Ch. 09 - Piercing Deep
Images, sounds, thoughts, emotions, and SWEET CELESTIA THE PAIN assaulted Twilight Sparkle. It was like jumping into a freezing pool of water. She struggled, tumbling perceptually through a storm of experiences.
Metal. Buzzing saws. Flowers. Laughing children. Biting cuts. Hope for the future. Explosions. Bones. Horrid mask. Dripping sweat. Shouting. Pooling blood. Sore throat. Sore battle wounds. Screaming. Surgical tools. Fancy food. Anger. Fear. PAIN.
If Twilight couldn't right herself, she would drown. Drown in the confused sea of Painwheel's mind. She had to focus. Shoot in one direction and hope for clarity. Hope for comprehensibility.
Hope for something – anything – without the grating background din of discomfort.
A neighborhood, sunny day. Humans of many shapes and sizes, garbed in fanciful, exotic dress. Laughing children run past. She walks on asphalt, natural as if born on them. Looks right. Another human walks at her side. Blond, pretty. Carrying books. Filia. Best friend. Wouldn't betray her. Did betray her. How? Can't remember.
Remember. She looks left, sees old man hunched over. She breaths heavily. Acute throbbing pain throughout body. She reaches hand out, nails black, skin outlined by dark veins. Old man looks over, recoils in fear.
She looks around, no longer in suburbs. Crowded city. No one laughs. Pedestrians reacting to her presence, gasping and screaming. Schoolgirls coming towards stagger back, turning and running away. Crowd disperses. Street empty. Pain persists.
Pain gone. City streets gone. Field of flowers. Scent is sweet. Wind blows, carrying flower petals. She reaches down to pick one. Hand fresh and healthy. It holds a flower. Brings close to nose to smell it. Exquisite.
Dinner smells divine. She sits at a table, voices carrying from other sides. View hazy, distracted. Hands hold silverware, expertly held. Must always be dignified; proper etiquette is paramount. Knife and fork come down upon plate. Boiled vegetables, fresh brown rice...and a steak. Medium rare. Cutting through reveals nice, pink center.
Twilight knows she should feel repulsed. Should feel ill. Meat. And not just meat, but beef. Cow meat. Cow's are for eating, they're feeling, intelligent creatures! Twilight couldn't eat beef! It was against every moral fiber in her and even her very nature to do so.
Yet it smells so good. She pops it into her mouth, chewing in and savoring the juices. It tastes even better than it smells. It's so wrong, yet it feels so right. Twilight's horror drowned by pure, carnivorous meat-lust. The steak gratifies her in indescribable ways, it tastes so good in her mouth.
Meat turns to hay. Familiar to Twilight, but she spits it out violently. Unnatural. Why put hay in a burger? The pain is back, intensified heavily. She screams, coughing away the foul materials. Rage. She slams her fist down on the table, collapsing it. Screams resound all around her. Head hurts; dehydrated.
She smacks her lips. Need water. She shivers in a bed, surrounded by the effects of a child. Toys, photographs, bookshelves. A poster of a cartoon adventurer. Annie, Girl of the Stars. She wheezes, covering her mouth. Head is foggy. Throat sore. Need water. She calls out, “Mom!” Door opens. Woman steps inside, carrying tray with water. Mother. Caregiver. Livegiver. Love.
Nurse steps up to the operating table, carrying tray of surgical tools. Valentine. Nurse ninja. Bitch. Hatred. Fear. Nurse tightens rubber gloves. “We're ready to begin the operation.” Twilight is strapped down, can't move. Struggles in bonds.
She's in the recliner in Ponyville. Memories fresh. Nurse turned into a crazed Twilight Sparkle. Steps forward, determined look on her eyes.
Changes into Nurse, back on the table. Shadowing figure looms nearby. Metal mask. Glass dome on head displays gray matter. Brain Drain. Leader of Lab Zero. Monster. Images of his face flash by. A thousand instances of his voice flare up at once. Mind controller. Bastard. Fear. Hate.
“Get...out...”
Nurse leans in close, pressing gas mask to her lips. Her head swims.
She collapses to the floor. She's in a church, carpeted floor. Rises to feet, looking back. Valentine readies syringes. “This won't hurt a bit.”
Hate. Fear. Pain. Bitch has to go down. Parasite assisted punch slams into nurse, sending staggering. Her bra snaps. She drops to her knees. “Thatta...girl...” Falls over, bloody wounds across her body. Twilight screams to the sky, Buar Drive whipping up dust.
