Twilight ran.
No matter how impossible it seemed, if it she had actually seen death, then that could only mean one thing, the Death Note had worked. She was going to die.
For now, running was her only option. Though she had faced Hydra’s, Manticore’s and even Discord, she knew for a fact that there was nopony who could fight Death. Even without her studies she knew that.
Twilight bolted out the door, a quick glance behind her revealed that he had gained no ground upon Death, and he might have actually drawn closer to her. Trying to increase her pace she saw Pinkie Pie ahead, calmly bouncing about as if nothing was happening.
“Pinkie, run, quickly”
Pinkie gave no indication of the fear that Twilight was feeling, but fortunately chose to run. However, Pinkie chose to run in the same direction as Twilight.
“So why are we running Twilight?”
“Are you mad Pinkie, can’t you see what’s behind me?”
“A tree?”
Twilight turned around, Death still close behind her as she ran for her life. Why was it that Pinkie couldn’t see him? Had she really gone insane when she touched that book?
“You don’t have to keep running from me.”
“What do you mean?”
Twilight found herself slowing to a halt, but not because she wished to. Something was weighing down on her legs, making them feel heavy and unresponsive.
“I mean a tree silly, there’s a tree behind us.”
What was Pinkie Pie going on about this time?
“She cannot see or hear me, but she can hear you perfectly well.”
Twilight had stopped now, and Pinkie was staring at her with a rather perplexed look. Of course she was, the pink pony probably thought this was some game.
“So we’re running from a tree then?”
Twilight couldn’t help but sigh; she had forgotten how foalish Pinkie could be sometimes. It was a miracle that she had ever managed to run Sugarcube Corner for a day. Speaking of which…
“Pinkie, shouldn’t you be over at Sugarcube Corner, you know, serving the customers.”
“Don’t worry about that Twilight, I had the best idea ever, I put a jar where ponies can put their bits into when buying stuff.”
“Aren’t you worried about anypony stealing something while you’re gone?”
“Nope, because I made everypony Pinkie Pie promise that they wouldn’t steal anything, and nopony breaks a Pinkie Pie promise.”
Aside from the fact that there was more than enough proof that ponies had broken their Pinkie Pie promises in the past, there was also one very obvious fact she doubted even Pinkie could miss.
“You didn’t make me promise Pinkie.”
“Well of course I didn’t Twilight, you’re my friend, and I know my friends wouldn’t steal anything.”
“But haven’t you also said that Everypony in Ponyville was your friend?”
“Yup.”
How could a pony be this hard to get rid of? She needed to be alone so that she could talk to that creepy…whatever it was, without sounding like she’d gone insane. The fact that she was even thinking these thoughts was already proof enough of that. What pony in their right mind would want to be left alone with Death?
Then it occurred to her, a way to both check if she had in fact killed Star with that book and to get some revenge on her if she hadn’t.
“Hey Pinkie, Star left the library this morning, do you have any idea where she would have gone?”
“Not exactly, but I could probably find her.”
“Because I bet she would love to help you test out those Combo’s.”
“That’s a great idea Twilight; I’ll find her right away.”
And with the party pony was off, and Twilight no longer felt sorry for the next victim of the semi-explosive candy. Besides, she had more important things to worry about.
“So have you come to end my life then?”
“No Twilight, as I said, you don’t need to run from me. I have not come to hurt you nor kill you, but to ask you one simple question: will you relinquish ownership of the Death Note?”
“I never said that I owned the Death Note.”
“Yet as it stands you are now in possession of it, and, until you forsake that ownership, I shall possess you.”
“Possess me, like in those ghost stories?”
“Not an entirely inaccurate comparison, though it’s certainly not what I would define it as. No, consider it more as a haunting. I shall stay with you until either you die, give up the Death Note, or the Death Note is rendered incapable of use. Now that you know this, I shall ask you again: Please give up ownership of the Death Note.”
Twilight didn’t know what was more insane, the impossibility of the situation, the strange book that still lay in the basement, or her for what she said next.
“No.”
She had no idea what had compelled her to say it, but there was some nagging compulsion in the back of her mind telling her not to give up that book. The more rational part of her mind was telling her that with the Death Note gone, all her problems would likewise disappear. But for once that part of her mind was fighting the losing battle; whatever it was that told her to keep the Death Note was akin to that of what she had heard as addiction. There was no way to simply deny the voice in her head, regardless of how hard she tried to do so.
Twilight had expected outrage, vengeance, something, but instead all she received was a calm acceptance from Death.
“Very well then, if that is how it shall be, then we may as well get on with introductions. I am known by many names in your language alone, Death, The Grim Reaper, but those names are ancient, and invented by your kind to capture my essence in a name. Among the Shinigami I am known as The Old Man, and so I wish for you to refer to me.”
