A/N: Hiya, everypony! Well, around Halloween, I figured I'd do a little creepy story to celebrate it - I wrote it then but I never got to put it up here! So yeah, this came into my head when one of the members of the 9 Forum made an avvie for me, and I was reminded of Story of the Blanks and the secret ending of Super Filly Adventure. So I thought "Hey, what if Twilight was somehow twisted into one of the zombie ponies of the Everfree Forest?" Thus, this was born!
Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Lauren Faust and Hasbro. "Story of the Blanks" and "Super Filly Adventure" belong to their respective owners.
Also... WARNING: The ending of the fic is, as they say on Equestria Daily, grimdark. Just about gone full Cupcakes. (I say "gone full Cupcakes" when something is especially dark or gory)
All was quiet in Ponyville, and two weeks had passed since the return of Princess Luna into modern Equestrian society. The Nightmare Night festivities were over for another year, and Princess Luna had raised the full moon high into the nighttime sky. All the candy from the few nights before had long been devoured (primarily by Pinkie Pie, who had tried to eat any candy left over), and the noise had died down to its commonplace quiet lull.
However, something was a little off.
Princess Celestia's student, a purple unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle, was pacing around by her bed in the library where she lived. Her eyes darted around nervously. Maybe it was the slowly reddening color of the moon this night, due to a lunar eclipse, but something was making Twilight anxious.
What if the nightmares still came back?
The purple unicorn had been having nightmares lately, terrifying ones that seemed to cause her to sleepwalk before waking up just outside the Everfree Fores - the place where very few went to. Terrified, she'd hurry back to the library, often unable to sleep at all afterward. Particularly because the Everfree forest was where the nightmares took place.
But the unicorn was able to force herself to remain happy during the day for a while, though her eyes became bloodshot as a result of her nerves and lack of sleep. Eventually, her friends seemed to catch that something was up.
"I... I keep having a nightmare about the Everfree Forest," Twilight admitted, scraping her hoof along the ground as her purple eyes glanced downward. "It was... about other ponies... but they were evil... and Discord was there too." She had hung her head. "I was just scared... it felt so real." Which was true, every bit of it. She didn't want to lie to her friends about the recurring nightmare.
Of course, her friends had comforted her after she had offered this explanation.
"It's alright, sugarcube," Applejack said, gently placing a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Nightmares feel real when you're in them, but when ya wake up, everything's fine! If ya ever need anythin' at all, just come to us, okay?"
"Applejack's right, Twilight," Rarity said confidently. "And if it were possible for me to make a dress that could keep away nightmares, I'd gladly let you borrow it!" Her purple eyes lit up, as if suddenly getting an idea for a nightmare-repellent dress right then and there.
"If they get tooscary, just laugh, remember?" Pinkie Pie offered with an enthusiastic giggle of her own. "That'll make those scary things go away like those trees - those evil ponies sound like them, anyway! Not being really real, I mean."
"Yeah... we're here for you Twilight... okay?" Fluttershy said in her naturally quiet voice. "I mean, I'd be terrified of having a dream like that, I think anypony would."
"Man, if I could enter that nightmare of yours, I'dget those ponies and that jerk Discord away in 10 seconds flat!" Rainbow Dash boasted, flying up into the air and making punching motions with her hooves.
Twilight smiled gratefully and gave each of her best friends a hug. "Thanks so much you guys..."
At least her friends were there to help make her feel better. Letting out the fact that she had been having this nightmare relieved her of some of the pent-up tension she had been feeling.
But the young mare didn't want to give her friends the full details on the matter.
She didn't want to mention the strange shapes she saw. Or the blood that poured from ponies' eyes. Or the ponies without cutie marks that became stripped of their flesh and turned into bone. And Discord was there too... as if he was controlling her actions. The terrible things that Twilight herself did as she too was "welcomed" by the Blanks, and running in vain as what was left of her was devoured by the ponies who called themselves the Bloody Hooves. As she became one of them.
The unicorn knew that everypony would be horrified if she even told them that simplified version of the tale. Fluttershy especially would be scarred for life. They didn't need to have the blood and gore described to them in such terrible detail.
The parts involving Discord disturbed Twilight as well - ever since she had met Discord that time ago, a small part of him seemed to have stayed with her. She remembered how she had torn the entire town into chaos as she lost her mind trying to find a friendship lesson. She had teleported everywhere, brainwashed everypony with her 'Want It, Need It' spell, causing utter chaos and disharmony.
Just like him.
And from what Celestia had told her, Discord had done things 1000 years past... terrible things, torturous things. And in her nightmares, Twilight herself, in turn, did those things to others.
It all terrified the unicorn. But her friends had helped her. The nightmares weren't really going to happen.
