Episode Two: Perfect Memory: The Silly DescentThe sunlight drifted into Brennenburg like a totally welcome slacker of an old friend. It particularly drifted into the Master Bedroom of Brennenburg. Only Pinkie Pie, however, lay in the bed. Downstairs, you could hear the sound of Nina Somone’s Feeling Good. It was 12:45 AM, and Brennenburg was appreciating the company.
I wish Fniff would leave a note about where he is before he goes off into some random place, Pinkie sighed to herself after looking around the hall. She had found the kitchen, however, and went to work making breakfast. Soon enough, Tom emerged through the doorway into the small room. “Mornin’, sweetie! How was your sleep last night?”
Tom rubbed his eyes. “Nothing, mom. Just a regular ghost named Hazel who happened to be the brother of a certain Daniel from Mayfair. Nothing bad at all.” Suddenly, the sound of printing drifted from the fridge. A single paper deposited out of the bottom.
“Hmm, that’s odd.” Pinkie walked over to the fridge. “I didn’t even notice that the fridge had an icemaker.”
“That’s not the part I would find odd, mom.” Tom picked up the paper.
It read like this.
“A/N omigod i hop u lik this fanfic hazel/tom FTW”
And then it just segued into a very strange fanfiction featuring Hazel and Tom slowly becoming in love with each other.
“My God, this is like My Immortal but starring me.” Tom made an unhappy face at the utterly terrible Fridge shipping fic.
“Well, umm...” Pinkie started, scratching her chin in thought, “at least you have a... friend, right? She’s just a friend?” Pinkie then looked at the fridge. “As for you, looks like we’re going to have to get Twilight over here to give you some writing lessons!”
The sound of printing.
“No, wait! STOP!” Tom ran over and kicked the fridge. It clunked, and then printed out a piece of paper. Tom picked it up.
“Oh God. This is like My Immortal as rewritten by a blind Russian.” Tom gasped in sheer horror at the quality of the fanfiction. “Remind me never to kick that fridge ever again.”
“Oh, fridge, you so silly!” Pinkie bounded over to the machine with a smile stretched across her face, somehow with her forehooves behind her back. Then she pulled a massive warhammer out of nowhere and smashed the fridge into a million pieces. “Tom, remind me to get a new fridge when we go out for groceries, ‘kay?” Tom just gaped.
Duuuuun duuuuuuuun DUUUUUUN doooooooooong.
A highly dramatic combination of a pipe organ and a church bell rang somewhere at the stop of the castle. “Oh, that’s the doorbell. Man, it’s so fun to just keep ringing it. And ringing it.” Tom was lost in memory.
Pinkie walked out to the entrance of the hall, hoping that whoever it was would be right there instead of making her walk all the way through the castle again. Of course, that was not the case, and after about 30 minutes of navigating the giant castle she finally reached the front door.
Pinkie opened the door, and waiting for her was a female demon in a tank top and urban camo jeans, with horns and a red pitchfork tail behind her. Rather anthromorphic for a demon, admittedly, apart from maybe the hooves instead of normal human feet. In normal hands was a small locked box marked “OfWD Donations!
”
“Hello! I am Matilda of the Out Of Work Demons Charity! About two centuries ago, several demons got fired for having romantic relations with normal humans. These demons cannot find work, and we are trying to give them food, shelter and jobs! Could I have a donation to this fine charity? Don’t worry, I’m a demon of lust, not greed!” Matilda gave a light chuckle. “Seriously, don’t touch me or you may get fatally attracted. It’s rather annoying. Can is fine, though.”
“Geez, I’d love to help,” Pinkie started sweet-talking, “unfortunately I left my wallet way back in the deeps of the castle. Perhaps you’d like to come in and sit down while I grab it?”
“Um, okay! It would be nice to sit down a while!” Matilda smiled. “Show me the way, I guess. I know Brennenburg is easy to get lost in!”
“I honestly don’t really know the way myself,” Pinkie sighed, trying to remember just which door was the one that had got her here, “we only just moved in and I’ve spent most of my time in the back hall.” Pinkie pressed in the stone she had found, opening the secret tunnel that seemed to be the most direct route between the front and back halls.
