From Whence We Fell
By iAmSiNnEr
To the Heart of the World
“You what?!” Daybreaker demanded.
“We kissed,” Nightmare Moon replied shortly. “If you have a problem with that, we can always let Heartbreaker do what she intended to do to you at first.”
“Please,” Heartbreaker agreed. “I do wish to kill you.”
Daybreaker looked at Heartbreaker before looking back at Nightmare Moon.
She made her decision.
“We’re headed to the Engine, now, then!” Daybreaker said abruptly.
“How do we even get there?” Midnight asked curiously.
“Neither here, nor there,” Heartbreaker tapped a hoof on the ground. “The Engine exists on a different plane from ours. Similar to the Plane of Ascendance.”
Nightmare Moon nodded. “In order to access the Engine, we’ll need to open a gate. And then, it’s simply a journey to the heart of the world.”
“To open said gate,” Midnight summarised. “You need the power of four alicorns.”
“Not exactly, dear Sparkle,” Daybreaker’s eyes shone with anticipation. “We need the essence of four alicorns. A very different matter.”
“What do you mean?” Midnight tilted her head. “How do you even use essence—”
“Less asking and more listening,” Daybreaker’s horn was glowing. “When I cast the spell, you join it. That’s all you need to do.”
Her horn fired a ray into the sky, but it abruptly stopped a few meters above her head, forming an orb. “Feed it with your magic,” Daybreaker said.
Midnight hesitated, but followed suit as Heartbreaker and Nightmare Moon fired their own rays at the orb. As soon as her magic joined the orb, it shook and trembled, before their horns lit up involuntarily, their magic being drawn inside.
“Don’t worry!” Daybreaker shouted. “It’s all part of the process—”
The world went white as Midnight’s magic was consumed.
A clicking noise made Midnight realize she was awake.
“What in the world…?” her voice trailed off as she opened her eyes to come face to face with a giant crab. “CRAB!” she scrambled back, reaching for her magic to blast the crab in the face.
Her magic never came.
The crab clicked its pincers menacingly, but it never advanced upon her. As Midnight looked at the crab, she observed that the clicks were repeating in the same pattern, over and over.
Click. Click-click. Click. Click-click.
It was an illusion or a construct.
“Welcome to the Chamber of Beginnings,” Nightmare Moon’s voice said from behind her. “Where the ideas for everything that you ever saw on our world was first created by Faust.”
Midnight turned around to look at Nightmare Moon, who was standing on a cliff devoid of color. The only color scheme it had was…gray and white.
“The Chamber of Beginnings?” Midnight thought out loud.
“Indeed,” Nightmare Moon scrutinized her. “Magic doesn’t work here. Only your imagination does.”
“Where are Daybreaker and Heartbreaker?” Midnight looked around them, but all she could see were gray plains and a sea frozen mid-tide under the cliff. Looking up, she saw a few birds, but all of them were frozen in the air. Some of them either had no color or were missing beaks and claws.
Nightmare Moon grunted. “Probably in another section of the Chamber. We’ll have to meet them at the Engine. If the Chamber separated us four, it has to be for a reason. It wants us to stay separated.”
“The Chamber is sentient.” Midnight deadpanned.
“Very much so,” Nightmare Moon nodded gravely. “Everything here has a life of its own. The very ground we travel on, the sky, the air. They just have much slower thoughts than us. A second for them is a century for us.”
Midnight groaned. “So how do we get to the Engine?”
“We jump,” Nightmare Moon said simply. “Into the sea.”
“Are you mad?” Midnight demanded. “We don’t have our magic! We can’t fly or cast any spells to keep ourselves alive!”
“We don’t need magic,” Nightmare Moon said dismissively. “Did you not hear what I said? Our imagination is the strongest weapon we’ll have. If we jump, and think of a particular location, we’ll be transported there. But do specify how you want to be transported. The first time I did this, I turned into a stream of bubbles. A very unpleasant experience.”
“What location?” Midnight snapped. “I haven’t been here before, if you don’t—”
Nightmare Moon simply closed her eyes, and suddenly Midnight could clearly in her mind a room filled with whirring cogs, with a sleeping golem in the middle of it.
“How did you—”
“You can do anything with imagination here,” Nightmare Moon replied.
“Oh. So what was that?”
“The Room of Systems,” Nightmare Moon explained. “The room before the Tunnel of Trials. We cannot go further than that. Normally, if an uneducated creature were to come in here, they’d have to go through the Sea of Survival, before the Mirror of Madness. Then only would we arrive at the Room of Systems. But since I’ve been here before, we can skip it all.”
