11 - The Hall of Hell
The cafeteria was bustling with activity- as it should have been. People had chosen their own tables, sitting down with their best friends and trays full of today’s lunch. Today was a hamburger with a side of what the menu insisted was baked beans, but looked more like featureless brown slop. Sunset herself, as a former pony, had snagged the vegan option. Of course, the school’s cafeteria was rarely accommodating towards vegans, so Sunset’s meal was closer to that of two sides meant to go with the main meal, instead of their own separate thing. A small salad and a few suspiciously wet celery stick. But it was good enough for her. Free food was, after all, free food, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. Or so she rationalized.
Today had been… unusual, to say the least. Earlier today, she had encountered Rainbow, who had acted particularly strange, stumbling around like a newborn deer and asking for her class’s schedule to be read out loud to her. Even earlier than that, Misty, Fluttershy’s sister, had confided in Sunset that Pinkie had apparently forgotten Misty had even existed, damaging her feelings. Now, as Sunset looked around the cafeteria, every single one of her friends were missing. Not one had come through yet, and they were usually the first ones to sit down in the cafeteria.
Today had been so strange, in fact, that Sunset made a quick pit stop to her locker to pick up a particular book. Well- it wasn’t a book, rather, more of a journal. Well… Less of a journal and more of an inter-dimensional cell phone that had an exact copy on the other side of a mystical portal with a world full of ponies, dragons, griffons, and… You know what? It was a book.
Sunset tapped her finger diligently and nervously on the blank page. Her pen-pal was none other than Princess Twilight Sparkle herself, and although Twilight was a nice girl, and one of her best friends, that didn’t mean that initiating a conversation wasn’t scary. She was a princess. There wasn’t many of those, especially not in Equestria.More than likely, she didn’t have any time to deal with Sunset, the former pony turned smelly human. The exiled. But… Twilight was her friend, right? She was the princess of friendship, and she was her friend.
Sunset tore her eyes away from the blank paper and longingly towards her uneaten salad. It was far from the freshest thing on the menu, but it was still food, and it was longingly calling towards her. She bit her cheek and put the pen held in between her index and middle into the journal, closing the cover and pushing it to the side. She began poking the salad with her fork, and by the time she got the first leaf to her mouth, Sweetie Belle sat down at the table. The CMC, or the Canterlot Movie Club, sat at the end of the Rainboom’s table, and were usually the last to arrive, all three of them prioritizing standing in line next to one another instead of getting through the line as quickly as possible.
Sweetie looked around confusedly. “Where’s the other girls?” She asked. “They should be here by now.”
“I’unno.” Sunset said with a mouthful of salad. “I’ve barely seen them all day.”
“Huh.” Sweetie picked up her burger with her hands, the dry and honestly quite vile thing looking strangely appealing to the hungry girl. “Weird.”
Sunset barely knew the CMC. At most, they were acquaintances, introduced to one another via their sisters. At worst, Sunset was a former bully. The conversations they rarely had were stiff and awkward. Thankfully, Sunset had a guardian angel in the form of Apple Bloom, who was next in line, and next to sit down.
“Boy, let me tell you ‘what.” Apple Bloom said, sitting down and swinging her legs over the bench and into the table. “Sittin’ in math for an hour straight is no fun! Ah’ had to listen to that dang teacher for an entire hour, and ah’ still dunno what a ‘slope’ is- Hayy, where’s the other girls?”
“It’s a mystery.” Sunset did jazz hands. The last to join of the CMC was Scootaloo, sitting on the opposite side of the two so she could see and talk to both of them. Due to Scootaloo’s prosthetic, it took her a good two or three seconds longer to sit down, having to take the moment or two to lift her fake leg up and over the bench.
“Need help, Cyborg?” Apple Bloom asked, suppressing a laugh.
“AB!” Sweetie let go of her half-eaten hamburger, punching Apple Bloom in the shoulder. Scootaloo’s expression barely changed, but she did reach down and disconnect her fake leg, raising it above her haed in a semi-jokingly and semi-threatening manner.
