A vibrant dissonance of magic energy in bright pale yellow and green exploded from Twilight’s horn. The shrill sound of the spell resonated around the six mares for a few seconds. Even the stone of the round benches and old statues screeched under the effect of the luminescent wave. Twilight stood up and looked at her friends. They woke up all at once and started standing and babbling confused words.
“W-what happened?” said Rainbow Dash, then proceeding to stand up in a quick jump, ready to fight.
“We have fallen into a trap,” Twilight explained angry, “a mind trap. I tried to get you out, but I think I was too slow.” She regretted having fallen for it so easily, but now she felt refreshed and full of energy. The only thing that she didn’t understand was why their enemy hadn’t taken advantage of the situation and just had left them lying there.
“Don’tcha worry, Twilight. We are all ok and that’s what counts,” Applejack told her.
“Yeah!” Pinkie’s cheery voice hollered behind her, “whatever comes now, it won’t be worse than waking up from the dream I just had!”
“Huh? What do you mean?” asked Twilight, curious of Pinkie’s priorities.
“I dreamt the whole world was made of chocolate and sweets, and no matter how much I ate, I never got sick! It was perfect!”
“Oh, yeah. I dreamt I was in the Wonderbolts,” replied Rainbow, “hanging with them and flying faster than ever. Pretty standard dream, actually.”
Fluttershy intervened excited, “ah, I dreamed such a good thing too! Every animal, big or small, fierce or tame was at my tea party, and all of them got along well. It was unbelievable!”
“That’s cute, sugarcube,” continued Applejack, “ah dreamt all mah family was together at the farm. All of them! Like back when Ah was young,” She sighed nostalgically.
A chilling silence filled the place as they looked at Rarity, awaiting her experience.
“C’mon, sweetheart. What did ya dream about?” Applejack directly asked her.
She blushed and raised her snout, “Hmph! I believe what a lady dreams is private and it is very uncouth of you to ask such a thing!”
Twilight interrupted the conversation. “Hush, girls! Focus. We still are in enemy territory. Let’s see what’s inside the tower and keep our eyes open. We must be careful now.”
“And what did you dream, Sparkle?” spoke Fuzzymane’s familiar voice. She was standing between them and the tower, staring at them menacingly. “Won’t you tell your friends?”
“Maybe later,” she answered while firing a bunch of magic missiles straight to her.
The impacts of the bright sparks were gracefully absorbed by a blinking force field that had suddenly surrounded the little mare. Twilight heard five surprised ponies gasp behind her.
“That is so mean of you, Ms Sparkle!” cried the amber pony, “attacking a sweet, fragile creature like that!”
“I’ve been wondering this whole time,” she said loud enough so her friends would hear, “how can you be using so much magic? You are an earth pony, not a unicorn!”
“Oh, it works like that?” Fuzzymane replied, “maybe I should have noticed. Who cares?”
A fireball started forming before her and Twilight barely had time to cast a shield spell when she noticed it was not just an illusion. She didn’t expect to get ambushed by a mirage. Her friends ran for cover behind the statues just before the impact, shivering and trembling after the shock. The fireball dispersed around Twilight and left her surrounded by smoking embers.
She stood still and held her focus on Fuzzymane. “How did you cast a spell if you are not even here? What the hay are you if not a unicorn? Show yourself!”
“Really? You don’t think I’m alone? How cunning...” she replied sarcastically.
“I don’t know what kind of unicorn... or creature is behind this, but you are just a puppet.”
“You are so smart!” Fuzzymane yelled. Then she began to laugh stronger and stronger. Her villainous, manic laughter echoed magically as she began to change. Her robes turned dark and blue, and her fur a dark grayish brown. She grew three times as tall as Twilight and her body elongated and slimmed like a big, long tentacle. She now had fangs and claws and small, black eyes. She didn’t look like a pony anymore. She looked like an overgrown otter in a ragged, old, dark hooded robe. But Twilight now knew very well what it was.
“The Järkivääristää!” she muttered, opening her eyes wide at its sight, “I thought you were a legend, but there’s no doubt. You are the Järkivääristää!”
“Oh, am I?” it replied in a raspy, deep and grave voice, “I believe you are confusing me with some... fairytale.”
“Shut up!” Twilight shouted at it, then turning to her friends, “girls, we have to get into the tower! Come on! Get near me!”
As the ponies approached her, she casted a new, bigger shield around them. “Don’t worry. This creature has fooled everypony in Equestria with it’s sorcery, but I don’t think he has a chance now we know it’s real. It can no longer make us believe what it wants us to, you see? And of course, since no magical energy can get through our shield, the illusion of the Järkivääristää can’t touch us,” she explained confidently as they walked towards the main door of the tower, “it is quite simple. If, however, it was a real thing, it could just step into this kind of shield, but it’s not. Now, Rarity, be a dear and open the door.”
