The What and Whatiful Who

by cosby7

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: The Worst Kind of Pony

Left turn.

Right turn.

Another left turn.

Left.

Stop. Damn, and that seemed like such a sure thing.

“This is stupid,” Trixie grumbled upon encountering their sixth dead end. By this point, she and Doctor Hooves had gotten uncommonly good at cluelessly wandering for extended periods of time, but, as that was all the Loony Labyrinth allowed them to do anyway, the skill was not exactly proving its worth. When they started out, it had been a whole fifteen minutes before they ran into a dead end. After that, the margins had gotten smaller and smaller until only a couple minutes passed before they were lost once again. Any fantasies that their trip through the maze would be quick and painless had surely been abandoned by this point and “At least we haven't found a minotaur yet,” could only keep a pony's morale up for so long. Trixie thought the Doctor was supposed to be Mr. Thinker McSmartypants, but now she was starting to wonder just what puzzles he could solve. Not flipping mazes, I guess!

“You could say that. You could also say that it's not a labyrinth. Not really,” the Doctor confided. He had been quieter since that first dead end. Trixie assumed he was trying to concentrate on finding their way. Now that he was speaking up once more, it seemed as good an idea as any at the moment to listen.

“How do you mean?”

“See that scuff there on the wall?” he said, pointing one hoof at the massive slab that blocked their path.

Trixie squinted. “No. No I do not.”

“Alright, well,” he said with a sigh, “doesn't really matter. There's a scuff there, on the wall. It's a marker. Somepony here before must have made it when they ran into the same problem we're having now. Anyway, it used to be over there.” He pointed over his shoulder back the way they had come, grimacing all the while. “Basically, the walls are moving.” Revelation delivered, he looked at Trixie expectantly. And waited. For her to say . . . nothing? “Ahem.”

“What?” She finally mumbled with a blinky shakey motion. “Sorry, what? Trixie was still trying to see the scuff.” Even while she pretended to pay attention now, her eyes constantly shifted back to the wall in front of them.

And some say I have a short attention span, the Doctor very loudly thought.

“AHEM.” Okay, that one got her attention. “I said the walls are moving.”

“What? Why?” she asked, her voice betraying the fear through the constant mask of annoyance. “Is somepony trying to keep us trapped in here?”

“Well, that's one possibility,” he considered aloud, making to move back the way they had come. “But, if that's the case, then there are much easier ways of doing it.” As much as the Doctor did not like admitting it to himself, it was absolutely true. Whoever or whatever it was that had them trapped, well, that was the point, wasn't it? It had them trapped. In a very effective trap. They were very much at their captor's mercy. The strange thing was just how much autonomy they had actually been given up until now.

Presumably, somewhere in here, everything about this place could be controlled. At literally any time they could have been locked in a room and starved to death. If their tormentor really wanted them gone. Attention like that would have been welcome at this point. Doctor Hooves had long ago mastered the art of improv. If he knew what he was getting into and had the time to plan, then there was very little that could get in his way. More often than not though, his adventures put him in a far more reactionary position and that was fine by him. Except, this time, nothing was happening. No attack. No clear intent. Instead, they had been allowed to roam freely, for the most part. Maybe that was the point. Maybe wandering free in Ponyville Penitentiary was the goal. Maybe that was enough. Until now. Best case scenario was that the cruel bully was getting impatient and finally giving Doctor Hooves something to work with. Worst case scenario was that the mastermind was finally ready to take things seriously. Unfortunately, the best and worst case scenarios usually tended to be the same thing when it came to the Doctor.

“The other possibility is that we're being led somewhere specific.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Trixie muttered under her breath. “Trixie knew we would not make it out of here without running into some crazy ponies or—there it is! There's the scuff!” she announced proudly, jabbing her hoof at the wall. Without missing a step, Doctor Hooves cocked his eye in the general jabbing direction.

“That's a different wall.”

