The Monster in the Twilight
Flight
“All right, everypony. Do we got everything she asked for?” Applejack appraised the strange collection of equipment assembled on the front porch of Sweetie Drops Candie Shop with a sideways glance at Pinkie Pie, who had somehow produced a key and gathered the materials within instants of their hasty arrival.
“Half bucket of warm water, check! One gallon of corn syrup, check!” Pinkie upended the bottle, which began to cheerfully glug its sugary goodness into the bucket.
“One jar of molasses, got it.” Applejack upended the jar and watched the slow progress begin.
“Three-quarters cup cinnamon, jar of hot sauce, another jar of hot sauce—”
“Ah thought she only said one bottle of hot sauce?”
“Oopsie. Half a cup of root beer concentrate, a cup of carrot juice, cup of pickle juice, a cup of peppermint extract and a fifth of bourbon.” Pinkie Pie quit adding ingredients to the bubbling bucket and looked around. “Where are we going to find bourbon at this hour?”
Applejack removed her hat and hoofed over a bottle. “Don’t you say nuttin’.”
“It’s only about half-full.”
“She weren’t trying to lure yer brother into bed. You’re lucky there’s any left at all.”
“In it goes.” Pinkie Pie upended the bottle and watched the amber liquid splash into the mess. “Now what?”
“Agitate well.”
“Power to the Ponies! Down with the Capitalist Oppressors of the Free Party Ponies!”
Applejack gave her best dry look at Pinkie Pie, who promptly began to stir the bucket. “Yassah, I’s got’s it now, boss.”
“And Rarity’s got the funnel. Now all we need is the victim. I mean subject.” Applejack jumped when an explosive noise echoed across the town, followed promptly by Pinkie Pie vibrating across the floor, her tail twitch-a-twitching.
“Dang,” muttered Applejack as she watched a burst of flames reach skyward from the direction of town hall, raining down burning sparks in the distance. “I’m sure glad Apple Bloom was sleeping over with Sweetie Belle tonight, Rarity.”
Rarity glanced out into the darkness. “Most certainly not. The boutique is locked up tonight. I thought she was with Twist.” They both looked at the dark and quiet candy shop, which bore no signs of Crusader activity⁽*⁾ and worried to themselves.
(*) Crusader Activity normally meant fire, flood, panic, tree sap, or all of the above.
“Well, they’re not over at Sugarcube Corner,” said Pinkie Pie, tasting the contents of the bucket and making a face. “Mister and Missus Cake won’t let them overnight anymore, ever since they tried to teach Pound Cake how to use a scooter. Come to think of it, they haven’t set my Pinkie Sense⁽¹⁾ off all night.”
(1) Pinkie Sense has certain range limitations. Don’t ask. Really.
Rarity fanned herself with the funnel and looked to the sky at the billowing smoke beginning to obscure the stars. “Well, that’s a relief. I’m sure they’re all safe and following the evacuation plan. The mayor always checks on them during all of the practices, too. I just hope Trixie is not injured.”
Fluttershy joined her friend in scanning the dark sky. “I’m worried about her too.”
“Not that. I’m just looking forward to finding out the end result of her scheme.” Rarity turned the funnel over in her magic, contemplating its use with an evaluating eye. “Darling, did she specify which end to insert the funnel?”
“Um. Rarity, I’m pretty sure she meant her—”
Rarity waved Fluttershy away with one hoof. “Relax, dear. I was only attempting to lighten the mood. Besides, I think I hear somepony flying this wa—”
Acute hearing and a certain sense of self-preservation had led the residents of Ponyville to develop a sort of ‘Pegasus Sense’ from the relative frequency of ground-related impacts from certain members of both the weather team and the post office. Such sense did little good when the target in question was hedged in on both sides by friends, but did allow Rarity to roll with the impact when Rainbow Dash plowed into her at admittedly much less than her top speed.
“Rainbow! Darling! You’ve gained weight. Now could you please get off my back?” Rarity lay in a somewhat unladylike fashion, having been driven by the impact across the shop porch. It was fairly typical for one of Rainbow’s landings, with more skidding on her chest, and thankfully less of a messy impact at the end. She even had narrowly missed the bucket of goop, which reduced the eventual cleanup.
