Ponemurdered

by The Gentlecolt

Chapter The One That [Eakin] Wrote: Crescendo

PONEMURDERED XI: CRESCENDO

Rainbow Dash surged towards the shadowy copy of Octavia that stood over Twilight’s helpless dreaming form. Darting over the altar Twilight was bound to, she threw herself at the phantom only to pass right through it and slam into the wall beyond. The shade laughed.

“You simple little foal, you think I’m even here in the Heavenspire? You think I’d lower myself to hooficuffs with a belligerent, irrelevant little nothing like yourself? Wrong. I’m just here to make sure you three don’t escape. Beyond that, I’ve nothing to win or prove here,” said the shade.

Rarity’s horn sparked and her magic grasped at the shadow trying to find purchase, but she failed. Her magic just slid right off like it was falling through a hole in the world into the realm of whatever beings Octavia had bargained away her soul with to achieve this impossible power. With a huff Rarity picked up a candle off of the altar and flung it at Octavia. She didn’t even hit her, and even if she had she didn’t expect the outcome would have been substantially different. She crossed her forelegs and put a hoof up to her chin.

“Please, don’t feel you need to cease your impotent flailing on my account. It’s actually rather entertaining,” said the shadow. Rainbow Dash had recovered and was trying to buck it in the back of the hair, only for her hooves to connect with empty air. Rainbow Dash trembles as her hooves pass through the shadow, a shiver that has nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

“Well, we’ll simply be taking Twilight and leaving then, awake or otherwise,” said Rarity as she returned her attention to undoing the knots in the ropes cutting into Twilight’s skin. She was interrupted by a burst of dark power from the shade disrupting her concentration and forcing her away.

“No, I don’t believe you will. You’ll find that my immaterial nature is strictly a one-way limitation, especially here in the Heavenspire of all places. We were well aware that Luna still had that old portal stone attuned to this place. She didn’t even realize she was doing us a favor by splitting up the Bearers of Harmony. She hasn’t changed at all from how she was a thousand years ago. Still so impulsive, so easily manipulated,” said Octavia. “You’re all right where we need you.”

-------------

Professor Secrets pushed aside another ancient text. What he’d hoped would be a lead on the Heavenspire and the entities confined within, the same knowledge that Twilight had asked him to search out before all these events had begun. How he wished he hadn’t put it off for a week while he was working on his thesis! Now everything was spiraling out of control, the castle was on lockdown, and he’d just wasted a half hour he didn’t really have on a passage that actually translated to ‘How the heavens inspire’ rather than the location itself. He reached for the next tome, but froze as a piercing scream echoed down the hallway. Even more chilling was the music, just barely at the edge of his hearing that accompanied it. He shouldn’t even have been able to tell it was there over the abruptly cut off screams of pain, but there it was. Then all was silence.

The professor grabbed the next book off the nearby stack and hastily opened it. There might not be much time left to find what they needed, and the worst part was he wasn’t even sure he knew what they needed even was.

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Twilight Sparkle ‘awoke,’ for the eighth time in as many minutes. She was just beginning to appreciate the horror that was being inflicted upon her. A new terrifying tableau awaiting her each time, always giving her just enough time to understand the new predicament she was dreaming. This time, she found herself strapped to the altar once again, and as she came to she looked up to see stones in the ceiling shifting out of place. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then she felt something gently tickling her belly. She shifted her head as best she could and looked down to see a small trickle of sand landing on her exposed stomach.

This wasn’t so bad. Actually, it kind of tickled.

Twilight’s ears perked up at a sound from behind her, and by rolling her eyes back she could see another column of falling sand behind her. Meanwhile the one covering her stomach was starting to flow faster, and the weight of the sand was becoming uncomfortable. Shifting her barrel caused a little of it to slide off of her onto the floor, but the flow was only picking up pace.

The speed of the falling sand increased, and began flowing from several more places in the ceiling now the piles were spreading over the ground, rising up the sides of the alter. The pile of sand on her stomach had grown large enough that the tiny little avalanches it was sending down were pushing sand up and onto her face. She tried to use her magic to push it away, but the sand slipped and slid through like the field she was projecting wasn’t even there. Even if she hadn’t been tied down, she doubted she’d have been able to lift herself out from under the weight pressing down on her chest.

