Kill Yourself into Equestria
'Blowout' Bob leaned against the back of his rig. He was in a sour mood since he'd lost yet another tire on his way to the gas station. Sure, tractor trailers have redundant sets of wheels and can keep running even with a flat or two, but given that his cargo was a tank of gasoline he had to take extra precautions and stopped to get the bad tire replaced. He was now way behind schedule and would have to drive through some ungodly hour of the night to make up the lost time.
The gurgling of the drain hose died down to a trickle, but he wouldn't be able to pack up and leave until his cargo was unloaded and the tanker was completely empty. Technically, he should wait another ten minutes, but he was in a hurry and wanted to get back on the road as soon as possible. He decided to look in the tank. Against safety regulations, he climbed up the back past numerous warning labels and unlocked the maintenance hatch on the top. The pungent aroma of gasoline fumes nearly knocked him over when he opened it.
By the way, those safety labels were mostly common sense things like, 'Warning: Flammable Cargo', 'Warning: Explosive', 'Warning: No Smoking', 'Warning: No Open Flames', 'Seriously, we mean it. NO FIRE WHATSOEVER'.
'Blowout' Bob waved the fumes away. He held his breath and stuck his head inside. It was too dark to see anything, and he didn't have his flashlight on him, so he pulled out his cigarette lighter...
Another empty beer can landed in the passenger seat after 'Crazy' Max drained its contents and tossed it aside. His speedometer rose past seventy towards eighty as he swerved past parked cars on the winding, narrow residential street. The 'fasten seatbelt' warning light was on.
“Psh. I dunno wha—everyone says not to do dis. I drive soo mush better when I'bm drunk!”
At the end of the block, construction work on a new home was underway. A bulldozer was working on leveling the plot and had to back out into the street temporarily to let a backhoe scoop some debris out of its way.
'Crazy' Max laughed as a construction worker dove out of his way after frantically waving a bright orange flag at him in an effort to get him to stop. His eyes popped open when he rounded the bend and saw the bulldozer. He slammed on the brakes, which screeched in response, but he was too late to avoid collision. The last thing to go through his mind was the bright yellow twenty-five-ton plot device.
'Woeful' Wendy finished putting the final dramatic touches on her suicide note and stared at the assorted pills in front of her.
“Well, Neo in the Matrix was offered a blue pill and red pill. I've got blue pills, red pills, green pills, yellow pills, purple pills, and orange pills. Heh, who knows where I'll wind up? Taste the rainbow.”
With that, she scooped up the pills and downed them all with a glass of calorie-free water (she was watching her weight). Her cellphone rang. She answered it.
“Oh hi, June! It's good to hear from you.”
…
“Yes, of course I'll be up for movie night. I just have to finish with this 'suicide' business first.”
…
“No, I'm not actually going to kill myself. I'll just wind up in the hospital for a few hours or something. My parents will be so upset at me for trying that they'll finally break down and give me that Xbox I've always wanted. Ack–”
'Woeful' Wendy doubled over in pain. She dropped her cellphone and vomited on top of it. It was icky, like, really, really gross. She knew she should hang up and dial 911, but didn't want to get her hands dirty. She'd use the old-fashioned wall phone in the kitchen instead.
She got up and staggered that direction, but she was too late. She'd already absorbed a lethal dose of chemical stupidity. She collapsed in the hallway, never to move again.
Their bodies were never recovered.
It was normal day in Ponyville. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the sound of shattering glass and Rarity screaming her head off punctuated the air. Yep, perfectly normal day.
Rarity came crashing out of her boutique short on breath with wild look in her eyes. “Dash! Dash! Rainbow Dash!”
“Yes, I'm here. What is it?” The cyan pegasus rolled off her adorably soft cumulufuton cloud and grunted with annoyance at being awakened from her nap.
“There's a nasty, horrible, smelly thing in my shop. It came crashing through the window and knocked over half my merchandise.” Rarity shuddered.
Dash raised her eyebrows. “Eh, It's probably not that bad. Let me take a look at it.” She walked into the shop and quickly backed out with a greenish, sickly look on her face. “Yeah, okay. It is that bad.”
“What's going on?” Pinkie Pie hopped over.
“We heard yer scream all the way from the market.” Applejack and Fluttershy walked up. “Is everything alright?”
Twilight flew up. “Rarity, I head your scream too. What's wrong?”
Rarity raised a trembling hoof and pointed at her boutique. “There's a horrible, disgusting, nasty, awful, rancid, odoriferous, thing in my shop.” Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement.
“Ooh, let me see!” Pinkie Pie hopped forward but Rainbow Dash bit her tail and dragged her back.
“Sorry, Pinkie. But you really don't want to go in there.”
