Lyra lifted the needle from the record as Professor Orange’s final recording ended, and sighed. “See? We need the book to stop this thing.”

“Says the unicorn who let the stupid things out in the first place and who could not keep track of his own mail,” Colgate grumbled, tightening the knot on her fresh bandages. Experimentally she got to her hooves, putting weight on the poker she had tied to her stump.

“Colgate I don’t want to go down there anymore then you, but unless you have a better plan we don’t have any options! Waiting and hoping that daylight will make us any safer has only made thing worse!” Lyra stamped a hoof as she glared at Colgate.

Colgate slowly walked around the main room, practicing walking on the improvised prosthetic. “Well if the spell he mentioned does work, then why didn’t he use it? Besides, the only pony that is still a threat to us is locked in the cellar, so we could just trot out of the woods now.”

Lyra tapped a hoof in frustration. “Whatever took our friends while they were still alive did it in the woods! And you barely made the hike up here with all four legs and most of your blood still in your body.” Lyra shivered. “Besides, Professor Orange was alone when he recorded the last message, but he’s still gone.”

Colgate hesitated as she mulled over that last remark. “Good point,” she conceded. She made her way to the trap door as Lyra removed the metal bar from its secure place. Colgate braced for Carrot Top’s attack as Lyra proceeded to lift the door open, but only darkness and silence greeted them from the opening.

Lyra’s horn lit up and cast a golden glow into the shadows, but revealed nothing but an empty room. “I guess we’re safe on the stairs at least,” Lyra offered, sounding as if she wanted to be optimistic, but was not quite feeling it. She looked at Colgate, “How’s your magic?”

Colgate looked up at her horn, “Well those defense spells are pretty taxing. You’re only meant to use one and then run away, so I am feeling pretty worn out after two.”

Lyra nodded. “OK then I’ll lead the way with the ax and you just cover me with as much light as you can manage.” She took a deep breath and dropped the light spell to pick up the ax, Colgate moving behind to light the way.

The wooden stairs creaked ominously as the two ponies crept into the root cellar. Colgate felt herself sweat as she fought the urge to look around, instead keeping the light steady on Lyra’s path. Finally, Lyra stepped off the last step and onto the hard packed earth of the cellar floor. Colgate, relieved to get off the stairs herself hopped the last few steps. Unfortunately, she had not quite taken into account her poker leg and bungled her landing, flopping awkwardly to the ground and sending the light spinning out of control.

Lyra yelped in fright as she was suddenly plunged into partial darkness and fired up her own horn on reflex, dropping the ax.

“Colgate?” Lyra asked, voice high and panicky. “Are you ok?”

Colgate was suddenly blinded as a golden light was fixed onto face. She covered her eyes with a leg and grimaced. “Sorry, just fell down. Nothing grabbed me.” She got back up unsteadily and resumed her own light spell. “Sorry Lyra.”

Lyra just shook her head and retired the ax. “You’re just lucky that Carrot Top wasn’t-” She suddenly spun round, raising the ax. “-HERE!” She cried at the doorway, which was currently not occupied by murderous demons. “Oh.”

“What was that about?” Colgate asked, perplexed.

“I just kind of thought she would be standing behind me,” Lyra admitted peering into the second room.

“Why?” Colgate asked, feeling like she was missing something important.

“Nothing, never mind!” Lyra snapped, turning slightly red as she slowly entered the next room. Colgate decided not to push the question and followed Lyra into what appeared to be some sort of storeroom. The room was lined with shelves of artifacts, both equestrian and foreign, and along with them were scrolls - undoubtedly notes and documentation on the treasure trove of historical relics that the Professor had collected. Colgate’s eyes drifted along the rows of shelves in awe as she wondered just what incredible find her old teacher had been working on at his secluded cabin.

“Colgate!” Lyra barked and Colgate snapped her head back round to illuminate Lyra, who was giving her a dirty look. “Can you please focus?”

“Sorry,” Colgate mumbled, feeling her cheeks brighten.

