The party ran northward, Luna in the lead. She knew where they were going, if not why. They were going to the center of Sombra’s dark network, to wherever his original body rested. Though it was not a central point of failure anymore, Luna couldn’t help but believe that it held the key to taking him down.
Everyone easily kept pace with her, despite the wide range in fitness and length of stride, and not even Dash ran ahead. The landscape flowed and blurred as they galloped past, but their limbs moved heavily as if they were underwater. The army had traveled far in the waking world and they now had to reverse their tracks in the Dreaming. One would think it would take a while, but the truth was travelling in dreams was only ever loosely correlated with travel elsewhere. In fact…
Luna skidded to a stop and the others slowed behind her. She turned to glare at Nightmare Moon.
“How long were you going to let me keep going like that?” she asked irritably.
“As long as it took,” Nightmare said evenly. “You need to internalize your understanding of the Dreaming to reclaim it. Telling you would have accomplished nothing.”
“What’s going on?” Sunlit Rooms asked.
Luna gestured at their surroundings. “See for yourself.”
One patch of the Dreaming looked much like the next. Differences were smoothed over by the protean nature of the place until it was hard to say if one spot was truly different from another. However, the giant discarded Party Artillery just to their left was a rather unmistakable indication that they had not moved from their starting point, despite all their running. Further examination showed the splatter of colors from Pinkie’s battle with Sombra and the crack where the ground had swallowed him up on Luna’s command.
“I see,” said Sim. “So we’re back where we started. Some kind of loop? Is this an attempt by Sombra to delay us?”
Nightmare Moon cackled. “Yes, tell them all about the scary powers Sombra is bringing to bear to halt our progress.”
Luna blushed, though she was thankful it was barely visible against her dark coat. “No, it’s not Sombra. You just can’t run in the Dreaming.”
“Uhh, we just were?” Rainbow just looked confused. “I’ve already lost my wings, don’t take running from me too.”
“I mean that you can’t actually travel any distance in the Dreaming by running. You can move quickly when you’re standing still.” Luna raised a hoof and swiped it through the air in demonstration. “But if you try to run for any significant distance the Dreaming pushes back against it. It’s like that dream everypony has about being chased by a monster and not being able to run away.”
“So if we can’t run then how are we going to make it all the way back to the Crystal Empire? Because I, for one, do not fancy walking all that way. It’ll take forever.”
Captain Armor nodded. “I agree with Rarity, walking would take too long. And even if we had the time to walk, we don’t have enough supplies to make it.”
Luna waved her hoof dismissively. “Supplies aren’t an issue. Haven’t you noticed? We’ve been here for hours and none of you has gotten hungry, thirsty, tired, or had to go to the bathroom the entire time. Physical needs just aren’t present in the Dreaming. But it shouldn’t matter either way. Nightmare is right. This is a task for me.”
“I’m glad you see that much at least,” Nightmare put in.
Luna glared at her, but made no response. She turned instead to the others. “All of you, stand close to me and wait for a moment.”
As they moved to comply Luna closed her eyes. The was the Dreaming. This was her Dreaming and she needed to think of it as such. Despite appearances, they did not have bodies in this place. They moved because they wanted to move and not because they were physically sending signals to their legs. So, if they wanted to be in the heart of the Crystal Empire, they should simply move there.
In theory anyway.
In practice there was a stickiness to things in the Dreaming. Each of the beings present could have worn the form of an immortal, if they thought of it, but instead they clung to their customary forms. They were the same heights as usual and that didn’t tend to change. Even Pinkie, who’d displayed more mastery of the Dreaming than even Luna, hadn’t really done anything outside the norm for her. Though admittedly, that said quite a bit more about where her norms were than it did about anything else.
None of them would be able to summon the will, focus, and sheer belief to move themselves across that large a distance. Both because it was simply too far beyond their ordinary experience, and because their connection to the Dreaming was too tenuous. Luna, though, intuitively understood the Dreaming and that it was flexible about things like location and destination. Her ostensive mastery of the Dreaming should let her move the whole party to its destination in one go.
Or so she tried to tell herself. But the more she focused on where she wanted to be, the less it felt like it was possible to get there. She kept reflexively reaching for her magic, even as she knew that it was not the right tool for the job.
She would have been comforted if she at least felt as if she was repeatedly running into a wall. Then there would have been some sense that she was on the right track and just needed to try harder. This felt more like walking down a forest path and expecting to end up in the center of Canterlot. It was simply fundamentally impossible and no amount of effort would even make it more likely to occur. Another strategy was required.
Growling, Luna’s eyes snapped open. “You and you,” she said, pointing at Pinkie Pie and Nightmare Moon, “come with me.” Nightmare Moon smirked knowingly while Pinkie Pie merely looked perplexed, but both followed her away from the rest of the group without complaint.
