Chester the Cynical Adult goes to Ponyville
By TheBandBrony
Clakity-clackity-clackity-clack
"Heh heh."
Clakity-clackity-clackity-clack
"He... That's good."
A stout, surly fellow sat staring at the white glow of a computer screen. The light from the devise wrapped his face in a harsh, semi-blinding light. Such a stark contrast from the rest of the room, which was shrouded in a darkness so complete that it looked like the air was made of ink.
Clakity-clackity-clackity-clack
"He he..."
As his hands glided over the keyboard with experienced ease, words began to form on the screen in front of him.
"This is the gayest video I have ever seen! Please, kill yourself for the betterment of mankind!" read the slogan which he was now so furiously typing. To say that he was a troll was, for lack of a better word, a grievous understatement.
As he continued to craft the intricate insult, his conscience briefly piped up in his mind.
Is it really right to hurt people like this? Look into your heart, Chester.
He scoffed and muttered, "Meh. Consciences are gay," before returning his undevided attention to the harsh glare of the computer screen.
Just then, a small box popped up into the lower right corner of his window, accompanied by the mechanical chirping of, "You're got mail."
"Oh, new email. I wonder what it could be." With bemused enthusiasm, he clicked on the pop-up, quickly bringing him to his new message. As he scanned the words on screen, a look of annoyance crossed his face. "Ugh, this guy again! He keeps spamming me with those stupid travel sites."
Suddenly, a devious smile crept onto his face as an idea latched itself onto his subconscious and began to blossom. "Oh... I know just what to do about this." As his maniacal smile grew, he began to pound the keys of his keyboard, intent on destroying the will of this amateur spammer.
The message he crafted was so dripping with malice and hatred that the letters on screen actually appeared to bleed and smear, marred by the pure deviance of their intent.
As he prepared to send his masterpiece that rivaled "Dante's Inferno" in its sheer quantity of unadulterated despair, his eyes happened to rest on the soft, glowing display of a tiny digital clock in the corner of the room. He groaned as the flashing red digital display blinked 8:53.
"Aw, crap! I'm gonna be late to work... Again!" He turned his attention back to his computer for a moment, grinning satanically at the terrified screen. "I'll be back. Don't worry." With several clicks, his computer winked to sleep, leaving the room dark save the thin slits of light that permeated the heavy shutters that hung over the windows.
After Chester scarfed down a rushed breakfast of "Bland-O's", he pulled on a jacket and shuffled out the door of his dismal flat, beginning his daily trek to his job at the public relations department of Paypal customer service.
The city around him was just as lifeless as his soul was. Stark, bleak factories broke the horizon like massive, glaring sails over the ocean. Broken-down apartments littered the street corners, their windows smudged and their walls overgrown with ivy. Even most of the people he passed seemed to be just as heartless and robotic as he was.
"Stupid work," he muttered complacently, "always making me do things. Why can't they just pay me to sit there and nap?"
As he meandered past these lifeless testaments to past architectural designs, he spied a man on the side of the street, reclining on a dilapidated shopping cart overflowing with an abundance of canned goods and various overcoats that looked to be two hundred sizes too large. If it was any more blatantly clear that this man was homeless, he would've been holding a sign saying, "Hiya! I'm homeless."
As Chester neared the reclining epitaph of human despair, he noticed him holding an empty can in a grimy, unwashed hand, foisting it at any unfortunate passerby who got near.
"Spare change?" The homeless man's unspirited soliloquy fell on the deaf ears of the various pedestrians as they walked by, most hardly even bothering to turn their heads at the poor man's plight.
As fate would have it, Chester happened to walk near the homeless man. He heard the dead, monotoned "Spare change?" alight itself upon his ears before being carried away into the oblivion of silence.
Feeling generous, Chester leaned over the slumped bundle of coats and man. "Ya know what? I think I have something for you."
The homeless man looked up with a start, his eyes suddenly full of the tiniest shred of hope. "Really? Thank you, sir! I just need a few more dollars and I'll be able to afford down payment on a condo a few blocks from-"
He was cut off as Chester leaned over him and hocked up a massive, wet ball of phlegm, spitting it dead center into the cup.
"You keep that." With that Chester set off, not bothering to care as the homeless man behind him began to sob quietly with anguish. "Don't spend it all in one place," he called over his shoulder with a wave.
