What we Believed to be Gone

by IGIBAB

Part 3

"So the legends were true!" Schim realized. "The Sparkle! Someone really went here to defeat some evil!"

"But... Equestria's been gone for millennia," Donker whispered in disbelief. "Actually, it..."

"It disappeared with its last princess," the voice in the radio confirmed. "The last alicorn. This is unforeseen and way bigger than what we planned. I'm contacting our superiors."

The princess looked at Schim, then at Donker, moving quite slowly.

"Who was that third voice?"

"It's our contact, back on Weil."

Ah she said that, Schim suddenly remembered and turned her head. The sun was setting. They were about to lose contact.

"Control, we need directives!" she urgently said. "What do we do!?"

She didn't wanted to stay with that thing, alone, for four hours. It was starring at her, with an empty curiosity. No answer came. Twilight tilted her head slightly.

"Do I scare you?"

"Not gonna lie, yes," Donker nodded.

"My apologies then," the princess said. "I have been trapped here for so much time, and robbed of most of my essence."

"The weird voice probably doesn't help."

Twilight frowned slightly, as if she hadn't noticed it before. She raised a hoof to her throat and began to adjust her voice.

"Ah... Aaaah... Is this better?"

She sounded normal, aside from the way too detached tone. Donker and Schim nodded, but without much conviction, still very much scared of her.

"What happened here?" Schim asked again.

"Long story. May we talk about it while we search for those things? We must not let them gather too much strength."

"Lead the way," Donker invited.

Twilight stepped forward. A bit uneasy with her hooves at first, but she quickly got the hang of it.

"Those things are ancient," she explained. "A terrible foe I had to fight. They come in groups of many."

"How are they called...?" Schim asked, to confirm her belief.

Twilight glanced at her, judging her a bit, before answering:

"The worms. They exist beyond life, yet prey on it to reproduce. They infiltrate the bodies of their victims, take control and spread."

Donker frowned, but didn't interrupt her.

"They began to attack Equestria," the alicorn continued. "I managed to lure them on this planet to fight me. They were about to take over my body, but I managed to stop them all with a spell."

"Is that what those black things are for?" Schim asked.

"They are parts of my soul. They were the base for my trapping spell. That's why I need to gather them, I'm too weak for now."

"Why trap them...?" Donker asked. "The worms, I mean."

"I needed to make sure none of them would run away," Twilight said. "Even just one escaping would have wasted everything. Thankfully, now that we're so far away from living creatures, it's not a pressing issue."

"Explorer, do you receive?" asked the voice in the radio.

"Yes, Control," Schim said. "What is it?"

"We confirmed that Twilight Sparkle is linked to the story of this planet. We need you to bring her back, safe and sound. There is a lot to learn."

Donker looked at the horizon. The last ray of the sun was disappearing. They still had a bit of time, because Weil was further on the orbit, but it was a matter of seconds, at best.

"How did she look?" Schim asked, looking at the princess, who returned a gaze full of suspicions.

"Tall, purple alicorn. And she had a cutie mark that resembled-"

Contact was lost. The radio felt silent, as the three mares were plunged into darkness.

"Do I understand that you do not trust me to be who I say I am?"

"Better safe than sorry, princess," Schim answered, containing the unsettling feeling in her.

She did not like to be there, almost alone, with her and those things. An alicorn. The worms. It was too much for a first expedition.

"Welp, here goes our contact," Donker sighed.

Their eyes became used to the obscurity. And if the stars weren't enough to light the way, the dim purple glow emanating from the crystals was sufficient for them to not trip and fall.

"I understand that many things happened during my absence," Twilight said, coming to the foot of one of the crystals. "I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and to tell you more about me and my time. But first, I need your help."

"What can we do?" Donker asked.

"Can you touch that crystal?"

The two astronomares frowned. That was an oddly suspicious request from an oddly suspicious pony.

"Why do you need us to do that?" Schim wondered.

"These prisons require mana to be broken. I'm too weak, my body and soul could collapse from it."

