Prologue Part 1: Meet the Freaks
“I’m not going to ask you again, who are you?!” Shouted a unicorn with a coat of white fur and long blue mane. This unicorn’s body was equipped with state of the art Equestrian armor, a bit more advanced than the regular modules back then. You could tell by the description that is was none other than Twilight Sparkle’s brother and captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor. Shining Armor was seen yelling at a mysterious unicorn in what appears to be a dark dungeon. This unicorn had pale green fur, purple eyes, and a spiky brown mane…but why are these two here? Why is Shining Armor yelling at him? And most importantly, who IS that pony he’s yelling at?
“Sir please, if you would allow me to explain.” The interrogated pony pleaded, only to be cut off by the angry armored unicorn.
“Enough stalling!” Shining shouted. “Either you give me a name or I will take you and your four friends down the lowest pits of our prison chamber, where survival is slim to none!”
“But if you just listen to me for one second-“
“Need I remind you that you and your friends are in a situation that you CANNOT get yourselves out of. The five of you are going to be banished, or maybe even be executed for your crimes. You may as well do yourself a favor and just comply with our demands, because you’re only making it worse for yourself.”
The pony stares at his captor, finally given in to his demands.
“…Pencil Neck…my name is Pencil Neck.”
“…Why…is your name Pencil Neck?” Shining questioned as if hearing that name made his brain twist with confusion. “And further…do you seriously have a pencil for a horn?!”
“Here’s a better question, why the fuck does it matter to you what my name is or what my horn looks like?”
Shining Armor was shocked by the use of vulgarity Pencil had spewed out of his mouth. You have to understand though; these ponies never used such language throughout their lives. It’s been many years and they still haven’t cursed…once! So with that being said, Shining Armor punches the unicorn in the jaw for his choice of words.
“I don’t know where you came from, but here in Equestria, we do not use such demonic language. But that’s beside the point…you have a lot of questions that need to be answered. So don’t think you’re getting out of this quickly.”
The pencil horned unicorn rolls his eyes and sighs. In the situation he was in, what hope does he have? He may as well answer any question he has, hoping it would put an end to this interrogation quickly.
“Alright...ask your questions.” Pencil Neck complied. “I’ll be as thorough as I can, but don’t expect me to repeat myself.”
“Good. Then I guess I’ll start with the basics. Who are you?”
“…you gotta be freaking kidding me, didn’t I just tell you a minute ago?!”
“No you idiot, I mean who are you as a pony? Your talent in general!”
“Ooooh….alright fine...as I mentioned before, my name is Pencil Neck. I’m just your average traditional artist. I love to draw, I love to create things from own imagination. I’ve always had a passion for the fine arts.”
“Where you born with a pencil for a horn, or was this some scientific related mishap?”
Pencil Neck shook his head and rubs his horn. “Not in the slightest. My pencil horn is actually the result of poison joke. Back in my old hometown, Ponytropolis, me and my friends ventured into the woods, because a certain archeologist dragged us into the trip...even when are parents threatened us with a 2 month grounding if we went anywhere near the place. Any who, these woods had poison joke everywhere. However, unlike most of the poison joke, this was a new breed. The original one was blue, whereas this new breed was orange.
“So what’s the difference?”
“The blue colored poison joke can be cured at any time, but the orange one can be cured in a certain amount of time, before the effects become permanent. And the joke it plays went from unfunny to really cruel, hence why this orange poison joke was dubbed, Joker’s Cruelty. Now keep in mind, this happened YEARS ago, back when the five of us where a children. My two friends and I were the ones affected by it.”
“So you say this has happened to you many years ago…so you never bothered getting a cure?”
“Back then, it was easy to get the cure for poison joke, but with this being a new breed, there was no possible cure. And by the time the scientists back at Ponytropolis announced they had made a prototype of said cure, it was already too late. I was permanently stuck with this pencil for a horn. It’s funny because I had a pencil in my mane for some time now; I guess that’s how I was affected by this.
Shining Armor took time to examine Pencil Neck’s horn. It was the same size of a unicorn’s horn…but it looked, felt, smelled, and even tasted like a pencil. “So has this affected your use of magic in anyway?” Shining Armor asked as he pokes the horn, the pencil horned unicorn obviously getting annoyed by this.
“…well yes and no, and if you stopped poking it, I’d show you.”
Shining Armor stares at him face to face; making sure Pencil Neck remembered what sort of authority he was dealing with. “…alright, but if you pull off anything suspicious-“
“I can assure you; I will not put my friends at risk. I have my morals…”
The pencil horned unicorn sits up and stands up and trots over to the open space, ready to show the captain of the Royal Guard exactly what he can do.
“Well you know how all unicorns use magic to perform various magical acts, like telekinesis and teleportation? Well because of the Joker’s Cruelty, my ability to perform such magic acts is now gone. But as a result, I was given something new. I can perform what I call, Pencil Magic. Basically, with this kind of magic, I can draw things with my pencil horn out of thin air. The main source of my magic comes from my imagination.”
Pencil Neck’s horn suddenly began to glow. Its magical aura was black with white outlines. Just then, a small black dot of light appeared next to him. The small black dot swayed in a smooth motion, leaving a black streak behind. It connected lines and made shapes all around. It was basically drawing something. After the unicorn’s horn stopped glowing, the dot disappeared, leaving behind what Pencil had created. It was a well-drawn replica of the chair Pencil was sitting on, with black outlines and a white fill of color.
“As you can see, I replicated the chair next to me. So basically, I can make anything I want, whenever I want. However, it comes with a price. For a period of time, my drawings will disappear. So its uses are limited. Not only that…it shortens the led on my pencil horn. When I use up all the led on my horn, I have to replace it with a new one.”
