Investigating the disappearance of unicorns from Ponyville, the Mane Six find themselves trapped in a house with a malevolent spirit. And in a bloody act of betrayal, one of them turns. Six ponies will enter, but three of them will leave.
A dozen unicorns have been drawn towards a mysterious mansion on a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville. Tasked with finding out why, Twilight and her friends enter themselves, only to fall victim to the spirit within, who can control every aspect of the house.
Then, influenced by the spirit, one of them becomes a traitor to serve his nefarious purposes. How long can the ponies hold out before they are all destroyed?
Written for the Change of Pace contest by HapHazred
“A... house?” Rainbow Dash asked, tilting her head.
A massive structure was imposed among the barren trees surrounding it. The mansion was proud and black, but squat, with only two levels and a thin tower at the far right corner. The only entrance was a gate, where six ponies stood together.
“Darling, calling this a house is like calling the sea a lake,” Rarity informed her, examining the windows critically. They were as dusty and cracked as the bricks they were built in. “If it was restored, it would look absolutely marvelous! I can’t imagine how anyone would abandon this place!”
“Well, ain’t that why we’re here?” Applejack remarked.
“The mayor spoke to me,” Twilight Sparkle said, taking charge. “Twelve unicorns have disappeared in Ponyville over the last month. They were all heading towards this house on this hill.”
“...I don’t suppose that means we can go back home now, can we?” Rarity despondently assumed.
“No,” Twilight refuted with an arm swish. “Unless we find out why, the problem will just keep happening.”
“Oh, n-n-no… we have to go inside?” Fluttershy whimpered, already shivering, but not from the cold wind blowing her mane and tail.
“I don’t like this either,” Twilight told Fluttershy firmly. “But the town is depending on us to investigate.”
With a chime of her horn, the gates swung open with an rusty squeak. They advanced into the courtyard, casting their eyes about nervously. Dried-up, dirty stone fountains were on their left and right, and the ground was cracked and eroded. The setting sun cast their surroundings in a diluted black. Leaves on the ground swirled about as the wind blew, and whistles came from the cracks in the home, sounding eerily like haunting spirits.
Though some were too proud to admit it, a sense of dread loomed over them all as they approached the door as one. It was splintered and peeling, eaten by mold near the rusty hinges.
“I’m not sure there’ll be a bellhop waiting to greet us, you think?” Rarity remarked.
“What if we rang?” Pinkie suggested.
“It could awaken an ages-long slumber of an ancient creature!” Fluttershy shivered, shrinking into herself.
“C’mon, it’s no big deal!” Rainbow proclaimed, jabbing at the door. “Here, I’ll prove it!”
“No, wait!” Twilight tried to say, but Rainbow was already flying like an arrow. With a crunch, the door split in half and busted wide open, revealing a darkened hallway they could not see the end of.
Upon seeing the looks she was given, Rainbow shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
Rainbow hovered near the doorway as the rest of the ponies made their way inside one by one. When the last one, Fluttershy, finally crept inside, she brought up the rear. And save for the little light outside, there was nothing to illuminate the hallway.
“Hey, Twi! Why aren’t you doing that flashlight thing?” Pinkie asked.
Twilight, for her part, had a fearful expression frozen on her. She was obviously straining, and so was Rarity, but nothing came out of their horns.
“I… can’t!” she exclaimed. “There’s nothing! My magic is being blocked!”
“Mine too!” Rarity wailed, massaging her bony horn.
“This house is haunted!” Fluttershy panicked, and turned as if to rush for the door. But the broken door, with a symphony of splintering creaks, repaired itself as if played in reverse and slammed shut before Fluttershy could reach it.
In an instant, the house became pitch black. Six screams filled the dark, musty air.
The first one to stop screaming was Applejack. Her voice soon cut above the others: “All righ’, everypony! Pipe DOWN!”
The others promptly obeyed, though it took a few moments for each one.
“Gettin’ our tails in a twist ain’t gonna help us get outta here,” Applejack reasoned with the rest of the girls. Their eyesight was gradually improving in the darkness enough that they could see each other’s outlines. “Let’s try an’ see if th’ door’ll budge.”
Fluttershy sped to the doorknob and jiggled it a few times in every direction. “It’s locked!”
“And I doubt a simple kick will be enough to take it down,” Twilight reasoned. “There’s obviously something alive and powerful in here. Something malevolent. Until we root it out, we can’t leave. It’ll just keep us in here and pick us off, so the quicker we destroy it, the better.”
“All right! Butt-kicking time!” Rainbow cheered.
“Are you sure that’s the right kind of attitude to have?” Rarity asked in a hush.
“Of course not!” Rainbow reasoned. “But I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction!” She turned to look down the endless hall. “You hear that?” she yelled into the abyss. “I’m comin’ for you, buddy!”
“Here’s the plan,” Twilight spoke up. “We’re in this together, whether we like it or not. So we’ll explore the house. We’ll come across something suspicious sooner or later.”
Feeling their way down the wide hall in one conglomerated body, the first room they came to was on their left. The ponies filed in one by one.
Shelves lined the walls on every side, filled with dust-caked tomes. On the far opposite end, a cold marble fireplace was strewn in cobwebs. Two couches and a reading chair were in the center, and an elegant glass chandelier dangled from the ceiling.
