"This looks like this opens up to some kind of factory; different from the one I remember, but only because it appears to be in service...and, admittedly, far less Spidertanks. Those - what are they again, ponies? - they're saying something about rainbows."
Silias backpedaled and saw Lee and The Beast, the latter with his inside a Door, intently studying the activity on the other side. He seemed to be reporting what he saw to Lee, who was taking notes on a long Post-It.
"They have a smaller one held over some sort of machinery. Hold on...they're saying about its workings. 'We find the machine works better if the ribs are broken?' What kind of -" Abrupt sounds of snapping, followed by agonized screaming, erupted from within. The sounds of whirring machinery swallowing up its source led to utter silence.
As if silently saying "nope" to the prospect of ever entering, both man and Beast shut the Door. "...for her sake, don't let the the purple one look in there," The Beast said, before walking away to find another Door.
Lee didn't bother commenting further, but put a Post-It to the Door that was now titled "Rainbow Factory," above the notes he had already written. Silias didn't press for further explanation.
The next Door was more promising. After seeing no one inside, Lee convinced Silias and the Beast to keep the Door open while he did recon.
Slipping on the Ring, he entered into a curious room with a basic palette comparable to the first; only this one seemed more natural. More inviting and...homely.
Looking around, Lee found himself to be in Twilight's library. His heart soared as it took in the wonder, marveling at the sight. He smiled as he filed this moment away in his memory. Not every day you see a place like this, he mused, especially since this is made out of a living tree. Lee frowned a bit. Unless of course you're one of those Keebler elves. Note to self: learn if Twilight has any skill baking cookies.
He was startled to hear whispers all around him. Looking around curiously, he saw no one around him. Lee was even more shocked to find some of the voices were coming from his own satchel. Opening it, the books he packed sat patiently, but now he could make out what the whispers were saying. They were speaking to him, spouting verses from the pages in the room, beseeching him to bring them to life.
It was coming back to Lee now: yes, he had heard these voices before, but not the ones of this library. Re-reading his Book reawakened the memories of hundreds of voices, of hundreds upon thousands of stories of every kind...though considering he had spent a good deal of time in the Peisistratos, this was hardly an accomplishment to have heard so many speaking to him.
Now ignoring them to the point where they were silent, that was a feat. Looking back, Lee wondered why he hadn't heard those voices since he had arrived back home.
...perhaps it was best to ponder that alarming line of thought later.
Exiting the library slowly, Lee took a good look at his surroundings. It definitely looks like Equestria, but is it the right one? At any rate, I haven't seen anyone, so it's entirely up in the air.
Heading into Ponyville, where the streets were strangely devoid of ponies, he spotted an iconic multicolor contrail touch down by the nearby bakery. Adjusting his speed, he managed to slip in after the contrail’s creator and entered Sugarcube Corner without a sound. Looking around, he didn't see anyone else but Rainbow Dash (for who else could have made that contrail) and Pinkie Pie in the usually busy bakery. Where the hell is everyone? Lee thought.
His stomach grumbled, at which point Lee dropped this previous line of thought to remember he hadn't eaten for hours. While the only two ponies he had seen so far were talking, Lee took advantage of their preoccupation (and the One Ring on his finger) to slip into the kitchen unnoticed. After briefly looking around, he snagged himself a cupcake. For some reason, the first thing Lee thought of after seeing Pinkie was freshly prepared cupcakes. He wasn't sure why, though. This uncertainty in his memory almost felt like dark water sloshing about in the cavity of his skull, and thought that perhaps he would think a little clearer after having something in his stomach.
Meanwhile, the bubbly pink pony changed the sign on the door to "Closed," and offered the pegasus her own cupcake.
Lee, still in the other room, unknowingly timed his bite to mirror that of the pegasus. Not the worst cupcake he ever had, but there was something a bit off in the texture. Perhaps it would be best if he didn't eat any more, and Lee decided to introduce the half-eaten cupcake to the garbage can. They got along rather nicely, as the garbage can welcomed the cupcake into its maw and the cupcake had no issues with taking the garbage can up on its offer. Lee...wasn't sure where that bit of prose came from, but he wasn't going to stand around thinking of something to replace it.
While entering the first room, Lee briefly considered taking off the Ring and seeing how the mares would react to him - to cut the metaphorical Gregorian Knot of this investigation - when he saw the winged pony collapse.
Lee paused, equally confused and curious as to what was happening here. For a start, the way the pegasus collapsed was as abrupt as it was suspicious, and then there was the matter of Pinkie Pie casually lifting the unconscious pony onto her back as if she was a sack of flour. Lee watched as Pinkie immediately went for a door he had not noticed when he came inside, one that opened to a downwards set of stairs. Wanting to see where this would lead, Lee decided to follow her descent.
