Winter Heat awoke to the blaring of her alarm clock.
She didn’t recognize the sound right away. Still caught in the throes of a wonderful dream where she was eating seven tacos, she shuffled onto her side and folded the pillow around her head in an attempt to block out the noise. After a few seconds, her brain finally caught up, and she slammed her hoof down on the snooze button.
Five more minutes won’t hurt anything.
Five minutes later, the alarm rang again.
Right when she was getting hooked.
The tacos were communicating to her about the upcoming invasion when one of them started to beep nonsensically. Her eyes broke open, sunlight stinging her corneas. She groaned and labouriously lifted her head off the pillow and picked up the clock to examine the time. It was 7:30 AM. She didn’t have to be in until 10 AM.
Five more minutes won’t hurt anything.
Five minutes later, Winter was dreaming about giant tacos floating through the sky and shooting bright green lasers at buildings when the intuitive feeling to wake up came over her.
Lurching upright in bed, her eyes tore to the alarm clock. 9:30 AM. Apparently, in her sleep-addled state, she had hit the alarm so many times that it reset for the next day.
She slept in again.
“Fuck!” she shouted before scrambling out of bed.
She frantically searched around the room for her work shirt before she found it on the floor in the corner. She tried to pull it over her head, having to undo the buttons with her hooves already fed through the sleeves while green polyester covered her eyes.
It smelled weird and had a few stains that were only noticeable to anyone who cared, but she managed to get it on. She ran to the bathroom to make sure her mane wasn’t in a frenzy, and after quickly brushing it, she was out the door in a jiffy.
It was only when she was outside and exposed to the muggy morning air that she realized that she had forgotten to brush her teeth. She forgot last night, too. Her teeth could whistle in the wind with the amount of cavities she probably had.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. She could work her shift and (hopefully) remember to brush them when she got off so her gums didn’t feel like they were disintegrating.
She was waiting for the crosswalk signal to change when a familiar voice called for her.
“Woke up late again?”
She craned her head around and spotted a floating pink wisp-like creature that appeared to be made of fire. The demon Winter had come to know as a Parasite snaked through the air and hovered beside her.
“Sorry, Claire. I was in a hurry. Geronimo is starting to get annoyed by my tardiness.”
“You could just not show up for work.”
“Then I won’t have a home.”
“You could just eat your boss.”
“What does eating him have to do with anything?”
“It’s a very common practice in Tartarus. You don’t like someone, you eat them.”
“Claire! I don’t, like, not like my boss it’s just—” she groaned. “He’s annoying, yeah, but I’d rather put up with him than panhandle on Skid Row.”
An automated voice telling her to walk came from the crosswalk, and she pressed forward, Claire following closely beside her. “Yes, but after you eat him, you could run the business yourself. After all, his territory will be yours.”
“That’s not how that works!”
“It doesn’t matter how it works, all that matters is it could work.”
A stallion was sitting against a building with a tin can in front of him, covered in grime. He was either homeless or cosplaying—there was a lot of that in Maretropolis. He shot her an odd look. A couple of mares walking by did the same thing. So did a griffon. So did an officer, who eyed her with peculiarity while her magic focused on her baton.
Winter noticed these stares and got them often because she was an idiot and forgot that she was the only one who could see Claire. “Crap, people are looking at us! Just shut up for now, we’ll argue more about this when I get to work and Geronimo leaves for the day.”
When she got to the store and the overhead bell chimed, she was greeted by an angry giraffe with a shitty comb-over behind the register.
“You’re late,” Geronimo said in a stern voice.
Winter walked up to the time clock, which displayed the time as 10:05 AM, and swiped her name tag in front so that it beeped.
“Five minutes isn’t a big deal,” she replied while clipping the nametag to her shirt. “I was a minute late last week and you didn’t make a fuss about that.”
The giraffe huffed. “There’s a difference between being five minutes late every day and a minute late one day. The difference is you came in earlier that day, giving me the impression that you’re trying to be on time, but you showed up later the next day, and the day after that.”
