The metallic screams of the beast behind us seemed to follow our group through the dead and wasted trees of the orchard. Applejack had her younger sister on her back, Applebloom had a look on her face like she wanted to scream, her eyes were wide and haunted, and the occasional tear of fright slipped down her cheeks. She had seen the massive thing that had emerged from the forest, but worse than that I fear that she saw what I had seen, a flawless and perfectly shaped white jaw distended horribly, a maw of sharp, needle-like teeth, and a curling rose-red tongue that moved like a serpent. The image of Rarity fighting the thing off was burned into my mind, I glanced down at Scootaloo, her eyes had the same haunted look as Applebloom’s but her brow was creased in concentration, she was pushing the memory away til she had time to deal with it. Celestia was right, she was a strong one.

“Applejack, how far?” I called up to my friend, she her face set in a determined mask.

“Not long now Twilight,” she called back before turning to her sister, “Ya’ll be ok sugarcube, don’t you worry none,” she whispered, Applebloom nodded softly.

Our thoughts were interrupted by a harsh laugh that echoed over us from the sky; it was dark and carried a sort of contemptuous loathing that tainted the familiar voice it belonged to. I didn’t say her name, I couldn’t. I knew what it would do to the fillies to see her like she had been in the castle. Torn and mangled, hate burning in her eyes, surgical staples and dirty suture’s holding her ruined coat together; I didn’t want to think about her, not like that, she had been my friend. Then I remembered that to a certain filly, she had been a great deal more…

“R-rainbow?” Scootaloo skidded to a halt and threw her gaze up, searching for the familiar streak of cyan crossing the sky.

“No, Scootaloo, it’s not… It isn’t…” I stuttered, trying to find a way to explain to the little filly what that thing was, “It isn’t Dash, it’s something else… something bad.”

Scootaloo looked at me with wide and tear-filled eyes, “But that’s her voice, I’ve heard it a thousand times, I heard her…”

“That’s right kid, it’s me, c’mon Twilight, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud,” my friends’ familiar voice came from the tree above us, Applejack had stopped, she was covering her sisters eyes I reached out to cover Scootaloo’s but…

“RAINB-…. ow…” Scootaloo whirled around to face her hero with a broad smile on her face, one that died slowly as she took in the wraith what hovered above, “…dash?”

She was just as I remembered, her cyan coat streaked with grime, mud and unhealed scars held clumsily together by filthy sutures and rusty staples that the most hack backwoods sawbones wouldn’t use. Her eyes were limned with a fevered light and heavily bloodshot, and her mane hung in tatters. I didn’t feel fear, or disgust, or even revulsion at the sight, it was nothing like the first time I saw her in that dark and nighted castle, instead I felt sorrow.

“Hello Dash,” I said softly, stepping between her and Scootaloo.

Dash grimaced at my greeting and lowered herself down before comporting herself, “Hmph, what’s wrong, miss me Twilight? What about you lover?” she directed her last remark, the last word dripping with bile, to Applejack.

“Shut up you, ah ain’t… you ain’t… jus’ shut up,” Applejack hissed in a deadly low voice.

She grinned at Applejacks reaction, “And you about you kid? Didja miss me?” she said, looking down to where I was keeping Scootaloo tucked behind me protectively.

Scootaloo didn’t respond, she just stared between my legs at the thing that was pretending to be Rainbow Dash. I couldn’t even imagine what was happening in her child’s mind, she was young, too young for this by half.

The ash was falling more heavily now, it was becoming hard to breath, the heat was rising as well, it felt like it was sweltering, made several times worse by the fact that we had all just recently been exposed to biting cold.

“Scootaloo, that isn’t really Dash, I promise, it’s…” I tried to find the words to explain without delving into the metaphysics of what we were looking at. Scootaloo filled it in for me.

“It’s something bad,” she whispered.

I let out a soft sigh of relief, she had loved Rainbow Dash, worshipped her almost, she knew what Rainbow Dash was and wasn’t and she knew when she was looking at a cheap facsimile rather than the real thing. Celestia had been right on the bits, Scootaloo was the one to take up the Element of Loyalty, any doubts I might’ve had disappeared as she scowled at the thing wasn’t Rainbow Dash and backed away.

It glared viciously, I could feel the hate in its gaze but there was something else, I remember thinking at the time, ‘Is it afraid?’

“You… all of you…” it hissed, I could hear a horrible sucking sound, coming from inside her body, joints popped with a foul liquid noise, the staples and sutures which seemed to tie her skin together tore violently out of her flesh as she grow, or rather straightened, gaining an extra foot in stature. I could see the wet muscle beneath the ragged flaps of skin that seemed more plastered than anything to the monstrous thing before us. I could barely look at her, my mind was rejecting the thing in front of me, it followed no laws of motion or creation, and I forcibly raised my gaze up, slowly but surely taking the thing’s image in.

The legs were wretched, long and spindly and looking as if they required another joint to move properly, her jaw was gone entirely, the sutures that had kept it affixed having popped to allow long serrated fangs to jut from the roof of her mouth. She moved on the tips of her ruined hooves with a sickening kind of grace as bits of ragged flesh and tendon hung from her body, her figure was gaunt and skeletal. The flesh seemed to be barely remaining, no force I could think of was keeping her from falling apart, it was solely the, and I hesitate to use the word but it seems only fitting, blasphemous power of this place was maintaining her… it.

