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// ch12 The Threat Rises Up 
// Story: The Tallmare (being reworked) 
// by hus 
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Twilight laid in her bed with the lamp on with a big smile on her face. Finally, a day when she had the upper hoof in this metaphorical chess game, a day where she wasn't alone on this investigation. She had 2 of her best friends with her on this and they were dead-seat on stopping this threat with her. The rest of the day had been pretty normal and it seemed like the mare in the woods was giving her a break. She knew that she and her friends had been friends with her for a while, but she and them had been caught up in their own personal matters and thus became distant. This was a normal problem in most friendships.

Reality calls for one to deal with the challenges life throws at their life. She remembered that quote from Starswirl's The Nature of Harmony. LIke many harmonists like her believed in the great flow that guided magick and possibly karma to many parts of nature like a river. Of course, she did question it like she was now currently, but she knew it existed and there was evidence to prove it. It was a deep feeling in her gut that harmony wasn't the full extent of it, she thought about it because of the way the Tallmare used her form of magick.

Most treaties and textbooks on magick told that there were many ways to channel magic. An example would be that unicorns and pegasuses both use their life energy to use to some extent. But they were extremely different on how their parts function, The unicorns use their inner magick to interact with other natural energies in the area and make a more diverse range of spells, and the pegasusia use channel it from their wings as a boost but use the properties of the air to actually fly.

What she was trying to get at was that there were many types of magick that all functioned in their different uses. Friendship was a type of magic generated from the emotions of different things and culminating into a very effective force, but the Tallmare's was different and unknown. It seemed very complex in function and relied on many different magickal forms of activating a completely unknown energy. But her mind didn't have time to focus on such intriguing questions so she had to head to sleep.





She dreamed of the woods again, but she couldn't feel Luna's presence there anymore, she was alone. The forest was different though, there were several ravines around her that seemed to lead to nothing below, and then was the sound of weird music. It more sounded like a trombone that had rusted and had a popping sound that rattled with each pop.

She turned around and saw that there was somepony standing behind her, but she was obscured in black. The figure was a mare and she had braided hair that was slightly uneven with the edge of her mane's hair spiking out, and her glasses glowed like some floodlights and were clearly outlined by the light. As Twilight looked closer at the mare she realized who she was looking at.

"What are you doing in my dream Vinyl?!?"

In response, Vinyl let out a chuckle that echoed with a chippy tone like her very voice was recorded on an old record player. "yeah yeah it's me Twilight, the local DJ of Ponyvile and lover of Octavia." she said with a mock tone as her glowing white mouth smiled at Twilight. 

"Please answer my luna damed question." 

"Ooo saying a princess's name in vain, I like it and sure ill answer your question. I'm here to send you a message since you aren't listing to our hard drives." Vinyl chirped and booped Twilights snoot.  

Twilight raised a brow at this and backed up. "What is the message you want to send? I don't get it because I don't even get why your after me."

The shadow-covered DJ groaned and smacked Twilight.  "The message is don't fuck with The silent queen. Sure some of us are unwillful participants like my love dumb bitch. And then we have people like me, saved by their/her mysteriousness and cheated death-"

"EXCUSE ME?!? CHEAT DEATH!?" Twilight interrupted while gawking at the reveal.

Vinyl groaned yet again and slapped Twilight yet again. "PAY ATTENTION! Anyways, besides the main 2 types of us, there's another you will be encountering. He was driven mad from one of the silent queen's attempts to make a new pawn."

"Ok but can explain who he is?" Twilight questioned  feeling uncertain about the vague hints about who she was dealing with."  

"Not telling, you know who I'm talking about soon enough." Vinyl said evasively while leaning up against a tree.

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle with a glare and approached the DJ while eyeing her. "Ok then what am I supposed to do with this pony you're talking about?" she said with frustration and annoyance that could be seen in her eyes. 

Vinyl turned her gaze in her direction and scoffed, though Twilight couldn't see that she was because her eyes were just glowing pale white. "kill the defect."

Twilight slammed her hoof into the DJ's chest, but when she hit her chest it felt like she punched a bolder. "OW! SHIT! how did you do that?!" 

"You are in a dream idiot!! You should know that you can do anything you want here! sadly I'm in control here." Vinyl jeered before laughing at her pathetic attempt.

"Im. Not. A. Murderer!" 

"Trust me, it would be for your own betterment if you did. But I guess he could be called that too." Mused the shadow mare.

"What do you mean?"