Winter rolled her eyes. “Dish Water was twenty minutes late the other day, you didn’t scold her about it.”
“That’s because it was one time, and she had a good excuse. What’s yours?”
“I slept through my alarm.”
“You say that every day! If you have trouble waking up, get a better fucking alarm or, better yet, go to bed earlier.” He sighed. “When I schedule you for ten, I expect you to be here at ten. If I schedule you for eleven, you better be here at eleven. You can show up earlier, but not five minutes later. You want to keep this job, you need to be punctual. That’s the least I expect from you.”
The least Winter wanted to do was to punctuate him in the face. She hated his smarmy attitude. Every day it was, “You forgot to label this,” and “Why did you do that?” While it was infuriating to hear it every day, she at least didn’t have to put up with it after twelve, when he left. It was better to pretend he was right and promise to get better.
She sighed. “Fine, I’ll try to do better.”
“No, no, you will do better. Enough of this ‘trying’ BS, get here at 10 AM on the dot, every day. It’s not hard. You work the same schedule— every day. Figure something out.”
Winter didn’t have anything to say. She just waited in awkward silence until he gave her a task to do.
He sighed, bending his neck down and rubbing his face with a forehoof. “Listen, the work you do here is good, just, stop fucking… just stop fucking showing up late. Go stock the cooler or whatever, I don’t know. I just need to blow off some steam.”
Winter smirked. “Rude customer?”
“Some guy came in here with a lottery ticket and argued with me for over an hour because we don’t cash out tickets higher than two hundred. Just—listen, sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Just work on coming in on time more. If you can't, we're going to have a more serious talk. Go stock the cooler now, please.”
“Sure you don’t want me to stay up here unless our lottery winner returns?”
He chuckled. “No, please go away.”
“He yelled at you, that’s plenty of excuse to eat him!”
Winter examined the best-by date on a half-gallon of milk before sliding it onto the shelf. “No Claire, I’m not going to eat him.”
“Aren’t you at least a little upset?”
“Meh,” Winter said. “I was angry at first, but I got over it fast.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I did try to find a reason to be angry, but it’s like I deal with so much bullshit here that it’s beginning to slide off me. That or all of the bullshit isn’t sliding off of me, and I’m keeping my emotions in reserve. It’s that, or my ennui has become so severe that it envelopes every moment of my waking life so that I am incapable of feeling proper emotion and…” Her words trailed off, and her face turned cold. “Oh shit, I just gave myself a mini existential crisis.”
She stood up and kicked the empty milk crate into the corner. She took a box from the shelf behind her and tore the top open, filling a row with apple juice.
“We could beat someone up when you get off.”
“If by ‘beat someone up’ you mean some bad guy, then maybe. I don’t know. There haven't been any exciting villains as of late. Most of the good ones are taken care of by the Power Ponies, and as much as I’d love to have another one-on-one with Juice Mare, I doubt we’ll be seeing her again any time soon.”
Done with the apple juice, she raised her forehooves over her head and stretched. “Okay, I think we’re done here.”
When they came out of the cooler, Geronimo was counting the drawer. There weren’t any customers in the store, so Winter busied herself with facing products on shelves. Occasionally she’d glance up at the flatscreen TV that hung from the ceiling over the register to see if something interesting was on.
Most of it was boring dribble about inflation and stocks. She tuned most of it out, thinking it better to just look busy until Geronimo left for the day. Eventually, her attention was broken when a breaking news segment played.
“The terrorist known as Clockwork was found dead last night in front of Prometheus Hospital around 12:35 AM. At first, hospital staff were unable to identify the body because it had severe burns that completely obscured its face, but upon further examination, staff were able to identify it as the infamous supervillain. It is unknown what the cause of death was. Theories are already sprouting online about how it could have happened, the main one being that she was struck by lightning during last night’s storm. However, there are many things about her death that some find peculiar, such as the anonymous caller that…”
Well. Now that was something. Winter hadn’t had any run-ins with Clockwork herself, but she was familiar with her misdeeds. While she didn’t gush over anything that had to do with the Power Ponies, she knew their villains all too well. Knowing everything about them was practically inescapable after living in Maretropolis for long enough.
