-

Starlight vanishes from my senses. She’s left my dream realm. That explains it… she wasn’t crouched, someone was waking her up. I move towards their last position, knowing I’m closing in on them. There’s only so many ways they can run in this place; it’s not like Crotus Prenn or the Pit, with all that space and detritus to hide behind. Here there are only the cold, merciless, endless halls.

I smile grimly as I reach out and scrape my fingers along the wall, leaving long furrows in the stained wallpaper. Finally, they know how I felt every time I walked in here. Knowing that the sight of these halls was just one more promise of torment in a long day full of them.

The cadence of my blades changes as I turn the corner, the dull rasp becoming a harsh, flanged scraping as they begin slicing through the metal of the lockers. I scan around, giving every classroom a thorough once-over. They might’ve fled, it would’ve been smart, actually, if they did. Wake up here then go to another part of the Trial.

Fortunately, I know their tricks. I spent plenty of time avoiding my kind. Eventually, they’ll have to start working on a generator. If you spend too long doing nothing the crows, the Entity’s noisome little eyes and ears, will start following you around. Pecking at your face, squawking over your head. Toying with you until you start fulfilling your purpose.

“What did you do?”

I stop and turn around. Staring at me, or where she must be reasonably certain I am since I’m currently invisible to the undreaming eye, is Starlight Glimmer. She’s shaking. She can’t hide her fear from me but she’s doing an admirable job nonetheless.

Curious, I shrug and reach out for her mind. No sense having a one-sided conversation after all.

Starlight staggers in place, gripping her head as exhaustion temporarily seeps into the meat of her brain, biting away at her focus and savvy until the air ripples and laughter bubbles out of, euphoria temporarily filling me as I exercise my power. She regains her feet quickly, standing and staring me down in my true world. My nightmare realm.

“What did you do to them?” Starlight asks grimly, staring at me fully now. “Tempest, Aria, and Sour. I saw them in the basement, I tried to free them but I couldn’t. What are you planning?”

I smile widely.

“Oh, this and that,” I say as I saunter closer to her. “Don’t worry your pretty purple head, Star, I’m not leaving you out of it.”

She flinches, stepping back as I approach. I see the fear in her eyes but I also see fire. I see her determination not to run away.

“You’re not like the others, Sunset,” Starlight says, trying to turn her grimace of fear into a scowl and only partially succeeding. “You’re… lucid. Or something like it. What are you planning?”

“I made a deal,” I answer as I flicker out of existence and reappear inches from her. Starlight screams and tries to scramble back but I reach out and grip her jaw tight, dragging her forwards again. “Four for four so far, the Entity was very generous. I just have to keep pulling in more hapless saps to feed him, and he’ll let me protect you. All of you, and eventually once he’s gotten his fill, he’ll let you go.”

Starlight stares in patent disbelief.

“You can’t be serious…” she breathes the words out. “It… it’s a monster. It’s lying to you, it has to be!”

My expression goes flat and I shake my head. “It doesn’t know how to lie, Starlight. It’s not like us. Not like you humans. It’s a monster, and like any monster it just wants food. You’re all too thin and gamey now after being drained for so long. Why should it try and keep you if I’m willing to trade a suckling pig?”

For a moment she’s quiet, staring at me with disbelief and hope warring on her face. I suppress a smile, she really does wear her emotions on her sleeve. After a moment though, she asks, “How many?”

I raise an eyebrow. “How many what?”

“How many people are you going to take?” Star asks softly.

I stare into her bright Persian-blue eyes for a moment. I know what I could say. I could lie, I could tell her I have as many as I need. We’d both know it was bullshit but she might, might be willing to swallow that lie in exchange for freedom.

Except…

“As many as I have to, Star,” I answer without another thought. “I’m a monster too, remember? I’ll be as monstrous as I have to to protect you, and Aria, and Sour, and Tempest, because I love you all.”

Starlight shakes her head, tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t let you do that for me, Sunny. I don’t want you to damn that many people for a crazy girl.”

I smile warmly, lower my hand, and for a moment she relaxes.

“It’s okay, Star,” I reply, reaching out and brushing a few strands of her purple hair from her eyes. “That’s the best part of being a monster. I don’t have to care about what you want.”

My hand fires forward, slamming into her gut and throwing her back as she shrieks in agony. She tries to scramble away but shock and surprise, combined with her fumbling inability to focus means she only gets a few steps away from me before I nail her to the floor.

“Sorry, Star,” I mutter as I pick her up. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to if I’m going to do this.”

She doesn’t answer, Starlight just cries, sobbing softly on my shoulder. She doesn’t even try to wiggle free as I take her to the basement. Good girl, Starlight. It'll all be over soon.

I take her to the basement, down the stairs, and drop on the ground by the shrine just under the final empty corner between the hooks. I let out a low sigh and pull out the Journal, reach through it to the land of light and hope that I was born into, and rip another shred of Equestrian magic out through its increasingly worn pages. More cracks spark over its surface, the dark crystals are growing with every spell I cast. I still have a little more time, though. I hope it's enough.

Diffusing the magic into the Fog, I grip the now-ambient energy and coalesce it, weaving my hands in complex patterns as I catch bits and fragments of the solidifying pseudo-matter. With a sharp grunt of effort, I layer my will into the blend of Fog and sorcery; my will to dominate, my will to enslave, my will to enforce my vision upon things.

Chains form out of the ephemera that’s weaving about my fingers and snare them between the empty hooks. When they’re finally set, I take a step back and examine them. I have to be certain there are no weak points in the weave of magic that’s holding them together. The Fog is unearthly, sure, but it’s also incredibly strong when woven into solid matter. At the same time, though, it is just Fog.

If there’s a leak then too much pressure will cause the arcane matrix to collapse and the whole effort will have been pointless. I can’t afford to waste magic like that.

Nodding to myself after a thorough check, I lean down, grab Starlight, and lift her by one arm to carefully secure her to the first manacle. First one then the other.

I slide my bladed finger into the slit of the lock and let a small fragment of my own personal energy to flow into the manacle and it seals. Only I can open it now, assuming the matrix holds. I do the same to the other manacle and give them both sharp tugs to ensure they’re secure.

“Good,” I say, with a grin that stretches a little too wide. “I’ll be back for you, I’ve got some little birdies to stone.”

The words hardly leave my mouth before two generators go live almost at the same time. A twitch develops in my eye and I’m not entirely sure what my expression is doing but it’s bad enough that Starlight blanches.

“Well, that happened,” I remark, showing my teeth. “Let’s go stop that.”

I turn on my heel and leave, my claws twitching. I can’t let them escape, it’s not in the game plan. I have one more Trial, maybe two, left in me before everything goes tits up and I will not let all of this effort go to waste.

I move rapidly through the halls, I know where all of my generators are but more importantly, I know where the ‘safe’ ones are. The ones that are covered, hard to patrol, and give a multitude of escapes. They’re also perfect bait. All the escape routes in the world won’t matter if you don’t know what direction you’re supposed to run. No amount of cover can shield you from my eyes.

I round the corner into the cafeteria and head for the kitchens, sure enough, I hear the grinding of gears and twisting of old, rusted bolts. I stalk towards the back near the freezer, just close enough that I know they’ll hear my lullaby getting louder.

"Five... six... grab your crucifix..."

I inch forward. Louder.

Another inch. It gets louder.

"Seven... eight... try and stay up late..."

The generator pops thunderously, and it's music to my ears. One of them panicked and made a mistake, they’ll scatter now but it doesn’t matter. I only need one.

And there she is.

Applebloom vaults over the serving trays, knocking several to the ground a cacophonous clatter. To my delight, she’s almost immediately followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. Idiots. Scattering means I only have one target, together I can sweep them all at once. I reach out and rip into their frantic and frenetic minds and twist them towards slumber.

Each of them runs for the exit, more often than not getting in each other’s way which only makes me chuckle louder as the final ripple of my spell overcomes their faculties, dragging them into my world. My laughter fills their ears and the three of them scream as they see me appear seemingly from thin air behind them. Before they can react, I lunge forward, my claws slashing deep, red furrows into Sweetie Belle’s back. A surge of adrenaline moves her forward, bull-rushing her way through her two friends and bowling Scootaloo to the ground.

I stop in front of her with a smirk and flick a spray of red across her face. She stares up at me, poleaxed and waiting. I know the feeling. The feeling of tension that tells you not to move.

Don’t twitch, it says. Don’t even breathe.

Breathe and you’re dead.

I smile. “You’re dead anyway, little bird,” I say before lunging forward like a lightning bolt and impaling her on my blades, She shrieks, kicking out and levering me off to scramble away.

She doesn’t get far.

I’m on her in a heartbeat, pinning her to the wall with my claws before letting her drop, broken and sobbing at my feet.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I ask softly, staring down at her as I watch the little red pearls trail down my fingers. “You wanted me gone, right? Gone forever. Well, congratulations you got your wish.”

As I lean down and pick her up she sobs in my ear. “We didn’t…”

I start walking towards a nearby hook sticking out of a dusty, scratched-up blackboard. “Didn’t you? I don’t know what’s worse, you lying to my face or the idea that you didn’t want me gone and managed it anyway.”

“Okay, we… we did,” Scootaloo admits raspily after a moment, her voice thick with pain. I stop in front of the hook, staring at it. I have work to do. I have shit I need to accomplish.

But…

I drop Scootaloo in front of the hook and kneel, sliding one blade into her nostril and dragging her face up. “Look at me.”

Tears flow from her eyes and she clenches them shut, shaking her head and shuddering. I feel a jolt of utterly volcanic rage roar through me and I violently rip the blade from her nose, grab her head and start beating it against the floor.

“LOOK. AT. ME!” I scream, finally throwing her bloody, beating body back down, flipping her with my boot and staring down at her bruising face. “You did this to me you little shit. You and your friends, more than the girls, more than any of the other students in this shit-hole school it was YOU! YOU DID THIS!”

Scootaloo sobs on the floor, probably in more pain than her teenage brain even thought was possible. I lean down, and she still has her eyes shut. She's curled on her side in the fetal position with her hands over her sliced-up face.

“Open your eyes, Scootaloo,” I hiss in a low, deadly voice. She shakes her head emphatically and I feel the rage building again. “Open them, or I’ll cut your eyelids off.”

She freezes, clearly realising I’m not joking. Good, because I’m not. After a tense moment, she pulls her hands away, opens her eyes, and stares up at me, terror writ wide over her face and horror burned into her eyes.

“Remember what you’ve done, you and your friends,” I say softly. “Remember that, together, you murdered me.” I grab her by her throat and lift her into the air. “I don’t care why you did it, just remember what it cost you.”

Turning on my heel I slam her down onto the hook.

Her screams echo through the halls.

“I hope it was worthwhile,” I say as I leave the room with her hanging, ragged and broken from the hook. “Now I’m going to go do that to everyone else.”

I return to the basement some time later, reveling in the echoes of screams that fill the air around me. My realm shudders with the last of the girls fading into the darkness, yet I still haven’t found Rainbow Dash.

Or at least I hadn’t.

As I make the last landing at the bottom of the basement steps I see her, standing wounded and beaten, in front of me. My silvery-steel blade is gripped in her bloody hand waiting at the foremost hook between where I have Sour Sweet and Starlight chained.

“Giving up are we?” I ask, grinning as I stalk towards her and raise a finger blade and trace it along her jaw. “I’m not going to kill you, remember?”

She nods silently and I scowl. This was boring. Then an idea strikes me and I smile. “I haven’t introduced you to everyone yet though, have I?”

I sling an arm around her shoulder and starting pulling her around, she stumbles, surprised as I bring her around the back, past Starlight and around to the furthest hook from the stairs between Aria… and Tempest.

Settling her between them I smile. “You’ve met Aria, obviously, but…” I trail off, feigning a look of concern. “Oh hold on, you’ve got something right-” I ram my blades into her gut, splattering the hook with gore and dropping her to the ground, “-there, don’t worry, I got it.”

I grip a handful of rainbow hair and lift her up before throwing her on the hook. She screams, but not as loudly or as painfully as I would have liked.

“There we go,” I say, grinning. “Comfy? Just hang out a while, we’ve got plenty of time and by that I mean… oh,” I look at my wrist which is bereft of any kind of watch, “about two and a half minutes or so.” I gesture over to Tempest. “This is Tempest Shadow. Tempest, this is Rainbow Dash,” I gesture back at Rainbow. “Say hello Tempest.”

Tempest stares at me in horror, then up at Rainbow Dash, then back at me. I glare at her, lifting all five of my fingerblades up to Rainbows perforated gut.

“Say. Hello.”

She swallows a dry lump in her throat and looks back at Rainbow. “Uh… Ibuenas, Rainbow.”

I smile, shaking the blood free from my hand as I walk over to Tempest and stroke her cheek gently. “Tempest here saved me. When I landed in this place, she and Aria taught me everything about how to survive. She showed me all the best side routes. All the little things.”

Rainbow is staring at us. Good, that’s what I want. I lean down and brush my lips softly against Tempest’s. “She taught me how to break a Hag-trap, how to duck under Billy’s chainsaw, even how to hide from the Shape.”

I can practically feel Rainbow’s heart breaking all over again from here.

“Mi sol…” Tempest’s voice is pleading. “Stop, you’re… you’re hurting her.”

My breath hitches in my throat. “Hurting her?” I hiss, “after what she did to me?! She’s the one you’re worried about getting hurt?!”

“No,” Tempest answers, shaking her head before leaning up and returning my kiss. My breath freezes in my throat as warmth trails through me. Real, good warmth, not the fever-hot rage that’s been driving me. “I don’t care about her, I care that you’re hurting yourself every time you hurt her, and I want you as whole as I can when I get you back, me comprendes?”

I let out a long, shuddering breath and for a moment I want to tell her to get fucked. To let me torment this bitch as long as I want to but… but…

Closing my eyes, I push away the pain and the anguish and all of the sorrow that was fueling my rage, and finally… I nod. “Si,mi vida, I get it.” Her eyes widen at my words and I smirk. “I took three years of Spanish and I’m literally a genius, remember? I still prefer swearing in Yakyakistani, though.”

I turn to glare at Rainbow Dash. “This is over now, all of it.”

The stricken look on her face tells me all I need to know as the thunder claps overhead. She doesn’t even try to struggle as the Entity’s claws snap down to impale her and drag her up to wherever it is he takes his dinner. Like before I siphon off a few slivers of hope; the power floods into me leaving my cells vibrating with energy.

I wait a fifteen count after the last rumbles of dimensional disruption fade before pulling the Journal out and dragging another shard of magic out. “Time to go, two more stops.”

“Two?” Aria says, narrowing her eyes.

I nod. “Mhm, but the last one is probably going to be short… I’ll explain later.”

Reaching out, I rip the veil of dimensions away and step into the endless dark of the Entity’s realm, seeking out a particular place. A place that’s cold and empty as a tomb. A place that would be painfully quiet if not for the sound of her breathing.

12. The Way of Light - Part 2

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Sunset

Wrath.

It's boiling the air, poisoning the earth, and twisting the space around me. I’m far from being spared the torment either; the air in my lungs is turning to noxious gas, and my blood burns as it spoils in my veins. No fury like an otherworldly eldritch horror scorned, apparently. I laugh raggedly as I stagger back into the shrine at the bottom of my realm. It’s shaking; thundering with the manifold rage of its ultimate master.

Good, I need him pissed off. I need him angry. I’ve always held as an indisputable fact of life that the first step to getting stupid is getting angry. The Entity might be a demigod on a scale above Princess Celestia herself, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make stupid mistakes after getting righteously mad.

“What’s going on, Mi Sol?” Tempest asks, staring at me from where she’s hanging.

I don’t answer, I don’t have time. I race to the cabinet and snatch up the relics I’d retrieved on my little sojourns. Both of them are wrapped, one in a soft, handmade tablecloth, the other in a sack of plain burlap. They, along with my Journal, go to three of the four points of the compass, the fourth point was occupied by myself. My vision is swimming and my whole body hurts. My red skin is inflamed even as the blue in my veins is turning a noxious black.

With one of my bladed fingers, I cut a deep furrow into my hand, deeper than I meant to but I’m barely lucid right now so I’ll deal with that later. I let the blood flow onto the filthy ground. One more stain among thousands.

Holding out my hands, I focus and pull another shard of Equestrian magic into my mind and cast it out to weave together the spell I’d designed over the course of my change. “Sunset’s Sundering Disjunction!”

I bring my hand down on the pool of blood beneath me and conjure the thaumic circle I’d held in my mind’s eye for this moment, my own magic sears its shape into the stone floor with perfect accuracy using blades of superheated gas. Eight circles looped together, one around each hook, and around my hand along with each relic, all enclosed in a ninth, greater containment circle. A second later the sigil erupts in explosive red and gold light and sends a wave cascading out to the very edges of my little realm.

Reality snaps with a sound like splintering glass and the world around me heaves. A moment later the pressure on my body lets up and the unholy vigor and vitality imbued in me when I was changed into this form starts to kick in. My bloodstream is purified, my throat clears along with my lungs, and the minor wounds on my body seal quickly.

“What the hell was that?” Aria asks looking around. She must’ve noticed the change, I certainly do. “What did you do?”

“I just stole a pocket dimension,” I answer blithely with a slanted grin on my face made all the more unsettling by my sharp and inhuman dentition.

I wave my hand, releasing the Fog manacles. They were a necessary anchor until I’d breached the realm divide. The manacles had kept my friends in a state of flux, captured by the Fog but not taken, to ensure the Entity couldn’t swipe one of them away as I abandoned ship.

A roar that is equal parts primordial and metallic tears through the air and I see them all look up. The ground is shifting under my feet and as I reach out to assess the state of my realm I grimace as I feel massive hooks being anchored into the edges of them. Not only that, but there are other things approaching from the darkness. Great masses of disconnected earth and stone, like islands floating in the blackness of space after all the stars have gone out.

The others are coming. Distant cousins are showing up for a grim and bloody family reunion.

“Here we go, ladies and gentleladies,” I say, feeling the weight of my kindreds’ minds approaching. “The Entity has never had a Killer go rogue before so he’s doing the only thing he knows how to.”

Sour Sweet shivers. “Oh no… don’t tell me…”

“Yup,” I nod grimly. “He’s sending in his hunters.”

“Can a Killer hurt a Killer?” Aria asks as she stretches, limbering up for what is likely going to be a lot of running.

“Yes, it's coded into us. We're the same order of being.” I answer, nodding. “You guys are still fucked if you get caught, though. Fortunately, they’re not here for you.”

“Can you even affect them, Mi Sol?” Tempest asks as she walks up to me, brushing some of the lank strands of hair out of my eyes so she can look at me properly. “Your power… it’s not like the others.”

“I can… but only a little,” I answer truthfully. “My oneiromancy isn’t really geared towards my cousins. Their minds are fractured and broken… but don’t worry. I’ve stacked the deck a little. I never go in without a plan, even if it’s an objectively shitty plan.”

“And Rainbow, and the girls?” Aria starts, eyeing me uneasily. “Are they…?”

I give Aria an even stare, considering my words carefully. Finally, though, I scowl and shrug. “Yeah, they’re here too, caught in the dimensional riptide I created since they were coming back to my realm anyway.”

“Are you going to save them too?” Tempest asks and I flinch away from her very pointed look.

“No, but you can if you want. If you care enough, go for it. I'm telling you now though that you girls? All of you are my priority,” I state grimly, running a glare over the four of them. “I’m not going to sacrifice one of you to keep them safe, we clear? You wanna save’m then you can try, but I will throw each and every one of them into the Old Stain’s maw if it means getting a single one of you out.”

Sour, Starlight, Tempest, and Aria all glance between one another but nod.

“That’s fair,” Sour says, summing up their feelings. “But Tempest is right, hurting them is what’s killing you in here, it’s what the Entity wants.”

I shoot a glare at Sour that puts her back on her heel.

“Fine,” I snap, showing my teeth in a joyless grin. “Then I’ll just have to live with having something in common with him. Now move out, we don’t want to be down here when the others show up.”

No one argues with that and I carefully herd the four girls up the stairs while taking point. The rumbling was expected, and I know the basic empyreal layout of the Entity’s dimension; a bunch of rocks floating in endless emptiness, subtly connected by his web. He’s not unlike a giant spider in that respect. I just severed the strands holding my realm to his, putting it under my control, and now he’s trying to take it back.

That means anchoring my domain to the other rocks, tying them together so I can’t just float away with his prizes, and then reclaiming it.

Except I’ve already taken control of this place. I’ve removed it from his dimensional grip and the only way he can take it back is by killing me.

Fog sits low on the floors of my halls. It won’t be long before the webbing process is stable enough to allow his hunters to cross into my realm. Fortunately, there’s a way out. There’s always a way out of any Trial grounds.

“Alright ladies, one last time,” I say with a grim smile. “Run up those generators while I fight off the small army of psychotic dimension-hopping murderers or else we’ll all be trapped in hell for eternity.”