Matilda shrugged and followed Pinkie to the back hall. “This certainly seems like a mad scientist kinda place. Are you a mad scientist?” Matilda said, looking around at the secret tunnel.
“My manbi- I mean husband is. He didn’t design this place, though, just bought it.” Pinkie looked around the corridor as well. “I swear every time I go through this thing it feels like I’m stuck in someone’s nostril. I’m just waiting for some gelatinous blob to come out of nowhere like a white blood cell and engulf me, then spit me out on the front porch.”
Fniff stumbled into the corridor, looking red eyed and generally insomniac in his work clothes, a lab coat, white scrubs and brown pants. The image of a mad scientist.
“The plants here are sooo great... The dryads probably help, yeah, but the one in the garden is kinda annoying. Reminds me of poison ivy. I wonder if I need sleep. Nah, probably not.” Fniff muttered to himself.
“Is that your husband?” Matilda asked, pursing her lips.
“Not at all. Well, technically, but he’s a lot better when he’s gotten some rest.” Pinkie raised the small revolver she had pulled out of nowhere and pulled the trigger. With a small pop, the dart hit Fniff in the neck and he quickly dropped. “Love this thing,” Pinkie said as she put the gun away, “got the cartridges pre-measured for him and my little boy Tom. I’m pretty sure both of them have cartridges for me, too,” Pinkie smiled cheerily.
“I have this whistle I’ll never use.” Matilda took out a whistle from her back pocket. “That’s good enough for self-defense, I guess.”
“Self defence? Oh, the gun is for knockout tag!” Pinkie twirled the gun that she had just put away a second ago. “It’s really fun, if you want to join. We’d have to figure out how much you can take, however. We usually have it set for 15 minutes of downtime.”
“Hm. I should be using this for matters other then games, since it’s brilliant for me in every way, except one.” Matilda put the whistle back in her pocket. “Will. I won’t elaborate. So, where is the back hall?”
“Just a few more steps.” Pinkie and Matilda emerged into the magnificent section of the building. It appeared that the lights had been dimmed, and Tom could be seen playing cards with a tall man in a black cloak. Against the table they were playing on rested a large scythe. “Sweetheart, I told you not to use the escalator,” Pinkie sighed, her mane drooping slightly.
The man in a black cloak turned around. Actually, I was here for a dead mouse, then I got lost. Hello. He said.
“Right. Take this door and once you get to the end, hit the sixth brick up. That should get you to the main tunnel, then just go right until you hit the archives. Should be easy enough to get out from there.” Pinkie’s hair bobbed as she shook her head. “I think whoever designed this place might actually be more mindless than Fniff.”
Actually, he was named Alexander. He was from another dimension. The man in black stood up, and went through the door.
“Pretty okay fellow, that guy. Rather morbid.” Tom shrugged. “Oh well, at least I now know that anyone can get lost in here.”
“Pssh. Charon was much better then him. Charon had cash.” Matilda waved a dismissive hand towards where the man in black had gone. “Anyway, my name is Matilda.”
“Tom. Nice to meet you. Are you a demon?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You know, it’s too bad we’re not in Japan,” Pinkie sighed, “I’ve always wanted to meet an oni. I hear they love partying! Hey!” She looked up at Matilda. “Do you know any onis? I mean, surely even mystical creatures must try living in different place, maybe there’s one or a few that live around here!”
“Eh, this is Uberwald territory. Expect demons, vampires, werewolves, mad scientists... This used to be part of Prussia, so that makes it the supernatural part of Poland. The rest of it is pretty okay.” Matilda said. “Hey, don’t worry, all of the above are perfectly okay. Some of them just give the rest a bad name.”
“Oh, well. Maybe I can convince Fniff to get us a vacation home.” Pinkie grabbed her wallet and opened it. “Umm, I only have American dollars and bits.”
“Hm, okay. I’ll take dollars.” Matilda shrugged and held out the box.
Pinkie pulled out a few tens and put them in. “Care to have some breakfast before you go?”
