The Stare, Malevolence of Evil

by Peusterokos

'...Destroyed Us.'

The Stare: Malevolence of Evil

Chapter 5:
'...Destroyed Us.'

A two-way door in a hospital blew open as nearly a dozen pony physicians carried a bed ridden patient in directions to the ER on a hurry, clearing their way of anything or anypony that stood in their way. The patient, Shadow Rush, laid unconscious in his hospital bed as he was carried to his destined room. It was given the full order of Princess Celestia that be becomes tonight's major priority by all hospital staff tonight.

Princess Celestia had taken immediate actions earlier when her sister, Princess Luna, had summoned inside her bedroom yelling that she had lost her protege. She took some of her best personal guards, along with her sister and her own share of soldiers to swarm Ponyville in a rush. Upon arriving, the sun goddess's fears had come true when she found three ponies, Zequus and two of the natives, surrounding the motionless body that was Shadow Rush. Now, she waited just outside the emergency room, hastily waiting for any news.

These news came 7 hours later as the doctors confirmed they had stabilized their patient's vital signatures. But these relieving news were all that was good, as the head doctor afterwards added grieving information that tore her heart in two: Shadow Rush would probably never the same again. He had to be taken to Canterlot Psychiatrict Hospital for further evaluation, as his body had no injury whatsoever, but his brain had been severely damaged by whatever ordeal he went through. Princess Celestia's head lowered to the sorrowing words. The feeling of regret were now crushing her, as not only she was blaming Shadow Rush's perdition on herself, but she had to announce his pony friends who were found back in the waiting room. Entering the emergency room, she ordered calmly to all the medics in the room as she wanted to be left alone with her unconscious student. They all did so, as the princess found herself all alone in the room like the way she wanted. She approached towards Shadow Rush, looking over his shape with teary eyes before she connected her horn to his.

Her mind flowed down her horn and entered through his as she appeared inside his mind, looking for any evidence to what had happened. But what she found instead was bare emptiness, as if his mind was wiped clean of everything. No memories nor persona was found except the presence of dark-colored fog that flooded everywhere. Unhappy and confused to what she didn't find, she disconnected and reentered her own body before leaving the room.

Princess Celestia made her way towards the waiting room and upon arriving, found Zequus the zebra caressing this dark-pink female earth pony, who seemed vaguely similar to somepony she had met in her life before, and a teal unicorn of which her eyes had become completely red from the night-long weeping.

The princess cleared her throat, catching everypony's attention, before giving them some 'good' news about Shadow Rush's condition. Unfortunately, as she was going to continue on with the 'bad' news, she came to a halt. The goddess had wished that this moment had not come and had instead gone away, but she couldn't hide the other truth from them. As she took a breath, she continued on and announced them the gloomy verity. As she went on, Zequus' eyes began twitching to her words Princess Celestia was announcing. First, they became melancholic and teary, before they became full of hatred when he turned towards the two mares. Swiggie Pie became deplorable to look at as guilt melted her insides, and Guilty Sparks was now gazing emptily at the princess, the crushing news rendering her speechless as she suffered quietly, but greatly.

As Princess Celestia finished pronouncing the final words, she genuinely apologized to them, and to herself mentally, before making her way back to her castle. The three were now left alone, and their room was completely silent before Zequus turned around and threw a punch at Swiggie Pie. He started yelling uncontrollably at the two mares, who in return began walking out but refused to defend themselves as they knew what the zebra was saying was true.

They had indeed acted selfishly to them during their stay in Ponyville. They were indeed mares who had no redeeming factors. They were indeed absolute living trash.

Guards were now restraining the furious zebra before he could do any more harm to the sorrowful mares as two other guards escorted them to the exit.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

-2 hours later-

Shadow Rush now was inside a room in Canterlot Psychiatric Hospital, his body still fused to the same bed and his head completely swarmed by sensors stuck on his head, connected to all kinds of brain sensors. The princess of the sun had given yet again another order for this patient to become the priority by all the hospital's staff.