“Make fun of my leg again, and I’ll knock your lights out!” She threatened. Apple Bloom failed to suppress the following laugh.
“All Ah’ have to do is run in a straight line- omph!” Apple Bloom was silenced as Scootaloo followed through on her promise, bringing the foot literally down on Apple Bloom’s head.
Sunset looked back at her salad, ignoring the two girls beginning to brawl it out as Sweetie tried her absolute hardest to act as the intermediary. The food line was now completely empty, so the chances of the other five girls being stuck in line was now zero. They simply absent. Which made Sunset feel… uneasy. They were her friends, of course, through and through. They pulled her from the crater she had made after the fall formal, and had come together to beat back the sirens with the magic of their music. If anything, she should’ve been expecting them to make some kind of surprise for her.
But she still felt that little bit anxious. Just that teeny-tiny bit of anxiety that she had potentially done something to offend them, and everyone had abandoned her quicker than the drop of a hat. She couldn’t remember doing anything wrong, of course, but that didn’t ease her mind anymore.
She set her fork down.
“Girls, stop fighting.” She commanded. The three girls froze, Apple Bloom holding Scootaloo’s prosthetic above her head as Scootaloo held Apple Bloom’s wrist. “Were any of your sisters acting… I dunno, weird today?” Apple Bloom made a puzzled face, and Scootaloo took it as an opportunity to wrench her leg out of Apple Bloom’s hand, plopping back onto her bench and reassembling herself.
“Aj…was actin’ a mite strange.” Apple Bloom sat back down, brushing the shoe mark from her face. “Yeah… yeah, funny you mention that. She ain’t shown up last night, got us all worried sick. We found her in front of the school, and yup, she’s weird, all right.”
“Weird, how?” Sunset asked.
“Yup- bruised up hat, all good. It looked like she rolled pa’s hat around in a pig’s pen and back. Rainbow was there, too. She was weird, wearin’ all baggy clothes like a hipster or summit.” Scootaloo raised her eyebrows.
“I didn’t think Rainbow was weird.” Scootaloo said.
“Scootaloo, you never think Rainbow is weird.” Sweetie said with a giggle. “I don’t think you’ve eversaid anything negative about Rainbow ever.” Scootaloo exhaled quickly, leaning back and crossing her arms, blowing a piece of hair out of her face. “But… now that you mention it, Sunset, Rarity was also acting really weird last night.” She tapped her chin, Sunset taking interest and leaning forwards. “She was drunk.”
“No way!” Apple Bloom laughed. “No chance in hay!”
“And she also forgot what the internet was.”
“Now this I gotta see!” Scootaloo also began laughing. “Rarity? The Instagram model? The makeup enthusiast? What would she be like without her filters? Fuck, what would she be like without Instagram?”
“I had to help her… google. Things.”
“Things?” Sunset asked.
“Things.” Sweetie shivered, holding both her shoulders and looking far away from the group. “I… really don’t want to talk about it.”
“So is everyone acting weird, or what?” Scootaloo asked. “What’s wrong, then? Are they sick? What now?”
“I don’t know.” Sunset sighed. “That’s Rarity, Rainbow, AJ, and Pinkie.”
“Pinkie?” Apple Bloom asked. “What’s the matter with ‘er?”
“She forgot who Misty is.” Sunset said. At the blank looks of the other three girls, she continued. “You know, Middlemist? Fluttershy’s sister?” More blank looks. “The purple-hair smaller-Fluttershy who wears leather?”
“Oh, Misty!” Sweetie said, slapping her forehead. “Yeah! No- I can’t blame Pinkie. We don’t talk much, and she’s a little too…” Sweetie rolled the words around in her head for a moment. “Ah- what’s the word?”
“It’s like she has an’ extreme ADHD.” Apple Bloom finished. “Ah’ can’t hold no conversation with her for more’n’ five seconds before she’s already onto the next thang.”
“She has great music taste, though!” Scootaloo said. “MCR, Scrillex, Twisted Sister…”
“I didn’t know you were into metal, Scootaloo.” Sweetie said.
