082 - Our Little Horror Story
The portal opened up into a dimly-lit living room. It was designed for humans, probably of an era where TV either wasn’t commonplace or hadn’t been invented yet. There were two chairs set at a round, wooden table with a book on it, while a couch sat closer to an unlit fireplace. The mantle was lined with vases and trinkets of varying colors, usually made of a translucent material that glinted in the dim lighting. Rugs lined the floor with complicated geometric patterns, colored with deep forest greens and burgundy overtop of a golden background. It would have felt homely, if it wasn’t so dark.
Pinkie Pie and the rest of her team stepped through the portal, the ring of transdimensional energy closing behind them.
“Oh, look. Creepy house,” Vriska observed, adjusting her shirt.
“Thank you captain obvious,” Nova deadpanned, examining the room they were in. She picked up an empty vase with her magic, casting a slight blue glow on the table it was on. “Yeesh, would it kill them to turn up the lights?”
“Could be vampires,” Flutterfree pointed out.
“That’s sunlight, not interior lighting.”
“Yare yare daze…” Jotaro said, adjusting his hat.
Pinkie cleared her throat. “So, I have a question. Anyone else feel like this place is off?”
“I did say it was a creepy house, right?” Vriska asked.
“I mean more than that. The chill down the spine, the unnerving quality to the air… It just feels like something’s up.”
Flutterfree nodded. “I feel it… All my coat hairs are standing on end.”
“Same,” Nova conferred.
Jotaro nodded slowly.
“Right, so something’s up,” Pinkie said, tasting the air. “Or it’s just a normal, creepy house, but we have to be careful.” She looked around a bit more until she came across something that really did look odd. The window. It looked like there was nothing through it at all – all they could see were their reflections and, behind that, utter and complete blackness.
Everyone followed her gaze. “…Odd,” Flutterfree admitted.
“Jojo, break the window, see what’s outside,” Vriska suggested.
“Wai-” Pinkie began, but she didn’t talk fast enough. Jotaro pummeled the window with Star Platinum. It would have been enough force to break a steel beam. The glass didn’t even crack.
“That’s not glass,” Jotaro said. “Feels like it, definitely isn’t.”
“Next time think before punching,” Pinkie pointed out. “But now we know this place definitely isn’t normal.” She pulled out the dimensional device, smirking. “So, who’s gonna place bets on if this will work or not?”
“Just try it and save us the suspense,” Nova deadpanned.
Pinkie pressed a button on the device – and no portal opened. “Eeyeparoons, we’re stuck. To the surprise of literally nobody.” She stretched her legs. “Well, we’re going to have to find out what’s stopping us. Nova, any thoughts?”
Nova lit her horn, prodding the area around them for information. “Magic sense doesn’t go beyond the window, and it drops off sharply just beyond all the doors of this room. I can tell you there’s rooms behind the doors, but that’s it.”
“Vision eightfold isn’t turning up anything helpful either,” Vriska said.
“Then we just have to look for clues the old fashioned way!” Pinkie declared. “Investigating!”
Jotaro picked up the book on the table and began flipping through it. He held it up for everyone to see, flipping through blank page after blank page. He closed it, showing them the cover devoid of a title.
Nova levitated the book over to her. “Huh. Are any of us dreaming?” She flipped through the book herself, scanning it closely.
“Vriska pinch patrol is ready. Hey Jojo!”
Jotaro used Star Platinum to pinch himself, glaring at Vriska for daring to suggest she pinch him.
“Bah, fine.” She got a defenseless Flutterfree with a pinch to the wing, removing a feather.
“O-ow!”
“Not dreaming.” Vriska rolled across the room and pinched Pinkie.
“Noooot dreaming!” Pinkie sung.
Vriska pinched herself. “Oh, not dreaming.”
“Don’t even bother testing me,” Nova said, laying the book open on the table to a page about two thirds of the way through. There was one sentence of text in the middle of the page.
Emma had an idea today. What a wonderful idea it was.
Pinkie put on her Sherlock hat and bubble pipe. “The first of many clues… We now know of two characters! Emma, and the author of this note! Let it be known!”
“And Emma had a good idea,” Vriska muttered, folding her arms. “All this does is make everything seem creepier. And this house does not need any help with that.”
“Don’t dismiss it,” Flutterfree said. “It might be important later.”
Pinkie nodded. “It’s a piece of the puzzle… A puzzle we will no doubt have to solve to get out of this manor of mystery!”
Nova rolled her eyes. “Yeah, probably. Still seems a little ridiculous.”
“Have you met us?” Vriska asked.
“…Unfortunately yes.”
“So, what now?” Flutterfree asked.
“We ask ourselves what’s behind door number one,” Pinkie said, bouncing up to a door and opening it. It led to a hallway without any lighting, dropping off into darkness in the distance. It was easily far longer than any hallway had any right to be.
“And that seals the deal,” Pinkie said. “If I wasn’t sure before, I’m sure now. We’re in a horror universe of some kind or other. We’re gonna need to be extra careful.”
The four of them nodded.
“First off, stay together at all times. No splitting up to look for clues. Never go far from each other for any reason. Especially not to go investigate an odd noise. If something scares you, don’t freak out. Panicking is the last thing we need. Pay attention to the smallest details, and never assume just punching a monster will do anything to it.”
“Anything else?” Vriska asked.
“Yeah. Don’t be stupid. Being stupid is how these things always go downhill.”
Everyone looked at Vriska. The troll rolled her eyes. “Har de har. Let’s just walk down the hallway of endless darkness already.”
Pinkie led the way, Nova at her side producing a blue glow so they could see. They moved along the featureless white-walled hall, glancing behind them occasionally to ensure they were getting further away from the living room door. Every time, the door was smaller, soon looking like nothing more than a pinprick of light.
And then the door slammed shut, sending ringing echoes through the dark hall. They were alone in the blue aura of Nova’s horn.
“…Go back?” Vriska suggested.
Pinkie shook her head. “We’d just have to walk this far again. Let’s keep moving for a while longer.”
A while longer turned out to be until they saw a soft, amber glow ahead of them. They quickened their pace the moment they saw it, their hooves and feet hitting the ground below them louder and louder as they approached.
The amber light turned out not to be an exit. Until they reached it, they had thought it might be a branching path in the hallway – but it only went into the wall about a meter. The walls within the depression were just as white as the hallway, and bare except for one large mirror on the back wall, lit only by a dim bulb embedded in the ceiling.
The five of them stood in front of the mirror, Pinkie in the center. They stared at their own reflections for a while.
Jotaro tried to pry the mirror off the wall, but it didn’t budge.
“…Well this is pointless,” Vriska observed.
Pinkie furrowed her brow. “…I don’t think anything is pointless here. Remember, we’ve got to pay attention. Dismiss nothing. Be on the tips of our hooves, ready at any moment…”
Jotaro nodded.
