I step out of the rift gripping a small bundle in my hand; step one is complete but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. I reach out with the ragged vestiges of my mind to scan my realm. All quiet on the nightmare front, it would seem, good. But I can feel the tension in the air, the storm is about to break and when it does the Fog will roll in carrying Rainbow and the little bitches with it.

Clenching my eyes shut, I try and hedge out the rage. It’s difficult to remain lucid right now, spending that much magic all at once was a tax on my limited reserves. I’ve only got a couple more trips in me, even with the Journal, then I’m toast.

The cabinets will serve as an adequate hiding place for my prize, for now, not even Rainbow Dash is dumb enough to try hiding in those; it’s suicide. I go to the back and tuck it away on one of the little shelves.

“Mi sol?” Tempest looks up at me, but I don’t respond. I can’t afford to, not again, not when the old stain is back to paying attention. “Is it still you?”

I turn and give her my best glassy-eyed Killer stare. I have a lot of practice with that stare considering how much it’s been directed at me. A small, unhinged smile stretches my teeth into view.

“Hey lover…” my voice is a viper’s hiss and I feel a pang as Tempest flinches. I approach and run the blunt, back edge of one of my fingers against her cheek. “What’s wrong?” I lean in, inhaling her scent of engine oil and sweat. A pleasant, musky odor. “Don’t worry, it’ll a~ll be fine, I’m going to bring you some friends, okay?”

She chokes back a sob and I pull back, bringing my hand up to delicately trace the scar on her face from the top of her scalp to the edge of her lip. It was such a beautiful mark, a slash of pale, fibrous flesh against her smooth natural tan. I stare at it, tracing my finger up and down, getting lost in the hypnotising motion.

“AH!” Tempest flinches as my finger digs a little too hard on one pass and a small droplet of red leaks out, sliding down her face.

It snaps me out of my trance and I blink, I’d almost lost it there. It was getting harder and harder not to indulge my obsessions. Logic and focus were becoming more difficult to come by, my impulses are getting the better of me. I might have less time than I thought.

Oh well, one way or the other I’ve got to do it like this, I think, pulling my blade back and licking the ruby stain from my fingers. So many ways this could go wrong. The ritual could fail, time could run short, the other one might not even be reachable…

I watch the little river of red trace tributaries and canals over Tempest’s beautiful face as I give myself time to think. It’s a risk, there’s always a risk. That’s why you do it, though, right, Shimmer? What’s the fun in winning if the odds aren’t stacked against you? Can’t just beat’em, gotta give them the first punch so they know they’re losers.

Leaning in again, I lick the trail of blood from Tempest’s face with the tip of my tongue, savoring the salty-sweet copper taste. Licking my lips, I smile wickedly at my captive audience.

“It’ll all be over soon,” I say softly, caressing her cheek. “They’re coming back.”

The Fog is rolling in… time to fill it with screams.

My shoes slam into the ugly, stained tile floors of the school. I don’t know how long we’ve been gone, only that we went somewhere… somewhere dark. I shiver as I consider the ‘we’. I have no idea if the others were there too, I think they were but… All I felt while I was there was… not alone. Never alone.

If only.

I was alone with that thing. Sunset was right… he did things to me I can’t even think about. Literally, my brain just… can’t even process what happened. It was like getting torn apart over and over. It didn’t hurt but… it was almost worse. Like every time it happened I was losing something I needed. Something vital. Some part of me that made me who I am.

It’s like… standing here in the classroom I feel like I’m not even me anymore. Not all the way.

I shiver. I wonder, how many times did that happen to Sunset? How many times did she get torn apart and put back together with bits missing?

How long did it take before there was so much missing that she became…

I let out a shaky breath and look around.

“Who’re you?”

I blink, for a moment I think I’m hearing things then I spot a figure crouching behind the teacher's desk. Her pink and teal hair is done up in two messy buns, her face is freckled and she has a hunted look in her eyes. I wonder if I’ve got that look now too, or if it’ll just sorta come with time.

I get low and sidle closer to her. “Name’s Rainbow Dash, what’s yours?”

