Lies & Corruption
Halt and bade the famished hush, and hither witness a mere paltry speck; persisting manifestation of yore, an ebon thing ebbing; pleading.
Inquisitive hooves guide a curious mind; who's transgression is trespassing, trudging through a dark verdant world, o'er to harkening pleas.
Discovery alights in youthful eyes, gazing upon the speck. The calls the dark thing mutters beckons the youth ever closer, plantively pleading sustenance. The youth agrees, grasping the small famished speck close, then they slink away, careful of danger.
Suffer and be unwell, young youth, for the future shall be harrowing yet not without respite if your strength can overcome the voracious parasite.
The world was filled with the clamor of thrashing ocean waves against a tower of earth with a rocky platform; the ocean roared and surged upward, threatening to swallow the tower whole. The sky was gray with faint pillars of dull light beaming through the conflagration of churning black clouds; and the wind screeched and wailed ominously like a mournful phantom.
An earth pony paced anxiously in a circle on the earthen platform: her black tail flicked constantly, her ears were splayed back as if she had heard an ear-piercing noise and wanted desperately to silence the sound. Her cherry-colored coat bristled from all sides as her gleaming black eyes glanced restlessly forward and back.
Behind her was a destroyed bridge that beyond it was a forest layered with thick foliage and dense trees as black as night, daring any creature to step into its dark abode.
The mare shook her head and veered her unsettled gaze to the edge of the rocky platform. Carefully, she trotted to the edge and peered down: the raging waters hungered for her; the weltering waves crashed against the rocky tower higher and higher until foaming flecks of water could wet her face.
Willow Bounty screamed and backed away in horror from the famished depths, falling backward and landing painfully on her side.
"I've got to get out of here!" Willow Bounty wailed pitifully. She spun her head to the looming forest but then shrank away. "But not that way. There isn't...any hope in there." Recovering from her fall, she steered back to the edge of the platform and gazed forward, spotting a town off into the far distance. "I'll have to swim there..."
"You won't make it." A silky voice made Willow stiffen. It echoed faintly in the howling wind, carrying a mocking tone. "You never will."
Willow Bounty slowly veered her head back and saw another mare black as a shadow with glowing white eyes glaring at her menacingly. She knew that thing wasn't a mare in the truest sense, merely a tainted mockery of herself; a foul, twisted and evil recreant. The shadow smiled unnaturally, showing rows of serrated white teeth.
"You... Not again," Willow lamented with her head ducked down, her voice as low as a whisper. "Was it you who brought me here, Penuma?"
"Both of us did," Penuma cooed, her face twisted into a mocking sneer. She stepped forward until she was almost nose-to-nose with Willow. "Do you know why you are here? You should."
Willow Bounty was too afraid to move. This mare, this confounded creature has stalked her ever since she was a filly. The creature never truly helped her, only trying to force her to do things she didn't want.
"I won't let you control me this time; I'm done with you, Penuma!" Willow had raised her voice against the wailing wind, attempting to frighten off the creature, but Penuma was undaunted.
"You won't make it," the dark mare repeated with a gleeful chortle.
"You don't know that!" Willow retorted. Despite her defiance, her legs were shaking. "I can swim there, and you won't stop me!"
"You won't make the jump; it's too high up," the shadowy mare stated with a light shrug. "When your body hits the water, if the fall doesn't kill you first, you'll drown. If you manage to reach the town, all they'll find is your bloated body dead and washed up on the shore. I've made it so that this time there's no easy way to escape."
Willow Bounty tried to appear strong despite Penuma's haunting words, but her legs wobbled and shook with a mounting fear she was barely able to suppress. She couldn't afford to appear too weak facing this vile creature.
"There are only two ways out for you this time, Willy," the shadowy mare mocked. "You let me take over this body or you get rid of me and reclaim full control. We will finally see who gets to live!"
Willow Bounty took a step back, perturbed at the fiery vehemence in Penuma's voice. "You're nothing but a parasite," she hissed crossly at the dark version of herself. "How many times must I do this?! I'm sick and tired of it! Why won't you just leave me alone?!"
"I've spent too long struggling for control over this body just to give it up without a fight," Penuma retorted, her beady white eyes narrowing threateningly. "I'll keep fighting you until one of us is DESTROYED!"
Without warning, Penuma leapt onto Willow. Too stunned to move, the shadowy mare managed to bowl Willow over and began smacking her face. Willow shielded the rapid blows, using her hind legs to thrust her attacker off of her. Penuma was flung through the air before landing with a sickening thud.