“No pressure, huh?” Starlight grumbles but shoots me a grin before bolting off.

Sour Sweet and Aria are right behind her, but only for a few moments before they split in different directions, each looking for their own prize to start working on. Tempest lingers, though.

“Mi sol, I’m going to go find the other girls,” Tempest says evenly, meeting my gaze. My feelings on the matter must’ve shown because she flinches before giving me a patient smile. “Please, don’t interfere, I know how you feel about them.”

“How can you?!” I hiss, clenching my fingers so the blades grind against one another atonally. “How can you possibly know how it feels to have the people who called you family, who swore to always stand by you, to help you and to pick you up when you fall, just abandon you?!”

“I…” Tempest starts, but I cut her off.

“You grew up in a gang,” I spit. “No offense, but I’m pretty sure ‘honor among thieves’ has never been anything but a bad joke.” Tempest flinches but doesn’t deny it. “You can’t understand that kind of betrayal because you’ve never had someone like that and… and…”

I trail off, staring down at my blades as they twitch and rasp against one another. I’m starting to lose it. I know because the rasping is a comforting sound. I let out a deep breath and try to find myself again.

“And… I’m sorry for that,” I finally say.

Tempest crooks an eyebrow. “Sorry that I’ve never been betrayed?”

I shake my head. “Sorry that you’ve never had a group of friends that close to you, I mean,” I wrap my arms around myself and grimace. “Having friends is… wonderful… except now all my good memories of them are like poison.” I reach up tangling my blades into my lank hair. “It’s like they’re all these knives stuck in my brain, reminding me that they were lying to me the whole time. Every smile, every party, every moment we shared feels fake all of a sudden.”

Tempest steps closer and wraps her arms around me, pulling me tight against her. I don’t know how she can stand to touch me like this. I’m horrifying, objectively speaking. I really am. I look like some kind of Neighponese horror movie specter crossed with a slasher villain. I can’t even imagine what I look like to someone normal.

Someone who's still human.

“You’re right,” Tempest agrees. “I can’t imagine it.”

She runs her fingers through my matted hair and I cringe, knowing it must feel awful. At the same time though, it’s… comforting. For a moment, just a brief moment, I lean my head against her chest and let myself feel safe. “But I’m not saving them because they deserve it. Trust me when I say, Mi Sol, that I’m tempted to leave them here too after how they hurt you.”

“Then why?” I mumble in her vest. “Why would you risk yourself for them.”

Tempest brings two fingers up and under my chin, lifting my gaze to hers.

“I’m not doing it for them, remember? We all told you, if you leave them here then part of you will die too. You’re not… this,” she gestures to my body. “You’re not one of his Killers, and when you’re free you’ll remember that. I don’t want you to regret damning them.”

I shake my head, smiling softly as I lean up and press my lips to hers, careful not to prick her with my teeth. Tempest smiles and kisses me back, looping one hand around to the back of my head and the other down to my waist to pull me closer. In this moment I let myself forget what I look like, what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it. I forget that I’m about to go fight a half-dozen creatures literally forged from the depths of madness and despair for the sole purpose of hunting and killing. I forget that I’m one of those Killers.

“Maybe it’s the adrenaline and the fact that we’re probably all about to die,” I say, as I pull away, still staring up into Tempest’s cool, bright eyes. “But I think I might love you a little bit.”

Tempest’s face flushes bright red, and I grin as I step away and I swear I laugh, I don’t giggle, fearsome murderers don’t giggle, as I nod towards the hall.

“No regrets, Mi Sol?” Tempest asks, still a little red in the face.

I start to shake my head, then stop and shrug. “Well, one, but uh…” I hold up my fingers, “these fingers are only made for one thing unless you’re a lot freakier than I think you are.”

There’s that blush again. Tempest is way too much fun to tease.

“Classy,” Tempest responds after a moment, then her face turns serious again. “Be safe, Mi Sol, and come back to me.”

I smile at her. I told her I love her a little bit. I lied. I think I might love her a lot, a whole damn lot. Looking at her, even when I’m in this form, with all the fury and impulses of a Killer hard-wired into my reforged brain, I can almost feel human again. I feel a little bad that I lied about exactly how I feel but I needed to tell her something. I feel even worse now when I lie to her again.

“I will.”

She nods and sprints down the hall. We shouldn’t have wasted that much time, but I don’t care. I needed to say those things and so did she. I wanted that moment, as selfish as it sounds, because even if everything goes right, I can’t promise or know for sure if I’ll have a chance later on.

They will but…

I close my eyes and reach out, shutting away the intrusive thoughts. No time for that now, if I get hung up on that shit I will cease to be functional. Time to save the girls, all of them, apparently.

A dull crash echoes from outside the school and I grimace. It felt like I just barked my shin against a hardwood table. I’m connected to this little slice of reality now and when it gets damaged I feel it. I focus my senses, reaching past the pain towards the edge of my Trial grounds to where the damage came from. That’s when I feel something else.

Boots hit the ground and I taste rust and coal mixed with blood and sweat. I taste the fear and terror soaked into metal teeth that hang loosely inside of a stitched bag and gripped by a hand stained red.

Another jolt of pain crashes through me, sending a shiver of pain through my body. This time I taste oil, engine oil, and that peculiar flavor of crushed metal saturating the air. I feel the light step of… something, move into my realm. It’s so faint that I lose it almost immediately.

Two more crashes almost at the same time sends me to my knees as I grunt in pain. The first one tastes like woodsmoke and cold, Siberian winters as bare feet strike the ground and begin moving quickly and carefully towards the school. The other has the taste of sweat and bodily excretions combined with the feeling of unhinged minds. I feel like I’m choking for a moment as I feel its owner pass into my realm and then the sensation passes.

Another crash, and I grimace as I bite my lip. I didn’t realise his opening volley would hurt this much. I’m just weathering the hits for now and hoping I’m in a condition to fight those things. I jolt in place as the next one enters my realm and I shiver. I know that feeling. That faint spark of electricity that rolls through me, trying to attack the meat of my brain and peel my reality apart.

I’m so focused on that I almost miss the next one. There’s no crash, no pain, more like… a connection. I blink in confusion for a moment before I realise why, and I shudder. I feel him coming… its steps are mechanical; heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe, with the reliability of a metronome combined with the naked will to end life bleeding off of it.

Two more impacts, these ones as bad as the others and I cry out. A wash of blood spills from my mouth and I taste rotten vegetation and the overwhelming stench of decay from both of them. Even from here I can hear it… the revving of a chainsaw, which means the other one is her.

“Sorry, Summer,” I mutter as I stand. “But I did try.”

That was the last of them, they’ll all start making their way in now. I’m surrounded and the only way out is to breach the Exit Gates before we all die. I can’t intercept them all, but I can tie up a few of them… plus now my plan is in full swing. I felt them connect, meaning the Entity hasn’t wised up to what I did. I can’t help smiling a little because even if I lose this gambit it's still gonna really piss him off and that just tickles me pink.

I take off towards the cafeteria entrance, one of the girls will have gone there almost guaranteed and I need to make sure they don’t get hit first. It’s a ‘safe’ generator, but that only goes so far. All the rules have changed and nothing is really safe anymore.

Passing through the doors I scan the area, listening carefully for the sounds of my friends. As I close in on the kitchen I grin at the crank and twist of gears. Sure enough, they’re here and for once I’m irritated that I can’t hear the heartbeat. The dull thunder of a Killer’s heart and the only thing that really moves them as they pursue you and drive you to the ground is the most reliable indicator of their presence.

I look around, but there's no sign of anyone… that’s odd. One of them would’ve come in here. We can all see the generators since they’re not part of our realm originally and this generator is relatively isolated, so…

My eyes widen and I sprint into the kitchen. There’s only one Killer that could’ve made it past me like that and I burst into the back kitchen to where I see Aria working on the generator just as I hear the sound that confirms my suspicions.

A bell tolls dolorously through the air.

“Keep working!” I shout as I bolt forward, my blades flashing in the low light.

Aria tense and gets ready to run, but she doesn’t. She stays and works… she’s trusting me. I hazard a guess and swing my hand up, reaching out with my sorcery to find the mind I know is in the room.

There! I grip the shattered sapience I find just as the Wraith bleeds into existence and drag it into the dream world. I can’t manipulate it like I can with survivors, the Wraith’s mind has more in common with a mad dog than it does with whatever human it used to be. It’s an ambush predator, no more or less, and the simplicity of its psyche inures it to most of my magic.

No matter, the Wraith still staggers, stunned for a moment by the transition and I use the brief window to drive forward, slashing my blades down into its wrapped chest and sending it backward with black, viscous fluid flowing from the wound like rotten molasses.

It lets out a dull, shrieking roar and swings its scythe up but I deflect it, spoiling the slash with my claws. The impact sends me staggering back, though. He’s much stronger than me. He starts to swing just as I blink from view, and I grin as his scythe goes wide.

“This is my world, bitch!” I scream, reappearing behind him and slamming my blades into the back of his skull. It feels like punching through ironwood, but it doesn’t stop me; my blades are forged from the Fog.

The Wraith staggers as I rip my hand free. Screaming again he swings wildly behind him. I duck but I miss his follow-up and he slams the weight of his bell against my skull, sending me staggering back and spitting blood to fall on my ass. The Wraith stands, raising his scythe to bring it down on me. I try to get to my feet but his bell rung mine pretty good and I slip.

The generator roars to life just as his scythe comes down and I brace myself for the hit. A scream tears through the air as Aria bolts in front of me, taking the hit on the shoulder. It was off center and the Wraith’s weight wasn’t put behind it right, but it must’ve still hurt like a bitch.

Aria slams into the wall just as I hear the door to the cafeteria slam open and a soft lullaby fills the air. Aria turns pale at the sound.

“Shit, now we’re fucked,” Aria curses as she glances at me with terrified eyes.

I fade from existence, blinking in and out of reality as the Wraith tries to decide on a target. I try to draw his ire by taking a swing, but he deflects it off of his bell, raising it like a shield before moving towards Aria. His instincts as a Killer are too strong to ignore the wounded survivor.

“Move!” I scream.

“But out there is-!” Aria starts but I cut her off.

“Just trust me!”

Aria doesn’t hesitate, she nods and vaults out of the kitchen towards the Huntress and the Wraith follows. He’s there in moments, his scythe rising for the killing blow as I trail behind him, just as the Huntress rounds the corner into the kitchen trapping Aria between them with her throwing hatchet raised high.

The Wraith swings in at Aria in nearly the same moment that the Huntress hurls her own weapon, and I pray I’m right.

I am.

The hatchet buries itself in the Wraith’s skull with a sickening crunch just as I swing in from behind. His arms fly wide as the force of the blow drives him back, and the Wraith’s unnatural body jerks spasmodically as it tries to overcome the grievous damage it just suffered. I make it harder by slicing off the hand that carries his bell. He shrieks in pain as he tries to right himself, and bring his own weapon to bear but can’t before the Huntress stalks past a stunned Aria to swing her own massive wood-ax down to sever his other arm.

The Wraith falls to the ground twitching, shadows pooling around him as they try in vain to knit his shattered form. Eventually, the magic keeping him coherent fails, though, and the Wraith crumples, his body rapidly rotting and bleeding away. What I took for viscous blood I realise is actually tainted engine oil as the stink fills the air.

Huntress- no, Adagio- turns to Aria, her face bare for the first time in a very long time as she smiles.

“Good to see you again, little sister,” she says, and her voice raw but real.

Aria lets out a choked cry before launching herself forward to tackle Adagio in a hug, showing the first naked affection I’d pretty much ever seen from the stoic girl. Adagio drops her axe and wraps her arms around her sister, pulling her tight.

“I know, I know,” Adagio whispers softly. “I’m so sorry I lost hope. I’m sorry I left you all alone.”

“I don’t care!” Aria cries, burying her face against Adagio’s shoulder. “I missed you so much! I don’t care what happened! I don’t care that we lost our powers and our magic! I just want you two with me!”

“I know,” Adagio replies, petting her stained hand down Aria’s hair. “We’re together now, thanks to Sunset.”

Aria nods as she pulls away from Adagio, not far enough to get out of her embrace though. I think Aria was putting on a much braver face than she let on. The second-born siren rubs the tears from her eyes as she looks at me and asks the question I know burned in her heart

“How?”

I grin. “Funny story, I’ll tell you but we need to do it on the move. The Entity knows that it’s at least one Killer down, maybe two if it realises that Adagio here has gone turncoat.”

“Yeah, right,” Aria agrees, pulling away from Adagio fully and shaking her head, trying to regain her composure. “Let’s go, run and talk Shimmer, I wanna know how you got me my big sister back.”

We start moving. “Adagio happened right after I dragged the brats and Rainbitch here, remember when I left the basement?”

“We wondered where you went,” Aria says, her eyes wide. “So you went…”

“Yeah,” I answer with a sharp nod and a glance to Adagio. “I went to see my old enemy in her cabin.”

Two Trials Ago

I step out of the dimensional rift I sliced and onto the hard dirt of another realm, one belonging to one of my comrades-in-murder. The trees stand tall and ominous in the moonlight and I weave between them and the standing stones as I advance towards the cabin in the center.

It’s quiet, which is good. I would’ve hated to interfere with an ongoing Trial.

Especially as that would definitely attract notice and I really can't afford that right now. Not when I’m so goddamn close.

As I approach the cabin, I hear her. That voice, the lullaby, lilting through the air. I go to the door, no reason to enter through the window like a savage. The whole cabin has the scent of home to it, but there’s something different about it right now. It's almost as if the presence of the Survivors need to escape and the Killer’s urge to murder affects it.

Right now, there are no survivors, and there’s no Trial. There’s only the cabin and the woods and the soft song. The little dining room is set, the table laid out for three and one of the chairs is a little taller than the rest while one of the plate and utensil sets is just a little bit smaller.

At the head of the table is the one I came to see, singing softly and sitting alone. There's an ache in my heart. I feel how lonely she is, so much so that it’s… maddening.

I let out a low breath. It’s time to test my theory. Reaching out with my magic, I slip into her mind and gasp. It’s like falling into an ocean; vast, cold, and limitless. This is the mind of an immortal. Even the tainted patch of black water that makes up her existence as a Killer is dwarfed by the sheer size of her lifespan.

It’s exactly what I hoped for.

“C’mon, ‘Dagi, I know you’re in there…” I mutter as I fish around. I cast my mind deeper and deeper and until I hit on something solid. “What the…”

The mental ocean heaves and I almost scream. Her mind is enormous. Titanic. It’s a leviathan of mental presence the likes of which could only result from being so. god. damn. Old. The simple weight of her memories is enough to lend her the psychic inertia and mass needed to withstand the mental maiming the Entity inflicts.

Good.

I grip those memories, that personality, and pull.

The Huntress staggers and her lullaby cuts off. She’s asleep. Or at least… part of her is. The part I need to talk to is wide awake, finally.

“Sunset Shimmer?” Adagio’s voice comes through, muffled by the mask.

Slowly, carefully, her hand rises and grips the mask. Pulling it free from her face for the first time in what I suspect has been a very long time.

The mask clatters to the table and she looks up at me, stunned.

“Hey, ‘Dagi,” I say with a smirk. “It's been a while.”

Adagio looks me up and down, grimacing. “It must have, how did you end up in this shithole? Especially like that?”

“Long story, short?” I reply, scowling. “You were right, my friends weren’t really my friends. They kicked me to the curb, pretty much destroyed me, so I opted to finish the job from the roof of Canterlot High.”

“Oh,” Adagio replies, shock writ plain on her face. “And… that’s when you were taken, I suppose, hm?”

I nod. “Yeah, from there I met a few others, Tempest, and Aria too.”

Adagio grin widely. “She’s still in one piece then? Good, and… Sonata?” I shake my head. “I see… is she still…?”

“Like you,” I answer and Adagio grimaces.

“Can I ask you something?” I say, taking a seat to her right. Adagio looks at me thoughtfully for a moment before nodding her assent. “What is this place?”

Adagio smiles warmly. It's an expression I've never seen on her face before. It's something between maternal and domestic, and most shockingly... it's so very human.

“It’s the only place I’ve ever called home outside of Equestria.” She gestures around her to the wood walls. “My house, where I lived for a time with my husband and my daughter.”

My eyes practically bug out of my skull. “Daughter?!”

My former enemy’s smile just grows warmer, and she nods. “Yes, my daughter, I might look young, Shimmer, but I’m on the same scale of age as your vaunted Princess Celestia, remember? She’s had her share of offspring too, I imagine.”

“How?”

“It’s… a long story,” she replies with a sad smile. “And a tragic one.”

I glance around, extending my senses out and testing the waters. The Entity is still distracted and likely will be for some time. I turn back to Adagio.

“Well, I’ve got some time,” I reply, settling into the deceptively comfortable wooden chair.

Adagio just shakes her head and sighs. “Very well, it began with the three of us… parting ways for a time. Almost, oh, three hundred years ago now…”

13. The Way of Light - Part 3

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Sunset

I'm numb as Adagio finishes her tale. I don’t really know what to say. I can’t even fathom the kind of loss she just described to me, or the strength of will it would have taken to not only give up her immortality for the sake of love, but to take it up again, after having lost that love, for the sake of her family.

The person in front of me was so much more, now, than I had ever imagined. I saw her for the first time almost as a mirror of myself, back in the halls of CHS. Before the Battle of the Bands. Before Anon-A-Miss. Adagio and I, the people we were then, probably had more in common than either of us wanted to admit.

Now, though?

“How can anyone come back from that?” I ask semi-rhetorically, trying to wrap my head around the enormity of what Adagio lost. “How do you even… function?”

Adagio just shakes her head.

“Day by day, hour by hour sometimes,” she answers with a sad smile. “Of course, back then it helped to be a sorceress with a specialty in mind magic.”

“You enchanted… yourself?” I suppose it possible, technically, just not advisable.

“More like I magically lobotomised myself with Aria’s help, actually,” Adagio clarifies, her smile turning arid. “Our heartstones ‘digest’ negative emotions, so when Aria took my memories, she tucked them away into my stone where all the loss and hate and grief was converted to magic.”

I lean back in the chair as I absorb the information. “Wow, so you just… get to forget the shit that ruined you and get more powerful? Got any ‘Siren’ openings?”

“Three, as a matter of fact,” Adagio shoots back and we share a grim chuckle. After a moment she shakes her head, though. “You don’t want that kind of magic, Sunset. I ripped out years of maturation, years of mistakes and lessons, it left me damaged.”

“So why do you seem so different now?” I lean forward resting my elbows on the table.

Adagio’s hand moves so fast I barely detect it and in an instant, she snatches up a switch out of nowhere and brings it down on my arm. “Elbows off the table, missy, have some manners please and thank you.”

“Ow! Shit!” I pull back rubbing the bruise for the moment it takes my physiology to repair it. “Fine, whatever you say, Mom-dagio.”

“And don’t forget it,” Adagio replies smugly as she tucks the switch away, back wherever she got it. “As to your question, the short answer is that the memories aren’t gone forever, not technically. It’s just that the only way to get them back would have been for me to break my own heartstone.”

“Oh,” I say quietly, realising the implication. “So when we…”

Adagio nods. “Fortunately three hundred plus years of distance and the bleeding away of much of the emotional weight of the memories let me take them back in… safely. I was still inconsolable for weeks after the Battle as I slowly re-absorbed them.”

“Sorry about that,” I say, reaching a clawed hand towards her before grimacing and pulling it back. No comfort in a fresh knife wound.

Before I can pull my hand back all the way, Adagio reaches out and gently puts her hand over my palm, safe from the edges of my fingers.

“Don’t be,” Adagio says with a gentle smile I never expected to see on her face. It almost reminds me of the kind of smile Princess Celestia used to wear. Warm and maternal. “Thanks to you I remember the faces of my loved ones. I can’t believe I ever forgot them and now… well, the pain is worthwhile, I suppose.”

“I dunno if I’d want my memories back if I were in your shoes, I guess,” I say, bringing my hand up to my head. “I think I’d be just fine forgetting all of them, but I guess my gripes are small potatoes compared what happened to you.”

Adagio just shakes her head again.

“Don’t compare pain, Sunset,” she admonishes gently, waving her hand. “It’s not healthy, you’re powerful but you’re still very young. It’s okay to feel how you feel, and besides, betrayal stings no less with age, I’ll tell you that.”

“Still feels petty in comparison,” I reply, pulling my knees up and curling up in the chair. Letting out a slow breath I shake my head clear of my doubt and straighten again, standing from my seat. “But I’m not here to bitch and moan, I’m here for a reason.”

“I presumed as much,” Adagio acknowledges with a nod of her head. “What’s the plan then, Sunny?”

I hold up two bladed fingers.

“I need two things,” I say grimly, then tick down one claw, “the first is easy but you’ll hate it. I need your mask.”

“Which one? I’ve got about a dozen,” Adagio retorts with a grin.

I shake my head. “Not those, I need the real one. The important one.”

Adagio scowls. “My daughter’s mask is not going anywhere.”

