The Everfree Forest was unusually dark and misty for such a sunny morning; the group of six ponies could barely see where they were headed. Twilight Sparkle led the way, lighting up the path in front of them with her horn. Applejack, who had volunteered to carry the sleeping Pinkie Pie, trotted along next to her, while the others followed close behind. Off to the sides, in the depths of the forest, everything was covered in an impenetrable, dark fog. Almost anything could be hiding in the shadows between the trees, and each pony was familiar enough with the type of fauna that made the forest their home that the gaps were filled in all too vividly with imagined glowing eyes and sharp claws.
The ponies marched on in an uncomfortable silence. The only sound came from Pinkie's gentle snoring; even their hoofsteps seemed muffled by the mist. At last, Applejack could take it no longer.
“I don't like the looks of this,” she said, breaking the silence. “All this fog... even for this place, 'tain't natural.”
“We can't turn back now,” said Twilight. “not without trying to find a cure for Pinkie Pie. We should be almost to Zecora's.”
“I do hope you're right,” said Rarity. “All this humidity is doing dreadful things to my mane.”
Rainbow Dash gave her a bemused look. “You're worried about your mane at a time like this?”
“One must look presentable when visiting acquaintances,” Rarity replied tersely.
“Look!” Fluttershy said excitedly, pointing in front of them.
Ahead, the forest parted to reveal a small clearing containing the hollowed-out tree Zecora called home. The ponies broke into relieved grins and picked up the pace until they stood in the clearing, tribal masks staring down at them from their various places outside Zecora's house. Twilight walked up to the old wooden door and knocked.
“Zecora, are you there? It's your friends from Ponyville. We kind of need your help with something.”
The door swung inward upon Twilight's touch, creaking loudly. The interior was dark except for a solitary firefly flickering in a lantern near the window.
"Zecora?"
Rainbow Dash poked her head through the open door and looked around.
"Huh, nopony's home."
"Maybe she's just out picking herbs," Twilight said hopefully, inwardly questioning why even Zecora would go out in a fog like this. "We should probably wait here until she comes back."
“Hold on,” said Rarity, walking up to where Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood. “What's this?”
With her magic, she tugged at a slip of paper underneath Twilight's hooves. Twilight hastily took a step backward and watched as Rarity floated the paper up to her face.
“It's a note!” the white mare said, eyes widening. “It must have fallen off the door.”
“What's it say?” asked Rainbow Dash eagerly as she and the others leaned in closer.
“Ahem. 'I've gone to visit a zebra friend. I should be back by the end of the month'? Oh, dear. I don't think we want to be waiting around that long.”
The ponies hung their heads in disappointment.
“I'm sorry, everypony,” Fluttershy said, retreating behind her flowing mane. “I dragged you out to this s-scary place for nothing.”
Applejack stepped forward. “It wasn't for nothing, Fluttershy,” she said in the most comforting manner she could muster. “It was a good idea. We'll just have to try something else is all.”
“Hold on a minute,” Twilight said. “Something isn't right here.”
“What do you mean?” asked Fluttershy, glancing around nervously at the darkness between the trees. “Do you hear something?”
“No,” said Twilight. “I mean I don't think that note was written by Zecora.”
“Well, who else could it be from?” Rainbow Dash asked. “It's not like anyone else lives out in the middle of the Everfree Forest.”
“True,” said Twilight, “but doesn't it seem odd that Zecora never told us about a trip this big? She could have at least mentioned it the last time she came into town, but she didn't.”
“Maybe it just slipped her mind?” Applejack suggested. “It's not like we see her much more than once a month anyway.”
“There's more, though,” said Twilight. “Look at the note. Whoever wrote it missed an obvious rhyme between 'friend' and 'end'.”
“They did!” exclaimed Fluttershy, pushing her face next to Rarity's to look more closely at the paper. “It should be 'month's end', not 'end of the month'.”
“So?” said Rainbow Dash, clearly not impressed.
“So, this is Zecora we're talking about,” Twilight said. “Practically everything she says is a rhyme. It's second nature to her. So why would she write a note that didn't rhyme when rhyming it would have been easy?”
“Okay,” said Applejack, “Let's say somepony else really did write this note. What for, and why would it be on Zecora's door?
