Rainbow Dash was aimed straight at Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie, but when she flew toward them, things got oddly dark, and despite being confident in her aim, she slowed. She didn’t want to hit them, but as she flew onward into the darkness, she wasn’t sure she was going in the right direction anymore.
“Pinkie Pie? Fluttershy? Rarity?” Rainbow called out. She got no answer, but there was a knock on an unseen door.
“Yeah, yeah, Mr. Mean or whatever. I know. Was it a trick or do you really have them trapped?”
“Trapped? They’re not trapped. We’re playing the game.” The voice was the same deep, gravelly voice from her room. Rainbow flew up a little bit to gain height, just in case.
“What game?”
“The game. The only one that matters. My game. We play, I win.”
Rainbow bumped into something in the darkness. It was hard and rough, and when she put out a hoof to touch it, it felt like the side of a house. She put a hoof to it and followed it along its edge. It wasn’t very big, but it was box-like. Definitely a house.
“Do you always win?” Rainbow asked.
“I win a lot, as is my right, here in my frightful, endless night. Don’t lose too soon or I just might, take a huge, and painful bite.” The sound of squealing metal came from inside the building Rainbow was touching. She removed her hoof and fluttered away.
“If it’s a game, does it have rules?”
“It does. How good of you to ask.”
“What are they?”
“I’m not telling. But I can tell you; they’re in writing.” He laughed a gasping, choking laugh. The sound of knocking came from the building Rainbow had been close to, then bounced from place to place in the darkness, going from door, to door, to door, disappearing into the distance.
Rainbow was left in the darkness, fumbling around. She’d been trapped, just like Twilight suspected she would be. She’d have felt stupid if she wasn’t more concerned about her other friends. How was Rarity doing? Was her leg actually broken, or was it just a sprain. Red had stained her flank, and Rainbow had to wonder if she’d tried to fight back or just been caught. In her own way, Rarity was a fighter, but she didn’t always make the most sensible of decisions.
“Rarity? Fluttershy? Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow called out. She wasn’t expecting much, but Mr. Mean already knew she was here. If he’d wanted her, he could have had her. He could have bitten her head off and she couldn’t have done anything about it. Something about her wasn’t making him happy or interested. Maybe because she wasn’t afraid?
“Rainbow Dash?” Pinkie’s voice came from somewhere nearby.
“Shh! Pinkie! He’s just trying to fool us!” Fluttershy squeaked.
“If he wanted to do that, he could have done it a while ago. It could actually be Rainbow,” Pinkie responded.
“I was worried you two were going to be fake, and you weren’t. I don’t think he needs to resort to that kind of trickery,” Rarity’s voice said.
A spotlight appeared over Rainbow Dash’s head. She was floating close to it, but down below, lights appeared in a long, unbroken line, leading back to Twilight’s castle. In one of the pools of light, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were standing. Well… Pinkie and Fluttershy were standing, Rarity was leaning on Fluttershy. They all three looked up at Rainbow and gasped, then laughed.
“Rainbow Dash, is that really you?”
“I hope so,” she said, dropping closer to the ground.
“Darling, what are you doing in here?” Rarity reached out to Rainbow Dash, who flew in closer to give her a hug.
“I thought you guys might need help, and who better to help than Rainbow Dash?” she said proudly.
“Well,” Rarity said, “I’m not sure how you’re going to help, but it’s good to have you here. Did Mr. Mean send you here?”
“No, I came on my own. Twi is off to Sweet Apple Acres to try and figure out where this Mr. Mean came from.”
“What does Applejack—” Fluttershy began, but was interrupted by Mr. Mean’s gravelly voice.
“We come from the shadows, from deeper within. We don’t say the name, as the name is a sin,” he said with a laugh.
“But you come from somewhere,” Pinkie Pie said.
“Of course it’s a somewhere, a somewhen, a how. But what matters is here, and this place, and this now.”
Rainbow Dash ignored him. “He’s just trying to scare us. He wants us to be scared.”
Rarity made a pained face and looked back at her flank. “Oof. I’ll agree with you on that one, darling. He’s quite good at it.”