The first thing that hit Lee on that walk down was the scent, and it nearly made him trip down the stairs in surprise. He managed to stop himself, but accidentally placed all of his weight on a loose part of the stairs, and the wood let out a deafening groan of protest.
Pinkie stopped for a moment, frowning. Lee didn’t dare move or breathe for a good five seconds. His mind briefly flashed to a memory, one he had recently regained, of a place known as the Sweet Hours. Despite the saccharine name and general appearance of the place, it had taught him a valuable lesson on what happens when you underestimate something based on its appearance.
Upon reflection, the fact that Sugarcube Corner would have looked quite at home in the Sweet Hours should have triggered that train of thought earlier.
When Pinkie shrugged and kept descending, Lee stopped himself from sighing in relief, as this is a classic way people tended to die in horror movies. He then noticed that Pinkie had already made it to the bottom of the stairs, and carefully continued following her.
When his eyes adjusted to the light – which was provided only by a single, shaded bulb swinging from the ceiling – Lee realized that maybe his flashback to his time spent in the Sweet Hours was a bit more prophetic than he would have hoped.
The basement was covered in viscera. Unnaturally bleached bones had been attached together to make a surprisingly beautiful table set, with the backs of the chairs depicting scenes of a curly-haired pony baking, hanging decorations, and eviscerating a gryphon. How long must that have taken to make? Lee wondered, ultimately resisting the temptation to ask how much it would cost for him to leave with the whole set. For a start, where the hell would he put them, back at his apartment?
Looking around the room, he noticed that entrails had been woven into necrotic patterns across the ceiling. Yeesh. That must be a real bitch to maintain, Lee thought. He also noted the balloons made from a pair of lungs and a heart that almost looked like it was beating.
Finally looking directly under the hanging bulb, Lee watched Pinkie Pie finish strapping Rainbow Dash to a table with leather restraints at each corner. While this tableau was disturbing, Lee found himself questioning how the restraints were being tightened at all when the restrainer was only using hooves.
As Pinkie Pie walked back upstairs, Lee’s line of sight finally let him see the mannequin next to the stairs. Walking towards it, Lee noted the patchwork dress hanging off of its frame, along with a pair of mismatched wings attached to the back. Inspecting the patches more closely, Lee finally realized why this all seemed familiar.
He was in the infamous creepypasta, Cupcakes.
Lee then realized that the cupcake he had bitten from upstairs almost certainly contained pony meat. He considered the ethical ramifications of this for a moment. After deep reflection, Lee ultimately put ‘unwittingly eating the remains of a talking pony’ below ‘shoving one of Salmacis’ Camper into the path of the Omen’ on his list of things that would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
Turning back to the hapless pony snoring away on the slab, Lee eyed the various scalpels, hammers, all of the irons in the fire (all of them), a pair of hacksaws –
– which a weird name, considering hacksaws don’t hack and all. I mean, they’re saws, not hatchets!
While his train of thought had been interrupted by this discourse, Lee found himself agreeing with the voice he had dubbed his inner smartass. The strange thing was, though he noted that while it wasn’t his own voice, it certainly sounded familiar. Where did he know that voice from?
Placing that mystery on the metaphorical backburner, Lee picked up a hacksaw, having decided to free Rainbow Dash before he left this Equestria. While eating a pony’s remains could hardly be considered his fault, consciously leaving this pegasus to die would weigh much heavier on his conscience.
Lee cut the bottom set of restraints first, taking great care not to catch Rainbow Dash’s flesh with the deceptively sharp teeth. Having done this, Lee realized he should probably make sure Pinkie wasn’t going to walk in and see the floating hacksaw releasing her prospective victim. Lee looked behind him, half expecting Pinkie to be standing right behind him with a Stepford Smile and a knife…
…only to see nothing.
Better not take any chances, Lee thought, and reached into his satchel. Grasping a composition notebook and a pen, Lee opened the former up to a blank page and began to write up a distraction.
As Pinkie Pie began to walk to the basement once more, a strange sound came from behind her. Turning around, she saw…
…five sets of bagpipes were in the middle of hurling themselves through the main floor of Sugarcube Corner while playing a horrifying quintet of “Baby” by Justin Beiber. In addition to the horrendous song choice, it seemed these bagpipes were having incredible issues trying to synchronize their music.
Pinkie Pie, surprised that her Pinkie Sense hadn’t warned her about self-playing bagpipes, wondered where in Tartarus these things had come from.