“Hmm.” Twilight's mind raced. “Maybe Zecora did write it. Maybe she intentionally made it not rhyme so that if we visited we'd know she was in trouble.”
“Maybe you're just being paranoid,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Look,” said Applejack. “We don't have time to worry about whether Zecora might or might not be in trouble. We do know Pinkie needs our help. I vote we head on back to Fluttershy's to think up another plan instead of hanging around this spooky forest all day.”
“I am not paranoid! Why won't anypony listen to me? This is just like the changelings all over again.”
“Oh, is that what this is about,” Applejack said. “I thought you were being mighty suspicious of everything today. Look, I know we should have trusted you about Cadance and all, but we beat 'em already. You don't need to keep worrying that every little thing is a changeling plot to take over Equestria.”
“Yeah, there's no way they're coming back any time soon after we blasted them with the elements like that,” Rainbow Dash chimed in.
“I suppose you're right...”
Twilight thought back to the encounter. Had it really only been a couple of days ago?
The doors of the Great Hall in Canterlot slammed open, propelled by magic fueled with righteous anger. The Changeling Queen looked over, her smug grin melting as Twilight Sparkle and her friends strode with purpose, unaccompanied, into the room, the Elements of Harmony glittering around their necks.
“B-but how did you get past my clone army?” the Queen stammered.
“Never, ever, underestimate us ponies,” Twilight replied confidently.
The Queen quickly regained her composure. “No matter. So what if you managed to retrieve your little trinkets? I am still even more powerful than Celestia. You have no hope of defeating me.”
“You may have defeated the Princess,” the purple unicorn reluctantly agreed, sparing a painful glance at her mentor, now imprisoned in some sort of cocoon, “but nothing is stronger than the power of friendship. Ready, ladies?”
“Ready,” came the determined reply of the five ponies behind her.
The Queen began to chuckle, but her laughter soon turned to uncertainty, then fear as beams of multicolored light shot out from the Elements, converging on a point above the changeling's heart. She stood, paralyzed, watching as the dots of color expanded to encompass her entire chest. The lights grew larger and more intense as the ponies were lifted bodily in the air by swirling energy.
Twilight opened her eyes wide, and the entire room exploded with light.
Just before her vision whited out, she caught a glimpse of the Queen's shocked expression as their eyes met. Twilight would never forget those alien eyes, haunting, mesmerizing, yet terrified.
And far more familiar in the remembering than they had any right to be.
Those eyes had been in her dream this morning, she was sure, and although she had no doubts that the changelings would continue to haunt her sleep for a long time to come, the eyes in her dream had been different. Malevolent. In-control. There was also that feeling from earlier that she was missing something vitally important, but try as she might, she could not remember any more of the dream.
If she had not been so worried about Pinkie Pie and Zecora, Twilight might have dismissed this train of thought, but as it was, she needed to know, if just for her own peace of mind. She had never used a memory spell on herself before; the spell had been explicitly banned during all examinations at Magic School. Even when she used it to free her friends from Discord, that had only been because it was an emergency. Then again, she had never before so doubted the power of her own memory. She cast the spell.
The first thing she noticed was that the magic she drew upon seemed to come from a long way away, as if the spell she was casting was just an echo of some distant enchantment. Then a wave of information hit her, paralyzing her. She could faintly make out her friends swarming around her in concern, trying to speak to her, but no sound made it through, and her vision was soon overwhelmed by the headlong stream of images from her subconscious.
Her dream flashed by, but before she could even begin to make sense of it, other memories pushed it aside in quick succession. A little filly helping her doll finish its homework. A white stallion receiving the regalia of the Canterlot guard. A long-dead uncle with a cutie mark like Twilight's. A letter of acceptance from Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. A baby dragon, sitting in half of his egg shell. A young changeling with eyes like her mother's...
Hold on. That last pony was from her dream as well, but this was a completely different memory. Twilight focused on the memory, willing it to show itself in its entirety.
The sea of changelings parted, and a larger changeling approached from deeper in Canterlot Tower.
“Oh, and you were all so close, too,” she said, faking a sympathetic pout. “You made it this far, only to be captured here, within sight of you goal. How deliciously ironic.”
