When Friends are Said and Dun

by xenos29


Chapter 34

Nopony was prepared for the barbed mesh of vines that collided with them the second they crossed the shield's threshold. Breaking off into pairs, the ponies pushed on, scraping their armor and tearing their capes as they wormed their way through the treacherous reef. To Twilight, it felt as if she were being dragged through a fishing net too finely-spun for her to slip away, knowing full well that she was actually walking forward with all her might, clearing the way for Luna to follow behind.
Slightly worse for wear, the ponies managed to escape the hedge, only to find themselves in a clearing that was no less inhospitable. High above, the shield looked the same as it did from outside, a ghostly dome of shifting light serving as sky for a dreary bog. A foul, soupy fog clung to Twilight’s hooves, along with blackish mud that seemed bent on halting the ponies’ progress. It was a landscape as otherworldly as some feverish nightmare, and everypony's faces reflected it. Rarity, Rainbow, and Applejack let slip small grimaces; Pinkie and Fluttershy, heavy, quivering sighs. As for Alpenglow, he had looked away, no doubt giving himself time to adjust to the familiar sight as the princesses recomposed themselves and beckoned the Smoke Jumper and the guards, still struggling to extract the box from its thorny throng.
"This ain't Ponyville…" said Applejack. "It can’t be."
"No, look," Twilight pointed ahead. Past an orchard of wagon-sized vine clusters and mud pits sat a river, or at least the dried out remains of one. Above it, in the muddied yet familiar pastoral decor of Ponyville's architecture, a lonely bridge stood as if attempting to flee its decayed surroundings. Twilight was wondering how many times she and her friends must have traveled across it when Spike began fidgeting on Alpenglow's back. "Why is it like this?" he asked. "Where's the grass? And the trees?"
"It's how Blight keeps up his strength, Spike," Alpenglow told him. "He sucks the life out of everything he can get a hold of: plants, magic...ponies." He exhaled in a huff.
"Was Ponyville always that far away?" asked Fluttershy.
"Most definitely not," Luna answered.
Rainbow chimed in, "Guess Cadance wasn't kidding when they said they got pushed back."
Rarity pointed optimistically at the foggy distance. "No matter. It’s not far at all to the town proper. We’ll be there in no time."
As if to protest, the ground shuddered like a thing possessed. Where the ground was dry, it split at the seams; where it was mud, it bubbled as something stirred beneath the surface, and one by one, just about everypony was thrown to the ground. Beating their wings, Alpenglow, Rainbow, and the princesses stayed on their hooves, scanning the horizon as the tremor stopped.
"You were sayin,' Rarity?" Applejack jeered as she stood. Twilight had just righted her own self when Alpenglow spun to face her.
"I get the feeling that wasn't an earthquake," he said dryly.
She nodded. "He knows we're here."
"Knowing Blight, he's waiting for us at town hall. What do you want to do?"
Twilight thought for a moment. Blight no doubt had something in mind for them, but he couldn't have known about the box already. They had to act while they still had that element of surprise, which meant picking up the pace.
"Alright, everypony, let’s get to the bridge."
Back in formation, the ponies quickened their pace towards the river, careful to give a wide berth to the vines, which thrust straight from the ground in clumps, like grass in an abandoned lot. Though the growths formed a haunted avenue overhead, not one attempted to attack, or even slow the ponies down, which Twilight found more suspicious than anything else. Barely five minutes after entering the shield, and Ponyville's doorstep was in skipping distance. By all rights, that should have been a victory in itself, so why did she have this feeling that things were about to go horribly wrong? As Twilight took the first step onto the bridge, the roofs of the closest houses slid out of the fog and into view, though the scene brought less comfort still. A fibrous, thorny blanket had been thrown over the town, the outlines of buildings the only evidence of something better underneath.
"Uh, is it just me, or is it way too quiet?" Rainbow wondered aloud.
"No...it's not quiet at all." whispered Fluttershy.
Rainbow's ears twitched, and she frowned. "You going batty, Fluttershy?"
She shook her head and turned to Alpenglow. "Do you hear it?"
"I don't hear anything," said Applejack.
Alpenglow nodded approvingly and put his ear to the ground. "No, Fluttershy's right. We've got company. Twilight..?"
