Author's Notes:

Slightly early post because I'm going on vacation for a week, due to that I might also miss my post next Saturday but hopefully not. I would like to finish this entire story without missing a week.

Anyway's hopefully you all enjoy this, because it's taking a hard turn into dark territory again. Before the comments ask, I'll answer: Yes, the events in this are due to the time dilation between the Entity's Realm and Reality.

I explain everything I saw, everything Sunset said to me while I was astral-projected. I don’t hold anything back for the sake of propriety or softening the blow, we can’t afford that kind of luxury right now. I see the pain I’m causing and I hate it, but right now we’ve quite literally got bigger problems to worry about than how it’s making everyone else feel.

“...then she catapulted me out of her ‘bloodweb’ she called it,” I scowl, thinking back, “no, that’s not quite right, she… she told that thing, the Entity, to take me and throw me out and it… it listened to her.”

“That sounds mighty suspect t’me, Princess,” Applejack drawls, her expression steely even with her eyes still red from earlier tears.

“I can’t help but agree, darling,” Rarity broke in. “If Sunset is being kept captive then why would her jailer give her words any credence?”

“Is it a jail if the prisoner doesn’t wanna leave?”

I turn to look at Rainbow, whose expression is darker than the rest. I consider her statement carefully. That thing takes captives and drains them in some kind of vampiric ritual. Sunset had suggested a kind of ‘Trial’ where they were pursued by the Entity’s creations, some kind of creature called a ‘Killer’. Pretty straightforward. The Killer acts as a proxy, like a high priest or a herald, and the captives have to survive. The struggle is a crucial part of the ritual then.

So what happens when the captive has stopped struggling?

“Ugh, we don’t know enough about this thing!” I say, scowling down at the ground. We’re all standing around one of the lampposts on the sidewalk in front of the school. “It’s not just some mindless monster! It’s got a purpose, a plan, and a complex set of rules it follows even if they… don’t… make… sense.”

I trail off and stare into the distance as I consider an option that hadn’t occurred to me until now. The girls and two school officials stare at me as I think over the repercussions. This could go badly, but… I needed to know. The rules this thing followed didn’t make sense to me true but…

What’s the fun in making sense?

“Follow me, ladies,” is all I say as I suddenly turn on my heel and sprint towards the Canterlot Wondercolts statue. “I’ve got to make a call.”

“A-are you going back to Equestria?” Fluttershy asks, worry evident in her voice as she catches up to me surprisingly quickly. “W-we need you!”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassure her as we stop in front of the statue. “I’m going to see if a friend of mine will pop over here.”

Holding out the hand with the Arcanum still lashed onto it, I direct a pulse of magic into the portal. I kind of distress signal designed to be detected by a very specific being and allow it to respond. I wait for several moments, begrudging every single second that passes, knowing it means far more to Sunset than it does here.

“Come on…” I whisper under my breath. “Come on you old snake, where are you…”

I send another pulse, then another.

Finally, I get a response. Not the response I want, though. It’s like a mental version of a raspberry being blown in my ear and I go from frustrated to furious.

“Fine!” I yell at the portal, startling the girls. “You want to do it like this!? We’ll do it the HARD WAY!”

Arching my fingers I reach deep into my own well of magic, supplementing the Arcanum, then cast my fingers down and the cement beneath me cracks in a faintly unwholesome shape.

“I invoke thee!” I cry out, and the air around me crackles and bends. The taste of bile builds up in my mouth and the girls, along with Luna and Celestia take an involuntary step back. “By five names of power, I command thee! By the elder sign, I compel thee!”

A wave of brackish energy ripples lazily out of me and suffuses the air with the taste of spoiled milk and ozone. I flinch at the unpleasant feeling but continue, if he’s going to waste my time and endanger my friend he’s going to get a wake-up call.

“Five names, five points to the elder sign, the binding sign!” The symbol beneath me is suffused with an azure light and the taste in the air begins to dissipate, replaced with a clean but bitter taste of salt water. “I name thee: Soul of Disharmony! Haunter in the Dark! Faceless God and Crawling Chaos!”

