Chapter 19
Alan and Twilight were alone in the Library. They laid on large piles of pillows, each reading their own books as they basked in the candlelight of the center room.
“Alright,” Twilight said, “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth,” Alan answered, without looking up from his book.
“Who’s your favorite author?”
“Human or Pony?”
Twilight thought for a second. “Why don’t you give me one of each.”
“Human would probably have to be Tolkien. Got a lot of respect for his world building. As for Pony...hm...that mare that writes the Daring Do books isn’t bad.”
“Alright,” she said, turning the page.
“My turn?”
“Last I checked,” she answered with a smile.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” she answered.
“What was the most dangerous spell you ever learned?”
“Probably the Runespell.”
“Runespell?”
She looked up at him. “Oh! Right, you were unconscious for that. That was the spell I used to save your life before we got together. You know, the one that opened a gate into the void.”
“Oh. You mean the one that could destroy the universe if you use it again?”
“Exactly,” she said with a hint of a smile.
Alan nodded. “Your turn.”
“Truth?”
“Yep.”
“Alright, so...what did you want to do back on Earth? You know, before you got sucked into Equestria?”
“Besides every kid’s dream to be an astronaut?” he asked with a snicker. “I wanted to be a teacher, actually. History teacher. My first round of school didn’t go so well, so I was taking a gap year to try and raise money to go again. Then this happened.”
“Hm, I can see that. You would have made a good teacher.”
“Thank you,” Alan said with a smile.
“Now, truth or dare?”
Twilight smiled, as she shot him her best seductive smoulder. “Dare.”
Alan took one look at her face, and said simply, “I dare you to meet me in the bedroom.”
<<<|Ω|>>>
The siblings Sparkle continued to march upward, climbing perhaps the longest staircase they had ever seen collectively.
“Why,” Twilight gasped, “are,” another breath, “there,” pant, “so,” huff, “many,” puff, “stairs?”
“Griffons,” Shining began, “fly,” he sucked in a breath. “They,” gasp, “don’t,” pant, “climb them.”
The two unicorns came up to a landing, and Twilight immediately flopped to the ground. “This...can’t be healthy…”
Shining panted, barely holding himself up as he hunched over the ground. “Eight months of boot camp, and none of it compares to that.”
They took a moment or two to catch their breath, breathing heavily before gathering themselves up again.
“Alright, you ready?” Shining asked.
“More or less,” Twilight said, before she began climbing more stairs.
This flight, however, was considerably shorter, and they suddenly found themselves looking down a rather nice archway.
A rather nice archway with several changelings on the other side.
Now, for Twilight, who had just been through a rather harrowing experience of being eaten alive, all she saw in those dozen and a half changelings were a dozen and a half punching bags.
She grinned.
They never stood a chance.
<<<|Ω|>>>
As the two unicorns walked away from the part of the Keep that would forever after be called “Room of the Mare’s Fury,” Twilight couldn’t help but smile.
Shining followed, throwing a backwards glance at the utter destruction that now filled the room. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes, yes it was,” she answered.
Shining thought about questioning that.
Then he thought better.
“So where to now?” he asked.
“Wherever the path takes us,” Twilight answered.
“It’s a start,” Shining said with a smirk.
The two continued to walk, and Shining noticed a slight change in architecture. The square, and once cramped hallways gave way to open, ornate passageways, decorated with blue-grey granite pillars and white flagstones. Torches hung from sconces that hung along the walls, and tapestries of battles and legends past gently moved in the light breeze. Doors sat along both sides of the hall, appearing at even intervals, and decorated with golden trimming.
“I think we’re getting closer,” Shining said.
“What makes you say that?”
“These look like these would be the nobles’ quarters, where dignitaries and lords rest while they wait for their audience. We shouldn’t be far.”
“Of course,” Twilight said, “one wrong turn in this place and it’d take a day or two to get back.”
