Applejack narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at the portable blackboard standing out in the open, grassy courtyard near the sculpture garden on the Palace grounds.

Not far away, Rarity was leafing through a romance novel at the base of a statue, Fluttershy was covered in local birds busily braiding her mane, and Pinkie Pie was teetering precariously atop a stone vase, trying to mimic a statue’s pose.

“Hmm.” Applejack tilted her head still further and then straightened. “Nope... I don’t get it.”

Rainbow Dash frowned. “Oh, come ON! It’s easy as falling off a cloud! Just follow the-”

She turned to face the board she’d only just finished covering in curling, coiling dotted lines, X’s, O’s and chevrons in three different colours of chalk. The board now looked like a schematic illustrating a bowl of noodles exploding.

“Huh. Okay, MAYBE aerial hoofball is a LITTLE complicated.” Dash chuckled sheepishly. “But still! You’re one of the top athletes in Ponyville! You should TOTALLY be able to figure it out.”

Applejack adjusted her Stetson with a front hoof. “And why, exactly, do ya wamme ta learn a sport that ya can’t play without wings?”

Rainbow Dash sighed in frustration. “So that when Twilight gets back from her talk with Princess Celestia you’ll know what you’re talkin’ about when we BOTH convince her to play on my team in the next big game! Did you SEE those wings of hers? She’ll be a NATURAL!” She smiled broadly at the prospect.

“Ah,” replied Applejack dryly, “well as long as it’s fer a good cause.”

Rainbow Dash chuckled, and then dusted the board clean with a few swipes of a sky-blue wing. She picked up a piece of chalk with her teeth.

“Uhh-kay. Ret’s thtart wiff vuh wall of ffcrimm-”

A sudden chilling breeze caught Dash’s attention mid-sentence and sent a shiver down her spine; her multi-coloured tail frizzed. She turned around, and found herself face-to-face with a dark-blue Alicorn clad in platinum jewelry.

The chalk dropped out of Dash’s mouth. “...Princess Luna? Don’t You usually, uh... not come out much in the daytime?”

Luna straightened. Her translucent mane and tail were dusk-pale in the bright daylight, and her eyes were narrow behind a pair of platinum-framed dark glasses. “This is no normal situation. We have an urgent task for thee... if thou art not too occupied with thy stalwart friend.” Luna nodded toward Applejack, who doffed her Stetson nervously.

Dash stared, and then caught herself. “Uh, no, not really, Princess. I’m ready for anything!”

Applejack stepped forward, putting her hat back in place. “Me too, Princess!”

Luna spread her wings. “Thy courage is admirable, Applejack, but sadly We cannot accept thy aid. This task calls for flight.” The Alicorn leaped into the air. “Come, Rainbow Dash. We must make haste!”

Dash hovered, but then paused. “Flight? Should we go get Twilight, too? Or Fluttershy?”

Luna’s shaded eyes betrayed nothing. “...Neigh, loyal Rainbow Dash. The new Princess is swift-winged, but unaccustomed to her new nature as of yet. And though gentle Fluttershy is most virtuous, this mission calls for a flyer of consummate skill!” Luna resumed her flight.

A faint blush coloured Dash’s cheeks. “I won’t let you down, Princess!” Rainbow Dash gave a quick salute and then took off after the princess. She looked back over her shoulder and called out: “AJ - tell the gang I’ll be gone for a little while, okay?”

Applejack craned her neck to watch the pair, shifting awkwardly. “Uh, awright! I’ll... I’ll just be goin’, then, I reckon...” She turned and headed over to meet up with her other friends.

Luna flew with phenomenal speed, forcing Rainbow Dash to do something she hadn’t needed to do since her assessment at the Wonderbolts Academy:

Put in an effort.

“Where are we going, Princess?” she shouted over the roar of the wind.

“To Cloudsdale’s weather smithy!” Luna shouted back. “Thou hast a rainbow to follow!”

“I... what?”

Luna offered no further explanation, and soon the pair approached the Pegasus cloud-city’s industrial district.

The air was cold and damp and heavy with the spicy tang of liquid rainbow. Pegasi in safety gear toted baskets of snowflakes and barrels of rainbow to and fro, and heavy machinery thrummed and clanked in a constant basso backbeat.

