The Pink Out of Space

by Disavowed ASH

Witch

As I came closer I noticed how similar the place looked to an establishment that I had spotted within Ponyville, a small town bakery and sweet shop known as Sugarcube Corner. It was eerie just how far this abomination went into luring in her victims, most of whom were foals.

I stopped right in front of the door and I took in just how eerily innocent it looked, made me feel nauseous because of its sheer insidiousness. Just like a gingerbread sculpture at a Hearth's Warming party.

I wasn’t wearing my usual attire of a black woolen overcoat and matching fedora. I was wearing a large brown military trench coat made with direwolf leather for its magic conductive properties. With additional internal pockets to keep ammunition, my white shirt and black vest, a grenade sash with four Vulcan 40 incendiary grenades over that, a long sword and my holstered Coal 981 pistol under the coat and to my left flank, and also under my coat to the left, my trusty Kurdish dagger, and a SA1 Garand rifle and a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun on my back.

By then I hadn’t shaved or combed my black mane for three days, my mane was wild and the beginnings of a beard/mustache combination was forming over the greyish-blue fur of me face, and I had been smoking nonstop for those three long days, to the point that I had half a Jade Dragon brand cigarette hanging off me mouth, unlit due to the fact that I had mostly forgotten that it was there in the first place.

I saturated the door with me ether, making it glow a bright orange while it radiated a subtle heat. I then bucked it, causing it to explode in wooden shrapnel and glass, and I instantly had my 981 pistol at the ready aiming at the seemingly empty bakery.

I noticed the ether of two mares below me; the trail started at the door and went through the kitchen. Something told me I needed to hurry.

I was disturbed by just how much the place looked like an ordinary small town bakery. Everything was perfectly replicated to exact detail on the look of Sugarcube Corner. The place looked wholesome, almost inoffensive. But what I felt was off; the ethereal signature didn’t seem like the objects it resembled and actually felt like upon touch. To me, it was like looking at a changeling; like the movement of ethereal energies was something of a different size and species than what it looked like. The aura it gave was sickening to me, like a perpetually starved lion licking its fangs right before pouncing on its prey. I then felt a spike of energy coming from the two mares, so I hurried.

I galloped, surprised that there weren’t any traps, but it is possible that it didn’t know that I was on its trail.

I followed that trail to a hidden door behind the kitchen’s industrial-sized professional refrigerator. I pushed it open and I found a flight of stairs leading to a hidden basement; the trail of ether was still hot, but the the stairs were just as cold as the assumed inside of the very refrigerator I had just pushed away telekinetically. I decided to activate my ‘perception amulet’ at that moment, in the hopes that I could have the jump on the ‘witch’.

I could hear a faint wailing of misery and pain, not from downstairs, but from around me, everywhere at once. Words like “stop” and “no” were particularly prevalent; more than that was the weeping of both grown mares and stallions, and fillies and colts. Despite the steps being dry, I could practically feel their blood under my hooves. Death was all around me again and instead of frightening me like it did when I was younger, it enraged me with both outrage and self-loathing. I took too long. I didn't figure out that it was a copy fast enough and it escaped my grasp before I could hear it say a word, it just sat there smoking the unfathomable lifeform that permeated everything in the ‘blasted heath’ with a damn hookah!

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed that something that very much resembled Pinkamena Diane Pie lift a scalpel to use on a very much still living and chained to a surgery table Rainbow Dash, who she then began having a conversation with the moment that the latter gained consciousness.

The room itself was decorated in a horror show of macabre uses for equine body parts in a style that gave an air of an almost sociopathic cheerfulness. All sorts of organs were repurposed into helium balloons, painted skulls were everywhere, some skin was used as streamers, and there was furniture all made with chemically preserved flesh and bone.

And then there was the abomination. She was wearing a dress made from the hide of a dozen ponies, adorned with with six pegasus wings; she wore a necklace of stubby unicorn horns around her neck. Her blue eyes, puffy pink mane, and pink fur did not belong on such a monster; she was just an imitation of a real mare. She had even begun using a griffon skull in a sickening ventriloquism act that only a monster would find amusing. Especially considering that from what I heard, that skull belonged to a friend of the current victim.

I did my best to get closer and avoid detection as I thought of the best way to be able to get the first strike in. Eventually I got within a couple of meters from the ‘Pink Witch’.

