The party was long over and Twilight had herded most ponies out of here to get some room to work. Not that it wasn't still fairly crowded right now with five alicorns and a unicorn.
It wasn't the biggest building in the first place, but that many people shouldn't have made it look crowded... if it wasn't for the massive stone table in the middle of it, taking up space and as we gave them as much room as possibly as not to get in the way of their portal.
Midnight was dressed up fully in a silver and purple set of alicorn armour, a pair of saddle bags carried across her bag with her things and my gift of a pocket version of all my current books in it.
Her Spike was next to her, wearing a helmet and some chainmail. It wasn't as much use on him, because, well, dragon. But it was better than nothing
Midnight looked emotional as she looked at us across the table, "I'll miss you, all of you."
"We'll miss you too," Twilight answered, her ears drooping, "and I'll miss having a sister."
The hugging and well wishing was already over. I'm going to miss her, even if the time we had to actually hang out had been limited on both our sides. Her research and my... everything... made it difficult.
Midnight smiled sadly at her, "Me too," before she shook her head and took a deep breath, looking at us, "...Okay, everypony better step back when Twi and I cast the spell. Don't want anypony else going through with me and Spike, that would be bad."
To say the least. I backed well away with Sunset to the side of Celestia and Luna. I did not want to end up in yet another new world! Buck that.
Spike waved to his local counterpart, "Bye," and then climbed onto Midnight's back.
"Bye," Spike answered, peeking out from his place behind the librarians counter. Kid was smart and stayed way back.
"Ready?" Midnight asked, looking at Twilight.
"On three?" Twilight agreed with a nod.
"Three... two... one..."
I slipped my wing across Sunsets back as they counted down and she shifted nervously a bit closer as we watched.
For a couple of seconds nothing happened but their horns started to glow. Then a bright beam lashed out from their horns and met in the middle of the table. The entire thing started to glow brightly, crackling with energy before a new bream shot up into the air above it to form a bright dot that started to slowly grow and expand.
The two elements of magic poured on the power and even across the room I could feel the pure energy in the spell tug at my mane and tail. The just pure power the two mares could put out was jaw dropping.
It was at about that moment I realized that I might have ranked the alicorns wrong. Celestia wasn't the strongest one.
A moment later, I realized something was wrong. About at the same time as multiple thick and slimy grey tentacles lashed out from the portal and grabbed for anypony in range.
"Motherfu-" I started and threw up a spell shield as Sunset ducked out from beneath my wing,
"Twi! CANCEL THE SPELL!"
But it was too late, the thickest tentacle lashed across the table and smacked Twilight across the barrel before she could react, sending her flying into a bookshelf with a heavy thunk and crack of what hopefully was broken shelves as books went flying. The spell instantly faltered and Midnight cried out in surprise, just barely able to teleport out of the way, bringing her Spike along as one of the tentacles tried to wrap around one of her legs.
But the hole in the air didn't collapse with the spell, the tentacles almost seemed to strain against the sides, forcing it wider and wider.
Dropping my shield, I cast a cutting spell against the closest tentacle, severing the tip, "Luna!"
"I am on it," Luna answered firmly, casting her own cutting spell towards another of the tentacles, cutting it in half with a spray of ichor. It instantly retreated through the portal and was replaced by a new one. But the portal kept growing.
"Midnight, get Twilight and the Spikes out of here," Celestia ordered and cut off a tentacle of her own, "We'll hold them back."
"Buck holding them back!" Sunset snarled and sent a jet of flame towards the center of the portal, "Blast them!"
A tentacle lashed towards me and I threw up a shield, letting it bounce off before I cut it off, "Sunny, more dots! It's working!"
And it was working, they didn't like her fire, not even a little bit. But it wasn't working anywhere near good enough. The hole was widening and more and more of the tentacles were forcing their way through despite her jets of flame. And I didn't want to know what kind of cthulhu looking motherfucker all those things were attached too.
"Celestia!" I yelled and ducked beneath a flying tentacle tip after Luna's spell blasted it into two, "Burn the fucker!"
"I can't! Not in the middle of a village!"
I hissed and sent a spear of ice up through the growing portal. It didn't seem to help, but it made me feel a bit better.
