Level Seventeen: Let’s Just Take a Deep Breath, Ki-WHAT THE %&$@ IS THAT?!
Sunset’s friends had all taken posts in the gym. Fluttershy and Pinkie with the animals, Applejack and Rainbow Dash guarding the stage, and Twilight and Rarity doing a rather commendable job of holding the barricade together. The Sirens had also pitched in. Aria was standing vigil in the hallway with Rubble, Sonata was putting up more boards on the windows to cover the gaps, and replacing broken ones. Even Adagio had found a place to be helpful, doing her best to keep the crowds calm and collected while they all put together a plan. Which is what Spooks, Treble, and Dusty were working on at the moment. They’d gathered the remaining incendiaries, which equated to one working flamethrower with fuel left (technically their were two but the other was with Aria and Rubble), two phosphorous grenades, and a disturbingly large collection of thermite bricks that hadn’t proven useful yet.
The problem was, Sunset herself didn’t really have a place to be useful right now. Her powers were telepathic, and given the disturbing amounts of fear and malice radiating in the building, she didn’t even need her geode to tell her she’d completely overload. She’d tried just hanging out with the animals, but for some reason the tiger really didn’t like her. Fluttershy said something about her “looking like bacon he couldn’t eat”. Rainbow and AJ had the stage covered, should anybody try to slip in through the stage doors or the trapdoor beneath them. And the windows were right out. Rarity and Twilight had very politely pointed out that she was a bit distracting, while Sonata had run circles around her with the plywood. She’d wondered where they’d gotten all the wood from, up until she’d tripped on a missing floorboard.
There was also no way in hell she was going to stand guard with Rubble and Aria. She’d not only be a liability, but there are some things she was sure she didn’t want to see. That left the huddle of boys in the corner where only one of the tables had survived, albeit with a leg missing. It was currently being propped up with an empty flamethrower (with the tank removed, just in case), and was covered in small books, and a map of the school. What good the map would do them, she wasn’t sue, given the nature of the halls outside.
Heaving a sigh, she meandered over to join them, pulling up a slightly bent chair someone had used to fend off a golem, most likely to little avail. Taking up the only unoccupied quarter, she asked, “So… need any help?”
Treble surprised her by not immediately giving her attitude. “Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, your powers aren’t very conductive to psychoplanar phenomena-”
“Awww, baby’s first four-syllable word,” Spooks joked quietly, his nose buried in a book like usual.
“-die in a fire. And honestly, you’re not that great of a fighter. I mean, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders, so maybe you can see something we-” Spooks coughed loudly. “DUSTY AND I can’t. Jesus, what is with you today?” he asked his gangly friend.
Dusty rolled his eyes as the other two boys quietly bickered. “Here, look. This is the map of the school we picked up forever ago. It doesn’t do us a whole lot of good outside the gym, but this part-” he pointed to the detailed layout of the gymnasium and connecting rooms, “-seems to be relatively stable. Spooks thinks its because of your girl’s Elements or something. Maybe having all that other-dimensional magic is making it hard for this freak from yet another dimension to get a foothold here. So we’re working with what we’ve got. Spook’s idea is that we find a way to either A: hold off the monsters until this thing grows too weak to force itself on us, which doesn’t seem likely,” Dusty groaned the last bit.
“Yeah,” Sunset agreed, “It does seem to be getting worse out there. Does that mean it’s getting stronger?”
“Most likely,” Spooks jumped in, holding up a hand to silence Treble. “Which leads us to Plan B. Which is to find a way to trap it once it summons itself, and burn it out with the thermite we have.”
Sunset’s eye twitched. “I don’t like Plan B. I thought you said that once it showed up it would basically destroy everything?”
The boys nodded. “There’s a small window,” Treble replied, “When it first gets here. While it’s still adapting to three dimensions. Right now it’s trying to convert the environment around it to be more hospitable, but so far we’re still only working in three-dimensional space. GET YOUR HAND OFF ME,” he barked, as Spooks pinched his cheek.
“I’m so proud of you,” Bones said with a fake sniffle.
“That’s it, you and Dusty aren’t allowed to hang out by yourselves any more,” he growled as the aforementioned teen laughed. He turned back to Sunset. “Ok, so here’s what we’re thinking. Since the gym seems to be relatively stable, we’re going to try and lure it in here, or get it to manifest here, or something. That way it has to force itself into three dimensions to fight us. That’s when it will be weakest, when it still has to obey our laws. Then we just flash-fry the bastard. At least, I hope.”
Dusty leaned back against his chair, his jovial mood giving way to a pensive one. “Yeah, the problem is, we can’t light it up here without endangering all the students and teachers. And, well, us.”
Sunset did a double take. “What? Teachers?! Where are they? Why haven’t they been doing anything to help?!”
A hand raised from the large crowd in the middle of the room. A pale, white hand with a gold bracelet. “Here!” Celestia called.
