//------------------------------// // Chapter 19 // Story: Realms Undreamed Of // by Ardashir //------------------------------// We went on further into those woods, under those dark trees that pressed in and around and over us like they hated to be having us there. I’ve known many a deep dark woods in my time, but mighty few as unfriendly feeling as that one. ‘Cept maybe for that first night in the Everfree. “John?” Twilight spoke up aside me where we walked. “That bear we saw, that wasn't normal for here, was it?” “Not airy way I can ever remember seeing or hearing the telling of,” I answered her. “That bear looked to be the biggest I've air seen, even back when I visited you ponies. It minds me of what some science lady told me once, about how there used to be creatures like that bear, and the biggest of big cats, and wolves and even elephants and more all through the hills and the rest of the land, long afore Indians or white men air did live here.” “The Shonokin said they were here before the earliest humans,” Twilight responded me back, picking her way along right careful. “They told me they fought monstrous creatures before humanity came here. Maybe that bear was one of them?” “It didn't feel right,” Fluttershy added in, sounding like she worried and wondered at once. “Not like the animals here or back in Equestria.” “John, Twilight, I beg pardon for interrupting,” Rarity turned and looked over her withers at us. “But if that bear was from ages long gone, then how could the Shonokin bring it here? Or Nightmare Moon? She can't travel in time, can she, to bring back extinct creatures?” “Maybe they didn't all die out,” I remembered things I'd been told by Chief Manco and others. “Might be they live off in the lonely places, steep valleys or deep caves or places humans folks nair go to and come back to tell of. Or it might could be like what educated folks have told me, how some things scared the earliest human folks so bad that they went deep down into a part of airy person's mind you nair think of until something bad reminds you of it. The collective unconscious, I think Chief Manco called it. You ponies told me that Nightmare Moon can reach down into your dreams and show you what scares folks the most. Maybe if she can do that, the Shonokin showed her how to take some of those things out and make them be real again.” I saw a shiver run along the sides of the ponies at what I said, like any nervous or scared horse. “There are similar theories about ponies,” Twilight said, and didn't sound happy to be saying it. “I wonder what the Tantabus can pull from our heads?” “We can always hope she tries Dashie first,” Pinkie said, not the least airy bit scared sounding. “She doesn't have enough room in her head to be afraid of anything.” “You're darn right I don't have the room –” Dash kind of preened herself to hear that, right afore she snorted. “Hay!” They all whickered a sort of horsey laugh at that, even Dash after a second. Even I smiled over what Pinkie said. When we went along those trees didn't seem quite so scary or dark as a few moments afore. I wondered me if that was why Pinkie said what she'd said. She minded me about stories of tricksters like Till Eulenspiegel or Coyote that the Indians tell of, clever and full of jokes but thinking a sight more than folks would air suspect. I hoped so; we needed each last bit of help we could get right then. We stepped careful as we went along, mindful of making too much noise stumbling through the brush. Not that there was much brush to worry about here. No surprise not to find smaller plants under big trees in the woods, but these pines were still scattered enough that there ought to be some. Unless someone came in here and cleaned it all out. Only whoair was there to be doing that, away out here from air human being? I could imagine who or what, but right then I preferred not to. The trees around us started to look stranger too, too big and thick even for an untouched piece of woods. The lumber companies haven't been into every bit of the mountains yet, I'm glad to say, but these trees looked like they must have been growing since afore the first human men and women ever were. They were tall, tall and thick, thick. Wide as a decent size house through the middle. I wondered me if I saw what looked like doors set into some of those trees. And if there were doors there, maybe someone watched from inside? And what if they just threw those doors open when we walked past, maybe came out a-chasing us? It was noways a comfortable thought. “Look,” Twilight said as we passed one, the bark so twisted and thick it looked like