Down the Rabbit Hole... (BETA TEST CHAPTER)
Twilight blinked, trying to adjust her vision to the sudden removal of the camera’s bright screen from in front of her face. She looked down and noticed she was hogtied with rope and lying on her side, gagged with duct tape. She was inside of some kind of badly crafted wooden cage that was rotting from the inside out, posts green with moss and deterioration. As her mind raced to reset itself, she thought about what had happened to her and her friends, trying to rearranging events in her head. First, they landed on the beach. Then they had a blast, went exploring, essentially had the time of their lives, celebrating Spike’s Coming of Age party. And then, just as they were about to leave, these zebras in red vests ambushed them in these odd, loud machines, armed with metal pipes that spat nets made of some kind of material that magic couldn't tear through, and captured everypony, even Cadence, an alicorn princess and her sister-in-law. She remembered trying to fight back, trying to cast a teleportation spell, but was hit in the back of the head by something. Hard. After that, darkness. And now, she was here, having these same memories played back to her in the form of that short 3 minute video that was strangely edited to show only their arrival on the beach and the really crazy things she had done. Nothing in between. Odd.
Between the gag, the bindings, the cage, and what she remembered, her brain was finally awake enough to put two and two together. She shuddered at the horrifyingly undeniable truth of their situation. We’ve been foalnapped. She began to sweat with panic. How did this happen? Who did this? What are they going to do with us? What do they want from us? A thousand questions raced through Twilight’s mind as she began to imagine all of the tortures and terrible things that whoever did this had in store, for her and for her friends. Maybe this is just a dream, a really bad dream, she thought, maybe Luna will come to my rescue and wake me up, and everything will be fine. But it wasn’t a dream. This was all happening, right here, right now. On Hoof Island, the island that they never should have come to in the first place. Why did she let DJ Pon-3 convince them to come here? All that this trip had gotten her so far was a foalnapping and a hangover.
A horrible stench began assailing her nostrils, her senses finally alert enough to pick up the smell of the place. Horrid. In the distance, harsh voices laughed and chortled, the sound of clinking glass bottles resonating from somewhere close by. Loud pops echoed across the area, with screams quickly following them, the screaming followed by a dead silence. A small fire burned next to the cage which contained her, cooking some kind of strange, unidentifiable meat. Meat. Oh, goddesses, she thought, are these ponies eating... meat? Her stomach churned at the thought of what it could possibly be. Were it not for the gag, she might have thrown up.
Ok, thought Twilight, I’m not just going to sit around and wait for these ponies to come back. I have to get out of here and find my friends, wherever they are. She looked down at the ropes again, smirking. Hehehe, whoever these guys are, they should’ve used better rope. Twilight’s horn began to glow a luminous orchid color, basking the cage with its radiance as she thought about unfurling the ropes from herself. She didn’t notice the dark cloud of magic begin forming around her horn. I’ll have these off in two shakes of a- OUCH!! The black cloud tensed around her horn, snuffed out the magic spell, then popped painfully like a miniature party favor on the tip of her horn, breaking her concentration. What the hay just happened? Wondered Twilight as she looked cross-eyed at the black cloud swirling around her horn. Is this… spell blocking magic? Oh no… this is bad. Really, really bad.
"You guys think you're crazy, huh?" said a voice next to Twilight, taking her by surprise. "Huh?" The camera began to move in a circular motion in front of her as if to imitate flying. "Jumping off of clouds, flying... like birds?"
A figure moved into view in front of Twilight, a tan-colored unicorn with a black mohawk for a mane, wearing a red undershirt, sporting scars all along his muscular and toned chest and body. His face was cloudy, hard to read, his red eyes piercing into the soul of those who dared to look into them, a menacing grin plastered to his face, kind of like one of the villains from the Mare Do Well movies she once watched, but couldn't quite place who. She barely got a look at his cutie mark, which appeared to be an eye of some sort.
