When the original had created her with the intention of scouting out new victims of Aza’s sadistic game, Twilight was gung-ho on helping out, just like all of her clone brethren.
Hindsight had a special taste for irony, she realized, as she stared down the barrel of the gun that the human man before her was pointing square between her eyes.
Sweat accumulated heavily on her brow, and her heart pounded against her chest. She didn’t want to get shot at, but judging from the way the human’s unibrow was furrowed in conjunction with his apathetic glare, the odds of such were looking very slim.
While she waited for the human to say something, she took a moment to gauge his appearance. Tattered clothes, dark hair, enormous chin, the aforementioned unibrow — his right hand was missing, and in its place was a... chainsaw? She was pretty sure that’s what humans called them, if her inherited memories were to be believed. Looking him over, if this human had been through some tough business, it was no wonder he’d be quick to threaten what Twilight knew he’d see as an unknown variable like herself. After all, unicorns were only a myth to humans.
Finally, the man spoke up. “Can you speak English?”
Twilight arched a brow. “... I can speak the same language as you, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t call it Eng–”
The man cocked the gun again.
“Yes, I can.”
“Good.” The man lowered the gun a little, to which Twilight let out the breath she’d been holding. “Now, how’s about you answer me these three questions: what are you? Where am I? And most importantly, how do I get back home?”
Twilight sighed, and looked into his eyes with a sympathetic gaze. “I’m afraid the situation is a lot worse than you probably think it is. I could tell you, but it’d be a lot quicker to show you.” She lit her horn, and made to move closer, only to stop and recoil as the man lifted his gun right back up to eye level with her.
“Listen, I don’t know what kinda freaky black magic you’ve got under your belt, but you sure as hell ain’t gonna even touch me with it,” he said, his gaze hardening.
A soft whimper escaped through Twilight’s mouth, and she unlit her horn.
“Now start talking.”
Twilight needed no further prompting, as shebegan explaining everything to the man. Every so often she would find herself needing to wipe some accumulated sweat off of her forehead; having a gun constantly pointed at you tended to build up one’s anxiety, after all. The man, for his part, remained attentive and never once condemned her explanation as stupid or fantastical. Indeed, from the way he gave Twilight his full, undivided attention, she was left wondering whether being kidnapped by omnipotent deities was a regular occurrence for him. It couldn’t be true, she reasoned, because then he wouldn’t have been surprised to see anything out of the ordinary for a human, such as a talking unicorn. But still, it was clear to her that he was no stranger to extreme, life-threatening situations, an assumption reinforced by his ragged clothes and missing hand.
Finally, she finished. The man’s eyes gained a distant look as he appeared to process everything he’d just been told. “... Alright then, where do we go now?” he asked.
Twilight could only stare blankly for a second before she managed to say, “Pardon?”
“Where’s the rest of the group at?” the man asked, the impatience clear in his voice. “Are you gonna take me to them or what?”
“Oh, uh, right!” Twilight began heading across the dry earth of the Appleloosan Desert, back toward the nearby treeline where she’d exited from before meeting the man. “It’s right this way… uh…” She turned expectantly to the man.
“Name’s Ash,” he said. He then lifted his gun and, after giving it a twirl around his hand, placed it into the holster on his back. “Ash Williams.”
Twilight nodded. “Nice to meet you, Ash.” She turned back toward the treeline. “Follow me and–”
“Stay away, purple horsey!”
The sudden exclamation drew both Twilight and Ash’s attention to a spot further down the treeline. Out of the woods came two figures, one right after the other. The latter was another Twilight mirror copy, horn alit as she pursued the former, frustration clearly evident in her features.
The one she was pursuing was another newcomer. It was another human, at least in body shape; their yellowish skin tone made Twilight dubious as to whether or not they were actually human. She assumed it was another male, going off their masculine voice, but younger-looking than Ash. He wore a green jacket with a red and white-patterned undershirt, along with blue jeans and black sneakers. Like Ash, he had a unibrow. Quite unlike Ash, however, his face was completely devoid of a chin, and his preferred method to avoid being touched by Twilight’s magic was to run away in fear rather than threaten to shoot her. A particularly interesting detail about the way the newcomer ran was that their body seemed to move faster than their head, which hung back at an almost unnatural angle.
“I keep telling you!” the other Twilight shouted between pants. “If you’d just let me use my spell, I can quickly explain everything that’s happening!”
“Sparkly magic bad for Ed!” the boy said.
Ash and Twilight watched as the other Twilight chased the boy, named ‘Ed’, around the desert. But while Ed seemed to have unending stamina at his disposal, the other Twilight eventually found herself unable to continue and collapsed to the ground in a heap, panting heavily while her horn fizzled out.
“So… tired…” She closed her eyes, unable to speak another word.
“Having some trouble there?” Twilight asked as she approached her clone brethren, Ash following right behind.
The other Twilight turned to face them, looking briefly surprised at the sight of them, before her face settled into an expression that looked — to Twilight’s observant eye — like jealousy. Twilight watched as her clone brethren slowly rose to her hooves, straining from the effort after having used up so much energy, and turned to face her and Ash. After taking a moment to regard Ash, to which Twilight heard him grunt behind her, Other Twilight spoke up.
“I’ve tried literally everything I can to get him under control. Trying to soothe him didn’t work, and neither did lying or forcefully holding him with my magic. He’s… surprisingly strong.”
“Did you learn anything about him?” Twilight asked.
Other Twilight racked her brain for something, anything, but shook her head when she came up blank. “Other than his name, ‘Ed’, and the fact that he apparently really loves comic books.”