“What a smart move!” sarcastically said the Järkivääristää in a sharp tone. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. The ritual is already finished,” it commented as it’s body vaporized in a cloud where it touched the magic shield.
The brave ponies, although scared, walked into the darkness of the ruined stone tower. The phantasm of the Järkivääristää dissipated in puffs of blue and grey smoke, laughing maniacally behind them.
* * *
“Now, be very careful,” Twilight whispered, “we don’t know what may attack us here. Stay near me.”
They stepped slowly through the shadow until, above them, they glanced the moonlit clouds in the sky, through the missing roof of the circular tower. The stone floor had barely any debris on it, indicating somepony had cleared it after the tower collapsed.
Suddenly, a blue spark right in front of them, at the other side of the room, allowed them to see for a brief moment the silhouette of the robed creature they had defied. However, this time Twilight saw clearly that the thing standing before them was not at all an illusion. It was the real one.
“Rarity, light up!” she said, and Rarity obeyed, casting a mystical shining from her pearled horn.
The walls of the tower illuminated, sharing their secrets. Filled with dull engravings of scribbled runes and arcane symbols, the stones of that place told the story of a mad being trying to harness the powers of beyond. The sinister figure of the Järkivääristää was no longer a fantasy, but a living evil in flesh and bone. Everypony shivered at the shady sight. Soon, they started to feel the dark pulse of its magic, like a loud, grave note pressing against their whole bodies.
“I-is t-that real, Twilight?” Applejack stuttered, “is this a nightmare?”
“Yes, yes it is,” she answered.
She trusted on the shield to protect them from magic, but she couldn’t count on it to last much against other things. The evil otter gestured in the air and they saw it carried a long walking stick decorated with a bunch of figurines hanging from its top by threads. Then, a dark mist began to filter through the cracks in the walls and the floor, filling the air with an unyielding darkness that even Rarity’s light couldn’t overcome.
Twilight started feeling the pressure of leadership. The responsibility she had on her friends. She couldn’t risk it. There was no time to doubt in the middle of enemy ground, with no idea of how to defend. They couldn’t attack without seeing the target and they didn’t know what other kind of attacks to expect. On top of that, she didn’t know it the black smoke was magical in nature or not. “Step back,” she said, “retreat. Back to the door. Don’t stray now.”
“What is going on?” cried Fluttershy in the darkness, among the clopping sound of their hooves. They barely could see each other.
“Don’t worry! Just get out! Now!” Twilight shouted.
They stormed out of the tower and watched as the black haze engulfed it. Twilight looked at her friends, trembling after the rush. Fluttershy cried, tightly hugged to Pinkie. Rarity shivered staring at the overflowing door with her eyes wide open, fixed in the darkness. Applejack nervously stepped around and kicked the air, and Rainbow Dash... “where is Rainbow!?” the leader cried. She was nowhere.
* * *
Inside the tower of the Spiral Shrine, amidst an opaque black haze, Rainbow Dash struggled to find her way outside. She was scared and lacked her usual confidence. She could only hear the sound of her own hooves against the stone and a loud, deafening silence pulse that repeated incessantly every few moments.
Blinded by the dark smoke she hesitated to take off. She then touched a stone that was not level with the rest. Feeling around she managed to discern the shape of a stair. Frightened and confused, she began ascending it. She started hearing a faint breathing noise behind her.
Hurriedly, she climbed the steps, soon reaching a height that the mist didn’t cover. After crawling upwards some more, she looked back to the pit of blackness, where the spiral staircase began. She saw a grim figure raising from the smooth shades. The hooded creature, hiding her head under the clothes, climbed the cobble rungs right after Rainbow’s hasted retreat.
Down below, on the garden, Twilight debated what to do, not daring to enter the certain doom of the black trap. She tried to dispel the magical cloud, but it didn’t work. She tried to calm down and think, but it didn’t work either.
Then she breathed deep and, by feeling the weight of the clouds above her, she heard the hissing of the air in the cracks of the stones. She gently pressed against the atmosphere and channeled a gust of powerful wind through the tower’s gate. As she beamed the wind spell, it cleared out the blackness in the round room, the smoke flying upwards, rushing through the hole. She looked upwards to the high end of the tower where the staircase ended in mid-air. There she saw Rainbow Dash, crawling backwards towards the edge, her wings closed tight.
“What is she doing!?” yelled Twilight, “Why isn’t she flying away?” Everypony looked upwards. They saw the blue pegasus cornered at the broken end of the tower, acting scared and unbalanced. Through a window that rested open on the tower’s wall, a few steps below Dash, they glanced a dark blue silhouette, creeping slowly towards her.
Twilight didn’t need a second more to make up her mind and instantly shifted through space in a bright flash to reach the top of the ruined building. She felt the air condensing and heating around her, she smelt her enemy’s cloth and fur igniting and she turned that sensation into a violent ball of burning gas, launching it straight to the fearsome creature. The explosion knocked it against the wall and the staircase trembled with the impact.