Luna approached one of the largest and oldest pumps moving raw rainbow down to the assorted pools and basins and cloud-ponds from which it spilled down to the ground below. Her horn flared, and the machine’s controls glowed and adjusted themselves.

“Whoa, hay!” Dash said, “You can’t do that, Princess! The pipes will-”

A rumble shook the cloud under Dash’s hooves, and the needles in the machine’s status gauges jerked to the right.

A worried beige Pegasus stallion flapped over in a hurry, but then skidded to a halt on sight of the princess.

“P-Princess Luna! We didn’t expect a Royal inspection today! Err... could I help You with whatever it is You’re-”

“Neigh, We have no need of thee,” said Luna flatly. “Thou art dismissed.” She continued adjusting the machine. The cloud lurched heavily enough to make Dash and the technician stagger.

The technician stepped to and fro nervously. “I... I don’t want to be a bother, b-but-”

Luna magicked off her dark glasses and then turned to glare at him, her eyes blazing white.

He fled.

Dash hovered over to Luna and angled to look her in the eyes. “Princess, this is a really bad idea! If You keep turning up the pressure, the machine’s gonna blow!”

Luna met Dash’s gaze. “That is precisely Our intention. We have need of a rainbow that reaches beyond the edge of the skies themselves.”

Dash stared in confusion, but she quickly put the pieces together.

“Princess... what exactly do You need me to do?”

In the far distance behind Dash, Luna watched a teal-and-orange streak gouge into the cloud-street like a falling star. A crowd quickly gathered around the crashed Pegasus.

Luna narrowed her eyes; a magicked fog-bank obscured the view.

“Thou must follow a rainbow beyond the very borders of the world, Rainbow Dash, and seek out a creature of vast power - for Equestria shall soon have desperate need of her. Speed thee hence, swift one, and bring Us back... the Megan.”

Rainbow Dash listened in respectful silence while Luna spoke.

And then she flinched, sputtered, snickered, and finally collapsed in a fit of raspy, choking laughter.

Luna frowned; her magically-enhanced ears picked out bits and pieces of the distant crashed Pony’s gasped entreaties:

...like a living wave... covering everything... nopony left... no time, go now...

“RAINBOW DASH!” Luna bellowed, stomping thunder from the cloud beneath her hooves. “This is no laughing matter!”

Dash struggled to control herself. “I’m s-sorry, I’m sorry! But, Princess... how could I find the Megan? Isn’t she just an old Pony-tale?”

“Like Nightmare Moon?” Luna replied.

An instant later the machine finally ruptured, and the entire cloud sank by a Pony’s height from the recoil as a massive multi-hued ribbon exploded forth from the shattered upper pipes. The glaringly bright rainbow stretched away into the distance, shrinking beyond sight.

Rainbow Dash looked up in awe. Her smirk dissolved.

“Go forth, Rainbow Dash,” said Luna firmly. “Fly as fast as thy wings can carry thee - the rainbow will guide thee. Seek out the Megan, and bring her back with thee to Canterlot. We shall await thy return there.”

The Pegasus gave a single resolute nod before rocketing into the sky, arcing to follow the colourful path cutting the sky in two.

Mere moments later, Pegasi swarmed into the area - some reacting to the explosion and others spreading the word about the exhausted messenger’s dire message.

“Enough!” Luna boomed with Royal confidence. “There is no cause for such alarm. This matter is well in horn, We promise you.”

Luna stole a glance upward, where Rainbow Dash was already a speck on the horizon.

“Everything will be all right.”

Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy were gathered in the Palace’s Grand Hall, facing Princess Luna as she strode through the doorway. Princess Celestia waited at the back of the room.

“Princess Luna,” said Twilight, “Applejack mentioned You needed Rainbow Dash for something important. Is she back yet? We were going to head out soon.”

Luna shook her head. “Thy friend is far away, and swift though she is, she shan’t return so quickly.”

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow at Luna’s statement. “Far away? What do you mean?”

Luna trotted forward; the group parted to allow her passage and followed.

