//------------------------------// // Stranger // Story: Ruin // by RB_ //------------------------------// Sunset grit her teeth.  “I’m not going to say it again,” the voice growled into her ear. “Who are you, what are you, and what did you do to Equestria?” “S-Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset croaked out. “I’m a pony—” “You don’t look like a pony,” the voice said. Sunset could feel its hot breath on the side of her face, but she couldn’t see anything. “Not like any pony I’ve ever seen.” “I promise you, I’m not lying. I’m a friend of Twilight—ah! Twilight Sparkle!” “Twilight Sparkle?” The pressure let up slightly for a moment—but then doubled. “If you know Twilight Sparkle, then where is she? And where’s Spike?” “I don’t know where Spike is,” Sunset said. “And Twilight’s… Twilight’s dead.” “Dead?” Sunset could feel the creature’s eyes narrowing. “Why should I believe that?” Sunset didn’t have an answer. “Please, if you let me up, I can explain everything—” “How about you explain everything first,” the voice said, “and then we’ll see—hey! Who’re—” There was a great crash, then, and the pressure on the back of Sunset’s head released. Sunset looked up, and there was Twilight, standing over her, chest heaving, the remains of a chair in her hands. Splinters rained down around Sunset. Quickly, Sunset sprung to her feet. She whirled around to face her attacker. Her eyes widened. It was standing on two legs, the creature, and reptilian, covered in blue scales that reflected the dim light. A pair of wings sprouted from its back, and a pair of curved horns extended from either side of its head. A tail stretched out behind it, long, with a fin at the end. It was grimacing, rubbing its head; sharp teeth lined its maw. In short—a dragon. She was about as tall as Sunset was, and in her right claw she clutched a staff of some kind, tipped with a red gem—a bloodstone, if Sunset knew her gemstones (and she liked to think she did). Twilight grabbed her hand, shaking her out of her amazement. “Come on!” she shouted. “We have to get back to the portal!” But Sunset didn’t move. “Sunset?” “Hold on,” Sunset said. She turned back towards the dragon. She’d recovered, now, and she looked mad. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” she said, and it looked like she was about to pounce, but— “Are you… Ember?” Sunset asked. “Dragon Lord Ember?” The dragon froze. “How… do you know my name?” “Twilight wrote to me about you,” Sunset said. “Sunset, what are you doing?” Twilight hissed between gritted teeth. Sunset waved a hand in her direction. “It’s okay,” she said. “She’s a friend… I hope.” Ember got to her feet. “You hit me with a chair.” “You threw me across the room,” Sunset replied. “I think we’re even.” Ember narrowed her eyes. Sunset swallowed. “Let’s start again,” she said. “I’m Sunset Shimmer. This is Twilight Sparkle… a different Twilight Sparkle. We came here from another world.”  She extended a hand. Ember eyed it suspiciously. “We mean you no harm,” she said. “We just came here to find out what happened to Equestria. That’s all.” Ember seemed to relax a little. She still didn’t take Sunset’s hand, however. “Then you’re here for the same reason I am.” she said. Sunset smiled. “How about we compare notes?” Starlight hesitated. Moments ago, Twilight had shot up from her station, knocking her microphone to the floor, and dashed through the portal after Sunset. Every fiber of Starlight’s being wanted to do nothing more than the same, but still, she hesitated. The sound of an approaching ambulance echoed through her mind. Starlight hesitated, the crackling, whirling energies of the portal just feet in front of her. Her stomach twisted. Starlight hesitated. The radio crackled to life. “Starlight? Can you hear me?” Starlight never moved so quickly as she did then. She dashed over to the table, scooped the microphone off of the ground. “Sunset?” she said. “Are you okay? Is Twilight okay?” “We’re fine,” came the reply, after a moment. “You won’t believe who we ran into…” “Twilight must have trusted you a lot to send her subjects to you,” Ember said. “I don’t think she had much of a choice,” was Sunset’s momentary reply. They’d returned to the library, and were sitting in some of the chairs that had lain strewn around the room. They were a little too small for humans, but only a little. Ember seemed to have made herself comfortable however, though she still held on to her scepter. “What about you?” Sunset asked. “What brought you to Equestria? The Dragon Lands aren’t exactly close by. Did you fly here?” Ember nodded. “Yeah. And isn’t it obvious? The dust brought me here.” “The dust reaches all the way to the Dragon Lands?” Ember