Twisted Moose Magicby Atuhor NameChaptersPrologue: TwistedCH. 01 MooseCH. 02 MagicPrologue: TwistedTwisted “I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards! In a hospital room with a sterile muted color palette, an ECG kept its own time in a corner of the room. On a clipboard at the foot of the bed, worrying words such as "car accident" and "tetraplegia" were written. Along with a small note filled in the blank space provided as if trying to hide from the world it read: "Recovery unlikely." Something appeared in the room. It was hard to remember what it looked like, even when looking directly at it. The best we can do here is "humanoid." It looked at the figure lying on the bed and waited. The figure on the bed rolled its eyes to look at the... Something, whatever it was. He was unable to make any other move. "What do you want?" He grunted out in a hoarse voice. "To give you a gift. A new lease on life. All I ask in return is your service on a certain matter." It was hard to pin down a voice for the Something: anything from a snake to a desert breeze. "What kind of 'service?'" He asked suspiciously. "Oh nothing beyond what you can do, at least not when I give you your legs back." That held the man's attention, enough to take the risk--any risk. After all, what did he have to lose? Rodger Walton was annoyed. Rodger had many many reasons to be annoyed; after all, as the head of GBGE, he was working--successfully--to control most of the civilized world through sheer industrial force. People always asked him 'What does GBGE actually stand for?' and this annoyed him as well. But right now, he was annoyed because somebody was late. Just then, the person he was annoyed at stepped into the room silently. He was dressed like a man you wouldn't want following you home, with a duster and an ever-present pair of silvered glasses and a wide-brimmed fedora*. “Sorry sir I was… arranging things.” Rodger’s frown turned into a scowl. That was one thing that annoyed him greatly: While the Grand Vizier(A self-given title) was indeed his second in command, he never actually told Rodger a great deal of what he did to ensure things continued as normal. Rodger suspected. He suspected a great many things, as it was his job, but as long as he--and, more importantly, the press--never heard about it, and things continued as normal, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. “We don’t have time for that now. We’re about to make oil companies obsolete. Nothing is more important, at the moment.” After they boarded the VTOL to the test site, the Grand Vizier brought out a folder of reports and handed it to Rodger. As Rodger idly flipped through it, he began listing off instructions in a businesslike tone. “Research department needs to speed up work on deciphering the neural network designs.” “Ah they actually mentioned something about that; they said it couldn’t be done. It’s too complicated to decipher.” Rodger frowned. “However, they say they can build the entirety of the robot design without actually understanding the intricacies of the neural network itself.” “If that is our only choice, then I guess we’ll have to. But I don’t want to be bitten on the ass because of something Gerald hid in the neural network. Can they guarantee he never slipped anything in there? A personality? Some kind of backdoor code?” Rodger glared at the Grand Vizier for a moment. “Inbuilt morals?” “As much as can be guaranteed… sir… with our current knowledge.” The Grand Vizier said, trading a glare for a sneer made of plausible deniability. Rodger glanced back at the report. “And tell those hotheaded ambassadors that the next time they incur more than twenty-five parking tickets in a day, we will execute them by gunpoint.” The Grand Vizier looked a little shocked at this, after all, those countries were some major customers. “Are you su-“ “Yes, if they want to take offense at us telling their ambassadors to act inside the law, then they can try and invent anything we make.” Rodger smiled. “Remember when the Americans tried to replicate the Mark-3’s? It broke the operator’s spine and the power supply needed a separate truck.” “Yes. An unfortunate press and public relations disaster for their military. They had some people Inquire about ‘licensing’ the Mark-3’s just last month, in return I offered them that neural reconstructive formula R&D’s been working on, contingent on their full licensing of the ...Mark-4’s.” The Grand Vizier smiled for a moment, like a man who didn’t know what smiling was. “Gave them a free truck too, since they spent so very much more than they had budgeted. I felt it was good business.” The rest of the trip was uneventful until they actually came into sight of the GBGE aircraft carrier. “This is a big day for us. Renewable antimatter is within our grasp.” “Yes, sir.” The Grand Vizier said in a way that only people who knew him well would call sarcastic. It always annoyed Rodger because he knew The Grand Vizier well enough to catch that, even though often he felt that wasn’t very well at all. Inside of the GBGE aircraft carrier, they stopped in a makeshift lab near the carrier’s current, and possibly obsolete, nuclear power source. There it was: Hooked up to many monstrous wires and inside a massively shielded black ball about four feet across, sat the future of infinite renewable energy. “Start it up.” None of them heard something large and definitely organic land on the deck above. Rodger was lying trapped. Groggily, he tried to remember what had happened to put him in this situation. An unreal light brought him back to the present. He looked at the portal to another universe. Its ragged edges flowed and wavered around it like fire. He couldn’t see all of it, because there was a figure standing, facing away from him. The unworldly wind made the room go cold. In the horrible light from the portal, Rodger could see the Grand Vizier’s Frankenstein of a device. Something he had latched onto the antimatter generator that clicked and made unpleasant organic sounds. All the while spilling a caustic paste onto the floor. Rodger began to claw at the ground, but he was trapped very thoroughly. He looked up at the figure and called out to him. “Why?” It wasn’t apparent if The Vizier had heard him, so Rodger crackled his voice into a shout. “WHY?” The Grand Vizier turned slowly and walked over to Rodger slowly savoring the moment, his every movement as menacing as a drawn