FimFiction Link - Short ID: 222775/the-last-something-sweet-to-bite
Published: Oct '15
Leprechaun and Hellraiser waited until their fourth outing to go to space. Friday the 13th had the decency to wait until its tenth movie. SStB beats them all by going interdimensional on the third story. Suck the Candy Mare's candy cane stick, losers!
I actually liked a bit of how suspenseful things were in the first third of the story. Candy doesn't go around consuming Canterlot and its inhabitants right off the bat. Instead she's playing some sort of background game with the Dazzlings as her puppets. A refreshing change of pace. That coupled with the ominous nightmares Sunset has early on and the allusions to people getting sick give the story an aura of mystery and dread, even if we know full well what's gonna happen.
Once things get going, I have to say I was a bit disappointed the girls were offed in the same fashion. Boom! Candy facehugger! I felt it was a wasted opportunity for creative kills.
But! It turns out they weren't killed, just incapacitated. And we quickly learn this was all part of the Candy Mare's master plan! Zepp's Theme started playing in my mind as we get the reveal that not only did Candy took the Dazzling's disloyal nature into consideration, but integrated it into her plans to make herself more powerful with the Rainboom's aid.
At this point it's clear Candy won already, and what follows is just her toying with the girls, and we finally get some creative kills! I liked the symbolism behind the deaths. AJ is dragged into Granny Smith's insides, reuniting with her family. Flutters is cocooned like a caterpillar and devoured by little gummy creatures. The axe wielding Rainbow was chopped into tiny little pieces. Rares gets fashioned. Pinkie gets eaten. Wholesome fun, though I do wish they'd been better paced.
Moving on, the scenes back in Equestria with Pumpkin Patch's flashback and her heart to heart with Sunset was pretty good. At least for the standards of the fic. Variety is this fic's preferred candy, it seems. The final, final showdown between Sunset and Candy was good, too. I liked Sunset's little speech about not being the good guy. And, in good SStB fashion, we get the faux victory before the end. Lovely.
Overall, I think this one's the best of the bunch. The first one is a pretty decent splatterfic, and the second one is... weird? Yeah, a weird one. This one takes the best parts of all the previous stories and makes it into something fun.