None of these features, however, truly made her made her more fearful of him than the last thing that caught her eye; the golden necklace on his veiny neck. Except it wasn’t the necklace, but the black jewel encased in it, shaped in the form of a broken mirror, emitting a terrible dark energy, that made her question everything that she thought Celestia had told her about the Elements of Harmony. A Seventh Element? As far as she knew, there were only the six, those that her and her friends were the Bearers of. Loyalty, Kindness, Honesty, Generosity, Laughter, and lastly, Magic. Her element. There was never any mention of a seventh element in any of the texts I’ve read or in any of Celestia’s lectures, pondered Twilight, so how in the wide, wide world of Equestria is this… thing even here? And what does it even represent? Two broken mirrors? I don’t get it…
The unicorn's expression seemed to lighten as he levitated the camera over to himself and held it in his hooves. "Fuck, that is crazy." he said as he stared at the bright screen. He looked over to someone in front of him, smiling. Twilight turned with him and looked in the corner where her brother, Shining Armor, lay bound and gagged in the same manner as her. Now, she began to panic. If these ponies were strong enough to bring down her brother, Captain of the Royal Canterlot Guard, how in the hay were they going to escape? "Man, I like this camera,” chimed in their apparent captor, “this is a really nice fucking camera." He pocketed the camera and stood up on all fours and began looking at cards that Twilight could only hope to Celestia weren’t their IDs. She saw that her and Shining’s pictures were on the cards. Well, buck.
"So, who do we have here? Hmmmmm... Shining Armor," Twilight watched as His hoof fell on her brother, " aaaaand Twilight Sparkle.” From Canterlot, eh? Well I hope your mommy and daddy really love you two, because you two unicorns look pretty fucking expensive. And I like expensive things. Especially fine looking expensive things..."
The psychotic unicorn grinned evilly, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth, as he reached a hoof through the cage and gently parted Twilight's mane near her ear, producing a frightened whimper from Twilight and angry grunts and snarls of protest from Shining, who began charging up a spell only to have a that same dark cloud surround the charge, causing it to fizzle and pop painfully like a small firecracker at the end of Shining’s horn. Upon hearing Shining's grunting and attempted spell casting, the unicorn quickly retracted his foreleg and levitated out a metal device from a saddlebag, pulled back a lever near the tail end of it, and pointed it at Shining Armor's head. Twilight’s eyes widened in horror. Her brother just kept looking at their captor with malice in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" he seethed under his breath. After Shining continued to curse the unicorn under his gag of tape, their psycho captor raised up the device and shot into the air, producing a loud pop like the ones Twilight had heard earlier. "DID YOU WANT ME TO SLICE YOU UP LIKE I DID YOUR FRIEND?!" He yelled, jabbing the device into Shining’s temple, singeing his fur with the device's red hot barrel. Shining grunted in pain. "Shut the fuck up, okay? I'm the one with the fucking dick."
He lowered the weapon, and then gestured to his eyes with a hoof, "Look at me, look me in the fucking eye." Shining didn't move a muscle and just looked at the ground.
"HEY! YOU FUCK!" shouted the unicorn, causing Shining to flinch. "Look me in the fucking eye!" Shining finally complied, looking into the unicorn's piercing red eyes, the look of defiance and hatred in Shining's bright blue eyes meeting the psychotic rage of the other's. "You're my bitch," said the unicorn, "I rule this fucking kingdom. Shut the fuck up, or you die.”
“Oh yeah,” said the unicorn as he rose from his haunches, still looking at Shining, “I should have pointed this out when your fucking sister tried to cast that unbind spell, but I wouldn’t try casting any of your bullshit magic while this is on.” He tapped the “Element” on his neck. “I control who the fuck gets to use magic around here.” He chuckled wryly. “The Element of Insanity is one powerful bitch.” Element of… Insanity? That doesn't sound like an Element of Harmony at all, thought Twilight. Since when was Insanity ever used to preserve peace and happiness?
The psychotic unicorn turned to Twilight, his expression falsely softening when he noticed the escalating terror in her eyes. "What is it, Twilight? Twilight, what is it?" he asked, as if she could answer him with the tape gag on her mouth. "Why aren't you laughing like you were in the video? What, is this not fun anymore? Have I failed to entertain you?!" He motioned with his hoof towards Shining, then back to her. "You see, up there, way up in the fucking skies, you thought you had a chance." He held his hoof in the air and bent it back and forth in the air. "Up there, you thought you had your hooves on the pussy trail." He looked into Twilight's eyes, his red gaze piercing through her soul as it had the first time. For a split second, Twilight saw something beyond those red orbs. For a split second, her foalnapper’s eyes flashed a brilliant orange, and then subsided back to the red, as if something was trying to escape, but couldn’t. A cry for help. The unicorn frowned, shook his head, and then continued his rant.