“It is if you want to rescue your sisters, Puffball,” I snipe back and Adagio flinches. After a moment, though, she glances down at the worn and faded mask on the table and, with a pained expression, pushes it towards me.

“Fine, take it.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I promise, as Adagio grabs a spare tablecloth from the shelf near her and tosses it to me.

“Wrap it up so you don’t scratch it, alright?” Adagio remarks with a glare, “I’ll want it back.”

I nod, bundling the mask in the tablecloth and tucking it into my jacket. Then I turn back to her and grimace, fidgeting a little as I try to figure out the right way to say this next bit. “Secondly… I’m going to need you to trust me, and let me, uh, mess with your head a little.”

“Beg pardon?” Adagio retorts dryly, crooking an eyebrow up.

Sighing, I gesture around us. “I’m going to do something crazy, and when I do it you’re going to be sent to kill me. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen, so I need to get into your brain and rewire it a little to implant a suggestion that will trigger when you step into my Trial realm.”

Adagio grimaces more and more as I explain. “You’re… serious, aren’t you?”

I nod. “Dead serious, ‘Dagi, the spell I cast on you here will fade after I leave and I need you lucid for when I kick the mother of all parasprite nests. The only way to do that is-”

“-to set it up in advance,” Adagio finishes, chuckling grimly. “You really are a wizard at heart aren’t you? All preparation.”

I shrug but don’t deny it. “Yeah, well, my plans might not be good but I guaran-fucking-tee that no one will see them coming. So what’ll it be?”

“I think,” Adagio replies after a moment, “that if it’s a choice between you and the Entity rewriting my brain, I’ll take my chances and go with you.”

Smirking, I crack my knuckles and call up my powers. “Alright, just relax, drop all your mental guards and wards, and this’ll be over in a moment.”

Adagio does just that, I practically feel the mind in front of me get laid bare and to be honest I’m a little surprised she trusts me this much. Well, maybe not trust. Maybe it’s just desperation.

“Alright,” I reach out for Adagio’s mind and sink my claws into her psyche. “This will probably only hurt a lot.”

Present - Sunset

My realm rumbles from its foundation as Aria, Adagio, and I move carefully through the halls. I'm straining my ears for the sound of any my murderous cousins, but I’m certain that Aria will hear their heartbeats first in most cases. She seems distracted, though, not that I blame here. I’d tried to keep my explanation to the point, covering the important bits for the most part.

“Not gonna lie,” Aria remarks finally, “letting Red, here, implant a suggestion spell into your mind kind blows mine, ‘Dagi.”

Adagio huffs, her hand idly tossing one of her hatchets up into the air and then catching it. “It was that or stay stuck here forever, besides, it was just a selective sleep spell. We both know my mind has seen worse.”

Aria shakes her head and chuckles. “Sure, but this is you. I’m shocked you let someone actually mess with your brain.”

Adagio stops and glances over at Aria with an inscrutable expression. “Of course I did, Ari', you’re my little sister. You and ‘Nata both. I’d do anything for you two.”

Aria stops in her tracks, staring at Adagio for a moment wide-eyed, and tense. For a moment I think she’s about to start crying, but Aria has more control than that. Pretty sure she’ll get it all out once we get out of here.

Once they get out here.

Suddenly, Aria flinches and swivels around.

“The heartbeat,” she hisses, “one of them is-” she flinches again and I taste ozone as a faint crackle of electricity plays across the floor.

I watch the electricity crackle over the moldy tiles and arc around us. Aria staggers, then she clutches her head and screams as blood trickles out of her nose.

“Shit!” I snap my hand out, gesturing for Adagio. “Get out of here! If the Entity doesn’t know you’re a turncoat yet then we should keep it that way, take Aria and go!”

Adagio nods and sweeps Aria’s legs without warning, eliciting a squawk of alarm before Adagio scoops her sister up and slings Aria over her shoulder and takes off, Aria protesting loudly all the while.

“Sunset, no!” she screams, flailing at me as Adagio sprints away. “Your magic! There’s no way it’ll-”

Then she’s gone, around the corner, still struggling, but it’s still better this way. I turn to look down at the hallway, watching the crackles of electricity on the floor grow stronger. Aria is right, if there’s one Killer my magic would never work on it would definitely be this one. He’s a monster, through and through, but his mastery of the physical pathways of the brain is second to none. I doubt there’s a spell in my repertoire that he can’t just brute force out of existence with the right jolt of electrical current.

A faint, high-pitched cackle ripples down the hall as he rounds the corner. He stops the instant he sees me and cocks his head curiously, his face stretched out in a permanent rictus grin by his headgear.

The Doctor… I’ve only come up against this freak a handful of times but it’s always been bad. For a moment there’s silence, then I hear two generators thunder to life simultaneously.

Three down, two to go, I think, as the Doctor raises his left hand in a fist. Electricity crackles around it. The air buzzes and hums for a moment before he casts his hand forward and sends a rolling wave of electroconvulsive energy at me. I flicker to the side, reaching out with as much power as I can muster to scrabble at his broken mind.

It’s like grabbing a handful of metal shards in the middle of a lightning storm and I scream as I’m practically catapulted out of his mind. He cackles as he staggers backward, he’s not in my dream realm but he’s stunned by the disruption at least. I spit out a viscous glob of black fluid and sprint at him before he can recover.

I dive in, slicing deep into the meat of the Doctor’s shoulder and hissing at the unpleasant burning of the constant current in his body arching into me at the moment of contact. Doc lets out another cackle, this one tinged with anger and frustration as he staggers away from my hit.

Snatching up his weapon, the affectionately named ‘Stick’, the Doctor takes a wild swing at me, the tines of the weapon snapping with electricity as I duck and it sweeps over my head.

It’s a feint.

His knee slams up into my gut and my vision doubles over from the impact. I gasp for breath as the Doctor belts the Stick and slaps his palms together, drawing out an alarming crackle of electricity. I try to stagger back away but hit a wall as he pulls his hands apart, current snapping between the electrodes in his palms and lashes out to grab either side of my face.

I have never, in my life, felt this kind of pain.

I shriek as my body goes rogue, convulsing as the Doctor shreds the meat of my brain with his power. My eyes boil and smoke in their sockets, and my tongue shrivels in my mouth. Everything tastes metallic. He lifts me bodily by my head, surging current between his hands as my own screams shred my throat before he hurls me down the hall, pitching me like a ragdoll.

The impact of the cold tile barely registers as I twitch and spasm, and I desperately rip power from my Trial, pulling it in to heal my ruined body. It's a slow and agonising process. The Doctor cackles as he approaches, and I retain enough of a mind to flicker again, retreating down the hall and turning the corner.

I vomit out a torrent of whatever passes for blood in my body as I make a hard turn right into the cold, merciless impact of a blade slamming hilt-deep into my gut. Slowly, I raise my head to look up into the hollow eyes of the Shape, its slow, even breaths escaping the slit of its pale mask harshly.

“Oh fuck me!” I scream as it lifts me up, levering the knife against my ribcage. I barely start to struggle before its hand goes around my throat like a vice.

Shit, I can’t take another hit like this! I scrabbled at it, slicing at its chest before having a brainwave. Please work, please work, please work!

I snap my arms out and then drive my fingers blades into either side of its skull. It’s alarming how it doesn’t even flinch. I dive into its mind and thankfully it's nothing like the Doctor's. It’s not… empty per se, but it is utterly alien. There’s only one thing vaguely recognizable so I latch onto it.

It burns in my ephemeral grip. The sheer power of whatever the Shape feels for this person is overwhelming, utterly and totally eclipsing all reason and sanity. I see a face, a pretty face, framed by slightly curly blonde hair with soft blue eyes. The Shape’s mind is a kaleidoscope of images of this girl doing everything from walking to school, to babysitting, to watching TV, to fleeing in terror.

Its mind is a scrapbook of obsessive insanity surrounding a single word.

Sister.

Seizing onto the image like a drowning woman to flotsam, I throw it out into my reality just as the Doctor follows me around the corner and, instantaneously, I feel the change in the Shape’s demeanor as he slips into my dream world. It’s not like the others where they stagger or are disoriented. One world is the same as any other to this thing, I think. Its eyes fix on the Doctor with an almost palpable ratcheting noise, though, and he drops me to the ground without a second thought.

I grin as I cough another gobbet of blood and mucus onto the tiles of the school and stagger to my feet. I’m not sure how long my illusion will last but at least I won’t have to worry about either of them for now. After all, the Shape isn’t even seeing the Doctor at all.

“Go get sissy,” I hiss around stained teeth.

The Shape lunges forward with its perfect, mechanical efficiency, and slams the knife into the Doctor’s gut. The Doctor, for once, actually looks surprised, and he lets out a cackling shriek of shock and rage. He brings the Stick down on the Shape’s back several times, to no avail. The Shape is an absolute dreadnaught; an engine of murder and obsession and right now all it can see is its sister.

It drags the knife out of the Doctor’s gut and slams it into his arm, pinning one of the Doctor’s arms to the wall. Doc brings up his other hand, crackling with electricity to grip the Shape’s head, driving his thumb into the open eye socket of the mask and loosing a current of electroconvulsive power.

Smoke pours from the Shape’s eye but he doesn’t flinch as he drags the knife down and severs the Doctor’s hand. The last thing I see as I stagger away from the two battling Killers is the Shape driving the Doctor to the ground, knife raised up and then coming down like a piston while the Doctor’s lightning-shrouded arm grips the Shape by the throat.

I get around the corner and pray I have a moment to knit my shattered body back together. Between the scrambled eggs in my head and the hole in my gut I know for a fact that I’m gonna feel this in the morning.

Rainbow Dash

This is a nightmare, an absolute nightmare, I think as I sit, ducked behind a desk with Scootaloo and Applebloom on either side of me and Sweetie Belle in my arms.

While keeping watch I saw three- three!- Killers. A tall, thickly-built woman with a massive, bloodstained wood-ax heading towards where I think the cafeteria probably is, a goddamn huge mutant-looking freak with a chainsaw, and I’m even pretty sure I saw a fucking ghost.

Applejack would never let me live it down if I admitted it but ghosts friggin’ terrify me. How am I supposed to punch out a ghost?! How the hell are we even supposed to survive being hunted by a ghost?!

Almost worse, though, is the constant revving of the chainsaw. It’s driving me nuts and the girls aren’t doing much better. Every time we think it might be clear, every time we think about stepping out into the hall, we hear it. The chainsaw, grinding away from somewhere out there. It’s hard to even tell where it’s coming from.

Is it close? Far? Who friggin’ knows?! All we know is that psychobilly freak is out there and close enough for us to hear him.

“Rainbow?” Scootaloo speaks up, very softly.

“What’s up squirt?” I ask, not turning away from the door, I swear I saw something move out there. Either that or I’m getting paranoid. Hell, is it even paranoia if you know for a fact that there’s a bunch of murderers out to kill you?

“This is… our fault, right?” Scootaloo says, and Applebloom and Sweetie Belle tense up. “Sunset being here? You and all of us being here? It’s… It's our fault, because of Anon-A-Miss, right?”

I close my eyes and sigh heavily. I really hadn’t wanted to get into this until we were out of here, but that’s not going to happen apparently. “Yeah, squirt… yeah, it is.”

All three of them wilt as I say the words, but I’m not done.

“Not just your fault, though, kiddos,” I continue, “Sunset wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have ended up here if we’d stood by her. Or if the school actually had forgiven her, or if everyone hadn’t jumped down her friggin’ throat the moment shit went south…”

I slump against the desk and sigh again. “Basically, your plan was really stupid and there’s no fuckin’ way it should’ve worked, girls. The fact that it did is kinda humiliating.”

“We just wanted our sisters ta spend more time with us,” Applebloom says, sniffling quietly with her knees tucked up and her arms wrapped around them. “We didn’t mean for it to go so bad.”

“It was just supposed to be a few secrets,” Sweetie Belle continues. “But people just… just kept sending us more and more of them, asking us to post them. We thought since we had already posted some so it wouldn’t make sense to not keep posting and then… then…”

Scootaloo hangs her head and rubs a hand over her eyes. “It just got of hand… I think we forgot we were telling secrets that could hurt people. It was just words on the internet, y’know?”

“Well, I’d ask if you learned anything,” I start, dryly, “but I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that. Because if Sunset trying to kill herself didn’t teach you a fucking lesson, this hell dimension is probably doin’ it.”

“Did she… did she really…?” Sweetie Belle starts to ask, but the words stop in her throat.

I just nod. “Yeah, Vice Principal Luna saw her do it, saw her jump, I mean. If the thing that’s been taking people hadn’t taken her then… yeah, Sunset would be dead.”

None of the girls say anything. Not that I expect them to. What do you even say about almost killing someone? No, it’s worse than that, what do you say when you almost make someone kill themselves? Because even I know that’s way fuckin’ worse. I want to blame Scoots and the girls, I really, really do. It’d be a lot easier. Easier than blaming myself.

Except I remember what happened the last time I took the easy way out and blamed someone else.

No, the girls' stupid fucking plan should’ve misfired completely. It should’ve been stupid and obvious and bad. Me, Sunset, and the girls should’ve had a good laugh over such a blatant fucking attempt to make Sunset look like a monster before figuring out who actually did it. Worst case scenario we call in Twilight and solve another friendship problem and everyone learns a friggin’ lesson.

But we didn’t.

“Do you hate us?” Scootaloo finally asks, and I flinch. Hate is a strong word but… I don’t answer right away either. I hesitate and look away as I try to figure out what to say.

I see the pain on Scootaloo’s face, the longer it takes me to answer the worse it gets. The other’s have the same look, probably thinking about Rarity and Applejack. After a moment I let out a slow breath.

“Nah,” I answer, feeling tired all of a sudden. “I don’t… I don’t trust you anymore, though. I never, ever thought you’d be able to do something like that, squirt. I don’t feel like I even know you anymore.”

Tears spring up to Scootaloo’s eyes, but she just nods. All in all, I guess it probably could’ve been worse.

“We should probably find a generator,” I say after a minute, “we can talk about all this when we get out of here.”

If we get out of here.

I strain my ears for any sound of the chainsaw. I don’t hear anything for a moment so I start to rise but then…

Thump-thump… thump-thump…

The heartbeat. A killer is closing in. I duck down and gesture for the girls to stay quiet. If he comes in I’ll sprint out and give the girls time to escape. The thudding of the heartbeat becomes louder and louder until I’m sure it must be right outside the classroom door.

It stays there, the heartbeat doesn’t get any louder. Doesn’t get any quieter either, though. What the hell is it doing? I can’t even tell if it knows we’re here. I hear a vaguely metallic sound, like… some kind of grinding, ratcheting noise, but I can’t place it. Can’t run out of here either, though, not with that sound so close. It’s gotta be in eyeshot at least.

So I wait, I send the girls to the corner of the room, hiding behind the desks so that once I run out and the Killer starts chasing me they can book it.

My worst fear comes true as the doorknob rattles and then creaks open. I hear heavy footfalls step into the room. I can hear its breathing, heavy and ragged and it somehow reminds me of wind moving through tunnels. That deep, endless, heave of air sends chills up my spine. I drop low and watch its huge, booted feet move towards the desk and, as soon as there’s a big enough gap between it and the doorway, I break cover.

“Come get me bigfoot!” I yell as I bolt out of the door.

I glance back to see the figure turn almost lazily and I feel my heart seize up for a moment. It’s staring at me through the crude eyeholes of a mask, uncaring and unmoving, a blood-stained bolo machete hanging loosely in its hand. Its hands and arms are stained gore-red up to the elbows, and twisted metal is extruding from its back. It’s a monster, a real, bona fide fucking monster and it’s like it doesn’t even care that I’m taunting it.

A second later I realise why that is.

SNAP

Razor-sharp metal teeth close around my leg with crushing force as I run out into the hall only to hit a fucking bear trap.

I scream and drop to the ground. I barely made it ten feet from the door and I’m already caught! How did Sunset do this for weeks?!

I struggle to open the damn thing even though I know it’s pointless. He pads towards me, reaches down, and grabs me around my neck, lifting and dragging the flesh of my leg. I scream again as it lifts me and it lashes out with a sharp kick at the bear trap I’d stepped in like a fucking moron and the thing snaps open.

The Killer heaves me over its shoulder and starts walking as I struggle, even knowing there’s probably a hook close by. At least the girls can escape…

I continue to struggle as he closes in on another door and kicks it open, I catch a glimpse of the hook and try to struggle harder. Even if it’s pointless I’ll be damned if I make it easy on him, he can suck my- OW!

Something sharp jabs me in the side and I snatch at it, hissing as it cuts me slightly.

It’s Sunset’s fingerblade.

Well, shit, it’s worth a try, right?

I bring it up then slam it down into the killer’s neck and he roars, flailing in pain and dropping me to ground. I ignore my shredded leg and bruised body and bolt out of the room, sprinting for anywhere but him as I tuck the blade away. I can’t afford to get caught by that bastard again because there is no way he’s letting me get away with that shit second time.

As I’m running, a generator explodes into life not far away. Shit, the other’s will have seen or heard that one too, I’m not safe anywhere. I turn a corner and hear a hiss from one of the rooms, I snap my head around to see the girl with the red mohawk, the girl that Sunset kissed, leaning out of a classroom and gesturing for me to come over.

I bite my tongue. I want to tell her to fuck off and leave me alone but I know how friggin’ stupid that would be. I drop low and move carefully over to her and she shuts the door behind me, pulling a ratty-looking first aid kit up from the floor.

“Stay down, I’ll take care of that leg,” she says, her words clipped and accented, and starts pulling gauze and medical tape out along with rubbing alcohol. “This is gonna sting, cabrón, but don’t scream.”

The girl, Tempest, that was her name, dumps some of the rubbing alcohol onto a rag and slaps it onto my leg. I don’t scream but I do bite through my lip. I spit out the blood as Tempest pulls the rag from my leg she goes to work wrapping it.

“Where are the girls?” Tempest asks as she tapes the bandage closed.

"They’re okay I think," I say slowly, "I tried to distract the big dude with the bear traps and uh…”

“Si, I recognised the wound,” Tempest says with a grim smirk. “I’m surprised you got away, cabrón.”

“Okay, you keep calling me that,” I reply, standing and testing my weight on my leg, it hurts but holds. “I’m like, a strong eighty percent sure that isn’t a compliment.”

“It’s not, cabrón,” Tempest replies dryly. “You nearly got Mi Sol killed.”

I flinch but nod. “Right, yeah… can’t expect to live that down, honestly.”

“You shouldn’t,” Tempest remarks as she stands up and a realise how big she actually is. She towers over me. “Still… I can’t help but be a little grateful.”

“For what?” I ask as I glance out of the glass window of the classroom door for any lurking murderers.

Tempest pulls me away from the window with a grunt of annoyance. “We’ll hear them before we see them, cabrón, and I’m grateful because I would never have met her otherwise. Now how exactly did you get away from Trapper? He’s not known for letting his prey get far.”

I consider snapping back about her first comment but I honestly don’t have anything good, or useful, to say.

“This is how I did it.” I hold up the blade that was once a part of Sunset’s hand. “She maimed her own hand and threw it at me just to drive home how much she hates my ass.”

Tempest chuckles as she takes the blade. “No me jodas? Well, that sounds like Sunset, actually, may I?”

She holds out her hand for the blade and for a moment I don’t want to give it up. I’m not really sure why. On the one hand, it’s basically just a reminder that Sunset hates me now. On the other hand…

It’s probably the last gift she’ll ever give me.

Whatever, I know what Sunset meant when she gave it to me. “Yeah, sure, here.”

Tempest takes the broken blade and turns it over in her hand, examining it carefully. “It really is a part of her,” she says quietly, then looks back up at me. “You must’ve meant a lot to her for your betrayal to hurt so badly, cabrón.”

“Yeah… she was pretty much my best friend,” I mutter, leaning back against the wall. “And I fucked it up forever because I was a coward and a bitch.”

“Everything has a consequence, cabrón,” Tempest replies, tucking the blade into her vest. “Anyone telling you different is selling something. But if it makes a difference, the whole reason I’m trying to save you and those girls is that I don’t think she actually wants you dead.”

I stare up at Tempest incredulously. “Seriously? She literally dragged us in here to be tormented for eternity and digested by a fucking dimensional squid-spider.”

Tempest chuckles but shakes her head. “Si, because she was angry and hurt, and she lashed out. She’s powerful and has a temper like a volcano. I can't say that you don't deserve to be here, you were terrible to her, but… I think a part of her regrets bringing you.”

I’m silent for a while as I absorb that. I don’t really know if I believe Tempest. I want to, but I don’t know if I can. At the same time, it does sound reasonable. The whole reason Sunset and I got along so well is because we’re so alike, including our knack to acting rashly and doing stupid shit when we’re pissed off.

“I think,” Tempest continues, shooting me a wry grin, “that once she’s free of the Entity’s thrall and is herself again she will… be able to heal. Maybe even forgive, although that will be entirely up to her. Healing does not demand nor require forgiveness.”