“There’s nothing else here,” Nova said, completing her scan. “I guess we just keep moving.”
Pinkie nodded, bouncing on ahead, leading the group along. They didn’t have to walk all that much further before they came to a place where the hallway just ended.
“Welp, time to go back,” Vriska said, turning around on her heels. “A long walk back to the living room!”
“Hold on a minute,” Nova said, feeling the wall with her magic. “There’s something on the other side here…” She tapped it with her hoof, producing a hollow sound. “A room, I think.”
Star Platinum cracked its knuckles. Pinkie nodded, allowing him to go nuts. The Stand let out a cry of “ORA,” plowing right through the thin plaster of the wall to another room. The area on the other side was dimly lit, but it was a bright enough difference from near-complete darkness that everyone covered their eyes.
The team moved out into an octagonal room with four doors – they had come through one of the four sides without a door. The walls were lined with pictures in wooden frames, each with an inscription plate beneath them. Around a half-dozen had been dislocated from the wall Jotaro had punched through.
Flutterfree picked one of the pictures up – it was of a newlywed human couple standing in front of a house. The scenery around the house was out of focus, but somehow both the couple and the house were detailed to a degree not usually seen in photographs of this type. Flutterfree felt like she could look into their smooth faces forever, or at the slats in the house’s roof…
“That window,” Jotaro said, looking at the picture with Star Platinum. “It’s exactly like the one in the living room.”
“So we’re in this house,” Vriska said. “Except not, because that hallway was probably a mile long.”
“Based on the house then,” Flutterfree said, checking the picture’s inscription. “Homecoming…” she said, testing the feel of the word on her lips.
“This one’s inscription is scratched out,” Nova said, holding up a picture that was just of the woman. “Think this is Emma?”
“She’s the only woman in any of these pictures, so that seems like a good assumption,” Flutterfree said, going through picture after picture. “All the others have scratched out inscriptions though…”
“It’s like the blank book,” Jotaro said. “Only one piece of information.”
Pinkie shook her head. “We can get stuff from the pictures. Look.” She held up one of the man sitting in a chair, reading the green book they had seen in the other room. “This guy, probably the author of that note back there, is a reading type. Why else would this picture be here?”
Vriska ran her finger around the room, touching each picture. “Guy, girl, guy, girl… house… Nothing but the guy, the girl, and the house.”
“The memories that matter?” Flutterfree suggested.
“Maybe…” Pinkie picked an octagon-shaped frame off the wall. “But this one’s different.”
Everyone crowded around her, looking at the picture. It was dark, showing an empty forest in the middle of the night. The camera hadn’t been looking at anything when the picture was taken – it was essentially a picture of nothing.
Pinkie furrowed her brow. “Why is this here…?”
Vriska shrugged, turning away. “It adds to the creepy facto- holy hell.”
Everyone turned with her, looking back the way they’d come. Above the hole they had punched in the wall hung a yellow post-it note.
“That definitely wasn’t there before,” Flutterfree said.
Nova levitated the post it note closer to her so she could read it.
We worked so hard.
It was going to be perfect.
“Cue the singing Chrysalis,” Pinkie said with a giggle. No Chrysalis showed up. “Oh well, that would have been funn-”
The lights in the room flickered out. Flutterfree screamed in panic.
Nova lit her horn with a sigh. “Flutterfree, it’s just darkness. No need to scr-” she blinked, brightening her horn to light the whole room. “…Where’s Flutterfree?”
The lights flickered back on, still no sign of Flutterfree.
“Hold on, hold on…” Pinkie said, putting a hoof to her head. “I’ve got her…”
Flutterfree didn’t know what had happened to her, but she did know it was dark and damp where she was. She was in about a half-inch deep pool of water on top of smooth stone. No light was forthcoming.
“Hello?” she called.
“She’s confused and somewhere wet,” Pinkie said, pacing frantically. “Jotaro, try bashing through the floor. Maybe she’s below us.”
“ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!”
Flutterfree spread her wings and nervously started moving through the water – straight line. If she didn’t go in a straight line she was likely to get completely lost.
She was struck by how quiet everything was. No sounds but her own breathing and sloshing in the still water.
“She’s not hearing anything,” Pinkie said, furrowing her brow.
Jotaro stopped trying in vain to destroy the floor. “Anything else?”
“She can’t see anything, and I’m not getting any extra information from the description either,” Pinkie muttered. She didn’t say what else she was thinking.
Flutterfree decided maybe she should fly upward, see if there was a ceiling. She spread her wings and took to the sky, flapping furiously. A few seconds of this and gravity reversed, dropping her unceremoniously on the ‘ceiling’, which was effectively identical to the floor.
She was trapped. Alone. With no connection to her friends.
“No need to rub it in…” Pinkie muttered. She grabbed the picture of the dark forest and shook her head. She began rummaging through all the pictures, trying to find something of use.
Flutterfree felt a hand grab her hind hoof.
Pinkie let out an alarmed gasp. “Something’s down there with her.”
Vriska put a hand to her head. “I can’t find any psychic signatures…”
Flutterfree tore her hoof away from the hand and smashed another hoof down, expecting to crush it. But nothing was there.
Was it just her, or did the water feel deeper? …How could it be rising while still being completely stagnant?
“And now the water’s rising,” Pinkie reported. “Anyone, ideas?!”
Nova opened all the doors – each of them led to a different room. A game parlor, a study, a staircase, and a bathroom. Pinkie bounced into the bathroom, listening for sounds of water or Flutterfree. She banged on a few pipes.
Flutterfree had to start swimming a lot faster than she expected – she was treading water easily enough, but she had no idea how long until the top water level met the bottom water level. She spread her wings, planning to fly as far as she could as fast as she could. Wet wings didn’t matter to a pegasus.
Pinkie shook her head. “Nothing…”
Nova checked all the pipes, but found that, upon removing one of them from the wall, they didn’t lead anywhere. And yet, when she put the pipe back on, the sink produced water. “Just… Gah!”
Flutterfree felt the water rise to meet her hooves as she flew – so she made a quick adjustment upward. She expected to be crushed by water on both sides any minute now – and then to drown. She forced herself to focus on breathing. She’d need as much air as possible in her lungs to last the longest under the water.
The hand rushed out of the water and grabbed her back hoof. She let out all her air in a scream as she was dragged under.
“Flutterfree!” Pinkie screamed. “Nononononon-”
There was a loud crash from in the study room.
“I can’t see her anymore!” Pinkie shouted, scrambling across the room of pictures to the study, the rest of her team following behind. The study was well lit, unlike the rest of the house had been so far, and was filled with loose sheets of paper and post-it notes.
