//------------------------------// // Delivery // Story: The Singers // by Waxworks //------------------------------// Applejack knocked on the door of the building. There was no answer at first, so she pounded on it again. “Delivery for one—” she looked down at the paper in her hoof. “—Mina? You ordered the fully-catered apple dessert tray? Hoof-delivered, rush-job. ‘Gotta have it right away!’ in your own words?” When no answer came, Applejack knocked again. Still there was no response, and she leaned to the side to look inside one of the windows. The building was old, on the worse side of Manehatten, in a district that was known for violence. The lower windows had all been broken, and many of them were boarded up. The brick was old and crumbling, and she figured the only reason the front doors hadn’t fallen in yet was because they were made of metal. She was surprised it hadn’t been condemned. When she saw nothing inside, she turned back to the door, and jumped back in shock! A piece of paper had been taped to the door, with bright, colorful writing on it! Applejack glanced around, looking for somepony who might have snuck up to stick it there while she wasn’t looking, but there wasn’t anypony around she could see. How it had gotten on there, she didn’t know, but it said, “Please come inside! Party down below!” Applejack looked at the door it was stuck to, and it was, indeed, ajar now. “Hello?” Applejack called. There was no answer, so she gave the door a little push. It swung open a bit, and she could stick her head inside. “Hello?” When there was still no answer, Applejack pulled open the doors, stepped back outside to grab her cart, and pulled the whole thing up the stairs and into the building. “Y’all better be able to pay cash for this. I ain’t takin’ credit for the mess you’re makin’ me go through.” Inside the building, Applejack was left in a derelict atrium, with stairs and doors on either side. At the far end, straight through the building, there was a set of stairs going down. Stuck to the side of the doorway was another piece of the same colored paper with a cheerful script saying, “This way!” Something felt wrong about all this, not to mention inconvenient. They hadn’t mentioned anything in the order about having to carry her cart up and down stairs. She left it where it was and went down the steps alone, intent on finding somepony to accept the food and pay her before she put in any more work. The steps descended into the darkness below, lit only by a few candles here and there, inset into the walls. The further she got, the warmer it felt, until she was nearly sweating from the heat. “Land sakes, what is going on with this house? Hello? Anypony there?” There was still no response, but now Applejack thought she could hear music? The stairs proceeded downward in a circle, eventually reaching a flat area with a table set up at one end, surrounded by candles and hooded figures. “Uh… hello? Y’all ordered the dessert service? One Mina made the order? Is she here?” Applejack noticed the music she thought she heard had stopped. She didn’t know for certain it was going on until she couldn’t hear it any longer, but now the silence was oppressive. The hooded figures all turned to Applejack and slid across the floor toward her. She turned to go back up the stairs, but there were two of them behind her. “Now, y’all just hold on, I’m just here for the bits! If y’all want to do creepy cult stuff, you’re welcome to it, so I’ll just be on—” She was silenced as a gag was placed over her mouth with magic. “Mmmph!” Applejack struggled, lashing out with her hooves in all directions, but they were unnaturally strong, and their magic combined with the weight of their bodies was more than a match for her earth pony strength. Soon she was tied up and carried over to their table. Applejack could only watch and wait while they gathered around the table—and at the same time, her—once again. The music started up again, a low humming and thrumming filling the strange, dark basement. The robes ponies started swaying back and forth as the chanting went on, until a light started to glow over Applejack’s stomach. “Wha-what is that? What are y’all doing? Stop! I just wanted to sell apple goods!” The light descended onto her stomach. There was a faint stinging sensation when it touched, but it bounced off her stomach and floated up to her chest, up her neck, and stopped over her face. The light was purplish-white, and it swirled in a lazy figure-eight over her head for a brief moment, then dropped, as if all the weight it was previously ignoring came to it all at once. It spread over her muzzle and down her face, burning into her cheeks with unnatural heat. She screamed and struggled in her bonds, kicking at the table as the burning tore into her face. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the pain was gone. She was left panting on the table, the pain but a distance memory. She felt at her face with her hooves, but it didn’t feel like she had any wounds. There was no blood, no sensitive flesh, and no unnatural bumps or anything. What had that light done? That was when she realized her hooves were untied. She sat up and saw that the hooded figures all standing around her singing had fallen over. “What… what did you fellers do to me?” Nopony answered her, silence filling the room as she slipped off the table. She walked up to the nearest pony and poked them. “Hey, y’all dead?” When they still didn’t respond, Applejack rolled them over to look at their face. Buzzing flies and crawling maggots greeted her. “Gaaah!” Applejack yelled as she jumped backward. She went around the circle, checking some of the others, but every single one of the ponies that had been singing not moment before was dead, apparently long-dead, and rotting. “What the hay is going on here?” Applejack’s question was answered by a spine-chilling tingle crawling up her back. Instead of singing, she heard whispering, and it was getting louder. It seemed to be coming from the edges of the dark room, but the shadows that remained outside the candle’s dim light were preventing her from seeing anything clearly. The stairs beckoned, and she moved toward them, deciding it was time for her to go, no matter what had happened. “Awright, if any of y’all are still alive, I wish you the best, but I’m takin’ off! Y’all can keep your bits!” Applejack walked at first, but when the whispering seemed to follow her up the first few steps she broke out into a gallop. She ran up the curving steps and burst out into the atrium, only to barrel straight into another hooded cultist. The two of them collided, sprawling to the ground. “Oh nooooo, my pie!” the pony cried out. Out of reflex, Applejack caught it. She stared at it a moment, as if wondering why she had done that, then pulled herself to her hooves and passed the pie back to the hooded figure. “Y’all ain’t gonna try to tie me back down are you?” Applejack asked. The pony took the dessert, which had a huge bite out of one side, then threw the hood back. “What? Oh, no no no no. We only do that when it’s time for a sacrifice.” “A wut.” The pony was pink, with a bright pink mane that looked like cotton candy. She was all smiles and excitement, now that her pie hadn’t hit the ground, and was taking big bites of it while they talked. “A sacrifice. Today was just practice, so I thought I would get some catering. You know, summoning the darkest beasts from beyond the stars is always kind of—” The pony looked up from her pie to Applejack, and for the first time focused on her face. Both hooves went up to her cheeks in a loud gasp. She looked down the stairs, then back at Applejack, then she caught her pie before it could fall all the way to the floor. “Did they perform the ritual without me!?” she screeched. “Uh, if you mean, ‘did they tie up the caterer and summon a glowing ball,’ then yes. Didn’t do much of anything, but it hurt, and I think they’re all dead.” The pony moved forward to scrutinize Applejack’s face. She sniffed her and walked around her in a slow circle. “Hmmm… the scent of eldritch presence, the telltale whispering of encroaching darkness, and… the demon’s mark! They DID perform the ritual without me!” The pony sniffled and sat down to chew on her pie, her mane going slightly listless. “Hey now, it ain’t all bad, you survived, right?” “But I missed the end of the party!” Applejack scratched the back of her head. This pony was a little crazy. They all were. She just wanted to get paid and get back to the bakery before anything else crazy happened. “Hey, uh, listen. I don’t suppose you’re Mina?” “Oh, yeah. I was hoping to surprise everypony else with the catering. I guess you want paid, huh?” “That’d be good, yeah. I’ll take half if you don’t want to keep the rest of it.” Mina pulled a pouch out of her robes and started counting out bits for Applejack. Her mane swayed back and forth in front of her eyes as she passed Applejack