Corruption

by PixelMoon

Chapter 5

Twilight looked confused as Applejack burst into the party and walked up to her very angrily.

“Twilight!” Applejack shouted at her. “What do you think you're doing here?”

Twilight was taken aback by that. “What? I just got invited over so-”

“So nothing!” Applejack stomped her hoof. “We're leaving now!”

“Hey!” Dash shouted from across the room. “Who let bucking Appledork in?” Dash moved over to Applejack and grabbed onto her wither. “You. Leave.”

Applejack shrugged her off. “I'm taking Twilight with me,” she said, grabbing Twilight. “Come on.”

“H-hey!” Twilight pulled back. “I kind of want to stay.”

“Well you can't!” Applejack was far more angry then you would have expected. “You can't go to parties this late, curse or whatever else they got you doing, and you cannot talk to these three!”

“Y-yes I can!” Twilight shouted back, a bit louder than she meant to. It was just that Applejack was shouting too. “What's your problem? I just met you like five minutes ago, you can't go talking to me like this!”

“You don't understand,” Applejack said. “These three are much worse than you think.”

“You're the one who's worse than I thought,” said Twilight, then stuttered. Did she really just say that? Maybe things were getting more intense than she had meant them to.

“No!” Applejack pulled her face downwards with her hoof a little. “Twilight they're- these three- they're-”

“We're what, doofus?” Dash came back into sight. She came dangerous close to Applejack, grinning a toothy grin. “Come on. Say it!”

Applejack just grunted and turned her head to the side.

“Maybe she's trying to tell Twilight that we're vampires?” Pinkie asked in a mocking voice.

Dash grabbed Pinkie by the withers. “Pinkie!” Dash gnashed her teeth. "How many times we gotta tell you not to go around telling ponies we're vampires?”

Pinkie gave an apologetic smile while Applejack jumped on it. “It's true!” she looked Twilight in the eyes, dead serious. “They're vampires! Twilight, you don't get that you're in danger here! I came over to check on your house cause I was worried they might try to get you, and here you are! Vampires are bad news Twilight, you need to get away from them.”

“Vampires? Seriously, Applejack?” Twilight pulled away from her. “And why are you the only one warning me? Is everypony in this town a vampire or something?”

Most of the other ponies laughed at that vampire comment, too. Twilight heard a few of them mutter about how Applejack always goes on about this vampire nonsense.

“Rarity ain't after none of them,” said Applejack. “Rarity didn't force any of them to come here and-”

“No! I chose to come here and I'm staying, okay?” said Twilight.

“No you're not!” Applejack went to grab her again, but Dash moved in the way, blocking Twilight defensively with her wings.

“You want me to get rid of her, Twi?” Dash looked back at Twilight.

“If you mean make her leave then, um, maybe that's for the best.”

Dash smiled and grabbed onto Applejack. She dragged her kicking and yelling about halfway before Applejack broke away, gave Twilight a glare and stomped off grumbling to herself.

“I warned you!” she called just before leaving.

Dash trotted back to Twilight laughing. “That was actually pretty cool,” she said. “I'll be honest, I didn't think you had a spine but guess I was wrong.”

“Well,” said Twilight, “you know. She was being a, um-”

“A jerk?” Dash grinned. “Yeah, I noticed. You know, maybe you aren't as lame as I thought. Hey, you ever tried a pixie stick before?”

Twilight shook her head. Dash started trotting forward and a moment later, Pinkie was pushing Twilight in the same direction Dash was headed. What awaited her was candy, and lots of it. There was a tower of cupcakes, bowels filled with lollipops, stacks of candy bars and a fountain of chocolate, among other things.

The 'pixie stick' Dash had mentioned a moment ago was basically just colored sugar in a long, paper tube. Being pure sugar, it was the most sugary candy conceivable. Twilight was about to comment that these seemed a little excessive when she Pinkie outdid her by a factor of ten.

Pinkie was practically inhaling cupcakes, wolfing down five of them in just a few seconds, and washing it down with a big cup of liquid chocolate. She didn't stop there either, but just kept going, swallowing a gobstopper whole. Didn't she know that was a serious chocking hazard?!