“So, what ever could this be about, Luna?”
“I can’t carry us to the Crystal Empire,” Luna ground out.
“Well of course not,” said Pinkie. “We’re much too heavy for you to carry alone. Maybe if we all carried ourselves that would work better.”
“No,” said Nightmare Moon. “She should be able to carry us all, but she can’t because she’s too weak.”
“Fine, you’re right. I’m too weak.”
Nightmare Moon looked alarmed. “No! You’re supposed to get angry that I called you out and prove me wrong. Come on, where’s your stubborn pride and instinct for defiance?”
“Those died when the number of ponies I can claim as my subjects was reduced to six,” Luna said drily. “I can’t do this alone, but maybe the three of us have a shot at it if we work together.”
“Nope, sorry, can’t happen,” Nightmare Moon said.
“Why not?”
“Well.” Nightmare shifted uncomfortably. “The truth is that while I was formed by the Dreaming, I can’t actually manipulate it. Or rather, it’s because I was formed by the Dreaming. I don’t have a real self so I don’t have the leverage I’d need to change the Dreaming.”
Luna snorted. “Ok, fine. So you’re useless. Is there anything wrong with the idea of having Pinkie help out though?”
Nightmare Moon shook her head. “There shouldn’t be in theory, if she’s up for it.” Both ponies turned to look down at Pinkie, who flinched away from them. They shared a long look and a silent understanding passed between them. Nightmare Moon headed back toward the group to give them some space.
Luna knelt down so that she could look Pinkie in the eye instead of looming over her. “Listen, Pinkie Pie, I have already asked more of you than I have any right to. Now I find I must ask for your help once again.”
“I can’t carry everypony,” Pinkie said, shaking her head timidly and shrinking back. “I can’t, I just can’t.”
“You don’t have to,” Luna said gently. “We’ll work together to do the carrying. And you’ve already moved yourself, which is the part I’m having trouble with.”
“I have?” Pinkie leaned forward.
Luna nodded. “When you fought Sombra. You went from sitting on top of your Party Artillery to standing right in front of him in an instant.”
Pinkie frowned. “But that was just a few feet. It’s gotta be way way way harder to go all the way to the Crystal Empire.”
“It isn’t,” Luna said firmly. “Everywhere is equally far away in the Dreaming. Everything is possible here, so long as you have sufficient strength of imagination. And I think your imagination is very strong indeed.”
“Everything is possible?” Pinkie asked slowly. Hesitantly, she raised one hoof and stared at the air above it. Luna watched in awe and horror as something formed in that space. It was a bubble with teeth, a balloon with claws. It pulsed a lurid green and bathed all in pale pink light. Tentacles wrapped around one another in a writhing mass of far too many dimensions and perspectives. Water rose and fell in a single loop as pillars turned to columns turned to doves. It was eldritch madness with a smile of far too may teeth, and Luna could not look away.
With a start, she realized that a thin tendril connected her to the that pulsating impossible existence. It felt like a question, a request for permission from Pinkie Pie. Luna looked through that unknowable object to the desperate and determined pony on the other side. There stood a pony who had suffered Sombra’s cruel enslavement and thrown it off as no other ever had. That pony now asked Luna for something of the Dreaming, and Luna couldn’t find it in her heart to say no.
At that first hint of acquiescence the tendril thickened. A second tendril shot out and pressed itself into Nightmare Moon’s heart. Shouts of alarm signaled that the others had finally noticed what was going on, but at Luna’s outstretched hoof they felt back, watching uneasily.
A moment passed as the existence above Pinkie’s hoof grew in size, if not in comprehensibility, and took on a silvery sheen. The tendrils connecting it to Luna and Nightmare Moon fell away and, without all trace of hesitation vanished, Pinkie pressed the strange object to her chest.
At once, the color flowed from her body to her mane, leaving her body bone white and visibly glowing even in the eternally lit Dreaming. If her body glowed, her mane practically blazed like the sun with a brilliant poufy gold. But not all of her turned to light. Her cutie mark and eyes faded to a washed out purple. The transformation seemed to rock her back on her heels. Her eyes closed and her head hung low.
“Are you alright?” Luna asked, tentatively walking closer as the changes ceased. “Pinkie?”
“SURPRISE!” Pinkie’s head snapped up and a wide grin more genuine than any seen for months filled her face. She bounded off the ground, practically vibrating with energy and excitement. “That feels soooooooo much better. I was such a saddypants and all traumatized and it was just such a downer.” At the word ‘downer’ her whole body drooped into a puddle of white goo on the ground of the Dreaming, before springing back into shape like a rubber band. “But now I made myself all better!”
