Intros-a-plenty

Ever so slowly, sense of the world faded back into being...

First, the Feeling of laying in something scratchy and dry... not exactly hard but very dry... One would guess dead grass or hay...

with sound still dominated by defeaned ringing, Scent and taste came next, combined as ever to confuse a tired mind... one wonders, is it dirt they taste and rot their smell? or the other way around? Scent always have loved to mix up with taste hasn't it?

Finally the ringing began to quiet... giving way to eerie silence, then the sound of soft wind and crackling of dry and fragile grass snapping apart in the breeze... there was a sound, distant, high pitched... much too far to identify...

Then at last the body balanced enough to return sight, and quickly it was confirmed, Night time, and it was indeed a veritable sea of dead grass, mixed with gray and rotten tree's devoid of leaves and covered in drying sap that leaked from various chasms in the bark... and yes, it was a stink of rot in the air and the taste of ash and dirt in the mouth.

"PLECH!"

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Perspective - Midnight Light

"Okay, First thing, injuries?" I paused and looked myself over.

Down... 'yep, all four legs still there... that's there too... no blood anywhere." Raven Black fur was still there too.

Back... 'wing's, check, no apparent injury, not even bruising... Tail's intact... Saddlebags too, remarkably... I half expected those to vanish... It's a good thing I left the note behind separately." a little push shifted a blueish-silvery mane out of the way, Revealing Broad and still healthy wings, a tail to match the mane, and a Cutie mark 'I still think Butt Brand was funnier' that resembled Moon beams cutting through a black cloud with the barely visible curve of a moon behind it.

Up... 'Ah good, that didn't break either.' A hoof rose up to check a long and sharply pointed horn, finding it properly intact still... A short glow produced a half baked mirrored surface in the air to reveal expectedly red eyes and nice sharp teeth 'Okay, everything seems to be intact... now, why am I in a rotting forest?'

I dispelled the reflector and started trotting along, trying to ignore the strangely sick feel that came from my hooves as they trampled the dead crispy grass... It was just dead grass, it shouldn't be a big deal, but something about it made me notice a slightly sick feeling from it's contact. 'I could have sword I'd still be near ponyville... a naturally driven universal jump isn't usually innacurate... oh wait... huh, it still looks like Nightmare night... but...'

I had just pass edge of some forest right on the edge of ponyville... I could hardly tell which one, it didn't look at all familiar... and found the town I was fairly familiar with looking, at first glance, almost just like I'd left it. Everything was dark, windows closed, night lamps off, Tree's and bushes 'creepified'... it looked for a moment like nightmare night, but then.

'The night lamps should still be on for late nighters... the windows aren't 'closed' so much as boarded up, almost no house has an unboarded windows, and those are clearly broken into... some doors are boarded too... And these creepy things are not decorations... and the streets are deserted... I've never heard nightmare night so impossibly silent... Damn... when I knew 'something' was going to happen to me, I didn't expect... whatever 'this' is..."

I continued to move as I talked in my head, head swaying, eyes scanning every direction, ears swiveling this way and that... I was on full alert, expecting something evil to jump out and attack and give me a reason to fight it... or at least a hint of 'why' I was here... Thinking back, it was far to naive to think I would've been pulled away from my love on her favorite night to face some generic evil, but what I really discovered I had never expected.

"Ooh, Look at that, an Alicorn down here in ponyville! I thought all of you flying chickens were still hiding behind you're precious magic wall."

My head and every sense in it snapped to the side suddenly, it seemed like a totally generic house, missing a door of course, and in it stood something pink but only slightly familiar. 'what... it looks like...'

"OH!, EVEN BETTER! You're a new arrival aren't you?! wonderful, I've been needing some new ingredients, the usual has been starting to get rather stale of late."

'Oh that's not good...' The initial shock snapped away at the insinuation, My attention focused sharply suddenly and I took in every detail the same way I used to when dealing with threats.