The unicorn turned to look at her blue friend. She saw her trembling and terrorized. Instead of the usual brave and eager pegasus, she acted like a young and brittle filly. Something dark and sinister floated around her. Twilight had seen that before. It looked like a curse.
“Get up, Dash! It’s time to fly!”, she said firmly, trying to make her confront her fears to dispel the terrible aura.
“Twilight?” asked the confused pegasus, “what’s going on?”
“Come on, Rainbow. You won’t get into the Wonderbolts like that,” she replied sharply, “Open your wings!”
The scared pony looked down to the far lower ground. “But it’s so high!” she cried.
“Listen, Rainbow,” she whispered, looking back at the unsightly creature who was standing up again, “do you remember that spell I told you I wouldn’t let you try because it would be too dangerous?” She felt her fur start to stand on end. The air surrounding them getting denser.
“Y-yeah...” Rainbow stuttered.
“Well, I think it will be more dangerous not to use it right now, so... are you ready?” Rainbow Dash nodded worried. Twilight focused on her friend. She carefully went all over her skin, covering it with the strong protection of a caring friend and the powerful shield of her motherly rage. Every inch of the blue pegasus was softly embroidered with Twilight’s red-tinted magic, bit by bit, in a matter of seconds. Then she proceeded to rend the winds, making room for Rainbow’s body to pass unhindered through the air, and she imbued her wings with the power of pure light and its speed, allowing her to soar through the skies with unreasonable swiftness.
Twilight kissed her in the cheek and whispered at her ear, “go fly.”
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and suddenly departed like an exhalation, leaving only a faint red glowing trail from the shield and a soft hissing echo in the air.
Twilight looked back at her enemy. The enormous otter, its clothes burnt and its pride hurt, looked at her with calm rage, gesturing to the skies with its stick. Twilight could feel clearly now the powerful charge that bathed the air around her. It made a vast shiver to cross her whole body. She knew what it meant. She had trained for this the last week. She was ready to counteract.
When the Järkivääristää’s stick touched the ground, a fast spark descended from the clouds above, brainlessly seeking the unicorn. She felt it approaching in an instant, crackling through the air in quick steps. Her magic was just fast enough to divert only the last step, making the spark land right in front of her. Immediately, a massive burst of energy, channeled straight through the spark’s path, deafened all her senses. She cried in horror. She had just avoided a thunder, but the spell hadn’t protected her completely. Blind and deaf, she shouted to the skies.
“RAINBOOOOOOOOW!!!”
Up in the air, far above the clouds, Rainbow Dash heard the call of her friend. In a few moments, she had described a wide arc, diving away into the clouds and coming back at the level of the tower, aiming for the hideous creature. She saw the tower broken in half by the thunder, a black burn mark going all down to the ground where the rock hadn’t split. She observed the creature raise its stick and a purple hazy ball come right at her face. She tried to avoid it, but it was useless. Just a moment later she slammed right into the wall under the broken staircase, causing the whole building to start collapsing.
Twilight felt the shock under her hooves and then the pull of gravity. She fell for a few seconds and then she received an impact. She didn’t know what was happening, but she noticed the warm embrace of one of her friends. Then she touched the fresh, wet grass again, softly leaning against it.
The unicorn breathed relieved. She really thought it was her end.
She started to atone her mystical power to the primeval forces that reigned inside her. She communed her past and her future, tying them in an unnatural bond, compelling the flow of nature to revert into a healthier state. She perceived the dainty breath of life inside and the tender caress of the loving spirits around. She recovered her hearing and sight, then she rested.
“Twilight! Are you all right?” commented Rarity nervously staring at her, lain down by her side.
“I don’t know what happened!” sobbed Fluttershy, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
Confused, Twilight stood up, helped by the other unicorn, opened her eyes and, trying to calm her, told her, “don’t worry, Fluttershy. I’m ok.” She then noticed the yellow pegasus wasn’t looking at her.
“I-it’s not o-only you, Twilight,” she stuttered, “when I p-picked you up, I didn’t see Rainbow anywhere! A-and now the tower’s gone!”
Twilight looked around. She hadn’t noticed, but they were no longer inside the garden. They were outside, right besides the forest. The ancient building had crumbled and where it barely stood before, there was only a dust cloud now.
“Come on, let’s go find Dash,” she ordered with determination to the scared ponies, “we can’t leave her alone in there.”
She looked at the shivering pegasus. Her blue eyes were full of tears and her yellow wat face showed only worry and fear. She was about to break down.
“Fluttershy,” the purple mare tried to comfort her, “you don’t want anything bad happen to Rainbow Dash, right?”
“No.”
“Then we have to be strong and go find her! There’s no time for crying.”
“Y-yes. Y-you’re right...” she replied, “I guess...”
