Keep it together.

We just have to find her.

Keep it together.

So what if you warned them that this exact situation would arise?

So what if they weren't able to synthesize the magical properties of the sun fruit Zecora had used to help you.

All that mattered right now was finding Sunset and keeping... it... together!

Fluttershy was not keeping it together.

When she'd first snuck through the portal from the ruined and candified Equestria that had been her home, she had been overjoyed. Here was a place untainted by the Candy Curse. Somewhere where the animals still frolicked in the sun and called to one another in the night. So enthralled was Fluttershy by the simple pleasure of once more being in a world with living animals that at first she hardly noticed the changes in her own body.

Gone were her hooves, replaced by hands and feet. Gone was the hard exoskeleton she had developed after eating Queen Chrysalis, though it and her other changeling abilities could still be called forth. Her body still possessed the sickly sweet smell of a candy ghoul, but blissfully she found that her hunger had quieted now that she was out of the presence of the puppets she had been forced to feed on.

Surviving on the sweet flesh of other ghouls for so long, it was astonishing to find that the hunger had left her. She hadn't felt this way since the time she had gorged herself in changeling flesh. There was something about this world. The longer she stayed in it the more her magic faded, but also the more human she became underneath. Sure she still had a craving for horse-flesh from time to time. Fortunately, that wasn't too hard to acquire in this world if you knew the right abattoir to visit.

It had been a pleasant surprise.

But then Fluttershy discovered that she was here as well.

Perhaps because her magic was fading, Fluttershy didn't sense the Candy Mare at first. By the time she had, the damage had been done, and a repeat of the horrors of that unforgettable Nightmare Night in Ponyville played itself out at the high school where the former pegasus had first emerged into this world.

Of course... If Fluttershy had found a way to slip through, so had her tormentor.

Understandably, the pony turned human didn't want this world to suffer the same fate Equestria had. Coming here had been like having a second chance at life. If that candy monster was here, Fluttershy would do everything in her power to stop her.

That's how she had fallen in with the organization that was cleaning up the mess at CHS... And how she met this worlds Twilight Sparkle. She was so different from her worlds Twilight, but in other important ways she was very much the same. It had almost broken Fluttershy's heart when she had first seen her, bringing back a flood of memories that had scarred over in her mind. While she had been living in that twisted parody of her homeland, it was a blessing that she had started to forget the better days...

The kinder days.

Having all of that rush back at once made it easy for her to swear loyalty to this world Twilight, and the Foundation she was currently working for.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, however... That same day was also when she had laid eyes on Sunset Shimmer for the first time. She could sense the curse upon her immediately. It seemed she might have been responsible for putting a temporary stop to the Candy Curse's spread in this world, and perhaps had even put Equestria out of it's misery, but at the cost of becoming infected herself.

Fluttershy would've killed her there and then, to stop all the suffering that was sure to come, were it not for Twilight's intervention. They wanted to save Sunset, she had explained. Magic clearly worked differently in this world than it did in Equestria, and Fluttershy had to admit that seemed to be the case given how much she herself had changed, but this caused Twilight and the organization that she worked with to worry that simply killing Sunset wouldn't stop the curse. It might only free the Candy Mare, and unleash all the horror and pain once again.

So instead, Fluttershy had offered her assistance to the organization. She'd become an operative on the condition she would personally serve as Sunset's jailer, in case she were to be overtaken by the curse before a cure could be found.

A duty that Fluttershy had taken on willingly and that she was now failing.

Why did they have to be in a sewer!? All the fetid organic smells were playing merry hell with her senses. The methane fumes made seeing anything with her insectile eyes nearly impossible as well. All she could really rely on was her hearing, yet even that had failed her in this claustrophobic, echoing place.

Making herself look big and scary wasn't doing anything to tamp down the very real fear welling up inside of her.

It was all going to happen again; The death, the destruction, and the senseless torture.

And she couldn't stop it any more this time than last time.

Fluttershy slammed a frustrated fist into the sewer wall, sending cracks spider-webbing through the already crumbling bricks. Get it together, Fluttershy she thought to herself. They have to get through you to get out of here. Just let them come to you. Sit tight, and keep your cool, and everything will be fine.

"Nightmare Night..." came a sing song voice just on the edge of hearing. Flutterhsy's every sense was suddenly on edge. It couldn't be. Not now!

"What a fright..."

No.

No, no, no, no, no!

Had it finally happened!? Had Sunset fully succumbed!?

From a completely different direction she heard another song song voice answer, "...Give is something sweet to bite..."

