//------------------------------// // Prison of Fear // Story: Legends Never Die: The Return of the King // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// It was the pain that woke her up. After her wings had been frozen and then unfrozen and after she passed out from the darkness creeping at the edge of her mind suddenly lunging in and taking over, a painful tingling sensation coming from her wings began to bring her back to consciousness. Zipp groaned and blearily opened her eyes to see… nothing. Complete darkness all around. She moaned and groaned as she staggered to her hooves, reaching out blindly, and feeling something smooth and hard and jagged at the top… Her hoof slipped on a sharp edge, and she hissed as she quickly drew away. “Hello?” she called, hearing her voice echo around her. “Is anypony there?” No response. “Pipp? Hitch? Flurry? Anypony?” Silence. Nothing. Zipp sat back down, her panic making her heart race. She was alone in stars know where, trapped in a cage of black crystals, which could only mean one thing. “King Sombra,” she muttered, so quiet she didn’t hear the slightest bit of echo, but suddenly, a deep laugh rang throughout what she assumed was a massive cavern. “Very good, my little pony,” it whispered, and Zipp winced, shaking her head, but the voice wouldn’t leave her head, and that awful feeling of it oozing into her brain never went away. “It took you long enough - none of the others have even realized it yet.” “What did you do to them?” Zipp demanded, standing up and flaring her wings, wincing at the sudden pain. She looked at them and realized that they were exposed to the freezing cold air down there - something that would probably make her sister absolutely freak out about. Her sister… She had to find Pipp. She had to know if she was okay. “The same thing I’m doing to you,” King Sombra snorted, “obviously. Zipp blinked, and then he was standing right in front of her, a gray stallion dressed in steel armor and a twisted crown around a curved red horn. His midnight black mane and red cape waved even though there was no wind, and his red eyes, lined with purple smoke, seemed to bore into her soul, finding her worst fears and bringing them to life. “Leave my friends alone.” It would have sounded braver if her voice hadn’t wavered. “If you dare hurt them-” “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” Sombra said innocently, looking hurt, though his eyes told a different story. “In fact, their demise shall be because of them - I am merely…” He pursed his lips. “How should I put it? Speeding up the process.” Zipp gave a roar and ran at him, leaping up to grab him, but her hooves passed right through him as if he was made of smoke. And when she turned around, she found that he was gone - but there was a new presence in her mind. Though nothing around her had changed, Zipp could feel her breath increasing, her pulse racing, and she started seeing things, blurry images. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the crystal cage surrounding her lowering into the ground and disappearing. She woke up in an empty black space. There was nothing there except for her. Shapes appeared in the distance, and as they came closer, she realized that they were ponies - ponies she knew very well. There was her sister, Pipp, standing side-by-side with her mother and father, whom she barely remembered. Thunder. Zoom. Every other guard from Zephyr Heights. Her friends were there, too - Hitch, Flurry, Sprout, Izzy, and Sunny. Their eyes were green, edged by purple smoke like Sombra’s, their expressions blank, their colors dimmed until they looked almost gray. There was no recognition there - none. It was as if she didn’t exist. “Pipp?” She rushed forward and grabbed her sister’s hoof as they walked by, but she shook her away and kept walking. “Pipp, listen to me! Look at me!” She walked on - they all did. Zipp tried desperately to get their attention, but none of them noticed - none of them cared. Tears filled her eyes, and she tried to run after them, but found that her hooves were rooted to the ground, and she couldn’t move, and then- Then she was falling, falling freely through the sky, nothing but blue space above her and below her. She spread her wings and tried to flap, but her wings didn’t work - in fact, they weren’t there at all. Zipp could only keep falling… and falling… and falling… She missed flying, she missed it oh so very much, she wanted to fly again, to stop falling, but she kept on falling… And then she landed in the middle of Zephyr Heights, and she was surrounded by pegasi, and they were all shouting at her, glaring at her, spitting at her, surrounding her until she had no escape, and they were screaming for her demise, and they hoisted her up on their shoulders, carried her over to the side of the cliff, and threw her over, and as she looked back up, she could see all of Zephyr Heights exploding in a massive fireball, debris raining down all around her, and everything was gone- It’s not real, she tried to tell herself as she fell. It’s not real, NONE OF IT IS REAL!!! IT CAN’T BE REAL!!! Oh, isn’t it, my little pony? She froze. It was him. Everything you see here, the voice said, is your worst fear, your worst nightmare, everything you dread. How interesting. You fear losing everything that matters to you - your friends, your magic, your home. Such a shame that all those things will happen anyway. No, she whispered to herself. No, he’s lying. He has to be lying. This won’t happen. This will not happen. It will happen, my little pony, whether you like it or not. Perhaps you are not convinced. Let’s run the whole thing over again, shall we? She was back in that black emptiness, and her friends and family surrounded her again, but this time, Zipp closed her eyes and thought of her real friends. She remembered stealing her mom’s crown with Sunny and Izzy, escaping Zephyr Heights with Pipp, chasing after Hitch in the forest, defeating challenge after challenge after challenge. She had come so far, and she was not about to lose it. I won’t let this happen. She was falling, her wings