The Enchanted Computer: A RariTwi Exquisite Corpse

by SigmasonicX

~ 05 ~ hi guys.....im back from my hike (Corejo)

Time seemed to slow as Twilight processed the sensation of falling. The rise in her bowels, the instinctive gasp, and the intensifying rush of wind. She somersaulted once, twice before managing to catch the air beneath her wings.

Her eyes instinctively snapped to the figure of Rarity falling beside her, and she didn’t miss a beat. She threw her hooves around Rarity, lassoed Pinkie Pie in her magic, and pumped her wings to slow their fall, alighting on the flagstones below.

Beside them, Lightning Dust set down a frazzled-looking Fiddlesticks, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and cheeky grin, while Cadance gently levitated down a very embarrassed and strangely alicorned Marble Pie. Add that to the list of questions to ask later, right next to teenage Cadance.

Twilight sighed and turned a smile back to Rarity, whom she held delicately in her hooves before her brain caught up with the moment and reminded her this was Incantation, not Rarity.

Incantation put a hoof to her forehead in an overdramatic swoon. “My hero.”

Twilight dropped her. “Is everypony okay?”

“Rude,” Incantation said, getting up. “Maybe I’m not okay.”

“We don’t have time for your games,” Twilight said. “We have to—”

“Guards!” came “Princess” Strawberry Sunrise’s voice, seemingly everywhere at once. “Guards!”

There was a distant roar that got the hairs on Twilight’s neck standing on end. A massive serpentine head crashed through the doorway they had just fallen from, sending cracks spidering across the face of the castle. It roared at the sky, wrenching left and right, trying to squeeze the rest of its body through before catching sight of them. It paused, and its slitted eyes narrowed.

“Don’t tell me that’s the guard,” Cadance said.

“Do you want to stick around and ask it?” Lightning Dust said. “Let’s get the hay out of here.”

“It’s an illusion,” Twilight said. “This is all an illusion.”

A violent scrawling of talons on stone brought their eyes back up before once, twice, three times it hurled itself against the doorframe. The doorframe gave a little more with every blow until it exploded outward in a shower of masonry, and the creature tumbled after them.

It hit the ground in a heavy splatter of black ichor that slowly reformed into the lithe serpentine form of a dragon, though that was more suggestion than reality. Its body was less that of a real creature and more an amoebic imitation, its pearlescent green scales a patchwork facade that swam loosely in place like an eggshell cracked apart and its few remaining pieces held together by the contents within. Long, goopy, tar-like strands flew free from its oily figure as it let out a roar that rumbled in Twilight’s bones.

It’s an illusion. It’s an illusion. It’s an illusion.

Twilight trembled as this creature easily five times her size barrelled toward her before being abruptly spun around by Lightning Dust.

“It looks real enough to me!” Lightning Dust said. She booked it for a nearby alley, the others already turning the corner. “Let’s move!”

Right. Now was the time for running. She scrambled after the others.

They were in a village now. Thatched roofs and wooden walls made up the bulk of this disturbingly empty place.

Focus. It’s an illusion. It had to be. Her necklace had never once glowed brighter than this. Find the source of the chaos magic, dispel it, and they could finally start making sense of things.

The alleyway led to an open courtyard featuring a large marble water fountain. Across the way, there was a large stone guardhouse of some sort that formed an extension of the castle proper. Most importantly, it had two big sturdy doors, perfect for keeping out goopy dragon things.

“In there!” Twilight said, just as a deafening crash of wood ripped through the courtyard behind them.

The dragon had sideswiped a house as it careened around the corner, demolishing the entirety of the wall and leaving a long blackened smear in its wake. The act tore away even more of its scales, exposing more of the churning, tar-like fluid holding it together. One of its eyes was missing, and in its place glowed a burning ember that curled away in green smoke.

“What the crap even is that thing?” Cadance said, looking over her shoulder.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Twilight said. “But illusion or not, it’s still dangerous.”

And as if on cue, there it was again. Everything faded to black, and the ground beneath her hooves disappeared for a fraction of a second, leaving her stumbling for footing after having fallen an inch in space.

Pain blossomed in Twilight’s muzzle as her momentum carried her headlong into what had become a wall. She put a hoof up to her nose, feeling the pain reach up into her sinuses and get her misty eyed.

“Sheesh, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said. “I know you’re worried about getting us all out safe, but you could just use the door.” She pointed at the large double doors five feet to Twilight’s left.

Twilight gritted her teeth. If it wasn’t illusory goop dragons trying to eat her, it was somepony giving her lip. She shook her head. Luckily, the stutter had shunted them forward, across the courtyard, putting some healthy spacing between them and the dragon.

Pinkie pushed on the doors, hooves scraping pathetically on the flagstones, before she flattened to her belly in defeat. “It’s locked!” she yelled.

Twilight tested it with her magic. “It’s not locked. It’s barred. Cadance!”

“I got it!” Cadance said, passing through the door. The faint windchime tinkle of her magic trickled through the door as she worked to undo the bar from its latch.

“Wait, how did she do that?” Fiddlesticks said with a look in her eye that said she most certainly had just seen a ghost.

“No time!” Twilight said. She huddled them all in front of the doors and threw up a bubble shield to wall them in. “Everypony get ready to move!”

The dragon was on them like a tidal wave, crashing headfirst into her shield. For the briefest moment, its face was inches from hers, and she saw the feral hunger in its one good eye, now fractured into three pieces like a broken dinner plate.

It reared back to smash its head against her shield, again and again. Cracks spidered all around them, and Twilight winced with every blow, trying desperately to stay on her hooves. The sweat started on her brow and got in her eye. Just a little longer.

The doors swung open behind her to let the others in, and just as her shield shattered into a thousand rose-colored pieces, a blue sheen wrapped around her and yanked her backward through the doors.

The others shut and barred the doors, and they all hesitantly backed away.

The dragon railed against the door, jostling it on its hinges. The wooden beam groaned beneath every blow, but held fast, and eventually the noises died away.

“Everypony okay?” Twilight did a quick headcount: Incantation—still disguised as Rarity—, Pinkie, Lightning Dust, Fiddlesticks, Cadance, and alicorn Marble.

“What the crap was that thing?” Lightning Dust yelled, then pointed a hoof at Cadance. “What the crap are you?”

“It’s a long story,” Twilight said, “I’ll tell you when we get out of this mess.”

The world fizzled to black for a moment and what felt like a sudden and intense atmosphere pressed in.

“Guards!” came Strawberry Sunrise’s voice—omnipresent, amplified. “Guards!” Twilight put her hooves to her head. “Guards!”

The world fizzled again, and all went silent.

Twilight listened to her heart beat in the seconds spanning that terrible silence, until the quiet voice of Marble Pie had her preferring the silence.

“Where’d the other door go?”

They all turned to see the door leading further in was no longer there.

“T-Twilight,” Cadance said, pointing a shaking hoof at the doors.

They had an odd, blackened discoloration, like oil seeping through paper. Little beads of black liquid pressed through the wood grain, between the cracks, around the frame, swelling and collecting until they became large enough to bleed downward and pool on the floor.

From it, a large, gangly claw reached out and hit the floor with a meaty slap that sent oily trails scattering toward them and dragged out the rest of its matted, oozing form as if from a swamp. There were no more scales, and from its blackened skull sprouted a pair of horns, one spiralled, one crooked, as the creature gave up the last of its facade to take the shape of its master.

Its eyes came to life as little motes of green balefire, and its lips curled back in a predatory smile as soundless, discordant words crawled up the back of Twilight’s neck to lick at the tips of her ears.

“Where do you think you’re going?”