Shadow of the Sun
By Starwin
Chapter 17
With hardly even a glance towards her friends, Rainbow Dash spun as hard as she could. She let go of Spike, tossing him like some kind of hoofball, then she dove down after Twilight into the darkness below. The baby dragon let out a wail of terror as his arms flapped uselessly.
Rarity’s horn flared with magic and an aura of blue light glowed around Spike, catching him in mid air. He looked incredibly relieved to no longer be tumbling out of control. However, the moment was short lived. Rarity let out a cry of distress as the spell on her horn sputtered and died. She stumbled backwards barely managing to stay on her hooves.
“No. Not again,” muttered Trixie, taking a nervous step away.
The magic that was holding Spike in the air suddenly vanished. The little dragon let out another cry of fright as he started to drop once more.
“Applejack!” shouted Pinkie Pie. Applejack watched in complete confusion as a pink blur galloped past her. In one moment of terrible clarity, Applejack realized what her friend was about to do. Without any hesitation, Pinkie leapt right out over the edge. Applejack had only an instant to respond. Her jaws clamped down on Pinkie’s tail, only just managing to catch the end of it.
Pinkie stretched out her forelegs for Spike, her whole body extended out over the vast nothingness below. Spike tumbled down, his claws missing Pinkie’s hooves as the two falling bodies slipped past one another.
Imitating Applejack, Pinkie grabbed Spikes tail in her teeth. Spike let out a yelp of pain as he dangled from Pinkie Pie, who hung from Applejack, who was slowly sliding closer to the edge.
Applejack tried to pull with all her might, however, she simply wasn’t able to drag her friends back to safety. Slowly, she continued to slide forward towards the ledge, despite her best efforts.
Fluttershy hurried forward, wrapping her hooves around Applejack’s middle and bracing her. While they weren’t sliding forward anymore, they weren’t making any progress pulling their friends back up either.
Rarity joined in, taking a similar position to Fluttershy, but on Applejack’s other side. The three ponies pulled and bit-by-bit, they began to make progress. Slowly, cautiously, Applejack put one hoof behind the other, moving them away from the edge.
They were almost there, only a few more steps and their friends would be safe. Applejack’s back hoof pressed against the ground and slipped. The whole group suddenly lurched forward. Applejack was pulled halfway over the edge, with only Rarity and Fluttershy holding her from falling.
“We can’t pull you back up!” exclaimed Rarity. “Not without magic!”
“I could try lifting them,” suggested Fluttershy. “Um, if it’s okay with you?”
“Yes!” cried three voices in unison, two of which were slightly muffled.
“Let the Great and Powerful Trixie take your place,” said Trixie, at last trotting over to the side Fluttershy was on. She wrapped her forelegs around Applejack and braced herself. Fluttershy let go but both Rarity and Trixie held Applejack in place.
“Anytime you want to come get me that would be great!” cried Spike.
“Oh, right, sorry,” apologized Fluttershy. She hovered out over the edge and lowered herself down so that she was level with Pinkie and Spike. The dragon was dangling from Pinkies mouth by his tail. It didn’t look very comfortable. Pinkie on the otherhoof was all smiles. “Okay now, I’m going to help lift you back up.”
Holding out her hooves, she took hold of Pinkie and began to slowly lift her. As she did, Rarity and Trixie pulled at Applejack. After a few moments, all of the friends were back on the crystal floor, a dozen hooves away from the sheer drop.
Spike was cradling his tail, refusing to let Fluttershy examine it. Pinkie was talking non-stop about how much fun being up-side-down was, although her head was starting to feel funny. Applejack was on her back, recovering from the exertion. And both Trixie and Rarity were oddly quiet.
“Trixie,” said Rarity at last, her voice slightly shaky. “You’ve encountered that before, haven’t you?”
“You’ve almost fallen down into never ending darkness, while clutching a helpless baby dragon in your teeth? And I thought I was the only one!” cried Pinkie excitedly.
“Hey, I’m not helpless,” protested Spike. He let out a cry of ‘ouch’ as Fluttershy gently bandaged his tail and apologized for the discomfort.
“No,” said Rarity pointedly. “When my magic failed you said ‘not again’. Is this what happened before when you said you were having trouble with your magic?” All of the group looked towards Trixie expecting an answer.