“Rest assured, it is a matter of crucial import, and her return shall merit a heroine’s welcome.”

Twilight turned to face her mentor. “Princess Celestia... did You know anything about this?”

Princess Celestia stepped closer to the group of Ponies. “My Sister acted faster than I expected her to, but I was aware of her concerns. Luna believes there is a great danger coming to Equestria, and she...” Celestia paused; she met her sister’s gaze and let a rare awkward silence pass. “...she has sent Rainbow Dash to recruit an ally.”

“More than that, Sister!” Luna insisted. “A SAVIOUR!” She stomped a hoof, the blow echoing in the vaulted room. “Now that she is being retrieved, we can all breathe easy. No matter what danger is coming, we-”

“Not coming! It’s already HERE!”

The five Ponies and their two sovereigns turned toward the vast double-doors, where a teal Pegasus mare was struggling in the grasp of two Royal guards. The mare was wild-eyed and haggard; sweat shone on her hide and her tangled mane, and a hastily-wrapped bandage covered her right flank.

“Apologies, Princess,” said one of the guards. “She crashed into the topiary garden and then flew straight here. She was too fast for us!”

Twilight squinted, and then her eyes widened. “Hay! I remember you! From the Academy! Lightning Dust! You nearly-”

Dust cut her off.

“That’s not important! You need to evacuate. Head as far north as you can. Now!”

Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Applejack spoke up at once, peppering the Pegasus with questions.

Princess Celestia spread her wings for silence and then spoke when the Ponies complied:

“Lightning Dust, please tell us what’s happening.”

Dust sagged in the guards’ grip. “I... I don’t really know, Princess. I tried to explain in Cloudsdale! There was this Ram, but he wasn’t a Ram - more like a monster - and he did something to a volcano in the Badlands, and it-”

It was Twilight’s turn to interrupt.

“The Badlands? That’s halfway across Equestria from here! Why aren’t you warning Dodge Junction or Appleoosa?”

Dust winced and looked away. Her wings drooped. “Appleoosa and Dodge are gone.”

The Ponies standing before Dust shared a shocked silence. Applejack reacted first, her voice a faint whisper:

“Wh-What do ya mean, gone?”

Dust closed her eyes against the ugly memory. “This huge wave of purple slime hit them and covered everything. It moved on its own - like it was alive - and it was covered in these big, staring eyes. Everypony who got covered in it just... just gave up. They lay there in the muck and they wouldn’t move. They hardly even breathed.” Dust shuddered; her voice cracked. When she opened her eyes, they shone with tears. “I wanted to do right this time! I wanted to prove that I wasn’t a... I tried to help them! I tried! I tried to tell them! But they weren’t fast enough! I wasn’t fast enough!” She huddled up and hung her head, slouching on the marble floor like a vulture. “I couldn’t save them. I flew. I flew away.”

Luna’s eyes showed sympathy, but her righteous expression did not falter.

Twilight’s eyes tightened. She swallowed despite her dry mouth. “And now this... slime... is coming this way?”

Dust nodded silently.

Twilight stomped a hoof and spread her wings in defiance. “Well, we’re not gonna let it get to Canterlot! Or to Ponyville! Or anywhere else!”

Her friends agreed with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Princess Celestia smiled proudly and nodded in approval.

Princess Luna remained silent.

“You sound just like him,” Dust muttered.

Pinkie Pie tilted her head. “Who?”

“The Sheriff in Dodge.”

Twilight lowered her gaze; her wings folded. “Princess...?”

Celestia nodded. “Go. Go back to Ponyville, all of you. Protect the ones dear to you. And you, Lightning Dust - spread the word in Cloudsdale. We’ll send a Royal escort with you this time. In the meantime, Luna and I will watch over Canterlot.” Her eyes met her sister’s once more.

“... There is a lot we need to discuss.”

A world away, a creature heedless of portents and Pegasi spoke:

“So. Would you like to tell me what’s on your mind?”

Doctor Sewell’s voice was smooth and even. He spoke without corners, all in gentle curves - not unlike his plump physique. His pale green eyes peered over his wire-framed glasses as he stroked his salt-and-pepper goatee. He wore a cheery green sweater-vest over a business-casual shirt and slacks. The sweater was the same shade as the drapes in the wood-floored office. He clasped his hands in his lap.

