They were walking on the dull path now for some hours for sure, but the landscape was always the same now: Grey rocks and a deep abyss beneath them. The sky had turned grey long time ago, and they had used up almost all their supplies. Anyway, they were close to the point where Twilight assumed that thing came down. The land around them wasn’t just barren anymore, it was literally a wasteland. It seemed like an eternity ago that they had seen a plant. Or, at least couldn’t spot a plant that was actually alive. All they could find were crippled and withered versions of plants which looked like they were dead for a long time. Neither one of them could imagine a plant or any wildlife who could live in a wasteland like this anyway. The path led downwards now, and they followed it, soon reaching the ground of the abyss. It was just like anywhere else, except for the bones lying around.
“Uh … Twilight … could we turn around and just … walk the way back we came here?” Spike was the one to ask what every single one of them thought – except for Twilight. “Spike, nothing could live in a wasteland like this. Those bones are surely very old. No need to worry.” Fluttershy kept quiet, but Twilight could see that the pegasus was scared, and Twilight could understand why. This place wasn’t very inviting, and she wasn’t sure if the bones were really old – she thought she could see a small bit of flesh on one of them, which gave her a queasy feeling. If the one who left the bones here was around them, Twilight just hoped that they wouldn’t run into it, as she pointed with her hoof on the other side of the abyss. “Look – there is the way up. It seems to be quite steep though.” She said, and the others were looking into the direction she was pointing. Twilight could hear Spike gulping behind her.
“Any chance you can carry me up there, Twilight?” He asked, but he just earned a smile of his friend. “You will walk with me. The way up will be hard enough even without the weight of a baby dragon on my back.” Spike sighed as he heard this, but wasn’t complaining about it. They started to follow the path. As they walked up, Fluttershy walked close by Twilight. ““Do you know exactly what we’re looking for?” The pegasus asked her friend. “No, I don’t really know, that’s why I want to investigate what came down there.” The unicorn turned her head to Spike, as she answered Fluttershy, before she spoke to Spike. “And yes, Spike, we should be there soon. I think it is somewhere behind this abyss.” After all, Twilight thought that it was too easy to cross this abyss, but she didn’t complain – why shouldn’t it be easy for once?
It turned out that Twilight was wrong. It was not even a second ago she had those thoughts, as the ground under her hooves began shaking and slid away. While Fluttershy fluttered up in a reaction of the ground moving below her hooves and Spike clung to one of Fluttershys hooves, Twilight was the only one who was sliding downwards, until the pegasus got hit by a rock and got also caught in the landslide. It was mostly just gravel and small rocks but Twilight could feel how she got hit by some larger rocks, not hard though, but it hurt. She closed her eyes and waited till the landslide stopped moving. She had the luck to end up at the top of the landslide, it didn’t took her much effort to stand up again. She looked around, but couldn’t see Fluttershy or Spike around. She walked around aimlessly and dug here and there some holes in the hope she would find her friends underneath.
She searched until she heard a soft cough from somewhere around. She tried to find the origin of the coughing and quickly found Fluttershy under some rocks, with Spike still clung to her leg. “Fluttershy, Spike Are you two okay?” She asked as she removed the little dragon from the leg of her friend and helped her to stand up again. “Are you injured or something?” Fluttershy just coughed again and shook her head. “I’m fine, but I think Spike got hit by some larger rocks, though.” The little dragon started coughing and stood up again, still a bit dizzy. “I’m still alive?” He was asking as if he couldn’t grasp his luck. “I’m still alive!” He almost yelled, before he noticed the both ponies beside of him. “And you’re too! Is anypony hurt?” Twilight just answered by shaking her head, and Fluttershy did the same.
“Well, I guess we will have to find another way to get up there. The path is no more.” Spike and Fluttershy looked at Twilight as if she made a silly remark. “What?” The unicorn asked. “You still want to get up there, even after this?” Now it was Twilight’s turn to look at her friends like that. “Sure, what did you think? This thing … this comet or whatever it was could pose a threat to Equestria, we can’t just leave it there!” Spike massaged his brows. “Twilight, there is no way we can get up there. It’s time to go back. We probably can come back later when Rainbow Dash gets some free time, don’t you think?” He said, but Twilight ignored his reasoning. “If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll just carry on alone then!” She spun around and walked away, feeling the sad looks of her friends on her back and felt sad. But she wouldn’t go back to them, her destination was near, she could almost feel it!