Sunset slowly turned her head to stae wide-eyed at her Principal, sitting in a small huddle with her sister and a group of students who had curled up to her for comfort. “What.”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, because I’m totally going to march around this god-forsaken hellhole with a flamethrower in my hand while my students cower in a corner. Also, eeeewwwwwwww.”
“...what.”
Treble groaned. “That’s what I said. She gave me this big speech about ‘defending her students’ and ‘being there in their time of need’. Then she fell asleep like ten minutes later.”
“Yes, thanks for waking me up,” she yawned, curling up to Luna, who was thoroughly passed out on her shoulder. “That explosion was most appreciated,” she added, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She fluffed her hair, pulled it out of the way, and laid down against her sister’s head.
“Are you seriously-” Sunset started, only to be shushed by her Principal.
“Shhhh, sleep times now.”
“But-” her protests were cut off by Celestia’s fake snores, until she huffed and turned back around. “What about the chaperones? Weren’t there other adults here? I know for a fact Big Macintosh came with us!”
Dusty shrugged. “No idea. Last I saw he and Ms. Cheerilee were sneaking off somewhere. I hope it was the parking lot, I really don’t want to have to dig them out of the walls when this is over.”
“...do what now?” Sunset asked.
Treble looked up from the map he’d been studying, albeit unhelpfully. “Yeah, we talked to Rubble a bit. Apparently if you get too close to the walls out there, like, trip and fall into them or something, they eat you. And not in like the quick munchy death kind of way. You just get… sucked in. And kept alive or something. He went into more detail, but I’ve already hurled enough tonight, thank you.” Spooks nodded agreement at that sentiment.
Sunset shivered all over. “Ok. Ok, pushing past that right quick. You said something about how you hoped they’d gotten outside. Why? Isn’t it just as bad out there?”
Spooks shook his head, looking up this time. “No, actually. It’s completely normal out there, you know, despite the waves of Blank Slates coming at us. There were a few straggler cultists outside, but they couldn’t find a way in without getting eaten, or beat up.”
“Whatever happened to the cultists Rubble was fighting? He didn’t kill any of them, did he?” she asked hesitantly, with a careful look at the main entrance.
“Nah, he doesn’t do that. Too much trouble to dodge murder convictions. Self-defense is easier to claim when the witness is a live and totally nuts,” Dusty explained. “From what I understand, either they’re still wandering around out there, god help them, or they found a way out and just hightailed it out.”
An idea sprang to mind. “Why don’t we just leave?” Sunset proposed.
The boys all looked at her. Then at each other. “Spooks, you want to cover that one?” Treble asked.
The wispy kid shrugged. “Sure. Well, first off, there’s the logistical problem of navigating over a hundred people past an army of mindless muscle golems that are getting more aggressive by the minute. Barring that exit, we’d have to find a way to navigate all of them, and us, out of the nightmare labyrinth of the school. And even if we did all of that, somehow, that would only leave the Beast with no opposition as it just pulled itself together at its leisure and raised hell on Earth. Or whatever you call the place it’s from.”
Sunset rested her head on the table. “Ok, no Plan C. So, back to B. Any ideas?”
Dusty groaned, running a hand through his dirty brown hair. “Not a one. Man, I wish we could just like, drop it in a pit or something and burn it down there.”
“You mean like the maintenance tunnels?” Sunset volunteered. The boys all looked at her. “Oh come on, you guys have been traipsing around this place after dark for years, even before there were monsters to fight, and you never went into the tunnels?”
Dusty gathered the map and shook it at her. “Does this look like there are any tunnels here to you?!”
She swatted the paper away, where it landed on the floor. Treble sighed and picked it up. “No,” Sunset said flatly, “Because they’re not on the newer maps. The old tunnels were too unsafe after building codes got stricter, and the updates and new tunnels were put in with a bunch of cut corners. If they’d charted them out and submitted that information to the city there would have been all kinds of trouble. Apparently there was a big scandal when they’d failed to submit that paperwork, and the tunnels were shut down anyway.”
Treble resurfaced, looking curiously at the now less-than-useful paperwork. “So how do you even know about this stuff?”
Sunset got quiet, then blushed slightly. “I, um...” she coughed. “That was where I was living when I first got banished from Equestria.”
The boys exchanged worried glances. “Why didn’t you just go find your alternate parents or something?”
“I tried,” she huffed. They live in Manehatten. And when I got there and introduced myself, they thought I was crazy. I mean, this world’s Sunset was right in their living room, so why would they believe me when I said I was their daughter. They called the cops, and I hopped the first train back here. That was… not the best Summer ever.”
“Jesus, that sucks,” Dusty groaned. The other boys nodded their condolences, murmuring politely.
“Well, it’s not all bad, it-” BAKOOM. Sunset was interrupted by the main entrance flying open, as Aria and Rubble were thrown backwards into the room.
“Ow ow ow fuckin ow ow ow!” Rubble bitched, crawling to his knees. His face twisted into a snarl as he turned his attention to the doorway.
