Darkness. I was falling into it. All encompassing, suffocating darkness.
Stillness. It clenched me, tighter and tighter.
My body was sluggish, even thought came difficultly.
Silence grew. I couldn't hear the voices anymore. Five songs hummed, barely perceptible, at the very edges of my rapidly shrinking sphere of awareness, a sixth, just like the rest, all by muted away.
Fleeting warmth spread from my mouth and burning pain down my throat and into my chest. Then darkness and stillness again. It repeated, but I couldn't hold the thoughts to count or tell.
Was this... dying? Or thing else?
The humming left. The fleeting was gone. Only darkness. Stillness.
Fear.
Something moves. It whispers, urgent, calculating.
Then... Clarity.
Gold fragmented the darkness like bolts of lightning. Just as powerful, sudden and fleeting.
Clarity fades, but the darkness isn't as heavy. The whisper sighs, I think, but it is lost in the rumble that follows. Familiar.
Gold strikes once more, this time closer to me. The rumble. I place it. Like strings.
The darkness remains, but it isn't suffocating, it just is. I can hear the voices once more.
Gold flashes, and I'm struck this time, and the world slams back down on me.
“Gah!” I yelped, jolting up before dropping somewhat painfully back to the hard ground.
“Caleb!” or some variation on it erupted around me as I gasped for air and something else. Lyra, Pinkie, Spike and the rest are crowded around me, their expressions worry mixed with concern. Even the guards, which was a startling change from the stoicism she had before.
Wait... she? How'd I know that?
I panted, trying to get air and that other thing into my starved lungs and body. The gems on the mare’s chests and Twilight’s head seemed to glow ever so faintly with each gasp. Speaking of Twilight, her horn was glowing, and I could hear a muffled spell going, though the headache made it hard to pin down what it was. Someone threw themselves on my chest, holding me tightly. I recognized the fur and mane.
“Don't do that! Are you okay?” Lyra demanded.
“Ah, ah! Not so loud, head aching,” I grumbled, trying to push myself upright. I did a quick inventory of my sore and somewhat abused body before looking around. Relief was the general feeling I got from the group. Admittedly, Rainbow was trying to hide it with her scowl, and Rarity was being a tad to dramatic, but that was normal.
“You gave us quite the scare,” Rarity said. Behind her, the remaining guard was watching the perimeter vigilantly, Spike split between keeping an eye on the surrounding and an eye on me. Just past them, something shimmered slightly, indistinct ripples hanging in the air.
“Ah… I think the vines cracked my shield, and I burned through too much magic trying to fight them off. Those things are seriously messed up,” I grumbled, staggering to my feet. “What’s with the,” I motioned vaguely at the weird effect, which I realized was a sphere as my survey wrapped up, “bubble?”
“Ya sure your fit to be up and around?” Applejack asked. “You were right out of it for a while.”
“Fit as a fiddle in need of some sprucing up,” I said, dismissing her complaints. “I’m just going to need a whole lot of rest after this. Twilight; bubble?”
“I modified the shield slightly,” Twilight said, still looking at me with concern. “You had pretty much used up all your magic. I did it to make a small area free of the dissonant magic’s effect.”
“Neat,” was my simple reply.
“Neat? Neat! Lyra had to give you a mana infusion! Your heart had stopped beating!” Twilight exclaimed. “Lyra even tried the CPR you taught us and it didn’t work! You. Were. Dying.”
I opened my mouth then shut it again. “What?”
“Caleb. You had the equivalent of a magic flare twice today, sustained a transformation spell for over an hour, sustained a shield against a harmful thaumatic energies, had that shield overloaded and was directly exposed to something akin to a toxic magic force,” Twilight was getting frantic. “Your body systems were shutting down! I.. I don’t even understand how that’s possible! It was the same result a unicorn would go through after experiencing severe mana starvation or degradation! But you said there wasn’t magic in your world! You’re not a creature with inhe-”
“Twilight!” I interjected, trying to keep my own head from spinning at that information. “Later! We can talk about it later!” With the rest of the stuff I’d been putting off that day. “For now, I think I’m good. Fluttershy and that other guard.”