“Just a minute, Rarity,” came Rainbow Dash’s voice from inside the house. “I’ve got my head stuck in a pot or something.”
“Then who is sitting on my—” Rarity managed to twist around to look up, and saw — nothing. Although nothing was still heavy.
“Cinq minutes de plus, s'il vous plaît?”
Whatever nothing was, it sounded very much like Trixie. Despite the dazed sound of the empty (and heavy) space on Rarity’s back, nothing got to her sharp and pointed hooves and stumbled over to the bucket, apparently eschewing the available funnel for the expedient of simply sticking her face right in and drinking in a most unseemly and uncouth manner, complete with loud slurping noises.
“Hey, Presto!” Trixie’s voice did not came from the vicinity of the bucket with the rapidly decreasing contents, but instead came from the mouth of a suddenly very astonished and frightened yellow pegasus by way of a ventriloquism⁽²⁾ spell many members of the town had gotten quite sick of over the past few years. “Maskelyne would have been proud of the way I pulled off his trick.”
(2) ‘Now watch in amazement as the Great and Powerful Trixie will sing while drinking this bottle’ had caused more audiences to vanish faster than the trick she had just finished at the town hall.
“That was awesome,” said Rainbow Dash, stumbling out onto the porch and shaking off the last pot which had apparently gotten stuck on her head during impact.
“Thank you, no applause, please. Just throw bits.” Trixie’s voice continued to emerge from Fluttershy’s mouth despite both hooves being clasped over her yellow muzzle.
“Not you. I was talking about my fantastic landing.”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie’s performance was far better.”
“There you are! You did not get far!” A panting pink alicorn galloped up to the gathered group, her eyes wide with fear. “I listened for the impact’s sound, for that is where the rainbowed one is found.”
“Hey!”
“Oh, joy. The bug is here too. Did you bring the kids?” At the sound of Trixie’s voice, the pink alicorn stared in amazement at Fluttershy, who shook her head vigorously and pointed at the bucket. ‘Cadence’ paused, looking at the empty space in front of the bucket before continuing in a sharp tone.
“I have said before, you annoying twit, this is a disguise, and my daughter cast it. I am Zecora, a zebra in kind, now tell me of my daughter and her friends, before I lose my mind!” Zecora looked back and forth between Fluttershy and the noisy bucket with a mixture of anger and confusion.
The slurping stopped, and Trixie’s voice came from the vicinity of the nearly empty bucket. “I left them with Tallgrass. Didn’t he take them to you?”
There was a momentary pause that Trixie would normally have used for an abrupt exit, if not for the sudden dive by five very angry mares onto the empty space, all with their own issues.
“Where’s mah sister?”
“And mine!”
“If Scoots has one hair harmed on her mane…”
“You had better not have gotten Twist hurt, or I’m going to do something horrible to your birthday presents!”
“Um. Does this mean I should say something about Featherweight? Because he likes taking pictures of my animal friends. And I’d hate it if anything happened to him. He’s nice.”
Well, four angry mares, and one frightened Fluttershy.
“Do not assault her on my regard,” commanded Zecora with such force that the pony-pile participants all looked up. “She left our young with her trusted guard. Her plan is in her head, quite tightly sealed, now is high time for it to be revealed.”
“Um.” Off in the distance, the flames from the burning town hall began to cast flickering shadows around the tense scene, making little specks of purple and blue show beneath their hooves. “Can the Great and Powerful Trixie convince us to move somewhere a little farther from the evil goddess who I just got done insulting until she tried to kill me and kind-of reflected part of her killing spell back into her face? I think I know where they went, and I’m sure my faithful Royal Guard is escorting them there now, just like I asked him.”
* * *
Tallgrass cursed virulently as he galloped full-speed in pursuit of the little pests as they passed out of the city and headed out into the woods. In his year of living in Ponyville, the changeling had actually never left the city limits. He had been more than happy to remain in the warm and cozy town, collecting love and keeping a low profile. Now as the dark trees began to pass on each side, the warmth of the town’s love began to slowly be replaced by cold and hungry feelings, from creatures who thought ponies were tasty, and changelings were dessert.