“You forcefully changed your mind? That’s a bad idea.” Luna shot a glance at Nightmare Moon, who had walked up to join them. “Trust me, I speak from experience when I say that using the Dreaming to change yourself is incredibly dangerous.”
“I needed to be strong,” Pinkie said plaintively. “And I made myself stronger so now I can help out and not be broken anymore. I was so tired of being broken. And I can help in other ways too. Watch!” With a sound rather like an electric slide whistle, Pinkie zipped over to the group and returned with Rainbow Dash held in her hooves like a toy.
“What’s going on?” Dash asked immediately. “Is Pinkie in danger?”
“Not immediate danger,” Nightmare Moon said before Luna could reply. “Apparently she wants to show us something about you.”
“That’s right!” Pinkie crowed. “Now Dashie, you really don’t like having your wings all bound in bandages like that, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“And you’ve had those bandages on for a pretty long time, right?”
Dash rolled her eyes. “It feels like forever, but the docs said I had to leave them on until they can get me to surgery.”
“Well lucky for you, good old Doctor Pinkie Pie, MD, PhD, JD, MBA, Esq., is here to kiss them all better. If that’s okay with you.” For a second the perky tone dropped away. “Please let me help you Dashie. I need to be able to help somepony somehow.”
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in Rainbow Dash’s reply. “If you think you can help then go ahead and do your thing.”
“Can she permanently change Rainbow Dash?” Luna asked Nightmare Moon in an undertone.
She shrugged in response. “Maybe. She clearly got something from us just now and she changed Sombra before that. Won’t you be embarrassed if a mortal pony turns out to be better in the Dreaming than you are?”
Luna was startled to realize that she wouldn’t be embarrassed. On the contrary, she clearly wasn’t using the Dreaming to its full potential. If taking some piece of it was a help to one of her subjects, especially one as deserving of help as Pinkie Pie, then she was pleased to offer it up.
“Alright Dashie, here I go!” Pinkie said. She bounced around to Dash’s right side and pressed her white lips to the bandages over Dash’s wing.
“Ouch,” Dash yelped. There was a sizzle and a square cross of red was emblazoned onto the bandages.
“It’s gonna sting a little, but you’re tough. You can take it,” Pinkie said, bouncing over Dash to the other side. “Here comes the next one.”
Dash bit down on her lip and managed to hold it in this time. Just like before, Pinkie kissed the bandages and another red cross appeared.
“Last one on your forehead,” she said, coming to stand in front of Dash.
“Hey wait a second.” Dash frowned. “Since when are you taller than me?”
“Since just now. Nightmare Moon was nice enough to donate an inch or so.”
“Hey! I didn’t donate anything,” Nightmare Moon protested.
“No take backsies,” Pinkie singsonged.
Luna moved over next to Nightmare Moon and confirmed for herself that she now was just slightly the taller of the two, while before they had unsurprisingly been the same height. There was an admittedly petty glow of pleasure at being taller than the Nightmare. From the expression on her face, Nightmare felt the corresponding annoyance. Neither of them had any idea just why it had happened though, and before they could think it through Pinkie kept speaking.
“Now Dashie, this one is going to hurt a little more, but the more you relax and trust me, the less it will hurt.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and nodded. “Ok, I’m ready.”
Pinkie stepped forward until they were nearly muzzle to nuzzle. She gently pressed her lips to the center of Dash’s forehead, right where her horn would have been if she had been a unicorn.
“AHHHHHH!” Dash screamed and jerked her head, trying to break free. Her whole body spasmed and pushed back against Pinkie. Tears ran from Pinkie’s closed eyes, but she held Dash in a vice grip and didn’t move or let her go.
“What’s going on?” Gilda and Thraxus rushed over, drawn by Dash’s screams. “What is the pink pony doing to her?” Thraxus demanded. He strode forward, determined to pull Pinkie off.
Worry was writ plain on Gilda’s face, but she held up a claw to hold him back. “What is she doing?” Gilda asked of Luna. She winced as every fresh scream tore itself from Rainbow’s throat. “Tell me now or I’ll take her down.”
“I’ve healed her,” Pinkie said as she pulled back from the kiss. She wasn’t laughing, but her voice bubbled and frothed like sarsaparilla as she spoke. Her lips had left another red cross on Dash’s forehead. The white pony held Dash and stroked her sweat-soaked mane as she trembled and fought her way back from the pain. “It was hard because she didn’t really think I could heal her. I had to change that at the same time as I changed her wings.”
“You changed her mind directly?” Luna asked worriedly. “We just told you how dangerous it is to do that to yourself, and you went and did it to somepony else?”
