Hatoful Ponyfriend - Bad Ponies Love

I'm surprised at what I see when I return to Fluttershy's cottage. Princess Luna and Rainbow Dash are at the kitchen table with Rarity, and Fluttershy is looking for something under her floorboards. I tell them what Twilight Sparkle told me and I show them the encyclopedia. Princess Luna looks triumphant.

"We have her now!" she exclaims. "Rarity told me about what happened in the barn. That mare shall be brought to justice!"

"One problem, though," I say. "We still don't know how to get down there."

"Let's check the bakery a second time," she suggests, "Maybe you'll see something that you missed."

When I look at Rarity and Rainbow Dash to see what they think, neither look up. They speak softly to each other, not loud enough for me to hear.

"We should leave them," Princess Luna says quietly. "Rarity still seems troubled by..." she doesn't finish her sentence.

I nod and we head out the door. It troubles me a bit, but I can only hope that Rarity will recover. What happened to her can't have been easy. We are heading somewhere dark and terrible and a small voice in the back of my head tells me that not all of us will return alive.

When we arrive at the bakery, we hear a loud crashing and shouting. Princess Luna is the first to enter the building and she lowers her horn, preparing to strike at potential enemies. I wait outside until I hear a familiar voice, and I know that we are relatively safe.

"Mother of Banished Snow!" I hear Lyra declare as she bolts out of the shadows. "And Selene, Two-Faced Dreamer! I have found the source of the Scourge of Wyrms, we must make haste and bring judgement upon the Oathbound Shaman of Thorns."

Princess Luna looks at me. "What is she talking about?"

"I still don't know," I reply, shrugging at her before looking back at the unicorn. "Do you know how to get underground?"

"Indeed, I know the way to the Gate of the Abyss! Be you prepared, Mother of Banished Snow, for what lies beyond the pool into the underworld?"

"I guess so."

"Then let us go!"

Lyra spins around and gallops into the darkness. "She should not be running inside," I hear Princess Luna remark from beside me. "Especially when it is so dark. Did you hear that? She just broke something."

It's true, I hear the sound of breaking glass, then Lyra shouting, "The Gate to the Abyss is open! Come, brave warriors, it is time to depart! Quickly, quickly!"

Princess Luna walks forward without a word, horn alight. I follow hesitantly and we turn into a room at the back of the bakery. Inside is a very triumphant-looking Lyra beside a very smashed-looking mirror. Behind the mirror is a staircase leading down, and next to it is a lever, probably for moving the mirror aside.

"Wow," I say. "That was... something. How did you know that was back there?" I ask in puzzlement.

Lyra narrows her eyes. "Do you not sense the breaking of the walls between worlds? Am I alone able to see the light, its arcs and curves, the paths it leads to the end? No." She tilts her head a bit. "You could not know. The Scourge of Wyrms lies below, as does the Oathbound Shaman!"

I need to stop expecting a straight answer from her. "So we're going down there?" I ask. "Is it time to see if Zecora is down there, and get some answers?"

"Derpy Hooves," Princess Luna says, looking very serious, "Nopony wants answers more than I. Let us go."

We walk down the dark staircase for some time, saying nothing, our are hoofsteps the only sound in the silence. How deep down does this go, I wonder? Far below Ponyville, our happy, peaceful little town, ponies were working to eliminate dragons. They had used other ponies as well, as Twilight Sparkle said. How many others had suffered down here? This all feels like a trap, but we have no other options.

"Stop!" Lyra shouts suddenly. I feel my heart skip a beat as it struggles to leave through my mouth. "Beware! The Metal Amalgam approaches! Steel yourselves, and prepare for battle!"

Silence. Then I hear a familiar creak, thump, scrape...

"That's the metal monster Rarity and I told you about," I whisper to Princess Luna. "What is it doing down here?"

"Zecora created it, I expect." The princess lowers her horn at the monster. "Is it dangerous?"

"We never let it get close enough to-"

I stop. The monster stops. It raises its heavy metal arm and makes a wheezing, groaning sound. "Hhhhh... hhhaaa... uhhhh... saaahhh..."

"Enough of this!" Princess Luna slashes her horn, drawing an arc in the air and sending a crescent of silver moonlight into the monster. It slices it clean in two. Is that oil or blood leaking from the halves of its body? I don't check as we walk past its motionless halves.

"Ahhhh... saaahhh... hhhhaaaa..." I turn around. The top half of the monster is looking at me, reaching the remains of its metal arm towards my face. "Hhhhhhaaaa..."

"You're not eating me today," I tell it before joining Princess Luna and Lyra again. It's time to move on.

After a few more minutes of walking, we come to a dimly lit laboratory. It looks untouched, as if somepony left it this way for show. There are lots of vials, bottles, and advanced-looking equipment. One wall is lined with nothing but shelves with folders on them, papers filed neatly away.

Princess Luna pulls out one of the files. "Subject 003865: Rainbow Dash," she reads. "Can easily fly five times the speed of sound and is able to manipulate the visual color spectrum."

