"No, you can't use 'instigate' to say you started an event!" A minty green unicorn filly with round glasses argued. This was Minty Glimmer, the genius daughter of Manehattan's top professor and one of W.C. Coltstein Academy's star students. Some might even call her the brightest young pony in the whole school.
Others, mainly just Paper Pen, argued otherwise.
"That's the actual dictionary definition of the word," Pen argued, "I'm right!"
"Classic Pen, you know you're wrong so you're just gonna twist the wording of the dictionary and act like you're right…" Minty sighed.
"It's a dictionary!" Pen shouted at her, "You can't twist the wording of a dictionary, it's, like, literally the rulebook on language!"
"Rules you clearly don't understand, because you always cheat." Minty narrowed her eyes, "What's it like being ugly and illiterate?"
"Oh please, colts think I'm way cuter than you-" Pen scoffed, turning his head to flip his luscious mane, "And my mom's a librarian, I'm literally named 'Pen', I'm way more literate-y than you."
"That isn't a word, flank for brains."
"It's called a creative use of language, ponies with more than two brain cells can do it."
"Yeah, well- my horn's longer than yours!"
Pen used his magic to pick up his lunch tray, which contained something the lunch-mare dared call mac-n-cheese and a hayburger, and pondered for a moment how much less terrible Minty would look covered in his lunch. No, that wouldn't work, he didn't want to hurt her.
He wanted to destroy her.
"Alright, how about this," Pen began, setting down his tray, "We'll go down to the library and if I can find a book that uses 'instigate' as a verb for starting an event, then you have to admit I'm right!"
Minty thought about it for a moment. It seemed a fair test, but something was missing…
"And if you're wrong?"
"I'm not wrong." Pen assured, "But if between now and the next few minutes the entirety of Ponish and every document ever written in it changes to make me wrong… then I'll do your math homework for the rest of the year."
"What? No, I didn't skip a grade just to fail math!"
"And I didn't skip a grade to get yelled at by an idiot who doesn't believe in dictionaries..." Pen rolled his eyes, "Fine, what do you want?"
"You know Pencil Pusher's stash of cider? The stuff she keeps on the top shelf in her office? I want you to steal it!"
Pen turned to his saddle bag and opened it, taking a green glass bottle and placing it between them on the bench.
"Still ice cold." Pen smirked, "Funny, you even suck at coming up with difficult penalties."
"How-?" Minty looked at Pen with confusion.
"The better question is how you get through algebra sober." Pen shrugged, concealing the alcohol in his bag once again, "If I'm wrong, which I'm not, you can have the whole pack."
"Deal!" Minty agreed, sure that by the end of the day she'd be leaving school with a bag full of free booze.
Pen and Minty rose from their seats, leaving the cafeteria and trotting down the hallway towards the library.
"Hey Pen, I was thinking, when I win that cider would you want to hang out? My dad isn't gonna be home all week!" Minty offered in a tone Pen found suspiciously friendly.
"Why?" He asked with caution.
"Y'know'," She looked nervous, like she was planning something, her face blushing red with what was obvious to Pen as a hidden rage, "Just to hang out!"
"I have plans." Pen lied, not wanting to end up buried beneath her floorboards or suffering to some other fate.
"You always have plans…" She sighed. Clearly, Pen knew, she was disappointed that her plot, whatever it had to be, wasn't able to be realized.
"I'm a busy pony," he shrugged, "If I ever want to get the buck out of Manehattan, I need to actually put time into writing… and stuff."
"Yeah, you and your stupid books… but don't you think you should get out with other ponies once in a while, have some fun?"
"How could I have fun with other ponies around?" Pen scoffed, "Besides, if I ever feel the need to make friends I should just wait until I'm rich so it's easier!
Finally, the pair reached the library. Pen immediately looked over the spellbooks section and retrieved an old, dusty leatherbound book before laying it on the nearest table.
"The Tome of Alhazred!" Pen said proudly, flipping open the book, "And I know exactly the spell I'm looking for!"
"You've read this before?" Minty questioned with surprise.
"I have a lot of free time…"
"I thought you just said you're a busy pony?"
"Page one eighty two," Pen began, completely ignoring her and shoving the book in her face, "Summoning ritual to instigate a small battalion of… something that doesn't translate well. And instigate is used in the text of the chant itself!"