Twilight knew several spells for breathing in water, but sand was another story. Her mind raced to try to put something together, even as the sand rose up around her head and flooded into her ears. She took a deep breath and clamped her mouth shut as the sand rose up around her face, even though she knew it was a futile gesture at best. The rising sand grew high enough to cover her eyes, and a few grains snuck past her eyelids no matter how tightly she squeezed them shut, burning and stinging. Grains began to flow into her mouth and lungs through her nose. She began to panic reflexively as the sand slip down the back of her throat as she twisted and thrashed against the bonds. Her mind screamed for oxygen and her mouth forced itself to open and inhale, her body’s need overriding her willpower in a last-ditch effort to live. As the sand poured into Twilight’s lungs, she felt the world around her slip away and raw terror claim her right before-

Twilight woke up for the ninth time, still bound in darkness against the cold, hard surface of the alter...

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Celestia and Luna struggled against the power bursting out of the cello Octavia played at the base of their throne, the currents of sound twisting and warping the chair itself and a dark red stain slowly began spreading out along the alabaster floor from where she stood. Octavia herself was barely even perceptible as holding the shape of a pony. Her lower half was a twisting void speckled with pinpricks of light, a three dimensional window into a piece of the starry night sky she had made her awful pact with. A treble clef shaped cluster of stars covered the spot where her cutie mark would have been, and the darkness was creeping further up her coat and consuming more of her with every note.

“Sister!” cried Celestia, “we must act, or all of Canterlot will be unmade.” Celestia stopped speaking and looked over to Luna, expecting to see the same degree of concern or worry reflected on her face.

Instead Luna had closed her eyes and started to sing.

“Luna, what are you-” she began, but stopped when she realized that the dark red splotches had stopped spreading and begun to recede.

‘Have no fear sister, we have a plan. While we cannot counter the power directly, we remember how this magically enhanced music works from our previous experience with the star creatures,’ Luna’s voice projected itself into Celestia’s mind as she sang. ‘The power may derive from the melody, but the purpose is shaped by lyric and intent of the musician. We may yet wrest away control of the spell from these fiends and redirect it’

Octavia’s eyes narrowed as her playing became wilder and more erratic. Luna frowned and furrowed her brow. For a moment her voice faltered and the crimson stain surged forwards again. A moment later she recovered, but Celestia could see the strain on her sister’s face. “I don’t like the idea of the fate of our kingdom being decided by an impromptu karaoke contest between yourself and the Lords of the Void, Luna,” said Celestia.

‘If you have a better suggestion, we eagerly await hearing it,’ came Luna’s voice in return. The direct mental link it represented meant that her frustrated, sarcastic tone came through in full force. Celestia weighed her options. A long discussion with her sister would only distract her, but that thought in turn suggested how she just might be able to help.

Celestia strode forward towards her throne, stopping just before the wavering boundary of the music was putting forward. “Octavia... or would you prefer to be addressed by another name?” she asked.

“You don’t have enough tongues to pronounce any of my other names. At least not yet. Octavia will suffice,” said the thing subsuming Octavia’s form.

“Very well. What is the nature of the bargain you’ve struck together?”

“This mortal had some trivial concerns we offered to correct in exchange for her use as a vessel. They will be addressed, and then she will be ended along with all your other little ponies.”

“Is that what she she wanted?” asked Celestia.

“That is what all mortals want, in the darkest parts of their hearts. Oblivion. We are more than happy to grant it to them as we reshape Equestria to our designs. If she did not want that she should have specified such things,” said Octavia. Her face was curled up in a defiant scowl, but at the corner of one of her eyes a single tear trickled down her face and traced a path down her face and chest, briefly warping the portrait of the night sky as it passed over it.

“And her family? Her friends? You think she wants that same fate for everypony she loves?” asked Celestia as she stared as deeply as she could into Octavia’s gaze, hoping that there might be a glimmer of the pony she had once been behind all the hate and power and anger of the stars.

“Irrelevant. We will fulfill our end of the agreement, and she will fulfill hers. The fate of your world is beyond its scope. Now, enough of this. Your sister is weak. She was weak a thousand years ago when she failed us in her purpose and she is weak now. Her defiance ends,” said Octavia. The music somehow rose again and became even crazier, touching impossible notes and discordant clashes as it rose and fell, cutting into reality like the edge of a sawblade. The red stain began to spread again, and as it flowed over the ground Celestia stood on her mind was suddenly overwhelmed by thousands of voices, gibbering in languages that ranged from modern, to long dead, to never having existed at all. Still Celestia held her ground.

