//------------------------------// // Between The Lines // Story: Unfinished // by redsquirrel456 //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle came down the path leading to Everfree Forest like a slowly rolling boulder: implacable, unstoppable, and uncaring of what was in front of it. The sign that pointed to her home sizzled away to dust as her magical power radiated off her and obliterated it and any other random object in front of her: butterflies were vaporized and grass caught alight, fences and rocks somehow melted without heat. She entered Ponyville without a second thought to the ponies living there, or even what they might be doing. They simply had to acknowledge her and get out of the way or suffer the consequences. Her thoughts were above and beyond them, high in the clouds and deep beneath the earth as Magic’s power overwhelmed rational thought and replaced it with a keen awareness of the currents of energy that coursed around her. The ponies of Ponyville were little more than tiny glimmering lights adrift on ribbons of vast, unending power, too small to think about or even consider. Twilight looked left and right, her eyes swinging like searchlights as they glowed with a fearsome power, watching ponies run and hide and peer at her from around street corners. Paint liquified and slithered off of doors and walls, coiling in the air around her. Windows shattered or burst into a million flying droplets that buzzed like insects. Fruit spontaneously turned into fruit bats. Most of it just burst into flame as she walked past, her broken horn lashing out at whatever was close until the ponies decided they’d had enough and ran, most of them screaming, but she didn’t hear nor did she care. Let them run. I don’t need them anyway. She looked up past the spire of Carousel Boutique and saw the distant towers of Canterlot, hazy and indistinct on the horizon. Her magic pushed forward, crossing miles in seconds and looking deep into the stone-walled vaults to behold a great power that outshone every other pony in the city, even the greatest of unicorns. The real Elements, not the fakes that wore her friends’ skins, called to her. They wanted her to come and unite them. Then she knew she would be invincible. A little voice in her head whispered the great things she would do when the Elements were united again, and how nopony was going to stop her. She would tear open the veil between the worlds and be so powerful that nopony, not even the Nightmare in her head, would ever tell her what she could and could not do again. She took another step into town, and Lily’s flowers spontaneously grew until their roots and stems completely covered their stand. She took another step and Davenport’s sign burst into flames, along with most of his inventory. Another step and she found herself crossing a bridge that came to life, its wooden rails transforming into wooden snakes that slithered into the stream below as the boards turned to dirt and sprouted flowers. Across the bridge, right under a tree, she found Pinkie Pie. She had a polka dot picnic blanket spread under the shade, with a variety of cakes and other food set out on plates next to her. Five empty plates were arranged around the blanket with name cards sitting on each: Twilight saw her name directly across from Pinkie’s spot. “What are you doing here?” Twilight spat. “You aren’t supposed to be here.” Pinkie smiled as she set out a vase full of flowers, perking up a few drooping petals. “Oh, hi Twilight! I was wondering when you’d make it for the picnic. Didn’t you get my invitation? I sent it on a paper airplane in a glass jar!” Twilight stared dully as Pinkie reached behind her ear and pulled a paper airplane from behind her ear. “Oh well, good thing I got spares! Now go ahead and read it! Reading the invitations is part of the fun of a party, after all.” Pinkie flicked her hoof and sent the paper airplane barreling towards Twilight. It struck the sphere of magical power around the unicorn and disintegrated into a hundred paper cranes which all burst into flame like fireworks. Pinkie oooh’d appreciatively. “Wow, Twilight! That was way cooler than my idea! I was just gonna have it spray confetti and sing a song for you, but I guess that routine is getting kinda tired. But you know what they say: If it ain’t broke, don’t break it!” “Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said as a tendril of magical energy lashed out and destroyed a nearby lamppost, “what are you doing here?” “Isn’t it obvious, silly?” Pinkie giggled, cavorting around the picnic spread. “I’m throwing you a party!” “I don’t need a party. I need the Elements.” Pinkie stopped bouncing and tilted her head, looking indignant. “Twilight, did you bonk your noggin or something? We got two Elements right here! Laughter”—She pointed to herself and giggled again, loudly—“and Magic!” She pointed at Twilight. “But you’re kinda going overboard with that whole Magic thing right now. I don’t know what Magic’s trying to prove, anyway. It’s not like you’re underrepresented!” “NO!” Twilight shouted, and her sphere expanded, creating a growing, perfectly proportioned crater around her hooves. “I mean how are you here? I teleported across the entire Everfree Forest in the blink of an eye! You can’t be here!” Pinkie sighed and looked over one hoof, pulling a file out of her mane and scraping it over the edge. “Funny thing about friendship: true friends never really escape it. We’re a circle of friends, Twi. You don’t get out of a circle. You just go around and around, and you might get all the way to the opposite side of us, but eventually you come rolling back again.” She smiled a very sad, very warm smile. “There’s something really nice about that thought, isn’t there?” Twilight pondered wiping that ambivalent, smarmy look off Pinkie’s face. Literally, in fact: the sight of Pinkie rolling around without a mouth would be vaguely amusing before she moved on. “I escaped Celestia. I don’t know how you got here, but I’ll escape you, too. I don’t need you, Pinkie. I don’t need any of you.” “Maybe.” Pinkie threw the file over her shoulder and spread her hooves, gesturing to the picnic. “But right now, this party