Chapter 6: The Twilight Capital
Nymphadora, 1678 C.E.
Twilight gasped loudly and closed her eyes tight, expecting to feel the painful collision of metal with flesh. However, it never came. Strange. She had seen the knife pierce through her chest. So where was the pain? Was she in shock? Was she already dead? Or...did she even get stabbed? Twilight eventually gained the courage to open her eyes and look down at her chest. No knife. No wound. Twilight let out a sigh of relief upon seeing this. But this sense of relief quickly vanished when confusion began to set in.
I saw it stab me...right? she thought as her heart finally slowed down to a normal pace. It was right here. It stabbed me. And now...it's gone? She raised her head up. There was no shadow standing before her anymore. She was now able to take in a full view of the room she was now in.
It was a room of average size. The floor was smooth, gray stone and the walls were painted white. Two bookcases stood on opposite sides of the room and were filled with a series of books of various sizes and colors. A single, bright, yellow light hung from the ceiling. Twilight could see dust particles floating through the air but she could also see something else. Along with the dust, she was just barely able to make out small wisps constructed from a white, gaseous substance floating about. They made her body twitch with uncertainty and her horn gave off small sparks whenever it came in contact with the white wisps.
Twilight turned her attention to one of the bookcases and used her horn to levitate one of the books over. When she saw the cover, she was surprised to see that it was blank. She used her magic to flip through the many pages of the book and, just like the cover, every page was blank. "That's weird," she commented. She tossed the book into a corner and chose another one. Like the first book, both the cover and its contents were blank.
For the next several minutes, Twilight went through each book the bookshelves held. No matter what color or what length, each book was blank from cover to cover. Once she had finished flipping through the last book, she sat down against the door and rubbed her forehead. "A room filled with blank books. Why? Just...why?" she pondered. She tried to wrap her brain around the odd, indescribable gut feeling she had that told her this room had everything she needed. But how? There was nothing special about it. It was just a lonely room deep in the City Centre filled with air wisps and blank books. There was nothing helpful about it.
That's when the smell of burnt toast returned. Twilight coughed as the the smell dived deep into the back of her throat and latched around the back of her mouth. The hairs on her body stood on end as the feeling of static electricity returned as well. Twilight stood up and looked around the lonely room. "Okay...I get it. There's something in here you want to show me," she said. She didn't know who she was talking to. The room itself. The shadow. Another entity altogether. She wasn't sure. All she knew was that something had drawn her to this room and now it was listening to her. "I was drawn to this room for a reason. I was chased here by that shadow for a reason. Whoever's in here...whatever's in here...what do you want me to see? What does this room have that could help me?" A few, tense seconds of silence passed. There was no response to Twilight's words. No sounds to be heard. No movements to be seen. No change to be felt aside from the burnt toast odor and static sensations.
Then she heard it. A reply. It sounded muffled and distant but she could make it out clearly for it was emanating from the very deep recesses of her subconscious. "There's nothing left for you to do now. The time has not come," the voice replied.
"Who are you? What do you mean?" Twilight asked.
"A voice from a forgotten yet remembered past. An echo of your final checkmate."
"Not to be entirely rude here but could you be a little more specific?"
"I knew you would be drawn to this room, Twilight Sparkle. You can feel the aura it emanates."
"Aura?" Twilight looked around the lonely room. "What aura?"
"You can feel it. That aura eating away at your weakness. Giving you your strength. Helping you gain a last, fighting edge against the ever-expanding twilight."
It was right. She did feel stronger. The pains had gone away. Her legs weren't shaky. Her breathing was normal. She hadn't felt this state of good health in quite some time. "What's in this room?"
"The remnants of my legacy. It's all been moved here. This one spot. This one, last barrier between him and I. I'm the one soul he doesn't want coming back from the afterlife. You're the key to breaking that barrier. Initial contact has already been made. Now, we simply wait for the moment to come."
"Moment?"
"Yes. The moment of reunion and unification. The moment of truth and forgiveness. The moment which will bring about the beginning of a new age. You will know when it comes. It will come with the final contact. Your last act, spark of twilight."