There was nothing in the room that could have made the crash. However, one of the walls was missing – replaced with the depression that held the mirror and the amber light. It showed their reflections.
Where Flutterfree was supposed to be, the mirror was slightly cracked – a Polaroid picture taped to the cracks. It showed Flutterfree laying on her back, limp, water pouring out of her mouth onto the cold, stony ground.
Pinkie’s mane lost all poof in an instant, deflating less like a balloon and more like a dying animal.
“T-that has to be a trick,” Nova said. “She was fine just a second ago. You don’t drown that fast. It’s just trying to get to us!”
“It happened,” Pinkie spat. “It definitely happened. It got her.”
“It?” Nova blurted. “Pinkie, what is it?”
“I don’t know!” Pinkie screamed. “All I know is that it got her and had a claw and can swim! And that it’s placing pictures on this mirror.”
Jotaro reached out to touch the picture.
“Don’t,” Pinkie ordered. “It could be trapped.”
Jotaro pulled back, hand curling into a fist.
“Oh my Stars… Flutterfree…” Nova said, hoof to her face.
“Stop,” Pinkie said, slapping Nova. “We’re still in danger. We need to keep our wits about us to figure this thing out. We… we…” She held a hoof to her chest. “We can deal with this later.”
“…Can we?”
“Just focus on surviving,” Pinkie told her. “If it got her, it’s going to be able to get us!”
“We need something to tie ourselves together with,” Jotaro said. “So it can’t just grab one of us and drag us to the wet place.”
Vriska started searching the study frantically. “Nothing… Nothing… Nothing…”
Pinkie pulled licorice rope out of her mane. “This’ll do. I’ve got virtually endless amounts.” Over the next few moments, she tied all their midsections together. “Don’t break it, it’s not strong.”
“This isn’t ideal,” Jotaro said.
“I’m a party pony! I don’t get to carry around survival supplies in here all the time. Get with the program, Jojo.”
Jotaro nodded.
“Everyone arm yourselves,” Pinkie said, pulling out a knife. Nova cast some defensive spells on all of them while Vriska readied her dice. They slowly moved back into the picture room, somber expressions.
She’s not gone for good, Pinkie told herself. There’s going to be a loophole. You don’t just kill off Flutterfree like that. It’s not how it works.
“Game parlor or stairs?” Vriska asked, her voice lower than usual.
“Parlor,” Pinkie said, leading the way, no longer bouncing in her movements. The team walked into the room, devoid of any of the cheerful discussion that had been with them up until this point. They were down a mare.
The game parlor was a wide, open room with enough light to be comfortable at any time of day – including blacker than midnight, which is what it was ‘outside’ right now. There were several card tables set up with small wooden chairs around them, and a well-stocked bar to one side. One card table was larger than all the others and was already set up for a game.
“Nobody drink anything,” Pinkie said.
“Don’t even need to be told,” Nova commented, starting her scans of the area. “Got nothing.”
“Look for notes, anything that could have words on it,” Pinkie said.
“There were a lot of books the study,” Vriska commented, leaning on the larger card table. “Probably should go check those.”
Pinkie nodded. “Yeah… It would be thorough…”
“Why that mirror though?” Nova asked. “Why’d it appear again?”
“It’s toying with us,” Jotaro said. “Letting us know that it has places for all our pictures on that mirror.”
Pinkie nodded slowly, checking under the card tables for anything useful, but finding nothing.
Vriska picked up a hand of five cards, examining it. “Huh. Quite the hand here. Absolute trash.”
“Not helpful,” Nova muttered bitterly.
Vriska didn’t respond right away. “…Hey guys? I think I might have just fucked up really badly.”
They turned to her, seeing her holding the hand of horrible cards – all cards with numbers lower than eight of mixed suits. They also saw the other hand of cards across from her floating in the air, held by something completely invisible.
Both Vriska and the ghostly presence only had one poker chip. The chips moved to the center of the table all on their own. The game was on, and everything bet was contained in the two chips.
“…This seems a bit unfair…” Vriska muttered. “Can you go check ghosty’s cards for me?”
Pinkie gestured for Jotaro to do it. He walked nearer to the ‘ghost’s’ edge of the table, using Star Platinum to peak around the corner. “All the cards are blank.”
“I bet they won’t be once he lays them down…” Nova said.
“So, I’ve got trash cards,” Vriska said. “I get the impression that, if I fold here or walk away, I lose. I don’t want to know what losing entails in this house.”
“Definitely not,” Pinkie agreed, frantically looking around for something to help them – but the game parlor was devoid of any useful information.
“So…” Vriska took a breath. “I think this is five-card poker. I’ll be able to exchange any number of cards I want once, and so will ghosty over there. Then we’ll show our hands. Usually there’s a lot of betting in the middle but since there are only two chips...” She curled up her fist. “Don’t like the odds on this one…”
Nova tried using her magic on the ghostly presence on the other side of the table. “I’m not interacting with anything there. Not even any magic around the cards. It just is. But also isn’t.”
Pinkie started rummaging through the bottles on the bar. “Aha! Got something. This label has words on it.” She brought the bottle of wine over, showing it to everyone.
What if there was a perfect creature of horror?
One that existed purely to terrify.
One that could never be seen.
One that never did the same thing twice.
They all turned to ‘look’ at the ghostly presence holding the cards.
“Definitely toying with us,” Vriska said, laughing bitterly. “I bet it’s cheating.”
“Probably,” Jotaro said, summoning Star Platinum. “Just play.”
Vriska kept her seven and her two – both of spades. She tossed the other three cards away. Nothing happened. “…Guess I have to draw from the deck myself.”
Pinkie knew Jotaro stopped time there for a moment, but there was no way anyone could have told. Nothing looked different – even he looked to be in the exact same position he had been in a moment ago.
Vriska drew three cards – and grinned. “Hell yeah.” All five of the cards were spades. A flush.
The ghostly presence threw out one card and drew another one.
Vriska laid her cards on the table. “Flush, invisible beast. Beat that.”
It did. The cards fell to the table, revealing four aces and a king.
Vriska’s confident grin fell. “Fu-”
The card table flipped end over end, moving to crush Vriska. Star Platinum punched it out of the way while Vriska rolled her dice. “EAT THIS!”
She rolled 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Vriska muttered. Her dice summoned a beautiful, blue sword – and then drove it through Vriska’s seven-pupil eye, tearing off the licorice rope and pinning her to a dartboard, the tip of the sword hitting the bullseye. Cobalt blood splattered over the wall and dripped to the ground below her.
She didn’t move.
“What the he-” Nova began – but the ghostly presence apparently wasn’t done. Another table came flying at the remaining three, punched away by Star Platinum before it hit them.
They heard it getting closer. There were sounds of scraping and harsh, scratchy breathing – but there were no visible scratch marks on the floor, and the sounds didn’t appear to have a direction to them.
