//------------------------------// // I Saw Some of Them Fall // Story: The Road to Prolegomena // by stanku //------------------------------// Beneath uncountable tons of rock and stone, four ponies trot deeper into the cave. Rarity, still walking first, lights the way with her horn, peering into the darkness ahead. Behind her, Twilight and Dash support Fluttershy in between them. Not an echo rings around them: just the dull clip-clop sound of hoof landing on stone repeats itself over and over through eternity. Their ears prick and turn as they try to locate any other sounds, but none can be heard. “How long is this thing?” Dash asks, biting her lip. “We must be like a halfway into the core of the mountain already…”   Twilight looks at the pegasus, noticing how tense she looks. Pearls of sweat gleam on her brow, and her eyes remain fixed ahead. “Are you okay?” Twilight asks. Dash blinks, glancing at her. “Yeah, sure I am… Stuffed inside a pitch-black tube with a million tons of rock above, why wouldn’t I be?” I should’ve know she’d be the first one to get claustrophobic. “Just try not to think about it, okay?” says Twilight soothingly. “Focus on what you can see, what you can feel. Everything else is just your imagination.” Dash breathes out, the in, then out again. “Yeah, yeah, sure… I’m fine, I’m fine.” In again, out again. Suddenly, Rarity stops before them. “Uh, girls? I think we have a problem.” The three stop on their tracks, looking at her. “What do you mean?” blurts Dash. “Does the cave get narrower there?” “Not exactly, no…” says Rarity. She brightens her horn. “It ends here.” In front of them, a wall of solid rock stands, appearing just as impenetrable as all the other walls around them. Twilight stares at it as if the bare stone was laughing at her, or cursing, or shouting. But it only remains mute, and the chiming silence is more horrible than any screeching she can imagine. “No,” she says quietly. She trots forward, not even noticing how Fluttershy almost loses her balance. “No,” Twilight repeats, walking past Rarity. She stretches her front hoof, reaching for the wall, her limb trembling in the air. The stone feels cold under her touch, so very cold. No.   “There’s gotta be a secret door there, right?” says Dash, shuffling her hooves and sweating even more. “Just cast a spell or whatever and open it. Maybe there’s more room in there.” “I don’t have enough energy yet,” says Twilight, still staring at the stone. She looks over her shoulder. “Rarity. Come here.” As Rarity trots next to Twilight, she asks: “Have you heard of Farahay’s magical field theory? Do you know the revealment spell he invented?” “I don’t suppose he was a fashion artist?” asks Rarity, braving a smile. It dies when she sees Twilight’s reaction. “Do you think you could cast it if I explained the principles and walked you through it?” she asks, narrowing her eyes. “Of course I will try,” answers Rarity. “Tell me what to do.” Behind them, Fluttershy looks worriedly at Dash. “Please, stop fidgeting… You’re tipping me over.” Dash, her face pale in the glow of Rarity’s horn, looks at Fluttershy. “Sorry, Shy. Sorry.” She closes her eyes, inhales, exhales, and tenses her legs. She tries staying still like a statue, but soon she starts shifting her weight between her legs, lifting them and moving them around, all the while squeezing her eyes tighter shut. “Dash…” “I know, I know!” blurts Dash, opening her eyes. Her pupils have shrunk and move erratically. “But I can’t feel if I can’t move my legs around. And if I can’t feel, I have to imagine, and all I can imagine is every friggin rock that’s about to drop on my neck!” She talks fast, incoherently, abruptly. Fluttershy has to keep on aligning her legs to stay standing. “Okay, I understand…” She sits down, taking some distance to Dash, who rises to her wings almost immediately. “You guys ready or what?” she asks from Twilight and Rarity. “This is going to take a moment,” says Twilight, looking at her. “Can’t you just sit down and think of clouds?” “I’d much rather be feeling them! Or eating even!” Twilight sighs annoyedly. “Then fly outside. It’s no use making you rip your feathers off here.” Dash’s grimace turns a tad deeper when she hears that. “You guys… I’m really sorry…” “We understand, Dashie,” says Fluttershy from under her, smiling kindly. “It must be awful for you here.” “Just don’t wander too far away from the cave mouth,” says Twilight. “We may need you when we find the door.” “Sure,” says Dash, sounding a bit more relieved already. She is about to leave, but then notices that Fluttershy has lied down on her stomach, eyes closed. “You’re gonna be okay, too?” asks Dash from her. Fluttershy cracks open an eye. “Yes. I’m just resting a bit.” The eyelid closes slowly. Dash bites her lip, looks back at the quietly talking Rarity and Twilight, then at Fluttershy, and finally at the walls around her. She swallows. And flies away. When she finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, she triples her speed, practically shooting like a bullet from the cave mouth. First she just