needs you!” Twilight inclined her head just slightly, staring at the food. “There is no time for parties,” she said. “There’s always time for a party! Especially when one of my friends is feeling so low that she mistakes a ‘get better Twilight’ party for a ‘I’m going to destroy the world’ party. Those never turn out well.” “Destroy the world?” Twilight muttered, confused. She wasn’t going to destroy anything; just correct all the wrongs that had been heaped on her so far. “I’m going to save it. I will... I’ll take care of the Nightmare inside of me and then I’ll fix my horn, and...” She stopped, unable to focus her thoughts on any one goal. Pinkie wagged a hoof at her. “Ah ah ah, Twilight! That’s not how you were talking before. I think you’re a little confused on what you really want. I don’t remember hearing about any Nightmare, but if there is one then that makes this a super serious party that just has to happen. So why don’t you just sit down and tell your Auntie Pinkie Pie all about it!” Twilight scoffed and began to walk, turning away from the picnic. Pinkie bounded after her, careful to stay out of range of the tempestuous magical storm surrounding Twilight. “Hey, whoa, wait up Twi! I was gonna tell you a joke! What did the pink pony say to the embodiment of magical destruction?” Twilight stopped and turned to look Pinkie in the eye, saying nothing. Pinkie’s big blue eyes got very large as she leaned as close as she could to her friend without being atomized. “She said ‘I love you Twilight, and I know that whatever’s left of you in there is strong enough to fight whatever this is.’” ------------ “What did you say?” Twilight asked. Nightmare Moon turned her sharp gaze back to Twilight from the typewriter. “Nothing,” she said, “nothing at all. You should be thinking, Twilight.” Twilight sighed. “I have. I’m thinking about what all my friends really think of me.” “You know what they think,” Nightmare purred. “They think what the Elements want them to think. What, ultimately, Celestia has told you all to think. Do you really believe that Dusk Shine’s world, that little dream realm you insist on clinging to, is the only world that can be filed, rearranged, pushed, and manipulated? You must have realized by now what Celestia has done to you.” “Pulled my strings since the day I hatched Spike,” Twilight sniffled. She heard the Nightmare chuckle to herself, but at this point she couldn’t bring herself to care if she was saying what the creature wanted. It was what she felt to be true. “She saw I had the same kind of power that Morningtide did. And she couldn’t take the same risk. So she brought me under her wing, pointed me down the path she wanted me to go, and I walked it freely.” “Freely going down the only path you have available is no more free than a rat in a maze,” Nightmare hissed. “Celestia is obsessed with control! She seized the Sun for herself and relegated her sister to the lesser role. You know what the Moon does, Twilight! You know the only reason it shines at night!” “Because it reflects the light of the Sun,” Twilight whispered, the words feeling like razor blades in her throat. “Yes,” Nightmare purred happily. “And she sought to control her sister thusly. She refused to give her an equal share of the day and shrugged off her concerns about the night. And when Celestia’s guilt overwhelmed her she let a poor stallion almost get killed when he built a bridge to the sea of grief Luna suffered in.” “Because of you,” Twilight said, but she flinched as she said it. She was suffering because of Celestia now, too. Nightmare leapt to her hooves. “I was no less a part of Luna than she was of me! I did not take her for myself! She became me, Twilight Sparkle! And I came to you only because now you know what Luna did and forgot when the Elements purged her mind: that Celestia does what she does purely for her own benefit. She sent you to Ponyville knowing that I would come, knowing that I would clash with you. She knew you would find the Elements, knew that your story was true, but what did she do? Lie to you. She built you and your friendships behind a grinning wall of deception.” “I... I don’t know,” Twilight whispered, curling into a ball. “I just don’t know what to think anymore. I was young and silly and... they helped me, didn’t they? My friends?” “Friends that Celestia gave you,” Nightmare cooed, reaching through the cage and stroking Twilight’s mane. Though her touch was ice-cold and hardly a balm for her emotional turmoil, Twilight couldn’t find it in herself to recoil from it, and that scared her more than anything else had so far. “Friends that follow her will. They will try to stop you, Twilight, stop you from becoming what you were always meant to be: the greatest power that Equestria has ever seen.” “I never wanted power,” Twilight moaned. “I just wanted to be with my friends.” “And Celestia has thrust this power on you regardless,” Nightmare said, tutting as she shushed Twilight’s hiccuping whimpers. “She sensed a great change coming with you, Twilight. And the very first thing she thought when she saw you was: ‘How can I bend this change to my purpose?’” Twilight’s heart fluttered and she began to cry again, shaking her head. “You know it’s true,” Nightmare said, with an iron-like undertone beneath her velvet, motherly concern. “Just leave me alone,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on anymore and I don’t want to.” Nightmare chuckled and pulled away. “I can see you still doubt me,” she murmured. “You doubt everything right now. That is to be expected. Perhaps it will help if you continued this conversation... in private. There are far too many distractions up here.” A sudden feeling of openness, of vulnerability and sweeping melancholy, made Twilight gasp and lift her head. All around her was a great, all-consuming blackness. She was no longer in a cage, but she felt no less trapped and helpless. She turned around slowly, trying to make out points of reference. “Wait!” she called out, amazed that she suddenly found herself missing Nightmare’s company, when a noise distracted her. It was like a shutter suddenly opening or a door banging. She swung around and saw a spot of light