“Sour Sweet,” she answers, eyeing me up and down. “You’re one of the ones and turned Sunny into a monster, huh?”

Ouch, damn that was cold. Not inaccurate, I guess, but still cold.

“Y-yeah, me and the others,” I admit, letting out a sigh. “We fucked up, I know, you don’t have to remind me. It’s pretty much all anyone does anymore.”

Sour just smirks and shrugs. “Being an idiot isn’t a crime,” she says in a sardonic tone completely different from her first one. “But this shit is your fault and everyone else at this fuckin’ school. Here I thought Crystal Prep was bad.”

Wow, low blow. “It’s… it’s complicated.”

The only response I get is a flat stare. Yeah, that excuse sounded pretty weak even to me. “Whatever,” Sour says, shaking her head. “Let’s go, we need to grind out the gens if we’re gonna survive.”

She moves and I follow her on instinct, she seems like she knows what she’s doing. We move carefully through the halls, dodging from classroom to classroom. It’s eerie, I know the halls and… I don’t. I recognize the lockers but it’s in a bad way. I bet I could find mine, but I don’t want to. Everything about this place is twisted and ugly. But Sunset said this was her place, right? I guess… I guess this is what CHS looks like to her now. Can’t really blame her for that.

We sidle into a room and Sour smirks again. “There, see?” She points to a generator, old and scuffed up, but it looks like it might still work. “You have to get them running again, five of them, then the Exits go active, takes a bit to open the exit, but then you can get back to the campfire.”

“Campfire?” I say as we move to the generator and start working on it. “What campfire?”

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “This your first time in here? I thought you’d been hunted here before from how you act.”

I shake my head. “Second time, I got uh…”

“Hooked?” Sour fills in the space and I flinch, giving her all the answer she needed. “But after you got back from the darkness you landed at the campfire, right? Then you got picked up again and brought here.”

I shake my head again. “Nope, I went straight from, uh, here to there, the darkness, and then right back here.”

Sour stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “That’s… that’s fucked. That’s not possible. We always get a rest in between, why the fuck would…” A soft, insistent lullaby rolls through the air like a poison and we both freeze. “Is that…?”

I nod and peel off of the generator immediately, Sour Sweet follow suit a moment later and we run. The song slips through my ears and wraps around my brain. I can feel it clogging up my thoughts, everything gets hazy and I know what’s coming next.

Her laughter bites through all other sounds, deep, throaty, and menacing, and suddenly the world around me is distorted by shadows. I put on a burst of speed at the last minute, and barely feel the air slash behind me as her claws carve through nothing. I smirk, looking back at her, and feel my heart hitch. She’s smiling back at me, barely moving in the seconds before she vanishes again.

“Scatter!” I yell at Sour and she takes a hard left, I keep going straight.

A heartbeat pounds in my ears, only a little drowned out by that constant lullaby as I sprint past hallways and vinyl tiled crossroads. I look for anything, any kind of way out. Any-

It’s gone. I look back over my shoulder again expecting to see her, Sunset, or whatever she is now, flickering in and out of existence with that smile on her face. She’s gone, and both the lullaby and the heartbeat is fading, suddenly and without warning… I’m alone.

A scream echoes through the halls. “Sour!” I stop running and turn back, scrambling on the smooth tile to get back to where we’d parted ways. Did she go after Sour? Why!? I’m the one she wants! Me!

A few halls down I see Sour sprint down a hallway crosswise clutching a ragged, bloody wound. Seconds later Sunset flickers through the hall as well, flexing her bladed fingers as blood dripped from them, she licked a speck of red from the tip of one of the blades as she glanced down the hall, shooting me a sultry, heart-stopping grin filled with sharp, angular teeth, and mouthing the word ‘soon’ to me before turning back to her prey.

She’s gone a second later and seconds after that I hear another scream from Sour Sweet and I cringe. She’s down, but she said we had to turn on generators, right? I sprint back to the generator we were both working on and, breathing hard, I kneel in front of it and start working. I don’t exactly know what goes where but I’ll just have to figure it out. Most of the problems are pretty fuckin’ obvious, really. Stuff just knocked out of place, wires pulled out, unbolted plates.

