Twilight was having one of those kinds of days. Woken up at two in the morning by the princess, having another quest set upon her that would decide the fate of Equestria. And she had lost Spike somewhere a few chapte… hours ago. Despite his general inadequacy, Twilight found herself missing the baby dragon. He always had a way of making her feel in control in these kinds of situations. Like a reference point to put things in perspective.
While the purple unicorn continued to quietly dis on the only being within a thousand mile radius able to put up with her mild (large) case of everything anxiety, she was being quietly watched. A pair of yellow eyes followed her down the street, noticed her lack of direction. She seemed to just be randomly ambling about. Perfect.
Before long the sun had set. It had been an exhausting walk to Ponyville from Canterlot. The princess had urged her to clear her mind in the best way she could think of. At first she had tried throwing herself off a cliff, but managed to land on some rather convenient clouds. Normally she would have blown right through them, but her magic chose that moment to fluctuate out of control, and the cloud had turned into a floating feather mattress. Then she had remembered the story of a pony that had ran so far in so short of a time that he died upon reaching his destination. It took her a few minutes to also remember that she wasn’t the running kind of mare.
Like I said, it was one of those kinds of days.
The hidden observer watched the unicorn for a few more blocks, nodded, and then flew away towards the library. The only mark of her passing was a faint trail of muffin crumbs. One of which a bird choked on, causing the subsequent death of a certain lovable pony. It’s really the small things in life that get to you.
Twilight kept on wandering. A pink apparition appeared in her vision, and took her by the hoof. Blackness fell like a shroud over her eyes, and when it lifted she found herself eating cake. Or rather, being force-fed a piece of almost pure sugar.
“Oh goodie, you’re awake!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, removing her hoof from the pastry. Twilight groaned, or tried to around the mouthful of sweetness. “You look bad, Twilight. No offense,” Pinkie said, offering another piece of cake. Twilight politely declined, still chewing her current piece. What was it made out of? An expression of anxious worry crossed Pinkie’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Twilight tried to swallow, couldn’t, and then tried again. The cake almost lodged in her throat. “Basically, we’re all screwed Pinkie. And I don’t know what to do.” Twilight stared down at the floor, defeated mentally and physically. Pinkie Pie grabbed the unicorn’s hoof.
“Tell Pinkie the whole thing.” So Twilight did. It involved other dimensions, and weird monsters, and odd creatures that walked on two legs. “You mean like a minotaur?” interrupted Pinkie. Twilight shook her head, and continued. She told her friend about the strange thing’s clothing, its odd speech, and its refusal to help in some coming war.
“War?”
“Yes, Pinkie. War.” With that the unicorn fell silent. Pinkie offered the cake again and Twilight took a piece. It was just as chewy as the last one. “What is even in these?” she asked her friend.
“Stuff,” was the vague response. Both the mares lapsed into silence, and the moment grew long and awkward. Pinkie tried to make a joke about this, but Twilight didn’t hear it. All she heard was a faint tapping on the roof, like hooves. She dismissed it though, and said her goodbyes to Pinkie, whom nopony heard from again for several weeks. They found her body surrounded by cupcakes, at the foot of a large winged altar in the basement. A note beside her read simply, “For AJ.”
Twilight began to wander again. She sang a sad little song, with a few random bystanders joining in. There were rotating camera angles, sweeping stage lights, the whole shebang. It was pretty cheesy. One of the aforementioned lights fell on an unsuspecting unicorn on her way back to her house with a bag of cloth. Several witnesses claimed they saw a pegasus flying away yelling back apologies. Twilight soon found herself outside her library. She knocked on the door, remembered it was indeed her library, and pushed open the door.
A grey pony immediately tackled her to the floor, laughing manically. Twilight struggled against the unknown aggressor, trying to levitate the pony off of her. All she could manage were a few tired sparks. Just when you need it, she thought. Damn those clouds. Damn Celestia. Damn magic. She stopped struggling. The pony above her continued to thrash about until it realized it was grabbing at empty air. In the dim light Twilight could see the gleam of teeth reflecting the flame of a nearby candle. The pony looked down at Twilight, then laughed.
“Hey Twilight! I was hoping I could borrow some toothpaste.” Twilight analyzed the voice, its inflection, its message. All three of these things came together into her head at once.
“Derpy?”
“Yep! I was talking to this really nice pony, called himself Para- something. He warned me about eating your toothpaste without warning you, or bad things would happen. So I followed you around town and back home to tell you first.” The grey pegasus beamed. “I was supposed to tell you something else too… Oh yeah! Applejack is dead.” Twilight had been pulling herself up off the floor. When her ears registered what had been said and her brain provided confirmation on the content, she almost fell down again. Derpy barely managed to catch her.
“Wh-what?” the unicorn stammered, a look of pure disbelief on her face. Derpy set her against the wall before elaborating.