appear on the ground, shining down from some indeterminate point above. More spots of light began to follow with the same loud noise accompanying each, dotting the ground at random points and coming towards her rapidly. The last one to appear illuminated another Twilight Sparkle, staring angrily at Twilight almost nose-to-nose distance. “Gah!” she squealed, falling over her own tail as she scooted backwards. “Hi there,” her double said to her. “You and I have a lot to talk about.” ------------- Pinkie stood still, waiting. Twilight stared balefully back. “Twilight?” she asked hopefully. “You know nothing!” Twilight shouted back, a wall of flames appearing between them so suddenly that Pinkie hopped three feet straight up in the air. “You’re an annoyance! A hanger-on! It’s all you ever were! Every time I looked you in the eyes I couldn’t believe how your mind even worked! Look at you! I’m going to find the Elements and all you can do is get together a picnic?! Where did all this even come from?” Pinkie just smiled and waved off Twilight’s question, calmly filling a bucket she brought out of nowhere into the nearby stream and extinguishing the flames, even if she couldn’t do anything about the blue jay that suddenly turned into a hawk nearby. “Now Twilight, you know that would be telling. I can see that you’re a little upset! And I’m willing to bet that you’re not quite yourself right now. In fact, I’d stake my tail that I’m not even talking to the really real, Twilightlicious Sparkle and you’re somewhere in there trying to sort all this out!” She pulled a kazoo out of the bucket and blew on it, sending spittle flying. “Hello! Twilight Sparkle in there? Can she come out to play?” “Stop that!” Twilight barked, grabbing the kazoo and crushing it with her magic, which suddenly wrapped around Pinkie Pie and lifted her into the air, spreading her legs apart until she hovered completely helpless in front of Twilight. “Do you have any idea what’s going on, what I’m really trying to do? Celestia betrayed me! She betrayed all of us! Lies and secrets and evil that she kept from us because she didn’t think I could handle it! After all I did for her, she didn’t trust me! And now... now I look at you and all I can wonder about is whether or not you’re with her or me.” “I’m with my friends!” Pinkie protested, struggling in Twilight’s magical grip. “You gotta believe that, Twilight! You’re not going to convince me that you suddenly went all magic-crazy and you want to be the biggest meany-pants that ever lived! Twilight doesn’t do that!” “I’m not Twilight!” the unicorn shouted back. “Not anymore! I’m more than she ever was! And you! You’re getting in my way just like Celestia! I will find the Elements, I will tear open the veil, and I will... I will...” She pawed at the ground, snorting as she turned back to Canterlot, straining to reach the wonderful power she felt there. It was the only thing left that seemed to matter anymore. Pinkie shook her head, and Twilight hated the way that sad blue gaze looked just like Celestia’s. “Twi, I know you’re hurting and confused. I know something’s really wrong with you deep down, and now your hurt and your pain is taking over and trying anything to make it all go away.” She smiled again, tilting her head. “But I know you’re stronger than this. You know how to put trust in other ponies; something’s just making you forget that now. You’re not gonna convince me that you’re just a sadsack mean little pony now. My Twilight doesn’t do that. My Twilight remembers how we used to laugh together and how she was tough enough for me to lean on when things got weird or sad! My Twilight reminded me not just to feel happy, but to remember why I felt happy! To look around and see all the ponies around me that wanted me there and to make me smile just because we were friends. My Twilight would smile whenever she looked at me, because that’s just who she is. But you say you’re not Twilight anymore.” She took a deep breath and settled down, closing her eyes. “And if that’s true, then you might as well just turn me into a newt or whatever you got in mind.” Twilight glared up at her, holding Pinkie perfectly still. A full minute passed in silence, save for the crackling of arcane energies. Pinkie slid one eye open and looked down at Twilight, who appeared to not even be breathing. It was like she was stuck in a still frame while the rest of the world moved on around her. “Well?” Pinkie dared. “I’m waaaiting!” Still nothing. Pinkie grinned triumphantly. “Ah ha! I knew it! The real Twilight would never hurt her frie—” Twilight watched passively as her magic rammed Pinkie into the ground as hard as it could. There was an audible thump and Pinkie was driven a full two inches into the dirt face-down, her limbs splayed out and her mane and tail flattened down by the telekinetic grip. “Be quiet,” Twilight growled, and marched past her. Pinkie’s face popped up from the dirt, slightly ruffled and muddied, but otherwise totally unharmed. Twilight grumped about earth pony sturdiness as Pinkie hurried to catch up. “Okay, maybe that one was a fluke,” said Pinkie, spitting out dirt, “but Twilight, we both know you could’ve done a lot worse than that. I know you still value your friends, even if you don’t want us around right now! You’re running because you’re scared and that’s okay! Everypony has days when they’re scared and alone, but it doesn’t have to be like that. Whatever it takes, Twilight, I’m gonna put a smile on your face.” Twilight stopped and turned back to Pinkie. Very slowly, a smile stretched her lips. Pinkie, who Twilight knew could recognize a genuine smile from a mile away, took a step back. It didn’t help her, though, when lightning exploded from Twilight’s horn and wrapped snake-like around Pinkie, pulling her off the ground. It spun her once and whipped her violently into the picnic spread. Pinkie bounced once off a plate of flan and kept going into the tree behind her, landing on her head with a muted thud. Twilight waited until she was certain Pinkie wasn’t getting up. “Well, what do you know. That did put a smile on my face,” she grumbled, continuing her implacable march towards Canterlot. Deep within the confines