//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three - The Beast Within 
// Story: DECEPTION 
// by Christian Harisay 
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	Twilight had never felt so comfortably crushed by the weight of the bed sheets upon her. There was a heavy sluggishness to her neural commands telling her body to move.

She gave a huge yawn and snuggled deeper into her sheets, not yet willing to give up the moment, despite knowing the bright sunlight pouring in through the window and her increasing restlessness wouldn’t let her stay there for much longer.

Finally, Twilight slowly pushed herself off the mattress, rubbed a hoof across her eyes, and turned to look at the clock hanging on the wall. Her vision cleared and she caught the time, leading to her doing a double take.

“9:41… That means I was asleep for over fourteen hours.”

She paused at this. Saying it aloud really didn’t make it any more believable, but it did make sense why she’d felt so sluggish. Over half a day’s time spent in a timeless sleep where there had been no thoughts, no dreams, and no sentience: only rest.

But for what it was worth, it was some of the best sleep she’d ever gotten.

Twilight yawned again in contentment, stretching her legs and back as she climbed out of bed. Shifting her body almost immediately caused her stomach to groan loudly.

I haven’t eaten in over fourteen hours, either, Twilight thought. In fact, when was the last time I ate?

She pondered that for a moment before she remembered; her last meal had been at Sugarcube Corner, right before she entered the dream with Pinkie.

I never did document that dream. Perhaps I should visit Pinkie again today to include her experiences in my report. She was there too, after all. And…

“It’s…”

“An old friend?”

Twilight shuddered. Her first experiences with shared dreaming: her first partially intentional one, anyway, had taught her scores of valuable information about the dreamscape, but at the price of meeting someone she’d hoped in her heart she’d never even have to even think about again.

She tried to remind herself that Discord had never really been there. It wasn’t his ghost; it wasn’t even his shadow. It wasn’t even a shadow of his ghost. He was nothing more than a projection: a mentally animate figment of the imagination characterized by memories and the subconscious, and he had even admitted it.

“As far as you should be concerned, I am Discord, and I am very, very much real.”

Twilight felt herself go a little cold. It may have just been a projection of Discord, but for what it was worth, they might as well have been fighting him again..

Her stomach interrupted again when it grumbled audibly, seizing up on its own emptiness so much that it actually started to physically hurt.

First things first, breakfast. Twilight sniffed the air in hopes to find a trace aroma of food. I wonder if Spike already got up and…

Spike let out a snore.

Twilight sighed. “Come on, Spike, wake up! You really need to fix this bad habit of sleeping in…”

She paused as she got to Spike’s bed. He had fitfully pulled his blanket around him and was squirming in his sleep. The corner of his mouth kept twitching, every now and then revealing his sharp teeth in what looked like brief scowls.

“Spike?”

He didn’t wake.

“Spike…” Twilight said with a little more emphasis as she gently prodded his side. He swatted at the disturbance, sharp claws bared and his breath becoming ragged.

“Spike!”

His eyes began to crack open as he started to thrash around in his bed, muttering torn whispers like a low growl.

“No… mine…”

“Spike? Everything okay?”

Spike shook his head as he awoke. He looked around the room as his vision cleared like he was seeing it for the first time, then looked to Twilight and jolted back in surprise.

“Twilight?” He was still quite groggy. “Is that really you?”

“Yes… who else would it be? But that’s beside the point. Why are you still in bed? Staying in bed until 9:45 in the morning is a serious amount of time to oversleep, even for you. What time did you go to bed last night?”

He sat up in bed. “Wait, it’s almost... ten?... Couldn’t be… I feel like I just fell asleep a few hours ago…”

“Do you remember when you went to bed, Spike?” Twilight asked.

Spike began to rub the crust from his eyes. “No, but… couldn’t have been that late. Let’s see, I… I finished up around the library… then Owloysius came by… then I made myself dinner, then I went to bed about half an hour later, but…” Spike shifted in his bed, only to find it suddenly very uncomfortable. He peered under the covers.

“That can’t be right…” He pulled one of the books out from under his blanket to look at the cover. The purple and gold plated case of Modern Spellcasting shone in the morning sunlight.

“But…” Spike pulled the covers off his bed to find that all the missing books were still there in his cotton nest.

Twilight gasped for joy. “Oh my gosh, you found them! Her demeanor suddenly dropped. “Wait... where did you find them?”

“They were in my bed; I found them went I first lay down to go to sleep, but…” He looked back to the book in his claws, perplexed. “I could’ve sworn I put them back…”

A witty smile crept onto Twilight’s face. “Oh, now I get it… wanted to get a little midnight reading done now, did we?” she teased. “Why, Spike, I actually think I’m a little proud of you! I had no idea that you were so enthralled with the arcane or æther! Hey, do you think you might be interested in proofreading my thesis about non-conducive disbursement of mana from interpersonal leylines?”

“No! Besides, that doesn’t explain how they got in my bed. You didn’t put them here to get me back for that one time I took my own suggestion and used the floor as one big shelf, did you?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have freaked out when you said they were missing,” Twilight responded. “In all seriousness, how did they end up here?”

Spike looked back to the books, wracking his brain to try and come up with even a possible answer. “I have no idea.”

“Well, all that matters now is that they’re back. Now that you’re up, would you start on breakfast, please? I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and I’m literally starved.”

“Do I have to right now?” Spike gave a small moan as he stretched, reluctantly pulling himself from bed.

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but her stomach spoke her answer for her when it contorted so loudly that the both of them looked at it.

“Point taken,” Spike mumbled as he shuffled his feet across the floor to the bathroom to get ready for the day. “You want anything in particular?”

Twilight contemplated Spike’s query in correlation with how hungry she felt. She needed something substantive to make up for all that lost nutrition, but felt up for something delicious: the kind of meal she could stuff her face with and not feel guilty about it until way later.

“Pancakes. Yeah, pancakes, if you would. And lots of them, please.”

“A big stack of Twilight’s Achilles Hoof it is,” Spike answered from the bathroom. “But if it’s alright with you, I need a quick bath. I feel grimy.”

“That’s okay, but make it quick. And don’t forget to brush your teeth!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Spike muttered as he closed the bathroom door.

With her assistant otherwise preoccupied, Twilight looked back to Spike’s bed where the books still lay.

Just how did these really end up here? Twilight wondered to herself as she lifted them out of the bed with her magic and trotted downstairs to put them away.

Before she could put the first book back, there came a frantic knock at the door.

“Twilight?! Spike?!” Applejack’s muffled voice called from the other side of the door. “Either o’ you up yet?” She sounded very worried.

Twilight set her stack of books down on the center desk as she trotted to the door, opening it to the sight of a wide-eyed and slightly disheveled-looking Applejack, curiously bereft of her hat.

“Oh, hi Applejack. Where’s…”

“Have you seen my hat?!” Applejack blurted.

“What? No… Wait, is your hat missing?”

“Yes! I coulda sworn I placed it right by my bedside when I went ta’ bed last night, but when I woke up this morning, it was gone! And I’ve spent all morning runnin’ all over town, lookin’ to see if anypony’s seen it, but… nothin’! And I’m startin’ to run outta places to look!”

“Oh, I’m sorry Applejack, but I haven’t seen it,” Twilight responded sincerely, but then Pinkie’s cryptic words come back to her.

“There’s a thief on the loose!”

“Applejack, was there anything else missing from your house?”

“No!... I mean… I don’t know!” Applejack responded, flustered. “I’ve just been lookin’ for my hat, but I can’t find it! I just can’t lose that hat, Twilight! I can’t!” Applejack started to choke up. “It was my daddy’s hat!”

“Oh, wow… I’m so sorry, but I haven’t seen it. But I will keep an eye out for it. And if I do see it, I promise I’ll make sure to get it to you, okay?”

“I… ok, Twi, I’ll take your word for it,” Applejack turned around. “Not that everypony else I’ve asked hasn’t said the same thing…” she muttered as she galloped away.

Twilight closed the door and turned her attention back to the column of books, telekinetically reorganizing them back into their proper places upon the shelves.

Her stomach grumbled again right as she put the last book away. She turned back around to go upstairs and check on Spike, but as she took the first step, the floorboard underneath her hoof shifted and creaked, indicating it was very loose.

Twilight peered at the floorboard. It was one of the planks that had been used to rebuild the floor after she’d worn a massive groove in it from her worried pacing during what she and her friends came to call “The Paradox Incident.” They never did fill the moat she’d carved out around the desk, but the new panels had covered it up just fine.

She took another step, only for the sound of creaking wood to meet her ears again, this time from a different floorboard. Curious, she bounced slightly on her forelegs. The wood bent under her, and each plank moving around slightly at her movement.

Twilight wrapped one of the boards in a telekinetic field and pulled up on it slightly. The board came out of the floor with barely any resistance, revealing the hollow space, large enough to easily hide several ponies. What Twilight saw made her gasp.

Lying before her was Applejack’s hat. She picked up the hat with her magic, only to see what was underneath it: a cookbook, cleverly titled Loco for Coco. Around it were several unsorted kitchen utensils; what looked like a spark plug; a coo-coo clock; a rubber chicken; several pearl earrings of a deep, flush pink; several planks of wood; and a small collection of various horseshoes.

“Not only was the book gone, but so were several utensils, the pilot light in the oven, the clock in the store front, Pumpkin’s favorite squeak toy, half of Mrs. Cake’s jewelry collection, several planks from the stairs and everypony’s left horseshoe!”

It can’t be…

The things Pinkie had reported missing were far from the only items there. She pulled up the rest of the floorboards to find that the entire groove had been filled with seemingly random items. Among the pile, she saw several bouncy-balls, a snazzy white hat, a bird cage, a bunch of dried flowers, a map she recognized from the Cutie Mark Crusaders club house, a numerous of drink coasters, somepony’s lyre, a plushie of Spitfire the Wonderbolt, a diamond-encrusted tiara, a box of scrolls that looked like they’d come from the mayor’s office, a bottle of grey mane dye, an hourglass, and a box of stale muffins, to name just a small fraction of what she saw.

“There’s only one explanation…” Pinkie had said.

Twilight gasped. “Is all this… stolen?”

“What are you doing?” Spike flatly asked from the stairs.

Twilight gasped again in surprise, and she looked up at Spike. His gaze was locked onto her, and his expression stern, almost accusing, like she was a filly who’d been caught with her hoof in the cookie jar.
 
“I found all this hidden under the floorboards; I… I think this is all stolen property! Do you know how any of this stuff got here, Spike?”

Spike’s cold, distant gaze remained fixed upon her.

“Spike? Spike!”

He blinked and shook his head, coming back to his senses.

“Whoa! How’d all this stuff get here?” Spike asked.

Twilight stared at Spike, mouth agape. “Are you… did you just... no, never mind. I need to sort all this out and get everything back to everypony!”

Her stomach growled again.

“After breakfast, that is.”


- - - - - -


“Ugh, having eyes that are literally bigger than your stomach be damned,” Twilight moaned as she made her way to Sugarcube Corner.

Her saddlebags were fully loaded with all of the things Pinkie had said went missing from the shop and several rolls of parchment with quill and ink, but they didn’t seem nearly as packed as her stomach did. Twilight’s order for “lots of pancakes” was interpreted by Spike to mean “a pillar of a dozen banana-nut pancakes taller than it was wide, smothered with a perfect balance of syrup and butter, with a pile of whipped cream and a cherry on top.” It was a monolithic meal that he had aptly and lovingly given the name “Guilt.”

Rounding the corner revealed that the sweets shop had been decorated to look even more festive than usual, a clear sign that Pinkie was holding a party there. This came as a bit of a surprise to Twilight. She’d heard nothing about an upcoming party; there didn’t appear to be a crowd of ponies in or around the shop, and come to think of it, she hadn’t even gotten a flyer either stuck to her door or slid underneath it, which was something that Pinkie always did whenever she was holding any sort of get-together.

She opened the door to the shop and was greeted with the usual chime of the bell bolted into the threshold and the not-so-unusual sight of the entire store front decorated from floor to ceiling for a party. There were balloons, streamers, banners, confetti, glitter, lights, bows, ribbons, confections, cakes, sweets, candies, several bowls of punch, and even a piñata: everything. Everything except the ponies, save for one.