“So let’s not make any wrong turns then,” Shining said with a smirk.
Twilight shook her head and rolled her eyes.
They passed by five doors, and before long, they found themselves facing a fork in the road.
Twilight turned to her brother. “You had to say it, didn’t you?”
Shining glanced back. “I don’t want to hear it from you, missie.”
The two stared at the fork for a moment or two before Shining finally said, “Alright, let’s go left.”
“Are you sure?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight,” he said with a sigh, “I haven’t been sure of anything since I’ve gotten here.”
Twilight sighed. “Left it is.”
They went left, and disappeared from sight.
A lone changeling, clinging to the ceiling above, followed them.
<<<|Ω|>>>
It seems like they had taken a wrong turn.
Twilight sighed as she trudged after her brother, having returned to the more cramped hallways and dark stone mosaics.
“We should go back,” she groaned, for what felt like the thousandth time.
“I have a good feeling about this passage,” Shining restated.
The passage in question was a rather long stretch of hallway with a light at the end.
“We should go back,” Twilight said again, walking just behind her brother.
“Look, I have a good feeling, alright! Just trust me.”
Twilight trudged on.
“Really, why can’t you trust me?”
“I trust you,” Twilight said.
“No you don’t! You and Cadence both! I say I know where I’m going, and then you both jump on the nearest pony to ask for directions. Seriously.”
Silence.
“Are you done?” she asked.
Shining sighed. “Yeah…”
“Feel better?”
“No,” he answered.
“You’ll be fine, Shining…”
Shining continued to sigh.
They kept walking down the hallway, slowly approaching the light at the end of the passageway.
As they came to the end, they turned a corner, and were met with a sight that they were honestly never expecting to see. The unicorn pair found themselves staring out of one of the small, bunker-like windows that dotted the mountainside. The sky was turning a beautiful purple-pink as the sun slowly began to rise. Normally white and puffy clouds were a bright red, and the stars were beginning to retreat from sight.
Twilight yawned. “Have we really been up that long?”
“Apparently,” Shining said, stifling a yawn himself.
“Alright,” Twilight said, as her mind began to whirl. “Let’s see. We are facing the east side of the mountain,” she began, before sticking her head through the window. “We seem to be about three thousand, four hundred and sixty three hooves up. And, if I remember correctly, Mount Ebonrock is six thousand, eight hundred and twenty four hooves tall, so we’re about halfway up.”
“And…?”
“And that means, I know where we are,” Twilight said with a smile as she brought her head back inside, “and more importantly, where we need to go.”
Shining blinked, before he smiled. “So if we had turned back you wouldn’t have found out?”
Twilight looked up at him before rolling her eyes.
“I’ll take that as a yes! Score one for Team Shining!”
Twilight shook her head.
“Shining?” a new voice said, and both unicorns turned to look down the hallway in front of them.
Before them stood a white unicorn with golden hooves. “Twilight!” Alan cried, his face breaking out into a smile.
“Alan!” Twilight called, running to him and taking him in a hug.
Alan grabbed her, holding her tight against him.
“Where’s Julius?” Twilight asked.
“We split up, Julius is with the others right now,” Alan said.
“You met up with everypony else?”
“Yeah, we’re going to start an assault on the throne room soon, but I didn’t want to do this without you, so Julius and I went looking for you two.”
“Alan,” Twilight said, hugging him again as her horn began to shine, “Hold still.”
A magenta mana-knife was suddenly at Alan’s throat.
“Whoa! Twily! What are you doing?” Shining cired.
“Who’s your favorite author?” she asked
“Um...um…” Alan said, “Peater V. Bit?”
The blade plunged into Alan’s neck.
Twilight let the body drop.
“Twilight! What did you do?!”
“I killed a changeling, obviously,” she said, coolly. “Really, Shining, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.”
Shining blinked at her, before he watched the body of his friend become engulfed in green flame, leaving behind black chitin in place of fur.
