"And then he simply looked at me with this foalish little expression, no doubt expecting a compliment." Fancy Pants slapped the counter and snickered. Adjusting his monocle, the rich stallion grinned at the barkeep and finished his anecdote: "That's when I said to him: 'My good fellow, that's not philanthropy. That's drunken socialism!'" He tilted his snowy head towards the ceiling and laughed merrily. "Hah hah hah!"
"Hrmmm..." The disinterested barkeep polished a glass and stared lethargically through the patron. "A real knee-slapper."
"Mmmm. Quite." Fancy Pants raised the half-empty drink in front of him. "It gets the entire Canterlot Bridge Club Association in stitches. Most assuredly." He took a final shot, exhaled, and slapped the upside-down glass back onto the counter. "Well. I have an audience with the Princess of Friendship tomorrow. I shan't keep Twilight Sparkle waiting by sleeping in. Best that I retire to the local inn for a night cap post haste. Ta!"
Leaving a tip on the counter, Fancy Pants swiveled about and trotted out of the sparsely-populated tavern. He left the musky air of tobacco smoke and belches and entered the humid air of a summer night in Ponyville. The stallion teetered, slightly inebriated from his brief foray into the local drinking hole. Nevertheless, he was lucid enough to adjust the collar of his suit and squint into the lingering rainstorms blotting out the pale moonlight.
"Hmmmm... bollocks... awfully muggy for September," the rich socialite murmured, inhaling the scent of lingering rain. "Global warming. Bah. I blame the dragons and their excessive flatulence."
The stallion was about to turn tail and trot back into the heart of the quaint, tiny farm town...
...when he heard a miserable whimpering sound from the ditch lying adjacent to the tavern.
"Hmmm? What ho?" The stallion channeled magic into his horn, illuminating the muddy ground before him. "Who's there?" His jaw clenched. "I thought I left the dreadful winos back in the Capital."
As it turned out—it was far from a drunken waif. Fancy Pants' horn illuminated a tiny little figure curled up in a fetal position. A pegasus—no older than ten—shivered in the broken moonlight. Upon seeing Fancy Pants and his glowing horn, the filly's violet eyes teared up. She covered her pink head of hair with shivering fetlocks and outright sobbed into the wet air of that merciless evening.
Fancy Pants was instantly stricken with pity. His lips pursed as he shuffled over to stand above the tiny creature. "What's this? You poor little thing! What on earth is a little mare like you doing rolling about in the mud? Are you hurt?"
"I... I think I am..." The filly sniffed, hiccuped. She flexed pained feathers. "My wings! Th-they won't work!" Sunken eye sockets rested in the middle of a pale, emaciated expression. "I... I can't move..."
"What in the devil happened to you?" Fancy Pants' brow furrowed. "Did you have an accident while flying?" His nostrils flared. "Did somepony toss you out of a wagon?"
"Please, Mister... I-I just have to get home..." She cried. "My parents... they... they will know how to nurse me back to health! Please, I-I have to get back to them. They're g-gonna be so worried..."
"Oh, no doubt! Their adorable little daughter—lost at this time of night!" Fancy Pants stood up straight. "I'd be sick with distress myself! But—in this circumstance—perhaps a trip to the hospital would do—"
"No!" The filly grimaced, ears drooping. "Please. I... I-I just need to get home. You don't understand, sir. They... they get so angry when this happens."
Fancy Pants smirked sideways. "I trust this isn't your first time getting into trouble."
She gulped. "Guilty as charged."
"Right. Well, that's neither here nor there." With gentle telekinesis, Fancy Pants levitated the child out of the ditch and slowly placed her on his back. "Easy does it. Just tell me if this hurts at all. Your health is my prime concern."
"It h-hurts a little..." She shivered on his back, clinging tight to his coattails. "But... but I-I think I'm going to be okay."
"Of course you are!" Fancy Pants beamed, adjusting his monocle. A light rain drizzled around them, and he distanced himself from the ditch. "You're in the care of the most conscientious philanthropist in all of Canterlot! Lucky for you that I'm visiting the humble town of Ponyville this week!"
"So you're rich...?" She wheezed. Her sunken eyes struggled to stay open. "You must be a stallion of good... mmm... taste."
"Enough about me! What's your name, my little pony?"
"Scootaloo," she exhaled. "My name is Scootaloo."
