Three days had passed after Cursed, Shadow and Bean had found and confronted Lapis. After Shadow putting a temporary magic lock the three had returned to Shadows’ home. Cursed requested that he stay over due to not feeling safe in his own home anymore, which Shadow accepted with some hesitation. Over the days Bean had spent his time sleeping and recovering from the injures that he earned as well as the plan the odd prank or two on Cursed, half of them involving whoopee cushions. Shadow spent most of the time working on healing Beans’ wounds as well as disappearing from time to time to deal with her bleeding eyes, which happened at least once each day and with increasing intensity. Cursed had spent most of his time conversing to Emerald telepathically about what had happened during their fight with Lapis and debating if it was King Sombra that had helped him gain access to the Amulets power or something else.
“Are you sure that’s right, you said yourself that there was something stopping you from obtaining all the magic inside, so how could he do it?
“It’s possible that the device that he was given helped unlock that power for him, as well as removing me from the amulet,”
“That makes some sense, I think. That reminds me, why didn’t you have a physical form when you were removed from the amulet?”
“My form was converted to magic itself after being in the amulet for so long, remember,”
“Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. After what happened I don’t think I’ll put you back into the... oh crap!”
“What’s wrong?”
“We left the box at Lapis place, its got my family records in it he could use it to find them. We have to get it back!” Cursed jumped up only to crash into Shadow, causing her to stumble backwards. She was able to keep on her hooves and shake off the pain caused as she looked towards Cursed with a flash of anger, only to see him on the floor. She quickly trotted over to him and proceeded to help him before walking past and towards the bubbling cauldron behind him.
“Next time watch where you’re going before you move, what were you doing anyway?” Shadow asked, taking a wooden spoon and removing some of its light red liquid before pouring it into a potion. She then proceeded towards Bean who was sleeping under one of shelves of potions. She went into his bag that was placed beside him and removed a flask which she proceeded to pour some of the potion inside. She turns back to Cursed who had been watching her every move, confused at her actions.
“Don’t worry about this; it’s just something he needs to continue living. Now I ask again, why were you in a rush?” whispered Shadow.
“Oh right, I left the valuables that Lapis stole form me at his place, I need to go get them back!” replied back Cursed. He didn’t whisper however which caused Bean to wake up and jump up from his sleeping place. Bean had forgotten that he was under a shelf unit as crashed into it, causing all the potions on to fall and break between him and Shadow. She looks at Bean with disappointment before moving towards her bookshelf.
“Well I would’ve suggested that we go as a group”-Shadow recovered a book from the shelf-“But thanks to Bean it looks as if we will have other plans.” She began to recite the inscriptions on the book as the world in front of her started to become warped. Cursed looked in awe as a different world could be seen slowly forming from where the distorted reality was.
“Wait a sec, why is there a portal this time, last time you sent bill to another dimension he fell into himself,” Bean asked Shadow. He landed down next to her as they watched the portal fully take up the area of the warped reality, only to notice that cursed was staring towards the portal in disbelief.
“So you haven’t seen anything like this before?” asked bean. Cursed looked towards him and shock his head. Bean acknowledges this before feeling a sudden weight being put on his back. He turns to see that Shadow had put his bag on his back as well as having her own on her back.
“I’ve already packed it for you; now let’s go get the stuff you wasted” -Shadow then pushed Bean into the portal before he could object-“and Cursed, good luck getting your stuff back. If I remember he should be free from my seal but it has an after effect where he can’t use his magic for a few days, he’s going nowhere.” Shadow then jumped into the portal as it began to close behind her. The room went quite as Cursed continued to stare at the space where the portal was.
“So, are we going then?” Cursed jumped out of his fur from Emeralds’ sudden voice before calming down. After this he went to the end of the room and collected his bag that was left their and placed it over his back. He then moved the Alicorn amulet into it and used his magic to teleport away.
Cursed reappeared in the dark, humid hallway outside of where they meet Lapis. He began to use his magic to light up the area around him as he finds that there was now a wooden table in front of the entrance of the room. Upon this table were around twenty similar looking orange frosted cupcakes. Cursed proceeded towards them with caution, confused on their existence. When he got to the table he found a note behind the cupcakes. Cursed lifted the note and begins to read it inside his head.
