//------------------------------//
// The Wolves, the Bats, and the Knowing Stone, Part 1 
// Story: Twin Night Terror's 
// by FluffyDoom 
//------------------------------//

	Chapter 4: The Wolves, the Bats, and the Knowing Stone.

On and on they walked, Astra looking worriedly at the bag which held the book every now and then. Eclipse was thankful that she took the advice Shimmer had given her yesterday, to arrive with a bag for camping. Lucky for her, none of the present ponies had thought to take off their bags when they arrived at the twins home.
Shimmer gazed at the ground, slightly imagining her vision to be sharper than a hawks, or eagles, though she knew that was not the case. She was incredibly lucky with 20/20 vision, while her sisters was slightly worse, but it wasn’t overly horrible, and she could still make out some of the finer details farther away.
As they traveled on in deadly silence, a mist began to appear. Thicker and thicker, it began to clog even Shimmers perfect sight, until she couldn’t even see her sister below her. With a start, she looked around wildly, white clouds surrounding her. When did this happen? And why so quickly?
“Sister!” She cried out in fear. “Astra!”
“We are over here!” Came the muffled reply of Eclipse. “Where are you Shimmer?”
“I don’t know.” She sniffled, feeling sudden loneliness. All she saw was the eerie white fog, and nothing, not even the ground, in sight. “Sister!” She cried out, panic setting in faster than a fleeing rabbit.
“I am fine, Shimmer, but but I can’t clear this fog away with my magick!” She yelled. “Just, come over to my voice, follow it.”
Shimmer attempted to, but the more Astra hummed, the farther away she felt she got. Getting desperate, she called on her own Pegasus magick to help her find her way. Pegasus magick was also a great help with navigation, but this odd fog seemed to have diminished not only her physical senses but her magickal ones too!
“I can’t!” She finally cried out. “Not even my pegasus magick can make head or tails of this!”
No reply.
“Astra? Did you hear me?”
Nothing.
“Sister?”
…
“Sissy?” She whimpered.
All that greeted her was the horrible, suffocating fog.
Her wings stopped buzzing and a panic attack threatened to happen any second. As she fell, her rump hit what surely was the ground, but she couldn’t see it. She was surrounded by white, nothing but horrific whiteness. “Sister!” She screeched.
Shivers of fear rocked her body, and in a vain attempt she called upon the power she used least of all, despite it being the most common, her weathering skills. Her wings pumped once again, but this time at a whirlwind pace. They slightly glowed as she concentrated on just clearing the fog.
Everfree fog came from the Everfree forest, not ponies, but it was still a type of weather, and she prayed with all her might it would react to her weather magick, and it did. The death still whiteness moved slowly but surely, and the forest began to reveal itself one more. Tears slid down Shimmers face, betraying both her fear and relief at what just happened. When the last traces of it moved, she was tackled by a warm body.
“Oh Shimmer, hearing you yell and cry like that was awful!” Astra cried, nuzzling her twin. “I never want to be separated from you like that! Never! We were there for each other during birth, and our parents death, and being orphans, and not being there for you during that stupid fog? It was just terrible!”
As sister cried for sister, Eclipse couldn’t help but hear the breath taking howl of a wolf in the distance, and she was nearly positive that a timberwolf had heard all three ponies yelling.
“I hate to interrupt,” She said softly yet firmly, but we must hush. Predators lurk.”
Both nodded, and sniffles recided, and after a bit, Shimmer could finally speak.
“A-Astra, if you could hear me, then why didn’t you respond?”
“Oh but we did!” Astra said as the three began to walk forward once more. “We yelled for you at the top of our lungs.” She promised. “I even tried to run to you, but all I could see was your faint outline, and when I tried moving, it was like I was moving through jello.”
“Really?” She asked. “I had no trouble moving at all, and I couldn’t hear you guys, I couldn’t even see your outlines! To think of it, I didn’t even see the ground when I fell.”
“You fell?” Astra squeaked.
“On purpose!” Shimmer defended herself. “Well, sorta… See, I just… I was.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit how terrified she was, but this was her sister, and she could trust her not to make fun of her in this weak moment. “I was absolutely shell-shocked. Not even my navigational Pegasus magick could understand what was happening.” She looked at the ground bitterly.
Astra nuzzled her cheek gently. “I am so sorry, that must have been horrible for you.” She whispered. “I promise though, we will never let a thing happen to you, not me, not even Eclipse. She may seem distant and tame, but I feel she is a good pony at heart, and would always protect a friend in need.”
Shimmer held back tears. “Thanks Astra, I really needed to hear that.”
“I am your sister, and I am there for you.” The Unicorn sighed.

