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The shock came first.
Then came the pain.

Ryan collapsed as the cleaver’s wickedly sharp edge bit eagerly into his thigh, ripping downward in a grim slice. He grunted in agony as he fell backwards, sweat-slick fingers scrabbling with all his might at the door. ‘Pinkie’ held the instrument of death in her mouth, giggling hysterically as she swung at his neck.

He backpedalled with his nearly lame left leg, the burning pain shooting through the wound on his right. The fear of imminent death choked him as he floundered against the glass case counter, and he instinctively reached for the inward spark as the deranged mare hurled herself at him with the strength of a wild bull. He caught her neck in his injured left hand, barely keeping the edge of the cleaver from tearing into his face with his right. The tip of the knife itself was a mere inch away from his eyeball, and he could have sworn that he felt his face retreat into his own skull as he pushed with all his might.

Pinkie barely even budged.
The tip of the cleaver came closer… closer… closer…!
In panic, Ryan grabbed at the inward spark, fearful of its nonexistent acknowledgement that he was reaching for it. Thankfully, he forced the warm ripple into his left arm as he attempted the familiar mind trick.

In the known universe, there are a certain number of things that, once seen, can never really be scrubbed clean from one’s memories. Ryan had a slowly but steadily growing collection of these kinds of memories, and usually had at least one scar to match it to.
Ryan gained a new scar.

He reached out with everything he had, hoping in his fervor to escape that he might bring Pinkie Pie back from her evident insanity; or, at the very least, distract her long enough with the mind-mojo that he could escape.
Instead, when Ryan telepathically reached out, ‘Pinkie’ reached back.

And I say ‘Pinkie’ because Ryan intrinsically knew that whatever that thing was sure as hell wasn’t Pinkie Pie.
Her mind abruptly collided with his own, and the only thing Ryan could compare it to was like being dropped into an angry blender with a handful of shards of glass. There was no control, no conscious, no focus or reason. Everything about her mind screamed DANGER, and it tore at him hatefully with an unrivaled viciousness. Before, Ryan had been reluctant about striking back at Pinkie – this, on the other hand, was evidently some kind of doppelganger. But still, it looked like Pinkie – it sounded like Pinkie, it moved like Pinkie… and no matter how much he wanted to, Ryan could never bring himself to hit Pinkie Pie. He could, however, push back against her mind with as much force as was necessary.

Leaving Ryan with plenty of moral leeway to psychically strike back.
Simultaneously pushing backwards in terror with all his strength to keep the cleaver from piercing his eyeball and delving directly into the metaphorical whirling ball of glass and psychosis, Ryan did the first and only thing he could think of to stave off the rabid Pinkie Pie.
He pulled the Spark to the surface, and gave it to Pinkie.

“Yaaaaah!” Pinkie Pie screamed as she rammed into… Pinkie Pie?
Ryan dimly became aware that the room now contained two struggling Pinkies as his mind was torn away, one of which still retained her frizzy mane. This one, however, also wore an expression of horror as she drew back from the flailing doppelganger. Frizzy Pinkie snagged Ryan’s collar with her teeth, dragging the now functionally brain-dead man behind the counter and through another wall with haste. The last thing Ryan saw before the world collapsed around him was the flat-maned Pinkie Pie, slumped against a wall and staring in shock at her own hooves.

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“Come on, gimme back the remote!”
“Hmm, lemme think ‘bout – nah.” Ryan grinned, holding the black plastic rectangle high out of Danielle’s reach, using his natural height to his advantage. The ink-haired fraternal twin snatched at it in frustration, only making Ryan’s shark-like leer over her all the more infuriating.

“Come on, come on, come ON!” she whined pitifully. “Donnie, Ryan’s being mean to me again!”
“It’s not ‘mean’ if it prevents you from indulging in any more unhealthy amounts of Japanese animation.” Her chocolate brown haired twin brother spoke clearly from the kitchen table, where he sat stiffly as he pored over stacks of papers.

Ryan couldn’t fathom how Donald Miller managed to do it. The fourteen year old boy had already graduated from an Ivy League school, obtained multiple degrees and doctorates with apparent ease, and worked tirelessly over stocks in his spare time. There was absolutely no doubt that he was ingenious, to say the least – and in such stark contrast to his sister.
“Fother mucker, I’m missing Cowboy Bebop!” Danielle kicked him hard in the shin, and he dropped the remote with a noise between a yelp and cackle. She could be a mean-spirited little monster; reminded him a lot of himself, in some ways. Danielle swiftly snatched the remote and ran sideways, screeching ‘WOOP-WOOP-WOOPWOOPWOOPWOOP!’ and doing an imitation of what he guessed was supposed to be a crab.

“Do you two mind?” Donald groaned, cleaning his glasses with a small cloth, which he produced from behind his small grey tie. “I’m a little busy right now.”
“Aw, shit.” Ryan swore, reaching for his pockets as Danielle flipped absentmindedly through a myriad of channels. “Tha’ reminds me. Got what’cha asked for, Do-“

His much shorter cousin promptly hushed him with a finger, glancing toward his twin. Once again, Ryan was reminded of just how boring his cousin was. Or at least, the way he looked. Donald’s plain brown hair was parted evenly, kept at a meticulously short length. The plain grey tie to match the dull grey suit didn’t help make him look any less boring. In fact, Ryan couldn’t even recall the last time he’d seen anyone so young in a suit.

