It was a beautiful day in Pony land. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the bees were unintentionally spreading tree semen (pollen) on all available wildlife. Like usual, the ponies of Ponyville were out having a good time, basking in the skin-cancer-inducing waves of radiation emanating from the sun that they love so much. Most of them were, anyway...
Instead of going outside and absorbing ultraviolet B waves into her skin to create vitamin D, Sweetie Belle was laying lazily on the floor in Rarity's boutique. She was stuck with her sister this weekend as her parents were going through some sort of mid life crises. After finally realizing that the better part of their short, miserable lives had already faded away and were gone forever, they decided to live the rest of their lives to the fullest. Basically, that meant dumping their daughter on whoever could baby sit her and taking exotic vacations to validate their existence.
Unfortunately, Rarity was always very busy making clothes despite the fact that ponies normally don't wear clothes, so she never did anything with Sweetie Belle. Not that Sweetie wanted to do anything, anyways. She simply wasn't in the mood right now. She lazily traced circles in the carpet with a hoof as she thought back on the events of the week.
It all started out fine enough. Five days ago, her, Applebloom, and Scootaloo were out in search of their special talents. They were hanging around by their tree house at sweet apple acres, trying to come up with more horrible ideas for acquiring cutie marks.
"We can be pirates!" Suggested Scootaloo who's the dumb one of the group.
"No." Dismissed Applebloom in her adorable, though stupid, accent. "We dun tried that last week and it didn't turn out so well." This reminded Scootaloo of how their poorly crafted boat had sunk and the group of them nearly drowned.
"Besides, Rarity said that if we actually got cutie marks for being pirates, Celestia would have us hanged." Replied Sweetie Belle in her squeaky adolescent voice..
"Well then, what can we possibly do?" Asked a slightly distraught Applebloom. A moment later, an apple fell from a nearby tree, landing directly on her oversized head. "Ow." She whined, rubbing the sore spot for a moment before gazing upon the red fruit that lay before her. Her eyes widened as all answers instantly became clear to her.
Her flanks shone with some ungodly light as a picture of a little red apple appeared. After a moment she looked back and instantly started hopping in excitement. That was a happy day, Applebloom finally got her cutie mark! Her special talent was apples, of course. But that's hardly a surprise. From that point forward she was unnaturally talented at both eating and digesting apples and apple products. She also excretes a fine apple cider from her skin as a substitute for sweat, but that's the case for everypony in the apple family.
Unfortunately, now that she had her cutie mark in apples, she had been busy doing apple stuff for the past few days and had no time for her friends. At least there was still Scootaloo...
The next day, while helping Fluttershy feed animals in a desperate attempt to earn some kind of 'animal feeding' cutie mark, Scootaloo received her own cutie mark. It wasn't for animal feeding, but for being a big chicken. She had never really told anypony about it before, but she was both afraid of nearly everything and a flightless bird (Pegasi are birds because they have wings). This meant she was pretty much a chicken in both a metaphorical and physical sense.
Two days later she was eaten by a hungry fox.
Now Sweetie Belle was all alone without even one cutie mark to her name. She sighed to herself in boredom and rolled over onto her back to count the ceiling tiles for the fifth time that day. Sadly, she wasn't able to finish her counting, and to this day we will never know how many ceiling tiles there are, as Rarity stepped into the room.
"Oh, I forgot you were here." She admitted before realizing how insensitive that made her sound. "I mean, why aren't you outside?" Clever save, Rarity.
Sweetie Belle huffed and rolled back onto her tummy rumpler. "Why would I go outside? It's not like I have any friends or anything."
Rarity didn't know exactly how to respond to such an emo statement immediately, but after a second she came up with something that was good enough. "Don't say that, I'm sure your friends will come around eventually. Besides, you could go out and make some new friends."
"Why would anypony want to be friends with a blank flank like me?" It's a valid question. No pony wants a loser blank flank for a friend.
