"Welcome to the Mystery Stranger!"
"What?" Sweetie Belle asked, taking in the view of the opening portal with a look of utter surprise. While the Crusaders were growing more and more used to inter-dimensional time travel, some things still managed to surprise them. This was no exception. The doorway opened to an empty promontory surrounded by nothing but a dark abyss. But that wasn't what surprised them.
Inside the gateway stood a creature of a sorts. It had no real corporeal form, at least as far as they could see. And yet the clothing shrouding the majority of the strange entity had somehow managed to shape itself to the non-existent body that was missing. The discernible form resembled that of what ancient mythology had called "human," but lacked any of the necessary features to point to such a creature. Its hand rose up, bringing to bear a strange, theatrical masque like those used in legend by the odd, sapient beings that had supposedly once dominated the world.
"Hello."
"Who are you?" Sweetie Belle asked, peering into the shifting "face" it held within its grasp. She was somewhat taken aback by the manner in which the being stood, a calm and yet rather cold voice oozing from its lips. It was as if liquid ice were pouring from his lips, splashing chillingly against their spines and tearing into their souls.
"An angel."
"Well, what's your name?" Scootaloo asked.
"Satan."
The word seeming to ring a bell in their heads, but they could quite place where that name had come from. Apple Bloom glanced nervously at her companions, not liking the sound of things at all. The angel seemed to notice their rather timid looks.
"What's the matter?"
"Well, nothing really. It's just that tha' sure is ah sorry name fer an angel," Apple Bloom stated, seeming to come out of her shell a bit. The angel's expression remained as neutral as ever, only the mouth seeming to move with its speech. The being stood back, pulling a cigar out with its other hand.
"Please, come in."
"We shouldn't," Sweetie Belle whispered to Apple Bloom, seemingly more nervous than ever. Scootaloo, however, didn't seem to mind at all, and started trotting through the gateway. "C'mon!" she said, apparently unfazed by the being that stood before them. Deciding not to abandon their dear friend, the other two crusaders followed suit. Sweetie Belle noticed from the corner of her eye the way the angel cast aside his cigar without even taking a puff, as if the whole thing were just a parlor trick, a cheap facade.
"Wow."
"Amazin'!"
"It's kinda like an island..."
The crusaders were rather surprised to find that the ground on which they stood floated in the middle of a bottomless void, without support or railing. The entire structure could just as easily fit in the loft of Apple Bloom's barn. The group as a whole jumped when Satan waved his hand, covering the entire ground with all sorts of random but harmless flora as if creating life were no more than blinking an eye.
"How'd ya learn to do tha'?"
"I didn't learn it at all. It comes naturally to me, like other...curious...things. Are you hungry?"
"Sure am!" Scootaloo exclaimed, all of the little trio suddenly becoming aware of the aches groaning up from their sorry little bellies. They suddenly had the greatest urge to eat, almost inexplicable in its own right.
"What kind of fruit do you like the most?"
"Oranges!"
"Grapes!"
"Apple Blooms!"
The other two looked over at Sweetie Belle with a surprised expression. The young filly quickly shied away, blushing intensely. "I mean, apples!" She quipped, trying desperately without succeeding to hide her embarrassment.
Suddenly, the strange figure disappeared. Before the crusaders could assess as to where he had disappeared, he just as quickly reassembled himself at the other end of the spire. Satan effortlessly crafted a towering clay castle, and turned back to his visitors. "Can we help?" Sweetie Belle asked, trying not to sweat bullets as she attempted to distract her compatriots.
"You may make some people."
Three random balls of clay appeared in his hand, seeming to form around his fingertips. That was all it took for the crusaders to realize what they had open before them. Taking stock of the situation, they all cried out at once, "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER PONY MAKERS!!!! YAY!!!" With that they rushed forward, each taking their own piece to craft their own pony.
After a short while, they had completed a small village surrounding the castle, and even crafted an entire town of the little figures. Scootaloo insisted on making a replica rather similar to Rainbow Dash, which was hard to tell, considering the lack of color in the clay beyond the generic browns and reds that already existed. With her final touches, Scootaloo set down her replica idol, right beside one of Apple Bloom's farmers. "There we go," she said. "Now here's a buddy."
"Now we'll give them life."
And with that Satan zapped the figures, sparking them into being. All the figures they'd seen started to move of their own accord, as if their own little world was all the care and need they could ever desire. Everything seemed to move like clockwork, an organized, living, breathing society. Ponies went about their duties, seemingly ignorant to the giant beings that made them. The princess strutted out of her castle, giving directives to the little playthings with a wave of her hoof.
