The Jaws that Bite, The Claws that Catch
“And then, when she opened the lid on the coffin, the corpse of her beloved...was nowhere to be found!”
Applebloom and Scootaloo yawned, their eyelids drooping. Scootaloo went right back to staring into the campfire, decisively more interested in watching her marshmallow toast over the heat.
Sweetie Bell rolled her eyes. “Give me a break, girls. I spent the last two days coming up with that one!”
“Don’t make it any less borin’,” said Applebloom. She removed her own marshmallow-covered stick from the fire and stuck the tip in her mouth, ripping away one of the gooey morsels.
“But I just was getting to the good part! And there was gonna be a scene where Constance’s lover is actually the gravedigger and that her step-father was—” Sweetie Bell paused, having realized that both of her friends had stopped paying attention. She threw her forelegs in the air, then slumped back against the log behind her. “Fine.”
“When we said we wanted a scary story we didn’t mean your fanfiction,” said Scootaloo.
“I don’t see either of you two coming up with anything!” Sweetie protested, pouting softly.
“Duh! That’s why we asked you.”
Sweetie glanced at the other Crusader. “Applebloom? You’ve gone on a lot of camping trips with your folks, right?”
Applebloom swallowed the last of her marshmallow and tossed the stick over her back. “Hmm...now that you mention it...” she said, rubbing her chin. “There is...one scary story I know.”
“Great! Come on, tell us!” Sweetie Bell clapped her hooves.
“Does it involve shipping your brother with somepony else in town again?” asked Scootaloo.
“No,” said Applebloom, calmly. A fiendish smile began twisting her lips. “It’s much terrifying...”
“Oh... So you’re shipping him with Sweetie’s OC then?”
Sweetie’s stare was so sharp it could cut diamonds. Applebloom ignored them for the moment as she dragged her log in front of the fire, then stood on top of it. The surrounding night air cast all but her face in a foreboding shadow. She mustered her deepest, most sinister voice.
“On a night, much like this one, a little colt bravely ventured into the deepest, darkest part of the Everfree Forest...” Applebloom’s witch-like voice rattled gutturally in her throat. “A monster was terrorizing the countryside, much like this one, and a bounty had been placed on its head. It was so vile, so terrifying, and so repulsive they say that anypony who even dared to try an’ describe what it looked like would instantly keel over and die.”
“Reminds me of Rarity when she gets up in the morning...” murmured Sweetie Bell, already feeling a cold chill crawl up her back. Scootaloo shrugged, then dug a hoof into her bag of marshmallows.
“With a sword at his side, the colt began to hunt the beast, and he wasn’t leavin’ without its head. He came across a wise old mare, who told him that the only way to lure the monster out was by callin’ its name. She gave it to ‘im, then sent him on his way, but when he got deeper into the forest, he forgot what she told him, so instead he just started yellin’ whatever name he could think of...Tatzlebrock...Yabblesnop...Babblegawk...”
“A whatzawock?” said Scootaloo through a mouthful of mallow.
“Slurplepop, Jacklehop, Garglegop...” Applebloom continued.
“W-Well, which is it?!” Sweetie squeaked. She peered over her shoulder into the surrounding woods. A thin wisp of a shadow seemed to glare at her, then dart away. She yelped, then immediately grabbed on to her hind legs, clinging to them for dear life.
“But then, the wind began to howl, and then the moon turned blood red! That’s when he heard it creepin’ up behind him...”
Sweetie Bell froze. Scootaloo froze. The marshmallows she held trickled from her hoof onto the ground.
Now I got ‘em... thought Applebloom, her smirk widening. Time to finish them off.
A breeze blew through Applebloom’s hair as the world around her seemed to cloister itself in darkness.
“The colt raised his sword, and then...SNAP!” She screamed, fiercely snapping her forehooves together. “The monster bit his head clean off!”
Neither filly reacted to the way she thrust herself forward, baring teeth. They just stared at her, and she stared back. Tough crowd.
Applebloom shrugged. “Welp, I give up.”
A stringy glob of some mysterious goo dribbled down onto Applebloom’s nose.
“Eugh, yuck!” Applebloom reeled, scraping the goo off with her hoof. “What is this stuff? It smells like Ol’ Bessy’s pen!”
