//------------------------------// // Slender Man(e): When You Feel Like Scaring Yourself. (Rarity, Sweetie Belle, & Scootaloo) // Story: The Things You See On The Internet... // by Zanem-Ji //------------------------------// “So….all I have to do, is find eight pages?” Rarity questioned, as she looked back and forth between her younger sister, and her Pegasus friend. “Yup! That’s it!!” Sweetie replied, mischief laced into her smile. Rarity arched a perfectly tweezed brow, but said nothing. The two Cutie Mark Crusaders had matured considerably in the past few years, but that didn’t mean that all of their mischievous behavior had died down. The smiles that Scootaloo and Sweetie were giving her, were proof of that. Scootaloo and Sweetie had grown pretty close, especially since Apple Bloom had decided to go and train under the tutelage of Zecora. In fact, Rarity had gotten used to setting three plates at the dinner table instead of two. She was beginning to see Scootaloo as a sister to her, and had no problem having the Pegasus over when she wasn’t at Rainbow’s house. However, that snarky grin on their faces was making her regret taking that young mare in. “So…are you gonna start the game or what?” Scootaloo asked, her grin not faltering in the slightest. Rarity let out a defeated sigh. It’s not that she didn’t like playing games with them. She had in fact, grown to love them, thanks to Scootaloo actually teaching her how to play, depending on what they were playing. But the fact that the two younger mares hadn’t stopped smiling, and Scootaloo didn’t give her too many details about this game, made her a bit uneasy. But, the game seemed simple enough; Find eight pieces of paper, and don’t die. How those two intermingled in this game, she didn’t know. But she was going to soon find out. She clicked start, and the screen lit up to a first-pony scene of what looked like a forest. As least, that was what she could tell from it’s simplistic graphics. She looked in a few directions, taking note that it appeared that she was using a flash light in the game to see. The sound of chirping crickets echoed into her screen. She took a couple practice steps forward, to make sure she had a good understanding of the controls. Once she did, she started to complete her task. For almost ten minutes, there was nothing but the sound of crunching leaves and chirping crickets. The scenery hadn’t changed much either. No matter what direction she headed off to, there seemed to be nothing but low graphic grass and trees. “Well…this is fun.” She stated sarcastically. “Just keep playing.” Scootaloo urged her on. She continued on, aimlessly wandering the map. Luckily, it wasn’t too long before she came upon a brick building, with a door-less opening leading inside. “Finally! A change of scenery.” Rarity pointed out, as she walked inside of the building. “Oh my…whoever decorated this place really didn’t know what they were doing.” She pointed out as she wandered through the rooms. “I really hope that this used to be a showering facility or something, because the tiles that were used are simply dreadful. Too plain, too simple. They give the color ‘white’ a bad name. And why is the only furniture in this room a chair? Don’t you two find that a bit odd? It looks totally out of place in-“ she let out a gasp, as her flashlight shined on a lone, sheet of worn paper, stuck on the wall. “WA-HA-HAAA!!!” She quickly grabbed the paper, “This is going to be easy!-” She stopped, noticing that something about the game had changed. The digital world was no longer silent. A steady, creepy drum, began to beat in the background. “Why did-what’s going on?” Rarity questioned. “Where did that drum come from?” Scootaloo let out a tiny giggle. Sweetie snickered and shifted her gaze to her older sister, “Rarity, you might want to get out of there.” Rarity immediately obeyed her sister. It was a good thing she had paid attention to the minute details in the building as she was criticizing it. It made it easy for her to find her way out. She got back into the blackness of the forest. The drum was still beating, steady and strong, welcoming whatever was to come. She searched for the next sheet to find. Her flashlight was steadied on a dirt path. There was suddenly a sharp sound, and the first-pony camera turned on it’s own to the left. Rarity’s eyes went wide as the camera honed in on a unnaturally tall pony, standing on it’s slender, lanky, hind legs. It’s abnormally long forelegs hung lazily to it’s sides. It was wearing a black business suit, with a white undershirt and a black tie. It’s coat was a paler shade of white