My Little Goth: Darkness is Bitter

by ClickClackTheBrony

It's a Dangerous Business, Walking out Your Front Door and Into the Forest Where Everything Wants You Dead

I surveyed my motley crew of losers. They weren't much, but worst case I could just ditch them in the forest if they slowed me down. "Alright, if we want Celestia gone, we're gonna have to get those Elements. It will be dangerous, and most of you won't survive. Fortunately, I happen to have many spells and skills to at the very least ensure my own survival."

Famine grimaced. "You know, on second thought, I think I'll take my chances being unemployed, good luck with your pipe drea-" Before she got far Spite snapped his fingers and a wall of hellflame blocked any possible escape.

"Now, I need all of you to come in and stay between me and any danger. You can do it voluntarily, or under mind control like White Hooves and his friends, which, incidentally, diminishes your ability to dodge threats by as much as ninety-five percent. Spite, while we're in there, I want you to go into town and kill anypony who looks too happy about Celestia."

"Oh hells yeah! Can I keep their corpses?" he asked.

"Do whatever you want with them. If it seems like I've been gone too long, come and get me back out. Now, the rest of you, follow me. It's time for this sun... to go down."

A muscular pony came out of nowhere and shouted "YEEEAAAAAAAAHH!" as a guitar played in the background.

"And this is why I generally avoid needless wordplay," I muttered. After taking just a moment to create a magical dagger and impale Mr. Watches-Too-Much-CSI through the head, I led my team into the forest, very much aware that this would be the most important moment of my life...

*** *** ***

"Dang, this place is just miserable. I should really remember to come back sometime," I remarked. "Still, we need to hurry. Does anyone know their way around?"

"'Fraid not," Famine said. "Nopony comes in here. It's probably the one place that's more terrible than Ponyville."

"How so?"

"Oh, you know, the stuff you'd expect: monsters, impossible-to-navigate paths, the evil enchantress that lives here, unstable terrain..."

"Unstable terrain?'

Monochrome cut in. "Yeah. In some places, the ground is so bad that it'll crumble beneath you with just one stomp." She punctuated her explanation with a stomp of her hoof... which caused our cliffside path to give way under us.

The effect was immediate. White Hooves' friends went over first and got dashed to pieces on the rocks below. White Hooves himself fared slightly better, his survival instinct just barely breaking through his hypnotized daze and allowing him to grab Rook's tail, dragging the griffon down with him. Monochrome (of course it'd be her) managed to catch herself and fly to safety. Slit Wrist was on safe ground the whole time, but after realizing what was happening shouted, "Oh no, I'm falling off the cliff to my death. Ahh," and walked over the edge. Worst of all, I began slipping down and was unable to keep my grip. I was about to fall too, but then Famine, who had managed to keep her footing, caught me by my forehooves.

"Famine! Pull me back up!"

She tugged, struggling against gravity but slowly getting pulled down with me. "I... I can't. You have to let go."

"WHAT!?"

"I'm gonna be straight with you. There is no conceivable way I'm gonna be able to pull you back up. I have the strength, but I just can't keep my footing, so either we both fall, or just you. If it means anything, I kinda liked your sadistic sense of humor and devil-may-care attitude, not to mention the way you put my ankle-biting dipshit of a sister in her place. I'm sorry, Dark Tome, I wish I could help, but the truth is it's already too late. Oh well. See ya in Hell!"

With that, she gave me one quick shove and sent me screaming over the edge to my death...

Or at least I thought it was to my death, but fortunately there was a thick cushion of red shirt corpses for me to land on. I knew bringing along all of White Hooves' friends was a good idea!

I looked around to see who else survived. Rook, Slit Wrist, White Hooves, basically anyone with a name was good. Monochrome was even relaxing in a nearby tree.

I got to my feet in a fit of rage. "Monochrome! Famine! You two are DEAD!" I cast a teleportation spell and brought both of the mares in front of me. "Do you realize you almost got me killed?"

"Wait, you can cast teleporting spells? Couldn't you have saved yourself with that?" Monochrome asked.

"I have a psychological condition that makes me temporarily forget about useful abilities in times of crisis, okay?" I said furiously.

Famine looked aghast. "Seriously? And we're supposed to be following you?"

"I... Er... Well... UP YOURS!" I sent a bolt of lightening through both of them. I was going to kill them at first, but upon remembering the mass of cronies I'd already lost, I decided to stop just short of death. They'd still be useful, but now carried the delightful scent of pony bacon. "You two are SO lucky I need as many meatshields as I can get out here!"

"Yeah... Lucky..." Famine muttered, putting out a small ember on her coat where the spell hit her..

"At least I smell good..." wheezed Monochrome.

Meanwhile, White Hooves seemed to be snapping out of the trance I'd put him under, probably from the shock of his near-death experience. He looked around with a blank expression for a moment or two until he noticed the pile of dead ponies. "Huh? G-guys? Are you..." He looked them over, checking for any sign of life. "Firebrand? Unquiet Riot? Vocal Minority? Anyone?" The color drained from his face... somehow. No idea how that works with fur. "No! They're all dead! How could this happen?" He collapsed, sobbing into his forelegs. "I'm all alone... It'll take me hours to find friends like them again! Hours!"

I saw my opening, and I went or it. "I'm so sorry that I got your friends killed - completely by accident, by the way - but if you help us, the Queen can probably resurrect them." It was all a complete lie, but I find that those with friends have a bizarre tendency to go out of their way to help those friends. Reason number one why I don't have any.

"What? Nightmare Moon? Screw that! That's not what my friends would want!"