“DISCOR-!”

“Alright, alright!” a sarcastic voice from directly behind me shocks me out of my ritual and I let out an undignified yelp as I stagger forward towards the portal. A hand shoots out and grabs me by the collar as I stumble, helping me right myself.

The blue light fades as I whip around, the rest of the girls blink and stare at the older man standing in the middle of us all. He’s tall, too tall, almost stretched out and wearing a patchwork suit of riotous colors and drab browns intermixed in the most unpleasant way. His skin is a deep, tawny brown contrasted by his wild, curly hair, and matching goatee, both have a wiry look and a salt-and-pepper color.

Familiar mismatched eyes stare down at me, his right eye is too wide, and glows faintly red around the jaundiced sclera. The other is normal sized but much more intense for its focus.

“An elder invocation? Really?” Discord grin is a little strained. “I thought we were friends, dear heart, but that was not unlike taking a chainsaw to my front door and setting my kitchen on fire.”

I let out a sigh, and nod. “And I’m sorry, really I am, Discord, but I need you to understand that I do not have time right now, alright? Sunset was taken and, wherever she is, experiences a massive time dilation effect. Half a day here is potentially weeks over there.”

Discord frowns. “I see, and why should I help you if this is how you’re going to treat me, hm? Not very friendly of you, is it?”

“Please,” we both turn to look at Rainbow who approaches Discord from the side, teary-eyed. “I… I don’t know who you are, but please. We… I… I fucked up really bad, I got Sunset into this.” Rainbow reaches out and grabs Discord by the arm, she’s shaking and, to my surprise, Discord doesn’t pull away.

“Please, we… I want her back,” Rainbow pleads, “if you can do anything, please. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

For a moment he stares down at her impassively, his eyes glittering with strange light and colour as he seems to consider her plea. Finally, he moves.

Wrapping his arms around Rainbow he lifts her into a powerful two armed hug and lets out a bright guffaw of laughter. “Well of course I will! I just wanted to be asked nicely, that’s all! You said the magic word so I’m at your service!”

I scowl. Of course that was what he wanted. He didn’t want a deal or an apology. He wanted a please. Of course. The other stuff would’ve made sense and after all… wheres the fun in that?

Dropping a shell-shocked Rainbow the ground, Discord steps back in such a way as to suddenly be in view of everyone. It was like a teleport but there was no magic, instead space just bent around him for a moment. Discord makes an exaggerated courtly bow.

“I am called many things, but the Ponies know me as Discord, God of Chaos and Spirit of Disharmony, now reformed, how may I be of service?” He glances up, fixes an eye on Celestia, and gives her a lascivious wink.

I scowl at Discord and try not to think too hard about the blush on this world’s Celestia’s face. “Can we please focus, a little? Every second, every minute, is an order of magnitude more dangerous for Sunset!”

Discord’s face falls almost comically and he shrugs. “Well, fine, if you insist, what exactly can I do for you oh mighty and powerful Princess of Friendship?”

I sag in relief, if anyone can help get Sunset out of this horror-show of a mess, it’s Discord. As difficult as he is to deal with, he’s also basically omnipotent. If he could focus long enough to have any kind of coherent goal it’d be terrifying.

Then again, if he could do that he wouldn’t really be Discord anymore.

“Over here,” I say and walk over to the front of the school and up the steps to where I’d performed my projection ritual. “This, right here? This stain is a crack in reality, I’m sure you can feel it.”

Sauntering over with his exaggerated, long-legged gait, Discord follows and looks down. Immediately I see his face fall into something… unreadable, and he stoops over to get a closer look. He’s staring at it and, for once, both of his mismatched eyes are sharply focused on the stain. That’s not good... if it was an easy fix he would have just mocked me and made Sunset appear with a snap of his fingers. The fact that he’s taking time means…

“Well, this is a problem, I’m afraid,” Discord says finally as he straightens out. “That is not something I’m capable of manipulating.”

