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Festival of Servants4,802 words
Bestiary Entry (01)763 words
Memories ~ Fluttershy2,183 words

Festival of Servants

The sky above Manehatten is choked by ash-drab clouds. The protective forcefield dome around her has daubed everything shades of gray, washing out the colors of Manehatten’s architecture. Buildings stand like shattered tombstones, streets silent as cemeteries—not a single living thing stirs in this part of town. The wind releases a lonely sigh, rustling some paper, dragging it across the hammered road, planting it beneath and over debris.

Midnight Vigil cranes his neck about. He’d heard the stories from his fellow officers about this part of town—about upper west-side, and how it suffered the worst part of last night’s attack. These neighborhoods. Decimated. The haunted colors marry upper west-side with the image of a ghost town or an ancient ruined civilization—like in many a Daring Do book.

Nervously, Vigil scratches at his police uniform as he takes in the ruins around him.

Windows smashed. Broken bodies lining the front yards. Thrown out of their own homes like garbage? Suicide?

There’s missing chunks of ground here and there. Huge rocks—upon closer inspection, parts of buildings—line the roads. What could have caused that?

Down the street from where he stood, an apartment complex had collapsed, looking less like a building and more like a dropped deck of cards. He dreaded what they might find in there.

But none of that is why he came here. Vigil came with a mission. Out of his black leather, police-issue saddlebags comes a small, deep maroon cape. A golden emblem of some kind is emblazoned on it. He adjusts his glasses with his hoof as his horn glows, focusing entirely on the cape. “Trace Track,” he whispers.

His horn’s light snaps on his command, his vision coloring everything around him in negatives. Almost complete blackness, save for vague shapes outlined with sharp colors. Vigil can make out the faint outlines of the buildings and the debris and the bodies that line the street. But most importantly, he sees them.

Tiny, round, bright white marks—the filly’s hoofprints—are all over the maroon cape. Their light pulsates like a soundless heart. Vigil looks about—and there, amidst the dull red outlines of buildings and the intense darkness of a world silenced, are a trail of similar bright white hoofprints, headed thattaway.

Vigil puts the cape back into his saddlebags and follows the tracks. His head begins to hum as he follows them into an alley.

Her little hooves pounded the street beneath her as she ran from the burning building. The choking scent of smoke and ash was all around her, as well as the wailing sound of sirens in the distance. It was the sirens that stood out the most to her: they sounded more like long, slow screams of agony. She could hear Manehatten scream as she was eaten alive, feel her death rattle.

She could hear something else too, behind her: the heavy footfalls of the Creature that had burst through her home—the Creature that had killed ponies with only a twist of its wrist, breaking them with sounds of grapes being crushed. The Creature’s harsh footfalls were accompanied by a groaning gurgle. It might have formed words. Might have.

She rounded the corner, hoping the shadows here could lend her some safety. She hid beneath some trash bags just as the Creature entered the alley. She peeked out from under her hiding place, observing him.

The Creature’s eyes were damp yellow beads shadowed beneath a grotesquely pronounced forehead, its skin a pale, drowned blue. Its entire shape reminded her of the apes she’d seen at zoos and in books: tall, bipedal, lumbering. Its colossal arms stretched down, down, down—almost scraping against the pavement as it stumbled about, knocking objects over in search of its prey. Its fingers were easily as thick and long as any of her four legs, its palm big enough to dwarf her body. The clothes that clung to its blued flesh were likely pristine at one time, but were now threadbare and filthy.

The sounds it made as it searched for her seemed frustrated. It lifted a dumpster like it was a pop can, turning it over and shaking all the garbage out. After all the refuse was spilled onto the ground, it looked up into the dumpster’s empty stomach and scowled at it. Effortlessly, the Creature angrily threw the dumpster further down this alley, where it crashed through a chain-link fence with a sound that made her wince.

That… thing… was incredibly strong. Its brethren—equally terrifying monstrosities that defied nature with their very existence—were tearing across all Manehatten, tearing and killing and maiming and devouring their prey. Even from under all the trash, under the sound of sirens—under the sounds of Manehatten’s own screams—she could hear the lives of unfortunate ponies end, their screams joining Manehatten’s. Sounds of death.