"But hermana, down here, down here...?" He picked up some dirt and let it drift off out of his grasp slowly, like an hourglass, until the dirt stream ended, and there was none left. He looked back to Twilight, a look of triumph on his face, "Down here, you hit the ground."
The unicorn finally stood up, still maintaining his gaze on Twilight, continuing to look her over as he spoke. "You know, it's okay. I'm gonna chill. I'm gonna relax, because you, moi, and your tough guy brother? We are gonna have a lot of fun together while were waiting for the money. Especially you and I, Twilight Sparkle." He winked. Twilight’s fur stood on end at the way he ended that sentence, realizing his intentions. She wanted to scream, to run, to get away from there, but she couldn’t. Luna! Shouted Twilight in her mind. If you can here me, please, end this nightmare! Get me back to reality!
An alicorn seemed to materialize out of nowhere from behind the psycho in front of her. Twilight would've flung herself onto the figure if she could. She answered my prayers! Thought Twilight, Watch out, you psycho, Luna's gonna mop the floor with you now... Twilight's thoughts dropped out and her heart sank as she noticed that the alicorn wasn't Luna. Or Celestia. Or even Cadence, for that matter. No, this Alicorn was different from all of them. It had a coat of gray fur and was big and muscular, much larger than Celestia, with its wings arched like feathered blades, horn taller than she was on her hind legs, with golden irises and black slits for pupils. It wore a crown of gold, a black crystal with a small red one embedded in the middle of it held in the crown center. Its mane swept and coursed through the air like fire, shining with a color even darker than the night itself. It didn’t even have a cutie mark. The most striking feature of this alicorn, however, was the black suit it wore, a bright red undercoat lying underneath. That’s when the third horrifying realization of the day occurred. This… was a stallion alicorn.
"Shattered, stop scaring the hostages," ordered the mysterious alicorn in a strangely Canterlotian accent, "I need you to go and deal with the rejects."
Shattered, the psychotic foalnapper, turned to the alicorn, a wild look in his eyes. "You know, I have a real fucking name. I don't like it when you FUCKING CALL ME THAT!" The demigod scowled and emitted a green energy from his horn, striking Shattered in the chest, but instead of burning him, as Twilight thought it would, it enveloped him, forming a green force field above the Bearer of Insanity, effectively caging him. The alicorn stood over Shattered and scoffed.
"I don't give a fuck what you don't like, Shattered Sanity, I gave you an order. Now do as you're told, or I’ll end you where you fucking lie."
"Alright, boss, alright. Whatever you say, Hoyt."
"What was that? I don’t believe I heard that correctly.”
Shattered sighed. "Whatever you say, KING Hoyt,"
And just like that the cage of green energy disappeared from above Shattered Sanity, and he got up on all fours again, continuing to stare at the ground as the alicorn known as King Hoyt disappeared without another word into the night sky. After a few moments, Shattered turned to the two bound unicorns, "Well, I sure hope you two pieces of fucks are a lot more fun than your friends. Ta-ta, bye-bye." The evil smile now back on his face, he waved to the two of them as he trotted away, stopping only to feint charge a pirate, causing the junior raider to jump back. Shattered chuckled. "Gets you every fucking time, hermano."
Now, it was just Twilight, Shining, and their guard. What the hay are we going to do now? Thought Twilight, there's no pony coming for us, I can’t use my magic, and we’re in the middle of nowhere... Oh, goddesses, what are we going to do? Think Twilight, think. Before Twilight could even begin to form some kind of plan of action, however, she noticed Shining Armor begin to move about as he slipped off his bindings almost effortlessly and removed his gag, scanning the area as he did so to make sure nopony noticed.
"That motherfucker." snarled Shining under his breath as he bent over to undo his little sister's bindings and gag. Twilight rubbed her hooves together, trying to unstiffen them from being held in the same position for so long.
"Twilly," asked Shining, "are you hurt?"
"I don't think so," replied Twilight.
Shining nodded. "We have to find the others. We gotta get out of here."
"How?"
"I'm working on it." Not the reply Twilight was hoping for. Shining eyed the guard thoughtfully, and then turned back to Twilight.
"Call the guard."