Donker and Schim looked at each other, uncertain. The pegasus decided on trying just once, not because she trusted her, but because she wanted to be sure of something. She couldn't tell her friend about it, not in front of Twilight, so she simply nodded to her.

"You're the unicorn, do it."

"I guess I do have more mana than you..." Donker slowly said, touching the crystal.

Once again, the structure began to glow, before shattering. But this time, Schim was ready. She looked away at the right time to not be blinded, and focus her eyes back on the collapsing prison. Three black snakes were there, as she had seen just before. But the purple filament was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the pieces of the crystal were slowly falling, disintegrating around the ink creatures.

But then, in an instant, she saw it. The debris briefly glowed, before gathering and forming, in a magical and purple haze, compacting themselves into a single entity. Into a filament. Those things were the prison. And the black snake the prisoners. Not the other way around.

"I knew it..." she muttered.

She suddenly turned to Donker, ready to yell at her friend. But she was suddenly pushed and thrown forward by two long and black tendrils.

"Hey!" the unicorn shouted, suddenly blasting a shield at Twilight.

But the magic spell hit her as if she was a wall. The magical protection couldn't make the alicorn move. Twilight slowly turned her eyes to Donker, unnaturally. They had lost the faint piece of equinity they once had.

"Let us feed," the alicorn slowly said, not hiding her unnatural and uncountable voices anymore.

The two tendrils sprouting from her horn laid on the shield, trying to reach the unicorn behind it.

"Aaah!" Schim yelled.

The fear in Donker's heart only grew bigger as she saw the three black snakes charging at her friend, the pegasus uselessly putting her wings in protection.

She dragged her by magic by the tail and brought her behind the shield, rumbling.

"I freaking knew it! Those purple things aren't worms, they're filaments! An alicorn should know that! I don't know what the hell you are, but if that crystal was truly your magic you should have been able to break it without touching it!"

The three black worms crashed on the shield, before going back to the alicorn, sinking in her, by the eyes, without causing any reaction in her. She was staring at Donker with... hunger.

"That body is ours but her magic isn't," she said. "We need you to open the others. Break us free, and we'll free you in return."

"You can't do anything without us! You'll be trapped here with what's left of you!"

The alicorn suddenly stood up on her hind legs, spreading her wings way more than she should have been able to. Donker heard the sound of bones cracking as the body in front of her was being remodeled. From the broken joints, black tentacles emerges, and from the depth of the planet, a voice echoed the words of the being in front of her:

"You are the trapped ones. Trapped in your world, trapped in your flesh, trapped in your souls. Let us free you."

She ended the last sentence by slamming her front hooves on the shield. Donker held tight, but she saw something that should be possible. The shield was cracking. A physical attack was making her magic yield, as if they were on the same level!

The entity in the alicorn body weighed down on the shield. Slowly but surely. Donker thought as fast as she could, while Schim was getting up. Then, suddenly, a purple string whipped the alicorn on the cheek, carving her coat and flesh. Blood didn't come out, worms did. But most of all, the thing fell on its side, caught by the attack.

The filament quickly wrapped itself around its neck, trying to strangle it. Its prey had forgotten about it, it wasn't going to waste that opportunity.

"Run!" Schim yelled, fleeing the scene herself.

Donker followed, nervously glancing back. She saw the worms from the wound reach for the filament, surrounding it with uncountable black ink snakes, pulling on it, tearing it apart. The yells came back. That feminine distorted voice, that pain, that ripping sound. It was the agonizing cry of a soul being shredded by the thing it had sworn to imprison forever. Was it even conscious? Or just a box of will, unaware of its own fate, just feeling the torment without even having a mind to understand it? Either way, Donker felt nauseous. And the infested alicorn slowly stood up, looking their way.

They ran. Ran in between the jungle of crystals, hitting some of them on their way out, creating even more chaos as the structures released more worms and more filaments, immediately engaging in battles above and behind the two mares.

"What do we do!?" Donker panicked. "If an alicorn couldn't defeat it, I don't see how we can prevent it from escaping from here!"

