It all became blatantly clear what BEN had done to Equestria - and how it all tied together, as I sat down at the table with some paper and a quill.
BEN had told Spike that Rarity never loved him. Being a baby dragon, he was easily manipulable, and resorted to eating his comfort food - gems, which also happened to be the basis of the entire Equestrian economy. After some time of gorging, and many of the mines becoming barren, an economic depression took the nation, largely affecting the less fortunate towns and middle-class cities, such as Ponyville, Appleoosa, and Baltimare, while large, prestigious cities such as Manehattan remained wealthy.
BEN had taken control of Celestia with possession, and drove her down a path of power hunger. She instituted martial law, greatly diminishing the citizens’ rights. Because of her sudden change, she also, once again, banished Luna to the moon, and refused to fund many social facilities, such as schools, hospitals, and the mail.
As such, Derpy, a suffering civil servant with a dire need for money, turned to slinging drugs through the postal system, turning many citizens into drug addicts. Some prime examples were Pinkie Pie, who, much earlier before the entire fiasco, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the hospital. Derpy tried to gain more money by claiming cocaine to be some kind of ‘super sugar’, and after consumption, Pinkie’s illness worsened and turned her cannibalistic, and Big Macintosh, who, for whatever reason, became a customer of Derpy’s operations, and was turned into a viagra addict. The pills soon got the better of him, and strengthened his sexual cravings to an unhealthy level, driving him into a life of child molestation, even going so far as to attack his own baby sister and her friends.
Granny Smith discovered this wretched act, and resorted to heavy drinking. Likewise, after Applejack discovered what was occurring, Applebloom was forced to lie about her attackers, forming Applejack’s racial prejudice, which nearly cost us the information we needed from Zecora. In the end, Big Mac’s actions turned his entire family into the stereotype of a backwoods redneck community.
Flim and Flam saw Derpy’s work as a business opportunity, and created their own drink, which, in a partnership with Derpy, contained high doses of ecstasy and caffeine, which gave the consumers a massive addiction. This made it the major thing everyone was spending their money on, even above food, which starved them of their nourishment and remaining money. In direct correlation, Sugarcube Corner began to collapse economically due to a lack of food sales, and, to add insult to injury, BEN had convinced an already somewhat paranoid Carrot that his children were not his, and that Cup had cheated on him. This, coupled with tanking sales, caused him to turn to drinking, and eventually, physical abuse to his family.
Twilight, with some ‘persuasion’ from Discord, consumed one of the drinks, which had a concentrated version of BEN’s spirit inside. After she took her first sip, BEN possessed her to strike a deal between the brothers, where she would mix some knockout potions into select drinks, and for some money, she was allowed to take the bodies to a lab that she had built under her library. Here, she would perform cruel genetic experiments on them to build a mutant army that BEN planned to use to overthrow Equestria. After the destruction of the labs and the utter failure of said plan, BEN began to tackle things much more directly.
In order to rebuild his lost army, BEN approached Queen Chrysalis, and requested her support; a changeling army in exchange for a second-handed seat of power. He had also come to Luna, who, bitter over her second, unnecessary banishment, was convinced by him to take vengeance by literally smashing the moon into the earth.
The remaining three of the six were corrupted a bit more directly. Rarity, panicking over a tanking economy and a severe shortage of gems, was persuaded by BEN and Discord to change her business strategy; instead of making magnificent clothes of high caliber quality, she was convinced to turn to cheap, immigrant labor, which produced a large amount of clothing that could be sold at dirt-cheap prices. Still not satisfied with her new business model, Rarity soon turned to selling her workers, and began to run a prostitution ring through Equestria for extra profit.
Fluttershy, following the new martial law, became even more of a social shut-in due to her fear of the guards. Spending day after day cooped up in her house with the animals, she slowly began to lose her mind without contact from her friends. BEN finished the job by possessing her when she became weak enough, and led her down a path of creature killing.
Lastly, Rainbow Dash, being extremely competitive, began to build even more ridiculously high standards for other pegasus ponies. After some convincing from BEN and Gilda directly, she began looking down on many pegasi, considering them worthless, unable to achieve anything in their lives. Not too long after, she created and oversaw the operation of the infamous Rainbow Factory, dedicated to the elimination of those she deemed ‘unfit’. Her operation was more or less a Nazi setup.
