blackpest

by mushroompone

Connect

“Have you felt it yet, Twilight?”

I looked up from my food.

Rarity looked back at me. She held a thick-walled mug of steaming liquid in her glimmering magic. It curled up in little spires, whirling around her face in hypnotic patterns.

“Hm?” I breathed.

“The food,” Rarity said. “Have you tried it yet?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked back down at my plate. It was… I couldn’t remember, exactly. Something with eggs and… and kale, maybe. And bread under it all. Maybe hot sauce somewhere?

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, it’s… It’s good.”

My fork wavered in my own magic as I half-heartedly began to push the meal about my plate. I honestly couldn't remember if I'd eaten or not.

Rarity didn’t say anything. She looked at me with a strange sort of longing; the way one looks at a friend when a reunion goes sour. As if to say ‘this isn’t what I thought it would be. You’re not who I thought you’d be’. A desire to close a distance that could not be closed.

Maybe that was fair. One little secret was more than enough to create a cavernous divide between even the best of friends... I knew that all too well.

And this didn't feel little at all. It felt huge.

The sounds of the diner made for a nice cocoon to fade into. I could hardly even hear the scraping of my fork against the plate as I forced the yellow-and-green mush to one side of my plate, then the other. I could feel it in my teeth, though.

“Don’t you think it’s time to feel it?” Rarity asked.

I looked up again.

Her expression had not changed. And yet I searched for it-- for that little hint of aggression that I knew wasn’t there. A hardness in the eyes that would have given her away.

There was nothing there, though.

I sighed lightly. “Time for what?”

Rarity sighed, too. The sigh of a parent trying to reach a withdrawn child. “To talk with somepony. A professional.”

I dropped my fork on the plate. “Oh, Rarity, I--”

“I know what you told me,” Rarity interrupted, holding up a hoof. I dutifully bit back my complaints. “But, darling, I see you slipping. You did an admirable thing at the wedding, really. And I do understand the stuff-upper-lip attitude. I do.”

I snorted lightly in amused agreement. The sound felt foreign.

Rarity set her mug down on the table. “Look. I don’t want to push you in a direction you’re not comfortable. But you’re… you’re not yourself. You haven’t been for weeks now.”

I looked back down at my plate and lifted fork again. I began digging little troughs in my meal with the tines, as if plowing a field.

“That kind of anxiety doesn’t just leave a pony,” Rarity murmured. It all but disappeared into the babble of the diner’s breakfast crowd. “I don’t expect that your already paranoia-prone mental state was improved by what you experienced.”

The booth peeled away from my sweaty hock with an teeth-itching sound as I shifted position.

“I don’t want you avoiding help because you consider yourself a veteran of anxiety,” Rarity said. She lifted her mug again. “Your pridefulness in that arena rivals Rainbow’s.”

“I’m not avoiding help,” I said.

“Oh, lovely,” Rarity said. She sipped her tea. “So you’ve been seeing a therapist, then?”

“I’m not going to see a therapist for getting scared,” I said.

Rarity set her jaw. “I’m sure you know that’s a vast oversimplification of the issue.”

I did.

“It’s not!” I insisted. “Was it scary? Yes. Do I need somepony else’s help to get over that?”

“Yes!”

“No!”

Rarity sighed deeply. She closed her eyes and took another long, slow sip of her tea. Even the terrible, diner-quality tea bags seemed to calm her down visibly. The taste of it put her into a state that was very nearly meditative.

She set the mug down gently. “Twilight, I’ve known you a while now.”

I put my chin down on the tacky table and looked up at Rarity with a scowl.

“This may surprise you,” she continued, “but, a few years ago, I wasn’t unlike you. It took me… more than it should have to break out of the cycle of anxiety. I don’t want you suffering more than you have to.”

I guess I wanted to be angry for a moment--how dare Rarity imply that she knew what I was going through--but I couldn't bring myself to act on it.

My scowl dissolved.

I hadn’t thought about it. And I was surprised. Rarity always came off as a drama queen, of course, but only for the theatrics. For a bit of a laugh out of the rest of us.