"Ah! But of course it is!" Fancy Pants smiled. "Now... would you be so kind as to direct me to your house so that I may return you safe and sound?"
"Totally..."
"And do forgive me if my trot is slightly uneven. A few nips will do that. But no harm done, eh? Cheerio, then!"
The two chuckled merrily. As thunder broiled overhead, Scootaloo pointed with a tiny fetlock, pointing the stallion and guiding him through the streets and alleyways of her home town.
There was a steady sheet of rain cascading overhead by the time they reached the front of Scootaloo's apartment. Fancy Pants did his magical best to shield the two from the constant onslaught of moisture, but he focused more on staring at the destination looming ahead.
"And so I told him..." Fancy Pants murmured as he squinted, peered. "'My good fellow, that's not philanthropy. That's drunken socialism!'"
"Heeheehee..." Scootaloo giggled, although her breaths were whispy. Ragged. "You're so funny, Mister."
"Please, call me 'Fancy Pants.'"
"So full of mirth... and meat..."
"Yes. Quite. Miss Scootaloo..." Fancy Pants craned his neck illuminating the garden before her apartment stoop through the rain. The grass was overgrown and there were bits of muddied furniture lying out in the open and turned over. "Are you certain this is your home? It looks so much more... unkempt than the other households in this town."
"My parents don't... uhhhh... they don't get out much."
"Mmmm. I see." Fancy Pants nodded solemnly. He marched over rusted junk and loose debris as he approached the front door. "Something tells me I should have a word or two with them before we part ways this evening."
"If you want." Scootaloo shuddered, draped limply across his back. "Just step inside. They should still be awake."
"Hold on a second..." Fancy Pants glanced at the pitch black doorway, then at a bent shovel leaning against the front face of the apartment. "The door to your home is open. As a matter of fact... I don't think there's even a door! There's nothing but hinges!"
"What do you mean, Mr. Pants?"
"I shall endeavor to find out." He summoned a wave of magic and gently placed Scootaloo onto the front steps beside him, away from the rain. "Wait right here."
"But Mister—"
"I simply need to take a look at something." Steeling himself, he trotted in through the dark frame of the apartment entrance. The echo of rainfall formed a dull bass roar that rolled through the entire structure. Inside, the air was stale, and Fancy Pants couldn't see more than a few inky inches in front of his face. "... ... ...Hello?" he called bravely into the void. The tip of his horn glowed. Cobwebs and crooked picture frames appeared in an obsidian fog. "Dear sir? Madame? I have retrieved your child from a ditch! I think she may have injured herself!"
There was no response. Dust rose and settled with each breath he took.
"Hello?" Fancy Pants was starting to shiver. He felt the hair on his neck raising. "Is... is there anypony here—?"
A flash of lightning illuminated the rectangular doorframe around him. There was a second shadow—smaller than him—swinging something long and heavy.
"Huh—?" Fancy Pants turned around, only to have a rusted metal spade slam him in the face. He was down before the roll of thunder, spilling blood from his muzzle and nostrils. Bile rose in his throat and his eyes rolled back in his head—but not without noticing a scurrying set of orange legs rushing past him. He heard the rattle of chains, and those same little hooves scampered back. Something cold wrapped around his limbs and neck...
And all turned black.
The first thing he felt upon waking was his entire body bumping. Jolting.
He came to with a moan—and then his whimper was cut off as he was jolted again. And again. And again and again.
Fancy Pants realized that he was being dragged down a steep set of stairs.
His eyes fluttered open.
He saw hazy candle-light through the fractures of his monocle. Chains had been wrapped tightly around his body—binding his legs—and they were attached to a little orange filly that dragged him down, down, down a winding corridor.
"What... the devil...?" he rasped.
"Shhhhhh..." Scootaloo's voice caused the candlelight to dance. Her healthy wings fluttered for balance as she dragged him evenly onto a rancid basement floor. The air smelled of feces and viscera. "They like to eat in quiet."
Fancy Pants nearly wretched. "Eat? But who—?"
Wailing shrieks.
The stallion froze in his chained bindings.
Something writhed at the end of the underground chamber. As Scootaloo dragged him a few inches forward, Fancy Pants felt something sharp brush up against his hide. The scarlet-stained floor was lined with rib cages, femurs, and loose teeth.
"Mom. Dad." Scootaloo smiled crookedly. Her left eye twitched as she tossed the slacked length of chains into the wailing dark. "Sorry I'm late. But this one's fat in all the right places."
