//------------------------------//
// Creeping Horrors 
// Story: Equestrian Darkness: Friendship's Requiem 
// by My Little Scribbler 
//------------------------------//


Equestrian Darkness: Friendship’s Requiem
Chapter 7: Creeping Horrors


A skinless zombie snapped its teeth at Applejack, but with her powerful hind legs, she cleanly bucked the zombie’s head off. She laughed triumphantly, but her laugh turned to a gasp as she saw a new head grow in its place. She gave another buck to the zombie’s chest, knocking it onto its back.
Before she could finish it off, another one was already drawing too close. It lunged forward and bit Applejack on the shoulder.
“Ow! Let go of me!”
A blue haze of magic surrounded the zombie, and it was pried off, leaving small splotches of blood and a bite mark. The zombie thrashed against the pull of Rarity’s magic like a cat grabbed by the scruff of its neck.
“This is disgusting,” whined Rarity. Unable to use her magic offensively (she is more skilled at dress making than combat), all she could do was try to hold the zombies away from Applejack, but the zombies were moving too quickly and had no inhibitions as they were struck and magically repelled.
Rainbow flew into the crowd of green zombies. With a buck of her hooves, she sent one zombie flying into the others, knocking them down like bowling pins. Unfazed, the zombies got back onto their hooves.
“Oh, you want more, do you?” She charged toward another zombie, and smacked its head off with one blow. “Ha, how do you like...?” Before she could gloat some more, she was stunned to see that once the head was removed, a green phantom of a head remained.
As the zombie looked at Rainbow with its ghostly eyes, she cringed in pain as she felt the zombie work its will upon her. She kicked the zombie in the torso, knocking the creature over. She suddenly felt another psychic attack from a zombie. She spun around and smashed off a zombie’s right front leg, but a green phantom limb took its place. That same phantom limb slashed at Rainbow. She cried out in pain, pressing a hoof to the blood oozing from her injury.
She glared at the zombies, but before her eyes, the monsters seemed distorted. Their bandaged skulls warped and stretched to horrific exaggerations. She shook her head, and the zombies returned to normal. Before she could ponder what she had seen, a zombie took a swing at her and she had to use her wings to repel herself away.
Fluttershy and Pinkie stood back, watching the fight.
“What are we going to do?” Fluttershy was in tears.
“Do you think they might like some candy?” suggested Pinkie, weakly.
Another zombie managed to bite down onto Applejack’s shoulder, adding another mark to her growing number of injuries. She shed tears of pain as she ripped herself free from the zombie’s jaws.
I can’t just sit here and watch, reasoned Fluttershy to herself. I have to help. Despite her fears, she charged toward another zombie advancing upon Applejack and smashed it in the head with a clumsy buck of her hind legs.
The zombie—much to Fluttershy’s horror—exploded.
At first, she thought she had destroyed it, but as the zombie’s remains collapsed, a thin creature slid out of it. Its body was just a layer of exposed muscle on bones. It was like a walking bird skeleton, but instead of wings, it had scythe-shaped blades that it held up like a praying mantis.
This creature was some how living inside the zombie...and it wanted a new home. It jumped onto Fluttershy, knocking her onto her back. She kept the monster off her with her hooves, but the creature slashed at her legs and chest, fighting to burrow its way inside.
Driven by blind fear and pure adrenaline, she opened her wings and rocked toward the ceiling. She smashed the creature against the ceiling, crushing it with a sickening crack like a bug. As the monster twisted violently in its death throes, she was so horrified by it, she dashed off, flying passed the zombies and down one of the paths in a blind escape.
Despite Fluttershy’s brush with death, the others barely noticed as zombies surrounded them on all sides.
The zombies slowly closed the gap between them. Every eyeless stare was focused on the four remaining ponies.
Applejack gave another fruitless kick to a zombie. “It’s no use. They’re not going down. Rainbow, fly away and save yourself.”
“I’m not abandoning you guys,” said Rainbow.
Rarity and Pinkie huddled together, helpless to do any more than wait for the inevitable.
Applejack and Rainbow were pressed against Rarity and Pinkie with nowhere else to run. They were trapped. As Applejack prepared to go down fighting, the red zombies suddenly walked around her. As she watched them, she noticed the green zombies were also moving around them. Since the zombies were on two different factions, they were more interested in each other with robotic consistency.
Like rabid lions, the zombies clawed and bit each other. The clack of bone against bone echoed throughout the chamber as the walking dead fought each other. The red zombies clawed and scratched the green, leaving deep injuries and tearing off limbs. The green zombies fought just as fiercely, but their attacks did very little harm.
As soon as a path was clear, the ponies ran through, escaping the zombies.
“Is everyone okay,” asked Applejack.
