//------------------------------// // First Of The Lost // Story: Dark Skies on Cutie'd Thighs // by reflexrex //------------------------------// Dark Skies on Cutie'd Thighs ---------- The Everfree Forest is unusually peaceful in the evening. The perfect half-moon is skittering across the skyline, chasing the sun into submission and turning the shadows a deep, rich purple. Either the princesses have their manes in a mangle arguing over something Twilight warned them not to do at least three dragons ago, or perhaps on this particular evening all the magic that infuses Equestria is restless, bored, and looking for something to do. Magic can be funny like that. Either way, it's probably not good. Even in this densely dark, dank, and dangerous part of the dreaded Everfree Forest, some bravely intrepid (or perhaps pensive and comprehensively antisocial) pony has hoofed down, mared up and cleared enough of a copse in the forest to have a respectable vegetable patch, as well as a small cottage with some plain but well-made décor. The undergrowth at the edges of the clearing is so utterly impenetrable, and so perfectly shorn at the barrier that it seems uncanny. There's a single pony-sized break in the roiling mass of jungle, but distinctly lacking the clean, precise lines of the immaculate lawn. For a few hours, there is nothing but the invisible sights and inaudible sounds of magic, suffusing the air until the atmosphere is singing with the promise of cataclysm. There's the occasional flash of coloured light or soft 'whoomph' from the cottage, neither of which do anything to decrease the palpable sense of power humming through the air. It seems like even the frank and untamed ferocity of the billion tiny power struggles that make up a forest like this have fallen silent under pressure of the force that is building up in places unseen or heard of. The very air itself is ready to silently spew it's power into the world, and unlock the physical laws of Equestria to allow something impossible and horrifying to slip through from the place where magic is raw, savage, and untamed. Quite abruptly, there's a subtle shift in the night, and somehow all the magical tension and potential in the air has finally found a place to slowly ground itself, like a malign bolt of lightning: less obvious but far more dangerous and unpredictable. The walls, small to begin with, are contracting and expanding as if in nervous anticipation of the future. But strangely, inside the house there is a misty grey coloured unicorn taking no notice of the events outside, a stallion perhaps slightly taller than average. He seems oblivious of the enormous amount of magic potential that has built up, and is busily attending to some complicated alchemical experiment. He is apparently blissfully unaware of the power dripping from the air being funnelled into his hard-fought-for home. He casts a spell that sets a large, green bottle in the centre of the apparatus gently simmering under the shimmering grey magic fire... ---------- Mane is silently working in his lab, intently focussing on a beaker. He doesn't notice when Derpy wanders in through the door, looking with interest at the intricate glassware around her as she walks up behind him. ''Hi mister doctor! I feel a lot better after my sleep! Did I bang my head again? I feel sorta woozy...'' ''Aaah!'' The beaker breaks into shards of glass as Mane drops it in surprise. ''Oh no! I broke your poury glass! I'm sorry mister, I'll clean it up for you!'' ''For Celestia's sake, Derpy, don't ever startle me while I'm working! No, don't worry about the beaker, I'll clean it up myself. Do you remember meeting me?'' ''No, but your bed is really comfy. I'm sorry I broke your glass thingy, I didn't mean to. Also, I think I got jam all over your sheets and I don't know how it got there.'' ''Just try not to do it again, if you think you can manage that. I'll explain everything soon, but I should introduce myself first: I am Dr. Brainymane, and-'' ''Do you have any muffins? I'm hungry. I know! We can make some together! My favourite flavour is blue!'' ''Derpy, shut up for a minute, this is important. I think you were coming back from a delivery, because your mailbags were empty. Somehow you managed to hit your head on the corner of my roof, and crash landed on my lawn. I took you inside and bandaged you up, but it was a nasty cut. It must be blood on the sheets, not jam. But I am finding it difficult to tell if you have any brain damage yet. Would you by any chance happen to have had any before now?'' He looks at the disoriented mare for a moment, noticing that her cutie mark is a group of small bubbles. I wonder if she even knows why her cutie mark is a group of bubbles? I should probably tell her all I found. But she needs some dinner first, and for that matter so do I. ''Derpy, have your eyes always been like that? And don't call me mister. Everyone just calls me Mane.'' ''What do you mean mister-I mean Mane? Is something wrong with my eyes?'' Derpy strained to make her eyes look at each other, but only succeeded in making them spin in their sockets, dizzying and disorienting her even more. She sat down