But… I can’t concentrate. I shake my head trying to clear the haze from my thoughts. Trying to think about how to fix this metal piece of crap is impossible. I can barely keep my eyes focused on the parts and pieces and inevitably it goes wrong. I scream as I trip one of the live wires, shock myself and causing a deafening pop of electricity.

I shake my now extra-crispy hand, grimacing at the sharp pain. “Well, that woke me up…” I say grimly before realising.

That woke me up.

It’s gone, the song, the washed out colors, the hazy thoughts. I’m awake!

I hop back on the generator and start working, my mind finally clear. The work goes quickly once I figure out what I did wrong the first time. It was obvious, a stupid mistake I wouldn’t have made if I had been thinking clearly and, y’know, awake.

“Rainbow?” A small voice calls out softly from the door, I glance around and spot Sweetie Belle, and behind her is a girl I don’t know. Her hair is long and dark purple with a pale teal streak to it.

They both rush over and get on the generator. “Hey, uh, I’m Starlight… Starlight Glimmer,” the girl says a little shyly, she looks worried.

“Rainbow Dash,” I answer, trying to keep my focus on the generator so I don’t make any more mistakes. “Thanks for looking after Sweetie, did you see any other younger girls around her age?”

Starlight shakes her head, but Sweetie pipes up before Star can say anything. “I saw Scootaloo, and she said she saw Applebloom a bit ago too and was gonna go find her.”

“I saw a girl named Sour Sweet earlier, but… she got grabbed,” I admit, grimacing as I try not to think about where she ended up.

Starlight stares at both of us for a moment. “Wait, you mean… just now? Like, not a Trial ago but… today? Tonight? Whatever time it is here? You saw all of them?”

Shooting her a look, I just nod. “Well, yeah, she was working right where you were before Sunset showed up and chased us off, and I figure Sweetie knows her own best friends.” Sweetie Belle nods emphatically.

“That’s… that’s not right,” Starlight insists. “Four people; that’s the rule! Trials are four of us and one of them. The Killers. I’ve only ever seen an extra when the Entity grabs new blood and even that doesn’t happen all that often.”

I count off in my head; the three crusaders, me, Starlight, and Sour… right? Unless someone else got pulled in that made six. “Six people?”

We all stagger at almost the same time. We’d been talking so much we’d missed it. The lullaby. It had crept up on us like the Fog. As the exhaustion closes over my brain I spit out what I’d learned. “Blow a generator! Or something! You can wake yourself up!”

Seconds. We’ve got seconds before she can touch us, All three of us trying to find a spare wire to-

Hahahaha~...

Too late. I feel her blades slice into my back and I scream as she pins me to the generator. Sweetie Belle and Starlight shriek and sprint away from her, but she doesn’t even bother trying to follow. Why would she?

She’s got me.

I try to rise but Sunset twists the blades that are impaled into my back and drives me down against the generator. Her breath is like an open oven as she leans forward until her cheek is pressed against mine, her whole body weight against me.

“Good mo~rning,” she whispers into my ear, I scream again as she twists her blades a little more. “Isn’t that what you dreamed of hearing one day?”

I close my eyes, trying not to listen, trying to push away the tears.

“How many times did you imagine this?” Sunset murmurs, grinding the blades of her fingers against what I’m pretty sure are my ribs. “My body against yours… the early morning fog hanging low on the ground, my breath hot on your neck?”

Her grip tightens and I spit a torrent of blood onto the generator as her voice loses all semblance of softness, turning hard and bitter. “Isn’t it everything you ever dreamed of, Dashie?”

I gasp as she rips her blades from my chest and I slump to the floor, coughing and hacking blood and mucus onto the ground as tears drip from my eyes.

“I shouldn’t be toying with you like this…” Sunset says from somewhere above me, the blood loss is making me woozy but I can hear her pacing around me, I see her boots pass in front of my eyes. “But I can’t seem to stay away from you… it’s like you’ve got a grip on some part of me and I hate it.”

