Author's Notes:

Readers, I would like to apologize for the abrasive tone I had left in my author's notes from the previous chapter in the event that it had came out strong enough to hit too close to home; to give the subject matter a proper form of consideration, I had to spend many bits of time on it and each result every step of the way came up the same: suffice to say, I now know and understand that this a vicious cycle I had found myself to say the least.

Nevertheless, this chapter will be considered a nice change of pace from the sudden fire and flames from before it and I mean no exaggeration whatsoever: as stated in the title, this one will be taking place at nighttime rather than daytime which will serve to help set up a contrast and by far a pattern as well; I can assure you that there will be a rise of more tender feelings permeating throughout save for the last part although mind you.

Anyways, here is the disclaimer before you head on out and read it: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic belongs to Lauren Faust; Parasite Eve belongs to Hideaki Sena; this story and the character Adam belongs to us, Dark Colt Sabata and yours truly, Fireflower.

The skies over the lands were now painted with clusters of stars as night had fallen, guarded by a silver crescent as they all shone the way. It was the only aspect of beauty that, against all odds remained untouched by the series of unfortunate events that had ensued below them. Of course, only a few left below would be considering the sightseeing with a mixture of sorrow and sympathy unbecoming nevertheless.

Out of the many, Pinkie found herself sitting upon the porch of the farm as she looked upon the sky, with a teardrop falls from the corner of her eye. Despite the straight face that remained upon the mare’s muzzle, her snorts pierced the atmosphere in between intervals as the oxygen went inside her nostrils. Wearily, she outstretched a right hand towards the sky and obscured the crescent moon of Luna above her in an attempt to obtain what was perhaps reachable to say the very least.

“What are you doing awake at this hour…?” A stray voice was heard from behind Pinkie; it had belonged to Applejack who wore a glazed set of eyes spread far apart from the eyebrows.

Turning around, the pink pony faced the orange one and provided an answer a bit slowly, “oh hey, Applejack… I was just thinking about the past…”

“Couldn’t sleep a bit, Ah say…?” Applejack sighed as she rested her knees onto the floorboard, “ah would not have blamed you at all; this invasion has taken a lot out of us: everyday spent is a constant reminder of how we had been reduced to nothing.”

“Not even the night provides me any comfort: I still have these nightmare about what I had done ever since then; even worse, I don’t know what to think about myself now…” Pinkie sniffled as she looked upon the makeshift halter top upon the body.

Edging forward, the orange pony took a small breath in and said, “it’s nothing to be ashamed of at all; to be honest, Ah always tried to keep myself from crying every time mah services are called for: heck, you should be counting yourself lucky that you didn’t get to see me apologize one time ago.”

“What do you mean by that…?” Pinkie exclaimed suddenly, “it should be me that has everything to apologize for, not you silly…”

“Don’t be too sure about it, sugarcube; if anyone’s gonna be saying sorry around these parts, then it should be that bastard Dainn here…” Applejack snarled softly before striking a fist down onto the wood.

The pink pony watched the orange one cringed slightly from the sudden impact and said softly, “are you okay, Applejack? You should at least take it easy a bit; the floor never did anything to you.”

“Sugarcube, Ah am not mad at the floor here; nonetheless, Ah am mad...” Applejack answered Pinkie, “Ah am mad at that king for turning our lives into Tartarus, Ah am mad at Discord for betraying us, Ah am mad at people like Rarity and Twilight for giving up on us, Ah am mad at mahself for not being strong enough, Ah am mad at–––”

A flood of tears now escaped from the orange mare’s eyes as the floorboard below it absorbed them in an instant. The pink pony watched as they were being wiped away by a wayward hand while being soaked in the process no less. The silent voice from Applejack’s wail was quiet enough to not awaken the very premises but Pinkie was the only one nearby to hear it all go down.

“Don’t cry; I have a feeling that tomorrow will be even better than yesterday, let alone today…” the pink pony whispered as she helped clear away the orange one’s line of sight slowly and gently.

Applejack looked up to Pinkie’s visage slowly and stuttered a bit, “how can it all be better tomorrow when it will be just the same pattern over and over again like from before, sugarcube?”