“Is it really a good idea to be eating sugar this late?” Twilight asked.

“What's a party without sugar?” Dash asked. She put a large lollipop in her mouth and offered a second pixie stick to Twilight one to Twilight.

“Well normally, they just serve carrots and celery."

“They made you eat bucking carrots?” Dash asked, apparently she mastered the art of talking with a lollipop in her mouth. She grabbed another lollipop and offered that to Twilight as well. “You poor thing. Here, take two.”

“I dunno,” said Twilight. “Candy this late at night sounds like a bit much."

“Come on, Twitwi! Fight the power! Give in to the fun side,” said Pinkie. “The coffee didn't hurt you did it?

“Well,” Twilight said. She still wasn't convinced this was a good idea. Something in the back of her head was screaming 'no' at her.“Well what?” Dash asked. “Because some idiot decided for you that it was bad? How do you know they're right, huh? How do you know something until you question it?”

Dash did have a point. These three were really good at asking questions. Twilight grabbed a piece of candy, but not either of the ones being offered her. Instead, she took one of the jumbo candy bars off the table and bit into it.

The other two ponies pumped their hooves into the air and cheered. And it did taste good! Way better than any carrot! Twilight tried a few different candies after that, all of them were great! She had another cup of coffee too, finding that it made the chocolate melt in her mouth afterward!

“So, did the candy kill you yet?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight shook her head. “I feel great!” She bobbed up and down on her hooves. “I can't remember the last time I had this much energy!”

“Yeah, you never drank coffee before, right?” Dash looked at Twilight's jittering hoof as she turned the bottom of her cup up and started gulping it down. “You should probably take it a bit easy.”

But by then Twilight was already done drinking her second cup. She put down the empty cup, looked at Dash for a second, then grabbed another piece of candy.

“Or not.” Dash shrugged. “Just don't say I didn't warn ya!”

As the night went on, Twilight kept drinking coffee and eating candy, not nearly as much as Dash and Pinkie, but certainly more than the other ponies there. Strangely, she didn't become more tired as the night went on, but more awake!

It wasn't like Twilight was just sitting there, either, she was becoming increasingly active as the night went on. She went back to dancing with Thunderlane for a little while, but he couldn't keep up with the pace after a while.

Twilight found herself dancing with Pinkie and a few other fillies instead, much more wildly than before. The whole time, Twilight kept downing cup after cup of coffee and bar after bar of chocolate. And this music just kept getting better! And so did the dancing! Before long Twilight felt like she was made of electricity!

Twilight was ecstatic, unable to sit still for a minute, shouting out the words to songs she didn't know with Pinkie and Dash. Eventually ponies started leaving and things got increasingly more quiet and empty. But the empty room just meant more space to run around in. By this point, Twilight's dancing had turned into jumping around the house with Pinkie.

“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The- Doooo!” Twilight jumped farther than she meant to and slammed into one of the couches. She bounced right off it, along with all the pillows and was buried.

She sat on her back for about two seconds, then a bit of that electricity she was made of surged out of her, causing her legs to flail about wildly for an instant. Then Twilight jolted to her hooves and was perfectly still. Twilight wondered what exactly had just happened.

Twilight shook her head and reached for another cup of coffee, it shook a little in her grasp, but it got blasted out of her hoof from a shot of blue magic.

“Twilight.” Rarity began casually trotting closer. “Remember when I told you to only have one cup for now? How many did drink?”

“Um!” Twilight stared at Rarity without blinking. She almost felt like her body was vibrating. “A lot?”

“I'm cutting you off.” Rarity picked the container of coffee up and trotted off into the next room with it.

“Ah, it was getting cold anyway!” Twilight jumped back out into the living room and darted her head around, looking for somepony to jump around with. “Come on! Come on! D-dyuh- Thunderlane!”

Twilight jumped in front of him and started bouncing up and down to the beat of the music. Thunderlane made an attempt to lift one of his hooves, but that was too much. His head collapsed down a moment later from exhaustion.