“Well… uh… I… The Great and Powerful Trixie does not want to talk about it,” said Trixie at last. Applejack rolled over to her hooves and glared at Trixie.
“We are all in this together,” said Applejack. “Keeping secrets just cause they are embarrassing isn’t helping no pony.” Trixie and Applejack exchanged looks of annoyance with one another.
“Fine,” said Trixie. “When the train first stopped and I was stranded, everything was fine. But after the others left, my magic started to… fizzle.”
“Fizzle?” asked Fluttershy.
“It’s when a spell doesn’t work,” said Spike. “Sometimes, when a unicorn attempts magic too difficult for them it can cause the spell to release uncontrolled energy. Most spells, when they fail, turn into sparks and fizzle away.”
“You’ve spent way too much time with Twilight,” said Applejack looking at Spike.
“Actually, I don’t remember the last time Twilight fizzled a spell…” said Spike.
“Anyhow…” interrupted Trixie, sounding a little annoyed. “At first it was just difficult spells, like teleporting, that didn’t work. But soon even simple spells such as levitation were impossible.”
“But you managed to teleport us,” said Rarity pointedly. “Teleporting ones self is not easy. Teleporting a whole group is an amazing feat. If you could barely levitate then how…”
“I don’t know,” snapped Trixie irritably. “For some reason, I just could, like all my magic came back. When I was around you guys it feels like I could do magic I could never do before. Or at least I thought so.”
“Around us?” asked Applejack. “Wait a minute, did you come with us just so your magic would work again?”
“No!” exclaimed Trixie. Her eyes flicked away. “Well, maybe a little… okay… maybe a lot. But the Great and Powerful Trixie did say she would help you, so help she shall. Although, I’m not sure how.” Trixie’s horn lit up again before the magic shattered into sparks and died away. Trixie winced and let out a grunt of discomfort.
“What are we supposed to do now?” asked Rarity. “How are we going to travel the rest of the way to Canterlot without magic?”
“I don’t know,” replied Applejack. “I just hope Rainbow was able to… RAINBOW!” Applejack suddenly leapt up from the ground and rushed back over to the edge. In all the excitement she had completely forgotten about her friends. She could see no trace of them below. “Where are they? It shouldn’t be taking this long to fly back up here.”
Pinkie joined Applejack at the ledge, looking down into the dark as if her eyes could spot anything.
“Something’s wrong,” said Pinkie, still staring down into the abyss below.
“Ya’think!” exclaimed Applejack. Her voice was filled with frustration and the tiniest hint of anger. “I’m not sure how things could be any more wrong!”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Pinkie, a little hurt. “I mean I don’t sense anything.”
“I thought you couldn’t control your Pinkie Sense,” said Spike.
“I can’t,” replied Pinkie. “But I should be feeling something, anything! But I haven’t felt even a twitch, scratch, wiggle, flop, shake, itch, rumble or shiver at all!”
“What does that mean?” asked Applejack.
“I’m not sure,” answered Pinkie uncertainly. “I don’t know what no twitch is supposed to be.”
“Maybe everything is fine?” suggested Fluttershy. Pinkie shook her head.
“No, silly! Everything is fine is all four legs going wobbly and two hard blinks,” said Pinkie. She imitated the affect by making her legs wobble like rubber bands and blinking twice. “But I’m not getting anything at all! Maybe I don’t get good reception down in this cave?”
“Well something isn’t right,” said Applejack. “That’s for sure. We have to do something!”
“Like what?” asked Trixie sarcastically. “Even if we could use our magic, we can’t just blindly teleport down into the dark! And we only have one pegasus, who seems too scared to even fly!” Fluttershy cowered away. Applejack returned her glare to Trixie.
“Anypony else have some useful ideas,” said Applejack. Trixie turned away in a huff.
“Twilight and Rainbow have both gotten out of worse stuff than this,” said Spike. “I’m sure they’re fine. We just have to wait for them to fly back up, or send us some kind of signal.”
“What if they can’t do either?” asked Applejack. Spike went silent and looked suddenly worried as if he hadn’t considered that anything bad could possibly happen to his best unicorn friend. “I say we should…”
But whatever Applejack was about to suggest was lost in a terrible screech that sent a shiver down the spines of all of the friends. Their attention was pulled away from their discussion and out into the darkness that was now filled with lights.
