Surprisingly my slumber wasn’t plagued with nightmares as I was expecting. The previous day was needless to say a bit overwhelming to me, and more than just “a lot to take in all at once.” My eyes upon opening revealed a set of pink hooves wrapped around me. I was pulled up nice and snug against a soft mare behind me.

Pinkie Pie or rather Pinkamena? I couldn’t truly tell which she was anymore. There was no doubt in my mind that she was both of these characters, but it was hard to tell where one started and the other stopped; the line between the two was very blurred, almost frightening really.

She looked far less harmful while she slept. The long pink mane on her head wrapped around her in many thick strands, which somehow seemed to suit her. Looking at her as I did at that moment I couldn’t see either of the two characters that I knew her to be. I couldn’t see the random spontaneous attitude of Pinkie Pie, or the cynical serious demeanor of Pinkamena; the mare just looked silent and innocent. I was fairly amazed at how different she appeared in her sleep, though I shouldn’t have been surprised, as I had experienced a similar phenomenon with Rainbow Dash. During the day she would look tired, haggard and stressed, but when you did catch her in those brief moments enjoying her dreams that weren’t corrupted by her many nightmares, she looked peaceful, relaxed, and dare I say, beautiful.

Pinkie and Dash however had little in common beyond that and their ability to slay their foes with precision accuracy. It was obvious where Dash picked up her skill, but the scary part was thinking about where Pinkie got hers’.

Pinkie awoke with a delicate yawn, and adjusted her eyes and head position so that she could get a better look at me. She appeared calm and quiet, this was still Pinkamena.

“Good morning, Flare; did you sleep alright?” She asked kindly.

I nodded.

“That’s good to hear, how about some breakfast?” She asked.

“What do we have to eat around a place like this?” I asked sort of fearfully.

Pinkamena pulled herself out of the bed and wandered over to the kitchen area where she pulled out a rather disgusting looking meat from what appeared to be an old refrigerator. The meat must have been at least three days old, but looked edible enough if it was cooked.

“This is all we have; I can cook it for you if you want.” She offered.

I nodded again. I had meat before since I arrived, and I guess I wasn’t above eating it again if it was all that was being offered.

She ignited a flame over an old stove near the fridge and threw the meat into a pan as she began to roast it. It gave off an odd odor, clearly from its age; she would have to cook it fairly long to have it done thoroughly with its condition.

I approached her cautiously and stood next to her as she cooked. We both stood in silence, never making eye contact or speaking, just standing with each other. It carried on that way until she had finished cooking the vile meat to the best of her ability. She threw the chunks onto two makeshift plates and placed them both on the table using her levitation.

We both took a seat on either side and began our meal, perhaps the only meal we would have throughout the entire day.

The first bite I took I gagged. It never occurred to me to ask Pinkamena where she acquired this meat before now, or how long it had been in her possession, or even what it was from. I noticed she had little to no trouble chowing down on the disgusting thing.

“Pinkamena…” I started hesitantly.

I almost didn’t want to ask her.

“What kind of meat is this anyways…?” I was nearly trembling at the thought.

She paused her chewing and swallowed what was in her mouth whole before looking up to me slowly. Her expression looked plain and ordinary.

“It’s pony.” She let out easily.

I couldn’t contain myself any further, I felt my throat push forward, and out came a stream of vomit all over the floor; tears welling up in my eyes as I tried to hold back more vomit, but with little luck. All the contents of my stomach were emptied on that floor.

How can she say that so nonchalantly!?

“Excuse me!?” I exclaimed. I almost wanted her to tell me she was joking.

“You heard me.” She said taking another bite.

This wasn’t happening; I didn’t want to believe it was happening.

“You’re telling me, that you just hacked up some poor soul, threw his meat onto a frying pan, cooked him up and now you’re eating him!?” I was panicking.

“More or less.” She shrugged.

“And you don’t see anything wrong with that?” I asked.

“Do you want me to give the bullshit answer; the answer that’s expected of me because of moral value and social correctness? Or do you want the truth? Because the truth is, there is nothing wrong with it in the slightest, just morally. It may not exactly be good for your health, but it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be.” She explained.

“YOU’RE EATING YOUR OWN KIND!” I accused.

“Yes, however you’re only looking at it from what you’d know from that sky city, and the old kingdom. In the ruins survival becomes the biggest priority, those who are willing to do anything to survive get to live, and that includes eating. I’m alive because I am willing to make that next step to live. I am willing to eat those who aren’t willing to eat me, thus I am alive and they are not. You won’t last long out here if you just stick to the morally correct way of doing things.” She justified.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Surely though there is more food out there than this!?”