'Alright, looks like pinkie, balancing on hind hooves for some reason, Apron looks like leather, Face mask, straight hair, not a good sign with 'her'... Belt of knives... Blood.' That stage of rushed analysis had me realize the red that was spattered across her pink, even staining the seeming medical mask covering her muzzle... A quick glance told me her left leg had a very large knife clutched in the lower joint... and a wet thump brought my attention to the other side, where she'd clearly just dropped what was obviously a corpse, some green apparently but most of it was stained red.

'SHIT!' I Jerked back and sent myself back a couple of meters with a push of my wings, this pinkie skidding to a stop with her Knife in a frighteningly precise position that would have buried it into an absolutely vital part of my central anatomy 'Damnit, She's as fast as the pinkie I know too.' that wasn't generally a good thing, 'pinkie-ness' was never a desirable enemy to have to deal with.

"awww, what's wrong, you can't talk? Are you afrraaaid?" I locked eyes with her for a moment, a cold glare in place meeting her own very much Psychotic Grin "Come oooon, I just wanna see how 'tasty' you'll be!" She lunged again.

This time I reacted, creating a simple bright glow of my horn to disrupt her vision as I lept to the side again, whirling to try and give a firm buck, only to have her spin clean of to the side in her own counter-attack, using the moment to slam to Knife into my flank directly into my mark...

I didn't so much shout as I 'roared' the pain, the decidedly un-pony like roar that caught her attention just enough to delay a repeating stab... a delay I took full advantage of by having my body burst into a form of shadow mist that quickly floated away carrying the saddlebags hung inside the cloud.

She reacted to this with a couple of slashes and an annoyed growl "AUGH!, I HATE wHEN THEY DO THAT!!!!"

A few seconds later, after floating for a bit, I re-solidified ontop of the same house she'd come out of, well out of range and favoring my right hind leg, though I didn't intend to chance under-estimating anything 'pinkie', not after previous experiences regardless of how peaceful they'd been.

Upon noticing me again she grew a much more wild grin, though she started going back about her business with the corpse while talking "Heehee, I see now, you're not just an alicorn, you're a 'nightmare' too, those are the only ones that do 'that', heehee... That makes you 'really' exotic, I can't wait to catch you and find out what kind of cupcakes you'll make... Ohhh, if only I'd been equipped for dealing with an alicorn tonight!... Ohhh, I'd get so much more business if I could sell 'nightare' cakes, HEEHEE!"

Once she started to leave my vision from that point of view, I didn't feel like taking a chance of her pulling a 'pinkie' and appearing behind me, I quickly vanished in a burst of black smoke, re-appearing a dozen roof-tops away and quickly taking cover to peek back out... sure enough a pink form popped out of the roof in the distance where I had been, only to give off an annoyed shout and go back to work again.

'okay... This is well beyond what I'd expected... If there's a 'psychotic pinkie' here, It's a safe bet there's other dangerous alternates present... and she managed to sneak up on me too... 'ME!'... I've got a lot of work ahead of me... GYUH!... first things first though."

I looked back to find a thin but very deep wound buried in my flank gushing fresh blood 'I am so glad I'm a magic based creature... I let myself underestimate her, never underestimate pinkie pie... I'm going to have to take 'everything' seriously while i'm here.' I leaned in tightly, guiding my horn to the wound and pouring out some raw magic... 'who needs healing magic when you can simple remake the flesh with magic?... Ugh, there I go again... I'm still not over that reckless 'I can't die' instinct.'

Unfortunately, something else popped up as soon as I finished healing "OI!, wHO'S BLEEDING ON MY ROOF!?"

'Ah crap!' The timing of the shout was startling enough that I stumbled trying to stand, tumbling right off the roof and crashing into several boxes that had been stored between houses.

I soon found myself staring at a set of clearly glowing Red-eyes coming down the alley...
...
...
"Uh... hi." I took a chance... who knows, maybe i'll get lucky... plus, falling into a pile of now broken boxes is a rather painful experience and... well, I'd feel rather silly later for not just thinking to push all the pointy objects away with magic right at the start...

