The Vile Knifeby BloodpoolChaptersChapter oneChapter twoChapter threeChapter fourChapter oneThe Vile Knife ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You stand on a small rise, looking down into the town of ponyville. Through the pouring rain, you can make out the silhouettes of the collection of thatched-roofed cottages that make up the town, interspersed by one or two slate roofs. Not much about the town has changed since you were last here, over a year ago. The lives of the inhabitants, however, have changed dramatically since your arrival. After they overcame their initial fears and cautiousness, the townspeople, or rather, townsponies, were friendly enough towards you. A certain six of the townsfolk had been particularly friendly. You wish that you could remember their names, although names seem insignificant to you now.They had ensured that you had a place to stay, and that you were comfortable in your lodgings. They had given you gifts of food and clothes, books and other tokens of their friendship. Over time, had even offered you their love, both physically and spiritually. It had been almost been... Good. You could have gotten used to that life. It couldn't last, of course. You hadn't meant for it to happen at all. There had been a... Misunderstanding. Tempers flared. The red mist descended. The situation escalated explosively, and suddenly you were standing over a corpse, with someone else's blood on your hands. Literally. The only viable course of action was to promptly flee the scene. By the time your heinous crime was discovered, you were deep within the aptly named Everfree forest. For the first time in your life, you had murdered someone. And you had gotten away with it. They had come looking for you, of course. The famous Royal Guard, sent out on a manhunt, determined to find you. But expert hunters they were not. They were loud, clumsy and easy to fool in the clinging darkness of the forest. They slowly grew tired of their endless, fruitless searching. The patrols gradually dwindled in size and frequency, until, eventually, they just stopped looking. Their complacency would prove to be their downfall. It was strange really. The longer you spent in the forest, the more your hatred for them and their kind grew. At first, it was little more than a slight, nagging dislike of ponykind. But the hate within your soul grew and grew, until you finally succumbed to the feeling. In that night of blinding, burning, hate-fuelled rage, you lashed out at the closest possible target. The hate had driven you beyond the point of madness, and into the bottomless pit of complete and utter insanity. The shy, butter-yellow pegasus didn't stand a chance. It wasn't your fault anyway. The voices told you to do it. They made you do it. The voices that promised centuries of terrible, unspeakable punishments if you failed. If you didn't do what you were told. So you barred the door to the house. And you set it alight, with the unfortunate owner trapped inside. It seems odd to you that you can't even remember her name, but you can remember her screams as she was burned alive in that thatched cottage at the edge of the forest. The memory is still extremely vivid in your mind's eye. You remember the way the bright yellow flames flickered as they took hold. The heady scent of burning timber and straw in your nostrils. The acrid tang of charred flesh. The house burned up fast, and within mere minutes, the entire building was a raging, roaring inferno. Buildings shouldn't be so flammable. Someone could get hurt. You smile, amused by your own little joke. By the time help arrived, the building was little more than a black and smoking ruin. You were amazed at how they ever managed to find the body inside that burned and broken shell of a house, and drag it, blackened and charred, from the still smoking rubble. But what happened to her name? Where did it go? Did it somehow detach from her body? Did it float away on the wind? Did it burn away in the fire? Perhaps her name was lost, along with your mind, in the deep and the dark of the forest. The thought fills you with a sudden feeling of intense sadness. No. There's nothing to be sad about. She is dead, and you are not. You suddenly begin to laugh, harder and harder, until you are on your knees, gasping for air, tears of laughter streaming down your pale, gaunt cheeks. Your maniacal laughter echoes through the night. To any and all creatures that hear it, the laughter is unnerving. It is the laugh of a creature that is totally, utterly and completely mad. When you finally get your breath back, you stand up and begin to make your way into the town. Luckily for you, the cobblestone streets of Ponyville are poorly lit. The only source of light comes from the sparsely placed lamps, and the occasional open window. Because of this, it is tremendously easy to stay in the shadows, and therefore remain unseen. Or so you thought. You suddenly hear the sound of horse hooves striking stone some way behind you, and slightly to your right. It sounds like someone trying, and failing, to move silently. You stop in your tracks, and the sound stops a fraction of a second later. Shooting a glance over your shoulder, you see a sudden flash of gold as someone, or something, dives out of sight. You realise that you are being followed, although rather badly. Your heart begins to beat faster, as you anticipate the thrill of the chase, and the prospect of a kill. You bolt suddenly, sprinting off down the street. You turn quickly into a dark alleyway. A dead end. Perfect. Fortunately, luck is apparently on your side tonight, for the against the side of the building that serves as the left hand wall of the alley, a ladder has been placed, allowing you to quickly climb up onto the slate roof of the building. With your pulse racing, you haul the ladder up after you, and drop it out of sight. Seconds later, a white stallion clad in golden armour skids to a halt in the entrance of the alleyway: a member of the famous "Royal guard". A Pegasus, to be exact. He does a double-take upon finding the alleyway completely empty. The look of surprise on his face is almost comedic. Slowly, carefully, he begins to move down the alleyway, looking from left to right. Searching. However, he makes a vital mistake that will prove to be his last: he doesn't look up. You wait until he is directly below you, before you stand up and leap down from the roof. The hard, worn soles of your boots collide solidly with the back of his head. The force of the impact sends the unfortunate guard flying, knocking him to the ground. The guard rises and struggles to stand, gasping for breath, only to collapse to the floor again as his legs buckle under him. Confident in your victory, you saunter over to where he lies. As you stand over him, he looks up at you, with fear in his eyes. He tries to speak, but in his stunned state, he can only manage a few garbled, incomprehensible words. You hear a satisfying crack, accompanied by a gasp of pain as you deliver a swift kick to his ribs. You reach down and yank off his golden helmet, tossing it aside. It lands on the hard ground with a loud, metallic clang. You raise your right foot, and stomp viciously on his face. Once. Twice. Three times. He coughs, and spits out blood and broken teeth. His nose is bleeding heavily, his lip is split and bleeding in several places, and there is also a large, red welt above his left eye. To put it bluntly, he's a mess. Time to finish this. Grabbing his jaw, you force his head back and upwards, exposing his neck. With your free hand, you reach into your belt, and draw out a long and wickedly sharp kitchen knife; stolen, of course. Taken from the charred and blackened ruins of the burnt cottage. The handle is blackened, and the blade is slightly mottled from the heat of the fire, but it is still razor-sharp: you had always made sure of that. This knife has already claimed several lives, and now it's about to take another. Reaching down, you place the blade against his throat. The guard struggles weakly, but to no avail. With a quick jerk, you slash open his throat, severing the jugular. The sudden spray of arterial blood splatters the ground and the wall in front of you. His head flops limply, and you hear the thick, gargling sound of his last breath. You straighten up, the bright red gore dripping from your hand, and you walk quickly away, leaving his corpse in a rapidly widening pool of blood, and a look of horror frozen on his cold, dead face. You find it odd that he was out on his own. The Royal Guard usually patrol in groups, or at least in pairs. Then again, they hadn't exactly been expecting you. On a whole, the Royal Guard was a bunch of amateurs playing at soldiers. They were predictable, complacent, and lazy. You doubted if they had even been trained in combat techniques, but then again, neither had you. However, your combat skill had grown out of raw experience, rather than professional training. For example, you had quickly identified inherent weak spots in each of the particular species. For Pegasi, it was the wings; the flight bones within the wings were hollow, and therefore fragile. With enough force, the wing could be broken fairly easily, thus robbing the opponent of the advantage of flight. Unicorn horns, you had discovered, were particularly sensitive to touch. Smacking a Unicorn's horn, therefore, had about the same effect as a kick to the groin: Incapacitating, but not permanent. Snapping or severing a Unicorn's horn, however, was certainly permanent. The pain alone could actually kill a younger, weaker, less experienced Unicorn. Even the strongest were instantly rendered unconscious. The normal ponies, rather like pint-sized versions of the ones you used to know, were a different matter entirely. They had an inherently higher pain threshold than the other two races, and immense reserves of strength and stamina. They were best avoided. You hadn't yet discovered any exploitable weakness that could be used against them. With a start, you realise you have reached your destination. The tall, wide tree that houses the library. It looks exactly as you remember it. Creeping up to the door, you try the handle, attempting to be as quiet as possible. The door is unlocked, but is prevented from opening fully by a length of chain. No matter: you simply reach inside and unhook the chain