Steeling myself, I try to brace my hands on the floor and lift myself up. I only get a few inches before she kicks my hands out from under me and I drop hard onto the floor. A second later her boot flies in again to connect with my face, the tip crushing my nose and knocking me away.

“Why can’t you just forget about me,” she hisses, her voice raspy and furious. “Why can’t I just forget about you. Why did it have to be you who came through? Why not any of the others?”

“I… wanted to be the one…” I gasp out around cracked teeth and bloody lips. “I had to f-find you… I lo-” I gasp and dry heave as her boot connects with my gut, flipping me over onto my back.

As I’m gasping to get my breath back, I feel her weight drop onto me. She’s straddling me, I can’t help but chuckle darkly. I’d had this fantasy more than a few times… but never like this…

Her hands come to rest on my cheeks, I wince at the feeling of cold steel on my cheeks, both of her hands are cupping my face, the blades sliding over my lips and scalp softly. I look up at her and feel my heart leap.

Sunset is staring down at me. Not the Killer. The monster that was hunting and hurting me with dark eyes that glowed like they were lit on fire. No, these are the same soft, aqua blue eyes framed against clear white that… that I…

Tears fall from her cheeks onto my face, they burn just like the rest of her as she glares down at me. “S-Sunset… I swear I’m sorry… I know you’re in there. I’m here for you.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, I reach for her raising my hand to her cheek. For a moment I don’t think she’ll let me. I brace myself for her to slice into me with her blades, to stop me, to hurt me. Then my fingers touch lightly onto her cheek. She lets me touch her and I gasp. It’s like she has the worst kind of fever, she’s slick with sweat and burning up from the inside.

For so long I dreamed of touching her like this. Just… softly. Her and me. To my surprise, her hand slowly rises up from my cheek to cover mine, and she carefully laces our fingers together.

“Rainbow?” Sunset’s words come out in that same raspy, shattered voice. I hold her hand and stare up at her, silently begging her to keep talking. “I will… never… stop hating you.”

My heart stops in my chest. My jaw works silently but all I can feel is cold.

“My life is over,” she continues, “it ended when I leaped off the roof of Canterlot High. You… you and all of the students. Your little sister and her shitty fucking posse. My lying, worthless friends,” she spits the last word out like a curse. “You all killed me, do you understand? I’m dead, and thanks to you all I died alone, cold, and scared.”

Freeing her hand from mine, she stands up and steps away from me, idly brushing her skirt just like she used to. I can’t find the words to speak… to say anything. I… I can’t even beg, every apology turns to ash in my mouth, and my chest feels like it’s full of concrete.

“I’m dead, Rainbow,” Sunset says again, staring down at me with empty eyes. “You can’t love a dead girl. I can’t move forward or back. I’m a ghost and all I will ever feel for you is hate. I hate you so much that I won’t even kill you.”

Holding up her hand, she closes it into a fist. All but one finger. Sunset’s middle finger, blade and all, is raised at me as her face twists into an ugly scowl. Without warning, her other hand comes up and grip the blade of her finger. With a wrench of muscle, Sunset screams, and I hear a rending and twisting of metal. I didn’t even know she could feel pain anymore. Something snaps and then clatters to my side. A six-inch metal blade, gleaming and sharp with one end ragged broken end. I look up at her and she’s staring at her own self-mangled hand. It’s starting to regrow but it’s slow. After a moment, she glares back down at me.

“If you want to die,” Sunset says in a hollow voice. “Do it yourself.”

She keeps her word and leaves. The soft lullaby fading as I lay on the ground, tears streaming from my face and blood leaking onto the floor. I reach for the shard and grip it hard enough that it slices into the meat of my palm.

The worst part isn’t what she said. It wasn’t her tone or even the way she hurt herself just to hurt me more.

It was that the whole time her eyes stayed the same. Clear and unclouded. Sunset hated me so much that she found the strength to stay sane long enough to make sure I knew it was her talking. Not the ‘Killer’ Sunset, not the Entity, not the madness.

Sunset wanted me to know it was her, and her words from the first Trial come back to me in full force.

