Chapter 8: In Which the Pains of a Creature Whose Powers Revolve Principally Around Fear are Discussed
A dark rain fell over Canterlot. Across the city, feelings of dread, hopelessness, fear and infernal energies fell from the clouds, poisoning the spirits of those it fell upon, and adding an air of oppressive gloom to the capitol. Worse still, as these emotions were fed by the rain, so too was the rain being fed by the emotions; as the air of dread became palpable, the pools in which the dark rain had fallen and collected the deepest, strange shapes stirred and moved within the water. Before long, nightmarish shapes began to form in the water, taking the form of secret fears, made manifest, arising from the puddles to stalk the streets.
But this was not the Canterlot of even a few short months prior. True, the citizenry had not always stood up for itself; the people of Canterlot were not necessarily the most rugged or endurant, so seldom had they traditionally been tested, but neither were they entirely incapable of learning from experience. While many of the citizens gave in to despair and terror, some had learned harsh lessons from the depredations of Tirek and the changeling horde. The heavy rain weighed harshly upon the spirits of most, but some stood fast, and refused to be bowed by the weight. Were Canterlot a tapestry, viewed from above, stained with dark magic, there would be points of light – pockets of resistance, where ponies refused to cower, refused to give in, and reused to submit their wills to yet another invasion that viewed them merely as prey.
* * *
The Equestria Daily offices had closed for the evening, but a few offices remained lit. Poison Pen had been working late on an article and had finished, but when the rain had begun to fall she had decided to wait it out rather than dashing across town. Worst case scenario, it would not have been the first time that the reporter had stayed at the offices overnight – there was a pull-out cot in the break room for those reporters that had decided, over the years, that it had been too late to go home. A handful of copy editors were in the building as well, laying out the morning edition. It was dark, but hardly lonely.
When the giant bug-beast with too many tentacles and not nearly enough substance had burst through the doors, one of the editors, facing his own personal nightmare, had promptly fainted. Poison Pen had not however, and moving swiftly, had used her own weak telekinesis to drag the fallen stallion – and encouragingly nudge the other editors that had come in to see what the commotion was – out of harm's way. There hadn't been time to follow them before the bug-beast had closed on her though, and the reporter admitted to mild trepidation as she stared up at the shadowy creature. She had no idea what the creature was, and it was ugly and frightening. Some mild trepidation was not a career-ending admission, she decided to herself.
The bug-beast, if it had possessed a will of its own, rather than simply feeding raw fear back to the eldritch abomination that had spawned it, would have been somewhat put out that its intended victim had been thrown from its grasp. Still, there was a pony before it, and if it couldn't acquire the level of fear that it had intended initially, it was still quite terrifying – there was no point in letting the perfect be enemy to the good. It reared up on its back dozen legs or so, waving its scuttling legs in a menacing manner, and let out an unearthly screech liable to liquify the bowels of any creature with an ounce of self-preservation, as it clicked its mandibles ferociously and allowed a small spray of spittle to accessorize the linoleum.
Poison Pen surprised herself by throwing a typewriter at it, her azure aura vanishing once the heavy machine had enough momentum to continue its trajectory unaided.
Although spawned of the dark waters, the fear that had allowed this nightmare creature had given it solid form, the better to terrify and destroy. The upside had been that its abilities vis a vis intimidation had been greatly increased, with its entrance to the newspaper's offices being managed by way of a bursting entrance through the heavy oaken doors of the building. The downside had been that this meant that it now had a solid form that had been thoroughly clonked by a flying typewriter. And that while it shook its head to try and free itself from both mild amazement and typewriter debris, it was subsequently being pummelled with a metal office chair, rapidly being dented beyond all recognition by the pony that it had thought it had sufficiently cowed.
It fell back toward the doors as office bricabrac of increasing size and volume came in a hailstorm, Poison Pen slowly remembering the instruction that had been given to her once upon a time about optimal use of telekinetic magic. The bug beast turned to flee back into the night, seeking easier prey, as Poison's magical aura flared, and there was the small whine of a rapid increase in available magical energy before the unicorn cast the most powerful light spell she had learned in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and the nightmare creature knew no more.
Poison Pen blinked a little bit to clear her eyes, noticing as her vision returned to normal that everything in the entrance foyer seemed a bit faded in colour, as if they had been left out in the sun for too long. The mare smiled an unpleasant smile, but the witty phrases that so often came to the characters in the books that she read, after they had driven off the monster failed her, and she looked for a place to sit down, and if possible, throw up.