His current patient lit a cigarette and held a drag for a long moment before sighing out smoke. She slid low in the heavily cushioned leather armchair. She spoke to the ceiling:

“I... I started dreaming again.”

Her voice was husky and wearied, all in sharp edges - not unlike her emaciated physique. Her watery blue eyes stared up at the acoustic tiles through the strands of unruly straw-blonde hair that had escaped being tied back. She wore torn blue jeans and a faded black t-shirt decorated with white block-letters that read KMFDM and GODLIKE above and below a harsh woodcut image of a hand reaching out to grab the world.

“Bad dreams, you mean.” Sewell didn’t pose it as a question.

She let her right hand hang down over the side of the chair - her cigarette sprinkling ash on the floor - and slid her left down her pale face. “Yeah.”

“I noticed you cancelled the trip to the petting zoo.” Sewell made the observation with the benignity of a comment about the weather, but a subtle note of accusation rang through.

His patient shifted to sit upright and then sagged forward, resting her forearms on her thighs.

“I can’t. I can’t go.”

Sewell let a silent moment pass and watched his patient take another drag before he replied.

“You can’t make progress until you confront your fears, Megan. You need to see that these animals are perfectly normal and safe, so you can get beyond your coping mechanism and remember what really happened to you.”

Megan’s fingers squeezed her legs. “I know! I know, okay? I messed up! I’m sorry.” She frowned.

Sewell gave a sympathetic half-smile. “I’m not trying to shame you. And you don’t need to apologize. But it’s important that you do everything you can to get well. We need to work together, here, Megan. Can you do that?”

She raised her head to look into his eyes. “ …I’ll try.”

Fifty-two minutes later, Megan wrapped her gunmetal-grey raincoat closer and leaned forward into the rain spitting from the night sky as she walked down the sidewalk. She listened to the growls and splashes of passing cars on her right as they echoed off the soaring buildings to her left, and the rhythmic slapping of her sneakers on the wet pavement. They were normal sounds. Real-world sounds.

While stopped at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change, she rummaged in her pockets for a cigarette and her lighter.

Both fell into a puddle at the sound of trotting hooves.

It’s a mounted cop, Megan silently told herself as she felt her muscles clench and her pulse start racing. It’s always a cop. Look at him. Just turn and look.

She didn’t.

The hoofbeats got louder. She hugged herself and tightly closed her eyes. In the silent fireworks playing out behind her eyelids, every distorted shape was a threatening one. A snarling horned face. Roaring dragons. Chains. A boiling whirlpool. A hissing wildcat with glowing eyes. A tolling bell. And everywhere, tiny horses screaming.

They aren’t real. Damn it, they aren’t real! She let out a small whimper.

“Are you okay, miss?”

Megan jerked her head upward and looked at the source of the voice with the desperate haste of someone tearing off an adhesive bandage.

“I’m f-fine, officer,” she managed after a few seconds of wide-eyed staring.

“Weather’s turned sour. You should probably get indoors.” The addendum if you have anywhere to go was unspoken, but clear nonetheless.

“Just heading home now, sir,” said Megan.

The officer slowly nodded, and then directed his mount onward. The chestnut mare trotted on.

Megan stayed where she was until the noise of the city swallowed up every trace of the receding hoofbeats.

Far above her, past the rain clouds, in the deep black of the night sky, a shooting star with a multi-hued tail flared into being.

By sunset, a wall of piled sandbags encircled the outskirts of Ponyville in anticipation of the sinister flood.

The townsponies had worked together with diligence and song, finishing the work in record time. All of the youngest and oldest Ponies were safe and sound on the upper floors of homes and buildings, and most things of value were packed up with them.

A heavy silence fell over the town, full of tension and anticipation.

Fluttershy set down a tray of refreshments for the breakwall workers and then alighted on the town-side of the new wall, folding her wings and knitting her brows.

“It’s so quiet...” she whispered.

“A little TOO quiet!” Pinkie Pie hopped out from behind a dirt-pile and began playing a raucous tune on a small coiled horn made of crystal. Her frizzy pink tail flopped to and fro in time with the honking notes.