I feel my heart fall, and I see the girl’s faces fall with it. “W-what? But you’re the God of Chaos! You can do anything that’s literally the point of your power!”

Discord shakes his head sadly. “I’m afraid not, my dear, or rather, I’m afraid it’s not that simple. If that thing comes out here, then I can affect it just fine, but each of us writhing souls of chaos and entropy have our own little realms. Little marbles of pseudo-reality that hang in the cosmic web. It’s our stomping grounds, we can’t run amok with each other there, it’s an equalizer, you see?”

I sag in defeat. I do see. If a fallback or failsafe like that weren’t in place our universe would probably be nothing but an endless battleground for mad gods in an endless slap-fight for the fate of eternity.

“There’s nothing you can do?” I ask, begging, pleading with him to try.

He lets out a slow breath and crosses his arms in a thoughtful pose. “Well, I can’t manipulate him, but he still has to play by his own rules. Unfortunately, that means beating him at his own game.”

Applejack steps up from between the girls and fits her stetson firmly on her head. “Alright, ya’ll gonna clue us in on how’ta do that?”

“Oh Applejack, I always do love your quaint, sledgehammer approach to matters,” Discord says with a relaxed smirk. “But before anything, we have to know how we’re going to get to him. We can’t just headbutt our way in, cowgirl. We have to follow its playbook, at least for the most part. I’m not utterly powerless. As you said, I’m the God of Chaos! Where’s the point in that if I can’t at least bend the rules a little?”

“I guess that depends on which rules you’re bending, darling,” Rarity says in a grim voice as she steps past Applejack and comes around to stare up at Discord. “What are you planning to do that Princess Twilight hasn’t already done?”

Discord stares down at her with a grim grin full of mismatched teeth. “You’re sharp, good, you’ll need that, or at least, one of you will.”

I don’t like the sound of that at all. “What are you talking about? Why would you say that?” I come around to Rarity side and stare up at him. “Why would one of us need that?”

“Because,” Discord says with a tight smile, “I am going to keep his door cracked open long enough to let one of you, and only one, into his realm. Once you’re there, it’s on you to find your way out, but I can only cheat my dear, dear cousin here so far,” he gestures at the stained pavement. “I can’t move all of you in, only one.”

“That’s unacceptable!” I glare up Discord, even knowing it’s childish. “I won’t let you condemn anyone here to a fate worse than death. You didn’t see that thing, you didn’t see what it did to Sunset!”

“And would you prefer to leave her there alone, or go to her?” Discord counters, not loudly or sternly or even angrily. He just… says it. “I’m neither judging nor pushing, my dear, I’m asking you: what is Sunset worth? Is she worth potentially throwing a life into the hellish furnace of my cousin’s infinite hunger on the outside chance of rescuing the latest cut of meat he’s selected for himself? Will you risk it?”

“In an instant.”

I clench my eyes closed. Damn it Rainbow.

Rainbow Dash is standing behind Discord staring up at him defiantly. “If Twilight won’t risk any of us then I’ll go myself. Right here, right now. I’m not going to go on with anything until I have a shot at making this right.”

Discord spins on his heel and smiles down at her, clapping his hands together jovially. “Of course I’m certain you know what that means, right?”

“Uh, it means going into that weird horror-movie place, right?” Rainbow says, and the parking lot resounds with the sound of my palm hitting my face.

“No, Rainbow,” I start, then amend myself. “Okay, yes, but that’s not what Discord is talking about. The whole point is that the Entity isn’t coming for you.”

I stare at Rainbow for a few seconds as the rusty hamster wheel starts resolutely turning in her skull. Then it clicks and her face falls. “I… I have to follow someone else in? Someone that the Entity is going after?”

“Yahtzee,” Discord exclaims, snapping his finger, and suddenly a television set is sitting in front of him, an assortment of chairs crowded around it. “Now, let’s see who my dear cousin’s next meal ticket is… he might go after them himself as he did with poor Sunny, or, more likely, he’ll send one of his little errand runners to fetch them.”