"We need to find where those things went! The ones we freed earlier on!"

Donker looked back, hesitating a bit.

"I... I think we lost her. Or it. I don't know."

They didn't stop running either way. That thing, they didn't know its reach. The same reason why they wouldn't go back to their ship and flee. Those things would spread. They could survive space.

"I don't think that's Twilight Sparkle," Schim said. "I think... something happened when she was fighting the worms. Oh dear, she tried to warn us. Do not go among the stars."

"So that's why some legends say she was the villain?"

"I don't know... We need to find what's left of her. Maybe we can trap them again."

"If she's only filaments..."

Schim didn't want to lose hope. She couldn't. Not with that thing roaming free.

"She was an alicorn, maybe hers are better than the ones you know about. Each of these crystals is a part of her. I don't think a unicorn could have done that."

Donker looked around, worried.

"And each of them contains at least one of those things... She was outnumbered even after splitting her soul."

The blue unicorn suddenly stopped. Schim heard her, followed her gaze and stopped as well.

"What is that...?" the unicorn said in a short whisper.

A green crystal, not really big compared to the others, but its shape was out of the ordinary. Whereas the others were just hexagonal towers, this one was shaped like a four-sided diamond, standing on its tip.

But what sent a shiver down the two mares' spine was inside of it. A pony. An earth pony. And something was definitely off with him. He was frozen with his legs dangling, his head tilted way too much on the side. Like a poorly held puppet. But his face was worse. Donker couldn't really see it through the crystal, she just thought he had black eyelids and that it was too dark to see inside his opened mouth.

But Schim saw it for what it was: A void. His eyes were opened, there were simply no eyeballs in them. And no bones to speak of. Same for his mouth, no teeth, no tongue, nothing behind that black emptiness. Despite her pegasus vision, she could not see any flesh behind them. It went on forever. A void that, as she stared it in, seemed to let out a noise. A disgusting sound of meat being torn apart, of bones being eaten, of living beings being consumed. A thousand cries of agony, hopelessness, begging for mercy. She heard a child yelling for his mother, a husband crying for his wife, a king mourning his subjects, an acorn fearing for its forest, an ocean pleading for its creatures, a planet silent for its life. And on top of all this noise, growing stronger and stronger, unstopping, uncaring, unrelenting. The sound of worms feasting.

"Ok, we're definitely not freeing this one," Donker suddenly said, making Schim jump. "Wow, are you okay?"

"I... I'm not," she answered, feeling her legs weak, as she finally managed to look away from his eyes. "We need to find the filaments."

As she said those words, a few meters away, a purple stream of magic quietly flew by, stopping in front of the crystal, as if it was looking at it.

"Hello?" Schim tried again.

The filament turned to them, before running away. Schim went after it, Donker right behind her.

"Wait!" the pegasus pleaded. "We know what you are fighting! We want to help you! How can we defeat the worms!?"

The piece of soul slowed down, like it was unsure. Schim slowed as well, to not frighten it, adopting a lower posture in sign of harmlessness.

"You're the real Twilight Sparkle, right...?"

The name made it pulse, echoing through it. The filament stopped, turning to Schim. She continued:

"How can we help...? That thing is free, and it's going to escape."

The filament came closer, undulating like a wave. Donker prepared her horn, but Schim raised a wing to tell her to not do anything. She trusted the filament. It was Twilight Sparkle. And even if it wasn't, it was trying to stop those things, so it was worthy of trust.

"If only it could speak," the unicorn said.

The filament suddenly dashed towards Schim. Like a lightning bolt, it passed right through her forehead and came out on the other end, leaving her unharmed. At least not physically. She fell down on her knees and Donker rushed to her, grunting.

"You bastard! What have y-"

Schim raised her wing again, eyes wide opened, panting, looking at the ground.

"I-I'm okay! S-She told me!"

She had learned so much in so little time. It was more than just the filament telling a story. She had lived through it, with the emotions of the princess. Her memory. But it was still confusing.

"I know what happened... And I think I know how to defeat them!"

"Well, explain then!" Donker pressed.

