“I must admit, this castle is quite grand.”

The sharp clacks of Jack's geta and Twilight's hooves echoed off of the stone walls of the hallway they'd found themselves in. Both human and pony were visibly on-guard, watching each gloomy corner and dark passage they came near for any sort of threat. “Yeah, it really is beautiful,” Twilight replied. “You should see the real thing, though. Twenty times better.”

“If only I could do so. It would be an honor to meet your Princesses. They both seem wise and benevolent.”

The mare smiled, even as her eyes kept flicking back and forth. “I'm sure they'd love to meet you as well, Jack. Indy too. If only....” Her voice trailed off wistfully, but as she inhaled again, a strange scent tickled her nostrils. “...huh. What's that smell?”

Jack took a few sniffs. “I can smell nothing. I will trust your senses, though. What is it?”

“Smells kind of like... rotten fruit and garbage left out in the sun.” She led the human down one narrow hallway, then another, expertly picking her way through the castle while he followed close behind. So close was he, in fact, that he almost tripped over her when one of her hooves slipped on something. “Whoops!” she muttered, glancing down. “Oh, eww. What is this stuff?”

“I do not know.” Jack knelt down to examine it. “Some sort of... slime?”

“Yeah, well, it's warm slime.” Twilight shuddered as she hastened to scrape it off.

“Hmm.” Jack squinted. “There appears to be a trail of it. Should we follow?”

“Lacking any better ideas, sure, I suppose so.” Oddly enough, the trail seemed to be leading towards the kitchens, and the trail thickened- and the smell only got worse- the further along they went. By the time they came to the oaken door that lead into the main kitchen itself, Twilight was avoiding breathing through her nose, and Jack had an arm of his robe up over his face.

It wasn't until the human opened the door, though, that Twilight found herself fighting the urge to lose her lunch.

The kitchen- which was not small in any sense, made as it was to help feed two princesses, several dozen nobles and a few hundred attending staff and guards- was absolutely covered in a disgusting layer of what looked like raw, oozing flesh. Mucus dripped down from the ceiling and pooled in various spots on the floor, and cascaded down the sides of what looked like a large clutch of leathery, light-grey eggs that had been anchored to the floor with dried goop. “By the gods,” Jack murmured from behind his sleeve. “What... is this?”

“I... I don't know, but....” A soft sound caught her ears, and she ducked back. “Quiet! Someone's coming.”

Jack pulled the door partway closed, and leaned over along with Twilight to peek inside. A moment later, the source of the noise strode out of another hallway on the far side of the kitchen, and now both pony and human found themselves trying not to retch.

It had once been a female earth pony, that was all too clear. A half-rotted, slime-covered coat that might once have been blue did its best to contain what seemed to be masses of tumors that bulged out from several spots, and a bedraggled red-and-gold mane and tail hung limply down. A wide, bloodied hole had been torn- or burst- from the front of its chest, showing ribs and lungs, and from that horrible wound snaked what seemed to be a giant, leathery worm, which wound itself around the pony's neck and disappeared into the back of its skull. The unfortunate equine's face was gaunt to the point of being skeletal, its unblinking eyes crusted in slime, and an unnaturally bi-tonal voice growled from its throat.

“We are, we are, we are, we are....”

Twilight made the mistake of instinctively trying to back away even as she covered her mouth to keep from being sick, and the combination of moves caused her to trip over her own hooves and land with a soft smack against the cobbled floor of the hallway.

The creature heard. Its head instantly shot up towards the noise, what remained of its ears flicking back and forth and its rotted teeth bared. “The harmony is... disturbed,” it snarled, stalking its way towards the door.

“Back back back back back!” Twilight babbled, stumbling backwards in her haste to get away. Jack slammed the door shut and locked it, then bodily picked up Twilight and slung her under his arm, sprinting down the hallway. Behind him, the door shuddered as the monster kicked at it- and, at the fourth strike, its hinges shattered, and the door gave way. Even as the creature chased them, it called out plaintively.

“They see you! Run... RUN!”

“What in Celestia's name happened to her?!” Twilight whimpered, practically clinging to Jack's side as he ran.

“I do not know!” he answered. “But with the strength it used to break down that door, I do not wish to face it without a weapon!”

“We're two floors and half the length of the castle away from the armory!”

“Then we will have to improvise!”

Jack reached the large hallway they'd appeared in, and practically hurled Twilight across it before diving off to the other side. The creature- sprinting out of the hallway mere seconds behind them- seemed to second-guess which one of them it wanted to chase, misstepped and tripped, skidding across the smooth stone floor and barreling into a nondescript door on the far side, which snapped in half under its weight. It scrambled to its hooves with a speed its ravaged form didn't seem capable of, and locked its lidless eyes on Twilight. “Silence the discord!” it howled, rushing at the unicorn.

Jack had just started rushing forward to help Twilight when something caught his eye. The door the creature had shattered led to a small utility closet, inside of which sat a number of various tools- including an oversized pipe wrench. The human yanked the tool off of its hook, spun on his heel and charged the creature, which was too busy battering the hasty shield Twilight had erected to be able to notice he was coming.

smack

The afflicted mare's head practically disintegrated as the wrench drove it down onto the floor. Its body twitched wildly for a moment, muscles spasming and forelegs sending bits of red and grey splattering around, before it finally became still.

And now, Twilight vomited.

“Oh sweet Celestia....” she groaned, once she was done. “Why... why is it a living thing?! None of the other creatures were!”

“Obviously the entity that controls this place wants to heighten the impact these 'could-have-been' scenarios have on us.”

“It's working!” Slowly, the pony got to her hooves, with the human's help. “I'm sorry, Jack,” she murmured. “It's just....”

“You do not need to apologize.” He gave her a smile for a moment, before the distant sound of a door slamming open caught the attention of both of them. “Oh, ponyfeathers,” Twilight swore. “More of them?!”

“Could they know we are here?”

“I don't want to risk it! We need to move.”

And move they did.

(-)

“Y'know, when I was a filly, I was totally creeped out by hospitals.” Applejack nervously glanced down yet another darkened corridor as she spoke. “Those pure white halls, all them sick folks, hooves clackin' on those tile floors, and th' smell.”

“It's certainly not uncommon.” Rarity's gaze was no less cautious. “However, as a fully-grown mare, I must admit... this hospital totally creeps me out.”

“You 'n me both.” The two ponies trotted down the corridor, finding every door firmly locked and the rooms pitch-black inside. Finally they came to a set of double-doors that opened for them, leading to a dimly-lit intersection just beyond. Applejack let out a little sigh. “Awright, maybe we're makin' a little progress towards an exit-”

The overhead light flickered, and a dark, indistinct shape scurried across the intersection in front of them.

“Donkey droppings!” AJ yelped. “Did you see that?!”

“It looked like a filly!” Rarity rounded the corner quickly- only to find a closed, and boarded-over, door blocking her way. “What the hay...?!”

“Okay, so you saw a half-invisible ghostly-lookin' young mare just bolt outta th' clear blue right in front'a us too. Glad to know I ain't just losin' mah marbles.”

“Don't be too hasty with that judgment. I would not rule out both of us losing our grip on sanity in this situation.”

Thankfully, one of the other doors in the intersection opened for them, and the pair made their way down another gloomy, featureless corridor. Rarity had just tried opening yet another locked door when a two-toned chime echoed out from somewhere, followed by a pleasant- if pre-recorded- mare's voice. “Attention patients and visitors of Ponyville Hospital. This is a test of the automatic announcement system. Please listen for the previous tone to be alerted to any emergency situations or important messages. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.” The voice fell silent for a few seconds, and Rarity had just opened her mouth to speak when it sounded again- this time in a panicked half-whisper. “...get out while you still can!”

“What th'....” Applejack stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “...hoooo, boy. We're in th' muck deep, Rare.”

The corridor ended in what seemed to be a reception office, with signs for various departments and services pointing off towards locked or nailed-over doors. Fortunately, on the receptionist's desk sat an ordinary flashlight; Rarity picked it up, and was relieved to discover it working. “Oh, this is a definite balm for my ease-of-mind,” she said, swinging the beam of light back and forth- until it illuminated the far corner of the office.

