• Published 25th Feb 2012
  • 10,903 Views, 312 Comments

Star Gazing - Konseiga

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Insanity, Sadism, Dishonesty

WARNING: The following chapter is particularly dark. If you have no desire to delve into said darkness, PM me and I will tell you what happens without all the dark details.

~*~*~*~*~

Twilight’s steps echoed dully against the bare walls of the labyrinth as she made her way through, searching for a place that would like hold a key for her release.

C-clop, c-clop, c-clop, c-clop.

She found herself wishing, not for the first time, that she wasn’t so alone. The labyrinth had ceased to have the suffocating effect on her that it did the first time, but navigating these walls filled Twilight with an aching loneliness.

C-clop, c-clop, c-clop, c-clop.

She had already practiced some of her spells, lazily going through the same routine that she had done many times before. It seemed so easy to access her magic now, like the floodgates holding back her lake – no, more like an ocean - of magic, had suddenly been opened. She barely had to reach for it, and didn’t even have to exert herself in casting spells that otherwise might have left her fatigued.

Twilight laughed at the ease of it all, the sound in stark contrast to the setting around her. Her ears perked up as the sound of her laughter echoed down the hallway she was currently in. It seemed to fill the passageway as it traveled, splitting off in many directions.

Twilight shrugged and resumed walking. I just need to find five keys, right? Then I can get out of here.

C-clop, c-clop, c-clop, c-clop.

A soft echo began to rebound down Twilight’s hall. Her ears perked up as she strained to make out her own laughter.

“what are you What are you WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?!?” the echo reached Twilight’s ears and she immediately bristled. That wasn’t my laughter. Who else is in this dungeon?

As she cast her eyes forward, she saw a dull pink light at the end of the hallway she was in. Picking up the pace to a canter, she moved toward the suspicious light. The need was pressed into her. She needed to get to that light before it vanished. It flickered in the distance.

No! Twilight broke into a gallop, her hooves clacking noisily through the hallway. She was so close to reaching the light. Twenty steps. Ten steps. Five steps.

The light went out.

Shoot! Twilight thought, pounding a hoof against the floor in frustration. She was standing right where the light had just been. Where did it go? When she looked around, her mouth fell open in wonder.

She was standing in front of a door that looked like it belonged on a shop. A crooked “OPEN” sign hung on its front, and the same dull pink light spilled out of the crack from underneath the door.

Twilight tilted her head curiously, and then pushed open the door. She found herself standing in a bakery that looked in serious need of repair. Cupboards were hanging from their hinges, twisting with a rusty creaking noise at every little disturbance. There were cracked and missing tiles in the floor, and the back room (Twilight assumed it was the kitchen) was boarded off with a skull and crossbones sign nailed to the front.

And, standing in contrast to its surroundings, there was a jeweled case on the wall, containing the most pristine and ornate jewel carving of balloon that Twilight had ever seen. A smile came over her face. If they’re all this easy, I can count myself lucky.

“Who are you, and what are you doing smiling in MY SHOP?” a voice shrieked from a stairwell that Twilight didn’t see before. Standing in the entryway of the stairwell was a dull pink pony with similarly dull pink, mangled mane. Her eyes were narrowed into suspicious slits, and her face was set in a frown. The closer Twilight looked the less friendly the new pony seemed. Her cutie mark was three deflated balloons, and her eyes were a cold grey.

“I’m just here for that,” Twilight said, gesturing at the balloon jewel.

“And what makes you think you’re entitled to that, huh? What are you gonna use it for, unlock that big door and let all the light into this world?” The dull pink pony was in Twilight’s face in a flash, pushing an accusing hoof into Twilight’s chest. “I can’t let you do that. You’ll destroy all that I’ve worked for!”

“You don’t want to let the light into this world?” Twilight frowned, confused. “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s so dark here.”

“THAT’S THE POINT!” the dull pink pony screamed, pushing Twilight onto her back. “The dark keeps this entire place quiet! There’s no laughing to disturb me! I. HATE. LAUGHTER! Do you know why? Oh, sure, I used to be a HUGE party pony. I would laugh all the time! And you know what I got for it? NOTHING! Everyone abandoned me! They left and said, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with that crazy pony!’ So you know what I did? I shut them up! FOR GOOD! And now the darkness holds them all, and you’re next because you LAUGHED!” A knife had materialized in the pink pony’s mouth, and she looked at Twilight with a spark of insanity in her eyes.

