"Okay, let's take inventory here," Pinkamena said. She paced in a circle in the center of the excessively grimdark room. "I pick up a ping off good old Equestria and come out of Mirror-land to check up on things. Sugarcube Corner is a darkened, cobwebbed shell; Mrs. Cake is a suicidally depressed wreck who does nothing but blubber when I ask about Mr. Cake or the twins; it's been raining nonstop and--" She stopped and regarded herself; black mascara, black lipstick, limp straight mane and tail, studded choker and ankle cuffs, and a black tattered NOFX t-shirt. "--and Pinkie Pie has suddenly turned into Edward Scissorhands. That about cover the bases, Gummi?"

Gummi regarded her with wall-eyed impassivity from his seat in his funeral urn, the lid balanced on his head like a bad hat. The moment Pinkamena had popped open the jar he'd stuck his head out, undoubtably alive and reptilianly unflappable as ever. He gave her a brief burping noise and then went back to pondering his own inner universe.

"Yeah. Exactly." Pinkamena stopped pacing. "Not quite enough to go on. Well, Fictionverse Agent 101: First order of business is to get out, assess what kind of corruption you got , and how far it's spread. You stay here, Gummy; it's gonna be pretty haphazard out there." She gave the gator a pat on the head, dumped a can of soft cat food in his bowl, and left the room.

She was passing the nursery door when she heard the creak of someone rocking in the nursery rocker. Warily, she eased the door open. The nursery was still dusty and cobwebbed, the windows cracked and streaked with dirt and rain... but she could see the twins in their crib, sleeping peacefully. Sitting in the rocking chair beside them was Mr. Cake. He was disheveled, his tie was undone, and he looked like he hadn't showered in days. A half empty bottle of Applejack's cider was in his lap, and dried tears streaked his face.

He looked up at Pinkamena. "I just can't do it, Pinkie," he sobbed. "I just can't go on without her. How can I raise two beautiful foals without their mother? How can I run Sugarcube Corner? How can I face every day alone, now that my beautiful Cup Cake is gone?"

A stentorian snore echoed down the hallway. If Cup Cake was gone, she was still within earshot. Pinkamena rolled her eyes. "Ohhhhkayyy, Mr. Cake," she said, walking into the room. "I think it's time you took a little nap.." she pried the bottle out of Mr. Cake's hooves and helped him to his hooves. "Come on, I think you'll feel better once you lie down in your own bed..." She helped the distraught stallion stagger his way to the Cake's bedroom and kicked open the door. Mrs. Cake was, of course, still lying in bed. She had awoken when the door banged open, and was still lying there, curled up and sobbing quietly, her back turned to them.

Pinkamena sat Mr. Cake down on the edge of the bed. "And there you go," she said. She waited for the two to realize they were in the room together. Then waited a bit more. And a bit more. Neither of them looked at the other.

"Cup Cake..." Carrot Cake wept.

"Carrot Cake..." Cup Cake sobbed.

"Cup..."

"Carrot..." the two paused.

"Cup?" Carrot turned around and looked over his shoulder at Cup.

"Carrot?" Cup rolled over and looked at Carrot.

Grief fell back over them like the shadow of a raincloud. "I miss you so much, Cup Cake," Carrot sobbed. "Why did you have to die?"

"I miss you so much, Carrot," Cup said. "Why did you have to die?"

They both turned away from each other and resumed sobbing. "Cup...." "Carrot....."

Pinkamena's eyebrows tabled. "You have GOT to be kidding me," she said.

She pondered the problem for a minute, rubbing her chin. "Ah!" She trotted back to the nursery and peered down in the crib. "Come on, snoochy pies," she crooned, picking the babies up one by one. "Time to rise and shine."  After a quick feeding, burping and changing (why oh Maker WHY couldn't she be a unicorn for that part at least?) and a few minutes of tickles and tummy zerberts, the twins were wide awake and full of bubbly energy. Pinkamena carried the babies back to the Cake's bedroom on her back and plopped them down on the bed between their parents.