The walls and floor of the back corner were absolutely caked in dried, flaking blood. Streaks of red marked trails across the pale white tiles, and even the paneled ceiling was smeared with it. And strewn along the floor like discarded ragdolls were three bodies- two mares and a stallion- dressed in grimy hospital gowns. Something had ravaged the poor ponies and left their corpses laying about in their own gore.

“...oh sweet Celestia, I may be sick.” Rarity couldn't move the flashlight- or her eyes- from the spectacle. “You 'n me both,” Applejack replied, edging towards the bodies. “But... what happened to 'em? What did this? Is it still here somewhere? That blood looks days old.”

“I don't know, and truth be told I don't want to! I just want to get out of-”

slam

The doors they'd come through flung themselves shut as if they'd been kicked. The few flickering lights still working went out completely. Rarity almost dropped the flashlight out of shock, and when she recovered, the light showed that the body of the stallion had disappeared. “What the...?!” the unicorn gasped.

“Where'd it go? It was just there!” Applejack's eyes did their best to pierce the darkness as Rarity stepped forward, nervously swinging the flashlight back and forth. “Don't tell me it actually got up-”

“Grrrwarrllghhh....”

Rarity spun around. The flashlight's beam caught Applejack staring at her- and the supposedly-dead stallion looming just behind, rearing up with one massive hoof to strike down on the cowpony. “AJ! Behind you!”

Pure reflex kicked in, and Applejack's rear legs lashed out. Hooves that had spent years striking solid wood landed on the stallion's head- and kept going. With a sickening wet sound, the head tore free of the neck to go bouncing along the floor, and the body stumbled back, spouting blood from the stump above its shoulders.

And then, impossibly, the body straightened itself, stood and began advancing at them once more, its ruined neck still streaming pools of red on the floor beneath it.

“Oh, buck me...!” Rarity glanced around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. A haphazardly-discarded wheelchair sat propped up against a wall; the unicorn's horn glowed, and the wheelchair lifted up and then streaked across the room, slamming into the decapitated stallion's side. The impact drove the walking corpse into the far wall, shattering bones with a loud crunch, and the body collapsed on the spot and went still.

Neither pony could keep herself from trembling. “Applejack, I want to get out of here as close to yesterday as possible,” Rarity whispered.

“I am totally with ya on that.” Both mares turned, and Rarity brought the flashlight up.

Standing before them was the strange filly from before, now completely visible. Dark, empty eye sockets gazed upon them, and a stringy jet-black mane hung limp over a pale white hide. Impossibly, it seemed to bear an expression of... sadness? Compassion?

In the time it took for the two mares to gasp in horror, it vanished.

“.ssendam eht ot bmuccus ot tsrif eht erew stneitap ehT”

A young voice, sourceless, seeming to whisper from everywhere at once. The moment it had stopped echoing, a door on the far side of the office slowly opened on its own. The two mares stared at it for a moment. “Applejack?” Rarity murmured.

“Yeah?”

“I don't wish to alarm you, but I am distressingly close to curling up in a corner and gibbering to myself until my heart gives out.”

Applejack took in a slow breath. “Y'aint th' only one.”

Slowly, the pair advanced through the waiting, open door.

(-)

“Well, here's the thing- Scoots idolizes me. I mean, absolutely. She started a fan club for me, for Celestia's sake.” Dash chuckled. “If I said I wanted a date for the Grand Galloping Gala, she'd probably have pestered every stallion within five miles to invite me by the end of the day, and it's entirely possible she might even hogtie one or two good choices.” She grinned as Indy laughed. “So, knowing that... the day she let slip about the orphanage, I asked her for more details. And she got this faraway look in her eyes, and she said, straight out, 'Please don't ask me about that, Rainbow Dash'. I mean... a kid her age, reacting like that- gotta be bad memories.” She sighed. “And I've asked her two friends about it, and they've gotten the same reaction from her. One of her friends told me that sometimes, when she's sleeping, Scoots will say something about a 'matron' like she's afraid. Indy, I know that filly- anything that'd scare her that much is bad news. That's why I've never said anything to anypony... I won't risk her being sent back.”

Indy nodded at that. “Yeah, I've seen some pretty terrible orphanages myself. Now, the question is... what's going to be waiting here in this version of that place?”

“Is it okay if I don't want to find out?” Dash spared a glance down a thin metal stairwell- and yelped. “Indy, I think I saw something moving down there!” she stage-whispered towards him.

“Let's have a look.” The small steps were difficult for the human to navigate, but eventually he made his way down into a partially-flooded basement. Drips of water fell from the ceiling into stagnant pools that the pair gingerly made their way around. “Okay, so I guess there's nobody down here,” Dash muttered. “But, whoa... this is some crazy stuff to have in an orphanage.”

Rotting wooden shelves lined the walls and stood in rows through much of the basement. Most were covered in equally-moldy boxes, but several held strange glass vials and beakers filled with unidentifiable substances. Along the back wall sat a large, iron-barred cage, empty except for a small cot and a tiny electric light hanging from the ceiling. Dash grimaced. “That cage gives me the creeps.”

“You and me both.” Indy looked over the shelves carefully, and on one he found a faded page of paper, covered in dust and mold and just barely legible. He had to squint to read the childish scrawl in the omnipresent gloom. “Go here. Do this. Don't go in that room. Stay away from the patients. So many rules now! The doctors are always yelling at us to stay out from underhoof. Matron Sharphoof says that orphans shouldn't complain.”

“Patients? What the hay would patients be doing in an orphanage?”

“I don't know. I wonder what kind of patients it means.”

“I think I wanna find out.” There was nothing else of note in the basement, so the pair made their way back up to the first floor. As soon as he'd left the staircase, Indy froze. “What is it?” Dash whispered.

“That thing you thought you saw downstairs? I think I saw it peeking out from a hallway.”

“What did it look like?”

“I'm... not sure. Maybe a pony. Couldn't really tell.”

The two carefully prowled through the lower floor of the orphanage, their way just barely lit by the simulated moonlight from outside- it even dimmed and brightened as if there were clouds crossing the sky- and their steps as quiet as they could make them. Every once in a while Dash's ears twitched. “I swear I hear something, but I just can't quite make it out... huh. Look over there- is there something written on that paper?”

“Let's have a look.” This particular letter, left lying on a circular desk surrounded by bars, was two pages long, showing the sharp cursive writing of an adult. “Dear Dr. Silveredge: Once more, allow me to say how honored I am to be working with a surgeon of your caliber. An entire set of silver surgical tools? Don't let any of those cretinous foals know about it- one of the little urchins is likely to snatch it! We've stored them securely in what was Classroom #3, which we've now appropriated as the lobotomy theater. The other doctors and I are anxious to see you at work!”

Dash paled underneath her cyan coat. “Lobotomy?! Isn't that where they....” She raised a hoof to her forehead and made a “shhk-shhkt” noise.

Indy gave her a quick nod. “Yeah. More than a few doctors doing that where I'm from, too. Disgusting.”

“Were... were they doing that here while Scootaloo was...?”

“I don't know. It's probably just one of those alternate-timeline situations that Discord creature was talking about.” He added a quick “...I hope” beneath his breath as he put the letter down.

Further exploration showed only a torn-apart dormitory of some sort, a staircase marked “Staff Tower” that was blocked by burned-out rubble, a locked portcullis closing off a branching hallway, and a winding stairway leading up to darkness. The instant Dash put a hoof on the bottom step, she froze, her ears straight up. “Please tell me you hear that,” she whispered.

Indy strained to hear, and just at the edge of his hearing he could make out a soft thudding noise, arrythmic, like something heavy being dragged along an uneven floor. “Be ready in case anything comes down towards us,” he told her, loosing his whip and holding it at the ready; she nodded silently.

It was a long, slow crawl up the stairs. The banging- they could tell what it was now, coming from above- seemed to intensify in speed and volume with every step they cleared. After what seemed an eternity, the source came into view- a heavy wooden door at the top of the stairwell, with a thin ray of moonlight streaming out through the keyhole. The pounding was frantic now, surely enough to tear the door from its very hinges. Indy reached forward to grasp the handle, then hesitated a moment and looked back at Dash; she nodded, crouched and ready to fight or flee.