“It worked,” said Pinkie. “Look.” She raised a hoof and with a sound like a door unlocking the red crosses melted away.
Dash’s eyes slowly opened. “So did it work?” she asked, voice hoarse from the screaming. “It better have after that.”
“It hurt that much because you’re a silly stubborn pony,” Pinkie said fondly. “But I think everything went just fine. Take the bandages off and see.”
Dash craned her neck around and tried to grab the edge of the bandages in her mouth. Gilda and Thraxus came forward to help her and they quickly had the bandages unwound and piled on the ground.
“So, any movements I should be careful of?” Dash asked.
Pinkie shook her head. “It’s should be like they were never injured.”
A hint of her classic devil-may-care grin crossed Dash’s face. “In that case…” She crouched low and then sprang into the air with all the force of a rocket. A distant gleeful cry of “YESSSSSS!” came back to them as the familiar rainbow contrail formed behind her.
She didn’t perform a full sonic rainbow, for which Luna was grateful. Instead, she arced back around and scooped up Pinkie in a flying tackle hug. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Gilda whooped and even Thraxus cracked a smile as they sped into the air behind their jubilant friend. Luna and Nightmare Moon watched celebratory acrobatics with smiles of their own.
“It seems Pinkie Pie truly does have a certain level of mastery over the Dreaming,” Luna commented. “Or perhaps it’s more fair to say that she always had the mastery, but now she has the power to back it up.”
“She took something from me,” Nightmare Moon said. “Since I am made from the Dreaming, that means she imbibed something of the Dreaming itself. You will have to take it back from her when you reclaim the Dreaming fully.”
Luna shook her head, her eyes still tracking the joyful loops and whirls of the creatures in the sky. Perhaps Nightmare Moon was right, but Luna didn’t think so. Somehow, Pinkie having a piece of the Dreaming felt right. “We’ll see. I am concerned about how she changed herself. That was what gave rise to you after all.”
“The trouble between you and I arose at least in part because you tried to preserve your old self and layer me on top of it. It was the conflict that made it so destructive. She seems to have simply radically changed herself, though whether that’s better or worse I don’t know.”
“If there aren’t negative consequences to her from what she’s done, I’ll eat my metaphorical hat.” Luna sighed. “Still, for the moment she’s needed as she is to help us get back to the Crystal Empire.”
“For the moment,” Nightmare Moon allowed. “But we’ll keep an eye on her.”
Those not given to wild and fancy flights made their way over and Luna explained what had just occurred. Sim, naturally, was not content with the explanation and felt the need to ask questions that Luna felt really didn’t need to be asked.
“How is it that Miss Pie can perform feats here that seem to be beyond you? Is she the master of this place now?”
“No, she’s not,” Luna answered irritably.
“Think of it like this,” Nightmare Moon put in. “Pinkie Pie now has a water bottle which she fills and refills. She uses every drop it can contain as efficiently as she can to produce some rather startling effects. Luna has a lake full of water, but no matter how I lead her to it she just won’t take a drink.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier if she just, ah, ‘drank’?” Sim asked, glancing at Luna uncertainly.
“Yes. It would,” Nightmare Moon answered, staring pointedly at Luna.
“I’m working on it,” she growled.
“Working on what?” Pinkie asked. Rainbow has finally tired of showing off her newly fixed wings and they had all come gliding down to the ground. Rainbow carefully set Pinkie down on the ground, but she herself remained firmly in the air. “Working on getting us to the Crystal Empire? Because I thought I was helping with that.”
“You are,” Luna said. “And while time spent here doesn’t have any bearing on time in the real world, it still would probably be a good idea for us to get going.”
“Okey-do-,” Pinkie Pie began, but the familiar phrase stuck in her throat. She paused and then tried again. “Okay. How do you want to do this?”
“The rest of you, stand as close together as possible once again, in a vaguely circular shape.” Everyone shuffled to do as Luna said. “Pinkie, you need to focus on how it feels to move this many beings. I’ll provide the destination and the full connection to the Dreaming for you to draw on. It’d be best if we stand on opposite sides of the group so we don’t lose anyone.” Pinkie Pie nodded and bounced her way around the group to stand opposite Luna.
Luna closed her eyes and tried to start focusing. “Pinkie, I need you to reach out to me,” she said. A moment later she heard snickering and felt two somethings brush across her face.
Her eyes snapped open and she saw Pinkie’s forelegs had stretched across the group and the long white noodly appendages delicately caressed her face. “Mentally, Pinkie. I need you to reach out with your mind, not your legs, so we can work together on this.”