“Of course, but it’s scarce. I refuse to skip several meals just because I want to nitpick on what I’m willing to eat and what I’m not. If we don’t eat them, they’re going to eat us; I thought you would have learned that from when we first met.” She continued with her meal.

She had a point sadly. Those savages had no remorse about making me into their next snack; on top of that Pinkamena had been surviving out here for nearly a decade before I came, clearly she knew what she was doing, and what it took to live out here.

“You’ll get used to it, you won’t even notice after a while.” She assured.

Begrudgingly I took another bite of the slab of cannibalism. It tasted awful on the tongue, but worse on my mind. I wanted to spit it out, but kept chewing, enough for me to swallow it and keep it down. My whole stomach was disagreeing with my choice, but I forced more down slowly and surely.

“There you go.” She smiled, but no emotion seemed to show through that smile.

I managed to devour the entire chunk of meat without upchucking it, but to keep it down I drank my weight in water. Pinkamena just finished it off like it was a bowl of cereal in the morning.

My throat screamed at me; commanding me to hurl the flesh out of my body, but I held back. I couldn’t believe what I was doing.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it after a while.” Pinkamena came to my side and placed a hoof on my neck.

Through coughs and gags I tried to response. “I don’t know… How you can say that…” I managed to get out.

“You have to pull yourself together, we have something to talk about here, it’s rather important.” She changed the subject.

I nodded and tried to catch my breath.

Pinkamena sat back at her spot at the table and looked across towards me plainly. We both sat there with solid eye contact, neither of us saying a word. The silence was finally broken by a question on her end.

“Aren’t you wondering why we’re here? What’s going on perhaps?” She asked.

“I was a little hesitant to ask…” I admitted.

She nodded. “I suppose that’s understandable…”

“Well, I can honestly say that I am doing sort of a service to Equestria here, well at least I will be soon…” She smiled.

“No offense Pinkamena, but what kind of service could you possibly be providing from a place like this…?” I didn’t realize how rude it sounded until the words left my mouth.

Her face became stern and serious; it almost made me regret my statement.

“I know that it may look bad from your end, and I won’t deny that there is evil in what I do, but it is for a greater cause, I assure you this.” Pinkamena replied.

“Explain.” I requested.

“Well, you already saw all the ponies locked up in the other room, they are a key part of this experiment so to speak.” She began.

“And how is that?” I asked curiously.

“I’m getting to that, just have patience.” She winked.

I nodded and sat silent while I waited for her to explain her story.

“See, you may have heard of a plague being spread, well many in the Canterlot region die of the plague. It’s a fast acting disease that will kill a pony within six months of catching it. Nopony is sure how one catches it, or how to treat it. As a result, many die on a regular basis, and little advances are made, due to limited resources in medical science.” She explained.

“So, what does the plague have to do with what’s going on out there?” I asked raising a brow.

“Well, they are going to help cure the plague.” She smiled deviously.

“How can a group of captive savages do anything to cure an incurable disease?” I questioned.

“Well, I discovered some time ago that everypony has a little chemical inside their body that I like to call ‘The Essence of Life’, and that it’s a special chemical used by the body which possesses healing properties. This is more than likely the chemical that helps the body repair itself when damaged, and maybe even the chemical that makes life itself possible.” She explained.

“So you believe this chemical can be used to create medicine that would be effective on the plague?” I put two and two together.

“Bingo, but there’s only one problem.” She said.

There is always something.

“And that would be…?” I was hesitant in asking.

“Extraction; the only way to obtain this chemical is from living ponies, and the only way to get it out of them is to kill them.” She sighed.

“So, killing them to save lives…?” I tried to put together the illogical argument.

“Well, these ponies are already savages, beasts that can never be phased back into society. They chose to resort to barbarianism many years ago, and have no usefulness to Canterlot. They’re going to be wiped out eventually anyways, so why not make use of them. Travelers like you and me are just going to blow their heads off whenever they try and make a meal out of us anyways.” She justified.

She had a point, though I wouldn’t call it a solid one.

“If you want nothing to do with this operation, I’ll understand.” She spoke softly.

“Rainbow Dash knows nothing about this does she…?” I asked.

She shook her head.

I looked down at the ground in thought for a moment. Pinkamena was hacking up ponies… To save lives? Peering back up at her, I could see she had anguish in her expression; she was afraid I would reject her.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

A smile lit up her face almost instantly.

“Well, I invented a machine that can extract the chemical from their bodies. The process is rather gruesome though I warn you…” She said.

