Twilight Starla Sparkle.

She is the first and only daughter of House Sparkle and protege to the Princess of the Sun. From her place of study in Ponyville she is entirely unaware that her name is spoken with nearly the same reverence as the Princesses themselves. To many ponies of Equestria, the magical power of Twilight Sparkle is almost as legendary as the powers of the Elements of Harmony.

These opinion are not without validity either.

At seven years of age Twilight was levitating herself by accident, a power few unicorns are ever even able to learn much less master. At the age of ten she was mastering the art of translocation, that is, teleporting herself as well as other objects by magic. At twelve she was accepted into the Academy in Canterlot, the premier school of magic in all of Equestria, the youngest any unicorn has ever been accepted into the school before and since. From there her powers blossomed until few doubted that she would one day become Headmistress of the Academy herself as nopony in living memory, save perhaps a few remembered by the immortal Princesses, had ever been as powerful as she.

You're being told this not as a boast but as context so that you might understand the limitations of raw power in the face of greater combat experience.

For example: a pony who lived and breath combat, insanity, and death for six blood-soaked years.

A burst of crimson force thrummed up from the stone beneath the hooves of the six elements, blowing out brittle stone shards like shotgun pellets and scattering the six friends in all directions as the bloody stallion dashed through the middle of the ruin, getting in range to bring the blade of the scythe down, cutting lethally towards Twilight's neck where she lay prone.

With a panicked scream Twilight rolled, the blade burying itself an inch into the stone. Not missing a beat Jasper released the weapon, moving with the momentum of the blow and pivoted on a hoof to bring a solid buck into Twilight's face right between her wide, frightened eyes.

She dropped with a dull thud.

Snatching the blade from where it was buried he turned to face the others, Fluttershy screamed as she met his bleak, unfeeling gaze and turned in the opposite direction, running frantically down an attached hallway which drove deeper into the complex.

“NO! Fluttershy!” Pinkie cried as the butter-yellow pegasus vanished down the path. She only hesitated a second before running off in pursuit.

Applejack was on her hooves almost as Twilight dropped.

“YA DAMN'D LUNATIC!” she screamed, running towards him to deliver a bone-breaking buck.

Jasper whipped around bring the scythe hissing through the air, but Applejack had been ready for it. She stopped on a bit, spinning in place to scrape her long golden tail against his red eyes and making him flinch away out of reflex. The flinch lasted only a split second but it was just long enough for a life-time apple-bucker to deliver two back hooves right into his chest. Applejack bit down on a yell as she felt his blade bite shallowly into her flank but the force of her attack had lifted him off his hooves and sent him hurtling through the air, preventing him from following through with it.

Incredibly, he was back on his hooves even as Applejack spun down and readied to charge him, blood and foam dripping from his lips. He rolled the blade oddly in his mouth for a moment, prompting Applejack to crouch and ready herself to leap out of the way of what ever attack he threw at her next. A good strategy had he been aiming at her.

With a snap of his head and surge of magic Jasper sent the blade spinning at Rainbow Dash, catching the cyan pegasus who'd been watching Applejack, horrified at the bloody cut right above her cutie mark, completely off-guard. Dash screamed as the blade punctured her left wing and stuck fast, dragging her helplessly to the ground as she cried out.

Unable to stop herself Applejack took her eyes off of Jasper to glance at Rainbow Dash, laying on the ground bleeding badly from the wound as Rarity rushed to her side and began delicately extracting the weapon. It was only a moment but it was enough to open Applejack to an attack as Jasper closed the distance like a bolt of lightning and spinning low to snatch the orange earth pony's hooves out from beneath her.

Jasper loomed over her, death in his eyes as he raised a single shod hoof over Applejack's head.

“I bring death to the bootlicks of the Princess Tyrants, little mare,” he hissed as he brought the blow down.

A flash of purple light stopped it inches from the orange mare's face, throwing the rust-red unicorn off of Applejack and impacting him violently into the nearby wall. Twilight had finally staggered to her hooves, a concussion ringing loudly in her skull as her horn glowed balefully, she gasped out loud at what she saw stagger up to it's hooves.

It was Jasper, only... not. Where her bolt of force had struck him there was a shredded mess of tattered flesh hanging from a bloody skull, a single eye glowing inequinely with hatred stared out from deep within the socket.