an angry deep-wrinkled face. “Doesn't that look like a door? But no doorknob or strap. Whatever's in there can get out, but nopony can get in.” “Maybe it just leaves the door open when it goes out,” I said to her. “Might could be they're just friendly that way.” “Maybe,” Twilight said to me, but she didn't sound air more convinced than myself. “John, aren't we getting close to Chorazin by now?” “Since I nair was there afore, I can't rightly say. Maybe Dash or Applejack would know?” Twilight nodded me and looked to both of them. Applejack just snorted. “Who could tell through all these here trees? We been walking a while, that's all I know.” She frowned and stomped her forehooves, gentle against the ground, like she was testing something. “I remember we went upwards a ways before going over a little rise where the trees ended, an' Chorazin was at the bottom of it. If Dash could fly, she could get over the trees and tell us more.” We all looked on Dash then. She crouched and tried to spread her wings through the bandages, then her face twisted. “No good,” she folded up her wings right carefull. She stood aside Rarity and Fluttershy who both took a look at her wing. Dash let them, but she looked unhappy to be doing it. “Dangit! I can't wait to get home and get my wing fixed. The crazy magic in this world won't allow it. Or does it?” She and the other ponies looked on me all hopeful. “Ladies, I purely wish I could fix that and airy other wrong thing,” I held up my hands, “but all I know are some little tricks. I can't even imagine who you'd have to get to help with something like that, at least not anyone who'd set a price you could live with afterwards.” I didn't say all the truth there. I knew some people who might could have fixed Dash's wing, but they weren't ones I wanted to know about these ponies or Nightmare Moon or Equestria. Most of them were bad enough; they'd be even badder with more magic to use. “But if Dash can't fly up and see what's around these trees, what about you, Miss Fluttershy?” “M-me?” Her voice shivered near as much as she did. She looked up wide-eyed at the trees, rising all about like walls. “I... I wasn't a very good flier even back home. I haven't even been able to lift off here. And flying around trees this thick is never a good idea anyway...” “She's right,” Dash said and sounded unhappy. She nodded her head, tossing her fancy-colored mane. “That's one of the first lessons pegasus foals get taught. Don't fly through a forest, fly over it.” “Y-yes,” Fluttershy swallowed. “But I can't fly in this world. Not for more than a second or two.” Twilight stepped up to her. “No need, Fluttershy,” she spread her own wings out wide. “I can do it myself.” “You're going to need a running takeoff,” Dash bespoke. “Check for a clear runway, ten-twenty lengths, with an opening above.” She pointed with one forehoof. “Like there.” Twilight walked out into the middle of the little cleared area we stood in, where Dash was pointing, and spread her wings even wider. “Line up on that opening and aim for it, full gallop,” Dash pointed up with foreleg and head. “You'll need full power on the wings. And don't slow down for anything. It's nothing like Equestria; you can't glide here, or relax for a minute once you're airborne.” Twilight reared and charged down that path like an airplane down a runway. Her wings beat hard, blowing leaves and needles and litter everywhere with a kind of soft sound like a heavy snow falling. I caught a glimpse of the effort on her face,and minded me what Twilight and the other said afore about how only their Elements gave them the strength to be doing here what came normal to them back home. Then she was up and gone, flying atween those branches close enough to touch them. A few pine needles came down on us. “Now what?” Pinkie Pie said, planting herself down right there and looking skywards after Twilight. “Now we wait,” Applejack said, sitting herself right down aside her. “It can't take long. Twi only has ta take a look --” A sudden bellow up high above, like a big angry bull, but more shrill. And right after that, a yell that was half a scream from Twilight. “Twi!” Maybe one or maybe all of us called that, but whoair did, we couldn't see air bit of what happened above. # # # The pine needles scratched lightly at Twilight as she cleared the heavy branches. She almost imagined they snatched at her. That thought brought a snort from her. If Nightmare Moon and the Shonokin could do that, they wouldn't have bothered with anything else they'd used so far. Then she gulped. Nightmare Moon had once tried preciselythat. She still stayed wary