Chapter 5: Dawn of the Final Day
“Are you sure I can’t come with you guys?”
“C’mon Spike! We’ll have fun!” Scootaloo called from a few yards away.
“Oh! D’ya think dragons can get cutie marks?” Apple Bloom asked her two friends. Scootaloo seemed to think about it, scratching her head. Sweetie Belle just grinned widely.
“Only one way to find out!”
The three of them suddenly threw their forehooves up and yelled, at the top of their shrill lungs, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DRAGON TRAINERS, YAY!!”
Spike gulped. Hard.
Twilight smiled at him. “Trust me, it won’t be that bad.”
“How are you so sure?!”
The unicorn opened her mouth to answer, but no words came out. She closed her mouth and scrunched her face as she thought, a hoof in her chin.
“... Actually, I’m not. Good luck!” she said cheerfully as she turned around, leaving him to face his certain doom. “Safety first, guys! We’ll have to stop by the armory to get some equipment!”
Et tu, Crepuscula? Spike thought ruefully as Twilight and the rest of the gang cantered down the road towards their quest.
The three little demons fillies surrounded him.
“So, Spike!” asked Scootaloo, grinning widely like a crazed madmare. “What do you want to do to earn your cutie mark?”
Spike faceclawed.
“I’m going to stop you right there. No. Dragons can not get cutie marks.”
The Crusaders looked at each other as if he’d just said something completely incomprehensible for their young minds. And to be fair, it probably was. Apple Bloom asked, “are ya sure about that?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned. “Pretty sure.”
“What if you can get a cutie mark, but you just don’t know it and that’s why you think you can’t get one?” offered Scootaloo with a smirk. Her friends nodded, smirking as well.
Spike sighed deeply. Well, shit. Can’t argue against that.
“Great!” Scootaloo exclaimed, her little wings fluttering quickly enough to get her off the ground for a couple of seconds.
Sweetie Belle’s smile was the first to disappear. “Wait, how do we even begin to get him his cutie mark?”
After a moment of thinking with her hoof on her chin, Apple Bloom said, “well, Ah think we just gotta do our own thang and have him tag alon’.” She looked to Spike. “Any ideas?”
The baby dragon rolled his eyes. “Surprise me,” he snarked.
“Scootaloo?”
“I’ve got nothing,” Scootaloo shrugged.
“Sweetie Belle?”
Only silence answered.
Apple Bloom turned to Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie Belle?” she asked again, concern in her voice.
“Uhh… who’s that?” the unicorn asked in a trembling voice, pointing with her hoof towards something down the road. The group turned to gaze at whatever she was pointing at.
A single, cowled stranger stood in the middle of town, digging at the ground.
Spike frowned. He was unnerved by the stranger’s sudden, shady and creepy appearance, but he’d be damned before he looked scared in front of girls. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anypony like him. And I grew up in Canterlot.”
“What does Canterlot have to do with anything?” Scootaloo asked confused, turning her gaze to Spike.
“You wouldn’t believe the sheer amount of weirdness that goes on over there.”
She raised her eyebrow again, utterly unimpressed, and then gestured with her head towards the rest of Ponyville.
“Touché,” Spike shrugged.
“What is she doing?” Sweetie Belle asked fearfully.
“Ah dunno’. Maybe we should ask him?” Apple Bloom proposed.
Sweetie Belle wheeled on her. “Ask her? Are you CRAZY?! What if he’s an evil entity that wakes up every twenty seven years, and exploits the fears and phobias of the colts and fillies, the only ponies that can see her, to hunt them and eat them like prey?!”
Spike blinked, then crossed his arms. “That’s awfully specific.”
“Yeah,” Apple Bloom tilted her head. “Where did ya get that idea?”
“I... read it in one of Elusive’s books...” Sweetie Belle answered sheepishly. Then she perked up, eyes wide and fearful. “But still! She might be dangerous! We should stay away from him!”
“Can we please settle on a Celestia-forsaken gender?” Spike intervened with annoyance.
He might as well have been talking to a wall of bricks for all the acknowledgement he got.
“Don’t be silly, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom said, rolling her eyes. “It’ll be alright!”
“You don't know that!”
“But Ah do!”
“How?!”
“B’cause it’s obviously not what ya’re sayin’!” Apple Bloom grunted in frustration. “Come on, Scoots, back me up! Ya ain’t afraid of nothin’!”
But Scootaloo was very much afraid. “I don’t know…” she muttered, looking anxiously at the cowled stranger, who did not seem to notice them. “Sweetie Belle’s right. He could be dangerous…”
“Come on! Don’t be a chicken!”
“I am not a chicken!” Scootaloo replied angrily, fluttering her little, flightless wings. Only two seconds later, her anger evaporated. “I’m just… not in the mood right now. Maybe... later?” she finished pathetically, her head low like she was trying to hide behind her too-short-mane.
“But it’ll be fun!” the farmfilly insisted, pouting. “Right, Spike?”
It’s not that he didn’t expect it to be fun (he definitely didn’t, though), but quite frankly, Spike would have prefered to just go back home, maybe read some comic books, and let this whole thing just blow over. But Apple Bloom looked far too cute for him to admit to her face just how much of a dork he was.
“Uh… wouldn’t it be better if we tried to stay out of trouble? I mean, imagine if something bad happened to us,” he said instead. Best thing about living with Twilight: you learn how to find flaws in every single plan.
It helps when the plan is as bad as this one...
“But we’ll be okay!” she claimed.
“How do you know that?” Spike raised his eyebrow.
“Ah just know, okay?” Apple Bloom snapped.
To say he wasn’t convinced would have been an understatement.
“Yeeaah, no,” he said flatly. “I’m going home.”
“Come on!”
“Spike’s right,” Sweetie Belle said nervously. “Elusive and Applejack are out of town…”
“So what if they’re outta town? Ah’m a big pony! Ah can take care of mahself!” Apple Bloom replied stubbornly.
