//------------------------------//
// Savior 
// Story: In Reflection, The Same 
// by Faedelaide 
//------------------------------//

Twilight quickly but quietly opened the cabin door. Her head snapped in many different directions as she kept a lookout for Sam.

Gillian quietly stalked behind her. "D'you see him?"

"I don't hear him-"

Twilight was quickly interrupted by the scream of one of her friends. Not bothering to stay quiet, she rushed out into the open field. 

Rarity was yelling at something, staring wide eyed into the sky. Fluttershy held her face in her hooves, huddled into a ball and leaning along the cabin's wall. Gelgen stood on his hindlimbs, staring in slack jawed horror with one of his talons clinging tightly to his chest. Applejack and Rainbow were shouting commands at one another, trying to figure out something, all while Gerret was motionless in the sky, save for the strong beating of his wings. Gilda and Spike didn't move, petrified by something unseen.

Twilight felt a shaky claw poke her shoulder. "Uhm... T-Twilight?" 

Twilight turned her head to look at Gillian, but stopped halfway. Just over the roof of the cabin, she could see movement. Through the chaotic noise of the crowd around her, she noticed a low, rough humming that she could faintly remember hearing before.

Twilight, with a single flap of her wings, soared into the sky to see just what was on the other side of the house. She gasped as she saw the horror that awaited her on the other side.

Sammakott was abhorrent in every aspect of the word. What twilight first thought was oddly patterned skin was actually exposed muscles, tightening and slacking as he moved his titanic body. All along his form, blood vessels carrying pitch black blood covered him. Like a great black squid, his veins and arteries grew and shrank before digging back under his muscles. 

Sammakott's body was mostly equine. He had the hooves, head and body of a horse, but an odd slab of flesh and bone protruded from his back. Attached to it were two long, twig thin arms that ended in a pair of seven fingered, razor sharp claws. Where eyes should have been, instead there was a wide, expressionless slab of interwoven muscle fibers Split apart by one singular yellow orb. He easily dwarfed any of the nearby ponies, and could easily stand taller than the cabin if he were at his full height.

But he wasn't. Instead, the massive creature was hunched over, tearing a wide hole into the side of Cadance's bubble with one claw, and reaching out to something with the other. Twilight looked down below her to see Cadance standing perfectly still. 

Twilight squinted her eyes, trying not to pay attention to the bright yellow beckon. She called out, but her voice was nothing more than a drop in an ever churning ocean. She screamed and hollered and shouted, trying to break through the wall of humming and shouting, but her voice was yet again lost to the cacophonous wind. 

Then, there it was again. That same little spark, that same spear that guided her before. She felt as it glittered along an untraced path, unsure of it's necessity now that it had shown her the way. The spear came to a stop at the gently swirling mark it had left before, and refused to move any further. Twilight stood beside that spear, waiting for it guide her, but it deemed otherwise. Finally, she laid her hoof upon the spear, and was pulled gently along as it approached the vibrant void beyond. She walked idly beside it until it stopped again, its point inches away from the Aether that laid beyond the veil. 

She watched the void. In all its swirling chaos, it's unpredictable spontaneity, something remained. She watched as layers peeled and stretched and covered. Her eyes widened as she watched a hundred different rivers intersect and overlap, each of them moving in a different direction in time and space. She gasped when she saw what she had been lead to see. Everything in the Aether seemed to move of its own volition, but no matter what, everything eventually circled around to one point. Somewhere both infinitely far away and right in front of her, a singular point that was as incomparably large as it was impossibly small revealed itself. It winked closed in a split second, and opened again within the span of a million millennia. Twilight reached her hand out to caress it, only to see the spear still stuck to her hoof. She watched as the Aether bent and flowed around her hoof as she made a single quick motion. She pulled back her hoof, only to see the spear had gone, and what was once a flawless swirling sphere now sported a small but significant blemish in the form of a single small slash mark.

Then Twilight blinked, and the swirling vortex of fear, snow and magic engulfed her. She noticed Sam beginning to lean back, extending his neck backward and opening his maw wider than should have been allowed. She could hear the various pops and cracks as his jaw clicked out of place. In his outstretched hand, Cadance was still as paralyzed as she had been. His other hand was dug firmly into the snowy soil in anticipation. Now was her time to act.

Twilight listened to the roiling waves of the Aether. She laid lackadaisically upon their current, listening to the quiet thrumming that followed their movement.

Sammakott let out a long, raspy breath. Twin pillars of black fog escaped from his mouth and flew high up into the air, where they swirled and danced like obsidian roses.

Twilight felt the currents shift to accommodate the disturbance of the once untouched web of flowing magic. She could feel the Aether move around her as easily as she could feel its magic build within her horn.

Behind the long, flattened teeth that were stained and darkened by oil and blood, row after row of long, needle thin teeth unfurled themselves from the darkest corners of Sam's mouth. Like porcupine quills, they were numerous and needle sharp. They quivered and shook as the Crystal Princess drew closer.

With the vibrant void on her side, Twilight lifted the veil, allowing the Aether to flow freely through her. With that, she felt the writhing abyss fall all around her, and the cumulative force of an entire dimension slammed itself upon Sam's outstretched arm.