“Hmm…” Twilight rubbed her chin. “I’m sure we can use that as leverage to make him cooperate, somehow.” She turned back to her fellow clone with a smile. “For now, let’s just focus on getting him–”
A sliver of movement appeared in Twilight’s eye’s corner. Shifting her gaze, her eyes bulged when she noticed a very fast, very familiar plume of dirt rushing straight towards them.
She wasted no time in grabbing her fellow clone and jumping out of the way, narrowly dodging the third worm monster as it shot up from the ground right where they’d been standing, sending a massive shower of dirt and rocks spraying all around them. The two Twilights recovered from their dive and turned around, only to see the worm’s snake-like tongues reaching for them. In a flash, Twilight teleported both herself and Other Twilight a few feet away, out of the monster’s reach. The monster then burrowed its way back underground.
Swiveling her head around, Twilight quickly located both Ash and Ed. The former was staring wide-eyed at the spot where the worm monster just was, while the latter gazed upon the ground with a rather blank look. She also spotted a cropping of rocks a little ways away, near the treeline. She had both herself and Other Twilight upon the rocks in another flash of teleportation.
“Ed! Ash!” she called. “Run! Get over here on the rock!”
Ed seemed to come out of his daze, and began running towards them, Ash following not far behind.
Suddenly, a snake-tongue shot out of the ground right in front of Ash’s path, tripping and sending him falling face down onto the ground. While Ed made it to the rock and quickly climbed up, Ash felt the snake-tongue wrap itself around his ankle and began dragging him across the ground. Looking back, he saw the worm monster rise from the dirt, its two remaining snake tongues crawling across the ground to reach him.
With an annoyed grunt, he reached behind him and pulled out his shotgun. Taking aim, he fired a round at the snake-tongue wrapped around his ankle. The appendage was severed instantly, accompanied by a small scream of pain, while the monster itself let out a much greater howl of agony. He then quickly fired off two more rounds, one each at the other two tongues, to which they exploded one after another in a small shower of blood and guts.
Ash snorted, then got up and ran the rest of the way to the rock.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked as he climbed up to join the three of them.
“Feelin’ groovy,” he replied, before setting his gun back into its holster.
“Look,” Ed said, fascination clear in his tone, as he pointed down at the ground.
Ash and the two Twilights looked down to see the earth around the rock rising and falling like a wave. The worm monster circled around the rocks, no doubt waiting for one of the four to get off so it could claim them for sustenance.
Twilight wrinkled her nose in disgust as the worm monster passed them by. “Ah, it smells like horseapples!”
“Yeah,” Other Twilight agreed, her nose similarly wrinkled.
“Something smells good,” Ed said, dreamily.
The Twilights turned to stare at him, unsure whether he was joking or if his nose was broken. Ash, meanwhile, kept his attention squarely on the worm as it passed around the rock.
“We’re gonna need a plan if all of us are going to make it back alive,” Twilight said. “I doubt it’s going to leave us alone, seeing how we’re the only food source it has around.”
“Right,” Other Twilight said. She looked up at her horn, then over to the treeline. “Maybe we can teleport us all into the trees. We might be able to lose it if we hop from branch to branch.”
“That could wo–” Twilight started, only to be interrupted by Ash.
“You are not touching me with that magic.” His tone was final, brokering no room for debate.
“But it’ll get us safely away from that thing!” Other Twilight protested.
“Magic bad for Ed!” Ed said.
Both Twilights sighed in exasperation. “Do you have a better plan, then, Mr. Williams?” Twilight asked.
“Just call me Ash,” Ash replied. Then he smiled for the first time since Twilight found him. “And yeah, I’ve got a plan.”
“Then let’s hear it,” Twilight said.
Ash’s smile grew a little wider and, without so much as a batted eye, he casually hopped off the rock onto the ground.
Both Twilights stared, horrified, at him. “Wait! What are you–” But the rest of Twilight’s sentence was cut off as Ash pulled his arm back, revving his chainsaw, forcing both Twilights to fold their ears back. Ed, meanwhile, stared with wide-eyed fascination.
“Come on, you slimy worm bastard!” Ash called, waving his chainsaw around and stomping his feet. “Come and get me!”
He felt the earth beneath his feet shift, followed by a dirt plume shooting up around him as the worm wrapped its mouth around his upper torso, just beneath his armpits. Ash winced in pain as the monster’s beak-like mandibles pierced through his skin, but he held strong. The creature then began sinking back into the ground.
“Ash!” both Twilights cried in unison.
With a mighty cry, Ash brought the chainsaw down upon the worm, right between its mandibles. A shower of blood and guts flew around as the chain easily ripped through the creature’s flesh like cardboard, coating the area of ground next to it in a sea of fleshy entrails. The worm only managed to let out a brief howl of agony before whatever constituted as its vocal chords must’ve been sliced apart, leaving it a silent, soon-to-be carcass.
Meanwhile, both Twilights stared with their jaws hung agape, their minds wiped clean of rational thought and awareness of everything except the gore fest unfolding before them. In contrast, Ed’s eyes lit up with excitement and wonderment akin to a small child having witnessed a meteor shower.
“This is just like the finale to ‘I was a Teenage Chainsaw Maniac: The Mini-Series’,” he noted.
Finally, the worm’s mutilated body slumped over. Dead. With a grunt, Ash clutched the two halves he’d sliced apart and pulled them away, allowing him to step out of the creature’s mouth and back onto solid ground. He took a moment to shake some guts off of his pant leg before returning to the rock.
“Now,” he said, casually, “let’s get going.”
Both Twilights said nothing for a few moments, still shocked by what they’d seen. Eventually, Twilight managed to regain enough composure to clear her throat, before adopting a shaky expression.
“R-Right, of course,” she stuttered. She turned to Other Twilight. “Let’s hurry back.”
Other Twilight nodded, but said nothing herself.
“My mom says not to horde sponges,” Ed said.