Trixie's mouth curled into a frown and she haughtily turned from her shame. “How can you even tell?”

How could he tell which wall was which in the monochromatic haze of uniform utilitarianism? How could he make out where they had come from and where they were going in the corridors upon corridors of mirrored mind-numbing construction? How could he tell the tiniest most inconspicuous scratch apart from the next tiniest slightly more inconspicuous scratch?

“I'm the Doctor.”

They turned the next corner, imperceptibly different from the last three, and the Doctor stopped dead. Trixie paled, just barely managing to mimic his reaction before falling into the massive circular gap in the floor.

“Gulp,” she said, peering into the dark void that happened to sit in place of a floor. Suddenly becoming self-conscious of her own tendency to be terrified of ominous death pits, Trixie quickly scrambled backwards, pushing herself up against the closest wall, firmly as possible. It seemed that they had reached the center of a circular labyrinth, but, instead of a prize or even a minotaur, there was just a hole, boring down into the earth. Strangely, Trixie felt that it had a sort of gravity to it; a literal black hole that pulled in all her curiosity, forcing her, no matter how she tried resisting, to search for a bottom completely submerged in shadow.

“Doctor, what is this?”

“In my professional opinion,” his reply quick and calculated, “it's a hole.”

Trixie nearly hit him, before fearing that she might accidentally knock him into the pit. He could be a nuisance, but she didn't think even her conscience could handle murdering Doctor Hooves.

“Trixie knows what a hole is. Jerk. She was asking why there's a hole here. What's down there?”

“Oh, I can answer that.”

“Oh, good.” Wait. That didn't sound like the Doctor.

“Wait, that didn't sound like me.”

“No, I should certainly hope not,” the sandy colored unicorn mocked as he emerged from behind one of the many labyrinth walls that lined the pit. Glowering at Trixie and the Doctor, his mouth curled into a sinister grin. He was clearly older than when they had seen him last, but his features had been distinct and were much the same. His eyes were still weary with the weight of what the world had shown him, but they could no longer hide the disdain that had been so tempered there before. They were eyes that, like the rest of him now, all the way down to the fraying ends of his signature mustaches, possessed an unmistakable manic quality. Instead of a dark turban, a totally sweet pointed wizard hat sat upon his head.

“Menlo the Mustachioed.”

“My hat!”

The Doctor's eyes stopped being concerned and started being annoyed as they rolled over to scowl mildly at Trixie. “Really?”

“What?” she replied innocently. “He has my hat!” He raised a hoof to his temple and shook his head in bemusement. “I like that hat,” she whispered in defeat.

“AHEM.”

“Sorry, right,” the Doctor said with renewed energy, curiosity, and caution, “the hole, then. Why was that?”

“Hm hm.” Menlo gave a deep taunting chuckle. “Oh, Doctor, I'm sure you have your own suspicions about that.”

“Well, yeah, 'course I do,” he returned nonchalantly, watching Menlo's every move all the while, “but that's no fun, is it? I'd rather have it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.”

“Allow me then,” the wicked unicorn began with a flourish, “to illuminate the—"

“Oh! Men-LO the Mustachioed! Trixie remembers you now! Mr. Mustachioed!”

“Oh, come on!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Doctor Hooves said apologetically, “she's still a bit new. First stand off and all, won't happen again. Right, Trixie?” The question was asked through agonizingly clenched teeth. Trixie got the impression she might have actually been embarrassing the Doctor in front of the bad guy. Thinking about it, she supposed she wouldn't have liked it too much had somepony come up in the middle of one of her shows and started yelling randomly to the audience. If anypony could appreciate the finer points of practiced theatricality, it was her.

“Oh, right, sorry,” she said, winking at her friend as he grew even more embarrassed. “Sorry Mr. Mustachioed! The hat looks great! Not as great as it does on Trixie, but, you know . . . Anyway, please continue.”

“You sure?” the unicorn yelled back angrily. “Nothing else you want to get out of your system?”