as she flew between the trees, keeping her eyes focused on the small bit of open sky above. One last hard wingbeat and she was through, seeing a near endless sea of sharp-tipped green all about her. More wingbeats and she found herself free of those trees and looking down as she climbed for altitude. All around her the forest stretched off to near infinity, bounded by low and rounded mountains. Here and there a thin silvery trail of a river or stream ran through it. The bright yellow glow of a town showed off in the distance by a cleft in the mountains – Sky Notch, doubtlessly. Ahead of her, about a dozen furlongs away, she could see a high natural rock wall, scarred and pitted from mining, like there were cave mouths in it, lit by that weird blue-green almost fungal glow she remembered from before. She strained her hearing, but not even the ghost of a sound came through her wingbeats and she didn't dare stop and glide. All the same a forbidding aura seemed about the place. Not far to Chorazin, then, she realized. I'll go back down and tell the others. We seem headed in the right direction. With luck we only need another hour to go. She looked at the sky, noting the moon's position with some worry. It was approaching the zenith. What John would called the middlemost hour of night, probably. When the Shonokin and Nightmare Moon will, she gulped, will take all of Luna's remaining power. Except that we're going to stop them. Somehow. She started as a sound came from somewhere high above her. A deep, heavy rolling gong-gong-gong. She looked around in confusion. What was a bell, an especially massive one too by the deepness of that sound, doing up here? It reminded her of something else. Something John told her once? She flew higher, trying to find where that noise came from. Below her she could see the pine trees stretching on, a deep sea of vivid poisonous green needles. She shuddered at the thought and wondered what sort of predators might swim in such a sea, hoped she wouldn't find out. Gong-gong. She flicked an ear in annoyance. Still nothing to be seen, but that bell, or whatever, sounded closer now. Like it was moving. Less metallic too, but then her attention was claimed by something flying below her. At first she thought it was a bird, but no. Its form was flat and vaguely circular, like a large plate or the stingrays she'd seen in aquariums and that one visit to the Sea Ponies' Aquastria back home, First one, and then two others flying behind it in vague formation. They looked pale against the treetops, and didn't really seem to fly. More like they skimmed through the air. Again up above: gong-gong-gong.It sounded somehow eager now. That tolling – Twilight suddenly froze as a memory rose to the surface of her mind. Stories John told her and her friends years ago about some of the magical beasts of his world, ones very few had ever seen and lived to tell of. Like the Skim, which looked like some sort of plate and skimmed through the air. Or the Toller, the largest thing that flew, that made a sound like a gigantic bell to tell other creatures their food was near. Food. Meaning ME! The three Skims below suddenly turned and rose towards her, moving as fast as any pegasus she'd ever seen. Only now did she see the long tails whipping out behind them, studded with what looked like spikes. The Skims stayed between her and the forest, flying upwards with silent and deadly hunger. Gong-gong! Twilight remembered every lesson Rainbow Dash gave her, set her wings back sharply, mentally marked the spot where she'd flown up through the canopy, and flew for her life. Remember what Dash taught you: when being chased, if you can't dive, fly and dodge! Except she couldn't maneuver, not like she could back in Equestria. It was like the first couple times she'd tried out her wings after her Ascension, with Rainbow Dash coaching and snarking. A strange sort of whirring noise filled her ears even over the whipping of the air past them and the Skims were on her. A long tail lashed at her face. Twilight pulled up short, caught a terrible image of long black spines that dripped something clear. A drop struck her leg and she cried out at the sudden sharp burn. Poison! Gong-gong, the Toller called above. Twilight tucked her wings and dropped as far as she dared, in an evasion dive, barely recovering in time to keep clear of the canopy. It wasn't easy; she glided like an Earth Pony. The Skim that tried striking from below flew past her, its second tail lash missing as it struck where she'd been. She caught a glimpse of pale, almost fungous hide, small black eyes like marbles, and the