“I’ll do it.” I assured.

“Alright, well we’re going to need a lot of ponies. Then we have to remove their entrails quickly and put them into the machine while they’re still fresh. We must be quick to get the essence out of them, or it’ll corrode at an incredibly fast rate. The machine will them grind up the organs and separate the chemical from the guts. We’ll need at least one hundred ponies for this next serum I’m making…” She explained.

It sounded absolutely disgusting.

“Alright, where do we begin?” I asked.

“Let’s get to moving the cattle to the operation room, shall we?” She smiled as she trotted out the door.

On her way out she purposely flicked her tail in my face in a flirtatious manner. Perhaps that was her way of making light of the situation.

The “moving” process was interesting to say the least. Pinkamena would first inject her victim of choice with some kind of numbing agent; this apparently was to create no resistance from them, thus making transportation to the operation room quick and painless on our part.

The chosen colt wasn’t exactly compliant with our wishes; naturally he decided to kick up some rebellion.

“DON’T TOUCH ME YOU STUPID BITCH! GET AWAY FROM ME!” He screeched at Pinkamena.

She retaliated with a swift slap to his face. Just as quickly as contact was made, she injected the needle into his neck only a fraction of a second later.

“We’ll have to be quick, this numbing agent only lasts for a few minutes, so that gives us just enough time to take him to the back room and strap him down. Help me get him up onto the moving cart.” She instructed.

Unlocking his chains, we quickly hoisted him up and onto a large metal cart.

“Kid, you have to help me. This girl is crazy; you’re not going to let her cut me up are you?” He was almost in tears as he begged me for help.

“Don’t feel sorry for him Flare, I originally found this one raping a young filly, isn’t that right?” Pinkamena gave a sneer look at the colt.

“If you want to spare him though, you can…” Pinkamena sighed.

I looked the colt up and down, then back at Pinkamena. For some reason, I trusted her judgment, despite how crazy it seemed to be right now. This colt meant nothing to Equestria, and I was willing to convince myself that. He was just a worthless rapist savage with no direction. I couldn’t believe I was willing to justify killing like this; perhaps my time in the Equestrian ruins changed my morals and values, or maybe it was Pinkie.

“No need. He won’t be missed…” I managed to utter out.

Pinkamena smiled happily and continued to roll the cart towards the ominous back room that nopony in this factory besides her has ever come out of.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE WHO DESERVES TO LIVE OR DIE!?” The colt screamed as we hauled him in.

Upon entering the room, I noticed the floor was stained with dry blood on top of more dry blood. The stench was high, but I somehow was able to overcome it. In the center of the room was a rather large cylinder like machine. Many pipes were attached to it, and it appeared to have some kind of chute on one side.

Pinkamena strapped the colt down with thick, tight leather belts. Then, using her levitation pulled a reel of duct tape from under the table he was strapped to. Pulling a strip off, she placed it over the colt’s eyes.

“The pain will be unbearable as it is, less we horrify him in his final moments as well.” She explained.

“You’re sick ponies… Both of you…” The colt whimpered.

Pinkamena leaned over him and stroked his blue mane gently. A look of regret appeared on her, and she stood there in silence over the broken colt. It almost looked like she was trying to comfort him.

“Be still… Do you want to die only thinking of regret?” She attempted to soothe.

He responded with crying.

“We must work quickly, Flare. Get your knife and help me here.” She instructed as she gestured to a nearby counter top.

I did as told. As the two of stood over the helpless victim, we both lowered our knives to his stomach area. This was it, we were about to disembowel this pony. My heart was racing back and forth, I almost couldn’t breathe. Part of me didn’t think I was going to be able to go through with it; I was already thinking of ways to back down and not do it.

Ultimately though, I didn’t think my way out quick enough; when Pinkamena’s knife touched the flesh, mine followed almost in perfect sync. With a swift cut, we created an opening in the chest cavity for extraction. I remember the screaming of the victim piercing my ears, the plain look on Pinkamena’s face, but mostly, the sight of the guts.

Pinkamena scooped up as many as she could and gave a quick and powerful jerk, ripping them from their host’s body and into her possession. My mind was blank, I was blocking out everything that was happening, every last bit of it. Brain dead, I followed Pinkamena’s example and pulled the parts she missed out, and carried them as she did.

The two of us dropped the organs into the chute for the machine in the middle of the room. It started whirring wildly as I heard gears start up their vicious cycle. Grinding noises came and I could hear the organs being mulched. Pinkamena out of excitement ran to the other side of the machine and beckoned me over to watch. I followed, and found her staring at a small glass canister on the other side of the machine. A few drops of a clear liquid dripped into the canister.