“Hey Cursed, I would just like to say sorry for what I did to you and your friends. These cakes are my attempt to apologise to you and your friends, enjoy from Lapis. You think he means it?" Cursed asked Emerald as he continued to treat the cakes with concern.
“Lapis isn’t one to poison his enemies; he thinks that it’s for the weak only. Then again the last time he tried to bake something he gave the whole team food poisoning,” Emerald laughed at the thought. Cursed proceeded to lift one up and take a bite into the cake. Without a seconded thought he spat it out and threw the cake onto the floor, exploding on contact.
“What the fuck!?” Cursed voice booms across the entire the room.
“What’s wrong?" asked Emerald.
“The cake tasted horrible, it had this metal like flavour and felt like flesh, and the frosting was like fur, what the hell is going on?” inquired Cursed as he made his way to where he threw the cupcake. Cursed looked over what was left of it and what he saw both shocked and confused him. What was left of the outer layer looked and felt like what you would find in a normally cupcake, but the rest wasn’t. The inside looked and felt like rotting flesh with blood and maggots dripping out of it. Cursed began to gag at the sight of it before backing away from the remains of the cake.
“Ok, this isn’t normal. Is this what you meant by giving you food poisoning?” Cursed asked.
“Of course not, this doesn’t seem right. I think we should ask him what is wrong with them,” suggested Emerald.
“you mean me ask him,” Cursed replied.
“This isn’t the time for jokes!”
“Right sorry,” Cursed said as he made his way round the table and towards the door. He pushed it open with his hoof as he entered the room. Like the hallway it was dark and humid but much more spacious. He started to move forward, the lights not turning on as he made his way to the other end of the room. Halfway across the room, Cursed came across a trail of a cold, dark red liquid. On closer inspection he found it to be more blood that leads into the darkness ahead of him. Worried on what he may find Cursed gulped and began to follow the trail.
Not long after he came to the end of the trail to find Lapis, or what had remained of him. His corpse lay upon a wooden table drenched with blood, each of his hooves trapped under restraints that stretch his body from corner to corner. The taste of blood, vomit and rot filled the air around him. Lapis’ organs had been removed forcefully, leaving only a bleeding, rotting, vacant corpse behind. What remained of his insides were nests of feasting maggots tearing away at the flesh with each and every passing second. His head wasn’t much better. The horn had been violently removed, revealing the grey matter inside his skull attempting to leave, but to no avail. The eyes were missing, leaving behind only the sockets that housed them, each with dried blood trailing down the face. The muzzle was wide open in terror, maggots feasting at the edges as dried blood and vomit could be seen leading down the checks and onto the table.
Cursed felt as if it was him on the table, the maggots eating away his skin, slowly and without thought. This caused him to vomit besides himself, after which he moved towards the corpse with a protective shield around him to keep the smell out. He looked in disbelief at the table before spotting a cardboard box underneath. Afraid that it would contain Lapis’ organs Cursed moved closer to it with caution, making sure that his shield bubble was still up. He lifted the box up using his magic and slowly opened it to find that it contained the objects that he was there for, as well as a note that was written in dried blood. Cursed put the box down, lifted the note and began to read it.
“Dear Cursed, I see you found my colleagues handiwork, what you think?” said Cursed out load in an attempt to drown out the crunching and slimy sound of the maggots. He placed the note down next to the box as he looked back at the corpse with fear and confusion.
“Who would do this, why would they do this?” Cursed asked Emerald.
“I don’t know but I think that we should return to your friends, they may be in danger,” replied Emerald. Cursed nodded before transferring the contents of the box as well as the note into his bag and teleported back to Shadows hut.
Upon returning Cursed looked up to see Shadow standing alone next to where the portal was created. He was about to inform her of what happened before stopping in his tracks. What he believed to be Shadow was in fact a changeling. It had a dark blue like skin instead of the normal black as well as black with red striped changeling tail and mane. The creature turned to reveal it applying a sort of dark blue potion to its eyes, which were black with dim red pupils in the centre. The changeling dropped the potion in shock as Cursed saw that one of its eyes was bleeding.
“Errrrrrr.....this isn’t what it looks like!?” said the changeling in surprise. It rushed towards a shelving unit and retrieved another potion and tried to apply it to its other eye hastily.
“Shadow, is that you?” Cursed questioned the changeling. The creature finished applying the potion to its eye as then wiped the blood away from under its eye. After doing this it began to change form and became Shadow Pro.