“Killers,” I say, “by ‘errand runners’ you mean the Killers that Sunset mentioned, right?”

Discord slumps onto a creaky plastic chair and nods, pulling a remote out of one of the patch pockets of his vest. “Yes, that’s… a crude but accurate term. He’ll be pursuing someone who has lapsed into despair, that’s his usual M.O. if I recall… so…”

He flicks the channel button multiple times, but the t.v. resolutely stays on static, and Discord scowls. “Now, the problem is waiting for the right person, that’s the rub when it comes to meeting criteria, sometimes you have to wait for mister right-about-to-die and that can take a bit.”

“How are you detecting him?” I ask, settling in the chair nearest Discord as the rest of the girls, along with Celestia and Luna take their own seats. “Can I help?”

“I’m just channel surfing for local trauma, my dear,” Discord says blithely.

I nod, then snap my own fingers. “What if you look for rifts? Cracks like that one?” I point to the front entrance of CHS. “Maybe it’s scanning around, it probably knows where to look better than you, so why don’t we just follow its nose rather than ours?”

Discord stares at me for a few moments before grinning widely. “Marvelous idea, my dear! I daresay you have the makings of a halfway decent chaos witch in you if you ever put that enormous and painfully rigid mind to work at it.”

“I’ll try and take that as a compliment,” I groan.

“Let’s see… twist this, move that… a~nd…” Discord snaps his fingers and the t.v. reorients on… a farmhouse.

The seat to my left clatters loudly to the floor as Applejack stands bolt upright, all of us stare with a cold weight in our gut as the image we’re seeing. We all know it, even I’ve been there once. At least on this side of the mirror.

Sweet Apple Acres.

“W-what the… why?” Applejack stammers out, staring at an image of her own homestead. “Why in tarnation is the Entity staring at mah house?!”

“I’m not sure,” Discord says grimly, to my surprise his tone has shifted to a far more serious one. “I don’t detect any real despair or trauma there, at least nothing recent, certainly nothing that would draw the Entity’s interest or hunger. It’s a normal home, by all accounts, and it should be practically invisible to my dear cousin.”

“Then why!?” Applejack begs, turning with tears streaming down her face to look at Discord. “Why is he after mah family!?”

Letting out a slow breath, Discord frowns and meets Applejack’s eyes. “Because, my dear, I suspect I’m not the only one bending rules, right now…”

That’s when I feel something inside my bag start to jerk, buzz, and snap.

“Ugh, ah knew ah shouldn’ta let Sweetie and Scoots keep me late,” Applebloom grumbles as she hefts a bucket of slop towards the pig pen. “Maybe they get’ta go ta bed whene’er they care but ah got chores’ta do.”

It was dark already, the Crusaders had posted a new set of gossip and spent the rest of the night talking. Sweetie was getting uneasy about the whole Anon-A-Miss business, even Applebloom and Scootaloo were starting to agree, despite the fact that it had been Applebloom’s idea in the first place. That part was making Applebloom feel doubly bad about the whole business.

“Ah wonder what all that fuss was about after school?” Applebloom mutters as she slopped the pigs and ran an arm over her sweaty brow. “Why’d they have us leave out th’back?”

Turning back to the farmhouse, Applebloom’s eyes widen. Rolling in towards her like a tidal wave, over the driveway and fields, covering the orchards and sweeping over the house like a thick grey blanket, is a colossal bank of fog. It moves like a living thing, with purpose and… hatred. Feeling her heart clench in her chest, Applebloom knew two things beyond a shadow of a doubt…

One; that the fog was not empty.

And two… “Whatever’s in there hates me…” she says out loud. “It… it hates me!”

Turning on her heel, she ran towards the barn. Her heart thudded deafeningly in her chest. A stink of copper overwhelms her as the fog closes in, snapping at her heels like a hungry wolf. Applebloom felt hot tears of absolute panic streak down her cheeks as she made the barn just as the fog swept over her and all sound vanished.

All sound except… singing?

