Twilight groaned, waking up from her dreamless sleep with a pounding headache radiating from the base of her horn, the kind of migraine she hadn’t had since she stopped having problems with her magic flaring up. She rolled out of bed, not even opening her eyes, stumbling blindly towards the bathroom.
She reached for one of her bottles of pills with her magic and winced, feeling a spike of pain from exerting her magic. Twilight had enough skill to avoid losing control of the magic despite the ache. It was a lesson she’d learned over years of study, something she’d needed to avoid losing her focus in the middle of long, complex spells where one slip would mean disaster.
Twilight poured a glass of water and downed the painkillers, sighing and resting her head on the sink for a moment, the porcelain cold against the side of her face.
She opened her eyes, though in the darkness it didn’t make much of a difference.
“I lost control,” she mumbled. “Why?”
Twilight stood and looked at herself in the mirror, creating a little light with her horn, just enough to see her own bloodshot eyes and the unhealthy pale tone to her coat. She almost called on Eventide to get a look at the construct, but a black wave of fear overtook her and stopped the unicorn. What if she lost control again here, in the library?
Twilight took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.
Something tickled at her nostrils. A fire. She felt panic for a moment before relaxing. Of course there was a fire. Spike or Fluttershy had probably kept it going through the night. With the way the butter-colored pegasus was afraid of the dark, they were probably going to run out of firewood even more quickly than before.
Twilight looked back towards her bed and decided going downstairs seemed like a better idea instead. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep until the painkillers took effect, so she might as well go for a walk, and if the fire was going it meant somepony was still awake. She might even get decent conversation out of it. At least Fluttershy was a good listener. Why, she'd even sat and listened politely for hours while Twilight spoke at length about how Celestia should have listened to her all along, and how glad she was that she didn't have the same kind of personal problems as everypony else in town.
She made her way to the main floor of the library. A pony stood between her and the fireplace, staring into the flames.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked, getting closer. The pony raised her head, not looking back at Twilight. Twilight spotted her prismatic mane and tail and sighed.
“Oh, it’s you,” Twilight said. “Did you come to check up on Fluttershy? Or maybe you’re finally returning that sword. I told you before; it’s not designed for a pegasus.”
“I had to take care of some stuff,” Rainbow Dash said, still watching the fire. “There were things I kept putting off, and now I can finally deal with them.”
“Okay…” Twilight frowned.
“You’re an impressive pony, Twilight. It’s no wonder Celestia took you as her personal student.” Dash picked something up, throwing it into the fire. “It’s too bad she abandoned you when you really needed her to trust you.”
“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked, frowning. As she watched in horror, Dash threw a book onto the flames. Her eyes went wide as she ran closer and saw that an entire pile of parchment and notes were burning into ash, a half-dozen books already ruined and more starting to catch on fire. “No!”
“Is something going on?” Fluttershy asked, yawning, as she sat up from where she’d been sleeping on a pile of pillows.
“Your idiot friend has gone crazy and she’s trying to burn my books! We have to save them!” Twilight pulled one free, only for it to flare up and start burning even brighter, the fire spreading as she dropped it in alarm.
“Wow, this place is getting hot!” Dash smirked, turning to look at Twilight with blue, serpentine eyes. “Normally two mares screaming and sweating would be right up my alley, but I’ve got to go. Lots of work to be done, you know.” She laughed, jetting out a window, smashing the glass on her way out.
“We have to stop the fire from spreading!” Twilight screamed. “I’ll go get water!”
“I think I can-“ Fluttershy focused, Sky Skimmer appearing behind her. A cold, wet wind blew through the library, the flames flickering and starting to go out. A small cloud formed as she worked, sweat beading her brow, before erupting into rain right over the fireplace, dousing the flames. Gray, ashen water cascaded over the floor.
“Why would she do this?!” Twilight gasped, tears in her eyes as she picked up a book that had been scorched by the flames. She opened it, the ancient tome’s pages brown around the edges. It was the book that had started this whole mess. The illuminations of Celestia and Nightmare Moon were scorched, the solar mare looking almost as black as her evil counterpart on some pages.