‘You’re going to remember me…’

My right hand burns with electric pain. I don’t think the Entity ever intended Killers to mutilate themselves, but it was the only way I could get my focus back. I needed to stay on track, I couldn’t waste time playing with the little blue bitch. I already had Sour chained up in the basement, she would stay there in her Fog manacles until the end of it all, I had to be sure that no one else got to her. Now I just have to find Starlight, I should have had her. I did have her.

Except Rainbow Dash was there.

I’m lucky I missed my first swing at her, or I would have been chasing her all around the school. I would have lost Sour Sweet and been even further behind. Except then she was back… and I couldn't keep focused this time.

The moment I saw her it was like my whole world tunneled in on her. Starlight and Sweetie Belle had sprinted past me and I hadn’t even given them a thought. I was attacking Rainbow Dash and that was all that mattered.

Her blood. Her screams. Her voice.

I needed to feel her hurting under my blades and it was clouding everything else. Still, the words I’d said to her, the promise I’d made… it left me feeling a little lighter. A little more clear-headed. I grimace as I glance down at my broken finger, it had been necessary but…

Dammit, that had hurt.

One of my top ten favorite fingers too.

I flex my hand and stalk forward, my vision picking out my prey in the distance. Sweetie Belle’s small form is sprinting towards a generator. Starlight is crouched… but not at a genny, so why-

Starlight vanishes from my senses. She’s left my dream realm. That explains it… she wasn’t crouched, someone was waking her up. I move towards their last position, knowing I’m closing in on them. There’s only so many ways they can run in this place; it’s not like Crotus Prenn or the Pit, with all the open space and detritus to hide behind. Here there are only the cold, merciless, endless halls.

I smile grimly as I reach out and scrape my fingers along the wall, leaving long furrows in the stained wallpaper. Finally, they know how I felt every time I walked in here. Knowing that the sight of these halls was just one more promise of torment in a long day full of them.

The cadence of my blades changes as I turn the corner, the dull rasp becoming a harsh, flanged scraping as they begin slicing through the metal of the lockers. I scan around, giving every classroom a thorough once-over. They might’ve fled, it would’ve been smart, actually, if they did. Wake up here then go to another part of the realm. Fortunately, I know their tricks. I spent plenty of time avoiding my kind. Eventually, they’ll have to start working on a generator.

Spend too long doing nothing and the crows, the Entity’s noisome little eyes and ears, will start following you around. Pecking at your face, squawking over your head. Toying with you until you start fulfilling your purpose.

“What did you do?”

I stop and turn around. Staring at me, or where she must be reasonably certain I was since I’m currently invisible to the naked, undreaming eye, is Starlight Glimmer. She’s shaking a little, she can’t hide her fear from me but she’s doing an admirable job nonetheless. Curious, I shrug and reach out for her mind. No sense having a one-sided conversation after all.

Starlight staggers in place, gripping her head as exhaustion temporarily seeps into the meat of her brain, biting away at her focus and savvy until the air ripples with my laughter and menace. A moment later she’s standing again, staring me down in my true world. My nightmare realm.

“What did you do to them?” Starlight asks grimly, staring at me fully now. “Tempest, Aria, and Sour. I saw them in the basement, I tried to free them but I couldn’t. What are you planning?”

I smile widely. “Oh, this and that,” I say as I saunter closer to her. “Don’t worry your pretty purple head, Star, I’m not leaving you out of it.”

She flinches, stepping back as I approach, I see the fear in her eyes but I also see the fire. The determination not to run away. “You’re not like the others, Sunset,” Starlight says, trying to turn her grimace of fear into a scowl and only partially succeeding. “You’re… lucid. Or something like it. What are you planning?”

“I made a deal,” I answer as I flicker out of existence and reappear inches from her. Starlight screams and tries to scramble back but I reach out and grip her jaw tight, dragging her forwards again. “Four for four so far, the Entity was very generous. I just have to keep pulling in more hapless saps to feed him, and he’ll let me protect you. All of you, and eventually once he’s gotten his fill, he’ll let you go.”

Starlight stares in disbelief. “You can’t be serious…” she breathes the words out. “It… it’s a monster. It’s lying to you, it has to be!”