Fluttershy flew into action. She tried to follow the voice, but as soon as she thought she had zero'd in on it, it would echo from a different direction. She'd run down one passage only to come to a dead end and hear the giggling song behind her. She'd run down another and hear the voice echoing off into the distance far and away... Much further away than it should have been.

Once, as she splashed to a halt in the center of a flooded cross passage, Fluttershy could've sworn she heard the voice right by her ear.

She turned, all teeth and claws, all Thoughts of subtlety and calm forgotten. That's when she saw her! She was fleeing soundlessly into the shadows! Fluttershy launched herself after her, running on all fours.

With each turn she caught a tantalizing glimpse of orange and red, only for it to slip into the dark again. But she wouldn't escape! Sunset or the Candy Mare, whoever, she wouldn't get away!

Finally the chase ended.

Fluttershy had her cornered at a dead end, a blind wall that had nothing but a grated drain at the bottom of it. Her body language said she was afraid, though her face was still hidden in shadow. She didn't look like the Candy Mare had taken full control, but there was every reason to be cautious, just in case. Fluttershy put on her best, scary voice, "Thought you could trick me with filly songs and echoes, but now you're mine! Why don't you just give up? It'll go easier for you."

Fluttershy tensed. If she was going to attack, it'd be now. She knew all too well that cornered prey tended to bite. Which is why what happened next took her off guard. The girl before her completely relaxed... and stepped forward into the light.

"Why did you let this happen?" asked Rainbow Dash, her eyes gouged out of her head and twin rivulets of blood steadily dropping from the gaping sockets.

"We were your friends," croaked Applejack as she stepped out of the shadows, her exposed muscles glistening on her skinless face, like the ripe flesh of a peeled apple.

"You could have helped us, darling," sighed Rarity heavily, though half her face was missing, and the rest of her body charred beyond recognition. "But instead you ran away."

Fluttershy turned to flee from the apparitions, but stopped as another appeared in her way. "Just like you're running now," bubbled Pinkie Pie sadly, her hair and face melting into the disgusting sewer water as she rose to block her path.

"If only you learned from your mistakes," added a skeletal Twilight as she floated slowly up from the sewer water, eyes glowing darkly as filth dribbled off her long straight hair.

Eyes wild, Fluttershy turned about, but everywhere she looked stood an apparition of a long dead friend. A friend she had let down.

Fluttershy froze.

She closed her eyes.

In a voice that was deadly quiet she whispered, "So you're strong enough that you can do this again, huh?" with only that as a warning she lashed out, claws rending the air and slicing the specters into wisps of fog. In a louder voice she continued, "I remember when you used to torment me like that every night. Showing me visions of my friends suffering, rotting. But you never did manage to break me, Candy Mare."

A peal of childish laughter came from every direction before the fog coalesced into the form of a single entity. The Candy Mare giggled uncontrollably as her eyes rolled in merriment. "Aww, come on! You know I had you going for a minute!" Her voice changed to Rainbow's as she let out a plaintive,"why did you let me die!?" before laughing wildly.

Fluttershy growled softly and raked her claws through the Candy Mare, disturbing her image but otherwise passing through harmlessly.

"Now what did that prove?" asked the ghost disdainfully.

"That you are still just a spirit. Not even that, but a figment of a curse," replied Fluttershy with some measure of triumph in her voice. "Which means you haven't been able to fully take Sunset over yet. There is still time for me to save her, or at least stop her from doing anything else foolish."

"Ooh, clever!" chortled the Candy Mare. "But what makes you so certain Sunset wants you to save her? Besides! Just between us monsters, I don't think you stand a chance. I'm growing stronger by the second. Pretty soon, I won't even need Sunset anymore."

"I'm not falling for your lies," snarled Fluttershy. "I know you need a host to exist, especially in this dimension. A creature of magic like you would just fade away otherwise."

"Perhaps I do," conceded the specter. "But then I have to wonder why you wasted so much time trying to cure Sunset instead of killing her of. Burning her body, or melting her in acid, or freezing her in a block of ice. I'd wither away before too long by that logic."

"Your stubborn is why. Even without a host you managed to come back after a thousand years," the jailer grumbled. "There was no way to prove putting Sunset down would put you out for good."

"Ahh, that's the rub, isn't it! As close as you may have come to being like me, you don't really know how I work. I don't really know how I work!" the Candy Mare's deranged laughter went on for some time. "Figuring out a way to destroy Sunset that would also destroy me would be a task that would take some time and consideration. You'd only have one chance to get it right. In light of that, I suppose that your approach was rather prudent, but I have one more question for you." All merriment drained from the apparitions face. "Why the whole charade? Why the 'Doctor Lemon Drop' disguise? I knew you couldn't really be him."