flies as high as she can, as fast she can; she climbs into altitudes where her head starts getting dizzy. After that, she breathes slowly out and starts floating down on her back, her front legs crossed behind her neck. She turns into an autumn leaf, carefree and limp. Oh yeah… That hit the spot. A content smile spreads on her thin lips as she falls through a cloud. The hole she leaves behind shares her shape, and the notion makes her chuckle. Gosh… I shouldn’t be liking this so much. Gradually, the smile evaporates. What kind of an element of loyalty would run from some rock? A lousy one, that’s right. She turns right way round in the air and glides towards the cave. It’s just for a little while. No biggie. The morning mist has completely faded by now, and as Dash gets closer to the cave, she wonders at the sights below her. Not as pretty as Cloudsdale… but comes darn close. Nah, not that close, not really. Too many trees. Her eyes wander at the faraway cabin. Something in it makes her stop and look closer. What the…? She shadows her eyes with a hoof, peering at the small cottage and its yard. Is that… a pony? By the corner of the building, it appears as if something was moving. She blinks, and the impression is gone. She stays still for a few minutes, trying to spot any more movement, but can’t notice anything. But I could’ve sworn that I saw something. Must’ve been a deer… She gives one more glance at the cabin’s direction and then lands in front of the cave. Somehow, the entrance seems narrower than it did the last time she saw it. Dash narrows her eyes, paws the ground a few times, and then flies inside.     After a moment, she hears shouting, cursing, and fighting. When she gets closer, she recognizes Twilight’s and Rarity’s voices. As she arrives at the end of the cave, her eyes widen in confusion at sight that greets her. Fluttershy is still laying on her stomach, front hooves crossed over her ears and eyes closed. Twilight and Rarity are shouting at each other’s faces, their foreheads locked together. “I can’t help if it doesn’t work!” shouts Rarity, pulling back her neck. “We should try another spell.” “This is the most advanced revealment spell there has ever been invented!” shouts Twilight. “You just have to focus on it more.” “I did everything you told, just as you told me to!” wails Rarity, stomping the ground. “It doesn’t work!” Twilight slams his front leg against the wall next to them. “It has to work! If it doesn't, it means that–” “Guys, guys!” cries Dash, flying in between them. “What are you doing? Chill out!” They both look at her, then at each other. A faint blush rises on both of their cheeks. “Now that’s more like it,” says Dash. “How about a nice, friendly hoofshake on top of that?” She draws them closer to each other by their necks.   “We’re not foals, Dash," says Rarity annoyedly. She looks Twilight in the eyes. “I am sorry. But the spell doesn’t work. Either that or I am the worst unicorn in Equestria.” Twilight gives her a long look. “Then there is no door here.” She says it like it was somepony’s epitaph.   Dash looks at her in confusion. “Eh?” “I said there’s no door here!” snaps Twilight, stomping the ground. “At least not any magical ones,” she says more quietly, looking at the floor. “Could it be mechanical?” asks Rarity, studying the wall. “It has to be,” says Dash, stepping next to Rarity. They start searching for levers, indentations, loose rocks; all that stuff that opens secret doors in Daring Do novels. But if there was a hidden entrance there, its creator had not even heard of A.K. Yearling.   “Nothing,” says Rarity finally, sitting down. “I can’t find anything.” Dash, sweat trickling down her brow, keeps on searching. “You two take a break. I got this.” Rarity turns her eyes at Twilight. She is still looking at the floor, head drooping. “Twilight?” she asks. Twilight raises her head. Rarity fears to see tears in her eyes, but when their gazes’ meet, she finds that the tears might have been welcomed, after all. In the light-blue light, Twilight’s eyes seem like two pits leading straight into some abyss; the hollowness in them is beyond words. “There is nothing here,” she whispers. “Nothing.” After hearing her voice, Dash stops searching and looks over her shoulder. “We don’t know that. When you get your powers back, just blow this thing to Tartarus. Buck the mechanism and all that jazz.” “Dash is right,” says Rarity quickly. She puts a hesitant hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Maybe I didn’t get it right, after all. But you can open it, you can and you will.” The twilight eyes look at nothing, the empty voice speaks to nopony. “It’s no use. I know it isn’t, I just know. There is nothing here, never was.” Dash turns around. Her front legs thump as they land on the stone. “Oh? And what was that monster doing here then? Playing hide and seek with Draught Tear?” She takes a step closer to Twilight. “Cut the bull, Twi. We’re close. I know it.” Twilight’s shoulders slump a bit more. “Maybe he was trying to tame the monster. Maybe it was his screams that the bats