“You… right, more pressing concerns, yes, yes,” she said.
“We noticed their absence after your collapse,” the unicorn guard reported. I nodded, as she spoke, half looking inward at the green glow of my magic. It was there, smaller than before and for some reason it surrounded a cluster of gold, with multicoloured flecks dancing around it like bugs around a bulb. Lyra’s infusion?
Jeeze, I almost died… in a stupid forest… why the hell did I go there anyway? I exhaled shakily and realized I missed pretty much everything the guard said. So I just nodded.
“Look, Caleb’s up. Those things took Fluttershy. We have to go get her!” Rainbow said, flapping in irritation. Twilight wasn’t so easily convinced.
“Caleb… are you sure you are okay? I…” Twilight hesitated.
“My magic is decent enough at the moment. I can run the shield on my own without issues for a while more.” Fairly certain, anyway. Now I was taking guesses and risking my life. Seriously. This was just the day for all this crap. “I’ll just make sure to stick close to… Spike and Lyra. They’ve got mad skills.”
“Mad... skills?” Rarity echoed. “Forgive me, Caleb, but that simply sounds.. crass.”
“Prob’ly cause it is. Pinkie told me you have rapping and gangster stuff here,” She had once rapped for me. Never. Again. “It falls under that. But basically, I can depend on them, and they aren’t an integral part of the plan. We need Fluttershy and we can’t abandon the guard.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll watch him, right Spike?” Lyra said firmly. She was still lingering by my side.
“Right. Leave him to us,” Spike said, hitting his chest with a fist.
I inhaled, and carefully reached for my magic to cast the spell again. I bit back swears as it the shield kicked in again, burning pinpricks all over and in my hands.
You strained your mana channels again. No! Really? I never would have noticed. Yeesh, those things were never going to heal at this rate. I gave Twilight a weak smile. “Let’s hurry.”
Twilight nodded nervously, but dropped the bubble. Nothing happened. Which was a good thing. It meant my spell was working. Look at me, three whole spells under my belt now; unicorn form, levitation and magic protection coating. The guard took the lead and we moved quickly down the trail that was apparently left when Fluttershy and the other guard were taken away.
The fact that it was an obviously a drag trail eliminated any desire for conversation, and I kinda felt bad that I was the one limiting our speed at the time. Twilight had taken over the sensate duties, flatly stating that she wasn’t going to tax my magic any more, and that the only reason I was still going with them was that leaving me or sending me back was riskier.
I just shrugged. My magic (honestly, how casual I was getting about saying ‘my magic’ was starting to get a bit concerning, but considering the life, death or magic situation I was in, I was also somewhat understandable) felt… off for some reason, I didn’t want to put too much of a strain on it.
What worried me was the total absence of the vines that had been attacking up before. The path was, admittedly, still has foreboding and disconcerting as before and littered with unnatural plant life, but there were no further direct threats against us.
I was about to voice my concerned when we burst into a clearing. The center of all this mess, most likely. The large glowing sort of gave that way. It was a scar of wavering brightness on the thick gnarled trunk of a tree, about fifteen feet up. The tree itself was massive; its branches high above us, maybe two, three stories of clearance all together, the trunk big enough around it might give the treebary and run for its money. Unnatural grows littered the trunk; huge leaves, odd fungi and bulbs with their own faint glow, and a mess of vines carpeted the area.
Oddly enough, the dissonance didn’t seem any stronger. In fact, it felt weaker here.
“Woo…” Rainbow exclaimed. “This place is so awesome… like something from a Daring Do book!”
“I think I found where the fruit bats came from,” I murmured, pointing to the clusters that hung dangling from the branches. There were maybe a dozen bats per bunch, with a couple dozen clusters at various stages of development.