Rarity bit her lip as she tried to think of something to say that would cheer up her sister lest she look like a bad big sister. After a moment she spurted out the first idea that formed in her brain meat. "Maybe you'll find something at the library that will help you get a cutie mark." She suggested.
"I already tried getting my cutie mark in being a librarian." Sweetie Belle countered. "It didn't end well."
"Well... Maybe there will be something in one of the books that gives you an idea." She offered.
Sweetie Belle was about to argue, but realized that it might be a good idea. Perhaps she could get a cutie mark in reading, or something equally as ill-contrived. "Ok." She stated simply as she stood up and walked out the door.
Rarity sighed in relief. She really wasn't expecting any suggestion she came up with to work. After a moment her face was dominated by a devilish grin. Now that Sweetie Bell was gone, she could go fap to some human porn. No one would ever discover her dark secret!
In the mean time, Sweetie Belle was heading over to the library tree. She hoped that Twilight would let her come in after she made such a huge mess last time. If not, she could always go back to counting ceiling tiles. At least the library isn't very far from the boutique, so it didn't take long to walk there.
Once at the door, she decided to knock, seeing as she might not be accepted inside. Then again, if Twilight gave her any trouble she could just say that Rarity had told her to come. That would surely persuade her.
She knocked thrice with the hardened tip of her tentacle-like leg also known as a hoof and then waited. It only took Twilight a few seconds to open the door at which time she looked down on the little unicorn.
"No." She simply stated before moving to close the door.
Sweetie saw that she was about to be denied and moved into the door frame to block it from closing with her body if need be. "Wait!" She yelled out desperately.
"I don't want you in my library." Stated Twilight who looked frustrated that she couldn't simply slam the door closed anymore considering where the filly was standing. Well, she could, but then she would never hear the end of it from all her friends. Also the police might get involved... "Last time you and your friends came here you made a complete mess of the place and I don't have time to watch you." To be fair, the library gets trashed nearly on a daily basis.
Sweetie Belle scrunched up her nose at the mention of her 'friends'. "My friends aren't here anymore. Besides, I won't make a mess this time. I promise! I just want to look in some of the books to see if I can find a way to get a cutie mark."
Twilight rubbed the bridge of her purple, furry snout with a hoof in defeat. "Fine... But you better not make me regret this. I'm the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. I can destroy you and everything you have ever loved and no one would stop me." She threatened before turning around and walking back up the stairs. "Spikes not here so you'll have to find things yourself since I'm busy." She yelled back.
Sweetie Belle smiled triumphantly. She had successfully gotten inside the library. Such a victory was nearly unheard of as she normally failed at everything she did. Walking inside, she began scouring the shelves for interesting books. She tried reading a few of them, but quickly lost interest.
Eventually, after what seemed like hours of searching to her, but was more likely only a matter of minutes, she once again slumped to the ground in boredom. "I've read like... A hundred books and I haven't gotten a single idea for a cutie mark." She whined to herself. Perhaps coming to the library was a waste of time. Just think about it, right now she could be laying on the floor in the boutique instead of here.
She lazily scanned the adjacent wall with her eyes in search of something entertaining, when she spotted a door. It promptly came to her attention that she had never been through that particular door before. Millions upon millions of scenarios popped into her oversized head as to what could possibly be behind such a door.
Perhaps it was a doorway to another world full of weird creatures and talking animals. Or maybe it led into a closet full of all of Twilight's darkest secrets that can be used to blackmail her later. Or even more likely, it led down to a cellar full of the most delicious ice cream known to pony kind. Ice cream so delicious that it takes the refined magical souls of a thousand unicorns just to make one scoop.
With the prospect of ice cream now firmly implanted in her smaller-than-average brain, Sweetie couldn't resist checking out what was behind the door. Besides, maybe she'll get a cutie mark in house exploring or something. She walked over and quietly opened it, making sure not to disturb the potentially homicidal unicorn upstairs. She reached a hoof through the opening until she found a light switch which she then flipped up.