long fin-like wings down its sides rippling as it flew. She lashed out with her forehooves and gave a cry of disgust as she hit it solidly. It gave under her blow like heavy wet clay, her hooves leaving impressions in it. The Skim rolled over away through the air as its two companions flew above her and dove, tails curled to strike. Okay, that's it. Twilight called on her magic. It felt like a tickle in her horn here, more potent than earlier than but still nothing like back home. Her wings ached as she climbed towards the two diving on her, closing head-on, letting the speed of their attack dive close the range. Have to get in close. Too close. She blasted at the two monsters. One was hit and dropped away, flaring up and burning away like paper in a fire. The second dodged and came at her. She caught a glimpse of its underside, worm-soft and ridged like a wood louse. A slobbering arachnid-like hole lined with inward-curving fangs showed, the teeth grinding together and hungry for her flesh. Twilight shuddered and barely dodged as it flew past, throwing herself into a roll, hindhoof lashing out to clip its tail. The severed length went falling away to the trees below, burning into ash as it went. The Skim shuddered, turned and flew at her. Twilight reversed, letting the ground pull her into the split-S Dash had taught her for a quick U-turn, dropping enough to get below it as it closed. Passing underneath, she gave it a blast. Purple light sheared through it and the Skim collapsed into itself and vanished. She wheeled and saw the last Skim racing for her. Now she knew what to expect. It flew in stabbing with its barbed tail until her spellbolt took it right down the middle. It blazed up and was gone. “Twilight!” She looked down and saw John and Applejack and the rest, barely visible through the trees. She dropped closer, heard the rest of their yell. “Twilight, are you alright?” “I'm fine!” She waved and called back down, pointing with her forehoof. “I can see the mountainside ahead that's right outside of Chorazin, and the mine openings in it. We're almost there!” “We heard you yelling,” John called to her. “Is whatair caused that gone now?” “Pretty much,” Twilight answered, circling them just above the treetops; hovering ate too much strength and endurance. She took a quick look around, saw nothing but a massive cloud high above that looked like a singularly lonely thunderhead, swollen and bulging. “I had some trouble, but nothing too bad.” The Toller made its call above, from somewhere inside that cloud. It sounded almost angry now. Gong! Gong! “Gong all you want,” Twilight called up to the heavy cloud. It must be hiding in there, it looked as big as a hoofball field back home. “Your pets didn't amount to much.” The cloud stopped and seemed to shiver. Then a slit slowly began to open in the end facing her. A slit that revealed a huge luminescent patch, shot through with electrical flashes. It focused on her, and part of the cloud above it furrowed over it, as though in anger. Twilight gulped as it began lowering towards her, like a full-grown dragon stooping towards a pony back home. Another hole began opening beneath that eye. It looked like a tornado set on end, spinning and whirling deep into the cloud, lined with jagged teeth. That noise came again, and it sounded like thunder in her ears now. A hot moist wind blasted at her as it did, one that stank of rotted meat and ozone. GONG. GONG. Twilight wheeled and flew for the cliff side and the mine openings in it as fast as she'd ever flown in her life, wing muscles twinging and starting to cramp. Get there, and get inside, she thought frantically as that gigantic horror behind surged after her. The reek of its breath thickened about her as the mine opening grew ever larger in her vision. Just get away and inside that mine where it can't follow, remember John said no one ever saw one on the ground... She saw almost at the last second how narrow the mineshaft was. Twilight grimaced and tucked her wings in as close as she dared, shot through the opening like a snowball on Hearth's Warming. Behind her she heard the Toller make its cry, weakest of all so far and seeming to echo off into the distance. Twilight stopped inside the entrance, turned and saw the Toller, cloud monster, whatever it really was, collapsing into itself. Like a cloud of smoke being sucked back into a vacuum. It reminded her of the way some of Trixie's more solid-seeming illusions faded. In moments it was gone, leaving empty clear sky behind. “Wait, was that something the Tantabus drew from my nightmares?” Twilight heard the echo bounce back