* * *
Happy Pastures nursing home was once again the site of a siege in progress, but Friendly Face was astonished how different such a situation could be when those within the facility were all pulling together. True, there was no Sharp Salute to organize the defenders, but as the pegasus pushed another bookshelf over in front of the nursing home's main door, she considered that both staff and residents had learned quite a lot from the old warhorse in his time at the facility. True, they hadn't been facing off against horrifying nightmare monsters, but things like securing entrances, maintaining a supply of fresh water and food for defenders, and no small measure of spunk had been imparted upon the staff and those under their care, and Friendly Face was grateful for the lessons.
It had been one of the elderly ponies, late of the Canterlot University that had first noticed something distinctly unnatural about the clouds forming overhead, but the evening's entertainment had gone on as scheduled, albeit strangely subdued. The evening had not improved, and then... something had come out of the darkness. They hadn't had a good look at the creatures, but they weren't ponies and they weren't friendly, and that had been enough for both staff and residents to retreat back into the building. And when the creatures had tried to enter anyway, Friendly Face had received another impromptu lesson in just how feisty old ponies could still be.
The pegasus set her jaw, and set about looking for something else heavy to reinforce the facility's entrances with. She had never been more proud of the work that she had done – and the residents even seemed to be enjoying themselves. Tough as old saddle leather some of them, and unwilling to let anyone or anything get the best of them. Despite herself, Friendly Face smiled.
* * *
Sitting at the university campus Starsbucked, and wondering not a little how it had come to be there, a nightmarish abomination sipped the remarkably good coffee that it had been served. Strictly speaking, it was a non-sapient appendage, subservient to the will of a Greater Being, cast into reality with the instruction that bordered upon divine mandate to Create Fear and Sow Despair. It should not have possessed within it the capacity to do anything other than obey its instructions, and they had been simultaneously both direct and scarcely subject to interpretation or equivocation. On the other hand...
On the other hand, the clearly undead pony that had served it a cup of coffee had not seemed to possess fear in any great capacity, and certainly had none to spare for it, lacking as she did adrenal glands that functioned. She had a remarkably short way with words as well, and while her co-workers had expressed some slight anxiety over the creature's appearance in their cafe, she had the commanding presence of a distinguished lecturer, and had instructed them to 'get a hold of themselves' – and remarkably, they had! The unicorn stallion, whom the beast had learned was known as Daunted, and the pegasus filly, known as Stargazer, had quietly bickered while the abomination had sipped its coffee, but the zombie, Tenure Track, had told it not to worry; this sort of thing happened to them all the time.
Although it didn't technically possess the capacity to feel either, this caused the creature puzzlement and more than slight concern. What was wrong with this picture?
* * *
Ice Pick frantically thought through what he knew of demons. True, the subject rarely came up in most magical studies – Celestia's school had not encouraged adventures in demon-calling – but for all that he had graduated at the bottom of his class, Ice had not lacked for academic aptitude, and with the recent discussion of greater callings, he had attained a pass to the royal Canterlot library, and done some reading up.
What he had found had not been especially heartening – the most extensively detailed semipublic library in Equestria had next to nothing about extraplanar beings. At first, he had thought this to be an embarrassing oversight on the library's behalf, but a few minutes of consulting with the head librarian had revealed the problem. The majority of ponies wished nothing to do with demonic forces – this was reinforced by ample years of folklore, which suggested that ponies that sought out such forces met with bad ends. Of those that ignored the warnings, they tended to fall into two categories; ponies ill-inclined to leave useful notes as to their doings and experiences, who perforce would not be contributing useful documentation for those that came after them, and ponies that were so accomplished that a minor dabbling with the serious occult barely warranted a footnote in their overall bibliography.
What information Ice Pick had managed to acquire came from the latter quality of dabbler, no less a source than Star Swirl the Bearded himself. A powerful wizard, Star Swirl's adventures in demon-raising had managed to be somehow less useful than looking up nothing at all, because they were barely adventures in their own right compared to the wizard's other doings, and consequently barely warranted footnotes in his journals and in accounts told of him. Nevertheless, through gruelling effort of research, he had managed to pull together a few of the basics.
Looking at the situation in front of him (in as much as he could – the near pitch darkness into which the boiler room had been plunged meant that very little could be seen, and he could not in fact see his own hoof in front of his face), it seemed reasonably evident that this demon drew power from the fear it evoked. It had a misty, cloud-like form – perhaps it was still deciding precisely what it was? The speculation was fruitless, until he had more information, a need which was swiftly addressed, as the preternatural darkness that had blocked out both Ice Pick and Hot Streak's attempts to call light abated, allowing at least enough illumination that the gathered members of the Night Watch could see one another – and the cloudlike being that now stood in front of their evidence locker.
