Fastest Fall in Equestria
Nightmare on My Street
Rainbow Dash: You can keep your Grand Galloping Galas, your midnight raves, your block parties, your Mardi Gras, and even your Carnival Brazilero. If you haven't been to a Pinkie Pie Party, you haven't been to a party, your life is missing something important, and you have my pity.
Even through the weirdo internet-slash-scrying-crystal thing Twilight Sparkle had set up, Dave and I were as good as there, and let me tell you: It. Was. AWESOME.
Pinkie Pie shared some of her favorite party recipies so that Dave and I could partake of the cake and punch. Dave shared some of his favorites - a party mix he calls "trash" was a huge hit in Ponyville - and the music.
Dear Celestia, the music!
Vinyl Scratch laid down some of the hottest dance tunes in Equestria, and Dave countered with everything the Internet had to offer. European dance music was particularly popular, especially Italo Disco, but Dave insisted on some good, hard, solid Rock & Roll in my honor. (Mike looked like he was enjoying the rock just as much as I was, by the way.)
Then Dave taught Vinyl Scratch a game to play with music. He says he got it off of a music website, and it goes like this: One person plays a song. The next person has to play a song that has four consecutive letters matching in the title or artist. And it goes back and forth between however many DJ's you've got rockin' the place.
She loved the game. Pinkie Pie and I got in on the fun, too.
Twilight looked like she wanted to ask a whole bunch of boring egghead questions, but between Mike, Dave, Pinkie, and I, we turned Celestia's Most Faithful Student into her Hardest Partying Student. It was both a ton of fun and hilarious as all Tartarus. Twilight Sparkle is not the best dancer in Equestria, you guys.
And then, it being night and all, and Celestia having forgotten to check back in with her because of all the cake and music and general awesomeness, Princess Luna showed up. She was as imperious and regal as when she first arrived in Ponyville on Nightmare Night (hopefully, by the time you guys get to read this, you'll have seen what I mean). And then Dave played some music in her honor.
She didn't like it.
She loved it.
Things kind of got out of hoof at that point. Ponies stayed up way past when it was sane to do so. Furniture was dragged out into the town square, and someone built a campfire, and you have to know what that means.
Dave kicked off the festivities with a creepy story about a haunted house and a floating coffin that just built and built and built in tension until the end, where he ended it with a way lame pun.
There was a long silence.
"Oh," said Princess Luna while everyone looked around at each other, unsure of what to do. "We get it! Cough drops! How witty thou art!"
"Princess!" hissed Twilight.
Luna blushed adorably - I'm beginning to understand why you humans think of ponies as being cute, even when we're totally awesome flank-kicking machines like Yours Truly - and chuckled. "I... I mean... You are very witty! Tell me more of these stories! Please." She'll get the hang of modern language someday, I'm sure of it.
But that's when the ghost stories kicked in. I proceeded to wave and flail my arms around to get Mike's attention. "Hey, Mike!" I said. "I got an idea, but I need your help! C'mere, we need to have a private chat."
Mike trotted over to the crystal, grinning mischievously. "Whatcha need, Rainbow Dash?"
"Hey, Twilight, can you give us some privacy?" I asked. "I don't wanna spoil the surprise. Hey, Scoots! Get over here, I need your help with this, too!"
Scootaloo grinned and zipped over to us, and Twilight raised a nice opaque shield.
"What's up Rainbow Dash?" the little orange filly chirped.
"Hey, Scoots, I know I promised I wouldn't tell anypony, but Mike here is a special case, wouldn't you say?"
"Tell anypony what?" Mike asked.
"I..." Scootaloo kicked the ground, and I heard Dave behind me clutching his chest and going "hnnnnnng", which I've come to learn is an internet thing about cuteness, and not an actual natural human response. "I'm scared of ghost stories," she said. "I get nightmares."
"Wow," said Mike. "I remember what that's like."
"What?"
"Scootaloo," I said, "it's not just you and me. Everypony gets scared. Everypony."
"Princess Luna said that--"
"Lalalalalalalalala!"