“Okay, this is too much for me.” Thunderlane yawned loudly. Twilight just now noticed his slumped posture and tired eyes. “I think I should be heading home. It's pretty late.”

“What? Already?” Twilight had so much energy right now. She kept her hooves grounded and bobbed up and down near Thunderlane. “Come on! We should dance more!”

“This is the latest I've ever been up for, Twilight.” Thunderlane yawned miserably. “I don't think I can last another hour. We'll have to meet up some other time.”

“Okay,” Twilight said as Thunderlane walked passed her and out the door. She was sad to see him go, almost felt like she'd done something wrong, but at the same time she was about to explode from all this energy. She couldn't stay in that spot or that thought for any longer! Twilight jumped and spun around, excitedly looking around for whatever ponies were left.

She counted three and yes, it was those three. Twilight was alone with Rarity's gang now. Pinkie looked to be just as awake as Twilight, jumping from couch to couch.

“Not bad, kid!” Dash clapped her hooves together “You're the last one standing! Gotta admit I didn't see that one coming.”

“What? Everypony else already left?” Twilight darted her head around, looking in every direction. She didn't find any more. “But it can't have been more than an hour!”

Twilight looked at the clock. This was the point where her eyes should have widened in horror, but they were already as wide as they could go.

“2 AM?!” Twilight's eye twitched a little. “How is that possible! Why am I the only one freaking out?!”

“Maybe this is late for daywalkers,” said Dash, “but to us the night is only just starting.”

“I'm surprised Thunderlane even lasted this long. I think maybe he wanted to get your attention very badly.” Rarity moved her eyebrows up and down. “Maybe you should try flirting with him a little? Oh, and you're welcome, by the way.”

“So what? You going to sleep now?” Dash took off her sunglasses and eyed Twilight critically. “Make sure you get enough sleep so you and Thunderbutt can be boring tomorrow?”

“Sleep? I don't even think I can blink right now!” Twilight started trotting in place. Her legs simply needed to move. “I can't sit still. I gotta do something! W-were you three about to do something?”

“Oo! Oo!” Pinkie jumped in front of Twilight and started bouncing back and forth between her front and rear hooves. “Me and Dashie were totally going to do something! You should come with us! She can come, right Dashie?”

“I gotta admit you're kinda fun like this,” said Dash. “I dunno if you'd be up for what we got planned, though.”

“Up for what? I'm up for lots of things! Especially if it involves lots of running around.”

“Alright!” Dash flicked her glasses back on and straightened her jacket. “You can come with us, but if you do anything too lame I'm sending you packing, got it?”

Twilight nodded enthusiastically.

“Guess we'll see you later, Rares.” Dash gave Rarity a salute.

“You're not coming to the, uh,” Twilight didn't even know what she just agreed to. "With us?"

“Afraid not,” said Rarity. “I have some business to attend to. Maybe we'll meet again.”

Rarity blew a kiss and trotted into another room. What kind of business was there to do at two in the morning?

“So hey!” Pinkie brought Twilight's attention back to her. She was standing in the doorway, beckoning to Twilight. “Are you coming with us or going home?”

“Coming, uh,” Twilight hesitated, then ran over to Pinkie. “I think I'm coming. But coming where exactly?”

Dash lowered her sunglasses and gave Twilight a dangerous smile. “You ever played ding dong ditch?”

---

Rainbow Dash rang the doorbell to a house in town.

“Now hide,” Pinkie whispered loudly.

The two of them dove into the near-by bushes. Twilight panicked and managed to do nothing but turn her head back and forth between the two. Pinkie grabbed her and pulled her into one of the bushes.[

Twilight watched as a pony she'd never seen before opened the door. “Hello?” he asked. “Is anypony there?”

Pinkie was giggling madly, but silently, as the pony took a few steps outside and looked around in confusion. He called out one or two more times before scratching his head and going back inside.

That was the single biggest adrenaline rush Twilight had ever had. Her knees were weak and shaking and her heart was pounding harder than it had ever pounded before.