heard.” She pauses for a moment, looking at Dash and Rarity. “Maybe he had no part in the attack on Canterlot.” Rarity swallows. Fluttershy, who had at some point removed her hooves from her ears, flinches. Dash keeps on staring Twilight in the eyes like she’d like to punch her; she is breathing heavily and stands stiff as the rock around them. “Twilight…” she starts. “He did. The monster proves that he did. Why the buck would he live in the middle of nowhere and go regularly see anything like that without telling anypony about it?” The magenta eyes narrow down, drilling ever deeper into Twilight’s seemingly soulless gaze. “Because he didn’t want anypony to know. Because he was planning the surprise of the century. That doesn't change, not even if this place is a dead end.” Twilight blinks, and for a moment, the abyss does, too. “Then why was he here and not in Canterlot? And where are the plans, the notes, the laboratories – he couldn’t have done everything he did from that cabin.” “And he didn’t,” continues Dash, her gaze like red steel. “It’s obvious. He simply stole what he could from the headquarters, brought them here, made another monster, and then released it on Canterlot. He didn’t need to control it: just to unleash it, after which he’d wait safely here.” Twilight frowns. “But… How the monster could–” “We don’t know!” exclaims Dash, waving her front hoof. “There’s a million things we don’t know about Draught Tear or the monster or the Bitch Queen or whatever! The point isn’t what we don’t know, but what we do know.” “And that is?” asks Twilight sharply. “That we must win Canterlot back,” answers Rarity. “We know that much. Also, thanks to the visit here, we now know how to fight against the monsters.”   “But not the Queen,” says Twilight. “That’s why Luna sent us here. It’s she who controls the monsters and the Changed ponies.” She shakes her head slightly and then adds: “Right?” “Yeah,” says Dash, her form relaxing a bit. “And don’t you forget that. This ain’t the time to get all sloppy and sobby.” “Do you still have trouble remembering?” asks Rarity from Twilight. Twilight looks at Dash for a moment longer, then averts her gaze and raises a hoof on her temple. “I guess… It feels weird. I don’t have any holes in how we got here, but some of it feels like it happened to somepony else. It’s like I couldn’t trust my own head.” She laughs shortly. “But I’m sure it’ll pass when I get my magic powers back.” Rarity smiles carefully at that. “I’m certain of that, too.” “In the meantime… What do we do?” asks Dash. “Should we return back to the headquarters and keep on searching from there?” “Do we have to?” asks Fluttershy suddenly, raising her head. Her face appears eerily pale in the light of Rarity’s horn. “I don’t know if there’s any other choice,” says Twilight, looking sadly at her. “Although the idea doesn’t attract me, either…” “If that’s what we got to do, then that’s what we got to do,” says Dash with a level voice. “This time, we at least know what we’ll be walking into.” “I seriously don’t know if that makes it any less taxing,” says Rarity. She notices Dash’s look and adds: “But I can’t see any other option, either.”       Fluttershy buries her head into her mane and hooves, whimpering. The three others walk to her and help her up. “You don’t have to go in,” says Twilight reassuringly. “Yeah,” agrees Dash. “You played your part when you found this cave.” “But…” starts Fluttershy. “There was nothing here.” “That doesn’t mean we couldn't learn anything from here,” says Twilight, smiling faintly. “Like Rarity said, we now know how to defeat the monsters. And Dash is right too: this cave proved that Draught Tear was planning something evil.” She smooths Fluttershy's mane with a hoof. “That is not nothing.” Fluttershy nods weakly. They leave the dead end behind them, walking steadily out without another word, not even when they cross the bats’ section of the cave, although Rarity did ask Dash to carry her over that. She didn’t ask twice. When they get outside, she is the first one to run on the sparse grass that grows in front of the cave. While wiping her hooves clean, something in the corner of her eye catches her attention. She looks down into the valley. And screams. “The cabin!” she cries. “Look at the cabin!” The three others gallop quickly beside her, looking at the where her hoof is pointing. From down below, a thick, black pillar of smoke rises, reaching higher by every passing second. It starts from the cabin, squeezing through the broken windows and walls. The whole building is aflame. ***  In Canterlot, in one of the main streets, a train of carriages, each pulled by two earth ponies, makes progress towards the city centre. Their cargo is composed of mixed assortment of bricks, logs, and other rubble. The wheels whine and complain under their heavy load, splashing water as they tread over the countless puddles. The ponies themselves remain quiet as stone, glazed eyes fixed ahead. All are sweating profusely, some pant, others look like they should have collapsed ages ago. Their ribs could be