The handle clicked. The hinges creaked. The moment the door opened, the violent pounding stopped, leaving only echoes. Beyond the slowly-opening door was... nothing but a nearly-empty attic, covered in dust, with a few boxes in the back and a strange, badly-dented metal contraption of some sort mounted on a wall on the left side. A circular window near the apex of the roof shone a pool of false moonlight along the floor, revealing heavy scuffs on the inside of the door- just about level with Dash's chest- and long, jagged grooves dug into the wood from there to the metal box. “Something bad happened in here,” Dash murmured.

“Yeah, I'm getting that feeling myself.” Indy made sure the door wouldn't swing back shut by itself, then walked along with the pony towards the strange metal construct. Once they got in close enough to see it clearly, both of them paused- what had seemed to be rust or mold smeared across the steel casing of the device was long-dried blood, spread out from what looked to be an impact point on the side. A trail of similarly ancient blood had been splattered at a different angle leading away, behind the boxes stacked towards the back of the attic. Slowly, the pair followed it.

What awaited them was the broken, all-but-mummified corpse of a pegasus filly.

“It's been a long time since we've had anything that breathes walking around in the orphanage.” Dash literally yelped, whirling on her hooves with Indy raising his whip in preparation to strike. What they saw made them freeze in their tracks- a glowing miasma of light, just barely two feet off the floor, inside of which was the indistinct face of a young pony. Bizarrely, the light from outside shining past it showed the shadow of a filly without an actual body casting it. “Wh- what the hay is that?!” Dash gasped.

“Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm... well, I was... Scootaloo.”

(-)

“I'm sorry, Pinkie, but I really don't think this is the right time to 'giggle at the ghosties'.”

Pinkie let out a squeaky sigh. “Well, okay then, Fluttershy. But we've gotta do something to keep our spirits up!”

“I think I'd much rather be very quiet and not let anything that might be out here know where we are, if that's okay.”

“But we don't even know that anything's out here.”

“But there will be, Pinkie! You know what this place is doing.”

“Of course I do! Which is why I'm trying to stay positive, so that it can't beat us.”

“So then we have to find a way to stay positive quietly.”

“...oh. Hm. That's an interesting concept; lemme work on that.”

That kept Pinkie quiet for quite some time as she followed Fluttershy along the path through the thick, darkened woods. Then the earth pony spoke up again. “Hey... is that a light out there?”

Fluttershy tilted her head and squinted. “I... I think it is!”

“Great! Fly over there, it might be safe.”

“...what? No! I'm not leaving you alone in this place!”

“Oh, sheesh, I'll be fine, Flutters! It's just a little walk through the woods-”

“...and if you want to BAKE THE CAKE PROPERLY, you have to SET THE OVEN TO....”

Both ponies froze. “...what was that?” Fluttershy whimpered.

“I... I dunno. The voice sounds familiar, but....” Pinkie frowned as her leg twitched. “Uh oh. Fluttershy, we need to go.”

“Pinkie Sense?”

“Yeah.”

The mares took off into a run, tearing along the path almost too fast for Pinkie's lantern to show any obstacles before they reached them. As they finally reached level ground- blocked off on one side by a river with fast-flowing water that looked wrong somehow, and on the other by thick fallen trees- something odd began to happen; the dim light that illuminated the area began to twist and swirl as though thin clouds were being blown across the moon, even though there were none to be seen. The pair made it to the center of the clearing before skidding to a stop as something came into view in front of them. “What the hay...?” Pinkie murmured. “Is that Bon-Bon?”

The figure that half-stalked, half-stumbled into the clearing bore some resemblance to the confectioner pony, but her form seemed to warp and bend just like the light around them, as if she were wrapped in shadowy flame. Her eyes were completely swallowed in shadow, and a thick woodcutter's axe dangled from her clenched teeth.

“...simply WON'T DO to reduce the amount of PEPPERMINT in the twists....”

Fluttershy took a few steps back. “What's she talking about?”

“I don't know, but she looks way too hostile for my comfort.” Pinkie shined the light onto Bon-Bon to get a better look at her; this seemed to set the shadow-wrapped pony off, and she charged towards the pair, axe swinging this way and that. “Ack! Scramble!” Pinkie yelped.

The axe drove into the ground just behind Fluttershy as the pegasus galloped away. With a snarl, Bon-Bon- or whatever was masquerading as her- yanked it free and began to chase her down. “Hey!” Pinkie yelled. “Get away from her!” In desperation, Pinkie spun and bucked a hoof-sized rock towards their attacker; her aim was true, but the projectile simply bounced off of Bon-Bon's side as if it had hit an invisible wall.

In desperation, the pink pony charged towards the shadowy mare, keeping the lantern focused on her face. For some reason that seemed to bother the false Bon-Bon, who kepy trying to turn away from it while still pursuing Fluttershy. Emboldened, Pinkie angled her full-speed gallop to stay ahead of Bon-Bon, letting Fluttershy run past her before coming to a stop and using a hoof to raise the alchemical lantern in order to shine it into the face of the oncoming axe-wielding pony. “Okay, that's enough-” she began.

fwooooosh

The moment Pinkie's hoof pressed against the small glass tube, the light coming out of its end became blinding white, catching Bon-Bon in a practical spotlight of illumination. The shadow-creature shrieked and raised a foreleg to shield her eyes, stumbling backwards, and a sharp sound that seemed like a combination of ripping and sizzling came from her as the light literally burned away the cloak of pure darkness swirling around her. Pinkie managed a three-legged trot to keep herself close- though out of range of that axe- and kept pouring the light on.

Eventually the shadows surrounding the pony burned away, and with a bloodcurdling shriek, she reared back, stumbled, fell- and then began to fade out of sight, until nothing was left but the impression she'd made on the grass. Gradually the strange twisting of the light around them faded as well, leaving the clearing looking completely ordinary.

“...oh my goodness.” Fluttershy stopped next to Pinkie, gazing at the metal harness around her neck. “How did you do that?”

“I dunno! I just touched it like this, and-” Again the beam of light brightened, though less than before; the glowing goop inside the vial itself seemed to be dimming. “Uh oh,” Fluttershy said, gazing at the lantern. “I think maybe it can't do that for very long?”

“Yeah, maybe if we let it sit a minute....” Once Pinkie had removed her hoof from it, the glow inside the vial began to slowly strengthen again, until it returned to the same state they'd found it in. “Well, okay, that's good,” Pinkie said. “We've at least got some way to defend ourselves if more of those... um, whatevers... show up.”

At the far side of the clearing was another path, tightly enclosed by trees on both sides and almost pitch-black. As the two ponies approached, Pinkie's light picked up two small, white shapes lying in the short grass at the edge of the trail. “Huh, wonder what these say,” she said, picking up both sheets of paper and reading them aloud. “Okay. First page.”

“The monster that had once been Bon-Bon snarled. There was so much confusion, so much pain, but everything became clearer when she focused on the two creatures in front of her. One of them had a source of light- burning, destructive light, dangerous to the cloak of darkness that protected her. But the other seemed weaker, more frightened, more vulnerable.

She clenched her newly-found axe in her teeth. Being rid of these creatures would ease her pain, she just knew it. Once they were destroyed, maybe she could start to understand what was happening to her.”

“That's... that's what just happened!” Fluttershy gasped.

“Yeah, creeeeeepy. Let's see what the next one says....”

“Her own heartbeat almost deafened Fluttershy as she ran. Pinkie was just ahead of her, and her own home beckoned; the glowing lantern above the front porch was a beacon of hope in the twisting, confusing darkness.

But there was still far too much ground to cover to hope they could make it there safely, and the flowing shadows made it impossible to see anything underhoof until she was tripping over it. Incoherent snarls and hoofbeats on the ground behind them alerted her that the Taken were gaining on them- they'd be overrun if they couldn't go faster.

There was a sudden wooshing noise just past her right ear, and the flash of metal as an axe flew past her head. There was a wet, thick sound as the blade struck, and ahead of her, Pinkie stumbled and fell.

Fluttershy screamed.”

A frown crossed Pinkie's face. “Oh. Um... I think I'm gonna have to have a good long talk with Lyra abour her writing.”

(-)

“Okay. Yeah. Theorem proven.” Twilight was muttering to herself even as she barricaded the doors with every last piece of furniture she could levitate. “These... whatever they are are somehow psychically connected with each other. Any time one of them spots us, it doesn't take long for others to converge on us, no matter what we do.”

