AN: This chapter will have heavy gore in it.
"Twi, don't you have some spell that can detect where he's at?" Applejack asked.
"A scrying spell!" Twilight yelled out, snapping her fingers. She cast the spell, the scrying spell starting from Fluttershy's cottage and reaching out to the edges of it's reach.
"I've found him..." Twilight said grimly.
"Where is he?!" Fluttershy yelled uncharacteristically.
"He's in the middle of the desert, about three miles from Appleloosa, but..." Twilight trailed off, images popping into her head.
"What is it?" Fluttershy asked.
"He won't be happy to see us." Twilight said cryptically.
"Whad'ya mean Twi?" Applejack asked.
"They've been... putting images into his head." She answered.
"What type of images?" Rainbow asked.
"False images into his head, and it's been torturing him." Twilight shook her head.
"That doesn't answer her question..." Fluttershy seethed.
"I can only show you, but they're not pretty." Twilight said.
"Show them to us." Applejack said. Twilight sighed, and cast a spell on all of her friends.
"Where are we Twi?" Applejack called out in the darkness.
"Starting the first false memory." Twilight called out. It illuminated the entire room, revealing all six friends, then set a sort of setting for them. Daniel was standing on a cliff, staring out at the sun. Rainbow's form appeared into the false memory, confusing all of the ponies. They couldn't hear anything, but they could see that Rainbow Dash was yelling at Daniel with tears streaming down her face.
Daniel turned around, a tired and defeated look on his face, staring at the advancing pegasus. She got into his face, yelling, then pulled a small dagger from behind her. The mane six stared in horror as Rainbow Dash drove the dagger into his stomach then pushed him off the cliff, leaving him to free fall to his death.
"We were never your friends!" Rainbow's voice yelled. The memory ended and left the six all in shock.
"Would you actually do that Rainbow?" Twilight asked her indifferently.
"Of course not!" Rainbow yelled angrily.
"Next false memory starting up." Twilight said robotically. The next scene appeared, with Daniel sitting on the beach alone, the same look on his face. Twilight walked into the scene, doing the same as Rainbow Dash. She got into his face, except that he was sitting down, but she picked him up with her magic and started throwing him around like a ragdoll, slamming him into sharp rocks and sand, leaving large craters where he hit.
Twilight dragged him to her face, still yelling, while blood dripped from multiple cuts, lacerations, and scratches. He started screaming for some reason, and after a full minute, his entire body compressed and exploded, leaving nothing but a pile of meat and a red mist. Twilight walked away, and the false memory ended, leaving Fluttershy in a sobbing mess, with the rest in shock and disgust.
"Go back to your damn world!" Twilight's voice yelled at him.
"What's with our voices?" Rainbow asked.
"They've been using our voices to make him feel unwanted." Twilight sighed, then just started up the next image, this one the Carousel Boutique. Rarity was throwing sowing machines at him, which he didn't bother dodging, leaving bruises and cuts where the needles come loose and penetrate the skin. Rarity finally picked him up, slamming him into the ceiling and driving him through the ground, and destroying the floor to her bedroom.
Rarity walked up the stairs, with a knife in hand. He stood up, facing Rarity with indifference, and gave her the same look as she walked up to him and drove the knife straight into the chest. She ripped the knife out, while he bled to death, licked it seductively, then used her magic to rip off his pants, shirt, and boxers, leaving a naked, deceased Daniel on her bed, bleeding profusely through the large stab wound. She then started raping the dead body, and after she finished, she chopped off his head and kicked it out the window.
"You are a disgusting animal!" Rarity's voice yelled at him. The memory ended, with Rarity just staring at what she just saw with a twitching eye.
"What brute would think so lowly of moi that they would even think of me doing such a horrid act?!" She yelled.
"It only gets worse..." Twilight repeated.
"Starting the next one up." She said. The next scene started in a darkened room, with Daniel strapped down on the table, naked. The room lit up, the walls running with streams of blood, pools of blood on the ground, skeletal pony bodies laying on the ground, with some rotten carcasses with their internal organs ripped out. Pinkie walked in with a bloody apron on, a scalpel in her hand.
They could see her talking, yet the only words they could make out was 'helping me make cupcakes!' She walked away, returning with a bloody tray of different surgical tools. She cut into Daniel's skin, who didn't even flinch at the touch, running the scalpel blade painstakingly slow through his skin, then took the two flaps of skin and ripped it apart, revealing the still functioning organs, bones, and muscle.