"What?! Are you crazy?" The guard can't possibly be that stupid, thought Twilight, he knows were gagged. If I said anything, he would probably tell Vaas, and then Celestia knows we'd be bucked then. What kind of plan is this?
"Just do it, Twilly. Call him." Shining held his hooves up against a post of the cage, pretended like he was still tied up, motioning for Twilight to do the same. She took up position, and made the gamble of her life. Hope this works, thought Twilight.
"Hey! Hey, over here!" called Twilight to the zebra guard. He turned and strode carefully over to the duo.
"The fuck?" said the zebra, "You two shut the fuck up!"
When the zebra was at face level with Shining Armor, the Royal Guard Captain reached through the cage's frame and slammed the zebra's skull against the cage. Twilight heard a crack. The zebra's body fell lifelessly to the ground.
"Oh, goddesses, Shining. He's dead." squeaked Twilight, unable to comprehend the fact that her brother, Shining Armor, had just killed somepony else right in front of her in cold blood.
"That is what they teach you in the Guard." Was Shining's only reply as he felt for a key on the guard, smirked when he found it in one of the pirate’s saddlebags, and levitated it to the lock, opening the cage moments later. He levitated a knife off of the guard's body and held the door open as he scanned the area to make sure there weren’t any unwanted guests coming. He turned to Twilight, who still sat petrified in her corner of the cage, and gave her a reassuring smile, then exited the cage, motioning for her to follow. "Alright. Follow me, little sis.”
Twilight shakily got up from the ground and crept through the entrance into the darkness beyond, the area around her illuminated only by the small fire and the pale moonlight, casting long dark shadows over everything in the area. As the two of them slowly moved along the side of a small hut, a conversation between a group of pirates caught Twilight’s ear.
“Man, what a fucking haul,” said one zebra pirate to another, “Eight ponies, one of them a fucking alicorn, and three of them are royalty? Can you imagine the ransom we’ll get from their parents? We’ll all be filthy rich!”
“Yeah, well, don’t get too hung up on the royal bitches,” said the other pirate, “The family of one of the hostages, this… Pinkie Pie… owns a rock farm. A ROCK farm. Do you know how many fucking gems those things produce? We’ll get more out of her family than any of the others.”
“Hey, but get this,” chimed in a third marauder, “I heard that we captured Rainbow Dash. THE Rainbow Dash. You know, the one that caused that Sonic Rainboom shit? Well, I’ll bet you a week’s pay that we’ll sell her off within the week. You know someone will pay a pretty fucking penny to own that flank, my friend.”
“Yeah, and what about that dragon?” asked the second pirate, “I mean, do you know how much dragons sell for on the black market? We could sell him off to a breeder and get more from that deal than we’d get with all of the others combined.”
“I hear that,” said the first pirate, “cheers to a huge haul and being the baddest motherfuckers on this island.”
“Cheers.”
Twilight couldn't believe what she was hearing. These pirates were going to ransom off and sell her all of her friends? For bits? What kind of sick ponies would do such a thing? Shining and Twilight continued on past the pirates, crouching underneath another hut resting on rotted wooden supports. She began to hear something, like a sniffing noise, and then a hoof held her back from going any further. Shining’s hoof. He shushed her, pointing at something directly in front of them. Dogs. Applejack would have bucked every single one of these pirates in the teeth if she saw the condition of these dogs, thought Twilight as she looked them over. The three of them looked emaciated, flea bitten, and neglected. And they frightened her. Their teeth looked like dirty serrated daggers in the moonlight. She could see the drool dripping from their jowls as they sniffed the ground not ten feet away from her and her brother, eyes red with hunger and rabies. Then they caught a scent they didn't like, most likely the two escaped unicorns, and started barking.
“Oh buck…” Twilight’s heart nearly jumped out her chest when the dogs started to bark and growl and paw at the chicken wire separating the two unicorns from them. Shining grabbed a hold of Twilight and crawled out from underneath the hut as quickly as he could with his sister in tow. The pirates just went on with their business, not regarding the dogs with any sort of concern as to the nature of what alerted them.
They entered a hut chalk full of suitcases, saddlebags, purses, and all number of different types of luggage and tourist items. My gosh, thought Twilight, these pirates must have been doing this for a long time. How many ponies have come here only to have the same thing that’s happening to us happen to them? Hundreds? Thousands? Shining nudged her with his hoof, cutting off her thoughts. He pointed to a table, where her camera, a strange tablet-like device, and a map lay, along with a walkie-talkie, which apparently belonged to a pirate named “Felipe”.
