Chapter 1: The follower.

It hurt.

Twilight Sparkle woke up, and she had a huge migrane, every single part of her body hurt, but the strange thing about this is that she didn't remember why her body hurt, whatever it was, it really was something special. The unicorn looked at her surroundings, it looked like an empty, small room with a door in front of her, the walls were clearly built brick by brick, and all the bricks were grey, giving the area a very spooky place, on the ceiling was a littlelight that helped her get up and observe the situation she was in with a little more detail.

"Wha-? What happened? Where am I? What is this place? And why am I covered in ketchup?" Asked Twilight to herself, she was covered in ketchup in the majority of her body, or at least that's how her mind was processing it. "Well, time to get out of here, I'm not going to find out what happened just by sitting around and doing nothing." Said Twilight, afterwards, she composed herself and walked through the door.

The little sinner had crossed the line,
now the follower will break her tiny mind.

Twilight found herself in some sort of corridor, it had a bunch of little corners through it, probably leading to some other rooms, but what got the attention of Twilight was the door at the end of the hallway, it had a symbol that said 'exit' just above the door, but it was too dark to see where she was going.

This really didn't comfort Twilight, lucky for her, she still had a little bit of her magic left, and with it, she light her horn, but it took a lot of effort, and it didn't stay on for a long time. Anyway, Twilight started walking towards the exit door, but she did this at a slow pace, after all, the place could give anyone the creeps, the walls were just like the ones of the previous room, but they had a lot of ketchup over them, the ceiling had light bulbs, but they weren't bright at all, the corridor had a weird illumination that just allowed Twilight to see beyond her muzzle, and the worst of all, there was trash everywhere, all sorts of trash, big bags, small papers, and weird decorations of Nightmare night, there were heads and disembodied pony parts everywhere, but they must be fake, right?

When Twilight was starting to trot, she tripped with something, she looked to see what it was, and it was a recording tape, she might as well listen to it and maybe that will help her remember something about this place, right? With care, Twilight pressed the 'play' button on the tape:

"Okay... This is me... Twilight Sparkle... I don't know how much time I've spent here, maybe hours, maybe weeks, I'm starting to think that time doesn't matter here... and I also have a sensation that I've been here before, but I don't know how, everytime he catches me I feel like I die, and everytime I wake up with no memory of what happened... right now I had a flashback of this floor, so I am recording this for myself, if by any case this tape is still here, then I will put it in a place that should get my attention... Anyway, right now I'm on the third floor of the building of the Rich family in Manehattan... Don't ask me why because I don't know... and it seems that I'm not alone, there is this... Weird freak that seems like a really messed up version of Spike, and he keeps catching me and killing me! ... Okay, maybe what I need to do is flash him in the face with the light of my horn, because I've tried everything else, if I get past him I will record something else at the next floor, I hope that someday I get out of here... but I wonder what happened with everypony here..."

Twilight couldn't believe what she just heard, she is not alone? She is in Manehattan? Why is she on the building of the Rich family? Maybe all of this could wait, if she is not alone, then she should have more caution, if she hasn't encountered the 'weird freak' she talked about in the tape, then everything should be fine, ri-.

Then she heard a growl behind her, she turned around and she saw a huge creature ready to attack, Twilight remembered her own advice and she light up her horn, it seemed to work because the creature was starting to back up. During the lasting moments of Twilight's light, she could see the creature in detail, the recording tape seemed to have told the truth, the creature was a bipedal creature, it looked like a dragon and it had Spike's colors, but its spikes were extremely large and pointy, its arms were larger than its legs, even though it was covering its eyes, Twilight could see that the creature had the same reptile eyes as Spike, but they had some kind of shade around them that gave the creature a frightening look, and it also had a really large mouth with lots of teeth, each one was sharp as a knife, one bite out of that thing and you could be dead, also, mentioning the large horns at the sides of its head wouldn't hurt.

Twilight's light began to lose power, and the creature was composing itself, when she saw it, Twilight started to freak out, she had no other idea than a run for it, so she did just that, she started to run as fast as her pony legs could carry her, and the creature followed suit, Twilight turned around and saw that the creature was gaining on her, so she turned around entirely and shot another beam of light to the creature, which worked, the creature covered its eyes and slowed down, the creature was getting ready to jump for it, but when it had composed itself entirely, Twilight was already crossing the exit door.