of her own mind, Twilight curled up and thought of Dusk Shine. ---------- Dusk Shine watched Bubble Berry prance around the table, making minute and unimportant adjustments to the positions of the stuffed animals and tea sets. There were plenty of spares to replace the one Bubble had smashed. “Quit squirming, Rainbow!” Bubble said, patting the struggling pegasus on the head. Rainbow had been gagged with a stuffed elephant ever since his shouting and cursing had become too much to bear, and his chair shook back and forth as he struggled to free himself, tears of helpless rage streaming down his cheeks. “You’re gonna hurt yourself!” Bubble wandered over to Butterscotch next, who just stared miserably at the far wall. “Enjoying your cake, Butterscotch?” Bubble squeaked, nudging the plate in front of Butterscotch a little closer to him. “I made it myself! It’s got your favorite frosting: good old vanilla!” Dusk looked to Elusive, trying to make eye contact with him across the table. His horn being the only unshattered one in the room, he was the only one who might be able to free them in time to escape the Nightmare. But the white unicorn just blubbered and cried in his chair, which Bubble took to be ‘party songs.’ Whatever Elusive had found in his home had paralyzed him along with the enormity of the situation. “Bubble Berry,” Dusk said, trying for what felt like the hundredth time to get a rational response from him. “Please, listen to me. You have to let us go.” “More cake? Sure!” Bubble said, throwing another plate of cake Dusk’s way. It landed on top of the other three he had already given. “No, Bubble,” Dusk said very clearly and slowly, “I mean you have to stop the party. It’s not helping.” Bubble twitched violently. “I don’t know what you mean, Dusk! Parties always help!” “Not this time, Bubble,” Dusk said. “Not this time. We need to work together or we’re going to—” “SHUT UP!” Bubble screeched. Even Rainbow’s struggling ceased. Dusk clamped his jaw shut, wondering what kind of insanity Bubble was going to pull next. The pink pony glared at him with a wide-eyed, quivering stare, the kind born only of uncontrollable, irrational rage. But then the moment passed, and with another violent shiver Bubble stretched a smile over his face. “You’re not smiling, Dusk. Are you not having fun?” “... I am,” Dusk whispered. “I’m having fun, Bubble.” “Good,” Bubble said flatly, and poured more tea for Butterscotch. “Bubble,” Elusive whispered, finally breaking from his depressed reverie, “please. Let us go. Silver Bell... everypony... we have to fix this.” “The Elements of Harmony,” Dusk muttered. “They can work. They will work. It was the last thing Solaris said—” “Solaris is a party-pooper!” Bubble snapped, waving his hooves around. “He didn’t come to our party! Nopony did but you guys, so we’re keeping this party just between us.” Dusk struggled not to shout again, the effort making him shiver. “Bubble, Solaris is gone. Everypony’s gone. We have to face facts.” Bubble’s hooves started shaking as he picked up another tea pot and began pouring more tea for Rainbow; he had spilled his cup in the middle of all his struggling. “Nope,” Bubble said, shaking his head. “They’re not gone, Dusk. They’re not. I know it. I can feel it.” Dusk’s heart wrenched in his chest, feeling like it was about to collapse. “But they are, Bubble.” Bubble set the tea pot down very slowly, turning around to face a blank corner. He trotted over to it, sat down, and stared at the wall. “They went away because you let the Nightmare in,” he said. “You’re the biggest party-pooper here, Dusk. You led us into that forest and you kept wanting to see your shmoopy-doopy pie or whatever that mare is to you, and then the Nightmare came and everypony’s gone.” “Bubble,” Dusk moaned, afraid of what to say and afraid of saying nothing. “Bubble, please, maybe you’re right. Maybe everypony’s gone, but the Elements can bring them back. They can, Bubble. They will.” His head drooped onto his chest. When did he suddenly feel so very, very tired? “They have to.” Another heavy silence cloaked the room. “That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?” said Butterscotch. Every head snapped up to look at the yellow pegasus, but he didn’t even flinch. “You’re afraid of not being able to make ponies happy, but you’re afraid of being alone even more. Because then there’s nopony around you can make happy. And if you can’t do that, you might as well not even exist yourself.” Bubble’s head thumped against the wall. “If I open that door,” Bubble whispered, “then you’ll disappear like everypony else. You’ll vanish into thin air. Pop like bubbles maybe. Pop pop pop. And then you’ll just be gone. Like Applejack.” Thump. “And then I’ll be all alone without any friends or smiles.” Thump. “If we aren’t together, we’re all gonna die without smiles on our faces, you know? I wonder if that’s how everypony else went. Big frowny-faces all washing away into nothing until there’s just a little pile of ash waiting to be blown away. And then you’re just gone.” “We all need somepony to care for,” Butterscotch mumbled, tears beginning to pool in the corners of his eyes, “or care for us. You need somepony there to tell you you’re doing a good job. Or lean on when times are hard. Or even just be there, to let you know you’re not alone. If you’re alone you can’t tell if what you’re doing is good or bad. You can’t see another pony look up at you and say thank you.” Bubble shrugged. Elusive cried. Rainbow grunted. Dusk said nothing. “I wanna wake up,” Bubble whispered. “I wanna wake up right now. This is a dream, right? I just want to wake up and make it be over. I’ve pinched myself a hundred times and even snorted water up my nose. But nothing worked. I’m still here and we’re all still in Ponyville. Where everything is totally fine.” He began to giggle again. “Just fine. He he he he. Just totally, wonderfully fine.” He stood up and turned back to the others, his head tilted queerly to one side. “You know what else you gotta do to wake up from a dream?” He began to advance on Dusk again, who leaned back in his chair. “You gotta fall,” Bubble breathed in a manner approaching ecstasy. “You gotta