heavily, straight onto a loose floorboard, which promptly flew up and hit Dr. Brainymane in the chin, making him stagger back a little before he could regain his balance. He quickly shook off the dazed feeling, and helped Derpy get up and steady herself. This pony clearly needs my help. But first, she needs some food. ''Derpy,'' said Mane, ''If you're hungry I have some muffins in the kitchen. Blue isn't a flavour, so you'll have to be happy with what I've got.'' ''Muffins... I like muffins... '' Dr. Brainymane led Derpy gently into the kitchen, sat her down at the table, and brought out a plate stacked high with muffins of every variety. Derpy gave a hysterical gasp of joy, and immediately started cramming her face with as many different flavours as she could, getting crumbs everywhere in the process. Brainymane frowned, sighed to himself, and wondered if he was going to be able to find a cure. He was a prodigious chemist, but his special talent which set him aside from all other ponies was his understanding of the equine mind and how it works. Even his cutie mark was a psychiatrist's sofa, but this was the first pony he had come across that he was starting to think he couldn't help. ''Derpy, you should know something. When you were asleep, I had to know what was wrong with you. You might have had a concussion, or brain damage, or even a split in the blood/brain barrier'' ''What do those words mean?'' asked Derpy. ''These muffins are really good!'' ''Keep focused if you can, Derpy. I'm trying to tell you that in order to help you, I had to cast a spell on you.'' ''A spell? What sorta spell? Was it one that makes muffins appear when I clap my hooves?!'' Derpy started clumsily banging her hooves together, even though she had more muffins than she could eat sitting in front of her. ''No Derpy. I cast a spell I created to read a part of your mind, to find out if it had been damaged. Again.'' At this, Derpy stops clopping and pays attention to the dark-blue-eyed stallion in front of her. She doesn't seem angry, just intensely curious and a little worried at the pony's snide tone. ''What did you see in there? 'Cause all I really remember about anything before I came to Ponyville is that I like muffins'' ''You really don't remember anything about your past? Not even your parents?'' ''I... I think something bad happened... but it's all grey and fuzzy...'' As Dr. Brainymane is trying to explain all this to Derpy, who is doing her best to remember how to remember things, the time has been turning with the light. It's now almost pitch-black back in the lab area, the doctor having turned the lamp off as they left the room. The only light except for the clear moon is coming from below the glass bottle the doctor set simmering hours ago. But it's no longer simmering, it's started boiling and sliding into steam as the heat grows more intense under it. The liquid at the centre of the bottle, however, is starting to condense and coalesce, looking more and more solid by the moment. It’s starting to form an outline, nebulous and uncertain but many-legged and threatening. Almost all the liquid in the bottle has somehow solidified despite the boiling temperature, and now it is starting to grow at an alarming rate. First the size of a rat, then a guinea-pig, it is quickly becoming too big for the bottle. Eventually, the glass fractures under the growing pressure, and the thing, whatever it is, quickly scuttles into a corner. It's now the size of a cat, and somehow sucks in all the light that falls onto it. The pure blackness, which is all there is to indicate its presence, slips the eye over it as easily as a spelling mistake. At this point, Dr. Brainymane walks into the room with Derpy in tow, who is happily munching on a muffin. ''Oh for buck's sake. I knew I heard something, Derpy! How in the name of Celestia's shiny ass did that bottle break? It had my latest experiment in it! I must have left the flames on like an idiot.'' ''I don't know, Mane. Maybe it got tired and fell off? Stuff does that around me all the time...'' ''Right, yes, I'm sure it does, Derpy. But try explaining how there's almost no liquid spilt, when this bottle was full of chemicals. It might have all boiled away, but we weren't gone that long.'' ''Om nom nom.'' While the doctor and Derpy are puzzling over the mystery (well, the doctor at any rate), the thing has been creeping out from the shadows. The roiling blackness seems to follow it, keeping its form obscured and perfectly camouflaged. All that's visible under the impenetrable darkness is eight legs, jointed in strange places and at odd angles. If one had the chance to look closely, one might be convinced of two faintly glowing, entirely purple eyes hidden in the darkness- but then again maybe not. The creature is creeping slowly up behind the two perplexed ponies, and it seems hungry and somewhat confused, as if undecided on which to feed. Whether it's because she's a mare, or because the monster can somehow sense she is the easier prey, the creature readies itself to spring. ''Aaaah! I don't like this! I don't like this! Help!'' Mane jumps three feet in the air at Derpy's shriek of surprise and