“NO!”
The broken shout sent ripples through the frigid air of the Castle. Nolux’s large golden eyes snapped wide as she screamed. Her hooves scrabbled for an agonizing heartbeat, before she found her balance and hurled herself upright with an abruptness that echoed through the silent halls.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Pinkie murmured gently, walking slowly towards the frightened shaman. Her hooves were almost silent as she glided closer and closer, murmuring a soft stream of soothing nonesense to her terrified friend. She stopped near the mare, just outside the zebra’s personal bubble, and cocked her head with a small smile. For her part, Nolux stared back, though it was easy to see that her mind was still far from the icy castle. Her pupils had contracted to mere pinpricks, and a sheen of golden light played across their surface. The light flickered and moves in roiling waves, like the dance of shimmering fire.
Pinkie knew without asking that the zebra was still ensnared by whatever vision her gift had revealed. The golden fires in her eyes flickered and shifted as the shaman’s gaze swept back and forth across the room, the light within her green irises moving on its own accord. Pinkie could just make out the faint outlines of what looked like two ponies in the golden light, and stared intently at Nolux.
The mare suddenly saggedand the light flickering in her eyes vanished and her knees buckled, and she was sent sprawling to the floor. As she fell, Pinkie quickly moved to her side, catching the zebra a moment before her head hit the cold stone of the floor. Hauling her friend to her hooves once again, Pinkie smiled wanly.
“Silly, that’s not a good place for a nap.”Nolux chuckled weakly, and though she wobbled again, her legs supported her weight once more. She continued to lean against the pink mare, though, comforted by her warmth.
The zebra was stunned by the sight before her though. She could see a swirling veil of magic that sheathed both of them, a scintillating vortex of small, bright motes of light centered on their bodies. They spun around the two ponies with a dazzling speed, but beyond the whizzing stream of energy, a black cloud hovered with an ominous intensity that sent a shiver down her spine.
The motes were warm colors, like the colors of a fire in the depths of winter, a far cry from the icy black power that clouded the rest of their little world. That black shroud was dangerous, Nolux could feel it deep in her bones, and the small grains of power that spun about them with such grace were likely the only things stopping the deadly power.
“Pinkie,” Nolux murmured, still leaning against the earth ponies side. Her voice wasn’t its usual soft, deep murmur, but a clipped tone with a diamond hard edge to it. “We need to leave.”
“Why? Are we going to take a nap somewhere else? I don’t think that’s such a good idea. What if Twilight comes back and sees us sleeping together? I’d have to throw a-”
“Because we can’t stay here. Pinkie, listen to me.” Nolux place a hoof softly against the babbling lips, and Pinkie quieted. “I can see the magic everywhere near here. We are protected by a spell, but not for long. And there is nothing else alive near here. I saw... things. This forest will never live again, it will freeze and it will not thaw until to world ends. If we don’t leave, then we, we will share its fate.”
Even as she spoke Nolux watched as a tendril of that black magic lashed out, licking against the warm barrier. A mote moved to intercept the slithering coil of energy, growing brighter and brighter as it did. Soon, it outshone its fellows, still stalwartly blocking the path of the dark power. Then, flaring brighter than the noonday sun for a brief moment, the mote of light evaporated, and a space opened all around the swirling dome of energy. The dark magic was beaten back once again, afraid to near the powerful enchantment. It was scared for now, but like a foal with a sugarlump in sight, it would keep grasping at them, until finally it consumed the barrier, and then the fragile bodies inside it. Nolux knew that the shield covering her would fail eventually, and that there was never going to be an end to the vile power surrounding them.
Twilight had done something that appalled even the sensibilities of the shaman, a pony who grew up with the hardships of the savannah sun, the blinding heat, and the constant threat of war. Twilight had scarred the very earth itself, perverting nature and turning it into something terrible. Nothing would ever grow here, no bloom either of magic nor warmth. Nothing could survive that evil power, a power Twilight had found somewhere and twisted to her own ends.
Nolux couldn’t believe that Twilight was fully responsible for such utter devastation. For the destruction of hundreds, thousands of small lives, killing animals and plants, insects and fish all with the same callous disregard. Or if this was her doing, her spell, then it must be to protect something, to stop some graver threat. Because Nolux knew, even as Pinkie sobered and nodded her agreement, that there was a darker presence lurking about the woven threads of the great spell.
Both mares set off quickly, determined to leave the deadly embrace of the frozen pines before they joined the countless creatures now stiffening in the fell wind. Yes, something dark was at work here. But nothing, not even the darkest force, would ever leave the icy carcass that the Everfree had become, not once the two mares Twilight’s magic guarded passed its borders.
The black mare, Acshina, screamed when the violet echo of her own black lightning was sent crackling back at her. It flew through the air in an instant, so darkly brilliant that it seared itself into her mind. Blinking her eyes rapidly as the dark pony’s screech of agony died away, Twilight forced the afterimage of the bolt of power from her eyes, and looked at the scarred patch of incinerated ground where Acshina had stood.
