Sweetie Belle resolves to unravel the mystery of her sister's disappearance, but delves into something much darker.
Rarity had gone missing years ago and Detective Sweetie Belle believed that she would find her sister again one day, and this day finally looked promising as she finds a clue from a suspicious stranger that would lead her down the maintenance halls of one of Manehattan's subway stations.
With a clue finally in her hands after years of nothing to show for her work, there was no chance she was going to let it slide by. But things might not be as Sweetie Belle had anticipated and she was about to find out her sister's darkest secret, and darker secrets still.
It had been the third time Detective Sweetie Belle looked at the sepia-toned photograph of her sister as she sat in her motel room, still dressed in her trench coat and trilby. She let out a long sigh, then looked up and gazed at her faint reflection on the television screen as the rain poured outside, beating against her windows like little feet walking across the glassy surface. She was still drenched from the pouring weather, but she made no move to change out of her attire.
She had dedicated every second of her life to find out what happened ever since the day her sister had disappeared. It had come with no warning, nor was there any indication that Rarity was going to run away from home or the likes. Sweetie Belle had been on the case ever since.
She had been working as a private investigator in Manehattan for seven years now and it had already been four years since she had last seen her sister. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had told her to move on, but Sweetie Belle had refused. She knew her sister was still somewhere out there and she had to find her, no matter what.
And that had all changed just this morning, when she had finally found a clue after so many years of looking. As she swirled a glass of whiskey in her left hand, her right placed Rarity’s picture down on a short table in front of her and picked up an envelope with a coiled spine around an insignia stamped into it. She had gotten that off a suspicious looking man in the subway earlier, who possessed the exact same shimmering green brooch on his collar that she had seen on her sister once before. It had a gold frame, along with wings coming out near the top, folding down over the gem in its center. It was too unique of a piece for everyone to just have it, so she decided to tail him and eventually looted this envelope off his pockets.
Inside it were instructions to some kind of very private meeting that was going to be held tomorrow night down the maintenance halls of the same subway station. Sweetie Belle knew she had to give credit to whomever had come up with this note. It was incredibly detailed and there were so many steps to get to the meeting place. She didn’t know how they were going to find out whether a member had completed all the steps, which meant they were either watching from cameras along the way, or they were trusting the integrity of its members.
Other than the instructions, there were no other names or notes as to what this meeting was about; this was simply a list of steps one would need to do along the subway’s maintenance tunnels and nothing more, nothing less. There hadn’t even been a name as to who this was from, or who it was for.
That was good for her. As Sweetie Belle finally got off her now water soaked bed, she adjusted the hat atop her head and left the motel. No one would know that she wasn’t supposed to be there and that would be the perfect chance for her to find out just what was going on. If there was a chance she could see her sister again, she had to take it.
The subway station wasn’t that far from the motel, but the rain was still falling from the sky like spears from heaven, pinging down against Sweetie Belle’s coat sounding like jackhammers at a construction site. The investigator just kept her head low to avoid the rain getting in her face.
It was now already close to three in the morning and the instructions had said to be there by four. It seemed that she would still be making good time. Her hand pressed against the envelope in her coat pocket and she pressed two fingers into it firmly. This was the closest she’d ever been to finding her sister in years and she felt as though that envelope would just fly out of her pocket by some miraculous gust of wind, or it would just vaporize and leave no trace. She couldn’t have that. She had to make sure she had that envelope all the way to the station. It was her only lifeline now.
Sweetie Belle only allowed herself to breathe again once she stepped under the subway station’s shelter, giving her body a shake to dislodge loose droplets of water before moving towards the escalators heading down underground. She was finally here, through the heavy rain. Drying her hands to the best of her ability, Sweetie dipped a hand into her pocket and fished out the envelope, breathing a sigh of relief once she found that the only damage to it were a few droplets on its surface. The letter inside was still fine and dandy. There was only one thing left to do now, and that was to follow the instructions and get to the meeting point safely.
As she walked down the dimly lit corridor of the subway station, Sweetie noticed that there were very few people around, seeing as it was quite early in the morning now. That would make her job easier, seeing as she needed to get down one of the maintenance tunnels, which was prohibited to her unless she was working here.
Sweetie Belle pulled out the instructions from the envelope and read the first line.
You will first enter the maw of the concrete beast and proceed three steps down. Then you will spin on the spot three-hundred and sixty degrees before walking the rest of the way down.
It was oddly specific and she didn’t know how anyone could know if she had done it or not, but it was here and she had to blend in anyway, so in the end, she figured it wasn’t harmful to her person.
She pushed the door open to the even more dimly lit corridors for maintenance, looking down at a flight of steps just a meter from her position. She walked over and took three steps down, then twirled around, stopping at the exact same spot, then down the rest of the steps.
So far so good…
Sweetie Belle looked at the next item on her list and found that it was further down, at the next turn.
“When you get to the first turn ahead, point at the left wall, then down at your feet, almost like you are degrading someone,” she read aloud. “Okay. Whatever.”
The detective walked down the corridor, keeping her eyes on the lights above. There were rows of fluorescent tubes lining the stained white ceiling above, and they were poorly maintained. Some of them were losing power and some of them didn’t even work at all. Occasionally, the lights would flicker and the corridor would suddenly look like a hallway to Tartarus, or at least, Sweetie Belle thought Tartarus would look something like that. She kept thinking about what she might find as she walked towards the bend in the path. There was always a chance that she would be better off if she turned around and walked away, but her sister had been missing for so long now and she wanted her back. Perhaps even finding out what happened to her would be closure enough, but a small voice in her mind tugged on her, willing her to leave this place now.
But she would not listen to it. This was the closest she’d ever come to finding her sister again and she was going to take it, no matter what.
