Rainbow Dash's Awesome Nightmare Night Haunted House Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Adventure

by TheDriderPony

You Have Nothing to Fear...

Your decision made, you tilt your wings to turn the dive into a sudden rise.

Your hooves meet the sword, grasp it, and with all the force of your dive behind you, rip it from its wooden scabbard.

Green and black ooze bursts from the wound as the tree screams. You've never heard a tree scream before and you don't think you'll ever be able to forget it.

You bank around as the branches start to shrivel and wither. Vitality drains from them as though time has been sped up. You land back near the pedestal with the plaque where it first attacked you, the zombies slowly congregating there while you watch the tree die. Branches start to fall as they lose the strength to support their own weight, dropping with crashes and booms as they crush what remains of the garden that their thrashing hadn't already wrecked. Soon there's just the trunk left still squirting a thin stream of ooze out the top. It continues to shrivel and wizen until—with a resounding *crack!*—the trunk breaks in half and falls over.

You hold your breath for a moment to see if anything else happens. Some boss fights have a second stage, after all. But when a minute passes and it shows no signs of revitalizing, you thrust your sword into the sky. "That. Was. Awesome!" Your zombie allies groan approvingly, gap-toothed smiles on their faces.

"And it's all thanks to you guys!" You spread your hooves wide, accidentally severing Zombilee's head in the process. "Whoops! Are you—" She waves you off with a grunt as she picks it up and places it back on her stump, slightly crooked. "Uh, okay. At least I get a cool sword out of this!"

As if hearing your words, a ringing chime resonates through the room, accompanied by your sword shriveling into a long stick of wood. "Aw. I knew it was too good to be true." Still, it's a very nice stick. Sturdy, good for thwacking. A level up from fighting monsters with your bare hooves.

You turn your attention back to your new zombie friends. "So do you guys, like, join my party now or—oh." You realize they've walked away while you were focused on the sword, back towards the holes they originally climbed out of. Holes they are now climbing back in. Somehow, this saddens you more than you expected. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Wouldn't be fair if I had your help in every single room." Zoarin nods as he shimmies into the hole that was made for him and pulls a pile of dirt over his head.

Something grabs your leg and you look down. It's Zombelle, giving you a hug. She looks up with a smile before letting go and taking a running leap into her own hole like she's some kind of high diver. She too disappears. One by one the rest rebury themselves, each giving you a nod or a smile before they go. Soon you're alone and the ground looks as smooth and undisturbed as any other part.

With an odd sense of melancholy tinting your victory, you take your Stick and make for the door.

Author's Note:

[Continue]