Four foals, out trick-or-treating on Nightmare Night, find something unearthly...
Dinky Doo, Snails, Twist, and Pipsqueak are out getting candy on Nightmare Night when they realize that there's too many of them. Some thing is among them, disguising itself as one of them...but for what purpose...?
This is a Lunaverse story, but no real knowledge of the Lunaverse is needed for it other than the fact that nopony's met changelings yet. New readers welcome!
“Nightmare night! Such a fright! Give us something good to bite!” Dinky Doo, Snails, and Twist all called out in front of the latest house they had stopped at, just as the Sun was finally going down beyond the horizon and making it now truly Nightmare Night. The pony inside the house, standing in the open door, gave a slight laugh at the three’s eagerness, and didn’t hesitate to pass out candy to each of them. He didn’t have time to chat, though, as the next group of foals was already pushing forward and calling out the Nightmare Night greeting.
Dinky – dressed as an eowolf, complete with a faux-furry pelt over her withers, false paws around her hooves, and a set of fake sharp teeth – didn’t mind moving out of the way, though, as it meant the four of them could head on out for the next home on their trek. “This is the best Nightmare Night ever!” She said as she trotted, shaking her saddlebags a little. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so much candy!”
“Everypony’th being really generoth,” Twist agreed, then let out a long sigh at her own words even as she adjusted the huge brim of the hat on her evil witch costume, which included a long but frayed at the end cape, and a broom with a twisted handle. “Generous,” she repeated, making sure to pronounce the s correctly. “Why can’t I loose my lisp? Just for tonight! It’th – it’s – my one Nightmare Night wish.”
Snails just barely avoided tripping over the cloth wraps around him as he moved them from around his mouth so he could speak; the mummy costume, in Dinky’s opinion, seemed like it was more trouble than it was worth, though she had kept that to herself. “I don’t think ponies get wishes on Nightmare Night,” Snails said. “Unless you wish to not be eaten by the Nightmare. Most ponies get that wish.” He waited several long moments before smiling and looking between the two fillies. “Most…” he repeated, though the menace was somewhat undercut by the huge grin he wore at his own cleverness.
Dinky and Twist both laughed anyway – it was a clever line. Dinky paused a moment in her trot to raise her paw-clad front hooves and roar a little at a pair of passing younger foals and their adult chaperone, though not too loud and only once they’d already seen her. The foals all squealed and laughed at the same time, then hurried along with their chaperone. Dinky took a moment to revel a tiny bit in the fact that she didn’t have a chaperone this year. She was old enough, her mother Ditzy Doo had decided, as long as she kept with her friends.
She wished Pipsqueak could have joined her, though. Once her mother had given her permission to wander the town without an escort, she’d tried to find as many other foals who had had the same permission from their parents as she could in order to make it a real foals-only Nightmare Night…but although plenty of foals had permission, a sizable number of them were going to Diamond Tiara’s Nightmare Night party instead of trick-or-treating. But Pipsqueak, although he wasn’t going to the party, was also a little younger than Dinky and hadn’t had permission from his mother and father to wander around the town. His family had only moved here from Trottingham a few months ago, after all.
Dinky’s reverie was broken when Twist bumped her own flank lightly against Dinky’s to get her attention. “C’mon, we’re nearly done with thith – thissection of Ponyville! If we hurry we can get to the farmth!”
The unicorn filly perked up at that – causing her pelt of faux-fur to slip over her eyes a moment – and grinned. “We might be the first out there!” She said, leaning close to Twist and Snails. Ponyville proper was surrounded by a ring of farmsteads, and everypony knew that the farmers always had the best candy to give out. “All the good candy will still be ours!”
The three let out a little cheer and turned around – and swiftly found themselves face-to-face with a monster lurking in the shadows between the light of two of Ponyville’s street lamps. Dinky let out a shriek of fright at the sight, a jet-black pony with bright red, featureless eyes, huge bat-like wings, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Dinky, Snails, and Twist fell back as the pony hissed at them with a sound that was almost un-equine. Even when they fell back, the pony advanced another step and hissed again.
Dinky managed to not turn around and scamper home, but only because the pony, whoever it was, began coughing and stumbled a little, ruining its terrifying appearance. The unicorn filly’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward, horn glowing an angry lavender under her faux-fur pelt. “That wasn’t nice!” She exclaimed. “Nightmare Night’s supposed to be scary, but you’re not supposed to be that scary!”
“Yeah!” Twist exclaimed. “That’th way too much!”
“Give us a little warning!” Snails added last. His own horn was glowing a green-yellow, though its full brightness was muted somewhat by the mummy’s wraps around it.
The pony – Dinky didn’t recognize her, she had a really good costume – did the last thing that Dinky would have expected: she shrank back at the three foals’ angry outburst. After a moment, she bolted away, diving between a pair of Ponyville houses. The three watched her go. “Well…serves her right!” Dinky said, quelling her horn’s glow and doing her best to ignore the adrenaline pumping through her veins now. “Some ponies…”
“I don’t think the Nightmare herthelf would be that thcary…” Twist noted, as the three foals continued on their way – a little more bunched up than before, each noticed, but didn’t do anything about. Twist didn’t notice she had let her lisp come back, either. “What if we had been little foalth?”
Dinky nodded. It was totally different from when she had roared at foals herself – she hadn’t gone all-out and she’d made sure that the foals had seen her coming. A little shock was fine, but you didn’t want to be so scary that you might ruin somepony’s night…
“Hey! Dinky!”
Dinky ears flickered at the voice – she’d know that Trottinghamish accent anywhere. Turning in its direction, her eyes widened at the sight of an earth pony foal, wearing a black turban with a red feather and black-hued bangles around his fetlocks, as well as other bits of black ‘jewelry’ around his waist, his neck, and in his tail, while his normally pinto coat was colored bright red thanks to some dye. “Pipsqueak?” She asked.
Pipsqueak trotted up happily to Dinky’s little herd. “Yup!” he answered, and spun in place. “What d’ya think of my costume? I’m done up like an efreeti. When me mum and da’ an’ me were sailing the world we stopped in Maghrib and heard all sorts of stories about them. They’re like the jinn in Naqah, but – ”
“Where are your parents?” Snails asked. “I thought you said they wouldn’t let you go without them…”
Pipsqueak smirked. “I managed to convince them to let me go anyways,” he said. “They said as long as I stick with you lot I’ll be fine.” He indicated his back, which held half-full saddlebags that somewhat ruined the efreeti look, though no foal was so into their costume that they’d forgo their loot bags. “I’ve been looking for you all night!”
Twist frowned a little and looked like she was going to say something, but Dinky stepped in first. “This is great!” She exclaimed, moving up to Pipsqueak and giving him a friendly nuzzle…though for a moment she forgot how long a ‘friendly’ nuzzle was supposed to be for some reason. When she realized how long it was going on, she stepped back, blushing a little at her faux pas, and pushed the conversation forward. “We were just about to head out to the farms. Probably nopony’s been to them yet, so I bet we can get all the best candybars!”
Pipsqueak didn’t seem to have minded Dinky’s over-long nuzzle. “Great! Let’s get going!” he said, turning around and setting out, though once the rest of the herd got moving he fell back a little so that he could be between Snails and Dinky, with Twist to Snail’s right. “I heard Tootsie Flute say that Sweet Apple Acres has the best candy apples. Can we go there first?”
“Then we can go to Carrot Top’s,” Snails noted, glancing up a little, biting his tongue as he thought about the layout of Ponyville and the farms that surrounded it. “Then Green Grape…we’re gonna be going up and down a lot of roads.”
“Cut through the fields.”
Pipsqueak brightened. “Good idea, Twist!” The colt said. “If we cut through the farms, then we don’t have to worry about roads.”
Twist leaned forward a little so she could look at Pipsqueak, on the other side of Snails. “I didn’t thay – ugh, say, that,” she said.
“Oh. Thought it was you…” Pipsqueak shrugged. “Still a good idea, though.”
Dinky found herself agreeing, though she couldn’t help but wonder at least a little about what her mother would think about her not only going out to the farmhouses far beyond the edge of Ponyville proper, but also going off the roads and out into the fields. Not that it would matter much…Ponyville was a perfectly safe town. Sure, there was the Everfree Forest and all its scary monsters right there at the edge of some of the farms, but it wasn’t like the foals were planning on going into the Everfree, or even near it. Dinky definitely wouldn’t go into the Everfree in broad daylight, nevermind at night on Nightmare Night. So it wasn’t a problem…right?
Dinky was a bit too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice the small foal, a filly dressed like a kelpie, come barreling down the road, and she didn’t react fast enough to avoid the foal trying to run between her and Pipsqueak and instead getting stuck. Dinky and Pipsqueak both let out annoyed shouts, trying to step away from the filly, but her own flailing at trying to get through caused her to get stuck for a few moments. Dinky almost would have thought that the filly was purposefully trying to stick to them before the foal started coughing a little and fell to the ground. Before anypony else could do anything, though, the foal was back up, and dashed off and out of sight.
Dinky and her herd watched the foal galloping – with the kelpie costume Dinky couldn’t tell who it was – before Dinky let out an annoyed whicker. If anything, the streets of Ponyville were even more crowded than they had been just an hour ago, when the sun was still up. “Also we need to get out to the farms so that we stop getting interrupted like that!” She said. “First the mean bat-pony and now this…”
Pipsqueak nodded. “Right! Let’s get going…
---
HUNGRY!
Better. Little better. Joy. Happiness. Fun. Helps.
HUNGRY!
Not enough. Need love. Love!
HUNGRY!
THERE.
Foals. Love. Small. Helps…can almost…think…
HUNGRY!
Patient…patient…stalk. Follow. Carefully…
BUT I’M SO HUNGRY!
---
Pipsqueak had been right, it had totally been worth it to go to Sweet Apple Acres first – and they had been first, no other foals having stopped by yet. The candy apples couldn’t be added to their saddlebags, of course, lest they drip all over their candy and make a sticky mess, but none of the four minded eating as they walked, the horns of Snails and Dinky lit up to provide light.
“Hey, look!” Snails said, holding out his candy apple. He’d taken some gummi worms from his bag and stuck them on. “I’ve got worms in mine!”
“Blegh!” Twist exclaimed, though she laughed as well. She was having a difficult time balancing both her witch’s broom and candy apple in just one hoof, but she needed the other front hoof for walking. Dinky had offered to use telekinesis to help Twist hold hers – her magical abilities were further along than Snails’ – but Twist had insisted on doing it herself.
Unfortunately, a pair of small tragedies struck at around the same time. First, they finished their candy apples, which was bad because they had been delicious and they hadn’t wanted to finish them off as quickly as they had. But second, when they reached the home of Carrot Top, sitting at the edge of her Golden Harvests Farm, they found the windows dark – no sign of anypony at home. The foals tried anyway, but after knocking on the door several times, there was no sign of anypony coming to greet them.
“Must be out,” Dinky reasoned, as the five stepped away from the house and started trotting back for the road. “Okay! So Sweet Apple Acres and Golden Harvests are the only farms on this road. So now…the plan is to go through there, right?” she pointed straight ahead as they reached the edge of the road. Across a white split-rail fence lay the vineyard of Green Grape – Dinky didn’t know if he had a name for his farm – where they could quickly cut through and get to Green Grape’s house itself, a trot that would only take five or six minutes. Going all the way back down the road to Ponyville proper and then going up the next road to Green Grape’s front door would probably take them three times as long.
