The Neighcronomicon

Fluttershy couldn't breath, it was looking right at her. A very quiet part of her mind wondered if this was how her little animals felt when she subjected them to the Stare. The rest of her focused on mentally screaming denials at the impossibility of it and putting her tear ducts into overdrive. The tar-like psudopony took another jerky step closer to her.

Applejack retched and spat out a stringy gruel of partially digested apple. For a moment, its flanks had a trio of bloody eyes in a perverse mockery to her own cutie mark. Gritting her teeth, Applejack ground her hooves into the dining car floor, desperately trying to get her legs to stop shaking. Her friends needed her, she had to help! A pair of ropy tentacles slowly emerged from the psudopony's back, a large circle of serrated teeth gnashing at the end of each tentacle.

Twilight Sparkle groaned and wept, flitting between conscious and unconscious. She could hear the creak and clatter of something large moving through the debris of the dining car, and without looking knew what she'd done. The spell had been a failure; rather than imprint a magically honed sense of where to find Able Hazard, she had summoned something tainted. Pouring the last of her magic into her speaking spell, Twilight managed to keep it from totally unraveling.

"It's a shoggoth, a servitor of the Great Old Ones. Its bite is acidic and its form is malleable like wet clay. And no, Pinkie, you can't keep it as a pet, nor does it need a hug."

Pinkie Pie shook her mane and tail out in a manner similar to a dog shaking off water, the limp strands of dark pink returning to their bright and fluffy norm. "Don't be such a grumpy pants Twilight! Everypony feels better if they get a hug and smile a bit!" giggled Pinkie as she bounced over to the lumbering shoggoth.

Throwing her arms open in a burst of confetti, Pinkie shouted "Welcome to Equestria Mr. Shoggoth! I'm Pinkie Pie, and I hope you'll stop menacingly stalking toward my friends Fluttershy and Twilight and consider living with everypony in harmony! Pweeeeze?" Pinkie pulled out all the stops with her puppy dog eyed pout, letting a single flawless tear gather in the corner of one eye as her lower lip trembled slightly.

The shoggoth stopped, one hoof held aloft in midair. With a faint 'sploosh' sound, the giant green eye in its head sank into the shoggoth's body before surfacing on its flank to stare at Pinkie Pie. Nopony dared breath, equal parts relieved and flummoxed that Pinkie's insane gambit had paid off.

With the sound of a rope snapping taunt, the shoggoth's hind leg shot out and smashed Pinkie aside, launching the pink earthy pony through a pair of chairs to collapse against the bar.

"Pinkie Pie!" screamed Rarity. Whirling on the shoggoth, Rarity didn't even blink as she stared right into its main eye. Leaping between the tarry conjuration and Fluttershy, Rarity bared her teeth in a fierce snarl. Blood oozing from both of her nostrils and trickling down her cheeks, Rarity lit her horn in a rage. "No more! I will not see my friends suffer at your hooves!" Gripped in her azure telekinesis, shattered plates and dinner knives rose about her in a cloud. "Avaunt you despicable beast! Begone, return to your fell masters in failure and agony! Fhtagn Shoggoth! Ia! Ia! Ph'nglui fhtagn mglw'nafh Shoggoth!" With a unearthly (and decidedly unladylike) screech, Rarity launched the floating dinnerware at the shoggoth. Black tendrils shot out of the shoggoths barrel and shoulders, slapping aside the serrated bits of plate and knives. Here and there a knife or a shard of porcelain would ram into the shoggoths inky hide, but even after a full dozen knives were sunk to the hilt the shoggoth showed no sign of pain.

Rainbow Dash pulled herself up from the floor, blood trickling from a number of shallow cuts along her barrel and flanks. Grabbing a broken chair leg in one hoof, Rainbow shook shards of glass from her wings while testing the balance of the weighty bit of wood. Smiling grimly, the prismatic pegasus jetted forward, smashing the chair leg into splinters on the shoggoth's flank. "Yeah, how do you like that you fat, ugly, stupid OOF!" Lost in her litany of cussing, Rainbow failed to appreciate the speed which the shoggoth's tendrils moved, and found herself slapped back across the train car to crash underneath a table.

Sweat poured down Rarity's brow, and the swirling mass of cutlery had diminished notably since the start of the melee. The shoggoth's tentacles still moved with surety and speed, while her own attacks and feints had lost much of the same. Rarity couldn't help but glance at the recumbent forms of Fluttershy and Twilight. Gritting her teeth and snarling, Rarity dredged her mind for further magical energy, seizing a number of bottles from behind the bar. With an almighty crash, bottle after bottle of liquor were sacrificed to bludgeon the shoggoth to its knees.