As Chester returned to his normal strut, a positively satanic smile forming on his lips, he heard a soft whimper to his right. He turned his gaze down one of the city's myriad of abandoned alleyways. The damp, inhospitable stretch between two buildings had long ago been overtaken by the roots of mother nature. Gnarled, twisted vines had replaced paint on the crumbling walls, and mold, mildew, and scum had taken over the dank floors. The whole place reeked of urine and broken dreams.
It was there that Chester saw an adorable, if not ragged looking puppy. It was still half-curled into a ball under a hollowed out rock, its tufts of coarse brown-speckled hair sticking out at odd angles. The poor thing couldn't have been more than a year old, and its tiny frame was weakened even more so by the tell-tale signs of malnutrition.
The puppy barked weakly as Chester trotted over to it, but its wet, sparkling brown eyes told him more than all the words in the world possibly could. Those eyes spoke of cruelty and mistreatment. They spoke of forgiveness. Those shining eyes said, "I am ready to begin a new chapter. I was mistreated before, but I just long to be loved again. I give my love to you in the hope that you do not abuse it, but cherish it and me for as long as we are both on this earth-"
"PUNT!" Cheater didn't even need to get a running start. He simply squared himself away and wound up, kicking the puppy directly in its frail midsection. The tiny dog was sent flying, arching well above Chester's head and unto a trashcan, where it landed with a muted whimper.
"And the kick is good!" After a ceremonial victory dance, Chester turned to walk out of the alley.
As he turned, however, he saw something that caught his eye. From his perspective, it looked as though the wall to his left was folding in upon itself. As Chester neared, a quizzical look on his face, the folds ripped themselves apart with violence. The ground shook, displacing several stones on the adjacent buildings.
"What the fuck?"
The tear became sizable, but as it increased in size, so did the tremors it produced. By now, Chester could probably fit himself through this... Thing, if he tried. The thing was a whirring swirl of a spectral kaleidoscope and purple color, so bright it threatened to sear the corneas of any poor soul unlucky enough to stare directly into its fury.
The portal grew to about the size of a door, radiating heat, energy, and a sound not too unlike nails on a chalkboard. Then, it stopped growing. For a split second, it just sat there, seemingly content with its own existence here in this world.
Then it began to suck. Like some mutant vacuum from hell, it created a swirling vortex that began to pull poor old Chester into the swirling depths of the pool of color and light. It pulled at him, softly at first, then with increasing intensity until he could barely stand, lest he be sucked into whatever the hell this thing was.
He wrapped his hands around the same rock he had found the puppy lying under not two minutes ago. His face was contorted in shock and rage as the vortex pulled at him, beckoned him to let go and enter its churning, frothing threshold.
Heh heh... Frothing, he thought with a chuckle. He was, unfortunately, so centered on gawking at the portal (and laughing at a stupid word that wasn't even meant to be used for comedic purposes) that he didn't notice a tiny tumbleweed of fur and bones to come to rest next to his hands, displaced by the churning mass on the wall. The ball unfurled itself, revealing the beaten, bleeding body of the puppy Chester had kicked. The same brown eyes that once looked upon Chester with compassion and love now viewed him through a bloody haze of revenge.
Chester saw the puppy before it attacked. For the slightest of moments, he wondered if it had been worth hurting the poor thing for no reason.
Then the puppy opened its adorable little mouth and sank its comically tiny (but still razor-sharp) teeth into his hand. Yep, thought Chester as he howled in pain. Totally worth kicking the stupid thing.
As the dog's big became more excruciatingly painful, Chester began to lose purchase on the rock - his last salvation from the seething vertical pit of death before him.
"No... I'll never let go!" he shouted, straining to be heard over the din if the portal. Alas, it was all for naught; his fingers slipped with a final surrender to the inevitable, and poor Chester began to slide into the gaping mouth of the vortex.
Now, at this point, most normal people would kick, or scream, or flail about in a desperate attempt to save themselves from the massive yaw of a portal.
Not Chester.
Chester turned on his back and, wrenching the gangly ball of fur that had attached itself to his hand free, threw it against a nearby wall. He laughed sadistically as he heard another pathetic sounding yelp, then turned to face whatever this thing was that was slowly dragging him into oblivion.
With a barbaric yawp, he surrendered the last of his control to the winds of the portal as it dragged him into its spectrum colored oblivion.