“Remember that I used to be a red collar before and today I’m not anymore…” the pink pony chirped, “oh hey that even rhymes; I should try another one: now that I gotten to black, my senses are starting to come back…!”

“Glad to hear that, Pinkie…” the orange pony now sighed softly as a small smile formed across the way.

Pinkie slowly turned her gaze back onto the crystalline nighttime sky with Applejack joining in as well; before long the former spoke, “it’s kind of funny… whenever I had looked at the moon, I had always remembered how my mother had told me about why Princess Luna resided in there for so long and what made Princess Celestia move the moon the same way she moves the sun. We had all thought to ourselves how it would be a brand new age with the celebration of how the two sisters reconciled and made up to one another; now, it seems that this new year had came all I remember now is how we did it: we watched the land fall, we watched her become nothing, I even snapped in the process. It’s amazing that we are finding something that’s trying to hold it all together after what had happened with Equestria; the least we can do is put it back in place like a jigsaw puzzle.”

“Ah see what ya mean, sugarcube…” the orange mare replied as she sat onto the porch alongside the pink one carefully, “and from the looks of it, we need to do it soon; Ah just can’t go on and let apart of mahself die another day with the likes of him running the show as it were some pulpy vapid dross straight out of Big Mac’s magazines…”

“Got a point there… which is why I need you to come with me tomorrow,” Pinkie responded as the stars in the sky shone across her blue eyes brightly.

Applejack did nothing but only stared at her and said, “how come?”

“I saw who started the Canterlot incident; I gotten a chance to talk to him and he said to go to the Castle of the Two Sisters if I wanted answers and Equestria’s freedom…” the pink pony had answered calmly while now focusing on the light of the silvery moon above, “he seemed to have been making sense of the whole thing but I wanted to make sure.”

“Who are you talking about…?” the orange mare asked once more with a feeling of confusion.

Pinkie had slightly laughed to herself and said to Applejack slowly, “that dog, he calls himself Adam; I don’t know why but I think with names that we have been given since birth, it doesn’t seem a bit too strange if I do say so myself.”

“Ah don’t get where you are going with this, Pinkie…” the orange mare replied to the pink one as they took their eyes off of the sky, “one minute, you’re talking of what had happened long ago and now it’s about names…”

“Sorry about that; I guess this is the first time I get to engage in a conversation with you that isn’t centered about sex, especially about a purple collar…” Pinkie giggled a bit as Applejack looked on.

The orange mare started to look away from the pink one and said, “yeah, if you could even call it so like that; Ah just can’t believe that it would be now of all times for this, no strings attached…”

“Who would have thought of it being just like old times?” Pinkie sighed as she now watched Applejack standing up on both hooves and turn away, “where are you going, Applejack…?”

“To bed, sugarcube; whatever this Adam fella is planning over there, we better be needing our strength for tomorrow…” the orange mare yawned as she walked away from the pink one slowly.

Pinkie then rose up from the porch where she had sat and followed after Applejack while saying, “when you’re right, you’re right: nothing derails a good day like being a bunch of sleepyheads after staying up all night long; I just want to find a way to put an end to the nightmares already…”

“You and me both, Pinkie; Ah just hope Ah don’t get forced to ‘get someone off’ anytime soon…” the orange mare continued on as the wood creaked beneath them with each step of the way, “this constant rutting and sucking is already taking a toll on mah very body and Ah have just about reached mah limit.”

“Mine’s too; see ya in the morning…” the pink pony sputtered off before reaching her cot; afterwards, she found a nearby blanket and pulled it onto herself.

Applejack stopped in her tracks short of the doorframe and turned to face Pinkie steadily, saying, “same here…”

“Applejack, before I go heading off into sleep, there is something that I want to say to you now…” the pink pony said to the orange one while residing onto the very cot below and under the cover, “I’m sorry for what had happened back at the Sugarcube Corner long ago; you didn’t deserve any of it…”

“Don’t worry about it, Pinkie…” Applejack replied somberly as Pinkie in front soon started shut away the light blue eyes very slowly, “Ah have already gotten past that memory of what Ah had seen; it’s not yer fault at all: what they did to all of us, what they did to our neighbors, and what they did to this land. Dainn is gonna pay for all of his crimes one way or another, Ah tell ya what.”