To top it off, Lyra’s obsessions with humanity lead her (under the influence of BEN) down a path of black market arms dealing; she, with guidance from BEN, built many human weapons, and sold them to the rainbow factory.
And I? even I fell victim. In order to stop the awful things that had been happening, some ponies had been hurt by me. I’d shot some, killed some, emotionally crippled them, beat them up... I was my own demon, and never noticed it until BEN was destroyed. He had corrupted us all to some degree or another.
All of it… all of it brought about by that hellish child…
...and the darker minds of the Internet for his inspiration.
I set the quill down for a brief moment and leaned back in the chair.
“You know, girls, this has been one hell of a ride. We’ve lost some ponies, a lot of us have lost our sanity. and in the end, we all did SOMETHING horrible while BEN was here.”
I quickly picked up the quill.
Dear Princess Celestia,
Hello, this is Nick, the human that’s been here for a good six months. My deepest condolences for everything you have lost, be it citizens, soldiers, money, or entire cities, please know that I am willing to stay here and help your society rebuild. It was my fault for the release of this spirit into your world, and for that, I’m willing to pay any price, be from a fine, to jail time to a simple apology to execution. Whatever you see fit, I am perfectly fine with, because, frankly, I just want this to be over as much as you.
HOWEVER, this can NOT be ignored - it must become a recorded historical event. Why? In my world, there was a man that once said: If you do not learn from the past, you will be damned to repeat its mistakes.
With that out of the way, please let me say this: I know I am not perfect. In the time I have been here, I have, like many others, done my own horrible things, from murder to theft, to breaking and entering and even simple white lies. Thus, I am no saint, and neither is the rest of the human race, I can promise you that. I will even go so far to confirm that yes, the stories about humans that your people uses to keep misbehaving children under control are based off of actual, horrific events that have occurred in my world. But right now, I wish to speak on behalf of all my people, and say that we are not evil. We are merely misguided individuals that have more ‘grey’ senses of right and wrong.
For example, the foal’s tale, ‘the wrath of the sun’ is something the American’s did, because we found it the only way to end the war with the Japanese. The man who dropped the device said it would haunt him till the day he died, and then some. We KNOW it’s not right, but sometimes, violent solutions are unavoidable. We as a species understand this, and this is why I’ve sadly, been put into situations where I’ve had to kill. Though a lot of deaths I had caused, such as Carrot Cake’s were avoidable, I allowed BEN to use me as a vehicle of destruction, just like he has done to almost all of you, which leads me into the first thing I’ve learned...
Everyone, human or otherwise, is prone to corruption.
Whenever a dire situation arises, such as a broken economy, people are often forced into situations, as well as doing things they’d rather not do, or usually NEVER do. For example, one night, I was staying at Carousel Boutique, and we had a break in. I killed the four stallions that had threatened our lives, though, before that, I had heard them talking to each other, saying things like ‘if the economy wasn’t so bad, I wouldn’t have to do this’. Corruption spreads quickly, through EVERYONE, even up to political leaders, who turn to abusing their powers by tormenting their people. Some are affected indirectly, but harmed all the same; Pinkie Pie, an already mentally unstable individual, started using drugs, which made her do pretty wicked things. Where did she get them? Derpy, who was simply desperate for money. Hence, the corruption of one can quickly spread to another, and create even more instability. Some people may change personalities and living habits completely during such times, even though you may have known them for years. Others may try to take advantage of certain situations, just as Flim and Flam did during the mess, which leads me into the second thing I learned,
Coping with bad situations is different for everyone.
Some, like Carrot, Granny Smith, or the general population, turn to alcohol and drugs to help them ‘forget’ the bigger picture at large. Some, such as Applejack, blame it on others. Others give up completely and fall into depression. Some even go so far as to end their lives, and others, well...
I stopped to think of Sweetie Belle.
Others block it out, and slowly go insane.
There’s also one other thing I learned...
Sometimes, violence is unavoidable. It never is a good solution, but it is one that must, sadly, be employed sometimes.
