Chapter 41
Shivering, Flicker’s muscles ached from the cold and the only thing he had to comfort him was the thought of hazard pay. He was unaware of it, but his mercenary soul was just fine with this arrangement, this transaction of violence for coin. For Flicker descended from a long, long line of warriors and mercenaries on his mother’s side of the family. Not unicorns, but proud, pummelling, pounding pegasus ponies that never backed away from a fight.
How had he ended up with a horn instead of wings? A simple twist of fate.
A few ponies were out on the street, but not many. This was the bad side of town, near the wharf, and Flicker sensed a disturbing lack of rats. This puzzled him, as this area should be swarming with rats, but it wasn’t. Oh, there were a few rats here, but not many, and they were hidden. Flicker, had he been a bit more imaginative, might have wondered why, or perhaps took it as a warning sign.
He wandered from place to place, his head down, going from garbage can to garbage can, sniffing around as if he were a dog. Tall, narrow rowhouses lined the streets, made of red brick and broken dreams. Many had broken windows that had been boarded over. Some had graffiti, including seditious propaganda about the Ascendency and how they would save the common pony. Almost all of them had no doubt been converted over to apartments to maximise profit. This was a place of misery, a place where the equine soul was ground down and made to serve.
In the distance, near the water, there was a big soulless factory, with sharp angled roofs, watchtowers, and chimneys that didn’t seem to stand quite straight. Smoke poured from the stacks, and dim lights could be seen in the factory windows. It was the dim lights that concerned Flicker—ponies needed well lit areas for safe working conditions—a fact that he mused about while standing in the faded glow of a streetlamp that had seen better days.
An industrial bakery was nearby, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, and the stench coming out of the vents was nausea inducing. Flicker, innocent to so much in the world, thought that a bakery of any sort would smell good; warm, wholesome, and inviting, but this was not the case. As Flicker went down the street, a young couple hurried away from the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen together. For some reason, as Flicker looked at the couple, he thought of Hennessy.
Hennessy would be warm right about now. Distracted, Flicker thought pleasant thoughts of Hennessy, a heavy blanket, and some cocoa. For some reason, Piper was there too, but she had her own blanket and her own cocoa. Perhaps a roaring, crackling fire. Or better still, he could be at his parent’s house, and they could all be together. The colt sighed at the thought, then shivered in misery.
“You poor dear… what are you doing out on the streets?”
His blood freezing, Flicker turned around to face the pony speaking to him. She was old looking, with loose, wrinkled skin, and there was a smell… she smelled bad. Something smelled bad, anyway. She was wearing a heavy, ratty looking cloak that hung from her like a shroud. The old mare’s horn was swollen looking and the casing was translucent. Flicker was certain that it was his imagination, but he could have sworn he saw something… moving inside of her horn.
“You look so neglected. What are you doing out on the streets, little one?”
Flicker, worried about his creativity and his ability to tell a convincing lie, tapped on his throat with his hoof. He waited, looking at the mare, who was just about the same size as he was. After a few seconds, her face lit up with understanding.
“Oh, you poor dear, you’re mute… if you got into trouble, nopony could hear you cry for help… oh, you poor little darling… let me help you. At home, I have tea and cakes. I’m an old mare and my foals have all grown up and gone away. I’m a lonesome old widow, and I just want somepony I can fawn over.”
Ears drooping, Flicker nodded.
“Follow me home, little one, and let me help you.”
‘Home’ was a tiny, cramped apartment up on the third floor of a rowhouse. Flicker lacked the descriptive creativity to fully express just how bad the stench was. Something was rotten here. He watched his benevolent host as she teetered around her tiny kitchen. His eyes kept going to her horn, which he had a better view of in the light of her kitchen.
It was swollen for certain, enlarged, engorged, and the base of it was lumpy. The casing was indeed, translucent, thin, like wet or greasy paper, and something unsettling was moving around inside of it. It wasn’t his imagination, because Flicker hardly even had one. The mare’s eyes were weepy and gritty snot crusted in the corners.