Once she finished the conversation, she immediately began to carve out Miss Rainbow Dash’s mark from her right flank.

I jumped to her right side and immediately blasted the ‘Witch Pinkamena’ off of Miss Dash with a telekinetic concussion blast from my horn, sending her flying to my left and into a table with some partially painted earthen skulls.

She instantly got up and threw one of the skulls in my direction with such force that it caused a shock wave, and it left a small crater on the brick wall behind me. I barely managed to dodge it, feeling as I had just been grazed by a cannonball.

She looked at me with the crazed eyes of a bloodsoaked South Asian tiger and lunged at me, right hoof first, holding the scalpel, within that moment. She was fast, but my telekinetic draw was faster. I blasted her with the 12-gauge shotgun before she could make contact with me, sending her halfway back from whence she tried to strike. She then stood on her back legs.

Had she been an ordinary earthen mare, she would have had a gaping hole in her abdomen, but instead I saw a cluster of holes where the buckshot hit. I started seeing trails of smoke coming out of the holes as each pellet was pushed out, covered in blood.

She then moved with her scalpel, striking with it as if it were a knife, and I blocked it with my Kurdish dagger. Then she retreated and struck again, causing me to dodge haphazardly to the the left due to the shockwave emitted by the speed and force of her movement. Had I not seen it coming a second before, my face would have been split open with the small surgical instrument.

I regained my bearings not a second too soon as she struck again from below, and I instantly parried the strike with my Kurdish dagger, my telekinetic grip charged with the vibration of that parry.

At the moment she was going to strike again, I pyrokinetically ignited the air and moved forward, setting the witch aflame. The horrid screeching brought me to near nausea. I then galloped towards Miss Rainbow Dash.

I telekinetically ripped the chains that held Miss Rainbow Dash on the surgical table and she promptly jumped with a look on her face that was equal parts fear and anger.

And she then yanked my 12-gauge from my telekinetic grip.

“Fucking hell!”

And started shooting away at the ‘Witch Pinkamena’. She screamed like a lion while doing so, her eyes watering in fury.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”

BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-BLAM-CLICK-CLICK

Until she exhausted the ammo on my pump-action 12-gauge.

“Done?”

Miss Dash then looked back at me with her ragged bright prism mane and magenta eyes. She then asked, “You think it worked?”

As if to the universe wanted to spit on her face, the witch got up and, in a blink of eye, she closed the distance between us and her. She then took the 12-gauge and swung it at Rainbow Dash, only for me to block it with my telekinetically held longsword, the steel dug into the wooden stock.

I felt her charge up behind me, so I told her what she needed to do.

“RUN, GET TO A TELEGRAPH AND YOUR FRIENDS!”

She then yelled at me back, “ARE YOU CRAZY!?”

After she said that I concussion blasted the ‘Witch Pinkamena’ across the room, finally ending getting the 12-gauge shotgun dislodged from my longsword.

“YES, NOW GO!”

As I said that, Rainbow Dash flew of in an ethereal discharge that probably propelled her off at full speed.

Then I felt that the whole structure began to move and enclose slowly. I galloped as fast as my hooves could take me outside, while shards of glass were being shot seemingly out of nowhere as I reached the kitchen, and I ran past the dining area of the fake Sugarcube Corner.

I leapt, smashing through the pink wooden door and onto the wild grass as the moon was above in the night sky.

The structure began to contort into something that looked like a snake made from stone glass and wood. I personally decided to just wing it. I spit out the cigarette that I was amazed was still there and I lit it aflame, summoning in a large king cobra that seemed to be made of fog, who I know to be the former demon Botis. He and the structure began to battle, coiling around each other in a struggle of titans, but from the structure’s side burst ‘Witch Pinkamena’, completely devoid of her macabre dress and her fur and mane missing, her skin burned, and her blue eyes bulging with hunger.

Her fur and puffy mane started regenerating with red ethereal discharges, and her mouth extended until it was a meter wide. She was a good forty meters away yet her left hoof launched stretched across the distance at an insane speed. I managed to use my blade to harbor the blunt of the strike but my back was soon met with the solid trunk of an Everfree tree that I heard splinter to the impact, which made me glad I was wearing a Direwolf leather trench-coat that took the force of the impact with the tree.

