Entry One: End of Tranqulity
Entry One: End of Tranqulity
I mentioned in my foreword to you, dear reader, how this town seemingly erupted overnight into the chaotic, deceitful, and tomato sauce embezzled place it has become. As I reevaluate the validity of such a simple yet self containing claim, I discover that something has been slowly transforming my home, not with abrupt clamor, not initially.
Subtle. That is the word I was searching for, the perfect adjective to describe how this town descended into madness. The little things were responsible for the destruction of everything I believed; most ponies, I would dare to say, believed were well and good.
One night a certain individual would fail to return to his or her homestead. He or she was not known well enough for there to be any serious disturbance to our tranquil society. After this odd occurrence is brought to light, most ponies would perform one of two actions. Either they might blame the irregular occurrence on a dubious but entirely possible extenuating circumstance, such as an inexplicable family meeting in a distant land, or they may simply raise a blind eye to the situation. I have convicted myself of conducting the latter of the two on numerous occasions. Such small matters did I consider less important than the various, ultimately meaningless books concerning advanced magic and science.
But no matter. Insomuch as I may regret my arrogant refusal to recognize the signs of total societal disintegration, there was little I could do until this moment concerning the issue anyway. What pony would have believed the overbearing, perhaps insane lavender pony proclaiming imminent doom and a Rapture-style sermon on the need for repentance?
No, this town has been operating under a fictitious veil of supposed harmony and assumed perfection and tranquility. The evil happenings under the cover of darkness, in the shadows of conspiracy, have been ignored by even the cleverest of townsfolk, of whom ostensibly desired to believe that their home was immune from corruption and greed.
Therefore, it is ultimately due to my blindness that we fall. Only just now have I awakened from the long slumber of ignorance. I fear that our town may be too far gone to save; the tomato sauce has already stained deeply into the hearts and coats of ponies.
The perfect quintessence of the morning prophesied little of the oncoming storm the day would soon bring. As any other flawless daybreak, Celestia's sun rose with awe-inspiring grace and power over the rolling green hills of Equestria, bright yellow streaks of light beaming into the infinite countryside like strokes of paint on the true artists canvas. The air was cool, but so precisely calculated as to be the perfect temperature for a pony to effectively open their tired eyes, lumber lethargically from their warm beds and begin performing the meticulous tasks to start the day.
Under the same glorious sun and the same content and blissful mindset did I rise, the horror night previous had wrought utterly unbeknown to my foggy eyes. Shaking my head and ruffling my mane to urge myself awake, I crawled slowly out of my comfortable bed and began the same trek as I adventured every morning. While various anxieties over numerous scientific papers and scholarly articles shadowed my movement, I labored in peace, intrinsically convincing myself that nothing could disrupt the serendipitous flow of the future.
The shining yellow sun had hung in the sky for only a few dozen minutes when I heard the fateful knock at my door. Furling my eyebrows lightly in confused curiosity, I rose from my workplace, trotting expeditiously down winding hallways of shimmering crystal to open the heavy doors of my personal castle.
A mark of surprise spread across my muzzle as my eyes fell upon the five of my closest friends. They stood in a compact semicircle with pained and anxious expressions clearly superimposed upon their features. Hovering nervously on the left of the formation, Rainbow Dash spoke swiftly and rather unintelligibly, abruptly halting any plans for a proper greeting I had formed.
"Twilight, you have to come with us to the town meeting hall, quick!"
Expressing my confusion clearly by my shaken composure, I replied slowly and articulately,
"Slow down, Dash. Can you explain what exactly is going on here?"
Rainbow opened her mouth to speak; however, Applejack raised her voice sternly and coldly in my direction,
"You wouldn't well and proper believe us if we told you. I'll leave it at that."
Applejack's last statement sent a cold shiver down my spine. What could be so confidential, or worse yet, simply unspeakable that only my personal observation could perceive it? Swallowing excess saliva in stark anxiety, I nodded my head and began trotting in the direction of the town hall, accompanied on either side by the Bearers of Harmony. With the exception of the sound of our hooves clopping across the dusty dirt pavement and the occasional chirping from a joyous bird, there was complete silence.
Contributing further to the ambiguity of the situation was the inexplicable lack of anypony throughout the town. Perhaps it was at the moment we passed Sugar Cube Corner and saw not a living soul inhabiting the sweet vendor of savory baked goods did the true severity of the situation arise to my consciousness.
It was 8:00 in the morning when we reached the town hall. The heavy steel clockwork system implanted in the steeple of the building rang true with the time, filling my ears with a rhythmic gonging sound exactly eight times. These were the drums of war; these were the bells of the end times.