Clockwork, let’s see… earth pony… wasn’t her gimmick the thing with the wings? Some generic backstory about the company she worked for stealing her patent. Blew up several buildings belonging to said company. Helped Power Ponies take down the company during a major drug bust, went back to jail because she still blew up several buildings (she must have really liked blowing up buildings). Simple, villain-of-the-week stuff.
While her death was wild to hear about, Winter didn’t concern herself with it for long. After a few minutes of meandering through the store in search of something to do, her ADHD-addled mind moved on to a new topic. Like, what the heck is the correct portion size to use in a burrito? Seriously, she goes to Chick-Fill-Y all the time where they make the burritos right in front of her, yet somehow when she makes them at home they turn out a globtuous mess! Every time she watches the employees at Chick-Fill-Y make one, they take a dapple, and only a dapple (like, a quarter of the tortilla’s actual size) of whatever product she wants on it, and it somehow turns out perfect. Yet when she throws a quarter-pot of refried beans on a tortilla, she can barely wrap it. So, it’s more of a taco than a burrito, and even then some of the beans spill onto the plate so that she has to finish it all off with a fork. A fork!
And it didn’t help that she uses corn tortillas, either.
Winter dwelled on the ethics of burrito-making for well over an hour, and before long, it was finally time for Geronimo to clock out.
He replaced the drawer in the register with a new one and inspected the store to ensure that it was in tip-top shape. When all was in place, he punched his time card. After reminding her of what they talked about, he left for the day.
The first thing Winter did when she was all alone was throw on her headphones and scroll through her phone for about five minutes before putting on a video titled “5 True Hotel Horror Stories,” not listening to it, but more so using it to fill her need for stimulation.
A monotonous voice told the story of a mare checking into a hotel where the receptionist was a tall, gangly creep and blah blah blah—she heard it before. She goes to her room, takes a shower, finds the door unlocked, and goes to bed. After a while, she hears a weird noise that sounds like someone breathing, and she pretends to call her boyfriend and acts like he’s in the lobby. She calmly leaves the room, goes to the police, and they find the receptionist under the bed.
Boring shlock that was only interesting because of the true implications. She missed most of the tiny details and didn’t comprehend most of the stories that followed. Five years ago, she would have been engrossed in each story. Now, however, her content addiction was so severe that most anything quote-unquote “scary” slid right off of her. Oh, how she longed for the days when she was younger and could feel proper emotion!
It wasn’t just horror videos. It was everything that brought her joy. One of Winter’s favorite things to do was go to the movies. Last week she went to go see an arthouse film, and most of the dialogue went over her head. Her younger self would have hung onto every word, absorbed into the atmosphere. It would have felt like a new experience. Now it was like drinking coffee. It feels great in the first hour, but after it’s over, all that lingers has expired.
It felt like she was filling in gaps. Gaps she was still too young to comprehend. Like every time she sat down to binge a new series, it was just to waste time throughout the seamless transition of days. There was also the matter of her porn habits, but TMI.
Before long, she faintly heard the chime of the overhead bell. Looking up from her phone, she saw a stallion stumble in. Or, drunkenly stagger about and run into the nearest shelf was a more apt description. He was tall and gangly. His dark mane was long and hung over his eyes as if he were the lead singer of an emo band.
Winter stared at him with a curious, albeit calm patience. It wouldn’t be the first time that a drunk wandered into the store. In fact, it was the reason why she carried pepper spray on her during all hours of the day. She normally didn’t pay them any mind, unless they paid her mind, then they would learn that pepper isn’t just a spice...