“So, I’m guessing that you want me to answer some questions?” Shadow asked Cursed.
“What do you think!?” Cursed replied angrily. Shadow let out a sigh as she moved towards her bookshelf and removed a book. She read out the passage as a portal opened up. An angry and annoyed Bean jumped out from it, his fur covered with dirt and branches.
“Why did you leave me alone in there, is your bleeding eye more important they anything else!?” Bean shouted at Shadow. She ignored him and instead moved into another room, which she then proceeded to invite both Bean and Cursed. They entered to find a wooden round table with multiple chairs round it. The room itself didn’t look much different to the décor of the rest of the home as Shadow proceeded to sit in one of the chairs. She then turned back into her changeling form, which caused Bean to jump back in surprise. Cursed grabbed him and moved him back into the room.
“I think you two should have a seat, I have some explaining to do,” Shadow pointed towards the other seats as Bean and Cursed moved towards them with caution, unsure if they could still trust her.
Author's Note
Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the first chapter. as you can tell I have taken a darker turn in this sequel and I hope it hasn't thrown you off. The thing is I am planning on rebooting the first story after this one has been completed, so I hope your all ready for that.
Other then that this has been CursedFate2000 wishing you a great day.
Thought-out the room, a cold chill could be felt. The only sound was the tapping of Curseds’ hoof on the wooden table. He watched Shadow from a distance with hateful eyes. He kept his distance from the changeling, afraid that it could attack him. Shadow ignored him and instead focused on a single splitter though the holes on her hooves. Her mind raced with ways to explain herself to both Bean and Cursed. Bean himself sat impatiently between both of them, waiting in the silence for somepony to say something.
“Ok this is boring”- Bean lifts himself up onto the table, catching the attention of the Shadow-“will somepony explain to me what is going on here!?” shouted Bean. He turned from Shadow to Cursed and back again, waiting for a response. Shadow was about to speak up before Cursed responded.
“She’s a changeling, an unreformed one at that. They drain a living creature of an energy called love and weaken it as a result. This can be any type of love, a love for a family member, a love for a friend or even a partner. There have even been reports that this draining can kill a pony,” replied Cursed. He looked up to see Bean staring back at him, fear in his eyes as he slowly turned round to Shadow while moving backwards across the table towards Cursed. Once he got the edge he stepped down and moved quickly behind him, his hooves shivering with fear. Shadow looked across the table towards the quivering Bean. She watched him duck behind Cursed and scoffed as he did so.
“What are you scared for. Your whole existence was just so I could feed off your love and grow in power. Did you know that you weren’t my first attempt at making an Alicorn? Or any living being in fact,” Shadow said smirking. She watched Beans’ face grow in fear before being interrupted by Cursed.
“Look here Shadow, if that’s your actual name, if you only made Bean here to feed on him then what were those years of friendship that we had before. Were they just for your feeding!?” Cursed slammed his hooves down, the table in front of him almost break upon contact. His voice was filled with rage as Shadows’ smirk faded away. She stood up from here seat as she made her way towards the two. Bean continued to scoot behind Cursed as he moved from his chair and stood in front of him. Shadow stopped her advance halfway across the room as she sees Cursed shift into an attack stance.
“You will tell me the answer now!” shouted Cursed.
“I will tell you the answer, if you let me get a book from the other room,” Shadow replied back. Cursed could tell that she was being serious and let here pass. As she moved towards the door behind them Cursed continued to move Bean back, not letting down his stance as he watched her leave the room.
It took Shadow eighteen minutes to return to the room to find that both Cursed and Bean had moved to the other side where she was last sat at. Cursed was no longer in an attack stance and Bean had become calmer but was still nervous. She pushed the door fully open to revel that she was carrying a half burnt book under one of her red bug wings. The book had a dark blue cover to it with a red looking pentagram symbol at the centre of it. The spine was a leathery brown and had a note permentaly attached on it. Cursed couldn’t read it from where he was as she made her way towards the chair which he and Bean were originally at. She sat at the table as she placed the book on top of where cursed had slammed his hooves down earlier.
“Have you ever heard of a birth defect known as BL?” Shadow asked. The two ponies looked at each other with confusion, they never have heard of BL before.