from the latch. The ponies in this town were far too trusting, almost to the point of idiocy. With the door now fully open, you step inside. The interior of the library is lit by the pale glow of moonlight flooding through the windows. It looks exactly as you remember it. The walls are lined with books: not exactly a revelation, this is a library after all. A set of steps set into the far wall leads up onto an overlooking balcony, and, unsurprisingly, to more bookcases. A second set of spiralling stairs leads from the balcony up into the attic bedroom of Twilight Sparkle, the resident librarian. Wait a second. Her name! You remembered her name!? How?! You whisper the name to yourself, over and over. Twilight Sparkle. Mustn't forget. Not again. Not now. The words seem strange on your tongue, almost as if you're speaking a different language. Twilight Sparkle. The two words don't seem to fit together at all, yet they match each other perfectly at the same time. You say it again. Twilight Sparkle. How odd. The name even tastes strange. But not bad. It doesn't taste bad. Anyway, mustn't get distracted. Not now. Got to concentrate on the situation at hand. Cautiously, you ascend the stairs up to the upper balcony, taking care not to make much noise. As you reach the top of the staircase, the final step lets out an agonisingly loud creak. You freeze, and cringe at the sound. You hold your breath as you listen intently for any noise from the bedroom upstairs. Total silence. You relax slightly, and exhale in relief. Clearly, the sound wasn't enough to wake anyone. You continue onwards, silently crossing the balcony and reaching the second set of stairs. Slowly, carefully, you begin the final ascent.This will be your crowning achievement. You will be remembered for this. What you are about to do could signal a turning point in the history of this world, marking the beginning of a downward spiral of destruction, chaos, hatred, violence and death. And you would be the cause of it all. The thought of that possibility fills your heart with a savage, sadistic glee. This will be fun. You slowly advance up the winding staircase. There are exactly fifteen steps. You have reached the bedroom. A meter or so away, a small, lavender unicorn lies on her back, fore-hooves in the air. Her chest rises and falls slowly, in time to the rhythm of sleep. Her name is Twilight Sparkle. You can't forget that name now. It's stuck in your head, repeating itself over and over. And you know it's because she's about to die. You are standing directly over her now. The pale moonlight illuminating the room creates strange shadows, twisted and malformed. As your shadow looms over the still-sleeping, you grasp the hilt of the knife with both hands, and raise it above your head. Your breathing slows. The moment you have waited for is at hand. What happens next happens in a split second, but to you, it seems to happen in slow-motion. The knife begins it's descent, plunging down, towards it's unsuspecting victim. The blade strikes her directly in the chest, and you feel the increased resistance as the blade slices down through the thick chest muscles, punching clean through a lung. The blade continues onward, deeper and deeper, all the power you can muster put behind the blow. The blade punctures the thick, muscular wall of her heart. Only then does it stop, the knife embedded up to the hilt. Her legs fly upwards simultaneously, as the force of the attack slams her down into the bed. She gasps in pain and shock, her eyes snapping open, staring wildly in surprise. Her deep purple eyes find yours, and you find yourself gazing back at her. Maintaining eye contact, you viciously twist the knife. Warm blood sprays upwards, splattering your hands, your arms and your face. Her eyes widen even further, and she lets out a sudden, pained gasp. You rip the blade upwards and outwards, causing even more blood to splatter in every direction, spraying the walls, the celling and the floor. Your work done, you spin on your heels and begin to leave. Just as you reach the top of the stairs, your unfortunate victim lets out a single, ragged, hacking cough. Looking over your shoulder, you see that she is reaching her hoof towards you. Strange. She almost looks like she's begging. Pleading. Her eyes say the words she no longer has the strength to speak. You step towards her, and stretch out your hand, and hold her hoof, exactly like you did when you first met. It feels like that happened such a long time ago. Her blood is spreading in an ever-widening pool, staining the bedsheets crimson. A small, but steady stream of blood flows from between her lips. You stand there, frozen in time and space, holding her outstretched hoof as she falls into the endless void. The light goes out in her eyes, and you finally drop the hoof. The blood is still spreading, the pool widening rapidly. You walk slowly out onto the balcony. Part of you still doesn't quite believe what's just happened. Part of you feels sickened at your actions. Part of you feels glad. In the distance, a brilliant white flash lights up the sky for a split second, like a lightning bolt, a pillar of light shooting up into the sky. It is coming from the direction of the capital. From Canterlot. She is coming. Everything is going according to plan. She is coming. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's notes: Well, I certainly had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it. This story was written purely from my rather twisted imagination: there was virtually no planning involved, the entire thing was fairly spontaneous. I came up with the idea for the story in the dead of night, and the story practically wrote its self from then on. I played around with several different names for the protagonist, but none of them sounded right. Furthermore, I felt that the second-person perspective just made the whole story seem rather detached and uninteresting. So, I settled on a first-person perspective, which greatly improved the flow of the story (At least, it did in my opinion. You might disagree with this). It also created the main underlying theme of the story: Anyone can go mad. In all honesty, I believe that insanity is just one step away for all of us, and that all it takes is one little push, and then you'll suddenly find yourself nailing various animal carcasses to the walls of your shed, and attacking people with a rusty chainsaw. That's part of the reason I wrote this story: I tend to use writing as a safe outlet for all the anger that I build up through the course of a normal week: I'm sure a lot of people feel like this. All the little annoyances can stack up into one big, angry mess. So, every fortnight or so, I sit down and write. The majority of my stories aren't really related to MLP FiM. Most of aren't that good anyway, so I usually delete them a day or so after. I have kept some of the better ones, but I don't think I'll ever get around to releasing them. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to the publishing side of things. However, I still think it's important to let your darker side out once in a while, and, for me, writing is the perfect way to do that: it can't physically hurt anyone. (Although I was once knocked unconscious by a particularly heavy dictionary that had suddenly fallen from a high bookshelf. It wasn't pushed, and I didn't even touch the bookcase it was on, which has lead me to conclude that the book was trying to kill me). -Bloodpool. Chapter twoChapter two. You awake to the sound of birdsong, carried through the open window of your room by a gentle summer breeze. The air around you is fresh, crisp and pleasantly warm. A ray of brilliant sunlight shines through the small gap between the curtains, illuminating the many floating particles hanging in the air. It is the start of yet another day in Equestria. You roll over onto your back, and stare up at the thick oak beams supporting the white-washed ceiling, casually deliberating on what you plan to do today. Ponyville is a small town, and is, unfortunately, rather dull, in your opinion. You can't tell what time it is, as you don't have a clock, but you guess that it is about mid-morning, judging by the amount of light shinning between the closed curtains. Perhaps you should just remain in bed and go back to sleep. Sleeping untill noon had quickly become one of your favourite ways to pass the time. It wasn't like there was anything else to do. You didn't have to worry about work. Money wasn't an issue either, as everything you could possibly want was practically handed to you on a plate. Still, there were a few things missing. For one thing, it was impossible for you to walk outside without attracting attention. You had grown accustomed to the curious stares of the town's inhabitants, but it still made you feel a little uncomfortable. Still, you are content with the current state of affairs. For now. Perhaps it would be better to get out of bed. You can already hear the sounds hooves striking cobblestone, and the low murmur of voices as ponies passed your home on the street below. It would probably do you some good to get out of the house for a while. You would at least find someone to talk to, hopefully making the day a little less boring. You sit up, throwing the blankets off to one side, and swing your legs out over the side of the bed. Rising from this position, you stand, and make your way over to the wardrobe set against the far wall. The wooden floor feels warm beneath the soles of your bare feet. Dressing is a rather complicated affair. First, you pull on a pair of tight black trousers. They hug tightly to your legs, but they are not constricting in any way. In fact, they are rather comfortable. The white linen shirt goes on next, the long sleeves reaching down to your wrists. You don the waistcoat next; it is almost entirely black, apart from the crimson embroidery stitched into it, forming a pattern of thin, curling lines, all connected to a short vertical line that runs parallel on either side of the golden brass buttons that hold the waistcoat together. The back of the waistcoat is made of fine, wine-red silk. You pull on a pair of long, canvas boots that end halfway up your shins. The soles of the boots are made of firm wood, so that every step you take creates a loud clack as your heels strike the ground. You pick out a dark red