sword. Rodger could swear he saw something large and insectoid scuttle out of sight over his… its shoulder. Rodger flinched back as the Grand Vizier crouched down in front of him. He was staring at Rodger through silvered glasses. He took them off and looked Rodger directly in the eye. Rodger had never seen the Grand Vizier take his glasses off before, he had never actually seen… Its eyes before. The eyes looked dead, but that wasn’t the worst part about them. The worst part was that there was something growing into them… the growth that actually seemed to be watching him. It wasn’t even human anymore; it was an inhuman parasite that had acquired human shape. A dead man. Rodger could almost feel the intelligence behind those corrupted eyes coldly ticking away, inching between a stay of execution and what it truly wanted to do. Icily weighing options with regards to effort, rather than a moral standpoint. Rodger had met people who would set the world ablaze for the sake of watching it burn, and he had assassins to deal with that kind of person. Rodger had met people who would set countries into war over a petty insult, and he had diplomats and contingency plans for such people. But he had never looked into the eyes of a man for whom the world meant nothing, a man who would thoughtlessly cast it into the void without even gratifying it with the title of garbage. Rodger would rather stare into the eyes of death itself than even glance into those empty, soulless orbs. Just then the Dead Man replaced his glasses and pulled a gun out of his duster. He pressed it up against Rodger's temple and answered him very quietly. “Because I can.” Rodger could see his face reflected in those silvered lenses. The Dead Man showed no expression as he pulled the trigger. *CLICK* “Oh,” The dead man was grinning now, as if he had just told a joke. “It looks like I'm out of ammo.” And he turned and walked through the portal, which soundlessly closed behind him like a healing wound. *It is important to note that a fedora is different from a trilby--and you're probably thinking of a trilby when you say “fedora.” CH. 01 MooseMoose Fluttershy was searching the Everfree Forest for some special herbs Zecora had shown her. She didn't like going into the forest, and she normally wouldn't be looking for the herbs herself. However, Zecora was on her yearly pilgrimage back to her homeland, so Fluttershy was on her own finding them. The forest's unpredictable weather had thrown up a thick sheet of fog, reducing visibility down to distances that could be measured by ominous phrases such as "from here to that tree over there" and "that’s no tree." This didn’t help the forest’s already clear monopoly on thorned bushes, malignant trees, and unpredictable wildlife. After all, fog held on to smell, if her animal friends were right. It made it easier for predators to track down prey. This was why Fluttershy had been so unnerved by this recent gout of fog from the Everfree: it tended to creep out of the forest and wrap around her house, leading to one or two encounters with (fortunately friendly) animals that she did not want to repeat. Fluttershy couldn't believe her luck when she found a patch of fungus that was an extremely rare and somewhat valuable painkiller. Hastily scooping up as much of it as she could with her spade, she had completely failed to notice the timberwolves crowding into the clearing until she bumped face-first into one directly. Fluttershy looked up and saw something was out-of-place for the normally fearsome wooden wolves. Every one of them was sporting an unhealthy orangish purple tint normally only found on very hungry, or very sick, timberwolves. Most importantly though, it was found on very desperate, and extremely aggressive, timberwolves. Frantically backing away, Fluttershy found herself trapped against a tree, desperately looking for an escape route. She found only glowing green eyes and sharpened wooden teeth. "I tell you, its real!" Lyra said to Berry Punch for the umpteenth time. "I saw Bighoof out there in the Everfree Forest." "Yeah," Berry said, sipping her grape juice in a grumpy manner. "Is this like that time you had real photo evidence of a human too?" "Well, no..." Lyra sat stewing under the unamused gaze of Berry, "OK, ok. Yeah it is, but this time I've seen it, and it’s not just a bush." "You know, Lyra, its talk like that," Berry said, waving a hoof at her, "That keeps this whole girls’-night-out thing to just you and me. I mean, why can't we talk about more normal things?" "But I've really seen it this time!" "Honestly, I don't know why Bon Bon puts up with you." That smell, Something thought. It had been wandering these forests aimlessly for days now, nothing seemed to want to bother it. Nostrils flared as it let out a deep grunt and loped off into the forest with long easy strides. "Fear." It growled, its huge furred body bashing aside branches and bushes alike. Holding her mushroom basket in front of her as a shield, Fluttershy desperately tried to back her way through the tree. Then, Fluttershy heard a sound from off to the side. It sounded big, it sounded angry, and it sounded a lot bigger and angrier than a timberwolf. It exploded out into the clearing, making a sound halfway between a growl and a roar. One timberwolf was already flying away, a cloud of kindling, as something Fluttershy could only describe as a monster thrashed and stomped another timberwolf into mulch. The next timberwolf leapt at the monster, but was swatted into a tree where it exploded into splinters. Another latched onto the monster's legs but one thunderous stomp was enough to break the wolf's head off its wooden body. The monster locked eyes with the largest timberwolf, an alpha that hadn’t backed down from many fights before. Its charred skin suggested that it had even tangled with a dragon of some description. The monster roared in its odd way again and slammed its hoof down, the one that was still in the jaws of the beheaded timberwolf. Fluttershy could feel the power radiating off the monster’s apparently magically enhanced strength. She almost didn’t notice that she got hit in the head by a splintered piece of timberwolf skull. With that the timberwolves’ will broke, and they fled. And before Fluttershy knew it, the clearing was empty except for her, the monster and a pile of former timberwolves. The monster oozed menace in that unpleasant way that has been backed up by