Suddenly, those moments of weakness--of outright blind terror when things didn’t go the way she wanted--were painted in a different light. I could think of a few times just in the last week when my heart had skipped a beat over an overlooked detail, a forgotten deadline. Not even permanent mistakes, mind you; merely the idea of one. The possibility.

Of course Rarity was a stickler for detail. Of course I was, too.

Why had I not seen it before?

“Are you connected, Twilight?”

I lifted my head from the table. “Am I… what?”

“Alright,” Rarity repeated. I could sense she was walking a fine like on her fatigue with this conversation. “Are you alright? You seem distant.”

“I’m…” I thought a moment. I’m scared. I’m slipping. I’m confused. I’m obsessed. “Tired.”

Rarity looked disappointed. Perhaps she knew that trick. “Of course. I understand,”

It wasn’t because of the wedding.

I wished it was. If it was, I could have talked to somepony and gotten past the trauma. Easy.

If it had been the wedding, truly, I would have gone to talk to somepony right away. I would have gotten help. I would have gotten better. It would have been easy.

But it was the game.

The little pieces in my desk, whispering to me and laughing at me through other ponies’ mouths.

It just couldn't be anything else.

This great, tangled mass of confusion and horror and paranoia could only be attributed to the game.

It had to be.

“I suppose you’re not hungry, either,” Rarity said. She set her teacup down in the saucer.

I looked down at the food. I could tell, just looking at it, that it would make my tongue fade to static.

"I... Guess not."

Rarity sighed. “Let’s box it up for you. I’ll walk you home.”

---

Spike was out.

I don't know where he really was. But it wasn’t the library.

“Don’t forget to connect, Twilight,” Rarity said as she left. “You can’t go curious all day.”

That wasn’t what she really said, but it was what I heard.

“Thank you,” I said. “I won’t.”

And, heinously, I meant it.

This wouldn't be the first time I had broken under the game's taunting. Curiosity had gotten the better of me--as it often does--and I had taken the object out to examine the spellwork.

Because there was spellwork. That was clear to me, now. Maybe not powerful spellwork, maybe not even purposeful spellwork. But there was magic. I had sensed it when I’d first picked the game up, and I had been able to find it in a heartbeat when I knew what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to find. The magic had been rather expertly locked behind a firewall-- essentially a piece of magic that could only be edited by a single pony. That pony wasn’t me, and so I couldn’t open it.

Without knowing who had written the spell, I had no hope of cracking it open to see what lay inside.

I took that as a sign to stop poking my nose in places it didn’t belong.

But the voices only grew in intensity.

At first, it was only in my head. Just another item on the endless, tape-recorded list running round and round in the back of mind. My own voice, of course.

And then it was Spike's.

He would greet me when I got home with a "Hi, Twilight," and a "did you remember to connect?"

Not every time. Just often enough to put that item at the top of my mental list.

Connect.

Feel it, Twilight.

Connect.

Every time I broke, every time I proved further, the voice became more insistent. It spoke through more mouths, and more often. Though its message never changed.

It was starting to feel good, in a sick and masochistic sort of way. That rush of adrenaline every time I snuck away... I convinced myself that slipping away was worth it.

My heart was pounding as I entered the library. The anticipation of satisfaction blurred my vision.

"Spike?" I called through the empty library, my voice unsteady, almost giddy. I had to be sure. "Spike… are you home?"

The wind whipped up, and the library creaked in response. Feeeeeeeeeel, it moaned.

The rustling of the leaves sounded like static.

"Spike, I've got groceries," I lied.

The lie made me even more anxious and shaky.

To Spike's credit, he hadn't asked about the game more than twice. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps the blame for that rests on me, and the strangeness of my behavior.

Rarity had also given up. I told her a half-truth--that the object was a video game, Spike had informed me, and that it didn't seem to work--because I couldn't quite bring myself to lie then.

She had seemed interested at first, and had needled me with more questions. She even suggested I take it to some coder she knew in Canterlot, just to see what a professional made of the thing.

I made poor excuses and danced around the subject. I didn't have time. It just wasn't interesting. I just didn't care.

All lies.

Eventually, she stopped asking.

"Spike…" I called into the darkened building once more.