“And you call ‘racing headfirst into danger’ taking care of yourself?” Spike asked sarcastically.
“That’s what Applejack does!”
“Yes, well, Applejack is not the smartest pony in town.”
Apple Bloom death-glared at him for a few moments. It was a testament to Spike’s courage, conviction, or perhaps just sheer suicidal stupidity that he managed to keep her glare rather than simply wither down and die like any other pony would have done. Then, she huffed, closed her eyes and raised her head in an angle, indignated.
“Fine. Be like that. Ah’m goin’ after him. Ah’ll show ya.”
And without any further ado, she turned around and cantered towards the hooded figure, which, during their argument, had begun to leave town, following the path that led down towards the Everfree Forest.
“B-but... Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle called after her, but the earth pony pointedly ignored her, head held up high as she marched towards the woods.
The two remaining ponies (and one dragon) stood in silence for a while.
“So… should we go after her?” Scootaloo suggested.
Spike shrugged, then crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and smirked. “Nah, she’ll come back soon. She might be stubborn, but she isn’t dumb.” The two fillies looked at each other with an eyebrow raised skeptically. “She’s not going to enter the Everfree Forest alone.”
She did.
Because of course she did.
Apple Bloom walked under the dense foliage of the Everfree Forest.
Any other pony would've been utterly terrified of the forest. Even adult ponies would think twice before even going near the eerie, unnatural place where the weather was merciless and had an agenda of its own, Celestia's sun didn't shine, and jaywalkers were annihilated by terrible ponycidal creatures—and since there were no roads to speak of in there, everypony was a jaywalker.
But Apple Bloom was unable to spare a thought to the creepy wilderness she had set hoof on. Instead, she looked downcast, a frown in her face.
To say she was upset would be an understatement. The past week, the so-called Cutie Mark Crusaders had barely done anything to try and get their cutie marks; school had kicked back into full gear, and homework took away what little free time they had outside the classroom. And the one day they get a prospective adventure, her friends had completely chickened out!
And then there was Spike, who had actively questioned her idea. That was bad enough… but he had then insulted Applejack.
She had been so upset, she had forgotten all about her powers! She could bend Spike’s will as easily as she could step on an ant! Apple Bloom wanted to buck herself in the face.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. All she had needed to do was to look cute, not death-glare him! She'd had her chance to make him submit to her will, and she had blown it.
Then again, he insulted Applejack. Nopony insults mah brother and lives to tell the tale.
But he had lived.
Fer now, Apple Bloom brooded. Nopony insults mah brother.
But Ah don’t want to kill Spike, her inner goodness objected.
Apple Bloom fought the urge to roll her eyes. She thought she had buried that part of herself long ago, when she had sworn she would rule all of Equestria as Dark Lord of All (yes, “Lord”, because “Lady” sounded too girly for her taste... nevermind the fact that she was a girl and wore a bright pink ribbon on her mane).
However, the pesky voice of her conscience had a point. She didn’t really want to kill Spike. He was a pretty neat guy, fun and likeable, if a bit snarky. Plus, if she wanted to be a true Dark Lord, she needed a ferocious dragon, and Spike was a dragon! Well, okay, a baby, definitely not ferocious dragon, but baby, definitely not ferocious dragons eventually grew up to become ferocious dragons!
It just had to be meant to be.
And then again, sure, he was a baby dragon, but she too was a kid. They had a long road ahead of them, and time was not something they lacked. They could even plan world conquest together, them and the Crusaders!
Well, Spike is a dragon, not a pony… So Ah guess ‘nopony insults mah big brother’ doesn’t include dragons! Problem solved! Apple Bloom reasoned, content with her logic’s loophole.
We’ll need a good motto, now that Ah think of it. No matter how hard she tried, however, she was unable to recall the motto of their namesakes. It was in this funny old language that no real pony understood. And to add insult to the injury, she hadn’t been paying much attention in class that day, so it was hopeless. Nah, Ah’ll come up with somethin’ else.
Something moved in the corner of Apple Bloom’s eyes. Annoyed, she turned towards her stalker.
The instant that eye contact was established, the blood-thirsty manticore was frozen in place.
Apple Bloom growled dangerously.
The manticore gulped, turned tail and fled in pure, unadulterated panic.
Good. Know yer place, peon.
The small filly turned, and continued walking down the roadless forest.
All things considered, Derpy Hooves was having a pretty good day.
She had been given the day off at the mail service, what with the End of Days looming over them, her coworkers panicking, and her supervisor killing the unpaid interns in ritual sacrifices to appease The Elder Ones.
Perhaps the only thing that bothered her, aside from the weirdly pitch-black sky (it wasn’t even noon!), was that her roommate Carrot Top was currently doing a delivery down in Fillydelphia. At least she had been kind enough to buy enough pre-made food for Derpy to survive while she wasn’t there to cook for both of them; after that one time she had tried her hoof at cooking and both had ended up in Ponyville General, Derpy knew better than to try it again. She still woke sweating and shivering in the middle of the night from time to time.
Still, it was a pretty good day.
And, as the streets were almost completely deserted due to… Celestia only knew what was going on with the sky… at least nopony stared at her crossed eyes.
Not that she had it too bad; after years living in Ponyville, most ponies in the hamlet had come to know (and mostly like) her already, but the newcomers always proved to be tiresome. Derpy was especially frustrated by those who, with condescending compassion, advised her to see (as if it was the first time she’d heard that Celestia-forsaken pun...) a doctor.
As if she hadn’t already! Ever since her eye had started deviating when she was a teenager, Derpy had visited countless doctors, desperately searching for a solution, any solution that might stop the insidious condition that had thrown her budding flying career down the drain. However, her strabismus stubbornly refused to be treated. Not even experimental intrusive surgery had managed to solve it; all she got was an enormous bill that she was still struggling to pay off, and her other eye affected as well.