Wait, is it?
She looked up, Can pepper soray be used as a spuce.
An autocorrect prompt appeared.
Showing results for can pepper spray be used as a spice
Search instead for can pepper soray be used as a spuce
The answer was yes, although it would taste very chemically. She’d have to try it.
Suddenly, the stallion slammed both forehooves against the counter. Winter lurched back, prepared to grab the bottle of pepper spray she kept beneath the counter. He opened his mouth, exhaling a long breath that smelled like sulfur.
“C-can I help you sir?” she stuttered.
Claire dove behind the counter and wrapped a tendril around the bottle, waiting.
“It’s here…” he whispered. His voice was harsh, like gargling glass particles was part of his morning routine.
Winter tilted her head, lowering an ear and raising the other. “What is?”
“The Parasite… it’s here… I need it…”
Winter frowned. “A parasite? You mean, like a bug?”
“No…”
She took a moment to think about his words. She searched every crevice of her mind, running into empty thought after empty thought. Then, as if she ran into a brick wall, the answer became obvious.
She slapped him. “Ew, gross, get off the counter, shoo!”
He didn’t react. He stayed propped against the counter, head stuck sideways as if her slap had frozen it in time. Without another word, he got down and looked at her.
“I am… not good with horses…”
“Do I need to call the police? Cuz you appear to be on something.”
Breathing. Not normal in-and-out breathing. It was suck in air through gritted teeth so that it sounded like a deflating tire breathing.
Winter scrunched up her eyebrow. He smelled, he was dangerously skinny, his mane and coat were unkempt, and he was stumbling around spouting nonsense. Also, he was carrying a parasite, the whole place could get infested!
Feeling the need to fulfill her duty as an employee by selectively doing her job when it’s most convenient for her, she said, “Sir, you need to leave.”
“Give me the Parasite… and I will go…”
“Sir, I showered this morning.” She didn’t.
“No… no… NOOO!”
The weird guy exploded. Only, it wasn’t a messy watermelon spontaneously combusting with innards flying everywhere explosion, it was more like Holy shit, he’s spaghettifying before her very eyes! explosion.
Thick auburn tendrils spout out all around him. His face split through the middle and opened up, icky clear goo breaking apart. In the center, where his face should have been, was a single, yellow eyeball that glowed vibrantly. It was reminiscent of a cat’s, with the iris appearing as a simple slit. However, the sclera was far more monstrous, and far more out of this world than anything she had ever seen. It was bloodshot to the point that it perfectly conveyed the only thing the monster probably knew: depravity.
The ground shook, and a voice echoed in her head.
GIVE ME!
Without further hesitation, Claire pepper sprayed it in the eye.
Its noodly appendages flailed widely, knocking merchandise off shelves. It was like an isolated hurricane where everything in its vicinity was met with chaos. Winter scooched back, pulling her head away with an “Eww!” when the tip of a tendril swiped across her nose, leaving behind a trail of goo.
Claire flew up to her face. “We have to transform!”
“Not here, it’s my source of income!”
“You don’t understand, that’s—”
A tendril slapped the register off the counter and hit the floor with a loud crash, golden bits spilling out across the linoleum. The weird guy—or monster or whatever, it was really hard to tell in this part of the city—walked toward the door, tripped, and broke through the glass.
Winter turned back to Claire. “Yeah, out there is better.”
They followed it as it walked out into the middle of the street, cars swerving around it. Ponies walking by saw the monster and ran in different directions. The thing knelt, more tendrils protruding from its back and wrapping around each other. He grew in size like an inflating balloon.
Winter nodded at Claire. “Ready.”
Without another word, the Parasite pivoted into her chest. A cold chill sprawled down Winter’s back. After… warmth. Warm became hot, and hot became burning. She reared her head back, smoke escaping her mouth as her coat shifted from gray to charcoal. Both her mane and tail exploded into flowing pink flames. As her physical form changed, so did her mind seep into subconsciousness.