Still, the five foals found themselves pausing at the fence, rather than climbing through. In the dark of Nightmare Night, with only Dinky and Snails’ horns and the light of the moon to allow them to see, the vineyard looked…maybe a little scary. The trellises – many of them over six feet tall – loomed large, and though they were in neat, orderly rows, the limit of how far down those rows the foals could see was just a little intimidating.
Dinky looked to her left, at Snails and Twist, and then to her right, at Pipsqueak and Twist, all four of whom were looking down the rows of trellises with trepidation. “O-okay,” she said, turning back to the fence and putting a foot on one of its beams. “We can do…” she paused a moment. Wait, had she seen…? Dinky looked to her left with wide eyes at Snails and Twist, then right again, at Pipsqueak and…and just Pipsqueak. There was a big rock next to Pipsqueak, though. That must have been what she’d seen, not a second Twist from nowhere…right?
The other three foals were looking at her. “What’th wrong?” Twist asked, then stomped a hoof in annoyance. “What’s. Go away, lisp!”
The other three foals all giggled a little at that, Snails rubbing a friendly hoof on Twists’ withers to let her know that they didn’t mean anything hurtful about it. The tension drained from the foals, and Green Grape’s vineyard looked a little less scary. “Okay,” Dinky said, hopping through the fence and brightening her horn’s lavender glow, deciding to forget about the mysterious second Twist she’d seen. “Let’s get going! Me and Snails will shine as bright as we can.”
The foals set out, advancing two-by-two through the trellises, Dinky and Pipsqueak in front and Snails and Twist behind. Between the two unicorns, their horns’ glow was bright like they were carrying a lantern or torch, but the night all around them was oppressively dark and seemed to press against their light…Dinky glanced up and saw that clouds were moving in, slowly covering the Moon and Stars and blocking their light. She suppressed a shiver and instead looked to Pipsqueak. “S-so…” she said, hoping her nervousness wasn’t too apparent. “What did you do for Nightmare Night when you were sailing with your parents?”
Pipsqueak glanced up at Dinky, grinning a little nervously. “Actually…this is sorta’ my first Nightmare Night,” he said. “We didn’t have it on the ship…and I don’t really remember what it was like before me da’ became a trader. Me mum would get me candy, but I wouldn’t really dress up or anything.”
“But what if the Nightmare had come to your ship?” Snails asked. “You’re supposed to be in disguise so she thinks you’re a monster too and leaves you alone.”
“I don’t think she’s real,” Pipsqueak responded. “Just an old mare’s tale.”
“She istoo real,” Twist countered with a whicker. “I heard a few years ago there were a bunch of foalth – foals – in Canterlot who saw the Nightmare.”
“I heard she ate two of them,” Snails continued. “And that she kidnapped a foal to carry her loot, turned him into a vampire! Nopony’s seen him since…” He let out a dark and sinister chuckle.
Dinky had heard the same thing, but she’d been successfully ignoring it until now. Surely their parents wouldn’t let them go out on Nightmare Night if the Nightmare might actually find and eat them, right? She also tried to ignore that Snails was really good at spooky laughs. Dinky also realized she had stepped closer to Pipsqueak, so that her coat occasionally brushed his as they trotted. She decided not to correct that, though. “Well,” she said, “there’s four of us, and we’re all dressed up, and we have candy! So if the Nightmare shows up, we’ll be – ”
There was a loud snap from somewhere to their left, like an entire trellis breaking in half. The four foals all let out whinnies of fright, bunching up quickly at the sound, Dinky and Snails instinctively cutting their horn-light. While it certainly would make them harder to find in the dark, it also made the situation inestimably more unnerving.
None of the foals dared to breathe as they stayed close to one another, ears straining. After several very long moments, Dinky had little choice but to exhale, followed by the others, but that was the only sound that any of them heard. Slowly, tentatively, Snails lit up his horn again. Dinky followed suit, though none of them moved a muscle and continued looking in the direction of the sound they’d heard.
“O-okay,” Twist whispered. She was holding onto Snails, who had his own forelegs around her even as he pressed his body close to Dinky “M…m-maybe we th-thould jutht go to Green Grape’th…then g-go back to P-Ponyville.”
A very small part of Dinky wanted to say that no, she a big enough filly that spooky sounds in the night shouldn’t put her off of free candy. But the rest of her had her hooves wrapped around Pipsqueak’s body and was emphatically in agreement. She could feel that the smaller colt was somehow almost wrapped around her, pressed tightly against her side while she also felt his head against the point of her shoulder. “R-right,” she said, glancing down at Pipsqueak. “We can go back and see if we can still go to Diamond Tiara’s…”
Dinky lost whatever she was going to say, staring with wide eyes. Snails and Twist looked over at Dinky’s pause, and both let out gasps of shock. All three backed away quickly.
Pipsqueak let out a slight cry at being suddenly left behind by the other ponies, and looked to each of his friends. “Wh-what’s wrong?” he asked.
His words were echoed by the other Pipsqueak, identical in every way, who stood next to him.
Pipsqueak – both of them – leapt at the sound of the other’s voice, turned to look, and let out surprised shouts. The two earth pony colts backed several paces away from one another, eyes wide and mouths open in shock. It was incredible to Twist, the fact that their actions mirrored each other so precisely…
“Pipsqueak…?” Dinky asked, looking between the two colts. “Um…why are there two of you…?”
“Which one’s real?” Snails asked.
“I am!” Exclaimed one, the one on the left, first.
“No, me!” The other insisted. He looked to the three of them. “You gotta believe me!”
“But you’re the fake one!” The first Pipsqueak insisted.
Twist studied the Pipsqueak on the left as closely as she could, then the one on the right…but there was nothing. The two looked identical in every way, at least from what Twist could tell given that the only light was the lavender glow of Dinky's horn and the greenish-yellow of Snails’ own magic. “If thith ith a Nightmare Night prank,” she said, not caring about her lisp at the moment, “then it ithn’t funny! Not right now when we’re in the middle of Green Grape’th field in the dark!”
One Pipsqueak, the one on the right, looked at her. “It isn’t a prank!” He insisted. “I’m me!”
“No, I am!” The other Pipsqueak insisted vehemently, stomping his hoof. “He’s…I don’t know what he is!”
“I’m me!” That Pipsqueak exclaimed, snorting and lunging for the other one. The latter shrank back at the sight and let out a cry of fright.
The cry was echoed by Dinky, who’s horn flashed a little brighter as she grabbed the grounded Pipsqueak’s tail and pulled him backwards and away from his attacker. He let out a yelp of surprise, while Dinky dashed between the two Pipsqueaks, holding up her hooves. “Stop it!” she exclaimed, glancing between the two. “O…one of you is real…and I don’t want the real one to be hurt! And since…since I don’t know which is which…neither of you should fight!”
The Pipsqueak she’d pulled away stood up a little straighter, while the one who’d lunged took in a few deep breaths, calming himself.
“What if they’re both real?” Snails suggested.
“That’s not helpful!” Dinky shouted. “They can’t both be real!”
Snails, Twist, and both Pipsqueaks shrank back from Dinky at her exclamation. Dinky noticed, and stooped a little herself, ears flopping and tail straight down. “S-sorry…” she said, and shook her head. “I…I mean…it’s just that they can’t both be real. Right?” She looked between the two Pipsqueaks. “There can’t be two Pipsqueaks all of a sudden!”
“Twinth?” Twist suggested.
“I’ve been to Pipsqueak’s house, he’s an only foal.”
“Not if it’s an evil twin,” Snails pointed out. “My sister has this book where this stallion has an evil twin who everypony thought was dead, but he wasn’t, and he tries to seduce this mare by pretending to be his brother…Raindrops took the book away from me before I could learn what that meant, though.”
“Guys, I don’t have a twin,” both Pipsqueaks said at the same time. They glared at each other again, but with a little less anger than before – apparently neither of them liked Snails’ theory.
“Everfree monthter!” Twist said. Snails, Dinky, and both Pipsqueaks started at that, looking around for a manticore or siren or something. Twist let out a sigh at that. “I mean, that’th the only thing that maketh thenthe. One of the Pipthqueakth is real…and one of them ith a monthter from the Everfree that jutht lookth like Pipthqueak.”
“There’s a monster in the Everfree that looks like Pipsqueak?” Snails asked.
“Apparently. I don’t know why…no, wait, that doethn’t make thenthe. Unleth…what if it can change it’th thape? Look like anypony?”
Dinky looked between the two Pipsqueaks again. “My momma says that if I see a monster from the Everfree, I’m supposed to run straight home,” she said.
“Mine too,” Snails confirmed.
“That’th what we’ll do then,” Twist said. “We’ll go back to Ponyville and get an adult. Thomepony will know what to do and how to tell them apart.”
Three of the foals started to go back, but both Pipsqueaks held up their hooves and called “Wait!” The three paused in their trots, looking to the two Pipsqueaks, who were looking between each other, evidently surprised that neither wanted to go back to Ponyville. After a moment, one waved at the other, then sighed and crossed his own hooves in annoyance.
That Pipsqueak looked between the other three foals nervously. “We…we can’t go back to Ponyville,” he said, looking down and scuffing a hoof in the dirt. “Y…y’know how I said that I got permission from me mum and da’ to go trick-or-treating with you?”
There was a moment’s pause as the implication of the question sank in, before Dinky stepped forward, her horn’s glow taking on an angry hue. “You lied?” she demanded.
Both Pipsqueaks shrank back. “I’m sorry!” Pipsqueak – the one who hadn’t admitted to lying – apologized, though the other nodded frantically. “But if we go back I’ll get in a ton of trouble for sneaking off…”
“But your mom and dad are probably super worried about you right now!” Snails exclaimed, coming forward as he looked at the second Pipsqueak to speak. “And…and you’re gonna be in trouble anyway! Because you snuck off! They’re gonna be mad about that anyway, it doesn’t matter when we go back! Plus you got yourself copied by an Everfree monster!”
“Oi!” The first to confess exclaimed. “He’s the copy!”
Snails turned to look at that one. “Well, you’ll be in trouble, then!”
“Yeah,” Twist agreed. “And we’ll be in trouble! My mom and dad won’t believe that I didn’t know!”
“I don’t even care if my momma believes me!” Dinky exclaimed, zeroing in on the Pipsqueak that had spoken second – he was closer – and stomping up to that one. “You lied! You’re not supposed to tell lies, especially not to your momma and papa!” She was all but on top of that Pipsqueak now, using the few inches of height she had on him to full effect. He was hunkered down, front hooves over his head and eyes shut tight. “And especially not if it’s gonna get you in super trouble and then you snuck off and right now they’re probably galloping all around Ponyville looking for you but they can’t find you and now you’re gonna be grounded and then you also lied to me and Twist and Snails and we’re your friends and I am so mad at you right – ”
“HHHZZZKKKZZZSSSTOP!”