bits. “And, thirty. That’ll do, I guess. I hope you have a good day, Jack. You were Jack, right? The caterer I talked to? Sorry about the, y’know.” She waved a hoof in front of her face. “Why, what’s wrong with my face?” “You know, the mark of the demon thing?” The whispering sound was getting louder again. Applejack turned to look at the stairs down to the basement. It seemed to yawn wider as she stared, dark whispers singing up from below. “What… mark of the demon?” “What are you looking at, Jack?” Mina turned to look at the stairs. “Oh! Are you hearing whispers?” “Uh, yeah. Is that normal?” Mina’s face broke into a manic grin, and her mane dropped flat on her head. “It worked! It all worked! Your bones will feed Lord Benebarriz, and your cries of pain will be the fanfare by which he enters the world!” She cackled madly. Applejack was shocked by Mina’s sudden change of attitude, and by the crazy flattening of her mane. She shuffled a little bit toward the door. “What the hay are you talking about?” “I didn’t know if they would succeed, but without me, and by the passing of their lives from this one to the next, they have opened a crack for Benebarriz to enter our world. Your body, marked as it is, will be the eventual resting place of his spirit.” She stalked after Applejack. “Don’t you feel honored, Jack?” “Not, really, no? Is that him with the whispering?” Mina nodded. “Oh, yes. He’s coming, and I get to watch! I thought I would have to help open the door, but I get to watch! This will be so exciting!” Applejack looked at Mina, with her suddenly-straight and flat mane, then turned to look at the dark stairway the whispering was coming from. “Okay, well, I’m out. It was fun, but this is not something I signed up for. Good luck helping him find me!” Applejack grabbed the platters of food off the cart, set them on the ground, and hitched herself up. Mina stepped in front of her. “You don’t really think you can run from Benebarriz, do you?” She grinned a lopsided grin. “If he ain’t comin’ up the stairs any faster’n that, nopony’s watchin’ anythin’! Enjoy your pies!” Applejack bulled past Mina, shoving the mare out of the way. Mina reached out and grabbed her around the neck with surprising strength. It wasn’t a painful grip, but it was shocking to see from such a small mare. “Let go ‘a me.” “Good luck,” Mina said, then let go. She laughed and ran to the stairs. When she reached the top, her mane fluffed up once again and she bounced down them into the darkness. “Dark Lord, are you awaaaaake? Jack’s getting away from yooooou!” Applejack shook her head and dragged her cart with more than a little haste out of the building. It rattled down the steps and onto the street. She looked back one more time, then trotted hastily away from the building, leaving it far behind her. Work was busy for the rest of the day. The bakery Applejack worked at was famous in Manehatten and they got a lot of orders from businesses who wanted cheaper but delicious catering. It was good work, and honest, but tiring. Applejack had gotten work there when her brother took over the farm in Ponyville. They provided the apples the bakery used, and she was a shoo-in for a hire thanks to that, and her aunt and uncle Orange who took her in. “Applejack, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” her boss said. “And what’s that on your face?” “Ah’m fine, but we oughter call the police.” “Were you attacked, did they hurt you anywhere?” Her boss looked at her and the cart and noticed the missing trays. “I don’t see any blood on you, did they just steal the food and draw on you?” Applejack nodded. “Seems to be. I’ll just let the police know and maybe we can get the trays back. I got half the payment, at least.” “Half? That’s an odd prank.” “Ah wouldn’t really call it a prank, but I’ll be glad when I can wash my hooves of the whole thing. Mind if I wash up?” “No, please, take care of yourself, I’ll call the police immediately!” Applejack nodded tiredly and went into the restroom. They had tied her up and hit her some, but none of that hurt anymore. She wanted to finally see this “mark of the demon” Mina had been so happy about. That glowing ball hadn’t been nothing, but she wasn’t going to bring that up with her boss until the police had investigated the place and cleared out all the dead bodies. It was far more attention and work than she really wanted to deal with, she just wanted to go home. In the bathroom, Applejack took off her hat and went up to the