drop from a cliff, and you wake up right before you hit the ground!” He lifted up onto his hind legs, reaching for Dusk, whose horn shimmered and sparked in response, but a working spell wouldn’t come. “I haven’t tried that one yet...” “Bubble!” Elusive barked, and his horn glowed blue. Bubble lurched backwards as a sparkling mist wrapped around him and threw him into the arms of a giant teddy bear. Bubble didn’t get back up, leaning back into the plushy bear’s belly and giggling to himself, wrapping his hooves around his head. “Party party party,” he said, his giggling growing into a worrisome, non-stop racket. Elusive’s horn glowed again, and the bindings around his legs loosened and dropped. Elusive hopped out of his chair, flexing his legs. “I’m sorry,” he said briskly. “I would’ve come to my senses sooner, but... but I, ah...” “It’s fine,” said Dusk over the growing sound of Bubble’s giggling, which was devolving into a high pitched whine. It hurt to hear but he ignored it, and that he was trying to ignore his dear friend hurt even more. “Just get us out of here.” Elusive went to untie Rainbow Blitz, who glared daggers at Bubble. The pink pony just covered his face with his hooves and continued to emit that frustratingly horrible whine, like somepony on the verge of crying without ever quite getting there, hanging on the precipice. Elusive’s magic reached out to Rainbow’s bindings. “Elusive, don’t!” Bubble begged him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t take them away, please, please!” Elusive hesitated just a moment before a blue glow surrounded Rainbow’s ropes and pulled them away from him. Bubble let another whine and stood up on all four hooves. “Stop it.” His voice cracked. “Stop it! Don’t leave me alone!” “We’re not leaving you alone, Bubble!” Rainbow said, rushing to untie Butterscotch and Dusk. “We’re going to Canterlot and you’re coming with! Right, Dusk?” Dusk looked long at Bubble’s wildly shaking pupils, reduced to mere pinpricks. If Bubble heard anything Rainbow said, it didn’t seem to make a difference. Bubble let out a wet gurgle as he saw Dusk’s ropes fall down. “Bubble, look, you have to understand—” Bubble charged, letting out a wild yell, more like a child demanding their parent to give them a candy rather than the unhinged scream Dusk expected. Bubble was a blur of pink, charging across the floor directly at Dusk. Rainbow overtook him and threw him down to the floor again before Dusk could even act or think, and then pink and blue whirled around in a hyperactive swirl, hooves and snarling faces and brutal, meaty thuds. Rainbow spat curses and yelled for somepony to get a rope, damn it and Bubble just screamed random words, interspersed with incoherent pleading. Dusk’s horn sparked and sputtered as he stared at the two ponies rolling around on the floor. Work! Work, please, I can’t stand them fighting, just do something, do it, do it! But no matter how hard he pushed, all he got out of his horn was pain and useless pretty sparkles that fell to the ground and rolled between the cracks in the wood, vanishing. “Elusive!” he called out. “My magic, it isn’t working! You have to help him!” Elusive snapped his eyes up to Dusk’s. They were wide, frightened, like a colt who couldn’t comprehend why his parents were fighting. “Lucy!” Elusive jerked like he’d been struck, turning back to the fight. He levitated a length of rope, but he couldn’t pick which pony to tie up first. The rope tangled and untangled itself into intricate knots while Elusive fretted. Dusk snorted and leapt into the melee. He felt himself latch onto somepony with flailing wings and kicking hooves and thought it was Rainbow, or maybe just both of them at once, but it didn’t matter much: he was thrown off within seconds of grabbing on and found himself tossed into a pile of stuffed animals. Tigers and bears leered down at him with condescending smiles as the ball of violence rolled his way again, smothering him. He felt somepony’s hoof catch him in the rib, on the stomach, on the shoulder. He lashed out and felt the familiar tingle of magic catch his hoof and drag, pulling him across the hardwood floor. He heard Rainbow scream something unintelligible, Bubble yelling back at him that it was all Dusk’s fault and they were nothing but party-poopers, and then Elusive joining the argument just to make them both shut up. Dusk couldn’t tell which way was up. He wanted to stop the arguing, the swirl of voices that pounded on his ears like drums, but his vision swam and his head pounded and he frankly didn’t care much anymore what they did as long as the door was opened and he could get out. He fell onto his back and looked up at Butterscotch, whose face was stained with miserable, angry tears, his lower lip quivering as he watched the others devolve into madness. Dusk just shrugged and covered his ears, watching Butterscotch take a deep breath, square his shoulders, and open his mouth. “QUIET!” The noise of Butterscotch’s yell rang for interminable seconds after. Elusive, Rainbow, and Bubble stood in a circle, warily eyeing each other. Blood flowed from a gash in Rainbow’s ear where Bubble bit him and several deep scratches inflicted by Bubble’s hooves; Bubble was shaking all over and beginning to sob openly again; Elusive just looked so incredibly tired. After nopony moved for a while, Bubble turned away and went to the biggest teddy bear in the room and draped himself over it, his grip so tight it distended and warped the bear’s entire body. “Can’t leave,” he whispered in between heaving, gasping sobs. “Can’t leave or the wind will get you. It’ll run up behind you and whisk you away and you’ll be gone. I won’t let it happen. Won’t. Won’t. Won’t. Won’t.” Elusive collapsed into a heap on the floor, panting, and Rainbow just stared at the space Bubble once occupied. Elements, he thought. Elements are all that matters. Why can’t I get up? Why can’t I be there for my friends when they aren’t there for each other? His head felt like a fog was slowly enveloping it, closing in ever since they’d stepped into town and the shock of his world ending had smashed his resolve. He tried to stand, watching Butterscotch trudge over to Berry