//------------------------------// // Book 3 - Chapter LXVIII // Story: The Sunset Trilogy // by ocalhoun //------------------------------// Book 3: Equestria Abides Chapter 34 Another tree disintegrated into purple flames as Twilight's magical bolt struck home. She stopped for a moment, taking careful aim at the next one, out by the entrance. “Twi! Behind you!” She whirled around at Apollo's shout, barely reacting in time to hit the next tree, sneaking up behind her. Apollo was doing a pretty good job of defending the back entrances, but he had two openings big enough for the trees to squeeze through, and apparently a tree or two managed to slip through his defenses. Facing her own entrance again, she let loose a wave that chopped three trees in half at the trunk... She knew from experience now that it wouldn't stop them, just slow them down... only fire seemed to be able to put a permanent end to them. But they had been steadily creeping along their roots; she wouldn't have been able to flame all three in time, but now with them slowed down and crawling along with their branches, she might just manage it. Still, they seemed to be in a no-win situation... for every tree she mutilated or burned, it seemed like three more took its place. The situation was hopeless, and she still didn't know where Spike was. Were the trees attacking him? Was he able to fight them off with his fire breath? Or was he still asleep, blissfully ignorant of all this? She concentrated on taking out the next wave of trees coming in; they seemed to have some intelligence to them – they had learned to attack in single file, hiding behind each other so she could only blast one at a time... and this wave would be tough! She still couldn't see the end of their single file line this time, and she had already blasted five of them! Still they moved in, making steady progress despite continually losing the first in line. “Twi! I don't think I can hold them!” Apollo's shout came from behind her... too close behind her. She risked a glance back and saw him already retreating back towards her as two lines of trees like the one she was dealing with advanced on him. Using her – admittedly quite impressive – reserves of power recklessly now, she went into a flurry of activity, focusing on all three lines of advancing trees. She was managing to hold them back now... but just barely. A rhythmic whooshing sound began to fill the room as she spotted two more lines of trees beginning to move in. She knew she couldn't hold out much longer, even with Apollo blasting away right next to her, his dark blue magic sweeping from tree to tree, not taking out quite as many as Twilight, but still doing very well for himself. The whooshing sound built into a crescendo, and as Twilight whirled around to focus on yet another line of advancing trees, she was more than a little surprised to find a tall blue box in her way. A now-familiar brown stallion opened the door of the box and hopped out, quickly followed by a certain grey and yellow pegasus mare. “Ah, hullo Prince Apollo, Princess Twilight!” “NOT a good time!” Twilight shouted, turning to blast two more trees with a fire spell. “And I still don't like being called 'Princess'!” “Ah, still the early first century then... good. It seems we got here on time. When we got your message we got here as quickly as we could!” “Message?” Twilight asked, letting loose another devastating wave attack... it slowed them down, but now she had twice as many targets. He looked over at the wall the two alicorns were being pressed towards. “Oh, I see, you haven't written it yet... You really should.” Twilight took a short, but perilous, break from her fighting to turn her blasting spell onto the rock wall, focusing it down more to write a message calling for help and giving a date and time. “There!” She whirled back around to face her attackers, but instead of fighting again seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Wait... you wouldn't have come if we didn't write a message; we wouldn't have written a message if you didn't come...” “Don't let it bother you. Like I say, time isn't the straight line you ponies seem to assume; it's more of a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff... so, you see, it doesn't really matter that–” “TWI!” Apollo shouted, practically right in her ear. Shaking off her thoughts of time paradoxes for the moment, she quickly blasted the tree right in front of her, feeling a slight scratch on her cheek where one of the branches had gotten altogether too close. If only these trees could be dispelled by laughter as easily as the ones she had helped deal with before facing Nightmare Moon... but no, and she had tried it. The trees were closing in now, despite their best efforts, The Doctor and Derpy getting pressed against the wall right along with them. “I think right now might be a very good time to go for a swim, don't you?” the odd earth pony asked, causing