nodded again. “It doesn’t bother us too much, but it is annoying—it’s not as thick as it is here, though. But there’s another problem.” “What’s that?” Twilight asked. “Our food.” Ember leaned back and put her arms behind her head. “Right around the time the dust showed up, all our gemstones started turning sour.” “Gemstones?” “Dragons eat gemstones,” Sunset explained to Twilight. “It’s their regular diet.” “…How does—” “Magic,” Sunset replied. “Remember how all objects in Equestria contain innate levels of magic? Crystals especially do. Dragons can process that magic and turn it into energy.” “So that’s how that works,” Ember said. Sunset turned to her. “You didn’t know?” Ember shrugged. “Never thought about it. I just eat ‘em.” “So if the gemstones started tasting sour,” Sunset said, “what does that mean?” Ember shrugged again. “No idea. I was hoping Princess Twilight would know. That wasn’t all, though. There aren’t a lot, but there are some things other than dragons that live in the Dragon Lands. Fire lizards, some birds. They all started dying. I was hoping Twilight would know something about that, too. Then I got here, and… well…” A few moments of silence. “There’s more,” Ember said. “There is?” “The day,” Ember said. “It doesn’t change. It’s hard to tell because of the dust, but I’m pretty sure night hasn’t fallen since all this started." “Then…” Sunset could barely stand to say it. “Then… could something have happened to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?” Ember shrugged. “No idea. I came straight here.” “You must have seen other parts of Equestria on your way here, though, right?” Sunset asked. “How… how bad is it?” Ember leveled her gaze at her. “Are you sure you want to know?” Sunset and Twilight looked at each other. They looked back at Ember, whose gaze was unyielding. Sunset nodded.  Ember closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Exhaled through her nostrils. “I don’t know where it was,” she began. “I don’t know pony cities. But it was big. A lot bigger than this one.” “Probably Baltimare,” Sunset said. “And…?” “There were corpses in the streets,” Ember said. “Picked clean, like the buzzards had gotten to them. But there weren’t any buzzards. There was just… nothing. Silence.” Sunset shivered. She could picture it all too well. Cold, icy tendrils wrapped around Sunset’s heart. “So all of…” she swallowed, and it almost hurt. “All of Equestria… is…” “If it’s happening in the Dragon Lands,” Ember said, “It might be the whole world.” “What will you do?” Sunset asked. “I’ll probably fly back home,” Ember said. “If Twilight Sparkle is dead, and Spike isn’t here, then I don’t have a reason to stick around.” They’d stood up. There was nothing left to talk about. Twilight had collected their samples, one petri dish in each hand. “Are you sure?” Sunset said. “Yeah,” Ember said. “Besides, I don’t want the Dragon Lands falling apart while I’m gone.” She grit her teeth. “I’m sure Garble’s trying to rile everyone up again. As usual.” “Alright,” Sunset said. “If you’re sure.” She stepped towards the portal, and Twilight followed.  “Goodbye, Ember,” Twilight said. “See you around.” “I’m so glad you girls are okay!” Starlight’s arms wrapped around Sunset and Twilight. Starlight wasn’t crying, but it was clear from her voice that she might have been close to it. What brought this on? Sunset wondered, though she didn’t ask it aloud. Instead, she smiled, and patted Starlight on the back. “We’re fine,” she said. “And we’ve got new info. Plus, Twilight’s samples.” Starlight released them, and they filled her in on what they’d learned from Ember as Sunset stripped her hazmat suit off. “So it’s even gotten as far as the Dragon Lands…” Starlight said, once they’d finished. “Probably farther,” Sunset said. “We have no way of knowing. Whatever ‘it’ is.” Twilight spoke up. “About that…” “Just as I suspected,” Twilight said, with no small amount of self-satisfaction. She couldn’t help it, even under the circumstances; it’s just how she was when she was proven correct, which she believed she had been. “What is it?” Sunset asked. They were still inside the tent; it was past noon, now. Twilight pulled her eye away from the lens of the microscope she’d been peering down. She blinked her vision clear. “The samples,” Twilight said. “Our controls, samples number one and number two, exhibited no physical change over the last two days. Accordingly, the sample from Earth still doesn’t show up on a thaumograph, and the sample from Equestria’s considerably higher magical content has not changed.” “Right,” Starlight said. “Because objects in Equestria contain ambient magic.” “Correct,” Twilight said, nodding. “And sample three, the sample from our side of the portal that we left in Equestria, has also remained unchanged. No physical change, no thaumic change. “But sample number four, the twig from Equestria that we left in Equestria, shows noticeable signs of degradation. What’s more, a scan with the thaumometer shows that its magical content has decreased from what it originally was by about thirty percent.