Lyra shook her head and turned back to a table that sat in the middle of the room. The center of the table was cleared, as if something large had been moved from it, but around the cleared area was an untidy assortment of papers, ink pots and books. These Lyra rifled through before uncovering a small, wrinkly brown book. Lyra grimaced as she picked up the small book and turned it to show Colgate. Colgate recoiled slightly at the twisted and monstrous face that peered out at her from the cover. “Well, I don’t really know what I should have expected it to look like,” Lyra remarked.

Lyra trotted back to Colgate, eyes darting back and forth across the cellar. “Let’s get out of here,” she muttered.

Wasting no time, the two mares hurried back to the stairway, Colgate leading the way at a swift limp. As they had reached the halfway point there was a sudden crash behind them from the direction of the store room. Lyra turned and hefted the ax, peering into the darkness.

“Lyra, come on!” Colgate whined looking from the open trap door to her friend. “Let’s get out of here before she gets us!”

Lyra shook her head slowly. “No. Something isn’t right here.” She stepped off the stairs and held the ax in a guard position. “Why hasn’t she come after us yet?”

“Because she doesn’t want to get chopped up by that ax! Now come on!” Colgate took a few more steps up the staircase, but stopped when Lyra didn’t follow her.

“What if it’s some sort of trap?” Lyra suddenly turned back to the stair, a look of horror on her face. “Colgate, get off the stairs!”

Colgate screamed in terror as she hurled herself up the last few steps and back into the main room of the cabin, diving across the floor and directly into the wall Derpy had smashed her into earlier.

Dazed, Colgate heard Lyra call after her, “Wait, no, false alarm! I thought it might have been lying in ambush under the stairs to grab us when we climbed up.”

“Lyra, will you stop scaring me like that!?” Colgate hissed, shaking her head to clear the stars from her eyes. “You’re going to give me a heart at-AHHH!” Colgate’s words choked off into a bloodcurdling scream as she saw the horribly decomposed body of Carrot Top stalking toward her.

“Colgate!?” Lyra shouted, concern clear in her voice as she began to climb the stairs.

“Lyra, help! It’s here!” Colgate screeched before Carrot Top slammed into her like a train, driving her into the back wall.

Lyra leapt from the cellar, ax already prepared for the swing, but Carrot Top whipped around, hurling Colgate with a snarl.

Colgate saw Lyra’s surprise clear on her face in the split second before she collided with her, sending both mares tumbling. The ax, released from Lyra’s magic, hurtled off into the wall with enough force to be driven most of the way through it.

Colgate felt a sharp pain in her leg as the poker was finally wrenched free by the force of the impact. She rolled onto her belly, clutching her stump, as Lyra rose to face the monster. She lifted the metal bar that had held the door in place as she circled the creature, trying to keep its attention on her. “Colgate!” She yelled, drawing her attention. “The book!”

Colgate nodded and looked around, spotting the horrible little thing lying near the lip of the cellar. Unfortunately, the monster had spotted it too. “You cannot stop us!” It hissed. It made a break for the book, but Lyra was prepared. With a quick step forward she lashed out at the creature, striking it with the metal bar and putting herself between it and Colgate.

“There are translation notes between the pages, Colgate! End it!” Lyra yelled.

“Right!” Colgate telekinetically seized the book and pulled it to herself. She leafed through the pages like a madmare before landing on a lose page of hastily scrawled notes, sandwiched between pages. “Recitation of these passages shall give the evil flesh,” Colgate read aloud.

“What!? Don’t read that!” Lyra bellowed, now pinned to the ground by Carrot Top.

“Hold on!” Colgate snapped. “By doing so, recitation of the next passage shall send the evil back from which it came!” Colgate grinned. “We can stop it!”

Lyra’s eyes bulged as she pushed the metal bar under the monster’s neck, holding its gnashing maw mere inches from her face. Colgate felt her heart skip a beat. “Lyra!”

“Read!” Lyra sobbed as she slowly lost ground.

“On it!” Colgate skimmed down to the section marked by the translation and started to read. “Carnem sumere, et vixerunt.”

Carrot Top’s head jerked back as if stuck, allowing Lyra to gain a little ground against the demon.

“Per hoc corpus terrenum teneantur!” Colgate felt her throat burn as if the words were fire boiling up through her throat. Carrot Top thrashed on top of Lyra, apparently unable to choose between killing her current victim or attacking Colgate.