Then again, Ryan didn’t necessarily have a ‘normal’ life.

He silently handed yet another roll of rubber band tied bills to Donald, nodding quietly. Donald would use the money to further expand the stocks and other necessities, of course. Just like Ryan kept doing everything he could to support the twins since their mother had bitten the dust.

Ryan really hadn’t expected his uncle to slip away with every single dime from the life insurance, abandoning the twins. It seemed like such an out of place thing for the man to do – and yet, no sooner had his Aunt Sarah died, he’d snatched the money and made off to Vegas.

Ryan wouldn’t let these two suffer. Donald, no matter how bright, was still technically just a kid. Ergo, Ryan did everything within his power to help them, sending them as much money as he could from Brooklyn. Occasionally, however, he would drive out to this nearly deserted wasteland to see them himself. Every time he did so, he swore that Donald was getting a little thinner, a little less healthy. Danielle, on the other hand, steadily grew stronger by the day. She occasionally joked that she was absorbing his soul, along with twizzle sticks.

And she was bound and determined to make every single conversation ‘hilarious’ by sneaking up behind her brother and screaming ‘Twin-cest is Win-cest!’
Indeed, Ryan found it hilarious.
Donald, not so much.

The only features Ryan could ever bring himself to remember about him were just how prude he was, and his rampant obsessive compulsive disorder. Even when Ryan handed him the bills, he fastidiously unrolled and re-rolled them, attempting to flatten them out to be even with the papers before him.

“Sorry it ain’t as much as-“
“Thank you, Ryan.” Donald nodded somberly. He silenced Ryan’s indignation about how he was trying to apologize for not bringing in as much as usual with a quiet glare.
“It’s plenty. We’ll make it through – I just need to regroup and reorganize. You needn’t worry.”
Ryan could see through his lie almost immediately. Genius or not, Donald was a terrible liar.

“Yeah. Can’t help it, sometimes.”
“You have a new scar, I see.” Donald said pointedly without looking up. Ryan’s throat tightened, and he shifted his shirt a little to cover the cut.
“Cut myself shaving.”

Danielle was riffing absentmindedly along with her (currently) favorite show’s opening, and Ryan slipped him the key to the safe.
“Ryan.”
“Yeah, kid.”
“You’re going back to New York soon.”
“Yeah, kid.”
“Ryan.”
“Yeah, kid.”
“How are the Wilsons, Ryan?”

He froze, staring at his cousin.
For a brief moment, he wondered if he knew. But, then again, he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t.
“… They’re good. They’re good. It’s all good.”
Donald displayed no emotion whatsoever, regardless of the fact that Ryan wasn’t any better of a liar than he was.
“… I see.” He readjusted his glasses, exhaling through his nostrils heavily as he resumed his scrupulous attention to the paperwork.

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… Can’t feel.
Two words were all he could manage to put together at a time, in between the blinding pain between his eyes and the dull, grinding agony in his thigh. It shouldn’t have hurt so much to think; so why couldn’t he even form sentences properly?

Then again, he was still aware that he was alive. That had to count for something.
He blearily attempted to force himself up, remembering that there was something dangerous he was supposed to be getting away from.
“Don’t move!” Pinkie hissed, wrapping one bandage after another around the cut on his leg. The ripped material around it had become quite bloodied, but Pinkie carefully dabbed it up with a cloth and tossed it to the side to continue the stitching.

Stitching.
Pinkie Pie was stitching him back together.
“Fuck!” Ryan yelped as the pain suddenly increased tenfold, consciousness jolting agonizingly back to him.
“I said don’t move!” Pinkie whispered, peeking over her shoulder.

“Shit, shit, shit…!” Ryan swore through his teeth. Pinkie motioned toward something for him to bite on, and he grabbed a worn leather belt that was lying on a pile of old newspapers next to them.
Convenient, yet disgusting, he thought wryly as his teeth sank into the old leather. He knew what was coming next.

The mare painstakingly wove stitch after stitch into Ryan, and he felt each and every one. Considering the fact that they seemed to be in some form of abandoned hospital room, he’d hoped that there might be antiseptic or spare painkillers around. The morphine might do him good. He continuously added more deep, puncturing bite marks to the belt, and a couple of times, nearly bit in in half through his muffled yelling.

It took far too long for Pinkie to thread the stitches together.
Ryan remembered passing out at one point, cursing his pitiful pain threshold. He mustn’t have been out long, though, as Pinkie was still attempting to stem the bleeding with shaking hooves.
By the time she was finished, she looked like an absolute wreck.
Then again, so did Ryan.

For a long, long while, they simply stayed in one spot – Ryan leaning in pain against a dirty, watermarked wall, and Pinkie next to him after she’d collected the majority of the rags and refuse to dump in a nearby wastebasket.
“… You ‘kay, kid.”
“Hm?”
“You okay, kid?” Ryan asked shakily, running a hand through his greasy hair.

