Twilight left Sandy Shores' room and headed back toward the brothel's staircase.  Slowly and confidently, she strode down and muscled her way through the crowd of gawking stallions and virulent perverts looking to spend their hard-earned (or ill gotten) money on a quick lay in one of the scummiest portions of town.  Each one was a seed waiting to be planted, and Twilight was the new gardener.  She could only imagine what kinds of filth Canterlot's downtown district held.  Ponyville, however, was all Twilight could deal with at the moment, so she left the old hotel to move onto the next place.

The streets were teeming with nightlife by then, so Twilight didn't have to worry about finding something that needed to die; it was more of a kid in a candy store type situation.  The echoes of their thoughts, however, were far more potent than she was used to.  Every step she took she could hear a voice, and then behind that voice was the true nature of the speaker sneaking its way out into the world.  This was almost deafening, both to her ears and to her mind, so Twilight picked up her pace and forced her way toward a nearby building.  There weren't any lights on from the ground floor up (as a matter of fact, the windows were boarded and the place simply looked as though it had been condemned for some time) but the basement windows projected several patches of artificial, flickering yellow light.

The only visible path into the basement was a dimly lit staircase with a group of near-unconscious pegasi lying out front.  Easy targets as they'd be, they were a little too exposed at that moment, so Twilight trotted right past them without a second thought.  The staircase had been fractured from decades of ill treatment and harsh weather; all that was left was essentially gravel that inexplicably clung to the shape of a stair and at the bottom was a rusted, dented, and otherwise mistreated iron door.  A more than fitting entryway to the sensory assault at the bottom, however: Twilight was hit in the face with an immediate jump in temperature and humidity, followed by the stench of vomit, opium smoke, tobacco and several other "products of the body" mixed together.  This would have been sickening had Twilight's gag reflex not have become voluntary, so she just cringed in disgust and slowly walked in and examined the scene.  It was deplorable, the air was so thick she could nearly taste it, nearly feel it crawling down her throat and depositing its filth into her perfect body.

Strung out stallions and mares littered the disgusting and unwashed old mats and pillows that were clustered into cobweb ridden corners of the bare cement building.  Every other pony had passed out in their own vomit or was rolling on the floor with no concept of reality.  Clouded minds were far too easy, but Twilight needed a challenge.  She wondered, only for a brief second, if many different lives could be bound to the same object and thus gave herself something to focus on and test, if nothing else.   With that single thought in mind, Twilight stepped into the opium den, gaining the brief attention of some of the patrons, but then immediately losing it the moment she moved past their obscured fields of vision.

One specific device was set up in the middle of what might have once been a beautiful arrangement of pillows and mats, now stained by thousands of bodies having spent hours on top of them; a gorgeous opium lamp that was slowly burning away at a brand new batch of oil, letting the smokers draw from their long pipes.  Many of the ponies on the cushions appeared to have been there all day, but a few were just getting situated as to the youth of the night.  Twilight found a somewhat clean spot and sat down to join the patrons, none of whom lifted their heads (or, frankly, even their eyelids) in greeting.  Of the dozen or so ponies surrounding the lamp, only three seemed to be of their right mental faculties.  One of whom was busy taking a long draw from his brass opium pipe while the other two were very impaired, but still cognizant of their surroundings.  When he was done, the smoking earth pony leaned back and relaxed against the cushions, laying his pipe accidentally down on a nearly unconscious neighbor's leg.  The heat from the oil lamp caused a nasty burn, casting the smell of singed flesh and hair into the already foul air: Twilight couldn't handle the atrocious conditions, so she promptly decided what needed to be done: a thorough cleansing.  

Twilight levitated the pipe off of the very confused and writhing semi-conscious pegasus and drew it over to herself, checking the opening for any remaining opium and placing the end into her mouth.  Some of the yellow crust still remained, so she held the pipe just inches above the very hot oil lamp and slowly inhaled, taking the burning fumes into her lungs and holding them still briefly.  The smoke did absolutely nothing for Twilight, but it did allow her a medium with which to carve her runes: using the particulate matter present in the air passing through the pipe as an abrasive, Twilight etched every single eldritch rune from memory into the inside of the long metal pipe, knowing that it was already an important figure to each of the wretches in the building.