“**Greetings, prey.**” It was a combination of audible sound and telepathic broadcast, understandable to each of the Night Watch members in their languages of preference. “**I am brought/summoned here to be your unmaking.**” It was difficult to put into words, Ice Pick decided, but the creature was floating in a smugly self-satisfied way that somehow got under his skin. The diminutive unicorn had never been fond of bullies, and here was the physical embodiment of smugness at the fear of others.
Ice Pick was surprised to feel a hoof on his shoulder, and looked back to see that it was Sticky – the pegasus had always had a good measure of empathy, and had clearly picked up on his tension. He forced himself to relax, as she addressed the shadowy being. “Alright, if you're so tough, who are you then?” Icy considered for a moment, before realizing her play. If the creature fed on fear, then it probably wouldn't handle sass well – and if there was one thing that Luna's personal guard seemed to be particularly good at...
The shadowy creature laughed, basking in the attention. “**You may refer to me as... The NIGHTMARE!**”
This did not have the desired effect upon the gathered crowd.
“I'm pretty sure that name is taken.” mused Hot Streak. “I mean, there was Princess Luna as Nightmare Moon. I don't know. Did she ever claim to just be 'The Nightmare?'”
Sticky shook her head. “Not personally, but I think I heard something from my cousin in Ponyville about some kind of creature she cooked up that was basically just a bringer of nightmares. I don't think it called itself The Nightmare, but only due to a lack of pretension.”
Sharp Salute weighed in on the issue, although it was unclear by this point as to whether the older pony was on board for the 'frustrate the nightmarish creature with sass' agenda, or if the team had simply been sidetracked by one of their characteristic digressions. “I think it's pretty safe to say that a new villain taking the title of 'The Nightmare' at this juncture would probably be pretty confusing at the very least. To say nothing of being pretentious. I mean, Nightmare Moon didn't claim to be the Nightmare, and if anyone had first claim to the title, it would be her highness.”
Gawain turned to the cloud-monster. “I think we've reached the consensus that no, you aren't. Would you care to make another attempt?”
This was not the reaction to which the shadow-beast had become accustomed. True, it had received more resistance to its initial attack on Canterlot than it had anticipated, both from its natural abilities as a nightmare-creature and from its briefing by its summoner, but even still, it had, in its brief existence as a being of extension, become accustomed to a certain amount of fear. Fear was, after all, its bread and butter – its life blood, in many senses, albeit none of them literal. It took a moment, did the metaphysical equivalent of some deep-breathing exercises, and returned its focus upon the bickering victims who did not seem to understand how such things were done. Very well. It was an enlightened being. It could adapt. This was literally its job.
“**Very well. I shall not be The Nightmare, but rather... The sower of discord!**” These ponies, with their orderly lives – these ponies in particular, brings of law and order – would surely fear such a title. After all, if there was safety in numbers, then clearly there was danger in division. It could work from such a start.
“... I don't think that Discord would like you honing in on his racket, much.” the pegasus known as Sticky mused.
The beast took a little longer to compose itself this time, as the Night Watch nattered to one another. It had never heard of any of its ilk having to deal with such... foolishness over something so simple as a name!
“**It does not matter what you call me!**” It didn't, not really. The being lacked a name so much as a series of descriptive syllables inscribed upon the tablet – it was that description that had allowed its summoners such a hold over it. “**For I shall be your doom! Watch now, as I take on the form of your greatest fear, and use it... to destroy you!**”
The shadow-beast reached out, mentally, to the subconscious of the four ponies, the zebra, and the gryphon. Surely one of them would have a deep fear – nested in their childhood, perhaps – that it could leverage. The shadow-beast knew that some residents of this plane feared insects, some feared the undead, some unaccountably feared performers in makeup. The fears did not have to be rational – merely strong, and they would be delicious to devour.
There was a... snag.
“**Are none of you afraid of actual... things!?**” Public speaking, growing old, the dark, being alone... what the hell kind of plane was this, where people didn't fear things that existed? That they were so forced to reach out for greatest fears that they made them up, made them out of literally nothing but the passage of time and their own imaginations? The creature didn't understand fear – not in the 'I have ever felt this as an emotion' sense – but it certainly understood the premise behind the concept. It was a survival instinct, and at least one of the ponies huddled about the beast in the room was afraid of living too long!
