//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: CMC Watch Bedtime Stories // by Lord Blundergosh //------------------------------// The streets of Ponyville were dominated by the sounds of thunder, rain and powerful, whistling winds. Had any member of the weather team still been in the area, they would expectantly look down to see empty alleys and lanes deserted by ponies who had retreated into their homes since an hour ago when the storm began… only to be surprised by the sight of three ponies, one mare and two fillies, galloping against the storm to get to their destination. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo tailed behind Rarity as their small, powerless bodies failed to put up enough resistance to the gusts of wind pushing them back. It didn’t help that they were also carrying backpacks full of supplies. Looking back at the sight of the two fillies unable to keep up with her or even progress any further than they have, Rarity decided this simply would not do. Both fillies who had been grinding their teeth and clenching their eyes shut as they dug their hooves as far into the mud as they could to gain leverage against the breeze, suddenly found themselves released from their struggle as they were enveloped in blue magic and began floating through the air. Rarity levitated each filly next to either side of her head as she went into full sprint. Normally she’d be in a rush only because she wanted to make sure things were fine with her sister back in the boutique, but that was becoming a secondary concern now. She had to get these fillies out of this rain as soon as possible. The last thing she wanted was either of the poor things catching a cold; she didn’t want to think about hypothermia coming into play. It wasn’t long before the fashionista became more ensured that Sweetie Belle was safe as she caught the sight of their home far off in the distance, seemingly unscathed. Rarity could at least be thankful that Ponyville wasn’t a large town. *Sniff “Scoots, you know what Rarity said.” Sweetie Belle was at first ecstatic to see her sister come through the door with her two friends in tow. However, that was quickly cut short when she saw her friends’ shivering forms and was almost immediately told by Rarity to start up the fireplace and get them some blankets. “Honestly Sweetie, we’re feeling fine already. It ain’t much of a bother…”, Apple bloom said before taking a moment to clear her throat. “Well, duh! That’s cause it’s working now that we started taking care of the problem early. Which is why you two should not screw this up now and finish your soup!” Sweetie punctuated that last sentence by levitating a spoonful of soup in front both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, pretty much forcing them in their faces. To which they responded by taking hold of said spoons and eating the rest of their meal without any further protest. It was fine soup anyway. “Besides, you should know as guests it’s not proper to turn down a host’s hospitality.”, Sweetie added with her eyes closed and her head slightly turned up in a way that was probably unconscious. Scootaloo grew a sly grin as she looked down at her soup and said, “Careful, you’re turning into your sister, Sweetie”. She didn’t even look up as she heard Sweetie Belle blow raspberries in response. As the three warmed up at the fireplace in their cozy blankets, Rarity had finished cleaning herself off in a nice, warm shower and had taken refuge underneath the covers of her bed. Rather than a bowl of soup, she was accompanied by a hot cup of coffee. What started as sipping turned into her gulping down much more coffee at a time than she had ever done before; Celestia knew she needed it. After groaning like Applejack and Rainbow Dash did during their ill-advised cider chugging competitions, Rarity took a deep breathe, steadied her nerves as best she could and attempted to reflect on the past few days. Her newest commission should have been the most wondrous news she had gotten in a while. She had been approached by one of Equestria’s greatest playwrights and stage directors, Stage Craft. Had she downgraded her sense of composure even slightly, he and the entire neighborhood would have heard her “squee” herself to death. It only got better when he told her how much he greatly admired her work and wanted her to design a costume for his production of one of her favorite plays, “The Phantom Pony of the Opera”. However, before Rarity could come down from the high of the excitement, Craft almost immediately threw her a curve ball by revealing that his interpretation of the story is going to take significant artistic liberties with the source material, namely by giving it a dystopian sci-fi twist to it. If that weren’t enough of a surprise, he said that he wanted her to submit her own design for the phantom, instructing her to avoid making the costume dashing in any