“This seems like as good a place to start as any,” Twilight remarked, squinting in the dark at the books. “Fluttershy, see if you can get that fireplace started.”
As it turned out, it needed no flint and steel. At the turn of a switch among the moldy logs, flames shot from hidden tubes and ignited the fuel. Some lanterns from the hall were quickly brought in and promptly lit, and soon the library was the most well-lit room in the house. Orange glows illuminated their surroundings and cast everything not lighted into dark shadow.
After some time of the ponies searching among the volumes, Twilight let out a groan of frustration and slammed a book back on its shelf. “These are all just novels!”
“You’d think there would be a book about paranormal activity somewhere in here,” Rainbow said distastefully, skimming through another book before putting it back.
“The more time we waste here, the sooner we’re all going to get killed!” Fluttershy whimpered, sinking into a ball on a musty old couch.
“Let’s make this a safe spot for now,” Rarity suggested, coming behind Fluttershy to rub her shoulders. “We can come back here after we explore more.”
“But where should we go?” Applejack asked.
“Let’s just go to the end of the hall!” Pinkie piped up.
“I’ve got no better ideas,” Twilight conceded. “Let’s take those lanterns and get out of here.”
Back in the hall, now illuminated by the glow of lanterns, the ponies could see that every furnishing was rich. The walls were lined with gorgeous wood, and pastel paintings of plains and rivers were spaced evenly throughout the hall. Doorless openings on both sides of the wide hall led into great, shadowy rooms. About halfway, they saw a staircase open up on either end and meet together on a balcony overlooking the hall, and the ceiling had expanded to great heights.
“Whoever lived here before must have been one heck of a guy,” Applejack commented, eyes wide to fully take in the exquisite detail, even if marred by dust.
“Do you think we can search for records?” Rarity suggested to no one in particular, every step creaking on the ancient planks. “If somepony rich lived here in the past, there would have been some kind of recording in a legister.”
“Or personal items,” Twilight added on. “Perhaps their bedroom! Great idea, Rarity.”
“So upstairs we go-OOO?!” Pinkie screamed at the end of her sentence as the floor beneath her cracked and collapsed.
Rainbow and Fluttershy reacted quickly, grabbing Twilight and Applejack. But Rarity and Pinkie disappeared, screaming as they were sucked down a narrow chute just barely bigger than their bodies just beneath the hole. A lantern shattered and went dark.
“Rarity! Pinkie!” Fluttershy cried, dropping Twilight and flying to the edge of the great hole. But they were already gone.
“No,” Applejack whispered as she was dropped by a stunned Rainbow Dash. “No…”
“Hey!” Rainbow yelled into the hole, voice almost breaking. “Can you hear me?... Hello…?”
Two yelps reached up from the narrow opening. The first voice made a few echoey frets, followed by, “Oh, it’s really quite filthy down here!”
“That was fun!” the second voice drifted up, more bubbly than the first. “It was like a slide!”
“I don’t think so!” the unseen Rarity yelled in response. “The chute’s far too steep and slippery!”
“I’ll go in and get them!” Fluttershy vowed, spreading her wings.
“You can’t fly down there!” Twilight discouraged, holding her back. “It’s too narrow!”
“Well, we can’t just leave ‘em down there!” Applejack added.
“What on earth do you expect us to do?” the faraway Rarity yelled, echoing.
“You explore and find the stairs to the basement,” Twilight yelled down. “We’ll be upstairs, but head to the library once you’re clear! We’ll meet you there!”
“On it, Twi!” Pinkie replied.
Twilight turned her attention to the heaving Fluttershy, the wild-looking Rainbow, and the apprehensive Applejack. “We have to find a way. That means trusting them and doing our own job.”
Applejack was the first to nod in reply. “R-righ’. ‘Til we do what we need to, ain’t nopony gettin’ outta here.”
“Rainbow?” Twilight asked next.
Rainbow looked disheveled, but otherwise okay. “Fine...Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy was the most distressed of all of them, to be expected. A tremor had overtaken her legs, shaking her entire body. But she gave a tight nod, looking at the ground anxiously.
“Then let’s go,” Twilight ordered. “They’ll be okay.”
She turned to go back to the stairs, but it was also so no one could hear her whisper, “They have to be.”
The small basement landing was also a square room where the coal from a coal chute was piled, in preparation to enter the furnace in a room just to their left. Pinkie’s, but more notably Rarity’s coats were stained in a dark hue from the coal that had broken their fall. The intense glow from the furnace next door provided them with enough light to see their surroundings.
“Where should we go?” Pinkie burbled, cheerful as ever.
“Oh, the horror!” Rarity bemoaned, brushing her greyed coat. “I’ve got coal dust absolutely everywhere!”
“That’s… not a direction,” Pinkie observed.
“Correct, Pinkie, it’s not a direction. I figured that part out for myself, surprisingly enough.”
“Let’s go this way,” Pinkie suggested, pointing to the right, but in the process cracking something beneath her hoof, which she bent down to examine in the feeble orange light.
It was a hollow skull. A unicorn skull.
Pinkie stumbled back in shock. Rarity, seeing what it was, shrieked and fell on her back on the pile of coal. “PINKIE! It’s…! It’s a…!”
And then they noticed more of them among the coal, about a dozen, lying dashed to pieces but still recognizable. They were blackened and dusty, with some rats inside them, gnawing at what little specks of flesh remained attached to the bone.