“Oh, ok!” With a worrying slurp, the limbs retracted and Pinkie stood once more upon four normal legs. She closed her eyes and her face screwed up with concentration.
Almost at once, Luna felt the other pony brush across her mind. The connection was not dissimilar to linking magic in the real world. However, the mutability of the Dreaming and those who could manipulate it meant that it was far easier to make a successful connection. Luna could feel Pinkie’s mind through the connection. She could feel the playfulness and joy that had once been at its core.
She could feel, too, the scars cut into that mind by Sombra, and the deeper moats cut around those wounds to isolate them.
It was my choice Pinkie thought to her in their shared mindscape. And I was so tired of letting him hurt me even after he was gone.
So you hurt yourself even worse? Luna sent back. This isn’t a healthy way to deal with your pain.
It was my choice. Pinkie repeated. And it’s changing.
That much was true. Luna could feel the connection the Dreaming that Pinkie had formed flowing across the other mind. Like silver poured into a mold, the Dreaming took the shape of those wounds and filled them in. It was unmistakably different from what she had done to give rise to Nightmare Moon, but whether or not it would actually be a long term help remained to be seen.
Let me pretend to be well for now, Pinkie pleaded, and let’s do what we need to do.
In answer, Luna pulled her connection to the Dreaming to the forefront of her mind. She fed one end of it to Pinkie, letting the other pony draw on it. Luna saw the feeling of that rapid movement in Pinkie’s mind, and the two fit together with a satisfying click.
That left only the destination. Luna dredged up her memories of that first encounter with Sombra all those months ago. She embraced the feel of her sister’s prison and the cloying temptation from Sombra’s dark offer. Pinkie flinched when that emotion was fed into the mix, but her focus didn’t falter.
Together they pushed at the combination they had made, and together they felt the movement take hold. Abruptly, and with absolutely no warning, the group moved. Luna opened her eyes and took in her new and depressing surroundings.
They had arrived at Sombra’s prison.
There was a moment of silence as they gazed around in awe and fear. Then Sunlit Rooms gave voice to what everyone was thinking.
“So, now what?”
Everyone swung around to look at Luna. Shockingly, she actually had been thinking about that particular problem.
“We need to fight Sombra on two fronts,” she said. “In the real world and in the Dreaming. We don’t have the power to win both fights at once, so we need to prioritize one of them. I think we should first subdue him in the real world, and then take the fight to the Dreaming.”
Nightmare Moon snorted. “Coward.”
Luna glared at her. “His forces were more than a week’s travel away from his body. He won’t have the same level of reinforcements as he will later on. And his body is still the central point of all the connections, for all that he could make others if it were killed.”
“Coward,” Nightmare Moon said again. “You only choose the real world because you’re afraid of facing him in the Dreaming.”
“I am afraid,” Luna snapped. “But that’s not the only reason. The Dreaming is riddled with his power. The only reason he doesn’t own it already is because he doesn’t understand that it exists and that he’s using it. If I strike from the Dreaming first and fail, he will wrest it from me entirely and we will be without any hope of victory at all. And how I can I hope to strike successfully when I still don’t know how to fight him?”
“So what exactly is the plan?” asked Shining Armor.
“I open a portal and we launch an ambush with all the power we can bring to bear,” Luna answered. “Ideally we incapacitate him, which will give me time to use the mantles of sun and moon to rebuild his prison and cut off his connections before finishing him off in the Dreaming. Worse, but still acceptable, we destroy his body entirely. Then while his network is rewiring itself around a new central point I have time to destroy it from the Dreaming.”
“All we gotta do is walk through the portal and buck that smarmy bastard in the face?” Applejack nodded. “Sounds like my kinda plan.”
“It does have a certain charming simplicity to it,” Sim noted.
“I still say you are running from what you need to do, but I have no doubt you’ll ignore me.” Nightmare Moon huffed. “Go on then, do what you will.”
Luna looked around the room. “Does anyone besides Nightmare have any objections or ideas?” No one said anything. “In that case there is no sense in waiting. I will begin to make the portal. Everyone ready yourselves for the fight.”
There were quiet sighs, but no one protested. It took only a thought for most of them to don their arms and armor. Applejack’s huge heavy black armor fell into place with a clang, but most were quieter as they prepared. Soon enough, they were as ready as they were going to be.
Luna turned her thoughts toward the portal and the battle to come
***
“It’s no use,” Luna growled some time later. Possibly hours or days, probably not weeks or minutes, but it was so hard to tell after all. She let her magic slip away from her grasp and slumped to ground that briefly turned into soft grass to catch her, before returning to cold crystal. “I can’t open a portal. Or not a safe one, anyway.”
“Why not?” Dash demanded, her new wings fluttering anxiously. “How are we going to fight Sombra if we can’t get back to the real world?”
