Chapters I made it take five days for my ribs to heal instead of allowing my medium to fix them more quickly in order to avoid raising suspicion so soon.
If you are unfamiliar with my work you probably don’t know my medium is one of my oldest abilities. When I first decided I would journey into fictional worlds full of danger and excitement I thought of all the magical items and other cool stuff I wanted to get and realised how difficult it would be to carry all that around.
I also thought of the powers that characters had and how much I wanted them even though some were not compatible with others. Then I thought of Venom from The Amazing Spiderman cartoon came up with a solution. I went into Disney’s Aladdin and borrowed the lamp before Aladdin wish the genie free and gave the genie a list of all the abilities my medium would have to possess.
On its own, it can give me shapeshifting and some powerful healing abilities that make me a bit harder to kill than normal. In fact, if Nightmare Moon had of dealt what would on any a normal person should have been a killing blow it probably just have put me into a healing coma while it worked to repair the damage. When I get injured my medium quickly form plugs to seal the wound and then form strong microscopic threads to pull the served flesh back before flooding the area with extra cellular matrix which acts as a scaffold for cell growth. The threads are strong enough that I can often fight completely unhindered by my injury even if it’s a broken arm. when combined with my shapeshifting I can hide the fact that I was ever injured in the first place.
Oh, quick side note but I didn’t invent extra cellular matrix it exists in the real world and is used in a product called “Vetigel” it can stop a bleeding wound in seconds but I last checked it was only approved for use on animals and still awaiting FDA approval for human testing.
But anyway Nightmare Moon was seeking to destroy me and would have likely have blown me in half which would have sent me into a healing coma so deep that I would appear dead for the first two weeks which would probably have lead to Twilight and her friends burying me alive.
However it's true purpose is to allow me to absorb, copy, steal or channel the abilities of others. Those clothes I'm wearing are a part of my medium and all those times I caught Nightmare Moon's attacks I was absorbing the power from the into my own reserves.
My medium allows me to completely absorb characters into myself allowing me to use their powers, and abilities as my own and even their personality traits if I want to, I'm kind of like Kirby or Mar Jinn Buu in that sense.
I absorbed the character Pitch Black also know as the boogie man from “Jack Frost The Rise of The Guardians.” From him, I get my fear sensing and feeding abilities along with my black “Nightmare” sand. I could have used it to send Nightmare Moon to fall asleep and have a nightmare but that wouldn’t have been fun. I can also make it form horses and have them attack people but they leave you alone if you’re not afraid of them which is lame but whatever. Oh and this neat teleporting using shadows ability, all my other teleporting methods are sealed right now.
I also have the reaper eyes from “Death Note” which shows me a person's name when I see their face and how long they have to live. I have a feeling that will be very important in my new line of work as a mortician as I wouldn't want to bury anyone alive now would I, yes I have Ki sensing I learnt from DBZ but it has its limits.
Then there’s just my unicorn body that was constructed with skills learnt from the Bleach universe. It has its own magic but the only spells I currently know for it are levitation, will o' wisp and some simple illusion spells.
I have few other minor powers active that I get from channelling objects but they're not important right now so I will get to those later.
Once I was allowed to leave the hospital I stealthy made my way over to Mayor Mare's office and made her secretary jump when I announced myself.
“Hello Miss Neat Notes”
The startled Miss Neat Notes almost tears the newspaper she had been reading in surprise.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn't hear you come in. You that new stallion who spoke to Nightmare Moon In front of everypony at in the town hall aren’t you?”
Now that I can see her face my reapers eye do their thing.
(Neat Notes, time left to live: 94 years, 9 months, 1 week, 3 days, 5 hours 2 minutes 12 seconds)
That’s about what I've been getting for most earth ponies, they live quite a bit longer than the other pony races Neat Notes here is in her early thirties. Next, I checked her heart's desire and she must have had a break up recently as the thing she wants the most right now is a coltfriend to won’t cheat on her. Then I use my fear sense and it tells me she's afraid of spiders, how mundane.
“Yes that’s right, my name is Grim Gill, nice to meet you.”
I have my usual creepy grin but I add the illusion of a small spider hanging from the rim of my top hat where it would be out of my line of sight but Neat Notes can see it clearly. She gulps trying to ignore it but I can feel the small trickles of fear from her.
“N-nice to meet you too Mr Grim Gill, how can I help you t-today?”
“I’m looking to purchase a place of business and residence here in Ponyville. Do you have any properties listed?”
“Ah yes, we might have what you are looking for bare with me for a moment whilst I check.”
She stands up and walks over to a filing cabinet, opens a draw and runs her hoof down the files before closing it and opening the drawer below it, takes out a folder and walks back over to the desk. She opens the file and looks through it before placing one of the listed property sheets before me.
“We don’t have anything available at the moment other than this one, it's a two-story property just off the high street at number 6 Barrow lane.”
I had already known about it of course as I had set it up when I was making this world. It's one block west from Pinkie Pie at Sugar Cube Corner which is at number 16 Sweet Street and two blocks north from Rarity’s Carousel Boutique which is at 21 Saddle Way. I spend a minute pretending to read property sheet before we continue.
“It looks good I'll take it.”
She asks me if I want to view the property first and seems relieved when I say no. In quick order we sort out the details and I pay the 24000 bits for property and she gives me the deed and the keys and I leave to get myself moved in.
Of course, walking backwards means she's not looking where she's going and she bumps into Gilda.
“Hey, I'm walking hear! Look where you're going you stupid yellow, oh it’s you hardly fly.”
Fluttershy recognises one of her bullies from junior speedsters flight school and acts like her normal nervous self.
“G-G-Gilda! N-nice too see you. How are you?”
“Well, I was doing fine until you bumped into me you dumb foal. Why don’t you watch where you're going?”
“I’m sorry”
Gilda mocks her.
Fluttershy tries to say something but Gilda roars in her face which sends Fluttershy running off crying.
I got my frowning face on now, as much as a little treat Fluttershy's fear is for me that hybrid bitch is going to get it.
I chuck a small ball of Nightmare sand in her direction and it beans her in the head. The crowd she had attracted with her roaring watches her collapse to the ground twitching fearful in her sleep.
“Grimmy!” shouts Pinkie Pie who having seen the whole thing rushes over to me.
I see no reason to lie to Pink provider of confectionery and tell the truth.
“I didn’t approve of her treatment of our overly-sensitive friend Fluttershy. So I made the meanie go nighty night for a bit with my sand, she'll be fine when she wakes up in a few minutes but for now, she’s having a bad dream because that’s what happens someone beans you in the head with nightmare sand.”
Pronks is not at all happy to learn my black sand cause nightmares.
Gasp! “Grimmy that’s terrible, you shouldn’t go around causing nightmares! That’s not nice at all!”
“I don’t do it to be nice Pinkie, I do it because nightmares are creepy but you know what? Maybe a more effective way to deal with miss grumpy griffon here would be to throw her a party. Maybe if we can make her happy she'll stop being mean and we can all be friends, wouldn’t that be something?”
Gasp! “That’s a great idea Grimmy! A party is just the thing to turn Gilda's frown upside down. We need to start planning right away!”
Before I can get a word in I’m being dragged across town by my favourite maniac. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to build any coffins for my showroom today.
Three hours later the party is ready and by my suggestion, a piñata has been added because sometimes you just need to hit something with a stick.
The party plays out mostly as it does in the show only at a slower with Gilda setting off the pranks at a slower pace. She eats the spiced vanilla lemon drops that make her breath fire and then spilling punch on herself with the dribble cup. The cake is wheeled out with candles on it despite the fact that neither Pinkie nor I placed them there because this isn't a birthday party.
Spike wants to blow out the candles but Twilight tells him no because he isn’t the guest of honour. When Gilda tries to blow them out they are revealed to be trick candles that relight themselves and when the candles are finally out for good Spike ruins the cake before anyone can have a slice by digging into the side and chewing his way through it making a tunnel to pop out of the top. Twilight takes him away to give him an earful and Gilda pull Pinkie Pie behind the ruined remains of the cake to give tell Pinkie she keeping an eye on her.
A few minutes later Rainbow Dash points to a table with colourful wrap boxes on it.
“Look Gilda, presents.”
That ain’t right I pop up behind Rainbow Dash and let her know.
“No Rainbow Dash, those aren't presents, they're prizes for the raffle later, what's a party without prizes?.”
“Gar! Where did you come from?”
“Your shadow.”
“Don’t scare me like that Grim Gill.”
“No promises.”
Everyone is looking amused but also a little disturbed. Good, I felt like I was getting behind on my creep quarter, they really did see me coming out of Rainbow Dash's shadow.
I pick up a tube from the table.
“I don't recognise this one and it doesn’t have a label so it’s not one of the prizes do you want to open it?” I say passing it to Gilda.
“Sure,” she says as she takes the tube from me, she really ought to know better by now. She opens takes the lid off the tube and is so startled by the spring snakes all her feathers stand up. She looks so funny that once again everyone in the room laughs at her.
“Ha spring snakes, that old classic, somepony got me with that one last month” Comments Applejack.
“Yeah, I bet I know who that was” is the response from the grumpy griffon.
“You do?” asks a surprised Pinkie Pie.
I look sympathetically towards Gilda and sigh.
“You look like you need to hit something, do you want to have a swing at the piñata now?”
Gilda hissing through her teeth for a moment before replying.
“Yes that sounds great I could definitely hit something right now.”
We clear the centre of the room a Pinkie puts a blindfold on Gilda, gives her the bat and spins her around and everyone starts calling out directions. Gilda ignores the directions to home in on Pinkie Pie and starts hitting her with the bat.
“Oof, silly Gilda oof, I'm not a Piñata oof”
Well, maybe not in this world Pinkie.
Pinkie being Pinkie she’s not even hurt by the assault and everyone just laughs as the assault continues for another five swings before Gilda realises she’s getting nowhere stops and takes off the blindfold to see a completely undamaged earth pony.
The fun with the Piñata continues until Derpy manages to smash it open and everyone rushes to pick up the candy that falls out. Fluttershy had managed to hit the Piñata but her swings had been so gentle that they didn't even budge the thing. More cake was brought out which is unsurprising as we’re in a bakery and soon it’s time to play Rarity’s favourite game and although I had hoped that things would go better for Gilda from here this time round they don’t. She still snatches the purple tail form Rarity, ignores directions from Pinkie Pie, slips on some cake from the mess Spike made earlier barrels into the kitchen only to walk back out with the tail draped over her beak. Pinkie Pie tells her she put the tail on the wrong end, the party-goers all laugh at her and Gilda flips out.
“You stupid ponies call this having a good time? I’ve never met a lamer bunch of dweebs in all my life.”
She jabs Pinkie Pie in the muzzle with her talon.
“And you Pinkie Pie! You are queen lame-o with your weak little party pranks. Did you thinking you could make lose my cool? Well, Dash and I have ten times as much cool as the rest of you dweebs put together! Come on Dash, we’re bailing on this pathetic scene."
When Rainbow Dash doesn’t move to follow her she repeats herself.
“Come on Rainbow Dash, I said we’re leaving!”
“You know Gilda, I’m the one who set up all those weak pranks” admitted Rainbow Dash.
Gilda struggles to understand.
“What?”
Rainbow Dash steps in front of Pinkie.
“So I guess I'm queen lame-o.”
“Come on Dash, your joshing me right.”
“They weren’t all meant for you specifically, it was just dumb luck that you set all of them off.”
Pinkie added her to cents.
"I should have known. That dribble cup had Rainbow Dash written all over it."
Gilda can’t believe what she’s hearing and tries to deny it.
“No way! I-it was Pinkie Pie, She set up this party to trip me up, to make a fool of me?”
“Me?” asks the Pinkie party hostess.
“Me and Grimmy planned this party to cheer you up. We thought you might stop being a meanie if we could turn that frown upside down.”
Pinkie turned her head upside down in emphasis as she said that.
Rainbow Dash interrupts.
Well, it doesn’t look like Gilda can escape her karma so I might as well spills the beans.
“In town right after you left she scared Granny Smith by pretending her tail was a snake so she wouldn’t notice her steal an apple then she saw Fluttershy walking backwards as she was guiding some ducks and their ducklings through town and got behind her so that Fluttershy would bump into her and then when she recognised Fluttershy she wouldn’t accept her apology and yelled at her until Fluttershy ran off crying.”
Many of the party-goers who had been there to witness the event murmured in agreement and Rainbow Dash was not happy.
“What? Gilda that is not cool! this is not how I thought my old friends would treat my new friends. I think you should apologize to everypony or if being cool is all you care about, maybe you should go and find some new cool friends someplace else.”
“What?”
Asks the stunned griffon.
“You're picking them over me? Well um, Your such a, a flip-flop. Cool one minute and lame the next, when you’re done being lame give me a call.”
Gilda stomps out of Sugar Cube Corner, slamming the door behind her.
Way to go you idiot bird! You've just thrown away the only friend you ever had for the sake of your pride, although it is funny how the phrase “give me a call” has caught on in Equestria when so few of the population have phones. The only time I can recall seeing one in the entire series is when we see one through a window for a brief moment during Rarity’s Manehattan song.
Rainbow Dash apologizes for not realising what a jerk Gilda was being and Pinkie Pie accepts the apology. They shake hooves and end up proving that they are both pranksters at heart when the two of them both get electric shocks because they are both wearing joy buzzers. The two of them find the situation hilarious.
We all have fun at the party until closing time and I go home having won a new mane and makeup set from the raffle, these will come in very handy for making corpses look pretty.
It’s a day later I’m walking through town to find it all quite. Despite the fact that it is the middle of the day all the shops are closed and the streets are deserted like a ghost town which can only mean one thing. Today is Zecora's episode, how delightful.
Unlike my usual routine where I blend into the crowd and shadows, I walk with slow purposeful steps in the broad daylight. I know that ponies, who are hiding from Zecora are watching me through the gaps of closed curtains. I feel their fear give me a nice little buzz, ah there’s Zecora now, digging a seed out of the ground with her hoof. She hasn’t noticed me yet, how should I play this? I let my shadow fall over her.
“Hello, Zecora.”
She jumps back allowing me to catch a glimpse of her face beneath her hood.
(Zecora Asha, Time left to live: 46 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes, 9 seconds.)
“Oh pardon me, I did not expect to see, anypony in front of me.”
“Hee, yes I tend to have that effect on people, my name is Grim Gill, I am Ponyville's new mortician. Pleased to meet you” I say extending my hoof in greeting.
As she hesitates to take it I can practically see the gears turning in her head at the suspicion of my occupation. Why would a mortician set up business in a town as small as Ponyville when he would do better business in Canterlot? Unless he’s not really a mortician but something else entirely. So far I think she's the only one who's figured that out and been stupid enough for me to catch them at it. She's actually more afraid of me than Fluttershy but she’s better at hiding it, she eventually shakes my hoof.
“Well meet Mr Grim Gill, I'm pleased my reaction was not taken ill. But I have these seeds that need sowing, so I am afraid that I must be going.”
I frown at this, this may have been the wrong approach, I hope she’s not going to cause me any trouble when she gains the trust of the mane six.
“Ok Zecora I understand you must be very busy with the spirits and whatever shamanic rituals you perform in the Everfree Forest, I also have somethings I need to do. Until we meet again my stripy friend.”
I turned and walk away and Zecora does the same but unlike me, she doesn’t sense that the young filly Applebloom is following her.
I arrive at my destination and let myself in. I sneak into the back and find myself in a workshop where the owner of the business has his back to me. He is working on some contraption that must be giving him some trouble because his hitting its pipes with a hammer.
“Come on,” he says in frustration with the hammer clenched between his teeth and continues hitting the thing.
“Hello,” I say causing the brown stallion to jerk his head and drop the hammer in surprise. It falls into the machine with a loud “Clunk” and then the contraption sputters to life.
“Oh, that’s got it,” says the brown stallion before turning back to me with a frown.
“You sir, are not supposed to be in here."
I give him my usual creepy grin and reply.
“Oh I know that but your door was open and no one was at the counter, I heard loud noises coming from the back so I came to see if you were here Mr uh?”
(#/()';*#// *-+(()(, time left to live: *//#_years, ~°∆¶ months, \_#* weeks, _π days, ∆ hours, #’ seconds)
Ok... that’s a new one. For once I don’t know someone's name but his fear is that Derpy Hooves will die before her time.
“Doctor Clockwork, Hooves. But my friends call me Doc. If you’re here to discuss business we should go through to the shop front.”
Dr Hooves is Ponyville’s top mechanical so his shop front is another workshop. We walk over to the main counter which is covered in loose papers, diagrams and clock. In fact there a several clocks behind in a display area behind him with price tags on them, I may end up commissioning one.
“So what can I do for you sir”
“Oh call me Grim Gill. Yes, I’m here today because I need to commission so equipment for my work.”
I placing a folder on the counter. Dr Hooves opens it and takes a thoughtful look at the mechanical blueprints.
“Hum, what are these machines for and how will they help you with your work?"
“Ok Doc, I'll start with the simplest things first and work my way up."
I pick up a single page blueprint.
Next, I pick up a set of blueprints held together with a paper clip.
“These here are just some special tables I need. This one Is an adjustable height transfer table with rollers so it’s easy to take the stainless steel body tray off and place the corpse on the storage shelf and then this is just an adjustable length coffin bearer, I think the name is pretty self-explanatory. The second table is an embalming table with integrated sink, see its got this shower hose to clean the body if the hospital has not already done so which is only often necessary when the unfortunate deceased individual had known of their intimate demise and choose to die at home in comfort rather than in a hospital room. Sometimes individuals will shit themselves when they die.”
Dr Hooves wrinkles his nose in discuss at the thought of having to wash a dead pony who has shit themselves.
“Next, this one,” I say pointing at the second set of the blueprints. “Is a mechanical air conditioner to keep my shop cool. I don’t like to use the enchanted ones you understand, even if they are cheaper to run. I will require four of them.”