Twilight nodded, and with practiced ease, the ponies stepped into two outward-facing lines on either end of the bridge, blockading it. Together, Twilight and everypony faced Ponyville; the guards, the bog where they all had entered. The box, which took up a great deal of the bridge's width, was sitting in the safest possible place: at the center between the two lines, where the bridge's curve placed it highest from the ground. Rainbow hovered above, scanning the area, while the princesses positioned themselves just behind Twilight, their horns glowing steadily. Standing shoulder to shoulder, everypony was cramped, but relatively secure. Long minutes passed, and soon they began to look at one another, nervous, wondering if their little show of force had been enough.
No such luck. With a roar, the ground burst in ten places at once. Mud bubbled and geysered into the sky, narrowly missing the ponies as it threw droplet shrapnel across the ground. The clumps of formerly docile vines spasmed, and as Twilight looked closer, she could see a balloon-sized seed at the center of each and every one.
A nearby group of vines moaned woodenly as they tore themselves from the mud and coiled around each other, forming three, thick stumps and a stubby, pear-shaped body. With deceptive frailty, a pod at the head of the body opened, revealing a pitcher flower with a single budded tendril extruding from its center. The creature finished climbing from its hole, and as it took its first clumsy step forward, Twilight realized another important detail: it was not alone. Dozens more had appeared on both sides of the river, uprooting themselves with the same quiet moan.
"Huh, this is new," muttered Alpenglow, eying the army of creatures that now surrounded the ponies.
Rarity shivered. "What are those…things?"
Applejack un-slung her lasso. "Whatever they are, somethin’ tells me they ain’t friendly!" With a single deft throw, she snared one of the creatures. A hearty pull from the earth pony sent it pitching towards the group, where Alpenglow was waiting with a new sword. A quick chop later, and the beast collapsed in two heaps. Rainbow wasted no time as well, swooping down and making quick work of three others. She called from above, "Ha! They’re not so tough!"
Determined to prove her wrong, the severed remains of the creatures trembled. Little fibers grew between every piece, and with mechanical defiance, the reconstructed creatures righted themselves and continued their shamble forward.
Rainbow landed next to Twilight. "Uhhh, I think that’s our cue to leave."
"We can’t. The box is too big to fly into town."
"Not to mention Blight would just pick us off if we had to carry everypony, too," Smoke Jumper threw in.
"She's right, Rainbow," said Applejack. "We're gonna have to walk on in."
Alpenglow and Spike swiftly re-pruned the creature in front of them, and with Luna's help, tossed it aside, where it fell into the riverbed. "We'll hold them off while you think of a plan, Twilight."
"Right."
Luna added, "We should use our magic sparingly as well. We will need anything we can spare against Blight."
Rainbow pounded her hooves together, hard. "Then I guess we do this the low-mana way!"
The next few moments unfolded tensely as Twilight, Rarity, and the princesses hurriedly positioned themselves at the center of the bridge, finding the best view and their first targets while everypony prepared to, quite literally, stand their ground. No longer spread out, the mob of ambulatory plants were advancing in a wave that, while sluggish, was nevertheless bearing down on the bridge and its pony defenders. The air shook with the pounding of the creatures' 'feet' against the mud, like a storm of barrel-sized raindrops, or the march of a thousand little giants. It was an unforgettable sound, one that would continue to echo unrelentingly in Twilight's ears as Alpenglow raised his sword against the first of the creatures, and chaos finally took the reins.

The ponies worked like an assembly line, with Fluttershy and Applejack reeling a creature close enough for Alpenglow, Spike, or Rainbow to cut it down to size, then tossing it into the riverbed with the Rarity or Twilight's help. On the other side of the box, out of Twilight's view, Smoke Jumper and the guards had no doubt set up a similar strategy for the other end of the bridge. The princesses were going back and forth between the two lines, giving help where needed. As for Pinkie, she had left to climb on top of the box. Once up there, she was the picture of happiness with a grin on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and her hooves clasped firmly around her party cannon. Between that, Princess Celestia, and Luna, the creatures were forced to spread out, lest they become powderized or trapped at the bottom of a bubblegum-lined artillery crater.