counted through the dirty, shaggy coats. Suddenly, a mare pulling the first carriage stops abruptly. When the stallion next to her glances at her, he sees her looking into a nearby alley. The rest of the retinue comes to a halt behind them. Without saying a word, the mare unharnesses herself and trots into the shady alley. Her empty eyes search around the miscellaneous crates, boxes, and bins. They nail at the last pile of trash that stands in the corner of the alley. Hoofsteps echo against the walls as she gets closer to it. Standing next to it, she tilts her head, and extends her leg. After removing a few garbage bags, she stops. From the filth and stench, two wide eyes stare at her; eyes grey as dust. She stands still for a moment. Just when Cough is about to faint, she turns away. He can hear the receding hoofsteps gradually disappear and change into the rattling of the carriages. After a while, even they disappear, leaving him alone in the garbage pile. Very carefully, he fights his way out, all the while firmly keeping his eyes at the mouth of the alley. He sneaks towards it, shaking at every step. The street is empty on both ways, although the sound of the carriages carries from around the next crossroads. He sprints to the opposite direction.   After a while he arrives to the familiar tenement. On the second floor, he knocks thrice on one of the doors. “It’s me,” he whispers. The door cracks open, revealing a peek of dark-blue coat behind. “Get in,” says Berryfer quietly. He pushes the door quickly shut after Cough. “What did you see?” asks Berryfer hurriedly. “They are still carting rubble somewhere,” says Cough, panting. He sits down. “Just like you said.” “Anything else?” Cough looks around the room. “Don’t we have any more water left?” “Not any that we could drink,” says Berryfer quickly. “Did you see anything else?” The dusty eyes turn to him. “They were fighting in the sky.” “Who?” “The pegasi,” says Cough, rubbing his tummy. It grumbles loudly. “Any food? Hay?” Berryfer narrows his eyes. “I told you, we ate the rest in the morning. Most of the furniture is stuffed with wool. You wanna eat wool?” “I could try…” Berryfer chews his lip. “Me too… but I don’t think we should. Who were fighting?” Cough swallows, leaving his belly alone. “The pegasi. The Changed ponies… and soldiers. I think they were soldiers.” “The Royal Guard?” asks Berryfer hopefully. Cough shakes his head. “Crystal Kingdom. I could tell, the way they shined.” “Who won?” Cough rolls his head. “I dunno… I couldn’t see well; the sun got into my eye.” For a moment, a strange look invades the grey eyes. “I saw some of them fall.”   “On which side?” “On both.” They quiet down for a moment. “You sure that we can’t drink from the water buckets?” asks Cough, looking pleadingly at Berryfer. “Mom said we shouldn’t,” he answers, furrowing his brows. “It’s dirty: we’d get sick.” “But if we don’t drink we get sick, too. I know I did.” “We’ll think of something, okay?” says Berryfer, the lines deepening on his brow. They all disappear suddenly. “The rain.” He turns a bright look at Cough. “There was a rainwater barrel in the back. It’s fresh.” Cough stands up, smiling. “Then we should drink it!” Berryfer nods, and soon they trot carefully in the backyard. The barrel standing beneath a gutter is full of clear, sweet water. As they quench their thirst, Cough asks: “Why they carry all that rubble around the city?” Berryfer swallows and sighs contentedly. “Beats me. I asked from pa once, but he said I shouldn’t think about it.” He stares deep into the rippling waters. The surface is too clear to let him see his own image in it. “He said I should only focus on surviving.” Cough looks into the same waters, the grey eyes half-covered by the bright yellow eyelids. “My mom said I should hide. I guess that’s the same thing.” “I guess…” says Berryfer quietly. He wipes his eyes, landing on all fours again. “Why you smell like I do?”     “I… I had to hide in a garbage pile,” answers Cough, still studying the water. “But it didn’t matter. They found me anyway, but didn’t care. They just moved on.” Berryfer eyes him from under his eyebrows. “What’s your name? I mean, your real name. The name your parents gave you.” Cough turns his eyes from the clear depths. Amidst the grey, a strange glint resides. “Glide. Glide Skate.” “Glide Skate,” repeats Berryfer. “It sound cooler than ‘Cough’.” Glide smiles happily. Berryfer looks at him for a moment longer and then lets his gaze travel around the backyard. A tall wooden fence surrounds it completely, and over that only the other large tenements, identical to the one in front of him, can be seen. They are all old and worn, their paintwork cracked and faded. The ground is paved with stone slabs, although several blades of grass push through. Beside the garbage bins and the rainwater barrel, a lone bench lies against the fence. One of its planks has broken. “Glide…” starts Berryfer quietly, looking at the bench. “What happened to my parents?” The smile dies on Glide’s lips. “I… I told you already. The Smoke took them.” “I know,” continues