My expression goes flat and I shake my head. “It doesn’t know how to lie, Starlight. It’s not like us. Not like you humans. It’s a monster, and like any monster it just wants food. You’re all too thin and gamey now after being drained for so long, why should it try and keep you if I’m willing to trade a suckling pig?”

For a moment she’s quiet, staring at me with disbelief and hope warring on her face. I suppress a smile, she really does wear her emotions on her sleeve. After a moment though, she asks, “How many?”

I raise an eyebrow. “How many what?”

“How many people are you going to take?” Star asks softly.

I stare into her bright Persian-blue eyes for a moment. I know what I could say. I could lie, I could tell her I have as many as I need. We’d both know it was bullshit but she might, might be willing to swallow that lie in exchange for freedom.

Except…

“As many as I have to, Star,” I answer without another thought. “I’m a monster too, remember? I’ll be as monstrous as I have to to protect you, and Aria, and Sour, and… and Tempest.”

Starlight shakes her head, tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t let you do that for me, Sunny. I don’t want you to damn that many people for a crazy girl.”

I smile, warmly, and lower my hand and for a moment she relaxes. “It’s okay, Star,” I respond, reaching out and brushing a few strands of her purple hair from her eyes. “That’s the best part of being a monster, after all; I don’t care what you want.”

My hands fire forward, slamming into her gut and throwing her back as she shrieks in agony. She tries to scramble away but shock and surprise, combined with her fumbling inability to focus means she only gets a few steps away from me before I nail her to the floor.

“Sorry, Star,” I mutter as I pick her up. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to if I’m going to do this.” She doesn’t answer, Starlight just cries, sobbing softly on my shoulder. She doesn’t even try to wiggle free as I take her to the basement.

Good girl, Star.

I take her to the basement, down the stairs and drop on the ground by the shrine just under the final empty corner between the hooks. I let out of a low breath and pull out the Journal, reaching through it to the land of light and hope that I was born into, I rip another shred of Equestrian magic through its increasingly worn out pages. More crackles spark over its surface, the crystals growing with every spell I cast in this place. I still have a little more time, enough time I hope.

Diffusing the magic into the Fog, I grip the now ambient energy and coalesce it, weaving my hands in complex patterns as I catch bits and fragments of the solidifying pseudo-matter. With a sharp grunt of effort, I layer my will into the blend of Fog and sorcery; my will to dominate, to enslave, to enforce my vision upon things.

Chains form out of the ephemera that’s weaving about my fingers and snare them between the empty hooks. When they’re finally set, I take a step back and examine them. I have to be certain there are no weak points in the weave of magic that’s holding them together. The Fog is unearthly, sure, but it’s also incredibly strong when woven into solid matter. At the same time, though, it is just Fog.

If there’s a leak then too much pressure will cause the arcane matrix to collapse and the whole effort will have been pointless. I can’t afford to waste a spell like that.

Nodding to myself after a moment, I lean down and grab Starlight and lift her by one arm to carefully secure her to the first manacle.

First one then the other.

I slide my bladed finger into the slit of the lock and let a small fragment of my own personal energy to flow into the manacle and it seals. Only I can open it now, assuming the matrix holds. I do the same to the other manacle and give them both sharp tugs to ensure they’re secure.

“Good,” I say, with a grin that stretches a little too wide. “I’ll be back for you, I’ve got some little birdies to stone.”

The words hardly leave my mouth before two generators go live almost at the same time. A twitch develops in my eye and I’m not entirely sure what my expression is doing but it’s bad enough that Starlight blanches.

“Well, that happened,” I remark, showing my teeth. “Let’s go stop that.”

I turn on my heel and leave, my claws twitching. I can’t let them escape, it’s not in the game plan. I have one more Trial, maybe two, left in me before everything goes tits up and I will not let all of this effort go to waste.

I move rapidly through the halls, I know where all of my generators are but more importantly, I know where the ‘safe’ ones are. The ones that are covered, hard to patrol, and give a multitude of escapes. They’re also perfect bait. All the escape routes in the world won’t matter if you don’t know what direction you’re supposed to run. No amount of cover can shield you from my eyes.