from the stone about her. “I thought it'd take something scary from Equestria, like the hydra –” She closed her mouth. “Heh! No need to tempt fate, is there?” She froze as a raspy and almost familiar voice spoke behind her. “No need at all,” it sneered in Old Equestrian. “Is there?” Twilight spun just in time to see a massive darkness with a pair of glowing green eyes before it fell on her. # # # I don't like to think howair long it took those ponies and me to reach the rocks where we'd seen Twilight land and not take off again. We raced as fast as we dared through those pine trees, maybe a little over a mile. It was hard at the first, close as they seemed to get. The way they made to snatch at you when you passed by didn't help air bit. I wondered me if I was the only one that felt that, but the way I heard those ponies yell about getting manes or tails caught as they ran, especially Rarity, I doubt it. We all stumbled out together at the bottom of the cliff. It looked to rise high up above, lone and bare and barren under the moonlight. It didn't look to be any sort of place for living folks, be they humans or ponies. “Twilight's in one of these holes,” Dash panted aside me. “We gotta find her. HAY TWI!” Her yell echoed all through and around and over those rocks. Right quick I clapped my hand over her mouth. “Remember how close we are to Chorazin by now,” I minded her. The other ponies gathered around while I talked. The anger in her eyes faded some bit while I said, “Do you want the Shonokin to know we're a-coming, maybe set some fellows with guns out to wait for us?” “So what are we going to do, John?” Rarity asked me. Her mane and tail looked raggedy, but she paid them no heed. I knew she must be right worried to not be caring about that. “We have to find Twilight. We have to save her, we need her to use the Elements!” “We'll just have to go look and find her,” I looked at those rocks as I spoke. Little trees grew here and there in cracks around that squared-off opening, sad little things all twisted and gnarled. More cedar, I saw, some of them just big enough to make clubs. I pointed at the mine entrance. “We'll have to look for her in there.” “In there? That dark scary hole?” Fluttershy gave a shiver, but next she drew herself up and started forward. “If it's for Twilight and Princess Luna I'll be brave.” “Shore is,” Applejack echoed her and followed. She looked ready for air thing we might find in there. “Hold on,” I said, putting my hand on her withers. I went to the little scrubby cedar trees. “We'll be needing light in there, unless you ponies can see in the dark.” “Yeesh, guys!” Dash stomped her hoof on the dirt. “Do we have time for this?” She settled down when Rarity spoke up. “We must, dear, unless you want to risk breaking a leg or falling down a pit. And what good would that do Twilight?” Dash didn't look the least happy, but she gave way on it. I took Chief Manco's little axe from my belt and carefully cut those trees. I was able to make three torches solid enough to double for clubs. I minded me as I did how he would have said a prayer, like many an old woodsman I knew when cutting a tree down. Me, I just kept it quick and reminded whoair might be listening on the other end that I and these ladies were in a whole heap of trouble, and so were a sight of other folks, human and pony, who'd done nair thing to deserve it and we might could use some little help right now. I finished as I used some matches to set the torches alight. They burned with a clear sharp scent. I handed one off to Rarity, she used her horn's magic to hold it, and another to Applejack. She took it with her mouth. “Now you be careful there,” I told her as she gripped it. “You get lost in there, it'll be a long time afore you get help.” “Anything happens ta any of us,” she stopped to say, “we won't be around ta worry about getting' help after.” She went in the mine first. It was big and broad enough for ponies to go two by two, but they went single file. After her came Dash and Pinkie Pie. Then Rarity and her torch, with Fluttershy sticking close by her. And me last of all, making sure we had light enough that nair soul could sneak up on us like the Behinder. It was an old-fashioned mine supported with timbers and not one of these big modern open pit mines. Those timbers looked old and dark enough to be stone their own selves. It minded me of something I saw years afore elsewhere, of a mine made by those some folks call the Ancients. There'd been a golden treasure in that mine, but nary soul got any use of it. Two cheats tried tricking me and other folks out of it, but they were