“I’m not.” She shrugged. “I can appreciate from a distance, Sweetie.”
“Back on track, girls!” Sunset quickly said before the conversation could degrade anymore. “So…Four out of the Six girls are acting weird, including me. I’m fine, so it’s four out of five, really, because I don’t know how Fluttershy’s doing.”
“Does this involve magic?” Apple Bloom asked, giving Sunset a side-eye to the former pony demon. “Cause’ if so, ah’ want nothin’ to do with this.”
“Whaaat? Magic’s awesome!” Scootaloo exclaimed. “It gave Dash wings that one time! D’ya remember, Sunset? Sunset?”
“It gave me wings, too.”
“Yeah, but those were like, weird demon wings. Those don’t count.”
“Excuse me? Those totally count! I had wings, and I could fly! I even had horns.”
“Horns?” Sweetie asked. “…I don’t remember horns.”
“I totally had horns!”
“Now, ya’ see girls, this is what magic does to a person.” Apple Bloom shook her head disappointingly. “Screw’s with ya’ head. I’d rather ah’ just stay away. No ma’am, my head is going to stay in one piece, ya’ hear?”
“We’re getting off track here.” Scootaloo stood up, although from the way the benches were connected to the tables, it was more of a lean-backwards kind of standing up. “If everyone’s acting weird, then something’s going on, with magic or without. And we really should get to the bottom of it! Sweetie, do you still have the camera from video production class?” She pointed down at the purple-haired girl. Sweetie leaned down and to the side, reaching her hand into her backpack, and pulling out a blue camcorder. If plastic could rust, somehow, the camera did it, as the finish looked as if it went through a carwash made of steel wool and gasoline. Sweetie flipped open the view finder, and miraculously, the thing powered on. “Great! We can make Youtube content off of this!”
“What?! No!” Sunset shouted. “No-no-no! We really shouldn’t!”
“Why not?” Scootaloo asked, genuinely confused at Sunset’s reaction. “Sweetie, start recording this!”
“I dunno…” Sweetie hummed, the camera falling down a few inches from her grip. “I dunno if this is Youtube content… I mean, what if something serious is going on? Plus, we only have twenty minutes left of space. I don’t want to fill it up on… whatever this is.”
“Dang it, Sweetie!” Scootaloo sighed out. “I don’t care how serious it is, if there’s a dead body, I’m going to film it!”
“The hay you ain’t!” Apple Bloom piped up. She snatched the camera out of Sweetie’s hands and closed the viewfinder, dropping it back into Sweetie’s bag, where it joined the rest of the junk. Scootaloo huffed hot air, and in response, whipped her blackberry out of her pocket.
“Jokes on you!” She said, flipping down the keyboard. “I still have my phone! So what if it looks like a potato, at least- aw, it’s out of storage.” She let her phone drop to her side in defeat. “Hey, Apple Bloom, can I use your phone?”
“What? No! My phone don’t even got no camera!”
“Really? Is your phone from the stone age, or something?”
“It’s a flip phone. Ask Sweetie!”
“No way! My phone’s too precious!”
“C’mon, Sweetie. I’m sure your precious iPhone 5 can endure ten minutes of-”
A shrill scream cut them all off. It echoed through the cafeteria, silencing the masses. Everybody was silent for a moment or two as eyes looked at one another, unsure of what to do. Then, like a switch flipped, everybody stood up all at once to go find the source of the noise.
“That sounded like…” Sweetie said quietly. “...Rarity.”
All four of them abandoned their table, scampering towards the crowd and where the source of the noise came from. Sweetie lingered a moment or two longer to quickly help Scootaloo stand up easier, but after that, they ran, being one of the first one’s at the crime scene.
“It jus’ ain’t right!” Apple Bloom immediately recognized the voice of her older sister, Applejack. Through the crowd, she could faintly see her sliding a tray full of food to the ground and off of the table. It splattered onto the ground, burger and beans going to waste.
“Look out! Crippled coming through!” Scootaloo yelled, sliding in between the crowd. Sweetie wasn’t far behind, following the path that Scootaloo had left behind. Sunset, being older and therefore larger than the freshman, was having a hard time breaking through the wall of people, instead being left behind as the CMC found their way to the center of attention.