“I...I…” Shinning began.
“Alan has two favorite Authors,” Twilight explained. “One human, one pony. J.R.R. Tolkien for the human one, and Inky Hooves, the author of the Daring Do series.”
Shining blinked.
“I’ve got a dozen others for Alan, and then a few for everypony else. There’s no way I’m going to let somepony disguise themselves as my friends.”
“Well…” Shining said, looking down at the changeling body. “You said you have more questions for Alan?”
“Yeah,” Twilight answered, “I mean, he’s deathly afraid of moths.”
“Wait, moths?”
“Yeah, he suffers from a form of Mottephobia where if he sees more than one moth, he freezes up.”
“I...I would have never guessed.”
“I know I didn’t,” Twilight said with a smile. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? He’s kinda embarassed about it.”
“I can see why,” Shining said, before he continued to walk down the hall, stepping over the body. “I mean, I would definitely be embarrassed if I could be held back by a couple of moths.”
The two siblings kept moving forward, Twilight leading, now doing her best to lead them upward and inward to the throne room. “Of course, you realize, now I’m going to have to tell him about how you’re scared of bees.”
“Bees are a perfectly natural thing to be afraid of!” he yelled. “I’m allergic to bee stings!”
“You are not.”
“Are too!”
“Are not.”
As they argued, neither noticed the changeling behind them smile, and slink away.
“Are t—” he began, only to be interrupted by a purple hoof invading his mouth.
Twilight shushed him. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Shining asked, pulling his sister’s hoof out.
“I could have sworn I heard…”
The sound of mumbling voices could be heard.
Both ponies immediately tensed, and Shining drew his sword.
They tip-hoofed forward, turning a corner to find a fork ahead.
The voices were definitely coming from down there.
Twilight turned to Shining.
Shining turned to her.
They nodded, and quickly took their positions, pressing their bodies against both sides of the fork.
The voices were getting louder now.
Twilight formed a blade of magic.
Shining readied his sword.
They waited, poised to attack.
And then they moved.
<<<|Ω|>>>
It had taken them a while, but they had finally buried him.
Thunderlane’s hoof claws were beginning to dull from all the prying he had to do to get the flagstones out from between them and the dirt.
Still. He deserved it.
Rainbow Dash had been silent the entire time, using her own claws to scratch a name into the wall above the new grave.
Buggy.
He deserved it.
They stood over the filled in hole, staring silently at the replaced flagstones.
Thunderlane felt like he should say a few words. The issue, though, was what to say? The poor guy hadn’t known them for a more than an hour, and he simply threw his life away in favor of his friends.
Friends? Were they friends?
Thunderlane bit his lip at that.
They...they hadn’t really known him...but...but at the same time, he...he died for them.
How’s a stallion supposed to act about that?
His eyes wandered over to Rainbow Dash, who was still trying to keep tears from falling from her eyes.
The last words she spoke still rung in his mind. “Don’t make me choose…”
He...he had been her friend.
And that was enough.
“Thank you, Buggy. You were a good...you were a pony at heart, I think.”
Dash shivered.
“You will be remembered, Buggy,” Thunderlane said.
The two pegasi stood before the grave for a moment of silence.
“Come on, Dash, we have to go.”
She nodded as Thunderlane began to head up a new flight of stairs.
She waited a few more seconds, before whispering. “I will always remember you, Buggy.”
The two then began to climb, leaving only the lonely grave in the hall.
<<<|Ω|>>>
Rainbow Dash plodded forward, walking up the stairs rather than flying.
She just couldn’t really get her heart into it.
He...it was too fast. Just all of it was too fast.
He was an enemy, then a prisoner, then a guide, and then…
She sighed.
“You alright, Dash?” Thunderlane asked.
“I’ll get it together,” she said, simply.
Thunderlane nodded, and frowned.
He didn’t like seeing her like this.