“Old Man?”
“Yes, that would be most preferable.”
It was a strange experience to be able to talk with Death without fear, yet alone to address him by such a strange title, one that carried such little power, so harmless a name for such a horrible being. To think that the harbinger of death would wish to be addressed so simply, it was inconceivable; and yet it was the easiest thing to believe about the whole encounter.
“In all the tales I have heard about Death Note’s dropping into this world, I have never heard of a pony writing their own name in the Death Note. You are quite fortunate that it was mine, otherwise you would most assuredly have perished shortly after having written those words.”
“What is it that makes yours so special?”
“The simple fact that it is mine is what makes it so special. It is my power that gives the Death Note’s their power. I was the very first Shinigami, in your language god of death or thereabouts. That Death Note which you possess was designed when I was the only Shinigami, I did not know at the time that more would come, so I had not planned that the Death Note’s would not work on Shinigami until I made the second Death Note.”
Twilight’s eyes almost literally sparked at the opportunity for this knowledge. Ponies had always questioned what there was after life, and now before her stood the original reaper of souls. How could she have let this go past her before?
“So what happens to ponies after they die?”
“For those who have not used the powers of the Death Note, they either go to heaven or hell, what decides where they go or what occurs there is none of my business. All I do is speed their passage. However, for those like you who have used the Death Note, there is neither heaven nor hell after death.”
Twilight abruptly decided she didn’t want to know anymore, what cruel fate it was that she would learn where ponies went in the afterlife, only once it was denied to her.
“So Star is..?”
“Who?”
“Star, the pony whose name I first wrote in the Death Note. You said that I had already used the Death Note.”
“No, the pony you call Star is not dead, though I feel I should tell you that your Death Note has already taken a victim.”
What did The Old Man mean? She had only written two names in the Death Note, hers and Star’s…unless, could there have been some pony with just the names Twilight or Sparkle, or maybe there was some other Star. No, that couldn’t be it; the book had said she needed to be thinking of the ponies face when she wrote the name.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean somepony is already dead obviously. Do I need to spell it out to you?”
“But who?”
“You’ll find out soon enough”
Twilight stamped off back to the library in a rage. What was even the point of trying to talk to the Shinigami, it wasn’t going to give her any useful information. Perhaps it even delighted in keeping her in the dark? Giving her just enough information to make her interested, or rather, worried, and then refusing to tell her a single word more.
Twilight threw open the door startling a sleeping Spike from his stunned sleep. The poor dragon was probably still recovering from Pinkie Pie’s Combo’s. Her assistant’s state quickly managed to soften her anger for a while, caring for a dragon was never considered an easy task, but it did give her an easy escape from the problems and annoyances of the rest of the world. After having gotten Spike into his proper bed to get some rest, Twilight felt her anger at both Star and The Old Man rising again.
Twilight entered the basement once again and levitated a quill over the page of the Death Note.
“So what was your name again?”
“The Old Man. Though you should know that writing my name in there isn’t going to work. Not only is there the fact that I have no distinguishable name, but it’s my own strength that powers the Death Note’s, you’re not going to be able to kill me with it, nor any other Shinigami.”
Twilight let the pen down.
“Very well.”
“So what is it you’re going to do then? You’re not going to use it, and you’re not going to give ownership back to me. So what will you do with it, what is the point of having it if you aren’t going to do anything.”
“My not doing anything with it IS the point. If I keep it with me, then I can prevent it from ever reaching the hooves of those who would use it. This may look like it’s a book, but it is definitely a weapon, and I’m not going to let anypony use the power of it.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
With that The Old Man disappeared. There was no flash of teleportation magic, nor did he fade out like the effects of an invisibility spell would cause. He was simply there one second, and then he wasn’t.
“Don’t think I’ll be gone forever. Think on what I’ve said to you, what is the purpose of the notebook if you don’t use it?”
Twilight abruptly decided to spend the rest of the day outside. The decision was more out of fear than annoyance as, though she hated to admit it, she couldn’t help but agree with the Shinigami. She couldn’t shake from her the worry that she would give into the temptation of using the Death Note if she pondered on it much longer. It would be better if she spent some time away from the book, and she found herself rather eager to explore the changes that had happened to Ponyville while she was gone.
A quick look outside her door showed nothing new in the immediate area around the library, yet in the distance where the roads were newer, and the buildings towered as if reaching for the sky, lay the new Ponyville Twilight had found herself in when she first returned. That was where she began her exploration of the changes Ponyville had experienced.