“Yeah, but maybe I can hope,” I say, feeling a slight spark in my heart for the first time all day. “Kinda weird, though, getting cheered up by my crush’s girlfriend… not gonna lie. Part of me wants to punch you for that.”

“You’re the one who lost her, cabrón,” Tempest fires back. It stings but I can’t really say she’s wrong, so I just shrug and nod.

A thudding heartbeat shuts us both up quickly and I tense up, ready to run. Tempest lifts a finger to her lips and backs away from the door as I sidle up to brace my back against the wall to the right of it. Tempest hisses wordlessly at me to come back away from the door. The heartbeat is getting louder and louder, I can barely hear myself think over it.

Heavy, thudding footsteps come from outside the door, their pace is irregular and lopsided like they’re walking with a limp. The gait tickles my memory for a moment. Just a moment, though, because I’m immediately reminded of who I’m trying to remember when a chainsaw roars to life and slams through the door, splintering glass and wood as a massive, twisted body shoulders through the ruined entry.

I scream and scrabble away from the enormous Killer as he blocks out the door, shaking his chainsaw loose before lifting it and pulling the thick, worn cord again to bring the ugly weapon back to life. He starts to swing around towards me when Tempest lashes out with a hard kick at the teacher’s desk, sending it between me and instant death.

“Run!” Tempest yells as the mutant lumberjack slams hard into the desk and lets out a deep, animal howl of frustration when his chainsaw gets jammed in the desk.

I clamber to my feet and kick off from the floor, sprinting around him and bolting out the door with Tempest hot my heels.

A ripping, splintering noise tells me he’s freed his toy, and an instant later the Killer is on our track, his chainsaw held high for a moment to be revved before he leans into the weight of the saw and sprints for us.

“Dive!” I shout as I throw myself to the floor, rolling to the edge of the lockers as Tempest does the same.

He bolts past us, and for a moment my nose is filled with the stink of animal sweat, blood, and machine oil. His pounding footfalls leave shattered tiles in his wake and I realise his boots are fitted with crude spikes. Grinding his heels into the floor, the Killer pulls his finger from the trigger of the chainsaw and wheels around facing us again with evident glee on his half-melted face.

I glance over at Tempest in terror. We can’t outrun him, he’s too fast and he revs his chainsaw almost instantly. Both of us scramble up to our feet, backing away as the killer advances slowly towards us, revving his chainsaw up the edge. He could charge at any time.

At any moment.

He’s not, he’s just… staring us down. He's intimidating us, playing with us. He's waiting to see which one of us will break first and run for it.

I’m about to say ‘fuck-it’ and bolt anyway, even knowing what will happen, when a sharp whistle from behind the Killer distracts us all.

“Hey, Billy!” A familiar voice shouts, “saw through this!”

He wheels around, firing up his chainsaw fully and I see her. Sunset, or the Killer she’s become at least, standing at the far end of the hall. She looks awful. Her face is burnt and scorched, and there's a bloody wound in her chest.

I also see something small and bright being tossed through the air at ‘Billy’. It looks like a vial…

Billy charges at Sunset, his chainsaw shattering the little vial into dust. For a moment, all the sound in the area is eclipsed by a noise like a deep breath being taken. It’s a harsh, shrieking wheeze that’s almost deafening, like all the air is suddenly gone. It reminds me of being unable to pop my ears after getting to a high altitude in an airplane, except multiplied a million times over.

Then it’s gone and I’m watching Billy charge down Sunset, his chainsaw raised and ready to cleave her in half. I want to scream for her to run! To get away from him! But I can’t breathe!

Sunset is just standing there, fearless and grinning like a maniac around a face full of electrical burns and bruises.

Billy is almost to her when I hear it.

A scream like a choking shriek echoes all around us, and suddenly there’s a figure floating just behind Billy, its face covered in a burlap sack, and slashing at the backs of his legs with a bonesaw. The fine-edged teeth of the ghost’s saw slashes through tendons and muscle, and Billy roars furiously as his legs go out from under him. His chainsaw pitches down and drives into the tile floor, grinding and smoking as it chews into solid rock.

Sunset flickers out of existence for a moment then she’s at Billy’s side driving her fingerblades up into his jaw. They erupt from the top of his twisted skull with a sickening crunch and Billy lets out another gurgling scream of rage as he brings his sledgehammer up to crash into Sunset’s ribs and send her flying into the wall to her right.

“Sunset!”

Tempest and I both scream her name at the same time but she ignores us, bracing against the wall and making a slashing motion with her hand.

“Get’im, ‘Nata!” Sunset yells, spitting black, viscous blood from her mouth and holding her other hand over her shattered chest.

The ghost cackles harshly in that choking voice and vanishes again only to reappear right in front of Billy and run her saw brutally against his face, slicing out his eyes and causing him to stagger back, swinging his hammer in a blind frenzy. The ghost just floats back, almost mischievously, its harsh breathing drawing Billy forward as he tries to track her by sound, He revs his chainsaw wildly as thick, noisome blood dribbles from the ruin of his eye sockets.

The ghost takes a deep, choking breath, seemingly on purpose, and Billy hones in on the sound. He dives forward, chainsaw first, just as the ghost vanishes revealing Sunset crouched right behind her, silently. Too low for his chainsaw to hit and his ruined eyes prevent him from correcting his angle.

Sunset braces herself against the wall and drives her hands forward, claws extended as Billy rams saw-first into the bank of lockers, his chainsaw spits sparks as the teeth eat up the corrugated metal, and Sunset slams her claws into Billy’s gut with all the force of his own spoiled charge.

Blood gushes from the horrendous wound and Sunset lets out a primal scream of rage as she flexes and twists, ripping her claws out from either side of the crooked Killer.

Billy vomits a mouthful of blood and finally, the chainsaw revving dies as its owner staggers backward for a moment before falling away from Sunset in two ragged, but distinct, pieces.

I can’t help but just… stare. Sunset is standing only a few feet away, her body covered almost head to toe in gore that she’s trying, pointlessly to shake off. Then the ghost is suddenly back in front of her and I feel a jolt of panic.

“Sun-!”

“Nice one, ‘Nata,” Sunset says, smirking at the ghost and raising a single clawed hand up. The ghost gives a muffled laugh and raises its withered hand to high five Sunset. “That’s one more down.”

Sunset

I’m breathing hard; my whole body hurts and there’s no way to heal myself any faster. I can’t afford to rest, though, I’ve got too much left to do even now that I know Wraith and Billy are gone for sure. I still have to contend with the others.

Plus, who even knows if the Doctor got finished off. Even if he did that would just mean that thing won the fight and that’s not any better.

“Mi Sol?”

I glance up and try to give Tempest a confident smirk. It comes out as more of a pained grimace, though, I think. “Hey, babe, how’s things?”

“Uh…”

The sound draws my gaze over to Rainbow and I scowl.

“Don’t think I brought him down for your sake,” I spit, gesturing at Billy’s corpse, “you’re Tempest’s pet project, but I will grab that saw and kill you myself if I think for a second that you’re about to get her killed.”

Rainbow flinches away from me and I shake my head, starting to stand fully. My legs got out from under me, though, and I stagger. A pair of light hands reach out and catch me.

“Why not take that sack off, ‘Nata,” I say as she pulls me back to my feet. She just gives me a look, or at least I think she does, before nodding and reaching up to untie the cord of the sack and starts tugging at it. “Here, here, stop,” I say with a pained laugh, my ribs really are a mess. “Let me.”

I work the edge of my blade under the cord and loosen it, then catch the rough material on the tips of my claws and pull up, freeing Sonata’s head from the sack. I smile a little sadly at her, and she smiles back. Her face is pallid and dead, her lips cracked and her eyes sunken into the hollows of her skull. Her neck is bruised and deformed, choking the air as it passes through her windpipe resulting in the wheezing stridor that gives her away.

“Hey, ‘Nata, how you feeling?” I reach up and pat her head and she just smiles silently at me. She can’t talk like this, she can barely talk even in her real body. “Good, ‘Dagi is keeping an eye on Aria, and Sour and Starlight have had free reign so hopefully they're tracking down the last generator.”

Sonata just nods along with me. After a moment she leans down and wraps her arms around me in a hug and I hug her back. I can feel the gentleness in her; she should never have been born a Siren, I think she would’ve been a lot happier as a pony. Well, that’s neither here nor there. The point is, she’s safe now.

“Go find your sisters, ‘Nata,” I say, pulling away and smiling. “They’ll need to get your real body out of here. You know where I hid it.” She nods again. “Good, you know the plan, right? That specific restriction on Killers is lifted for you guys, so you and ‘Dagi need to get out of the gate first, now go.”

Smiling at me, Sonata pulls away and pats my head and gives me an encouraging wheeze. At least, it sounds encouraging. I’m such a coward, of course the only one I told the whole of my plan to is the one who physically can’t give it away.

I needed her to know, though. She’s the only one who can move through my realm freely. The walls mean nothing to her, so she can guide the others to exit. She raises her hand and waves at me before gripping it into a tight fist, taking a deep breath, and vanishing.

“Tempest, you okay?” I ask as I look over at the ragged young woman I’ve been trying my hardest to keep alive.

Tempest just laughs bitterly. “Am I okay? Mi Sol, you look like you just finished getting intimate with a lightning storm.”

I shrug. “Yeah well, the Doctor won’t be joining us for a while, or maybe ever, depending on how things played out after I left. The Wraith is dead for sure, too.”

“So that leaves, what?” Tempest counts off on her fingers. “The Trapper, obviously, the Shape…”

“And the Hag,” I finish, and Tempest grimaces.

“Mi Sol…?” I can hear the faint hope in her voice, it breaks my heart to tell her.

“I tried, Tempest,” I say, turning away from her before she can ask me the question, wrapping my arms around myself, I was dreading this moment. “I swear to god I tried, but there was nothing left. Adagio and Sonata are immortals, their minds are powerful. I have my magic to protect my sanity, but even that’s slowly failing. Summer was just a normal human… her mind didn’t survive the transition.”

I hate failing. Even though I knew the odds of getting retrieving Summer’s mind from whatever the Entity had left of it was practically a no-shot, I still failed. It’s a bitter pill that I’ve never gotten any better at swallowing.

Two strong arms wrap around my shaking form from behind and Tempest pulls me close, bringing her hand up to caress my cheek. “It’s okay, mi sol, I already grieved her loss, but… thank you for trying, though. Thank you for taking the risk.”

“I didn’t want to leave her behind!” I practically shout as I whip around, feeling a wave of panic as I reach up to grab at Tempest’s vest, being careful not to cut her. I need her to understand that I tried! I really, really did! “I swear I didn’t fuck up on purpose, you have to believe me!”

Tempest stares down at me in shock and grief. Oh god, she doesn’t believe me.

“P-please… please believe me…” I beg. “I know… I know you’d choose her. I know… but I still tried, I swear it. I really tried!” Slowly, the strength goes out of my legs as I slump down, barely gripping Tempest’s vest until I’m at her feet, my face against her legs and tears streaking down my stained cheeks. “Please, don’t leave me… please, I promise I’ll do better next time… I tried!”

I feel Tempest kneel to the ground and bring her arms around me again, gently lifting me and dragging me towards one of the classrooms.

“Do you see what you’ve done to her, cabrón?” I hear Tempest saying accusingly, she’s not speaking to me I don’t think. “Look at her! Look at what you did to her!”

“P-please,” I mumble, my mind foggy with pain and exhaustion. I try to tighten my grip, to hold on to Tempest. “I promise I’m telling the truth… I promise… I swear I’m not lying… please don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Mi Sol,” Tempest whispers softly as she lowers me to ground in the classroom and sits beside me, pulling me close and kissing my forehead. “I swear, I believe you. I know you tried your best.”

“I did…” I cry raggedly, wrapping my arms around her and sobbing. “I did, I promise… I really did, I didn’t mean to fail.”

“You didn’t fail, Mi Sol,” she replies. “There never anything to be saved.”

I hear another voice sob from the other corner of the room. Right, Rainbow is here. I want to be furious with her, I hate that she’s seeing me like this. I can’t though… I just can’t. My chest feels like it’s full of broken glass, my head is throbbing and my heart is pounding like a jackhammer. I can’t concentrate, so I just curl against Tempest.

“We have a little time,” Tempest whispers soothingly. “Rest, the others can distract the remaining Killers for a time.”

I nod, she’s right. I’m no good like this. I can’t afford to fail again.

“Why don’t you tell me how you found Sonata?” Tempest says gently, her hand stroking my hair, calming me down. I know she’s just trying to distract me.

I let her.

“It was…” I sniffle, trying to gather my thoughts, “it was right after the last Trial… I went to find her… it wasn’t like I thought. She’s barely alive.”

One Trial Ago

The thick fog of Crotus Prenn fills my nostrils as I step out of my dimensional gate and onto the dry, cracked grounds of the Asylum. I don’t really know what to expect, but hopefully Sonata isn’t too different from Adagio. I reach out with my power and feel for her mind.

I stagger back in shock.

Two minds.

I feel two minds.

Or rather, I felt one mind that's been ripped in half. One is sleeping, or at least it’s not conscious, somewhere in the heart of the Asylum. The other is a fractured mass of wrath and insanity drifting around the grounds of Crotus Prenn. I figure I know which one I should go for first, and head straight for the building in the middle of the grounds.

I have to ping the mind that I assume is Sonata’s every so often to keep my direction oriented. The sensation is so faint that it’s almost non-existent, but eventually I descend to the lowest part of the Asylum, past where the normal Trial takes place. Some kind of sub-basement level deep below the central chamber.

That’s where I find her.

Sonata Dusk is laying on her back in a straitjacket and strapped to a gurney with leather belts. Her breathing is slow, almost imperceptible, but steady. Her pretty blue hair is pooled out around her head like a halo and she’s clearly sleeping.

Slowly, I approach, grabbing one of the rickety chairs nearby to put in front of her gurney and sit.

“Well, now what?” I say, leaning with my elbows on my knees examining her. “Hey, ‘Nata, you there?” I ask, bringing my hand up and snapping my bladed fingers. The noise is harsh and grating and certainly would’ve woken her up if it were possible.

“O~kay,” I lean back and crack my knuckles. “Plan B, then.” I reach out with my magic and delve into her mind.

I gasp as I sink into something like cloying quicksand. It’s a mess in here! Just a mass of confused, distorted memories of random things. Nothing is where it’s supposed to be! Some of these memories aren’t even hers! I feel Aria’s memories and even some of Adagio’s.

Sonata, what in Tartarus happened to you?

Almost as if in response to my mental query, the eyes of Sonata’s body snap open, glazed and glassy, to stare up at me and her voice comes out as a harsh, ragged whisper.

“Do not go to Crotus Prenn.”

An onslaught of memories drowns me. Alright then, if that’s how it is let’s put this jigsaw back together, because I am not leaving without your blue ass Sonny.

I dive deep and grapple around for a timeline, something early on. Sonata’s memories are a strangulated and inchoate mass, but the others aren’t. I find Aria’s memories first and I grip them hard.

“Show me what you found, Aria!” I hiss, as I peel the memory apart. “Show me what happened to Sonata!”

14. The Way of Light - Part 4

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Sunset

Sweat mats my hair down more than usual as I slump against Sonata’s gurney. My breath comes in harsh gasps as I try to stay standing. Sonata’s mind was a mess, or rather it still is a mess, but it’s a manageable mess now. I don’t know what the Entity did to her to get her brain like that but it left a mark, that’s for damn sure.

Putting her memories together was not unlike trying to complete a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces keep changing shape and color and were also on fire. My whole body hurts after delving for that long but now I at least know what happened.

Poor Sonata, no wonder she’s so ditzy. Who would want to think too hard if that’s what’s waiting for you in the depths of your brain? Well, sorry ‘Nata, but I’m gonna need you lucid for this.

I stand straight and reach out with my magic to grasp onto the newly fitted and stitched up fragments of her mind. Rather than giving her psyche a hard tug like I usually do, I try to be gentle. I try to ease her into my world rather than kick her into it. I’m not sure her fragile mind could handle even that minor of a trauma at the moment.

The spell kicks in, and Sonata’s breathing pattern changes, becoming a little more rapid as her body twitches and, a moment later, her eyes flutter open.

“Good morning,” I say with a tired smirk as I sit back down in the chair I'd brought over.

Sonata blinks drowsily for a few moments before turning to look at me.

“Oh, hi Sunset, did I fall asleep?” Her voice is drawn and reedy.

“For a little while,” I reply, turning my smirk to a more gentle smile. “How do you feel?”

Yawning, Sonata stretches and I note how frail her body looks. Her limbs are thin and I can see her cheekbones stark against her face and how her eyes are sunken into her skull. I have no doubt that I’d be able to see her ribs too if she were standing. I wonder if she even can stand, she looks… awful.

“Not so good, Shimmy,” Sonata replied, her voice faint and weak. “I think I’m in a pretty bad way.”

I nod, leaning in a little to pull the covers of her gurney up a little closer. “How’s that? Any better?”

Sonata nods, snuggling deeper into her bed. “A little, you don’t look so good yourself, Shimmy.”

“Yeah,” I reply with a dry chuckle. “It’s been a rough few weeks if I’m honest. My whole world fell apart, my friends abandoned me, then I tried to kill myself.”

“Did it work?” Sonata asks, and I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the question.

“Uh, all things considered?” I ask, raising an eyebrow and laughing. “Yeah, it kinda did, but it went better than I expected. I made some new friends, hooked up with a cholo gangbanger, and even met up with your sisters, too.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Sonata replied cheerily, in spite of her weak voice I could hear the genuine sincerity in it. “How are they doing?”

“Uh, could be better honestly,” I say with a shrug. “Adagio is a Killer, like you, and Aria is still hanging on but it’s pretty rough.”

“You’ve got a plan though, huh?” Sonata says, rather than asks, surprising me a little. It must’ve showed on my face because she laughs. Her laughter turns into a coughing fit a moment later though and she rides it out before turning back to me. “You’re a lot like ‘Dagi, she’s got a plannin’ face just like you’ve got on right now.”

A plannin’ face, huh? I wonder not for the first time if Sonata really is the ditziest of the bunch. I always got the feeling there was more going on under the hood than she let on. “Yeah, you’re right, I’ve got a plan. A plan that’ll get everyone out.”

Sonata eyes me for a moment before smiling. “What’s the catch?”

I chuckle at that and shrug. “Well, first off it’s basically insane,” I say, holding up one finger-blade. “Second, it requires me to spit in the eye of what’s essentially a god, on purpose,” I tick up another finger-blade, “and third, I have to both play by his rules and cheat several times mid-game all while maintaining a flawless poker face.”

“Sounds like one of ‘Dagi’s plans,” Sonata remarks with a cheeky grin. “I guess you need my help too, huh?”

“Yeah,” I reply, my face falling to become more serious. “It’s dangerous, and if the Entity cottons on to what I’m doing you’ll be in a lot of danger.”

“Are you going to save my sisters?” Sonata asks, her voice quiet and even, and I nod. “Okay then, I’m in.”

I crook an eyebrow at that. “That’s it? You don’t even know what I’m going to ask of you.”

“Doesn’t matter what you need,” Sonata says with a weak but easy grin. “My sisters are in danger and I can help them, so I’m in, and besides you’re a good guy, you won’t ask for anything you don’t really need.”

I shake my head in disbelief. Of all the people I expected to get along with I would not have put Sonata at the top of the list. She always struck me as kind of a ‘Pinkie Pie with less logic’ kind of girl, which even I found unsettling.

But the way she just… decided. The look in her eye the moment I told her the stakes reminded me in no uncertain terms that, for whatever airheaded vacuity I saw in her before this, I’m still dealing with a centuries-old soul here. She prizes her sisters, possibly the last of her kind, above all else, and there wasn’t even a shadow of a question in her mind whether or not she would go along with my plan the moment the stakes were made clear.

“That sounds like a pretty genre-savvy assumption there, ‘Nata,” I reply with a crooked grin. “What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not,” Sonata replies with almost alarming certainty. “Being good is a lot like being crazy, after all. Look at what you’re doing right now, Shimmy,” Sonata says with a smile, nodding at our surroundings. “You call it good, but I’m pretty sure most people would call it crazy.”

I frown. “Hey, that’s… I’m just trying to do the right thing, okay?” I respond, feeling a little unsettled. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Sure there’s not,” Sonata shoots back, her smile never fading, even a little. “If it’s not too hard, or it isn’t risking your life or any of the other stuff that’d make it not worth it.”

“It’s always worth it to do the right thing!” I snap, pounding my fist on the gurney. I pull back a moment later as reign in my temper and I’m about to apologise when a soft touch brings my focus back on Sonata.

She’s pulled her frail, bony hand out from under the warmth of her blanket to touch my cheek. “That’s because you’re a good guy, Shimmy,” Sonata says softly. “You’d go to the ends of the earth to do the right thing,” she continued, waving her hand at the world around us as she spoke, “you’d cross dimensions and spit in the eyes of gods and cheat divine laws and all kinds of other completely crazy things just because it’s the right thing to do.”