Pinkie sat at a center table, slouched over in her seat and using a foreleg to prop up her head, a look of the dullest of boredoms worn across her entire countenance as she absentmindedly twiddled an unused ladle for one of the punch bowls around with her other hoof. Twilight watched as Pinkie let out a long, insufferable sigh and her usual, palpable springiness dissipated.

“Pinkie?”

Pinkie sprang to life instantaneously. “Ohmygosh,Twilight!”

Pinkie rocketed out of her seat to pull the surprised unicorn into a friendly embrace.

“I knew everypony would show up eventually! Well, obviously you’re not everypony,” Pinkie was again speaking in her common dialect of “mile-a-minute.” “There’s all our friends and their friends who are our friends too because they’re the friends of our friends, and the friends of those friends of our friends, and their friends and their families and Aloe and Lotus and Lilly and Rose and Cheerilee and Golden Harvest and Lyra and Bon-Bon and Derpy and The Doctor and Theodore and Walter and Jeff (aka ‘The Dude’) and Zecora… oh, I wonder what kinds of friends Zecora has back home and if we’d be good friends, but… well, of course we’d be good friends! I’m Pinkie Pie; I can make friends with anypony! Right, Twilight? Right? Right?”

“Uh.. sure!” Twilight responded, looking all around her. “What’s all this for?”

“Well, for a party; duh! I wouldn’t just throw all this stuff up just because… hmm… maybe I should try that sometime. Then it would be like everyday is a party! But what would we party over? Life? The sun and the moon still rising? That we’re ponies and definitely not adolescent sapiens? Or…”

Twilight raised a hoof, cutting her off. “No, Pinkie, I meant what is this party for?”

Pinkie froze in the middle of taking a breath. She held a hoof up and looked to Twilight as if to give an answer, but the look on her face slowly faded into uncertainty, then bewilderment. She looked away to her right, pensive. A few silent moments passed before she snapped back to Twilight.

“Why, it’s the ‘Township-Wide Water Balloon War After-Party,’ of course! We didn’t get to have it yesterday because of risk of high-voltage electric shock, so I figured we could have it today!” She cocked her head to one side. “Didn’t you get that in the flyer?”

“No, in fact, I never even got a flyer. Did you—”

Twilight never got to finish as something behind her caught Pinkie’s eye and made her gasp. Twilight looked over her shoulder; a large stack of paper sat atop a small desk near the door.

“Oh no, this is terrible!” Pinkie bemoaned as she whisked past Twilight towards the paper. “I forgot to deliver the invitations! HOW could have I forgotten? I NEVER forget the invitations!”

“Pinkie, wait!” Twilight stopped Pinkie as she picked up the stack and was right about to bolt out the door. “It’s just after lunch, so everypony is still probably at work!”

“Oh… right…”

“Besides, the party isn’t the reason I came here,” Twilight said as she removed her saddlebags.

“It… isn’t?” Pinkie’s ears drooped and she looked visibly hurt. “Oh…”.

“Can’t really have planned to come here for a party I didn’t know about, can I?” Twilight stated.

“Let me change that!” Pinkie rushed back to Twilight with a pile of flyers and gave one to her.

Twilight looked to the piece of paper. It severely lacked the usual festive décor of bright colors and ecstatic fonts that Pinkie’s party invitations had come to be known by. Instead, it was just a plain white piece of paper with the vaguest of invitation information displayed on it, written with a sloppy black marker.

“Pinkie, all this says is ‘Party at Sugarcube Corner.’ It doesn’t say for what or when.” Twilight said.

“Here, let me fix that for you…” Pinkie took the invitation back from Twilight and whipped out a black marker to scribble on it for a moment before giving it back to Twilight.

Twilight looked back to the invitation. It looked just as sloppy as before, but the original message was now headed by the words ‘Township-Wide Water Balloon War After-’ followed by a proclamation of the time it was supposed to be held: ‘NOW.’

Twilight looked up from her flyer with eyebrow cocked dubiously.

“Pinkie, the real reason I’m here is for one, I found everything that you said went missing,” she said as she opened up a saddlebag to reveal all the lost items.

Pinkie gasped for joy at the sight. “You found my Loco for Coco cookbook!” Pinkie pulled the book from the bag and hugged it tightly. “And you found Mrs. Cake’s earrings! And Pumpkin’s squeak toy! Oh, good, now she won’t try to keep nomming on my tail. It’s bad enough I keep doing that when I mistake it for a swirl of cotton candy on my patootie! And all our horseshoes too! Do you have any idea what it’s like having to walk around wearing right shoes on your left hooves? Spoiler alert; it sucks!

“I’m just so happy to have all this back; thank you, Twilight!” Pinkie chirped. “Where did you find all of this?”

“You know, that’s the strangest thing; it turns out that not only you but a lot of ponies have apparently had things stolen from them. I’ve got to admit, Pinkie, you were right; there is a thief out there somewhere. And apparently, they’ve been using the empty spaces under the floorboards in the library to stash all of the things she’s stolen.”

“That is strange…” Pinkie put a hoof to her chin. “Why wouldn’t the thief store her ill-gotten gains in her own hideout? Unless she didn’t want any ties to the hideout if somepony did find it, in which case she’s pretty clever! But then there’s the chance that the pony whose house she stashed her stash in finds it… in which case, I guess she’s not so clever. Unless… I don’t know; this makes no sense, Twilight! Why would anypony be dumb enough to break into your library just to hide stolen goods there?

“I’ll have to think about this one…” Pinkie said, looking off into the distance.

Twilight thought about this herself for a moment. Pinkie’s concept of the thief was completely illogical; it made no sense to store stolen property in somepony else’s house where they could accidently discover it like she had. It made much more sense to keep all that stolen property someplace that the least amount of ponies possible knew about, and where they could keep an eye on everything. But she didn’t know anypony who had the capacity to be like that…

At least, she didn’t know anypony who could fit that bill.

Can’t be… he was just as surprised as I was…

But not at first. He looked angry; about as angry as when I blurted out that he has a crush on Rarity. But then why was he so surprised? And we all know he’s terrible at covering up his mischief. But he looked so… Twilight found herself stuck in a mental loop, and turned her attention back to Pinkie.

“Tell you what, Pinkie; since you haven’t sent out any invitations left, why don’t you reschedule the party for around six or so when everypony is off work. That’ll not only give you the time for everypony to hear about it, but it’ll also give you time to make some nice flyers and include a big ‘lost and found’ event into the works. Deal?”

Pinkie thought about it for a nanosecond. “Deal!

“Hey, as long as you’re here, want to help me make them? PleasepleasePLEASE?” Pinkie appeared right in Twilight’s face, fluttering her eyelashes playfully.
 
“I’d like to, but I’ve got some other things to take care of first, and I’ll need to get everypony’s things together if I’m going to be bringing everything over here, sorry.” Twilight backed away from the enthusiastic pony. “However, as long as I’m here, I was wondering if you could help me with something.” Twilight removed the quill and parchment from her other saddlebag.
 
“Oh?” Pinkie perked up, curious.
 
“I never did get a chance to document everything yesterday, what with a community-wide skirmish and my withdrawal from a sugar high. And when I woke up today, I realized that you were there too, so I figured it’d be expedient to get your share of the experience as well.”

Twilight unrolled the sheet of paper and sat down, looking expectantly at Pinkie. “So if it’s not too inconvenient for you, I was wondering if you could tell me your side of the story in yesterday’s dream.”

Pinkie drew in a very quick, sharp breath. Her eyes widened and she visibly tensed up. ”O-okay…”

“That’s not a problem to talk about, is it?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie hesitated. “No! No, not at all…” She sat down herself, looking away from Twilight with a forced smile on her face. “It’s just… it’s a touchy subject, ya’ know? I… I never, and I mean never thought I could’ve ever dreamed up something so… so… out there….”

“Yeah, I do know,” Twilight replied. “I was there too, remember?”

Pinkie looked at Twilight in confusion for a moment. “Oh yeah, I guess you were…”

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“And then Discord shows up, and suddenly it’s like we’re shipped to Crazy-Town, and then things just got so… obscene. To think Discord and I could ever be…”

“Pinkie,” Twilight interrupted, “are we talking about the same dream here?”

Pinkie snapped her head back up to Twilight, eye wide. “Oh, you meant our dream! Right, Ha ha! Oh boy… what was I thinking? Me and Discord having… pfft, that’s just crazy, right? Right?” Pinkie bore a tight smile on her face.

“Our dream was crazy enough, yeah, but what were you talking about?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing; nothing at all! Not anything to concern your smarty-party head over. Hey!” Pinkie blurted. “Speaking of parties—” 

“No, seriously, what were you just talking about?”

“Nothing, really!”

“Are you sure? Because it kinda sounded like you were insinuating…”

“Do you want my side of the story or not?!”

Twilight’s eyes went wide in shock as she recoiled from Pinkie’s outburst. A long pause of tense, awkward silence between the two of them followed

“I… I’m sorry,” Pinkie apologized. “That was totally rude of me.”

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have been so nosey in the first place.”

There was another moment of awkward silence between the two.

“Do you… still want me to share my experience?” Pinkie asked, tentative.

“Sure, if that’s no trouble to you. Thanks.” Twilight posed the quill over the paper. “So then, first order of business is actually falling asleep. Do you recall having any strange sensations as you went under? How did it feel?”

“Hmm…” Pinkie pondered. “No, not really. Felt just like falling asleep, to be honest. I mean, I was kinda excited because I was thinking; ‘Oh boy, Twilight’s going to show me this super-mega-cool new dream spell she’s learned,’ and I was wondering what it was going to be like going into a dream with somepony else and if it was going to be anything like last time, or maybe someplace completely different, like a cliff with hopscotch squares chalked onto it, and we could play on it, but whoever would lose would fall of the cliff into an ocean of whipped cream and sprinkles! I’d lose on purpose every time, because I love whipped cream and sprinkles!”

Pinkie looked back to Twilight and was met with an unamused pout.

Pinkie smiled nervously. “Sorry; I can go off like that sometimes.”

“Duly noted.” Twilight made some notes on her paper. “Now then, while we were asleep, were you ever consciously aware that you were dreaming? Did any of your senses indicate to you that you were dreaming, or were you aware that you were sharing mind space with somepony else?”

“Nope, nopity, and nadda!” Pinkie answered cheerfully.

“Now then, about your rather… imaginative warping of the dreamscape through manipulation, how exactly were you capable of making such radical alterations without ever having done so before? And just for the sake of curiosity, just how did you come up with the idea to do everything that you did? Folding an entire world over itself doesn’t really seem a first-step into a hooves-on approach at rewriting the rules of a dreamscape.”

“The flip-world? Oh, that’s easy; I’ve seen it done before,” Pinkie casually stated.

“Wait, what? When? How?”

“Well, I saw you just will a star into being and I thought it was really cool to look at, so I thought ’Hey! Wouldn’t it be fun to see all of Prance at once?’ So I was all like…” Pinkie scrunched up her face in concentration just like she had in the dream. “And BOOM!” Pinkie slammed her hoof down for emphasis, startling Twilight. “Flip-world dream Prance!”

“Okay…”

“As for the roller coasters, haven’t you ever just been trotting around some huffy place and thought to yourself; “You know what would look good here? A roller coaster! Wait, no… a bunch of roller coasters!” Right?” Pinkie asked.

“No.”

“Really? You’ve never thought that before? Hmm, that’s odd… so you’ve never wished Disneigh World wasn’t just in Faunida?”

“Can’t say I have...”

“But you have been to Disneigh World, right?”

“No, but—”

Pinkie gasped in such horror that Twilight might as well have said she didn’t believe in Santa Colt.

“You’ve… you’ve never been to Disneigh World?” Pinkie asked with a shaky tone and huge, sad eyes pouring with genuine pity.

“It’s on my To-Do list. But that’s beside the point at hoof; how were you capable of doing all that when all you’d seen me make of it was a speck of light in the sky?”

