The Pink Out of Space

The Pink Out of Space

4L.R. (Luna’s Return) 5th of the 11th Month 7:12 AM

< > Translated from Sheba Dialect

For the record, me name be Arcanum Folklore. I be the founder of the Occult Science Service, and, at the time, Knight of the Realm by decree of Princess Luna and the ghosts of the Ironclad Order. I was on my third day of tracking the cunt from the ‘blasted heath’ in north Mareachusetts to bloody Ponyville just south of Canterlot. That day I tracked what was known as the ‘She-Devil of Arkham’ to the outskirts of northeastern Ponyville where her gingerbread house materialized last...

That day was only partially cloudy, the wind picking up speed. And the temperature was chilling up to around thirteen degrees Celsius. The winds were blowing to the southeast into the Everfree, the ecological and magical freak show of the North Equestrian continent. Its trees are a strange amalgamation of tropical and northern fauna, ancient and shifting, the ether within it unstable, wild and unpredictable. The forest itself is filled with the remaining populations of the chimeric beasts created by mad sorcerers from around the world from zebra, Xing, and unicorn alike. All somehow drawn to it for reasons unknown.

Compasses don’t work within the maw of its borders. A place that no one can tame, that be the Everfree.

And one of my oldest friends lived in it, funny how the world works.

I saw the place; it gave the sort of wild ether one can only dream of, haven’t felt anything like it back then except for my odyssey back home from Zebrica.

I entered and followed the smoky magical trail she left behind; she knew that I was coming, of course she always knew. She wouldn’t be a magic practitioner on my par if she didn’t know that I was coming.

I could already feel the manticores and the bloody timberwolves gathering around me, vigilant, but unsure. They could smell the blood I’d shed; they were more concerned that another predator is in their territory than me being dinner. They were scared, and they ought to have been. I had killed bigger, and I could make short work of them if I hadn’t had more dangerous prey to deal with. Manticore pelt and timberwolf wood, while good, expensive commodities are not the sort of thing that I should be concerned with. I wasn’t a mercenary hunter anymore, I no longer needed to sell parts of the monsters I’d killed for extra earnings, I had a decent salary.

I eventually reached a Treegrowth home in a non-disclosed location in the Everfree. Treegrowth homes are created by sorcerers from ancient trees that are susceptible to be shaped by ethereal forces. Structures tend to grow with the tree so while the sorcerer is living in it, it still lives as its own living being. As such I noticed the dozens upon dozens of fermenting hoofmade potions hanging from the branches. And the totem guardians looking at me incredulously.

I noticed that there was no light inside; even so, the door opened and I trotted in without second thought. Then all thirteen candles in the surrounding area of the interior lit up in an ethereal green. And a brown cloaked figure sat next to a an iron cauldron. The entire area had shelves with worn down texts and all sorts of herbs and pickled wild life.

The figure revealed itself to be the Shiba Kingdom Shaman, Zecora, also known one time as Lady Sight. Her sapphire eyes, gray coat, and unique striped pattern were unmistakable. Though she now carried golden enchanted rings on her neck and golden earrings, things she didn’t have when I last saw her. And she hadn’t aged a day to boot.

<”You felt the abomination as well, did you not?”>

She looked at me, worried; she tried to see this thing for what it really was, it probably wasn’t too keen on the eyes.

<”Not only felt, but I saw the thing’s birth!”>

She narrowed her eyes at me, almost scrutinizing my soul. <”And you let it escape your sword!?”>

I decided to stop beating around the bush.

“It looked like a mirror pool copy of the element of laughter, Pinkamena Diane Pie, and from what I have heard of that mare’s unique abilities, I think that you can assert that it wasn’t within my power to stop her leaving the place from whence she came.”

She then looked at her cauldron, probably thinking on my next words.

“It escaped your grasp and it has struck terror through the land. But knowing you, you intend to end it at last.” She said that, and she was right. I had no intention on letting this continue.

I needed another experienced magic user for this, so I went with my pitch.

“Zecora, I have a plan, and it’s going to need a sorceress of your caliber to pull it off, though I will warn you now that considering what I have to work with, you will not like a part of it.”

She looked at me with those angry and worried eyes; she knew what I meant when I brought those terms, and she probably needed an explanation.

“You lure death to you, Lore, what you face is of no known race!”

I got closer and told her, “Ye are more correct than you know.”

So I told Zecora what happened in detail. I think it's best ye lot listened to it as well.
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Blasted Heath, Mareachusetts

I was taking samples from the grayed soil in the ‘blasted heath’, noticing glowing greenish particulate in the air that seemed to move in an odd and almost uniform pattern. The air almost glowed in an unidentifiable color that I couldn’t really describe.

I was staying in an abandoned house within the area with three others: Powder, Twitch, and Nail. Three combat ponynnel of the O.S.S. that I brought as accordance to protocol, all squads for missions are of four. No exceptions.

Some twenty meters to the southeast I noticed what appeared to be a pink, blue eyed mare, with a puffy––almost cotton candy looking––mane in the distance. She materialized a hookah from thin air and quickly filled it with the gray ashen dirt and some of the green particulate floating around. I began to gallop in her direction and she had already lighted it, and then took a massive hit from the hookah whose hashish was the alien soil of the ‘blasted heath’.

I stopped trying to get near her when I noticed what she had just done. She then began to vibrate rapidly, and before I could blink she jumped more than a hundred meters in the air until she fell through the roof of the abandoned house we were staying at.

I galloped back as fast as my legs could take me, and I began hearing submachine gun and pistol fire from the earthens Powder and Nail, and an ether blast or two that probably came from the ‘Range’ unicorn Twitch. I heard the screams and the ripping of flesh.

Then I arrived, and I was almost too afraid to open the door just based on the silence. But nonetheless I bucked the door open, and I spotted what looked like Twitch’s salmon pink body wearing his green fatigue uniform without his head; it looked like it was literally bitten off, and the blood afterwards geysered out of his body as it fell to the ground, leaving splatter on the ceiling, wall, and the wooden floor.

I quickly made my way to the second floor.

Nail, the jet-black earthen, had been ripped in half, still wearing his uniform. His upper body hanging by his entrails from the ceiling of what I could only guess was a guest bedroom, now covered in blood and other secretions, his pistol right under him.

And finally Powder, whose Tinker submachine gun had been impaled through his uniformed torso in the hallway, and his head literally shoved up the arse of Nail’s bottom half.

I hyperventilated for a while, but then I got to getting their tags. And I began tracking her down.

“Son of a bitch.”
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Zecora’s Treegrowth, Everfree

“I hope that explains what we are dealing with. I already have the necessary things to prepare here. I just need your help for the spell.”

Zecora trotted slowly to a case on the far right table and took from it a Four Barrelled Shiba Runed Rifle.

<”Shall we begin then?”>

And we began, with a plan built from what I learned of the witch as I analyzed the various remains of victims, and the tales of those that have heard her maniacal butchering of their neighbors and friends. From town to town, she killed, feasted, and left within the day. But now, I had her where I want her, and I no longer cared for her to be carted-off to face trial. She would die that day; I was making bloody sure of that.

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