“Grab that stuff on the table, Twilight. We’ll need all of it.”
“Okay,” said Twilight, stuffing the gear into a musty old Canterlot Army saddlebag and slinging it onto her back. What kind of pony names their colt Felipe, anyways?
Twilight gasped when they stepped out of the hut only to have the door out of that area blocked by a sleeping guard. Twilight looked at her brother with concern. Shining thought for a moment, then pointed to the wall opposite the snoozing pirate.
“Throw a rock over there. It should distract him.”
Twilight complied, scooping a rock up off the ground with her hooves and throwing it as hard as she could at the wall that Shining was pointing to. It connected with the wall, creating a loud pinging noise that resonated off the walls. The pirate stirred, brought his metal stick weapons to bear in his maw, and trotted over to investigate the strange noise. Wow, thought Twilight as she observed the pirate picking through the brush and dirt trying to find the source of the mysterious noise, they really are that stupid.
“Let’s move.” Said Shining, opening the entrance to the shack for Twilight to climb into. Just as Twilight set her first hoof in the shack, she heard a murmur come from the right of her. She turned just in time to see a pirate rise from his bed, jugs of alcohol clattering off of him as he levitated a small metal weapon up and took aim at her. “Oh shit. Shining?!”
Then, as quickly as the zebra rose from his bed, he was dropped, the knife that Shining had picked up off the first guard embedded in the zebra’s neck. Arterial blood spurted from the fatal wound as the zebra clutched the knife in his throat, uttered a faint gurgling sound, and collapsed dead in an ever expanding crimson pool. Twilight couldn't believe the brutality of what Shining had just done. She fell onto her haunches as Shining planted all fours in the shack, tears flowing from her deep purple eyes. Shining wrapped his sister in his forelegs, allowing her to cry on his shoulder.
“Goddesses, Shining, this is just so crazy,” sobbed Twilight, “I just… I don’t think I can do this… I… I can’t do this…” She looked up at her brother, gaining a little relief from his reassuring smile. Shining stroked his sister’s purple and pink mane, comforting her.
“Twilly, sis, listen to me,” said Shining, his expression turning dark and soldier-like, “I know that were in some grim shit right now, but I can’t save Cadence and Spike and the others without you. So pull it together, alright?”
“Okay,” replied the mare in his hooves, “I’m sorry.” She dried her tears and the two of them got back onto their hooves.
“Don’t be. I get what you’re going through.”
Shining Armor and Twilight continued onward until they entered a large area covered with some strange five leaved green plant that another group of pirates appeared to be guarding. Twilight knew what to do with these clowns. As the guards talked about how the “gun” in their hooves makes other ponies know they mean business, another rock flew across the yard and hit the wall opposite the pirates, creating another resounding ping and distracting the pirates long enough for the two escaped hostages to move through the field of strange smelling green leaves and out into a passage between two ramshackle cottages. Twilight noticed something happening in the courtyard beyond.
It was Shattered Sanity, levitating that small metal device in the air again, this time at an earth pony’s head. He was shouting something at the pony before the device in his hand made that loud popping noise and the pony fell over, dead. He continued on to the next pony, repeating the process, as that alicorn, King Hoyt, sat from afar, watching. Twilight thought he looked right at her. Twilight cringed. Don’t think like that, Twilight. Just keep. It. Together.
They climbed a mound of boxes and jumped into yet another hut, this one occupied by three pirates watching a television set broadcasting some obscene pornographic channel. Twilight averted her eyes with disgust as she and her brother passed them and jumped into a ditch underneath some more shacks.
They slowly crept their way through the ditch and underneath a bridge as prisoners were shoved along their way to their doom by pirates. Some prisoners were bound and gagged in groups with pirates monitoring them. Those that tried to fight or speak to the pirates were quickly hit in the face with the back of one of those metal sticks. As much as Twilight wanted to step in and give these pirates hell for their unethical and inhumane treatment of other ponies, she knew there was nothing she could possibly do to help. She was one pony. There were hundreds of them. She’d practically be committing suicide if she even tried.