As the magic of electricity filled the light bulbs, she was able to see the room below. The door opened up to a staircase which lead down into a basement-type room. It was filled with various machines that had no apparent purpose along with more book shelves lining the walls. Sadly, there wasn't a single icecream to be had. Despite the lack of consumable frozen treats, Sweetie Belle walked down the stairs into the room. She had come too far to simply turn back now.
She tried to find something interesting about the machines that would hold her attention for a while, but it was all for naught as the machines had no apparent purpose other than filling space and gathering dust. The books on the walls turned out to be similarly uninteresting as they were all about advanced magical and scientific theories that Sweetie could never hope to understand with her miniscule brain.
All hope was not lost, however, as there was yet another door on the wall below the stairs. Walking over to it, she noticed a small sign on the front reading 'private, do not enter'. Any respectful member of society would have probably turned and went back upstairs after seeing such a sign, but not Sweetie Belle. She knew that there would only be a sign there if there was some really cool stuff behind that door.
Disregarding the potential repercussions of barging into a private room in the library, Sweetie pushed the door open to behold the wonders that awaited her on the other side. It was a small room filled with more books...
She sighed to herself as she walked inside. Perhaps it was a bit too much to hope for something cool to happen in the library. Twilight Sparkle is one of the most boring ponies there is, so it stands to reason that her home would be boring too. The books inside were all caked in a layer of dust from sitting undisturbed for so long. Clearly, not even Twilight came down here on a regular basis. Wiping away the dust on the spines of some of the books, she realized why these weren't upstairs with the others. For one, they looked really old. Like ancient. But more importantly, they weren't written in Equestrian.
Each book was covered with some weird letters that she had never seen before. Needless to say, she was disappointed that she hit a dead end in her adventure and the only thing she had to show for it was a bunch of books she couldn't even read. "Dumb books." She complained before turning to leave the room.
Hello.
She jumped about two feet into the air at the random voice before spinning around and looking for who spoke. She examined every corner of the tiny room, but there wasn't anypony there. She sat there for a solid minute, just staring at the far wall as though something would happen, before deciding that it was probably her imagination.
It wasn't your imagination.
She was startled once again, but quickly pulled herself together enough to ask the obvious question. "Who's there?" She asked somewhat timidly.
My name isn't important, mortal. But if you must know, I am speaking to you through the book to your left. It explained in a deep whisper-like voice that resonated in her ear drums. As it spoke, she could hear a strange droning sound as though there were flies buzzing around in her head.
She looked to her left and found exactly the book the voice was talking about. It was fairly obvious as the words along the spine and cover had started glowing a faint orange. She was confused as to what to say next, so the voice continued the conversation for her.
Yes, that's the one. It confirmed.
Sweetie Belle stood staring at the book for a few moments, unable to look away. For some reason it enthralled her, even if she had no idea what was going on exactly. As she looked at the book, it seemed to be looking back at her. Eventually, she turned her eyes away from the ancient tome and shuffled her feet nervously.
The voice had delved into her puny mind though, it knew she felt afraid of what was happening as well as that she had questions. Questions that could be answered easily enough provided she didn't run away. It really didn't want her to run away. That would ruin everything. So it continued in an attempted soothing tone. You have no need to worry my dear, I won't harm you. Despite the attempt, the words still had an undertone of mockery in them, but Sweetie hardly seemed to notice.
"W-What do you want?" She asked somewhat shakily.
I simply wish to talk to you. It lied. I haven't had anyone to talk to in so long. It's quite lonely being shut away in a basement for years.
"Why don't you just talk to Twilight? She's kind of mean, but I'm sure she would talk to you." Sweetie reasoned.
It had already anticipated this question, so coming up with a response was simple. I have tried, but she can't hear me like you can. It looks like I'm all alone.
The last part sparked something in Sweetie Belle. She knew what it was like to be lonely, she was the only blank flank her age in the whole town, after all. "You're not all alone." She stated cheerfully. "I'll talk to you."