a show of strength, such that none of the timberwolves were even trying to reform in its presence. Looking at it, "veteran" or "battle-hardened" came to mind. Scars on its thin-looking legs and body were readily apparent, even through its thick coat of rough brown fur. Once you got around to looking up at his face, the word "unpleasant" would creep to mind. Two closed eyelids hid eyes that were clearly no longer there, and its long face was framed by the most unpleasant pair of antlers Fluttershy had ever seen. They looked horribly deformed and twisted, almost like coral, in a way one did not want to associate with a healthy creature. The only out-of-place touch was that its antlers were wrapped in some kind of twisting vine that was sprouting bundles of small white flowers. It turned to Fluttershy, who whimpered and tried to hide behind her basket again, realizing two things about it that she had missed. First, it was huge. Towering over her, it was easily nine feet tall. And second, perhaps more importantly, its antlers were giving off the telltale glow of magic. Then it spoke, what it said unleashing an even deeper-seated fear in Fluttershy, who bolted from the clearing at a speed which Rainbow Dash would have approved of, if not actually been impressed by. The moose looked at the abandoned mushroom basket in confusion for a moment. Or, more accurately, radiated magic from his antlers and directed different types of magic at the mushroom basket, detecting the returning wavelengths to see with. He was honestly confused as to what he had said to finally scare the little pegasus creature off, maybe they didn't speak his language here. Or, perhaps, it was his voice, clearing his unfamiliar throat produced a deep but not particularly gravelly voice. He couldn't rule out his appearance frightening it off, either. Unfortunately, while his magic vision gave him a full 360 degree field of view, he couldn't see his reflection. Or, in fact, himself at all, and he didn't quite know why. "Yeah..." He grumbled. "Great first impression there." Just his luck, too: wake up in a creepy forest with an identity crisis, no memory other than a familiarity with using strange magic and the first person… er... pegasus he meets, who could direct him to any kind of help, is scared off the first time he actually tries to start a conversation. Looking off in the direction the pegasus went, he snorted loudly in distaste. There was a strong scent he would have no trouble following back to civilization. Or something resembling that. Then, maybe, he could figure out if somebody could help him with the pain in his head. As if on cue, it came back full force, flashes of memory coming at him rapid fire, burning into his head. An icy road, bones, beasts that roared with two great glowing eyes, a deep winter cold, unfamiliar words, the taste of willow branches, HATRED. Almost falling over then and there from the pain of it all, Tuntuvak paused for a second. Where did that name come from? he thought. That name... It sounded so familiar, so… The memories left no doubt in his mind: Tuntuvak was his name. As quickly as they came, the memories went, leaving only a half-recalled, meaningless jumble in their wake. Looking back at the abandoned basket, he had an idea, and with renewed resolve Tuntuvak set off in the direction of the scent of animal and horse. Not before scooping up some former timberwolf twigs with magic to snack on, first. That was the strange thing for Tuntuvak. Half the time, he was freaked out by this magic, but the other half of the time, powerful and terrifying spells came to him without thinking. And stepping around another tree, and maneuvering his antlers through its conniving branches, just felt so natural. Even seeing with magic came to him seconds after he woke up alone in this forest. Tuntuvak couldn't even remember how long ago that had been. Everything was a blur before he was stomping those strange, but admittedly tasty, wooden wolves to bits. Lifting his head up, Tuntuvak smelled the foggy air around him. Maintaining that fog had been a good idea of his. It kept him cool, it caught scents better, and it put anything that needed to see in order to fight him at a disadvantage. In particular, though, it kept that pegusus's scent very well. It smelled very strongly of fear. Fluttershy bolted into her house at record speed, bolted the door shut at an academy record pace and bolted upstairs so fast that it registered on a wing power meter that had been left out on the table. Instantly in front of the mirror, she checked herself over in a panic. What gave me away? How did the monster see... see... It took half an hour before Fluttershy calmed down enough to remember she still had animals in her care that needed feeding, and that she had left all the herbs, and her basket, in the Everfree Forest. CH. 02 MagicMagic Fluttershy woke up the next day and began her daily routine, her daily grooming rituals completed on autopilot before she was even fully awake. Other, more specialized, grooming was done before the moon had even begun to set. She had to wake up so early in the morning that it hadn't stopped being late at night yet, in order to help more nocturnal animals. Groggily, Fluttershy made breakfast. She was adjusted to waking up this early in the morning, but normally, she found time for at least a nap around midday. She couldn't quite remember at that moment why she hadn't had one yesterday, or why she had nightmares all last night. Vague, half-remembered images of judgment and isolation floated through her mind, out of context but no less chilling for it. Losing her appetite, Fluttershy pushed her breakfast away and decided to check if there were any new patients in tonight. Fluttershy always thought of them as both patients and friends. She only called them “animals” when she was talking to other ponies. She would never say it to anypony else, but if she was really being honest with herself, Fluttershy preferred dealing with her patients more than she did other ponies. They listened to her, and while she hated to even think it, she felt like they respected her more than most ponies did. She gradually made her way through her cottage, to all the dark crannies where nocturnal friends with problems waited when they didn't require immediate attention. It was a quiet night for her. Only a horned owl with sore wing was waiting for her attention. Fluttershy's careful