jacket with long sleeves, trimmed in gold, but then you decide that this is probably a little too much, and you place it carefully back inside the wardrobe, and close the door. You attract enough attention as it is. You make a mental reminder to ask Rarity to create some more casual clothing for you. The clothes she had already made for you were so flashy, they still made you feel a little ridiculous when you wore them. And then it happens. Suddenly, the noises from outside stop abruptly. Complete silence fills the air. The breath catches in your throat. The corners of the room seem to darken, and the walls seem to loom over you. They seem almost... fluid. A strange ringing sound fills your ears, and you can taste the metallic tang of blood on your tongue. You start backwards, crying out in surprise, and the strange vision disappears as suddenly as it occurred. The room snaps back into focus, and the sounds from outside resume... but you are left with a feeling of foreboding, and of inexplicable anger. You shake your head rapidly from side to side, and the feeling subsides somewhat, but it doesn't vanish completely. Was that magic? No. It didn't feel like the crackling, buzzing energy that you felt when magic was directed at you. No, this was certainly something else. Alarmed, you leave the house quite a bit faster than you would have done otherwise. You have to tell someone about this... And you know just who to ask. Out on the streets, the town is already buzzing with activity. The street echoes with the sound of voices, footsteps, underlaid by all manner of clanks, clangs and thuds as carts move up and down the street, some empty, some loaded with goods. However, the event that just occurred has left you feeling slightly queasy and rather irritable, as if you've just woken up after a night of drinking. As you head off down the street, you inevitably attract the curious gazes from the town's inhabitants, but most of them have gotten used to your presence by now. Some of them don't even look up from what they are doing. Most of the attention comes from the young children, staring at you with inquisitive eyes. You can't help but feel slightly irritated by this fact, which seems strange. It never seemed to bother you before. Shaking your head slowly, you continue onwards, towards your destination on the other side of the town. As you make your way through the central plaza, you spot a familiar, timid face though a gap in the bustling crowds. Fluttershy. She is struggling to put something into her saddlebags, so she doesn't notice you watching her. For a split second, you smell the heady scent of burning timber, accompanied by an irritating buzzing noise in your ears. The whole experience lasts about a second or two, and then vanishes suddenly. Blinking rapidly, you take a step backward. When she finally looks up and notices you looking at her, she smiles shyly and averts her eyes, staring down at her hooves. On any other day, you would have gladly gone over to help and to talk to her, but you have more important things to do. What just happened is proof of that. You smile politely, and continue on your way. The poor mare probably needs to become a little more assertive... Or maybe not, considering what happened last time she tried. You didn't really enjoy being knocked flying by an aggressive yellow pegasus very much at all. Proceeding onwards across the plaza, you enter a small street leading away from the town centre. Without warning, you are suddenly tackled from the side, the impact sending you sprawling. Lying on your back, your eyes slowly swim back into focus, and you find yourself looking into the baby-blue eyes of Pinke Pie. She is stood directly over you, her forehooves on either side of your head. She is looking down at you, a huge grin on her face. "Hi!" She exclaims. Before she can launch into one of her trademark high-speed, one-sided conversations, you raise your right hand slightly and say: "Ah... Could you let me up? Please?". She stares at you as if you've asked the stupidest question in the world. "Of course I can silly!" She replies. However, she still doesn't move. An awkward silence falls. After thirty seconds or so, you add "...You know, you need to sort of... Move off me a little." "Well duh!" She replies, rolling her eyes dramaticaly. "But you only asked me if I could let you up, not if I would let you up!" She rolls off you, giggling. As you stand and dust yourself down, you reply: "I think that was implied by what I said in the first place, now I really need to get moving, so whatever you have to say, make it qui...". The end of your sentence drifts off into silence, as you suddenly realise that she is already bouncing happily away down the street. You stare after her, shaking your head in disbelief. Then you shrug your shoulders, and carry on down the road. This sort of behaviour is pretty much guaranteed when dealing with Pinkie Pie. Finally, you reach your destination. The Golden Oak Library looms in front of you. It is the also the home of Twilight Sparkle, the resident librarian. It is her you have come to see. Suddenly feeling faint, you reach the door, and knock urgently. upon it. An iron clang sounds in your ears, your vision begins to blur, and then to darken. The door opens, but you can only register a blurred, purple smudge in the open doorway. She says something, but all you hear is a muffled and distant voice, the words totally incomprehensible. You sway on your feet for a few seconds, and then fall forwards into the room. There is a thud, a sharp pain in your temple, and a white light explodes in your eyes, and then quickly fades to total darkness. Chapter threeChapter three. The kingdom of the mind. In the depths of your tortured mind, strange shapes and sounds race around your head, like dry leaves caught in a strong wind. A series of disjointed images flash before your eyes: A blue box. A burning city. A ticking clock. A black cat. A white raven. A pale corpse impaled on a barbed spear. These images whirl away before you can discern any detail from them. A war-horn sounds, long and loud. Steel clashes against steel. And suddenly it goes deathly quiet, and an unfamiliar voice whispers: Are you ready? With a brilliant flash of light, and an ear-splitting bang, you suddenly find yourself lying on the ground in an immense room. The high, arched ceiling reminds you of a cathedral. But no cathedral you've ever seen is made entirely out of black marble. An imposing throne, constructed out of blood red stone, is sat on a raised platform, directly in front of you. The thing that really surprises you, however, is the strange being occupying it. Lounging lazily in the chair is an young man with short, white hair, and a small, pointed beard, which is also white. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't really be that unusual. However, the man possesses some more... Unusual features. Firstly, his left arm seems to be totally encased in steel plates, along with several pistons to facilitate movement. The fingers of the gauntlet taper down to razor-sharp points, forming vicious talons. His right eye seems to have been replaced with a glowing green light. The area surrounding his eye has been replaced with metallic plates. His left eye, however, is perfectly normal, except that it is yellow and has a vertical pupil, giving him a snake-like appearance. The clothes that he wears look like they have been constructed by stitching together various rags and pieces of fabric, making it look like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt. Finally, and perhaps most bizarrely, an impossibly long, thin, dagger-like tooth protrudes from the left hand side of his mouth. He raises his left arm and begins to inspect the deadly talons with a detached, almost bored air. He flexes his fingers experimentally. As he moves, the pistons emit short jets of steam. Finally, he slowly turns his head, and looks down at you from his elevated position upon his throne. "Oh, good. You're here." He drawls. His voice is warm and richly layered, with a slight accent that you just can't quite place. "Are you going to stand up, or do you intend to spend the rest of your life lying on the ground?" It is an innocent enough question, but you can't help but notice the malicious intent lurking behind it. Slowly, you struggle to your feet. "There we go! Much better!" He cries. Suddenly, he leaps upwards, landing a moment later with cat-like grace. He clasps his hands together benind his back, and begins to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Obviously, you're wondering where you are, and why you're here." He declares, with a touch of pomposity in his voice. "As a reply to the first part of your question, you are nowhere and everywhere at the same time". He continues. "And as to why you're here, it's really rather simple. You're here because I wanted you to be." He smiles wickedly, his eyes flashing dangerously. You open your mouth to speak, but he waves an imperious hand in the air, and continues: "No need to thank me, I'm just doing what I do best. I don't need your name either; I've been watching you for some time. However, you know nothing about me, so allow me to introduce myself: Discord, God of Chaos, at your service." He bows majestically, and raucous applause echoes around the chamber, as thousands of unseen hands clap enthusiastically. Discord straightens up, and the sound vanishes. "Thank you, thank you! You're too kind, I'm sure. Anyway, where was I? ...Ah, yes. I'm have... A particular problem that I want you to help me with. Let me explain my predicament." He snaps his fingers, and a large armchair suddenly appears behind you. In the blink of an eye, he is sat back down on his throne, almost as if he hadn't even moved in the first place. "Please, sit down." You don't move, but you sway on your feet as you are suddenly assailed by the urge to sit. He stares at you blankly for a second, and then narrows his eyes. His gleeful smile fades suddenly "Sit." He growls. After a few seconds, you plant yourself heavily in the armchair. He smiles brightly, clearly pleased with himself. He leans backward into his throne, placing his feet on a footrest that has appeared out of thin air. He folds his arms behind his head, and looks at you contemptuously. Then he begins to talk. "As you may or may not know, I am currently