“How did you even come here without a fourth alicorn? Or a third, for that matter? I know Heartbreaker is much younger than you both.” Midnight scowled.
“Discord and Tartarus came with us the first time,” Nightmare Moon peered at the sea. “Discord tricked us. He only wanted to break the Engine. Tartarus wished to try and claim Gaia’s essence. Both of them are now gone. One is scattered to the winds, and the other barely surviving as a primordial god, slumbering away.”
“Ah,” Midnight trotted over to the cliff. “Is that the Sea of Survival you talked about?”
“Indeed,” Nightmare Moon answered. “There’s a sea serpent once we go far enough. Impervious to every weapon, you can only beat him by singing a song. Discord did that the first time. I have no desire to try.”
“I see,” Midnight looked down. “So we just jump and think about the room and how we’re getting there?”
“That’s it in a nutshell.” Nightmare Moon nodded. “Together?”
“Together.”
And the two jumped, vanishing in a cloud of mist just before they hit the sea.
“Welcome to the Room of Systems,” the golem spoke as the two alicorns materialized in front of it. “Please state your name and purpose of visit.”
“My name is Nightmare Moon. Her name is Midnight Sparkle. We’d like to go on to the Engine, golem,” Nightmare Moon said, almost respectfully. Midnight gawped at the level of courtesy Nightmare Moon was giving the golem. The dark alicorn had almost never used that tone before.
“To access the Engine, you must first defeat the Tunnel of Trials. If you fail, you will be erased from existence,” the golem spoke as if it was reading from a script. “Will you accept the risks?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Midnight interrupted. “Erased from existence?”
“Query not recognized,” the golem said. “Do you mean ‘I want to get erased from existence? That may be arranged.”
“No!” Midnight yelped. “I most certainly do not! Why do we even get erased from existence if we fail the Tunnel of Trials?”
“It is designed that way.” the golem spoke in the same monotone manner. “I cannot give any other answer than that. The Creator has locked that information away.”
Midnight huffed. “What can you do?”
“I have access to every system that was ever created. The ecosystem, the system of time, the system of space. If you wish to view their workings, I can show you.”
“Don’t,” Nightmare Moon advised. “It will literally overload your mind. Too much information.”
“Alright. So what is the Tunnel of Trials?” Midnight asked.
“The Tunnel of Trials is designed to push you to your limits,” the golem droned. “It will feed on your fears and doubts, then make you face them to determine if you are worthy of visiting the Engine.”
“O-oh,” Midnight glared at Nightmare Moon. “You said nothing about facing my fears and doubts!”
“Oh, please,” Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. “You’ll be fine. Just remember that it’s not real and keep pushing. And think of me. When we’ll meet again.”
Midnight nodded slowly. “Very well. I accept the risks.”
“I accept the risks too.” Nightmare Moon put a hoof on Midnight’s shoulder.
“And thus shall the trials begin,” the golem’s eyes began to glow. “Good luck.”
The light in the golem’s eyes grew and grew, until it swallowed the room whole.
Midnight could hear dripping noises as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Something was falling onto the ground in front of her. Her nose wrinkled as a smell wafted into her nostrils. A pungent, familiar smell. The smell of decay and rot.
“You killed us,” a voice rasped. “You took our lives.”
“Mom?” Midnight gasped. “No! You’re supposed to be—”
“Dead? Yes, thanks to you…” another voice came slithering from behind her. “But the dead can’t be kept down forever.”
“No!” Midnight scrambled away from the voices. “I did it to put you out of your misery! To save you from pain!”
“We didn’t ask for it nor did we agree,” her mother’s voice hissed. “You are a disgrace. A shame on our family. Killing your own parents.”
“You’re not real,” Midnight’s voice trembled. “You died.”
“Oh, but we are real, my little star.”
Midnight almost broke, then. She almost begged. For only two ponies had known that nickname.
But she was not Twilight Sparkle. She was Midnight Sparkle. And she did not fear what Twilight did.
“You are not my parents,” her voice was surprisingly firm. “You are Twilight’s.”
“But you are Twilight.” the voice sounded confused now, no longer threatening.
“I am Midnight Sparkle,” Midnight snarled. “And I am not afraid of paltry party tricks! If you are truly the Tunnel of Trials, then give me something I actually fear!”
Silence.
Then the voice spoke again. “Very well.”
The world warped and when Midnight could finally see again, she saw Nightmare Moon’s dead body, the golem standing over her.
Blood rushed in her ears as she rushed the golem, summoning her scythe as she did so. Roaring, she swung the scythe.