Twilight and the others lacked the will to speak. They knew they were hopelessly outnumbered.
“But we mustn't deprive you of your peace of mind,” the changeling continued. “Here, let us tell you what really happened.”
The entire hall full of changelings glowed green with energy, and Twilight blacked out.
She awoke to the sight of herself striding triumphantly into the Great Hall. A part of her wanted to scream out that it was a trick, that it wasn't real, but that part was silenced by the unseen force driving the illusion.
Twilight managed to pull herself back to the present. She lay wheezing on the forest floor, her mind reeling trying to comprehend what she had just remembered. The tightness in her chest, the soft touch of the moss under her head, none of it was real.
“Twilight, are you alright?” Fluttershy asked the lavender mare.
Twilight picked herself up slowly. Her friends' worried faces followed her.
“I'm fine,” she said, “But I just remembered something terribly important.”
“What is it, darling?” Rarity asked anxiously.
Twilight hesitated. How could she possibly communicate the magnitude of what she had seen? How could she prove to her friends that their senses were lying to them?
On a sudden hunch, she raced into Zecora's abandoned house. The others followed her to the door.
“Are you sure you should be in there?” Rarity asked, watching with dismay as Twilight began haphazardly rifling through the contents of Zecora's shelves.
“It doesn't matter now,” the lavender mare shouted back. “Come on, come on, I know she has books somewhere in here... aha!”
Twilight flipped through the green volume she had discovered, her eyes glinting as they skimmed across each page.
“I thought so. They couldn't even keep the number of pages straight before. I can't believe I didn't notice sooner.”
“Notice what, dar–” Rarity began, then jumped as Twilight slammed the open book down right in front of her.
“Rarity, would you please read this for everypony?”
“Oh, well, if you say so.” The white mare cleared her throat and began to read. “Poison Joke is a ground-growing ivy with distinctive blue star-shaped flowers with a bell-like inner ring of petals. It is very playful, and should any creature come in contact with its flowers the pollen within will cling to the pony or animal, causing the humorous alterations in anatomy that give the plant its name. However, the pollen can be easily removed by––”
“Okay, that's good enough,” Twilight interrupted. “Now try reading the next page.”
“I still don't see why you can't just tell us what you remembered, but alright. 'Pridewort. This woody herb, commonly found,' uh, something, something, 'causing feelings of self-importance,' yada yada...”
“Beg pardon, Rarity, but I think Twilight wants you to actually read it, not just skim it.”
“I'm not skimming, Applejack, that's all I can actually read.”
“Whaddya mean, all you can read?”
Applejack ran her eyes across the page.
“What in tarnation?”
“Let me see that,” Rainbow Dash said, snatching the book. “Huh? It's all just random letters and stuff. Who would bother printing this gobbledygook?”
“No one would,” Twilight answered, relieved that the others were catching on, “because this isn't a real book. It's just a memory of a book. My memory. I haven't read that page, so the missing pieces are filled in with gibberish.”
“It looks pretty real to me,” said Applejack. “What's this memory-book o' yours doing in Zecora's hut anyways?”
“Because I remember Zecora having a copy of the same book. That's what I'm trying to tell you. All of this, the Everfree Forest, Ponyville, everything, is just an illusion created from our memories. I thought just Pinkie had been hypnotized, but it's all of us!”
At this statement, the growing tension in the room evaporated among half-hidden snickers. This was definitely not the reaction she was going for.
“Ha, ha, good one Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, not even trying to hide her amusement. “What's next? Is Spike your imaginary friend? Is Princess Celestia secretly an alien?”
Twilight stomped her hoof. “I'm being serious! The changelings put a spell on us back in Canterlot, so that we think we're free when we're actually locked up somewhere.”
“You'll have to excuse us if we're a bit skeptical, darling,” said Rarity, “but it all seems rather far-fetched.”
“But... the book...” Twilight began to panic, looking at each of her friends' faces but finding only concern and confusion. In desperation, she zeroed in on Fluttershy.
“Fluttershy, you believe me, right?”
The yellow pegasus backed away, avoiding eye contact.
“I know you're worried about Pinkie Pie and Zecora, we all are, but I think Rarity's right.”
“Please, Fluttershy, try to remember...”