I open my mouth to refute her, but I can't. She just described a strong ninety-five percent of my plan, even if just in vague terms. After a moment I snap my jaw closed in for fear of flies.

Sonata just grins cheekily again. “See? You’re crazier than me, Shimmy!”

I lean back in the chair and laugh softly. Not very often I can claim to have gotten totally roasted by the most airheaded member of my former worst enemy’s immortal acapella group.

Written's Quill, my life is weird.

“Alright, I guess I am,” I say finally, raising my hands in defeat.

“Cool,” Sonata replies with a smile. A moment later her face takes on a much more serious cast and mine quickly matches it. “So what do you need?”

“Two things,” I say evenly. “First I’m going to anchor your soul, your whole soul back into your body. An Anima Sutures spell should hold til my plan is done and then either you're out of the Entity’s reach or it’s not gonna matter. Then I’ll put you a near-death state and capture your last breath so I’ll be able to summon you when the time’s right.”

“Will I be conscious through it all?” Sonata asked quietly and I shake my head.

“Not really,” I say. “It’ll be like a lucid dream until I release your breath. That’ll bring you back to life fully. I’ll steal your body, teleport it to my realm, and stash it before I leave. Believe me, when I’m done he won’t notice your real body is missing until it’s too late.”

Nodding, Sonata fixes her eyes on me again. “And the second thing?”

I let out a slow breath, here was the real test because I needed her to know the truth. I need Sonata’s warping power specifically, and if she isn’t on my side from word go then this whole thing is going to sink before it even starts.

“The second thing,” I say quietly, “is that I’m going to need you to keep a secret.”

Sunset - The Swamp

I step through the Fog from the twilit coolness of Crotus Prenn to the cold, damp marsh of the Hag’s Realm and I chide myself again as my boots sink into the stinking mud.

This is risky and stupid. It’s got about a ninety-nine point nine-nine-repeating chance of being a total waste of time that I do not have. I should just step back to my basement and pretend to be the good little Killer I am until I’m ready to spring my trap.

I’m not going to, though. I can’t go back. How could I look Tempest in the eye again if I didn’t at least try to save the girl she loved. ‘The girl she loves’ my traitorous mind whispers. I clench my eyes and grit my teeth against that incoming wave of feelings. Against that part of me I know is my worse half; the jealousy, pettiness, and spite that characterized me for so long. The same parts that lost me my homeworld, my mentor, and all of my friends.

I push it away and open my eyes again.

I know it’s not fair to hate Summer Wind. I don't even know her. I’m sure she was, gangbanger notwithstanding, a perfectly nice girl. Maybe we would have even been friends before all this. Before she became a monstrous Killer with a broken mind.

I don’t necessarily like what it says about me that I’m taking a measure of comfort in the fact that it’s astronomically unlikely that I’ll be able to reach Summer Wind. Except… what about that point-one percent chance?

What if it turns out that I can save her?

Tempest will leave me behind and then…

“Maybe it’ll for the best,” I mutter, letting out a slow and calming breath. “Yeah, it’s for the best.”

I reach across the stretches of rotting swamplands seeking the fractured mind of the Hag. If I can give Tempest this then… maybe it will be enough.

Maybe she’ll forgive me after all this is over.

The Hag is a chore to find, but eventually, I manage it. She's hunched over and scratching in the mud near one of the entrances to the drained ‘pantry’. I grimace but flicker through space towards the mind of my crush’s lost love.

I reappear in front of her but she doesn’t notice me. We’re not really wired to notice each other, though. We hunt like the Entity hunts. We look for fear, despair, and hope, but a Killer feels none of those things. At least, not in the quantities needed to register. I’ve only kept my hope kindled with the power of Equestrian magic.

Light magic.

But the light is fading. My journal is crumbling. It’s why I had to do this now. I don’t have the power to wait out a third Trial to come here. I’d risk losing my Journal and I can’t afford that. I have to be frugal.

Alright, it’s the moment of truth.

I reach out for Summer’s mind with my magic. My oneiromancy scratches at the shattered wreckage of her mind looking for a flicker of light. A glimmer of the personality that once belonged to a girl named Summer Wind. I turn over each little mental stone and fragment of psyche but…

“Nothing,” I mutter, pulling my magic away. “There’s nothing.”

Before my spell fully resolves, rescinding back into me, I feel something like a gut punch and double over. Shit. I can feel my body rebelling like something just hijacked my autonomic systems and told them to go haywire in the most painful possible way.

The Entity must have noticed me.

It’s the only explanation since the Old Stain is the only one who has the master key to my biology. I’m not supposed to be here and I know it, so I’m being punished. He's onto me! I can't stay here any longer! I can't wait out another Trial, I have to act. He's pushing me to return to my Trial grounds, and once I get there he'll look into why I left.

I’m about to do as he wills, standing up and coughing out a gob of black phlegm, when I feel a tug on my jacket. I look down to see the Hag’s gnarled, shattered hand caught on it. I’m reminded of a old, beaten dog all of a sudden. I still don’t think Summer’s in there but…

Maybe there’s something.

Kneeling down, grimacing against the growing pain, I take her hand. “Hi Summer,” I say quietly, not expecting nor receiving a response. “My, uh… my name is Sunset Shimmer and… I’m in love with your old girlfriend.”

She just rasps out a wheezing breath, cocking her head like an animal. I sigh and shake my head, coughing out another wash of bloody black fluid. Dammit, I have to make this quick; stupid bleeding heart.

“I’m sorry I was too late for you,” I gasp out, tears starting to fall quietly down my cheeks. “I’m sorry I can’t get you home. I know you probably don’t remember it anymore, maybe you don’t even remember Tempest, but she remembers you, and she still loves you.”

The Hag fixes her strange, red-eyed gaze on me for a moment before her focus is lost. I give her hand a squeeze to pull her attention back.

“I can’t save you, Summer,” I say, as my breath becomes heated with fever and pain. “But I will save Tempest, okay? I promise.”

I pull away and stand, releasing her hand and wiping my eyes. Summer gives me another cock-eyed look then, oddly, does something that I almost imagine is a nod before going back to scratching at the mud. Maybe something is in there… something more than just a mind. I can’t save it but…

“Good-bye, Summer,” I say in a rasping voice.

I have to get back before the Entity gets any angrier. I have to pull the trigger now.

Present - Sunset

My breathing is a little clearer and easier now. My body isn’t just a mass of pain and broken bones anymore. I don’t feel great but I also don’t feel like I just had the Canterhorn fall on top of me anymore, so I’ve got that going for me.

“What was the secret?” Tempest asks, holding me close. “The one you told to Sonata.”

I give her my best mysterious smile.

“I can’t say,” I reply. “Sorry, but I need to play it all pretty close to the vest. I don’t know how much the Entity can perceive and when, so I can’t risk saying anything that’ll give his Killers an edge.”

Tempest doesn’t look thrilled but she nods. “Fair enough, Mi Sol.”

“Hey… S-Sunset?” Rainbow’s voice pipes up from where she’s been sitting on the teacher's desk and I shoot her a glare that once again fails to ignite her on the spot. “I know you don’t have any reason to answer me but… can I ask you something?”

I let out a shuddering breath, ever since I disconnected from the Entity the fury that roared to life in me every time I saw Rainbow has been reduced to a dull, painful ember. I can at least stay sane around her now, but… I don’t know if I care to.

“Mi Sol…” Tempest leans down and brushes her lips lightly against mine and gives me a look that’s half understanding and half pleading.

After a moment I roll my eyes and nod. “Fine, sure, one question.”

Rainbow breaths out slow, as if gathering her courage. “I know what the girls, the Crusaders I mean, did t’you was pretty much the worst but… why did you have to bring them here? Wasn’t that… too much?”

I narrow my eyes at Rainbow, giving her a deadly look.

“What they did drove me to suicide, Rainbow, whether or not they meant to. And yeah, I’ll admit, I was pretty much insane by the time I took them thanks to the Entity but…” I glance up at Tempest, bringing my fingerblades up to gently stroke her cheek. “I had to pay the piper to get my real friends out and they were the ones I decided to use to clear that bill. That’s all, just… a means to an end. I needed a fresh and untainted source of hope to skim from to get the power necessary to cross the barriers between Trials to find Adagio and Sonata.”

Rainbow doesn’t shout or yell or complain, she just looks angry which I guess is fair.

“So they were just convenient?” Rainbow snarls.

“No,” I answer, standing to my feet and getting in her face. “They weren’t just convenient, I also wanted revenge, and so I took it!”

“By murdering them over and over?!” Rainbow shouts, standing from her seat and getting in my face now. “So what’re you gonna say to them once we’re all outta here?! Huh?!” She screws up her face in rage and pushes me away. “Is it just gonna be like: ‘Hey kiddo’s no hard feelings about the nightmare-inducing murderfest’, or something?”

My temper slips between my grasp the moment she touches me and I lash out, back-handing her across the room and into several desks that crash to the floor. I stalk up to her as she pulls herself up from the ground and plant a boot in the back of her head, throwing her back to the ground.

“I don’t plan to say a damn thing,” I hiss virulently, spitting on the ground by Rainbow’s head. “Because I don’t plan to speak to any of you fuckers ever again once this is over, capisce?”

The final generator roars to life as I dig my bootheel deeper into Rainbow against Tempest’s protests and my senses immediately inform me where the nearest Exits are. “Alright, Q and A is officially over, so get your ass in gear because we’re on the opposite fucking end of the Trial from the Exits this time and if you lag back I will leave your ass for dead.”

I pull my boot off of Rainbow’s head and walk back to Tempest’s side.

“You’ve got to get your temper in check, Mi Sol,” Tempest whispers, reaching up to run her hands through my hair in a calming motion. I don’t know how she can stand the texture but I appreciate it anyway. “Rainbow has a point, they’re just children.”

“And you’ll be getting them all out so it doesn’t matter,” I retort, side-eyeing Tempest, silently daring her to take Rainbow’s side again. “Besides, it’s like I told Rainbow… after this is all over we’ll never see each other again so it won’t fuckin’ matter.”

Tempest just sighs and shakes her head. “Fine, we’ll talk about this later though, it’s not good to hold on to this shit, my love.”

I blush furiously at her words and chuckle.

“Cool it, Casanova,” I say, smiling and bringing her hand up to kiss her knuckles. “You can sweet-talk me later.”

Carefully, and slowly, opening the classroom door, I lean out into the hall and glance left to the corner. Seeing nothing I glance right and…

“Really, Trapper?” I deadpan as I look at the two traps placed in plain sight, staggered to block the hall heading to our left. “They’re right there, I can see them.”

The easiest path to the Exit is to the right anyway. “Trapper-traps to the left, ignore them though, we’re heading right,” I say, gesturing for them to follow. Tempest comes out first with Rainbow taking up the rear.

I take point, glancing around as we head down the hall, moving carefully to give Tempest enough time to detect the heartbeat so we can take a moment to hide or at least brace ourselves for a fight.

We reach the end of the hall and I glance back, making sure there’s nothing creeping up on us. Maybe I’m just paranoid but I didn’t see the Shape die so I keep expecting to turn around and for him to just-

SNAP

“Motherfucker!” I shriek as I turn the corner. I look down to see the brutal teeth of a bear trap biting into my leg, it had been set just perfectly at the blind section of the turn to evade easy notice.

I should’ve known. The Trapper is canny, he gave us two obvious traps to see so we wouldn’t look for the third, hidden, trap. God-fucking-damnit. In an instant both Tempest and Rainbow on either side of me, working to pry the teeth free of my leg. They barely manage to work me loose when both of their heads snap up in unison and meet each other’s eyes.

“Heartbeat?” I ask grimly, already knowing the answer before they both nod.

“Shit,” I hiss, as the Trapper comes around the corner at the far end of the hall from where we started.

He barely pauses to sweep up the two traps he had planted as decoys before continuing. “Alright ladies let’s haul ass!” I roar, taking off in a run with Tempest and Rainbow just behind me.

The Trapper has to know where we’re going. He can sense the Exits just as easily as I can so why is he chasing us this way? I hate this bastard. I can’t even trust my own instincts when I’m up against him. For all I know he’s predicted what I’ll do and is just herding me into a trap.

A trap.

My mind makes the connection just moments too late. Too late for me to remember that the Trapper isn’t the only Killer that lays traps.

The ground beneath me splits in a torrent of mud and swamp water, spitting out a screaming simulacrum of the Hag that instantly pulses into her true form. Tempest and Rainbow scatter as the Hag pummels me with her club-like claw, staggering me back. I sweep my own claws out and rake deep furrows on her face in return though, eliciting a harsh, gurgling shriek of pain.

The Hag staggers backward and I dive in to follow up, feeling a slight twinge of regret as I remember Tempest is right near me. Regret or not, I never connect as the Trapper’s bolo machete erupts from my chest, stopping me dead in my tracks.

“SUNSET!” I hear Tempest’s voice just barely over the roaring pain that’s threatening to deafen me to the world. She’s standing alongside Rainbow just down the hall.

I vomit up a torrent of bile and I let out a defiant howl of rage as I twist around in time to see Trapper pulling me back. I don’t give him the chance to get his big stained paws on me before I swing my left hand back and sever his hand at the wrist.

The ground meets my knees with a crash as I drop, the machete still sticking out of my chest. Thank the Goddesses my anatomy isn’t mortal anymore or I’d be dead several times over by this point. Unfortunately, even the unholy furnace of my regeneration is laboring to keep me alive under this kind of punishment.

Killers were never meant to fight their kin.

A fist strikes the side of my skull with bone-jarring force as the Hag, recovered from her wound, comes in swinging at me, and I collapse to the ground. I lash out blindly at her and hit something meaty. I grin viciously as I’m rewarded with another scream of pain from the Hag.

My bleak joy is short-lived as a hand grips me hard by my hair and pulls me roughly into the air, weakly flailing. The Trapper seems a lot less perturbed by his lost appendage than the Wraith was. The enormous, brutal Killer has his remaining fist bundled in my hair, holding me at arm's length and shaking me like a rag doll anytime I try to swing at him with my claws. He’s not taking any risks at me disarming him a second time, apparently.

“What’re you gonna do with one hand, big man?” I scream, swinging half-blind at him as he shakes me. “You can’t exactly-”

I find out exactly what he’s planning to do when I feel him readjust his grip on my hair and then swing me, hard, at a bank of lockers. I take the hit on my side, and the cheap, rusted metal crumples against my bod. I bellow in agony as the machete is jarred from the impact, rocking my guts. There's no time to recover, though. He swings me again, this time at the opposite wall, and I do my best to curl my body against the blow, taking the hit on my other side. Next verse, same as the first. I vomit again, I’m not even sure what I’m throwing up anymore but I’m a strong seventy percent sure it should probably be staying inside my body.

I swing back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch in his grip. I’m in too much pain to flail or attack and as I look up I see the Hag loping towards me. The Trapper is holding me out like bait to a rabid dog. He just wanted me stunned so the Hag to finish me off for good.

God damnit. I was so fucking close. Maybe it makes me a coward, but I can’t watch. I don’t care what happens to me but the moment I’m dead this whole realm collapses and takes all of my friends with it.

Fortunately, I don’t need my eyes open to hear the sudden lullaby from down the hall.

Adagio’s hatchet comes hurtling in with deadly force to slam into the Hag’s back and send her careening to the ground. The once and former Huntress is stalking down the hall with Rainbow and Tempest at her side. The Trapper looks up and for once I actually feel something from him… I feel alarm.

I feel fear.

Gathering a surge of magic, whatever I can scrape out of my failing body, I throw my spell into his mind and latch onto that fear. Maybe he is older and more powerful. Maybe he is the Entity’s favorite son.

His high priest.

I don’t care.

My name is Sunset Shimmer and I. Am. The Nightmare.

He staggers, dropping me to the ground as his stained and sorcery-riddled mind is sent screaming into the nightmare of my Dreamtime. I drink deep of the chaos of his mind, dredging out any sips of magic I can to heal my wounds as I scramble away from him. He roars in pain and madness as visions assault his sense and he lashes out, slamming into the wall and the floor like they’re his sworn enemies.

I wonder, for a moment, what my spell is making him see.

“Sunset we’ve got the door open!” Adagio calls, drawing out another hatchet and sending it hammering into the Hag’s back to keep her on the ground. “Sonata’s ready to start the delivery!”

“Good,” I rasp, “we just need to get rid of these bastards.” I gesture to the Hag and the Trapper who’s still attacking phantom enemies. “Tempest-”

Tempest rushes to my side and gingerly puts her hands on me. “Dios mio, Mi Sol… how are you even moving?!”

“Who cares how she’s moving!?” Rainbow calls out. “You’ve got a seven-foot-tall murderer having a freakout on your six so just MOVE!”

I hate to admit it but Rainbow is right. I push myself to my feet and start drunkenly staggering away from the Trapper who is wildly attacking everything and nothing in arms reach. Tempest gives the Hag a sorrowful look that lasts only as long as it takes to shepherd me past her.

“Sorry, dear,” Adagio says bitterly as she steps forward, hefting her enormous wood-ax, “but you can’t save’m all.”

I whisper another apology as I hear Adagio’s ax come down with battering force and try to tune out the sound of Hag’s rotten skull splitting like a log. With any luck, she won’t come back this time. I do glance back to check on the Trapper, though.

He’s snapping out of my spell, but more than that… I almost do a double take as I see him hold out the mutilated stump of his severed hand. Surrounding his hand is vortex of Fog, and from it a gel-like substance begins congealing around his ruined wrist. A moment later it forms into a coherent hand and in another moment it’s taken on the exact look of his old hand.

The hand that is still, might I add, gripping a perfect copy of the machete in my guts!

“Well that’s not fucking fair,” I mutter as I turn away. Damn, but that thing must be more Fog and sorcery than human now, to be able to just regenerate like that.

Adagio follows on our heels, turning and covering our backs as we pass row after row of lockers and empty classrooms. We’re getting closer to the Exit and I feel a surge of hope. With only the Trapper left and with Sonata’s help we’re almost out of this hell hole.

It’s only as I’m turning my head back to call out to Adagio that I remember something.

Something very, very crucial.

The Trapper is not the only Killer left in my realm.

I only remember this fact as Adagio passes one of the classroom doors and it swings open, silently, and the Shape emerges. Smoke is still curling faintly from the eyes of his mask and there are electrical burns all over his body. It looks like he was repeatedly and viciously struck by lightning as if he had somehow managed to simultaneously piss off both Zeus and Thor.

Not that the damage seems to be impeding it in the slightest.

Just like always, at the instant the kill is assured, his body erupts into a furious avalanche of motion and he buries its knife into the back of Adagio’s skull with a dull thunk. Her eyes cross almost comically as she staggers, pitches forward, and collapses on her face.

“Oh shit! ADAGIO!” I scream, as the Shape stalks past her prone, twitching body and carelessly rips the knife from her head.

Rainbow Dash barely has a chance to notice the danger before he brutally backhands her into the nearby lockers and she collapses with a wracking cough. Tempest lets out a half-feral roar of rage, pushing me forward and charging at the oncoming dreadnought. Despite her height and mass, Tempest barely gets within arms reach of the Shape before he fires out his empty hand like a piston to grab her by the side of her head and slam her into the other wall with bone-rattling force, leaving a bloody imprint of her face on the metal locker, before casting her aside like a broken toy.

At no point does the Shape’s empty, hollow gaze ever drift from me and suddenly I know exactly how Rainbow Dash felt when I was after her. Guess the Shape took my ‘little sister’ illusion spell personally.

I try to limp away even though I know it’s pointless. He's on me in an instant, hammering his knife into my shoulder and forcing me to my knees before forcibly turning me around.

In that instant, as he’s kneeling over me, I get a glimpse of the eyes beneath that mask. They're cold, dark, and dead as he pulls his knife free of the meat of my shoulder. He wants me to be looking at him. He wants to see the light leave my eyes when he finally kills me. His ice-cold hands go around my neck, gripping hard as he starts to lift.

A meaty crack causes the Shape to stagger to his knees and drop me.

“Get your fucking hands off my friend,” I hear Rainbow’s harsh, furious voice and stare over the Shape’s shoulder.

She’s hefting Adagio’s weapon, and the Shape barely has a chance to turn before Rainbow takes a hard grip on the haft, heaves back, and swings the smile of the axe right into the Shape’s neck with all her might.

The Fog-forged blade cleaves through the Shape’s flesh. Not easily and not well, less like a knife through butter and more like a serrated Bowie knife through leather, but it does the job. A waterfall of blood spills from the under the mask as the Shape tries to stand, to move, to force whatever unholy will drives him to continue to animate his ruined body.

That dark will fails as Rainbow rips the ax blade from where it came to rest three quarters through its neck. Rainbow looks a little green around the gills but the fury painting her face is the real deal. The Shape finally topples over, but Rainbow barely lets it hit the ground before she hefts the ax and brings it down one more time, severing the Shape’s head completely.