imprisoned against my will. My physical form is currently trapped inside a stone statue, and my current surroundings reflect this fact. You think I stay here because I like it? Of course not!" He gestures with one hand at his surroundings, before continuing. "Now, whilst I may be imprisoned physically, I can still reach out mentally. If I couldn't, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. What I need is for somebody to set me free. Normally, you'd simply have to cause a minor case of chaos in the vicinity of the prison of my physical form. However, the statue I am attached to is currently locked away in a secret underground vault, that only Celestia and Luna themselves can open, and I doubt that you could persuade either of them to allow you access. So, what I need is more chaos. And lots of it. Something like a small war should do the trick. Or murdering some important political figures. That always gets them panicking..." He laughs quietly, coughs, and begins to speak again. "...And that's exactly what I want you to do. You already know the elements of harmony, am I right? I want you to kill them. You don't need to kill them all; Two or three should be more than enough. Plus, I have a personal grudge against the elements, they die, I get free, It's all good. And you, my friend, can have anything you want in return for this service. Wealth. Power. Fame. It's all yours, as long as you agree to my deal..." He pauses for a few seconds, and puts a finger to his lips, as if contemplating something. "...Of course, I'll need some kind of collateral. Just for security, you understand... Ah, yes, I'll take your sanity. You'll be unconsciously drawn to the elements, and you'll also be filled with murderous rage. Other than that, you won't remember a thing about this conversation. Oh, and the longer you take doing the job, the more things you'll forget. Just to keep you on your toes, you understand. Now, do we have a deal?" You stand there, your head buzzing with thoughts. Wealth. Power. Fame. At the cost of temporary insanity... Seems like a tough choice. You ponder the question for what seems like hours. Finally, the most basic feeling of humankind takes over: Greed. You stand up, and ascend the steps to the throne. Grasping Discord's outstretched hand, you shake it gladly. "It's a deal." You say. He smiles happily, his teeth flashing, and replies: "Excellent..." And then the vision is suddenly swallowed by the inky blackness once again. Chapter fourChapter four Ticking timebomb. The first thing you become aware of is a dull, throbbing pain in your head. The pain is emanating from the centre of your forehead, and spreading outwards, like ripples on a pond. It feels like you've been smashed over the head with a brick. The pain is so intense that it's distorting your vision. Strange lights and colours swim before your eyes. Everything around you is blurred and out of focus, and your ears are filled with a strange ringing noise. And it's making you feel rather nauseous. And then everything snaps back into place. You are lying on your back on the hard wooden floor of the library. Standing over you, with a very concerned and anxious look on her face, is Twilight Sparkle. You stare into her eyes, and she stares back. Her mouth moves as she speaks, but you hear no words. She scrunches up her face in confusion, and then she crouches slightly, tilting herself forwards, getting closer to your face. Her breath smells of lavender. Weird. Your lack of a response to her verbalisation seems to have alarmed her further. She steps backward, and her horn seems to glow with an incandescent aurora. The familiar feeling of being targeted by magic courses through your body. It feels like standing under a high-voltage powerline back home. The air around you crackles with static, and, with a small pop, the ringing noise stops, and you can hear again. As the feeling subsides, she speaks again, in a slow, clear voice, not unlike the one you would use to address a particularly young child, she says: "Are you alright? Can you hear me?" You struggle to adopt a sitting position as you attempt to reply, but the words come out of your mouth in a jumbled mess. "Alaflyughimfinereallyohshitifeelsickblah" She tilts her head to one side and frowns, obviously confused. Her response is thus: "I'm sorry, what did yo-" She is interrupted mid-sentence, as you vomit rather spectacularly onto the floor in front of you, splattering your clothes with drops of bile. With a rather surprised squeak, Twilight leaps backward hurriedly, slips, and crashes heavily into a bookcase. Several books take the apparent opportunity to make a bid for freedom, and they tumble off the shelf, each of them bouncing off Twilight's head with a dull thud, before crashing onto the floor in a disorganised heap. The cloying scent of fresh vomit assaults your nostrils. You stare at the steaming pool of thick, yellow bile, and then back up at Twilight, who is attempting to untangle herself from the bookcase. You smile half-heartedly, and reply weakly : "...Well, there goes my breakfast." A while later, you find yourself stepping out of the library and onto the empty street. The sun is setting, and the day is almost over. The streets are deserted. Twilight has ejected you from the premises in order to "clean up the mess". You hope that she hasn't started conducting experiments on the contents of your stomach: You wouldn't be too surprised if she did just that. You have grown used to the repeated, seemingly random tests you have been subjected to during your time here. After she had requested to carry out some more... Intrusive experiments, you'd made it your business to avoid her as much as possible. As you walk down the cobblestone streets, you suddenly become aware of a nagging sensation to look to your right. Whipping your head round, you see a thin alleyway, between two buildings. Curiosity overtakes you, and you slip into the alley. And there, lying on the floor, in the centre of the alleyway, is a small, blue container, roughly the size of a shoebox. Walking over to it, you immediately pick it up. The box appears to be made of some sort of exotic wood: A strange scent wafts upwards from the box. The box doesn't seem to be locked in any way, so you lift the lid. The small, silver hinges move without so much as a squeak. The inside of the box is lined with thick, red velvet. And there, nestled in the soft lining of the box, is a beautifully crafted flintlock pistol. The handle is capped with a sheet of brass, which has been carefully crafted to resemble the facial features of a roaring manticore. The metal barrel is decorated likewise, thick vines engraved into the metal, winding their way around the cylindrical barrel. It shines with a highly polished gleam. Lifting the pistol out of the box with your right hand, you test its weight. Perfect. Looking back at the box, you notice a hand-written message attached to the underside of the lid. In strange, curling letters, the note reads: "This is chaos. Locked, loaded and ready to fire. Only one shot I'm afraid. D." Looking back at the gun, you wonder just who this mysterious "D" person is, and why they would give you such a beautiful weapon. You open the firing pan, and see that it is indeed primed with gunpowder. Suddenly, a voice sounds from behind you, making you jump and drop the box. "Ooooh? What's that!? It's shiny!" What happens next seems to take place in slow motion. An unseen force seems to posses your body, taking control. You have the rather unnerving feeling of helplessness, as if you are separated from reality by a pane of glass. Your body moves unbidden, and you spin around, point the pistol squarely at the chest of the pink pony standing a little way behind you, and pull the trigger. The pistol's lock flicks downward, dragging the flint against a curved piece of metal. The shape of the metal directs the resulting sparks downward, into the firing pan. The gunpowder there ignites, sending flame and smoke billowing in every direction. The explosion carries on, through a small hole in the side of the barrel, igniting the main charge. With a thunderous boom, the main charge propels a small lead ball along and out of the barrel. Smoke and flame issue forth from the mouth of the barrel, as the bullet hurtles onward, into the chest of the intended target. The heavy lead ball impacts the target, tearing a large, gaping hole in the center of her chest. The bullet carries on through the chest cavity, ripping flesh and smashing bone, before coming to a stop as it lodges itself in the vertebra of the spine, somewhere close to the middle of her back. The shot results in an explosion of gore. Blood, bone and flesh fly in every direction, showering you with a spray of hot, red blood. The force of the shot sends the unfortunate recipient toppling backwards, smashing down onto the hard, cobblestone street below. And then control of your body is returned to you. The oppressive force leaves as quickly as it came. Your hand trembles as you lower your arm. The pistol tumbles from your grasp, clattering to the floor. You take a shuddering step forward, and then collapse to your knees beside your victim as your legs give way. Somehow, the shot hasn't killed her outright. Perhaps it would have been better if it had. Her breath comes in short, ragged gasps: The bullet has almost certianly punctured a lung. As you fall to your knees beside her, she turns her head slowly, and looks you in the eyes. Staring into those baby-blue eyes, you see that she is crying. Crystaline tears fall from her face, splashing onto the ground below. And you suddenly realise that you're crying too. Your body shudders as the after-shocks of adrenaline kick in. With a final, ragged breath, she breathes her last, and lies still. Her head flops limply to the floor. And her eyes, so full of life a moment ago, are empty. Lifeless, like shining orbs of polished glass. You raise your hands infront of your face, and see that they are covered in blood. Your clothes are similarly stained. That's when something snaps inside you. An infernal, terrible rage boils up from inside you, and fills you with a terrible anger. With a roar of pain, rage and anguish, you leap to your feet, and sprint away through the empty streets, in the direction of the Everfree forest, The only place ponies fear to tread. You'll make a fine addition to the horrors lurking within.
