Nothing hit the door. Nothing pounded, nothing rattled, nothing shook. The sudden silence made Dash feel as though the world outside had vanished completely. It was dark in Fluttershy's cabin, and she blinked to try and adjust her eyes to the gloom. Only then did she notice the smell. Something smelled sharp and unplesant. A foul odor she couldn't quite place. . .
Movement drew her eye to the far side of the living room, a shifting in the shadows, a soft rustling. Dash suddenly had the impression that she'd been chased here, herded like so much cattle. She squinted hard, the light from her pendant falling far short of the walls. She readied herself to strike, and strike hard. She felt, deep in her bones, that she wouldn't survive another encounter with the wax stranger.
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Fluttershy?” More rustling, but no answer. Dash licked her dry lips and tried again. “Fluttershy, is that you?” Breathing hard, she slowly pulled herself off the front door and, when it didn't smash inward, she limped forward. Shadows flowed to fill the space behind her. “Fluttershy?”
A soft voice drifted into her ears, a voice as devoid of threat as a kitten's plaintive mewl. “Um, I don't think you're supposed to be here. Please go away.”
Dash released a heavy breath she didn't even know she'd been holding. “Fluttershy! For hoof's sake, you almost gave me a heart attack! We've got to get out of here.”
Dash advanced another couple of steps, and the glow from her pendant fell upon a crouching pegasus pushing herself up against a wall next to a small bookshelf. Her coat and mane were a pale grey in the crimson light, and every muscle in her body trembled. Her wide eyes were vacant, seeing nothing, and her shoulders pressed to the floor as though an immense weight had pinned her in place. “Please go.” Fluttershy whimpered. “Wh-Whoever you are.”
Dash sagged like she'd been kicked in the stomach. “Oh, wow. You. . . You don't remember me at all? It's me, Rainbow Dash.”
“I'd just – I must have forgotten something.” Fluttershy's trembling intensified. “I was supposed to do something, but I must have forgot. I'm sorry I forgot!” Her voice rose in pitch. “I don't remember forgetting, but I must have, because all my little friends. . .”
“What are you babbling about?” Dash asked, even though she thought she might be starting to understand. She felt a lump rise in her throat, and she swallowed it down hard. That rank smell was beginning to make a sick sort of sense.
“I - I tried to feed them, but they wouldn't eat! They wouldn't move. . . They wouldn't – So, s-so I tried bringing them all water, in little dishes. . .” Fluttershy was hyperventilating now, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks. “B-but they wouldn't drink, and they wouldn't eat, and they wouldn't play, a-and they wouldn't m-m-move, even when I nudged them a little.” Abrupt sobs started to break apart her words. “And – and I didn't – I didn't know. . . I'm s. . . And – and I've been – been so lonely – and I'm. . . s-s-s-s-sor-ry!”
Oh, her dream was bad alright. That lump in Dash's throat only got worse, and her vision blurred a little. She reached out a hoof, and Fluttershy twitched away, pushing herself harder against the wall. And in that moment her mane shifted, revealing a white growth like a cancer between her shoulder blades. Dash gasped and blinked her eyes clear. Oh, it's just Angel. The fluffy rabbit with the attitude problem was always hanging out in Fluttershy's mane. In fact, he looked like he was trying to comfort her or something.
Wait. On closer inspection, Angel bunny was. . . was gently chewing on Fluttershy's neck. With a wide crescent mouth filled with tiny, needle-like teeth. Without moving, it glanced up and met Dash's gaze. And it grinned, the corners of its mouth slick with blood. It's face sagged a little, like soft wax.
“AAAAUUAGH!” Dash involuntarily tried to jump out of her own skin. It was already here. It had Fluttershy. Had her stuck inside her worst nightmare. A hollow rushing sound filled Dash's ears, like wind through a wasteland.
The rabbit spoke, oozing the words out from around its mouthful of fur. “Fret not.” It was the stranger's voice. “You are next.”
Rainbow Dash drew back her hoof. “Oh, you're going DOWN!” She struck, her panic and rage swelling her power. The bolt of magic she flung accidentally clipped Fluttershy and nearly tossed her out the hole it blew in the wall, revealing a fractured landscape where inky tendrils of darkness probed their way up through cracks in the ground. But the Angel imposter had leaped easily over her assault, flinging itself at Dash's head. It grew as it arced, like a balloon swelling, and its mouth stretched wider and wider and wider.