than Rarity or Sweetie’s fur. Tentacles writhed and thrashed about from it’s back, but the thing that disturbed Rarity most of all, was the fact that it’s face was expressionless. And by expressionless, it had no face period. Rarity let out a sharp, quick shriek, as the image started to fizzle out, and static poured from the speakers. “What do I do?!” “Get away from him!!” Scootaloo answered through her laughter. Rarity turned the character away from him, and moved off into a direction as quickly as she could. The image started to clear up, and the static faded away. Rarity kept moving forward, her heart pounding in her chest. She looked over at the laughing mares with shock in her eyes, “What the hell was that thing?!” The fashionista quickly grew flustered, as neither was able to control their laughter long enough to form an answer. She let out an angry huff, “Well fine!!” she stared at the screen with newly found determination. “I don’t need you two anyway!!” She pressed on, wandering through the forest to find the other pages. She scooped up one more. Five minutes later, she grabbed another. Scootaloo and Sweetie had amused smiles on their faces. They had to admit, Rarity was doing pretty good. They figured she would've dismissed the game and stopped playing before she had another heart attack. Another loud noise burst through the speakers. The camera turned on that vile creature. Rarity let out another surprised scream. “NononononoOHNO!!!” It didn’t take her more than once to get the drill. The character conducted a fantastically quick 180, and once again, got the hell away from that thing. She threw a quick glance to her giggling sister, “Are either one of you going to tell me what that thing is, now?!” “That’s Slender Mane! He’s trying to kill you!!” Scootaloo replied. “Well, thank you for pointing out the obvious!” Rarity spat back, getting more irritated as the young orange mare fell into a fit of giggles. “He doesn’t want you to get all eight pages, because then you’d know about him, and will have the opportunity to get away from him.” Sweetie gave a more detailed answer. “So it’s really simple, sis! Don’t get killed by Slender Mane!!” As Sweetie was explaining what was going on, Rarity had found the fourth page, “Oh my Gods, I’m going to beat this!!” Rarity squealed out. She slightly bit down on her lower lip, as her determination reached new peaks. Slender Mane popped up again and again, getting ever closer to her character. And granted, monster still made her jump every single time he appeared, but she carried on. After almost a half hour of wandering, six pages found, and about 20 jump scares later, she was walking towards the seventh page. “Why in the wide world of Equis, is the damn character moving so slow?!” Rarity stated with exasperation. “You figured with a towering monster following you around, you’d be galloping to get away from it! And another thing! What sane pony wanders around a forest in the middle of the night by themselves?! And why would you be looking for scraps of paper?! Go find materials to make a shelter, a fire, ANYTHING that could be productive to your survival!” Scootaloo and Sweetie giggled as they listened to Rarity’s rant. The mare no longer seemed to be scared, but more irritated by the lack of common sense on the character’s part. And it wasn’t until she walked up on the stand-alone, massive tree, that she realized she had already been there. She let out a groan of frustration. “Ugh…this is getting stupid. I found the other pages, why is it so hard to find this one?” Scootaloo shrugged. “I dunno, but I know you can do it. Sweets and I never even got this far into the game…” “Oh well…I have no choice but to conduct another walkthrough. A much, much more thorough one.” She started to turn. But the drums seemed to beat louder this time. All three mares slightly leaned towards the screen, ears perked and eyes wide. “What…what was that?” Sweetie asked softly, as if they ABSOLUTELY needed to hear the gameplay. The sound of the inevitable jump scare roared through the speakers. The camera whirled around. Slender Mane was towering over the character. The static reached a near deafening pitch, and a scream could be faintly heard in the mix of it all, as the camera zoomed in on his faceless head. The screen then went to static, and finally black. There was a few moments of deathly quiet, before the game’s start screen reappeared. The mouse however, did not move, as Rarity was too busy clinging onto Scootaloo in fear. Scootaloo helplessly flapped a wing, attempting to remove herself from Rarity’s grasp. “Rares…let go!” Rarity realized