“I just reached out to the dream world with my mind and molded it to be what I wanted it to be. Just like how you did it!”

“Just like that?” Twilight asked.

“Just like that!”

“Huh… maybe I should try that sometime.” Twilight mused to herself, jotting down more onto her paper.

Pinkie’s face lit up. “Can I be there when you do?”

“Maybe. But no cotton candy clouds next time!”

Pinkie tensed up again.

Twilight realized what she said a moment too late. “Oh… I’m sorry Pinkie. It’s just…”

“No need to apologize, Twilight... I’m the reason he showed up in the first place.”

“That’s not what I was insinuating at all. But… you do remember that it was just a projection, right? He even admitted it,” Twilight tried to counsel. 

“Yeah, well, still didn’t make him anything less like Discord.”

Twilight was picking up on all sorts of red flags over the sudden drop in Pinkie’s mood, but she sensed there was something else going on that Pinkie wasn’t saying. She knew she’d reached a touchy subject and that she needed to tread lightly, both for a full record of the events and to try and help Pinkie if this was still bothering her. For science. And friendship.

“Pinkie, do you know why a projection of yours would take the form of Discord?” Twilight carefully asked.

Pinkie looked off and thought about it for a moment. “No.” She looked back to Twilight. “Do you?”

“Can’t say for certain. It was a projection animate from the subconscious, and definitely one tied to a negative connotation… maybe it was a reflection of a suppressed memory or a less-than-healthy subconscious process. But that’s just a guess. You don’t have any suppressed, detrimental thoughts or memories, do you?”

Pinkie adopted another thoughtful expression: one more tense than her last. “No, I don’t think so…” Her response was more directed towards the floor to her left than it was to her friend. “I mean… I don’t know. How could I know? If I did, how would I know about it if I buried it in a place where I can’t think about it?”

“Touché.” Twilight made note of this on her paper. “Okay,” Twilight picked up again as she jotted down the last line, toning her words carefully. “There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you. I need to know if you have any indication to the extent of your connection to Discord’s projection.”

Pinkie looked back up to Twilight, eyes wide. “Wh-why would you n-need to th-that?”

“Discord was just a projection, but he was able to manipulate the dream world just like a sentient conscious could. Only a conscious should be able to do that. Which means it was either a special kind of projection, or it was something intrinsically linked to your subconscious with the projection acting as some sort of puppet emissary. And as much as I hate to say it, the latter seems the more likely option.

“He… it said it was animated by our memories, which it seemed to share, it kept making jokes about things that only you seemed to understand, and flat-out implicated you when it said that projections stem from somepony’s mind.” Twilight looked away for a moment. “He even had his own party cannon.”

Pinkie’s expression became very gloomy and she turned her gaze away from Twilight, ears folding down as she let out another insufferable sigh. “I… I don’t know. I could sense him when he showed up, and I could tell you did too, but… that’s about it. I’m sorry, I… I’d rather not talk about it anymore.”

“Okay, but… when he stabbed you with his talon—”
 
Pinkie slammed a hoof on the table. “I SAID…” She caught herself before yelling anything more.

Another moment of tense silence opened up between the two.

“I’m sorry,” the two mares blurted out at the same time.

Twilight and Pinkie caught the other’s stare, bringing about a short, apologetic standoff.

“You first,” they said simultaneously.

Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry for being so insensitive, Pinkie. I didn’t mean to pick at fresh scabs, it’s just… no, now I’m making excuses. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have brought this up.”

“Don’t worry, Twi. You wouldn’t have had a touchy subject to bring up if it wasn’t for me, anyway. And I’m sorry for being so… what’s the word? Curt? Whatever it is; I’m sorry for being so whatever the word is to describe whatever I was acting like was. It wasn’t nice of me, even if it is a big deal.”

She pulled in her forelegs around herself. “I just felt so scared…” The words began to get caught in her throat. “And…” Pinkie looked about ready to cry.

Twilight couldn’t stand it any longer. She got up and moved to the upset pony and pulled her into a comforting hug, which Pinkie quickly returned, shedding a hurt tear that pained Twilight to have to feel.

“It’s okay, Pinkie; it was just a dream.”

“Yeah, well, “Dreams feel real while we’re in them,” remember?” Pinkie muttered. “Not even to speak of these last ones.”
 
“But it’s over now. I just wanted to make sure you were holding up.”

Twilight loosened her hold to look directly at Pinkie. “You are holding up, aren’t you?”
 
Pinkie looked distant for a moment before answering. “Are you?”
 
Twilight paused. “I guess.”
 
“Well, there’s your answer, isn’t it?”
 
“Yeah, I suppose. Well, I should go write this into my reports. And I’ll need to get everypony’s stuff together if I’m going to be bringing everything here… as well as find a way to move everything here.”

A thought occurred to Twilight. “Hey, when you give Applejack an invitation, do you think you could ask her if I could borrow a spare cart of hers?”
 
“Sure; I don’t see why not.”
 
“Thanks. Oh, and when you do see her, be sure to tell her that I found her hat.”
 
Pinkie gasped. “The thief stole her hat?!”
 
“Afraid so.”
 
“Wow.” Pinkie grumbled with serious indignation. “That’s just low.”
 
“Tell me about it.” Twilight sighed. “Well, I’ve got to clean up her mess before it’s too late. See you around… six?”
 
“Sounds like a plan!” Pinkie chirped.
 
“Alright then,” Twilight said as she walked out the door. “And again, I’m sorry again for being so intrusive. All this has just been another one of those moments where my mom would say I’m too smart for my own good.”
 
“It’s okay, I’ve already forgiven you,” Pinkie returned. “But Twilight…”
 
Twilight paused and looked back.
 
“It’s not your super-duper-smarty-panty-pantseyness that gets you into trouble,” Pinkie warned, “it’s your reckless curiosity.”
 

- - - - - -

 
“Month five, day twenty-four, entry four hundred and eighty-three.”
 
The entry covered multiple topics: confirmation that the spell could be used on multiple targets, dreams being built in one mind by the mind of another, gaps in the dream being built by memories, outside interference being able to “kick” the dreamers back into reality, and of the sheer, awe-striking power that manipulation lent ponies within the dream world.

She also finally got around to documenting and explaining the existence of projections: the docile, the hostile, and the just plain weird.

A thought had occurred to her when she was writing that part of the entry; if a dream world was based off of memories, she wondered where in Tartarus she first saw the thing-pony. But if it wasn’t an aspect of a dream that was based off memory and instead was some sort of interpretation of something lurking in her subconscious, than she reasoned that she could probably do with some serious introspective psychoanalysis down the road.

She ended the entry with a resolution to keep herself on a time limit whenever she would enter a dream in the future, and to have somepony wake her up when that time was up.

Twilight sighed again as she lay down her quill. This had been one of the longest entries she’d recorded, and she had learned more about the Dreamscape Spell than she had in any of her other escapades, but at a price that she still wasn’t sure had been worth paying.

She had encountered Discord again. True, it had just been a projection: an imposter, but she might as well go ahead and call it his doppelganger. And to think that thing had crawled out from some dark corner of Pinkie’s subconscious… Celestia wasn’t going to like having to hear about that at all.

Speaking of the Princess…

“Spike! Have you gotten a reply back from Celestia about my appeal for a personal meeting?”

“Nope,” he replied from the engraved trench, busy unloading all the stashed belongings.

“Really? Could you take a new letter for me then?”

“Sure; it’s not like I was busy with anything else,” Spike retorted as he hefted a large box of comic books from the small wooden canyon and braced to pull himself up out of it.

“Oh, you don’t need to get out,” Twilight informed him without a shred of mockery as she levitated a quill and scroll down to him.
 
Spike merely grumbled as he took the parchment and quill. Twilight gently cleared her throat and began to dictate:

“Dear Princess Celestia,

“I was wondering if you received my letter the night before yesterday about my discovery, research, and proof of concept of the once theoretical Dreamscape Spell first posed by the famed Dominus Cob, and had given thought to scheduling a time that I may share everything I’ve learned about this extraordinary new magic with you. And if this is somehow news to you, then… guess what? I finished Dominus Cob’s Dreamscape Spell!

“I look forward to telling you everything I know about it. I think you’ll find it all most fascinating.

“I just know you’ll be proud of me.

“Your Faithful Student,
“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight… Sparkle. Okay, done.” Spike signed for Twilight and sent the letter away with his fire. “Now unless you having anything else for me to take care of, I have to get back to the oh-so-fun task of dealing with the mess of somepony else’s dirt.”

Twilight was about to speak, but was interrupted by a urgent knocking on the door.

“Twilight? Spike? Either of you in there?!”

“Want me to get that, too?” Spike deadpanned.

“No, I’ve got it. Besides, you’ve got your enthralling task of cleaning out a thief’s stowaway space,” Twilight replied playfully. “Have fun!”

Twilight giggled as she heard Spike grumble from the trench, and opened the door to come face to face with Applejack.

“Hi, AJ. Did…”

“Pinkie said ya’ found my hat!?” Applejack blurted.

“Oh, yes, I did!” Twilight pulled the Stetson from the pile and returned it to the farm pony.

Applejack’s face lit up brighter than the overhead sun. She ripped it out of the telekinetic field and rammed it back onto her head. She looked up at it fondly before setting her attention to the unicorn.

“I.. I just..” Applejack was on the verge of joyous tears. Twilight almost fell over when Applejack pounced on her with a crushing hug. “Thank ya’ so much, Twi!”

“Don’t worry AJ, it’s nothing,” Twilight choked out from Applejack’s loving death-grip.

“Nuthin?” Applejack released Twilight. “Sugarcube, this here is anything but nuthin’! This ol’ hat is one of my most prized and cherished possessions. I was unraveling like a frayed rope, gettin’ all worked up over losin’ my hat. I’m right mighty grateful ya found it and got it back safely to yours truly.”

She fondly traced the brim of her Stetson with a hoof as a blush started to form on her cheeks.. “Why, if I weren’t the mare I was and as sober as a saint at the moment, I’d kiss you.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide with shock and her cheeks did their best impersonation of cherries. “Well… good thing there’s no hard cider around, right?” she smiled nervously.
 
“Yeah, and that I hadn’t gotten to the point where I started kickin’ ‘em back like Spike at Pony Joe’s,” Applejack added, her face still bearing a slight blush. “But seriously, I owe ya’ one Twi.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s just one friend helping out another, right?”

“This ain’t just friends helping out, Twi. Ya’ done right by me, and I’m offering ya’ something in return outta the goodness of my heart.”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak but, Applejack put up a hoof. “Don’t look a gift pony in the mouth, Twi.”

“Okay, you win. But I’d still call lending your help now charitable enough.”

“Right. I didn’t get much of the details. Pinkie just came over to my place and offered me an invitation to some after-party. She said you’d had found my hat and I took off like a bat outta Tartarus for your place.  Speakin’ o’ which, if you don’t mind me asking, how’d ya’ find it in the first place?”
 
“Well, that’s actually part of why I had Pinkie ask if we could borrow a spare cart. Apparently, there’s a kleptomaniacal cat burglar out there, and for some reason they’d been using my library of all places to hide everything they’d been stealing.”
 
Applejack raised an eyebrow at this. She looked over Twilight’s shoulder to Spike, popping up from the large depression in the floor with one of Zecora’s homely masks resting atop his head as he heaved a particularly large waffle iron up from the dugout.
 
Applejack looked back to Twilight. “Twilight,” she whispered as she leaned in close. “I don’t mean to go pointin’ hooves at anypony, but… you don’t think… just maybe… Spike….”
 
Twilight’s eyes widened. “N-no, I don’t think so…” She adopted a hushed tone herself. “I mean he was just as surprised to see everything there as I was.”
 
Afterwards, that is.
 
“Besides, he learned his lesson the last time, didn’t he?”

Didn’t he?

“He even wrote a letter to the Princess about it. But… I’ll keep a closer eye on him, just in case, okay?”

Applejack mulled over it for a moment. “Okay, Twi. It’s just… I’d rather not have to cover up for the lil’ guy again, ya’ know? Still don’t have good feelings about it… and we never did figure out just how exactly he snapped outta it in the first place.”

