//------------------------------// // Final Act: The End is just the beginning // Story: Friendship is Failure #19: Write in the Head (Hour long special) // by DakariKingMykan //------------------------------// FINAL ACT More more and more of the pages were being found by ponies all over. Even Pager found a nightmare, which plopped right in his face as he was about to have brunch at an outdoor cafe. “Hey! What the--” he growled “Who threw this in my face!” He would have tossed the paper away when he saw the writing on it, and his own name. “What the-- Why is my name on this?” He thought it was so freaky that he tossed it away. The page fluttered along the air and landed on a table a few ways down where another pony picked it up. Curious of what it was, he couldn’t help but read it, and out loud. “Night of the Timberwolves” One night Pager was walking through Everfree Forest…” Pager suddenly began to feel strange. “What’s happening to me?” Then before he knew it, there was, in Everfree, in the dark and creepy night. “Hey! What’s going on?!” he shouted out. Suddenly, he could hear the sound of footsteps moving towards him, followed by sickening growls. Pager turned round and saw the very Timberwolves he had dreamed about a while back. “No!!” he screamed “This can’t be real!” but he began to run for his life as those beasts gave chase. The pony kept reading the story, until the waiter came out with his food, forcing him to stop reading, causing Pager to snap right back into reality, screaming for help! Every pony in the café turned gawk at him, and Pager was so frightened that he just ran off screaming like a baby! The Publisher and Sandy were walking along that day, but they stopped when they heard some kid on a bench reading from another page. “Sandy Beam and her father were walking along the river-bank one day…” And POOF… the two were trapped in the nightmare they had, facing the rickety bridge and the rushing river. More and more ponies were strangely having their nightmares read, and thus trapping them all in the fantasies of the stories… …While back in the throne room, the typewriter was glowing brighter than ever, which told everyone enough-- the stories were being read, which meant ponies were suffering! “What have I done?” cried Stone “I just wanted to prank ponies in revenge, I didn’t want to actually harm them!” Twilight was panicking. “We have to do something! We have to stop those stories from being read!” Spike protested, “Twilight, there’s no way we can possibly find them all, or even know how many of them are out there!” “He’s right.” agreed Starlight. “There’s got to be some other way we can--” she stopped right there, when she noticed the typewriter was floating in midair. Everyone watched in confusion and then watched as it flew out the window. “What in the hat is it doing now?” asked Aapplejack. “I don’t think we want to know!” whimpered Fluttershy. The sky grew dark, and the typewriter then began to cast magical beams into the air, opening portals into the actual nightmares themselves. All the monsters, beasts, and paraphernalia were starting to materialize into reality. “Yet another special feature I suppose?!” sneered Rainbow. Stone was completely surprised, and wondered if even the inventor knew about this feature as well, but now he was completely ashamed for unleashing all this chaos. “Call out the guards!” shouted Celestia. Warning horns tooted and all the palace guards began to rush into arms. “Let’s get down there!” shouted Twilight. The gang agreed and headed out to assist, while Spike and Stone remained behind in the palace with the sisters. Stone was kneeling on the floor, holding his front hoofs to his head in extreme guilt and fear at what was happening… all because of him. Spike couldn’t help but feel sorry for Stone, but right now there were more pressing matters to worry about! The guards confronted one of the giant timber wolfs and charged with their lances at the ready, but that big brute gave a loud road, making large airwaves that blew all the men back hard. Some of the guards even began to cower in fright, but others continued to fight to try and protect the civilians from the other oncoming and materializing horrors. Twilight and Starlight tried to place magically barriers over the portals to keep the dangers at bay, but to no avail-- just as the typewriter protected itself and Stone Heart from danger, it protected the nightmares themselves. The barriers were dispelled instantly, and any magical blasts the mares fired did absolutely nothing. “It’s no use!” cried Starlight “They’re just still just dreams, and you can’t hurt dreams!” By this time, the ponies and other creatures of Canterlot were beginning to run in panic. Even those whom had read to stories, thus: unleashing the dangers. Though they had already stopped reading