“Si ergo in speciem mortalis, et renasci!” Colgate finished, feeling tears well in her eyes as the pain of the words scorched her.

With a howl Carrot Top’s body went rigid, face contorted in a mask of rage. Lyra tensed for moment then relaxed, sighing.

Then, without warning, Carrot Top’s head tilted forwarded and toppled onto Lyra. The unicorn screamed as the head smashed against her, rotted blood splattering across her chest. Lyra began to desperately rub the rotten mass of blood and brain off herself, and so did not see it when the rest of the body rapidly rotted away. She did notice, however, when that mass of rotten meat collapsed on top of her in a horrible downpour of gore.

Colgate hurried over to the now hysterical Lyra and quickly pushed as much of the rancid meat off of her as she could. As she scooped off a particularly ugly mush of partially liquefied bone, Colgate suddenly found herself swept up into an uncomfortably squelchy embrace. Lyra was still hysterically sobbing, but in-between her sobs were peals of equally hysterical laughter as she pulled Colgate to the floor.

“You did it!” Lyra choked out as soon as she was able to form words again. “You really did it!”

“I did!” Colgate croaked, feeling her heart race as she gave Lyra a one-legged hug back. “I beat them!”

Lyra pulled back to look Colgate directly in the gore-smeared face. The flush of victory and the relief of surviving her near brush with death left Lyra looking almost intoxicated on the mere fact of being alive. Her face was flushed as she smiled at Colgate. “You saved my life, Colgate! That was pretty amazing!”

Colgate felt her own face flush bright red as she felt Lyra embrace her gently, while also firmly pulling her closer. “Oh, well, yeah. I guess I did save you, didn’t I?”

Lyra nodded and pulled herself up toward Colgate.

Colgate felt her heart hammering in her ears as she bent down to meet Lyra, a thousand nighttime fantasies suddenly flying though her head.

And at that exact moment the roof of the cabin collapsed in with a deafening crash.

“OH COME ON!” Colgate bellowed as she and Lyra spun to face the noise.

From the new hole where a sizable portion of the cabin had been, the two mares could see a huge monstrosity, roughly the size and shape of a small grove of trees peering in at them. From the tree’s gnarled trunk, the faces of ponies, twisted and deformed, silently screamed. Colgate saw their friends amongst the faces and felt her heart sink.

“BONBON!” Lyra screamed upon seeing the faces for herself. Before Colgate could do anything to stop her, Lyra grabbed the ax and rushed toward the wooden abomination. The thing howled and swept at the mare, who dodged- just barely- as she charged. Reaching the trunk and the faces within, Lyra swung back her ax and began to hack at the thing’s body, blood spurting from where her blows fell.

In a panic Colgate scooped up the book and turned back to the page she had been on. “I only read half of the spell!” She moaned, finding the page. Carrot Top wasn’t the physical form at all!”

Colgate was distracted as Lyra screamed in pain. She looked up in time to see the monster raise Lyra to its face, body held in one colossal hand. Lyra brought the ax down into the creature’s face and pulled in as much air as she could manage as the hand slowly squeezed her. “Colgate!” Lyra screamed as her bones began to audibly crack under the pressure.

“Lyra, hold on, I can still do this!” Colgate shouted back, unable to look away from her friend.

“You have to stop it!” Lyra wheezed, blood gurgling up from her throat as her magic faded, letting the ax clatter to the floor. “I believe in-“ Lyra’s last words were cut off by a sickening crunch.

Colgate felt her whole body go numb as the book fell by her hooves. She looked down at it dully as the sound of a body hitting the floor seemed to boom around the cabin. As the creature approached, Colgate read the words that could have ended it all.

“Klaatu.”

Saved her friend.

“Verata.”

Put a stop to this living nightmare

“Nicto!”

Colgate looked up as the creature loomed above her, blood still dripping from its outstretched hand. Colgate barely felt the creature pick her up, nor did she quite notice that she had pulled the wood ax to her. She hardly felt the pressure building around her body as she halfheartedly chopped at the monsters ax-bitten face.

But she did feel it when the creature dropped her.