Which was now completely occupied by all kinds of gross. Grey tendrils crept along the doorframe as meaty, undefined appendages slapped their way across the floor, dragging with them a large, teeming mass of misshapen and horrible assembled body parts. Arms jutted out from a central mass at odd angles, grasping at anything within reach. Some had large wooden planks, others balled into fists, some tearing away the walls. Large twisted mouths lay patchwork across the monster’s surface, some full of gnashing, inhuman teeth, others with long tendril-like tongues, and still more with any number of eyes rolling madly in the mouths like sockets, sometimes grinding against each other.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Treble bellowed, in a surprisingly not-girly voice. Which was barely heard over the rising tide of screams from the students.
“OH COME THE FUCK ON!” Celestia bellowed, startling Luna awake. The Vice-Principal took one look at the monster, and passed back out.
Dusty wasted less time talking and more time scraping together the last two grenades. He ran forward,, helping Rubble to her feet. “Spooks, get Aria! She’s knocked out!”
Bones nodded, and abandoned his books in favor of attending to the fallen Siren. The other two, seeing their sister on the ground, sprang into action, along with the Rainbooms. Sonata stood back, out of the reach of the creature, throwing nails and hammers at it. Most either missed wildly or bounced off the beast with no effect. One particularly well-aimed hammer struck a large eyeball, rupturing it and causing the creature to recoil. About an inch.
Applejack had found something far more effective to throw- stage lights. Ripping the lighting off the front of the stage, she hurled the large spotlights like cannonballs at the creature, where some shattered, some erupted into sparks and flame, and one fell into an open mouth, disappearing entirely. Still, the Beast surged forward.
Rarity and Twilight were struggling with keeping the golems at bay and finding a way to contribute to the fight. Every once in a while Twilight would throw a loose plank or broken wood at the beast with her mind, but the few that hit were about as effective as Sonata’s nails.
Fluttershy had her own problems. As soon as the Beast had emerged, the animals had gone crazy. Any hope of getting them to contribute to the fight was lost, as she was spending all of her energy on getting them to calm down and not hurt themselves or someone else. Pinkie was doing her best to help, but she didn’t have her friend’s gift.
What Rubble had, though, was a plan. “Rarity, Twilight!” he barked, as the two girls turned to him for instruction. “Don’t worry about the barricade. Use what you’ve got to push it back into the hall!”
“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Rarity shrieked.
“YES, but that’s not relevant right now!” He replied.
“I THINK IT’S PRETTY FUCKING RELEVANT!” Twilight shouted, then covered her mouth.
Rubble was impressed. “Ok, fine, yes I’m a little nuts. But just trust me, let it down!”
The two girls looked to each other, then dove out of the way as they dropped their powers. Moving as quickly as they could tp push back the encroaching monster, their unattended barrier fell in seconds.
Which is what Rubble had planned on. “Fluttershy! Get your animals out of here!”
“But there’s no way out!” she cried, obviously distressed.
“Yes there is!” Rubble answered encouragingly. “Through THEM!” he pointed a finger at the advancing mass of golems.
Flutterhy’s eyes widened in understanding as she nodded. Turning to her animal friends, she pointed at the army of flesh puppets. “Get them!” she ordered.
It was all the encouragement they needed. Having an outlet to siphon their panic and rage through, as well as a way out of the building, the dogs, wolves, bear and tiger tore through the crowd like furry chainsaws, leveling the advancing force in minutes. Soon, there was nothing left but a mess of undefined muscle and skin as the beasts ran off into the night.
Spooks saw an opening. “Rainbow Dash, Pinkie! Get the students out of here!”
“On it!” the girls said in unison, as Rainbow ran circles around the crowd, getting them on their feet and out the door. She cleared a path through the pool of offal to the now-leveled wall.
Pinkie had taken to disposing of a few straggling golems that had surged towards the procession of vacating students with lots of exploding marshmallows. Nowhere near as effective as the jawbreakers, they nevertheless did their jobs, severing arms, legs, and heads until the puppets were completely immobile. As the last few students ran off into the night, guided by a barely-helpful Celestia (who, to be fair, was hauling Luna off in a fireman’s carry), she turned her attention to the beast.
Now it was just the Rainbooms, the Sirens, and the boys against the new monstrosity, which proved far more stubborn than they, surging forward in spite of the onslaught, the barriers, and the magic being used to push it back. In a few minutes it had crawled halfway into the room, where a final, familiar appendage ducked under the gym door and resurfaced with a mad smile.
“Principal CINCH?!” Sunset bellowed. “WHAT?!”
There, atop the entire mass of appendages and horrible flesh, was the upper half of Cinch. Or, what was left of her. Her arms had mutated much like the creature, becoming large stumps ending in tendrils where her fingers should have been. There was no hair left on her head, which instead was covered with smaller, similar mouths to the rest of the Beast. Even her torso bore almost no resemblance to a humans, as it was merely a stump from which the rest of her grew. Really, the only features identifying her as the former Principal were her eyes, her skin tone, and the horrible echo of her old voice beating on the air like a shockwave. “EAT!” she shrieked, in a terrible, reverberating bellow. “EAT ALL!”
“...well, shit,” Twilight deadpanned.