Chapters Prologue:not Twilight's fault this time
Jeff entered the mansion in the middle of the night. He was covered in blood, as usual and a few scratch marks were on his arms from victims struggling. He grabbed a bagel and a can of beer and walked up to Ben's room.
"Hey Jeff, don't touch anything." Ben said as Jeff entered the room. He was playing Pokemon Red version on his gameboy with his left hand while playing Skyrim with his right.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Why did Slendy make us roomates anyway?"
"Because we can't kill each other, I can go into any technology and you're-"
Jeff interrupted him. "The most awesome, amazing, ominous serial killer on earth?"
"I was gonna say a smug idiot who sucks at killing people and at video games, but that works just as well I guess."
"Hacker."
"You don't say."
"What're you doing?" Jeff asked, pointing to the gameboy, trying to change the subject before the argument got out of hand.
"Getting a Mew." Ben replied.
"What are you gonna name it?"
"Fluffers." Ben replied.
"That is the dumbest name for anything I've ever heard. Name it Mewbama."
"No, last time i let you name one of my Pokemon my game broke."
"That's because you use hacked in Pokemon that actually have feelings."
"That's why, after I get it, I'm bringing it into the real world." Ben explained. "A mew would make a great addition to the family."
"Do whatever you want. I'm gonna play on your Left 4 dead server."
"Did I not say don't touch anything?" Ben asked rhetorically.
"My feet are touching the ground, but you don't seem to mind that." Jeff said sarcastically.
"Shhh, be quiet. I found a wild Mew."
"Let me guess, more hacking?" Jeff asked, already knowing the answer.
"Shhh! "
"Don't you have infinite masterballs?" Jeff asked.
"I said shhh
A pink light shone from the screen. first a head poked out, then the rest of the Mew, now named Fluffers, slid out of the gameboy effortlessly. "Mew."
"Awesome, a real life HM slave." Jeff said.
Fluffers growled and shot a shadow ball at Jeff, which was easily blocked by his knife.
"Actually i did teach it Cut. i didn't want Thorne to learn it." Ben explained.
"So it is an HM slave?" Jeff asked.
"Not completely. Just a cut slave."
Fluffers was glaring at both of them intensely.
"What happened?" They heard someone say at the entrance to Ben's room. They looked over and saw Eyeless jack.
"Ben hacked a Mew into the real world, named it Fluffers and made it a cut slave, nothing out of the ordinary for us." Jeff explained.
"Why a cut slave?" Jack asked.
"He didn't want his Bulbasaur to learn it."
"Mew. Mew, mew mew mew, mew mew." Fluffers was trying to say something, but they couldn't understand.
"Learn to English Fluffers." Jeff said mockingly, knowing Pokemon couldn't talk.
This just angered Fluffers more. It shot a Psybeam at Jeff, which was reflected by his knife and thrown at Ben instead.
"What was that for, Jeff?" Ben asked.
"Mewbama did it."
"It's name is Fluffers, You suck at the game too much to nickname Pokemon."
"I don't suck, you hack." Jeff stated plainly.
Fluffers just rolled his eyes and made a bright flash of light. It was like teleport, but it was an attack. It hit Jeff, Ben and Jack. They all disappeared into the light. When they were gone Fluffers giggled and did a flip in the air.
Jeff awoke the quickest. He found himself behind a store. It smelled like a bakery. Wherever that Mew had teleported him to, he didn't mind. He tried to stand up to go into the bakery, but it felt weird. He placed a hand on his head, thinking it was just from such a large amount of power shot at him at once, But when he looked at his hand, he saw it wasn't a hand anymore. It was a rounded hoof. Not one like on a real horse, but it terrified Jeff more than a gun to his head. He just stared in confusion for a few seconds, then looked around him. Ben and Jack weren't with him. He placed his hoof back to the ground. "What's going on? I swear when i find Ben-"
"Hi!"
Jeff Jumped and looked beside him. A pink pony with curly hair and blue eyes greeted him.
"I'm Pinkie pie." She introduced herself. "What's your name mister?"
"Jeff." He answered simply.
"I haven't seen you around town before, and I haven't seen you that means you're new. And if you're new that means I have to throw you a party to welcome you into town!" Pinkie was hopping out of excitement as she spoke.
Jeff's stomach recoiled slightly at the word party. The last party he'd been to ended with him getting bleach and alcohol poured on him and being lit. Also that's where he had lost his sanity. "I don't do parties." He explained.
"Aww, C'mon. It'll be fun!" Pinkie tried to convince him. "There'll be cake and sweets of all kinds. Also you'll make lots and lots of friends."
"No thanks. I don't like being around others and I prefer bagels over sweets."
"Alright, but just tell me if you change your mind." Pinkie said disappointed. "Say, Jeff, What happened to your face?"
Jeff froze and felt his face. Same cut in smile. Same no eyelids. He chuckled remembering what he'd done to get his face like that. He frowned, the best he could, remembering the whole thing. Killing his family and everything. Of course, his parents death had no effect on him. It was His brother, Liu, dying that got to him. He remembered taking his knife and stabbing his brother over and over and over. It was a bittersweet memory. He shook himself out of his thoughts when he remembered what he was doing though. "I can't say." He answered.
"Alright." Pinkie said, seeming to have forgotten about the party he'd rejected. "You know, I could make you something if you want."
"Too broke to pay." Jeff explained.
"That's okay. I always make things for free when I'm off work."
Jeff thought about it for a moment. This pony could make him bagels. That was the only thought he needed to nod his head in agreement. Ben and Jack could wait. Right now all he could think about was how good the bagels would be.
~~~
Ben sat up and looked around. He seemed to be in some sort of fashion designers house. He walked to the door of the room, wondering why Fluffers would teleport him here. Then he heard something from outside the door.
"I'm sorry Sweetie, but i have a big order that needs to be ready in two more days, I don't have any time." It was the voice of a female with a British accent. it sounded like it was getting closer.
"You never have any time." This time it was the high pitched voice of a child. Daughter maybe? Ben didn't know, what he was most worried about was explaining to these people why he was in their house.
"Why don't you play with your friends Sweetie belle?" The British sounding voice again.
"Scootaloo is with Rainbow dash and Apple bloom had to help out with the farm."
"Weird nicknames." Ben muttered. He looked over at the door. It shone in a blue aura and opened. A white unicorn trotted into the room. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to him. "Let's see, I've made the Ruby dresses and the Sapphire ones. Now all i need are enough Amethyst gems and- Oh, who are you?"
Ben had taken in his surroundings while she had been talking. pony manikins, some with dresses on them, some without. He looked at his hands, or hooves. He was green with blonde hair and still wearing his link outfit.
"Why are you in here? If you wanted to make an order, I'm very busy."
"I'm Ben." He introduced himself. If he was in a land of magical unicorns, he might as well not murder them, he thought. "And I'm not sure how I got in here."
"I wasn't born yesterday, dear. Ponies don't just appear in other ponies bedrooms."
Ben tried to thing of an explanation that made sense. He couldn't just say he was teleported here by a Mew named Fluffers when he was playing Pokemon. Then he felt under his hat. He had a horn. "I must have accidentally teleported in here, sorry." It wasn't a complete lie.
"That's quite alright dear, as long as you weren't causing any trouble. Say, where are you from?"
Without thinking Ben answered. "The forest." He then smacked his forehead, for all he knew there wasn't even a forest in this place.
"The forest!" The unicorn exclaimed. "How could you survive? There are monsters beyond belief in there."
The forest here sounded the same as the one back home, Ben thought. "I just fought them off with pointed sticks." Ben explained. Again, not a complete lie. He'd poked Jeff a few times with a pointed stick once. It didn't end well.
"Oh, how long did you live in there?"
Ben almost said 'Since i drowned' But stopped himself, knowing that wouldn't get him anywhere. "I don't really know how long." he replied.
"I'm Rarity by the way." The white unicorn told him.
After a few moments of awkward silence one of them finally spoke again. "Well, I'd better get going." Ben said, trotting out of the room.
"Not so fast, dear." Rarity said. "I can't have you running back to the forest and getting hurt. Why Don't you stay in Ponyville?"
Not that Ben was planning on going to the forest. He accepted the offer.
"Have a seat downstairs dear. I'll be there in just a moment."
Ben didn't argue. He'd rather stay with one unicorn then go into town and possibly cause trouble.
~~~
Jack looked around. All he could see at first was sky. He looked down and saw he was standing on a cloud and had hooves. If he was surprised about anything it was that he wasn't surprised about seeing this. He looked around. There was a cloud house near him. He hopped into the air to see if he could fly. Yep, he had wings. He flew over to the cloud house, thinking there might be some kidneys he could harvest. He opened the door easily. The one who owned the house didn't even bother to lock the door. He chuckled. easy target. He walked through the house until he found the bedroom. Nobody was in the bedroom. He sighed, must've missed them.
"Who the hay are you?"
He heard someone behind him. Maybe he still had a chance. He turned around and came face to face with a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail. "Hello, I'm Jack." He said calmly and ominously.
"Why are you in my house?" She asked.
"No reason. I thought you'd be sleeping." Jack explained. He Wasn't going to say openly that he was a killer, but he would say enough to be left alone and maybe get a kidney or two in the process. "I go into a lot of houses. mostly for food, but sometimes for other things."
"Like what?"
"Well, for one, to get away from my dumb friends. Too crazy for my liking." Jack chuckled again. Of course he wasn't the most sane guy himself.
"Why would you wanna get away from your friends?" The pegasus asked. "Friends are always there for you and always stand by your side."
If Jack had eyes he would've rolled them. "I don't know what kind of friends you're talking about. Not mine for sure."
"What's the worst a friend could do to you?"
"Once one of them locked my in a closet full of wasps and didn't let me out until the bagel i had with me was covered in honey. He also stole the bagel from me and didn't bother to get medical help." Jeff could be horrible sometimes.
"Then how is he a friend?"
"Saved my life a few times." Jack explained.
"I could be your friend. I'm Rainbow dash."
"Possibly." Jack considered the idea. He would like to have a friend that doesn't treat him like crap.
"Trust me, with the friends you described you could really use another one." Dash told him.
"Alright, i can accept." It was true. Jeff and Ben were pretty terrible when it came to friendship. Though, he still wanted to find them. "You think we could look for someone?" Jack asked.
"Sure, who?" Dash asked.
"Two friends." Jack explained.
Chapter 2:Searching and baking bagels
Ben was walking the streets of Ponyville with Rarity. They were searching for Jeff and Jack. The more he walked the more trouble he could see Jeff potentially getting into. Vegetable carts to knock over, innocents to slaughter, there was even a gray pegasus that had crossed eyes that Ben was 99% sure wouldn't survive a second after being seen by Jeff.
"What did you say your friends looked like?" Rarity asked.
"One has a white hoodie and black hair. The other has a black hoodie and brown hair with a blue mask." Ben described them in as little detail as possible, as not to disturb Rarity. Plus, two insane murderers weren't too hard to miss.
Rarity just nodded and looked around, maybe hoping to catch a glimpse of one of them.
Ben looked around for what seemed like ages, not seeing anything that looked even vaguely similar to either of them. Then he heard someone call his name.
"Ben!"
It was from the sky. Ben looked up and, sure enough, Jack was flying strait for him, but stopped before he hit him.
~~~
Jack saw a pony that he was sure had to be Ben. He called out the name and was greeted by a light green pony with blonde hair in a Link outfit. Yep, definitely Ben.
"Hey Jack." Ben greeted him. "Where've you been?"
"Looking for you, What do you think?" Jack responded.
"Now i guess we just have to find Jeff." Ben stated.
"Shouldn't be too hard. He'll stick out like a sore thumb in all these colors, plus, he's probably looking for us right now."
~~~
Jeff stuffed the last of his 6th batch of bagels in his mouth. "How do you make these?" He asked, mouth still full.
"I can't tell you." Pinkie answered with a giggle. "If i tell you it won't be a surprise when you help me make them." She giggled again.
"I would, but I can't bake." Jeff explained.
"No problem. I just need you to help get ingredients."
"That's all? Not much of a big help if you ask me."
"Oh, but it would be a HUUUUUGE help."
"Alright, but I'm poor so don't ask me to buy anything."
"That won't be a problem." Pinkie told him. "I already have most of the ingredients, I only need one more."
"And that is?" Jeff asked again.
"If I told you, you wouldn't be surprised." Pinkie explained again.
"Alright, I can wait." Jeff decided. "Maybe I should search for Ben and Jack." He mumbled. "Nah, They can fend for themselves for a few more trays." Jeff said licking his lips, tracing the cut smile. "It's gonna take a lot of redrum to get rid of all these bagels."
~~~
"So you're Jack?" Rarity asked the gray pegasus.
Jack nodded. "I see You've heard about me."
"Well, I was told a few things, nothing too detailed." Rarity explained. They were back in the boutique, they had took half another hour searching for Jeff, and, as expected, came back with nothing. "I guess he was waiting until we could actually meet."
Ben just nodded. "Hey Jack, on a scale of 1 to horrified, how lost do you think Jeff is right now?"
"More lost then a kid in a Cocaine shop." Jack said laughing.
"No doubt. He gets lost in the forest, how could he survive in a city?" Ben chuckled. As good a friend he was with Jeff, it was way too funny to think of him terrified.
Then they heard a crash by the door. Rarity opened it with her magic.
"Hi guys." It was Jeff. "I've been watching you this whole time."
"Why was there a crash?" Ben was almost scared to ask.
"I was on the roof looking through the windows."
"Is that even possible?" Ben asked, half sarcastically. It was Jeff, he did seemingly impossible things all the time.
"Where were you?" Jack asked. "We looked all over town."
"In a bakery. I got free bagels."
Ben sighed. "You like those things way too much."
"That's like saying you like Zelda way too much. Oh, wait, you do."
"Do not."
"You're wearing a Zelda outfit."
"It's Link, I've told you this before!"
"Well I'm a butterfly!" Jeff said, running around the room.
"I'm a pegasus." Jack said.
"Shut up, I'm a magical fairy named Navi!" Jeff yelled.
"You've definitely had too many bagels." Ben said.
"I wanted more but they ran out of dough." Jeff explained.
"How are you not fat?"
"Cause I'm awesome and fabulous." Jeff said, prancing around the room like a pixie princess.
"Next thing you know he'll say-" Jack was cut off by Jeff.
"I'm the queen! THE QUEEN!"
"CALM DOWN!" Rarity yelled at all of them, mostly Jeff though.
"But I'm a derp." Jeff explained.
"Jeff, shut up, drink some tea to calm you down." Ben levitated a cup of tea to Jeff.
"Thank you gove." Jeff said, mocking a British accent.
"Yeah, yeah. Just drink the tea and calm yourself."
"I've been calm the whole time!" Jeff exclaimed. "You're the one who has been rude!"
"There is no more to discuss Jeff." Ben said, rolling his eyes.
"I wish I could roll my eyes, but I can't, I'm Jack, the eyeless proxy of doom."
"Not you too." Ben sighed.
"What?" Jack asked. "I'm just playing around."
"Thank Zalgo." Ben said.
"I wasn't." Said Jeff.
"Oh Zalgo no."
"Oh, no. I'm done now. Oh, and we need more tea." Said Jeff.
"What?" Ben checked the teapot. it was empty. "How did you...?"
"I'm special, that's how." Jeff stated proudly. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I have a job."
"Where, the asylum?" Ben asked sarcastically.
"The bakery! I'll be making Cupcakes tomorrow." Jeff said, his grin seemingly growing larger.
"Since when could you bake?" Jack asked. "You can't even butter your own bagel."
"Who says I can't learn?" Jeff asked.
"You can't teach a dumb dog new tricks." Ben said.
"Shut up Ben, I have more talent than you ."
"I hate you sometimes Jeff." Ben stated.
"I know Benny boy." Jeff said, knowing Ben hated being called by this nickname. "I know."
"Like right now." Ben said.
Jeff patted Bens head like a dog. "I know BUDDY ."
Chapter 3:Bagels vs Cupcakes
Jeff was trotting to Sugarcube corner. He was going to make cupcakes today. He didn't know why he was so exited about it though, he didn't even like cupcakes. Oh well, he'd probably fail at it anyway. He could just imagine all the icing all over the place with chunks of dough on the ceiling and all the ponies running and screaming and begging for their life when he cut their necks....This was still about baking, right? He assumed yes. "They all Go to sleep one day." He said. When he got to the bakery a pink blur pounced on him.
"Hi Jeffery!" Said Pinkie.
"How do you know my full name?" Jeff asked. "Oh, wait, logic doesn't apply here."
"Are you ready?" She asked.
Jeff nodded. "Please get off of me."
"Sorry." Pinkie apologized.
"No problem, I'm used to it." Jeff said, remembering the fangirls.
"Well, we should get started." Pinkie said, hopping into the bakery. "Take this." Pinkie said, giving Jeff a cupcake.
"Thanks." Jeff said, taking a bite. He spit it out as soon as he tasted it though. "POISON, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" Jeff started running around the room like a flying pixie demon monster from The mountain of dew. "YOU WERE GONNA POISON ME!" He had spent enough time with Laughing Jack to have memorized what poison tasted like and which poison did what. "THE POWER OF ZALGO COMPELS YOU!"
Pinkie was looking at Jeff giggling. "How did you guess?" She asked as if nothing had happened.
"It buuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnsssssssssssssss." Jeff said in a loud whisper. "Oh, and to answer your question, Razor blades hurt when the hit your tongue." Then Jeff face hoofed. "I mean I had a friend who worked with poison once."
"Do you know what poison was in the cupcake?" Pinkie asked.
"I don't know names, but it makes you sleep, Now, Go to sleep ." He said, unsheathing his knife. He ran at Pinkie.
Pinkie dodged and pulled her party cannon out of nowhere.
"Guns are inferior to knives in every way." Jeff said dodging the spray of confetti and cake. He then threw his knife Pinkie easily dodged it and grabbed her butcher knife, again, out of nowhere. Her hair slowly went flat and darkened.
"Let's make cupcakes Jeffery." Said Pinkimena.
"Never!" Jeff yelled, grabbing his knife from the wall it hit. "Go to sleep!" He ran at her again. She nearly dodged but got a gash in her side. She swung her hatchet and hit him in the flank. He recoiled at the sudden injury then swung at her again, nearly hitting her head but missing by half an inch.
She stabbed him in the arm he wasn't using to attack.
He jumped in the air and spun like a drill. He fell at a rapid pace, hitting Pinkie in her hind leg, as she had tried to dodge. He jumped back quickly, flinching when he accidentally put weight on his injured leg.
Pinkie pulled the knife out of her leg and stood on two feet. Her hatchet in one hoof, Jeff's knife in the other. She ran at him, somehow ignoring the pain in her leg and swung, one blow landing after another.
He tried to dodge but She was to fast. At one point his own knife sliced right above his eye. He grabbed Pinimena's hoof and twisted. He the threw her across the room into the oven. He tried to hold it shut and turn it on but his many injuries made it impossible. She broke out of the oven, the door hit Jeff and sent him skidding across the room.
She charged at him again, now holding another knife in her mouth. She swung over and over until Jeff collapsed to the ground. She then dropped his knife and the other random knife. Jeff tried to get up many times but fell over each time. He watched as his attacker approached. She looked kinda like Jane, if she was less gay looking.
"Any last words?" Pinkimena asked. Jeff chuckled at first. Soon he was in a fit of laughter. despite all his injuries he couldn't do anything but laugh. "Haven't you ever heard of not letting your guard down?" Jeff said, standing back up and picking up his knife. "You're dumber than the others." Jeff giggled again. "Ya put up a good fight though."
There was the shape of a pegasus behind Pinkamena. It slowly walked closer and slowly gained color.
"I prefer muffins over bagels and cupcakes." Derpy spoke. Then she laughed. "But I like them all."
Jeff and Pinkamena just stared, slack jawed.
"I thought...hmm. Where could that idiot be, Jack said he'd come here if he heard me scream." Jeff pondered. He was sure the whole country had heard him screaming.
~~~
Jack was lazily sitting on a cloud when he heard something.
"POISON, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" It was Jeff's voice.
"He'll probably be fine." Jack told himself.
"THE POWER OF ZALGO COMPELS YOU!"
The screams echoed through the town.
"hmm...Yeah, He'll be fine."
~~~
"Oh well." Jeff said. "At least I'm alive."
"Not for long." Pinkamena said, grabbing Jeff by the neck and standing on two hooves.
Jeff kicked her in the stomach and tried to run, but fell down immediately.
"STOP! " Derpy yelled, pouncing on top of Pinkamena and holding her down. "Calm down. This is solving nothing."
"Um, yeah. What She said." Jeff said.
After a little while Pinkamena calmed down. Her hair started to poof back up also. "Well, i guess I could make cupcakes with somepony else." She said in her usual cheerful voice.
Derpy slowly loosened her grip on Pinkie. As soon as it was loose enough she shot away fast as a bullet. "That was awesome!"
"Awesome?" Jeff asked as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. "You nearly freaking killed me!"
"I know, but you put up a good fight. I don't know any other pony who can defend themselves so well."
Jeff gave Pinkie a skeptical look.
"Most ponies, even if they didn't fall for the cupcake, wouldn't last a second fighting Pinamena!" Pinkie explained.
Jeff nodded, the cut smile getting slightly bigger. "You know...I could still help you with those cupcakes, we just need to find a new special ingredient."
"That sounds like fun, but who do we use?" Pinkie asked.
"I saw this aqua green colored unicorn on the way her. She said my face is ugly." Jeff suggested.
"Lyra, sure. Her number's been drawn lots of times, but whenever it is I can't seem to find her. It's like she goes into a different universe or something."
"I'll go get her." Derpy offered. "If we also make muffins."
"Sure thing Derpy." Pinkie agreed.
With that Derpy flew out of the bakery.
Chapter 4:Disaster starts
Jeff met with Ben and Jack somewhere away from other ponies. They were in the Everfree forest. When Jeff found them he was trying his best to hide the limp in his injured leg, this worked for a while,but when he actually was walking up to them he put too much weight on it and hobbled the rest of the way, mumbling curses.
"What happened to you?" Ben asked, noticing slight bloodstains on his hoodie. Some looked like blood from stabbing someone else, but some were obviously where wounds were. There was also a huge gash on one of his flanks.
"Wouldn't you wanna know?" Jeff said, glaring at Ben with a smirk.
"Well, you do look like you took a beating." Jack pointed out.
"I was gonna tell you guys later anyways." Jeff told them.
"Why not now, when we're where nobody can hear us?" Ben asked.
"I meant after we get the serious stuff outta the way." Jeff told Ben.
"Like how we're gonna go home?" Jack asked them.
"Pfft, home? Back to all those disrespectful, ungrateful idiots? I think not." Jeff said rolling his eyes.
"What did you ever do that they'd be grateful of?" Ben asked, expecting either no answer or a rant about Jeff being the queen of England.
"I drove off the fangirls that one time." Jeff answered.
"Oh yeah, I remember that." It was the reason there were so many severed heads in Jeff's closet. "Don't ever make me remember that again."
"Remember when i threw bagels at them then threw up bagels on them?" Jeff laughed remembering this.
"We all remember." Ben said in a horrified voice.
"Weren't we talking about something else?" Jack asked, wanting to change the subject.
"Oh yeah, about how we're never going back to the mansion." Jeff reminded them.
"All my games are at the mansion Jeff. The only reason I'm not in the asylum right now is because of how weird this place is." Ben explained. "You can stay here if you want, but i wanna go back to Majora's Mask."
"No, I mean there's no way back idiot. Mewbama brought us here and didn't come with us." Jeff pointed out.
"Well, that is true." Ben hated the idea of never playing video games again. The only thing he hated more was when he had to admit that Jeff was right.
"Plus, I think we could have a good life here. I already have a job." Jeff told them.
"Does have anything to do with the reason you have bloodstains?" Ben asked.
"You guessed it."
"Well what is it?" Jack asked.
"I'm a bakers helper." Jeff loved his job already. Making cupcakes out of that aqua pony Lyra was too fun.
"What does that have to do with murder?" Ben asked.
"Everything of course. We killed an Aqua grunt today." Jeff smiled at Ben, knowing he'd get the Pokemon reference. "No, but seriously, I tortured someone and it was fun ." Jeff licked his lips. "I wonder how good the food's gonna be."
There was a soft growl from a bush nearby. "What was that?" they all said at the same time. Literally a second later a manticore jumped in front of them. It didn't look happy to say the least.
Jeff stood in front of Ben and Jack to shield them. Zalgo knows how bad Ben is at fighting face to face and Jack was bad at any kind of combat that didn't involve stealing kidneys. The manticore roared at him.
"Come at me, i dare you." Jeff said, taking out his knife. Two fights,one ending in murder, hopefully. This was gonna be fun.
The manticore charged at Jeff without hesitation. Jeff jumped into the air and stabbed it in the shoulder. The manticore shook him off and roared again. the knife still in it's shoulder it ran at Jeff again, leaping to the side with Jeff tried to swing punches at it.
Jeff ripped his knife out of the manticore and swung it at the face. He sliced the bridge of it's nose before it ducked away. It swung it's scorpion tail at Jeff and hit him in the side, throwing him into a tree.
Jeff tried to stand up but felt sick to his stomach. He looked where the tail had struck him. A deep hole where the stinger hit. He sighed and forced himself up. He knew if He didn't fight his friends would more likely than not, die. He walked to the manticore shakily, limping and hunched over trying to keep himself from falling over. His knife was in his mouth since it took almost all the energy in his good hoof to walk. He tried to swing at the manticore but fell over immediately. Just as it looked like it was about to make the finishing blow he heard a voice cry out.
"WAIT! "
He looked up the best he could, the poison really taking it's toll on him. He saw a yellow pegasus yelling and glaring at the manticore. It ran away after one final glare.
"That's all I had to do?" Jeff mumbled to himself.
"Are you alright, did he hurt you?" The pegasus was talking in a soft voice now, not at all like the voice she'd used with the manticore.
"It stung me pretty bad, but I'll live." Jeff said, trying to get up, but failing. "I think."
"Oh my gosh. He stung you? Manticore venom is more poisonous than even the worst of snakes." The pegasus looked panicked.
"That explains why i feel like i wanna sleep." Jeff said.
"Don't go to sleep." The pegasus told him.
"Don't..." Jeff muttered, a glint of anger forming in his eye.
"Oh no." Ben said. "This can only end badly now."
Jeff stood up seemingly effortlessly and glared. Not at anyone in particular, just at anything he could see. "Nobody says those 4 words in my presence." He said, out of breath but voice full of anger.
"I-i'm sorry. Did I say something I shouldn't have?"
Jack nodded.
"You really shouldn't have done that." Ben said.
Jeff walked slowly up to Fluttershy. "You look tired." He commented. "Maybe you should, Go to sleep!" Jeff tried to punch Fluttershy but fell over flat on his face.
"Calm down Jeff, She probably has no idea who Jane is." Ben explained to Jeff, slightly annoyed that he had to freak out everytime he heard her catchphrase.
"I think I broke my spleen." Jeff said, ignoring everything that had been said so far.
"I can help you, just get up, if you can." Fluttershy extended a hoof.
Jeff swatted it away. "I don't need help." He said, somehow standing up. "Now, maybe we could hurry to wherever so i don't slowly get killed by the toxins."
"Can you even walk?" Ben asked.
"What kind of dumb question is that? Of course I can, I'm not two." Jeff tried to take a step but fell over again. "Okay, maybe assistance is needed."
"What do you say?" Ben asked Jeff.
Jeff sighed. "You're the best hacker known to mankind and are in every way superior to me, especially in awesomeness. Now can you help me? "
Ben laughed. "Actually all you had to say was please, but thanks for the compliments." He then helped Jeff up.
"I hate you sometimes." Jeff stated.
"Just lean on my shoulder and we'll get you to a hospital." Ben said, trotting to Jeff's side.
Jeff nearly collapsed on Ben's shoulder, hardly holding himself up at all.
Jack got on the other side of Jeff in case he fell the other way or something. Also so he could talk to Ben without having to worry too much about being heard by Fluttershy. "Don't you think we'll e pretty noticeable like this?" He whispered to Ben.
"Yeah, but it's not like we look suspicious or anything." Ben pointed out.
"While true, What if something were to happen on the way to the hospital?"
"Like what?" Ben asked.
"Like a fight or something. Just because he's half dead doesn't mean he'll back away from a challenge."
"That is very true, let's hope there aren't too many idiots in this town."