Surprisingly, a simple hello got a reaction, a noticeable flinch from the eyes, they flickered for a moment before going dark as an, interestingly enough, black unicorn moved close enough to be seen in the moon-light, apparently male and with , His eyes suddenly green without that glow, and Mane and tail that were both a sharp Yellow. "well that's different... Usually they attack or run away, not stop and speak... you must be new here."

"Uh, yeah..." He didn't seem to react oddly aside from being non-hostile, though I had a feeling there was plenty of wooden debris concealing certain details about me.

"Huh... so, why ya bleedin on my roof and breakin my boxes?"

I gave him a fairly flat stare at first, though that would probably look a little funny considering I was upside down at the time. "well, I broke your boxes because You startled me shouting and I fell on them... as for the bleeding, I just got done running into pinkie pie." the last words caused a startled reaction from him and he immediately started looking about frantically as if he was about to piddle himself, I surmised why and quickly added "She's not nearby, I teleported away after getting out of range so she couldn't latch on."

That got him to relax for a moment, followed by a different startled reaction "Oh... okay, those pinkie's are seriously... wait, Teleported?"

"Yeah... I... oh, wait." I wiggled abit, finding my horn buried in the dirt and debris thanks to my inverted fall "Ohh, that explains it." I started to move for a moment and gave a sharp wince "Augh, crap! that shouldn't... it's just wood..." It wasn't like it was comfortable or the fall didn't hurt, but I 'was' an alicorn, I was used to it hurting less than it was... after a few more, admitedly fairly stupid, attempts to dislodge some of the debris my brain clicked and I simply burst into smoke again, reforming a moment later standing up on the debris with my Saddlebags in place and nothing... 'ow'

I looked back to find some splinters stuck in my back in a few places and a couple clinging to my wings 'Okay, I don't know why that's actually working, splinters shouldn't be the tiniest problem.' I quickly set about plucking them all out and tossing them aside, then I turned back and... He was staring at me with dumbfounded shock... "Okay, why are you staring at me like that? an Alicorn's not 'that' impossible around here is it?"

He seemed very worried suddenly, like he was ready to flee at a moments notice "w-well... Not... 'impossible', per se... Just... Unheard of actually stopping to talk to someponyinsteadofeatthemalive." He'd already started backing up.

I just stared curiously for a moment before a possibility clicked "Ohhhh... I see... They must have been here for a long time to reach a point of starvation that'd drive them into a Desperation craze 'that' strong... but look, i'm new here, so i'm fresh, I'm not about to snap and try to eat you..."

He calmed down almost instantly and even let off a relieved sigh "Ohhh thank the dark... I was kind of afraid they'd started getting smarter or something... The only thing that really saves us is being bale to out-smart them while their crazed like that."

"Oh, I know, I've seen 'the craze' before, Luna and I experimented with it a bit at one point... oh damnit" He started looking worried yet again "I mean 'my' Luna... lemme guess, there's a 'bad' luna here?"

"Uh, you could say that... There's a couple of them in the 'Feral Herd', and 3 locked up in Canterlot... There's some 'not crazed' alicorns that work together, but they tend to just stay hidden behind the magic wall in canterlot with a small legion of unicorns and some 'lesser ponies' to keep as food... there's a few that are still indipendant... but that's usually because they are 'extremely' dangerous... normally a lone alicorn out here means a lot of running and dying."

Okay, I had to ask this "Okay, is there anything that ponies worry about eating around here aside from other ponies?"

"well... Meat is the only reliable thing 'to' eat here, nothing that is both safe and edible grows anywhere that's safe to get it."

"Jeez... if you have to resort to that... No wonder everything looks so deserted."

"Actually, that's because the pinkie's are out hunting... almost everyone takes cover and just hopes they don't get found, those 'things' are unimagineably invasive, we still haven't got a clue how they do that stuff, though they at least can't enter the shadow-side."

"Huh... wait... so... How many are here?"

"I can't guess an accurate number, but 10's of thousands is a fair guess for ponyville."

"whu... huh? How do they all avoid going into a hunger craze with those kinds of numbers being sustained?"

