Death City

Back with another update and all that junk. I don’t really think I have to say a ton in my intros, so I prefer we just begin with the next chapter……………

Chapter 24 – Mystic Cauldron

The door to the castle squeaked open as a loud creaking sound was emanated into the hallways. As the door had been slowly opened, the group of ponies had slivered their way in through the more than heavy stone doors. They weren’t able to keep it open for long, so everypony had to rush through the tight gap.

Once eveypony was inside, Blur, who had been holding the door with all his might from the inside had released his grasp onto the door, causing it to fall back to its regular, closed state. A loud crashing sound was soon heard afterwards after the gang had been full insulated inside the castle corridors.

Taking the time to look around, all anypony could see was the darkness of the hallway in front of them. Apparently, even though it was the brightest time of the day, the heavily built castle was designed to keep every single inch of natural light out of the castle itself. The only light source happened to be a few dimly lit candles implanted onto solid gold stands attached to the walls of the hallway. The floor had also been covered with a thick, furry, red-ruby carpet resembling to one found at an awards ceremony. The walls held all sorts of different paintings. While some were reasonable and sophisticated, others just screamed the feeling of being terrified.

“W-what is t-this place?” Applejack was the first to ask, tripping over her own words.

“I tried to warn you guys, but you chose not to listen.” DJ Fiiasco had mentioned. “I told you this place was enchanted. Think of it like the Everfree forest, only twenty times worse.” DJ Fiiasco began to sigh. “Celestia knows what evil demons lurk around this god-for-saken castle. I still have visions of this place, but I never knew that my visions would lead me into my own nightmares!” DJ Fiiasco soon began breathing heavily, starting to hyperventilating. Rarity had been the first to take immediate action to this sudden turn of events.

“Now listen here.” Rarity began patting a hoof onto DJ Fiiasco’s shoulder. “I know this place can be more than just scary.” She said, looking around at the disturbing paintings hung onto the wall. “But just remember this. No matter where you are, we’ll be here, right by your side. There’s nothing you can’t overcome with the power of friendship”

“Easy for you to say.” DJ Fiasco responded, looking back up at the white mare. His hyperventilating had soon lessened afterwards. “You weren’t mentally scarred by this place. You didn’t see what I saw. You didn’t lie awake at night thinking what would happen if you were to be found by that dirty devil! You didn’t experience the pain and suffering I did after that excruciating moment. I wasn’t able to sleep for weeks with all those visions in my head! Do you even know how much stress lack of sleep produces!?” DJ Fiiasco had screamed into Rarity’s face.

Rarity had been hurt by DJ Fiiasco having yelled into her face. The result of this was her sobbing loudly for everypony to here. She had made her way to the back of the group so nopony would hear her cry.

“Dude, what was that for?” Blur had shot to the DJ pony.

“Hey.” DJ Fiiasco shot back. “She started it. I was all calm until..” He never got a chance to finish his sentence.

The noise of an ominous voice soon rang through the hallway, startling everypony as it bounced off the hallway walls.

Why did this happen?

It echoed down the dark hallway until it had reached the darkness of what was the end of the hallway. Everypony had been startled by this, even Raymond.

“Holy Shit!” Snake was the first of the group to speak. “What the hell was that?!”

“I think I might know.” DJ Fiiasco had said. Everypony had turned their attention back to him again.

“Well, who is it?” Seamus asked from the back of the group.

“Huh.” DJ Fiiasco sighed again. “I don’t know much about him, but they call him Alois. He’s supposed to be the combination of the beauty of life mixed in with the darkness of death. No mortal would ever dream nor dare encounter such a beast. For if they were to make such a foolish mistake as to do so, their life would be at a great risk.”

“W-why?” Strife had asked.

“Well for one, He is known as one of the fastest creatures to ever set foot onto Equestria. He can chase a Wonderbolt and be able to catch up with them. Second,” DJ Fiiasco continued. “He is able to detect motion and vibrations produced by sound within a radius of over a mile. Thus meaning he will be able to locate you no matter what. And finally, Celestia knows what he will do to you if he finds you.”

“Wait!” Lightning stopped DJ Fiiasco dead in his tracks. “How do you know all of this?”

“Curiosity, my dear friend.” DJ Fiiasco replied. “Ever since I saw that horrifying scene with the mutated pony, my curiosity began acting up. I began searching the causes and effects of poison and found a potion called ‘Death’s Lullaby’. It was mentioned to be this mighty and powerful mixture composed of the rarest fire berries in all of Equestria. The mixture is strong enough to put an entire Cyclops to sleep.” DJ Fiiasco continued. “Apparently, the mixtures results depends on where it is placed. Last time I recalled, drinking it kills you, inhaling it gives you amnesia, pouring it on your hoofs results in you loosing connection with them, pouring it on your mane or tail ends up burning every last hair on your body, and squirting it into the eyes causes your insides to literally recreate themselves. What that means is you are recreated into this somewhat large demon with intense hearing and speed. Although I know them and know what they do, the name of the species has completely slipped my mind.”