The brother and sister duo were finally free from the prison camp. Twilight unfurled the map and placed it on a rock, looking at the markings on it. She was thinking about too many things at once, wasn't concentrating. Everything that had been happening was just happening too quickly, and it was starting to take its toll on her mind. She rubbed her forehead as she and Shining studied the map.
“Does it say where Spike is?” asked Twilight, turning to Shining.
“I don’t know. I have no idea where we are.” Replied the stallion, furrowing his brow, trying to make sense of the map. He sighed. “Dammit. I promised mom and dad that I would take care of you two.” He scratched the ground with his hoof.
“What do we do now?” asked the purple mare, staring intently at Shining, hoping for him to come through with his tactician side.
Shining shook his head, a grim expression on his face. He looked into Twilight’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
Twilight stared at the ground, a single tear falling from her face. This is it, she thought, we're going to die out here. I’m never going to see Spike again, I’m never going to see Cadence, or mom and dad, or my friends again, and on top of it all, I’m not even going to be able to get my next letter to Celestia. What the bu- Shining once again broke her negative train of thought by taking her hooves in his. He smiled, looking straight into her spirit with those bright blue eyes.
“Listen, Twilight,” whispered Shining Armor, “We are going to find them. Were going to find all of our friends. Then we’re going to get off of this island, together, and then we're going to go home.” They sat there, holding hooves, and embraced one another tightly. Shining got back on his hooves. He held out a hoof to Twilight, “Come on, Twilly, lets-”
A loud explosion came from next to Twilight. She watched in horror as something tore through Shining Armor’s neck, spewing his blood all over her. Time seemed to stop. The world around Twilight became a noiseless blur as she watched her brother hit the ground with a thud, clutching his neck.
“NO! SHINING! NOOOOOO!” screamed Twilight as she reached out and placed her hooves on the gaping hole in his neck, trying to stop the bleeding. Her brother’s blood soaked her hooves and forelegs, began pooling onto the jungle’s floor. Her brother, her BBBFF, was dying in her hooves. “SHINING!” He clutched her foreleg, trying to hold onto life itself. She could hear his heartbeat echo across the world, her voice a distant howl in the wind of freezing time. She was bawling, crying as she held his wound, tears mixing with crimson, as her brother, her best friend forever’s heart of gold finally gave out. Twilight felt his grasp weaken until his foreleg dropped to the ground, and his body went limp. His expressionless face staring off into nothingness. Dead.
“SHINING?! SHINING??!! Noooooooo….Don’t leave me…..Noooooooooo…” Twilight collapsed onto her brother and held his body tightly and closed her eyes and cried into his mane. He was dead. Shining Armor, her flesh and blood brother, was dead. In her hooves. Her worst nightmare since she was a filly, now realized as he continued to cry into his mane of blue and teal, shedding tears for herself, shedding tears for Shining… Shedding tears for Cadence…
Twilight looked up from Shining Armor, and saw Shattered Sanity standing on a platform above her, the barrel of the device he was levitating still smoking. In the instant that she saw him, all of her thoughts except for one went dark as time slowed to a snail’s pace once more.
Vengeance.
~~
Shattered stood on the platform, smoke flowing up out of the barrel of his M1911 sidearm, as he looked down upon that bitch unicorn and her tough guy (and now dead) brother. He blew the smoke away from the barrel and placed it in its holster, imitating one of those appleloosian cowponies he had seen in a movie. It seemed fitting. One of the many pirates flanking him complimented him on his marksmanship.
“What? Huh? What, you want to run? Huh, bitch? You want to disrespect ME? IN MY FUCKING HOUSE?!” Shattered shouted down to the purple unicorn mare that now stood looking him in the eye with hatred and pain and anguish in her eyes. “You want to fuck with me, is that it?” No response came from below. “I mean you come here, with your pretty girl face, your pretty girl camera, and your dimwit brother, and you want to fuck with me?!” Still nothing. “No, you know what, I respect that, I fucking respect that. I’m going to be nice and give you 30 fucking seconds to get the fuck out of here.” She still stood her ground, now breathing hard, uncontrolled breaths, looking at the ground beneath her hooves.
“Well? What are you, fucking deaf? I said get the fuck out of here, you chicken fuck! Run, Twilight, Run!!”
