The next morning we were all gathered around a projector screen which showing everything that the wooden bunny was seeing thanks to a pair of connected scrying gems. There were some complaints that we didn’t get things started sooner, mostly from Rainbow Dash, but not only was it rather late when I finished creating it there was also the fact that prying it away from Fluttershy would have been impossible. Of course there were a couple others watching as well but as long as they didn’t get in the way I didn’t mind.
“How long is this going to take anyways? I’d rather be out there kicking butt than sitting back here just watching. And di you really have to make that thing look like Fluttershy old pet?” I look over at the hovering biped and give her a questioning look.
“Why wouldn’t I use him as a template? He always had Fluttershy’s best interests at heart as he did what he could to protect her and sometimes push her outside of her comfort zone. Sure he was sometimes a bit mean about it but he wasn’t that bad to be around.” Rainbow Dash just glares at me for a moment before shaking her head.
“You obviously have no idea what that little monster was like if you think that. Every time I went over to Fluttershy’s home that little demon would try to drive me away.” I raise an eyebrow at her and glance at the pink-haired woman to see if she heard any of this. I was guessing she either didn’t or was ignoring us but the former was most likely as Rainbow Dash was speaking quietly.
“Huh, I’ve never seen any sign of that myself, though even your pony counterpart was always complaining about him as well.” I can see her shuddering at the thought of there being two Angel bunnies but our conversation was interrupted by a gasp from one of the others.
“How can there be so many of those creatures just gathered out there? How many did those creatures kill for there to be this many of them?” We turn back to the screen at Rarity’s comment to see a wall of black just outside of the barrier surrounding the city. As Angel moved closer we could start to see individual figures in the mass but they still blurred together. While the others were looking a bit panicked I just observed them with a critical eye before nodding.
“It’s not as bad as I was expecting so it won’t be as hard to get to the portal as I thought it would be.” All the eyes in the area, except for Twilight, turned towards me in surprise about what I said. The two of us just kept watching the screen until Sunset finally spoke up.
“I’m sorry but what? Don’t you see how many of those things are gathered out there? I don’t care how much experience you have with those things but I doubt that you can take on an army.” I glance over at her before looking back at the screen and chuckle at her reaction.
“You really are underestimating not just me but Twilight as well. Now if time had passed at the same rate and we were only as old as you are then you might actually have a point. But we both have centuries of experience and growth that you don’t have the luxury of. It’s just a good thing I know the weakness to these things so I don’t have to use too much magic though.” A small look of fear passes over them all and most of them back away from me slightly. Only Fluttershy and one other don’t since the former actually seems to trust me and the latter is sturdier than the others.
“And just what would happen if you did release most of your magic to fight these things? If you are as strong as you say then wouldn’t you be able to clear these things out like they were nothing?” I sigh when Applejack asks that but it was Twilight that answers the question.
“I haven’t done any tests to see how much she has grown over the centuries but I estimate that she isn’t that much weaker than me. Even back then either of us could have destroyed a small city if we lost complete control of our magic. That’s not even getting into the residual magic that would remain after the event happened making it dangerous to be in the area for years afterwards. It’s only through luck that Ponyville was spared that when I fought Tirek since there was something nearby to absorb the excess energy.” It’s rather light for a lecture from Twilight but it did give them a hint of what we could do. Sunset looked to be the most surprised as she knew the amount of magic it would take to do these things, and from what I remember she was supposedly just as powerful back then as well.
“If you two are that strong then just how powerful are the other princesses?” Sunset Shimmer almost looks like she is going to break down as she asks this but Twilight doesn’t notice.
“I asked Princess Celestia about that once when I found out she was always holding back against Equestria’s enemies. She told me that if she ever was to seriously fight then there would be nothing left of Equestria and the surrounding countries would be uninhabitable for years.” Sunset Shimmer fell to her knees at this information and I knew how she felt as I went through the same thing once long ago. I step in to try and reassure the others that destruction isn’t all that the power is for.
“The lord and lady of my species were easily as strong as her at the height of their power and they’ve shown that a lot can be done with that much power. They created an entire world about as large as Equestria in another dimension that lasted for millennia until these things came. Using that power prevented them from being able to fight back but for anyone to grow as old as they did they learn to be extremely careful about how they use it.” Everyone is quiet at that point, which is a good thing as we are then able to hear a gasp from Fluttershy which brings our attention to see her watching the screen which draws our attention back to it.
It seems that while we were talking Angel had finally reached the portal that the creatures were using to invade this world. It looks much like the one that I had seen years ago but the land around it hadn’t been corrupted yet. I reach out to the gem on the other end of the portal and mentally mark the location down so that I can easily find it while I examine the screen.
“Good to see that it isn’t as bad as the last time I saw one of these. I have no idea what would happen if we stepped on the corrupted landscape that the last one of these was spreading. Of course that one had decades to grow so I guess it would make sense that this one hasn’t changed anything yet.” I get a few glances my way as well as a couple headshakes at my calm demeanor.