The buildings were strangely reflective in the area, and the streets were quite a lot busier than they had been when she first arrived. When poking her head out over the crowded throng of heads she could see hundreds of ponies in any direction of the street she was on, with a multitude of café’s, shops, and the occasional casino on the sides of the streets.
Twilight had never seen so many ponies in one place; even Canterlot would be struggling to compete with a population this size. It reminded her of the news she had heard of Manehatten, though this place seemed to be all crammed into one space. The Ponyville she knew surpassed this area in terms of size and yet this place likely contained all the citizens in Ponyville ten times over. The shiny new buildings that had sprung up were very hard and solid, made of some material that felt like stone, yet the appearance of the material contradicted its feel.
After spending a bit of time being nudged about by the bustling ponies on the street, an occurrence that did few wonders for her mood, Twilight found herself starting to feel hungry, due to her unusually early breakfast. Twilight decided upon a café named Starswirl’s, appreciating the reference to the ancient unicorn. The actuality of the café she was quite less appreciative of.
Outside it was pleasant enough, a number of circular table’s where ponies were seated around enjoying whatever foods they had purchased there. Inside was an entirely different matter. As soon as she entered the room an overpowering stench hit her nose, the smell presumably coming from the smoke that seemed to be drifting from two stallions in a corner. The room felt as if they had just taken everything they could and jammed it into as small a space as possible. The pony behind the counter was a Pegasus mare with a maroon coat and a purple mane cut short at the front, but flowed down their back, stopping just short of reaching her hooves.
More importantly, the mare behind the counter seemed to show little interest in her job, and seemed overly unenthusiastic when taking Twilight’s order. As much as Twilight hated the scent and space of the inside, all of the outer tables had been taken so she was left with very little choice as to her seating arrangements.
And so she came back to the reason she had left the library in the first place. She must have really gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and at the wrong time. Everything seemed to be against her today, Star, that encounter with The Old Man, and now this place. There just didn’t seem to be any end to the problems she had to face today. Then again, thinking back on her previous time in Ponyville, things weren’t so different back then either. Sure, Ponyville hadn’t been quite like this, and she certainly hadn’t had to deal with any Shinigami’s back then either, but there had without a doubt been some pretty crazy things back then. The dragon migration, Nightmare Moon, Discord; so much had happened during her stay at Ponyville, was she really going to let the events of one day get her down?
“Hello there.”
A deep, almost husky voice reached her ears, though not undesirable, the voice sent shivers down her spine. The voice belonged to an earth pony stallion with a dirt brown coat, his black mane was streaked with white and gave him a rather dangerous look to him, though his bearing gave the impression that it was simply for looks.
“So what’s a pretty mare like yourself doing in a place like this?”
“Oh…”
Twilight could feel herself blushing, though she had no attraction to this colt in particular, it wasn’t often that anypony complimented her, let alone on her looks.
“Umm…thank you.”
Twilight cursed herself; she was acting just like Fluttershy. Then again, it had been years since she had properly interacted with anypony other than those in the palace.
“I guess I thought it would be err...nice here”
“And I guess it is, if you’re into the whole dark, smoky, smells like a donkey’s backside thing. Personally I don’t really visit here much, but when I saw as delightful a pony as you here I just HAD to know why.”
This pony was certainly very forthright about his feelings for this place, albeit rather crude with his expression of it. Before she could frame her thoughts into words though, the stallion had already spoken his mind.
“So I was thinking that this really isn’t the place for such a sweet mare like you to be. There’s a place further into the city which is much better, and certainly much larger than here.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already ordered my lunch here.”
“Ask for your bits back, I doubt they’ll have started making it yet, and trust me when I say that you really don’t want to try this place’s food. If you hated the smell of this place, then the taste of their food is three times worse, and six times worth what you should pay for it.”
She hadn’t really been paying much attention to the prices when she bought her lunch, Celestia had left her a thousand bits for her to get settled back into Ponyville so she had assumed that the prices of things had increased. Perhaps the pricing wasn’t as different from it had been before, and looking at the costs from that perspective, twenty bits was certainly too much for just lunch.
“Okay then, that place sounds nice, and nice is a heck of a lot better than this.”
The stallion gave a quick laugh.
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
Twilight trotted up to the bored mare behind the counter.
“I’m sorry but I have found the service here undesirable and would like a refund of my bits.”
The mare stared at her dejectedly.
“I’m sorry but did you have an order here?”
“Well of course I did, I asked for it about five minutes ago.”
“Never seen you before.”
Before Twilight could get further annoyed with the mare the stallion she had met stepped in for her.
“The lady said she wanted her bits back, and you’re going to bloody well give them back to her before I get mad.”