On the sidewalk, standing before the monster, was a new pony. It was no longer Winter Heat. It wasn’t Claire, either. It was a demon hybrid with a mind to itself.
Pink Scorch stepped forth just as the beast, much like herself, took on a new form. Its body had a weird egg shape with stout legs. When it turned to face her, six iridescent eyes glowered at her. It opened a ring-shaped mouth, revealing rows upon rows of teeth, and its tongue shot out.
She dodged it with a simple sidestep. “Whoa,” she said in a voice of two. “I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going.”
She zoomed up to it in a flash of bright pink and put her hoof to her chin. “So you a demon or something? Huh, not the first time I’ve fought one, but you’re a bit strange.”
It reeled its tongue in, and the ground shook.
GIVE ME PARASITE
“Hey, I wash my clothes at least once a month and shower when I remember to. If you want a parasite, then hire a hooker!”
FOOOL
She only had a split second to notice it. A tendril shot out from its chin and slapped her in the face, throwing her into a streetlight and denting it inward. The moment she hit the ground, it wrapped its tongue around her midriff.
It dragged her across the ground. Dazed, she looked into its mouth, slick with saliva. At that moment, there was only one thing on her mind.
Ahhh crap… I’m gonna get vored again, aren’t I?
It closed its mouth around her and chomped down. The moment its teeth made contact with her, her body dissipated into smoke and filtered out between its lips. Pink reformed in front of the monster, giving it her best tsundere stare.
“Ayy, lemme tell you something, we don’t fetish-eat people around here. Maybe in whatever hell pit you were born in it was okay, but people aren’t keen to that sort of depravity ‘ound these parts, ya hear? You got a fetish, it’s whatever. Do whatever weird shit you like in the sanctity of your own home, but shit like that is what gets you on the registry.”
The ground grumbled some more.
SILENCE
Another tendril arced downward. Pink leaped out of the way in time to avoid being crushed. The force was strong enough to leave a channel in the concrete.
“Oh right, we’re fighting. Guess I better join in.”
She dashed backward in a pink blur to put some distance between it and sprinted toward the thing at full speed. Just as she neared it, she slid between its legs to avoid the gaping sci-fi mouth. When she was beneath it, she slammed her forehoof into its stomach, launching the creature into the air.
She gave it no time to hit the ground. She zoomed upward in a diagonal direction and hit it again. She zoomed in another diagonal direction and hit it again. This went on in a zigzag, like the most dangerous game of keep-up she’d ever played. It was kind of fun.
Dashing upward one last time, she wrapped her hooves around its belly in a tight bear hug and threw it toward the ground full-force. The impact cracked the concrete beneath, and a few cars in the vicinity jumped, alarms going off.
Pink landed on top of it. She walked along its back, over its head, and hopped onto the ground. She turned back to it with a smirk. “Done with your tantrum?”
The ground rumbled again.
Before she could react, a tendril shot out from its body and slapped her across the street. She crashed through the windows of the convenience store, knocked down several shelves—merchandise flying everywhere—mashed through the glass door of the drink cooler, and finally slammed into a wall.
Pink raised her head, the world dancing in two dimensions. She wasn’t hurt. She was dizzy, but she was fine. Only, there was milk pouring on her head, and now Winter would be out of work until repairs were done. She wasn’t hurt. She was frustrated.
The demon hybrid rose to her hooves. Glass crunched as she stepped out of the cooler and over the rubble. She was about to exit through the door when something on the floor in front of the counter caught her eye.
Looking down, she saw the bottle of pepper spray. Pink wasn’t keen on ideas. She wasn’t the strategic type, more like the “punch something until it can’t punch back” type. However, she wanted all this to end as soon as possible, and as she stared down at the bottle the first inkling of something resembling an idea fermented.
She swiped it up and moved for the exit. The window was already broken, so she just walked through it. The monster was already prepared for her by the time she returned.