"Consarnit Rarity, one of those was a ten year Sweet Apple reserve!" Applejack groused as she stepped up beside Rarity. With a madmare's grin, the farmer whistled sharply. "Hey Rainbow, Ah bet Ah can hit this ugly varmit more times than you can!" Laughing to herself, Applejack raced forward, seemingly heedless of the inky black tentacles or whirlwind of sharp implements Rarity continued to whip around. Leaping nimbly past a pair of dark tendrils, Applejack spun deftly on her forehooves, resting her whole weight upon them as she coiled herself up like a bright orange spring. With a grunt of effort, Applejack bucked the shoggoth right in its chin with all the force of a runaway train. Semi-solid flesh ruptured and foul smelling fluids soaked Applejack's hind hooves and legs.

"You're on slowpoke!" With a prismatic flash of light and the roar of wind, Rainbow Dash shot out from under the table she had been thrown. Another chair leg was ruined against the shoggoth's barrel, but rather than stay to taunt the monstrosity, Rainbow kept moving, flaring her wings to halt on the other side of the train car to snatch up another length of wood. "That's two so far, looks like I'm in the lead!"

Applejack laughed maniacally, dodging and exchanging blows with the shoggoth. "Ah'm up to six already! You sure you're even tryin' sugercu- woah!" Applejack bit off the rest of her taunt as she rolled under a ponderous swing of the one of the shoggoth's tentacles. Surging unto her hind hooves, Applejack lashed out with her right hoof, socking the shoggoth in its freshly reformed head as she held herself upright with her other hoof latched onto the shoggoth's neck. "Take yer beatin' and git gone! An that makes seven, eight, nine!" The incremental numbers were counted off with thunderous blows, and the shoggoth responded in kind, battering Applejack ferociously. A tendril with serrated teeth latched onto Applejack's shoulder, and two others smashed into her barrel, knocking the air from her lungs.

As Rainbow recommenced her strafing runs and Applejack tore the tendril off of her shoulder with her teeth, Rarity was forced to stop her magical blender for fear of hitting her friends. Stepping back quickly, Rarity checked on Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. Fluttershy was . . . Rarity hesitated to use the word 'alright'. Fluttershy was stiff as a plank, and totally unresponsive to Rarity's touch or panted questions. Since Rarity had observed her timid friend enter similar states when frightened by thunderstorms, ponies unexpectedly bumping into her, falling leaves, and her own shadow (to name a few examples), Rarity had to believe that she was alright.

Twilight was a different and far sadder story altogether. The purple unicorn seemed locked in her own personal nightmare, eyes clamped shut as she whimpered and writhed. Numerous nicks and cuts covered her body as her fevered thrashing mashed glass into her coat. But despite the puddle of sweat she was making, Twilight's horn was still sheathed in periwinkle light. Rarity seized the two collapsed ponies in her magic, the strain of which set her nose bleeding once more, and gingerly lifted them onto a nearby tablecloth that was only slightly stained with alcohol and shoggoth fluids, but blessedly free of more glass.

Rarity shot a glance over her shoulder at the shoggoth and her fighting friends. Applejack sported a number of fresh cuts and bite marks on her, and was very firmly on the defensive. Rainbow Dash had a freely bleeding gash along one foreleg and had clearly run out of chair legs to bludgeon the shoggoth with. Rarity grabbed the assembled set of saddlebags from a nearby pile of rubble with the intent to find something, anything to fight with and almost screamed from the sharp spike of pain such a simple telekinetic task brought on her.

"Girls, I can't use anymore magic!" Tears, real tears of salt and sorrow, spilled down Rarity's cheeks. Deprived of her magical strength, the horror of the shoggoth hit her with an almost physical force. Her friends were getting hurt, and now all she could do is sit on the sidelines. Throat tight and rough with terror and misery, Rarity began whispering Sweetie Belle's favorite lullaby.

"Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed. . ."

Rainbow Dash slammed into the side of the shoggoth, her hind hooves digging deeply into the abomination's barrel. "Twenty two!" panted Rainbow, her cocky smile reduced to a determined scowl. Forcing her burning wings into action once more, Rainbow dove to the side as the shoggoth retaliated for the twenty second time. As Rarity sung the first verses of the lullaby, the shoggoth's lumbering swing became a lightning quick strike, smashing Rainbow into the floor of the dining car.

"Aaugh!" screamed Rainbow, seeing stars burst behind her eyes and darkness swim up to swallow her whole. Gritting bloody teeth, the daredevil pegasus slapped down the impending blackout with some wild reserve of willpower. The shoggoth, moving with greater surety than ever before, seized Rainbow Dash by her wounded leg and began to squeeze.

Rarity continued to croon the lullaby in a language that was ancient when the stars were born, and in the shoggoth's crushing grip Rainbow knew that somepony needed to stop Rarity before her leg-

With a sound not unlike a thick carrot being suddenly snapped in half, Rainbow Dash let loose a strangled scream and thrashed wildly in the shoggoth's uncaring grip before lapsing into a disquieting silence. Applejack spun on her back hooves and with a roar that would shame a manticore, bucked the tentacle that held Rainbow so hard that the semi-solid appendage burst asunder.

"Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to mmph!"