Berryfer. He looks at him, eyes shimmering. “But could you… Could you tell me how it happened?” Glide looks at the ground, slowly landing on all fours. He scrapes the stone with a hoof for a moment. “You sure you wanna know? I’d forget it if I could…” “Please. I have to know.” The grey, sad gaze rises to meet Berryfer’s. “Okay. I… I can tell you that.” He swallows, blinks a few times and says: “That night, your mother… She woke me up. She was… shouting… I couldn’t understand her at first.” Glide sits down, brushing a tuft of grass with his hooves. “She was trying to block the door, saying that I have to run. But there wasn’t anywhere to run. And my legs… I couldn't even get up.” He yanks the tuft free. “Then they broke in.” “A-and?” Berryfer asks after a while. Glide grimaces. “When she screamed, I got up. I think I was screaming, too. The rain was so loud. There was four or five of them… Earth ponies mostly… One of them tried to grab your mother.” Very slowly, Glide grinds the grass into pulp beneath his hooves. “I dunno what she did, but there was light, and the stallion passed out like she had hit him. They kept on coming through, and there was a unicorn with them: he fought back your mother’s magic.” Berryfer’s lip quivers. “H-he?” “Your dad,” says Glide, sobbing. “When she saw his face, she… she just… I…” He sniffs a few times. “I tried to stop them. I screamed and kicked and bit and kicked. They just brushed me away like I was some bug… And then… Then…” “The Smoke?” The word is barely audible. Glide nods faintly. “It, it… It got to me, too… It was cold, really cold… I thought I was gonna die…” He wipes his eyes and clenches his jaw. “But then I woke up. I dunno how long I sat there until you came.” Berryfer stares at the other colt, who trembles faintly in the rhythm of his sobs. For one fleeting moment, he becomes aware how warm it is in the yard. He looks up, shading his eyes with a hoof. The sky is practically cloudless, the sun is living its prime, sovereign in its heavenly glory. The rays sting his eyes like salt, making them water more. His mouth cracks open, and past the almost still lips, hollow lines fall. “Night so dark there exists not that the Sun, bright and hot wouldn't there ever trot.” The poem lives and dies. Nothing happens. He says it again, louder, stronger. But the sun remains mute. Berryfer gives it one more glance from the shade of his hoof and then lets his head droop. Glide, wiping his eyes dry, looks at him. “Should I get back into the city?” Berryfer doesn’t answer immediately. “Yes. You should.” He lifts his head. “I want to know where they are carrying all the ruins, and why.” Glide sniffs. “I think they’re all heading to the city center.” “Go there,” Berryfer continues, his voice as sharp as a ten-year-old can manage. “Find out what they’re doing there.” Glide gives him a suspicious look. “I thought it didn’t matter?” “It matters now.” He walks closer to Glide. “If we want to get our parents back, we need to know why they were taken. We need to know what the Smoke wants from them.” Glide stands up. “I… I guess…” Berryfer stops in front of him and puts a hoof on his shoulder. “I need you, Glide. I need your help. And you need mine.” He looks deep into the grey eyes. “I know how we can get our parents back.” Glide blinks. “How?” “I’ll show you. But you have to find them first.” “But how can you–” “We have to trust each other,” interrupts Berryfer, pressing his shoulder. “That’s the only way this is gonna work: with trust.”   Glide’s eyes travel slowly from Berryfer’s face to the hoof on his shoulder. “Okay… I trust you.” The hoof lets go of him. “Good. Now go.”                                                                                                   *** As Twilight, Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy finally make it down from the mountain, the cabin is nothing but a pile of smoldering ashes. They stare at the remains, panting. “What the hay happened?” asks Dash, floating in the air. “Let’s take a closer look,” says Twilight. She glances at Fluttershy who is drawing support from her and Rarity. “You should stay here. I don’t want you breathing any of that smoke.” “I’ll stay with her,” says Rarity. Twilight nods and trots towards the ruin of the cottage. The bitter smoke lingers heavily all around the yard and some of it gets into her eyes. She stops a few meters from where the walls of the cabin stood, peering through the smoke at the ashes. Soon she hears the sound of wings above her. “It couldn’t have just sparked on its own, right?” says Dash. “It’s highly unlikely,” says Twilight, coughing. She looks up. “It was fine when you went outside, wasn’t it?” Dash’s eyes go wide. “No way… No bucking way…” “What?” asks Twilight quickly. “When I last saw it, the cabin was fine,” says Dash, circling Twilight. “But I saw something move near it.” “You didn’t think to mention this earlier?” “I thought it was a deer!” says Dash, spreading her hooves in the air. “I mean, what else it could’ve been?” Twilight coughs and looks one more time at the blackened