There was also the assortment of strange words imprinted on their bags that had gotten Pinkie’s interest…
…she quickly decided to ignore those little details for now, and stepped forwards to teach these instruments how to play with themselves.
Fun fact about Silvertongues and their power: when a Silvertongue is reading something out of a page, the thaumaturgic bond between concept and caster can be manipulated through how much effort the Silvertongue places into its description. When something is read out of a page only partway through, whatever comes of it is imperfect to some degree – this can range anywhere from source material on the object’s surface to, let’s say, a dramatic sabotaging of musical quality.
Having remembered this fact among those memories he had recovered, Lee decided to try and weaponize this in a specifically nonlethal manner. While Pinkie attempted to conduct the bagpipes upstairs, Lee finished releasing Rainbow Dash from her restraints. The only downside to this was that she started to fall under her own weight, and when Lee went to catch her he remembered a second too late just how damn heavy ponies were.
Luckily for him, pegasi skeletons were evolutionally designed to emulate those of avian biology as opposed to regular pony biology, so in the end Rainbow Dash weighed roughly as much as a sack of flour. Unluckily, the practically comatose Pegasus pinned him to the ground under her size. Swearing quietly, Lee did his best to get out from under Rainbow without just tossing her off – if she woke up now, it would hardly leave a good first impression.
Lee then dragged Rainbow next to the mannequin – or maybe it's called a ponnequin? I should probably pick up a book on pony semantics at some point in this adventure, Lee thought before refocusing on the task at hand.
Alright, Lee. Considering how strong horse tranquilizers are, and how dense she has to be in order for flight not to be insanely difficult with those tiny wings, Rainbow will probably be out for a while. In other words, I have to physically get her out of the building to somewhere Pinkie won’t be able to follow…
The Peisistratos was the first place that came to mind, considering Lee knew Jack Schist about the layout of Ponyville, and that Lee’s minimal knowledge about Pinkie in particular only told him that apart from baking, parties, and apparently furniture construction, she was capable of serious eldritch schenanigans.
Setting Rainbow in a corner, he racked his brain for ideas. Putting the Ring on her was out of the question, considering it would just leave him visible, and apparently holding her while wearing the Ring did not make her turn invisible either. Perhaps he could get an idea from one of his books?
He pulled out a book from his pack, and was lucky to find it was his paperback copy of Changes by Jim Butcher. Hmm. Maybe I can use one of Dresden’s spells if I read the incantation. Hopefully, assuming that could work, I can use one of his nonlethal ones to buy us a little time. Flipping through it, he slowly realized that the din upstairs had ended.
The sound of hooves slowly clip-clopping down the stairs was a lot more comical than their context, but that didn’t stop Lee from silently flipping the fuck out. God, I hope this works, he prayed, sighting a particular phrase in the book.
When she came into the room proper, she was shocked to find her intended victim gone. Whirling around, her impressively blue eyes fell upon him; book in one hand, her quarry slung limply over his shoulder, Ring in his pocket. Lee wasn’t sure why he took the Ring off (he faintly recalled that other voice suggesting it to him) but the look on her face was absolutely priceless. He couldn't help but quip in that second of uncertainty.
"Surprise!"
Lee raised his free hand, shouting "Forzare!" A blast of raw force slammed into Pinkie Pie, throwing her into her grisly decorations with a sickening squelch. Lee winced. It worked all right, but he felt guilty over hitting the mare with a magical haymaker like that. For someone who in this timeline was supposed to be a serial killer, she was pretty damn cute…er, in the ‘it’s so fluffy, I could die’ kind of way, naturally.
As he was thinking this, Pinkie continued to reel in the tangled gore, almost bound in the entrail-streamers, when she began biting and tearing the necrotic flesh away to free herself.
Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars, just run for your freaking life, the other voice practically screamed at Lee.
…Lee agreed, and decided to focus on that line of thinking after he absconded the hell out of this universe.
The first issue with his plan, Lee realized, was trying to run up the stairs with so much dead weight on him that he couldn’t lose. Thinking quickly, Lee spotted another spell he could use and shouted it immediately. “Ventas Servitas!”
While Lee technically got them up the stairs quickly, he regretted that decision almost instantly. Considering that the blast of air carried them out through the wall of the building – which he was immensely lucky was only made of wood – this regret was entirely justified.
Picking himself and the still zonked out Rainbow Dash off the ground, Lee poured his strength into running full-tilt towards Golden Oaks Library. As he ran through the streets, however, he was surprised that no ponies had come out to investigate. What, were Rainbow Dash and Pinkie the only two in this universe or something?