failing her, her magic deserting her. None of this is real. Her subjects threw her off a cliff, shouting that they didn’t want her. FRIENDSHIP IS STRONGER THAN MY FEAR!!! You’re wrong, the voice said, but it was much quieter now - she could hardly hear it. She repeated it, over and over again: Friendship is stronger than fear. Friendship is stronger than fear. Friendship is stronger than fear. Her hooves landed on solid ground. Zipp opened her eyes to find herself in a massive underground cavern made of crystals, all alone. But she wasn’t really. Her friends had to be here somewhere. And she was going to find them. The caverns seemed to stretch on forever. Zipp found herself going in circles (she swore she had seen that rock a million times before), and she was nowhere closer to finding her friends than she was when she was in Sombra’s sick mind prison. Calm down, she whispered to herself. “These are your friends. You can find them. Think.” Zipp took a deep breath to calm her thoughts and studied the crystal caves around her. They seemed similar to something she had found in Zephyr Heights - deep caverns underneath the palace that seemed to stretch on into infinity. Unlike everywhere else in the castle, Zipp had left this particular area unexplored. She had been surrounded by black crystals that had disappeared when Sombra had invaded her mind. Something told her her friends would be set up in similar predicaments. All the crystals looked the same - there wasn’t much light down here, so they all looked black. But there were some that seemed to be absolutely devoid of color - like they were made of solid darkness. The ones Zipp could see were small and insignificant - likely just Sombra testing his power.  But there was a large section up ahead that towered over her, even from this distance. Hope mixing with dread inside her, Zipp raced forward just as the crystals slid into the ground, vanishing and revealing a bright red stallion standing at rigid attention, his eyes completely covered by a dull green sheen, his expression blank. “Sprout?” Zipp skidded to a stop and felt her heart plummeting. “Sprout, can you hear me?” There was no response, not even a bit of recognition. It hit so close to what Zipp’s own mind prison had been that she felt herself sinking back into despair - until she remembered, this was her real friend. He wasn’t some illusion created by King Sombra, he was a real pony under an evil spell that she sensed he would be unable to break out of on his own. She had to help him. “Sprout, look at me,” Zipp pleaded, but he made no response. She could feel the situation getting worse and refused to give up. She stepped up beside Sprout and put her hoof on his shoulder, whispering, “I’m here for you - even if you don’t know it.” His mother was speaking in her usual way - calm, stern, steady, without a glimmer of hesitation in her voice. Which made it so much worse that she was telling him that he had disappointed her. She couldn’t believe all the awful things he had done, and she was no longer proud to call him her son - in fact, she didn’t want to call him her son at all. Then there was Hitch and Sunny and Flurry, all staring at him with blank green-eyed stares, their voices harsh as they mocked him for his mistakes, and how he would never be able to make them up - he would live in shame and regret forever, and they would never really forgive him. It seemed like the end. He wanted it to be the end, wanted to sink into a dark hole and disappear, but it didn’t stop. He curled up into a ball, wishing somepony would make it stop, somepony would be there and tell him that everything would be all right, but he was alone, there was nopony here, they had abandoned him, and he was alone… I’m here for you - even if you don’t know it. That voice - it was so different from the one inside his head. It sounded so familiar, so comforting, and he stood back up, looking around to see who it was, but there was still nopony there - nopony except his mother. You see? Nopony cares about you, the voice told him scathingly. You’ll always be alone. You’re not alone, Sprout, the new voice whispered. And he agreed with it. No. I’m not alone. I have my friends - my real friends. Fear may be strong, but friendship is stronger. Sprout’s eyes flew open, startling Zipp. She took a step back - his eyes were his own again, the fear had left his mind, and he spotted her. He seemed to put two and two together, and gave her a thankful smile. “Thanks for the assist,” he said sheepishly. She grinned back. “No problem. Now let’s go find our friends. They’re down here somewhere, going through stars know what. And they probably need help.” Sprout was already running off into the dark caves, not caring what lay in them as long as he found his friends. “Then let’s go find them.” It was much easier said than done, but as Zipp’s hooves began to get sore and her hope began to dwindle, they found Izzy, going through mental trials of her own, and with Sprout’s help, they got her out twice as fast. The unicorn’s face broke into a huge smile as she threw her arms around them, pulling them into a hug. “I thought you guys were abandoning me,” she whispered. “You said you didn’t want a misfit for a friend-” “You’re not a misfit, Izzy, you’re perfect,” Zipp said firmly, extracting herself from the hug. Pipp was only released from her fear trap when Zipp wrapped her wings around her sister and gave her a big hug. And when they found Hitch, it took all of them piling on top of him in a massive hug to wake him up - and he was extremely glad that they did. From the look on his face, Zipp guessed that whatever Sombra had shown him was still in there somewhere - and he didn’t want to talk about it. “Where’s Flurry?” was his first question as he scanned the ponies in front of him. “Not here,” Pipp told him, looking like she was thinking hard. “I mean, not down here. Sombra will want her somewhere else - somewhere he can keep an eye on her.” Zipp swallowed her fear. She was with her friends now - they could handle anything as long as they stuck together. “Then let’s go free her.”