In the end, though, she learned to just, well, roll with it. If they laugh at you, just laugh with them. She had even appropriated the nasty nickname her classmates had once come up with to aggravate her, now wearing it like a badge of honour.
It wasn’t that bad, either; sure, she couldn’t be a professional flyer, but it didn’t really interfere that much with the rest of her life beyond the superficial. And, when it came to being a klutz and slow on the uptake… Well, that preceded her strabismus anyway.
And so, Derpy Hooves walked through the End of Days without a care in the world. Besides the dark sky, everything felt like normal.
As she passed through the market square, however, a strange feeling made itself present. A eerie gust of wind started to pick up.
And then she heard it.
It was unlike any magic she had ever seen, no aura in sight. Just a blue barn thunderously fading into existence.
And with a strong thud, it stopped. The strange blue barn stood in the middle of the square like it had always been there.
What the…? Derpy marvelled at the magic blue barn. Or... at least, she thought it was a barn of some sort. What else could it be? Though, this “barn” was small enough for only one pony, or perhaps two, if squashed together and standing on their hind hooves.
Suddenly, the barn’s doors opened violently, and a chestnut stallion with a messy dark brown mane wearing an ill-fitting black worn leather jacket stumbled out of the blue box, collapsing in the patch of poppies in front of it.
“Woah!” Derpy yelped, startled.
Almost immediately, the barn started rumbling and wheezing again, slowly fading from existence right where it stood, leaving the leather-clad stallion alone lying on the poppies.
… What the hay.
Derpy slowly walked forward, an eerie pull emanating from the fallen stallion.
“Uhh… Mister? Are you okay?” she asked tentatively. She could have been talking to a brick wall, for all the good it did. The unresponsive stallion was completely knocked out cold.
And then he wasn’t.
“Yes, sorry, hello!” he (literally) jumped up, almost giving Derpy a heart attack. “Dreadfully sorry about that. I just died. Terrible business, that. You see, when they tell you something, or someone, is ‘so cute it can kill’, you think it’s a joke…” he trailed off, his eyes turning into a thousand-yard stare, his entire body trembling in profound, uncontrolled dread.
Derpy blinked.
“What?”
But the stallion was no longer paying attention to her, his eye instead catching sight of his own reflection in a nearby window. He walked towards the glass, checking himself out. As he turned around, Derpy got a glance of the stallion’s hourglass cutie mark, until then obscured by the oversized jacket.
“Oh, not bad, not bad at all. Let’s see... Still an earth pony... The coat is a lighter shade of brown... The ears are actually proportionally sized this time! I’m thinner, too! Oh, and I’ve got hair now! That’s…” he trailed off, frowning, “... not ginger. Celestia’s flank, I wanted to be ginger! That’s a bummer.” He began working his mouth as if with distaste. She just realised he talked with a mild Scoltish accent. “‘Celestia’s flank’. Nope, not saying that again.”
“You’re weird,” Derpy blurted out, painfully aware of how hypocritical it was for her to pass such judgment. He was kinda cute, though.
“No, I’m the Doctor,” he smiled toothily at his awful dad joke.
A great disturbance was felt throughout the Universe, as if millions of voices had unconsciously and suddenly grunted and groaned in annoyance at the same time.
Derpy’s voice was one more note in this collective universal choir, as she facehoofed out of instinct. Hard.
It hurt.
The stallion, this weird ‘doctor’, pouted sadly. “What, that wasn’t fun? Oh, don’t tell me I lost my sense of humour during the regeneration.” He rolled his eyes. “Again,” he added, this time with a bit of disdain.
“‘Regeneration’? What are you even talking about?” Derpy was utterly lost.
The stallion did not answer with hyperactivity for once. Instead, his eyes widened as he seemingly realised her presence for the first time.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I’ve been here just blabbering on and on about nothing. Look at you! You’re the mailmare, right?”
“I… Yes?”
“Right, right…” he nodded, then paused.
Nopony said anything for a few, extremely long seconds.
“So… How you doing?” he said in the most awkward tone she had ever heard, a transparently blatant attempt to steer the conversation towards a territory that might even tangentially resemble ‘normal’.
Fat chance of that ever happening.
“The End of the World is here, my supervisor is too busy sacrificing the interns, and here I am, talking to a madpony in a blue box that literally appeared out of thin air about utterly nothing. Best day of my life,” Derpy snarked acidly.
“Really? What a boring life you must have,” he stated plainly and earnestly, completely blind and deaf to the mare’s sarcasm.
Derpy winced. He had touched a nerve.
To say Derpy’s life was mundane would be an understatement. She worked a dead end job in the Ponyville Mail Service. She shared a flat with her best friend. She was deep in debt, and at night she dreamed and wished of running away and starting anew.
That was it.
There was nothing else going on in her life.
As a matter of fact, this day was so far the most interesting one of her week. And it was already Friday.
Then the stallion seemed to realise something.
“Wait, ‘madpony in a blue box’?” he said, an offended tone in his voice.
Derpy gulped, resisting the urge to either facehoof, blush or run away.
Well, crap. Real smooth, Derpy.
“You’re absolutely right!” he smiled before she could even try to formulate an answer, puffing his chest in pride. “I am a madpony, and this is my blue box!” he gestured grandly with his hoof to the space behind him.
There was literally nothing but air there.
“... Huh,” he blinked, lowering his hooves to the ground and adopting a pensive frown. “That might be a problem.”
Derpy was utterly flummoxed by the strange stallion.
“So… you said you’re a doctor?” she asked tentatively.
“Not a doctor; The Doctor,” he stated.
“And… you’re not going to say anything about my eyes?” Derpy asked before she could realise the words that were coming out of her mouth. She kicked herself internally when she did. ‘Derpy’ indeed, her inner voice sneered at her clumsiness.