"Little lady!" Fancy Pants writhed and shook, but he couldn't free a single inch of his limbs. "What in the bloody hell is—"
"RruuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUuuuuUuuuuuuu!" High pitched caterwauling echoed from the far end of the abysmal place. Fancy Pants heard the scratching of claws against stone, and something long, leathery, and prehensile reached out from the mahogany depths. "GooooOOOOoooooOOOooood giiiIIIIIIiiiiiRRRRrrrllll!"
"What... what... ?!" Fancy Pants' coat paled twice over as his muzzle hung open wide.
A thorny tentacle felt across the floor, found the chain, and gave it a hard yank.
Fancy Pants shrieked like a chambermaid as his body was dragged swiftly into the darkness. In a panic, he illuminated his horn—and instantly wished that he didn't. Nestled in the far corner of the basement like spiders were two conjoined masses of bulbous flesh haloed by dripping blood and mucus. One out of two dozen venom-laced tentacles was pulling him towards a conflagration of flagellating organs. They unfolded like a whale's blow hole, and hidden at the very bottom of the pouch of undulating vascular tissue was two pony faces—a mare's and a stallion's—marinating in a pool of blood, saliva, and bubbling green enzymes. Eyeballs and chunks of raw meat bobbed up and down as the twin heads opened their jaws wide, revealing octopus beaks that clapped-clapped-clapped in voracious acceptance of their wriggling meal.
"GOOooooOOOooooddddd ScoooOOOoooTaaaaaloooOOOOoooOooo!"
"No!" Fancy Pants bellowed, yelling and vomiting all at once. "No! Please, Celestia no!"
He was flung into the mouths skull first. Fancy Pants' light went out like a snuffed candle, but not his screams. As his body burned inside out from the venom, he howled into the calcified end with muffled horror.
"Grnnnghh! Nooooo! Help me! Please, Celestia—help meeeeeeee—!"
At some bitterly belated moment, the prolonged evisceration finally robbed him of the ability to protest. Blood oozed out of the eldritch orifice that claimed him, and the two dozen tentacles converged to rip apart what was left of the stallion and render the quivering meat to more agreeably bite-sized portions.
Scootaloo closed her eyes, smiling into the warm glow of her candle—even as sprays of blood and hot wet entrails splattered over her adorable figure. Her tail wagged like a dog, reinvigorated by a burst of pride and accomplishment.
Then, minutes later—as the sounds of slurping and bone-crunching finally came to an end—a single tentacle whipped wildly. A tiny red object was tossed across the basement, landing neatly before Scootaloo's legs. It was a still-beating heart, dribbling with pony juices.
"Mmmm..." Scootaloo whimpered. She dove down in a heartbeat—literally—and shoved the scrumptious organ into her mouth. She scarfed and munched vigorously, downing each stringy bite of meat down her eager gullet. Within seconds, it paid off. A warm orange hue returned to her coat, and her eyes no longer appeared sunken. Her feathertips fluttered as she patted her belly and licked her lips clean. "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm thank you..."
A single tentacle reached out, curling its thorns safely inward as it carressed Scootaloo's chin, then gave her fuzzy ears a loving scratchy-scratch.
"BessssssSSSSSSsssst daaaaAAAAAaaaaughterrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
"Heeeee..." Scootaloo grinned, kissed the tentacle, and nuzzled it back as she softly went to sleep.
"Now that you've turned your homework in..." Cheerilee paced before the school room the following morning. "...let's continue with yesterday's subject!" She smiled at all of her bright-eyed students. "Commander Hurricane and the Genocide of the Indigenous Flying Squirrels! Turn your books to page twenty-seven..."
Scootaloo burped.
Seated on either side of her, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle gave her weird looks.
"Excuse you," Sweetie squeaked.
"Yeah, Scootaloo..." Apple Bloom made a face. "Rude, much?"
"Heh... sorry..." Scootaloo sat bright and bushy-tailed at her desk. "Had dinner late with my folks last night."
"That's always yer excuse."
"Yup!"
"Now..." Cheerilee grinned at the class. "Who can tell me the year that the final rodent internment camp was closed?"
An orange hoof stretched high.
"Yes, Scootaloo?"
"I don't have the answer, Miss Cheerilee." A happy smile. "But I just wanted to say that you look nice and plump today!"