Jasper hacked up blood as he peeled out of the wall, leaving behind the flesh of his back to reveal muscle cruelly splay open. It was as though he was rotting from the inside out. “Oh, my my, that hurt...” he whispered, hacking another blackened gobbet of blood onto the floor. Rarity's horn glowed from where she hunched protectively over Rainbow Dash's bleeding form, glaring fearfully at the specter mocking them.

“It will all be over soon...” he muttered, “soon... yes, it will be gone and we can sleep,” Jasper's eyes lidded heavily as though he were struggling to remain conscious, “and you will sleep... with us.” With the sound of cracking stone and red flare of energy Jasper vanished.

“Oh Goddess,” Twilight whispered as she forced herself to move and ignore the nausea and and vertigo that came with quickly standing upright. “Rainbow, Applejack, are you girls ok?”

Applejack pulled herself up, grimacing at the burning pain in her flank left by the cold blade, but nodded, “yeah, ah'm a'riht, Dash ain't though, we gotta get'r to Ponyville General an' quick.”

“No, oh Dash,” Twilight moaned softly as she surveyed her friend's wound, “your wing...”

Teeth clenched tight in pain Rainbow still managed a cocky sort of half-smirk, “hey, don't sweat it egghead, I've hurt myself worse during practice and Flight Camp.”

“Twilight,” Rarity met her friend's eyes with a hard gaze, “you've got to get Rainbow out of here, right now. Teleport her to Ponyville General and get her treatment, otherwise...” she trailed off but the look on her face spoke volumes. Rarity was no medic but she knew the anatomy of all pony types intricately, after all, you can't make dresses without knowing what kind of body they'll be sitting on, and the wound to Rainbow's wing was not a light one.

“I... I don't know if I can take us all in my condition,” she admitted with a dark scowl, “And where are Pinkie and Fluttershy?!” the sudden realization that not all of her friends were in the room hit Twilight like a cold pail of water.

Applejack answered, “after ya'll went down Fluttershy... she panicked and ran, Pinkie went after'er.”

“No! We can't go then we can't-” Rarity nearly stuck her hoof into Twilight's mouth, her face was uncharacteristically harsh.

“No, you're right, we can't, but you have to,” her voice was as hard as dragon-scales, “you teleport yourself and Rainbow to the hospital, Applejack and I will find out wayward friends.”

Twilight shook visibly as every emotion screamed at her not to abandon her friends but it was no use, the analytical part of her mind knew perfectly well that Rarity's plan was the only viable one. Without it Rainbow might lose her wing to infection or gangrene down here, or worse, she might actually die. Twilight cursed herself again for lacking any real medical spells beyond healing up cuts and scrapes, she'd simply didn't know the right sequence for healing something as intricate as a pegasus wing properly.

Twilight swallowed hard but nodded, “F-fine, I'll be back with Luna and every guard we can muster, just... please girls...” Twilight pulled her friends into a hug, “just don't do anything reckless until I get back ok?”

“No promises sugarcube,” Applejack remarked as she pulled away, “an' Rainbow, ya'll better not wuss out on the next Iron Pony on account o'this, ya'hear?”

Rainbow Dash scoffed, “ow, ow, don't make me laugh ya hayseed, I'll whip your orange but same as every year.”

“Uh oh, better hurry Twilight, she's getting' delusional,” the smile on Applejack's face was small and unsteady, but real, her next words were softer as she nuzzled Dash's cheek while Twilight built up the power for the longer-range teleport. “Ya'll take care o'yerself sugarcube, ya got that?”

Rainbow's cheeks colored but she nodded silently, grimacing as more pain shot through her wing and up her back, drawing a wince from Applejack.

“I'll be back girls, quick as a flash,” Twilight said, with iron in her voice, then she and the wounded cyan pegasus vanished in a near-blinding flash of mulberry light. The two mare's stared at the after-images of where their friends had been for a moment before turning to the hallway they'd seen Fluttershy vanish down several minutes ago.

“Alright, darling, time to get to work,” Rarity muttered, drawing a chuckle from the cowmare.