There was a pause, as the gathered Night Watch looked to one another. The subject of greatest fears had never come up, but it seemed that none of them had fears suitable for a monster to transform into. That was convenient, certainly, but could it be turned to some manner of advantage? The possibility existed, certainly.
Zorada made a stab at it. “Would you believe that I'm afraid of spiders?” She paused, considering, as her colleagues made gestures frantically, hooves and claws being brought very close together. “Exclusively small spiders. Tiny ones, in fact. Larger spiders? Pshaw. I grew up with two pet Arachnae. And so...” she squinted a little bit. Sharp Salute was making a broad gesture, and it was hard to read. “So I only fear ham sandwiches?” There was a facehoof, and Salute's gestures doubled in breadth and urgency. “And so... and so I only fear very small spiders! About the appropriate size to step on.” She nodded sagely. “Yes. It's not my greatest fear, but it's definitely up there. Right up there with 'easily defeatable evil clowns'. Please, whatever you do, do not turn into a very small spider of the appropriate size to step on, or an easily defeatable evil clown. I should be ever so terrified if you did so.” She smiled hopefully.
The shadow-beast gave Zorada an old fashioned look. “**Look, that's not even a good lie. What, are you next going to suggest that powerful as I am, I could not possibly fit inside of a bottle? That surely, if I'm so tough, I could do without my massive supernatural advantages, and so I should try to fight all of you without them? Or perhaps next you will suggest that you are secretly on my side, and thus I should let down my guard in front of you.**” It sneered.
The zebra shot the beast a hopeful look. “I do not suppose any of those ruses has even a remote chance of succeeding?” The shadow-beast seemed unimpressed. “You understand, I had to ask. What a fool I would feel if it would have worked, but I was too cynical!”
Gawain leaned over to whisper to Sharp Salute. “Why are we stalling? What good is that possibly going to do us?”
The older pony grimaced a little bit, but murmured back. “This chump made one heck of a mess before it got to us. We figured out that it was dark magic pretty quickly. Do you think that we were the only ones watching?”
* * *
Luna tore down yet another flight of stairs in the Royal Canterlot Palace. It had taken a little bit of time for the princess to locate the new offices of her official Royal Guard. Celestia had sent her a memorandum on the issue, after the Canterlot Historical Society had claimed their previous broom closet of an office and found one of Celly's lost trinkets. Paper Weight had been in attendance at the court, and had technically been responsible for Luna's personal communiques, but that had been a couple of weeks ago, and the secretary had filed the memo somewhere in the stacks.(27) It was the middle of the night, and rousing Celestia to find out where the Night Watch had been stuffed had been an entertaining fifteen minutes of physical comedy and sight gags, for which the Canterlot marching band had earned eleven hundred bits.
The furnace room! The wards had tripped when the demonic being had come into the castle, welcome guest or no, but tracking it within the castle had been difficult at best. If it was welcome, it was because someone had brought part of its name into the castle, and Luna knew from her biweekly meetings with Sharp Salute that the Night Watch had confiscated something that might just fit the bill. Luna passed sub-basement four, and rounded the corner toward the door to sub-basement five.
Her guard was brave to a point, and far more capable than she had thought likely, given the circumstances of their formation, but there were limits to what even gifted ponies could give, and at the end of the day, they had only been intended to be the 'call the alicorns' squad. It was time to answer the call.
* * *
“**ENOUGH!**” boomed the creature, less out of actual worry that the squabbling squad would get anything accomplished than out of annoyance that the likelihood suggested that they probably would not. “**If I cannot take the form of your greatest fears, then I shall at least see to it that your trust for one another is gone! You!**” It pointed at Zorada, whose eyes widened. “**You work with these ponies every day, but you keep your true allegiances hidden from them!**”
Sharp Salute snorted. “Of course she has. She's EIS.” The rest of the room, Zorada included, goggled at him. “I've been in the Canterlot guard for years. She's not bad as a spy, but she's far from gifted. Just because the Day Watch wouldn't hire her didn't mean that nobody else would. She's been giving updates to the Equestrian Intelligence Service – with whom, I hasten to remind everyone, we are allied – the whole time. It's what I was going to speak with her about before we were so rudely interrupted.”
Zorada blinked a little bit, but regained her composure. “It is true. The EIS was initially interested in Princess Luna's actions in forming a new group that might threaten their mandate, but the squad has been keeping to the goals that the princess stated, and I have been given carte blanche to continue as I see fit to.”
