There was a sudden shuffle of hooves along the polished marble floor. Rainbow Dash pushed back from the table, beads of sweat rolling past her eyes as she traded glances with the gathered crowd. Some of the onlookers rose into the air, while the rest pushed up against the line of chairs and over the white tablecloth. Dash’s most recent corpse, blood still spilling from the tattered remains of her eye, lay off to one side, just beneath a still-floating Cirrus. A curious silence gripped the room, broken only by the fluttering of wings and the distant sounds of battle still rising from the hole in the floor.

“Alright everypony,” Dash said after a moment. “Here’s the thing: I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong in thinking today couldn’t possibly get any weirder. Won’t happen again. Promise. So let’s all just take a deep breath and chill for a moment while I try to figure out what’s–”

The mahogany-lined edge of one of the banquet hall’s dining chairs slammed into the rear of Dash’s skull, resulting in a crack that bounced from wall to wall. Her face snapped down, blood already pouring out of her nose and mouth. Before she could move her hooves, the chair came down a second time, this time onto her back. Blood pushed up through her skin. A few sections burst out in vibrant displays that splattered out over the floor. Bones cracked and snapped as the chair continue to hammer down on her. A few concentrated blows on her neck soon snapped her spine in two, and reduced her trachea to a red pile of ground-up mush.

*POP*

Dash reappeared a meter to the right. She glanced from her pulverized body to the small pegasus floating above her, the chipped and bloody chair still gripped precariously between his hooves. He stared out at the others, who regarded him coldly.

“Bit uncivilized, don’t you think?” one piped up.

“Well I don’t see any of you setting a standard here,” the chair-wielder shot back.

A sudden blur of metal caught the ponies’ attention, and they looked back at Dash. She opened her mouth to comment, only for a stream of blood to pour out. She made several frantic grabs at her throat, but the carving knife was lodged in deep. Her face turned a ghostly white as more and more blood cascaded down her neck. Her legs quivered, buckled, and dropped out from under her, leaving her in shambles on the floor. A few gurgles managed to escape her throat as she went down. Soon the blood flow slowed to a trickle, and her body let out a final convulsion as it lay in a large crimson puddle. Over at a nearby table, a blond-maned pegasus cheered and patted a nearby companion on the back.

“Hah! Told you I could do it,” he said with a grin.

“Ah, it was a lucky throw,” his friend grumbled.

“I’ve got next!” A small individual, black and yellow in color, hopped up in the air with a collection of forks gripped in his teeth. He landed at the same moment Dash *POP*ed. She scarcely had time to blink before he was upon him, with the glinting metal points shoving deep into her eyes and ears. Several prongs broke off inside her skull and were pushed deeper in with each new blow, sending the cutlery remnants slicing through her gray matter. As she slumped back, her mashed eyes leaking red and white, her attacker leaned back to catch his breath and spit out a few bits of brain tissue that had been cast back and caught between his teeth.

Reactions from the crowd were immediate.

“I got next!”

“Nuts to you, I’m next!”

“If he’s got next, then I’m after him.”

“Keep dreaming, I already called it.”

The next few minutes passed in a frenzied haze. Pegasus after pegasus grabbed the nearest sharp object they could lay their hooves on and leapt upon Dash in a stunning display of homicidal tenacity.

A full table’s worth of chairs rained down on Dash. Forks and knives flew through the air, some wielded by wings, others gripped in teeth, and a few more balanced precariously on the tips of hooves. Following a brief raid of the buffet, a few pegasi returned wielding serving trays and heading lamps and quickly jumped in to join the fray.

Amongst all the chaos, Dash continued her attempts to get a word in edgewise. Her attempts were in vain, as the surge of the crowd shoved a blade through her throat before she even had a chance to clear it. She gasped and sucked down a full helping of blood as she collapsed onto the floor.

The next Dash fared no better, with two different blades intersecting in the back of her neck. She was paralyzed in an instant and collapsed to the floor in a heap. A bulky pegasus quickly swooped over and knelt down next to her. Dash squinted and recognized him as one of the pegasi who had judged her trick the previous day. The pegasus leaned forward, aimed, and delivered a powerful kick right into Dash’s face. Her neck snapped back as her nose splintered into three separate pieces. Another blow hit her just as the first drops of blood hit the ground, and then another and another. Each strike of the hoof further reduced her face, sending teeth flying and wearing down her cheekbones. One kick went right into her eye, collapsing the socket while the orb itself oozed out onto the floor in a gooey stream. A few more kicks finally did her in as her skull caved inward, with several sharp bone fragments cutting right through her brain.

Each time another Dash came into being, another wave of knife violence went after her. Chairs cracked her skull, knives ripped her skin, and hooves broke her bones. Between killings, the assembled crowd shouted amongst themselves. The matter of who was to go next remained a point of contention, though no proper line ever formed. With each reanimation, the splatter on the walls grew thicker, the blood pools deeper, and the arguments more heated.

Finally, there was a break in the action; the silverware supply had finally been exhausted.

“Hey Bolt, got anymore knives over there?” one bloodied mare shouted.

“Nothing but soup spoons over here!” her friend called back. She tapped two metal prongs sticking out of the ears of one of Dash’s bodies. “Those still work pretty good, though.”

Several meters to the right, Dash’s latest body, which was sporting four long slashes across her abdomen and a missing ear, flopped to the floor. A dip in the floor tiles had created a small pocket of blood deep enough for her unraveling intestines to float on, along with what might’ve been a chunk of her kidney. Which body it came from was anypony’s guess at this point.

Meanwhile, Dash *POP*ed into existence high in the air.

“I really gotta work on appearing where I want to,” she muttered to herself. She glanced down at the crowd. “Hey! Any of you weirdos feel like explaining what’s going on yet?”

A few scattered chairs tossed in her direction was all the response she got. Dash sighed, flapped her wings, and took off. She soared high over the hall, dodging a few eager pegasi in the process. Her proximity to the ceiling allowed her to avoid the bulk of the gathered crowd as she aimed for the nearest set of doors. Suddenly, a quick burst of light caught the corner of her eye. She turned to see more lights appearing from the hole in the ground. Her ears twitched. The echo of distant shouts and energy blasts rose faintly over the din of the banquet hall.

“Gotta see what the others are getting up to,” she said. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s really messing with these guys up–”

A pointed hoof hit her square in the back, knocking the wind from her lungs and the lift from her wings. Dash rocketed to the floor, the heavyset, black-maned pegasus behind her flapping as hard as he could as he shoved her down.

The pair crashed through the grand piano in the corner of the room a few seconds later. With a resounding, almost-musical crash, the enormous instrument shattered into a thousand pieces. The large pegasus rolled off to one side in a coughing fit. Dash rolled to the other. She tried to stand back up, only to have the exposed and broken bones in each leg send her staggering back down. She flapped her wings instead. One responded. The other had been severed by a snapped wire, and the stump only bled faster at her efforts.

Dash rolled back and forth, attempting to rock herself up. She’d almost managed to rise to a hobble when a thin black line passed over her face and into her neck. A slim yellow mare pressed up behind her and pulled her forelegs apart. The piano wire wrapped around each hoof tightened its grip into Dash’s neck. She gasped for air as the wire dug deeper and deeper into her skin. Blood soon seeped out, some dripping along the wire and onto her attacker’s hooves. Some drops managed to work their way up Dash’s ever-tightening throat and out her mouth, while even more came out when a series of vessels in her eye burst open. It wasn’t long before Dash slumped over to the floor.

“Hey!” the black-maned pegasus shouted, having finally cleared the dust from his lungs. “That one was mine! I got to her first!”

