Part 2: Punching Water

That voice. The voice of the demon.

Now I have leverage.

Leverage?

My eyes took in the sights of the world around me. Ponies were everywhere, each one staring at me with its big pair of eyes. Some had mouths agape, others were frozen in their tracks. A human had entered their midst. Of course they would be astonished.

But I was no human. I knew what I was, and I had to continue to know, or else I would lose it and forever wander in a void.

I closed my eyes and breathed, and on my back my glass wings folded. I didn’t have to move a muscle. They acted of their own accord. A pony approached me, a white unicorn with a mane like fire and a cutie mark of a shield. She did not have friendly eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was anything but cordial.

“What the heck are you? What are you doing here?”

“Brave,” I uttered, gazing at her. “Brave that you would be the first to approach a creature such as I. Forgive me, but I assumed your townsfolk would run and hide from an unknown being that had just fallen from the sky.”

“I ain’t afraid of much,” she said. She sounded like an Apple family member, but I doubted that was the case. Elsewhere, all the ponies continued to stare at me, drilling me with their piercing eyes.

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you?”

I knelt down, and only then did I realize how tall I was compared to these creatures. The unicorn only came up to my upper chest.

“I am a human. Well, an idea of a human. I exist in thought, as do you.”

“What the heck are you talking about?!”

“I don’t think I should explain any further, for it confounds me as much as it confounds you. I mean no harm to you ponies. On the contrary, I was brought here by Princess Luna, so that I may rid Equestria, and my mind, of a demon.”

The crowd of ponies murmured amongst itself. I imagined they were upset, maybe even scared by this news. I would be. I already was.

“A demon? What, you mean like a dragon?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “Worse than a dragon. Far worse. This demon is here at this very moment. It seeks the death of happiness, and that is why it has come here.”

“Death of happiness?” the unicorn repeated, her eyes widening. I nodded again.

“This is my demon, my struggle that I have endured for many years, and it has now manifested itself here in Equestria. It has taken all elation from me already. The happiness of family, of friends, of the warmth of the human spirit…gone. And, ridiculous as it might seem, it seeks the destruction of my last true beacon, you ponies. You are my last wall of defense. Without you, the demon has a direct path to my shattered soul, and it will consume me as easily as you consume hay.”

“That’s pretty easy consuming,” said a pony from the crowd. I nodded for a third time. The unicorn placed a hoof on her chin and furrowed her brow in thought.

“You’re a human. I ain’t ever heard of a human before. You don’t have hooves and you walk on two legs like a minotaur! And you have wings!”

“Not all humans have wings. Some, but not all.”

“And you’re here because of a demon?”

“No,” I replied, taking another breath. “I am here because I wish to be here, because this place makes me happy, and my happiness is the only thing that can destroy the demon, or else it will destroy everything I hold dear, every joy in my life, and watch as I wallow in unchecked anguish. Then it will consume me.”

“How the heck do you know all this?”

I stood up. “This is no longer your world. It belongs to the demon and I. He sees it as a battleground, I a safe haven, the last line of defense for my beleaguered soul.”

And that line will fall, child.

I whirled around, searching for a spot of darkness in the sunlit town, but I realized I had no need. The sun had fallen, and moonless, starless night soared overhead, blanketing Ponyville in shadow.

It was going to make its move. But I couldn’t let these ponies get in the way. They were innocent. They did not deserve my punishment. But it was not as if the black shadows that rolled in cared at all for the innocent little ponies that inhabited this town.

And suddenly, they were there.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of…creatures. It would be incorrect to call them anything else. They looked like ponies from a distance but were the farthest from the cute little creatures I had seen so often on television.

Skinless ponies. Necrotic equines that groaned and growled like zombies as they burst from windows, from doors, and even from underground and surrounded us all. Their eyes bled, their skin peeled, and from their throats came death rattles of the reborn dead.

They were dead. And yet they walked the ground I stood upon.

Dead, rotting ponies.

The mare who had approached me, the brave one, screamed like a banshee when she saw the undead horses, but I stood my ground. Many ponies ran and hid from the decayed beings that slowly approached, but I took one step forward and flexed the fingers of my left gloved hand, clearing my throat.

“You will not harm these ponies, demon. You have taken so much from me already, but you will not take them.”

On the contrary, my child.

“I am no child of yours.”

You are a child of fear and darkness. I am fear and darkness. You are my child.

“Then strike your child down so that he may be rid of his black-hearted father.”

Oh, if it were only that easy.

I heard nothing more from the demon, and the dead ponies approached ever closer. Something tingled in my fingers, a magic power of sorts, one capable of bending the very existence around me, and so I stuck out my hands and concentrated. I called upon the magic that I was sure I had in my body, even as ponies ran and screamed, even as shadow swallowed the little town.