destruction before her. There is nothing left of the furniture or even of the floor. All the saddlebags burned, too. “More like who it could’ve been.” She looks grimly at Dash. “This was an arson.” Dash frowns. “Draught Tear’s pals?” Twilight nods slowly. “They must be lurking around here somewhere.” She turns her head from side to side, looking at the surrounding treelines and undergrowth. “They might be watching us right now.” Dash follows Twilight’s example, searching for anything unusual. The roar of the rapid mixes in with the crackling fire, and the smoke still stings both of their eyes. The pines wave in the weak wind, bringing their own faint tune into the melody of creeping oppressiveness. Next to the trail that leads to the mountain, Rarity and Fluttershy sit, looking expectantly at them. “How long is your horn gonna stay dull?” asks Dash quietly, still looking suspiciously around.   Twilight closes her eyes, frowning. For a moment, a spark of purple energy appears at the tip of her horn, only to disappear immediately after. “A while,” says Twilight frustratedly. When she open her eyes, the first thing she sees is Rarity. “We should get closer to them.” “Yeah, good idea,” says Dash slowly from above her. Her ear pricks up, turning towards the closest treeline. Twilight, still looking at Rarity, raises her hoof. From somewhere behind her, a strange noise carries to her ears over the dying flames and the raging rapid. It resembles a long, high-pitched whistle, like a boiling kettle, but some primal instinct tells her that the origin of the noise has nothing to do with teatime. The next thing she knows, she is pushed violently against the blackened ground. The whistling sound grows louder for a second and then disappears, melting into the mixed screams of Rarity and Fluttershy. The body pressing Twilight down rises abruptly. “Get up!” barks Dash’s voice, sharp as a lash. “Get up get up get up!” Twilight fumbles to her feet, looking wildly around with half of her face stained in ash. She sees Dash, or the enraged wild animal that strangely resembles Dash. She is crouching, hind legs digging into the scorched ground and wings spread wide. She is snarling and baring her teeth at something, eyes aflame with fury. Twilight follows the burn trail through the cloud of smoke. From the treetops, something trots closer to them, a dark-blue light glowing near its head. A unicorn, Twilight realizes, freezing. I was right. Draught Tear did have accomplices. “Rarity!” she shouts, not taking her eyes off the stranger. “Ra–” Her shout breaks in two, the damaged half turning into a frightened, disbelieved yelp. By her side, she hears Dash gasp. As a breeze of wind blows away the thick smoke and gives them a good look of the unknown assailant, they notice the wound in his chest. Despite the rough edges, and the dirt surrounding it, the round form is clearly visible, as is the glimpse of the green forest on the other side. It’s a neat hole, a clean cut, standing right on the place where his heart should be. “Impossible,” says Dash, the flame extinguished in her eyes. “D-draught Tear?” whimpers Twilight. Only her eyelids are moving, blinking rapidly. “I-I k-killed you…” Draught Tear stops his staggering, his horn glowing brighter again. A shock wave travels over Dash’s spine. “He’s gonna shoot again!” The pegasus zaps to her wings. “We got to move!” Twilight remains immobile, staring Draught Tear in the eyes. It’s difficult to say through the veil of smoke, but they seem to be completely black, as if their pupils had dilated into unnatural proportions. For a blink of an eye, she sees how they flicker in the light of the indigo bolt that leaps from his horn, flying towards her with astounding speed. She stares at it like a startled deer, unable to move, to breathe, to think; the bolt whistles like a train, sprints like a famished wolf. It stops a length of a horn from her face, crackling and fizzling against a light-blue surface, only to fade away with one last whistle. “Back away!” shouts Rarity from behind Twilight. She glances over her shoulder, seeing her shining horn. Twilight blinks, and from some other dimension, the reality floods in, fast and violently. “Everypony, get behind Rarity!” cries Twilight, rising to her wings. Then she notices that Dash and Fluttershy are already there, the latter in the air, the former cowering right behind Rarity. Twilight glides quickly next to Dash and Rarity. They all glare at the stallion who stands still on the other side of the ruin, swaying like a blade of grass in the wind. “Can you keep up with his attacks?” Twilight asks from Rarity. “I’ve turned a pile of thread and fabric into a collection of top-class garments in ten hours,” answers Rarity, her gaze nailed at the stallion. “He needs to beat that before getting through my horn.” “Don’t waste energy to counter-attacks,” continues Twilight. “We have no idea what we’re dealing with here.” “To tell the truth, I’m not that strong at offensive magic anyway,” confesses Rarity. She flinches as the stallion starts circling them to his right. “What