To my utmost surprise, I bore witness to hundreds of ponies, perhaps the entire population of the town, gathered in the courtyard outside of the town hall. Through the throng of malcontent and anxious individuals, I saw a single malformed and oddly red colored object in the center of the compact formation. My overwhelming compulsion to understand the unknown, to investigate the malicious, caused me to lose authority over my legs as they automatically migrate towards the source of curiosity. Against, perhaps, my better knowledge of extreme situations, I began to slither through the crowd.
From this closer vantage point, I saw with clarity the horrified expressions etched upon their muzzles like the strong hammer strokes of a master sculpture carver. Fallible words truly do little to profess the extent and ambivalence of the horror incriminated thereof. The emaciated looks of fear, anger, hate, mourning, pain, disappointment, panic...still haunt me to this moment.
Like the cold spoon of the merciless serial saucer I thrust myself through the gathering, desperate to satiate my itch for knowledge. Forgetting entirely my stunned friends behind me, I pierced through the slew of souls as a hot iron thrown into a snowbank. Within a few moments, I found myself at the source of all my woes.
I have battled against countless monstrosities that send stronger alicorns cowering away behind their impotent walls. I have seen life rest on the end of a dagger's blade. I have traversed into the bowels of Tartarus itself to preserve the lives of those I call my friends.
Yet no lesson I had ever learned, no magical action I had ever performed, no friendship that I had ever forged, could have prepared my soul for the horror of that courtyard.
Resting on the rough gray cobblestone ground was Berry Punch, Ponyvilles's resident drunkard. She lay strewn across the surface in haphazard fashion, as she often was found after a hard night of embezzlement at the local tavern. However, the defining feature that sent my heart racing like never before were the splotches of crimson adorning her soft coat.
Tomato sauce. The permeating smell of rotten vegetation caused my nose to wrinkle in disgust. The red, thick and rather chunky viscous liquid covered the bluish coat of Berry Punch almost entirely; it was tangled within her once well kept mane, it filled her nostrils, it leaked slowly out from her mouth in dramatic drips of lethal toxins.
For those who are not familiar with the finer details of pony biology, tomatoes, while not being a conventional toxin in vernacular terminology, are for all intents and purposes extremely lethal to equines. While most poisons or venom types may target physical or neurological systems, paralyzing or damaging them irreparably, tomatoes cause no visible damage to the pony anatomy. Rather, it has been theorized by various scholarly practitioners of medicine that an unidentifiable chemical or genome sequence within the tomato causes the brain to release immeasurable amounts of dopamine. Rough calculations have determined that the potency of tomato essence is so powerful that a mere tablespoon of the substance causes a larger dopamine surge than ten kilograms of the next strongest drug in history.
Once introduced to bodily systems of any type of pony through both oral and epidermal means, the plant will cause the pony to enter a comatose state almost immediately. Once in this vegetative state, the subject will begin to speak unintelligible or nonsensical verbal phrases, convulsing violently for a few moments until abruptly halting most movement. One hundred percent of ponies who come into contact with the tomato through any means will remain in this manner until they expire of natural causes.
Ostensibly, tomatoes had been outlawed in Equestria for millennia--Princess Celestia even managed to encourage the rulers of the surrounding nations to ban the fruit for the sole purpose of protecting her citizens from a black market sale of the item. The tomato had since become such a non factor in the lives of most ponies that if one were to mention the spherical red plant in passing or as a joke, most uneducated individuals would fail to identify what exactly it was you were referencing.
The faces of horror and surprise plastered on the faces of the ponies surrounding the unconscious figure, therefore, were rightly acquired. The sheer terror that gripped the hearts of those closest caused them to refrain from any degree of speech, allowing for Berry Punch's ghostly monotone voice to be audible,
"I am the Lord thy Master...all whom enter by the Gate shall become one with the Crimson Glory..."
My stomach turned violently, forcing me to fight against the bile rising in my scorched throat. My legs shook ferociously at the knees, causing my entire frame to shiver in sickened horror. I fought against the force of gravity tearing my body downwards, narrowly maintaining my standing position.
Without any external stimuli, it was likely that I would have collapsed onto the cold, hard ground. However, the concerned, smooth voice of Madame Mayor allowed me to escape from my dazed stupor, lifting my eyes toward the source of the elegant voice. She stood with her perfectly trimmed mane and tail on a large soap box positioned but a few feet away from the incapacitated Berry Punch, her expression one of unsettled emaciation but still possessing that adroit aeipathy that defined her as a skilled politician.
"Honest citizens of Ponyville," she began with her usual tone of consternation and ambivalence; yet, through that veil of composure I perceived true fear.