"So you're siding with Celestia then?" I prepared to cast a kill spell, having forgotten about my mind control spell due to all the stress.

"Wait... Celesti-who?"

"Celestia. She's the Queen's sister who took over Equestria and brought back the sun."

"So... she's the one in charge now?"

"Yes."

"... Well I didn't vote for her." A look of indignation came over him as his contrarian instincts kicked in. "And who the hell asked for the sun? Not to mention this pony is Nightmare Moon's blood relative! I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her!"

"All right then," I said with a smirk. "You wanna get rid of her, follow me. Besides, I don't think Celestia would be willing to delve into the unholy magic of necromancy."

"Yeah! Better the devil we know, I say! Let's go get my friends back!"

What a dumbass.

We continued a bit further, savoring the scents from our crispy allies as we walked. I didn't realize it at the time, but something else was liking it too...

"ROAR!"

"What was that?" I asked. Rook pulled me out of the way just before a scorpion tail stabbed right where I'd been just a moment before.

"A manticore!" yelled Famine.

Slit Wrist leapt between it and us, smiling. "Don't worry, everypony! I'll distract it so the rest of you can get away!"

Cue nopony having a problem with that. We all took the opportunity and ran off as the monster pounced onto her, raking her with its claws and chewing on her neck.

"You think it's still following us?" Rook asked once we'd put about two hundred yards worth of trees between it and us.

"I don't think so," said Famine, "but in all likelyhood, it won't be the last monster we see out here. We need to be prepared if we don't wanna all die, not that our chances will be that good even then. We might as well catch our breath for a bit."

"That's good for now. Rook, Monochrome, you two keep watch," I said.

About five minutes into our break, however, we noticed something emerging from the trees: the manticore!

"Damn it, Monochrome! I said keep watch!"

"You haven't been paying much attention to my behavior, have you?" said Monochrome.

I was about to forget to cast a death spell on the monster, but then I noticed that it had Slit Wrist wrapped in it's tail. It set her down casually and pushed her toward us before handing her a self help book and a piece of paper with the number of the suicide hotline written on it. After that, it patted her on the head and walked off.

"Oh, hey Slit Wrist, I thought you were dead." I said before going back to relaxing.

"He felt something was wrong when I started pointing to my throat and saying 'right here.' He also said you guys should cast a scent blocking spell, if you can."

"Ah, good idea," I said, before doing so.

"So... he said I should talk to others about my problems, so... does anypony wanna listen?"

White Hooves and Rook each breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah, so non ponies don't have to deal with it. Sweet," White Hooves said.

"Um... Okay? Anypony?"

"Nah, we're good," Famine said.

"Oh... I see... now I remember why I came out here..." She laid down by a tree, took out a razor blade and... I actually stopped paying attention at about that time, I really didn't care all that much.

*** *** ***

Meanwhile, in the Queen's throne room back in Canterlot, Celestia was already making herself comfortable, her minotaur cronies removing all traces of the Queens influence. The statues she had of herself, the tapestries commemorating her conquests, and the displayed corpses of her enemies: all taken down to make room for Celestia's regime. The Princess herself meanwhile was working with the Queen's archivist, Dusty Tomes, to get rid of all of the Queen's laws.

"We are going to have to change so much..." Celestia said, looking over a book of rules that her sister had implemented since she'd been banished. "You've really all been sacrificing your firstborn?"

"Well of course! We needed to to fuel your sister's Alicorn magic, didn't we?" Dusty answered.

"Oh... That's not actually true; Luna saw this thing on TV about Aztec mythology and... well, she always was a bit obsessive." She flipped through a few more pages. "Oh dear..." She called over one of the Minotaurs. "I need you to go and inform all of Equestria's law enforcement officials that the death penalty will no longer be a 'catch-all punishment.' Have all major criminals kept detained until I can set proper sentences, the minor offenders can be let off with a warning for now."

The minotaur saluted and rushed off to spread the word.

"You certainly are... soft..." Dusty noted, cautiously.

Celestia turned to him and he cringed, expecting obliteration. Instead, he heard a sweet chuckle. "Oh, Dusty. You have nothing to fear from me. My reign will be one of peace and happiness for all of my citizens. Frankly, I'd prefer it if everypony loosened up a bit. After a thousand years in the sun, I could do with a nice, natural, informal environment."

It took a few moments for Dusty to comprehend it all. "My gosh... is it really that simple? Are we really that free?" Years of pent up stress and anxiety began visibly melting off of him. "YAHOO!" He leaped into the air, completely unable to contain himself.

"Yes, you are," said Celestia with a little laugh. "In fact, why don't you take the rest of the day off and spend it with your family; it looks like you really need it. I can handle the rest of this myself, I think."

"My Quee- um, Princess, are you sure?"

"Oh, trust me, after being on fire for a millennium, this is actually fun for me. Go on."

"Th-thank you Princess!" Dusty smiled, before practically skipping to the door.

Just then the door burst open, messily splattering Dusty between it and the wall.

"Princess!" called the minotaur who'd ran in. "We've just received word that a small group of your sister's loyalists have been spotted entering the Everfree Forest in an attempt to retrieve the Elements of Depression!"

"No... I knew this wouldn't be this easy..." Celestia muttered. "Send in Squadron 3 to deal with them, nonlethally if at all possible."

The minotaur saluted and rushed to deliver the orders. Once he was gone, Celestia noticed the sloppy mess formerly known as Dusty plastered to the wall. "Ooh... Note to self: cover the country in 'cartoon physics' spells again. We're going to need them."

Author's Note:

Well, I finally realized how badly I was procrastinating on what should be a short, simple fic, but don't worry, I'm getting back on the ball.