Nova shot a pulse of magic in every direction, knocking all the tables over and breaking all the bottles in the bar. There was no sign of the creature, but they could still hear it getting closer.
“RUN!” Pinkie shouted, bolting out the exit door with Jotaro. Nova teleported to them, generating a shield to watch their backs. They came out into a theater – they could hear the sound of clapping, but there was nobody in the audience and there was nothing playing on the big screen.
The door behind them exploded, flying off its hinges and smashing right into Nova’s shield – but it held. “That means it has an actual location!” Nova shouted. “Running might actually be effective!”
“Or it’s just decided that it’s already done ‘gambling’ and ‘ambush’ horror, it’s time for the old fashioned chase,” Pinkie called back.
“At least it means its following rules we understand right now!” She fired magic bolts back at where the beast should have been, hitting nothing whatsoever. “Looks like all we can do is run!”
They reached the door on the opposite end of the theater, punching it open with Star Platinum. They found themselves in another hallway, but unlike the impossibly long one this hall was lit with gas lamps embedded in the walls, and they could see several doors on each side.
They didn’t waste time taking in the scenery. They kept running, trying to keep their distance from the gnashing, monstrous thing that was probably behind them. Probably.
But then they saw a door in front of them come flying off its hinges, spilling shadowy spiral patterns into the hall. A great screech met their ears, the sound a pig would have made if it had ingested a hawk and the bird was eating itself out of the meaty prison.
“STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!” Time stopped – and the motion of the shadows stopped with it. Jotaro pulled a hard left and smashed through a side door, pulling Nova and Pinkie with him. They didn’t flinch when time resumed – they ran alongside him.
The last door had come out of a towering, gray tree, dropping them off in the middle of a dark forest. The sky was starless, moonless, and blacker than black. Nova had to use her horn to light the way, giving everything an eerie blue tinge.
“Is this the forest from that picture?” Nova asked.
“Maybe. I don’t think the picture was of the forest though,” Jotaro said.
Pinkie nodded. “The picture was of that thing. That thing you can’t see but is definitely there.”
“It got Vriska. How did it do that!?” Nova shouted. “Vriska’s indestructible!”
“Clearly not,” Jotaro spat.
They heard a tree behind them fall over. Presumably from an impact with the thing.
“This is all some game to it…” Nova muttered.
“Maybe not,” Pinkie said, glancing behind them at nothing. “Maybe it’s like that note said. It’s the perfect creature of horror, existing only to terrify?”
“It’s really good at its job, then!” Nova shouted. “That doesn’t help us defeat it! Or escape it!”
“We need more information,” Jotaro said. “That girl, Emma, and her husband…”
“They’re definitely related,” Pinkie admitted. “I just don’t know how yet…”
Something made them stop for a moment. To their side was a giant redwood tree, lacking all its leaves. Cut out of the base of its trunk was the depression – lit by an amber light, the mirror within it, cracked in two places now. Pinkie, Nova, and Jotaro were in the same places they had been before – but now there was a photo on the crack where Vriska had been.
The photo was taken from top down, showing the sword’s tip in the dartboard and Vriska’s brutalized face. At her feet were her all-ones dice and cards, splayed to show the four aces she lost to.
“…She’s never going to make it home…” Nova said, voice hollow.
“How does it take those pictures?” Jotaro asked.
“I-” Pinkie was interrupted when something smashed into Nova’s shield with enough force to shatter it. The three of them took off running again, Nova sending out a pulse-shield – but the thing must have gone intangible again.
“It has to be solid to attack us,” Nova reported.
“That doesn’t make sense…” Jotaro said. “It wasn’t making markings on the floor, but it was making scratching noises.” He punched a tree with Star Platinum, knocking it over behind them. They heard the beast snap it in two behind them. “And it snapped that.”
“It’s only making the noises to scare us,” Pinkie said. “We need to remain calm.”
“Calm!?” Nova blurted. “If it’s only making the noises to scare us, that means it doesn’t have to actually bash through anything! It could show up and slit all our throats instantly!”
“It’s not going to do the same thing twice,” Pinkie said. “Right now it’s chasing.”
“Who’s to say it won’t mix it up again after we survive the chase?”
Nobody wanted to answer that question.
They continued to run through the midnight forest, a lack of doors presenting themselves.
“Shed!” Jotaro shouted, pointing at a large metal shed in the distance.
“Good eyes Jojo!” Pinkie called. “Do the thing!”
Jotaro pulled his hat down and nodded with determination. He pulled his fist back. “STAR PLATINUM: THE WORLD!”
The next thing Pinkie and Nova knew, they were inside the shed, a bookshelf knocked over to barricade the door behind them.
They heard the creature plow into the door – but it didn’t break through, it just dented the metal of the shed.
“That is not going to hold for long,” Jotaro said.
“Books!” Nova declared, lighting her horn – the entire shed was filled with shelves and shelves of books. “We need to search this place as fast as possible.”
Pinkie nodded. “Jojo, barricading. Nova, find anything that actually has words.”
Jotaro nodded, continuing to dump all the books off of bookshelves and placing them against the door. He splintered a part of one of the shelves into a stake shape and drove it through the other shelf, connecting them.
The creature gave up pounding on the door and started pounding on the other walls of the shed, sending a metallic ringing throughout the shed’s interior. It made it rather hard for Nova and Pinkie to focus when it sounded like death itself was prowling on the other side of the walls.
“Found a way out!” Nova called, pointing at a trapdoor in the back of the shed. She pulled it open, revealing large stairwell leading deep into the earth, lit by dim lightbulbs.
“Good, but we need information,” Pinkie said, combing through more and more of the books. “Anything we can use! Because right now we’re completely screwed if we can’t find something to use against this thing!”
Nova scanned numerous books with her magic. “Nothing… Nothing… Nothing…”
The beast dented one of the walls almost to the point of breaking. Jotaro punched it back into shape and slid a bookshelf in front of it, but it clearly wasn’t going to hold long. …Or it would hold exactly as long as the presence wanted.
Jotaro walked over to them, sweating profusely. “Anything?”
“No…” Nova said, shaking her head. “Everything here is blank…”
“GOT IT!” Pinkie said, dropping a green book in between the three of them. It had a title – Our Story.
“That sounds promising.”
Pinkie nodded, opening it up and flipping to a page in the middle with a lot more words than what they’d seen previously.
Emma realized something today when working on Our Story.
We didn’t have an explanation! It did things, it was scary, but there was no rhyme or reason.
Of course the horror comes first, but there always needs to be something.
It’s probably a presence from another world.
Something that cannot actually ‘exist’ in the plane of us pathetic mortals.
A purely mental presence.
This could help us with the ending we’re struggling with so much.
