The bell of the schoolhouse rings finally after two hours. I had to suffer through another equish lesson, finally setting us free. That freedom may be short, but twenty minutes of freedom are better than being cooped up in the classroom all day.
Quickly I take off towards one of the nearby clouds, laying down for a short nap. Miss Cheerilee may not be okay with this, but by now she learned that stopping me from napping at recess is a futile endeavor.
Surprisingly sleep doesn’t come at all and I am forced to think about the bad feeling I am having, since I stepped out of my bed. For some unknown reason, I feel that something terrible is about to happen, but I just can’t figure out what.
“Silent Wing, come down here this instant!” I hear miss Cheerilee shout in the direction of my cloud and I realize that this can only mean two things. One, she is trying again to make me stay in the playground or, what is much more likely, recess is already at its end.
Annoyed that my time is already up, I try to get moving, but for some reason my back is glued to the cloud. I struggle to get free but realize soon that I won’t get out of it on my own power. A bit embarrassed I tell her that I am stuck and ask her if she can send one or two pegasi out, to help me get free of this sticky mess.
A few moments later two pegasi and one alicorn in disguise are carefully pushing the cloud to the ground after their attempts to free me were futile as well. I don’t know who it is, but one of the other foals realize that the cloud is made of Cotton Candy.
As this discovery makes it to the others already in the classroom. It only takes mere moments for everypony to get out and not long after that, I am freed from my sticky prison.
Worriedly I look up into the sky only to discover that this isn’t a single occurrence, but that every single cloud is affected by this. Some are even leaking a strange brown liquid. “Just how drunk are those pegasi in Cloudsdale?”
Miss Cheerilee gasps in shock at my reply but doesn’t say anything else, instead, it’s Rumble who speaks up. “I don’t think that they are responsible for this. Just how in Tartarus would they pull off something like that?”
“Yeah, and I remember that cloud being white when I laid down for my nap.” I reply concerned, having a really bad feeling about this.
I am barely able to hide my panic, as I spot something that is even more insane. The abnormal large pets I may have been able to accept, but not the ballet dancing bears or upside-down flying houses. “We need to tell your mom” I say to Rumble.
With that, the two of us quickly gallop in the direction of his home, ignoring miss Cheerilee’s protest that we just can’t skip classes like that.
Within five minutes we reach his home and step through the portal, immediately starting our search for Princess Celestia. Surprisingly we don’t find her in the throne room, but in the gallery, looking worriedly at the stained glass image of a snake-like creature.
While Rumble tries to get her attention, I notice just how similar this thing looks, if you compare it with the statue in the garden. “What are you two doing here?” A shocked looking Princess Celestia asks once she notices us, not sounding very happy that we are here.
She listens attentively to Rumble telling her why we are here and what is happening right now in Ponyville. She explains to us in quick words why all of this is happening and what we shall do next while writing a letter to Twilight. “Listen, you two. You have to go hide somewhere. This is something only the elements of harmony can deal with and I don’t want Discord finding out about you.”
“But where shall we go?” Rumble asks concerned, knowing as well as I that if Discord is really that powerful, he could find us everywhere.
“Aren’t there some caves beneath Canterlot?” I ask much to my own surprise, wondering where that bit of knowledge came from, but still knowing that it was true.
“You mean the old crystal mines?” Celestia replies surprised and after a short time of considering this option, she tells us how to find the hidden entrance. She embraces the two of us in a brief hug and after wishing us good luck, sends us on our way.
We gallop as fast as we can down the corridors and use the stairs turned slide to get to the dungeons. As we arrive there we see that almost every cell has turned into bouncy castles. The only one unaffected is the one at the end.
Quickly we head inside and use a trapdoor under the bed to pass the first obstacle, only to find ourselves in total darkness. I think of a way to get some light down here, but this is proven to be unnecessary when Rumble’s horn lights up.
If the spell hiding it stopped working or if the light of his horn is visible through the illusion, is something I can only wonder about.
Carefully, as not to disturb anything that could be hiding in these dark tunnels, we make our way deeper into the mine. I am about to move around a corner when I spot something green at the end of the next tunnel. I immediately stop and pull Rumble back before we get spotted.
I take one more careful look around the corner, only to confirm what I thought. Only a few meters away stands a green, four-legged, and non-equine creature I had never seen before. I tell Rumble to wait and approach it carefully, as soon as the hissing starts I run back. I round the corner just in time to be safe from an explosion.
“WHAT THE BUCK WAS THAT?” Rumble screams at the top of his lungs shortly after the dust clears.
“Rumble, please keep it down.” I reply in a whisper, hoping that it was a lonely one and no other monsters are nearby. “We don’t want to draw any unnecessary attention.” I add still whispering but in a surprisingly firm tone.
“That was a creeper. One of many monsters from a video game.” I explain further as he doesn’t stop looking questioningly at me.
“How, how can you be so calm about this?” He asks worried, while pointing at the hole from the creepers explosion.
“I can’t, I am scared as shit, but I don’t let it control my actions. Now let’s continue, maybe we are lucky and find a chest with useful stuff or a safe cave.” I reply, before taking the lead.
We take multiple turns on our search for a relatively safe hiding spot, avoiding every monster we are able to hear in time. Nonetheless, we still encounter a few skeletons.