Twilight, however, had heard just about enough. She stood up, brushing herself off, turned, and glared at the pink pony. “I don’t know who you are,” she hissed, “but if you acted like this all the time, I wouldn’t want to be your friend either.” And with that, her horn erupted into a glow, separating the pony and the knife and suspending them in the air.

“Let me down! LET ME DOWN SO I CAN FINISH!”

“Not a chance,” Twilight muttered. “I’m doing you a favor, you miserable creature.” Twilight slowly rotated the knife, pointing the sharp end at the pink pony’s chest. The trapped pony’s eyes widened and she began to thrash violently.

“No! NO! THIS ISN’T HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO WOR-!”

Shhnk. Disgustedly, Twilight floated down the jeweled case, willing away the glass covering as she did so. Appraising the jewel carefully, she muttered, “Now, how am I going to carry you?” She cast her eyes around, and eventually her gaze settled upon a discarded saddle bag. “That’ll work nicely,” she nodded, floating the saddle bag over. After it was secured on her back, she slipped the balloon jewel inside it, fastened the button on the bag shut, and left the shop, leaving the dull pink pony pinned against the wall, knife hilt buried deep in her chest.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

~*~*~*~*~

Somewhere inside Twilight’s head, a voice was screaming at her. It was a very small voice, but it was irritating nonetheless. It kept shouting something about how inherently wrong killing a pony is, and how Twilight shouldn’t have done that.

Twilight just shrugged. No matter how much she thought about it, she could find no fault in her actions. They all seemed justified.

Whistling a catchy tune, Twilight resumed her random wandering of the labyrinth, occasionally marking the walls with a dash of spell fire. This way, she though smugly, I can tell when I’ve doubled back. Pretty soon, entire corridors of the labyrinth were illuminated, bright purple fires burning at almost every corner.

This place is really a lot bigger than I expected, Twilight thought. There were still pathways that she hadn’t gone down that were still pitch black. A momentary bout of fear gripped at her mind. What if I die down here? I haven’t seen any food or water. Despite the fact that she hadn’t felt hungry or thirsty at all, her fears still seemed very real.

Then she thought of the jewel balloon in her bag and relaxed. I’ll be out of here in no time, she thought confidently, and began down another hallway. She had only made it a few steps forward before a bucket full of water fell out of the sky, landing solidly on Twilight’s head.

“Ouch! Hey!” Twilight whipped around, trying to find the offending pony. All she could hear, aside from the water dripping from her mane, was a cruel laugh echoing in the distance.

Warily, Twilight plodded forward, only to be met with a falling bag of flour. It exploded on contact with Twilight, covering her in the white powder. Twilight groaned as it mixed with the water still in her coat, becoming a thick paste.

“That isn’t funny!” she yelled at the retreating laughter, briskly cleaning herself up with a brief spell. Then she placed wards around herself, a shield of sorts that would block any oncoming object that didn’t have Twilight’s permission to touch her.

As it turns out, this was a brilliant idea. As she continued down the hall, she was bombarded with fireworks, buckets of chalk dust, buckets of tar, and even a swarm of snakes. Twilight was almost in hysterics over the last one.

“Stop it!” she yelled into the darkness, and kept pushing forward. Syrup flowed through the hallway, only parting around Twilight’s shield. Bats flew by, shrieking loudly at the lavender unicorn, and floating eyes began to blink and follow Twilight as she continued her walk through the hallway.

She was about ready to break down and cover her eyes with her hooves when she came to a large enclosure, with a dome like ceiling. Unnatural light filtered down through an extremely small window in the top of the dome, illuminating a non-working fountain in the center of the room. The fountain itself was a carving of pony, crawling out of a fracture in the earth, with one hoof raised towards the sky. And there, nestled in the hoof, was a butterfly jewel, akin in beauty to the balloon that was secured in Twilight’s bag.

Excellent, Twilight sighed and began walking toward the jewel, only to have a net dropped on her from above. It hit her shield with a thud and stayed there, the weights on the end preventing her from moving closer to her objective.