She keeps screaming, balloons disperse. She spots Pinkie Pie. Pink. Earth Pony. Annoying. The pony fires cannon.
Peacock fires cannon, speaking like a pirate. Infuriating. Annoying. Lab Eight rival. Must destroy for Master Brain Drain. Twilight blocks cannonball with the Buar. Peacock points, a tiny airplane flying out and diving upon Twilight. It explodes in her face.
She flies back. Rooftop. Dozens of soldiers – the Black Egrets – stand ready to assist their monarch. Princess Parasoul struts forward, spinning her living umbrella around. Globs of napalm fly in every direction. Parasoul. Ruler. Leader of the Black Egrets. Fights the Skullgirl. Shouldn't be in Twilight's way. The Princess had to fall. Had to die. Kill the Princess.
What was she thinking? Hurt the Princess? Twilight could never do that. Never in a million year...but she was so annoying!
She uses Buar Drive to lift up off the ground. Princess stands at ready, fencing stance. “You poor girl...I never authorized this,” she said. Look of grim focus matched by profound pity. How dare she pity Twilight? Twilight lunges forward, jumping around bursting globs.
She didn't notice the severed head jumping from behind, biting her. “Nom nom nom nom nom!” Twilight flinched, trying to shake the head off. Acute pain of scratches across her skin. They're in a port, surrounded by sunken buildings housing amphibious people. Fish people look on. The head's body rushes in and shoulder checks Twilight. She tumbles to the ground.
She's staring at the ground, a subtle film of tears coming to her eyes. Sadness bordering on despair. How could they not see her? She remembers her parents.
They stand in front of her, holding each other. Twilight wears her new school uniform. It smells fresh, of starch. They're smiling. Her beautiful mother. Her strong, rugged father. He wraps an arm around his wife.
Their smiles are replaced with grimaces of fear. They recoil. Dozens of others recoil before Twilight's eyes. She hurts all over. Especially emotionally. “MONSTER! GET OUT OF HERE MONSTER!”
“Brain Drain you monster!” the scientist shouts. He backs away, dripping bright red blood from his arms and his sides and from his gouged eye-socket. Twilight's Buar Drive hangs in the corner of her eye, dripping blood. Her anger is indescribable. Everything is blurry. “Do you hear me, Brain Drain?” he continued, keeping her in his sights. Out of the corner of her eye she could see small, disfigured children being led away by their masked caregiver. The scientist shouted again. “Do you hear me? I'll be the first to admit it, we weren't good people! We abused our state-appointed position to inflict horrors, all in the name of science and stopping the Skullgirls! We were awful, terrible people! All of us! But you...you've become a goddamn monster!”
“Humans are the real monsters,” said the nun. She had wide hips. They were back in the church. The nun opened her eyes; they glowed red. She vomited a great mass of flesh from her body, her skin peeling back until she – it – undulated on the floor, inside out. The quivering mass of meat and organs writhed. On its “head” was a crown of bone, like a broken curved half-circle connected loosely by rods coming from its “brow”. At its side, Valentine jumped from behind a curtain, adjusting her bosom.
Twilight was filled with disgust – and also incredible fury – but couldn't help notice the nurse's breasts, those mounds of fat peculiar to the human species. It was curious...and infuriating. Envy. Why couldn't she have breasts like that?
Why couldn't she remove her mask? Frustration. Back in Lab Zero, in a containment cell. She pawed at the leather, feeling the straps. She realized with horror the mask was not meant to be removed. She growled, sticking fingers underneath the leather to probe for clues.
She couldn't breath. Wind whipped around her, an artificial tornado ripping the oxygen from her lungs. Terror. Twilight dug her stinging fingers under the mask, gripping it. Get it off. Get it off! GET IT OFF!
“Get out!”
Get it away! A spinning saw inched towards her chest. Valentine held it. Brain Drain stood off to the side, inscrutable as ever. Twilight turned her head away, swaying drunkenly on subsiding anesthesia. The saw bit into her flesh, bringing a flash of pain. It hurt.
It hurt so much more waking up in the lab, the Gae Bolga freshly applied. She screamed bloody murder, rolling on the floor. Twilight clutched her arms to her body, wincing at every movement, every pang, every squirm inside. She rolled, looking up into a floodlight. She was blinded. Her skin felt too tight. Whatever was in her body – images of her transparent form revealing the Gae Bolga flashed before her – needed to get out. Absolutely had to. They needed. To get. Out.