ministrations revealed a broken feather that had been bleeding, and after several minutes the owl was perched inside of a cubby in Fluttershy's wall. Fluttershy left the owl with a bit of fish and told it: “Now you stay off that wing for a day or so, and I'll be back later with more food for you.” Checking the rest of her cottage, Fluttershy was once again surprised to find that the owl truly was her only patient for tonight. She had an agreement with the animals: around her cottage was neutral ground, and she would treat any animal who respected that rule. In return, they brought her food in times of plenty, and anything they thought might be useful to her. It was not uncommon for even small but valuable things to turn up, such as jewelry or even bits (she was actually the local lost and found because of it). Along with what she made as the local vet, and a retirement, she was pretty well off. Fluttershy peeked out the window into the pre-dawn light to see if she had any overnighters too large to fit through her dog door. Outside, she saw a large hairy mass in her front yard. “Oh, Harry must have come to visit me!” Fluttershy rushed over to her front door and jerked it open (relatively speaking. Rainbow Dash would have used different, slower words). And then Fluttershy stopped dead where she stood, as several things came to mind. The first was that Harry wasn't as big as this. The second was that Harry's silhouette looked nothing like this, especially his head. And the third thing, racing ahead of the other two to occupy most of Fluttershy's mind: Harry didn't have antlers. The monster that had haunted her dreams last night turned its massive head and looked directly at her. Fluttershy felt its terrible blind gaze fall upon her, judging her, revealing her. Fluttershy could almost hear her friends now. In fact, she could hear exactly what they would say inside her head. “I'm sure I can find a book on how to fix you, somewhere.” “All those years in flight school and you never told me?!” “I never would have been friends with you if I knew you were so uncouth.” “Now that just ain't honest. While I'm mighty disappointed in you, Ah can see why you decided to hide that away.” “I left you alone with Pound Cake!? Mrs. Cake is never gonna forgive me!” This kept going on and on until Fluttershy felt like she could feel the judging eyes of her friends glaring at her, tearing into her. Tuntuvak stared at the little pegasus practically having a heart attack on its front porch. Could I have done this to the poor little creature? I mean my voice isn’t that scary is it? Then it looked like it was about to collapse where it stood. Without thinking, Tuntuvak was there in a flash, the rumbles of his thunderous gallop felt through the ground. This seemed to break the pegasus out of its stupor. Tuntuvak stopped his charge, and the pegasus stood and stared at him. It quietly squeaked the front door closed. A soft thump could he heard as something hit the other side of the door, accompanied by a click, and a subtle magical glow from around the door. There was a long moment where Tuntuvak wasn't sure what to do. One of the major disadvantages of magical sight was limited range. He couldn't exactly see long distances. Especially not from, say, the cottage to Ponyville, or indeed any landmarks in the distance that ponies would normally navigate by. Everything outside of the range of his magic was simply darkness. Tuntuvak would have been more creeped out if things inside that radius weren't lit up clear as day. After a long minute, Tuntuvak walked up the cottage and attempted to gently knock an antler against the door. Fluttershy felt her heart running a mile a minute, her back pressed against the magically deadbolted door. Suddenly, she felt the door behind her vibrate. She shrieked and attempted to fly behind the couch. Unfortunately her wings locked up halfway there, and she ended up on her back no less than three feet away from where she started. She lay there for a while trying to get a hold of herself, when she heard the noise again. Fluttershy realized that the... whatever it was, was knocking on the door. Fluttershy crept up to the door, debating her options. On the one hoof it was rude to ignore somepony knocking on the door. But she really didn't want to open the door to that, if it even was a somepony. Then an even more horrible thought came over her. It knew about her. That meant it could tell other ponies about her, if it ever met them Fluttershy swallowed hard and put the little chain on the door. It really did look like a pathetic chain compared to the magical deadbolt she had installed. She opened up the door. Tuntuvak was preparing to knock a third time, when the door opened very slowly on its own. The yellow pegasus hesitantly poked its head out. Tuntuvak had to strangle the impulse to hug it right there, but judging by its past reaction to him he didn't think it would take kindly to that. “Mmmmphh mmm, mrr pppffff.” Tuntuvak forgot he was holding its mushroom basket in his mouth. Tuntuvak gently set it on the porch, noticing that the pegasus never stopped staring at his face in horror. "Umm, excuse me, sir, do you know where I could find a hospital?" Tuntuvak boomed. The pegasus looked down with an expression of deep shame. "Please don't call me that..." Tuntuvak tilted his head to the Pegasus and made a deep questioning sound. "Please don't call me ‘sir.’” Fluttershy continued. “I.. I'm not like that anymore." Things started to click in Tuntuvak's head, or rather, they didn't. Tuntuvak at this point was acting on instinct. Words, mannerisms and spells came to him naturally. Social skills however, did not. "I'm sorry, sir. I just need to get to a hospital soon, before it gets worse." "Before what gets-" Inconveniently, Tuntuvak was already on the ground. It was much worse this time. HATRED, the sound of a mallet hitting wood, bones, endless fields of bones, auburn hair, HATRED, HATRED, HATRED! HATRED!! Tuntuvak writhed on the ground, every muscle contracting in his flood of undirected anger. He was foaming at the mouth while uncontrolled magic spiraled out of his antlers. Unexpectedly, Tuntuvak felt something gripping him around his neck. As Tuntuvak calmed down and regained control of his magic, he saw that the little Pegasus was hugging him around the neck as tightly as it could. "I'll help you." It looked at him with a steely gaze for a moment. "But we have to get this whole 'sir' thing straightened out."