“Oh no!” shrieked Fluttershy, ducking behind Spike and cowering down so that most of her was still clearly visible.
“Not them again!” cried Applejack.
The ceiling crawled with flames and hundreds upon hundreds of nightmares moved across it. They were flooding in from all directions, filling the roof of the cave. More shrieks echoed through the darkness.
“How are we going to hold them off without magic?” asked Rarity.
“We have to fall back,” cried Trixie. The friends all turned to her once again. “It is the only way, we can’t stay here!”
“We aint running!” said Applejack forcefully. “We aint leaving our friends behind.”
“It doesn’t matter, we can’t run! Look!” exclaimed Spike. He pointed back from where they had come. Flickering light was coming from the crystal cave behind them. In a moment more a flood of nightmares came streaming out of the cave.
The friends were frozen, facing down a terrible army of fire. They couldn’t run. They couldn’t hide. They were trapped. The nightmares screeched and charged. Their fire rippled through the colored crystal cave, reflecting the blaze of flames in every surface.
At the last moment, as the nightmares reached the friends, the beasts took to the air. Applejack shouted for them to duck and all of the ponies did. Rarity, Fluttershy and Trixie all let out cries of distress as the herd of fire galloped past overhead. The group all lay there, cowering while nightmares soared by so close that ponies felt like they were back out under the blistering Sun.
Before long the mass began to thin until only the last few trickled past. The ponies watched as the wave of nightmares dove downwards into the cave below, creating a giant whirlwind of flaming doom. When the last nightmare had passed, the friends got back to their hooves.
“Woah,” said Applejack, “that was close! I’m surprised those things didn’t attack us!”
“Yeah it was almost like they weren’t interested,” said Rarity.
“Or like they couldn’t see us!” said Pinkie Pie.
Another screech echoed from behind them. The friends turned again to find a lone straggling nightmare galloping through the cave. Like the others it was charging right towards them. But unlike the others it did not fly. It was headed right towards Fluttershy, who was frozen in place.
Pinkie leapt through the air, knocking Fluttershy over and out of the way. The nightmare skidded to a halt. It turned towards the ponies, its blazing eyes swept over them, looking at each pony and yet… not at any of them. It moved towards where Pinkie and Fluttershy lay, and stopped nearby. But it wasn’t looking at them.
A distant screech made the nightmares ears perk up and it charged off, joining the frenzy already in progress.
“Well, that was strange,” said Applejack, trotting over to her friends to make sure they were okay. Her eyes found Pinkie’s element, it was glowing softly.
“Where do you think they were going is such a hurry?’ asked Trixie.
“Last time they were after an element,” said Rarity. “Maybe Twilight and Rainbow found another element down there. And maybe the nightmares are after it!”
“Uh, guys, they’re coming back!” exclaimed Spike. A fresh round of screeches signaled the return of the nightmare horde. Like a wave of fire they crashed against the ceiling of the cave before breaking into smaller blazing streams. Quickly they vanished, flying into unseen cracks in the walls. Before long, the nightmares had gone completely, as if they had never been in the first place.
“I’m going down there,” said Fluttershy, to everypony’s surprise. “Who’s coming with?”
Spike, as it turned out, was the one who was coming with. Despite every other pony, except Trixie, volunteering to go, he was the only one that made sense. The others were simply too heavy to fly down.
Down into the darkness they descended. Spike clung tightly to Fluttershy. He kept glancing backwards, watching the distant crystal formation shrink ever smaller above them.
They were fully in shadow when Spike spotted it. A tiny, faint, glow in the dark. It had only been there for the briefest of moments but he had seen it. Then it glowed again. Spike directed Fluttershy down, guiding her until at last she could see it too. The light source was weak and small, but against the lightless dark it was like a beacon.
At last they landed lightly at the edge of an indent in the ground. At its center was a huddled up ball of fur with a slowly pulsing light atop her head. Soft sounds of crying were coming from the pony.
Spike hopped off Fluttershy’s back and cautiously approached his friend, worry spread across his face.
“Twilight,” asked Spike. “What’s wrong, what happened? Where’s Rainbow?”