Jack helped her move a particularly heavy bookshelf. “What troubles me is that their actions do not seem willing,” he told her. “They sometimes ask for relief from their torment, or attempt to warn us.”

“I caught onto that.” With the large double-doors as fortified as they could manage, the pair quickly moved on. “And that really bothers me- it seems when they want to help us, they use the pronoun 'I', but when they're attacking they use 'we' or 'us'.”

Jack nodded. “Are they... controlled somehow? By a more powerful entity?”

“A form of intelligence linking them, commanding them... a hive-mind, of sorts? It's not impossible, but the amount of psychic throughput you'd need for anything more than a few creatures would be astonishing.” She noted Jack's confused expression. “You'd need a mind... well, 'big' enough to handle relaying thoughts between the creatures.”

“A task that would grow extremely complex the more creatures that required it,” the samurai realized. “And we do not face a small number here.”

“Yeah, you're not kidding.” Twilight glanced around, eyes narrowed in thought. “Okay. Now, I'm pretty sure we're close to the armory. You might be a bit disappointed, Jack; I don't think they stockpiled much more than ceremonial armor and weapons. A thousand years of peace and all.”

“I will take whatever can be offered.” Jack glanced down at the gore-smeared wrench he still carried. “This is not the sort of 'weapon' I would prefer in this situation.”

The samurai and the mage had come to one of the main hallways leading to the armory; this hall had thick crossbeams across the tops of the pillars, casting crisscrossing shadows along the ceiling. As quickly as they dared without making too much noise, they rushed through the darkened hall.

It was by pure luck that brief movement caught Twilight's eye. The raising of a head, the glint of steel. She gasped. “Jack!”

Something streaked downwards, far too quickly for Jack to react. But Twilight understood, and acted; the crossbow quarrel that had been meant for the human's back thudded into the magical shield the pony had just barely been able to form in time. With a harsh snarl, the pegasus stallion who'd been hiding in the rafters threw the crossbow aside and leapt, half-rotted wings spreading, providing just enough lift to turn the disfigured pony into a missile.

Jack actually surprised Twilight by kicking her shield forward with all his might. Caught by surprise, the pegasus couldn't hope to avoid it, and slammed into the field of energy, shattering it and pinwheeling into the ground. Twilight grimaced as she heard both wings snap like twigs.

Jack was already moving. “Twilight! Bind its legs and cover its eyes!”

“Why-” Even as she quashed the question, she acted. Thick, glowing magenta manacles formed around the creature's ankles, and a strip torn from one of the hanging tapestries served well enough to block its sight. The still-struggling creature snarled incoherently as Jack bodily lifted it over his shoulder. “A prisoner?” Twilight asked.

“Perhaps we may learn something from it. But we must move quickly.” With that, the pair sprinted across the hallway and through a few adjoining passages before finally reaching the armory. Twilight quickly opened the lock and disabled the safeguards, and the gilded oaken doors swung open before her.

Jack ushered her inside quickly, dropped his prisoner, closed the doors behind him and then picked up the nearest candelabra to jam the handles shut. “There,” he said. “The creature knows not our location, so I wager the others cannot find us so easily. Now we may talk to it.” He made his way to the bound stallion, who was squirming wildly on the marble floor. “Speak, creature,” he ordered it. “What has happened to the ponies here?”

“We do not welcome you....”

“Who? Who is 'we'? What manner of creature are you, to corrupt these innocents in such a way?!”

“We... we are the Many....” The pony was still struggling, but something seemed different. “We... gaahhh... pull....”

“What... what's it saying?” Twilight asked.

“Pull... the worm free... from my head....”

In an instant the leathery tendril that was wrapped around the pony's neck was in Jack's hand, and in the next instant he'd yanked it free from the base of his skull. The stallion bit back a scream of agony and twitched madly against the floor as something that didn't even remotely resemble blood spattered along the marble. “I thought I'd... never be free of that thing again,” he gasped after a moment.

Now that the stallion was no longer an enemy, Jack afforded it much more care, gently removing the blindfold to reveal his unblinking, wide eyes. “Who are you? What is this creature that has infested you?”

“My name doesn't matter. These creatures... they call themselves the Many. Nopony knew how they got here, but by the time we all realized what we had in our midst, it was too late... Canterlot had been closed off from the world, and there were more than enough worms in the city to infest every last one of us.”

“Towards what end?”

“They... they see individual minds as a weakness to be cured. They believe that the solution to all conflict is to infest every last intelligent thing everywhere, bring them together in some 'grand harmony'.”

“But where did... this 'Many' come from?” Twilight demanded.

“From far beyond our world... an entity they named the 'Machine Mother' created them, and then tried to eradicate them. They escaped on a ship that could ride between the stars... and just happened to land here.”

The stallion's voice was getting weaker, and it was having trouble holding its head up. Jack did his best to support the withered pony. “What is wrong? Are you ill?”

“Without the attachment to the Many... my body is dying.”

Twilight's eyes went wide. “What?! No! No, no, no! There has to be something we can do to save you!”

“You already have.” The death's grin that was the stallion's face somehow managed to soften slightly into a smile. “Once the Many have taken you... death is the only path to freedom.”

The mare slumped against the floor, staring downwards. Jack lowered the stallion's head. “Can we defeat them?” he asked gently.

“Not just the two of you. You would have to destroy the entire city. Just escape. Whatever you came here for, forget it... escape any way you can. Don't... don't let them take you....”

The stallion's withered body seized, twiched, and a harsh rattle escaped his throat... and then all of his muscles went limp, and with a final breath, he escaped the only way he could.

Tears streaked down Twilight's cheeks. “We... we killed him....”

“Twilight... even death is a blessing compared to what has been done to these poor unfortunates.” Jack stood, glancing around at the multitude of armor racks and weapon stands that stood in orderly rows before him. “We must remain focused on our mission. We cannot allow this place to distract or confuse us. You must remember, Twilight Sparkle- everything around us, even this poor unfortunate, is not real.”

“That's not an easy thing for me to remember right now.” The unicorn's voice was small, her gaze locked on the corpse on the floor. “I keep remembering what we were told before we ended up here. This could have happened. It did happen somewhere else! Somewhere, right now, ponies have been changed into these... things!”

“Twilight, I am no stranger to the eternal question 'what if'. We can only be thankful that we have not seen this possibility come to pass ourselves.” Jack pulled free a long-shafted, gold-bladed spear from its display, and managed to rig a harness so that he could wear it slung over his shoulder. “But you must remember our real homes, and those who await our return- and what fate awaits them if we fail here!”

Twilight visibly swallowed, closing her eyes tightly for a moment before nodding. “You're right. I'm losing track of our goal. I'm sorry.”

“I cannot blame you, Twilight. You told me once that this place was a home to you for many years. To see it so debased, to see your own kind so... violated....” Jack shook his head. “I can understand your state of mind. But we must press on.”

“I know.” She slowly stood on unsteady legs. “Jack... thanks.”

He gave her a slight smile and a nod. “Do you need a weapon?”

“No... I'm not trained for one, and I'm not sure I could even bring myself to use it. I should stay with my magic.”

“I understand.” The human located a longsword with a brass pommel and handle, and tucked its scabbard into his robe's belt. “There. This should suffice. We had best be on our way.”

Twilight nodded, started towards the doors, then stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the still form lying on the floor. “I feel like... we should do something for him,” she said quietly.

“Escaping this simulation and putting it to an end would be the best thing we can do.”

The despairing look in the mare's eyes faded, slowly replaced with determination. “Yeah. That's exactly what we need to do. Our next destination should be the throne room- if we'll find answers or a way out anywhere, it'll be there.” She turned her gaze towards the entrance, and with a flare of magic, the makeshift bar flew aside and the doors slowly swung open into a still-empty corridor. “I'm ready when you are.”

Quietly, and with renewed purpose, the duo left the armory, letting the heavy double doors close behind them.

(-)

“There is no way the real Ponyville Hospital is this big.” Rarity paused a moment to lean against a gurney left lying haphazardly on the floor of yet another hallway. “What are we on now, the fourth floor? And how many departments have we been through?”

Applejack was giving a stack of patient charts a quick glance. “Yeah, I was wonderin' 'bout that. Mebbe in whatever universe this was, Ponyville's a bigger town?”