“Did you see her eyes?” Fluttershy asked, as she pushed what was left of the raincloud out of the broken window, wings straining. “I don’t know if that was really Rainbow Dash…”
“You’re right!” Twilight said, blinking. “But that would mean…” She rubbed her chin. “We need to find her so we can confirm that one way or the other. She’s staying with that farmer now, right?”
“I helped her move some of her things,” Fluttershy confirmed, nodding. “But she didn’t let me do much. She wouldn’t even let me into her house. She made me wait outside while she packed.”
***
“Now I remember why I never wanted to go to a farm again,” Twilight grumbled, as she walked through the half-frozen mud. It was the worst of both worlds, solid enough from the frost to nearly support her weight, only to let her down as her hoof broke through into cold, watery mud underneath. She was covered up to her knees in muck now, and between the long walk and the cold, she was getting exhausted.
“This isn’t good,” Fluttershy said quietly, the pegasus light enough on her hooves that she wasn’t cracking the thin crust of rime, something Twilight was very jealous of.
“Tell me about it. It’s hard enough getting a hot bath around here, and I’m going to need ten just to get the stink of farm mud and manure out of my coat!” Twilight kicked a clump of mud off of her hoof.
“That’s not what I meant,” Fluttershy said. She looked up. “There’s a storm coming, but the wind and pressure aren’t right for it. The only time I saw a storm like this, it was in Cloudsdale when they were building a thunderhead by hoof. Our teacher took us so we could learn how storms come together, but I got so scared I hid behind Dash the whole day.”
“How long before-“ Twilight started, as thunder cracked, lightning flashing across the black sky, illuminating the twisting, swirling clouds overhead. At that same moment, a downpour started, the rain ice-cold and coming down all at once without a drizzle or buildup.
“Um, now.” Fluttershy whispered.
“Thanks,” Twilight grumbled.
“What in th’- Hey! What are you two doin’ here?” Twilight and Fluttershy turned to see Applejack holding onto her hat and waving them over. “We gotta git inside before we catch a cold!”
“Oh, I’m gonna catch something alright,” Twilight grumbled, forming a shield that managed to keep at least some of the rain out, like a pink umbrella overhead. “Something rainbow-colored and stupid.”
“Y’all are looking for Dash?” Applejack asked. “I should’ve known. Come on in, we’ll talk once you ain’t shiverin’ out of your skins.”
***
Twilight tried to dry her mane with the towel Applejack had given her, and started to feel at least a little better. There wasn’t much she could do about the mud. Even after wiping her hooves, part of her felt dirty.
“Did you see Rainbow Dash?” Asked a little voice. Twilight pulled the towel away from her face to look. A little orange filly was looking at her with wide, worried eyes. “She’s been gone since last night and she didn’t even tell me where she was going!”
“Don’t you worry none, Scootaloo,” Applejack said, patting her on the back. “If there’s any pony who can take care of herself, it’s Dash. Well, that or get her fool self hurt doing something stupid to try an’ impress us.” Applejack laughed a little and took off her hat, hanging it near the door.
Twilight grimaced. “She didn’t seem hurt but- maybe we should talk in private?” Twilight asked. She didn’t know the filly well, but these were probably things better not said in front of impressionable young foals.
“That’s prolly a good idea,” Applejack nodded. “Scoots, can you take care of Apple Bloom for a bit? She’s been scared of storms for as long as I can remember, and havin’ a friend there would go a long way in making her feel better.”
“I… okay,” She sighed, walking off slowly to find Applejack’s sister, looking down at her hooves.
“Thanks, Applejack,” Twilight sighed.
“It ain’t no big deal,” Applejack said, quietly.
“Um, I’m sorry if this is a strange question, but after we were helping you… why do you use that accent?” Fluttershy asked.
“I’m a farmer. Everypony knows how a farmer gotta talk, and if you don’t act like you’re from so far out in the sticks that you ain’t even heard of book-learnin’, well, other farmers look down at you for it.” Applejack blushed. “It was hard, you know?” Her country accent faded to a refined Manehattan tone. “I grew up speaking like that, then when I finally broke the habit, I had to relearn it all again.”
“You don’t have to use it around us,” Fluttershy smiled. “Just be the pony you want to be.”
“Thank you,” Applejack smiled.
