Chapter Text
Just like every other day in Ponyville, it was cloudy. The disappearances were already terrifying for its citizens, but these fears were only amplified when Rainbow Dash had gone missing. Many ponies lived in fear for their lives, not knowing what really happened to them. Some had even stopped going outside, believing that they could be snatched up in a heartbeat. Others however continued on with their lives as if nothing was wrong.
As a way to try and distract everypony from what was happening, several store owners decided to host a festival in the middle of town at night. Despite their seemingly good intentions, all they wanted was a couple extra bits. It was greedy, but sometimes you had to do what you had to do in order to make it in this world. Could you really blame them if you were in their hooves?
Many ponies had attended the event, either to get some things they needed or to distract themselves from what was happening. Among the stalls of rare goods and fireflies glowing through the night, two of Ponyville's bakers had passed by a vendor selling sandwiches. Inkie and Derpy had been sent there by Pinkie to pick up some ingredients they ran out of at Sugarcube Corner. They had already gotten the things they needed, but Derpy had convinced Inkie to stick around a little longer to see what else was at the festival.
Currently they were at a stall that sold cheap looking bubble blowers. Inkie didn't really see the appeal behind them, but Derpy was ecstatic.
"I still don't get why you like these so much." Inkie inquired.
"Have you never seen bubbles before?" Derpy asked, cocking her head to the side.
"No, we never really saw them that often back on the rock farm."
"Well you know what Pinkie says," Derpy handed a couple bits to the vendor and in exchange was given a bubble blower with a purple handle. "Never knock it till you try it!"
Derpy flipped the switch on the handle and bubbles started shooting out the nozzle. The site brought a smile to her face as she started to bounce in place. Inkie wouldn't admit it out loud, but it was actually kinda nice to see. Sadly, not all good things last forever. Out of nowhere, a turquoise pegasus with an orange mane had passed by them and knocked the bubble blower out of Derpy's hoof. It broke on impact, a small puddle of bubble solution forming in the dirt.
"Why did you feel the need to do that?!" Inkie snapped at the mare while glaring at her.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" The mare responded in faux sympathy. "Sorry that you also find such childish crap to be entertaining, ha!"
Derpy looked over to where the broken bubble blower was, feeling slightly embarrassed that somepony thought it was childish. Inkie on the other hand was furious that somepony she saw as a sister was being harassed by some hot shot. Right as she was about to snap back, the pegasus had walked away. There was nothing more that Inkie wanted to do than leap after her and beat her to death. But she didn't want to be arrested for that, only Celestia knew how Minkie would react to such a thing.
Besides, there was one thing she needed to take care of before doing anything like that. Derpy was still quite upset about her bubble blower being broken. Luckily, Inkie still had a couple bits so she could get a new one for her. This one had a yellow handle, her favorite color. She handed it to the cross-eyed pegasus who almost immediately lit up.
"You wanna head home, Derpy?" She asked. "We can make some muffins if you want."
Derpy almost immediately started hopping in place in excitement. "Yeah!" She exclaimed in excitement. The two started walking away, items in an orange saddle bag strung on Inkie's back. Derpy returned to playing with the bubble blower as a low quality recording of some sort of pop song played on a tiny speaker at the bottom of the handle. Inkie still didn't really get why they were so much fun, but they just were.
Right as they were about to leave, Inkie saw in the corner of her eye the same turquoise pegasus from before, entering an alleyway. She instantly started leading Derpy in that direction, knowing that if they caught her on time they could make their muffins fresh. There she was, hiding behind a dumpster looking at a jar with fireflies. This was gonna be way too easy.
Inkie took her saddle bag and slammed it into her head, knocking her unconscious as the jar she was holding rolled out from her hooves. She hoisted her over her back as her and Derpy went back to Sugarcube Corner. This week they were gonna be having one hell of a special on muffins.
***
The turquoise pegasus woke up with a twinge of pain on her left hoof. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that she was strapped to a metal table. Her hoof had a long cut that ended at her torso. She swore she could even see a chunk of flesh had been cut out. It was already horrifying enough to see, but a quick glimpse of the room she was in nearly made her heart stop. The room was covered head to hoof in party decorations. Unlike most party decorations though, these ones were made out of the bones and fur of other ponies.
In front of her was Inkie Pie and Derpy, the former of which was chewing on something in her mouth. "Hey, what the hell are you doing with me?!" She screamed at them in both fear and anger. Inkie swallowed what was in maw as she spoke to the rude pegasus.
"I bet you know damn well why you're here." She sneered at her. "It's quite obvious when you look at our decorations."
Derpy pushed a metal cart to where she was strapped down. The cart contained many sharp tools and weapons, no doubt meant to mutilate her in some way. Inkie picked up a scalpel and walked over to where one of her flanks were. The pegasus started flailing around in her confines, trying her hardest to break free from her demented captures. Her efforts were only in vain as she felt the blade of a scalpel piercing the hide just above her cutie mark.