“I-I’m so sorry.” Pinkie seemed to be having trouble speaking, and even though her mane still had some of its regular bounce, it flattened slightly as she spoke. It reminded him of that manic, wild Pinkie-copy. Ryan shuddered and tried not to look away from her.
“Ain’t yer fault, kid.” Ryan patted her on the head in what he hoped was a soothing manner – however, the bit of blood on his hand wiped off atop her. He cringed, and used the edge of his shirt to clean it from her.

“… You seem to be cleaning an awful lot of my bodily fluids off of yourself recently, you know that?” Pinkie joked quietly, but the pitiful attempt at a smile wasn’t fooling him.
Ryan opened his mouth to speak, until her words caught up to him.
And, indeed, the blood on his hand wasn’t even his.
Aghast, Ryan noted that Pinkie had been cut several times, some of which were along her front legs from where she’d tried to keep the mad mare from harming Ryan.

“Shit!” he swore loudly again, grabbing the wall for support. Pinkie refused to allow him to stand, keeping a hoof firmly on his good arm.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Ryan was nearly hyperventilating. “Pink, why the fuck didn’t you – I don’t even – Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of blood.” He breathed weakly, afraid of even moving her hoof for fear of harming her further.

“Not too much of it is mine,” Pinkie explained casually, although there was a sinking sadness to her voice. “I’m not hurt too badly. Besides, I’m Pinkie Pie, remember? I’ll – I’ll be okie-dokie-lokie.”
“Band-aids. Bandages, shit, somethin’, kid!” Ryan did his best not to panic, regardless of the fact that Pinkie was doing her best to remain nonchalant about being partially coated in blood.
“I used them.”

And, for a moment, Ryan almost asked ‘on what?’
“… Jesus.” He sank against the wall in defeat, thinking furiously. It was his fault. Of course it was his fault, it was always his fault. If he hadn’t tried the ‘mind-trick’ on the fake Pinkie, then maybe he’d have still had the strength to fight back and protect the real one. But of course, he didn’t even bother.

No, the moment things got tough, the first thing he did was reach for magic.
Fucking magic.
He could still feel it, eagerly bubbling beneath his mind, ready and willing to spring forth into the world once more.
And it scared the hell out of him.

Ryan shuddered, pulling Pinkie close to him.
“… We’re gonna get home, kid.” He nodded reassuringly, more to himself than anything.
“No, no we’re not.”

He blinked, staring down at the mare. If anything, Pinkie seemed to be in a state of shock. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen her so much as blink. Or say anything so pessimistic, for that matter. That scared him, too, although he refused to ever admit it.
“… Yeah. Yeah, we fuckin’ are. ‘Cause, we have to. Come on, kid.”
“Ryan.”
“Pink.”
“Ryan.”
“Pink-o!”
“Ryan.”
“Pink-a-roony-doonie-”

“Shut the hell up!”
Ryan almost dropped her away from him, so great was his surprise when she snapped at him.
“We aren’t going home! We can’t even get home, because I don’t know where home is!” her voice cracked, and she ran her hooves in distress through her mane. “I don’t know, I don’t know – I don’t know, Ryan, I don’t know!”

“… Kid-“
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. We aren't supposed to be here, I-I'm sorry for dragging you into this.” She wept, leaning quietly against him.
“… Come on, Pink.” Ryan patted her soothingly. “I’m all good, you’re all good – it’s all good. Right? Right.”
“We can’t-!”
“It’s all good.” He reiterated slowly, and more firmly. “So, we had a bad run-in. It’s a different world, right? Well, they can’t all be good. So, we had-a-bad-run-in. Shit, kid, we’ll get back. Just gotta keep goin’ in that circle, right?”

Even Ryan’s forced optimism wasn’t enough to cheer her up. Once she’d explained, Ryan knew why.
“It’s gone.”
“…. Uh, what?”
“It’s gone, Ryan.” Pinkie mumbled, rubbing her tired eyes. It felt like the whole world was leaning down on top of her. “We can’t keep going. There’s no crack.”
“I thought you said they only moved ‘round?” he asked in confusion, a sudden fear beginning to rise in his chest again strongly enough to make him forget about his leg. The thought of spending the rest of his life in this tiny metal room didn’t seem too appealing. Besides; it smelled in here.

From the looks of it, Ryan guessed that it must have been some form of operating room or something at one point. The remains of a broken stretcher lay in the corner, and several of the strange metal plates on the walls glinted in the dark. He vaguely wondered what kind of supplies they might have once stored, as the square things closely resembled large drawers. Which was coincidental, because technically, they were.

“We were being corralled, Ryan. Boxed in.”
“… What?”
Pinkie looked horrified at the prospect herself, although Ryan couldn’t tell if she was handling it very well or was on the verge of yet another breakdown.
“I should have seen it sooner. It’s my fault, it’s all my fault.” She breathed deeply, trying to keep her voice even. “Something…. There’s something stopping us from getting back. Something big, Ryan. Really, really big.”