"I believe all of us know why we are gathered around this poor mare as such. Such a horrific event never has marred our tranquil society since the founding of this respectable town. I see that you all are concerned, afraid...I am as well, perhaps more so, in fact. As true, good citizens of this society, it is our responsibility to anchor ourselves in truth throughout this storm and discover which evil pony or ponies could perform such a dastardly deed as thus."
Like a bead of water dropped meticulously into a still pond, the Mayor's perfectly calculated words caused murmurs of discussion to ripple through the crowd. Quiet voices of concern soon evolved into heated shouts of argument as the terrified and panicked ponies began hurling accusations at anyone they deemed suspicious. I continued to remain silent, standing beside my closest friends in fevered thought. A million voices coursed through my already cramped mind simultaneously, attempting in vain to solve the mystery before I had gathered any reasonable evidence.
Startling me out from my ambiance was the country drawl of Applejack's voice, resounding so loudly that for a moment I believed that it might've been Princess Luna's Royal Canterlot Voice with an odd accent.
"Enough of this horse wash! If ya'll would shut your yappers for ten seconds, maybe we could actually get something done around here instead of panicking like a herd of jumpy buffalo!
Every voice fell silent as stone. My mouth fell open in startled surprise at Applejack's harsh tone. I knew that she could get serious at times, but that level of frustrated sentiment and commanding presence was beyond the Applejack I knew. Climbing deliberately onto the wooden soap box on which the Mayor stood surprised, she raised her hoof towards the stricken Berry Punch.
"You see this here poor fella? I can tell you right here and now that she wasn't sauced by some power hungry, magical monster. It's obvious that the pony, yes, the pony that did this didn't operate alone, too. I can say for a downright fact that she was sauced by a member of the Marefia!"
The crowd exploded again into an incomprehensible muck of angry and fearful voices all vying to contain more authority than the other. It took Madame Mayor a full three minutes to regain partial control over the mob, proclaiming in strong voice,
"Good citizens, listen! Let us hear what fair Applejack has to say about this matter; we grow no closer to solving this riddle through bickering."
Clearing her hoarse throat, Applejack regained the initiative over the anxious crowd, saying,
"I know what you're be thinking; that the Marefia is just a big city problem, like in Manehatten. Now I don't know why yet, but I'm sure as the dove flies that it's spread into our town. Why, just last night I got all my zap apple jam stolen from a locked shed; only somepony as professional as a member of the Marefia could pull that off. Plus, it was at my barn that we found Berry Punch sauced; it's likely that the Marefia didn't want to leave any witnesses."
I absorbed the stream of evidence coursing from Applejack's mouth like a sponge, calculating all the possible scenarios that could've happened the night previous.
I imagined a dastardly character slinking through the shadows, dressed in a clean black suit with a red tie. The pony slithers towards the shed Applejack described and pulls out a bent paperclip, inserting it carefully into the iron lock. Within a few moments of slow picking, the lock falls to the ground with an audible clack.
The shadowy figure in my mind silently enters the shed, removing a large black knapsack from a utility belt strapped around his or her waist. With utmost precision, the figure swiftly inserts every precious jar of the sweet rainbow jam into the bag, tiptoeing to the door of the shed like a professional burglar.
A shadow cast against the full moon stretches across the doorway, forcing the Marefioso to take shelter behind a large wooden barrel. Entering cautiously into the shed is an intoxicated Berry Punch, mumbling incomprehensibly to herself as she investigates the source of the noise she heard while returning from a long evening of drinking at the tavern.
Silently, the Marefioso removes the casing from a large fabric holster at his or her side, revealing an innocent looking, neon colored plastic water gun. Drawing the tomato sauce filled device to her eyes, the figure aims down the sight of the weapon and pulls the trigger, releasing a pressurized stream of lethal sauce into the unaware Berry Punch. Within a few moments, the deed is done, and the Marefioso escapes the barn with his or her quarry in tact.
Returning to reality, I observed the situation unfolding all around my concentrating frame. The Mayor proposed that we should return to our dwellings for a hiatus until more evidence is gathered the next morning. Some ponies began trotting away slowly to their houses in fear, hoping beyond hope that they would not be the next target of the infamous Marefia. Others remained in the town square for some time, arguing among themselves in loud and angry voices, hurling vain accusations at one another in a desperate attempt to bring about a return to normalcy.
Always have I been drawn by such mystery like a moth to a flame; however, this event was far beyond anything I have ever investigated. I do not know if Applejack is correct about the situation, not yet. I don't have a single plausible lead to draw me to any finite conclusions. For now, I will continue to investigate. It is my duty as the Princess of Friendship, as someone ponies count on, to get to the bottom of this tomato sauce barrel, no matter the costs.
