//------------------------------// // Chapter 27: Desperation // Story: Heir To Darkness // by Leafdoggy //------------------------------// “Please, you have to stop!” Fluttershy’s voice cracked as a sob came over her. Her legs were trembling as she clutched the hunk of stone that had been given to her. “I do not have to do anything! How many pieces must I break off to make you understand that?” Dracula didn’t take her time the second time. She didn’t even move, just commanded the cloud of shadow to wrap around another leg and tear it off with a thunderous crack.  This one, she launched towards Fluttershy. Fluttershy flinched, and there was a tremendous boom as the piece of statue smashed against the wall beside her. Dracula hadn’t been aiming for Fluttershy, but the leg exploded with such force that it turned the bits of stone to shrapnel that pelted her body. A cry got stuck in Fluttershy’s throat and she coughed hard. It was a wet and painful cough, and made blood splatter out into the hall. “Please,” Fluttershy choked out, “what do you want? What do I have to do to make this stop?” “There’s nothing you can do.” Dracula stared into her eyes intensely. “I am the most powerful vampire in the world, and there are none who can stand against me. You? Well, let’s see.” Dracula let go of the hold she had over Fluttershy, and she fell weakly to the ground. The leg clattered to the floor as Fluttershy moved to catch herself, and she still only managed to keep one hoof on the ground. The others crumpled unceremoniously under her, and she had to painstakingly push herself back up. It was a slow and arduous process, but eventually Fluttershy was standing again, and even through the tears streaming down her face she once again locked eyes with Dracula. “Go on, then,” Dracula said. She held out a hoof as if to welcome Fluttershy in. “Stop me. Come and kill me. Take your throne.” “I’m not going to hurt you,” Fluttershy said. “I’m not like you. I just want Pinkie back.” “You selfish girl!” Dracula slammed her hoof against the wall hard enough to shake the entire hallway. “What makes you think you can have everything? You want to be a vampire, but you don’t want the wings. You want power, but you don’t want blood. You want your precious little pony, but you don’t want to hurt me. Make a decision!” “There has to be another way!” Fluttershy put her hooves together and begged. “Please, I’ll give you anything. I’ll cut my wings off myself if I have to, just don’t hurt her anymore!” “I gave you your options! It’s me or her, Fluttershy, you can’t have both!” She tore off another leg and hurled it at Fluttershy’s hooves. “You’re running out of time, girl!” “You brought me here to be different,” Fluttershy sobbed. “Remember? You… You thought Equestria needed a pony like your mother, right? What would she do? Would she hurt you, or—” “Enough!” Dracula tore off the final leg and let out a cry of anger as she hurled it straight into Fluttershy’s chest. Fluttershy had no chance to react. The stone slammed into her like nothing ever had before. She felt something crack as she was thrown into the air, and it only got worse when she landed hard on her back and slid down the hall. She wheezed and tried to regain her breath, but all that came to her was pain. Something in her chest had broken, and it stabbed into her with every inhale. Even when she did manage to take a breath, it didn’t seem to actually do anything. She still felt utterly breathless, and her muscles were quickly starting to burn as they struggled without oxygen. Dracula wasn’t finished. The shadows wrapped around Fluttershy’s tail and dragged her painfully back over to Dracula, then lifted her upside-down into the air to meet Dracula’s fiery gaze. “You know nothing of my mother,” Dracula told her. “How dare you speak of her to me. If I did not need you, I’d rip out your heart right here, but seeing as killing you just slows things down, I’ll settle for this.” Without a moment’s hesitation, Dracula motioned with her hoof and commanded the shadows holding Pinkie. It took only a second for them to build up enough speed, and then they slammed the statue into the wall. The brittle stone crumbled. In just an instant, all that was left was dust on the ground. “No—” Fluttershy started to cry out, but the stabbing pain in her chest cut her short. She tried to free herself, to flail loose or kick at Dracula or anything else, but her legs could hardly move. She’d lost too much air, and already the edges of her vision were starting to go dark. “Do you understand your position here yet?” Dracula stared hard into Fluttershy’s eyes. “You do as I say. I am your Lady, and until you can kill me, I am above you in every way.” “I won’t…” Fluttershy coughed up more blood and wheezed. She could barely get words out. “Play your game.” “You already are. Or is that pile of rubble not enough to make clear that you cannot stand against me? You either do as I say, or things start dying.” Fluttershy shook her head. “I’ll die before I let you hurt my friends any more.” Dracula laughed. “And what exactly makes you believe that would stop me?” “I won’t let you…” Fluttershy was running out of time. Her vision was tunneling fast, and the ringing in her ears was only getting worse. She had to do something, anything, before it was too late. So, she decided to do the only thing she was still able to do. She shut down. First her lungs, her ears, her eyes. Those vestigial pieces that had already become unusable. Then her other senses, and her limbs, and any other movement she could have accomplished. She left nothing but the small amount of effort needed to hold back the pain for as long as she needed. She stopped her heart last, and when she did the pain washed in. She drowned in it as it filled every bit of her, made her cold, empty and lifeless. It filled her lungs like briny water, pressed in on her with crushing force, shot through her body like a bolt of lightning. It came at her on every front in its unceasing attempts to drag her back to the river. She