Rarity rocked backwards as a cupcake impacted forcefully into her mouth, stopping the terrifying singing. "You just chew on that a minute Rarity and let you're dear Auntie Pinkie tell you girls a little story." Leaning on the bar, Pinkie Pie grinned brightly, her mane and tail as full and fluffy as whenever she threw a party back in Ponyville.

The shoggoth slowly turned around, no longer gifted speed and strength by the song from beyond the stars, as Pinkie started misty eyed into the middle distance. "A long long loooooong time ago, in a little town right around here, there was a wise earth pony named Maneonides."

Rummaging through her mane, Pinkie produced a pair of sock puppets. "One winter, it was dreadfully cold, and nothing the pegasi or unicorns tried seemed to help at all. When super wise Maneonides was asked for his council, he said to build a huge house of wood, and to fill that house with hay and feathers and all sorts of warm snuggly-wuffly stuff!"

The shoggoth snarled, acid frothing about its maw. Rarity started, realizing she was chewing on the paper wrapper the confectionery missile had came in. Spitting (daintily) onto the ground, Rarity made to kick the offending paper product away. However, the designs of balloons and cupcakes made a pattern this time around. A very well plotted out pattern that resembled the words "Get out of the dining car, this is gonna be" before running out of space on the wrapper. Looking up from the wrapper to catch Pinkie Pie's eye, Rarity saw the energetic party pony jerk her head toward the exit toward the sleeping quarters.

"Applejack, we must get out now." Rarity hissed, relieved and puzzled that her voice had returned to its more natural tone. The farm pony looked up at Rarity with blank incomprehension, an unconscious Rainbow Dash cradled in her hooves. Without another word, Rarity flung two sets of saddlebags at Applejack. Twisting around to seize one corner of the tablecloth Twilight and Fluttershy were laying on, Rarity almost fainted at the sight of the Neighcronomicon, which had somehow found its way into Twilight's hooves. Rallying, the fashionista gripped the tablecloth in her teeth and began dragging her friends out of the dining car.

"With the winter growing colder, and the wind windier, and the snow even snowier, the townsponies all gathered together as much wood and stuffs as they could, and built a great big house, just like Maneonides told them." Coasters and toothpicks, napkins and pencils, even a few corks were all blended together by Pinkie's masterful hooves as she continued to tell her story. A rough box shape took place, and Pinkie's smile widened and brightened despite the shoggoth nearly within striking distance.

"At Maneonides urging, all the townsponies entered the house, and they were warm! All their friends and families, buddies and besties, kith and kin were all there, it was the best! The mayor was the last one in the building, and almost felt the door hit her flank, so quickly did it shut after her." Pulling off the sock puppet that had thus far acted as the Mayor and the townsfolk, Pinkie gingerly lay it in the box she had cobbled together.

"And then the Mayor heard Maneonides, through the door as bolt after bolt and lock after lock were snicked and snapped into place. She heard "If you build a pony a fire, they will be warm for one night. If you set a pony on fire, they will be warm for the rest of their lives." Pulling off the other sock puppet, Pinkie Pie revealed a lit match that she tossed into the little box on the bartop, instantly setting it aflame. "Theeeee End! Thanks for listening to your Auntie Pinkie Mr. Shoggoth, lemmie fix you a little drink as a reward!"

Ducking under the Shoggoth's tentacle, Pinkie Pie popped up with a grin, a bottle of Braycardi 151 in either hoof. The smoldering rags stoppering the bottles of potent liquor flickered to life at Pinkie's gentle puff of breath. "Here you go Mr. Shoggoth, I got you two! This one is called Love!" With a crash, Pinkie smashed the bottle over the shoggoth's head, lighting it and most of the dining car on fire, "and this one is called Tolerate! Have a warm rest of your life!" Another crash sounded, and Rarity winced involuntarily.

Giggling manically, a singed and smoking Pinkie Pie burst out of the roaring inferno that used to be the dining car, balancing what could only the linchpin that kept the train cars connected on the end of her nose. "Hey, did you girls know that fire can be blue? I mean, I knew it could be red, or orange, or green, but I didn't know fire could be blue, isn't that super neato-mosquito?!"

A sound like a teakettle boiling over then rupturing made everypony still conscious clap their hooves to their ears. As the dining car slowly fell behind, the sound also receded until Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie could only hear the wind whipping through the open sleeping car door and the groans and whimpers of pain from their friends.

"So. . ." Applejack drawled a few minutes later, fidgeting nervously, "who's gonna let Smoke Stack know we kinda torched his dinin' car and left it an all the passenger cars behind?"

Twilight suddenly sneezed, hoofed at her nose, and rolled over with a grunt of pain.

Looking Rarity and Applejack in the eye, Pinkie Pie giggled, "I think I just heard Twilight volunteer, what a nice friend she is."

". . . Eh, close enough for my tastes, Ah think that thump to the head made my hearin' all loopy. Just gonna have ta take Pinkie's word on it."

"Let's get these three into bed and then we can work on our story darling. And, Luna willing, get these tangles out of my mane. Ugh, I must look simply horrid right now!"