Dark Skies on Cutie'd Thighs
Chapter One: Prologue
It's just another balmy evening in the thickest and most gnarled part of the Everfree Forest. The perfect half-moon is skittering across the skyline, chasing the sun into submission and turning the shadows a deep and rich purple. Either the princesses have their manes in a mangle arguing over something Twilight warned them not to do at least three dragons ago, or perhaps on this particular evening all the magic that infuses Equestria is restless, bored, and looking for something to do. Magic can be funny like that. Either way, it's probably not good.
Even in this densely dark, dank, and dangerous part of the dreaded Everfree Forest, some bravely intrepid (or perhaps pensive and comprehensively antisocial) pony has hoofed down, mared up and cleared enough of a copse in the forest to have a respectable vegetable patch, as well as a small cottage with some plain but well-made décor. The undergrowth at the edges of the clearing is so utterly impenetrable, and so perfectly shorn at the barrier that it seems uncanny. There's a single pony-sized break in the roiling mass of jungle, but distinctly lacking the clean, precise lines of the immaculate lawn. The bravest or most desperate of the trees have extended tenacious twigs and branches upwards towards the narrow line of precious sunlight in a competition that would last for months, maybe years. Clearly animals had crossed the pathway, but most anything living seemed reluctant to be there for any length of time.
All is quiet for a few hours, if not exactly peaceful. There's the occasional flash of coloured light or soft 'whoomph' from the cottage, which does nothing to decrease the palpable sense of power humming through the air. It seems like even the frank and untamed ferocity of the billion tiny power struggles that make up a forest like this have fallen silent under pressure of the force that is building up in places unseen or heard of, and which is ready to silently spew it's power into the world and unlock the physical laws of Equestria to allow something impossible and horrifying to slip through from the place where magic is raw, savage, and untamed.
Quite abruptly, there's a subtle shift in the night, and somehow all the magical tension and potential in the air has finally found a good place to slowly ground itself, like a malign bolt of lightning: less obvious but far more dangerous and unpredictable. The walls, small to begin with, are contracting and expanding as if in nervous anticipation of the future. But strangely, inside the house there is a misty grey coloured unicorn taking no notice of the events outside, a stallion perhaps slightly taller than average. He seems oblivious of the enormous amount of magic potential that has built up, and is busily attending to some complicated alchemical experiment. He is apparently blissfully unaware of the power dripping from the air being funnelled into his hard-fought-for home. He casts a spell that sets a large, green bottle in the centre of the apparatus gently simmering under the shimmering grey magic fire...
-
''HI MR DOCTOR! I feel a lot better after my sleep! Did I bang my head again? I feel sorta woozy...''
''AAAH!''
*SMASH*
''Oh no! I broke your poury glass! I'm sorry mister, I'll clean it up for you!''
''For Celestia's sake, Derpy, you startled me! No, don't worry about the beaker, I'll clean it up myself. Do you remember meeting me?''
''No, but your bed is really comfy. I'm sorry I broke your glass thingy, I didn't mean to. Also, I think I got jam all over your sheets and I don't know how it got there.''
''Just try not to do it again, if you think you can manage that. I'll explain everything soon, but I should introduce myself first: I am Dr Brainymane, and-''
''Do you have any muffins? I'm hungry. I KNOW! We can make some together! My favourite flavour is blue!''
''Derpy, please be quiet for a moment, this is important. I think you were coming back from a delivery, because your mailbags were empty. Somehow, I don't know how, you crash landed in my lawn, and hit your head on the corner of my roof. I took you inside and bandaged you up, but it was a nasty cut. It must be blood on the sheets, not jam. But don't worry, you're going to be fine.''
He looks at the disoriented mare for a moment, noticing that her cutie mark is a group of small bubbles. He thought to himself 'I wonder if she even knows why her cutie mark is a group of bubbles? I should probably tell her all I found. But she needs some dinner first, and for that matter so do I.'
''Derpy, have your eyes always been like that? And don't call me mister. Everyone just calls me Mane.''
''What do you mean mister-I mean Mane? Is something wrong with my eyes?''
Derpy strained to make her eyes look at each other, but only succeeded in making them spin in their sockets, dizzying and disorienting her even more. She sat down heavily, straight onto a loose floorboard, which promptly flew up and hit Dr Brainymane in the chin, making him stagger back a little before he could regain his balance. He quickly shook off the dazed feeling, and helped Derpy get up and steady herself. He thought to himself 'This pony clearly needs my help. But first, she needs some food.'