Several watchful Ponies in the surrounding area jerked in surprise and then fixed the pink party-Pony with disapproving glares.

Pinkie’s music petered out and stopped. “Suh-whee...” she said through the horn, and backed away sheepishly.

“There! In the distance!” A Pegasus stallion hovering a few Pony-heights above Pinkie pointed a hoof southward.

A dark-purple shadow was covering ground far in the distance, spreading toward Ponyville from the south like the nightfall spreading from the east.

The Ponies at the wall leaped into action, double-checking its construction and shoring up thinner areas.

“Lightning Dust seemed so afraid of this thing,” said Fluttershy, hovering over to stand next to Pinkie. “What should we do?”

Pinkie inhaled to speak, but then a full-body spasm sent her wobbling back and forth. Her tail swirled and her eyelids fluttered. She finally came to rest after a straight-legged backflip.

Fluttershy drew back in alarm. “P-Pinkie! I’ve never seen you get a Pinkie Sense like that before! What does it mean?”

Pinkie Pie was suddenly very, very quiet. She was as still as a stone for five heartbeats, but then she perked back up to her usual broad grin and loud, high voice.

“It means we should go check on everypony else! C’mon, Fluttershy!” Pinkie bounded away. Fluttershy scrambled to take off and hover after her.

At the centre of town, Twilight Sparkle and her favourite assistant were hard at work organizing the preparation efforts. Twilight’s horn was glowing, as were the dozen parchments and half-dozen quills orbiting around her. The pens all wrote at once - a testament to the Alicorn’s burgeoning arcane power.

Spike the Dragon was scurrying this way and that, maintaining Twilight’s in and out boxes by toting fresh and completed checklists and papers.

A few yards away, Rarity’s horn was also aglow. Seven blue-glowing canvas sacks were assembling themselves one by one as they hovered around her, casting shadows over her pristine white hide. Each bag was stitched to sandbag-perfection and embroidered with her stylized R insignia.

Pinkie hopped over with a cheery smile. “Hay, Twilight! Hay, Rarity! Looks like the... whatever-it-is is coming pretty soon! Have you seen Applejack anywhere? And is Dashie back yet?”

Twilight’s eyes didn’t leave her work. “Applejack is fortifying Sweet Apple Acres. And Rainbow Dash is...” A few of the floating papers wavered. “...still not back yet.”

“Oh.” Pinkie Pie’s smile lost an inch or two of width. “Uh, okie dokie then! If you see them, tell them...” Pinkie pondered for a moment. “Tell them Pinkie said to keep on smilin’!”

“Will do.” Twilight was already half-obscured by her swarming busywork, but the enchanted pages soon slowed once again. “Hold on. Why can’t you just tell them your-”

Pinkie was already gone.

“What was that all about?” Twilight asked in consternation.

“I dunno,” said Spike, passing by with a pile of inventory sheets. “Just Pinkie being Pinkie?”

“Maybe so,” Rarity chimed in. She narrowed her well-decorated eyes. “Maybe not.”

Fluttershy shrugged apologetically, at a loss to contribute to the conversation. Her front hooves were outstretched to received Rarity’s shipment of haute-couture sandbags for delivery.

The timid Pegasus took to the air and headed back to the breakwall’s dirt-pile to have the bags filled and distributed, but a few wingbeats from the site a shadow loomed in the southern distance. Fluttershy drifted to the ground, and the bags dropped. Fluttershy’s jaw did likewise.

A surging, boiling, purple-black tidal wave was building a few hundred yards from Ponyville. The viscous sludge lashed and lunged as it flowed, like a clot of worms writhing in a thin bag. The outer surface was dotted with staring, shallow-socketed eyes that rolled to and fro in mindless stares. The wave crested and fell, and a rolling wall of the slime streaked toward the breakwall at a galloping pace.

All around Fluttershy, Ponies broke and ran and flew in a panic, desperate to escape. Fluttershy stood in mute shock until a galloping Earth Pony jostled her aside and she snapped to her senses. She spread her wings and took flight seconds before the syrupy mass struck the sandbag wall. The first impact knocked half the sandbags flying, but the wall held back the noxious tide.

