Mattie was in a dream again, one she knew was shaped by magic. There was no dreamscape this time, just her and the midnight blue mare before her that had both feathered wings and horn. She knew somehow this was a being of great power, something otherworldly, something divine.
"Hello, my dear night pony. I'm sorry to come unbidden into your dream, but I'm working in haste. You're among the last I will try to contact in the little time I was given," the midnight blue mare said.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Mattie asked with suspicion.
"I have little time so I will be brief. I am Princess Luna, you will very likely learn more about me in the near future. I am the leader of the night ponies on another world, a world that is sadly the source of your world's current affliction. We think we have found a way to prevent any further infections, but we need help," the mare said with a tone of authority.
"What kind of help?" Mattie asked. She wasn't sure she trusted this mare. Her explanation of who she was was far fetched, but so was turning into a small magical pony, so who was she to judge? Luna could just be some construct of the other night ponies to try to convince her to fall in line. But ponies were honest was one of the mantras said most often, so she would try to believe this wasn't a trick. The fact that the princess was talking about a cure for the humans, or some sort of vaccination by the sound of it, didn't seem like the kind of thing that would come from Haley.
"There are among your population crystal ponies. They have the power to spread the cure to all the humans who have not yet transformed, but we must have the crystal ponies' agreement to use them to cast this spell. I have been at work all night making contact with night ponies so they may make contact with the crystal ponies. I might make the contacts myself, but my connection to the dream realm here is not as easy to manipulate. It is easier for me to work through those more in tune with this world," Luna explained.
"Even if you could convince me to go invading the crystal ponies dreams and subverting them it is daytime where I am now. Most of them are now awake near me, so I have no dreams to go into," Mattie said.
"You seem to have a very different view of what we do than most of your fellow night ponies. If I had time I would like to converse with you more about that, and may find time in the future if events allow. But if what you say is true could you at least seek them out in the waking world and make this request for us? What is going on to your world is wrong, it is something you were forced into. We are not going to force you to return back to what you were or have the means to do that yet, but we must stop any more from being forcibly transformed. We are desperate to make this right and intend to take action today before this grows too far. I have little time and must try to reach more of your fellow ponies yet. Please answer me quickly," Luna pleaded.
"I will go and tell the ones I know about what you said. Only because you are offering them a choice. I am not going to pressure anything," Mattie said.
"Good. I will seek you out again in the future so I might learn more about you. You can explain your feelings at length then to us so we may try to understand your concerns. There are many concerns in this universe; some deeply troubling ones, as I can feel a primordial Warden already beginning to form, which must not be allowed to happen, but that is a crisis for another day. For now, I am going to force you awake. Make haste my little pony. Time is of the essence," Luna said as she faded away.
Mattie woke with a start. She had chosen to sleep off in the woods just north of the church compound rather than in it so she could sleep without any disturbances. It seemed she didn't account for magic pony gods in her list of possible disturbances. Looking at the sun she could see she had barely gotten any sleep at all, perhaps as little as a few minutes. It was still very early in the morning.
Well, ponies kept their word. She pulled herself to her hooves and then kept into the air. She didn't have much work to do, she only knew one crystal pony. It seemed she and Calvin would be catching up again much sooner than either expected. She didn't have a clue how she was going to explain a magical pony god wanted him to help with a spell to stop the spread of ETS to any more humans.
Did she even want him to help in this? If there really was some way of stopping ETS from spreading how long before the next thing was curing those who had transformed? She had no desire to change back, and she feared the prospect of being forced to.
Of course from what little she could tell this cure was going to be happening elsewhere already. The pony had said she was one of the last contacted. Did the pony really contact all the night ponies out there? Sure, they were a smaller number than most of the other types, but if you counted all the world that was still an enormous amount of ponies. There had to be thousands, perhaps as many as a hundred thousand if she was taking the whole world into account. Was that really possible to do quickly with dreams and visions? She felt that her knowledge about her capabilities and the capabilities of this one pony were extremely lacking. Invading a ponies dreams still seemed wrong, but suddenly she felt that she might actually want to learn exactly what she and others like her were capable of doing.