pain, and spins around. When he sees what's happening, his stomach drops out of his chest as a wave of abject terror sweeps over him like a torrent of frozen bile. He can see Derpy's face, but her neck, mane, and the back of her head are hidden in a cloud of darkest shadow, with eight furry legs clamped around her shivering neck. The something is locked in place as it feeds on her. She is bucking, kicking, and falling around the room trying to shake off whatever it is, but nothing is working. What happens next is impossible. The bubbles on the flank of the terrified pony, the bubbles that make her unique, special and even talented, are moving one by one, slowly but inexorably up her side towards her neck. Derpy is still screaming and shrieking her lungs out, trying to fight it off. ''Mr Mane! Please, help me! Something's inside my head and I can't get it out!'' This plea snaps Mane out of the horrified trance he was in, and almost in a frenzy he tries to reach the thing and drag it off. ''Derpy! DERPY! Stand the buck still, you idiot, so I can pull it off you!'' The feeling of total and complete desecration of the safe place in her mind, where the taunts of everypony didn't matter, was so overwhelming that she couldn't hear him. All she was aware of was the sickening feeling of having the one spark of magic that kept her sane and tethered to the world, the awful sickening feeling, part physical pain and part mental anguish, of having something she never knew she treasured literally sucked out of her skull by this terrible parasite. All she could do was buck and smash against the world, trying to stop this torture. The first bubble is gone now, completely consumed by this vile, unnatural attacker. Frantically, Dr. Mane casts a spell that magically tethers Derpy to the ground, and keeps her temporarily still. But her mismatched eyes are still moving, crossing and wheeling, filled with tears of pain and emotional upheaval. With shaking hooves, Mane moves to grab hold of the mass of shadow clinging to her neck. ''Derpy, this is going to hurt, but it will be over soon. It's going to be okay.'' The comforting lies spilling from his mouth, Mane grabs hold of the monster gorging itself on the soul of a terrified pony. But his hooves slip through it, and grasp nothing but air. Growing even more frantic, he tries over and again, each time his hooves slipping through the creature cloaked by darkness. Another two bubbles, the largest ones, slip down the monster's greedy throat. In a voice strangled by fear and panic and sudden shame at how he has spoken to her, Mane cries ''Derpy, I can't touch the damn thing! It's like it's made of bucking smoke, my hooves keep going through it!'' ''Get it off meeee! Please, please just get it off!'' Derpy manages to force out weakly through the spell. Close to crying himself through sheer terror and desperation, Mane tries to cast a telekinesis spell on the monstrous thing, which twitches a little uneasily, as if shaking off a bee, and digs a little deeper into Derpy's neck with its intangible claws. Only two bubbles are left, one of which is even now mercilessly moving up her neck to the insatiable parasite's gullet, where it too is swallowed whole. ''Derpy, I think it's working! Keep breathing, I'll try again!'' Concentrating all his magical prowess into the spell, he tries once more to drag the wretched bestial thing off his new patient. The thing digs its claws even harder into her neck, but slowly it starts to lose its grip. The veins on Mane's neck are standing out, and his teeth are gritted with the effort he is putting into the spell. He is starting to wonder if he has the strength of mind and magic to beat it. He opens his eyes for a moment, and sees that Derpy's eyes have stopped reeling in their sockets, slowing down to weak spasms. Dropping the binding spell and pulling up some last reserve of strength from his stomach that is twisted up in effort, the creature is finally dragged loose and flies across the room. Even though Derpy is broken and collapsed on the floor, the doctor keeps his eyes on the monster. He sees it land in a corner, and tries to tether it with the same spell he used on Derpy. But he is too exhausted from the mammoth effort needed to rip the monstrosity from her head, and the creature breaks free and within half a heartbeat is out the window. Exhausted from the bone to the brain, the doctor collapses into a sorrowful hug with Derpy, who is curled up and shaking on the floor. Even as he tries to comfort the already-damaged pony, who has just had a vital part of her soul split off and lost to an unfeeling parasite, all he can think of is the rage at himself and grief for his stricken new friend, and the sorrow for the next poor pony whom the monstrosity feeds on. He must take care of Derpy first, put her to bed and try to find out how and what has happened to her. But then, he knows, he has to break his solitary life and somehow get a message to warn the nearest town, so they might have some idea of how to stop this hideous parasite from feeding and breeding and sucking the souls out of every pony in Equestria. He needs to send a message to Ponyville.