“Hey, where’s Fluttershy?” asked Rainbow.
The group skidded to a halt.
Applejack’s eyes darted every which way in panic. “Oh no, where could she have gone?”
“I saw her fly away through one of those doors,” said Pnikie, pointing to the three exits.
“But which one?” asked Rarity.
“Uh, the middle one, I think.”
Applejack took a nervous glance at the zombies, and saw that the red zombies had destroyed all but one green zombie. “I say we go for it before they come back to get us.”
The ponies ran off down the middle hall, escaping the zombies and into whatever other terrors awaited them.

I could have sworn I was dreaming. The stories I’d heard from eyewitness accounts and my own patients became clear once I read through the pages of that cursed book. Throughout the centuries, it had been passed down, traveling through time and even through alternate dimensions, leaving a trail of madness and hopelessness in its wake.
Twilight could inexplicably read the characters written within the Tome. She skimmed through the pages, briefly reading the various stories she could find. The entry she had been reading was from Dr. Lionheart herself. Although she did not read through the stories in depth, she felt like she knew each and everyone of them personally. She could see them in her mind as well as their thoughts and emotions as they used and read the Tome.
As she flipped through more pages, she found instructions on spell casting. According to the instructions, any pony could channel her energy through the book and cast spells from all four gods. She shivered as she remembered Luna’s story of how she became Nightmare Moon.
She looked through its pages until she found a page with Dispel Magic written on the top. The key to her escape lay before her, but should she use it?
Will I become like Nightmare Moon? But there’s no other way. If I’m fighting the Ancients, the only thing to do is fight fire with fire.
She closed her eyes and reluctantly channeled her power through the book. She felt a serge of power run through her shin as three red glowing runes materialized around her.
Nethlek...Redgormor...Chattur’gha.
The spell was released, and the force field vanished. Without further ceremony, she stuffed the Tome into her saddlebags, and teleported back to the rendezvous point with a flash of purple light.
“Hello, are you guys here?” Twilight called after she materialized, but no one responded. All was quiet and still within the city. “They must have gone out looking for me.” She retraced her steps back to the chamber. As she approached the stairs, she noticed multiple hoof prints in the dirty floors. Knowing it was her friends, she ran down the steps, careless of what she might find. As she entered the chamber again, she noticed four dark figures in the hallway leading out of the room.
“Hey guys, it’s me,” she called out. She stopped in her tracks upon seeing not her friends, but a group of zombies slowly lumbering into the light.
Without hesitation, Twilight dropped the Tome onto the ground, hastily flipped through its pages, and found a magical attack spell.
Antorbok...Pargon...Redgormor...Ulyaoth...Pargon.
Bolts of blue magical energy shot forth and struck the zombies. The walking dead let out hoarse moans as they all collapsed to the ground, their life forces thoroughly destroyed by the spell. As soon as the spell was finished, she stumbled as a mild exhaustion overtook her. It seems that summoning a five-rune circle drained more energy than the three-rune circle. I need to be careful not to over use the spells.

Fluttershy did not know how long she had been flying. It was not until she stopped to catch her breath did she realize that she had abandoned her friends. However, after flying randomly through the twisting labyrinth of passages, she realized that finding her way out was more difficult than she thought. The maze led to various rooms, each one containing murals depicting stories from the distant past. Eventually, she found her way into a large chamber, decorated not by paintings but by metalwork. Like a web of wires and pipes, the walls were lined with various contraptions and pillars that curved and twisted toward the large metallic structures around the room. The whole room was more like a metallurgist’s art show since everything seemed to be constructed for a gothic visual flair as oppose to practicality. Every machine was built to serve an unknown purpose.
“I’m lost.” As Fluttershy gazed up at the structures before her, her fear changed into a solemn hopelessness. She leaned against the cold skin of a metal obelisk, withdrawing a first aid kit from her saddlebags to wrap up her cuts. As she treated her injuries, she shook with fright at the memory of the monster who caused them. Thinking of how close its snapping jaws and blade-like appendages were to her face haunted her thoughts, causing tears of fright to well up in her eyes. “I should’ve stayed home. This is too much for me.”
As she placed her first aid kit into her bag, she noticed something on the floor. It was the rim of a hat. Curious, she leaned over, and realized that the hat was still attached to a head. Leaning in further and she saw that the head was part of a pony skeleton.
“Eep,” squeaked Fluttershy as she dodged out of sight. When nothing happened, she leaned over again, getting a good long look at the pile of bones. The pony skeleton still had its glasses and vest on as well as an old saddlebag, all of it was rotted and dirty like the remains.
As she stared at the body, a wisp of pale smoke materialized beside it. She shuttered in fright as the mist twisted into shape. Before long, she came face to face with the spirit of a mare.