She screamed as she felt a circle being traced around the lightning bolt and stars that made her mark. Blood trickled out as she still kept on flailing in agony. For a moment, Inkie thought she was going to accidentally cut through the mark. After she finished carving the bloody circle, she repeated the process on her other flank, handing the previous mark to Derpy. Once both of her flanks had been skinned of her marks, it was time for the fun to begin.
Derpy picked up a saw as she walked over to the table the pegasus was struggling on. She held one of her wings, bringing the saw down to where it was connected to her back. A sickening crack just about echoing through the room when her captive's breath hitched in agony. She stared at the mare who held her there as she felt the saw grind its way through the fur and meat that held it together.
"Let me go you stupid-" She attempted to scream at the gray pegasus, before the light gray mare held a scalpel to her through.
"Continue that thought and this harvest's gonna be a lot quicker than most!" Inkie snapped at her in rage.
In that moment she stopped flailing, only writhing in pain as she felt her wings getting hacked off by somepony she mocked. Cries of agony left her mouth when she felt the saw grinding its way through her bones. Her last finally detached, falling to the ground in a pool of her own blood. Inkie took them from the ground, placing them with the cutie marks on the cart.
"So Derpy, what do you think we should do with her?" Inkie inquired with a sadistic smile across her face.
The gray pegasus tapped her hoof to her chin, deep in thought as she thought about what she wanted to do with her. A light bulb seemed to go off in her head as she beamed with an idea. "What if he chopped her up while she's still alive?"
Inkie looked at her with mild confusion. "We save that for after the harvest, why do you wanna do it now?"
"Lightning Dust has always been a bully." Derpy explained as she narrowed her eyes on their captive. "Not just to me, but to every other pony she thinks is worse than her!"
"Jeez Lightning Dust," Inkie looked over at the turquoise pegasus in disgust. "I knew you were a bitch but I didn't think you'd be this bitchy."
Derpy flinched at the swearing. Inkie never really understood why Derpy was so against cursing. After all, they had been baking for quite a while now. She'd chat with her about it later though. Right now those muffins weren't gonna bake themselves.
She took an axe from the cart approaching Lightning Dust with a look of pure sadistic pleasure in her eyes. "Derpy, you get the torch ready." She called out to the gray pegasus. "We're gonna need to make sure we cauterize where we chop her up so she doesn't bleed out!" She rotated the table so it laid flat. Neither baker wanted her to slip from the table. Even if she wouldn't be able to escape, she'd still try to flail around on the floor and make their work so much more difficult.
"Wait, no no no, STOP-" Lighting attempted to plead for her life, but it was of no use. Inkie raised the axe above her head and slammed it down on where one of her hooves was connected to her body. She screamed in agony, unable to run away as the psychotic mare kept on hacking away at her leg like she was a butcher. Blood splattering out from where she was being cut up.
Once her right leg had been hacked off, she felt a burning sensation lighting up where she had been amputated. She saw Derpy lighting it with a blow torch, trying to cauterize the newly cut wound in an attempt to make sure she didn't bleed out. She honestly wished she had just let her bleed out, that way maybe it could've ended already. Unfortunately it had to keep on going, something she only realized when Inkie started to hack away at her other leg.
The pain was becoming too much for Lightning Dust. It became one of the only things she could feel as she started to feel herself black out. Derpy quickly noticed this however, grabbing a shot of adrenaline from the cart and immediately jabbed it into Lightning's fore hoof. She jolted up with a sharp exhale, helpless to the sight of having her hooves hacked off with an axe. She wished this could end. Hoping and praying that she'd just wake up and realize this was all just a nightmare. But alas it was all a reality.
Both of her legs had been cut off and cauterized and she couldn't scream out in agony anymore. Her vocal cords would give up anytime she would try to make so much as a peep. All she could do was watch on in horror and pain as her hooves were chopped off of her body while her wounds were burned to ensure the torture continued.
Eventually, all of her hooves were removed from her body. The only things left holding her in place were the straps on her neck and chest. That was until Inkie removed the strap that held her chest in place. She injected her with some kind of syringe that made her unable to feel anything. She then placed a scalpel above her chest and dragged the blade down until it reached the bottom of her stomach. Lightning Dust could only watch as the flaps of skin that protected her organs were pulled to the sides.
Inkie would proceed to tear out her organs, starting with her intestines. Derpy was watching from the sidelines, watching the turquoise pegasus had her organs ripped from her body. Then she walked over to her with a jar of fireflies and a sewing needle. "Can we trap these in her stomach, Inkie?" She asked enthusiastically.
