The Everfree Slayer

Twilight Sparkle smiles at the eerie green light at the end of the cave and says sarcastically, “I’m sure! But since I’m going to die anyway, why not just tell me your name?”

The voice snaps angrily, “I don’t have a name!”

Twilight frowns, “I also find that hard to believe!”

The voice is silent…

Twilight starts and looks at the light with wide-open purple eyes, “Look! I meant what I said, okay? I uh, want to be your friend!”

The voice continues to be quiet…

“Why aren’t you talking? You had so much to say earlier.”

The voice somberly replies in a melodic tone, “You only wish to be my friend to save the lives of those I’ll kill…”

Twilight scrunches her brow and narrows her eyes, “Not exactly true!” She blinks, “Look! You already said that I don’t know your pain, right?” She takes a few paces towards the light, “But why not tell me about it? I mean,” She looks up at the cave ceiling, lightly illuminated by the purple glow of her horn, before back down at the light, “we have time?”

The voice remains wordless…

Twilight Sparkle stretches her neck out slightly with wide eyes, “Please?”

The light begins to speak in its soft feminine voice as Twilight looks up to it, “Tell me something Twilight… Do you know what it’s like to not be there?”

Twilight frowns, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I had no friends! Nopony wished to associate with me…”

“Why not?” Twilight timidly asks.

“Because of who I am!”

Twilight scrunches her brow, “And just who are you, anyway?”

The voice sighs, “I already told you, that doesn’t matter!”

Twilight shakes her head and stares at the light with renewed resolve, “Of course it matters! You matter!”

The voice is silent.

Twilight sighs, “Okay, lets start from the beginning… Tell me why all ponies are awful and deserve to die? What did they do to you?”

The voice is quiet before finally saying, “Nothing!”

“That doesn’t make any sense either!” Twilight bellows, “Why would you want to kill ponies who didn’t do anything to you?”

“I already told you that too Twilight. Since I’m not important, neither are they! It’s only fair…”

Twilight shakes her head and stares back at the glow, “Okay, new question! What is it in particular about who you are that makes you think that other ponies won’t like you? I mean, have you ever really given friendship a chance?”

The voice is silent again.

Twilight smiles, “Okay, so how does this sound! I’ll come back tomorrow at four o’clock in the afternoon, after my day and duties are done and we can chat then! Would that be acceptable?”

The voice snickers, “Well, how do you intend to get out of this cave I trapped you in?”

Suddenly, Twilight hears a resounding mechanical thumping noise, like a jackhammer. She smiles and says, “Don’t worry about that! So, do we have a deal?”

The voice is quiet as the hammering noise gets louder. It finally speaks, “If you can escape, I don’t see why not?”

Suddenly, an ashen gray earth pony with a purple mane starts to hammer through the rock to the back of Twilight’s head with her forehooves… She makes it through and then falls 7 feet towards the ground, where she lands on her hooves with a resounding clack about 15 feet behind Twilight in the darkened cave!She stands up to look at Twilight with an expressionless face and somberly says, “You’re not trapped anymore…”

Twilight is staring back at this over her right shoulder, away from the eerie green light, when she hears a familiar raspy voice say from above, “Hey, I got Maud Pie to dig you out Twilight! Are you okay down there?”

Twilight lifts her neck to yell back, “Yeah, we’re fine Rainbow Dash! Maud is here now and apparently I have a new friend!”

She then hears a soft feminine voice coming from the direction of the light, “You’ll be here tomorrow?”

Twilight looks back and smiles, “At four o’clock!”

<*****>

That night, inside the Sweet Apple Acres farmhouse, as Big Macintosh trotted into the darkened kitchen, he saw the icebox across from the table from him and continued to make his way around the right side of the table, when suddenly, he hears glass shattering on the floor above.

He widens his green eyes as he thinks to himself, What in Equestria could that be?

He hurriedly makes his way to the living area behind him as his hooves make a clip clop noiseon the floor and while he doesn’t hear anything else, he still thinks that he should at least see what that was. And so, he trots up the stairs into the hallway.

Once at the landing, he hears a raspy groaning coming from Applejack’s room, which is the first door on the right in the wooden corridor. He trots that way and softly uses his right forehoof to cautiously open the door and carefully glances in. He sees a blue pegasus standing there with a ghostly green colored clear luminescent curved horn jutting about 5 inches out from her rainbow mane and her glowing green eyes staring down at a sleeping orange earth pony underneath the covers. He also notices an ax floating to the left side of this pegasus, that looks like it’s about to chop into the bed! He screams, “Applejack! Roll over left!”