And then I saw it in my mind, a small muscle mass brimming with neurons and electric pulses, only far more so than any other part of my body. It quivered as if something were trapped inside and very eager to get out, pressing against my brain. Now, to let it run free…

I felt the magic leave my fingertips, and I felt the very atoms of the world around me shift in the most peculiar and frightening of ways, yet I found no polarity between the atomic magic in the air and the air itself. But it was there. I could see it like one sees heat shimmering off of a road on a hot summer’s day. It begged me to wipe out the dead ponies that approached, shambled, groaned like dying bison. It pleaded in the air, pleaded with me.

I gave my permission, reaching out with my ungloved hand and closing my eyes, feeling the magic in me course through my veins like ice. My fingertips glowed, and suddenly through the darkness there was light, great light that blinded me, that nearly seared my eyes. I heard the screams of the necrotic equines as they burnt up in the ignited atmosphere, victims of an inner power of which I had no knowledge of. The light pulsated every three seconds, and in those increments I heard fresh screams of pain, howls of beasts unlike anything I’d ever seen except in nightmares. But then, little else filled my nightly void but nightmares, horrid illusions of terrifying specters and ungodly monsters that dined on my flesh and presented my still-beating heart to their master as a trophy…

The light disappeared, and I felt like a husk of a human, empty space devoid of power and energy. But the dead ponies were gone. They sizzled on the ground, blackened skeletons with no flesh at all, cooling in their own decayed matter. I sank to my knees, and my head became light as my fingers tingled once again, not from magical influence but from fear, fear of the power that I had unleashed upon these monsters.

Why did I have this power? Surely the demon would not want me to garner abilities that would match its own. I had already been surprised once that I had grown wings of tempered glass. Now I possessed the power of a unicorn within my body, and without need of a horn. Why? Why give your foe such an advantage?

“Why, creature?” I huffed. “What game do you expect to play now? The enemy’s pawn has reached the far end of the board, and you have let it become a queen. Why is this?”

Its voice filled my weary brain.

Foolish human. Your abilities are infinitesimal compared to the powers I and others like me so possess!

“Others like you? But there is only one of you in my mind!”

One being, many forms. An incorporeal creature can be in several places at once, child.

“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”

Why do you think I want to kill you? Farthest from it! Without you, there is no body for me to inhabit! No, I intend to run you into the ground, to siphon your soul so that I may fill the void and possess your form, become corporeal, and end the miserable little piece of filth that you call a world.

“You don’t want to kill me…you just want to kill my soul.”

A soul, no matter how tainted, cannot be killed. Broken, yes. Wounded, yes. But killed? Never. The soul and the body are two different things, child. One dies, the other lives. A soulless human does not exist. Not yet.

“Why are you telling me this? You’ve tormented me all these years without telling me why, and suddenly now, in the face of your pathetic defeat, you surrender your secrets?”

Defeat? You think those rotting monsters were my only means of force? Your naivety never fails to amaze me, idiot child. I have other means of draining your soul.

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Bring it.”

As you wish. Look behind you and you will see the death of kindness.

The death of kindness?

I turned around, and when I saw what the demon had done, my heart stopped beating and a scream became lodged in my throat.

Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness, writhed on the ground as if she were on fire, and I could see blood pouring from her eyes and nose. She screamed, and her scream was louder and more terrifying than any scream I had ever heard. She was crying tears of blood, begging for the unbearable pain to stop, begging for death, even. I cried with her, frozen with fear, and I swear I heard the demon laughing.

“NO!”

Ponies had gathered around her, but my presence scattered them like roaches. Fluttershy was dying. Her mane blackened and her eyes filled with blood, and soon she stopped screaming, for she began to choke on her own blood, and I stood over her, thinking of something, anything that I could do for her.

“This is what you will do, demon?!” I yelled over Fluttershy’s gargling.

The tower does not fall when its spire is knocked off, but rather when the supports are destroyed.

My eyes widened, and I knew what it wanted.

I had no choice. I stared into Fluttershy’s blood-filled eyes, crying tears from my soul.

“I will save you, Fluttershy.”

And I plunged my hand into her.

Into her.

My fist was like a razor-sharp blade that punctured her skin and spilled her entrails, but she did not die, and blood did not flow from her wound. It was shadow that spilled, black and like fog, like ink underwater, floating in midair. But then it disappeared into my pale skin, running through my veins and turning them black, and soon coal-colored webs formed a lattice over my arms and face. I screamed as I felt Fluttershy’s pain. It was fire in my heart, poison in my veins that ripped and tore at my insides. I screamed even when there was no more air in my lungs. My very soul was screaming.

