Moonchaser slowly opened her eyes. Looking around, she saw that she was in a small clearing in a forest. As her mind slowly shook off the fog of forced unconsciousness, she noticed Inkwell off at one side of the clearing tapping the ground with his forehooves, while Dust Runner and Lotus Blossom were talking in low tones over by a small pool of water. Sunbeam and Contrail were nowhere to be seen.
Then Moonchaser felt her mind freeze, she closed her eyes and slowly replayed everything she had just seen. Opening them again, she confirmed that yes, she had just seen that.
"Ummm..." Her voiced surprise drew the attention of the clearings other occupants.
"Yes, they are real, no, I don't know how it happened, yes, they do work, and can you please let me concentrate?" Inkwell rattled off without even looking at her. It seemed rehearsed. Looking at their friends' facial expressions, Moonchaser realized that it probably was. She shot Dust Runner a questioning gaze.
The mare shrugged. "He's been like that since we woke up, although there was a lot less of that stuff on the wall then..."
Looking back around, Moonchaser saw for the first time that Inkwell was surrounded by floating pieces of chalk that were drawing things on the side of the small cliff that formed one border of the clearing. Said chalk was being dispensed piece by piece directly from the cliff by a complex shape that Moonchaser could only assume was one of Inkwell's circle... rune... magic spell thingies. She could only assume that the piece of slate he was tapping his forehooves on was obtained and marked in a similar fashion.
"Where are Sunbeam and Contrail?" The noblemare queried.
Lotus Blossom answered her, "They left a little while ago to try and find some food. None of us think that Inkwell's going to be much help for a bit."
Suddenly the stallion in question broke his silent concentration. "Aaaaaaarrrggghhhh! It doesn't matter how many ways I look at it, it shouldn't be possible! The only way that it works is if Discord was trying to turn each of us into a different flavor of cheesecake! What am I missing here!" He walked over to one of the trees and began smacking his head against it.
Moonchaser slowly stood up and began to walk over to him. Halfway there though, she stopped, her attention captured by one of the symbols Inkwell had etched onto the cliff. Her eyes widened in shock as she recognized it. Then they narrowed in rage. Then Inkwell's abuse of a perfectly innocent tree was interrupted by a flying tackle from an angry mare.
The stallion was sent sprawling. Landing on his back, he looked up and found himself staring into a glare colder than any blizzard. "How do you know that symbol?" Moonchaser's voice matched her eyes exactly.
"I-I-I don't... wait... which symbol?"
"That symbol. The symbol! My family's secret crest!"
It was Inkwell's turn to widen his eyes in shock. "Show me." He whispered.
Moonchaser seemed to be caught off guard by this. She stepped back slowly. "I can't. I'm not supposed to show anypony. Dust Runner is the only one I've ever-"
Inkwell cut her off, "Not the crest, the symbol. On the wall." He motioned with a hoof towards his calculations. "Show me."
Hesitantly Moonchaser began to walk back to the wall. As she was about to point to it, a cry stopped her.
"Moonchaser, wait!" Dust Runner came galloping over. She stepped between Moonchaser and Inkwell and locked eyes with the stallion. "If you ever, ever use this against her, so help me I'll-" she was cut off by a burst of clicking. A lengthy burst of clicking that including the physical actions of running his right hoof down the length of his left wing and tapping his heart twice. "Not good enough. I want you to swear it to me. Use the full oath." He locked eyes with her for a moment before slowly nodding. He fired off six clicks.
The instant the sixth click was sounded, twin streams of blue fire burst from the corners of his mouth, winding their way around his head and down his neck, across his back to his wings. Each of them wound its way up from the base of one of his wings, splitting again at the tips, all four streams spiraling down his wings before separating from each other at the bases. They then proceeded to wind their way down his legs, each spreading across the ground from a different hoof. The fires found their way to Dust Runner and then proceeded to repeat the pattern they had just made on Inkwell's body in reverse for her, only varying at the very end as the flames found their way into her ears instead of her mouth.
Inkwell stretched his forehooves out in front of him and lowered his head, wings flaring wide and angling down. "I am in your hooves."
Dust Runner shivered and then nodded at him, stepping to the side and allowing him to walk up beside Moonchaser.