"I find you ponies...fascinating." the angel stated as Sweetie Belle finished crafting a plow, which she soon set in the field between the farmer pony and "Rainbow Dash." They instantly started trying to tug said piece of equipment away from one another. "You're fascinating, even though you are a worthless, greedy lot," Satan finished his statement with the start of a sneer slowly forming on his otherwise unresponsive visage.
Soon enough, other ponies noticed the fight over one worthless piece of equipment, and made their way over there to fight over it. It didn't take long for them to start crying out in a gibberish language, entirely focused on what they saw in front of them and nothing else. Satan's face started to change from a sneer to a snarl, but his voice remained as impassive as ever.
"How annoying that sound is," the angel promptly spoke before crushing the two closest to the plow with his hand. Their cries abruptly ended as if it had never began. "Fools," he stated. "What fascinations there are on this planet. Strange mortals with curious customs." The clay ponies began to form a ring around newly formed coffins, crying out in morning for their lost loved ones.
"We'll have a storm now, and an earthquake if you'd like. You must stand aside, out of danger," Satan warned them, turning to his creations as his magic started to flow forth. Lightening struck down several of the ponies around the graves, slaying them instantly. The ground started to rumble as he wrecked havoc around him. Soon enough, the ground became littered with the bodies of clay dolls, once alive and now no more. The ground tore open with a crack, swallowing those nearby it. The few remaining figures looked up in fear and abject horror at the face of their tormentor. Satan callously slew the last of them, and let the ground eat forth everything from the living to the dead. He swallowed everything, even their homes.
"I can do know wrong, for I do not know what wrong is."
The crusaders stood by in shock at the sight they had just seen. After taking so much time to make a small little world, the being in front of them had casually killed the very beings he had just granted life. There was fear in their eyes, unfathomable and unrequited. "You murdered them!" Scootaloo stated with an edge to her voice.
"Never mind them. We can make more of them, if we need them." The angel's face slowly transformed from the passive calm to the grotesque form of a human skull with each passing word. The crusaders looked at him with a look of utter terror before turning around and fleeing through the portal from which they came. Satan watched them go, not bothering to even try and stop them as the portal slammed shut behind them.
"Life itself is only a vision," he spoke to the empty void. "A dream. Nothing exists save empty space and you." The floating island slowly vanished along with his clothing, leaving nothing behind but a floating mask.
"And you are but a thought."
The being turned to look at where his world had once seen visitors. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and the way the trio had spoken with him was like a play right out of the script. They lived in a world which they had barely even begun to understand, and now it was time for the next step.
"I will change this world. For the "better," I know not, for this world is much like the last and, alas, the last is nothing but a dream now. Let dreams dreams, and let beings live. I shall create more of them..."
The portal slammed shut behind the trio, and they all let out a breath that none of them knew they had held. Looking up, the three of them stared at the doorway that had just opened to something strange only moments earlier. The trees around them seemed relatively peaceful after what they'd run into. After all, demons weren't exactly commonplace in the Everfree Forest.
"Girls, can we not repeat that?" Sweetie Belle asked, looking for all the world like a deer in the headlights. The other two were faring little better, and rather than trying to argue for something they most certainly did not wish to do again, they complied.
"Yeah, ah didn't like tha' at all."
"You and me both, Apple Bloom."
"Do you know what that was, Scootaloo?"
The orange pegasus seemed lost in thought for a moment, but then just shrugged and turned back to her friends. "I honestly couldn't say. I mean, that guy was wacky!" she commented, trying to find some support.
"I'd have to agree on that, Scoots," Apple Bloom stated. The three of them sat silently for a moment, before wordlessly agreeing never to go to that world again, nor to speak of it. Without much further ado, the trio stood up, already seeming more chipper. Within minutes they had run off to play, quickly forgetting about everything they'd seen as the left the Everfree.
The doorway sat nestled in its own little location, hidden away from the common eye much as another similar artifact that had not been far away until recently. The one-time Pool of Replication was now sealed off thanks to the Elements and their Bearers, but this door had never been found.
There was little luster or reflection off of the gray steel that stood against the wall, and flowing crimson script had etched itself into the surface. What it said was of little consequence as nopony could truly read in its dialect, but the writing itself was remarkably smooth and graceful, as if written in a manner which was no longer in use, archaic and forgotten.
The door shimmered a little as it opened again, and something flowed through it. Even the most perceptive unicorns would have been utterly incapable of understanding what had just happened, but it was there nonetheless. Without further ado, the door swung wide open and passed out waves of mist as something arose from its slumbering form.
