Author's Note

((This chapter is a bit longer than the others because I tried to go into James' mind a bit))

The New Family

It's been a few weeks since my little tantrum in the Everfree with that blue mare. Word of her disappearance as well as her kids has spread like a wild fire. Ponies have noticed the symbols that were mysteriously popping up all over town; luckily for me they took notice of those before Twilight introduced me to everybody, so my level of suspicion was fairly low. I still get a lot of weird looks when I'm in public. Can't really say I blame them. If I saw some weird creature walking the streets with a mask on I'd probably stare a little too. Anyway, it turns out that more ponies are looking into the symbol's origin than I had thought. The whole town was talking about the 'Return of the Slender Horse', I would hear about it constantly when I went out for walks. Talk of it continued to grow with each passing day as more and more kids went missing, some by my hand. Only some though, there's someone else doing this too and it couldn't just be the red mare I found in the Everfree almost a month ago. The number was too great. Simply put, my master's existence was now known all throughout Ponyville and word was spreading fast. However, I'm not sure about his influence. When it comes to me it asks me to do a job and I do it, I don't bother it with my curiosity. If it wanted to tell me it would have by now, but I haven't seen my master in almost six days and as a result I've been feeling off. I'm sleeping less, my body is growing weak, I'm coughing up blood constantly and it just keeps getting worse the more time I spend away from it.

The girls have seen all of these symptoms and are doing their best to take care of me. It's not often they let me go out on my own like this. I try to get up and walk around town to help clear my head and they always insist on coming with me. They all worry about me so much, it's disgusting. Yet, here I am, still living with them and pretending I'm this carefree holly jolly fruit cup. This illness is making me cranky and irritable, I'm constantly in pain. Why hasn't my master visited me? Is it upset? Did I do something wrong? Has it abandoned me and left me for dead? I don't know and that's the hardest part. Just not knowing. Being completely unaware of what will happen next. I can't keep moving like this, the pain is becoming too much so I made my way back to Twilight's castle. The girls were in the main room to greet me and help me back to my room.

"Now, ah want you to just lay yourself down here, and relax. Wouldn't want you straining yourself too much. Take care." Applejack kissed the side of my head and exited the room. She was convinced that I was romantically interested in her because I would flirt constantly whenever she was around. She's always trying to spend time with me, but after I got sick like this she allowed me to have some space due to the fact that I "don't want her to get sick to". These ponies were so gullible, they'd believe anything I told them. If they ever caught me behaving oddly I could just tell them it was a custom we humans did back in my world and they'd drop it. So far I've been able to get away with just about everything I've done here and none of them have been any the wiser. This was one of the easiest jobs I had ever been given, which is why it kind of sucks that I'm laying in bed literally dying a little more with every given second. We proxies have a connection with our master on a level that is almost impossible to achieve. The only thing I can think to compare it to was a game I played back before I became a proxy. The main character needed to find a little girl because if he was away from her for too long he would go into a coma-like state and then finally die. Well that was the position I was in, just laying here almost completely incapable of movement. My body was beginning to shut down, I'm dying right now. I can feel it. I heard the door to my room open, but after that all was silent and the world around me faded to black.

It was dark, the only light I could see came from the moon. I don't know where I am. Beneath my feet is a solid black cement ground that seemed to go on for miles. Other than that there was nothing, so I walked. I walked for what felt like forever, but nothing changed. Suddenly I felt something, something I hadn't felt in a long time. I was afraid, I felt like someone or something was watching me. I turned around and there it was again. A tall man in a black suit just standing there staring directly at me with that face. No, there was no face. There were no eyes. What am I looking at? It's arms were to the ground and it was easily standing at least nine feet tall. It started walking in my direction, I started walking backward to keep my distance, but it kept getting closer with every step it took. I turned around and ran, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, trying to increase the distance between me and it. I turned to face the thing, still running, but it wasn't there. I took a sigh of relief, but before I could turn to look in front of me I bumped into what felt like a brick wall and was brought to a sudden stop. I took a step back and rubbed my head. When I looked up at what I ran into I saw myself staring into the blank face of that thing that was following me. My knees went weak and I fell. I felt like I was gonna throw up, my ears were ringing, and I could feel blood leaking out of my nose. I thought it was over for me, so I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. Nothing happened though. I opened my eyes and it was still standing there. Then it grabbed me with its large hands and lifted me into the air. I saw these things, these tentacle-like thing come out of it and before I could react all of them came at me. Each one penetrating a single limb; tearing through the flesh and smashing through the bone like wet paper. The pain was unbearable, but I still clung to life. That is until the tendrils all yanked at my body in opposing directions. My body pretty much exploded after that and it just stood there staring at the wreckage like it never even happened...