"Knowing our luck Jeff is gonna pick a fight with a dragon or something." Jack laughed a little.
"Well, he does play a lot of Skyrim." Ben pointed out. They both laughed and brohoofed.
"Right in my ear, guys." Jeff told them.
"Sorry Jeff." Ben apologized.
"You, apologizing to me?" Jeff asked. "About time." Jeff laughed, but it turned into a coughing fit.
"We should really move faster." Ben said.
"And how do we do that? It's not like I can just run." Jeff pointed out.
It was true, he couldn't run. Ben pondered the situation for a few moments. Jeff could barely stand, how was he supposed to run? And they couldn't carry him, that would slow them down even more. Then an idea came to Ben's head, but it was risky. "Hey Jeff, remember when you told me about your family?"
Jeff just nodded with a look of 'how does this solve anything' on his face.
"Well,Imagine Liu is waiting at the hospital for you." Ben waited to be beaten, verbally and physically. Jeff hated talking about his brother. He was the only one in the universe he'd ever, and probably will ever, regret killing. But he was only met with a question from Jeff.
"You think it would help?" Jeff asked sadly.
Ben nodded. Jeff would do anything for his brother, dead or alive.
Jeff nodded back and focused his attention on the route to the hospital and ran. He ran almost faster than Ben, Jack or Fluttershy could keep up. This, of course, was no surprise to Ben or Jack. Fluttershy looked quite shocked though.
"How is he running like that?" She asked.
"Long story." Ben stated.
"What did you do ?" Jack asked Ben.
"I told him to imagine Liu was waiting for him at the hospital." Ben explained.
"You do know he's gonna murder you the second we get there,right?"
"I know, but he's injured. By the time we get there he won't be able to move anymore."
"Ben, You know how he gets when he thinks about his brother." Jack reminded him.
"I know, But it was the only way we could make good progress."
Eventually they made it to the hospital. There wasn't anyone in the waiting room, thank Zalgo. When they got there Jeff just collapsed.
Ben levitated his head up from the floor and waved a hoof in front of his eyes. "Yep, sleeping sound as a kitten."
"No, not the bunnies in wheelchairs.." Jeff mumbled in his sleep. "Stay away from my grandmother..."
"Almost." Ben added.
A nurse walked into the room. "What is it?" She asked kindly.
"All the bunnies, keep them away." Jeff said.
"Uh, It's him." Ben said, pointing a hoof to Jeff. "He got stung by a lion that had a scorpion stinger and wings."
"How long has it been since he's been stung?" The nurse asked very seriously.
"About half an hour, I think." Ben answered.
"How is he not in shock, In fact, how is he breathing?" The nurse trotted up to Jeff. "Manticore poison is one of, if not the most, deadly poison in the world."
"Rattling little friendly worm." Jeff mumbled again. "Don't eat my face, Kurt..."
Ben couldn't help but chuckle. Now he remembered why he'd gotten rid of Jeff's sleeping mask.
The nurse called down two other nurses who put Jeff on a stretcher and carried him through the hallway. "Stay back." She cautioned Ben, Jack and Fluttershy before following.
After a few awkward moments of silence Jack said something. "Soooooooo.....Seen any kidneys today?"
"Actually I did, a week ago I was playing surgeon simulator." Ben answered.
"I like kidneys." Jack said.
"You don't say." Ben said very sarcastically.
"Shut up Ben."
"You." Ben answered.
After about another hour or so of awkward silence they heard a very girly scream from the hallway.
"What was that?" Fluttershy asked.
"He woke up." Ben and Jack said in unison.
They saw Jeff run into the waiting room with a hospital gown on. Three doctors were following him, two unicorns trying to hold him with magic.
"All the needles!" Jeff screamed. "The needles and the wires and the beeping...Oh Zalgo the beeping."
"Do you even know what's going on?" Ben asked.
"They were interrogating me, Ben." Jeff answered.
Ben facehoofed. "No, they were trying to get the poison out of your system."
"You mean?" Jeff started to asked, then he started laughing. "That's never gonna happen, How did they even get to attempting such a thing?" He said in between laughs.
"What are you talking about, You were stung by one of the deadliest poisons ever, That fact you're alive is a miracle." Ben explained.
"It is a miracle, Isn't it?" Jeff asked. "I'm surprised after having the 'poison' for so long I haven't gotten myself killed."
Then Ben realized what Jeff was talking about. "You think I'm talking about your mind?"
Jeff stopped laughing. "Weren't you?"
"No, you were stung by a scorpion lion with wings and we brought you here." Ben explained. "Do you really not remember anything?"
Jeff tried to remember, but it hurt his head. "Nope." He replied.
"That's lovely, now calm down so the poison doesn't spread again and let the doctors finish their job."
"I don't think poison works like that." Jack told him.
"Well I never took medical school."
"Spread the word." Jeff told them before walking back to the operating room.
"Sometimes I think that kid is broken." Ben commented.
"Only sometimes?" Jack asked. They both laughed. It was true, Jeff's broken side of the mind stuck out way too much.
The nurse, now known to The three as Redheart, trotted into the waiting room.
"Success?" Ben asked.
"For the most part." Redheart wore a smile when saying this, so 'For the most part' Couldn't be too horrible.
Ben and Jack stared quizzically at The nurse.
"Well, why not let him explain for himself." Redheart went into the hallway and motioned for them to follow her.
When they got into Jeff's room they didn't see anything too out of the ordinary. Jeff was staring blankly at a wall, but other than that everything seemed normal.
Jeff turned to them and blinked. Wait, blinked? Jeff didn't have eyelids, Ben thought. Then he realized, They had 'fixed' Jeff's face. There were scars where the cut in smile was and he had eyelids now. Jeff didn't move, he just stared at Ben and felt his face.
"I don't understand his reaction." Redheart commented.
"Don't...understand?" Jeff said something for the first time in hours. "Of course you don't understand!" He was right in Redheart's face, glaring into her soul.
"Oh no." Jack said. "Did they do what I think they did?"
Ben just nodded, smiling. Jeff was clearly gonna put it back to the way it was as soon as he got the chance, and he would most likely go on an enraged killing spree in the hospital. Fun times for everyone.
"W-what's wrong?" Redheart asked, trying to back away.
"Shhh. You needn't ask that." Jeff said in a soothing voice. "Just, Go to sleep." He slashed his knife at her, but hit nothing. A green aura was lifting his knife away from him. "What are you doing , Ben?"
Ben walked to Jeff's side and whispered. "Wait until you won't be seen."
Jeff smiled and nodded, backing away from Redheart. "I'm terribly sorry." He said simply then walked away. He thought of ways he would pay her back for masking his beauty. Limb chopping was one of the first things that came to mind. No, too quick. She'd bleed out in a matter of minutes. Skinning? No, too messy. Then it hit him, He could make her beautiful too. He laughed, imagining how distraught she'd be at the loss of her normal face. Of course, she'd get killed afterwords. Jeff looked over at Ben. He was staring knowingly.
"Don't do anything stupid." He told Jeff and turned away.
"What do you mean by that?" Jeff asked.
"If you cut her face too, everyone will know it's you who did it." Ben whispered.
"I guess that's true." Jeff admitted. "Still, pretty funny thought."
"Do we have anywhere to live?" Jack randomly asked.
"Come to think of it...no." Jeff answered. "Course, I'd be fine on the streets, you guys can look for someplace if you like. I don't really wanna, I have much more important matters."
"Alright, wait for us by the library." Ben told him.
"Awww, but I hate libraries." Jeff whined.
"I said near . Not inside." Ben reminded him.
"Well I also hate elevators and zombies and hospitals. I don't hate hoodies though."
"You play on my server too much."
"I know. It's fun."
"Just, stay near the library, don't, and I mean it , do anything stupid."
"Alright, stop with the nagging. I know, don't do anything stupid, You've said it like 50 times now." Jeff complained.
~~~
Jeff was sitting against the Golden Oaks library twiddling his knife. "This is almost as boring as being inside the library." He said to himself. "Seriously, just find an acceptable house to steal and get it over with." His patience was running low. He'd been waiting there for Zalgo knows how long. Probably hours by now.
"Excuse me, but what are you doing just sitting there?" Someone asked him.
Jeff turned his head to see a purple pony with wings and a horn. "Waiting for some peo- I mean ponies." He replied.
"Why are you waiting outside, It's getting dark." It was true. It was starting to be twilight and he'd been sitting there since the afternoon.
"I was told to wait here." He responded.
"Why don't you come inside for a bit, until your friends get here. It's supposed to get really cold tonight and I don't think It's smart to sit and wait in the cold."
"Who are you, I said I was told to wait here. My 'friends' are too dumb to look for me inside, they'll freeze just searching." Jeff internally laughed at how stupid he'd described Ben and Jack to be.
"I'm Twilight Sparkle." The pony answered. "And that's no way to talk about friends." She added.
"I'm Jeff, And don't start lecturing me on friendship. I can keep a friendship just fine by myself Miss Sparkle." Jeff hated people who thought they knew better than him. It is true that they probably did, him never passing 8th grade and all, But it really annoyed him when people got in your face with their knowledge.
"Don't be rude, I was just saying is all." Twilight said, aggravated.
Jeff closed his eyes and sighed. "Sorry, I hate when My friends take forever." Then he realized something. He hated the feeling of his eyes being closed. He really needed to fix his face soon. He opened them and looked back up at Twilight. "Sure, I can stay for a little bit, I don't like the cold anyways."
"That's alright. Just follow me." She said and walked to the entrance to the library.
Jeff stood up and followed. The library was actually pretty warm, and nice. Almost as nice as Slender mansion, It would be even, but the bright colors hurt Jeff's eyes.
"Who's he?"
Jeff heard a new voice. He looked over and saw a purple and green lizard thing. "I'm Jeff, I won't stay long so don't get attached to me." He laughed, walking around the building. Then he saw what he was looking for. The bathroom, It also had a mirror, made his job easier. He walked in, shut the door and pulled out his knife. "This is gonna hurt."
Jeff was staring into the mirror with his knife in hoof. He had done this only once before, the night he killed his family. He wasn't thinking about that now, he couldn't afford to have a mental breakdown here. The only thing on his mind was returning the beauty to his face that had been taken away. He slowly held the blade of the knife to the corner of his mouth where a smile would be, and was. He cut into the flesh and quickly sliced to make a big smile. He did the same to the other side of his face. When he was done he looked at himself. Halfway complete. Now came the part he dreaded and couldn't wait for at the same time, the eyelids. He shakily held the blade to his eye, holding the eyelid out with his other hoof.
There was a knock at the bathroom door and the voice of Twilight. "What's taking so long?"
It was enough to make Jeff jump, startled and drop the blade. "Nothing." He replied. "I'll be out in a minute."
"Alright." And then the sound of hoofsteps walking away, only when he was sure though did he pick up his knife.
He held it back up to his eyelids and clenched his teeth. This was probably gonna be the most painful, well, second most painful thing he'd ever experienced. He sliced fast and clean, barely holding back a scream, blood mixed tears running down from that eye. That was definitely the worst physical pain he'd ever felt. His hooves were trembling uncontrollably when he decided to move on to the next eye. He was breathing heavily, terrified of the pain he'd feel in a moment. Couldn't he just have Ben burn it off with his magic?..No. He'd never hear the end of it, He'd probably never hear the end of this already, Doing this in a strangers house. But if he had Ben do the other one he'd be called weak and dumb, Like Masky was. He shook the thoughts out of his head and held the blade to his face again. He sliced his other eyelid off. Since he was shaking so much this time it was so much more painful. He let out an audible scream through clenched teeth, but it was not loud enough to draw attention to him. Or so he thought.
There was a knock at the door. "Are you alright in there?" Twilight asked.
"Yes, just dandy. Why you ask?" Jeff replied.
"I thought I heard a scream, so that's good to hear."
"But you will hear a scream." Jeff said, opening the door. He was partially right. Twilight gasped,
"What happened?" She asked.
"I made myself beautiful...Don't you think I'm Beautiful Twily?" Jeff asked the same question he'd asked his mother. It brought a smile to his already forever smiling face.
"Beautiful? You're insane !" Twilight shouted at him.
"No, Me insane, that's ridiculous." Jeff said sarcastically.
Twilight backed away.
Jeff picked up his bloody knife and licked it clean then put it in his hoodie pocket. "You're lucky this was done in your home or you'd be dead by now." He told her. "I'll let you live until I can repay you."
Twilight just stared at him, shocked. She couldn't say anything, still too scared of what he'd done to his face. bloody tears still slightly streaked down his face.
"And don't turn me into the cops, you can't imagine how hard it is to do the stuff I do, or did should I say, without someone trying to turn me in." He then walked away to the main room of the library.
Twilight followed him, keeping a safe distance despite him saying that he'd let her live. "Didn't that hurt?" She asked.
"No, it was like a massage." Jeff answered sarcastically again. "Of course it hurt, What'd you think?"
"What happened?" They both heard the voice of Spike.
"What? Don't you think I look beautiful?" Jeff asked, turning his head to face Spike.
Spike screamed and shook his head. "Are you kidding me?"
"Funny, mommy made the mistake of being dishonest..at least you speak the truth." Jeff laughed remembering the murder of his family. He tried not to remember the end of the story. There was a certain time of year to reflect upon his brothers death, and this wasn't it. "Anyways, I'll spare you too, since you live here and all."
"Spare us? What's that supposed to mean?" Spike asked.
"It means what it sounds like." Jeff explained.
"So, you were gonna kill us? " Spike asked.
"No, not tonight I wasn't at least."
"We could report you t-" Spike was cut off.
"If you dare report me to the police, you will suffer worse than you ever thought possible." Jeff was so close to Spike that their noses were touching. His bloodshot eyes glaring into the baby dragons eyes like a lion would look at a mouse.
"P-police?" Spike uttered. "We don't have those here."
Jeff backed away to give himself space to think. "Hmm. Either you guys have something other than the cops or you've been locked in here your whole life." He tapped the blade of his knife to his chin as he thought.
"We have royal guards in Equestria, And believe me Mister, we're not afraid to report you to the Princess for threatening us like that." Twilight cautioned.
"HA! You think I'm scared of a Princess? I'M THE QUEEN !" Jeff laughed maniacally. When he stopped laughing and caught his breath he continued. "No, but seriously, do you think I, the greatest, most amazing killer ever would be scared of a princess?"
"You know, I'm a princess." Twilight fluttered open her wings.
"Great, write a poem about it your majesty. " Jeff started laughing again at his own sarcasm. "Maybe I'll get you some grapes and wine while you're doing that."
"You know something, Spike?" Twilight said as Jeff was literally rolling on the floor laughing.
"Yeah?"
"This guy is almost as bad as Discord."
"Well at least Discord didn't threaten to murder us." Spike pointed out.
"While that's true, he did try to break our friendship. And that's just as bad, if not worse."
"Life or death, which is really the greater influence?" Jeff randomly asked. "I would say death, but I kill to stay alive..." Jeff shook his head. "I'd say they're even."
There was a knock at the door. Spike ran over and opened it. Ben and Jack were there.
"Is Jeff here?" Ben asked.
Jeff rushed to the door. "About time, I nearly died of boredom for Zalgo's sake."
"We know." Ben replied.
"We figured you'd get bored, that's why we didn't let you come with us." Jack explained.
"Plus, we didn't you want to to go all Insanity on everyone there."
"No houses for sale?" Jeff asked.
Ben nodded. "All either taken or too close to the forest to live in."
"Pfft. Too close to the forest?" Jeff scoffed.
"You saw what that thing did to you." Ben reminded him. "If we lived in or near that forest we wouldn't last a year, or at least you wouldn't."
"Ha ha, I'd last longer than you, Gamefreak." Jeff glared at Ben. "So, where do we live, can I pick? I wanna be a bum!"
"No, we're not being bums." Ben denied. "Plus, I've heard a few things from the townsfolk that might help us."
"Do we have to have normal room mates?" Jeff asked.
Ben nodded.
Jeff rolled his eyes, but said nothing to all their surprise.
"Well, there are these things called the Elements of Harmony." Ben began to explain. "There are 6 ponies that embody them and I think they'd be decent room mates."
"Uh, no." Twilight said. "I don't want This guy." She motioned to Jeff. "Living with me or my friends, he tried to kill us and I find it hard to trust him in a house alone with my friends."
"You're one of those kinds of ponies I see." Jeff commented. "Just because I flip out once you refuse to give me a home. I don't wanna be a bum. A homeless bum! "
"But you said.." Twilight started to say.
"He's bipolar, he changes his mind really often and has random mood swings when you least expect it." Ben explained. "I know because I lived with him for a year or so."
"Sounds fun." Spike said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"So, you're saying I'm a girl?" Jeff asked.
"What? Where would you get something so stupid?" Ben asked.
"I live with Jane, I know these things." Jeff told them.
"How was that one day Slender let you guys share a room?"
"Torture, hated it, kept making fun of my family being dead."
"So that's why you nearly killed her and had an epic battle until Slendy woke up." Ben smirked. "She would've won if he hadn't interfered."
"Would not." Jeff glared at Ben intensely.
"Maybe not, what'd she say.?"
"Let's see, She said she would eat the corpses of my family, She said we're so much more alike now, And she said that Liu was retarded and deserved to die a fate worse than I gave him."
"No way she would've won after that last one, Anyone who says anything bad about your brother, your face or bagels gets it."
"'A fate worse than I gave him'? What does that mean?" Twilight asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
"Killed my family. Gutted my parents and stabbed my brother in the heart a bunch of times." Jeff explained, sounding like he was bragging about it. Then he looked to the floor. "I miss my brother..."
"Well, There are 6 elements." Ben continued explaining, not wanting Jeff to have a mental breakdown in front of him. It would've been the 3rd time this week. "Kindness, Laughter, Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty and Magic."
"You heard all that from talk around town?" Jeff questioned, suddenly curious again.
"Well, I might have asked about it." Ben explained.
"Alright, go on." Jeff beckoned him.
"Well, I think Kindness and Generosity sound promising." Ben told him.
"No." Twilight knew Jeff, or any of them, would absolutely destroy Fluttershy and Rarity would freak out when they go too far with their anger and leave her to clean up the messes.
"I think Loyalty and Honesty are promising." Jack commented.
"No, At least not Honesty." These ponies seemed like ones to lie, a lot. That would drive Applejack crazy.
"What about Laughter or Magic?" Jeff asked.
"You can't live with me, But I don't think Pinkie would have a problem with you guys."
"Pinkie? You know Pinkie?" Jeff blurted out at the mention of his new friends name.
"Yeah, She's the element of Laughter, It's hard to get to her." Twilight explained.
Jeff thought living with Pinkie would be fun, Then he remembered the knife fight they had. He rubbed his limping hoof thinking about it. "Possibly."
"Who are the other elements?" Jack asked.
"Rainbow Dash is loyalty." Twilight began, but was interrupted by Jack.
"I know Dash, She helped me look for Ben and Jeff..I never contacted her when I found you guys, she probably thinks I live in a dumpster or something." Jack chuckled. "No problem there though, I'd live in a hospital dumpster."
"Okaaay...Well, Dash is loyalty, Applejack is honesty, Pinkie is laughter, Rarity is generosity-" She was interrupted again, this time by Ben.
"I know her, She also helped me look for Jack and Jeff." Twilight was glaring at him. "Oh, sorry."
"Okay, well, Fluttershy is kindness and I'm magic." Twilight concluded.
"I think we've seen Fluttershy, Isn't she the one who's lucky to be alive?" Jeff asked.
"Yeah, You nearly flipped out on her cause she said Jane's killing phrase. She is lucky you were injured." Ben remembered the incident.
"Still am injured actually, doctors can't heal everything."
"Guys, off topic." Jack pointed out to them.
"Oh yeah, well I think we should pick which element to live with." Ben said.
"Okay, well, We can do that outside, I'm sure this pony wants us to leave." Jack said, gesturing to Twilight.
"Yes, please do, I don't want to get murdered." She opened the door for them.
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Chapter 8:Problems in the Creepy household and old friends
"Which one do you think you'll wanna be roommates with?" Ben asked Jeff.
"Pinkie pie probably, as long as she promises no more knife fights." He replied.
"I think I'll have Twilight, she seems like the smartest one I've met so far." Ben told Jeff. "What about you, Jack?"
"Haven't decided. I could live with anyone as long as they weren't too dumb." Jack replied.
"Ben, what makes you think Twilight will accept you after what I did in her house?" Jeff asked.
"Because technically I'm not insane, Just dead." Ben answered. "And a computer virus that is completely useless because this place has no technology."
"You used to be useful?" Jeff asked sarcastically. "Must've been before I joined, cause you were always useless around me."
"Just shut up, you and your sarcasm, I swear someday I'm just gonna put a gun to your head."
"Please do, I don't really care." Jeff said, glaring at Ben.
Ben glared back. "I bet if I put a gun to your head you'd cry and beg me to not shoot you."
"I'd just stab your shins and get it over with myself, I never in my life said I didn't wanna die. I just don't wanna get killed." Jeff took a step or two closer to Ben.
Ben stepped closer too. "You beg more than you kill, pretty ironic being called Jeff the killer. "
"For Zalgo's sake, Stop fighting for once!" Jack shouted at both of them.
They both looked at Jack. "He said I was useless." Ben said, pointing at Jeff.
"He said I was a crybaby." Jeff said.
"He started it!" They both shouted.
"I don't care, You act like I'm your mother or something." If Jack had eyes he would have rolled them. "I mean really? 'he started it'? What are you, 5 years old?"
"Stop acting like you're Slendy!" Jeff turned on Jack now. "You have no right to talk to me like that."
"That's nice, coming from the most arrogant thing that ever existed." Ben laughed a little.
"You, shut up." Jeff was glaring at both of them now. "And you, Stop acting like you're my mother, My family is dead. " With that Jeff ran in the direction of the Everfree forest.
"Wow...Do you think we went too far this time?" Ben asked, turning to Jack.
"Nah, He'll get over it after he realizes that without us, he's without bagels."
"I hope so. He seemed pretty mad at us." Ben was worried that Jeff would do something he'd regret when he was gone, Of course, he always worried that Jeff would do something stupid.
"How could you tell, he always randomly stormed into the forest when we lived in the mansion."
"Because he never brings his family into an argument unless he's really upset." They then both looked at each other.
"Tomorrow is Liu's birthday." Jack was the first to say it, They both knew full well when Liu's birthday was because once every year Jeff would get way more bipolar and less violent.
"We messed up, didn't we?" Ben asked, knowing the answer. They both nodded at each other. "I really hope he's alright though, We shouldn't have done that."
~~~
Jeff was walking through the Everfree forest. He would be running, but all the plants on the ground made it hard. For once his knife was in his pocket after one of his outbursts. He refused violence near or on Liu's birthday. After a while of walking he sat down on the roots of a tree and looked to the sky, the best he could with all the branches up high. "Maybe I went too far in that argument." He told himself. Then he shook his head. "No, They were the ones who went too far." He always talked to himself when he was alone, or at least most of the time when he was alone. Then he heard a growling sound. He looked over and nearly jumped in fear and surprise.
The Manticore from a day or so ago was standing a few feet away from him, and it did not look happy.
"Oh, Hi buddy." Jeff greeted it. "Please don't try to kill me, I really don't wanna have to fight anything today."
It growled louder and stepped closer, flashing it's stinger as it did so.
"Look, we just got off on the wrong foot, that's all. We could still be friends." Jeff tried to back away, but backed into the tree he was sitting against.
The manticore licked it's lips and leaped at Jeff. Jeff ducked, expecting to get torn to pieces. He was surprised when he didn't feel anything. Not a single scratch. He lifted his hoof from his eyes to see something just short of a miracle. A Pikachu was fighting off the manticore, and it was a Pikachu that Jeff knew more than well. "Brvr?" he said, not believing it at first.
"Yeah, It's me." Brvr answered, sending an Electro ball into the manticore's face. "If you're wondering how I got here, Fluffers."
Jeff was more than happy to see his old friend. How had he not immediately recognized him? Brvr looked different from normal Pikachu's, Brvr's cheeks, the stripes on his back and the brown part of his tail were all pitch black. He had killed all the Pokemon in the game he had been in once, Pokemon channel. He'd scared his old trainer into never picking up the game again and somehow found a way into the real world where he met Jeff. Jeff still remembered the day very clearly.
***
Jeff was walking through the streets in the very early morning in the middle of winter. Snow covered the ground everywhere. Jeff was only outside because he'd just got done with his nightly rounds and was returning to the forest. Slendy would be mad that he'd stayed out so late, but he didn't care. There were lots of strugglers tonight, he loved the ones that struggled and begged for their life. About halfway back to the forest, by a small store, he saw something strange in the snow. It was a large yellow spot. At first he thought nothing of it, then he noticed the shape. It was shaped just like a Pikachu. At he thought it was his mind playing tricks on him, but he couldn't seem to walk away from it. He crouched beside it and stroked it's side, definitely some sort of animal. He poked it to make sure it was alive.
Brvr looked up weakly and saw a human. He would have ran or attacked, but he had no energy left. He'd battled a Missingno to get out of Pokemon channel. That alone drained him of most of his precious energy. Then he'd ran for days, he hadn't bothered to count but he'd definitely ran for more than one day, and he'd been sleeping in the snow for hours, everything felt numb. The worst he could do to defend himself from this human was glare, it made him feel weak. but it was all he could do.
Jeff sighed. A real life Pikachu, injured, starving, freezing and dying of thirst. Slendy would hate him for what he was about to do.
The human walked away. Brvr sighed with relief. He didn't want to be bothered by humans, all he wanted to do was sleep. He rested his head back down, but just as he was about to close his eyes again he saw the human walking out of the store towards him. He sighed again, but with anger. Couldn't the humans do as he wished for once?
Jeff had stole a pack of Twinkies from the store while it was closed, he was great at picking locks with his knife. He unwrapped them and handed one to the Pikachu. He wasn't gonna eat the other one, but he knew enough about science to know not to eat too much at a time when you were starving. At first the Pikachu just stared, then nibbled, then practically swallowed the thing whole.
"Why are you helping me?" Brvr asked, knowing the human wouldn't understand. At first the human just stared, then surprisingly answered. "I can't very well let ya starve, can I?" Brvr stared, amazed. "You can understand me?"
Jeff was just as surprised as the Pikachu looked. He'd never heard of a talking Pokemon that wasn't Mewtwo or Team rocket's Meowth. "Yeah, I guess I can." He replied. "You probably won't last too long out here." Jeff started his offer. "I know a place where You'd be accepted over time, obviously not being a normal Pikachu." He noted the strange coloring on the Pikachu. Black cheeks, stripes and bottom of the tail.
Brvr looked at the human with surprise. "Why do you care?" He asked.
"Because I like animals, enough. Especially Pokemon." The human explained. "And it would be nice to have a friend to talk to that doesn't insult me all the time."
"Friend?" Brvr asked. "But humans and I can't be friends."
"Don't be dumb, I pretty much just offered to save your life. I wouldn't do that if I didn't care."
Brvr considered this and nodded. "Okay, I'll trust you, Don't make me regret it."
Jeff picked Brvr up and tucked him into his hoodie, he was pretty small for a Pikachu. They talked on their way home. None of the other members but Smile could understand him. They were fast friends and killed together very often.
***
"Fluffers is the one who brought us here too, but you probably already know that." Jeff told Brvr.
He was just driving off the manticore, finishing it off with a Thunderpunch, his signature move. "It was pretty easy to guess." He replied to Jeff. He then turned to the bushes. "Safe to come out now!" He shouted.
Jeff looked at the direction he'd shouted in, confused. Then a light pink filly with curly brown hair, green eyes and a teddy bear stepped out.
"Thanks Brvr." She said, hugging him. They were about the same size in this world.
Brvr hugged her back. "No problem, Sally."
"He sent you both, huh?" Jeff asked.
"Yeah, Fluffers and I had a rivalry and that's why I'm here. Sally was giving Smiley more attention than She was giving Fluffers, so she came with me." Brvr explained. "Why are you in the forest, You weren't here before."
"Me, Jack and Ben got into a fight. I stormed off into the forest."
Brvr nodded. He didn't bother asking what the fight was about, It didn't matter. "Where do you live?"
"Nowhere yet." Jeff explained. "We were actually talking about that before the argument."
"There's a pony near the forest who takes care of animals, I've almost approached her a few times." Brvr was talking about Fluttershy.
