Give Up Your Ghost

Twilight gallops at full speed through the woods, screaming her friends' names as loudly as she possibly can. Her voice echoes throughout the forest, accompanied by the ghostly stallion's mad cackling. With all the adrenaline pumping through her system, she begins to feel the entire forest is closing in on her. The trees creak and crackle, and gusts of wind blow against her path. "I don't know where you think you're going, but you're not going to get very far," his disembodied voice taunts from seemingly every corner of the forest. Distracted by his voice, she comes to a complete stop before nearly crashing directly into a tree. "What's the matter? You a tree-hugger?" The stallion's head phases through the tree trunk, as Twilight reels back in surprise with a yelp. "Just go right through it! Come on, it won't hurt." Twilight whips herself around and takes off as the stallion continues to laugh from behind her.

"Somepony! Anypony! Help!" Twilight shouts.

"Twilight? Is that you?" A familiar voice calls from somewhere nearby. Twilight catches a glimpse of pink beneath the trees, and veers off her current path towards the source of the voice. "Follow the sound of my voice!" She bursts through a bundle of bushes, surprising Pinkie Pie as she jumps excitedly upon finding Twilight.

"Pinkie! It's you! Oh, thank Celestia."

"Uh, duh! Who else would it be?"

"Pinkie, there's somepony else in these woods with us."

"Oooo, that's great! I was just about to say we should toast some marshmallows after we got more firewood. They should join us! Or, if we're really-really-really-really fast, we can tell another story while we toast the marshmallows!"

"No-no-no-no, Pinkie, we can't."

"Sure we can! We just walk up and say, 'Hey, how you doin'?' and we bring 'em along for some sweet, squishy puffy goodness!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down!" Twilight presses her hoof against Pinkie's mouth to silence her, and urges her to hide behind the bushes. Twilight scans the vicinity for any signs of the stallion, but he is nowhere in sight. Relieved, but still on edge, Twilight also hides behind the bushes alongside Pinkie. "Pinkie, the pony in these woods isn't going to want to sit around the campfire for a story and some marshmallows. He's some kind of . . . I-I don't know what he is, but we can't trust him. We have to regroup with others and escape before he finds us!"

"Twilight, just take a deep breath. Are you sure you saw some super-strange pony?"

"For the last time, yes! He looked like a normal stallion at first, but then he changed right before my eyes! His eyes were all crazy and yellow, his mane was nappy, and his teeth were crooked and nasty! Not only that, but he sounded like a . . . like a monster."

"Well, that's not nice at all!"

"But it's true!"

"Now, Twilight, you know what they say. If you don't have anything nice to say--" Pinkie's pupils shrink, and her eyes glow brightly yellow. Her voice distorts and transforms into something much more sinister. "--Don't say anything at all! Haha!" Twilight takes a few steps back to take a defensive stance with her horn pointed directly at what she thought was Pinkie Pie. "You ain't got any more friends, Twilight." Pinkie wipes the pink from her face, revealing a pale-white coat underneath. "If I were you, I'd be a little bit nicer to me. 'Cause out here, I'm the only friend you got!" Pinkie pulls off her mane from her head like a wig, revealing a mossy green mane. Her muzzle fattens and stretches out to resemble that of a stallion's. A thick, long root bursts from the ground, and hanging off the end of it is the same striped shirt and black tie the stallion wore; which the transforming Pinkie casually pulls off and adorns. "So, what'll it be?" the stallion tightens up his tie. "Can I get an apology?"

Twilight focuses and concentrates, trying to send a beam of magic his way to defend herself, but she is unable to get it to work properly. "W-What the--?" She continues to try, but it's all in vain. Her horn sparks and fizzles, but fails to generate any sort of magic.

"Try all you want, sweetheart. Your magic won't work here."

"N-No! This is all a dream, it has to be!" Twilight fearfully backs away to get a safe distance from the stallion.

"Aw, come on. Is it really that big of a stretch?" The stallion's foreleg extends unnaturally to reach out to Twilight as she continues to back away. Baffled by the sheer anatomical impossibility of his leg stretching out so far, and frightened all at the same time, her only instinct is to turn and gallop blindly into the woods. "You've already tried that!" He taunts. Regardless of his warning, Twilight pushes forward whilst being chased by his hoof as it seems to endlessly stretch at incredible speed and length. Just when she feels she's about to be captured, his hoof is suddenly retracted back to him, and while she relishes in the fact that she's finally escaped, she can feel something tug at her back hoof. She loses her balance, and falls face first to the ground. She spits out a mouthful of dirt and grass, and checks her hind leg to find a strange, glowing, neon-blue chord shackled to her hoof that leads back deep into the forest.

"What's this?"

"Are you just about done?" The stallion asks, who has suddenly appeared right beside her.

"Ahh!" Twilight frantically scrambles to her hooves.

"Yeah-yeah alright. We had our fun, but let's get to the formalities now."