Twilight could feel the second consciousness fading away. "Don't go! I have more questions!" Just then, the room shook like an explosion had just erupted underneath the City Centre. Twilight turned towards the floor just in time to see a massive crack appear. Bright, white light poured out and blinded Twilight. It had been so long since she had last seen pure light not filtered by the twilight. As she stared in the light she found herself repeating a single word over and over again against her will. "Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. Dawn. DAWN!" Twilight ran towards the door and pulled it open. She then flung herself into the hallway outside and slammed the door shut behind her.
Silence fell around her. Once again, there was nothing to be heard. Nothing to be felt. Nothing to be observed. There was just Twilight alone in the twilight hallway. She pushed herself away from the door that led into the strange room and forced herself to walk down the hallway. A collection of odd feelings were coursing through her mind. She wasn't sure about what she was feeling. She wasn't sure about what she was supposed to feel. However, deep down, she could tell that one feeling had grown slightly stronger: hope.
Everything was hazy and gray. Nothing felt solid and everything felt as if it could slip away at any second. Blurred sounds pounded against Derpy's ears. Strange hallucinations clouded her sight. Her whole body felt numb. Walking the line between life and death was certainly no walk in the park. Every step took effort. Every second was draining. Every passing instant required the upmost of focus and concentration. One look down the wrong path and everything would be lost.
During all this time, Derpy kept her focus on the stallion in front of her: the Doctor. In this state of nothing, he glowed brighter than the morning rays of Celestia's Sun. She dare not take her eyes off him. She dare not turn away. She had to focus on him. He was her hook. Her link to life. The thing that was keeping her bound to this world. Bound to this body. Her body was growing cold but she didn't pay attention. She just clasped her mouth tightly around his tail and held on for life. I trust you, Doctor, she thought. I trust that you'll make everything alright in the end. I believe in you...my Doctor.
A loud gasp escaped from Derpy's mouth as true life and everything with it came flooding back into her. She let go of the Doctor's tail and stumbled about for a brief moment. Her vision was hazy and her body felt numb due to the sudden burst of warmth coursing through her veins. "Everyone alive and well?" asked the ghostly Colonel Ash as he walked past Derpy, his body still emanating streams of spiritual steam.
"Never...again...please," Sylvia coughed as she held onto the equally distraught Klaus.
Derpy pressed her hoof against her chest. The feeling of her beating heart made her feel a sense of relief unlike anything she had ever felt previously. "Are you okay?" asked a familiar, caring voice.
Derpy looked up to see the Doctor observing her with a caring face. Once again, her eyes met his in a solid stare. So old. They always looked so old. So kind. So sad. So...loving. "I think so," Derpy replied with a few, deep breaths.
The Doctor smiled at her. "I must admit that was certainly an interesting sensation to experience. I mean, you and I lived without our hearts beating. How many ponies can say that?!"
"Not many." Derpy chuckled. "I don't thank many other ponies would like to try it."
"Well...yeah...definitely...it certainly wasn't fun, that's for sure. Interesting, still. Very, very interesting."
Derpy managed to catch her breath fully and straightened herself up. "Are we in the city?"
"We're right on the border," Ash replied as he walked past her and the Doctor.
Derpy looked and saw that she and the others were standing under a large gateway. The side of the gateway to Derpy's right led back into the surrounding grounds of Lupae that were filled with the hordes of black armored zombies. The opening to the left led out into a wide street bordered by futuristic buildings of great height.
"I've never been to Lupae before," Klaus commented.
"It's seen better days, trust me," Marcus added.
"We better get moving," said Ash. "The faster we get to the City Centre, the better."
Silence fell amongst the group as they began their trek into the capital of the twilight. At first, everything was an unnerving calm. There were no signs of life to be identified anywhere in the surrounding area. The quiet reined supreme over Lupae. Much like the surrounding areas, the twilight affected the feeling of passing time greatly here. Derpy didn't know how much time they spent engulfed in the silent, violet world. The first time she turned back towards the gateway she and the others had passed under, she was shocked to find that it was already several blocks behind her after what had felt like a minute or two of walking.