Tendrils were everywhere. It was like walking into an eldritch entity’s sacred lair. They covered the streets and nearby cars, wrapped around streetlights, and filtered through windows. Before her, the beast took on a new form. Pink didn’t know why it took on this form, but she also didn’t know why boxed water existed. It took on the shape of a hexagram. It appeared to be made of nothing but tendons and flesh. In its center was a circular mouth with rows of teeth that stretched into a dark abyss.
The ground shook.
GIVE ME PARASITE
She stopped a few yards away from it. A tendril slithering by rose before her, its tip pointed at her face. More rose all around, the rest on the ground wriggling like squirming bramble. One slowly began to creep up her left foreleg. She held the other up high to keep the pepper spray safe.
“You mean Claire. Sorry, but she ain’t up for grabs.”
More crept up her body, entwining around her.
YOU WILL LISTEN
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE
I AM BEYOND COMPREHENSION
“I can comprehend that you’re full of shit. You want her? Fine, try and take her from me.”
WITH PLEASURE
She lifted into the air and drew closer. Even from across the street, she could see the saliva dripping from its teeth. It was like staring into a pencil sharpener with poor dental hygiene. Her nose itched the nearer she got, the stench of sulfur more pungent than before.
Just when Pink was a yard away, she smirked and tossed the can of pepper spray inside. She spat a fireball from her mouth. The can exploded.
It didn’t react at first. She stopped drawing closer, and for a moment, all stood still. Then, the world shook. The tendrils on the ground wriggled, while the ones holding her in the air dropped her. She looked back up to see its body melting, or something similar to melting. The skin receded from its body in large, goopy trails that tripped onto the concrete in a thick sludge.
The tendrils melted away into auburn blobs, and those auburn blobs slithered away toward the writhing mound of flesh before her. Even in her demon form, it was hard for Pink to stay balanced with the ground shaking.
The blob shrunk down in size until it looked like a deflated beach ball. It rolled over, six red eyes blinking back at her. The ground stopped shaking.
A voice whispered in the air.
Please… no more…
“And there’s more where that came from!” Pink said while walking toward the thing. It was true. Winter always kept back-up pepper spray on hand, and back-up pepper spray for her back-up pepper spray. She also poured water into a spray bottle, mixed it with ground pepper, and labeled it “Pepper Spray.” She was itching to test it out.
She halted before it, observing it like the weird specimen that it was. “Now, what are you? Some kind of demon?”
The voice whispered in her ears.
Rakasha…
It was a single word followed by many whispers. It was as if the name itself could only be said through the chanting of a crowd.
Claire’s voice echoed inside her head. Winter! I was right, that’s no ordinary demon! That’s the Carver of Souls himself!”
The Carver of What? Winter replied.
Rakasha is responsible for deciding the forms of all demons born from the hellfire of Tartarus. Only, he’s not meant to be here. He is said to be chained in the center of a labyrinth beneath Tartaraus’s palace. He somehow escaped!
“So,” Pink continued. “Rakasha, huh? How’d you get out of Tartaraus, and how can I send you back?”
Come… Closer…
The flames on Pink’s head flickered as she considered it. Well, she’d just finished kicking his ass, so it wasn’t like he had any tricks up his tentacles. If he tried anything, he’d just get pepper sprayed some more. Yet other thoughts irked her mind. Like, if he was hyped up to be this legendary demon, then why was it so easy to beat him? Why did he want Claire so badly? Most importantly, did he have an answer to her burrito dilemma?
There was only one way to find out.
Pink stepped forth and knelt her head down so that it was eye-level with the blob. Staring into its eyes, she realized that it was kind of cute, and wondered how anyone could compare it to the raging beast it was mere moments ago.
Then, its flesh wriggled. Before Pink could pull back, he leaped through the air and latched onto her face. All she could do was let out a series of muffled obscenities before quickly losing consciousness.
She still didn’t have an answer to the burrito dilemma…