The bend of the corridor came soon enough and doing as the instructions said, she pointed at the left wall, then lowered her arm until she was soon pointing at her feet. She didn’t know what it meant to point down at someone degradingly, but she did her best, even sticking out her tongue to prove her point, when without warning, something clicked and a portion of the wall flicked open with a hiss of steam, causing her to jump a step back.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Sweetie poked her head through the doorway, but it was too dark to make anything out, not even a pathway or stairs. It was simply a dark void ahead, almost as though the floor fell away just through here. She wondered if she should risk a light and announce her presence. Then she realized she was standing in the middle of a lit doorway and anyone in the gloom would have seen her already.
So Sweetie Belle took out her matchbook and lit one of the little sticks. It didn’t cast much light, but it was comforting all the same. Within the darkness, she found another set of steps leading down, but before she took another step into the dark passageway, she looked at the list of instructions again. She had only done two things on it so far, and there was still a whole lot more to do.
Descend into darkness and knock on the walls to your left and right as you proceed. You must show the Great One courtesy and knock before entering.
“Uh huh.” Sweetie Belle put her paper aside and began descending.
Each footstep echoed around the tiny and cramped passageway and bounced off the walls, rebounding back into her ears, making it sound as though a whole troupe was marching down beside her. Sweetie Belle cast it out of her mind and paid it no attention, instead, listening to the instructions and stretched her arms out to either side.
She began rapping her knuckles across the somehow ice cold walls to her sides, echoing even more sound across the stairway. The walls were coated in a thin layer of grime and her knuckles would come back with greenish stains on them, but she couldn’t falter now and she kept knocking the walls on her way down.
The bottom didn’t come soon enough, but when it finally did, she let out a sigh of relief and stopped knocking on the walls and wiped her hands across the bottom of her trench coat.
“One more step done.” Sweetie looked around, but still she saw no one. Up until now, there was not a person in sight, not even one to check if she had completed the steps on her instruction paper. “Okay, what’s next, Sweetie Belle?”
Raising the match to the sheet, she eyed the next step and read it out in a soft voice. “Spin four times, then look up, then step forward. Your time is at hand. And so is His.”
Sweetie eyed the darkness ahead, which was another tunnel stretching away into the unknown. This was definitely not part of the subway tunnels, and she wondered where it could possibly lead.
Doing as her instructions said, she spun on the spot four times, then looked up. Only checking out the ceiling now, she noticed that something had been graffitied into the brickwork above in some kind of red paint. It was a sigil of sorts, consisting of a circle and edges of a star around a round-shaped reptilian head with a spine going down the middle of its head.
And now that she thought about it… Sweetie Belle pulled out the envelope from her pocket and placed it beside the one on the ceiling to examine the seal that had been on it. The now broken seal had the same sigil imprinted on it, ever so faintly.
“What does this mean?”
She put the envelope back in her coat pocket and lowered her head from the ceiling to gaze forward; her eyes widened in an instant.
The dark tunnel that had been in front of her had been squarish before, but now, it was as though something had gone through and twisted it around and around, turning the hall ahead into a spiral that had a very faint green glow coming from ahead. Far ahead.
The detective crept on cautiously ahead, keeping one hand on a revolver in her coat’s inner pocket as she moseyed along. Her feet had to constantly adjust to the strange terrain, but she made good progress. Sweetie Belle wondered who had built this place, and how. Surely such a project would require a lot of money, materials, and workers. And the hallway had just been straight earlier and now it was all curvy and twisty, making it very hard to proceed.
She didn’t know what was going on, but she had to know. She had to know if her sister was here.
Lifting the instructions to the light again about partway down the twisty tunnel, Sweetie Belle read the next line, raising one brow as she did so. “Before you descend the stairway to madness, you must first tap the railing three times. He can feel the slightest of tremors in his domain and He will permit your entry. Huh.”
The instructions were beginning to mention a lot of ‘he’s’ and she didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. It sounded like it was making out these tunnels to be some kind of living entity, but that couldn’t possibly be right. A tunnel couldn’t be alive.
After stepping through three more twists of the strange tunnel, Sweetie Belle found that the glow of the light ahead had gotten brighter. She didn’t know if it was because she was closer or if it had indeed gotten brighter, but it was surely brighter now. Bright enough for her to toss her match aside. Just as well, it was about to burn out anyway.
She eventually arrived at the end of the tunnel and looking down now, she could see that the light source was coming from deep down a stairwell, twisting round and round in a spiral, looking almost like that of an eye, or a tentacle. She remembered the instructions telling her to tap the railing three times, so she did. It was made of some kind of hollow metal and the sound resounded across the silent space like a jackhammer at a construction site. It had been surprisingly loud, loud enough to make Sweetie jump under her skin and her the hairs on her arm to stand up.
For a while, nothing else made a sound, except for her deep breaths, but then she began to hear something. At first, she thought it had been a fly near her ear, but it never stopped, even after she waved her hands around her ears and it started to wobble, going up and down in pitch and volume and the railing looked as though there was a wave passing through it.
It was at this point that Sweetie Belle’s gnawing suspicions began to really take root. There wasn’t just some kind of kidnapping scheme going on here. Something about this entire place was wrong. Someone had to be down here, making all these strange instructions and noises. She took out her gun and checked the load. All six chambers were loaded. She cocked the revolver’s hammer back and continued forward, staying in the shadows so that she would be more difficult to discover, should there be someone down here to do the discovering.
Someone… or something.
Sweetie took each step carefully and slowly, thinking that at any moment, the next step could be her last. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she imagined stepping down on one, only for it to fall away beneath her, or spew toxic gas, or even for spikes to grow from it, spearing her all the way through to her head. She shook her thoughts aside and shivered. She was only making it worse for herself now and there was nothing to do but to keep going. Backing out now would be a huge waste of her time and she would be throwing away any chance she had at finding Rarity.
The up and down sounds were getting louder now, as was the intensity of the light. Sweetie Belle looked at the next step and her skin began to crawl. More.