Twilight looked up at Shattered Sanity, her eyes now a mixture of green, red and black colors, as she began charging a magic spell as all of her negative emotions pooled into one bolt of purely dark energy at her horns tip. What in the flying fuck? Thought Shattered as he watched this impossibility take place, How the fuck is she using magic? He looked down at his Element, the Element of Insanity, which gave a faint gray glow. Still working. Who the fuck is this bitch?
“Alright,” said Shattered, “enough fucking games, Twilight Sparkle. I’m going to give you three seconds to get the fuck out of here before my boys and I turn your ass into swiss cheese.” He held out a hoof like a clock, starting at 12 o’clock. “One…” The hoof hit 1 o’clock. “Two…” The hoof hit 2. “Th-” He didn’t get to three.
Twilight screamed as she released the enormous ball of dark magic energy, sending it flying at Shattered and his henchmen.
“FUCK!”
Shattered tried to dodge the bolt, ducking to the ground, but the spell brushed the left side of his face, burning it down to the bone and narrowly missing his eye. He cried out in pain. The spell struck the roof of the platform, exploding into tendrils of dark fire, the force of the blast tearing limbs from those pirates unfortunate enough to be standing too close to the impact zone. Black fires raged as pirates screamed, their flesh burning, organs melting under the intense heat of the magical inferno. The jungle burned.
Shattered stood up, clutching the left side of his face. Compared to his comrades, who lay scattered, dead or dying, amongst the wreckage, Shattered was practically unscathed, saved by the Element on his neck. Pirates began converged on his location, having seen the explosion. Twilight Sparkle was gone. So was her brother’s dead body. He levitated out his sidearm and jumped down to the jungle floor, in doing so taking the hoof away from his face, revealed a deep burn wound on the side of his face, running from his eye to his ear, right down to the bone of his skull.
As other pirates charged into the jungle looking for the runner, Shattered yelled out into the night after the wayward unicorn who had just taken out twenty of his best men, had permanently scarred his face, and set part of the jungle ablaze.
“YOU THINK YOU KILLED ME? HUH? YOU THINK YOU KILLED ME? IT TAKES A LOT MORE THAN THAT TO KILL ME, TWILIGHT SPARKLE!! I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU FUCKING PAY, YOU BITCH!! YOUR DIMWIT BROTHER WAS JUST THE FUCKING BEGINNING!!”
~~
Twilight woke up to the screams of pirates as they and the jungle burned from a black magical inferno. She had seen that same dark energy wafting away from her horn. Did I do that? Did I just murder all of those ponies… in cold blood? No… no… I couldn’t… I would never do something like that… would I?
She looked over to Shining Armor’s dead body. She knew that she couldn’t just leave Shining’s body to these pirates or to the fire. He deserved better. Had he not been standing there, in front of her, that same thing that killed him could very well have killed her. He saved her life. She had to honor that. So she did the only thing she could, and thought about someplace on this island that was safe, where Shining could lay in peace, until she could find him again. Her horn had sparked with a white light as she lay it across her brother’s body, and in a flash, he was gone, off to that place in her mind that she had hoped was there on the island. That was right around the time when the pirates’ reinforcements arrived, shouted down to her, and started shooting.
Twilight galloped through the lush green tropical jungle, her life hanging in the balance, as the ground around her hooves exploded, plumes of dirt and dust occasionally blinding her. She could hear the cries for blood and shouting of the pirates somewhere close behind her. She could hear Shattered Sanity calling out to her. She couldn’t stop for anything. She had to escape, had to find her friends.
The ground she was running on suddenly dropping into a steep slope. She slid uncontrollably down the hill, hooves straining to gain traction, right until she fell off of the hill ramp-like end, falling face first into the ground below.
She awoke a few seconds later, dazed and concussed from the impact. The world spun as she scrambled hastily to her hooves. More pops, bangs, and shouts echoed across the jungle.
She bounded over a small crevice, landing awkwardly on her haunches. She grimaced with pain as she looked down and noticed she was bleeding from a laceration on her left hindleg. Oh no, not now. Anytime but now. Twilight continued to move onward, limping, as she levitated a piece of cloth out of her saddlebag, wrapping it tightly around the wound to stem the bleeding. More shouts came from the brush, closer than she wanted them to be. The pirates were still coming for her. She had to keep moving.
“I have to find the others.” Whispered Twilight to herself as she crawled into a small, pony sized hole that bisected a rocky wall. Ha! There’s no way that these pirates will be able to follow me through this, thought Twilight, hopefully they’ll lose my trail and I’ll be able to escape without any more hassle. Of course, this wasn’t meant to be.