"We need to find the others first. Just know: That thing," she pointed at the pony imprisoned in the crystal. "It's very important. The worms must not destroy it!"

"Okay, not like we can do much about that. Where are the others?"

"Follow me!"

Schim suddenly ran, with the filament right above her head. Donker followed, waiting for answers, that her friend started to give on their way:

"Just like that fake Twilight told us. Those things, they came from space right when this planet was going by Weil. Twilight was one of the rulers of the world at that time, when the old kingdoms still existed. They attacked and tried to eat everything, but she managed to lure them on this planet. That pony in the crystal, he was one of the victims and one of her friends. She had five others with her. They were losing the battle, they were going to get overwhelmed and the world would fall with them."

Schim looked up at the filament, realizing something. Her mind was still processing the information, despite having all of it.

"The worms were too many, she couldn't destroy them all at once. So, instead, she decided to trap them. She made the crater, imbued the whole place with her magic with one gigantic spell."

"Ooh," Donker realized. "So that's why we can hear sounds here."

"I guess," Schim responded, unaware of that. "But they were still too strong for her, she needed to have the worms in one place, to weaken a good portion of them. And she found a solution."

"Whatever it was, it didn't work I suppose?"

"No," Schim said with a more emotional tone. "It did work. As she had planned. She had seen the worms attack and take the bodies of her friends. And she deduced something. Her unicorn friends had resisted for much longer than the others. Magic hinders the worms, they need more time or numbers to conquer a body that is more receptive to it. And she was an alicorn. So, she supposed that taking over her body would require a lot of their strength."

A silence fell between the two mares, only ruptured by the sounds of their hooves hitting the silvery ground under the dim purple light.

"She gave her body away...?" Donker realized in shock.

"It worked. She prepared her spell while they were swarming inside. With so many trapped in her and her friends, it was just a question of imprisoning the bodies and the rest of the worms. And before she lost her mind, she split her souls, releasing the spell, and sending every filament to freeze them in those crystals."

"So..."

Donker looked around, piecing things together.

"Each one of them... is a part of her?"

"Each and every one," Schim confirmed. "It's her. The filaments we saw being ripped apart were as well. And if we don't stop that monster, it's going to destroy her."

"But how? How are we going to stop it?"

"We're going to use her friends in the crystals. They-"

Schim stopped her sentence and her running, followed by Donker. They had arrived at a little clearing and, right in the middle of it, three other filaments were floating in the air, gathered in a circle, as if they were discussing something.

"Wait, that's it?" Donker asked with concern. "Only four of them to stop that monster?"

"We'll need to free more of them," Schim informed, walking up to the purple strands of magic, as they turned to face them. "I know your plan. But we need to act quickly. We're going to help you, but that monster is on the loose. It will escape this place if we don't stop it, it's already trying to gain the use of the magic in your body."

"Is... that why the other worms went inside her body as well?" Donker understood, remembering the monstrosity telling them it couldn't access its magic. "To strengthen their grip on it?"

After all those years, after her soul being torn apart in so many little pieces, the princess was still fighting on, inside of her own body as well? Just so those things wouldn't get to use her alicorn magic?

The fourth filament joined the others and they all seemingly looked at Schim, before drifting to a crystal nearby. The pegasus in her suit walked to the magical prison, looking inside. Just another worm. She turned her eyes to the four soul fragments. Just to be sure, she asked:

"You want us to free it?"

If the tip was the head, then all four nodded. Schim looked at her own hooves. After all, during their escape, she had broken a few of those crystals as well. They didn't require unicorn's magic specifically to be opened.

She took a deep breath and laid her hoof on it. She felt the magical draining occurred, but now that she had been mixed with the princess' thoughts for a brief moment, she understood what it was: A confirmation. A verification that someone was here to take in charge a problem that the princess had put on hold. She had purposefully sent the planet on a course out of the system, yet she still made a last minute protection. It would only open to forms of life bearing magic, and never to another worm.