“So rare to see a little unicorn round here,” the old mare said. “Most of the unicorns have better jobs in the better parts of town. Oh, I would imagine that you must have quite a story to tell about how you escaped from some orphanarium, or perhaps from the hospital, by the looks of things.” The old mare smiled, and it was unpleasant. “Such a pity you are so quiet.”
Flicker could not help but notice that the old mare had never offered her name. Her skin was lumpy, it hung from her in odd ways, and he was certain that he could see things… slithering just beneath her flesh. Flicker wondered where Wicked and the others were. As he thought about this, the old mare let out a wheezy chuckle.
“Foolish colt, your friends will never be able to find you here, but it was nice of them to offer up a tasty treat for this old mare.”
It took Flicker’s mind several long seconds to realise that he had been played. His reaction was swift, terrible, and brutal. With his telekinesis, he swept the black iron kettle that was almost boiling from up off of the stove, and then with a terrific slam, he bashed the old mare right on her diseased looking horn.
She let out a cry as her horn ruptured like a compacted cyst. Slimy goo, the colour of pale cheese curds in whey, spurted from the ruptured magical organ, and little wriggling, writhing things that looked like leeches dribbled down from the gaping hole on her forehead. The old mare, far from being injured, began to cackle, and Flicker felt his blood run cold as the kettle clattered to the floor.
A thin, slender tentacle slithered out of the pus-spurting hole in the mare’s forehead and almost formed a question mark. The mare’s lower jaw fell open, and then much to Flicker’s horror, her lower jaw ripped in half, almost as if it were unzipping, pulling apart, and it became two gnashing mandibles. Seeing this, Flicker only had one thing to say.
“Fuck me.”
He dove out of his chair as the mare continued to transform into something else, something not a mare, and more curious, seeking tentacles had joined the first. Things became chaotic as the front door exploded into splinters, and Wicked entered, followed by a cigar smoking Starry Ire. The explosion rattled the walls and shook the apartment.
Wooden panels fell away from the walls, revealing horrors inside. Eggs glistened inside of long, translucent, veiny tubes. Little leech things slithered around inside of the mess, and the eggs were suspended in a creamy yellow-green substance. It took Flicker several seconds to realise that he was looking at intestines, guts, the eggs were secured inside of slick, smooth intestines, filled with leech things and goo.
So much happened all at once. Flicker, disgusted and horrified, set the hidden horrors inside of the walls on fire with his magic as his hooves scrabbled over the kitchen’s linoleum floor. Wicked and Starry were casting defensive spells and the old mare, no longer a mare, began shrieking. The fire blazed through the old half rotten wood and the apartment filled with smoke.
“My babies!” she screeched in a scratchy, furious whine. “My precious babies! They take so long to hatch! You wretched little shit, my babies! I’ll gobble your little balls!”
Screaming, the mare continued to transform, and the skin of her four legs split open after stretching far too tight. Each of her equine legs began to tear, ripping asunder, and long, hairy, spindly legs burst forth. Spider legs, horrible, terrible, sanity destroying spider legs. Still screeching, the spider-pony-tentacle monster puked out a blob of acid at Flicker, who lept out of the way.
Moving, terrified, screaming with mortal fear, Flicker hit the boarded over window as hard as he could with his telekinesis, causing the wood and glass to splinter and shatter. He took off at a run, unable to deal with the sudden appearance of spider legs. With the apartment now blazing, Flicker slammed the kitchen table into the monstrous mare to knock her out of his way, then he charged for the window, shouting and yelling, spitting out incomprehensible curses, unable to deal with his arachnophobia.
The colt lept out of the third floor window, not caring about the consequences, he just wanted to be away from the spider-pony-tentacle monster. Flames followed him out into the night, and so did the spider-pony-tentacle monster. Wicked was right behind her, and Starry was right behind him.
Midair, Flicker was snatched by Dapper, who swooped down and kept Flicker from smashing into the street. Flicker was dropped from a safe distance, and then Dapper swooped away as the eight legged spider creature landed on the sidewalk. Flicker, who hated spiders, kept running, and the spider-pony-tentacle monster took off after him, bent on revenge for him burning up her precious, precious babies.
