“There’s nothing there. Dead air. No sort of communication pierces through, magic or not. There hasn’t been a barrier this strong put up since—”
“Any word from the scout?”
“Negative. We tried to contact him, but it seems he’s in the dead air zone too now.”
“Prepare another one. Teleport him directly into the settlement and keep the link.”
“But the beam construction strain—”
“Prepare another one.” The communications officer had to know that the conversation was over from that point on.
Princess Luna had finally figured out what felt wrong with her health. That thing left a mark, yes, but it was not an invasive agent or anything wholly debilitating.
It was a marker for its absence.
That “Bane” decided that she will want to know when he leaves on business. He did so through purple ichor soaking out of her orifices and nausea taking over her head, but it did so nonetheless. His thoughts and actions were visible to her, as if he wanted her to know. Partly so, in obscure images, but visible. To show her who was whose better.
Luna clearly recalled never letting him out into the real world, or allowing him to take action by himself. Not once during their… negotiations. He acted completely independently, and there was not a blasted thing she could do about it. His blunt superiority was established, and opposing him in their mutual native plane would be suicide.
In the meantime, the immense evacuation effort the Princess had been overseeing for the past six hours was progressing. In just a bit of time, they would be able to teleport whoever remained in Ponyville vicinity into the specially prepared plaza.
That was not good enough for Bane, and he went off to show her, the ruler of the whole country, how she should have been doing things. He never said anything - they never communicated properly, not since the first time - but she could tell. This creature’s mind was something so dark and perverted that Luna could barely help but know all too well what he was thinking.
An eldritch, alien abomination was trying to one-up her in saving her subjects’ lives. That was his independent action. Not a reign of terror over all of the country, not the murder of the government, no. He was performing emergency extraction as if he were no more than a creature of the night at her bidding. At least, that is what it would surely look like to whoever found out and never knew the context. Not in any way, shape, or form, was it good.
“Stand back,” Luna warned before firing off another concentrated blast at the steadily growing beam, powering it up further. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep doing that, and her magic had near completely switched its color to nightmarish purple, but she kept doing it nonetheless. This was the one route that was both safe and efficient.
She was not letting that thing humiliate her in such a way. He would not get her to change tactics, and he would not be the first to succeed. Ponyville was being evacuated the right way, all in one piece, safe and sound.
Not through whatever means Bane was burrowing tunnels through the dreamscape for.
Tunnels that Princess Luna, Equestria’s only official dreamwalker, saw with clarity, and did not, at any point, attempt to shut them off.
“We need them back,” she said to herself, raspy after a series of sludgy coughs, “We can’t lose the Elements.”
Her legs moved on their own accord. The blackness in her mind coddled her anxieties and insecurities, drowsing them to sleep. The placid skittering of blackened veins on the surface of the orb that surrounded her head hypnotized her further, making shapes like a kaleidoscope would. Her world was asleep,
If only Twilight Sparkle could be suppressed so easily with all the terror that she was going through.
“Mmmmhhh…”
“Shhh. Go to sleep.”
“Whhh?..”
“Everything is fine. Go back to sleep.”
She listened to the voice of her father, echoing slightly in her head. It was so difficult to think - more importantly, it was so unnecessary to do so. She only needed to stay asleep and it would all be fine.
But something kept her on the bridge between sleep and reality.
“Where is… everyone…”
“Grrraaaaaaargh!”
With a sudden shock, her breath strained heavily, and her eyes shot wide open, still unseeing. Her whole body, previously woolen and weak, went into heavy convulsions and hysterics.
“Can’t you just stay asleep?”
Why was her father yelling at her?
Twilight strained her neck to look up at Night Light, who stood in front of her. The sight of her parent pacified the terror-taken unicorn, and nearly lulled her back to sleep, but something was wrong. Her thoughts would not be stopped so easily.
What was going on?
“Everything is fine.”
Where was everyone?
“They’re okay. Go back to sleep, Twilight.”
Why wouldn’t he call her Twily like he always did?
“Please, just be a good girl and go back to sleep.”
Why was he there?
And why were his teeth so crooked?
“I’m… I don’t…”
Her body argued there where her mind would not. Choking and twitching in place, Twilight was fighting herself to become aware of the surroundings. The dark purple ichor that surrounded her head like a plastic bag invited her eyes to stay shut, and only her father was visible, standing right in front of her.
“Nothing is wrong.”
“No… No, no…” she blabbered defiantly, sleepwalking against her will.
Pieces of memories shot back into her mind, only to be met with more purplish haze. It wanted her asleep. It was…
She remembered.
“No! Get this off me get this off me get—”
“Nnnttchhhkaaaaah! Can’t a simple thing ever go right?!”
Night Light contorted in a bone-twisting manner, and his face sprung up right next to hers, melting like hot wax.