Perhaps seeing zombies beforehand desensitized Fluttershy because upon seeing the ghost, she only stood in frozen awe and shock rather than running.
The ghost pointed a hoof at the saddlebag on the skeleton. She repeatedly gestured at the bag, drawing Fluttershy’s gaze to a name written on it.
She reluctantly leaned over and saw on the saddlebag the name Dr. Lionheart written on the front in fading ink. She looked at the ghost, and stared with her mouth agape as she finally understood. “Are you Dr. Lionheart?”
The ghost nodded.
Setting aside her disbelief that ghosts exist, Fluttershy nervously blurted out, “D-Do you know how to stop the Eternal Darkness?”
Dr. Lionheart abruptly glided over to a plaque on the metal wall with the illustration of the four runes of the Ancients drawn upon it. The runes of Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth, and Xel’lotath were arranged in an intertwined triangle with the Mantarok rune in the center.
“Those are the Ancients Twilight told me about,” said Fluttershy, remembering the drawings the unicorn had shown her and the others before leaving Ponyville. “Twilight also told me that the blue, green, and red Ancients have strengths and weaknesses against each other, but who is the purple one strong against?”
Dr. Lionheart ran a hoof along the Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth, and Xel’lotath runes in the triangle.
“And who can beat him?”
Dr. Lionheart pointed at the rune in the center of the triangle.
Fluttershy wanted to ask more questions but froze. Her equine ears twitched as she heard something gliding behind her.

Within the winding and twisting labyrinth, Twilight repeatedly glanced behind her shoulder even though she was clearly alone. She tried to ignore it. She tried to tell herself that the sensations were all in her head, but with every step, the presence she felt grew stronger. She was not alone, that much she was certain of.
As she entered another chamber, she suppressed a gasp of disgust as she discovered a room full of pony skeletons. It was a sacrificial room. Each sacrifice after death had been neatly hung on the walls by ropes and after centuries, the bodies disassembled from rot, leaving the bones piled on the floor save for a few that somehow remained on the bonds.
One skeleton was left on an altar with the ropes still binding the pony’s legs and forcing the victim onto his or her back. As Twilight stepped in for a closer look, she noticed a cleanly cut hole in the pony’s ribcage. What disturbed her the most was not the manner of the execution, but the skeletons themselves. Each one was quite small. The one on the altar could not have been older than a year or two. She felt her stomach wrench with disgust as she remembered Celestia telling her how the occultists of the past used to sacrifice foals to their god.
As her mind drifted to the memory of the pictures in the secret room, she heard the voice again.
Twilight...
“No, I’m not listening. I will not let the horrors of the past come again. No matter what, we will stop it.” Twilight spoke with as much conviction as she could muster, but tears were welling up in her eyes, betraying her fears.
The room Twilight stood in seemed to melt away before her eyes. She was taken from the room of reality and into the nightmare world. Every color seemed bright and nondescript to the point where all objects in the room seemed blurred like a foal’s attempt at watercolor paints. In the room, she saw three ponies. Their features were blurred and indistinct like the ethereal background. The ponies were approaching what appeared to be statuettes of some kind, the only objects in the room that were clear enough to make out. One was a red crustacean claw. The second was an otherworldly and angular octopus. And the third was an angelic black figure with a green gem in the center.
Twilight knew (how she knew she could not determine) that the objects were the essences of the other Ancients. She watched as the three faceless ponies reached for the essences, and upon contact, bright lights of green, blue, and red filled the room. As the light died down, the three ponies took on the color scheme of the essences. Like letters printed on paper, three runes appeared on the ponys’ flanks.
The hallucination ended as abruptly as it began, leaving her alone in the room of death.
Twilight’s ears perked up as she heard footfalls from the entrance. She was alert, but cautious. It could be a hallucination. Next to the piles of bones, she spotted what appeared to be a pike, free of rust thanks to the dry air of the abandoned city. She telekinetically picked up the pike. As soon as a figure walked into the light, she blindly hurled the pike, but missed and hit the metal walls with a resounding clang.
When she finally looked upon her intruder, she saw Rainbow Dash looking at her in stunned disbelief.
“It’s a good thing your aim is so bad,” said Rainbow with nervous sarcasm.
Twilight ran up to the pegasus and gave her an apologetic and relieved hug. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were a zombie.”
“Well, we weren’t there yet, but we were certainly close,” said Applejack as she came out of the darkness followed by Rarity and Pinkie.
“What happened to you?” Twilight was eyeing the bandages that were hastily wrapped around Applejack’s injuries.
“It’s nuthin’ but a few scrapes.”
“I’m sorry if the bandages don’t look so good,” said Rarity. “I did the best I could.”