“Well, you weren’t doing a very good job, so I figured somepony else should have a go.” The yellow pegasus flicked off the wire while cleaning the blood from her wrist. “Besides, it was my turn anyway. You cut.”

“Like hay it was!” A third pegasus shouted from nearby, approaching with a splintered chair fragment gripped in her wing. “You lightning workers are always so quick to get ahead, and you’re never fair about it.”

“Oh pipe down, water wings,” the black-maned pegasus cut in. “Like a rainmaker could really do anything other than get her feathers a little soggy.”

The rain pegasus scoffed. “At least I’m not some dumb thundermaker. It makes sense somepony got ahead of you. As if you could ever get something done fast enough.”

“You best take that back!”

“Make me!”

There was a palpable pause. Then the crowd descended on each other en masse. Tables overturned and chairs hurled through the air while volleys of threats and insults echoed throughout the hall. Every pegasus in the room went to work pummeling whatever foe they could find, which tended to be whoever was closest. Rainmakers rugby-tackled the thundemakers, while the whole hail division took out their aggression on every fog technician they could get their hooves on. In the air, the lightning team divided their ranks to taking on both the rainbow and the tornado factory workers at once in an impressive display of aerial ferocity.

Truly, the only clear alliances in the chaos were those within the various departments. The exception, of course, was accounting, whose members went out of their way to only attack each other and nopony else.

Chaos gripped the hall. And at the center of it all, there was Dash. She had intentionally *POP*ed back up higher in the air, but not high enough to see the pegasus above her rushing down with an outstretched leg. His kick connected to the square of her back, knocking the wind right out of her. With it went her heart, which was shoved clear through her chest and out into the air. Dash blinked a few times as she watched the organ sail away. It managed to beat a few more times, several drops of blood popping out on each exasperated spasm, before finally going still. Dash’s body twitched and went limp, with the pegasus’ leg still stuck inside. He flew off to one side of the room, shaking his leg as hard as he could in an effort to wring her body off.

A new Dash *POP*ed up above, even higher this time. Her eyes caught movement next to her. She tucked her wings and made a dive for the floor, but the slim green-maned pegasus who floated just above her was faster. With a quick burst of movement, Dash’s assailant grabbed her head, thrust it back, and shoved her recently-expelled heart right back down her throat. Dash thrashed back and forth, shoving wildly at the other pony while trying to vomit her heart back up. The other pony only pushed down harder, flapping forward until Dash was almost on the floor. Dash gurgled and gasped, her cheeks ripping apart as the hoof went further and further down her gullet. Blood trickled out from all sides, as well as a new stream emerging from her nose. Finally her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and the gurgling stopped. Slowly, the attacker withdrew her leg. The tips of Dash’s hooves touched the ground just in time for her to fall forward onto her face. The other pony, leg covered in blood, smiled for a moment before turning around to punch a rainmaker in the jaw.

A lucky swing of a serving tray, ostensibly aimed for the nearby Vice-Chair of Hurricane/Tornado Relations, took the next Dash by surprise when she *POP*ed up over the table. The blow shattered both her wings and sent her tumbling over onto the floor, where she slid forward on the blood pool from her last body. Her attacker, a rather beefy mare recently transferred to Cloudpushing, whooped with glee and hopped over to finish the job, only to be cold-cocked by an incoming member of the thunder department.

While the two wrestled each other under a table, Dash struggled to her hooves and tried to walk forward. She only made it a few steps. This time, a pair of amber-backed mares tackled her and dragged her back.

Dash shoved and pushed against her assailants to no avail. Their small frames didn’t budge in the slightest as they pushed Dash forward. Ahead, a tall, wiry pegasus directed the two into place in front of a small group assembled next to one of the large stained-glass windows.

After another attempt at wiggling free proved futile, Dash glanced over to the ringleader. Her eyes glazed over for a moment as she recognized the gray-bodied, silver-maned figure standing in front of her.

“Hey… are you Gale Force?” Dash asked.

The figure smiled. “Why, yes, I am. You’ve heard of me?”

Dash squealed in delight. “Heard of you? The leading Wind Worker in Cloudsdale? Of course I’ve heard of you! You’re awesome! You’re the one who invented the Class IV windstorm! And then there’s all you’ve done for city storms… I mean, what you did in Fillydelphia? That was a work of genius.”

“Well, I’m glad somepony enjoyed it!” Gale smiled and chuckled. “The mayor certainly didn’t take as favorable an attitude about things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pony so upset about the prospect of having to repair a few dozen buildings.”

“Aww, he shoulda known better,” Dash said, paying no mind to the two pegasi next to her as they reached around and dislocated her legs. “You work with the best, you gotta expect the best.”

“My sentiments exactly. Could you hold on a moment please?” Gale turned to her team and raised a hoof. “Alright ladies… maneuver three, just like we practiced.”

The four pegasi behind Dash flew into the air and began flying in a tight figure-eight fashion. A small vortex formed between them, which quickly grew in size as the ponies flew faster. An additional two pegasi swooped in and pushed at the vortex on both sides, focusing it into a tight swarm of pure wind.

Dash watched the formation with a spark of awe in her eyes. She was so enraptured that she didn’t notice the silver serving tray flying through the air until it hit her throat with a resounding crash. It ripped through her skin with ease, slicing her trachea in two and spilling a stream of blood out onto her neck and chest. The small silver handle of the tray remained embedded in the laceration, having snapped off when the tray impacted.

Gale glanced over at the pegasus who had thrown the tray from across the room and frowned.

“My, my, everypony is certainly rather inconsiderate today.” Gale sighed. “I’ll have to remember to break his nose. Oh well, no sense wasting a perfectly good gustball. Team, when you’re ready.”

The two pegasi holding the wind aimed and pushed. The ball of energy ricocheted forward, striking Dash’s slumping body square in the chest. She launched through the air with the force of a rocket, shattering the glass of the mosaic shattered and landing with a splash in one of the castle’s largest decorative pools outside. She bobbed in the water for a few seconds, blood drifting steadily out of her neck, until she gave a few final kicks and went still.

The next Dash appeared next to her body. The two floated gently in the cloudy red water.

“Wow, a genuine gustball… awesome!” Dash smiled and laughed to herself. Suddenly, she caught a dark shape reflected in a hanging silver ornament next to the fountain. Spinning around, she saw the water churning behind her. Suddenly a large fin rose up from the deep and rushed straight at her.

“Huh… so that’s where that thing went.”

Dash flapped her wings to take flight, but it was too late. A pair of jaws wrapped around her leg, and she was yanked violently under the water. The great white thrashed its head back and forth under water, throwing Dash about like a ragdoll. The teeth shredded her skin like wrapping paper, cutting deep through her muscle and bone. A red cloud quickly surrounded the two. It soon got so thick Dash’s remains were obscured entirely. A few spare feathers and a chunk of her leg drifted to the surface, while her ribcage managed to work itself free and float gently to the floor of the pool below.

The new Dash, having *POP*ed into being high overhead, watched the sight from on high.

“Man, they sure make some big fountains here. Can’t imagine that guy is comfy in there, though. Gotta remember to get Twilight to move– hey!”

A strong pair of forelegs wrapped around Dash and pushed her forward. Dash barely got a look at her attacker before the two went crashing through another window and back into the dining hall. Dash took the brunt of the crash, the sharp shards of glass cutting into her face and chest. A particularly long piece went down through one of her eyes, pushing the orbital remains out through the back of her throat. Another jammed into her gallbladder after slicing her liver in two, spilling out bile through her stomach and intestines. Bits and pieces of tissue rained down onto the floor as she continued to be pushed forward. She tried to cough, only for her torn tongue to get caught in her throat and block her airway completely.

The pegasus that grabbed her stopped in the middle of the room. He hoisted her broken, bleeding, and choking body into the air and shouted out to the others. “Hey! I found her!”