I round the corner into the cafeteria and head for the kitchens, sure enough, I hear the grinding of gears and twisting of old, rusted bolts. I stalk towards the back near the freezer, just close enough that I know they’ll hear my lullaby getting louder.

I inch forward. Louder.

Another inch. It gets louder.

The generator pops thunderously; music to my ears. One of them panicked and made a mistake, they’ll scatter now but it doesn’t matter. I only need one.

And there she is.

Applebloom vaults over the serving trays, knocking several to the ground a cacophonous clatter. To my delight, she’s almost immediately followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. Idiots. Scattering means I only have one target, together I can sweep them all at once. I reach out and rip into their panicked, frenetic minds and twist them towards slumber.

Each of them runs for the exit, more often than not getting in each other’s way which only makes me chuckle louder as the final ripple of my spell overcomes their faculties, dragging them into my world. My laughter fills their ears and the three of them scream as they see he appear seemingly from thin air behind them. Before they can do anything else I lunge forward, my claws slashing deep, red furrows into Sweetie Belle’s back. A surge of adrenaline moves her forward, bull-rushing her way through her two friends and bowling Scootaloo to the ground.

I stop in front of her with a smirk and flick a spray of red across her face. She stares up at me, poleaxed and waiting. I know the feeling. The feeling of tension that tells you not to move.

Don’t twitch, it says. Don’t even breathe.

Breathe and you’re dead.

I smile. “You’re dead anyway, little bird,” I say before lunging forward like a lightning bolt and impaling her on my blades, She shrieks, kicking out and levering me off to scramble away.

She doesn’t get far.

I’m on her in a heartbeat, pinning her to the wall with my claws before letting her drop, broken and sobbing at my feet.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I ask softly, staring down at her as I watch the little red pearls trail down my fingers. “You wanted me gone, right? Gone forever. Well, congratulations you got your wish.”

As I lean down and pick her up she sobs in my ear. “We didn’t…”

I start walking towards a nearby hook sticking out of a dusty, scratched-up blackboard. “Didn’t you? I don’t know what’s worse, you lying to my face or the idea that you didn’t want me gone and managed it anyway.”

“Okay, we… we did,” Scootaloo admits raspily after a moment, her voice thick with pain. I stop in front of the hook, staring at it. I have work to do. I have shit I need to accomplish.

But…

I drop Scootaloo in front of the hook and kneel, sliding one blade into her nostril and dragging her face up. “Look at me.”

Tears flow from her eyes and she clenches them shut, shaking her head and shuddering. I feel a jolt of utterly volcanic rage roar through me and I violently rip the blade from her nose, grab her head and start beating it against the floor.

“LOOK. AT. ME!” I scream, finally throwing her bloody, beating body back down, flipping her with my boot and staring down at her bruising face. “You did this to me you little shit. You and your friends, more than the girls, more than any of the other students in this shit-hole school it was YOU! YOU DID THIS!”

Scootaloo sobs on the floor, probably in more pain than her teenage brain even thought was possible. I lean down, she still has her eyes shut, curled on her side in the fetal position with her hands over her sliced-up face.

“Open your eyes, Scootaloo,” I hiss in a low, deadly voice. She shakes her head emphatically and I feel the rage building again. “Open them, or I’ll cut your eyelids off.”

She freezes, clearly realising I’m not joking. Good, because I’m not. After a tense moment, she pulls her hands away, opens her eyes, and stares up at me, terror writ wide over her face and horror burned into her eyes.

“Remember what you’ve done, you and your friends,” I say softly. “Remember that, together, you murdered me.” I grab her by her throat and lift her into the air. “I don’t care why you did it, just remember what it cost you.” Turning on my heel I slam her down onto the hook.

Her screams echo through the halls.

“I hope it was worthwhile,” I say as I leave the room with her hanging, ragged and broken from the hook. “Now I’m going to go do that to everyone else.”

I return to the basement some time later, reveling in the echoes of screams that fill the air around me. My realm shudders with the last of the girls fading into the darkness, yet I still haven’t found Rainbow Dash.