Babies, it seemed, were immune to whatever aura of misery hung in the air. It figured, really; your average baby doesn't give two toots about angst and depression and a happy healthy baby wouldn't know existential despair if it walked up, tipped its hat to them and said howdy-do.

It only took a second for the parents to become aware of the babies. They turned around in surprise as the twins each waddled up the mattress, one to a parent, and began climbing on them, laughing and crowing. Pound cake nuzzled his mother's cheek, while Punkin reached up her tiny baby hooves and booped her sad looking daddy on the nose.(1)

The bleak atmosphere in the room popped like a soap bubble. Carrot chuckled and Cup burst out laughing. Cup wiped the tears from her face. "Are you all right, sugarmuffin?" Cake asked her.

"I think so..." Cup said.

"Why are you crying?"

"I... I don't really know," Cup replied, wiping her eyes again. "A sad dream, I think. And you?"

"I don't know either, something silly, probably," Mr. Cake said. "Doesn't matter now. You're here and everything's okay." He gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. She returned it.

"Are you two gonna be all right?" Pinkamena asked cautiously.

Mrs. Cake looked over at her. "Oh, there you are Pinkie! My, what an... interesting outfit," she said, looking over Pinkamena's startling outfit. "We're all right, dear. Just crying over-- over something silly. " She yawned deeply and cuddled Pound Cake in her forelegs. "You go ahead and take the day off. I think we're all going to take a little nap." She yawned again.

Mr. Cake yawned as well. "That sounds like a good idea, honeydrop," he said. "I dunno why but I feel bushed..." Smiling, the two dropped off to sleep, the babies cradled between them. Despite all the activity, Punkin and Pound conked out almost immediately as well, curling up close to their mother and father.

Pinkamena closed the door. She took a deep breath; even the air in the house seemed a little fresher now. Of course that could be because she changed the babies... "Well that's them taken care of," she said. "Now, time for a little reconnaisance." She braced her shoulders. Confidence Pinkamena, she told herself. She'd handled countless horrifying trope, continuity, franchise, and even Genre level messes before, and this little corner of the corruption had cleaned up nicely. Even the dust and cobwebs were gone. How bad could it be?

"Yeah, pretty bad."

Pinkamena stood on the front stoop of Sugarcube Corner. This was bad. This was, yes, very bad. The signs of corruption were worse the longer she looked in fact.

The first sign was when she got downstairs... the sweets shoppe was still dark and boarded up, first of all. It hadn't reverted at all. She'd pried the boards off the front door and stepped outside, standing under the front awning. She huddled in the tiny little spot of shelter from the pouring rain and looked around.

"How nice. Thomas Kinkade goes grimdark," she muttered. Everything was muted and gray, like the endless rain had leached away all Ponyville's bright colors. The quaint thatched cottages looked stained and bedraggled. The streets were sodden and flooded. The sky was leaden, and what wasn't rainclouds was soot and smoke that mingled with the rain and ran down the walls of the buildings. Most of the houses were boarded up or simply looked abandoned. She saw a few in the distance that looked like they'd been burnt out....

The few ponies she saw in the streets looked half-dead, dragging listlessly from place to place, their heads hanging low and their manes and tails matted with rain, soot and mud. Some were loudly weeping, others simply plodded along staring straight forward, their eyes empty and their faces bleak with despair. The rolling hills beyond the rooftops, once dotted with trees, were dotted with tombstones.