As Moonchaser opened her mouth to say something, Inkwell cut her off, "If you value your friendship with Dust Runner at all, then never mention what just happened to anypony. Ever." He motioned towards the wall of writing with a hoof. "Now then, which of the symbols here is the one you thought was your family's 'secret crest?'"
She tapped one of them with a forehoove. "This one."
His eyes widened. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes."
"Moonchaser... do you know what that symbol means?"
She began to worriedly and slowly shake her head.
Inkwell sighed. "Moonchaser that symbol... it means..." He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear that made her eyes widen with shock. He pulled back and looked her directly in the eyes. "Moonchaser, I think I'm going to need to see that crest..."
Some time later, Moonchaser and Inkwell glided down from the top of the small cliff. The mare was looking rather shell-shocked, while the stallion's expression was decidedly and deliberately neutral. "I've got my variable now." Was all Inkwell said before walking over to his wall of calculations and getting the chalk floating again.
Moonchaser shook her head at the querying looks of Dust Runner and Lotus Blossom. She walked over to the pool and took a long drink, then shook her head as if she had been expecting something other than water. "It's not a crest." She finally muttered.
"What?"
Moonchaser looked tiredly at Dust Runner. "That symbol. It's not a crest. I thought it was a crest, but its not. Its a message."
"What did it say?"
Moonchaser finally snapped out of her daze. "No Dust Runner, that message wasn't meant to be read by anypony. Not yet. Not yet."
"But-"
"No Dusty! I can't tell you. I've put you in enough danger already. Someday, maybe, but not yet. Not now."
The awkward silence that followed remained unbroken until Sunbeam and Contrail came out of the trees, various fruits floating in their magical grasps. "We've got food!" The mare called out.
Moonchaser, Dust Runner, and Lotus Blossom let out a cheer, as much at the broekn silence as the thought of sustenance. As the mares fell upon the fruit, Contrail's gaze fell on Inkwell. "Is he still at it?"
Lotus Blossom nodded, "We got him to take an hour break a while ago, but he's determined to figure out what happened to us. He's trying to figure out how to undo it. He won't stop calling it 'my mistake.' I'm actually worried about what he might do to himself trying to get the rest of us back to normal."
The stallion snorted. "Figures. The one time a bat pony actually does something good, the only thing on his mind is udnoing it." The others went silent around him.
Moonchaser broke the silence. "You're an idiot Contrail."
"Oh really? How do you figure that?"
"For one thing," Came a voice from behind him, "You're completely oblivious to your surroundings."
Contrail turned and locked gazes with the other stallion. Inkwell merely smirked and walked around him, taking a peach and a pear from the pile of fruit. He sat down facing the deep orange stallion. "For another, you have less foresight than anypony I've ever met except one. These changes, they're not a blessing, they're a curse. If we could control it, then yeah, sure, that'd be nice.
"But we can't. And so we're stuck here, like this, six deadponies, hiding out in the woods, unable to go home. It's not just that nopony would know who we are, its that because of those ridiculous pseudonyms, everypony knows who we are. If we go home, we put everything and everypony we care about in danger. I have to figure out how to fix this, or all of our lives are going to be destroyed by my mistake... And I can't let that happen. Not to good ponies like you five."
Contrail nodded. Once. "Fine. I'll give you a chance. So what have you figured out so far? Do we know what happened yet?"
"Yes. I figured out what happened."
"And?"
"...It's my fault. When I modified that spell circle, I was careless. I was so sure that I could do it, and so terrified of what would happen if I failed, and so desperate to get it right... I made a mistake, and then I made another. I thought I knew everything. I assumed that I was the one with all the cards. I made the spell perfect. Too perfect. I failed to allow for variables. And then so many things changed, and now...
"Now I'm trying to pick up the pieces. Because now the fate of five of the best ponies Equestria has ever seen is resting in my hooves, and you can't afford for me to make another mistake. We got lucky this time, lucky that this was all that happened to us. But you only get lucky so many times, and your only hope right now is a failure of a wizard's apprentice who can't even use magic."