should we do?” “All I need is a split second,” says Dash through gritted teeth. “And that… thing… has to learn performing magic tricks with a broken horn.” She snorts angrily. Twilight follows as the stallion trots around them, his black eyes studying them indifferently. Every step seems to be a challenge for him, as if he didn’t know how to use his legs properly. He even stumbles for a second, almost losing his balance. Like a zombie. But if he is dead, how can he use magic? How can he walk in the first place? This is insane… “I don’t think it’s a good idea to touch him,” says Twilight. “Whatever it is that makes him tick, it can’t be healthy for us.” “I-is he in p-pain?” whispers Fluttershy from behind. “H-he looks l-like it…” Draught Tear stops his clumsy trotting in a shadow of a large pine, turning towards the four ponies. His horn starts gleaming stronger again. They all freeze. “You should back away,” says Rarity. “I think he is aiming at me this time.” “No way,” says Dash, inching a bit closer to Rarity. “When he fires… I’ll charge at him.” “No you won’t,” blurts Twilight. “For all we know, you might turn up like him if you make contact.” She sees how the light concentrates at the tip of his horn. “Here it co–” From behind them, a terrible ripping sound carries. They look quickly back and see how one of the massive pines, wrapped in an eerie indigo glow, falls on them. “Watch out!” cries Twilight. They disperse like a flock of birds, Twilight and Dash in the air, Fluttershy and Rarity on the ground. The tree crashes right where they were standing. One of the branches scrapes Twilight’s cheek, and she can feel sharp pain cutting her coat. A flurry of pine needles fills the air, and in the middle of the chaos, her eyes happen to glance at the tree’s base. The sight makes her heart skip a beat. He ripped the whole thing from its roots like it was nothing.  “Head down!” shouts a raspy voice from behind her. Twilight is yanked back in the air, right when another magical bolt cleaves the air just by her nose. Immediately after, she is pushed down in the cover of the fallen tree where Rarity and Fluttershy are huddling. “I’m no match for him,” Rarity stutters, eyes wide and needles sticking from her mane. “He is too strong.” Fluttershy clasps tighter to her. Dash peeks quickly over the massive trunk. “He is coming closer.” Catching her breath, Twilight looks at her friends. He is going to kill us all, just like I killed him. This is his revenge. This is my fault. My… fault…  Even when she is sitting completely still, her heart rate only climbs up higher and her breathing intensifies by the second. What should I do what should I do what should I do? Think think think think think… Dash looks carefully over the tree again. This time, she gasps in surprise. “He… He is walking backwards.” “What?” exclaims Twilight. She stands up next to Dash. About twenty meters from them, the stallion retreats, with great effort, back to the shadow of the pines. When he gets there, his horn lights up once more. “Everypony, move!” cries Twilight, pulling Dash down with her. “Where to?” asks Rarity, panic seeping through her every syllable. Before Twilight can answer, the tree trunk starts shaking violently. She watches in horror as it rises from the ground. “Anywhere but here!”   They flee. Twilight and Dash soar through the air while Rarity helps Fluttershy gallop as fast as she can. The pine creeks noisily behind them, shedding more needles as it defies gravity. Twilight turns in the air, her eyes darting to the stallion. His pitch-black eyes look straight at her. The abyssal stare lances through her like a blade made of frost. What is he planning? Is he going to smack me with the bucking pine? The stallion’s eyes lower. Twilight follows them, seeing how Fluttershy lies on her flank on the grass, her chest heaving. Rarity stands next to her, looking helplessly alternately at Twilight and Draught Tear. For a second, the whole world stands still. It shatters when he hurls the trunk at Rarity and Fluttershy. Some say that extreme experiences and events, such as the possibility of seeing one’s friends squashed under a large tree, have the power to slow down time. The phenomenon is often explained with the notion that the brain reacts to certain stress hormones with increased awareness and perception. Indeed, as Twilight watched the pine soar through the air, it felt to her as if it was moving very slowly. The problem was that so was she. Her wings were coated with tar, and Rainbow Dash wasn’t doing any better, as she could deduce from the dept of the desperate scream that cut the air behind her. To Twilight’s astonishment, Dash was the only one making any noise during the short flight of the great pine; she herself had no air in her lungs to breathe, and Rarity had instinctively huddled over Fluttershy, trying to protect her with her body. At the moment when Twilight’s mind had registered the trajectory of the tree, she had lunged towards its landing point. But it wasn’t just with her body that she tried futilely to reach the point that