and give him a hug from behind. The motion was frighteningly mechanical, like Butterscotch was following an instinct or playing out some ceremony he’d done a thousand times before, rather than impart any real comfort. Bubble shuddered at his touch but didn’t push him away. It all feels so cloudy, so distant. Like a dream. Which makes sense, really. Dusk went to the window and peered into the cold, grey world outside. The sky was still infinitely high and claustrophobically close and no colors or bright lights were anywhere and the Sun hadn’t risen and never would. He could see Everfree Forest from here, just down the street through a sliver between two buildings. Dusk recoiled, letting out a sad, sickened moan at what he saw coming from the Forest. “What is it?” Elusive asked. Dusk shook his head, and that was all they needed to know. “Well,” Rainbow said, glancing Bubble’s way, “what now?” ------------------- “Now,” said the Other Twilight, “we talk.” Twilight grimaced and looked away. “We don’t need to talk about anything.” “Of course we do,” said the Other. “We’re inside our own head. There’s nopony to talk to but you.” “You mean... me?” Twilight ventured, trying to make light of a situation she found both terrifying and confusing. The Other rolled her eyes. “I mean whatever you want me to mean. You, me, all of this is us. It’s all you. And I think you’re a little confused right now.” “You don’t know the half of it,” Twilight said, curling up and turning away. The Other tried to move forward, but she bumped into a series of bars that slid up from the floor between them and shook her head. “Still trying to hide from the truth.” Twilight shrugged. “I’m swimming in truth. That’s why I’m here.” “But you won’t accept it,” the Other said and began walking but the bars followed her wherever she went, like Twilight was sitting on a rotating platform that never let the Other face her from a different direction. “You won’t let yourself really see what’s happening here.” “I think that’s kind of obvious, don’t you?” “No!” the Other snapped, smashing her hoof against the bars. “I mean you don’t see beyond the obvious! Do you even know what’s going on here? What caused all of this?” “Should I?” Twilight asked. “I can’t even bring myself to care.” “Well that’s real funny, Twilight, because I’m pretty sure I care a lot about what’s happening.” “Who are you?” Twilight whimpered. The Other sneered. “I’m the part of you that’s actually aware of her real place in the world. The one who realizes the power she’s capable of and is ready to use it. The world is simpler and more complex than you know.” She stood up and walked.Twilight joined her after a moment’s hesitation more out of curiosity and fear of being alone than anything else, but the bars remained between them. “You still don’t know why you even started seeing him, do you? Or why it’s important that we saw him for the Nightmare to come to us, or even why the Nightmare can do what it does?” Twilight didn’t answer and the Other took that as permission to keep going. “Why did we see Dusk? Why are we connected to him? What is it about us that makes it so important that the Nightmare needs us to affect his world?” Twilight sputtered. “I... you can’t just expect me to know all that!” “You do. Because I do. Because I’m you, Twilight,” the Other said, turning and facing her. “Up there, you’re in a cage. Inside that cage is all that’s left of you that the Nightmare hasn’t already taken. You can’t even see what’s going on outside, can you?” Twilight shook her head and a bolt of fright ran through her. What happened to her friends? To the Princesses? The last thing she really remembered was confronting Celestia in the middle of the vision about Nightmare Moon’s uprising before it all went blank and then she was with the Nightmare itself. “We gave up so much of ourself when we knew that Celestia couldn’t trust us,” the Other said, her voice stern but still gentle on Twilight’s ears. “Everything that you are, everything you know, came from her.” Images began to appear around them, swirling gaseous forms that giggled and laughed and cried and spoke. They were memories, Twilight realized, memories of all the time she had spent growing up in Canterlot, ignoring her classmates in favor of studying, increasing her power at Celestia’s behest. “But I’ve done so much!” Twilight protested. More images floated around them, memories of the times she and her friends conquered evil, both the external threats that attacked Equestria, and the little things that threatened to drive them apart. “And you never thought it strange,” the Other said, “that the one and only time, the first time in your life that Celestia drew you out of your shell, was the exact day that her sister was fated to return?” A letter appeared, damningly obvious in its manipulative condescension. Make some friends. Twilight looked away from it, gritting her teeth so hard they almost broke. “She knew making friends was the right thing to do,” she whispered. “The right thing for me to do.” “But could your friends have been anypony? Or did it have to be them?” The faces of Twilight’s friends appeared in the air and vanished just as quickly. “Celestia knew, Twilight. She knew if you made any other friends, if you resisted going to Ponyville, if you didn’t do everything exactly as she planned... Equestria would fall.” “Well then I had no choice!” Twilight shouted, whirling around with tears in her eyes. “You think I wouldn’t have done anything to keep Equestria safe? That I still wouldn’t?” “I know you would have, Twilight. I’m you, remember? And Celestia knew, too. She knew you were perfect for what she needed. That the Elements were in Ponyville and would be your friends was the balm she used to soothe her conscience.” “I never thought that,” Twilight whispered. “We did,” the Other. “But I’m the one who accepted it for what it is, Twilight. The Nightmare was right about stories, about how powerful they were. The story of Nightmare Moon inspired all of this. When we sent her that letter, it was the moment that defined everything. An old pony’s tale, kicking off the start of a whole new life. Celestia crafted a perfect story about us: the