Arriving back at the compound she found most ponies still asleep. Her mother had been still when she left and likely was still now. She had left a message with another pony to let her mother know that she was going to sleep early and would try getting up earlier tonight instead. Seemed that message was going to be pointless; something big was happening today. Whether Calvin agreed to help or not the others all deserved to be told. She just hoped she didn't sound like a madmare trying to explain it.
She spotted Calvin quickly. He was waiting his turn for a unicorn who was opening up cans of food for ponies. She quickly landed next to him, so quickly she started him and the others around them.
"Mattie? I didn't expect you coming by to see me again so soon. I expected you would be with your mom or going to sleep. Is something wrong?" Calvin asked.
"Yes, no, have no idea. This is going to sound crazy, just call it a night pony thing if you are looking for an explanation on how, but I was contacted with a message to give to any crystal pony I could find. There is something big happening today, and they need your help," Mattie said hurriedly.
"Somepony needs specifically crystal ponies to help? As in something we can do that other ponies can't?" Calvin said with his eyes widening and a look of excitement creeping onto his face. "What do they need? I want to know what I can do, and how I fit into all this, you know that."
"Today somepony somewhere else is going to do something big. It is going to cause there to be no further humans going through transformations. They can't spread it to all the humans without ponies helping them, specifically crystal ponies," she explained.
"So like a vaccination against ETS? What about those of us who are still ponies?" Calvin asked, no longer seeming as eager.
"She said no pony will be forced to change back and I believe her," Mattie said. She believed the pony didn't intend that at least, she wasn't sure she believed others might try to do that instead. Cooperation with helping with this vaccination might help the humans see that ponies weren't a thing to be feared. If the humans learned that ponies had a way of putting a stop to further transformations and didn't then the hostility towards ponies would explode.
"I'm not sure. Am I betraying my fellow ponies if I help in this? Aren't we better off if ETS doesn't stop?" Calvin said with uncertainty. The few ponies awake and nearby were watching them now closely, various emotions spread across their faces.
"Look around you. We have set up a wall because we are afraid of what humans might do. We are trying to grow food, but with so many mouths to feed we might not have time before crops start being ready before we run out of food. Imagine if you add all the humans to that figure that we need to figure out how to feed. We will starve, they will starve. Plus on top of that the humans are scared, far more scared than we are, and being scared makes humans or ponies do terrible things. We aren't ready to have their number joining us, and we are helpless if they finally panic enough they do something drastic and start trying to purge us. We need to do this," Mattie pleaded. She said she wasn't going to pressure him, but the more she thought about it the more dire the consequences of not doing this seemed to be.
"Okay, you make some fair points. What exactly am I supposed to do?" Calvin asked as he looked at the pile of cans sat out by the unicorn to distribute, no doubt picturing them all gone. He wasn't the only one, the others watching looked at the cans and could be seen doing the math for the first time in their heads. Fear of starvation was an excellent motivator, it was a legitimate thing to be afraid of, something they should be thinking about.
"I wasn't told that. I was just told you had to agree to help or they couldn't do it. The pony that told me was in too much of a hurry to explain," Mattie said with frustration, wishing she could give a better answer.
"I don't know how I'll help if I don't know what I am even supposed to do, but I'll try my best," Calvin said apprehensively.
"That's all that was asked. Just be ready for whatever comes. I think I might need to find the others in the area. I am not sure if the other night ponies will or not," Mattie said as she considered. She didn't know most of the other night ponies, what John would do was a bit of a mystery as he never said much, but Haley didn't seem like the type who would be on-board with helping stop ETS.
"I guess I will just wait and see what happens. If you find any pretty crystal mares out there let me know," Calvin said with a smile.
"If Tonya is as forward as you say how has she not gotten you in her thrall yet with how much your mind goes to that place?" Mattie said with a raised eyebrow.
"Um, it is one thing to be looking at a mare's flank and having a little fantasy, it is a whole other to have one in your face offering to make that kind of fantasy real. She really is that up front about it. I kind of panicked and bolted," Calvin said with an embarrassed whinny.
What in the world was going on in Tonya's head? Some sort of extreme mating instinct or was she really just that into sex on her own? It didn't seem healthy. Something to confront her friend about later, not something to be concerned about now.