“It’s okay, Applejack. If there is a problem, I’ll be the first to know about it. And I know I can count on the rest of you if I need help.”

“I... okay. I don’t really think the lil’ guy’s got it in him either, but...” Applejack’s eyes flickered briefly at the little dragon, “be careful. From what I understand, even you still don’t know all that much about dragons. If somethin’ is wrong, it’s bad news for everypony… and Spike. Especially for Spike.

“Well, I guess I’d better go get that cart y’all needed,” Applejack announced slightly louder than needed. “See y’all ‘round.”

“See you soon, Applejack. Oh, and thanks for helping out with this; it means a lot.”

“Think nuthin’ of it, Twi,” Applejack returned from over her shoulder with a smile. “Just one friend helping another, right?”

Twilight closed the door to the library and looked back to Spike. The large wooden mask still lay atop his head, its unwieldy size making the small dragon underneath it look comically ridiculous. He was busy scraping at some part of the trench floor, then stood back up as he curiously eyed a small piece of plastic in his hand.

“Hey, Twilight, do you know what this is?” he asked as he offered it up to her.

She picked it up with her magic to inspect it. It was almost immediately obvious that it was a guitar pick: a white one, with a symbol of a bat on it. Another quick look revealed that both sides had a single word written on each: “monkey” on one side, “corn” on the other, of which both words were very curiously and blatantly misspelled.

“Probably to a musician who can’t spell. Or one of his fans. Maybe Pinkie will know who that belongs to. Put it in the pile, just like everything else.”

Spike’s shoulders dropped as he looked to everything still stored under the floorboards, then back to Twilight. “Everything?”

“Everything, Spike. Chances are that everything in here belongs to somepony else, and we need to do all that we can to give everything back.”

Spike sighed, then grumbled as he reluctantly turned away from Twilight and back to the task at hand. Twilight took a moment of pause; for a second, she thought she heard something underneath his disinclination. And for an even briefer fraction of time, she thought it sounded like resentment.

Twilight frowned, then made her way up the stairs and into her bedroom, and shut the down behind her. She stood there for a moment, mulling over her own thoughts in a conflicted exchange.

You know what’s going on here, Twilight. You just don’t want to admit it, her own voice of reason said to her.

I know what you’re trying to insinuate, and you’re wrong; Spike is not the thief, Twilight retorted.

You’ve been studying long enough to know that there are no coincidences, Twilight, especially with all the coordinate evidence here. Dragons are infamously known for their hoarding, nopony in all of Ponyville has had a history of theft, all the stolen property just happened to end up in your library: a library where you live with a dragon who has shown he has the capacity to steal and stockpile at least once before.

But he learned his lesson last time; he even wrote a letter to Princess Celestia afterwards, and helped fix the town! Twilight retorted. Why would he go back on everything he experienced just like that? And this is different from the last time, too. Last time, he filled up the entire library with stolen goods, and he grew to the size of a full grown dragon within a day. Explain that!

There wasn’t as much in the trench as there was in the library in the previous incident. Perhaps he grew so quickly from collecting too much too fast, and he’s realized that he shouldn’t overindulge himself. Maybe what he learned from the last time was not to take anything that he can’t hide. Face it, Twilight, her voice of reason said with genuine sadness and sympathy, maybe he just can’t control himself.

Twilight shook her head. No. You’re just trying to make me doubt my lifelong friend. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it...

Twilight looked back to her closed bedroom door, and thought of Spike rummaging through all the things that belonged to somepony else, reluctant and grouchy to remove them from where they had been hidden away. Her frown deepened, and she sighed.

“I don’t want to believe it...”


- - - - - -


Twilight couldn’t have gone to bed sooner. The day hadn’t been nearly as tiring as the last, but it certainly hadn’t been a daffodil sandwich, either. She and Applejack had to haul all that stolen property to Sugarcube Corner, and they had been stopped several times along the way when somepony had recognized something of theirs in one of the carts. She had to bother giving the whole explanation of how yes, apparently there was a thief running around, yes, they’d chosen her house to hide everything in, no, she didn’t know who it was, and no, she certainly didn’t have anything to do with it, to everypony she ran into.

The party had been decent despite how unexpected it had been, but by and large was severely side-tracked by how the focus seemed to be around everypony who had something of theirs go missing recently looking to see if it had been found. To Twilight’s dismay, not everypony was able to find their missing belongings, and not everything found its way to its rightful owner (the guitar pick being one of them). After all that had been sorted out, Pinkie kicked the soiree into as high of a gear as she could take it, eliciting comments from some about ‘trying too hard.’ But even when the party stretched late into the night, several hours longer than it should have, Pinkie was all but begged everypony not to leave, her close circle of friends especially, despite all of them having work in the morning.

Then Twilight and Applejack had to haul everything that hadn’t been returned back to the library, drop it off in the library’s own ‘lost and found’ section, take the carts back to Sweet Apple Acres, then walk all the way back home. When she finally got to her bed, she embraced its warm covers more fervently than a glass of cool water on a hot summer’s day and quickly passed out thereafter.

So she was most annoyed when only a few hours or so into her slumber, she was most abruptly awakened by Owloysius when he started prodding her shoulder.

“Ngmph…” Twilight mumbled into the pillow as she wearily tried to shoo Owloysius away.

“Hoo!” the owl called called as he shook her ever more fervently. “Hoo!”

Twilight let off a heavy and exacerbated sigh. “What?”

To her further dismay, Owloysius went through all that just to fly off to some other part of the bedroom, then began to peck at whatever he was perched on with a talon.

Twilight groaned as she hefted herself up. Owloysius was perched atop the lid of the chest containing all of Twilight’s research notes. It had been busted wide open, and the owl was looking back and forth between Twilight and the open interior.

Twilight lurched out of bed, stumbled her way to the chest and peered inside, only to feel her blood run cold as she saw its contents... or rather the lack thereof.

“Owloysius, did you see who did this?!”

Suddenly, the owl that looked so concerned a moment ago now appeared apprehensive and hesitant. “Hoo,” he replied, nodding his head. Yes.

“You did?” Twilight’s pulse quickened. This could be the thief! “Show me!”

Owloysius tensed up, looking even more anxious than before as his eyes darted back and forth between the open door and the unicorn. Finally, he slumped his wings, then took off from his perch and flew to the railing just outside the door.

“Hoo,” He bid Twilight to follow with a jerk of his head. “Hoo...” the owl sighed with a dose of remorse, pointing downstairs with a wing.

Twilight gasped, then moaned in abject dismay as she looked downstairs.  “No…” she whimpered. “Please Celestia, no…”
 
Lying atop the relocated pile of unreturned goods, before which every single one of her notes was strewn, lay Spike, feverishly convulsing in a troubled sleep.
 
Twilight made her slow descent downstairs, heart aching from the irrefutable slap of truth in the face of her prolonged denial. Even now, some part of her was still begging to Celestia that what she was seeing wasn’t true, but each passing moment brought no avail.
 
She approached Spike cautiously. He was twitching and jerking around in his sleep much like he had been the other morning, but his convulsions were more erratic: a cluttered mixture of what looked like violence and strenuous desperation.
 
“Spike… how could you?” Twilight whispered.
 
The dragon’s thrashing started to become more animated, his ragged breathing giving way to altering snarls and pained whines. Twilight watched the spectacle for a moment, taking note of how conflicted Spike looked.
 
Okay, I need to know what’s going on.
 
“Owloysius, go get my pocket watch and meet me in the basement, stat,” Twilight ordered as she cantered off to the kitchen.
 
“Hoo!” Owloysius responded with a salute, and flew back upstairs to the bedroom.
 
Twilight made straight for the fridge, pulled open the door and located her prize: her supply of Starbuck brand coffee. She withdrew a bottle of java, opened it, and began chugging the whole thing down before the door to the refrigerator had even swung shut. She then moved to one of the cupboards and withdrew a large drinking glass which she filled up with some tap water from the sink. Still carrying the glass, she made her way back to Spike and lifted him with her magic as carefully as possible, then made her way downstairs to her basement laboratories.
 
Twilight began to tread more lightly as Spike began to mutter semi-incoherently in his sleep.

“No… it’s a matter of containment. They’re my friends. It’s the only way… she…” he mumbled as Twilight took him down the stairs.

“Release me!” Spike snarled.
 
Twilight was so startled that she nearly dropped Spike. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked back at the sleeping dragon, apprehensive from his demand, unsure if he was still dreaming or if he was partially aware of his surroundings.
 
Once Spike settled down, she took him the rest of the way down and lit a few candles as she withdrew one of Spike’s makeshift beds stored in a cabinet and tentatively laid him down into it. Spike still continued to thrash about, tearing into the blankets with his claws.
 
Owloysius returned, and she gave him the glass of water.

“I’m going into Spike’s dream to see if I can find out what’s going on with him,” she explained as she activated her neuro-electrolysis polygraph and strapped the cumbersome helmet to her head. “In the meantime, take note of any changes in either of our unconscious behavior, and keep a sharp eye on those charts and the watch. Give me three minutes inside the dream, and not a second more. Once that time is up or if something appears to be going wrong, wake me up by splashing me in the face with the water in that glass… and please try not to get any of the machinery wet. Got all that?”

“Hoo,” Owloysius affirmed.

“Okay then.” Twilight turned her attention back to Spike. “Time to find out what’s going on with you.”

Twilight lay down next to Spike, lighting her horn as she prepared the spell. She flicked a glance back towards Owloysius. “See you in a few minutes.”

“Hoo,” the owl bid in return.

Twilight looked back to Spike. Already her vision was beginning to fade as her grip on consciousness started to slip away.

“Ready or not, Spike, here I come. You’re not going to be alone anymore.”


- - - - - -


Twilight opened her eyes to find herself at the edge of Ponyville, but not exactly has how it had been just earlier that day. The town that stood under the afternoon sky had sustained damage ranging from moderate to severe, and looked as though it had been inflicted very recently, if not immediately prior. Several pony projections wandered the wreckage; some were searching frantically to make sure their loved ones were unharmed, others sifted through the rubble for whatever personal effects they could scavenge, and some merely stared in a bereft daze.

Twilight herself took in the sight of the village she called home, taken aback at the destruction. Her heart jumped with the realization that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen it torn asunder within a dream.

She shook her head. Focus, Twilight; you’ve got to find Spike... So where am I supposed to find him in here?

She began to trot towards the town, quickly composing a mental checklist of all the places that she might find Spike. As she neared the town, the sound of a very distant roar tugged at her ear. It sounded furious and primal, like a shriek of rage, but what caught her attention was the tone; it was the unmistakable war cry of a dragon.

She stopped and turned her head around to the direction she thought that she’d heard the howl originate from, ears swiveling to locate it once more.

Another muffled bellow of fury softly rung through the air. This time Twilight caught it and looked in the direction from which it came. She saw a large mountain off in the distance, the base of which sported a set of titanic metal double doors of curious workmareship. Their fronts were open faced to reveal a plethora of complex locking mechanisms that looked to resemble the inner workings of a fastidious clock.

More screams of fury drifted through the air. Following a hunch, Twilight turned and took off at a gallop for the mountain.


- - - - - -


Despite galloping the entire way to the mountain, it took Twilight a full fifteen minutes to make her way to the footing of the great peak. Her sense of urgency mounted with each new roar she heard echo from her destination.

Note to self; find a way to enter a dream as close to a target as possible.

The target she sought came into view as she neared the tall mountainside. Spike was at the base of the slightly ajar doors, desperately attempting to shut them.

“Spi—” Twilight was cut off almost instantly by a thunderous roar from behind the gates, to be accompanied by a furious voice that sent a cold wind of foreboding down Twilight’s spine.

“I can’t be contained here forever, Spike! I will escape this prison!”

“Spike!” Twilight called.

He looked up in surprise. “Twilight?”

Spike let his guard down for a second, almost causing the doors to burst wide open when the creature on the other side shrieked and rammed itself against the barriers. Spike lost some of his grip, and frantically began to scramble to get it back, looking to Twilight in desperation.

