Over the next few hours, I tried my best to ‘practice,’ as Luna had put it. It didn’t go all that well. Spider tossing, arachnophobia. Dunking for apples, aquaphobia kicked in. The costume contest set off phasmophobia of all things. I tried, I really did. But as the night grew darker and the fog thickened I felt I had enough. At least Dainty and Picket were willing to escort me back home.
“Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?” I glanced around, looking for a street sign, but couldn’t find one through the dense fog. “Where are we?”
“I think we got turned around somewhere.” We weren’t the only ones confused by the heavy mist. Several other ponies were looking around with some concern.
“I overheard some of the other guards saying the Princess had something different planned, think this is it?”
“No.” I was quite certain that was true.
“Yeah, it’s not spooky so much as inconvenient. I can barely see!”
“Hang on, that’s the palace gate.” Picket pointed to an arch above us. My heart jumped up to my throat and I froze. “We must’ve wandered over here by accident.”
“We might as well see what the palace has to offer.” Dainty pulled me along, I couldn’t find the air to argue. I hadn’t told them about Luna’s warning. We didn’t get far before we ran into the back end of a sizable crowd. There weren’t shouts of joy or excitement here, only concerned and confused murmuring.
“We should go…” but neither of my friends heard my whispered plea. “Please…”
Something moved in the air above us, glowing a sickly yellow, and alighted on the archway now behind us. The source of the light hissed, I got the strange impression it was somehow amused.
“I apologize for the inclement weather.” Luna’s voice suddenly boomed out from where the castle’s balcony should be. Before I could get back to my feet the fog began to lift, and I could see clearly again. I looked up at where Luna was clearing away the mist, still wearing her Nightmare Moon illusion. We were indeed in the palace courtyard, right where I didn’t want to be. “The fun can now resume!”
Somepony screamed, and it wasn’t me for once. Then more voices joined the first, and ponies started pointing back at the archway. I almost didn’t dare to look back, but everypony, and I do mean every pony, was staring open-jawed at something there.
Perched atop the palace archway was a monster, unlike any I had ever imagined. It was roughly the shape of a pony if twice the size or larger, and its outline was the source of the sickening glow nearly the color of vomit. A skeletal structure, itself bio-luminescent and green, was visible through its translucent body. The monster’s skull had no eye sockets atop a neck far too long. When the single massive eye in its chest blinked the eyelids came from the sides. Two massive wings fluttered in the breeze like scraps of tattered cloth, and a dark mist bled off them. In place of a tail, it had four long writhing tentacles dotted with sharp looking spines.
It laughed, a hideous hissing noise that turned my gut.
“Delicious…” The creature spoke, it’s voice almost outside audible pitch, and hurt to hear. “Absolutely delicious.” Then it dropped from its perch and slowly advanced towards the crowd, blocking our exit. It’s tri-cloven hooves left behind visible prints which burned like afterimages of an ultraviolet light in the dark.
“Who are you, what are you doing here?” Luna landed between it and us, her voice stern and serious. My legs gave out, I was shaking so badly my clip-on wings fell off.
“Come to feast. Deimos.” The eye swiveled across the gathered ponies. “A generous meal prepared for Deimos.” The beak-like jaw was split in three and clicked unnaturally as two tongues flicked out between fangs.
“You will find no sustenance here, Deimos. Begone!” The monster ignored her implied threat, leaning its skull towards her and inhaling deeply.
“Feed Deimos… fear Deimos.” Smoke-bleeding wings snapped wide open and thrashing tentacles cracked the stone courtyard. “Fear Deimos!” Its shriek, way out of normal audible range, shot through me like a banshee wail. I was already on the ground, unable to move or even look away. More screams from the crowd as the shout cut them to the bone.
“Enough!” Luna shot a bright beam at the creature, blue magic dispersed as it impacted the dark mist seeping off the wings.
“Yes…” The voice hissed again. “Feed Deimos.” It snapped out at her with its fangs, striking like a viper. The Princess leaped out of reach, and the monster followed her up. Light flashed as she engaged the monster in the air.