The time approaches and the Unveiling is at hand, to satiate His belly, a sacrifice must be deposited. Cast it into the light. Destroy it.
Sweetie Belle slid up next to a column and held her gun at the ready. She had only brought the ammunition in the gun, so if there were more than six hostiles, she would have to resort to either her fists or using the revolver as a bludgeon. She did not like the sound of the next set of instructions at all. This all felt very… cultish to her, and she had dealt with a few cults in her time as a private eye, but there hadn’t been anything like this.
The instructions said she had to sacrifice something, but it said nothing more of what she was supposed to sacrifice. She patted down her pockets, but the only thing she had other than her instructions, envelope and her gun, was her wallet. Not sure what else she could do, she flipped her wallet open and grabbed a hundred dollar bill. Perhaps that would suffice as a sacrifice. After all, a hundred dollars was a lot of money.
Holding it over the edge, Sweetie Belle let it go and watched as her bill floated down gently, fluttering towards the light below. Once it had disappeared from view, she continued down the stairway, a little faster than before, but still cautiously.
There was no confirmation whether her sacrifice had been successful or not. No sudden burst of brighter light from below, no arms coming up to grab her note, no noise to indicate it being received, she didn’t know how anyone was supposed to tell anything down here.
“When you are halfway down, you are to kick your feet together. This is to symbolize your elation for the Unveiling,” Sweetie Belle read the next step. “What are these sickos up to down here…?”
She looked down over the side, trying to determine where the halfway mark was. Even now, she was unable to see the bottom and without being able to do so, she couldn’t tell where she was supposed to kick her feet together.
Maybe just one more spiral down. I’ll just do it there.
She kept going down the stairway, and once she was directly under the spot she had been in, she grabbed ahold of the railing with both hands, then took a quick breath before skipping up and kicking the bottom of both her feet together.
Before she could land, the railing seemed to bend under her weight, almost like it was made out of jelly. Sweetie Belle suddenly found herself falling over the ledge and she scrambled around madly, trying to grab something to prevent her fall, but everything she grabbed was like mush and slipped through her fingers.
Her screams echoed around the stairwell as she plunged deeper down towards the light. The hum around her grew louder now and she continued to try and grab the railings or the steps on the way down, but everything still slid out of her grasp and she could see no way out of this now.
This was the end for her.
Just as she was about to accept her grim fate, Sweetie Belle felt a tap on her shoulder and she opened her eyes again. The bright green light ahead was gone and instead, she was looking down another hallway, but this one was filled with ornate velvet cloth hanging down on the side with gold trimmings and they were tied down to the ground with similar colored ropes. Golden braziers hung along the sides lit the space, casting a green, but comforting glow in this new expanse. To her, this was night and day from the previous rooms she had gone through to get here.
“At last, our final initiate,” a voice came from behind her. “We have been expecting you. I trust you had a pleasant drive to Manehattan?”
Sweetie’s hands were on the ground and she moved them around. The ground was soft to her touch, but at the same time, it looked like solid wood below. Wood that had something seriously wrong with it. She got up and looked at the speaker standing behind her. It was a man by the looks of it, but he had on a white mask with a spine between its eyes, going up to the very top of the mask. There were no mouth or nose holes, and he was dressed in dark purple robes with a red scarf around his neck.
She was about to ask him what was going on, but then she remembered she was somewhat undercover. She had to act the part.
“Thank you. Yes, the trip down here wasn’t too bad, considering the time of day,” she said and straightened her attire. “Though, it was pouring outside, hence my wetness.”
The man let out a nasally laughter, then ran a hand along the right side of his robes. “Then it’s a good thing you will receive one of these. All members must change into their ceremonial robes for the Unveiling. Down here, we do not go by our real names. You may call me Night Veil, His greatest follower, second only to the Speaker, but I can assure you, my devotion knows no bounds.”
This guy is a looney. Sweetie Belle cleared her throat. She had to act naturally. “My, that is incredible. You must be proud of your achievements.”
“Not as proud as you will be. You will be the final batch of initiates. Ever.” Night Veil lifted a hand to gesture down the ornate hall. “You initiates are the last to board the ship to a new world. Your salvation is at hand and any after you will not be so lucky. Come, you must be itching to change out of your drenched clothes. Right this way.”
Sweetie Belle followed Night Veil down the hallway, instinctively reaching a hand into her coat where her pistol was holstered. Unfortunately, she remembered that she had been holding it when she fell off the stairway. Her holster was empty and she had likely dropped it when she was struggling to gain a hold.
That’s not good…
The fanatic soon led her out of the hallway and into a huge room with a domed ceiling high above their heads, finished with dark beams going across its remarkably tiled surface. The walls were made of opaque black stone, and green candles were placed at regular intervals around the perimeter. There was a strange etching on the floor, where there seemed to be an elaborate sigil drawn in white chalk, different from the one she saw on the tunnel ceiling and on her envelope, also peppered with green candles. This one was shaped like a row of five tentacles with a spine going around its perimeter. Finally, there was a scattering of gems and other precious stones arranged in a rough pentagram in the center of the sigil. All around were other robed and masked cultists, some of the chanting slowly in an incomprehensible language.
What have I got myself into? Sweetie Belle thought with no small amount of apprehension. This might’ve been the biggest mistake of her life.
To the side of the huge cavernous room were smaller rooms, each one rectangular in shape with curtains acting as doorways. Sweetie Belle was ushered into one by Night Veil, where another cultist seemed to glide over, carrying a folded robe and a similar white mask to Night Veil’s, though this one lacked the spine in the middle of the face.
Inside were four others, already dressed in robes and similar plain masks, standing around a round table, with three mirrors lining the walls around them.
“You initiates will wait here,” Night Veil instructed. “I will leave you to get changed. Please, make yourself comfortable. I will explain more when the time for the Unveiling draws nearer.”