taken clear off and away by some thing like a great hairy toad or ape the Ancients left behind them. I'd seen them when I returned what little I had of that unlucky gold, running on all fours and making noises like animals and running deep into the mine and away from a light that now hurt them. I didn't relish recollecting that. It wondered me if maybe something like that would happen to us. “Twilight!” Up before me I could see by the torchlight how the ponies raced off to Twilight where she stood afore us in the mine shaft, standing tall and straight with wings spread like her Princess Celestia the one time I'd met her. Maybe it was how the torchlight shone, but it looked for a moment like she smiled. And not a good smile, either. More like some of those rich city folk who call us mountain folk “hillbillies” when they think we can't hear them. Applejack gave her torch over to Pinkie Pie, who just balanced it on her nose some ways. “Twi, are we glad ta be seein' ya safe and sound!”Applejack went to hug Twilight, but she just dodged away. Applejack stopped and so did the rest while she wondered at Twilight, “What is it, sugarcube? Is something wrong?” “Yes, there is,” Twilight snapped back. She waved her hoof at Applejack and the rest and said, “I expected you before now. We haven't much time.” The ponies just stood in front of her, looking like someone up and slapped them. Dash was the one that managed to speak up next. “Hay, we hurried as much as we could,” she said, sounding maybe the least bit less sure of herself. “I mean, it's dark out there and we have to be careful...” Twilight gave a snort like any annoyed horse, then she turned and began walking further back into the mine. “There's a back way down to Chorazin from the other end of this mine tunnel.” She walked a few steps, stopped and looked back at us all, then stomped a forehoof. Like she expected us to all fall in behind her. “Or are you all going to stand there until the Shonokin kill Luna?” Those words got us going. We hurried after her while she kept going so that she was always just a few steps ahead of us, nair looking back. I heard their hooves clicking on the stones and echoing up and down along that tunnel. I wondered me how it sounded like there was more than six sets of hooves making that noise. I also minded me as I went about some old miners' stories that it was pure poison bad luck to have women in a mine. They said it made the spirits or Tommyknockers or whatair they were down in the ground angry. Then you got miners hurt, even killed sometimes. Well, here I was with six ladies my own self, but I didn't worry myself much right then about any trouble in the mine. I figured we had been lavished with a plenty of trouble already, and more would just be wasted right then. I'd held my cedar torch in one hand with my ash stick in the other. I saw that Rarity and Pinkie Pie still held theirs, and they filled the air with a clean sharp smell as they burned. It helped with the close air in that mine. “You ladies keep an eye on the flames from those torches,” I told them. “This shaft isn't deep, but if they start turning funny colors like blue or green, we need to be getting out of here faster than we came.” Rarity and Fluttershy and Dash all gave me curious looks, but it was Twilight that whipped her head around with a snort and snapped an angry “Why?” “That's what they call mine damp,” I answered her, maybe a little sharper than I'd like. The way she was talking wasn't like Twilight at all. I began to wonder me what happened up there in the sky with her and the Toller. “It's a gas, an explosive one. Whole mines and their miners have been blown to kingdom come by it. You can't smell it rightly, you can only tell it by an open flame changing color. And if you see it you have to be running for your life right quick.” Twilight gave a short sharp snort, then turned back down the tunnel. I reckon I gave her a look then. It was the last thing I'd expected from her. I didn't say air thing, though. I reckoned that she was just worried about what if we didn't get to Luna in time. We made it to a fork in the tunnel. One passage was right broad, leading off to the left and maybe just the slightest bit downwards. The other way led right and seemed mighty narrow. “Here,” Twilight said, stopping right there in the middle of the tunnel. She pointed her horn off to the left. “This is the way to Chorazin. It'll lead us around the back way, so the Shonokin won't see us coming. It'll take a little longer than if we go by the main route, so let's get going – WHAT?” “Uh, sorry to interrupt,” Fluttershy flinched when