//------------------------------//
// Chapter 23: Doing their thing 
// Story: Dream Whisper 
// by Dream Whisper 
//------------------------------//

“Girls, do you really want to take that fight?” 
I asked. I could have understood, if they had said 'no'. Instead, everypony agreed to take the fight as fast as possible. It was true, we had no idea, what those shadow things were doing to us in the dream world. 
I created a shield again and slowly counted down. The whispy lines appeared again, and this time, they quickly vanished again. I had become much faster. The dream world was empty. Of course, there were stars and such, but the Shadow fiends were missing.

Only much much later I found out that mysterium: The shadows had a limited span of energy. They could only do so much and they had not been able to do enough. The nightmares were supposed to keep us busy and occupied for much longer, but luckily, we had broken every single barrier they had created.
I guess nothing is purely unlimited.

 “Let us concentrate. Where could the source be?” 
Twili looked at everypony of us. I got an idea and just bursted out with it. 
“Maybe, to find the source, we trace back the consequences.” 
Twilight just went ahead, listing the events that had happened, that were somehow related to evil forces. 
“There was Nightmare Moon, there was Discord, there were the changelings under leadership of Queen Chrysalis, there had been Kind Sombra. I don't think, the Timberwolves and the Windigoes really count, because they were always there, but who knows, they may have been agitated or something. There had been Discord and Dream Cry returning, there had been ... Celestia ... and lastly that shadow entering reality through you.” 

You could hear, that Twilight still had not forgiven Celestia her rage. Was there still a bit of rage left behind inside of her? Would she also turn into something worse? Wait. Left behind... I had an idea once again. 
“We have to find something evil, that has been left behind. As far as I know, Princess Luna hasn't left anything behind, so we can cancel that. What about Queen Chrysalis?”
“Not as far as I know. My BBBFF said, that everything had been cleaned up agian.”
“What about Discord then? I mean, he returned shortly before this all began. I just don't know, if he is the reason or the effect.”
“I think I know who it could be. When we banished King Sombra, we thought that we had defeated everything, but something must have survived. I wasn't really sure at first, but those shadow things... they exactly reminded me of him. I am sure, he is banished forever, but what, if the secret room under the throne wasn't the only secret chamber. What, if there is still something in the Crystal Empire, that is strong enough to create these shadow fiends and turn ponies into...? We should start searching in the Crystal Tower.” 

To be honest, everything I knew about King Sombra was, that he had been a shadow pony, coming from within a shadowy cloud with pure hatred. That was surprisingly close to the picture, I had of the shadow fiends. Maybe, it was the indirect influence of King Sombra, that kept creeping up in everypony and turned them into something... evil. Maybe not even King Sombra was the real reason. I only knew one thing: Whatever the source was, that was causing destruction in all of Equestria, it had to be destroyed. It was like a virus spreading throughout our home, infecting everypony with hatred. Then, it also created those shadows, which were creeping through cracks into reality. This force was too huge to be ignored. 

Twili seemed so sure, that they had actually defeated King Sombra, so I decided to trust her about that. If there really had been another secret? 
“I agree.” Rainbow Dash was a little bit faster than me.
 “Me too.” I added, feeling a bit dumb with that statement.  
However, everypony else also made the same statement, so I was fine: 
“We come with you, darling.”
“Yeehaa!” - I guess you can interpret that as agreement
“O...Okay.”
“Afterwards, we go and throw a big party.” 
Now, that we were sorted, it was time to get back. There was one thought still nagging inside my head: If the source of the shadow fiends was inside the Crystal Empire, why haven't we seen the source there? It really had to be hidden very well.

Creating the shield was something, that I almost instinctively did, when leaving or entering a dream now. Something, that would be useful in every coming year. The whispy blue-ish lines started to flow around the shield faster and faster, until we were finally in reality again. Getting up, moving around, everything felt as if I hadn't moved for days... and maybe that was true. I had moved inside of the dreams, but inside of reality? 
“Okay girls, we need to get to the Crystal Tower. Inside, I will try to turn it evil agian. The crystal heart won't leave us much time, it will restore everything again. We have to be fast with our search.” 

We were already outside, trotting towards the huge tower. It seemed to be dark outside, but I couldn't say, how long we had been in the dreams. Maybe the dreams had taken hours, maybe days, maybe just seconds. I started to wonder, how much the dream could do to you. Luna had actually died, but with the help of Dream Cry, she had come back. The dram logic had also changed a lot of things, even things like age. Could it change somepony's cutie mark? Could it create new ponies out of nothing? I would have to further investigate it at some point, but now we arrived at the Royal Tower. 

We went up, through corridors and up stairs through doors, all lead by Twili. I had expected either Princess Cadence or Prince Shining Armor to be in there, but it was actually empty. I realized, that they had been ordered to Ponyville to help the other princesses rebuilding Equestria.
 “So Twilight, how are you actually going to open up Sombra's secret passage or hiding place?” 
I asked, actually quite curious. There was nothing to see anywhere. 
“It's easy as this: King Sombra actually had a Shadow Empire, not a Crystal Empire. We have to use his kind of magic, a magic of hatred to restore the Shadow Empire. The Crystal Heart however will fight the dark magic, so we work with limited time. Alright, everypony spread up!” 