and dropped the pages, the horrors did not cease and continued to materialize all over town. “RUN!!” shouted Applejack “Come with me this way!” She led a large herd of ponies with her away from the dangers. Pinkie, Rainbow and Fluttershy helped, but how to stop the dangers themselves was anyone’s guess, especially considering more civilians were becoming trapped not just within their homes and other buildings, but some of them were actually being sucked in through the portals, into the nightmares themselves where even more frightful experiences awaited them! “It’s not working!” cried Pinkie. “We can’t hold these creatures back!” “We must do something!” screamed Rarity, but suddenly she was ensnared by nightmare vines that began to pull and drag her towards a nightmare portal. “Rarity!!” cried Twilight. “Grab her!!” shouted Starlight. All the friends formed a huge chain, and Twilight pulled on Rarity’s limbs. “Help me!!” Rarity cried. Spike saw the whole thing from the window in the palace. “Rarity…!” he felt like jumping out and going down there, but there were also monsters beginning to scale the walls of the castle. “You’re majesties!” cried one of the guards “We can’t seem to hold these creatures off! They just keep on coming!” Celestia’s nerves were a wreck. She had never been so stumped before. “How could all this happen from simple written stories?” Stone’s head suddenly perked up. “The stories?” and his eyes widened and he jumped up shouting, “…The Stories!!” Everyone stopped to look at him, and he dashed over to the window, and he could see the typewriter floating high in the sky, and still glowing as more nightmares were unleashed. “I’ve got to get to it!” “What are you saying?” asked Luna. Stone looked at her with desperate eyes, “Please, you’ve got to help me reach the typewriter. I think I know how to stop it.” Luna was confused, but she agreed to help and let him ride on her back, since he couldn’t fly. “Luna! Please be careful out there!” called Celestia. Her sister nodded at her, and then she took off with Stone, heading out the window and up into the sky towards the typewriter. As they got closer, however, the typewriter could sense Luna’s presence, and it began to fire magical blasts at her. “I can’t get any closer!” Stone was not deterred. “Try and levitate me in. It won’t be hostile towards me.” Luna agreed and began to levitate him with her magic, and carefully moved him towards the raging machine. As he suspected, the machine allowed him to take it as it was bonded to him, and he managed to scoop it into his hooves. “Okay, take us back!” he shouted, and Luna flew back towards the palace, but kept him in her levitation magic. “Let’s move back!” said Spike, and he and Celestia, and whatever guards were with them stepped far back as Luna and Stone came through the window, to avoid the rage of the machine. Stone placed the machine on the floor. “I need paper!” Then he one of the paged on the floor, and even though it had a story written on the front, the backside was still clear. “Perfect!” he cried, and he quickly loaded the paper into the machine and began typing. “What are you doing?” asked Spike. “Trust me!” replied Stone. Outside the nightmares were getting stronger, and soon all of Canterlot would be swarmed with monsters and dangers and other horrors beyond imagination, and they would continue to spread out all over Equestria. As for Twilight and her friends, they weren’t looking so themselves for they were nearly pulled into the nightmare that was pulling Rarity in by vines. “We’re not going to make it!!” screamed Pinkie. “We have to!” cried Fluttershy. “Please, don’t let me go!” wailed Rarity. “We won’t!” shouted Twilight “We won’t let you go, Rarity!” “We’re going to get sucked in!” cried Starlight. This really looked like the end, but Stone finished typing a new story and pulled it out of the machine. He then stood proudly and read what he had written loud and clear, “All of the other evil nightmares created by the evil dream machine vanished, and all of their victims were safe as the darkness lifted away!” The typewriter glowed brighter than ever, and it fired a large beam of light out through the window. The light soared into the sky, and burst into millions upon millions of sparkling specks of light. “What’s that?” wondered Twilight. All her friends looked up and saw the lights settling down all over, causing the nightmares and all unleashed from them to fade away, and the darkness overhead began to dispel. The friends all fell with a plop onto the ground, and all other ponies had returned as well. “What happened?” asked Starlight. “All the nightmares are gone.” replied Twilight. Rarity couldn’t stop trembling, twitching, and stammering with wide eyes and a frazzled mane. Back in the palace, the typewriter was no longer glowing. The