Ever since the crash and escaping the fire, Derpy had been feeling horrible in both a mental and physical state. Antagonistic forces seemed to be eating away at her will and strength all the time in this bleak realm. There were now even brief moments where she didn't feel any emotions at all. She was simply neutral. No anger. No happiness. No sadness. No fear. Just nothing. Pure nothing.
Derpy shook her head to break herself out of a self-induced trance she was falling under. This was becoming a common occurrence for her in the twilight. However, no matter what happened, she always made sure to think back to her anchor: the Doctor. Thinking of him had kept her bound to life. Thinking of him helped clear her mind of any unwanted, negative feelings.
Her eyes turned towards the stallion walking next to her and she gave a quaint smile. They had been through so much together. Going back to the day of Nightmare Moon's banishment. Facing aliens in the future, creatures from other realities, and villains under the sea. Spending a month on an alien moon in order to plan an assault on a world of twilight. Now here they were. Derpy and the Doctor. Yet again on another dangerous quest.
"Is that a smile I see?" the Doctor asked suddenly.
Derpy blushed and shook her head. "No...well...maybe," she replied.
"No need to feel bad about it. Smiling's good."
"But now's not really the time to do it. I was just thinking about something happy."
"And there's nothing wrong with that. It's good to think happy thoughts during the worst of times. It keeps us going." The Doctor proceeded to smile at Derpy and wink.
Derpy's smile was about to return when she was distracted by the realization and she and the others were now surrounded by a massive crowd of ghostly Nymphadorians. They all gave off spiritual auras and steam similar to that of Ash but, unlike Ash, they seemed distant and disconnected from them. The spirits didn't even attempt to interact with them. They simply went on performing what Derpy assumed were their day-to-day activities.
"This is what's become of those who were caught in the twilight when it was first unleashed," Ash explained. "They were trapped in a ghostly plane caught between life and death."
"It's equality," the Doctor said harshly.
"Equality?" Marcus asked.
"The twilight's bringing the dead back while simultaneously trapping the living in a ghostly state. It's forcing the living and the dead into an equal playing field, putting them on similar terms." The Doctor shook his head. "It's wrong."
Just then, Derpy felt the ground vibrate beneath her hooves. The vibrations were followed by a loud shriek. "Oh no," said Ash.
"What is it?!" Sylvia asked as she tightened her hold on the black bag she carried.
"Run! All of you, run!" Ash began running down the street and the others followed him as quickly as they could. "I didn't expect it to sense you so quickly! We've barely gotten into the thick of the city!"
"What is it?!" asked Derpy as she began to take to the air a bit.
"It doesn't have a name. It's just a guardian of the city."
With that said, a powerful force smashed through one of the buildings behind the group. Derpy turned around to see one of the tall buildings collapsing into a pile of rubble. The ghostly Nymphadorians paid no attention to the destroyed building. Standing in the building's place was a muscular creature with at least fifty feet of height. Its eyes were dark red and its armored skin was pitch black. It had arms as thick as spaceships and claws as sharp and large as castle spires. With each breath, a gust of uncomfortably cold air blew down the street. "Intruders," the Guardian commented via telepathic waves that bore deep into Derpy's skull. "You must be dealt with. In the name of the king, lay down and accept the fate of the twilight."
The Guardian instantly broke into a run. Each step it took covered nearly an entire block. The group ran but were soon knocked forward onto the ground by the shockwave produced from one of the monster's steps. The ground cracked beneath the weight of the beast and Derpy tried to regain her surroundings. Dust billowed in the air. Angry cries clouded her hearing. A violent force took hold of her and began dragging her down the street.
"Derpy! Derpy!" cried the Doctor as he aided Derpy down the street. Derpy clutched onto the Doctor's suit as she attempted to regain her strength. She looked to see Marcus, Sylvia, and Klaus running alongside them. Ash was taking up the lead, ordering them to keep running and follow him. Another shockwave shook the ground beneath them and Derpy tightened her grip on the Doctor. "Hold on, Derpy!"