Night Veil stepped out and drew the curtains together, leaving Sweetie with the other initiates. She eyed each one of them as she stood there with her pile of clothes. None of them made any effort to move or even speak, but they continued to stare at her as she stood there, not sure what she was going to do. She had been instructed to change into the robes and she had to keep up her cover, but there wasn’t any privacy to do so.
Feeling a tinge of embarrassment spread across her face, Sweetie just turned her back to them and began to remove her damp clothes. She unfolded the velvety robes and slipped them on, along with the mask. Once it was on her face, she felt a sense of safety. It was as though no one would know who she was anymore and she could do whatever she wanted. And perhaps that meant it was time to see what she could do about finding her sister.
Stuffing her regular clothes in a corner, Sweetie walked over to the table that the other initiates were standing around. Perhaps she could first get some information out of them, since they were here for the ‘same reason she was’.
“Hi. Hello,” she greeted them as she planted both her hands on the table. “So we are… waiting for the uh… Unveiling?”
No one said anything for a while, but then a female initiate coughed, then nodded. “Yes. We are lucky to have gotten in here. We’re the final batch. Ever.”
“That’s… great.” Sweetie Belle did her best to sound excited for what was to come. “Anyone at all curious as to what’s gonna happen out there?”
“I for one, am curious as to the Great One’s true form!” Another cultist slammed a palm against the table excitedly. “Will we even be able to gaze upon His form? Or perhaps He will take on a form that we can comprehend! There are so many possibilities, but what I do know is that it will be glorious!”
The other initiates nodded and mumbled in agreement.
“Once the Unveiling begins, all will be revealed,” another initiate voiced. “Once the sacrifices are made, we will all find salvation in the Great One.”
Sweetie Belle could only watch them in disgust from behind her plain white mask. These people were all crazy. Conversation would get her no further with these lunatics, so instead, she devoted her time into exploring the small room they were in. It was minimal in design. The walls were painted a maroon red like the floor, and there was no other furniture but the round table and the mirrors on the walls. Each mirror was of a rectangular shape and there was only one each on each wall. The left and right wall mirrors faced each other, leading Sweetie down an infinite hallway when she looked through them. It was trippy, but nothing compared to her journey here. She still didn’t know if everything had been real. The twisty hallway, the spiral stairway and even the fall down into the light. Perhaps it had all been a drug administered by touching something on her way here, or perhaps it was all just illusions.
She didn’t know, but the longer she stayed here, the more dread began building up in her chest. It wasn’t just the worry that she had been dragged into some kind of crazy cult, but it was the feeling that she was missing something, that something was way off, but she didn’t quite know what it was, but it was getting harder and harder for her to breathe.
“Initiates, we are ready for you.”
Night Veil’s voice pierced Sweetie Belle’s concentration and she looked over to the curtain, which had already been drawn aside. A cluster of other cultists now stood around the huge sigil on the floor, each one holding a candle with a green flame.
“You are the stars of this show. Please, right this way.” Night Veil gestured towards the group of cultists.
“So what happens now?” Sweetie shot a question to Night Veil. “Is the Unveiling to begin?”
“Yes, it is time. The Speaker will first give her speech, then she will commune with the Great One!” He clapped his hands together excitedly. “I’ve waited so long for this moment. He’s coming! He’ll finally be here!”
“Tell me more about what you think of Him,” Sweetie pushed. It seemed she would be able to get some information out of this fanatic. “I would like to hear all your praises to Him.”
“You’ve come to the right person,” Night Veil’s eyes grew wider through the holes of his mask. “As the Great One’s most devoted follower, I can tell you that He is of the strongest of all things inside and outside the universe. He is the most powerful and the most talented, the most gifted, the most beautiful, the most generous, the most loved, the all-knowing, the all-seeing, the all-powerful!”
“That’s surely a lot of different ways someone can praise the Great One.” Sweetie Belle nodded along, though she meant what she said. That was a lot of ways to describe whatever the Great One was, crazy or not.
“Think the most powerful force in the universe. One of the most powerful.” Night Veil snapped his fingers. “The atomic bomb is one of them. It can level cities as I’m sure you already know from history. Think that, but times one trillion. That’s how much power the Great One contains and with a blink of an eye, He could wipe the universe clean. And it is finally time for Him to rise. The Unveiling is here!”
“Yes. Yes it is...” Sweetie Belle replied. She had come looking for her sister, but as of now, there were still no clues as to her whereabouts. Instead, all she knew since coming here was that this cult was crazy and if they really thought they were going to bring about this Great One’s awakening, then they were even crazier than she realized. There’s certainly no such thing as a Great One. They’re all crazy.Where are you, Rarity? Don’t tell me you’re one of these cultists…
“Come, you initiates will be here. At the front of the Great One’s Mark.” Night Veil ushered her and the others right to the edge of the sigil on the floor, stopping before the line of candles. “Just listen to all the Speaker has to say and once the Unveiling begins, it will be your time to shine.”
Standing with the other four initiates, Sweetie could only wait as one cultist stepped up to a platform past the sigil, complete with what looked like a diving board in the center of it. This cultist had come out from one of the rectangular rooms and by the looks of their figure, they were female. She had on purple robes, unlike their maroon ones and her mask, along with the spine between the eyes, also had four horns jutting out from the sides, and a row of fangs where her mouth would be.
She stopped in the middle of the platform and turned to face the cultists, raising both hands to the air. “Finally, the time is at hand! The Unveiling shall begin!”
The cultists began cheering in some weird language near Sweetie.
