Chapter 1: The Hunt is On
The forest rose above me. A bleak and depressing affair, the trees were ashen with gnarled trunks twisting in agony. Their branches clawed at the heavens, ripping and tearing the tranquil night air apart. Needles burst from the branches, adding their own wounds to the dark and feral night. It tried to fight back, blasting the trees with howling winds, screaming in fury. Amidst the chaos of this bitter battle of nature I heard them. The snarl of wolves and the mad cackle of their master flitted through the trees as the master’s voice whispered in my head, “Run… The hunt is on…”
And so I ran. The voice was worse than Death himself. It had no emotion, no caring. Sure, Death didn’t have those either, but at least he was willing to wait for you to die. I ran among the trees. They lashed at me, cutting deep into my flanks, as I fled. Bending over me, they laughed and pointed. The gnarled faces in their knots and grooves said it all. I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.
The mad laughter followed me through the forest as I ran, drawing ever near. He was toying with me, giving me the slightest hope. He could catch me anytime he wanted, but he waited and laughed instead. Oh how I hated that laugh. The wolves were pulling ahead of their master now. He’d let them bat me around for a while before taking me out of my misery.
I looked back and saw the beasts. They loped through the forest at an astonishing rate, rapidly gaining with me. Their jaws were crooked and frothing with spittle. Eyes rolled in their head as they gave in to the madness of the chase. They closed in on me as I continued running blindly through the forest.
Suddenly, I ground to a halt and turned around. I wasn’t going to take this anymore. Not from them at least. Gathering all my focus together I willed the world to change. Suddenly, the trees surrounding me moved, creating a circular wall about us. The trees reached out, grabbing the wolves as they pounced.
One got close enough to me that I felt his hot breath on my face. As the trees pulled them away I willed my intent into being. They tried to scrabble away, but I wouldn’t allow it. I had to remove them from the equation. The trees continued to entwine them with their branches, as a snake might its prey. But it wasn’t enough. He would just free them when he got here. Steeling my nerves, I jerked my head and heard multiple large cracks. I had had all of the trees pull in different directions at once, shattering every bone in their bodies. There was no blood. I willed it away, couldn’t stand the sight of the stuff.
I slumped to the ground for a second after they were taken care of. Willing the world to change was far harder than just using magic to manipulate it. Magic used the very energy of the universe to help you poke it along, while willing the change into being took its energy solely from you. There were benefits, however, like the fact that anypony and not just unicorns could will the world to change, and that willpower didn't have as many annoying rules, but it was almost impossible to will something into being unless the universe was willing to go along with the change. Luckily, Discord had that effect on his surroundings.
Unluckily, that had been harder than I thought, and I would need every bit of energy I had ahead. “Forget Something?” the voice whispered. Horseapples! He was here already! I turned to run, but it was too late. I heard the bang of a gun, as the voice whispered in my ear, “Boom. Headshot.”
Everything went black. I felt my skull fracture and explode in a million different pieces. It didn’t stop me from running though. The pain should have been intense. It probably was, since I was dead, but the thing about death is it stops hurting after the tenth or eleventh time you die in one day. It stops feeling real, and just becomes another one of those things that you take for granted. Dying was easy. It was escape that was impossible.
I ran on through the forest, bumping and scraping myself, as I stumbled about completely blind. It was funny, in a way, that I was more annoyed at not having eyes than the fact that I was currently dead. There are so many little things we take for granted. People freak out about death all the time, but they never really stop to think about how much they need sight.
I was getting frustrated as this went on. Another impossibility that just went to show this was all illusion. How could I feel or think anything without a brain to process it? It made no sense. But then, nothing in this place made sense.
Finally, my frustration got the better of me. Scrambling around, headless, without being able to see or hear anything, I felt my rage bubble to the surface. “ENOUGH!!!” rang my voice as I burst through the illusion finally. My willpower being fueled by the rage, I brought the rest of myself back into being.
“You know dying gets pretty old!” I yelled into the forest.
Laughter was the only thing that greeted me. I stood there, waiting, but it just kept coming. Finally, he got bored and stopped. The world colored and blurred. Reds became yellows, yellows white, and blues became violet like a midsummer's night. The world melted apart, becoming one with the void. Everything and nothing happened all at once, as he began to toy. It was pure bliss, as he tweaked the strings of the world, crafting it as he chose. And then everything just settled in darkness.
We weren’t done for today it seems.
Illuminating my horn, I found myself in the midst of a wall of fog. It swirled about me, caressing my skin with its sickly tendrils. It felt tainted, a violation of the world. Finally, I placed what was wrong with it. As it twisted, back and forth, I saw the shapes in it. Faces formed and washed away. Screams of terror, tears of frustration, groans of pain, and wails of fury, all tumbled through the fog. A destructive din of silent pleas asking for one little thing, the sweet release of death.
A lion’s paw fell on my shoulder, and the voice whispered in my ear, “How can you call death boring? All your little friends are crying out for it after all. Fancypants, Soarin, Spitfire… Everypony who was ever trapped in here with me begs for its sweet release. They won’t ever escape, and they know it. What other road do they have but death?”
