“George!” A lavender mare ran through the castle. “GEORGE!” Beads of sweat forming on her brow. “Where are you?!” Oh, and she had a hat. “I could really use your help...” A hat that jingled, jangled, jingled as she ran. Her pace slowed as she came to a large door. Carefully, she placed her hoof upon it, chills running down her spine as she made contact. Desperation over powered her fear however, and she pushed the door open.
Bats flew past her face, eager to escape their confinement. She flinched and pulled away until the flying vermin had stopped moving. With a slow step, she approached the door once again, only to have a bat collide directly with her face. It grabbed tightly onto her muzzle, looking into her eyes with surprise for a moment before flying away. Twilight’s eyes followed the black creature until it disappeared around another hall.
Puzzled, Twilight entered the room. Her ears immediately caught the sound of an organ music playing in the distance of the inconceivably large room that was decorated with inconceivably old spiderwebs. “Inconceivable” was the only thought that moved through Twilight’s inconceivably calm mind. “Completely inconceivable.”
“You’re using that word a lot. I don’t think it means what you think it means...” It was another voice. A voice in HER HEAD. Convinced that George’s antics had finally driven her mad, the unicorn approached the organ’s sounds. She was still on a mission after all, a mission that only the bottled chaos of George could help her with.
As she reached the instrument, she became aware that the being in front of it wasn’t George. Rather, it was Screwball, though her fur seemed quite a few shades brighter than she remembered it. “Screwb. Hey Screwb. Do you know where George is? I need to talk to him.” At the sound of her words, a pair of bat wings snapped open from the chaotic pony’s back, bat wings that hadn’t been there moments earlier.
Inconceivably Really slowly, the mare turned around to face Twilight. As her face came into view, Twilight let loose an uncontrollable gasp. She looked completely different from how she remembered her, from her contracted irises, to her pure white face. “Master George will be here soon, and then we can be together forever, Twilight. Won’t that be just wonderful? Together forever.” Her voice was shaky and followed by a dark echo, causing fear to shoot through the unicorn’s body.
A gust of wind sounded behind her and Twilight turned around. Her eyes met a pair of red corneas and she found herself frozen in place. “Hello, my pretty mare. Come to join the everlasting family, have we?” He slunk slowly towards her. It was George, there was no doubt about that. He lacked any form of facial hair and Entropy was nowhere to be seen, but it was definitely George.
A dark grin split the man’s face for a moment before he started to lean forward and open his mouth, his sharp canines minutes away from piercing her flesh. Then, an explosion shook the room, debris breaking free from the roof. George was sent tumbling backwards as the form of Shining Armor came from the dust, a paragon of good in all its glory. “You shan’t feast on another pony’s blood, you fiend!” The captain drew his sword and took up a fighting stance.
“Shining Armor Belmont,” George said, a scowl on his face. “What are you ponies except miserable piles of friendship? But enough talk! Have at you!” George drew his own sword and lunged. A sword fight commenced, metal ringing against metal as both combatants fought for victory. Eventually, George managed a disarming maneuver and grinned as he pressed the length of his blade against the stallion’s neck.
With a grin of his own, Shining Armor’s horn flashed and blinded the man, causing him to stumble backwards, directly into the sunlight leaking through the hole that had been formed by the explosion. As he stepped into it, he let loose an unearthly scream. The captain of the guard let loose a cry of joy, but it caught in his throat when he saw the smile on George’s face.
“Did you think this would turn me to ash? No, you fool. For you see...” He extended his arms to the side. “Vampires...” Something odd occurred as the light danced irregularly over his flesh. “SPARKLE!” A blinding beam of light hit the stallion. By the time he had recovered, a blade was being swung through the air much faster than he could cast magic.
The blade halted just above his neck and Shining Armor looked up to see the reason for his salvation: the metal had impaled another. George’s eyes were wide in shock as he pulled the sword out of his unintentional victim, whom had been skewered directly through the heart with the silver weapon. “Screwball.” Tears would have formed were it not for his undead nature. “Screwball, why?”
“So you can have another chance.” She whispered through her muzzle. “Please, try and live in peace with them now that I’m gone.” Her breath faded and she collapsed. The man grabbed her dead body and brought to his face, coughing dryly as his body fought to release saltwater he no longer had.
“I’ll do it, but only for you, Screwball. Not for them; only for you.”
And then the lights dimmed and the curtain closed, each of the audience members fighting their emotions as they broke into frabjous applause. Behind the curtain, each of the thespians went about the finishings of their work. George lifted the, lively as ever, Screwball from the ground and the two shared a hug before they went backstage to clean up.
As they moved to the rooms provided, George was stopped by Twilight. “That was amazing! Everything went as planned!”
“Almost everything,” George said before looking to a particular location. “TYRONE!” he called, a bat emerging from its hiding place to come hang upside down from the man’s finger, the same bat that had hit Twilight when she tried to enter for the second time. “Get your crap together, Tyrone, okay? No more screw ups like that.” The bat nodded and the man let it fly away.
“Still, that was genius,” Twilight insisted. “Where did you get the idea for it, though?”
“Oh, here and there. You know.”
“I don’t suppose you based it off that old story? The one where Star Swirl goes to rescue a mind-controlled Clover the Clever?”
“Yes, I suppose that may have leaked into it.” The man’s grin faltered for a moment, though neither Screwball, nor Twilight, noticed. He coughed to clear his throat and his mind before he continued. “Nice idea with the spell. It’s much easier to say Screwball and have the audience hear Clover. Makes it easier to immerse in.” George wiped the white makeup from his face with a sleeve and left Twilight as he went to switch back into his normal clothes. Just as he had finished, the loud booming voice of Entropy shook the room.
“They are asking for a bow, fillies and gentlecolts. I recommend indulging them.”
“And Entropy was the best announcer ever,” George said with a grin before making his way back to front stage. Once all the other actors had gathered, the man snapped his fingers, simultaneously teleporting his hat to his head as well as splitting the red curtains. More cheers filled the air and George smiled widely as he bowed.
After that was done, he met up with Screwball once more and the duo left. He had promised to show her how to stow some of her magic away in unlikely places, much like his interaction with Entropy, though storing it in something living required that the being in question wanted to give it back to you.
As they walked through the castle, Screwball caught a glimpse of George flipping open a pocket watch. Stealthily, she flew up behind him and looked at the timepiece. She was slightly confused by the large amount of numbers on its face until one of the arms changed its position, shifting counter-clockwise. It was counting down, but to what?
She hardly had time to ponder that before he closed the device and smiled at her, letting her catch a glimpse of the front before he put it away. ‘Finem Facere Mundo’ was inscribed on it. “Let’s get going then, shall we?” She decided not to question the man. He was far older than her, after all; surely, he was wiser as well. So instead, she smiled in response and they teleported away, both of them eager to work on her lessons.