“W-we aren’t the first ones down here!” Rarity shivered, frozen stiff. “The missing villagers! We’re gonna DIII-hi-hi-hiiiie!” she wept.
Weak.
Pinkie perked up. “What?”
“I said, darling, we’re going to die! Didn’t you get it the first time?!”
“No, the other thing.”
“What other thing? Y-you must be going mad! I’m getting out of here!” And she sped to the doorway on the right.
She’s weak. You’re strong. Crush her!
It was the authority in his tone, and the choking cold fear of failure it elicited, that drove Pinkie into action. A cold tendril slipped down her throat and snaked in coils in her stomach. It was going to kill Pinkie, and kill Rarity as well! And then the rest of the ponies in the house! The proof was in the bones at her hooves!
Pinkie’s heart wrenched at the prospect. But she needed to do it.
She picked up a piece of coal and rushed to Rarity, who halfway turned at her approach. “Pinkie, da-”
Pinkie slammed the rock into Rarity’s forehead, knocking her against the doorway as well. Pinkie’s forearms hooked around Rarity’s armpits, and she dragged her back into the coal room. Rarity, bleeding from the head, was struggling violently, shouting to let her go.
But Pinkie couldn’t do that. The rest of her friends’ lives were on the line. If she could save them all by just doing this-!
“Please!” Rarity screamed, kicking against the floor violently, sending coal and bones flying. “Pinkie! What’s the matter with you?! HELP! HELP MEEE!”
Pinkie shut her pleas out. They would only make things harder.
The furnace room had its massive cast iron oven sunken into the floor with a pipe at its tippy top, with only a hole in the exposed metal as a place to shovel coal and allow oxygen in. Pinkie dragged Rarity into the furnace room and examined this hole. It was perfect.
“No! No, please! Stop it!” Rarity hyperventilated, struggling harder than ever, but Pinkie’s mind was made up.
As she hurled a screaming Rarity to the furnace hole, her arms found the sides, catching her just before plunging to her fiery doom. The heat made her back fur singe. “I don’t want to die! Please! Pinkie, stop it!”
“No,” Pinkie forlornly replied. “For our friend’s sake, one of us has to burn.”
Pinkie reared up and lunged at Rarity to push her in. But Rarity pushed herself off the furnace and dove at the floor right before Pinkie made contact with her, and instead of pushing Rarity into the fiery hole, Pinkie tumbled in.
She scrabbled at the edge of the metal furnace ledge, but her grip was too weak and slipped. And Pinkie, screaming as much as Rarity had, fell into the fires of hell.
Rarity’s eyes were barely open to protect from the intense heat and light when she looked inside the furnace. But she couldn’t even see an outline of her incinerated body, and turned away sadly, trembling like a house of cards.
“Good!”
Rarity stumbled back. Materializing in the doorway was an opaque, ghostly pale head amid a foggy body of mist. Two wheels covered with blinking eyes spun like hula hoops around the face. It was plain and smooth, like porcelain, every last one of the eyes was black and empty, and though his lips looked effeminate and full, the deep growl coming from them was unmistakably male.
“It seems I misjudged you. You shall serve my purposes just fine.”
Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow went up the dark stairs one step at a time. It was quiet, save for the breathing through their noses and creak of both the steps beneath them and the lanterns in their hooves. Once they reached the top floor, they began to examine the level. It was a square space with two doorways on the left and right. Four silent, empty suits of armor guarded the doors. It gave Fluttershy a small startle, but she recovered quickly.
“Well?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Where’s the bedroom?”
“In a house like this, it would be in a tower,” Twilight answered. “And I remember seeing one to the far right as we came in. Follow me.”
“Ah ain’t ever livin’ in no tower,” Applejack insisted in a whisper. “I remember hearin’ a story ‘bout a princess forced to live in one her entire life!” She shuddered, then stopped briefly to think. “Come ta think of it, that’s jus’ Twilight, isn’t it?”
“Hardy-har har,” Twilight deadpanned as they entered a small research laboratory, its various instruments, papers, and tables shoved to the side and caked in dust.
“Raponezel?” Rainbow Dash asked of Applejack. “Huh. You always struck me as more of a Goldilocks kind of pony.”
Applejack absently fondled the long, braided blonde mane over her shoulder as they walked quickly through. “Just ‘cause o’ this?”
“Nope,” Rainbow replied nonchalantly as they entered an art gallery, filled with even more paintings of nature on the walls and even a replica of a Marechaelangelo statue in the corner. “Because you eat porridge all the time, and everything always ‘Has ta be jus’ right!’ with you around.”
“It’s almos’ scary, how similar that imitation was. You sounded just like me.”
“So… you don’t deny it?”
“Who wouldn’t take pride in doin’ everything jus’ right? Better’n the job you do, anyways.”
They came to an empty, charred room, scorched and blasted by fire. Black and rotting wood made up the floorboards, so every step taken was accompanied by a perilous creak. Applejack and Rainbow ceased their bickering almost immediately.
“What happened here?” Fluttershy whispered, sticking close to Twilight as they quickly crossed.
“These burns look like magical marks,” Twilight observed. “This must have been the work of a powerful unicorn testing something. Remember the research laboratory a little bit back?”
“But what was he trying to figure out?” Fluttershy whispered in return.
“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. “But that’s what we’re here to find out.”