Pinkie was hopping on her hooves with excitement. “It’s a good thing we found you, Twilight. Where were you?”
“I was looking through a chamber when...” Twilight looked amongst the group with concern. “Where’s Fluttershy?”
“We can’t find her anywhere,” said Rainbow as she examined the pike with curiosity.
“Then we better hurry up and find her.” Twilight pushed passed her friends. “We don’t have much time.”
The ponies spun around and ran out down the hall, only to halt when they saw Rainbow holding back.
“Rainbow, come on,” ordered Twilight.
Rainbow was hastily tying the pike to her saddlebags. “After what we’ve seen, we’ll need all the weapons we can get.”

They wondered the labyrinth, growing increasingly urgent with every passing minute.
“Fluttershy, where are ya?” shouted Applejack. The bandages chaffed her skin, but she ignored her discomfort, marching ahead of the group.
“Applejack, will you slow down,” panted Rarity.
Pinkie was skipping merrily as if she was off to the candy store. “But where’s the fun in slowing down?”
“Pinkie, how can you be so cheerful when Fluttershy could be in terrible danger?”
“Well, when life has you scared, you must ‘giggle at the ghostly. Guffaw at the grossly.’”
“This is not a good time to be singing.”
“I don’t know,” interjected Twilight as she followed behind Pinkie. “We could use all the cheer we can get.”
As they talked, they were unaware of the strange behavior exhibited by Rainbow who lazily trailed behind all of them.
Rainbow was fidgeting with paranoid glances from side to side. Although she maintained a brave face, she was unnerved by cries and screams echoing along the walls. Disembodied voices let out shrieks and cries, all of which only she could hear. She shook her head in shock as she thought she saw blood oozing from the walls.
“Rainbow, are you okay?” asked Twilight as she noticed the pegasus’s strange behavior.
“Of course,” she said with a defensive tone in her voice. “I’m not scared at all. It’s just that—“ She froze, her eyes as wide as saucers.
Twilight glanced forward and noticed that the whole campaign had stopped to witness a wisp of spiritual light materialize before them.
The five friends grouped themselves together with anxious anticipation. Although they all imagined monsters and the walking dead, once the energy took on a solid form, what they saw instead was the transparent body of Dr. Lionheart.
“Ack, a ghost,” shouted Applejack.
Twilight gasped in realization. “Wait, you guys. I know this ghost.” Ignoring her friends’ disbelieving mutterings, she hastily approached the ghost. “Dr. Lionheart, is that really you?”
The doctor nodded.
“Isn’t that the name of the doctor you saw in your dreams?” asked Rarity.
“She is,” said Twilight. “She looks exactly the way she did in my dreams.”
Pinkie bounced with joy. “Oh, if she’s here, can she help us find Fluttershy?”
The ghost nodded again. She turned around and beckoned them to follow with a sway of her head.
Hesitant at first, the group followed the apparition down the halls of the labyrinth. After all the horrors they had witnessed that day, the idea of trusting a ghost weighed heavily on their suspicions, even for Twilight. With no other option, they followed it into the unknown. As Dr. Lionheart turned a corner and into another room, she vanished without warning.
“Dr. Lionheart, where are you?” asked Twilight, but got no response.
They entered the room, and found a place full of technological marvels. They did not spend much time examining it all because right there in the room was Fluttershy, her hindquarters seated firmly on the floor and her back toward her friends.
“Oh, thank Celestia you’re safe,” said Rarity as she galloped toward her.
“Stay away!” order Fluttershy, not moving from her spot.
“What in tarnation is wrong with you?” asked Applejack.
Fluttershy’s muscles fidgeted as if she was trying to force her way free from invisible chains. “I can’t move.” 
As Twilight watched the way Fluttershy resisted, she was suddenly reminded of the binding spell Tarik placed on her.
The ponies let out an abrupt cry of alarm as they heard an incantation from the darkness. They scattered as they dodged a bolt of blue magical energy as it struck the ground where they had been standing.
From out of the shadows, a creature loomed into the light. It resembled a large squid but it hovered off the floor with tis tentacles dangling useless under it. Its body was blue and translucent like as jellyfish. It let out a low hiss in challenge.
“What is that thing?” asked Rainbow.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look friendly,” said Applejack.
“I say we kick its butt. There’s five of us and only one of it. We got the numbers on our side.”
The squid waved its tentacles and five blue runes suddenly appeared under it.
Tier...Pargon...Aretak...Ulyaoth...Pargon.
From out of the floor, six zombies began to materialize. The zombies looked like they were made of opaque blue ectoplasm. They let out deep moans as they were animated, hungry for blood.
“Do you still think we can take it, RD?” said Applejack, sarcastically.
Rainbow only let out a frustrated sigh.