It smashed into the floor, sending chunks and splinters of wood into the air. But Dash wasn't there. She'd hopped backwards, her injured hoof faltering beneath her weight as she landed. The wax Angel now looked like a bulbous monster, hunched and muscular. A barbed paw shot out, and Dash had to roll herself out of the way, wincing at the pain in her useless wings. The exact moment her hooves hit the floor again she pushed hard with her three good limbs, jumping straight into the air, evading massive, lunging jaws.
Dash twisted as she jumped, and she landed on the deformed rabbit's back, her hooves sinking a little bit into the waxy substance. Then she drove her hoof down against the back of the creature's skull, detonating magic as she did. The creature's entire head vaporized, along with one of Fluttershy's end tables. Fortunately, pain was a firm teacher and Dash a fast learner. She snatched her hoof back as another set of jaws slid out of the rabbit's shoulder, clamping shut with a metallic ringing sound.
She kicked backwards the next instant, peeling her hooves off the thing as she back-flipped. The world spun, and the wax creature turned to face her, another head re-forming as it roared, shaking the walls. Then she saw the ceiling, still thick with shadows. Then the blasted wall, and Fluttershy hanging on over the edge of the hole as the world disappeared beneath her, the dream splintering bit by bit. As she completed the flip, her vision filled with a wide, waxy mouth, its bitter breath somehow worse than the stench of death that filled the innocent little cottage.
Dash struck with both hooves, the magical concussion shoving her away from the beast as light seared her eyes and her ears rang. She hit the wall like a bundle of rags and collapsed to the floor. She tried to ground herself the way Luna taught her, bracing her mind deep within the fraying fabric of the dream. With a gasp she flung out her good hoof, putting up a shield in time to have the demon slam against it, deforming and squishing as its jaws snapped for her face. But the shield didn't budge. Hah! Nailed it! She allowed herself a small, triumphant grin.
Having bought herself a moment, Rainbow Dash dove towards the hole in the wall, grabbing a yellow hoof just as it slipped off the jagged bit of wood it was clutching. “Gotcha!” Dash hauled backwards, dragging Fluttershy back into the cabin. “Celestia, that was a close one. Why didn't you just fly back in?”
“Um,” Fluttershy scooted backwards a little, avoiding all eye contact. “Thank you, I guess. Whoever you are.”
“Woah.” Dash used her good hoof to pull the mare's eyes up to hers. “Try and remember me.” She reached out her injured hoof and touched it to Fluttershy's collarbone, precisely where her Element should have been. “You and I go way back, Fluttershy.”
The timid pegasus pulled her face away, but her brow creased in thought as she mouthed the unfamiliar name. Her own name.
Dash's gaze was imploring. “You said, 'Remember to trus-'” A shattering sound accompanied a shattering sensation in her mind as a huge tacky paw blasted through her shield and slammed her to the floor. A deep roar shook the world. Then the floor disappeared, as Dash found herself crashing through a pair of thick ceiling beams. Fortunately the giant limb itself took the brunt of the impacts as it swung her around, but her vision still flickered. Then she found herself blinking blearily into a hellish face stretched taut into a grin that went on forever.
“Break.” The bubbling voice crooned. “Just break.”
Dash's jaw felt unhinged, but it seemed to work okay without her. “Just bite me.” She mumbled. “You sticky sack of crap. . .”
“Hush.” The digits holding her off the floor flowed together, merging and oozing up her neck, until the vile substance covered her mouth and nose. Dash held onto her breath, glaring as she struggled uselessly. She started to feel lightheaded. It's not real! She thought frantically. I don't even need to breathe here, do I? It's just a stupid frikkin' dream! But as much as she tried to convince herself, she still struggled to draw air into her lungs. Her hoof and her wings still hurt bitterly. The dream still held her. This dream sucks.
“Let my friend go.” A voice like soft chimes spoke, and Dash's eyebrows shot upward. She rolled her eyes as far as she could, and caught sight of Fluttershy. The pegasus still looked grey, weak and shaken, but the color had returned to her eyes, and she stood her ground.
The wax creature had continued to swell as the dream crumbled, and it was now a monstrous parody of a rabbit, easily taking up half of the modest cottage. It paused for a second to consider this new threat. Dash shouted a warning, muffled as it was, but the creature's paw shot out too quickly slamming down atop Fluttershy before she could make a sound and Dash tried to cry out even though she was too late and too helpless to save her.