We all went to a different part of the room. I was close to the door, where the wall had suspicious figures engraved. It was a strange spectacle I now witnessed: Twilight used her magic, the usual purple magic and I was almost doubting her, but then the purple slowly got darker and darker and turned to a black aura. Then, her magic actually became a dark purple and green blistering as also streams of the same purple magic came out of her eyes. I thought, I had collected enough scary experiences for many many nightmares, but obviously it shouldn't ever end. A black stream of magic erupted, hitting the main crystal above the throne, which turned the crystal black. 
It started to cast a shadow throughout the room, revealing a hidden staircase. As she used more and more magic, more and more parts of the room were becoming dark. There was nothing. Not even the suspicious engraved figures were there. Just raw crystals. We started to look around everywhere, but there was just nothing. 
“Faster!” 
Twilight pressed through her teeth. Then, I had a sudden idea: If the shadow fiends were in the dream world, wouldn't their source also be there? We had not seen anything, but maybe that had been because the throne had not been 'activated'.

I decided to go deeper, relaxing. The whispy lines appeared, and I tried to pull myself as fast into a dream as I could, without losing control. It was the dream world, but something seemed to cast a shadow in front of me. Not an usual shadow though, a shadow, that was brighter than the surrounding. I turned around and there it was. A crystal heart, casting darkness, not light, into the dream world. I tried to get a step closer, but suddenly it just disappeared. 
Only the dark glow remained, but too weak to really shine over the stars. We had finally found the source. I decided to enter reality again to check what had happened.

When the whispy lines left my field of vision again, I saw that everypony looked unsatisfied. Except Twilight, she was just totally exhausted. The magic had stopped and the Crystal heart had turned everything back to normal. 
“I found it. I found the source.” 
I couldn't really contain the information much longer. 
“Where?” 
Rarity was obviously confused, but when I looked around, so was everypony else. 
“I found it inside the dream world. It was a crystal heart, the same as down under the tower, just black.”
“Oh yeah? Why haven't you found it before then?”
I wonder why Rainbow Dash was so agressive towards me. 
“Because only Twili's magic made the source visible.” 
Twilight thought about those words for a moment, then she went ahead. 
“Okay. I have got a plan. We all stand close together here. I cast enough magic on the crystal for us to have a bit of time, then we enter the dream world and destroy the source immediately, before it can hide again. I don't want anymore corruption, not anymore shadow beings, not anymore agitation of all these evil creatures.” 

Twilight started to create the black magic again and channeled it into the crystal throne. After two long heartbeats, she pressed a 'Now!' through her teeth. I created the shield and went over into the dream world again. The giant glowing black crystal heart was now hovering in front of us now. Twilight and her friends began to use the Elements of Harmony instantaneously. The well-known rainbow erupted from the crown, flying into the air and then down onto the heart. This was too easy.

Just before being reached, the black heart exploded. Not a normal explosion, but instead an explosion of black light. We were blown away, but luckily the landing didn't hurt. When I got up again, I realized, that now there were seven shadow fiends. Each shadow fiend had a part of the black crystal heart inside it. The black crystal heart had somehow managed to evade the breaching hit.
This would be a lot more difficult than we had imagined it to be. However, through this first missed hit, it seemed as if the parts of the black crystal heart would not disappear again. Twilight instantly created a shield around us, defending us from the shadow monstrosities. They went ahead and tried to attack by expanding her shadow arms towards us, but the shield blocked the streams of black smoke coming towards us. After a moment, everypony was ready to fight back.

They organized themselves in a circle and started to hover slightly. A rainbow erupted out of Twilights crown and finished off the first shadow fiend. This time it had not been able to split into even smaller parts. The part of the heart was being filled with the rainbow color, but it didn't withstand the pressure for long. There was a huge black explosion, almost blowing the shadow fiends away, that stood too close. 
They quickly recovered and continued firing onto the shield with their smoke arms. Twilight Sparkle was a bit slower. It took her almost half an minute to channel the next shot at another shadow fiend. This next explosion was so hard, that I could see Twilight's shield crumbling. I had to do something and I decided to use my own magic.
I created a shield, but I also took some of my strength and I put it into what had been supposed to be a bolt of fire. If I would have waited for them to destroy all six other dream monsters, they would have died of exhaustion before actually winning.

Instead of exploding upon impact, that fire bolt consumed more and more energy. It didn't really reach the shadow fiend, but the giant blinding explosion was enough to completely blow it apart. Only the following black explosion ripping through the clouds of fire and smoke showed me, that it had worked. The shield of Twilight had been completely obliberated, but my shield still held on. These shadow fiends were incredibly strong; It took all my concentration to keep that shield up, but I realized, that I couldn't keep it up for long. “Fast!” I yelled, knowing, that it was as fast as they could go. Another rainbow started to swirl up and crush down onto the fourth shadow fiend. That fiend took almost two heartbeats trying to recover, until it finally exploded from the massive rainbow beam.
The explosion almost ripped my shield apart. 