She broke off each of the ribs, tossing each of them away carelessly, then used the scalpel to cut away the muscle, revealing more organs. All the while, Daniel held the same, tired and defeated look, not even flinching at each crack and snap of his bones. Pinkie made idle comments while she did this, only to be met with silence. She reached for the first thing she could get her hands on, which was his intestines, and ripped them out.
She reached for his lungs next, ripping them out and placing them in a water filled tray, leaving only his heart, still beating in his chest. She literally ripped out his heart, with Daniel still somehow living, then cut his throat.
"You were never loved." Pinkie's voice yelled. The image ended, leaving Pinkie sobbing uncontrollably. The next false memory started with no warning, starting with Daniel tied to a giant wheel in a dusty cellar. The cellar door opened, revealing an almost blinding light, and in walks Big Mac and Applejack. Applejack had a small hammer, with Big Mac holding a large hammer.
Without even talking, Big Mac walked up to him and punched him in the face, knocking out a few teeth. Big Mac walked back, Applejack stepping towards him. She swung the hammer at his hand, breaking all of his fingers with the one swing. She stepped back, and Big Mac stepped forward once more, punching him in the nose, easily breaking it and pushing it against his face. Applejack stepped forward, swinging at his other hand, breaking each of his fingers again, followed up by a punch from Big Mac.
Applejack twisted the hammer around, sharp end up, and drove it into his groin. Each of the girls flinched at the sight, seeing blood leaking his groin. Big Mac took a step back, taking the large hammer in his hands, and drove it towards his arm. The arm broke at the elbow, being bent backwards from the blow. He did the same to the other arm, except the blow literally severed the arm in two. He twisted the hammer around and drove it at his legs, snapping the first one back.
He drove it forward again, hitting his second leg, the leg itself caving in towards the wheel. Applejack stepped forward, then drove her hammer into his chest, leaving a sizable hole in the middle of his chest. She twisted it around once more and drove it into his skull, caving in the entire top part of his head with the blow.
"You never should've came here." Applejack's voice projected.
The false memory ended, with Applejack hiding behind her hat.
"The only one that hasn't had a false memory is Fluttershy." Rainbow Dash said, her face turning green.
"Her false memory is the most hurtful to Daniel." Twilight said indifferently. Fluttershy looked up, tears still running down her face. The next started, with Fluttershy immediately slapping Daniel across the face. She was yelling in his face, except that Daniel was giving her a pleading look. She pointed out the door, the ponies finally realizing that they were in her cottage.
Daniel just walked out, a slump in his shoulders. He continued walking until he reached a familiar cliff, where it started with Rainbow Dash, except that instead of Rainbow Dash, it was Fluttershy. Fluttershy walked up to him, still yelling, and just shoved him off the cliff.
"I never loved you!" Fluttershy's voice yelled. They all awoke in the real world, standing exactly where they were before, except that all of them felt sick.
"Those were the false memories that they've put into his head, and they just keep repeating, only raising more doubt inside of him. The voices only added to his doubt." Twilight said.
"We need to get to him immediately!" Fluttershy said, rubbing her eyes of tears.
"We can't just walk into that place, we'll end up killing ourselves by doing it!" Twilight snapped. "We need a plan to get into their base of operations." Twilight continued.
"How in Celestia are we going to get into possibly heavily guarded base in the middle of the desert?!" Fluttershy snapped.
"We sneak in of course!" Pinkie said.
"Pinkie, that's... actually not bad." Rainbow said, scratching her head.
"Really? Sneaking into a base? We don't have any equipment for this kind of stuff!" Twilight yelled. Pinkie pulled out six suits, along with various high tech spy equipment.
"Pinkie... How do you have all of this stuff?" Twilight asked, her eye twitching crazily.
"Twilight, remember, it's Pinkie." Applejack said. They all strapped into the suits, grabbing a pair of night vision goggles, grappling hook, daggers, earpieces for communications, keyloggers, and weird looking watches.
"What are the watches for?" Applejack asked. Pinkie giggled as she took a small pen from the side of it and tapped it with the pen, the entire screen lighting up. She put in a password at an impossible speed, then started tapping the screen.
"It has a built in flashlight, camera, anti-jammers, compass, microphones, and can hold up to three gigabytes of music and movies!" She said excitedly. Twilight looked at the watch on her wrist with sudden interest.