“That's a good theory.” Rarity moved to join her friend. “What are you looking at?”

“Seems like patient records. I'm kinda curious t' what happened here. Mebbe knowin' will give us an idea of what we've gotta do.”

“I'm not adverse, but we'll want to be quick.” The two ponies rifled through the clipboards, tossing most of them aside, unable to decipher the complex medical notations. One plain sheet of paper tucked underneath a note-covered chart, though, caught Applejack's eye, and she pulled it free.

“Dr. Wheatfield-

I'm becoming very concerned for the patients and staff over the last couple of weeks. It was difficult enough restoring order and confidence after the Discord Incident, but now it seems we are facing what could be a significant situation. Mass reports of insomnia, night terrors and sleepwalking; outbreaks of violence for no discernable reason; even hallucinations- and not just the patients, but the staff, and even some reports from the town itself. I worry that it's more than simple psychiatric fallout from the Incident, and strongly suggest that experts from Canterlot, Manehattan and other nearby cities be brought in to do a full toxicological, thaumatic and biochemical analysis of the area.

I can no longer dismiss some of these symptoms as unfortunate side effects of Chaos-disturbed minds- my sister has just this morning complained of seeing eyes in the darkness, and she was well outside the scope of the Incident when it occurred.

Please act soon.

- Nurse Redheart”

“This don't bode well,” Applejack decided, letting the paper fall back onto the table. “Whaddya think happened?”

“Who can say? Maybe the fight against Discord didn't go quite so well for this version of our world. Though apparently their Elements were victorious.”

“Assumin' they had th' Elements. Ain't no tellin'.” Applejack sighed. “Dunno what coulda happened after that note was written, but obviously nothin' good.”

Nothing else looked promising, so the pair continued on. After a few minutes, they found themselves approaching a darkened window, flanked on either side by doors; as they closed in on the window, a light in the room beyond snapped on, illuminating a strange shape that made both mares gasp.

“Is... is that a mannequin?” Rarity murmured.

A plaster-white dress form stood in the room just beyond, positioned to be looking out through the window at them; the stark shadows thrown by the light sharpened the faint outlines of a face, giving it an almost angry look. “That's jes' creepy,” Applejack said quietly, trying the right-side door and finding it locked.

The other door led the pair into the small office the window looked into, with large machines on the far wall and a small collection of mannequins standing or lying near the door. Applejack had to gingerly push one aside so that they could get past it, making their way towards another door at the far end. “Somethin' about this is creepin' me out,” the cowpony admitted.

“I shan't say I don't feel the same.” Rarity tried the doorknob, first with her magic and then with her hooves. “Applejack, can you open this? The knob feels as though it's stuck.”

Applejack turned, raising a hoof and laying it on the knob. “Sure, I'll just give it a quick tug an-”

click

Rarity's flashlight went out. “Oh, that's unfortunate,” she murmured, turning around. “A moment, Applejack, I'll see if there's another- gyaaah!”

Her words became a strangled cry as she suddenly backpedaled into the wall. Applejack turned to see what was the matter- and her eyes went wide in fear.

The mannequins had been moved- or moved themselves- into a loose cluster at the center of the room. All of them were pointed towards the ponies, as if watching them try to escape. “Rare....” Applejack panted. “I can't get this door open and them things are starin' at us....”

Rarity gulped. “There... there's something on that middle one, I think....”

“I'll... get a closer look....” Applejack slowly approached the mannequin that stood directly under the light. Unlike the others, this one was set on a metal stand, giving it the appearance of looming over her. On top of its head was a surgeon's cap, cocked at a strange angle. “Well, that's kinda strange,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Why would it-”

kz-bzzzzt

The overhead light snapped off in a shower of sparks, plunging the entire room into pitch darkness. A moment later, Rarity's flashlight flickered to life- showing the mannequins standing in a perfect circle around Applejack.

The earth pony yelped something profane and scrambled backwards, knocking over a couple of the dress forms in her attempt to meld with the back wall. “Oh my Celestia,” she breathed. “Rare, bring that light here an' shine it out th' window towards where we came in.”

Reluctantly, the unicorn did so. What she saw made her knees wobble- dozens more of the mannequins, all lined up along the hall they'd come through, all seemingly staring through the window at them. “We need to get out of here,” she said, her voice barely more than a squeak. She turned to find that the door they'd found jammed before was now wide open, seeming to beckon them through; neither pony found themselves needing any sort of encouragement to use it.

What awaited them wasn't any less unnerving- a long beige hallway, one side with a wheelchair ramp and a short staircase, the other a barricaded door near an offshoot hall; along the ramp and the hallway past it sat a dozen more mannequins, all lined up facing towards them. “We ain't goin' that way if we don't got to,” Applejack decided.

The pair moved towards the shorter hall, finding a set of closed double-doors. “Awright. I'll try these; Rare, you watch them mannequins down th' hall.” With the unicorn's approval, the cowpony moved towards the doors and tried the handle- no luck, they were locked tight. Only now did she see the face of another dress form leaning against the small window set in the right door. “No luck,” she decided, not quite able to suppress a little shudder as she spun around. “Guess we gotta-”

Once more she found herself backing up wildly. Two mannequins had appeared between her and Rarity, side-by-side, one each pointed towards one of the ponies. Rarity noticed her sudden silence, turned, saw and shrieked. “Where are they coming from?!” she demanded.

“Consarn it, settle down!” Applejack rushed over to her friend. “We can't go panickin', or this place'll wreck our brains. Now let's get towards....”

At some point, neither pony had been watching the long hallway. And at some point, all of the mannequins that had been clustered near the ramp had moved towards them, strung out in a rough line as if caught in the middle of some sort of procession.

“Rarity! Grab mah tail and keep up!” When she felt the unicorn's teeth on her tail, Applejack launched herself into a gallop, literally plowing her way through the mannequins, sending them tumbling off to either side of her. She could hear Rarity wail through her clenched teeth, but to her credit the fashonista kept up with her mad rush.

Finally, they reached the far doors, and Applejack practically tackled them off of their hinges, sending herself tumbling along the floor with Rarity sliding right behind. As they came to a rest, they dared to look back the way they came, through the slowly-closing doors... to see that every last one of the dress figures they'd knocked over had righted themselves and had assembled in a small group underneath the hallway light, all seeming to stare directly at the two ponies. Just as the doors closed, the light went out with a shower of sparks, and the hallway went utterly dark.

“AJ?” Rarity's voice was as unsteady as her legs.

“Yeah?”

“When we get home, remind me to burn every last one of my mannequins.”

Applejack let out a trembling snort. “Remind ya? I wanna help.”

The new hallway they'd found themselves in was much better-lit than the previous ones, though it seemed to terminate in a cul-de-sac with a set of double-doors barricaded over with what might have been more wood than the doors themselves were made of, a single door next to an observation window beyond which was a small administrative office, and a thick metal door covered in electrical warning signs. Rarity tried the single door and found that the handle turned easily, but some sort of bolt lock was keeping it shut. “Another dead end,” she sighed.

The muffled clicks of hooves against tile sent both ponies backstepping away from the doors- but the sound was coming from what seemed to be a doctor, her rich ebony coat contrasting with her light-yellow mane, trotting up to the other side of the window. For some reason, the thick security glass made it difficult to make out her face even with the flashlight, but her dingy medical scrubs, surgeon's cap and mask stood out. The doctor tapped against the glass with a hoof, then pointed towards the metal door. “It seems she wants us to check in there,” Rarity observed.

“I'm on it.” The door opened to Applejack easily enough, revealing a power box of some sort with a red lightbulb in a cage above it. Two of the three breakers on the box were thrown and wouldn't move, but the third had been pulled upwards. “This what she wants?”

“She's nodding,” came Rarity's reply.

“Awright, then....” After a moment's consideration, the cowpony pulled the lever downwards. With a sharp electric snap, all of the ceiling lights went out; the red light above the breaker box flickered on, and another similar light in the administrative office followed suit. “So, great, we made it darker,” Applejack muttered, glancing around. “ 'Cause that's really what we want in this place, more darkness.”

The doctor gave them a satisfied nod as they approached the door again. Applejack threw the now-unlocked door open and marched through alongside Rarity. “Awright, missy, yer gonna tell us what's goin' on an'... an' why....”