I shot up and screamed, sweat was pouring down my face and filling the inside of my mask. I felt a pair of hooves on my shoulders, rubbing them in a very relaxing manner.

"You okay there, buddy?" It was just a dream...thank god.

"I'm fine." I looked around really quick and realized I wasn't in bed anymore. I was somewhere else, inside of what looked like a stack of hollowed out leaves. And that voice...I remember it from somewhere. I turned around and was met with the muzzle of a red mare with a black mane.

"Long time no see, I don't think you and I have formerly met. I'm Black Cherry. You, however, can call me cherry." I was actually surprised to see her, I didn't think I would after so long without hearing anything about her from my master.

"James..." She smiled at me and kept rubbing my shoulders.

"How are you feeling, James?" That's a very good question. I'm...better...

"I'm actually feeling kind of great. Which is weird..." She giggled at me. "What happened?" Maybe Cherry would have some answers for me.

"Do you want the long version or short version?" I'm a sucker for details, but right now I'm more curious than anything.

"Hit me with the long one." Might as well get all of the information I can.

"Well, the master has been trying to get to you for days now, but with how much more often you were surrounded by ponies it couldn't. We all knew that if you didn't get to see the master and soon that you would die. So we broke into the castle you've been staying in and searched the entire place until we could find you. After that we brought you here. You were in pretty rough shape, you almost didn't make it." She said 'we' a lot in that.

"Where is here?" Get the basics first.

"The Everfree, but right this moment we are in a tent made of leaves and branches. The master wanted you to get some much needed rest." Okay, enough dragging it out.

"Okay, now what did you mean by 'we'?" She looked at me with a big smile before forcing me to my feet and taking me out of tent. Once I got out I knew exactly what she meant. I could feel my eyes trying to climb out of my skull when I saw this huge congregation of ponies, dozens upon dozens, each one with a hoodie long enough to cover their flanks and each one with their own mask. I turned to look at Cherry who had put hers on just before I went to face her.

"Impressed?" She had no idea.

"You have no idea. This is amazing...How did this happen so quickly?" Really, for this many ponies to join the proxies it should have taken months, but here it was, standing before me.

"Well, ponies are very easily scared. They are also easily influenced. When word got out about the return of Slender Horse everypony was scared for their lives. So I went around and spread a 'rumor' that if you work for it you're safe from its wrath so long as you obey its every order." I find it hard to believe that ponies would just give up the lives that they knew and loved to become a proxy and have to do the jobs we did. There was something missing.

"I'm going to need to know how you've convinced these ponies to do this. They know that their job is literally kidnapping children and murdering other ponies right?"

"Of course they do." She was looking at me like I was an idiot now and it was getting on my nerves.

"But who would just up and quit on the life they had and do this? What reason do they have?" I couldn't help but question it, it just didn't make sense. In this world morals seemed like they held much more meaning than in mine. I could understand why people in my world would do this in such a vast number, but not here.

"You know, you're pretty smart, but even you can't know everything. I know you think our world is all butterflies and rainbows, but the truth is everypony has some sort of secret. Something deep inside of them that's so dark it drives us to behave the way we do because we're afraid of it. These ponies here, they've stopped being afraid of it and have learned to embrace it. Just like you did when you became a proxy..." I don't know the opinions of others as well as I would like, what makes sense to some will not make sense to other. This I do know. And somehow, some way, what Cherry just said to me made sense.

"You know what, I'm not gonna bother questioning anything around here anymore, especially if it's working out in our favor." It's like they say, You should never look a gift horse in the mouth.

"That's the spirit...I guess?" I couldn't help but laugh at her. Then I felt it, we all did. Our master was coming...