Rainbow Dash was...well, as she would put it, too awesome to be so deep in this funk. Seeing her so depressed and down almost...well, it almost hurt.
He...he needed to fix this.
“Did I ever tell you about the time when I was talked into a hoof wrestling match with Bulk Biceps?”
She blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah, that was not pretty,” Thunerlane said. “Berry Punch was drunk, and I was in her general area, and it all went downhill from there.”
“Hang on, hang on,” she said with a flutter of her wings. “What happened?”
Thunderlane smirked. That story always got a smile out of anypony. “Well, you see, I was walking down by the bar, when Berry Punch, who was, of course, sitting there, saw me. Now, somehow in her drunken stupor, she recognized me, and…”
<<<|Ω|>>>
The two pegasi smiled as they flew over the stairs.
Thunderlane, at the risk of personal embarrassment, had finally gotten Rainbow Dash smiling and flying again.
Still…
Everyone needed a good distraction though.
“And that’s when Mr. Breezy came in, saw us all, and with a perfectly straight face said, ‘Well...you wind some, you lose some.’”
Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. “That’s so him! He does that all the time!”
“He does,” Thunderlane agreed, “he does…”
Rainbow Dash tried to contain herself, and slowly stifled her laughter to mere chuckles. “Man, you had a crazy life.”
“If you think those are hilarious, you should hear about the stuff that happened after Twilight got here.”
Rainbow Dash laughed again.
A sudden clang sounded before them, and both Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane went silent.
Thunderlane dropped to the floor, his body tensing as he assumed a pouncing stance. Rainbow Dash landed next to him. The martial artist moved forward slowly, listening intently.
“Quiet, you numbskull, they’ll hear us coming,” a muffled voice ahead of them said.
“Yeah, idiot! You want the Pendragon coming down on our heads?” another far-away griffon muttered, just on the range of ear shot.
“Shut up! All of you! I thought I heard something!” a third said.
Silence.
“It seems they have left, because of the noise, probably,” the monotone cadence of a changeling voice remarked.
“Oh, shut up, you overgrown grasshopper!” A fourth griffon voice said. “How was I supposed to know that a there were some spears there?”
“Come on, they can’t have gotten far!”
Thunderlane tensed, and his claws began to shimmer with lightning.
A hoof rested on his shoulder.
He turned to see Rainbow Dash pointing upward.
Thunderlane looked up to follow her gesture. Above them was a small alcove, cut into the rock probably for ambush purposes.
Her eyes, however, did not say anything about an ambush. Instead, they said one thing.
Please.
Thunderlane looked up at her.
He nodded, and they both floated up to the alcove.
Four griffons and eight changelings passed beneath them.
Rainbow and Thunderlane simply watched them go.
The group passed, and the two ponies floated back down to the ground.
“You alright Dash?” Thunderlane asked.
“I...I just don’t want to get in another fight,” Rainbow explained, looking up at the ceiling. “Gotta save my energy for the Queen, you know?”
The stallion looked at her, taking in her whole being.
The way she didn’t make eye contact, how she kicked her forehoof around, even how the corners of her lips dipped down into a hint of a frown.
“Yeah...yeah, I understand, Dash. Come on, we’ve got to go meet up with our friends.”
“Ye-yeah that sounds good.”
Rainbow Dash sighed as she followed Thunderlane.
What was wrong with her?
They were just changelings.
Monsters who fed off love and happiness. Creatures who invaded her home and tried to enslave all of Equestria.
They deserved to die…
Didn’t they?
<<<|Ω|>>>
The two ponies moved silently by, walking down the hallways with careful movements. Rainbow Dash’s new ghosting directive drove the two to a silent crawl through the Keep.
Thunderlane had let her stew, allowing her think as she continued forward.
This was the quietest he had ever seen her…
He didn’t say anything, though. He would merely be there for her. A lot like she was there for him back in the war…
She deserved it.
She deserved a lot actually…
Maybe he would ask her about din—
“Get down!” she roared, pouncing on him.