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” Starlight said. “That shouldn’t happen. That can’t happen.” “Well, it did,” Twilight said. “And this sort of confirms my theory as to what’s going on.” “What’s your theory, Twilight?” Sunset asked, leaning against the edge of Twilight’s bench with her arms crossed. “My theory,” Twilight said, “is that something is destructively removing, or even destroying, the innate magic from Equestria.” The tent was quiet, for a few moments, as that sank in. “…Go on,” Sunset said, eventually. “Okay, so,” Twilight said. “Both of you have told me that all objects in Equestria carry an innate level of magic. I thought: what if that magic is somehow tied to the object’s structure? Then, if you removed that magic…” “The object would fall apart, yes,” Sunset said.  “Right. On a microscopic, maybe even molecular level,” Twilight continued. “Something that might even look to a casual observer like—” “Like rot,” Starlight finished, her eyes widening. “Exactly,” Twilight said. “That would explain the samples Sunset’s brought back appearing to have rotted, even though there was no mold or fungus attached to them. And the results of our experiment conform to that model. The samples with no magic were fine. The sample with magic that we brought back here was fine. Only the sample with magic that we left in Equestria was affected, and it was affected magically.” Twilight looked up at Sunset. “Something in Equestria is draining or destroying magic,” she said. “And whatever it is, it’s taking Equestria with it.” Again, silence, as each girl processed this. Starlight nodded. “That makes sense with what happened to the girls… to Princess Twilight’s friends. Unicorns are the most innately magical of the three species, so they would be affected the most. Then pegasi, then earth ponies.” Twilight nodded.  “Wait,” Sunset said. “Wait. Wait. You’re forgetting me.” Twilight blinked. “What do you mean?” “I mean I’m a unicorn, Twilight,” Sunset said. “And I’m from Equestria. Why doesn’t this affect me, then? I have innate magic, too.” “No, you don’t.” Sunset blinked. “What?” “You saw your thaumograph when I scanned the Rainbooms, Sunset,” Twilight said. “You’re as magic-less as any of the rest of us humans.” “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Sunset said. Her arms fell to her sides. “I’m sorry,” Twilight said. “I don’t have an explanation for that.” “How long have you been in the human world, Sunset?” Starlight asked, gently. “…Five years,” was Sunset’s reply. “You don’t think…?” “It’s possible,” Starlight said. “Your magic may have… dissipated, while you were here. Slowly.” “Wouldn’t that have killed me?” Sunset said. “Like everything else in Equestria? Like what almost happened to Rarity?” “Maybe not if it was gradual,” Twilight said. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Sunset. The fact is, you’re basically a human now.” Sunset bit her lip. “A-anyway,” Twilight said, “What about Dragon Lord Ember? She’s the other outlier, here. Any ideas?” “Dragon scales are resistant to magic,” Starlight said. “A lot of Equestria’s… erm… ‘monsters’ are, but dragons in particular.” “Maybe they’re resistant to this, too,” Twilight said. “Whatever ‘this’ is.” “What about the dust,” Sunset asked. “Where’s that come into things?” “I think that might just be what’s left over after all the magic is removed from an object,” Twilight said. “The leftovers.” She reached out and pinched the end of the twig between her fingers. It crumbled to dust in her hands. “Like this.” “Okay,” Sunset said. “Alright. So what’s the cause of all of this? What’s destroying Equestria’s magic?” “I… don’t know,” Twilight said, and here she folded her hands in her lap. “That’s as far as my theory went. Maybe some kind of anti-magic? There’s no way of knowing.” Sunset sighed. “I’m sorry,” Twilight said again. Sunset shook her head at this. “No,” she said, smiling weakly. “You’ve given us something to work with. That’s huge, Twilight. Thank you.” “Yeah,” Starlight said. “Great work, Twilight.” Twilight blushed. “So now what?” Starlight asked. “Now that we know all this… what’s our next course of action? What do we do?” “There’s only one thing we can do,” Sunset said. She stood up. “What’s that?” Twilight asked. Sunset looked at her. “We find the Elements of Harmony.”