“You have been selected for termination! Please cease your struggles and comply!”
The voice belonged to Warden Owleye, who came barrel-rolling in from the rooftops. Behind him, Warden Dread Drop flapped her wings and moved to intercept the spider-pony-tentacle monster chasing after Flicker. The eldritch horror paused for a moment, just long enough to puke some digestive juices in the general direction of the two Wardens, and then she was after Flicker again.
“Your life is forfeit, monster! Do not resist your termination process! Submit and comply!”
“Oh, shut up, Warden Owleye! I don’t think she plans to go along quietly!”
A long, slender tentacle whipped out and almost snatched Flicker’s hind leg. The colt doubled around, ducking, and began to run towards Wicked, bringing the monster with him. His hind legs were soaked with urine and his eyes were aglow with the frantic struggle of survival. More ponies began to arrive, more unicorns, they appeared in flashes of light and joined the battle.
“UNFORGIVABLE!” the monstrous mare screeched, venting her ire for Flicker’s terrible crime.
The air filled with spells cast by the unicorns and much to Flicker’s horror, the spider-pony-tentacle monster could also cast spells, which she flung from the tentacles that sprouted from her forehead. He dove and took cover beneath a wagon, terrified, struggling to draw breath and feeling a dreadful pain in his side.
Spiders were the most awful thing ever and Flicker just couldn’t deal with them.
Wicked, moving and dodging about, put himself in between Flicker and the vengeful eldritch horror. Using his magic, he snapped off a street lamp, and the exposed electrical wiring spit and crackled. Scowling, he held his makeshift spear at the ready, waiting for the time to strike.
Flicker felt himself grabbed and lifted, then found himself in Warden Dread Drop’s embrace. Looking down, he could see that the ponies were getting up off of the street, and then he saw why. Starry opened up a hydrant, which flooded the street, soaking everything with water, including the old mare that was no longer a mare, but was more of an eldritch spider horror with tentacles, at the moment.
Wicked, who had lept up onto a stone bannister beside some stairs, rammed the arcing streetlamp, its cable still connected to a power supply, right into the spider-legged night terror, skewering her like a bug on a pin. The resulting wet electrocution made her dance a festive looking jig, her legs flailed about as her tentacles thrashed, and acidic digestive juices dribbled from her flailing mandibles. The tarantula lady danced a fine tarantella.
Explosive wounds appeared upon the spider-mare’s sides, which spewed out things that looked like leeches. She screamed and screeched; she was incoherent as the electricity cooked her from within. The apartment she had transformed into her hatchery was now ablaze and a column of flame rose high into the night.
Rising higher into the night sky, Flicker was glad to leave the scene of battle behind.
Sitting in a cafe, Flicker, huddled up in his coat, stared down into his coffee cup as he tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t know how it ended, he was thankful that Warden Dread Drop had hauled him away, and he wondered how long he would have nightmares about giant spider creatures living in disguise as old mares roaming the streets looking for orphans.
Now, everything would be swept away, because that was what S.M.I.L.E. did. This horror would be erased, forgotten, and ponies would feel safe again. Warden Dread Drop was sitting beside him, drinking coffee and eating scrambled eggs as though nothing had happened. Across the table, Wicked and Warden Owleye did much the same.
Flicker’s own scrambled eggs remained untouched. He didn’t want to think about eggs, not after what he had seen in the wall. Lifting his head, the colt looked at Wicked and asked, “What happens now?”
It was Owleye who answered, “Our field agents go to work with their Reflection Deflection—”
“Nopony calls them that, Owleye, they’re Ref Defs,” Dread Drop interjected.
“ —Units and after being hit by the magic of the Reflection Deflection rays, those who witnessed the spider-hag will have trouble reflecting upon the memory, so it won’t trouble them. They’ll think about something else, something pleasant.”
This seemed quite reasonable to Flicker and he wasn’t bothered by this information in the slightest. He sniffed his coffee and said, “She was ready for us. She knew it was a trap and didn’t care. She thought that she was untouchable. I find this upsetting.”