“Help me!”

Twilight was at the base of the doors in seconds, mounted one of the doors, and began to push against it. “I’m here, Spike; we’ve got this!”

“Aw, what’s that; can’t handle me alone, Spike?” the creature chided, then slammed against the doors with a force that shook Twilight to her bones.

“Your imaginary friends can’t help you here!” There was another slam of overwhelming force.

“It’s just you and me!” Twilight and Spike almost lost their respective grips again to another brutal shove.

“Most notably me.  Especially me. Only me! I’m the only one that matters!” The door shook Twilight so hard she felt like her muscles were being tenderized.

“Alright, screw this guy!” Twilight yelled in frustration. She pushed against the door with renewed effort, lighting her horn as she strained. The doors lit up with her signature magenta glow, and she began to push against the doors with an exertion of muscle and magic. Slowly, slightly, the leverage began to tip in their favor.

“What’s this? Oh, you want to play that way, do you? Well, that’s alright. If it’s a light show you want, then I’ve got some FIRE of my own!”

A brief, deep inhalation came from the other side of the door, then a wave of vicious red flames erupted from the crevasse. Twilight jumped back by reflex to avoid getting singed. The light of her horn sputtered and died from her broken concentration. Fear seized her when she realized Spike still remained steadfast against the doors, taking the full brunt of the burning assault.

Twilight hurriedly lit her horn again and surrounded Spike with a shield spell. The crackling fire cascaded across the sphere of protection magic, whipping in forked tongues over the metal doors.

Twilight rushed back to the wall as soon as the flames dispersed, but the heat of the fire had left the wall sizzling hot, and it was a challenge just to find a place that didn’t sear her hooves.

“Are you alright Spike?”

Spike was still standing, but his scales were covered in soot and he wasn’t pushing as much as he was slumped up against the doors.

“I…” he wheezed, “I’m alive.”

He tried to smile, but couldn’t when he began to have a short fit of dry coughs, each hacking up a puff of ash. “Twilight, I… I don’t think I can hold on much longer...”

“We can’t give up!” Twilight urged. “You’ll be alright, we just need to finish this; we can still do this together!”

A triumphant and cocky chortle escaped through the opening in the doors. “This one’s over, Spike.”

Twilight could feel its hot breath seeping through the doors and make her coat begin to mat with sweat. Her hooves against the hot door began to scream in pain as the opposite force pushing the doors outward made her start digging a trail in the dirt with her hind legs.

“Whatever you think you’ve got left to fight for, it’s not coming to save you.”

Somepony from behind them voiced their disagreement.

“Oh, allow me to differ.”

Spike looked up in surprise and Twilight looked back with shock. When they responded, they did so simultaneously; the former with a renewed hope in the face of a glorious savior, and the latter in utter disbelief, which was expounded upon when she heard the third voice from behind the doors raise its suspicions with the newest arrival.

“Rarity?!”

Their savior galloped up to the door opposite of Twilight, wincing as she put her hooves to the heated door. Rarity lit her own horn and the door glowed with the azure light of her magic.

“Time to put this beast in its place!” Rarity asserted.

Twilight and Spike nodded, invigorated. Twilight lit her own horn and summoned pairs of heat-resistant boots for Rarity’s and her own forehooves, then refocused her magic to the door.

“What? No!” Their adversary started hammering on the doors even harder.

The sound of another deep inhalation came from the other side, but Twilight was ready for it this time. Right before the second wave of flames came, she conjured a flat shield that covered the sliver between the two doors.

The beast roared in a furious rage from getting a face-full of its own fire. With a snarl, it began fiercely slamming against the doors again. Twilight felt her entire body shake with the hatred of each impact, but with her magic doing most of the work, each blast was one she could weather.

“This isn’t over Spike.” The voice came from the same level as they were as it gave one last assiduous push against the doors. “When I get out of here, I will take away every last thing that you cherish. Starting with your loved ones.”

Spike’s eyes snapped open. He looked up to Rarity with worry written all over his face. She looked back to him, steadfast and determined. Spike’s expression hardened with resolve, and he turned his head to the side to address the door.

“No…” Spike’s voice quivered as his own righteous fury built. “No you won’t!”
 
With an almighty heave, Spike shoved the doors with such force that Twilight and Rarity slipped from their braces as the doors shut. A metallic symphony filled the air as the exposed mechanisms sprang to life, greeting the small party with a chorus of clicks and grinding gears as the mass of components moved with choreographed precision. The harmonic scrapes as vast deadbolts slid into their fortified places filled the ears of the three.

The only sound to disrupt the orchestra of machinery was the enraged shrieks of the being they sealed away. It beat furiously and fruitlessly upon the doors, bringing jarring dissonance to the articulate automation of the locks. The sounds of pounding and squeals of sharp talons scraping metal and the occasional whoosh of fire made the three of them flinch. Even after the last deadbolt slid into place and a great echo reverberated through the air as a platoon of tumblers fell into place, the beast continued its tantrum against the great doors, screaming with such spite that it made Twilight’s fur stand on end.

With a frustrated roar of defeat, it pounded one last time against the enclosures of its cage, followed by the sounds of shuffling as it loitered around the doors, searching for some other weakness.

Twilight looked to the others with trepidation as whatever was on the other side ceased its rage and opted to mill about. She took a few slow, tremulous steps forward to inspect the internal mechanisms of the door, and found herself in awe of the ornate intricacies of its entirety.

“Wait.”

Twilight jumped as the creature spoke again.

“It’s different this time…”

The sound of movement returned, along with a series of sharp inhalations as the creature sniffed the air. It stopped as it reached a place directly opposite the side of the door from which Twilight stood. Her blood froze when  it spoke.

“Is it someone new?”

Twilight backed away in terror as the creature on the other side shrieked in mad hostility and began assaulting the doors once more with renewed truculence. It slashed and pounded the metal doors from its side in unrelenting, unmitigated wrath. At no point in its rage did it stop screaming.

With a final slam against the doors, it snarled, then turned and took off. The scuffle of its movement slowly faded away.

A thick, strained silence hung in the air as the three stared at the doors with a mix of fear and shock.

Twilight was the one to break the silence. “Spike, what is on the other side of those doors?”

Spike looked to Twilight, eyes growing wide with fear. He opened his mouth slightly and wordlessly fumbled for some sort of explanation. Several moments passed without any more of an answer from him than several malformed nonwords. Finally he sighed, closed his eyes, turned away and began to walk off.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled.

Twilight huffed at this. “Spike, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Spike stopped in his tracks. He sighed again and slumped his shoulders, only turning his head partially to one side. “Who said I needed your help?”

Twilight was a bit taken aback. “You did, when you all but begged me to help shut those doors. Or should have I just left you there?”

“No! It’s just… Thanks, by the way,” he muttered as he looked away. “Both of you.”

“You’re most welcome, dearest. Anything for my darling little Spikey-Wikey!” Rarity said as she trotted up to him, and gave him an affectionate nuzzle.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Rarity’s behavior. Even on a good day, she rarely showed this kind of adoration towards Spike. Never mind how another one of her friends just happened to worm their way into the magic field empowering the dream world, and in the middle of the night no less.

Maybe she’s a projection, Twilight hypothesized as Rarity continued to fawn over Spike.

“You’re so wonderfully strong, Spikey-Wikey, shutting that door right there at the end! And to think all you needed was a reminder of love…” Rarity took a hold of Spike’s face with her hooves and placed a big, wet smooch right on his lips.

Yep; definitely a projection, Twilight concluded, and trotted up to the would-be lovebirds. She turned her attention to the fabricated one.

“So, Rarity what exactly are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you, dear.” There was the barest hint of ice in the projection’s voice. “You don’t usually show up to lend a hoof when we need you.”

Twilight was thrown for a loop at this. “Usually? Has this happened before?”

“Rarity, please…” Spike implored.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Rarity apologized. “I didn’t mean to… never mind.”

Twilight turned her attention back to the dragon. “Spike, I know something is going on, but you don’t have to hide it; I want to help you.”

Spike sighed and looked away again, the sadness of a pariah etching into his face again. “I’m sorry, Twilight. But I don’t want your help.”

“But you need my help,” she stressed. “And if I’m to help you to the fullest of my capabilities, I need to know more about what you’re keeping behind those doors, and why you’re so intent on not telling anypony about it.”

Spike exhaled deeply. “I already told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”  His tone wasn’t of insubordination, but of pleading as he accentuated his stand. “It’s not that I don’t want your help, it’s… I don’t want to need your help.”

“Spike, if you have a problem…”

“Twilight, please...” Spike was practically begging.

Twilight’s demeanor softened with empathy. “Spike, you’re one of my closest friends, and I care about you. I won’t think any less of you if you have a serious issue with anything or other. We’ve been through so much together, and I don’t want to have to see you suffer through this alone.

“Please Spike.” Twilight put a hoof on Spike’s shoulder.“I’m here for you.”

Spike let his gaze fall as he weighed Twilight’s words. When he did look back up, the eyes that momentarily met hers were filled with pain. He looked in another direction again, and with slow movements of immense sorrow, he took Twilight’s hoof with a claw, and gently brushed it off his shoulder as he turned away.

Twilight stood there for a moment in numbed shock, hooves rooted to the ground. She swallowed her urge to let loose the tears welling in her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity spoke up first, trotting around Spike to face him.

“Spike, look at me.”

He kept his eyes shamefully directed elsewhere.

“Look at me.” Her tone was more assertive, but without any less compassion.

He slowly submitted to her command, his eyes filled with resigned dread.

Rarity looked at him intently. “Do you remember that day when I said you were my hero?”

Spike appeared lost in thought for a moment. “Vaguely...”

“Do you know why I think you’re so heroic?” Rarity asked.

Spike stood in silence in want for an answer to occur to him.

“What makes a great hero is the battles they fight and the sacrifices they make. You face a terrible foe, yes, and the fact that this foe is so close to heart makes the whole ordeal that much worse.”

Rarity put a hoof under Spike’s chin to recapture his eye contact when he tried to let it drift away again. “And that what makes you such a hero, Spike. In the face of such a monumental trial, you remain steadfast and vigilant, fighting bravely for not only what you know in your heart is right…” Rarity sat down in front of Spike, lowering her head until they were at eye level. “But for what, and for whom you love.

“I’m proud of you Spike; you’ve done so well. But only the arrogant, foolish, and outcasts fight alone, and you’re not any of those. There’s no rule that says a hero can’t fight alongside all of the friends they make, so we don’t have to fight this alone anymore. And I think we both know that this precarious stalemate won't last unless we do something that ensures we don’t just win every battle, but triumph in your personal war.

“So if Twilight wants to help, you should let her help. All of us will help you, because like Twilight said, we do care for you.” She moved her face closer to Spike’s, until their noses were inches from touching. “And because I love you.”

The most subtle of twitches tugged upward at the corners of Spike’s mouth, and a flicker of life sparked in his eyes, only for the little light there to quietly die as he looked at Rarity.

The projection put her forehooves on Spike’s shoulders. “So won’t you let us help you?”

Spike scoured her gaze, looking for something other than the very real emotion pouring from the false pony’s eyes. Moments passed in tense silence for an answer, then he broke his gaze and looked down again.

Now it was the Rarity projection’s turn to adopt a wounded hope in her eyes. “Spike?”

Spike exhaled, barely above a whisper. “Okay...” 

Rarity smiled again and pulled Spike into another hug, giving a little rub of affection on his back.

“Good boy.” Rarity gave him another kiss atop his forehead and a look of fond affection before releasing him.

“Well, you said you had to know what was going on,” Rarity said, looking to Twilight, “so what do you need to know?”

“I need to know more about what Spike is keeping locked up in there,” Twilight said, motioning at the doors. “What is it? Where did it come from? How long have you been struggling with that thing?”

Spike took a moment to compose himself. “Almost six months.” 

Twilight gasped. “You’ve been fighting it for that long?”

“No, not that whole time. It had been manageable for a while now, but he started acting up a lot more around the time of the dragon migration. And things didn’t start getting really bad until after the wedding.”