They approached the ancient ruins of the Spiral Shrine, now far more ruined than before. The cloud of grey dust that had covered the place was settling down, making the grass appear as if it was made of rock too. Only a few pillars still stood upright. Stepping on the the fresh layer of dust left evident hoof marks. Their steps resonated in the silence of the night, barely filling the empty space between them and the growing, swirling clouds above them.
Twilight had a creeping sensation for a moment. She looked behind to contemplate an immense mass of thick, interlaced trunks right besides the garden door. It had grown in a moment and it kept raising all around the place, blocking all possible escape paths by land.
“Well played, pinkspells” shouted around them the deep, magical echo of the Järkivääristää’s voice, “but the games are over!”
“Do you have to be so cliché?” yelled angry Pinkie Pie, looking around trying to localize the sound source. The only response came as a rumbling noise from the shaking earth.
“Get ready!” Twilight warned, “keep away from it! It’s influence is stronger nearby!” She was struggling to find a way to defeat the Järkivääristää, but she just didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t want to try random things until she had found the right one, still, it seemed like the only option. Taking a defensive strategy wouldn’t cut it either.
The rumbling receded and a grey cloud began to rise from the floor. It grew taller and wider until a figure emerged from it. A magical shield protected him from the sparky projectiles Twilight had immediately fired. The hideous otter grinned and giggled. “You won’t get me now. I am already finished sending this land to its doom!” it rambled in its sharp, maniacal tone.
Twilight didn’t hesitate. She grabbed one of the stone statues that laid broken near her and swiftly levitated it towards the creature, launching it with all her might. It shattered against the protective sphere, but she managed to notice a small crack in it before it flickered renewed.
“Rarity! You have to help me!” she shouted, “keep throwing rocks at him!”
“On it, dear!” Rarity replied, grabbing the nearest rocks and raising them in the air, launching them in an arc, hitting the otter’s shield. It laughed at the puny projectiles.
When Twilight concentrated all her rage to make the air around her heat up and flow into a scorching ray of fiery plasma, the Järkivääristää had already sorted the humid air into a reflective plaque of ice that diverted the hot blast onto one of the remaining pillars, which exploded in a loud boom along with the ice plaque. The creature laughed even more, hysterical and proud, with a shrill and loud roaring that almost hurt in everypony’s ears.
“Rarity, keep at it!” the unicorn ordered, thinking about a way to overcome the purple force field. She kept being surprised at the masterful use of magic of the unholy mustelid, but she didn’t flinch. She had an idea that didn’t involve magic nor physical contact. It only involved Fluttershy.
“Fluttershy! I need you here,” she told her, closely evading a fireball from her rival. The terrified pegasus crawled to her while she skewed the earth with her telekinetic powers to make a temporary protection against direct attacks.
“You have to use the Stare. It’s the only way to get through,” she explained whispering loud under the noise of rocks shattering and magical missiles of all kind exploding around them.
“But... what if it doesn’t work?” timidly asked the yellow pony.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it does,” Twilight told her shaky friend, “just use it on him. Otherwise he’s going to hurt us! And Rainbow! You’re not going to let that happen, are you?”
“Never!” Fluttershy yelled, standing up and jumping in front of the dreadful magician.
The righteousness from her heart boiled in her eyes thanks to Twilight’s magic. When she looked into the eyes of the beast, the combined strength of her knowledge and the the kindness of Fluttershy dragged the creature to a halt, forcing it to bow its head to meet the pony’s eyes. Twilight looked at the incredible scene, her shy friend bending the will of the terrible being and holding it still in place.
But she noticed something was wrong. She saw the Järkivääristää and her friend before him, motionless, but around them a hazy mirage of themselves in reversed positions covered the standoff. She got it too late. Rarity was still throwing rocks at the shield, but to her it appeared they had changed positions.
“Rarity, stop!” she cried, but a rock had already hit Fluttershy’s head, sending her flying unconscious to the ground.
Twilight incessantly rained hell on her enemy for the next few minutes, throwing rocks, fireballs, trees, thunder and hail at it, but the Järkivääristää limited to laugh and laugh, evading each attack with an unnatural swift motion or an exactly adequate protection, literally rolling on the floor while laughing with its insufferable voice, mocking the unicorn’s blind rage. Rarity, and Applejack watched astonished the unending display of mystical might. They couldn’t do anything but look at it. They didn’t dare cross the line of fire, not to talk of the literal lines of fire that spread everywhere.
Pinkie had managed to stay on the same side of the battle as Fluttershy, so she picked her up and dragged her out of the danger. She stayed with her for a while, making sure she wasn’t badly hurt, but she really couldn’t tell.
Twilight had stopped her ambush. She breathed fast and deep. She was exhausted. However, the histrionical wizard still laughed. “That was amazing!” it finally spoke, “you were so close of killing me... of laughter! HEEHEEHEHEHEHEEEEE!!”