Worse, even if he had decided to take to his somewhat misshapen wings in pursuit, the path turned frequently enough he would have lost ground in his chase, and flying above the forest canopy would have just let the little ponies vanish into the immensity of the dark forest. Even worse still, if or when he eventually did catch them, he had no idea which trail or forest path led back to town. At least from the flickering green light in their wagon and the positive way they took corners, the little brats seemed to know where they were going.
* * *
“I think we take the left fork in the path up here. Left! That’s not left!” Sweetie Belle held the wrinkled page from the book up to her glowing horn-light and squinted. “Or maybe right?”
“Did we pathh that thipky thing yet?” Twist poked a hoof at the map and turned her head to one side. “Are you thure thath the right thide up?”
Scootaloo leaned into the handles of her scooter with leaves and branches lashing across her helmet and goggles while going faster in the dark than she had ever gone before. Pegasi were extremely capable of isolating the location of lightning strikes from the noise of the thunder, and from the way their friend was howling away in the distance, making abrupt ‘cracks’ as she used her teleportation spell for short hops, she may as well have been laying a trail of breadcrumbs for the little pegasus to follow. It was a dangerous trip, but Monster was a friend, and there was no danger too dangerous when helping a friend.
Besides, this was so cool!
* * *
Fear.
Darkness.
There were very few thoughts inside Monster’s mind that did not encompass one or both of those ideas. The world passed in a frantic kaleidoscope of trees and rocks, with the tears streaming from her eyes and the darkness of the night turning everything she could see into one long blur of terror. Whenever she gathered enough willpower to make an attempt at thinking straight, her magic coiled around her and propelled her forward with a sharp crack of sundered air.
Tiny little flecks of thought swirled around the cracks left by her overwhelming panic, popping up and vanishing in the whirling blizzard of her mind. The pink pony disguise she had cast over mom, which felt so right as if she were a loving nurturer and yet so wrong as if she were chasing her, to capture and imprison her. The giant white pony, so different than her terrifying memories, her soft voice as she called out to Monster with trusting words, and her powerful majesty as she floated up into the sky and vanished into the sun. The giant black pony, all teeth and starry mane as she cackled in rage, somehow looking like brother from her dreams, but sounding so much like the voice that called to her.
Thou shouldst run
Run she did, with the soil and sod passing beneath her thundering hooves, but a direction was only a vague guess. Every patch of darkness held a terror, every shadow clutched at her as she passed. No conscious thought guided her hooves, but in the back of her mind was an insatiable urge to return to where it first started. Her heart hammered away to the rhythm of a constant drumbeat, a thunder as if a thousand hooves were beating against the heart of the world. Reaching out to her. Calling to her. With one word.
Home.
* * *
Nightmare Moon floated up into the sky on a pillar of flames and smoke, her immaterial body roaring with an anger that made the fire below seem cold as ice. All that delicious frustration and anger had been yanked away like a popped balloon when she unleashed her ire upon this ‘Trixie’ who capered and jeered, throwing her own words back in her face. Then the arrogant fool had the unmitigated gall to reflect some of her own spell back against her host body while dying!
The indignity of the situation twisted Nightmare’s smoky form into a vicious spiral, drawing more cool air through the blazing inferno that should have held hundreds of ponies, each burning to death in exquisite agony for her to feed upon. Now, the pitiful ponies fled the town in all directions, scattered throughout the darkness in concentrations too low to feed her burning hunger.
Still, in the distant forest, she could feel the unrestrained power of this ‘Twilight Sparkle’ where she fled in mortal terror. More power surged through that small body than hundreds of mere ordinary ponies, delicious power so ripe for the taking, with the delicious scent of… peppermint?
It is so nice to have a physical body again.
A veritable wave of minty taste/smell flooded Nightmare Moon’s senses, twisting her stomach in nauseated spasms when she involuntarily regained physical form to hover high above the town. The air felt cold on her tongue as she opened her mouth to spit, only to clamp her jaws shut when another spasm swept across her belly.
My sister just loves peppermints. She fed them to me all the time when I was just a foal until I got positively sick of them. One peppermint after another, over and over and over…
“Elements,” grated Nightmare from between clenched teeth. “You are going to burn, little princess.”
With broad, powerful strokes of her wings, the Nightmare flew off into her beloved darkness. Celestia was a melodramatic soul, and there was only one place she would possibly have placed the Elements of Harmony: At the site where she sealed her sister in the moon, the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.