"Come on, Twilight," she assured herself. "Everything's fine now. Applejack's right - they're just nightmares."
She got under the covers of her bed and, with a glance at the moon, lay down to sleep, her eyes slowly closing.
Though Twilight did have the nightmare again, it was with far less severity than the other times, and, somehow, she could sense her friends there. She would be safe now...
Unfortunately, the unicorn didn't realize that she was sleepwalking once again.
She unknowingly went silently down the stairs, opening the door and stepping out into the dark. Everywhere else was silent, the small town's other inhabitants deep within their slumber.
No one saw Twilight Sparkle walk toward the Everfree Forest, her hoofsteps not stopping at its edge, but instead traveling deeper into the trees.
And no one, of course, noticed the skeletal, red-eyed forms that watched from the shadows.
Only when the vines of the Everfree Forest were just closing their vines around the entrance from which Twilight had come that the unicorn opened her eyes. Panicking as she realized where she was, she whirled around to see the last view of Ponyville disappear.
"No! No, no, NO!" Twilight tried to use any spell she could to get the vines away. Nothing. She tried teleporting out. No such luck.
The forest's trapped me inside..."... Zecora?" Twilight called for her mentor as she hurried down the only path available, searching for any sign of her zebra friend. "Zecora?"
There was no response to Twilight's call.
No response, that is, except for a laugh.
The unicorn whirled around, her purple eyes searching until she saw the shape of a pony dart down a path she hadn't previously seen. Or maybe it had just showed up. It was hard to tell in this forest.
And at least the gray color of the pony she had dimly seen didn't look like the ponies from her nightmares. That was a good sign.
"Hey, wait!" Twilight called, hooves hurrying after the gray pony. "Do you know how to get out of here?"
The pony just kept running for a moment before a male voice responded.
"This way!"
Relieved that at least this pony seemed to know a way out, she followed him through the twists and turns of the trees and forest paths...
Until she came to a clearing of what looked like decrepit buildings. Run-down, fragmented, and seemingly devoid of any life whatsoever.
Except for the gray pony. He sat on his haunches and waited for her to come over.
"I thought you said you knew a way out!" Twilight shouted, her eyes narrowing angrily.
The pony had a smile on his face as he laughed light-heartedly. "I never said that. I simply said 'this way'! You just looked lost, that's all. Nopony should be wandering in this forest by themselves."
Several other ponies emerged from the relics of the old buildings, some seemingly a bit hesitantly.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Gray Hoof," the gray pony responded. "I wanted to welcome you to Sunny Town."
It was then that Twilight noticed something that instinctively made her blood run cold.
None of those ponies had cutie marks on their flanks.
"We haven't had a visitor in a while. It's much better than being alone, with no friends. So I thought to lead you here."
"And friendship is all we want," a green pony - Three Leaf - said as she stood beside the gray one.
Friendship?
"Well, I..." Twilight stammered, "I'm..." she laughed nervously, "... good with those kind of things... I-I do it for a living."
"We know," the green pony responded. "We know a lot about you, Twilight Sparkle. And what happens when those friendship lessons of yours go wrong." She stepped closer, peering at the unicorn. "You have the light of Discord in your eyes."
If Twilight had been unnerved by none of these ponies having cutie marks, the mention of Discord alarmed her even more so. She stepped back. "W-What do you mean by that?"
"If you look into his eyes for too long, then you yourself become him," Grayhoof clarified seriously.
Twilight froze, a rush of memories coming back to her. She had spent the most time around Discord. Influenced by him slowly, stared the most into the gaze of those cold eyes... and soon after, when she couldn't find a friendship lesson... she had become just like him.
It was true.
"N-No..." Twilight shook her head, refusing to believe it. "No, no!"
"We can see beyond the forest sometimes," Gray Hoof said, stepping closer. "And we know the chaos you caused. You might have even freed Discord yourself all over again."
Twilight was frozen to the spot, her legs trembling. That couldn't be true, it couldn't...
"But you did it all for the sake of friendship... that's all that we want, as you should know from your nightmares."
The unicorn was horrified. "Wait.. you'rethe ones who've been causing my nightmares?"
"Well, us and our brethren," another one of the ponies explained in an almost serene tone. "They helped us."
"And I can tell that you've figured out who we are."
Twilight gulped, something freezing her to the spot. She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't. It was just another nightmare.
But in her heart she knew it wasn't. This was real.
"... Y-You're the Blanks."
Gray Hoof laughed. "Correct, Twilight Sparkle."
And before her horrified eyes, the Blanks began to change.