“How big?” Ryan asked.
It was, of course, quite a surprise to them when their conversation was so rudely interrupted by the steel door when it was blasted off its hinges.
The metal slab slammed against the opposite wall with a violent WHAM! Ryan instinctively shoved Pinkie behind him as he drew himself up with his arms, eyes flickering about for anything he could use as an impromptu melee weapon. Of course, that was before he actually managed to get a good look at the offender that had so easily ripped the door from the frame.

In accordance to things that can never be scrubbed from one’s memory, Ryan still can’t forget that horrible voice that echoed from between the lips of the child-like thing atop the metal man’s shoulder.

“Look, Daddy; angels!”

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It took absolutely everything Ryan had to bite back the screams.
He could feel it rising in his chest, clawing for escape as the JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! ‘not’ child stared at him with wide, nearly neon yellow eyes. It peered down at him with a carefree, happy smile – completely in contrast to the emotionless hulking metal brute with glowing red lights adorning the peculiarly shaped diving-bell helmet. Ryan’s eyes flickered down to the massive and jaggedly pointed rotating drill. Gauging from the heavy, labored breathing and the way it lumbered into the room, Ryan guessed that it was no mere machine.

He felt the scream dying as it reached his throat, barely escaping as a whimper. Immediately afterwards, the rest of his brain seemed to catch up to him as it drew closer.
Ryan protectively shuffled Pinkie Pie behind his back as he tried to make himself look as tall as possible, leaning forward slightly and grimacing at the disturbing pair.
“Back the fuck off!” he tried to scream viciously, but it felt like his throat was fighting him for control.

Don’t be such a pussy! Ryan berated himself, inwardly cringing as the pain in his leg flared up again. He needed, now more than ever, a weapon. The bubbly, warm Spark invitingly began to rise to the surface, but he forcefully shoved it back down. He refused to so much as touch the accursed thing; the Spark was just as dangerous as anything else.
Odd. The Spark rose so quickly to the surface; he didn’t even need to draw it up, or fight with it at all.
One more thing to worry about…

“I said, back off!” Ryan glowered more loudly, tightening his fists. The hulking monster simply stared at him, and raised the enormous drill. He flinched, ready to protect Pinkie Pie with his dying breath if need be.
“Angels, Daddy – see the angels?” the mockery of a little girl whispered loudly, and the whale-like moan of a response breathed deeply from the metal monster. Ryan watched in trepidation as the drill stopped spinning immediately, only for the large creature to gently nudge Ryan in the rib with the side of the drill. It bumped him casually aside, indicating that it was trying to get past him.

At that moment, Ryan nearly attacked the freakish thing.
Well, nearly attacked the freakish thing and almost soiled himself. Regardless, Ryan carefully kept Pinkie (sort of) safely behind him as they slowly drew away from the wall, and the bulky creature actually managed to turn it’s odd diving bell toward the child-like entity.
“See, Daddy?” she asked sweetly, dropping down from the brute’s shoulder. Her tiny, ragged blue dress rippled around her gracefully as her bare feet hit the dirty ground, and she pointed again toward the metal doors. Nodding, the brute used the only hand it had to open it with much more grace than Ryan would have expected it could.

It wasn’t until the reeking carcasses of several people tumbled out of the same metal doors that he’d been leaning against just a short while ago that Ryan actually began screaming.

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“… Luna. Luna? I know you’re in there.”
Celestia tapped lightly at her sister’s door, wearily tilting her head toward the oak barrier. She heard nothing from the other side. At this time of the morning, Luna was likely to be asleep – normally, anyway. The word of Princess Luna’s nightmare induced insomnia spread throughout the castle like a plague, regardless of how Celestia tried to stifle it.

She’d have been happier were the rumors untrue.
“We need to talk. Luna? I’m coming in, Luna.” She said softly, magicking the door open and striding boldly forward.
She quickly found her steps faltering when she discovered her younger sister chugging mightily at a small vial, Celestia’s faithful phoenix companion watching idly from the windowsill.
“Lulu!”

Celestia telekinetically yanked the glass phial from her sister’s grasp in panic, only to be greeted by Luna’s manic giggle.
“It’s gone, Tia – it’s finally gone!” she whispered, and Celestia watched in horror as Luna’s eyes slowly began to drift apart. “Can’t you feel it? Foul, gone! Foul gone! Foul, foul gone. Gone. Go-“ she collapsed even as she spoke, and Celestia rapidly caught her in her wings as she fell.

For a long time, Celestia stayed with her sister, cradling the unconscious sibling and shifting her to her silken sheets.
The future Discord never mentioned anything like this.
He’d warned her of a terrible future, incapable of amendment if she did anything he’d mentioned. He warned her of his inevitable escape from his stony prison, but her constant vigilance ensured that the current Discord was, in fact, still kept firmly in stone.

Why couldn’t he have stayed and given her proper warnings, instead of cryptic clues about doctors and time travel?
Who, exactly, was a princess of an entire nation supposed to turn to for help? Celestia hadn’t maintained all of Equestria throughout the past millennium by begging for help, though; no, she’d been steadfast in her resignation to care for them all, assuming the burden of both the sun and moon.