This was getting increasingly difficult and there were still three shadow fiends left. You could see, that everypony was too exhausted. They had used the Elements of Harmony for defending us from the combined power of seven shadow monsters and additionally channeling three attacks now. Instead of hovering above the ground, they were standing on weak legs, barely able to keep themselves up. Rainbow Dash was probably still the strongest, but even her strength was coming to an end. It was a hard decision to make. Should I use my magic again? If I didn't use my magic, my shield would not keep up against the force of three shadow fiends. However, if I did use my magic, my power would be totally consumed by the three shadow fiends very soon. I looked at Twilight's struggle to keep upright and decided, that the only way to defend us was attacking the remaining shadow fiends. 

I tried to fire another fireball at the shadow creature to my left. Instead of the ease, I had with firing the last one, I really felt the exhaustion growing and growing. The fireball also didn't just explode before even reaching the shadow fiend, instead it flew half way through him. I already thought, it had been a complete waste, but right there inside the shadow fiend, the smoke was sucked into the fireball for a heartbeat, then it exploded with unexpected force. My shield broke down under the pressure and we all were thrown through the air. This time, the landing pressed all air out of my lungs and probably got all my pre-acquired wounds to open again. The support for my leg was definitely gone now, flown off into the air upon impact, and and my chest felt as if there was a knife inside there. I coughed and I felt some kind of liquid inside my mouth, which was not a good feeling. It tasted like copper, so I was pretty sure, it was my own blood. 

There were still two shadow fiends around. Through the explosion, we had been blown away far away from them, but they were already coming closer again. 
I tried to retreat, I tried to pull us all out. However, as the first whispy lined appeared, they did not flow around the shield as it had used to, but instead it flowed right towards the two left fragments, splitting up and being absorbed by both of them. I tried to go deeper, not giving up. The parts of this shadow heart just kept absorbing the whispy lines from afar, without me getting anything done. Although they had done it before, it was still scary. They did not let us retreat. This was definitely not good. Twilight was still lying there unconsciously, while Rainbow Dash and Rarity tried to help her. Pinkie Pie was helping Fluttershy, while Applejack slowly got up.

The shadow fiends were coming ever closer though. It would not be enough time. 
“Dream Whisper, you have to take us back.” Rainbow Dash was furious.
“I tried, it didn't work. They just suck up these whispy lines.” 
I really needed to get a name for them. Dream lines? Nah, that sounds awful. Then again, shadow fiend or shadow monster is probably not the best name either. 
“Then we have to fight!” It was impressive how confident she still was.

The last two shadow fiends laughed: 
“Give up. You are all on your own now. You are too tired, too exhausted. Anger will always rise in the shadows, it will always be there, maybe not even in sight, but you cannot destroy it. Even if you could defeat us, that wouldn't destroy the dark side in anypony. Celestia had her dark secrets, so did Luna. Even your friends are not perfect, none of them. Everypony is infected with our very essence. You can try to deny it, but it will destroy you eventually.”

In this moment I had to think about Celestia. Her face, when she said: 'You are the abonimation of Dream Cry and my sister. You will be purged off this world.' It had been the hatred of a thousand years. Then I had to think about Candy Pop, about her deformed face, her search for the reason. This was the reason; I had found it. Now it was time to destroy it, destroy the real reason. Discord may have been the pony killing her, but this source had been releasing him onto the world. The shadow creatures were still coming closer and closer, I had to do something. I looked to Twilight, she was still unconscious. 
There was only one power strong enough here to kill the two shadow fiends. I didn't have enough magic left after defending all of these attacks. Only one path was left: The amplification of my magic by the dream. 

“Run, please!” My order towards my friends could not have been any more imploring. They started to retreat, too slow for my liking. I tried to wait as long as I could, but when the shadow fiend stood directly in front of me, I had to do it. 
I fired a small fireball at the shadow fiend. Nothing, that would even amuse him, if he noticed it at all. I could feel the spell growing and growing, taking my power. 
Instead of stopping, I just let go. I put everything into it; Every bit of power that I had. Every emotion of mine. I remembered the face of Candy Pop. I remembered Celestia maniacally laughing. I remembered the graveyard that had been Canterlot. I remembered all the pain, that the black crystal heart had caused, all the wounds it had opened, all the lives it had destroyed. If we would have only known it before this all happened. This black crystal heart itself was weak, but it's power to strengthen the anger in others was mighty. 
This was the reason for all this misfortune. Even though it would take everything, I was ready to give it, to just maybe become the pony, I had been for Candy Pop.

The unreal power of the dream just streamed through me, starting to hurt immensely. I used every single dream, every single bit of power I could get my hooves on. 
Instead of using only the dreams, I used the whole plane of this world, every dream in Equestria, the unreal magic. The spell was growing stronger with every beat of my heart, but at the same time, the magic was ripping me apart. I gave everything, I could, and more. Just like a rubber band stretched to far, everything suddenly stopped 
– 
But not without a huge explosion.