“Oh Spike!” exclaimed Twilight. She leapt to her hooves and galloped towards the baby dragon, grabbing him up in a tight embrace. Tears were rolling down her face and her mane looked a mess. “They took her! The nightmares took Rainbow Dash!”
“What!” exclaimed Fluttershy, trotting closer. “How? Why?”
“Her element came off during the fall,” explained Twilight. “We went to look for it but she was already starting to change back. I tried to help her, to keep her as she was. And it worked, sort of. But when we found the element it didn’t do anything. She changed back and she flew away with them! And I can’t go after her!” Twilight’s horn sparked and fizzled as she tried to cast a spell.
“I don’t know what’s wrong!” continued Twilight completely distraught. “With Rainbow gone and my magic not working I have no idea how we can do anything! This is hopeless! We’ve failed! We’ve lost!”
“Twilight…” said Spike.
“I’m sorry Spike…” said Twilight. “I’ve failed everypony.”
The three friends ascended upwards through the darkness. Once again, Twilight found herself on the back of a pegasus. She didn’t need to hug Fluttershy the same way Dash had needed it, but she still had her forelegs around her friend all the same.
None of them spoke. All of Fluttershy’s efforts were directed towards carrying them. They didn’t move very fast, but Twilight preferred it that way. She didn’t know what she was going to tell the rest of her friends. What would she say to them? How would she explain the loss of Rainbow Dash and why her magic had stopped working?
Slow as they might be, it was too soon for Twilight when they reached the rest of the group back up on the crystal ledge. Twilight had been dreading this moment but found her worries to be completely unfounded as her friends embraced her the moment she climbed down from Fluttershy.
Then her thoughts finally caught up. For some reason she had expected them to know what had happened down below. She had expected them to demand answers as to why she had let the nightmares take Rainbow Dash. But for the moment, the only words being spoken were thankfulness for her safety.
However, the moment could not last forever. Her friends looked at Twilight expectantly and she realized that they were waiting for her to speak, to say something, to say anything.
“Rainbow is gone,” blurted out Twilight. It hadn’t been the first thing she had wanted to tell them. But it had just come out all on its own. An expression of worry and horror spread across her friends. Even Trixie looked a little unnerved.
“Gone? Gone how?” asked Applejack.
“The nightmares took her,” answered Spike. Twilight was thankful she hadn’t been the one to say it.
“I’m sorry, I tried, I really did…” pleaded Twilight. Tears came unbidden once more to her face. She felt surprise as her friends hugged her a second time. She couldn’t believe that she had expected her friends to hate her.
“It’s alright sugarcube,” said Applejack. “We’ll get her back. Rainbow is strong, I’m sure she’ll fight them.”
“Where do we even start looking for her?” asked Twilight. “They could be anywhere in this huge cave.”
“I don’t think they stayed here,” said Pinkie. “Before Fluttershy and Spike went down to get you, we saw them all flying away.”
“Twilight, dear,” said Rarity. “We do have a, uh, another problem.” Twilight’s eyes widen slightly. “Both Trixie, and myself, seem to be having some difficulty with our spells.”
“They don’t work,” said Twilight somberly. It was worse than she feared. It wasn’t just her magic that was failing, it was everypony’s. Rarity just nodded.
“My magic isn’t working either,” said Twilight, looking away. “I was trying to teleport… to take us to safety… but it didn’t work. I thought it had just been the nightmares breaking my concentration but, even after they were gone I still couldn’t do it.”
Twilight focused her magic attempting to teleport like she had below. Much to her and everypony else’s surprise, it worked. With a flash of magic she vanished from one spot and appeared in another.
“But… but it didn’t work before!” cried Trixie. “The Great and Powerful Trixie tried and tried but it didn’t work!” Trixie’s horn began to glow and she levitated Spike into the air, much to his protests.
“It would seem that our magic is working again,” said Rarity. Trixie dropped Spike unceremoniously, but Rarity’s horn glowed and she caught him before he hit the ground. Carefully she set him back upright.
“But it wasn’t working!” cried Twilight. “This doesn’t make any sense!”
“Maybe, like the shield you have to be close to another pony?” suggested Pinkie Pie.
“Maybe,” said Twilight thoughtfully.