That demonic face returned, filling her vision. Dash's eyebrows clenched into an enraged scowl. You'd better make sure I'm dead. Dash thought bitterly as tiny lights began to dance before her eyes. Because I'm gonna peel you like a grape you rotten bastard.
Dash's chest was on fire, and her vision swam out of focus. So she didn't see the exact moment the leering face turned away, but she noticed it wasn't smiling anymore. Dash blinked hard a few times. What. . . A pale blue glow was leaking out from under the massive paw. The beast snarled, its rounded shoulders hunching as it drove its weight down onto its mitt, crushing it into the wood of the floor, eliciting another muffled roar from Dash.
Then the monster's paw started to shake. It rose slowly up into the air, revealing a radiant Fluttershy on her hind legs, lifting the paw up over her head with sheer force. Dash wondered for a moment if she was hallucinating. Until Fluttershy's voice rang out, clear and strong. “I said, let her go!” Her mane was matted and filthy, but her coat shone like clean sunshine, the gem of her Element a beacon of light.
The waxy flesh oozed down over her hooves, encasing her to the elbows, but Fluttershy snarled in response, and the creature's flesh hardened, desiccated, until the dry tissue fractured like desert soil. Then she wrenched her hooves free, and the beast's paw shattered, scattering chunks of dry flesh all around her.
The demon's mouth opened. A bass rumble eclipsed by a piercing, alien cry of pain dribbled forth, its fleshy gullet undulating in time with the sound. It scooped up a large wooden cabinet with its stump and brought it down like a club with a mighty crash. But Fluttershy had stepped towards the monster, beyond the splintering wood, and wrapped her arms around the appendage. “Let her go now!” With a cracking sound, Fluttershy twisted the arm off at the elbow and flung the dry limb against the wall.
Dash found herself being swung like a weapon at her friend. Fluttershy braced herself, wings outstretched. Dash watched the cottage rush around her, and she collided sideways against Fluttershy's ribs. But she forced her eyes to stay open, so she saw the moment Fluttershy put her hoof through the demon's wrist, snapping off the paw encasing Dash in the same motion.
The two of them spun into the wall, her disgusting prison crumbling into pieces. She gasped huge, shuddering breaths before curling into a coughing fit that made her eyes run. But she blinked hard, trying to clear her eyes as best she could, because she didn't want to miss one second of this. Fluttershy was already back on her feet, flipping her mane out of her eyes. “You asked for it, Mister.”
The yellow pegasus charged across the room, and the wax demon swung its mighty limbs. Her chest still heaving, Dash forced herself to stand, intent on helping her friend. But by the time she did, it was all over. Fluttershy had already pounced atop the monstrosity and was tearing it apart with her bare hooves. As it crumbled into chunks of dry mud, it's bubbling wails dwindled down to mere glubs. “Woah.” Dash stared in genuine awe.
Then the wall behind her splintered, showering her with bits of wood. Dash staggered forward, shielding her face with a hoof. Behind her, black tendrils leaked and probed, obscuring a wasteland of barren rock.
Fluttershy appeared at her side. “It's okay, Rainbow.” Dash found herself staring into kind cyan eyes. “It's just the dream falling apart. Are you hurt?”
Dash grimaced and shrugged. “My wings are pretty messed up, other than. . .”
Fluttershy was shaking her head. “No, I meant really hurt. In here.” A hoof reached up to touch Dash's own Element, dimly glowing crimson. “Your physical injuries only exist here because your mind says they should.”
“Feels pretty real.” Dash muttered. But then she had to think about it for a second, as more of the cottage fell away. “Oh, you mean like mentally or spiritually or whatcrap? Nah, I'm fine. It'd take more than some nasty booger demon to get to me.” Her smirk faded into uncertainty. “What about you? You were in. . . in kind of a dark place there for awhile.”
Fluttershy shuddered delicately, but she centered herself with a breath. “I'm fine, I think.”
“Look, Fluttershy, I'm really sorry I said you would lose a fight with a breakfast muffin. I, like, totally underestimated you and stuff.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy brushed some dust off her coat. “That's okay. Don't worry about it.”
“No, seriously.” Dash's eyes positively glowed with excitement. “You kicked some royal flank back there! You were amazing!”
“Um, thanks.” Fluttershy smiled. “But we really should. . .”
“I mean it.” Dash interrupted, her tone intense. “There's nopony I'd rather have watching my back than you.”