That didn’t mean a little help here and there wouldn’t be nice, of course.
Philomena tilted her head, eying the empty bottle on the floor.
It didn’t take long for Celestia to find that Philomena had been the one to supply Luna with the sleeping agent. The bird took flight the moment she realized it, and Celestia held onto her unconscious sister as she fought back against a suddenly overwhelming feeling of grief.

She couldn’t bear it to see her sister so miserable.
But she could bear the thought of losing her again even less.

Slowly, as she closed her eyes and reached out with her vast mind, she discovered that the ‘Foul One’ was no longer of this world.
At least, for about a minute. His prompt resurgence of peculiar signature energy signified his return.

Along with Luna’s sudden tormented screaming.

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Underwater.
Ryan bit back yet another pathetic shriek of terror when they discovered the window. The murky sea beyond sat dankly just a few feet away. His heart pounded so angrily against his chest that he thought it would burst. Buzzing, angry wasps blurred in his head, bouncing about furiously as he resisted the urge to panic and run. Trapped.
He was surprised that his legs hadn’t given out by this point.
Several times, he passed graffiti on the wall in what he sincerely hoped was only paint. Scribbled all over the place were little signs, almost like warnings. Each one said something similar, however.
Splicers. Beware, go away, get out. Splicers.

And, more disturbingly, Hail, Dawnbreaker.

The ‘child’ atop the metal man’s shoulders softly sang a little ditty about angels and such, kicking her legs with a carefree air.
It almost made the bloodstains and massive needle unnoticed.
Almost.

Pinkie trotted alongside Ryan, warily gazing about at the dingy walls of the undersea city. Sometimes, they would pass heaps of garbage or long, stretching empty passages.

The occasional cracked glass made him slightly more nervous.
Ryan wasn’t certain how long they followed the odd pair. They would occasionally pass by a couple of mutilated corpses, and it took Ryan until the fourth one to discover why everywhere seemed so empty.
They all had similar lacerations and wounds, signs of being drilled.
All of them.

He shuddered, keeping a close eye on the hulking brute.

“There’s another angel, Daddy!” the imitation girl giggled, pointing to one body lying spread eagle in the center of the hall.
“Why does she keep doin’ that?” Ryan muttered to Pinkie in confusion.
“Huh?”
“That… kid. You think it’s really her dad?” it wouldn’t make a lot of sense. But, then again, things had stopped making sense the moment Pinkie Pie shattered his concept of reality.
Again.

“I don’t really know.” Pinkie gazed up at him, shrugging.
“… ‘Da fuck d’you mean, you don’t know?” his confusion grew, along with his voice. “Ain’t you knowin’ ‘bout all these different worlds, ‘n shit?”
“I haven’t seen them all, Rye-pie.” Pinkie shook her head sadly, slowing to a halt as the metal man carefully lowered the little girl next to the corpse. Using her elongated needle, she proceeded to repeat the same action she had when they discovered the stored bodies.
It wasn’t fun to watch.

Ryan absentmindedly kicked at a couple of piles of debris in agitation, spotting a dull glint of iron in the rubble. Curiously, he snagged it with his good right hand and pulled it with some difficulty.
Elatedly, he weighed the worn crowbar in his hands.
Oh, fuck the hell YES.
He was going to be hanging onto this little beauty, and he promised himself so as he tucked it neatly into the belt-hoop on his pants.

“Besides, we aren’t even supposed to be in this loop.”
“What’cha mean, Pink?” he asked quickly, looking away from the grisly sight. He could have sworn he heard a rattle in the vents above them, but it could have just been his imagination. Pushing it to the back of his mind seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, one had to face their fears if they were ever to get over them, right?
“I think…” Pinkie raised a hoof to her chin, thinking. “At first, I thought it was my fault, because we weren’t where I expected us to go when we first slipped through the crack; but then, I kind of thought it was your fault a little bit, ‘cause of the thing with the Eight-Bits, remember? But that wouldn’t make any sense, because you can’t go forward from there, only backwards. You know?”

Ryan slowly shook his head, already long lost.
She continued anyway.

“I mean, weird things have been going on for a long time, but not quite so many as since you showed up in the Everfree Forest.”
“... I’m sorry, what?” Ryan asked suddenly, peering down at her. “... No, no I didn’t. I landed n’front’a Twilight’s... house. The library.”

Pinkie Pie cocked her head slightly, befuddled.
“Really? That’s… that’s not what Twi told us…” she said uncertainly. A sense of unease only added to Ryan’s already wracked nerves.

She shook her head, going back to her discussion of loops and circles.
“So, really, we should have been back long before now; except, somepony must have thrown us off course some time or-“
“Discord.”

Ryan’s fists clenched in sudden realization, and he ground his teeth. That slimy son of a bitch.
“Huh?” Pinkie asked once again. They were doing their best to ignore the squelching of the liquid being slowly drawn from the body only a short skip away, and the placid humming of the little girl. For some reason, the large metal man peering about seemed to be on edge.

“Discord!” Ryan exclaimed more loudly. “The same thing happened to me, I remember ‘xactly what he said! When he was in my head!” he seethed in anger, thinking back.
Discord’s explanation of how he had simply ‘pulled Ryan a little off course’ had been dubious, but now it made a little more sense. Then again, the mad draconequus had also mentioned that Ryan was being surreptitiously dragged through their world, anyway… and even Discord didn’t know why.