“Oh right, you’re not changelings. BL stands for Blood Love, not very creative I know. BL is a defect which I suffer from. It stops a changeling from being able to stay within their changed form for an hour and if this is ignored then the changeling starts to lose blood, starting from their eyes. If they don’t change back then it will just keep getting worse. There was once a case where a changeling refused to change from its changed form and as a result blood began to pour from his skin, later dying of extreme blood loss. After that it was discovered that the defect also stops any changeling from passing on some of the love they collected to queen Chrysalis. So because of this all those with the defect were ether expelled from the hive, or killed.
“Back then I were very young, and were let out into the wild to fend for myself. I learnt the hard way about my condition and what I was. I vowed that I would find a way to cure myself and all those that were afflicted with this defect, and I wouldn’t let anything get in my way. I spent almost fifthteen years searching for an answer, surviving by absorbing the love of any passing pony and making sure that they wouldn’t tell others about my existence. One day I came across Ponyville, on the day that the beast Tirek attacked. I watched from a distance, disguised as my last meal as I saw Twilights tree library. I had heard about it around town and went to investigate, looking for a book that could help find a cure. I came across this one as the library blew up.” Shadow pushed the book across the table, Cursed stopping it as it reached him and Bean. He lifted it up using his magic as he looked around the outside of the book.
The book itself, at a closer glace, looked old and half burnt away at an angle. Both sides of the book had a dark red pentagram etched onto it, the front cover intact while the back was half gone. The colour was dark blue like before, but it had a fur like feel to it, some of it being scorched away. The spine was completely fine, the material being made of brown leather with a note sowed in the middle of the spine. The note was yellow with a posh looking style of handwriting written on to it. The note said the following:
“This book is the property of Twilight Sparkle
It is not too be removed or opened unless given permission
If found please return”
Cursed placed the book down on its front cover, making sure that the burnt side was facing upwards evenly.
“So what does this book have to do with anything?” Cursed asked. Bean looked over the book with concern and fright, afraid of what he might find in it. He attempted to reach over to it only to be stopped by Cursed.
“I was getting to that. After the library was attacked and blown up I had barely escaped threw one of the windows. I used the book as cover as the library exploded it protecting me form any serious injury, but in the process it suffered damage. I was about to check if there was anything else that survived when my eyes began to bleed and as such I had to change back to my real form and retreat into this forest, this very location. Thankfully all the ponies I passed were weakened and had this hazy look in their eyes, which meant that as I passed those many had thought I was an illusion. Once I got to this location I had placed the book down carefully and began looked though its contents, making sure that I didn’t damage it any further then it already was. Around fifty pages in I found something mentioning my defect.” Shadow nodded towards Cursed to open the book. He acknowledges this and proceeds to carefully use his magic to open it.
Soon after he came across a page containing a half burnt image of a changeling with blood pouring from its body with text underneath it. The text talked about both Blood Love and how to prevent its effects and had some information about curing it, but most of this had been erased by the explosion. Cursed and Bean both read over the text and saw that it contained very disturbing ingredients on how to prevent the effects of Blood Love. The ingredients were as follows:
·2 fresh corpses of love drained ponies
·4 litres of pure Alicorn blood
·A pair of eyeballs plucked from a living breeze
·The wing of a hippogriff
After these ingredients were added it would create enough potion to last fifty servings. The potion was to be applied on the eyes either before or after they began to bleed and it would help prevent the defect for a week. Both of them looked over the text with shock. Bean began to feel vomit crawl though his throat while Cursed looked up towards Shadow.
“How did you get this stuff, it seems a bit difficult,” Cursed inquired.
“It wasn’t easy, took me a few months but I was able to collect it all in the end, and then some,” replied Shadow, “Anyway, after discovering this I made it my mission to collect the ingredients. The problem however was trying to blend in the community as well as feed while I gathered them. As you can see I used the colour of the book as well as its pentagram as part of my disguise. The whole bat-pony thing was just something I used to get close to Princess Luna and I stuck with it afterwards. As for food that’s where you are your friends came in. It was all I regarded you guys as, for a little while that is. As I was using you as both food and to blend in to the town I soon learnt about your lives and grew attached to you as friends. Overtime I felt bad, slightly, about what I was doing and decided to figure out how to create an infinite source of love. After MANY attempts I soon created Bean here, and that’s the end of it.”