“The stage is set. With the world on the brink of destruction, it is time for the Great One to save us all and bring about a new age to this dreary universe,” the Speaker continued. “No more corruption! No more violence! No more death! The Great One will see that everything and we shall be birthed anew and transcend our human bodies and knowledge. This world will fall away and with the beat of His mighty wings, the seas will dry. With the gaze of His eyes, time will stop. With His breath of the Eternal Flame, He will wipe clean the surface of our planet, bringing about a new plane of existence!”
“Unveil Him!” Night Veil pumped an arm into the air repeatedly.
“Spi’Ke! Spi’Ke! Spi’Ke! Spi’Ke! Spi’Ke!” the cultists began chanting and their voices all seemed to meld into one, booming across the gigantic hall they were in.
“Yes, the Great One, Spi’Ke the Everything, has heard us. And he will rise!” The Speaker threw her head back and she began chanting along with them.
Sweetie Belle had been pretty creeped out ever since arriving here, but now, she was horrified. How could Rarity possibly be caught up in all this madness? If she was here at all, that was.
Sweetie Belle looked around the room, safe behind her mask. This place must be very far underground, which made sense. None of this nonsense would have flown up on the surface.
“Bring out the Tools of Reverent Worship!” The Speaker cried. A pair of robed cultists came out from the sides of the room, carrying an engraved wooden box each. These they set an altar behind her, and the Speaker motioned for them to be opened. Reaching into one of the boxes, the Speaker drew out a long, curved knife with a dark gray blade and a hilt made of green crystal. “Behold, the Finger of Spi’Ke! The blade that would open the way! Now, we have our five special guests today. The final batch to join the Cult of Spi’Ke. They will be the last ones to have the privilege to serve the Great One.”
The other four initiates looked at each other excitedly, but Sweetie Belle didn’t have the same enthusiasm they did.
“To your positions.” The Speaker beckoned.
Night Veil and four others gestured for Sweetie and the initiates to stand on the sigil, each one at the tip of one tentacle each. Once that was done, they were each given a gem of green and Sweetie recognized it as the same brooch her sister and the man she had stolen the envelope from had. She gulped. What had her sister done?
“The Eyes of Spi’Ke,” the Speaker explained as she walked down from the platform to join them. “They lie empty now, in the palms of your hands, but once they are filled, He will see you and the Unveiling will commence!”
Sweetie Belle watched the Speaker carefully as she walked past, carrying the knife. For a brief moment, the Speaker and Sweetie’s eyes met. She knew those eyes and those eyes clearly knew her.
“Sw-Sweetie Belle?” The Speaker said in disbelief.
“No way. Rarity? You’re the Speaker?” Sweetie took one step back, her mind reeling.
She thought perhaps her sister was one of the cultists here, lured by false delusions and opportunities, but here she was, basically the leader of the band of loonies.
“Sweetie, I’m so glad you’ve joined the Cult of Spi’Ke!” Rarity stretched her arms to the side and embraced her. “I didn’t know if you would ever except that I was part of it, but now here you are! B-But you had to be an initiate?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Sweetie didn’t like the sound of that.
“You don’t know the reason you’re here, hmm?” Rarity stepped back and brandished the knife. “You see, the Great One needs his sacrifice.”
And with almost superhuman speed, Rarity was at the first tentacle and the blade had already gone through the abdomen of the first initiate. Twisting it, she dragged it up until it was going through his torso, stopping only when it hit the man’s sternum. Blood poured from the grievous wound and leaked all over the floor as he dropped to his knees.
Sweetie thought it was a trick of the eye at first, but after blinking a few times, she realized the gem was now glowing, feeding off the initiate’s lifeforce as it slowly faded from him.
“Rarity, no! Why?” Sweetie stepped back.
“This is the reason for initiates!” Rarity held the bloody knife high. “Without you, the Great One will not rise. But trust me, He has already set up a place for you in His new world, and you get to go there before any of us.”
“Rarity, I don’t want that!” Sweetie took another step back, aghast. “I came here for you. I wanted to find you again!”
Rarity’s eyes seem to darken under her mask. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, Sweetie. That’s why I ran away all those years ago. I knew none of you would get it, you, mom, dad. Spi’Ke transcends all that is mortal, that is human. My eyes have been opened to His greatness. Soon, yours will be too.”
She walked to the next initiate and stabbed her. The initiate let out a squeal, but then stretched her arms to her sides as Rarity dragged the dagger up, spilling her blood on the marked floor. The gem in her hands began glowing too, like it did for the first initiate, who now lay on the floor before his tentacle.
“I can’t!” Sweetie ripped off her mask and rushed at her sister, but arms grabbed her from behind and hauled her back.
“You cannot disrupt the ceremony!” Night Veil spoke in her ear. “The Great One demands this. He is so great, so very great and you cannot compare to Him. No one can. You must let the Speaker continue.”
“Rarity, please, don’t do this,” Sweetie Belle pleaded. “This isn’t who you are. You’re my sister.”
“I am, but the Great One has revealed the universe to me!” Rarity stabbed the next initiate and filled their green gem. “This is the way, Sweetie. Once you see it, then you will accept it.”
“No, let go of me!” Sweetie struggled, but Night Veil held on to her tightly.
“The time for His Unveiling is at hand!” Rarity walked to the fourth initiate, who stretched her arms forward to welcome her salvation. She did the same to her like she did to the first three initiates, filling up her green gem with vibrant light.
Under them, the ground began to shake and shift. Sweetie didn’t think much of it, deciding it had been the trains. They were under the subway, after all. It couldn’t have been anything else.
“Now, Sweetie, I have… I have to do this…” Rarity walked up to her as Night Veil got Sweetie back on the edge of her drawn tentacle. “I’m sorry it had to turn out this way. But don’t worry, you’ll be the first to see the new world. You’ll get to revel in His bliss before any of us can. Trust me, as your sister, I can tell you, this is better than anything you will ever experience. As Speaker, I commune with the Great One, and He has shown me truths beyond the universe, truths that humankind cannot comprehend. But once you transcend, all will be revealed.”