"Yeah, she saved me from the manticore the first time, of course I only lost because of the knife fight." Jeff remembered the knife fight, it was fun. "Maybe we should find Ben and Jack, they're probably still fighting."
"Okay, You can tell me about the knife fight on the way there."
~~~
Jeff had just finished the story of the knife fight with Pinamena.
"So girls have saved your life twice?" Brvr asked.
"Don't judge me, you know I'm not at my best this time of year."
"I know, I know. Just making sure I heard right."
They heard trotting towards them. It was Ben and Jack.
"Jeff, glad we found...um..is that who I think it is?" Ben was talking but saw Brvr and Sally.
"Yep." Brvr answered, knowing ponies could understand him. He did live with Sally.
"So, you're not mad anymore, are you?" Jack asked.
"No, I'm fine. Sorry about that by the way." Jeff answered.
"No, I think I went a little too far." Ben apologized.
"It's fine, I won't hold it against you."
Jeff and Ben hugged briefly and brohoofed.
Chapter 9:Trying to find a place to live
It had been about an hour since Jeff had found Brvr and Sally in the forest. Jeff, Jack and Ben were talking again, this time they were sure though that the conversation wouldn't end in an argument. Also Sally and Brvr were in the conversation as well.
"All I know is I'm living at Pinkie's." Jeff said.
"I can live with anyone, But if I had to choose I'd say Dash." Jack told them.
"Anyone's fine, as long as they're not too hyperactive and bipolar." Ben was staring at Jeff when he said that.
"Don't you think we should live together?" Sally asked.
"No, nobody would take 5 crazy ponies in their house." Jeff answered.
"So, how are we gonna ask them?" Jack wondered out loud. "We can't just knock on their door and say, 'Hey, we're homeless bums, take us into your home.'"
"It could work." Jeff said.
"Yeah, sure." Ben rolled his eyes. "That's what you said when we asked Slendy to buy you your own room with an Xbox 360 and a mini fridge with all the bagels you could eat."
"He could've at least got me some more bagels." Jeff murmured."Didn't have to ground me from your games for a week."
"I'm surprised it was only a week, the way you asked him." Brvr remarked.
"Everyone shut up or I'll tell the story of how I drove off the fangirls." Jeff threatened. Everyone suddenly looked scared. "Once upon a time-" Jeff began to be cut off by Ben.
"I'm sorry, We'll shut up about it!"
Jeff just smirked and nodded, then walked away. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna be fabulous to get a home."
"Ugh, you're not fabulous." Ben told him.
"You're right." Jeff said, sounding disappointed. "I'm beautiful."
"You are a guy, right?" Ben asked.
"Once upon a time in the mansion-" Jeff began the story again.
"Okay, okay, be whatever you want!" Ben shouted. "I just really wanna forget what happened that day."
"Aww, Ben and his fanboys." Jeff said, mocking a sweet voice.
"Shut up, It's not my fault you and Slender are so overrated that I'm stuck with the weird ones."
"You think you have the weird ones?" Jeff started laughing. "Once I had to stop someone from killing their family because they thought it would make me like them."
"Can we please stop talking about fangirls?" Jack asked.
"Oh, yeah, see you guys." Jeff said, trotting off.
"So, what's our plan?" Ben asked Jack.
"Ask every element until we're forced to live with Jeff?" Jack suggested.
"I was gonna say follow him, but that works." They both went their separate ways. Jack took to the skies and Ben walked in the direction opposite of Jeff.
"Well, I'm following him." Brvr said to himself. "Come on Sally." The two went in the direction Jeff had.
~~~
Jack flew up to Rainbow Dash's could house. He flew inside easily, this pony never locked her door. "Dash!" He called. No response. "Must be flying somewhere or something, I guess I'll use her stuff without permission until she gets back." He said to himself, looking through the fridge. "Nothing, I forgot ponies don't eat meat." He shut the fridge and walked to her living room. It wasn't anything too fancy. Jack didn't mind though, he was used to living in places smaller, like the morgue to get dead people kidney. He sat on the couch, very soft, like everything there. He then felt a blunt object hit his head. He looked over to see a tortoise with a propeller on the back of it's shell. He sighed and turned it around.
"I think you're getting better at flying, Tank."
He heard the voice of Dash. That didn't take long.
When she got into her living room she facehoofed. "What did I say about coming into my house uninvited?"
"Sorry about that, I was gonna talk to you about something, but you weren't here." Jack explained.
"What did you wanna talk about?" Dash asked.
"You see, I need a place to live, and we're both pegasai." Jack began. "And I really don't wanna be stuck living with Jeff."
"I don't know, there's only one bedroom, and that's mine, don't even ask." Dash started listing a few reasons why it wouldn't work out too well. "I don't make that many bits so I couldn't pay for food for both of us, oh, and one more thing."
"What is it?"
"Hmm, let's see, I don't even know you. "
"First answer, I can sleep on the couch, Two, I don't need to be fed, Three, We met once when I broke into your house the first time, you can trust me."
Dash rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure I can trust someone who broke into my home before and probably wanted to kill me, or worse."
"I don't usually kill, and don't roll your eyes at me." Jack hated when people rolled their eyes, especially at him.
"Why not?" Dash asked.
"I can't roll my eyes, I don't even have eyes." Jack explained.
"That explains your cutie mark." Dash said, pointing to his flank.
He looked. There was an eye with a red X through it. "Oh, that. I thought that was a deformity or something."
"If you don't have eyes, how do you see?" Dash asked.
"Zalgo let me see, In fact, he's the one who took my eyes." Jack then facehoofed, he'd said too much.
"Who's Zalgo?"
"A...thing." Jack tried to explain. It wasn't really possible to explain what Zalgo was, even Slenderman didn't really know. "That's not important though. We're never gonna see him here, he doesn't have access to certain places."
Dash just nodded. "I guess I can accept that answer."
"Can I please stay here, at least for a day to see if it's possible to live together?" Jack asked, getting back on topic.
"Fine, but only for a day, If it doesn't work out then you're leaving." Dash answered, still not sure whether or not she could trust Jack.
Jack was smiling under his mask. "Thank you Dash, you won't regret it."
~~~
Ben was going to Twilight's house. He knew she'd refuse him at first, but he knew she was the smartest of the elements. Ben didn't like dumb people, which is why he didn't get along with Jeff. When he got to the library there was a gray mare trying to put letters in a rock next to the mailbox. He tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the mailbox. She gave a derpy looking sheepish smile, put the letters in the mailbox and flew away. After that Ben knocked on Twilight's door.
"Who is it?" She said as she opened the door with her magic. "Oh, hey." She wore an unamused expression.
"Hi, look, I'm sorry about last night, to be fair it was Jeff's fault, I was wondering if I could stay here a night or two."
"Are you crazy ?"
"Yes." Ben replied. "Plus, you can't let me be homeless and starve for what my friend did."
"Well, I guess that's true, but why come to me?"
"Not a pegasus, can't stand girls clothing everywhere, If i lived with anyone else It would mean always being honest or living with Jeff." Ben answered. "Anymore questions?"
"Why do you guys have to live with the elements?"
"No houses for sale that are affordable, Everyone else in this town would go insane within the first day of living with us, Anymore not obvious questions?"
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because I'm the link to everything." Ben answered sarcastically. "Just kidding, As you can tell by my appearance, I'm not nearly as crazy as Jeff."
"I'm not sure, what your friend nearly did has made me almost scared to talk to strangers."
"Just a day?" Ben hated trying to convince people to do things. "If it doesn't work out, I'll leave"
"No, I can't trust you." Twilight began to shut the door.
Ben grabbed the door with his magic. "Come on, if I wasn't trustworthy I would've broken down the door and threatened you if you said no."
Twilight sighed. "You're pretty stubborn, aren't you?" She didn't sound too annoyed with him though, at least not as annoyed as you'd expect.
"Yeah, I really don't wanna live with Jeff again."
"Well, I guess, if he doesn't live with us."
Ben nodded, he now had a place to live, he just hoped the others hadn't blown it.
~~~
Jeff knocked on Pinkie's door, pretty sure that he wouldn't have to do too much convincing.
"Oh, hey Jeff." Pinkie greeted him. "The new cupcake ingredient isn't ready yet, you'll have to come back tomorrow."
"That's now what I'm here for, I just have a question."
"What is it?" Pinkie asked.
Jeff had carefully planned out how he would ask her. It was a strategy that only he could pull off, and it was the perfect way to get anything. "I'm a homeless bum, I need a place to live, could I stay here?" Jeff gave her his best puppy dog face, it was actually quite disturbing.
"Of course, Nopony deserves to be homeless." Pinkie answered.
"Wow, that actually worked." Jeff couldn't help but say.
"I didn't think it would work either." Brvr said.
Jeff turned around. "How did you follow me?"
"By walking quietly." Brvr answered before getting a bear hug from Pinkie.
"He's so cute! What is he?" she asked.
"Can't....breath..."
"It's called a Pikachu, I would explain, but I honestly don't know much about him myself." Jeff answered.
"Lungs...burning..." Brvr was turning blue now.
"Aww, that's okay. He's just too cute and he can talk and I'm sure Fluttershy would go nuts over him." Pinkie squeezed Brvr tighter with each word.
Pikachuuuuuuu! Brvr shocked Pinkie. Her hair poofed out even more and was slightly singed.
"Oh yeah, he can use electric powers." Jeff added a bit too late.
"Wow, he's soooooo cool!" Pinkie was bouncing with excitement.
"And, C'mere Sally!" Brvr called for the filly.
Sally walked up behind Brvr, scared of being squeezed like Brvr.
"I hope you don't mind, I brought a few friends." Jeff told her.
"I don't mind at all, the more the merrier." Pinkie was bouncing to the door. "I still have some leftover cupcakes if you guys want any."
Chapter 10:Settling in and New friends
Jeff was sitting on Pinkie's couch eating a bagel with Brvr next to him.
"You should get a job." Brvr told him.
"I have a job, it's here." Jeff reminded him.
"No, I mean a legal job." Brvr had helped with cupcakes once, that was enough to know it wasn't legal at all.
"But legal jobs suck ." Jeff complained. "They have rules."
"Doesn't everything?"
"But working for a legal job is worse than working for Slendy, and that's really bad."
"Slendy had rules?" Brvr asked, surprised.
"Yeah. but I never followed them." Jeff answered. "Pretty sure nobody else bothered to read them, well, except Hoodie and Masky of course."
"I remember them, they gave me cheesecake once."
"Cool, me too." Jeff finished his bagel and they stared at where a TV would be.
~~~
Sally was walking to school. It was gonna be her first day in school since she'd joined Slender mansion. She was kind of nervous. She didn't have Charlie, her teddy bear. She wasn't aloud to bring him to school with her. She didn't mind too much. It would be hard to carry him around since she was an earth pony. When she got to the school she saw many fillies being dropped off by parents or guardians. Some looked happier to be there than others. Sally liked school more than most fillies, probably because she lived with insane murderers now. She just followed the fillies to a classroom. She took her seat next to a silver filly with glasses. The filly looked at her with a disapproving look. Sally looked back with a smile.
"Could you, like, move please?" The filly asked. "My friend was gonna sit there."
"Sorry." Sally moved to the other seat next to the filly. A pink filly with a tiara sat next to the silver one. They were in the middle row. Sally sat there, waiting for the teacher to come into the classroom. After about a minute a purple-ish mare trotted into the room.
"Good morning, class." She greeted the students.
"Good morning, Miss Cheerilee." The class echoed.
Sally smiled. At least the teacher was nice.
~~~
Ben was helping Spike sort Twilight's books. Twilight was in the room too, but she was reading something.
"So, what order do we sort these in?" Ben asked.
"Alphabetically by the last letter in the authors first name." Twilight answered.
Ben rolled his eyes. "That's gonna be so easy." He said sarcastically.
"You're the one who wanted to live here." Twilight reminded him, looking up from her book.
"Yeah, I know, it's just, I never had to do any chores where I used to live." It was fairly true, Slendy had told him to do many chores, but he never bothered. Masky usually ended up doing everyone's, except Slendy's, chores. "I wish Masky was here." Ben mumbled, looking on the covers of the books to see which one to place next.
"Who?" Twilight asked.
"Oh, just the hardest worker from where I used to live." Ben answered, stalking a few books on the shelves. "Always did my chores." Surprisingly, with Spike and Ben working it didn't take long at all. 20 minutes at the most.
"So, you're sure you won't cause any trouble like your friend?" Twilight asked him for the 50th time that day.
Ben did the motions for 'cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye', Not knowing that here, it was the Pinkie promise.
Twilight smiled, satisfied. "Okay, that's good to know." She started reading again.
"So, could I go out? There isn't much to do here." Ben honestly just wanted to see what chaos Jeff had caused.
Twilight just nodded.
Ben opened the door with his magic. He could have sworn when he left he heard someone say 'Foooooooorrrrreeeeeevvvveeeeeerrr' Or something like that as he left. He ignored it as a sign of video game withdraw and walked to where Jeff lived. He saw the bakery and knocked.
"Who is it, we don't wanna buy anything." Jeff said from inside.
"It's me, Jeff." Ben answered. "Let me in."
"Oh, we also don't want any idiots in this house."
"Then leave." Ben replied. "I just wanted to come and see if you'd caused any chaos yet, It's fun to watch the results."
The door opened. Jeff was standing on the other side. "I was just thinking it would be fun to cause some havoc."
"What kind of havoc where you thinking?" Ben asked.
"Well, While nobody's gone to sleep since we got here, I was thinking trying your method and going with mental anguish."
Ben smiled, Maybe Jeff was finally growing a brain. Nah, that's ridiculous, Ben thought. "So, what kind of mental anguish were you thinking of?"
"Well, I thought I'd start out small, like an impossible question." Jeff replied, sitting on the couch.
"Really, you thinking of an impossible question? I'll be back next century." Ben said, sitting next to Jeff.
"No, I already thought of one." Jeff told him.
Ben gave him a "Really?" Look.
"Yeah." Jeff answered.
"What is it?"
"What does the fox say?" Jeff asked.
Ben looked confused at first, then laughed.
"What, too good?"
"That's the stupidest question I've ever heard." Ben said after he was done laughing.
"What, but It took me hours to think of."
"Jeff, why?" Ben didn't know what to say other than 'why'.
"Cause I'm fabulous Ben, you wouldn't understand."
Ben just rolled his eyes. "You've been in this house for a few hours and you're already being stupid."
"You're just jealous because you can't think of awesome questions." Jeff glared at Ben. "Slendy said I'm special."
"You are special, Jeff." Ben said sweetly. "Special in the head." He started laughing again.
"You think I'm smart?" Jeff asked.
Ben looked at Jeff. "Wait, you think...?" He then laughed so much he was literally rolling on the floor. "Jeff, you're stupid, you really, really are."
"You're mean."
"I know I am, It's just too fun to be mean to you."
Jeff rolled his eyes. "You say that now, but when we see Zalgo again we'll see who is better."
"And? We already know I'm better than you, at least in the head."
"Well, I have a knife."
"And? I'm still more sane than you."
"Well, Harry has 4 nipples! Your argument is invalid!"
They both stayed silent for a while. "I guess I can't argue with that." Ben said, and they both started laughing.
~~~
Jack was sitting on a random cloud munching on some kidneys Jeff had given him the day before. He was watching the neighborhood as he ate. Nothing much was going on. A cream colored mare was sitting on a bench alone, usually a mint colored unicorn would sit next to her. Jack chuckled and looked at the piece of half eaten kidney. "I wonder how the cupcakes will taste?" He looked back down. A few shops with a small amount of customers. "Why is nobody out today?" Jack wondered aloud. He then felt something, or someone, land next to him on the cloud. He looked over. A gray pegasus mare with golden hair and eyes sat next to him.
"Hi." She greeted him, her eyes crossing as she did so.
"Hello." He greeted her in return, taking a bite of kidney.
"What'cha eating?" She asked.
"Nothing." Jack answered. "At least, nothing important, just something that was supposed to be part of a cupcake."
"Can I try some?" The mare asked.
"No." Jack answered. He hated sharing kidneys, Of course he didn't do it too often considering he didn't live with anyone who would want any.
The mare looked sad for a second, then looked happy again. "What's your name?" She asked. "I'm Derpy."
"I'm Jack." Jack introduced himself. "And I know that you're derpy, but what's your name?"
The mare giggled. "No, silly, My name is Derpy. Derpy Hooves."
"The name fits." Jack told her. "Of course, I've seen derpier." He was referring to Jeff.
"Are you new to town, cause I haven't seen you around here." Derpy asked.
Jack nodded, shoving the rest of the first kidney in his mouth. "I came here with two friends, we had to move because of, let's say issues at home." Jack licked the blood off his muzzle and put the other kidney into his hoodie pocket for later and slid his mask back into place.
"What are your friend's names?" Derpy asked.
"Jeff and Ben." Jack answered. "AKA, biggest idiots of the village." Jack laughed, trying to remember all the times they'd been stupid, which was way more than could be thought in a few seconds.
"Oh, I've met Jeff, He helps Pinkie make Cupcakes and muffins." Derpy licked her lips at the thought of muffins.
"Have you helped Pinkie pie bake anything?" Jack asked, honestly hoping to get another kidney.
"Well, once she offered to teach me how to bake muffins." Derpy answered. "It was really fun."
Jack tried to imagine Derpy and Pinkie ripping the the guts out of someone. It was easy to imagine, but it made him hungry, so he imagined dragons for a few seconds. "Did she tell you the secret ingredient?"
"Yeah, I rarely ever use the secret ingredient, it's too much work and focus to get."
Jack smiled under his mask. "I could have Jeff bake you some muffins with the secret ingredient." He offered, knowing he'd get more kidneys if more things needed to be baked.
"That's okay, I can just buy them from Pinkie, but thanks for the offer." Derpy looked on her arm where a watch would be. "Oh no, I have to get going, If I'm late I'll be in trouble." She flew away in the direction of a secluded place where Jack used to talk with Jeff and Ben.
Jack shook his head, smiling. "Looks like there are some ponies in this town we can relate to."
~~~
Sally was going out to recess. They had been learning about fractions in class today. She already knew this stuff because of Slendy, but she listened anyway. She walked over to the swings. A lot of fillies were playing together, but she didn't mind playing alone. As she hopped onto the swing the two fillies from earlier, the pink and silver ones she now knew as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
"I want on the swing." Diamond demanded.
Sally just smiled and moved away. "Okay, you can go first if you like." She wanted to complain about how she was there first and she shouldn't have to move, but her parents had always told her to be polite, plus it wasn't that big a deal, she wasn't that mad.
Diamond shoved her out of the way and hopped on the swing. Sally fell face first in the mulch.
"Hey, you can't just do that! I let you on." She said as she got up.
Diamond rolled her eyes and had Silver Spoon push her. The swing flew right next to Sally and Diamond "accidentally" kicked her.
Sally skidded away and her back hit the metal ladder of the slide. She was stunned for a second. Then she was angry. Why was this kid being mean to her, she was being perfectly nice like Her parents and Slendy had taught her. She got up and glared at Diamond and Silver, tears starting to form in her eyes. She thought of something. "What would the others do?" She wondered. The answer came quickly, they would fight. She shook her head, she couldn't fight, at least not physically. Sure, she was stronger than Diamond and Silver, but she would surely be scolded when she got home, at least by Pinkie. She imagined Jeff praising her for beating them up, his only regret was her not putting them in the hospital. No, she'd get suspended, or worse. The thought was nice though. As she was imagining beating the crap out of the two a spray of mulch flew at her. She looked up. Diamond had skidded her feet, or hooves on the ground and kicked mulch at Sally.
"Oops, sorry." She said sarcastically.
Sally shook the mulch out of her mane and walked up to Diamond. "Leave me alone."
"What are you gonna do if we don't?" Silver taunted.
Sally glared at her and swung a hoof to punch her, hitting and throwing Silver face first onto the ground. Sally was stronger than most kids. At the mansion she had received training from Slendy and Jeff on how to fight. Slendy had told her to only use it for defense. Jeff said to use it whenever she wanted. She didn't usually like fighting, but Diamond and Silver were different. Not in a good way.
Silver got up and rubbed her snout. It was bleeding and ruffled. She looked shocked, as she should.
Sally heard cheering. She looked around and saw three fillies cheering. One was a yellow earth pony with red hair and a pink bow. One was a white unicorn with a purple and pink mane. The last was an orange pegasus with a purple mane.
"Knock em outta the park!" The pegasus shouted.
"Scoot." The unicorn started. "Don't you think it's mean to cheer for a fight, even if Diamond and Silver will get what's coming to them?"
The pegasus turned to the unicorn. "Don't you think it's mean for Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to taunt and bully everypony?"
"Ah agree with Sweetie belle, don't ya think we should do something to stop it?" The yellow filly had a western accent.
"I guess." The pegasus responded.
"How dare you?"
Sally heard the angry voice of Diamond Tiara. She turned and looked at her, she couldn't help but smile. "How dare I what, you were being mean first."
Diamond growled. "That doesn't mean you can attack us! I'm gonna tell Cheerilee and you're gonna be in, like, so much trouble!"
Sally flinched slightly. She knew she'd get in trouble if the teacher found out, and Silver randomly walking in with a bloody nose wouldn't be ignored. She thought of the many ways the teacher could punish her. She'd never gotten in trouble before, especially not at school. She looked down at the ground with a scared expression.
"Don't worry." The yellow filly said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. "We could take the blame for ya."
Sally looked at her. "You'd do that?"
"Least we can do, I mean it was pretty funny when you hit Silver spoon."
"Thanks, I'm Sally by the way."
"Apple bloom. These are my friends."
"I'm Sweetie belle." The unicorn said.
"And I'm Scootaloo." The pegasus introduced herself proudly. "We should hang out after school."
"Okay, that sounds fun."
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Chapter 11:Sally and the Cutie mark crusaders
Sally was walking with Apple bloom, Sweetie belle and Scootaloo. They were going to the clubhouse, Apple bloom wouldn't be able to stay long, Cheerilee had said she'd tell Applejack after school, Apple bloom had taken the blame for punching Silver.
"So you guys made a club called the Cutie mark crusaders?" Sally had just listened to them tell her about the club.
"Yeah, we do crusades to find our cutie marks." Scootaloo explained. "And you don't have your so we thought you could join."
Sally smiled. "I'd love to join."
"Awesome, we were thinking of doing some crusading after school."
"Too bad Apple bloom won't be able to crusade with us for a while." Sweetie belle said.
"Don't worry girls." Apple bloom told them. "Ah don't mind missing a day or two, It's happened before." It was true. Apple bloom had once had to stay home to help Applejack with farm chores when Big mac was sick.
"I hope you can join us again soon." Sally told her. "And thanks for taking the blame for me."
"Well, I didn't wanna see a new friend get in trouble." Apple bloom replied, smiling.
"Well, to be honest, I probably wouldn't get in trouble." It was true. Sally only lived with Pinkie, Brvr and Jeff. Pinkie didn't like punishing other ponies because it made them sad, and she hated seeing her friends sad. Brvr was a Pikachu, there wasn't much he could really do, And Jeff was Jeff, he didn't care for violence, in fact he encouraged it. Plus, even if he would punish her, it would only be for a day, considering what tomorrow was. Sally pushed this out of her mind.
"Why not?" Sweetie asked. "You punched somepony."
"I know, but I don't live with very strict ponies." Sally explained.
"Who do ya live with?" Apple bloom asked.
"Well, I live with my friend Jeff who lives with Pinkie." Sally answered.
"You live with Pinkie pie?" Scootaloo asked. "Is she like your big sister?"
Sally shook her head. "No, I've hardly talked to her yet, plus, I would consider Jeff a like a big brother, or something along those lines."
"Can he fight?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yeah...When he wants to." Sally remembered the time he lost to Ben in a Pokemon battle and cried in a corner for half an hour. She laughed at the memory. "Why you ask?"
"He's your brother, and brothers are known to fight for their siblings." Scootaloo explained. "And what do you mean by 'when he wants to'?"
"You don't wanna know." Sally told them, remembering the time Jeff fought off the fangirls.
"Well, Ah better be going." Apple Bloom said. "I'll be in more trouble if Ah don't get home on time." She walked towards Sweet Apple Acres.
The other crusaders waved at her as she left. "Hope to see ya back soon!" Scootaloo shouted.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Applejack will understand." Apple bloom turned to them before she left and waved back.
"So, what are we gonna try this time?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Hmm." Scootaloo pondered for a moment. "Have we tried Skydiving yet?"
"I don't know, Scoot. That sounds kinda dangerous." Sweetie pointed out. "Why don't we do something safer, like..." Sweetie couldn't think of anything else.
"Like battles?" They heard somebody say. They all jumped and looked in the source of the sound. Brvr was standing next to Sally.
"Have you been there the whole time? Sally asked.
"About a minute, why?" Brvr asked.
"Never mind."
Sweetie and Scootaloo were staring in awe, having never seen a Pokemon before.
"Oh, yeah, this is Brvr." Sally introduced him. "He's one of Jeff's friends."
"What is he?" Sweetie asked.
"Oh, he's a...." Sally didn't know how to explain it.
"I'm a creature from far, far away." Brvr explained. "A place called Kanto, or maybe Hoenn? Or Kalos..?" Brvr thought for a moment. "I have no idea where I'm from."
"Can you do anything?" Scootaloo asked.
"Well, I can act cute, talk, run like a crazy." Brvr then shocked an apple out a nearby tree. "Oh, and I have the power of electricity."
Sweetie and Scoot's eyes were sparkling. "Wow.." They said in unison.
"Why are you here?" Sally asked.
"Decided I'd leave early for tomorrow." Brvr explained. "I recommend you don't come home tonight, or leave before the morning starts."
"Alright, I wasn't gonna talk to him tomorrow anyways, but okay."
"What's tomorrow?" Sweetie asked.
"His brother's birthday." Brvr and Sally said at the same time.
"Well, why would you wanna avoid him?" Scootaloo asked. "He's gonna be celebrating his brother's birthday, we should tell Pinkie so she can throw him a party." Scootaloo got up to walk to Sugarcube corner.
Sally stopped her by placing a hoof on her shoulder. "Yeah, about that.."
"His brother died about 4 years ago." Brvr finished her sentence.
"W-what happened?" Scootaloo asked.
"His brother was killed." Brvr answered, leaving out the fact that he was killed by Jeff.
"What?! Why would somepony do that?" Sweetie exclaimed.
"They weren't thinking strait." Brvr explain. "Their mind was blocked of all thinking."
"How bad is it?" Scootaloo asked.
"Scoot, He won't come out of his room for anything." Sally explained. "And I mean anything , You could give him the whole world and he wouldn't care."
"How's that bad?" Sweetie asked. "It makes him easier to avoid."
"Well, it wouldn't be bad, except It's hard to avoid him, a lot of stuff you need is in his room and It's nearly impossible to go in and out without being mentally scarred." Brvr explained.
"Like how?" Scootaloo asked, concern in her voice.
Brvr and Sally looked at each other for a moment.
"Ask Ben." Brvr told them. "He and Jeff used to be roommates."
"Where is he?" Scootaloo asked.
"With Jeff I think." Brvr replied. "And I didn't mean literally."
"Oh."
"Why don't you guys quit talking 'bout me?" They heard another pony. It wasn't hard to guess who it was. Jeff was standing next to Brvr. "I mean really? Behind my back too. Kids are so rude these days."
"When did you get here?" Brvr asked.
"I was here the whole time actually, I was hiding behind the clubhouse over there." Jeff pointed in the direction of The clubhouse.
"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Brvr asked.
"Why do ya think?" Jeff asked rhetorically. "That's kind of a sensitive subject ya know."
"Well, we didn't think you were here, sorry." Brvr apologized.
"It's fine, I wouldn't expect you to go looking for me." Jeff patted Brvr on the head. "Just be more careful next time." Jeff gave Sally a death glare. "And you do more than punch next time."
"You saw it?" Sally asked.
Jeff nodded. "Good first try though, Maybe I'll give ya my knife for a day."
"I don't think that's a good idea." Sally told him. "I could get arrested."
"Hmm, true, But I never did."
"You have speed." Brvr pointed out.
"You have a knife?" Scootaloo asked.
Jeff pulled his knife from his hoodie pocket. "Yeah, ya like it?"
"Yeah, but, what do you have it for?"
"Umm...Protection." Jeff answered. "Used to live in a bad neighborhood, would get robbed a lot." Jeff laughed on the inside. He was the one who was a threat, everyone else needed protection.