I can just imagine how unsettling it will be for people on pleasant sunny 17 degrees warm days to walk into my badly light funeral pallor and feel the temperature drop down to 5 degrees Celsius. To add to the effect I designed the air conditioner unit to produce infrasound waves at 13 Hz. Infrasound are sounds lower than the 20Hz normal minimal hearing threshold of human ears. Sounds of 17 to 19 Hz will produce feelings of uneasiness and fear in humans and as 18Hz is the resonance frequency of the human eyeball it is known to cause one to see ghostly grey blobs out of the corners of one’s vision so naturally it has been found to be the cause of more than a few ghost sightings. Ponies have a lower minimum hearing threshold of 14 Hz so I have to adapt the frequency for them to induce the feelings uneasiness but they won’t see the ghostly grey blobs unfortunately.
I point to the last set of blueprints.
“Now this I absolutely cannot do without, this is called an Aspirator. You see this tube here? I attach various needles to it and jab it into the corps around the belly button area. Then the Aspirator starts sucking out all the contents of the digestive tract and that prevents the stomach from bloat up like a balloon. Are you feeling alright Doc? You look a little green.”
Dr Hooves attempts to hide his discomfort.
“I’m fine Mr Grim, I’ve just never been asked to build such an, um... remarkable machine before that I was taken back a moment. I should be able to complete your order by.”
He pauses for a moment to look at his schedule.
“The fifteenth, so about eleven days.”
We spend the next few minutes negotiating a fair price before we reach an agreement and I leave with the invoice for my commission.
.....
Late that night Fluttershy lay still in her bed, something had woken her up and she felt an unnatural chill in the room.
Once I was certain she was out I emerge from the shadows and continued to gently bathe her with a damp cloth. I've got work to do if I want things to go my way and my nightmare sand will cause those few animals that saw me to dismiss me as just a bad dream.
Fluttershy awoke in the morning feeling quite groggy.
“Man who did I drink last night.” ... “WHAT THE TARTRUS? Ooh!” she says before covering her mouth with her hooves.
Fluttershy looks at herself to find she was wearing a charcoal suit with a red cravat which matches the long red duster and large red fedora hat. Over her eyes, she has a pair of wire-framed orange lensed sunglasses and a pair of white gloves adorn her forehooves.
“Where in Equestria did this come from and what’s the Tartarus is wrong with my voice? Why it so deep and why am I swearing like a mother bucker? What the buck happened to my wings?”
“How garish.” She said but felt her tongue brush up against something when she spoke.
“What? do I have fangs now too?”
She gets up a looks in her bedroom mirror.
“I do, bitching”
She shakes her head.
“Gar! I got to stop with all this swearing. That no-good evil zebra Zecora must have cursed me the other day and just look at what she did to my cutie mark, it's a trio of pink bats now!"
Her animal friends have all woken up and are shocked by Fluttershy's new attitude and appearance and start making a ruckus.
“GEEZ CALM THE BUCK DOWN YOU ROWDY BUNCH OF ANIMALS!”
The whole room falls silent and Fluttershy winces for a moment. She takes a deep breath to centre herself.
“Sorry for snapping just then, I will sort out all your breakfasts but then I’ve got over to Twilight's to figure this out. Maybe I'll show her what a real bucking vampire is like.” ... “SWEET CELESTIA I'M A VAMPIRE!”
She dives under her bed cover in a quivering mess of fear for a moment before she realises how ridiculous she is being.
“Oh what the buck am I doing? Ooh!”
“Time to see if I can go out for a walk.”
Slowly Fluttershy extended her right wingtip into the sunlight and only felt itchy instead of them bursting into flames as she had feared.
“Well in for a penny in for a pound”... “What the buck is a penny? Ooh!”
Feel a bit more confident now Fluttershy steps out into the sunlight. The itching spreads to all parts of her body not protected by her clothes but whilst irritating it is not so bad that it cannot be ignored.
“So I'm a daywalker then, that’s good”
“This sack feels so light, did I get ripped off?”
Fluttershy opens the new bag and finds it to be full of mixed birdseed.
“No, no haven’t been ripped off I’m just stronger now. A lot stronger, this bag weighs 55lbs but it feels no heavier than a pillow.”
She feeds all the animals who prefer to stay outside and finishes her preparations before heading out to the library.
“Ok bitches Mommy's going now, try not to eat each other while I'm away.”... “Oh! sorry for calling you all bitches, except for the female dogs of course.”
With that, she closes the door but with
“SLAM”
“Wow, that was loud.”
She says moments before the door makes an ominous creaking noise followed by the two halves of her front door falling to the ground, the door frame is in splinters and the animals all look at her with wide eyes.
“Oh great! Now I’ve got to get the front door fixed. Still, I'm glad it was just the front door. It would have been terrible if I had discovered my new strength whilst hugging Angel bunny, I might of crush him to death.”
Said bunny make the scared rabbit noise and makes a tactical retreat.
As Fluttershy is going to the library she can’t but help give her new wings a test flight and finds her wings to be much stronger now and she has more manoeuvrability and speed. She does some loops and barrel rolls before going into a steep dive and levels out before she hits the ground but then realises she's on a collision course with a house. At first, she panics but then new instincts wash over her and she maintains her course, instead of crashing into the house she phases through the wall startling three mares who had been having their breakfast and then phases out the opposite side of the building. Wondering if that really just happened Fluttershy stops fly and phases through the wall again, stops for a moment.
“I can walk through walls? cool!, Oh hello Daisy, Lily Valley, Rose. Sorry to barge In on you like this but I woke up this morning to find I've turned into a vampire and I'm still getting used to it. I hoping that Twilight has a cure for this, I’m on my way to meet her at the library now. I let you know how it goes, see you later.”
She then turns and leaves through the wall but before she gets out of earshot she hears the flower trio talking about her.
“Fluttershy’s a vampire! this is awful” Says Daisy
“The horror, the horror!” declares Lilly Valley before the three sisters simultaneously faint and three thuds hit the ground.
Fluttershy shrugs before walking away at a brisk leisurely pace. After a few minutes, she reaches the Golden Oak Library and she can hear that all her friends have arrived and are taking about curses and Zecora. She is about to enter the door when she is struck by a strange impulse to walk round the tree about a meter or so passed the Rainbow Dash shaped dent in the tree trunk and phases halfway into the room.
“Hey girl, ya wanna see a dead body?”
The ponies all scream and start running around the room for a moment. Rarity is the first pony to recognise Fluttershy and calm down.
“Fluttershy!” She exclaims.
“Where did you get that outfit? It's simply marvellous.”
Then she noticeable looks the others are giving her and quickly changes her tune.
“I mean Fluttershy’s a vampire this is the worst possible thing!” she declares before dramatically collapsing on her fainting couch.
Rainbow dash's reaction was a lot less polite but no less dramatic.
“For the love of Faust Fluttershy! What the Tartarus is wrong with you?”
“Oh my! I’m sorry for scaring you my friends I don’t even know where to find a dead body but I just can’t help myself I’ve been saying and doing strange things like that all day and I don’t know where this outfit either I just found myself wearing it when I woke up this morning.”
“What you too? I thought it was just me! I have no idea where this red catsuit came from”
Which is what Pinkie Pie tried to say but within her tongue swollen up so much all everyone else can hear is “Mumph mo mumph pffftt muph pffftt plart mumph moo mo maph mo mimer mare miff maph foo maim fom.”
Unfortunately not only can Fluttershy or anyone else understand her, She just thinks that Pinkie Pie left the house wearing her pyjamas which considering how eccentric the pink pony is would not be out of character.
Spike finds the situation the girls are in very entertaining and can barely contain himself.
“Haha oh my gosh just look at yourselves! It’s Battyshy the vampire, Spitty Pie, Rainbow Crash, Hairity, Appletini and well um, Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle. Ok, I can’t come up with anything for Twilight Sparkle but seriously this is hilarious. Ah ha ha ah ha oh ok I’m done.”
“This is no joke Spike, now keep looking in more books so I can find a cure.”
“Ok Twilight surely now there’s no way you can deny that this is a curse. Ponies don’t just turn into vampires on their own.”
“No Rainbow dash they don’t but vampirism isn’t a curse, it’s a magical disease called Sanguinare vampiris. The transformation and the powers the carriers develop are just symptoms of the disease.”
“Well, what about the rest of us dear? Surely we don’t all have some kind of magical disease. I’m afraid I have to agree with Rainbow dash on this one, we’ve definitely been cursed.” Says the four-legged mop know as Rarity.
“It’s not a curse."
“Well, whatever this is I bet we’ll find a cure at Zecora’s place.”
Appletini had to yell to be heard.
“Ah agree with Dash. We’ll go to Zecora’s and force her to remove this hex.”
“It’s not a hex either.”
The mares all started yelling over each other but Fluttershy’s new enhanced hearing picked up Applebloom talking to herself.
“This is all ma fault. If ah hadn’t followed Zecora none of this would of happened, ah gotta put this right.”
She watches as Applebloom leaves the library unaware that Applejack has jumped on to her tail. Fluttershy then turns to see Spike is reading a book and peaks over his shoulder.
“What have you got here Spike?”
“Oh hey Battyshy, I found this book that has the cure for what’s causing all this trouble but when I tried to tell Twilight she took one look at the title and dismissed it. It’s not my fault if she won’t listen so I'm just going to make a list of ingredients and gather them for when you all get back from the Everfree forest.”
“Oh really? What’s the title?” Spike shows her the cover and she chuckles.
“I see why she would overlook the book with the first part of the title being like that.”
Fluttershy turned back to the mares and banged her hoof twice on the table to get attention and making quite a large dent in the process.
“Ladies, ladies we all agree we need to get the cure for our affliction but do we really want to go into one of the most dangerous places in Equestria and threaten Zecora on her home turf? I'll do it of course but it just doesn’t seem wise to me but perhaps we should ask nicely first. Oh and um sorry about your table Twilight.”
Unfortunately, it seems that her friends are in no mood to listen to reason, especially not Rainbow dash.
“Easy for you to say Fluttershy, Zecora actually made you stronger but look at me. With my wings backwards I can’t fly straight anymore and flying is my life, I’m doing whatever it takes to get that cure. Who’s with me?”
“I amth.”
Spatt Pinkie Pie.
"me too,” said Rarity.
“That makes two, what about you Applejack?”
Rainbow Dash looks at the pile of books on the table that Applejack had been standing only to find her gone.
“where's Applejack?”
Rainbow dash said in a panic.
“Quick check your hooves, somepony might have stepped on her," says the mop.
“Or sat on her” Twilight suggested.
Fluttershy watches in amusement as her friends check their hooves and plots.
“Wait!” yells Rainbow dash.
“Maybe she’s in Rarity’s hair”
Pinkie Pie immediately trusts her face into Rarity’s matted locks promoting Rarity to ask if Pinkie Pie has ever heard of personal space, Pinkie Pie replies by saying “Nopeth” shaking her head and showering Rarity in spit which is when Fluttershy finally decides to step in.
“Snort. Girls stop just stop, Applejack is fine she left with Applebloom 3 minutes ago when you lot were all shouting over each other.”
“What!” said Rainbow dash, “If you knew that then why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Fluttershy’s steps back shyly for a moment before the confidence returns to her face.
“Sorry, it was just so funny watching you panic like that when I knew Applejack was ok, really Twilight sat and on her? No one has sat down since we got here.”
Twilight looks a little embarrassed now.
“Applebloom was talking about making things right, she’s probably headed for Zecora’s but to do that she’ll have to face the Everfree forest and I don’t think Appletini is going to be much help if they run into trouble so we should follow them now.”
“Oh, Twilight flopple” Fluttershy heard Spike say to himself just before the door closes for just like two weeks ago the mares all rush to the Everfree Forest.
As the ponies reach the Everfree Forest Twilight calls them all to a stop and asks if any of them actually know where exactly Zecora lives. The answer is no but Fluttershy’s newly vampire enhanced sense of smell allows her to pick up the smell of apples, mud and sweat that is Applebloom and Applejack and she is able to lead her friends through the forest. Not far into the journey Fluttershy hears something distressing and takes off. She finds a wild ocelot under a ledge trying to reach something in a crack in the rock. The Ocelot is taunting its prey.
“Come on out tiny pony, don’t you want to go inside my big hungry belly? I promise it will only hurt for a little bit, you won’t feel a thing after I bite your head off ha ha ha.”
“HEY!”
Yells Fluttershy’s with her wings flared out drawing the ocelot’s attention.
"YOU LEAVE MY FRIEND ALONE, SHE’S NOT YOUR FOOD!”
The ocelot bolts off in fear
“AHH scary fanged bat pony! Scary fanged bat pony!”
Fluttershy calms herself before lowering herself to look into the crack.
“You can come out now Applejack, the ocelot is gone.”
A relieved Appletini slowly walks out of the crack.
“Fluttershy! Thank Celestia you came I really thought ma goose was cooked just then, where are the others?”
No sooner had she asked the question Rainbow crash comes crashing through the trees flying upside-down, hits the ledge and lands in a heap on her back.
“She was rescuing me,” Said Appletini as the rest of the ponies arrived.
“Mwa! Mwa haffenth?”
“Yes, what happened darling?” asked Harity who had leaves and twigs sticking out of her tangled locks.
“When Applebloom left the library ah wanted to know where she was going so ah hitched a ride and stayed hidden until she entered the forest, when ah told her it were too dangerous for her and ordered her to turn back she put me up in that there tree.”
She points her hoof to the dead tree that Rainbow crash had knocked down.
“Saying that she’s the big sister now and how she was gonna fix everything, at first ah was stuck waiting for somepony to come and get me down but then this ocelot shows up wanting to eat me for lunch so ah jump and hide in that there crevasse until Fluttershy came and scared that no good varmint off.”
“Yeah,” says Fluttershy “Turns out I have super hearing, once I heard that ocelot say tiny pony I rush over as quick as I could, thank goodness I got here in time.”
“Oh my yes that would have been terrible! it’s you reacted so quickly, It must have been terrifying for you Applejack.”
Pinkie pie rushes over, picks up Appletini and give her a hug but her swollen tongue gets in the way. “Gah, Pinkie Pie! Eww, stop. Ya getting drool all over me.”
"Oppth tharin"
Pinkie releases her victim on the ground where Appletini wipes the worst of the drool off.
By now Rainbow crash has gotten back onto her hooves.
“Well that’s score two for vampirism but this just proves that the soon we get Zecora to lift this curse the better, now which way do we go?"
“Oh yeah give me a sec,” says Fluttershy who picks up Appletini a places her on her back and then raises her head into and takes a deep sniff. “It’s this way,” says Fluttershy as she leads the ponies to Zecora’s home which as it turns out is a shack made from a hollowed-out tree and it’s not pretty with creepy tribal masks and bottles hanging from the branches by strings.
“Oh my this place looks horrible!” says Harity as the mares approach the structure.
“Wait” sat Fluttershy stopping everyone in their tracks, she takes a deep sniff before continuing.
“Zecora is inside but Applebloom isn’t here."
Applejack asks what she means.
“Yes she was here but she left and went off into the forest, you girls go talk to Zecora while Applejack and I go track down Applebloom."
“Sounds good ta me. Common Fluttershy, put that sniffer to work and find ma sister. This forest ain’t no place for a little filly.”
“Yes, Master" Fluttershy sarcastically responds but understands the urgency of her task.
“Oh and girls, remember to ask nicely”
She tells her friends before following the young filly’s scent. It doesn't take long before they catch up to the child as she is heading back to the shaman wearing a pair of saddle basket on her sides.
“Hey, Applebloom did you get everything?” Fluttershy asks.
“Wah! Fluttershy? Ah mean um yeah just about, ah recon Zecora should have the rest ready by now.”
“Now wait second what the hay are you two on about? Do ya something about this ya ain’t tell us Fluttershy?”
“Sis? You're here too?”
“Don’t go changing the subject missy you're in big trouble when we get home, Ah almost got eaten by an ocelot. Now tell me what’s going on.”
“Well it’s a funny story, you see back at the library... OH BUGGER! we got to get back to Zecora’s place quick! Our friends are wrecking the place up! Hold on tight.”
Fluttershy lifts up Applebloom by the barrel and flies back to the zebra's shack and bursts in through the open doorway.
“EVERYONE STOP WRECKING ZECORA’S SHIT! YOUR NOT HELPING.”
Everyone immediately stops are there doing to stare at Fluttershy as she sets Applebloom on the floor.
“Ma goodness!” Says the little filly looking at the mess “What in Equestria were ya vandalising Zecora’s house for?”
Twilight flopple walks over to Applebloom “Because Zecora’s an evil witch doctor who cursed us and was going to eat you in a stew.”
Zecora and Applebloom look at each other then laugh, Applebloom turns back to Twilight.
“Oh, Twilight did ya let those silly fillies get into your head? Ya know there ain't no such thing as curses.”
I remain quiet on this subject for now.
“B-but if this isn’t a curse then what is it?”
“I can answer that,” says Fluttershy.
"Now do you remember what Zecora said to us the other day when we rushed into the forest to get Applebloom? Because I do but despite how she said it, she meant it as a warning to be more aware of our surroundings not to be afraid of her.”
Zecora spoke next.
“Yes that’s exactly what you said, you will warn us about the patch of Poison joke we were standing in weren’t you?”
“How can blue flowers have done this to us?” asks Twilight Flopple.
“Poison joke has a contact poison like poison ivy but instead of nasty rash, it affects everyone differently. It’s mostly harmless and amusing, all of our affliction are just pranks it played on us. You have to admit it’s a fascinating defence mechanism. It’s a pretty simple fix to, we just need to take a herbal bubble bath.”
“What!” says Rainbow crash who is once again upside-down on her back
Fluttershy frowns in anger.
The mares all hang their heads in shame.
“But Fluttershy, how do you know about Poison joke? I couldn’t find anything about it in any of the books in the library.”
Fluttershy sadly shook her head.