Until the tide began to climb.

Fluttershy rose higher and sprinted for her cottage on the town outskirts. Placed on a hilltop as it was, the home had seemed pointless to fortify. But now...

At the same time, not far away, Applejack and her bulky brother approached a second breakwall around Sweet Apple Acres that encompassed the Zap-Apple field and the farm’s primary buildings.

“Welp, Apple Bloom’s with Miss Cheerilee at school in town, an’ Granny Smith’s up in the farmhouse. Now that the Pony-folks are safe, no reason not ta shore up this here wall. Gotta keep our livelihood protected!”

Applejack knelt and tugged a sandbag higher up on the pile with her teeth.

“Eeeyup,” agreed Big Macintosh.

Above them, a pink and yellow streak shot past and then briefly doubled back.

“Get off the g-ground!” Fluttershy panted. “The walls won’t stop it! It’s coming! HURRY!” She took off without another word.

Before the Apple siblings could do more than share a look of concern, a low, bone-shaking thud turned their gazes to the nearby first breakwall, where bubbling slime with a thousand eyes had struck and was already spilling over.

“I’ll watch over the wall!” shouted Applejack. “You make sure the barn’s secure an’ Granny’s safe!”

Big Mac stared out at the endless tide of purple filth surging toward the closer sandbag-wall. He hung his head and let the grass stem between his teeth fall.

“Love ya, Jackie.”

The stallion’s kick sent Applejack sailing upward, smashing through the hayloft doors to crash down on the attic’s soft contents, senseless but safe and out of reach.

Back in the middle of town, the air was thick with the stench of the purple muck and the sounds of Ponies shouting and screaming and crying.

Twilight and Rarity stood side-by-side, backing away from the roiling slime pouring through the street. Spike stood on the ground between them, weaving to peek between their legs as he followed them in retreat.

“You should fly away, Twilight,” said Rarity firmly. “Those wings aren’t just for show, you know!”

“I’m not leaving you,” replied Twilight with an equally hard tone.

“Can’t you carry her?” asked Spike. “I could sit on your back, and you could-”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think I’m strong enough yet to fly while carrying a full-grown Pony for long...” She turned to face Rarity. “And I don’t want to risk losing you if I carry you with magic or try to wink you out. One jostle to my horn and I might lose the spell-matrix. We need to find another way.”

Rarity nodded.

A fresh wave of the slime surged down the street, driving the trio back.

“What IS this stuff?” Spike asked. His snout wrinkled. “It smells like a used lava-bath!”

“Whatever it is, don’t let it touch you - not even the tip of your tail!” Twilight ignited her horn. “Lightning Dust said it’s dangerous!”

She magicked up a rain-barrel and cracked it like an egg, brandishing the two broad halves defensively.

Rarity’s horn flared as she magicked up a spare sheet of burlap and spread it like a matador’s cape. “Let THAT touch my coiffure?” She huffed and gave a flick of her tail. “I assure you, Twilight... that is the LAST thing I will d-”

The wall behind Rarity exploded outward as a sludge-bloated home finally reached its breaking point. Twilight winked out by reflex, disappearing in a reddish flash and reappearing on clear ground a few yards away. Spike was close enough to be caught in the spell’s effects, and he found himself tumbling to the dirt beneath Twilight, singed and smoking.

The pressure slowly eased, and the slime flowed down the paths of least resistance. Twilight opened her eyes and got her bearings.

“Oh, no...!”

Rarity had lunged in the opposite direction that Twilight had travelled, and her gamble had not paid off as Twilight’s had.

Her entire right side was plastered with the thick muck; her right eye was as wide and blankly staring as the half-dozen ghastly others now dotting her hide. Her gaze turned to meet Twilight’s. The unnatural eyes did likewise. Rarity’s lips quivered and parted, but no sounds escaped.

A tear fell from her left eye, and she collapsed.

“RARITY!” Spike leaped to his feet and raced toward the stricken Unicorn, but the glow of Twilight’s magic snatched him into the air. “No! Twilight, lemme go! We have to... we have to..!” He struggled against the magical aura, his legs flailing. He howled in anguish.