So, why would he deliberately sabotage Pinkie? To what end?
“Fuck.” He ground his knuckles against his aching head, angrily wishing he could simply snap his fingers and automatically have all the answers. Of course, no such thing would happen.

“All done, Daddy!”
The little girl scampered happily over to the metal man, carrying the bloated needle haphazardly in front of her in the dimly flickering light. For a moment, Ryan wondered precisely what the pair even needed the needle for. Then again, he'd rather not know.

“Down!” Pinkie yelped, tackling Ryan sharply in his injured leg.
He screamed in agony as a few of the stitches ripped, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as painful as the glowing-hot flying steel hook that flew overhead would have been, burying itself deep within the arm of the bulbous drill bearer.
The little girl screamed in terror, cowering behind the brute.
Ryan desperately wished to join her.

Looming directly over him was yet another wonderful thing he could never scrub from his memories.
The jagged, misshapen face showed first, and a lumpy hook-handed abomination stealthily dropped from the ceiling, and it was still much taller than Ryan, even if he were standing. It screeched with a wicked fervor, displaying a row of filthy, broken teeth as the thing’s voice grated on his ears.
“SMELL IT! SMELL THE ADAM, TASTY TASTY TASTY!”

The sudden urge to soil himself arose once again.
“Shit!” Ryan yelped, yanking Pinkie backwards as he scrabbled away. The freakish monster lumbered toward them in a spider-like fashion, dropping to all fours and screaming in glee as it gnashed its teeth at Ryan. He leapt hungrily at them, his sagging and torn cheeks expectant of delicious sustenance.

It was not, however, expecting the sudden impact of a very large, bellowing beast to slam violently into his face with a drill.
Ryan, on the other hand, at least had the sense to make sure that Pinkie (and by extent, himself) was far enough away from the spinning death machine that they weren’t sprayed with the gore.
The screaming stopped awfully quickly.

Pinkie Pie seemed to be handling the situation well.
Or, at the very least, much better than Ryan was.

He shook in disgust and horror at the metal man, trying to keep from retching at the sight. With a couple of lazy wipes with his one hand, the metal man beckoned for the little girl to come closer. Ryan was both revolted and surprised when she gladly did so, clambering back atop his shoulder.
They continued walking down the hall as if nothing had even happened.

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Gotta get out. Gotta get out. Gotta get out. Gotta get out. Gotta get out.
Just a few, simple little words. That’s all it would take.
Would it be worth it? Maybe, to get out? Gotta get out. Gotta get out!

Ryan shook his head again, shoving away the constant, drudging fear of the walls suddenly collapsing inwards.
“We’ll find a crack, eventually.” Pinkie’s determination seemed to have returned in full, which was a good thing. Ryan refused to break, refused to shatter beneath his fear. Had to take care of Pinkie, had to get out.
“… Yeah. ‘Course we will. I’m gonna get us both outta here.”
“Of course you will.” Pinkie nodded, although she sounded a little sarcastic. Especially considering the fact that Ryan had no idea as to how to even locate one of the ‘cracks’.
“Yeah, ‘course I will.” He agreed with her. “I’m fuckin’ Superman.”

They almost didn’t notice when the large metal man sauntered off down another of the seemingly endless corridors, leading to a dead end with an elevator. Beside the grated elevator, a strangely carved hole in the wall spiraled outward. The metal man made directly for the elevator, the little girl still atop his shoulder.

Ryan felt a sense of empathy for the drill-wielding brute. The way he’d gallantly fought off… well, demolished would be a more accurate word, the disturbingly spider-esque entity had been much welcomed. His only regret was that he was too busy panicking to actually use the damned crowbar he’d grabbed. However, the lumbering behemoth had pulled a ‘Superman’ before Ryan even had the chance, and he highly respected that kind of dedication toward protecting a small child.

Even as they walked, Ryan could see a bit of a small connection between the large metallic man and the small girl. Her happy laughing as he bobbed and weaved across the floor, the careful way he guided her as her tiny hands clung to his one large digit when she walked. It was like watching a father and child, as gritty and grim as the situation might be. He felt his heart swell a bit as he watched them, listening to her absent babbling as the metal man approached the elevator.
Ryan had been expecting the drill-bearer to open the grated elevator, or something to that effect. Instead, he slowly pulled the little girl from his shoulder with a little hug, and set her on the floor.

The Spark immediately flared upwards.
Ryan was beginning to compare the Spark to a kind of Spider-Sense, in some ways. Then again, Ryan had never much liked Spiderman. Wary that yet another of what he assumed were dubbed ‘Splicers’ were coming again, he whirled on the spot, pulling the crowbar out and brandishing it in front of him.
There was nothing behind him.

He sighed in relief, glancing down at Pinkie Pie.
The usually bubbly mare, however, wore an utmost look of fear on her face. She slowly began backing away, eyes widening.
In confusion, Ryan followed her line of sight.
“No – no, please no! Daddy! Daddy, no!”