Chapter oneThe Vile Knife ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You stand on a small rise, looking down into the town of ponyville. Through the pouring rain, you can make out the silhouettes of the collection of thatched-roofed cottages that make up the town, interspersed by one or two slate roofs. Not much about the town has changed since you were last here, over a year ago. The lives of the inhabitants, however, have changed dramatically since your arrival. After they overcame their initial fears and cautiousness, the townspeople, or rather, townsponies, were friendly enough towards you. A certain six of the townsfolk had been particularly friendly. You wish that you could remember their names, although names seem insignificant to you now.They had ensured that you had a place to stay, and that you were comfortable in your lodgings. They had given you gifts of food and clothes, books and other tokens of their friendship. Over time, had even offered you their love, both physically and spiritually. It had been almost been... Good. You could have gotten used to that life. It couldn't last, of course. You hadn't meant for it to happen at all. There had been a... Misunderstanding. Tempers flared. The red mist descended. The situation escalated explosively, and suddenly you were standing over a corpse, with someone else's blood on your hands. Literally. The only viable course of action was to promptly flee the scene. By the time your heinous crime was discovered, you were deep within the aptly named Everfree forest. For the first time in your life, you had murdered someone. And you had gotten away with it. They had come looking for you, of course. The famous Royal Guard, sent out on a manhunt, determined to find you. But expert hunters they were not. They were loud, clumsy and easy to fool in the clinging darkness of the forest. They slowly grew tired of their endless, fruitless searching. The patrols gradually dwindled in size and frequency, until, eventually, they just stopped looking. Their complacency would prove to be their downfall. It was strange really. The longer you spent in the forest, the more your hatred for them and their kind grew. At first, it was little more than a slight, nagging dislike of ponykind. But the hate within your soul grew and grew, until you finally succumbed to the feeling. In that night of blinding, burning, hate-fuelled rage, you lashed out at the closest possible target. The hate had driven you beyond the point of madness, and into the bottomless pit of complete and utter insanity. The shy, butter-yellow pegasus didn't stand a chance. It wasn't your fault anyway. The voices told you to do it. They made you do it. The voices that promised centuries of terrible, unspeakable punishments if you failed. If you didn't do what you were told. So you barred the door to the house. And you set it alight, with the unfortunate owner trapped inside. It seems odd to you that you can't even remember her name, but you can remember her screams as she was burned alive in that thatched cottage at the edge of the forest. The memory is still extremely vivid in your mind's eye. You remember the way the bright yellow flames flickered as they took hold. The heady scent of burning timber and straw in your nostrils. The acrid tang of charred flesh. The house burned up fast, and within mere minutes, the entire building was a raging, roaring inferno. Buildings shouldn't be so flammable. Someone could get hurt. You smile, amused by your own little joke. By the time help arrived, the building was little more than a black and smoking ruin. You were amazed at how they ever managed to find the body inside that burned and broken shell of a house, and drag it, blackened and charred, from the still smoking rubble. But what happened to her name? Where did it go? Did it somehow detach from her body? Did it float away on the wind? Did it burn away in the fire? Perhaps her name was lost, along with your mind, in the deep and the dark of the forest. The thought fills you with a sudden feeling of intense sadness. No. There's nothing to be sad about. She is dead, and you are not. You suddenly begin to laugh, harder and harder, until you are on your knees, gasping for air, tears of laughter streaming down your pale, gaunt cheeks. Your maniacal laughter echoes through the night. To any and all creatures that hear it, the laughter is unnerving. It is the laugh of a creature that is totally, utterly and completely mad. When you finally get your breath back, you stand up and begin to make your way into the town. Luckily for you, the cobblestone streets of Ponyville are poorly lit. The only source of light comes from the sparsely placed lamps, and the occasional open window. Because of this, it is tremendously easy to stay in the shadows, and therefore remain unseen. Or so you thought. You suddenly hear the sound of horse hooves striking stone some way behind you, and slightly to your right. It sounds like someone trying, and failing, to move silently. You stop in your tracks, and the sound stops a fraction of a second later. Shooting a glance over your shoulder, you see a sudden flash of gold as someone, or something, dives out of sight. You realise that you are being followed, although rather badly. Your heart begins to beat faster, as you anticipate the thrill of the chase, and the prospect of a kill. You bolt suddenly, sprinting off down the street. You turn quickly into a dark alleyway. A dead end. Perfect. Fortunately, luck is apparently on your side tonight, for the against the side of the building that serves as the left hand wall of the alley, a ladder has been placed, allowing you to quickly climb up onto the slate roof of the building. With your pulse racing, you haul the ladder up after you, and drop it out of sight. Seconds later, a white stallion clad in golden armour skids to a halt in the entrance of the alleyway: a member of the famous "Royal guard". A Pegasus, to be exact. He does a double-take upon finding the alleyway completely empty. The look of surprise on his face is almost comedic. Slowly, carefully, he begins to move down the alleyway, looking from left to right. Searching. However, he makes a vital mistake that will prove to be his last: he doesn't look up. You wait until he is directly below you, before you stand up and leap down from the roof. The hard, worn soles of your boots collide solidly with the back of his head. The force of the impact sends the unfortunate guard flying, knocking him to the ground. The guard rises and struggles to stand, gasping for breath, only to collapse to the floor again as his legs buckle under him. Confident in your victory, you saunter over to where he lies. As you stand over him, he looks up at you, with fear in his eyes. He tries to speak, but in his stunned state, he can only manage a few garbled, incomprehensible words. You hear a satisfying crack, accompanied by a gasp of pain as you deliver a swift kick to his ribs. You reach down and yank off his golden helmet, tossing it aside. It lands on the hard ground with a loud, metallic clang. You raise your right foot, and stomp viciously on his face. Once. Twice. Three times. He coughs, and spits out blood and broken teeth. His nose is bleeding heavily, his lip is split and bleeding in several places, and there is also a large, red welt above his left eye. To put it bluntly, he's a mess. Time to finish this. Grabbing his jaw, you force his head back and upwards, exposing his neck. With your free hand, you reach into your belt, and draw out a long and wickedly sharp kitchen knife; stolen, of course. Taken from the charred and blackened ruins of the burnt cottage. The handle is blackened, and the blade is slightly mottled from the heat of the fire, but it is still razor-sharp: you had always made sure of that. This knife has already claimed several lives, and now it's about to take another. Reaching down, you place the blade against his throat. The guard struggles weakly, but to no avail. With a quick jerk, you slash open his throat, severing the jugular. The sudden spray of arterial blood splatters the ground and the wall in front of you. His head flops limply, and you hear the thick, gargling sound of his last breath. You straighten up, the bright red gore dripping from your hand, and you walk quickly away, leaving his corpse in a rapidly widening pool of blood, and a look of horror frozen on his cold, dead face. You find it odd that he was out on his own. The Royal Guard usually patrol in groups, or at least in pairs. Then again, they hadn't exactly been expecting you. On a whole, the Royal Guard was a bunch of amateurs playing at soldiers. They were predictable, complacent, and lazy. You doubted if they had even been trained in combat techniques, but then again, neither had you. However, your combat skill had grown out of raw experience, rather than professional training. For example, you had quickly identified inherent weak spots in each of the particular species. For Pegasi, it was the wings; the flight bones within the wings were hollow, and therefore fragile. With enough force, the wing could be broken fairly easily, thus robbing the opponent of the advantage of flight. Unicorn horns, you had discovered, were particularly sensitive to touch. Smacking a Unicorn's horn, therefore, had about the same effect as a kick to the groin: Incapacitating, but not permanent. Snapping or severing a Unicorn's horn, however, was certainly permanent. The pain alone could actually kill a younger, weaker, less experienced Unicorn. Even the strongest were instantly rendered unconscious. The normal ponies, rather like pint-sized versions of the ones you used to know, were a different matter entirely. They had an inherently higher pain threshold than the other two races, and immense reserves of strength and stamina. They were best avoided. You hadn't yet discovered any exploitable weakness that could be used against them. With a start, you realise you have reached your destination. The tall, wide tree that houses the library. It looks exactly as you remember it. Creeping up to the door, you try the handle, attempting to be as quiet as possible. The door is unlocked, but is prevented from opening fully by a length of chain. No matter: you simply reach inside and unhook the chain from the latch. The ponies in