I. The Beginning of the End
www.fimfiction.net
Rainbow Dash tapped her hooves impatiently as the page continued to load. It had been ages since she had last browsed the site. What if somepony had written something with Daring Do, or those weird, hairless sex monkeys? She wouldn’t even know! The pegasus vowed to spend the entire day in Twilight's library, catching up on what she had missed. Those ponies at the weather factory could wait; it might teach them some much-needed independence. Did she not have a right to lackluster fanfiction binges?
Now only if this page would finish loading...
Sighing, Rainbow stopped tapping her hooves on the floor and resolved to wait patiently and silently. Even though Twilight was the only other pony around, she was still in a library, and would treat it as such out of...uh, respect...for her friend…
Jeez, if looks could kill…
Rainbow Dash diverted her attention back to the monitor. Still loading?! Nothing had changed on the screen, and the small semicircle still rested at the corner, perpetually spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning—
The blue pegasus gritted her teeth. The limits of her patience were coming to an end.
“TWILIGHT!”
The lavender alicorn glanced up from her incomprehensible jargon; something relating to Starswirl the Bearded. Slightly startled (but more annoyed) she huffed. “What, Rainbow? I’m sort of busy here.” She grimaced as Rainbow Dash's shrill, piercing voice assaulted her ears. "I"VE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR LIKE OVER TWENTY MINUTES AND THE PAGE HASN'T LOADED!" This is what she was so worked up about? I should have closed the library today, Twilight muttered with no small hint of frustration. Grunting, the mare lifted herself from her papers and trotted over to the computer. The screen was blank. "Do other websites work?" Twilight asked.
"I don't know! There were no other sites I needed to access!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. Rainbow Dash could be so stupid sometimes. "You should try accessing another site to determine if the problem is with the website or the computer. Here, let me see what the problem is."
"Whatever. You're the computer genius."
Twilight rolled her eyes again and used her magic to control the mouse and keyboard. She brought the cursor to the search bar and entered the address of the Canterlot Royal Society homepage, noticing the rather risque suggestions that appeared as she typed. Ponies really shouldn't be looking up stuff like that in a library, she mused to herself.
Rainbow Dash flinched as she hit the enter key; any of the progress she'd made on those agonizing twenty minutes would now be lost. Upon a brief wait, the website appeared promptly, Celestia’s flank mark prominent at the top. A garish banner flashed in the center of the page.
DINNER WITH BLUEBLOOD! AN EXTRAORDINARY CHANCE TO MEET AN EXTRAORDINARILY EXTRAORDINARY EXTRAORDINAIRE!
"Well, we know that there's no problem with our own connection. Let’s try the fimfiction website again to see if anything has changed.” Twilight took control of the apparatus again and navigated back to the site.
Nothing. Nothing but the consuming white and the pitiful spinning of the cursor.
“UGH!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “I swear, if anything else funky happens, something’s gonna go loose!”
Unfortunately for both mares, Rainbow’s exclamations were promptly acknowledged.
Their attention was immediately diverted when the loading icon, now ingrained in their vision, vanished suddenly. In its place, two words, jarring and ominous in all their razor-sharp, black, imposing magnificence, made their presence known to all of Equestria.
SERVER DOWN
~ … ~
Time stretched an eternity. Every atom, every particle frozen, trapped yet freed by the boundlessness of this single moment. Planets and galaxies were ground to a halt. Indeed, the very fabric of reality, for once, was liberated from the burden of its senseless cranking. A silence to behold...
“AAAUUUUUAUUUAUUAUAUUUUUAUUUUAUUUUAUUUUAUUUUUUUAUUUUGHHHGGGHHHHAUUUUGHHHHAUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaghAUUGHHGHHAUUAUUUGGaughGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AUUUUUGGGHAUGHAUGHaaaaaaaaaaaaaughAUGHAUGHAUGGGGGGHAUUUUUUGHAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUGGGGGggggggggggggggggggGGGGGgggggggggGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhHhHhHhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
Startled by such a horrid intrusion, the gears of the universe glumly returned to their usual chugging.
“AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHAUUUGHAUGHAUGHAUGHAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—”
Dash’s eloquent expression of dismay was cut off by a purple hoof shoved into her mouth. “ByLuna’s unwashed plot, will you shut up? I already interrupted my studies to help with your problem. Don’t make me regret letting you into the library.”
Twilight’s words went completely unnoticed. The cyan mare’s eyes grew to a comical size, and her body convulsed with rage. Her hooves flailed through the air, desperately searching for something or somepony to strangle. She bit Twilight’s hooves, in an attempt to sing more symphonies of crimson anger and despair. It was futile.
“Mmmf! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmf!”
Oblivious to Rainbow’s escalating state, Twilight continued with her one-sided console. “—like, in the scheme of things, much worse could happen. All of us are safe, right? If anyone can tell somepony about seeing the big picture, it’s me, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight paused for a moment, admiring how gracefully that title flowed from her tongue. “As you may recall, I even wrote a 50-page friendship report on the importance of having a realistic sense of both self and my priorities. Don’t tell other ponies about this—but at night, I smile when I imagine Celestia’s warm, proud smile when she received that letter. And to even consider my audacity to completely disregard my friends like that, simply for my ridiculous fear of being sent to magic kindergarten? Oh, I can’t bear to think of the potential consequences of such utterly wanton negligence…”
Rainbow Dash, beyond any hope of civilized intercourse, shook with an unrestrained, savage fury. By now, her luscious, beautiful magenta eyes radiated an unholy red, the veins inside them visibly throbbing. Her rainbow mane had transformed into a sickening spectrum of blood and gore; yet its utter grandeur rivalled that of the two great princesses. (twilight? who are we kidding)
Something had to snap.
*crunch*
Twilight screamed in agony as Rainbow’s flat, supposedly herbivorous teeth tore through the flesh of her hoof. A bloodied, twisted piece of pony meat laid on the floor, and Twilight continued to scream as the fountains of blood shooting through the air stained her impeccably arranged books. With horrified awe, she stared as Rainbow’s head grew to the size of a pumpkin, her slender body growing with each raspy breath. A frazzled mane obscured her bloodshot eyes. Rainbow turned her muzzle up towards the heavens, her jaw slack, and she inhaled deeply.
Twilight Sparkle’s left eye twitched involuntarily.
~ 672 years ago – 9th of March, 488 ~
Starswirl of Canterlot hovered over his scroll, his brow furrowed in intense concentration.
It is my second day studying these cryptic texts. I have determined that it is of a nonequus race, likely a savage Griffin tribe. This is evidenced by the recurring, presumably idiomatic phrase “Of He is whom hands quiver in fear.” Judging from descriptions of “He,” I have inferred that “He” is either a divine deity or a tribal chief. The text also goes into stark details of primal rituals such as “monopolization” and “subornation.” I have not determined what these words mean. However, it is clear that these creatures have a particularly strong distress of these things.
He paused to dip his quill into the ink, and continued writing.
The later paragraphs baffle me. They tell of a “damned future, a limbo of unbearable radiance,” symbolic and with nothing concrete in its lines. The only purpose I sense behind such foreboding words is that of warning; these creatures detail “ a race, lost in the sandy wastes of time...only to be hit by that same storm.” Perhaps an apocalypse or cleansing summoned by their deities.
The last line is but a mere scrawl, yet holding a truer sense of urgency from that same haste. There are six words:”THE CHIEF WILL RULE US ALL.”
~ Present Day ~
A few light-years away, majesties of concrete and glass towered over the bustling streets of Shanghai. They mirrored the sun’s rays into the winding streets below, with apices perched atop awesome heights; grasping; scouring the sky for some ultimatum. Dozens of garish signs were hung from their pristine walls, displaying prominently the more well-endowed of the human race.