Midnight teleported back in with a flash of magic and I quickly rushed over to her, ducking beneath a flailing tentacle on the way "Midnight! Get everypony out of the town! Can you do it quickly!?"
She looked at me in surprise before she set her jaw and nodded, "...Give me a minute!" she said before she was gone in a flash again.
"...I'm not sure we have a minute," I said to empty air, looking towards the abomination trying to force its way into reality before I was forced to teleport behind the librarians counter to avoid being a second before I ducked back out and returned fire with cutting spells and spears of ice.
They just had to open a portal to some H.P. Lovecraft dimension eh?
Oh hello eldritch horror, are you here to learn about the magic of friendship too?
Expected trouble. Did not expect Cthulu.
That was... unexpected.
10380911
Does anyone ever really expect Cthulhu, though?
Hiver as always managed to suprise everyone.
Only question is, they missfired spell into some void or they casted it accuratly and some Cthulhu larper managed to attack canon-universe? If it's second, then it will become very dark and that would mean, that Discord managed to destroy planet for lolz.
And, where is f****ng Discord, why he isn't helping repair shit, he caused in first place? Damn bastard.
Discord: ...Okay, who opened the portal to the prison pocket dimension where I trapped my third ex-wife?
Blank Page: One of your ex-wives was a freaking tentacled Lovecraftian HORROR?!?!
Discord: Oh, no. That was one of her toys, she may be my Ex, but I wasn't about to trap her with no way to enterta-
Blank Page: NOPE! Heard enough, don't near to hear anymore, would rather be blasted by Celestia again.
AH ELDRITCH HORROR
Hentai... hentai finds a way.
10380922
I always imagine veteran mages saying, "You want chthulu? Because that's how you get chthulu," when ever they need admonish their apprentices.
Dear God.
Tentacles. Tentacles of Friendship!
Blank Page (deadpan): I've seen enough Hentai to know where this is going.
Well... at least it wasn’t the univers made entirely of shrimp.
1.
Shining Armor:Honey she didn't mean it this wa-
Cadence: AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGHT?!....
Do I have to dye my fur purple?
2.
Page:Discord!
*Discord appears *
Discord :What?.... Oh
Page:Discord, someone from family! ?
10380979
I feel the one about princess cadence is accurate much less the, in short of it, "discord; is this thing a relative of yours?"
Uuuuh..... I hope that was not her actual home on the other side.
10380910
SHAPELESS HORROR ONLY WANT HUG
Me: runs in there with a fork and knife
Page: WTF
Me: "what, i haven't had calamari in a while now"
Ok well shit, if page doesn't become an alcoholic after this idk what will phase him. I mean its one thing knowing something like discord exists, but knowing for absolute certain that extradimensional horrors also exist is a whole nother thing one which the human (and probably pony) mind cannot parse
Okay, that was unexpected. I hope they will all make it out there alive.
Well Shit... Gives me flashbacks to 'Off the Mark'.
Was the spell wrong? Did to mutch time pass?
Perhaps a simpel case of bad luck? Hard to tell...
Why isnt Discord there? His presents isnt causing chaos unless he do it on purpose! I would expect him to be there... Or notice this thing the moment it tried to get into Discords playing ground to spoil it
Lets hope that the nice kind of tentical monster...
No matter if the not so nice or the niceee~ Kinda... sure there fucked ♡ if they dont stop it...
I kinda get Prince of Persia vibes on a more seriouse side.
Thanks for the new chapter! Looking forward to the update!
Wait shouldn’t the knowledge about such a thing be enough to drive you into madness?
Eldritch horrors aren’t what they are advertised.
(Going from pop culture only, never read a HP. Book. So feel free to criticize my understanding of it. 😅)
Oh, and in the Pageverse it seems like Sunshine will be the reason Twi needs a new place.
...Did... Did they just... summon Hermaeus Mora?
Well believe me, I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid and...I went ahead anyway.
I wonder if they opened a portal to a schmooze-infested Equestria instead.
10381197
Wrong color
He is more inky black with a little touch of green
Oooh! Tropical Sea Shogoth! I haven't tasted one of those in a long time. Any body have some Wasabi?
10381191
It is a correct understand of Lovecraft. It is not a correct understanding of humans, especially modern humans; the "Pale Blue Dot" was supposed to be what was scary about Cthulhu et al, and we put it on a t-shirt.