Twilight felt somewhat invigorated; now she was getting somewhere. “When it’s acted up in the past, what has it been like?”

“Pretty much what you just saw back there. He’ll beat on the doors and call me names, or talk down to me while he talks about how he’ll break out and steal everything… usually both.” Spike held himself in his own arms. “Sometimes, he’ll almost break out and I have to seal him back up again.”

“We seal him back up again,” Rarity added, affectionately ruffling Spike’s crest.

Twilight contemplated the way Spike was speaking; she’d been referring to the creature as “it,” but Spike was calling it “he.” The situation was far more complex than what she’d been expecting to find.

“But who is “he?” Does “he” have a name?” Twilight dared ask.

Spike’s expression became even more despondent and morbid. “I… I’d rather not say it...” he replied with a thick dread in his voice. “I don’t like saying his name...”

Twilight peered at him, taking further note of the terms he was using. “You keep talking about this thing like it’s somepony… or some dragon, but what is it?”
 
Spike wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was fixated on paying attention to anything but her eyes. “The very worst part of me.”

Twilight’s attention perked up. “What’s that? Envy? Anger? Teenage rebelliousness?” Then it hit her, and she gasped. “Greed?”

Spike still wouldn’t look at her, but the way his face contorted with sadness and regret told her everything she needed to know.

“Spike, it’s… it’s okay. It’s not like…”

“No, it’s not okay…” Spike interrupted. “It’s not okay to have a skeleton like that in your closet. But… but it’s not just a skeleton. It’s…” He trailed off.

“The little devil on your shoulder?” Twilight finished for him.

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Something like that..”

Twilight looked back at the doors. “Awfully big hoof full of salt for a clavicle imp…” she noted.  Answers only seemed to pave the way for new questions.

“How is it that a tempting inclination boasts something resembling sentience? Where did it even come from in the first place?”

Spike exhaled heavily. “I don’t know.”

Twilight sighed and was about to ask something else, but was cut off when Spike continued his confession without prompt.

“That day that I… that I lost control, when we’d finished rebuilding Ponyville, and after we took a moment to enjoy the view, I got to spend the whole day with Rarity. Then he just… showed up out of nowhere. We had this really brutal fight, then Rarity baited him out of town with a cart of gems to this mountain. But when she kicked it into the pit, he tried to drag her in too. I knocked him off her, we both fell in, then I locked him behind some more sets of doors down there and climbed back out.”

He drew a wavering breath, and his voice grew very quiet. “Then I… then….”

Twilight waited for him to finish, but he never did.

“Then what?” She asked, nearing Spike. “What happened?”

Another pained inhalation came from Spike, and he clenched his eyes shut.

“Then I woke up.”

She remembered now; the morning after Spike went on his rampage, when she’d finally gotten him to wake up, he had looked upset for reasons other than being pulled from his slumber. When she’d asked what was wrong, he’d said:

“Just… thinking about a bad dream, that’s all…”

Twilight pulled Spike into another hug. “Oh, Spike... You could have told me.”

The projection of Rarity joined the embrace as well.

Spike continued his somber testimony.  “It’s been like that ever since. I’ll dream about him trying to break out, and then I have to make sure the doors stay closed. Sometimes I need Rarity to help me, but I’ve needed her to help me out a lot recently.”

“I bear no ill feelings towards playing second fiddle,” Rarity assured. “Especially for one as adorable as you, Spike.”

“Is that why you’re here, Twilight?” Spike asked. “Has it gotten so bad that I need you to dream you up to help me, too?”

Twilight paused, and her eyes shifted. “Uh… yes. You subconsciously know that if anypony is smart enough to figure out how to solve this dilemma, it’ll be Twilight. So that’s why I’m here; to figure out how to fix this.”

Spike looked disconcerted. “You mean you don’t already know what to do? But you’re so smart that I thought you’d already have something figured out…”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “Part of being intelligent is gathering information then determining what to do with the knowledge, Spike. I can’t solve an equation very well if I don’t know all of the functions or variables, can I?”

“Well, can you?”

“I probably could, but it’d take me longer and quite a few more tries, and I can’t afford to make mistakes when someone as valuable as a friend is depending on me. You’ve given me a lot of useful information, Spike, and I’m proud of you for being brave enough to tell me.” She smiled at him. “But I still need to know more if I’m to help you beyond just keeping the doors shut, and I think you’ve been honest in telling me everything that you know.”

“Wait, I know that look, Twilight.” Rarity eyed her suspiciously. “What are you suggesting?”

Twilight almost had to force it out; she knew neither of them would like the idea. “I need to see what’s behind those doors.”

Rarity predictably gasped, but without a shred of her usual theatrics; she was truly aghast. Spike’s eyes shot open wide, pierced with dread and fear.

“After all the trouble we’ve been through to keep those blasted things closed, are you seriously suggesting that we simply open them up?!” Rarity shrieked.

“Not at all,” Twilight assured. “We can get behind those doors without opening them.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Rarity retorted.

Twilight didn’t answer with words, but lit her horn, and a second later vanished to appear instantaneously next to the dubious unicorn, making her jump.

“Don’t do that!” Rarity yelled in surprise as she jumped back. Twilight allowed herself a smirk “Okay, point taken.” Rarity put a hoof over her heart to calm its beating. “But I still say no.”

“Rarity…”

“Twilight, please; you heard how that beast was slashing at the doors, imagine what he could do to ponies! And you seriously think it expedient to practically deliver yourself into the lair of the beast within? You know, there’s an old saying about sticking your hoof in a snake hole…”

Twilight cringed at the mention of snakes. “All I’m suggesting is that we have a look; maybe we can find out where it came from, or why it exists. And if we just happen to come face-to-face, maybe we can talk to it—”

“Twilight, listen to yourself!” Rarity interrupted. “That thing’s idea of negotiation is condescension and fire; he tried to scorch poor little Spikey-Wikey! Forgive my dubiousness, but I have no reason to believe that any diplomatic attempts will be met with anything less than hostility.”

“Okay, so we don’t have to try and talk to it, and I wasn’t advocating we go looking for it anyway. But if it’s planning something, we won’t know about it if we don’t have a look. He could be building a battering ram or a gate crasher right now and we’d never know about it until he smashes the doors wide open with them.”

Rarity took this with a look of concern. “Okay, you do have a point there.”

“Besides, weren’t you the one just a few moments ago advocating that I help Spike?”

She sat and folded her forelegs. “Yes, but I didn’t think that was the kind of definition of “help” that you had in mind! Even if literally being the know-it-all is one of your strong suits, I still must protest your suggestion. It’s simply too dangerous to go venturing into an enemy stronghold. You may as well suggest we attempt to infiltrate the changeling hive just to spy on the changeling queen, and one does not simply trot into the changeling hive.”

“But…”

“No.”

Twilight gave a small humph of disapproval, then turned to Spike, hoping he might be more accepting of the idea. “What about you, Spike? Do you think I should go have a look?”

“I don’t know, Twilight. It doesn’t seem like the safest idea…”

“Don’t worry, Spike, this isn’t the first monster I’ve had to deal with. And if things get too hairy I can just get out the same way I got in and teleport to safety.”

“But what if he hurts you?”

“Spike, please; I need to do this to help you.”

Spike remained silent for a moment. Then, finally: “Okay.”

Twilight smiled, then gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

Rarity couldn’t help but look surprised. “Are you really going to go through with this?”

“I have to,” Twilight responded. “For Spike.”

She slowly made her way to the massive doors. Looking up at them made her shudder a little, but she steeled herself for what needed to be done. She turned her head around to Spike and the Rarity projection.

“Well, wish me luck,” she said, then turned back to the door, breathed in, and lit her horn to charge the teleportation spell.

“Twilight, wait!” Spike called out and ran up to her, embracing one of her legs. “Please, don’t go alone. If you’re going to go in there, I’m coming with you.”

Twilight looked down, surprised. “Are you sure you want to come? But, why?”

“I’d rather not have to do this, but… ” Spike drew a sharp breath. “But even if you say it’s not my fault, it is my problem. And if something happened to you… This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with him. If you’re going in there, you’ll need someone more familiar with him.”

Rarity chimed in. “Well, if you two are going in there, count me in as well.”

Twilight looked back, even more surprised. “Weren’t you just trying to convince me not to do this?”

“I was, and I still think it incredibly foolish. But Celestia forbid I stand idly by while you two up and waltz into Tartarus. I said that I’ll always be there for Spike, and I will be, even if being there means going to places that are inconceivably dumb to venture into. Besides,” she added with a bit of playful banter, “if anypony is going to go waltzing with Spike, it’ll be me.”
 
Spike had another moment of brief happiness flash across his face, only for it to be replaced by a masked sadness as Rarity trotted up to the two with her horn already ignited with her personal illumination spell.
 
“Five bits says it’ll be really dark in there.” Rarity said to Twilight
 
“Alright then.” Twilight grew stern with focus. “Let’s go.”
 
She felt Spike’s grip around her leg tighten as she charged a multi-faceted teleportation spell. She looked to him with concern. “Is something wrong?”
 
“It’s just… I’m a little scared is all.”
 
Twilight gave a small smile of reassurance. “It’s okay, I’ll keep you safe.”
 
“You sure?”
 
“Don’t worry Spike, we’ll be fine. I promise.”

Her horn flashed and the three of them disappeared with a blast of light.


- - - - - -


The cave was briefly lit up by a great flash of light as the trio appeared on the other side of the doors, then immediately after reverted to it’s natural state of murky darkness, trying to consume the small field of light around the three.

“Guess I owe you five bits, Rarity,” Twilight said. “It’s dark in here!”

“Think nothing of it, dear, I was merely making a playful conjecture,” Rarity replied. “But it is indeed boorishly drab in here. Look at how little the light brightens up this place. It’s as if the darkness is stealing away the very light!”

“That is unusual.” Twilight activated an illumination spell of her own and moved out of Spike’s grasp. The darkness failed to yield fully, but receded further with the additional light.

Twilight looked behind her to get their bearings relative to the door. She saw its reverse side and gasped aloud.

The inside walls of the door were closed off with large plates of sheet metal, blocking the internal workings from view. The whole of the both doors had been covered with black soot that smelled of sulfur and hate. The entire threshold was surrounded by gouges in the rock, as if the creature had attempted to dig its way out. The doors were completely covered in deep scratches and violent slashes strewn across the whole, furthermore adorned with eerie and ominous writings, cruelly carved into them by sharp claws.


	I WILL NOT BE CONTAINED                                     I WILL NOT BE RULED


I WILL NOT BOW TO PONIES


	OPPRESSORS                                     TYRANTS                             FILTH                    YOU DISGUST ME                                THE DREDGE THAT WALK THE EARTH


	I AM THE HERALD OF YOUR END             I AM THE HARBINGER OF A NEW ERA… MINE


I WILL LIGHT THE FIRES THAT MAKE YOU BURN,


AND MAKE A COLLECTION OF YOUR ASHES


        I HATE THIS PLACE                               I HATE THIS PRISON, THIS ZOO


	I MUST GET OUT OF HERE                  I MUST BREAK FREE          HIS MIND IS THE KEY


	why Why WHY WHY?             IS THERE A SUN?                 I’LL TAKE THAT, TOO


ONE WILL NEVER FIND ONESELF IF THEY MUST BE DEFINED BY OTHERS


THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS YOURSELF



BUT…


HER


As the three backed away in horror, a much larger, much more straightforward message came into view, written across the entirety of both doors:
 

EVERYTHING


WILL BE


MINE

“Sweet Celestia…” Rarity quietly swore.

Twilight looked down at Spike. His eyes were even wider than before, darting across the terrible display in a mounting panic.

“I think we should go,” Rarity suggested.

“No, I think we should keep going,” Twilight disagreed.

“Twilight, look at this.” Rarity pointed to the doors. “This monster isn’t just hostile, it’s malevolent. It wants to cause harm and it talks about burning ponies for sport! It’s dangerous, and it needs to stay locked up. What more matters?”

“Yes, but look; it’s not just malicious, it’s up to something. Look here; it says “I am the harbinger of a new era.” And what’s this?”