As the dagger got closer to her gut, Sweetie struggled harder. It wasn’t going to end like this, not after she finally found her sister. She wasn’t going to be done in by some cult, especially not by her own sister. She would fight to her last breath to change this.
“No!” Sweetie lifted a foot and stepped down hard on Night Veil’s toes.
The fanatic let go of her and grabbed for his feet, long enough for Sweetie Belle to flick her head back, smashing it against his nose. Night Veil fell back and Sweetie jumped out of the way as Rarity rushed for her, the knife already in mid swing. Sweetie dodged under it just as Night Veil recovered and tried to grab her again. She threw herself to the side just as Rarity stabbed again. There was a squelch of flesh and she thought she got hit, but when Sweetie brought herself back up, she found that she had been untouched.
Night Veil brought his hands up to his chest, which now had a knife embedded in it. Blood began to pool out of his fingers and drip down his robes.
“Fabulous…” the fanatic said. “It seems I will be seeing the Great One ahead of schedule. Speaker, thank you… The Great One is amazing. The Great One is the most powerful of all things… The Great One will never be silenced and put aside by anyone more important.”
Rarity bent down and picked up the green gem Sweetie had dropped in the ensuing chaos. She placed it in Night Veil’s opened palms and waited as it began to glow brighter and brighter.
Sweetie stepped back in horror as the ground around them began to shake harder than before. The drawn sigil began to glow with green energy and the cultists around it began chanting harder and louder.
“The Unveiling, it begins!” Rarity put her hands to her head, then began to laugh hysterically. “The Great One, Spi’Ke, rises!”
The ground gave one more solid rumble before the bricks began to fall away starting from the middle. Sweetie Belle backed away from it, but when she saw her sister was not going to move, she ran back in and grabbed her around the waist and began tugging her back a few footsteps at a time. The floor the sigil was painted on began falling into a yawning maw below, where the bottom could not even be seen. The cultists around began backing off, their arms still raised and directed towards the opening pit.
“It happens! I must commune with Spi’Ke!” Rarity pried herself from Sweetie’s arm.
From the darkness of the hole came a single purplish ball of light and it danced around in the chasm almost hypnotically, and Sweetie thought she was seeing triple after looking at it for a while. Without warning, it carved a line across the air, forming what looked like a scar or a cut. And from that cut, the light suddenly expanded, and Sweetie could only describe it as someone trying to push their way into a tent.
“At last, the most powerful and most incredible being in all existence outside and inside the universe!” Rarity’s pupils reflected the sharp purple coming from below. “Spi’Ke the Endless! The Eternal! He is Unveiled!”
The cultists around them began prostrating themselves, droning on in their chantings of whatever the language it was that escaped their mouths. Sweetie didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to stand around and find out just what would happen should something emerge from the pit below.
I can’t believe any of this is happening. There can’t be a being of such caliber in existence, there can’t!
She wanted to slap herself, to try to wake up from the dream she was having, but this was really all happening in front of her, and whether she wanted to believe it or not, something was indeed rising.
A deep voice boomed from the purple gash in space and time below her, speaking slowly, but with great power. It spoke in the same language the cultists were chanting in and it sounded big. Really big. Whatever was coming, they weren’t even tardigrades in comparison to it.
I have to stop this. I can’t let something like that into our world!But how?
She saw the gateway grow wider, eating away at the darkness below, and sharp cracking noises came from it.
Only, the cracking sounds weren’t coming from the sigil on the floor. Nearby, a cultist fell over dead, a pool of blood spreading across the ground.
“What is going on?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking around as the cultists around her did the same.
In the doorway to the ceremony room were two people who Sweetie Belle had never been happier to see. Somehow, through all the madness and mayhem, someone had come to her aid after all.
“Applebloom! Scootaloo!” Sweetie exclaimed. Both her friends were dressed in trench coats and Scootaloo was wearing a fedora, giving her a gangster-like look.
Scootaloo tipped back the brim of her hat and let loose with another burst from her tommy gun, sending chips of stone flying from the walls. A cultist tried to rush her with a knife, but was blown backwards by a blast from Applebloom’s sawn-off shotgun.
“Surely you didn’t think we’d letcha do this all alone?” Applebloom said, tossing Sweetie Belle her revolver. “We’re the Crusaders, and we do things together!”
“Sorry we took so long,” Scootaloo grunted as she smashed in a cultist’s face with the butt of her weapon. “The tunnels in here are kind of hard to navigate.”
Sweetie Belle nodded dumbly. She looked around. Cultists were either fleeing or milling about in confusion as things spiraled out of control. A few of them made the snap decision to try and attack the intruders, but armed with only knives and their fists, none of them got close to the Crusaders.
“We’re sorry we didn’t believe you,” Applebloom said and blew another cultist away with her boomstick. “And we didn’t really know what we were up against, so we brought an assortment of stuff.”
“What stuff?” Sweetie Belle tried to find her sister. In the chaos that followed Scootaloo and Applebloom’s arrival, Rarity had slipped away. Now with cultists running everywhere, it was hard to tell who was who.
Applebloom dug into her trench coat, removed a squarish object and tossed it to her. “C4, Sweetie Belle!”
“C4?!” Sweetie caught it and held it as far away from herself as she could. “How did you get your hands on this?”
“We’re the Crusaders. We have ways to get anything!”
“And you know what, I think for once, this is going to do us a solid!” Scootaloo looked down into the pit with the growing tear. “Wow, what’s that?”
“Spi’Ke or something. The cult’s Great One.” Sweetie bent her knees low, then jumped as she threw the block of C4 as hard as she could towards the beams above. “We need to stop him from coming, or it’ll all be over for everyone! And we need to find Rarity!”
“So she’s really here?” Applebloom flicked her shotgun open and grabbed more shells to load in.