“Nah, gotta meet my quota before 2PM. No-one feels like donating after that, for some reason... Maybe it’s the winter darkness. It gets dark reaaaaaally quick around here, and demon’s eyes glow in the dark...” Matilda smiled. “The surroundings are pretty good, though. Leads to plenty of nice open spaces in case rituals are needed.”
“Remind me not to go out at night. Don’t want to interrupt anything important.” Pinkie thought. “Hey, before you go, what’s a good place to buy food? I’ve heard the market is nice, but that’s only open for two hours and some of the people there are con artists if I’ve ever saw ‘em.”
“Ohhh, that’s Old Altstadt. New Altstadt is about two miles north. It’s about the size of a town and has a bunch of modern places. If you want supplies, go to new, if you want to get a mob of angry villagers, go to Old. That’s what I tell most mad scientists. I can’t believe mad scientists can’t get comfortable in an area without at least one mob showing up.” Matilda laughed. “Guess the mad part isn’t undeserved.”
“Thank Go- I mean, thank you!” Pinkie waved as Matilda departed. “Well, that was fun. Meet any new friends while I was gone, Tom?”
“No-one, mom. Apart from the guy. And I did hear a lot of screaming coming from...” Tom paused. “Gotcha! No screaming at all. Just the sound of Hazel being lost near that elevator I found.”
“Oh, an elevator too.” Pinkie sat down and wondered. “This place would probably be an awesome party spot. As long as nobody got eaten.”
“Bloody hell, how does this place even have this many ROOMS!?” A female, young and British voice yelled, coming from an unopened door. “Wait... Oh dammit. Quiet quiet... Not a sound. I am a boogeyperson, and I must be quiet.”
“Oh, that’d be Hazel.” Tom got a book out of the book bag. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
“She’s not very good at her job, is she?” Pinkie looked around the general direction the sound came from. “I bet Luna could give her some pointers. Lord knows the princess has gotten really good at orchestrating Nightmare Night.” Pinkie sighed and laid her head on the table. “I think I still don’t like this place. Seems to be getting used to me, though. More than I am to it.”
“HOW. DOES. THIS. PLACE. LOOK. ON. A. MAAAAAAA-- Oh, here is the do-- Ooooh dammit! I spent the entire night here!?” Hazel lamented.
“You know, the first time I met her, she actually screwed up coming out of my closet. She is actually a ghost, though. You gotta give her some slack.” Tom said, slowly but surely becoming more and more engrossed in the book.
“Tee hee, coming out of the closet.” Pinkie looked up. “You know, if I had known double entendre when I was a filly, I’d probably have never been scared of anything.”
“Hm, depends on the quality. That one right there made sense. Boogeyperson plus double entendre = quality. Daniel stumbling out of a closet after being chased by a horribly mutilated monster = not quality, more like terror. It’s a fine line.” Tom licked his finger and turned another page.
“True. I wouldn’t call that a fine line, though.” Pinkie thought. “You know what this place needs? Music.” The castle seemed to reply, and began playing a mysterious tune, eventually leading to a finale of orchestra, expressing hope in what seems like a hopeless situation.
“Is that the Daniel theme from the videogame adaption of the Dark Descent? They really went all out on the whole ‘Evil Castle’ thing. Mad scientists must be so cliched about everything they do.” Tom put down the book onto his lap. “It’s almost commendable.”
Pinkie just took a sip of coffee and listened.
And the music continued.
“Just wow. I am really surprised they had gone this far. Speaking of, I’m thinking of switching to pond on the fountain. Do you mind?” Tom put the book on the table and got up.
“I don’t like pond that much. Makes the place smell icky.” Pinkie scanned the massive hall. “We should get a butler or maid or something. There’s no way I could keep this place clean on my own.” Pinkie put her head back down and thought about putting Fniff in a butler costume. A silly grin emerged on her face.
Fniff walked in with a huge grin and a grenade that seemed to be in a Butler suit.
“Right, I made the best thing ever! It’s a grenade that tidies and cleans anything! It’s made out of microbes that constantly expand until they fill ev-- Wait, why is there music playing?” The grin turned to confusion as the music turned dramatic.
“That’s just the building, dear, nothing to worry about.” Pinkie looked at the grenade. “Can you make something that looks less like it could kill us if we anger it?”