“That helps,” Nova said.
“Assuming this creature is the one he’s writing about,” Jotaro pointed out, trying to ignore the scraping coming from the other side of the far wall.
“I’m almost sure it is,” Pinkie said. “We’re stuck in this guy and Emma’s horror novel, that’s pretty clear now.”
“But why would bits of their writing of the novel be in their novel?” Nova said. “That doesn’t make much sense!”
“Clearly we don’t have the full picture. But that’s got to be a big piece.” Pinkie furrowed her brow. “A presence from another world… Can we use that?”
“None of our dimensional technology is working,” Jotaro said. “…This may explain why, but it does not help us.”
“Mental…” Nova said, eyes widening. “Hold on, crazy idea.” She gestured at the wall the creature was currently clawing at. “What if it really isn’t there? Like, it really can’t exist. Purely mental in nature, depending on our perceptions of it to do anything. It’s all us doing this to ourselves.”
Pinkie blinked. “That makes some sense… But do we have any real evidence of that?”
“Think about the way it’s gone after us. Flutterfree was trapped somewhere where she was alone, away from the rest of us. Vriska lost because of bad luck.” The beast banked into a wall, making Nova twitch. “And let’s just say I’m not doing so well in this current scenario.”
“It’s tailoring the horrors to us…” Jotaro realized.
“Bingo,” Nova said, “Which lends some credence to it feeding off our perceptions of it. …If it can be considered to actually exist, as this passage suggests it might not.”
Pinkie nodded. “Right… Right… but what exactly can we do about that?”
“I know mental conditioning spells,” Nova said. “I can convince myself it doesn’t exist. You two as well, if it works.” She lit her horn. “Here’s the plan. I convince myself it doesn’t exist – and then I go out there to see if it can do anything to me. If I’m fine, I’ll give the spell to you two and it won’t have anything it can do to us.”
“And if you aren’t fine?” Pinkie asked.
“Run down the trapdoor.”
Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Nova, this sounds like we’re falling into a ‘noble sacrifice’ trap here. If you’re wrong – and it’s very likely you are – it’ll be your end!”
“I know,” Nova said, a tear rolling down her face. “But we have to know if this works or not. If it does, we win. If it doesn’t, I’ll try to escape. I can have a teleport ready the moment I go out there and condition myself to use it by instinct. Then we’ll all run.”
Pinkie put a hoof on Nova. “Nova… This isn’t going to work.”
Nova stared into Pinkie’s eyes. “Pinkie, I’m only going to ask this once. Answer it honestly. Pinkie promise me you will.”
Pinkie started crying. “Pinkie promise, I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Do you know that, or are you just guessing?”
Pinkie wiped her face. “…I’m just guessing. I don’t know for absolute sure. It… it seems really unlikely you’ll come back. It fits the current pattern of the story, i-”
“But you’re not sure,” Nova interrupted. “That’s all I need to hear.” She encased her head in a blue sphere of magic, clearing her mind of all belief in the creature. “Here goes nothing.” She teleported outside.
Pinkie and Jotaro noticed the scratching had stopped.
“Hey, creature feature!” Nova shouted. “Guess whaaat? You don’t exist! You were all in my head, and now you’re gone! I don’t hear any more noises!” They heard her laugh. “I’m just going to build a little table here and take a seat… I DON’T BELIEVE YOU EXIST! CHANGE MY MIND! I dare you.”
Nova was quiet for a moment. “No takers? Hrm? Nothing? Nothing at all? Not so much as a peep?”
Pinkie saw Jotaro’s posture relax. He thought Nova had won.
Pinkie didn’t believe that for a second.
“Looks like we’re in the clear guys. I’ll give it a minute or so. It’ll feel weird, having your own minds locked out by a spell, but I’m not going to use it to actually brainwash you. …Well it is brainwashing, but who in Equestria even cares at this point. Survival trumps free will, I always say. That’s how it works. At least in this case. …Holy cow I’m getting tired of talking. It’s making me nervous – and I don’t even think there’s danger out here! What is up with me? I’m just rambling on and o-”
There was a disgusting gushing noise and then a soft thud. Nova didn’t say another word. There was no teleport back into the shed.
Pinkie sighed. “…Knew it.”
Jotaro ground his teeth and pulled his hat as low as it would go.
“Jojo, let’s go. We need a new plan.” She slunked over to the trapdoor and flung it open. They both jumped into the stairway and shut the trapdoor behind them.
There were no noises of pursuit. The chase was over.
“It’s going to try something else,” Pinkie said as they descended. “It’ll get one of us with it, and it will be up to the last one to do something. I’m going to try as hard as I can to cheat us through this mess, but it’s clearly a narrative entity. It might be able to overrule me.” She checked the licorice bond between her and Jotaro, noticing the hole where Nova had been. “…It might even go after me next.”
“What do I need to do?”
Pinkie furrowed her brow. “You need t-” she paused. Instead of a door in the side of the stairwell, there was the amber-lit depression with the mirror that was now cracked in triplicate. Pinkie and Jotaro’s reflections were in the same places they always were. Nova’s picture showed her slumped against a tree, eyes wide open in absolute shock. Blood poured from a wound in her head where her horn should have been, dripping all the way down to the ground in miniature red waterfalls.
“Bastard…” Jotaro muttered.
“…You need to find Emma or the one who’s been writing these notes,” Pinkie said. “I’m thinking they’re here, somewhere. Those notes had to be written by someone, and this world seems based on their house. They might have the power to revert every bit of this if they just change their story.”
Jotaro nodded. “I won’t be able to ask nicely.”
“Duress does wonders for the creative process,” Pinkie spat.
Jotaro cracked his knuckles. “Good to hear.”
Pinkie looked at her hooves. “…I’m going to try to force us to the right place, Jotaro. Jump ahead through one of these doors just right to shift things. You know how I vanish behind objects, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m going to drag you with me,” Pinkie said. “Close your eyes. I won’t be able to do it if you see what’s happening.”
Jotaro closed his eyes. Pinkie picked him up and ducked behind a doorframe – appearing somewhere else entirely. Jotaro felt something as this happened – it was not a feeling he could put into words, nor was it a feeling he would be able to remember for long. It was not meant for him.
Pinkie nudged his face, telling him he could open his eyes. But she put a hoof to his mouth, telling him to be quiet.
They were in a bedroom. There was no light, but somehow they could see as if there was a moon out the pitch-black window. The room was clean and bare of most all decorations. The king-sized bed was veiled with drapes – and they could see a female form resting through the translucent cloth.
Pinkie’s mind went into overdrive.
On one hoof, investigating the creepy person sleeping in the bed was a definite way to bite the dust in any horror movie of any kind. It was bound to end badly.
On the other hoof, there may have been something in there they needed to help them. For all they knew, the form was Emma.