“Could you two keep them busy?” Sweetie Belle was thrown a crowbar by Scootaloo. “I’ve gotta find my sister!”
Weaving through cultists, Sweetie Belle began to plan out how to find her sister. It wasn’t going to be easy, but her sister’s robes were of a different colour and her mask was more decorated. If she sifted hard enough through the others, she might just be able to find her in time.
One cultist tried attacking her with a ceremonial knife, but Sweetie smacked him across the face before he could stab her, throwing his mask aside and sending his body sliding back into the pit.
From below, a giant purple tentacle suddenly shot up, soaring high above their heads and curling down just before it could touch the ceiling. It was about as thick as two Statues of Liberty and three claws shot out from the tip as a growl sounded out from deep in the portal.
Many cultists stopped running and dropped to their knees and bowed in front of the tentacle. And then there she was. Walking out close to the tentacle and the only cultist standing now, was Rarity.
“Oh, Great Spi’Ke the Endless!” Rarity called to the tentacle. “The being of limitless potential, the burning star of the universe and beyond, the manifestation of all existence, we welcome you to our realm!” She continued on in the language of the cultists.
“We’re running out of time, you’ve got to get your sister.” Applebloom removed more C4 from her coat and tossed one to Scootaloo. “We’ll get this place ready to blow. Go!’
Sweetie Belle wasted no time pushing her way through the bowing cultists, keeping an eye on her sister the whole time. Now, a second tentacle had risen from the pit and there were five green orbs dancing in the air above them, shining bright, extending vertically from the gems Sweetie and the other initiates had on them only a while ago.
“Rarity, please!” Sweetie called through the cultist chanting. “Rarity, come with me. This isn’t right! Come back home.”
“You can’t stop this!” Rarity looked down into the pit where something seemed to stir among the tentacles. Lights began to come forth from the other side of the portal along with a head with green spines going down the middle of it. Blood began to tear down her face from her eyes and the whites started turning yellow. “It’s beautiful, Sweetie. If only you could see what I see… This is how the world is meant to be. Spi’Ke will lead you to the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” Sweetie stopped in front of her sister, clutching her crowbar tightly.
“That He is the most powerful being.” Rarity turned around. The veins in her neck had begun to darken and they were more visible than the normal human’s. She tore her mask away, revealing a maniacal smile plastered on her face. Blood was also pouring from her nose and ears now, but she looked completely blissful. “If not us, Sweetie, someone He will find another way. He has slept long enough and the peace He intends to bring to our world is beyond your understanding. If you just look at him, you will know.”
Sweetie stood there, a part of her mind wanting to heed her sister’s words, to see what it was that had convicted her so surely. Rarity had always been a generous figure, and now here she was, willing to share her experience with the rest of the world, but she must’ve really been convinced that this was the only way. Sweetie wanted to see it, to see what their future could be like, and also to get a glimpse of this great Spi’Ke.
But she could not. Her friends had fought their way here to help her and there was still so much to do in the world and it wasn’t meant to end just yet. She had to get Rarity home, one way or another.
“I’m sorry, sis.” Tears fell from Sweetie’s eyes.
And she swung the crowbar at her sister’s head, hitting her above her left ear. Rarity hadn’t even tried to dodge it. She went down and didn’t get back up.
The voice boomed from deep in the earth and Sweetie wasted no more time in grabbing her sister around the waist and hauling her up over one shoulder. She turned and ran, not looking back once as the pit began to give way more. The cultists tried to stop her from leaving with their Speaker, but Scootaloo jumped in, mowing down a few of them with her tommy gun. Some fell back and disappeared over the edge of the pit. Beams of green light shot up from where they fell and their screams echoed around the hall, before morphing into what sounded like guttural bellows.
All of a sudden, winged creatures flew back up from below and flocked above the room. They had bald heads and two rows of razor sharp fangs. Instead of arms, they had wings and where their legs were was now a cluster of tentacles with claws at the end of each one. They began swooping down and picking up more cultists before dropping them in the pit, only for more winged creatures to rise.
“We need to go, now!” Sweetie called to her friends as they began shooting at the flying creatures instead.
Scootaloo’s bullets punched through one of them and it went down, but more took its place and there was no way they were going to shoot their way out of this one.
“Blow it! Blow it now!” Scootaloo flipped her gun around and smacked it into one of the creatures’ faces, sending it flying back into another one. “We gotta move, this one’s gonna be big!”
Applebloom fired off the next two rounds of her shotgun at the creatures before throwing it at them. She reached into her pocket and produced a black rectangular device and with a click of a big red button resting on top of it, one of the rooms on the side, a right-side pillar and the ceiling erupted in orange clouds of fire and debris, raining them across the hall onto unfortunate cultists and creatures. A beam fell from above and clubbed one tentacle over the back, sending it crashing down into the portal as Sweetie followed after her friends, racing down the hallway she had come from when she had first entered this place.
Now, there was a hole in the wall at the very end, likely broken through by Scootaloo and Applebloom when they first got here. It led right back out into the subway’s maintenance tunnels and she had only just stepped out of the strange velvety room when an explosion rocked past her, blasting debris over her face, sending her crashing to the ground with her sister.
As Scootaloo and Applebloom raced back to help her, she caught a glimpse of the raging destruction inside, spotting more of the ceiling coming down. Rocks and metal from above continued to fall and soon, the other tentacle had been pushed down as well and there was a great roar from within before the hallway caved in as well, cutting them off from the mysterious hall they had just been in.
After the last of the rocks rolled off each other and clattered across the dirty tiled floor, silence followed and all the girls could hear were their ragged breaths.
“Did we make it out?” Scootaloo ran her hands down her head to her knees.
“Ah… Ah think so,” Applebloom wheezed. “Ain’t nobody going to be able to use that place again for a long, long time.”
Sweetie Belle coughed some dust from her mouth and took in a few deep breaths. “We made it. We’re safe!”