With that, he threw her to the floor as hard as he could. She landed face-first, her nose breaking in four places and her skull squeezing tight over her remaining eye. Both kidneys popped out a hole in her abdomen and surged onto the ground, one of them taking a chunk of her bladder with it. She convulsed on the ground for a moment or two, until finally her body went limp. The blood continued to gush out at a steady rate, quickly connecting with a few other blood puddles already forming nearby.

The next Dash stood nearby, regarding the crowd. There had been a momentary pause in the action when she had crashed back into the room. Several pegasi still had their hooves on one another, forelegs frozen in mid-punch. They all stared back.

Dash sighed. “Never really finished, is it?”

The crowd descended like a tidal wave. A dozen sets of hooves made a grab for her, pulling at her legs and wings in a delirious frenzy. Her struggles only managed to knock her off balance even further, and she was pulled onto her back. With a sickening crack, one of her wings was yanked off and tossed back into the crowd. Her skin split at her joints as her legs were tugged off, small seams of blood turning into large red gashes. The tendons of her left foreleg snapped off one by one as her limb was slowly ripped free. Eventually, with one final twist to loosen the bone from the socket, her whole leg was off. It too was tossed into the crowd, where it managed to smack an incoming pegasus right in the cheek.

Blood trickled out of Dash’s fresh stump at a restrained rate. Even that combined with a small fog specialist trying to dig into her stomach with a soup ladle didn’t quite manage a killing stroke, and Dash found her next death delayed long enough for a small group to get their hooves around their neck. Moving in sync with one another, they twisted and pulled as hard as they could. Dash grunted and groaned at each tug. She tried to speak, only for her voice to grow higher and higher with each new pull. Fresh tears appeared along her neck, blood popping out as her skin tore open. The top of her spine proved sturdier, but even that was no match for the determined posse. With one final thrust, her head was ripped straight from her shoulders. The blood swell this time was more ferocious, some of it managing to splash up into Dash’s still-gaping jaw. Somepony wrestled Dash’s head free for himself, wherein he drop-kicked it out the nearest window.

As the next Dash appeared, a cycle developed with her. The mob of pegasi would quickly latch onto each new appearance, tearing her limb from limb in a matter of minutes. Sometimes they opted to tear through her skin and pull her insides out, resulting in a more drawn out death. Other times they were content to simply pull her limbs off and let her bleed out.

In spite of the astonishing amount of blood that now coated the banquet hall floor, there was always a clean set of hooves to take a crack at Dash. The crowd constantly cycled itself outward, with newer pegasi shoving their way forward and sending freshly-soaked attackers to the rear of the crow. There, they resumed attacking one another in a fierce, but much less deadly, display of recreational violence. Occasionally a freshly-detached leg of Dash’s would get tossed into the outskirts. These were quickly appropriated as weapons by the smaller pegasi, who brandished them like clubs to keep their larger foes at bay.

It was nearly twenty minutes before Dash was able to sneak away. After a rather brutal beating, wherein her face was smashed in by a large snowmaker with a shard of her skull stuck to his hoof, she opted for a new spot to *POP* into play. Her attempts to escape by going farther and farther away proved futile, as she was always tackled to the ground. This time, she went under a large pile of corpses that had developed nearby. They were stacked at least three bodies high and over a dozen wide. The organs draped over them like party decorations and the blood spreading out gave the whole mass the appearance of a leaky lawn ornament. When a fresh Dash appeared in a small pocket of space between them, she was instantly hidden from her aggressors around her.

Dash kept low. Wiping a long streak of blood over her cheeks, she crawled forward along the blood-slicked floor. Several times she was able to slide instead of crawl as she aimed for a still-standing table off in the corner of the room. Around her, the air grew tenser by the second as all the pegasi stopped what they were doing to find Dash.

“Does anypony see her?” one pegasus shouted.

“How could you lose her?” shouted another, this one with hooves layered in blood.

“Me? It was you who had her last!”

“Oh, big shocker, a Mist Maker passing the bit. No wonder Fog keeps outperforming you every quarter.”

“Outperform this!”

The first pegasi kicked the second in the jaw, somepony else tossed a chair, and the fight was back on. Ponies started throwing kicks at one another, and before long the whole room had reverted back to a massive, uncoordinated brawl.

Meanwhile, Dash made it to the table. She immediately slipped under the hanging cloth, disappearing into the darkness with only a small pile of wings to keep her company. She moved forward briskly, pausing only when she reached the end of the table. Taking a deep breath, she poked an eye out and glanced around.

Sitting in a chair, not a half meter away, was Cirrus. He was leaning over to pick up the fork he had dropped, and, by chance, made eye contact with Dash as soon as she peaked out.

“Well, hello there,” he said with a smile. Dash flinched, only for Cirrus to shake his head.

“Not to worry,” he said. “I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment, so I think it wouldn’t be too harmful to grant you a quite respite.”

“Uh… thanks?” Dash slowly slipped forward, out from under the table. She had ended up in a corner of the room, one that was presently far from the action back at the center. Cirrus straightened up and returned to the plate in front of him. Sitting on it was the largest soufflé that Dash had ever seen.

“I told you I loved these things,” Cirrus said after taking a bite. “I’ll need to send my compliments to the kitchen when I’m done. And maybe ask for seconds, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“What’s going on here?” Dash asked. “Why have you all gone totally bananas and started attacking me?”

Cirrus shrugged. “You know, it’s the strangest thing. One moment everything was fine and dandy, and the next… well, there was that flash of light, and then… I don’t know really how to describe it. It’s like a large, fuzzy blanket just descended over me, and wrapped me up tight. Then all I could think about was you. That is to say, all the ways I could kill you as messily and entertainingly as possible.”

Dash squinted and peered up into Cirrus’ eyes. A faint yellow haze covered them, one that made his pupils seemingly vibrate in place.

“It seems the others shared my feelings,” Cirrus said, gesturing around the room. “It’s quite a strong temptation, though, so that’s understandable. And when we go through with it and actually do you in, it’s like, well… like that first morning flight after a long storm. You know the one, where you can feel the crisp air on your back and the damp morning dew hanging in the breeze. Just pure, unfiltered bliss.”

He turned to face Dash, balancing the fork on the end of his hoof. “Indeed, right now I have a powerful urge to take this fork, ram it into your eye socket, and start jiggling it about until I was scraping the back of your skull. Maybe grab a knife and slice open your jugular for good measure, if I could find myself a proper blade. Or I might instead try to simply ram my leg down your throat until I feel your stomach acid burning my hoof, and then wait for you to choke on it.”

The two pegasi stared at one another for one moment. Dash took a nervous step back, careful to keep a low profile and avoid any wandering eyes for the center of the room. The shimmer in Cirrus’ eyes intensified, then abruptly faded away. After another moment, he smiled and turned back to his food.

“Still, as I mentioned, this comes first. Priorities, after all.”

Dash let out a long sigh of relief. She looked past the table, spotting the large double doors that led out of the hall just a few short paces away.

“So, uh, thanks for… whatever you just told me,” she said. She took a few steps forward, her eyes never leaving Cirrus or his fork. “I’m just gonna go now, and, uh… go.”

Cirrus gave Dash a lazy wave. “Fine, fine. Do take care. When I’m done here I’ll have to let the others know where you are, but I think you’ve got some time. There’s a lot to savor in this beauty.”

Without another word, Dash turned and slipped forward. There was less blood on the floor here, and the red tracks she’d been leaving slowly lightened up. After a few strides, she opted to take flight, launching out towards the doors. She aimed for the nearest handle, ready to force it out, when suddenly the large wooden door opened all by itself. The tall, gracious form of Princess Luna stepped into view.