Prologue: TwistedTwisted “I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards! In a hospital room with a sterile muted color palette, an ECG kept its own time in a corner of the room. On a clipboard at the foot of the bed, worrying words such as "car accident" and "tetraplegia" were written. Along with a small note filled in the blank space provided as if trying to hide from the world it read: "Recovery unlikely." Something appeared in the room. It was hard to remember what it looked like, even when looking directly at it. The best we can do here is "humanoid." It looked at the figure lying on the bed and waited. The figure on the bed rolled its eyes to look at the... Something, whatever it was. He was unable to make any other move. "What do you want?" He grunted out in a hoarse voice. "To give you a gift. A new lease on life. All I ask in return is your service on a certain matter." It was hard to pin down a voice for the Something: anything from a snake to a desert breeze. "What kind of 'service?'" He asked suspiciously. "Oh nothing beyond what you can do, at least not when I give you your legs back." That held the man's attention, enough to take the risk--any risk. After all, what did he have to lose? Rodger Walton was annoyed. Rodger had many many reasons to be annoyed; after all, as the head of GBGE, he was working--successfully--to control most of the civilized world through sheer industrial force. People always asked him 'What does GBGE actually stand for?' and this annoyed him as well. But right now, he was annoyed because somebody was late. Just then, the person he was annoyed at stepped into the room silently. He was dressed like a man you wouldn't want following you home, with a duster and an ever-present pair of silvered glasses and a wide-brimmed fedora*. “Sorry sir I was… arranging things.” Rodger’s frown turned into a scowl. That was one thing that annoyed him greatly: While the Grand Vizier(A self-given title) was indeed his second in command, he never actually told Rodger a great deal of what he did to ensure things continued as normal. Rodger suspected. He suspected a great many things, as it was his job, but as long as he--and, more importantly, the press--never heard about it, and things continued as normal, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. “We don’t have time for that now. We’re about to make oil companies obsolete. Nothing is more important, at the moment.” After they boarded the VTOL to the test site, the Grand Vizier brought out a folder of reports and handed it to Rodger. As Rodger idly flipped through it, he began listing off instructions in a businesslike tone. “Research department needs to speed up work on deciphering the neural network designs.” “Ah they actually mentioned something about that; they said it couldn’t be done. It’s too complicated to decipher.” Rodger frowned. “However, they say they can build the entirety of the robot design without actually understanding the intricacies of the neural network itself.” “If that is our only choice, then I guess we’ll have to. But I don’t want to be bitten on the ass because of something Gerald hid in the neural network. Can they guarantee he never slipped anything in there? A personality? Some kind of backdoor code?” Rodger glared at the Grand Vizier for a moment. “Inbuilt morals?” “As much as can be guaranteed… sir… with our current knowledge.” The Grand Vizier said, trading a glare for a sneer made of plausible deniability. Rodger glanced back at the report. “And tell those hotheaded ambassadors that the next time they incur more than twenty-five parking tickets in a day, we will execute them by gunpoint.” The Grand Vizier looked a little shocked at this, after all, those countries were some major customers. “Are you su-“ “Yes, if they want to take offense at us telling their ambassadors to act inside the law, then they can try and invent anything we make.” Rodger smiled. “Remember when the Americans tried to replicate the Mark-3’s? It broke the operator’s spine and the power supply needed a separate truck.” “Yes. An unfortunate press and public relations disaster for their military. They had some people Inquire about ‘licensing’ the Mark-3’s just last month, in return I offered them that neural reconstructive formula R&D’s been working on, contingent on their full licensing of the ...Mark-4’s.” The Grand Vizier smiled for a moment, like a man who didn’t know what smiling was. “Gave them a free truck too, since they spent so very much more than they had budgeted. I felt it was good business.” The rest of the trip was uneventful until they actually came into sight of the GBGE aircraft carrier. “This is a big day for us. Renewable antimatter is within our grasp.” “Yes, sir.” The Grand Vizier said in a way that only people who knew him well would call sarcastic. It always annoyed Rodger because he knew The Grand Vizier well enough to catch that, even though often he felt that wasn’t very well at all. Inside of the GBGE aircraft carrier, they stopped in a makeshift lab near the carrier’s current, and possibly obsolete, nuclear power source. There it was: Hooked up to many monstrous wires and inside a massively shielded black ball about four feet across, sat the future of infinite renewable energy. “Start it up.” None of them heard something large and definitely organic land on the deck above. Rodger was lying trapped. Groggily, he tried to remember what had happened to put him in this situation. An unreal light brought him back to the present. He looked at the portal to another universe. Its ragged edges flowed and wavered around it like fire. He couldn’t see all of it, because there was a figure standing, facing away from him. The unworldly wind made the room go cold. In the horrible light from the portal, Rodger could see the Grand Vizier’s Frankenstein of a device. Something he had latched onto the antimatter generator that clicked and made unpleasant organic sounds. All the while spilling a caustic paste onto the floor. Rodger began to claw at the ground, but he was trapped very thoroughly. He looked up at the figure and called out to him. “Why?” It wasn’t apparent if The Vizier had heard him, so Rodger crackled his voice into a shout. “WHY?” The Grand Vizier turned slowly and walked over to Rodger slowly savoring the moment, his every movement as menacing as a drawn sword. Rodger could swear he saw something