Speaking of whom, Lee looked over the shoulder not holding up Rainbow to see the pink devil gaining on him.
"Come back!" she cried, almost innocently in that cheery little voice of hers. "I want to throw you a party, Pinkie Pie style!"
"Thanks but no thanks!" Lee found himself calling over his shoulder. "Maybe when you're not baking with your friends I'll reconsider!"
Lee assumed it was his inner smartass, or whatever the hell that voice belonged to was laughing at this joke, but Lee found that it was Pinkie giggling behind him. And she was way too close for comfort. "Come on, silly-filly – if you stop running, you can help me make cupcakes! I’ll even let you pick the iciiiing~!"
Lee briefly wondered if he had misread the situation before noticing the knife blade poking out ever so slightly out of Pinkie’s hair and reminding himself that this universe was based on the only Creepypasta to gain a “Grimdark as Fuck” rating. Those thoughts of misreading her intentions were stabbed forty-seven times before being left to bleed out in a dark alley.
Throwing dignity out the window, he forced himself to run faster – and blatantly ripping off a technique he had seen in an Outlast Let’s Play series. "YOLOOOOOO!" he cried at the top of his lungs. He proceeded to scat the song “He’s a Pirate” furiously as he doubled his speed, leaping over the ground like a majestic, but still scared shitless gazelle. As the library came ever closer, he considered thanking God for PewDie’s videos…or to make a note to send the Youtuber an Edible Arrangement at some point in the future. It’s the least you do for someone who kinda saved your life by proxy, right?
Then again, it was a little too early to think of such things. His pursuer was still close behind him, and he felt dread grip him like a deranged gorilla on a barrel of steroids. He pushed his body to the limits as he blazed towards the Library's door.
I have never been happier to see you, Lee thought as his hand flew to the woodwork. And I have never been happier that the door to a library was left wide open, he added as an afterthought, sure that he had closed it on his way out many paragraphs ago.
Charging inside, Lee found the Door and dove headfirst inside. The Beast turned just in time to sidestep Lee, who crashed into Silias with the grace of a flying brick.
"Dare I ask?" Silias quipped after shoving Lee off of him. Silias then noticed Rainbow, who was slowly getting to her senses. "Wasn't the point of this venture to bring someone back where they belong, and not to collect random ponies along the way like a weird game of Pokemon?"
Lee quickly closed the Door and tried securing it, which is a lot easier said than done considering it had manifested in a freestanding frame.
"Okay, what the hell happened?" Silias asked, getting much more concerned. “And why did you think the only thing you could do was to drag this pony here?”
Lee quit trying to bar the Door and gave him a tired look. "Ever read a story called Cupcakes?”
Silias frowned. “Can’t say that I have. Why?”
“Okay, the CliffNotes version is this: it’s an infamous MLP fanfic-slash-creepypasta where a potential reality-warper turned serial killer uses remains of her victims to create cupcakes,” Lee said bluntly.
Silias blinked several times at this. “And this story actually exists?”
Lee pinched the bridge of his nose. “For a guy whose domain is literally filled with every shred of written language AND memory in existence, one would think you should have already known that,” Lee said, sighing. “Especially considering I just came through the door with that pink pony’s latest potential victim.”
By this point, Rainbow Dash had come to, and was listening to this conversation quite intently and uncharacteristically silent. The Beast was the only other person who noticed this all as it happened, except for a semi-omniscient observer reading this on a web browser. The Beast, rightly believing she had heard enough, tapped the other two on the shoulders. Lee and Silias looked up at the Beast, confused expressions on their faces. The Beast then gestured to Rainbow Dash, and both boys noticed her disbelieving gaze boring straight into them.
If silence had levels like Xanadu, the four of them would be neck deep in the Planck. This, inevitably, was broken by Rainbow Dash furiously tackling Lee, shouting at him to explain himself.
And so he did.
She first thought it was some sort of prank, claimed that it was a fake, staged as a cruel joke...but Lee stood there wordlessly, not wanting to meet her gaze. He had given her his Book of Memories, after demonstrating the authenticity of the information within three times over. As his silence spoke volumes, and the volume spoke for him, the truth was made painfully clear.
She slowly sank to the ground. "Why would she want to do this?" she asked softly. "I thought we were friends..."
Lee sighed. "Sadly, I don't know the answer to that. Even in the story, her reasons are never truly explained. I...suppose I could always try asking. I mean, there is a chance that she'll decide not to give a straight answer, but -"
Suddenly, the Door with the Post-It reading 'Rainbow Factory' at the top burst open, and a pegasus filly shot out of the opening as if the devil was at her tail.