Twilight spun the little Dragon around and held him in front of her face. She shook him.

“SPIKE! LISTEN! We’ll help Rarity, do you hear me? We will!” She bashed aside a reaching tendril of the slime with a swing of one of the barrel-halves. “But we can’t help her if this stuff gets us, too! Do you understand? We need. To get. To safety.”

Spike sagged in midair. Tears shone in his eyes, but he nodded.

A few streets away, Cup and Carrot Cake cringed on Sugarcube Corner’s upper floor, hugging around the basket holding their twin babies.

At ground level, shallow waves of slime ebbed and flowed through the bakery and the surrounding buildings. Here and there panicked Ponies screamed and galloped to escape, but most only succeeded in being doused in purple filth and left still and silent. Countless inequine eyes rolled in their translucent sockets, seeking any further sign of movement. One of the tentacle-like waves swept through the bakery’s back room, and pots and pans crashed to the damp floor.

Little Pumpkin Cake flinched at the noise and began to whimper. Her brother followed suit.

“N-No...! No, no, no... please... it’s all right! Sh-sh-sh! Don’t c-cry!” Cup Cake’s desperate whispers were as soothing as she could make them.

After a second crash, the foals burst into tears.

All around, faceless eyes turned to focus on the bakery. The thick pseudopods inside the building reached and probed in search of the stairs up.

Carrot Cake ducked to press his lips to his wife’s forehead and then cantered over to the room’s door and braced himself against it. “I won’t let it get in, honey!” he said. “I promise!” His voice was firm; his legs were shaking.

Not far away, Twilight Sparkle galloped along the untouched upper walls of downtown Ponyville’s buildings as if they were level ground. Her horn was blazing from the gravity-bending spell, and Spike was clinging to her back between her spread wings, still and silent.

Twilight vaulted the chasm that was a side-street and skidded to a stop near an abandoned cart on the wall-that-was-the-ground. She magicked up the cart and smashed it into a narrow alleyway, wedging it in place and blocking the vile flood’s path.

She released the spell and flapped down onto the ground. Her stance wavered for a moment from the vertigo of realigned up-and-down.

“That’s all the major side-streets,” she said. “That should slow it down, and buy us a little time.”

“Time to do what?” Spike muttered. He huddled on Twilight’s back, feeling small and useless.

Twilight’s expression hardened. “Time to prepare the balloon. We’re evacuating Ponyville.”

Spike’s emerald-green eyes widened. “B-But, Twilight!”

“We don’t have a choice! This sludge is spreading too fast! Lightning Dust was right. We need to run and find somewhere safe so we can figure out what to do. We’ll air-lift as many as we can in the balloon. The Pegasi will carry out as many others as possible, and I’ll enchant them so they can stand on the clouds.”

Spike’s lip quivered. “What about everypony else? What about Rarity?” He wrung his tail in his claws. “...Twilight?”

Twilight looked down the abandoned, barricaded street; she made no reply.

On the outskirts of town, Fluttershy flapped her wings and strained against the weight of the brown bear above her. She pushed animal upwards with her outstretched front hooves, helping him climb up the side of her grass-thatched cottage.

Above them, dozens of animals crowded on the rooftop. Chipmunks and squirrels and beavers and weasels and kittens and otters and rabbits stood among birds of every size and colour.

“Please, Harry!” Fluttershy said through gritted teeth. “You have to climb a little faster, all right?”

She gave another heave, and the bear finished his ascent. The job was done. A moment later, the sweating Pegasus felt her overworked left wing clench and spasm after an off-flap; a sprain. Fluttershy fell to the ground, writhing and whimpering in pain.

Nearby, the tide of purple corruption approached.

Some of the animals chattered amongst themselves, and several raced over to the edge of the roof. Angel Bunny took the lead.

Fluttershy squirmed around to look up at them. She frowned. “Nnngh! N-NO! Don’t you dare come down for me! You stay where you are! All of you! STAY!”

Fluttershy focused through the throbbing pain in her wing and unleashed her fiercest Stare. The animals froze in shock.

She was still Staring when the slime reached her.