“Why did we do that?” Twilight asked, panting between words. “I feel so- so-!”

"We like to call that feeling 'being alive',” said Dash. “You should try it more often.”

Twilight looked down at her trembling hooves. Alive? It wasn't entirely a bad feeling, just a lot of it.

“Now you ring the doorbell,” Pinkie whispered.

Twilight nodded and rang the bell, this time not hesitating to dive into the bushes. It was a thrill! That's what she was feeling! They rang several more doorbells, each time that feeling of thrill raced into Twilight's gut. She was starting to see the appeal of this game.

Then somepony caught them. It was the third time they had knocked on that particular door, but this time Twilight tripped and the pony got to the door before she could hide.

“Hey!” the pony shouted at them. “What are you kids doing?!”

And then Twilight screamed.

“Run!” Pinkie shouted and the three of them went racing off, Twilight screaming as she ran.

.Twilight doubted she had ever run so fast! Her hooves were pounding just as hard as her heart as the buildings flew by. Twilight took it back, this wasn't worth it! She didn't want to spend the rest of her life in jail for this! Why did she do any of this?!

“Lost him!” Dash called out.

Twilight's screaming and running came to a tumbling end. She regained her footing and turned around to see that the pony had not been running after them as she had originally thought. Pinkie and Dash both grabbed onto her and laughed, Dash giving her a playful noogie.

“You were great, Twi,” Dash said. “Running away screaming. That guy must have thought you were insane!"

“Oh, I just came over to 'AAAAAAAH'!” Pinkie broke out into laughter again.

“So we're not going to jail?” Twilight asked. More laughter followed.

Relief slowly came over Twilight. Her heart was still beating so hard, but it wasn't entirely bad. This was... exhilarating! Twilight laughed a little bit herself.

“Dashie!” Pinkie suddenly called out. She pointed sternly towards the horizon. “Red.”

Well, the red was only starting to overtake the purple, but there was no mistaking that the morning was about to come. This was far from the first sunrise Twilight had seen, but this particular one got a look of amazement from her.

“It's sunrise? We stayed up till morning?” Twilight asked in disbelief. “I've never stayed up until morning before!”

“Me neither. Wouldn't be caught dead doing that,” said Pinkie. This got a little chuckle from Dash. Twilight had missed a lot of jokes, but this one somehow made even less sense to her.

“Did I make some kind of innuendo?” Twilight asked. She tried thinking of how that could possible work. Sunrise. Sunrise? Oh Sweet Celestia! Twilight's mind was being dragged to the gutter!

“Nah. Just an inside joke. Maybe I'll explain it to you one night.” Dash gave Twilight a toothy grin. “Anyway, we're out.”

"Out? You're going home?” Twilight asked. She supposed it was very late, or early depending on how you looked at it.

"When red's in the sky we gotta fly,” Pinkie said.

“Yep. But listen,” said Dash. She took off her glasses completely for the first time and looked Twilight in the eye. “The boss invited you this time, but now you're getting an invite from me. Meet us at the cemetery tonight. You won't regret it.”

Without waiting for a reply, Dash put her sunglasses on and turned to leave. Pinkie trotted beside her and the two snickered and whispered into each other's ears as they made their exit. Twilight never did find out where either of them lived. Probably on the same side of town, from the looks of it. Unless they lived with Rarity.

Well that had certainly been one heck of a night. It gave Twilight a lot to think about, but right now the fact that she'd stayed up all night eating candy was beginning to catch up with her. Her boundless energy was fading faster and faster. By the time she was nearing her house, Twilight was dragging her hooves along, struggling to keep her eyes open.

They were closed as she got to the top of the hill, so Twilight didn't see she had a visitor until she opened her eyes to grab the door. Applejack was standing there, just next to her, looking very serious. Oh boy...

“Applejack?” Twilight whined. “Go away. I'm too tired for whatever you have to say.”

“No!” Applejack slammed Twilight's door shut just before Twilight could open it. “I know you don't believe me now, but those three really are vampires!”