She heard the Creature shuffle more, knocking other objects over. Tremors traced the ground with every step it took, and every tremor filled her with fear. Cold tears formed under her eyes as she shivered

(No, don’t!)

and swallowed a scream

(He’s gonna find you!)

and waited for the Creature to

(find you!!)

leave.

Her mind raced with regrets and incomplete promises, and images that sped by too quickly for her brain to process. She remembered she was with her big sister, who had only just before put her to bed. Where had she gone? Was she safe? Or did the Creature…?

She heard the Creature’s giant hand as it descended, felt as it pulled at a trash bag she hid under. One quick lift and it’d see her—one lift and it’d see her and it’d pluck her up and tear her up, starting with her little legs.

Suddenly, above all the noise of lives ending and buildings burning and sirens wailing, an ancient voice barked in a language she didn’t understand.

She heard the Creature groan lightly, as if disappointed. The trash bag was let go.

Small feet pattered clumsily across the alley’s ground, stopping before the Creature. She heard the ancient voice continue to rant, its voice becoming a series of shrill shrieks. She heard one of those tiny feet thump against something solid, then realized the little thing had kicked the Creature.

More barking from the new visitor. The Creature made a slow and awful noise, deep and rumbling like a groan in slow-motion. She heard movement. The Creature’s thud-thud-thudding footfalls gradually went away, further down the street, then gone.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she leapt from her hiding place and ran as fast as her little legs could take her, through the destroyed chain-link fence and onto another street, the tears in her eyes smearing the murdered Manehatten around her into an unrecognizable mess.

Vigil follows the bright, hoof-sized beacons across the blackness. They lead him through a chain-link fence that looks as if something crashed through it—something heavy. He looks further on and sees the yellow outline of a dumpster. The destroyed chain-link fence behind him—the depressions on the warped hull of the dumpster…

He gulps and mutters a curse. If that dumpster was thrown, then…

No. Best not go there.

The hum in Vigil’s head becomes a dull ache. The Trace Tracks spell was always useful to unicorn police officers, and while a very talented magic user, Vigil had little endurance to keep the spell going for long. He cancels his spell, at least for the moment. The negative colors fade back into ashy reality.

The dull ache gradually subsides after a minute or so. Vigil takes out a bottle of water and drinks, not realizing until the bottle is to his lips how parched he is. He drinks too greedily, and ends up nearly choking. He brushes his face with his beige hoof as he washes the dust from his mouth.

The moment he looks around, he regrets it.

In addition to more bodies lining the streets, there is blood. Bodies torn apart. Organs glistening in the grayed sunlight. One poor soul looks as though he were trying to crawl away after getting torn in half…

It’s never easy, being a cop in Manehatten. Don’t get it wrong, Manehatten is one of the most beautiful places in all Equestria, but when it comes to crime, it’s one of the biggest hotspots for it in all of Equestria, although places like Los Pegasus and Fillydelphia certainly aren’t too far behind. Vigil had thought he’d prepared himself to see the very worst Equestria could possibly produce. But as the water he’d just drank shot back up and onto the ground before him, Vigil realized how wrong he was. How unprepared.

It was just like Detective Heart had told him. It doesn’t matter what you’ve seen up to this point. What matters is what you’re going to see. Vigil stares down as the heat of his vomit drafts upwards, carrying with it the stench of digestive fluids. His breathing becomes hoarse as he almost chuckles. Good grief, what would Detective Heart—much less the rest of the MPD—think if they saw him now? Vigil, who takes his job so seriously, puking at the sight of vicious mutilations?

He thinks he might cry, and surprises himself when he doesn’t. Vigil takes a deep breath—then another, and another—until he feels capable of walking again. He gets back up with a groan. He looks around, observing this horrible aftermath. His little moment of weakness hadn’t been seen by anypony else… therefore, it didn’t happen.

Vigil casts Trace Tracks upon the hoofprints on the cape again. The white beacons again appear against the negative. He follows.