"What the heck is he doing?" Mike jabbed a hoof at the crystal and I glanced over my shoulder at Dave, who was covering up his ears and singing the "No Spoilers" song. It goes something like this:
La la la la la
Rainbow Dash is trying to spoil the next season for me
But I won't let her because I want to see it for myself
And I cannot hear what she is saying
La la la la la
It is atonal as all Tartarus, and has no rhythm, and is just downright horrible. "Geez, Dave, leave the room, then. This is important." Dave shut up and went back into the kitchen to check on... I dunno. Something. I suspect he was just staying close at hand so that he could listen in "accidentally" and still assuage his guilt about the whole spoiler thing, but I could be wrong. It's not like I've never misjudged a pony before.
"Okay, continue," I said once he was out of the room.
"Princess Luna said I need to face the source of my fears if I want to make the nightmares go away."
I nodded. "Princess Luna is a very wise pony," I said. "And I guess nopony would know nightmares better. But when did you talk to her?"
"She showed up in my dreams and tried to calm me down when we were on that camping trip together."
"Wow," said Mike. After a moment of surprise, he continued. "Well, I sure as heck know about getting nightmares from scary stories. But you know what I learned?"
"What's that?"
"It's a lot more fun being scared of make believe things that can't hurt you than real things that can."
"He's right," I said. "That's why I have so much fun telling scary stories. Because I know that stories can't hurt you. Oh, speaking of which, Mike, when we get our bodies back, you totally need to read a story called Cupcakes!"
"No you don't!" yelled Dave from the kitchen. "Don't listen to her, Mike!"
"I'll spoil the whole second season for you if you don't pipe down, Dave!"
"Shutting up now," Dave said meekly. Apparently, Mike heard, because he laughed.
"All that aside," I said. "Being scared of make-believe stuff is only half the fun. The real fun comes when you realize that it's when you're afraid, you can use that to learn how to make other ponies afraid of make-believe stuff, too!"
"What are you saying?"
"Which of those stories bothered you the most?"
"Well... the old crone and the rusty horseshoe, I think," Scootaloo said, looking just absolutely pitiful.
"So, here's what you do. Mike, you go grab Rarity and see if you can borrow some scrap fabric from her. Don't tell her what it's for, or she'll want to make it look... ugh... pretty. And Scootaloo, you tell that story the scariest way you know how. I want to see ponies hugging each other. I want to hear screams. I want Pinkie Pie to forget how to Giggle at the Ghostly. I'm expecting big things from you. Can you handle that, Honorary Little Sister?"
Scootaloo grinned and snapped off an adorable little salute. "You got it, Honorary Best Big Sister Ever!"
"Mike, you're going to be the old crone. I want you out where the light from the bonfire can't reach. I want you to hobble around, I want you to be inconspicuous. But I want you there. Always there. I want ponies to notice you but not realize they notice you."
"I can help with that," an uninvited voice chimed in.
"Twilight, I thought I said we wanted privacy!"
"I can't help it," Twilight commented. "I can't put a shield around you without being aware of what's going on inside the shield. That's really advanced magic. My brother could do it. Maybe. But that's because shield magic is his specialty!"
"All that aside," Mike said, "what did you have in mind?"
"Percanthus' Persistent Mist," she said.
"Wait," I said. "Percanthus was one of the first ponies in the Equestrian Weather Service, after the first Hearth's Warming."
"Wow, Rainbow Dash, I didn't know you knew that much about history." Uh-oh. Twilight was impressed by my knowledge. That put me way further down the slippery slope to Egghead-topia than I was comfortable with.
"Anyway, he was a pegasus pony! How the hay did he come up with a spell?"
"Well, the founding of Equestria was a real golden age for Harmony between the pony races. The spell was created by Clover the Clever, really, but it was named for Percanthus because he taught her all the principles of weather control that made it possible."
"As fascinating as all this is," Mike objected, "what exactly does this spell do?"
"It creates a mist from the ground. It's mostly used to help dry out flooded areas after out-of-control thunderstorms, to keep the crops from drowning, but the effect is a cold, foggy mist that looks really creepy."
"Oh yeah," Mike and I said at the same time. "You do that, then!"
"This is going to be so much fun!" a fifth uninvited voice chimed in.