Twilight placed her horn against Fluttershy's temples. The yellow pegasus watched nervously as a spell washed into her forehead, but otherwise showed no change in expression.
“Nothing?” Twilight asked. Fluttershy shook her head.
Twilight stepped back, staring pensively at the floor, then groaned in realization. “Of course, the memory spell requires physical contact. We're not actually next to one another.”
“Uh huh.” Applejack stooped down to look Twilight in the eye. “I think this whole trip is getting to your head, Twilight.”
“I'm not crazy!” Twilight protested, so suddenly that Applejack jumped backward in shock. “Why is it that nopony ever listens to me when it's really important?”
Rarity positioned herself between the two ponies.
“She has a point, Applejack. Perhaps we have been too harsh on Twilight. Why don't we humor her this time, let her explain?”
“Humor me?”
Twilight shoved Rarity away roughly.
“HUMOR ME?”
Twilight panted, glaring at the ponies in front of her, who seemed genuinely scared at her outburst. She closed her eyes and forced herself to take some deep breaths before continuing.
“I'm sorry. But you have to believe me. This is very important. If that book couldn't convince you...”
Her eyes flashed open with newfound determination.
“...then I'll have to show you something that will. Everypony, follow me.”
Without another word, she pushed past the others and out into the open air. The remaining ponies gave each other puzzled looks before rushing off behind her.
At first, Twilight led them back the way they came, along the path. Soon, however, she turned off into the underbrush. The rest struggled to follow, at times only able to see the glow of her horn in the distance, half-hidden in the mist. Applejack, burdened as she was by carrying Pinkie Pie, had the hardest time, but all the ponies were relieved when they emerged from the shadows of the trees and found that Twilight had halted her headlong rush. Ahead of them stretched a very familiar-looking cliff, one which they had not seen since their initial journey to find the Elements of Harmony.
Twilight spoke as they approached, still facing the cliff's edge.
“When I 'woke up' yesterday, it was because I fell off the top of the library. That would have been when I disappeared. And if I was able to wake up once, I can do it again.”
Realizing what the lavender mare was suggesting, Applejack set down Pinkie Pie and hurried to Twilight's side.
“Now hold on just a moment. I'll accept something mighty strange is going on, but there ain't no way you jumping off a cliff is going to solve anyone's problems.”
“Yeah, Twilight, are you out of your mind?” Rainbow Dash interjected. “The first time we went in here I had to save you from falling off these cliffs, and now you want to do it on purpose?”
“It's not what you think,” Twilight said. “The conflict of inner ear signals from the motion should be enough of a stimulus to wake me up, just like it did before. I'm still amazed the hypnosis was able to obscure such a traumatizing memory.”
Applejack snorted. “I don't care about your scientific mumbo-jumbo, I'm not letting a friend of mine do something so reckless just to prove a point.”
“But--”
“No, Twilight. It's not a dream. If you jump off that cliff, you won't wake up. You'll just get hurt real bad, and I can't let you do that.”
Twilight looked falteringly at the orange mare for a second, then turned back to the precipice and tensed her legs. Before she could make the jump, Applejack tackled her.
“Get off of me!”
“No, I won't! Not until you promise to act sensible.”
Pinkie Pie stirred and mumbled something in her sleep.
“Pinchy knee. Something scary.”
“Did you say something, dear?” Rarity muttered, not daring to take her eyes off of Twilight and Applejack.
A peal of thunder racked the treetops, followed by the unmistakeable sound of rain. Twilight might have wondered at the the amazing realism of it all, if she wasn't so caught up in her struggle. Pinkie Pie, however, was jolted awake. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the commotion at the cliff's edge.
“Twilight! Applejack! What's going on? Why are you fighting?”
She rushed over to the two mares as they struggled on the ground, oblivious of anything else around them.
“Promise!”
“I said, get off of me!”
Applejack was not prepared for the magical force field that Twilight summoned to push her away. Neither was Pinkie Pie. The bubblegum-colored pony was thrown right off the edge of the cliff.
Before Twilight could properly react to what had happened, a rainbow-colored blur zoomed past her.