“It’s the connections between Sombra and the ponies he controls,” Luna explained. She gestured at a very particular section of the cavernous chamber in which they stood. “Sombra’s physical body is right there, but that means the connections here are so numerous and thick there’s practically no space that they don’t occupy. If I open a portal through one of those connections, it’ll give Sombra purchase in our minds from the get go. Our ambush would be doomed from the start.”
“Couldn’t you jes’ open one of those portals further away?” Applejack asked. She’d been ready to storm through the portal and despite the time that had passed still stood rigid in her massive set of armor.
“At ease, soldier. No sense tiring yourself out if we’re not going to be moving for a bit.” Shining Armor suited action to words and let his weapon rest on the ground as he took a seat. “And I’d wager that if we moved far enough away for the princess to open a portal then we’d be too far out to launch an attack.”
“We’d have to go all the way out to the city,” Luna confirmed. “I have no doubt Sombra would find a way to stop us long before we got anywhere near his real body.”
“Not that we actually have any concrete idea of what we’re going to do when we find it anyway,” Rarity grumbled.
“Th’ princess told us, we just hit him with everything we’ve got,” Applejack responded as she let herself relax a little. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”
“We’ll I’ve had plenty of time to think twice. And I think a plan this simple makes this sound like a suicide run,” Rarity snapped back.
“Why do you permit this foolish little pony to voice defiance?” Nightmare asked with honest curiosity.
“Not helping,” Luna ground out, rounding on Nightmare.
“None of this is helping,” Sim cut in sharply. “We’ve been in close quarters for a long time and everypony is out of sorts. But snapping at one another is not going improve our situation. Perhaps a few minutes’ rest is in order. Wouldn’t you agree, Princess?”
Luna appreciated Sim’s attempt to defer to her, though she knew it fooled no pony. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Everyone take five while I think on the portal problem.”
The small group splintered as they all tried to put as much space between themselves and the other ponies that had been getting on their nerves. Dash, Gilda, and Thraxus took one nook along the cavern’s walls. They sat with their sides just touching so they covered each other’s blind spots and conversed in low tones. They almost seemed like a single entity, one pony-griffon-dragon hybrid driven forward by Dash’s unbending will. Only the concerned glances the other two shot Dash and her wings when the pegasus wasn’t looking revealed their concern for their friend.
Sim and Iolite stood against the wall, still as the crystals and stone their scale resembled. They did not sleep, for true restful sleep was impossible inside the Dreaming, but they closed their eyes and became for all the world like statues.
Rarity and Applejack clustered close around Pinkie Pie, still adjusting to the dramatic changes in her appearance and mannerisms. Despite her new form and newfound strength, she still seemed to take comfort in the presence of her friends. Luna couldn’t help but hope that Rarity and Applejack’s presence would help Pinkie heal in a less artificial manner than the one she had chosen. Shining Amor had settled near enough the trio to offer what comfort he could while staying far enough away to refrain from intruding.
Sunlit Rooms, that dear adaptable bureaucrat, had stayed close. She’d long since mastered the crucial art of being present without being distracting and Luna appreciated her company. Nightmare had stayed nearby as well, but her presence offered only pressure rather than relief.
“The problem,” Luna thought aloud, “is these dark threads. I need to cut them to clear room for a portal. To change anything in the Dreaming requires a special type of focus and building a portal requires an entirely different kind. Plus, Sombra’s connections probably reassert themselves if my focus on them wavers at all, so I can’t figure out a way to cut a bunch of threads and then create the portal afterwards. Hmm.”
“It’s frustrating, to get so close and then be stopped.” Sunlit shivered. “I just want it to be over even though I’m dreading what will happen.”
“The waiting and wondering before battle is the worst part. And it’s even worse when we’re going to have to fight with so few actual soldiers.” Luna glanced over at Nightmare. “I don’t suppose you could magic up a few hundred more of you? I’d relish the chance to use you as cannon fodder or an equine shield.”
“Ha, ha, no. I don’t even have a body in the real world, remember? Now that I’ve materialized and separated from you I doubt I can even live in your head anymore, let alone have a physical body.” Nightmare snorted. “Of course, this is all dependent on you lot being able to get anywhere.”
More time passed without change, though it was hard for Luna to tell exactly how much. She thought that she had never spent this long in the Dreaming without a break, but without meals or sleep and with the unchanging light it was impossible to be certain. The others took the delay as best they could, but Luna could tell their spirits were flagging.
Luna had zoned out trying to think of a solution when a mysterious force tugged her back to awareness. She glanced around the cavern and saw no obvious source. Still, there was an electric feeling in the air, like the gathering potential before a lightning strike.