As the scans went on, the doctors were in complete awe by the given results, or by what they did not give. His brain had apparently ceased to function for more than 20 hours, yet he was there still alive but unconscious on his bed. They ran the tests again, and again and with further more repetitions, but the results all came back the same. After a while, they all agreed that their systems had not failed and the patient was indeed brain dead in some way or another. They all began packing their devices and was just about to remove him from his bed before Shadow Rush came back to consciousness with bursting energy. He pushed the doctors around with great strength, thrashed everything surrounding him and started screaming and howling as he rambled nonsensically about things such as a filly with evil eyes, a great demon who resided in her stare, a spell called the Stare and many more things. It took many ponies to immobilize the frenzy unicorn before they administered a tranquilizer. They carried his paralyzed body to Patient Room N.013 before contacting Princess Celestia.

The once-was prodigy unicorn woke up soon after as he now found himself in a dimly lit room. He began to panic, his breathing now uncontrollably going erratic as he cowered back to the room's corner, crying as fear begun to overwhelm him.

It was a few minutes later that Shadow Rush saw something pass in front of the door, momentarily blocking the only source of light in the room, before he heard from the same direction voices, one of which was very soothing and somewhat familiar to him. His breathing began to slow down as he listened to the voice that enchanted him. He tried to move his body so that he could approach to the calming sound that came from the door, but his body did not respond.

Then suddenly, he heard a popping noise coming from the shadowy end of the room.

"Uh, hello? Is anypony there?" a feminine voice suddenly called out.

Shadow Rush's eyes went wide as fear once again took over him. He desperately tried to move so that he could crawl away from whatever was found in the darkness, but once again his body failed his commands.

"Don't be afraid! I'm not here to hurt you. I only came to talk." the voice called out again.

With these spoken words, Shadow Rush gradually became relieved as his thoughts of running away now began to fade away, lost in what was left of his mind.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle. What is your name, sir?" the voice asked him, becoming increasingly less intimidating to Shadow Rush.

Shadow Rush was taken back by this question. He did have a name, and he knew. But what was it again?

"My...I think my name is Shadow Rush." he replied.

"Hello, Shadow Rush. It's nice to meet you." Twilight Sparkle's voice said back, her voice now becoming just as soothing as the one that came from the door.

"It's curious that I find a fellow unicorn in such a place, don't you think?" she added, this time her tone becoming more questioning than before, but keeping it friendly.

This was true, though. How did he come here in the first place? Was he a condemned prisoner that was subjected to some horrible experiment?

He winced as the previous idea was now clear to him that this wasn't his case as he started to vaguely remember things. Most were clearing up, while other things were still blanks.

"I...I was researching a...a spell or something. A spell that could finish...finish something. I can't remember what it is, but it was something bad." he said hesitantly, his thoughts still trying to piece everything together.

"Yes I remember! I was sent to Ponyville on a mission to discover a spell that could eliminate the dragon menace that is threatening Equestria." he exclaimed as more things regenerated in his mind.

"Ponyville? I used to live there! How does it look?" Twilight Sparkle said excitedly, her tone filled with interest to his statement.

"Scary." Shadow Rush flatly replied, his answer being the only thing that came to his mind to describe the town.

"Well, that's a shame to hear. Anyways, what is this dragon menace you're talking about? Wouldn't the Elements of Harmony have taken care of such a thing by now?" she asked again.

Suddenly, at the mention of the Elements of Harmony, his mind yet again unlocked something that was lost to him before. This Twilight Sparkle, she was the bearer of the Element of Magic nearly a hundred years ago. How was she here?

"Aren't you one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony?" he questioned her in a tone of both dread and curiosity.

"Well, yes. I used to be at least. Do you know my name from somewhere?" she answered him.

"You died over a hundred years ago. How can you be here talking to me?" he asked carefully.

"Oh my, has it been that long? Well, to answer your question, I am what you can call an apparition, or a ghost for that matter." she answered with empathy.
"Now, please do tell me of what happened to the Elements, and why they haven't they been used yet?" she asked him again, her tone now increasingly sounding worried.

"They...they were lost after when the...the Element of Kindness ran to the Everfree forest after she became the...the..."

"The Weeping Filly?" Twilight Sparkle superimposed, sounding troubled by what she heard.

"Poor Fluttershy. Even after all these years, she still causes grief to everypony. She used to be such a good mare, a good friend. That was until The Stare corrupted her. You've seen it, haven't you?" she added, her voice now becoming distressed.

At the mention of The Stare, Shadow Rush snapped and began crying again.

"Why are you here?" he exclaimed loudly.