Scooping up some scrambled eggs, Wicked nodded.
“What was she?”
Chewing his eggs, Wicked shrugged.
Thinking about the big pill he had swallowed, Flicker took a sip of coffee. “And these are the sorts of things that the Crown protects us all from?”
“Aye, Lad.”
“And I am a part of that now?” Flicker put down his coffee cup.
“Ye are, Lad. And you did well for yer first assignment. Don’t feel ashamed for being scared, Lad. That was an unnatural ‘orror… there are things in this world that are in’erently evil and can’t be reasoned with, which is something you have to deal with when you live in a world of magic, Lad.” Wicked, eating his eggs, squinted at the colt across the table.
“So, when ponies protest the Crown, when they talk about getting rid of it, like these Ascendency types, they’re protesting the protection that they get from the Crown. These… monsters that are hiding in plain sight and preying on the common pony.” Flicker, looking troubled, stared down into his coffee cup.
“Aye, Lad, that’s certainly one way of looking at it.”
After much effort, Flicker’s brain came to one conclusion that he did not say out loud. Without the Crown and the protection that it offered, there wouldn’t be civilisation. There wouldn’t be organised, competent defense. Most citizens never gave any thought to what they were being protected from; disease, rats, and monsters. Flicker, who was just starting to see the bigger picture, was certain that there were plenty of things that he didn’t know about.
Terrible things.
Once more, Flicker came to the conclusion that sedition was a disease that might very well wipe away society. He concluded that, like foals, ponies had to be protected from themselves, and from the things that would prey upon them. Like foals, most ponies were better off not knowing what lurked in the dark, on the fringes, and the Crown, like devoted parents, allowed society to sleep like foals tucked away in warm beds at night, secure in their parent’s protection and care.
“You know what, I’m fine with all of this,” Flicker announced, deciding on the spot that he could live this sort of life. “I look forwards to our next assignment.”
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So, I guess the source of our zombie-rat problem was found? Or it was just an old mare who got infected instead of the rats... The possibilities...
7792308
Not related.
Of course S.M.I.L.E. would have magical neuralizers.
7792309
Huh... they seems to have some similarities. Oh well, great chapter, as always
7792316
The creature that Flicker just fought is a beldam. It's not mentioned in the story, but that's what she is. She is just one of many nefarious things lurking in the background.
7792308 I think the missing rats were because she was eating them all.
I mean, when you think about it, she probably saved more ponies than she killed, right? Spiders are your friends!
7792327
Correct. Good on ya for noticing that little detail and connecting the dots.
I believe Flicker just found the little old mare that needs to have the shit kicked out of her.
Not a mare, not a mare!
Fire, fire, and then more fire is definitely the right approach at this point.
I like this electrocution plan, too.
7792308 it was discussed in the near-death vision with Lima Bean. Grogar is the one stopping the souls of the rats from crossing over, creating sort-of-undead rats that it only Flicker can kill because he is an Avatar of Death (or at least becoming one)
7792327
Ah, makes sense. Too bad she was evil, could've done some good :P
7792325
I now fear what the future holds for us...
7792312
The storybook where Lyra ends up an agent is a fun read. Also introduces what happens when a changeling gets too close to too much love.
7792312 derpicdn.net/img/download/2016/10/30/1285156.gif
derpicdn.net/img/download/2016/3/20/1113199.jpg
reading
in my mind i could hear this
[youtube=07So_lJQyqw]
Boo!
7792409
Why boo?
That was brilliant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella
7792331
I don't think fire is enough for this... Now Napalm, or a Fat Man with either a Mini Nuke, MIRV Upgrade or a Nuka-Nuke would be best.
7792411
Yes, it was brilliant, but the pun still hurt! I'm booing because I didn't think of it!
Straight out of the same sources Gaiman used for Coraline, and a nasty creature this was indeed. Luckily, Flicker is far from helpless.
In my Equestria, dealing with creatures like this is one of the main jobs of the Night Watch. Not that there are THAT many creatures like that. Thanks in part to the Night Watch.
7792463
Yep, she's a beldam, but ponyfied.