“Octavia! I know you’re still in there!” Celestia called out. “You don’t have to do this, it isn’t too late to stop it. What about everypony else? Is this really what you want for them? Octavia, what about your daughter?”

Nothing. The pressure of the voices increased and a relaxed, happy expression settled onto the musician’s face as her hooves danced up and down the neck of her instrument and her bow screamed against the strings. Then there was just the hint of something passing across it, something she easily could have imagined seeing as the light in the throne room warped and twisted.

Then Octavia’s hoof gave a nearly imperceptible tremor, rotating just the tiniest bit, and a wrong note played out.

And then the world exploded.

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The shade in Octavia’s form back in the Heavenspire winced. Things had just changed, along an unexpected path. “Well, perhaps if you truly value your friend’s life, we can come to some sort of a deal,” she said.

“No way, the Princesses told us how you star-things want to mess up the world, and how you trick ponies into making deals to do it,” said Rainbow Dash, “not interested.”

“Really, not even if I offer to let Twilight leave the Heavenspire, entirely unchanged and take that portal stone back to Canterlot with you? All I want is a ride, no strings attached,” she said.

“I find it most difficult to believe that you would give her up so easily if that were really the case, as you’ve gone through so much trouble to bring her here,” said Rarity.

“My motives do not concern you. I am offering you your friend, which is what you braved the terrors of the Heavenspire for in the first place. Of course...” the shade couldn’t help but allow herself a small smile, “...that portal stone only transports three ponies. Which means that at least one of you will have to stay here in Twilight’s place.”

Rainbow Dash and Rarity looked at one another and gulped, recalling Luna’s warnings about the things that occupied this place. The tales she wove of awful things beyond imagining.

“So,” said the shade, “do we have a deal?”

Author's Note:

Eakommentary:

Comments

[Magical Trevor]

*Slams down the little plastic box*

NO DEAL!

fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/159/f/b/like_a_bawss_by_gunmouth-d3ie5wh.png

[Skeeter The Lurker]

You can count on Eakin to murder Twilight repeatedly and introduce his own brand of humor and action.

Also, I had thought only RD and Rarity went there... Who's the fourth that went?

Matters not. On I go!

~Skeeter The Lurker

[AppleTank]

2850836
Nah, only Rare and RD. The shadow wants a ride to Canterlot, This will force one to stay back.

[Spirit Shift]

You know......this reminds me of that billy and Mandy episode/movie where the boogyman put Mandy to sleep only to constantly show her nightmaresin an attempt to break her but erwin woke her up by kissing her which ironically made her think that she had entered her worst nightmare ever and was still dreaming lol

[horizon]

“I don’t like the idea of the fate of our kingdom being decided by an impromptu karaoke contest between yourself and the Lords of the Void, Luna,” said Celestia.

This … this is found art, right here. How the hell did it get from Twilight Chainsaw Massacre to this? You and Gardez and Ponydora are doing some hardcore story ascension. Wow.

[dafiltafish]

This fire started off as toothpicks, now you are just dumping kerosine on it.

[Twi-Guy]

Said every villain ever.

[hornwire]

So far the story is going like this:

twilight has to kill the rest of the mane 6
twilight is trying to kill vinyl and octavia
octavia is trying to kill twilight by imprisoning her in a dream world
octavia has now made a deal with the stars (when did that happen?)
twilight's friends, who she was trying to kill in the first place, are now trying to save her
the mane six look for twilight, despite RD knowing where twilight is
somehow fluttershy knows that octavia is behind it all
the mane 6 are trapped in a dream world but get out really quickly
twilight is now in a heavenly spire for some reason
octavia tries to kill the princess' although the reason she made the star bargain in the first place was so celestia would love her

[Ampathy-Engine]

2950145
From fire to napalm. lol

[Movie Reel]

Octavia, what about your daughter?

I woullld cry THE FUCK?! But for some reason this seems so Eakin.

[the other sans]

against the cold, hard surface of the alter

1. Altar.

[p-a-t-a-r]

More major developments. This has become quite the epic. Next author!