"Is that why you moved here?" Sweetie asked.
"Yeah." Jeff lied again. "You know, I should get going, Pinkie said she was gonna make me some bagels soon, And i really don't wanna get there when they're cold." Jeff trotted away in the direction of Sugarcube corner.
"You guys should get home too, C'mon Sally." Brvr and Sally walked in the direction of the Everfree forest.
Chapter 12:The Jeff episode
Pinkie was taking fresh baked bagels out of the oven. She made them every morning now, for Jeff of course. She didn't ever complain though, they made him happy, which made her happy, she loved making her friends smile. As she set the tray of bagels on the table she noticed something, Jeff was still upstairs. He usually was down before the bagels were even done. "Oh well, he's probably just sleepy is all, I'm sure he'll be down soon." She said to herself. After about 20 minutes of waiting though she knew something was up. Despite only living with him for 2 or 3 days, she knew he would never wait this long to get a bagel unless something was wrong. She trotted upstairs to the outside of his room and knocked on his door. "Jeff, The bagels have been ready for about 20 minutes and they're gonna get cold soon."
"You can have them." Jeff said from behind the door.
"Are you okay?" Pinkie asked.
"I'm fine." Jeff answered in an irritated tone. "Just not hungry."
"Are you sure, they're black liquorish, your favorite."
Jeff was silent for a few moments. "I'm sure, you can give them to Brvr or Ben if you don't want em."
"Alright, but, just come downstairs if you change your mind." She said with concern in her voice.
Jeff didn't say anything. He didn't need to, He knew he wasn't gonna leave this room until midnight. He heard Pinkie going downstairs. He sighed and readjusted himself on his bed. Today was gonna be a long day.
Pinkie sat at the table thinking. What was up with Jeff? He never stayed in his room, he was never that quiet either, not even while he slept. He wasn't sleeping when she went up there though, he talked in his sleep.Of course, she wondered how he slept, having no eyelids and all. She never asked though. It just never came into her mind when they were together.
~~~
4 hours later
Pinkie was seriously worried about Jeff now. She'd tried knocking on his door a few times to see what was wrong, He usually either didn't answer or told her that he was fine. She knew he wasn't. Even in the short time they knew each other she got to know him pretty well,and he was never like this. She decided she'd talk to Ben about it. He was bound to know something, at least more than she did. She trotted through Ponyville towards Twilight's house. She knew that was where Ben lived, Jeff had told her. When she got there she knocked on the door to be greeted by Twilight.
"Oh, hey Pinkie pie, What brings you here?"
"I wanted to talk to Ben." Pinkie answered.
"Okay, he's not doing anything at the moment, but, can I ask why?"
"Well, It's about Jeff." Pinkie began.
"Is he causing havoc?" Twilight asked. "Because Ben said there wasn't anything you could do about that."
"No, nothing like that."
"Then what is it?" Twilight asked, genuinely curious.
"Well, he locked himself in his room. He won't open the door or talk, when he does talk he sounds really sad. I've tried to ask him what's wrong, but he keeps saying he's fine, But I know he's not because he never does anything like this, he's always active and loud, like me, but now he's not and he won't tell me what's wrong and-"
Twilight placed a hoof over Pinkie's mouth. "I'll go get Ben."
Pinkie nodded as Twilight went inside to get the green pony. Pinkie explained everything to him. He just sat there in silence for a few moments.
"There's nothing you can do about that." Ben told her.
"What, Nothing? Why?" Pinkie asked.
"Well, he gets like this every year, don't worry though, it's only for a day usually." Ben explained, then he looked unsure again. "But here he can't visit the graveyard."
"Graveyard?" Pinkie said, curious.
"Oh, yeah, the graveyard, We never told you, did we?" Ben asked.
Pinkie shook her head. Twilight, having already known, just stared.
"Well, Jeff had a brother once, not anymore." Ben said simply.
Pinkie tilted her head. "What do you mean?" She asked, afraid of the answer.
"Well, his brother was killed." Ben said, then he smacked himself in the face, he might have said too much.
"By who?" Pinie asked.
"Well, they never found the killer." Ben explained.
"Never?" Pinkie asked.
Ben shook his head. "Afraid not, though it's not like that would bring Jeff any peace of mind." He smacked himself again, now he definitely said too much.
"Why not?" Pinkie asked, getting closer.
"If I told you, you'd wish I never told you." Ben said, hoping he wouldn't have to tell them that Jeff had been the one to kill Liu.
"You can tell us." Pinkie said.
"No, I really can't, Jeff said if I told anyone I'd be dead and I really don't feel like being called a liar today."
"Why would we call you a liar?" Pinkie asked.
"Ugh, I just said I can't tell you, Jeff doesn't throw kill threats around like water balloons." Ben was slightly irritated at their questions.
"Come on, we won't tell anypony." Pinkie was looking at Ben with big pleading eyes now.
"You say that now, but if I told you what you wanted to know you'd run right to someone to tell, anyone."
"No we wouldn't!"
"How can I know that?" Ben asked.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Pinkie said the Pinkie promise, doing the correct motions.
"Um, what?" Ben looked at her, confused.
"It's a pinkie promise, it's the most serious type of promise." Pinkie explained.
"Trust me, when Somepony does a pinkie promise, they will not tell." Twilight assured him.
"And, How can I know that?" Ben asked.
Pinkie and Twilight looked at him like he was stupid for a second. "Do we really have to explain a pinkie promise?" Twilight asked.
"Look, It's not that I don't wanna tell you." Ben began to explain. "It's that I can't tell you, Jeff would kill me, or put me in the hospital at the very least."
"How would he know you told us?" Twilight asked.
"Trust me, he'll know." Ben assured them. "He's not as dumb as he looks."
Twilight and Pinkie stared at him for a few moments.
"Alright, I guess i can tell you, but if you tell anyone else, bad things will happen."
"Okay." Twilight agreed.
"Well, the thing is, Jeff already knows who killed his brother." Ben began to explain. "And trust me, he hates the one who did it, but he can't get arrested."
"Why not?" Pinkie asked.
"Jeff doesn't want the one who did it to be locked up."
"And, why not?" Twilight asked.
Ben wasn't sure how to explain someone killing their family to normal people, or ponies. It wasn't as simple as at the mansion when someone didn't know you could just yell 'He killed his brother'. Ben pondered for a while, knowing if he just said it they'd run to the authorities fast as lighting, but if he didn't say anything they'd keep asking him. He sighed. "You'll be the first ones here to know this." Ben told them.
They just stared at him, having asked all their questions so far, they just wanted to know what Ben didn't want to tell them.
"You see, Jeff is the one who did it, he killed his brother." Ben waited to hear the yelling, running and telling the closest pony to them. He didn't hear anything like that, to his surprise.
"It was an accident, right?" Pinkie asked.
Ben shook his head. "100% on purpose, he does regret it though."
"How can you kill somepony, but not want to kill them, but still have it be on purpose?" Twilight asked.
"Jeff ain't right in the head." Ben explained, tapping his own head.
"I noticed." Twilight said, rolling her eyes.
"You still mad about that?" Ben asked.
"There are bloodstains in my sink." Twilight answered.
"Are all your questions answered?" Ben asked.
Pinkie and Twilight nodded their heads.
"Okay, you can go now Pinkie." Ben dismissed her.
As Pinkie was walking away she was interrupted by Ben.
"Oh, and don't try to talk with him, cheer him up, or interact with him in any way. He has a knife, and he's not scared to use it."
Then Pinkie realized it, she could cheer him up. She was the element of Laughter after all. "That's a great idea." She said to herself.
"Oh no." Twilight facehoofed, knowing what Pinkie was thinking. "Should we try to stop her?"
"Nah, He may not be afraid to use it, but that doesn't mean he knows how to use it." Ben answered
~~~
Pinkie was bouncing to her house thinking of ways to cheer Jeff up. "Hmm..Why don't I throw him a party?" She said to herself. "Yeah, that's what I'll do, I'll throw him a surprise party!" She bounced faster, she wanted to get the party ready as soon as possible.
~~~
Jeff sat up in his bed for probably the first time that day. "I wish I could sleep." He said to himself, rubbing his eye. "Oh well, It's not like that would do any good, night terrors seem to just love me." Jeff stood up and opened the door. "It's darker than it should be, I hope another serial killer didn't break into here, although it has been a while since me and Freddy have talked." Jeff walked down the stairs, still dark. Maybe Pinkie was already sleeping? No, it was the middle of the day, she had a job. Jeff turned on the light, wanting to see what he was gonna eat. Then he was tackled.
"Surprise!" Pinkie shouted.
"What is this, a murder party? I like murder parties."
"No, silly! I threw you a Surprise arty to cheer you up."
"Lovely, I was just gonna come down for some chips and a sleeping mask, but this might work." Jeff looked around. "Are you the only other one here?"
Pinkie nodded. "The others were busy, and I wanted to get here as soon as possible to set it up, But I knew I could still have a good party, even if I was the only one here." Pinkie smiled wide upon explaining. "Do you like it?"
"I would, but it isn't the best time, I'm assuming Ben told you everything."
"How did you know?" Pinkie asked.
"Because you left mumbling something about Twilight's library, Ben lives there and he can't keep his Link mouth shut."
"Yeah, Is it true, about your brother?" Pinkie asked.
Jeff nodded. "13 years old. He whispered. "I'm four, but 13 is-" Jeff looked Pinkie in the eye. "Did he tell you everything? "
Pinkie nodded.
"Even the fact that I'm the murderer?"
Pinkie nodded again.
"And he complains about me not being able to shut up, I guess I'll pack my things for jail then."
"Jail, no silly, I pinkie promised not to tell anypony."
Jeff smiled a little and nodded, She explained Pinkie promises to him the time he had to promise not to burn the house down while baking. Plus, she was a murderer too, so going to the authorities wasn't really the best option for her
"Did you say you're four?" Pinkie asked.
"Yeah, I'm four years old." Jeff laughed a little. "No, I'm 13, but I act like I'm four."
"No you don't-" Pinkie was cut off by Jeff.
"Harry has 4 nipples, your argument is invalid!"
Pinkie was silent for a moment. "...What?"
"What, It's a fact, They made Taylor drive off the road."
"Okay." Pinkie had no idea what he was talking about.
"I wanna try something, which way is Twilight's library?" Jeff was trotting to the door. "Nevermind, I already know." Jeff chuckled. "This is gonna be hilarious."
~~~
Jeff was waiting outside Twilight's door, which was unlocked. He was waiting for the right moment, This was gonna be so funny. He placed his hoof onto the door handle. A few more seconds. He could see from the window that Ben wasn't in the room yet, everyone had to be in the same room for this to work. "Five, four, three, two.." Jeff burst through the door. "You're all ugly, Compared to me!" He said in a drunk sounding voice.
They all looked up. Ben smiled.
"Especially Miley and Drake!" Jeff pointed to Ben and Spike.
Ben was literally rolling on the ground laughing. Twilight looked unamused. Spike looked confused.
Jeff glared at Ben. "You ruined it. Why didn't you continue it?"
"I'm sorry." He replied in between fits of laughter. "It's just too much."
"I understand, I am pretty awesome."
Ben immediately stopped laughing. "You're lucky it's your brother's- wait, isn't it Liu's birthday, what are you doing out of the house?"
"I got hungry and Pinkie was throwing me a surprise party. It worked, and I wanted to surprise ya."
Ben looked utterly shocked. "How...when..How did she..."
"What?" Jeff poked Ben's hat. "Seriously, what's so surprising?" He poked the hat again.
Ben swatted him away. "Nothing ever cheers you up."
"That's not true." Jeff defended himself.
"The first year at the mansion when I tried to cheer you up you cut my head off."
"No I- Oh wait, I did." Jeff remembered slicing Ben's head off. "Good thing you had the infinite lives cheat on."
"Yeah, You woulda been in the pit getting Zalgo's peanut brittle."
Jeff laughed. "Yeah, But I'd probably replace it with needles."
"You mean snakes?" Twilight asked.
Jeff rolled his eyes. "Pfft, no. Not unless they were live Cobras."
"You're so kind." Ben joked.
"I know I am, you know, Slendy said I was special."
"You really are special Jeff." Ben said, patting him on the head.
"Am I beautiful?"
"Of course."
Jeff hugged Ben. "Thanks."
"Um, You're welcome?" Ben pushed Jeff away. "Awkward."
"Hehe, Sorry."
There was about a minute of awkward silence. "Didn't you say you were hungry?" Ben asked.
Jeff jumped up. "Oh, right, bagels, bye!" Jeff ran out the door towards the bakery.
Ben facehoofed and shook his head smiling. "That crazy kid."
Chapter 13:Revenge, at last
Jeff was casually strolling across Ponyville's markets. He wasn't gonna buy anything, but there was nothing to do at Sugarcube Corner and he decided that lung burning fresh air would be good for him. Plus, if he had stayed at the bakery he would've probably scared off all the customers by running in and yelling at everypony to go to sleep. It would have been beautiful, but He didn't wanna get kicked out. He was about to yell at some random lemon salespony for having yellow oranges when he heard a commotion up ahead. That yellow orange seller was lucky. He walked a bit closer to what he'd heard.
"Please sir, I'll do anything. I need that cherry."
He recognized the voice of Fluttershy.
"Anything, eh?"
A voice he hadn't heard before.
"20 bits."
Jeff's train of thought froze right there. 20 bits for one cherry? He thought. That is the stupidest thing I've heard in my life. Jeff didn't know much about Equestrian currency, but he figured a bit was like a dollar, and 20 dollars for a cherry was ridiculous. So, he trotted up to the cherry salespony and yelled in his face. "20 for one cherry!?" He made a point to get in his face as much as possible. "Where i come from, that's illegal, buddy!" Not that I care about the law. He silently added. "I could get you arrested, no, killed! Where I come from you could get killed for this kind of thing!" He took a moment to catch his breath and let the salespony speak.
"Woah man, you're insane." The salespony said fearfully."I was just doing what's best for the shop, I'm hemorrhaging money-"
"I don't have any money! Do you know what it's like to be poor and live in some bakery?!" Jeff turned around and saw that Fluttershy wasn't alone, but had Rarity and Pinkie Pie with her. Their jaws hung open in shock. "Hey Pinkie." Jeff waved to her. Then he turned to the shopkeeper. "Now, you're gonna give me that cherry, free of cost, or I'll punch you so hard there'll be a black hole where your face should be!"
The salespony cowered away. "Just take it, I have more at my house anyway." With that, he pulled out a 'closed' sign and dashed away.
Jeff picked the cherry up in one of his hooves and handed it to Fluttershy. "I'm guessing this is yours." He said.
She was dazed for a moment before replying. "Th-thank you." And hiding behind her mane.
"No problem, I used to have a bully one, three actually. They tried to steal my brother wallet, So I stole their souls ." Jeff let out a mad cackle. "Um, I mean, uh, nice weather we're having." Jeff decided to walk away before it got any more awkward. What am I supposed to do now? Then a wonderful idea came to mind I'll go back to the forest and prove I'm stronger than that Manticore, yes, that sounds fun. Little did Jeff know, that was the worst possible idea he could've gotten. Also unknown to him, he was being watched as he walked into the forest.
~~~
"There he is." A growling voice said, being sure to keep quiet enough to not be heard.
"How can we be sssure?" A higher pitched hissing voice asked.
"The face." The other voice explained. "Nothing else has a face like that."
"Good point."
~~~
Jeff wandered through the forest, searching for the Manticore that he had failed at beating twice in a row. "Come out and face me!" He yelled, hoping it would draw the beast towards him. It worked, kind of. He heard growling. At first he thought it was the manticore. Then he realized it was coming from all around him. Next thing he knew a bunch of wolves made out of wood creeped out of the bushed and surrounded him. They were all snarling and ready to pounce at any second. Any normal pony would've done the logical thing and ran, or accepted fate. But, Jeff wasn't a normal pony, so he just laughed. "You really think you can stop me?" Of course, he got no answer. "I know Chopnese," He withdrew his knife.
One of the wolves pounced, only to be reduced to splinters by a blow from Jeff. Two more jumped at him, when they died four leaped at the pony. The numbers kept multiplying, it seemed like there was no end to the amount of wolves. He would've been covered from head to hoof in blood if they weren't made of wood. I should come here more often. Jeff thought to himself as he decapitated one of the wolves. I could just kill stuff in here instead of ruining ponies lives. He chopped one in half from the top. Yeah, I'll do that 'till that manticore is killed, maybe after that, then I'll cover the trees in streamers of bagels to celebrate. Anyone else, sane or not, would've though this was a horrible idea, but, Jeff wasn't anyone else. If he was anyone else he never would've set foot it the forest, or hoof in this case. His hoof connected with the jaw of one of the wolves and it was sent flying into a group if 5 others. They all fell to pieces. Jeff laughed at this sight. It was only then that they decided to back off.
Some were whimpering and injured, though most that could be seen were either lying motionless or broken into pieces. They knew trying to kill Jeff was out of the question, so they did the only thing they could think to do in this situation, They howled. Jeff listened to it as the sound grew louder. Part of him wanted to scream and ruin it, but he didn't, if not only to allow them to say their last words. Plus, he thought the howling sounded kinda nice. Fear, regret, sorrow. All these could clearly be heard in the howling. It was peaceful, until a new sound was heard, the growling of what Jeff was sure could only be the manticore he had come looking for. He smirked and turned to see it behind him. All the howling stopped as it advanced towards him. The wolves backed away, sure that the manticore could handle this.
Jeff wasted no time leaping at his target, aiming for the eye, hoping to make this quick. As expected, the manticore blocked. It threw it's tail in front of it and let it take the blow. Jeff only escaped being hit by an inch. He pulled his knife out of it's tail and backed away. They dramatically circled each other for a few seconds before the manticore swiped a paw at Jeff, hitting him in the head and knocking him down. It then pinned him down and raised a paw to slice his throat with. Just as it was about to hit it's mark it was stopped. Jeff had blocked with both of his hooves. He kicked the manticore, which he had decided to call Fluffy, in the gut, throwing him off. He then grabbed his knife from the ground and advanced towards his victim again.
Fluffy swung his tail at Jeff again, hoping the pony would be stupid and get stabbed like the first time they'd fought. No such luck. Jeff grabbed the tail inches from the stinger and spun on his hind legs. This would've failed miserably if anypony else had tried, but Jeff was stronger than most ponies, having been trained from Slenderman and years of butchering people he had grown much stronger than the average person, or pony. So, instead of falling flat on his face, he picked up Fluffy and twirled him around before throwing him in a random direction. He didn't go too far, but he hit a tree hard, hard enough to knock it over.
The Timberwolves watched in awe and fear. They'd never seen anything, especially not a pony, get this close to defeating the manticore. A few of them cowered in fear, some were frozen and slack jawed.
Jeff laughed as Fluffy stood up once more. He was still trying to catch his breath from the blow and he had a decent sized branch stuck in his side. Blood slowly oozed from it, though if it were pulled out blood would go everywhere.
This didn't go unnoticed by Jeff. He ran up while Fluffy was still dazed and grabbed it in between his hooves. Fluffy pulled away instinctively. This only made it easier for Jeff. It was kind of hard to get the branch out, but definitely worth it. Jeff felt blood gush onto his hooves. A few drops hit his face, one drop even hit him in the eye. He laughed, remembering the last time he'd felt blood splatter onto him. It had been a good while, though he still remembered his victims perfectly. They were an elderly couple who happened to be staying in a motel near the forest.
Jeff was interrupted by his thoughts when Fluffy pounced at him again, with much less strength than last time. He was slowly bleeding out. Unknown to him, his liver had been punctured by the branch. It was only a matter of time before he dropped like a fly. Jeff had no problem shoving Fluffy away. At this point, Fluffy didn't care. He knew this pony would kill him, might as well make it easier and less painful by not struggling.
Jeff let out a disappointed sigh. He loved when his victims struggled, fought and begged for their lives. Oh well, he would make sure to make it as painful as he could. He trotted up to Fluffy's tail and placed his knife at the base. Might as well get a souvenir He though as he chopped.
Fluffy tried to stop Jeff, He thrashed and kicked the best he could, but he was beyond the point of fighting. As the tail was severed, Fluffy blacked out. Jeff placed the tail next to him and walked to the stomach. He sliced it open and removed the kidneys. E.J would appreciate it next time they met. He placed the kidneys in his hoodie pocket along with his knife. He attempted dragging the tail back with him, but gave up quickly, as it was way too heavy to drag all the way back to the bakery, plus, somepony would see him and realize what had happened. He dropped the tail and walked the rest of the way home. The wolves didn't bother him, they were too scared. This would be a fun story to tell the others.
~~~
The two creatures watched as Jeff casually walked out of the forest after the battle.
"Ssstrong, as always. Wouldn't you ssay, Watcher?" The hissing one commented to his companion.
"If by strong, you mean naive and stupid, then yes." The other replied.
"You're no fun."
"Stalking isn't about fun, Rake." Watcher pointed out to his brother. "It's about gathering information on the subject that you're watching."
"Well, I thought watching the fight was fun." Rake said.
Watcher groaned. Rake had always been the less serious of the two, and yet, He was still Slender's favorite. Probably 'cause he was older. "Do we follow him?"
Rake nodded. They followed Jeff. They'd reveal themselves soon, but not yet. They had to think of tasteful insults and such.
Chapter14:Basically more timberwolves
Ben was sitting on a random bench with two other ponies. He would've been in the library listening to his Ipod that he always had in his pocket, but Twilight had told him that he needed fresh air. He looked over at the ponies he was sharing a bench with. One was the gray cross-eyed pony he'd seen on the first day they came here. She was chewing on a muffin wrapper while holding the muffin in her hooves. With a little more derp and a dash of stupidity, she could be just like Jeff. Ben thought. The other pony was a yellow earth pony with a curly orange mane. She was looking at the pegasus next to her with an annoyed stare.
"Derpy, you're supposed to eat the muffin." She said.
"I am. I'm getting extra crumbs off of the wrapper so I don't miss any of it." Derpy replied, her eyes derping even more.
The other pony sighed. "Honestly, Derpy. I think you like those things a little too much."
Derpy smiled wider. "You like carrots too much."
Ben watched their argument in amusement. It reminded him of his arguments with Jeff.
"Carrots are my special talent, Derpy." The other pony responded. "There's a difference."
Derpy seemed oblivious to what the pony had said. she was balancing her muffin on her tongue, and doing a surprisingly good job at it.
The other pony just sighed and looked away.
Ben would've watched longer, if it wasn't for somepony calling his name. Before he could do anything to react, He was literally tackled to the ground by Jeff, who was covered in blood and had a few splinters. "What did you do?" Ben asked.
"I won." Jeff answered. "But, that's not important, look, I need you and Eyeless' help."
Ben was almost scared to ask. "With what exactly?"
"Timberwolves, Ben. They're coming in the hundreds, maybe thousands." Jeff whispered so none of the other ponies would hear.
"They're just wolves, I think you can-"
"They are not 'just wolves'!" Jeff, for the first time in Zalgo knows how long, looked panicked and scared. "They're made of Timberwood, Ben. The only way I beat them was by punching and kicking, and defying logic a little bit."
Ben couldn't believe a word he was hearing. Timberwolves made of timber wood. His day just got way more interesting. "Alright, but I'm not sure if I can help." Ben agreed to at least come along, He had to see this.
"You still have your secret Gameboy and your iPod, right?" Jeff asked.
Ben nodded, although the answer was obvious.
"Then you'll be able to do something, now, I'm gonna go get Jack. You wait for me at the Everfree and fight off any wolves brave enough to attack before I get there." Ben nodded and ran to the forest.
Jeff wished he had paid attention to where Jack said he'd lived, but sadly, he was too broke to pay attention. For all he knew, Jack could be anywhere. Ben can't fight them off, you know. A voice in Jeff's head told him. It made him stop what he was doing and freeze in fear. "You again." He said.
Yes, I bet you thought I'd never return.
"Go away, You'll only make murdering these things harder than it has to be."
You're the one making it harder than needed, Jeffery.
"No, I'm getting help to fight them off with." Jeff tried to defend himself. It was a futile effort.
The more time you waste finding Jack, the more likely Ben will be gutted and Ponyville will be invaded by timberwolves. The voice stated. Besides, what will Jack do to help, he has the strength of an earthworm, only 2 notches above Ben
"Look, there's more strength in numbers, okay."
How do you know that? In my opinion, three weaklings straying from their nest won't be able to make a dent in that number of wolves.
"We're not weaklings." Jeff growled.
Only weaklings fight battles they can't win.
"How do you know we won't win?" Jeff asked, wishing he could stab The Voice in it's face.
Jeffery, you must understand one thing. I am a spawn of Zalgo, one of his minions, I'm never wrong.
"Never wrong, huh?" A smirk crept onto Jeff's face. "What about that one time you told me the forest would burn down if I put Ticci Toby in the hospital again?"
You are wasting time, Jeffery. Ben could be dead now, you best hurry and get what help you need before it's too late.
"Oh, right." Jeff continued running frantically for Jack.
~~~
Ben was waiting at the edge of the forest waiting for Jeff. He could hear the growls of the wolves and he could see the green orbs that were their eyes. They could attack him at any second. If I die before Jeff gets here, it's all his fault. He thought. Of course, wasn't it already all his fault? Ben looked at the wolves more closely. They didn't seem to care for him. They were waiting for some other pony, listening for something. They didn't really seem to notice Ben.
~~~
"So, How long until they mess something up and all the wolves destroy the pony town?" Watcher asked Rake rhetorically.
"I'd sssay, just wait until Jeff gets here."
"You didn't need to answer that." Watcher pointed out.
"Well, nothing is getting brutally murdered, so I'm bored." Rake answered.
"You watch people while they sleep."
"Sssleeping is more interesting than you think."
"You're crazy."
Rake rolled his eyes. "No, really. I thought Slender liked us for no reason."
"That was also rhetorical."
The conversation was interrupted by hoofsteps.
"Shh, they're coming."
~~~
Jack was hovering in the air above Jeff.
"Are you sure all the kidneys won't fit in our pockets?" Jack asked.
Jeff rolled his eyes. "I don't even know if these things have kidneys. If they do, we'll try."
"Okay." Jack landed next to Ben. "So, nice weather we're having."
"Did he find where Ponyville keeps the alcohol?" Ben asked.
"No, I just told him an interesting story about what I think I saw in a cloud." Jeff answered.
"How did you look into a cloud?" Ben asked. "You're not a pegasus."
"In, not on."
"So, what did you see?"
"Well, I'm not really sure, but it looked like a factory where they kill ponies to make rainbows."
"Are you sure you weren't drunk?" Ben was looking at Jeff with an unamused expression.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. I was sober." Jeff promised, doing the correct motions.
Okay, so he's drunk right now. Ben thought.
What did I just see? Jack thought, not surprised at all.
"Why are you guys staring at me like I just did something stupid?" Jeff asked.
"Because you did." Ben and Jack answered at the same time.
"Wait.." Jeff tried to put two and two together, and failed miserably when he saw his surroundings. "They're about to slaughter us."
"What are you-" Ben had no reason to finish his sentence. He looked around. They were completely surrounded by Timberwolves. "Are we dead?"
"You are." Jeff answered.
"So, you're gonna leave me for dead?"
"What, no. You drowned, remember?"
"No, when did that happen?" Ben said sarcastically.
"When you were 16." Jeff said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Can you stop saying things we already know and start murdering these wolves some more?"
"I would." Jeff said. "But.."
"But what? We could all be brutally gutted and murdered by wolves." Ben glared at Jeff. "What's so bad that you can't start killing them again?"
"Well, for starters." Jeff had a very serious and annoyed look on his face. "My hooves are tired, I killed the manticore already, I'm bored, I'm hungry, I'm lazy, I stepped in a puddle on the way here, I only ate 20 trays of bagels today, I haven't killed any of the same species in forever, I don't have a job." Jeff paused to catch his breath. "And I thought you two could be bait."
"First of all, 90% of those reasons had nothing to do with what's going on at all." Ben took a few steps closer to Jeff. "And if you try to make us bait we'll leave you for dead here."
"And?" Jeff tilted his head. "I'm Jeff, don't question me."
"Cry me a river, build me a bridge and get over it. " Jeff and Ben were almost nose to nose by now. "Now run mindlessly into that crowd of wolves and hope none of them actually have a brain." Ben shoved Jeff closer to the advancing Timberwolves.
"So, sacrifice myself for my friends safety?"