Past the charred room was a spiraling stone staircase. They climbed up with little trouble and came to the top floor.
There was little doubt that it was a tower; the ceiling was a hollow cone supported by buttresses, and there were windows in the four cardinal directions. It was very cluttered, full of boxes, papers, and tables. A closet was to their left, and in the far corner was the lumpy bed. Twilight’s intuition was right.
Fluttershy went to investigate the closet and Rainbow and Applejack started perusing the desks and boxes, leaving Twilight to approach the bed. With every step, she tried to prepare herself for what she could find. What on earth was going on?
When she reached the bed, and used her hoof to peel back the filthy sheets, her heart momentarily stopped; there was a decomposing unicorn skeleton inside, bony mouth gaping wide open in a scream that echoed throughout the tower.
But the scream had come from Fluttershy, who zipped out of the closet and clung fiercely to Rainbow Dash’s leg, quivering like a spring with eyes wider than china plates.
“What in tarna-” Applejack started, then saw what was inside the closet and gasped.
Twilight positioned herself so she could see inside the closet, and her heart stopped a second time.
A chalk circle was drawn upon the ground, and inside was a five-pointed pentacle. The remnants of a drawn and quartered earth pony were positioned to align with the star’s sides. There was still a remnant of rotten flesh inside its stomach cavity beneath the ribs. On the pony’s skull was a molded wax candle. It was burning without consuming any wick. In its eye sockets were two flawless rubies. To the side was a brown-stained knife and open tome. The entire closet floor was stained with ancient blood.
“Holy…” Rainbow started, then swallowed something and began to breathe through her mouth.
Twilight, though horrified, drew closer for inspection. She tried using her magic, but upon remembering it was blocked, sighed, came to the drawn sigil, and hurriedly picked up the tome. The book’s pages were stained brown and sealed together with old blood, but Twilight felt that this was a major clue to figuring out the mystery of the house.
“How could you just-” Applejack started, then let out a disgusted sound.
“Well, the body’s not going anywhere,” Rainbow remarked.
Twilight set the bloody book on an overturned bedside table, and Applejack held up a lantern for her to see the faint words inside.
“What’s it say?” Rainbow asked, coming beside Twilight to peer at the artifact.
“This is a special kind of magic,” Twilight told them lowly. “Tampering with spirits, life and death, and time. Whoever was living here was attempting a ritual to postpone his death.” She gestured back at the open closet. “That’s what the body was for. If you want more life, you must take it from another.”
“Everypony’s got a few skeletons in their closet, but this is on another level,” Applejack remarked.
“Well, who was the pony attempting this ritual?” Rainbow demanded.
“I think… whoever was in that bed,” Twilight theorized, pointing at the sticky, filthy old bed. “Who performs a black ritual in another person’s closet?”
“Well, obviously, it didn’t work,” Applejack stated.
“Not necessarily,” Twilight refuted. “Perhaps… he was just dissatisfied with his methods, and wanted a more permanent solution. Instead of tying his spirit to his body, perhaps he did another ritual, and preserved his spirit… somewhere...” Twilight halted in her tracks and took a frantic look around.
Fluttershy was the first to grasp it, and shrunk into herself in fear. “You mean… The entire house?”
“No way!” Rainbow exclaimed.
“Is that even possible?” Applejack wondered. “Ah don’ know much ‘bout magic.”
“He must have found a way,” Twilight insisted. “How else could the house behave the way it does?”
“But how do we destroy a spirit without a body?” Fluttershy whispered, casting her eyes in every corner of the tower.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rainbow answered. “We destroy the house.”
Rarity’s legs wobbled in place. Her head spun. She felt like fainting, but there wasn’t a couch nearby.
“Why, um…” she stammered out, unable to break away from the beady, black eyes encircling him. “H-h-hello, mister spirit. Um, I was on my way out, and I... I’m going to just go-”
“Foolish mare!” the spirit hissed. From the stone floor burst forth iron pipes, twisting into a narrow cage that Rarity cowered inside. “Did you think you could discard me that easily, my little guest?”
“Oh, so this is how you treat a guest?!” Rarity screamed at him. “Like a prisoner?”
“But you are a guest. In my prison. Tell me, my dear, what do you think you see around you?”
“I see only the bars of this cage!” Rarity cried.
“Impressive, isn’t it, how every aspect of this place obeys me? On the brink of death, I tied my life force into my own home to preserve my spirit and prolong my life.”
“So... you’re searching for immortality, then?” Rarity asked with a squeak, helplessly drawn to the rotating wheels spinning around his head.. “It… seems to me like you’ve found it.”
“It is a crude, bodiless immortality. I cannot even leave the rude iron gates. And houses do not last forever. If this were allowed to go on for a few more years, I would have died in a house collapse. But if I could inhabit a body, I would be complete at last. I would be a pony again! And a powerful one, if the right vessel is chosen.” He blinked, and so did all the eyes on the wheels. “An alicorn! I want an immortal alicorn! And you, my sweet, brought one right to me.”
“Twilight,” Rarity breathed.
“Is that her name?” the spirit mused, drifting closer and closer to the caged Rarity. “How dainty.”
“B-but why did you need to separate me and Pinkie if you wanted Twilight?” Rarity stalled, keeping her gaze on the pale face in the fog.