He was instantly flattened against the ground, just as a spear shot out of the wall beside him, and into the air where he had been standing a second ago.
A gauntlet of spear traps opened up in front of them, skewering the air in front of them as darts flew through the air.
The spears quickly retracted, clicking as they did as the sound of metal hitting stone clacked down the hall.
Thunderlane looked up, watching the traps reset themselves as the whole hallway cleared itself.
“You alright, Dash?”
“Am I alright?” she asked. “You were the one to walk in there like nothing was going to happen.”
He smiled, that sounded more like the Dash he knew.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Thunderlane said. “But we should probably back up.”
“Well, that’s going to be awkward,” she said with a sigh before they both began to shimmy backwards.
After a rather embarrassing retreat, which they agreed to never speak of again, they both took a long, hard stare down the hallway.
Almost invisible holes had been drilled into the walls, hidden between the stones and brick. Another, more careful, look revealed the slightly raised pressure plates and the faint, gossamer trip wires that criss-crossed the passage shimmered in the torchlight behind them. The clicking and whirring of gears could just faintly be heard as the last of the traps reset, turning the hallway into a gauntlet of no-doubt pointy death.
Thunderlane blinked, before turning to Dash. “Bet you can’t fly through it.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“You heard me. I bet the most awesome Rainbow Dash cannot fly through that and make it.”
She blinked, before she began to grin. “Is that so, you dreadfully licentious troglodyte?”
“Absolutely, you simple-minded offense to all of good taste and decency,” Thunderlane replied.
Dash smirked. She loved quoting Daring Do smack talk.
Even if she had no idea what licentious meant.
“You’re on!” she roared before leaping forward, her competitive spirit leading her, and leaving common sense in the dust.
Who needs that guy, anyway?
A prismatic after-image struggled to follow as the pegasus got her wings under her, muscles tensing and untensing as needed.
She dove through the wires, leapt over pressure plates and dove to other side without so much as disturbing a line. “You’re up, Dunderlane.”
Thunderlane smirked. That was definitely the mare he knew.
Thunderlane simply stood on his hind legs, and cartwheeled forward. He spun, ducked and rolled his way through the gauntlet, his hooves coming inches from the plates, and tail all but brushing against the lines.
He ended with a quick flip and spread wings as he almost daintily landed next to a jaw-dropped Rainbow Dash.
“Wh-...ho-...” she began, trying to formulate words.
“Darkwood Cobra style, it focuses on using superior speed and acrobatics to get around the foe and then attacking with a powerful attack. Not one of my favorites, but still good.”
Her eye twitched. “That...that, I will admit, is pretty awesome…”
Thunderlane smirked. “Good to hear, now let’s keep moving, shall we?”
They both turned, ready to continue, only to come face to face with a solid wall.
“Okay...where do we go from here?” Dash asked.
Thunderlane took a quick look around, before glancing up. “My guess is that way.”
The mare looked up, and was met with the sight of an empty shaft. Darkness enshrouded everything higher than thirty hooves up, leaving who-knows-how much hidden from sight.
“What in the hay?” Dash asked, looking up into the darkness.
“Oh! I get it,” Thunderlane said.
“Get what?”
“It’s a trap,” Thunderlane explained. “The attackers are pushed down this hole, and if they can’t fly then they are forced through the gauntlet to get out.”
“So, we went through a trap backwards?”
“Yeah,” he said, spreading his wings, “Come on, let’s see where this leads.”
Rainbow followed as Thunderlane flew upward, climbing into the darkness above them. As they climbed, they soon discovered that the shaft was connected to a short chute, which was, in turn connected to another shaft.
Up they flew, going past the incline and up into the soft glow of torch light, light that had been previously hidden by the chute.
As they came up into another, almost identical hallway, Dash could swear she heard voices up ahead.”Didja hear that?”
“Hear what?” Thunderlane asked.