“So what are we going to do about Rainbow Dash?” asked Fluttershy.
“We can’t stay here and hope she’ll just come back to us,” said Applejack. “We ain’t got no direction to go but back at the moment.”
“I don’t like it, but we don’t have another option,” said Twilight. She turned her head and looked back out into the darkness. “We don’t have any way to search for Rainbow. And we don’t know how long our magic will last before it gives out again. We need to get to Canterlot. Hopefully we’ll find help there.”
The group backtracked through the crystal caves and back up the tunnel until they once more came to the fork in the path. They took the other passage this time, the one that continued upwards.
At last the tunnel ended into bright sunlight. Twilight had never been so happy to be back out in the burning heat as she was then. The darkness and bad memories of the caves seemed to have lasted a lifetime and Twilight was not eager to ever go back below ground.
With two elements in their possession, keeping up the shield was still easy. Pinkie had tried to see if her element protected her from the Sun the same way Rainbow’s had. However, that was not the case and she’d had to hurry back under Twilight’s protection.
They were not in Canterlot yet, but rather along the side of the mountain. The group found themselves on a modest hiking trail, wide enough to stand side-by-side. There was still only one path ahead of them and hopefully it led the way they needed to go.
The going was slow, but the rock fall was not as bad as the train tracks below. Rocks littered much of the path, such that no pony could walk in a straight line. But their path was never completely blocked.
Gradually the sloping path began to level out and ahead of them the spires of Canterlot rose into view. The castle city was sparkling white, its towers topped with domes of gold. Twilight couldn’t help but smile at the sight of it but as they got closer she could already tell that something was wrong.
The path they followed led them past the train station. The platform was empty as they passed. No guards, no ponies. Not surprising given the fact that the Sun was blazing down the way it was.
The group followed the walkway that led from the station to the main city. The path was unnaturally quiet and Twilight could feel a building dread within her. Something here was very, very wrong.
As they passed under the main gate at the front of the city, everypony halted and gasped in shock.
“What… what happened here,” stammered Twilight, her eyes taking in the sight, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
The city was filled with ponies.
Some were walking casually down the sidewalk. A couple were sitting at tables, enjoying lunch and a few fillies were playing on the nearby grass. Or at least they all had been doing those things. Now, all of them, every last one, had been turned to stone.
“This… this isn’t possible,” said Twilight. She led them towards a nearby mare. Twilight inspected the pony as best she could while still maintaining the protection spell. The pony was frozen in stone. Twilight tapped the statue with a hoof. “Completely solid and not a statue. This is, was, a pony. But what could do this?”
“A cockatrice?” offered Fluttershy. “Their gaze can turn ponies to stone.”
“But look at them,” said Rarity. “None of them are afraid, none of them are running. Its like they were frozen solid, right in the middle of whatever they were doing.”
“This has to be magic,” said Trixie darkly. “But I’ve never seen a spell so powerful that it could do something on this kind of scale.”
“We have to get to the castle,” said Twilight urgently. The others nodded and the group hurried as quickly as they could towards the castle at the center of town.
Every street was the same. Stone ponies everywhere. Twilight forced herself to look ahead, to keep her eyes on the castle but she was already afraid of what they would find within.
Once they were through the front door Twilight and Rarity dropped the shield. The group broke into a gallop, with Spike clinging to Twilight’s back so he wouldn’t get left behind.
They rushed past the guards, who did not, could not, move. They hurried down the main hall, careful to avoid knocking into the ponies who had been solidified where they stood. Just like those outside, the ponies within the castle had been going about their business. Some had been talking while others were simply headed towards some place they would never reach.
Twilight led the way, galloping as fast as she could. The others followed, keeping pace. At last they reached the throne room. Twilight nearly tore the doors off their hinges as the group burst in.
The friends all stood there, motionless, like they had been turned to stone themselves. And Twilight’s worst fears stood before them.
“Oh no, please, no,” whispered Twilight as her eyes fell on Celestia. The royal goddess was standing in the center of the room. Her hair did not blow in an unseen wind, her eyes did not glint with kindness and hope. She did not move for she too had been turned to stone.
“Twilight Sparkle,” boomed a voice that made everypony jump. The group spun with alarm. Their eyes widened in disbelief. “I see you received my letter.”