Trixie managed to stay silent. She had no tolerance for hecklers, but this was neither the time nor the place.

“Fine! As I was saying then,” Menlo announced, wanting to make it clear that the fact he had already started his presentation was important information, “I'm sure you, Doctor, have figured it out already, but allow me to illuminate, for you, the situation.” Slowly, but with a greater sense of purpose than of caution, Menlo made his way to the edge of the pit. He looked down, allowing himself to hang over the emptiness precariously. To Trixie, it was like he saw something down there, in the blackness, something she could not see, and it fascinated him.

“The pit is where the crazies were kept. Every criminally insane pony in Equestria, the justifiably truly madly violent ones, not like the quote-un-quote criminals you've seen until now, I'm sure, was thrown down in that hole. In its cruelest joke of all, the prisoners of Ponyville Penitentiary,” he spat the words hatefully, as if bile entered his throat just by uttering them, “the ones who actually needed correction, were denied it completely.” He rose his head then, eyes shadowed in a rage-filled haze that Trixie never could have imagined seeming in him at the podium all those centuries ago. “And mocked for it. Instead,they were all thrown down in the pit with just enough food for only some to survive. The labyrinth was built to keep them in, should any unforeseen escapes occur, though it also took on the delightful double use of making a nice surprise for any less insanity-inclined inmates who happened to make it to the center. Of course, it was all a perverse experiment. An experiment to find who was the most mad, the most violent, the most cunning,” he paused allowing the words to linger on the air, “the most hungry.”

“As you, yourself, said, dear Doctor,” all smiles, “I am 'quite the powerful unicorn,' as well as quite cunning. The rest I'm sure you'll find out soon enough.” His voice was smug and cold, like a cruel child looking down at an insect. “So when I was the last one remaining in the pit, the Warden saw it fit to release me into her care. She praised me, my abilities, my nobility. I was quite an affluent member of society before my conviction, I assure you. In her infinite wisdom, she trained me, molded me, and allowed me to serve her. I was sent back into the distant past with instructions on how to pave the way for her coming. Plans that you ruined.” At this, his eyes squinted into even sharper points and his voice began to drip with malice. “But my master is kind. She allowed me to return, eventually, to serve her once more. To remedy my failure.”

“Think I already have this part figured out, as well,” the Doctor spoke up with far more calm in his voice than the circumstances would appear to dictate, “but how is it you plan on doing that?”

Slowly, achingly so, Menlo raised a hoof to his mustaches. With a smile of unsurpassed menacing glee, he stroked the long tufts of hair, cackling all the while. It was incredibly creepy. Menlo had left the building. Then, as slow as it had started, it stopped, infinitely quicker.

“I'm going to kill you.” He inched forward.

“Right, thought so,” Doctor Hooves said, inching back.

“Doctor, this is dumb. He's a prisoner in here too and there's two of us. Let's just beat him up.”

“Good point, Trixie. Really good point. One small detail you might have missed though.” He moved back another inch and tried to pull Trixie along with him.

“Oh, and what is that?” she asked without budging.

“He's not wearing a collar.”

This took Trixie a moment. She started to form a response, but decided that second and a half might be put to better use thinking about what Doctor Hooves had just said. Reaching a hoof up, she touched the collar around her neck, the chunk of metal she had taken for granted to mean no magic was allowed in Ponyville Pen. Then she looked at Menlo. Well, first she looked at her hat. Then she looked at Menlo. Then she looked at Menlo's neck. His neck. Not the silver hoop that should have been around his neck.

“Oh.”

Menlo the Murderer's horn glowed a bright crimson. Five magical blades, thin but dense, appeared, all hovering about his head in an arc.

“Oh.” She inched back.

“Yeah.”

“Any brilliant Doctor ideas?”

“Just one.”

“Trixie is all ears.”

“Run!”

Comments

[ShatteredIllusions]

Nightmare moon?