Hundreds of feet below, a single man made his way through the packed streets. A tailored suit swept his sides with every step, and a lavish Parmigiani gleamed on his wrist. His striking red hair was slicked behind his forehead and his shoulders swayed with the swagger of a successful businessman.
Casually glancing to his sides, he stepped off the curb and threaded a path through the traffic-jammed roads, vanishing into a narrow alleyway.
He looked over his shoulder again before resuming his journey. Turning left, he carefully stepped over a pile of rotting fruit that rested near the base of an arch. Ahead of him, the beams of lights light unveiled containers of Master Kong’s noodles lining the gutter of the street. Descending to one knee, he began to scour through the boxes, picking each one up and placing it to his side. A box with its corner wrinkled at a 45 degree angle. The man lifted it from the stack and took out a tape measure. He held it up to the barcode and scrutinized the markings closely. Exactly .3 centimeters above the standard. This was the one.
Slicing through the sealed lid with a fingernail, he carefully lifted the upper-left-most container. His watch gleamed as he reached for the blue keycard. Glancing over his shoulder again, the man grabbed it and held it tight and continued to walk through the alley, his shoulders lurching side to side.
The man began to walk faster, not bothering anymore to lift his feet to avoid the piles of rotten watermelon littering the streets. The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, leaving behind an orange blaze that the city reflected in a brilliant shimmer. Tattered red cloths hung limp around him, their dust-caked beams of light shifting with every ripple of the fabric.
As he approached a red gate he noticed that someone had secured a hefty-looking padlock around its handles. He would fix that.
Looking around him, he calmly unveiled a suppressed Glock, carefully aiming it at the body of the padlock. He steadied his arms and slowly pressed the trigger, eliciting a sharp crack and the lock flew off the measly hinges and ricocheted against the doorframe into oblivion. A hole in the flimsy aluminum door was all that remained.
The man slid his handgun back into his coat and pushed against the door with both hands. The long-unused hinges grinded with a hideous screech as they gave. The doors slowly opened, their bottoms grating against the pebbled cement.
In front of him a sign hung on a single hinge, its lights still flickering and illuminating the text that ran across its silver borders.
ChingChong Technology Co.
He entered an ominous-looking doorway that the the sign illuminated in brief blinks of light. The store reeked of must and the air was stale and hard to breathe from years of vacancy. Across the aisles, tacky-looking boxes and electronics were stacked upon each other haphazardly, their letterings obscured from years of dust. The man carefully sifted through the boxes of aisle two for what he had came for.
He found it on the third shelf, fourth box from the left. The man carefully unfolded the small green paper, its edges creased together in intricate ways so one had to take care not to rip the thin fibers into shreds.
0 19 12 2 25 3
Slip in hand, he kneeled down under the counter and began the search through the unassuming cabinets. On the bottom row a makeshift red-and-white padlock hung by a meager copper wire. Hard times had evidently fallen on the former owners. He dropped the slip of paper and gave it a hard kick. The sad piece of junk snapped and the pad slid across the tiled floor.
The metal safe slowly opened itself, beckoning for any observer to reveal the secrets within. The man palmed the door aside, unveiling stacks upon stacks of bills, free of crease or use, the neat rectangles so tightly pressed together that the man took the safe with both hands and smashed it against the linoleum floor. Tiles shattered from the blow and stacks of bills spilled to a rapidly-growing mound below. When the safe was emptied, the man peered inside. A stray bill was stuck to the base of the safe. He peeled it off and he carefully folded the yuan and slid it into his pants pocket.
The man stepped over the pile of cash and walked through the doorway into the cool air of dusk. The sun hid beneath a row of flats. Only a pale blue glow lit the streets, softening the sharp edges of brick and concrete. The magnificent glass towers shone ever-so brilliantly, and hundreds of tiny orbs dotted their surfaces, clouding the sky above in a haze of light and color.
