The Cursed Magician886 words
30: Hidden Strength2,248 words
31: Absolute Justice1,653 words
32: The Empress of Crystal2,009 words
33: Red Supergiant Star2,053 words
34: Shell World2,492 words

1: A Walking Dead (v2)

ARC 1: THE GATHERING OF THE DEAD

1170 years before

A week’s walk north east of here is a small town called Appleton. They kept to themselves, and was hidden from most due to its own podunk nature. It was fairly close to the southern border of Griffonia, the Griffons’ homeland. You may recognize this town, Twilight. Your friend Applejack will be bound to know plenty about this subject.

But for now, they are not important.

My hometown so many years ago is still Sunny Pines, this place in which we have met.

Like many towns of this era, it was fairly isolated. It did provide a fabulous view of the sunset through the sparse pine tree forest, which gave the town its name.

I’ve had a decent enough childhood there, I don’t regret it much. Never knew my father, but my mother did what she could to fill in the gap. Found my Mark here. Unfortunately, in my tenth season, tragedy befell my home. I was still young. I didn’t realize what it had become besides vague notions of sadness. There were ponies sick. I wasn’t, so I was happy. Worrying was for my mother. I did what I could to keep her smiling, I don’t think she ever realized I knew when her smile was fake.

I didn’t have much time to think about it too much, I was still young. Yet even if I were older, I doubt it would’ve helped much. Two days after my mother’s smile fell I woke up to a silent house. The moment the sun streamed into my window, I knew something was wrong. I enjoyed getting up early with my mother, to see the sunrise and help her prepare for the morning. I could never wake up in time before the sun rose, though. She only let me sleep in if she had an urgent business, and she would usually tell me before-hoof...

I dashed off my bed, and ran downstairs.

Nothing.

Upstairs again, and knock on her door.

Nothing.

With trepidation, I pushed it open. I saw a lump lying in bed. “Mommy?”

Nothing.

I trotted closer and reared onto her bed. Her eyes were half-open, glassy. Her breaths were near non-existent. I touched her hoof, and gasped at the cold, clammy feel. A shock of cold fear raced down my spine, and suddenly, I felt weak.

I had few friends; acquaintances, really. Ponies to meet up for a bit of playing, but never really spent time together. The one best friend I had moved out with his father for a business trip. That may have been the only thing that kept him alive.

I wasn’t well informed about the trade routes to anywhere, really, but I had the vague idea that ponies went along them to meet other ponies. I rushed back to my room, grabbed my bag, filled it with what food I could fit into it, and ran for the well worn paths.

Even if by some miracle I chose the right one, even if I lasted the distance with my flagging stamina, even if I remembered to grab a map and understood it’s scribbles, it wouldn’t have mattered in the end.

I tried to run, but my legs gave out before me. I tried to crawl, then my lungs started failing, each breath being worth less than the last. Within a minute, I was left nothing, being only able to stare out of glazed eyes as my body temperature sank like a rock.

I will never be able to forget the numbing cold that kept me like that for hours, for some reason my mind being left for last. I laid there long enough for a curious manticore to poke its head out of the treeline. Normally, there would have been travelers at the ready with spears and torches to keep predators and bandits back.

Now, there was just a cold tiny body lying in the middle of a dusty road. Of course it was curious. What creature would deny a free meal? It walked over, cautiously of course. It had plenty of experience with the ponies here in the past, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a trap.

The creature stood over my body, sniffing. There was still the hint of warmth, and with its great hearing, it could still hear the tiny gasps my dying lungs gave out.

It looked around, and seeing nothing, reached down and closed its jaws over my head.

Have I told you what my Mark means, Twilight? Four arrows chasing each other in a circle. I got it when I was out playing in the Autumn leaves. They were being prepared for compost, and I felt a little guilty about destroying all their hard work year after year. So I decided to push them into neat piles near the farms.

No, it wasn’t the same year.

I did the same thing again next time, actively participating. I saw ponies tending the compost pile, and went to check it out after I was finished cleaning up my side. They were gone by the time I got there, and I ... didn’t exactly realize it was something that took time to complete.

I thought it the detritus needed to look like dirt. So I reached into myself, pushed what basic magic my mother had taught me into the compost to compare, then pulled.

I knocked myself out the first time, but when I woke up to my mom shaking me worriedly, I pointed blearily at the pile and said, “All done.” And that was when my mark appeared.

Why am I telling you this?

Something my friend and I found, that so few others have looked into. There is a far smaller limit to cutie marks than most have realized, one only needs to be ... creative in their interpretation, and willing to reach for it.

I can recycle far more things than one would expect.

My mind didn’t stop even as the manticore stepped over me, even as my limbs went beyond cold to nothingness. I screamed, and battered against the walls of my mind, but even I could still feel the beat of my heart, at a steady once per minute, and knew that there was nothing left to try.

I could barely see out of my own eyes, but then the manticore was close enough that it didn’t matter. Its teeth loomed over me, as I tried to do something, anything to grab at to survive.

Its teeth touched my jaw, and I felt a burning warmth somewhere above me.

My Mark flared.

I pulled.

Ba.......thump.

Ba .....thump.

Ba thump. Ba thump. Ba thump.

I blearily opened foggy eyes. Where .... where am I? Why ...

My eyes shot open and I leapt up to my hooves. Mom! She and ... everypony and ...no!

Then I blinked again at the curtain of red cascading down my face. I looked down, and saw the half-rotten lower torso of a massive manticore lying in front of me. The upper torso was just ... evaporated. Bits and pieces of a skull, spine, and forelimbs were all that was left. The rest of the blood had pooled on and around me. My eyes flicked to the side, watching globules of decayed flesh and gore slowly sliding off my coat and bag in bloody chunks.