The stallion answered without missing a beat.
“Oh, that’s gotta be the most extreme case of strabismus I’ve ever seen; both eyes are affected, and with all three types at the same time, too! Esotropia, Exotropia and Hypertropia. Never seen anything quite like that. Hmm…” then, like a madman, he began making weird faces in front of Derpy. She frowned, every passing second more and more unsure of this weird so-called ‘doctor’. “Yet, both of your eyes react correctly to external stimuli. Somehow, your sight is not all that impaired, despite your condition being so extreme you should actually be near-blind… I’m not sure if that’s even physically possible...” he mused, scrunching his brow as he thought hard. Derpy thought she could hear his brain working, a low, whirring beat not unlike clockwork.
“So… You are a doctor,” Derpy said pausedly.
“Well, naturally. It would be horribly pretentious to call myself the Doctor if I didn’t at least have one doctorate in something,” the, ehem, ‘Doctor’ huffed.
“What’s your specialty? Ophthalmology?” No other pony she had ever met had the slightest idea of the specifics of her eye condition. Not even the ophthalmologists. It must be ophthalmology, right?
What’s with the hourglass, though?
And what do bubbles have to do with mail delivery? Not all of us end up doing what our cutie marks tell us, her conscience added glumly.
“Err… sure, let’s go with that,” he grinned awkwardly.
Awkward silence returned with a vengeance for the next ten seconds. Or perhaps the next ten thousand years. Derpy couldn’t really tell.
In the end, though, she decided she’d just go home. Grab a snack. Maybe read something, or sleep the entire afternoon until the world ended or the whole thing blew over; it was all the same to her, really. Celestia knew not even the apocalypse would free her from her shifts at the post service. Still, at the very least she could say goodbye to this weird doctor. Derpy Hooves might be clumsy, but let it not be said that she was impolite.
“... Anyway, nice to meet you, Doctor Weirdo,” she said.
The stallion looked at her with a confused expression. “Doctor Who?”
Suddenly, a golden burst of light exploded out of his chest. The stallion keeled over with a groan of agony, panting heavily.
“Oh my gosh! Are you okay?!” Derpy screamed, suddenly forgetting all about her plans for the day as she ran to the side of the now-agonising stallion.
“I would love to tell you that I am, but then I would be lying,” he said through gritted teeth. Derpy was concerned, until he opened his mouth again. “I don’t want to be a liar this time. Last time I was a liar, they shot me dead in San Franciscolt!”
What the everlasting hay? Derpy stopped for a beat, then shrugged, concentrating in the matter at hoof. “How do you feel? Are you having a heart attack?”
“A ‘hearts’ attack would be more like it, but I don’t think so, no,” he wheezed. “I’m still brand new, my body shouldn’t start to fall apart for a few centuries at least… or perhaps… perhaps that Abomination of the Abyss’ gaze was too strong and even my regeneration is struggling to keep up!”
The stallion’s ability to endure unexplained terrible agony and still keep rambling utter nonsense was somewhat inspiring… and horribly infuriating.
Mostly infuriating.
Especially infuriating.
“Where is my TARDIS?” he said suddenly, his eyes darting all over the place.
“Alright, what are you on about?” Derpy felt what little patience remained looking down the window it was about to jump from. “Are you talking about the blue box?”
“I need to get back to the TARDIS!” the stallion shouted urgently, ignoring her
“WHAT THE HELL IS A TAHBIS?!” Derpy finally snapped, raising her voice in exasperation.
“IT’S TARDIS!” he matched her volume. “AND IT’S A VERY SOPHISTICATED SHIP THAT ONLY LOOKS LIKE A BLUE BOX AND I HAVE TO GET BACK TO IT BECAUSE THE WORLD IS IN DANGER!”
“THE ONLY ONE IN DANGER HERE IS YOU IF YOU DON’T LET ME HELP YOU!”
“THE ONLY HELP I NEED IS FINDING MY TARDIS!”
“I’M TAKING YOU TO A DOCTOR!”
“I AM A DOCTOR!”
“AND A TERRIBLE ONE!”
“WHAT?!”
“YOU MIGHT BE HAVING A HEART ATTACK AND YOU’RE BLABBERING ON ENDLESSLY ABOUT NOTHING!”
“I’M NOT HAVING A HEART ATTACK!”
“THEN WHAT WAS THAT?!”
“NOTHING!”
“THAT SURE DIDN’T LOOK LIKE NOTHING!”
“I’M PERFECTLY FINE!”
Then he promptly keeled over with nary a groan, smashing against the floor heavily.
“Do you…” Sweetie Belle began, then stopped.
“Have any sevens? Nope,” Spike replied, looking over the cards in his claw.
Once Apple Bloom had left them, Spike had proposed just going home – that is, the Library – and playing cards until this whole thing blew over.
Two hours in, they seemed to be doing alright. Playing with Twilight’s deck of cards was somewhat boring and unexciting, but what else could three children with no television, internet or video games actually do to entertain themselves in a library? Read?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Sweetie Belle, despite her ditzy manner, proved to be devastating when playing cards, and had already taken everything Spike and Scootaloo loved away from them with the over-the-top betting they had indulged in. He also had to do Sweetie’s homework for the next six months, but Spike didn’t really mind: when you grow up with Twilight as your big sorta-sister, anything below a seminar on the political relations between the composing estates of the Visicoltic kingdom during the pre–Unicornian era was child’s play. If anything, Sweetie Belle’s homework would be more of a well needed break for him!
However, now the card game seemed to be the least important thing in the unicorn’s mind.
“No, do you guys think Apple Bloom is okay?”
“Probably?” Scootaloo frowned. “Hopefully?”
Spike didn’t answer. He just scowled.