"How can it do all of that, in this small lil thang?" Applejack said skeptically.
"Humans are amazing with what they can do with technology! They don't have any magic, but they can create stuff like this," She said, pointing to the watch and suits. "easily!" She finished. Twilight summoned a piece of parchment and quill and wrote that down.
"I need to remember to question Daniel about humanity." Twilight said.
"No time, need to save him from insanity." Fluttershy said, walking out the door.
"Train tickets?" Twilight asked. Fluttershy walked back in and upstairs, grabbing a eight bags of coin from the closet. She walked back downstairs, tossing each of them a bag.
"There." She said, walking out the door once more. The rest of them shrugged and followed her. They reached the train station and bought their tickets with the given money, and started waiting for the train. "We should've put the suits on after we arrived in Appleloosa..." Rainbow Dash said.
"You guys still have yours on?" Pinkie said, in normal clothes.
"How..." Twilight looked at her confusedly.
"Don't question her. Remember last time..." Applejack said. Twilight just sighed. The train arrived shortly after and they all got onto the train, getting a cart to themselves. They remained silent throughout the entire trip, Twilight mostly just planning a backup plan in case Pinkie's 'sneak in and grab Daniel' plan backfires.
"How long until Appleloosa?" Rainbow asked impatiently.
"Two more hours." Twilight said. Rainbow just groaned and sat against the seat. Fluttershy was mostly silent, just looking out into the desert. The two hours passed quickly, and they stepped off the train. Twilight used the same scrying spell, feeling him closer than he was in Ponyville.
"He's east of Appleloosa, maybe two miles out." Twilight said, walking towards the east. They followed without question, walking in a tight group through the hot desert. They saw some sort of cave entrance in the rolling sand dunes, and slowly made their way to the cave entrance. They arrived at the cave entrance, Pinkie somehow slipped back into the spy suit and all of the equipment while nopony was looking. Twilight cast the spell once more, feeling him almost immediately.
"This is the place, except he's a three hundred feet down." She said. They walked into the cave entrance, the shade from the mouth of the cave cooling down their bodies quickly. She heard some quiet talking, although faint, it echoed in the caverns.
"What should we do about him once he finally confesses?" A male voice asked.
"The boss said that his dad once him for the mafia again, except it's going to be an execution. After he breaks, we take him back and we get payed." Another male voice said. The girls looked to each other, confused about what they were talking about. They continued walking in the dark, thankful for the night vision goggles, until they saw a faint light out of a side hallway.
"It was really easy to get that fucker out of the house. We used a muffle spell on the chick, and we used a sleeping spell on him, then just teleported here. How long do you give for him to break with the false memory bullshit?" One of the voices said.
"I give him a week, at most, until he's begging to go back and he gets executed." The other voice answered. They walked passed the hallway, Twilight using a spell and knocking both of the ponies out. They continued walking through the dark hallways, until they saw another light, this one straight ahead. They picked up their paces and continued down the hallway. They got to the room, to see Daniel, tied up and cut all over. The girls rushed over and untied him, letting him onto the ground slowly.
"Can ya teleport us out of here Twi?" Applejack said.
"I'll try." She said doubtfully. Twilight cast the teleportation spell and they all vanished with a small pop. They all appeared in Fluttershy's cottage, with Applejack and Rainbow carrying Daniel. They set him on the couch, with his glazed over eyes just staring at the seeing. Fluttershy looked at him, seeing his eyes completely glazed over, and frowned.
"I think they've put him in a sleep induced coma or something." Fluttershy said, slapping Daniel across the face lightly. Twilight thought of a spell and cast it on Daniel, waking him from his sleep. His eyes closed and a scowl grew on his face.
"Great... Going to ask me more questions? I told you, I'm not saying shit." He barked.
"Daniel, you're okay!" Fluttershy yelled, wrapping her arms around him. He remained silent, but his eyes went wide. He pushed her off and jumped up.
"Stay away from me! You aren't going to kill me!" He yelled at them. Twilight enveloped him in her magic and picked him up, and he started flailing in her grasp.
"I'm not going to fucking die now! I'll hurt you all if you even try touching me!" He yelled.
"Daniel please, those were false memories. Would you actually believe that we would harm you like that?" Twilight said.
