//------------------------------// // chapter two: A Maze of Corn // Story: Nightmare Night Town // by Foal Star //------------------------------// Twilight in her old witch form hobbled along through the dark and foggy streets of Ponyville with Spike the black cat lurking around her with his glowing green eyes piercing through the fog. They continued their way through the town seeing the shops and houses all boarded up with cobwebs draped over them like sheets. The two utterly amazed at what they saw, many of the town ponies have been transformed into monsters, of all kinds. Mostly, ghouls, ghosts and skeletons walked around the streets seemingly accepting their ghastly forms giving the two evil grins or trying to scare. The two confused turned to see that Lyra was now a demonic creature with a fork like tongue and flying through the air on red leathery bat wings hissing and firing flame her pitchfork. Bon Bon was wearing a hockey mask and standing silently with a machete in her mouth just staring at the two with a blank expression. Twilight and Spike hurried along freaked out by that cold gaze. They both came to the schoolhouse and Twilight exclaimed, “The schoolhouse! If anypony is still sane, Cheerilee should be!” The mare hobbled over and peered through the window and saw that the place was as creepy as every other building with the desk broken and falling apart, with the windows boarded up and cobwebs scattered over the place. But some of the students were transformed by the curse were still sitting in class. Snips and Snails were both zombies with rotting flesh and only pieces of their coat, both had blank faces moaning. Button Mash was now some sort of ghost with a big white round body and a creepy smile. He had two fins for arms on either side of his round body and used them to cover his face for some reason. Silver Spoon was now a little silver-haired werewolf pup growling and tearing her homework apart. Diamond Tiara was beside her she was now just a creepy porcelain doll with an old style pink raggedy dress and a foal’s bonnet wrapped around her head. The hair fell over like strands of yarn and she had a creepy smile painted on her face. Then out of nowhere, she turned to face the window, and Spike leaped up again hissing with freight. Twilight just gave another cackle. “I think those forms are fitting for those two. I couldn't think up better curses myself.” Spike gave Twilight a suspicious look and growled, “Yeah but we can’t just leave them like this.” The witch scoffed, “Alright alright Whiskers don’t worry I’m still going to try to save Ponyville.” Twilight then burst into the classroom door as Spike followed behind and grumbled, “stop calling me Whiskers.” They came upon Cheerilee who was wearing a bloodstained lab coat with her mane which was now spikey and pointing in all directions. Behind her was a table with lightning rods jutting out from the head of it and a huge switch near them, but on the table itself there were torn straps of leather clearly torn off by something huge and strong, and in front of her was a table full of different vats, flasks, and beakers filled with glowing bubbling chemicals creating a froth of mist that covered the floor. The mare was just shouting crazy nonsense in the air. “As I throw this soup of acids and chemicals together! I will create an explosion ten stories high!” Twilight scoffed, “oh please, ya crazy loon that’s all you can do? I could turn your entire class into mice with some snot balls and my cat’s urine.” Spike squealed and hopped back as Cheerilee pointed a hoof at Twilight. “How dare you insult me you hag! I am the great scientist Dr. Cheerstien! I just finished my ultimate creation too bad He ran off!” She then pointed to the chalkboard behind her where crazy formulas and drawings of brains had a huge gaping hole in the middle. The crazy teacher then threw her hooves in the air and proclaimed, “most of my class ran off with him too! Just as I was about to perform my most dangerous experiment!” Spike came up whispered into Twilight’s ear. “Twilight, the only students left here are those who don’t really know what’s going on. We need to get them out of here before she blows the place up. Twilight tapped her hoof to her nasty wart and grumbled, “I think I have another idea she went over to the werewolf pup that was once Silver Spoon and plucked some hairs off her head and then took a piece of flesh from Snails. Twilight then threw them in a beaker and poured another chemical into the same beaker. Cheerilee watched with a twisted face of anger “What do you think you're doing?” Twilight shook it a little, and as the concoction began to bubble she exclaimed, “cursing you, sweetie!” The witch tossed the vial into Cheerilee’s face as it exploded and sent its contents over the crazy scientist