"They eat eachother." He said it so... matter of factly...

"But... then how do they keep their numbers up?"

For some reason he looked at me like I was the crazy one, then realization dawned suddenly "Ohhh, right, sorry, for a moment I forgot you're new, you must not have experienced it yet... Lucky you, caught by a pinkie and walking away... Nopony who dies here stays dead, in a few hours or a day or so they just 'appear' again, whole and healthy... Honestly, the main reason the Alicorn herd is so dangerous and crazed is because we aren't strong enough to kill them, they are always starving." My turn to stare... "what? Is that impossible where you're from?"

"Uh.. well... not 'impossible' but... Hrm, not on such a massive scale."

"Oh, well, it's just the way the 'master' has altered this world, and before you ask, that's all anypony ever calls him, speaking his name seems to call his attention and that's never good for anyone."

"Damn...... If he can do 'that' I imagine it 'would' be bad to call his attention."

"Yeah, and nopony has ever actually 'seen' him, they just kindof 'feel' when he's watching them."

"Ugh... this just gets better and better... Okay, you seem to know stuff, So, what's the general scale of 'crazy to sane' around here?"

"Depends on the diet, me? I drink blood, so It's easy for me to stay healthy and not have to risk my mind slipping due to hunger... Admitedly, licking up the Pinkie's leavings is pretty degrading, but it's easier than having to tear somepony apart for it, just about everyone here is dangerous in some way. Generally the newbies who want to desperately hold on to their vegitarian origins are the most dangerous, they turn starving faster than anyone else."

"ah, i see, Vampony? or just a blood based diet adaptation?"

"Vampony, though there are some that fit the second."

"right, well, that makes my time here about 50 times easier... I already like meat, but being able to avoid having to eat somepony is a tremendous load off of my concience"

"Really? Just about everypony who ends up 'new' here is some kind of evil or psychotic on their own and don't really worry about others for the first century or so... what exactly 'got' you banished here?"

"Oh, I wasn't banished here, I just kindof, ended up here... I got this suspicious feeling that something was going to happen to me, and last night, it did, I just faded away where I was and woke up here." This was more reaction than I'd expected... He was suddenly staring in slack jawed awe "Ugh, is this going to be a common occurance? I don't like the whole 'awed reverence' thing."

"Uh, oh, nonono, I'm just... shocked... You are an absolute 'first' here, Nopony who's ever ended up here 'hasn't' done something evil somewhere else to get the locals to banish them for their own safety... even 'the master' was banished from somewhere... the few of us who actually had inter-universal experience prior to getting here describe this place as 'the dark', it's simply the dumping ground where the multi-verse throws away banished evils to avoid dumping them on a different universe that doesn't deserve them... we've never once had an instance of somepony coming here who wasn't forcibly banished."

"Oh... wow..." I face-hoofed suddenly "FUCK!"

He jumped at that "what?!"

I just sighed "Uuughhh... Nothing... just... I got dragged away from one of my loves on her favorite night, I can only imagine the kind of pain 'she's' feeling right now... so instead of enjoying The Best Nightmare Night I ever put together, I'm here, in what essentially qualifies as the Universe's evil garbage dump to do who knows what... This place is going to be fucking Tartarus, I mean, I wasn't concious 10 minutes before getting a Butcher's knife buried in my flank and having to run away."

"Oh... well, ya know, you kinda ran into one of the worst afterall, I mean, the Pinkie's even hunt alicorns when they come through town, you're lucky that one wasn't prepared for capturing one... Oh-no..." He suddenly froze wide-eyed

Before I could ask 'why' a childish broke the momentary silence and caused me to quickly move my focus from the other pony, and suddenly my blood froze as I saw '2' Pinkie's at the other end of the alley behind the stranger, they were different from eachother though, one clearly was the same one I'd seen before, but next to her, staying on 4 legs, stood one that more closely resembled the familiar bubbly and adorable 'nice' crazy pink pony, poofy mane and all, save for some blood spatter and a large curved cleaver in her muzzle. "There's more behind me aren't there?"