“That’s touching and all, but we have more to worry about,” Twilight frowned. “Like Rainbow Dash. I woke up to find her burning all of my notes and tossing books on the bonfire! And from the way her eyes looked…” She met Fluttershy’s gaze. “I don’t know if it was really her, or if she was replaced.”
“She was acting strange last night, too,” Applejack said, leading them into the dining room and sitting down at the table, Twilight and Fluttershy sitting down across from her. “She was acting really strangely – strangely for Dash, even.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“She barely touched her food. Rainbow Dash never turns down a free meal. She didn’t even have any pie.” Applejack scowled. “Nopony turns down an Apple family apple pie unless they’re allergic or something’s really wrong.”
“She’s sure not allergic to apples,” Twilight said. “But did she do anything really strange, or evil, or anything? Like, did she try to eat your sister or burn down an orphanage?”
“…Twilight…” Fluttershy sighed.
“She was burning books, Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled. “A pony that burns books is capable of anything! Even Nightmare Moon wouldn’t burn books, probably! Burning books is even worse than burning ponies!”
“You’re overreacting, Twilight,” Applejack sighed. “But after dinner, she took off. She said she had something important she needed to do, and asked me to take care of Scootaloo until she got back.” The farmer scowled. “Scootaloo’s a good foal, but Dash had better come back. Last time somepony asked me to take care of something while they were gone, it didn’t turn out so well.” She glanced to where she’d hung up her hat.
“It won’t come to that,” Fluttershy said firmly. “I know Dash. She’d never just abandon somepony. But… she really believes she can do anything. If she left Scootaloo here with you, it means she thought it might really be dangerous.”
“But not dangerous enough to ask one of us for help?” Applejack asked. “Or even tell us where she was going?”
“She doesn’t like asking for help,” Fluttershy said. “And if it was something really important, she might think she has to take care of it on her own.”
“Well whatever it is, we need to find her, or her evil book-burning twin, or whatever it is that’s going on around here!” Twilight snapped. “The longer we take, the more that can go wrong!”
“If she’s in trouble, it’s because she ran in without thinking,” Applejack pointed out. “That’s kind of her style.”
Twilight took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She took another deep breath, trying to calm herself. “Okay. Let’s think this through. We’ve got a storm that shouldn’t be here, a pegasus who may or may not be her evil twin, and given past experience, it’s pretty obvious what happened. Nightmare Moon must have gotten to her and managed to do what she planned to do to you two before I saved you.”
“Is Dash… gone?” Scootaloo asked, from the doorway. She and Apple Bloom were standing there in the shadows. Fluttershy ran over and swept the filly into a hug, the orange foal almost in tears.
“She’s in trouble,” Fluttershy said, calmly explaining as best she could. “We’re going to go and help her. Do you know where she might have gone?”
Scootaloo shook her head.
“Everything has to be connected,” Twilight said. “The timing is too suspicious for anything else. Fluttershy, you know about storms. Can you tell where the center is?”
“Oh, that’s really difficult unless it’s a well-developed storm cell,” Fluttershy said, looking up at Twilight. “Most of the weather that Cloudsdale exports is only ad hoc… um… I can’t explain this as well as Rainbow Dash, but it’s like, they ship out raw materials, like rainclouds and lightning generators. That’s why we have the weather team. They put things together to make more complicated weather structures. Ponyville doesn’t usually need anything too complex, so most of the rain is just a single cloud layer applied over a wide area, like rolling out a rug. It doesn’t last long, but it’s good enough for a rain shower.”
“And more complicated things, they’re more like, what, putting together a table?”
“More like a whole house,” Fluttershy said. “For a real thunderhead you need all kinds of specialists, but we almost never need something like that here. If they’re built right it can rain for weeks at a time.”
“Why would you need that?” Applejack asked, frowning.
“Usually it’s to correct for long term weather imbalances,” Fluttershy explained. “I don’t understand all of it myself, but the weather around Equestria gets harder to control over time if it’s over-managed. It has something to do with pegasus magic oversaturating the air. But a big storm can clear it out in a few days. They need to be really careful when they’re making them, though, because usually it’s already hard to control the weather and they have to be exact about the structure. If it isn’t done correctly, you can get hail or tornadoes or worse.”