…It probably was Emma, come to think of it. They had yet to see any actual entities other than themselves in this universe. The creature was always invisible…
They had to check it out. But they needed to do it safely.
Pinkie nudged Jotaro, making a heaving motion with her body he knew meant to summon Star Platinum. He did, and used the stand to pull the bed’s veil down.
Emma was on the bed, hands folded across her chest. She was wearing a green dress identical to one they had seen in several of the pictures. Clutched in her hands was a yellow post-it note, tinged brown by the dusty nature of her skin. Her hands were skeletal, and her face in a hyper-advanced state of decay. There weren’t any eyes.
She had been dead a long time. And yet, she didn’t stink, despite the clear evidence of advanced decomposition.
“She’s not going to be of any help,” Jotaro observed.
Star Platinum grabbed the post it note and held it at arm’s length.
Emma is gone.
I’ve burned the manuscript.
There will be no ending without her.
Pinkie’s left eye twitched. “…Ponyfeathers.”
Jotaro grabbed his hat. “Yare yare daze…”
“That really doesn’t bode well…” Pinkie muttered. “We need to find him. He’s got to be here somewhere…”
Jotaro turned around to face the window. The moment he did so the window swung open inward. He felt dozens of ghostly hands grab his body and try to pull him in. “NANI!?”
Pinkie knew this trick – if you looked behind yourself at the darkness, you would be taken as well.
“ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!” Star Platinum shouted, finding that it couldn’t do anything to the spirited hands dragging Jotaro into the darkness.
What if I never look behind myself? Pinkie asked herself. Eh, worth a shot. She bounced backward, slamming into Jotaro’s back with her back.
“What th-”
“Shut up and trust me,” Pinkie said, grabbing hold of him by wrapping her hooves around him, making sure she kept facing away from the darkness of invisible hands. They couldn’t grab her – she never looked behind her. She tore Jotaro away from them – and the two of them went flying into the pitch black darkness, soon leaving sight of the impossibly lit window frame.
“…Now what?” Jotaro asked.
“Now, we fall until we hit something,” Pinkie said. “Duh.”
“I’m not going to survive that much of a fall.”
Pinkie pulled a parachute out of her mane and gave it to him. “Use this when you feel the time is right.”
The two of them continued to fall in the darkness.
“Do you think we left the area we were supposed to be in?” Jotaro asked.
“It’s possible,” Pinkie admitted. “I don’t really know though. I do know we won’t keep falling forever.”
They fell for a few more minutes.
“They’re gone,” Jotaro said.
“We’re going to be able to do something,” Pinkie said. “I knew we were never going to make it to the end together. But you don’t ever do this to more than one or two of your main characters unless you are at the end. This is too many. It’s not right. We’ll be able to fix it, somehow.”
“You sure?”
“About as sure as I was that Nova’s plan wasn’t going to work.”
Jotaro was silent. “…What do you know for sure?”
“That there will be a point when only one of us is left,” Pinkie said. “I’m completely certain of that now. It’s probably going to be me, since I had the center position on the mirror every time.”
Jotaro tensed.
“I know. It’s terrifying. It’s also exactly what the thing wants. To tap into a deep, primordial fear within everyone. The fear of being alone, of suffering by chance, of being hunted…” She blinked. “Of having hundreds of hands condemn you to hell, I guess?”
Jotaro sighed. “It was the way a villain was defeated. Yoshikage Kira.”
“I know. …Fear of being the bad guy, then?”
Jotaro nodded slowly.
“Well, with any luck we escaped your pure fear. It’ll probably have to try something else.”
Jotaro was silent.
A few moments later, Pinkie sighed. “Jotaro...”
“There’s no need to say anything or have a deep discussion,” Jotaro interjected. “We need to be on the tips of our toes in case something happens. We can talk later.”
Pinkie nodded. “Right.”
Two minutes later, Jotaro saw the light from a window. He activated the parachute, and they slid right in the tall, rectangular slat. As it turned out, there was no glass – it was the opening in a large observatory. They passed the cylindrical telescope that was larger than them, landing on the floor surrounding the impressive piece of machinery. Papers were strewn about – not a single one with any words on it, but numerous ones marked with stars and planets. Scientific data.
Pinkie started rooting through them. It didn’t take long for her to find the message this time.
Emma always loved the stars.
How come I can’t remember which one she loved the most…?
I know I’ll know it when I see it.
Pinkie wiped her eyes. “Their story… It’s so sad. Writing what might have been a masterpiece…” She shook her head.
She moved on, deciding that note hadn’t given her any new information. She walked around the base of the telescope.
Fear shot through her when she saw what was on the back side of the telescope’s base.
The depression with the amber light and the mirror. With four cracks in it, reflecting just her.
“Jojo?” Pinkie called, whirling around.
He was nowhere to be seen.
Pinkie ran up to the mirror, examining Jotaro’s picture closely. He had a sharp cut going right down his face, with blood squirting out of parts of the crack.
She took a few steps back, blinking. What had happened?
She forced her perceptions back a bit.
Jotaro watched as Pinkie looked through the papers. She commented about how sad it all was – but then Jotaro felt time stop. Instinctually, he stopped it as well, allowing himself to move in the time stop of another entity.
He heard the movements of an age old enemy. He punched out with Star Platinum and then kicked.
The invisible being drove a fist into Star Platinum’s leg, forcing a crack in the Stand that ran all the way from the foot to the head, cutting across the face.
Just like how Jotaro had killed Dio.
He screamed – but no one could hear him inside stopped time. He exploded. Time did not resume until he had been cleaned up by the presence.
Pinkie stopped looking back, gasping. She breathed heavily, glancing around in every direction, in extreme danger of entering complete panic and bolting for the nearest thing that looked like an exit.
But she kept her cool – she looked at herself in the mirror, her own bright blue eyes bringing a sense of clarity and stability to her.
All that remained was a reflection of Pinkie.
She allowed herself to grin like a psycho. “I guess it’s time to drop those inhibitions now! What’s there left to lose!?” She laughed bitterly, twirling a knife in her hooves. Tears rolled down her face in stark contrast to her mad glee. “Who’s ready for a round of impossible? I know I am! Some like to call it maximum overponk.” She pulled a miniature nuke out of her mane and irradiated the entire observatory. Had anything besides the observatory existed within five miles, it would have been vaporized into nothing as well.
Pinkie wasn’t there, of course. She was in a room with no entrances or exits – a perfectly cubical concrete enclosure with one desk. On this desk were a bunch of post-it notes, a cup full of pens, and a green book titled Our Little Horror Story. Sitting behind the desk was a man in a decent suit wearing glasses.
He was very dead. There were no wounds on his body or signs of decomposition, but there was no life in his eyes. It was as if his soul had just chosen to leave his body one moment and it had remained frozen in time after.