Without taking her eyes off the scene, Pinkamena reached behind her and pulled a small tape recorder out and turned it on. her associates... and no, we do not know who they are... had gotten on her about keeping better records and had issued her a Blamco(tm) Hands Free Mini Tape Recorder. They were regretting that choice as she had taken to amusing herself by using the recorder in ever more unique ways, and then sending in the resultant mini tapes to the transcribers. Thus far she had sent in one tape of nothing but rude body noises, and another of her saying the word 'weiner' over and over again for an hour and a half. (2) This time, at least, she was using it properly. "Yeah, okay. FiMverse again, new outbreak. Pretty obvious. Pervasive uniform chronic corruption, spread out over the entire area, no particular focused spots like last time--- just everywhere," Pinkamena muttered into the tape recorder(2). "Uniform theme of angst, despair, hopelessness..." she watched idly as a funeral procession trooped by-- "... random pointless tragedy... first guess is either a GrimDork or an EmoWeenie. It could be a Toxic Nihilist, but I'm not sure yet. Okay, no time to waste. First step is to round up the mane six--"

She was interrupted by the sound of coughing. She turned around; limping out of the alleyway next to Sugarcube Corner came Pipsqueak. He was the picture of pathos, muddy and bruised, his little red neckerchief in tatters, his ribs showing through his skin. He stared at her with wide, hungry eyes.

She stared back. "Seriously?" she said. "Spare me; I know a woobieholic distractor when I see it." The waif said nothing. "Forget it! Head office chewed me out already about going off on rabbit trails for every bit of pathos bait in a Corruption. It doesn't matter anyway: I fix everything, everything goes back to normal and this will have never happened. Doing a Woobie Rescue is just wasting time!"

The tiny colt said nothing. Pinkamena growled. "Oh, the old Too Beaten Down By Life To Even Beg routine. Nice try," she shouted at noone in particular. "I'm already behind from 'helping' the Cakes. I'm not falling for--"

Silently, a tiny gray unicorn filly with a dirty yellow mane and tragedy-filled eyes crept out of the alleyway and stood by the colt.

Pinkamena gawped at them. "Oh---- RRrrrrRRRRARGH!" She snarled, waving her forehooves in the air in frustration. "Oh, bleeding hearts of the world, unite!"  She kicked open the door to Sugarcube corner and waved at the two foals. "In, in, in, in!"

Within twenty minutes the two foals were seated at one of the tables in Sugarcube Corner, bathed, dried, and wrapped in warm blankets. They stared with wide eyes as Pinkamena laid out a hearty meal of soup and sandwiches on the table in front of them, scavenged from the shoppe's refrigerators and pantries. "Th- thank you, Miss," Pipsqueak said faintly, reaching carefully for a daisy sandwich.  He chewed slowly and carefully as if he was afraid each bite was going to disappear. Dinky went for the soup, carefully ladling spoonfuls into her mouth with exaggerated care.

"Don't eat too fast, you don't wanna hurt your tummy," Pinkamena sighed. "When you're done, there's a room upstairs where you can sleep. Look for the room that looks like the Death of Easter Bunnies decorated. Don't worry about the alligator; he's got no teeth." She quickly wrote off a letter to the Cakes explaining the situation on a piece of wax paper with a grease pencil and gave it to Pip. "Give this to the Cakes," she said. "That should take care of things."

"Thank you," the two waifs chorused. For the first time, the two of them smiled. Once again the pervasive gloom lifted, and the room seemed to fill with a breath of fresh air.

Pinkamena rolled her eyes. But she couldn't quite entirely hide her smile. "All right. Later, you two."

She trotted out the door of Sugarcube Corner. She had a rainbow colored umbrella hat, which she put on her head(3), saddlebags full of party supplies, and a large cast iron frying pan with the slogan "Thin The Herd" etched on the bottom, which she stuck through a strap slung across her back. She started to march off, then hesitated. "Best to do things right," she muttered. "No sense doing all that only to lose ground." She locked the front door, and carefully stuck a 'Happy Birthday' card in the doorjamb. For added measure she tied a small bunch of brightly colored balloons to the doorknob.

Nodding in grim satisfaction, she trotted off down the street. "First stop," she said, "Fluttershy's cottage!"

1)Four out of five physicians agree that baby nose boops are almost 100% effective at dispersing a bad mood. The fifth one is a grouchy misery guts that nobody likes to talk to anyways.

2)You should have seen the transcriptions.

3)It clashed horribly with her goth gear and black T-shirt. Which was kind of the point.