shut-in little filly who had to learn the magic of friendship to beat the big evil and save the day. We were wrapped up in our own lives like a Daring Do novel! We loved being the hero, loved how we added our own little chapters to Celestia’s story with every friendship report we sent back. And every time Celestia looked on us with pride, it was pride in her accomplishments. She wrote every aspect of us since the day she found us in that tower trying to hatch Spike’s egg. We never made friends because she never really pushed us to make friends until the day it suited her own purposes!” Another image floated around them. Twilight, a filly, struggling to unearth the underlying principles of a spell she struggled with. Celestia appeared over her shoulder. “Twilight, I heard there is a party to be held in the southern dorms this weekend.” “Mmhmm,” said Twilight. “I’m not going.” “And why is that, my dear student? I hear it’s going to be a rollicking good time.” “I have to figure out this three-point transfiguration matrix. Professor Auburn’s test is coming up in a couple of months and I want this to be perfect.” “Oh, Twilight,” Celestia said with a gentle smile. “My dear one, I cannot force you to go. But one day you will know how fine a thing it is to have a few ponies around to keep you company.” And that was that. “Three years before we went to Ponyville,” the Other said. “And so many more examples besides that. Our entire life was spent like that: we would study, Celestia would chide us, we denied her, and she let us go. Token opposition, a roll of her eyes, a wry smile. We saw it back then, but we never noticed it. And then, suddenly, on the night Nightmare Moon returns, we are ordered to make friends. Friends with the only ponies in all the world who could cleanse her sister.” Twilight dropped onto her haunches, shivering. She put her hooves over her head. “I... Celestia had to free Luna...” “And used us to do it,” the Other finished, “just like she used us to defeat Discord, sent you into the Crystal Empire with nothing to go on but a vague hope that you were capable. Everything we did had her signature all over it. And when she pulled away from us, she pulled away everything that she put inside of us. We were hollowed out when she couldn’t stand to be with us anymore and the Nightmare filled in the blank spaces.” Twilight felt a pang of despair and sank onto her knees. The Other stopped next to her, staring ahead. “But here, Twilight? Here, inside the cage, there’s a tiny part left that is simply you. A part that you can only give up to the Nightmare willingly, and that’s why it needs to break us before it can take us. Every part of Dusk’s world that dies is a little bit more of you that goes away forever.” She knelt down in front of the bars and peered through them. “But you don’t understand how that all connects, why it’s so important. You won’t let yourself. I know it, so you know it, but you won’t let me in.” “But... but if I let down the bars, I’m going to let in the Nightmare too!” Twilight whimpered. The Other huffed and shook her head. “Twilight, it already won. It’s going to get you no matter what happens because you’re going to let it get you. That’s the point.” She extended her hoof towards Twilight through the bars. “It’s not just any old Nightmare, Twilight. It’s not just something that came out of nowhere and attacked you when you were vulnerable. It’s not just some external force using you as a pawn to destroy the Princesses. It’s not even just Nightmare Moon coming back to take revenge. It’s something you knew all along, something that was building up to this very point and you let it out, and that’s exactly why Dusk Shine is in so much danger right now: because you put him there. There’s nowhere in this world or the next where this Nightmare won’t get you, because that's what the story its writing demands." “Celestia—” “Celestia lost control, she can’t protect you anymore. The Nightmare might think it’s in control, but it has to do it properly. This is your story now, Twilight. In a way, it always was. Your story isn’t over, but you’ll write yourself into a corner if you don’t let those bars down and talk to me, to yourself, to the Nightmare. To everything that’s been telling you what to do so far. You can do what Morningtide did and edit your story, that's how this all started, you know that! The Nightmare is as much a part of you and your story as it is any other pony across a hundred million stories that it’s infected, and that’s why it can’t kill you yet.” Twilight felt her hoof be taken and raised up. The Other reached in with her other hoof and clasped Twilight’s between hers. “Twilight, this is your Nightmare.” --------- “It’s coming,” said Dusk. “It’s coming and it’s going to be here soon. I saw it.” “Then let’s grab Bubble and get out of here!” Rainbow said, hurrying to grab Bubble. Bubble just gripped the teddy bear harder and shook his head. “Wait,” said Butterscotch, “that’s not going to work—” He was cut off by a high, thin wail that erupted from Bubble’s mouth. Rainbow let go and Bubble slumped down again. “This is stupid!” he barked. “I’ll carry him!” “He’ll fight you,” Butterscotch whispered, “the whole way.” “Then I’ll knock him out!” “No, Rainbow. This isn’t something we can beat,” Butterscotch said, digging his hoof into the floor. His eyes met Dusk’s. Dusk felt a wave of shame so great he looked away. “I think I kind of understand what’s happening here,” Butterscotch went on. “I thought about what the Nightmare said. It went straight for Dusk out of all of us.” Elusive and Rainbow turned their gazes to him now, and Dusk hid behind his hooves. “... He’s right,” he said, his voice tight and fearful, expecting a blow to come at any time. “The Nightmare wants me. It... it said so.” Rainbow glanced back and forth, then shook his head. “Then we don’t let it get you. We get you out of here and get to Canterlot and get the Elements and wasn’t that our plan in the first place?” “I don’t really know what it wants with Dusk,” Butterscotch said, “but Bubble... he’s not going to be able to help us.” He knelt down next to Bubble and stroked his mane. “Applejack’s already gone, Rainbow, and we