Twilight snapped at her. She didn't look Twilight in the eyes as she half-whispered, “We're in such a hurry, we don't have very much time left, so maybe we should go by the main route and just try to be quiet?” “Sounds like a good idea ta me,” Applejack nodded, and Rarity and Dash murmured their support along with her. “It feels like we been in here a long time, and Ah think –” “You? Think?” She broke off as Twilight's ears pinned back. “I'm giving the orders here! I'm the Princess! And I say we go left!” I'd been gopping at the way she acted. It was noways like the Twilight I thought I knew. Then I noticed something about the torches. The flames were bending some bit away from the right hand tunnel. I knew what that meant. “You're wrong, Twilight,” I pointed up the right way. I took some steps towards it, pushed the cedar torch into the opening. The flames flickered some more “See, there's a breeze coming down this way. The surface is closer up through here.” “No, it isn't!” Twilight hurried to put herself between me and the tunnel. She gave a snort and scraped the ground. “The other way is the one you have to go! And keep that torch away from me! The smell is sickening!” Twilight gagged and took a step away, another, from that torch and stick I held. “Must you take those things in here?” “And what I want to be knowing,” I said back to her, noways polite, “Is what kind of devil got into you to make you a start acting thisaway to friends of yours –” As I spoke the breeze changed some and took the smoke from my torch right into Twilight's face. She jumped back with a, well, I reckon it was some sort of a scream. Except that I nair heard anyone, human or pony, make such a scream. Loud and wild like someone just took the lid right off Hell. “JOHN! RARITY! FLUTTERSHY! ALL OF YOU! GET AWAY FROM HER!” Right hard on those words one of those bolts of purple light Twilight could throw blasted from behind us and lashed into the Twilight afore us like the crack of God's own lightning. She screamed like a dying horse, loud enough my ears hurt. There was a sharp clean smell like a thunderstorm, and hard after it a rottenness like a dead skunk. She stumbled back and away. It seemed to me she feared the ash stick and cedar smoke as much as she did the bolts that flashed against the walls. Twilight's voice called again. But I wondered me how it could, because it came from behind us. It wasn't behind us much longer, for Twilight rushed up past me and her friends to stand atween us and the other-Twilight. Her mane and tail were a mess, it looked like someone had yanked handfuls of feathers out off her wings, and old torn ropes dangled from her legs. But her eyes burned with such an anger like I nair thought to see in them, and her horn glowed bright enough to hurt in that dark tunnel. “Twilight!” I yelled it, or the ponies did, or maybe we all did. “Whatair's a-going on?” She gave us no heed. She just kept the fire on her horn going as she stepped towards that other-her. I made myself to follow. More of the smoke from my torch drifted towards whoair stood afore us in Twilight's form. She snorted and backed away, looking like she wished me dead then and there. Twilight glanced at me but kept going forward. “Get back, now! And you,” Twilight almost snarled at whoair-it-was, “you get out of my form, right now!” She snatched the cedar torch from my hands and hurled it right into that other's face. Other-Twilight plunged and shrieked. Our Twilight yelled, “John, if you remember any of your music, better use it now!” I tried my best. I threw down my torch, clawed my guitar around me in that dark smoky tunnel, and began to sing the oldest and strongest song I knew. “Three Good Kings, Four Good Saints, At Heaven's high gate that stand, Speak out and bid all evil wait, And stir no foot or hand...” “Battle stations, ladies!” Twilight called aside me, and I saw some light start to go over her. Five other lights just as bright started a-glowing behind me, and I knew them for the light from the Elements that I'd seen once afore. That one afore us screamed at that light and my music or maybe the both, but in the middle her voice changed, went deeper and darker. She got bigger, and her coat went black, blacker than the inside of that mine. Her mane went to blue and purple smoke, and she started to become someone we all knew. “Nightmare Moon!” I heard somepony behind us yell it, like there were air other pony she could be. But not the same as afore. She looked all-smoky now, she seemed to ripple like the waves you see atop a road on a hot summer day. Like she was only halfways real. The Nightmare