Sunset audibly gulped as she watched Apple Bloom climb on top of the table, standing as tall as she could reach.
“Attention, everyone!” She yelled. “Nothin’ to see here! Jus’ the ol’ Rainbooms messin’ with magic again! Please, nothin’s wrong, and please return to your seats!”
There was a general murmur of discontent between the walls of students, but one by one, they thankfully walked away. ‘Just don’t blow up the front of the school this time, okay?’ Sunset heard one girl say as she walked away. Finally, Sunset was able to get to the table, and boy did she see.
Fluttershy had passed out, laying on the floor with one of her legs still caught in the table’s benches. Rarity was basically unresponsive, sitting down on the floor a little ways away from Fluttershy and rocking back and forth, clutching her hair like it would bring comfort. Pinkie was nowhere to be seen, and Rainbow was sitting at the table, eating her burger like nothing had happened.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh-” Rarity was repeating to herself. Sweetie quickly slid next to her, grabbing her wrist and pulling it away from her hair.
“Rarity, what’s wrong?” Sweetie asked. Instead of responding, Rarity quickly clutched her in a hug, pulling her tight, and continuing with her repeating ‘oh dear’s’
Sunset grabbed her own hair.
“Rainbow, what the fuck is happening?” She shouted. Scootaloo, for once, didn’t run to her idol. She seemed to take a step back, looking at Rainbow with a strange distain unseen from her before.
“It’s meat.” Rainbow said, like it solved everything. “Taste’s pretty good, though.”
“It ain’t right!” Applejack shouted again, wiping her face with a sleeve. “W-Who did ah’ eat? Did they have a family?”
“Who?” Apple Bloom asked. “What’d’ya mean who? Like- the cow’s name?” Applejack reached up, grabbing her stetson and squeezing it in an apparent nervous breakdown. Sunset took the time to observe the hat, realizing that Apple Bloom was right. The hat looked about a hundred years older than she remembered it, a sort of grime that was earned covering it’s surface.
“Ah’m sorry ‘bout this…” Applejack said, plopping her stetson back onto her head. “Ah’ jus’… gotta go, ah’ think.” Applejack began walking away, pausing only for a moment to look at Sunset. It took a moment, maybe longer than a second or two, but her eyes danced with recognition upon seeing Sunset. “H-Howdy, Sunset. Ah’m real sorry about first introductions, but… ah’ just…. Ah’ gotta go, that’s all.”
Sunset watched her walk away. Apple Bloom made a clicking sound with her tongue, looking back at Sweetie, and then to Scootaloo. “Ah, darn it. Someone’s gotta look after her!” Apple Bloom took off, following wherever Applejack went off to.
“It’s kinda like…” Rainbow smacked her lips. “Like burnt fries. But in a good way, you know? Kinda?” Rainbow took another bite of her burger. “Mm- yeagh, definitely a ghood way!”
“Are you okay, Dash?” Scootaloo asked, warily approaching her.
“Oh, definitely!” She said with her mouth full. “This stuff tastes great!”
“It… does?” Scootaloo asked. “It’s just school slop. It never tastes good.”
“If this doesn’t taste good, then I’ll eat Applejack’s hat!” Rainbow laughed. Sunset continued staring with an absolute lack of words.
“Why’re you wearing those clothes?” Scootaloo asked, getting close enough to the strange girl to pluck her shirt like it was dangerous. Sunset watched with interest and surprise as, yet again, Apple Bloom was right. Rainbow’s clothes were a few sizes too big. It looked more like she had shown up to school wearing her pajamas instead of her actual clothes, and it showed. “Are you wearing… clown shoes?”
“Clown shoes-” Rainbow tittered, looking under the table. “These are not clown shoes! They’re awesome!”
“They look two sizes too big, Dash…” Scootaloo leaned back. “Is this some kinda magic thing? Like, a shrinking spell?”