The windows burst as ponies leapt from burning buildings to their deaths, the glass twinkling around them like falling stars. At first, she was so sure they were being tossed from their windows—and likely, some were—but there didn’t seem to be any monsters in the windows after the victims. Suicides. For a strange moment, she envied them—choosing to die instead of letting themselves be killed. There was an odd courage about it.

She looked aside and saw what at first looked like Diamond Dogs. That notion dried up as she ran by them, getting a closer look. They couldn’t possibly be Diamond Dogs—their hair was too coarse and oily-black, their faces possessed too lupine a shape, and their eyes glowed in the whispering shadows cast by the fire ravaging the neighborhood.

The Not Diamond Dogs tore at a pony who screamed for them to stop, please stop—tearing her apart, piece by piece, taking everything they robbed from her and shoving it greedily into their mouths, devouring her piece by piece right in front of her eyes.

It isn’t long before Vigil’s head begins to hum again. He makes a mental note to further his magic training. It’s one thing to be talented, but it’s a lousy excuse for endurance this feeble. He could hear Detective Blue Yonder lecturing him again: Succeed not through talent. Through endurance. Of course, that was when he was still a rookie—and she was still just an officer. But Blue Yonder rarely speaks, and when she does, ponies listen; and in doing so, they usually walk away wiser. He chuckles, shaking away the memory of his old partner.

The white beacons lead him past several oddly-shaped statues. As Vigil turns off his spell for a moment, he inhales sharply as the statues come into better focus. He recognizes a few of them: this one is a stallion who’d been arguing with his girlfriend yesterday… that one is an elderly mare who’d asked him which direction it was to get to Southside last week… those two, weren’t they lovers…?

Their faces were frozen in various expressions of horror. Had a Cockatrice rampaged through here? Likely. Perhaps even more than one.

Vigil’s mind combs through his knowledge of different spells, landing finally on a Soften Stone spell. Created by Clover the Clever—one of Vigil's many personal heroes—to counter a sudden increase of Cockatrice attacks. It was long erroneously believed that a victim of the Cockatrice stare could only be undone if the Cockatrice cancels its own magic, but Clover discovered that the statue-effect gradually fades over time. The spell itself borrows much from Starswirl the Bearded’s time-based magics, fast-forwarding (or more-challengingly, even slightly rewinding) the amount of time on a victim between his current state and his normal state.

Vigil focuses. He’d tried this spell before, backfiring once or twice and accidentally aging a pony either forwards or backwards too far. He could still hear Blue Yonder muttering that she wasn't going to change any diapers.

Talent, but no experience; talent, but no endurance—talent, but no focus. He focuses. Focus. Age them carefully, only to the point in which the stone effect wears off. Age them not a day after they become flesh once more—age them not a day more.

He hears crackling sounds, the usual noise when a Soften Stone spell begins its work. Suddenly, the crackling becomes the sound of breaking. Destruction. Vigil’s eyes snap open—and he is met with a horrible sight.

The statues fall apart.

The first one’s upper half now lay in six parts around his fallen-forward hindquarters. The elderly mare’s head has twisted right off and splintered into uncountable pieces. The lovers, once tight in each other’s embrace, are now merely a pile of rubble. So many other statues—so many other ponies he’d tried to save…

Vigil feels ready to vomit again. His breathing intensifies as his heart claws against his chest, crying to get out. Sweat rolls down his head. Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

No! he thinks. No, this is no time to panic. I am an officer of the law. I need... to be... in control...

He closes his eyes, counts backwards from ten. Then he reopens his eyes—then closes them again, this time counting backwards from a hundred. He opens his eyes once more after becoming calmer around thirty or so.

This is not the work of a Cockatrice. Something else, but what?

She turned a corner. A group of fillies huddled together, with looks of terror, frozen. A stallion with broken legs looked up with his foreleg outstretched, as if reaching for someone. A pegasus held onto who might have been his brother, their faces calm, accepting. No monsters were around. No movement. Just these dark, muddy little facsimiles of ponies expressing horror.

Statues? Here?