''Derpy,'' said Mane, ''If you're hungry I have some muffins in the kitchen. Blue isn't a flavour, so you'll have to be happy with what I've got.''
''''Muffins...I like muffins...''
Dr Brainymane led Derpy gently into the kitchen, sat her down at the table, and brought out a plate stacked high with muffins of every variety. Derpy gave a hysterical gasp of joy, and immediately started cramming her face with as many different flavours as she could, getting crumbs everywhere in the process. Brainymane frowned, sighed to himself, and wondered if he was going to be able to find a cure. He was a prodigious chemist, but his special talent, which set him aside from all other ponies, was his understanding of the equine mind and how it works. Even his cutie mark was a psychiatrists sofa, but this was the first pony he had come across that he was starting to think he couldn't help.
''Derpy, you should know that when you were asleep, I needed to know what was wrong with you. I didn't know whether you had a concussion, or brain damage, or even a split in the blood/brain barrier''
''What do those words mean?'' said Derpy. ''These muffins are really good!''
''Try to keep focused if you can, Derpy. I'm trying to tell you that in order to help you, I had to cast a spell on you.''
''A spell? What sorta spell? Was it one that makes muffins when I clap my hooves?''
Derpy started clumsily banging her hooves together, even though she had more muffins than she could eat sitting in front of her.
''No Derpy. I cast a spell I created to read a part of your mind, to find out if it had been damaged at all.''
At this, Derpy stops clopping and pays attention to the dark-blue-eyed stallion in front of her. She doesn't seem angry, just intensely curious and a little worried at the pony's snide tone.
''What did you see in there? 'Cause all I really remember about anything before I came to Ponyville is that I like muffins''
''You really don't remember anything about your past? Not even your parents?''
''I-. I think something bad happened... But it's all grey and fuzzy...''
As Dr Brainymane is trying to explain all this to Derpy, who is doing her best to remember how to remember things, the time has been turning with the light. It's now almost pitch-black in the lab area, the doctor turning the lamp off as they left the room. The only light except for the clear moon is coming from below the glass bottle the doctor set simmering hours ago. But it's no longer simmering, it's started boiling and sliding into steam as the heat grows more intense under it.
The liquid at the centre of the bottle, however, is starting to condense and coalesce, looking more and more solid by the moment. It's starting to form an outline, nebulous and uncertain but many-legged and threatening. Almost all the liquid in the bottle has somehow solidified despite the boiling temperature, and now it is starting to grow at an alarming rate. First the size of a rat, then a guinea-pig, it is quickly becoming too big for the bottle. Eventually, the glass fractures under the growing pressure, and the thing- whatever it is- quickly scuttles into a corner. It's now the size of a cat, and somehow sucks in all the light that falls onto it. The pure blackness which is all there is to indicate its presence hurts the eye to look directly at, as easy to miss as a spelling mistake.
At this point, Dr Brainymane walks into the room with Derpy in tow, who is happily munching on a muffin.
''Oh for bucks sake! I knew I heard something Derpy! How the buck did that bottle break? It had my latest experiment in it! I knew I forgot about something! I must have left the flames on!''
''I don't know, Mane. Maybe it got tired and fell off? Stuff does that around me all the time...''
''Right, yes, I'm sure it does, Derpy. But what's weird is how there's almost no liquid spilt, when this bottle was full of chemicals. It might have all boiled away, but we weren't gone that long.''
''Om nom nom''
While the Doctor and Derpy are puzzling over the mystery (well, the Doctor at any rate), the thing has been creeping out from the shadows. They seem to follow it, keeping it's form obscured and perfectly camouflaged. All that's visible under the impenetrable darkness is either six or eight legs, straight like a centipede's but furry like a tarantula's. If you had the chance to look closely, you might convince yourself of two faintly glowing, entirely purple eyes hidden in the darkness, but there again maybe not.
The creature is crawling slowly up behind the two perplexed ponies, and it seems hungry and somewhat confused, as if undecided on which to feed. Whether it's because she's a mare, or because the monster can somehow sense she is the easier prey, the creature readies itself to spring.
''AAAAH! I don't like this! I don't like this! HELP!''