Twilight could tell that it was an act, yet the target of the act was quite unaware of this and quickly threw some bits across the counter to them, about twice as much as she had actually paid.
“Stupid, lazy, bitch.”
The stallion handed her the bits she had paid and pocketed the rest. Twilight was, in a way, impressed. Though the colt swore too much for her liking, she had to admit that he had been quite helpful, and she doubted that he was actually as aggressive a pony as he made himself out to be. Nopony would be like that.
“So where is this place you wanted to show me?”
“Follow me.”
The stallion took her outside of the café and down a number of dark alleys. Though she doubted the earth pony would have taken her this way unless it was the fastest route, she found it was taking a rather lengthy amount of time to get there.
“I just remembered, I haven’t even told you my name, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and you are?”
“Cogflay.”
“So, Cogflay, how much further is it to this place?”
Cogflay was silent until they turned into a darker alley deep into the city, hidden from the masses out on the street.
“We’re here.”
Twilight was confused; there wasn’t anything around here, just a couple of backdoors to places that somehow looked even worse than Starswirl’s.
“Oooh Bugeye, looks like Cog’s found us one pretty little mare.”
Twilight spun around to see two almost identical ponies, both had a black mane and coat with both mane’s similar to a Mohawk. Both we’re Pegasus stallions but the one who’d just been addressed as Bugeye had half of the feathers on their right wing clipped off.
“That they are Bruiser.”
“Cogflay, who are these ponies.”
The stallion who had led her here paused, as if they didn’t want to admit the obvious fact.
“They are some, associates of mine. All they want is to have a bit of fun, you see things around here are very boring, and I reckon that you would be a rather, how shall I put this, lively mare.”
Bruiser was only too willing to add his enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I’ve got a feeling my time with you is going to be very entertaining.”
A pony had never looked at her like these ones were, their eyes were fixated upon her, filled with what could only be seen as lust. Cogflay had walked into that café all so that he could bring her out here for this.
Twilight couldn’t take it anymore.
The horn on her head began to glow with a magical light as she prepared a teleportation spell to get her away from the horrid colts.
“No you don’t, you’re not going anywhere.”
Bruiser swung a hoof into Twilight’s face taking away her concentration and disrupting the spell before it could be cast. Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to escape like that, Twilight attempted to run, her horn sparking out to teleport herself away as soon as she was out of their reach.
Cogflay’s hoof quickly put a stop to that.
Twilight found herself reeling backwards, face bruised and some blood welling up in her mouth. She wasn’t sure that she could take many more hits like that before she went unconscious, and as long as they kept on beating her up she couldn’t escape. But a unicorn was harder to defeat than that, especially one who had trained under Celestia.
“Stop her from casting any of her magic Bruiser.”
“I’ve got it.”
Bruiser stepped forward to deliver another blow to Twilight, but just as he got in range of Twilight he started to struggle wildly, hooves stuck to the ground.
“What is this, I can’t move?”
As the other’s rushed forward to help him they too found themselves unable to move, Cogflay slamming his head into the ground when he tried to make a leap at her.
Cogflay started swearing profanities at a faster rate than she had ever thought possible.
“-you fucking bitch! What have you done?”
Twilight had used the residual traces of her magic that had fallen to the ground when her teleport had been interrupted. Once the colt’s moved close enough to her she used the traces of the magic to freeze their hooves, effectively preventing movement.
Of course Twilight didn’t tell them any of that, and teleported back to her home, making sure that there was plenty of excess magic to cause an explosion once she had disappeared.
Twilight reappeared back in the library, and promptly coughed up some blood on the floor. Much as she hated to compliment her attackers, she had to admit those stallions were strong. She felt like she’d just been hit by Rainbow Dash going full speed. She doubted those colts would be much better off though. Magical explosions weren’t exactly known for being mild, and she doubted either of those Pegasus would be able to fly after that.
Still, it worried her that there were colt’s like that in Ponyville, let alone that she had encountered one on only her second day back. If the reaction of that mare behind the counter was anything to go by, she hadn’t been the first victim of the colts either. She could only hope that those were the worst the new region of Ponyville had to offer.
A knock on the door interrupted her fears of the new area and brought to her attention how much of a wreck she must look. There was no way she would be able to look presentable, but she cleaned off her face with a nearby cloth and to at least stop whoever it was running from the sight of her.
However the sight that awaited her wasn’t one she would ever be prepared for. Star stood outside the house, tears streaming down her eyes, looking the most miserable sight she could imagine.
“What happened to you Star?”
“Today was my mother’s birthday; that was why I was out.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Because…”
Star sniffled and chocked on her words as she spoke them.
“…She’s dead.”