It let out a low hiss that carried a dull kind of scream, Applebloom and Scootaloo screamed with it, and despite their high, shrill voices I felt like I could barely hear them over the deathly rattle that thing was issuing.

“GO APPLEJACK! TAKE THE GIRLS!” I yelled as I released a harrowing flurry of tiny kinetic bolts that shot unerringly into the monster, pushing it back with each impact but leaving her, apparently, undamaged. Applejack snatched up Scootaloo by her tail and took off, as the horror screamed grievously, ruined wings spread out at twice the normal wingspan of a pegasus, they were as torn as the rest of her body, vital muscle hung from gangrenous bone and the whole mess was plastered with rotting feathers, despite all the apparent damage they lifted her impossibly into the air.

“NO. YOU. DON’T” I screamed, summoning a well of kinetic energy above her, suddenly I felt as I were standing at a precipice overlooking a great ocean, I was teetering, a manic fear filled me, the fear of falling, I was too close, too close to the edge, if I went any further I would fall. The creature hiss-roared as the kinetic barrage dropped it to the ground but the impact shattered my concentration and I was sent reeling back to reality, or at least the relatively speaking.

The restraints gone and her shattered bones mending of their own accord the horror lifted up and soared after the Applejack and the girls, screaming through a mutilated throat.

I lifted myself, mentally pushing the raging headache and other hundred bruises and hurts I’d taken over the day to the side, I galloped after them… Applejack couldn’t fend that thing off and watch over both the girls, she was only one pony. I heard to high pitched screams and a dull thump ahead, I pumped my legs harder, trying to pry more speed out of my exhausted body. Applejack had her back to a tree, both the girls were cowering beneath her and she was shaking as the thing towered over her.

“Why Applejack?” It’s voice was a razor on old leather, “why do you keep hurting me?” Applejack was transfixed, it’s voice was in her head, it was doing something to her, getting into her mind, “Why do you hurt me? I THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME?!” I could feel the psychic trauma radiating out of the horror, she was attacking Applejack’s mind.

“Ah….ah’m sorry Dashie… ah didn’t…” Applejack shook the influence for a moment, “no... no… you aint her… SHUT UP!” She screamed, the two girls bolted at her yell provoking another hunting cry from the horror as it bounded after Applebloom. Applejack took it in its exposed ribs with a charge, slamming it into a tree, the sharp angles of the creatures bones cut her face up, the creature screamed in delight as it twisted impossibly around and dug it’s horrible nest of fangs into Applejacks back repeatedly, blood splattered the ash and the tree’s as I leapt at the thing, I put everything into it, riding my kinetic burst on my own momentum as I charged, I felt the speed hit critical velocity then I impacted.

I blacked out for nearly five minutes, I had hit her squarely, I know I did, but my shield was nowhere near powerful to protect me from the back-blow of impacting a solid creature at that kind of speed. My mind swam as I came back to consciousness, I blinked rain out of my eyes, or at least was I thought was rain, I was laying at the base of a tree and something was dripping on me, I looked up and… organs and viscera hung raggedly from the upper half of the horror’s body, it’s blank stare gazed out over the dying trees, I was laying of something hard and wet, I looked down and saw where her lower half had gone, I had passed out on her ruined flank after my impact had separated her front form her back. She had likely died, or whatever it was those things do, instantly, I could see her rotting her face which had once been covered in albeit rancid flash was a skull picked clean, I was covered in black coagulated blood from that killing blow I’d inflicted. As sickening as it is I couldn’t help letting the scientific part of my mind start calculating the force I’d struck with, enough to powder bone on impact at least. I was surprised my skull was still intact.

“APPLEJACK!” the name tore out of my throat and I pulled myself up, too quickly apparently as a wave of vertigo rolled over me, throwing me back to the ground. I pulled myself up again, slowly this time and glanced around I heard hoofsteps behind me and I whirled, the migraine returning as I summoned more magic into my horn.

“T-twilight?” Scootaloo asked softly, Applebloom was shaking behind her.

“Oh… thank Celestia you two are ok… I’m sorry… I must look awful, Applebloom where’s your sister?” I directed the last to the little filly behind Scootaloo.

“Ah… ah don’ know, Twilight… I can’t find her,” she said softly, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes, she was scared, terrified, as if she would be anything else, but she was hardy like her sister, she was holding herself together admirably.

“Well, we’ll find her in no ti-” the words died in my mouth as I turned and saw the ground where I’d last seen Applejack laying, it was smeared with far too much blood, and there were streaks like something heavy, pony-heavy, had been dragged away into the forest. I felt my heart break softly and choked back the scream of anguish that was building in my throat, I had two little fillies to take care of, Applejack came out here to rescue her little sister, I couldn’t go after her, no matter how much I needed to, I kept telling myself that as I gathered the pieces of my mind back together and turned back to the girls, dry-eyed and poker-faced.

“She’s probably out looking for the both of you since you went running, I’ll bet she figured you’d run for the farmhouse, let’s go see if we can catch her up there ok?” I lied softly to them, I felt like there was a hole where all of my organs should be, my stomach ached, my heart ached, and my eyes burned for keeping all the tears I needed to shed back for the sake of the girls.