“This is what it’s all about, Flare. This is the essence I was talking about.” She smiled heartily.

I could now see what she was talking about with needing to kill a lot of ponies. There couldn’t have been more than two drops extracted from that colt.

The rest of the day continued on that way, just us bringing more and more ponies into the back room, robbing them of their guts and grinding it up to take out a drop or two of essence. Pinkamena in the spirit of not being wasteful would from time to time slice off a slab of meat or two for food later and throw them into the refrigerator.

It had finally happened; I was complete desensitized to the horrors of Equestria now. I was willing to slice ponies open to get two drops of a liquid with unknown qualities. The strangest part though, was that I didn’t mind it.

There was only one shower in the entire building, and that was back in the living quarters where we slept and ate. Pinkamena insisted on just rinsing off together, which I complied to; I wanted to rinse the blood off of myself as quickly as I could.

Pinkamena levitated a bar of soap over to my backside while I was turned away from her and pressed it against me. I could feel her approach me carefully.

“You missed a spot; don’t worry though I got it.” She spoke very softly.

Pinkie Pie was very predictable in the sense you could always assume she would go from one random thing to the next, and always stay peppy about it. Pinkamena though, she was far more spontaneous than Pinkie Pie in a way. Pinkamena would seem cold and emotionless at one point, but then delicate and loving at the next. It was impossible to predict her.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I said plainly.

She seemed troubled by something it seemed. Leaning towards me she whispered into my ear softly.

“Say Flare… I was just thinking about something…” She whispered.

“What would that be?” I asked.

She responded with a quick push, and pressed me against the wall of the large walk in shower. Holding me there with terrible force she brought her face close to mine. She was quick, probably as quick as Dash was.

“You’ve never known the touch of a mare before have you…?” She asked just as quietly as before.

I said nothing.

“You seem to show nothing towards anypony I noticed, even me. You clearly show that you trust me, but somehow you remain detached from me. Perhaps you’re interested in prettier mares?” She interrogated.

“You’re plenty beautiful.” I said plainly.

It was the truth too, Pinkamena was an attractive mare, even with that scar on her forehead, she was still something impressive to gaze upon.

“Yet I can see it in your eyes, that you have no desires…” She smiled deviously.

I said nothing yet again.

“You’re looking for love, not satisfaction.” She concluded.

I honestly had no clue what I was looking for at this point. Romance wasn’t exactly on my agenda at this point.

“You’re very interesting Flare… I don’t think I’ve ever met a pony quite like you before.” She complimented.

Leaning in slowly she pressed her lips against mine. Her lips were soft and tender, which wasn’t what I was expecting. For some reason I would have guessed her for a colder and dry kiss, but that might just be because of her demeanor.

I didn’t know how I should have been reacting, but I ended up just doing the first thing that came to mind. Simply closing my eyes and not resisting, not out of enjoyment, merely out of respect more or less. I followed along with her lead for the brief few moments that she held me there, trying to keep up with her.

When she pulled her lips away, she opened her eyes slowly, as did I. Making solid eye contact she began to speak.

“You’re a pretty good kisser.” She teased.

“Thanks.” Was all I could think to respond with.

“What was all that for…?” I questioned.

She shrugged. “I’m not sure really. I mean it’s pretty obvious you have no feelings for me, and I can already tell I don’t have any for you. I guess I’m just curious is all.” She smiled.

“I’m sorry…” I apologized.

She placed her hoof to my lips and smiled.
yZtNSBUEXZhZSNU3ZfAwSfZw/edit?hl=en_US

“Don’t be. I can see it in your eyes. Right now, your love is your passion to help Equestria, and I respect that.” She said.

“I’m glad you’re here Flare, I’ve been really depressed for a long time…” She admitted.

I leaned in more intently, trying to listen better.

“I’m not sure why, but for some reason I just can’t seem to find anything that eases my depression. I’m just wandering from one thing to the next, without any kind of aim in life…” She admitted.

“You need a hero.” I interrupted.

“What?” She raised a brow.

“I spent a lot of my life in Skyvale just purposeless. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with myself, or what I was good at. I thought that I was the most useless pony in the city for the longest time. It wasn’t until I came down here that I found something.” I said.

“And what might that be…?” She asked curiously.

“Rainbow Dash. When I saw her, I wanted to be just like her, I wanted to help Equestria in any way I could. I looked up to her, and I still do…” I spoke.

“Everypony needs a hero Pinkamena…” I added.

She sighed and nodded.

“I suppose they do.” She smiled.