Twilight wasn’t surprised to find the mare still standing in the center of the barren circle. Smoke rose in hazy white banners from the edges of the circle, where the grass had been set to smolder by the sudden discharge of heat. It rose in sporadic lines, wavering to and fro, alternately obscuring and revealing the tall black shape in the middle of their ethereal cage.
“You are,” The mare gasped between heavy, panting breaths. “Lucky.”
“I think not.” Twilight called back across the distance between them. While her adversary was distracted, Twilight glanced to her left, and saw her two friends still on the hill where she had left them. They were the only two she hadn’t had time to move to the barn, a stroke of luck as they had most likely saved the town by stopping those fires. Catching their frightened eyes, Twilight jerked her head to one side, indicating that they should go that way. “Or was it only luck that I severed the cord feeding you your power?”
Rarity had stopped shivering while Twilight spoke, and looked up from where her head had been buried in AJ’s shoulder. Her eyes locked on Twilight, and the purple unicorn could see fear plainly in those wide blue eyes. Again, she jerked her head at them, trying to tell them to run, to get to Ponyville and out of danger. Hesitantly, Rarity nodded her head, and whispered to Applejack. Then, as Twilight looked back at Acshina, they scampered away.
The other pony snarled as she looked up. For a moment, her reptilian gaze tracked the two mares as they ran from the warzone, then returned to Twilight. Her legs straightened, and with a swift intake of air at the pain of the action, she returned to her tall, proud stance. She towered over Twilight, both taller than the young unicorn and much higher on the hill. When she spoke again, her voice had calmed, and the ragged panting no longer interrupted her words.
“A lucky guess.”
“Hardly. There were books in the old Castle, and I read quickly. You really shouldn’t have written so much about yourself and the nature of magic. For a madmare, you do possess an impressive amount of knowledge about the fundamentals of magical theory. Like how you can bind two objects together, one drawing power through the connection.”
“I am not mad, little pony.”
“No? You left books detailing your plans, your thoughts, your weaknesses. You tortured others for your own amusment. You killed them. Were you not so obviously gifted, I would call you nothing more than a rapid dog. Mad or not though, you are a monster.”
“Oh really? And what judge are you of monstrocity? You destroyed part of yourself as I recall, rejecting your emotions. You cut away a portion of your soul, and cast it aside. Even I have not sunk so low.”
Twilight almost missed the way the evil pony had been inching her way to one side, trying to subtly aim at the ponies still running helter-skelter for town. When a ball of dark energy shimmered into life at the tip of the mare’s horn and rocketed off, Twilight was wrongfooted. Acting swiftly, she took a step and leapt, intercepting the path of the sphere as it flew towards her friends.
When the expanding ball of energy struck the magical barrier Twilight had conjured about herself, the deadly attack halted in midair. It had expanded as it flew, growing from something no larger than a grain of sand to half the size of Twilight herself in the scant second it had existed. By the time it reached Rarity and Applejack, it would have been too large to dodge, simply plowing a deep hole in the ground that melted before it, taking both mares with it.
When it struck Twilight’s shield, though, it froze into a solid for just a moment. Then, with a stentorian BOOM, the flashfrozen acid exploded.
Her magical defenses kept the last remnants of acid from chewing into her body, but it didn’t protect her from the physical walloping she received. Crashing into the solid barrier of magic, the waves of the exploding material neither burned Twilight, nor crushed her organs with its proximity. What it did do was send the poor mare flying.
As powerful as Twilight’s protective spell was, it simply wasn’t a match for the basic laws of physics. Nor, sadly, was there any spell she knew that would stop the sudden stop at the end of her flight from crushing her. Forcing her mind to clear of anything but the spell, Twilight pulled the threads of magic surrounding her together. Then, with a brilliant flash and a crackling discharge, she vanished.
The teleportation spell wasn’t the clinical, precise motion that had become her trademark. There was simply no time to draw together the concentration required to minimalize the energy lose. So when Twilight reappeared, there was another flash of light and a bang, causing Acshina to whirl.
Twilight was able to reduce her speed when she teleported, but she was still moving fast enough to hit the ground and bounce. She rolled a short ways up the hill, until finally friction stopped her. Her horn flared into light again, and her body disappeared a moment before another burst of obsidian fire erupted where she had lain.
Her power was beginning to flag, the constant drain of repeated teleportation, even pared down to its most efficient form, the spell was taking its toll. She could, at need, draw upon the vast power stored within the crystal caverns beneath her, but that course held its own peril. In doing so, without the proper preparation, she would shatter the delicate spell that held the Everfree, and the full extent of Acshina’s wrath, at bay. She might be able to beat back the evil power’s full strength, but that would probably only send her back into her prison, and would most certainly level both Ponyville, and possibly all of Equestria. She could still fight, she wasn’t out of options.
She was nearing that point though. She was forced to teleport again, still trying to catch the wind her earlier impact had knocked out of her. The spell was still messy, though she was begining to regain control once more. Until she caught her breath though, she wouldn’t be able to react quickly enough to stop the dark pony.
Acshina pressed her advantage, with the light of delighted hatred burning in her alien eyes.