O~ de~ath… O~ dea~th… O~ death…

Feeling a faint tug on the back of her mind, Applebloom’s eyes suddenly become heavy and she sags, staggering into the barn towards the ladder near the horse stables, with a startling snap of lucidity the air around her distorts with twisted, husky laughter. Turning to the barn door as she reaches the ladder, Applebloom sees something begin to emerge from the fog.

A shadow, tall and imperious, burning with a cold, empty fire, cuts through the fog with painful slowness. Applebloom lets out a sob and turns away from the terrible form as it reaches the threshold of the barn. She hears the teeth-rattling sound of blades scraping against the metal reinforced frame like nails on a chalkboard and a flicker of sparks fall from where they meet to outline the figure faintly as Applebloom climbs hand-over-hand up the ladder leading to the attic where her family keeps the hay bales.

Won’t you spare me o~ver ano~ther ye~ar

Heaving breath into her lungs and feeling panic overwhelming her, Applebloom finally puts a hand up over the lip of the entrance to the attic, pulling herself up.

Shunk

Appleboom coughs and a spatter of blood drips out of her mouth. Looking down she sees blade-like claws, shining with glittering crimson droplets and attached to an almost gracefully twisted red hand. Following the arm it's attached to, she sees a figure swathed in fog staring down at her with cold, amused eyes. As it jerks Applebloom cruelly upward, she feels the blades puncture something... It’s like a stone is resting on her chest as the blades that have punched through her pale flesh hook around her slender ribs and lift her up off of the ladder, all the while the song hums away in her ears.

What is this I cannot se~e, with ice-cold ha~nds takin’ ho~ld of me~...

The fog coils around the figure, but Applebloom can feel it smiling, as it holds her out over the hole in the attic floor. Then, there’s a thunderclap and… the monster… the thing in the fog lets its claw go slack and Applebloom scream as she falls from its grip, the blades of her claws slicing painfully over her ribs and flesh on the way out as she falls down from the ladder into…

Darkness.

I watch as the fog rolls in hard, sweeping over everything, and Applejack starts to panic. She’s yelling at Discord, at Twilight, for them to interfere, to do something.

Then I hear thunder emit from the t.v. set, it’s so loud it crackles like a set of bad speakers. Discord sighs and shakes his head. “Too late, someone’s been taken. There’s something is on the hunt, something that’s bending my cousin’s rules.”

“No…” Rarity and Pinkie dive in to catch Applejack as she collapses, the wind going out of her as she wondered who of her family had been the one taken.

Rainbow looked down at Twilight who was staring neither at the t.v. nor at Applejack. She was looking at her bag which was jerking and spitting purple sparks.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on with your bag?” Rainbow asks, walking over to Twilight as she pulls her Journal out. It’s shaking and spitting sparks like a malfunctioning like a piece of broken machinery. “Hey isn’t that…?”

Twilight nods gravely. “It’s what I used to keep in contact with Sunset… Its sister copy is in use but… there’s something wrong. It’s being misused.” Twilight’s eyes widen in horror. “Oh no… if that thing finally got Sunset and has its claws on Equestrian magic… especially a tool that is purpose-built to bridge distances…”

“That would explain how it’s breaking through in spite of not having anything that meets its requirements,” Discord says in a voice that’s little too upbeat. “Fascinating, well, I… oh, it’s happening again. Seems my cousin is planning to gorge himself.”

All eyes turn to Discord as he pulls the remote out again and clicks the channel button again, this time it reorients on a colorful little shop-stroke-flat, on the edge of town.

“No,” Rarity’s voice is a whisper as she sees her Carousel Boutique appear on the screen. “No, the only one home right now is… Sweetie Belle!”

“The Crusaders…” Twilight says with a sharp intake of breath, “it’s going after the Crusaders, specifically! Rainbow, where does Scootaloo live?!”

“Shit! Uh… not far from here! She walks to school, so we can run it!” I reply before turning to Fluttershy. “Flutters, take Rarity and Applejack in the van to Rarity’s place, I’ll run to Scoot’s place!”