10381191
10381363
ya lovecraft had a naive understanding of the human aspect (wonder how an antisocial manic depressed man managed to do that) that's kind of why spoofing it works so well because you're supposed to be frozen in terror, not picking up a stick to poke It in curiosity
there is more to it, like he had a notion that humans were cosmically inferior to nearly everything out there which still is quite a strong trope especially their indifference to humans like the mi-go and their insistence that putting your brain in a jar and wearing your flayed skin as a coat is a wonderful idea
he also believed that there was knowledge that was ineffable to humanity, though that part has not aged well at all given the massive leaps in our understanding of the nature of the universe since his death (kind of understandable given the time though) now the trope is sort of that we can't actually responsibly use that knowledge or to obtain it from the old ones is a bit of a cheat that will absolutely backfire
I've been getting into Warhammer 40k and a lot of lovecraft carries over
My Predictions for Next Chapter
Page and co somehow put the Thing back into the portal-thing
*page looks at a scratch on his leg*
"Whew that was too clo.... Hey what are all you robed ponies doing here and where did you even come from."
"HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, TENTICLE-JESUS?"
"MIDNIGHT, LUNA FIRE UP THE PORTAL THIS UNIVERSE IS DONE FOR!"
*Cadance and Discord stares wide eyed*
Discord: ...Maybe we should have let Angel Bunny begin his rampage after all...that would have been better than tentacles...
Cadance: *meekly nods*
Angel Bunny: GRRRRR *muffled under the chains and ropes holding him down*
yeah... saw something like this happening, it does not matter how many calculations you have done Infinity is Still infinity, and apparently some of those universes were under the control of Lovecraftian monsters
10381395
Don’t forget that lots of Lovecraft’s work was based on sub-prime understanding, even at the time. He didn’t get or didn’t bother to get what the actual science was about. (See “the colour out of space” for the electro magmatic spectrum. His misunderstanding of what an air conditioner is, as well as how cold affects the body with “Cool Air”. And his belief that the world is flat and thus his misunderstanding of non-euclidian geometry and architecture being something extra ordinary, “Call of Cthulu”)
10380922
Only in strange small towns in New Shetland.
10380935
This made me cackle!
Nothing can stop
The Smooooze~
10381532
ya in that era a lot of pseudoscience was mingled with legitimate science and people had little to no formal education to differentiate either. Thats not to say it was exclusively lovecraft's problem, scifi authors for decades to come would make glaring scientific errors, you just have to look past them when revisiting their works
Well that could have gone worse, had it been another few seconds they'd have already gone through the portal and been trapped there and nobody got pulled through! Meaning this can be a quick side event rather than a rescue mission.
Even if they have to rebuild the town as it looks like it's about to get nuked from orbit because "it's the only way to be sure™"
Big question now is did twilight screw up again? (hopefully) as the alternative is way worse.
What in the name of Celestia was THAT ending.
Thanks for a cliff hanger, but seriously great chapter!
Of course, any universe-hopping would be preferred to not include pony-eating eldritch abominations from beyond time and space...
Sunset has seen too much Internets to let that thing get through. She knows full well that if it gets through the rating on this story is going out the window.
"Beware what hides in the shadows, inbetween the light, in void." -forgot who said it.
This is what happens when you try to break barriers that aren't meant to be broken
10381020
It only wants a bone crushing hug
..... this chapter seems like it just completely came out of left field.
11169930
Well, yes.
Because there are some days when it's just... kinda like that.
Remember 9/11? Until that first plane hit, it was a Tuesday.
I guess Midnight is here to stay, and this is how the library gets destroyed. Some events are inevitable? Crystal Castle of Friendship, ho!
10381191
Just another day in Ponyville...
10381197
Who is that?
10381234
Ponyville citizens logic
10381272
Everyone can have a make over from millenia to millenia...
10381363
Buy the T-shirt and date the monster waifu!
Cthulhu:
11648740
Hermaeus Mora is the Daedric Prince of Knowledge from the Elder Scrolls series.
How did I know they'd f**k up the portal spell? I wasn't expecting Cthulhu, but I was expecting something explosive. After all, we can't get the Castle of Friendship without blowing up the treebrary. (Well, I guess we could, but that would be boring.)