Yup. Weird, but definitely prepared for. Still really freaky though.
I just found it really funny he used those words when the tentacles came out.
7792332 Maybe we could call the rats Unliving, rather than Undead?
from the spider lady and smashing the eggs all I got was nefariousrealm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/It-1990-Pennywise-shower.jpg
Ooooo, this was an exciting chapter. The spider mare is reminiscent of the Jorōgumo (only uglier to begin with). Kind of like Jorōgumo meets the witch in Hansel and Gretel.
Soooo about that A/N at the end of this chapter. Can I borrow one of those Reflection Deflection Unit thingy magigs? I need it to forget this horrid monster.
Are you a fan of World of Darkness? Because in the Werewolf line of books, 2 of the main enemies are rat monsters and spider monsters that act pretty similarly to the one here
7792331 LOTs and lots of electricity arc lighting is literally what it says on the tin. Lighting created by arcing electricity between two points
Very nice chapter. The spider knew it was a trap and still took the bait because she was sure they couldn't find her. Which was quickly proven wrong not that Flicker was defenseless.
Yikes, that creature was a nasty piece of work. Then again, somepony has to hold the line against the night, after all, you don't get a magical land without magical weirdness like that.
Mmmm, that's some tasty Lovecraftian cuisine, my complements to the chef.
Still, Mr. Nicker has much to learn about the horrors within the void and what it means for there to be good governance in a society. A question I would love to pose to him would be something like, "Wouldn't it be better to have a thousand times as many eyes keeping watch?"
7792630
Against the darkness, friend. Princess Luna isn't trying to grind civilization to dust anymore.
Chrysalis would have kicked that thing's bulbous, tentacled ass.
FLICKER GAY CONFIRMED?
Seriously though, love what you've done.
7792884
Or, you know, traded recipes and had tea together while they talked about their precious babies.
7792447 Evacuate the city and drop a Tsar bomba.
Ok. I knew that S.M.I.L.E. dealt with things that ponies were better off not knowing about.
I wasn't quite expecting, you know, Delta Green.
7793110
I was thinking about the local branch of S.M.I.L.E. for Baltimare being called Delta Green, should I write the story of, Hiccup, Paranormal Investigator.
7793134
Apparently, I know you too well.
Good thing I otherwise know too little.
What's this about books? 0w0
intersting.
hmmm. inherently evil creatures i find strange. albeit i am far from against the ideas.
a looong ass time ago i had an idea for a story. its kind been on the backburner for years now. one concept is that things that are inherently evil, often times struggle the most to remain in existence. they have to hide in darkest of places. because they were unnatural, utterly and totally.
and because of their unnatural nature, the more 'natural' entities would kill them on sight.
basically if you had something like this spider monster and it walked out in the open, something would get into a fight with it in short order. darkness, light, and the energies of nature are all natural things, but such a thing is a profanity of the natural, and thus natural beings would lash out at it if they noticed its existence.
just a thoguht i had many years ago, long before even pony existed.
7793421
The beldam is a vampiric creature that feeds upon the life energies of others.
This is not something that would endear it to the forces of good, and it can't just learn to adapt to a new food source.
7792722 A good catch, belike. I was in the mind of paraphrasing Babylon 5, and missed that connection, that I did.
Indeed, here, she's practically in command of those who pledge their lives to hold the line against the darkness.
Ugh Spiders. Poor Flicker I'm right there with him on the Spider front and facing that I think I would hurl.
"Utility Muffin Research Kitchen"
Zappa much?
Wicked: "So Lad, 'ow do you think you'll like SMILE?"
Flicker: "I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it!"
7792955 Nah, it's a girl spider-monster
Poor Flicker. This is NOT the first monsterhunting job you want if you're an arachnophobe.
YOU FOOL!
NEVER say that in the presence of tentacles!
...
I still have Shoggoth on the Roof stuck in my head.
TENTAAAAACLEEEEEEEES.
Much better.
"That ought to do it. Thanks very much."
You think that SWALLOWING it was unpleasant? What comes in, must go out.
You're going to learn what "unpleasant" means