“This is… this is unbelievable!” Twilight said in a hushed whisper. “That anamoly on the tree is what causing the aberrant magic effects! Considering the ambient levels are lower here, this is perhaps the core of the disturbance?”
“Twilight, while I know you can get all caught up in your fancy talk about magic an all, I don’t quite like the fact that we’re all standing on a mess a the same vines that knocked Caleb out just a few minutes ago,” Applejack said, nervously shifting her footing.
“And now I’m worried too,” I chuckled nervously, looking down as well.
“These don’t seem… active,” the unicorn guard commented.
“Over here!” Pinkie yelled out suddenly. I don’t think any of us noticed when she ran off, but then again, we never did, so it was normal. She was bouncing by a small cluster of large grows that resembled fly traps or other predatory plants for my tastes. Why did I have to be right about the Audrey II thing? We hurried over. Especially when it became clear that Fluttershy and the guard were caught in them.
“Fluttershy!” Twilight called out as the galloped over.
“No worries! I’ll get them out of there in no time!” Rainbow exclaimed, racing over.
“NO!” The yell came from Spike or all people.
“What do ya mean no?” Applejack demanded. “You better not tell me you want to leave them in there!”
“The minute we drag them out of there, this tree might attack again!” Spike warned. “It happens all the time in comics!”
“Spike, dear, this isn’t a comic,” Rarity cautioned.
“No, he’s right,” the guard commented. She looked around nervously and lit her horn in precaution. “We should probably prepare for retaliation.”
“Wee… more fighting. Just what I always wanted.” I grumbled. At least I had my broomstick. If this was going to happen regularly, I needed to learn an attack spell or some kind.
“You think it will be as bad as before?” Rarity asked, hefting her scissors again.
“Worse,” Lyra suggested, pointing at the bat clusters overhead and then again at the vines below us. “They have the advantage.”
“Then we’ll just have to be ready for a party,” Pinkie said, checking the barrel of a large cannon and pulling old bits of plants from it. “A big party.”
“Again. Jo- Where the hell did you get that from?” I asked softly. The only reason I didn’t demand was because my jaw had dropped. A legitimate cannon. Pinkie had a legitimate cannon. It was about as big as she was. With a floral decal on wheels.
“I’ve thrown parties here before,” Pinkie said, her tone and expression unsettlingly sober. “It used to be really pretty and nice. Lots of flowers and butterflies. This is one of the Forest’s Kings. Wedding receptions, graduation parties, coltfriend-marefriend things. So I left my old party cannon here in case of emergency gatherings.”
She shoved something into the barrel with a solid sound. She glared around the area. “Now it’s all mean and scary. Good for Nightmare Night, but that’s about it. I’m gonna throw it a ‘Sorry You’re Now a Scary Forest’ Party it will never forget.”
“Let it go,” Spike whispered to me, noticing my each twitching and my jaw working. He snickered a little before speaking up at a more standard level. “Just be ready for something to happen.”
“So what’s the plan?” I asked, nervously tightening my grip on my staff.
“We get them out and use the elements,” Twilight said, her horn starting to glow as she prepared to do just that.
“That’s a lovely idea, but a horrible plan,” I said quickly, holding out a hand before her horn.
“What?” Twilight said, offended.
“First off… what is that scar thingie?” I asked her, pointing to the Glowing Mark of Obvious Bad Things.
“I am confident it’s a fissure, a small tear similar, but much weaker than the one marking were you entered Equestria,” Twilight said, glaring a little at my use of the word thingie to describe it.
“Then why isn’t it all Crazy in Canterlot then? That one is huge compared to this one,” I pointed out. I really hoped this wouldn’t take too long. My headache was still around.
“I haven’t heard of anything quite like this happening there,” Rarity added.
“That one is mostly contained. The amount of mana that it channeled to get you here scarred it, so little to no magic can flow through it. This one…” she looked at it. “It’s smaller, but a side effect, something like a stress formed tear rather than the semi-deliberate rift that you made.”