The ambient level of trust, the creature decided, had actually, unaccountably, risen as a result of the secret being brought to light. This was infuriating. “**Oh yes? Well... you!**” This time the tendril of smoke waved toward Ice Pick. “**You are intellectually arrogant, and think that you are the smartest member of your squad!**” Surely that would set the ponies to squabbling – the creature knew that Ice Pick feared the revelation of his beliefs might turn his allies against him and after all, he should know, surely.
“He probably is.” Hot Streak shrugged. “I mean, Gawain and Zorada both had pretty considerable educations as well, so I suppose they could get into an intellectual pissing match if they felt like it, but nobody is going to argue that Ice Pick isn't smart.” She smiled over at the short unicorn. “He's really starting to help me get my magic under control. Having a teacher who actually gives a damn about you makes a huge difference. Thanks Icy.”
The creature was flailing now in desperation. “**You!**” It pointed at Gawain. “**You used to be a criminal!**” The squad just looked at one another. This was pretty well common knowledge, wasn't it? That was literally how the gryphon had come to work with the squad. The creature scowled. “**Fine. Your cohesion renders you safe from me... for now. But all of your stupid city can not say the same! I'll be seeing you around, meat-bags!**”
The mist creature gathered up the tablet that bore its name in its smokey tendrils and vanished with a whiff of brimstone and a 'pop', just as Luna broke down the door to the furnace room, returning light to the room.
“Hello everyone. Did I miss anything?”
27: Which was what Paper Weight humorously called Luna's desk. Luna had put forward the opinion that she was not the princess of paperwork, and therefore had accrued enough of the bucking stuff on her groaning oak office desk to reconstitute four redwoods and a small birch sapling.
Stats
Page generated in 0.024 seconds
Total duration
768 users online
714,483 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I have to say, for a creature of fear thedemon is really bad at his job if can't make use of a fear of the dark.
Also, I love the absolutely unfazzed Starsbucked employees. Working at the university they must have seen much worse in the form of teachers before their first dose of caffeine.
That poor, poor monster. It really doesn't understand what it's gotten into, does it?
I love this chapter.
I wonder how it would try to render a Fear of Heights...
6579249 The Starsbucked employees are by way of being a cameo appearance. :) If you want to read more of their exploits, check out my other fic, 'The Night Princess and the Graveyard Shift'.
Oh yes ponies use their secret weapon to defeat evil, frustrating it to death by being completely unphased by freaky crap!!
One that appears in Ponyville would probably be told by the Mayor "Meh, let's see...you claim to be an 'eldritch horror from other dimension'; you probably rate a Yellow Alert threat or at worst a low Orange Alert. No need to be alarmed." And then she pulls open a file drawer filled with blank copies of Request for Fiscal Aid from the Royal Treasury and begins to ask the monster for details about it, just so she can get the paperwork started so that the buildings can be repaired faster than last time. Which was two weeks ago.
Also, I hope either Doc or Luna has whipped up a spell to arrest Tenure Track's decay and get rid of her odor, or else business seems likely to have dropped dramatically.
Monsters of fear are stupid.
It only works against vapid teenagers in cheesy horror movies!
The best monsters are the ones that strip you of all emotion and turn you into.... a hedge fund manager!
Luna really needs learn to run faster
This chapter was great the utter failures of the monster were perfect.
Apologies. I have been persuaded by overwhelming negative feedback via private message to reconsider my submission of chapter nine. I suspect I should probably continue as I meant to go on, and re-examine it when there is more time available.
I really do hope you come back to this! I really enjoy the building comedy and where it is going!
7864403 It is, and has been the goal. It just got back-burnered for a little because I lost a fair amount of my drive for a couple of months, and then felt like any forward writing I had made on it didn't match the tone and style of the fic as a whole. Then came actual paying work, and much though I love writing ponywords, foodwords and rentwords come first. (forwards?)
I have two(1) more chapters left to go for Day Off, and then the shambling behemoth that is the next chapter of Night Watch will get some TLC, hopefully be up in February. Thanks!
1: Well, one left to write, and one left to edit. But in the reverse order, because the last chapter was actually the first written. I am told that this is called process but I suspect it might just be me being a doof.
Binge-read the last five chapters and do not regret it.
Very tiny spiders.
Great chapter and I think the next recruitentry for the Night Watch should be from Ponyville so the have just the experience to deal with stuff like this.
6581545
Oh that ending is just HILARIOUS! <3