Dash immediately pulled herself to a halt. She held her face back in the process, just barely avoiding impaling herself on the long dark-blue horn that appeared in front of her.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash, excellent. I had been hoping to run into you.” Luna said. She remained in the doorway, her dark mane flowing gently behind her.

“Princess Luna!” Dash exclaimed in a hushed whisper. She dropped to the floor and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. “I, uh, it’s, uh… it’s not what it looks like?”

Luna’s eyes briefly wandered to the melee, then re-focused on Dash. “Yes, I’ve been made aware of the situation here. Tell me, do you know where I can find my sister?”

“Princess Celestia? Well, she, uh… she went down to the crypt under the library. Or under the room right there, I guess. Mystar’s crypt, I mean.”

Luna frowned. “So it is Mystar? Strange, I thought I’d dealt with him permanently following the poison joke fiasco all those centuries ago.”

She paused for thought for a moment, then straightened herself out. “Very well. I know that such a battle will be a strenuous one, and I shall go lend aid to my sister. Thank you for your assistance, Rainbow Dash.”

Luna turned to leave, only for Dash to reach out and stop her.

“Wait!” she hissed silently while pointing her wings behind her. “What about all of this?”

“Hmmm?” Luna cocked her head. A second later, her eyes widened. “Oh, I see! An excellent point, Rainbow Dash. It would be an excellent idea to prevent this room’s infection from spreading to the rest of the castle.”

A spark of light appeared at the end of Luna’s horn. Simultaneously, a dim glow appeared at the edge of the ceiling. It unfurled down every wall, draping them in a faint green display. A random chair that had already been flying through the air collided with the glow and immediately bounced back into the room. In a moment the room was covered from floor to ceiling in a protective shield.

Luna smiled. “There, that should do the trick. I must be off now, Rainbow Dash. It’s time to put an end to this madness.”

At that, Luna turned and walked down the corridor. The door shut behind her, clicking locked as soon as it closed.

“Hey, wait!” Dash cried. She immediately clamped her hooves over her mouth, but it was too late. A dozen nearby heads snapped in her direction. Dash shot a quick look over her shoulder, then looked back at the door.

“Well, not the first magical shield I’ve had to deal with today…” Dash muttered to herself. Just as the nearest pegasus came within grabbing distance, Dash took a step back and threw herself at the door.

She collided shoulder-first, sending a small ripple through the green haze. Immediately her body was launched backward at a ferocious speed. She bowled straight through the group of pegasi that had been right behind her and arced high into the air. She barely had time to look up and recognize the large statue of Celestia she was flying towards.

She landed mouth-first on the horn. The pointed and polished stone tore through her skull, briefly emerging out the back of her head and then dipping back inside her body at the top of her spine. She slid forward, the horn tearing her insides in two and cracking her bones apart like so many fresh eggs. The horn’s tip eventually emerged again, now with a fresh red coat, just behind Dash’s left cutie mark. Her body continued down until her forehead was shoved up against Celestia’s. Pressure in her skull forced her brains out through her nose, where they dripped down onto Celestia’s eyes and mouth.

The noise of the fight reached new heights, keeping pace with the levels of aggression. Shattered glass mugs littered the floor. Few tables remained, and even fewer chairs. Every pegasi in the room had managed to find somepony to kick, punch, and bodyslam with every bit of strength they could manage. Bruises were common on most faces, as were several deep cuts and sprained wings. Plenty kept to the air for some high-flying battles, but just as many kept all four hooves on the ground.

There the battle was a slippery one, as by this point the floor was completely painted in a huge puddle of blood. Dozens of ponies tumbled over each other trying to wrestle in the fluid. Headlocks were wiggled out of and submission holds slipped free. Between them all a cornucopia of organs and bones lay scattered across the floor, making for makeshift islands on the red sea. Sometimes they were kicked aside in the fight, other times simply stepped on. A few unfortunate souls had their faces shoved in them. The larger, more-together corpses met a similar fate. A great many were simply left where they dropped, but several found themselves tossed through the air by the Head of Shoreline Storm Developments, who had taken to using Dash’s remains as a kind of cannon flak in an effort to knock flying pegasi to the ground.

Meanwhile, a much fresher Dash kept her back pressed again the base of the statue. After several long, deep breaths, she peeked around the corner. Most of the fighting had restricted itself to the far side of the room from where she was. She glanced back at the front doors, where the magical shied still shimmered.

“Well that was a dumb idea.”

A few bursts of light to her right caught her attention, and she turned to find the hole to the crypt just a few short meters away.

Dash blinked. “I think this is where I came in.”

As if on cue, a pair of pink legs suddenly popped up at the edge of the hole. They slithered forward, moseying around until finally digging themselves into the tile. A few seconds later, Pinkie Pie gracefully pulled herself up and over.

“Huh, so that’s where this went.” Pinkie’s eyes traveled the room, eventually finding Dash standing behind her. She smiled. “Hi Rainbow Dash! We were wondering where you were. You missed a lot of neat stuff down there!”

“Pinkie, shhh!” Dash reached out and pulled Pinkie in, back behind the cover of the statue. “I don’t wanna get spotted.”

“I mean, you saw how it all started,” Pinkie said. “But then Spike fired you up, and poof, you were gone! Which is a neat trick, I didn’t think that worked on ponies.”

“Yeah, that was new to me,” Dash said with a sigh.

“So then you’re gone, and Twilight makes this big speech to that book about how she’s gonna stop him, and then the book made a speech back about how she didn’t have a chance, and then we started to go at it, which was going fine for a little while, except Twilight couldn’t seem to get a hit in, and then Princess Celestia showed up, and then she made a big speech to the book about how he couldn’t win, and then the three of them started fighting, and I think that’s when the book blew a hole in the ceiling–”

“Which is the floor up here,” Dash said. “I don’t suppose the book shot any big beams of light up as well?”

“Hey, good guess! It happened when Twilight tried to shoot it with an energy burst or something. And then they started fighting again, and Applejack and I helped too, and we were able to get Spike out–”

“Wait, you got him out? Where is he?”

A small wail in the hole caught Dash’s attention. It grew louder and louder until Spike suddenly popped up into the air, his arms flailing around in an effort to catch himself. Before he could fall back down, Pinkie reached over, snatched him out of the air, and dropped him on his tail next to Dash.

“Here he is!” Pinkie chirped. “So like I said, we got Spike out, and then Applejack tried to jump on the book’s back, except since he didn’t really have a back, it didn’t exactly work, and it sent her flying everywhere, so she had to take a second to put herself back together again, and then I think she said she was gonna try and grab one of those tentacle dealies–”

A brown leg flew up from the hole, landing just to Pinkie’s right. Immediately following it was two more legs and Applejack’s torso. Her head came last, coming up in a lazy arc and rolling right to a still-dazed Spike.

“Hiya Applejack!” Pinkie said. “I was just talking about you.”

“Tarnation, that smarts,” Applejack said, biting her lip. “Wish I coulda landed that better. Somepony mind gatherin’ the rest of me up? I gotta get back down there.”

“Uh, I can do it,” Dash said. She scooped up Applejack’s pieces and hurriedly put them back into place. “Hang on, we’re missing a leg here…”

“Rainbow Dash! Ain’t you a sight for sore… well, everythin’ I guess,” Applejack said with a smile. The noise from the fight grabbed her attention, and she peeked around the statue into the rest of the hall. Her eyes quickly doubled in size. “Now just what in the heck is goin’ on up in–”

“And so then Princess Luna showed up,” Pinkie went on saying, “and then she gave a big speech, and then Princess Celestia gave another speech, and then Twilight gave another speech, and then I sorta started to tune them out once the book started talking again, since they were all really repeating themselves at this point, and then they all went back to shooting big magic beams and energy bursts and colorful lights at each other, which was way more exciting, but I’d seen plenty of that too, so I decided to take a quick looksee up here, and then I found you, and then I started telling you what was going on down there, and then Spike appeared, and then–”

“Yes, thank you, Pinkie. I think I know how the rest goes,” Dash said. “And Applejack, up here, uh… it’s complicated?”