She heard a sound, heavy and awful, from nearby. A quick glance in the direction of the sound revealed a long snake tail—and big, as if the snake it belonged to was at least twenty feet long. It quickly slithered into the darkness of an alley, disappearing like a tide crawling away from the shore, the shivering sound of reptile rattle echoing eerily into her ears.

She decided to keep running.

The little white beacons lead Vigil down the next street. His head whines. He sighs and releases the spell, wondering what horrors he’d see on this street.

Surprisingly, nothing. There isn’t even any blood. Deserted like most of the upper west-side, but at the same time, almost a clean job. Even most of the buildings are intact. Despite this innocuous scene… it’s just too damn quiet.

A lonely wind. A slow squeak. Vigil snaps his head to attention as his growing headache subsides. A nearby shop-sign—a pawnbroker, by the looks of it—squeaks on its hinges as the wind lazily slaps against it. The pawnbroker’s window is smashed, the interior looted. Of course.

Nothing to see here.

The next street was worse. More of those shambling apelike things, these wrapped in ancient bandages that seemed to act on their own, twisting and worming and writhing and grabbing ponies nearby, drawing them into the creatures—not eating them like the Not Diamond Dogs, not turning them to stone like the Big Snake, just drawing them into a burning darkness beneath the bandages. A darkness that cut their cries for help silent for good.

She screwed her eyes shut and ran breathlessly through this carnage. In this forced darkness, she wondered where her big sister was.

Falling angels.

Would she have jumped out the window, away from the Creature?

Sparkling. Sparkling like falling angels.

Was she safe?

Dark, muddy little facsimiles. Expressing horror.

Was she even alive?

Twisting.

Worming.

Writhing.

The sounds around her warped, distorted. Became something she could ignore. She was pressing her eyes shut so hard, she was beginning to see shapes—shapes that sparkled like falling angels. Like the shards of glass that escorted suicides to the concrete below.

Falling angels.

Vigil’s head begins ringing again, and again he shuts off the spell. The negative gives way to color, to reality. This street looks like it got it worst: destroyed carriages, bodies, blood, debris, plenty of fire damage to various buildings and other structures. Plenty of piles of debris as well, parts of building that must have fallen at least several stories.

A set of bloody tracks—Vigil thinks they might belong to a giant wolf—run from a pool of now-dried blood, down the street, then up a wall. He pops an eyebrow inquisitively at the sight.

Quite a few black spots on the sidewalks. They fan out from an empty circle in the center. Small explosions?

The shock of previous streets has worn on Vigil at this point. Once you’ve seen stone victims fall apart on you, you’ve pretty much seen it all.

Then he hears it: a small, small sound. A filly sobbing quietly.

Tongues of flame rolled wildly in the mouths of windows. Monsters leapt from above—monsters of bone and wielding knives and swords—crashing down on escaping ponies, cutting them, eviscerating them. A wolf bigger than a carriage bit one stallion unfortunate enough to be in its path, lifting him as he screamed, his hind legs kicking fruitlessly, the wolf chewing him with jaws like a trap and teeth like daggers.

This whole street was bathed in blood and fire, awash in screams and agony. Her big sister once told her about a place called Tartarus, a place where bad fillies got sent for disobeying their big sisters. She didn’t believe the whole story of course, but the idea of a place burning eternally, a place where evil ponies are put away forever…

This street. This street was Tartarus.

She did not know how her tired little legs carried her through all this madness, just that they kept working of their own accord. Her terrified eyes couldn’t close—wouldn’t close. There was no escaping Tartarus.

She heard familiar cackling. Familiar groaning. Familiar thud-thud-thudding footfalls.

She turned, and there, stepping through the flames as they parted, was the Creature.

It turned its damp and listless eyes to her.

And then it smiled, rotted teeth twinkling against the light of the flames.

Vigil’s ear flicks. He turns his head in the direction of the sound.

There’s a trail of blood up ahead leading underneath a pile of debris. More blood had pooled around a small opening, a big brown blotch at the mouth of an igloo built of wreckage. The ghostly sobbing bubbles forth from the debris pile’s mouth.

Slowly, step by step, Vigil follows it. He calls out a name.