She peered closer at some of the words near the bottom of the door. “”Is there a sun,” ”I’ll take that too…” Does he intend to steal the sun? How?”

She put a hoof to her chin and looked into the wicked messages further. “It talks about ponies and oppressors and proclaims its dissention…” She looked to the words at the very bottom. “Who is it talking about when he mentions “her?””

Her mind drew up a connection between the dots, and instantly drew the worst possible conclusion. “He’s plotting against Celestia!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “How exactly do you come to that conclusion?”

“Look; he’s talking about ponies like some sort of totalitarian dictator species, and who ever would he see as the queen over iron-hoofed overlords but Princess Celestia? He boasts his dissension against ponydom, seethes about burning down all of equine society, and he says “everything will be mine!””

Twilight mentally poured over this in her panic.

He wants to overthrow Celestia… The mere thought made her blood freeze.

“I believe that’s a lot to stipulate based upon one glance from one piece of evidence, dear,” Rarity said.

Twilight looked at her with steely resolve. “Then that’s why we have to go deeper. We need to figure out what this thing is planning and how it intends to accomplish its fiendish goals.”

Her expression hardened. “But you were absolutely right about one thing, Rarity; this thing is a monster. It doesn’t just need to be locked up, it needs to be imprisoned in stone!” She turned to the gullet of the cave and began to walk slowly into the darkness.

“It’s wretched, it’s vile, it’s evil, it…” Upon hearing herself, she paused and looked to Spike.

 He was sitting on the ground again, staring at the floor with his knees pulled tightly to his chest. Twilight turned around and slowly approached him, tentative as ever.

“It’s been locked up in your mind for months. You’ve been fighting this terrible thing as close to home as an enemy can get for all that time...”

Twilight lowered her head until she was eye level with Spike. “Did you not tell anypony because you were afraid of what we might think of you?”

Spike didn’t answer, just pulled his knees in closer.

“Oh, Spike, you poor thing…”

“Well, do you?” he asked aloud, voice full of sorrow and tinged with fear.

“Do I what?” Twilight questioned, unsure of his query.

“Do you think any less of me?”

Twilight paused. “No. Just because this thing is here doesn’t mean you’re anything less than the Spike I know and love. And like Rarity said, in spite of whatever this thing is, you continue to fight against it with every ounce of strength you can muster. That alone says so much about you that it’s...”

Off in the distance, the echoing sound of a quick shuffle and a small cluster of tumbling rocks from the cave walls wafted up through the cave to meet them.

Twilight’s head shot up, eyes wide and ears erect, swiveling slowly to pick up any other sounds of movement. She heard nothing but the thud of her heartbeat in her ears.

The unsettling silence emanated a palpable tension, fraying Twilight’s nerves even further with each passing second.

“He’s close…” Spike was almost shaking in terror.

“Twilight, I really don’t think we should stay here,” Rarity said.

Twilight shook her head to focus. “No; if we’re going to figure out what this thing is planning, we need to do it now before it can cover its tracks.”

“But…”

“We won’t stay here for long,” Twilight rationalized. “We go in a little ways, find out as much as we can, and get out the same way we got in.”

Rarity opened her mouth to argue, but Twilight interrupted her. 

“It won’t take long.”

Finally, Rarity agreed. “Okay. But no heroics or confrontations; this is purely a reconnaissance mission.”

Twilight nodded, then looked to Spike. “Do you want to go any further?”

“I.. I don’t want to,” Spike stammered. Twilight slumped her shoulders a tad.

“But we should. I don’t want to go, but… I don’t want to be scared of him anymore.” Spike stood up with as much resolve as he could gather.

Twilight smiled. “Let’s go, tiger.”

With that, the two ponies with dragon in tail took off at a brisk trot into the dark.


- - - - - -


Much of the cave remained empty and desolate as they ventured deeper into the recesses of the mountain, save for an occasional scorch-blast here or mark of claws against the wall there. But about three minutes in, several adjoining tunnels came into view.

“Wait a second,” Twilight ordered, and the group came to a stop.

She moved closer to one of the tunnels to take a close look at it. The edges were incongruent with the formations of rock around it. Instead of the naturally rough walls of stone, this tunnel appeared jagged and scratched, and there was an excessive amount of loose rocks piled up about the floor.

“Did it dig these tunnels out?” Twilight wondered aloud. She stepped into the new tunnel.

“Twilight, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rarity cautioned.

“If it dug this, it must be looking for something,” Twilight reasoned. “Whether it be another way out or… I don’t know. Some kind of resource maybe?”
 
But what could it be looking for in an isolated part of Spike’s mind?
 
Twilight ventured into the tunnel, moving slowly to accommodate for the uneven ground and steep declines. Spike and his projection of Rarity followed close behind.

The tunnel wasn’t too long, but traversing it was a slow process. As she got further in, Twilight began to feel something, like a subtle change in her mind by way of the air. It piqued her interest. Twilight spurred on forward, fuelled by curiosity.

Twilight made her way into a small chamber, and the notion floating in her mind became more prevalent. She couldn’t categorize it exactly, but it felt nostalgically sweet and secure, like how somepony would feel in a place called home. But that was as much as she could determine; whatever the palpable concept was, only a few traces remained. Those still lingering traces lacked substance and felt more like a whim than a cohesive thought: like a distant memory from a half-remembered dream.

Twilight made her way to a hole that had been dug out of the wall. It was clear that something had been in there and the feelings were the strongest there, but whatever had been there was long gone.

She was unsure of what to make of this, but without definitive clarity or context, fully understanding the grand scheme of things was to grasp smoke with her hooves.

There were several other passages linked to the small chamber, but Twilight didn’t sense anything permeating the air within them, so she merely turned around to exit through the same passage.

“Come on,” she said. “We should look elsewhere.”

“Didn’t you find anything?” Spike asked, hopeful.

“The only thing I found was that whatever was here isn’t anymore,” Twilight explained. “Whatever was here, the creature probably took it. Why or what it intends to do with it, I don’t know. We’ll need more clues if we’re to figure this out.”

The next few passages yielded nothing but a dead end.

From near the back of the search party, Rarity began grumbling to nopony in particular. “Would you just look at the state of this cave? I don’t expect it to have the homely air of a mare’s touch, but come on! This beast must expect some sort of recognition for taking a drab and filthy cave and somehow making it even more drab and filthy! And look all all this gravel and dirt around here! Ugh, this is just going to absolutely wreck my hooficure...” She huffed.  “Just because this thing is a monster doesn’t mean it has to live as untidily as one.”

Twilight held onto her snickering, but could barely contain her small smile. Spike’s subconscious sure has its Rarity down, she thought. Though it is a bit heavy on the affection side…

The next passage was much deeper. Twilight could tell almost right off the bat that this would lead to something just based off the apparent ferventness from which the tunnel was carved out. And about halfway in, that suspicion paid off when she felt a new sensation rise from the passage.

Twilight picked up the pace of her trot. This new feeling was still unrefined, but unmistakable, and she could feel it in her horn: it was that of magic.

Reaching the end of the tunnel however revealed nothing but a dead end. The chamber was much larger than the last and the sensation of magic was much more prominent here, but she couldn’t tell where the source was located.

She could still tell it was magic, but not even Twilight could tell much more beyond that. The presence told nothing of what kind of magic it was, its scope, its strength or longevity, or even what it had been for. Anything else was indiscernible.

Dismayed, she turned around and sought out the next impromptu mineshaft.

This tunnel left a different impression than the last, and a much less definitive one at that. Trekking through the burrow here gave Twilight a heightened sense of her physical form. She was much more aware of her muscular movements and organ functions, both voluntary and involuntary: bones, brain, the churn of her pulse, and a faint touch of electricity like the caress of a gentle, charged breeze.

Twilight ground a hoof in frustration. Their investigation was getting them somewhere, but that somewhere happened to be a vast and murky emptiness with no recognizable landmarks. It was clear that the creature was looking for something, but what she couldn’t tell. What sparse and shrouded answers she had gotten to her curiosity only opened up paths to new questions, each with as vague as the last.

“Twilight, I don’t want to spend much longer here,” Spike said.

“Just a little bit more,” Twilight advocated.

“Are you sure you’re not getting in over your head, darling?” Rarity inquired. “Hooves in snake holes, dear.”

Twilight shuddered again at the mention of those cursed reptiles. “One more tunnel and then we’ll leave, I promise.”

Twilight adopted a more hurried pace, looking for a mined-out tunnel that might reveal something more conclusive. She passed many along the way: some barely formed or half-dug, others so long that she couldn’t see to the ends of them. She couldn’t tell what inexplicable notions those ones emanated. As they explored deeper, Twilight began to feel something new. This essence was stronger than all the rest: so powerful that she could feel it even before they neared the tunnel.

“Come on, I think I might be onto something!” Twilight called to the other two and took off at a gallop.

This new quest took the three into the deepest parts of the cave. Spike whined his worries that they should turn around before it was too late, and Rarity added to his qualms. But Twilight persisted, eager to uncover the source of what was driving her deeper into the dangerous territory.

Twilight knew she might have come across what she was looking for when she found a new passage, glowing with a warm and inviting light and emanating what she was seeking more powerfully than ever.
 
“I think this is it!” Twilight exclaimed.

Twilight looked into the tunnel and frowned. The terrain was more unstable here than it was in any of the other caverns, and it would be difficult and time-consuming to traverse.

The compulsive need to find what it held pulled at Twilight stronger than ever. Daunted but undeterred, she slowly lowered herself over the edge of  the shaft, scaling the steep inclines with her hind legs as she put her forehooves to the wall for support.

“Twilight, please…” Spike pleaded.

“One minute, Spike. Whatever is down here, it’s got to be importa—”

One of her hooves slipped and she stumbled, almost losing her balance. She clung to the wall to regain her hoofing.

“Twilight!” Spike and Rarity cried out.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Twilight reassured them. “I’ve just got to be more careful. Or…”

She lit her horn, and teleported herself to the bottom of the chasm.

“Should’ve just done that in the first place,” she muttered.
 
She caught sight of the warm light again, which burned even more powerfully than before. Her interest recaptured, she wandered through the twists and turns of the tunnel.
 
“Twilight, be careful!” Rarity called.

“It’ll be okay; it’s fairly straightforward from here.”

Twilight heard Rarity again from the top of the pit. “Spike, what are you doing?”

“I’m not going to let Twilight go down there alone,” Spike grunted as he climbed down himself. “Not with… him, running around here somewhere…”

Rarity sighed. “The things I get myself into… this is a venue for the likes of Rainbow Dash or Applejack... Only for you, Spike.”

The flow of light was practically calling to her. Twilight slowed her pace slightly to let the others catch up and cut the light from her horn, but still went ahead regardless, trudging through the crooked passage in vigilant pursuit of whatever mysterious source was emitting the iridescent shine that bade and beckoned her to follow. As she rounded the last bend and finally reached the sought-after chamber, she gasped.

The chamber that the winding passage had led her to was composed almost entirely of a network of what looked like polished, smooth gems that covered the entirety of the walls, floor and ceiling in their web, bathing the whole opening with a fiery, passionate red light. Small pulses of energy frequently passed from one junction to another along the interconnected strands like bolts of hidden lighting streaking through scarlet clouds of dusk, and the center core of each shone with the brilliance and purity of shining stars seen through the filter of a brilliant nebula.

Twilight could hardly get out more than an awestruck “Whoa…”

She took a step into the clearing. The notion washed over her instantaneously, coming upon her with breathtaking ferventness. Even now, this incredible new emotion coursing through her was so raw and potent that she still couldn’t quite explain it.

Rarity let out a gasp of her own from behind her as she and Spike entered the enclosure.
 
“Oh my,” she cooed. “It’s beautiful!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Spike noted. “But not quite as beautiful as you, Rarity.”
 
“Aw!” Rarity nuzzled him again. “Wittle Spikey-Wikey always knows what to say to the ladies…”

Ignoring the two lovebirds, Twilight strode forward towards the jewel network. Up this close, the way the array was asymmetrically interconnected by stretched strands with pulses of light and energy passing about among the collage couldn’t help but remind her of a cluster of neurons.