“Looks like a roomful of pegasi beatin’ the livin’ daylights outta each other. An’ also…” Applejack narrowed her eyes. “There’s a whole lotta you lyin’ about. In a whole lotta pieces, too.”

Dash scratched her chin. “Actually, yeah, that about sums it up.”

“Guys, focus!” Spike said, climbing to his feet. He wobbled back and forth for a moment, working to catch his head. “Whoa, bloodrush. I mean, listen! We’ve gotta get back down there and help Twilight and the Princesses!”

A mass of multi-colored sparks flourished in the hole to punctuate Spike’s words.

“I know, Spike. But what are we supposed to do about it?” Applejack asked. She hobbled back and forth, her right foreleg still missing in action.

“That book’s definitely one tough meanie,” Pinkie said. “I mean, it’s holding up against Twilight and both Princesses! Or at least being really quick and sneaky about not getting hit. Oh, and that magical bubble thing it’s built around itself seems to count for a lot. Although it’s a really cool looking bubble thing. I think I’m gonna go sneak one more peak of it…”

While Pinkie slinked off towards the hole, her neck stretching out ahead of her body, the others huddled together.

“Okay, look,” Dash started. “Whatever that book did down there, it’s causing all this weirdness up here. I figure we stop that, we stop this.”

“And hopefully puts a stop to… this, too,” Applejack said, indicating her missing leg. “Seriously, anypony found this yet?”

“But how?” Spike asked. “I mean, you’re right Applejack, look at what that book’s putting up with right now. It’s fighting back against both Princess and Twilight!”

“They’re in a tight spot, that’s for sure,” Applejack said. “Doesn’t help that Twilight keeps doin’ that disappearin’ act of hers. That’s been makin’ matters worse ever since all this started.”

“Although having her powers super-charged helps a little,” Spike pointed out.

Dash shook her head. “There’s got to be something we can do. I mean, there always is, isn’t there?”

“Usually, yeah,” Applejack nodded. “Though it seems like the ponies that figure out what that somethin’ is are back down there, dukin’ it out. Doesn’t much help us up here.”

“True, but still, we can… uh…” Dash trailed off. Spike and Applejack turned around to see what had caught her attention.

Two pegasi had tackled each other in the air and slid to a stop on the ground just a few short meters from the trio, leaving a long streak of Dash’s blood in their wake. After a few more rolls on the ground and another exchange of kicks, they each paused and glanced over at Dash, Applejack, and Spike. The two parties stared at each other for several moments. A striking yellow haze blanked the two pegasi’s eyes, one that made them all but glow as they stared Dash down. Slowly, the pegasus on the left turned his attention to the crowd, then back to Dash.

The pegasi split up. The one on the left made a beeline for the crowd, launching briefly into the air before dropping to perform the Pony’s Elbow on a pint-sized intern for the Cloudlaying department. The pegasus on the right went straight for Dash. Before he reached her, he bent over to scoop up Applejack’s remaining leg, which had become obscured by a fallen tablecloth.

Dash flared her wings and tried to move back, but the other pegasus had already moved in too close. His red-maned, green-bodied form leapt forward and struck Dash upside her chin with Applejack’s leg. Dash’s head twisted around, spitting out a long arc of blood and teeth.

“Hey! You cut that out!” Applejack tried to leap at the attacking pegasus, only to fumble with her missing leg and fall forward. While Dash tried to recover, the pegasus hit her again and again, each blow landing with a sickening crack. The fourth hit sent Dash crumbling to the floor. The fifth one kept her there.

“Leave her alone!” Spike shouted. He ran up behind the pegasus and, after a deep inhalation, let loose with a tremendous burst of flame. The pegasus quickly ducked out of the way and flew off towards the crowd, patting at the singed hairs on his forehead.

Meanwhile, Dash, who had reappeared just behind the pegasus, took the full brunt of the flames head-on. The scorching heat quickly melted the flesh from her right cheek, revealing the white bone and freshly-cooked muscles beneath. One of her eyes bubbled and boiled in the socket, melting her iris away into a pool of blackened goo.

“Uh, whoops,” Spike said, cheeks glowing red. “Sorry about that, Rainbow Dash.”

Dash sighed, extra air coming out the new hole in her face. “Hang on…”

She took off, heading for the front of the statue. Positioning herself in front of the blood-slicked horn, Dash took a few flaps back, then launched herself forward. Her good eye went through the horn first, skewering her skull and popping out the other side. Dash’s body went limp below, and her whole form slowly slid down the horn until it came to a stop next to her older body.

The next Dash flew back down to rejoin the others.

“Okay, so, what were we talking about?” she asked. Spike didn’t respond as he helped Applejack get her last leg back into place.

“Ouch!” Applejack rubbed her newly returned appendage. “That’s gonna be sore in the mornin’.”

“Hey, Applejack!”

The three glanced over to the hole, where Pinkie was looking up and waving at them.

“It did that thing again! The yellow light bubble thing! Two times!”

“Ah, jeeze,” Applejack clutched her forehead. “An’ I’ll bet it got a whole mess stronger, too.”

“Sure looks that way!” Pinkie turned to look back down the hole. “Ooh, it just dodged a really big blast from Princess Luna. And… whoa! Twilight got really close to getting hit there, good thing she’s so lickity-quick right now.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Dash asked.

“Pretty much right when we all started tryin’ to take that book out once an’ for all, it’s been gettin’ these weird magical… I dunno, bursts or somethin’,” Applejack said. “This little yellow ball would appear around it, out of nowhere, an’ then bam! It’s suddenly even stronger than it was a second ago.”

“They come in waves,” Pinkie said. “A whole lotta them, all at once. Except when there’s just one or two, but then more come again.”

Dash stared at the hole. “So… you just saw two more? Like, just right now?”

Pinkie nodded. “Yep yup! They’re really hard to miss, it’s like a bunch of fireworks went off all at once right next to that book. Only this time it’s good for it, and there’s no Twilight yelling at me for setting her stuff on fire.”

Dash scratched her chin. She glanced back and forth between the hole and her most recent body on the statue.

“Hey, Pinkie? You keep an eye down at that book for a little longer.” Dash turned and took a few steps towards the crowd. “I wanna test something real quick.”

“Can do!” Pinkie gave a quick salute that wrapped around her head three times over, then returned her attention to the battle raging below.

“What are you doing? Rainbow Dash, wait!” Spike called out, but Dash was already gone. He looked over to Applejack, who could only shrug.

Dash flapped right to the outskirts of the crowd. A few random pegasi were involved in a scrap by themselves, and paid her no attention. Dash landed and took a few tentative steps forward. Her hooves moved easily along the blood-drenched floor. Her eyes swept warily over the fight in front of her. It was as frenzied as it ever was. Hooves flew as freely as the pegasi kicking them. Bruises were commonplace, even if none yet matched the intensity seen on any of Dash’s corpses that were still scattered about. The blood on the floor was ankle-deep in some places, gathering in small recesses at the edge of the room and freshly-punched holes in the tile.

“Hey!” Dash shouted. Her voice was quickly lost in the crowd, which was already full of shouting and cursing.

“Hey!” Dash shouted again. “I’m right here! Anypony wanna take a crack?”

