Applejack lifted a pair of branches for Twilight Sparkle, the alicorn still holding the Codex within her magic, reading thoroughly. They had returned to the acres however they were on the opposite side from the stands, leaving the duo to wander among the apple trees for a while.
“Ya seem pretty invested in that book.” Applejack commented. “Mind telling me what it's about?” she took a moment to think of the word. “A synopsi or whatever it’s called?”
The bookworm glanced from the pages to her friend. “Do you mean “synopsis?””
Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry, Applejack. But I promised Zecora to keep it a secret. Plus, I’m not sure you’d accept some of the stuff this book says.” she added.
“What do ya mean?” The country mare queried.
The princess sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t say.” she ran a hoof through her mane. “Just, don’t worry about it.” the book-loving alicorn replied as the long line of apple-lava enjoyers became visible.
As they got closer, the two could see quite the display. A familiar pink pony, bouncing, twirling, jumping all around the stand. She would pull off many fantastical tricks, the crowd clapping their hooves for her as she hit the ground, picking up one of the many apple-lava barrels, beginning to juggle them all with amazing strength.
As the two got closer, it was clear that it was Pinkie Pie, entertaining the whole crowd before she accidentally dropped all three barrels, then dropping and breaking open, the fluid spilling out. It was debatable if it was an accident or not.
The cheers and entertained faces of the line dropped immediately, angry frowns and grimaces filling the crowd, before booing erupted at the party pony.
“O-Oh, O-Oh, but I can do this!” Pinkie began doing a stupid chicken dance. The crowd didn’t let up, jeering further for the party pony. She eventually stopped, frowning before chicken-dancing off to someplace else.
“One mug of apple-lava ple-” the stallion at the front of the line was about to say to Applebloom, before being shoved aside by a white unicorn with a suit-like attire on and professional glasses, her hair green and white.
“Step aside, my fine stallion.” the second she opened her mouth Twilight and Applejack could recognize the held back accent of Rarity, the unicorn in a wig and a suit. “I simply must have a jab at one of the finest beverages of all Equestria!” she placed a hoof eloquently to her chest.
The at first furious stallion backed off, recognizing the mare’s prestige and letting her cut the entire line. The pony behind him could be heard huffing something before Rarity continued.
“I am Platinum Column. One of the most refined taste testers in all of Equestria!” she stepped towards the stand. “I have heard great things about you fillies.”
“I’m sure ya have.” the off-looking Applebloom replied. “That’ll be five bits please.” she reached a hoof out.
Rarity dropped a couple in her hand, waiting for Scootaloo to robotically pour her a mug. Once finished, the fancy shmancy mare gripped the drink in her magic and steeled herself. She glanced at Pinkie Pie, giving the white unicorn a disgusted look before just catching Twilight and Applejack, returning from their journey.
Twilight had lowered the book that was in her magic, crossing a hoof across her throat with a disgusted look, signaling her not to drink the liquid.
“W-Well…” Rarity glanced around nervously, a bead of sweat forming down her face.
A broncolyn sounding stallion spoke up from a couple spots back in the line. “Hurry it up!”
The unicorn took a deep breath, before laughing anxiously. “Down the hatch, a-as they say!” she said right before lifting her head and dripping a small portion of the contents of the mug down her throat. Rarity immediately writhed in disgust, dropping the mug and going between hooves. “UGH!” she retched. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted!”
The statement shook the impressionable ponies behind her, them muttering about if the drink was overhyped or not. “I shall take my leave from this stand! Such wretched drinks should be delivered to nopony!” Rarity went off, holding off the urge to vomit.
Once she was out of basic hearing range of the group, Applejack spoke up, heading towards the unicorn. “Good work, Rarity! You got a lot of ‘em ponies second guessing themselves.”
The mare grew green in the face. “I-I’m not sure it was worth it! I think I need to find a bush!” she rushed to the nearest patch of foliage, dipping her head in it and letting out disgusting retching noises.
Although Rarity was often overdramatic, the other three could definitely understand her reaction to the drink. Applejack sighed. “Well that warded them off for now, I’m just hoping Applebloom doesn’t do anythin’ to change their minds.” she stared at her little sister, who was grumbling and groaning, trying to convince them how good it was.