Further inspection revealed more evidence of the creature’s interaction. Each nucleus was surrounded by feverish claw marks in the rocks, and the thick, transparent shells had the thinnest of claw marks covering them. Its work appeared to be futile though, as there was not a single piece to be found missing.

Twilight was so drawn to the array that she could almost feel herself being pulled towards it, head and heart hungry for understanding of just what it was that this red room was making her feel.

On a whim, she extended a hoof and touched the crystalline surface of a particularly large knot that had caught her eye. The sensation that washed over her when she did was uncanny. It dropped her into a haze that touched her all the way to her heart, and made her feel warm and cherished inside. She found herself the owner of a heart overflowing with love and pining for somepony to lavish such adoration with.

But there was an underling bittersweetness at the love’s center; it felt hopelessly one-sided, and painfully unrequited.

Twilight reared up on her hind legs, overcome by the wave of feelings that had crashed into her. She stumbled in reverse for a few paces before falling on her back in a painful daze.

“Twilight! Dearest me, are you alright?” Rarity cried out, rushing to her side.

Twilight groaned with her eyes shut tight as she rubbed the area of impact with a hoof. When she opened her eyes, she suddenly found that her breath had been utterly stolen away.

For some reason, it was here of all places that it truly struck Twilight just how breath-taking Rarity was: with her white coat of cleanliness and purity, regal purple mane so perfectly mimicking the perfection of feminine curvatures, those gorgeous sapphire eyes like the sea after a storm, and an essence that radiated a passionate endeavor to make the world a wonderful, elegant place for the ponies who lived in it.

Rarity was beautiful in a way that Twilight had never noticed before.

“Are you alright?” the projection asked again.

Twilight had to mentally exert herself from grinning like a love-struck idiot. “Yeah, I’m…” She started to say, but couldn’t finish.
 
I’m wonderful; thanks for asking, hot stuff. Come around here often?... Wait, what?!

 Twilight cheeks flushed red as she realized what she’d just thought. She shook her head and smacked herself with a hoof, trying to get a grip.

What’s gotten into me? Is it this place? What is this place even?

Spike helped her back up to her hooves, and she dared a second glance at Rarity. To her relief, she wasn’t again obliterated by a schoolfilly level crush at the sight, but she still held those lingering wisps of psychological connotations attached to Rarity that were elevated way beyond the level of “close friend.”

“We should go,” Twilight suggested, casting an illumination spell again. “We’ve already spent enough time down here.”

Twilight began to trot out the way they came in. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed how vague of a picture had been painted by their infiltration. The only things she’d gathered had left her with nothing but unmatched and undefined puzzle pieces and a queasy, dirty feeling that made her seriously feel in need of a cold shower.

And to think it was over another mare! One of my friends, no less!

Twilight shuddered at the thought of being so haplessly paired together with one of her friends. True, she loved and cared about them all very deeply, but not like that.

“How long have we spent down here, anyway?”

“I dunno; about twenty minutes, maybe?” Spike guessed.

Twilight teleported the three back up to the top of the tunnel.

“Come on, we’ve got less than ten minutes to get back to the gates,” Twilight said to both of them. “If we hurry, we should be able to make it there just fine…”

“Hhha ha ha ha ha…”

The trio froze in their tracks. Twilight’s blood ran cold.

“I don’t think so.”

Spike ran in front of Twilight and Rarity, taking up a defensive stance.

“Stay away! You’re not coming anywhere near us!”
 
The creature merely chuckled. “Spike, why didn’t you tell me that you were bringing your friends over? But you really didn’t have to just up and invite yourselves in; that was kind of rude. I would have let you inside if you’d have just knocked... Well, I mean I would, if only it wasn’t for, oh, you know, the whole being TRAPPED IN HERE THING!”

Spike’s expression hardened as he maintained his footing. Twilight lowered her head, tense and ready to either fight or flee as needed. The projection of Rarity looked all around the cave in unease, eyes darting from one nook of the cave to another, attempting to locate the creature to no avail.

“You know what, I take that back; ’trapped’ is the wrong word to use. I think “imprisoned” is a much more fitting term. Don’t you? Or how about “detained?” “Restrained?” “Caged?” “Incarcerated?” “Confined?” “Enslaved?” “Oppressed?” Take your freaking pick.”

“No,” Spike asserted. “I’m not playing your stupid games.”

The creature snorted in indignation. “Or how about I just beat you over the head with a thesaurus?”

“Such impertinence; the nerve!” Rarity humphed in disgust.

“You would say that,” the creature spat back, then sighed with just a hint of dismay. “Pity, really.”

“Enough!” Twilight yelled. “Where are you? Who are you? WHAT are you?”

The creature snickered. “So many questions; how typical of you. But tell me; is it the ‘who’ that you want to know, or the ‘what?’ Because knowing the ‘who’ doesn’t tell you ‘what,’ and ’what’ doesn’t say jack about ‘who.’

“No, what you want is the entire encyclopedia article on the ‘I,’ the I in this case being me. And oh, I could go on all day about me,” it fondly recited. ”But unfortunately, we don’t have all day, do we?”

“Stop avoiding the question!” Twilight yelled.

“You talk like I owe you an explanation.” The creature sneered. ”I owe you nothing.”

Twilight scowled. “Well, if you’re not the gloating type… So long as you’re giving yourself so much lip service, why not just go ahead and labor my ears with the inevitable “my dastardly scheme against Celestia that you’re powerless to stop” super-villain monologue while you’re at it? ”

“Celestia?”

Twilight was disconcerted by the genuine confusion in the creature’s response.

“You think I’m plotting against Celestia?” The creature snorted. “Idiot.”
 
Twilight grimaced in disgust at the condescension. “Well, if you’ve got nothing to say but snide remarks, then we’ll just be leaving.”

“Aw, you mean you don’t want to know about the who or what he’s been up to?” the creature asked in mock disappointment.

“Like you’d ever tell me,” Twilight shot back.

“No, you’re right; I wouldn’t. Besides, I want it to be a surprise. And therefore, I can’t tell you, because that would ruin the surprise, you silly.” The creature paused. “At least that’s what Pinkie Pie would say.”

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks. “How… how do you know about Pinkie Pie?”

“Hm, so she’s real, too… I know far more than you would dare imagine, Twilight.”

Twilight gulped. “Care to elaborate?”

“Well, for instance, hmm hmmm… I know we’re actually asleep.”

The ice in Twilight’s veins made her fur stand on end. The Rarity projection looked bewildered. Spike was shocked.

“Wait, what?” he dared ask.
 
“Oh, yes. As it turns out, I’ve apparently been asleep for a very, very long time. And do you know what the worst part is?” He growled. “I didn’t even understand that this entire time. But I know the truth now. And lo and behold, the night that I figure it all out, Twilight decides to enter our dream to figure out what’s going on. ”

Twilight suddenly was left feeling like she’d gotten in over her head. Somewhere, she seemed to remember hearing Pinkie’s ominously prophetic warning against her reckless curiosity.

“Well, Twilight, don’t you look shocked.”

Twilight’s heart would have jumped out through her throat were it not for the noose of fear choking her by the neck.

“We need to go! Now!” she exclaimed and took off in a panicked gallop.

“Twilight, wait!” Spike called after her as he tried to catch up. “We could be running into a trap!”

“You know, maybe we’re not so different after all, Spike.”

The segments of the floor underneath each of them collapsed and the three fell into separate shafts, falling into different places of the cave away from each other.

Twilight screamed in terror as she fell through the tunnel, desperately trying to get a grip on any protrusion to slow her descent, but to no avail. Instead she painfully collided with a clump of earth that made her tumble lop-sided the rest of the way down the steep pit.

She fell into another chamber and slammed into the ground. The impact of the inglorious landing dazzled and discombobulated her, causing the magic from her horn to sputter and die. Adrenalin followed suit quickly, numbing the agony of her nerves as fast as it could.

The shock wore off a moment after, and keen focus returned. The weight of the situation hit Twilight like a sack of bricks. She lit her horn again to get her bearings, and light returned just in time for her to see the blur of a fist coming straight for her.

The punch sent her flying several feet before she skidded to a halt across the rocky floor, adorning her body and face with a whole new set of scrapes and cuts. Survival instincts kicked in, and she quickly tried to get back on her hooves.

A foot came down on the base of her skull and smashed Twilight’s face back into the ground again. Twilight wailed in pain from the attack and struggled to get back up, but the force holding her down was too strong.

“Feels real, doesn’t it?” a dauntingly familiar voice asked from above her. “Dreams feel real while we’re in them, right?”

Twilight felt a chill at hearing another abnormal entity within a dream world use that term.

“But the real question is, if I’ve only ever been in a dream, if I’ve never fully understood what it means to be awake, how am I supposed to know what real even feels like? What is there to compare it to? What is real? What am I even?”

Twilight let up from her fruitless struggling to better hear what the creature had to say; she could hardly hear him over the thump of her heartbeat in her ears.

“And that brings us to the one million bit question. If you’ve only ever existed as something in a world that you did not create, where the definition of you is written by others, than what’s left for you to call that’s actually yourself?”

Twilight struggled to get a look at the creature. “How is a projection of greed capable of knowing all this?” she asked.“Who are you? What are you?”

“Still haven’t figured it out yet?” the creature breathed. “Well then, allow me to introduce myself…”

Twilight felt the weight on the back of her head shift as the creature unceremoniously used its foot to roll her onto her back before stomping down onto her rib cage, forcing the air out of her lungs. She struggled to push it off her, then she caught her first sight of the appendage; sharp talons and scales the shade of amethyst purple… an all too familiar shade of purple.

Against the better judgment of a brain tainted with the murky blackness of dread, she looked up to see the face of the terrible antagonist.

The dragon bent down and crossed an arm over the knee of the leg pinning Twilight. The shift of  weight from something almost twice her height applied even more pressure to her already strained rib cage. He smirked triumphantly, revealing the scores of sharp fangs contained within a ridged muzzle with a point like an axe.

“Well hello, Twilight Sparkle; fancy meeting you here.”

He snorted a puff of smoke at Twilight, making her cough

“By the way, if my memory serves me right, you still owe me a broom.”

Something about those words began to dig their way through Twilight as slowly, a horrible, terrifying realization dawned on her. She refocused on the dragon again, revealing more and more parallels to some awful truth.

Though the construction of his face consisted of mostly hard lines and cruel angles, many of its sharp edges were in fact the ends of otherwise curved and youthful features. Its slicked back and jagged, razor sharp frill somehow didn’t seem all that unknown, nor did the horned fins at the ears. His colors of amethyst scales and lime spines struck her as disturbingly familiar, and those eyes… even though their shape of sharp crescents was different from the big ovals she was accustomed to, she’d know those summer green eyes anywhere.

They were the same eyes she’d seen almost every day for years; the eyes of one of her closest, oldest, and dearest friends.

“Spike?!”

The smirk disappeared from the dragon’s face to be replaced by a scowl, then a snarl. Poisonous loathing dripped from his face.

“You… would DARE call me that disgusting, pathetic, contemptible little gecko?!” he roared, pushing Twilight even harder into the ground.

“AH!” Twilight screamed and frantically redoubled her efforts to shove the beast off her when the crack of her first snapped rib shattered the air.

“You want to know who I am? I’ll tell you who I am!” The dragon shrieked in fury as he moved his face dangerously close to Twilight’s.

“I… Am… AVARICE!”

Avarice inhaled deeply, and filled Twilight’s face with the vitriol and wrath of his wicked fire.

Even knowing that it wasn’t real didn’t decrease the pain of the excruciating torture. Her subconscious and the dreamscape automatically filled in all her expectations of eating a face full of a dragon’s fire. She could feel her fur burn and melt, her skin cracking and peeling away from itself as it withered in the extreme heat, and the thin layer of fatty tissue just underneath the epidermal layer begin to sizzle and pop. She could feel the fire invade and shrivel her lungs and toast her innards. She could feel her eyeballs begin to boil in their sockets and her brain start to fry inside her skull.
 
She felt nothing but agony.
 
And then, she felt nothing.