“Well, if I entered Twilight right away, the rest of your friends would destroy her. I need a servant with strong resolution. A will to kill, and deliver me a free body to possess. For over a month, I have called out to Ponyville, searching for a willing servant and a body, but they all lacked resolve to kill, so I disposed of them. Until… you. But you have destroyed the other pony that I planned to possess, so I will have to share with you instead until we kill Twilight. It’s not ideal for either of us, but… consider this your punishment for your sadistic nature.”
Rarity wept miserably. “I would never kill! Pinkie was my friend!”
“Keep telling yourself that. Now hold STILL.”
The cage unraveled, Rarity’s jaws were pried open, and a hoarse scream escaped her mouth. The spirit’s pale face was in front of hers, and each of the wheels of eyes unraveled and slowly slipped in ribbons onto her tongue and slid down her throat. It was like a string of beads, and it triggered her gag reflex.
Then the porcelain face drifted into fog and shot into her mouth as well, but this time, it seeped into the top of her mouth, into her brain, like a disease. It was taking over her functions, leaving no free will of her own...
Rarity collapsed, her throat and mind free at last. A few convulsions passed through her body in ripples, and a low moan passed between her lips.
Then she sat up rigidly. She held her hooves in front of her face. After a few giddy laughs of surprise, Rarity got onto all fours.
“Well, her magic isn’t as strong as I anticipated,” Rarity lamented, a ball of light pulsating on the end of her horn. “But it’ll have to do for now.”
“What d’ya mean, blow up th’ house? Ah don’ know how ta say this, but none o’ us exactly have dynamite sticks in our back pockets.”
“Do you have any better suggestions?” Rainbow replied.
“We should save that for after we discover who this pony was,” Twilight interrupted. “Try and search his personal possessions. They could provide insight.”
“I-I’m sure he won’t mind,” Fluttershy said, loud enough for nonexistent ears in the wall to hear.
Twilight and Fluttershy got to searching the bedside tables while Rainbow and Applejack perused through the abandoned boxes, and it only took a moment before Rainbow spoke up. “Found a picture. Kinda dusty, but…” She blew it off, and Fluttershy scrunched up her face and sneezed.
“Lookit that,” Applejack commented. “That almost looks-” She cut herself off and snatched the picture out of Rainbow’s hooves.
“Hey! What gives?” Rainbow irascibly demanded.
“Holy mother o’ mighty fine milk,” she whispered, the picture trembling in her hoof. “That’s… m-ma granny!”
The three others craned their heads to get a better look at the yellowing, ancient photograph. Partially obscured by dust and faded by age, it nevertheless showed a young Granny Smith posing beside a very suave middle-aged white unicorn stallion. He had sideburns, dressed very circumspectly for his time. Both of them had jars of Zap Apple Jam in their hooves.
“Granny Smith was around since th’ beginning of Ponyville,” Applejack croaked. “An’ this unicorn here looks an awful lot like… th’ very first mayor. Lemuel Silver.” A small growl of resentment accompanied that line.
“I don’t remember local history, so I’ll take your word for it,” Rainbow assumed.
“Wasn’t this originally an earth pony settlement?” Fluttershy asked.
“That’s why he volunteered to be the mayor. See, he was a unicorn supremacist. Thought other species of pony as beneath ‘im, so he’d be in charge of us. He demanded privileges an’ the like for takin’ on the job. Th’ mansion we’re in musta been commissioned jus’ for him.”
“And look where that got him,” Rainbow snorted.
“That explains his lust for power,” Twilight reasoned.
“And why it’s away from the rest of the town,” Applejack added, setting the picture on the closest available surface, a mirror frame.
“And why you can’t use magic inside,” Fluttershy added. “He’d want to feel superior to everyone else.”
Twilight tried again to activate her magic, but this time, a violet light pulsated from the tip. It felt so natural to her that for a second, she didn’t grasp the implications, but when she did, she audibly gasped. So did everyone else.
“Wh...what does this mean?” Fluttershy whispered in fright.
Twilight drew her eyes from one end of the room to another. A series of creaks sounded downstairs, drawing closer with every step. They were faint, but clear, and everypony could hear them in the otherwise silent room.
“Somepony’s coming!” Rainbow said, positioning herself between Fluttershy and the door leading out.
“Do we hide?” Applejack asked.
“No,” Twilight replied grimly. “We fight.”
Twilight’s magic intensified, this time with the intent to fire a spell. With every creaking step, they sounded louder and more distinct. Through the door leading downstairs, they saw a bobbing blue light.
And indeed it was; Rarity appeared at the top of the landing, her pearly horn glowing a bright blue. She looked the worse for wear, all matted and scratched and blackened with coal dust, but otherwise seemed fine.
“Rarity!” Fluttershy joyously exclaimed, and shot to wrap Rarity in a warm hug. After a second of this, she released her. “I’m so glad to see you’re all right! Where’s Pinkie?”
“Pinkie… is…” Rarity started, trying to think off the top of her head. “Indisposed. In the kitchen.”
“Really?” Twilight asked. “Why not in the library?”
“Library?” Rarity sounded bewildered. “Why would she go there?”
Rainbow came forward, a suspicious look crossing her face. “Because we agreed to meet there once you two found your way out of the basement.”
Rarity’s eyes were downcast. “I... really wish you all hadn’t noticed that.”
