//------------------------------// // The Final Cut // Story: Reeltime Roadtrip // by Vis-a-Viscera //------------------------------// “Soon after our photo was taken, we blacked out and awoke in this world,” Spectacle started as she, Starlight, Sunburst, and her daughter Trixie trekked through the halls. Every so often, they waved to groups of bedraggled fillies they passed. Despite the grime on their clothing and their sunken eyes, the children waved happily enough at the other colorful ponies passing by. "We had issues with food, but I was able to open the school's cafeteria with my horn. Then... bigger problems arrived." "No way back?" Starlight offered. “... None.” The way Spectacle spoke, that homeroom’s trials might have been more than she signed up for. “I gathered as many of the fillies as I could and searched everywhere. Getting out...hasn’t been as simple as getting in here. Thank goodness I heard you arrive in the auditorium - you might have the key to get back.”   “Of course. And with these two's help,” Trixie tittered. “I have no doubt we'll be back home soon.” “Oh, Trixie! There’s the modest, gentle soul I raised!” Spectacle seemed completely genuine, ignoring the shocked look Starlight shot her. Even Sunburst could read the Trixie? Modest? Hanging on the tip of Starlight's tongue. "Did Reeltime show up here too?" he asked. "Shortly after we did," Spectacle growled. “He must have followed Grey Film! He’s been popping in and out of this world, taunting us all about how close he is to having enough negatives to unleash on Equestria. Really obsessed about retooling that place in his image, the second he finds worthy ‘models’.” Spectacle bitterly laughed as they looked through the schoolhouse doorway, the streets hauntingly empty. “Such an ego on that fiend.” Starlight gulped audibly. “I… see.” Her gaze swung toward the streets. “You said 'negatives', right? Do you mean the town?” Spectacle looked a decade old as she turned to Starlight. “No. They’re the… things that Reeltime made of near-half the class - a process he perfected from the towns around us. Follow me - you can see the ‘negatives’ for yourself.”  After shutting and locking the door of the school behind them, the four ponies trotted through the streets of the black-and-white Hope Hollow. Spectacle kept them close to the walls and trees. “I’ve looked for Grey Film, but he’s gone. I can only assume he was taken by them.” Spectacle stopped, pointing from behind a tree. Trixie, Sunburst and Starlight almost gasped at what they saw. Several ponies were in the town market, and beyond the striped grey-scale roofs, lurking beside the slick black lake, were the ‘negatives’.  They certainly had the shape of ponies. But they were consumed by shiny, rippling ichor - the same oily black substance that crawled through the monochrome school. It covered the ponies entirely, only thinning out slightly at the rear flank to show the cutie mark over a ring - whichever ponies were old enough to have them.  The way the inky darkness made their jaws and forelimbs look - wicked and jagged - made Sunburst shudder, thinking of the behemoth Stygian had become when under the influence of the darkness. The Pony of Shadows. But much like the pool of ichor one of the streams had made, the ponies seemed to have a limit to their reach. They paced, they coughed, they growled in a sound that reminded one of scraping chalk against boards, but they stayed near the lake.  “Gonna guess magic doesn’t work against them?” Sunburst asked.  “On the contrary.” Spectacle mused. “It draws them. Then they pull you into those lakes, and…“ She swallowed thickly. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I-” “How many fillies did they take?” That the question came from Trixie wasn’t what made Starlight turn to her in shock. It was the tone that Trixie asked it in, something that Starlight hadn’t thought Trixie could harness - near-silent fury. Spectacle was the first to realize it. “Trixie, please don’t do anything rash-” “This... Reeltime stole you from me. Stole this homeroom from the real Hollow. Stole these… fillies’ bodies.” Her purple eyes sparkled with rage. “How. Many.” “There were seven, Trixie! But please, don’t-” Starlight was more punctual than Spectacle, tackling Trixie to the ground before she could let her sorcerous bolt fly.  “Right now, Trixie, we don't know what they might do to us - or what they can handle!” she hissed to her thrashing friend. “Let’s get accounts from the other fillies at the school; then we can figure out a way to save them and leave!” Just as Trixie finally calmed down, an ear-piercing scream broke out. “The school!” Spectacle’s head whirled to face the bundling. “I can’t lose more of them! Not again!”  Sunburst gulped. “Uh, Spectacle?” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Think the losses might be coming a bit closer to home right now.” Slowly, Spectacle turned to notice the negative ponies, slowly stalking toward their position. The strings linking them to the pool still weaved and twisted in the air with an almost independent will. They reminded Starlight of snakes - hungry, hunting pythons. And the creatures they were attached to were just as ravenous. “Right. Time to take these things out. We've been found out anyway.” Starlight lit up her horn- -and got yanked backward by Spectacle as she burst into a gallop. Sunburst towed Trixie after them by the ends of her cape. “Those are still innocent fillies, Miss Glimmer!” yelled Spectacle. “We can find a way to sever them from those pools - but not like that!”  Sunburst peered behind him. Despite the disturbing yells and growls from the pursuing negatives, he noticed that the threads of ichor connecting them to the black lake were growing dangerously strained. Not only that, but the ichor around their bodies was thinning out the closer they got to the schoolhouse - and the further they got from the pool. A knowing grin crossed his cape-stuffed muzzle. “Ah thimpk Ah hav an-” Remembering he still had Trixie’s cape in his mouth, he gave a swift tug and yanked the showpony onto his back, before spitting out the speech-obstructing fabric. “I think I have an idea! Starlight, get your horn ready and be prepared to catch!”  Starlight, already at a run herself, turned to Sunburst with confusion worn across her face. “Catch what- whoa there!” But both she and Spectacle were too late to stop Sunburst’s bolt of magic, shot straight at the closest negative. His target was different, as the magic javelin missed the filly’s body entirely, slicing through the thread of ichor instead before impacting the ground. But the loss of tether and the resulting blast sent the negative flying right into Starlight’s clutches. She overbalanced, the black-coated filly clutched in her arms, and both ponies crashed into the town halls front door. “Starlight!” Trixie yelled. But upon Sunburst’s back, all she could do was fire enough bolts from her horn to keep the other two Negatives from following Starlight. The negatives flung themselves after Starlight, but their tethers were at their limits and yanked them back just shy of the school doors - where Sunburst, Trixie, and Spectacle burst through into safety.  Trixie whirled on the others the second they slammed the doors shut. “We’re going back for Starlight!” she demanded. “Right now!” “We might not have to if my hypothesis is correct!” Sunburst said. “Those tethers come from the lake, and cutting one-” “You risked Starlight and an innocent filly’s life for a hypothesis?” Spectacle snarled, shoving her muzzle against his and forcing him to back away from her until his rear collided with the wall. “I have lost nearly a third of these poor scared ponies to Reeltime’s madness, Sunburst!” “I didn’t think Starlight was gonna charge them into Town Hall!” Sunburst said. “And if you want, I’ll lead the charge myself, but-” Then his eyes shot back toward the door and his words trailed off. “Spectacle, didn’t you lock that door behind us when we left?” Spectacle sighed in exasperation. “Yes but - one of the fillies may have unlocked it to look for us on the outside-” Then her face turned pale enough that Sunburst could almost have believed that she was a negative too. “I locked it from the outside. Who in the world could have come in?” A SNAP and a flash of green light made all three ponies squint. The second they tried to straighten from their crouch, they realized that they… couldn’t.  “Who’s doing this?” Trixie yelped, her purple eyes searching fruitlessly for their captor. But it was no good - they were stuck fast. Helpless.  Then she gasped, her eyes widening at the sight of ponies even more helpless than herself, her mother, and Sunburst.  The schoofillies were crying and sobbing as they were led out of the classrooms by four more negatives. And leading this band like a pied piper, was the masked and malicious pony from the photograph in the library.  “Reeltime!” Spectacle hissed, straining madly in her frozen prison. “I should have known you would strike here while I was gone!”  “Really, the pleasure’s all mine! Thanks to them-” Reeltime jerked a forehoof, the one holding his glistening black camera, twinkling with green sparks, at Trixie and Sunburst. “You really went the distance, holding out against me all these years, Spectacle! But these idiots here drop into my world, and deliver you to me in one tidy package!” A tinny chuckle came from behind the mask, and he tapped the glittering flashbulb on his camera. “What’s wrong, Spectacle - you’re the best showpony in Equestria, surely a little spotlight wasn’t that maddening?” As he calmly produced a foldable stand and set it up at the entrance, Sunburst struggled against his bonds. “What in the world would you do this all for, Reeltime!?” he yelled. “There’s far more ponies in our world now than there were before! Brave ponies with magic strong enough to defeat you! Whatever evil you're planning-” “Improvement, you scruffy-haired simpleton. What I am doing is home improvement!” Reeltime smirked. “And the second I have your purple friend captured too, you’ll learn that nopony is immune from being made into a negative. A literal film-soaked scion, ready to learn from a real teacher. One who will forward a Renaissance in Equestria, to make up for the deformity that Equestria forced on me.” It was only then, as he hunched over his camera stand and his cape bunched up on his side, that Sunburst noticed the sharp stubs of skin twitching at his shoulders. Like there were supposed to be wings there. “You mean… you had something taken from you?” Sunburst’s voice was softer, but his eyes flickered to the windows for any sign of Starlight.  “Hmph. Like you’d care about the fillies in Manehattan who pretended to be my friends, and taunted me every day for my tiny wings.” Reeltime grumbled, aiming down the sights of his pony-freezing weapon. “Like you could comprehend the pain they dealt me, even before I lost one wing saving one of them from falling off a flagpole they wanted to wedgie me on. Like you could ever survive the pain in a father’s disappointment at the failure of his son who he had hoped would become a Wonderbolt, seeing me return with those dreams dashed… and then running rather than face it.”  Finished with his work, he jabbed bitterly at the camera aimed at the door. “This is all that kept me aloft in Equestria. Not magic, not friendship, and certainly not the critics that plague my art.” “I understand the pain of your loss, Reeltime,” Spectacle started. “But that does not make doing…whatever monstrosity you’ve visited on those other fillies acceptable! Spreading your misery doesn’t make the friendship problem go away, it just makes it everyone’s problem!”  “Oh, please don’t waste my time on such trite pleas,” snarled Reeltime. “The last snapshot is almost ready. A pity your little photographer Grey Film never told you of why we’re so close.”  “He told me enough, Reeltime!” Spectacle yelled. “He told me you’ve stalked him!”  “You see, this is why people should watch more films!” Then Reeltime reached for the clasps to his mask, unhooking each one with foreboding snaps. “Then this wouldn’t be a surprise.”  As the leather and metal fell away, what lay beneath made both Spectacle and Sunburst gasp. Despite the age that had silvered his mane and the lack of an actual horn on his head - unlike what the pointed mask hinted at - the face was all too familiar. Sunburst had seen it in the complaints report, even his name was in the headline of the Homeroom 22 papers. Spectacle, however… had likely seen him far earlier than the others. “Grey Film…” she moaned, and the word fell from her lips like an anvil. “By Celestia…”  “Oh believe you me - she’ll be before the lens in good time. And speaking of…” Grey Film, now revealed as Reeltime, clapped his hooves. “My wonderful negatives - make them shine. You know where the source is for the dip.”  Then the ichor-dripping ponies lunged forward, grabbling clumps of fur and clothing in their teeth and dragging the three ponies away. The fourth - the one not holding Spectacle, Sunburst, and Trixie - and turned to snarl at the frightened fillies, keeping them rooted. For the three unicorns being pulled away, however, those growls rang in their heads like tambourines. It was a dark testament to the sounds - and freedom - they’d have taken from them in minutes’ time. Just then though, Sunburst caught a glimpse of a flash of purple outside the window of the auditorium, and his eyebrows rose. He nudged Trixie, who glanced over and understood at once. She darted forward, aiming right for Reeltime, and he was forced to scramble backwards away from her until he could blast her again with the freeze-flash of his camera.  He caught his breath, and then brushed himself off. He stood on the very precipice of the black lake on the stage, Trixie frozen before him, her hooves outstretched towards him. Reeltime laughed cruelly at her ridiculous posture, and flicked her dismissively on the nose.  “Nice try, Trixie. Was that the last trick up your sleeve? Not much more of a threat than your mother.” He sneered over at Spectacle, and it was then that a flash of blue magic sparked into being above his head. A snap of magic and dislodged air announced Starlight’s arrival, and before a dazed Reeltime even had a chance to look up, Starlight was landing on his shoulders, her strike making him lose his grip on his camera. It tumbled from his grasp and into the black pool of ichor.  