She kept inhaling, taking a complete lungful of the acrid fumes, letting the air exit from her mouth and nostrils in thick white clouds as she spoke.  Twilight repeated the old words that bound her first victim, projecting them so that every single pony in the den could hear her.

"You..."  Twilight's voice, filtered by the thick white smoke, sounded a touch less tonal than usual, which gave it a far more intimidating quality.  "You are the weakness of all living things."  This drew attention, but didn't break the various highs around the room.  "You are fragile as a leaf in autumn.  Brittle like sun baked sandstone."  

Twilight inhaled again from the opium pipe, drawing in more smoke for nothing other than dramatic effect.  "You walk this earth, spending each day like a currency until you finally overdraw and wait to die."  At about this point a few of the patrons were having their buzz killed, spending more attention on Twilight's insulting rant on their lifestyle than on the opium in their veins.  "You see the light at the end of the tunnel, you beg for sweet release but I've taken your last days."  Once more, Twilight needed a new draw.

"Just who do you think you are?"  One of the strung out ponies managed to grind out from his crumpled position off in the corner.

"I've planted your bones in the soil, and I'll be the one to decide your fate."

"Fuck off."  One of the half-conscious ponies sitting next to Twilight spat, still not taking the effort to get up from the greasy pillows.

"You will die here, now, at my command and by my own power.  From these deaths I'll harness you, bring you back, and hold you here."  The pony who was originally smoking the pipe that Twilight was currently holding in front of her leaned forward, trying to find his balance with the intent of taking back the instrument.  Twilight already had a new lungful, having used most of the opium resin inside the thing.  "I will take your lives, then give them back, and in return you'll be my servants until I choose to release you."

"I said fuck off!"  The pony, now revealed to be a dark green unicorn stood up and approached Twilight.  The blackened unicorn didn't move an inch, instead she focused on the oil lamp in the center of the cushions, taking the initiative to close and lock the massive iron door at the only exit to the basement before finishing off her ritual.

"Now, die."  With this final word, Twilight heated the oil inside the lamp, fracturing the sides and throwing it in all directions.  Just before the green unicorn had a chance to strike Twilight, he was blinded by a flash of boiling oil that promptly burst into flame.  Every single one of the ponies in the opium den was hit with the burning black liquid, though the fires spread much too quickly for just the simple little splashes of oil that they were.  Twilight simply took another drag off of the opium pipe, using the writhing and screaming flame-engulfed body of her would-be assailant to completely cash out the rest of the drug inside.

Twilight looked around, keeping the fragile brass pipe safe from the flames.  As they grew in intensity, so too did the cries of their victims: nearly sixty ponies in the den were burning alive, each one rolling about on the ground or scratching at the far-too-small windows to attempt an escape.  Several had clambered for the door and were desperately trying to open it, continuously flicking their heads back to stave away the blaze, but doing so in vein.  The cushions and lamps weren't safe from the inferno either, having only added fuel to the bright orange glow.  Somewhere in the blaze a pony had tripped over a glass instrument, shattering it and now suffering through the stabbing of invisible little shards in her knees.  Twilight simply waved her gaze across the sight: it was absolutely beautiful.  Fire consuming filth, killing the growing molds and scums that grew in a dark environment; the light swallowing the shadow.

One of several ponies' silhouettes showed black through the fire surrounding it; waving its forelegs clumsily as the pain and muscle damage started to set in, preventing the form from bashing out the fire on its head and mane.  A large portion of another's face slid off from the steaming bone and onto the floor somewhat further away; even through what sounded like cooking bacon in a bonfire Twilight could hear the greasy plop as it hit the bare concrete floor.  

Nearly two minutes passed before the screams began to subside, only to be replaced by agonized moans from the very last breaths any of them would ever take of their own free will, and the twitching mass of charred flesh and bone lay quiet in its own filth at the bottom of a condemned building.  Twilight hadn't ever moved, though her cushion had been consumed in the conflagration (frankly she was glad that filthy thing was gone) and she simply sat on the floor, holding her pipe and looking it over.  Oddly enough, the stench of burned flesh and hair was far more pleasant to Twilight's nose than was that of the wastes-of-oxygen that were those ponies.