this town were far too trusting, almost to the point of idiocy. With the door now fully open, you step inside. The interior of the library is lit by the pale glow of moonlight flooding through the windows. It looks exactly as you remember it. The walls are lined with books: not exactly a revelation, this is a library after all. A set of steps set into the far wall leads up onto an overlooking balcony, and, unsurprisingly, to more bookcases. A second set of spiralling stairs leads from the balcony up into the attic bedroom of Twilight Sparkle, the resident librarian. Wait a second. Her name! You remembered her name!? How?! You whisper the name to yourself, over and over. Twilight Sparkle. Mustn't forget. Not again. Not now. The words seem strange on your tongue, almost as if you're speaking a different language. Twilight Sparkle. The two words don't seem to fit together at all, yet they match each other perfectly at the same time. You say it again. Twilight Sparkle. How odd. The name even tastes strange. But not bad. It doesn't taste bad. Anyway, mustn't get distracted. Not now. Got to concentrate on the situation at hand. Cautiously, you ascend the stairs up to the upper balcony, taking care not to make much noise. As you reach the top of the staircase, the final step lets out an agonisingly loud creak. You freeze, and cringe at the sound. You hold your breath as you listen intently for any noise from the bedroom upstairs. Total silence. You relax slightly, and exhale in relief. Clearly, the sound wasn't enough to wake anyone. You continue onwards, silently crossing the balcony and reaching the second set of stairs. Slowly, carefully, you begin the final ascent.This will be your crowning achievement. You will be remembered for this. What you are about to do could signal a turning point in the history of this world, marking the beginning of a downward spiral of destruction, chaos, hatred, violence and death. And you would be the cause of it all. The thought of that possibility fills your heart with a savage, sadistic glee. This will be fun. You slowly advance up the winding staircase. There are exactly fifteen steps. You have reached the bedroom. A meter or so away, a small, lavender unicorn lies on her back, fore-hooves in the air. Her chest rises and falls slowly, in time to the rhythm of sleep. Her name is Twilight Sparkle. You can't forget that name now. It's stuck in your head, repeating itself over and over. And you know it's because she's about to die. You are standing directly over her now. The pale moonlight illuminating the room creates strange shadows, twisted and malformed. As your shadow looms over the still-sleeping, you grasp the hilt of the knife with both hands, and raise it above your head. Your breathing slows. The moment you have waited for is at hand. What happens next happens in a split second, but to you, it seems to happen in slow-motion. The knife begins it's descent, plunging down, towards it's unsuspecting victim. The blade strikes her directly in the chest, and you feel the increased resistance as the blade slices down through the thick chest muscles, punching clean through a lung. The blade continues onward, deeper and deeper, all the power you can muster put behind the blow. The blade punctures the thick, muscular wall of her heart. Only then does it stop, the knife embedded up to the hilt. Her legs fly upwards simultaneously, as the force of the attack slams her down into the bed. She gasps in pain and shock, her eyes snapping open, staring wildly in surprise. Her deep purple eyes find yours, and you find yourself gazing back at her. Maintaining eye contact, you viciously twist the knife. Warm blood sprays upwards, splattering your hands, your arms and your face. Her eyes widen even further, and she lets out a sudden, pained gasp. You rip the blade upwards and outwards, causing even more blood to splatter in every direction, spraying the walls, the celling and the floor. Your work done, you spin on your heels and begin to leave. Just as you reach the top of the stairs, your unfortunate victim lets out a single, ragged, hacking cough. Looking over your shoulder, you see that she is reaching her hoof towards you. Strange. She almost looks like she's begging. Pleading. Her eyes say the words she no longer has the strength to speak. You step towards her, and stretch out your hand, and hold her hoof, exactly like you did when you first met. It feels like that happened such a long time ago. Her blood is spreading in an ever-widening pool, staining the bedsheets crimson. A small, but steady stream of blood flows from between her lips. You stand there, frozen in time and space, holding her outstretched hoof as she falls into the endless void. The light goes out in her eyes, and you finally drop the hoof. The blood is still spreading, the pool widening rapidly. You walk slowly out onto the balcony. Part of you still doesn't quite believe what's just happened. Part of you feels sickened at your actions. Part of you feels glad. In the distance, a brilliant white flash lights up the sky for a split second, like a lightning bolt, a pillar of light shooting up into the sky. It is coming from the direction of the capital. From Canterlot. She is coming. Everything is going according to plan. She is coming. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Author's notes: Well, I certainly had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it. This story was written purely from my rather twisted imagination: there was virtually no planning involved, the entire thing was fairly spontaneous. I came up with the idea for the story in the dead of night, and the story practically wrote its self from then on. I played around with several different names for the protagonist, but none of them sounded right. Furthermore, I felt that the second-person perspective just made the whole story seem rather detached and uninteresting. So, I settled on a first-person perspective, which greatly improved the flow of the story (At least, it did in my opinion. You might disagree with this). It also created the main underlying theme of the story: Anyone can go mad. In all honesty, I believe that insanity is just one step away for all of us, and that all it takes is one little push, and then you'll suddenly find yourself nailing various animal carcasses to the walls of your shed, and attacking people with a rusty chainsaw. That's part of the reason I wrote this story: I tend to use writing as a safe outlet for all the anger that I build up through the course of a normal week: I'm sure a lot of people feel like this. All the little annoyances can stack up into one big, angry mess. So, every fortnight or so, I sit down and write. The majority of my stories aren't really related to MLP FiM. Most of aren't that good anyway, so I usually delete them a day or so after. I have kept some of the better ones, but I don't think I'll ever get around to releasing them. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to the publishing side of things. However, I still think it's important to let your darker side out once in a while, and, for me, writing is the perfect way to do that: it can't physically hurt anyone. (Although I was once knocked unconscious by a particularly heavy dictionary that had suddenly fallen from a high bookshelf. It wasn't pushed, and I didn't even touch the bookcase it was on, which has lead me to conclude that the book was trying to kill me). -Bloodpool.
Chapter twoChapter two. You awake to the sound of birdsong, carried through the open window of your room by a gentle summer breeze. The air around you is fresh, crisp and pleasantly warm. A ray of brilliant sunlight shines through the small gap between the curtains, illuminating the many floating particles hanging in the air. It is the start of yet another day in Equestria. You roll over onto your back, and stare up at the thick oak beams supporting the white-washed ceiling, casually deliberating on what you plan to do today. Ponyville is a small town, and is, unfortunately, rather dull, in your opinion. You can't tell what time it is, as you don't have a clock, but you guess that it is about mid-morning, judging by the amount of light shinning between the closed curtains. Perhaps you should just remain in bed and go back to sleep. Sleeping untill noon had quickly become one of your favourite ways to pass the time. It wasn't like there was anything else to do. You didn't have to worry about work. Money wasn't an issue either, as everything you could possibly want was practically handed to you on a plate. Still, there were a few things missing. For one thing, it was impossible for you to walk outside without attracting attention. You had grown accustomed to the curious stares of the town's inhabitants, but it still made you feel a little uncomfortable. Still, you are content with the current state of affairs. For now. Perhaps it would be better to get out of bed. You can already hear the sounds hooves striking cobblestone, and the low murmur of voices as ponies passed your home on the street below. It would probably do you some good to get out of the house for a while. You would at least find someone to talk to, hopefully making the day a little less boring. You sit up, throwing the blankets off to one side, and swing your legs out over the side of the bed. Rising from this position, you stand, and make your way over to the wardrobe set against the far wall. The wooden floor feels warm beneath the soles of your bare feet. Dressing is a rather complicated affair. First, you pull on a pair of tight black trousers. They hug tightly to your legs, but they are not constricting in any way. In fact, they are rather comfortable. The white linen shirt goes on next, the long sleeves reaching down to your wrists. You don the waistcoat next; it is almost entirely black, apart from the crimson embroidery stitched into it, forming a pattern of thin, curling lines, all connected to a short vertical line that runs parallel on either side of the golden brass buttons that hold the waistcoat together. The back of the waistcoat is made of fine, wine-red silk. You pull on a pair of long, canvas boots that end halfway up your shins. The soles of the boots are made of firm wood, so that every step you take creates a loud clack as your heels strike the ground. You pick out a dark red jacket with long sleeves, trimmed