The voice paused for a moment as though in thought, but everything was already going better than expected. This pony was too trusting, even if all she had to put her trust in was a faceless entity. I'd like that. It said in as sincere a voice as it could fabricate.
Unfortunately, it didn't have all the time in the world to sit and chat with this pony. Eventually the purple one would come down and put a stop to this. Twilight may be clueless as to what any of these books' purposes are, but she can feel the magic in them easily enough. Could you perhaps take me out of this basement? It finally asked in an attempted 'hopeful' voice.
Sweetie Belle looked confused for a second, so it decided to explain the situation before she could pose any dumb questions. I've been stuck in here for so long, I want to see the outside world again. Besides, eventually the purple one will come down and get mad at you for being in here. She won't believe that I talked because she can't hear me.
"I don't know..." She stated uncertainly. "I don't think Twilight would want me taking her books."
So don't tell her. The voice reasoned. She never comes down here anyways, she won't even notice that one book is missing.
"Still..." She wasn't very keen on steeling.
The voice decided that it should take a more direct route. It had gazed into her mind and knew exactly what she wanted. Perhaps if you help me, I can help you get your cutie mark. It said the last two words as though the very idea of their meaning made it sick.
"Really?!" She hopped up excitedly and a huge smile spread across her face. "You could help me get a cutie mark?!" Then she wouldn't be a complete loser.
Of course.
"In what?" She asked, wondering what cutie mark a book could possibly get her.
I know a great many things, I could help you get any cutie mark you desire. It stated before giving her a few seconds to think of all the possibilities. But you have to help me first.
She only thought over the voice's deal for a moment before deciding that it was worth it. All she had to do was take the book out and they would both be happy. Besides, she rationalized, Twilight won't miss it at all so it's not hurting anypony. "Alright!" She finally blurted out before grabbing the fairly large book in her mouth and pulling it off the shelf. It tasted strange, unlike the covers of ordinary books. It was covered in what looked to her to be black, stretched out skin.
She opted to instead use her hoofs to lift it onto her back before exiting the room and closing the door behind her. She was careful to put everything back how it was before leaving the library, lest Twilight make her fall in love with a stuffed animal again.
The trip back to the boutique was silent as the book didn't say a word and once they got back there was sign of Rarity. Sweetie didn't care, though. She just went straight to the guest room where she stayed and shut the door. She really didn't want to deal with her sister right now.
"We're here." She stated as she set the book atop a wooden writing desk.
Indeed. Replied the voice.
They sat there silently for a few moments without saying anything. It was pretty awkward for her. Finally she decided to get to the point. "So... Can you help me get my cutie mark now?"
Yes. As soon as it said this she squealed in delight and began hopping around the room. But I can't do it as a book. It finished.
She stopped hopping and turned back to the ancient tome. "What do you mean?"
I'm not really a book. It explained. I just live really far away and I'm using this to talk to you. If I'm going to help you I'll need you to help me get here.
"How am I going to do that?
It won't be difficult. I'll be doing most of the work, but I need your help.
She seemed somewhat reluctant as she thought this over. Perhaps summoning a strange creature that she had never met isn't such a great idea.
It seemed to read her indecision, so it decided to sweeten the deal. Once you summon me, I'll give you all the ice cream you can eat. Then we can go get your cutie mark.
It knew exactly what she wanted, and she instantly disregarded all thought that this might be a bad idea. After all, ice cream. "Well alright. But what do I do?"
Simply lend me your magic, and I'll do the rest. She looked away in shame as she remembered she still couldn't use her magic. The voice assuaged her fears once again, though. Don't worry. I'll be controlling it for you.
"Well alright." She decided. "What do I do?"
Just touch your horn to the cover of the book and I'll take care of everything. Seeing no reason to object, she did just that. As her horn touched the tome, she became very drowsy. Her eyes half closed and her mind fell into a state of bliss. She was aware of her body moving, but she wasn't controlling it nor was she able to focus on anything. Everything just looked fuzzy as it seemed to fly by in fast motion.