Pinkie cut off his head. “This is all your fault,” she muttered. “You don’t deserve any respect.”
The author of the horror she found herself in made no response. Not that he could if he wanted to.
Pinkie rummaged through the post it notes, finding the one with words rather quickly.
I have come to realize there is an ending to the story…
It is death.
Death for all.
There is no escape from the horror of the world.
Why should there be an escape from the horror in fiction?
An author should never lie.
I wish our creation would come for me.
A poetic way for Our Story to have meant something…
“And you got what you wished for because you were a fucking Prophet and now you’ve made this!” Pinkie spread her hooves wide. “I have no idea how many explorers have found this place and died to your perfect creature of horror! Probably hundreds! Maybe even thousands! This universe could be ancient for all I know!” She bucked the headless body in the chest, throwing it to the ground. “Because of your stupid wish your creation is unstoppable. Thanks, buddy.”
She moved to the last object on the desk – the book. Our Little Horror Story. She realized with anger that it was the story she was a part of right now – the very words were appearing in it as she was made aware of them. For any other person trapped in this mess, the knowledge contained within would have been immensely useful.
But she already knew it all. Nothing appeared in the book that she didn’t already see with her Awareness.
There hadn’t been anything useful here. She pulled a bomb out of her mane and shoved it into the corpse’s chest. It detonated, taking the whole room with it.
Pinkie appeared somewhere she chose this time. The crystal Castle of Friendship. Of course it wasn’t the real thing – it was just a facsimile she forced the bizarre universe they were in to provide her with. “I’m done letting you dictate what happens,” she muttered, juggling her impossibly sharp knife in one of her hooves. “I’M READY, YOU KNOW!”
No response.
Pinkie grinned. “Is it possible you’re scared of me? That’s good, because you should be. I’m the one kind of being that could stop you. I have powers like your own. You were born of a Prophet’s desire for perfection. I can break the rules that allow for your perfection.” She tapped the walls of the castle. “See this castle? It’s not your world. It’s mine. I’m going to find a way to take you out. And then I’m going to bring everyone back. Somehow. Because that’s how things work, creature.”
She laughed. “You were designed to be the perfect horror creature. I was designed to be Pinkie Pie. Let’s see who’s better.”
And then she wasn’t in the Castle of Friendship anymore.
She was standing on a field of bones, every single bone covered in bloody confetti.
Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “So what if I killed all these people? Are you trying to make me feel guilty?” She laughed. “My worst fear is that my friends will hate me. And you can’t generate other living entities for me to interact with. All you do is create places and invisible forces. You can’t bring Twilight here.” She threw her knife at seemingly nothing – and hit.
“Yeah, that’s right! I can hit you! See, there’s a very logical reason why I can do that.” She threw another knife and hit it again. “Screw you, that’s why.”
She heard it charge her. “Oh, what’s that? You can’t take damage?” She pulled a health bar out of nowhere and hit the creature with it, the red ‘life’ of the meter pouring out of it like blood. “Oh wait, yes you can. Because I don’t care about the consequences anymore. Isn’t that fun?”
She dodged an attack from it purely by instinct, ramming her back hooves into it. The creature felt like nothing, but it was at least solid. It screeched incomprehensibly.
Pinkie produced her warhammer, swinging it like it weighed nothing, pummeling the creature around the sea of bones like a croquet ball. “Who needs to see when you have the Pinkie Sense? Absolutely nobody.” To prove her point, she tied a pink blindfold around her eyes with extra hooves she definitely didn’t have. Everything was dark.
Which was closer to the truth of the situation than anything else.
She tossed her warhammer away and went for a machine gun, riddling the creature with bullets. She tore through reality so she could kick at it from the inside. She became rubber when it lashed at her, bouncing right off. She brought out the bomb mask, exploding, and then tossing a mini-nuke at the creature, which she was conveniently unaffected by.
She grinned.
She was winning.
The moment those words were written in her mind red flags and alarms went off everywhere in her mindscape.
That was almost always what was said just before someone lost a fight.
She tore off the blindfold, taking several steps back. She wasn’t in the boneyard anymore – she was in a pure white expanse. She didn’t take time to register this – she just pulled the most ridiculous move she possibly could.
She reached into the future and grabbed the photo the creature was going to take of her.
It showed her in a white expanse, cut in half at the midsection, tongue hanging out indignantly.
She twisted her body away and cheated through existence.
She appeared in the living room they had started in.
There was a huge gash across her stomach. She wasn’t cut in half – but she definitely wouldn’t be able to survive from a wound of that size.
“…No…” she said, forcing herself, to her knees. “No, no this can’t be happening! I cheated only to trade out instant death for a slow and painful one? What the hell kind of chapter is this!?” She stared at the completely normal-colored blood on her hooves.
…Why in the name of Celestia was the color of her blood important enough to bring attention to? Wha-
And then Pinkie understood what was going on.
“That’s… cruel…” she muttered. “Stupid… stupid… STUPID!” She forced herself to stand up and walk through the only open door into the dark hallway, the blood gushing out of her wound onto the hall below. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t see anything.
She lost most the strength in her legs, finding herself unable to walk. So she crawled, dragging her body along the smooth hallway floor, bloodying the surface she slid on.
She realized blood made a good lubricant.
What a stupidly absurdly amusing observation to have at a time like this.
…She knew that all she ever could have done here was delay. Delay, delay, delay. This was always how it was going to end. There was never anything she could have done. The creature was designed too well. The twist was just too much for her to compensate for. It was all… all just beyond her, even as Pinkie Pie.
She lost track of time. Which was probably a good thing, because it allowed her to live longer than she otherwise should have. She was cheating reality right up to the end.
She eventually reached her goal, a scarcely living husk of a pony.
The amber-lit depression with the mirror stood before her. There were only four cracks in the mirror with four photos. Her reflection in the middle remained uncracked, standing in defiance at what was supposed to be.
Pinkie tore up the photo of herself being cut in half. She had at least denied the creature what it had wanted to do to her.
She forced herself to stand on her back legs. She slammed her bloody front hooves onto the wall above the mirror, jostling the entire display. She breathed heavily, blood no longer pouring quickly from her gaping stomach wound. She felt lightheaded.
She’d only lasted this long because she was Pinkie Pie. She wouldn’t be able to draw it out much longer.
What was she even doing?
She started crying. She frantically moved her front hooves around, flying in every which direction. Slamming the wall in anger, screaming at the loss. The emptiness.
The horror.
She lost her bout of last-minute energy. She slumped to the ground, the darkness closing around her vision.
She turned herself over, making sure she was sitting, rather than lying awkwardly on her stomach. The mirror was over her head, the light illuminating the empty hallway in front of her.
