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// One town gone, another is next 
// Story: Destitute: A nightmare of the Nothing 
// by The Psychopath 
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Throughout the small town erupted an extremely cold breeze that swept through the quaint little place, and even through the buildings. All the passing inhabitants felt a maw of ice gnawing at their bones, but each quickly tossed the feeling away as a simple cold breeze that usually occurs around their town. Then they saw it. The black and white stallion slowly walked towards their town, his eyes constantly closed, and his breathing irregular. This pony just calmly walked towards the center of the town, attracting everypony's attention. The center of this town was, in-fact, a wooden statue depicting the minotaur who founded the place. It was beautifully carved and very large, and the details literally made you think that, if one would use a microscope, they could see the skin cells of the statue. Clearly, those that lived in this village had unparalleled craftsmanship.

However, just the sight of this bizarre entity suddenly freezing next to the statue and not making any life-like movements frightened everypony. After a few minutes of constant creepiness and immobility, one of the stallions decided to speak to it. He was an average kakis stallion with a brown mane and tail that were very curly. His cutie mark was a "praline", a special chocolate pastry. He looked worringly at the stallion, and observed him, studied him, and listened for anything as he walked around the target a few times. Finally, with a finely tuned, but cracking voice, spoke to this newcomer:

"Welcome, sir, to our town of Lodgis. We are the best lumberjacks, sculpters, and all around anything if it concerns wood. Have you come here looking for one of our wares, or do you want to become part of our little commuity yourself?" he finished with a nervous smile while everypony else creeped around the corners to look at the stranger.
"Eheh. Ahhh...sir?"

The stallion did not respond, and kept its eyes closed. 

"Um...are you okay? You haven't said a thing, and you aren't opening your eyes. Can't you see?"

Still silence.

"Okaaaay. I'll just be leaving then." he said as his slow backing away turned into a quick rush.

For the entirety of the day, the stallion stayed there, in the middle, next to the statue, doing absolutely nothing. However, whenever the folks at Lodgis thought of that word, "nothing", they felt their minds blank for a few moments. This stallion was doing something, but what? Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours. Soon, as a plan was being formulated, a few fillies and colts playing with a ball accidentally kicked it too far and let it roll towards the immobile stallion. They had just gotten out of school, so they hadn't heard of this mysterious character of which bizarre rumors had been spreading around. A red colt with a pink mane and tail, both of which looked broccoli, galopped quickly towards the ball that had actually been stopped by a moved foreleg. Everypony in the town looked at the stallio who suddenly started to move as the child drew near. They didn't know what was going on, but something was happening.
The little foal grabbed his ball and spoke to the stallion:

"Thanks, mister."

"..."

"Um. You want to play with us?" he asked, moving the ball forward with his muzzle.

The stallion lift his left foreleg and rubbed the colt's head, making him giggle. The wary ponies and donkeys around gave a sigh of relief, thinking that he simply only liked talking or reacting to children, that is, until the colt gave out a scream, followed by his companions. The mysterious character's hoof had literally gone through the colt's head, but with no damage at all. It was like a ghost was reaching into the poor pony's head. After a moment of fumbling, a white orb was pulled out of the colt's head. Said colt then flopped onto the ground.

The stranger lift the orb high into the air to observe it in the light. There seemed to be some sort of thick, cloudy fog within it, and it gave out a calming hum. 

"HEY! What did you do to my son?!" a gray mare yelled as she stomped towards the stallion who was still looking at his prize. "I'm talking to you!"

"..."

"Alright, that's it!" she turned around and bucked the stranger powerfully into the side of his head.

Everybody in the town gasped in synchronisation. What should have broke a neck showed the being with its head bent to the side. It was quite frightening, especially when it just pushed its head back into place and start at the mare who started to back away, but was lightly tapped on the head by the orb, which then became some sort of living black ball of mobile sludge and gunk that gave off the unnerving sound of a heartbeat. 

The spectators watched in horror as the child stood up, but looked quite evil, while the mare opened her eyes, and gave off a smile which, apparently, she had never done before. She walked towards the colt with a wide smile and spoke in a colorful tone:

"Come now. Let's go home. I want to spend some time with you."

"Lemme go!" he yelled as he punched her in the face. "You aren't my boss, and I don't have to listen to you."

"Wait!" she yelled as both ponies began to gallop off.

In a humerous fashion, the pectators looked at the two disappear, then went back to stare at the stranger who was staring at its new orb, still without emotion. Quiet gossipping began.

"What did he do?"

"What is that thing he's holding?"

"Did he just reverse their personalities?!"

Suddenly, he opened his mouth wider than any normal pony should, and revealed that there was some type of black hole with strands of white swirling in his mouth. He tossed the orb into the pit and began to walk towards those who were hiding as he slowly closed his mouth. Everything started to become stressful as the stranger moved nearer to the ponies. Unfortunately, two more fell victim to it, except this time, they ran towards him, and the orb started out as black and turned white.