The change was sudden. One second, Dinky was standing over a Pipsqueak, shouting down at him as he seemed like he was trying to withstand a hurricane-force wind. The next, the colt let out an absolutely un-equine sound just barely discernible as a word, a loud and cutting hiss as his head snapped up at Dinky…his eyes now blue and compound, like an insect’s, while his mouth now sported a pair of fangs and a long, forked tongue.
Dinky let out a cry of fright and scampered backwards from the…the…whatever it was, as did the other Pipsqueak. There was a green flash, and the foals found themselves looking at something that looked like nothing so much as a combination of a pony and an insect…it was basically pony-shaped, and around the same size as Dinky or Twist, but it had a hide of black chitin, save for a dark blue pair of elytra on its back. A pair of gossamer blue wings extended from beneath the elytra. Atop its head was a single short, curved horn. Its eyes were the same blue compound eyes of before, and its mouth still had the large fangs – larger now, in fact, seeing as the form it had assumed was taller than Pipsqueak.
But most unnerving were the holes across its legs, within the odd diaphanous tail it possessed, and along a similar spine that ran down the back of its neck like a mane. The holes were actual gaps in its body – see through gaps, some of them big enough to stick an entire hoof through.
“W-wh-what is that?!” Pipsqueak – presumably, the real Pipsqueak – demanded.
“Yeah!” Twist asked, looking to Snails. “Your thpecial talent is bugth! What ith that thing?!”
“It’s not just bugs!” Snails objected. The other three foals all glared at him at the same time, and he shook his head. “Anyway, I don’t know!”
The bug-thing had stood up now, but it remained hunkered down, wings spread wide, and it hissed at them again and stomped one hoof. “HHHUNGRY! LOVE! FOALZZZ!”
“It wantth to eat uth!” Twist exclaimed. She was frozen, paralyzed completely with fear at…at…whatever this thing was.
Dinky’s horn glowed bright lavender as she grabbed Twist’s broom. “Go away!” the unicorn exclaimed, swinging with all her might. But the bug-thing only let out another hiss, and its horn glowed green, and an aura of the same color wrapped around the broom, overpowering Dinky’s own magic easily and taking it away from her. It tossed the broom away, over its shoulder with a swing of its head, though it seemed to stumble a little as it did.
But then its head snapped back around to look at them, mouth open wide and drooling some kind of thick, viscous liquid, tongue stretching out nearly two feet from its body towards them. It lunged, front hooves outstretched. The foals all whinnied in fright, turning to run, but the bug-thing had leapt clear over them, landing on the other side of them.
Whatever conscious, rational part of the foals existed completely left them, and they all bolted again – and split up without meaning to, only wanting to get away from the bug-thing that was the stuff of their nightmares and seemed to want nothing more than to eat them.
---
SCARED!
No! Meals! Ran!
HUNGRY!
My fault. Stupid. Showed self. Never do that. Lurk more.
Twist ran as fast as her hooves could carry her, dodging between trellises and not really having a direction in mind other than away, but the filly was soon gasping for breath and forced to slow down. She spent her days helping her sister Bon Bon make candy, or eating candy, or reading Junior Ace of Clover mystery books. She wasn’t anything close to in shape. She didn’t know how long she ran for – certainly longer than she ever had before in one go – but by the time she stopped, gasping for breath and with a film of lather on her flanks under her witch’s costume and saddlebags, she was still in Green Grape’s vineyard. Only now, she realized, she was all alone, in the dark, without either of her unicorn friends to provide light…with the Moon and Stars now behind clouds, she could barely see five feet in front of her…
Twist huddled back against a vice trellis, looking around, ears standing tall and grateful for her costume, for the just a little bit of extra security it provided. But she couldn’t see anything…couldn’t hear anything either, except a light wind blowing through the trellises that occasionally ruffled the vines’ leaves. When the wind picked up it would make the trellises creak a little, like a door being opened.
She was gasping for air, couldn’t get enough of it after that run, yet at the same time she was trying to keep her breathing to a minimum, trying to keep as quiet as possible…
Then she heard hoof-steps – slow, cautious steps. Twist hunkered down more and held her breath, trying to make herself as small as possible, wishing she could turn invisible, wishing she was at home with her mommy and daddy and big sister…
But she wasn’t. She was alone and in the dark and those hoof-steps were getting closer. Her lungs burned from holding her breath, she couldn’t hold it forever…throwing caution to the wind, she leaped out at the source of the hoof-steps, swinging her hooves wildly and shouting, eyes closed.
She missed, and heard whatever she was swinging at fall to the ground and let out a shout of its own – a colt’s, one she recognized. Opening her eyes, she just barely saw the outline of Pipsqueak in the dim light. “It’s me!” He exclaimed, holding up his hooves in surrender.
Twist stopped her attack and almost apologized…but then checked herself. “How do I know that?” she asked, stepping back.
Pipsqueak stood up. “Because I’m me!” he insisted. “Anyway, how do I know that you’re you? You said yourself that maybe it can look like other ponies besides me!”
Twist almost objected to the idea that she wasn’t herself, but then checked her outburst. If this was Pipsqueak, then he had a point…he had no reason to trust that it was her, any more than she had a reason to trust that she was really looking at Pipsqueak. “If…if I really wath that bug-thing,” she said, “then I would have attacked you by now! And if you were it, then you’d have attacked me! It’th jutht you and me right now. There’th no reathon to hide.”
Pipsqueak almost seemed to accept that, but then shook his head. “Nuh-uh. We don’t know that. Maybe you’re the bug-thing and you like scaring me!”
Twist stomped her hoof in annoyance. She almost suggested just going their separate ways, but she really didn’t want to be alone right now…and besides, how could she be sure the bug-thing wouldn’t follow her, if Pipsqueak really was it? Her brow furrowed as she tried to think of some way to prove herself to Pipsqueak. What would Junior Ace do in the mystery books in this situation?
“How about…” Twist suggested, “I tell you thomething that only I could know. Thomething the bug-thing wouldn’t. Um…we firtht met thith patht thummer.” Twist took in a deep, steadying breath. “Summer,” she corrected herself. Focusing on trying to get rid of her lisp took her mind off of the bug-thing, at least a little. “We were playing pirate attack with all the other foals. You were a pirate. I wath – wasn’t. Pirates won.”
Pipsqueak was motionless in the darkness for a long moment, and Twist had a horrible image of him flashing green and attacking her…but instead he let out a long, relieved sigh. “O-okay,” he said. “That bug-thing couldn’t have been around that long ago. So you’re you.” He put a hoof to his chin. “Uh…you’re Twist. You mum is Honeydew, your da’ is Curry, and your big sister is Bon Bon. Your special talent is making candy, same as your sis, but your cutie mark is two crossed candy canes.”
It was all correct and specific enough; Twist really was looking at Pipsqueak. The next thing she knew after registering that thought, she had leapt forward and scooped the smaller colt into the tightest hug she had ever given anypony. “You’re really you!” she exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
Pipsqueak returned the hug wholeheartedly, so tight it almost hurt, both earth ponies putting their innate strength to full use – the same innate earth pony magic ensuring they were tough enough to keep them from getting anything worse than light bruises instead of broken bones, though Twist at least would have been happy to suffer that right now in exchange for knowing that she wasn’t alone in the night. It did result in the plastic fake jewelry that Pipsqueak was wearing for his efreeti costume cracking and breaking, but the colt didn’t mind.
The hug ended when Pipsqueak gasped, pushing away from Twist. “Wait,” he said. “We’re okay…but Dinky! And Snails! They’re still out there…and so is that bug-thing!”
Twist started, letting go of Pipsqueak, though the two remained close together. “We have to get an adult,” she insisted.
Pipsqueak, however, shook his head. “I mean, yeah, we do, but not until we get Dinky and Snails! It’ll take too long to find an adult and explain everything…we need to move now!”
Twist was absolutely certain that was the wrong thing to do…but at the same time, Pipsqueak had a point. The bug-thing was hungry, it had said so itself…and Snails and Dinky were out in Green Grape’s vineyard somewhere. They had to be found before it could eat them! And Twist herself had pointed out that the bug-thing hadn’t done anything when it was all four of them together. If they stayed together, they’d be safe.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’th - let's go…no, wait. If we get separated, we need a way to know when we meet back up, that we’re really us.”
Pipsqueak nodded. “Um…how about a code phrase? One of us asks, uh…‘who goes there’?”
Twist nodded. “And the other says back…um…” Twist wracked her mind for something that nopony would normally say in response to that, but all she kept coming back to was the bug-thing. She shook her head. “The other says ‘the thing’. Obviouth - obviously the bug-thing if it was in disguithe wouldn’t just say that…so it has to be a real pony.”
The earth pony colt didn’t seem like he liked the idea of saying that he was the bug-thing very much…but he couldn’t think of anything better. Steeling themselves, the two set out back into the vineyard, wondering how they were going to find their friends in there…but knowing that they had to.
Snails had stopped running a few minutes ago, and was now leaning against a vine trellis, trying to catch his breath. He had no idea where he was. Green Grape’s vineyard was large, he was the second-most successful farmer in Ponyville after the Apples, after all, though it was a pretty distant second. He could have been right next to the town proper, or all the way out on the edge of the Everfree Forest. Though Snails definitely hoped that the latter wasn’t the case.
The unicorn colt flopped down on his stomach, mostly so that he could loosen his mummy costume’s wraps, which were way too tight for running like he had been. He’d been really proud of this costume, too, he’d done a lot of extra work to make the wraps look like they were really old and decayed, not brand new, having buried them in the back yard for a few days. But it definitely wasn’t any good for running as fast as his hooves could carry him from some kind of weird Everfree monster.
The monster wasn’t an insect, Snails knew that for sure. Actually he was certain it wasn’t any kind of invertebrate. Snails’ special talent was communicating with animals, and he knew a lot about all his favorite kinds of animals, like insects and crustaceans and mollusks and arachnids and other creatures that ponies tended to not like very much, though Snails didn’t know why since they were so important to the world. But in any event, the monster that they’d seen clearly wasn’t any of those things. It moved and looked like it had a skeleton – not an exoskeleton – and it had to be warm-blooded. Most of Snails’ animal friends were dead due to the season (which was sad, but they’d lived their full lives over the Spring and Summer, and Snails would get to meet their children when next Spring came), and the ones that weren’t dead were either hibernating or specially adapted to the colder weather. But the monster, though it had sort of looked like some of his animal friends, didn’t have those adaptations, which had to mean that it was able to create its own body heat, just like a pony.
Plus, it had talked. Like, out loud, in Equestrian. Snails could sometimes understand his animal friends, if they were in the mood to talk, but they never spoke Equestrian, even if Snails did speak Equestrian to them. So it couldn’t be a normal animal. And since it certainly wasn’t a pony, that left only one possibility: Everfree monster, like Twist had reasoned out.
Snails’ parents and his big sister Raindrops had always told him the same thing about Everfree monsters: if he saw one, run. Which Snails supposed he had, though he’d meant to run home, but he hadn’t known which way to go. So he’d just run as fast and as far as he could. But now he had a problem. His parents and sister had told him to run if he’d seen an Everfree monster…but they hadn’t told him what to do if that Everfree monster could look like his friends, and he was with friends, and now he was lost and his friends were lost.