"This doesn't count, I can't even read it!" Minty argued, trying to make sense of the Old Ponish on the page.
"Oh come on, it directly translates to 'instigate', don't cheat!"
"How am I the one cheating?!" Minty scoffed, "You're the one saying an entirely different language counts!"
"It's the root of Ponish, Minty!" Pen raised his voice, "The root of Ponish for Celestia's sake!"
"Doesn't count!" She stuck up her nose. Pen, of course, wasn't going to let her win without a fight.
"What if I do the ritual, using modern Ponish, and prove that the word is instigate?" He offered.
"I suppose that would prove you're right… but should you really be doing some ancient ritual from a creepy old book in the middle of the school's library?"
"Anything to be right-"
Pen looked at the old, worn page, deciphering what he'd need to do to perform it.
"One of Blood and War-" Pen began to growl, reading the chant from the book, "-Aid thy soldier of gore with your blessings-"
To complete the ritual, he took a fountain pen from the table and handed it to Minty.
"Stab me." Pen requested.
"What?!" She asked with horror.
"The ritual needs a drop of blood and considering I freak out when I get a vaccine, well, you're gonna have to stab me."
Using her magic, the mare lifted the fountain pen and plunged the entire sharp, metal tip into Pen's leg.
"Buck!" He shouted in pain, "I meant like a little prick, why would you do that?!"
"I don't know- just finish the stupid spell before you get blood everywhere!"
"-Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne!" Pen begrudgingly finished, still wincing in pain.
To Pen's horror and Minty's relief, nothing seemed to happen. Neither really knew what exactly they were expecting, maybe a portal or something to open up, maybe a spark of light… anything.
"Ha! Pass the cider, loser, if you're nice I'll let you have a sip!" Minty mocked.
"Buck… that should have worked..." Pen grumbled in defeat. He used his horn's magic to retrieve a glass bottle of cider from his bag, beginning to pass it to Minty.
Suddenly, a sword of black stone cut through the air, smashing the bottle as it levitated. It came from some terrible red light, a thing more akin to a bleeding wound in reality than an arcane portal of any kind. It's wielder followed soon after, its very appearance striking fear into the hearts of the young ponies; the creature was a ghastly bipedal figure with horns like a bull and a hide like red dragonscale, with a face like some twisted amalgamation of ape and lamprey.
"Blood for the Blood God!" The creature spat in a voice like razors in a rock grinder, raising its sword above its head and letting out the most guttural, blood curdling screech.
"Run!" Minty shouted, grabbing Pen by his still bleeding hoof and pulling him towards the door of the library, "What the buck did you summon?!"
"I don't know!" Pen said in a panic, "It didn't translate well, it could have been anything!"
"I can't believe it!" Minty scoffed, thoroughly done with this, "You summoned bucking- what even are those, monsters?! You'd rather be dead than wrong!"
They had busted into the hallway now, the pair trotting as fast as their hooves could take them; the entire time they were followed, no, hunted by what now had to be at least ten of the beasts.
"Me?" Pen looked to her with anger, still running for his life, "You're the one who instigated this entire situation!"
"Really not a good time to use that word!" She yelled at him, "All I wanted to do was hang out, and you managed to buck that up too!"
"Why would you ever want to hang out? In case you forgot, we've hated each other for years!" Pen reminded.
"Hey, flank for brains, I know what instigate means, I only argued with you so we could be alone together!"
"Deal with your baggage when we aren't about to get murdered!" Pen shouted, grabbing Minty and quickly turning into another hallway only to duck into a classroom before the daemons could see them. The otherworldly hunters rushed past their hiding spot, still tracking their prey.
Finally, when it was safe once more to talk, Pen looked to Minty.
"So, how does one deal with a horde of… whatever those are?" Pen asked, hoping she'd have an answer.
"I don't know, I didn't sign up for a daemonology class." Minty rolled her eyes.
"Well if you want a crash course," Pen held up the tome, revealing he'd managed to keep it with him, "I have the textbook!"
"You know fighting fire with fire is just an expression, right?" Minty spoke, high concern in her voice.
It was of no use, Pen was already flipping through the book, reading passages of Old Ponish like the ancient dark tome were a shopping catalogue.
"I got it!" Pen exclaimed, his face buried in the book, "It says here that the 'Blood God' hates the 'Changer of Ways', if I summon something from that section of the book they should cancel eachother out, there's even a bunch of warnings saying not to do that!"