He emerged from the alleyway and went to the car across the street where he had parked it. The bustling of the day was over, and only a few locals walked on these roads now; doors opened and closed softly; windows became painted with that homely yellow glow; faint chatter and sizzling and aromas that mingled with the smog so that your eyes and mouth watered with irritation and appetite.
The man turned the ignition. The engine roared to life. The vehicle began to wind through the narrow streets, away from the heart of the city. With a single turn the car sped up and disappeared among the million of cars that drove the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway.
~ Meanwhile ~
Twilight rubbed her cheek in contemplation as she read the 143rd page of The Life of Starswirl the Bearded 7: Mid-Life Crisis. Starswirl the Bearded was a despicable writer, and his crude, cringeworthy language could attest to that. However, as the latest collection in her library, she had felt compelled to read it—and besides, there might be some noteworthy content within its pages, Twilight admitted, still skimming through the passage. Starswirl the Bearded, after all, was revered for his contributions to magic, known more formally as mēchus. Despite its prevalence in everyday life, mēchus energy remained shockingly volatile and unpredictable. Starswirl the Bearded, however, had given tremendous insight into the nature of mēchus with his advances in physics. In fact, Bearded’s studies on mēchus were the precursor to the bizarre and unfathomable field of quantum drift, leading to the eventual mastery over the trajectories of celestial bodies. So tremendously ahead of his time. The thought of such genius reduced Twilight to giggles and shivers of ecstasy.
Nurse Redheart crept into the room, not wanting to wake the mare up from her slumber. She was surprised to see the alicorn awake and muttering to herself. The rest of Twilight’s friends followed her, their eyes voicing concern for the young mare.
With the notable absence of Rainbow Dash.
They stood there awkwardly, waiting as Nurse Redheart checked on the crazed mare. The nurse simply stood there at the head of the bed, expressionless and eyes glazed. The four ponies exchanged glances at each other. Incessant muttering rose from a lump in the bed.
Fluttershy was the first to speak up. “Um, is a-anything wrong?”
There was no response. Nurse Redheart still stood stoically. Fluttershy hesitantly walked over to the nurse to see exactly what captivated the nurse so much. As she lifted the bundle of blankets to glimpse at the deathtrap, her eyes widened in realization.
“Oh, no…”
Fluttershy quickly snapped out of her stupor. “Acute hyperglycemia in room 432! Needs insulin NOW!”
Nurse Redheart collapsed to the ground. Her eyeballs twitched with every violent spasm and foam oozed from her hairy nostrils. Fluttershy squeaked and quickly clamped her mouth shut. She took a deep breath and remembered her late nights with Angel. Assertiveness. That’s what she needed. With blinding speed she flew out the room and barrelled through the hallways.
Applejack and Rarity stood there in utter shock while Pinkie experimented with the nitrous oxide conveniently placed in the corner of the room. “Look at me! Look at meEeeEeEeeEEe!...” Pinkie’s mouth clasped harder against the rim, preventing the precious nectar from exploring nowhere but her salivating mouth. Applejack felt inclined to say something as Pinkie’s body began to expand.
“You okay, sugarcube?”
Pinkie muttered something incomprehensible and continued to inhale every last bit of the precious substance. Her body had grown to epic proportions, and Pinkie closed her eyes and hummed happily as the elixir flowed through her veins.
~ Some Time Later ~
Squashed under mass of pink, Twilight’s screams of primal terror were received by only her own unfortunate pair of ears. As the expanding Pinkie Pie began to suffocate her, she closed her eyes and relived her most cherished moments. Rutting Shining Armor. Being unashamedly molested by Princess Celestia. Reading The Definitive Guide to Genealogical Archives. As she took her final breath and completed her descent to oblivion, she felt as though an ancient power lifted her being, her consciousness, so that she existed in every realm of existence. From unfathomable suffering to magnificent bliss, to feelings—feelings unknown to mortal naivete. Fragmented recollections, of flocks, of—pigs. They soared across bottomless crevices and infinite plains. The cosmos, infinite beyond infinity, lay below and above, beyond the comprehension of ponykind. Indeed, Twilight Sparkle, like all great minds (such as the author of this particularly ruminative fanfiction), had fully realized the philosophical essence of the universe.