Eventually, she got control of her mind back and she found herself lying on the floor in her room. She blinked her eyes a few times to clear the fuzziness before taking in the scene. All the furniture and the carpet in the room had been pulled up and piled against one wall leaving the floorboards exposed. The wood planks were engraved with a variety of different runes that looked similar to the ones she had seen on the book. They curved around the room into several layers of circles. In the middle of the the circles was the book and a knife sitting next to the blood stained corpse of Opal, Rarity's cat.
Sweetie had to turn away as she gagged at the horrible sight. She could hardly believe what was going on. Had she really killed Opal? Not to mention she had practically destroyed the room. Rarity was going to be pissed. Then when Twilight found out that her book was taken she was going to be pissed too!
She began to panic before the book began glowing again and the voice returned. Calm down. Everything is going as planned. She instantly felt the fuzzy feeling in her mind again and slumped down on her haunches. She knew that this was wrong and that she would get in trouble, but she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. Now that you're awake I need you to do one more thing.
She wasn't able to focus on the words and simply nodded dumbly. Touch your horn to the book once again. Sweetie Belle complied without a second thought. She walked up and put her horn onto the book just like she had before. Her bliss instantly melted away and was replaced with pain. Her eyes opened up in shock as her head was ravaged by a pulsing headache. She tried to pull back, but her horn seemed to be stuck to the book.
After only a moment, she fell backwards as the book suddenly released her. She looked down to see that both the book and all the runes around it were now glowing in a red light. She was forced to back away to the wall as the book flung open and was engulfed in flames. The fire chewed away at the old, yellow pages for a few moments before shooting up in a pillar of flames that stretched all the way to the ceiling.
The intense heat forced Sweetie Belle to shut her eyes tight and she huddled in a corner, waiting for it to be over. But, by that point it was already over. The heat was gone and everything was silent. She slowly opened one eye only to recoil in shock.
Most of the room was now dominated by a strange figure. The ceilings in the boutique were fairly high up, yet it was still forced to hunch over slightly. If she had to describe it, she'd say it looked like a huge, bloated manatee that had all its skin replaced by some kind of chitinous, spiked shell. Its face was split open, revealing rows of jagged teeth accompanied by a pair of mandibles on either side. Its arms were thick and looked reptilian, ending in curved talons. It had no legs and instead the bottom part of its body seemed to just be composed of shadows that twisted around themselves. All in all it was pretty terrifying.
It looked down on Sweetie Belle with its many beady eyes before it spoke. "Foolish mortal, in your idiocy you have unleashed me onto this world! All will be consumed in fire, and it's all thanks to you. Don't fret, little flesh beast, I keep my promises." Suddenly a huge tub of ice cream appeared in one of its clawed hands.
Sweetie Belle's fear was instantly replaced with excitement. "Ice cream!" She shouted as she opened the tub up and sampled it. It was the most delicious ice cream she had ever tasted, but she remembered the other thing she wanted. "But what about my cutie mark?"
The demon simply pointed at her flank where a picture of delicious ice cream suddenly appeared.
"An ice cream cutie mark?!" She exclaimed in joy. Despite the impending doom, this was the happiest moment of her life. "Thanks mister!" It always pays to be polite.
"Don't mention it." It stated before splitting open like some unholy banana. Out of the opening emerged dozens of huge tentacles that grew out in all directions before tearing the room apart. They quickly grew large enough to collapse the whole building.
But they weren't satisfied there. They continued to snake out in all directions, some even splitting into more tentacles as they smashed all the buildings under their collective might. In less than a minute, almost all of Ponyville was thoroughly destroyed and on fire. Once they were done with that, the tentacles moved on, destroying everything on the planet.
The End
The moral of this story is: Don't lie.
Yo yo yo, Ethesto here. This ended up a little more dark than I had anticipated, but whatever. I'll just add the dark tag so no big deal. I've had a ton of ideas for different stories for a long time now, so I figured I'd write some of them.