“FLUTTERSHY COME BACK!” Pinkie's shouts echoed down the sepulchral halls with a deafening sort of finality. At least it was slightly lit, a few dim but functional glowbulbs still hung from the ceiling here and there providing barely enough illumination to move by. Pinkie was frightened for her friend; the pastel pegasus had lost her nerve entirely at the sight of whatever that thing had been and the pink pony had turned to pursue her, not willing to allow her friend to become lost in a graveyard labyrinth. Every so often Pinkie passed an off-shooting hallway, unable to know for sure if Fluttershy had kept running straight all she could do was follow her gut instinct.

Of one thing, though, Pinkie Pie was absolutely sure of, whatever that thing had not been it sure as sugar wasn't Jasper. Oh sure it had looked like him, a lot like him if she forced herself to admit it, but it wasn't him, not really. She even knew it wasn't some foalish 'oh it can't be him, it just can't!' feeling either. No, it was that part of her that told her when the sky would start falling or the doors would be opening, that told her unequivocally that that thing was not Captain Jasper Shale.

“Besides,” Pinkie muttered as she tore down the hall frantically looking for some sign of her shy friend, “it... it just can't be him.”

Pinkie very nearly didn't see the brown and musty door at all, but some twinge in her flank told her to stop immediately and, so, stop she did with a screeching halt. The door was an old wooden number, not intricate but clearly carved with care, the work of a carpenter that knew their craft well. More importantly it was just ever-so-slightly ajar.

It opened with a loud creaking speaking of long-rusted hinges, behind that sound though Pinkie's keen ears picked up a terrified, and quickly muffled, squeak.

“Fluttershy? Is that you?” Pinkie whispered softly into the room, it was too dark to make out any details but she could tell that it wasn't very big.

“P-Pinkie?” Fluttershy's mellifluous voice was tiny, weak, and a little disbelieving, but Pinkie let out a sigh of relief as she heard the voice and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The gentle mare was huddled in the corner of a dark room, inside which was a once-opulent bed that had seen far better days along with a nightstand to it's left and a desk at the opposite end.

“Hey silly-filly, you ran off into the dark and made auntie Pinkie come all the way out to bring you back,” Pinkie playfully admonished as she wrapped her hooves around the shaking mare. “C'mon, Twilight and the others have probably gotten that meanie-head already, we should go back.”

Fluttershy sobbed loudly into Pinkie's frizzy mane in response, causing Pinkie to tighten the hug gently. The pastel mare shook and cried for almost a full minute before getting a hold of herself and pulling out of Pinkie's mane, eyes red and puffy with a few strands of pink hair plastered stubbornly to her face by tears.

“I'm sorry...” her voice was almost silent, not the low and demure softness of her usual timbre but cracked by the constant crying and dulled by something sounding like shame. “I'm such a coward... I couldn't... as soon as I saw him hurt Twilight and...”

“Hey, c'mon silly, you're no coward, you faced down a dragon!” Pinkie encouraged her but she only grew more unhappy.

“D-different, that was different,” she muttered grimly. “That wasn't... it wasn't another pony, it wasn't... Jasper.”

Pinkie grimaced, “you're right, it wasn't Jasper,” Fluttershy's brow furrowed slightly but Pinkie held up a hoof, “no, trust auntie Pinkie, that thingy back there, whatever it was it wasn't Jasper.”

“I just, I should have stayed, helped, or... done something, but I ran and left my friends with a monster,” she was shaking again, “I'm just... a bad pony, a bad friend and-”

“Ha!” Pinkie laughed out loud drawing a high squeak of surprise from the butter-yellow pegasus, cutting off her self-deprecating tirade. “You're the kindest most nicest pony in the wide wide world of Equestria Flutters, you're the opposite of a bad pony, you just got scared, and there's nothing wrong with getting scared. Just because you got scared and ran from a scythe-wielding crazy-pony doesn't make you a coward, actually it probably just makes you smarter than most of us,” Pinkie said musingly. “Anyways, it doesn't make you bad or a coward, we're your friends, we want you to be safe but... next time, just run behind us ok? Otherwise I'll hafta come find you again and it was kind of a long run and, well...” Pinkie poked her soft belly, “I think I've been eating too many sweets.”

Fluttershy giggled, drawing a wide smile from Pinkie, “See? Just giggle at the ghostie!” They shared a warm grin and were getting ready to go back down the dark hallway when the slow, methodical clip-clop of hoofsteps starting coming up down the hall.

