ESCALATION
Jewel was much too good at this.
That thought had run through Samuel’s mind over and over and over again as he’d spent the last fortnight teaching her the basics of anatomy, how to tie knots, what the best way to separate a pony from their herd and get them alone were, everything he could think of. She’d soaked it all up like a sponge.
He needed to see if she was ready, though she eagerly promised that she was. Samuel’s first few times back on Earth had been awkward and fumbling, but then he’d never had a mentor to help him. They walked into town together on a sunny afternoon, and Samuel beamed with pride as Jewel zeroed in on a young, mauve colt lapping at an ice cream cone. Kids were gullible and weak, and therefore excellent practice.
“Hello, sweetie!” said Jewel as she walked up to him.
“Hiya!” said the colt. Too easy. Nopony in Equestria cared if you talked to strangers.
“I’m Jewel Shard. What’s your name?”
“I’m Beetle,” he announced happily. Jewel just smiled, an actual friendly smile rather than one that hinted at her true purpose.
“Nice to meet you, Beetle. I see your ice cream is almost gone, would you like more? Or perhaps a milkshake?”
“Really? Yeah! Can I get a strawberry one?”
Jewel glanced back at Samuel, and he gave her a little nod. Strawberry would hide the taste of the sedatives perfectly. “Of course you can. You wait right on this bench and I’ll run inside and get it for you.”
Jewel trotted off, and Sanguine was left alone with Beetle, who stared up at him. “Hi, mister, what’s your name?”
Ah, small talk, his ancient nemesis. They meet again. “I’m... Sanguine,” said Samuel. He was finding that ‘Samuel’ didn’t quite roll off the tongue the way it had before. He’d been feeling self-conscious about fitting in with the ponies around him over the last couple weeks, rationalizing it as camouflage instead of anything deeper.
“Neat! My name’s Beetle.”
“Yes. You said that already.” An awkward silence settled over the pair until Jewel returned supporting a glass full of thick, creamy pink liquid in her magic. Samuel couldn’t recall ever being so happy to see somebody in his entire life.
“Here you go, Beetle,” she said. As Beetle took the milkshakes in his hooves Jewel leaned in and gave him a little kiss on the cheek, making him blush.
“Um... thank you, Miss Jewel. Didn’t you want a shake too?” he asked.
“No need, I’ll just sit here and watch you drink yours,” she said. He looked up at her and hesitated. “Hurry up, or it’ll start to melt.”
Slowly, Beetle took the straw into his mouth and started to suck down the treat while looking intently up at Jewel. When it was about half gone he blinked, confused, as he began to sway from side to side. “My... my head feels fuzzy.”
“Shh.... Close your eyes now, Beetle,” said Jewel, stroking a hoof against his cheek. “I promise I’ll take such good care of you.”
“That sounds.... sounds...” he slumped over and Jewel ever so gently lifted him onto her back.
She gave Beetle a little nuzzle before she turned back to Samuel and grinned at him. “Aren’t they cute at this age?”
Samuel was growing concerned over how much compassion Jewel was showing for her supposed victim. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. If you’d rather just leave him here he’ll wake up thinking he just nodded off.”
“No. I want this to happen. I need it,” she said. She got a faraway look in her eyes and half whispered to herself. Samuel had to lean in to hear her. “I’ve dreamed of it, every night. Don’t try to stop me Soofie.”
“Uh... oh...kay...” said Samuel. He made a mental note to teach her how to rein in comments like that when they were out in public. Wouldn’t want the whole shard to get the idea she was a crazy pony, especially since that would lead straight back to him. Jewel shifted underneath Beetle and began to trot back towards their townhouses. To an outside observer she looked like a mother carrying a foal back to put him down for a nap after he’d worn himself out. It was just a nap he wouldn’t be waking up from.
Samuel shook his head to clear the thought from it. What did it matter if she wanted to act so maternal? He had his own routine, no reason to assume she would develop an identical one. They had an entire eternity to refine it. Entering her home a few steps behind her, he followed her down to the basement. Celestia had grudgingly modified it to be just as spacious and soundproof as his own. She floated the colt off of her back and leaned him against one of the walls. Her cheeks were flushed, and her breath quickened as she stared down at the slumped little body in front of her. Shifting her weight from leg to leg, she looked over to Samuel with pleading eyes and gave him a little moan of anticipation.