"Not explaining, we want you to find out for yourself. After all, it would be too easy for you in our game if we gave you an answer." Vinyl jeered one final time before disappearing. 

Then the world faded around the lavender mare and she stood next to the tree as she watched. Then as soon as it drew near her she closed her eyes.





Twilight slowly woke up with drowsy eyes. She could remember the dream clearly and the warning Vinyl gave. She looked outside of the window next to her, it was still night and she estimated it to be 4am. She didn't feeling any form of tiredness so she laid back down on her bed and tried to get back to her sleepiness, but it failed. Again and again and again she couldn't get sleep, like her mind was telling her to be awake. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about things besides sleep. The light from her lamp covered most of her bed but due to how dim it was it made the rest of the room dark. Many ponies and mares asked why she even had a nightlight,  she told them the honest answer which was her nyctophobia. Her reasoning behind it was that darkness made you feel isolated and alone, or possibly vulnerable to something.

As she continued to look out into the darkness she saw something, a silhouette. She didn't know why but somepony was in her room, and their figure was covered by the darkness. She didn't know why but her body was feeling sleepy and stiff again, lit was like her mind was split between alertness and sleep.

"I know, tough struggles ain't it." The voice spoke calmly with a raspy reassuring tone. "You may not know me personally but right now that doesn't matter, just let your worries go. Let your mind, drift away to thoughts of another world of your subconscious." The way this stallion talked to her was almost therapeutic and caring, like somepony finally understood what hell she was facing.  "Yeah, I can tell your struggling but then maybe the thought of sleep makes you calm. So you better just close your eyes and wake up tomorrow and present that nothing happened." A part of twilight brian was convinced at his advice, but the other detected deception. "So just close your eyes and go to sleep." 

She started to close her eyes, but her mind stayed awake. She heard soft hoofsteps approaching her bed slowly while only making the slightest indication that he was close. "Yeah just sleep."

Then Twilight quickly opened her eyes and tackled the stranger, pinning him to the ground with a glare. While she looked down she noticed how disfigured he was. His face was unrecognizable and his fur was missing in large patches with only small bits of brown on his muzzle which had burn marks on it. Both of his eyes had their lids missing and looked bloodshot, like he lacked the joy of sleep. His horn looked deformed as if it was partly melted and his muzzle had long scars tracing up about 1/3 of his muzzle in a smile pattern that had been cut a while ago, showing many exposed teeth and gums. 

"Your one ugly motherfucker." Twilight spat as she tried to telepathically wrestle the hunting knife out of his arcane grasp.  

"I know I am." The stallion said as he then kicked the leg of the mare on top of him and broke free, but his knife had landed a couple of feet away from both of them. The 2 unicorns looked at each other before charging for the knife and shoving one another in a desperate attempt to grab it. Twilight charged a burst of light into his face that illuminated most of the room showing the curved hunting knife with purple light reflecting off its blade. She rushed to it and grabbed it with her mouth since a big chunk of her magick was drained, which made her a bit dizzy.

She looked around and saw that the stallion was not where he once stood and had seemed to vanish. Twilight looked around the room as her vision readjusted with a weary look on her face as she held his hunting knife in her mouth, still not seeing him. Then out of the corner of her vision, a hoof slammed into her face and the knife flew out of her mouth and landed back onto the wooden floorboards. 

Twilight's horn dimmed and revealed the stallion approaching out of the darkness, it was like he didn't come out of the darkness but rather his body martilesed out the darkness itself. "Such a tough sleepy head. One should not be this vicious when sleepy. But at last, I leave you be! For a rather tough victim you are and such a strong-willed element wielder. But now I wish you a fair well till next time!"  

Twilight got up to tackle him but as soon as she leaped onto him, the darkness made him vanish into it. She slowly got up onto her forehooves and looked out into the darkness, and she took in the moment that she was safe now. But she knew she still wasn't and this game of tag will go on until someone won the game. She walked back onto her bed and looked back up at the ceiling with a soft smile, thanking herself for surviving.

She had a lot of stuff to do the next day and one of those things was to give a description to the police and possibly get a sketch for the newspaper to talk about. She also had to meet with her friends that were on the same boat as her and discuss on what to do. She felt exhausted but victorious, she hadn't killed the ugly  motherfucker but she had beaten him in a fight and the next morning she was going to expose him.

As she gloated at her victory and slumped back into her bed, she started feeling tired again. As she thought more, the more relaxed she became, then she fell asleep. In her bed, she dreamed her normal dreams that had no interruptions.