“Um… I did apologize for that, right?” I asked. All this blame seemed to be coming on me. “Because I honestly didn’t know that would happen.”
Twilight smiled slightly. “It’s letting foreign magic it. It… it caused all this to happen to the forest.”
Okay, that wasn’t good. I pulled some crap together and hoped it would work out. “Rarity, you and Lyra get ready for these vines to start moving. Unicorn Guard, you and Rainbow keep an eye on the bats. Twilight; deal with the breaking. AJ and I’ll help you catch them and try to wake Fluttershy up. Spike, you’re rear guard. Anything that gets past our forwards, you slash or toast. Once she’s up, we zappa the tear. Everyone got it?”
“Sound,” the guard admitted.
“It’s not ‘zappa’,” Twilight complained. Lyra swatted her.
“Got it,” Lyra said, giving Twilight a look. Applejack and Rarity nodded while Spike echoed her.
“Wait, what about me?” Pinkie asked.
“Good. Twilight? Get them out.”
Twilight’s horned glowed again and a matching glow overtook the two Audrey II traps. It took a moment, but she forced them down and pried their jaws open. Applejack and I quickly dragged the sap covered ponies free before Twilight’s magic faded and the jaws slowly closed again.
The response was slow, but it came. The thing with plants; they don’t have vocal chords. An animal would roar or even moan to show irritation. This did nothing. It took a while to realize that the rustling we heard was more than just the wind in the leaves. The vines we stood on didn’t move, but new ones burst out of the brush line that defined the clearing.
“Pinkie?” I asked. She squeaked. I pointed outward. “Party.”
She squealed happily and brought her cannon to bear. There was a bang and party supplies launched out, confetti and streamers and party hats tearing into a swath of vines without abandon. It was a general call to action. Slowly, the other Audrey II traps oriented on us, their own vines reaching out. With a wild yell, Rarity matched them. Not just with her shears, but with a tape measure she used like a garrote; actually severing stems from the pressure she applied.
“AJ! How’s the guard?” I asked.
“Alive but out of it!” she replied. She scowled at the plants as they tried to move on her.
“Twilight!” I yelled as Lyra and Spike acted like my guards; the former hitting a Audrey II trap with rapid hoof strikes that stunned it, the latter roasting them with fire. Fluttershy was whimpering in my grip. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse slow. “Do you have a spell that could maybe give her a pick me up?”
Shrill cries came from above us, accompanied by the sound of breaking branches. The unicorn guard immediately started firing blasts upwards and Rainbow let out a war cry and was off. Shadows danced as flying forms darted between us and the light source. The fruit bats were ripe.
Okay, that was a pretty bad one. Still true. Twilight hurried over and pulled off one of her quick spells that I couldn’t follow and Fluttershy’s element flashed. Slowly, she stirred, blinking her large eyes. She yelped as a few more bangs announced Pinkie’s continued assault.
“That’s for ruining a popular party venue!” Pinkie yelled, laughing like a madmare.
“Easy Flutters!” I said, keeping a tight grip on her. The head of an Audrey rocketed past us, the victim of one of Applejack’s powerful kicks.
“Fluttershy! Thank Celestia you’re okay!” Twilight exclaimed. “How are you?”
“Twilight? Caleb! Oh dear,” Fluttershy said looking between us worriedly. “The vines… I was’t paying attention… they grabbed me and-!”
“Easy, Flutters,” I said, brushing her mane soothingly. Twilight looked over my shoulder and blasted something I couldn’t see. I spotted a vines inching towards Fluttershy’s tail. I whacked it a few times with my broomstick. It twitched, so I whacked it a few more times. “Twilight, can you do the thing with the elements? Zappa the tear?”