who screamed as she withered and morphed into a pink blob. Twilight snickered evilly as she took a jar and captured the blob sealing it tight, “there you go now ya sit tight while I fix this.” Twilight then walked off still cackling as Spike hissing ran after the witch and shouted, “you don’t think that was over the top!” The old witch shrugged, “I don’t know it’s all I could come up with but we don’t need to worry about her anymore. So we can just focus on stopping the real curse.” Spike eyed Twilight and protested, “I’m not so sure, you're becoming more and more like a witch by the second it’s getting creepy.” Twilight scoffed, “yeah, as if, don’t worry about me Spike I can take care of myself.” The mare continued on her way with a humpf. Spike just shook his head, and after some time they eventually came upon the center of town. There was a big evil looking clock tower made of black cast iron, The clock's face has the one through twelve shown as Roman numerals with an eerie green glow coming from within. The big crooked hand was on the one and the little finger on the Twelve. Twilight looked upwards at the clock and whispered, “What is this?” Spike looked up and saw that standing over the clock's face, there was a pony’s head built out of cast iron with gears rotating around the inside of his head. The creature looked down with the grinding of metal and clanking of gears echoing throughout the cobblestone streets and spoke with a voice that sounded like gnashing metal. “Hello? Who’s there?” Twilight looked up and cackled, “I’m Twilight Sparkle who might you be?!” The head of the clock tower smiled and exclaimed, “Twilight thank goodness you're here! I’m Dr. Whooves! I was turned into a clock tower by that strange mist. Did you transform as well you sound strange?” Twilight scoffed, “yeah I got turned into some witch, what the hay are you supposed to be?” Dr. Whooves explained. “I’m what you see some sort of automatron. That’s what Nightmare Moon explained to me earlier. She also told me if I saw you or one of the elements of harmony I was supposed to give you a message.” Twilight gasped and asked, “did Luna turn back into Nightmare Moon again!?” The doctor shook his head and explained, “no I think their two different ponies now. As Luna came by not too long after Nightmare Moon and seemed like she was in a rush asking about another Vampire.” Twilight groaned and rubbered her wart as she asked, “just tell me Nightmare Moon’s message.” Dr. Whooves continued, “She told me that if you don’t find the well of nightmares and cast the jewel of nightmares that Luna now possesses into its depths before I strike midnight. Ponyville will forever be trapped in this never-ending nightmare night!” Twilight stomped a hoof and shouted, “where is Luna then!? Just point me in the right direction so I can end this insanity.” Dr whooves sighed and shook his head as he explained, “I don’t know, I think I saw one either Nightmare Moon or Luna fly over to that creepy farm over there.” Dr whooves pointed his head eastward as Twilight rolled her eyes and shouted, “fine! At least I can check on Applejack and see how she's doing!” The witch stomped off towards the abandoned looking farm with Spike started to slink away following Twilight. They came upon the farmhouse it looked creepy with its rundown look with broken windows and dead trees dotting around the front yard. There standing beneath the desolate farm was something stumbling towards them like a zombie of some sort. Both Twilight and Spike were stunned at her and were horrified unsure what to do frozen in place. The creature hobbled forward in the moonlight where they could see what she was. Granny Smith was now a scarecrow with her body made of hay, and her dress was old and tattered, her face was a burlap sack with her face formed inside making it looked like her eyes and mouth were hollow. The old mare came over grumbling, ’what ya darn hooligans up to this time! Did your crazy magic do this time Twilight!? Twilight snapped back from her fear and hobbled over and snapped back, “who ya crazy ya brain dead scarecrow! I came to save your sorry rump!” Granny Smith shouted back, “I got no need of your crazy magic! I was doing just fine without ya! Now bugger off!” Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she took out another vial from within her cloak .”This here will turn you into a frog! If you don’t get out of my way, your going to be eating flies until I fix this mess!” Before Twilight could hurl her concoction at Granny, Spike jumped into the middle of the two and shouted, “you two stop this right now! We need to find Applejack or were going to stay like this forever!” The two old mares stopped their fighting as Twilight rubbed her face and sighed, ”look we're here looking for Applejack. Do you have any ideas where she is?” Granny scoffed and pointed to a field of corn not far off and answered. ”She’s in that corn maze somewhere, I think she needs our help, but I can’t do anything like this.” Twilight and Spike looked towards the maze and they both blinked in surprise. The apple orchard that once stood was now a large field of ten-foot corn stalks that seemingly looked like a forest made entirely out of corn. Twilight gulped as she made her way to the front of the maze and saw Apple Bloom standing there with a blank face but she also had a creepy smile on her face. The filly was wearing a black old style wideawake hat and a plain simple black dress with buttons going down the middle, and her mane was braided into two ponytails that drooped behind her ears. Twilight hobbled over and asked the filly, “so what’s this we enter the maze?” Apple Bloom gave a simple nod and with her creepy blank expression she murmured, “that’s correct, this is the maze of corn all bow to it and praise its glory.” Twilight rolled her eyes and hobbled through as Spike followed behind. They continued through the maze for some time seemingly getting lost many times. They continued through the maze for what seemed like hours, with Spike growling and hissing getting frustrated and feeling a sense of dread he asked, “Twilight are you sure you know where we're going? It seems like we’ve been running around in circles.” In frustration, the old witch just threw her hooves in the air, “I’m not sure! Everything looks the same so it’s nearly impossible to know if we are just wondering around!” Then upon hearing rustling from the corn stalks, they both looked around with scared looks and then a low rumble like a chainsaw could be heard. They stood there frightened and unsure of what to do but then the mayor of ponyville burst through the corn husks. The clown afro was now scraggly, and her white painted face was streaked with red, her outfit was a dirty rainbow-colored clown suit with stains of blood splattered over it. She gave the two scared creatures an evil laugh as Spike stepped back and meowed, “I take back what I said about how clowns aren’t scary...run!” The two began to run through the maze as they were chased by evil laughter and the sounds of a chainsaw rumbling nearby by. But the two somehow ran straight to see Applejack. She was a jack o lantern now with a rotting pumpkin for a head, and an evil looking face carved into the pumpkin and an orange glow emanated from behind the carving like a flame. But what assured Twilight this was Applejack was the cowboy hat sitting on top of the mare’s pumpkin head. But she was stuck on top of a scarecrow body made of hay with a tattered plaid red shirt and torn pants with a patchwork of cloth to fill the holes. She was kicking about frantically and shouting, “somepony help me down!” Twilight turned to the clown with the chainsaw running straight for them laughing maniacally and shouting, “time to harvest the corn!” Then a thought came through Twilight's head and she looked down at the vial she threatened to throw at Granny Smith and tossed it at the vicious clown it exploded raining the potion on her as she slowly turned into a frog just ribbiting as it hopped off into the stalks of corn. Twilight sighed in relief as she helped Applejack untying the ropes strapped around her body. But the fragile scarecrow body of hay just crumpled to a heap as the Jack-o-lantern plopped down with a crunch. Twilight gasped came to her friend and asked, “Applejack are you okay?” Applejack reattached her head to the body as it slowly got up it swayed about, but Applejack eventually got the body of hay to stand on all fours as she asked, “I am now, but what’s going on here? And why are you a witch?” Twilight groaned and explained. ”It looks like some crazy spell Luna used that caused this whole mess. By the way, did you see her around? Applejack scoffed, ”figures, with a crazy alicorn going about something like this was bound to happen. But yeah I think I did see Luna. She was chasing another vampire through the skies I think they were heading to Fluttershy’s place.” Twilight cackled loudly “We have a lead! Come on we have until midnight or were going to stay like this forever!” Applejack groaned as she stumbled about following Twilight. “Just wonderful, I wonder how this night is going to get worse?” She then squealed in freight as Apple Bloom appeared seemingly out of the corn stalks with her blank expression and whispered, “Can I come with you sister, it is the will of the corn that tells me to go?” Applejack rolled her eyes. “Of course ya can, but don’t creep up on me like that and what the hay are you talking about the will of the corn?” The filly with her blank expression just gave an ominous giggle and whispered, “you’ll see soon enough.”