"So this is information on every single pony in Ponyville and their talents?" I look for the folder marked 'Lyra' and pull it out. "Subject 008214: Lyra. Possesses the ability to see into other dimensions and realities. Can produce a hallucinogenic aura that causes the consciousness of ponies near her to be pulled into the world she is seeing. Currently uncontrollable."

This explains what happened back when I first saw her earlier today. Maybe this is why she's so crazy, she's forgotten which world she is really living in?

"You do not have a file here, Derpy Hooves," I hear Princess Luna say. "Maybe Zecora has it?"

That snaps me back into the present. "We should move on," I say. There are many doors that lead out of this room, but only one other open one. That must be the way Zecora went.

Lyra, Princess Luna, and I continue on. At the end of the hall is another set of stairs leading down. The air becomes musty and thick the further down we go. Lyra was right, it is like walking into the underworld. The stairs end and we walk down a straight hallway with doors on either side of us. Was Twilight Sparkle kept in one of these cells?

At the end of the hall is a heavy iron door, open just enough to see into. I'm the first to look in and see the blackened walls and floor by the light of a flickering light attached to the ceiling. It smells of fire. This must be where she burned. She must have been very brave. Brave, or...

"You have come, Derpy Hooves, but you are late. You have learned it is inevitable to fight your fate?"

Zecora stands, her face half in shadow, in one of the corners of the room. Her eyes are glowing slightly in the dim light. She watches us. "Do step in, if you would be so kind," she says to me. "However, you must leave your friends behind."

I walk forward as if in a trance. Maybe her words really are magic. Before Lyra and Princess Luna can follow, Zecora presses an unseen button and the door slams shut behind me. It's time for answers.

Ignoring the pounding and blasting against the door, I stare straight into Zecora's eyes. "You killed Spike and Mayor Mare," I say. "You were involved with the Exodus Virus as well. Zecora, you're evil! Ponyville is going to be destroyed, and it's going to be your fault!"

I want to fly at her, knock her over, hurt her, but that won't bring anypony back. It would feel good though.

Zecora gives me a slow nod. "I worked on the virus, this much is true, but do not believe this plan does not involve you." She moves forward slowly, speaking softly so I can barely hear. "The virus was rare and they knew that day that the we could not let the samples simply slip away. In the bodies of ponies it could not be borne, but it was found in the body of a sick unicorn. Her body was weak, her immune system a mess, so it was on her that they began their tests."

"You caused her to destroy herself because of your experiments!" I shout at the top of my lungs. "That was cruel!"

"Her body was preserved until before her demise, I worked alone and in secret, away from prying eyes. After her death, I preserved what little remained until there came a carrier in which they could be contained. Before I could plant it, every day I would have to chip her immune system away. I gave her a substance that would wear her down, then I applied the virus and here we are now."

We are almost nose-to-nose now. I'm shaking. I have all of the pieces of the puzzle, but one thing just wasn't adding up."

"There is one question unanswered, is there not?" She takes her final step towards me and stares unblinkingly into my eyes. "What is the thing that you forgot?"

Something in that stare sends me back to the blank part of my mind, yesterday. Right before everything went black. I was delivering the regular box of books to the library. I helped him unpack them the way I did every day and, as always, he asked me to stay for tea. As always, I was about to say no, but he suddenly doubled over, coughing violently. He fell to his knees and he began to choke. I tried to spread my wings to fly and get help, but I was rooted to the spot in horror. Every breath I drew felt like I was moving sandbags in my chest. Soon, even standing became too much of an effort and I fell, my head spinning as I fell into unconsciousness.

"I..." Snapping back to reality, the truth finally dawns on me. "You were using me? You used me to carry the Exodus virus to Spike?"

"Every box to the library was sent by me. The dust inside weakened your immunity. Yesterday I gave you the virus to take and the plan all went right, without a mistake. I hid in the bushes until Spike fell and used the fumes of a potion to put you out as well." There is a small smile on the zebra's face as she watches me cower away.

"You did this! You're wrong!" I feel tears coming to my eyes. "This is all your fault!"

"Did you take a look, before you came here, at the metal beast which you came to fear?" Zecora continues. I can't reply to her, sobs wrack my body and prevent me from speaking.

"Although Spike's body was scattered abound, there is one part that I kept around. I constructed the monster to clear your way so you could solve the mystery and find me today. Perhaps I was vague, I shall ask this instead: Did you ever look closely at the monster's head?"

"No!" This is too much. I turn around and try to open the door, but it's shut and locked. There is no moving it. "Spike's head is in there, isn't it? What more can you do? Isn't this enough?" I sink to the floor and Zecora stands over me.

"No, not the head," she says, "up above it remains. What powers the machine is what is left of Spike's brain."

It's too much. I close my eyes and rest my head on the door. All of this information sits like a stone in the pit of my stomach. Spike, the monster, the Exodus Virus. I can't bear it anymore.

I hear a pop, a soft sizzle, and a strange smell fills the room. It's familiar, but I can't quite recall it, like the mix of warm summers, blooming flowers, and sweet food. Muffins? No, much better. It's the smell of happy. The floor feels like it's falling out from below me, or I'm rising up. Clouds in all the colors of sunrises surround me. I would do anything to stay in this state of euphoria forever and forget everything that's happened today. What has happened today?