snarled at us, and I saw no horse teeth but wolfish fangs filling her mouth. Right in the middle that light of Twilight's grew the brighter. The Nightmare turned and vanished. Half a second long I thought maybe I saw something like a snake or a little flood of black water slithering down the tunnel away from us, like something nasty trying to get back under its rock. Then it was gone and we stood there in the tunnel. “Well, ladies, that's over for now.” I sighed and slung my guitar back, turned to face them. “Now if you all – what the devil!” No, that wasn't airy sort of good manners, but even after the Nightmare what I saw when I looked on them was one the mightiest strange things in a night of mighty strange things. The ponies, Twilight and Applejack and Fluttershy and all, looked like someone had up and taken their manes and tails and dyed them near every color you could think of, shining like rainbows in the sky. Right fancy and maybe even gaudy, they were, like something done for little girl-children at a fair or carnival. “Huh!” Dash just said, turning around and around and looking at herself. “Hey, I thought we couldn't do this any more?” “Beautiful!” Rarity almost jumped to say it. She seemed to hug herself with her tail, which looked even bigger and fancier than before, though I don't rightly know how that could be possible. “Magnificent! How I do love looking like this – oh, blast!” That glow around them faded back down, and they went back to their old selves. I didn't say air thing but I felt kindly relieved. But I had to know something. “Howair did you ladies do that?” I bent to check Twilight. Her fetlocks were a little sore looking where the ropes rubbed on them, but I got them off her and she looked fine aside from that. “I don't recollect that happening when I saw you use the Elements against Thorne back in Equestria.” “It happened after Thorne, only a couple months ago,” Twilight lifted her hooves and shook them, one after another. She stretched her wings and winced. I could see where someone had yanked the feathers from them, like how some folks do to keep birds from flying. “The Elements changed form yet again. When we faced Tirek we ended up becoming theElements, not just bearing them. I, we all, thought this was a once and only thing.” Twilight stretched herself. “I guess not.” “That's all well then, but what was Nightmare Moon doing here?” I looked down the way she'd fled. “I thought she was staying with the Shonokin to be keeping an eye on Luna.” “She was, but to judge from how she looked, she's getting desperate.” Twilight tossed her mane and shivered. She started to lead up the smaller passage, making her horn give light so we could see. I fetched my cedar torch and made sure it still burned, blew on it careful like while Twilight talked until it flared up again. “The Tantabus is only a part of Luna, after all, maybe not even the biggest part, birthed out of her darker magic. It might not have the strength to last very long on its own in your world.” “It sure enough looked sickly,” I responded her. I kept a careful eye on the shadows the light made on the wall. I'd seen what the Nightmare could do. The torchlight made our shadows look stretched out and funny the way it usually does, but no more than that. “Like she was just a-getting up from a sickbed.” “If she's getting weaker,” Fluttershy asked behind us, sounding not just shy but worried and right afraid, “doesn't that mean she'll be even more eager to,” she hesitated, like she didn't want to have to be saying it, “to k-kill Princess Luna?” I heard the ponies' hooves striking on the stones behind me, and I knew I felt purely worried myself. “That won't happen,” Twilight said in a right strong voice. “We won't let it happen. We're going to Chorazin despite everything the Shonokin can do and we're bringing Luna back safe and sound.” She said those things the way someone had to then, like they'd happen because she said they'd happen. I felt myself stand up taller some at them, and it looked to me like those ponies all drew theirselves up to hear it too. Even Pinkie Pie looked maybe a little more serious than normal to hear them. Twilight noticed and nodded. “Come on, John, ladies,” she trotted for the small square of pale light in the distance that must be the moonlight showing through the other end of the mine shaft. And we all followed her, to find Chorazin, and the Tantabus or Nightmare Moon or whatair she called herself now, and maybe our own ends too for all I knew. Because I knew that whatair we'd see so far, the Shonokin and the Tantabus would be ready with something even worse for us.