“What? Is it dangerous?” Twilight asked.
Rarity shrugged.
Frowning, Twilight cast a shield spell around herself and suck her head through the door. She blanched and looked away. “Yikes. You weren't just kidding, were you?”
Rarity shook her head. “Do you have any idea what it is?”
“Is it some kind of cave troll?” Dash asked.
“No idea, but I can find out.” Twilight clenched her teeth and steeled herself. She stepped inside.
The creature was bipedel, blackened and charred. The air was filled with the stench of burnt flesh and the faint odor of gasoline. Twilight had seen enough. She canceled her shield spell and returned to the others.
“Well, the good news is that it's definitely not hostile. It looked like it was human, probably male.”
“A human?” Rarity asked. “Wait—was human? Probably male?”
Twilight sighed. “The bad news is that you've got a dead body in your shop. It looked like it died a violent, fiery death. It's so badly charred I can't even tell what gender it was.”
The look on her friends' faces was that of pure disgust. Even Pinkie stuck out her tongue.
“Oh, my.” Fluttershy covered her mouth with a hoof.
“Well ain't that something?” Applejack shook her head. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I'll ask the town guards to clean it up. They'll probably have to bury–”
Fwump. Another, even more disgusting corpse landed right in front of them. Twilight shrieked and hid behind the fountain. The others followed suit.
“Sweet Celestia!” Twilight covered her mouth in shock.
“It looks like Opal's cat food,” Rarity whimpered.
“It doesn't even have a head!” Rainbow Dash said.
“Is that it's head over there?” Pinkie asked. The object she pointed to was so mangled that it bore little resemblance to a head.
“Eww.” The others winced.
A thumping noise alerted them to the arrival of another corpse. This one was intact. It was a young woman. She bounced off a roof, knocking clay shingles loose as she fell, and landed in a heap in front of them. Some foam coming out of her mouth was the only clue as to how she'd died.
“What is going on here?” An exasperated earth pony ran up.
“I don't know, Mayor. We're just as clueless as you are.” Twilight touched a hoof to the newest corpse. “Cold. This one's also dead. I don't know why, but these dead humans keep appearing. This is the third one.”
“There are way more than just three, I'm afraid.” The mayor shuddered. “They're appearing all over Ponyville. Ponies are terrified. They're hiding inside and boarding up their homes, but some of these things are even appearing indoors. You've got to send them back.”
“But I don't even know where they came from,” Twilight said.
Screams from terrified ponies echoed through the streets.
“I don't care!” The mayor stomped her hoof down. “Not even the town guards are willing to touch them. Bury them, burn them, haul them off, poof them away. Just find some way to get rid of them!”
“Well, okay...” Twilight poked the corpse again. It stubbornly remained a corpse.
Another corpse landed in front of the mayor who screamed and bolted. Twilight didn't bother to inspect it. It was limp and would inevitably be just as dead as the others.
“Does anypony have any ideas?” Twilight asked.
“Move to Cloudsdale?” Rainbow suggested.
“That's not a bad idea,” Pinkie said. “Three of us already have wings and the rest of us can get cloud-walking spells.”
“Ah am not abandoning Ponyville.” Applejack snorted.
“Pinkie, your alligator–” Fluttershy pointed her hoof at him.
“Gummy! Don't chew on that. You have no idea where that's been.” Pinkie pried her alligator off a corpse and he latched onto her hair instead.
“Actually, that gives me an idea. If ponies won't touch these bodies, perhaps animals will. Fluttershy, can you bring in the vultures?”
“Um, sure.” Fluttershy flew up and gave a whistle. Within moments she was surrounded by turkey vultures. She directed them to fly down and they started eating the mangled, headless corpse.
Twilight smiled. “Well, it's not a perfect solution since we'll still have to carry the bones off ourselves, but they should be able to handle the meat of the matter. Heh. Get it? Meat.”
“We get it, Twilight.” Dash facehoofed.
“Is that any way to respect the dead?” Rarity asked.
“You heard the mayor. We don't have time to respect the dead. We have to get rid of them as soon as possible. Besides, it's all-natural,” Twilight said.
“There ain't nothing about this that's natural,” Applejack said.
“These vultures sure are funny. Whee! Look at them go.” Pinkie stuck her head between her legs and watched them meander around behind her.
“What?” Fluttershy flew over to look at them. Some had fallen over and others were staggering around in circles.
“What's wrong with them?” Twilight asked.
Fluttershy picked up a vulture and looked into his eyes. She waved a hoof and he had trouble following her motions. She set him back down and walked over to sniff the corpse. “They're drunk. This dead body is saturated with alcohol.”