"Y-yeah..." A Glance back revealed 2 more 'different' pinkies, One looked to have had her color drained and bore a mercilessly cold glare, She had bands on her Fet-locks that held knives. The one next to her, strangely enough, was sitting and her fore-hooves held what resembled a large cross-bow loaded with 2 bolts side-by-side... She didn't exactly look cold or happy or even crazy, just bored.

The sound of somepony clearing their throat brought my attention upwards Just intime to hear "Hi there" spoken in a surprisingly serious but cheery tone, and to have a chain dropped across my back, slamming me into the ground.

"GAH, FUCK!" I guessed this was one of those 'alicorn hunting tools' the first one had mentioned... It instantly felt like the chain was melted to my back, binding my wings, and attached to the ground at the same time... It didn't look like it had any special physical method of attachment, but the magic in the chain could be considered legendary, I could feel it suffocating my own inside and out.... Granted, holding me in place, and completely crippling me are 2 very different things.

"OOooh, this one's got fight in him." The giggling returned and intensified as I forced my way back to my hooves, struggling most certainly, but soon standing all the same. "You were right 'loop', This one's 'fresh'. He oughta be a lot of fun."

I looked back up again to the voice, This one didn't seem to be armed, but instead was wearing a suspiciously clean and pressed suit jacket with a surprisingly pleasant mirthful expression. Next to her was a sixth 'Damnit... How many of them 'are' there?' who stood on her hind-legs like the first one, though this one did so because she was propped up on a Black-handled Scythe that was balanced between her fore-legs 'Ugh... what, is she an iteration of pinkie who thought she was a reaper?'

I must've been eyeing the scythe a bit much because that one answered through an oddly calm smile "The scythe is just my favorite toy, I think of it being kindof like me... Nice and merciful if you accept your fate and let me slice you in half, but if you get troublesome it'll punish you by cutting something else and making you live with the pain until you give in... heeheehee."

I took a couple of seconds to listen to that and turned my eyes to the 'business pinkie' "So... I'm fucked aren't I?"

That reaction must have been entertaining, because the giggling turned into gut busting laughter that even included the serious looking ones "Hahah, yes, yes you are, but it's up to you to sit down and take it, or make this 'fun'."

On the word 'fun' the cruel looking one behind me started sprinting forward, It'd be pretty hard to miss the sound of her hooves mixed with the knifes tinking against the occasional rock in the dirt, but it went quiet suddenly... I dropped completely.

As expected she'd leapt at me, aiming high to go for a quick kill, at least they took fighting an alicorn seriously to a degree... Of course she still let out an absolutely furious shriek at being made to miss, followed a moment later by a Pained scream as I lunged back up with all the force I could still manage, spearing my long horn clean through one of her rear knees. I jerked my head back first to pull back on her momentum, getting another pained sound and spattering my muzzle with blood, followed by wrenching my neck around in a circle dragging her in an arch before Jerking back and arching my head back as far as I could, wrenching her off my horn and sending her back down the alley in a screaming cursing heap of angry bitch pie.

I took just a second to shake my head violently to clear as much running blood as possible before it'd blind me... though when I opened my eyes I found a grinning face charging at me, slowed for barely an instant to snatch her cleaver from the stranger's skull... Damn, they got 'him' fast... and then... she ducked to the side suddenly, my eyes momentarily following her before another bit of pink separated from her former position, causing me to snap back immediately to find the first one I'd encountered aiming to drive that knife home again now that I was stilled.

I clenched 3 legs hard to hold myself standing against the chain while I threw up my right fore-leg to strike her swinging leg... arm... I don't know what to think of this one, her physical structure differed enough to let her move on just her hind legs without falling... Either way, I interupted her before she could dig it in, but this time I curled my fore-leg around her's and pulled as well, Slamming my head into her's hard enough to knock her senseless and leave her stumbling back a few meters.

that was when a burning pain bit into my left Flank as the second Pinkie's cleaver dug in, and my leg siezed up, allowing the chain to buckle the other 2 and pull me down again "GYAAAAH!!" There came that roar again, though it didn't surprise them this time, and it didn't stop her from using the opportunity to leap onto my back, bouncing up and down in a manner that would've been adorable if her muzzle wasn't now covered in my blood "wooo, I GOTCHA! Better give up now! Of I'm gonna getcher head too!"

