//------------------------------// // Chapter 18 // Story: The Collapse // by Lightwavers //------------------------------// Lyra walked at the very back of the group, content to just listen. The others could have their arguments or discussions. They were all either smart, strong, or skilled in magic. She was just somepony who could blow up musical notes and do a few chores to make this whole misadventure go better. “So how did you two escape the Everfree? And...what happens to those who get don’t escape?” Twilight asked Applejack, levitating a spellbook in front of her. She seemed to have it out at all times, and when asked said she needed it to keep her thoughts organized. Lyra mentally shrugged. She wasn’t one to judge. “Well...I don’t rightly know myself,” Applejack said, stretching out her words. “Pinkie’d probably be willing to tell y’all about it, but I can’t say I understand her explanations.” Twilight sped up her pace until she reached Pinkie Pie, who was happily bouncing along the gravel path. The inside of the Everfree was weird. Every living thing seemed to have disappeared, including the grass. The result was an alien landscape made up of dirt and rocks. And they were all going uphill, so nothing much was visible ahead. “Pinkie, how did you and Applejack escape the forest? As I understood it, once you’re caught inside without a shield, you’re done for.” “Oh, it was easy! I just put Applejack in my mane and carried her until we left. I didn’t know where we were because I didn’t have my sextant, so I accidentally led us here instead of outside,” Pinkie Pie said. What? If Twilight didn’t ask why she was lying, Lyra would do it herself. “In your...mane?” Twilight... Lyra thought, actually bringing her hoof up to her face before realizing what she was doing and hastily putting it down as if she were making an extra long step. “Yep! It’s where I store all the important stuff. I’m kind of tired right now though, and sleep isn’t helping, so I use it as much as I want to. I think it’s the forest,” Pinkie Pie said to the side as if she were talking about a naughty foal in hearing range. Pinkie Pie then bounced into the air, flatly contradicting everything she’d said about being ‘tired.’ “I see...” Twilight said thoughtfully. “So what spells do you know?” Pinkie Pie froze mid-bounce. In the air. It was kind of creepy. Her eyes slowly moving until they met Twilight’s made it even more so. Then she continued bouncing like nothing had happened. “Spells? Silly Twilight. I don’t know any of those!” Twilight scrambled back, eyes wide, and started taking deep breaths. “What are you?” “Aw. Did I scare you?” Pinkie Pie ended her bounce and began walking normally. Her body seemed to droop even while she maintained a fairly respectable walking pace. “Um. A little? It’s just, professor Radiance here can sort of do spells too, but...not like that. The older earth pony sighed. “Pinkie, I think we can tell them. Twilight already has it pretty much figured out.” “Oh...are you sure?” Pinkie said. “No. But they’re not monsters.” “Hmm. I guess you’re right! Hey, you guys wondering where the Everfree puts everypony?” Lyra jerked to a halt. How were Pinkie and Radiance’s secret spells connected to that? “Okay, so you know how the Everfree sort of wraps a bunch of vines around you and drags you off somewhere?” “No...” Lyra said, unable to stop herself from voicing the word. “Oh.” Pinkie Pie paused for a second. “Well, that’s what it does. Anyway, I had an idea, so I went in the direction everyone got dragged off to.” “Pinkie, how come you never told me about this? And I was there, at least at first. Them vines dragged everypony off to completely different places each time,” Applejack said, looking askance at Pinkie. “Oh, yeah at first they went all over the place, but then they went in one direction.” “Perhaps I should explain,” Radiance said, looking around. Everypony (and griffon) was staring at the two earth ponies. “Right. Earth pony magic has nothing to do with the Everfree, in case you were wondering.” Lyra breathed a silent sigh of relief. “We naturally absorb ambient magic, and if taught, we can twist the magic inside of us into spell-like abilities called Talents—like thought patterns. But we can’t summon magic out of nowhere like unicorns can, and we only have ten Talents,” Radiance continued, settling into his lecture voice. A smile spread across his face and he became more animated than any other time Lyra had seen him during the trip. “Any earth pony who knows a Talent can teach a pupil how to use any Talent they possess, or they can put the structure of the Talent into a crystal, which we can eat to temporarily use the Talent. After the War of the Races...well, anypony who still knew a Talent had to hide it.” Twilight looked thoughtful. “Interesting...I’d always assumed that war was heavily exaggerated. One of my books talked about earth ponies possessing ‘evil forms of ancient magics.’” Then she looked wide-eyed at Radiance. “But you don’t have to hide your abilities anymore! No one’s going to hunt you down over it.” “Yeah! And it’d show those snobs at Canterlot who think they’re better than everypony else just because they’re super skilled at magic,” Rainbow Dash said, then hesitated. “Um, no offense.” “None taken,” Twilight and Radiance said. They looked at each other. “That’s not true at all! I heard from Maud’s friend’s uncle that someone he knew used a Talent in the open, and then a secret society hunted him down and put him in the dungeons!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing again. “And I too have a distant relative who died after disclosing his abilities,” Radiance said. “But what about the ponies? Where did the Everfree put them?” Lyra blurted out, unable to keep silent any longer. She missed Bon Bon. “Oh, they’re somewhere near this spooky old castle in the middle of the old Everfree. But there are a ton of super mean vines there, so I couldn’t get too close.” Rarity looked at her metal plate. “If that castle is where I think it is, we might just be able to free those poor ponies and get rid of this horrid forest all at once.” “Excellent,” Twilight said. The group traveled in silence for a bit. “Is it just me, or is there no ambient magic here?” Radiance finally said. “Ain’t just you sug—uh, Radiance. I’m having to work near twice as hard just to keep the plants from dying off. Anything I don’t tend to just up and disappears come night time.” Applejack turned her head slightly as she spoke, but still scanned the road ahead. The focus she had on the task put Lyra on edge. “Yes!” Lyra looked at Twilight, startled at the exclamation. The purple unicorn was prancing in place. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been bursting to ask you, but I couldn’t say anything or I’d biased you, and you’re not listening, so I’ll get to the place where I explain,” Twilight said all in one big breath. “The Everfree’s always been a highly magical place with clearly defined boundaries. No one knows why that is. But we know that it’s a Domain, so it has to have a purpose. And based on my observations, that purpose is probably to collect a certain level of magic. Which means something must have disrupted the level of magic in the Everfree, and so now it’s expanding to collect more. But it can’t get enough to sustain what it already has, so it soaks up all the ambient magic from an area and then moves on to get more magic from a new area.” Lyra struggled to understand the deluge of words that assaulted her ears. That was...good? Now that Twilight knew what was going on, the smart ponies could get together and talk about how to fix it. “That sounds mighty interesting, but we’re here. Welcome to Ponyville. It’s a bit of a mess,” Applejack said, gesturing. Lyra looked in her direction, then flinched back slightly. They were on the edge of a cliff, but that wasn’t the part that caused her reaction. In a valley below rotted a village. Houses were shattered and vivisected, fences and other stationary objects twisted and broken, and inorganic refuse littered the streets, which themselves were marked with impressions, crisscrosses on depressed dirt where the Everfree had sent vines into the town. “We’re going in there?” Rainbow Dash said. “Nah. Ponyville’s...a bit of a wreck right now. Sweet Apple Acres is too, but it’s functional and I’ve got a lot of the damage patched up.” Applejack led the group down a switchback. Everyone followed silently, even Gilda, who Lyra had never seen in Ponyville before.