The ground started trembling again. “I told you. There’s nothing you can do now. I’ve been trapped on this place for years, learning to contact the greater powers from beyond. And now... Just don’t waste your precious energy,” the Järkivääristää told Twilight, “it would be a shame if you weren’t awake to see the end of Equestria.”
“Shut up!” the lilac unicorn cried furious, “this ends here and now!”
The mad otter grinned at her and claimed, “oh, you are so right, you have no idea.”
The earth shook violently and started cracking under their legs. At the centre of the former tower, a hole opened in the floor, letting a reddish and orange glow through. Terrible sounds like those of molten rock and the profound roar of an unimaginable creature came out of it. For the first time, the ponies realized the kind of apocalyptic fate they were fighting against.
* * *
Rarity left her orange friend on the grey tinted grass and approached Twilight, evading burning patches and poodles of unknowable perilous fluids. The furious unicorn was exhausted, her mane turned into a mess and her eyes fixated on her unsightly nemesis. “Don’t falter now,” Rarity commenced, “we have to bring this fiend down. We have put up with many before and we have overcome every hurdle. We will triumph this time too, Twilight. Together.”
“Yeah...” she softly replied, “we just need to figure out why it has an advantage over us.” She looked around for a clue. There was something missing. It was clear the Järkivääristää’s power matched hers, maybe even surpassed it, but she knew there had to be a source for that kind of magic, and a weak point in the seemingly perfect defense.
“I am going to help you in this fight, Twilight,” Rarity confidently stated.
The loose earth under their hooves crumbled against the broken rocks that once formed the floor. The wind blew around them lifting their manes to their side. Above them black clouds swirled in a spiral, reflecting the crimson and orange tones that shone from the breach in the tower’s floor. Before them, the spellcaster in greyish blue rags stared at them, calmly smiling, awaiting their action.
Twilight picked up a small stick that laid around and threw it against the Järkivääristää. It hit the protective sphere, making it gleam for a moment, then dropped to the floor harmlessly, leaving the creature with a puzzled expression.
The unicorn released her insubstantial mastery, her horn and eyes shining in white, infusing the broken branch with the life forces in its surroundings. Grass withered and the wall of plants blocking the place dried while the small fragment turned into a lush creeping vine that quickly covered the mad wizard’s shield, forming a dense leaf sphere.
It reacted igniting the flora with a blazing heat spell, but Twilight quickly responded by applying the spirit of the cockatrice’s gaze, turning the vines to stone in a whim. She then yelled at the pearl unicorn, “raise him! Don’t let him leave!”
Rarity pulled the structure with her ethereal grasp and the creature inside tumbled and fell. When the stone shell was high up into the air, Twilight condensed the power of the storm above, calling for a powerful thunder that fell right on the target.
However, when she checked again, she noticed the jail had been turned into a metal cage, which in turn had protected the otter from the electrical current, leaving it totally unharmed. Somehow it had also avoided the shock and blinding light. Still, the unicorn hadn’t said the last word yet. From the embers that remained where the lightning had struck, she raised a searing flame. A hellish column of sizzling energy bound by her furious vengeance hunger that was doused by a dense, sudden rain before it reached the floating prison.
The creature started to laugh again as the water drops turned into hail, hitting the ponies like pebbles. Rarity felt the creature fight against her grasp as it forced open the metal mesh, turning it into a shield right before a brutal aerolith, evoked by Twilight’s dominion over the cold drops, impacted against it.
The Järkivääristää fell laughing into an enormous pile of cotton that had grown from the remains of the vines, landing comfortably, then raising a wind that sent it flying right into the unicorn’s faces.
Coughing and blinded by the cotton storm, Twilight could only hear the impact of the metal plaque falling right onto her friend, knocking her down.
She reached Rarity and tried to wake her up, but she looked very hurt and didn’t respond. In that moment, Applejack rammed the Järkivääristää, knocking it down. It cried and yelled some strange words and a bright flash sent the orange pony flying against the wooden wall that had magically grown before. She was hurt, but she stood up and got ready to attack again.
She was charging already when the earth started trembling once more, interrupting her run with a fiery breach before her. The land shifted and roared, but among the loud noise, it still could be heard a furious bellow of an otherworldly nature.
From the depths of the earth, a long, black cylinder shape, streaked by red and orange cracks, rose upon the skies, almost reaching the clouds from the tower’s floor gap. The immense and thin appendage bent and plunged to the ground while its other side, still underground, raised even more. A second one followed on the same pattern, just before a big, burning hot shadow emerged from the earth. The head of the gigantic quadruped exposed only a jagged mouth and circular orange eyes, both filled with pure blazing fire from the magma inside.