Fluttershy grabbed Dash by the hoof and slung her to the side just as the floor erupted, fractured into chunks like rafts atop a sea of darkness. “That's great,” Fluttershy said. “Thank you. You're a good friend too. But we need to leave. Now.”
Dash nodded. “Just tell me what to do.”
Princess Luna held tightly to the magical tether in her hooves as it guided her in broad curves through the air. She could see nothing beyond the bright phosphorescent flashes that forced her to squeeze her eyes shut. She could hear nothing over the continuous stream of detonations reverberating all around and below her. Magically, she could sense nothing beyond the ripples of energy those detonations unleashed. Despite the way her ears rang and her eyes watered, she grinned. Her spell was designed to overwhelm and disorient the senses, and it seemed to be working. The sky-worm undulated somewhere below her without direction or purpose, and so long as she could keep this up, her charges somewhere below her remained safe.
Never before had she encountered a being so prodigious. And here she rode the beast through the sky of a forsaken land, putting to shame even the most epic of verses sung about heroes of old. Squinting hard, Luna could barely make out the very tip of the whisker she had encumbered with her snare, and she smiled through the severity of her plight. “Great worm!” She spoke for her ears and her ears alone. “We name thee Ouroboros the Devourer, after the creation tale told by the Sarosans! 'Tis an honor to do battle with thee!”
Surely the Elements could achieve the sort of magic required to bind such a beast, at least, Luna fervently hoped so. She felt that her options were as limited as her power, a feeling which stuck bitterly in her throat. The land thronged with a power she dared not touch, and the gifted prodigy who had bargained for access to that power was, by a misbegotten twist of fate, indisposed. Irony was indeed a cruel and bitter mistress. So she contented herself with her light display, launching tiny balls of moonlight from the tip of her horn that arced forward and exploded into loud bangs and bright flashes, until she could devise another plan. Or, more likely, until her subjects could find the opportunity to assist her.
That was the plan, at least. Until a ripple of energy surged through her magical smoke screen, a flurry of ice pelting her horn from somewhere along the rim below. And despite her best efforts, the colossus twisted in her grasp, angling back towards the disturbance with a deep, resonating groan. What transpires. . ? Luna ceased her distraction, allowing the sky to clear long enough to blink her eyes and clear her senses.
Through the gathering dark of night power erupted; geysers of magic vomiting into the air and scything clumsily along the slope, wreaking unfocused havoc. By the cold rime of the moon. . . Young Spike? It did not feel like Twilight Sparkle, and the bright unicorn would never have unleashed spells so crude, or so undiscriminatingly dangerous. In point of fact her sharp eyes spotted below, not nearly distant enough from the outpouring of power, the dim outline of the Vigil. As she and the colossus drew closer, she noted how the vicious attacks curved or deflected away from the transport. Twilight. . . Even when the world has turned against thee and thy heart fills with shadows, thou art still true to thy friends.
Yet the worm approached, and it was vast enough to swallow every good thing which remained. Luna shuddered to think what might come next. But she would not allow these fine souls to perish without a fight. She needed to become more clever. Immediately.
“Back!” Pinkie Pie shouted over her shoulder. “Back back back back back back back back back!!!!”
“I'm trying!” Rarity retorted. “It is not as easy as all that!”
“Well keep trying!” Pinkie's head was stuck out of the Vigil's windows. “There's craaaaaazy stuff going on out here!”
“There's crazy stuff going on right here!” Rarity maintained her undignified position, a sprawled stance in the very center of the bridge. “I'm speaking to rocks, for sweet chamomile's sake, asking them to move us about! Do you have the slightest idea-”
“Would you be a dear and stop speaking in italics, please?” Pinkie interrupted with a haughty air.
“Wait. . . What? Are you quite-”
The sound of an explosion echoed from behind them, cutting Rarity off mid-sentence. Pinkie gasped, clutching her knee to her chest. “Okay, forward! Go down the slope!”
“Okay!” Rarity muttered more words under her breath, the gem at her throat radiating a comforting lavender light.
“Um. . . That's good, keep going. Take us more to the right. No no no, not our right!”
“Whose right could you possibly mean!?!”
“Oh. Oh nononononononono up! Up up up!”
“You mean straight up? Really?”
The world outside had been growing darker, but it had suddenly fallen under a deeper shadow. Pinkie Pie wilted. “Uuuuuuummmmmm, I guess I wouldn't bother.”
Princess Luna materialized just beyond the windows, swooping in looking even more haggard and singed. “Alas, despite my efforts the worm draws nigh.”