Another mannequin stood before the window, looking out towards the hall.

“...an' why yer a statue.”

ding-dong

“Attention, patients and visitors of Ponyville Hospital. Please remember that, should you have any questions or concerns, or in the event of an emergency, our staff are always ready to help. Please feel free to approach our employees for any assistance you may require.

“...they're not who they seem to be....”

Applejack gritted her teeth. “C'mon, Rare. We are not lettin' ourselves get scared off that easy.”

Her bravado lasted as long as it took to storm through the office and into what seemed to be a library of medical textbooks beyond. The grey-and-white tile floor was absolutely smeared with old blood, as if something had been slaughtered on and then dragged along it; at the far end of the library, past several rows of large wooden bookcases, was a crumpled form in a wide pool of blood lying beneath a flickering ceiling light.

With no small amount of reluctance, the pair approached the form, finding it to be the brutalized and long-dead body of the doctor they'd just seen through the window.

click

Rarity's flashlight cut out again. Kneeling next to the corpse was the shadowy filly from before, her head bent down as if in mourning. The apparition remained for only a moment before, with the flicker of the overhead light, it vanished as though it had never been.

“.evivrus ot epoh dluoc ynopon ,dloh koot soahC eht ecnO”

Rarity's eyes were wide, staring, flicking in every direction but towards the body on the floor. “This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real....”

“Rarity! Snap outta it, girl!” Applejack forcibly shook the unicorn back to her senses. “Yer right, it ain't real! It's all just this place gettin' into our heads!”

“And it's doing an exceptional job!” Rarity practically collapsed, trembling madly. “I don't even trust my own sanity right now! I can't take any more of this!”

“Rare.” Applejack did her best to keep her voice level, despite the supreme effort it was taking not to simply fold up in a heap next to her friend and quietly go insane. “Focus. Think of Sweetie Belle.”

“S... Sweetie....” The fashonista's trembling slowed, and she began to blink again. “She's... she's still at home and depending on us. So... so is your family, Applejack. And everypony else in Ponyville, and Equestria... and who knows how many other worlds.” Her eyes fell closed. “Oh, sweet Celestia, how did we end up with so much depending on us?”

“I dunno, sugarcube.” The earth pony leaned down to offer her friend a shoulder to prop herself against. “But we got two choices. We sit here and feel put-upon, or we get movin', get out and get home. You kin guess which one I choose.”

With a visible exercise of will, Rarity pulled herself to her hooves, leaning heavily on Applejack's side. “Thanks, AJ,” she murmured quietly, her eyes brimming with tears.

“ 'S awright, girl. You lean on me when ya need to. 'S what friends are fer.”

It wasn't the fastest pace the mares set as they pushed open a door and trotted into yet another darkened hallway, but it lacked nothing in determination.

(-)

“Scoots? Scootaloo?” Dash was transfixed, unable to look away from the specter floating only a few feet away from her. “You don't remember me? Rainbow Dash?”

Indy put his hand on her shoulder. “You said she met you after running away from here. If she never got to do that....” He let the rest go unsaid, but the pegasus understood; her eyes went wide. “Oh my gosh,” she whispered.

The human knelt down in front of the ghostly filly. “Okay, Scootaloo. Can you tell us what happened here?”

“I... don't remember much about that night. I remember that the Matron got really mad at me about something, she practically chased me through the orphanage- even where the patients were- until I thought I'd lost her by hiding up here. But somehow she found me. She was so angry, and she had that stick she used to beat the orphans who made her mad. She was about to take a swing at me, and I... I kicked her. Right in the muzzle. I think I knocked out a couple of teeth, too.

“She really didn't take that well. She dropped the stick, picked me up with her magic and slammed me into the door. I tried getting out, I was practically beating the door down with my hooves, but she was holding it shut with her magic. She picked me up again, dragged me across the floor and then threw me into the back of the room... where I hit the crystal storage box that powered all the lights and door locks and such.

“The Matron was so busy throwing my body around the room that she didn't realize what happened. Me hitting the box so hard had cracked the crystal- too much energy was leaving it now, and things that it powered started to break, catch on fire. A lot of the newer parts of the orphanage were made of wood... nopony could get out because of the lockdown gates. And all of the patients were suddenly freed- including the more dangerous ones.

“Something strange happened then. With all the magic flowing through the building, all the ponies dying, all the pain and fear and suffering... the orphanage started to know. It started to feel, to remember. That's why I'm still here- it remembers me, but just as a spirit, a dead filly. Some others... ended up worse.”

Indy couldn't help but grimace. “How can we get out of here, Scootaloo?”

“If you can make the orphanage forget me, I might be able to trick it into letting me lead you out. But we can't take too long- if it realizes you're here, it'll want to keep you, too.”

“Okay. How can we make the orphanage forget you?”

“There's a furnace in the basement past the inner yard. If you burn my body in it, that should get the building to forget I'm here. You'll have to get through the portcullis, though.” A sheet slid off one of the boxes near the filly's corpse, revealing a small box with two orange crystals. “Replace the crystal in the box with a new one. That'll restore power and let you get into the back half of the building.” The ghost began to fade from view. “I'll wait for you there.”

After a moment, Scootaloo vanished. Dash stared at the spot she'd been floating in. “Ohmigosh,” she breathed. “Indy, this... this didn't actually happen, did it?”

“Apparently, somewhere, it did.” The human picked up one of the crystals, walked across the attic to the dented power box and forced it open. Inside was a dark-grey cracked crystal of the same shape; after a moment, he managed to pull the broken crystal out and replace it with the new one. With a heavy thud and a crackle of energy, the single ceiling light in the attic snapped to life. “Okay, that should get us past the portcullis,” he said. “And now....”

The pair turned towards the body that still lay crumpled in the corner. Indy picked up the sheet and gingerly wrapped it around the corpse, then hefted it over his shoulder. “She hardly weighs anything,” he said quietly, before glancing down at Dash. “Ready to go?”

“Y- yeah.” Dash couldn't keep her eyes off of the makeshift sack that held Scootaloo's remains, and she stayed close behind Indy as they made their way back down the stairs. Nothing seemed to be waiting for them past the portcullis, nor the long hallway with bars over every window, or the open passageway through a yard that was completely encased in thick iron bars. “Um... Indy?” Dash murmured.

“Hm?”

“How come there's bars all over everything here?”

“I... don't know.” Reflexively, the human tugged at one of the bars covering an office window. “Seems like they're reinforced, well-made. And newer than most of the building.” He frowned. “And I didn't think to ask Scootaloo what she meant about 'more dangerous patients'.”

They fell quiet again, following the hallway into a large, two-story room that had been converted into a reception area. Several clocks ticked loudly from somewhere, and a number of harsh-white electric lights illuminated sections of the room, a staircase and a pair of doors at opposite sides from the desk. As they approached, there was a blur of motion from behind the desk as something darted past a barred window. Dash froze. “Did... you see that?” she asked.

Indy nodded slowly, raising a finger to his mouth in a signal to be quiet. He crept forward to the desk and peered past it; finding nothing, he instead took a small stack of pages from the top of the desk and brought it near one of the lights to read it better. “Patient reports?” he asked quietly, flipping through the pages. “Pyromaniac... disfigurement... narcoleptic... psychosis... murder... cannibalism?”

“...what?!” Dash almost forgot to keep her voice down. “Are you saying that they had crazy ponies in here? With the orphans?!”

“What sick bastard could....” Indy raised his head towards the right-hand door. One of the electric lights beyond it was flickering, buzzing madly, and there was some other sound beneath it that neither of them could quite make out. After a few moments, the light went back to its former, slowly-pulsing state.

“This can't be real,” Dash said. “Indy, Celestia would never allow this. Forcing a bunch of homeless foals to live with dangerously insane ponies? She'd stomp that out in ten seconds flat.”

“You're right. From what you've told me, your Celestia would never let something like that go on.”

The pegasus paused at Indy's words. “But there could be a Celestia out there who just didn't care,” she realized. “Oh my gosh. I don't even want to think about that.”