A hot, moist breath floated down on her from above, accompanied by a sinister, feral sound. It was a hiss, a growl, and a tormented groan of hunger; all at once. The color drained from Applebloom’s face as she slowly looked above her.
What met her mortified gaze was nothing short of an otherworldly abomination of fang, tooth, and claw. Saliva dripped from its open mouth and onto her fur. It reared up and let out a harrowing roar.
The three fillies screamed and tore away from the campfire. They darted into the woods as the thing gave chase. They managed to stick together while darting beneath branches and leaping over bushes, but the beast was relentless in its pursuit, leaping clear over every obstacle. The three cut left, barreling toward what looked like a clearing, but the moment they cut through the treeline they were forced to a stop.
The high wall of a plateau lay right in front of them.
“There’s no way out...” said Sweetie Belle, out of breath.
A crash came from behind them, followed by another ravenous howl. The party screamed and planted their backs against the wall, just in time for the monster to come leaping out of the thicket. It towered over them like a dragon, its claws clicking, and its jaws parted wide.
“It’s... It’s—!” stammered Scootaloo.
“The Jubberflock!” cried Sweetie Bell.
“The Wickersock!” screamed Applebloom.
“The Chickenpox!” yelled Scootaloo.
The monster snarled, much louder than before. The girls all clung to one another, screaming their last in the face of certain doom.
The monster’s eyes glowed with an intense hatred. It clenched its fists, shaking with rage. It let out another fiendish snarl, but rather than rend the fillies limb from limb, it elected to suddenly speak instead.
“No, no, no, no, NO!” The monster ranted, shrilly, stomping its feet in a veritable tantrum. “You stupid, stupid mortals can just never get it right, can you?!”
The fillies blinked. “What?” they said in unison, staring at the monster.
“My name!” It roared.
“We... don’t know your name, Mister Monster,” said Applebloom, shivering in fear.
“W-What?!” It roared again, dumbfounded. The air seemed to quake with the force of its voice. “It is simplicity itself! You almost got it correctly. Almost!”
“No, we really—”
“Say it again, and do it right this time! Or else!” The monster demanded, flashing its claws.
The fillies nervously glanced at one another, then started to mumble, each of their own vague interpretations slowly mutilated as they talked over one another. They kept mumbling, waiting for the monster to say something, but instead it just stood there, its hands on what were probably its hips.
Eventually, the monster groaned, giving up.
“It’s Bramblecock, you morons! Justinian Flumpernickle Bramblecock the Third!” it shouted. “I’ve been living in this forest for the past three-thousand years, and do you mean to tell me that none of you mortals can be bothered to remember such an elegant moniker? It just makes me so angry when I hear it pronounced incorrectly, and don’t think I can’t hear you either!” It pointed to what were probably its ears.
Just then, it noticed that the three fillies were giggling.
“What’s so funny?” it asked, flatly.
“N-Nothin’, nothin’!” said Applebloom, stifling her laughter quickly.
“It had better not be my name!”
Scootaloo’s cheeks ballooned, only a hair’s breadth away from bursting with laughter. Sweetie Bell slammed a hoof over her mouth, giving her biggest, most innocent smile. One could almost hear a faint ‘squeak’ of a dreadful disaster averted.
Applebloom swallowed a lump in her throat. “Beg pardon, Mister—nch—Bramblecock, but have ‘ya ever considered changin’ it to somethin’ a little...easier to remember? We, uhh, mortals ain’t always that smart.”
“Change my name?” One of Bramblecock’s eyes twitched, as if Applebloom had just insulted its mother. “Are you mad? It is a good name! It was passed to me from my father, who had it passed from his father before him. We Bramblecocks are proud of our heritage!”
“Well, sure, but—”
“No buts! ‘Change my name’?” Bramblecock huffed, turning and stomping back into the woods, its hunt forgotten. “Pah! Ridiculous! I’m going back to bed! I don’t have to stand there and listen to a bunch no good commoners tell me...”
The Crusaders watched it go, slinking away from each other as its tirading voice grew more distant.
“I’m glad that’s over,” said Applebloom.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before it comes back!” said Sweetie Bell.
“‘Ya gotta admit, though,” Applebloom added, slowly trailing behind Sweetie Bell as they made their escape. “That was a pretty stupid name.”
“Wouldn’t you say that makes him a bit of a...” Scootaloo snickered. “Laughingstock?”
A frustrated roar echoed from somewhere in the forest.