A hoarse voice comes from the bed, “What in tarnation?”

Before the ax falls onto the bed quickly!

HACK, the ax sounds, as it goes into the top of the mattress, narrowly missing the orange pony, now rolling to her left to avoid it and wrapped in blankets.

Applejack hits the floor with a booming thud, and quickly gets out of the blankets, which fall behind her as she rises on her hooves, to stare back at the strange Dash zombie. “Dash! What in the hay has gotten into you?”

Then, Applejack sees a large red earth stallion barreling out of the darkness, behind Rainbow to smash into her and crush her body against the bed! The ax abruptly stops glowing and falls to the floor with a clack!

Both earth ponies hear an agitated raspy voice say, “Ouch! Hey, what gives?”

Applejack takes a pace towards the bed and looks down at Rainbow, now pinned underneath a large red earth pony and stares into her magenta eyes, now looking at up at her in the pale moonlight from the window, “I don’t think we’re the ones who need to be answerin questions right now…”

<*****>

Twilight Sparkle angrily trots into the cave at a rapid pace. She stares at the pale green glow from the other end, 15 feet away from her and furiously shouts from beneath her jeweled crown, “I agreed to meet you here today!”

A soft feminine voice says back to her, “And so, you have! Congratulations! You can keep your promises!”

Twilight lowers her gaze and narrows her eyes, “Why did you try to kill Applejack last night?”

“Why not?”

Twilight shakes her head and widens her eyes to the glow, “I think me agreeing to meet you here today implies that you can’t try to kill my friends!”

“Does it now? Perhaps I’ll remember that…”

“Look!” Twilight leans forward slight, “Are you willing to work with me or not?”

“Well, I’m still talking to you, aren’t I?”

Twilight starts, “But, you tried to kill Applejack last night!”

“Did I now? Think I’d remember something like that?”

Twilight narrows her eyes, “Stop it! You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

The voice giggles slightly, “I might?”

“This is serious! You tried to kill one of my friends!”

The voice sighs, “Twilight, death is inevitable! Even for alicorns, like yourself… It doesn’t matter if it happens now or one hundred years later, it’s still going to happen… What does it matter?”

Twilight scrunches her brows to the light, “It does matter, because Applejack needs to be alive right now!”

“Does she now? How can you be so sure?”

“Look!” Twilight bellows before leaning towards the voice slightly, “Can we just agree that you won’t try to kill anypony else while we’re talking and getting to know one another?”

“I suppose I could agree to that. I mean, if I really wanted to…”

“So, will you?”

“I might?”

Twilight lowers her gaze and narrows her eyes defiantly, “You know, I could very easily imprison you with the Elements of Harmony, right?”

“No you can’t, because you locked Rainbow Dash up in the Friendship Dungeon, remember?”

Twilight widens her eyes, “Because we can’t just get her out?”

“I suppose that’s true… Of course, you realize that I’m not of this world anymore and that the Elements might not even work, right?”

Twilight narrows her eyes again, “That’s a chance I’ll have to take!”

“Right! And if you fail, I’ll just be back again and kill some more! So, in a way, those new deaths will be at least partially, your fault, since you didn’t want to deal with me…”

Twilight starts and shakes her head, “Well, how do I keep you from killing, then?”

“Let’s see now, what do I want? Well, if everypony in Ponyville could just jump into a lake, that would be a good start!”

Twilight widens her eyes and says loudly, “Is there anything you want, besides death?”

The voice is silent before lowly saying, “Not anymore Twilight…”

Twilight corrects her eyes, “Look!” she shakes her head before staring wistfully to the slight right, “I don’t know your name yet and maybe that doesn’t matter? I’m not sure, but…” she shakes her head, “I want you to know that you matter! You’re important too… And I’m sorry if you felt left out and ostracized… But I meant what I said… In death, you can have me as a companion…”

The voice is silent once more before finally uttering, “Starfall… My name was Starfall Twinkles…”

Twilight smiles, “See? Was that so hard?”

“As if my name mattered…”

Twilight leans forward again and says, “It does matter! To me, it does now…”

The voice angrily replies, “Get real, Twilight! If I didn’t kill ponies, you would never have cared!”