Twilight looked around once more, now having a clear view all the way through the place without a wall of fire to block her.  The walls were scorched but in-tact, with a few of them still displaying the blackened, skinless corpses of Twilight's most recent victims, clinging to the wall like macabre tapestries.  The bodies littering the floor were set in all kinds of poses: some had died trying to fight the flames on their own bodies, others had died trying to protect some of the few sentimental possessions they owned, but none of them had tried to help someone other than themselves survive.  Their bodies, like charcoal, sat smoking and smoldering on the concrete floor, sitting in a pool of rendered pony gristle that was slowly beginning to congeal into a pale gray and yellow film climbing on every surface that its edges could reach.  The eyes were some of the first organs to burst in the heat, but some of the bodies retained a yellow and red stained orb, silently staring off into nothingness in the peace of death.  Until, of course, Twilight's pipe performed its magic.

From the opening at both ends of the device came the same purple glow that had signified Sandy Shores' unwilling pact, and so, very slowly, the mass of bodies came back into the world of the living.  The occasional puff of escaping steam or pop of cooling fat was replaced by a kind of mewling coming from the tongueless and immolated mouths of the undead, as well as a splintering of charred bones as muscles tugged on their fragile remains.  They tried to stand, tried to return to the task that they were in the middle of before their deaths, but ultimately were halted by a simple whistle from Twilight's unscathed lips.

"You're all mine now, you know."  Twilight said calmly, still examining her pipe and looking more intently at her own reflection within it.  "So color me curious.  Do you feel pain?"

Most of the bodies stayed silent, only letting out pained grunts and groans as they continued to try and move their stiff and fragile forms.  One that still had some of its tongue left managed to hiss out, "Yes..."

Twilight walked over to the source of the hiss, glancing over the shivering, smoke-billowing body propped against the wall.  It was arched somewhat over another pony, one whose eyes had remained fixed into its skull (and were looking woefully up at Twilight's contour that only barely showed through the smoke and darkness) and with the angle they were burned to death at it almost seemed as if they'd fused together.  Just to make sure, Twilight yanked on the speaker, tearing him away with a crunching of burnt skin and muscle and tossing him into the center of the room, causing him to skid and leave more of his corpse scraped onto the rough, unfinished basement floor.  If his lungs hadn't been turned to worthless little ash-sacks in the blaze he might have yelled out in pain, instead all he could produce was a pathetic, gritty whimper.

"Good.  You're all to stay in this basement, as a matter of fact I want you all to stay exactly where you are right now.  Lay down, sleep if you wish, but regardless of what happens you'll stay put.  If anyone opens this door to get in, you all rise and kill them.  If I come in here you'll acknowledge me, but otherwise I expect you to not move from this spot.  There will be a time that I call on you, until then you will not exit this basement.  Are we clear?"  The collective of bodies twitched their brittle necks in acknowledgement, most being unable to speak and others being unable to move their heads beyond rudimentary twitching.  "Then I'll take my leave.  Suffer now in silence, and remember, kill anyone that comes in here, regardless of the pain it causes you: no ponies ever leave this place."

Twilight walked calmly towards the door as she spoke, tilting her head side to side to address each of the charred corpses individually before telekinetically sliding the metal thing open.  Two ponies that had tried to escape were crushed against the wall as she did this, both making some sort of pained moan through their ruined vocal cords.  The instant Twilight left she secured the door and ran her hoof through her mane, making sure the rising air from the heat didn't tousle it about too much.  Then, without a second thought (though not without her usual post-murder giddiness) the black unicorn strode off towards her next set of victims in the form of a bar down the street.  None of the other establishments along the way looked appetizing; slightly less classy whore-houses, shells of semi-demolished buildings with homeless living in them and groups of diseased and forgotten stallions and mares huddled together for warmth in their last days of life.  Boring.

The crowd had grown very thin in the short time it had taken Twilight to get situated into her opium den; most of the ponies of the night-world had quickly found their place and only a few were still out and about.  The bar that Twilight had targeted seemed to be one of the more popular locations and certainly wasn't light on the selection that they offered.  From what she could tell, it was actually a licensed establishment that was more or less up to code as far as health violations went; why it was located so deep into Ponyville's ass-end was a mystery.