What is this?

“You…can’t live…without me…”

Ooh, I see. You plan to die a noble death to save a fictional cartoon character.

“I’m not…dying for anybody,” I managed. “Except maybe…you…”

It no doubt realized my intent, and just as I thought I was about to embrace death, the pain vanished. My veins returned to normal, and Fluttershy’s blood disappeared. She got to her hooves and was back to her old self, quivering in anxious fear at the sight of the barely-breathing human in front of her. I knew there was some remnant of the horrid pain that had befallen her somewhere in her head, but she did an impressive job of covering it up.

“M-Mister…?”

“My name is irrelevant,” I replied. “You may simply call me he who dreams, the dreamer in a nightmarish world.”

“Oh. Okay, um…but, that’s an awful mouthful. Do you have a shorter name?”

As much as I hated to do it, I ignored the yellow pegasus. She seemed all too happy to back out of the conversation, retreating to the comforts of the crowd, no doubt wanting to nurse her mental wounds.

“What the heck was all that?” shouted a pony from the crowd. “Were those zombies?”

“In a sense, yes. They were pawns of the demon that lurks in this world, intent on separating my body from my soul and occupying the former so that he may do God-knows-what.”

“But then who are you?”

I was too weak to answer any further questions. In the distance, I heard the faint sound of a bugle, and I raised my head, wondering why the sounds of brass music would be playing at a time like this. But then I noticed Twilight Sparkle in the crowd, trying to find some way to make sense of what was happening. As the pieces of an idea floated in my mind, I beckoned to the unicorn. She approached with great reluctance just as the pieces formed a plan.

“Twilight Sparkle,” I said, kneeling down. “I need the help of you and your friends.”

“What?” Her voice was so familiar, so wonderful, but when I heard it in such a tone it was not as cordial as I had so often heard. “What do you mean? You come here and expect us to help you?”

“You saw what I have done, and you will see more. I have made a mistake, and that mistake is the demon that nearly killed Fluttershy and seeks to kill all of you.”

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “K-Kill us? Why would it do that?”

“Because you ponies make me happy. You were what kept me from suicide for countless months. And now it wishes to destroy you. All of you.”

She assumed a serious look, one of a noble and hardened woman that is about to take a stand. “That demon will never hurt my friends!”

“No, it will not. Not if you stay by me. You, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike must all come with me.”

“Someone say mah name? And what in tarnation is goin’ on here?”

Applejack emerged from the crowd.

“I heard all kinds a’ stuff comin’ from down here, and saw a bunch a’ stuff in the sky! What’s goin’ on, Twilight?”

She sighed and took a moment before answering.

“We were attacked by a demon. This human is the only thing that can stop it.”

“A what and a who now?”

“There’s no time to explain, Applejack! You’re right,” she said, turning to me. “I will follow you. My friends will follow you. But you must promise to defeat this demon.”

I smiled for the first time in a long time. “With you by my side, it will never take me.”

She smiled too. Meanwhile the stunned pony crowd remained silent, except for Applejack.

“Does somepony wanna tell me what the heck is goin’ on?”

“We’ll explain on the way, AJ,” Twilight answered. “Grab Pinkie, Dash, Rarity and Spike. They all have to go with us.”

“To where?”

“To wherever the human wants. If we don’t want an attack like this to happen again, we must trust him.”

“How can I trust ‘im? I ain’t even seen ‘im before!”

“Applejack!” Twilight snapped. “You have to trust me to trust him! Don’t you get it? I don’t know what you saw, but it was ten times worse than that! Fluttershy almost died! We were attacked by dead ponies! Dead ponies!”

“Dead ponies?”

“Yes, AJ. Dead ponies. And this human drove them off and saved Fluttershy! I can’t think of any reason not to trust him!”

Applejack looked at me incredulously, and I gave her a polite nod. I realized how ridiculous this was, but I had to go along with it. They were all I had left.

The orange pony sighed and nodded. “Okay, Twilight. I’ll round up the girls an’ Spike, but you gotta explain to me what the heck is happenin’ while we go to…well, wherever in Equestria we’re goin’.”

“Don’t worry, AJ. I will. I promise.”

She ran off, and the crowd of ponies began to disperse. The shadow cloud had disappeared, replaced by a storm cloud that dumped its rain right over Ponyville. Twilight shouted to me, but I couldn’t hear her over the sudden downpour. She ran off.

Every pony seemed to be ignoring me for once, and I sank to my knees, watching little puddles of water form in the muddy pits alongside the streets. As the puddles grew bigger, they became murky mirrors, and I did not see my face when I looked at the water’s reflection, but the face of the demon.      

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