Finally, the body fades, almost peacefully. As if reality only had a tenuous hold on it to begin with. Rainbow smiles tiredly down at me, and rests the axe on her shoulder.

“That thing,” she says raspily, “makes me less scared of ghosts.”

I smirk, and I’m about to make a smartass comment back at her, feeling in that moment almost… almost like things were the way they were before, but the words die in my throat.

A huge, red-stained hand lashes out over Rainbow’s shoulder to grab the axe and rip it out of her hands, sending it sailing away down the hall to clatter to the floor far out of reach. The Trapper's other hand slams into Rainbow’s throat and grips, and I swear I hear her neck crackle as he lifts Rainbow from her feet.

“Fuck your traps, puta!” Tempest screams as she launches herself up from the floor onto the Trappers back. I’m about to scream at her for doing something so cataclysmically stupid when I see what’s in her right hands.

My finger.

Specifically the one I snapped off and gave to Rainbow as a ‘goodbye and fuck you’ gift.

Angling the blade down and to the right, as the Trapper lets out a grunting, animalistic roar of frustration, shaking its back like bull moose, Tempest thrusts the thin, impossibly sharp blade down and slams it into the Trappers right eye then jerks it up and forces it out of his left.

Even I wince at that.

The Trapper screams for the first time ever, and I shudder at the deep, baritone howl of manifold rage that rattles the walls of my Trial. He drops Rainbow to scrabble at his face as Tempest lets herself be thrown free, but his enormous hands can’t find purchase on the tiny bits of the blade sticking out of the holes in his mask.

Coughing, I stand up and draw up what little reserves of strength I have left. I reach behind me and pull the machete free of my torso, coughing up blood, and shake the blade to get the disembodied hand off of the hilt as I walk up to the flailing Trapper.

Ducking under one madly thrashing arm I swing the machete and split his kneecap, sending him down on one leg. I move under another swing and take his other one, dropping him to his knees. He reaches out, grasping violently for me and I weave out of his reach.

“One last nightmare,” I say softly, even though I doubt he can hear me over his own bellowing roars. “Good-bye, cousin, I know it’s not likely but I hope that you and the others never wake back up.”

I dive in between his arms and drive the machete up, right under the chin of his mask and through his neck, and Trapper lets out a strangled grunt as his roars suddenly cut off. Black fluid spills viscously from between the grinning teeth of his mask. I jerk the blade to one side, then the other, then rip it out and drive it into his heart.

Something goes out of him with that strike and he slumps against me, his hands still weakly grasping for me like the claws of the Entity.

“Sleep,” I say softly, as his masked head rests on my shoulder. “From one monster to another, no more killing.” I bring my hand up to cradle his head and push a spell of slumber into his failing mind. “This time just… just sleep.”

Something like a sigh issues from his lips, a death rattle that sounds far too peaceful for something that looks like him. I push the Trapper’s body off of me and it’s barely hit the floor before it starts to rapidly decay. I watch him fade, favored son and my last hunter, and let out a slow, calming breath as I reach out to my realm. The Entity’s hooks are digging into the flesh of my world and, with a thought, I sever them.

This is my world and without his Killers here the Old Stain has no power over it anymore.

Quickly, I walk over to Tempest and pull her to her feet as she gives me an embarrassed grin. “I’m really glad that worked, Mi Sol, or I would have looked very stupid.”

“And we all would’ve died,” I remark, pointing a fingerblade up at her. “Don’t forget that.”

A hacking cough comes from the floor and I look down to see Rainbow Dash breathing hard and massaging her bruised throat.

“Don’t mind me,” Rainbow says in a dry, hoarse voice. “Just choking to death.”

“Oh get up you big baby,” I reply before turning to Adagio who’s starting to stagger to her feet.

Unlike me, she couldn’t just pull power from the ground around her to heal. She had to wait for her weird Killer physiology to do it the slow way.

“You alright, ‘Dagi?” I ask as I stop in front of her.

She shakes her head, then smacks it to uncross her eyes and nods. “Yeah, sorry Sunset, that was sloppy of me. I hate that thing,” Adagio gripes as she walks back down the hall to grab her axe. “It’s far too quiet.”

“Ready to go back home?” I say, more than ask, with a grin and Adagio returns my smile. “Good, let’s go.”

We gather up and head back to the exit gate. I can feel the cool wind of the space beyond my realm blowing towards me. The gate is wide open and standing in front of the Terminus of my Trial's Exit Gate are the three crusaders, flanked by Aria, Sour Sweet, and Starlight Glimmer. Laying out in front of them, wrapped in a burlap blanket, is Sonata’s comatose form that I may or may not have hastily teleported into one of the lockers in my basement before I left Crotus Prenn.

In my defense, I’ve been teleporting since I was eight. It was perfectly safe.

I hold out my hands and gesture for the last three to come to me and they do. Aria is the first in my arms, wrapping herself around me and pulling me close in a tight hug. I’m careful to keep my fingers away from them as Sour Sweet and Starlight join the embrace and Tempest comes up behind me to wrap her enormous arms around all of us.

“It’s over,” I whisper to each of them, tears falling down my face as I let them bury me in their affection. “I did it, girls, I really did it.”

“Yeah ya did, Shimmer,” Aria says, her voice choked and soft. “You saved us, you saved my sisters, you saved everybody.”

“You’re a hero, Sunset,” Sour says, her voice for once lacking any trace of acidic wit. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I go home but… I'm going to try.”

Starlight hugs me all the tighter and nods.

“Same here,” she says quietly. “I’m gonna get free of my stupid parents and live on my own terms, crazy and all. If I can survive here how hard can it be?”

“Maybe we can all find a place together, eh amigas?” Tempest chuckles as she gives all another squeeze and pulls away. “I think I’d like sticking around you girls.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sour responds, smiling up at Tempest. Starlight nods as well and, after a glance at Adagio and Sonata who both smile at her, Aria nods too.

I feel my heart break as I lie with a nod.

“Sounds like a hell of a plan,” I say. “Just… one more thing.”

Stepping around my friends, I stalk forward and stop in front of the crusaders, staring down at them as they cower under my inhuman glare.

I take a deep breath and I try. I really, really try.

Finally, after several quiet minutes, I shake my head.

“I can’t forgive you three,” I say somberly as I open my eyes, and I see them flinch away from me. “If this hadn’t happened you’d have all found my body pulverized on the concrete in front of the school. You three took everything I loved away from me, stole it out of… some stupid jealous spite, I guess?”

Applebloom starts to open her mouth, maybe to explain, but I silence her with a look.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “The why doesn’t matter and it never will.” I cross my arms and shake my head. “I’m sorry I brought you here and I’m sorry you suffered, even if part of me feels like you three deserved it. You’re still kids and you’re all idiots, so… I can’t forgive you and I don’t care if you forgive me, but maybe now…”

I sigh, letting the last words die unspoken.

Maybe now I’ll be able to rest in peace.

“Take them,” I say, looking up at Sonata. I don’t want them to see this next part. I’d rather no one see it, but needs must. “Just let me connect to the portal.”

Summoning up my Journal I reach through it one more time and, to my surprise, it doesn’t quite crumble. Good, I guess I’ve been frugal enough. I snap out a line of magic and connect the blind emptiness beyond my gate to the one other source of interdimensional travel I know of on their world.

The portal at Canterlot High School.

Sonata nods, floating up behind them and putting her hands on Applebloom and Scootaloo’s shoulders, with Sweetie Belle in the middle.

“Hold on tight or you'll be lost in Hell,” I say, earning a blanch from the three of them before I nod to Sonata who guides them through the gate, past the Terminus, and into the darkness.

There’s a twisting of space, a scream, and Sonata and the girls are gone. She’ll be back, though. She’s the only one who can traverse the distance safely at the moment.

Turning away from the terminus and back to Rainbow I just shake my head again and she grimaces.

“No forgiveness for me or the girls either, huh?” she asks, mostly rhetorically.

“I don’t hate you because you abandoned me, Dash,” I say walking up to her. “I hate you because you’re the second person I’ve loved who abandoned me the moment I stepped out of line.”

Rainbow Dash tenses like I’d just swung a physical blow at her, but she nods.

“I… I thought I was forgiven but…” I feel my own tears threatening as I push through. I can’t stop though, I have to say this now. So, I let the tears fall.

“You all said I was your family, you said you forgave me! I wouldn’t have cared if you’d all just hated me from the beginning, or if you’d treated me like a chore you were handling for Twilight but…” I sob, wiping my tears on the sleeves of my jacket. “But you didn’t! You treated me like a friend! My first real friend, Dash! You're then one who gave me a family! I loved you girls more than anything else in the world and I loved you most of all!”

“I know,” Rainbow sobs, “and I’m so fucking sorry, Sunny…”

Her voice is choked with emotion but I just… can’t find it in me to comfort her. To get any closer to her.

It just hurts too much.

“I know you are,” I reply, gritting my teeth against a sob. “But it happened, and I can’t… I just can’t look at you girls the same ever again. I can’t see my friends anymore, all I can see is pain.”

Another scream splits the air telling me Sonata’s back, and I turn around to wipe my eyes again. “Okay ‘Nata, you, Aria, and Adagio next,” I say, gesturing to the three of them, “Or, your body at least… you know what I mean.”

Sonata nods silently, making a small choked chuckling noise as she did. Adagio and Aria situate themselves on either side of Sonata’s prone, true body, and lift her up, one of her arms over each of their shoulders with Adagio kneeling a little to compensate for her height.

As they start to move towards the Terminus, I call out. “Dagi', Ari', wait…”

I snap my fingers and a wooden mask appears in my hand. “I almost forgot I promised to give you this back,” I say, handing the Hare mask over to Adagio who grins and takes it back.

Aria shakes her head. “That thing is still creepy, ‘Dagi, I can’t believe you made it for a friggin’ kid.”

“Hush, you,” Adagio snaps playfully, and I grin as I turn to Aria.

Following an impulse, I step in and wrap in her in a hug that’s a little awkward with Sonata’s unconscious form half between us. Aria takes it in good humor, chuckling as she wraps her free arm around me and hugs me back.

“What was that for, Shimmer?” Aria asks, giving me a crooked smile.

I shake my head.

“It's nothing,” I reply, smiling. “Just that… I think if I ever had a sister I’d have wanted her to be just like you.”

Aria stares at me in shock and I smile as I see her cheeks redden before she just shakes her head and laughs. “Well, shit, girls, what’dya think?” Aria asks as she turns her head slightly to regard her sisters. “How’s a quartet sound?”

Adagio and Sonata share a silent glance and then nod. “Sounds good to me,” Adagio replies with a grin. “You’re welcome with our family, Sunny, though, disclaimer: sanity is not included, I’m afraid.”

“Somehow,” I say, chuckling as I feel a few more tears slide down my cheeks, “I think I’ll be able to stand it, now get home. You’ve all been here way too long.”

Another scream, another trio vanished from the Fog forever and back in their rightful place. Or, semi-rightful since it’s the Sirens, I suppose.

I turn back to Starlight and Sour Sweet. “Are you girls going to be okay? You came from some pretty shitty families…”

Sour and Star just nod. “We’ve got each other,” Sour says, putting her hand on Starlight’s shoulder. “And now I’ve got some friends in the real world. Actual friends, not fake ones… no offense, Sunny.”

“None taken,” I say, laughing a little dryly at the bitter humor that line calls back to mind. “But good, because I would hate to just let you end up back here or something.”

“We’ll be okay,” Starlight says, stepping forward and hugging me. “Thanks… for saving us, and for everything else. I’m still… I’m sorry I-”

I pull away and put a bladed finger to her lips. “Don’t,” I say, shutting her up with a smile. “I forgive you, just get the hell out of here, okay?”

Sonata snaps back into existence and drifts over to us, and I usher Sour, Starlight, and a despondent Rainbow Dash to her.

“See you on the other side, Sunny!” Sour says with a wild smile and a wave of her hand as Sonata grips them tight.

Another snap and a scream and they’re gone.

Here we are at last.

I turn to Tempest,

“So…” I say a little shyly. “Come here often?”

Tempest stares at me for a moment before breaking into half-choked laughter that lasts about a minute too long and leaves her gasping for air. “R-really? Mi Sol? Did you just try a pick-up line?”

I laugh a little, my clawed right hand coming up to rest on my left arm and nervously rubbing it. “It was all I could think of, okay?”

“It was pretty bad, más malo,” Tempest responds, still laughing. “But I love you anyway.”

“Even though it’s probably just the adrenaline high talking?” I ask, almost hoping she agrees.

She doesn’t.

“I don’t think so,” Tempest says firmly, crossing her arms and fixing her eyes on me. “Truth? How could I not fall in love with a girl like you, Mi Sol? You’re brave, resourceful, and beautiful… you tricked a god, you saved the souls of almost a dozen people and brought them back home…”

“I was lucky.”

“Surviving death once is lucky,” Tempest responds sharply, her face stretching into a wild, passionate grin as she steps close to gather me up in her arms. “You were incredible.”

Don’t do this, Tempest. She’s making this so much harder… but I let her as she pulls me into a kiss. I wrap my arms around her, letting my weight rest on her broad shoulders as she holds me up. I’m so tired… I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years but this moment is all I have, so I relish it. I let my tongue lick over her lips, then dart into her mouth. She meets me in kind, grinning as her hand moves up to gently cradle the back of my neck as my hands travel up and down her legs, sides, and everywhere else I can reach, savoring the feel of her body against mine as Tempest pulls me as tightly against her as she can.

One moment stretches into a million. My own little slice of infinity that I hold on to with all my flagging might, and through it all my heart feels like it’s cracking in half.

It’s worth it.

We part and I smile up at her, taking one more moment to get lost in her eyes. Yeah, maybe it’s the heat of the moment or whatever but I swear…

I think I love this girl.

And I’m so sorry, Tempest.

As soon as I hear the snap and scream of Sonata’s return I grip Tempest’s right arm, turn, knock her feet out from under her and leverage her weight to my advantage, putting all of my unnatural strength behind my throw as I pitch her bodily down the hall and through the Terminus.

I wince as she lands roughly, though Sonata does her best to break Tempest’s fall.

“Sorry about that, babe,” I say, walking down the cobbled stone path. “But you wouldn’t have gone any other way.”

Tempest gets unsteadily to her feet, giving me a confused look. “Mi Sol? What are you-?”

I reach the edge of the Terminus and the wall of black-iron thorns fires up like a thousand striking serpents. Sonata just gives me a terribly sad look as it happens and Tempest looks like I just nailed her in a gut with the Trapper’s machete.

“W-what?” Tempest’s words come out in a stunned mumble as she stumbles forward, reaching out to put her hands on the unbreakable bars that now separate us. “But… but Adagio… and Sonata! They made it through!”

“The Entity lifted the restriction on them temporarily,” I explain, sliding my fingers through one of the wider spaces of the bars. I just want to touch her one more time before… “They had to be able to pass through the terminus enchantment in order to reach my realm. It would have re-engaged the moment they returned to theirs but…” I shrug, giving Tempest a brittle smirk, “they never did.”

“But… but you…” I see the coin finally drop as she turns to Sonata, staring at the ghostly girl in horror. “The secret you had to keep?”

Sonata grimaces and nods.

“I needed her to know the truth,” I clarify, swallowing thickly. “She was the only one who could safely deliver everyone out of here, it’s one of the reasons why I spent so much time and magic putting her back together. My plan literally wouldn’t work without her because I needed her to help me get everyone out while saving me for last so…”

“So no one would be here to stop you,” Tempest finishes, her voice taking on a dark, stormy tone. Tears start to track down Tempest’s face as she stares through the bars at me.

“I’m so sorry, Tempest,” I choke out, “I’m so, so sorry… I love you, I do. I needed to get you out of here and I was afraid that if you knew…”

“Then I wouldn’t leave?” Tempest finishes my sentence again, and I nod as she laces her fingers through the thin barbs of the bars and sobs, sagging against the wall. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have.”

“I know,” I reply, pressing up against the bars myself, leaning my forehead against her fingertips. “And I love you for it.”

Lifting my head I kiss her fingertips and smile through the bars at her, or I try. It’s a broken, brittle thing, but I try. “I was never going to be able to get out, Tempest. It was never a part of the plan because it was never possible.”

Tempest just nods, sobbing brokenly as she scrapes against the bars, trying to find a hole large enough to fit more than a few fingers through to reach for me one more time. I kneel, slipping the blades of my fingers through to reach for her too, even though I know it’s pointless. Tempest’s sobs break down into wails of grief and I can’t help but cry alongside her.

I cry for the love I almost had. For the life I might’ve lived.

For all of the friends I’ve lost.

Our moment is disrupted by a rumble of stone and a wash of dust falling from above. It startles Tempest out of her heartache and she looks up, panicked.

“Mi Sol,” she looks at me with worry, “what’s happening?”

I give her a strained smile, ruined entirely by all the tears.

“My Trial is crumbling,” I say. “The Entity maintains them with the endless magic gained by his ritual trials… magic that I just don’t have, and soon it’ll fall apart.”

“What will happen to you?” Tempest cries, crashing against the wall, trying with renewed vigor to find a way through.

“I don’t know,” I respond. “Maybe I’ll just.. fade away? Who knows, but I don’t belong to the Entity anymore and that’s all I care about.”

Tempest sobs again, dropping to her knees. “But how will I find you again? You can’t just… go away.”

I sit down on the other side of the bars from her and smile. “Who knows?” I say, “you found me first, maybe this time I’ll be the one to find you.”

“But how?” Tempest cries. “How?!”

“Dunno,” I respond, wiping the tears from my cheeks as I look up at the crumbling stone pillars around me. “But I’ve done the impossible before, babe, maybe… maybe I can do it again.”

Standing up, Tempest holds out her hands for me and I fit as much of my fingers through as I can. Lowering herself a little, she plants a soft kiss on each finger before looking back up at me.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Tempest says, her eyes fierce and filled with fire. The cruel and jagged scar only adds to that ferocity. “And I will never stop looking for you, Mi Sol.”

I really wish she would but I’m not about to tell a girl who survived Quill knows how many Trials to give up at something. Waste of fucking time, that’d be.

Instead, I just nod. “I know,” I say, then snap my eyes back up to Sonata. “Now go, I can't keep the Trial intact any longer.”

Sonata nods sharply and grabs Tempest who instinctively tries to throw her off but to no avail. The grip of Killer, even a redeemed one, is ironclad. “I’ll find you! I swear I’ll find you!”

Her hands reaching for me are my last sight of Tempest, and Sonata, as she vanishes with a shriek of misery. With a single thought and an impulse of will, I sever the link between my Realm and Canterlot High Portal. No need to catch it in the backlash of a collapsing pocket dimension. I linger by the Terminus for several moments as the world literally crumbles around me, staring into the darkness and imagining I can still see her face.

Tempest Shadow, the girl from hell.

“Well,” I say, finally turning around and staring down along the crumbling school where so much misery had happened, both here and in the Real. “I guess this is how it ends, right? How ‘bout one last stroll through these crappy halls, eh Shimmer?”

Talking to myself. Probably not a good habit to get into but I imagine I won’t be around long enough to suffer any of the usual detrimental effects of a worsening mental state. Yeah, my mental health is not my main concern right now.

Slowly, I walk into the crumbling halls and, on a whim, I reach out magically and nudge the static-filled P.A. system to life and a song filters through the air, a little tinny at first but it gets stronger as the voice swells. It's a song that there's no equivalent for in my home dimension, but if there had been it would have been an Earth pony tune. Here, in the human world, it's called 'Country Roads'.

I never liked this world’s country music, I never liked much of this world’s music in general actually, except jazz, I love jazz. But this song… I didn’t know why in the moment, but the first time I ever heard it I cried. I remember it so clearly: My Sophomore year at CHS had barely begun and I was lying on my cot in the abandoned train station, just waking up for the morning, and my clock radio started playing it. I listened, mostly because I was being lazy and didn’t want to get up quite yet, but this song…

My throat closed up out of nowhere and suddenly I was bawling, curled up in my sheets with my head buried in my pillow and just sobbing my heart out. It hit me all at once like a freight train.

I missed home so much. The green fields and white clouds in skies so blue they were a mirror of the ocean… the beautiful mountain ranges capped with snow, the soft dirt roads that always lead the shining city of Canterlot no matter where you started from.

My home… even if it didn't want me, it was still mine.

Equestria.

I listen to the song play out as I reach the front doors and swing them open. The pavement and asphalt are already tearing apart and floating off into the darkness of non-existence, their pseudo-magical nature as a summoned construct slowly melting away back into raw magic and then dispersing into the ambient field.

The ambient field.

My eyes widen as I quickly scan the area, my attuned senses giving me a perfect diagnostic on the state of my Trial. It’s crumbling, I know that, but the ambient field is still stable! It’s acting like a filter to disperse the raw magic of the faltering construct that makes up my little slice of hell!