“Twilight, let me show you something”
Fluttershy lead Twilight over to a book which lay open on the floor and turned to the pages until she found one describing the effects and cure for Poison joke next to a picture of the blue flower. Next, she closed the book.
“Read the full title this time Twilight.”
“SUPER NATURALS, natural remedies and cure-alls that are simply super. I I I'm sorry Zecora, I had the answer this whole time if only I had bothered to look inside. All this trouble could have been avoided.”
The Zebra just laughs it off and says “maybe next you will take a look and not judge the cover of the book.”
The mares once again hung their heads in shame.
“So you see kids the moral of today's story is to never judge a book by its cover, tuning next week for another exciting episode of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. Goodnight everybody... I have no idea why I said that.”
Applebloom and Zecora laugh at Fluttershy who just smiles and bows.
Last night I snuck into Sugar Cube Corner and dressed up the sleeping Pinkie Pie in a Freakazoid costume then slither over to Fluttershy’s cottage and sponged bathed the Poison joke off of her, dressed her up as Alucard from Hellsing Ultimate, applied some makeup to her wings and dripped some of my medium into her nose where it made its way into her brain which allowed me to channel power into her which mimic vampirism.
It also allowed me to influence her behaviour and decision-making processes and make her act like Alucard from Team Four Star's Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. I was basically possessing her, the way she would go "Ooh" and cover her mouth whenever I made her swear was priceless and as time went by she was subconsciously giving more and more control.
But you know what they say about all good things, I had my fun and cut the transmission as soon as she climbed into the bubble bath Zecora had prepared in the spar's hot tub. Though I must admit I was genuinely worried when that ocelot when after Applejack, Ponyville just wouldn’t be the same without her.
Ring around a full moon
Master ever seeking
......
Author's Note
Hipin: "It doesn't actually work you know."
Rei: "What doesn't work?"
Hipin: "Using regular makeup on corpses, makeup reacts to body heat and slightly, that's why there is makeup specifically made for corpses. I just put it in there for effect but maybe I should have gone with the alternative scene where I pop up behind Twilight when she's writing to Princess Celestia and tell her off for implying that Gilda isn't a real friend."
Rei: "But Gilda choose her pride over her friend."
Hipin: "Yeah but if you learn about Gilda's environment growing up you see she didn't exactly grow up in a supportive environment and even without that did you see how she responded to Pinkie Pie's laugh at her's and Rainbow Dash performance of the Jr Speedsters chant? She frowned because she thought Pinkie was laughing at her when she was actually laughing at the contrast between Rainbow's enthusiasm and her lackluster performance. It was a typical straight man funny guy routine. Gilda is a true friend but she just isn't very good at it. You meet people like that a lot in life. "
Hipin: "Oh, and one last thing"
Rei: "What is it?"
Hipin: "This"
It's been eleven days since the Poison joke incident and I'm visiting the Apple family because of an unfortunate “accident” that happened today.
I defiantly hadn’t spent a week observing Big Mac and then arranged the delivery time of my custom made adjustable tables to be delivered by Derpy who has a reputation of being accident-prone to coincide with when Big Mac would be passing a junction at the bottom of a hill. I most certainly wasn’t hiding in the shadows from where I totally didn’t use my telekinesis to undo her harness straps which sent the cart rolling down said hill where it would collide with the eldest of the Apple siblings hard enough to break some ribs which would prevent him from working for the first two weeks of Applebuck season. No, I was not present during the “accident” at all so it came as a complete “surprise” to me when Derpy told me about the “accident” so after accepting the delivery I rushed over to Sweet Apple Acres to see how bad it was. It’s a good thing it hadn’t been the much heavier embalming table with integrated sink that had hit him, he might have died. That won’t be delivered until this afternoon, it's not like I planned this or anything.
By the time I reach Sweet Apple Acres Big Mac has gotten back from the hospital with his barrel wrapped in bandages in the same manner I had been about two weeks before. He is standing with Applejack, overlooking the orchard as they talk about this seasons crop. “Boy howdy! we’ve done well this year Big Mac. That there must be the biggest bumper crop of apples I've ever laid ma eyes on and that’s despite Rainbow Dash slacking off on the rain. Yep, there ain’t nopony who can grow apples like the Apple family.”
“I’ll say, those are some beautiful apples you've got there Applejack.” Applejack and Big Mac jump for a moment before turning around to face me. “Grim Gill! Where did you come from?” I clear my throat and make a serious face. “Well you see Applejack when a Mommy pony and a Daddy pony love each other very much, tee sorry couldn’t resist. Derpy told me about the accident Big Mac was involved in and I being your concern friend decided I should come and see how bad your brother's injury are for myself.”
Now If only that where true, don’t get me wrong I love the big guy but not so much that I wouldn’t manipulate the circumstances to make sure he got injured when he was supposed to and not rely on fate to give me the opportunity to get Applejack to take my suckers bet.
“Well, that might kind of ya ain’t it Big Mac?” Eeyep says the big red stallion. “He ain’t much worst off than you when ya fought Nightmare Moon but he busted up four ribs instead of two. The Doctor says he should heal in about the same time but ill need ta take it easy for another week after that which means I gotta harvest this lot by myself for the first half of Applebuck season. But that ain’t a problem, Sure I’ve got ma work cut out for me but ah ain’t meet an orchard yet that ah couldn’t handle, I'll take a bite out if this by days end.”
There’s the smoke, time for me to pinch back. “Haha no way, dream on Applejack. You won’t get halfway done by the time Big Mac recovers.” The noble bearer of the Element of Honesty couldn’t take the assault on her pride laying down. “What ya don’t believe me? Ah could harvest the entire orchard by myself if ah had to.”
“Nooo you couldn’t,” I say teasingly. “Are you doubting me?” asks the Jack of apples. I turn to Big Mac “Geeze I don’t know what do you think Big Macintosh, can she do it? Can Applejack harvest the entire orchard by herself?” Nope, says the Jack of apples older brother.
“Are you two saying ah'm making promises ma legs can’t keep?” Yep, Eeyep, Big Mac and I say together. He’s giving me a funny look now, that's fair we haven’t really talked much outside of me buying Apples and Gilda's party.
“Common now colts this is me Applejack talking. The most dependable and reliable of ponies.” I’m going to let Big Mac take this one. “But that’s still only one pony and one pony plus hundreds of apple trees just doesn’t add up.” Now she’s really getting steamed “don’t you go using your fancy mathematics to muddle the issue, Ah said ah could handle it and can.”
Now! Strike now!
“Would you care to make a bet on that?” You can bet your sweet behind she would.
“Ya darn tooting ah am. When ah’m done harvesting the entire orchard ya paying to fix up the roof on the old barn.” Oh, you are so going to wish you asked for more my little Apple pony, “And when you fail to harvest the entire orchard all by yourself, you have to go on a date with me, deal?” I ask holding out my hoof to the suddenly quiet earth pony. She hesitates then steels herself before staring me straight in the eye and firmly shaking my hoof.
“Deal! Ah'll prove it ta you two doubting McCarthy’s, Ah'm gonna harvest the entire orchard, all by ma self.”
She’s not looking so sure now but we shook on it, it’s too late. What's a common slang term for a lollypop?
......
An hour later sees me pruning my favourite black roses in the window box outside of my home and place of business when the ground starts shaking which can only mean one thing.
A couple of cows had an accident and now one cow has its head lodged up the other one’s butt and they’re running around in a panic trying to separate from each other ... Ok putting bad jokes about animation errors aside there is a heard of cows stampeding towards Ponyville which could cause a moderate amount of property damage if it hits. At least Pinkie's should be having fun, the vibrations will be making her voice sound silly but I can’t hear her she's near the town centre and I’m a block away, plus a lot of ponies are screaming their heads off.
I don’t want to miss the show so I gallop down the road and join five of the mane six who are standing with Mare Mayor in front of the bridge into Ponyville looking out at the oncoming stampede. Not really the best place to stand to watch an approaching stamped but it doesn’t matter, Applejack arrives just in time with her dog Winona and start herding the loosely scattered bovines into a single organised group. Ponies start yelling words of encouragement and Pinkie Pie declares it the best rodeo she's ever seen and starts stuffing her face with a bucket of popcorn she pulled from only Faust knows where.
Together Applejack and Winona are able to steer the stampede away from town just before they reached the bridge causing much rejoice from the citizens of Ponyville. Applejack brings the cows to a stop and starts talking to them. It turns out that one of them saw a snake and freaked the rest of them out and before they knew it they were all running in fear even though only one of the saw the snake. There are those who claim that despite the progress humanity has made over the centuries we still have dumb caveman brains. These cows may have the ability to speak and function as a society but they still have share some of the same basic instincts as a hamburger. Speaking of which I’m hungry now, I’m going to go grab some fish and chips before Derpy delivers my embalming table.
......
It has been a productive week for me. I have all my tools, my air conditioners are up and running give my funeral home that haunted feeling, my embalming table with integrated sink is properly hooked up to the water main, I convinced Twilight Sparkle to teach me how to conjure magical shields, shot myself into the side of a cliff two hundred and eighty-two times and had some tea.
I should do something nice for Pinkie to thank her for lending me one of her party cannons but right now the citizens of Ponyville are doing something nice for Applejack to thank her for saving the town from the stamped a week ago.
In order to celebrate the achievement of the most reliable and dependable of ponies, Ponyville is the throwing a party in Applejack’s honour in the town square. Banners, streamers and balloons are all over the place and they even set up a stage to give speeches about how great she is and prepared a trophy to present her with in front of the town hall.
Rarity got the final pieces of apple themed decoration into place and twenty minutes later we are all set for the opening speech. Twilight took the podium and prepared to make her speech. She has spent day’s rehearsing and she brought a lot of note cards to help her if she forgets anything. Simply put she’s put a lot of work into it. What a tragic waste of time.
“Welcome everyone, today we are here to honour a pony we can always count on to help with matters great and small. A pony who’s contributions to” and that was when Rainbow Dash swooped in from the right, scattering Twilight carefully stacked note cards all over the stage forcing her to gather them up with her magic.
“Did you see Applejack's slick moves out there? What an athlete. This week she’s going to help me with my new fly trick and I know it’s going to be so awesome!”
Rainbow Dash pulled a really cute when she said “awesome,” what was less cute was when Twilight shoved her aside to take back the podium.
“Exactly and” which is far as she gets before Pinkie Pie spring up in front of her and takes the mic. There was even the sound of a small spring mechanism being released when she did so.
“This week I’m being left to run Sugarcube Corner for the first time.”
Twilight asks her what that has to do with Applejack, Pinkie Pie blinks twice before responding.
“Oh and Applejack, one of the best bakers ever is going to help me. Applejack makes everything great so free samples for everypony!”
There was much rejoice.
Twilight says “ok that’s nice” whilst shoving Pinkie Pie off the stage. “Now if I could make a point without being inter” Twilight?
Haha, she’s being interrupted Fluttershy of all ponies.
“Rupted,” says the grumpy Twilight who gives the shy yellow Pegasus the mic.
“Twilight, I’m so sorry but I just wanted to mention that Applejack will also be helping me this week with the official bunny census on account of all the new baby bunny’s that were born this season. She’s going to use her wonderful herding skills to gather all the baby bunnies up in one place.
Fluttershy passes the mic back to Twilight who asks if anyone else has anything to say and nobody does. “Good, so as I was trying to say” that is as far as she got before Mayor Mare came onto the stage and caught her attention. “Oh for Faust sake! I give up” she declares, throwing her carefully arranged note cards up in the air in frustration and stomps off the stage.
Mayor Mare clear her throat before speaking. “And now without further adieu it gives me the pleasure to present this “Outstanding Citizen of Ponyville Award” to one who saved the town from hundreds of thousands of bits worth of damage the stamped would have caused. A pony of the utmost trustworthiness, reliability and integrity. Ponyville's most capable and dependable friend, Applejack”
The crowd cheered before the stage curtains open to reveal an empty stage. Now might be a good time to mention that no one has seen Applejack for a week because she has been so busy bucking apples but everyone assumed that Applejack would make it in time for her award that no one had actually bothered to check if she was here. So whilst everyone else is going “where’s Applejack?” my laughter cut through the din.
“Ah ha oh ho ho! Mayor Mare did it again! She jumped the gun without checking to see if the guest of honour had arrived. That’s getting to be a bad habit for you Mayor but don’t worry Applejack hasn’t been kidnapped, she’s just late. Ah look here she comes now.” I point to the back of the crowd.
“Yep ah'm here, sorry ah'm late. Excuse me”
An exhausted looking Apple basket carrying Applejack, “Ah was busy with work” with dark bags beneath her eyes pushes her way to the front of the crowd “oh did ah get your tail?” and climbs onto the stage.
“Thank ya, Miss Mayor,” she says as she unintentionally pushes Mayor Mare off the stage. “For this here um award trophy thingy, hmm gasp, hee hee, I sure do look funny in this thing.” She says looking at her distorted reflection in the trophy’s shiny golden surface. Pinkie Pie joins her and the two start say “woo, woo, ” as they sway back and forth in amusement at the sight before them.
Twilight ignores there strange antics and continues the award ceremony. “Ok, well thank you Applejack for saving us from that scary stamped and always being there for everypony.”
“N-hmm-oh problem Twilight. Ah’m always willing to help the ponyfolk. Well ah got t-haaw, to get back ta work. Goodbye Y'all.”
There’s a horrible screeching noise as Applejack clasp one hand of the trophy in her teeth and drags it off the stage followed by three thuds as it goes down the stairs and then a much more bearable earthly scraping sound as she drags it home along the ground.
Oh, Applejack. It brings me pain, pride and such entertainment to see you like this.
......
Two days into the second week of Applebuck Season I’m hiding in the shadows at Sugarcube Corner. A crowd of ponies has gathered eagerly to try free samples of the muffins that Applejack and Pinkie Pie baked together. However, in her sleep-deprived state, I witnessed Applejack make some very odd substitutions to the recipe. She substituted baking soda with soda pop, chocolate chips with potato chips and wheat germ with live worms.
I'm wondering if I should prevent the impending disaster or watch and laugh at the spectacle of a potential forty-eight or so ponies laying sick in hospital beds with food poisoning barfing their guts out. Eventually, I conclude that no one is going to die from this so there is no profit in it for me and there for the ponies would be suffering needlessly and I make my move for the baked bads.
“Line up everypony for Sugarcube Corner's free sample Muffin spectacular!” the ever-enthusiastic Pinkie Pie announced to the gathered customers. “That’s right free Muffin spectacles for everypony.”
Hee, “Muffin spectacles” whose a silly pony? You a silly pony, who is? You is Applejack.
“Nooo, Nooo, Don’t touch them! you will suffer!” I call out from the shadows, adding a reverberating and distant whisper effect to my voice which seemed to come from all directions for increased disorientation. I levitate all forty-eight muffins into the air, two of which had been in the hooves of ponies which Applejack had severed as she had been speaking. I make them circle in the air before I deliver the next line. “These are not baked goods, they are baked ba-a-adds, they must be destroyed!”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said that in front of the muffin loving mail mare Ditzy-doo Derpy Hooves and the pink maniac because now they're all like “No!” and start diving for the muffins, eating them as fast as they can and all I’m like “Oh Shit!” and dart from the shadows out the front door with the forty-one remaining muffins and the two mares in hot pursuit.
“Grim Gill! You come back with those Muffins! Those are for everypony, not just you!”
Wow, not only has Pinkie Pie completely misread the situation she must be pretty mad at me too, that’s the first time she’s actually used my name. Thinking I would only have to deal with Derpy I gather my black nightmare sand beneath me and form it into a female horse and we take to the sky. Yes, yes I know I said that they leave you alone if you're not afraid of them but that doesn’t matter because Derpy is afraid of losing the muffins I’m stealing. As long as there is fear they are still useful and Derpy's fear will feed the nightmare keeping me just out of her reach.
At first, it seems to be working but in my excitement I had overlooked one tiny detail I learnt from watching “Pinkie Pie's Hot Minute.” You see I still haven’t returned Pinkie’s party cannon and Gilda destroyed her helicopter bike thingy so I’m feeling safe from the pink menace. But then I hear that unmistakable sound and remembered a second too late that Pinkie Pie owns not one but three party cannons.
A tactical ballistic Pinkie Pie knocks me off my flying sand construct and the two of us fall through the air hitting the ground hard enough to leave a shallow five-foot long trench. Neither of us is hurt though, I’ve been catching up on my body conditioning training and Pinkie Pie. Well, she’s Pinkie Pie she doesn’t have a scratch on her.
“I got you now Grim Gill, Surrender the Muffins!” demands the mad mare standing over me who's about to be very disappointed. “I can’t give you the muffins Pinkie Pie, they're gone.” No, she is not happy to hear that.
“Gasp, YOU ATE ALL THE MUFFINS ALL READY! HOW COULD YOU?”
Oh man, what a hypocrite. I slowly shake my head “No Pinkie, I was levitating them, you made me drop them when you tackled me out of the air you silly billy.”
A moping Derpy glides over to us cradling a Muffin in her hooves, no nightmare in sight as it had dispelled the moment the Derpy fears were fully realized when the muffins smashed into the ground.
“There was just to many of them for me, I only managed to save this one. Even without the sand horse interfering I wouldn’t I wouldn’t have been able to stop the rest of the all falling to there doom. Why did you do it, Grim Gill, why?” she asks me with tears streaming from her eyes.
I crawl out from under Pinkie Pie and face the crying mare. “I’m sorry miss Hooves but I had to do it. They were a bad batch who would have caused nothing but pain and suffering if they had been allowed to be served. I’m sure given time (like thirty minutes) you’ll come to understand.”
The sobbing mare wipes the tears from her eyes “no Grim Gill, I don’t think I will. Come on Pinkie, we have to go back to Sugar Cube Corner and tell everypony the news.” The two mares give me the sink eye before turning away to slowly trot back to the bakery. As for me, I plan on telling Doc he has to pick Dinky up from school today as Derpy will be in hospital with a bad case of food poisoning. You should always wash your worms before eating them.