mirror. Tattooed huge across her face was a massive black design, covering her muzzle, her cheeks, her forehead, and some of her neck. Applejack smacked a hoof against the sink. “Oh, come on! I thought it was going to be small! Ugh!” She turned on the water and scrubbed at her face with a washcloth. It didn’t budge the black and red markings that covered her face. Wait, red? Applejack leaned closer. Some of the markings were pulsing red with a small inner light. They didn’t feel any different, but there was a definite shimmering red light hidden deep underneath the strange ink. Applejack shook her head and scrubbed again. Still, nothing moved. She hadn’t even smudged it. She turned off the water and leaned on the sink. “Blast it. This is gonna be annoying.” Applejack’s ears twitched, and she leaned toward the door. She could hear singing. It was soft, and quiet, like a voice that was very far away. She dried her face and grabbed her hat, then opened the door. “Boss, is that you?” Applejack asked. She listened closer and could hear the faint voice of her boss talking on the phone in the distance, but the singing was still there. “Who is that?” The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby, but she tried to follow it and it didn’t get any louder. She passed through the building and couldn’t find anywhere that it was louder than anywhere else, and there wasn’t anypony else this late in the day but her and the boss, so who was doing that? The singing suddenly rose in volume all at once, until Applejack had to put her hooves over her ears. Then it just as suddenly, stopped. “What the hay is that?” “That’s the dark lord, Benebarriz, Jack. I told you that.” Applejack jumped. Mina had somehow gotten into the back room of the shop. She was wearing patchy brown robes instead of the inky-black from before, and her hood was thrown back, showing her fluffy pink mane. “What they hay? How did you get in here, and why are you in here?” “I came to watch. I told you I was going to. I wouldn’t miss a party like this for anything!” “What the hay party are you talking about? I’m at work! You can’t be in here!” “You can’t stop me, Jack. And you can’t stop the Dark Lord, either!” Mina’s mane deflated, dropping flat as a pancake on her head, her mouth turned up in a sinister grin at the same time. “He comes!” Mina opened her mouth and screeched. It was a loud and unpony-like sound, as though coming from a furnace or kettle. The building shook, and Applejack heard her boss screaming from the other room. Applejack stumbled and stared at Mina. “What’re you doin’? What is this? Stop!” The sound twisted and squealed up and down in tone until it sounded like a high note from a clarinet. Mina closed her mouth, but the sound didn’t stop. “Boss, are you okay?” Applejack left Mina where she was standing and galloped through the building. She kicked off walls as her hooves skidded on the tile floor. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the sound continued, coating the floors and food as the walls vibrated. Applejack made it to her boss’s office and kicked open the door. There was nopony in there. Just a small pool of blood on the desk, sitting next to the unhooked phone. “I told you he was coming. He’s here, and he’s looking for you.” Wild-eyed, Applejack turned to look at Mina. “What the hay kind of crazy magic have you put on me?” Mina slithered closer, like muddy water trickling between rocks, she slipped quickly through the door and around to the other side of the desk to look at the blood. She leaned down and licked it, slowly. “Mmmm, ultimate despair right before death.” Applejack cringed in disgust. “Something’s really wrong with you.” The cracking of wood reached Applejack’s ears. It was coming from all around, the timbers of the building groaning in pain as some unholy force pushed its way into the building. The musical tone that filled the building quieted and strange lyrics started coming from the air duct in the room. “He’s comiiiiing!” Mina joined in with the strange lyrics, chanting along and smiling. Her mane brightened and puffed up, and she bobbed her head along with the song like it was the Hokey-Pokey instead of some off-key otherworldly chant. Applejack didn’t wait to see what would come. She ran out of the building, the dust-covered halls gave way to the street and her hooves scrabbled against the cobbles as she rushed away from her workplace. She aimed to head home, but she hadn’t gone two blocks before