what she was doing, and shoved Scootaloo away from her before crossing her forelegs, “That game was absolutely dreadful!” Sweetie smile, her evil grin returning full force, “But…you were scared…” Rarity childishly stuck her tongue out, earning giggles from the other two ponies. Her angry façade melted as she joined in on the giggling. “Fair enough, the game was simple yet hard at the same time, and had a pretty good scare tactic for it. I liked it.” she rubbed her eyes with a hoof and glanced over at a clock on the wall, “Wow, it’s incredibly late…we should be turning in for the night.” The mare rose to her hooves and started to make her way towards the stairs. Scootaloo groaned, “I don’t really want to…” Rarity glanced over her shoulder, “You’re quite old enough to make your own decisions. You can stay up for however long you like. But, don’t complain to me in the morning when you either oversleep, and miss breakfast, or miss your courses at the Wonderbolts Academy.” Scootaloo let out a tiny sigh. Rarity was right, she needed to be able to get tomorrow’s lessons if she wanted to pass her upcoming test. She rose up and stretched, muscles slightly tingling after not moving for so long. She started to walk towards Rarity, with Sweetie in tow. A gasp came from the mare behind her, earning her attention, and Rarity’s. “What is it, darling?” Rarity quipped. Sweetie’s lip quivered, as she raised a shaky hoof and pointed a window to her right. Rarity and Scootaloo followed it. Outside, the silhouette of a tall pony, with eerily long limbs stared at them from outside. The mares shrieked and made a mad dash for the stairs, all galloping into Rarity’s room and slamming the door behind them. -MLP- “And it was the freakiest thing we’d ever seen!!” Scootaloo shouted as she flailed her hooves wildly in the air. Fluttershy had listened intently to the younger Pegasus’ story. The orange mare had come over to pick up Tank for Dash, but when Fluttershy saw the panicky look on her face, she couldn’t help but show concern for the mare. “Are you sure it wasn’t a tree?” Fluttershy softly asked. “Yes…I’m sure it wasn’t a tree.” The animal caretaker tapped her chin thoughtfully. Suddenly, a stern look crossed her face. She looked over her shoulder and up the staircase, “DISCORD!!!” It only took a few seconds for the draconequus to appear beside her. He had a friendly smile on his face as he got eye level with her, “Yes, my dearest friend, Fluttershy?” “What did you do yesterday?” Discord tapped his chin, “Well…after causing a bit of friendly chaos for April Foal’s day, I headed to the Carousel Boutique to pick up the sweater you requested for Devil Rabbit-” “You mean ‘Angel Bunny’.” Fluttershy interrupted. “Right, that’s what I meant.” Discord replied with a bit of sarcasm before continuing. “But it was locked.” “Why didn’t you just...I dunno, ‘poof’ in?” Scootaloo questioned. “You are the master of chaos and a deity.” “Because our favorite little caretaker here, told me that it’s rude to enter ponies’ homes without permission." He replied curtly. “Anyway…I decided to go up to one of the windows, and noticed you, Rarity all enjoying a friendly game of ‘Slender Mane’! And, I’m sorry, but I simply could not refrain myself from scaring you three. So I threw a teeny, tiny little rock at the window, and transformed before Sweetie fully turned to look outside. So…well,” he shrugged his shoulders and grinned, “Well, everything that followed just happened!” Fluttershy shook her head disapprovingly, “Discord…that wasn’t very nice, you know…” “Yeah! It’s enough that you had to scare us, but did you have to stand there for so long after we got into Rarity’s room?! That was just taking it too far!!” Discord’s grin immediately disappeared, and his brow arched in confusion, “I’m sorry, what?” Scootaloo mirrored him, her voice now laced with confusion, “The…when…when we all made it to Rarity’s room, she peeked outside, and Slender Mane was standing just barely outside of the street light’s reach, looking up at our window. We took turns watching him, and it lasted for like, and hour and a half…” her sentence died out as she stopped. Discord shook his head and crossed his mix-matched arms, “Now, I may be a King of Chaos, but I’m reformed! I’m not lying when I say I didn’t do that, and I’m not going to take the blame for something I didn’t do.” A tiny smirk fell onto his lips, “Although, that would’ve been a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” Scootaloo’s face went from confusion to utter fear. A deep, sickening feeling hit sat in her chest, “If it wasn’t you…then…who, or what was it?!”