Rumble is quick to take them out, by dropping them into a lava lake, but one of the skeletons still manages to shoot a fire arrow towards me. I jumped to the side and really thought that it missed me, but the pain coming from my backside begged to differ.
The worst part is that the pain doesn’t go away after a few moments, no it intensifies instead and when I look back, I see that my tail is on fire. “Put it out, put it out, put it out!” I scream in pain as I run around like a headless chicken on my search for a water source to extinguish the flames.
To my great luck, there is an underground lake only two corridors away. Without a second thought, I jump into it and enjoy the cold of the water for some time, before climbing out of it again.
“You okay Wingy?” Rumble asks me concerned, as soon as he could catch up to me.
I look back at the sorry excuse of what used to be my tail, giving a depressed sigh, before I turn my attention back to him. “Yeah, let’s move on.” I reply with a lack of enthusiasm in my voice and I can only hope that we don’t have to hide down here much longer.
None of us dares to speak a word as Rumble leads us deeper into the mine, hoping that this was our only encounter of that kind. Our hopes are quickly shattered when we enter a large cave, only this time it’s much worse than any monster we could have possibly encountered.
There, standing in front of something that looks suspiciously similar to a nether portal is the draconequus we have been trying to hide from the entire time. “Maybe he won’t notice us if we leave quickly.” Rumble says barely audible to me.
We both turn around and gallop as fast as we can in the direction we came from, but we don’t make it very far as strange vines grow out of the ground, blocking our only exit. “Now, now, why the rush all of a sudden. You didn’t even give me the chance to introduce myself.” He says with his back to us, still focused on the Portal in front of him.
We stand there silently, worried about what he plans to do to us, now that we find ourselves in the situation we tried to avoid by coming down here. I look around the cave, desperate for another way out, but the only possible option would be the Portal. Yes, we could go through it, but since Discord could have tampered with it, I honestly don’t want to find out what’s on its other side.
He turns around after a while, taking a good look at us and with a snap of his claw, I find myself bound to an examination table. “Now let's have a good look at you.” He continues, now wearing a lab coat and holding something that looks like a very pointy spyglass in his right claw.
It pinches slightly as he rams the tip of it into my head. “My, my, that’s certainly interesting. I wonder why Luna locked away all those memories.” He wonders out loud while conjuring a rubber hammer out of nowhere and I scream in pain, as he uses the hammer to drive this thing even deeper into my head.
“Hm, so that is why. Let me give them back to you.” Are the last words I hear from him before I find myself back in the corridor of my old school. I begin to wander down the corridor in a search of an exit, only to stumble directly into Derek and his friends as I turn a corner.
“Oh, sorry Derek. I didn’t see you there.” I apologize immediately, in the hope that he won’t do anything painful. “Don’t, please don’t hurt me.” I plead in vain once I recognize the grin on his face, shortly before his fist hits me.
When Discord lets everything he arranged near Wingy disappear, he just drops her on the floor, before turning his attention to me. I demand to know what he did to her, but he refuses to give any kind of answer. Staring down at me, obviously thinking about how he can torture me.
I try to get up and gallop over to Wingy to make sure she is alright, but the vines holding me down to the ground won’t budge. He looks amused by this and suddenly a lightbulb appears above his head.
With another snap of his claw, he turns the cave into a movie theater and somehow connects the projector to her head. Soon, images begin to play on the screen and sound comes out of hidden speakers.
He explains to me what I am seeing, but I don’t believe him. There is no way that Wingy used to be one of these weird-looking creatures. He however ignores me and ínstead chooses a different memory. I watch as one of them dies only to wake up in the Everfree, looking exactly like her.
At this moment I can’t deny it anymore, but I don’t care. Whatever she was before doesn't matter to me. I wonder why she never told me about this when I suddenly hear an alarm go off and watch as Discord conjures a clock.
“I would love to spend more time with the two of you, but the gates of Tartarus don’t unlock themselves.” The draconequus says happily after a glance at his watch, before he disappears with one more snap of his claw. The two of us are left behind, trapped in this place and unable to do anything about our predicament.
The time in which I have to watch her get tortured by her classmates passes fast and I am quite shocked at how many memories are there. The more memories are shown, the harder I try to get free of my bonds. I just want to go over there and comfort her the best I can.
Sadly, I can’t keep up the fight forever and the moment I let my body go slack, the vines use that opportunity to tighten their grip around me.
From then on it still feels like hours pass in which she has to relive much worse memories, until suddenly everything just disappears. I immediately get up, rushing over to her and taking her in a tight hug. She buries her face in my coat the moment she realizes that I am there for her and starts to cry openly. Not even stopping as a team of Royal Guards finds us and takes us back to the Castle.
When I ask them to take us to my room, they comply without hesitation and retreat after they laid us down on my bed. Only a few moments of time pass before mom comes into the room and lays down next to us, placing one of her wings protectively above us.
She then bends her head down and whispers something into Wingy’s ear, causing her to relax visibly.
No word is spoken until her parents arrive and we quickly switch positions, before mom and I leave the room silently. Once the doors are closed behind us, I inform her about what Discord told us, before I tell her everything else that happened down there.