Ben and Jack nodded.
"Hmm..Nah." Jeff waved a hoof nonchalantly in the air. "I'd rather stay alive and have you two die."
Ben facehoofed. "All of us will die if you don't do something. "
One of the timberwolves jumped at Ben. Jeff kicked it away back into the crowd. "That's something." He said. "Happy now?"
"Can you two stop arguing for 2 minutes and actually do something productive for once?" Jack was hovering above them. "I really don't wanna watch you two die yet."
"Alright, I'll kill the timber-Wait, what do you mean 'yet'?" Jeff glared up at Jack. "Are you saying I'm gonna die?"
Jack sighed. "Even you're not immortal, Jeff."
"I am, technically." Ben said, raising a hoof.
Both ponies looked at him quizzically.
"I already died, remember?" Ben told them.
"But you could still die." Jeff said.
"Not of old age." Ben pointed out.
"Both of you stop arguing and start trying to stay alive." Jack's forearms were crossed.
"Okay, fine." Jeff turned to face the crowd of wolves. "Hey timberwolves, I'm made of meat and pixie dust!"
~~~
"And then I went up to the last one left and karate chopped it in half." Jeff concluded his story. They were walking back into town, all three covered in splinters.
Ben rolled his eyes. "We know, it happened 2 minutes ago."
"Well, I need something to talk about that has something to do with how awesome I am."
"If you two start arguing again I'll drop kidneys on your heads." Jack threatened. "That's the 5th time since we started walking."
"Sorry." They both said at the same time.
"Hey, Ben." Jeff nudged him slightly.
"What?"
"Blood is 95% water."
Ben froze dead in his tracks. The scream was heard all throughout Ponyville.
Ben, Jeff and Jack were sitting on a bench. They had decided to meet up at least once every week and talk about random stuff. At the moment they were talking about moving to a house of their own.
"Are you crazy, or just stupid?" Jeff asked Eyeless.
"What do you mean?" Eyeless responded, tilting his head slightly.
"We're poor, we can't afford our own house."
"You mean You're poor." Ben corrected.
"You guys have money?" Jeff's eye twitched for a few seconds. "How?"
"I work for the...um..'weather factory'." Jack told him.
"And I work for the library." Ben looked at Jeff questioningly. "Don't you work for Pinkie?"
Jeff facehoofed. "I forgot that you usually got paid for jobs, so I kinda never questioned the fact I was never given any money."
"You're an idiot." Ben said, unamused.
Jeff rolled his eyes. "Tell me something I don't know."
"The sun and moon here don't raise naturally, they're raised by the magic of the two princesses of Equestria. Celestia raises the sun, while her younger sister Luna raises the moon and stars."
Jack and Jeff looked at him with blank expressions.
"I live in a library." More blank stares. He was also pretty sure he saw Eyeless blink from under his mask. "I also live with a princess."
"Oh yeah." Jeff was the first one to speak. "I forgot."
"Weren't we talking about something?" Eyeless reminded them.
They looked at each other and spoke at the same time. "Oh yeah."
"Well, I found a cheap house that happened to open up ." Eyeless said, staring at Jeff.
Jeff smirked. "They were fun to kill, you're welcome by the way."
"Whatever, anyways, like I said, It's cheap 'cause no one wants to live someplace where someone was killed, so I figured we could buy it and stop living with normal ponies." Eyeless said the word normal with disgust.
"Sounds good to me, besides, the library is so boring ." Ben agreed.
"So we're all agreed." Jeff said, getting up. "Okay then, let's get this over with." Jeff started walking when he was tapped on the shoulder. He looked over to see Ben.
"Jeff, Town hall is that way." He said, pointing in the opposite direction.
Jeff turned around. "I knew that." He walked a few feet before stopping.
Ben looked over at him. "What is it now?"
"Shouldn't we bring Brvr and Sally, since they're, you know, gonna be living with us?"
Ben tapped his chin in thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Nah, we'll pick 'em up after we're done."
~~~
After about 15 minutes of walking, they made it to Town hall. They were all standing there, just staring at it. Jeff nudged Ben. "You go first."
Ben shook his head. "No, E.J should go first, he was the one who suggested we come here."
E.J pushed Jeff ahead. "No, Jeff should go first, since he's the one who picked the house."
"I did not." Jeff whined, digging his hooves into the ground. "Besides, you're the one who suggested that we move in the first place, so you should be the first one inside."
"Can one of us just go in before it closes?" Ben interrupted.
They all looked at each other. After about another minute Jeff sighed. "Fine, but you guys are paying."
"Gladly." Eyeless said, following Jeff inside.
Jeff walked over to a desk where a receptionist was sitting, organizing papers or something. He stood there for a few seconds before clearing his throat.
She turned towards him. "Hello, how may I help you?"
"We wanna buy a house." Jeff answered simply.
"Oh, well, we have one house available, but you might not want that one, a pony was killed ther-"
"We'll take it." Jeff interrupted.
"Oh, well, okay." The pony shuffled through the papers for a few seconds before pushing one towards Jeff. "Sign here, please."
Jeff shoved E.J ahead of him. "I ain't paying."
E.J sighed and grabbed the pen at the receptionist's desk and scribbled his name down.
Jeff and Ben looked at the paper before the receptionist left, probably to talk with the one in charge. Jeff started snickering.
"What?" Eyeless asked.
"Your last name is Lumberjack." Jeff laughed loudly.
"Was ." Eyeless corrected. "And it's not that funny."
Jeff didn't reply. He was laughing so hard he was literally rolling on the floor.
Ben kicked him in the stomach with his front hooves. "Get up, you look like you're mental or something."
Jeff sat up and stared at him "I am mental." He reminded him. "And also, Ow, don't be mean!" Jeff half yelled, rubbing the spot that Ben kicked.
"I know you are, but at least try to hide it in public, will ya?" Ben whispered to him. "Also, I didn't hit you that hard." He added, kicking Jeff in the wrist with his hind leg.
"Don't you two start." Eyeless growled from over his shoulder.
The receptionist came back and turned to E.J. "You've been approved to buy the house, that'll be 1,500 bits please."
Jeff groaned. "I thought you said it was cheap."
Eyeless glared back at him. "It is . It used to cost something like 20,000." He said, handing the correct amount of bits to the receptionist.
"Thank you." She handed a key to E.J. "Have a wonderful day." With that she started shuffling through the papers again.
When the three got outside Jeff gasped. "These houses have keys ?"
Jack laughed a little. "I know, I always assumed the doors weren't able to be locked."
"Every house I've been to has been unlocked." Jeff commented.
Eyeless shrugged. "Maybe it's a new policy, considering the 'recent happenings'"
"It doesn't really matter, at least we'll be safe from any competition." Ben said, smiling. "Not that anyone would be dumb enough to compete with us."
They walked for a little before Eyeless turned to Jeff. "Hey, do you think you could pick up Sally and Brvr and meet us there, It's the house made out of a hollowed out tree."
Jeff nodded and walked in the direction of Sugarcube corner.
After a few seconds of silence Ben spoke up. "Wanna talk about him behind his back?"
"Don't we already do that?" Eyeless asked.
"Well, yeah, but we haven't done it in a while."
Jack laughed a little.
Ben raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"We haven't done it in a while?" Jack laughed.
"I meant we haven't talked about him in a while! Sheesh, your almost as bad as him."
Jack chuckled a little more before responding. "Whatever, we're almost there, anyways."
Chapter 16:Don't forget to Smile
Jeff was sitting on the couch of their new house. Ben was sitting next to him, playing his Gameboy. He was playing Pokemon X, because hacking, and he was doing a pretty good job. He was about to catch the main legendary of the game, using one of his 999 masterballs of course, before Jeff starting complaining loudly.
"I'm boooored !" He dramatically flopped around for a few seconds, smacking Ben's hoof a few times.
"Will you shut up, you made me use a great ball." Ben growled at him, shoving him off the couch.
"But. I'm. So. Bored! " Jeff groaned. "Couldn't we play CoD or something?"
Ben paused his game and looked down at Jeff with an angry look on his face. "Do you know how much I would love to play Call of Duty right now?"
"A lot?" Jeff guessed.
"I would throw you into a volcano just to play for 5 minutes, of course I've always wanted to throw you into a volcano, but still, I've been playing Pokemon since we got here, it's the only game a carry with me, except for Majora's mask, which can't be played on the Gameboy-"
"Couldn't you just hack it onto there like you did with all your Pokemon games?" Jeff suggested.
"What? no! Are you sane?!" Ben looked like he was about to go full freak out mode. "I couldn't be so horrible as to ruin such an amazing game by hacking it!" Ben had the Majora's mask cartridge out of his pocket and was hugging it to his chest. "If it got damaged or anything from the hacking process I'd never be able to get a new one, then I don't know what I'd do. I might not ever play another game again after that, I'd give all my games to E.J and lock myself in my room until I rotted away to nothing."
Jeff just stared for a few seconds. "And you say I'm obsessed with bagels."
"Bagels didn't drown you, did they?!" Ben screamed, punching Jeff in the face.
"Well, no." Jeff said, sitting up, holding his bleeding nose. "But it's just a game, you could get another one."
Ben glared at Jeff with more anger than He'd ever seen in any cop, victim or other serial killer. Jeff backed up, he knew he was screwed. No one talked about Majora's mask like that around Ben without paying a price.
"Just a game?" Ben's voice sounded more insane than Jeff's when he'd asked his mother if he was beautiful. "Just a game?!" Ben pounced at Jeff, pinning him to the ground. "That's like saying Slender is just a person, or a nuke is just a weapon. It's like telling E.J that a kidney is just an organ or telling Slendy that his woods are just a forest, so in short-"
"I shouldn't have done that." Jeff finished the sentence for him.
"You've met with a terrible fate, Jeff. It didn't have to end this way." Just when Ben was about to start punching Jeff to death, the door opened.
"Hey guys, I'm home." E.J said, walking into the living room. "I got the grocer-OH ZALGO, WHAT'S GOING ON IN HERE?!" He dropped all the groceries when he saw Jeff and Ben. "So the fanfictions are true." He stated calmly.
"What, no!" Ben quickly climbed off of Jeff. "We were just fighting, I swear!"
Jeff stood up and looked at E.J. "Wait, you thought we were?..." He started laughing until he literally fell over. "Maybe in Ben's dreams!"
Ben glared at Jeff. "Shut up."
E.J stared for a few seconds. "Wait, so you weren't...Oh thank Zalgo, I was actually scared for a second there." He let out a sigh of relief.
"Don't worry, I actually have standards." Jeff stated, earning a punch in the side of the head from Ben.
"Ow, that hurt!" Jeff whined.
"I know, that's kind of the point." Ben said. "Besides, not even someone who was blind, stupid and on drugs would wanna be with you."
"Then why do I have so many fangirls?"
Ben and E.J stared at Jeff for a few seconds.
Jeff hung his head sadly. He mumbled something, but it was too quiet to hear.
"Right, that we have that out of the way, what were you saying E.J?"
"I got the groceries, but thanks to that misunderstanding a few second ago, we might need to get more." The bags that had the food in them were on the ground, their contents all over the floor. A container of cheese dip had opened and was most likely stained, bottles of wine, which had been nearly impossible to find considering the amount of alcohol in Equestria, were spilled all over the place. "You guys are cleaning this up by the way."
"What, but it's not our fault!" Jeff complained, only to receive a look from E.J. "Oh, right." Jeff laughed for a second then sighed and hung his head again.
"Hey, it's not my fault." Ben started. "Jeff insulted Majora's mask, he said it was just a game, you know I don't have any control of my actions when someone talks about my favorite game like that!"
E.J sighed. "Fine, then Jeff can clean up, but you have to buy more groceries, I can't, I have work early tomorrow. At least 20 fillies are gonna take their flight test, and I've heard 1 out of every 5 fail, so yeah, you two can sort this out." E.J flew up the stairs to his room.
After he was gone Jeff spoke. "His job is kidnapping little kids who can't fly well enough to escape and giving them to Hypno, right?"
"Sounds about right." Ben said, shrugging. Hey, wanna go to the store with me? I know you're poor, but it's seriously boring there."
Jeff shrugged. "Sure." He honestly just didn't wanna clean. They walked out the door towards to the marketplace. "Sooo...any good victims lately?" Jeff asked.
"There's no technology here." Ben stated.
Jeff laughed. "Oh yeah, you must get pretty bored around here."
"I hate you."
"Just trying to make conversation." Jeff said defensively.
"Well don't, that's not why we left."
"Didn't you ask me to come with you so you wouldn't get bored?" Jeff asked.
"Well, yeah, but I didn't expect you to be annoying."
Jeff just rolled his eyes and kept walking. He stopped when he heard something. It was howling, but it didn't sound like a timberwolf. It was similar, but not quite the same. Their house was near the forest. It was normal that they would hear animals doing stuff, but this was different somehow. Jeff looked in the direction of the forest.
Ben turned to Jeff. "Is something wrong?" He asked.
Jeff ran into the forest as fast as he could, he didn't know why, but he had to see what was making that howling noise.
~~~
Smile was walking back to the timberwolf camp. After he'd been zapped here by Fluffers he was lucky enough to find a pack of wolves willing to take him in. When he got back to camp he was shocked at what he saw. Almost all of them were dead, if they weren't dead they were gravely injured, even the manticore who had been in charge of the pack had been killed, his severed tail sitting a few feet from his body. Smile growled. What sick creature would do something like this? A dragon? No, a dragon would've burned them to death. A hydra? No, how would a hydra even get into the Everfree forest, and what reason would it have to do this? Smile hung his head, if he could've, he would've been frowning. He'd have to fend for himself now, which he was very capable of. He just hated to see the pack that he'd accepted as a family dead, and he hadn't done anything to stop it. With nothing else left to do he threw his head back and howled. He had to mourn his pack somehow, and what way was better than this? As he was howling he heard something. It was something moving around in the forest. He sniffed, it smelled like a pony. It also smelled familiar. He couldn't quite tell what it was, but it reminded him of something. He followed the scent until he found something. When he saw it he froze. No, it couldn't be.
"Smile?" Jeff called to the dog. Had Smile been the one howling? Probably, it had sounded pretty familiar. Jeff's smile widened as Smile ran towards him. Then he looked at Smile, puzzled. Smile didn't look too happy. Before Jeff could think too much he was pounced on by Smile. To his surprise, his old dog definitely didn't look happy to see him. In fact, he was snarling, glaring at Jeff, looking him strait in the eye. "Smile, w-what's wrong?" He asked, a little frightened.
"You killed them ." Smile growled at him. "You and Ben, you worked together, you made sure they suffered, you killed the parents while the children were forced to watch. You monster ." He didn't want to believe that his owner, no, his former partner could be so horrible, but the scent matched up, and his nose didn't lie.
At first Jeff was confused. Who had he killed that Smile could be so attached to? And teamed up with Ben? Why would he ever do that, unless it was a life or death situation. Then he remembered, the timberwolves. Smile was with the timberwolves? He hadn't seen him. He must've been somewhere else at the time. Jeff realized that these wolves must've been like family to Smile. He shrank back, now terrified of what the demonic dog would do to him to get revenge. "I-i didn't realize you were with them, I'm sorry, if I'd known I wouldn't have done it, but they were gonna kill me and attack Ponyville, I live there now, I couldn't just let them do that."
"So you slaughtered them?" Smile growled, now only inches away from Jeff's face. "You could've at least spared the children, what harm would they have caused?"
"Smile, I'm a creepypasta, one of my basic instincts is to kill things, if I don't I'll go even ore insane than I already am. I wasn't thinking about danger, I wasn't even thinking, I just had to kill, you have to understand, we're the same, we both worked for Slenderman, you know what it's like to just have to kill something."
Smile paused. What Jeff said was true, a creepypasta usually couldn't control what they killed, they just killed. Also, Jeff and him had been partners for years. Was he really gonna throw that away because Jeff killed something? Smile stopped growling and licked Jeff's face and jumped off of him.
After getting up Jeff stared at Smile. His dog was almost bigger than he was. "Wow, you're huge." He commented.
"That's what she said." Smile told him. They laughed and brohoofed.
"That's what I was going for." Jeff admitted.
After just staring at each other for a while Jeff looked back. "Maybe I should be getting back." He said to himself. "Ben's gonna be wondering where I am." As he started walking he stopped for a moment. "Hey Smile, you wanna come with?"
Smile just nodded and walked next to Jeff.
Man, Ben's gonna freak out when he sees how big Smile is here. Jeff thought. Not many people knew, but Ben had always been a little creeped out, even scared by Smile, and now that he was taller than they were. Jeff had to hold back laughter imagining the look on Ben's face.
After they exited the forest Jeff was nearly tackled by Ben. "Where were you?" He asked. "What were you doing, you could've gotten yourself killed." Ben froze when he saw the creature next to Jeff. "W-what is that thing?" He shrunk back a little.
"Spread the word ." Smile growled at him.
Ben made a weird 'eep' noise and backed away quickly. "Are you kidding me?!" He said as he stumbled. "Why is that thing with you?"
"Well, 'this thing' is my pet that I've had for 5 years, I couldn't really just leave him alone in the woods after slaughtering his pack, now could I?"
"But why is he so big?" Ben asked.
Jeff chuckled a bit before explaining. "Well, he is part wolf, and ponies can't be that tall."
"Even the timberwolves weren't that big!"
"Well, they were made of wood, they might not have gotten enough sunlight or something."
"He's almost as big as the manticore you killed!"
Jeff internally facehoofed. "And need I remind you that he's a demon dog given powers of speech by Zalgo himself? It makes sense that he'd be huge." Jeff giggled a bit again.
Ben raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
Jeff held back laughter. "Well, it's just that you're on your hands, or hooves and knees and you saying that Smile is huge."
Ben gave Jeff an unamused look and stood up. "And you wonder why I hate you."
"Nah, not really. I'm an immature brat who almost sent you and E.J to your deaths multiple times, I insulted your favorite video game, never doing that again, so it's not hard to see why you hate me so much."
Ben just blinked at Jeff's explanation. "Um, yeah, that's about right actually." He wasn't gonna say it out loud, but Jeff was a lot smarter than he looked. "We should be getting back to shopping."
Jeff nodded in agreement. "Hey Smile, you wait at the house, you'll know which one it is by the smell."
Smile nodded and walked away.
Jeff smiled and turned back to Ben. "Let's get started, we have a lot of stuff to replace."
Chapter 17:Random shopping havoc
Jack was resting on his bed munching on a kidney that Rainbow Dash had given him for his good work at the factory, when he heard the door open. "Are those two idiots back already?" He asked himself. After a few seconds of listening he realized that it couldn't have been Jeff and Ben, he couldn't hear arguing or fighting or anything being broken. If it wasn't them, then who was it? Jack stood up, thinking it was probably a burglar. He grabbed his scalpel from the nightstand and silently crept down the stairs.
~~~
Smile kicked the door of the house open, not even locked. And Jeff complains about victims not locking their doors . He thought. He walked into the living room, before he could sit down on the couch he was tackled to the ground. He shook is head and looked up to see an angry E.J.
E.J didn't recognize the demonic dog at first, having only seen him once or twice before. He glared down at him. "What are you doing in our house?" He asked the creature, thinking that it couldn't understand him.
"I'm assuming this isn't the wrong house considering you're here." Smile said.
E.J blinked. This thing could talk? What kind of wolf was this? "What do you mean 'isn't the wrong house'?" E.J asked. "Were you sent by someone?"
"Yeah, Jeff. He told me this is where you guys live."
E.J was confused at first. Why would Jeff want to assassinate them? Then he realized. "Oh, hey Smile, I didn't recognize you." He said, climbing off of the dog.
"Clearly." Smile commented, standing up. "You're really not as bright as you pride yourself on being."
E.J glared at the dog. "What's that supposed to mean?" He asked.
Smile rolled his eyes. "Really, do you know any other demonic dogs who haunt people's dreams?"
"Don't roll your eyes at me." E.J said, annoyed.
"Don't be jealous of the basic 5 senses, E.J"
E.J sighed. "You're almost as bad as Jeff."
Smile laughed a little and hopped onto the couch. "Whatever you say." After sitting for a few seconds he wrinkled his nose. "This couch smells horrible."
"Well, that's Jeff's spot you're sitting in." E.J explained.
"He hasn't been using Ben's computer, has he?" Smile asked in an almost genuinely concerned voice.
E.J shook his head. "Fluffers didn't send the computers through with us."
Smile let out a huge sigh of relief. "Oh thank zalgo, this couch could've been much more disgusting."
"Don't have too much hope Smile, Jeff is still Jeff." E.J reminded the dog.
Smile moved to another part of the couch, just in case.
~~~
Meanwhile at the marketplace Jeff was 'haggling' with the tomato salespony.
"I say we get them for free!" He yelled, his face only inches from the other pony's.
The mare didn't seem intimidated. "And I say tomatoes are 2 bits." She replied in an annoyed voice.
"That's too much, I want em for free!" Jeff looked like he was about to climb over the counter of the stand and beat the pony for the tomatoes. He probably would've, if it weren't for Ben dragging him away from his hood.
"You're an idiot." Ben said, paying the 8 bits for their tomatoes. "I mean, it's actually pretty cheap for tomatoes in the fall."
Jeff tried to respond, but could only make choking noises.
Ben laughed at this. "You deserve that, you know." He was holding Jeff in the air with his magic by the hood of his sweatshirt.
Jeff started to thrash around wildly. "Let go, let go!" He managed to say.
Ben just stared, his expression turning cold.
Jeff's struggles started to grow weaker, until he was hardly moving. Only then did Ben drop him. At first he looked like he could've been dead, if it weren't for his heavy breathing.
The salespony just watched in shock. Sure, Jeff was annoying, but that was a bit much. At first she'd actually thought that Ben had choked him to death.
After what seemed like forever Jeff was able to stand. His legs were shaky and it was kind of hard to walk, but he still turned to face Ben. "What wa-" He was interrupted by a coughing fit. His legs gave out and he was just laying there coughing.
Ben made no attempt to help, in fact, he laughed at this.
After he was done coughing Jeff tried to get up again, but he didn't have enough strength. He just laid there and tried to catch his breath.
Ben rolled his eyes and sighed with annoyance. He walked over and kicked Jeff in the stomach. "Get up."
Jeff shielded his stomach with his back hooves and covered his face with his front. He was confused and quite terrified, of course he wasn't going to admit that he was. He wasn't sure of what he was supposed to do. He couldn't fight back against Ben, Ben had magic. If he tried to fight back he was sure that he'd get strangled again. He was also pretty sure that if he didn't do anything Ben would start kicking him.
Ben, to his surprise, didn't do anything. He just looked down at Jeff's trembling form with a smile on his face. He could've done more, but this was enough for now he'd decided. The rest could be done somewhere not so public. He waited patently as Jeff regained his strength and stood up.
The first thing Jeff did when he had enough strength to move again was, of course, yell at Ben. "What was that for?!"
Ben laughed a little. "You didn't really think I invited you out here with me so we could talk to each other, did you?"
Jeff stepped closer to Ben. "You could've killed me!"
Ben shrugged. "Meh, it's just a life."
Jeff's eye twitched. Seriously? Just a life? I thought we were friends. His ears flattened to his head and he looked to the ground. D-does he really see me as nothing more than just another pointless soul? Does he hate me that much?
Ben placed a hoof on his shoulder. "Hey, don't take it too personally." He told him. He was talking quietly enough for no one else to hear. "You know how much I hate when people insult Majora's Mask."
Jeff's eye twitched again. He finally realized what Ben had meant by 'just a life'. It was like when Jeff had called Majora's Mask 'just a game'. To Ben, and everyone's surprise, Jeff started laughing.
Ben raised an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
"Y-you got me good." Jeff responded between laughs. "Oh, and, what's funny...You're covered in bleach and alcohol." Jeff said this in a very serious voice, though after saying it Jeff literally fell over laughing.
This confused Ben even more. Bleach and alcohol, what's he talking about? He thought.
Jeff stopped laughing and stood up, looking Ben in the eye. Jeff was using one hoof to cradle the side of Ben's face. "Aw, don't look so confused." He said, tapping the corner of his carved smile with the other hoof.
He's pointing at his face. Is he trying to say something? Ben had been told Jeff's backstory many times, he had a feeling this had something to do with that. If only he'd listened to anything Jeff said.
Jeff got closer until their noses were touching. "Shhh, don't worry." He said, stroking the side of Ben's face now.
Ben panicked at this point. What was Jeff doing? He shut his eyes and flared up his horn, he wasn't even sure of what he was doing, but he just wanted to get Jeff away before he did anything else. When he opened his eyes he saw Jeff lying a few feet away. He didn't look like he was moving. Ben cautiously walked closer. "Jeff, are you okay?" No response. D-did I just kill Jeff? He thought. Sure he'd wanted to hurt him, but he wanted him to be alive in the end. "Jeff?" He poked Jeff's shoulder. Nothing. He felt himself tearing up No, he did not just kill Jeff. He had to be alive. He shook Jeff's body. No response. He hung his head. I did. I killed my best friend. Ben felt himself start to cry.
To Ben's surprise, again, Jeff started laughing.
Ben looked up. "Jeff?"
Jeff laughed harder, until he couldn't breath. "I got you!" He shouted, standing up. Immediately after he stood though, he was tackled to the ground by Ben.
Ben wrapped his arms around Jeff. "You're alive." He said, holding back tears of happiness.
"So, You really thought I was dead?" Jeff asked.
"Don't ever do that again." Ben told him. "You scared me half to death."
"Just a life, huh?" Jeff said with a smirk.
"S-shut up." Ben wrapped his arms tighter around Jeff. Did I really say that about Jeff? He asked himself. Yes, he did. Over a video game too. He felt horrible. Especially since he'd actually kind of meant it when he said it. "Jeff, I-i'm sorry."
"Nah, Don't be. I kinda deserved it."
"No you didn't." Ben growled. "All you did was talk about a video game. Even creepypastas don't kill their friends over video games."
"Well, didn't you die in that video game?" Jeff whispered. "I can see why you'd like it so much if you literally died in the thing."
"I-i know, but you're my best friend." Ben reminded him. "I don't think any video game is worth more than your life."
This made Jeff smile. "That's all I needed to hear." He said, returning Ben's hug.
The shopkeeper who had witnessed all this wasn't sure of what to do or think.
"Maybe we should actually buy stuff." Jeff suggested.
"That sounds like a plan, we probably look like crazy weirdo's." Ben climbed off of Jeff and levitated the bag that he'd dropped onto his back.
"Trust me, we already did." Jeff said with a smirk. "This is just the icing on the bagel."
"Don't you mean cake?" Ben asked.
"Why would I talk about cake?" Jeff gave him a puzzled look.
"No it's an expression." Ben tried to explain.
"A what?" Jeff tilted his head.
Ben sighed. "It's what someone says- you know what, forget it, I don't have time for this." He rubbed in between his eyes with a hoof.
"Let's just get this shopping over with so we can go home and get on with our lives." Jeff suggested.
"That sounds like a great idea." Ben agreed as the two started walking. "Maybe we could see if there's a mask salesman here."
"Don't you even start, Ben." Jeff said with an unamused look on his face.
"You know I'm kidding."
"If you find a mask salesman who is happy I will personally buy all the masks for you." Jeff offered.
"I thought you were poor."
"I am, but there's something I can give ponies that's even better than money."
After Jeff said that Ben stopped walking. He had a bewildered look on his face.
Jeff looked at him, confused. "What, is it something I said?"
Ben tried to form a sentence, but couldn't. He just said random gibberish with the occasional word mixed in.
"What? What did I say?" Jeff asked. He got no response. Ben now had an almost haunted, terrified look on his face. Jeff poked his hat. No response. "I think I just broke him." He said to himself. He tapped Ben's horn. He was sure if Ben didn't respond to that, he wouldn't respond to anything.
Ben shook his head. "I-I...You..What?" It was the closest thing to a coherent sentence he could form.
"Ben, you just said words but they didn't mean anything." Jeff pointed out.
"You're barely 18." Ben said in a scared voice.
It took until then for Jeff to realize how Ben had interpreted his words. He just shrugged. "Gotta get through college any way I know how."
"Y-you haven't gone to school in 5 years Jeff." Ben looked Jeff in the eye. "Jeff, is there something you need to tell me?" He asked in a serious voice.
Jeff could barely keep his composure after that. He started to chuckle a bit. "Yeah, just one thing."
"And that is?"