I whirled to confront him, but he was already gone, like usual. “Come now, you’ll never catch me like that,” he said as the faces continued to swirl about in torment, “You know there’s only one way out of this…”
I spun around, but no matter where I went I found the tortured faces of my friends. All of them trapped like I was. There was no escape. Why did I even try? “It’s no use,” came the voice from behind me again, “Just give in to it… Give in to the madness…”
As I spun round and around, desperately looking for escape, he continued to taunt me. His callous voice grating on the mind as it wove its web of deceitful strings. My eyes gleamed with mad delight, as a break appeared in the faces, and I stole through it, running for my life. The fog clung to me as I ran, dragging me back towards the horror of wherever it was I had just been. I ran in no particular direction. This wasn’t the measured run of an athlete, but the stark terror filled scramble of someone who sought only that little bit of escape.
He was right though. There was no escape from the inevitable. And as my hooves rang out on the floor, I felt the countdown begin in my head. The slow measured ticking to when he knew I’d cave in.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
It was maddening. Howling in frustration, I blundered on, but I could still hear the awful finality of it all. That cursed ticking counting to my freedom for the day. It was moving too slowly. It couldn’t come fast enough. I just wanted it to end.
And just like that, the ticking stopped. The solution was in front of me. Lying on the ground was a knife, a gloriously bloody knife. I lifted it, carefully caressing its sharp sweet release. A rivulet of blood flowed from my hoof, as my caress showed it was real. I raised it, ready for my escape, and stopped. What was I doing? It was what he wanted. He always got whatever he wanted. I danced for him like a puppet each and every day. Enough was enough. So he said there was no escape, what of it? Life had been pretty good here before his so-called training began. I think I didn’t need to escape. I think, if anything, he was the one who needed escaping.
I threw the knife to the ground and stood tall. The laughter I’d been too lost to hear suddenly stopped. Gathering my will, I brought the wind to my command. Blasting a gale forth from me, it cut the fog like butter, and the tortured minds of my friends were set free to return to where they had come from. In the middle of the void that was left I saw Discord. His normally smug face had a slack jawed impression of astonishment. “Run… The hunt is on…” I whispered.
He must have caught what I said, because he started booking it. Before I knew it, the world shifted again. We were amidst a cave of incredible gems. Our reflections danced off them all, as we ran through a veritable hall of mirrors. He ducked one way, and I another, as we wove our way through the maze.
I couldn’t lose him though, not really. Every time I realized I was following a reflection, I simply willed it to point me the right way. His own creation led me to him, whether he knew it or not.
Finally, I got close enough to him to try something. I willed the cave to collapse ahead of us, cutting him off. He turned as the cave collapsed, leaping into the mirror-like gems. I followed suit, breaking them all as I went through. Now he was trapped. With his mirrors shattered, and his path blocked, there was only him and me.
He looked a little surprised, then turned and clapped his paw and talon together slowly. “Bravo, young Baffle… You made remarkable improvement tonight. You can stand down now.”
I looked at him a little, and said the only logical thing, “No.”
“What?”
“I said no.” I repeated, “The game isn’t over yet. It’s not over until I say so, Uncle.”
“Don’t toy with me boy. You think I’ve even begun to use the full force of my will against you? I could break you like a rag doll.”
“Prove it!” I said.
The world shifted again. We were in a city of some kind. Skyscrapers towered above me, casting ominous shadows. Billboards flickered with static, giving off crackling moans instead of advertisements. The street lamps somehow drained light instead of giving it off, and clouds darted overhead, a chaotic whirling of dark masses.
The result was an ever-shifting pool of shadows. Wind rustled through the town, blowing stray pieces of paper around, and as I tried to get my bearings a church bell sounded. Its dark and resonant tone flew outwards in a deeply menacing manner. It was not a harbinger of light, but a bringer of darkness.
The deserted town began to fill at the sound of that demonic tone. Where before there had been nothing but an abandoned city, there were now thousands of ponies walking towards me. They were grey, devoid of emotion and feeling. Their blank faces intoning the same thing over and over, “Give in to the madness…”
I’d lost Discord when we’d come here, and my rage was fading. I shouldn’t have pushed him. He’d offered to stop, and I’d pushed him into continuing on. Now that he was playing serious, or at least trying a little harder, we were back to our inevitable conclusion.
I jumped into flight, willing my body into an endless jump, and nudging the theoretical starting point of the jump to keep me in a constant state of being at its zenith. I flew through the town, searching for my foe. Below me the mob of ponies continued to chant, “Give in to the madness… Give in to the madness… Give in to the madness…”
I was looking at this the wrong way. There had to be something I was missing. If he was playing serious, why hide? Unless this was all just part his twisted form of training. There had to be a way to find him. Willing him to me wasn’t going to happen. He would surely expect me to will myself to him. Perhaps a different approach would help.
I twisted suddenly, turning sideways in a direction no one could see. Suddenly, the buildings were gone. I wasn’t on their plane anymore. Now that I’d turned sideways, I was perpendicular to them. Instead, I was currently in a field of flowers. In the middle of the field a distortion hung in the air. That was probably Discord. He didn’t exactly follow the normal rules of space. I flew, in my endless jump, up to the distortion, and turned again. If I got the best of him again maybe he’d let up.
Unfortunately, he’d been expecting my trick. As I turned back into the city, I found myself impaled upon a sword he was holding out. As my blood began to hit the ground I could only look at him and say one thing, “Uncle.”
Thanks to John Perry for proofreading. Seriously, this was a huge grammatical mess before.