explicitly stupid adventures of orange OC in the kingdom of darkness

I woke up in the middle of the night. The previous day had been unremarkable, but for some reason my sleep evaded me.

I opened the window to get a smell of the spring air. The only noises outside came from the birds chirping in the shrubs across the river. Even the dogs seemed to be asleep, though it wasn't uncommon for them to be barking at some foals who were out after dark and had wandered into the other side of town.

A couple clouds illuminated by the moon covered the starry sky, with a little cool wind breaking the night heat. In the distant there seemed to be a faint, low rumbling noise. That was unusual. I didn't feel like going back to sleep, so I decided to go outside and maybe catch a glimpse of what was causing it. My guess would have been a pegasus out doing flying tricks after dark.

I stepped outside and headed toward the market square, only a few blocks away from my house. The fruit and vegetable stands still had their fruits and vegetables out, since no one in Ponyville ever bothered to steal anything.

As I walked across the square the rumbling became a little bit louder. The almost full moon illuminated the square clearly. There was a large open space in the middle, with all the little market stands dotted around along the sides of it. The empty square had an air of space and security about it at night that I liked. A large cloud was quickly moving in to cover the sky overhead. Were the pegasi still on weather duty? I watched the dark blob eat up the stars, trying to catch a glimpse of somepony flying nearby.

In the middle of the square I noticed that the noise was moving. Blocks of buildings obscured its location, but it sounded as if it had crossed the bridge over the river and was now heading into town. It gave me a slight feeling of terrified excitement, to know that I had no idea what this thing was, but I could hear it slowly making its way through the streets. It felt evil. I didn't want to feel for it, though. I just wanted to hide somewhere and watch it pass, hoping that it wouldn't see me.

My feet carried me towards the source of the noise, while an inner conflict between running away and the desire to witness the scary object intensified. There was a clear feeling of destiny, though. Like I was about to be handed a big black box with a question mark and had the opportunity to choose what I did with it. Would I open it or run away from it? Would it even be there the next time?

My feet stopped just short of the corner of a narrow alley formed by two houses. The noise had also stopped on the other side of the buildings. It would have been visible through the opening. It didn't move. I froze. Was it toying with me? Was it waiting for me to make eye contact so it could strike? It sounded like a very unique experience, being eaten by a strange otherworldly rumbling thing. Buzzing with scared excitement, and with a possibly insane expression I looked around the corner.

Drenched in moonlight, in the middle of the street stood a unicorn in a weathered dark brown cloak, resembling that of a magic student. He carried a scepter and some small books attached to a detailed black belt; one of which he was paging through quickly. His coat was a faded purple that had some sort of intensity about it. The word "sorcerer" came to mind. The scepter itself seemed much heavier, much more real than the sorcerer and all of the everyday surroundings, although the sorcerer had visibly begun to inherit some of the scepter's qualities.

He took his hood off and perked up one of his ears. Briefly realizing that I was staring a rattlesnake in the rattle, I pulled my head out of the alley. The noise continued to move down the street. He seemed to be headed towards the market. I trotted quietly along the line of buildings back to one of the fruit stands and hid in the shadow.

It wasn't long before the sorcerer came down the street. The buzz of the scepter made my spine tingle from prolonged exposure and the sorcerer walked so slow that I began to wonder if I should have moved two fruit stands together before he got there to be more comfortable. He slowly made his way through the market. To my relief he pulled out one of his books and started paging through it again. In the center of the square he stopped. The same scene of the cloaked moonlit wizard paging through a mysterious spell book played out once more.

He looked up at he sky and examined the clouds for an extended amount of time. The eyes of the scepter seemed to flicker for a moment and I watched him all the more closely for it.

"How curious that I would have company on a night like this." He said.

His image in the middle of the square melted away into thin air and reappeared a couple dozen feet away from me, next to another fruit stand. I flinched. Some sort of charge shot out of the scepter and I could see from the flash that there was a pegasus mare hiding in the shadow. She sounded like she was struggling to breathe when he came up to her and picked her up. He held the struggling pony up by the wings as the eyes of the scepter in his hoof glowed red and a dark magic cloud began to form around her.

"I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised to find out how much more competent I have become since my last visit." He said.

"Get your hooves off her!" I called, and threw an orange that landed on the side of his face.

"Who threw that?" He growled through clenched teeth, turning his attention in my direction.

I hid behind the stand, hoping he didn't see me. Hiding in the shadows, I peeked out to see what he was up to, just in time to notice him waving his scepter. The scepter launched an extremely slow-moving projectile into the fruit. The charge rivaled the speed of a javelin and pierced the orange stand clean through. I was momentarily covered in sticky orange ooze.

Good thing I held up a hoof to save my eyes, because the next three charges were a little harder to dodge. I jumped backwards, nearly tripped over myself, and ran for the nearest alley. It  happened to be the same alley I looked at the wizard through. There wasn't much else I could do, considering my pile of ammunition was splattered across my face.

There were some trees and a lawn nearby with an open space leading to a shadow covered line of houses with the alley in the middle. I thought about using the trees for cover, but glanced over my shoulder as I ran to see what the sorcerer would do. He was walking towards me, twirling the scepter in his hoof with shadows buildings up around him. There was nowhere suitable for cover, so I went straight for the alley.