"You don't think I actually believe that do you?! This is just some set up! I know that Fluttershy's going to break up with me, Rainbow's going to stab me in the back with a dagger, Twilight's going to go to town with her magic on me, Rarity's going to rape me, then Applejack and Big Mac are going to break my bones, then Pinkie's going to use what's left to be ground up and put into some sort of pastry dish." He said, pointing at each of them. They each flinched at the call of their names and the reminder of the false memories.
"Daniel, do you really think that I would break up with you? I loved you since the first few weeks you were here, and our love only grew with the time we've been together. What could you do that would make me stop loving you?" She asked.
"How am I supposed to know?! You came home one day, started yelling at me, broke up with me, then pushed me off a cliff! I didn't even know what I did when you pushed me off!" He yelled.
"If you did nothing to receive that kind of treatment from Fluttershy of all ponies, what do you think we all did?" Rarity asked.
"I don't even know!" He yelled, grabbing his head.
"Daniel... It's obviously false memories. You did nothing to even be treated like that, and we know that you would never do anything like that." Twilight sighed. He stopped flailing in the air, looking at each of them, giving them all the dejected look.
"I... I can't tell what's real or not anymore... I don't know what to do... I can't even defend myself from five unicorns, then how am I going to help anypony when real trouble arrives...?" He questioned. Twilight put him onto the ground, and Fluttershy shuffled over once more and wrapped her arms around him. He visibly flinched and tried crawling away.
"Those unicorns did something unforgivable, and I can't forgive them for that. Right now, this is reality. We're the ponies that you've always thought your friends, and we would never do anything to harm you." Twilight said. He sat there in silence, with Fluttershy basically crawled into his lap and hugging and snuggling him.
"I know what I must do..." He said quietly.
"And what might that be mister?" Applejack asked.
"I need to learn to fight. I can't sit here, thinking basic fighting moves and brute strength would get me anywhere in a fight. I need to train with weapons, and if possible, get better at hand to hand." He said.
"That's finally something to use all the bits thats just been piling up." Fluttershy joked.
"I guess so." He said, giving a small smile.
"I'm glad that's settled..." Rainbow said, walking out the door. The rest followed quietly, not bothering to make any small comments as they were all tired from the day. Daniel turned to Fluttershy.
"Is there a blacksmith around here?" He asked.
"There's one in Canterlot." Fluttershy answered.
"I'm going to need to head to Canterlot tomorrow then." He said.
"Now hold on! I just got you back from a terrifying experience, to the point where you wouldn't talk to us logically, and now you want to go to another place when you have no training in whatever arms you have in mind." She said sternly, grabbing my arm and pulling him to her.
"True, but I would need sparring weapons to help me actually train, instead of using sticks or something." He said.
"The trainers come with the sparring equipment, now shut up." She said, pushing her lips upon his. She pulled away after a few seconds, leaving Daniel disappointed.
"I haven't eaten in like two days, let alone slept or showered." He said. He got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing an apple and munching on it hungrily. He finished the entire thing in maybe ten seconds, straight down to the core, and grabbed another one.
"It's night right now, and I'm tired from traveling everywhere looking for you. I'm going to sleep." Fluttershy said, walking upstairs. He tried talking with his mouth full, but end up spitting out pieces of apple and juice everywhere. He swallowed and said.
"Woops..." He grabbed a rag and cleaned up the mess, then grabbed two more apples and quickly ate it. After he finished eating, he went upstairs and grabbed a towel and a pair of clothing, finally realizing that he was standing in his boxers the entire time. He went into the bathroom and took a nice, long, hot shower, and after he washed up, he dried off and put on his new articles of clothing. He crawled into the bed with Fluttershy, digging his head into her long flowing mane, and fell asleep almost instantaneously.
A dark swirling mass of darkness was staring at the large form just ravaging apples.
"His soul is strong... In time, he will be mine." The dark mass said. It seeped through the window it was staring through, following the unknown beast upstairs. He walked into the bathroom and started a shower.
"A weaker soul is nearby..." The dark mass whispered to itself, floating down the hall and into the bedroom.
"This is the weak soul..." It sneered. It crawled over and was about to ravage it's soul when the shower cut off. It floated under the covers, and the strong souled beast crawled into the bed, snuggling up to the weak souled creature. It could tell he had already fallen asleep by the way it's breathing had slowed, and it seeped up it's nose, causing it to snort.
"It's very strong indeed... Maybe I'll make this my new home... At least... until I'm found..." It said in the beasts head.