Spike walked away from the line, sighing. “Just as I thought it was getting good.” he looked at the three. “Oh, hey guys! Where’s Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?” he greeted with a wave of his scaly hand.
“Off flying over the Everfree! Something about finding the fancy red stuff that may or may not be a mysterious, mind-controlling and ultimately world endi-.” an orange hoof covered Pinkie Pie’s mouth.
“They’re just goin’ on a casual fly about.” The country mare technically didn’t lie, just withheld a bit of information or two.
“Ah, alright.” Spike replied, looking at the alicorn he assisted.
Twilight Sparkle was extremely tense as she read, ears perked, eyes wide. She made sure to clench her jaw shut as she read, making the shock she was feeling apparent. This can’t be real! It makes sense, but it can’t! God-like beings creating magic? Hyper intelligent bipedal creatures giving us sentience by bestowing the magic upon us? Impossible! Magic just… always existed. that was unlikely, something simply always existing was often not true. The only thing she applied it to was… well magic itself.
And these world eating armies. Brutal and violent monsters, fighting from a dimension “beyond time and space itself”? All of this sounds like something from one of Spike’s comic books!
“It seems to add up.” the artifact in her saddlebag agreed. “Fits everything I know.”
You know this?! she looked back at her bag. Why haven’t you told me then?!
“I thought you wouldn’t have been able to handle it.” they stated blatantly. “I mean, it appears you are having issues now.”
Twilight sighed. You prove a point. she flipped a page.
“Watcha think she’s reading about?” Spike asked after having poked her in one of her legs multiple times. “Seems pretty… immersive.” he found the word.
Applejack shrugged. “Wouldn’t tell me.”
Pinkie raised her hand in excitement. Wait, no. I meant hoof. God, writing in this horse-speak gets really annoying. “Oh! Can I guess?!”
“Eh, sure?” Applejack responded.
“I have two guesses actually!” she began. “My first is: The ultimate culmination of our world’s deepest and darkest secrets all wrapped up in one mind-boggling, reality-morphing book.” Pinkie took a deep breath. “Or… The Really Hungry Caterpillar!”
Applejack nodded. “Yep, I bet it’s the latter.” the mare stated sarcastically.
“Twilight!” The familiar voice of Rainbow shouted from up above, finally breaking the alicorn from her book-born stupor. “Twilight!”
The two pegasi flew down, landing next to the princess as she neatly placed a bookmarking spell in the pages of the Codex, putting it in the other pouch of her saddlebag. “Hey, what’s the matter?” Twilight asked them.
“So, you know that castle in the middle of the Everfree forest? All big, dilapidated and spooky?” The daredevil mare queried.
Twilight nodded a couple times. “Yeah, yeah. The Castle of the Two Sisters. What about it?”
“Well, me and Fluttershy were going around looking for the pools of that apple-lava stuff, then all the sudden we saw this giant blue dome!” Rainbow sat on her haunches, making a circle with both of her hooves to form the mental image. “And it surrounded the castle, like the spell your brother cast back at Cadence’s wedding.”
Twilight tilted her head, one of her ears flicking. “Really?” the alicorn hated this new aspect to the mystery.
“Yeah! Really!” Rainbow responded.
The alicorn nodded. “W-Well, we’ll have to investigate that. But right after we put a stop to this app-”
“That is not a good sign.” The cube rumbled within her bag.
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, panic surging.
The artifact rumbled further. “That castle is ancient, I know its design and faculties. If enough of that e̴͔̪͐͠n̸̫̩͠ȩ̵͚̑r̶͈͂̋g̶̺̮̎̽y̶̭̠̽ is detected in this realm, it will cast a protective barrier to keep ț̵͈̏͋ḥ̴̈́ë̵̺͖m̴͚͇̏͐ out.”
Rainbow tilted her head as well. “What else would I me-”
“Energy? Them? Who in Celestia’s name is them?” Twilight questioned, her surge of panic and confusion turning into frustration.
Her friends all gave the alicorn worried looks as she apparently grew frustrated with her saddlebag.