Twilight corrects her neck, “Well, we have no way of knowing that for sure, now do we?” before staring down with narrow sensitive eyes, “But I do know this Starfall… I had no idea who you were or what you went through… But I do know that it isn’t right, and I also know that I wasn’t there, nor was anypony else… You were alone… And I’m sorry…” before closing her eyes and lowering her head somberly…

The voice is silent before finally saying, “Twilight… What time can you be here, next?”

Twilight looks back at the light and says, “Well, I have that delegation from Saddle Arabia tomorrow, but I can come back at five o’clock on the next day?”

“Could you come back then please? I need to be alone right now…”

Twilight nods to the light and says, “Of course! And uh,”

The voice cuts her off, “No killing ponies! Right! Since the lives of other ponies are” the voice continues melodically, “so important,” the voice normalizes, “I won’t end them… For now…”

Twilight gulps and turns to trot out of the cave… She soon emerges from the cave to see a white unicorn standing there about 15 feet from her, in the sunlight and surrounded by vibrant green trees. She looks at Rarity, “She said she won’t try to kill anypony for right now…”

Rarity looks at Twilight, “That’s great news darling! Uh, what else did she say?”

Twilight glances at the fashionista, “She agreed to give friendship a try… I’m her first real friend, it would seem…”

Rarity frowns, “Pity she had to die to make you!”

Twilight sighs, “I know! I just don’t know why she’s the way she is or what went so horribly wrong? I just, “she closes her eyes and flinches before opening them again, “really wish we could’ve reached her sooner! Before all this ugliness happened!”

Rarity nods, “Indeed darling! When do you see her again?”

“At five o’clock, the day after tomorrow!”

<*****>

Twilight Sparkle is asleep in her bed, when she hears a boyish voice coming from the right side, “Princess Twilight! I know it’s really late, but um, I need to talk to you!”

She opens her eyes to witness a lime green changeling there with a red pack on her back.

Ocellus says, “Professor Rainbow Dash somehow got magic and tried to kill me! I uh, contained her in my closet. There’s nothing in there she can use to break out, I wouldn’t think? Anyway, I came here as soon as she stopped trying to break out and I heard snoring… I guess she’s asleep in there, but uh, I don’t really know what’s going on?”

Twilight asks Ocellus, “Okay, exactly what happened?”

Ocellus nods her head, “Well, I saw Rainbow Dash come into my room with a strange green horn coming out of her head… Uh, she never had that before! Anyway, it was glowing and there was a knife floating at her side. She didn’t know I was still awake, and so I just waited for her to try and stab me before rolling out of the way and turning into a giant tarantula on the other side of my bed! Yeah! A knife isn’t gonna do much against that! And then, I restrained her!”

<*****>

Twilight Sparkle furiously marches into the cave and trots towards the pale green light. She looks at it and sternly shouts, “Why did you try to kill Ocellus last night?”

The familiar girly voice replies, “Oh, Princess Twilight! I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow!”

Twilight shakes her head and stares back at the light, “Why did you try to kill Ocellus?”

“Oh, is that what I did? Well now, she’s not just anypony,now is she?”

Twilight starts as she stares at the light wide-eyed, “Well, no! But you said…”

The voice cuts her off, “I said that I wouldn’t murder anypony, Twilight! You never said anything about changelings!”

Twilight sighs, “Well, don’t you think it would be implied that you can’t kill any intelligent creatures?”

“Probably? But again, we never mentioned that!”

Twilight scrunches her brows and grimaces to the light, “Okay, fine! Can we agree that you won’t murder anycreature, now?”

The voice chuckles, “Oh, you’re no fun!” The voice sighs, “Such a pity I wasn’t able to end her miserable existence! I can only imagine the fun of the blade slicing up her flesh!”

Twilight widens her eyes and tightens her mouth, “Does life mean anything at all, to you Starfall?”

“No Twilight! At this stage, it really doesn’t!”

Twilight Sparkle leans forward with wide purple eyes as she curiously asks, “What happened to you to make you like this?”

“I wised up, Twilight! Having a lot of time alone, away from the distractions of friendship and fun gives you plenty of time to do that! Life means nothing, since it will all end anyway, and I see nothing wrong with speeding up the process a bit as it makes me feel better…”

Twilight frowns, “Why would that make you feel better?”

“Because I know the truth now! They’re all greedy evil creatures and deserve to die!”

Twilight narrows her eyes, “What if I proved you wrong?”

“Oh? And just how do you intend to do that, Princess Twilight?”

(To be continued…)