On its shoulder sat the Little Thing that had before unwittingly saved her life, carrying a candle. Its back was large and grotesque, its face puffy and malformed, a tiny ruin of an eye squinting alongside a bulging, pupil-less baseball separated only by a twisted nose. The arm it slung around the Creature’s neck was heavy-looking, meaty; the cow udder at the end of it might have been a hand. The arm holding the candle was thin and sickly, the hand missing two fingers.

The Little Thing’s candle spat small fireballs that exploded upon landing on the ground, sending up a plume of flame that popped like fireworks. It threw its head back laughing when a spark would send a hapless pony flying, amused by their screams. As the Creature moved toward her, the Little Thing looked at the Creature suddenly, speaking to it in that confusing language. Was it asking a question?

Then the Little Thing turned its head towards her (which must have been difficult, as it lacked a properly-formed neck), and shared the Creature’s grin. She backed away as they both drew near.

The Little Thing’s candle spits another ember, glinting as it rockets toward her. The moment she turns to run, she is lifted off her hooves by an explosion just behind her, a loud boom that renders her hearing to a thin whine.

Instinctively, she holds out her forelegs, protecting her face, preparing for a rough landing. The pavement below comes up with an impact that threatens to break bones and split flesh. An initial landing gives way to a series of them, as if she is a stone being skipped across a pond: she lands on her forelegs, on her back, on her face, then onto her stomach, rolling, then sliding to a stop.

The Little Thing got a real kick out of the sight. It pointed to her as she struggled back up, cackling and talking to the Creature a million miles behind the ringing in her ears.

Pulling herself up proved to be a challenge. The scrapes on her little legs were at first remote, then cold. Then swelling into massive, massive pain. Even though her hearing hadn’t returned, she could feel the heavy footfalls of the Creature as it made its way to her.

With a sharp gasp, she forced her body forward, crawling away from the Creature. But there wasn’t anything in front of her but shimmering, shadowy shapes—nowhere to run, nowhere to…

As fortune had it, with a quick aside glance, she saw it. A whole bed of fallen brick and mortar, a sanctuary of debris with a small mouth. Small enough for her.

As the Creature’s heavy footfalls slammed down behind her, closer and closer, she dragged herself to the debris-pile. There was a fast burst of air behind her as she was swallowed by the rubble’s mouth—the Creature had reached for her, and missed. She settled into her hiding spot as she heard the Creature groan.

Her heart began to settle, no longer shaking her whole body. The inside of the pile was quiet—quiet enough that she could hear her own hoarse, shaky breath as it slid out of her lungs in heaves. She crawled back, back as far as she could go into this small bubble of sanctuary.

Against her better judgment, she turned her head around, looking out the mouth of the rubble.

At first there were the Creature’s bare feet. Then knees and a single hand.

Then the Creature’s bloated, blue face and cold wet eyes.

“Babs?”

More sniffling.

Cautiously, Vigil stops just before the mouth of the rubble, the browned blood sticking to the bottoms of his boots. There is a sharp stench wafting out from inside the little igloo, its scent invasive and wilting. “Babs Seed,” Vigil calls, “are you in there?”

His heart races faster than it needs to. His horn glows as he lifts some of the fallen debris, widening the mouth of the debris-igloo. As much as he doesn’t like the idea of getting blood on his uniform sleeves, Vigil kneels down and looks inside the pile’s mouth.

A twisted and playful smile on its face, the Creature reached inside the mouth of the debris pile, its monstrous fingers extending (in her imagination) as long as pony’s tails. She screamed as she backed herself against the irregular wall of her sanctuary, scrambling away from the reaching fingers and the faux-playful smile and the wet, listless eyes.

Suddenly, amidst her impending doom, there was a plink. She’d knocked something out of the rubble behind her—and through sheer good luck, it hadn’t caused her sanctuary to collapse. A glance to the sound drew attention to a metal shard that glittered in the darkness, drawing her attention, and courage, to it. Fate had given her a fighting chance.

As the Creature’s fingers wrapped around her left hind leg, she grabbed the metal shard in her teeth, turned, and sunk its sharpest end into the Creature’s knuckle. She heard its scream, warbling and wet, shake the entire cavern. The hand refused to let go.