Slowly, as if time itself were taunting the mare, the ponies in front of her had their flesh slowly stripped away, their coats for from their flesh before fading. The process revealed the pulsing organs and muscle underneath, moving as they would within every living pony. Soon, these fell away too, fading before they hit the ground, leaving only cold skeletons with blood-red eyes staring at her.
"You cannot escape."
And Twilight ran as fast as she could. She didn't pay attention to where she was going, only taking whatever paths were available. When the skeleton ponies were still on her tail, she darted into the thickness of the trees.
But they stopped her more than them, as the thinness of their structures were able to dodge the trees more easily.
"SOMEPONY HELP ME!"
But her call went unheard, and the Blanks continued their chase.
"You can't escape, Twilight Sparkle!"
"We only want to be friends!"
"If we don't get you, the Bloody Hooves will!"
Twilight almost froze again. The Bloody Hooves... she had completely forgotten about them.
But there was no time to contemplate this further. She just had to run. Heart pounding in her chest, blood running through her to keep her alive. Just get away from this place and get back to Ponyville and never ever come here again-
Suddenly, she burst out of the trees and into a small pathway. But just because she was out of the dense area of trees didn't mean the Blanks weren't still following - they were.
And just as she looked behind her to see that they were still following, she halted as she looked forward again and saw another pony in front of her, lunging at her and pinning her to the ground.
Twilight breathed heavily in fear as she gazed up at this new pony. He sported a jet black coat, with blood clear on his hooves and the red liquid evident around his crimson eyes.
One of the Bloody Hooves.
"One of us..." The voice was cold, sounding like the crinkle of dead leaves in a decaying forest.
Twilight was frozen with fear as she saw the Blanks out of the corner of her eye, having stopped their chase and were now staring at the spectacle.
Several more of the Bloody Hooves came forward, circling around the unicorn. Waiting.
"You cannot escape your fate..."
The Blanks stepped forward as a group, a few feet away now. One of them stepped even closer, the skeletal face staring down at the helpless unicorn, briefly turning back to normal.
"It didn't have to be like this," Gray Hoof's voice said sadly.
As if a silent cue had been given out, the Bloody Hooves suddenly attacked, the some of the other Blanks following after. Grayhoof only watched.
The next thing Twilight Sparkle was aware of was utter agony. She felt teeth tear at her ears and horn as they were ripped off, blood pouring rapidly from the wounds and staining the forest floor.
"SOMEPONY HELP ME! NOO! NO, NO! HELP! NO!"
Twilight was screaming, sobbing, shaking, calling for anypony to help her. But it was no use.
She dimly was aware of the skeletal forms of the blanks slicing at her skin, the hard bone raking across her flesh.
The Bloody Hooves, however, were easily the worst. They began to devour the unicorn's legs, one by one, stripping the skin in a manner similar to what had formerly happened to the Blanks as they made their transformation. The tendons and veins of the pony's muscles hung in strips as her skin was torn away, her lower hooves now completely gone, save for a few of the cracked bones, hanging off of one another by small strips of muscle still barely connecting them.
Teeth tore at the pony's chest, blood running like a crimson river around its former holder. As Twilight was aware of her life quickly fading, she dimly noticed her stomach and other organs being torn from her body with a sickening tearing sound.
Last was her heart, roughly torn away from her chest as her ribs were crushed along with it. With the organ torn in two, in that same moment the Bloody Hooves tore apart the unicorn's throat, roughly decapitating her.
Twilight Sparkle's old body was devoured by the murderous zombie ponies. But the once level-headed young mare wasn't gone.
Working quickly, the Blanks had constructed a skeletal body for Twilight's spirit to inhabit, forming a fabricated replica of the body she had once had.
But she had been brainwashed by the Blanks and Bloody Hooves. She remembered her old friends, but didn't remember how these new ponies had murdered her. As far as she was concerned, they were her new friends. Her good friends...
Though Twilight Sparkle - or as her new friends sometimes called her, Twilight Psycho - for the most part looked similar, there were a few clear differences most of the time. Her pupils were dilated at odd angles, her mane was disheveled slightly, and she often had a creepy grin on her face.
And if she wanted to, there were times when she could have her coat turn red and black within the forest's darkness. That part was with help from the Bloody Hooves.
She remained there with them, lurking in the forest just as the inhabitants of Sunny Town had done for a long time.
And if there was ever anypony who came into the forest who had heard about the two groups... if Twilight saw them and they were afraid, she had one reply:
"Hehe... what are you talking about? The Blanks and Bloody Hooves... are my GOOD FRIENDS."
A/N: Yeah... that was easily the darkest thing I have ever written, ever... so far. Well, in the words of Chuggaaconroy, you're welcome for your Nightmare Fuel!
Though reading some fanfics on here like "Taste the Rainbow" and "Muffins" might help.