"F-Formalities? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talkin' about getting down to business, honey." The stallion reaches into his suit pocket, and pulls out a business card with his name. He holds it out for Twilight to take, who ever so cautiously takes it from his hoof. "The name's Eerie D'Leery, professional spirit, specter, apparition, phantom--you name it! Me? I prefer . . . ghost!" Lightning streaks across the night sky from behind Eerie, followed by a loud crash of thunder. "Gee, don't ya hate it when that happens?"

"Th-That's impossible! You can't be!"

"Oh, but I am, and you must be Twilight Sparkle, AKA, the non-believer."

Twilight shuts her eyes tightly, repeating a string of words to herself to hopefully wake herself up from this nightmare, "It's all a dream; it's all a dream; it's all a dream."

"Ugh, for the last time, this ain't no dream. I'd tell ya to pinch yourself, but that wouldn't really work since us ghosts don't really get to feel anything."

"Enough! Just let me go!"

"No-can-do!"

"And why not?"

"You didn't say the magic word."

"Umm . . . Please?"

"Huh, can't believe you got it on the first try! I still ain't lettin' you go though."

"Then what's it going to take for you to let me out of here?!" Twilight shouts impatiently.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. Grab a seat, darlin'! 'Cause you're gonna jump right out of it once I explain what I've got planned for you." Comfortable, red velvet chairs erupt from the soil beneath them. Eerie sits with his back straight as a plate of steaming cups of tea materialize in mid-air. "Would you care for some tea, Madame?" Eerie's voice suddenly changes to one that is more posh and polite. Twilight, without a response, looks on unamused by his offer. "Yikes, this must be your first date, huh?"

"Will you just get on with it already?!"

"Oh, right yeah." Eerie tosses all the tea and dishware over his shoulder where it shatters over the forest ground. "So, you don't believe in ghosts."

"That's right, because scientifically, ghosts cannot exist due to--"

"Please, save the technical mumbo jumbo for somepony else. I could care less if whether or not 'you' believe. I'm not here to prove to you that we ghosts exist so you can learn that not everything can be explained by science, and the moral of the story being that you should always keep an open mind, because that's just a little too cliché for me."

"Oh . . . then, what 'do' you want?"

"You and I are going to play a little game. If you win, I'll let you go back to your body and frolic with your friends in the world of the living. If you lose, then you have to stay here for the rest of eternity, and work for me." After hearing the stakes, Twilight tenses up in fear as the anxiety boils inside her. "You see, all this is like a business for me. I scare one pony, then that pony believes in ghosts. That pony tells some friends, family members, and just like that, I've got me some more payin' customers. I go and scare them, then they pass it on. So on and so forth. The more that believe, the happier I am. Now, one little pony like you not believing doesn't hurt me none, but when FIVE ponies all of a sudden stop believing, then we have a problem. I can't have ponies like you ruining my livelihood, Twilight."

"Then what do I have to do? Just tell them I was wrong?"

"Oh, no-no-no, that would be way too easy. We're going to do this my way. Literally and figuratively."

"I don't understand."

"In order for you to win our little game, I want you to scare one--just one--of your friends."

"Wait . . . that's it?"

"Yup! So what do you say, not a bad deal, eh? Although, there is a catch; you do have a time limit."

"What?!"

"That's right; you heard it here first! You're time's been ticking the second you gave up your ghost. The longer you take, the weaker the connection you still have to your body gets. Hence the tether keeping you and your body linked." Twilight looks down at her hoof, and notices the glowing chord has disappeared. She reaches down and accidentally makes contact with it, causing it to flicker in and out of existence. "If I were you, I'd get a move on before it's too late."

Twilight jumps out from the chair, "So, what you're saying is: I didn't have a choice at all!"

"Ya see? I told you you'd jump out of your seat!"

"All of this is nonsense! This is all just one big nightmare, and I'll be waking up any minute now."

"Well, if you're so sure it's a dream, then why not play along? Come on, even in a dream; they're still your friends, right? Wouldn't you want to do all that you could to be with them again?" Twilight ponders to herself for moment, looking down at her partially transparent body as she starts to consider what Eerie is saying. In a jovial manner, Eerie stands beside her, puts his hoof around her shoulder, and brings her in closer. "I mean look, I'm all for you just sitting around and running the clock. I've been doing this for centuries, and I could use a new recruit. But if you really care about your friends, then at least give it a shot. You're going to have to learn the ropes one way or another, so why not make the most of it and go down swingin'?!"

Twilight pieces her thoughts together, and finally succumbs, "Fine. . . I accept the challenge."

"Wooh! Finally! Sheesh, that was like pullin' teeth. Alright, then let's get to it!" A thick, smoky fog suddenly rolls in, enveloping the two of them until their entire bodies are obscured. "Okay, Twilight. It's showtime! Haha!" The fog whirls around them like a twister, blowing all sorts of debris into the air. With a strike of lightning, the two of them vanish, and the game finally begins.