Figuring he might as well do something stupid before he died, Chester took what would probably be the last breath of his short, miserable life and shouted with a curt maliciousness that could curdle milk as two hundred yards, "Alight, let's do this! LEEEEEEERRRRROOOYYYY JJJJJEEEENNNN-"
He was swallowed up by the hellish vortex before he could finish. Seemingly satisfied with this earthly tribute, the portal recessed back into the wall from whence it sprouted, sowing itself up with a gurgle of light, disappearing completely just as quick as it bubbled forth from the depths of nothingness.
From the mouth of the alley, the homeless man who had been so publicly humiliated by Chester only a short while ago surveyed the scene with a smirk. No doubt he had seen the whole thing play out, refusing to make his presence known out of spite against Chester. After all, who would want to save someone who had so openly reviled you?
"Good riddance," he guffawed, before turning and beginning a lazy trot down the cracked city street, back to his post on the sidewalk.
"Rrr! Why won't this stupid spell work?" Twilight Sparkle, prized pupil of the very princess that ruled the fair land of Equestria, beat her head mercilessly against a gargantuan spell book like her skull had insulted her mother. With every hit, a muffled thump traveled through the resonant walls of her tree home, alerting her number one assistant to her frustrations.
"Twilight!" Spike called out from downstairs. The only answer he got was the continual thump of her head against the ancient tome. "Twilight! Stop that, you'll hurt yourself!"
Thump, thump, thump
With an exasperated sigh, Spike hopped up the stairs and entered his adoptive sister's room. He found her swiftly impaling one of her spell books on her horn, growling like an animal as she murdered the innocent collection of pages. "Twilight! Stop that, you're destroying your book!"
Finally, mercifully, she relented, staring at the dead book with a blank expression adorning her face. "Humph. This book deserved it." She tossed the shredded pages into a growing pile of spectacularly destroyed books, all sporting a tell-tale hole through the middle the same diameter as Twilight's horn.
Spike gawked at the sheer volume of books his caretaker as assassinated without so much as a thought of remorse. "Twi... You gotta go outside for a bit, maybe visit your friends. It's not healthy to stay cooped up like this. After all," He moved to the windows and threw them open, allowing the majestically bright light of Celestia's sun to enter the semi-darkened room. "Look! It's a beautiful day!"
As the warm, radiant sunlight hit Twilight she cringed and, with a hiss, shrank back into the fleeting shadows of the room. Spike swore that for a moment her fur began to smoke as it was touched by the light. "I can't just stop, Spike. I'm so close to perfecting this trans-dimensional teleportation spell! With this I could finally open up portals to other worlds!"
"Trans-dimensional what now?"
She was instantly swept up in the gusto of her own speech. "Just think! I could explore strange lands, or meet fascinating new species, or conquer exotic planets!" She twirled around on her hind legs like a ballerina (a legless ballerina at that) and plopped down on her haunches, eyes sparkling with excitement. "This spell could change the world!"
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you. Why are you doing this anyway?"
"Err... What do you mean?"
"I mean, why are you spending all this time and sacrificing all this precious literature," Spike swept a stubby, clawed hand at the mass of deceased books, "for this one spell?"
"Well, if you must know, it’s a special commision from the Princess herself,” Twilight replied in an uppity tone.
Spike rubbed a claw against the scales on his chin, ignoring Twilight’s rudeness. “Why on earth would the princess want you studying something like that?”
Deep within the recesses of the Royal Canterlot Archives at a table illuminated by a single, waning candle sat princess Luna. She wore a confused expression on her face as she poured over several new commision documents waiting to be filed within the massive shelves beside her.
"Sister, you sent for me?" Into the room strolled Princess Celestia in all her godly regality. She held a new, waxy candle in her magic grip.
"Oh, Tia. Thank you for coming." Luna took the fresh candle from her sister's magical vice and lit it, the light flaring briefly before settling to a dim glow. "I was reading over these reports, and one of them in particular caught my eye."
A well-creased sheet of parchment was encapsulated in a sparkling blue glow and brought in front of the lunar princess. "This says here that you commissioned Twilight Sparkle to study... trans-dimensional portals?" She looked at Celestia, eyebrows raised in confusion. "Would you care to elaborate as to why you did this?"