Then she died.
Unaware of her friend’s demise, Pinkie Pie giggled as her bulging eyeball broke the glass and began to worm its way into the streets of Ponyville. Her forelegs had long since drifted apart on her hideous mass, flapping at her sides like those of a suffocating fish.
Rarity and Applejack still stood in the doorway, frozen in awe at such magnificence. They lifted a tentative hoof and gently caressed the pink fur. Encouraged by Pinkie’s purrs, they began to rub with renewed vigor. Up, down. Up, down. Rarity let loose a very unladylike groan as the sensuous fur prickled her sensitive hooves.
A deafening crack tore them from their stupor. They raised their heads and scanned the ceiling for the source of the noise. Both mares’ eyes widened as a web of fractures spread through the ceiling, the entire structure audibly groaning as Pinkie’s body pressed against the walls. Applejack, the smarter of the two, walked over to a punitive chair and squeezed her entire body under it, clenching her eyes shut as the deafening cracks barraged her ears.
Screams and pleas for mercy echoed through the crumbling hallways. The hairline cracks, previously confined to a single corner, spread through the pristine linoleum tiles like some encompassing infection. Applejack bit her lip. It was only a matter of time. She had always expected this day to come.
The hospital fell into a deadly silence. Applejack coughed as a smog of plaster and dust invaded her membranes, and looked tentatively to the heavens--
to find only that damned pink fur.
With an ear-splitting roar, the sharp banging and crashes rose to the peak of a long-awaited crescendo, the shrill singing of a million dissonant chords; clashing, battering one another in a glorious spectacle of gore and devastation. Fillies screamed as the entrails of their peers hung on the lopsided walls like Christmas decorations. Long-shriveled vegetables (not the kind you eat) thanked the gods as their rooms lurched and exploded into a thousand pieces. As the chorus of despair reached its tipping point…
...maniacal laughter in Room 432 penetrated the chaos like a well-placed .357.
The remaining moans were promptly silenced by some well-aimed debris. Applejack quivered violently on the blood-splattered floor, her solitary murmurs distinct in the deathly silence.
“Apples. Apple.”
Her erratic breaths steadied upon hearing these comforting phrases.
Applejack twisted her neck and looked down. Blood and God-knows-what soaked her body. She released a feeble croak when she saw all that remained of her legs--two shredded joints that pierced her skin and the torn flesh still hanging off the bone in paltry strings. Blood steadily trickled from the abscess and the soil hungrily absorbed it, relishing the nourishing properties.
Helpless under the roasting sun, Applejack moaned and writhed in agony as she was degenerated to a pitiful rotisserie.
“Apples. Apple.”
This was her final plea for mercy, to call out to whatever divinity, whatever higher consciousness, to simply end her life now. It would hurt her family more to see her like this than to have her die. Tears streamed across her face as she thought of Applebloom, her brother, Granny; who loved her, depended on her; and she needed them just as much, not to survive, but to thrive--everybody in the family needed each other, were acutely aware of a mutual neediness, so that these bonds became inseparable, stronger that any mortal being could have otherwise.
And her friends. Applejack trembled as sobs racked her body, clenching her eyes shut as a river of tears fell from her muzzle. No. No, please, no. Her body became racked with sobs and she jerked violently as she thought of the coming suffering of those she loved; the terror and disbelief when they found her body--the times that she cherished more than her life itself. Where she had confided her secrets, the corners of her mind that she shoved further and further and further until the shame became a ghost of an emotion, torturing her in times of utter loneliness, and they had freed it, released years of tension that had morphed her into a shattered image of what she once was. And now, she would leave them like this.
“Apples. Apple.”
It was too much. With that final parting, Applejack fell into the embrace of an eternal slumber.