......
Day three sees me meeting Pinkie Pie and Derpy as they’re checking out of the hospital where they apologise to me and I take it in stride and present them with some blueberry muffins I made and all is forgiven. Pinkie even asks me to help her at Sugar Cube Corner as the cakes won’t be back until tomorrow morning and seeing as the only thing I’ve got to look forward to today is watching Applejack mess up launching Rainbow Dash off a see-saw contraption I agree to help out but only in the kitchen. I can do French cuisine to, I know it’s not relevant right now I just thought I should mention it.
......
Day four was less eventful, it mostly just involved me doing basic martial arts training like running a hundred laps around Ponyville without being seen, shooting myself into a cliff eighty-four times and then watching Applejack nod off whilst pulling a cart up a hill and waking up in the air when it tipped up onto its back end.
You a silly pony Applejack and soon you’re going to be my silly pony.
......
Day five I’m hiding in Twilight’s shadow as she trots to Sweet Apple Acres after she saw the disastrous results of the bunny stamped had caused to the plant life on the west side of Ponyville. Every Flower of the Flower trio's shop and garden had been devoured by the ravenous baby bunnies. We find the overworked and overtired Applejack talking to herself beneath an Apple tree. “Got... ta... keep going. Must harvest... Apple fritters.”
“Applejack this has to stop your not just hurting yourself anymore. So far you’ve miss propelled a Pegues, terrified a bunch of baby bunnies and hospitalised two ponies. I don’t care what you say, you need help!”
Applejack gave the tree behind her one more kick, catches the last few apples from it in the basket strapped to her sides and then smiles. “Don’t worry Twilight I won’t be causing any more problems. Look, ah did it. Ah har-harvested all of Sweep Apple Pages all by ma self. How do ya like them Apples?”
Big Macintosh came up and tapped her on her right shoulder. “Um how do you like them Apples?” he said pointing across to the other side of the dirt track that ran down the middle of the orchard which had many acres of still unharvested apple trees. “Wah? More! So... many... apple, uh.” Said the silly pony before she rolled over and passed out on her back. “Oh, Celestia! um Applejack, Applejack wake up” said Twilight nudging our friend laying on the ground until she opened her eyes.
“Applejack, you know I respect Apple family tradition but could you please swallow your stubborn pride just this once and accept help from your friends?” Ok Twilight. “Oh come on, wait! Did you just say yes?” the Jack of Apples put her hooves together in a begging fashion. “Yes Twilight you win, this is just to much. Even when Big Mac recovery ends in two days won't be able to buck all these apples in time. Ah'm begging you, please help me.”
That's a victory for me but it’s not going to taste sweet until I kiss those lips. Twilight and I round up the mane six plus Spike and we spend the next thirteen days bucking apples leaving us a whole two days to spare. I need to plan for our date, maybe I should ask my shadow what to do.
......
Today is going to be a great day. Not because anyone died and made me some money but because I won the bet with Applejack and today is the day I get to collect my winnings. One date with my number one pony waifu.
“Squee ”
Did I just squee? I did. How embarrassing... Um well as I mentioned a few days ago I did end up talking to my shadow, he was no help at all so in the end, I decide to take Applejack out to somewhere we could do a fun activity together and then take her on a picnic and serve her some tradition tea. Which is why Unhapplejack is trotting into the bowling ally like a condemned criminal walking to the gallows.
“Is that the face of humility I see before me or the face of do not want?” I ask Applejack when she reaches me. “It’s a little of both, don’t take this the wrong way but ah ain’t to thrilled about dating a pony who’s special talent is being creepy.”
“That’s ok, I know I’m not anyone’s first choice for a romantic partner. I’ve had my fair share of relationships but they mostly ended well.” Depending on how you look at them. Does a relationship count as ending well if you absorb your partner without them actually wanting to break up and in doing so end up tearing their mind body and soul into there constituent components which you use to make yourself stronger? “But enough about that. let's go to the counter and get our funny shoes so we can bowl.”
Ok confession time, I’m not really into bowling. Why? Because I suck at it. I either put to much power behind my throws and not enough control or I focus to much on control but lack power which results in an embarrassing amount of gutter balls and Applejack keeps dropping the ball. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are doing better at the other end of the ally. They are following us to spy on our date with Applebloom in tow hiding behind a bench. They think that they are being subtle but Applejack and I noticed them before we even left the counter.
One hour late Applejack wins by seventy-six points not because I played the gentleman and just let her win but because when she was able to grip the ball she was better at hitting the pins, it wasn’t by much but was enough to matter. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, got completely dominated by Pinkie Pie.
“I say my dear Applejack, I think it’s easy to see why neither of us has cutie marks in bowling. That was terrible!”
“Ah don’t like saying it but ah reckon your right Grim Gill. That first strike ah scored was when ah lost ma grip on the ball and it jumped into the next lane.” We have a good laugh at our poor skills and how silly it was of me to choose bowling as the activity for our first date but now it was the afternoon and time for our picnic so we returned our bowling shoes, picked up my picnic hamper along with my bamboo sun umbrella.
I start leading Applejack and consequently our tag nosey friends to the spot I picked out. Applejack notices we are heading in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.
“Um Grim Gill, you ain’t taking me for a date in ma own family orchard are ya?” she asks me. “No that wouldn’t be romantic enough for my taste, not for a first date at least. The spot I picked out is on the edge of your farm.”
......
We reach our destination at the top of the hill, “Wow this is a good spot ah can see ma house and all of Ponyville from here.” Yeah, I noticed that when your parents used to come here “What?” she turns to me quickly and asks. Applebloom and Pinkie Pie also react to the news, gasping from their hiding place behind the fake bush Pinkie Pie had provided, seriously girls it’s not working.
I chuckle “Eh hee, yeah I know some stuff about your parents. I told you that I know things about those I have just meet without explanation was part of my special talent back when we first meet remember? When I was trying to think of a romantic spot for a picnic the spot where your parents often dated was one of the nicest places I could think of.”
Applejack looked at me then to the view of her house and Ponyville. “The spot where ma parents dated huh? You really know how to hit a mare where she lives.” That doesn’t sound good, “What food did ya bring?"
Safe.
I use my magic to spread out the blanket and set up the picnic. “I got some Ham and cheese sandwiches, roast chicken, potato salad, cherry tomatoes, carrot and cucumber sticks a daisy and almond cake and blueberry muffins but most importantly I have Usucha.”
If you don’t know what Usucha is then don’t worry, neither does Applejack. Also, I should mention that unlike what Pinkie Pie sings in her cannon song “You’ve Gotta Share” ponies do Indeed eat meat.
See? It’s complete nonsense and it is not just ponies, cows do it too.
And goats,
Don’t be to surprised, goats will eat anything. There is one where chickens eat a mouse but I think I’ve made my point by now.
“Usucha? Never heard of that why is it important?” I lift a wooden black lacquer box from the picnic hamper and open it to reveal a Japanese or to Applejack the mlp equivalent Nayponies tea set.
“I may have moved here from Hollow Shades and my father may have been Albion but my grandmother was from Naypon. You come from a family that has a long tradition of fruit tree farming but mine has a long tradition of practising tea ceremony. It is very important to us and is even a part of our courting ritual so I absolutely had to bring this. You will take part won’t you?”
This actually appears to of improved her mood because Applejack smiles at me “Sure ah will. Like you said ah come from a very traditional family so ah'd be happy to help ya uphold yours.”
That’s good but we’ve got company so I’m going to have to adapt a little if I want to pull this off.
“You will? Oh thank you Applejack but we have company, we should include them in the ceremony too! Hey, you ladies want some tea or are you just going to watch us all day.” I call to the mare a filly hidden in the fake bush who now realise they’ve been exposed stand up from their hiding place.
“Applebloom we’ve been exposed and now we get to try a new tea. This is great!” Applebloom is less enthusiastic and more worried about being in trouble. “How long did ya know we were here?” we knew ya were there the entire time. We spotted ya back at the bowling ally plus look around, do ya see any bushes on this hill.” Applebloom looks so cute when she’s embarrassed.
I looked up into the sky “You're invited to Rainbow Dash, the weather schedule is clear skies for today.” Darn it! Ok, I’ll try your stupid tea. Said the rude tomboy Pegasus hidden on the small cloud in the otherwise clear blue sky. A few minutes three muffins and sandwich later and we are all sipping green tea.
“This green tea is great Grimmy but it tastes a little different then what Fluttershy gets from the tea shop.” Well of course it does Pinkie, I reply. “That’s because Fluttershy uses tea bags whereas I used tea powder and a chasen tea whisk to really infuse the tea into the water but what your tasting is probably the secret ingredient I added.” I catch their chawan tea bowls with my magic as the girls all fall over.
“What the hay?”
“This feels funny.”
“Sis ah can’t move!”
“Me neither! Grim Gill ya no good snake in the grass what did ya do to us?”
Applejack insults me whilst giving me a dirty look, Rainbow Dash grits her teeth in determination in her futile attempt to move. Applebloom looks terrified whilst Pinkie Pie doesn’t seem bothered at all.
“Don’t worry it’s nothing harmful it will wear off in about a minute or so, I used a much smaller dosage than normal.” Normal? What the hay about this is normal? Asked Rainbow Drops.
“I think now is the time for me to explain my family tea ceremony traditions in more detail.” This is part of ya family tradition? What kind of family tradition makes you paralyse ya friends? Ask the now extremely Unhapplejack.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen, I was meant to get you alone but they followed us and would have interfered if I hadn’t included them.” Your damn right we would! This is bucked up man! Yelled the rude tomboy Pegasus.
“That may very well be the case to an outsider like yourself but for seventeen generations the Daimonji family of which I am descended from has practised the art of Kakutou Sadou or in Ponish, Martial arts Tea Ceremony.”
“Martial arts Tea Ceremony?” yes “You're making it up.” No Rainbow Dash, I’m serious. It’s a fighting style based entirely around the tools and traditions of Nayponies tea ceremony, I’ve been practising it since I was three years old. My grandmother was very strict about it, sometimes if I messed it up she would pin me to the wall with flowers and a chashaku”
"What?"
“Grandmother could channel her ki or life force energy as you would call it into the flower stem to make it strong enough to hold me up by my tradition robes and the chashaku is that wooden tea stick ladle thing you saw me measure the powder with.”
“That’s a load of manure, there’s no such thing as life force energy!” My response to that is to pluck a single long blade of grass from the, grasp the broken end with my teeth, stiffen it with ki and then stick it into the end of Rainbow Doubts mussel.
“Ouch!”
“Cool!” looks like Applebloom isn’t afraid anymore.
“Ok, ya proved ya point, ki exists but where does drugin us enter into that equation?” asks Applejack.
“It is traditional for males practitioners Martial arts Tea to court his would be bride using drugged tea. Normally by the time you come round of your already in a wedding dress. But seeing as we are in Equestria and not warring states era Naypon I used a small dose of paralysis powder instead of a more powerful sleeping drug.”
“That doesn’t really make things better Grim Gill. You was creepy before but ah defiantly ain’t gonna marry ya now.” I thought you might feel that way Applejack, that’s why I brought this. I said before pulling a loaded, black pistol crossbow with a golden heart on the front out of my frock coat.
“Ya was just going to kill me if ah refused to marry you? What the Tartarus Grim Gill! Ah knew ya was a creep but I didn’t take ya for a murderer.”
“Yeah Grim Gill, what the buck?” yelled the still immobile Rainbow Dash.
“No don’t hurt ma sister!”
“Grimmy stop it, this isn’t funny anymore!”
I ignore them in favour of levitating Applejack closer to me and turn us sideways to the others and then move Applejacks hat to block them from her view so she can see only me. That is when I pull the trigger sending the crossbow bolt directly into her heart.
“NO!”
The three witnesses to my crime of passion cry out when the bolt struck. I take the limp form of Applejack in my forelegs and kiss her.
She kisses back.
“What?”
“Ah get it now, that crossbow shots love bolts don’t it, it can’t kill.” I smile at my apple pony, still holding her, “Close but no, they are only infatuation bolts. Unlike a love spell which can be hard to break infatuation will either fad or grows into love. If we do marry I want you to love me by your own merit, not because of a magic spell.”
Pinkie Pie leaps up and hugged us. “Yay, Applejack’s alive and Grimmy’s not a murderer. I’m so happy.” That mare has a fast metabolism, she has to with all the high fat, sugary foods she eats or she would be pudge pie. Of course the next pony with the fastest metabolism is Rainbow Dash which would mean. Five, four, three, two, one.
THUMP “Ow my bucking hoof! what the buck is your head made of, iron?”
After being bucked by Nightmare Moon and all the times I have shot myself into a cliff faces, Rainbow Dash's assault registers as less than a baby's kick.
Next Applejack regains her mobility. “Rainbow Dash ah would appreciate it if you watch your language around ma sister and please don’t strike my coltfriend.”
Oh, looks like now that the panic is over Applejack has lost her tolerance for bad language.
“Yeah ok no problem, I’ve crashed into walls that hurt me less than this, ah gees I actually split my hoof.” That’s no exaggeration, a small amount of blood is bleeding from Rainbow Dash’s cracked hoof. I decide to help her by magically pulling the still stiff blade of grass out of her face. “Ouch! Bu.. A little warning next time.” Sure thing Rainbow Smash. “Hey! You deserve it, you paralysed us and made us think you were going to murder Applejack you jerk.” I cannot argue with that.
Last to recover is Applebloom who hugs her big sister. “That was scary Applejack, Grim Gill's family traditions really suck.” Applebuck hugs her little sister back. “I know it was scary but I’m fine now and don’t go saying such things about other ponies traditions it’s not polite, even if it true.”
Ok so maybe Applejacks not entirely over me traumatising her little sister. That’s a good thing, it means even with the infatuation spell Applejack is still in control of herself.
“All right so every pony is fine and nopony got hurt except for me. Where does that leave us?”
Pinkie Pie to the rescue. “Well like you said nopony got hurt and although things got scary nothing bad actually happened to us and this isn’t the first time Grimmy has done something disturbing, it was just much more direct than the other times but in the end, it was just Grim Gill being Grim Gill.”
“So are we still friends with him?” asks Rainbow Doubt who receives a nod from Pinkazoid and a shrug from Applebloom. “Ok then... well you two enjoy what’s left of your date. I’m going to go get some bandages for my hoof, see ya later.” And with that Rainbow Dash took off leaving Applejack, Applebloom, Pinkie Pie and I to enjoy a wonderful picnic.
......
End of Chapter
Author's Note
Hipin: There it's done, Writing this chapter was very frustrating.
Rei: Why was that?
Hipin: It's a week late, I kept losing my internet connection, Trixie was suppose to be in this chapter and it doesn't meet my seven thousand minimum word count.
Rei: Is not meeting your minimum word count really that bad?
Hipin: I'm doing this as part of a writing challenge to myself but it's not as bad as making chronological errors. I made one back in chapter two and had to go and move Grim Gill's meeting with Zecora by five days.
Rei: Why do chronological errors bother you so much?
Hipin: Because if you're not careful they can really mess up the logic of your story.
Rei: How's that?
Hipin: Here let me show you a quote from the prologue of the Naruto fan fiction I'm working on that is set before "A Grim Vacation".
"My favourite plot hole in Naruto however is a chronological error.
It happens after Orochimaru’s invasion of Konoha when he heard news of Itachi and Kisame from Kabuto. Orochimaru recalls how it has been ten years since he left the Akatsuki but that is impossible because Orochimaru left the Akatsuki after his failed attempt at steal his partner's body. His partner was Itachi Uchiha who didn’t join the Akatsuki until after he had murdered the Uchiha clan leaving his younger brother Sasuke as the only survivor. Sasuke had just started the academy when the Uchiha massacre took place and we are told in an episode of “Kakashi Gaiden” students enter the academy at the age of eight and Sasuke is twelve by the start of the series. So either the rookie 12 are a bunch of 18 year olds in serious need of hormone therapy or Sasuke was accepted into the academy at the age of 2.
That one really make me laugh."
Rei: I see what you mean
It is the first day of the month that would normally mark the beginning of Applebuck Season if not for the lack of rain due to a negligent Pegasus which forced the Apple family to harvest early this year. Twilight Sparkle and I are in the Golden Oak Library (now organised with the Dewey decimal system) attempting to learn new spells with her number one assistant Spike as our test subject.
“Oh boy! here it comes” says Spike, holding his head out forward as Twilight casts her spell. In a brief flash of light a butch, thick, full moustache appears on Spike’s face. Spike looks at his reflection in the full body mirror that was prepared for this occasion.
“Your amazing Twilight, it perfect! Hello ladies, oh what’s this? Aww, it's nothing, it's just my awesome moustache.” He says as he strokes it, thinking how it would impress Rarity. “This is the twenty-fifth trick you’ve mastered and I think it’s my favourite so far. You’ve achieved three times as many as the average unicorn, you’re incredible Twilight. Hey do you think I need a beard to go with it?” he asks. I, of course, take this as my cue to ruin this for him.
“No Spike, a beard would be to much. What you need now is a majestic pair of wings” he gets excited again. “Oh yeah wings here I come, hit me!” he says, so I do. This time instead of just a flash he rises into the air and is surrounded by a ribbon of blue and white light which forms a cocoon around him that glows and then disappears with a bright flash reviling Spike is now sporting a set of extremely flamboyant, large pair of butterfly wings. He starts flying around the room “It worked! I can fly, I...” he catches his reflection in the mirror. “Aww what? Grim Gill. These aren’t dragon wings, they're butterfly wings, I look ridicules. They don’t go with my manly moustache at all!”