Or at least I hadn’t.

As I make the last landing at the bottom of the basement steps I see her, standing, wounded and beaten, in front of me. My silvery-steel blade is gripped in her bloody hand waiting at the foremost hook between where I have Sour Sweet and Starlight chained.

“Giving up are we?” I ask, grinning as I stalk towards her and raise a finger blade and trace it along her jaw. “I’m not going to kill you, remember?”

She nods silently and I scowl. This was boring. Then an idea strikes me and I smile. “I haven’t introduced you to everyone yet though, have I?”

I sling an arm around her shoulder and starting pulling her around, she stumbles, surprised as I bring her around the back, past Starlight and around to the furthest hook from the stairs between Aria… and Tempest.

Settling her between them I smile. “You’ve met Aria, obviously, but…” I trail off, feigning a look of concern. “Oh hold on, you’ve got something right-” I ram my blades into her gut, splattering the hook with gore and dropping her to the ground, “-there, don’t worry, I got it.”

I grip a handful of rainbow hair and lift her up before throwing her on the hook. She screams, but not as loudly or as painfully as I would have liked.

“There we go,” I say, grinning. “Comfy? Just hang out a while, we’ve got plenty of time and by that I mean… oh,” I look at my wrist which is bereft of any kind of watch, “about two and a half minutes or so.” I gesture over to Tempest. “This is Tempest Shadow. Tempest, this is Rainbow Dash,” I gesture back at Rainbow. “Say hello Tempest.”

Tempest stares at me in horror, then up at Rainbow Dash, then back at me. I glare at her, lifting a blade up to Rainbows perforated gut.

“Say. Hello.”

She swallows a dry lump in her throat and looks back at Rainbow. “Uh… Ibuenas, Rainbow.”

I smile, shaking the blood free from my hand as I walk over to Tempest and stroke her cheek gently. “Tempest here saved me. When I landed in this place, she and Aria taught me everything about how to survive. She showed me all the best side routes. All the little things.”

Rainbow is staring at us. Good, that’s what I want. I lean down and brush my lips softly against Tempest’s. “She taught me how to break a Hag-trap, how to duck under Billy’s chainsaw, even how to hide from the Shape.”

I can practically feel Rainbow’s heart breaking all over again from here.

“Mi sol…” Tempest’s voice is pleading. “Stop, you’re… you’re hurting her.”

My breath hitches in my throat. “Hurting her?” I hiss, “after what she did to me?! She’s the one you’re worried about getting hurt?!”

“No,” Tempest answers, shaking her head before leaning up and returning my kiss. My breath freezes in my throat as warmth trails through me. Real, good warmth, not the fever-hot rage that’s been driving me. “I don’t care about her, I care that you’re hurting yourself every time you hurt her, and I want you as whole as I can when I get you back, me comprendes?”

I let out a long, shuddering breath and for a moment I want to tell her to get fucked. To let me torment this bitch as long as I want to but… but…

Closing my eyes, I push away the pain and the anguish and all of the sorrow that was fueling my rage, and finally… I nod. “Si, mi vida, I do.” Her eyes widen at my words and I smirk. “I took three years of Spanish and I’m literally a genius, remember? I still prefer swearing in Yakyakistani, though.”

I turn to glare at Rainbow Dash. “This is over now, all of it.”

The stricken look on her face tells me all I need to know as the thunder claps overhead. She doesn’t even try to struggle as the Entity’s claws snap down to impale her and drag her up to wherever it is he takes his dinner. Like before I siphon off a few slivers of hope; the power floods into me leaving my cells vibrating with energy.

I wait a fifteen count after the last rumbles of dimensional disruption fade before pulling the Journal out and dragging another shard of magic out. “Time to go, two more stops.”

“Two?” Aria says, narrowing her eyes.

I nod. “Mhm, but the last one is probably going to be short… I’ll explain later.”

Reaching out, I rip the veil of dimensions away and step into the endless dark of the Entity’s realm, seeking out a particular place. A place that’s cold and empty as a tomb. A place that would be painfully quiet if not for the sound of her breathing.