This time, a few pegasi looked over. The light in their eyes shined so bright Dash had to shield hers just to look. They soon went back to what they were doing, ignoring Dash entirely. Part of a chair was lobbed over her head, though it was at another target entirely.

“Oh come on,” Dash said with an exasperated sigh. “You can’t get enough of me, and now you’re done? There’s no way you guys are through with me that easy! Let’s go!”

A scuffle to one side involving three pegasi and two broken cider bottles moved in Dash’s direction. She took several instinctive steps backs until she bumped into somepony behind her. Turning around, her eyes widened at the figure before her. Though he was an average-sized pegasus, he was sporting wings easily twice as large as anypony else in the room.

“Roc Soar!” Dash exclaimed. “The three-time international wing lifting champion?”

Roc turned his head and looked Dash up and down. His Eastern-Equestrian eyes studied her closely. Finally, he permitted a small nod. “Yes, is me. Please to be meeting.”

He extended his wings, shoving a pair of pegasi to the floor with ease. Each wing was easily the size of a small pegasus. Dash continued to gape.

“Wow, that’s… actually a little freaky.” Dash paused and shook her head. “Um, anyway, could I ask a favor of you? Could you kill me real quick? Everypony else is suddenly too busy, and I really need to die right now.”

After a moment’s thought, Roc gave a second nod. “Yes. Please be placing head here.”

He flexed his wings forward, leaving a space for Dash’s head in between. Dash nodded and leaned in. Feathers brushed her cheeks, and Roc clenched his muscles tight. The oversized wings pressed tighter and tighter against Dash’s head. Seconds ticked by. Then a drop of blood oozed out of Dash’s nose, followed by several more. The veins in her eyes popped one by one, flooding her vision in a red cloud. Her jaw clenched tight. A small cracking noise emitted from behind her ears.

Roc took a deep breath, and squeezed his wings harder. Trails of blood emerged from Dash’s forehead, trickling down along her nose. Pressure forced her left eye farther and farther out, until it had nearly popped free. Finally, with one final squeeze, Roc’s wings slammed home. Dash’s head imploded like an overripe pumpkin. Her jaw flopped to the ground while an explosion of blood and brains caked over Roc’s wings.

A new Dash stood before a newly red Roc.

“Thanks dude!” she said with a smile. “Much appreciated.”

“Pleasure is mine.” Roc gave a final nod, and went to work diligently scraping the skull fragments out of his feathers. Dash turned and scurried back over to the hole.

“Did you see light again?” she asked as she got back to her friends.

Pinkie nodded. “It was a big one this time. It actually managed to knock Princess Celestia back without the book even really doing anything!”

“What’s goin’ on, Rainbow Dash?” Applejack asked. “What’re you thinkin’?”

Dash rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “I kinda think that book gains a bit of strength every time I die. It sent that big spell out into this room, and, well, this happened…”

She gestured all around her. Applejack frowned.

“That explains a lot,” she said. “I mean, these ponies have killed you how many times up here? No wonder that fight down there’s gettin’ so one-sided, that book’s basically got a never-endin’ supply of energy boostin’ it up here.”

“What can we do?” Spike asked. “There’s still got to be a way we can stop it. Rainbow Dash?”

Spike’s question went ignored by Dash, who knelt down and stared intently down the hole. She watched Twilight roll out of the way of a falling chunk of rock, aim her horn, and send off a powerful purple blast in the book’s direction. The book didn’t move an inch, and the blast simply dissipated harmlessly on a shimmering yellow bubble that now enveloped it. In turn, the book launched one of its tentacles straight out in Twilight’s direction. She barely managed to roll out of the way in time.

Dash narrowed her eyes. The shimmering bubble around the book winked in the light as a few trails of dust scattered on it. She blinked, and a slow look of realization crossed over her face.

“I think…” she said, standing back up slowly. “I think I have an idea.”

“Is it a good idea? Because I’m all about good ideas,” Pinkie said. “They’re usually a lot of fun.”

“What’re you thinkin’, Rainbow?” Applejack asked.

Dash closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I think it’s time to end this.”

Before any of the others could respond, Dash flew up into the air directly over the hole. She stared down, watching more magical beams of light fly around the crumbling crypt.

“This might not work,” she said, “but it’s worth a shot. Also, Applejack, don’t use your well on the farm anymore.”

“Beg pardon?”

With a deep breath and quick pivot down, Dash dove down through the hole in the floor and into the crypt. As her eyes adjusted to the darker setting, she gasped in surprise. The damage to the crypt was extreme. Scorch marks and magical indentations had turned the formally pristine marble walls into a ruined canvas of destruction. Many of the torches had been snuffed out, casting much of the chamber in darkness.

Most of the light now came from the hole above, which cast its widest beam on the book itself. It stood aloft just above the ancient sarcophagus, balancing as always on three long, spindly paper tentacles. More tentacles whipped around the air, all stemming from the open pages between the book’s black covers.

“Ah, my favorite party guest has decided to grace us with her presence,” the book announced to the room as Dash finished her descent. “How good of you to finally make it. I trust you’ve been enjoying the festivities upstairs? Because let me tell you, they’ve been a real treat to me down here.”

“Rainbow Dash, what are you doing?” Twilight called out before teleporting away to dodge a horde of falling rocks. The room paused awkwardly as everypony waited for her to return. Which she did several moments later, soaking wet and spitting up water.

“I would’ve thought you’d have learned not to do that by now,” the book said.

“Be very careful, Rainbow Dash,” Celestia shouted. “This creature is not to be trifled with.”

“Admirable diplomacy as always, Princess,” the book said. It whipped a tentacle out, which shot a series of bright yellow bolts out at the Princess. She pulled a magical shield of her own up to block, but still had to force herself to stand her ground against the onslaught.

Dash flapped slowly. She eased up towards the book, keeping her legs down at her side and her eyes focused. The book, for its part, made no effort to slow her advance.

“I really am glad you’re here,” the book went on. It dodged a large black spiral that Luna fired from her horn, all while its yellow bubble shield continued to shimmer. “After all, I have you to thank for at least a little of this. Oh, no, wait, who am I kidding. It’s all thanks to me that this got started in the first place. But hey, what sort of puppet master doesn’t give some respect to the ones whose strings he’s pulling? So take a bow, Miss Dash, because you’ve done this world a great service. You’ve helped a rightful ruler get back into a position where it can finally and truly take back what it has been owed for so very, very–”

Dash leaned her head back, sucked in, and hocked a loogie. The glob of spit sailed through the air and landed right on the book’s spine. Bits of spittle soaked through the top, dripping down and dampening parts of its pages.

The book gave a sound that was very much like words getting caught in one’s throat. Its many tentacles froze in the air, lending the room a sudden, unnatural stillness.

“…well that was rude,” it finally said.

Faster than Dash could blink, a tentacle shot out and wrapped around her neck. She struggled in vain as the book raised her in the air. The yellow bubble around it swelled in size, pushing out farther and farther until it has nearly encompassed the whole chamber. Twilight and both Princesses were clumsily shoved back, each of them wincing in pain as the yellow light brushed against their skin.

“I could have you not come back this time,” the book said. A cold fury dripped in its words. “It’d really be quite easy. After all, I’ve got the power I need right now. These pathetic ponies here are clearly outmatched. And once they’re out of the way, well, the rest of the kingdom is a cakewalk. So what more do I need you for?”

The book’s grip tightened. Dash’s cheeks grew redder. One of her eyelids twitched involuntarily.

“Still, as it happens, what’s a little more power for the sake of it? Why not continue the fun? Why not keep getting endless pleasure out of you getting torn limb from limb?”

A group of four tentacles whipped out. One by one, they grabbed each of Dash’s legs, pulling them out in all directions. Her joints cracked uneasily as her limbs were stretched nearly to the breaking point.