Fluttershy's eyes went wide and she paled, “N-no, h-he couldn't have... our... f-frie-”

The pink pony shook her head though, “huh-uh, no way,” she hissed softly, “he's coming from up the hall, we came from the other direction.

“S-so it isn't...” Pinkie shrugged in response, unable to give Fluttershy anything more than she already knew.

Then the voice came. It was male but it dripped with venom and insanity, tripping between octaves like a badly tuned trumpet. “I smell you little softlings, come out now... I'm hungry and thirsty and oh-so-lonely.” Pinkie and Fluttershy clamped their mouths shut, barely even breathing as the voice drew closer to the open doorway, Pinkie panicked, cursing herself for not closing it and praying to Celestia that whoever it was didn't have good eyesight in the dimness. “I want to taste your skin, I want to cut it and watch the red water run fast and hot.”

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

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clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

…

“I want you little softlings. I need to feel you die, it hurts so much, won't you help me?” his voice became high, pained, and plaintive, “won't you please let me feel you die?”

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

…

…

…

A large, dark figure stood in the doorway, a heavy-set stallion whose eyes glowed almost crimson set into an almost emaciated face, small scars criss-crossed his flesh like patchwork, making him look like a corpse that had been badly sewn together.

Pinkie silently mouthed the word that was passing through both her mind and the mind of the mare behind her.

Jasper

Or what he might look like he he'd been scarred, beaten, and starved for several weeks. The bed was large enough that Pinkie thought it might hide them from his view, they shrunk in on themselves, trying to become smaller by sheer effort in the hope he, or it, would simply pass them by. They didn't move, they didn't breathe, they just waited, listening and praying to the Goddesses for some tiny favor.

…

…

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

The sound of hoofsteps slowly faded, eventually vanishing, only then did the two let out two long, slow breaths, shakes of terror and giddiness running down their bodies at the close encounter they'd had. Neither of them had gotten a terribly close look at it, not enough to be entirely sure of what they'd seen anyway, and in all honesty, neither had really wanted to get a good look at it.

After a five solid minutes of waiting, breathing, listening, and waiting again, Pinkie rose unsteadily to her hooves from where she and Fluttershy had been crouching, hidden behind the banisters and bedclothes.

“Ok 'Shy, I'm gonna go first, you stay behind me,” her voice was barely above a whisper, but elicited a slow nod from her friend, and carefully they crept forward, keeping low and quiet. The door was still open and one of the hallway glowbulbs had begun flickering, taking another step down it's inexorable path to failure, casting shadows over the walls.

Pinkie slunk to the door, quiet as a mouse for one of the first times in her life, then rose up slowly and began to peek around the corner of the door.

Fluttershy's scream of “NO DON'T!” would have come a split second too late, but Pinkie 'knew' before she knew, as an icy shiver shot up her spine and a tight pinch in her clamped down on her chest.

In a panic Pinkie threw herself to the floor, narrowly avoiding a flashing crescent of steel carving the air where her head had just been and burying itself halfway into the wooden door frame. Pinkie scrabbled at the stone floor, desperately getting her hooves under her she tore into the room, looking back just long enough to see not-Jasper yank the scythe's cruel blade out.

Fluttershy had huddled deeper into the far corner of the dilapidated space, tears of panic and terror in her wide eyes as she stared, unable to take her eyes off of the red revenant grinning maniacally at them around a mouthful of deadly steel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry little soft things, I want to cut. To cut and cut and cut until you're all nothing but little giblets,” he murmured. Not-Jasper's eyes had that dull, manic quality of an asylum inmate on an upper as he advanced.

“Fluttershy,” Pinkie whispered, thanking Celestia and Luna for the small mercy of his slow advance. “I'm going to distract him ok? You need to run when I do, get out and go back, get help alright?”

Finally Fluttershy turned to stare, horrified, into Pinkie's calm veneer. The terror in her eyes was impossible to hide but she wasn't going to watch her friend get... cut into giblets. The pale mare shook tried to shake her head, to say no but the words wouldn't come out, her throat was choked with panic.

Pinkie didn't give her the chance anyway.