Colgate’s surprise was mirrored on the face of the demon tree as it slowly began to slide backward, tearing deep fissures in the floor as it tried to anchor itself by shoving its legs straight through to the basement. Regardless of how hard it struggled, it was inexorably pulled back out of the cabin as tendrils of pale blue light began to swirl behind it, rapidly turning into a whirlpool in the woods. The tree monster bellowed in rage as it grasped at anything that it could to keep itself from being pulled into the magical vortex, but to no avail.

At the same time, loose rocks and bits of debris where also lifted up and pulled into the magical event. Colgate, who was still in a slight daze, took a little too long to recognize these warning signs as she felt herself quickly sliding down the same path that the tree monster had taken before her.

“Woah!” Colgate rolled onto her back and tried to brace herself against the floor without luck. “Come on now, let’s hold up!” Colgate dragged the ax along the floor with her remaining front hoof as the force of the vortex picked up. “For Celestia’s sake how do you stop it!?” Colgate begged as she was hurled violently into the air and into the gaping maw of the vortex.

Colgate screamed as she was spun round and around into an endless void of darkness. For what felt like an eternity she was flung through the void, with only her ax to hold onto.

Then with an explosion of sound and color the world returned and Colgate felt herself falling through the air. This only lasted for a few seconds before Colgate felt the far more familiar sensations of being on the ground and being in pain as she landed on the shaft of the ax.

Groaning, Colgate rolled off the ax and looked up into the sky. The sun was high and bright and Colgate felt a smile creep across her face. Then a pony in heavy armor and bearing a wicked looking spear leaned over her.

“Milady! We have another one!” the armored pony called as Colgate flinched away from the pointy tip of the spear.

“Hold!” Another voice called back. “Milady, I believe she may be the one spoken of in the Necronomicon! She who shall fall from the sky to deliver us from the terror of the deadites!”

Colgate looked up to see a regally dressed, royal-looking white unicorn staring down at her. At the unicorn’s side was another pony, though she was purple and wearing a plain brown robe. The white mare snorted. “This crippled simpleton? I doubt it.” She glared at Colgate and in an imperious tone declared. “More likely she is a spy of Commander Hurricane! Carry her to the others and drag her to the pit!”

A cheer went up from a small crowd of armored ponies who were gathered around the two mares. Colgate opened her mouth to protest, but got as far as, “Who are-” When a heavy spear butt collided with her head and the world went dark again.

The End

OK no, seriously…

To Be Continued in:

Colgate vs. The Army of Darkness

Author's Note

Its over!

OK I finished this a few weeks ago, but my editors and pre-readers where all busy, so its been sorta sitting on the self for a bit now. Sorry about that.

Anyway, this ending was not really how I had originally intended for the story to end... well not exactly. I had planned on having a whole bit with Colgate getting the ax strapped to her missing leg and then, she would have fought the tree while Lyra read the book and then she would live and Colgate's fate would be left ambiguous after she got sucked into the vortex.

That ending got scraped when I could not come up with a good reason why Lyra would give up there best weapon by attaching it to Colgate's leg, while they both of them had magic! Losing a hand is less of a detriment when you don't actually use them to pick up and hold things. And so we got this ending, for better or worse.

But who cares about that crape! The story ends on a cliff hanger! What's up with that?

So its been my intention, pretty much ever since starting this story that I would follow it up with a altered version of Army of Darkness. I have a couple of different ideas of how I might go about doing that and it might be a little bit before I start uploading that story, but rest assured, its coming!

Finally I have two last little announcements for you guys! First, there is something INCREDIBLY cool related to Pony Dead in the works that I will be giving a few updates in the form of blog posts. If you enjoyed the story, then I think you will be rather interested in this related project...
Second is that I am actually posting this last chapter on my birthday! I find this oddly fitting...

OK and one last thing, if you have not seen it yet, we DO have a title card for the next story that was drawn by my good friend Crativ Pony: http://creativpony.tumblr.com/
Its pretty amazing. Not gonna lie. He sorta ran out of time at the end and I might need to have some one else just touch up the details on the mob and add in the credits, but still! This thing is rad as hell! Get hyped!

• Duhad