"You fell for it again!" Jeff fell over laughing again.
Ben started laughing too at this point. He always fell for stuff like this, but it was only because it just seemed so likely with Jeff. They laughed for a few more seconds then brohoofed. "You got me good that time."
"It's what I do, Ben." He stated. "It's what I do."
Chapter 18:Electronics at last
"So, you guys actually replaced everything you made me drop?" E.J asked. He, Jeff, Ben and Smile were sitting in the living room.
"Yep." Jeff answered, holding a tomato close to his face.
"Even the wine?"
Jeff nodded, closely examining the tomato in his hooves as if it were the last left on earth, or in Equestria in this case.
"What are you doing?" Ben asked.
"A tomato." Jeff answered absentmindedly. He lifted the tomato to his face and sniffed it. "I forgot how awesome these things were."
It took a few seconds for the other three to process Jeff's answer. "You're doing...a tomato?" Ben asked.
"Yeah, sure, why not?" Jeff waved a hoof dismissively. "Is there something wrong with that?" He looked up from the vegetable at Ben.
"Well, I guess not." Ben answered, confused. He knew he shouldn't think too deep into how Jeff's mind worked, but he'd just been told that Jeff was doing a tomato, that was actually pretty concerning. "Jeff, we eat those."
Jeff shrugged. "We can still eat em, what's the big deal?"
Ben's eye twitched. "I don't think-" He stopped when he felt a hoof on his shoulder. It was E.J.
"Let it go, we could just throw it at someone and say we ate it." He whispered to Ben.
Ben had to hold in laughter at the thought. He honestly felt kinda sorry for the poor pony who'd get hit with the tomato though.
"Hey Ben." Jeff said.
"Yeah?" Ben answered, worried about what Jeff wanted.
"Go to tomato!" Jeff threw the tomato in his hooves at Ben.
Ben barely caught it with his magic before it hit him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Hey, at least it wasn't a bucket of water this time." Jeff pointed out.
"While true, zalgo only knows what's in this thing."
Jeff gave Ben a weird look. "Ben, it's just a tomato." He told him. "Let it go."
"But you said..." Ben trailed off, just staring at the tomato, not sure what to think. While he was zoned out something about the tomato made him remember something. That something made him throw the tomato back at Jeff and get a huge smile on his face, one that could even rival Jeff's.
Jeff caught the tomato and tucked it in his hoodie pocket. "What's up with you?" He asked. "Did that high from earlier come back?"
Ben didn't answer, he just laughed a bit. "Jeff, you're a genius."
"No, I'm a potato." Jeff answered.
Ben didn't even care about the fact that everything Jeff said still made no sense. He grabbed Jeff by his face and hugged him. "I think you just made Equestria the best dimension in all the infinite universes." He said warmly.
"I did?" Jeff asked, confused.
Ben let go of Jeff, making him fall onto the floor face first. "I owe you one, remind me later, I'll be back." With that Ben left the house.
Jeff sat up, rubbing his forehead. "What..just happened?" He asked.
E.J shrugged. "Maybe you broke him, I heard he was allergic to tomatoes."
"Allergies don't do that E.J, he's beyond lost." Jeff looked out the still open door. "Still, I wonder exactly what I did this time, you know, except for assaulting him with a tomato."
"Whatever you did, he's acting really weird." E.J pointed out.
"No, you don't say." Jeff said sarcastically.
"Follow him?" E.J suggested.
Jeff shrugged. "Sure, why not."
~~~
Ben laughed internally as he finally found what he was looking for. He watched from afar as a small brown colt put a bit into a big red arcade machine. It was beautiful. The machine looked brand new, it was actually sparkling in the sunlight. Ben slowly walked closer until he was directly behind the colt. Upon inspection the game itself wasn't that great. It was some fire fighting game where you were a unicorn and had to put out house fires, but hey. It was the first piece of technology Ben had seen since they'd gotten here. Ben closed his eyes and focused, green light going into the machine from Ben until there was nothing left where he had been standing. He was inside the game now. Zalgo hope that poor colt stopped playing before it was too late.
The colt, Button Mash, gritted his teeth at a particularly hard level. He was shooting water at a burning apartment complex. He mashed the button to shoot water as hard and fast as he could, but he was still losing. He tried different angles and tried the level multiple times, failing each time. Just when he was about to give up the fire went out. It wasn't put out by water, he hadn't even been shooting water at the building. It just suddenly stopped burning. Button shrugged it off as a glitch, the game was fairly new, so it would make sense that it had a few bugs here and there. Button proceeded playing, despite a feeling telling him to stop. He was actually one of the first ponies to play it, he'd also spent good money to play this game, and he wasn't gonna let one tough level and a glitch make him give up.
~~~
E.J and Jeff stood outside their house, trying to decide which direction Ben had went.
"I think he went that way." E.J pointed towards the town square.
"E.J, you saw Ben, he looked so happy he was about to have a heart attack." Jeff stated matter of factly. "Nothing that exiting goes on in town square." He turned in the direction of the abandoned part of town where they used to meet up before they met up. "I think someone's probably building something awesome over here." Jeff reasoned. Honestly, he was hoping to find an abandoned building to explore for an Abandoned by Disney kind of adventure. Jeff chuckled as he remembered the scene with the photo negative Mickey Mouse. "Hey, wanna see my head come off?" He whispered.
"Jeff, if anything was being built over there the whole town would know about it by now." E.J pointed out. "This is a small town, news travels fast."
Jeff tapped his chin in thought. After a few seconds he looked at E.J. "We'll go your way if you fly me on your back." He reasoned.
"I'm not doing that." E.J responded in an unamused voice.
Jeff dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hooves so only his eyes were showing. He dilated his pupils and flattened his ears to his head. "Pwease?" He said pathetically.
"Are you 5?" E.J asked rhetorically.
"No. I'm four years owd." Jeff responded. "Please, I'll be good."
"I don't have time for this." E.J sighed.
"I won't talk at all, and I'll never mention it again." Jeff had tears in his eyes.
"Jeff, you know that only works with Slender and Ben."
"Please." Jeff continued begging.
"Jeff, I'm not even sure if I could lift you off the ground."
Jeff flinched back with a hurt expression on his face. "A-are you saying I'm fat?" He sniffed and wiped his eyes. "How could you say something like that?"
E.J sighed again. "Jeff, I'm not saying that you're-" He was interrupted by Jeff.
"Yes you are!" Jeff pointed a hoof accusingly at Jack. "I thought we were friends, E.J!"
If Jack had eyes, he would've rolled them about 100 times by now. "Jeff, I didn't mean to say that you're fat." He said in the most empathetic voice he could muster.
"So you did say it!" Jeff sat on his haunches and sniffled again. "What else do you think about me that you don't tell me?"
Jack internally sighed and facehoofed. He didn't have time for any of this. Ben could be fighting a real life dragon or something for all they knew and Jeff was sitting there crying because he'd misinterpreted E.J's words and thought he'd been called fat. Only in the creepypasta household. E.J placed a hoof on Jeff's shoulder. "Jeff, calm down. I don't think that you're fat." Though I do think you should lay off the bagels every once in a while. He added silently.
"Y-you don't?" Jeff asked, wiping his eyes.
"No, I'm just saying that I still have the strength of a normal pegasus, and I don't think A normal pegasus has enough strength to carry himself and another pony with him." Jeff still didn't look convinced. E.J really hoped he didn't have to call Jeff pretty or something like that, this day was weird enough already. E.J, against all better judgement, wrapped his hooves around Jeff in a hug. "I'll try to fly you on my back, okay?"
Jeff just nodded, still looking at the ground.
E.J wasn't sure of what to do. If only Ben was here, he knew how to cheer Jeff up.
"What is going on out here?" They heard the voice of Smile dog. E.J stopped hugging Jeff and turned to the doorway to see Smile staring at them. "Seriously, what happened?" Smile asked, genuine concern in his voice. "One second you're talking about how to find Ben, the next Jeff is having a mental breakdown."
"He called me fat." Jeff said in a quiet voice.
"I didn't mean to!" E.J tried to defend himself.
"Jack, how do you accidentally call someone fat?" Smile asked. "Also, you could stand to eat a few less kidneys yourself."
E.J glared at Smile. "You're just agreeing with him cause he's your owner." He pointed out.
Smile licked Jeff's cheek comfortingly. "Whatever you say E.J, I still think it's a little extreme to randomly call Jeff fat."
"But I didn't mean to!" E.J tried to defend himself. "I didn't even say he was fat, I said that I didn't think I could fly with him on my back."
Smile walked closer to E.J until his muzzle was right by the pegasus pony's ear. "I know you didn't do anything wrong, but I wanna stay on Jeff's good side." He whispered into Jack's ear. "Just play along, in the end he'll feel better about himself and we'll all be happier."
E.J nodded and turned to Jeff. "Jeff, I'm sorry."
Jeff's ears perked up slightly to signal that he was listening.
"I don't think you fat, heck, with all the running you do when you kill people, or ponies, you're probably more fit than I ever was." Jack placed a hoof on Jeff's shoulder. The truth was, Jack didn't believe any of this. Jeff ate about 20 bagels every few days, and that was when he was eating less than normal. E.J only ate kidneys. He also only ate one or two every few days, and he did at least half the running Jeff did. Plus, he worked at the weather factory, so he had to fly around around a lot, which meant his wings and back were also getting stronger. But, he did think Jeff was definitely strong, physically and emotionally, most of the time, So it wasn't a complete lie. Plus, he was willing to say anything at this point. He, along with pretty much everyone else, hated being around Jeff when he was sad. It was actually kinda depressing sometimes.
Jeff looked up a little. "You really mean it?"
E.J nodded. "Of course."
Jeff smiled and stood up. "Okay, weren't we doing a Ben hunt or something?"
E.J smiled too, under his mask. "Yeah, we were gonna go this way." He turned in the direction of town square and spread open his wings.
Jeff hesitated at first. "You really want me to ride on your back?"
E.J nodded. It would be good exercise, plus, he'd carried at least 5 fillies and colts before with just his hooves all the way to the factory. He imagined it would be pretty easy to carry one Jeff on his back for a few yards to town square.
Jeff's smile widened as he climbed onto Jack's back. Not very many people knew, actually he was pretty sure he'd never told anyone before, but he'd always wanted to fly, so you can imagine how jealous he'd been when he'd seen E.J with wings. Ironically, he was also scared of heights.
"Ready?" Jack asked.
Jeff nodded.
Better be. Jack thought before flapping his wings and starting to fly.
~~~
"Stupid game." Button muttered. He was stuck on what he thought was another glitched level. He had to put out a burning cottage, but the fire wasn't normal. It was a bright green color and was nearly impossible to extinguish, even for an experienced gamer like Button. Button sighed and pressed the 'retry' button. The level started up again and, to his disappointment, the level was even worse than before. The fire was now bigger, almost touching his character. It was also a dark green with black in the middle. Button rolled his eyes at the strange coloring glitch and mashed the button than made his character fire water. The water didn't help anything, in fact it made the fire stronger. Within seconds of restarting Button was dead again, but instead of the normal 'game over, try again' screen, he was greeted with something that scared him.
Game over, you've met with a terrible fate, Button.
Button stared at the screen. He hadn't put his name into the machine, and 'you've met with a terrible fate'. What was that supposed to even mean? Button felt that the smartest option was to walk away from the game. Just as he was about to more text popped up on the screen.
Finish the game, Button. You know you want to.
Button stared, mouth agape at the screen. What was wrong with this game? How did it know his name? Why was it telling him to play it more? Maybe he should?..Button shook his head. No. He couldn't. It didn't seem smart. As he was walking away he heard something behind him. It was a hoarse whisper.
"You shouldn't have done that , Button."
Button stopped. Did it come from the game? He turned back to check. The screen of the machine had turned a dark red, the letters of the sentence he'd heard were written in green. They looked like they were made of fire, not the pixelated fire from the game, it actually looked like real fire, if real fire was green. The graphics were too good for a pixelated arcade game. Button backed away from the game, starting to get scared again.
"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? " The screen flashed as green fire spat from it at Button. Button, sure he was making the smart choice, ran away towards his house. He had video games at his house, he could just play one of those.
Ben knew this. He had a feeling tonight would be very fun as he climbed out of the machine. He laughed as he watched Button run. If only the poor colt knew what he was in for. Ben looked around, making sure nopony had seen him. Luckily, the coast was clear. He sighed and started walking home. Today had probably been the most fun he'd had since he'd gotten here, and it wasn't over yet.
~~~
"Ah! Slow down!" Jeff clung to E.J, trembling.
"I'm not even going 2 miles per hour." Jack pointed out.
"I know, but we're so eep! High." Jeff tried not no look down, and failed miserably.
"I'm not even 5 feet high." Jack said, unamused.
Jeff shook his head and looked up. "Exactly, that's the problem." All the fear that had been in his voice before was gone now. "You need to go higher, and faster, this isn't even as fast as a kiddie roller coaster."
"You promise not to get scared?" E.J asked.
"Pfft, scared, me?" Jeff laughed. "That's ridiculous."
"Whatever you say." E.J flew higher and started going faster. Just as he'd thought, as soon as he'd started going 5mph and got more than 7 feet off the ground Jeff got scared again.
"Jack, not so high." He squeaked.
"For zalgo's sake, do you want me to be safe or do you want me to go fast?" Jack asked, annoyed.
"Um, c-couldn't you do both?"
"Pick one or I drop you."
"Fast, no! Safe! No, I don't know!" Jeff wrapped his hooves around Jack's chest, not wanting to be dropped to the ground.
"Well, I'll decide for you." Jack said, accelerating again.
Jeff 'eeped' again but didn't protest.
Finally. Jack thought. Maybe now we're getting somewhere.
"Mmm, you're really warm." Jeff said, wrapping his arms around E.J tighter.
It took almost all of Jack's willpower not to stop and throw Jeff off of him."What?" He asked.
"I didn't say anything." Jeff said faster than normal. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Jack sighed and decided to ignore it. Jeff had said weirder things after all. "Whatever, just stay quiet, okay?"
Jeff just nodded and surprisingly didn't say anything else.
Jack actually started to get worried when Jeff stayed completely silent for 10 minutes. "Jeff?"
"Yeah?" Jeff answered. "What's up?"
Jack sighed again. He better not say what I think he's gonna say...
"Oh, wait, Us, we're up!" Jeff started laughing for a few seconds.
Jack just hung his head in response to the bad joke.
"Aw, c'mon, lighten up E.J, we're in the sky!" Jeff said. After saying this his pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. We're in the sky, at least 15 or 20 feet above the ground. Going at least 15 miles per hour... He clung to E.J again, but didn't make any requests, not wanting to annoy the pegasus anymore than he already had that day.
After a few more minutes they landed int town square. They'd actually been ready to land for a while, E.J just thought it was funny to scare Jeff by randomly doing small aerial tricks. "Okay, we're here." He announced. "Now please get off of me."
"I'm not crazy." Jeff said before plopping onto the ground.
E.J didn't question it. Jeff could think whatever he wanted about his mental state. E.J decided that now was also a good time to start looking for Ben. He started walking away.
Jeff stood up and smiled wide, wider than normal, if that was physically possible. "That was awesome." He said, keeping up with Jack. "We should do that more often."
"Only if you promise to not get as scared next time." Jack responded.
Jeff flattened his ears. "It's not my faault that if I fall I'll die a horrible death."
"Yes, if you fall you will meet a very...terrible fate, won't you?" Jeff heard a familiar voice behind him.
He turned around to see Ben walking towards him.
"How long have you been watching us?" Jeff asked.
"Since Jack started flying in circles above town square." Ben responded. "Yeah, you looked like you quite enjoyed that, Jeff." Ben said mockingly, with a smirk on his face.
"S-shut up." Jeff said, hiding his face behind his mane.
He did seem pretty clingy. Jack thought. Of course that might've been the 'if he falls he dies' thing going through his head. E.J hoped it was that. Although, in all honesty, he didn't care. Jeff would be Jeff no matter what anyone said or did. "Shouldn't we be getting home?" He asked before Jeff and Ben could get in a fight.
Jeff nodded.
"Yeah, I guess so, but I think you should know that I'm going out tonight." Ben told them.
A familiar smirk appeared on Jeff's face. "Finally found someone willing to overlook your many, many flaws?"
Ben glared at him. "You're one to talk about flaws, being as ugly as you are."
Jeff took a step closer to Ben. "I'm more beautiful than you are smart."
Ben rolled his eyes. "Maybe in your dreams." He remarked. "I'm not really sure how you can call your brain potato situation
'smart'."
Jeff chuckled a bit. Before they knew it both Jeff and Ben were on the ground laughing. "Brain potato, seriously?" Jeff asked.
"Well, it's accurate, isn't it?" Ben pointed out.
Jeff nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."
Jeff and Ben brohoofed and stood back up. "That was pretty good." Jeff complimented.
Ben shook his head. "It was nothing, I'm sure you could've thought of something better if you wanted."
E.J watched in confusion. Were they really getting along? Wait, did they?... E.J shook his head before he could finish the thought. Those were fangirl thoughts and E.J certainly wasn't a fangirl.
"We should be getting home." Jeff said, walking up to E.J.
"You're kidding, right?" He asked.
"Halfway home then I walk?" Jeff reasoned.
Jack sighed. "Fine, halfway."
"Yay!" Jeff cheered, practically jumping onto E.J's back.
Ben smiled and shook his head. Then he realized something. "How am I supposed to get home?" He asked "It's not fair if Jeff flies and I have to walk."
"You're a unicorn." Jack pointed out. "Teleport." Then he started flying away.
Ben, sadly didn't know any telepotation spells, so he just followed Jeff and E.J by walking.
It was the middle of the night. E.J was sleeping. Jeff was sitting on the couch with a laptop he stole from Ben. He was on Google images. It's been a while. He thought. Too long. The usual fear of getting caught rose in Jeff's chest, but he ignored it as he placed his hooves on the keyboard. Jeff the killer and Ben drowned.
"I killed a kid." Ben informed Jeff as he walked into the house.
Jeff screamed and pressed the 'X' on the window as fast as he could. When it closed he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Is that my laptop?" Ben asked.
"No." Jeff answered, looking away from him. "Maybe."
"Where did you get that?"
"Well..before we were sent here I stuffed it in my hoodie pocket, I just now remembered it was here."
"What are you doing on it?" Ben questioned.
Jeff searched his head for excuses. "Um...I was gonna play...Minecraft." He lied.
"Can I watch?" Ben asked.
"You can have it." Jeff answered, pushing the laptop away. "I'm not really in the mood to play anymore."
"Thanks." Ben said, taking Jeff's seat.
Jeff walked up to his room and sighed. "Stupid Ben." He muttered. "Ruining my plans for the night." He lied down on his bed. At least he didn't come in about 2 minutes later. Jeff thought. That would've been really hard to explain. Jeff sighed again and put his sleeping mask on his face. Luckily, nobody could stop him from dreaming.
~~~
Ben knew Jeff had been on Google Images, Jeff never played Minecraft, not because he didn't like the game, but because he was so bad at it, he refused to even watch someone play Minecraft unless it was Sky. Wonder what he was looking at. Ben thought. He considered checking the internet history, but decided not to. He probably didn't wanna know. Ben shrugged and set the laptop on the coffee table in front of the couch. I'll have to find a better hiding place for that sometime.
~~~
The next morning was normal. Ben was playing Minecraft during breakfast. He was glad there was something to play other than Pokemon and Animal crossing.
Jeff was playing on Ben's gameboy. He was holding a tomato while playing.
Ben looked over to him. "Why are you so obsessed with that tomato?" He asked.
Jeff didn't respond but mumbled something about poison.
Ben rolled his eyes and continued building his giant shiny Charizard. "I need more black wool." He muttered to himself.
After a few more seconds Jeff set the game down and tried to do a backflip out of his chair. He ended up smashing his face on the floor. "...Ow.."
Ben literally fell onto the floor laughing.
"S-shut up." Jeff said rubbing his face. "It's not funny."
"You're right." Ben agreed, getting up. "It's not funny."
"Thank you."
"It's hilarious !" Ben fell back onto the floor.
"Shut up!" Jeff shouted. "I almost broke my neck!"
"Almost isn't enough." Ben said.
"Shut up Mister 'just a life'."
Ben glared at Jeff but didn't say anything.
"Will you two shut up?" Smile growled. "You're worse than the squeakers on Call of Duty."
"You play CoD?" Jeff asked.
"No, but I've watched you two play." Smile responded.
"I'm pretty good, huh?" Jeff asked.
"You're worse at CoD than you are at having a social life." Ben told him.
Jeff rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He sat down and stared at the tomato in his hooves. "Hey, can one of you guys hand me a potato?"
"Depends, what are you gonna do with it?" Ben asked.
"Something funny." Jeff replied.
Ben threw a potato at Jeff, who caught it in one hoof.
"I'm gonna do a magic trick." Jeff raised the two vegetables up and smashed them together, getting tomato juice everywhere. "Now, stay in the kitchen and clean this up."
"Isn't that what girls are for?" Ben asked.
Jeff and Ben brohoofed and laughed.
"Yeah, but if you haven't noticed, no girls in the house." Jeff pointed out.
"Doesn't Sally live here?" E.J asked.
Jeff nodded. "Her friends had a sleepover or something."
"Isn't one of her friends a pegasus?" Jack asked.
"I think so." Jeff answered.
Jack smiled under his mask. "Hope she can pass the flight test." He laughed a little.
After a few seconds Ben and Jeff went back to their video games. Jeff sat right next to Ben, so close it was disturbing.
Ben gave him an annoyed look. "What do you want?"
"Ben, have you seen the movie Frozen?" Jeff asked.
"Two years before release, why?"
"Let it go!" Jeff screamed, snatching Ben's copy of Majora's Mask and throwing his glass of water at him.
Ben screamed and fell out of his chair in a panic. He flopped around on floor, looking like he was having a seizure or something.
Jeff laughed and fell onto the ground, clutching the game to his chest.
E.J stared as if nothing was happening. Why do I put up with these two? He wondered.
Ben got up while Jeff was still on the floor trembling and twitching with laughter. He walked up and kicked him in the stomach.
Jeff went silent and turned away.
"Give it back." Ben growled, his eyes starting to turn black and red.
"Let ti go." Jeff responded. "Go to sleep."
Ben kicked Jeff in the back.
Jeff stood up and still held the game away from Ben.
Ben slapped Jeff across the face multiple times.
Jeff dropped the game and sat down, stunned.
Ben picked up the game and put it back in his pocket.
Jeff's eye twitched. "Y-you h-hit me."
"And I'll do it again if you try anything."
Jeff's smile widened. "Okay." He started rubbing one side of his smile.
"Stop thinking what you're thinking." Ben said, facehoofing.
Jeff sighed in annoyance, putting his hoof back on the ground. "You're no fun." He complained.
Ben ignored him and went back to his game.
"Maybe we could get him neutered." Smile suggested.
Ben, Brvr and Jack started laughing.
"Sounds good to me." Ben agreed.
Jeff glared at them but stayed silent.
"Aw, relax." Ben said, placing a hoof on Jeff's back. "You'll be unconscious when it happens."
"You guys are mean." Jeff mumbled.
"You threw a glass of water at me." Ben reminded him. "You deserve this."
Jeff stayed quiet and stared at the floor.
Ben shrugged and went back to playing Minecraft.
Jeff looked away from them at the door, which was unlocked. I could leave and they wouldn't even notice. He thought. He knew he shouldn't sneak out, they had a rule where they had to let each other know where they were going, but Jeff hadn't been outside in a while and he figured he could use some fresh air on his eyes, not only that, but they trusted Sally and Brvr to be outside more than him. He quietly walked towards the door, looking back to find them all distracted, then he walked out. He walked a little ways into town then sat down to think.
I wonder what there is to do out here. Jeff wanted to go to the Everfree forest, but he would already be in trouble for sneaking out and putting himself in danger would only make it worse. Maybe I'll wait by a lake for Ben to find me then push him in. Jeff smiled at the thought, but decided against it. As funny as it would be, he didn't exactly feel like making Ben his mortal enemy. He also didn't have work that day, so going there would be pointless. Didn't Ben say something about killing a kid last night? Jeff wondered. That might give him something to do, but was the kid's family still alive? Did the kid even have a family? Jeff sighed in annoyance. Why don't I ever pay attention to anything he ever says? Jeff just sat there thinking for a while.
After about a minute his gaze traveled up to a random cloud. I wish I could fly. He thought. He'd always thought it would be awesome to be able to fly. Ironically, he was also afraid of heights, but if he had wings he wouldn't have to worry about heights because he'd know how to fly. He kicked a rock with one of his hind legs, suddenly angry. Instead of breaking, like he expected it to, it flew away. Jeff flinched back as he saw it hit a pony right in the back of the head, a white pony with brown hair to be specific. Jeff also noticed the ponies orange goggles and mouth guard. He immediately felt terrified. If this was who it looked like, He would be dead if he was caught.
The pony turned and started walking towards him. Jeff tried to back away, but was soon stopped by an apple cart. He considered running, but with all the ponies and shops around he wouldn't get far without running into something. He sighed and hung his head, accepting his fate. He heard the pony walking closer, until he could see his hooves. To his surprise, he wasn't being murdered. He risked a glance forward, finding that the pony was exactly who he'd thought it was. They just stared at each other for a few seconds, each waiting for the other to speak. Eventually, Jeff decided he would have to be the one. "Uh, hey Toby, is that you?" He asked, hoping that Toby wouldn't suddenly snap.
"Y-yeah, Jeff, right?"
Jeff nodded. "How did you get here?"
"Well, thanks to B-Ben I'm sure, a pink floating cat thing attacked me and sent me here." Toby explained.
Mewbama strikes again. Jeff thought. "Yeah, that was Ben." He confirmed.
"So, I'm assuming you got here t-the same way?"
Jeff nodded. After a few more seconds a question came to his mind. "Hey Toby, did any of the others know that we were gone?"
Toby laughed a bit. "Boy did they, you should've seen the party we all threw."
Jeff's eye twitched slightly. "Party? What do you mean, 'party'?"
Toby laughed again. "Well, when we found out you three went missing we all knew we had to celebrate, so we threw a huge party." He began to explain. "There was alcohol and fangirls, I'm sorry you had to miss it."
Jeff's eye began to twitch more rapidly. That couldn't be true. Someone had to have cared that they were gone.
Toby started laughing again. "I'm kidding, we were actually really w-worried."
Jeff looked up at him. "So, wait, they weren't happy about us being gone?"
Toby shook his head. "No, I can't believe you fell for that."
Jeff sighed. "So, what actually happened?"
Toby immediately looked more serious. "Well, at first they thought you guys must have been caught by the police, but after checking ever news channel and even spying into numerous prisons they found nothing."
Jeff nodded, relieved that they had actually been worried.
"After that they thought you guys might have been killed, and searched everywhere for your bodies, even sending some members out to search cities in the daytime, but they didn't find anything that way." He continued. "After about a day or so of that a few of us were sent to the Scab Dogs camp. They told us that they had no idea w-what we were talking about, so we tried thinking of other places to look before more members disappeared." Toby paused, as if trying to remember something.
Jeff took a step closer to him. "So, what happened next?"
Toby thought for a few more moments before continuing. "Next Slender question Zalgo and Observer, thinking they might have b-been kidnapping his proxies, after checking both of their hideouts and territories they came up with nothing, then I was attacked by the pink cat and I'm sure they're still searching."
Questions raced through Jeff's mind. How many proxies would Mewbama send to Equestria before he decided it was enough? Was he going to send everyone who lived in the mansion? What would happen if he got bored of the forest and went into human territory? Jeff shook his head to clear it. None of that mattered now. Suddenly another question popped up in his mind. "Say, Toby, do you have a place to stay?"
Toby shook his head. "No, w-why?"
Jeff's smile widened. "Follow me." He walked in the direction of their house.
Toby was slightly confused, but followed, ready to take out his hatchets if Jeff tried anything.
~~~
Ben was still playing Minecraft. He'd just got done building a shiny Charizard out of wool. He was currently thinking of what to do next. He knew that he wanted to stick to the theme of Pokemon. Typhlosion. He decided. He quickly picked out the different colors of wool he'd need. As he was about to start he heard the door to the house open along with a scream.
"Guess who made waffles!" Jeff screeched as he entered the tree house. To his surprise, Ben, who was still on his laptop, didn't respond. If Jeff didn't know any better he'd think that Ben hadn't heard him.