in gold, but then you decide that this is probably a little too much, and you place it carefully back inside the wardrobe, and close the door. You attract enough attention as it is. You make a mental reminder to ask Rarity to create some more casual clothing for you. The clothes she had already made for you were so flashy, they still made you feel a little ridiculous when you wore them. And then it happens. Suddenly, the noises from outside stop abruptly. Complete silence fills the air. The breath catches in your throat. The corners of the room seem to darken, and the walls seem to loom over you. They seem almost... fluid. A strange ringing sound fills your ears, and you can taste the metallic tang of blood on your tongue. You start backwards, crying out in surprise, and the strange vision disappears as suddenly as it occurred. The room snaps back into focus, and the sounds from outside resume... but you are left with a feeling of foreboding, and of inexplicable anger. You shake your head rapidly from side to side, and the feeling subsides somewhat, but it doesn't vanish completely. Was that magic? No. It didn't feel like the crackling, buzzing energy that you felt when magic was directed at you. No, this was certainly something else. Alarmed, you leave the house quite a bit faster than you would have done otherwise. You have to tell someone about this... And you know just who to ask. Out on the streets, the town is already buzzing with activity. The street echoes with the sound of voices, footsteps, underlaid by all manner of clanks, clangs and thuds as carts move up and down the street, some empty, some loaded with goods. However, the event that just occurred has left you feeling slightly queasy and rather irritable, as if you've just woken up after a night of drinking. As you head off down the street, you inevitably attract the curious gazes from the town's inhabitants, but most of them have gotten used to your presence by now. Some of them don't even look up from what they are doing. Most of the attention comes from the young children, staring at you with inquisitive eyes. You can't help but feel slightly irritated by this fact, which seems strange. It never seemed to bother you before. Shaking your head slowly, you continue onwards, towards your destination on the other side of the town. As you make your way through the central plaza, you spot a familiar, timid face though a gap in the bustling crowds. Fluttershy. She is struggling to put something into her saddlebags, so she doesn't notice you watching her. For a split second, you smell the heady scent of burning timber, accompanied by an irritating buzzing noise in your ears. The whole experience lasts about a second or two, and then vanishes suddenly. Blinking rapidly, you take a step backward. When she finally looks up and notices you looking at her, she smiles shyly and averts her eyes, staring down at her hooves. On any other day, you would have gladly gone over to help and to talk to her, but you have more important things to do. What just happened is proof of that. You smile politely, and continue on your way. The poor mare probably needs to become a little more assertive... Or maybe not, considering what happened last time she tried. You didn't really enjoy being knocked flying by an aggressive yellow pegasus very much at all. Proceeding onwards across the plaza, you enter a small street leading away from the town centre. Without warning, you are suddenly tackled from the side, the impact sending you sprawling. Lying on your back, your eyes slowly swim back into focus, and you find yourself looking into the baby-blue eyes of Pinke Pie. She is stood directly over you, her forehooves on either side of your head. She is looking down at you, a huge grin on her face. "Hi!" She exclaims. Before she can launch into one of her trademark high-speed, one-sided conversations, you raise your right hand slightly and say: "Ah... Could you let me up? Please?". She stares at you as if you've asked the stupidest question in the world. "Of course I can silly!" She replies. However, she still doesn't move. An awkward silence falls. After thirty seconds or so, you add "...You know, you need to sort of... Move off me a little." "Well duh!" She replies, rolling her eyes dramaticaly. "But you only asked me if I could let you up, not if I would let you up!" She rolls off you, giggling. As you stand and dust yourself down, you reply: "I think that was implied by what I said in the first place, now I really need to get moving, so whatever you have to say, make it qui...". The end of your sentence drifts off into silence, as you suddenly realise that she is already bouncing happily away down the street. You stare after her, shaking your head in disbelief. Then you shrug your shoulders, and carry on down the road. This sort of behaviour is pretty much guaranteed when dealing with Pinkie Pie. Finally, you reach your destination. The Golden Oak Library looms in front of you. It is the also the home of Twilight Sparkle, the resident librarian. It is her you have come to see. Suddenly feeling faint, you reach the door, and knock urgently. upon it. An iron clang sounds in your ears, your vision begins to blur, and then to darken. The door opens, but you can only register a blurred, purple smudge in the open doorway. She says something, but all you hear is a muffled and distant voice, the words totally incomprehensible. You sway on your feet for a few seconds, and then fall forwards into the room. There is a thud, a sharp pain in your temple, and a white light explodes in your eyes, and then quickly fades to total darkness.
Chapter threeChapter three. The kingdom of the mind. In the depths of your tortured mind, strange shapes and sounds race around your head, like dry leaves caught in a strong wind. A series of disjointed images flash before your eyes: A blue box. A burning city. A ticking clock. A black cat. A white raven. A pale corpse impaled on a barbed spear. These images whirl away before you can discern any detail from them. A war-horn sounds, long and loud. Steel clashes against steel. And suddenly it goes deathly quiet, and an unfamiliar voice whispers: Are you ready? With a brilliant flash of light, and an ear-splitting bang, you suddenly find yourself lying on the ground in an immense room. The high, arched ceiling reminds you of a cathedral. But no cathedral you've ever seen is made entirely out of black marble. An imposing throne, constructed out of blood red stone, is sat on a raised platform, directly in front of you. The thing that really surprises you, however, is the strange being occupying it. Lounging lazily in the chair is an young man with short, white hair, and a small, pointed beard, which is also white. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't really be that unusual. However, the man possesses some more... Unusual features. Firstly, his left arm seems to be totally encased in steel plates, along with several pistons to facilitate movement. The fingers of the gauntlet taper down to razor-sharp points, forming vicious talons. His right eye seems to have been replaced with a glowing green light. The area surrounding his eye has been replaced with metallic plates. His left eye, however, is perfectly normal, except that it is yellow and has a vertical pupil, giving him a snake-like appearance. The clothes that he wears look like they have been constructed by stitching together various rags and pieces of fabric, making it look like a multi-coloured patchwork quilt. Finally, and perhaps most bizarrely, an impossibly long, thin, dagger-like tooth protrudes from the left hand side of his mouth. He raises his left arm and begins to inspect the deadly talons with a detached, almost bored air. He flexes his fingers experimentally. As he moves, the pistons emit short jets of steam. Finally, he slowly turns his head, and looks down at you from his elevated position upon his throne. "Oh, good. You're here." He drawls. His voice is warm and richly layered, with a slight accent that you just can't quite place. "Are you going to stand up, or do you intend to spend the rest of your life lying on the ground?" It is an innocent enough question, but you can't help but notice the malicious intent lurking behind it. Slowly, you struggle to your feet. "There we go! Much better!" He cries. Suddenly, he leaps upwards, landing a moment later with cat-like grace. He clasps his hands together benind his back, and begins to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Obviously, you're wondering where you are, and why you're here." He declares, with a touch of pomposity in his voice. "As a reply to the first part of your question, you are nowhere and everywhere at the same time". He continues. "And as to why you're here, it's really rather simple. You're here because I wanted you to be." He smiles wickedly, his eyes flashing dangerously. You open your mouth to speak, but he waves an imperious hand in the air, and continues: "No need to thank me, I'm just doing what I do best. I don't need your name either; I've been watching you for some time. However, you know nothing about me, so allow me to introduce myself: Discord, God of Chaos, at your service." He bows majestically, and raucous applause echoes around the chamber, as thousands of unseen hands clap enthusiastically. Discord straightens up, and the sound vanishes. "Thank you, thank you! You're too kind, I'm sure. Anyway, where was I? ...Ah, yes. I'm have... A particular problem that I want you to help me with. Let me explain my predicament." He snaps his fingers, and a large armchair suddenly appears behind you. In the blink of an eye, he is sat back down on his throne, almost as if he hadn't even moved in the first place. "Please, sit down." You don't move, but you sway on your feet as you are suddenly assailed by the urge to sit. He stares at you blankly for a second, and then narrows his eyes. His gleeful smile fades suddenly "Sit." He growls. After a few seconds, you plant yourself heavily in the armchair. He smiles brightly, clearly pleased with himself. He leans backward into his throne, placing his feet on a footrest that has appeared out of thin air. He folds his arms behind his head, and looks at you contemptuously. Then he begins to talk. "As you may or may not know, I am currently imprisoned against my will. My physical form