//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: In Your Town // by SilverAlchemist //------------------------------// Rarity led the mares’ way across town, pointing her horn at the ground like a pig looking for truffles. Applejack took note of the surroundings they passed - a boutique with its windows broken but no glass lying on the ground, an open-air market with all its stalls completely destroyed, a watch store with a broken clock above the door. At a pretty normal intersection, near a cafe and a timber store, Rarity stopped. “What’s wrong, Rarity?” “Nothing’s wrong, exactly, dear, it’s just that the trail we were following runs back and forth here, repeatedly going over itself. Whoever we’re looking for must be in one of these houses.” Rarity looked between the two buildings, then started walking toward the timber store. “I suppose we’ll have to knock. Might as well get it over with it now.” She tried raising her hoof, to push the front door open, but was quickly stopped by Applejack. “Whoa, nelly, hold on there. We know that what we’re following is an earth pony, but we don’t know whether they’re friendly or not. And what do you normally find in timber stores?” “Logs?” “Axes.” Rarity’s face would have paled if it wasn’t white already. Applejack, meanwhile, turned to the cafe. With the general atmosphere of this town, the cafe felt much shadier than it could have, and it was shadier than an apple tree on a sunny day to begin with. It seemed to stretch before her, like she was a small filly knocking on the doors of her scary Uncle Apple Crate's old home again. She hesitated, feeling like the building before her would open and swallow her whole. But she did bring herself to knock, at last, and the door swung open at the touch of her hoof. She peeked inside, seeing nothing particularly threatening, and gestured for Rarity to come in after. They’d found themselves in a large dining area, with a door leading to the kitchens at the back. “Oh, dear, how horrifying!” Rarity cried, looking around the cafe. “The floor hasn’t been swept in ages, and not a single one of the light crystals are charged! Oh, the equinity!” She swooned, as if to faint, before bolting back upright to a normal standing position. Probably remembered that dirty floors were a bad place to lie down with white coats. Applejack, meanwhile, looked into the kitchen, where she found bowls and cups and trays thrown around the floor (and at least one on the ceiling). Rows of pastries lined the countertops - bread, cupcakes, that Prench thing that started with ‘C’, and more. Some of the baked goods were stacked on top of others, probably because the counters had run out of space. Their smell was amazing, beyond anything that Applejack had words for. Instinctively, she nearly bit into one, before remembering all the myths she’d heard as a little filly about ponies who ate food that wasn’t theirs. Unable to take her eyes off the sight in front of her, she called back. “Rarity! I found a huge clue!” Applejack didn’t hear a response from her friend. “Rarity?”, Applejack asked, turning around, just in time to see the log coming at her face, and then everything went black. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applejack was awoken by a drop of water hitting her face. Groggily, she tried to get up, but realized that her limbs were bound by rope. She opened her eyes to a dank, dark sight - a basement, with a ladder to the upper floors at the corner of the room. There was a doorway at the top of the ladder, but no door. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see some candles ominously flickering. Turning to the right, she saw Rarity, bound similarly, whose eyes widened at her glance. "Applejack! You're awake!", Rarity exclaimed, "Finally! That monstrosity is such dreadful company." At this, Applejack pulled her mind into full wakefulness. "Whoa, the town's monster is here? Where's the earth pony?" Rarity grimaced. "I'm afraid, dear, that the trail we were following may have misled us. The monster leaks earth pony magic as if it is one, the way disguised changelings do. But it certainly isn't a shapeshifter, because nothing would choose to look like that." And now Applejack's keen mind, the same that had given her the coin on her flank and had made Sweet Apple Enterprises the largest group of farms in Ponyville, was working at full speed. "What does it look like? Does it talk?" "To itself, mainly. I'm afraid I couldn't understand its muttering, I haven't got earth pony senses. I've tried whining at it to let us go, but it just ignored me." Rarity's horn glowed, and she turned to the door. "You'll see it yourself in a second, though, dear." A thing emerged from the entrance, like a pony but horrendously mutated. Its back was larger and more heavily muscled, with a head thrice the size of a mare's and an elongated barrel; its coat was a shade of light red, and Applejack could have sworn that its poofy tail and mane were actually on fire. The creature's bottom half was pony-sized, giving the odd impression that someone had cast a size-expanding spell on a pony but missed the legs. The monster's eyes looked like they were made of crystal, though they didn't reflect the light, and a pattern resembling a cupcake with a cherry on it repeated itself on the fur at multiple places along its body. Around its withers, a necklace made of beads hung, although Applejack found her head ached and her attention diverted every time she tried to look more closely at that area. It stomped down the stairs loudly, breaking the very last stair that it stepped on. "Stupid stairs, shouldn't have trusted." She muttered to herself - and the monster's voice was definitely a filly's, Applejack could tell, even if she had to swivel her ear a bit to catch everything the monster said. "Next time, will use hard breads instead." The monster turned around now, and Applejack took the chance to call out to it. "Howdy, Sugarcube!" At another time, this might have been a silly course of action, but the monster had the mares at its mercy, so talking really couldn't hurt. Besides, she'd certainly learned the value of communicating with eldritch horrors over the last few years. The monster muttered under its breath again, just loud enough that Applejack could hear. "Sugar Belle, not Sugarcube." Well, that was a start. "Howdy, Sugar Belle! Mind telling us why you've tied us up?" "Sugar Belle has not seen uncompetitors in many years. Don't know what to do with these ponies. Maybe cut up, use as ingredients, bake new cakes. Maybe hand to Starlight, enter in the tournament." Rarity was glancing between Applejack and the monster, confused. Applejack decided to let her in on the conversation. "You're going to eat us because you say we're uncompetitors? What do ya mean by that?" "Eat us? You can't, dear, I taste absolutely ghastly! Like unwashed -" Rarity was cut off before she could mention how she hadn't bathed in a whole hour. The monster was louder now, slightly irritated, the way Big Mac sounded when she interrupted him cooking. "Not eat. Bake." "BAKE? I'd taste even worse baked than raw! Can you imagi-" Applejack got a bit louder, as Rarity ranted in the background. "Ah meant, what do you mean by uncompetitors?" "For Starlight's tournament." Sugar Belle seemed resigned now, to being pestered by persistent pony prodding. She still wasn't looking at Applejack or Rarity, but at least she began talking. "It started when Starlight founded this village...."