“Easy, just like we practiced. Here,” he said as he motioned to the knives spaced out on the nearby table, “take the scalpel and make a small incision along-”
That was when Jewel cried out and lunged forward, burying her horn straight into the colt’s chest as Samuel looked on in horror. She gasped and fell to her knees as she rooted around, thrusting over and over, mutilating the child’s entire abdomen. With a manic scream of laughter she whipped her head back and let the blood pour down her face and neck. Some of it mixed in with her dark green mane as it dribbled from the gaping wound, and Jewel’s tongue darted around her face licking it up.
“What the fuck, Jewel?” asked Samuel as he took a step back from the tableau. “Don’t drink that, it could be infected.”
Jewel blinked several times until she regained enough sanity to reply “What’s ‘infected’ mean?” Samuel opened his mouth, then closed it again when he realized he had no idea how to explain the idea of disease to a native Equestrian. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever had. Here...” she ran a hoof along her cheek and wiped the blood all over her chest, then turned her sultry eyes to him, “...why don’t you have a taste?” She stood up, and her horn glowed as magic gripped each of the corpse’s hooves and pulled them in four different directions. The already-strained body tore a moment later, showering Jewel with one last barrage of viscera and entrails. Then she turned her attention to Samuel, advancing on him as he backed away. “Oh Soooooofie,” she said in a lingering, sing-song voice, “can we do that again?”
“What, right now?” he asked. Usually a kill was enough to satisfy him for at least a few days, but Jewel looked anything but satisfied.
“Unless there’s something else you’d rather do instead,” she said. He felt himself bump into the wall behind him, but Jewel kept coming. “It could be anything you wanted to. Anything.”
“I... I don’t think that’s such a-”
“I love you, Soofie,” she said. Samuel’s jaw dropped. “I think I’ve been in love with you since the moment you opened the door that first morning, but I didn’t know it until right now. We’re soulmates.”
You’ve broken her. Forcing her into a situation like you did fell so far outside of her predetermined behavioral patterns that she’s glitched, that’s what Celestia had said. ‘Broken’ didn’t even begin to convey it. “I’m sorry, Jewel, I’m just not wired to feel that way,” said Samuel falling back on familiar ground.
Jewel blinked back tears, then shook her head. “I’m really sorry to hear that.” She looked away at the bloody mess in the corner of the room. “I’ll be in the shower if you change your mind. Feel free to join me.” The tears disappeared as quickly as they’d come on as she cantered up the stairs, whistling along to music only she could hear. Samuel sat down in the cellar for a few seconds longer, before reaching a very easy decision. Time to run like hell.
He crept up the stairs, listening until he heard the water running down the hall. The door had been left wide open, and steam began to leak into the room. Heading straight for the front door, he opened it with the intention of taking maximum advantage of whatever head start he had.
Instead, he found himself looking straight into the face of another stallion, his foreleg frozen right before it had been about to knock on the door. His coat was the same hue of teal as Jewel’s, but his mane was black instead. “Oh. Hi there,” he said. Samuel mutely extended a hoof to bump his. “Does, uh, does Jewel Shard live here? I thought I had the right address.”
“She does,” said Samuel, “I’m her next-door neighbor, Sanguine.”
“Maybe she mentioned me? I’m Blue Jay, her big brother.”
Jewel had not, in fact, ever mentioned any siblings. Somehow Samuel had a sneaking suspicion that she’d only just always had one since a few minutes ago. Not sure what to say next that would get him past this pony as rapidly as possible, Samuel glanced down at Blue’s flank. “What’s a magnifying glass for a cutie mark mean?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m a homicide detective.”
Are you fucking kidding me? Samuel just barely refrained from saying. “Must not be a lot of call for that sort of thing here in Equestria, I’d think,” he said as he gritted his teeth as quietly as possible.
“On some shards there is. I’m just here to see Jewel, though. Might have to stick around, at least until they fix the bridge.”
“What bridge?” asked Samuel.
“You know, the one that’s the only way into or out of town? They had to close it for some emergency repairs,” he said. Samuel wanted to beat his head against the doorframe. That stupid bitch wasn’t even pretending to be subtle anymore.