large and insectoid scuttle out of sight over his… its shoulder. Rodger flinched back as the Grand Vizier crouched down in front of him. He was staring at Rodger through silvered glasses. He took them off and looked Rodger directly in the eye. Rodger had never seen the Grand Vizier take his glasses off before, he had never actually seen… Its eyes before. The eyes looked dead, but that wasn’t the worst part about them. The worst part was that there was something growing into them… the growth that actually seemed to be watching him. It wasn’t even human anymore; it was an inhuman parasite that had acquired human shape. A dead man. Rodger could almost feel the intelligence behind those corrupted eyes coldly ticking away, inching between a stay of execution and what it truly wanted to do. Icily weighing options with regards to effort, rather than a moral standpoint. Rodger had met people who would set the world ablaze for the sake of watching it burn, and he had assassins to deal with that kind of person. Rodger had met people who would set countries into war over a petty insult, and he had diplomats and contingency plans for such people. But he had never looked into the eyes of a man for whom the world meant nothing, a man who would thoughtlessly cast it into the void without even gratifying it with the title of garbage. Rodger would rather stare into the eyes of death itself than even glance into those empty, soulless orbs. Just then the Dead Man replaced his glasses and pulled a gun out of his duster. He pressed it up against Rodger's temple and answered him very quietly. “Because I can.” Rodger could see his face reflected in those silvered lenses. The Dead Man showed no expression as he pulled the trigger. *CLICK* “Oh,” The dead man was grinning now, as if he had just told a joke. “It looks like I'm out of ammo.” And he turned and walked through the portal, which soundlessly closed behind him like a healing wound. *It is important to note that a fedora is different from a trilby--and you're probably thinking of a trilby when you say “fedora.”
CH. 01 MooseMoose Fluttershy was searching the Everfree Forest for some special herbs Zecora had shown her. She didn't like going into the forest, and she normally wouldn't be looking for the herbs herself. However, Zecora was on her yearly pilgrimage back to her homeland, so Fluttershy was on her own finding them. The forest's unpredictable weather had thrown up a thick sheet of fog, reducing visibility down to distances that could be measured by ominous phrases such as "from here to that tree over there" and "that’s no tree." This didn’t help the forest’s already clear monopoly on thorned bushes, malignant trees, and unpredictable wildlife. After all, fog held on to smell, if her animal friends were right. It made it easier for predators to track down prey. This was why Fluttershy had been so unnerved by this recent gout of fog from the Everfree: it tended to creep out of the forest and wrap around her house, leading to one or two encounters with (fortunately friendly) animals that she did not want to repeat. Fluttershy couldn't believe her luck when she found a patch of fungus that was an extremely rare and somewhat valuable painkiller. Hastily scooping up as much of it as she could with her spade, she had completely failed to notice the timberwolves crowding into the clearing until she bumped face-first into one directly. Fluttershy looked up and saw something was out-of-place for the normally fearsome wooden wolves. Every one of them was sporting an unhealthy orangish purple tint normally only found on very hungry, or very sick, timberwolves. Most importantly though, it was found on very desperate, and extremely aggressive, timberwolves. Frantically backing away, Fluttershy found herself trapped against a tree, desperately looking for an escape route. She found only glowing green eyes and sharpened wooden teeth. "I tell you, its real!" Lyra said to Berry Punch for the umpteenth time. "I saw Bighoof out there in the Everfree Forest." "Yeah," Berry said, sipping her grape juice in a grumpy manner. "Is this like that time you had real photo evidence of a human too?" "Well, no..." Lyra sat stewing under the unamused gaze of Berry, "OK, ok. Yeah it is, but this time I've seen it, and it’s not just a bush." "You know, Lyra, its talk like that," Berry said, waving a hoof at her, "That keeps this whole girls’-night-out thing to just you and me. I mean, why can't we talk about more normal things?" "But I've really seen it this time!" "Honestly, I don't know why Bon Bon puts up with you." That smell, Something thought. It had been wandering these forests aimlessly for days now, nothing seemed to want to bother it. Nostrils flared as it let out a deep grunt and loped off into the forest with long easy strides. "Fear." It growled, its huge furred body bashing aside branches and bushes alike. Holding her mushroom basket in front of her as a shield, Fluttershy desperately tried to back her way through the tree. Then, Fluttershy heard a sound from off to the side. It sounded big, it sounded angry, and it sounded a lot bigger and angrier than a timberwolf. It exploded out into the clearing, making a sound halfway between a growl and a roar. One timberwolf was already flying away, a cloud of kindling, as something Fluttershy could only describe as a monster thrashed and stomped another timberwolf into mulch. The next timberwolf leapt at the monster, but was swatted into a tree where it exploded into splinters. Another latched onto the monster's legs but one thunderous stomp was enough to break the wolf's head off its wooden body. The monster locked eyes with the largest timberwolf, an alpha that hadn’t backed down from many fights before. Its charred skin suggested that it had even tangled with a dragon of some description. The monster roared in its odd way again and slammed its hoof down, the one that was still in the jaws of the beheaded timberwolf. Fluttershy could feel the power radiating off the monster’s apparently magically enhanced strength. She almost didn’t notice that she got hit in the head by a splintered piece of timberwolf skull. With that the timberwolves’ will broke, and they fled. And before Fluttershy knew it, the clearing was empty except for her, the monster and a pile of former timberwolves. The monster oozed menace in that unpleasant way that has been backed up by a show of strength, such that none of the