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” Twilight stuttered in panic, feeling a cold, freezing sting take over her spine.
Horror. Everything was horror. She watched the purple substance circle and swirl, obscuring the world outside, and in that substance, images showed that the unicorn could not hope to comprehend. Outside the sphere that enveloped her head, more terrifying imagery was visible. Night Light tried to cover it up with his expanding visage, but it was for naught.
Twilight had become aware.
“No… no, st— stop…” the wide asleep unicorn muttered incoherently, her own mouth not obeying panicked commands.
Ponyville. The town she had grown to love so much over the course of these years. Her second home. Her legs pulled her through the streets and to the hillside, dragging the struggling body through things that aimed their sharp mandibles to scar her psyche.
It was all gone.
Dead.
Crushed and pillaged. Corpses littered the streets. Torn apart at the seams. Drained and bleak.
“Drown you in corpses…”
“No, not that! Not that one! Ah, why is this so DIFFICULT?”
“Alive in death…”
“How does one even DO this? How do you not— Uuuuunrgh!”
Twilight’s body swiveled back and forth as her eyes coursed from one ravaged body to another. Their colorful coats had all been greyed, even their blood and intestinal matter losing color. Sucked dry of all they ever had.
All magic was gone.
“Twilight! SPARKLE!” her father’s terribly distorted voice got her to leave horror and enter confusion, “Listen to me.”
“No, no… no…” her mouth answered incoherently without any prompt from herself. Twilight was locked within her mind, sleepwalking awake.
“You are safe. All of this is not real. I just need you to follow me, because otherwise you will die. Do you understand?”
“I… I…” she had begun to drool, but, with an immense effort, her foreleg moved off its place and signaled to her father. His face had, by then, lost its eyes, and the mouth expanded far beyond the edges of the muzzle.
“Follow me. Good girl. I’ll get you out safe. You’ll be fine.”
Twilight struggled to breathe, to think, to move. It was not her in charge, not even remotely. Her mind was being suppressed from all sides, and the world argued with itself. Just a few minutes ago… Just a few minutes ago, she lay in bed, dying slowly, and her friends were nearby.
Now she walked after her father through what little remained of their peaceful city, and the purplish veins of the menacing dark cover orbiting her head built terrifying images her mind refused to read. It struggled to operate, but even in such condition, it realized something was wrong.
“Where… are my…”
“They’re okay… They’ll all get home. They’re looked over, and they will be fine. As long as they don't do anything very stupid, they are fine. You'll see them again, just come with me.”
The screeching element of Night Light’s voice made her heart beat with scarring intensity, but something about it made a more distant section of Twilight’s memory perk up with curiosity.
No, this was not Night Light.
What this thing was… it was very strange for it to behave that way, from what the unicorn could barely remember.
“But…”
“Twilight…” the dark blue unicorn-ish creature walked up to her, stepping over disemboweled bodies and casting a shadowy pall over the solemn light of the bleeding moon, “...none of this is real. It is a Nightmare. You’re safe here with me. I am doing what I can so that you won’t be hurt. I… am not the best at it, but I am trying. Please, help me help you. Come with me.”
It extended its hoof, and all Twilight Sparkle could offer in return was a twitch of the speeding eyes.
“Okay, Twilight?”
She stared with terror into her father’s melting visage, barely realizing what she was doing. Her rational thinking tried to fight through, to take over the paralysis.
The unicorn nodded rigidly, and her father’s two frail arms, springing from the neck, clapped slowly, motioning her to follow.
It was all too easy.
The living fought, the living struggled, the living refused to concede their pointless existence and join the choir. Always flinging their weapons to the last breath, or running until their legs gave. Even those that gave up hope, or were debilitated, would panic and run.
These just walked right into him and his army.
His lumbering frame loomed over the small buildings, but nothing came of it. No resistance. No frightened settlers. Noone to notice the hundreds of decaying bodies crawling, shambling, walking, dragging themselves to their peaceful abode. The Tombstone’s influence did create thick fog and an air to stop hearts, yes, but there was no magic in it that could do… this to them. Sentient creatures could not have been affected by the magic to that extent.
Up to a dozen have walked into his army, more zombified than his already present corpses. Wiped and devoid of will, they were quickly consumed and repurposed. Were they not the rulers of the realm? Were they not the kings of the whole planet? The striped one’s knowledge pointed to that. By all means, they should have been so much more of a challenge.
They just… walked into them. Was the Song really so easily heard by these creatures?
Were they truly so special in their own, dimunitive, weak-willed way?
Or was it some other influence?
“Uuuugrhhhh…” the halved grey corpse that had been crawling by his side through the whole journey twitched and moaned in a new tone when the Undying’s leg stepped right through a roof.
“The dead are here,” his throat’s scarce contents rippled in response.