To be honest, he had been trying to keep his mind away from the thought that they had essentially abandoned Apple Bloom to her fate. And due to lack of evidence to the contrary, he was starting to think that perhaps she was dumb enough to actually go into the Everfree. Otherwise, she’d have already walked in through the door.
They continued playing, but the seed of doubt had already been planted in Spike’s mind, and he started tapping his claws nervously on the floor, constantly glancing towards the still closed door.
The tide of the game remained unchanged: Sweetie Belle won every round.
Every.
Single.
Round.
They even tried playing different games, but the result was still the same.
Poker? Sweetie Belle won.
Rummy? Sweetie Belle annihilated them.
Blackjack? Sweetie Belle crushed their souls.
Uno? All the pretty things are broken.
After smashing them again in their upteempth round of Go Fish, Scootaloo threw her cards against the floor with a wrathful scream.
“YOU’RE CHEATING!”
“No I’m not,” Sweetie said simply.
“BULLSHIT, YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m not!” A few seconds later, Sweetie Belle smirked slyly. “Maybe you just need to git gud.”
Scootaloo roared a mighty screech of wrath, and jumped on top of the poor unicorn to strangle the life out of her. They were in the middle of their silly fight when Spike couldn’t keep his anxiety under control anymore.
“I think we should go search for Apple Bloom,” he stated bluntly.
Both girls were stunned. Spike expected Scootaloo to relax her chokehold on Sweetie Belle. She didn’t. Instead she just looked at him with her eyes as wide as Celestia’s couch sitter.
“But… It could be dangerous! You said it yourself!”
“Scoots… I… I can’t breathe…”
“Yeah, and Apple Bloom went into the forest alone.”
“We don’t know if Apple Bloom is even in the forest,” Scootaloo added unconvincingly.
“Well, more the reason to find out where she is, right?”
“Let me go…”
“But she could be anywhere else! At home, maybe?”
“Maybe,” Spike conceded, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Why not?”
“She tried to convince us to accompany her for a while before giving up. And she told us word-for-word that she was going after the cowled stranger. Let’s be honest, I think it’s a safe bet to say she’s stubborn enough to follow up on her plan.”
“But…”
“Let me put it this way,” Spike tried to change tactics. “Do you want Applejack to come home and find out you ditched his little sister to fend off by herself in the middle of the Everfree Forest?”
“But we didn’t do that!” the pegasus objected.
“Guys…”
“Doesn’t matter, that’s what he’s going to think. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not! But I also don’t want to go into the forest!” Scootaloo snapped.
The dragon blinked, caught off guard.
“But… she’s your friend.”
“Yeah, of course she is!” Scootaloo replied hurriedly. “But we’re talking about going blindly into the Everfree Forest and just hope for the best! We can’t do that! It’s dangerous! It’s filled with manticores and cockatrices and overgrown lizards and bandits and jaywalkers and everything!”
“Yeah, and Apple Bloom went in there all alone,” Spike repeated, annoyed at how their argument was going in circles. This time, however, instead of trying to argue with him, the pegasus filly shuddered at the thought, and Spike couldn’t help but feel slightly satisfied that he was getting her to come around.
Scootaloo sighed, admitting defeat.
“Yeah, you’re right. Any ideas?”
“Besides going blindly into the Everfree Forest and just hope for the best?” Spike asked dryly. “Nope.”
“Don’t you think maybe we could assemble a rescue team?” Scootaloo proposed.
“With whom?” Spike asked with concern, “Twilight and the guys are on dragon duty, and the rest of Ponyville is probably sacrificing their offspring to appease the Elder Ones. It’s just us.” Then Spike’s eyes lightened. “Wait, how could I forget? Big Mac! He could help us, right?”
“Nope, he’s out of town,” the pegasus sighed. “Doing a delivery, I think.”
“Oh,” Spike frowned. “Anypony else?”
“None that I know of.”
“That’s awfully convenient.”
Scootaloo shrugged. “That’s Ponyville for you, I guess.”
“Help…” Sweetie Belle croaked weakly, oxygen levels really low, eyes defocused, face blue.
“You should probably let her go,” Spike noted, pointing with a claw at Sweetie's agonising face.
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Scootaloo chuckled awkwardly, letting go of Sweetie Belle, who collapsed on the floor gasping for air. “Sorry.”
The white unicorn, however, was more preoccupied with staying alive to pay her any mind, wheezing and coughing like a dying giraffe.
After a beat, Spike looked back at Scootaloo.
“So… there’s nopony to help us.”
“Nope.”
“You know what that means?”
“We find something else to do and hope Apple Bloom gets here soon?” Scootaloo asked with a slightly-too-wide smile.
“We have to go after her,” Spike sentenced seriously.
“Yeah, I thought as much,” Scootaloo sighed in resignation.
“I don’t want to go,” Sweetie meekly piped up. The pegasus nodded, pursing her lips. Neither did Spike, but he knew they had to.
And so, he was struck with the worst idea in Equestrian history.
“... What if…” he sighed deeply, so deeply that the ground would have rumbled if a sigh could cause that. This is going to suck. “What if you girls get your cutie marks with this?”
The two fillies’ countenance changed immediately, as they both considered the idea.
Spike knew it wasn’t a good idea. It was actually a pretty bad one. If they’d stopped to think about it, they would have surely realised the improbability, or at least, the sheer contrived coincidence that it would be for their definitive special talent, the one that set them apart from everypony else and represented their deepest and truest beings, being meeting and befriending a certain mysterious newcomer to town. All of this, and far more, would have been crystal clear to them if only they had stopped to think about it for so much as a second.
Of course, they didn’t.
“Yeah! Let’s go, then!” Scootaloo shouted less than an instant after Spike finished talking, excitedly flapping her minuscule wings at the idea.
“You really think so?” Sweetie Belle asked the baby dragon, not as outwardly excited as her friend, but with a hopeful gleam in her eyes. She was still rubbing her bruised neck.