timberwolves were even trying to reform in its presence. Looking at it, "veteran" or "battle-hardened" came to mind. Scars on its thin-looking legs and body were readily apparent, even through its thick coat of rough brown fur. Once you got around to looking up at his face, the word "unpleasant" would creep to mind. Two closed eyelids hid eyes that were clearly no longer there, and its long face was framed by the most unpleasant pair of antlers Fluttershy had ever seen. They looked horribly deformed and twisted, almost like coral, in a way one did not want to associate with a healthy creature. The only out-of-place touch was that its antlers were wrapped in some kind of twisting vine that was sprouting bundles of small white flowers. It turned to Fluttershy, who whimpered and tried to hide behind her basket again, realizing two things about it that she had missed. First, it was huge. Towering over her, it was easily nine feet tall. And second, perhaps more importantly, its antlers were giving off the telltale glow of magic. Then it spoke, what it said unleashing an even deeper-seated fear in Fluttershy, who bolted from the clearing at a speed which Rainbow Dash would have approved of, if not actually been impressed by. The moose looked at the abandoned mushroom basket in confusion for a moment. Or, more accurately, radiated magic from his antlers and directed different types of magic at the mushroom basket, detecting the returning wavelengths to see with. He was honestly confused as to what he had said to finally scare the little pegasus creature off, maybe they didn't speak his language here. Or, perhaps, it was his voice, clearing his unfamiliar throat produced a deep but not particularly gravelly voice. He couldn't rule out his appearance frightening it off, either. Unfortunately, while his magic vision gave him a full 360 degree field of view, he couldn't see his reflection. Or, in fact, himself at all, and he didn't quite know why. "Yeah..." He grumbled. "Great first impression there." Just his luck, too: wake up in a creepy forest with an identity crisis, no memory other than a familiarity with using strange magic and the first person… er... pegasus he meets, who could direct him to any kind of help, is scared off the first time he actually tries to start a conversation. Looking off in the direction the pegasus went, he snorted loudly in distaste. There was a strong scent he would have no trouble following back to civilization. Or something resembling that. Then, maybe, he could figure out if somebody could help him with the pain in his head. As if on cue, it came back full force, flashes of memory coming at him rapid fire, burning into his head. An icy road, bones, beasts that roared with two great glowing eyes, a deep winter cold, unfamiliar words, the taste of willow branches, HATRED. Almost falling over then and there from the pain of it all, Tuntuvak paused for a second. Where did that name come from? he thought. That name... It sounded so familiar, so… The memories left no doubt in his mind: Tuntuvak was his name. As quickly as they came, the memories went, leaving only a half-recalled, meaningless jumble in their wake. Looking back at the abandoned basket, he had an idea, and with renewed resolve Tuntuvak set off in the direction of the scent of animal and horse. Not before scooping up some former timberwolf twigs with magic to snack on, first. That was the strange thing for Tuntuvak. Half the time, he was freaked out by this magic, but the other half of the time, powerful and terrifying spells came to him without thinking. And stepping around another tree, and maneuvering his antlers through its conniving branches, just felt so natural. Even seeing with magic came to him seconds after he woke up alone in this forest. Tuntuvak couldn't even remember how long ago that had been. Everything was a blur before he was stomping those strange, but admittedly tasty, wooden wolves to bits. Lifting his head up, Tuntuvak smelled the foggy air around him. Maintaining that fog had been a good idea of his. It kept him cool, it caught scents better, and it put anything that needed to see in order to fight him at a disadvantage. In particular, though, it kept that pegusus's scent very well. It smelled very strongly of fear. Fluttershy bolted into her house at record speed, bolted the door shut at an academy record pace and bolted upstairs so fast that it registered on a wing power meter that had been left out on the table. Instantly in front of the mirror, she checked herself over in a panic. What gave me away? How did the monster see... see... It took half an hour before Fluttershy calmed down enough to remember she still had animals in her care that needed feeding, and that she had left all the herbs, and her basket, in the Everfree Forest.
CH. 02 MagicMagic Fluttershy woke up the next day and began her daily routine, her daily grooming rituals completed on autopilot before she was even fully awake. Other, more specialized, grooming was done before the moon had even begun to set. She had to wake up so early in the morning that it hadn't stopped being late at night yet, in order to help more nocturnal animals. Groggily, Fluttershy made breakfast. She was adjusted to waking up this early in the morning, but normally, she found time for at least a nap around midday. She couldn't quite remember at that moment why she hadn't had one yesterday, or why she had nightmares all last night. Vague, half-remembered images of judgment and isolation floated through her mind, out of context but no less chilling for it. Losing her appetite, Fluttershy pushed her breakfast away and decided to check if there were any new patients in tonight. Fluttershy always thought of them as both patients and friends. She only called them “animals” when she was talking to other ponies. She would never say it to anypony else, but if she was really being honest with herself, Fluttershy preferred dealing with her patients more than she did other ponies. They listened to her, and while she hated to even think it, she felt like they respected her more than most ponies did. She gradually made her way through her cottage, to all the dark crannies where nocturnal friends with problems waited when they didn't require immediate attention. It was a quiet night for her. Only a horned owl with sore wing was waiting for her attention. Fluttershy's careful ministrations revealed a broken feather that had