Shining Armor sat there, taking all of this information about his magic in. He didn’t know whether to find this interesting…or potentially threatening. “You know…a pony with such magic could be considered dangerous…who’s to say you could draw clones of anypony to do your bidding?”
“Actually, that’s something I can’t do.” Pencil corrected. “My pencil magic can only draw objects of small or medium size. I have tried drawing a pony, but it always failed with me either losing all of my led, or the end result would be a lifeless ragdoll of a pony.”
“Alright then, now tell me about your friends.” Shining Armor levitates four separate photos, each revealing the pencil horned unicorn’s friends. “Starting with this one.” Shining Armor points to a male unicorn with…two heads.
“That’s Fixer and Breaker.” Replied Pencil.
“Why do they look like this?” Asked Shining. “Was this a result to the orange poison joke?”
“No. They were actually born that way. Fixer and Breaker are conjoined twins. Fixer gained most of the body, while Breaker gained a fraction of it. The two share the body. They have a gland in their bodies that gives one of the brothers’ control of the body for a one day. After that day passes, it switches to the next.”
“What is their talent?”
“Fixer is a talented engineer. He can build some pretty nifty machines. Breaker on the other hoof, is a demolition expert. Bombs, Grenades, TNT, Landmines, you name it. Anything that involves something going boom, he’s your colt for the job.”
Shining Armor then tosses the photo of the twins and brings out the remaining photos, because I’m sure you readers one to be done with the introduction of these characters and skip right to the story. The photo on the left showed a female unicorn with a bright lavender coat of fur with no mane. She also had red highlights on her muzzle and hooves…and of course, what stood out the most was that her head wasn’t connected to her body. The photo on the middle looked like a slate colored robotic pony with a large antenna. And the final photo on the right was a purple earth pony with a funky looking mane style; Black with white streaks. Her most noticeable feature was the fact that she didn’t have hooves…she had hands instead.
“That one on the left is Private Eye” Explained Pencil Neck. “Or as she would be preferred to be named, Headless Horse. She’s a detective as you can tell by the magnifying glass as a cutie mark. The reason she her head is disconnected from her body was because of the result of the Joker’s Cruelty. The middle pony is Professor Panic. A cowardly robot built by Fixer. He’s the scientist in our group, but he can be scared easily. And finally, the one on the right is Handy Mare; an archeologist who was also affected by the Joker’s Cruelty. What she ended up getting were hands.” Pencil Neck sighed, glaring at his captor, having explained every bit of detail he could muster. “Anything ELSE you’d like to know?”
Shining shook his head and chuckled mockingly. “No…I think I heard just what I needed to hear. The five of you are all a bunch of Freaks.”
Hearing that word made Pencil want to choke Shining Armor right there and now, but remembering the situation he was in, he had no choice but to let it be. “…just ask your next question damn it…”
“Fine then, I’ll just get right to it.” Shining said, getting closer to the unicorn, demanding an answer to the question he was now going to ask. “Why did you do it?! Who sent you?! For whom do you work for?!
“How many times do I have to ram this down your freaking skull?! Me and my friends are innocent!”
To Pencil’s dismay, Shining Armor just kept on rambling about the crisis at Canterlot.
“Then how did you get your hooves on the Alicorn Amulet? How were you able to make dozens of copies of the amulet?! That amulet has magical power that corrupts the very mind of a unicorn! One was bad enough but hundreds?! Where did you even get the technology to make replicas?!
“But we didn’t-“
“And don’t even get me started on the Dragon’s Rod. The same tool that can give the wielder control of all the dragons in all of Equestria. Ooooh, but the biggest crime of them all…turning Celestia to stone. Explain yourself right this minute!” Shining Armor stomps his hoof near Pencil, in a very intimidating way.
“Look Shining Armor, we didn’t cause the destruction of Canterlot! Hell, we didn’t even know there was a crisis going on there! We were just wandering travelers who got lost and took a wrong turn!”
“Oh what, so you expect us to believe that some random pony just ran into you while trying to escape the Royal Guard, beat you all up, and gave you the Amulet and Dragon’s Rod?”
Pencil blinked for minute then just shouts. “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!!! Don’t you get it; we’re being framed for something we didn’t do!”
“Then let me ask you this. Why would anypony frame you?”
Pencil sat there silent. He couldn’t find the words to answer that question. So he gave a simple “I don’t know.” Of course, this didn’t please Shining Armor in the slightest.
“Because of you, Equestria’s greatest ruler has been sent to a permanent prison that not even Luna can free her from!” Shining Armor explained as he pace back and forth while keeping his eye on Pencil. “Luna is now taking over the throne, but Luna is just heartbroken for what you have done. You destroyed her home and turned her sister to a lifeless statue. As if things weren’t going sour for Equestria already, you lot had to come along. But we finally captured you all and now we can rid Equestria of this terrible burden.”
“Please Shining Armor, if you would allow me to explain in greater detail-“
But it was too late. Shining Armor had already summoned two of his knights into the dungeon. The knights use their magic to levitate the unicorn off his hooves.
“I’ve heard just about enough from you and your friends.” Replied Shining Armor, looking away in anger. “Take him and those other Freaks to the prison chamber. Luna will decide what to do with them later.”
“Yes sir!” Shouted both guards, saluting their captain. They dragged Pencil away, the unicorn unable to fight back. As Pencil was on his way to his prison chamber…many questions boggled the unicorn’s mind…why is he and his friends being framed? Why did this all happen?...and most importantly….how in the fuck are they gonna get out of this one?