Spike looked after his friend, who left Fluttershy and him just standing around and sighed. “Well … Let’s go back to Ponyville then.” He was just about to go back, but he noticed that Fluttershy wasn’t following. “You don’t want to leave Twilight alone here, do you?” She was asking him with a pleading look in her eyes. “Please, don’t leave her here.” She could see that Spike couldn’t really decide. He didn’t want to stay here, but he definitely also didn’t want to travel back all alone. He let out another sigh and turned around again. “I guess I don’t have a choice. Let’s follow her then.” They both followed their friend on her way.
It turned out that not far away there was another way up, and this time there wasn’t a landslide or anything else. They were careful anyway; they couldn’t know what was waiting for them once they made it out of the abyss again. When they finally reached the end of the path, the sunset already came and it began to become dark. Twilight could feel that her friends were nervous, and she felt the same like them. Even on this side of the abyss the landscape was the same like before, even with the same crippled trees and plants they had seen before they crossed the abyss behind them. The strange shapes of the trees around them and the upcoming darkness didn’t really calm them down at all.
“Fluttershy, tell me … Shouldn’t there be some wildlife around?” Twilight was asking her friend, who had more experience with animals than she did. “You’re right, we haven’t seen a single animal since the cave. Do you think this got something to do with what you’ve seen?” The unicorn shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we will see when we find what we’re looking for.” Fluttershy thought a while about it. “But what if it is dangerous? You know, the thing we’re looking for.” Twilight was just shrugging again. “For now we’re just here to look what has happened over here. So don’t be scared.” Even Twilight could hear how less convincing her words were, but it would have to do for now.
It became darker and the sun was almost gone, as they walked up what they thought to be a hill, they actually stood on the edge of a large crater. They could not exactly see what was in the cause of it since almost the entire center of the crater was covered in thick darkness, but it was obvious that whatever Twilight saw during the Meteor shower crashed down here. “Well, we checked it out, we have seen what came down and now let us go back and tell the Princess, okay …?” Spike was asking, as he was about to turn around and walk away from the swirling clouds of darkness on the bottom of the crater. But he stopped immediately as Twilight was walking towards the object below them like she was being hypnotized.
“Twilight? What are you doing?” Spike was trying to pull his friend back, but without results. She just walked on, straight toward the dark clouds in the middle of the crater. “Twilight, stop! Don’t go down there!” The unicorn also ignored that. She just went straight down into the middle of the crater, and not even Fluttershy could hold her back from going downwards as she tried to stop her friend. As they went down there almost the half way, Spike and Fluttershy gave up trying to stop Twilight from going down there, but Spike took a last try to wake her up from her trance and threw his backpack into her face, but it didn’t do much other than making Twilight walking faster towards the darkness on the bottom of the cave. She still marched directly into the darkness, and left her friends behind. She just walked straight ahead and disappeared in the darkness. Fluttershy and Spike looked at each other. “Do we also have to go in there?” Spike was asking the pegasus. “Well … I think we will have to get Twilight out there … I guess so.” They looked at the other one a last time, seeing that they both weren’t convinced by this plan at all. “So … do we really have to do it?” The pegasus was hesitating for a moment, but then she nodded.
“She’s our friend, and you don’t leave your friends alone when they need you, do you?”Fluttershy asked Spike, who sighed. “No, you don’t. You’re right, but we probably should get the others. We don’t know what is waiting for us there.” The pegasus just shook her head. “It’s a long way back to Ponyville, we have to do it on our own this time, Spike.” Spike nodded at his friend. “Whatever this is, it can’t be good for anyone in Equestria.” Fluttershy was just looking at her little friend. “You’re right, but don’t forget about Twilight …” She said, and Spike nodded. “Well … Do we have a plan at least?” The little dragon was looking upon Fluttershy with hope in his eyes, but he just got disappointed when the pegasus shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” They looked into the swirling clouds of darkness. Each second they stood out here and spent talking, Twilight was in there alone. They didn’t have the time to make up a plan.
So they just walked into the darkness, side by side, pony and dragon. But as soon as they entered the darkness, layers of shadows separated them from each other. Spike looked around, but could not see anything but darkness, unless he stumbled over something and fell on the ground. He turned around to check out what he was tripping over. He screamed up in fear as he recognized that it was the skull of a pony lying on the ground in front of him.
As nopony answered his scream, he suddenly wished that they never came here in the first place, he should have talked that idea out of Twilights mind as he had the chance. Or at least he should have tried to convince her to wait for the others and not to go here alone with Fluttershy and him. He looked up to where he assumed would be the sky, but he could see nothing else than swirling darkness, like everywhere around him. He suddenly felt dizzy and fell on the ground as he blacked out, and the last thing he could hear was a distant scream of a familiar voice.