Twilight sighed. The anger woke her up just enough for her to function again. “Okay, here's a short list of some of the things wrong with that,” said Twilight. “One, there's no such thing as vampires. Two, if they were trying to 'get' me they could have done it last night when I was all alone with them. Three, I saw them walking around in the sunlight when I got off the train.”

“About that one,” said Applejack. “The whole 'vampires burst into flames in daylight' thing was just something some guy made up to avoid copyright infringement. It ain't true.”

“How does saying that vampires die in sunlight avoid copyright infringement?” Twilight asked.

“It don't. Guy got sued for everything he was worth,” said Applejack. She reached into her saddle bag and produced and ominous looking book, black with red letters on the front. “Take this.”

Twilight looked down at the book. It read 'The Only Authentic Guide to Vampires, by Granny Smith'.

“It's written by my grandmother, actually,” said Applejack. “My families been fighting these monsters for generations. I understand if you think vampires don't exist, but just read this, okay? When you realize what Rarity really is, knowing this stuff will do you a whole ton of good.”

[“Uh, huh.” Twilight took the book with her magic, holding it like a dirty rag. “Even if they were vampires, they don't seem like they want to hurt me. I was with them alone, in their house and yet here I am with all my blood!”

“They're not trying to kill you, they're trying to corrupt you,” said Applejack. “That's how Rarity gets her kicks. She finds the sweetest and most innocent ponies she can and twists until they're degenerate enough to want to be her vampire minion. Why else do you think somepony like Rarity would be inviting somepony like you to her party, huh?”

Twilight didn't answer that question. It was true Twilight was a social reject, the type ponies didn't normally like. Somepony as cool and popular as Rarity wouldn't normally give Twilight a second look, let alone make her the guest of honor and offer to help her with 'anything'.

[“Exactly.” Twilight nodded. “I've seen it happen before with Pinkie Pie. Ask anypony, she was this sweet, quiet little gem. Pinkie was real ladylike and pure, never spoke out of turn, never did anything she wasn't supposed to, never smiled or laughed too loud. She was a considerate, calm pony, you know?” Applejack stomped her hoof on the ground.“But then Rarity got to her,” Applejack sneered. “It didn't even take her a year convince her to run away from home and become a vampire. And now look at her, going 'woo woo' all over the place and acting like an animal. All this partying All this joking around, being all wild, all this candy eating? She's a completely different pony!”

“Rarity convinced Pinkie to run away from home?” Twilight had read all about cults and the like. One thing controlling, abusive groups always did was try to separate you from your family. “That does sound pretty bad.”

“I think you missed the part about the vampirism,” Applejack said. “And all the cussing and partying she does now. And how the old Pinkie is basically dead because of their vampire mind control.”

Twilight let out a frustrated sigh. Maybe Applejack could have convinced her they were like a cult or dangerous gang or something, but there was no way this vampire angle was not going to work.

“Again, there's no such thing as vampires,” said Twilight. “Okay. Maybe the thing about Pinkie running away is true, maybe that's bad, but I really think those three are a lot nicer than they seem on the surface. There's nothing wrong with eating candy and all that every once in a while.”

“It ain't gonna be once in a while. It's gonna be every single day. They're gonna suck you in, Twilight.” Applejack pointed to the book. “Just promise me you'll read the book, okay?”

Twilight just rolled her eyes. “I'm going to sleep,” she said. “Goodbye, Applejack.”

Twilight slammed the door before Applejack could warn her again. The whole thing was ridiculous! Twilight gave the book one sideways glance before throwing it off to the side She'd organize it tomorrow, maybe make a 'superstition' section just for it.

Twilight lumbered a few feet over to her bed and collapsed. Her exhaustion finally caught up with her and she was asleep almost instantly.

Comments

[the7Saviors]

I find this Twilight rather relatable. I'm the same exact way when it comes to arguments and the bit where she went crazy with the candy and coffee was more or less me at a wedding once. There was free unlimited soda and I went ham. Must've had like 30 or 40 cans of the stuff, no joke.

[Adorkable]

This will take me a min to read lol.

[Kuunlehti]

I feel like this story is a metaphor for drugs