The wind shifted direction.

Feeeeel, the tree groaned. Feeeeeeeelit.

Maybe Rarity was right. Maybe this all came from the wedding stress.

Always looking over my shoulder. Searching for something strange, or wrong, or different, or just off in everypony I knew. In everything I saw. A sign that what I thought was true was, in fact, not true at all.

Because I had been right.

And it should have made me feel better, but it made the pit in my stomach yawn even wider.

Ever little worry was magnified now, because what if I was right?

Should that make me less worried? Because my instincts were good, and I'd never get myself into trouble again? More worried, because the fear was an overwhelming, swirling mass of terror that clouded out everything else?

Clouded out feeling. And sound. And thought.

Feelit, a bird whistled. Feelit. Feelit.

Feeeeeeeeeel, the tree added.

I stood still in the center of the room. Listening to the bird, the tree. The emptiness. Trying not to let anxiety get the better of me.

Feel it, Twilight, said the little voice in the back of my mind. Connect.

And I had a choice.

Keep on like this, with anxiety latched onto my brain like a rabid animal, an endless paranoia gnawing away at me.

Or… I could be right.

I ascended the stairs slowly, softly. Afraid of getting caught. By who, I don't know.

Just going to take a peek.

A quick little peek. No big deal.

Nothing to worry about.

Feel, Feel, the floorboards moaned.

The game was still in pieces in my desk. For some reason, I chose to reassemble it. Maybe to buy time. Maybe because the tape recorder was rattling empty at the back of my mind, and I just couldn't think a complete thought without it.

The case clicked together. One screw tightened, then the other.

I held the object up in front of me. I remembered the way it sat inside the console, those little metal fingers reaching down into the electronic guts of the machine.

A little tendril of magic on each would do the trick, I think.

I reached out, tentatively, with a wispy-thin tentacle, and laid it against the first finger on the left.

Like water, my magic could float on top, but it could also sink beneath the surface.

I dove.

And I was connected.

Or… well, I guess you could say I was disconnected.

The sound of the leaves vanished completely.

Just like that-- cut off. Choked.

I ripped my magic back out. It came away as easily as it had slipped in, and the sound came back.

Okay, Twilight.

If it can be undone so easily, it can't possibly be that dangerous.

Dipped it in again.

Again. No more leaves.

I reached out another tendril of magic, and connected it with the next metal finger. This time, my vision went a little blurry.

I pulled out again, and the effect vanished.

Not a trap.

Just… something.

I reached in again. Tendril to finger, like Spike's claws interlacing. Like hair tangling into itself. Like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

The world melted away. Sight, sound, and touch dissolved to nothing.

And then, as the last tendril met the last contact…

Like waking up from a dream--or perhaps like realizing you're in one--the world came back.

Only different.

Everything was… brighter. Sharper. Almost stylized, as if the world were nothing more than an illustration in a foal's picture book. Or a weekend comic strip.

Everything was still there, of course. My desk, the books on top of it, the open drawer. My bed on one side, Spike's bed on the other. But only the impression of it… I guess. As if it had been laminated, or something.

Floating in front of me was a small string of letters:

© HUSC

I turned my head to one side, and the letters stayed suspended in space.

I reached out and waved my hoof through them. They did not react in the least to my touch. It was like a projection.

The letters faded, though it didn't seem to have a thing to do with me.

Then the music started.

It was light. Upbeat. A little nothing-tune which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It was strangely electronic and processed.

And now, a new word:

BLACKPEST

Hovering right over my bed. Like a ghost.

I walked around the side of the word, and looked at it from this new angle. As far as I could see, it was very real. It filled the space in exactly the way I anticipated.

And yet, my hooves passed through it. Like mist.

I waited for it to fade.

Nothing happened.

It was... creepy, I guess. This phantom object suspended in my home. In my room.

I should have been afraid of it, I guess. In the way of a horror story, when the terrible things are terrible only because you do not understand them. It didn't feel dangerous, exactly... only viscerally and deeply wrong.

And yet, as the anxiety and adrenaline bubbled up within me, all I wanted to do was laugh.