Willow Bounty scrambled to her hooves just in time as Penuma did. "Enough of this!" she wailed. "Go away!"
"Never!" spat Penuma, delight shining brightly in her white beady eyes. A black blade with serrated edges rose from the ground in front of Penuma, who gripped it with a hoof. "You will die before the night is over!"
"Princess Luna has always helped me; she will do so again," Willow said sharply, rising to her full height; her chest swelling with a surge of confidence.
The shadowy mare snorted indignantly and glowered. "That meddling pony will not interfere this time; I made it so that she couldn't! You have always held out long enough for that meddler to bail you out, but not this time. I now have full control over your dreams, and this is a nightmare you'll have to break free of yourself!"
With those words said, Penuma charged at Willow, the sharp blade raised over her head, but she was ready this time. Willow crouched to the ground and used her legs to jump to the side quickly, evading the heavy swipe of the blade. She tried to counter with a blow, but she was unsuccessful, and her failure was rewarded by a swift cut from the blade, slicing her throat; a deep wound opened as warm, fresh blood sprayed across the stone platform.
Willow Bounty yelped in pain as she gripped her neck, stumbling backward and landing on the rough, rocky surface, terror etched across her distressed face. She was trying desperately to halt the flow of blood seeping from her throat, but it worked with little success; Willow began to feel dizzy, but she forced herself to focus.
"Oooh, I haven't seen that face in quite some time," Penuma said with a devious hiss, glaring madly at the dripping blood that wetted the thorn-sharp blade. "What a gift to relish, to finally rend your flesh; every drop of blood should be savored! It's so thrilling!"
Though fear filled her gaze, Willow Bounty struggled to her hooves, one hoof clutching at the wound on her throat. She stared adamantly at the parasite with a look of blazing hatred.
"There may be no pony to help me now, but I am not going to let my body be forever paraded around like a puppet by the likes of you," Willow Bounty spat crossly. "I will not allow you to steer my hooves any longer, and I will fight until you are gone from my person for good, parasite; to Tartarus with you!"
Undaunted by Willow's fervent retort, Penuma twists her face into a sneer. "Good, good," she purred, raking the stone beneath her with the blood-stained blade. "This...feeling. How pleasant. I'd rather you struggle until the very end, when I tear your heart out with my teeth! Die, Willow!"
Before Willow could react, the parasite charged forward and tripped her with a swift sweep of her hind legs, causing the bleeding mare to crash onto the rocky surface with a cry escaping her lips.
"How does it feel?!" Penuma hissed with anger, though triumph shined in her beady white eyes.
"Get...off!" Willow screamed, struggling to knock Penuma off her. The shadowy mare attempted to plunge the blade into Willow's chest, but the bleeding mare writhed back and forth to stave the killing blow.
"Every time I ever tried to help you; you reject it!" Penuma hissed with venom dripping with every word. "You never had the heart to stand up for yourself without somepony pushing your hooves; you are weak and hesitant! There was no way I was going to be attached to a sniveling creature like you without doing something. So, I pushed for you!"
Willow struggled to keep the blade from impaling her flesh, but her movements were getting weaker, and she felt the blade entering her chest slowly. Anguished, she wailed out in deep agony, but she didn't relent, gripping the blood-stained blade with her hooves; her black eyes were alight with pain as tears swam down her tormented visage.
"I didn't want your help because you were rash and violent!" Willow yelled, slowly forcing the blade out of her chest. "I don't want blood on my hooves anymore! I never needed your help with my problems! I could've solved them at my own pace, without your influence!"
"Fool, that isn't true!" Penuma snarled viciously, pushing harder on the blade, hearing Willow cry out in intense pain. "If I hadn't forced my will on you and taken over your body, you'd be useless; dead without me!"
Penuma savagely wrenched the thorn-sharp blade out of Willow, causing the bleeding mare to shriek in agony. She impaled the rocky platform with the black blade and threw her hooves against Willow's bleeding neck.
"When you were being bullied at school for being weak and pathetic, I forced your hooves to fight back when you wouldn't, like the coward you are!" Penuma chastised.
"You put them in the hospital!" Willow said as she fought for breath, her words slurring from the trauma. "I never wanted that. I never wanted a fight!"
Penuma scoffed in disgust. "When a stallion tried to abuse you and you wouldn't fight back, I did it for you!"
"He was ill and confused, and you killed him!" Willow wailed, her vision starting to blur and darken. "I didn't want him to die! It wasn't his fault; he didn't know what was happening!"