He couldn’t just leave Pipsqueak, Dinky, or Twist. They were out there somewhere, and probably as scared as him. Sure, the Everfree monster was out there too…but there was just one monster but he had three friends to find. So surely he was more likely to find his friends than the monster.
Right?
Snails groaned a little as he stood up. “I’m gonna get in so much trouble…” he moaned, trotting into the vine trellises, horn glowing to give him some light. He was still a little afraid, but Snails had always had trouble trying to think about too much at once, and right now he didn’t have time to be afraid. He had to focus on finding his friends, and he also needed to think about what to do if he found the Everfree monster instead of his friends. He didn’t have time to be afraid.
After several minutes of trotting, head swinging left and right to look down gaps in vine trellises, Snails finally heard something – somepony else trotting through the field. He almost called out, but then remembered that there was a one-in-four chance that whoever he was hearing might be the Everfree monster…maybe even the monster disguised as one of his friends! So instead, Snails quelled his horn’s light and stood still, waiting.
After a few minutes, he was rewarded with the sight of Dinky Doo, creeping along slowly through the vine trellises, her horn dimly lit up with a lavender glow which was itself muted by the faux-fur pelt she wore as part of her eowolf costume. Or at least it looked like Dinky. Snails kept himself out of sight as he kept a close eye on Dinky – he knew, from camping trips with his family, that something outside a circle of light could see into it a lot better than something inside of light could see into darkness, so Dinky and/or the Everfree monster probably couldn’t see him even though he could see her.
Dinky definitely looked scared, eyes wide, glancing around nervously. Snails didn’t think the Everfree monster would look scared, not if it was hunting him. Just in case, the colt picked up a small, loose rock on the ground with one hoof, then tossed it through the air, where it fell with a small but audible thump on the other side of Dinky. She let out a tiny eep of fright and turned in that direction, even as her horn’s glow disappeared entirely and she hunkered down.
Snails remained still for a long time, as did Dinky, as the filly tried to determine what had made noise while the former waited for Dinky to reveal herself to be the Everfree monster somehow. But it didn’t happen.
“Okay, I guess you’re real,” Snails said as he lit up his horn. Dinky shrieked at that, spinning around so rapidly that she fell over even as her horn’s lavender glow came back on as bright as it could. A nearby vine trellis was torn from the ground by Dinky’s telekinesis and swung in front of her; Snails had to drop to his stomach to avoid it. “Hey, watch it!” he called out.
Dinky paused before letting loose a back swing. She had gotten to her hooves and was standing with them spread far apart to brace herself, even as she held the splintered trellis aloft with her telekinesis. She quickly had to put it down, though – it weighed a lot, and as good as Dinky was with magic, she was still a foal. She continued to stare at Snails for several long moments, however, before finally settling down. “Sssnails!” she exclaimed, one hoof at her chest. “Don’t s-s-startle me like that!”
Snails sheepishly rubbed a hoof behind his head as he stood up. “Sorry,” he said.
He started forward, but Dinky stepped back. “W-wait,” she stuttered, still looking terrified. “H-how do I know you’re really S-Snails? Twist s-s-said that bug-thing could look like a-anypony!”
Snails frowned. “It’s not a bug,” he said. “Only hemiptera-order insects are bugs. And the monster isn’t even an insect! It’s too big and it only has four legs and it has to have a real skeleton at that size, an exoskeleton wouldn’t work, and it’s gotta be warm-blooded.”
Dinky’s eyes fluttered a few times at that…then she finally dropped her defensive stance, and her horn’s light died down to just bright enough to illuminate the colt. “…okay, you’re definitely Snails,” she decided.
“Yup,” Snails confirmed, then thought a moment. “…hey, wait a minute, how do I know that you’re really Dinky? Tell me something only Dinky would know!”
“Okay, um…” Dinky thought. “My mother’s name is Ditzy Doo.”
“Anypony could know that,” Snails objected. “The monster could if it was in Ponyville tonight. I bet it was! Maybe it was that really scary mare from earlier.”
Dinky sighed. “Well…my half-sister is Sparkler. Amethyst Star, that’s her real name. She’s almost as old as my mom. And her and my dad’s name is Castor Cut.”
Snails shook his head. “Somepony could still learn that in town, I bet. If they asked. Tell me something older!”
The filly let out another long groan. “Okay, fine, uh…um…oh! Last year, me and Scootaloo got into a fight during recess after I said Rainbow Dash was lazy. Miss Cheerilee had to break it up.” She glanced down, scuffing a hoof into the ground. “Scootaloo won, though.” She scuffed her hoof a second time, one ear flicking. “She bit my ear!”
Snails tried to think back to that fight. “Oh yeah!” He said, then laughed. “You tried to stop her by shoving your macaroni picture in her face, and Scootaloo just started eating it!”
Dinky had looked up at Snails’ laughter, still looking annoyed, but after several long seconds she smiled as well. The fight had been last year, after all, and Scootaloo and Dinky had made up with each other and were friends now. “So do you think I’m the bug…the Everfree monster?”
Snails took a moment more to consider, but then shook his head. “No. It couldn’t know about the fight…I don’t see how, anyway.” He trotted up to Dinky, giving her a friendly nuzzle to reassure her. “So you’re Dinky.” She leaned into the nuzzle wholeheartedly, wrapping one hoof around Snails…and after a moment, Snails that he felt wetness on his shoulder from where Dinky had buried her face. “Dinky?”
The filly took in a shuddering breath, and Snails realized that she was crying. Dinky grabbed Snails tighter. “Ss-s-sorry,” she whispered. “But I was all a-alone and s-scared and…and there’s this monster out there and it wants to eat us!”
“Aw, it’s okay,” Snails said, hugging Dinky with both front hooves and letting her cry. Sometimes ponies just needed to cry to help them feel better. Snails was tall and kind of lanky so he didn’t think he had a very good shoulder to cry on, personally, but he’d still do his best for Dinky, same as he would for anypony. “With you and me together, all we have to do is find Twist and Pipsqueak, and then we can go back to Ponyville and get some adults to deal with the monster.”
Dinky’s head nodded a little against Snails’ shoulder. She took in a long breath again, squeezed Snails a little tighter, then let go and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get going!”
---
Pipsqueak and Twist moved through the vine trellises, looking around as best they could when they could barely see more than a few feet in front of them, and that only because of the occasional moonlight breaking through the clouds. They were completely lost, they knew that much. They normally wouldn’t have been very worried about that, since Green Grape’s vineyard was big, yes, but not so big that they could become lost forever. If they picked a direction and kept to it they’d either come to a road, Ponyville itself, or the Everfree Forest after ten minutes of trotting at most.
However, the fact that at any moment they might bump into a horrible bug-thing that wanted to eat them had a way of making them forget that detail. As far as either earth pony was concerned, the vineyard went on forever. It didn’t help that instead of trotting along, they were creeping at a pace that would have made a turtle ask them to get a move on.
It took what felt like hours for them to finally encounter something other than more vine trellises. Up ahead there was a large, dark shape. Twist and Pipsqueak had noticed it and hidden from it as quietly as possible at first, but then the moon fully broke through the clouds finally, and revealed it to only be an old shack, with a single window. It wasn’t even a creepy shack, since they could see it was standing up nice and straight, and looked like it had been recently painted, with some grape vines growing along its side for ambiance, and its single window surrounded by stylized hearts.
Of course, just a few dozen feet beyond the shack, the two foals saw a much more foreboding shape: another split rail fence, this one lined with chicken wire, and beyond it, the outline of twisted, gnarled trees that seemed to grow in entirely the wrong shapes, often twining around each other at the roots or the boughs.
Pipsqueak crept right up to Twist, leaning over close to her so she could hear him clearly. “That’s the Everfree Forest,” he whispered.
“I know,” Twist whispered back.
“What do we do if the bug-thing took Dinky or Snails in there?”
Twist shook her head. “I don’t know. But…we thould – should check out that shack.”
Pipsqueak blinked a few times. “No we shouldn’t!” He whispered harshly. “That’s exactly where the bug-thing would make its lair outside the Everfree! Or would if it was some scary story monster!”
Twist turned to look at him. “Exthactly,” she hissed. “Which meanth – means that if Dinky or Snails were captured by it, then they’ll be in there.”
Pipsqueak couldn’t deny that logic, and he turned to look back at the shack. Every single instinct inside the foal told him to not go in there, don’t make a stupid choice like ponies always did in scary monster stories. Stay out of the obviously spooky places, don’t investigate the weird sound, don’t split up, just run away and keep running…but it was one thing to be sitting in bed thinking about how smart and clever he’d be if he was ever in those situations. It was another to actually be in that situation, and know that he wasn’t just looking out for himself, but for his friends, too.
“O-okay,” he stuttered. “C’mon…”
The two crept up, no faster than before – both were worried for their friends, yes, but it wouldn’t do to be caught by the monster before they could rescue them. When they were practically on top of the shed, Pipsqueak’s hoof came down on something other than dirt, something small and metal. Looking down, he saw that it was a broken lock, its bar eaten through by something caustic, though whatever it was had long since gone inert.
Pipsqueak looked back up at the shack. All of a sudden the fact that it was actually painted nicely and looked clean and tidy from the outside didn’t help. It was a creepy shack in the middle of Green Grape’s field that he and Twist were about to go into and probably get eaten by a horrible bug-thing…
But Dinky might be in there. Or Snails.
Steeling himself, Pipsqueak drew himself up to his full height and came up to the door, putting a hoof on it. Before Twist could stop him, he pulled it open. It creaked loudly as it did. Pipsqueak backed away from the door…and then felt himself getting knocked lightly upside the head by Twist. “Oi!” he hissed, making sure to keep his voice low as he rubbed where Twist had hit him. “What was that for?”
“Being thtupid!” Twist whispered back. “What if the bug-thing is in there? We could have thneaked – sneaked up on it!”
Pipsqueak looked back to the shack. “Oh,” he said. Well, it was too late now. Both foals stared at the entrance of the shack, its dark interior, but nothing came out to menace them even after a full minute of waiting. The two carefully made their way forward, and peeked inside.
The shack was just as clean on the inside as it was outside, at least from what the two foals could see by the moonlight that streamed in through the shack’s one window. The floor was wooden and slightly raised off the ground beneath it, with a straw mat for standing on at the far end next to a tool bench. There were various farming tools hanging from the ceiling or leaned against one wall, while cabinets lined another wall.
“Green Grape’s really organithed,” Twist noted softly as she stepped into the shed. There wasn’t anywhere for something to hide in the shed, so the two weren’t afraid of ambush, at least. Once they were inside, Twist grabbed the door and pulled it closed. She looked to Pipsqueak. “Okay, so Dinky and Thnails – Snailth – Snails – ” she raised a hoof to stomp it in annoyance, but checked herself at the last moment, “ – aren’t here.”
“Doesn’t look like the bug-thing’s been here, either,” Pipsqueak noted, wandering over to the window. He had to climb up onto a stool, and then onto a countertop that lined that wall of the shed, to look out it. “If we were all together I’d say we hole up in here and wait for morning.”
Twist nodded at that, as Pipsqueak hopped from the counter and the stool, towards the mat – and then let out a cry of fright at the mat collapsed under him. Twist let out a shout herself, rushing forward to see what had happened. Apparently, she found, the mat had been covering a hole in the floor, and even in the ground beneath it. “Are you okay?” Twist asked.