She pulled the shard out. Then she sunk it into the back of the Creature’s hand.

Then again.

And again.

She’d cut the Creature’s hand enough times that it decided she wasn’t worth the trouble. The Creature’s attempts to remove its arm only caused its shoulder to be stuck in the pile’s small mouth. The sanctuary’s ceiling rocked, the danger of a cave-in imminent.

The Creature continued to scream as she stabbed—and stabbed—and stabbed. The blood that spilled out, staining the sanctuary’s walls and her face and forelegs, was dark but yellowed and oily as vomit. The stench it emitted was even worse.

Finally, the Creature’s hand was unrecognizable. Its fingers were in pieces, the thumb hanging on by a single tendon. From its wrist and forearm hung flags of flesh begging to stay on the bone. With a sudden jerk, the Creature finally freed its arm from the debris—and the ceiling fell, the giant rock that housed this sanctuary sinking down, shrinking the open mouth so that maybe a gecko could have squeezed through.

The inside of the sanctuary was different, however. While the ceiling had slanted down, there was still air. There was still darkness. There was still safety. As she lay quietly, bloodied shard between her teeth, fingers and pieces of fingers scattered about her, she listened for the Creature to return as its heavy footfalls ran away, its warbling scream of agony piercing into the night.

After an hour of waiting, there were sirens. Manehatten’s screams.

The little filly curled up and sobbed.

Then she fell into a dark and restless sleep.

Inside the crawlspace is a little filly matching the description: short reddish-pink mane and tail, brown pelt, green eyes, freckles, kind of on the chubby side. She is curled into a ball, her eyes wide with terror, a shard covered in blood clenched between her teeth, her face caked with a mask of dried blood. All around her is bloodstains, and pieces of flesh and bone. He hears her breathing sharply, hyperventilating, going insane with fear.

Vigil had been trained for this. Rescue is part of the job of a police officer. But the sight of this little filly—in light of all the carnage aftermath he’d just seen—breaks his heart.

He gives her a reassuring smile as his horn glows, his silvery aura removing the cape from his backpack and moving it toward her. “Babs, your big sister is worried about you. She asked me to find you.”

Silence. Babs’ breathing settles. “…S-Sunflower?”

“Yes,” Vigil answers softly, producing the cape from before and dangling it from one hoof. “Sunflower Seed. She gave me your cape so I could find you. You remember me, right?”

Babs’ green eyes—beautiful, now that the fear is dissipating—sparkle with recognition at the sight of her apartment neighbor. “…Officer Vigil?”

“That’s me,” he answers, nodding. “I’m here to rescue you.” He holds out his hoof.

She takes it.

As Babs is pulled out from the rubble, the real damage begins to show. Her scrapes need tending to, her tail is burned as well as the pelt on her hind legs, she needs a bath, and…

She shivers, then sobs, then breaks down as Vigil draws her into his chest. “You’re gonna be okay,” Vigil says as he looks around the damaged streets. “You’re gonna be all right.”

Above them, Manehatten's protective forcefield hums quietly. All around them, the lonely grey streets of this lonely grey city stretch and stretch. A little filly clings to to the only solid rock in this ocean of nightmares, and she weeps in sweet relief.

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Exgallion

Exgallion #1 · May 31st, 2014 · 4 · ·

Babs Seed, Babs Seed, what you gonna do?
Got a monster on your tail.
Got to hide, you got to bail.
Babs Seed, Babs Seed, if it's after you.
You gotta hurry, you gotta flee.
You need to scurry don't you see.
Babs Seed, Babs Seed.
You're not a bad, bad seed.

Razalon The Lizardman

Razalon The Lizardman #2 · May 31st, 2014 · · ·

Yes, more MLC!

And aside from a few sudden tense shifts in the flashback sections, this was awesome!

~The lizardman hopes more is soon to come

Alondro

Alondro #3 · May 31st, 2014 · · 4 ·

Dracula.

The very name inspires instant face-palming from everyone who has gotten nauseous from the severe over-use of vampires, and who think they were much more amusing when all they did was rise from their coffins and go "Blah blah!"