been bleeding, and after several minutes the owl was perched inside of a cubby in Fluttershy's wall. Fluttershy left the owl with a bit of fish and told it: “Now you stay off that wing for a day or so, and I'll be back later with more food for you.” Checking the rest of her cottage, Fluttershy was once again surprised to find that the owl truly was her only patient for tonight. She had an agreement with the animals: around her cottage was neutral ground, and she would treat any animal who respected that rule. In return, they brought her food in times of plenty, and anything they thought might be useful to her. It was not uncommon for even small but valuable things to turn up, such as jewelry or even bits (she was actually the local lost and found because of it). Along with what she made as the local vet, and a retirement, she was pretty well off. Fluttershy peeked out the window into the pre-dawn light to see if she had any overnighters too large to fit through her dog door. Outside, she saw a large hairy mass in her front yard. “Oh, Harry must have come to visit me!” Fluttershy rushed over to her front door and jerked it open (relatively speaking. Rainbow Dash would have used different, slower words). And then Fluttershy stopped dead where she stood, as several things came to mind. The first was that Harry wasn't as big as this. The second was that Harry's silhouette looked nothing like this, especially his head. And the third thing, racing ahead of the other two to occupy most of Fluttershy's mind: Harry didn't have antlers. The monster that had haunted her dreams last night turned its massive head and looked directly at her. Fluttershy felt its terrible blind gaze fall upon her, judging her, revealing her. Fluttershy could almost hear her friends now. In fact, she could hear exactly what they would say inside her head. “I'm sure I can find a book on how to fix you, somewhere.” “All those years in flight school and you never told me?!” “I never would have been friends with you if I knew you were so uncouth.” “Now that just ain't honest. While I'm mighty disappointed in you, Ah can see why you decided to hide that away.” “I left you alone with Pound Cake!? Mrs. Cake is never gonna forgive me!” This kept going on and on until Fluttershy felt like she could feel the judging eyes of her friends glaring at her, tearing into her. Tuntuvak stared at the little pegasus practically having a heart attack on its front porch. Could I have done this to the poor little creature? I mean my voice isn’t that scary is it? Then it looked like it was about to collapse where it stood. Without thinking, Tuntuvak was there in a flash, the rumbles of his thunderous gallop felt through the ground. This seemed to break the pegasus out of its stupor. Tuntuvak stopped his charge, and the pegasus stood and stared at him. It quietly squeaked the front door closed. A soft thump could he heard as something hit the other side of the door, accompanied by a click, and a subtle magical glow from around the door. There was a long moment where Tuntuvak wasn't sure what to do. One of the major disadvantages of magical sight was limited range. He couldn't exactly see long distances. Especially not from, say, the cottage to Ponyville, or indeed any landmarks in the distance that ponies would normally navigate by. Everything outside of the range of his magic was simply darkness. Tuntuvak would have been more creeped out if things inside that radius weren't lit up clear as day. After a long minute, Tuntuvak walked up the cottage and attempted to gently knock an antler against the door. Fluttershy felt her heart running a mile a minute, her back pressed against the magically deadbolted door. Suddenly, she felt the door behind her vibrate. She shrieked and attempted to fly behind the couch. Unfortunately her wings locked up halfway there, and she ended up on her back no less than three feet away from where she started. She lay there for a while trying to get a hold of herself, when she heard the noise again. Fluttershy realized that the... whatever it was, was knocking on the door. Fluttershy crept up to the door, debating her options. On the one hoof it was rude to ignore somepony knocking on the door. But she really didn't want to open the door to that, if it even was a somepony. Then an even more horrible thought came over her. It knew about her. That meant it could tell other ponies about her, if it ever met them Fluttershy swallowed hard and put the little chain on the door. It really did look like a pathetic chain compared to the magical deadbolt she had installed. She opened up the door. Tuntuvak was preparing to knock a third time, when the door opened very slowly on its own. The yellow pegasus hesitantly poked its head out. Tuntuvak had to strangle the impulse to hug it right there, but judging by its past reaction to him he didn't think it would take kindly to that. “Mmmmphh mmm, mrr pppffff.” Tuntuvak forgot he was holding its mushroom basket in his mouth. Tuntuvak gently set it on the porch, noticing that the pegasus never stopped staring at his face in horror. "Umm, excuse me, sir, do you know where I could find a hospital?" Tuntuvak boomed. The pegasus looked down with an expression of deep shame. "Please don't call me that..." Tuntuvak tilted his head to the Pegasus and made a deep questioning sound. "Please don't call me ‘sir.’” Fluttershy continued. “I.. I'm not like that anymore." Things started to click in Tuntuvak's head, or rather, they didn't. Tuntuvak at this point was acting on instinct. Words, mannerisms and spells came to him naturally. Social skills however, did not. "I'm sorry, sir. I just need to get to a hospital soon, before it gets worse." "Before what gets-" Inconveniently, Tuntuvak was already on the ground. It was much worse this time. HATRED, the sound of a mallet hitting wood, bones, endless fields of bones, auburn hair, HATRED, HATRED, HATRED! HATRED!! Tuntuvak writhed on the ground, every muscle contracting in his flood of undirected anger. He was foaming at the mouth while uncontrolled magic spiraled out of his antlers. Unexpectedly, Tuntuvak felt something gripping him around his neck. As Tuntuvak calmed down and regained control of his magic, he saw that the little Pegasus was hugging him around the neck as tightly as it could. "I'll help you." It looked at him with a steely gaze for a moment. "But we have to get this whole 'sir' thing straightened out."