Dust Runner put a hoof on Inkwell's shoulder. "You're not a failure. You're a good pony fighting ridiculously far above his level, and impossibly succeeding. You managed to get all of us out of Discord's dungeon. You were the first one to attack the Poneekinns. You're more of a hero than any of us. The only reason we even fought is because you showed us that they could be beaten."
Sunbeam nodded. "I attacked a guard to protect that filly, but even I never would have dreamed of challenging the guard like you did." Inkwell flinched.
Contrail suddenly cocked his head. "Wait a second... those poneekinns, the first two... You never threw that stone did you? That pegasus colt that was with you, with the cutie mark of a circle with a triangle inside it, his talent... its angles, isn't it?"
Inkwell nodded. "And idealistic young colt who can see every angle and has barely more foresight than even you Contrail. Sunbeam stopped a rape. The rest of you were trying to protect a mare willing to sacrifice everything for a noble cause. I was just trying to make sure my little brother made it back home that night. If you want a hero, don't look at me."
Lotus Blossom shook her head. "It sounds to me like you managed to save more ponies than any of us. You took a walk to the gallows for your brother. I have a hard time imagining anything a pony could do that'd be more heroic than that."
"I'm not a hero!" Inkwell shouted. "Heroes get it right! So far the only thing I've managed to do is ruin five good ponies' chances at a normal life and force a colt to watch his brother's execution! Name me one heroic thing I've managed to not buck up completely!" His head dropped and tears began to flow. "I've failed everypony who ever depended on me. I changed everything, and that's still the same."
Suddenly he gasped as he felt warm hooves wrap around his neck as feathers brushed the base of his wings. "You didn't fail me." Moonchaser whispered in his ear. "Down there, in that dungeon, you stopped that guard. There was nothing any of us could do, but you stopped him in his tracks. You are the only reason I still have my honor. You saved me. At the very least, you'll always be my hero."
They stayed like that for a few minutes before slowly separating. Inkwell wiped a hoof across his eyes and opened them. The strength in them restored. "Alright, I'm good now." He took a steadying breath. "Okay, now then, I need some help here. Moonchaser managed to give me one of my missing variables, but there's still some missing data. Does anypony else have a major, life-altering secret they haven't shared with us, because if so, then now would be a really great time."
Contrail spoke up, "I don't know about secrets, but I did notice that the spell seems to have had some kind of healing factor."
"What do you mean?"
"Well I noticed that the scars on Sunbeam's back are gone now."
The palpable silence seemed to be flowing from the mare in question as she attempted to make her mouth work. Inkwell finally broke it, "Umm... Contrail? ...How?"
The other stallion gave him a confused look as he replayed what he had just said in his mind. His eyes widened. "Oh no. Oh no! Nononononononono. Nothing like that! I would never, well I mean not never, but I couldn't, not with, well, with, but not with, time and place, and, and, and, NO!!!" He took a moment to stop choking on his knee. "The cells in Discord's dungeon weren't exactly roomy, and the disguise magic must have changed their color or something, because they were very visible up close, and almost her entire back was covered in them."
Inkwell's gaze was the only one that remained level. Lotus Blossom was busy trying to keep Sunbeam from throttling Contrail, and Moonchaser and Dust Runner were desparately trying to restrain their giggles. Inkwell cocked an eyebrow. "And you know that they're gone now because?"
"We ran into a pack of Lupus Minors when we were gathering food. We wound up hiding inside of a hollow tree. It was cramped."
Inkwell looked at him for a moment before nodding. He then walked over to Sunbeam and whispered a question in her ear. Her eyes widened and she froze for an instant before nodding ever so slightly. "I'm not going to ask what happened." Inkwell said over his shoulder as he began walking towards his wall, intent on finishing his calculations before the last of his light faded away with the setting sun. Then he stopped.
"Lupus Minors." He said. He slowly turned back around to face Contrail and Sunbeam. "How did you get rid of them?"
"What?"
"The Lupus Minors, how did you get rid of them?"
Contrail shrugged. "We lost them in the woods. I already told you we hid in a hollow tree. After they left, we snuck away and came back to camp."
Inkwell paled. "You fools... You can't 'lose' a Lupus Minor, you have to subdue them. You didn't get away, they let you go. They've been hunting you." A baying was heard in the distance. "And now the hunt is about to end."