“Poor, poor Twilight,” a condescending voice cooed from the shadows. A dull yellow pegasus pony with extraordinarily light pink mane and three spiders for a cutie mark stepped casually into the light. “Wandering helplessly through a big, scary dungeon, trying desperately to find a way out.” The pegasus giggled gleefully. “And so much fun to play with.

Warily, Twilight kept her shield up, though the net was a constant drain on her energy. “What do you want with me?”

“Oh, I don’t really know,” the pegasus shrugged. “Maybe I’ll see how many cuts you can take before passing out, then maybe I’ll time you bleeding to death. Does that sound good?”

Twilight groaned. The pegasus laughed. “Maybe I’ll cut off your horn and see if you can do magic after that! That’s an idea…” the yellow pony put a hoof up to her face, pondering the thought.

Twilight seized the opportunity, using telekinetic blades of energy to cut through the rope. These weird ponies shouldn’t keep underestimating me. As the net fell away to the floor, Twilight let her shield fall. It was becoming too much of a drain on her strength, and she needed to stay alert.

“Oh, look, my little visitor has freed herself,” the pegasus pony spat on the ground. “It won’t do you any good. You’re to WEAK and PATHETIC to try and take MY jewel.” She casually walked a few steps forward and set her hoof on a differently colored tile. “I hope you can dodge sharp things, otherwise this is going to be a very grisly end for you!”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she felt an object whisk through her mane, and felt a few hairs fall to the floor. Another object grazed her right flank, leaving a long, thin cut that made her hiss with pain. Hastily, she through up a shield, glowing brightly in the darkness of the room.

“It won’t do you any good~” the pegasus said with a sing-song voice, as another knife passed through Twilight’s shield as if it wasn’t even there, leaving another long, thin cut across her back.

“ENOUGH!” Twilight screamed as her magic blossoming to fill the room. Every single knife stopped mid-flight, suspended in the air. Knives that had fallen to the floor were also levitated up, leaving Twilight in control of a dozen of the lethal instruments.

A look of fear flashed across the pegasus pony’s face as she wheeled backwards. Twilight advanced on her slowly, hatred etched on her face.

“You are a cruel, sadistic being,” Twilight rumbled, her voice laden with latent power, “And you don’t even deserve to exist.”

The pegasus pony shrieked as she was picked up unceremoniously by a single hoof. “Put me down!”

“You want to be let down?” Twilight asked. “You should be careful what you wish for.”

The air was filled with dozens of hisses as the knives quickly accelerated towards the unfortunate pegasus, and dozens of dull snncks cut off the yellow pony’s scream before it even began.

Twilight wrinkled her nose in disgust, quashing the little voice inside of her head that yelled at her again. Flinging aside the body of the pony, she slowly walked up to the fountain statue, floating the butterfly down and admiring its sheen. Gently, she floated it into her bag, settling it with a light chink against the other jewel. Quickly, she departed out of the door opposite the one she entered, and refused to look back.

~*~*~*~*~

I’m on a roll now.

The weight of the two jewels was a comfort of sorts to Twilight. She smiled, satisfied with her progress thus far. The labyrinth had been trying its best to stop her, and she had overcome each and every challenge with a cool head. Behind her, purple fires marked the places she had already been, and she pushed on readily.

To top it all off, the comforting voice had paid a visit to Twilight, praising and encouraging her. “You’re doing well. Keep it up, and stay safe.” Twilight had promised that she would.

Smile still etched on her face, she turned a dark corner and came face to face (figuratively speaking) with a set of two doors. On one door, a sign was hung crookedly that had, reading “DANGER” in hastily scrawled letters. On the other, a beautiful sign was displayed, reading “This Way.”

Twilight shrugged, putting a dab of spell fire on one of the walls. This seems relatively straightforward. She calmly trotted up to the second door, opened it, and walked through.

The door slammed shut behind her. Wait a minute, Twilight thought, examining the room. Two more doors were there, one with a sign saying “DANGER” and another with a sign saying “This Way.” A glowing purple flame was burning on one of the walls.

It was the exact same room.

Curiously, Twilight opened the same door she had previously, but didn’t walk through. Sure enough, she could see her own rump standing in the doorway of the next room. Gingerly, and without dwelling too much on how impossible that situation was, Twilight closed the door.

I can’t keep walking through that door, she considered. I’ll just go in some weird circle. And I can’t go back now, since I’m sure this is another twisted test. That only leaves me one option. Slowly, cautiously, she pushed the door labeled “DANGER” open, and braced for whatever waited for her.