Twilight pushed her way through the swinging doors inside, entering the warm pocket of trapped air laced with the scents of alcohol and a few other smells that Twilight wasn't quite familiar with.  Twilight approached the bar proper, a large, varnished oak surface with a relatively short stallion sitting behind it.  Nobody was sitting at the bar itself, though stools had been set out for such an occasion, but every single body in the place was huddled in a corner.  Only some of them appeared to be amidst alcohol of any kind; some kept their heads low.  "Hello, sir,"  Twilight said, fighting the sarcasm in her voice.

The bartender looked up from his minor distraction behind the bar and almost didn't believe the pony standing in front of him.  Of all the descriptive words that could describe his usual patrons, gorgeous wasn't one of them.  "H-hello there, miss."

After thinking over the consequences of killing the bartender for a second, Twilight just asked for a glass of water and sat down on a stool.  The bartender didn't hesitate to fetch that, pouring from a pitcher rather than a tap and giving Twilight her drink without saying a thing.  "I thought it was supposed to be your job to help a girl loosen up after a long day and facilitate conversation."  Twilight's remark was certainly razor-tongued, but this fellow intrigued her just a little bit.  He seemed awfully out of place.

"Listen, if you're from the police you know you'll need to show me a warrant before you can search around."  The bartender went back to keeping busy behind the counter, obviously feeling that Twilight was just as out of place as he.  The instant the word "police" entered the air, however, a few of the ponies in the corners whipped their heads around and immediately became wary.

"Hah, oh trust me I'm not from the police.  I just don't come to this side of town very often... Thought I'd try something new.  You know those rumors that go around about bars and the like...  World-weary bartender wiping down the counters and keeping everypony drunk and happy.  Not too much to ask for a little storybook whimsy don't you think?"

"Listen sweetheart, the only stories you'll find down here are the ones that explain why children shouldn't go home with strangers.  It's not my job to talk anyone through their problems, and it's certainly not my job to make sure anyone's happy.  I just give them a place to come and kill their sorrows; that's the only thing we get in abundance here.  So why don't you go back to your 'upper' Ponyville, take a hot bath and then slip into a warm bed before some psycho gets his hooves on you?  You stick out like a sore thumb right now."

"Are you saying I'm being unsubtle?"

"Somethin' like that."

"Care to explain how I could better blend in?"  Twilight tilted her face down and looked up at the bartender with an overtly exaggerated quizzical look.  He thought it was cute but knew she was just fucking with him.

"For one you could stop being so perfect."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Everyone in here, every single one of them with myself included, has something wrong with them.  Everypony has a flaw in some way, but some of them are a little more obvious than others, and those ponies get swept into this district.  If you want to blend in here, you'll need to quit having a body like it came straight out of a porn magazine, quit movin' your damn head around like you think you're fooling me with that fake-ass curiosity thing you've got going, and knock off the innocent act.  Nobody's that perfect, certainly nobody who comes down here, so if you really want to look like one of my regulars I suggest you go lose an eye and half a cheek, or show off that embarrassing habit of yours that I'm sure you have, or let someone see that scar you're probably hiding, or take out your false teeth...  Whatever you do, take off the mask and show everyone how the world wronged you, that way these 'fine gentlemen' in this 'fine district of filth and strife' won't want to be a part of the world that wrongs you.  Now is there anymore of my 'pardon' you'd like to 'beg' or can I get you something else to drink?"

Twilight certainly wasn't prepared for such a remark, and this stallion had brought out quite a vile mixture of rage inside of her.  What was left of the water that she didn't drink had evaporated from the ambient temperature rising off of her energized body.  "How about the shittiest bottle of pure grain alcohol you've got back there?"

"Trying to forget something, Black Rose?"  The bartender found his mark, a brandless bottle of bottom-of-the-barrel grain alcohol: the kind that ought to make you vomit from just smelling it.

"Black Rose?"  Twilight let her face relax, asking honest questions with honest looks of an honest lack of intrigue, only making small talk; certainly satisfactory to the sarcastic bartender.

"You know, like the little story.  You wanted story-book whimsy right?  Once there was a black rose, the only black rose in an entire garden.  All of the other roses were beautiful, but so was the black rose, only the black rose was unique so the gardener spent more time caring for it."  The bartender mocked Twilight's original entrance by exaggerating the flicks of his choppy green mane and even fluttering his eyelids as he described the cartooney beauty of the various roses in the fictional garden.