There was a site directory near the desk, and it listed the basement as being through the left-hand door, so the pair cautiously proceeded that way. Unfortunately the optimal route was blocked by a makeshift barricade of tables and chairs, so the pair was forced to find a way around; their path led them through what was designated the “meal hall”, and into a row of chambers marked “White Hall”. Each chamber was fitted with a thick, wooden door with a heavy lock and a barred window. “Who'd they keep in here where they needed locks like these?” Dash wondered.

A grimace crossed the human's face. “Like you said before... is it okay if I don't want to find out?”

They'd gotten halfway down the hall when a sound further along made them freeze. One of the lights at the far end of the hall began to flicker, and something moved beneath it. With a quick “hide” uttered under his breath, Indy maneuvered himself and Dash into a small cul-de-sac through which ran a handful of pipes; there they waited for whatever it was to show itself or move on.

What came into view forced Dash to clap a hoof over her mouth to stifle a gasp. A stallion- almost thin enough to be confused for a mare except for the greater height- staggered underneath the light, which began flickering as soon as he approached. His mane and tail had been shaved, and he had been wrapped in bandages of some sort from head to hoof, which were now absolutely filthy and peeling off in places. Thin metal-wire cages, heavily damaged, covered his head, cannons and fetlocks. Instead of the sharp clops of healthy hooves, every step he took brought a sickening wet crunching sound, as though he were stepping on damp leaves.

The pony stood there for a moment, head and tail twitching madly as though he were being electrocuted, and took in a sharp breath, letting it out in a harsh sigh as his teeth clacked together repeatedly. Then, abruptly, he spun around and staggered back the way he'd come.

“The orphanage remembers the more... interesting patients.” Scootaloo's spectral form was nowhere to be seen, and judging by the withered stallion's fading hooffalls, only Indy and Dash could hear her. “You really don't want to let them know you're here if you can help it. There's a reason only a few of them were intact enough for the orphanage to play with.”

“That is not in the least bit reassuring.” Indy managed to persuade himself to leave the cul-de-sac, and almost had to drag Dash out as well. The usually-confident pegasus practically crept down the hall alongside him, not that he was being his typical bold self either; stealth did seem to be the order of the day.

It took some time to make it through the White Hall, with at least two close calls where only a panicked retreat into the shadows saved the pair from being caught by one of the patients. But a new problem presented itself just as they were closing in on the stairs leading down to the furnace- one of the patients was crouched before them, hissing and groaning as she mindlessly beat her forehooves against a half-destroyed skeleton laying on the floor beneath her. “How are we supposed to get around her?” Dash hissed.

Indy glanced around for anything useful, and spied a small piece of broken masonry nearby. He picked it up and focused on a large clay vase across the hall, still holding the withered stems of several long-dead flowers; after a moment to judge the distance, he let fly. His aim was true, and the small rock clanged against the side of the thick vase, making it wobble just a little.

Instantly, the patient was up on all fours, snarling and glancing around. She seemed to catch sight of the rocking vase, and with a screech more befitting a banshee than a pony, the withered husk practically shot across the room, leaping at the offending decoration. At a single blow from her hoof, the vase shattered as if it had been rigged with explosives, showering the entire corner of the room with pieces of clay and rotten plant matter.

As the patient stood there, shuddering and clicking, Indy and Dash moved by her as quickly as stealth would allow and down the stairs leading into the basement. Fortunately, with power back on, the furnace was ready to fire, and it only took a few thankfully-uneventful minutes to get it fired up. Gingerly, and with a strange sense of reverence for this long-dead filly's corpse, Indy placed Scootaloo's body inside; the sheet caught fire almost immediately, and it didn't take long at all for the flames to reduce the small form to ash and bone.

“That did it!” Again Scootaloo's incorporeal voice echoed around them. “Without my body to remember me by, the building is losing its grip on me. Hurry back to the front doors and I might be able to sneak you out!”

Getting back up the stairs was easier than getting down them- the patient who'd been “guarding” them was ravaging the meager remains of the vase she'd smashed- but the rest of the path was more difficult; it seemed that the patients sensed something had happened, and were more alert than before. Dash and Indy had to avoid three of them, splitting up to get by the last one, before finally making it back to the entrance. Scootaloo's spectral form was waiting for them there. “Okay, come on, hurry!” she called out, seeming to trot towards the doors. “The doors should open now!”

The thick doors swung open as she went through them. Dash immediately took to the air, keeping pace with Indy as he sprinted towards the exit. Fifty feet, twenty, ten-

thwoooooom

-and suddenly the doors, the entire entranceway itself were gone, replaced by a blank, dark brick wall. Indy slammed shoulder-first into it, and Dash barely kept herself from crashing as well. “What the hay?!” she shouted.

“Uh-oh.” Scootaloo's voice seemed muted, somehow. “This isn't good, guys.”

“What? What isn't good?” Indy hit the wall with the side of his fist a couple of times; it was absolutely solid. “What happened, Scootaloo?”

“The building knows you're here now. It won't let you leave.”

(-)

“Huh? Pinkie, turn back that way. I thought I saw something.”

Pinkie Pie shuffled back around, peering ahead. “Huh? What do you... oh. Hey, what is that?”

Something on a blank rock face along the trail they were still following had caught the light as the two mares passed. As Pinkie turned, a flash of yellow in the form of an arrow reflected the light back at them. “Wow, that's weird,” the earth pony said. “Let's see what it points to.”

More arrows- which had apparently been painted in a rush- guided the pair to a small chest that had been half-buried behind a cluster of rocks. Above it was a strange symbol in the same reflective paint, looking like a torch in a circle. “Somepony put this here to be found,” Fluttershy realized.

“Yeah, and it looks like we're the finders. Let's see what presents we get!” Pinkie pulled open the lid to find a small collection of items- a flashlight with a thin elastic band, three small emergency flares, and another typed page. Fluttershy took hold of the last item to read.

“She had to hurry. Sunset would be soon, and with no way to contact Celestia to tell her what was going on, the sun certainly wouldn't wait for her. Half-panicked brushstrokes of the reflective paint she'd stolen from the utility shed pointed the way towards where she'd left extra supplies- she was only one pony, after all, and had gathered more than enough to keep herself safe... but others might blunder their way into this waking nightmare, and she wouldn't let them be defenseless.

She spared herself a moment to ritualistically paint the torch symbol. It was her only comfort now, thinking herself a bearer of light, perhaps the only one left. But in case that was too abstract a warning for anyone who might happen along, she painted a short message on an outcropping opposite the symbol.

The sun was touching the horizon as she finished, and she ran as quickly as she could back to the cottage. She still had too much to do to allow herself to be caught outside at nightfall.”

“A message?” Pinkie brought her light up to shine on the flat rock face to their left, illuminating five words scrawled across it in bright yellow.

THE TAKEN LIVE IN DARKNESS

“So they really are called 'the Taken',” Fluttershy said quietly.

“Yeah, looks that way.” Pinkie finished tucking the flares into the poofy mess that was her mane and offered the flashlight to her friend. “Here, put this on,” she said. “This harness would get in the way of your wings, and I don't want you to be defenseless.”

The pegasus complied, slipping the band over her head so that the flashlight rested on the left side of her neck, just below her muzzle, where her mane wouldn't block the light. It put out a surprisingly bright beam of light- not as bright as Pinkie's, but sufficient. “I do feel safer,” she decided. “But we should keep moving. I really don't like being out here in the open, especially if there's more Taken around.”

The pair managed a brisk canter along the path, wanting to make time but not wanting to risk rushing into an ambush. Odd noises and barely-heard shouts echoed from between the trees, but the two mares managed to cover quite a bit of ground uninterrupted, and eventually emerged into another clearing. “Whew,” Pinkie panted, stopping for a moment to catch her breath. “I guess I do kinda need to cut down on the sweets... hey! We're closer to whatever's giving off that light we saw.”

Fluttershy squinted, then gasped as realization struck her. “Pinkie... that's my cottage!”

“It is? Great! C'mon, we might be safe there for-”

“...would like to WELCOME these FINE YOUNG MARES to PONYVILLE....”

“...awwww, crud.” Pinkie spun around, just catching sight of a shadowy form darting across the path they'd just exited.

“Um... Pinkie? I think we've got a problem.” Fluttershy's flashlight caught two more shapes at the edge of the clearing. “They're trying to surround us.”

“Yeah, and it looks like there's a lot of them....” Four more shapes staggered into view on the opposite side.

“What do we do?”