The first sound that hit her was the persistent rattling. The room was completely dark, but the sound was penetrating. Twilight slowly stepped into the room, and set her horn aglow.

Her scream echoed off the walls. She was standing in midair, suspended above a deep pit that ended with hundreds of snakes. Twilight desperately turned around to go back, but the door had vanished, leaving her suspended above the pit.

Calm down. Calm down, she told herself, willing her legs to stop shaking. Assess the situation. She looked around. Her hooves, she felt, were on something solid, even if she thought she was floating in midair. There was a door that was a mere stones throw away from Twilight’s position.

Shaking violently, she took one step forward, setting her hoof down with a clack.

Okay, solid ground… come on, Twilight. One hoof in front of the other.

Cautiously, slowly, with her body screaming at her not to move, she took one step forward. Then another. Then one more. Finally, she threw herself at the door, rolling into a heap in another room.

Momentarily dazed, Twilight shook her head quickly to cast of the stars floating in her vision. The door had disappeared, and she was smack dab in what looked like the middle of a trophy room. It was decked in red velvet, and there were three trophy cases.

One trophy case contained a red jewel, fashioned in the shape of an apple. Another trophy case held a similarly fashioned jewel, but it was yellow instead. And the third trophy case held a green apple.

Fantastic.

Twilight’s ears pricked as it registered hoofsteps. A dull orange earth pony appeared, with a rotten yellow colored mane and tail. Her cutie mark displayed three diseased apples.

“Who are you?” Twilight said suspiciously. “Are you here to try and stop me, too?”

“Absolutely not,” the earth pony replied, not quite meeting Twilight’s accusing stare. “Ah’m jest, eh, here ta help.”

“Right,” Twilight said slowly, turning her attention back to the trophy case. “So, which one of these is the key I need?”

“Eh. Definitely the yellow one!” the orange pony said quickly, pointing at the green apple.

Twilight leaned her head to the side. “What?”

“No, scratch that. Ya want the red one!” the orange pony grinned and pointed at the yellow apple. “No, wait, take the green one!” And pointed, unsurprisingly, at the red apple.

“Seriously, which do I need?”

The orange pony just shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe you should look in there. I bet it has some answers.”

Twilight turned to see a new door in the side of the wall. Glaring suspiciously at the orange pony, she turned and opened the door…

… and immediately felt a push from behind. Twilight yelped in surprise as the orange pony furiously tried to get her to go through the door. Pushing back with all of her might, she spared a glance into the room that her ‘guide’ was so desperately trying to push her into.

Her eyes went wide as she saw that the room was a giant pit, with deadly looking spikes lining the walls of the pit. There was no ledge extending from the doorway. It just dropped off, giving way to the lethal setup.

Twilight pushed back against the orange pony with a renewed vigor. Self-levitation was tricky business at the best of times, and falling to a potential death was not the best condition to attempt a spell like that.

I am not dying here.

The realization made Twilight radiate with a black energy. It snaked over her body, thin fingers of black lightning winding their way around her. One of them reached out and flung the orange pony against the wall, and she collided with“oof!”

Twilight just sat at the precipice of the pit, a cold fury coming over here. Wheeling furiously, her horn spitting out black tendrils of power, she addressed the pony lying on the ground.

“There is nothing worse than a liar,” she said with a deceptive calmness. “And a murderous liar is even worse.”

Ignoring the earth pony’s protest, Twilight wrapped her magic around one of her orange hooves, dragging her roughly towards the open door.

“No! Wait! Ah promise Ah’ll help ya!”

“I don’t need your help,” Twilight hissed coldly. “Enjoy your trip.”

Slowly, Twilight levitated the thrashing earth pony to the middle of the pit, then closed the door and released the magic.

Turning back towards the trophy cases, Twilight was struck with sudden inspiration. She took out her first two jewels, and touched them with a small piece of magic. The glowed, radiating her magic back to her. Breaking open the glass cases, she tried the same trick on all three apples. The yellow apple and the green apple exploded, and Twilight had to shield herself from the deadly slivers of glass that rushed toward her. The red apple, however, glowed exactly like the other two. Satisfied, she took the apple and her other two jewels and secured them safely within her bag.

Three down, two to go.