"P-P-Princess Luna?!"
"Do accept my apologies, ponies," the Princess of Night said. "Oh, and human," she added with a nod towards Mike. "But furtive nighttime meetings are something I simply cannot resist. If there is one taking place in my presence, I am aware of it, and it takes a real effort of will not to involve myself. The fact that it concerns two ponies I have come to care about didn't help, either. It is good to speak with you again, Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash."
Luna fully approved of my plan, and of Twilight Sparkle's magical contribution. She said she would happily enhance Mike's creepy factor with a few illusions and some shadow magic to keep ponies from realizing what he was doing.
Twilight Sparkle provided our target.
"You know," she said, "when I told the Headless Horse story to Applejack and Rarity at our sleepover, they really got scared."
"But they know this story," Scootaloo said. "They were with me and Rainbow Dash and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders on our camping trip!"
"Ooooh," said Mike. "A challenge." He turned to me. "Based on what I know so far, Rarity would be more likely to react dramatically, right?"
"Melodramatically, more like," I said, rolling my eyes.
"Rainbow Dash!" scolded Twilight Sparkle. The effect was ruined a bit by her having to stifle laughter when she did it. "That's not a very nice thing to say."
"So, the pony I should target for this little prank is obvious," Mike continued.
Twilight nodded. "Oh, I can't wait to see the look on Rarity's face when you--"
"Not Rarity," I said, and Mike grinned.
"Applejack," he and I said at the same time.
"What? Why Applejack?"
"Because," Mike said. "If we can scare Applejack, we'll have scared them all. And because it'll be funnier that way."
"Applejack does make the funniest faces when she's scared," Twilight said, and that clinched it for me and Mike.
"Oooh," I said. "This I gotta see."
With that, we broke, Twilight dropped the shield, and Scootaloo waited for her turn patiently while Sweetie Belle told the old story about the Cave Troll and the three pony sisters. Sure, it's a lot less scary than what we had in mind, but that just made it all the better when Scootaloo took her turn.
There were a lot of knowing looks when she started in on the story. Clearly, a lot of the grown up ponies knew the story. More than half the colts and fillies did, too, it looked like. But that didn't matter, because Scootaloo told it really well. She did voices, she changed her posture to show how the old crone hobbled along... She's quite the performer.
Princess Luna's illusion magic darkened everything outside of the circle of light from the fire. Mike was a teetery, knobbly looking old hag of a pony even before the princess's shadow magic concealed his -- my features. And she made sure that ponies saw him circling around in the darkness out of the corners of their eyes.
A lot of ponies didn't even notice the mist Twilight was raising, but it had its effect, chilling them so that they huddled closer together. Princess Celestia noticed, however, and the look she gave Twilight Sparkle was...
I was just a little bit jealous. No, it wasn't one of those looks, before you guys get any weird ideas. It was a look of approval. Clearly, Princess Celestia was impressed with Twilight's use of the mist spell. Later on, Twilight told me just how complicated the spell actually was to perform. Apparently, normally, to conjure up a mist in an area the size of Ponyville Town Square, you need about a dozen well-trained specialist unicorns.
No wonder Princess Celestia was impressed.
But even I was impressed by the conclusion. The little crone pony, just barely registering in everypony's mind as a presence, crept up behind the Apple siblings, a shadowy, creepy figure just waiting to pounce. And when Scootaloo reached the end of the story...
"YOU HAVE IT!" the old crone shouted from behind Applejack. Suddenly, Princess Luna's shadow magic peeled away, and everypony was aware of just how close she'd crept without anyone really being aware of it. Applejack let out the loudest whinny I'd ever heard and jumped so high in the air her head punched a hole in my favorite napping cloud. It was hilarious!
But the best part was that the old crone pony in the cloak wasn't Mike. I scanned the crowd on the computer monitor, keeping an eye peeled for that rainbow colored mane of mine, and I saw him waving jovially at me from beside the princesses, completely unnoticed by anypony.
No, the old crone sneaking up behind Applejack had been none other than her own grandmother, Granny Smith. I grinned.
"Well played, Mike," I said. "Well played."