“Seriously? You are way too calm about seeing this thing especially since you’ve already faced these creatures once before. Shouldn’t you be at least a little worried about the fact that these things can destroy the entire world before invading Equestria?” I look over at Sunset Shimmer before glancing at the others to see their looks of curiosity before I sigh.
“One lesson I’ve learned over the years is that panicking during the middle of a crisis doesn’t help with anything. I usually just bottle it all up to release once everything has calmed down again as Twilight has seen plenty of times. Of course this time I managed to get some of that out of the way before we came here after I saw those things threaten my children right in front of me.” A few of them back up as I growl out the last part while Fluttershy moves closer to scratch my ears again. While it does calm my anger at remembering the incident it isn’t quite as debilitating as the first time she did it.
“All right then, no more messing with the mommy instincts. I’ve already made that mistake once before but never again.” Sunset Shimmer shudders at whatever she is remembering before shaking her head and continuing. “So what now then? How are we going to get all of us to that portal quickly and safely? And once we are there how do you plan on closing it?”
I took a moment to calm down again before considering all this. “Well for closing the portal I have a few ideas though I’m hoping some of the earlier ones pan out since the others are more dangerous. As for getting there I’m not exactly sure yet since we need a way to keep together so that Twilight and I can keep everyone safe. I hope one of you have an idea for that since I know little about what you have on this world.”
Twilight just shakes her head when I look over at her but when I glance around at the others I pause on seeing the thoughtful look on Applejack’s face. “If it’s just the eight of us then we could take my truck out there. If you can keep them away from us like you say then it should be able to drive us all right up to that thing.”
I look over at Twilight for explanations about what a truck is and she just shrugs at me. I turn back to Applejack and just nod to her. “If you think that’s the best way to get us all there safely. Like I said I don’t know much about this world so for things like this I’ll just rely on all of you.”
The truck that was mentioned wasn’t quite what I expected and I was surprised that nothing like it was on the Equestrian side yet. Of course since the trains hadn’t changed much over the centuries that I was gone and in fact much of the technology didn’t improve much beyond that which was needed to fight in the wars. Even with the benefits of something like this I could also see the drawbacks as well since I could see many complaints about the noise as well as the dangers of a hunk of metal moving at fast speeds.
I was seated in the front of the vehicle so that I could direct Applejack towards where we needed to go as we as to clear the path in front of us. Twilight and the others were in the back of the vehicle in the open-aired part and most of them were fine with it except for the princess. While she was keeping a shield up around the vehicle to catch anything that I missed she was also keeping a tight grip on the edges of the vehicle with a look of panic on her face. At least she wasn’t alone as Fluttershy was acting much the same though the others were more unaffected by the ride.
Getting through the wall of shadows was as simple as I expected, even more-so considering it was daytime, and any of the creatures that touched my shield were vaporized on impact. Anything that wasn’t made of shadows were deflected away by Twilight’s making the trip to the portal have little danger involved.
In fact trying to maneuver the truck through the trees was the most dangerous part of the journey. It was made even more difficult due to the fact that I could only give a direction of where we needed to go which led us to driving around in circles to find a path through the forest. After a few hours of travel, most of it because of us backtracking, we arrived at the portal.
While Twilight kept a shield up around the area I took my first close look at the portal and tried to figure out what was keeping it open exactly. Most of the others stayed on the far side of the shielded area as the shadows flowing out of the portal were really unnerving. “It’s strange. I’ve been near a lot of portals over the years and have looked into many worlds, yet none of them have made me feel as physically ill as this one does. Even that poorly made one between this world and Equestria was nowhere near this bad.”
Both Twilight and Sunset were next to me examining the portal as well and each had their own observations. “The amount of dark magic flowing out of it is just crazy. Not even Sombra or Nightmare Moon felt this bad. If this is what evil feels like then they are just newborn foals while this would be an alicorn of Celestia’s level.”
While Twilight was the magic expert it didn’t mean Sunset wasn’t any help as she was also once a student of Celestia. “I know what you mean, Twilight. What the Element of Harmony did to me was beyond painful but this is a whole other level evil. I don’t even want to know what this power would feel like flowing through my body. I’ve never felt anything like it before but there is something subtle beneath it all; it almost sounds like a bell.”
I look over at her and perk an ear up and find that she is right. It’s hard to hear it but there is definitely the sound of something ringing coming through the portal. “You’re right, there is something ringing. And is it just me or does the ringing coincide with each shadow that comes through the portal?” The two start listening closer for the ringing and they both nod to me after a few moments.