There was a long moment of silence between the two until the approaching sound of walking was heard coming from Twilight Sparkle's direction, muffled by the padded material that covered the room. Shadow Rush was fully aware of that, readying himself to finally see this mare he has been talking to so far. She finally appeared after what felt like forever to Shadow Rush in the light shun from the door, appearing as a purple coated unicorn. Her eyes were magnificent, as if they had been cloned onto someone that he knew, but was unsure who exactly. This mare also looked a lot like...Guilty Sparks! His eyes went wide from the realization that these two were nearly parallel copies of each other. They were just so much alike that Shadow Rush began to feel the same butterflies tingling in his stomach that he had felt when he had first met Guilty Sparks.

Twilight Sparkle's horn began to flicker with magic as she started casting a spell. But in between the sparks, something became very different of her. Then, her spell successfully came to life as a indigo-colored light flooded the room. The form he saw her as previously abruptly changed, transformed into a disturbing and rotten figure, an abomination of what she was before. Behind her, four other similarly disfigured characters appeared. Shadow Rush froze in terror and began screaming on top of his lungs at their sight.

"Some things are not meant to be seen to us. We are simple, mortal. The malevolence of evil destroyed us..." Twilight Sparkle's mutilated shape recited.
"...We are the fallen ones. We wait for our dear friend's corrupted soul to come back with us to the promised plains. Please retaliate her soul." Twilight Sparkle said before the door opened and two ponies in white suits came towards Shadow Rush's position.

The poor colt continued shrieking, his eyes not leaving Twilight Sparkle's empty sockets as he was being dragged away. The mare somehow continued to fixate him as he was moving away, before her and the rest of the ghouls' figure vanished into thin air. Despite that, Shadow Rush was still dreadfully screaming, even when the doors of his cell closed up as he was being brought inside a room with a large sign written over its two doors: Execution Room.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

A while later, Shadow Rush was strapped down on a table with syringes plunged everywhere in his skin. Doctors crawling all over the room made sure preparations were complete, as they took samples of the poison they would inject the unicorn with inside machines who were linked to the needles. In another room, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were present, both of them looking into the other room with expressionless glares as they assisted the preparation for Shadow Rush's execution. A intercom rang inside their room, as one of the doctors in the execution room was adjusting a microphone, giving it a few tests before getting the confirmation that it worked. As minutes passed, one of the doctors walked up to this microphone and activated it.

"We are going to begin with the euthanization of Shadow Rush, or Patient N.013 in a few moments." he announced in a mourning tone, his voice flooding the room where the two princesses waited.

A pony who seemed to be the head doctor of this procedure came nearby Shadow Rush, looking down on him with a long, sorrowful stare. He then turned around to a pony near a lever, nodding his head to acknowledge the start of the procedure. This pony looked uncertain at the level before pulling it down. Poison now started flowing from their containers down through tubes and into Shadow Rush's body. The head doctor was about to step away from him when he suddenly felt a weak grasp around his hoof. As he looked back, he saw that it was his patient wrapping his hoof onto his, looking back at him with a stare. Not one full of hate or fear for that matter, but one pleading a favor.

"Please. Retaliate the soul of the corrupted one. Her friends are waiting for her on the other side. Transmit this message to my...my best friend, Zequus. He...he'll know....what I mean." Shadow Rush said faintly to the head doctor, his voice being registered by the microphone as it echoed in the other room.

"A....a.....and tell him...that I s-s...say...I'm sorry. I-I...I'm sorry every...pony. I'm sorry....G....G...Guilty....S-S...S...Sparks." he added his final words, gasping for air before his grasp went loose and his eyes closed shut.

Everyone in the room lowered their heads, not saying a word to the tragic event they had committed. In the other room, Princess Luna followed their example, as Princess Celestia stood there with a different reaction. She instead cried silently with tears profusely flowing down her face, mourning to the death of her beloved student and subject.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Somewhere else in Canterlot, there was a saddlebag that was left open. This one used to be Shadow Rush's personal piece of equipment that was given to him by his parents as a foal when he had been accepted into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Inside of it was many notes that he had taken during his research time in Ponyville and a few books that had not been returned to Guilty Sparks during his emergency departure. There was one tome that stood out from the other contents found in the bag: a black leather tome. At the moment when Shadow Rush's life ended on the other side of the city, the book began to quake onto itself. Its vibration making it levitate and creating a dark void behind it, where it dissipated into.

A faint sound of distorted laughter was heard coming from the vortex.