"Don't let me go," Derpy said under her breath.
"THIS WAY!" cried Ash as he beckoned the group towards a nearby alleyway. The group started to run in the direction of the alley's entrance but quickly found themselves cloaked in the shadow of one of the Guardian's massive feet.
"DODGE!" ordered Marcus. Everypony flung themselves out of harm's way just before the foot came down. This time, the resulting shockwave was so intense it blasted Derpy out of the Doctor's grasp and flung her into a wall near to the alley's entrance. She felt her body bruise and hindering bursts of pain resonated from the spots where her skin had met concrete.
It took a few seconds for her to regain a full sense of her surroundings. During her blurry state, she saw more dust clouds rise around her and heard the angry roar of the Guardian echo through the air. The ghostly Ash appeared in front of her and attempted to help her up, but contact with his spiritual exterior made Derpy's skin ice over extremely quickly.
As her senses returned, Derpy saw Sylvia standing in the middle of the destroyed street with a massive weapon aimed up at the beast. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH!" she screamed before firing a red, fiery projectile up at the creature.
"SYLVIA! NO!" cried Ash.
The projectile collided with the Guardian's face. Golden ash and blue liquid rained down from the sky. The Guardian's body grew wild and uncontrollable. The gargantuan feet collided with the earth at much deadlier levels of strength. Massive cracks stretched across the street and even began trailing along the sidewalks and up some of the buildings. The roaring and sounds of destruction grew incredibly loud. It was soon at a point to where Derpy could hardly hear anything aside from a high-pitched ring. She turned towards the alleyway to see Ash beckoning her towards him. Through much effort, she picked herself off the cracking sidewalk and pushed herself towards the entrance of the alleyway. When she turned back towards the street, her heart sunk.
A massive hole was forming in the center of the street. An entire segment of the street was collapsing and opening up a humongous crevice, which seemed to present a view of a world consisting of pure darkness. The Guardian's flailing body fell into the opening street. However, Derpy quickly noticed a certain chestnut stallion sliding towards the dark crater. "DOCTOR!" she cried. The Doctor was grabbing for anything that could hold him but it was no use. He was going down.
No! She wasn't going to let him fall! She expanded her wings and, despite Ash's protest, flew straight towards the falling Doctor.
She was only a small field's length away now. A few yards. Several feet. Then...clank! Derpy gasped as a hard, metallic object struck the top of her head. Her skull screamed in agony as she fell onto the surface of the collapsing street. She could feel rubble raining down from the sky. One of the buildings was collapsing and it was falling down in her direction. All of her strength was gone. Her entire body was numb. Her eyes honed in on the Doctor and tears started pouring from her glassy gaze as her anchor to life and strength tumbled down into the abyss. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But she was refused this act of expression.
Suddenly, a powerful pair of paws grabbed her and lifted her up. "I've got you!" said Marcus as he ran over the still collapsing street and towards the alleyway entrance.
"Doctor," she managed to utter with weak breath. "Doctor."
"I'm sorry, Derpy...he's gone."
The last thing Derpy saw before returning to the world of unconsciousness was her and Marcus passing through the entrance to the alleyway and a building collapsing over the hole which had pulled both the Guardian and the Doctor into its depths.
The Doctor didn't know how long he fell. He wasn't taking a very warm liking to the blurred passage of time created by the twilight. He preferred to be able to calculate time accurately and not upon dizzy guesswork.
By this point, the light of the twilight atmosphere was merely a speck in the high heavens. Everything else around him was darker than the furthest reaches of space. This whole world confused him. From what he could tell, he was already miles beneath the city of Lupae. By this point, he should have been crushed to death by the gravity and pressure of the planet's oncoming core. More magical tweaks, he deduced in thought.