“…Remember me,” she said to seemingly no one, the life draining from her eyes. The blue orbs remained open, staring into the abyss long after she let out her last breath.
There was silence in the universe of the perfect horror creature. It continued its prowl, waiting for new victims…
Until then, it would ensure there was complete silence in its realm.
There would not be a single noise.
At least until the next visitor came…
…
…A portal opened up in front of the depression in the hall. Pinkie Pie was still there, the blood that had pooled around her still fresh.
The Pinkie Pie who poked her head through the portal gasped. “Oh my…”
There was a message written in Pinkie’s blood above the mirror.
Don’t let the portal close.
Leave before it gets you.
DESTROY THIS UNIVERSE.
~Another Pinkie Pie.
“Holy fuck…” Vriska said, poking her head through the portal. “What horror story went down here…?”
“One you were involved in,” Nova said, pointing at the picture of Vriska on the mirror.
“…Wait, seriously?” Vriska stared. “Woah, other versions of myself are really rare.” She examined the picture using her vision eightfold. “…Man, rolled all 1s? That sucks. ...Too bad for her, I’m the only one of us with luck powers. No other Vriskas played Sburb and lived.”
“Other me’s missing my screen,” Nova observed. “And… yeah, these people weren’t us.”
“…It’s still horrible,” Flutterfree said, her face that of pain. “…A team very close to our own went here, and all of them… They…”
“It wasn’t pointless,” Jotaro said, leaning in. “They left a message. We’ll heed their warning.”
“Jotaro, can we destroy this universe?” Flutterfree asked.
“Maybe,” Pinkie said. “If we have the capability, we wouldn’t just let anybody know. …I’ll tell Eve it needs to be done, and not ask any more questions.”
“...All right.” Flutterfree shuddered. “Can we close the portal now? It’s… making me uncomfortable.”
Pinkie nodded. “Right. …Let’s not go adventuring today. Consider this a bad omen.” She closed the portal, sealing off the horror creature’s existence once again.
Its days were limited.
The sights of such a horrifying scene would stay with the Primary Team of Merodi Universalis for about a week – but they would move on. They had seen more gruesome scenes of war. It was uncanny that the five they had seen were people so close to them – but weren’t quite them. They were reminded of their own mortality for a time, but eventually the sight would be pushed to the back of their mind, rarely to be thought about.
Even Pinkie wouldn’t remember, and she had been able to go back and watch the whole thing. It would just be another horror she experienced through her knowledge.
Corona would provide the equations necessary to force the universe into destabilization a few days later. It would take a few more days for the process to complete, but eventually the universe would fall into nothing, taking the creature with it.
It would never take any other stray travelers. The curse brought into existence by a mourning Prophet would end, forever.
And then nobody would remember the mysterious team that lost their lives in the universe controlled by the monster of perfect horror. Because they were never the heroes. They were just another expendable group traveling the cosmos.
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Meta horror, can't say I expected that
Wow, another amazing chapter, not that I'm surprised. This is the kind of horror I like, not that I read or watch much horror at all... Full of mystery, suspense, and more focused on darkness, fear and the unknown than flashy monsters and gratuitous gore.
The twist at the end was perfect, managing to keep the tone and theme of the chapter intact, while still giving answers to what was happening. Also, good job on foreshadowing it just enough to make the ending make sense, and pointing out the clues afterwards, but not so much it becomes predictable.
Looking forward to all the future chapters!
9440051
You are on the right track then
Sacrifice, exile, reduce her toughness to 0...
Oh, sorry, wrong kind of indestructible. Probably.
... What? I always cope with horror through snark.
Indeed. At that was some epic overponk to behold. In the end, Pinkie did win, even if it was at a great cost.
That said, this is the second dress rehearsal for a mass slaughter of the main cast. Once is happenstance and twice is coincidence. Thrice is deeply concerning. I suppose we'll see if it comes up again. For now, there's a movie to look forward to... one apparently set in Kansas. Huh. Somehow I doubt this will involve a trip to Oz.
I wonder how big of a universe the Merodi can destroy. Are they limited to smaller universes like the one featured in this chapter, or could they theoretically destroy a full proper universe if they put their efforts towards it?
you know I was considering skipping this chapter, glad I didn't. not sure how I didn't see the twist coming; going over some of the details in this chapter in my head now that I know it I'm just thinking to myself, how the did I not see this coming? won't be going into those details just out of courtesy for those who haven't read this chapter yet
9438926
Well now you're just straight up lying. None of the stories on this 'sight' are over 3 million words long.
9543756
That Guy is dumb with 7 million for sequels but austreaoh and it’s sequels are at 3.5 million or so.
So Flutterfree wasn't using Lolo, Nova didn't have her screen and Vriska never played Sburb. What was different about Jojo?
9675949
He was wearing the black jacket instead of the white one. Implies that he's younger, but I didn't want to draw too much attention to that, figured the others would be enough.
-GM, master of jackets.
Why does this universe feel like it was designed specifically with causing genocide to the Flowers That Be and Protectors of the Plot Continuum societies in retaliation with no regards to any other society?
Hrrrmrmrm. I wonder how many Merodis are out there now.
9543756
Diaries of a Madman is almost at 3 million.
That was one of your sadder chapters. In my opinion not as sad as chapters 22 or 55, just to name a few, but still. I never was as confident as Pinkie about being able to get the others back.
That. That really stung. Never before have I wished so strongly that I could draw, for then I might make something that would stand as a monument to this team. They did everything exactly right, but sometimes there is no happy ending regardless of the path you take. At least, for whatever time this manuscript is read and remembered, some shall know of their suffering. Which, though only one even might have known it, saved the Primary Team and countless others. I, for one, intend to remember these fallen heroes as long as I am able, for that is what she wanted when she knew all was lost.
A moment of silence.
9758979
Technically they never said they were Merodi.
9448686
The only clues I noticed ahead of time were Vriska's lack of luck powers and immortality but I let the first pass as a minor oddity of no importance and took the second as KA powers of The Creature. It was indeed just the right level of foreshadowing. Oh, and the normal colored blood, that was when I first began thinking in the right direction.
9452131
Good MTG joke and I totally get the 'Humor as a coping mechanism' thing. Personally I go for either willful ignorance or meticulous picking over of unimportant details, but both can be mistaken for callousness. Come to think of it, so can a lot of coping methods.
Alan Wake? I mean, I'm not seeing much shadow, but thats the only guess I've got so far.
Edit: Actually that might just be original.
Man, if it wasn't for a very persistent voice in the back of my head saying that there was still a final out for all of them, that would've hit a bit harder. Still pretty dark though.
Also Pinkie unleashed is terrifying. I know we've pretty much seen it before with Pinkie-X, but I'll be damned if she doesn't absolutely cut loose when there's but one thing left to lose and her back is against the wall.