Indeed he does look ridicules, the colourful translucent butterfly wings clash horribly with the manly moustache, Twilight and I cannot help but laugh at the sight. “Ah ha ho ho ho. To bad Spike, the spell I cast makes delicate wings out of gossamer and morning dew. They weren’t going to turn out any other way but you know they should suit Rei-Chan and Rarity a treat!” Twilight stops laughing. “Um, Grim Gill, who’s Rei? You’ve never mentioned her before.”
I fake surprise, “What I haven’t told you about Rei-Chan before? I could have sworn I mentioned her. She’s like a little sister to me.”
Of course I haven’t mentioned Rei before. I came to this My Little Pony universe on my own but that doesn’t mean the same thing for me as it does for most beings. I’m an amalgamation of many characters remember. I spent some time in the Evangelion universe and I absorbed Shinji when he ran away and then tricked everyone into thinking I was him (which I kind of was) and then at the end of the series when Rei absorbed the souls of everyone in the world and became a goddess I had her remake the world as if the world-changing environmental disaster known as the second impact had never happened. I spat Shinji out who got to live with his now stable father and his not dead mother and Asuka is his oldest childhood friend, which is a lot better then what he got in the non-ending of the original series. Not even Shinji's English voice actor, Spike Spencer was happy with it.
Overall it’s a good psychological, giant robot vs giant monster, sci-fi drama anime and I definitely recommend it if that’s your thing but that ending made no sense and the movie “Neo Genesis Evangelion. The End Of Evangelion” didn’t help. You won’t understand the end of that because the ending is not meant to be understood.
Well anyway after the reset Rei came with me to the Soul Society in Bleach universe where I attacked the maximum security prison known as “The Maggots Nest” and absorbed as many of the imprisoned soul reapers as I could in order to become a soul reaper myself. Remember how before I said I am considered a god of death? It’s because I picked up death related powers in three or four universes. I got full training in soul reaping in both Bleach and Black Butler. The reapers eyes from Death Note and powers over life and death by absorbing the great forest spirit from Princess Mononoke. Of course, right now I can only use the reaper's eyes and I’m getting off subject, back to Rei.
In the Bleach universe, every soul reaper manifests a bladed weapon called a Zanpakuto that is shaped by the nature of their soul and is a reflection of their power. In classical western depiction of the grim reaper, it is often depicted as a sword or a scythe. Within each soul reaper dwells a spirit that which aids the soul reaper to further empower their attacks when the two work in tandem by channel their power through the Zanpakuto.
Normally they don’t get to choose who their Zanpakuto is as it comes into existence when one becomes a soul reaper but as I didn’t become a soul reaper naturally so I was able to make Rei my Zanpakuto making her a part of me and as I don’t see much call for the use of a weapon for slaying evil spirits here in my MLP universe, I’m going to give Rei a corporeal body for the duration of our stay here to allow her to work independently from me. I did her paperwork at the same time as mine so there shouldn’t be any trouble from the legal administration but didn’t make her body at the time. Rei didn’t complain.
“She’s not actually my sister, I just call her that because we share such a close bound. She actually an orphan who lives with me now but you probably haven’t seen her because she’s shut herself up in the house since we moved in.”
Total lie, she’s been out plenty but it’s kind of hard to see someone who doesn’t have a body. Plus she can only talk to me.
“I’ve been trying to convince her to get out more but she was abused as a foal and is very withdrawn.”
Abused as in the time when she was four and she told Ritsuko’s mother, Dr. Naoko Akagi, that her lover Gendo Ikari, was just using her and calls her an “old hag” behind her back and the woman snapped and strangled her to death.
Pretty brutal right? Fortunately for Rei, she is a hybrid clone of Shinji's mother and the Angel, Lilith so she was able to come back in one of her dozens of clone bodies but the experience was still unpleasant. She was also raised by Gendo to see herself as disposable and had very little social interaction so that’s more abuse right there.
“I’m hoping if I give her a set of wings it might get her out the house for a bit.” Twilight and Spikerfly are now looking at me sympathetically.
“That’s so sad Grim Gill. You should have mentioned something sooner, we will gladly help you with Rei, right Spike?” Twilight says to the baby dragon. “Of course we will, it’s what friends do.”
Well that’s nice of them isn’t it, let’s see if they still feel the same after meeting her. “Thank you kindly, that means a lot to me.” Without warning, I dispel the butterfly wings from Spike and he lands flat on his face. “OW! How about a little warning next time Gill.” Oops sorry Spike, I say.
In truth I’m not, I'm to busy experiencing schadenfreude. Spike gets the short end of the stick more often than not. The writers didn’t even cut him a break in his own episode, instead they surrounded the place where he spent most of his pre-Ponyville life with Dragon sneeze trees. Sucks to be you, Spike.
Yes especially if said mare happens to be named Rarity.
Twilight smiles at him, “Sorry Romeo but as dashing and attractive as you look, it’s just for practice and it has to go.” Wait said Romeo but Twilight doesn’t listen and despite his attempt to shield his facial hair the moustache was no more, “aww rats” we chuckle at his expense.
......
Sometime later we journey to my home and residence, the first thing my friends take note of when they enter my dimly lit abode is the shape drop in temperature as it’s a sunny 22°c summer day outside. “Whoa, it’s cold in here!” Says Spike. “Yes indeed it is, I keep the temperature low to slow the decay of the customers I’m preparing for their special day. There’s no party like a funeral party and I’m sure if my customers could have an opinion that they would want to look their best for the occasion.” Oh... yeah... that makes sense. Replies the shivering baby dragon, but I can tell it’s not from the cold.
I lead them through to my office, “You two should wait here whilst I try to convince Rei to come downstairs to meet you, it may take a while so feel free to help yourself to some earl grey tea and assorted biscuits.”
They don’t know that Rei is standing next to me right now and that we are going to make them wait for twenty-two minutes just to sell the impression that I’m having trouble convincing Rei to come down. Rei maybe socially awkward but Zanpakuto’s often share the same conviction as their Soul reapers, which in this case means she’s perfectly fine with pretending to not wanting to come downstairs. When we came back downstairs we find the two each had empty teacups and that Spike had eaten all the biscuits.
“Twilight, Spike, I would like you to meet my sister, Rei Ayanami. Rei Chan, say hello to my friends Twilight Sparkle and her number one assistant Spike the dragon. They live in the town library.”
“Hello.” Says Rei without any hint of emotion.
Twilight and Spike look at the fourteen year old, white coated, Asian, black gothic style dress wearing filly, with her mane in a short blue bob cut and who’s emotionless red-eyed stare added to the discomfort that they already felt which, unknown to them was thanks to the infrasound coming from the air conditioner system.
“Hello Rei Ayanami, it’s nice to meet you. Isn’t that right Spike?” says Twilight nudging her assistant. “Oh um yes, nice to meet you Rei, how do you do?” Spike says as he awkwardly holds out his claw. Rei stares at the outstretched appendage, “Shake his claw Rei” I prompt her. She already knows of course but it’s part of the act. Rei gives Spike’s claw three slow shakes before releasing it and replies “I am fine, thank you for asking.” Now the room is filled with an awkward silence.
Twilight speaks “Spike and I live in the town library, do you like reading Rei?” Yes, is Rei's lacklustre reply. Twilight waits for further elaboration but soon realizes that none is coming so it is up to her to continue the conversation. “What books do you like to read? I like to study magic but I also enjoy fictional works like Daring Do.” I am currently studying human mythology, Rei tells her.
When I wrote this My Little Pony universe I made humans mythological creatures here. Each race has self-generated there own legends involving humans, it’s quite interesting to read and it’s where all the human vernacular comes from. Funny thing is one of those stories is the ancient Greek legend of the Minotaur only it’s told as an origin story of the minotaur race and is told from their perspective. Instead of King Minos of Crete angering Poseidon and the God of the sea getting back at him by making his wife lust for a fornicate with a sacred bull.
King Minos prayed for a son and the goddess Merriwether Williams of Pantheon B, blessed him and his wife with a child that was part man and part bull who became known to many as the Minotaur which means The bull of Minos. King Minos loved his son and gave him the name Asterion. Prince Asterion grew and developed a passion for mazes so the king commissioned the famous engineer Daedalus to build the worlds largest and most complicated maze as a gift for the Prince and that is how the Labyrinth came to be. Unfortunately, the Labyrinth turned out to be to good for when the young Prince went in to solve it he became hopelessly lost.
You know what, it’s a bit to long and would be a distraction right now. I’ll just leave it as a side story.
With my Ki sense I can feel that everyone in Ponyville is gathering in the town square and if the spell Twilight was learning today is any indication, then an obnoxious unicorn mare has strolled into town. I give Rei a look, she knows what’s going on as she’s seen this episode and responds with a nod. I give my normal creepy smile and without a word I walk out of my office with Rei following me, leaving Twilight and Spike very confused until I stick my head back in the room. “Are you two coming or what?” I leave without waiting for a response.
......
As we walk Twilight asks me where we are going. “The same place everyone else is going” I reply which is when Twilight and Spike notice that the other ponies around us are all heading in the same direction.
“Yes, yes! WhoareyouI’veneverseenyoubeforeandIknoweverponyintownsoyoumustbenewhowdoyouknowGrimmywhatsyourfavouritefoodareyoustayingorjustvisitingMumphMumph” I halted the word barrage with my hoof and return fire with some words of my own.
“Ladies, allow me to introduce you all to a close personal friend of mine, my sister Rei Ayanami. We actually moved to Ponyville together but she very withdrawn personality. Today is the first time I’ve been able to get her to leave the house.”
I pull my hoof out of Pinkie’s Pie hole and she immediately gasps. “Oh my gosh, Grimmy! You've had a sister from us all this time and you never told us? I need to throw her a welcome to Ponyville party!” Pinkie, you never threw me a welcome to Ponyville party. “Oh my gosh, you’re right! I have to go plan your double welcome to Ponyville party right away!” She shoots off to Sugarcube Corner, “RED VELVET PLEASE” I yell as she disappears into the distance. “Okie Dokie Loki” she yells back to me. I guess this means she’s going to miss the show but then again she was unusually quiet in this episode so no loss there.
“Heh heh, that’s Pinkie Pie for ya. Please ta meet ya Rei, the names Applejack.”
“Hello.”
Rainbow Dash looks and Rei and I suspiciously. “Your sister huh?” Applejack comes to my aid “Oh Rainbow Dash, ya don’t gotta be so darn suspicious all the time. He just means they’re close is all, they ain’t actually related. Right?” she asks.
“That is correct, we are not related but he is important to me,” says Rei.
“Yes, she may not be blood but she's like a part of my soul.”
She’s literally a part of my soul.
“You're not still upset about the other week are you Rainbow Dash?” Rainbow Dash snorts at me “Yeah I’m still upset, you paralyzed me you creep.” Oh sorry, but you shouldn’t have been spying on our date. “Yeah! Well, I wouldn’t have been doing it if you weren’t such a creep and I was right to be suspicious. What kind of a creep bring drugged tea to a date!” Rainbow Dash, I don’t ask you to justify your loyalty to your friends to me, please don’t ask me to justify my ancient family tradition I’ve already explained to you. “Uh fine, I let it go for now.”
Rarity address Rei “Well I for one, am glad you worked up the courage to leave the house. Nice to meet you Rei Ayanami dear, my name is Rarity. I am the seamstress and owner of Carousel Boutique where everything is chic, unique and magnific. If you ever need a new dress I can help you. Speaking of which I love the one your wearing now, you have very good taste.”
“I didn’t pick this dress, Grim chooses all my clothes for me,” says Rei.
Rarity is taken surprised by this, probably because she has never seen me in anything but my top hat and coat mortician outfit. “Oh, then he has very good taste.” Why thank you Rarity that means a lot coming from such a talented fashionista as yourself. “Your welcome dear. I am simply speaking the truth but why doesn’t she pick her own clothes?” Rarity asks me but I let Rei answer for herself.
“I don’t have any fashion sense and he enjoys it.”
Oh please tell me she did not just say that. There is no way that Miss my special talent is bringing out the inner beauty of my subject is going to let that go.
“Oh, then you simply must come by my Boutique some time so that I can help you to expand your wardrobe.”
“That won’t be necessary,” says Rei.
It really isn’t, Rei's dress is actually part of my medium, the same as my own clothes. It is capable of transforming and is self-repairing as she needs so she’s never going to need a new dress.
“Oh but I insist. Why just imagine how much I can teach you about the world of fashion.”
Rei looks to me for help. “Rarity stop! Rei isn’t that well socially adapted, you have to let her come to you in her own time or you will scare her away.” Rarity realizes what she’s doing “Oh I'm sorry Rei dear, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Rei let out a sigh of relief and then say “Thank you for your understanding.”
Now that I think about it, Pinkie Pie wasn’t the only quiet pony in this episode but that’s much more in character for Fluttershy, it’s not surprising she hasn’t said hello yet.
“So Fluttershy, you know and Rei-Chan have something in common.” We do? Asks sweet treats. “Yes, both of you are vegetarian.” Fluttershy and I may not talk to much because of how disturbing she finds me which isn’t really helped by the fact that the presence of my shadow drops the temperature around me by about three degrees. But she did tell me that she became a vegetarian when she discovered she could talk to animals.
“Yes, it is true that I dislike eating meat.” Say Rei
Fluttershy gains some enthusiasm “Oh, that’s nice! I don’t often meet fellow pony vegetarian. We could exchange recipes, I have a good one for Vegetable Lasagne. I mean, if you want to”
“That would be nice. Grim makes ratatouille.”
Aww, Rei-Chan made a friend. Any further conversation as the show starts. The side of the wagon comes down and folds out into a stage.
“Come one, come all, come and witness the amazing magic of “The Great and Powerful Trixie.”
Oh my god, it’s even more annoying in real life. My ears press flat against my head as “The Greatly Inadequate Trixie” appears on stage in a puff of smoke which impresses the audience.
(Trixie Lulamoon, time left to live: 62, 2 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 36 minutes, 17 seconds)
“Watch in awe as The Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!” Fireworks and a Catherine wheel and other pyrotechnics go off at the sides of the stage for dramatic effect.
Rarity expresses her displeasure at Trixie over blow introduction. “My, my, my, what boasting.” Spike begins to add his two cents before he notices how close he is standing to Rarity. “Come on, nopony is as magical as Twi-Twi-Twi... Uh hum. Hey, Rarity I um... Mustdash!” he quickly moved his nervous, flustered self away from the object of his affection. Twilight takes the spot he previously occupied.
“There’s nothing wrong with being talented is there?” she asks. “Nothing at all” replies Applejack as Trixie performs the flower conjuration illusion. “Except when somepony goes showing it off like a school filly with fancy new ribbons.”
It wouldn’t have impressed me even she really could conjure flowers. I’ve been to the Pottermore universe. Flower conjuration is only a fourth-year spell.
Rarity continues. “Just because one has the ability to perform lots of magic does not make one better than the rest of us.”
Yeah! Say Rainbow Dash. “Especially when we’ve got me around being better than the rest of us.” Oh careful there Rainbow Dash, your ego is showing. I say as Applejack gives her the stink eye which leads to her quickly changing her tune. “I mean um, MAGIC SMAGIC, BOO!
She just had to shout it didn’t she. Trixie had heard her of course, how could she not when we are standing in the front row a mere two meters from the stage.
“Well, well, well, it seems that there are some neigh-sayers in the audience. Who is so ignorant to challenge the magical ability of The Great and Powerful Trixie. Do they not know that they are in the presence of the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria?”
Yes, we probably are but it’s not you Miss razzle-dazzle.
Huff “Just who does she think she is?” asks Rarity. Yeah, say Spike who then starts to claim that Twilight Sparkle is the most powerful unicorn but Twilight shushes him a drags him away for a quick word before they come back. I didn’t hear any of it but if we are still on script then Twilight just told Spike to keep it down because after seeing how much Trixie is annoying our friends she's afraid that they will think less of her if they find out how good she is at magic.
Rainbow Dash flies up to Trixie and as her what makes her think she's such hot shit and Trixie starts spinning a tall tale told with crude neon light style illusions about how she saved the town of Hoofington from being attacked by a giant star called an Ursa Major. I know she’s an entertainer and that telling tall tales and exaggerating her abilities is what she's supposed to do but she really gets on my nerves plus there is one little detail in her story that’s always bugged me and now I get to be a smart arse about it.
“Question” What? the annoyed stage performer snaps at me. “Did you provoke the Ursa Major into attacking the town of Hoofington the first place?” What? No! The Great and Powerful Trixie would never do such a thing! why would you think that?
Because you said you “sent it back to its cave deep in the Everfree Forest” and whilst there is nothing wrong with saying there is a cave in the Everfree Forest the only way to know the cave's location is if you went there yourself.
“Buh, buh!”
Oh ho ho, the look on her face as she realizes the implications is absolutely priceless. Not to mentioned the stunned look of the audience.
“Well um, The Great and Powerful Trixie simply dumped the Ursa Major in the first cave she found that was large enough to contain it, it may have not been the Ursa Major’s cave but it worked, Hoofington was saved and that is all that matters.” Oh so you didn’t send it back, you took it back? “Um, yes I took it back to The Everfree Forest.”
Ha, she’s starting to sweat now. That’s ok, I'll let her go now.
No sooner had I finished speaking the town’s dumb dumb duo Snips and Snails, voice there admiration for the show mare. “So sweet!” they say as one. These two colts are about ten years old and both unicorn. Snips, whose cutie mark is an open pair of scissors, is short and chubby with a bluish grey coat and a messy light brown mane and Snails is a lanky colt a foot taller than his friend, has a dark mustard coat and has his light turquoise mane in a bowl cut. His cutie mark is a purple snail.
“That settles it,” said Snips. Snails moved up in front of the stage. “Trixie really is the most talented, most magical, most awesome unicorn in all of Ponyville” Snips then sprung up to stand to the right of Snails “No! In all of Equestria!” he enthusiastically declares to the crowd, spreading his forelegs wide in the air in empathies.