“GO NOW!” Pinkie yelled, as she hurtled herself low at not-Jasper's hooves, her instincts guiding her every movement. Never before had she felt so attuned to her strange ability to sense events before they happened, but she liked to believe that it was because she needed it, no, because Fluttershy needed it, at this moment more than ever. Diving beneath the curving blade she felt a sharp bite right at the base of her tail as he nicked her, barely a scratch but frighteningly real, with a primal yell Pinkie shouldered brutally into the larger stallion's legs, toppling him over but throwing herself prone. She could hear him recovering behind her, getting to his hooves far faster than she could, with a heave she pulled herself to the other end of the room where a musty desk sat mouldering in the dark. Panicking, she knew he was turning to face Fluttershy and, unwilling to allow her gently friend to be harmed, she ripped out one of the drawers which was thankfully unlocked, and hurled it where her instinct said he must be.

A loud fleshy impact followed by a roar of rage and pain told her she'd been right.

Not-Jasper charged out of the dark but Pinkie was already moving and screaming for Fluttershy to run, diving to the side she yelled out as the blade bit in again, this time more deeply, on her flank, carving a bloody scar through the cutie mark on her right flank. Remembering Applejack and the few times she'd helped the orange mare on her farm Pinkie landed on her front hooves, but rather than pushing further forward she coiled her pink body like a spring until her knees were flush with her ears, then piston'd out to catch the unsuspecting stallion directly in the muzzle. The almost satisfying crunch of bone and teeth fracturing beneath of her hooves gave her hope even as it sickened her.

He backed up, whining painfully around his broken muzzle as Pinkie dropped back to her hooves, her back legs shaking with the effort and she swore to Celestia that she'd exercise a little more if she got out of this. He looked staggered glaring at the offending pink pony.

A pony whose heart lifted on wings the moment she heard the sound of voices from the hall, her friends' voices, Applejack and Rarity for sure.

That moment of distraction cost her more than she could have dreamed as not-Jasper sprang forward, all semblance of his feigned weakness vanishing in a blink.

Shivering back.

The scythe swung down in a slim arc.

Pinchy heart.

He was too fast, the thought crossed Pinkie's mind, she knew she couldn't move in time.

Dry mouth.

An explosion of air and force from the side of the room and a hard impact.

Empty lungs.

THUNK

…

…

Pinkie looked up from where something had thrown her to the ground, had he over-swung and clubbed her instead?

Drip-drip... drip...

Fresh blood began spattering the floor running in rivulets down the pastel yellow leg, stained her coat a dark, ruddy brown. Sound seemed to drain away from the world as Pinkie took in Fluttershy, standing protectively over her, forelegs flung wide, and a small, curved barb of bloody steel protruding out from her back.

From behind the not-Jasper came a flare of red light knocking the maniac to the floor, all of it strangely soundless to Pinkie. Then the noise returned with the sound of shredding flesh and cracking bone as a heavy figure carved brutally through the maniac's body, filling the small room with the stench of gore and offal.

Standing over the not-Jasper's ruined corpse was...

Another Jasper?

Fluttershy's body began to teeter and Pinkie found her voice again.

“FLUTTERSHY!” the scream tore itself from her throat and she lunged forward to catch her friend whose skewered form had finally lost its strength and began and tumble backwards.

The gentle pegasus coughed, spitting up blood from deep in her throat, it was a small, pathetic, wet sound. She worked her mouth wordlessly but the blade had punctured her lung, bring up only bubbles of blood.

“No, no, no, no, no...” Pinkie muttered over her quiet friend who was slowly bleeding out in her arms.

“Pinkie, give her here,” Jasper voice was collected and strong, the command in it drawing her gaze up but only tightening her grip on her slowly dying friend.

“W-what happened Jasper? Why did... what as...? What happened?” confusion and panic was chief in Pinkie's mind, that and the fact that the voices of her friends were getting closer.

“You have to trust me Pinkie, please, I can help.”

“What can you do?” her voice was an open plea.

“I can save her, I...” with a sad smile he moved his hoof in a cross over his heart, then out like a wing, then up to his eye, “I promise, ok?”

Pinkie hiccuped through her tears, but nodded, and Jasper took Fluttershy's prone form in his arms.

“Fluttershy, this is going to hurt, a lot, but it'll keep you alive until we reach the hospital, is that ok?” he explained, she nodded and worked her mouth again but only succeeded in drawing up more red bubbles as she tried to pull air into ruined lungs. She managed to mouth the words out as Jasper's horn began to glow a sickly red, the energy played over her like shadow puppets, rising and roving over her blood-stained yellow coat.

I don't want to die.