“Ready yourselves everyone,” she called out. “Something approaches.” Groans answered her as the others tried to cudgel their strained minds and limbs back to readiness.
While the others donned armor and rose, Luna stood stock still, casting all her senses a wide as she could. She need not have bothered. The next tug, when it came, was forceful enough that she couldn’t possibly have missed it. She could now tell that it was not a physical force. Instead, it reached within her and pulled on some part of her magic.
“What’s going on princess?” Sunlit Rooms asked, glancing around with concern. “Everything seems the same.”
“I’m not sure,” Luna admitted. “Something is pulling on me, but—“ she broke off, interrupted by a third tug. If the second had been noticeable the third was nearly undeniable. Luna gasped and stumbled to her knees amid cries of alarm.
A claw reached deep into her chest, deep into the home of her magic and sought to pull out a piece of it. Reflexively, Luna resisted. She curled in on herself and endured the crushing force that sought to divide her. When at last the force retreated it left her gasping for air she didn’t even need. A clamor of concerned voices burbled over her.
“Was that Sombra?”
“Are you under attack?”
“How can we help?”
“Enough!” Luna shouted in the Royal Canterlot Voice, forcing silence upon her companions. “Please I need to focus. Stay ready.” There were nods of acknowledgement and Luna turned her focus inward.
With a closer observation of her own magical self, Luna realized that the force that sought to divide her had not attacked randomly. It had sought to remove a specific piece of her magic. But which?
As Luna pondered, the force returned and Luna knew immediately that there would be no denying it this time. Out of sheer stubbornness she resisted anyway. Even as she did so, she looked inside to find the piece of herself that she would soon be losing.
It was the mantle of the sun. The force came, not from without, but from within. It came from the right to the sun that Luna had possessed since Celestia’s disappearance. The mantle sought now to leave Luna, as if it was being called to its true home. But that would mean…
Clinging to a sudden impossible hope, Luna released her hold on the mantle of the sun and sent it winging on its way carrying her fondest wish with it. Unsurprisingly, the mantle manifested in the Dreaming as an orb of light. Even as the cavern swam back into view, Luna saw the orb hover in front of her chest. It swirled around her once, suffusing her with the warmth she’d long since come to associate with her sister. Then it gently alighted on the amber tips of her mane that the mantle’s presence had brought. A goodbye kiss, of a sort.
Zipping up to eye level, the orb bobbed once and then shot away. Luna surged to her feet, startling the ponies into falling backward. “After it!” she cried, suiting action to words.
Luna ran down the corridor after the orb. It simply phased through walls as if they weren’t there and, had they been in the real world, Luna would never have been able to follow it. This was the Dreaming, however, and here walls were only as solid as she needed them to be. And at that moment she needed nothing more fervently than for them to be out of her way.
She heard shouts from behind her the first time she galloped through a wall as if it wasn’t there. A part of her worried that they would stop and the group would be split up. But they had faith in the princess and the hoofsteps from behind her confirmed that they hadn’t hesitated to follow her through the apparently solid wall.
It proved a short run and Luna broke through a final wall only to skid to a stop inches from vast pit. Luna threw up a wall to prevent anypony from running over the edge and then turned her attention to the orb.
The golden orb hovered above the center of the pit. It seemed to be waiting for something. Luna could still feel a slight connection to it, but that connection was growing more and more tenuous with every passing moment.
Suddenly, Luna felt the last threads of the connection snap and the golden orb exploded in a brilliant radiance, suffusing the area with the light and the warmth of the sun. Luna knew then that the mantle of the sun had moved on to where it truly belonged, though a small piece of it remained within her to lighten her mane with the colors of sunrise.
That feeling of the sun descending reminded Luna of when it had first come to her and how, in that instant, it had burned away the dark threads of Sombra’s magic. If the mantle had burned away the shadows it might offer the chance Luna had desperately been seeking.
Reaching for her magic, Luna felt the buzz of her true sight fall over her eyes. She scanned her surroundings and saw that her supposition had been correct. Sombra was more powerful than he had been then and the frayed ends of his disrupted connections remained plain to her sight. Those same frayed ends guaranteed the chance, for if they were present that meant there was an area free of Sombra’s control.
The gap would not last long. Luna could already see the threads reknitting themselves, stretching to reconnect the broken pieces and reassert Sombra’s control.
“There’s a gap in Sombra’s control,” Luna called to the others. “I can make the portal, but it won’t last long. Everyone be ready to move the second it forms.”
“I’ll get them through, Princess,” Captain Armor confirmed. “You just make the path and we’ll charge ahead.”