“I’m going too,” Twilight stands and moves with me we all start going our separate ways. “Discord, you stay here and make sure whoever gets the opportunity gets through that rift!”

“If’n we can stop Sweetie from gettin’ taken, ah’ll be the one goin’ in,” Applejack says in a deadly tone. “That thing likely took mah sister an’ ah’m aimin’ t’get her back!”

Discord nods, snapping his finger so another t.v. set appears next to the first, this one fixing on Scootaloo’s location.

“Alright, Princess,” I say, as I limber my legs up. Pinkie is already hopping up and down ready to sprint, that girl is always limber somehow. “Hope you didn’t skip leg day this week.”

The night had fallen properly an hour ago and Sweetie stretches, yawning as she crawls into bed. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have stayed up that long talking to Scootaloo and Applebloom, but the talk needed to happen. Sweetie didn’t want to be a part of Anon-A-Miss anymore, the mess had gone on long enough and it was causing too much strife. She was sick and tired of seeing everyone fighting and even though the whole point had been to drive Sunset and their sister’s apart, even Sweetie had gotten a little sick seeing the pain the school was putting Sunset through.

First thing in the morning she resolved to delete the page and apologize to Sunset. What they had done went too far and she didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Scootaloo and Applebloom had argued against it but Sweetie had stood adamant on that point. She offered to leave them out of it but she was going to tell Sunset the truth no matter what.

“It’s the right thing to do…” Sweetie murmurs softly as she curls into her sheets and blankets.

With her eyes growing heavy and the faint spell of sleep creeping quickly over her, Sweetie barely noticed the hint of fog slipping under her door. Then… something shifts and the air around her seems to flex and a deep, throaty laugh echoes through the air, chilling Sweetie through the pall of slumber, followed by a deep humming.

Suddenly, the fog spills into her room with much greater speed, covering the whole of her floor and rising quickly to the lip of her bed. Blinking sleep out of her eyes, Sweetie Belle propped herself up on her pillow by her elbows and stared, wondering for a moment if it was a dream, then she hears the voice… the faint singing from the first floor of the Boutique.

O~ de~ath… O~ dea~th… O~ death…

The fog rises more and more, enveloping her bed and rising well over her head, blinding her to anything but its own grey, billowing opacity. Then… the scratching, like claws dragging and splintering wood, the sound comes from the hallway carried by heavy, thunderous footfalls.

When the Gods are gone and the Devil takes hold…

The door rattles and then the sound of wood cracking and shattering tears through the air. Sweetie Belle screams, diving off of her bed and scrambling under it. Shaking, she clamps a hand over her mouth as the deep, pounding steps stop at her bed.

Who will have me~rcy on you~r so~ul…

A claw, it’s fingers ending in wickedly sharp knives, plunge through the bed, tearing through the mattress, springs, and frame, punch directly through Sweetie’s gut.

Sweetie Belle jerks spasmodically in place as a hand wraps coldly around her spine and the rest of the bed is split in half and she’s lifted from the floor. Her eyes roll, unfocused as she’s carried into the hall like a gory piece of luggage.

O’~ dea~th…

There’s a pounding in her ears that sounds like the clap of thunder, but may just be her labouring heart giving out under the strain of shock. Whatever is carrying her stops at the top of the stairs and heaves, throwing her ruined body down, down, down into the darkness as the sound of tires screaming against asphalt comes from outside.

Sitting outside alone might be boring, but Scootaloo just… didn’t feel tired. The argument between her and Sweetie Belle, with Applebloom not really taking a side beyond not wanting Sweetie to get herself in trouble, left a bad taste in her mouth.

Thump, thump, thump.

Scootaloo glares at the wall of the woodshed she’d been tossing a rubber ball back and forth with for the past half hour since she’d walked home. She got it, she really did. Sweetie made a good point, things were getting out of hand at CHS. Anon-A-Miss is getting out of hand… things are worse now than they were even under Sunset Shimmer’s reign as Queen B of the school.