“Yeah… he will pay alright…” the pink pony snored while snuggling within the cot; soon, the room fell silent once again leaving the orange one to stare with a sad look in the making.

Meanwhile, a large caribou had then bursted open the doors to the throne room in anger, recently giving off a rather large amount of steam from the nostrils in the process to accompany the booming footsteps. The heat that he had given off all throughout the way was by far nothing compared to the thousands of males who had been burning alive earlier today; nevertheless, he had calmed down a bit within a few moments. The persistent thought of females daring to escape whom the caribou had deemed their superior taunted him; there were indeed some poor attempts from of the rebellion to overthrow his rule but this was unlike anything he had seen.

Reaching the throne in front he sat down; at first, he was thinking of sending the guards to find and recapture those worthless mares but it still baffles him: this business concerning a strange individual setting stallions on fire without any liquids whatsoever made it a challenge. To add further more to this bout of misfortune, there was so far no other male who survived the fateful event in question to get the information of the one responsible for all this and neither was any female deemed worthless left from that place either ready, willing, and able. Speaking of which, it was already clear that the caribou was not alone except for his own thoughts: the company of two alicorns in their state of dishabille bound and gagged on each side were proof enough to say the very least; whatever differences they had were irrelevant.

The thought of having lost that many in attendance would mean that plans to recapture them would be challenging suffice to say; it would leave his guard nearly defenseless, open for a direct attack. The caribou sighed and looked at the stained glass that told of his rise to power with a stern gaze, a cluster of mosaic fragments serving as a constant reminder of his superiority thereof. Within his harden eyes, a clash of clans was taking place and he could see it all at once no less: memories of time long ago and of recently were struggling to gain momentum over one another.

Soon, a nearby sound had then snapped the caribou back out into reality; in the process, he had turned to find the source of it all: a guardpony in silver armor with a spear pointing upward kneeling, “Your Majesty, forgive me for bursting in unannounced…”

“Fair enough, but I must warn you: your next action will determine whether or not you stay the same; you may now rise…” the king said as he look at the knight with a glare, “what do you wish to inform me of?”

“Well, the good news is that the situation in Ponyville has been maintained as always: we had managed to regain control of some of the few stray mares that had fled from Canterlot; as of now, interrogations are currently taking place as we speak, sire…” the guardpony answered the caribou slowly with a free hand contorted into a salute.

The king’s brows furrowed a bit as he looked at knight very intently before asking once more, “and what is the bad news…?”

“So far, the squadron hasn’t been able to identify the ringleader of this attack; doctors are attempting to perform autopsy in finding the cause of their commander’s death right now…” the guardpony replied to the caribou calmly, “The remaining three on the other hand have survived with only a few serious injuries; what should be done from here, Your Majesty…?”

“Tell the others on your command that today’s attack is a declaration of war against the King, one in which they will definitely have: once those fools are dealt with, there will be absolutely nothing that will be able to defy us male or this rule ever again; plus, the spoils that will be reaped is gonna be glorious,” the king had stated onward.

The guardpony swallowed a lump in his throat and saluted again with a shout, “YES SIR!”

“You do already understand by now that any sign of weakness or cowardice thereof will be grounds for conversion; do I make myself clear at all…?” the caribou firmly asked, earning a fervent nod from the observer, “good, consider yourself dismissed for now; I rather you best hope that the next time we meet will be on rather pleasant circumstances…”

“Thanks, sire; consider it done…!” the knight said loudly before leaving the very room all at once; now, it had seemed that the king was now alone once again, just as he was much earlier ago. Suffice to say, this day’s course of events were now permeating more than before albeit in a smaller fraction in intensity; the caribou’s snorting was indeed all that could be said about it. Whatever was going on would prove to be a mystery as he watched the skies in the horizon intently, past the stained glass windows with only a glare within his very eyes notwithstanding.