The hoof then retracted back all the way back to the pink menace, and such menace known as ‘Witch Pinkamena’ then jumped from forty meters away and was in midair until she was hit by four flaming green bullets that hit her in the chest and forced her to fall prematurely.

I didn’t see where the shots came from but I knew who they belonged to. In the distance I saw that Botis had left and that the structure had transformed to an ORGANIC pitch black serpent the size of a three story building with about fourteen glowing green eyes on each side of its large face. I saw this from a distance and I galloped into the Everfree forest, not wanting to confront it directly.

As I galloped I started to hear laughter, the laughter of a mare. And I had an idea who it was.

“I have to admit, of all the party poopers you certainly are the most entertaining.”

I heard that all round me and through me at once. It was like she was everywhere, the bloody fucking ‘Witch Pinkamena’ was everywhere. I continued to trot through the Everfree, both longsword and SA1 Garand rifle held by ethereal grip. I heard, from above, a large rustling of the leaves and branches, only to see the damned pink menace falling towards me, its mouth now normal-sized but filled with sharp feline-like teeth, her hooves transformed into large claws.

She slashed, I rolled to the side, and she then landed in my previous position. I fired a shot from my SA1 Garand, instinctively pulling the bolt for the next shot. The bullet blew off her ear, spilling yellow blood, but it began to regenerate in that second.

She and I then began to have a back-and-forth with our respective blades: her claws and me longsword.

‘Witch Pinkamena’ kept me on the defensive, having to use my longsword to parry each strike she threw at me, causing sparks to form as a result. I pyrokinetically lit my longsword and I managed to slice of her right forehoof/claw off.

The scream it emanated could not be described; it sounded like the shriek of hundreds of distinct beings at once. Its seemingly puffy hair straightened out, aligned to my direction, and began firing like a machine gun at me. I galloped as fast as I could while her trail of fire was behind my tail, each hair actually piercing the various trees and small creatures behind me.

Until a few of the needle hairs hit me on the right rear leg.

I rolled once and I fought the pain with a bit of nervous system manipulation, but the bleeding was still something that was obviously happening. So I quickly got up until we both heard it––the rumbling. The pitch black snake from earlier slithered quickly like an earthquake, laying waste to trees in its wake until it flanked me. And here I had the ‘She-Devil of Arkham’ behind me and the Pitch-Black-Serpent right in front of me.

Until I heard the same rifle fire from before behind me, obviously being fired at the ‘She-Devil’. I then ran toward the Pitch-Black-Serpent as it opened its horrifying maw with transparent, needle-like teeth. I telekinetically took my Vulcan 40 grenade sash and threw it into the serpent’s maw. I then jumped to the side, barely avoiding being swallowed by the large reptile.

Then a large clay-red Lion Golem, easily four times the size of an actual lion, shielded me as I telekinetically ignited the Vulcan 40 grenades. The explosion shook the earth and I covered my ears knowing the damage and pain that would befall them if I didn’t. I also smelled of the blood, flesh, and entrails of what I can only guess was the Pitch-Black-Serpent, and they smelled foul, like a combination between rotting sea life and the Manehattan sewage system during the summer.

I decided to move from behind the lion to to the front, only to realize that the front half was missing, and in fact was probably destroyed in the explosion.

Behind me came Zecora with her Four Barreled Shiba Runned rifle on her back. I decided to place my SA1 Garand rifle on my back and sheath my longsword.

“You were right, for distaste I feel in the actions we will do tonight.”

I replied in kind. “Better options were not exactly available. Now let’s move, it’s only a matter of time before the fucking She-Devil returns.”

So Zecora led the way to the trap we planned together, and I limped behind her––still bleeding, but at a lesser rate. I took out a few opiate pills and threw them in my mouth, chewing them due to a lack of drink. But I would fix that later. I also noticed how more vibrant the forest was with the yellow blood splatter and entrails of the Pitch-Black-Snake. I still had good vision despite the fact that the sun had long since fallen. And I intended to take full advantage of it.
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The Trap Site, right Outside the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters

I was an area deeper within the Everfree Forest near the castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. The old castle casted a shadow over us, as we were in front of the bridged chasm, the bridge we cut for security.