Twilight even more confusion. Here they were about to be... well... who knows what... by a bunch of very evil-looking trees, and he was wanting to go swimming? Of all the random... this colt was almost as bad as Pinkie had been; maybe it was an earth pony thing? Her well-studied mind didn't fail her though; as soon as she stopped thinking about the absurdity of it, it hit her... they were being attacked by plants... right next to a lagoon filled with salt water. Her horn began to glow in a way much different from the incineration spell she had been relying on lately, quickly growing as the trees closed in for a final push. Their branches closed in on empty air though, as with a sparkling pop, the four ponies disappeared from the ruined temple and reappeared a short distance above the lagoon outside. One pretty spectacular splash later, four soggy pony heads popped up out of the water. Twilight and The Doctor didn't seem very surprised, and Derpy only grew just a little more cross eyed, but Apollo came up sputtering in shock. “What happened?” He looked around at his new location, figuring it out himself. “Why'd you do that?” His answer came all on its own though, as the trees that had been attacking them quickly lined the beach around them on all sides, stopping just at the highest point the waves reached. Like all land-based plants, being submerged in salt water for any length of time would be rather fatal, so for now, the ponies were safe. “Okay, that was a little too close... Now would somepony tell me what in the hoof that was about?” Twilight paddled over to her new husband, sharing his confusion... in her experience, trees weren't usually quite so hostile. She stopped for a moment though. “Wait... where's Spike?” She looked all over the shoreline, panicking a little before she saw Derpy's hoof pointing toward where the lagoon met the ocean. There she found the top of the dragon's head poking out above the waves and staring suspiciously at his own audience of trees lining the beach near him and looking very much like a giant purple crocodile. She was glad the dragon was on their side... the last thing she needed right now was a giant aquatic predator in the lagoon with them. “Those trees,” The Doctor said, ignoring her search for the dragon, “are some of the, ah, visitors that I mentioned last time I was here?” “Celestia's friends from another world?” Twilight asked. “Well, sort of... only you see, this bunch isn't quite so friendly.” “But what are they?” Twilight asked, eying the trees along the shore pensively. “They're the Lud.” The earth pony said, treading water next to her. “They travel from planet to planet as a single tiny teleported spore... and then they feed on any magic they find to take root and grow and reproduce.” He stared at them a little quizzically. “but for there to be this many... the original spore must have found something really powerful... hm...” A few moments of silence passed as the four ponies bobbed up and down on the gentle waves. The night was nearly over, Apollo's moon almost down to the horizon again now. “Wait!” The Doctor shouted out suddenly, “Did you ever hear what happened to Celestia's and Luna's parents? The king and queen?” “Huh?” Twilight asked, confused at the non-sequitur. “No, nopony knows.” “The princesses knew. I was there when it happened, you know.” His voice grew a little reminiscent. “Something happened to those two... and the beautiful forest where they made their home began to be overrun by evil trees... They abandoned their home and fled, but it was too late for the king and queen. Their daughters were able to hold back the threat with their magic and my help... but just barely.” “Their home?” Twilight thought for a moment, “You don't mean the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters?” “'Ancient'? Is that what they call it these days?” “Then the forest was...” “Right,” he said, “Everfree.” “And now the princesses' wards are gone, so they're out.” “Right again,” he said, giving her a wink, “you are a smart one!” “So all we have to do is put the wards back up, and everything's back to normal!” Her face lit up with glee; this would be simple! “Well, no. Not really.” He looked saddened for a moment. “Now that they've broken free and devoured more magic, those simple wards won't hold them any more.” “Sorry to interrupt,” Apollo cut in, looking very much not sorry about it, “It's a shame our honeymoon was cut short and all, but how about we just get up on Spike and fly away? We can't stay swimming here forever.” “Just one problem,” The Doctor answered. “They've got a taste of your magic now... and you've got a LOT of magic... They'll follow you wherever you go now.” “Great, just great,” the blue alicorn grumbled as the sun began to rise. “So what do we do?” “All the trees are linked,” The Doctor replied. “If the original two are destroyed, all the magic devoured by all the trees will come rushing back in to that spot... and