“I'll catch you!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
She streaked over the edge of the cliff and hurtled toward Pinkie, blinking the rain out of her eyes as she began to outpace the falling droplets. The pink pony's scream rang in her ears as she inched closer to Pinkie's flailing form. It was now a race between her and the ground as to who would reach Pinkie first, and Rainbow never lost a race. A cone of compressed air formed around her as she came within hoof's reach of Pinkie. She was going to make it.
Then, quite suddenly, the pink pony disappeared right before her eyes. Rainbow Dash was so surprised that she forgot to turn out of her dive until she realized it was too late.
Up on the clifftop, a tremendous boom shook the forest, louder than any thunderclap.
Rarity peered over the edge. “I... can't believe it,” she stammered.
“What?” asked Applejack and Twilight together. Fluttershy just stared, wide-eyed.
Rarity turned to face them, concern and disbelief etched onto her face.
“They're... gone.”
Applejack doffed her hat. Twilight looked horrified.
“But... no...” the unicorn said. “That can't be. This place isn't real. They can't be... be d--”
Twilight's head drooped dully onto Applejack's shoulder. “I'm sorry. I should have listened to you, Applejack.”
Applejack glanced uncomfortably at the purple unicorn. She knew she should really say something, but in the shock her mind was drawing a blank. Luckily, Rarity spoke first.
“Er, not that type of gone, darling. I mean they're gone gone.”
“Huh?” Twilight looked up, blinking back nascent tears.
“What do you mean, gone?” Applejack said, raising an eyebrow.
“They just disappeared. I can't see them at all.”
“Could you repeat that again?” said Twilight, ears perking up.
“They were near the bottom, and then they just... disappeared.”
A grin crept across Twilight's face as her eyes lit up triumphantly.
“I knew it! I was right after all!”
Before the others could react, she took a running leap over the edge.
“Twilight! NO!”
Applejack's cry rang in her ears as she plunged confidently into the abyss.
“I'll wake you up soon, I promise!”
* * *
The express train from Canterlot pulled into Ponyville station, and a unicorn and a dragon disembarked. “It's good to be back,” the unicorn said, stepping down from the platform onto the dirt road that led into town.
“You said it,” her companion replied. “I mean, Canterlot is great and all, but it's just not the same as it used to be.”
“No, it certainly isn't,” Papilia agreed, absent-mindedly trotting along. Not after what we've done with the place.
“Uh, Twilight?” Spike asked. “Where are you going? The library's that way.”
The disguised changeling stopped in her tracks. She knew this might happen eventually; borrowed memories were treacherous things, always confusing to sort out and prone to rejection by the host mind. She had hoped they would give her enough time to learn her way around town by herself, though. Apparently not.
“Uh, I just...” Papilia cast around for an excuse, and was relieved to see a pink pony bouncing down the street toward them. “I just wanted to talk to Pinkie Pie.”
Of course, it wasn't really Pinkie Pie. That annoying pony was safely back at Canterlot with the others. Their counterparts here were hoof-picked by Papilia from her own entourage. This was Number 4.
The disguised changeling caught sight of them. “Twilight Sparkle! Spike! You're back!”
A pink blur nearly knocked Papilia over, and Number 4 grabbed Spike's hand and shook it vigorously.
“I'm so glad you're back so soon! I was getting worried I would have to spend another day without two of my best friends. Just this morning, I was thinking that it seemed like only yesterday we left you in Canterlot, but then I remembered it was only yesterday, but that was still too long.”
Under the guise of taking a much-needed breath, Number 4 leaned in close and whispered discreetly into Papilia's ear. “We're meeting tonight, at Sugarcube Corner. Looks like a gingerbread house. You can't miss it.”
She straightened back out and reverted instantly to her previous boisterous performance.
“What I'm trying to say is, I really missed talking to you. Hey, I know, I can talk to you as you walk back to the library!”
“That sounds great, Pinkie Pie,” Papilia said wearily. Number 4 seemed to be enjoying her role a little too much, but at least she was staying in character.
“Okay, then!”
Number 4 led them off into town, hopping up and down excitedly the whole way.
“Oh, Twilight, you'll never guess what,” she said cheerily.
“No, I probably won't,” Papilia agreed.
“The party supplies arrived already!”
“The what?”