That fact makes Scootaloo’s gorge rise. She… she’d just wanted to have her big sister back, even though Rainbow wasn’t blood-related she was the closest thing Scootaloo had to a sibling. Being an only child when your parents were always working is lonely and…

Sighing, Scootaloo catches the rubber ball as it rebounds back to her. “Maybe… we did go too far, maybe Sweetie is right. We should talk to Sunset…”

O~ de~ath… O~ dea~th… O~ death…

A low, melodic singing carried itself on the wind towards Scootaloo, who looks up, scanning around in surprise at the sudden sound. Her eyes widen at the sight of a wall of fog almost a dozen feet high rolling towards her from down the street and she scrambles to her feet.

“Hey!” A familiar voice calls out from the other direction. “Hey, Squirt where are ya!?”

Whipping around, Scootaloo calls back, cupping her hands around her mouth. “Rainbow I’m in the backyard! What’s that fog!?”

Rainbow Dash comes around the corner, her whole front stained with sweat as the fog cascaded over the fence swallowing Scootaloo up as rainbow pitches herself headfirst into the fog. Twilight and Pinkie follow around the corner quickly, both gasping for breath as they tried, and barely managed, to keep pace with the athletic girl they’d followed.

Scootaloo covers her mouth with her hands, coughing and choking as the stink of blood and smoke fills the air around her and the faint humming gets closer, it’s such a rich sound but it leaves a feeling of foreboding with each measure, more so that it seems to echo from all around her.

No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no go~ld, nothing satisfies me bu~t you~r so~ul…

“Scootaloo!” Rainbow’s voice echoes from the fog, and Scootaloo turns around, scanning through the unpierceable density of grey that surrounded her.

Then she staggers. Scootaloo may not have been feeling tired before, but now her limbs seem to drag with exhaustion. The feeling grows, like a weight on her eyelids, then like a cord pulled taught it snaps. The weight is gone and the air around her distorts with a terrible, wicked laugh.

“Scootaloo~!” Rainbow's voice is distorted, echoing from where Scootaloo knows the shed is. Spying it, even through the fog somehow, she staggers towards it as the door opens. She makes it just to the entrance before Rainbow’s voice calls out again.

From behind her.

“Scootaloo, don’t move!”

Turning from where she stood, outlined by the door, Scootaloo sees Rainbow approaching from the fog. She opens her mouth to speak, to say something to her idol, her sister, but…

Thunk

Blood seemingly comes from nowhere to splatter onto Rainbow’s face and front. Blinking in confusion, Scootaloo meet’s Rainbow’s suddenly stricken face then looks down. Five blade-tipped claws are sticking out of her chest. A moment later they lift her up, hooking around her ribs and scraping her lungs and heart painfully. Tears spill out of Scootaloo’s eyes as she tries to make words.

To say something… anything.

To apologise for saying the horrible things she said about Rainbow under the guise of Anon-A-Miss. For trying to ruin her friendship with Sunset.

From Rainbow’s point of view, there was… nothing. Scootaloo was standing there one moment, sagging like she was punch drunk, then out of nowhere, five holes tore out of her chest, splattering her face with warm red blood.

But the song… she heard the song.

Well, I am death none can exce~l, I’ll open the do~ors to heaven or he~ll…

For a second, just a blink of a moment, Rainbow sees something. A shape outlined behind Scootaloo’s body that's rising of its own accord. A figure, curved and beautiful. A glimmer of black eyes lit with aquamarine fire. A familiar silhouette.

O’~ de~ath…

Thunder resounds through the air as the figure vanishes into the darkness of the shed, taking the twitching, struggling form of Scootaloo with it. With a cry, calling out Discord’s name, Rainbow Dash sprints at the open door of the shed, diving in just as it shuts with Twilight and Pinking calling out her name. She doesn't care, she can't afford to care, Rainbow has lost too many already and all of her friends are counting on her.

Rainbow falls into the darkness amidst the echoes of a haunting voice.

My name is De~ath and the e~nd is he~re…