“Guuurlhhh…” it responded, latching onto a passing placid walker’s leg and biting into it with admirable resolve. The large red male with a bright yellow mane continued to walk towards the still distant Tombstone, dragging the flailing grey zombie with his hind leg, now that its teeth were stuck in the thick muscle.
The scenario made the undead general sincerely curious. Most past invasions were all very similar. Different tactics, different landscapes, different enemies, but the core was simple. His unfeeling, unflinching, perfect army against a wall of stubborn sour notes that refused to give up the cacophony that was life. The dynamic persisted.
Even now, he could hear distant screams of horror and fighting. No, not all of these "ponies" were like that. Some had the same stubbornness. He could see an unusually lively specimen, clad in armor that the rotting militant could identify as that of a scout, be surrounded by the corpses and skeletons of his former kin and torn into little pieces. Just like in the place the Undying came from, the scout's vocal chords would take a drastic rise in pitch as teeth and bones ripped them from the throat. This was a similarity. But the rest… There was something about the rest. Something about this world.
The flow of magic in it, the sensitivity of its denizens, and even the behavior of his own undead felt all so different. Not so rigid, more flexible. While he would not think that they truly did understand the Song and give their lives up on purpose, he still saw the fact that their musical hearing was so much better. This plane had potential, Undying realized.
What if his conquest would bear fruit of not only the triumphant return to his Dead God, but also the creation of an army that no previous one could hope to compare to?
His own symphony? Never perfect, no, not to contend with his God’s work, but a creation of his own nonetheless?
He contemplated, walking his thoughtful shamble over the town buildings, crushing them with his fists and stepping on the hopeless denizens. The potential for information extraction was passed up in favor of continued thought. He would know all he needed once he had Twilight Sparkle.
“Twilight… Sparkle…” his mouth let out two words that it had never spoken before. The rotting hulk vomited generously over a large tree-like structure and crushed through it in his fall. It was empty and hollow.
In all of it, something was wrong.
“Twilight Sparkle,” he repeated, and felt a sting of uncertainty rise within his shallow heart.
There was only the run. She ran like she never did before. Past the gloomy streets and the bleak turns, through the shadows and into the clear. It was the run of her life.
“Gotta keep up, gotta keep up,” her mind reminded repeatedly, pummeling the phrase into her conscious in the rhythm of her hooves hitting the ground.
There was nothing but the run.
And nothing could have been better.
“Gotta keep up, gotta keep up.” She scaled a small hut and continued the race right away.
It felt so perfect. Perfect stamina. She knew she was good, but damn! The speed her body reached could have had her instructors’ jaws drop - and not a single sweat! Perfect level of breath, perfect motion of legs, perfect speed. She was perfect. It was a dream.
Rainbow Dash ran through the Spitfire lane and hoof-bumped each of them while running, and not even that slowed her down. Each Spitfire nodded in return. Not shock-stricken, no, that’d be too good, but with respect and appreciation. Perfect. It was a dream.
Nothing in her life could ever have been better. Nothing mattered but the run.
“Gotta keep up, gotta keep up!”
Sometimes, her mind would sway off and start doing something weird. It wanted a reason for the running, it wanted to tell her something, but Rainbow Dash did not want to listen. It was her dream.
Why was she running? Why wouldn’t she be running, that was a better question! It was a dream.
Was she running from something? Why would she ever run from anything, the whole idea was stupid! It was a dream.
If she would never run from anything, then why was she leaving her town behind? She wasn’t leaving anything behind, she was living her dream! It was a dream.
If she was living her dream, then why wasn’t she flying? What was keeping her down? What—
The dark, purple pall that pulsated around her head tightened the strain and Rainbow Dash continued to run.
Really, there was some reason why she started to run. Ever since she did, her mind simply got lost in the process. She knew it was satisfactory. It was appreciated.
“Gotta keep up, gotta keep up, gotta get away!”
Maybe there was something out there - and so what? The run mattered. Nothing else did. She was Rainbow Dash, and her run was perfect. It was a dream.
She was Rainbow Dash! She saved Equestria, multiple times! All by herself!
Okay, not by herself, but mostly!
Primarily!
Partly!
She slid under the legs of a huge, off-center arc, clearly put up specifically for her triumphant run. It shambled and moved slightly, as if the wind was making it twitch. It was a crappy arc. But, well, it was her dream, and nothing could ruin it.
But she was Rainbow Dash, and she could live with that. What mattered was that she was the best! Loyalty. That was what she was. The best element, period, ask anyone. Everyone loved her, anyway, so why would there ever be any disagreement? It was a dream.
There, she even found someone who could help her prove the point. She stopped gracefully in front of an orange filly with a purple mane (no inertia and no post-run exhaustion whatsoever for the mare herself). Dash knew that this filly, Scootaloo, was her biggest fan. Of course she would be honest when Dash asked her who was the best! It was a dream.