is currently trapped inside a stone statue, and my current surroundings reflect this fact. You think I stay here because I like it? Of course not!" He gestures with one hand at his surroundings, before continuing. "Now, whilst I may be imprisoned physically, I can still reach out mentally. If I couldn't, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. What I need is for somebody to set me free. Normally, you'd simply have to cause a minor case of chaos in the vicinity of the prison of my physical form. However, the statue I am attached to is currently locked away in a secret underground vault, that only Celestia and Luna themselves can open, and I doubt that you could persuade either of them to allow you access. So, what I need is more chaos. And lots of it. Something like a small war should do the trick. Or murdering some important political figures. That always gets them panicking..." He laughs quietly, coughs, and begins to speak again. "...And that's exactly what I want you to do. You already know the elements of harmony, am I right? I want you to kill them. You don't need to kill them all; Two or three should be more than enough. Plus, I have a personal grudge against the elements, they die, I get free, It's all good. And you, my friend, can have anything you want in return for this service. Wealth. Power. Fame. It's all yours, as long as you agree to my deal..." He pauses for a few seconds, and puts a finger to his lips, as if contemplating something. "...Of course, I'll need some kind of collateral. Just for security, you understand... Ah, yes, I'll take your sanity. You'll be unconsciously drawn to the elements, and you'll also be filled with murderous rage. Other than that, you won't remember a thing about this conversation. Oh, and the longer you take doing the job, the more things you'll forget. Just to keep you on your toes, you understand. Now, do we have a deal?" You stand there, your head buzzing with thoughts. Wealth. Power. Fame. At the cost of temporary insanity... Seems like a tough choice. You ponder the question for what seems like hours. Finally, the most basic feeling of humankind takes over: Greed. You stand up, and ascend the steps to the throne. Grasping Discord's outstretched hand, you shake it gladly. "It's a deal." You say. He smiles happily, his teeth flashing, and replies: "Excellent..." And then the vision is suddenly swallowed by the inky blackness once again.
Chapter fourChapter four Ticking timebomb. The first thing you become aware of is a dull, throbbing pain in your head. The pain is emanating from the centre of your forehead, and spreading outwards, like ripples on a pond. It feels like you've been smashed over the head with a brick. The pain is so intense that it's distorting your vision. Strange lights and colours swim before your eyes. Everything around you is blurred and out of focus, and your ears are filled with a strange ringing noise. And it's making you feel rather nauseous. And then everything snaps back into place. You are lying on your back on the hard wooden floor of the library. Standing over you, with a very concerned and anxious look on her face, is Twilight Sparkle. You stare into her eyes, and she stares back. Her mouth moves as she speaks, but you hear no words. She scrunches up her face in confusion, and then she crouches slightly, tilting herself forwards, getting closer to your face. Her breath smells of lavender. Weird. Your lack of a response to her verbalisation seems to have alarmed her further. She steps backward, and her horn seems to glow with an incandescent aurora. The familiar feeling of being targeted by magic courses through your body. It feels like standing under a high-voltage powerline back home. The air around you crackles with static, and, with a small pop, the ringing noise stops, and you can hear again. As the feeling subsides, she speaks again, in a slow, clear voice, not unlike the one you would use to address a particularly young child, she says: "Are you alright? Can you hear me?" You struggle to adopt a sitting position as you attempt to reply, but the words come out of your mouth in a jumbled mess. "Alaflyughimfinereallyohshitifeelsickblah" She tilts her head to one side and frowns, obviously confused. Her response is thus: "I'm sorry, what did yo-" She is interrupted mid-sentence, as you vomit rather spectacularly onto the floor in front of you, splattering your clothes with drops of bile. With a rather surprised squeak, Twilight leaps backward hurriedly, slips, and crashes heavily into a bookcase. Several books take the apparent opportunity to make a bid for freedom, and they tumble off the shelf, each of them bouncing off Twilight's head with a dull thud, before crashing onto the floor in a disorganised heap. The cloying scent of fresh vomit assaults your nostrils. You stare at the steaming pool of thick, yellow bile, and then back up at Twilight, who is attempting to untangle herself from the bookcase. You smile half-heartedly, and reply weakly : "...Well, there goes my breakfast." A while later, you find yourself stepping out of the library and onto the empty street. The sun is setting, and the day is almost over. The streets are deserted. Twilight has ejected you from the premises in order to "clean up the mess". You hope that she hasn't started conducting experiments on the contents of your stomach: You wouldn't be too surprised if she did just that. You have grown used to the repeated, seemingly random tests you have been subjected to during your time here. After she had requested to carry out some more... Intrusive experiments, you'd made it your business to avoid her as much as possible. As you walk down the cobblestone streets, you suddenly become aware of a nagging sensation to look to your right. Whipping your head round, you see a thin alleyway, between two buildings. Curiosity overtakes you, and you slip into the alley. And there, lying on the floor, in the centre of the alleyway, is a small, blue container, roughly the size of a shoebox. Walking over to it, you immediately pick it up. The box appears to be made of some sort of exotic wood: A strange scent wafts upwards from the box. The box doesn't seem to be locked in any way, so you lift the lid. The small, silver hinges move without so much as a squeak. The inside of the box is lined with thick, red velvet. And there, nestled in the soft lining of the box, is a beautifully crafted flintlock pistol. The handle is capped with a sheet of brass, which has been carefully crafted to resemble the facial features of a roaring manticore. The metal barrel is decorated likewise, thick vines engraved into the metal, winding their way around the cylindrical barrel. It shines with a highly polished gleam. Lifting the pistol out of the box with your right hand, you test its weight. Perfect. Looking back at the box, you notice a hand-written message attached to the underside of the lid. In strange, curling letters, the note reads: "This is chaos. Locked, loaded and ready to fire. Only one shot I'm afraid. D." Looking back at the gun, you wonder just who this mysterious "D" person is, and why they would give you such a beautiful weapon. You open the firing pan, and see that it is indeed primed with gunpowder. Suddenly, a voice sounds from behind you, making you jump and drop the box. "Ooooh? What's that!? It's shiny!" What happens next seems to take place in slow motion. An unseen force seems to posses your body, taking control. You have the rather unnerving feeling of helplessness, as if you are separated from reality by a pane of glass. Your body moves unbidden, and you spin around, point the pistol squarely at the chest of the pink pony standing a little way behind you, and pull the trigger. The pistol's lock flicks downward, dragging the flint against a curved piece of metal. The shape of the metal directs the resulting sparks downward, into the firing pan. The gunpowder there ignites, sending flame and smoke billowing in every direction. The explosion carries on, through a small hole in the side of the barrel, igniting the main charge. With a thunderous boom, the main charge propels a small lead ball along and out of the barrel. Smoke and flame issue forth from the mouth of the barrel, as the bullet hurtles onward, into the chest of the intended target. The heavy lead ball impacts the target, tearing a large, gaping hole in the center of her chest. The bullet carries on through the chest cavity, ripping flesh and smashing bone, before coming to a stop as it lodges itself in the vertebra of the spine, somewhere close to the middle of her back. The shot results in an explosion of gore. Blood, bone and flesh fly in every direction, showering you with a spray of hot, red blood. The force of the shot sends the unfortunate recipient toppling backwards, smashing down onto the hard, cobblestone street below. And then control of your body is returned to you. The oppressive force leaves as quickly as it came. Your hand trembles as you lower your arm. The pistol tumbles from your grasp, clattering to the floor. You take a shuddering step forward, and then collapse to your knees beside your victim as your legs give way. Somehow, the shot hasn't killed her outright. Perhaps it would have been better if it had. Her breath comes in short, ragged gasps: The bullet has almost certianly punctured a lung. As you fall to your knees beside her, she turns her head slowly, and looks you in the eyes. Staring into those baby-blue eyes, you see that she is crying. Crystaline tears fall from her face, splashing onto the ground below. And you suddenly realise that you're crying too. Your body shudders as the after-shocks of adrenaline kick in. With a final, ragged breath, she breathes her last, and lies still. Her head flops limply to the floor. And her eyes, so full of life a moment ago, are empty. Lifeless, like shining orbs of polished glass. You raise your hands infront of your face, and see that they are covered in blood. Your clothes are similarly stained. That's when something snaps inside you. An infernal, terrible rage boils up from inside you, and fills you with a terrible anger. With a roar of pain, rage and anguish, you leap to your feet, and sprint away through the empty streets, in the direction of the Everfree forest, The only place ponies fear to tread. You'll make a fine addition to the horrors lurking within.