she saw Mina bouncing along the rode beside her. “What the hay are you doing here?” “I’m coming with you, silly! I want to see what you look like when you get devoured!” At the word devoured Mina’s mane dropped flat for just a split second. Her eyes widened briefly, then went back to normal. Applejack flinched at the sight. “Why did you do this to me?” “I didn’t do this to you! I was late!” “I mean, why did your cult do this to me?” “Oh, anypony would have done fine. You were just unlucky.” “I don’t want this! How do I get rid of it?” Applejack pleaded as they ran. She thought she could hear the singing behind them, but every time she looked it was just a star-lit street. “That would be telling! I don’t want to do that, then I won’t get to see what happens!” Applejack wracked her brain for some way to make a deal with this madmare. “Okay, wait, you’ve never seen your Dark Lord before?” “Sure, if we had, he wouldn’t have needed us to summon him!” “So, there’s a way to stop the summoning.” “There’s a way to stop everything, silly.” “So, have you ever seen the way to stop him?” “Oh, yeah. We tried to summon him once before, and some jerk who hates fun decided to bring the sacrifice to the singing stones. That was a drag.” “Singing stones! Thanks!” Applejack put on a bit more speed, trying to leave Mina in the dust, but somehow the madmare casually bounced along beside her, not even winded. “Wait… did you just trick me into giving away a secret?” Her fluffy mane bounced with every little hop she made. She squinted in thought, then her eyes widened as she realized what had happened. “Hey! That’s mean!” They reached the Orange’s house and Applejack burst inside. She slammed the door in Mina’s face and locked it, bringing hoofsteps scrambling from the other rooms. “Who’s there? Applejack, is that you?” “Yeah, it’s me. I got a problem.” Uncle Orange strolled around the corner and gasped at the sight of her. “Applejack, what have you done to your face?” “Oh, dear. I knew we couldn’t get the country out of her. What is it?” Aunt Orange gasped twice as hard. “Oh, Sweet Celestia, it’s horrendous!” “Now listen, it ain’t a tattoo, I was captured by cultists.” “Cultists?” Uncle Orange snorted. “There’s no such thing.” Applejack rolled her eyes. “Yes, there is such a thing, and I need you to tell me if you’ve ever heard of something called the ‘singing stones’.” Uncle and Aunt Orange looked at each other, then looked back at Applejack in careful thought. “Ooo! Ooo! Pick me! I know of them!” A high-pitched voice said. Aunt and Uncle Orange turned around to see Mina bouncing just behind them. They gasped, Applejack sighed. “Mina, how did you get in here?” Applejack asked, more frustrated than flustered. “Benebarriz, the Dark Lord, praise his wicked name, dropped me off inside on his way in. He’s busy filling the walls with evil at the moment. You know—” her mane and tail dropped flat again, and her voice went deep and guttural “—to kill you and everyone you hold dear.” Applejack heard the singing again. It started small, then began building in volume. She clapped her hooves over her ears, but it was like the singing was inside her head. She closed her eyes, as if not looking would help her keep out the awful melody. Panicked shouting broke through her closed ears. She opened her eyes to look at saw her aunt and uncle Orange surrounded by darkness. Mina was stalking around them, watching as the amorphous mass of shadow slowly moved closer with a horrible look of enjoyment on her face. Applejack pulled her hooves off her ears and yelled, “Stop! Don’t do this! I thought it wanted me!” “He does, Jack, but right now he’s rather stupid. He’d rather devour everything that doesn’t taste like cultist before getting to you and your mark.” She tilted her head in thought. “It’s good to know, actually, very useful. It’s just too bad summoning Benebarriz kills everyone, or we’d have known that earlier.” Applejack looked frantic. She needed to get him out of here, but Mina said he was after her to enter the world, so she couldn’t very well get herself killed. Instead, she had to try to save herself and her family. If he was only here because of her, then… Applejack ran. She bolted out of the house and down the street. Her hooves clattered against the cobbles as she galloped down the dark and unpopulated streets. There was the occasional carriage that yelled at her, and some pedestrians, but otherwise it was late, and this was the rich portion of