The solar goddess sighed. "Well, I've been caught. Yes, I commissioned Twilight to research trans-dimensional portals.”
“Why?” Luna asked incredulously. “Don’t you know that that kind of magic is dangerous?”
“Yes, Lulu, I know that. It’s just...” Celestia fumbled with her explanation, “Lately, Twilight has completed all her magical studies with such speed and efficiency that as of late I’ve been hard pressed to find anything that will really challenge her. I figured this would be a true test of her magical skills.”
Luna saw through her sister's flimsy facade in an instant. "So," she interjected, "You gave her a near impossible task because you ran out of things for her to do. Is that correct?”
“...Yes?”
The goddess of the moon put her head in her hooves and sighed. “Tia, that was incredibly irresponsible of you! Forget the fact that that kind of magic is unsafe,” she scolded, “What would you do if by some chance young Twilight were to actually open some kind of portal? With her power, I would be surprised if it didn’t happen.” Luna glared at her sister like she was a little filly who had been caught stealing candy.
“Lulu, relax.” Celestia put a warm, comforting hoof on her sister’s shoulder. “Twilight is a smart pony. If, by some astronomically small chance, she does open a portal, I’m sure she’ll be able to take care of it by herself.”
Satisfied with her answer, Celestia gave her sister a brief but sisterly nuzzle and about faced, cantering out of the darkened room. As she left, Luna called out behind her, “I just don’t know Tia. I’ve got a very bad feeling about all this.”
“Well, I don’t have the slightest clue as to why, but I’m sure that whatever the reason, it’s a very good one.” Without thinking, Twilight smothered Spike in a purple blanket of magic and unceremoniously dumped him outside of her room, which unfortunately for the poor baby dragon happened to be right next to the staircase. He teetered for a brief moment, his tiny claws grasping desperately for purchase before tilting backwards and falling down the stairs, hitting every last one as he somersaulted his way to the first floor with a thunk.
Twilight flinched as she watched her baby brother violently descend the stairs. That was definately not her original intention, and she blushed furiously as she called out, "Sorry!" to her wounded dragon assistant. In response, Spike just grumbled as he limped towards the kitchen to retrieve an ice pack.
"I'll have to apologize to him in a bit. For now, I should continue my studies-" Twilight turned and froze, muted horror and disappointment creeping across her face like a spider.
"Aw, horseapples. I'm out of books!" It was true. She scanned the shelves of her room, searching for any piece of literature that would be decent enough to sacrifice in the name of science. Unfortunately, not a single tome was left upon the shelves, every last one having been volunteered and gored to death.
"Well... Maybe I should go outside." She moved to her window and stared out at the lively spring world around her. "It really is beautiful... Wait a minute. Do we ever have a cloudy day? I mean seriously, when was the last time Ponyville had an overcast day and some great catastrophe wasn't at fault?" Twilight's words were accompanied by a confused look at the always-blue sky.
"Oh well. I'll ask Rainbow Dash about that later." Having made up her mind, she began to trot out of her room towards the blissful salvation of the outdoors. As she rested her hoof in the door knob, however, she hesitated, casting a longing look at the pile of murdered literature in the center if the room.
"Hmm..." she pondered aloud, "Those were awfully good books. And I'd hate to have their sacrifices be in vain." She briefly battled her subconscious urge to try the spell again. Finally, with a huff, she relented to her mind's curiosity. "Just one more time. But that's it."
She wandered back to the center of the room. She planted her feet, bowed her head in concentration, and willed all her magical power available into her horn, where it manifested as a brilliantly bright ball of light.
The whole building shook as Twilight formed the portal, feeling several of the massive bookshelves nearby collapse with a massive WHOOM.
She payed them no heed as her spell intensified. Stray bolts of lightning arched out and struck the study walls, leaving scorched craters in their wake. The whole room was filled with an ungodly metallic shriek and buzz. Dimensions themselves crumpled and tore under the power of Twilight's magic, opening a portal the size of a door to some untold dimension. As she watched on in equal parts amazement and horror, the portal pitched and yawed violently, swaying with all the coordination of a salsa dancer in a wheelchair.
"Perhaps this may have been a mistake..."
Please note that I will be using the author's notes to periodically insult Obsidian of Borg and his horrendous pen name that makes him sound like an ugly bridge troll (Was that offensive enough?).