Pipsqueak picked himself up. “Yeah,” he said, looking up. The hole he was in was a little bit deeper than he was tall while standing on four legs, though when he reared up he was just able to look out over its edge. He couldn’t see much else due to the lack of light, but feeling around, he found that there wasn’t just a hole in the ground, but an actual tunnel just beneath it that led…he really didn’t care where, actually, because a dark scary tunnel under a creepy shed in a vineyard at night that was the hunting ground of a bug-thing from the Everfree Forest was emphatically not something he wanted to investigate. The moment he found it, he turned around to climb out –
– but managed nothing more than putting his hoof to the wall of the tunnel when something grabbed his tail and pulled, hard, dragging him backwards and into the tunnel.
Pipsqueak screamed.
---
Twist could barely see Pipsqueak as it was from where he’d landed in the hole under the mat, but at least she’d verified he was okay. He’d started to climb out, and Twist was just about to reach down to help him out even as she was really, really, really hoping that it lead to Green Grape’s secret buried treasure that she’d never heard about and not to the bug pony’s lair, when all of a sudden there was a flash, and Pipsqueak fell down and was dragged backwards, screaming the whole time.
“Pipthqueak!” Twist called out. Before she could even think of what she was doing, she’d hopped down into the hole, found the tunnel Pipsqueak was dragged down, and started crawling after him. She had to stoop down low and squeeze against the tight walls of the tunnel. It was cold and damp and smelled of dirt and rot, at least at first, but after a few feet of the tunnel sloping downwards its walls instead became wider, taking on a strangely sweet smell and no longer feeling like dirt, but instead almost like hard rubber with a rippling, organic feel to it.
She didn’t have any time to think about that as there was another flash, blinding her, as her mane was grabbed by some invisible force and she was pulled. She let out a cry of fright as she was dragged down several more feet, then deposited roughly on a floor of the same material as the walls of the tunnel.
Twist reached out, hooves flailing, and they touched something furry and she heard Pipsqueak yelp from right next to her – she’d found him, then. She made to stand, but hit her head on the roof of wherever they were – it was pitch black, she couldn’t see at all.
But there was another bright flash, and the chamber they were in was illuminated. Twist squinted against the sudden light, falling back. She found that the chamber they were in was tiny, maybe five feet across at most, and two feet high. It was roughly almond-shaped, its walls made from some kind of greenish-black, rippling, flowing material that looked almost alive somehow, like it was the hard flesh of some kind of monster…or the interior of it, like they’d been eaten.
And there was Dinky Doo. She was standing back from them, eyes wide, pressed against the far end of the chamber and glancing between the two other foals. At her hooves was a puddle of some kind of greenish, viscous liquid that reminded Twist a bit too much of whatever the bug-thing had been drooling…
Pipsqueak stood himself – he stooped, but in truth he was just short enough that he might have been able to stand up without hitting his head. He looked at Twist. “Who goes there?” He asked.
Twist was confused a moment, then remembered their code phrase. They had lost sight of each other for a moment, hadn’t they? And a moment was potentially enough. “The thing,” she responded. Pipsqueak almost relaxed, but then turned back to Dinky, bracing himself.
“Wh-what?” Dinky – what looked like Dinky, anyway – demanded at their actions. She looked between the two foals, and fixed her eyes on Twist. “Pipsqueak, get away from her! S-s-she’s not really Twist!”
Twist bristled. “Yeah I am!” she countered. “I just proved it! Me and Pipthqueak ran into each other earlier, and proved we’re really uth, and then came up with a code phrathe. That’th what that wath.”
Dinky looked between the two of them, shifting a little. She glanced down at the goop she was standing in and grimaced, looking like she wanted to move out of it, but there was no way to do so without getting closer to the two earth ponies. “H-how can I be sure?” She asked, tears in her eyes. “H…how can I trust either of you now? If there’s one bug-pony there could be two, or more…”
“If we were both those bug-things,” Pipsqueak said, “we wouldn’t need to pretend to be us. It’d be two on one.”
“And bethideth,” Twist pointed out, leaning forward a little and pointing down at Dinky’s hooves. “How do we know that you’re Dinky? What ith that thtuff?”
Dinky looked down at the goop she was standing in again, then back up. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. She glared at Twist. “B-but you do! I found you after we got s-separated, and you acted all nice and helped me calm d-down and brought me to this s-shack…and then the next thing I knew you were the monster and you spat this stuff on me and shoved me down here! I managed to melt it off with my horn b-but it’s gross!”
Pipsqueak started at that, looking to Twist a moment like she’d actually done that, before he shook his head. “There wouldn’t be time for that,” Pipsqueak said. “Me and Twist met up hours ago. We’ve been looking for you and Snails this whole time.”
“I don’t know that!” Dinky exclaimed. Her horn’s glow changed, taking on an angry lavender hue, and Twist and Pipsqueak both backed away as far as they could, right up against the back wall. Dinky was arguably the best unicorn foal in town when it came to magic…and she was looking at the two of them as dangerous a look either had ever seen on her face. “Prove you’re you!”
“M-my thithter’th Bon Bon!” Twist exclaimed.
“M-my parents are Adante and Tropic Spring!” Pipsqueak added.
“My thpecial talent ith making candy!”
“I don’t have my cutie mark yet!”
“My favorite Daring Do book ith The Eternal Flower!”
“I kinda’ like Ponyville but wanna go back to the sea some day!”
Dinky looked between the two of them, horn still glowing bright and dangerous for several long moments…before it died down considerably as Dinky’s lip started trembling and tears appeared in her eyes. After a moment, she fell to her barrel, heedless of the goop underneath her, hooves over her head, and started crying. “I’m sorry!” She exclaimed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Twist and Pipsqueak looked between each other; then as one came forward, lifting Dinky out of the goop she was in and hugging her. She didn’t even try to hold back her tears then, as she grabbed both as tightly as she could, burying her face in Pipsqueak’s neck. “I – want – my – momma!” she cried.
Twist completely sympathized; she wanted to be back with her own mom as well right now. She squeezed Dinky a little tighter. “We need to get going,” she said after a few moments – not nearly the time that Dinky needed right now, but they didn’t have a choice. “We need to find Thnailth.”
Dinky nodded a little as she pulled away from them. “O-okay…” she stuttered. She wiped her eyes, forgetting about the goop that was staining her hooves. “R…right! Let’s-s get moving!”
Getting out of the chamber was, fortunately, about as easily said as it was done. Twist went first, following by Pipsqueak, with Dinky taking the rear. They managed to get out without issue, Dinky quelling her horn’s glow entirely once they were back in the shack. They fished out the mat that had lain over the hole in the floor and set it back to cover their tracks.
“Okay…” Twist whispered, as they trotted to the shack’s door. “Let’th…let’s…get going – ”
Just as Twist touched the door, it opened, swinging outwards – and she found herself looking at Snails, and Dinky.
Snails, Twist, Pipsqueak, and two Dinkies stood inside of Green Grape’s shack, the former three staring at the latter two, who alternated between looking at their friends and each other.
Well, one of them alternated between looking at her friends and the other Dinky. The other one was simply looking at her meals, Twist knew, maybe sizing them up, trying to decide who was going to be tastiest. The trick was finding out which one that was…and very quickly, because Pipsqueak was small and Snails was lanky and Dinky was just sort of average-sized. Twist, meanwhile, was a little plump. She probably looked delectable.
Though then again…either the Dinky that she’d found with Pipsqueak was real, or the one that had been with Snails was real. In either case the monster had been all alone with one of them for quite some time…but hadn’t eaten the pony it was with. Why not?
By now, the fear that Twist, Snails, and Pipsqueak had been feeling was starting to wear thin. They’d spent all night terrified so far, which was sort of the point of Nightmare Night…but it wasn’t supposed to be this scary. They weren’t supposed to actually be afraid for their lives. But after several hours of not seeing the bug-thing, the fear had become a background thing, a sense of dread. But it was no longer an overriding thing, an emotion driving them to either fight or flight. They could think.
“We should go back to Ponyville,” Snails said. “Somepony will be able to figure out which is the real Dinky, and which is the monster.”
Pipsqueak agreed, but Twist shook her head, setting aside trying to figure out why the monster hadn’t eaten one of them for the moment. “Uh-uh,” she said, and pointed at the back of the shed – or rather, beyond it. She took in a breath and thought carefully about her next words, how she wanted to say them. She would conquer her lisp! “The Everfree Forest is right over there, so we’re as far from Ponyville as we can be. The bug-thing would have a lot of time to escape, then come back disguised as one of us again. Then we’d be right back where we started.” She smiled a little at having said so much without her lisp breaking through.
Snails and Pipsqueak both considered, but slowly nodded, understanding Twist’s reasoning. One Dinky – the one that still had the monster’s goop on her hooves and a little around her face – held up a hoof. She’d also taken off her eowolf costume, or at least the fake paws; she kept the faux-pelt on for warmth. “But we can’t wait until somepony finds us,” she said. “It’s getting really late, my momma is probably already really worried. I don’t want to disappear for a whole night!”
“Does that mean she’s the monster?” Snails asked. “Since she wants to go back?”
“No,” Pipsqueak said, before the Dinky who’d spoken could indignantly object. “’Cause that is a good reason to want to go back, and the real Dinky really would want to go back to her mum.”
“I do,” the other Dinky said. She’d kept her fake eowolf costume fully on. The other Dinky turned to glare at her, but that Dinky ignored it as she looked at Snails. “I have to be the real one. I told you my momma’s name, and my sister’s, and my dad’s. And I told you about the fight I got into with Scootaloo last year. How could the monster know it?”
The goop-covered Dinky’s eyes widened, then she turned to Twist. “But I told you that!” She exclaimed. “Or…I mean, I told the bug-monster that, before it attacked me! So it could have spat this gunk on me, shoved me in the hole, and then gone after Snails!”
Twist put a hoof to her chin as she thought. “What else did you tell it?” She asked. “If you’re the real you, that is.”
That Dinky leaned back a little, glancing up. “Uh…a lot,” she said. “You…I mean, the monster…it kept asking me. I thought it was you and I was really scared and I wanted to prove I’m me, so I told it everything I could think of to prove it…”
Twist had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She looked to Snails. “Um, Snails…” she said, and waved a hoof at the Dinky that wasn’t covered in goop. “Did…did you and Dinky talk on the way here…?”
Snails thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Well, whispered. We talked about lots of stuff. I don’t really remember what…I mean, mostly the Everfree monster, but – ”
“Bugger!” Pipsqueak hissed, stomping one hoof.
Snails looked to him. “It’s not a bug. Only hemiptera-order insects are bugs. And – ”
“That’s not what I meant,” Pipsqueak said, stopping Snails before he could go on for too long. “I mean…” he pointed at the goop-covered Dinky. “If that’s the real Dinky, then she told the bug-thing a lot about her. And if that’s the bug-thing,” he pointed at the other Dinky, “then you probably helped it fill in a lot of gaps after it captured Dinky. It might know everything about Dinky, or at least everything we know about Dinky.”
“But what if the one I was with was real?” Snails asked. “Then since you were with Twist the whole time, that Dinky,” he pointed at the one with goop on her hooves, “wouldn’t know all that much about Dinky at all.”