held it back though, at least for now. She’d kept just enough of herself going to do that. Every other ounce of power she had in her body was channeled into one thing, the one part of her that the pain couldn’t touch. The shadows grew. They grew and grew through her body, flowing with ease with nothing stopping them but that pain. They washed through the pain, pushed it away, stopped it entirely. They even used the pain, devouring it until all that was left was an echo of a memory, the shadow of pain, which was just more shadow to overcome Fluttershy. Then, when it had no more space to fill, the shadows grew into Fluttershy. It started with her heart. It took only a split second for her heart to be devoured by the darkness, changed forever into a shadow of what it had been. Of that, Fluttershy had no doubt. When she fell into the darkness, let it take her over, the bits of her that it swallowed would never exist again. The shadow of her heart still knew what it was meant to do, though, and it started to beat. It pumped shadow into her where blood had been, and that poured into her veins, to her organs, all throughout her body. When her lungs were devoured, she felt herself gasp for air. It still hurt, but it was just the shadow of pain, and instead of making her weaker, the pain poured into her and became a part of the shadows that she was. It made her stronger. Finally, after everything else, the shadows got to the final piece of Fluttershy that she’d held against the pain, and they waited. The shadows weren’t hungry, they weren’t devouring everything as some malevolent force, they simply were. They filled space that had ceased to be filled, and this last bit of Fluttershy wasn’t yet open to them. Fluttershy had come too far to stop there, though, and she let them in. She let go of her grip on reality and fell into the darkness that swarmed in on her. The world was gone. No Fluttershy, no Dracula, no castle, no river. It was all just shadow. Just darkness. Fluttershy’s consciousness wasn’t even there, not really. There was just a bit of shadow that was meant to be her mind, and it still had what were meant to be thoughts. It felt it as the shadows that were meant to be Fluttershy pieced themselves together around it. When it was meant to have ears, it could hear again. When what was supposed to be its legs returned, it could stand. And, finally, when the shadows of its eyes filled into place, it could see the world once more. It took Fluttershy a minute to figure out what was happening. She was standing on the ground again, that much was clear. Dracula stood before her, staring curiously down at her. Around her was a hallway, and around that a castle, and around that a town. Everything seemed to be in place. She looked down at herself, and was somewhat shocked to see that she looked… Normal. Fluffy yellow legs under a furry yellow chest, all of it perfectly clean and uninjured. As far as she could tell, she was still just Fluttershy. She knew better than that, though. If she looked for them, she could still find the shadows swimming around her, making up who and what she was. She could feel the frigid nothingness that flowed past her.  She knew that, while she was Fluttershy in a sense, she only really existed because Fluttershy did not. “Well that was a fun trick,” Dracula said, “but I’m afraid it’s a bit too late. Maybe if you’d done that sooner, you could have saved your—” “Please stop talking,” Fluttershy said. Dracula flinched. It was barely noticeable, but for just a moment, she hadn’t been able to speak. “What did you say to me?” Dracula asked. Fluttershy looked up slowly and Stared at Dracula. “I said, please stop talking.” Dracula went quiet again, but it still didn’t take long for her to shrug off Fluttershy’s influence. But still, she didn’t talk. Fluttershy was quickly getting used to her new non-self, and that came with some useful insight, the first bit being that it didn’t actually matter if her Stare worked. Either way, it was meant to work, and the shadow of a Stare was just as potent as the real thing. Fluttershy turned her attention away from Dracula and walked over to the pile of rubble that sat nearby. A tear came to her eye as she looked down at it, but she wiped it away. She focused intently on the debris, painstakingly gathering every bit of it with shadows and pulling it together. When she wasn’t strong enough, she started to use herself once again. She pulled shadows from the mass that was meant to be her, shadows she had much finer control over, and used them for what she was doing. She tore at herself in chunks, and as she did parts of her simply ceased to be. At some point she tore away a piece that made her Stare stop working, and Dracula spoke up again. “What exactly are you trying to do?” “I told you,” Fluttershy said, although speaking at this point took a fair amount of effort, “there had to be another choice. I found it.” After she said that, the last little bit of herself floated away and down to the rubble. Then it all swarmed together, pulled the bits into one place, and started to piece them back together. The shadows swirled together for a long, slow minute. As they did, Dracula just stood back and watched. Then they finished, and the shadows all wisped away like smoke. Where they had been stood a very dazed, very confused Pinkie Pie, who was looking all around the hallway and trying to figure out how she’d gotten there. It took Fluttershy’s body a long time to piece itself back together again. She floated in the darkness for what felt like hours, waiting impatiently for the shadows that made her up to regain enough of themselves to pull together. When she could see again, she wasn’t where she had expected to be. Above her was a vibrant, swirling orange sky, and below her was the blue of nighttime. The raft she was on rocked on light waves. At the back of the raft sat The Visitor, shaking their head solemnly as they slowly paddled along. “Oh, Fluttershy,” they said. “You have some really dumb ideas, you know that?”