"He deserved it," Penuma retorted, pressing her hooves harder on Willow's neck until she began to choke. "When you desired to be a royal guard and your final task was to defeat a senior guard in battle, who fought him for you?!"
"I never asked you!" Willow Bounty croaked painfully, blood bubbling from her mouth and seeping slowly to the rocky floor. "You should have let me live my own life. I. Never. Asked. You!"
"You didn't need to!" Penuma roared. "I was getting so sick and tired of your inability to think for yourself that I did it for you from the day we met in the Everfree Forest! Every single thing I did was for you, but you never thanked me. You never appreciated what I've done for you.
"Sure, I was playing along to one day have the strength to completely take over your body and parade it as my own, but never would I let my host be a weakling! Everything that has happened to get you to where you are now is because of me and only me! When I finally win this struggle, I will savor every second of it. If you won't thank me for the work I've done that got you this far in your life, then I'll burn it to the ground!
"I'll make this body a criminal; a traitor to Equestria. I'll kill those you love and tear everything you hold dear to the ground. But before I do that, I will kill you, tear out your heart, and toss your corpse into the raging depths below!"
"NEVER!" Willow bellowed defiantly.
With anger surging through her body giving her newfound strength, Willow Bounty wrenches Penuma's blood-stained hooves away from her bloodied neck and thrust her head forward, striking Penuma's face hard and causing her to stumble back. The parasite now dazed, Willow tucked her hind legs in until they were under her attacker and shoved them hard against the parasite's belly, heaving the mare off her body.
Willow, coughing, forced herself to stand. The blood seeping from her throat began to slow, granting a brief respite. She saw the parasite scramble to her hooves and fixed her with a look of pure hatred.
Willow swung her head back slowly and breathed in cool air before exhaling, calming her nerves. She faced the shadowy mare and narrowed her eyes. "Come on then," Willow goaded, growling as she lowered her body slightly. "You're right, you know. I am hesitant, but I won't be this time. I'm getting rid of you once and for all. I've let you cling to me for far too long; this bond between us must be severed!"
Penuma gave a dry chuckle, her gleaming white eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. "You don't have the cruelty within your hooves; you must not feel like yourself, for you've grown a spine. Give me your heart..."
Clutching the black blade and heaving it over her head, Penuma charged at Willow. She sent the treacherous blade down to slash through the mare's skull, but Willow dodged nimbly to one side and bashed her attacker with a force that sent the parasite reeling, letting out a screech of pain.
Willow leaped toward the addled parasite and shoved her to the ground. Penuma tried to retaliate, but Willow knocked the blade away and began pummeling her face, causing Penuma to shriek in agony.
"I should've left you in that forest to rot, you feathering parasite!" Willow cursed, not relenting her assault.
Penuma tried to knock her away, but Willow stayed atop her. Blood sprayed and stained the rocky platform black. "Curiosity is strong within fools, especially fillies and colts!" Penuma screeched, coughing up tar-like blood. "You were easy!"
Rage flooded Willow Bounty's eyes until all she could see was red. "You caused me nothing but pain! Do you hear me?!" she snarled resentfully, anger making her breathless. "When you were starving in that forest, I heard you cry out for help. You begged and pleaded like a foal for help.
"I helped you because I cared about your life, but you took my kindness, my compassion and love, and sought to wring me dry of everything I had, like a magic-sucking parasite! I gave you a home, I told you my secrets, I showed you my treasures, but all you've ever done was take, take, TAKE, and yet that wasn't enough for you!
"Like a revolting parasite, you wanted more. You used the magic you stole from me; you tried taking over my body to parade it as your own. You've done despicable things puppeteering my body, but no longer! I've had it with you, Penuma!"
"Tough words for a callow little filly!" Penuma seethed with contempt, flecks of blood wetting Willow's cheeks. "This body will be MINE!!!"
Penuma rammed her head against Willow's, causing the mare to stagger away. She then leapt to her hooves and charged Willow, bucking her in the chest and knocking her hard across the rocky platform.
"This is the most fight you've ever put up against me," Penuma said with a dry cackle. She picked up the black blade and moved toward Willow, who was too dazed to move. "You must be proud that you can finally stand up for yourself. A shame you chose the worst time; it's too late."
Willow, nose now bleeding, struggled to stand, but with her injuries, the mare couldn't manage the effort. Unable to get on her hooves, Willow could only watch as Penuma crept closer. There was a blood lust in her eyes; her mouth was gaped open in a silent, perpetual, mocking laugh.