The nightmarish creature posed its paws on the grass, flames instantly consuming the land around it. Its long neck reached the clouds and its head and body disappeared above them, leaving only the legs visible, black, cracked columns under the storm. It finally left the bowels of the earth and stood on it, its burning mane and tail, shining dimly through the clouds, flowing under the soft rain, sizzling with each drop in an ominous arrangement of noises. It roared once more as thunder struck around it on the skies. The ponies stared speechless at the black giraffe-like immense burning creature and wished it would have never been.
An intense glow up beneath the dark swirling dome pierced the night. Suddenly, a canyon opened in the clouds, letting moonlight through, allowing Twilight to see beyond, far in the horizon among the mist. A yellow trail of dense energy lead to a shiny explosion that cleared the clouds. Then a loud booming sound followed by the noise of a million glasses breaking at the same time, far in the distance.
Twilight tried to see better, but she could barely see anything between the treetops while standing on her hind legs, so she jumped and tried to hold herself on the air with her own magic. She had time enough to see the rooftops of Canterlot far away before falling back down. The city was surrounded by a broken red sphere, similar to a broken snow globe. She knew what was going on. She knew the next strike would be fatal.
The unicorn called her orange friend. “Applejack! We have to stop it!”
“But how!?” Applejack asked in panic.
“Buck it! Buck it like it’s the last apple tree on the world!”
The energy and strength of the fiercest animals surged through Twilight’s horn into Applejack’s body; spirits summoned by the unicorn, making a pact of peace for the sake of a promised balance, the wolf communed with the lion, the bear with the bull and every beast with each other to bring the will of the unicorn forth. Then Twilight called upon the deepest, most simple forces of nature, and gleaming in the dark night on the Spiral Shrine, under the raging storm and the fiery glow of the abyssal creature, stood Applejack, impervious to heat and cold, imbued with the might of a thousand wild beasts.
She charged against one of the blazing black legs and kicked it with an unfathomable force, breaking its thick crust, which started leaking hot, flowing magma. Meanwhile, Twilight directed thunder, ice shards and raw magic at it, trying to break its balance. The mighty beast roared loud as ever, barely muffled by the storm’s noise.
The ground around Applejack ignited and melted as the slow rivers of bright molten rock flowed through it. She stepped fearless on them and the scorching magma didn’t reach her. She kicked the black rocky pillar again and again, and soon the zone filled with a black mass of solidifying magma. It seemed like Twilight’s massive strikes barely affected it.
Then she noticed. She looked at the Järkivääristää and it wasn’t moving a muscle. The nightmarish otter just smiled under its old blue hood, giggling at the farmer’s fight. Twilight didn’t understand. It could have kept attacking them, but it didn’t. It was only looking. Twilight asked herself why would it contemplate the battle while doing nothing to win. Then she felt a chilling shiver when a loud thump shook the earth.
Beside a hardening mound of magma, the black leg of the immense flaming beast rested now on top of the orange pony, leaving only a part of her head on sight. Rivers of bright melted stone dripped harmlessly around her face, slowly covering it. Struggling against the weight of the black mountain on her, Applejack got up, black rock cracking and smearing lava all around. With an exhausting effort, she got out of the burning leg, leaving a hole in it that quickly filled and repaired itself with more dark stone. Applejack walked a few steps over the steaming obsidian, melty fragments of magma still dangling on her body.
Twilight was shocked and dizzy. She felt all the weight of her responsibility on her back. Carefully, she wiped the last fragments of hot rock from her friend’s body with her magic grasp. The orange pony fell exhausted on a patch of grass that had survived the hard fight. The unicorn, feeling she had lost control of the fight, tried to overturn some of the damage. She focused on a healing spell.
“Watch out, Twilight!” screeched Pinkie Pie’s high-pitched voice.
Twilight looked back just in time to teleport away from a blazing current that burned the air and ground all around Applejack’s unconscious and imperturbable body.
“Pinkie!” cried Twilight after appearing right beside her. “Where have you been?”
She replied while taking cover behind a rock, “I found Rainbow Dash! I brought her to a safe side of the Shrine with Fluttershy and...” she paused for a second as her brain updated with all the madness that surrounded them, “what is that giant thing? What happened to Rarity? Oh, no, no, no. Don’t answer that. How do we stop these beasts!?” Her face was stuck between an immense fear and steel determination. Twilight shed a tear when the pressure managed to overcome her panic. A thunder struck with a deafening shock on the rock they were hidden behind, splitting it in two.
“Don’t falter now, Twilight!” the earth pony whispered on her friend’s ear, hugging her, trying to comfort her. “We are not finished yet. We still have a chance to win. And we must!”
Twilight ceased sobbing and opened her eyes. She teleported away with pinkie just before a levitating boulder smacked the place they had occupied.
From behind the remains of one of the garden’s statues, Twilight pointed, speechless, to Rarity’s inert body, laying on the dirt path beneath the old stone benches. Pinkie looked at it and her worries rose to new levels, but she insisted, “there has to be something we have overlooked. We just gotta focus and find it.”