all these trees will turn back into the ponies they used to be.” Ponies... they used to be? Twilight began to feel sick. How many had she destroyed tonight? Hundreds? A thousand? She could barely concentrate on swimming... she felt suddenly empty inside. “So let's get to it!” Apollo shouted, either not realizing or not caring what they had just done. “Not so fast...” The Doctor placed a hoof on Apollo to keep him from rushing off. “Pony magic will only feed them... that's why they couldn't be destroyed back when they first appeared.” He looked over at Spike, still mostly submerged. “for that, we would need a big, non-magical source of fire...” * * * Twilight hovered far above the Everfree Forest, next to Apollo and Derpy Hooves, The Doctor – being the only wingless pony – clinging awkwardly to her back. Thankfully, an alicorn's boosted magic applied to their pegasus and earth pony magics as well, so she had no trouble flying with a passenger, despite her inexperience. Spike was swooping down toward the target area, after they had spent hours flying around looking for the two original trees. She had wanted to go down with him, but The Doctor had insisted against it, saying that it was too risky; they couldn't allow the trees to get even more alicorns. He had even insisted that Spike's Phoenix stay behind, saying he wouldn't risk them even getting that much magic. The big purple dragon dove down, steadily gaining speed yet surprisingly stealthy. Their plan hinged on the element of surprise, after all. With a crash of branches and a plume of dust, the dragon slammed into the ground in front of two huge and twisted trees. A gout of flame shout out from the dust, enveloping the trees and quickly burning them down... Spike was fully grown now, after all; his dragon fire would be incredibly hot. Twilight watched him with more than a little pride – that was her number one assistant scorching away those evil trees! As the two trees burned down to nothing but withered stumps, twilight saw trees all over the forest begin to glow. As she watched, one of them suddenly turned into a pony... a bright pink pegasus, and that one's glow shot over to the stumps of the original two, making them glow... Quickly, the process accelerated, happening all over. Lights were streaming into Spike's still-raging inferno, causing the stumps of the trees inside to glow so brightly they were visible even through the intense green flames. More and more lights shot into the flames until, finally, they began to slow down, coming only two or three at a time, then just one occasionally... Then none. That must have been the last of them! Looking down, Twilight could see lots of bewildered ponies scattered all throughout the forest, some of them wearing archaic forms of dress she had only read about... wow, some of them must have been imprisoned as trees for ages! She looked back at Spike again with pride, knowing it was all thanks to him that these ponies were free at last. Suddenly though, the glow from the trees in the middle flashed even brighter, and somehow, Twilight was sure she heard the sound of a bell ringing. With that, they blossomed into a huge sphere of light, enveloping Spike, a few of the newly freed ponies, and a large chunk of the forest floor. Slowly, the glow faded away to nothing, and as Twilight blinked the glare from her eyes, she saw it had been replaced by... nothing. Only a steaming, perfectly hemispherical crater remained... no forest floor, no ponies, and certainly no dragon. Her jaw dropped, her expression growing horrified. “Spike? ... Spike!” “It was very brave of him,” The Doctor's voice came from her back. “What!?!” She shouted the question, enraged. “You knew this would happen, didn't you?” “I did... and so did he, once I told him.” The Doctor nodded sagely. “How could you just let him die like that?” Twilight moaned, horror, anger and loss churning inside her. “How could you!” He remained infuriatingly calm. “We had to make a choice... him or the world... and he made the right choice.” “But... but...” Twilight felt lost for a moment. “But nopony asked me for MY choice! ... And now he's dead!” “He isn't dead.” The Doctor said all too calmly, “That flash was the teleportation device the spores used to get here reversing itself. Him and anything else caught inside that circle are now safe and sound on the Lud home planet... A shame he wouldn't fit through the door on my tardis, but I guess I could take you to go visit him sometime...” Twilight just stared at the crater down below... it was just another part of the world that had been... another link to her past ripped away. She ignored The Doctor's continuing speech, her eyes beginning to burn. She had gotten so little time to spend with him again... dragons lived so long... they could have lived through the ages together, but now he had been taken away so soon... Hovering in the air next to her, the phoenix Peewee gave a mournful cry. * * *