Penuma stood over Willow, who was panting. She rose the blade over her head and stared Willow straight in the eye. "A dream ends here," Penuma hissed bitterly, a crazed look in her gleaming white eyes. "No more struggle for control. No more pain and suffering. I have won!"
With those final words said, Penuma yelled and plunged the blade upon Willow Bounty's chest, but Penuma gasped in shock and anger. Willow had clasped the sides of the blade with her hooves and struggled to force it out of her grasp.
"Not...yet!" Willow Bounty rasped, clenching her teeth.
"No!" Penuma roared, fury flaring in her eyes. "You won't win this time, Willow! Enough!"
They struggled against one another for control. Willow Bounty was losing the struggle; she was running out of energy. She tried to wrench the blade from Penuma's blood-stained grasp but found she couldn't.
"What's wrong?" Penuma sneered, her eerie smile growing unnaturally. "Are you tired? You can sleep forever; all you have to do is let me be in control!"
"No... I can't." Willow could hardly speak. Her strength was leaving her and the words Penuma spoke from her treacherous lips sounded more enticing by the second. But she shook her head and gathered what little energy she had left. "Never!"
"Damn you!" Penuma screeched.
It all happened so fast. In a blink of an eye, a flash of light sparked between Penuma and Willow Bounty. There was a terrible sound of something breaking. When the flash of light subsided, the mares saw that the blade was broken into two halves.
"NO!" Penuma howled in anger.
Distracted, Willow strikes Penuma across the face with a hoof, sending the parasite on the ground. Willow tried to heave herself on her hooves, but there was no more energy she could tap into; she was fresh out of luck.
As Penuma began to recover from off the ground, Willow eyed one of the broken halves of the blade. It was merely a few hoofsteps away. She would have to crawl, but if she manages to secure one of the halves, then she could end this battle once and for all. Willow needed to hurry though, as Penuma already had the hilt of the blade in her hooves, and it looked sharp.
Willow Bounty turned to the other broken half and crawled towards it, but then a roar as terrifying as a dragon's bellowed behind her and she knew Penuma was beyond blood lust; she was manic. Willow crawled faster, dragging her bloody body across the rocky platform. She didn't want to look back for she feared that she would be frozen in terror by Penuma's crazed ire.
"Keep going," Willow told herself breathlessly. "Don't stop moving; keep moving. You're dead if you stop moving. Hurry..."
"WILLOW!!!" Penuma bellowed, her voice booming like thunder. "WILLOW!!!"
Heart thumping madly in her chest as the cold dread of death encroached, Willow Bounty crawled as fast as her pained body would allow. The broken blade was almost within reach. "Don't stop moving. Don't stop moving. For the love of Celestia's sun, don't stop moving...!"
The thundering hoofsteps from behind told Willow that Penuma was almost upon her, but hope lit a fire in her heart as she had reached the other broken half of the black blade. Willow cradled it close to her bloodied chest and waited. She was waiting until Penuma was right over her to strike. She had only one shot at this and had to make it count.
"Give me your heart!" Penuma spat. "I'll rip it out of you and pummel you until you are nothing but a bloody, unrecognizable pulp!"
Willow heard Penuma's breath and felt the fury rumbling in her hooves. She could feel the parasite's furious gaze burning her coat, but she stayed still and waited. Willow then saw Penuma's shadow cast over her body and knew Penuma was as close as she could get.
"It's time," Willow whispered. "This is going to hurt..."
Just before Penuma could plunge the broken blade upon her, Willow turned sharply and lunged forward, her half of the broken blade clutched tightly in her grasp. She thrust it forward until it pierced Penuma's chest, who couldn't evade in time. There was a stabbing sound and Willow Bounty knew she had struck her; she was successful.
There was a grunt from Penuma. Willow looked up at her and saw the parasite's eyes stare wide at her as if she couldn't believe what had happened. Though Willow Bounty reveled silently, a sudden sharp pain erupted from her own chest, and she looked down to see Penuma's broken half of the blade inside her. They had stabbed each other at the same time.
Silently taking her wound in stride, Willow gazed painfully back up at Penuma, who had a small grin plastered across her face. "Heh," Penuma let out as if amused, black blood seeping out of her mouth and dripping from her chin on the stone platform. "You got me. Guess you really had the heart to do it, huh? You win."
Willow Bounty didn't say anything. She watched as Penuma backed away, almost stumbling, to the broken bridge that led toward the Everfree Forest. She staggered to the edge of the bridge, looked at Willow, and then turning back before collapsing. Small particles of darkness were fading away into the sky as Penuma got physically smaller and smaller until nothing was left, disappearing seemingly forever.