As soon as Twilight emerged from the hole, a zebra jumped screaming from the top of the wall-like hill and landed on top of her, a combat knife in his teeth. The two of them wrestled on the ground, the knife inching closer and closer to Twilight’s throat as she tried desperately to hold the zebra back with her magic. She could feel the pressure of his body on top of her, constricting her breathing. She strained for air as the two of them continued to wrestle with the knife. She gasped with pain when he bucked her wounded hindleg. He smiled evilly, pleased with her reaction, as he continued to try to plunge the knife into her. But what he didn’t know was that, for a split second, his smile loosened his grip on the knife. Twilight noticed this, and took a chance. She pulled with all of her magical might on the knife, and it came free from the zebra’s grasp, spittle flying from his open maw.
“I’ve found her, she’s he-” was all the pirate managed to yell out before Twilight jammed the blade into the zebra’s throat. Blood spurted out of the wound, covering Twilight. She dropped the knife to the ground, shaking, quivering. She had just murdered another pony, this time she was sure of it. And now she was covered in his blood. There was no coming back from this. She was a murderer. A cold blooded murderer of her fellow ponies.
“Oh goddesses, oh goddesses, no. NO!”
Twilight ran. That zebra’s shouting definitely gave her away. They were coming back. She could hear them.
A bear lunged out from the jungle in front of her. She screamed, narrowly dodging a deadly slash from the bear’s clawed paws. She galloped even faster now. She had no idea if the bear was following her, and she didn’t care. She couldn’t look back. Looking back was death. Looking back was suicide.
The jungle began to clear as she reached a cenote, an old, rickety wooden bridge being the only safe means of crossing over. A pack of dogs had caught up with Twilight as she began to cross the bridge. One of them lunged out, biting her rump. She cried out in pain and bucked the dog into his pack mates, slowing them down.
Twilight had made it about halfway across the bridge when an enormous flying machine, much bigger than the one Pinkie owned, flew up beside her. A door on the side of it opened, and a griffon took aim at her with a large, tri-barreled gun that was nearly as big as she was, and began firing on the bridge. Other griffons sporting yellow uniforms began flying in out of nowhere, also firing on the bridge with their weapons, shredding it with invisible fire. Twilight galloped faster than she thought she physically could when she realized their devious plan. They were going to take the bridge out and her with it. Every second counted. She had to reach the other side.
She didn’t make it.
The Bridge gave way before she was even three fourths of the way across. Twilight flung herself into the floor of the bridge and wedged her hooves as tightly as she could within the gaps in its planks, holding on for dear life as the bridge swung forward towards the rocky face of the cliff.
“Oh no, nononononono!!” Twilight shut her eyes. She didn’t want to watch.
The bridge slammed against the cliff’s face, splintering into fragments of wood and nails and rope. She lost her grip on the bridge, dislodged by the force of the impact.
Twilight screamed as she fell into the ocean below.
Twilight sank underwater as the current took her, forcing her into a watery grave. She struggled and fought with all of the energy she had to swim to the surface, but she had next to none left. She was exhausted. Tired. As the current pushed her out into the deep blue ocean, She stared down at the colorful reef below her as equally colorful fish darted to and fro, the plant life dancing in the twilight luminescence of the moonlight shining through the water. Everything seemed peaceful. Calm.
Maybe dying isn’t so bad, thought Twilight as she sank deeper into the ocean, the will to fight completely drained from her body, At least then I’ll be with Shining, and we can be together. LSBFF and BBBFF. Or maybe I’ll just get eaten by a shark. Either way…
Twilight began closing her eyes, letting death take her into its inviting grasp, as darkness filled her vision, finally accepting her fate.
Just before she lost consciousness, she noticed a single, tattooed hoof reach down from the surface, take hers in its grasp, and pull up.
Author's Note
My first chapter! Enjoy! Also, please be sure to leave me any advice or feedback, 'cause I'm kind of new to this whole writing thing. I hope to have Chapter 2 completed in about 2 weeks at the earliest, but no promises. I have other stuff going on right now, so It could be delayed due to unforeseen obstacles. Anyways, thanks for reading!
Just as a note to you readers: Italics are thoughts. Just trying to avoid any future confusion.