town. Applejack hadn’t gone several blocks before the fluffy-maned Mina was bounding along at her side. “You’re running?” she said with a giggle. “That’s not going to keep him away.” “No, but it’ll get him away from my family, and that’s more important right now.” She spared Mina an angry scowl. “Are the Oranges okay?” “Your family? Yeah, he can’t stay in an area that isn’t close to the mark. Or at least, he can’t affect it, so they’re fine. You aren’t, though.” “I didn’t think I would be, but I gotta get outta town so nopony else gets hurt.” “Ooooo! Clever plan! I like it! Let’s go!” Mina said as she bounded alongside Applejack. “You’re insistent on following me, are you?” “Yep! I can’t wait to help Benebarriz enjoy his ‘I’ve-come-to-destroy-all-of-Equestria-and-devour-everything-you-hold-dear!’ party!” “Sweet Celestia I wish he’d eaten you,” Applejack muttered. “I know, right?” Mina snorted in laughter as the two of them bolted for the road out of Manehatten. It wasn’t easy keeping ahead of the Dark Lord, as Applejack soon found out. She got tired, whereas Benebarriz didn’t. She had to walk sometimes, at which point she could hear the singing music of Benebarriz catching up to her. Nopony else around her seemed to notice until it got within a certain distance, as she learned when she heard screaming coming from a building next to her. The singing had approached, and Applejack had stood in the center of the street to see where it might be coming from. Out of nowhere the building next to her started tearing itself apart, wood splintering as it broke into pieces. Shrieking came from inside and ponies piled out of the building as it collapsed inward into a pool of darkness. Mina found it hilarious, Applejack less so. She had started running again after that. “Jaaaaack, why are you running? You’re making this far more difficult than it needs to be?” Mina asked. The two of them were waiting for a train at the station. Applejack had bought a ticket, Mina had been stopped at the gates, but somehow had ended up on the platform with her anyway. “Because, Mina. Some ponies don’t want to see your dark lord enter the world and destroy everything.” “That’s silly. You’re silly.” “Why do you even want to see everything consumed in darkness?” “Because it would be cooooool, duh!” she said as if that explained everything. “How did a mare like you get involved in a cult to a dark lord in the first place? You seem way too happy for that kind of thing.” “Oh, it’s because I wanted to hang out at their parties. They’re holding them all the time, and they don’t judge you for being too loud or excitable or anything like that. They just wanted a warm body to fill out their ranks, and I thought: ‘I’m a warm body! I can fill out ranks!’, so I did!” “That’s… I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Applejack said. “You don’t need to respond to it, Jack. You just need to accept it and DIE.” For a brief moment Mina’s mane went flat and her eyes wide when she said ‘die’. Applejack had gotten used to that, though. The train arrived and everypony piled on. The singing was coming, but it was having some difficulty following Applejack through the train station. It really liked buildings, and so would stay in them sometimes when Applejack ran off, giving her somewhat of a headstart. She had run in circles around the station before diving downward, leaving Benebarriz to hang out in a building for a few minutes while she climbed on the train. As the locomotive chugged away, Applejack leaned her head back into her seat and tried to relax. She’d been running around the city all night, trying to find a way to get away or just relax long enough to sleep. She wasn’t going to trust Mina to protect while she caught a few winks, but she couldn’t keep running without taking a moment to rest. Mina’s voice ruined her reverie. “So where are we going?” Mine asked. “’We’ aren’t going anywhere. ‘I’m’ trying to find those singing stones you mentioned to get your stupid dark lord off my back,” Applejack replied. “Ohhhh, well isn’t this train going clear across Equestria?” “Yes.” “Is that where the singing stones are?” “I surely don’t know, but I’m really just using this for a nap.” “Ohhh! That’s clever!” Mina threw her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. She made snoring noises, pretending to sleep. Applejack leaned back and put her hat over her eyes. She ignored the mocking sounds of fake sleep coming from the other seat and drifted off, exhausted.