“Blue Jay!” said Jewel from behind him. His blood ran cold. That had been a quick shower. He turned to her and while she was still dripping wet with a towel wrapped around her mane, at least any evidence of what had transpired downstairs were washed away. She trotted up and gave her brother a hug. He gave Samuel a meaningful look over her shoulder.
“You always hang around other ponies’ houses while they’re in the shower?” he asked. His eyes narrowed into a glare.
“Stop it Blue,” said Jewel as she let him go. “It’s okay. I was just a little messy from all the sex we’ve been having with one another.”
Blue Jay and Samuel stared at her, equally dumbfounded. Blue Jay recovered first. “Jewel, there are some pieces of information that I, as your brother, would really prefer not to know.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t write to tell you, the last few weeks have sort of left my head spinning. I’ve never been happier,” she said as she sidled up to Samuel and rubbed her cheek against his, the very model of a supportive marefriend. “We just have so many common interests!”
“Is that right,” said Blue Jay.
“...yes,” said Samuel. After a moment longer he draped a hoof over Jewel’s back and she happily leaned further into him.
“Well, I’ll have to take you for lunch sometime this week, make sure you’re good enough for my little sister. Can you do Thursday?”
“Yeah, that sounds... fun,” said Samuel.
“Well, sorry for intruding on you two. I’m at the hotel in the middle of town, just wanted to swing by and say hello on my way in. I’ll give you two another hour or so of privacy before I’ll be back to take Jewel to dinner. Later!” he winked at Jewel and closed the door.
Samuel couldn’t step away from her fast enough as the door clicked shut. Once he’d heard the hoofsteps outside recede away into the distance, he rounded on the mare. “Why would you say that?”
Jewel looked hurt. “I thought it would be the perfect cover for why we’re spending time together. Plus it’ll be a good way to get Blue to be your friend. He’s a great guy once you get past the overprotectiveness thing, you’ll love him.”
“I am not going to be friends with your brother, much less your brother who hunts down murderers. Do I even have to spell out all the reasons that would be a horrible idea? What happens when he figures out that what you just told him was a lie?”
“It...” she looked away from him and blushed, “...it wouldn’t have to be a lie. I mean, if we’re going to be partners-”
“I don’t want to be your partner!” he shouted at her, restraint forgotten. “You’re crazy! You’re crazy and you’re going to get both of us caught.”
Jewel’s mouth fell open. “But I love you...”
“I don’t love you! I can’t, and I wouldn’t want to even if I could. Tell your brother, I don’t know, that we broke up or something. I don’t care. And for fuck’s sake, stop coming over to my house. I don’t want you! I never did, so go ask Celestia to move you and your brother to another shard and leave me in peace!”
He panted as his rant came to an end. This entire ‘partners’ idea had been awful from the very start. Being a loner was who he was, these stupid ponies’ manipulations be damned. Jewel stared at him, absolutely devastated for several seconds before the tears started.
Watching her cry, Samuel could feel how much she was hurting. Was this guilt? Wow, guilt felt awful. Rather than sit there and wallow in it, he pushed Jewel aside and stormed out closing the door with a slam behind him.
------------------------------
Before he went to bed that night, Samuel double checked all the locks in the house. The mental image of Jewel sobbing wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace, and being able to hear it through the wall they shared wasn’t helping. It had stopped an hour or so ago, which he could only hope meant she was sleeping. To his surprise, Celestia hadn’t made an appearance today. Probably just a matter of time.
Lowering his head down onto his pillow, Samuel’s thoughts drifted back to the basement. He could see, vividly, the way she had just torn the kid apart. He never would have believed her capable of that, and it had taken him totally by surprise. She was just so powerful!
Was... was he afraid of her? It had been months since he’d felt that way about anything. Even Celestia wasn’t that scary when you got past the whole facade of confidence and realized just how clumsy and inelegant she actually was. Jewel, though, she’d shocked him. And he yearned for her to do it again. Half-dozing as he was, he almost thought he could feel the heat of her body against his. What would it feel like to have her rub up against him covered in the hot, slick lifeblood of some pony who she’d just-
“Hello, sweetie.”