One last thing? Everyone has a darker side that they keep in their shadows, one that does the unspeakable and horrific. Everybody has a demon in them somewhere...
So, how exactly do you fix all this? This is where friendship comes into play.
When I first arrived here, I had no friends in this world. The first thing I found was a stallion abusing children. While I fought him, I dedicated the rest of my time here to ensuring those children were safe. While I did indeed fail one, I held onto the promise that the other two would never face any harm. I held onto faith that all the corrupted individuals I met would turn and see what they had done, which, fortunately, they did; Pinkie Pie and Twilight came to their senses after the drugs wore off. Applejack discarded her prejudice after some convincing. Rarity let go of her slave labor operation with proof of what really happened to her sister.
At the end of the day, your friends just care about your well being. For example, I was bitter and angry about Twilight’s actions, and blamed her for the death of sweetie Belle, However, Applejack and Pinkie Pie? They talked to her in the hospital like nothing happened; they were just happy to see she was safe and sound, and that’s all they needed to forgive her. It goes to show how powerful a force friendship truly can be, and it certainly helped us last night: I’m extremely grateful, looking back, that I was able to convince the citizens to cast aside all the small evils in order to stand together and fight the source. That, right there, is the TRUE power of friendship; it brings unity and strength to a divided world. and Friendship has one other interesting quality...
It’s a universal medicine for the tortured mind.
I would also like to tell you one thing that your people might not know about mine… As you know, I come from an evil, twisted world with a few elements of happiness and goodwill sprinkled between. With that said, I grew up seeeing and learning about evil from a very comfortable, safe perspective. I’m not trying to justify the actions that I did, and I’m probably going to burn for all eternity for what I’ve done.
My father, while a good man, was a very aggressive-response kind of person. - he though the only way to stop things ISIS was by enacting the same force - the same methods, upon them. For the longest time, I thought he was just as crazy as them - and he was; openly admitting that he was no better. I never agreed with him, but my time here has taught me that, perhaps, he was right.
Getting pulled into an evil world ravaged by horrors, however, forced me to fight back in ways I never wanted to - but without certain deaths - without fighting to survive Sugarcube Corner, the zombies, saving innocents from the Rainbow Factory…
We would have failed were it not for my violence.
Just know one little fact, that you learn when you are thrust from the comfort of a safe world to the Apocalypse: To truly defeat evil…
You must become evil.
...but by that same token… you must find the line between your demon and and your goodness, lest you let the worst part of your mind consume you entirely.
I regret everything, but it was necessary.
Your otherworldly guest,
-Nicholas Mathew ‘Jadusable’ Brownford
YO, SPIKE! Get down here! Got a letter for you!”
“We just went through a war! Can’t I sleep!?” I could hear the dragon call from the upper floor of the boutique.
“You’re younger than me, and I haven’t had four days of it. I don’t want to hear your excuses!”
As Spike made his way down to the ground floor, I, and the ponies around me, for the first time in weeks, managed to laugh. Then, I looked at the words on the page… noting… how often I mentioned her…
Applejack.
“A...applejack…”
That moment, as the crushing reality hit me again, my many friends gently placed their hooves around me. I simply cried, as a few drops landed beside the farmer's name.
“I… I still can’t believe she’s dead…”
“Nick, it wasn’t your fault…” Scootaloo said, looking up at me with a concerned, puppy-like face.
“Maybe… but I wasn’t able to save her from becoming a… statue.”
I let the tears rush out, ignoring a knock on the door of the boutique. I sat there, my face buried in my arms as Fluttershy flew over to answer it. A moment later, a warm hug embraced my stomach as hooves wrapped around me. I could smell a sweet scent in the air - brown sugar, cinnamon, apples… It reminded me of her. I felt a muzzle gently reach toward my ear and I-
“Ah’m glad you’re alive, sugarcube.”
Without thinking, I immediately spun around in childish glee.
“H-h-h-ho-how!? How the hell!? OH MY GOD! APPLEJACK!”
I couldn’t help myself, bringing my lips to her own.
“Ah dunno. After ya beat him… I guess… that statue thing, was a curse, and it wore off…”
“I thought you were de-”
“Naw… don’t talk, Nick… just hold me.”
And that I did. Finally… my mind was at peace.