Eclipse purposefully ignored their conversation, not wanting to eavesdrop on anything personal. Instead, the Earth pony looked straight ahead and focused on the path, which was not clear thanks to Shimmer. Sadly though, her vision was failing once more thanks to something possibly worse than the white fog, a black darkness thanks to the trees.
Eclipse shuddered, not wanting to repeat what had just happened, with a scared filly crying out for the help of her sister, while Eclipse could only protect said sister, and not the other. It had been about as bad for her as the twins. Eclipse was not an adventurer at heart, she was a studious mare, and that fog nearly drove her from the Everfree Forest.
She would have run away too, if it weren’t for the fact she felt the need to protect those twins. Eclipse wanted to tell them to turn back too, but she knew deep down those two would not listen. They were raised-hard orphans, stubborn as any pony from the apple family, and probably just as tough. Besides, why would they listen to a stranger who just became their friend?
She felt she had only one thing to do, and that was to protect them both, so she braved the darkening forest.

Astra grinned as they neared the end of their discussion, not noticing the darkening forest, and confident that they still had plenty of daylight left. “I think I understand what happened with the fog!” She chuckled. “It was the second test!”
Shimmer did not smile though, her eye merely twitched. “What?” She hissed. “I went through hell, I can not have you, or Eclipse, go through the same thing.”
Astra waved her tail. “Relax, Shims, I think it is different each test.”
Shimmer glanced around. “Speaking of tests, look at the forest. Despite it being noon at the latest, it appears we have entered night…”
Astra gulped. “Lets catch up to Eclipse and not stray from her.”
Shimmer nodded and they walked on her sides.
Steadily it grew darker, faster than that though, the ponies grew scareder. What if they were separated again?
A screech from above made each of them screech, but a shaky laugh escaped Shimmer as she managed to see what made the noise.
“Hehe.” She tried to laugh, but her nerves easily got the better of her. “It, it was just a vampire fruit bat guys.” She grinned weakly. “I should know, the apples have a tiny section cut off for them, and once I got a temporary job there to put up discarded apples.”
It was only temporary until Applebloom got better from her sickness.
“Yeah.” Astra nodded, and looked at them.
Despite the failing light she could see the details of them as more and more appeared in the darkness. They had extremely sharp fangs, grey, black, and brown colors, and flickering tongues. What struck her as odd though, was that there tongues lacked the frog-like stretchiness of most of their kind. Their frog-like tongues were able to grab, wrap around, and bring an apple straight to them, while the rest of the body hung still. There tongues seemed to lack that, and the hunger in their eyes told a different story.
Eclipse seemed to be the most nervous out of them. She knew all about friendly creatures, or at least creatures who didn’t attack ponies, of the night. These did not have uncaring eyes of those who were not bothered by ponies, but rather eyes than hungered and blamed the ponies. As more and more came, the darkness grew thicker, and to her, began to take a solid shape made of bats. Could these vermin be the reason darkness was descending faster than normal?
“Astra, can you light up that horn of yours?” Eclipse muttered as the area around them grew wetter, and the plants around them looked like they belonged in a marsh.
Astra nodded, and gladly brought some light to the area.
Hisses met her actions, and finally the waiting predators struck. With screeches the ponies finally saw why they were not like the run of the mill vampire fruit bat. The ears were smaller and sharper, the tongues slitted, and pointers, and their eyes grew red. Not just red with fury, but a physical reaction was taking place as they began to swarm the ponies, and their fangs growing longer so they might pierce their hides.
“These aren’t vampire fruit bats!” Eclipse yelled, “They are vampire cattle bats! They feed on the blood of livestock, but learned to ignore ancient griffins, because they wielded fire!”
The marsh-like plants, their hatred of her light that looked like fire. It all clicked in the brilliant mind of Astra. She gritted her teeth and summoned a spell she only used for small things. She summoned her fire making spell, but on a bigger scale.
“Stand back, everypony!” She hollered as a real-life fireball exploded from her horn.