“Get. Out!”
Her skin ruptured from within, dozens of spikes extruding agonizingly. A rainbow colored pony didn't run away quick enough, and she got cut.
Twilight screamed. She couldn't take it. She felt like she was going to lose her mind. She rolled, feeling herself roll over the metal of the Buar, inducing more discomfort. She writhed on the floor of Lab Zero, moaning. Pain. Pain. Rage. She started to lose herself. All she could feel was the pain and the rage.
A voice pulled at the back of her head. “Now, it's time. There's work to be done. It's time to destroy the weak-hearted fools at Lab Eight. And when that's done...the Skullgirl.”
A hundred images flashed before Twilight. Picture books. History books. Bones strewn over the floor of a crypt. Posters on the school walls – dozens of them – warning against making a wish on the Skull Heart. “The Skull Heart is not your friend.” “If a Skullgirl attacks, don't be a hero.” “No wish is worth this.” A teacher lecturing about it. Memorial television broadcasts for those who lost their lives in the attacks. Annie, Girl of the Stars; just Annie, and all the episodes of her cartoon. Warning. Preaching. Begging little children to understand. To stay away.
The Skull Heart brings nothing but doom. Brings nothing, but the Skullgirl.
And Twilight saw her. Sitting on a mountain of bones, she wore the outfit of a maid. Her skin was pale, her middle back blown out and spitting a cold, blue flame. Twilight looked into her eyes, feeling nothing but rage...okay, and maybe a little fear. Looked into those eyes, red and shaped like two halves of a human skull.
The Skullgirl. “You dare challenge me?”
“You're a wheel pain.”
“Let's see if you've learned any of what I taught you.”
“Get out!”
“Repent, for your death is nigh.”
“Talk about cut down.”
“I love a good freakshow.”
“Get out!”
“Monster!”
“GET OUT!”
“Carol!?” said Filia. She shifted back and forth between blond and black haired. She clutched her face. Did she remember?
“GET OUT!!”
A walking bomb. Rotten gardenias. Bleeding scientists. Loving parents. Total despair. Sunset on the beach. Exploding napalm. Filia. Bacon and sausage. Being thrown by a circus performer. Ballet lessons. Pain. Sunflowers. Nothing has changed. A bad pun. A daffodil sandwich. Cartoons. Black blood. Filia. Gunfire. A gasmask. Scrapping metal. Dislocated knee. Roses. New book smell. Skull eyes. A firing squad. Pain.
Filia.
Falling out of the world.
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!”
Twilight Sparkle kicked her head back, stumbling away. She rolled on the floor, touching her head. A trail of smoke led away from her horn. She gasped, panting for breath.
In her chair, Painwheel bellowed uncontrollably for a straight minute. Eyes wide. Tears trailed down her face.
The screaming caught them on the way down. It set her heart beating with a jolt. “Something is wrong! Set down immediately!”
The soldiers complied, bringing the cart to the ground right in front of the tree library.
She jumped from the chariot before it even stopped moving, running to the door. Entrances could be repaired; she blasted it open with a burst of force magic. As she entered the library, she noted the screaming had stopped.
Could be okay. Could be terrible.
She forced the basement door open with her magic, ducking through the low-hanging doorframe. She jumped down, ready for anything.
She really wasn't ready for what she saw. Her (former) student lay on the floor, shaking, panting, clutching her head. The human – for indeed it was certainly a human, her eyes couldn't lie – sat bound in a chair. The human sobbed, weeping openly, cascading tears across its scarred, pitiable face.
At least it was contained. Poor consolation. The noise it made broke the diarch's heart.
Twilight Sparkle stirred on the floor, still clutching her head. Princess Celestia was at her side immediately. “Twilight! What has happened? Is everything all right?”
The (former) student looked up at the voice, fear mixing with the shock on her face. “Princess...ow!” She clutched her head more, horn fizzling. “Princess...Celestia...”
“Twilight!” Celestia insisted, moving in close. “What. Happened. Here?” She briefly glanced to the human, still inconsolable, in its own world. Celestia looked back. “Tell me what happened! What did you do?”
The purple alicorn shivered in pain. Then, a single tear fell down her check. “I...I just...I just wanted to know...”
Celestia's heart sank. “Oh, Twilight,” she said, disappointed. She wrapped a wing around the mare and pulled her close, letting her rest her mentally taxed head.
Celestia merely stared at the human. And let it – her – sob away. The first new human in seven hundred years, and they were already breaking her.