The lights above flickered and blew, plunging them into darkness. Even now, the walls seemed to rattle. The place was likely still crumbling down.
Sweetie Belle checked on Rarity down on the floor as Scootaloo lit a flare to light the way.
“We left a trail of chalk lines on the walls in case we got lost,” Applebloom explained. “Figures we get to use ‘em now.”
“So were we seeing things in there, or was there really a giant squid monster coming out from underground?” Scootaloo shoved the tommy gun into her trench coat. “And we’re sorry we ever doubted you, Sweetie.”
“Yeah, we should’a been helpin’ you find your sister from the beginning…” Applebloom shook her head disappointedly. “But we got her back! We oughta celebrate this.”
“Maybe leave the celebrating for after we get back to the surface,” Scootaloo gestured upwards vaguely. “This place might still come down on us. The explosives we used are no joke.”
“Come on, really, where’d you even find the stuff.” Sweetie got Rarity back up on her shoulder with help from Scootaloo.
Applebloom looked around, almost like she was checking if anyone was listening in on them in the empty halls of the subway station. Then she leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t tell anyone Ah told you this, but Ah kinda took it from Silver Spoon’s family business. Did you know she owns a private military group?”
“No, for real?” Sweetie Belle hadn’t expected to hear that. “You know what, I’ve dealt with too much crazy today. That actually sounds normal now.”
“We should get going.” Waving the flare, Scootaloo began to head for the steps. “Rarity needs medical attention and I’m in need of a stiff drink.”
Sweetie looked behind her at her sister’s face. Rarity’s eyes were closed, but blood still trailed from her orifices. Whatever she had witnessed, it seemed human eyes were not meant to see it. She didn’t know what would happen when she woke up, but at least for now, she had a glimmer of hope after years of searching.
She’d found her sister again, and no matter what, she was going to do her best to get her sister back to the way she once was. At least for now, all the cult stuff was behind them.
In the darkness of the Cult of Spi’Ke’s giant, ruined hall, everything had fallen absolutely silent. There was not a hint of movement and not even the air moved in here. The ceiling above had fallen apart, collapsing over the ground and burying even the pit that once was the opening for a great horror that was to come.
Bodies lay buried under the rubble, but deep into the pit, through a portal that was once there was the other dimension, a world where color was in different shades humankind had never seen before.
Here, the ground shifted and rippled, almost like it was alive and the skies stood still, with not a cloud blowing along. Rocks floated above grassy fields, where horrible creatures made their home amongst lakes and cliffsides.
One of these entities floated above a dark monolith that floated above the ground. It had only a few moments ago cast a vibrant light around it as it tore through reality, opening the path to the human world. But now that light had faded and it was left staring at its shifting reflection in the monolith. Tiny creatures flew around it, inklings of their human nature still lingered on their bodies, but now, they had been transformed into new beings, beings that would serve the one they had tried to Unveil.
This being was, as the humans had called him, Spi’Ke the Endless. To them, he had been their salvation, their way to transcend the horrid world they lived in, to find a peace they never had.
Spi’Ke had told them what they wanted to hear, to feed their hope of a better existence beyond their universe, but in reality, there would be no salvation for them, nor will they find peace here in Spi’Ke’s dimension.
The air bent and vibrated around Spi’Ke’s massive wings as he took to the sky. His arms tensed and his claws clashed against each other as he clawed at his own scaly hide, drawing blood that bubbled in the air around him. He had underestimated the humans and they had closed the way to their dimension. This would be his punishment to himself for his failure, and there would be more to receive later.
In actuality, Spi’Ke was not the greatest force in all existence. He was the great force known to the humans, but in his world of Eq’Strieh, the Blistered World, he was but the messenger, the first of many. For eternities, they had slept, waiting for the right moment to return. Spi'Ke was the first to awaken and with his Unveiling, so too would the others, one by one. Already, plenty had risen from the depths of Eq'Strieh and there were more to come.
All around him, more beings began to take shape, materializing out of the ground, out of mountains, even out of thin air. Most of them were equine in nature, but they were twisted, they were malformed and incomprehensible to the human eye. One of them, a lavender beast was shaped in the general build of a horse, but sported a clutter of tentacles out of her cheeks and chest. She had four wings on her back, each one bigger than even Spi’Ke himself and they rose above her, shadowing the land from the Eternal Eclipse in the sky above them all. A ethereal crown orbited her head, occasionally consisting of three prongs, sometimes five.
This was the Queen of Eq’Strieh, the ruler of all, Queen Twi'Lgt the Cosmic Shatterer.
She lowered her head of infinite eyes to Spi’Ke and spoke to him in a low tone. Yes, he knew he had failed her and the path to the human world had been closed. But this was but a setback. They would find other ways to return to that pitiful realm.
Twi’Lgt floated back away from him and another being removed the distance between herself and Spi’Ke. This was the Punisher, Ra’Inboe, the Inflictor of Torment. Spi’Ke accepted his punishment and spread his arms and legs to the sides. Ra’Inboe opened her mouth and a rough tongue filled with spirals of teeth emerged, snaking up in front of her as her wings shone forth rays of indeterminate color. Too quick for the human eye, the tongue lashed out at Spi’Ke’s chest again and again, tearing new lines across his hide.
All of Eq’Strieh shook with each blow, but Spi’Ke made no sound or any move to defend himself. He accepted his penance and it would be a reminder for him to not make the same mistakes again. Humans were weak and puny, but if he was going to use them against themselves, then he had to take their weaknesses into account.
He would open the way back to the human world again, and when he did, all of earth would bow to Eq’Strieh and its queen and they would consume it and all its inhabitants into their fold. They would have the human planet, one way or another and their universe will simply be another to join their unending territory.
They were ever-growing, ever-reaching, ever-hungry, and they would have everything.