“I hate zucchini,” the goop-covered Dinky said. “It tastes gross. My momma grew up in Fillydelphia. Her momma’s name is Medley, and she grew up in Las Pegasus.”
The other ponies shook their heads in disappointment. “Bugger,” Pipsqueak repeated.
“It’s not a bug!” Snails objected again.
“That’s not what bugger means!”
“Then what’s it mean?”
“I got it!” Twist said, before the argument could blossom out of control. The two Dinkies started, as Twist looked between the two of them. “I know how to prove which Dinky is the real Dinky.” She walked up the one still in her full costume, looking at her intently. “What would the other Dinky say if I asked her who the monster is?”
That Dinky’s eyelids fluttered a few times. “She’d say I was the monster?” she asked.
“Yup,” the other Dinky confirmed wholeheartedly.
“Ah-hah!” Twist exclaimed. She pointed at the other Dinky. “Then that meansyou’re the monster!”
The goop-covered Dinky’s eyes widened. “Wait, why?!” She demanded.
“Yeah, I’m confused too,” Pipsqueak added. Snails nodded as well.
Twist felt pretty proud of herself for figuring this out. “Becauthe,” she said, “if thisDinky is the monster,” she pointed to the one she’d asked the question, “then she’d tell me that the other Dinky would tell me that she is the monster, which would mean that she was the monster. But if this was the real Dinky, then she’d tell me that the other Dinky would say that she’th…um…” Twist paused, thinking. “Wait, I had thith figured out…if the’th real…then the’d…but…”
“Hey, Dinkies,” Snails said as Twist tried to figure out her own logic puzzle. It had made sense in her head. “Remember last week when we went shopping for Nightmare Night costumes?”
“Uh-huh,” both said, glancing at each other as they did.
“And remember when we bumped into Diamond Tiara and she was being all mean and stuff ‘cause Scootaloo was in the next aisle and she kept talking about how Scootaloo was probably gonna go dressed as Rainbow Dash like last year?”
“Yeah,” the Dinky still dressed in her costume said.
“No,” the other, goop-covered Dinky said. “I mean…she might have said that?”
“You gotta remember!” Snails insisted, smiling. “Diamond Tiara ended up getting costume bits so she could dress as a princess ‘cause she didn’t want to leave the aisle and be in the same one as Scootaloo.”
One Dinky laughed a little at Snails’ story, while the other one scratched her head…then noticed Twist, Snails, and Pipsqueak all staring at her intently. “This doesn’t prove anything!” The goop-covered Dinky exclaimed suddenly, eyes going wide. “It was last week, and I wasn’t trying to remember anything…”
The other Dinky was grinning. “Yeah, but I remember all of it!” That Dinky exclaimed proudly. “So that means – ”
“You’re the fake,” Snails said, matter-of-factly, pointing at the Dinky still dressed as an eowolf.
The other foals all started, as the eowolf-dressed Dinky backed away a couple steps. “What?” they all demanded.
Snails shrugged. “I made up the stuff about what Diamond Tiara said. It was fake. The real Dinky can’t have remembered it ‘cause it never happened.”
Four sets of eyes turned on the Dinky dressed as an eowolf, while the goop-covered one backed away from her, getting closer to the other foals. The eowolf-Dinky glanced between them in shock. “B-but…b-b-but…”
“Are you sure?” Pipsqueak asked, looking at Snails, though only for a moment: he didn’t want to take her eyes off of eowolf-Dinky.
Snails nodded. “Positive.”
The four foals all stood close together now, grinning triumphantly…until it dawned on them that, having successfully figured out which Dinky was the fake one, they now had to deal with the fact that they were standing in a small shed with a monster from the Everfree. The realization, and terror that came with it, hit them all almost at the same time, and almost as one they stepped back. The goop-covered Dinky started for the door to the shed…but then noticed that the other Dinky was standing between the four of them and the exit. She let out an eep of fright at the realization
Eowolf-Dinky’s ears flattened against her skull at the sound as the terror built, even as her eyes widened and she stooped down. She backed up against the door and let out an unequine hiss, tongue lolling out – far too long and forked. A green glow flashed over her – and once again they were looking at the chitin-covered, holed, insectile monster. It hopped backwards, feet planting themselves on the door and wall, perching there like a spider…its neck bending at a completely unnatural angle so that its head could remain facing them.
The foals all let out a shout of panic, backing away and into the furthest corner from the door, being careful of the mat that covered the tunnel to the monster’s lair. “O-o-okay, s-so now wh-what?” Snails asked.
The thing hissed again, and the foals bunched together even tighter. “I…I don’t know!” Twist exclaimed. She glanced at the shed’s window…but it was tiny, more decorative than anything. Pipsqueak might have been able to fit through, and Snails might have been lanky enough with effort, but not Dinky and certainly not Twist herself.
The smallest foal perked up a little. “Snails! Dinky!” He called. “Cover us! Twist! Buck the wall!” He emphasized his point by raising his hind hooves and bucking hard with both of them against the wall. The wood dented and splintered under the earth pony’s kick. Twist joined in a moment later
The reaction from the monster was instant, its eyes growing wider. “NO! EZZZCAPE! LOVE! FOALZZZ!” It detached from the wall, wings buzzing so fast they seemed to almost be invisible as it took to the air.
Dinky and Snails stepped forward, however, horns glowing brightly. Dinky grabbed the nearest object in the shed with her telekinesis, a drawer, and pulled it open and scooped out whatever was inside – it turned out to be screwdrivers of various sizes. She hurled them forward with all her telekinetic might.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a whole lot in this instance. The tools flew forward but only lightly impacted the monster, though it was at least enough to drive it back a foot or two. Snails grabbed one or two off the ground himself with his own magic and sent them flying up. His own magic wasn’t any stronger than Dinky’s, and he couldn’t grab nearly as many things at once, but he did manage to get one of the screwdrivers to strike the base of the monster’s left wing. The monster let out a hiss of pain as it fell to the floor, though it landed easily and started forward.
Snails picked up another screwdriver and tried to aim for the thing’s huge eyes, but the creature’s own horn glowed green and grabbed at the screwdriver, stopping it, though Snails kept pushing anyway. Another screwdriver, this one wrapped in Dinky’s lavender glow, came at it from the other side. The thing’s green aura grabbed that one as well, but it stopped its advance, bracing itself as though this were a physical rather than magical contest – and its eyes widened when it started losing, the two screwdrivers slowly inching forward. With a loud hiss, it ducked and let go of the screwdrivers at the same time, and they went sailing over its head and embedded themselves in the far wall.
Dinky tried to grab another tool, but the monster acted first, green aura grabbing all the scattered screwdrivers and pulling them back and behind it. The effort, however, seemed to stagger it, as it remained leaning down on its knees, panting heavily, before it looked back up at the foals, eyes narrowing. It hissed again.
Dinky braced herself, but then she felt her tail being grabbed. She let out a yelp as she looked behind her, and found Pipsqueak had grabbed her tail in his teeth. He and Twist had made a hole in the shed’s wall big enough for all of them, and he’d grabbed her and was now jumping out, powerful earth pony muscles easily pulling her along for the ride. It hurt, as did the broken wood she was dragged past, but in another moment she was out in the cool night air again.
Dinky stood quickly, looking back in as her horn glowed bright. She helped Snails grab an entire cabinet and hurl it telekinetically, but they couldn’t throw the cabinet very fast, and the monster was able to easily dodge by using its wings to allow it to glide sideways, then it lunged for Snails. He let out a shout of fright and shrank back, but Twist was there, turning around and delivering a solid buck to the monster with her hind legs. It went flying away and landed on the ground with a crash, facing away from them.
Dinky almost thought they were safe, but then the thing jerked and its head snapped around to face them – without the rest of its body turning, a move that surely would have snapped a pony’s neck completely. It hissed at them, forked tongue reaching a good two feet from its body as it did.
“Why would it bend like that?!” Dinky demanded as Snails hurried through the hole, followed by Twist, while the monster stood up, head snapping back around into a more normal position. It charged forward and crashed through the hole, coming out in a tumbling heap and rolling a little before staggering to its feet.
“Run!” Pipsqueak exclaimed.
“No!” Twist countered, reaching out and stopping the colt before he could. “If we run, it’ll jutht turn into one of uth again!” She turned back to face the monster, eyes narrowing. “We’ve gotta thtop it!”
Pipsqueak gulped, but a glance at Dinky and Snails let him see that the other two had apparently reached the same conclusion. Steeling himself, he turned around, facing the monster and trying to draw upon all his bravery. He’s swam with sharks once, in the Southern Sea. That had been way scarier…or at least he tried to convince himself of that.
The monster glanced between the four of them, eyes wide again…only it stood up straighter and leaned forward, taking in deep breath and tongue lolling out. “Yezzz…” It hissed in a low voice. “Brave…tazzzty…more…MORE!” It stomped a hoof, hissed, and charged forward.
Dinky and Snails both slapped at it with telekinesis, but it launched itself into the air over their auras, and landed among them, right next to Twist. Before she could react or do anything but scream, the creature was on her, hole-filled hooves pushing her back and onto her back so that the creature could hiss in her face, tongue sticking out, green goop and more normal-looking saliva falling down onto her. She screamed.
The monster hissed, eyes widening as it fell backwards and away at Twist’s scream. It didn’t notice Pipsqueak come up on it and buck it firmly in its face. It went tumbling away again, but turned to face Pipsqueak easily, mouth open wide at first and roaring. Pipsqueak let out a yelp of fright and backed away…and the monster let out a hiss of its own as it stood, taking up a defensive posture again.
Twist felt her heart hammering in her chest as she got to her hooves, but tried to force her mind to work past that. The monster had knocked her over, had her dead to rights…but when she’d screamed, it had backed away. It hadn’t seemed to mind Pipsqueak’s buck all that much, but when he’d shouted in fear, it had suddenly gotten defensive…
…and earlier, it had revealed itself first when Dinky had been mad at Pipsqueak for lying to them. Dinky had been standing over it, shouting, mad as could be…and it had reacted like it was under attack.
And just now – just now it had said ‘brave…tasty’…and why hadn’t it eaten Snails? The monster had been with Snails, alone, for hours, but only revealed itself when it had no choice…it had captured Dinky but then only put her in a hole instead of feasting…
“…it doethn’t want to eat uth,” she realized. “It doethn’t want to eat uth!”
The monster’s gaze fell on Twist, and it roared. “No, I think it does!” Dinky objected.
Twist shook her head. “I mean, not uth!” Twist said. “It’th feeding on our feelingth!” She glanced at her friends. “That’th why it didn’t eat Th – Snails, or you, Dinky. It doesn’t care about us. It’s eating our bravery, or our happiness…or our love! That’s why it keepsshouting about love! It doesn’t love to eat foals…it wants to eat love from foals!”
The creature hissed again, mouth open wide and tongue lolling out as it kept its eyes on Twist. “Yezzz!” It hissed, stepping forward. “More! MORE!”
Twist wasn’t surprised that the creature was targeting her now; she was feeling pretty good about herself. “And I think…that if it eats love…” she said, closing her eyes and thinking hard. She focused on the monster, on everything it had put her and her friends through tonight. All the anger, the fear, the hate she’d felt.