“But he’s only good if we’re scared. I don’t know where we are, but it’s his place. We just need to stick together, and not go into the castle.” She jabbed a hoof at the lights leading to the castle of Friendship. “Twilight’s not there. He just wants us in there so he can do his door-knocking stuff, we just gotta—”
A loud, defeanining knock came from all around them. It shook the cobblestones they were standing on, and next to their pool of light a huge door, made of cold, blue light and darkness appeared. The knocking was coming from it, swarfing the four ponies down below.
“Avoiding the castle, you think, makes you safe. Mr. Mean will now tell you, ‘gainst the grain you will chafe.”
Fluttershy dropped low to the ground and covered her head with her hooves. “What do we do? What do we doooooo?”
“He’s… he’s bluffing,” Rainbow Dash said, looking up at the massive door.
“I’m… not sure he’s bluffing. Mr. Mean is really bad at pranks. No one but him has a good time in any of them,” said Pinkie warily.
“I’m not sure I want to test him, dears. Maybe we should go inside the castle since he wants us to be there,” Rarity said.
“He’s just trying to be pushy and force us in there to be mean to us again. We stay here!” Rainbow insisted.
The giant door cracked open. There wasn’t enough space in the crack to see anything inside, but cold air blew out, wafting over them. It ruffled their manes and tails and the sound of heavy breathing emanated from the space between the door and its invisible jamb.
“You think you can handle a wee little scare? Can you try, will you dare, will you dare, will you dare? Come in, little pony, play with me my game. When you leave you will never see life just the same.” The door opened a little further. A large enough space for a single pony to enter. High above, limp hair spilled out of the crack, and the faint glint of metal was visible, sparkling in the reflected light of the streetlamps.
Pinkie looked at Rainbow, who was staring at the space in the door. “Don’t do it, Rainbow. This isn’t a good game. This is a bad game. The bad kind of game that nopony can win, like at carnivals.”
“But we don’t want to go in the castle. Rarity’s hurt. She won’t last much longer.”
“I’m hurt, Rainbow, not dying,” Rarity said, unamused.
“If I can buy you a bit more time, then Twilight can figure this all out, get rid of him, and we’ll be fine. I’m going in!”
“Rainbow, no!” Fluttershy cried, but it was too late. Rainbow Dash sped into the crack in the door, fist up and ready. The door slammed behind her as she disappeared inside, and the loud knock boomed out around them, fading away as the door did. The lights around the three remaining ponies all faded, leaving them one single lamp they were huddled under.
At Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight knocked on the door to the Apple Family house. She waited a bit, but eventually the sound of hooves came down the stairs inside and approached the front door. It opened to reveal a sleepy Applejack, mane disheveled and tail untied.
“Twi, it’s midnight. Still a good four hours before morning. What’s goin’ on?” Applejack said.
“I need to talk to you, Applejack, it’s urgent. I have nothing else to go on, but something strange is happening. Have you, or anyone in your family ever heard of somepony named Mr. Mean?”
Applejack’s eyes widened and she glanced all around Twilight. She looked up and left and muttered, “Uh… no.”
“Applejack, you’re literally the element of honesty. You’re terrible at lying. What do you know?”
“Consarn it. Ah knew it’d come back to haunt me eventually. Ah thought ah’d got rid of him once and for all. Ah just hoped it wouldn’t be anywhere near Ponyville when he came back.” She motioned Twilight to come inside. “Yeah, ah know him. C’mon in, I’ll explain.
“You know him?” Twilight exclaimed in alarm. “Then what the hay is happening right now? Do you know? Is all this your fault?”
“Twahlight, come inside and sit down,” Applejack flopped down at the table with her head in her hooves. “Yes, it’s probably mah fault, and no, ah don’t actually know what’s goin’ on right now.”
Twilight seethed as she walked inside and sat across from Applejack. Her eyes burned into Applejack’s forehead who, for her part, stared straight down at the table.
“Tell me why you know all this, Applejack, and tell me how to get rid of him.”
“Alright, well…” she began, taking a deep breath. “Ah assume you’ve read my book?”
“So it’s yours after all.”