Well, one winter was far too cold and the black rose withered away despite the gardener's best efforts to preserve it.  Try as she might, the gardener couldn't ever get another black rose to grow, no matter how much she begged and planted, even asking help from her friends.  She died without ever seeing another, and instead of thinking about how she had witnessed the fleeting beauty of a rarity in nature, the gardener spent all her time thinking about the loss and died with pain in her heart.  So, Black Rose, have you broken any hearts?  Or are you just waiting for the winter to come."

Twilight couldn't help but smile since this stallion was oddly apt in his metaphors; Twilight had grown accustomed to snarkiness as a proper outlet for dominance rather than outright aggression.  She took the bottle that he provided her and brought the neck to her teeth, ripping out the small cap that mediated how much liquid flowed through it.  She tipped the bottle up and drank, gulp after horrid gulp slithering into her mouth like boiling lead and burying itself in her stomach to be slowly absorbed into the Aether as unbound energy.  "I've broken many hearts, but I'm far from withered."  Twilight flicked the neck of the bottle as she emphasized the word "far", making sure he understood her point exactly.

"If you're still standing in five minutes after that I'm going to ask you to say that again."

"What this?"  Twilight held up the bottle and wriggled it back and forth to swish around the contents, immediately going for another swig and draining the entire thing down to about a third total content.  "If this is all you've got, I'm going to be sober as a bird all night."

"I'll take that to mean you're a hard alcoholic, then?"

"You first.  Tell me something about yourself."

"I run a bar, so the extent of my day to day life is waking up at about 6 in the afternoon, opening this crappy place up and then watching ponies come in here to get drunk or high and then stumble out.  I don't see half the ponies that come in here more than once, and the ones that I do I see nearly every night.  Good enough for ya?"

"Yeah, I guess I'll take that...  Now what do you want to know?"

"How many guys have you slept with just so you could get a free meal out of 'em?"

"Awfully personal, don'cha think?"

"Maybe this'll help."  The cream-colored pony set down a slightly smaller bottle of whiskey; the cheap kind, but much better than that grain alcohol.  "You wanted to chat up the bartender, you'll deal with the questions."

"Likewise... and If you must know it's two."  Twilight spoke with conviction, losing any trace of the lie on her perfect mask against the outside.  She wanted to see how good this one really was.  Twilight repeated her routine with the whiskey, though she didn't drain the entire bottle in one go.  "Ever killed anypony?"

"What kinda question is that coming from a fragile little thing like you?"

"Two things: I'm not fragile, and I just wanna know."

"Alright, yeah, I have.  Some asshole tried to rob me a few years back, I cracked him a little too hard with a champagne bottle.  Long story short he bled out on my floor, cops don't care about these places so most of the time we just settle our scores face to face.  Guy had about eighty bits on him so I just called it a really good tip."  The bartender reached out and nabbed the bottle of whiskey from Twilight, taking a swig for himself and then handing it right back to her.  "Now you've got me curious.  You ever killed anyone?"

"You mean before or after I came to Ponyville?"

"Now you're starting to scare me, miss."

"Good.  Any of your regulars like to give you trouble?"

"Is that your question?"

"For this round, yes, now answer it."

The bartender turned to look at one of the rowdier tables, nodding at a particularly obnoxious pastel orange stallion who was obviously too big for his own good.  He could have given Big Macintosh a run for his money, but clearly spent his days in these filthy back alleys doing Celestia-knows-what.  "Him.  He comes in here every night and starts a fight that damn near kills some poor bastard.  At least once a year it actually does kill them and I have to close down for a day or two to clean up the blood."

"Wanna see something cool?"

"Isn't it my turn?"

"Yes, and that counts as your question."

"Dammit...  Alright yeah, let's see something cool."

"Put another bottle of grain alcohol on the table and then go over and let that big jackass know I challenge him to a drinking contest."

"So your flaw is that you've got a death wish?"

"As I said, you get to see something cool."

"If you insist..."  The bartender followed Twilight's directions, placing the huge bottle of horrid liquor on the bar and walking over to the ruffian.  Twilight could see him whisper into his ear and then immediately heard a bellowing laugh.

"Who did?"  The big orange moron yelled out, obviously trying to appear tough for his acquaintances,  "Her?  Is this a joke?"  