Those words.
Only a couple of words. How could he have guessed that only a couple of words could have such an impact, to instantly drag back so many memories?
Many memories. Dark, horrible memories.

Ryan never forgave himself for freezing up.
Maybe if he had been better prepared, maybe if he hadn’t been so pathetically caught up in himself; maybe if he hadn’t been so weak, then maybe he could have changed things for the better.
But he doubted it.

With one nauseating, violent motion, the drill-bearing hulk indicated that he badly wanted the peculiar alien slug/symbiote the child had been dutifully carrying inside her body.
It was messy.
Ryan hated messy.

He wasn’t quite sure of what point he lost control.
Ryan did, however, remember the feel of the cold crowbar in his hands. He remembered the all too eager Spark, so readily rising at his will and pumping delightedly into his arm, flowing with a hateful green glow into the metal bar.
He remembered seeing some red, and a lot of screaming.
Ryan remembered the sickening sounds of bone finally shattering beneath the blows, one after another, each one punctuated with a profane scream of denial.

“NEVER AGAIN! NEVER-AGAIN, YOU-SICK-SONUVA-BITCH, NEVER-AGAIN!”
“Stop – Ryan, please stop.”

It was Pinkie Pie’s whispered, mortified and teary voice that finally dragged him from his mindless brutality.
He felt as if his mind itself were bleeding; aching, burning – more importantly, desperate for more of the Spark. The way it warmed his arm as he allowed it entry into his palm, the eerily glowing lime tip of the bloodied crowbar; it didn’t matter if he couldn’t feel anything other than blind anger, anything aside from the simultaneous need for more Spark. He barely registered that the pounding headache from using the familiar Spark was almost blinding him.
“Please. Ryan, stop.”

He eventually dropped the crowbar, letting it clatter to the ground.
His breath was labored and heavy, and sweat poured from his body as he released the comfortable glow of the Spark. The moment he did so, it was as if a sudden clarity had been granted, like clearing his nasal passages. He grimaced in disgust at the bodies before him, remorse plain on his face.
“… I’m sorry you had to see that, kid.” Ryan breathed shakily, wiping his hands on his filthy pants. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been crying.

Then again, he hadn’t really noticed that Pinkie was, either.
“… Fluttershy was wrong.” She cringed away from him as he stepped toward her, and he froze. “You… you aren’t an animal.”
His silence only prompted her to speak again, and he really wished she hadn’t.
“You’re a monster.”

That had hurt.

Bzzzzzt. “I think it’s high time you stepped into my office, young man.”

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Ryan flinched when he heard the buzzer, bloodshot eyes flickering to the small vented box beside the grated elevator as the voice drifted out to him. It sounded like a man twice his age, but he couldn’t really tell. Regardless, when the elevator doors loudly creaked open to allow them passage, he cautiously took his place inside.

“… You comin’, kid.” A statement more than a question, but Pinkie obliged. The entire rattling, shaky ride through the elevator, Pinkie Pie refused to look at him, or even so much as speak.

“… It had ta’ be done.” Ryan glowered ahead at the grate, watching walls sink beneath them as they rose. Pinkie still wouldn’t answer, and it bothered him.
“I had to do it. I-I had to do it. He started it, you saw. You saw what he did, I had to do it.” He repeated himself defensively, crossing his arms.
“… Don’t look at me like that.” He scowled, glancing away as Pinkie stared miserably at him. “I had to do it. How many other kids like that d’you think he’s killed? How many more if I hadn’ta stopped ‘im? I had – I had to do it, Pink. I had to.”

“What did you mean, ‘never again’?” Pinkie inquired softly, eyes settling heavily the door.
Ryan pursed his lips together so tightly that they began to turn white.

The metal grating of the elevator slid open noisily, and Ryan silently drew forward. The lighting up in this particular area was much better, and more evenly spaced. Gone was the filth and refuse, the graffiti and cracked paint; although much smaller, the entire area was well kempt and clean.
Limping gradually, Ryan passed a sheet glass window, leading to a single doorway. Beyond the window, Ryan saw the only welcome sight in this dingy hellhole.

“Good evening. My name is Andrew Ryan. Enter, would you kindly?”

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“Scotch? Whiskey? Bourbon? Wine?” the middle aged man offered nonchalantly, continuing his game of golf on the floor with a shot glass. He putted another ball directly into it with ease, and began to line up another shot.

“What is this place?” Ryan asked the question had been on his mind since he found himself in the undersea city.
“I believe the more important question-“ Putt. Clink! “-is what isn’t this place.” Andrew Ryan spoke with a clear, even voice, completely ignoring the fact that the floor beneath him rumbled dangerously every now and then. “This is my city, the fruit of my labor, the salvation of those burdened by society. This… is Rapture.”

Ryan glared at the mustached man, crossing his arms as he leaned against the finely smoothed wooden office desk. Pinkie sat quietly in a chair next to it, silently observing.

“Sit, would you kindly?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Andrew chortled, sinking another putt with grace. “So firm in your dictation, so adamant – so many displays of what a man should be, and yet so evidently riddled with flaws.”
The flooring rumbled again, and the chandelier above quivered dangerously.
“And yet… and yet-“ Andrew continued, never looking up “-you retain the capacity for power. I can see it, in your eyes.”