It was one of the silliest situations I could imagine-- standing here, holding a video game, looking about my own room as if it were completely foreign. I had been terrified of this little cartridge, when it turned out it was… exactly what Spike said.

A video game.

An exceedingly clever video game, I'd give it that. But a video game nonetheless.

A little snort snuck out of me. "Um… hello?"

"Hello!"

I yelped and stumbled forward. Once again, somepony had managed to sneak up on me.

"My name is Hunter Moon," said the voice. It was oddly robotic, I thought.

I looked over my shoulder.

There stood a stallion. Not a real stallion, though; this stallion looked as if he were composed of many pieces of colored paper, cut into sharp-edged triangles and assembled into something which merely resembled a living being. Yet he was there. Really, physically there, like I could reach out and touch him.

He seemed to take up space, even though the light from the window had no effect on his coloring. Even though he cast no shadows.

He looked towards me--not at me, really, only in me general direction--with empty eyes, and continued to speak. "I'm an exterminator with the Blackpest Corporation! Welcome to the team."

I cocked my head. "Me?"

"We've been getting reports of a pest control problem in your area," he continued, undisturbed. "Are you up to the task, new recruit?"

"Um…"

Maybe it was because I didn't have any experience with video games. Maybe it was the way Hunter Moon looked just above my eyes, instead of right at them. Maybe it was the remnant of that voice in the back of my mind, telling me to stop at all costs. That this was an unknown, and therefore dangerous.

Whatever it was, I withdrew my magical tendrils from the cartridge.

The colorful, cartoonish coating on the world was sucked away all at once. I was left, once again, in my bedroom.

There was a dull, distant ringing in my ears, not unlike the whine of Spike's console as it cooled down from extended use.

Actually, the equivalent of a persistent ringing was felt all over my body. My eyes strained to see in this old, low-contrast environment. My limbs felt weak and unsteady.

It was fading fast, but I still rocked back on my haunches and plopped onto my bedroom floor.

Hm.

A video game that took over your senses.

That changed the world around you.

This was going to require further exploration.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Is this a crossover? And shouldn't the title be Blackpest?

[mushroompone]

10464034
Dude.

You always do this! Come onto my fics and ask questions which demonstrate that you haven't read a word of the fic itself.

If it was a crossover, it would be tagged as "crossover".

If the title was meant to be capitalized, it would be capitalized.

Have you ever read even one word I've written? Including descriptions? I'm not your personal butler, here to help you find the perfect fanfiction. I'm also not here to answer questions with obvious answers.

I'm done with you, dude. Have fun being blocked.

[Thought Prism]

Woah. Okay, so. Having this be set right after the Royal Wedding makes perfect sense, as that's the time when Twilight would be at her most paranoid, justifiably so. Though that doesn't make it healthy. Meanwhile, it seems Blackpest, despite being shaped like a SNES cart, is actually an AR game for unicorns! Hopefully, the titular 'pests' aren't overlaid atop real creatures...

10464055
Yeah, that guy's not the best, lol.

[mushroompone]

10464920
>:3c

[SIGAWESOME]

A video game that took over your senses.

I can just imagine the BBFC/ESRB rating certificate:

(15)
Suitable only for persons of 15 years and over.

• Cartoon violence
• Comic Mischief
• Y̱'Ḁ͇I̙̼̙'̷N͕̟G̘͚̣'̟͚͝ͅNG͟A͓̜̟H̯̤,
  Y̘̖Ó̙G҉̫͙-S̘̜OT͜ḪO͔̠͇TH̖
  H͢'EE̢͙̫-͞L'̣̗GEB͖
  F'̟͕A͘I ̙̻T̀HROD̼̗OG͡
  U̡̦̗͔AAA̙̱H
• Fantasy Violence
• Mature Humour
• Strong Language

[Courage Fire]

10464055
He does this a lot to -everyone- that he comes across for some reason.

[mushroompone]

10470682
Good lord does he ever. I've seen him on so many fictions, user pages, and groups asking drop-dead obvious questions that make you go ???

I told him last time (when he began requesting specific fetish content on a teen-rated story with no prompting) that I'd block him if he posted something like this again. Hope it was worth it lol