As we glided over the city, my heart felt sick as I gazed downwards. Charred husks, swaths of destruction in spots. And through the entirety of it all, a detached part of my mind still marveled at how good my eyesight was, being able to pick details out from as high as I was flying. A part of Pegasi magic I had never considered. Just as the added endurance from the Earth pony magic bled into all aspects of my being now.
But I couldn’t stay detached forever. I reached inside and brought up the spell I had used the other night to bear again, silver-white aura’s springing to life around everypony below us. I tried to block Twilight’s bright magenta glow from my sight by flying slightly ahead of her.
“See anything yet?” I heard her ask over the sound of the wind in my ears.
I shook my head while keeping my sight pointed mostly down. So much silver light was below us as ponies went about their days as though chaos wasn’t reigning in the streets at night. I had briefly weighed the option of seeing if Discord knew anything, but he was nowhere to be found right now.
Just when a Draconequus would have been useful, too.
The silver mist of auras below glimmered like water in the afternoon sun, and I began to shift my wing angle to bank slightly when a flash of red caught my eye. I froze, hovering with Twilight pulling up short just beside me. I fixed the spot in my eyesight, squinting slightly to focus. So much silver, the tiny freckle of red was both easy to spot and hard to track, it passed through such thick groups as though it was mist. Then the red joined another glimmer of crimson, then two more, slowly growing into an angry red blob that made my eyes ache with the glow.
I shut my spell down, eyes closing briefly before I turned to my fellow princess.
“They’re gathering in the Square of the Moon,” I told Twilight as I tucked my wings in for a dive.
“They wouldn’t dare,” I heard Twilight gasp before the sound of speeding wind tore her voice from my awareness.
And moments before I reached the square, the entirety of the area vanished, blotted out by a dome of shadow. I slammed to the ground, wings flared and I threw up a kinetic shield in time for a trio of those strange arc shaped magic bolts to slam against it.
So, you can see through this, I grimly thought, the teal sheen of my horn’s aura tinging red. I combined the aura spell I had been using moments ago with a light spell and thrust upwards with my horn as though spearing someone with it’s blunted tip.
The magic sheared out, blasting away a small portion of the inky black, giving Twilight a spot to land in near me. I saw the swirling red in front of me and I shifted the path of my spell forward, sealing the dome again, a tunnel spreading before me, the base of Luna’s statue revealed.
And one of the things clinging to it’s smooth rock face. Twilight gasped audibly and I took an involuntary step back.
It was a pony by only the most vague of definitions. Its body was pockmarked with bits of pulsing red flesh, pustules dotted the regular flesh. It had one batwing and one wing-like appendage lacking anything that should have helped to bear it aloft. Veins stood out starkly against it’s pallid coat, but those were not what caused us shock.
In place of a muzzle, it had a writhing mass of tentacle-like things below one large red eye with no visible iris or pupil. Upon seeing that we could see it, the tentacles spread, revealing a beak-like protuberance that spread open and gave a harsh shriek. It rushed us as an answering shriek rose all around us.
“Luna’s Moon!” I swore as I doubled up on my shield, catching it on the exterior. It clung like a spider, scrabbling for an opening as though the fact it was hanging in mid-air was no worry for it. “What in Equestria is it?”
I didn’t hear anything beyond the shrieking, and when I turned, I saw Twilight just staring. “Twilight!”
“I’m sorry, Sunset,” she said. “I’m terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought right now.”
I felt a feedback surge in my horn and turned my attention back to my opponent, and took a step back as I saw it force a tentacle through a hole in my shield. I felt it start to shake, and the strain was starting to give me a mild headache. I shut down my aura and light spells, focusing on the shield, trying to seal the breach before it was split wider.
“Twilight,” I grunted. “Little help?”
I felt her magic start spreading along side mine, easing the pressure in my head. I took a deep breath and shifted my shield’s shape, capturing the creature in it, meeting it’s baleful red eye. It gazed at me in impotent hate, tentacles flailing against my shield.
“Well,” I gritted through the effort. “Now maybe we’ll get to the bottom of…”
The creature froze, it’s limbs going stiff as a keening wail flew from it. I pinned my ears back against my head at the noise, seeing Twilight do the same.
That’s when the creature exploded into a mist of red-black fluid, splattering the inner surface of the caging sphere it had been trapped in. I released the sphere with a growl, the liquified remains splattering onto the stone as the shadow spell lifted.
I looked around and tried to control my breathing. No damage had been done, so we managed to avert one event, but we gained next to nothing regarding who we were facing. We had a face to put to the aggressors, but I had no knowledge of what the nightmarish creature had been.
Looking at Twilight, though, I had a feeling she did. The mere sight of it had terrified her into inaction for a few moments, and she had faced off against some of the worst threats Equestria had ever seen.
“What the ever-loving buck was that thing, Twilight?” I asked, fluffing my wings to settle some of the feathers more comfortably.
“An elder blight,” she whispered, her ears twisting to and fro as though keeping track of any possible attack. Her nervous, on edge manner made my coat stand on end. Despite years of time with human mannerisms, I had to fight the urge to turn, ears alert for any sound.
“A what?”
She looked at me, her eyes so wide her pupils looked tiny.
“It’s bad, very bad,” she said. “They shouldn’t be in the world at all.”