traditional sense of the word. He also specifically said that he wanted to see if she was capable of making a phantom that was “otherworldly, eerie, and hideous; something that was born of a world that is poisoned”. She was given two weeks to submit a nearly completed completed costume minus the mask, which he wanted her to submit a design sketch of. All in a type of design she might add that she was in no way accustomed to making. If that weren’t enough, life threw her YET MORE curveballs after she had accepted his offer. Rarity’s parents tasked her with watching Sweetie Belle while they were on vacation. The Apple family had to make a long business trip that Apple Bloom wasn’t allowed to attend. And out of all the blasted things that could happen, Scootaloo’s house was destroyed by a tree that was toppled over in a storm yesterday (thankfully no pony was hurt). And of course not only were Twilight and Rainbow too busy with their Princess and Wonderbolt duties respectively, Pinkie and Fluttershy have sent letters saying that the friendship quest they’re on is probably going to take far longer than usual, days longer. Even to a mare like Rarity who has dealt with Diamond Dogs, Changelings and even the Lord of Chaos himself, the timing of all this was just far too absurd. Why did Stage Craft give her such a difficult, unfamiliar task as making an entire scary alien costume in only two weeks when he knew that wasn’t her typical sort of work? Just to test her? In fact, was it her or was life itself going out of its way to test her? What if she fails to meet the deadline or come up with a costume that’s just what he’s looking for? Will her reputation be ruined!?! Will her growing boutique business here and in Manehattan crumble!?! What will she do then!?! Is she going to end up as a…a rock farmer!?! Rarity halted the pacing and hyper ventilating she didn’t realize she was doing and fell backward only to be caught by her most loyal companion, the feinting couch. “GAH! OW! ow! ow! ow! ow! owwwww…” Rarity yelped in pain when her head slammed onto something much more solid and tough than the cushion she was expecting. Once finished with the half a minute of groaning and rubbing the back of her head, she finally bothered to look back down to where her pillow was supposed to have been on her couch. What she saw instead was a saddle bag whose contents made it take on a noticeably spherical shape. She opened it to find a buckball-sized crystal ball attached atop a square mount, which took a second for her to recognize. Two hours ago… “Wait, Rarity! Before you go…” Spike had called out to her just as she was a hoof away from the front door. Rarity had come to Twilight’s castle to ask for a book on horror aesthetics and when she found Spike as the only one there to assist her with no sign of Twilight or Starlight anywhere, she was not shy about venting to him about her entire situation in excruciating detail. Luckily for her, Spike was the right one to talk to at this moment. As she looked back at him he continued, “You said you were also worried about how you were going to watch over the Cutie Mark Crusaders, right?” “That’s correct, dear.”, Rarity replied. “Normally, they’d be out busying themselves with treats from Sugarcube Corner, helping somepony else find their special talent or um…” “Doing stuff that would have gotten them arrested if they were adults?” “I was going to say causing mischief, but that works too.”, Rarity replied. “But with the weather being so dreadful this week, they’ll be cooped up inside and I’m not sure if I have anything that will keep them preoccupied for long!” “Well, I think you might be in luck!”, Spike said before sprinting to the back of the room. Rarity raised an eyebrow as she saw Spike run back to her, presenting to her some sort of crystal ball. She only got more perplexed when he pushed a button on the left side of it and from the ball came a projection much like the Cutie Map. Except instead of projecting a map of Equestria, it was showing a mostly white space with a few rectangles in several spots on the screen and in the middle was the word “Google” spelled in colorful letters. “What is this?”, Rarity asked with squinted eyes pointed at the projection. “Sunset says it’s called the World Wide Web, buuuut I’m not sure how it has anything to do with spiders.”, Spike replied. “Sunset? Hmmm, that’s the girl from the human world, correct?” “Yup. She helped Twilight connect this crystal ball to the web… or Internet I think she called it? And now Twilight uses it for research like all the time. Seriously, you know how hard it’s been trying to tear her away from this thing sometimes?” “And you’re saying that this thing can keep my sister and her friends busy while I work?” “Oh for sure!” Spike put the ball down on the ground next to him and pulled off something attached to the right side of the device by a string; it looked