“You know, the party supplies.” The changeling shot Papilia a huge wink. “They're here already, crates and crates of balloons, ready to pop.” She suddenly stopped right in front of Papilia, her face as serious as she could manage while wearing her silly pink pony disguise. “Ready. To. Pop.”
Obviously annoyed at the blank stares she was receiving from Papilia, Number 4 continued to hop up and down in front of her, punctuating every bounce with another wink. The whole display was quite impressive, really. Papilia just wished she knew what the changeling was trying to tell her. Besides, you blew up balloons, you didn't pop--
Oh. Those “party supplies.” Right.
If those were here already, it would throw the whole plan off schedule. Papilia supposed she should thank Number 4 for informing her; it gave her time to think over the development before tonight's meeting. At least Number 4 knew enough to be subtle about it. Still, if this was her idea of subtle, Papilia was glad the dragon was so unobservant.
“Is there something wrong with your eyes, Pinkie?”
Oh, oak galls.
“Is that another one of your Pinkie Senses?”
Number 4 stopped bouncing and blinked a few times for real in Spike's direction before breaking into her best Pinkie Pie grin.
“It sure is! It means we're already here.”
The changeling pointed toward a nearby house built into an enormous tree. Papilia saw from the sign out front that they had indeed arrived at the Golden Oaks Library. She had no idea what a Pinkie Sense was, but the response seemed to have satisfied the baby dragon's curiosity. Papilia made a mental note to ask Number 4 about it later.
“Well, it was nice talking to you, Pinkie Pie,” the changeling princess said, “but I think Spike still needs some rest, don't you Spike?”
She surreptitiously cast a light spell on the dragon to make sure. She didn't need him sticking his snout into everything.
“I am kinda tired,” Spike responded obediently, struggling to hold back a yawn as he climbed onto Papilia's back. “But don't you need me to help around the library?”
“Oh, I'm sure I can manage. I need my assistant to be well-rested, after all.”
“Number one assistant,” Spike reminded her.
“Of course, Spike. Who else?”
Number 4 waved her hoof. “Okay, I'll see you two later.” With that, she bounded off down the street again and was soon out of sight.
Papilia carried Spike into the library and closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief. That had gone better than it could have, but she was reminded just how tenuous their current position was. None of them could afford to act so suspicious. One more thing to bring up at what was becoming a critical meeting indeed.
SKRAAWK!
Papilia looked up just in time for something small and fluffy to collide with her face and start clawing at every inch it could reach. The dragon on her back instantly sprung into action.
“No, bad Pee Wee!”
Spike caught ahold of the thrashing creature in his claws and pried it off of Papilia.
“I'm sorry about that, Twilight,” he said, struggling to keep Pee Wee from resuming its assault. “I don't know what's gotten into him.”
Papilia stared: the thing that had attacked her was a phoenix chick. That was probably the last thing she expected to find in a library. Then again, this Twilight Sparkle also kept a dragon as an assistant; Papilia was beginning to wonder if she knew that paper was flammable.
The dragon finally managed to restrain the bird so that it was no longer in danger of dragging him across the room. “Now, apologize to Twilight,” he instructed it.
The phoenix glanced over at Papilia with hostility. She remembered reading somewhere that phoenixes were one of the few creatures that could see right through a changeling's Glamour, and she could tell by the way it was glaring at her that it didn't like what it was seeing.
“Pee Wee...” Spike said sternly.
The bird relented, easing up its expression and letting Spike set it down calmly. It stood on the floor, making a show of nodding its beak in shame. Papilia wasn't fooled, but she managed to force a smile.
“I forgive you, little fella. Say, Spike, weren't you on your way to take a nap?”
“Oh, yeah.”
The dragon looked confused for a few moments, then started up the staircase to where Papilia assumed the bedroom must be. On the bottom step, he looked back to where the phoenix and the changeling stood, the latter grinning nervously at the disapproving chick.
“Are you sure you guys will be alright without me?”
“We'll be fine, Spike, I'm sure Pee Wee didn't mean it.”
“Okay, then, if you're sure.”
The dragon trudged up the stairs as Pee Wee and Papilia watched, following his path with their heads. The second he closed the bedroom door behind him, they snapped back to staring each other down.
“Okay, bird, you know my secret,” Papilia snarled. “I'm not really your master, or whoever she is to you. But you are still going to act like I am. Do you know why?”