Though the battle was finally over, Willow felt a deep pang of sadness as if she had truly lost a part of herself; Penuma had been with her ever since they met in the Everfree Forest, when Willow was only but a curious little filly. She had trespassed and trekked the forest for adventure.
At one point during her playful excursion, Willow had heard a wail coming from a nearby bush. Her interest had peaked, and she trotted over to see what was making that noise. What she uncovered was a tiny black speck no bigger than a beetle. It's pulsing purple light flickered and it was asking for help.
Feeling sad for this odd little creature, Willow Bounty had taken it in her grasp and held it close to her chest, choosing to help the black speck before then galloping out of the Everfree Forest. Little did her younger self know how much suffering her act of kindness would take upon her.
Now, an adult mare who had finally rid herself of the deceptive parasite that had plagued her with misfortune, misdirection, anguish, and previously unperceived woe, a part of her wanted Penuma back. She had known the parasite for so long, and now since she has been purged from her being.
Willow felt strangely hollow; her heart began to ache. To have known Penuma since her childhood, it was normal to feel as if she was missing something, though she knew she would be better off, the ache was still there.
Turning her attention to the broken blade embedded inside her chest, Willow attempted to remove it but to no avail, gasping sharply in pain; she was too tired and weak to yank it out. She left it be and fought to stay on her hooves.
As Willow Bounty stood in silence, she took in the fresh cold air and made her way to the center of the rocky platform. She looked around: blood of Penuma and her own stained the platform. The broken bridge where Penuma had faded away, the other half of the blade persisted.
Willow closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again and lumbering to an edge of the rocky platform and peered down like before. The waves were still raging but faintly, and none was strong enough to threaten to swallow this rock whole. The black clouds that churned the sky into an unappealing spiral were breaking slowly.
Willow Bounty held her broken half of the blade stuck in her chest and blinked slowly ahead. The town that was in the far distance had ceased to exist, but Willow Bounty didn't despair. This was a dream, more specifically a nightmare. She wondered why Penuma had said that the reason she was here in the first place was because something she and her did, and she may have figured it out.
Penuma at one point must've taken temporary control over her body. Willow was usually awake when it happened; there were instances she could see what Penuma was doing from within her mind, but not this time.
Penuma had to have done something horrible, like jumping off a building, and letting Willow retake control but only to lose consciousness a second later when she hit the ground. That would've forced her to meet Penuma in a dream, or nightmare in this case so that they could fight to the death at who should pilot the body.
"Devious as ever," Willow rasped.
Willow Bounty breathed in slowly and exhaled, lowering her head to view the water below. She blinked again and leaned forward until she could no longer feel the platform under her hooves. She was falling toward the weltering depths. She closed her eyes one last time.
As she fell to the waters below, Willow Bounty felt something cool and soft enrapture her body. Finding the effort to open her eyes, her exhausted gaze was filled with the color blue along with a celestial mane that flowed on its own; the very cosmos seemingly residing inside.
Through her blurry sight, a horn and wings appeared around the edges of her vision. Her eyes widen. It was an alicorn.
"Are you awake?" called a voice soothingly.
Willow Bounty couldn't believe it. "Princess Luna?" she ventured in suppressed shock. If she wasn't so tired, she'd give a better, more appropriate response. "Is... You're here..."
"I am," the moon princess said in a hushed whisper, her lovely voice seeming to echo amongst the wind. "I have been attempting to enter your nightmare for quite some time now, though I suspected it was the parasite's doing. The aberration must have absorbed enough magic to keep me at bay, but now... it seems that the barrier has lifted as I am here. What has happened? You've been through quite an ordeal."
"A final battle between me and Penuma," Willow answered, the pang of the parasite's absence still fresh. "We've fought and I won; Penuma is dead."
"Congratulations on conquering that tormented trial; I understand how difficult it may have been for you," Princess Luna said softly. "In the waking world, I am caring for you. A pony found your body just outside of Ponyville and rushed you to the Ponyville Clinic. Close your eyes and you'll appear in a bed beside me. All of the injuries you've suffered amid your bout with the parasite may feel real, but you are relatively unscathed in the waking world, save for a small bump on your head."
Willow Bounty tried to nod but couldn't muster the energy. Instead, she laid her head on Luna's back and closed her eyes. "Thank you for being here."
Princess Luna uttered a soft chuckle. "Rest your head, Willow Bounty, you deserve it. May you have sweet dreams forever more."