Suddenly, a great feeling of tension built up inside him. He wasn't sure how long he had been falling but he knew that his fall was coming to an end. The bottom to this pit was coming up quickly. The fall would surely be the end of him. Would he be able to regenerate? What if he managed to sustain enough injuries in this world to prevent regeneration? Maybe...this was the end.
His ears twitched upward in anticipation. He listened closely to any sounds beyond the fall-induced wind blowing past his ears. The ominous words of Carmen's prophecy echoed through his subconscious. "It is returning. It is returning through the dark, and then Doctor...oh but then...he will knock four times," she had said.
He could feel the bottom growing closer and closer...and, yet, there was no knocking. His ears twitched. No knocking, he thought. No knocking. Then...maybe...this isn't the end!
The Doctor's eyes shot open as an external force began exerting on his body. The force definitely felt magical but had an older, more crafted feel to it. Every cell in the Doctor's body tingled in response to being exposed to this odd, foreign magic. After a moment or so, the Doctor felt a soft earth terrain meet his back. The magical force weakened and faded away into the dark.
The Doctor didn't sit up until the sound of falling rubble echoed in the silence. Suddenly, the silence had gone to be replaced by an orchestra of breaking glass, crumbling rock, bending metal, and cracking marble. The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and activated it, making sure to bring it to the highest level of light possible.
Finally, the Doctor had light. It wasn't very spectacular, merely a small beam of blue light; but it was better than total darkness. He aimed the beam around and tried his best to get his bearings of the general area. From what he could make out of his surroundings through what his sonic flashlight had been able to reveal to him, he was able to deduce that he was sitting in the middle of an abnormally large cavern. Even calling it simply large was an understatement. The Doctor guessed that it had to be an extremely gargantuan space; for it was able to contain the massive corpse of the Lupae Guardian.
The Guardian hadn't been as lucky as the Doctor. Whether it had died following Sylvia's attack on it back up on the surface or had died from the impact of the fall was anyone's guess for the creature's corpse hardly showed the signs of falling from such a tremendous height. The Doctor stood up and decided that it was best to get as far away from the dead creature as possible. Given this twilight realm's power to keep the living and the dead trapped in a similar plane, it probably wouldn't be long now before the beast was resurrected.
Just as the Doctor began backing away from the fifty foot long corpse, the sound of coughing broke the silence that had just returned after the rubble had finished falling. He jumped and turned around, aiming his screwdriver's beam into the darkness. It took a few seconds of moving about but he eventually managed to illuminate his visitor. "Gah!" gasped a Ruleonite standing a few feet away as he placed one of his paws over his face.
"Klaus?!" the Doctor gasped in surprise as he approached the bandaged Ruleonite.
Klaus moved his paw away and met eye-to-eye with the Doctor through the dim light of the sonic. "Doctor! Oh thank the heavens! I thought the beast had fallen on you!"
"Thankfully, that didn't happen." The Doctor looked up towards the speck in the darkness that was the opening he, Klaus, and the Guardian had fallen through. "So you fell into the crevice too."
"Yeah." Klaus grunted as he rubbed his bandaged leg. "I don't remember much but Sylvia put me aside for a moment to fire at the monster. She tried to get over to me afterwards but the ground collapsed beneath me before she could. I think I blacked out on the way down because I don't remember anything after that before me waking up just now."
The Doctor gave a soft chuckle. "You know, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm kinda glad you fell down with me. Being alone is...well...I prefer to not be that."
Klaus chuckled in response before looking up towards the speck of light. "Is...is that where we fell from?!"
"Yep."
"How far down are we?! How can we still be alive?!"
"My guess is that we're maybe nearly a hundred miles down. Impossible, under normal circumstances, but I'm mostly certain that more powerful magic is at work here. Same goes to how we survived. There's an ancient magic down here...and, for some reason, it needs us alive."
"For what?"
The Doctor turned away from the black sky and turned back to Klaus. "That I'm not entirely sure of. But we best stick together and try to find a way back up to the surface."
Klaus sighed loudly. "I hope the others are okay."