Ben didn't think anything of what had just happened. Jeff always entered the house screaming random stuff, this didn't seem any different.
Jeff grew slightly annoyed. "Just look over here." He growled.
"Why?" Ben responded, not bothering to look.
"I found your old pet."
Ben decided that Jeff wouldn't stop pestering him until he looked. He began to turn around. "I never had a-" He froze when he saw who was at the door. "So you did." He said smiling.
Toby glared at them. "I'm not a pet."
Ben ignored him. "So, I'm guessing I don't have to ask how he got here?"
Jeff nodded. "Mewbama."
Ben shook his head. "Actually, it's name is Fluffers."
Jeff shook his head in response. "Well, Mewbama sounds better, so.."
Ben glared at him. "No, it doesn't, it sounds terrible."
Jeff glared in return. "At least Mewbama is original, everyone calls their Mew Fluffers."
"They call it that because it sounds good."
"No, they call it that because they're not creative."
Ben took a step toward Jeff. "A 4 year old could come up with a better name than Mewbama."
Jeff took a step forward as well. "Pokemon aren't supposed to have names that you would give your cat."
"Pet names are better than names so bad they're basically animal cruelty."
Jeff didn't respond with words, but swung his hoof at Ben, hitting him in the muzzle.
Ben fired up his horn and levitated Jeff in the air by his hood, dropping him at about 3 feet up.
Jeff turned around and kicked out his hind legs, missing Ben, but hitting the table he'd been sitting at.
Ben took this as a chance and headbutted Jeff in the ribs, making sure his horn made contact.
Jeff hissed in pain and turned back to Ben. They both backed away from each other, preparing to charge. They ran at each other, but before either of them hit the other they were both stopped.
Toby had grabbed Jeff's hood. E.J had bitten down on Ben's tail. They both looked back angrily.
"What are you doing?" Ben growled at E.J.
E.J spat out Ben's tail and looked him in the eye. "Do you seriously think it's worth killing each other over what to call a Pokemon?"
Ben blinked at him. That was a good point. They'd most likely never see the Mew again, so why fight over what to call it? Ben sighed and shook his head. "No."
"Yes." Jeff responded.
Toby tightened his grip.
Jeff tried to pull away, struggling to breath. "No, okay, let me go!"
Toby did as Jeff asked.
Jeff collapsed on the floor taking exaggerated huge breaths. "What were you trying to do, kill me?"
Toby didn't answer, walking into the living room away from all the chaos.
Ben went back to his game, pretending that none of this had happened.
E.J went back up to his room.
Jeff lied there, wondering what he should do. After a while he shrugged and just relaxed there, content in not moving. I'll do something later. He decided, feeling too lazy to get up. He got in a more comfortable position and put his sleeping mask on.
Chapter 20: Jeff the....Chicken?
"Come on, do it." Jeff whined to Ben.
"No."
"Come ooon!" Jeff was watching Ben play Pokemon, or he had been. It had turned into begging. For what, you might wonder. For wings.
"No matter how much you beg or plead, it's not happening." Ben said, trying to ignore Jeff.
"Come on, please, I'll do something for you."
"Nope."
Jeff began shaking Ben. "Please, I'll do anything, I've always wanted this, even before we came here, why are you so insensitive?"
Ben looked over at Jeff, annoyed. "It's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that the magic energy that it would take to give an earth pony wings is most likely far too much for my horn to handle."
"Come on, at least try."
Jeff had been begging for at least an hour now, and Ben knew it wasn't going to end anytime soon. "If I try giving you wings, will you leave me alone?"
Jeff nodded.
"Alright then, but when it fails, don't complain to me about it."
Jeff stood in front of Ben, his smile more disturbingly large than usual.
Ben rolled his eyes and fired up his horn, fully expecting the spell to fail. A green aura surrounding Jeff.
After about a minute the green glow faded and the spell was over. Jeff looked around expectantly, disappointed when he saw nothing. "Ben, it didn't work." He said, annoyed.
Ben, however, was staring at Jeff in awe. I can't believe that actually worked. He thought. If I can do that, imagine what else my magic can do. A large grin formed on his face.
"Uh, hello?" Jeff tapped Ben on the nose, snapping him out of his trance. "You did it wrong, there aren't any wings."
Ben looked at Jeff, unamused, then smirked, thinking of a way to make the wings reveal themselves. He didn't respond, but wrapped Jeff in a hug, causing the wings to pop out with a pomf sound.
"Oh, hey, it did work." Jeff said as Ben pulled away. He then tried putting his wings back to his sides, and failed miserably. "Ben, why won't they go down?" He had a worried look on his face, thinking that something was wrong with his new appendages.
Ben muffled a laugh with his hoof. "T-that's normal." He said, trying not to laugh out loud.
"When will they go down?" Jeff asked. "And why are they staying up like that in the first place?"
"D-don't worry, they're fine." Ben answered, keeping his laughter in becoming harder and harder. "T-they should go down soon, and i-if they don't I'm sure E.J could h-help you."
"Why are you laughing?" Jeff asked, tilting his head.
"N-no reason." Ben answered.
"Seriously, is something on my face?" Jeff raised a hoof to his face, which had a very confused look.
"No, it's not your face."
"What's going on down here?" E.J asked, floating down the stairs.
"E.J, what's wrong with my wings?" Jeff ran up to E.J, knocking him out of the air.
"Ben...What did you do?" E.J asked, staring at Jeff's erect wings.
"N-nothing." Ben answered, still trying not to laugh. "He wanted wings, so I used a spell to give them to him."
"And, why are they like...that?" E.J gestured to the appendages as he spoke.
"What do you mean?" Ben asked. "Isn't that normal?"
E.J just looked in between the two ponies, thinking about how he was surrounded by idiots.
Ben teleported next to E.J in a green flash of light. "I know what the erect wings means." He whispered. "But Jeff doesn't, and it's funny to watch him try to figure it out."
"So, I don't tell him what it means?" E.J asked, whispering as quietly as Ben.
"Exactly."
E.J nodded and turned to Jeff. "Nothing is wrong with your wings." He answered. "It should fix itself, and if it doesn't then I'm not helping you."
"Couldn't you just try pushing them down?" Jeff asked. "They're really uncomfortable like this."
"No, that would just make the problem worse."
"But they're starting to ache." Jeff whined. "Isn't there a way to make them go down?"
"Ice usually helps with me." E.J answered.
"How am I supposed to put ice on them, I don't have magic."
"Well.." E.J thought about what to tell Jeff without telling him what this was. "I can't help you, but I'm sure Ben would be more than happy to help." With that he floated back up the stairs, leaving Ben stunned.
"Can you help?" Jeff asked.
"No." Ben answered, walking past Jeff, into the living room.
"But-"
"Have Toby help you." Ben interrupted.
Jeff sighed and turned away. "Fine." He walked up the stairs the best he could, his wings getting in the way every few seconds. After climbing the stairs he made his way to the door at the farthest en of the hallway and knocked.
"Go away, I'm innocent!" The voice of Toby shouted from the other side of the door.
"Toby, it's me." Jeff said.
"I'm not coming out, it's a trap!" Toby shouted.
"No it's not, Toby." Jeff said.
"Go away!"
Jeff sighed, knowing that there was no way he'd be able to get Toby out of his room. He sat next to Ben, who had begun to play Minecraft on the laptop. He adjusted himself so his wings didn't touch Ben. It was uncomfortable, but it was better than having Ben break them. "Hey Ben."
"Hey." Ben greeted, not really paying attention
"Does this mean I'm never gonna fly?" Jeff asked, his heart sinking a bit.
Ben sighed. "No, they'll go down eventually." Ben answered, turning his head to face Jeff. Although, if they're up for more than 2 hours then you might wanna go to the hospital. He added silently.
"If you say so." Jeff glanced at the appendages once more before turning away. "Can I watch you play for a bit?"
"Sure, as long as you don't smack me with those things."
"I won't." Jeff said, getting into a position that let him watch, but was a lot less comfortable.
~~~
It was about 2 hours later. Jeff had watched Ben play Minecraft for one of those hours, but he got bored after a while and decided to pace. His hooves ached a bit, since he'd been pacing a little bit over an hour, but he didn't want to sit down, that would make him have to be uncomfortable again.
"Hey, Jeff." Ben called to him, making him stop pacing.
"Yeah?"
"Check yourself."
Jeff tilted his head. confused as to what Ben meant. He looked at each of his hooves, at his tail and his, still blank, flank. After looking himself over for a good few minutes he sighed in defeat.
Ben sighed in annoyance and used his magic to lift Jeff's wings, which had returned to his side after only a few minutes of pacing.
"Oh, dear Zalgo." Jeff muttered, his smile widening. "They went down."
"Told ya." Ben said, releasing his magic grip.
Jeff lifted his wings, getting ready to fly. He flapped them wildly, then fell flat on his face. When he fell, he realized something that made him want to facehoof. "I still have to learn how to fly, don't I?" He asked Ben, not lifting his face off the ground.
"Yep."
Jeff crashed to the ground for what seemed like the hundredth time. He'd been trying to learn how to fly, and failing miserably. Ben, who had stopped playing Minecraft to watch, was struggling not to laugh. He'd thought the wingboner was funny, but this was even better. Jeff just kept crashing and crashing, over and over again. Each time he crashed he seemed to look more angry.
"You're never gonna learn how to fly, you know." Ben said after the 47th crash, he'd been counting.
Jeff stood up and shook the dirt off of himself. "Shut up." He readied his wings again and jumped. As expected, he crashed again.
"Just give up and let E.J teach you."
"No, I can do this." Jeff tried again, but got the same results as the last 48 times.
"It really doesn't look like it." Ben pointed out. "You've been at this for at least 15 minutes and you're getting closer to breaking your wings than actually flying."
"Harry has 4 nipples, your argument is invalid!" Jeff steadied himself to jump again, but started talking to himself before he could get in the air. "Maybe the problem isn't what I'm doing, but where I'm doing it." He looked up to a high branch on the tree house they lived in. "Maybe I need to be higher, then pegasus instinct will kick in and I'll fly."
"First of all, you're an idiot." Ben walked in front of Jeff before he could get any closer to the house and start climbing. "Second of all, you've been a pegasus for about an hour, you don't have any instinct yet." He started circling around Jeff. "Second of all, you're an idiot." Each time Ben circled he got closer to Jeff. "Fourth of all, if you jump from there and hit the ground, you'll die, and the ounce of good conscious I have left can't let that happen."
Jeff tried to open his mouth to argue, but Ben stopped him.
"Fifth of all, you're an idiot." He stopped in front of Jeff and looked him in the eye. They were close enough for their noses to touch. "Finally, sixth of all, and probably the most important thing, E.J has wings, he can teach you!"
Jeff didn't react for a good few minutes. He just stared, his emotion unreadable. After a while he sighed. "Fine, I'll go see E.J." He walked into the house, mumbling under his breath. He went up to E.J's room and knocked. He was a bit concerned when he got no answer. "Maybe he's just at work." Jeff said to himself. For good measure he knocked again. Still no answer. He decided to talk to E.J after he got back. He walked back outside and sat outside on a root that he often used as a seat.
"Where is he?" Ben asked. "Did you talk to him?"
"He's at work or something." Jeff answered, looking up at the sky, careful not to look at the sun.
"Today isn't one of his work days." Ben pointed out.
"So?"
"He never leaves the house for anything but work and hunting." Ben walked in front of Jeff. "And it's not nighttime, so, are you sure he wasn't in his room?"
"He didn't answer when I knocked."
Ben didn't say anything else, but he fired up his horn and teleported away.
Jeff knew where he teleported to, it was pretty obvious. He waited for a few seconds before Ben teleported back in front of him.
"His window is wide open and he's not here."
This interested Jeff. "Why didn't he just use the door?"
"I don't know, but it looked like he sneaked out." Ben looked a bit concerned at this point.
Jeff, exhausted from crashing almost 50 times, lied down on the root and sighed. "I'm sure he's fine, don't worry about it."
"I'm not worried about whether he's fine or not, he's the smartest of us all, of course he's fine."
"Then what are you worried about?" Jeff asked, putting a hoof over his eyes since he was too lazy to put his blindfold on.
"I'm worried about why he'd sneak out." Ben answered. "I mean, what would he have to hide from us?"
"I'm sure it's nothing." Jeff mumbled, not really listening to Ben, trying to get to sleep.
Ben sighed in annoyance. "You might think it's nothing, but I know that something's up with him, and I'm going to find out what it is." He wasn't sure whether or not Jeff had been listening. He didn't really care. He walked into town, trying to think of some place E.J would go. The first place that came to mind was the empty corner of Ponyville that they used to meet in. It seemed pretty obvious, but it was worth a shot. Ben fired up his horn and teleported himself there. When he got there he looked around. It took him only a few seconds to notice a brown tail hanging off of a cloud. He was fairly sure that it was E.J's tail. He stopped and listened when he realized that there was someone else E.J was talking to.
"Are you sure there's not going to be anyone else here?" The other pony that, Ben couldn't see, asked.
"I'm sure, I come here all the time." E.J answered.
"Alright then, we can talk."
Ben stared up, confused. Who was E.J talking to, and why did it seem so important that they talked in private? Ben listened on, sure that they'd say why.
"We can." E.J said. "So what was it you wanted to discus?"
"You should join us, we could benefit from your skills."
"My skills are exactly the same as before." E.J stated. "And you surely didn't want me then."
"But you've changed, I'm sure you'll be accepted."
Ben was a bit confused. What did this pony want E.J to join? Who was this pony? Was this even a pony? Ben walked silently around the cloud to see the other pony's tail hanging off the edge. It was a lighter shade of brown than E.J's.
"Yes, I have changed, haven't I?" Ben saw E.J's wings spread a bit. "I've become a pony, a sub species of you."
Sub species? Ben was even more confused. The tail of this creature looked like an ordinary pony. Were there even any sub species of ponies? Ben listened on, determined to find the answers to his questions.
"That's not the only reason we want you." The other pony snapped. "We need a bit of help, the ponies hate us, and I'm sure they'd have Celestia kill us if they saw any of us."
"And you need more of anything willing to be on your side because the ponies already have killed a good bit of you." E.J finished the sentence for the other pony.
"Indeed." The other pony's voice turned a bit grim. "And wounded many others. We've taken shelter where they won't find us easily, but it is only a matter of time."
"I have something close enough to a family, I can't rejoin you."
"They could come with you, the more the merrier."
"They're ponies, pureblooded ponies, they wouldn't fit in with you guys." E.J said.
"I suppose that's true, but they'd be fine without you, I'm su-"
"No they wouldn't." E.J interrupted the pony. "If it weren't for me they'd have killed each other years ago."
The pony sighed. "Come on, we need you." He sounded desperate by now.
"You're not planning on invading again are you?" E.J asked. "Because from what I heard, that didn't go too well last time."
"Perhaps, but not Canterlot, they'll expect us."
"I can't help you." E.J turned to fly away. "If I see that you've chosen to invade Ponyville, then I'll do what I can." He lifted himself into the sky and flew toward their home.
Ben followed him, ready to bombard him with questions as soon as he landed. When they got back home, Ben stepped in front of him before he could enter. "Can we talk?" He asked.
E.J stared at him for a few seconds before answering. "Of course, I'm not busy."
"Who were you talking to?"
"No one." E.J answered quickly.
"I saw you, you were talking to some other pony about an invasion or something." Ben stepped closer to E.J. "So, who was it."
"Nobody you know."
"What did he want you to join, and why?"
"It's nothing that concerns you." E.J sat down, at peace with the fact that he'd be there for a while.
"Why did you sneak out to talk to him?"
"Because I did." E.J's sockets met Ben's eyes. "You may as well give up, I'm not giving you any information."
"Why not?"
"Because." E.J pushed past Ben and entered the house.
Ben sighed. What was E.J hiding? Why was he hiding it, he knew that Jeff and Ben could keep a secret. Ben decided to try questioning him again later. He would find out, one way or another.
Chapter 22:Strange occurrences
Ben was playing Minecraft, or he was trying. He found himself glancing in the direction of E.J's room every 5 seconds or so.
"Is something wrong with you?" Jeff, who was sitting next to him, asked.
Ben looked back to his computer screen. "No."
"Then why do you keep looking up the stairs?" Jeff scooted closer to Ben and looked onto the screen as he spoke. "Did you leave your magazines in my room or something?"
Ben laughed at this. "Jeff, I don't have magazines." He stole a quick glance up the stairs again before finishing his reply. "I have a laptop in front of me, don't I?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that."
Ben looked up at the stairs again. His gaze stayed there until he heard a sound from his laptop. He quickly turned back to see that he'd been killed. "What happened?" He asked.
"Creeper." Jeff replied. "So, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing." Ben respawned in his house, which was, of course, made of gold, emerald and diamonds.
"That's a lie." Jeff stated. "If nothing was wrong then you wouldn't have died."
Ben sighed. "If I tell you then will you leave me alone?"
Jeff nodded.
"Alright, fine." Ben levitated his laptop next to him so he could turn to Jeff. "E.J was talking with someone yesterday, they asked him to join something, he refused, but later when I talked to him he wouldn't tell me anything."
"So?"
"What do you mean 'so'?"
"E.J refuses to talk about stuff all the time." Jeff explained. "If you haven't noticed, he's not exactly a social butterfly."
"Then who was he talking to?"
Jeff shrugged. "Probably someone from his job, a friend perhaps?"
"But he doesn't have any other friends."
"Is it against the law for him to make new friends?" Jeff lied down on the couch and stared up at Ben. "I mean, his job is basically the same as before we came here, so he's bound to get along with someone."
"Why would they ask him to join something, and talk about how ponies hate them?"
Jeff shrugged. "It obviously isn't any of our business."
"It's nothing like you to shrug things off like this." Ben pointed out.
Jeff immediately sat back up. "What do you mean?"
"Well, usually if E.J was hiding something you'd be bugging him about it until he threatened to rip out your kidneys."
Jeff looked away from Ben before answering. "I guess I really don't care, I mean, why bother him about it if he doesn't wanna tell us, it won't get me anywhere."
Ben looked quizzically at Jeff. Something seemed off. It seemed so unlike Jeff to shrug things off like this. Usually the slightest thing could set him off, and if someone was hiding something from him then he'd do everything in his power to find out what it was. He also wasn't usually this nervous unless Slender was mad at him or something. Ben was about to question Jeff about it when he heard something. It came from E.J's room and sounded like someone yelling. He momentarily forgot about Jeff and walked upstairs so he could see what was going on. He stopped outside E.J's room. He was about to knock when he heard talking.
"Why would you do that?" It was E.J's voice.
"We had to, he saw one of us and we couldn't have him say anything to the green one." This was a voice Ben had never heard before. He put his hoof down and listened on.
"Ben wouldn't have done anything, neither would Jeff, we don't even have any way of contacting Celestia." E.J sounded angry.
"I don't know that, and I'm not taking chances."
"We're criminals, and the most powerful of the elements of harmony hates us."
"But the others trust you, and would believe you if you told them about us." The other pony's voice stayed calm, and E.J's seemed to get angrier.
E.J sighed. "It doesn't matter what I say, he's staying with you, isn't he?"
"Precisely."
"Get out, now."
There was a sound of flapping wings, then what sounded like E.J closing his window.
Ben walked away, wondering who E.J was talking to this time, and what they were talking about. He sat down next to Jeff, who had stolen his laptop. He looked at what Jeff was doing, expecting to see yaoi. He was surprised to see his computer version of Grand Theft Auto 4. "I forgot I downloaded that." He commented.
Jeff jumped in surprise and looked over, sighing in relief when he saw that it was Ben. "Oh, hey, yeah, I just saw it sitting in the downloads folder and decided to try it."
"You've played GTA before, Jeff." Ben told him.
"I know, I mean I decided to try it again." Jeff corrected himself before looking back at the screen. His skin was his human self, unsurprisingly, and he was running from the police.
The first thing Ben noticed was that Jeff wasn't doing absolutely horrible, like he did at 97% he played. "Have you been practicing?" He asked.
Jeff waited a moment before replying. "Oh, yeah, I started last night while you were sleeping."
"You're doing pretty good." Ben said as Jeff killed 5 cops at the same time using a grenade.
"Thanks."
Ben watched for a few minutes before he heard someone walking down the stairs. He turned to see E.J.
"Hey Jeff, can I talk to you?"
Jeff looked up at E.J. "Sure, what about?"
"Alone." E.J said, walking away.
Jeff looked confused, but followed.
Ben stared as they walked up to E.J's room. Should I see what they're talking about? Ben wondered. He couldn't remember a time E.J had ever wanted to speak privately with one of them, so this was a bit confusing. He decided against it since he'd listened in on E.J multiple times now and each time he listened it confused him more.
After a few minutes Jeff came back down the stairs, rubbing his neck with a hoof. "I wonder what his problem is." He muttered to himself before sitting back down.
"What did he wanna talk about?" Ben asked.
"Oh, nothing, he just hit me a few times, choked me, pinned against the wall and threatened to kill me." Jeff replied, talking nonchalantly, as if E.J did this every day.
"He did what?" Ben looked at Jeff in concern. "Why?"
Jeff shrugged. "I guess he was mad about something, maybe I accidentally put one of his kidneys on a bagel or something." He put the laptop in front of him again and continued playing as if nothing had happened.
Ben tried to watch him and forget about what had happened, but he couldn't. Why would E.J do something like that? Sure, Jeff did stupid things sometimes, but nothing that he deserved to get beat for. He got up, deciding to ask E.J about it, suspicious that it might tie in with everything else E.J seemed to be getting into. He knocked on E.J's door.
E.J opened the door and sighed when he saw who it was. "What is it?"
"Can we talk?" Ben asked.
"Fine." E.J moved out of the way, allowing Ben to enter his room.
"Jeff told me that you beat him." Ben got straight to the point.
"Wasn't even a beating, and besides, you know he likes pain." E.J sat down on his bed, leaving a space for Ben.
"Only certain types." Ben said, sitting next to him. "And why did you do it, what did he do?"
"I can't tell you." E.J replied.
"Why not?"
"Because, I can't." E.J told him.
"That's not an answer."
"Well, it's all I'm giving you."
Ben sighed, knowing that when E.J made up his mind about something, it was final. "Fine." He got up and went back to watch Jeff play.
"So, what did E.J tell you?" Jeff asked as Ben sat down.
"Nothing." Ben answered, looking over Jeff's shoulder to see that he was now playing Pokemon Creepy Black.
"I didn't think he'd say anything." Jeff said as he killed a Pokemon with Ghost.
"Well, an explanation would've still been nice."
"You know E.J, if he has the option to not talk then he's gonna stay silent."
Ben nodded in agreement as he watched Jeff play. "You doing pretty good." He commented.
"I know."
Jeff was doing very good, exceptional even. That wasn't like him. Usually when he tried to play a video game he'd die at least 50 times in the tutorial level. How was he so good now? Ben shrugged it off, deciding that he must've done a much needed practice session or something. Eventually he lied down on the couch and tried to get to sleep, bored with watching Jeff not rage.
Chapter 23:Revelation and Explanation
Ben awoke to someone poking him in the ribs. He opened his eyes to see Jeff.
"Hey, E.J said that we need to go to the store." Jeff said as Ben sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"Why both of us?" He asked.
"You're the only one who has money." Jeff answered. "And, it would be pretty boring to go by myself."
Ben stood up and sighed. "I guess you're right."
Jeff led Ben outside, handing him the shopping list.
"Keep up if you can." Jeff said as he took to the skies.
Ben chased after him. "Since when can you fly?"
"Since I taught myself." Jeff answered, slowing down and hovering over Ben.
"You actually learned how to fly by yourself?"
"Yep." Jeff landed next to Ben. "It was really easy once I worked the kinks out."
"Well, congratulations."
Jeff flew over to a tomato stand. He smiled and poked a few of the tomatoes.
"Jeff, tomatoes aren't on the list." Ben told him.
"I know." Jeff said, sniffing a tomato. "I just wanted to look at these."
Ben smiled and facehoofed. "You're such an idiot sometimes."
"Either buy one or leave." They both heard the voice of the tomato salespony. She was looking at them, annoyed.
"Sorry." Jeff backed away with a sheepish smile on his face. He turned away and made his way to a stand selling cabbage.
"Since when do we eat cabbage?" Ben asked.
"Since bacon dropped off of the face of the earth." Jeff replied, grabbing a cabbage and putting it in his hoodie pocket.
"Are you paying for that?" The salespony asked.
"Yeah." Jeff answered, nodding to Ben.
Ben levitated his hat off of his head and took a few bits out of it.
"What else do we need?" Jeff asked.
"Celery, potatoes, oranges, apples and some cherries." Ben answered as he placed his hat back on his head, looking at the list.
"This is gonna take a while." Jeff said, sighing.
*****
The two made it back home after about 10 more minutes. Jeff made it to the laptop before Ben could. Ben was a bit surprised at Jeff's sudden interest in gaming. He was even more surprised that Jeff was suddenly good at video games. He also hadn't complained at all while they were out, even though he was the one carrying everything. It seemed very unlike him. For a moment Ben wondered about it, but he shrugged it off, deciding that it wasn't as odd as he thought it was.
"Hey Ben, I see you're back." They turned to the stairs to see E.J.
"Hey E.J." Ben greeted.
"Hey Jeff ." E.J glared at Jeff as he spoke.
"Hey, what's up?" Jeff asked as if E.J wasn't acting strange at all.
E.J didn't respond, but his glare intensified. Despite the mask, they could tell.
"What's up with you?" Ben asked.
"What do you mean?" E.J turned to Ben, the hostility disappearing from his voice.
"Why are you so pissed at Jeff all of a sudden?"
"It's nothing that concerns you." E.J responded, turning back to Jeff, glaring.
Jeff looked up and stared back with his usual derpy looking smile. The two stared at each other for a while. "Whatcha staring at?" Jeff asked. "Like what you see or something?"
E.J raised a hoof as if he were about to hit Jeff, but put it down and started walking away. Before he reached the stairs he turned back. "Don't bother talking to me again, as far as I'm concerned, you and your family are dead to me."
"Alright, fine by me." Jeff turned back to the computer, unfazed.
"Aren't you mad?" Ben asked, confused.
"Nah." Jeff opened up Pokemon Lost Soul Silver, the 4th generation version of Lost Silver.
"Why?" Ben blinked in surprise. "He just insulted your family, your dead family."
"They're dead, it's not like they'd care." Jeff said, shrugging.
"B-but, what about Liu?" Ben asked, very confused. He could understand Jeff not caring if E.J had just insulted his parents, but he said family, and that meant Liu as well. Jeff usually teared up just at the mention of his brother, this should've given him a mental breakdown.
"Who?"
Ben nearly fell off of the couch in surprise. "What do you mean, 'who'?"
'Who's Liu?" Jeff asked.
Ben couldn't believe what he'd heard. Jeff cared about his brother almost more than life, this didn't make any sense. "J-Jeff."
Jeff turned to him. "Yeah?"
"Liu is your brother." Ben said, not sure what to think.
"Brother?"
"H-how do you not remember him?"
"Well, you said that he's dead, so I must have not been able to see him."
"You visit his grave every year on the anniversary of his death." Ben told him.
"I do?" Jeff sounded a bit worried at this point.
"Yeah, and when you're not at the graveyard you lock yourself in your room and cry."
Jeff looked scared for a moment, then his expression was neutral. "So, what do you think?" He asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You really haven't put two and two together?" Jeff set the laptop on the arm of the couch and stood up. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"
Ben was silent as he stared at Jeff.
Jeff sighed. "Fine, if you insist, then I will." After he was finished he transformed into something else. It looked kind of like a bug pony. It was black and light reflected off of it's exoskeleton. It had wings and a horn, it's wings were very bug-like. It's eyes were light blue.
"What are you?"
"A changeling drone from the Chrysalis hive." It answered. It's voice had changed.
"Where is Jeff." Anger and fear suddenly coursed through him. "What did you do to him?"
"My associates kidnapped your friend and took him to our hive, he is in the care of the guard drones and his fate rests with our queen."
Ben glared at the changeling and leaped at it. He hit it repeatedly, or he tried to. He was levitated off before he could land a single punch.
The changeling held him above it's head. "I will take you to the hive and have another drone replace you."
"No!" Ben kicked the changeling in the face, causing it to drop him.
Before Ben could attack it again, it transformed into a pony Ben had never seen before and ran out the door.