“Oh, come on.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I know a bookworm who tells me that shrinking spells are really, really hard. I have no intention of getting any shorter, okay?”
Then, like an angel from above, the school bell rang. Finally, it rang. The hellish and borderline insane lunch period would come to an end, and Sunset could just focus on her next class. Now, this… situation became a secondary thing, next to her school work.
“I think we’re gonna go home.” Sweetie told Sunset and Scootaloo, Rarity still clinging onto Sweetie like a life preserver. “I don’t know if Opal died, or if she applied the wrong shade of makeup today and only now realized it, but…” She shrugged, standing the hollow husk and tearful form of Rarity to her feet.
“Well… see ya’ later.” Rainbow said. “I might as well get, too. I gotta figure out where my next class is.”
“Rainbow… it’s with me.” Scootaloo said. “Remember? Gym?”
“Oh, right.” Rainbow rolled her eyes, slapping her forehead. “Duh. Silly me.” She stood up, grabbing her plate to dispose of later. “Lead the way, Scoots!”
Sunset shot Scootaloo one last look, and Scootaloo returned the look. It was one of utter and complete confusion, a rare moment where both parties were just completely lost in the situation.
And then there were two.
Sunset stood over Fluttershy. She was still passed out on the ground, a thin stream of drool gargling out of her mouth and pooling on the dirty floor next to Fluttershy’s head. “Fluttershy.” Sunset said, shaking her lightly. She didn’t even react. “Flutters- hey, Flutters!” She shook her harder. “You’re gonna be late! Wake up!”
Fluttershy simply breathed.
“Okay, Flutters- err, I’ll be right back! Stay there.” She said, standing up and walking away. Of course, if Fluttershy heard, she made exactly zero indication. A good half a minute later, and Sunset came back, a particular journal in hand. “This is a problem worthy of Princess Twilight…” Sunset said, opening to the first blank page she could find, putting her pen in hand. “Sorry, Flutters, but I am just… totally lost how to help you guys.”
And then she started writing.
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Before Sunset could start writing, words appeared on the page.
Dear Sunset,
SEND MY FRIENDS HOME!
Your friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle
Did it ever occur to Applejack that EQG cows are NOT sapient?
I wonder whose going to be the one to connect the dots first, heh heh
Sunset taking Fluttershy to the nurses office is the next chapter. As well as trying to explain the absence of Rarity. "Yeah... Rainbow Dash did something that caused Rarity and Fluttershy to have a mental breakdown. Whatever it was also seemed to wing Applejack as well, but last I saw her she was stilling able to walk around and talk coherently."
"No idea what happened to Pinkie Pie and we should all be concerned."
honestly i think sunset should have figured things out by now
11705935
Given how "prepared" they've been for the human world so far? Probably not.
11705935
Not yet!
Now all that's left is for, Twilight to confess everything and explain why she kept Sunset in the dark. Seriously I just don't understand why she would. Sunset could have been a big help. Unless she just didn't want to burden her with all this. Hell, the plan was flawed from the start.
I still don't get how Sunset haven't figured things out yet. I mean seriously, it shouldn't be that difficult for her to see what's going on.
It will probably be a long while before the truth is finally revealed.
Twilight probably won't reply right away. So, unless Sunset straight up question one of the girls. (hopefully before Rarity's parents get home because then things will really start getting out of hand) Things are just going get worse from here.
11706505
Sunsets probably already knows but is in denial kinda like you know the answer to question but you struggle to answer because it's not coming to you for some random reason that and a combination of not putting the piece's of the puzzle together she has everything and just needs to figure out where they fit.
Girls...this is why you tell everyone before you plan a cross-dimensional vacation. Also, I wonder what kinda havoc the Humane Five are getting into back in Equestria.
Commenting after reading chapters 11-12 together. High time for Sunset to find out what was going on. I was starting to think she'd had a concussion or something because she wasn't catching on. Chapter 11 felt a bit rushed and had a lot of typos and grammar errors compared to your usual writing... which is to say very few, but they kinda stuck out. Other than that, it was great to get back to this story and Misty in Equestria is a wonderful turn of events.