On Sugarcube Corner’s top floor, Carrot Cake’s hooves skidded on the floor as the encroaching slime bashed against the door. He adjusted his stance and leaned harder against the cracked wood. Separated from the majority of its mass by the trip up the stairs, the slime-wave was weaker than its wall-rupturing brethren below. But the door was thin, and Carrot’s gangly yellow frame made for a poor blockade.

Please, Celestia, Carrot silently begged, let them get away. I don’t care what happens to me - just let them get away...

An incongruously squeaky explosion sounded in the distance, and a blur of pink arced down to strike ground in front of the besieged bakery. The Cakes stared out of the upstairs window in confusion.

Pinkie Pie fixed her stance and looked up through the rain of sprinkles and confetti that had accompanied her party-cannon-powered flight.

“HAY!” she bellowed at the sludge flooding her home. “You wanna pick on Ponies? Then pick on Pinkie Pie, punk!” She waved her tail and blew an echoing raspberry.

Cup Cake leaned out of the bakery’s window. “Pinkie! NO!”

Pinkie ignored her. “You’re making Ponies all sad and floppy, huh? Betcha can’t stop THIS!” She unleashed a smile a few degrees wider than her head.

The bare eyeballs speckling every patch of slime turned to face her, and the amorphous mass slowly seeped out of the bakery and into the street.

Pinkie capered to and fro, waving her balloon-marked rump at the blob. “Nyah-nyah!” She hopped farther from the bakery.

The slime gathered itself up and extruded an arm-like wave wider than Pinkie was tall. She moved to dodge, but the wave splattered when it missed and soaked her in purple. The impact knocked her off her hooves.

“PINKIE!” Cup Cake screamed from the window. Carrot, watching from behind her, turned away.

The slime withdrew and shifted to return to the bakery, but then a voice made it pause:

“H-Hah! You’re gonna... hafta... do better than th-that!”

Pinkie was struggling to get back on her hooves. Her knees wobbled but she stood, and her broad smile split the muck staining her face.

A ripple of something not unlike irritation passed through the slime. It pulled away from the bakery once more and raised up a fresh pseudopod.

“I’m... I’m feelin’ f-fine!” Pinkie scoffed. “It’s not so bad! Just kinda smelly!”

The second wave smashed down on her. When it withdrew she was flat on her back, completely coated.

The slime’s lidless eyes somehow managed to widen when Pinkie spat out a mouthful of muck and turned onto her side.

“Bleah!” She coughed and retched and spat out an eyeball as she staggered back upright. “Wh-What, all this p-pudding... and no SPRINKLES?”

The slime wave hit her again.

Pinkie let out a choked moan. Her knees buckled, but she righted herself. Her smile returned. “You’re not s-so good at this, are you? I’m not even GRUMPY!”

It hit her again.

Pinkie sobbed, and tears cut through the purple splatters on her cheeks. Her hooves skated on the slime until she slammed into a public trough. Her smile returned. “I th-think you missed a spot!”

It hit her again. The trough cracked.

Pinkie whimpered through her gritted teeth. She leaned heavily against the trough’s remains, straining to raise her head under the weight of her sludge-sodden mane. The slime on her flanks sizzled and bubbled over her Cutie Marks.

And her smile returned.

She narrowed her bloodshot eyes at the largest slime-mass and coughed out a chuckle. “H-heh. This isn’t working. If you aren’t gonna try h-harder, you might as well just turn tail and run right now.” Her eyes darted upward for a moment and met Mrs. Cake’s. “Y-You hear me? RUN!”

The slime was furious, now; the bakery was forgotten. The bubbling muck pounded the purpled pink party-Pony with layer after layer of liquid horror, knocking her back down whenever she tried to move. Pinkie cackled hysterically, writhing under the onslaught like a worm on a hook. Through her choking, half-sobbed laughter, she shouted again and again:

“RUN! RUN! RUN! RU-U-U-U-UN!”

The Cakes galloped out the bakery’s front door. Mrs. Cake carried the baby-basket’s handle in her mouth.

The shadow of Twilight Sparkle’s hot-air balloon fell over the Cakes, and behind them all was silence.