“For somepony who says she doesn’t know much, you sure know a lot about it,” Applejack noted, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s what I was studying in flight school,” Fluttershy admitted. “It was years ago, though, and I haven’t even tried to apply to the weather team since I dropped out. I don’t know if I would have passed the test, though. I’m not very good at flying and… I was mostly doing it because it’s what my parents do for a living.”
“That still makes you the best expert we’ve got,” Twilight said. “I’ve read books on the weather, but it was all theory.”
“And I was too busy learning how to turn a seed into a sapling,” Applejack sighed. “Not that it would have made a difference. The only thing they teach earth ponies about the weather is how to ask the local weather teams very nicely for more rain, and not to argue when they say they can’t spare any.”
“I’ll look, but I can’t promise anything. It’s so dark…” Fluttershy let Scootaloo go, smiling at her weakly, before turning to the window. “Is it okay if I open this? I need to feel the wind a little.”
“How about we go out on the porch?” Applejack suggested. Fluttershy nodded, and the farmer led her outside to the covered porch. Fluttershy trotted right to the edge, stray raindrops hitting her face as she paused in thought, looking up at the clouds.
“I hope this works,” Twilight muttered.
“If you have a better idea, I’d like to hear it,” Applejack snorted.
“It’s… I think it’s all coming from above Ghastly Gorge!” Fluttershy gasped. “The way the clouds are moving, we have a bigger problem than I thought!”
“What do you mean?” Twilight frowned.
“They’re all turning around a central point, and the storm is getting stronger instead of weaker. It doesn’t make sense – that should only happen if it’s over open water! If we don’t find a way to stop it soon, it’s going to turn into a hurricane, right over Ponyville!”
***
“Why would she put her house over a place called Ghastly Gorge?” Twilight frowned, as they walked through the storm towards the landmark. Scootaloo had insisted that Dash had moved her house there a week ago. The two foals were back at the farm, Big Mac almost having to sit on them to keep them from running out to help.
“Maybe she was trying to keep anypony from bothering her,” Fluttershy suggested.
“Maybe,” Applejack shrugged. “But moving farther away from town? She’d park her flank over Town Hall if she could get away with it, just so everypony would be able to see her more often. She’s not exactly the type to shun attention.” Applejack hadn’t bothered taking her hat back, either afraid of losing it in the high winds or just not feeling like she needed to keep up appearances around her friends. Instead she’d wrapped a thick white scarf around her neck against the cold, the ends whipping wildly as gusts of wind assaulted them.
“Not all attention is good,” Fluttershy muttered. “Maybe she’s worried ponies will try to steal her food.”
“Nothing worries a thief more than other thieves,” Applejack snorted.
“Shh!” Twilight hissed, looking around. “Quiet!” There was silence for a moment. “Do you smell that?” She looked at the scrub around them, indistinct in the gloom and heavy weather. She could sense something, the smell of citrus and hot metal.
Lightning crashed down around them, hitting the broken branches of a tree only a few dozen paces away. For a moment the scrub around them was lit up by the bright strobe of bluish-white light. In that brief flash, they all saw it standing next to the road, a tall, thin pony, big enough that it could have stood at eye level with Princess Celestia, colored a flat, uniform black.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if the pony at least had a face.
Fluttershy screamed and ran.
“No! We can’t get separated in this storm!” Twilight grabbed her tail with her magic, keeping Fluttershy from fleeing into the darkness.
“Hang on!” Applejack yelled, running for where she’d seen the monster and bucking blindly, hitting only air. Lightning flashed again, and it was already behind her, one forehoof raised high over Applejack, ready to stomp down on the earth pony.
“Watch out!” Twilight screamed, Eventide appearing at her side and rushing for the shadowy monster, only to pass through it like it wasn’t even there.
The hoof came down, the monster not even flinching from the attempted attack. Maybe it hadn’t even noticed that Eventide was there. Applejack’s eyes seemed to glow for a moment, and a heavy topaz, cut into the shape of an apple, appeared at her throat. A golden necklace grew from it a moment later, securing it in place around Applejack’s neck. A bite was taken out of the side of the apple, a crown-cut diamond filling the empty space.
The hoof stopped as a masked pony appeared before it, holding it up with both front hooves. Unlike Eventide, Masquerade seemed to have no problems interacting with the nightmare creature. The nightmare was shoved away as Masquerade pushed it off-balance, forcing the elongated terror to stumble back.