“Yeah, she ate too many apples and choked on one.” Derpy looked down at her hooves, her face a slight shade of red. “I was the one that kind of dared her to. Well,” the pegasus looked back up at Twilight, “It was more Rainbow Dash than me. By the by, I haven’t seen her in awhile.” Twilight was still working over the first bit of AJ being dead.
“But word must have spread around. I mean, I was just talking to Pinkie Pie. How could she not know?” Derpy just shrugged. Twilight pushed herself away from the wall and took a few shaky steps toward the door. “We have to go tell everypony.” The purple mare began her search around town for her friends, Derpy with toothpaste smoothie in tow.
They found Rarity first. “But why a smoothie?” Twilight was asking before she was brought up short by the scene around her. Yellow tape marked the area off. That, and the rather large, rather red stage light. Twilight felt herself begin to cry. Derpy was about to answer her question when she saw the scene as well. She inconspicuously took a sip from her drink and patted Twilight on the back.
“It’ll be okay Twi.” A few sniffles was all the answer she received.
“Let’s find Fluttershy.” The pair ran to the reclusive pony’s cabin. They knocked loudly on the door, called the mare’s name repeatedly. They tried kicking in the door and found it to be of very sturdy wood. So they settled for one of the windows. The cottage was empty. Not even one of the animals were about. Twilight tried to remember if she had even heard any of the animals yet. The source of this strange silence was found in the backyard.
“Oh my Celestia,” Derpy and Twilight uttered at once. Derpy bolted over to a nearby tree to throw up. Twilight just stared in stunned shock. Rows of dead birds lined the branches of the large tree in the yard. A makeshift table sat at the base of the trunk, a lone bird lying on it. A muffin crumb sat upon its breast. Swinging above it, swaying in the wind, was Twilight’s friend. For the second time that day, Twilight’s brain gave up. Sweet blackness rose and took the poor unicorn and carried her off far away.
This time when she woke up it was in the royal chambers of Celestia. The alicorn herself stood staring at the unicorn as she gradually woke up. “Sleep well?” asked the princess. Twilight tried to speak but found she had no tongue. She began to wake up slightly faster. Memories began to drift back into hear head. The startling threat to the kingdom, the following deaths of almost all her friends. She struggled to get up out of the bed, tried again to speak. A murder of crows issued from her mouth and flew about the room. They eventually settled onto Celestia, and one by one turned to stone. The dull thuds of their bodies smacking the floor was like a nail driving deeper into Twilight’s chest. When she looked down she saw that this was indeed happening.
“You’ve failed Twilight.” The unicorn looked back at her mentor. A sad smile sat upon the alicorn’s face. “And this time, you’re going down more than just a few grades.” The nail drove into her chest, harder, pinning her to the wall. “Think more like a few feet.” Twilight’s body began to slowly stretch out and shrink in simultaneously. Her flesh began to fall into neatly cut pieces, little cubes of purple. These began to shrink as well.
“Goodbye, Twilight.”
Twilight woke up again. Derpy was hovering above her nervously, clutching her smoothie to her chest. Twilight blinked a few times, experimentally moved a few of her limbs. Nothing was gone, nothing was shrunken. And no giant nails, she noted with some relief. Then reality came back.
“How long have I been out?” Derpy gestured to the right, and Twilight followed her hoof. A doctor stood there with a clipboard. The stallion cleared his throat before speaking up.
“Um, about three weeks.” Twilight’s jaw dropped open. “Your friend here took you back to the library, which blew up mysteriously. It’s totally gone. You took a book to the side of the head which sent you into a coma. You’re lucky to be alive, really.” Twilight took the loss of her library steadfastly, mostly because of the amount of drugs in her system.
“Was anypony else hurt?” The doctor shook his head.
“No, just some weird deaths. On mare crushed to death, another found in her basement. Yet another dead of apple poisoning and one more with a severe case of hanged-asitis.” The doctor nodded towards Derpy. “I believe that she can explain.” And with that he left. Twilight looked back at Derpy, noticed the black and white stripes and the rather large chain connecting her to the bed.
“Yeah, about that… turns out I’m being implicated in three murders and one suicide.” The pegasus grinned sheepishly. “I’m sure that it’s all just a big mistake though. I mean, I would never hurt a fly!” And so the pieces came together. A dare gone wrong. One bad muffin which one of the darers bought. “Too chewy,” Derpy elaborated. Several misplaced crumbs. A rather messy and frustratingly hard to fly through stage set. It made a bit more sense, but not much.
“So, basically, everything is your fault,” Twilight stated. Derpy nodded. The purple unicorn turned to the plethora of machines beside her. Found the drugs. It didn’t matter which ones they were. She flat lined in less than three minutes. Derpy sighed, sipped her smoothie, waited for the guards to take her away. She spent the rest of her life in the royal dungeons, until the Phyrexians overran Equestria and killed everypony.
But at least she got her toothpaste.
Author's Note
Again, special thanks to Regidar and funkyferret