Spike wanted to hit himself. In the face. With the moon. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t. And he knew what he had to do.
“Yeah, why not?” he said with the fakest beam he’d ever beamed.
Celestia have mercy on my soul.
“I don’t like this place…” Sweetie Belle muttered.
Spike had to nod warily at that. The dark and dense foliage of the Everfree Forest gave everything underneath it an unnatural, otherworldly vibe that gave him the creeps.
“How come the stranger just happens to live in the middle of the forest?” The unicorn added, “Why couldn’t he just live in a nice cottage outside of town?”
“Because that’s where Butterscotch lives?”
“Well, yeah, but you know what I mean.”
Spike sighed. “Yeah, I do,” then chuckled. “How are you holding up, Scootaloo?”
“Shut up,” the shivering orange blob barked back.
“I thought you weren’t scared of anything,” Sweetie Belle pointed.
“Shut up!” she repeated, more forcefully.
“What would Rainbow Blitz think?” Spike asked rhetorically, trying to get a reaction out of Scootaloo.
“He would think you guys are mean,” she said, utterly unaware of what was going on at the exact same time somewhere else.
“Oh, look at those flowers!” Sweetie Belle suddenly exclaimed, pointing towards a patch of bright sky blue flowers at one side of the path. “They’re so pretty! I’ve gotta pick up some for Elusive on the way back. He’s going to love them.”
“If there’s a way back,” Scootaloo muttered.
And so they walked through the dark forest, wary of their treacherous surroundings. Indeed, in one certain moment, they came across a terrified, crying manticore, which they wisely avoided as quietly as they could.
Spike was unsure whether to feel blessed or disappointed that a very wimpy manticore was the only creature they had found yet.
Well, we’re not that far into the depths of the Forest, Spike reasoned. We’re a far cry away from wherever Twi and the guys got into to fight the Night King.
As a matter of fact, the only part where the forest lived up to its reputation of dread was in its oppressive atmosphere and eldritch aesthetics. Besides that, however, Spike felt almost bored.
Twilight and the guys are in the midst of an epic quest, and here I am, boring my scales off in the middle of the most dangerous forest in Equestria. Life is strange.
He also found himself wondering exactly what was the problem with Ponyville, what with this being the third consecutive week filled with adventures or hijinks. When Twilight and he lived in Canterlot, years passed without anything remotely interesting happening. Here in Ponyville, however, it seemed like they couldn’t catch a break.
“What’s that?” Sweetie Belle’s voice broke through his reverie.
“What’s wha—” Spike turned around to see where Sweetie was pointing.
Towering in the middle of a small clearing, an enormous and twisted tree stood. What set it apart from its brethren, however, was the fact that this tree was clearly a house. Probably the creepiest, most sinister-looking house Spike had ever laid eyes on, but a house nonetheless.
“Do… do you guys think…?” Scootaloo began, then faltered.
A large wooden mask was hanging on top of the main door. Now, Spike was not the modern magic prodigy that Twilight was, but he knew enough to recognise what it was.
“It’s a ritual zebrican mask,” Spike said immediately, a small shiver running down his spine.
“What’s that?” Sweetie Belle turned towards him, her head tilted to the side.
“Doesn’t Miss Cheerilee teach you anything at school?”
“I mean, she tries,” Scootaloo conceded. “It’s not like we pay attention to her or anything.” Sweetie Belle nodded solemnly.
Spike face-clawed. “You girls are impossible.”
The unicorn coughed. “Ahem. The mask?”
“Right. The mask. Well, Zebricans are kind of a troublesome folk,” he began. “A few decades past, a Trottish expeditionary force that landed on Zebrica’s beach was wiped out by a Zebrican ambush, and their heads were placed on pikes all across the shore. A warning for any would be invaders.” Scootaloo gulped, eyes wide in fear.
“And… what does the mask mean…?” Sweetie asked, fearful.
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. Nobody knows anything but the bare essentials about Zebrican culture, because no one who has come across them has survived,” Spike finished with a shiver. This was a terrible idea.
“Whoa nelly, that’s hardcore,” Apple Bloom quipped from behind them.
All three jumped on the spot, screeching for their dear lives. Spike jumped and grabbed hold of a low hanging tree branch. Scootaloo tried to fly away in her tiny wings, but only managed to stumble and crash into a very nasty looking and smelling puddle. Sweetie Belle just collapsed to the floor, faking her own death.
“... Huh,” Apple Bloom frowned. “Did Ah scare ya guys?”
“Holy shit, Apple Bloom! Never do that again!” Spike hissed.
The farmfilly smirked evilly.
“Ya’re not the boss of me. If anythin’, Ah’m the boss of you!” Her smirk turned into a genuine smile. “Because Ah made ya come anyway!”
“Yeah, because we were worried about you, doofus!” Scootaloo added, before retching. “Oh sweet Celestia I think I need a bath.”
Sweetie Belle said nothing. She was still in the ground, quiet and silent as a rock. She was good.
“What are ya doin’ here?” Apple Bloom asked cheerfully, without giving a mind to their eerie, creepy surroundings.
“Didn’t you hear Scootaloo?” Spike asked her, still trying to calm his breathing. Or do you just crave validation and want to hear us say we care about you again?
“Well, Ah do crave validation an’ wan’ ta hear ya say ya care about me,” she said nonchalantly, reading his mind.
That was surely the only logical explanation here.
Sweetie Belle was still very much still in the ground. Spike started to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t exactly faking her death.
Apple Bloom, seemingly unconcerned by one of her best friend’s apparent death, brightly added, “what Ah actually meant was, what are ya doin’ outside? Come on in!”
“How about no?!” Scootaloo shouted in renewed panic.
“How about yes?” Apple Bloom cheerily replied without missing a beat. “Come on, ya’re goin’ to love her!”