“What?” Twilight whispered. “Why can she do it when I can’t?” She felt a brief wave of pain from her horn, her headache starting to return. Was it just that she was too tired? Had the last fight taken that much out of her?
It made sense, in its own way. The way her head had been hurting since she woke up was a classic symptom of moderate magical drain. She’d been constantly fighting monsters and walking miles through dreamscapes and having to deal with ponies who couldn’t accept that they had some silly minor flaws. Twilight was just glad that her only mistake was not forcing Celestia to listen to her warnings. If a nightmare version of her showed up, she’d be happy to admit to that.
Masquerade ran into the monster with all the grace that Twilight expected from an Earth Pony’s imaginary friend. It knocked the beast back but didn’t do much to actually stop it.
“I can…” Twilight tried to focus, ignoring the pain shooting through her horn. Eventide flickered, fading to near-invisibility. It was a particularly bad time for it. As the magic along her horn crackled wildly, the magic failing to ground itself into a spell, another black shape rose out of the darkness, a mass of tentacles reaching for her.
“Hang on!” Fluttershy yelled, pulling Twilight back with her hooves as the tendrils grabbed for her. Sky Skimmer flashed down out of the sky, a wall of glowing butterflies blocking the unknown horror from advancing further.
“What are all these monsters doing here?!” Applejack asked. She ducked back as Masquerade sent a flurry of forehoof punches into the tall pony, none of them with much force behind them, but coming so quickly that the larger pony couldn’t fight back, stunned by the jabs. “I thought you said they weren’t really here!”
“They crossed over in the Whitetail Woods too,” Twilight mumbled. “They’re using those… ghostspaces to enter our world.”
“Well we need to send them back!” Applejack yelled. “Come on… I could use a little help here! I don’t suppose anypony wrote a manual for how to use these things?”
“I was working on it before Rainbow Dash burned my notes!” Twilight snapped.
“Please stop arguing!” Fluttershy said, focusing. She was struggling just trying to keep Twilight and herself safe. From what Twilight had seen, Sky Skimmer could easily throw down some pegasus ice magic or a windstorm and take care of them, assuming Fluttershy wasn’t busy running away or fainting.
“Come on… you’re Stronger than that…” Applejack growled, gritting her teeth. The diamond in her necklace changed color, turning a bright ruby red. Masquerade’s mask did the same thing, the dull silver changing, the mask growing more elaborate as a red glaze washed over it.
Masquerade punched the dark nightmare, and it fell back, the hoof landing with the sound of a thunderbolt, a spray of sparks erupting from the blow.
“That’s it!” Applejack smiled, looking up. “I can feel it now!” Golden energy like crawling lightning crackled around Applejack’s hooves, rushing through the ground and into Masquerade. The dream construct jumped into the air, horseshoes glowing with a hot light like gold reflecting the summer sun. It connected with a strong back hoof into the side of the monster’s head.
The nightmare exploded, tearing apart from the blow like glass shattering under the blow of a hammer. Masquerade landed lightly, almost floating to the ground. A tentacle from the other beast hit it on the side, knocking Masquerade to the side, the red color fading.
Applejack coughed, spitting to try and clear a tightness from her chest. “I lost my concentration!”
“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whispered, as she let her shield go, the butterflies dissipating. The tentacle horror immediately turned back towards her, before a polar vortex swirled down, the rain around the monster freezing into hail.
Twilight screamed as the tendrils grabbed her neck and forelegs, dragging her towards the monster. She could see it clearly now as she fought to get away, her horn glowing brightly as she pulled at the shadowy tentacles grappling her. It was almost like a rose, the sinuous limbs emerging from between the petals, one longer root anchoring it to the ground.
Sky Skimmer flapped its metallic wings, the brass feathers flaring out and glowing along their edges. Twilight felt her breath freeze into ice around her muzzle as the temperature plummeted past anything seen naturally in Equestria. The monster stiffened, slowing down as it froze, and Twilight felt a surge of fear as the cold crept over her as well before it suddenly stopped, the arctic temperature stabilizing and the tentacles around her going limp where they weren’t frozen solid.