The creature’s eyes grew wide, tongue shooting back into its mouth as it backpedaled away from Twist. “HHHZZZTOP! ZZZTOP!”
Twist put on a wicked grin that matched the witch’s costume she wore. “It hates hate,” she said. “It can only eat good feelings. Bad ones hurt it! Anger and hate and fear!”
The other three foals looked between Twist and the monster for a moment, then to each other. As one, they nodded, then turned to the monster, doing what Twist had done – focusing on this Nightmare Night. The Nightmare Night that the monster had ruined by being so scary, so frightening. They focused on the terror they’d felt at being hunted, the anger of having something that was supposed to be good taking away from them…the hate.
The reaction was immediate. The thing recoiled like it had been hit, staggering and coughing, retching like it had tasted something unpleasant. It stumbled backwards, trying to put distance between itself and the foals. “Zzztop! Zzztop it! HHHZZZKKK!”
The foals advanced – Twist taking one step at first, but when that produced a flinch from the monster, they all advanced as one, charging at it and roaring in anger, trying to put that emotion at the forefront. The monster’s eyes widened – even as it seemed like it was about to throw up – and it turned and fled. Its wings buzzed, trying to get lift, but it stumbled as a dry heave overcame it.
In just a few moments, the creature had run into a problem: the fence that separated Green Grape’s field from the Everfree Forest. Its front hooves collided with the fence, and it started heaving again before spitting up some kind of green caustic ooze that splattered over the chicken wire, and started melting through it. It turned around to look at the foals – and found them all but on top of it, glaring down at it.
“You ruined Nightmare Night!” Twist exclaimed.
“You pretended to be me!” Pipsqueak shouted
“You tricked me for hours!” Snails added.
“And you scared my friends!” Dinky ended.
The monster glanced between the four of them at fear, rear hooves scrabbling at the dirt even as its front hooves reached back and tried to pull off the metal wire, weakened by the ooze it had spat out. “Zzztop! Zzztop…! Hurtzzz! HURTZZZ! ZZZTOP! PLEAZZZE!”
Dinky, Twist, and Pipsqueak almost did – but they were caught up in the moment, in the emotions they were channeling, in the fact that the thing that had been hunting them and scaring them witless all night was finally on the defensive, finally scared, finally hurt. Later, they would think it was wrong, that they shouldn’t be like this…but right now, in the moment, it felt good.
But to Snails, the creature looked like a hurt, scared, panicked animal…and Snails liked animals. His cutie mark was in communicating with them. And he knew that this creature, whatever it was…it had just been hungry, just trying to feed itself. Some part of Snails’ mind even knew that the monster hadn’t wanted to scare them…after all, it didn’t like the taste of fear. If it really did feed on love and joy and happiness, then it hadn’t really meant to take that away from them…
Snails felt sorry for it.
The creature had compound eyes, but somehow Snails knew that it was looking right at him, not his friends. The wire behind it finally snapped under its clawing at it and the ooze it had spat on it, and it fell backwards through it, to the other side of the fence, but it never broke eye contact with Snails.
“I’m zzzorry…” it buzzed, then turned and fled into the Everfree Forest.
Every single instinct that the foals possessed made them want to gallop back to Ponyville as fast as their hooves could carry them…but they couldn’t do that. If they did, then they might lose track of one another, and if that happened…then how would they know if the bug-thing had returned? So they trotted, bunched up close together. The adrenaline finally dying down, the moment of victory having passed, the foals jumped at every noise, panicked at every moving shadow. Once a cloud returned to cover the Moon again, and the four foals didn’t dare take another step until the cloud passed, even though Dinky and Snails could provide their own light.
They came up with a new code phrase, too. Just in case. They vowed not to tell it to anypony else, no matter what. That way, they’d always know who each other were.
The Sun was only a few hours from rising by the time they made it back to Ponyville proper. None of them were surprised to find every adult still awake and looking for them, turning the town inside out, the pegasus weather patrol being organized by Rainbow Dash to head out and search for them. When they appeared it was bare minutes before their families were on them all.
The adults had at first worn looks that mixed relief and joy with anger – fury, even – at the four of them being gone for so long, but then they saw what a sorry state the four foals were in, their costumes torn and dirty, covered in small nicks and cuts and bruises from scrabbling out of Green Grape’s shed. That, and the fact that the four burst into relieved tears set aside any anger as the older ponies focused only on the foals’ fear. They were all taken to the nearest home – Pipsqueak’s – and Nurse Redheart and Doctor Stable were called to tend to their injuries. Fortunately aside from minor cuts and a few easily-removed splinters, the foals were fine once they’d been cleaned up, Dinky especially scrubbing herself thoroughly to get the now-calcified monster goop off of her.
It was more than half an hour before the foals finally calmed down enough to tell the adults what had happened. None of the adults had a name for the Everfree monster, none recognizing its true form, nor its ability to change its shape. But the Everfree Forest did have a plethora of monsters, and it was huge. Nopony doubted the foals’ story, about what the monster could do and how it had hunted them and disguised itself like them. Maybe somewhere else in Equestria it might have been doubtful…but the ponies of Ponyville knew what the Everfree Forest was like. The only thing strange about the monster had been its subtlety – Everfree monsters were usually large and loud and very obvious about themselves.
The adults fell to talking to one another about what to do about the monster. Dinky, Snails, Pipsqueak, and Twist didn’t much care at this point, though. Everything caught up with all of them at once, and when the adults at last returned their attentions to them, they found the four of them all bunched together on Pipsqueak’s living room floor, Pipsqueak nestled against Dinky’s barrel with one of Dinky’s forelegs over him, Snails on the other side with his neck laying over Dinky’s own, and Twist tucked so that she was laying beneath both Dinky and Snails’ head, all of them sound asleep.
Nopony had the heart to move them.
---
Pipsqueak had been grounded after all, of course, once the four foals had all woken up, though the young colt hadn’t seemed to mind that he wouldn’t get to go anywhere but school or home for a month. Snails hadn’t been grounded, since his parents had believed him when he said that he hadn’t known that Pipsqueak hadn’t gotten permission from his parents to trick-or-treat alone. They didn’t think he intentionally helped him. But on the other hoof, it was several days before his parents or sister let him go anywhere without them nearby. Snails didn’t mind that at all, though. His parents had even let him stay home from school for several days, which was good, because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on class.
Still, eventually he had to resume a normal life. The four foals all returned to school on the same day, and for each of them the chance to see their friends again was a great relief. All the foals in class had been super-interested in learning what had happened, but Miss Cheerilee had made sure that the foals didn’t ask too many questions, and stressed to the four of them that they didn’t have to talk about the monster – the other foals in class, having heard about it, had taken to calling it the Transformer, which seemed as good a name as any – if they didn’t want to.
But talking helped, so they ended up spending the entire day at school talking about what had happened, how they’d been stalked for an entire night by the Transformer, how it had been able to perfectly duplicate any of them, how they’d had to trick it into revealing itself and then fight it off.
Snails was pretty quiet for most of the talk, though. He hadn’t been able to get his mind off of the Transformer these past few days. At first it had mostly been him being really scared of it, remembering all the frightening things it had done…but then Snails had been able to think past that, to instead when the four of them had been able to defeat it, drive it away. The moment when Snails had realized that what he was looking at was scared and hungry, not really a monster, just something that was forced to act like one.
And it had apologized…
Aw, I’m gonna get in so much trouble…Snails thought when he realized what he was already planning. But he had to do it.
After school, Snails didn’t go home, though he knew he should have. He did ask his best friend Snips to stop by his house and tell them he was heading to Fluttershy’s, though, which wasn’t very unusual – he and the pegasus that lived at the edge of town had the same special talent, communicating with animals, even if the specific marks on their flanks were different. Snails sometimes stopped by Fluttershy’s home to see some of the invertebrates that she had, or to help her with some problem related to insects or arachnids or other animals that Snails liked a lot.
So it wasn’t unusual for him to go there…but it wasn’t true, either. Instead, he headed back out into the farmlands around Ponyville, and into Green Grape’s field again, though with the Sun now shining overhead, giving plenty of light for the colt to see with. The vinter had been out to his shed since the foals had fought the Transformer there. He’d dug up the little lair that the Transformer had made, pulling it from the ground and leaving it next to the shed until he figured out what to do with it. Out of the ground, it looked almost like a shriveled, rotten heart; not the stylized kind that ponies drew on lots of things, but an actual heart, with the tunnel that led down to it looking like a vein or artery.
Snails stared at the exposed lair for a moment, then trotted on, up to where the Transformer had broken through Green Grape’s fence. Green Grape hadn’t fixed that yet; part of the fence still lay on the ground, and the edges of where the Transformer had spat on the fence had calcified bits of green-black ooze, looking just like what its lair was made out of.
Snails sat down just on the vineyard side of the fence, staring beyond, into the Everfree Forest that lay about thirty feet away. Even in daylight, the forest’s twisting boughs and gnarled roots looked scary…some of the adults had ventured into the Everfree over the last few days, as far as they dared, trying to find the Transformer, but nopony had had any luck…which wasn’t very surprising, given that it could change its shape. And though Snails was pretty sure that it was a dumb idea to come out here, he wasn’t going to be so dumb as to go into the Everfree looking for it.
No, instead he simply sat, looked in, and waited. After a few minutes, he realized that the Transformer might not be looking his direction, might not know he was there. “Hey!” He called. “Are you out there?” Snails waited, placing his hooves on the lower rail of the fence. He was still for several long minutes, but nothing happened other than a breeze blew by, and he heard some birds in the distance.
The colt sighed. Just as he was getting up, however, he saw movement from the Everfree. One chitinous, holed hoof appeared around a tree’s trunk, the point caused by one of the holes digging into the bark a little. Snails backed away at the sight, even more so when the creature’s head came out from behind the tree, turning slowly to look at Snails, once again its compound eyes somehow managing to focus on him. He was suddenly struck by how very, very bad an idea this had been.
The creature remained just as still as Snails…no, not just as still, Snails realized after a moment. It was breathing heavily, but not easily, every inhale seeming like a struggle and every exhale making its shudder slightly. After several moments, its other hoof came into view, but only to grab the tree, to help hold it upright.
“Zzznailzzz…” it rasped, its voice high and dry, its eyes wide. “Zzznailzzz…hhhelp…”
Snails was frozen. Paralyzed. He’d come out here because he knew the thing was hurt, that the creature needed help…but on the other hoof, there was the thing, the creature, the monster that had hunted him, tricked him, scared him…maybe this was a trick too, maybe it just wanted to feed on his pity…
The creature’s eyes fluttered a little. It let out a dry cough, letting go of the tree and coming around it, standing on four hooves just beyond the tree line…and only barely, its legs shaking visibly. It reached out one hoof – to step forward, maybe, or maybe reaching out to Snails. But then its eyes closed, and it fell over onto its side…and Snails could just hear its breath rattling as it did.
The colt was still for a few moments, debating internally about what to do. Eventually, however, concern won out over fright, and he trotted forward. He paused a second longer at Green Grape’s fence, but forced himself through.