As the crystal broke, all four filaments threw themselves on the barely free ink snake, overwhelming it and choking it until it exploded like last time. Then, they gathered again, welcoming the fifth member that had just reassembled itself. They all looked Schim's way, and something settled in the young pegasus. An understanding. The beginning of an acceptance of what all of this implied. For them. For the world.

"There are thousands of those," Donker pointed out. "How are we even going to free them all? Will that even be enough? I doubt that thing will get caught a second time."

"The princess can't imprison it again on her own anyway. But there is a solution to gather as many of them as we can. Hold on."

Schim went to another crystal, following the filaments. She did not need for them to make another gesture this time. She touched it, freeing the worm inside, and it was once again taken care of quickly. Once they were six, the filaments gathered and linked to one another, under the curious gaze of the two ponies.

The purple magical threads emitted a pulse. But it was disjointed, some did it before the others, and some were a slightly different color. They did it again, then again, each time getting closer to some sort of harmony. Like a musician tuning their instrument.

And then, harmony was reached. The two mares almost jumped when they heard a sudden "Ah" coming from them. It did it a second time, calibrating itself, then a few random syllables.

"Is this working?" the filaments asked.

The voice was distant, absent minded, but still there. Deformed, echoey, yet unmistakably coming from a mare. Frighteningly close to that thing from earlier, pretending to be Twilight Sparkle. Because they were all trying to mimic the princess' voice. One to deceive, and the filaments by force of habit. Because it was the voice of their common soul.

"We hear you," Schim answered.

"I need you, Schim and Donker from Weil," the filaments followed immediately. "I have tasks for each of you. Schim, you already know yours."

"Yes, princess," the pegasus nodded.

"What about me?" Donker asked, a bit afraid for herself.

"I need you to gain us some time," the voice said, uncaringly, for they could only think about their ultimate mission. "They will seek to free their peers. They probably already have done so. You'll need to prevent them from breaking the prism containing large numbers of them. The more they are inside, the easier it is for them to break it."

"The black ones?" Donker guessed, remembering the tall formation teeming with worms. "Yeah, I can see why... But how can I stop them?"

"Your magic," the princess's voice answered. "As long as they are trapped in my body, you can fend them off."

"I'm not sure about that," Donker said with uncertainty. "No offense, but when those things hit my shield earlier, it almost broke on the spot. Same with them in your body. One more snap and I was toast."

"If shields truly worked, she would have used that," Schim pointed out. "We don't have a choice. I've seen what those things can do. They'll find a way to get out, to roam space, to get back to Weil. And we don't have anything that can threaten them there."

"Not even a magic missile...?" the unicorn tried.

"I don't know how much your technology has advanced," the filaments cut. "But only two kinds of magic truly work on them: Harmony and soul magic. Do you know either?"

"Harmony is an old form..." Donker muttered. "It's not taught anymore, and we need more than two ponies for that. Soul magic is straight-up forbidden."

"We can do harmony," the princess corrected. "We are enough, with you and my old friends."

"I still don't see myself fighting them," Donker winced.

"I will accompany you. But you must protect my fragments. We need as much as myself as possible."

"Got it."

Donker wasn't really feeling confident. She knew those filaments weren't powerful, at least not on their own. And they wouldn't care about her. They were made with the will of destroying the worms, everything else was secondary to those barely sentient beings. But she had no other choices. Schim was right. Those black things would find a way out and get to Weil, with who knows how much strength.

A sound of distant shattered glass reached them. The two mares turned their heads, only to see, far away, a cloud of black smoke rising up. No, it wasn't smoke. Those were worms. One of those black crystals had been broken and they were now swarming around its remains.

"Crap!" Donker cursed.

"Follow me!" the filaments shouted, one of them splitting from the group and blazing past the blue unicorn.

"Don't die!" Donker said to her friend, before rushing behind the soul fragment.

"Don't get turned into one of those!" Schim replied.

They could still communicate with their radio, it had enough reach for a few kilometers. But, from now on, they would be almost on their own.

The gray pegasus turned to the five other filaments.

"I'm ready. Lead me to them."