The cyan pegasus mare tapped the filly on the shoulder with a hoof. She could always make time for her little friend. If she was ever in trouble, she would definitely help her. What if she was? The filly looked so solemn, standing with her tail facing Dash, and staring into the distance. The run was good enough, but there were more important things, after all. It was her dream, but that did not mean that she couldn't make time for anyone else.
“Gotta keep up!” her mind sprung into the conversation, but Rainbow Dash knew better.
“Gotta keep up!”
“Gotta get away!”
“Run! RUN! RUN!” She had been running away from something, and the abstract terror fueled her resolve through all that time, Dash understood. That was still secondary.
“Gotta keep up! Gotta get away!” the only reason she continued to run was that her body told her to, and her mind simply slipped into denial, beginning to find joy in the hopeless process.
“RAINBOW. DASH. What are you doing?..” her conscious yelled right at her in a terrifying screeching voice, but Dash knew that something was wrong with Scootaloo, and her own problems could wait for just… one… minute.
She looked the filly in the face when there was no response.
One of her eyes was torn out, the jaw was hanging by little more than a few tendons, and the skin on the forehooves was almost completely missing. A needle pierced her neck. Multiple stab wounds, indicative of a unicorn foal's horn, were sprung all over her chest.
“Uuuurrrghhhh…” Scootaloo replied.
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, and not even the ghastly purple pall around her head could repress the Element of Loyalty’s self any longer.
It was a dream, yes. A Nightmare, to be exact.
“Scootaloo!” she yelled in stricken surprise, terrified with the thought of what must have happened, not a single remainder of the run left in her head, “What is going on? What happened to you?”
Scootaloo stared at her for a few moments. The sickening mist that circled even on the outskirts found its way into Dash’s lungs, and now she could hear her heartbeat so much better. Her slow, slow heartbeat.
The shadow of the arc closed in on her, falling over the filly and walking its crooked legs in a repulsive, rigid manner.
“Twilight… Sparkle…” a voice that Rainbow Dash’s psyche refused to try and describe to itself sounded off from far behind and above.
The pall was gone.
Rainbow Dash was alone. Alone with Scootaloo, whose terribly mangled frame stared right at her, gurgling idly.
How could she let herself never notice it before? How could she be so self-centered and let the drug of the nightmare take over her mind? How did she never notice the figures in the mist, never think that something was wrong? Why did she only react when she practically ran into her? How could she have done that?
The Nightmare was reality.
“Why…” Dash had begun to speak in defeat, her brain barely having caught up to what exactly happened. All she knew was that she had failed, and failed horribly. She did something so, so wrong. Scootaloo… What would Scootaloo think?
Dash looked at the filly again, and never got to realize what had happened.
“AAAAAAH—”
The upper teeth of the little pegasus were still more than fit to rip into her throat and weigh down the exhausted, unsuspecting, confused body.
The last thing Rainbow Dash ever saw was the dead, blank stare of something her dying mind refused to even try to identify.
“Twilight Sparkle,” she was ordered, and there was nothing else for Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty, to do.
Princess Celestia was just walking out of the conference room, and fought with the desire to let her thoughts slip through the serene visage she wore day to day.
The pure white alicorn nearly puffed out of her nose with frustration. The conference with the griffon Queen and multiple Northern Equestrian landlords went… successfully, but with far too much strain and argument. A big letdown after the willing cooperation of the Crystal Empire, ruled by Princess Cadence and Celestia's faithful student Twilight Sparkle's elder brother, Shining Armor. Perhaps, it was all simply nepotism in that regard.
Celestia knew that it was a big ask to tell the other northern nations to send their armed forces to Canterlot for almost entirely supernatural reasons. Supernatural even by Equestria's standards. Discord, Nightmare Moon, and many others would have made themselves known prior to their terror - this one they were warned about in advance through means Celestia feared to deduce. Worse yet, she knew that if she was in their position, she would have been just as suspicious, and most likely have sent an emissary to clear things out first, wasting her time if the threat was ever proven to be true. The Princess, however, also knew for a fact she would never have been half as stubborn. Quite literally just a single jarl from the North agreed right away, and the amount of bartering it took with the Queen… Sometimes, the sudden strains of diplomacy caused Celestia to show just a bit of the pent up anger on the outside.
And then, with just a single crack, that anger was gone.
The Princess was walking, and then she stopped, replaying the sound she just heard over and over again in her head, wishing it was merely something misheard.
The two Princesses had access to the Elements of Harmony. They did, from the very creation of the devices. Their most powerful artifacts. Their defense against all that was evil and their weapon against all that wished to assail. Their tool of perseverance. The link they had with them was intricate and deep.
Right at that very moment, Celestia heard one of them crash into pieces.
Canterlot Towers shook under he impact of a royal’s voice yet again that day, and this time around, it was much worse than before.