As impressive as the ponies' little fort of a bridge was, it was a far cry from invincible. Just as the conveyor belt at Cherry Hill Ranch had gotten the best of Fluttershy and Pinkie, they all were running the risk of being overrun on the bridge, a possibility that became all the more real when the creatures revealed another nasty surprise: a paralyzing venom stored in the bud of their main tendrils, which hung from the flower like a lure. A quick sting from one knocked Applejack to the ground, where she froze in place. Fluttershy pulled her petrified friend back towards Princess Celestia, who quickly began improvising a spell to unthaw her. Twilight stepped forward, closing the rank.
Their nonstop hacking and slashing was actually keeping the creatures at bay, though only the occasional blast from somepony's horn seemed to stop the creatures for sure, as it reduced each one it hit to a pile of crude fertilizer. In theory, they could hold out against the creatures at any range, the farther the better.
Actually, at some three hundred to fourteen odds, the creatures could probably continue their advance, make no effort to use their venom or heal themselves, and still steamroll over the ponies.
Twilight shook her head furiously, trying to think of a way to stop the creatures for good. Unlike the vines, what the beasts lacked in speed and aggression, they made up for in tenacity and toughness. For the moment, all she could do was plant her hooves, ready her horn, and look for a solution, just like she'd always done.

For what very well could have been half an hour, Twilight simply watched, poring over every detail of the battle, seeing which creatures healed, which didn’t, all while trying to remember Alpenglow’s lessons about breaking holds whenever a thorned "arm" came her way. Finally, she saw Rarity hold one creature still with her magic, giving Rainbow a window to line up an unfriendly kick to the pollen tube. The flower and ragged top of the stem went sailing across the bog, where it landed with a distant splash. Its lower half stopped moving altogether, and as it broke down into soil, Twilight finally saw the creatures' fatal flaw. They couldn’t grow back their missing pieces; they simply reattached what had fallen off from themselves or their friends, but with enough distance between the pieces, the spell bringing them to life broke.
The world felt very small as the creatures clustered together into a solid wall on either end of the bridge. Realizing it was only a matter of time before the creatures got it in their collective heads to simply tear it apart, Twilight leaned out over the railing to her left. Below, the river which might have made a useful escape or barrier now sat dry and useless.
The river...
"Twilight, we cannot hold this position," Alpenglow said matter-of-factly.
Over the din of everypony shouting and pounding mud, Twilight yelled, "I've got an idea! But we need a way to make them spread out!"
As Spike fended off a creature with his lance, Alpenglow turned to face everypony. "Twilight wants options. Let’s hear 'em."
"These beasts will likely follow us wherever we go," said Princess Luna. "If we split up…"
"We don’t have to fight them to stop them," Fluttershy pointed out.
"Fluttershy’s right," said Applejack, "we just gotta buy enough time to stop Blight."
Twilight nodded. "Princess Celestia, can you give us some room?"
"Of course, Twilight." Beckoning Luna to follow suit, the Princess's horn flared, and from the mud, a ten-foot wall of clay shot skyward around the ponies. Smoke Jumper ran her horn over the wall, and the entire ring heated, then cooled into brick.
With the sound of the creatures hammering against the wall, everypony gathered round as Twilight explained her plan. "Ponyville Dam is just upstream from here. If we can break it, the river will flood, at least for a little while."
"What'll that do?" asked Rainbow.
Twilight pointed at the wall. "Those things need to reattach parts of themselves to keep going. If we can lure them into the river, cut them down to small enough sizes…"
"…then the river will wash enough pieces away to stop ‘em cold," finished Applejack. "Good thinkin’, Twilight."
"We’ll split into two groups and follow the riverbed. One will go to the dam, the other to the edge of the shield where the river ends. That group will have to separate all the pieces that wash down. Anything still moving, we can just throw into the reservoir. It should buy us time if they have to climb out."
"Your Highness," said Smoke Jumper, "I think we should take the reservoir. There’s no way the box will make it all the way upstream."
"Agreed. Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, can you go with them?"
"Sure can, sugarcube."
"I’ll go as well, Twilight," said Princess Celestia. "We’ll all meet back here once we finish-"
A brittle crash put a period to the Princess's sentence as the plants finally smashed the barricade and began climbing over. The closest was no more than five steps away when the ponies climbed onto the bridge's thin railing, readied themselves, and all at once, jumped over the wall.