Ryan instinctively glanced away, even though Andrew hadn’t even looked at him.
“I can see it, in your posture, in your attitude, in the blood on your hands.”
“Fuck you. You don’t know nothin’.” He growled venomously, fists tightening.

“You know, boy, there was a time when I ruled the world. And in the end, isn’t that what everybody wants?” Andrew flicked the penultimate ball into the large shotglass without watching, twirling the bent putting club and snagging it by the end. He presented the handle to Ryan, his face blank.
“Isn’t that what they want.” He repeated slowly, the words falling like honey from his lips. “Everybody wants to rule the world.”

Ryan was almost expecting the bizarre buzzing of the Spark to come back, but perhaps it simply wasn’t effective when he was exhausted.
“And what about you, boy?” Andrew slowly tilted his head, still offering the club. “Do you mean to tell me that you would gladly continue to labor beneath the chains of society, instead of taking control for yourself for once?” His deep eyes glanced toward the club again. “You could rule, you know. You could be a king. What do you say, boy? Wouldn’t you like to take a swing?”

Perhaps it was meant to be metaphorical, or something. Ryan never really was much good with metaphors; too much like riddles.
Ryan’s good hand slowly slid atop the edge of the putter…

And he pushed it away.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” Ryan reiterated, his brows furrowing dangerously. “Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

And for reasons that Ryan could not ascertain, the man before him was positively beaming.

“Crack!”
“Yeah, Pink, he’s gotta be on it, if he thinks-!”
Pinkie facehoofed.
“No, Ryan, crack!” she yelled, jabbing a hoof at the glass window. Ryan couldn’t see anything, but he decided to trust her judgment on it. There was simply no way that anything could be that convenient.

As quickly as she could, she grabbed his injured left hand and pulled him toward the glass-
And promptly jumped through it.

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“… Am I dead yet?” Ryan groaned, too tired to pick himself up off the ground.
Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, was completely rejuvenated.
“Whee! We did it, we did it, we did it!” she cheered, bouncing energetically around him, the horrors of previous worlds already long forgotten.

“Fan-fuckin’-tastic.” Ryan whimpered, the blazing pain in his head settling to a dull roar. It looked like it was still daylight – and, as Pinkie led him down the street of Ponyville, he could still see Twilight and the others sitting at their small outside table. Almost like he’d never been gone.
As if nothing had even happened.

“Psst! Rye-pie!” Pinkie whispered as they drew closer. “I think we should keep our not-very-funventure under wraps ‘till later.”
Ryan nodded grimly, enthusiastic to forget everything he’d seen. Now would be a good time for that ‘8-Bits’ to show up again so that he could drink himself into a stupor. There were a lot of things that he’d like to forget.
He wouldn’t, of course.

“There you are. Only a few minutes, my flank.” Lyra giggled as Ryan slowly sank into the wooden chair, shaking hands reaching out for the coffee mug.
It was still warm.

It took them a moment to take in the bloodshot eyes, the ragged and ripped clothes, the sunken, horrified features on his face.
“Er… Ryan?” Twilight asked softly, reaching a hoof out. His hand yanked backwards automatically, and the coffee cup clanked loudly against the wooden table. “A-are you… all right?”

“… I have seen some shit, kid. I have seen some shit.”

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“I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Discord glowered at Time Turner as he dropped the disguise of the long-deceased Andrew Ryan, the illusion drifting apart to reveal the draconequus.
“Oh, poo.” Discord grunted, crossing his mismatched arms as the TARDIS shimmered into focus. The tan earth pony in the doorway sighed heavily, shaking his head at Discord’s frown.

“I told you it was a stupid idea,” the Doctor said blandly, throwing the second door to the TARDIS open for his odd companion, as he had done for such a long time. It was difficult enough tracking down Pinkie Pie’s wild energy signature, let alone introducing chaos to the mix. Discord quickly joined him within, and the double doors closed shut with the whirr of the time machine when Turner clapped his hooves together.

“You’re just incapable of seeing my brilliance, is all.” Discord pouted, floating haphazardly into the air. “It’ll happen, eventually. One way or another; there really is no way to speed the process.”
“Bah.” The pony tinkered with the controls as the grinding machine vanished from the face of the planet. “I’d rather not take chances.”
“We could cover all of our bases, with one tiny-“
“No, Discord.” The Doctor replied firmly for what felt like the millionth time. “No direct interference – you know what happened the last time.”

“And I’m telling you, that was a fluke.” The draconequus scowled again, settling down to the floor. “One little aneurism is all it would take. Those humans you love so much are awfully fragile.”

Time Turner shot Discord a filthy glare.
“No. Direct. Interference.”
“Takes. Too. Long.” Discord grinned, antagonizing the pony.

The Doctor ignored his companion, turning his attention instead to his machine. No, everything would play out, just as they had planned. It had to, for the sake of the future. For the sake of Equestria.
For the sake of everyone.

Ryan Miller had to die.

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Author's Notes:

You'd better hold on to your frilly pink socks, because we're going a HELL of a lot darker than this.