have no idea where he is or if he’s coming back. He would have by now if he was going to. Bubble, that’s what you’re really afraid of, isn’t it? Being alone?” A pit grew in Dusk’s stomach, making him nauseous as he realized the direction Butterscotch was going. “‘Scotch, no...” “You all should go,” Butterscotch whispered, idly stroking Bubble’s mane. “I’ll stay with him.” “We’re all going!” Elusive countered, but he didn’t sound convinced. Butterscotch shook his head. “You all heard what the Nightmare said.” “You must suffer.” The words tumbled out of Dusk’s mouth unbidden, like some other pony was speaking through him. He narrowed his eyes and looked away, feeling the vise of guilt clamp down over his heart. “Suffer so she can suffer.” “This is all still about her?!” Rainbow raged. “And Dusk,” said Butterscotch. “Dusk is who the Nightmare wants. I don’t know how I know, I just feel it. This all started when we tried to find our other selves, remember? Dusk was the first one, the most connected one.” Dusk bit his lip. “Stop—” “And the Elements showed us our other selves and made us want to help him, and when we found her the Nightmare got in. You’re why the Nightmare is here. To get you, Dusk. Bubble can’t change that. I can’t either.” “That’s not true!” Dusk stomped his hoof on the floor. “We need all of you to make the Elements work again!” “Not like this,” Butterscotch whispered, laying down next to Bubble and throwing a hoof over him. “Not like this. Applejack gave up. So did Bubble. So did I. The moment I looked down and saw my home so empty, so... so horribly quiet, I couldn’t stand it. How could anything in this world be kind when a place so full of life is just snuffed out because one monster wanted them all gone? The Elements won’t work now, not in a place like this. You know that.” “How can you say that?!” Dusk roared, bucking the wall behind him so hard it splintered. “It’s all we have left! All we can do to stop this and fix it!” Butterscotch was silent for a time. “I don’t know what we can do, Dusk,” he said, “but I know that looking for that other you caused all of this. It was something the Elements called out to, something they wanted. Maybe she’s the one who can fix it.” Rainbow whirled on Dusk. “Or maybe she’s the one who’ll kill us all if we keep trying to go after her! Dusk, you can’t say you believe any of this junk? The Nightmare needs to go, and we’re the only ones who can do it!” Dusk remembered a cage, a giant white space, and the sight of her cowering, unable to do anything, unable to affect the world anymore. Giving up their dream of finally being together to a monster and letting it eat them all up. “Maybe,” he whispered. “But we’re not leaving you behind, Butterscotch.” “Yes you are.” “No we’re not.” “Dusk,” Butterscotch pleaded, turning back to him, and Dusk saw that only now was Butterscotch really crying. The look on his face was one of utter hopelessness, and Dusk backed up against the wall, trying desperately to look away but he couldn’t, and Butterscotch’s big, shimmering stare kept him riven. “It destroyed everything without even trying. I don’t even know why we’re still here and everypony I loved and saw and all my little animals are gone. And it doesn’t even care about us! It killed the Princes like they were just some motion it was going through, like—like when my otters would pick up rocks and hit things because they thought it was going to crack them open and get food!” Dusk clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “We can still beat it,” he whispered. “We can, ‘Scotch. You have to believe me.” “I don’t know what to believe,” Butterscotch answered, turning back to Bubble and laying his head over Bubble’s neck. “But I do know there’s a pony who can’t stand to be alone right now, and he’s too frightened to go on. I’m staying here.” He sniffled. “It’s... it’s the kind thing to do.” “Not to us!” Rainbow snapped, and Butterscotch had no answer but to curl up tighter against Bubble who in turn hid from them all. “We need you guys right now!” “Dusk doesn’t need any of us,” Butterscotch whimpered. “The Nightmare did all of this... all of it... to hurt him. So it could hurt her, whoever she is. The Elements would have answered us before if they could help us. Maybe they aren’t even here anymore.” Dusk’s heart wilted in his chest. The crushing inevitability of his guilt weighed in on him and he searched for a way to support himself and just sort of slumped to the floor instead. “I just wanted to see her,” he muttered. Answer me. Please. I need you more than anything now. I need you to help me fight. We caused this and now we have to end it. Please. Nopony answered. Rainbow’s body began to shake from head to hoof. He clenched his eyes shut, squeezing out hot tears that rolled down his cheeks. He quivered so much it seemed he’d explode from what he was holding it in, and let it all out in one single, cathartic outburst. “FINE!” he yelled, and flew straight at Dusk. Dusk yelped, thinking he was about to be attacked, but he felt Rainbow snatch him up and whip him around at speed, heading for Elusive who barely had time to scream before Rainbow grabbed him too and made a turn sharp enough to give Dusk whiplash. He got a brief view of the roof before Rainbow exploded out of it, sending a shower of wood and plaster into the air. They rocketed up twenty feet or so before Rainbow jerked to a halt. Mortar and shingles still rained down as they looked back down through the hole in the roof. Butterscotch held Bubble close, stroking his mane. Even from this height, Dusk thought he heard the soft, gossamer-thin strains of a song he knew well coming from Butterscotch. Slowly, deliberately, and with all the gentleness that could be afforded to the sorry state of their souls, they left their friends behind. Far beyond, Everfree Forest and all the country beyond it vanished into thin air, and a boiling nothingness advanced over the landscape, cracking apart what hadn’t already been flung into oblivion and leaving behind more of the slate-grey void that coiled in and around itself interminably. In the midst of the distant, crackling booms of the world collapsing, Dusk heard the Nightmare laugh.