As DJ Fiiasco finished his speech, the sound of the mysterious voice had ringed through the hallways once more.

Is that you, my love?

I know it’s you.

I won’t lose you again.

“Damn, we’ve been detected!” DJ Fiiasco cleared his throat. “We have to get a move on before Alois catches up with us.” With that, DJ Fiiasco had gotten back up on all four hooves and began trotting down the dark hallway. If anypony knew the castle inside and out, it was DJ Fiiasco. The rest of the group wasn’t one to just deny him, so they began trotting down the hallway along with him.

The hallways had been a narrow path along the inside of the castle. The farther the group went, the darker it got. They had soon reached a point to where nopony could see anything anymore.

All of a sudden, a loud groaning sound echoed through the hallways, once again startling the group.

“QUCIK! IN HERE!” DJ Fiiasco yelled over the loud groaning sound. The group turned their heads to see DJ Fiiasco had been holding open a door leading in to what seemed to be another hallway, only this one had light in it.

The gang had rushed through the doorway while DJ Fiiasco was holding it. Once evereypony had gotten through, he had closed the door behind himself as he made a quick dash trough into the second hallway.

The second hallway had appeared differently than the first. For starters, the material of the hallway was made out of solid stone, unlike the previous one which had been crafted out of hard wood. Looking down, the group could see no carpet below them. The only thing that could be found was just the smoothness of the cold hard floor, which also happened to be molded out of stone. While side held the dullness of the stone wall, the opposing side was crafted with a mixture of stone with glass here and there. The glass had been placed as windows overlooking the outside world. Light had been able to flood into the hallways, allowing the gang to see their surroundings. Awkward enough, there were no paintings of any sorts hanging up onto the wall. All that could be found were a couple of wooden chairs and vases literally thrown over to the side. What scared the gang the most was a small trail of blood leading down the hallway. Now and there were little droplets of blood that had dried onto the cold, hard stone floor.

“No time for sightseeing. You heard the boss, move!” Snake shouted over the group. He began galloping down the somewhat bright hallway, the rest of the gang following behind him. Apparently, Snake had been the new group leader rather than DJ Fiiasco.

Charging down the hallway, Snake could see that the blood tracks began to lessen more and more. He began to gallop even faster down the blood tracks imprinted onto the stone hallway. This was until he was stopped at a dead end of the hallway. He had looked up to find a corpse of what seemed to be an earth pony thrown against the edge of the wall. Its head had been severely separated from its body itself and its spine had been showing completely.  A few veins had still been connected to the body and head, but most had already been either cut or ripped out. A gargantuan puddle of blood lay near to where the incision had been implanted onto the poor earth pony.

As the rest of the group had caught up with Snake, they soon noticed what he had been looking at the entire times. A few screams from the mares of the group were soon heard afterward as they saw the disturbing image in front of them.

Suddenly, more groaning was heard through the hallway as it traveled through the entire castle. For some odd reason, this time the groaning had been louder than usual. As the group turned around to see what the sound had come from, they couldn’t even believe their eyes.

Boss 4 - Sonic Adventure 2 (open link in new tab)

A somewhat like zombie-pony had been charging towards them, only this was no regular zombie-pony. This particular zombie-pony had a coat of what seemed to be a tannish grey and his coat had been more of a leather type than a type of hide. He also didn’t have any hair on top of his head or coming out of his flank. Where his cutie mark should have been had been left blank. His height had been slightly bigger than the average stallion, sort of like the size of Big Macintosh.  His legs had been a little higher and longer also. Around his neck was what seemed to be a wheel of a wagon. It had been thin and the center fit over his neck barely. The wheel had been badly rusted and had been greatly damaged as well. What was the most disturbing about him was that his jaw had been extended to a tremendous amount downward, causing his lower lip to sink all the way to where the lower tip of his chest was. As he galloped, his lip swayed back and forth from the movements of his body. His eyes also had resembled of those to Derpy Hooves. His eyes had been somewhat cross-eyed and while one was ponied onto the group, the other had been floating around, starring at all different sorts of directions.

What scared the group of ponies the most was that he was charging directly towards the group who had been cornered in the dead-end of the stone hallway. Some of the ponies began screaming and crying as the enemy briskly galloped towards them. Snake had noticed that the enemy had been one hell of a fast runner seeing that he had been building speed even after galloping for thirty seconds.

Dusk had been feeling fear in his body this entire time, but that was until he saw something that he didn’t understand; Something with Fluttershy. Turning to her, he noticed that the yellow mare had her head down faced at the floor with her eyes closed. Her hooves had been spread out slightly as she began scratching at the stone ground with her front hoof. Dusk just stood in shock as Fluttershy had begun going through changes.