“All right,” whispered Twilight, “we’re going to try something very difficult, but it might be our only chance. I don’t want to lose you, Pinkie, so you must stay out of danger, ok? Just remember that. I need you to help while staying safe.” Confidence on Twilight’s eyes shined through her worried expression. Fire began raining around them, briefly igniting the wet forest where the flames landed. The giant roared once again.
“Ok,” said Pinkie Pie while receiving the warm touch of her friend’s magic. In an instant, space warped around and in that place time bent to the purple unicorn’s will. A dizzying, trippy sensation filled Pinkie’s mind for a brief time, letting her see through the dimensions, beyond the realm of mundane position and duration. After that, she was at many places at once, all around the Spiral Shrine. She looked at Twilight, concentrated on holding the magic, her friends laying defeated on the ground, the infamous otter commanding the elements, trying to hit the remaining couple of ponies, and the immense legs of the scorched colossus disappearing into the obsidian black stormy sky. She saw them all at the same time, and yet, with different consciousness for each one.
“Hey, rabid vermin!” she shouted at the furious mustelid, “you and I are gonna have some words!” A mystical spark from the creature’s stick impacted on her pink body, launching her violently against the burning trunk of a fallen tree, turning her into pink swirling bursts of ethereal light that dissolved into the air.
On the floor of the Shrine, she cried again, “that was rude, you scum! I’m gonna have to scold you right up!” just before a projected flame consumed her image into nothing.
“You’re being unreasonable! And a jerk!” Pinkie told it once more from behind a piece of a stone column that remained around.
“What the--” the Järkivääristää managed to babble when Pinkie bit it in the ankle from behind, “argh!”
Pinkie Pie dissolved once more when the mad creature struck her with its stick. The fury of the otter wizard showed in a growing ring of fire that consumed everything around it. Falling from the skies, crying “Geronimo!” Pinkie Pie landed a hit right on top of the insidious spellcaster.
Clutched under the Järkivääristää’s bony hand, Pinkie’s throat turned into a flimsy thread of pink energy as she coughed and disappeared, vaporized in its hand. Jumping from beneath the flaming wall, Pinkie landed a flying kick right on the creature’s neck, knocking it down.
“I did it!” whispered Pinkie to the entranced unicorn seated in front of her.
Still holding the powerful spell active, Twilight carefully stepped out of their hideout to look at the raging combat. “Pinkie,” she commented worried when she saw several copies of Pinkie fighting near the remains of the tower, “you are hitting a tree.”
“What!?” screamed Pinkie from all her bodies at once.
Twilight looked back at the Pinkie seating behind the old statue and let out a deep gasp when she saw the real Järkivääristää standing next to her, its stick pointed straight to her pink head, loaded with the electrical charge of a storm. The replication spell faded into nothing when the spark struck Pinkie Pie, leaving her unconscious and a bit burnt.
Twilight looked in terror at the sinister figure of the dark wizard, rising menacing against the apocalyptic background. “It’s impossible!” she yelled, “you couldn’t possibly know where we hid!”
The hideous otter giggled manically.
“Unless...” she noticed through her unreasoned fear, “are you reading my mind?”
“Your suffering has been my best pastime today, unicorn,” responded the Järkivääristää with its high-pitched voice and a grave magical echo, “but in a moment Canterlot will be gone, and you’ll follow.”
“No! I won’t let you!” she screamed confident and fearless, with nothing left to lose. “I won’t see my land destroyed by a shameful wretch!” she cried, building all her energy and focusing it into her magic horn. “You miserable renegade of the natural order! Say your last words!” she shouted, levitating over her enemy’s height, colorful energy flowing all around her, her eyes shining brightly, ready to blast him with an unending stream of pure light.
“Whatever,” said the unconcerned otter as an immensely powerful plasma cone obliterated all matter around it. The Järkivääristää, barely interested, waited patiently inside its unyielding shield.
Twilight fell down to the scorched ground when the magnificent display of power took its toll. She was exhausted and she hadn’t even scratched the evil pest. It was too late now.
She faded out.
* * *
Twilight woke up and she felt quite relieved. She finally noticed the dream was over and reality had finally settled in. That unmistakable feeling of being awake after a confusing dream stayed with her, calming her and soothing her fears until she opened her eyes.
She saw the forest, not calm, but burning. She heard the roar of the maddening beast. She felt the dry ground under her skin and the cold rain falling on her. But she still felt relieved.
The dream she had woke up was not a nightmare. Not like the common ones anypony can have at night. What she had been freed of was a piece of the Järkivääristää’s spell. She had figured it couldn’t be so easy to avoid her attacks. Even the most powerful magic had flaws, she had learned back at Canterlot.
The books never mentioned an unbreakable barrier or an unavoidable attack, but they did hold many traps of the mystical bindings. She couldn’t have noticed before because it was the work of the mind trap to prevent her to do so, but a mind trap wouldn’t work without a mind. She had betted her consciousness on the chance of that one possibility being the culprit, and she had won.