Mane jumps three feet in the air at Derpy's shriek of surprise and pain, and spins around. When he sees what's happening, his stomach drops out of his chest as a wave of abject terror sweeps over him like a torrent of frozen bile. He can see Derpy's face, but her neck, mane and the back of her head are hidden in a cloud of darkest shadow, with eight furry legs clamped around her shivering neck, locking the something in place as it feeds on her. She is bucking, kicking and falling around the room, trying to shake off whatever it is, but nothing is working.
What happens next is impossible. The bubbles on the flank of the terrified pony, the bubbles that make her unique, special and even talented, are moving one by one, slowly but inexorably up her side towards her neck. Derpy is still screaming and shrieking her lungs out, trying to fight it off.
''MR MANE! PLEASE, HELP ME! SOMETHING'S INSIDE MY HEAD AND I CAN'T GET IT OUT!''
This plea snaps Mane out of the horrified trance he was in, and almost in a frenzy he tries to reach the thing and drag it off.
''Derpy! DERPY! Stand the buck still, you idiot, so I can try to pull it off you!''
The feeling of total and complete desecration of the safe place in her mind, where the taunts of everypony didn't matter, was so overwhelming that she couldn't hear him. All she was aware of was the sickening feeling of having the one spark of magic that kept her sane and tethered to the world, the awful sickening feeling, part physical pain and part mental anguish, of having something she never knew she treasured literally sucked out of her skull by this terrible parasite. All she could do was buck and smash against the world, trying to stop this torture.
The first bubble is gone now, completely consumed by this vile, unnatural attacker. Frantically, Dr Mane casts a spell that magically tethers Derpy to the ground, and keeps her temporarily still. But her mismatched eyes are still moving, crossing and wheeling and filled with tears of pain and emotional upheaval. With shaking hooves, Mane moves to grab hold of the mass of shadow clinging to her neck.
''Derpy, this is going to hurt, but it will be over soon. It's going to be ok.''
The comforting lies spilling from his mouth, Mane grabs hold of the monster gorging itself on the soul of a terrified pony. But his hooves slip through it, and grasp nothing but air. Growing even more frantic, he tries over and again, each time his hooves slipping through the creature cloaked by darkness. Another two bubbles, the largest ones, slip down the monsters greedy throat.
In a voice strangled by fear and panic and shame at how he has talked to her, Mane cries ''Derpy, I can't touch the damn thing! It's like it's made of bucking smoke, my hooves keep going through it!''
''GET IT OFF MEEEE! PLEASE, PLEASE JUST GET IT OFF!'' Derpy manages to force out weakly through the spell.
Close to crying himself through sheer terror and desperation, Mane tries to cast a telekinesis spell on the monstrous thing, which twitches a little uneasily, as if shaking off a bee, and digs a little deeper into Derpy's neck with its intangible claws. Only two bubbles are left, one of which is even now mercilessly moving up her neck to the insatiable parasite's gullet, where it too is swallowed whole.
''Derpy, I think it's working! Keep breathing, I'll try again!''
Concentrating all his magical prowess into the spell, he tries once more to drag the wretched bestial thing off his new patient. The thing digs its claws even harder into her neck, but slowly it starts to lose its grip. The veins on Mane's neck are standing out, and his teeth are gritted with the effort he is putting into the spell. He is starting to wonder if he has the strength of mind and magic to beat it. He opens his eyes for a moment, and sees that Derpy's eyes have stopped reeling in their sockets, slowing down to weak spasms. Dropping the binding spell and pulling up some last reserve of strength from his stomach that is twisted up in effort, the creature is finally dragged loose and flies across the room. Even though Derpy is broken and collapsed on the floor, the doctor keeps his eyes on the monster. He sees it land in a corner, and tries to tether it with the same spell he used on Derpy. But, he is too exhausted from the mammoth effort needed to rip the monstrosity from her head, and the creature breaks free and within half a heartbeat is out of the window.
Exhausted from the bone to the brain, the doctor collapses into a sorrowful hug with Derpy, who is curled up and shaking on the floor. Even as he tries to comfort the already-damaged pony, who has just had a vital part of her soul split off and lost to an unfeeling parasite, all he can think of is the rage at himself and grief for his stricken new friend, and the sorrow for the next poor pony whom the monstrosity feeds on. He must take care of Derpy first, put her to bedrest and try to find out what and how has happened to her. But then, he knows, he has to break his solitary life and somehow get a message to warn the nearest town, so they might have some idea of how to stop this hideous parasite from feeding and breeding and sucking the souls out of every pony in Equestria. He needs to send a message to Ponyville.