Fluttershy felt pain all through her body as she had filled up with rage, pure rage. Her hair had grown what seemed to be a black haired extension in her luscious pink mane. The same with her tail as an extension grew as well. Slight fangs had grown on the sides of her teeth as she had opened her mouth. It had seemed to Dusk as if she had been turning into some type of vampire, or that’s what he thought, at least.

Moving on, her yellow wings had extended fully into the air as if a magic trick, the feathers on her wings had suddenly disappeared as if they were plucked off. The yellow feathers fell to the ground as Dusk noticed that a knife-like type of wings replace her usual feathered wings. The tips of the wings had been crafted to be as sharp as knives themselves.

What used to be a cutie mark of three pink cutie marks had also vanished into thin air. What had replaced it was what seemed to be a blood-spear cutie mark implanted onto her flank. As Fluttershy had opened her eyes, Dusk could see that she no longer had those green emerald eyes that he loved about her, rater she now had deep red eyes filled with hate and despair in them.

Soon everypony had taken their eyes off of the zombie-pony charging after them and had looked back at Fluttershy, who to their surprise had been completely transformed and was now a whole new pony. A sudden whisper was soon emanated from Dusk’s lips as he gazed upon the new pony creation.

“Shadow.” He had said to himself. He knew what had happened to Fluttershy and had known that this would happen to her one day, that she would turn into the immortal and indestructible life form currently known to this day as Shadow.

As Shadow had gotten up on all four hooves again, she lifted her head up till it was aiming directly at the zombie-pony charging towards the group. Right now, the enemy had been nearly inches away from the gang as he closed in onto the group. This would have been true and everypony would have been doomed if it weren’t for one pony, and that pony was none other than Shadow.

Shadow had charged head first into the zombie-pony, resulting in it tackling backwards. The two shook in circles for a while before resuming to a stable state. It turns out that Shadow had pinned the zombie-pony to the ground. As the zombie-pony shook in hopes of trying to escape the mares tight grip, he had lifted his head from the stone ground and began screaming into Shadows own face.

The scream had been an ear-piercing scream, causing Shadow as well as everypony else to stumble backwards. Sadly, Shadow had lost her grip onto the zombie-pony and he had managed to escape her.

Getting back up onto all four hooves, the zombie-pony had regained his balance and looked at Shadow with both eyes this time. As Shadow stumbled back, she looked at her enemy with hate in her eyes and had charged at the zombie-pony for a second time. The result of this was the zombie-pony grabbing Shadow around the arms and waist and began hoisting her up. The zombie-pony had stood on his bottom two hoofs as he began clawing at Shadows soft hide. Dusk had been aggressed by this and began charging to the already distracted zombie-pony. The result of this was Dusk colliding in face first with the zombie-pony, managing for him to release his grip onto Shadow.

As Shadow had been released from the zombie-pony’s grip, she had fallen to the ground. On the other hoof, the zombie-pony had been knocked into the stone side of the hallway along with Dusk. Colliding into the dense stone wall, the zombie-pony had scraped his back against the rough wall. Getting back up on all four hooves again, the zombie-pony found his entire back had been scratched against the wall after feeling a sharp pain along his back. The zombie-pony soon realized that if he stayed where he was now, he would get mauled by the rest of the group. Keeping this in mind, the zombie-pony had quickly turned around towards the direction in which he came from and began galloping as fast as ever out of the stone hallway. All that remained of him was the blood from his incision after being thrown against the hard stone wall.

Noticing Dusk against the wall with his eyes shut closed, Shadow dashed towards him in hopes of helping him. He had his back also to the wall as well. Putting her hooves around him, Shadow began to lift Dusk off the wall, only to notice more blood had been stained onto the stone wall as well. Looking behind Dusk, Shadow could see that his back had no sort of damage or anything done to it, but his arm sure did.

The hide covering Dusk’s left arm had been scraped off and all that remained were the veins and bones of his arm. Blood slid down his hoof as he had tried to get up on all fours. The gang soon noticed his damaged arm and began freaking out.

“aw SHIT!” Strife said aloud in front of the crowd. “That must have been one hell of a beating!”

“heh.” Dusk chuckled slightly, opening his eyes once more and looking at his severe wound on his arm. “It doesn’t seem that bad. I mean, I can still walk, right?”

“Doesn’t seem bad?!” Rarity shot back at Dusk. “You’ll make it worse by walking on it! You need immediate medical attention!” Just as if on cue, Dusk began wobbling in place. It seemed as if his arm couldn’t hold on any longer and began to give in.

Shadow was the first of the group to notice this and dashed to Dusks aid. Right as he was about to lose his balance and fall, Shadow leaned up against him, allowing him to regain his balance again.