like a… pen? “You use this thing here to interact with it.” Spike somehow used the pen to tap the top of the projection (how do you touch a hologram!?!) and that made appear what looked like a typewriter’s assortment of letters. “And you can type anything here that you want it to show you.” “Ooo! Anything?” “Anything you might need to keep them busy? No problem! Here, I’ll even pull up a site that’s got all sorts of entertaining stuff.”, Spike paused. “What was it called again! I think it was Y-O-U-T-U-B-E. There we are!”, Spike exclaimed as he pulled up the front page of “YouTube”. “Oh Spikey-Wikey, what would I do without you!” Spike’s posture visibly stiffened as Rarity leaned in and hugged him. When she pulled back, Rarity was pleased to see him turning his head away to hide his blush while shyly scratching the back of his head and giggling; just what she had gotten used to seeing from him. She briefly wondered if gemstones would even cut it as a reward at this point with how much he’s helped out. *CRACK-BOOM! The two of them practically jumped at the sound outside. Rarity had a horrible realization as she heard the pitter patter of rain coming down. “OH CELESTIA! I’m late to pick up Scootaloo and Apple Bloom!” She quickly levitated the crystal ball and stuck it in her saddle bag. “No time to talk, Spike! Thank you so much!”, she yelled as she dashed out the door, in a panic to get the children safely to her home as soon as possible. “I’m just saying we would’ve gotten here before the weather got this bad if you just decided to forget our schedule book.”, Scootaloo told Apple Bloom in a tone that was growing slightly more irritated the longer their conversation went on. “Y’all know we have several clients booked! Do ya wanna tell Wind Step that we couldn’t bother ta even try findin’ ways for her ta discover her special talent?”, Apple Bloom retorted with what she would call passion and others would call zeal. “I mean, you do remember what’s going on outside right? I’m sure they would all understand.”, Sweetie Belle added as she finally chimed into the conversation. “Alright girls! Follow me!” The three hadn’t noticed that Rarity was in the corner of the room until she cut their conversation short just now. “To where?”, Scootaloo asked. “To Sweetie’s room.” “Already? But it’s only seven!”, complained Sweetie. “No buts! I have a very important client and not much time to complete his request. So, I need full concentration for the whole week.” Rarity followed up that statement by walking the path to Sweetie’s room, expectant when she eventually heard the three follow behind her to keep up the conversation. “But it’ll get so boring staying up here!”, Sweetie continued to whine as they all made it to her room. “That’s okay, then. You can spend the time you have now assisting me with my latest project until you’re ready to go to bed.” The three fillies snapped their heads to face each other, wordlessly communicating their shared dread of having to deal with such a tedious task. Their silence was clearly understood by Rarity as them forfeiting the argument. “Now don’t worry, you don’t need to go to sleep just yet!”, she said while turning to look at the fillies with a pleasant smile. To which all three exhaled with relief. “You just need to stay in this room for most of your stay here. Or at least keep out of my workspace unless you need me. Until then, you can have these board games to play with!” Rarity laid down on the ground in front of them a deck of cards, a checkers board, and a game of Hungry Hungry Hydras. “Oh! And in case you need help falling asleep…”, Rarity paused and brought up the crystal ball. Recalling as best as she could how Spike did it earlier, she grasped the pen in her magic and used it to type what she was looking for into “YouTube”. Each tap she made against against the screen emitted a sort of tick sound. “Aha! This really does have everything you need”, Rarity mumbled to herself as she looked up the results for her search. She finally settled it down in front of the three fillies, the orb immediately arresting their attention. “This device here can read you some bedtime stories if you need help getting to rest. Now, I’m going to get started on my project. You three enjoy yourselves!” The Cutie Mark Crusaders watched Rarity hurriedly trot out the room and close the door behind her before turning their attention back to the image the crystal ball was projecting. What they saw was a list of titles with accompanying images describing predictably inoffensive and bright children’s stories. However, one stuck out among the rest. Rather than any specific title, it was simply called Bedtime Stories, suggesting that it held a collection of stories within it rather than one. But what was more interesting was the accompanying image of what seemed to be an artist’s rendition of a skull. A skull of a creature that they couldn’t recognize…