The cleanup crew was in the castle, waiting for the deed to be done. A couple of Flamethrower Troopers (or F.T.T’s) who were rather muscular earthen stallions clad in thick industrial built armor with a sophisticated flamethrower system of my design––its Etherfuel based flames burns on and under water, and can even melt stone––were flanking the Elder Sign Aray, that Zecora and I performed on the floor directly in front of the squad of three O.S.S. soldiers armed with Bright Automatic Rifles, all in the hooves of unicorns that could activate the incendiary enchanted bullets.

In the Elder Sign Aray were two middle aged stallions: Throat and Bat, the Brass Brothers. A couple of gangsters from Bronkston, one wine-red and the other yellow-oak, with knives for marks, and they were Celtic unicorns––like me––that I had bound in iron chains with magic repressing runes. I had helped convict them back in detective days. The two were responsible for equine trafficking, extortion, and hundreds of murders––either directly or indirectly. They were doing life, but I made a stop in Bronkston in the Gravel Equestrian Penitentiary. I talked to the warden that, by all standards, was more than happy to get rid of them. They were essentially living in luxury with all the contacts they had outside, and they left the business to their daughters.

Bat was always the one to talk so. “Folklore, ya bastard! You cannot get away with this, it’s illegal! And even if ya get away with it, my little girl Axey will want yer head!”

I hadn’t noticed before then, but my Direwolf trench-coat was a bit ragged with some wear and tear. I was covered in bruises, bloodied cuts, and the now-caking yellow blood of the Pitch-Black-Serpent covering parts of my coat and legs. And that essentially just made me give even less of a shit for his plight.

“Consider yours and your brother’s sacrifice a service to not only Equestria but the world, Bat. I’ll make sure to come see ya both when I reach Sheol.”

He pulled at his restraints in anger, naturally finding offense in my comment.

“Fuck you! Ya filthy half-earthen motherfucker!”

I ignored him and sat behind the Flamethrower Troopers; Zecora appeared beside me in a pillar of green flame.

< “We shall start.” > Zecora said in a tone that told me that, more than anything, she wanted this over with.

We sat in out lotus sitting positions. We began the spell, knowing that the abomination was heading our way.

We chanted in the old lemurian; the powers we were calling upon were that ancient.

““GIBIL GASHRU UMUNA YANDURU TUSHTE YESH SHIR ILLANI U MAYALKI! ””

The Elder Sign Aray glowed under them.

And then we heard it––the shriek from the abomination. ‘Witch Pinkamena’. The haunting song of hundreds of life-forms at once.

She appeared, jumping out of the forest and into the starry sky, her mouth open at an unfathomable size. She landed right in the array and chomped down on both of the Brass Brothers at once, ripping the chains instantly along with their heads. Their blood geysered from their necks, spilling on the soldiers, Zecora, and me alike.

Then it happened––the witch couldn’t move. She tried pulling harder and harder; her body started turning from pink into something we couldn’t quite identify, her tail turning into something like another leg. Her mass increased sevenfold, eyes began sprouting all over her back, her legs became a combination of insectoid and arthropod, her pained shrieks almost unbearable, along with the crunch and morphing of her bones, until the witch became something that could never have been considered once an equine shape. Into something almost indescribable. But it was now in its true form, and now devoid of its power, it was vulnerable.

The the Flamethrower Troopers struck, covering her in the steel melting flame; afterwards, the Bright Automatic Rifle squad activated their horns and began firing at will at the creature with their incendiary rounds.

The sound of popping, bursting flesh, and spilling blood and fluids in the flames could be heard, along with an ever increasing shrieking.

Both Zecora and I focused and increased the intensity of the flames; the skies darkened and lightning began to form and strike. Both Zecora and I were bleeding from our muzzles from the strain of pulling this much raw ether, there only because of the flesh and souls of the Brass Brothers. The flames began to form into a spinning mass of flame to keep the creature cooking.

Until finally a large lightning bolt struck from the sky to the pillar of flame, and it was over. The Flamethrower Troopers stopped torching it, the O.S.S. Soldiers in their green fatigues exhausted their Bright Automatic Rifles, and both Zecora and I fell on our backs.

It was over.

I begrudgingly groaned and got up as everypony collapsed to the floor in relative relief. I walked to where the Elder Sign Aray was only to see a puddle of black goo in its place.

It was over. The bridge was later tied back up and the cleanup crew came to take care of the rest. The rest of us though, we needed sleep. I had explaining to prepare for.

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