The Doctor thought back to the last thing he had seen before falling into the abyss: Derpy flying towards him and being struck in the head by a falling piece of metal. "Me too. I wish there was a way for us to communicate with them." Just then, Klaus gasped. The Doctor turned to him. "Klaus? What is it?"
"I think I have just the thing to let us do that!" Klaus replied as he presented an object to the Doctor through the sonic light. It was a black walkie-talkie.
"Oh that is brilliant!" the Doctor exclaimed as he rushed forward and politely took the communication device out of Klaus's grasp.
"I must have accidentally grabbed one out of Sylvia's bag before I fell into the hole."
"Let's just hope the other one's up there." The Doctor turned the walkie-talkie on. A soft static emanated from the tiny speaker. "Hello? Sylvia? Marcus? Derpy? Ash? This is the Doctor. I repeat. This is the Doctor. Can anyone hear me?" There was no response.
"Maybe theirs isn't on."
"Maybe." Suddenly, the static on the device grew loud and the exterior started to emanate a dim, white light. "Klaus...are walkie-talkies here on Nymphadora supposed to do that?"
"Not that I know of," Klaus replied awkwardly.
The static died down as a series of voices began emanating from the speaker. "Stop it! You've made your point! Just leave them alone!" pleaded the voice of Twilight Sparkle.
"Why would I do that? They've come here to kill me. I think it's only fitting that they receive an appropriate punishment. Besides, we wouldn't want to disappoint our viewers," chuckled the voice of King Dusk.
The sound of a snapping finger could be heard and was soon followed by the sound of metal scraping against marble. Twilight could be heard crying. "What is that?! What is that?!"
"Not those things again!" stated the panicked voice of Sylvia.
"Let them go, Dusk!" snarled the voice of Ash.
"Or what, spirit? Are you going to kill me yourself? You have no power here, little colonel," teased Dusk. There was another snapping of fingers. "Kill the pegasus first."
The Doctor felt his hearts skip a beat. "NO!" cried Twilight. "PLEASE! DON'T HURT HER!"
"Yes. Cry, little spark. Cry for the death of your worthless friend." A cold laugh echoed from the walkie-talkie. "Where's your precious Doctor now?"
"He'll come!" cried the voice of Derpy confidently. "He always does!"
"Not this time, pegasus," chuckled Dusk. "Your Doctor is dead. And now it's time for you to join him." Another snapping of fingers. "Kill her then take her to the kitchen. I'm in a mood for some pegasus soup."
"STOP! GET AWAY FROM HER!" Twilight cried. The sound of metal colliding rang out and the voices fell silent. Soft static emanated from the device for a full minute before fading away along with the dim, white light.
"Doctor?" asked a confused Klaus. "What was-"
"A warning," the Doctor stated. "That was a transmission from the future." The Doctor looked down at the walkie-talkie in the dim light and gulped. "I suggest that you and I head out right now. We need to find our way to the City Centre as soon as possible."
"How are we going to find our way there from down here in the dark?" Not two seconds later, the darkness was instantly broken by a series of white lights a few yards away. The Doctor and Klaus looked to see a small tunnel in one of the walls of the cavern. Small orbs of white fire could be seen clinging to the walls of the tunnel. The light of the fire seemed to fill the Doctor's body with strength. It appeared to do the same thing to Klaus for he instantly stood up, the injuries to his leg apparently having been healed. "Where...where did that come from?" Klaus looked down at his leg. "How-"
"Like I said earlier, there's an ancient magic down here that needs you and I alive." The Doctor looked down at the walkie-talkie. Don't worry, Derpy. I will be there, he thought before making his way towards the lit tunnel.
"Initial contact has been made." The Doctor jumped and looked around upon hearing the soft, foreign voice.
"What's wrong?" Klaus asked.
"Did you hear that?" the Doctor asked back.
Klaus gave a confused expression. "Hear what?"
The Doctor turned back towards the fiery white tunnel. He breathed deeply and sighed as he began to register the faint murmurs and mumblings of distant voices emanating from within. "Nothing. Never mind."