And without waiting for an answer, she opened the door to the creepy hut. Spike and Scootaloo only shared a glance – Spike pinched his nose. Dear Celestia, she smells like sh—– before following Apple Bloom inside.
“Zecora! Ah’m back! Ah got the herbs ya asked me to pick up, an’ Ah foun’ my frien’s alon’ the way, too! Ah tol’ ya they would come aroun’,” she announced proudly, Spike pushing the still form of Sweetie Belle across the threshold. Turns out that, while she didn’t die, she did faint and had yet to come back to it.
The inside of the tree hut was unlike its exterior. Where the outside had been twisted, jagged and foreboding, the inside was welcoming and cozy. Exotic plants and pieces of furniture littered the walls, and a warm hearth cackled in the middle of it all.
“Oh, Apple Bloom, you came back so soon?” a soft, motherly voice rang, dripping a thick exotic accent. As her owner came to view, though, it wasn’t a pony but a zebra what they saw. “I thought my errand would keep you busy until noon!”
Apple Bloom blushed. “Aww, shucks, it was nothin’, Zecora.”
“You are a good and smart filly, I can see,” the zebra happily praised Apple Bloom. “Equestria will one day surely bow to thee.”
Wait what, Spike’s brain paused. Before it could be rebooted, though, the zebra, Zecora, turned towards him, eyes wide in surprise.
“Oh my, is that a baby dragon I see? Or just an overgrown lizard come to feed?”
It was at that moment that Spike finally made a decision:
I fucking hate everything, he mentally declared with finality.
Lyra Heartstrings was definitely not amused.
Born in Canterlot and a former student of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, she had moved to Ponyville a few days after the whole Summer Sun Celebration thing two weeks ago, amongst other things, in search of some peace and quiet.
And instead of peace and quiet, she got The End of the World as We Know It.
Or so her roommate, earth pony Bon Bon, hysterically screeched as she ran in circles around the kitchen.
For the fifth straight hour.
And I thought I was the weird one, she thought bemusedly.
Eventually, though, she got tired of her friend’s ridiculous display, and with a deep, annoyed sigh, she finally spoke up.
“You do know the world’s not actually ending, right? It’s just smoke.”
Bon Bon, coming to a halt, fixed her with a very nasty look. The what-the-fuck-did-you-just-fucking-say-about-me kind of look.
“I mean, it smells like smoke,” Lyra said with a shrug.
“Ooooh, that’s brilliant, isn’t it?” Bon Bon said, her voice not exactly dripping as much as oozing acid. “‘Oh, it’s smoke because it smells like smoke’,” the tan earth pony said in the most sarcastic voice Lyra had ever heard as she rolled her eyes in exasperation. Then, she got all up in her roommate’s face and screamed at the top of her lungs: “OF COURSE I KNOW IT’S SMOKE, LYRA!!! THE BETTER QUESTION IS, HOW AND WHY DID A CLOUD OF SMOKE COVER ALL OF PONYVILLE OVERNIGHT!!!”
Lyra blinked, deafened by Bon Bon’s scream, utterly stunned, and with a slightly queer feeling in her gut.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” she said, shaking her head. “Calm down, Bon Bon! Jeez, it’s just a cloud of smoke.”
“Are you really calling the Dark Eternal Night ‘just a cloud of smoke’?!” Bon Bon asked incredulously, before pinching her nose. “I swear, Lyra, you need to learn to take things more seriously.”
“I know how to take things seriously!” she protested. “You’re the one who’s exaggerating!”
“Just think, Lyra. Think. Come on, I know that maybe it’s a bit too hard for you, but. Just. Think. We’ve got an enormous cloud of smoke covering all of Ponyville.”
“I noticed,” Lyra snarked, a bit annoyed by Bon Bon’s condescending tone and rubbing her still-ringing ears.
Her friend ignored her. “What could possibly cause such a cloud of smoke?”
“Uhm, fire?”
“Fire, of course! Now, just how big would a fire need to be to create such a big and enduring cloud of smoke?”
“Probably the best barbecue in Equestria.”
“For Celestia’s sake, Lyra!” Bon Bon exclaimed. “For a smoke cloud of this magnitude, we’d need an area at least as big as Canterlot to be on fire!”
“So definitely the best barbecue in Equestrian history,” she amended with a smirk.
Bon Bon facehoofed once more, but before she could tear Lyra apart in her rage, the bit finally dropped. Lyra’s eyes went wide, her pupils turned into pinpricks, and her ears dropped.
“... Oh.”
“Yeah,” Bon Bon said with a tired sigh. “Now you get it?”
“So you’re telling me Canterlot is on fire?” Lyra asked numbly. My whole family lives there! And Minuette, and Lemon Hearts, and Moondancer, and—
Bon Bon must have surely noticed Lyra’s change of countenance, because her gaze and voice softened. “No, Lyra,” she said as she walked closer to her friend. “Canterlot is fine and most definitely not on fire. If it did, the smoke cloud wouldn’t be so close to Ponyville.” Lyra let out a breath she didn’t know she had held. Bon Bon continued: “The Everfree Forest, though? I don’t know.”
“And we live on the edge of the Everfree Forest,” Lyra said weakly, comprehension dawning in her eyes.
“Now you get it?” Bon Bon raised an eyebrow.
“Y-yeah,” Lyra said before gulping. Now she was the one who was panicking. “W-what should we do? What should we do?! We should probably run away!”
“Don’t worry!” a new voice came out of nowhere, scaring the everything out of the two ponies.
“AAAHHH!!!” both mares jumped on the spot in surprise, turning towards the window in panic. Leaning in was Twilight Sparkle’s sorta little-brother, baby dragon Spike.