“I just got done reading this crazy, world-defying book telling me all this stuff! And when I want answers all you give me is some obscure, half-answer that makes no sense! Who the hay are they!” Twilight exploded.
The artifact sighed, trying to avoid an answer. “The Ẹ̵͍̽̀v̴͉͗͜i̴̩͐̕͜-̸͗̓ͅ-̸̜͆̈́”
“Oh!” The alicorn exasperated. “Oh! The Evil! Well, would you mind telling me what it is Mr. Talking Cube?!”
“I-”
“You what?! Ya going to tell me some fancy pants work around? Some stupid cryptic phrase all garbled up from magical disconnections?! Oh! You know what I bet you are?! I bet you’re just some fake messed up trick from Discord. Discord, Discord, Discord. No wonder Fluttershy hasn’t seen him in weeks! He’s been busy conjuring up some cool looking juice to make the six of us all paranoid thinking that it’s rotting everyone’s brain and turning us into zombies!” Twilight took in one, long, deep breath after the complete rant she just laid out before the cube. “It wouldn’t be his first time screwing us over for his own sick kicks!”
They only had one five word long response to it. “You will find out soon.”
She stopped. “Wh-What do you mean?” Twilight asked/
She suddenly felt a hoof rest on her shoulder. “Erm, Twi? Are you okay?”
The princess broke out of her conversation with the thing, looking at her with a paranoid look. She swallowed nervously, realizing that she had said almost all of that outloud. “E-Ehm… Y-Yeah! Yeah! I’m fine… Fine…” Twilight responded the same way she always did when lying.
“Ya sure? It seemed like you were having a pretty heated conversation with… err your saddlebag.” Applejack said.
Twilight Sparkle looked across her five friends, all giving her particularly concerned and worried looks.
Rarity made her way back, eyes weary from getting the stuff out of her system. “W-What all happened while I was gone?” her wig was gone and she had taken off her suit.
Pinkie smiled. “Oh! Not much, Twilight was just going insane.”
The princess shook her head horizontally at the accusation. “I am not going insane!”
“Then who were ya talkin’ to?” Applejack questioned.
Twilight frowned, deciding to tell the truth. “The cube!” she took it out of her saddlebag with her magic. “It talks! Telepathically. It’s some ancient magical artifact! The only issue is that all its warnings are so cryptic that they don’t make any sense!” the princess floated it in front of her to display.
Rainbow and Fluttershy glanced at each other with a complete “yeah, this fillies gone crazy” sort of look.
“It’s saying some Evil is coming! But it won’t say what Evil it is exactly!” Twilight exclaimed. “Spike, you were there when we found it in that hidden room at the Castle of Friendship!?”
Spike nodded slowly. “But… I didn’t hear it talk.” the dragon thought back for a moment.
She looked to her friends that had followed her through the Everfree to help Fluttershy. “Pinkie, Rarity. You all saw what it did to that thing!”
Rarity cleared her throat. “Erm, darling, even if that thing does talk to you, and only you, are you sure it’d actually be that friendly?”
Pinkie Pie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it seemed pretty dangerous back there.”
“I-I would believe that it can t-t-talk… if it can fly around and… attack then, it might?” Fluttershy defended her friend.
Rainbow Dash sighed, moving and resting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Listen, Twi, I think you just need a nap or something. You don’t really seem too stable right now…”
Twilight backed off from her hoof. “I am perfectly stable!” she exclaimed. “You all are just accusing me of being crazy for no reason!” her purple hoof gestured to all of them. She glared towards the artifact that floated in her magic. “You know what, Mr. Cubey?! How about you talk to my friends, huh?! All of them?! Say something to enlighten the-”
Suddenly, something struck through everypony around her. Twilight as well. Like a lightning cracking through a tree, or a calm river stream rushing down a mountain into a cascading fall. A feeling that broke all order, one that rippled through each and everyone of their hearts and shook them to their core.
It felt like balance had been broken in this world. Like the atmosphere was split by some monstrous force. It was an urge in each and everypony’s essence that informed all of them of one single fact.
“We are in the shadow of a distant f̸͙͘ǐ̴͓r̸̘̓ë̷̺́.”
Then, there was a hum.