Fniff laughed. “Oooooh you. Come on, anyone want to give it a test drive? No or soooo yes?”
“Going with no, dad.” Tom said as he pressed the Mental Reflection button on the fountain. “There, now we can all silently look into our past. Except me, I’m reading a book.”
The pool showed piles of books from Twilight’s library, formed into a small fort where a four-year old Tom sat with a book in each hand.
“I’ll take that as a Fniff, you go right ahead!” Fniff pulled the pin and clutched the grenade’s handle, then tossed it up in the air. It exploded in a shower of foam, filling the whole castle for a brief second... Then disappearing. Leaving the castle exactly as it was, except with less dirt. Slightly less.
“... Wow, Brennenburg is really dirty.” Fniff said. He got on the ground and wiped the floor to pristine levels. It glowed white. “This was originally white, but it turned dark brownish-grey? This place really is dirty.”
“Maybe we should get one of those janitors from SS13.” Pinkie rubbed her hoof against the table, watching it transform from solid yellow to green marble.
“I’m not going with Nanotransen. I tried their dating service and they hooked me up with Slannesh. And then Slannesh thought I was too kinky. But I was just compensating so I could stay alive! Amazing what I can do in a corner...” Fniff mused.
“How come you never show your amazing talents like that when you’re with me?” Pinkie had a wry smile on her face as she slowly trotted toward her husband. “Perhaps I need to put you in the corner...”
The fountain showed an image of Fniff looking dejected in Slannesh’s palace, in what seems to be a cardboard rendition of Horus’s Armor, Horus Heresy style.
Fniff shuddered. “Seriously, it was just roleplaying and I probably got too into it. I shocked a few Imperial Guardsmen coming out of the Warp, and then I almost ended up being politely chatted to by the Inquisition. Not a fun day.”
Pinkie just grabbed him by the collar and begin to literally drag him to the bedroom, with a nice thump sounding every time they rose up a stair.
Tom sighed and headed for the elevator room. He headed left and into the machine room. It was very dark, and two yellow eyes were looking at him.
“Hey Hazel.” Tom said, waving.
“Do you know where we are, Tom?” Hazel’s voice had an edge to it.
“I know you are lost, and my mom knows as well. You are near the elevator thingy. Don’t they teach you that ‘Being quiet is good to being scary, and not to yell blue bloody murder when you are completely lost?’ It just seems a bit... Well, unboogeyperson-like.” Tom said, confused.
“I don’t think I’m cut out for this job.” Hazel sighed. “Is your mom still up for that maid job?”
“My dad tried to make a butler-nade, but... Yeah, didn’t go so well. You know grenades, right?” Tom asked, worrying that a girl from the 1820s, give or take, wouldn’t know grenades very well.
“Don’t worry, I’ve at least kept up with technology.” Hazel pulled out a ‘ghostly’ clear-cased cell phone. “You know, I never got your number.”
“Wow, that sold me on the afterlife...” Tom thought a moment. “Oh, I left my phone on my nightstand back in the States, and I was so attentive and agh.”
“Oh. Here, I’ll just tell my boss I lost it. Then he’ll give me a new one. Maybe. He seemed kinda angry last time, though. Something about me breaking the record for most phones lost in a day or something.” She just shrugged and tossed the phone over to Tom who managed to catch it.
“Thanks, Hazel... Say, I heard that you pushed Daniel out of a closet when he was waaaaay too nervous to go on. Like, he said you tried talking to him. He said something about it in his book. Like, hearing you seemingly right in his ear. Did that happen? Cos it would make sense...” Tom raised an eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t be surprised about the pushing part. I’ve always been a bit bumbly...” Hazel sighed. “Poor guy was probably hallucinating the rest of it. That or I used to think out loud a lot.”
“Hm. Okay. Did you follow him, though? Cos I’d be kinda confused as to how you got attracted to the castle... You know, considering the Shadow and Alexander and the Gatherers and stuff.” Tom looked around. “Is there any Gatherers around?” He asked, slightly nervous.
“Oh, um... I think there aren’t any. But I haven’t really gotten anywhere around the castle since Daniel left. I’m pretty sure I followed him here on some kind of whim.”