A vegetable knife from the kitchen, coated in her blue magic, appeared from behind her and swiped at Fluttershy. The pegasus had no time to react, and the blade caught her across the chest with a slash and a shriek. Fluttershy fell back, bleeding from a long but shallow cut.
Twilight fired at Rarity, who dropped the knife and put up an ice-blue shield that absorbed the blast. Rainbow came from above, and Applejack assisted with a powerful buck, and those two tandem attacks broke the shield and sent her tumbling back down a few steps.
Twilight aimed at the four windows in quick succession. A quick burst was enough to shatter each of them, and the cold wind quickly entered, rustling papers and blowing debris across the tower. “Get out! Now!”
Rainbow scooped up the bleeding Fluttershy and shot out the eastern window. Twilight, meanwhile, held Applejack under the armpits and headed towards the north window. But just before she could escape, Rarity screamed, “OH, NO YOU DON’T!” and hurled a flash of silver through the air. With a sick, soft impact, the knife lodged inside Applejack’s upper thigh, and she screamed in anguish. Maroon blood ran like water down her orange leg.
The last thing Twilight saw before she jumped out of the tower window was Rarity, red in the face with rage.
Twilight plummeted with the wounded Applejack in her arms. The tiled roof of the mansion below was only a second away. But that was enough for Twilight. Her horn chimed to life, and a hole opened in the roof with a burst of wood, stone, and tile. She spread her wings, glided through, and swooped into the dark house once more. She dropped the heavy earth pony and tumbled to a stop on the upper landing.
Rainbow Dash helped Fluttershy to all fours. They had crashed in an unfamiliar hallway. “How is it?”
“...It’s not as bad as I thought it was,” Fluttershy admitted, giving a wince as the long wound across her chest stretched with her movements. “It mostly just broke the skin.”
“I know that,” Rainbow brushed aside. “But can you move?”
Fluttershy whimpered and her face scrunched in pain as she stretched, but she nodded.
“Then come on!” Rainbow insisted, urging her with a hoof as she plodded along. “We need to make it back to Twilight!”
“But what about Rarity?” Fluttershy asked, following at a distance.
“She’s gone crazy!” Rainbow answered. “The more distance we put between her and us, the better!”
Rainbow Dash led Fluttershy through a virtual maze of opulent, darkened rooms. Without lanterns, all they could see was silhouettes wherever they went, so they stumbled over random objects and finally reached the end of the room, doomed to repeating it endlessly.
It seemed like hours when it was merely minutes, but Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash eventually ended up in the game room on the main level. A billiard table occupied the majority of it, along with some tables for chess and poker. Like the rest of the house, it was dark and quiet.
“Can we… rest for a bit?” Fluttershy pleaded, panting while leaning on the billiard table.
Rainbow hesitated, then shrugged. “Sure. Take care of yourself. I’ll find some matches.”
She flapped to a desk on the wall and pulled several drawers out, while Fluttershy tried to steady her breathing. Her trek through the house had made the bleeding worse, matting her yellow coat.
To focus, she kept her eye on the edge of the billiard table and tried to find some swirl in the wood. But instead, she found a message carved into it that definitely wasn’t there before. She had to squint in the dark.
After reading this, you will turn around and
Her hoof was blocking the final part of the message. It made her veins run cold, but Fluttershy carefully moved her hoof to see the rest of it.
die.
Her weak body went stiff at once. Her heart skipped a beat.
“I found some!” Rainbow declared, coming beside Fluttershy proudly. “They were in a cigar box--Hey, what’s the matter?”
Unwilling to, she nevertheless slowly rotated, eyes quivering in their sockets.
A fine white fog appeared in an armchair, soon spilling onto the fine wood floor. And materializing in the midst of the fog was a porcelain pony face with empty black eyes. Two wheels of additional blinking eyes whirled around him like hula hoops.
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy screamed. “Look out!”
She bucked Rainbow Dash in the chest with all the force she could muster, flinging her into a chess table and spilling pieces everywhere with a cacophonous clatter. The spirit flew like the wind and enveloped Fluttershy in its white mist.
Rainbow sat up, holding a hoof to her head. Fluttershy had disappeared in the fog of mist.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow cried, scanning the depths of the fog for a silhouette. “Fluttershy! Come out!” A lump appeared in her throat, making it hard to breathe. She swallowed and screamed, “Fluttershy!” once more.
But all that emerged from the fog was a porcelain face.
“Is that her name?” the face asked. “Fluttershy… has been destroyed. She is dead.”
The fine white frog gradually turned red and misty. Speckles of red coated everything it touched. It could be only one thing.
Rainbow blinked. Twice. “Wh… what?” Her chest compressed like it was caught in a vice grip. Her breathing steadily got more and more intense. Sweat pooled on her forehead.
“And soon, you will be, too.”
Rainbow, gripped by fear, nevertheless flapped into the air and groped for a billiard cue on the wall behind her. Her despair morphed seamlessly into rage. “You rotten little fart!” she screamed. “You’re going to pay!”
She swung it, but it just passed through his face harmlessly. The spirit laughed and swirled around, surrounding her in every direction. Rainbow’s eyes shifted uneasily, unsure how to fight--or even escape.
But before the red fog could envelop her, Rainbow eventually bent her knees, shot up like a loosed arrow, and bursted through the ceiling with an explosion of splinters.