The sorcerer was still in the middle of the square when I last looked at him before running full speed into the narrow opening. The next moment he was right in front of me. I jumped over him instinctively, but hit his head with my hoof and almost stumbled over. The head was gone and there were little tendrils of darkness crawling up my arm. The same sort of tendrils were wriggling around on the neck of the headless body. It was just a clone. I shook them off and kept running.

To the other side of the houses was an open street. I followed the line of houses away from the market square. I planned to glance back when I was passing the next alley and decide if I should take it, but when I got there several dozen roaches darted out and tried to run up my arms and legs. I stomped one of them and it exploded into more shadowy tendrils. The sorcerer was still nowhere to be found. Ignoring the roaches, I decided to run to a narrow street that started a couple houses over. Before turning the corner I saw the sorcerer pony running after me, closing the distance at alarming speed.

The alley to the left had a gigantic maggot coming out of it. The openings to right had swarms of insects pouring out. Some of them were flying in over the roof tops. I knew the maggot was fake so I ran right through it. It split into strands of oozing darkness that felt like a million like insect feelers brushing against my skin. The dark blob had some pressure to it that resisted my movement. I felt a lump rising in my throat, but continued to push through it. A moment later it split to my sides, with thin ribbons trailing away after me that re-formed into a swarm of cockroaches.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I made my way to the end of the alley. The bug swarms were catching up to me. I pushed up against the walls in the corner, looking for some ledge or window sill or door knob I could use to climb higher, but there weren't any. The walls weren't close enough to prop myself up against and go up, even with my full height they'd be just out of reach.

The insects bunched up into a wave that slammed me against the corner. There was no sound. I would've been screaming, but nothing was coming out. My entire body was frozen. None of my limbs would move in the slightest, even with great effort. I could feel the world fading away as it grabbed at my consciousness and tried to drag me away somewhere else entirely. Somewhere where there was nothing. I searched desprerately for anything that would give me a foothold to justify remaining in this world. "Pony Jesus", was the only thing I could think of. I clung to the thought and looped it in my mind over and over.

Something pulled me out of the darkness. I watched a magical charge fly down the alley and slam into the wall under my feet, dissipating quietly into little purple electric waves. The hooves and wings took me up to the roof and let me down. It was the pegasus mare from the market. From up close I could see that she had a reddish purple coat that made me think of yummy raspberries. Drops of rain were falling on my face.

She glanced at me for a second, then walked up to the edge of the roof and leaned over. I followed her to see what she was looking at. The sorcerer was staring directly at me when I peeked over the edge. The air around him was bent into a dark bubble that sizzled quietly as rain drops fell on top of it. The eyes of the scepter were glowing red again. He threw a hood over his head and put the scepter away, then walked off down the street as if nothing had happened. The bubble around him faded slowly.

The mare turned towards me.

"What did you see? Tell me everything."

I told her everything I saw the sorcerer do starting at the alley and ending at the roof top. She listened intently and nodded every once in a while the whole way through.

"Sounds like some typical dark magic attacks." She said at the end.

"You know about this?" I asked.

"You stay the fuck out of this." She said, putting a hoof under my chin, "Now, tell me why you were out in the market late at night."

"I heard a rumbling."

"A rumbling?" She stepped back, "What sort of rumbling?"

"Just this weird low noise coming out of the scepter."

She stepped to the side to look at my cutie mark, then seemed to be lost in thought for a little while. My curiosity was starting to well up, but I held it back. Was it worth asking about the sorcerer? How was she involved in this? Would my questions have started drama? It's not that she was intimidating, I just didn't want any drama. OK, maybe she was intimidating. If the darkness hadn't removed the orange ooze it would have been a lot more uncomfortable. After a while I couldn't hold it back any longer.

"So...why did the sorcerer guy just leave?" I asked.

She ignored me.

The tension in the air rose a bit, but I tried to be polite and not annoy the lady. I felt as if this was some sort of test to determine how much of a moron I was. I decided that it would be best to pass it for various reasons, some of which involved the comforts of not having to live up to other ponies' expectations.

"Uh...how do I get down?" I asked after a while. That seemed to do the trick. She came up to the side of the roof and looked at the three story drop.

"If we ever need you, we'll find you." She said and took off.

"You think I'm just gonna let this slide and never try to find out about it? Ask around town for a raspberry coat pegasus, perhaps?"

She flew away. She did glance back uneasily for a moment, though.

I walked around on the moistening roof, halfheartedly trying to comprehend what had just transpired; while the realization that I was on a roof, under the rain, far away from my comfy bed, slowly seeped into my bones.

The roof was hard to get down from, but I found a series of ledges on one side of the wall that were not yet slippery and went home. It seemed rather silly to spend the rest of the night up there.

I promised myself to do as much research as I could bring myself to handle tomorrow about the mysterious scepter with the glowing eyes and the strange orb ritual in the woods. My lust for the raspberry mare and/or Rainbow dash would serve as fuel. Even so, I soberly doubted my ability to discover anything.

As I lay in bed the events of the night caught up with me and tormented me. The raspberry mare. I never checked what her cutie mark was.