“I could do a lot of things, really. In fact, I can do anything I want. Absolutely anything. You know why?”

The book leaned in close, until its binding was practically rubbing against Dash’s nose.

“Because. I. Won.”

Dash clenched her jaw. Slowly, she spit out two small words against the crushing pressure.

“…d…doubt it.”

There was a ruffle of papers. The tentacles pulled back. Dash’s legs popped out of their sockets in every direction, a torrent of blood following out each stump. Her head popped off at the neck. It spun in a tight circle in the air, a small geyser of blood beneath giving it the speed for a few extra spins. Her headless, limbless body tumbled to the ground like some great sack of potatoes, landing with just as much grace. Her legs were cast to the far corners of the crypt, while her head was cut into three different slices by several lightning quick tentacle cuts. It fell to the floor in an undecipherable batch of pieces.

The book wiped a few tentacles together, and leaned back.

“Well, that wa–”

The book paused mid-word. It shuddered in place, a ripple going from cover to cover. The tentacles buckled beneath it. Small bubbles appeared along the bindings, bubbles that grew exponentially in a fraction of a second. A high-pitched squeal bounced around the chamber, causing the yellow bubble to brighten to an unwatchable degree. The book expanded in every direction like some strange balloon, until, finally, with a dramatic bang, it popped.

The light bubble pushed in every direction, expanding up the hole and into the chamber beyond. The brightness absorbed everypony in the area, blinding all who stood within it. A great rumbling consumed the room, one that penetrated deep into the core of the castle and up into the sky overhead.

And then, just like that, the rumbling ceased. The light vanished. Silence gripped the whole arena.

Twilight pushed herself forward, rubbing her head while shrugging off a few pieces of rubble. Beside her, both Princesses did much the same.

She blinked, looking up to where the book had just been standing. In its place, amidst a few pieces of parchment still wafting gently to the floor, there was Dash. She flapped in place with a stunned expression on her face. Slowly, she brought herself down to the floor, almost jumping in surprise once her hooves finally touched the rock below.

Twilight took a few steps forward. In the hole above, Applejack, Spike, and Pinkie all leaned over. Dash remained silent.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. “Are… are you all right?”

Pinkie leaned in for a closer look. Her hoof brushed over a tiny piece of tile, accidentally kicking it loose. It plummeted down into the crypt until it bounced off Dash’s shoulder and off onto the floor.

“Ouch,” Dash said simply, and then fainted onto her back.

“Look, I don’t care what you think, I’m telling you, we’re gonna need more mops!”

“You and your mops. Give me a few good sponges and the right amount of soap, and we’ll have this place looking pretty again in no time.”

“We don’t have enough sponges for something like this. Nopony does!”

The argument between the cleaning crew leaked easily through the open door into the dining hall, despite being located out in the corridor. Several pegasi seated at a nearby table couldn’t help but smirk. Their companions only groaned and returned to their food.

The banquet had largely cleared out by now. Only a few pegasi from the expo remained, most of them sitting at a few makeshift tables to eat what little food remained. Members of the castle staff hurried around them. Some were taking measurements of the broken windows and columns, while others examined the many cracks that now littered the floor.

Most, however, found themselves with the task of policing all of Dash’s dead bodies and assorted body parts, and pushing them all into a single manageable pile at the center of the room. The pile was already taller than any pony twice over, and still had much room to grow. Progress was slow, especially with the amount of slippage there was on all the blood. More than one member of the staff stumbled out of the room in a light daze, covered head to hoof in the quickly drying fluid.

Princess Celestia stood beneath the statue of herself, directing the cleaning efforts. Spike scurried around her, his claws moving quickly across pages of parchment as he took dictation from her. A few paces beyond them, Applejack was busy consoling a grieving Pinkie.

“They were the best thing to ever happen to me!” Pinkie wailed. She pushed her front legs out as far as she could. They stayed their normal length and not an inch longer. “Think of what I could’ve done with them in the long term! I could’ve tickled a pony on the other side of Ponyville while also hanging streamers back in Sugar Cube Corner!”

Pinkie buried her head in her hooves.

“There, there, Pinkie,” Applejack said. She rolled her eyes as she patted Pinkie on the back. “I’ve got a feelin’ you’ll figure out a way to do both of that at once some other way.”

“But it’s not the same! I never appreciated it when I had it! Not enough, anyway. It’s just… it’s… they were…”

Pinkie took a big sniff, and poked her head up. She looked around, studying the room carefully.

“Hey… was there a party going on in here?”

At the opposite end of the room, Dash leaned against the wall. An ice pack was gripped tightly against her forehead. She kept her head back with her eyes shut. Despite appearances, she was still awake, and snapped her eyes open at the sound of approaching hoofsteps to find Twilight walking towards her.

“Oh, hey Twilight,” she said. “Drying off alright?”

Twilight pulled the towel wrapped around her tighter. “No biggie. I’m just lucky I only ended up in a fountain and not back in the ocean.”

“I dunno, I haven’t had the best luck with fountains today.”

“How’re you feeling?” Twilight walked over and took a seat next to Dash.

Dash leaned her head back and shut her eyes again. “This is the worst headache I’ve ever felt in my entire life.”

“So you feel good then?”

Dash grinned. “Never better. Compared to the numbness, this is amazing.”

“I’ll bet,” Twilight said, grinning as well. She cast a quick glance at the hole. “I’ve got to admit, that was a pretty good idea. None of our attacks were getting through its shield, but you just cut right through it.”

Dash shrugged. “Well, I figured it was like earlier. It was its magic, right? It let me get through one of its barrier things once, why not try again?”

“But how did you figure that would actually stop him, let alone destroy him?”

“I just did something I hadn’t really done yet,” Dash said. “I just reappeared inside it. Guess it was too much for it to handle. Because really, when you get right down to it, it was just a book. Paper and glue, nothing more.”

Dash paused for a moment. “Well, maybe a little more. Although actually, I wasn’t really sure what would happen.”

Twilight frowned. “A lot of things could’ve happened. But then, since it all worked out like it did, I guess I can’t criticize you too much.”

Dash’s grin grew. “I figured I was due to put down a bad guy anyway.”

Twilight smiled. Her head slowly turned to look out over the room. She eventually found herself focusing on the Princess. As she watched, Luna walked in from the hall over to join her sister, and the two leaned in for a private conversation.

“I think I’ve sorted most of this out with the Princess,” Twilight said. “It was one weird conversation, let me tell you.”

“Did she say if you were totally overreacting the whole time before we got here?” Dash asked. “Or did they really go and blame all this on you?”

“Frankly, I think I spent more of my time defending you rather than me,” Twilight replied.

Dash shrugged again. “Sorry. I’ll admit that a lot of what happened was probably my bad.”

Twilight sighed. “There’s no need to apologize, Rainbow Dash. This was… well, a very strange series of events to begin with. That it spiraled out like this was probably bad luck more than anything else. Still, I’ll admit that I was a little hasty in not contacting the Princess sooner than I did.”

Dash gave Twilight a nudge.

“Fine, so I was very hasty. Even if the Princess still had to give me a firm talking to about using that sort of magic, even accidentally. Although she was more relieved that the Mystar problem had been dealt with once and for all. You wouldn’t believe how long they’d been having to worry about him. It’s not really our style to just up and totally destroy a villain, either.”

“I think maybe, just this once, that’s not a big loss,” Dash said.

“Agreed.”

Another set of hoofsteps approached. Dash opened her eyes, quickly setting her icepack down when she saw who it was.

“I was hoping I would catch you before we left,” Cirrus said. He looked as fresh as he ever did, suit neatly cleaned and glasses spotless.