had instantaneously become the most important one in the universe, but also with her mind. She grasped deep inside herself, never minding the rational part of her soul that reminded her that there was nothing there, not at least for the next hour or so. Her magic was drained, and there was nothing anypony could do about it. It was exactly as she had said, barely an hour ago: magic isn’t miraculous. It is an inner power of the pony, an attribute just like stamina. It can be exhausted. And yet she gropes in the void, scrapes at the bottom of her soul, extracting every ounce of mental energy to rub life into whatever engine worked for his horn. She might have as well hoped to make fire by clapping her hooves together real fast. Considering this, words totally fail to express her perplexion when the tree, without any comprehensible reason whatsoever, stops mid-air, perhaps some thirty centimeters from Rarity’s horn. Twilight sees it, but fails to act accordingly and thus collides with the trunk, dropping to the grass with flaring pain blooming on her forehead. The trunk comes down a second later, landing neatly between her and Rarity huddling over Fluttershy. Just as the dull agony is about to fade and give way for the real pain, Twilight sees that the trunk starts trembling again. Rarity raises her head just in time to see it fall on her. “No!” cries Twilight, reaching for the tree with her hoof. In a way of a foal that has been caught stealing cookies before dinner time by their mother, the tree freezes. Rarity stares at it, her left eye twitching slightly. A part of Twilight wants nothing more but to scream out loud “What is happening?!”, but as she feels the pine slipping from her grasp, all other through are pushed aside. She can feel the tree, just as if she was levitating it, although the sensation has an unfamiliar tinge to it that she for her life can't describe. It's like she was holding tongs with tongs, trying to pick something up. It didn’t help that the “something” was a hundred-year-old tree. “Move!” she shouts, fighting to keep the tree from crushing Rarity and Fluttershy. Rarity blinks and pulls Fluttershy up. Just as they have rolled from the way, Twilight loses whatever hold she had of the tree. Splinters fill the air as it comes crashing down, but Twilight doesn’t pay the fact any attention. She stares at Draught Tear, or the thing that resembles him. He stands in a shade, staring at her with eyes like coal. Twilight can’t say for sure, but it seems as if he is hesitating. A familiar sound of wings closes in on her. “About time you got your magic back,” says Dash, eyeing Draught Tear. “See? I bet that hole in his chest itches real bad right now.” “I can’t use magic yet,” whispers Twilight. “And I don’t think he feels much at the moment.” Dash’s head spins at her. “But I just saw you–” “I know. Don’t ask about it; we need to focus on him now.” Twilight takes a step forward. “Lead Fluttershy and Rarity out of here. Hide in where we made the last camp. If I don’t–” With an assertive thud, Dash lands next to Twilight. Suddenly, the empty stare from the other side of yard feels like a distant tickle to Twilight. Without being able to help herself, she glances at Dash. The look the pegasus gives her pierces right through her skull. “In your dreams,” says Dash. Her voice is steel folded over bedrock. From behind her, Twilight hears Rarity’s voice: “I happily concur.” Twilight turns her head, her eyes widening as Rarity, covered in pine needles and red scratches running all over her, walks by her side. “Where’s Flu–” “Behind the tree,” answers Rarity in a tone that might cut diamonds. She looks at Twilight. “She urged me to come.” For a moment, tears touch Twilight’s eyes, forming a well that reaches all the way to the primal spring of her soul. She blinks the shimmering away and glares at Draught Tear again, every cell of her body oozing with vigour. “I think I've found his weakness.” “Transparency?” says Dash. “The sun,” continues Twilight. “Every time he moves in the sunlight, he spasms. He can’t stand it.” “How should we proceed?” asks Rarity. A crooked smile brushes Twilight’s lips. “We help him to renew his tan.” On the other side of the yard, in the shadow within a shade, the thing hesitates. This is not what it had expected. As it studies the three mares whispering to each other, a sense of a doubt seeps into the process that, in the lack of a better word, serves the purpose of thinking in the thing’s mind. There is something suspicious in the mare in the middle, in the one with the wings and the horn, the sight of whom makes the parts of the thing that still in some ways resemble Draught Tear shiver in fear. But it isn't the fear of the unknown, nor the fear of the familiar enemy, for neither of these exist for the creature. Instead of these, a peculiar distortion reigns. In its eyes, the alicorn appears as a new letter in the alphabet, as something familiar and strange at the same time. It was like seeing one’s mirror image wink at you, right before it crashed through the glass to try and kill you.