But it wouldn’t have been enough to turn off her mind. She wouldn’t have had a chance if she had just flicked the switch of her awareness. The mad spellcaster was reading her mind, so she needed to flood the ethereal link with useless information while she worked on the cleaning step.
Still, it would have been useless if she lost too much time on it. She needed every second to her advantage. If she had calculated correctly, she programmed her brain to reset just half a minute after the cutoff. That was the hardest part. She needed to figure out how to do that, and it seemed like it had worked.
Now everything was all much clearer. She was ready to make her move. Silently, she looked at the hooded otter, who walked away slowly through the garden door and a hole it had opened on the wooden overgrowth wall. She felt the earth trembling as the mighty blazing giant stepped ahead towards Canterlot, readying a second hit.
She felt the earth under her hooves and the rain on her mane. The cold winds around and the hot currents from the titan’s legs. She felt the storm up above, pressing with its electrical static charge against the ground. All the forest spirits shined at her sight through the truth-seeing spell. The trees breathed and the ponies’ hearts beat. She felt it all and saw the pattern. The magic was calling for her.
In that brief moment, the elements obeyed. The trees held their breath and the earth rumbling halted. The storm calmed and focused and the air started to heat. It was the moment her brother had foreseen. The one she had been training harder than ever for. She had trusted her own judgement and communed with her inner forces. Projected her being onto the land and commanded the natural force. The moment her horn shone, the vile creature looked behind, but it was too late for it.
A spark, fast as light, descended from the clouds above. It touched the Järkivääristää’s head and then it was done. The mother of all thunders struck right on it, lifting the ground and leaving crater, disintegrating the flesh and carbonizing the bones. Sending just a burnt, dead carcass flying down the spiral road.
He didn’t even get time to laugh, Twilight thought.
The majestic beast above her roared louder and louder, slowly turning its brutal screams into a thin echo of a whimpering howl. It soon dissolved into the air without the support of its summoner, leaving only cinders flowing into the air.
Twilight walked back to her friends and healed them each at a time. She only spoke to say “it’s over” a few times and barely any other word was said on the way back home. Even the spooky Everfree felt tame after that battle.
* * *
Back at the tree house, even after the long and tiresome day, Twilight found strength to write a letter to her mentor in the solitude of the library, while the rest slept.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I guess you already know we triumphed in our efforts to defeat
the Järkivääristää, since the world hasn’t ended.
We are all alive and whole, although this has been very hard for
all of us. I think we will recover from it just fine.
I have learned a lot about magic, the forces that rule over it and
how to commune with them. Not just from your training, but
from the whole experience as well.
However, there is something that keeps tickling me and I
don’t think I will be able to unravel on my own. I fear I won’t
sleep well until I get to the bottom of this issue.
As we fought this being of unfathomable powers, we were
for a while trapped into a dream that looked quite real.
I wonder, and it bugs me incessantly, if it’s possible that we
are bound to a similar dream image of reality, relegated thus
from our free will and even the actual actions of our body.
Is that too crazy of a thought? Are we a mere illusion of a
different life form? How can I tell if I am the real me or just
a projection of the being I really am, bound under the spell
of this mighty creature?
Is it even possible that I failed my mission and am just trapped
inside the illusion that I won?
Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.
She woke up Spike and asked him to send the letter immediately. He complied grunting and soon, she received a response.
Dear Twilight,
I am glad you are fine and feel very proud of the result of
your mission. I will await your arrival to Canterlot tomorrow so
we can discuss the details of the matter further.
About your inquiries, I’m afraid what I’m about to tell you will
leave you unsatisfied.
Even if the body of the Järkivääristää has been excised of life,
the creature is not yet defeated. It certainly will not bother us for
a very long time, but I know it will come back again.
It is the nature of this being to play tricks of the mind, lasting
even beyond the immediate interaction. We will always have
the doubt of whether we won or not. All of the ones that have
fought it will. There will always be a lingering feeling of unease
related to this creature’s meddling.
You will see, however, that as the days pass, you find less and
less logic to back such claims. Hold on to that feeling of reality
you get when you wake up from a dream, because that’s all
we’ll get. You cannot tell if you are truly asleep or awake during
a dream, but still when you are awake, you know without doubt
that the dream was just an illusion of your mind.
That is the only way of knowing the truth. Because even if you
were trapped inside a dream, it will be the only reality you’ll
ever have. Don’t despair and just try to make the best of this
truth presented to you.
With time you will find it’s the only one, and matters beyond it
won’t mean more than what a dream does.
Trust me and your own mind.
Celestia.
When Twilight finished reading the letter for the fifth time, she felt all her memories from the last week weighing on her. She couldn’t keep thinking on the matter anymore. She climbed the stairs to her room, got into bed and went to sleep, fearing whatever her dreams might bring or take away.