“Oh, Spike! You nearly scared the life outta me!” Lyra scolded him, desperately trying to control her breathing. And her heart. And her, well, pretty much everything. Thank goodness she’d gone to the bathroom just before starting the whole conversation with Bon Bon, otherwise…
“Heheh. Sorry, Lyra,” the baby dragon looked a bit ashamed. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“‘Here’ as in ‘Bon Bon’s house’, or as in ‘Ponyville in general’?”
“‘Here’ as in ‘Ponyville in general’.”
“Oh, I got here a few days after the whole Summer Sun Celebration debacle! I asked the Princess for advice regarding my investigation into the Humans, and she recommended I moved to Ponyville! Seeing how well it turned out for Twilight, I decided to give it a shot, too! And so far it’s been going swimmingly! Y’know, barring the—”
“What was that about us worrying?” Bon Bon interrupted, her eyes darting from dragon to unicorn repeatedly. Both jumped on their spots, but not nearly as much as the two ponies had just a few moments ago.
“Oh!” Spike exclaimed. “That you don’t need to. Twilight and the guys have it all under control!”
“Oh, that’s great to know,” the tan mare sighed in relief. “And what is the cause of the fire?”
“Oh, there’s no fire. Just a full-grown dragon that nested nearby. No biggie.”
What.
“Please explain to me how a huge, gigantic, terrifying, enormous, teeth-gnashing, sharp-scale-having, horn-wearing, smoke-snoring, fire-breathing, blood-lusting, viscerae-eating, could-swallow-a-pony-in-a-single-bite, could-raze-a-city-with-little-more-than-a-thought, totally all-grown up real dragon resting nearby is ‘no biggie’,” Bon Bon snarked without missing a beat. Lyra nodded in stunned agreement. “Er, no offense.”
Spike blinked. “Huh. Just got the weirdest sense of Déjà Vu.” He shook his head. “But you don’t have to worry, because they’ve got it all under control!”
“Yeeeeaaaah… no offense; they’re cool and all that, but they’re just six ponies up against a giant dragon,” the unicorn objected.
“Six ponies who defeated the Night King,” Spike pointed out.
Both mares exchanged glances.
“Touché,” Lyra said.
“Oh, and there’s no need to freak out about the weird cowled stranger that comes to town every month!” the dragon added. “We met her, she’s a zebra, her name’s Zecora and she’s actually super nice!”
Both ponies looked at each other like Spike was insane.
“What?!” Bon Bon exclaimed. “How can that be true?! If that were true, then why does she live deep in the Everfree Forest? It’s not really the most friendly of neighbourhoods.”
“Because she’s an herbalist, and over there she has closer access to most of the herbs he needs,” Spike explained cheerily.
“Then why is it that, whenever she comes, she always goes and lurks around the stores?”
“Because she’s going to them to do some shopping,” Spike answered, a bit more warily than before. “Not all herbs grow in the Everfree Forest, there are some she has to buy here.”
Lyra and Bon Bon exchanged a new glance, this one more nervous than the previous ones. “And… why does she dig at the ground?”
“Probably looking for some herb that only grows in Ponyville, or something like that? I don’t know, I didn’t ask her,” answered Spike.
Both ponies seemed uncomfortable. “And…” Bon Bon tentatively began, “why does she come to town once every month, wearing a creepy cloak and everything?”
Spike seemed even more uncomfortable than them all of a sudden. “Well… no offense, girls, but you guys here in Ponyville are kinda xenophobic.”
“What?! No, we’re not!” the earth pony replied, indignant.
“Literally only Butterscotch can tell apart a baby dragon from an overgrown lizard,” Spike blinked, unamused.
“... That proves nothing!” Bon Bon insisted.
“You thought Zecora was an evil enchantress simply because she’s a zebra,” the dragon snapped.
“Well, I mean,” Lyra said, walking up to Bon Bon, “he’s got you there, you know.”
“Don’t blame this on me, you thought she was evil too!”
Lyra just coughed and muttered something under her breath, too low for any of the others to hear.
Spike shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t really matter, anyway. The point is, she’s super nice, so you don’t have to worry the next time she comes to visit. Just wanted to give you girls the update after I heard your yapping from the street.”
“Ask them if they want a blue rose!” came the voice of an excitable filly from the streets.
“Oh. Right,” Spike said, pulling a beautiful sky-blue flower and held it up. “Sweetie Belle found them in the Everfree. Do you girls want one?”
“Oh, sure!” Lyra grabbed two with her magic, passing one to Bon Bon. “They’re pretty!” Bon Bon just nodded, looking at the admittedly-quite-pretty flower in her hoof. “Do I owe you anything for them?”
“Nah, keep them! It’s on the house. Bye bye, Lyra! Nice seeing you here in Ponyville!”
“Bye, Spike!” Lyra waved at the retreating form of the dragon. She then walked away from the window, turned around, and looked at Bon Bon with a sly grin. “See? Told you it wasn’t the end of the world.”
And she was right: it wasn’t.
It was way, way worse than that.
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Excellent job on the latest chapter. Loved the focus on Spike and the Crusaders. The argument in the beginning concerning Zecora was great as was Apple Bloom getting stubborn enough to investigate on her own, Apple Bloom's own inner argument concerning Spike, Spike and the other Crusaders' guilt ultimately proving stronger than their fear, the argument that followed between the Crusaders immediately after they caught up to Bloom, Lyra and Bon Bon's own argument and Spike's point out concerning the town's xenophobia. Plus, yeah, the parasprites and poison joke effects ARE best left implied. And, yeah, Sweetie Belle pretty much dominating in the games Spike and the Crusaders played was another funny bit (especially the part about Spike having to do her homework for six months [and thinking about the advantages to his upbringing with Twilight's family]).
At any rate, the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places. And I will definitely be looking forward to more of this, but will also respect that real world matters need to take top priority.
Seeing Scootaloo choke the hell out of Sweetie Belle, while continuing to talk to Spike was freaking hilarious & makes up for the long wait!
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Yes, I know. I posted the comment before I continued reading.