A voice, it must be Zecora's, floats into my consciousness. "I have given a mixture to soothe your mind. Inside your body is the savior of Ponykind. Fly fast and fly high, you can end it today. Every living dragon in Equestria shall pay. The conflict will end, the fighting will cease. You alone can bring about a world of peace."

It sounds good. I unfurl my wings and begin to fly slowly through the clouds. It is peaceful and quiet, I've already forgotten my name, who I am, where I am. The events of the day are a blur and are slowly slipping away when I am stopped by a very solid cloud. It turns into a pony who looks straight at me, but I take little mind and brush my hoof through it to continue on my way. A faint, shouting sound follows the cloud's immediate removal from my path and another pony takes her place, keeping her shape for a little bit longer. Once again, I push her away and there is another shout. Why is there noise? Isn't this my place? It's the clouds, yes, the clouds that are causing them. I need to get rid of them.

With furious wingbeats, I begin to blow them away one by one until there is nothing but a clear, sunny sky and one particularly stubborn cloud left. Just one more, and I can continue my blissful flight onwards into the sun.

Suddenly, everything goes dark. My world is engulfed in a black haze and I hear a new voice coming from the direction of that final cloud.

"Mother of Banished Snow, you must break free of the control of the Oathbound Shaman of Thorns!" The voice is familiar, it's as if I had heard it once before in a dream. "Discover your true self! Let the voices of your comrades carry you onwards!"

I am standing in an empty battlefield with a mint-colored pony clad in red in front of me. Yes, I think. I must find myself again and defeat the Oathbound Shaman of- wait. This isn't right.

"Hey! Derpy Hooves!" A second voice shouts at me and the world around me shifts. I am standing above the clouds again, but this time the sky is bright and sunny. The pony in red is distorted and replaced by a blue pony silhouetted with rainbows. "This isn't you! You aren't the pony to kill thousands of dragons just because somepony tells you to. Come be yourself again!"

As if time speeds up, the sun drops and the sky is filled with stars. I look down and the world is beneath my hooves. A lifetime's worth of hopes and wishes, dreams and memories, wash over me and I begin to remember a little. Derpy Hooves. That's the name she used for me. Is that my name?

"We are doing our best to help you," I hear somepony say and I look up to see an alicorn made of stars in the sky. "But you need to break free on your own. Please, come back!"

I could lose myself in that voice, but a sharp voice breaks me from its trance and I'm falling out of the sky. A white pony with a purple mane is waiting for me when I land on the ground. I'm surrounded by buildings. Ponyville? Is that what this place is called?

"We've come so far, and we only have so much time!" she says to me. "We've all lost something tonight, we can't lose you too!"

That's right, I remember now. Spike, the barrier, Applejack. I remember what I have been trying so hard to forget. I want it all to end. Like trying to grasp at a dream after waking up, I try to find my way back to that golden, peaceful place in the sky. I want to never worry again.

Once more, I am jerked into a new place. It's dark, but there are little glowing lights flickering on the walls. It's the library. A purple pony begins to swirl into being in front of me. Twilight Sparkle?

No, she's too short to be Twilight Sparkle. Green begins to join the purple and tears begin to well up in my eyes. A ghostly version of Spike stands in front of me. He looks sad.

"I don't want to see you hurting anyone, Derpy Hooves," he says to me, locking my eyes with his. "Right now, your friends are trying to keep you from doing something horrible. Please wake up."

It's like waking up from a bad dream. Through bleary eyes I can see Princess Luna, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Lyra standing in a circle around me.

"She awakens!" Lyra declares. "We have done it, brave heroes! The Mother of Banished Snow has returned from the brink of the abyss!"

"Are you alright, Derpy Hooves?" Princess Luna asks me.

I nod. "Thank you, Princess. What happened?"

"Lyra was able to pull you into a hallucination and stop you from going on a rampage, then we were able to talk to you. We hoped we would be able to get through to you." The princess looks Rainbow Dash and Rarity. "You gave those two quite a bump."

I blink and realize something. "Rarity!" I begin to babble. "Are you okay? What are you doing here? I'm sorry!!!"

The white unicorn shakes her head and gives me a smile. "I can't bring Applejack back by crying over it," she says.

Lyra turns away and I notice that Zecora has been standing, watching us with an surprised but amused look on her face. She seems to have done nothing this entire time.

"You are conscious again? Now what a surprise. My elixir ensured you would rain death from the skies."

"Your time is up, Oathbound Shaman!" Lyra bellows at Zecora. "I shall judge you myself, and the gods above shall decide your punishment!"

"Er..." Princess Luna raised a hoof.

"Hang on." I stand up and I immediately fall back down again. My legs are still wobbly. "I need to know something." Looking Zecora straight in the eyes, I ask, "Why did you do this? You must have had a reason that you picked me, of all ponies."

The zebra closes her eyes and sighs a bit. "It is nothing of note, I can not pretend. It is merely a test that has come to an end." She looks around the room at all of the other ponies whose eyes are all locked on her, "But a hint of curiosity I do detect. Believe me, the story is not what you would expect."