Twilight sighed at the other side of the door, maybe this wouldn't be easy, that thing could've hurt her, or even killed her. She tried not to think about it, and that's when she noticed the sight in front of her: the door led to some stairs that went up or down, she decided to go down since she wanted to get out of that Celestia-forsaken place.

The way down wasn't long, only a couple of meters down and she saw another door with a photo on the floor, it was a photo of herself and her friends, the photo seemed to have an effect on her, she had another migrane when she saw the photo, and it became worse when she saw Spike, then, she remembered something:

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It was such a sweet day in Ponyville, most ponies were heading home by now, and Twilight was in the Golden Oaks library reading one of her favourite books, everything was fine and quiet until someone entered the library. Judging by the giggling voice that came from downstairs it was Spike. Twilight stopped reading for a minute to greet her friend.

"Hi, Spike, how was your day? Did you have fun with the Cutie Mark Crusaders?" Asked Twilight, happily.

"Yes, Twilight, and you won't believe what happened! We were trying to get their cutie marks by painting me, and suddenly, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon showed up, they wanted to harm the crusaders, but I defended them like a brave dragon would!" Said Spike, proudly.

"What? What happened? Is everypony alright?" Asked Twilight, worried for the CMC, and slightly less worried by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

"Oh, of course, Twilight, everypony is alright, I just blew a little flame that burnt Tiara's mane, nopony was really hurt, but I don't want anything to happen to my best friends in Ponyville, they mean a lot to me, specially because they are closer to my age and they love me for who I am, not for how I look." Replied Spike in an unamused tone at first, but his tone became soft in that last part, he really cared for them.

"You know, even if nopony got hurt, it's still dangerous to become their enemy, they have some influences around ponies." Replied Twilight.

"And what was I supposed to do? Just sit and watch them harm my new possible crushes?" Spike blurted out before he realised what he just said, when he did, he covered his mouth with both of his claws.

"Wait, did I hear what I think I heard?" Asked Twilight in a curious tone.

Spike just sighed and decided to trust Twilight with his most recent secret. "W-well yeah, one day I was walking outside the Boutique and I heard Rarity talking and kissing her coltfriend, after that, I understood that my dreams were just too good to become real, so I decided to start searching fillies of my age, and the CMC got everything: Scootaloo is the most awesome of them, I bet she could be Equestria's most talented scooter, Sweetie Belle is the prettiest of them and she could be Equestria's most epic singer, and Apple Bloom is the cuter one, besides, she understands me like nopony else, after all, we are hard working ponies... er... dragons... whatever, and she could be Equestria's most talented carpenter or forging pony." Spike said, imagining the fillies in their adult ages, doing their things in the future.

"Okay, Spike, now, returning to the matter, did Diamond or Silver say anything after the incident?" Said Twilight, she wanted to change the subject they were getting into because she knew that there would be a point where Spike wouldn't be comfortable talking about this.

"Oh, yeah, they said something about getting revenge on me and on them, whatever she meant by that; but I am a little bit worried, she was more angry than usual, scarier, more assertive, she gave more fear than ever before, even Silver Spoon was scared of her, I don't know what's gotten into her." Said Spike, remembering the incident with the spoiled brat.

"Well, I suggest that you stay safe, who knows what she'll do?" Said Twilight, she knew that Diamond Tiara wasn't the type of pony that was reasonable, maybe Diamond Tiara could end up doing something she'll regret.

"Yes, Twilight, I will be safe, now, can I go to bed now? I'm really tired." Said Spike with a yawn after his sentence.

"Ugh, fine, just take care of yourself tomorrow, Spike, you're more important to me than you'd think." Said Twilight before retuning her gaze at her book.

"Don't worry Twi, I will, I will, see ya tomorrow!" And with that, Spike went to his basket to sleep.

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Author's Note

Well, it seems that Twilight is really in for it now.

You still have time before continuing, the next chapters will be A LOT darker than this one, please proceed with caution.
Anyway, the next chapters will be released a lot later this month, but they'll be released all at a time, maybe the story will have 3 or 4 chapters, and each one will give you a memory from Twilight's mind. What did she do to end up in this place? And what is that thing?

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter, I'll see ya in the next ones! Bye!