Normally that would mean nothing, of course. An active ambient magic field just means that someone with magic can actually use their magic. Earth has such a weak ambient field that it’s all but impossible to form a stable spell matrix, or was until just lately, without a significant magical source to draw from. But this is my world. I’m tied inextricably to it. It’s as much a part of me as my clothes or my claws!

That ambient magic field and everything in it is mine.

I can’t hold this place together, no… and I can’t leave it either but maybe, just maybe I can do something else just as crazy. Reaching into the ambient field I find the massive river of magic that’s slowly filtering through it like the gates of a canal or a dam. That field is the only thing keeping my world from crumbling completely in a single instant.

With a surge of will, I violently kick those gate wide open and, at the same time, drink deep of the flow of that river of magic. My world heaves and rocks as it begins disintegrating as if it were made of sand. My whole body burns with the power of this realm and just when it starts to feel like my skin is about to ignite I cast a drastically overcharged spell of summoning I learned as part of my Conjuration curriculum.

A twisted variant of Starswirl’s Superlative Shelter.

The realm around me, just in my small and immediate area, begins to rebuild itself. I can’t maintain that huge realm the Entity built but I can certainly maintain a much smaller scale one. So long as I keep the ambient field stable, my own magic should be more than enough to maintain it indefinitely.

I slump to the floor as the spell engages. My attention is no longer necessary since it has the template to work from; an exact facsimile of my wretched little basement home in the Canterlot Railway Offices.

It might not be much, but it’s mine.

The cold concrete feels wonderful on my fevered flesh, and for a few minutes, I just lay there as the spell completes itself. Reveling in the knowledge that I’ve managed to kick death in the teeth one more time. Of course, I’m still stranded in the depths of what might as well be space but… it’s livable.

After finally relaxing for a bit, I stand and walk over to the stairs, go up, and open the door to step out on to the front landing.

The landing extends only a couple of meters before tapering off into nothingness with only the illimitable blackness of nonexistence stretching out infinitely.

Out there in the dark, I fancy I can see the Old Stain, writhing horribly, twisting eternally in on itself like a vile tesseract.

And I get an idea.

It's a bad idea.

Oh it's such a fucking terrible idea.

My lips twist up into a grin as I start calculating the odds. They are not good but that's never stopped me before.

Taking a deep breath, I grab the leash my little floating mass of summoned crap and steer it forward. I don't how long it’ll take me, but I will get home.

Wait for me, Tempest. I’m on my way.

15. Epilogue

View Online

Aria Blaze - One Year Later

The door to my office opens with a quiet creak and I look up from the papers to see the ER floor director peeking in. “Doctor Blaze? Your sister is awake and asking for you.”

One eyebrow goes up in surprise, but I nod. “It’s one in the morning, Director Redheart, why are you still here?”

The older, pink-haired woman shrugs a little too innocently. “Oh… this and that, a woman’s work is never done, you know?”

“Right,” I say with a dry laugh, “I’ll head down to ‘Nata’s room in a sec, thanks for letting me know.”

“Also,” she continues, smirking, “Doctor Hardcase from Ortho might be trying to get your transferred to his floor again, so keep an eye out.”

So that was why she was still here. I laugh, shaking my head. “I can’t believe old Hardass still trying that after you told him-”

“-that he could take my best doctor over my cold, dead body?” Redheart finished with a dark grin. “Yeah, sorry Blaze but your ass is mine, I’ve never had a doctor who’s immune to burnout before, so you’re not going anywhere.”

One of the things I like about working in the ED at Canterlot General is that gallows humor and caustic wit are the only real methods of communication. I fit in perfectly for once.

“No plans to, Director,” I reply, matching her grin.

She nods, starting to step away before stopping and poking her head back in. “That last patient you dealt with, by the way? I had a question about him.”

“The guy who decided to cut down a tree in his backyard with a chainsaw at eleven at night and nearly sawed his own damn leg off?” I ask dryly. The nature of that one, among others, still makes me question whether humans really have a functioning brain. “What about it?”

“The Nurse Autumn said it took you five minutes to patch him up,”

“Tch, yeah I know, I’m rusty, sorry,” I respond with a grimace. If I’d taken five minutes to patch that kind of wound in the Fog, I would’ve had Billy so far up my jacksie I’d be coughing up chainsaw lubricant for the next two Trials.

The room is dead silent for a solid minute after I apologise as Redheart stares at me with an unreadable gaze. Finally, she just shakes her head in disbelief. “One day, Blaze, you’re going to tell me where you served that makes you think being able to fix up a ragged wound full of splinters, dirt and god knows what else in five minutes is bad.”

‘Where I served.’

Redheart had asked me that very question after my first week on the job. I’d apparently unnerved some of the other doctors and nurses because of my approach to medical treatment. I’d almost been sued because I’d asked a patient if he wanted anesthesia or if he wanted to keep his arm because I could do one or the other and then proceeded to do the latter because he seemed stupid enough to say the former.

“I don’t have any military service on my record, 'Hearts,” I say, for the tenth time, “you know that.”

Redheart shrugs. “You handle burnout like a veteran military doctor, Blaze,” she replies, eyeing me closely. “And I only say that because that’s what my father was, God rest his soul, and you treat people just like he used to. He saw wounds I can’t even imagine and had to fix them with whatever he had on hand. Just like him, you treat general anesthesia like a luxury at best, and that’s when you’re not acting like it’s a waste of time.”

“We aren’t even at war,” I say, with a crooked smile, trying to defuse the situation. “Plus, I’m only twenty-one, when and where would I have gotten that kind of experience?”

“That,” Redheart says with a smirk, “is exactly what I’d like to know.”

I roll my eyes and file away the forms I was filling out; patient reports from the day’s work, and stand up, stretching and groaning as my joints pop. I’ve been sitting still way too long, my body still isn’t used to it. Not after spending so much time running around the Trials.

“You can keep wondering, Director,” I reply, cracking my knuckles. “I’m gonna go see my sister, I’ll do her checkup too, so don’t worry about that. I’ll leave the file on your desk.”

I walk her out of my office and lock it behind me before heading down the hall. They’d been kind enough to give me an office close to Sonata’s room after I’d been hired, though personally I just counted myself lucky I ended up in this job at all. I originally took it out of necessity but who knew I’d end up loving the work so much?

It was after we got back, and after the dust had settled, that my sisters and I were trying to figure out our next move since we still didn’t have papers or any legal records of ourselves. It was Tempest, of all people, who came to our rescue. Turns out she knew a guy who could get us into ‘the system’. So long as we had the money to pay him, which we had in spades, he could furnish us with whatever identities we wanted and all the necessary paperwork to go with it.

I’ll never admit it to her out loud, but it turns out that Princess Sparklebutt had a good point when she advised us to make some friends. We wouldn’t have gotten far without Tempest’s intervention.

Adagio and Sonata were given identities as private low-end investors who helped small businesses get back on their feet and consulted on financials and business management. Between Adagio’s political savvy and Sonata’s head for numbers, they picked up a solid legitimate track record to support the fake one Tempest’s buddy manufactured. I, on the other hand, became Aria Blaze: twenty-year-old former EMT wunderkind who graduated far ahead of her class with a medical doctorate.

Someone had to have a way to keep an eye on Sonata. She never really recovered from what the Entity did to her physical body. Where before the Trials she was vivacious and energetic, now she’s frail, her immune system is shot, and the other doctors think it was from severe, prolonged exposure to something like black mold. I happen to know that it’s a side-effect of having your soul ripped out of your body. The animating force that keeps every person running just wasn’t there in Sonata for so long that it had permanent effects. Not that it seems to put a damper on my sister’s spirit.

Somehow, Sonata is just as cheerful as ever.

The identity I asked for shocked my sisters. I guess I’ve always been more of a mechanic than a healer but I figure a doctor is just a mechanic for the human body. Same principles apply, the parts are just a lot squishier.

Tempest’s friend; a short, fat, weasley guy with spiked hair and frosted tips named Grubber, warned me that I’d have to back that kind of identity with skills. As if I didn’t know that. So I studied day and night. I’ve always learned best on my own and it’s not as if I was looking to be a neurosurgeon or anything hyper-specialized.

I applied as an ER doctor, a role that Canterlot General apparently badly needed because I was hired with almost indecent haste once they saw my totally legitimate and not-at-all-forged work history.

As it turns out, Canterlot is kind of a shit hole. Who knew? Seems there’s no shortage of crime, violent and otherwise, in the city. GSW’s and knife wounds are common, same with broken bones and the like. Apparently, I made a good impression when, two weeks into my hiring, a couple of gangs in the Commons had a scuffle that got out of hand and turned into a firefight.

Over thirty patients were brought in over the course of several hours starting at just around eleven at night and we didn’t manage to even start wrapping up until almost the next evening. Doctors and nurses were pulled in from anywhere that could spare a hand because people were dropping like flies. All of them eventually tapped out and went home, but I didn’t. I kept working. It didn’t even occur to me to leave. I didn’t feel burned out, I felt energized.

Finally, things were starting to feel normal again.

It only occurred to me afterward that that’s probably not healthy. The feeling of running on the ragged edge, knowing the difference between success and failure was literally life or death.

That felt normal.

It felt good.

That was also about when Director Redheart planted her flag in my ass and started treating me like her prize stallion, snapping at any of the other floor administrators that tried to poach me.

As if I’d leave the ED anyway. None of the other floors are nearly as exciting.

I stop in front of Sonata’s door and knock gently before letting myself in. The lights are kept dim at all hours because she sleeps most of the time. The other doctors chalk it up to chronic exhaustion from her condition and they’re only half right.

“Welcome back, ‘Nata,” I say softly as I walk over to her bedside and start taking her vitals. “How was the trip?”

Sonata astral projects, another happy side effect of being disjoined from your soul. For the past eight or nine months, ever since she learned to control it, she’s been scouring the astral dimensions for any sign of our missing sister.

“Aria…” Sonata’s breathing is harsh and ragged, and I immediately scowl as I examine her. Her vitals are low, lower than usual. “Everfree… Forest… she’s coming…”

“I don’t understand, ‘Nata,” I say, as I work my necklace free from my collar. “Take a breath and calm down, I don’t need you overexerting yourself and going into a grand mal.”

Kneeling down, I hold out my necklace and pull an identical one out from around Sonata’s neck and touch the gems that are hanging from each one together. A faint glow suffuses both of them and I push a small amount of magic into Sonata’s gem.

I can’t ever really express how grateful I am for this little gift from the Princess of Friendship. It serves to help maintain our magic with a little low-grade ambient magic absorption. There's no way for us to manifest the full extent of our powers anymore, not that we have any desire to, but we can stay healthy and sated.

More importantly, the magic keeps Sonata’s trashed immune system from killing her. If it were anyone but the purple pony princess who had given us these amulets I would have immediately assumed they were doing so to get control of us.

But Sparkle? Extortion and death threats aren’t really in her wheelhouse.

Sonata’s breathing evens out and, now that I get a closer look at her, I realise she looks bad. Her entire body is sweat-stained and her eyes are barely focusing, though I can see the life coming back to her. She takes several deep breaths as I grab a little cup of water with a straw and hold it to her mouth. After a few sucks from it, she nods and I put it away.

“Aria…” Sonata starts again, her voice stronger. “You have to get ready… she’s coming back... She’s almost here!”

My comm clipped to my coat breast pocket fritzes to life as Sonata speaks almost nonsensically and I hit the receiver on reflex. //Doctor Blaze to OR One, two incoming via air ambulance.//

“I’m on my way,” I respond, before clicking it off and turning back to my sister with a shake of my head. Reaching out, I stroke my sister’s cheek. “You’re babbling, ‘Nata, what are you talking about?”

“I found her, Ari’,” Sonata says, her eyes almost feverish and I nearly drop my the water cup. “I found Sunset!”

My jaw drops open and I stare. I’m not sure what I was expecting my sister to say but that wasn’t on the list. After more than half a year of failing to find any trace of our sister, I’d honestly given up hope. I knew Sonata would never, but I had. I think Adagio has too… I had hope in the beginning but…

I close my eyes, feeling all that familiar pain of our escape. Of the night we somberly celebrated as our ‘exodus night’.

The night all but one of us escaped from hell.

Aria - Exodus Night

I stumble onto cold concrete and the first experience that slams into my senses is the smell. I hadn’t realised it until now, but every inch of the Entity’s realm smelled faintly of blood among other more unpleasant things that changed trial-to-trial. The smell of blood, though, was always there.

And now it’s not.

I lift my head and take deep gulps of clean, winter air as I drop to my knees, feeling light-headed and almost giddy. Adagio kneels slowly and sets Sonata’s prone form on the ground between us, carefully cradling her head.

“Aria Blaze? Adagio Dazzle? Sonata Dusk?” A voice exclaims in shock. “How!?”

The voice is vaguely familiar and I glance up to see a disheveled and sweaty Princess Twilight Sparkle looking down at me in surprise.

“And good evening to you, Princess,” my sister says, a little sarcastically. Adagio stands and I realise she’s back in her youthful form, the magic of the Entity that mutated her having been left behind. The Hare mask was still strapped securely to her belt, though. “And the how of it should be obvious, we were in that dimension of grotesqueries along with your precious Sunset.”

“Where is she?!” Twilight steps forward, glaring at Adagio and I feel my hackles go up as I stumble to my feet and stand next to my sister. “Why isn’t she out yet?”

“Don’t be impatient, Sparklebutt,” I snap, scowling at her. “She’s probably just making sure everyone gets out before coming through herself.”

Another pulse from the statue draws our attention and I rush forward to catch Starlight and Sour as they stumble out with Rainbow between them. Twilight, along with one of Rainbow’s friends, Fluttershy I think was her name, sprints between all of us to grab her. I let her, I have no desire to deal with the Rainbooms tonight. We’ll see how our new sister feels about them before Adagio, Sonata, and I decide how we’ll treat them.

“You okay?” I ask as Starlight leans heavily against me, breathing hard.

She nods and takes a breath.

“Oh god, I never thought I’d breath clean air again,” Starlight practically moans, smiling wearily at me.

I laugh, clapping her on the back. “I thought the exact same thing, Star,” I respond with a grin. “It’s nice not to have everything taste like ash and blood all the time, right?”

“Ugh, no shit,” Sour Sweet remarks as she collapses to the ground beside the statue and stretches her arms. “And no more trials! No more campfire! No more crazy murderers!” Sour flops back into the cold, icy grass and sighs. “I am never going camping again.”

I scan the school front and grimace as I spy the rest of the Rainbooms, most of them are standing, nervously if their body language is any hint, a respectful distance from the statue. Weirdly, there’s also a tall, older guy sitting on a ratty chair in front of a TV. I chalk that up to magic. Two of the girls are kneeling and hugging two of the younger girls, sisters from the looks of them. A part of me wants to go over and kick them a few more times for what they pulled but… I can’t break up sisters. It goes against something fundamental in me.

“You did it Rainbow,” Twilight says quietly from near the statue, her hand on Rainbow’s shoulder. “You got out.”

“I didn’t do jack, Princess,” Rainbow says grimly, sitting down on the concrete steps. “Sunset had a plan, a good plan, and I just got my ass kicked.”

“You helped,” I say, surprising myself and just about everyone else. I just shrug, though. “Credit where it’s due: you helped in the end.”

Rainbow stares at me almost suspiciously for several moments before just nodding. I turn back to the statue. Sunset and Tempest are next.

C’mon Sunny, where are you?

The portal pulses again and I smile, bracing myself to greet her. Tempest, is the first out, and then…

CRACK

Every head on the grounds turns at the sound of something like splintering glass. I stare at the statue, more specifically at the smooth slab of marble that makes up the portal. Right on the face of it is an almighty crack, like a split mirror. Tempest turns and I can see the tears streaming down her face as she presses her hands, and then her cheek to the slab and lets out a harsh, wracking sob.

I’ve never, in all the time I was trapped with her, ever heard Tempest cry.

“T-Tempest?”

I step up to her side and stare down at her.

“Tempest… where’s Sunset?” She just continues to cry and I feel Adagio approach me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Tempest,” I reach out and grip the rough cloth of her vest and I realise I’m shaking. “Tempest, where is my sister?!”

“She tricked us,” Tempest chokes out the words finally. “Mi Sol lied, she only told Sonata the truth: that the Terminus bars that cage Killers in their Trial could never be passed. That they only lifted for the others because the Entity willed it.” Tempest takes another breath, before turning to stare up at me and I see the broken heart behind her eyes. “She’s not coming, Aria… she’s gone.”

Everything feels cold. Not cold like the winter but cold like… emptiness. I stare at the empty slab and then snap my gaze around to fix it hard on Twilight Sparkle, who’s staring in grief-stricken horror. All of the girls look shell-shocked. I hate that a part of me wants to beg the Princess to intervene. To do something. To save Sunset.

If she could have, though, she wouldn’t need me to beg her for it.

Adagio’s hand grips mine hard, and I hear Sonata cough as her soul finally realigns with her body. My ears are filled with Tempest’s quiet crying. I’m not quiet, though. Now is not the time for silence.

I crash against Adagio, gripping her by the shoulders and letting my weight rest on her as I scream out my rage and grief wordlessly.

Tempest Shadow

Barely a night has gone by that I haven’t dreamt of her.

Floating out there in the darkness; cold, alone, and separated from everything else. I try to reach her, over and over again I try to bridge the gap. A year of stretching my arms to their limit only for a wall of barbs to part us.

Just like the night I lost her, my last view of her is through the Terminus bars. The one obstacle she wasn’t able to overcome, no matter how tricky or brilliant she was that night.

The dream tonight starts the same. There's darkness as far as I can see except in one direction. I see a glimmer of red and gold sparkling in the night like an ember, and I push towards it. Sometimes it feels like I’m swimming through muck, other times like I’m wading against a stormtide, but it’s always the same deal. I can never get as close as I want to, as I need to, before the darkness swallows her up.

Except…

There’s more light this time, faint and distant. The dream hasn’t changed even once in a year but tonight it has. Why? I swim towards the spark in the night, my whisper of dawn.

My sun.

Maybe it’s the strange logic that governs dreams but I imagine, as I move, that it’s… easier. Like the tides of shadow are pulling at me less than they once did. For the first time in a long time, I feel a glimmer of hope. Maybe this time! Maybe I can make it!

My world shudders violently as I near her, I can make out her outline, limned in the faint light. She’s not just floating there, asleep and unmoving like I always see her. She’s stirring and shifting. I swear I can almost see the movement of her eyes under her eyelids.

“Sunset!” I scream like I have so many times in my dreams, into the lightening dark, “Mi Sol! I’m here!”

The shaking becomes unbearable, and it feels like my teeth are about to rattle out of my skull. I push forward harder despite the pain, despite the discomfort, just to get another few inches. If not tonight then maybe tomorrow night, or the night after. I’ll keep searching dream and reality alike if I have to.

I reach out through the shadows, as my whole body vibrates painfully. “Sunset, please wake up!’

She never does, in my dreams, when I shout for her. When I beg her to wake up or to open her eyes. Sunset always slumbers through it all.

Not this time.

I swear my heart stops as her eyes snap open and her head turns to nail me with its fiery blue gaze. God… I realise in that moment that I’d nearly forgotten how beautiful her eyes are. I’m so wrapped up in them and in the terror of losing the dream as it collapses around me, that I nearly miss her mouth moving.

My ears are deafened by the quaking reality around me but I make out the last shapes of her words curving around lips I’ve missed for so long.

...d you…

~oOo~

My eyes snap open and I jolt out of bed, swiping my sheets and covers away with an arm as Sunset’s name tears out of my throat. My dyed red hair is hanging lank over my face, and my hand is stretching out towards… nothing.

Just a dark and empty room.

To my left, my phone is rattling loudly on my nightstand and for a moment I want to crush it for waking me up. I don’t know that that’s exactly what it was but I’m in no mood to split hairs.

As I’m reaching for my phone my door bangs open and Starlight barges in with an exhausted but worried expression on her face and with Sour Sweet hot on her girlfriend’s heels. The two had been each other's rocks after the exodus night and it was to no one’s surprise when it eventually blossomed into something more than just a fast friendship. We’d ended up sharing an apartment mostly out of convenience but it helped, too, to be constantly in touch with one another.

No one else could really understand how bad it gets after we go to sleep.

“Tempest?” Starlight asks, her voice slurred with sleep. “Another nightmare?”

I hold up a hand and grab the phone, letting the name register fully before sliding the ‘answer’ icon to the side and poke the speakerphone button. “Aria? You’re on speaker, que onda, amiga?”

//Tempest, are Star and Sour there with you?!// Aria’s voice comes out rushed and panicked, immediately waking us all up.

“Si, why does-”

//Good, all of you unbunch your panties, pull on your big girl trousers, and get to Canterlot General!//

“A-Aria?” Starlight walks up to my nightstand where the phone is sitting and kneels. “What’s wrong? You sound scared or… something.”