“Ah, yeah, hey Cirrus.” Dash rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes falling to the floor. “Um… sorry for ruining the expo’s big dinner.”

Cirrus laughed, catching Dash off-guard.

“Please, Rainbow Dash, I hardly think that’s a thing to say. If anything, it was one of the most interesting of these dinners that I’ve ever been too. And it was definitely better than last year’s.”

He straightened himself up. “And anyway, in light of the circumstances, you know as well as I do that it’s us who need to apologize to you.”

Cirrus leaned forward on one leg and gave Dash a small bow. “So, of behalf of… well, the entire weather creation system of Equestria, please do accept our most humble apologies. Even if some, uh, intentions were out of our control, we still acted in a manner entirely unfit for any pegasus, least of all toward a pegasus such as yourself. We hope you can find it in yourself to forgive us.”

“Trust me, apology accepted,” Dash said. “Doesn’t stop me from being sorry myself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Dash saw the gray-maned pony who had kicked her through the chest. A team of medics was slowly prying her corpse off his leg. The long cuts in his leg from where Dash’s ribs cut him were visible even from this distance.

“Except that guy,” Dash said. “Him I’m not so sorry about.”

Cirrus chuckled. “I suppose a few of us did take things a bit further than necessary. When we could pry ourselves from each other, of course.”

“Yes, what exactly is the deal with that?” Twilight asked. “I didn’t see it myself, so the details are still a bit strange to me.”

“Oh, that sort of thing always happens at these things,” Cirrus said. “To tell the truth, the expo is more of a venting ground for a year’s worth of inter-departmental aggression than it is for anything else. Admittedly the fighting usually sticks to the verbal arena, but it would seem everything went over the tipping point this year. Should make for a nice, calm upcoming season, of course. Now that everypony’s got it out of their system and all.”

“I certainly hope so,” Dash said.

Cirrus smiled. “Anyway, I must be off. Plenty of meetings to attend to, and a lot more personal apologies to make, as you can imagine. You take care, Rainbow Dash. Like I said before, I look forward to whatever you have to show us in the future. Even if you really don’t need our help to go places in this world, I’ll be happy to offer all that I can.”

Cirrus gave another small nod of his head to both Dash and Twilight, and turned to leave. He took a few steps, stopped, then turned back.

“Although next time, perhaps stick to something that stays a little more contained.”

He winked, turned, and walked off towards the main doors.

Twilight and Dash giggled.

“He’s got a point,” Twilight said. She turned to Dash. “So, Rainbow Dash, have you learned anything from all this?”

“Would it be a bit much to say I’ve got a new lease on life now?” Dash asked with a smirk. Twilight responded with a roll of her eyes.

“But really, I think I’ll be fine,” Dash said. “I got a chance to test out some stuff far beyond what I could ever normally do, awesome though I am normally, and, honestly, I had plenty of fun doing it. Even when things got super crazy and weird. Although I think I’ll be okay with going back to being able to feel pain and stuff. As for the lease on life part, I think I’m just relieved to know I’m back to having plenty of time left to enjoy this life.”

“And one life will be enough now?”

“I think I’m good limiting myself to just the one from here on out.”

“A pony should always know where her limits are,” Twilight said. “Even a pony like you, Rainbow Dash.”

“You’re lucky I’m even admitting I have limits,” Dash said. “Don’t tell anypony.”

Twilight smiled. “My lips are sealed.”

Dash returned the smile. “So… now what?”

“Cleanup,” Twilight said.

Dash let out a long groan and leaned back against the wall. “I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t say that.”

“The sooner we get it done, the better,” Twilight said. She suddenly shivered. “Ugh, I can’t even imagine the state of my library right now. Spike and I are going to be working on that for days, if not weeks.”

“That’s nothing,” Dash said. “You know Applejack is making me dig her new well?”

“Frankly, that one serves you right,” Twilight said. “After what she told me about her kitchen, you’re lucky that’s all she’s making you do.”

“Speaking of which, what about all of… you know…” Dash pointed to her body pile. A castle worker had scooped a whole bucketful of livers onto the base, where they soaked into the corpse mass like so many fresh sponges.

“I don’t suppose the Princess has a spell that can clean things up faster?” Dash asked.

“Princess Celestia said she should be able to reverse-engineer some of Mystar’s old spellwork, once she’s had a good look at the situation,” Twilight said. “Give her a day, it’ll be done. The end result should be all those bodies just fading away into dust. I just hope that’s soon enough to prevent any further… issues. I mean, the physical damage will still be around, but that’s not the tricky part. For all I know, somepony has already stumbled onto one of your bodies somewhere, and that’s a mess that’s going to be awkward to explain just once. Picture doing it a dozen times, or more.”

“Eh, I think we’ll be fine,” Dash said. “The most obvious places are here and the train, and those are easy enough to block off. Every other place I died was a bit out of the way, so nopony should go accidentally stumbling onto them. Although we should probably do something about what’s in the fountain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on Twilight, you were there, you know what I mean.”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I don’t remember anything. I appeared pretty deep underwater. I just tried to teleport back as fast as I could.”

“So you didn’t see…” Dash frowned, then shrugged her shoulders. “Well, never mind. It’s probably nothing to worry about.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

Dash crossed her forelegs behind her head and leaned back with a grin. “Probably. But come on, Twilight. After everything that’s already gone down, what’s really the worst that can happen?”

The small white bunny hopped along the garden path. After taking a few small bounds, it turned and motioned the pony behind him to follow along.

“I… I don’t k-know, Angel,” Fluttershy said slowly, her head barely poking out her front door. “It’s… it’s… there’s j-just so m-m-much g-going w-wrong out there t-today, I, I, I d-don’t think I c-can t-take it.”

Angel motioned his arms again, this time with more energy. Fluttershy glanced around her yard for the thirtieth time before taking one shaky step forward.

“Well, m-maybe… if you s-say it’s s-safe…” Fluttershy said. She took another slow step forward. Angel beckoned her along the way, and before long Fluttershy was standing outside her front door. She stood in place, her eyes clamped shut.

Eventually, she wedged one eye open. The birds sang in the trees nearby, and the sun shone down brightly from overhead. Angel held his arms up, smiling at the beautiful day.

Fluttershy let out a long sigh. “Well, okay. M-maybe you were right. Why, you must’ve been right. It all must’ve been some crazy dream.”

She gulped and shivered. “A bad dream. A horrible, scary, awful, terrible–”

Angel hopped over and put a reassuring paw on Fluttershy’s leg. She leaned over and smiled.

“Ah, right, just a dream. Let’s go see Rainbow Dash now, alright? It’s always nice to see her anyway.”

The two of them took a few more steps down the path. As they crossed the bridge over her stream, Fluttershy caught sight of a dark shape moving under the water.

“That’s odd,” she said. She leaned over the side for a closer look, pushing her face close to the water line.

The head of a great white emerged from the water, eyes rolled back black and jaws snapping ferociously. The teeth crunched together within a hair of Fluttershy’s nose, the sound of the bite enough to send Angel scurrying behind Fluttershy’s wing.

Fluttershy stared blankly for a moment, then broke out into a wide smile. “Hello there little guy! And just how did you end up so far from home? I hope you’re not too hungry down in there, I know the poor little fishies around here are too small and fast for you.”

The shark swam back and forth beneath her, moving in a tight circle. A few bloodied wings floated up from between cracks in its teeth.

Fluttershy’s smile froze. “…oh, that poor bird. I hope it didn’t suffer long.”

Undaunted, she turned and began skipping towards town. “Not to worry though! I’ll find Twilight, and we’ll get you out of here in no time. I hope I run into Rainbow Dash as well. I’ll bet she rushes right over. I don’t think she’s ever seen something like this in Ponyville before!”