Ben tried chasing after it, but it was gone by the time he got out the door. He went back into the house, his anger fading away into fear. Where was Jeff? What were they doing to him? He looked up to E.J's room. E.J had known about Jeff's kidnapping, he would be able to explain this. Ben just hoped that E.J would be willing to answer his questions this time. He ran up the stairs and knocked on E.J's door.
"Ben, what's wrong?" E.J asked as he saw him.
"You knew about the changeling kidnapping Jeff." Ben stated. "That's why you seemed to hate Jeff."
"Yes." E.J stepped back, making room for Ben to enter. "I will answer any questions you have."
"Where are they keeping Jeff?" Ben asked.
"In their hive."
"Where is that?" Ben didn't want to waste any time, he just wanted to get there, get Jeff back and have the elements of harmony take care of the changelings.
"If I knew then I would have rescued him." E.J answered, sitting down on his bed.
Ben sighed and sat next to him, deciding that if he couldn't help Jeff at the moment then he would at least of E.J answer some other questions.
"So, what made you notice?"
"He didn't know who Liu was." Ben explained.
"I see."
"How did you first figure it out?" Ben asked, expecting E.J to tell him about the conversation in his room from the other day.
"Well, I couldn't feel any emotion from him, so I knew it wasn't really him."
"You couldn't feel any emotion from him?" Ben echoed. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, right, you don't know about changeling abilities." E.J said. "Well, changelings feed off of positive emotions from ponies, that's how that changeling was able to stay here so long." He began to explain. "He was feeding off of the positive emotions you have for Jeff."
Ben was about to object and say that he didn't have that many positive emotions for Jeff. E.J spoke again before he could.
"You know what I mean, Ben." He said, sounding unamused. "You two are good friends, but, unfortunately for Jeff, nothing more."
Ben looked away. "I know, it's just that you make a lot of shipping jokes."
"Indeed I do, but now isn't the time."
"That still doesn't explain why you should be able to feel his emotions." Ben said, trying to steer away from the topic of shipping.
"Oh, right, that."E.J sighed. "You see, I'm a hybrid, pony and changeling."
"But you weren't born a pony, you were born a human." Ben pointed out, confused.
"I used to be a hybrid of human and changeling." E.J explained.
"How?" Ben asked. "Changelings are creatures that belong to this world, humans are from a whole different demention."
"My parents never bothered to explain how it was possible, but it's the truth."
"So, you have changeling abilities?" Ben questioned.
"I have one, and that's the ability to feed off of emotions."
Ben nodded, understanding.
"Do you have any more questions?"
Ben sighed and looked out E.J's window. "No, not really.
"You should rest, then, because we're searching for the hive tomorrow."
Chapter 24: Found what we're looking for?
"Are you ready yet?" E.J asked Ben.
Ben was flipping through a book that he probably got from the library. "Yeah, almost, I just want to learn a few spells."
"What kind of spells?"
"I learned a tracking spell last night." Ben answered. "Now I'm trying to learn attacking spells."
"Well, can you hurry up?" E.J was sitting next to the door next to Toby, Brvr and Smile. Sally would've been with them, but they had agreed that she was too young to fight a hive of changelings. "We don't have all week."
"Just a few more minutes." Ben told them.
E.J sighed and facehoofed. "We've been waiting for almost two hours."
Ben ignored him and continued flipping through his book.
"How many do you need to know?" E.J asked after a few more seconds.
"At least ten." Ben answered.
"How many do you know already?"
"Only four."
"That's probably enough." E.J said, growing impatient.
"Why are you in such a hurry?" Ben asked. "I thought you were a patient person."
"I usually am, but it's kind of hard to be patient when there's a possibility that one of my best friends could be dying right now."
"You know Ben, he's kinda right." Smile said, sighing. "The longer you take the higher the chance of Jeff's death."
Ben sighed and closed the book. "Fine, I guess you're right." He walked up to the others. "E.J, you lead the way."
E.J did as Ben asked and led them outside, hoping their large group wouldn't attract attention. "Maybe you should lead." E.J suggested to Ben after they were a few feet from the house.
Ben gave him a look of confusion. "Why?"
"You have a tracking spell." E.J pointed out. "We'll get to him faster if the person leading knows where to go."
Ben didn't argue and took the lead, stopping and firing up his horn. After a few seconds he started walking again.
"So, where are we going?" E.J asked.
"Somewhere." Ben answered. "I'm not quite sure exactly where, I'm just following the pull of my magic."
E.J nodded and continued following.
*****
They had been walking for over an hour, exiting Ponyville after a while.
"S-so, E.J, are you sure it's changelings?" Toby asked as they walked.
"Yes." E.J answered.
"Are you sure that it isn't t-the government?"
If E.J hadn't been walking he would've face-hoofed. Toby had asked that question at least fifteen times while they had been waiting on Ben. "Toby, how would the government even get to a place like this?"
"I-I don't know, they're the government, they have their ways."
E.J sighed. He couldn't take much more of this. They needed to get there faster. "Ben, can you walk any slower?"
"Sorry E.J, I'm not really the running type of person."
E.J spread his wings and flew in the air, landing in front of Ben.
Ben stopped just in time, barely stopping himself from walking into E.J.
"Ben, I've said this before, and I'll say it again." E.J got closer to Ben as he spoke, close enough for Ben's nose to touch his mask. "Speed is key!" E.J shouted at the top of his lungs, grabbing Ben with his front hooves as he got himself off the ground with his wings. He spun around a few times to gain speed. "Go, Benny, go!" He shouted as he threw Ben in the direction they had been walking in.
Ben flew several feet before landing face first in the dirt.
E.J flew after him, hovering over him as he spat dirt out of his mouth.
"I hate you sometimes." Ben said as he rubbed dirt out of his eyes.
E.J landed gently next to him. "At least I helped us make some progress."
"There is dirt in the curves of my horn." Ben said, glaring.
E.J put a wing around him. "Come on, I'm sure it's not that bad."
Ben didn't answer, but glared into E.J's empty sockets. "You're lucky that you threw me the right way."
"What would you have done if I'd thrown you the wrong way?"
"I would've ripped your wings off and shoved swords in your eye sockets." Ben answered.
E.J slowly stepped away. "Don't touch my eye sockets." He said in a low voice. "I don't know you like that."
Ben sighed. "Right, I forgot about what your eye sockets are." He cringed slightly, realizing exactly what he'd threatened to do.
E.J shrugged. "I wouldn't have really minded it." He said. "It would've been amazing, until the sword broke through the goo and hit my brain."
Ben gave him an odd look. "You would have liked it if I shoved a sword where your eye should be?"
E.J shrugged again. "I do it all the time with stuff that isn't deadly."
"Nobody needed to hear that." Toby said, interrupting the conversation.
"I think I'm gonna have nightmares about that." Brvr said as he sat on Smile's back.
"Me too." Toby agreed, backing away.
E.J sighed. "Come on, Toby, you're into even weirder stuff than I am."
"Waffles." Toby said. "I like waffles, a lot, but not to the point where I'd put them in one of my orifices."
"What about that one time when Masky bought those blueberry waffles and you went up to your room with them and-"
Ben was interrupted by Toby. "I was drunk, t-that doesn't count!" He said, blushing.
"They say that alcohol brings out your true emotions." E.J said, trying not to laugh.
"Okay then, w-what about that time you got drunk and made out with L.J?" Toby asked, smirking when E.J stayed silent.
After a few moments E.J spoke again, glad that his mask hid his red face. "I thought we agreed to never speak of that again."
Toby ignored him. "And then you guys went to his ro-"
"I said, shut up." E.J growled, stepping closer to Toby.
"What're you gonna d-do, hit me?" Toby taunted. "I'm sure it'll be sooo painful , I'll be crying in agony."
E.J had raised his hoof and was about to hit Toby in the goggles, hoping to break them, but as he swung his hoof, it was grabbed by a magical green aura.
"Calm down E.J." He said. "We won't make any progress if we just stand here fighting all day."
E.J sighed after a moment of thought and put his hoof back onto the ground. "You're right."
"And Toby, E.J isn't Masky, don't get on his bad side."
Toby nodded in agreement, deciding that Ben was right.
"Now, come on, we're close." Ben said to them as he began walking again.
The others followed him, Toby and E.J walking next to each other.
"So, are you really a waffle-sexual, or is that just a rumor?" E.J asked.
Toby sighed. "Just because it's hard for me to control myself when I'm around a waffle doesn't make me a waffle-sexual." He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. "But, to be honest, I'm a huge waffle-sexual. Blueberry's my favorite."
"Is that why you stare at my mask so often?"
Toby nodded.
"You should be glad that you're not a pegasus." E.J told him. "You'd have a really hard time explaining why your wings are fully erect every morning as you stare at your waffles dreamily."
"Wait, that's what it means when pegasus wings are sticking up like that?" Toby questioned, getting a nod from E.J. "That explains a lot.."
*****
They walked for a few more minutes, Ben having to quiet E.J and Toby more than once, before they stopped in an empty field.
"We should be close, my magic isn't leading me anywhere else." Ben said, looking around.
"Well, there's nothing here." E.J pointed out the obvious. "Maybe you did the spell wrong?"
"I studied that for hours last night, there's no way it could be wrong." Ben told him.
"Maybe we're in the right area, just not looking in the right places." Toby suggested, examining a blade of grass closely.
"Where do you suggest we look, then?" Ben asked.
Toby shrugged. "Around."
Ben sighed, his blue eyes turning slightly darker. "Thanks, that helps."
"Shhh." Toby shushed him, holding up a hoof and putting his ear to the ground.
The others examined him, wondering what he was listening for.
"Guys." He whispered. "The grass is tickling my ear."
Ben and E.J facehoofed at the same time, sighing.
"Also." Toby stood up slightly, pounding his hoof onto the ground. "This part of the ground sounds a bit hollow, like it's been dug out or something."
E.J sat next to Toby and put his ear to the ground, pounding it with his hoof. "He's right." He said, standing up. "It's definitely hollow."
"I say we dig a hole so we can look inside." Smile suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Ben agreed, using his magic to lift the dirt away until there was a hole small enough for one pony to look into.
Toby was the first too look in. "I don't see anything." He said, sounding disappointed as he stepped away from the hole.
E.J was going to be the next one to look into the hole, when a noise sounded from it.
"You, go to the most eastern hall, it needs more support beams, I heard the walls groaning as if it was going to collapse." A familiar British accented voice said from the hole.
Toby blinked in surprise. "Was that who I think it was?" He asked quietly.
"I think so." E.J said, just as surprised as Toby was.
"And you, the queen said that there are still worms getting into her chamber, fix that, would you?" The voice spokeagain, sounding louder this time.
Toby looked into the hole again, noticing that it was a hallway, rather than just a floor of dirt. He saw a group of changelings walking by, with two familiar figures walking with them.
Chapter 25: Entering the hive
"Hey Masky!" Toby shouted into the hole.
Everyone who had been walking through the dirt hallway before stopped. "Please don't tell that was who I think it was." Masky said to Hoodie with a slightly annoyed sounding voice.
"Masky, hey Masky, I know you can hear m-mph!" His yelling was cut short when E.J smacked his wing onto his mouth.
Masky looked up into the hole they had made. Hoodie did the same. When Masky turned it was revealed that he had a horn. "Hello, Rogers." He sighed, sounding very annoyed.
"What're you guys doing here?" Hoodie asked, flying up to get a closer look, revealing his wings.
Toby and the others stumbled back in surprise. "Dear lord Zalgo in a maid outfit." Toby mumbled in shock. "D-did you just speak, Hoodie?"
Hoodie made some sort of squeaking sound and covered his red mouth with his hooves. "No." He told them, the sound muffled by the hooves.
E.J chuckled. "Hoodie, no offense, but your voice is just-"
"If you say it's cute, or adorable or anything of that sort I swear to lord Zalgo I will rip your wings off and shove them down your throat before breaking every bone in your body, burning you to ashes and spitting on your grave." Hoodie threatened, suddenly sounding much scarier as he got closer to the hole and glared.
E.J stepped further back, scared, not only of the threat, but of the fact that Hoodie could speak at all, since he'd never even made a sound back at the mansion.
"Got it? Good." Hoodie floated back down and stood next to Masky again.
"What are you guys doing here anyways, we thought that you'd have died in a place like this." Masky asked, very annoyed with the fact that they'd been found, especially that Toby of all ponies had been the one to find them.
"We're looking for Jeff." Ben answered. "Seen him anywhere around here?"
"Oh yes, him ." Masky said, a bit of resentment in his voice. "The queen has hi-"
Hoodie smacked Masky in the head with his wing. "Don't tell them, moron."
Masky glared. "I am not a moron."
"Yeah, yeah, I had a friend who said that once." Hoodie said, clearly not believing him. "He had an accent like yours too." He smiled a bit. "He got fired into space and died."
Ben smiled as well. "Hey, that sounds a lot like what happened in Por-"
"Shut up." Hoodie growled at him, flying back up to the hole. "Do not speak of that in my presence."
Ben backed away. "Okay, jeez."
Hoodie landed again. "Anyways, we aren't going to tell you about Jeff, you don't deserve to know."
"Oh come on." Toby said in a begging voice, still not phased at all by Hoodie's threats. "We walked all the way here just to get him from some bug things, the least you can do is tell us what's going on."
Hoodie and Masky looked at each other for a moment before Masky spoke again."We could tell you, but they say you learn more from experience."
"Is that an invitation in?" Toby asked, smiling behind his mouth guard.
Ben sighed. "He's threatening to kidnap us, idiot." He said, facehoofing.
"Hey, I'm not an idiot." Toby snapped, glaring at Ben.
"You wish that were true, Rogers." Masky said, a smile hidden by his mask.
Toby turned back to Masky. "Just because I have tourettes and I'm attracted to waffles, doesn't mean I'm an idiot."
"I agree, you're an idiot for different reaso-." Masky blinked a few times. "Wait, attracted to waffles?"
Toby put a hoof to where his mouth would've been if it weren't for the mouth guard. "I didn't mean to say that."
Masky and Hoodie started chuckling, which quickly turned into a fit of laughter. Even a few of the changelings joined in.
"Shut up." Toby stomped, causing a bit of dirt to fall on them. "You guys have no right to laugh, you're together for Zalgo's sake."
They both stopped laughing and looked up at Toby. "That is true." Masky confirmed. "But we're attracted to each other, not food, so we're more normal than you."
"And that's something you're proud of, huh, being normal?" Toby questioned, sighing. "M-man, Slendy'd be so disappointed."
Masky glared up at him. "Don't bring the Slenderman into this, Rogers."
"Well, he has a point." Hoodie said, surprising Masky.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"Well, Slendy taught us that normal was bad, and we should embrace our strange sides." Hoodie explained. "So, by attempting to make fun of Toby for being weird, you, in a way, went against his word."
Masky tried coming up with excuses, but couldn't. "B-but Slender can't even see us here." He stuttered. Little did he know, My Little Pony was one of Slender's favorite shows.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we should go against his rules." Hoodie told him.
"You were laughing too." Masky pointed out.
"Only because everyone else was and I didn't wanna look stupid."
Masky sighed. "Weren't we in the middle of something?"
"That's what you said last n-"
"Shut up." Masky interrupted him.
Hoodie smiled at how annoyed he was.
Masky looked back up at the others, a bit surprised that they'd actually stood and listened and hadn't run away yet. "Anyways, are you coming in, or do I have to force you?" He turned back to Hoodie for a moment. "And don't you dare say anything about that sentence."
Hoodie had been about to speak, but gave Masky a sweet, innocent smile instead.
Masky sighed and looked back up at the others.
"Are you kidding, we'll force our way through you guys i it means-"
"No." E.J said, stopping Ben from finishing. "We won't put up a fight, just take us."
The others looked at him, surprised. "Are you kidding me?" Toby asked.
E.J shook his head. "I'd love to look around the place, and I won't be able to do that if I try to fight."
Masky and Hoodie were, of course, a bit skeptical, so they tried reading his mind, to see if he'd been planning anything. They were surprised to see that his mind was blank.
"Alright, you can enter." Masky said, not quite sure. He glared over at Hoodie after speaking. "Don't say it."
Hoodie had a wide smile on his face. "Don't worry, I'm not going to."
After a few moments of glaring, Masky turned away, sure that Hoodie was going to stay quiet.
"That's what you said last night." Hoodie said suddenly, chuckling as his smile widened.
Masky growled. "I miss when you were silent." He muttered to himself, using his golden magic to clear away more dirt, making the hole big enough for E.J to enter through.
E.J flew in without a word, motioning with his wing after he landed for the others to follow him.
Toby shrugged and jumped in. A crack was heard when he landed.
E.J flew over to him. "Are you okay?"
Toby stood up, one of his front legs completely limp and a bit twisted. "Yeah, I'm fine, my arm just broke a little."
E.J poked one of the unnatural bends in it, causing Toby to giggle.
"Don't do that, it tickles." He said. Nobody was sure whether or not he was kidding, and they were too freaked out to ask.
E.J backed away, unable to take his sights off of the mangled limb. "How did you break it that badly?" He asked. "The ceiling isn't even that high."
"Oh, it was broken before we left, that just made it worse." Toby answered casually, as if nothing had happened. "I think I dislocated it too."
"What did you do to break it and how did we not notice?"
Toby smiled at how creeped out everyone looked. "I broke it when I tripped in my room the other day, and you didn't notice because I walked on it anyway because there was no reason I shouldn't have, being numb to pain and all."
Even Masky looked freaked out, despite his mask and his hatred for Toby. "I'll make sure someone sees to that." He said.
"Why?" Toby asked, tilting his head and smiling. "I-I could fix it right now if I wanted."
"Please don't." Hoodie said. "I don't wanna see Masky vomit any more than he did last night."
Masky glared at him. "Can you stop with that?"
"Would you rather I make jokes about your mother?" Hoodie asked. "Because I'd rather not, this is more original, and it's funnier because it's at your expense, not some dead woman's."
"He has a point, Timothy." Toby said, smiling when Masky glared at him.
"Whatever." Masky said, sighing and deciding that it wasn't worth losing his temper over. "Ben, Smile, Brvr, are you coming, or not?"
Ben, Brvr and Smile looked at each other, trying to decide whether or not it was a good idea.
"Sure, Wynaut?" Brvr said, hopping down, luckily landing better than Toby.
Smile jumped down with him.
Ben stood in thought for a few more moments. This really didn't seem safe, sure E.J probably was planning something, but it still didn't seem safe. Although, he didn't want to be the one who decided that his own safety was more important than trying to rescue Jeff. He teleported down into the hole, not wanting to risk breaking something like Toby had.
"Good, now that you're all in agreement, why don't we give you the grand tour?" Masky suggested.
"Sounds great." E.J said, wanting to see how different this was from their previous hives.
"Follow us." Masky said, beginning to walk. "You." He nodded to one of the changelings. "Go get one of the higher ups, and possibly a few more drones, better safe than sorry."
The changeling nodded before flying away.
Chapter 26: Deeper into the hive
Masky and Hoodie were leading the group of ponies down the hall. They were slightly surrounded by changelings, just in case one of the ponies tried to attack.
"Are you sure it's safe to just let these ponies in?" One of the changelings asked. "Even if they're surrounded, it doesn't seem safe, I mean, they could be planning something."
"I know these ponies." Masky assured him. "And most of them are too dumb to know what the word plan even means."
"Shut up." Toby said from behind him. "I may not be smart, but at least I'm longer than 3 in-"
Masky used his magic to seal Toby's mouth shut before he could finish the sentence. "Oh, shut up, Rogers." He was only more annoyed when he noticed Hoodie snickering. "It's not funny."
"Well, I'd have to disagree. The truth is always funny."
Masky made a growling noise and glared at Hoodie.
You mad, Timothy? Hoodie asked through the mind.
Don't even start with that, Bria- Masky was interrupted by Hoodie punching him in the side.
Don't call me Brian. He sounded quite angry. You know that's not my name, Brian's been dead for over forty years.
Masky couldn't help but smile at the fact that he was getting on Hoodie's nerves. Well, your face looks like his mask, what's the big deal?
Hoodie looked like he was ready to kill someone. His usual frown was twisted into a menacing glare and his wings were twitching in anger. Luckily, before he had the change to pounce on Masky or something a familiar changeling flew over to the group and landed in between them. You could tell he was a higher rank because instead of blue eyes, he had green, and he was slightly taller than the drones.
"You ordered a higher up, correct?" He asked Masky.
"Yes, thank you."
"It's no trouble, but I have to ask, why are you leading this group of ponies into our hive?" He asked.
"Trust me, I know these ponies, I'm sure if they attacked we would be able to overpower them easily."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Tim." Smile chimed in.
Masky's ear twitched in irritation. "Must I remind you, that is not my name."
"Close enough." Smile said.
The others chuckled at Masky's anger, all of them except E.J. He seemed to be shocked for some reason, which didn't really make sense considering everyone called Masky by his human name, it was just fun to see him get so angry.
Nobody really seemed to notice his shock except Ben, who slightly nudged him. "Are you alright, man?" He whispered.
E.J nodded somewhat slowly.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm fine." E.J spoke in a monotone voice.
Ben, of course, wasn't convinced, but decided not to pry. Not yet anyways.
Masky was still talking to the changeling.
"That's not really a reason to bring all these strangers here." The changeling said.
"Well, to be honest, we have something of theirs that I'd like to show them." Masky answered. "Just to see their reaction, nothing more."
"By 'something of theirs' do you mean that one pony we kidnapped a few days ago?"
Masky nodded. "If worse comes to worse we can contain them just as easily as we're containing him."
"I'm sure we can." The changeling agreed, glancing back at the group. "If they're anything like that pony it should be easy as-." He stopped mid sentence. "Jack?"
E.J looked away and nodded.
The changeling flew back so he was walking next to E.J. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"I didn't expect to see you either." E.J mumbled, sounding annoyed.
The others watched, confused.
"I don't get it." Masky said. "You two know each other?"
"Unfortunately, yes." E.J confirmed.
"What's the connection?" Masky asked.
"Well, you see, Jack here is my son." The changeling answered.
This made everyone stop walking in shock.
"That's your dad?" Ben asked. "I mean, I knew one of your parents was a changeling, but still, I wasn't ready for that."
Toby, Brvr, Masky and Hoodie all spoke at the same time. "You knew?"
"He told me." Ben explained.
"Does the queen know that you have a son?" Masky asked.
"Yes, in fact, I believe she may have met him before." The changeling answered. "Don't ask how it's possible, inter-dimensional travel is weird."
"Wait, if you're part changeling why did you ever decide to work with humans?" Masky asked.
E.J sighed. "I can't shapeshift, so I'd be kinda useless here."
"But they're letting us stay, and we can't shapeshift." Hoodie pointed out.
"You're ponies who have the IQ of a dead goldfish and Cleverbot." E.J pointed out. "I'll let you guys guess which is which."
Hoodie and Masky whispered to each other for a moment before turning back to E.J. "What does that have to do with why you didn't stay?"
"I was human before, and they didn't trust humans." E.J explained. "That and when I first entered their hive I was legally blind, having only eaten two kidneys, so I was kind of hard to put up with."
One of the changelings blinked. "You eat kidneys?"
"That's strange." Another one said. "If you're part changeling then why not just feed off of emotion?"
"Kidneys give me sight, emotion doesn't." E.J told them. "Now, if you don't shut up about it then you'll be my next harvest."
This made the two go silent.
"Good, now if you don't mind, we'd like to continue the tour."
"Of course." Masky started walking again. "If it interests you, we're almost to the main attraction."
None of them commented, since they all knew what that meant.
"What do you mean?" Toby asked. Almost all of them knew what it meant.
The others sighed.
"He means, we're almost to the room where they're keeping Jeff." Ben told him.
"Oh, well why didn't he say so?"
If they hadn't been walking they all would've facehoofed.
"Just to let you know, you're not going to like what you see." Masky said.
"Of course not." E.J replied. "If we did there wouldn't be much point in trying to save him."
"That was rhetorical." Masky told him.
"I know, I just like annoying you."
Masky sighed. "Who doesn't?"
"Well, you seem to get along pretty well with most of the changelings." E.J pointed out.
Masky's eye twitched behind his mask. "That was also rhetorical."
E.J didn't respond that time, to Masky's relief.
After a few more moments Masky stopped in front of a cave. The others crowded around him and looked inside.
"You guys follow me, I'll lead you to the fish." Hoodie decided to speak again, hovering above the ground and entering the cave.
The others followed him. Inside the cave was a sight that only E.J expected. It was fairly dark, but it was bright enough to see green pods hanging from the ceiling, which had ponies in them. There weren't that many, and pretty much all of them had ponies that they'd never seen before, but that didn't make it that much better. The ponies almost looked like they were dead, the only sign of life being their somewhat shallow breathing.
After about a minute Hoodie stopped in front of a pod. As expected, this pod had Jeff in it. He lied limp in the pod and his permanently open eyes stared at nothing.
Toby blinked and poked it. "Ew, i-it's all gooey."
"So is my eye socket, but you don't hear me complain about it." E.J reminded him.
"What is all this?" Ben asked.
"This is the cave where we keep the ones we kidnap." Masky explained.
"Well, I can see that, but why keep them in those pods?"
"So they can't attempt escape." Masky told them. "It's a lot easier than just using a prison cell or something, trust me."
"If you say so." Toby spoke again, poking the pod a second time, this time with his broken leg. He giggled afterwards. "I bet it's like they're passed out in jelly."
Masky sighed. "Now I remember why I was glad to be away from you guys."
Toby wrapped his front hoof around Masky's neck. "Aw, come on, we're not that bad."
Masky tried to pull away. "That's what you think."
Toby tightened his grip. "Because it's true, I mean, how bad can we possibly be?"
Masky couldn't speak, or breathe form how tightly Toby was holding his neck. He tried pulling away, but when he did the grip just tightened.
"In fact, I bet you don't hate us at all, but you secretly love us and think we're awesome and amazing and you want to give us cheesecake and cookies and you want to come home with us and lie down next to the fireplace with some hot chocolate before we eventually-" Toby was interrupted by Hoodie punching him in the throat. He let go of Masky and grabbed his throat, gasping for air.
Masky also gasped for air, and stepped away from Toby, behind Hoodie.
After Toby caught his breath he began talking again, to Masky's disappointment. "That was uncalled for, I wasn't gonna say what you think I was."
Hoodie glared at him. "First of all, yes you were, and second of all, that wasn't the only reason I hit you."
"What was the second reason?"
"I prefer to be the one who chokes Masky, and that's on rare occasions." Hoodie answered, smirking at Masky.
Masky rolled his eyes. "Thankfully."
"Yeah, yeah." Hoodie rolled his as well. "After tonight you're gonna wish I just choked you."
"You are a truly evil person." Masky said.
"We'll discuss this later."
Toby shook his head. "No, we don't mind, go on."
E.J hit him in the ribs.
Toby sighed. "Okay, back to the topic at hand then." He looked at the pods as he spoke, sounding slightly disappointed.
"You know you can't keep him here." E.J said, looking at Jeff.
"And what could you guys do against a whole army of changelings?" Masky countered.
"Well, we could, and this is just a thought, take you two hostage and slaughter all the changelings here before letting Jeff go and kidnapping you." E.J suggested. The others nodded in agreement.
Toby tapped E.J's shoulder. "If we kidnap them, can I-"
"No." E.J didn't even need to hear the rest.
"Hey, you don't know what I was going to say." Toby protested.
"I have a good guess, but I suppose you can ask anyway."
"Okay." Toby smiled. "If we kidnap them, can I keep Masky as my slave?"
"I would say yes, but I know it's that type of slave, and not the regular kind."
Toby sighed. "You know me too well."
Hoodie glared at Toby. "Even if you kidnapped us and they let you have him, you can't, he's mine."
Toby smiled slightly behind his mouth guard. "Would you say that he's your little slave?"
Nobody even chuckled.
"How do you think of these things?" Masky asked.
Toby shrugged. "It just came to me, not sure why."
"Whatever, we're getting off topic, again." E.J interrupted the conversation. "We came here for a reason, and that was to get Jeff back, not to stand around and talk about slaves."
"Oh, right." Toby said as if he'd actually forgotten why they were there.
"If you want him back you'll have to fight." Masky warned them.
"Don't worry, we came prepared." E.J said, getting into an attacking position.
"Good." Masky's horn began glowing and Hoodie got into a position similar to E.J.
Soon everyone, including the changelings were ready to fight.
"Good luck." Smile said. "You're gonna need it."