//This is not an invitation to fucking discuss, ladies!// Aria practically yells. //I’m telling you to get here right the fuck now! Sonata found her, girls! She found Sunset Shimmer!//

Aria Blaze

I move quickly alongside the gurney. Only a titanic effort of will is keeping my face calm as I stare down at the girl laying on it. Her hair is pooled around her like a red and gold halo and her face is pale but so painfully familiar. It’s like she’s in between forms; in between what she was born as and what she was made into. Sunset Shimmer is jerking and twitching so hard they had to strap her in multiple times, scavenging extra belts from other gurneys.

“Hold her down!” I shout, pointing at one of the burlier orderlies before looking to two of my nurses. “Both of you help him!”

I throw my own weight into holding her down but her strength… the sheer ironclad force she’s putting out makes me feel like I’m a child trying to wrestle down a bodybuilder. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before as a doctor.

But it’s achingly familiar as a Survivor.

It’s the strength of a Killer.

“Someone get me a four CC dose of Ativan!” I shout, pushing her left arm down with the help of another orderly and pulling her coat sleeve up.

“That’s a dangerous dosage, Doc-” I shoot a glare at the speaking nurse, one of the older and nicer ones, and she instantly withers making me feel like shit. “D-Doctor… I’m just speaking in the patient’s best…”

I let out a calming breath and nod, pushing my temper down.

“I know, Nurse Kindheart, I know,” I reply after a moment as I continue to hold her down, wincing at the bruising. “But believe me when I say that I could probably inject her with a dosage ten times that and all it would do is give her a headache when she woke up tomorrow.”

I go back to pinning her and a moment later I’m handed the syringe. I take a quick glance to make sure the volume is right for the ratios and trust that whoever prepped the vial did it correctly. Well, either way, it’s not like it’ll kill her, but I’ll be pissed off if my instructions weren’t followed right.

“Everyone put your backs into it!” I say, and start pushing her down. Both orderlies and two nurses join us and I pull her arm out. Fortunately, her entire body is flexed and tensed so finding a vein is no problem.

Holding my hands steady, I slide the needle in with a single practiced movement aerate, then depress the plunger. She struggles for several more seconds as the drug begins to take effect. It’s slow, agonizingly so, but her spasms and twitches become significantly less pronounced after a moment. I sigh, sagging against the gurney along with everyone else.

“Okay,” I gasp out, “good work everyone, now let’s get her to an exam table and will somebody tell me where we even found her?!”

“Them,” Director Redheart’s voice says from the end of the hall, she’s walking towards me with a clipboard. “Two patients have been admitted: one male, name of Timber Spruce, missing for over a year. He’s conscious but otherwise healthy as far as I can tell.”

I do my best not to call bullshit. Timber? As in… I remember Sunset’s first trial was Timber’s last. He got hung from the hook by Billy to die. I remember Sunset arguing with Tempest over it and nearly coming to blows. He’s back? Oh, Sunset… where did you go?

“Second patient,” Redheart continues, nodding to Sunset, “is a Jane Doe. No medical history, and no identifying marks or papers. I’ve called up a friend to run a picture through the criminal database but so far nothing. Health is…” The Director grimaces. “Doctor Blaze I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life.”

She hands me the papers and gestures for me to follow her as the nurses bring her to an exam room. I scowl as I flick through them, leaning against the wall next to as Redheart continues to talk.

“I thought her teeth were prosthetics, but they’re not, and the less said about her fingers the better,” Redheart says, her voice quiet and a little hollow sounding. “We’ll need to inject her again, by the by. The EMT’s said they sedated her once to get her into the copter, and twice on the way over. She’s burnt through enough sedative to put down a powerlifter three times her weight.” Redheart nudges me and points out a section on the report. “Her blood is black, haemoglobin levels are off the charts, platelet counts too, her biology… Blaze it’s like she’s not even really human.”

“She’s not, not anymore anyway,” I say softly, as I scan through the papers, drawing a strange look from Redheart. “Her name is Sunset Shimmer, she’s an orphan. There’s more to it but I can’t explain everything else to you now, I can try later but I guarantee you won’t believe me.”

“I can’t very well ignore the evidence,” Redheart responds huffily, gesturing to the report. “Fantastical or not, that is hard science right there.”

“It’s not the biology,” I respond, “it’s how it happened. But the short of it is this: you asked where I served? I served in hell, and that girl on the gurney not only served with me, she's the only reason I made it out alive.”

I tuck the report under my arm and march towards the ER exam room away from my stunned supervisor, ordering up another cocktail of sedatives. If Ativan doesn’t cut it I’ll find something that does, but whatever is truly wrong with her won’t be solved with modern medicine.

A magical problem needs a magical solution.

I flick open my phone and hit the speed dial, a second later it picks up and a sleepy voice on the other side answers with an unintelligible grunt.

“Adagio, I need your help,” I say without preamble.

I explain the situation as best I can, a bit proud of how little my voice is shaking. It’s easier, I think, to be calm when I’m wearing my ‘Doctor Blaze’ persona. I’m barely halfway through the explanation before Adagio is out the door and on her way. I pocket my phone and walk back into the exam room, shooing away the nurses.

“I’ll handle this one, just… take a ten,” I say softly to Kindheart.

Nurse Kindheart hesitates for a moment, but then nods and steps out. I close the door and lock it behind her before turning to the sedated form of my ‘sister’. We might not be related, but no one has ever done anything like what Sunset did for me. Not even my blood sisters have ever sacrificed so much for me. For us.

Sunset gave everything for us the way that only family would.

“You made it…” I whisper, reaching out and brushing away a matted strand of red hair. “You wild, crazy bitch… I can’t believe you really did it.”

I pull up a chair next to her bed and sit down, tracing the lines of her face with my fingers. She looks a little older than I remember, or maybe she just looks more worn. Time doesn’t exist in that horrible place but trauma does. I stopped keeping track of how long my sisters and I were there, but in the real world only a couple of months had passed. Sunset was there for what felt like weeks but here only a day had gone by.

How long must she have spent there over the course of a year?

A pounding at the door knocks me out of my reverie and I stand, irritated but certain I know who’s on the other side. “Calm down, Tempest, I’m right here!” I snap as I walk over and unlock the door.

Tempest Shadow

Aria opens the door and glares at me, and I wince as I realise how loud my knocking must have been. I can’t dwell on it for long though, the memory of what Aria had said is still ringing in my brain. Sunset Shimmer was found!

“Where is she?!” I gasp out, my hair still hanging lank in front of my face. I’m sure I must look awful, even terrified. “Please tell me you weren’t-”

“I would never lie about her,” Aria cuts me off with a grimace, sounding annoyed that it even occurred to me. “She’s right here.”

She steps back from the door and gestures to the exam room bed where a familiar redhead is laying sedated.

I walk forward like I’m locked in a dream. A part of me is terrified to accept that what I’m seeing is real, just in case it isn’t. In a moment I’m standing over her, she's sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling evenly with every breath. Swallowing hard, I reach out and touch her cheek. Just the slightest brush of my finger against her bare flesh.

She’s warm and just as soft as I remember. Somewhere in me a dam breaks and tears start rolling down my face as I collapse into the chair by the bed. I grab her hand, trying to avoid her fingerblades but unwilling to jostle her in case she’s hurt, pressing her knuckles to my lips, and sob wordlessly. Her touch, her scent, her everything is exactly how I remember.

Sunset Shimmer. The girl I fell in love with. The girl I left in the grip of hell.

Everything blurs and I’m vaguely aware that I’m speaking, apologising over and over, and kissing her fingers and palm and begging her to forgive me for letting her down.

To forgive me for ever, ever letting her go.

I’m not sure how long I’m sitting in front of her but I feel a hand on my shoulder after a while. I look up to see Adagio standing over us both, a sad look in her eyes.

“We need to move her to Sonata’s room, Tempest,” Adagio says softly. “I need both of my sisters if we’re going to try and snap her out of whatever this is.”

I nod, wiping my face and standing.

“I’ll help,” I reply, moving to right above her head as Aria brings a gurney to the side of the bed while Starlight and Sour go to her feet.

As soon as it’s in position I nod to the others. On a three-count we grip the cloth beneath Sunset's form and transfer her from the bed to the gurney in one movement.

“What’s wrong with Mi Sol, Aria?” I ask, and I can feel my lips making a hard line. “Is she in danger?”

Aria shakes her head. “I don’t know, but something has her locked in a comatose state. She’s violent, aggressive, but completely unresponsive. I drugged her to keep her docile, but her Killer biology is burning through the meds like water.”

“A curse, then,” Adagio says from the other side of the gurney. “Or at least it sounds like it.”

“Can you lift it?” I ask, turning to Adagio and I hate the way my voice cracks. “Please tell me you can help her!”

“I can’t make any promises, Tempest,” Adagio replies sorrowfully, but I will have a much better chance with Sonata’s help. “But if it’s something from the Entity then…”

She doesn’t need to go on. Twilight had explained how the Entity’s magic was proof against her spellcraft, even fueled by an artifact from her world. Even the thing we’d been introduced to as the self-proclaimed God of Chaos, Discord, could barely influence events.

“Let’s go, and Aria, you said there were two?” Adagio clarifies, and Aria nods. “Good, bring him too, he’s might well be in the same state.”

Splitting off, Aria and Sour go to retrieve Spruce while we wheel Sunset to Sonata’s darkened room. Spruce is wheeled past the group, put on the couch near the window of the room, and wrapped in a blanket. His head is hanging low in slumber while we park the gurney next to the youngest Siren’s bed. At first, I think Sonata is asleep but the moment Sunset is by her side, her eyes flutter open and she turns her head to look at Sunset, smiling widely.

“Gotcha…” Sonata whispers almost imperceptibly.

“Sisters.” Adagio’s eyes are closed but her voice cuts through the silent darkness of the room like a blade as she moves to Sunset’s side and holds out her hands. “Join me.”

Aria moves next to Adagio and takes her right hand while Sonata pulls her arm free of her covers and takes Adagio’s left hand. The elder siren closes her eyes and I can feel the faint prickle of power emanating from the three of them. Their necklaces glimmer softly in the low light as Adagio begins to hum softly. I feel a chill as I recognise the lullaby of the Huntress, a sound that haunted us for so many Trials. Aria and Sonata’s voices join with hers a moment later, harmonizing and building on their sister’s voice.

Their voices are low; the damage that crippled them during the Battle of the Bands have permanently stolen the higher ranges of volume and control from them, but something low and relaxed like a lullaby is still within their reach. Aria once confessed to me, after many shots of tequila, that she was still bitter about her singing voice being gone. She didn’t blame Sunset, of course, she just hated the loss itself.

I understand, now, why that is. Seeing the three of them connect like this. It must have been like losing a sense. A way of perceiving her loved ones, her sisters, that no one else could see.

The lullaby trails through its paces softly and the glow slowly becomes a shimmer, then a shining light. I can hear how hard it is, though. Their voices are barely holding, riding the ragged edge of cracking and breaking completely. The light is growing but barely.

But it’s not alone.

From Sunset there’s a darkness, like a sheen of oil and sickness clinging to her that’s swallowing the light and getting stronger by the second even as the light is fading in the presence of the Entity’s endless shadow.

Aria, Adagio, and Sonata try to match their tone to the strength of the shadow but I can hear the cracks forming in their voices. It feels like the moment before an entire building comes crumbling down. I can feel the failure impending.

I can’t let this happen again, and on instinct, I reach out to grip Aria’s free hand with my right.

“Come back to us, Mi Sol!” I cry out, my voice split between desperation and anger. “We’re here! We’re all here! And we’re never giving up on you!”

Another hand takes mine and I glance over to find Starlight smiling at me. At her side is Sour Sweet, holding Starlight and Sonata’s hand, completing the circle. The room rattles as the light extends to all over us, and my heart catches in my throat as the shadow surrounding Sunset fades back for the first time since it emerged.

Starlight turns back to Sunset and chokes back a sob.

“You gave us everything you had, Shimmer,” Starlight says in a tearstained voice. “And you gave me everything I have now! You gave me the chance at a real life,” she looks over at Sour and smiles shyly, “and at real love.” Turning back to Sunset, her features set into a determined glare. “So take whatever you need from me! Because without you I’d have nothing!”

Sour smiles with a faint air of cockiness and nods. “What she said, Shimmy, you’re coming back to us whether you like it or not.”

“Come back to me, Mi Sol,” I whisper, closing my eyes and praying to whatever or whoever will listen. “I’m never going to let you go again, I swear it.”

The cracking, ragged edge to the Siren’s voices starts to fade and I open my eyes in surprise as their tone and volume rise. The three of them look equally shocked at the development but their mastery over their craft stops them from faltering in their spell. As their voices strike a crescendo, the hospital room rumbles like it’s caught in a localised earthquake, and I hear something in between the tones of the Siren’s song.

Come back to us, sister.

Our minds align in that moment- Siren and human- reaching across whatever distance the Entity has put between us and Sunset.

“COME BACK TO US!”

The song ends in a riotous crack of light and color, and we all stagger back. Sunset is floating inches above the gurney, her body suffused in a light that’s eating away at the shadow like dawn burning away the dark of night.

The Killer fades like a bad dream, her Fog-forged bladed fingers turn to mist, leaving behind the delicate hands I remember. Her pallid red skin shifts back to a healthy amber, and as Sunset lets out a slow, soft sigh of relief, I see her teeth have gone back to normal too.

Then the moment passes and Sunset settles back onto the gurney. The six of us stare at each other as we try to absorb what we just witnessed. Aria sums it up neatly, though.

“What the fuck was that?” the middle Siren says, her voice raw and winded. “That wasn’t Siren sorcery!”

“No,” Adagio says, stepping up close to Sunset and gently touching her cheek. “But it was similar. It was… close.”

“How were we able to sing again, ‘Dagi?” Sonata asks, her voice almost at the edge of tears. “We lost our voices in the Battle!”

“A small miracle, maybe,” Adagio answers, her voice distant but happy. “Maybe there’s more to the magic of friendship than just empty platitudes and pleasant lies.” Kneeling down, Adagio lifts Sunset hand and grasps it in her own. “Sunset never gave up on us and we refused to give up on her, and maybe… maybe there’s some kind of magic in that. Something all it’s own.”

A small groan from Sunset stops all of us in our tracks, and I stare. Smiling, Adagio stands and gestures for me to come over. “You should be the first one she sees.”

I nod dumbly and stumble over, practically knocking Aria over in my haste, and take a knee where Adagio had been standing, and take Sunset’s hand. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds but finally, she takes a slow, strong breath, and her eyes flicker open.

Slowly, she turns to face me and I can’t help but start to cry as her clear, bright eyes, untainted by the black magic of the Entity, meet mine. Beautiful lips curve into a smirk and her mouth forms the shapes I remember from my dream with sound to accompany it.

“Found you.”

I crash against her, wrapping Sunset in my arms and pulling her close, burying my face in her shoulder as I cry like a child against her. Sunset just chuckles softly as her arms wrap around me in return. I don’t have anything I can say, there’s nothing I want to say that can’t wait. Right now… she’s back, and I’m whole again.

A moment later we’re joined by Sonata, Aria, Sour, and Starlight, all crushing Sunset in affection, laughing and crying equally in relief. Adagio stands aloofly to the side but fools precisely nobody.

With the return of Sunset, it finally feels like it’s finished. The nightmare is finally, finally over. Our Exodus is complete.

“Good to have you back, sister,” Adagio says calmly, though her eyes are misty with tears.

“Good to be back, ‘Dagi,” Sunset says as she pats me on the back. “By the by, I brought someone back with me that you might want to meet.”

Adagio raises an eyebrow at that. “Oh yeah?”

She lifts a hand and points at Spruce, and Adagio’s eyes narrow in the darkness trying to pick out details. “You never met him right? The one before me?”

“I didn’t,” Adagio confirms as she walks over to Spruce. “He would’ve been my replacement I suppose,” she says with a smirk as she reaches out and lifts his chin up to look at his face.

None of us are prepared for the cry of alarm that issues from her lips as Adagio staggers back like she’s been burnt. She’s staring down at Spruce with a haunted look.

“Magic is a funny thing, ‘Dagi,” Sunset continues, her voice tired and wan. “But sometimes it’s something truly incredible.”

Spruces eyes flicker open a moment later and he looks around the room, his eyes fixing on all of us, and Sunset, after a second.

“We made it?” He whispers, almost unbelieving. “Did we… did we really?”

Sunset nods. “Yeah, thanks to my friends,” she says, before nodding to Sonata. “Especially this one, I’d have never found our way back to this dimension without your little light.”

“I knew you’d see it eventually,” Sonata says with a tired smile.

“H-How…?” Adagio’s voice comes out in a whisper, and Spruce looks up at Adagio.

His first reaction is a kneejerk spasm of fear. Understandable, since he’s been up against the Huntress plenty of times and Adagio’s hair is a dead giveaway, but a moment later he smirks in that infuriatingly cocky manner of his that usually ended with him on a hook.

“Uh, hi,” Spruce says with a grin. “The name’s Timber Spruce, guess we should introduce ourselves now that I’m not running away screaming anymore, huh?”

“T-Timber?” Adagio still sounds a little broken as she says the name, and she’s stuck ramrod still as if he were a venomous snake.

Timber Spruce chuckles, and nods.

“Uh, yup, that’s me,” he forces a laugh before saying in what I suppose is a manner meant to break the tension. “You know, uh, if I’d known you were that beautiful under that mask I probably wouldn’t have run from you so much.”

Adagio lets out a laugh that’s half sob at his cheeky grin, but it seems to animate her again. After a moment she chuckles and looks back up at him with hope in her eyes. “You… think I’m beautiful?”

Seeing his tactic working, Spruce puts on the full smirk. “Most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen!”

They laugh, and I turn back to Sunset, and before she can say anything I pull her into a kiss. There's a healthy warmth to her lips, and the softness and the faint scent of autumn leaves surrounds her. It’s so calming and an age passes before we pull apart.

“Making up for lost time?” Sunset says breathlessly, smiling seductively up at me. “Because we’ve got a lot of time to make up for if we’re using my clock.”

“I’ll take that challenge, Mi Sol,” I say, my voice growing heated as I pull her against me. “We’re finally together again and that’s never going to change.”

“Good,” she mutters, her voice cracking as she pulls closer to me and buries her face against my neck. “Because I’m tired of fighting and I’m tired of losing.”

“Good thing the fight is over, Red” Aria says, standing up and smiling down at her sister, but freezes as Sunset shakes her head.

“It’s not,” Sunset whispers. “There’s something else…”

“What?” I ask, pulling away, and she meets my gaze with hard concern in her eyes.

Swallowing thickly, Sunset leans in and kisses me softly before pulling away. “I saw it when I was there… the Entity is dying.”

“What?! How?” Aria demands, alarm in her voice and her eyes wide.

“My plan was nuts, just like all my plans,” Sunset starts. “I figured if the Entity could rip holes in reality to our world, and others could get in through them… maybe I could get out the same way. But when I reached him something was wrong. Something was killing him. The Old Stain was writhing in pain and he's weak, it's almost as if someone ripped away a chuck of its power, that was the only reason I was able to get Spruce away from him.”

“Was it because of what we did to his Killers?” Starlight asks, cocking her head to the side. “They feed the Entity right, could that be why?”

Sunset shakes her head. “No, I saw what was doing it, just a glimpse mind you, but I saw it. Dark wings and darker magic, and when I tried to get closer it batted me away like I was nothing. It’s the reason we got home though, it ripped a hole in reality and I followed it but we got lost until Sonata found us and guided us back to this reality. Exposure to the unbridled energy of the space between planes is what put me in the state you found me in, I put Spruce in an enchanted sleep so he’d avoid it but… someone had to steer. We eventually came out in a grotto in the Everfree Forest and I think that’s where that thing came out too.”

“You think it’s human, then?” Aria asks in surprise. “A human that’s capable killing the Entity?”

Sunset nods. “I do. I think that, somehow, someone has found a way to steal its power, and that can’t continue. If they’re here then everything is in danger.”

I nod. “We’ll find them, Mi Sol, I promise, and when we do we’ll put an end to the Entity’s powers once and for all.”

With a sigh, Sunset slumps against me and tightens her grip on my hand. “I’m so happy… even though we’re not safe yet I’m so happy I found you again, I love you.”

“I love you too, and I’ll never let you go, Mi Sol,” I promise, lifting her chin to kiss her again. “Whatever comes, we’ll face it together.”

Dead by Sunset

by I-A-M

1. Gone Girl

2. The Awakening

3. Campfire Tales

Interlude I: Memories of a Certain Sunset

4. Rite of the Bell

5. The Wild Dance

Interlude II: Searching for a Certain Sunset

6. Campfire Tales II

7. Rite of the Last Breath

Interlude III: Reaching For A Certain Sunset

8. Rite of the Hatchet

9. Mors Ambitio

10. Rite of the Nightmare

11. The Way of Light - Part 1

12. The Way of Light - Part 2

13. The Way of Light - Part 3

14. The Way of Light - Part 4

15. Epilogue

Aria Blaze - One Year Later

Aria - Exodus Night

Tempest Shadow

Aria Blaze

Tempest Shadow