“Hm, I guess talking with celebrities and dead historical figures in heaven gets a bit annoying after a while.” Tom shook his pink hair. “Say, do you think my pink hair looks kinda... dumb?” He noticed that she hadn’t really made a note of it. Maybe it was just the darkness of their first encounter, and she hadn’t gotten a really good look at his amazingly dumb hair color. He wished he could dye it.
“It’s not bad. You got that from your mom, didn’t you?” Hazel reached out and ran her hand through a lock of it. “Kinda cool, actually. A lot of people would probably kill to have natural hair of such a nonstandard color.”
Tom blinked. “Oh, right. Yeah, I did get it from my mother. Huh.” He was slightly blushing. “Well, that’s interesting, never had anyone comment on my haircolor that didn’t start and end in a one syllable offensive word.”
“Is ‘sexy’ an offensive word? That’s the only word I can think of.”
“How un-Victorian of you. I thought boys did the talking and the girls did the blushing... Though, being at puberty for like... a hundred years or so, would kinda collapse social functions of your former society. Oh dammit, I’m channeling my dad!” Tom sighed deeply.
“At least you’re not channeling the fridge. I swear, that thing wrote anything it could think of. And it could think of a lot.” Hazel shuddered. “One time, it shipped someone with the concept of shipping itself. The scary part was how good it wrote it, too. I’m under the impression that it stole the work from someone else.”
“Yeah, I mean... Why would you even make a fridge ship people? Mad scientists have no sense of relations or judgement on what is needed. I mean... everything they make has an unrelated non-essential feature! For every time machine they have an ice-cream dispenser that uses ANY MATERIALS NEAR IT! Like steam or something mad like that.” Tom shrugged in a completely ‘Can’t think of how little this makes sense’ way.
“You’ve not had ice cream until you’ve had capsaicin-flavored ice cream!” Hazel shouted, then suddenly got a weird look on her face. “Wait, I’ve never had capsaicin-flavored ice cream. Why did I shout that?”
“My dad and you should meet up. I swear whenever he invents something he shouts the fact he made it and the title of the thing that occasionally I just hear future inventions. His shouts go through time, I think.” Tom said, wondering if that was one of his dad’s inventions. At a specific volume his words go back in time?
“Well, anyway, it sounds like your parents aren’t busy anymore,” Hazel said as the gentle sound of a man sobbing emanated lightly through the stone and metal around the two. “Let’s go ask about that maid position, shall we?”
“One second. I better turn off the light. You are still a boogeyperson, right? I heard you can’t go into light without dissipating or something. You better quit first, maybe, if you want to ask directly...” Tom offered.
“Oh, I’ll just take off my work uniform,” Hazel responded, slipping a hard-to-see name badge off of her chest. She walked forward and into the light, perfectly fine if pale.
“Huh. Interesting. Right, let’s ask my... oh, there they are.” Tom looked at Fniff wandering into the elevator, closing the doors and pulling the lever to go down repeatedly. Never enough to actually go fully down, though, thus eliminating the point of pulling it.
“Have fun, sweetie!” Pinkie called from the top of the stairs, looking smugly satisfied with something. “Oh, Tom, is that your friend?” She looked perplexed. “I thought boogeypeople couldn’t come into the light? Oh, well, guess I need to update the lores and all that.”
“She’s quitting anyway, so yeah...” Tom said. “And she heard we need a maid?”
“Goddammit... Why won’t thingy go down!?” Fniff shouted.
“Hold the lever down, silly!” Pinkie walked down the stairs and held out her hoof to Hazel. “Welcome to Castle Bren... well, I guess you don’t need an intro to this place. But, anyway, welcome to the family!... Sort of.” Hazel gripped the hoof and shook.
“Ooooh.” Fniff said. Then he pulled the lever fully down, and held it. The elevator fell through the shaft. A slowly descending scream ended with silence.
“I’m fine! I also found somewhere interesting! Be back in a bit!” A voice yelled from the bottom of the elevator.
“That man,” Pinkie said, shaking her head. “Can’t help but love him, though. Anyway, lets get you all set up for your new job, shall we?”
End of Episode 2.
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Topic: My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic (Read 227357 times)