Obviously her being on my back in this situation was a death sentence, So I did what I could and jerked back up, trying to dislodger her some with the momentum, though it just made her bounce a little higher before crashing onto my back again, but I at least kept standing, though pain screamed in my back leg from the first wound... It took only a moment to hear hoof beats in both directions though, and it wasn't hard to guess what it meant was coming... Honestly, having been told that If I died I'd come right back a little later, did 'not' make it easier to accept a situation where it seemed almost inevitable, and it also did nothing to ease the reaction caused by survival instinct.

One hoof shot out in front to Push back the first Pinkie again, though i didn't have a chance to grab and headbutt her again. I felt the cleaver dig into the front right shoulder then, the same leg I'd been favoring for defending myself in the front, coming back out an instant later, presumably for another swing... I felt her weight leave my back most likely to jump and come back down on my spine, the one in front charged up to aim high, and I couldn't tell what the third one was going to do and- "GYAAAAAHHH!!!!"

One of my legs shut down suddenly from the Scythe that dropped down above, devoid of it's holder "I waarrrned you about resistiiinnng!" fractions of a second suddenly felt like minutes as that primal fear flooded my mind, my flank slammed into the ground from my rear balance cutting out, jamming the scythe's handle down on the ground and causing it to slice free of my leg before dancing through the air behind me... It's actually strange, how sometimes fate and luck work out...

My fallen position disrupted the bouncing Pinkie, screwing up her landing and sending her tumbling back into the third one who'd been in mid leap, a 'clunk' from behind signaled the release of the crossbow, pressumably in reaction to make sure I had no chance of escape because of the stumbling... I hadn't seen it, but the Twin bolts had a Steel wire between them, which would likely has sliced gruesomely deep from that momentum, where it not for the scythe and the other 2 pinkie's getting in the way, all of which crashed into my back-side along with an ample ammount of blood from the wire cutting into 2 of them, and the scythe, without a guiding hoof, landed harmlessly side-ways against my rear.

with the wire attached to something metal, the bolts circled around, more of the wire catching on the chain that held me in place, and brought the bolts up closer... burying into the last charging pinkie who'd been an instant digging that knife in, turning a fatal blow into a stab in my last unhurt joint, and letting the chain finally completely trap me against the ground, now covered in pink and red.

The whole scene seemed to have completely gob-smacked everyone left alive at the moment, Myself included... A few moments later I looked back... The 2 that had fallen behind me and got caught by the flying wire had be somehow impaled on the scythe blade as well as sliced open enough to... well, it was messy, lets just say that... The Crossbowmare Pinkie behind me was completely stunned for only a second before throwing the cross bow down "Oh damnit! Now they're all 3 gonna try to kill me in the morning!"

Then I looked up at the 'boss pinkie' who seemed to... actually be trying to hold in laughter, the other one up there still stunned... I can only assume the raw shock of how I was still alive kept me from noticing the mind shattering pain at the time, or maybe I was going into shock, who knows... either way, i felt the need to joke about this somehow. "Ya know... I would've been totally okay with a pinkie orgy if you'd just asked!" that broke it, and she flopped onto her side laughing.

"oh wow! I like this one! He's gonna be fun to have around here!" The laughing went on for a little while, the 'reaper pinkie' eventually coming out of her shocked state and hopping off the roof to retrieve her scythe... well, I knew what was coming next "Hold it Reapie!" or maybe not "I want to talk to this one first... He's smarter than the rest of those alicorns... and maybe he can make himself useful, now that he knows we can tear him apart just fine."

'reapie' froze in mid-swing "Awww... you sure boss?"

"Yes"

"Oh, fine..."

"well... this is an unexpected turn of events... I get the feeling I'm going to be having a lot of these here."

"Get him loose and put him back together for now."

...