She took off into the air and flew towards the hospital and university. The two were right across the street from one another, and also had a variety of hotels near them that also served as shelters. This caused that area to have the highest concentration of ponies in the region by far. If she was going to find more than one or two stray crystal ponies that would be the area to check.
She brought herself to a stop as another pony approached her in the air halfway to her destination. It was John, without Haley with him.
"I take it you were visited by Luna as well?" John called out to her.
"Yes, I was hoping there were crystal ponies I could find towards the hospital," Mattie said, not sure if John was opposed to her or not.
"You need not worry about that. I have already attended to it. Most are still asleep and I gave them their dream from Luna. I was just going to check on the one back at your shelter since he was awake early today. Have you already seen him?" John asked.
"I have, and he agreed. So is this happening? Where is your partner in crime?" Mattie said. It seemed that they were going to help with this vaccination.
"Haley was of the strong opinion that Luna could go to hell. I was of the strong opinion that Haley needed to go see a doctor about the black eye that she suddenly developed after saying that," John said with a smirk, lifting his hoof up and making a punching motion in the air. "So near as I can tell this is happening, and soon. I am going to stay up and watch the fireworks. Hopefully after this the humans will ease up about us."
"I hope so," Mattie said, still a little shocked John had apparently decked Haley with a hoof. It went against how she was raised to have a male strike a female like that, not that Haley didn't likely deserve it. Something else John said caught her attention though.
"You said fireworks. Do you know what is coming?" Mattie asked.
"Of course I do, didn't you get the vision to spread?" John said with confusion.
"Um, kind of skipped that and went straight to trying to find crystal ponies awake," Mattie said, not willing to say she had rejected doing such a thing at all.
"Oh, well, there is going to be some beam of magic that is going to come in and seek out the crystal ponies. If they accept it they will power it further and spread that magic around. They are like cell phone towers or something for it. It should be a pretty spectacular light show," John explained.
"I better get back and let Calvin know exactly what to expect then. How many crystal ponies are in the area by the way?" Mattie said as she glanced back in the direction she had come, wondering how soon things would start.
"A little over two dozen in the immediate area, a few more scattered out in the boondocks further out. More than enough to cover the entire area and get the spell moving on to the next place, even if some say no," John said as he looked from horizon to horizon. "I would find a television and flip it on. Figure there is going to be all kinds of news coverage of this once it starts, most likely some sort of government statement afterward. I know I want to see how the humans react to it all. I just want them to leave us in peace, and let us build something special here."
"I hope this calms them as well. Maybe with time we can show them that what they were afraid of was change, and that we are no threat," Mattie said as she looked at the trees below her. "There is a projector in the sanctuary of the church, and I'm pretty sure the church has access to basic television channels. No pony has messed with it so far, but figure it might be a good time for everypony to sit back and learn a thing or two about what is going on outside our area, and see what kind of announcement they end up making. This impacts all of us after all."
"I'll come with you. I was a bit of an electronics nerd and I doubt being a pony now has made me forget how to connect cables properly. We can set it up together, will keep us both from falling asleep too early," John said as he flew up alongside Mattie.
"I appreciate it. Let's get going. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of scared and confused ponies we will have to be talking with soon. They believe in the spread of ETS being a good thing. It was I think, but only to an extent, and I think we have reached that for right now," Mattie said thoughtfully.
"You say that like you want it to come back after we clear it out," John said with a tilt of his head.
"Maybe, but not right now. The world isn't ready for these levels of changes all at once, it scares too many, and we aren't aware enough of what we need to be beyond what our types compel us to be. We need to know more and be better prepared on all fronts, and we need the humans to want it. If someone started this then it can be done again, under more controlled and less frightening conditions. We need to figure ourselves out and get harmony with the humans first though. Then maybe someday we can see this done the right way, without anypony having to fear it," Mattie said.
"Come to have abandoned your humanity as well then?" John asked quizzically.
"Not sure that is the right wording. More aware of who I want to be might be a better way of saying it," Mattie said with a frown.
"Well, time to stop lollygagging about here pondering the deep meaning of it all. We have ponies to attend to," John said as he started flying in the direction of the church. Mattie hurried quickly behind.