Twilight jerked away, trying to free herself, and the tendrils ripped free, breaking cleanly with the sharp crack of shattering ice. Cracks ran along the rose-like monster as it broke apart as well, falling to the ground in chunks.
Twilight got her neck free, and sucked in air, breathing heavily. “That was- I almost got killed!” She glared at Fluttershy.
“I can’t do two things at once…” Fluttershy looked down. “I had to stop it before somepony got hurt.”
“Before somepony got hurt?!” Twilight snapped. “I think I have frostbite on my nose! And it was trying to strangle me to death!”
“Well maybe if you’d done something to help instead of hiding behind Fluttershy, it wouldn’t have happened,” Applejack said, glaring at Twilight.
“It’s not my fault that something’s wrong with Eventide!” Twilight yelled. “If I’d known it was like this, I would have spent time studying it before we ran off after Rainbow Dash! Unless…” she gasped. “She probably did something to it when she was burning all my notes!”
“Nah, it’s all you,” said a voice from above, cutting through the white noise of the rain and distant thunder. Twilight looked up to see a low-hanging cloud, Rainbow Dash lounging comfortably on it.
“You!” Twilight growled. “You’re going to pay for burning those books!”
“You don’t need ‘em. Things are better this way. You know…” Dash rubbed her chin. “I bet if you went and begged really nicely, Nightmare Moon might agree to make you her student. She knows way more about magic than Celestia does.”
“Maybe dark magic, but-“
“But what?” Dash raised an eyebrow, looking down at Twilight with slitted teal eyes, gleaming in the dim light like off-color coals. “Dark magic, regular magic, it’s all the same, right? Hey, if you want, I bet I could introduce you! I totally got a thing going on with Nightmare Moon.”
Applejack snorted. “Of course you do. You’re a copy made with her evil magic.”
“A copy?” Dash looked hurt. “I’m the real thing. You should know how this works by now. I’m not hiding anything, and I’m even in the real world. That makes me the realest. Realest is a word, right?” She looked at Twilight for confirmation.
“Well, realist is a word, but-“
“There you go. That’s me. The realest Rainbow Dash.”
“Well her vocabulary is about the same size,” Twilight grumbled, rolling her eyes. “But unless I’m mistaken, the actually real Rainbow Dash had magenta eyes, not evil dragon eyes. Your disguise isn’t as good as you think.”
“Fine, then I’ll prove it!” the Nightmare Dash stood up, glaring down at the three ponies. “You know where to find me. You can see for yourselves that I’m keeping things real, and she’s the one faking!” Nightmare Dash stuck out her tongue and sped off, leaving a dark rainbow contrail behind her, in the shades of the sunset and night instead of the bright colors of a real rainbow.
“What did she mean by that?” Fluttershy asked.
“Nothing,” Applejack frowned. “Fluttershy, you and me know Rainbow Dash better than anypony. She’s the most loyal pony on the planet. Maybe the most reckless, too, but her heart is always in the right place. That copy is just trying to make us question her.”
“You’re right,” Twilight agreed. “I don’t know her well, but she jumped right in to try and save you two. Whatever Nightmare Moon is doing, she clearly isn’t finished yet, and she’s trying to delay us.”
“Then why is she inviting us in?” Applejack asked, pointing towards the clear trail the Nightmare had left.
“Because she knows we’re going to over analyze it,” Twilight frowned. “Of course! It all makes sense! With Dash stuck in there, none of us are likely to just jump inside unprepared, because that’s what she was always doing! The Nightmare thinks we’re just going to sit out here in the rain and try to figure out her puzzle when there isn’t even a puzzle to solve!”
“So the trap is… overthinking?” Applejack considered. “I’m not sure if that’s right. But you have a point. We aren’t going to solve anything out here.”
“Trust me, I’m right,” Twilight smirked. “And the faster we go after her, the less time she has to… do whatever evil thing she’s doing.”
“Um, if you can’t use your magic, maybe just Applejack and I should go-“ Fluttershy started, before she was cut off by a harsh glare.
“I’ll be fine!” Twilight shouted. “It was just because I was tired. I’ll be fine. You’ll see.” Her eyes gleamed as she turned away. “I can handle myself. I don’t need anypony to help me.”