Reeltime gasped and swung after it, trying to catch it, and Starlight’s weight on his shoulders was just enough to throw his balance off. He skidded in the oily pitch, his hooves slid from beneath him, and then he and Starlight were falling, falling, Reeltime’s forelegs windmilling and his mouth open in a rictus snarl of fury as Starlight’s horn lit and -- SNAP! The flash of Starlight’s magic blinded them for a moment, and the first thing Trixie and Sunburst could make out were the last ripples on the pool’s surface as Reeltime’s reaching hoof sank.  “Starlight!” Sunburst howled, rushing to the edge.  “Up here!” A distant voice called, and their heads tipped back to spot a little purple shape crouching in the rafters of the auditorium.  Starlight teleported one last time, down to their sides, and the three friends watched in amazement as the ichor began slowly but surely to drip away from the negatives.  “I think...I think we did it,” Starlight said slowly. “We solved our friendship problem.” “We did far more than that,” Trixie said, putting a hoof around Spectacle’s. “We found my mother.” “And saved all these ponies,” Spectacle added, beckoning the frightened fillies towards her, to watch the faces of their friends emerge from the slick black ichor together.  It had taken only an hour for them to get the other ponies freed from the pools that Reeltime had made for them. Once that was over, trekking up the dumbwaiters was tough work - but one that four unicorn horns were all too happy to facilitate. After all, Grey Film’s spare camera was still in the shaft.  And when they got back to normal Equestria, the shaft was where it would remain - with a vow between them to never tell of the horrors it’d produced again. Starlight, however, had been busy wondering just what it was that prompted the two arriving mayors to follow them into the school fast enough to wrap them in hugs when they got back from the monochrome wordl. Or what had caused the once bitter rivals to start whispering to each other so fast after their reuninon. Goodness, Starlight thought, what could have gotten them so chummy in a hurry? I mean, besides, the obvious? She got her answer when she went through the portal in a flash of sparkles and alongside Trixie, Sunburst and Spectacle. And both she and Spectacle jumped at the seeing a tarp-draped black figure standing behind an old camera. But this time, the source was far more tame than the abductor of Homeroom 22.  “Up for another photo?” Mayor Skies said. Starlight, the second she got her heart rate down to normal, asked the obvious question at hand. “For what end, Mayor?”  “Well….” Mayor Mare popped her head into the auditorium, now brightly lit with the help of the tinkering Torque Wrench. “I… realize I may have been a bit hasty as to who was to blame for Homeroom 22’s end. And I wanted to give Skies the moment to capture my great error.” Mayor Skies nodded. “Plus, Mayor Mare wants to celebrate the lift of the blockades and the finding of the fillies. Perhaps a snapshot with the saviors? And the brave magicians alongside them?” Almost immediately, Trixie and Spectacle posed for Skies. “Yup, definitely Trixie’s mother…” grinned Sunburst around a cup of pumpkin juice. “Dunno - I think cameras are a bit of a sore spot for me.” Then one of the rescued fillies leapt into Starlight’s embrace, hugging her. Starlight noticed the mark on her flank - a rainbow ring around a blue star in the center - her memory telling her that it was the very ‘negative’ that she’d rescued. Almost immediately, she brightened up. “On the other hand…”  Several minutes later, Starlight, Trixie add Sunburst left the room, heading for Trixie’s cart and their home in Ponyville. Leading the charge to the cart was Spectacle, all smiles at Trixie’s latest story of how she and Twilight had ‘saved’ Ponyville from the corruptive influence of the Alicorn Amulet.  Sunburst was stuck between shaking his head at Trixie's braggadocio, and pleading with Starlight to stay for Hope Springs' Eternal Festival. And Starlight was busy pointing out to Sunburst how important it was to let Jack-Pot know of his long-lost wife. But hanging in the corkboard just inside the swinging schoolhouse door was the product of the unicorns' efforts - a large panoramic photo of them, the Mayors and the gathered fillies, standing in the great auditorium. Already, the dumbwaiter door was boarded up in the background, another Torque Wrench insurance policy. But pinned at the edge of the door, signed in looping purple cursive, was the message that’d greet anypony that moved through those doors.  Hope Hollow Thanks Spectacle, Trixie, Sunburst and Starlight! Every picture is a window into the soul And some of them are of those lucky ones, again made whole.