Spike tries to start up about Twilight again but like before Twilight blocks him but this time by magical conjuring a zip on his lips and drawing it shut. The Humble and Modest Trixie was flattered by the praise but downplayed her abilities.
“Ha ha ha, yes it’s true my enthusiastic admirers. Trixie is the most powerful unicorn in all the land!”
If you haven’t figured out I was being sarcastic about her being humble and modest by now I don’t know what to say.
“I see by the look on your faces that you still doubt my power. You think that you can do better than me? Then I challenge any of you Ponyvillians who thinks that they are more talented than The Great and Powerful Trixie! Any thing you can do I can do better.”
“HA!” I yell.
“It’s true, I can do anything better than you!”
Oh, she didn’t! I'm not letting this go, I feel like I’m overdue for a song as it is. I should have had one when I was on my date and besides, it’s a classic.
“No you can’t”
As it tends to happen in Equestria, when I climb up to take my place upon the stage some appropriate music starts playing from nowhere which was jarring to everyone but they go along with it like they always do except in that one time in the episode “Somepony to watch over me” where the CMC didn’t have time for it.
“Anything you can be I can be greater, sooner or later I’m greater than you.”
A swirl of my coat reveals two reefs of black roses mounted on easels are now on the stage. The crowd cries in awe.
“Whys that even matter? Have a peanut butter cracker.”
She then proceeds to pull a peanut butter cracker from nowhere and shoves it in my mouth. I choke on it in surprise and the crowd laughs.
“I can make mice dance with ease.”
Oh, burn! All she’s done so far is to belittle and dismiss me and yet the crowd is on her side. Actually, come to think of it the only pony's challenge she actually met in this episode was Applejack challenge to do a rope trick. She just assaulted Rainbow Dash and subverted Rarity's beauty contest.
“Anything you fought I’ve fought stronger.”
I take a quick look behind the stage curtain and find a chest full of props. I open it and pull out a target board and some throwing knives.
“Any knife you can throw I can throw better.”
“We’ll start from eight." My knife hits dead centre.
“Now ten steps.” Her knife hits just above mine.
“Now from twelve.” My knife hits between the previous two.
“Next fourteen.” Her knife drops half an inch.
“Sixteen steps.” It matches hers.
“Eighteen next.” Her knife is almost in the middle circle. I’ve got this one, which is good. One more and I would run out of stage.
“Three apples! Thirty steps!” In this episode, Applejack finished her rope trick by lassoing an apple from a tree that was off the side of the stage. I have been moved away from that tree to the far end of the stage when throw my last knife which flies through the air, cutting the stems of three apples before it gets lodged in a branch. Trixie stares with her mouth open and the audience is equally amazed.
“How do you throw knives like that?” she asks me. “I’ve been training since I was four,” I reply. “Weirdo,” she says, pulling a novelty size deck of cards from the chest and the smug grin returns to her face.
“Any trick you can do I can do faster, I am the master I’m faster than you.”
“Now is this your card?”
“Here’s the linking ring trick, isn’t it a classic.” I link two solid brass rings together.
“Anything puppet trick you can do I can do better, down to the letter I’m better than you.”
“No you can't.” I just make the duck flap its wings.
“Yes I can.” Trixie sings, making her rabbit dab.
“No you can't.” I sing while making the duck cross one wing in front if its chest and wag the other, pointing it condescendingly.
“Yes I can.” Trixie sang, making her rabbit point at itself and then do jazz hands.
“No you can't.” My duck jumps up into the air with its wing spread then comes down and does the worm then flips up on to its head to do three spins and lands on its side with its head propped up on one wing.
“Yes I can.” Trixie’s rabbit did a triple summersault and landed on its knees with arms outstretched. “Ta-Da!” Said the rabbit. Trixie had thrown her voice that time.
Oh! we skipped the part about her wearing my clothes better than me and the one about getting better prices. That would mean we’ve gotten to the part of the song where thing get a bit silly.
We catch our breaths as the crowd stomps out wild applause. Trixie speaks first.
“Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie has never been challenged like that before. But once again she rises victorious.” I shake my head. “I think that’s for the audience to decide, in fact, did anyone keep score?” I did replies a voice I haven’t heard in a while. “Is that you Doctor Hooves?” Yes, it’s me, I can’t believe that neither of you knows how to tie a bow tie. “That’s not the issue right now, who won?” Yes, tell everypony of Trixie's triumphant victory. “I can’t you tied.”
“WHAT!” Trixie and I said together.
“How? I conjured more flowers then her, and they were arranged better too.” Yes but then she choked you with a cracker in a comical manner which gave her that round and she was right about the cat but as you made no demonstration and she offered no counter trick, that one was a draw as was the following round where you matched her Ursa Major with Nightmare Moon.
“Ok good point,” I admit.
“You didn’t actually score a point until the knife throwing contest and another when you sabotaged her card trick but she evened the score when she shocked you with the lightning bolt.”
Trixie smiled and the crowd murmured in agreement but the Doc continued.
“It didn’t stay that way for long though as you borough up your impressive stealth skills which you have demonstrated in public several times and to which she had no answer but to call you a creep. Seeing that being creepy is your special talent that’s definitely a point to you.”
I smile “Yes and then she beat me when she threw her voice, right?”
Trixie and I both have embraced looks on our faces at that comment.
“Trixie then claimed she can stitch leather better than you but as neither of you actually demonstrated it so we can’t judge you on it. Seriously, you can’t tie a bow tie?”
“No Doc I can’t tie a bow tie. I can never get both sides even, one end is always bigger than the other. I just use one of those velcro ones if it’s really important, just let it go already!”
“Ok, I’ll drop it, that leaves you two tied at 3-3 you were even on singing sweetly.” Trixie is not happy with these results.
“Outrageous! Trixie is the most powerful unicorn! she demands a tiebreaker.”
Oh she does, does she? Well, who am I to disappoint her? Oh that’s right I'm Grim Gill and I don’t like her.
“Nah I’m good thanks.” I say causally before jumping off the stage and start trotting away with Rei and Applejack following me. Trixie's jaw drops and the audience laughs.
“COME BACK HERE! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE ISN’T FINISH WITH YOU!”
“Oh that's to bad I’m afraid our time is up. The Great and Powerful Trixie will have to book another appointment, the next available time slot will be in... When I give a buck!”
This sets the crowd off on another round of laughter.
Trixie tries to pull me back with her levitation but I brake her hold on me. I turn around to faces her with a great big smug grin on my face.
“That’s 3-4 I win. enjoy the rest of the show everyone, for it is time for me to take my leave. Thank you all and have a wonderful day.”
I bow and the audience is laughing now that some of them can barely stand, Rainbow Dash is literally rolling on the ground laughing and you would think there was a stamped from the noise of all the applause they are giving me. I can barely hear Trixie screaming in frustration from the stage.
After we leave the town square Applejack kisses me on the cheek and says “That was quite the show honey, couldn’t have done it better ma self.”
“Thank you dear, It was worth it to make you laugh.” I say nuzzling her ear. She chuckles and the corners of Rei’s mouth twitch into a faint smile.
I straighten up and then say to my companions “Come on you two, let's all go have Hay fries and veggie pies at The Horseshoe Inn. My treat.”
......
Later as night falls over Ponyville, Rei and I are sitting unseen on the roof the of a building, watching as Snips and Snails lead a giant blue star bear towards the town square were Trixie who is in her wagon preparing for bed. Suddenly I felt something and jump bolt upright “Ah, shit!” I exclaim.
“I take it that you didn’t want that to happen.” Says Rei who had felt the same thing I did. “No I didn’t, fortunately, it shouldn’t change to much but still it’s not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination. “Do you wish to intervene now?” I take a moment to consider if any other non-scripted event that might happen. “No, we'll let Trixie take her crack at it first. Oh! and there goes her wagon, The Great and Powerful Trixie is homeless.”
Cue my schadenfreude grin.
“Let's go down there,” I say, taking Rei by the hoof and shadow teleporting down next to The Greatly Inadequate Trixie. "Hello,” You! Trixie snaps at me, clearly not happy to see me but Snips and Snails are. “It’s Grim Gill, there both here!” say Snips. “Oh yeah, this is going to be good!” say Snails.
“You look like your trying to fight a giant star bear, would you like some help?”
Cue mocking grin.
“Trixie has the situation well under control.” Says the now angry mare who is in way over her head. She conjures a small storm cloud over the Ursa by then nothing happens.
“WAOHW!”
Whoa! That was far louder than anyone else has shouted at me so far in Equestria, worst case of bad breath to. Trixie is visibly shaken, whereas I’m still smiling and Rei is expressionless. “Uh oh!” says Trixie which is followed by the five of us running to dodge a swipe from the angry fifteen-foot tall bear.
“You're right Trixie, I see now that you have the situation well in hand.” Oh, shut up! As if you could do any better! Trixie retorts. “You’ve never actually fought a creature so much bigger than yourself before have you?” Of course not!
“WHAT?” yell Snips and Snails. Trixie turns her head back to look at them with an embraced look on her face. I think she might have forgotten they were there for a moment.
“It’s true, Trixie, I mean I confess. I can't vanquish an Ursa Major, nopony can. I’ve never even seen one until now. I just made it up to make me look better.”
“Made It Up!” the dumb dumb duo say together.
Don’t hold your breath dear, you still haven’t. All the noise of property destruction and roaring had brought may ponies out of their homes who all just heard Trixie's confession. This includes Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash but no Pinkie or Fluttershy.
“I have a confession to make too,” I admit.
“WHAT?” Yelled Trixie and her two fans together. “I lied when I was up on stage,” You mean you can work with leather? Interrupts Snips. “You can’t make mice dance?” asks Snails.
“No, no, of course, I can do those things!” Then what did you lie about? Asks Trixie. “Well you see, the thing I lied about was,” is all I say before I disappear before there eyes. “Aargh, that coward ran away!” says Trixie, her sentiment is echoed by her fans. “Ah man! What a rip, says Snips. “Total bummer!” agrees Snails.
“He's not gone.” Say Rei in her normal emotionless tone. Suddenly my voice is heard coming from all directions.
“Come little children, I'll take the away. In to a land of enchantment. Come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of shadows.”
Applejack face hoofed. “Oh of course, how could ah forget that Grim Gill can throw his voice like that! He did the same darn thing at Sugarcube Corner, back when ah made those terrible cupcakes which hospitalised Pinkie and Derpy. Course, back then he did it all creepy like.” Other ponies who had been present that day murmur in agreement and wonder how they too could have missed such a lie but their attention is soon brought back to the Ursa, who has stopped rampaging and is now swaying back and forth on its feet with his eyes half closed.
Rei trots over to talk to Twilight Sparkle. “You can help to Twilight.” Twilight stumbles back a bit. “What me? How could I help? I’m nothing special,” Rei stops her. “Twilight, you are the element of magic. Your play small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking out of the fear of what others may think of about you. Go and shine like you were born to do and make manifest of the glory of Faust that is within you.”
“Did you just try to motivate me by miss quoting Coach Canter? ” asks Twilight.
“No, Coach Canter was quoting a book by Marianne Whinnyson. Now get out there and save Ponyville.”
Sometimes I worry about the influence I have on Rei.
"Hush now dear children, it must be this way, too weary of life and deceptions, sleep now my children for soon we'll away into the calm and the quite."
“Right!” says Twilight who straightens up and steps forward having now gotten her confidence back. Her horn glows brightly and Ponyville’s water tower gets split from its legs, the roof twists of and the water is tipped out. “That’s a new one” comments Spike as the now empty water tank is levitated through the dairy barn where all the cows live and comes out the other side filled with milk, the roof is then screwed back on but now with a hole in the top. I form a giant pram out of my black Nightmare sand, Twilight levitates the Ursa into it and gives it the tank which it starts drinking from like a giant baby bottle. Then I wheel the big baby back into the Everfree forest, lower my sand and disintegrate the pram when his on the ground and then exit the shadows back in Ponyville town square next to Twilight, were all the ponies cheer and Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity gather around us.
“That was amazing!” exclaimed Spike. “Amazing? Are you kidding? It was awesome!” said an ecstatic Rainbow Dash. “Ya can say that again, we knew you two had ability but not that much.” Twilight is relieved “Oh thank Faust! I thought you would all hate me.” Hate you? All our friends say together. Well except Spike, of course, he already knows why Twilight was afraid.
“Why whatever do you mean darling?” asks Rarity. “Well, I know how you all hated Trixie showing off her magic and thought that if you saw how good I am at magic then you would hate me too.” Whoa, whoa, Twilight! Says Rainbow Dash, “Magic has nothing to do with it. Trixie’s just a loud mouth.” Yes, she is most unpleasant. Agrees Rarity followed by Applejack saying that Trixie is “All hat and no cattle.”
“So you don’t mind my magic tricks?” Asks Twilight. Applejack then tells her that “Your magic is part of who you are sugarcube, just like being creepy by doing things like disappearing and singing a song about the kidnapping and implied murder of children, is part of who Grim Gill is.”
“Oh Applejack, you flatterer you,” I say, and sit on the ground with one hoof under my chin and the other doing that oh stop it wave thing people do sometimes when others have said something nice about them.
“And we like who you are. We’re proud ta have such a powerful and talented unicorn as our friend.” Yeah! Says Rainbow Dash. “And after the way you dealt with that Ursa Major, we're even prouder.” You are? Asks Twilight who receives approval from all our friends.
“Wow, you guys were amazing! But how did you know what to do with that Ursa Major?” Spike asks us. “That’s what I was studying when you came to get me. I was so intrigued by Trixie's bragging that I was compelled to do a little reading up on them.” Twilight replies. “So it is possible to vanquish an Ursa Major all by yourself?”
“Who know Spike but that wasn’t a full-grown Ursa Major. That was just a baby, why do you think we did use any aggressive tactics?”
“That was just a baby?” Exclaimed the Greatly Humiliated Trixie.
“Oh! the giant pram and baby bottle makes a lot more sense now.” Says a random pony in the crowd who I believe may be Colgate but It might have been Minuet. I can’t tell for sure as I can’t see them properly.
Twilight continues our explanation.
“It was an Ursa Minor to be exact. Also it wasn’t rampaging, it was just cranky because somepony woke it up.”
Every pony gathered gives the dumb, dumb duo the stink eye. They have the decency to look ashamed.
They're even bigger in canon but I just have trouble believing that you can hide approximately eighty-foot tall glowing bear in a forest that’s so close to a town when the trees of said forest only grow about thirty feet tall. So I made mine only forty-five feet and the Everfree Forest the size of London.
“SWEET MOTHER OF CELESTIA! YOU TWO IDIOTS ALL MOST BROUGHT THAT INTO TOWN!” Rainbow Dash yelled at the dumb, dumb duo who took offence to that.
“Hey! We're not idiots.” Say Snails “Yeah! All our parents and Miss Cheerilee agree that we’re two halves of a whole moron.” Says Snips. They then proceed to hoof bump like they think that’s a good thing. There are moans from the gathered ponies but also unanimous agreement with the statement.
Trixie comes over to Twilight and I. “Ha. The two of you may have vanquished an Ursa Minor together but you will still never have the amazing show-stopping ability of The Great and Powerful Trixie!” she reared up on her hind legs and drop a smoke bomb which concealed her from view for a second but when it clears we see her running away, to bad I’m not fished with her yet. I pull a wooden bucket out of my coat and hoof it to Rei who lobs it at the retreating mare and it beans her in the head. The Greatly Inadequate Trixie goes down and slides to a stop.
Twilight looks horrified. “Why did you do that!” Rei turns to her and gives a chilling reply.
Twilight and all who had heard her shiver. I casually trot over to Trixie as she rubbing her head.
“What do you want now? Hasn’t Trixie been humiliated enough?” No. I reply and rope comes out of my sleeve which ties Miss Lulamoon up. “What is the meaning of this? Release Trixie this instant!” There is something I must show you before you leave Miss Lulamoon. This got her attention. “How do you know that name? Trixie never told anypony here her name?” I levitate her and start trotting. “It is like Doc told you back during the show Miss Lulamoon. My special talent is being creepy.”
Rei has lead Spike and those of the Mane six who are present over to us, they are very curious as to what is going on. “What’s this about Grim Gill? Rei said that there was something you wanted to show us but she won’t say what it is.” Twilight asks, “Yeah Grimmy, what’s with the suspense? Why not just tell us?” asks Pinkie, but with none of her normal enthusiasm.
I answer them but do not stop walking or face them as I do.
“I cannot say, my mind is blank on what words may prepare you for what you will see. This cannot be avoided any longer than it already has.”
We walk in silence until we came in sight of our destination and all the ponies gasped in horror at what they saw. All except for one.
“AAAAH! MOTHER! FATHER! SWEETIE BELLE!” Screams Rarity hysterically before she ran towards the Belle family home which is partially demolished by a tree that the Ursa Minor had knocked over on its way through town.
Quickly all of us except for the tied up Miss Lulamoon started digging through the rubble, searching for survivors. With mine and Rei's ability to sense Ki, we are able to rescue Sweetie Belle within minutes.
Myself and the others continued to dig in the hope of that we might find Mr and Mrs Belle still alive while Rarity comforted her little sister and takes her to stay overnight at Ponyville General Hospital, but secretly Rei and I knew that all our efforts were to be for not as we had felt their lives get snuffed out back when had been watching the approaching Ursa Minor from the rooftop.
When we find Mr and Mrs Belle an hour later and they are not a pretty sight. It was so bad that when Pinkie Pie saw them her normally curly cotton candy mane and tail made a sound like a rapidly deflating balloon and became tidy and straight.
Anyone who had fallen asleep in the past hour is awoken by Rarity's blood-curdling scream.
“NOOOOO!”
Under normal circumstances, Rarity would have fainted at least once by now but I think this situation is so beyond normal for her that her faint reflex is in shock. Everyone, including some onlookers who gathered to see what all the fuss is about, is now crying.