I swiveled my head, seeing a vulture missing a head half floating in the manticore’s blood. Off to its side, the empty eyes of a timberwolf head stared back at me.

My mind felt blank, woozy still from the near-death experience until it locked onto my last waking memory. Find help. Save mom. Find help. Save-

Ba ............. thump

I took a step. My heart throbbed, and I face planted into the blood. Whatever energy that had awoken me wasn’t enough. I could almost feel my blood pressure crashing, my vision tunneling in an instant.

Sorry mom. I .... failed ....

A hoof weakly reached forwards, lifted weakly, then fell. My eyes dilated as I struggled to see out of the tunnel of darkness, but soon, that too fell still.

Ba................................thump.

Ba...........

A tiny weight rolled out of my mane and splattered into the cooling red. It was a black, bloated insectoid thing, its legs barely long enough to cope with its feast. It had a dopey, content look on its face, patting its distended belly. It gave a small burp, letting a cloud of pinkish ether float across the air and into Cycle’s final breath.

The cloud billowed, then shot into his mouth.

For a moment, nothing happened. The parasite slowly got itself into a proper standing position and fluttered its blood stained wings, drying them off. Behind it, a bit of moisture condensed into Cycle’s fur. Ice crystals formed in the pool of blood around the back of his head, slowly creeping up his face.

give

The moisture that condensed beneath him froze as even more veins of ice crept up his limbs.

Ggive them back

Wisps of dust blew away from the ground as it cracked and hardened in seconds, looking like it had gone through an eternity of drought, leaving behind a dry, black bloodstain etched into the earth..

give them all back

The fresh corpses, the vibrant greens around his body withered, mummified. A frozen coat of armor wrapped around the pony’s legs and face. They snapped and creaked as a hoof shifted underneath him.

“...give ...cough back, monster.”

Another hoof shifted, slowly pushing his body up. The parasite paused, confused, then looked up.

Cycle’s face was covered in a web of frozen tear tracts, his head haloed by a frosty, blood stained cloud. His mane was dusted by frost. The rest of his body, too, was crisscrossed by veins of ice, creaking with his every trembling movement. Ghosts of green flames danced over him, as his magic surged with his growing anger.

“YOU DON’T DESERVE THEIR LIVES!” he roared, slamming his hooves down mercilessly into the parasite, and throwing frozen fur and blood off his body. Clouds of glowing life burst out and billowed past him, caressed him with their warmth, mixing with the dead tears flooding his frozen cheeks, and escaped him, forever.

He raised his hooves and slammed down again, grinding its shattered carapace into the blood-etched dust. And again.

And again.

“DIE!”

SLAM

It took Cycle a quarter of an hour before he was satisfied withe black paste he had reduced the parasite to, leaving him exhausted and shaking with anger and sorrow. “I’ll show you,” he hissed, bits of his internals dripping through his teeth. “You tried to prey on my family? I will erase your species from this world. From here to forever, so thoroughly that nopony will remember your existence.”

Top-soil blew away as Cycle struggled to his hooves, the corpses crumbling into a large bloody slushie. He angrily stuffed the flattened mess that was once was a creature into his saddlebags. “I won’t let Sunny Pines be forgotten.”

He stomped down the street away from ghost town, plants and other life weakening in his wake. His eyes glowed malevolently in the darkness, and each of his breaths was tainted by a cloud of blood stained steam.

“And I. Will. Survive.”

I don’t remember much after my first death. Most of my higher brain functions were fried. Quite literally. I actually had a bit of grey matter come out of my nose a few weeks later. My phylactery was pretty much was the only thing left that could restore me at that point.

Of course, I needed to get one in the first place if I were to survive. My sense of direction was fried too, and I got lost walking down a straight road. I was burning through magic at a ridiculous pace, but with my Mark going on overdrive, I simply ate anything and everything I crashed through. Vegetation, wildlife, even the heat from the air itself.

It gave me time, but just time wasn’t enough. I would eventually have burned out in less than a week if I just kept on walking, and I wouldn’t be talking to you. For all of my boasting, I would have ran out of magic and died somewhere in a forest, got eaten, and disappear forever. The town we are sitting in would wear away from winds and weather, until even the foundations were scraped away. Another town might have been built and settled, but this place, its name, its ponies, gone forever.

I think Celestia would have prefered it this way.

What I have recorded here was mostly from a third party perspective. Pretty nice to have a sSeer going about who wanted to keep this strange wraith for study, eh?

Author's Note:

I'm sure G-man won't mind me quoting him.

Oh dear, I'm running out of pre-written chapters.
Not like anyone's complaining, at any rate.

Re-edited by Pickleless v2 (10 APR 2017)

2,360 views

167

Previous Chapters Next

Comments ( 7 )

Viewing 1 - 50 of 7
- Newest First
- Oldest First

Mimic Kairatta

Mimic Kairatta #1 · Jan 3rd, 2015 · · ·

So it's some kind of Changeling larva parasite?

Ghosted Note

Ghosted Note #2 · Jan 3rd, 2015 · · ·

Is it really necessary to put youtube videos in the middle? It's distracting and immersion-breaking in a medium all about immersion. Let your work stand on its own merits.

AppleTank

AppleTank #3 · Jan 3rd, 2015 · · ·

5457686
....sort of. Semi spoilers below
They're kind of a proto Changeling/Parasprite. Discord takes notice of a massive spell the lich cast on them later on.

AppleTank