"I really don't think that's a good idea, Pen-"
"Too late." Pen smiled, holding the book in his horn's magic and beginning to chant.
The page wasn't even in Old Ponish, instead the writing on the page seemed to be in some strange script only barely recognizable as a language. A shapeless horror of words, where characters seemingly fell in and out of use at random and consistency in any element was a myth. Though the strangest part was how the language came to him, pronunciations and sounds the likes of which he couldn't imagine coming from his mouth seemingly on their own. It was as if he ceased to be reading the book, and it began to speak through him.
A large blue fire burned in the air, seemingly fuelled by nothing. Another upright figure floated from the flames, a three armed, blue skinned tall thing in a robe that dragged on the floor. Two inorganic horns protruded from its head like metal blocks intercepting flesh. It's face was near barren, instead a mess of mouths, eyes, and flesh pulled over the monster's horns like a silken cloth.
"His followers are here, I can feel them…" The creature hissed, not turning its head but letting its mantle of eyes look towards Pen.
"Yup, some royal dumbflank summoned em'." Pen spoke casually, opening the door and pointing his hoof out into the hallway, "Glory to, uh, change and all that."
"Praise be to Tzeentch!" It howled before taking off into the hallway with supernatural speed. Almost immediately, inhuman sounds and pained incantations could be heard. The thing had found its mark.
"You realize you only created a new problem, right?" Minty looked at Pen with judging eyes.
"Relax," Pen assured, looking back to the ancient tome, "There are still two dark gods I haven't even reached yet, at least one of the daemons in this book is bound to fix this!"
Before Pen could go back to reading possessed words and summoning whatever in Equestria a Plaguebearer was, a loud, commanding knock attacked a door on the lower level of the school. Even in their hiding spot, the pair of ponies could hear those four terrifying words.
"Royal Guard, open up!"
Headmaster Pencil Pusher looked at the young stallion with dumbfounded, yet amazed eyes. Similarly, Literacy Bookstacks wasn't sure whether she should be enraged at her son or thankful that he hadn't ended up in a pile of bloody pieces.
"That's… quite the story, Pen…" Pencil Pusher brought her hoof to her forehead, trying to process the situation, "But I'm not quite sure how that absolves you of anything."
In response, Pen took a glass of hard cider from his bag. Popping the cap, he chugged the bottle with all the eagerness of a college freshman and all the skill of a senior before slamming the empty green glass on the Headmaster's desk.
"Well ya' see, Headmaster, I've been intoxicated since this morning." Pen lied, "From your supply of hard cider, that you keep within easy reach of students that are obviously under the legal Equestrian drinking age… maybe I don't get in trouble for this and the school board doesn't need to know about your cider storing habits."
"Are… are you blackmailing me?!" Pencil Pusher shouted in offence.
"How dare you accuse my son of blackmail, he's an angel!" Literacy yelled right back, jumping on Pen's defense.
"I'm a good Celestian colt, I don't even know what an alcohol is!" Pen played dumb.
"You're in honors chemistry!" The headmaster yelled, slapping her own hoof to her face with a loud sigh, "Fine… you won't get detention, as far as I'm concerned you or Minty never even stepped hoof in the library…"
"Cool!" Pen smiled smugly.
Finally, Pen was able to trot out of the office by his mother's side. He'd gotten off clean, and he couldn't help but smile at his guiltless freedom.
"You're grounded for a week, minimum." Literacy said flatly.
"What? Why?!" Pen asked with genuine offense, "You said yourself that reading isn't a crime, before all the daemon stuff that's all I was trying to do!"
"Well blackmail and underage drinking is," Literacy explained, "And you really could have brought something dangerous into Equestria!"
"Hey, the second daemon guy was pleasant, friendly even!"
"Pen, you're not going to win against me so easily." Literacy spoke with authority, before changing her inflection to a lighter offering tone, "But if you'd rather spend time with that Minty girl instead, I'd allow it!"
"Ew, gross, no!" Pen shot the idea down, shaking his head, "I'll take a week in my room alone."
"Really?" Literacy asked, concerned, "She sounds nice, and you should really have some friends!"
"I'd rather hang out with more daemons."
"Fine, grounding it is…" Literacy sighed.