While this pony went on his rampage, a few make-shift security guards ran into the chaos and tried to block him.

"You aren't going any further. I don't know what you are, but you won't be leaving this place." said a unicorn wearing pots and pans.

The stallion said nothing, and continued to move forward, until it was locked in place by several javelins thrown into its legs.

"Good shot!" the pan pony shouted to a friend flying above them."Now grab him! We can't let that thing escape our town."

The small group surrounded the stallion, who showed no emotion, and remained motionless, until he was approached by shackles. At that moment, some form of pressure erupted through the town, causing the inhabitants to stop moving and begin to stress. The pony began to stand up, while the javelins seemed to fade out of existence. Suddenly, its eyes began to open. The more they opened, the more pressure seemed to push down on everything. Finally, they were wide open. Black on the bottom and white on the top. Both were in perfect balance. The victims of this pony's eyes heard the sounds of a constant gong while the whole world seemed to crush them between its powerful hands.

Everypony began to faint, but the pan stallion asked, with the last of his strength:

"Who are you?"

The stallion said nothing, but let out some black smog from his mouth. The ear piercing scream the smog emitted as it slithered across the floor broke nearby windows and started to crack through the walls. The pan pony struggled to stay concsious as the screaming destroyed his ears. Once the smog finally dissipated, it revealed a word on the floor. It spelled 
Destitute. As the last inhabitant passed out, Destitute opened his mouth wide, and let out and even worse scream. Orbs flung from each and every pony, donkey, or whatever was there, and fused them all together into a melting pot of whatever it was. He threw it on the ground, making it splatter its remains all over the place. As the substance pulsated, the sky began to tear itself open, revealing a black hole that grew in size in an ever wider fashion.

The insignificant pony, compared to this anomaly, had already, somehow, found himself on the borders of this town and was walking along the trees. Finally, once the hole was big enough, a massive shockwave blew itself all across the plain of existence, throwing the trees back as if they had been struck by an extremely powerful gust of wind. This was slowly followed by a massive black horror stretching through the hole. It looked like an arm made up of giant, squirming worms, with bits of solid black material appearing underneath them every now and then. The arm stretched into the town, yet, nothing visible happened, until the arm retracted and returned into the closing hole. There was nothing left but an abstract, extremely deep hole in the ground. Nothing was left. NOTHING.
Destitute continued his path towards another small town. While, on the far horizon, there seemed to be a massive city with extremely tall and beautiful buildings of a beige color. 





Meanwhile, in Canterlot, a small dark blue mare with a turquoise mane and tail was walking towards the train station with baggage in tow. Her mane and tail were beautifully combed, and her mane itself was combed in a fashion that it curved near the edges, making it curve delicately towards her face. Her cutie mark was that of a bright star. Namely, Eridanus. As such, it showed a powerful glow represented by a bright circle of light that was holed in some places, similating dissipation and dispersion of the light. She looked very innocent, and more than often a stallion would turn their head to look at her faintly smiling face.

As she walked up to the stand to buy a ticket, the mare behind the counter put down her newspaper and showed that she was one of those "tough ones". She liked to chew her tobacco, and her gray and sunset orange mane were all ruffled up. She stared at the mare in front of her with a mocking chuckle.

"Whadda ya want? I ain't got all day." she said before spitting out some tobacco juice.

"Oh. I would like to buy a ticket for Duchess, please."

"Dychess, huh? Hold on. You got the money?"

"How much is it?"

"Eleven bits." she spoke with a slight nasally voice.

"Hold on."

The mare started to fumble through her bags, and found her pouches of money. She opened it, then took out eleven golden coins and placed them on the counter. The mare stared at them for a few moments, then placed the ticket in front of the customer.

"What's yer name?"

"Uhhh...Mond. My name is Mond."

"Well then, 'Mond', here's yer ticket. Now get out of the way, yer blockin' the lines."

"Thank you. Goodbye."

"Yeah. Whatever."

Suddenly, a grffon waiting next to the counter got up and started to rage at the mare behind it. She seemed to bes taring off into the distance.

"How DARE you?! I'm a highly placed diplomat from the Griffin kingdom! How dare you let some lowly lickspittle get her ticket before me!"

The mare spat in his face then grabbed the top of the counter's blinds and said:"We're closed." and slammed it on his face.

Besides this little incident, Mond walked calmly towards the train for Duchess, and smiled as she saw the enormous size of the station, and the amount of stores and characters around it giving a wide variety of things to sell or trips to promote to the passer-bys. She reached her train and gave her ticket to the puncher, which did just that to the piece of fabric, then let the mare in. It was her first time in a train, and she was quite excited. She shouldn't be.