That is to say everyone except Rei, myself and Applejack. Rei and I have sombre looks on our faces but those aren’t new, we’ve been like that since Trixie got hit by the bucket. Applejack has a sombre expression as well but unlike the two of us, she is crying on the inside.
I walk over to Trixie and say “Are you happy now?” This of course is a rhetorical question as Trixie is crying just like many of the other ponies. “Of course not! I never wanted this, I just wanted to entertain! No pony was supposed to get hurt. It’s just a show!” Well, someone did get hurt and now Miss Rarity and her little sister are orphans. None of this was directly your fault Miss Lulamoon, mostly I blame the dumb, dumb duo's parents for not keeping a better eye on the “two halves of a whole moron” that they know there kids to be. But as this event has negatively affected your image here in Ponyville I don’t think you should show your face here for a long time.
“YES! MAKE HER GO AWAY, GRIM GILL. I DON’T WANT SEE HER EVER AGAIN AND I WILL BE HAVING SERIOUS WORDS WITH BOTH OF SNIPS AND SNAILS PARENTS!”
Oh boy she is pissed, I take a bouquet of black roses and hold them in front of Miss Lulamoon's face. “Why are you giving me flowers now? You should give them to Rarity. She’s the one who lost her parents.” Oh I will, this is as much for her as it is for you. I say before I squeeze the hidden trigger that shoots a cloud of paralysis powder in Miss Lulamoon's face. Now that she has no muscle control she can also no longer maintain her seated position and falls over in the ground, she is afraid once again.
“Why would you do that? I was already unable to move.” I need a little more fear so I give her my creepy grin. “Because Miss Lulamoon, the time has come to get rid of you,” I say in an ominous fashion and felt her fear rise further. I materialise one of my black sand Nightmares which snorts aggressively at the bound blue mare. I place the end of the rope in its mouth and say “Enjoy your flight Miss Lulamoon.” What do you mean my flight? Trixie nervously asks but instead of replying a give the Nightmare a slap on the rump and she takes off into the night sky with her screaming passenger.
“AAAAah!"
“Don’t you think that was a little harsh Grim Gill?” Twilight asks me. “I mean you did say yourself that this wasn’t really her fault.” I pull a flyer out of my coat and turn to show it to Twilight. “Do you know who this pony is?” I ask her pointing as much as a pony can without fingers to one of the two stallions depicted on the Las Pegasus magic show flyer. “It says his name is Jack Pot. What are you getting at?”
“Lulamoon” I reply smugly. “His full name is Jack Pot, Paul, Lulamoon. I just sent The Great and Recently Homeless Trixie on a one way trip to her father’s by Scare Air.”
This caused the crying and distraught, Rarity to Laugh up a storm.
Author's Note
Hipin: "Oh God damn it Grim Gill, you arrogant arse! You were supposed to get Trixie killed off not Rarity's parents out of carelessness. And that song! You were meant to lose that! Why won't you bloody do what I tell you to?"
Rei: "Why would he? He is an incarnation of you and you never do what you are told."
Hipin: Oh, that's right... Bollocks!"
The sun is low in the evening sky casting long shadows over the graveyard where several figures stand in mourning before a grave filled earlier that day. Its beautiful headstone baring a cutie mark of three apples reads “Here Lies Applejack, National Hero, Element of honesty, Beloved sister, Loving grandmother, Dedicated wife.”
None of the mourners have dry eyes but the loudest sobs come from the pink mare with a long straight mane and three balloons for a cutie mark.
“Wah it’s not fair, first it was Rainbow dash then Rarity and Fluttershy now it’s Applejack and your leaving too Grimmy.”
The ash grey unicorn stallion with a black mane wearing a black velvet belled top hat and large black woollen frock coat turned to the Pink mare.
“Oh calm down my sweet Pinkie Pie, just because I’m leaving Equestria now Applejack is dead doesn’t mean I won’t be seeing you again. In fact I will be seeing you more than anypony else because of my meetings with Loki.”
Next to speak up was the elderly yellow mare who’s grey mane was tied up by a dark pink almost red ribbon.
"So yah gonna come and visit us sometime then Grim Gill?”
He then turned to face the lavender alicorn
"And of course I will be visiting you and the other Princesses to Twilight. I don’t know that many immortals I'm on good terms with after all.”
“Maybe you would if you didn’t steal from them and show them such disrespect you would get on with them better” replied Princess Twilight sparkle.
Grim Gill grinned at Twilight.
“Oh Twilight were would the fun be in that? It so easy to become arrogant when you’re a powerful immortal being that it’s important that someone should knock you down a peg or two some time.”
“Oh you would know all about that wouldn’t you Mr Lord of Heavens.”
The Grey pony chuckled.
“Too true Discord, I often forget that in the grand scheme I’m just a big fish in a small pond, especially here where I am the whale to your dolphin.”
The aforementioned darconequus huffed.
“Well things are what they are but what they will be is a little more dull without you around. Nopony really gets me and my chaos like you do.”
Grim Gill shrugs.
“What can I say Discord. It’s just the perks of growing up in a chaos based universe.
“But do you really have too go now? I know I’m not really losing another friend but to leave so soon after Applejack's death it certainly feels like I am. It all just feels so final like this is the end, I only have Spike and Pinkie Pie left now.”
The alicorn princess found herself suddenly being embraced by the currently hysterical Party pony.
“That’s right Twilight, you still have us and I still have you, I’m so glad you’re immortal and that dragons live so long. Other friends will come and go but I know you will always be there even when Spike will eventually have to leave when he grows to big and threats the town with the smoke from his snoring.”
Twilight's number one assistant joins in the hug, standing at six foot four the purple dragon with the green head cress easily embrace both mare’s.
“Yeah Twilight, don’t worry about me. I’m not going to be going anywhere for a long time.”
As Grim Gill watched them hug he wiped a tear from his eye before speaking.
“You know back at the beginning of this all before I came into Equestria I looked into the future to see how my little vacation here would end and saw all this but the emotions of it just didn’t hit me as hard back then as they do right now.”
"Ah little vacation?" The elderly Applebloom spoke up. "It’s been ah bout ah hundred and twenty five years. What would ah long vacation be?”
Grim Gill shrugs.
“Oh I don’t know probably around a thousand.”
End of Prologue
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Have a nice trip, try not to break anything.
Hello there reader, I see I’ve caught your attention. Please allow me to introduce myself, I have had many names such as Eldin Marl, Jacob Creed, Kurojin but you may call me Lord Marcellus, lord of heavens, god of love, war, death and the great forest spirit.
Once I was just a normal human who craved adventure and power in fictional worlds. Then one day I actually managed to force my way into one. Since then I’ve been going from fictional universe to fictional universe having adventures and gaining more and more powers on the way.
So now here I stand at six feet tall with the muscle tone of a well seasoned martial artist with long brown hair tied in a ponytail going down the middle of my back. My eyes are bright green and I’m dressed some of the finest but also practical clothes that the Stargate universe version of Britain can offer in the year 723 A.D staring out of my bedroom window of my castle in my capital city of York sighing in boredom as my short vision of the future fades away.
My plans here in the present for the Stargate universe are simple in theory but difficult in practice. After the downfall of the system lords in the canon timeline the Jafar rose up to form their own intergalactic government but they alone could not fill the power vacuum and a powerful organised crime syndicate called the Luciana alliance started causing chaos across the galaxy.
So I went back in time after the goa'uld left Earth but before the British empire or even England ever became a thing and establish the Earth which we will call Midgard as the first power base of the Lords of Heavens.
As for the Lords of Heavens themselves, one man no matter how powerful he is can rule an entire galaxy by himself or at least he shouldn’t. I might be able to pull it off but I doubt it would be a good idea so instead, I'm gathering powerful beings from a number of fictional universes who I believe would be suitable to rule vast quadrants of the galaxy as part of a vast intergalactic union.
So far I’ve only got the first Mewtwo (yes there's more than one, the first was created by Team Rocket and the second by Team Plasma) Lord Sesshomaru and Loki working with me and together we’ve have been able to gained the territories of what you would recognise as England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and most recently Spain.
Not bad for only fifteen years work but now we have to take a break for a decade or two to increase our population and work on improving infrastructure. The Vikings aren’t due to invade until 793 so it’s not like we need to rush things and I can afford to take some time off to cure my boredom.
I've been working on my own version of the fourth generation of My Little Pony universe because of its geocentric nature. You see when I first arrived in the Stargate universe it wasn’t 723A.D but 2007 A.D sometime after the entire Asgard race committed mass suicide in the face of total annihilation by genetic degradation or the Ori. When their homeworld was attacked by the Ori they choose neither and instead blew themselves up along with their entire planet but not before giving their human allies ship an upgrade which included all their latest technology. So naturally, I just had to steal it.
How is this relevant to the pony world’s geocentric nature you might ask. One of the things that the Asgard invented was time manipulation technology. It can create a time dilation field in which time can be made to go fast, slower or even backwards.
The time dilation field can be big enough to contain entire planets and theoretical I can use the Stargate network to expand the time dilation field to manipulate time across multiple star systems at once or maybe the entire galaxy but not the entire universe.
Which when you consider galaxies like to move at the speed of light might cause some problems with collisions.
In the My Little Pony universe on the other hand. No celestial body moves without being moved by one of the alicorn princesses moving it so as long as I encompass the entire solar system I can freely manipulate time without consequences. Like making time move faster there so that century there is only a few days here hence why my future self in my vision of told an elderly Applebloom 125 years only constitutes as a little vacation.
I make arrangements with my fellow lords and my top minions letting them know I will be away on vacation for a few weeks. My current wife Angelina who I gained by giving her a magical contract is a bit upset with me but she knows she can’t stop me or force me to take her with me so she just tells me to have fun and goes to bed in a different room. Yeah… good thing the castle has a lot of bedchambers or I would be sleeping on the sofa when I get back.
Now that all the arrangements have been made I lock on to the time-space coordinates I need in my custom version of MLP G4 ep1 s1 before going into stealth mode and teleporting to The Golden Oak Library.
Twilight Sparkle, the student of Princess Celestia herself has not been having a good day. First she reads a book that tells her of a prophecy that Princess Celestia's evil sister Nightmare Moon is going to escape from her one thousand years of imprisonment on the moon tomorrow morning but when she tried to warn her mentor she gets sent to Ponyville to over the preparations for the Summer Sun Festival and is told to “make some friends.”
Twilight however is a reclusive book worm who is more used to having acquaintances and see “making friends” as a waste of time when she is busy trying to prevent Nightmare Moon escaping and bring forth eternal night. But now it’s the early hours of the morning and I’m watching her as she is laid on a bed in the upstairs section of the library with her head under pillow trying to block out the noise of her own “Welcome to Ponyville” party that is happening downstairs.
A Purple two-foot tall bipedal reptile walks into the room with a lampshade on his head. This is Spike the baby dragon who is Twilight's number one assistant.
“Hey Twilight, Pinkie Pie started pin the tail on the pony, do you want to play?”
“No” she yelled “all the ponies in this town are crazy! do you know what time it is? It’s 4:05 in the morning! The sun rises in less than an hour and I want at least half a hours sleep before I have to get up for The Summer Sun Celebration and I don’t want tired in front of the Princess.”
Spike nods "yeah ok Twilight that makes sense but the party downstairs is for you, you really should come join in and besides everypony is supposed to stay up the night before The Summer Sun Celebration so I don’t think Princess Celestia is going to hold being tired against you.”
Twilight huff’s “er, whatever Spike, just come a fetch me when it’s time.” Ok, Twilight Spike said as he turns and leaves the room and Twilight settles down into the bed.
If you have a good memory of the first episode you may have noticed that while what just happened was similar to the cartoon, Twilight’s words and action were off script. This world is real now and fate's hold is no longer as ironclad as it once was.
I however need to move and phase through the wall. I only have half an hour or so to forge the paperwork I need to make myself a citizen of Equestria and make it look like I rode into Ponyville today and book a room at The Horseshoe Inn.
Never heard of The Horseshoe Inn, have you? That’s because I wrote it into this version of Equestria myself, it's a nice little three hoof rated bed and breakfast place with ten rooms that would be fully booked if I hadn’t created it specifically to get my shoe in Equestria.
No one is running the desk when I arrive so there’s nothing to stop me from writing my assumed pony name into the ledger.
I swipe my key and place a saddle bag full essentials and fakes documents and a trunk in my room before I assume my pony form and seal away the vast majority of powers to leave me only with those that I have deemed necessary for my stay in this world.
My appearance is that of a young unicorn stallion with an ash grey coat, mildly reflective yellow eyes and a lifeless black mane and tail. Not a very common mane colour to be sure but stranger still is my horn does not match my coat which instead of being grey is a slightly off white like an old bone.
I've got clothes too, I'm wearing a black waistcoat and an old long worn woollen black frock coat with a belled top hat with a small black cloth tied around its base that drapes off the back. This is recognised across Equestria as the uniform of a mortician just as it once was in the real world in Victorian England. The coat covers my cutie mark.
Soon enough Mayor Mare gives her speech and announces Princess Celestia but when the curtains open the Princess is nowhere to be seen. Mayor Mare tries to calm everyone but then a sinister laugh is heard and a dark sparkling cloud appears on the balcony where Princess Celestia was meant to be and the dark alicorn know as Nightmare Moon materialises from it.
“Greetings my beloved subjects it's good to be back. It has been so long since I last saw your precious little sun-loving faces.”
While others huddled together shaking in fear Rainbow Dash was immediately hostile towards the dark alicorn.“Who are you and what have you done with the Princess.”
She prepares to rush Nightmare Moon but before she can move Applejack pulls her to the ground by biting down and tugging on her tail.
“Ma ha ha ha, why? am I not royal enough for you? Don’t you know who I am?”
Pinkie Pie thinking this was some kind of guessing game interrupts and started saying random names before Applejack gags her with an apple while maintaining her hold on Rainbow Dash.“Oh more guessing game, is it Queen Meanie? Holy Smokes? Oh oh Black Snooty, Black Snooty mumph.”
“Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Do you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?”
This would be the part where Twilight speaks up but I’ve had enough of being silent for now, it’s time I made everyone jump. Before she can say a single word I call out from the shadows.
“I know who you are” I pausing to step into the light with a disturbing smile on my face, startling the few ponies closes to me who had up been unaware of my presence. “I know who everyone is, you are the younger sister of the Princess of the Sun, the mare in the moon, the Princess of the night Nightmare Moon.”
Ponies all around gasp in shock of finding out that the evil princess they had dismissed as just an old ponytale was in fact real and standing before them.
“Hee, of course I do. You’re here to bring eternal night to Equestria, which is by the way a terrible idea that will kill off all plant life on this side of the world in about fourteen days and lower the temperature to freezing point. We'll all starve or freeze to death.”
Nightmare Moon stops smiling, her mane and tail form into swirling clouds from which a bolt of lightning shoots out at me but I had been expecting it and I catch it in my hat.
“You lie! None shall die. My eternal night shall be beautiful and all shall learn to love it and me. I hope you enjoyed yesterday morning my subjects for it was your last. From now forth the night shall last forever! Ha ha ha ha."
“Somepony stop her” yelled Mayor Mare. “She’s the only one who knows where the Princess is.”
Several pegasi dress in the golden armour of the royal guard try to surround the dark alicorn but she’s having none of that.
“Stay back you foals” she cries be rearing back on her hind legs and shoots a lightning bolt at them as she stomps down which sends them all flying backwards.
She uses the opening to turn into a dark mist a zips out the doors, Rainbow Dash fly’s out to see her zipping off into the night. “She’s gone”
“Twilight Sparkle” I call across the room as I make my way towards the door. “We have to find the elements Twilight.”
She stalls for a moment in surprise that the odd stallion who had been talking to Nightmare Moon. A pony who she had never met somehow knew her name a was telling her what she needed to do. It was quite a disturbing and jarring experience.“Ah, what? Oh yes, yes the elements of course, to the library.”
I made it to the library first and pretend to be looking for the book on Elements of Harmony and started complaining when Twilight and the others arrive.
“What kind of idiot organised this library? It’s like it was all arranged alphabetically with no regards to subject matter. There isn’t even a dedicated child's section, I just found Holly the Hungry Horsey with Hormones and You.”
Applejack speaks up “Ok partner, I ain’t ever seen you around Ponyville before. I ain’t got a clue who ya are or where ya from but you and Twilight seem to be the only ones who know what’s going on. Who the hay are you?”
Now Rainbow Dash gets up in my face. “Yeah Applejack's right, you seem to be rather jolly that Nightmare Moon showed up and seem to know a lot about her too. What's up with that? Are you guys spies?”
I scrunch up my face, “alright fair question but first off take this.”I reached into my coat pocket with my magic and pull out a small wrapped object I swiped from the Inn and presented it to Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow Dash takes the small wrapped object and looks it over with suspicious eyes.“What’s this? Your suicide pill or something?”I roll my eyes at her. “No Rainbow Dash it’s a complimentary hotel mint, your breath stinks.”She pulls a stunned face like she can’t believe I just said that, makes the offended horse noise from the show before dropping the mint on the floor and tries to hoof me in the face but once again Applejack pulls her back by the tail.
“Whoa there, simmer down Sally this ain’t the time for a fight, just let him talk.”I levitate my mint up off the floor and put it back in my pocket for later.“Ok that I’ll admit was my bad for provoking her. So, on to business. My name is Grim Gill, as you can tell by my attire I'm a mortician by trade and my special talent is being creepy.”
“Some examples of my creepiness are that when I meet someone for the first time I instantly know several things about them right away without being told. I don’t know how I do it but I do and it’s often more then what one could get from deduction alone but once I see your face I know you’re name, your fears and your deepest desires before you even speak a word. I can also blend into the shadows and move around unheard and unseen.
Twilight has just come back downstairs from putting Spike to bed and is now rushing from shelf to shelf to explain much.
“They already know who I am and we don't have time for this. We need to find the book about The Elements of Harmony so we can find the elements and use them to defeat Nightmare Moon and save Princess Celestia as quickly as possible.”