The colt found the creature lying on its side, breath coming in short, quick gasps. Its forked tongue was lying out of its mouth on the grass, twitching weakly, while the elytra on its back had opened slightly, revealing twitching wings. As Snails approached, the thing managed to open its eyes, but nothing more than that. “Hhhelp…pleazzze…” it begged. “Pleazzze…Zzznailzzz…”
Snails stared, his eyes growing wide. The creature…it wasn’t just hurt. It wasn’t just scared. Snails had seen animals die…many of his animal friends were predators, after all, and they had to eat. Sometimes they’d get sick too, or just old – for insects or arachnids or crustaceans or whatever – and pass on. So Snails knew what a dying animal looked like.
And the creature…whatever it was…it was dying.
“Pleazzze…hhhelp me…”
Snails shuffled from one hoof to another, glancing around. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help it…it was that, the best way he could think of to do so was to feed it what it wanted…give it love or joy or happiness or whatever else it needed. But if Snails did that…then it might get strong enough to attack him, to drag him off into the Everfree and come up with some way to keep feeding on him. Keep him trapped forever in its lair in the Everfree Forest, maybe trapped in place with that gunk that it built its lair out of, covering him like a cocoon, nowhere to go…
“Ahhh…!”
The cry was small, pathetic, weak, and born of nothing but utter agony mixed with a total inability to do anything about it. Snails looked down at the creature and realized that all the fear and panic from just now, that he’d felt while worrying that this might be a trick, had been fed on by the creature…and hurt it more.
Snails tried to calm down, but the fear of what the creature might do to him, mixed with the worry about how it was dying, couldn’t leave his mind. There was another haggard rasp from the creature, and it started convulsing, legs curling in on itself, wings buzzing frantically beneath its elytra. The creature was definitely dying now…and Snails could only think of one way to help. One thing he could do…and he had to do it, had to take the risk. He gulped a little, then threw himself forward and on top of the creature, grabbing hold of it – its hide was surprisingly pliable for looking so much like an exoskeleton – and closing his eyes. The creature had kept talking about love all Nightmare Night…so Snails would try and give some to it.
He thought about how much he loved his family. His father Dewdrops, who was always calm and fair with him, who worked in the weather patrol and helped coordinate the weather across the province. Every gentle shower or sunny day that Snails had ever had, he’d had thanks in part to his dad.
He thought about his mother Shutterbug, a nature photographer. With Ponyville sandwiched between the Whitetail Wood and the Everfree Forest, she never lacked for amazing shots, and she shared Snails’ love of invertebrate animals, too, helping him find new friends or taking him to her studio in Canterlot where they kept even more exotic animals.
He thought about his sister Raindrops, the coolest and strongest mare he knew, who was always there for him, who always helped cheer him up when he was feeling down, who was also part of the weather patrol, but was responsible for actually flying into the sky and making the weather with her own hooves.
He thought about all of his friends – Snips and Dinky, and Pipsqueak and Alula, and Twist and Applebloom and Bee Bop and Scootaloo and Featherweight and Sweetie Belle and Truffle Shuffle and so many more foals at school.
Snails thought about all of them, and he tried as hard as he could to somehow take what he felt for them, the joy he shared, the laughter he’d had, the love he felt for his family and friends, and he tried to give that love to the creature, the Transformer, the whatever it was, because right now, it needed the love more than he did. Snails could always get more…but could the creature?
And it worked. Snails could feel it working…it was like a pull, like static across his pelt, only instead of his fur standing on end was like something was being pulled out of him…it didn’t hurt, but it did feel weird and unpleasant and he didn’t like it, but the creature needed it, so he let it happen, set aside how bad it felt and focused only on helping the creature, hoping…only when he started to feel his limbs shaking, started to feel really tired, did he stop to wonder if maybe this was a bad idea
But the creature’s breathing became more regular. Snails looked to its face, and saw that it’s tongue was once again hanging out, flicking around and tasting the air…or his emotions, he guessed, the tongue must have had something to do with it. After a moment more, it drew its tongue back into its mouth, and instantly the pull on Snails stopped. He let out a long breath of relief at that, at the unpleasant feeling of his soul being pulled on going away, even as the creature took in deep, steady breaths.
“I…I don’t…don’t need more,” it said. The buzzing and hissing was basically gone from its voice, but its breath hitched a few times, and one hoof went to its mouth even as it squeezed its eyes shut, tears apparent. “I’m not hungry…I’m not hungry…I’m not hungry!”
The creature’s dam burst, and it let out an anguished but relieved wail. And even though it didn’t need it anymore, Snails grabbed it and squeezed it just a little bit harder to let it know everything would be okay.
---
“Ocellus,” the creature said several minutes later, when it had finally calmed down. “My name is Ocellus. I’m a changeling.”
The two were sitting facing each other – inside of Green Grape’s fence, the creature, Ocellus, being strong enough to stand and follow Snails’ trot, since now that Ocellus was better Snails didn't want to be any closer to the Everfree Forest than he had to be. There had been several minutes of silence after that, save Ocellus occasionally fighting back more tears of relief, of joy. This close, Snails realized that he was actually taller than Ocellus, though not much taller. It was strange, that he had been so afraid of a monster that he was bigger than.
“I…I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how I got here to…to wherever I am. I had heard stories…that pools were opening on the surface. Portals. Rifts that would swallow a changeling and then that changeling would never be seen again. But I thought they were stories…I was part of a labor group under hive lord Pharynx, repairing one of the entrances to the hive from the storms…there was a flash…then I was in that forest. Alone. That was…I don’t know. A lot of sleep-cycles ago.”
Snails nodded, though something was bothering him. He was paying attention, but ever since Ocellus had stopped buzzing so much and its normal voice became clearer, he had been wondering…“Are you a filly?” He asked.
Ocellus’s eyelids – it was strange that a creature with compound eyes had those, but it did – fluttered. “What?” It asked.
“Sorry,” Snails apologized, ears folding down. “I’m just curious.”
Ocellus was silent a moment, before giggling a little. “Yes. I’m female naturally.” She blinked, and green light flashed over her. She didn’t look much different – a little smaller and maybe a little more angular. “I can be male if you prefer, though. It’s not hard.” Her voice had shifted a little at that, becoming just a touch deeper. “Or both. Or neither.”
Snails shook his head. “No, that’s okay.”
Ocellus flashed again, returning to her natural shape. “I’m just a worker drone, anyway. It probably won’t ever matter. Plus I’ve only had a few molts since I was a nymph, so I’m too young to have a brood even if a hive lord wanted one with me.”
“Me too,” Snails said. He didn’t quite understand all of that, but he could make some guesses based on his animal friends. Though he didn’t think he’d call any family he might one day have a brood. He didn’t think they’d like that.
There was silence between the two of them for several long moments. “So, uh…” Snails said. “You eat love?”
Ocellus nodded, though a pained look overcame her face. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said, wings buzzing a little beneath her elytra. “I was in the forest for…for a long time. I don’t know how long. I do need to eat like you do, sometimes…” she pointed at her mouth and made chomping motions. Snails noticed that despite her fangs, most of her teeth were flat, just like his. The fangs must have been for threat-displays, then. Ocellus wasn’t really a carnivore. “But I need love, too. Joy or happiness taste good as well, they can help…but I need love to live. I found your settlement a few days ago…but by then, I’d been driven mad by hunger.” She looked down, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I thought that ponies liked being scared. That’s what I kept seeing in town…ponies being scared but then feeling joy and happiness.”
“Oh, that’s ‘cause Nightmare Night is all about being scary,” Snails explained. “But not too scary. Not like…um…what you did.”
Ocellus glanced back up. “I started to realize that. But by then I was just so hungry…I…I only saw you as prey.”
Snails nodded himself. “That’s okay, too, I guess. If a wolf or a bear or something was really hungry they’d probably see me as food too. Though I wouldn’t really like being eaten. I wouldn’t just let it happen…” he paused a moment. “Sorry about trying to shove a screwdriver into your eye. I was really scared.”
“I know,” Ocellus responded. She would know, too, since she would have been tasting his fear.
The two were silent again for a bit, before Snails stood up. “Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna go to Fluttershy’s house now. I told my parents I was going to and I don’t wanna be a liar. You can come too, if you want, I bet she'd love to meet a changeling – ”
“No!” Ocellus exclaimed, wings spreading wide and buzzing as her eyes widened in panic. Snails backed away a few steps in fright, and Ocellus noticed and calmed down. “N-no,” she repeated. “P-please, Snails…don’t tell anypony about me. Everypony in your town will hate me…probably does hate me, for what I did.” She hunkered down, hooves over her head. “What I am. What I see you as. Prey.”
Snails frowned. “I shouldn’t keep secrets,” he said. “And I don’t like lying to ponies.”
Ocellus looked up at Snails, pressing her front hooves together. “Please! I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where my hive is…m-maybe I can live here, in the forest…but I don’t want ponies hunting me or chasing me or hurting me! Please!”
Snails looked at her, then sighed. “Okay…” he said. “I won't tell anypony about you. But what about food? You can’t just stay in the Everfree until you go crazy and start hunting ponies again.”
Ocellus shook her head. “I was only like that because I hadn’t found any love for…I don’t know. A lot of sleep-cycles, like I said.” She smiled at Snails, and the colt was surprised that it wasn’t an unpleasant one, even with the fangs and the knowledge that behind her mouth was a forked tongue at least two feet long. “But now that I found Ponyville, and since you fed me so much love, I could go into your settlement every day in disguise. Feed on love there. Not as much as what you gave…just a little here and there.” She looked in the direction of Ponyville, and her tongue flicked out like a snake’s, tasting the air. “There’s…there’s so much love there. I’d never go hungry.”
Snails was glad to hear that, at least. “Okay. But try not to look like a pony that’s already there! If there’s two me’s trotting around, or something, then ponies are gonna get suspicious.”
Ocellus nodded, then looked down, thinking. She flashed green, and then Snails found himself looking at a somewhat lanky filly with a sky-blue coat, pastel pink mane and tail, and aquamarine eyes. “I don’t have to look like anypony in particular,” she said, turning around in place, the buzz now completely gone from her voice. “I can make up a disguise. How’s this?”
Snails looked her over, then nodded. “That’s good, though careful that Miss Cheerilee doesn’t catch you not in school when you look like a filly…or a colt, I guess.”
Ocellus smiled. “Okay. And…and can I meet you every now and then, once I make a new burrow?” She trotted up to Snails – still a bit shorter than him – to look him in the eye. “Just…just to talk. I’ll talk to ponies as a pony…but since you know what I am, I’d like to be able to talk as myself, too.”
“That’s fine,” Snails responded. He knew he’d certainly want to be able to talk to Ocellus more. She seemed nice, now that she wasn’t a scary monster hunting foals on Nightmare Night. He offered her a grin. “You wanna meet Fluttershy while you look like a pony? She’s really shy but she’s usually better around foals than adults. I bet she’ll like meeting a new foal.”
Ocellus brightened. “Sure!” she said, and the two trotted off. Snails took a moment as they did to glance down at Ocellus – he was still a bit taller than her. This was…kind of weird, he had to admit, cantering along with a pony that was really a changeling that had been trying to eat him and his friends just a few days before. But on the other hoof, he’d made a new friend, and that was always a good thing.
He definitely wanted to get more ponies to know about Ocellus and what she really was, though. But it could wait. There’d be no harm in that.
