The abduction
Once upon a time…
Grimm sat upon his oaken throne, his muzzle drawn in a scowl as his blazing green eyes surveyed the forest clearing. Its edges were bordered by towering trees, their twisting branches climbing up into the cloudy skies to form a canopy that darkened the forest below. The clearing itself had only one tree present in the center; an enormous oak that dwarfed all the ones that surrounded it. That oak was the very heart of the forest. The oldest, the strongest, the one that held the most magic. Grimm’s gaze shifted upwards to look upon its boughs, each one as thick as a normal tree’s trunk. Its leaves were thick and plentiful, each one a dark, vivid green. It looked as if the branches formed a forest themselves.
Grimm’s eyes widened as he felt something shift in his realm. Something had touched it, something from the land in which he and his forest once dwelt. Magic began to stir in his bones as realized what had happened. Immediately he reached down and pulled something from beneath his throne, setting it before him.
It was an enormous book, bound in an ancient hide. Pressed into the cover was a series of symbols wrought from iron, in a text that only those as old as Grimm could read. With a grunt he opened its covers and began to leaf through its yellowed, parchment pages. He seemed to search for an eternity before he found his place. His mouth moved to form a hideous grin as he ran his eyes over the text. It grew even wider as he moved to see a picture on the neighboring page. There, in an image that seemed to be from an old woodcut, was a unicorn crouched over a book. Grimm let out a guttural laugh. It did not sound at all pleasant.
Trixie let a sigh of boredom escape her lips as she sifted through the dog-eared pages of the old book. Resting her chin in one hoof, she gazed with half-closed eyes at the text. From what she gathered it was a collection of fairy tales meant for foals. Not that she cared. She wasn’t even really reading it. It was raining out, and her ‘new’ cart leaked terribly. Finding the dampness unacceptable, Trixie had relocated herself to another establishment. A library. She had very little spending money these days, so paying a visit a café or restaurant was out of the question. Thus, Trixie found herself in a dusty little library browsing through literature she didn’t care for.
The unicorn mare flipped through page after page of the dusty book, briefly skimming a word or two. Occasionally she would come across a picture. She would stare at its angular, primitive styling before moving onward. She moved in this manner for about an hour, until she came to the back of the book. It was then that she saw something that drew her out of her static state of mind.
There was one last picture. Trixie’s magenta eyes widened as she looked upon it. There seemed to be nothing special about it, at least compared to the other illustrations. It depicted a large, shaggy goat sitting in an elaborately carved chair. Trixie raised an eyebrow as she gazed into the creature’s face. It glared back, its aged features drawn in a cantankerous sneer. The magician felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, though she had no idea why. She felt no fear, though the picture did seem a bit…off, somehow. Almost as if it was looking directly at her. The mare grasped the book in her magic and closed it, the sound of the covers slapping together ringing out across the quiet little library.
Almost instantly the book snapped open again, and fell flat on the table as a beam of sinister green light blasted out of its pages. Trixie stumbled back, eyes and mouth gaping with terror as a loud groan filled the library, sounding as if some leviathan monster was awakening. Books tumbled down off of huge shelves as the building began to quake. This chaos was worsened as every one of the library’s windows shattered, letting in a wild gale from the storm outside. Trixie crouched down in fear as the rogue wind tore pages from the falling books, bringing them into a vortex around the raging beam of green light.
The magician ducked her head beneath her forelegs, letting out a whimper that couldn’t be heard through the howling storm. Trixie’s mind raced with terror. She had no idea what was happening. All she did know that it was centered around that old book, the book that now appeared to be bringing down the library around her. She tightened her forelegs around her ears as the floorboards groaned, as the walls roared in futile resistance to the storm, as the shelves creaked back and forth. And yet through all this noise, she heard something else. A laugh. A long, rasping, hideous laugh. It stretched on for so long that Trixie would have given anything to make it stop.
Far away in another library, Twilight Sparkle heard the same laugh as she stumbled out the door, Spike trailing behind her. The mare’s eyes swiveled about wildly as she looked at the pandemonium that had overtaken the town. The sound of hooves dashing madly across the cobblestone streets was intermingled with the harsh rattling of the trembling buildings. A chorus of panicked screams came from every corner as dark clouds rolled in overhead, obscuring the light of Celestia’s sun. Streaks of green lightning lashed out from the storm like whips, striking whatever they could reach.
There was a deafening crack as the clock tower gave way to the raging tempest. The bells inside gave a series of feeble, distorted chimes as it toppled over into the street, heading directly for the mare and her companion. In the last few seconds the dragon grabbed the unicorn by the tail and dragged her to safety, just as the tower came crashing down into the streets, the clock faces bursting open, allowing a myriad of gears to spill out across the cobblestone. Twilight turned, still in shock, to her rescuer.
“T-…Thank you, Spike,” she gulped. Her voice was so quiet and meek that the dragon was barely able to make out her words. He nodded, still staring at the splintered remains of the clock tower. Both beings were suddenly thrown to the ground as the earth beneath them shuddered violently. Twilight rolled over, scrambling to get to her hooves, when the air around her began to flicker. Tall, twisting shapes shimmered into a partial existence, their transparent forms rapidly fading in and out, as if they were trying to become real. It took the mare a minute to realize they were trees, far larger than any she had ever seen before. From what Twilight could tell, it looked as if an entire forest was trying to appear where Ponyville stood.
The mare looked to her side to see Spike crawling over to her. She could see the fear in his eyes as he tried to help her to her hooves. Grasping his claw, Twilight arose, but could hardly stand against the tempest winds that now bombarded the town. The icy air stung her eyes as she looked through the ghostly forest, trying to decide on her next move.
The trees suddenly vanished, as if being pulled back from whence they came. The tremors came to an abrupt halt, and the winds slowed until they were no more. The clouds began to fade, and the sky soon returned to a vivid blue. The only proof the tempest left of its existence was the damage it had caused.
And the fact that all over Equestria, a good many ponies were missing.
Trixie let out a deep breath as she felt the library floor cease its trembling. In fact, the floor ceased to be floor at all. Rather than scuffed wooden planks, the magician felt cold, wet soil against her body. The unicorn suddenly noticed a change in temperature as well. Where as she had been warm and cozy in the library only seconds earlier, Trixie now felt a chill wash over her skin. Confused and a little afraid, the mare opened her eyes.
She found herself gazing out across a forest floor littered with wet leaves and twigs, surrounded by towering trees. Trixie uncovered her ears. Silence. Aside from the occasional rustle of the wind through the branches overhead, all was quiet. The unicorn slowly rose to her hooves, a strange feeling churning in the pit of her stomach as she looked up at the trees, their branches so thick that they blocked out what little light made it through the dark clouds overhead.
The mare turned her attention to her surroundings. She shuffled about in a circle, finding that wherever she gazed, the forest stretched on for as far the eye could see. Trixie saw no road, no path of any kind. Her face grew pale. Nothing. There was nothing out here. This place was wild, untouched by equine-kind. Trixie grimaced as an overwhelming sense of dread crept into her mind. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew one thing.
She wasn’t in Equestria anymore.