Twilight figured it'd be a good idea to expedite this as quickly as she could so she spun around on her bar stool and yelled across the empty space between them, "What's the matter?  Scared?"

Too easy; this struck a chord with the pony that Twilight would call "Pumpkin" from then on.  "You think I'm scared of a little thing like you?  What're you?  Ninety pounds?"

"If you're not scared, how come you're still in the corner yelling across the room?  Got a real bulldog mouth on the head of a little bitch."  The challenge was indeed accepted, though Pumpkin was as aggressive as possible so he could act like he was still in control.  

"The fuck you just say to me?"

"What?  Did I stutter?  You heard me call you a little bitch, what'cha gonna do about it?" He crossed the room with a scowl and threw himself down onto the stool, pouring the grain alcohol into a glass for both himself and for Twilight.

"Drink."  He looked Twilight in the eye, hoping to psych her out, but Twilight responded by throwing back the entire glass.

"Your turn, Pumpkin."  Pumpkin curled his lip back in anger at the nickname, but took his turn with almost the same apathy to the poison as Twilight had.  This went on for some time; back and forth draining of glass after glass of the worst tasting alcohol that Ponyville had to offer.  While Pumpkin had started to hesitate and choke on the liquid fire, however, Twilight kept her composure.

After nearly half the bottle had been drained, the big orange moron started to look a little green.  "Aww, what's the matter, Pumpkin?  Feelin' a little sick?"  

The stallion looked Twilight dead in the eye, even though his were glazed over and bloodshot from the massive amounts of alcohol coursing through his thinned blood.  "Fuck yo-u, bisch..."

"Say that again?"  Twilight pretended like she didn't hear, but Pumpkin wasn't quite drunk enough to miss the obvious sarcasm.

"I said...  Fuck...  You!"  Pumpkin made sure to enunciate as best he could, definitely highlighting the slurs in his voice.  "I would...  But I'd probably break your li'l ass in ha-alf..."

"Oh that's cute.  Touch me and the only thing you'll break is the stool I'm sitting on."

"W-what?"  This actually confused Pumpkin.  By this time all the ponies in the bar had started to gather around to watch Twilight drink this big son-of-a-bitch under the table.

"Touch me and find out.  You know... Unless you're scared."  Needless to say, Pumpkin stood up and stumbled away from his stool, beckoning Twilight to do the same (though she did so with far more elegance than he).  The crowd eagerly formed a circle around the two, and the bartender was already prepared to break it up the instant he saw Twilight go limp (at least that was his expected outcome).

Pumpkin made a few clumsy moves toward Twilight, trying to get her to flinch at his size but failed miserably.  He didn't take it well when somepony ignored his threats, though, so he picked up his foreleg and swung it like a baseball bat.  The hoof connected with Twilight's head, amazingly, and forced her to actually adjust her footing in order to keep upright.  Her jaw had dislocated from the rounded corner his hoof wedging itself between her teeth, cutting her cheek almost all the way through from the inside and shattering her eye socket.  Her skull had cracked all the way up toward the center of her forehead and would have proven to be a fatal wound on anyone but her.  The black unicorn stood up straight, cracking her jaw back into place and blinking a few times to get her eye back in the right place.  "That's it?"

Pumpkin was absolutely awestruck by the fact that Twilight was still standing.  His hamfisted punch to the face was usually what ended his fights, often for good, but the little, frail-looking unicorn before him had just worn it like a scarf.  Moreover, she stepped elegantly over to her barstool, picking it up and testing the weight a little bit by swinging it against air, but Pumpkin didn't move out of the way at all; he wasn't even sure if this whole situation was real or not.  

Reality hit him, well, like a barstool, however.  Twilight had certainly augmented herself to get a little better swing off but accidentally wound up splintering the thing.  The cushion had dislodged from the top as soon as the legs crunched and sent sharp slivers of wood burrowing into Pumpkin's thick skin.  The bits of wood that gave the legs support didn't hold up well either, but provided enough of a solid mass to actually dislocate his shoulder from the sheer blunt force.  He dropped, groaning out in pain and taking a knee, trying to play it off like it didn't hurt even though everypony in the bar could see the lump where his shoulder shouldn't have been.  Twilight didn't stop for him, however, and stepped up onto his right side, taking her place next to his wounded foreleg and pressing her hoof down on his back.  Slowly but surely, he dropped to his knees, and then his chest after having all of the air forced out of his ribcage from the thousands of pounds of pressure being invisibly placed between his shoulder blades.  He was allowed to breathe, but only barely, and Twilight levitated the half empty bottle of grain alcohol over to herself.  