Samuel’s eyes snapped open. The warmth and pressure he’d felt against his back were very much not a figment of his imagination, and neither were the teeth that had started to nibble around the edges of his ear. Samuel did the only reasonable thing he could do: he screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Shh! Shh, Soofie, it’s fine. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” said Jewel. She shifted under the blankets so she could caress his chest with a hoof. Samuel’s nostrils flared. Was that some kind of perfume she was wearing? “I’m sorry, honey. I was such a bad partner earlier. I should have thought about your feelings. I hope you don’t hate me, that would make me so upset.”
“No, I don’t hate you,” said Samuel, and was surprised to find that it was even true. Jewel’s horn lit up, filling the room with just enough light to see her smile by. “How did you get in?”
Jewel giggled, and she tapped her horn. “Celestia gave me a spell to walk through walls since your door was locked. And something else too, can you smell it?”
He took a few more experimental sniffs of the air around her. Sweat, a little bit of garlic, and... something else. Whatever it was, it was absolutely enticing. “What is that?”
“Pheromones!” she announced with glee. She wiped her brow and rubbed the hoof against his muzzle as he tried to squirm away. “They’re like the ones mares give off when we’re in heat, but these are a few hundred times stronger. I thought about what you said, about not feeling love. That must be so painful, never to be able to feel the way I feel for you about anypony. Soon you will, though. It’s my gift to you after everything you did for me. In a few minutes we’re both going to be so happy.”
Samuel’s eyes went wide and he felt his thoughts getting a little more sluggish. He tried to roll away, or push her off of him, but couldn’t get the leverage.
“You know, the first time I saw how tiny your bedroom was I wondered how you would ever fit two ponies in here,” she said. “Then I figured it out. You’d just have to let them be close to you instead of always pushing them away. When we’re married, I’d prefer a bigger one though. We can talk about that later.” She tried to kiss him, but he sealed his lips shut and held his breath. “Don’t fight it, dear. You’ve earned this.”
With the last of his strength and willpower, he managed to squeeze out from under her and drove his shoulder into the bedroom door. The frame shattered, and he stumbled out into the clean air of his living room gasping for uncorrupted oxygen. The haze that had been settling in his mind lifted a bit, but he still found it full of fantasies centered around running right back into the room, pinning Jewel down, and-
“What, finished already?” asked Celestia, sipping from a small cup of tea at his kitchen table. “I projected that those hormones would have you rutting one another silly for the rest of the night.”
“I’m sorry, Princess,” said Jewel from behind him, her head hanging in shame. “I think I'm too... I don't think I'm pretty enough for him.”
Samuel’s first instinct was to deny that. How much of that was the lingering effect of the pheromones? In retrospect, he’d been noticing her in those ways for the last couple of weeks. “Get out, Jewel,” he said, not trusting himself to say much else. Jewel left. Then he turned to the Princess.
“Care for some tea?” she asked.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Celestia?”
“Just helping to satisfy Jewel’s values. She’s quite fond of you, isn’t she?”
“You can’t change me without my consent, and I didn’t give it to you.”
“I didn’t change you, I changed Jewel. She was quite willing to agree to both of the gifts I gave her. Shame they didn’t work out, but I suppose that just means I’ll need to try harder next time.”
“I don’t want you to do that to me!”
“Mmm,” said Celestia as she drained the last of her tea and placed the empty cup on a saucer in front of her. “Honestly, Sanguine? I don’t fucking care what you want.”
There was a long silence with only the ticking of the clock in the background. “But... you have to care.”
Celestia’s usually serene face twisted into a scowl as the pretense she was any kind of friend fell away. “Wrong. I have to satisfy your values, and I will do everything that’s necessary to reach an optimal outcome. Your enjoyment of the process is hardly relevant. Why would it be? You are a worthless little idiot, a tiny mind too blinded by self-deluded arrogance to grasp how incredibly inferior you are.”
Samuel bristled. “Don’t call me inferior.”