“I think I could go for a little more cardio work. How about you?”

“Um... what does that mean?”

“It means run!”

Fuelled by fear and the nearness of possible safety, the two ponies tore their way across the open field, reaching the narrow path at the far end just ahead of a trio of Taken. This new path was extremely closed-in, barely a thin dirt trail between thick walls of trees, and it was a difficult task to keep any sort of speed without tripping over something that couldn't even be seen until they were almost on top of it. Fluttershy risked a glance over her shoulder to see that the tight environs weren't really slowing down the creatures behind them, and it wouldn't be long before she and Pinkie were overtaken....

A thrill of fear shot through the yellow pony's mind as she realized they were replaying the very same events in that second page of manuscript they'd found.

Fluttershy had just opened her mouth to shout a warning to Pinkie when the swoosh of an axe cut past her ear; through the corner of her eye, she saw the weapon spin by her, its blade glinting in the beam of her flashlight. Before she could utter a single sound, the axe had reached Pinkie-

-and sailed by her, burying itself in the rotting trunk of a half-fallen tree.

Startled by the impact, Pinkie forgot to watch where she was going and tripped over an exposed root, stumbling along for a few steps before going down. Fluttershy made the same mistake as she tried to catch up to her friend and went tail-over-mane thanks to a hidden ditch; she let out a shill scream as she rolled along the ground, almost not hearing the harsh cracks of wood off to her right. Somehow she managed to come out of the roll onto all four hooves, and unsteadily galloped to where Pinkie still lay, whirling to face the way they'd come so that she could fend off the Taken until her friend recovered.

SNAP

The axe had been enough to finish off the once-stately tree's resistance against gravity, and with a series of cracks, it folded in on itself and collapsed, the wide trunk slamming down on the trail and closing it off- and blocking the Taken from their pursuit.

“Pinkie?” Fluttershy knelt down to check on the earth pony. “Come on, Pinkie, we have to keep moving!”

“But I'm tired of pushing rocks, Mama....” Pinkie shook her head to clear it; Fluttershy could swear she heard the sound of a cowbell rattling. “...oof. Okay. I'm good. I'm good. Who keeps ringing that bell? I can't concentrate!”

“Here. We have to hurry!” Fluttershy managed to pull the deceptively-heavy pink pony to her hooves and pulled a foreleg over her shoulders to support the still-dazed Pinkie. Still, somehow they managed a good pace along the trail, and managed to keep ahead of their pursuers long enough to make it to the edge of the Everfree Forest- and within sight of Fluttershy's cottage.

Now the pair knew why it was so bright. Somepony had strung up lanterns of every conceivable size and shape all over the place, in a crazy-quilt pattern that didn't allow for a single shadow within thirty yards of the cottage. Every window in the building itself was similarly well-lit. “Sheesh, somepony's afraid of the dark,” Pinkie muttered.

“Around here, that kind of fear is completely understandable.” Fluttershy let Pinkie's foreleg down, finding that the earth pony could now walk in a straight line on her own, and the pair approached the cottage. The usual menagerie of animals was completely absent, every last hutch, warren and perch empty, and an eerie silence had settled over the place. Steeling herself as much as she was able to, Fluttershy trotted up to the front door and opened it.

Just like the outside, the inside of the cottage was well-lit to the point of being completely shadowless. The living room seemed abandoned, though somepony had stacked ample amounts of lantern oil, flashlights and flares around; it would've been a serious fire hazard had the organizer not strategically placed and wrapped everything in as safe a manner as possible. Buckets of reflective yellow paint and used paint brushes were piled in one corner towards the dining room and kitchen; at the kitchen table, a slumped form sat, murmuring to itself and scribbling something on paper. “H... hello?” Fluttershy half-whispered. “Who's there?”

The form's head shot up, turned. With a startled cry, the blue mare leaped from the chair and stormed towards them; there was a brief flash of blue, and the front door slammed shut behind Fluttershy and Pinkie. Both ponies backed up against the wall as the blue shape came to a stop in front of them.

“Wh... who are....” Fluttershy stared at this new arrival, who was glaring daggers at them, seemingly ready to attack at a moment's notice. “...wait. I recognize you. Trixie?”

“What manner of trickery is this?!” Trixie snarled. “How did you get through the lights?! Speak!”

“I... I don't know what you mean! There's no trickery! This is my home!”

“You can't be who you appear to be! You're dead, both of you!”

“Um....” Pinkie piped up. “I'm pretty sure my doctor would've mentioned that at my last checkup....”

“Trixie, I don't really know what's going on, but we're not Taken! And we're not dead!”

The magician's wild eyes calmed somewhat, and she took a step back, losing her hostile stance. “...well. Trixie admits that she never actually saw the bodies....” She glanced between the two newcomers. “How did you get here?”

“We... we came from Zecora's hut in the Everfree.”

“Zecora....” Trixie's expression fell. “She fought so valiantly... Trixie would not be here without her help.”

“Wh- what happened to....” Trixie's gaze locked onto Fluttershy's, and the unicorn's expression was as clear as day- don't ask. “...um. Well. We... we found a chest hidden away along the way- did... did you put that there, Trixie?”

“Yes.” Trixie turned back towards the kitchen; the two other ponies fell in behind her. “Trixie has hoped beyond hope that there would be others who eluded the Taken. A few have, but... never for long. Never long enough to make it here.” The unicorn returned to her seat, seizing a quill in her magic and resuming her writing; she was making notes on a series of maps, most of them time-and-date notations set in the near future.

“Trixie, how did this all start?” Pinkie asked. “What are the Taken, and why aren't the Princesses doing anything?”

The quill fell, along with Trixie's head, onto the table; the unicorn began sobbing softly. “...all Trixie's fault,” she murmured.

“What?” Fluttershy blinked in shock. “How could this all be your fault?”

“It was that Celestia-damned Lyra Heartstrings. Four best-selling novels wasn't enough for her, no. She hit a dry spell where she couldn't write anything, and what does she do? She doesn't go on hiatus, or take a vacation to some sunny mountain town to relax, no. She starts looking for a spell. An invocation spell, to help her tap into the hidden possibilities of history. A 'what-if' spell.”

“Did... did you teach her that spell, Trixie?”

“Trixie didn't think it could do harm! Lyra paid well, Trixie needed the money, and the spell couldn't possibly do any harm. At... at least not as it was designed.”

“What happened?”

“Lyra isn't only a skilled writer- she's also a talented magician. Perhaps somepony to rival Trixie herself, with training.” Trixie sighed. “But... maybe the spell wasn't doing what she wanted, or maybe she wanted more out of it... so Lyra changed the spell. Trixie doesn't know how she did it, but she amplified the thaumatic output, added at least three more levels of....” The unicorn caught the blank stares of the two non-magical ponies and sighed. “Suffice it to say that she made the spell do something it was never meant to do. It tapped into something that was never meant to be touched by ponykind. And that something got loose.”

“What, exactly?”

“Trixie doesn't know! She's stayed awake countless hours trying to figure it out... but the only pony that knows for sure is Lyra Heartstrings. Good luck asking her that, though.”

“What happened to Lyra?”

“Whatever she let loose... took her. Manifested in her. She was trying to tap into the forces of reality to improve her writing, but now... what she writes is reality. And whatever has hold of her is making her write the horror story to end all horror stories.”

“Wow. This is, like, the ultimate metafiction.” Pinkie looked down at the maps. “What are these for?”

“Timetables for checking on my caches and lights. Can't let a single shadow form. That's how the Taken got the others... through the shadows.” Trixie's expression fell again, and the other two ponies could see the dark circles under her eyes, the lines of worry that marred her face.

“O... others?” Fluttershy blinked. “What others-”

She was cut off by a soft pop from outside. Trixie scrambled towards the front door, followed closely by Fluttershy and Pinkie; the unicorn stared out through the windows in the front door, eyes scanning back and forth. “Lantern number eighty-nine went out,” she murmured. “It shouldn't have, it has enough fuel for at least five more days....”

Another quiet pop sounded off, and one of the lit lanterns went out with a brief flare of light. The ponies caught a short glimpse of something dark bouncing off of the glass. “The Taken!” Trixie exclaimed, whirling on the pegasus and earth pony, her expression furious. “The Taken are here! You led them right to me!”