The phoenix narrowed its eyes defiantly.
Papilia lunged closer, menacingly. “Because if you don't, there will be consequences. Dire consequences.”
She grabbed a feather quill off the nearby desk and incinerated it in front of Pee Wee's face with a rush of green flames.
“And because of your regeneration, I can administer those consequences over and over again. An endless cycle of suffering. Do I make myself clear?”
The phoenix nodded, cowed.
“Good,” said Papilia, straightening up. “I'm glad we had this talk.”
She smiled as the phoenix chick scurried out of the room, as fast as its little wings could take it. Mother was right after all. The best way to handle troublesome subordinates was to remind them who was in charge. She doubted she could bring herself to actually harm the bird, of course, but she couldn't let it blow her cover.
After all, she had an important job to do. It would be a shame to abandon the game now that all the pieces were on the board. And right now, the princess had a meeting to prepare for.
* * *
Twilight closed her eyes as she fell into the murky blackness. It was a meaningless gesture, of course–in real life her eyes were probably as wide open as everypony else's–but she would still prefer to not know when she was about to hit the bottom. Even though she knew she would wake up long before then, the fall was so realistic that the mere anticipation was bad enough. Any second now, she would find herself back in that dungeon-like chamber beneath Canterlot.
Any second now.
Twilight cautiously opened one eye. The sensation of falling was gone, but it had faded away gradually, unlike the jarring shock that had awoken her before. The blackness from her fall surrounded her completely in every direction, including back up towards what Twilight assumed was the edge of the cliff she had fallen from.
She realized she was standing up. She looked down at her hooves, but the ground, if there was any, was as black and unseeable as the rest of her surroundings. Her hooves, however, showed up as clear as daylight, despite the complete lack of a discernible light source. Was she still dreaming?
Her answer came almost immediately, as a fuzzy pink blur appeared to her left and quickly resolved into a pink pony bouncing toward her. Bouncing upside-down, that is, hooves rebounding off the nothingness at Twilight's eye level. Definitely still dreaming.
“Twilight! Is that you?”
“Pinkie? How are you–?”
“Oops,” Pinkie said as she reached Twilight. She performed a complicated pirouette in midair and landed right-side-up facing the purple unicorn. “That's better.”
“Um, Pinkie, I'm really sorry about--” Twilight began, but the pink pony interrupted her.
“Where are we? This place is fun!”
“Oh. I wish I knew, Pinkie; we should have just woken up, like I did last time. I didn't end up somewhere like this before.”
She squinted off into the darkness, seeing nothing else.
“If I had to guess, I'd say we're in some sort of limbo state where we've broken free of the illusions but haven't yet awoken from the shared dream.”
“That was a dream? That makes sense, because my Pinkie Sense wasn't working, and my Pinkie Sense never stops working but it only tells me if real things are about to happen and a dream isn't real, so it wasn't telling me anything.”
“That... actually does make sense,” said Twilight, impressed. “So, when you were falling asleep...”
A groan interrupted her from somewhere out in the darkness. The ponies quickly spotted a prone cyan form on the “floor” several meters below them. “Rainbow Dash!” they exclaimed in unison.
Pinkie immediately reoriented herself to face the pegasus and bounded down to her, performing a couple of somersaults along the way just because she could. Twilight decided on a more cautious approach; she discovered that she could float downward towards her friend just by thinking about it. She did, however, try an experimental loop-de-loop, and found that the sensation of standing on firm ground remained no matter which direction was “down”.
As they arrived at her level, Rainbow Dash stirred again. “Am I dead?” she asked groggily.
“No, silly, you're doing the limbo!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “What she means is that we're stuck, somewhere halfway between the dream and reality.”
“So we really were all in a dream? That wasn't just you talking crazy?”
Twilight resisted the strong urge to groan aloud.
“No, it wasn't. Although I can't say I blame you for not taking me seriously. It was a pretty realistic illusion.”
“So if that was all a dream, how did we get here? The last thing I remember is almost plowing into the bottom of the gorge.”
“Well, you know how normally when you dream about falling, you wake up right before you hit the ground? That's because your body can't handle the stress and jerks you awake. When we each fell off the cliff, it woke us up for the same reason. Except we didn't actually wake up.”