Luna nodded, already turning away to focus on the portal. In the short time she’d spent talking the threads had already made noticeable progress. The creeping sense of motion out of the corner of her eye made it difficult to summon the proper state of mind necessary to form the portal.
Every time Luna got close to achieving the rigidity of perception necessary to move back into the real world, the creeping threads would intrude and draw her attention back to their desperate circumstances. Like a command not to think of pink elephants, every time Luna tried to push away the threads they became all she could think of.
Enough was enough, Luna decided, pushing against it wasn’t going to work. Luna dropped the portal and closed her eyes. She took a moment, focusing only on her breathing, to acknowledge her own fear, and the pressure put upon her by the creeping threads. It cost valuable time, yes, but Luna was certain had she not spent it then there would have been no portal at all.
The moment was sufficient to let the threads dwell in her mind without disturbing her focus on the portal. She accepted and acknowledged both and as she did so she finally felt the portal begin to come together.
Reality required concreteness. Luna focused on the simple physical facts. The rough stone and crystal underhoof. The cool dry cavern air. The sensations of breath and beating heart. All the little feelings that made up living were gathered together and knit into a gateway away from the fluidity of the Dreaming.
Luna was gratified to see her efforts yield results and she felt a sharp glow of pride as the portal formed, though that pride was tempered by fear at the progress made by Sombra’s threads.
“Quickly!” she urged, “through the portal. There’s less than a minute before Sombra’s influence disrupts it.”
“Go!” Captain Armor ordered and Rainbow Dash was off like a shot, speeding through the portal with bloodthirsty grin upon her face.
Close behind Dash came the thundering form of Applejack, fully clad in that suit of armor so heavy that even the Dreaming clanged with every step she took. The others moved in behind them.
“Faster, faster,” Luna moaned, straining to keep the portal open and away from Sombra’s fast-recovering threads.
As Sim entered the portal Luna came to the certain realization that they would not make it in time. One thread in particular was less than an inch away from the portal and contact was imminent.
Luna knew what she had to do. The thread was in the Dreaming and it was doing something she did not want it to. That could not be allowed to stand.
Nightmare is going to be so pleased, she thought wryly. Then she dove even deeper into her ocean of self, embracing every current and undertow. Her will sharpened. This was the Dreaming and she was master here and no thread of darkness would triumph over her.
Luna felt her will catch on the thread. Her magic flared, but in this match strength of will was all that mattered. It was challenging, but the greater challenge was handling the portal at the same time. Pinkie could probably have held the shadow back, given the strength in the Dreaming she’d displayed and the connection to it she now possessed.
Such thoughts, true as they might be, were distractions Luna could ill afford and in the moment she spared to think that the thread had crept forward another half inch. Dimly, she saw Iolite, last of her companions save Captain Armor and Sunlit Rooms, pass through the portal. At the same time, she came to a startling realization.
She could not hold back the thread, hold open the portal, and pass through herself. In the moment she took to pass through, the thread would reach the portal. Sombra could not control her, that much was still true, but he would have direct access to her unshielded mind and there was no telling what damage he might do.
“Captain, I must hold the portal here,” she called to Shining Armor who had unsurprisingly insisted on being the last through. “Look for Celestia. Look for the other alicorn to aid you against Sombra.”
“Princess, no-“
Captain Armor continued to protest instead of going through the portal. He said something, some further protest, but Luna didn’t have the focus to spare for listening. They would need a soldier for the fight on the other side, so she had to make him go through. Could she do that? Not alone.
“Sunlit Rooms!” she called desperately.
The pegasus paused at the very boundary of the portal. She looked back and met Luna’s eyes and Luna hoped she could somehow read the message that was written there.
As far as Luna knew, Sunlit Rooms had never failed her, and she did not fail her then. She understood at once, and kicked sharply off the ground. Sunlit used her wings to flip herself in a backwards loop, zooming in behind Shining Armor at high speed.
He was so focused on protesting to Luna that he didn’t even brace himself as she crashed into him, knocking him head over hooves. He tumbled and rolled, but he passed through the portal as he did so, and with less than a millimeter to spare between the thread and the portal. Still he was through the portal. Sunlit Rooms, thrown off course by the impact, rolled next to the portal and bumped into Luna instead.
Small though it was, the jostling ruined Luna’s focus, and caused her to lose her hold on Sombra’s thread. It speared through the portal and ruined the only path back to the real world.
That was that. Luna allowed the portal itself to fade. Even knowing that it had been corrupted Luna couldn’t help feeling increasingly trapped as the swirling dark mirror of the portal dwindled to a shadow and then vanished.
There was no way out.
While her companions faced down Sombra, Luna was trapped in the Dreaming with only her Nightmare and her bureaucrat for company.