“I’m betting that the bell, or whatever it is, is also what is keeping the portal open as well. If all else fails I could probably overload the portal with magic, but I think that I have a better idea. If we can use your music and channel it into a spell we could not only negate the sound from the bell but also disrupt the frequency of that dimension so that it can’t open up here again.” I eye the portal critically as I consider something.
“You two should probably handle the magic and music though since it is more often than not instinctual. I haven’t done much studying of that type of magic so anything that I come up with would be guesswork and probably subpar.” Twilight and Sunset share a glance before turning back to me.
“Are you sure that this is a good idea? Didn’t I tell you about what happened the last time I was asked to come up with a spell using magic? And what would you even be doing while we are playing and singing?” I smile at Twilight before turning back to the portal.
“Of course it’s a good idea Twilight. I learned from you not to not to try and do something I’m not familiar with by myself when everything is at stake. Besides someone needs to keep the shadows away from you all while you play as well as be ready in case anything worse tries to comes through.” Sunset was quick to point out a small problem with my plan.
“How are we supposed to play if we don’t have our instruments with us anyways? You never gave us a chance to grab them before we came out here and it would be dark by the time we got back out here.” As soon as she finished speaking there was a bright flash of purple as the instruments suddenly appeared in front of us. We both turn towards twilight to see her stretching her arms and wings out as she turns back to us.
“What? You wanted your instruments so here they are. It’s been a while since I was able to stretch my skills like that so I couldn’t resist.” I chuckle as Sunset just shakes her head.
“I keep forgetting that it was possible to do that here now. Of course I would have maybe been able to get only one instrument before I was worn out. It’s still hard to believe that such a long time has passed since we last saw you Twilight.” I watch as the others start gathering their instruments and I decide to show off a bit myself.
“One of these days I’ll figure out how to teleport objects or even myself without them ending up in a tree. I still haven’t tried again since that one time and I still think it was a fluke. Of course it’s not like we needed the real instruments in the first place.” I use my magic to create an illusion of her guitar in Sunset’s hands to her surprise while Twilight just rolls her eyes at me.
“Haven’t you already shown off enough how good your illusions are? It’s bad enough that my student goes to you instead of me now when she has questions about them.” Sunset almost drops the instrument at that as she stares at the two of us.
“Wait, this is just an illusion? But that can’t be right as it feels and sounds just like the one I have.” I dispel the illusion and levitate her real guitar into her hands.
“Full explanations can wait, but to make it short everyone always underestimates illusions as the best ones are so real that it’s nearly impossible to tell they are fakes. I’ve even read about spells than can literally scare things to death without even touching them.” They both shudder at that as they head over to the others to get everything ready and discuss what they are going to do.
While they were preparing I decided to draw a rudimentary focusing circle around the inside of the shield as a precaution. It probably wasn’t going to be needed but anything to make what we were doing go more smoothly would be a boon. The others saw what I was doing, but only Twilight would really understand what I was doing though Sunset may suspect something.
They ran through a few test songs, which actually sounded pretty good, as they warmed up and got used to playing with Twilight again. Even though they were just practice runs I could still feel a decent amount of magic coming off of them, much more than I expected. I was about to consider the benefits of groups spell casting when I noticed shadows starting to return back towards the area of the portal and even the shadows leaking out of it seemed agitated.
“Well it looks like you’re doing something right. The creatures are starting to get a bit riled up by whatever you are doing and it’s just the trial runs.” I start doing a bit of target practice to keep the numbers of the creatures low by sending off needles of energy at any that I see. I experiment with the amount of energy that is required to destroy one of them as well as where I hit them.
Unlike most undead I found that blows to the head are the least effective way of dispatching them. Hitting them around the center of mass worked best, as it allowed the greatest dispersal of the shadow’s essence. Breaking them apart still seemed to be the best way to get rid of them as I had already known. Interestingly enough the positive energy I used on them wasn’t wasted on impact as the creatures seemed to be almost repelled by its very presence.
I was having a bit too much fun with what I was doing since I didn’t even realize that the others had started on their main attempt until I saw the shadows in the portal start to roil violently. Seeing as something was happening I strengthened the shield around us all and fired a blast of energy directly into the portal. I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea or not as, while it did drive the shadows back revealing the image of an ancient city, they came back even worse than before as the entire mass tried to break through.
Luckily things ended there as a burst of prismatic energy came flying from behind me and wrapped around the portal rapidly before it exploded away from it leaving an empty space where the portal once was. They energy then continued to expand rapidly in all directions and whenever it struck a shadow they vanished.
I turn back to the others to see them catching their breath and looking around at the results. While it would take a heavy duty scrying spell to confirm it, I was pretty sure that the wave of energy was widespread enough to wipe out the remnants of the creatures. This left only one thing left to do as I look directly into Pinkie Pie’s eyes. “Well now that we are done here that means it’s probably time for a party, right?”
I wasn’t sure which was more hilarious then, Pinkie Pie’s reaction or the glares I got from the rest of them.