Twilight started pacing back and forth, talking more to herself now than to Rainbow Dash.
“It was clearly enough of a shock to break us out of the illusion, so something else must be keeping us asleep. Furthermore, our minds are still connected. The changelings must have changed some part of the spell to make it harder to break out of, but what did they change? Did they just add another layer to the dream, or did they make it so that we stayed asleep no matter whether our minds broke free or not? Think, Twilight, think.”
She stopped in place and scrunched her face in concentration, horn glowing with magic. After a few moments, she aborted the spell with a cry of frustration.
“No, no, NO! If only I could use my real magic, I could analyze this place to figure a way out of here.”
“Do you want a cupcake?” Pinkie asked through a mouthful of pastry. “It'll give you lots of energy to think more.” She held out a brightly-colored cake for Twilight's inspection. The unicorn stared at it as if she had never properly seen a cupcake before in her life.
“Pinkie,” she asked hesitantly, “where did you get that?”
The pink pony swallowed loudly before continuing.
“I was starting to get a little hungry with all of this thinking, so I thought 'wouldn't it be nice if I had a cupcake right now?', and then there it was!”
She popped the entire pastry into her mouth at once, then held up her hoof once more. A different cupcake now perched on top of it, having appeared, as far as Twilight could tell, out of nowhere.
“Shee?”
“That's it!” Twilight exclaimed.
“What, cupcakes?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“No, the fact that Pinkie can make cupcakes appear. I figured out what this place is! We did break out of the illusion, so the only part of the spell that remained is whatever is keeping our minds connected. We are literally inside our own imaginations!”
“It seems kinda... empty,” Rainbow quipped.
“More like it's a blank slate,” Twilight corrected her. “Try imagining something, go on.”
“Okay...” Rainbow said hesitantly. She looked up in thought, and nearly instantaneously a large glass of something blue with a straw appeared in front of her.
“Awesome!”
She took a sip of the beverage. “Mmm, blue raspberry.”
“See?” Twilight said. “We can control this world, at least slightly.” She lowered her head into a frown. “But we're still trapped here.”
Pinkie walked over to investigate Rainbow's drink. “Shouldn't it be red?”
Rainbow looked up at her. “Uh, no? It's blue raspberry. It's one of the flavors they had at Canterlot.”
“But... raspberries are red! I think it should be red.”
On cue, the beverage turned a bright reddish pink.
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash protested. “That's my drink, and I want it to be blue.”
“Red!”
“Blue!”
Twilight watched as the drink changed color in rapid succession at every word. A lightbulb clicked on somewhere in her brain.
“Girls!”
The two ponies looked up. “Yes, Twilight?” asked Pinkie innocently.
Twilight continued. “I think I know how to get us out of here now. If I'm right, and the only thing keeping us here is that our minds our connected, then we just have to create a situation where the spell can't possibly keep them connected.”
“And if you're wrong?” asked Rainbow.
“If I'm wrong, we won't really be any worse off than we were. Even if we stay together here, we're still inside the hypnosis. This may be our only chance to break free.”
The lavender unicorn conjured a book out of the emptiness and placed it in front of the three ponies, open to a blank page.
“I want both of you to try to remember a page from a book you've read, without telling me what it is. Just a sentence or two will do. Did you each think of something?”
The two ponies nodded.
“Great! Now, on my mark, concentrate as hard as you can on that page being the page in this book. Picture how it will look, down to the last letter. And don't let your mind wander.” She looked especially hard at Pinkie at this statement. “Ready? Go!”
All three ponies scrunched their faces, concentrating. Twilight opened her eyes as far as she could without losing her mental image of a page from The Magic of Magic: a Unicorn's Guide. The text in the dream-book was swirling and changing, as if unsure of itself, and the book itself started rippling and bulging in a way much more suited to a water balloon than a book. Twilight redoubled her concentration, and the book could take it no longer. It suddenly froze back into its normal shape, then cracked in half like a sheet of glass, with a sound that could be felt rather than heard.
Except it wasn't the book that had cracked. It was as if the space containing the book had itself split at the seams. White hairline fractures spread outward rapidly in all directions.
The ponies opened their eyes just in time to watch the world shatter around them.