The other two stood behind her as the mini ball of fire shot not once, but twice, from her horn. The first one was medium sized and appeared to drain her, while the second one was much smaller, but had the desired effects just like the medium sized one. The usually wet plants had been dried by the medium sized fire-ball, while the smaller one emitted just enough heat to light them on fire.
“Follow the trail!” Shimmer ordered, resisting the urge to run before them.
“Keep low to the ground, no flying, Shimmer.” Eclipse ordered.
Shimmer figured she had a good reason for ordering her around, and copied her. They swiftly crawled from the blazing forest fire that wasn’t spreading too far thanks to the wet conditions. When they felt they were a safe distance, Eclipse stood up and the followed.
She coughed a bit and banged on her chest, then got water from her backpack. “You guys need a drink too.” She said and guzzled down the bottle.
Numbly, the twins nodded, and drank the water from their bottles. While they focused on taking the older mares calm orders, Eclipse herself studied the conditions of all three of them.
Her own dark blue coat had soot covering it, and one tiny burn mark from an overly friendly ember. Her throat was sore from the smoke too, but that was expected and didn’t pose any real harm. Looking at the twins, she noticed they looked fine, though Astra appeared drained, and Shimmer had signed the edges of feathers when she almost flew off like an idiot. Both appeared a bit mind-blown too, but that would be taken care of, she hoped, with some kind words and an understanding demeanour.
“Hey, girls.” She said. “Why don’t we eat some lunch? We could dig into my supplied.” She said and opened her back pack.
Everything in it was fine, though some soot leaked into its edges, nothing was harmed. She took out three wrapped hay sandwiches. She gave one to each sister and unwrapped hers. Chowing down she watched the twins carefully. They appeared to take comfort in each other, but the Unicorn still sagged a bit.
Gulping down her most recent bite, she decided to take out an apple and hang it to them. “Split it in half.” She suggested in a motherly voice. “You both need it after what you two had to do.”
Astra had recovered enough wit to speak. “You should have it though!” She protested. “This is your food.”
Eclipse grinned kindly. “It might come from my supplies, but this is a group effort, besides, I haven’t done much besides walk and run today. Both of you though, you girls have worked hard. Take it.” She intsisted.
Shimmer didn’t need much convincing to take a huge chunk from the apple, and finish her half of it in a second bite. Chewing and swallowing a smile replaced her lips, though it was slightly bitter.
“What a disaster this has turned out to be.”
Eclipse couldn’t help but agree verbally. “Yeah… I would understand if you girls wish to turn back.” She said, and right after that a second, and much closer howl sounded, sending shivers down all three of their spines.
Astra gained a hard look in her eye despite that. “No.” She said curtly. “I refuse to go back, we have made it this far, and I think that was our third challenge.”
Shimmer glared at her. “Sister, I really do hate to fight with you, but if you are right, than we almost died in that test. You heard Eclipse, those things were cattle bats. Granted, cattle is raised by griffins, known omnivores, they have been known to travel to Equestria.”
Eclipse finished her sandwich. “Actually, we weren’t in too much danger.” She admitted. “Yes. they would have fed a little from us, but soon they would have fled after the first few bats informed the rest that we were known to wield fire. They make special notes of species that use fire, considering they hate it the most. They can also make a dark-like lighting appear by spreading their wings and casting shadows everywhere.”
“That is nice to know after the bat attack.” Shimmer snorted.
Eclipse fixed her with a stern gaze. “Hey, we were under attack and I couldn’t see them before they shoved their bodies in my face.”
Astra swiftly finished the apple and drank the rest of the water from her bottle. “Enough of this.” She stood up and stomped a hoof on the ground. “I am not going back.”
Shimmer sighed and stood up and stretched. “I guess where you go, I go, Sis.” Grins graced both of their features.
Eclipse groaned and stood up. “I am the only adult here, it is my responsibility to protect ifiot foals like you.”
“Hey!” THey both protested with slight grins on their faces.
“Yeah, only my sister acts like a hotheaded foal!” Astra giggled.
“Oh, shush you.” Shimmer said with mock scorn. “Lets just get going.
Eclipse allowed a wry grin on her face and the three continued stretching to move forward once more. Judging from the sky, they only have five more hours until the sun set.

To be continued...