“Yes. Ah wrote it a few years ago to try and help Applebloom with her fear of the dark. It was originally just going to be a bedtime story with a good ending, sorta like Pinkie Pie’s ‘giggle at the ghosties’ thing, ‘cept somethin’ ah made myself. Ah was right proud of it too…”
“Until…?” Spike asked as he clung to Twilight’s leg.
“Until ah remembered why ah used to be scared of the dark myself.” She finally looked up at Twilight. “Ah don’t know what ah did, but Mr. Mean’s a real thing. Real as you or me. He follows all the rules in that book, right as rain, as if I’d made him mahself. Ah don’t know if he started existin’ after ah wrote it, or if him existin’ is what made me write it, but sure as we’re sittin’ here right now, that bugger’s real! If you can think of a way to get rid of ‘im, ah sure would appreciate it Twilight! I’m at my wit’s end!”
Twilight leaned back in her chair as she thought about what Applejack had said. It made sense, and it explained the existence of the book, but something was missing. It was probably Applejack talking about whether he existed before or after Applejack had written the book. Why would any creature follow such arbitrary rules?
“I don’t understand something, Applejack. You say you created this, and he follows the rules in your book, but it’s been years. How come I’ve never heard of him before now? Has he only been bothering you?”
Applejack cringed. “He’s… been living here. He visited me almost every night, and we’d… play his game. He likes games. We came to an… understandin’.”
“Which was?”
“He’d leave Applebloom alone”
“And what kind of games did he want you to play?”
“That’s…” Applejack chewed on her bottom lip. “Not somethin’ ah can tell ya. Ah promised.”
“Applejack…” Twilight said, a hint of warning in her voice.
Applejack held up her hooves. “Ah really can’t tell ya! Ah promised! If ah break that promise ah don’t know what he’ll do, but Applebloom’s worth keeping that promise!”
“You realize he’s hounding the rest of us, right?”
“Ah suspected as much. He’s lookin’ fer somepony else to play with.”
“Why now?”
“Ah clapped my hooves and laughed a lot. Ah did it loud; that hits the spot. Remember how to drive the lout, back to his nasty, dismal home where he can only live alone,” Applejack recited.
“You drove him back to his home. You stopped playing his game.”
Applejack nodded. “It’s been years, Twilight. Ah’m tired.”
“Why didn’t you come to the rest of us about this sooner?”
“Ah promised.”
“Why would you make a promise to a monster?!” Twilight yelled. There was the sound of movement upstairs. Applejack stood and pulled Twilight away and out the door.
“C’mon, Twilight. You’ll wake Granny.”
“Why would you make a promise to a monster?”
“Ah told you; to protect Applebloom.”
“Then why didn’t you warn us he was going to be let loose?”
“Ah thought ah’d have more time. Ah guess he didn’t see it necessary to stay in his nasty, dismal home alone for very long.” She smiled sheepishly.
“Well now we have to deal with a metal-toothed monster. It almost got Spike, and it attacked Rainbow Dash and possibly the rest of us. Probably because we’re the element bearers. If it can play a game with one of us, who knows what it’ll do.”
“Aw, no. Poor Fluttershy.”
“Poor Fluttershy indeed. Rainbow and I saw them on our way here. She went to help. I don’t know if it was real or not, but he’s got them trapped in town.”
“In town?” Applejack looked at her curiously. “He doesn’t usually leave houses.”
“He followed the rest of us. I think he got them as they were leaving.”
“Well…” Applejack scratched her loose mane and tried to adjust her missing hat. She sighed as she realized it was back at home. “Take me to where you saw ‘em. We can clap and laugh, maybe send him on his way.”
“I don’t want to subject some random pony to this, Applejack. And I have to say, I’m disappointed you’re not taking this more seriously.”
“Ah’m tired, Twahlight. I’ve been tired for years. Ah thought ah might actually get some sleep tonight.”
“Not tonight you aren’t. This is your mess, you get to help clean it up. Come on, let’s get to clapping and save our friends. I know you want that much.”
Applejack shook her head and slapped her cheeks, then followed Twilight as she hurried down the road to Ponyville.