//------------------------------// // Chapter 16 // Story: The Reception's Back On // by sister_mike //------------------------------// Chapter 16 Twilight Sparkle Twilight watched helplessly as Rainbow Dash, CloudsArmor, Titan Wings and Derpy were swept away in the black cyclone. "What are we going to do?" Applejack said, standing beside Twilight. "Should we go after them?" Pinkie Pie asked. "They're moving away too fast, and even if we did catch up with the cyclone, I don't know how we would get them out of there," Twilight said. "Uh, that's ok, because we have our own problems," Rarity said suddenly. She pointed towards the trees that they had just left. Because they had been so distracted with the pegasi and the black mass-turned cyclone, nopony had noticed the mass of changelings coming out of the trees. They hissed and growled and slowly began to walk towards the group, semi-circling around them. "What should we do?" Applejack asked, slowly backing up. "I-I don't know," Twilight said, backing up as well. There were so many changelings. She hadn't seen this many since they were being chased into the labyrinth in Canterlot. "Everypony, run!" Inkie said, as she stuffed something into the cannon. "But Inkie—" Pinkie began. "Just run! I'll catch up," Inkie said, igniting the fuse. Twilight hesitated, while the others began to run. The changelings began to charge towards them. "Go, Twilight, go! This won't take out all of them, but it will slow them down," Inkie said. Twilight began to run. Changelings were on her tail. When she looked back at Inkie, changelings were swarming her and the cannon. Inkie struggled to unbuckle herself from the cannon's straps. Twilight helped with her magic, and watched as Inkie ran just in time as the whole cannon exploded. The force pushed Twilight a little further forward, and threw Inkie into her. The two landed face first in the dirt, and changelings were on them instantly. Somepony else came over and helped them up. Flam used his magic to throw some of the changelings off, while Applejack kicked at them to get through. "Come on," Twilight said as she stood up and began to run again, "we're almost at the mountain; we're almost at Canterlot." The four of them began to run, changelings tackling them to the ground now and then. They fought them off and tried to catch up to the others. The others had reached the base of the mountain and were fighting off more changelings. "Twilight; what should we do? How do we get up or around the mountain?" Rarity asked, kicking a changeling in the face. Twilight looked up the mountain. She could see an outline of Canterlot far up to the left. They were so close. "There has to be an entrance, a path or trail, or a cave or something..." Inkie said in a panicky voice, obviously still shaken from the explosion. A cave. Cave! The underground caves where Chrysalis had imprisoned Cadance in my fake reality! They have to be real! "There has to be an entrance somewhere along the base to a bunch of old caves hidden under the palace; the entrance will be hidden because the caves have long been forgotten. Come on everypony, we need to stick together. This way!" Twilight shouted. She turned and began to run towards the left. It made sense that the entrance to the caves would be somewhere under the proximity close to Canterlot. The changelings chased them. Some dove a them from above. When Trixie lagged behind at one point, Twilight pushed her forwards. She felt like Trixie was her personal ward and had become quite attached to protecting her. Shrubbery began to line the base of the mountain. Twilight began frantically searching and feeling around for any sort of entrance hidden behind them. The changelings kept attacking. The ponies were beginning to falter and tire. There were just too many changelings compared to them. The cyclone had been an obvious diversion to allow the changelings to sneak up on them, and to separate them from the pegasi. "Twilight... we can't keep this up much longer, we have to move," Applejack said, trying to hold the changelings off so that Twilight could find an entrance into the mountain. Finally, Twilight's hoof fell through a bush and the ground behind it began to descend. She pushed the bush aside and a small entrance was behind it. "Quickly! Everyone get inside!" Twilight said. Rarity, Pinkie and Inkie ran into the cave first. Twilight pushed Trixie in and motioned for the rest to follow. "It's no use Twilight, they'll just follow us in there," Applejack said. The changelings had stopped directly attacking them. Now, they slowly walked towards them, closing in on them on all sides. If we go into the caves, they'll just follow us in there and have the upper hand by being able to see perfectly in the dark; there are too many of them to fight. Either way, we'll either end up exhausting ourselves and will be too exhausted if a second wave of changelings come, or we'll be imprisoned—or worse—by these ones. This is it. We're defeated. Twilight's heart was racing. She didn't know what to do. No bright ideas or plans were coming to mind. Her mind was blank. For once in her life, she just couldn't think. "Twilight Sparkle, it is time to go; I shall rid of this tricky foe," Zecora said, stepping in front of Twilight to shield her from the changelings. "Zecora no; you can't take on these changelings all by yourself," Twilight said. Flam and Applejack slowly backed into the cave as the changelings kept coming closer. "Trust in me you must, so that our quest is not a bust," Zecora said, urging Twilight to go into the cave. Zecora put her bag on the ground and fiddled with something inside. "Come on Twilight, you need to come inside!" Pinkie said from within the cave. "Zecora... I can't let you face them alone," Twilight said. "Trust me my dear friend; of me, this is not the end," Zecora said softly, putting her hoof on Twilight's shoulder. Twilight looked Zecora hard in the eyes. Then, before she could say anything else, Zecora gave Twilight a hard push and Twilight fell backwards into the cave. "Zecora!" Twilight stood and reached out towards the cave. Before she could even taken one step towards her, Zecora whipped something out of her bag, said something in a language Twilight couldn't understand, and performed magic of the likes she had never seen. Everything went bright for a second. And when Twilight could see again, she slowly stepped out of the cave. There was not a single changeling in sight; and there were no signs of Zecora or that any of them had been there at all.