“I coulda sworn I heard something.”
“Yeah,” Thunderlane smirked. “I could swear you’re hearing things too.”
She gave him a glare.
He chuckled to himself.
“Very funny,” she said.
“I certainly thought it was.”
“Yeah, I could tell.”
“Just com on, we’ve got places to be.”
Just as he turned the corner, however, Thunderlane was quickly talcked to the ground by a large white figure.
“Thunderlane!” she called, only for a lavender shape to suddenly get up in her face. “T-Twilight?” she asked.
Twilight Sparkle was staring her in the face, a lavender mana-blade being pressed into her throat, as she glared. “Answer me a question, Rainbow Dash, if that is your real name…”
<<<|Ω|>>>
Twilight glared down at her maybe friend, a mana-knife at her throat.
“That guy,” she said, motioning over to Thunderlane, who lay pinned under Shining, holding his sword to the pegasus' throat “got you into Daring Do. You have read all but the three last books, and we have had many discussions about the books. Now, in Daring Do and the Starlight Scepter, what was the biggest plot hole we discussed?”
Dash blinked, before she snarled. “It is not a plot hole!” she growled. “She specifically mentioned in chapter two that the Starlight Scepter would only be wielded by one who was worthy! The fact that neither Ahuizotl nor Daring could pass the trail of the spirit opened the door perfectly for the temple maiden to—”
“Yeah, that’s Rainbow Dash,” Twilight interrupted. “We’re in the clear, Shining.”
Shining nodded before he got off Thunderlane and helped him up.
Twilight moved to help Dash up, but was stopped as the other mare leapt up into her face. “Not so fast, Twilight Sparkle, if that is your real name!”
Twilight blinked, backing up as the rainbow-maned pegasus pushed forward.
“You get to answer one of my questions, now!” Dash said with a smirk.
“Um...ah...go ahead…?” Twilight said.
Dash smirked. “What does licentious mean?”
Twilight blinked. “Licentious, adjective, promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters. Or the archaic, disregarding accepted rules or conventions, especially in grammar or literary style.”
“Oh...huh…” Rainbow Dash said, “what about a troglodyte?”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Are you actually testing me, or just using me as a dictionary?”
“Can’t I do both?” Dash asked innocently.
Thunderlane chuckled. “How ya doin’ Shining?”
“Doin’ good man,” Shining replied, giving the mohawked pegasus a hoof bump.
“Alright, so that’s us four,” Twilight said, “met anyone else?”
“No, haven’t seen anypony else,” Dash said.
“Alright, well, let’s keep moving then.” Twilight said, “We’ve got ten more ponies to find.”
“What about Spike and Julius?” Shining asked.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Eight ponies, one dragon and a griffon to find,” she corrected.
“That sounds right,” Shining said with a smirk.
“Come on,” Twilight said again, “let’s go. The sooner we find them, the sooner we can get out.”
--------------------------------
“...Um...Hello?”
“Oh! Hey Kilokk! How’s it shaking?”
“Um...doing alright, Pinkie. Where’s Miner?”
“Oh, he’s over there!”
“...Is...is that Andre the Giant?”
“I don’t know, Miner keeps calling him his writer’s block.”
“That...that’s rough…”
“Yeah, he’s been at this all week, and he’s had to pull out all sorts tricks to get Mr. Blocky over there to move.”
“He has?”
“Yeah, he had to move a chapter, use a generator, randomizing tables, the whole nine yards.”
“Wow…so uh...should I come back later or…?”
“Nah, he told me to tell you to sign out today, he’s even got a little script for you.”
“This is it? This tiny, little card?”
“Miner’s been wrestling that guy for the past week, are you going to complain?”
“Fair point. Alright let’s see here...Alright, guys, hope you enjoy. Sorry I’m late. Hopefully I’ll be back in the groove next chap. See you next time.”
“See you soon, guys!”
“Bye!”