Rainbow Dash continues her interrogation.“What are these Elements of Harmony anyway? I've never heard of them.”
Twilight stopped what she was doing to face mares who would soon become her closest friends.“I don’t actually know anything about the Elements of Harmony. I don’t know what they do, what they look like or even where they are but what I do know is that Princess Celestia used them to defeat Nightmare Moon in the past. That's why it is so important to find any information that will lead me to them.”
“Found it,” said the ever-enthusiastic ball of energy know as Pinkie Pie holding the book a book in her hooves bearing the title “The Elements of Harmony, a reference guide." “What? Where did you find that?” Grimmy said the library was arranged alphabetically so I looked under E.
Twilight took the book from Pinkie Pie and found the page she needed. “According to this book there are six Elements of Harmony but only five are known. Kindness, generosity, laughter, honesty and loyalty the sixth is a complete mystery. The last known location of the Elements of Harmony was in the ancient Castle of the two sisters which is now in what is known as the Everfree Forest."
Before another word can be said Twilight and I rush out the door towards the Everfree Forest with the five mares running behind calling our names and tell us to wait for them.
“Oh my, I don't think I’ve ever seen such a charming forest.” Yep, as I expected all the mares except for Pinkie are give me disturbed looks.
Twilight shakes her head in effort to centre herself “girls I think here is where we should part ways. I'm obviously not going to be able to get rid of Grim Gill but I would really prefer to retrieve the elements on my own.”
Rainbow Dash voices her objection “are you serious? It’s the Everfree Forest. There’s no way we’re letting you go in their alone, especially with him.”
Oh, I didn’t know you were so “fond” of me Rainbow Dash.
Applejack speaks next.“Nopony goes into the Everfree Forest without good reason Twilight, it’s dangerous.”
“So none of you have ever gone in here before?” Twilight asked, “Oh heavens no dear. If the situation were not so dire I wouldn’t even dream of going into such a ghastly forest.”
No prizes for guessing which pony said that. I start walking into the forest by myself.
“Face it Twilight, we're sticking to you like candy on an apple in there." Especially if there’s candy apples in there, those things are good.
“Hey” I call from inside the forest. “Are you ladies coming or not?” Pinkie Pie response first “oh-oh! I’m coming Grimmy, wait for me." Yep, that mare isn’t one bit afraid of me or the forest.
We walked in silence for a bit before Twilight breaks the silence. “You know girls I’ve read about forests before but this is the first time I’ve been in one. I didn’t know that they could be this creepy.”
“It’s more than just creepy, folks say it don’t work the same as the rest of Equestria, the animals here take care of themselves and the clouds move on their own without anypony directing them. Plus there’s monsters like timber wolves in here.”
“But Applejack, timber wolves aren’t monster.” They are when they’re made of magically animated rotting wood sugar cube.
I deliberately stop the group at the edge of a small cliff. At this part in the show, Rainbow Dash would be trying to scare the others by saying “Nopony who goes in ever comes back out.” But my presence has changed some of the dialogue and speaking of presents I've been sensing Nightmare Moon's following us since we left the library. Does she really think I wouldn’t notice her just because she transformed into a cloud of mist?
“Wait a moment, there’s a ravine here. I can either levitate everyone one at a time or we can find an alternative route.”
Before any decisions can be made Nightmare Moon shifts the ground beneath our hooves to cause a landslide.
Black sand bursts forth from my coat to form a floating platform beneath me. Applejack stops her from sliding any further by grabbing a newly exposed tree root with her teeth and Twilight barely manages to catch herself with her hooves leaving her dangling off the edge.
Once the ground has settled Applejack seeing her struggling to hold on released her grip on the tree root and slides down the now sloping ground to help her. She tells Twilight to let go of the edge which Twilight obviously objects to but Applejack assures that she will be fine. The sincerity in her voice convenience Twilight to let go and she falls a short distance before being caught by Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy who lowers her to the ground. Fluttershy loses her grip at the last few feet and almost drops Twilight before recovering and apologies stating she isn’t use to carrying anything much more than the weight of a bunny or a stack of laundry. I let Applejack on my floating platform of black sand and we join the others on the path leading through the ravine.
…..
The next few minutes walking are spent with Rainbow Dash enthusiastically tell Twilight what just happened and how amazing she was for acting so quickly. Yes it's obnoxious behaviour but I am just glad that no one is asking about my black sand, that stuff literally causes nightmares.
“You were all like, Applejack your lying I’m going to die if I let go and she was all like no I’m not and then you let go and were all aaah! but then me and Fluttershy swooped in and saved you.”
As Twilight thanks her once again, I feel Nightmare Moon presents zipping through the shadows of the tree’s to the silhouette of a beast up ahead that the girls haven’t noticed yet. But when the manticore roars in pain you can bet they noticed it.
We need to get past the manticore so the girls start attacking it. First Rarity bucks it in the face and calls it a ruffian but then it roars in her face so hard it messes up her mane and the fashion conscious mare has to retreat to fix it.
“Wait,” says Fluttershy trying to catch everyone’s attention but too softly for anyone to hear her. If I hadn’t known she would do that even I wouldn’t be aware of it.
Next up to bat is Applejack who jumps on its back with a “Yee-haw” and rides it like a bucking bronco at a rodeo but is quickly throw off and tags Rainbow Dash. “Wait,” says Fluttershy again but like the last time much to softly.
Rainbow Dash rushes in flying tight circles around the manticore in effort to confuse it but the big cat just roars and sticks out its tail which Rainbow Dash slams into and is sent tumbling tail over teakettle back to the group.
“Everybody stop!” I cry drawing all eyes to me. “I believe Fluttershy would like to try something.”
The pony in question backs up in shyness for a moment before finding the will to act. She approaches the pain enraged beast and gets roared at but with a gentle tone and submissive body language, she is able to calm the manticore down enough that it shows her the thorn in its paw.
She pulls out the thorn coursing the manticore to roar in pain and for a moment it looks like it’s going to kill her but instead it takes her in its paws and gently nuzzles the yellow mare. Now if you're familiar with this part of the show you may recall that it licks her instead, leaving her mane sticking up but that’s more in line with dog behaviour. Cats don’t lick you if they like you, they rub their head against you and as this version of Equestria was made by me with video editing software and magic Fluttershy gets nuzzled instead.
Twilight asks Fluttershy how she knew about the thorn, Fluttershy replies that she didn't but that sometimes you just need to show a little kindness.
A good half hour of walking later sees Rarity complaining about how dreadful the forest is and states how she would like to “rest her eyes from the dreariness” which is when we enter an area were the forest canvas is much thicker and blocks out for light from the moon reducing visibility to just a few feet. When Applejack steps in mud I decide to do something.
“Hang on ladies I’ve got this one, will o’ wisp”
My horn glows with a midnight purple light as I conjurer up six shimmer balls of pale blue light that slowly move in circles around us about a foot overhead.
Now as anyone has a worked with equine will tell you is that ponies are easily spooked so it comes as no surprise when the mares start freaking out and running in circles at the sight of faces in the trees that my soft lights now reveal.
Oh, this is pathetic. If Nightmare Moon thinks this is scary then I am not impressed. I've seen scary things in public restrooms. The faces are so exaggerated and cartoony that only a child would be afraid of them. Still, the fear coming of the five mares is giving me a nice tingly feeling inside.
Pinkie Pie has to ruin the moment for me by laughing at the silly faces and mocks them by pulling her own. Her laughter breaks the others out of the own panicking stupor to stare in confusion at the mare who would laugh in the face of the danger.
When they question her about why she isn’t afraid she tells them there is nothing to be afraid of and starts singing.
“When I was a little filly and the sun was going down.” Tell me she isn’t said Twilight. “The darkness and the shadows, they would always make me frown.”
In the show, it would disappear in a puff of smoke but illusions don’t disappear just because you laugh at them so it stays there with its stupid exaggerated snarl. I sigh and conjure up more light to overpower the illusion and the face fades away revealing a normal tree. The onlookers gasp and Pinkie Pie resumes singing.
“So giggle at the ghostly, guffaw up at the grossly. Crack up at the creepy, whoop it up at the kooky, Chortle at the spooky.
Now they’re all rolling around on the forest floor laughing, way to spoil my fun Pinkie. Oh never mind we’re on a schedule anyway, it will be Steven Magnet's scene next.
I worry for a moment about how Rarity can demonstrate her generosity but I let it go. Twilight's a smart mare, she should be able to figure out that Rarity represents the element of generosity as it will be the only one left after seeing the others all demonstrate their own elements.
Twilight starts panicking.
The smile that had left me when back when I saw Nightmare Moon's pathetic scary trees now returns to my face as I offer up my solution.
“It looks like it’s up to me again, stand back a bit and give me some space.”
Once I have the room I call upon my black nightmare sand again. This time instead of a floating platform I form it into an arched bridge that spans the river and we just walk across to the other side where I banish my sand back into my coat and we continue on our way.
Another half hour of walking brings us in sight of the ruins of the once grand Castle of the two sisters surrounded by mist.
“There it is! The castle of the two sisters, we’re almost there! come on.” Twilight gets excited and charges ahead completely ignoring our calls to wait and almost falls off a cliff only to be saved by Rainbow Dash.
“What is it with you falling off cliffs today?” the cocky rainbow manned pegasus joked. Rarity asks how we would cross the abyss that was the castle's moat with the bridge being out and Rainbow Dash pointed to me with a “duh” however after losing out on Rarity's chance to show her generosity I'm not about to subvert Rainbow Dash's chance to prove her loyalty but I can still make a show of it.
“Alright, ladies stand back.” Posing dramatically I hold out my hooves before me and black sand flows out from my coat sleeves floating in the air. It travels forward half a foot before suddenly falling to the ground. “Oh, hang on a second."
“Eh heh, sorry I guess I’m a little tapped out at the moment. Um Rainbow Dash, why don’t you see if you can fly down and retie the rope bridge.”
Rainbow Dash gives me a deadpan look before flying down the cliff and taking the bridge over to the other side. Though the mist we see her tying up one side of the bridge to the post but before she gets to the other, a voice calls to her. Suddenly three pegasi in dark tight form-fitting uniforms approach Rainbow Dash. They claim to be an elite flying stunt team called the Shadow Bolts and praise Rainbow Dash’s skills proclaiming her to be the best flyer in Equestria and try to recruit her.
Twilight Sparkle doesn’t need my special sensing abilities to tell that the Shadow Bolts are a trick by Nightmare Moon. She tells the rest of us and we all call out to Rainbow Dash but the leader of the Shadow Bolts glares at us with glowing eyes and causes the mist to thicken, blocking out our view of the other side of the moat.
We can no longer hear or see them but when both sides of the bridge were raised level we knew that Rainbow Dash had not abandoned us in pursuit of the fame her heart desires.
We arrive at the crumbling ruins of the castle and pass through the gate of the castle wall into the main courtyard, the rough iron portcullis that once would have stood strong against intruders lies in rusty fragments at are hooves. I feel my greed, pride and military instincts all telling me I should restore the castle and claim it as my own. Oh yes, I can have such fun with this place, however, I have sealed the powers that would allow me to undertake a project of this scale by my self so I will need to get help from somewhere.
“Nice place but it could use a little work don’t you think so girls? Hee hee hee."
We spend some time exploring the castle before we find The Elements of Harmony in their dormant state, arrange on an odd pedestal that resembles a model solar system. As per Twilight's instructions, we carefully remove them and place them in a circle on the ground before her. Rainbow Dash does a quick count and notices a problem.
“There’s only five of them here where the sixth?” We look to Twilight for an answer and she does not disappoint. “The book said that when the five Elements of Harmony are united a spark will reveal the sixth.”
“Ah spark? What does that mean?” Who knows Applejack? Could you give Twilight and I some peace and quiet whilst the two of us figure this out!”
“Ok Grim” she turns to the others and ushers them into the other room. “come on now they need to concentrate.”
Now that we are alone I turn to Twilight. “Right, this “spark” thing could be literal or some kind of metaphor for something, I suggest we test the literal interpretation first as it will be the easiest to test. We just need to shoot sparks with are horns. If it doesn’t work we can try something else.”
Twilight leans down pointing her horn at the Elements were as I remain standing. Our horns glow with soft white light and a matching glow surrounds the Elements. Before any sparks are formed Nightmare Moon makes her move, her dark mist form encircles the Elements and we seeing her attempt to steal them away and jump into the circle but not before Twilight cries out.
“No!”
This alerts our friends and they rush into the room just in time to see us getting teleported away.
When we re-materialise we find ourselves in another part of the castle. Nightmare Moon is at the other end of the room and she has the stone balls that are the dormant form of the Elements of Harmony behind her and naturally, she’s gives us the stereotypical villains evil laugh.
We turn to each other.
Twilight doesn’t like my plan. “But Grim you’re low on magic, how are you going to hold her off and even if you were at full power there’s no way you can beat her, she’s an alicorn a normal pony could never compare.”
A normal pony she says, ha! just wait until you meet Starlight Glimmer. My creepy smile turns into a confident one. “Don’t worry about me, I can handle myself in a fight, magic or not. You just focus on the prise.” I turn to face Nightmare Moon, snort and stomp the ground twice with my right front hoof, she is not impressed.
“Your kidding right? You think you can challenge me?” Instead of answering, I charge at her and she accepts my challenge. “Alright then undertaker but it will be your funeral!”
She charges to meet me but just before we collided I leap into the air and throw a punch. Her face meets my centuries worth of martial arts experience, her own forward momentum works against her adding to the force of the blow. A tooth is knocked out of her dislocated jaw and the pain distracts her long enough for me to get in a second blow, this time on her left side which sends her sprawling sideways on the ground. I let her get up and pop her jaw back in place.
“What in Equestria was that? No unicorn should be able to match me in physical strength so easily. What are you?” She’s a little shaken up but seems mostly pissed which isn’t something I can feed off but it will do to keep her attention on me.
I give her a cocky grin “Why me?” I hold up one hoof pointing up in the air “I’m just a humble mortician.” This just enrages her father.
“Do not mock me you foal!”
She shoots a beam of magic at me but I bow my head and let it glance off the top of my hat. It hits the ceiling somewhere behind me punching a giant hole in the roof. If our friends didn’t see the light from the teleporting there’s no way they could have missed that. I mock the dark alicorn some more. "Oh, that looks like it might have tickled.”
She screams at me in her blind rage and shoots more beams of magic my way which are all I either dodged, deflected or catch in my hat, making sure that none go astray and endangered Twilight which goes on until I get a little to cocky. Nightmare Moon’s horn glows as she charges a spell but instead of the magic beam like I’m expecting she teleports to my left and although I can see what she’s about to do I still let her buck me hard in the ribs. My time in the Dragon Ball Z universe has left me used to fighting opponents much stronger than Nightmare Moon but I have momentarily forgotten I hadn’t built this new body to DBZ standards which I am reminded of when I smash through two stone pillars before I’m stopped by the third leaving a large impact crater on it.
This body was only based on Ranma ½ universe standards. Yes, it is a superhuman martial arts series in which the fights often cause massive property damage but even at the height of the series the main protagonist only blew up two small mountains.
This new body has all the speed and strength to match an alicorn but if my two broken ribs are anything to go by I need to do more iron body style training that involves suspending myself from a rope from which I swing myself as hard as I can onto a collision course with a ten ton solid granite boulder suspended from another rope whilst screaming.
“This is a good idea!”
Slamming myself into it as hard as I can until I don’t feel it any more and then repeat the exercise about once a month, of course now it looks like I might not get the chance. Nightmare Moon laughs evilly and comes to stand in front of me, gloating at my predicament before finishing me off.
“Ha ha ha ha ha! Not so cocky now are you “humble mortician” did you really think you could beat me? Nightmare Moon, The Princess of Night? Ha! You never stood a chance. Any last words before I send you down to Tartarus?” Yes, cough “Yes I do” I croak out “Oh and what would that be?” she asks. My cocky grin returns and I yell out that old cliché.
“TASTE THE RAINBOW MOTHER FUCKER!”
The rainbow light of the Elements of Harmony comes down and encircles Nightmare Moon. I can feel her fear as she panics in relization that she has lost. Last time the Elements were used against her she was banished to the moon for a thousand years and that was by her sister who could only use them at half power. This time the Elements are at full power and she fears she will be destroyed.
The mane six have yet to notice this as they are to busy admiring their new accessories. Each of them now has a gold necklace containing the element they represent in the form of a jewel in the shape of their cutie mark, except for Twilight's who has a tiara instead.
“Gee Twilight, I thought you were all spouting off a load of hooey but now I reckon we do represent the elements of friendship.” Indeed you do says a regal voice that seems to come from all around us.
Suddenly the room is illuminated by the bright morning sun and the great white alicorn with the aurora coloured mane graces us with her presents, all except Twilight and myself how before Princess Celestia. Twilight runs up to greet her mentor with a quick hug and I haven’t moved from where I sit, leaning against the foot of the pillar on account of my broken ribs.
“Twilight Sparkle my student, I knew you could do it.” But Princess says Twilight “I don’t understand, you told me it was just an old ponytail.”
Princess Celestia shakes her head. "I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of nightmare moon's return and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you had let true friendship into your heart.”
She and Twilight look towards the mares that were Twilight’s new. "And I can see that you did, now if only another will as well.”
Now everyone’s attention is brought to young Luna who comes round and stands up as Princess Celestia walk over to her, she towers over the small dark blue alicorn.
“It has been two thousand years since I have seen you like this. It is time we put our difference behind us and rule together like mother intended for us sister. Will you accept my friendship?”
Pinkie Pie is overwhelmed by this touching scene that tears stream from her eyes in jets like a fountain for a few seconds before she stops and starts to make her enthusiastic announcement.
“A doctor!”
The ponies all turn to look at me as I interrupt reminding all of them of my presents. “seriously ladies this is all very touching but I have two ribs that need to be reset.”
......
End of chapter