“I need everyone together! And a little time!” Twilight said in a panic, not even getting worked up about the zappa this time, looking around at the chaos of battle. Rainbow was darting around knocking fruit bats out of the air with quick strikes. Rarity was yelling something about ‘daring to ruin Fluttershy’s perfect coat’, Applejack literally bucking the heads off the Audrey IIs. Between her work, and that of Spike and Lyra, the was a decent zone free of them. Pinkie was having fun blasting vines with her cannon and had most all of them at bay.
“Hey!” Until they managed to snag it. Three more vines joined in wrapping around the cannon’s barrel and wheels and tried to pull it away. Pinkie pulled back. “Take your smelly vines off my cannon you vile dirty plant!”
There was a brief tug of war before two more vines joined in and yanked the cannon from her grip, dragging it into the brushline. Pinkie looked devastated. “You big meanies!”
“Rainbow! We need a distraction!” I yelled loudly.
She dove and wove through the bat swarm and the vines and hovered a few feet from me. “What kind?”
“Big! We need time to zappa ”
“No worries! Time for a Rainblow Twist!” Say what you wanted about Rainbow’s ego, she was skilled. In no time at all she whipped up a miniature tornado that sucked up vines and fruit bats alike. It was the first time I had seen that kind of use for a pegasus’ weather control.
“That mare is mad!” the guard yelled as the tornado’s wind pressure tugged at us. I hooked my legs around a root and held on to both Lyra and Fluttershy. Spike dug his claws into another root, Twilight hugging it further up. I couldn’t see what Rarity and Applejack were doing, but I spotted Applejack’s hat fly by. A moment later, it was engulfed in a blue glow as Rarity caught it and pulled it back.
“I believe this is yours!” Rarity’s voice yelled out.
“Thank you kindly!” Applejack called back.
“The word you want is AWESOME!” Rainbow declared, darting over to us as the tornado ran on its own momentum.
“Girls! Positions!” Twilight ordered. In a moment they gathered around her, and the elements started to glow.
I’ll admit, I had been skeptical about the power those trinkets were supposed to have. No offense to them, but Twilight got all giddy about my magic awareness, but I never felt, saw or heard a twitter from them before. Until that moment.
It was like the world sang. Each gem glowed individually, and the power building from them gently lifted the mares into the air. Something in me fluttered in response to it. A shared aura of white built around them as bolts of magic lanced out from the individual gems before the glow became too bright for me to look at directly.
“Don’t look at the light!” the guard yelled out needlessly. We were all already shielding our eyes.
The dissonance of the area seceded to the power they were generating, until only its cry alone could be heard. As the melody of the magic peaked, a literal rainbow sprouted from the sphere of light, rising to the canopy above us, before arching and crashing into the scar on the tree.
The terrifying part? Nothing happened. Power flowed, the magic a physical force on my skin, deafening. The scar resisted. It’s glow resisted the rainbow, keeping it a foot or so from actually reaching the scar. It was steadily pushed down the tree trunk, leaving a charred trail to mark it’s progress, but the scar, the tear itself remained.
The elements alone can’t properly seal it. It needs your touch as the one who breeched it.
“Lyra!” I yelled.
“What?”
“I’m gonna do something really stupid!” Before she could react, I ran at the scar and the beam of magic. Impulse and intuition had been doing a lot for me lately. It earned helped me work out the levitation spell. It got me the simple light spell I worked out before Twilight started teaching me properly. It cast the shield spell. It even found the off switch for the transformation spell.
And now it was saying jump at the scar so the magic of the elements could work on it. So I did. Lyra was yelling behind me, as were the conscious guard and Spike. I ignored them. The elements wouldn’t last forever.
‘God… if you can hear me in this reality… please don’t let this kill me.’
I thrust my hand out, past the glow and touched the scar, my magic flaring. The tear ripped open, doubling, tripling in size, then the glow was streaked with green tendrils of magic that sprung from my hand and arm, and it shattered. The Rainbow crashed into it, and I blacked out for the third time that day.
Weird. I could taste skittles this time.