“Thanks.” Was all that came out of Dusks. A slight blush soon spread across the face of the dark stallion. He had never been this close to Shadow in such a long time. The last time he recalled, he hadn’t even been near Shadow before. He still had been warned when young about a creature who would overcome the world itself and literally obliterate it, and Dusk knew that it had been Shadow. But something about her made really question whether her was truly good or not. Whether she was with or against all this mayhem happening at once.

“Well, well.” A familiar voice rang down the solid stone walls. “looks like you clever ponies were able to scare off my minion after all. I always knew you were strong and courageous, but not THAT brave.” The sound of clapping had also began to ring through the area. “Don’t fret though. I’ve got plenty of more minions for you ponies to, what’s the right word, oh I don’t know, FEED ON! Just try and go on, see where it truly leads you.” The clapping sound had soon stopped. “Good luck trying to find what’s impossible to see with the naked eye. I’ll have all your heads before me if you dare to take any step further. Death awaits around every corner. No matter what, there is no hope to escape. I hope you lived a good life, because every second in here will literally be worse than hell.” A sick, twisted laugh was soon followed as the sound had echoed down the deeps of the stone hallway, ending it all.

“Great.” Strife began again. “We haven’t even been here for a mere ten minutes and we already make enemies with the asshole who runs this buckin’ hellhole of a castle!” Strife had used his hind-legs to kick the stone wall on the side in anger. He had just lost his temper and tried to relieve his stress by taking it out on something else.

“Woah now, easy there fella.” Applejack spoke up. “Yall don’t want ta be attracting any more attention, do ya?”

“Applejacks right.” Raymond spoke up from the back of the group. “We have to get a move on if we don’t want to get detected.”

“I agree. I’ve had enough for one day. Let’s go find this Discord and kick his butt so we can end all this world chaos and get our world back!” Dusk shouted.

“Wait!” Pinkie Pie yelled. “Didn’t you hear that big meanie Discord say that he had more of those –pony things lurking around this area. What happens if we run into one? What happens if one of us gets hurt? What happens if one of us dies?”

“Pinkie does have a good point” Lightning added, supporting the energetic pink mare. “One of us could end up like Dusk and get seriously injured or even dies. You saw those enemies, right? There a species not to be messed with.”

“Well, what else can we do?” Snake busted out. “We can’t just go back to our ruined life already destroyed by Discord? We have to put an end to this once and for all and stop that Bastard before he conquers the entire world!”

“I agree with Snake.” A soft-spoken Dusk replied. “We can travel through this place undetected if we all stick together and don’t make a sound. There’s a small chance that somepony might get wounded or maybe even die, but just keep in mind that it’s a small possibility.”

“Well, let’s do this then!” Blur shot from the group. “Let’s go find that buckface and teach him not to mess with ponies!” With that, Blur began galloping down the stone hallway, only to be stopped by the sound of Rainbows voice.

“Wait!” Rainbow Dash yelled over the crowd. “Where’s Twilight!?” To everyponys surprise, Twilight hadn’t been with the group. They began searching frantically for the lavender mare, only to find that she wouldn’t turn up.

“Uh!” Dusk soon realized as he made a high pitched sound. “I think I know where she might be. But I don’t think you’ll want to hear this.”

Done with another chapter. Let me start off by saying that I am sincerely sorry for not updating yesterday. I wasn’t feeling good enough to write yesterday and didn’t have the strength to write. Still, this chapter is long enough to supply the length of two normal chapters. For now and on I think I’ll update every other day so chapters can be longer than usual.  Also, I am sorry that this chapter has some spelling and grammar mistakes here and there. I didn’t have the time for somepony to check my work and fix the mistakes, so this chapter is kind of messy. I’m still looking for new OC’s and songs too. The song featured in this chapter was Boss 4 theme of SA2. Also, the new characters in this story were also created by none other than me *points at self in pride*. I am more than proud that I finally got to use my favorite character ever, Shadow, who is really just a remix of Fluttershy. The enemy was also a character based off of the Amnesia series. Even though I said it was a zombie-pony does not mean that was Alois. He has yet to be introduced. Moving on, I am also starting a contest sooner or later. The goal is to write a full chapter of the story based off of an idea I give you. I know I’ll get a lot of entries, but there will only be one winner. The winners chapter will get posted as a real chapter of the story and I will be taking new song and OC requests from them personally, as well as they get to change the plot of the story for the next 5-10 chapters for whatever they want. Think of it like this: For the chapter, you can use your OC if it’s in the story and make it the protagonist of the chapter as well as add any song into the chapter as you like. When the time comes, I’ll warn everypony when the contest has begun and I’ll give a short summary of what the chapter should be about. The limit is a week to write at least a 2,000 word chapter. Just remember that the more you write, the better a chance you have on winning. I’ll think of starting the contest in the next 2-3 chapters, but until then, REVIEW!!!!