nightmares had truly ceased. The sisters sighed in ever so much relief as the royal guards cheered for joy. “YA-HOO!!” hollered spike “We did it! We did it!!” then he stopped and looked up at Stone, “…Okay… You did it.” Stone looked down at the typewriter, realizing what a danger it was, but he also kept in mind that he would still likely be faces charges, and/or a light sentence for his harassment crimes. …But he was prepared for this, as he had written more on the story he was holding, and he read from it… “In conclusion: With all of the nightmares ceased, all the ponies and everything else was sent back in time to the day when Stone Heart first brought said machine home, and yet only Stone, himself retained any memory of the events.” “What?!” snapped Celestia. “What are you doing?!” added Luna, but the typewriter already flashed brightly, enveloping everyone in its glow, which spread out all over the land. “What’s happening now!” cried Twilight. She and all the friends could only scream as the light consumed them along with all the civilians and the world around them. Stone found himself back in his own home, in his secret cellar, having just brought the typewriter home, before using it. The civilians had suffered no nightmares caused by him, nor did Twilight Sparkle or her posse have any clue of the secrets he held. Only Stone himself, retained any memory of the events that, now, had never occurred, which meant he couldn’t be incriminated or punished either, at least not by law. Plus, his conscience would no longer be disturbed for bringing the nightmares to life. As for the typewriter, he decided to keep it anyway, but only use it when it had to be, and not to conjure up horrors, but rather for himself. Such a writing a story and then bringing it to life, which supplied him with endless amounts of cash, making himself a good fortune. While it would had been tempting to write a story where the people would stop bullying him and praise him for his stories, even he wasn’t that shallow and still retained some honor. He was still a pony of his pride, and now he had new ways to get revenge on his detractors and those he didn’t trust besides haunting them. During his garbage colleting routes, Pager would taunt him as usual. “Still picking up garbage like the trash-heap you are?” Stone glared at him, almost sinisterly, “Yes… I am…” and he began to approach him in a threatening manner, “…Seeing as you like to talk trash so much, maybe I ought to pick You!” Pager felt insulted, “Why you stinking little--” he charged at him to attack, but knowing Pager’s lousy sense, Stone simply stepped out of the way causing pager to rush right into the trash-wagon, and a heap of slimy and grimy garbage toppled all over him. Many ponies who saw laughed at him, Pager was outraged and humiliated, and there was worse to come as a royal guard came over. “I saw the whole thing.” he thundered at Pager, and he looked prepared to arrest him for trying to start a fight. “No, no…” said Stone “I’ve got a better idea.” Before Pager knew it, he was being forced to clean up the entire park himself, under the watchful eyes of Stone and the guards, further humiliating him. In the days to come, the newspapers told of a story in Las Pegasus of how Stone’s parents hit a terrific stroke of bad luck and lost all their money, forcing themselves into poverty and the poor house. Stone was amused. He didn’t have to make the story himself, and his folks were already being punished for their selfish and ridiculous ways. Still, he couldn’t be totally heartless, and mailed small offerings of his fortune, but did it anonymously, still not really wanting to ever see them again, or having them track him down and mooch off him like they would. There was also the bunch of ponies who admired his Strength of Friendship story, which he still remained embittered to, and rather than use a time travel story to erase it from existence, he preferred to just continue to shun and balk at any and all fans, and reject all payment and offers. Even towards Twilight, when she wrote to him stated how much she loved the story and was willing to offer him a job as a literature teacher at the School of Friendship, he wrote back with a blunt message. “I’m sorry. Your offer has been rejected. Please give up, and do not write again.” Twilight felt confused and offended, and she vowed to figure out one day why he would reject her… but that was another story for another time and place. With his source of riches and power undetectable and unstoppable, and his ways of protection and keeping himself out of danger, Stone really felt he had it made. As for Stone, all he could do was walk along on his route, and then stop. He looked towards the camera, and stuck out his tongue while tugging on his eye-lid. …And off he went, back to his work.