She was in the extravagant art room, just before the singed room and the tower. Clutching the billiard cue, she quickly navigated once more to the upper floor landing.
She did not expect to find Twilight and the wounded Applejack there. Rainbow skidded to a halt in midair. “Guys! You alright?”
“Nope,” was Applejack’s simple, painful answer. A hasty bandage was tied tightly around the wound in her leg, cut from the stiff carpet beneath their hooves by the bloody knife, off to the side.
“Where’s Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.
It made something lodge in Rainbow’s throat, and after a moment of trying and failing to speak, she dropped the pool cue and choked out, “Gone…”
Applejack and Twilight shared stricken expressions. It didn’t seem right. Something was off in the universe; Fluttershy was always supposed to be there, whether she was scared or not. And knowing it would never happen again broke something inside them all.
Their mourning was broken by a series of creaks from the room Rainbow had just flown out of, and all three of them turned. A pony trotted out, her magic turned off.
“Darlings?” Rarity asked in confusion. “What’s the matt-” She stopped upon observing the gazes sent her way. And especially upon Applejack. “Oh, my goodness! Applejack, you’re hurt!”
“THAT IS IT!” Rainbow hoarsely screamed, picking up the pool cue from where she dropped it. With a wild swing, she connected it with Rarity’s skull, and a colossal CRACK sounded forth. The end of the cue broke off and flew away, and Rarity, bleeding afresh from her head, slumped to the floor with an involuntary cry. “YOU DID THIS! YOU’RE POSSESSED!”
“No!” Twilight screamed in response, tackling Rainbow to the ground before she could take another swing. “Rainbow, WAIT! If she is possessed, then it’s the spirit’s fault!”
“I-I don’t understand!” Rarity wailed, gingerly touching her bloody scalp. “What do you mean, I did this?” She addressed Applejack. “Did I really…?”
“ ‘Fraid so, hon,” Applejack confirmed. She hissed as the wound in her leg stretched with her movement.
“...No,” Rarity whispered. “No, I-I’m not a killer. I’m not. Couldn’t… wouldn’t…”
A mocking laugh reverberated throughout the upper landing, drawing their heads up. The doors to the other four rooms slammed shut and locked with distinct clicks. The two stairs ignited into flame like they were doused in kerosene, giving blinding light to their surroundings, but preventing them from escaping. The ponies jumped with every new move.
“You are the most fun I’ve had in a hundred years,” a disembodied voice remarked. The smoke from the fires on the stairs was coiling into a recognizable face for Rainbow Dash. It brought back all her emotions in full force.
“It’s you,” Twilight whispered, letting go of Rainbow and getting to all fours. “The one behind all this.”
“Indeed,” the spirit accepted. It formed into a more recognizable pony shape, hovering over the flames like a devil. The wheels of abysmal eyes still rotated around his head like planetary rings. “And you, Twilight, are all I want. With you, all the suffering of your townsponies will end.”
“We know who you are,” Applejack defiantly spoke up. “Lemuel Silver, was it? Are ya really so unsatisfied with yer magic that ya need to go to this length? You’re pathetic!”
The spirit jerked its head back, but hissed in fury. “You have no place to speak my name, country bumpkin!”
“Life is precious because it’s short,” Twilight told Lemuel. “And getting more will ruin it. You procrastinated your time while you had it, and your desperation will avail you nothing! I understand why you’d want to prolong your life. But your time has come and passed!”
“You understand nothing,” Lemuel refuted. “Except for how short your own lives will be!”
With a raise of his arms, the suits of armor on the pedestals came to life. One hopped down and held Twilight’s neck in an iron grip from behind. The other three suits of armor, their weapons cast aside, held the struggling others up by their armpits. Applejack in particular was straining hard, and the wound in her leg began to leak fresh blood.
“Now where were we?” Lemuel asked, giving a gloating glance to Rainbow Dash, then a disgusted one to Applejack, then a hungry one to Twilight, and finally a gleeful one towards Rarity. “Ah, yes. You.”
“Not again!” Rarity pleaded, tears spilling over as the suit of armor gripped her ever tighter. “Kill me if you have to, but please, spare Twilight!”
“Kill you? Dear, that’s for them to decide,” Lemuel remarked with a devilish grin.
Rarity’s mouth was pried open once more, and Lemuel’s smoky form swooped inside her screaming throat. She shuddered for a few seconds, grew limp, and slowly came around. Rarity’s eyes were still the same as always, but were wild and rabid.
“Do you have the resolve to kill me?” Rarity taunted, pushing the armor off her. It clattered motionlessly to the ground. “Pinkie Pie certainly did! And look where that got her!”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash pushed their own suits off and charged at her from two directions, wild with rage.
Rarity’s magic pulsed. Rainbow was enveloped in bright blue and hurled against the opposite wall so hard it created a crater. Meanwhile, Rarity evaded the limping Applejack and struck her on her wound like she was stamping a bug. Applejack cried out and stumbled to the top of the stairs. Fire roars ever louder when it’s close to your ears, and Applejack was deaf to even the pain screaming in her leg. Her mane began to smolder.
Twilight didn’t pay attention to her words. The armor was unresponsive because Lemuel’s spirit was now inside Rarity, and his influence over the house was halted. Which meant that while possessing Rarity, though he was close to his goal, he was vulnerable.