It was Fluttershy's turn to grin cruelly, "Why, to torment you, of course. I'm sure it was distracting and kept you from focusing on fully taking over Sunset. While I was working with her, I also couldn't afford you finding out who I really was so I needed some kind of disguise. But at the end of the day, maybe I did become a little bit like you. I couldn't pass up a chance at a little revenge of my own. I just wanted to make you suffer the same way you had tortured me. What's the matter? Didn't like a taste of your own medicine?"

Slowly the Candy Mare's grin spread across her face once more. "I'm going to hollow you out like a pumpkin and wear your corpse as my second skin."

"No thanks, we've tried that before, remember?" replied Fluttershy curtly. "If you'll excuse me, I'm done chatting with powerless poltergeists. This has clearly all been a distraction so Sunset and her little friend could slip past me and head for the exit. Clever to get them to stand at different points in the sewers to make it harder to track you down. Not clever enough though, since I know right where they're going. Make no mistake Candy Mare... I'll run down your host and drag her right back to her cell. Then we'll see about taking care of you once and for all."

"Oh, don't run off too quickly Fluttershy," hissed the specter through a monstrous grin, "Sunset might just be closer than you think!"

Fluttershy hadn't heard the scraping of the grate as it had been moved aside. She certainly hadn't headr the teenager as she painfully slowly crept up behind her, disturbing the water as little as possible, as the Candy Mare had laughed her deranged laugh. What Fluttershy did hear, however, was an apologetic Sunset say, "Sorry about this," before the metal grate was brought down with a hard crack on the back of her head, dashing in her skull and sending her spinning off into oblivion.

The monster fell with a splash, unconscious or dead Sunset didn't know.

The Candy Mare gave a little cheer and spun in the air,"Woo-hoo! Nice swing little slugger! You knocked her right out of the park!"

Sunset was breathing hard, not just from the exertion of knocking out Fluttershy, but from having to hold her breath for part of the time she was hidden behind the grate. The adrenaline rush probably wasn't helping matters either, as her heart had been pounding so loudly she was afraid that by itself was going to give her away. One of the bars which she had worked loose to hide in the first place was still clenched tight in her hands. "She could see you."

"Well, yeah," replied the Candy Mare. "Let's not belabor that point. I mean you weren't still entertaining the idea I was just a hallucination, were you?"

"That's not what I mean!" shot back Sunset. "No one was able to see you before but me! If she could see you now, that means you are getting stronger! What are you up to?"

Unsurprisingly, the monster smiled wider. "It's a little late for that revelation. Bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, and here comes the pitch." The loud thwack of metal bouncing off the back of Sunset's skull echoed through the sewer, even as the teen fell to her hands and knees with a splash. "Strike one!"

Sunset could feel the blood trickling down her neck. She almost reached a hand up to the wound, but thought better of it at the last second, which was probably wise considering where her hands had just been. She looked up blurrily just in time to take another blow from the rusted bar to the face, sending her tumbling back into the septic flood.

"Strike two!" the Candy Mare giggled wildly, her face twisting into a demonic grin of pure joy as Sunset gagged on the putrid, filthy water she was bleeding into.

Sunset had enough presence of mind to try and scramble away from her attacker, but froze when she saw who loomed over her. Starlight, eyes wild with fear, adjusted her grip on the metal bar she held with both hands and took a wide stance. The first two blows had been made in a panicked rush. The second had been a glancing blow to try and finish Sunset off. This swing would have all her strength behind it.

Raising the bar high over her head, Starlight brought the bar down with enough force to split a watermelon in half. "Strike three! You're out!"

Scrape... Scrape...

She drifted in and out of consciousness. In the darkness behind her eyes, the only constant was the rhythmic scraping sound. At least, that was until the voices started to fade in and out of her perception.

"This is so disgusting. Are you sure this is necissary?"

"Of course, Starlight. If we are to proceed as planned, then she must be hollowed so as to become a proper recepticle."

"This would be easier if I had more than a rusty spoon to work with."

"Be thankful I guided you to that "rusty spoon". Otherwise the work would have to be done with your fingernails."

"Like that matters... There's still plenty of it getting under my nails! And on my hands! And up my arm to my elbows! I'm going to need a long soak after this..."

"Stay calm Starlight. The work is almost done. Then, together, we will guide this world to the realization of your vision. Perfect equality, perfect peace."

"I suppose it's worth it for that. Though, can we just pop the eyes out? I'm having a hard time cutting through the optic nerves with just this spoon."