“Wow, that is horrifying.” Picket whistled, impressed. “The Princess really outdid herself.”
“It’s an act?!” Dainty was clutching Picket’s leg. Looking as frightened as I felt. A nearby pony overheard, and it was repeated through the gathering. Some of the ponies started to shout encouragement, believing it was all just a show. For a moment I started to feel safer, but then I remembered…
“With a sword…”
“What?” Dainty Dawn hadn’t heard me clearly and leaned over to listen.
“She said, a friend with a sword.” Dainty’s eyes went wider, if that were possible, as my words sank in. I wasn’t watching the fight in the air, so I didn’t see what happened, but Luna suddenly shrieked out in pain and shot towards the ground, slamming into the wall not far from us with a bone cracking crunch. Deimos landed heavily between us and her, cracking stone. “That thing is real!” Picket heard me and wasted no time responding.
The trained Pegasus guard darted forward and kicked the monster hard in the side. Its eye, supposedly facing away from us, turned and stared right at him through its own body and bones. One tail tentacle lanced out and yanked Picket into the air effortlessly by the arms of his Tirek costume. It twirled him like a child’s toy until the plush arms tore off and hurled Picket into the crowd, bowling over a number of ponies. The screams became more intense now it was clear this was no act.
Dainty abandoned me to run to her coltfriend and I suddenly realized the crowd was backing away from the monster, leaving me and Luna the closest two ponies to Deimos. My legs wouldn’t respond, and I couldn’t bring myself to even blink.
“Good… Yes, this is what Deimos wants.” The monster’s skeletal glow began to intensify, its vomit yellow body pulsing visibly like a beating heart.
“To the Princess! Rally!” Some unknown-but-brave guardspony in the crowd shouted, and the guards leaped to the defense of their fallen Princess. Multicolored beams converged on the monster but deflected off its disrupting smoke. The creature turned slowly and swatted ponies aside with its four tails. Within a moment the courtyard was full of the wounded lying in heaps and piles.
Then Demos turned back towards Luna, intent on finishing what it started. All through this, I hadn’t moved, I couldn’t look away or even twitch. Somewhere in my mind, I recognized this sensation. The crippling fear of the worst possible outcome. Every pony here was going through what I lived with… every day. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, but this made it seem not quite so horrible.
“This is what?” Deimos blinked, sideways. I didn’t know where I found my legs, I didn’t know when I had even moved. I didn’t know what I was doing. There I was, a little Fragile Flower standing alone between Luna and Deimos, who seemed to be made of fear itself. Every eye was focused on me, Deimos’s most of all.
“I w-w-w-won’t-” I shuddered, my tail between my legs. It laughed, the static hiss bringing bile to my throat.
“You have no say.” A spiked tail slapped the ground at my side. I was too terrified to flinch, every ounce of my being focused on simply standing. “But you taste…” twin tongues flicked, “so good.” A tentacle gripped me by the rear leg and hauled me into the air, hanging me over the monster. “Now, to eat.” Deimos’s horrible jaw opened, too wide to be real. As I stared down into its gullet I thought the monster was going to swallow me whole.
By some quirk of luck, my body tried to pull my legs up as I tightened in terror at the exact moment before his tail let go. I screamed as his jaw clamped on my right forelimb, and my body swung like a doll on a string. My basophobia kicked out at random for purchase.
I found it right on Deimos’s eye, my hoof slipping under its gooey eyelid. The monster screamed, but I was still stuck on his fangs. Tearing pain shot through my limb.
Lightning cracked right above us, a new pony appearing in the flash. Before I was thrown free I caught a single glance at him. He was a dark purple Unicorn in heavy armor, in his neon blue aura a long sword blazing with white flame. On his back were a pair of obviously magical wings which gleamed like polished black steel in the light cast by the sword. My head cracked against the wall and everything flashed white before my aichmophobia could even start to respond.