Landing with a sticky splash, Twilight, Pinkie, Alpenglow, Spike, and Luna galloped from the bridge, dodging the odd creature that had wandered into the riverbed. As she looked back, Twilight could see everypony else take off in the opposite direction. With Princess Celestia's help, the trolley holding the box landed gently, and thankfully began moving as the guards ran in their harnesses. The horde split in half along the bridge, taking the first steps of what was sure to be a slow, drawn-out pursuit.

Twilight cursed her weak flying the entire way as she led the group to the base of the dam where, apart from several little streams trickling down from the top lip, the structure seemed to be holding up well. The healthy trees and plants to either side of the ponies also told Twilight that Blight had left this area untouched for the time being. All they needed to do now was wait, and hope the others were ready at the reservoir.
"Whew," said Spike, wiping his forehead, "that was kinda close back there."
"Are you kidding, Spike?!" yelped Pinkie, "That's got to be the coolest thing we’ve ever done! Ooh, I’ve got an idea! Let’s catch one and ride it!"
"Most…invigorating, I must say," Princess Luna said with relish. "I am beginning to see how you used to fill your days, Alpenglow."
Alpenglow grunted as he yanked a thorn from his thigh. "Now you know why I kept asking for hazard pay."
With her magic, Twilight pulled an old log from the forest, leaving it for everypony to sit and catch their breath while she examined the dam. Once she felt confident about where to make the holes, she turned to Alpenglow, who had already walked over to her.
"You doing ok, Twilight?"
"Yes, it’s just…I don't know...maybe this isn't a good time."
"What?"
"I meant to ask you earlier, but I guess I forgot with everything happening. I was just wondering...what was he like?"
"Starswirl?"
Twilight nodded. "I’ve read every book on him, but none of them really talk about what kind of pony he was."
Alpenglow smiled. "Well..." he started, rubbing his chin, "...he was brilliant, of course, wise, and…" He nodded. "...very kind. He and the Princess were very close too, but...I don't know, something happened not long before I lost contact with him. He never was quite the same when I talked to him afterwards. Nothing I could do."
"What happened?"
"I'm not sure. All he'd ever say was that Princess Celestia disappointed him somehow."
"I can't imagine the Princess disappointing anypony."
"Me neither, but she was still young then, and new to being a princess, much like you. Remember, Twilight, she's only a pony. She makes mistakes, has feelings..." He looked away, lost in thought. "...And somehow she and Starswirl had hurt each other's that day."
"I- I never knew."
"I'm sure you will, at some point. I figured I might as well give you some warning."
"But they were still friends after all of it, right?"
"Of course. Those later years, Starswirl was on the call a lot with ponies coming to him for help. But he handled it, and our talks seemed to help him unwind. You know...I really miss him. He could be strange at times, comes with the genius, but at the end of the day, he was an academic at heart. He would’ve liked you a lot, Twilight."
Twilight smiled, a slight blush taking her cheeks. "You really think so?"
"I do. Who knows? Maybe someday you'll meet him. Anything's possible in Equestria."
Twilight opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by a line of blurry silhouettes in the distance. Everypony sorely stood up, their eyes fixed on the jagged horizon marching towards them.
Alpenglow snapped his visor down. "Party’s coming- not an actual party, Pinkie."
"Awww…"
As the first wave of creatures trickled into clear view, Spike and Alpenglow charged. The lance skewered two, knocked over another, and for the coup de grace, Alpenglow made a generous sideways swipe with his sword, sending plant pieces raining all over the riverbed.
The trickle of creatures was now a stream. Dozens came at a time, sending waves through the mud. With surgical precision, Twilight began drilling a set of strategically placed holes in the dam. Murky water jetted from the holes, immediately soaking the ponies’ hooves as cracks in the concrete raced skyward.
"I believe it’s time we made our exit," observed Luna, as she used her magic to enthusiastically prune the next wave of creatures, Pinkie’s party cannon sounding off all the while. Some of the creatures were already recovering and resuming their march towards oblivion. The ponies fought, every creature that followed them was eventually cut down, and a final, thunderous crack from the dam told Twilight it was time to go. With a single thought, she teleported everypony to the small cliff overlooking the river. A split second later, the dam gave way, and a mini tsunami washed over the severed remains of the creatures.
Mission completed, the team doubled back to the bridge.