The bar was dead silent save for the groans from the drunken Pumpkin, so Twilight broke the dead air by holding the bottle up in the air and proclaiming "Cheers!" just before downing the rest of it.  The instant she finished, she pried Pumpkin's jaws apart and forced the bottle in, waiting until the base of it was just beneath his teeth and the neck was buried far down his throat.  His gag reflex, coupled with the nausea of being far too drunk caused a foul stream of semi-clear brownish fluid to erupt around the bottle and spill out onto the floor, but Twilight continued to make her point with ease.  "This looks like the biggest guy in here, and he just got his ass kicked by a little Canterlot flower...  Fancy that."  Twilight did an exaggerated pirouette on Pumpkin's back so that her nose was facing his tail, addressing the rest of the crowd face to face.  "Now watch what happens when you fuck with me."  She smiled big and raised her back leg, stomping down hard on Pumpkin's muzzle and shattering the bottle, sending big shards of broken glass into his gums, trachea, esophagus, stomach, even his lungs since he was struggling to breathe around the intrusive object.  The big oaf swallowed instinctively as soon as he felt something move, so the jagged neck of the bottle ended up burying itself in his stomach along with several razor sharp slivers of glass.  The entire crowd let out an audible gasp, horrified by the show of force that Twilight's tiny frame had just put out.  "Any questions?"

The group of half-drunk, half-high ponies stared in shock as "Pumpkin" coughed up a flowing mix of glass speckled crimson; the alcohol had thinned his blood so it was pouring out of him much faster than normal.  As soon as he finished his dreadful hacking, the big orange stallion let out a gravelly moan to signify his agony, prompting two unicorns (most likely his only friends in the world) to rush in and drag him out of the bar, leaving a snail-trail of red on the cheap hardwood floor.  Twilight contentedly walked back to the bar, parting the crowd in a way that may just as well have been telekinetic.  The bartender was absolutely awestruck.  

"Told you it'd be cool."  Twilight said with a grin, picking up her bottle of whiskey and pouring it out into the glass she left on the counter.

"Well...  That was certainly the most fucked up thing I've seen a girl do to a guy in this place...  I think I need a drink after that."  The earth pony reached down and poured a shot of whiskey into the other glass, downing it in one harsh gulp.

"Only in this place?"

"Well there was this one time at a whore-house down the street where this mare asked for a volunteer from the audience.  She was pretty well known for being weird and this time she had this hatching chicken egg with her..."

"You know what?  I don't think I wanna know."

"Yeah...  I'd rather I didn't know either, but unfortunately I couldn't look away."

"Well if nothing else that asshole won't be causing any trouble in here from now on."

"True, and I guess I've got you to thank.  I never got your name."

"Just call me Umbra."

"Will do, Umbra.  By the way I'd be inclined to say you learned a lesson tonight."

"Oh?"

"Mhmm, instead of talking about your own flaws, doesn't it feel just so much better to watch them play out?"

"Hrmm..."  Twilight was actually struck by the profundity of that statement, having been intentionally not paying attention to the echoes of the bartender's voice.  He had proven to be much more intelligent than the rest of the dregs, so Twilight was willing to accept that he had proven worthy of leaving alive for the moment.  "I think you're right...  Thank you for the drinks, by the way, how much do I owe you?"

"Nah, forget it.  With the exception of the whiskey that swill I gave you has been sitting here since I first opened up, I should be paying you to get rid of it for me."

"Then how about the whiskey?"

"On the house.  You put on quite a show, Black Rose, so just consider it a tip."

"Well thank you again.  Now if you'll excuse me I think I've got a few more flaws to go watch play out; it's been a pleasure.

"Pleasure's all mine.  Come on back anytime you like."

"We'll see,"  Twilight said with venom on her tongue.  The only reason she could think of to return to that bar would be to burn it to the ground, but there wasn't any point in ruining the nice guy's mood.  She'd gotten a little fun out of it if nothing else, and managed to spot a few of the obvious cocaine users slip out the door as soon as the action started; they were next on her list.