“What?” Twilight raised her eyebrows in alarm. “That's terrible. We can't ask them to eat that.”
“Hmm.” Rarity pointed at the dead woman with foam on her mouth. “That one looks like she died of poison. I don't think we can ask them to eat her, either.”
“Oh no!” Fluttershy protectively hugged a vulture. “I'm so sorry, Mr. Widdlesworth, but I don't think I can let your flock eat any more of these things. It's just too risky.”
Mr. Widdlesworth squawked.
“So much for that idea,” Applejack said. “Any other bright ideas?”
Twilight winced as another corpse bounced off a roof and landed in the street. “I wish I knew why these things kept appearing. If I had some idea of where they came from, I might be able to do something about it.”
A bright light caught the ponies' attentions and they turned their heads to look at the statue in the fountain. The flat panel on the statue's base rippled and a tan unicorn with fiery red and yellow hair came tumbling out.
“Sunset Shimmer?” Twilight asked.
The unicorn splashed in the water and she struggled to stand up, on her hind legs, for some reason. She stuck a foreleg out in front of her. “Ha! You will all bow before me and my—my hands! What happened to my hands!?” She fell over.
“Um, what?” Rainbow Dash scratched her mane.
Twilight reached over and pulled the pony out of the water.
“Um, thanks? I think?” She stared at her hooves with the saddest, mopiest expression ever. Her frown fell so low it drilled for oil.
“You're silly. You don't have hands because you're a pony,” Pinkie said.
“A-a, what?” The pony turned her head to look at the rest of her body. Her tail twitched. “Why am I naked!?” She curled up into a ball and whimpered.
“Er...” Twilight didn't know what to say.
“Psst, Rarity, can ya get her some clothes?” Applejack asked.
“Um, I would, but I don't want to go back in my shop because–”
“Just do it.”
Rarity nodded and stepped over a recently-appeared corpse to enter her shop. She returned almost immediately carrying a pale blue dress with her magic. It didn't match the colors of this new pony very well, but she calmed down after Rarity put it on her.
“You're not really Sunset Shimmer, are you?” Twilight asked.
“How did you know my name?” She looked up at Twilight, as if seeing her for the first time. “Whoa, are those wings? What are you? You remind me of my roommate, Twilight Sparkle, but...”
“I am Twilight Sparkle,” the pony who suspiciously went by the name of Twilight Sparkle said, “and I have wings and a horn because I'm an alicorn pony.”
The steady gurgling of the town's fountain filled the awkward silence.
“Um, I'm confused,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Me too,” Fluttershy said. “If that's Sunset Shimmer, then why is she acting so weird?”
“I think I know,” Twilight said. “Do you remember when I went through Princess Cadance's enchanted mirror to the human world and I said that each of you had a human counterpart going to Canterlot High School? Well, I think this Sunset Shimmer is the human counterpart to the Sunset Shimmer from our world.”
Sunset's eyes popped open. “That's uncannily accurate. I got here by going through Principle Cadance's enchanted mirror in the basement closet of Manehattan High School.” She frowned at her hooves. “I just had no idea that I'd turn into a-a–”
“Pony?”
“Thing. Er, yeah, that. Pony.”
A crashing noise and horrified screams caught their attention.
“Do you, perhaps, have something to to do with these?” Rarity pointed at the dead bodies around them.
Sunset Shimmer shrieked. “My army! You killed them all! You horrible monsters!”
“What? No! They were already dead when they got here, honest!” Applejack flattened her ears and frowned.
She didn't have to explain further because another dead body fell out of thin air in front of them. Sunset Shimmer turned green and threw up.
“ 'My army?' I think you have some explaining to do, Miss.” Twilight narrowed her eyes and frowned.
“Uh, well–” Sunset wiped her mouth and stared at her foreleg. “Surprisingly fuzzy.”
Twilight glared at her.
“Oh, right, the army thing. He-he. I, um, found a wishing ring, but there were too many limitations on how it could effect things in my world for it to be useful. So once I learned of the portal to your world, I thought I could bypass some of those limitations by wishing for the people who died in my world to become my slaves in yours.”
“Wait, so every person who dies is coming here?” Twilight asked.
“No, just the people who kill themselves. I didn't want an army of old fogies, after all.”
“Why would you think an army of dead people would be any good, regardless of how old they were?” Dash asked.
“They weren't supposed to stay dead!”
“They were supposed to turn into zombies?” Pinkie stuck out her tongue. “Eww, that's even worse.”
“What? no. They were supposed to come back to life.”
“I'm pretty sure that when things die, they stay dead. That's kind of how death works,” Twilight said.
“Well, yes. I see that now.” Sunset blanched. “Though I rather wish I hadn't.”