Cursed looked to Bean to see his reaction, and of course it was fear. He looked back to Shadow who was calm and composed, as if nothing can anger her. Cursed closed the book and passed it back to her, which she accepted back with no trouble and then lifted herself out of her chair as she made her way out of the room. Cursed then felt a tap on his neck as he turns to see his worried friend.
“You don’t think that she’s going to drain me to death, do you?” Bean asked. Cursed didn’t reply, he wasn’t sure if she would kill him and make another one.
“I don’t think she will, remember that stuff she was giving him earlier?” asked Emerald. Once again his voice startled Cursed but he didn’t jump up out of his fur, more like shook on the spot.
“Yeah I remember, maybe she drains him of his love before he sleeps and then heals him when he sleeps, or when he drinks from that flask of his,” replied Cursed. He was about to explain to Bean that he was going to be ok before Shadow burst into the room.
“Cursed, move away from Bean, now!” Her voice startled him more than Emerald before refusing to comply with her. He saw that she was carrying a blacked potion with traces of lights inside of it, diming in and out of sight, in one of her wings.
“Why should I move, what are you going to do to him with that?” Cursed asked. He moved in front of Bean and stood into an attacking like pose. Shadow started to move towards him and Bean as he stood still.
“Just move now, unless you want to get hurt too,” Shadow said calmly. Cursed refused to her demand and ordered Bean to stand back. She sighed and left the room for a couple seconds before retuning with a greenish yellow potion in her other wing.
“Move or you’ll get hurt,” She said calmly again. Once more he refused to move, causing Shadow to sigh again as she threw the new potions contents into Cursed, who at first flinched when it hit him. It quickly sunk into his fur and skin as his body began to feel limb and weak. Before he knew it he crashed onto the floor with minimal consciousness. He watched a blurry Changeling Shadow move towards Bean, who was backing away with fear before lifting off and trying to head to the door. When he came to it he discovered that it was locked as Shadow came up to him and transformed into a bear. She then grabbed him and held him down on the floor as she opened his muzzle and forced him to drink the potion. She turned back into her changeling form and watched as he collapsed onto the floor, screaming and holding his head before suddenly silencing. Cursed finally lost all consciousness as he passed out.
Four hours later Cursed could hear a voice in his head.
“Hey Cursed, wake up. Shadow wants you,” said Emerald. Cursed began to stand up as he found himself back in the main room on top of a mattress. He looked round for Bean to find that he was sleeping soundly in his bed, which was moved to a safer spot as to not cause any more damage to Shadows shelves. As soon as he saw him he heard a whispering voice from across the room.
“You might want to be a little quiet, Beans sleeping. Sorry for doing that to you but I had to erase Beans memory and replace it with a fake one. He now doesn’t know that I’m a changeling and I’ll like it to stay that way,” Shadow said quietly. She then came towards him with his amulet under her wing. She was in her bat pony form as Cursed retrieved back his amulet slowly from her. He began to search for his bag, which he found lying next to the centre cauldron, and moved towards it to put the amulet back inside.
“What were you doing with my amulet?” Cursed asked. Shadow didn’t respond to him and instead moved towards him to reach for the centre cauldron. She then removed some of the same potion formula that she had earlier that day and, unlike last time, poured the formula gently over Beans’ head as to not wake him. Until now Cursed hadn’t noticed that Beans’ colours were muted as he began to lighten back up.
“Before you ask, yes I did drain some love from him. I also trust you that you won’t tell Bean about my secret, unless you want to lose your memory too,” Shadow said with a sinister tone. Cursed acknowledges this as he lifted his bag over his back, moving towards the exit of the hut before being stopped by Shadow.
“Where do you think you’re going?” She asked.
“I’m off to investigate who killed Lapis,” replied Cursed. He turned to Shadow to find her looking at him with confusion.
“Wait, did I not tell you he’s dead!?” Cursed said surprised. Before he knew it Shadow began to rush around the room at high speeds, gathering many items and viles and putting them all into her bag before getting out a red chalk from one of the shelves. She ushered Cursed out of the house as she closed the door before them and applied a strange looking mark onto the door.
“Ok, no-pony will be able to leave or enter my home. Can you teleport us straight to Lapis’ place?” She asked. He nodded back, which she acknowledges as she transformed back into her changeling form, “Let’s get going then.” She moved towards Cursed, which he accepted with unease as he charged up his magic, teleporting them both to Lapis’ place.