“Kill me!” Rarity goaded. Her magic pulsed even greater as she charged up a shot. She fired at the same time Twilight responded in kind. Their magic streams collided midair. Rarity and Twilight were both focusing as hard as they could on pushing their deadly beams away from themselves. After ten seconds of this, the buildup between their horns became too great and imploded, staggering them both as residual magic waves passed over them.
Rarity panted hard as Twilight recovered and approached. Rarity’s eyes were no different when she was possessed. They quivered, though, and were downcast.
“Kill me,” Rarity whispered.
Twilight halted in her tracks.
“It’s the only way!” Rarity pleaded. “Please! I can’t resist him much longer! Gah!”
“I…” Twilight started. The change was so abrupt! “I can’t! You’re my friend!”
“I don’t care!” Rarity screamed in reply, gripping her face in anguish. “Lemuel needs to die! And that can’t happen unless you do this!”
She shook her head and grinned lopsidedly, relaxing. “Unless, of course, you’re too weak!”
Twilight enveloped Rarity in pink magic and held her to the ground like a magnet. “Valuing life is not weakness, Lemuel! And disregarding it is not strength!”
“Then where is your resolve now, Twilight?” Rarity mocked, prostrate on the ground..
“It takes resolve to resist the easy answer,” Twilight replied. “Only the weak embrace it, Lemuel!”
Rarity snarled and fired her horn wildly at the ceiling. Debris from the roof tumbled down and rained around Twilight, raising dust. It gave Rarity the opportunity to escape from Twilight’s distractedness.
“Your friendship is your fatal weakness, Twilight!” Rarity screamed in triumph. Using her magic, the discarded, bloody knife flew to her side, spun, and hurled itself at Twilight’s chest.
Rainbow intercepted the blade, however. With a painful yelp, she batted it aside. Blood ran down an open wound on her hoof.
Applejack intervened next. Even though she was limping, she tackled Rarity and rolled to a stop on the old carpet.
As Rainbow flew over to hold her down, Twilight once more approached the spirit in Rarity’s body. “It’s also my greatest strength,” she finished. “And it will allow me to stop you!”
The battered and blunted knife was now covered in pink as Twilight picked it up. Rarity’s limbs were held down by Rainbow and Applejack, and she was helpless to move as Twilight brought the knife up. For the first time while Lemuel was inside her, Rarity looked afraid.
Twilight’s face was impossible to read as the knife came down. It made a muted clatter on the carpet.
Twilight shook her head. “But not like this. I read the spellbook. I can perform the magic to put your soul at rest instead.”
“Never!” Lemuel bellowed in Rarity’s voice. “As long as I am inside her, you’ll never win! All I need to do is kill you! And in this house--in your body--I am GOD!” She wrenched one arm free from Applejack and used it to smack Rainbow in the snout, breaking her grip as well.
But Applejack had had enough. As Rarity stood one last time, Applejack’s wounded legs were brought up, bent, and straightened in the most powerful buck she could manage.
Rarity’s ribs cracked in half. She flew for just a moment, stumbled on her hooves, and fell backwards. The protruding corner of a pedestal was at the end of her path.
With a hard, muted bump, the back of Rarity’s head impaled upon the sharp corner. Blood quickly ran in rivulets down the stone stand. Her body was stuck in place, albeit shivering in small convulsions. She slumped until she was sitting upright after only a moment, though.
Applejack’s breath halted. “...Rarity?” she whispered, coming beside her. The wound in her thigh was bleeding afresh as she examined her friend with increasing desperation. “Are ya... in there? Rarity?!”
Rarity’s eyes were glazed, however. Her mouth was frozen open.
“...No… no! Ah didn’ mean it!” Applejack cried, trying to adjust Rarity’s body. “I-I was jus’ trying ta get her away! I swear!” She turned to Twilight, tears in the corners of her eyes. “Please! I didn’ try to! Twi, can we save…?”
Twilight’s throat was blocked as she held back tears of her own. “No,” was all she could manage.
Applejack broke down completely. She gripped the body and wept openly for her friend.
Rainbow was uncharacteristically silent. Guilt and despair clutched her heart and slithered like vipers in her gut.
But Twilight knelt beside Applejack and hugged her from the side. “Sometimes… friends have to do things... they don’t want to. Applejack, I… feel your pain. I love her too. But can you understand why this... was for the best?”
Applejack took a deep breath. “Ah understand why. But Ah can’t… I can’t accept it…”
Twilight didn’t bother saying more. Instead, she just held Applejack ever tighter.
The house was quiet as the ponies collectively mourned her. Which meant Lemuel was gone. But the price they had to pay was terrible.
They left the mansion with Rarity’s body in tow, hovering behind Twilight. Applejack was being carried by Rainbow Dash. As they made their way back to Ponyville, with the warm red sun rising over a new day, none of them spoke. Nothing needed to be said.
The memories of Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity never, ever left their lives. They were permanent reminders and testaments to make the most of life before it was cut short. The mistakes of Lemuel Silver would not be repeated, not in Ponyville or anywhere else in Equestria.
Without Lemuel’s presence, the house on the hill soon became engulfed by the earth and overgrown by plants, masking the atrocities committed therein. In a matter of years, it was little more than a pile of bricks and rubble amid luscious green.
There were two patches where the plants grew fullest and greenest, though. One was the soil above the basement furnace room. The second was in the dilapidated game room.