"Sounds like a plan Derpy!" Inkie replied equally as enthusiastically as she opened the jar.
She cut a hole into her stomach before quickly shaking the fireflies into it. As soon as she pulled away the jar, they attempted to fly away, but were unable to when Inkie started sewing up the hole. The Bakers could faintly see them attempting to glow through the stomach, trying to stay alive for as long as possible. This organ definitely wouldn't be used in the batch.
"Derpy, I'm gonna need you to hold onto the sides of the stomach." She explained to the pegasus. She held down on those parts of the organ, while Inkie cut it away from its confines. After stitching up any holes that the fireflies would've tried to escape from, Derpy placed the dimly glowing organ onto their cart. Inkie continued to remove organs from Lightning Dust's chest. She felt like a surgeon, but without any sort of license or a need to save a life.
Lightning started to fade out of existence. The only organs that remained were her heart and lungs, working overtime in a fruitless attempt to keep her alive. Inkie didn't even need to use her scalpel for them, she just started to tug them out with her bare hooves. What little blood remained squirted out as the pegasus's lungs were ripped from her chest.
Inkie grabbed her scalpel, running the blade through the cords that kept blood pumping through her. Lightning had been completely cleared of her vital organs, her vision fading to darkness until she ceased to be. Her body laid limp as the elements around her started to make her cold.
Derpy walked over to Ikie, a bright smile on her face. She was holding her bubble blower which lost most of its juice a while ago. Opening the brightly colored toy, she took the heart from her fellow baker's hoof. She squeezed the blood from it into the tube meant to hold the bubble solution. After screwing it back on, she flipped the switch on and a flurry of red bubbles flew out of the nozzle, that crappy pop song clip playing just a tad more corrupt than before.
Derpy was ecstatic to see it work. She started bouncing up and down the room while giggling madly. Inkie was also rather amused. She joined the pegasus's bouncing harmony as the distorted pop song repeated for what felt like hours, waiting for the bloody bubble solution to dry up.
***
Derpy popped another muffin into her mouth, chatting with Inkie after another successful harvest. Normally she would be in bed right now, but she wanted to enjoy her muffins with someone. Something was still nagging at the back of the earth mare's mind however.
"Derpy, why do you hate swearing so much?" Inkie asked her in curiosity. "You're three years older than me yet you treat cussing like it's the worst thing in the world."
"Because my Dad said swearing was bad back when I was a filly." Derpy explained simply.
"Yeah, but you've been killing people to put them in muffins for I'd say half a year, yet you draw the line at cussing?"
"I know, it's just that I still wanna stick to what my dad taught me before my mom abandoned me."
"Oh, so was he a good guy?"
"Yeah! My mom wasn't that nice, but my dad was the bestest dad ever! Whenever we got to hang out together when he wasn't working, we'd do so much fun stuff and I'd always get muffins!"
"Well you seemed to convince me." Inkie leaned over the table as she took another bite of her muffin. "Do you ever plan on visiting him some time? I think he'd be pretty happy to see you after all these years."
Derpy paused for a moment before starting to frown. Inkie took note of this and got concerned. "You alright, Derpy?"
The gray pegasus sighed as tears started to well up in her eyes. "I-I tried visiting him once..." She started whimpering when the tears started to stream down her face. "B-but when I found m-my old home, there were other p-ponies there. H-he- He-!" She fully broke down, loudly sobbing as she remembered when the young mare at the door had told her about her parents' untimely demise.
Inkie immediately embraced the sobbing pegasus into a hug, rubbing her back in an attempt to soothe her cries. She wasn't usually the type of pony to give such moral support, it was usually Pinkie who did this sort of thing. But her and the other Bakers were already asleep by now. The only reason her and Derpy were up in the first place was because they had snuck out of their room.
"It's alright Derpy, let it out." She cooed as she continued to rub Derpy's back. She could feel her hooves and wings cling around her, reciprocating the hug.
It took a while, but eventually Derpy's sobs had subsided. Her cheeks stained with tears as she looked back at Inkie with her now slightly reddened crossed eyes. "Are you ok?" She asked in as comforting of a tone as she could.
"Y-yeah." Derpy gave a weak smile to the earth pony.
"Well, I think it's time we go back to bed."
"Okie dokie lokie."
The two mares walked back up to where they and the other bakers slept. Pinkie slept in a separate bed decorated to look like a cake, while Blinkie and Minkie occupied the top and bottom halves of a bunk bed. Inkie took her place on the top of another bunk bed, leaving Derpy to take the bottom bunk.
She held onto a bright yellow pony doll that she would always sleep with. When she moved in with Pinkie, she received the doll as a gift. It reminded her a lot of a similar doll she had when she was a filly. The comfort it brought carried over to the darkness that consumed her sight, slipping into a land of dreams.