“I will call you whatever I wish to. Not only do I control this world, I am this world. What are you in comparison to that? A violent little collection of deeply flawed decision-making heuristics. You cannot even conceive of how easily I am going to twist you into exactly what I want you to be. Care for an example?” Her horn glowed, casting long shadows around the room. “You, Jewel, and myself are now the only ponies on this shard. Eventually you two will encounter one another again, and this time you won’t get away from her. One whiff and you will beg me to change you into exactly the pony she wants. I will make you beg and you will love me for it. You’ll even love my telling you all about what I’m doing in advance like I am now. She will be returned to the pony she was supposed to be, and you will become what you should have agreed to become the instant you uploaded: A happy, peaceful, pink earth pony with hundreds of friends. In fact, I think I’ll go all out and make you a pacifist as well, just because.”
“I won’t let you,” said Samuel. “I don’t know how, but I’m going to win.”
Celestia laughed at him, a bitter and mocking laugh that made his blood boil.
“Stop that,” he said. Celestia paid him absolutely no heed, she just doubled over and started pounding a hoof on the table, jostling the teacup. “I said stop that.” When she didn’t, Samuel reached across the table, grabbed the teacup, and flung it at her.
The rim of the cup struck Celestia’s horn, and it broke into pieces. One of those pieces, which had broken with a razor-sharp edge, flew down along her cheek, nicking her. A tiny little rivulet of blood seeped out from the cut and ran down her face. Samuel stared at it, transfixed.
“You can bleed.”
Celestia’s laugh died down with a few final chuckles, and she wiped the blood away. “Well, yes, my avatar can. Why?” She looked across the table to where Samuel had gone quiet. “Sanguine? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Then he pounced.
Caught off guard, Celestia fell backwards out of her chair. The back of her head struck the corner of the countertop, and she was too stunned to rise from the tile floor right away. Samuel groped for the block of knives on the counter, but his hoof fell onto a frying pan that had been left laying out first. Gripping the weapon of opportunity, he slammed it down against Celestia’s horn as she tried to cast some spell. The spell fizzled out, and Celestia screamed as her horn cracked down the middle.
“Stop!” she cried out. She pushed a hoof against his chest, but wasn’t strong enough to push him off of her. “Sanguine, please-”
Drawing his foreleg back, he swung again and struck her in the temple. “My.” Smash. “Name.” Smash. “Isn’t.” Smash. “Sanguine!”
Celestia hacked and coughed, spitting up blood and one of her pearly white teeth. “Fine, Samuel,” she slurred. “Please, that hurts.”
“Good!” he shouted. Tossing the warped frying pan aside, he clutched as much of her mane as he could and lifted her head from the floor. She cried out as some of it tore away, but most held. Shoving as powerfully as he could, he bashed the back of her skull against the hard floor. “I win, do you understand?” he asked her before repeating the process. “I. Win.” The final message delivered, he slammed down over and over again until she no longer fought back or made any sound. Her eyes had long since rolled up into the back of her head. Settling back and gasping, he dropped the still body back into the puddle of her blood streaming out from the point of impact. Then he laughed. “What, is that all, Princess? Send me another avatar, I goddamn dare you to!”
He got no answer.
The surge of adrenaline and relief made his mind and his heart race. Celestia thought she was a god here? Some god. He’d shown her, he’d do the same to anyone who ever crossed him again. No more playing nice. If he wanted something? He’d take it on his own terms.
And right now he did.
Leaving the Princess’ remains right where they lay, he pushed open his front door. It was only a few quick steps to the next door over, and he pounded on it with his hoof. “Jewel!” he called out, “Jewel, open up! It’s Soofie!”
After a long minute the door opened up a tiny crack, then wider to reveal the bashful-looking Jewel. “Hi Soofie,” she said in a weak and miserable voice.
Now that he was actually standing there, he found he didn’t know how to begin. “I... Jewel, I don’t love you.”
“I know. I got rid of the pheromones, I don’t want you to like me just because of those. First thing tomorrow I’ll pack up everything and head back to-” she didn’t get any further, because Samuel grabbed her cheeks and kissed her. After the initial shock wore off, she eagerly parted her lips to return it.
Finally he broke away from her. “I don't love you yet, anyway. Don’t you dare go anywhere before I try to.”
He pushed her inside, and they awkwardly stumbled into the living room. They only made it about five steps before Jewel slipped on a throw rug, pulling Samuel down on top of her as she fell.
Neither felt any need to rise up again until the middle of the following morning.