Pinkie sighed folornly. “And here I can hardly draw stick figures.”
Luna turned a quizzical look towards Rarity.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “What can we do, Princess?”
“Pinkamena!” Tension made Luna's words sharp. “Can thou shield the entirety of the Vigil at once?”
“Um. . .” Pinkie hesitated.
“Very well. Then we shall do it. Brace thyselves.”
Silence settled over everything, a match to the deepening gloom. Light fled as though terrified to stay, and the companions glanced at one another in alarm.
The world above Twilight was blotted out by a coruscation of black force. Through her dispersion shield, she could no longer see the distant stars. Another blast followed, and another, but they came no closer to finding their mark. Spike's howls of rage sounded distant, dwarfed by his utterances of magic. “Spike! Please stop!” There was no way he could have heard her, but that didn't keep her from crying out over and over again. “Please!”
He charged her, loping on all-fours, his onyx scales reflecting what little light existed in this strange moonless night. He arced towards her, his tiny claws extended, his face a rictus of childlike rage and childlike hurt, poisoned by dark emotions he could not control. In a flash of insight, she realized he had no real way to cope with those feelings. The same way she'd had no real way to cope with losing Princess Celestia. I can't. . . I can't. . . She panted.
Her hooves felt heavy as she stepped back, his claws missing her eyes by inches. Oh Celestia, “Please stop it.” Spike lunged for her again, and she stopped his swipe with a hoof. I can't do this without you. “Spike, why. . .” He screamed something incoherent as he thrust his claws forward, ordering the skirling shadows to crest above his head and fall upon her like a tidal wave. The sun's gone out. I don't know what to do anymore. . . “Please! I'm begging you!” The shadows parted around her as they collapsed. After all, they obeyed her, too.
Spike's mouth opened to reply, and an inferno of dragon fire poured out, green tongues of flame entwined with coal black. Her heart lurched brokenly as she teleported away, stumbling to her knees as she reappeared. “Don't. . .” Don't make me do this. She turned her pleading to the stars, but they had become too distant. Unreachable. Too ephemeral to guide one bereft and unworthy soul. “I can't. . .” I can't bear it.
She knew what she had to do. Even as Spike reoriented on her and launched another howling blast, she knew what her choices were. She could give up her power, her tether to the darkness, and search once again for her connection to the Elements. If they could cleanse this land, she could render Spike entirely powerless, even as she rendered herself powerless against Yami. It was a choice that likely ended in her death, and the death of everyone she loved, Spike included. It was hardly a choice at all. Or. . .
The sky-serpent approached, drawn by Spike's heedless outrage. Yet it meant nothing more than an allegory for the doom she'd failed to pull any of them out from under. Or. . . I could. . . She knew the spells. She'd studied them in a frenzy of intellectual curiosity back when she was naive enough to believe that knowledge had no power to hurt her. Oh Celestia, where did you find. . . Her grief threatened to drown her utterly.
Where did you find the courage to banish your own sister?
Now the worm blotted out the heavens, its maw gaping like a portal to blackness and oblivion. A mountain of pale flesh streaked with iridescence threatened to consume everything. Do it now! She could stop it. She had power enough to turn aside the impossible monster, and she likely had the will to do so without harming the Vigil. But not with Spike consuming her attention. Do it! If she banished him now, there might still be time. Hurry! She didn't have to die. She could still save her friends. All she had to do was finish the job. Banish the innocent soul she'd already hurt beyond all recognition and complete her betrayal.
Her heart lurched brokenly, even as Spike's next shout carved away another arcing crescent of rocky slope. She scarcely parted the destructive forces around herself in time. Lifting her horn felt like lifting a dead body as she swatted Spike gently off his feet, buying herself one clear moment. “Please forgive me.” The words fell uselessly from her lips, articulating the shattered pieces of her heart. The glow of her horn scaled upwards through layers of luminescence, until she shone like a beacon. Her body lifted into the air.
Celestia, help me.
She made her choice. The shadows fell away from her. The thick clots of midnight which had congealed beneath her coat sloughed away, repudiated by the pain and helplessness pervading her soul. She shed the Darkness like a cloak even as the weight of her despair threatened to crush her. Everyone. . . Please forgive me. She clutched her hooves to her chest as a keening wail began in her throat. I can't. Her lavender coat shook with sobs. I can't do it. I'm sorry.
Then the worm crashed itself into the bones of the world and consumed all trace of light and hope and the whole world erupted.