“Speaking of wishes, can you, perchance, stop this?” Rarity asked. She batted her eyes. “Pretty please?”
Sunset rolled hers. “Yeah, fine. I'll go back and break the ring. It's not like I can use it for anything else anymore. And no offense, but a world full of ponies is really kinda creepy.”
Sunset Shimmer turned around and smacked her face against the base of the fountain. Her eyes went all googley and rolled around in her head.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Go back,” Rarity said. She urged Sunset forward with hoof motions.
Sunset shook her head and blushed. “I, er, kinda-sorta forgot that I waited until the very last moment to come here. I didn't want anyone following me and ruining my fun.”
“Wait, so you're telling us you can't go back?” Rarity asked.
“Er, no. Not until the portal opens again.” Sunset raised a hoof to rub at the sore spot on her head.
“And that won't be for another thirty moons, I take it?” Twilight asked.
Sunset nodded, and when she did so her hoof bumped against her horn. Her eyes popped open and she felt up her horn with both forelegs. “What the heck? I've got some sort of giant, tumorous growth coming out of my head!”
Pinkie giggled. “I like this Sunset Shimmer. She's silly.”
“That's your horn, dear. You're a unicorn. It's supposed to be there,” Rarity said. She tapped on her horn.
“Great. This place is really starting to grow on me,” Sunset said sarcastically. She put her hooves down and tried standing on all fours. “Awkward. I can't believe I'm stuck here for—however long thirty moons is. At least your Twilight isn't so bad. I mean, at least you don't have that stupid, annoying, mangy, little yapping mutt.”
Something dark passed across Twilight's face.
“Uh, now that we know where these bodies are coming from, can ya do anything about them?” Applejack asked.
Twilight shook her head. The lavender horse kicked a dead human. “I'm sorry, Applejack, but you heard what Sunset Shimmer said. It's being controlled entirely on the other side.”
“There must be something we can do.” Fluttershy shuddered. “I don't know if I can stand to be around all these dead bodies for thirty moons.”
“~Idea~” Rarity sang. “Let's look at my sister.”
“Um, what?” Applejack asked.
Rarity's horn glowed blue.
“Hey!” Little legs waved in the air as a little marshmallow pony was magically deposited in front of them. “What was that for!?” Sweetie Belle's voice peaked so high that it cracked into a squeaking noise.
“Be a dear and stand there for a while, okay?” Rarity asked.
“Um...” Sweetie Belle's little nostrils flared out as she sniffed the air. “What is that sme—eeeek! Eww, yuck. What are those things? They're really, really, gross.”
“You don't have to worry about those things, Sweetie. They're not going to do anything except sit there and small bad.”
“Um, Rarity?” Twilight looked back and forth between the two of them in confusion. “Do you have an actual reason for dragging your sister out here or—?”
“Just keep looking at her. You'll see.” Rarity sat on her haunches and stared directly at Sweetie Belle.
“Look at me? Why are you looking at me? Rarity, it's smelly and icky and I don't like it out here.” Sweetie Belle's eyes grew big and round and she made a little pouty-face.
“Huh? Let me see.” Sunset Shimmer sort-of shuffled forward (she wasn't sure how to walk on four legs yet). She stuck her face past the group and her eyes lit up when she saw Sweetie Belle. “Oh my goodness! You're just the cutest, most adorable little thing ever!”
“Heh, well I guess I am cute.” Sweetie Belle smiled.
“Well, shucks, we can't argue with that none,” Applejack said.
“You're doing such a good job, Sweetie. Keep it up,” Rarity said.
“Um, thanks?” Sweetie Belle raised one little eyebrow higher than her other one.
“Dat face!” Rainbow Dash squeezed her cheeks. “So adorable!”
“Say, Sweeite, do you want a cupcake?” Pinkie Pie pulled one out of her mane. “I was saving this for a cupcake emergency, and I think this qualifies.”
“Sure!” Sweetie Belle took one step towards the delicious pastry when a dead body landed between her and the group. They all stared blankly at it for a moment before shifting to a slightly less crowded location.
Sweetie Belle sat on her little hindquarters and wrapped her fluffy, curly tail around her legs. She picked up the cupcake with her soft, green magic and levitated it over to her face. She took oversized bites for such a little pony. Everypony watched as she got crumbs on her face and her cheeks bulged out from being overstuffed with food.
“She looks just like a chipmunk.” Fluttershy rolled on her back. “So cute.”
“Wow.” Twilight was completely absorbed with watching Sweetie Belle. “She really is the most adorable thing ever.”
All of them sat there laughing and smiling and giggling. Dead bodies continued to rain all around them, but nopony cared because Sweetie Belle was cute.
