I had experienced a long of odd things in my life. Since coming to Equestria those things had increased in intensity and raised the bar with what I considered weird. Hell, considering one of my best friends was a talking pink pony that could violate even Equestria’s laws of nature on a regular basis, wierd had pretty much become common for me.
What I was experiencing now was a new…
Well…I wouldn’t call it a new record. But it was certainly something. Not just in evil villain rehash weird, or inexplicable return from the grave weird either. There was something…off about the situation that I couldn’t put my finger on about the scene of Celestia battling Nightmare Moon.
As I watched the two alicorns go at it in a rather dazzling display of close combat aerial acrobatics that involved the two of them swiping at each other with horns, wings and hooves while circling each other just a foot from the ground, I had to admit Tia was pretty impressive. The reason that Celestia was choosing close quarters combat rather than slinging spells around was obvious to anyone who had read the book How to be a Villain. Long-ranged attacks were best used by the bad guys to threaten the local populace and force the hero to surrender. With the two of them locked in a melee, every time Moony’s horn lit up, Celestia would attempt a high stab her with her own pointy object, and Nightmare would need to use her horn to deflect it. This in turn disrupted Moon's attack, and forced them to fight hoof-to-hoof.
That was the one big weakness about magic, even with alicorns. While the horns themselves were nearly unbreakable and could be used in combat to stab and parry, sending mana through them made the things sensitive enough to be used as erogenous zones. So every time Nightmare Moon tried to cast a spell, Celestia did the equivalent of trying to kick her in the crotch. If she were a guy, I mean.
Aside from that, I could see one more reason that Celestia wanted to beat the shit out of Nightmare Moon with her own two hooves...
“You are not my sister! My sister is loved! My sister is respected! My sister is needed! MY SISTER IS HAPPY, AND SHE WANTS NOTHING MORE TO DO. WITH. YOU!” the Alicorn of the Sun screeched as she attempted to smash the other alicorn’s head in.
...Celestia was pissed.
Meanwhile on the sidelines, the rest of us just stood there behind a purple wall of energy in case Nightmare Moon did manage to get away and take a potshot. Unlike the last time she was watching a battle with one of her heroes, Twilight absolutely reeked of worry. Rainbow’s wings twitched irritably, and she kept moving her eyes back and forth between the fight and Twilight. I…considering my options.
Although I had spent quite a lot of time learning how to blow shit up with my magic and been in plenty of fights, precision targeting had never made it into my list of skills. I was more of a fire indiscriminately kind of guy.
“Twilight!” Rainbow complained. “Let us out so we can do something!”
Hesitation entered the purple alicorn’s face, and she glanced back at Rainbow for a few moments before turning her attention back to Celestia. “No. Celestia’s here, she can handle this. We’d probably just…get in the way.”
I hid my cringe at Twilight latest incarnation of Celestial worship. Although the way she crumbled at suggestions from the goddess (and despite what Tia or Twi said, anything that moved a fucking sun WAS a goddess in my book) and want Celestia’s attention more than me or Rainbow’s was more than understandable as well as forgivable considering my own tendency to favor Dash on a few things, the inactivity of the purple alicorn because Celestia was having trouble with NM2 actually got to me.
But with Tia doing the dance of death with…whatever the black alicorn that looked like Evil Luna was, I really didn’t have time to argue with my little purple alicorn. Plus, while I didn’t really agree with Twilight’s holding action when it came to myself, I wasn’t about to let her drop her force field with the ditzy gray mare taking cover behind my muffin delivery changeling that had orders to serve as Derpy’s body shield or Rainbow Dash, should either pegasus require it.
However, jumping into the fight myself wasn’t my only option thanks to the several hundred changeling currently inhabiting my castle. Several of which were undoubtedly watching from the sidelines. Thanks to standing orders and the average intelligence of my minions being equal to that of those…well, Despicable Me minions, none of them would attack a pony unless the little horse tried to enter the magical item vault.
Not unless I told them to anyway.
So I pointed my hoof at the two battling alicorns and shouted. “MINIONS! GET THE BLACK ONE!”
Either my words actually brought a temporary end to the duel as both alicorns touched down, or they got tired of trying to beat each other to death after the minute of melee. Whichever it was, both Tia and Moony stopped fighting to land and the black one looked at the three approaching bugs before her horn lit up.
The blast she managed to fire scattered the changelings without hitting any of them. But in the intern, Celestia’s magic also became charged, and she unleashed her own magical attack. A shield went up around Nightmare Moon…and Tia’s magic tore right through it in short order to knock the other alicorn on her ass. And she didn’t let up, even with her opponent down.
“Put pressure on her horn so she can’t cast!” Tia ordered before looking over at my group. “Twilight, bind her legs. I’ll hold her wings down.”
A second later, the black pony struggled in glowing purple chains that Twilight had conjured to wrap around her forelegs and back ones, my trio of changelings actually chomped down on Nightmare Moon’s horn, and Celestia stood over the downed monster with all her weight pressed down on the doppelganger’s outstretched wings.
“Well, I guess that proves you aren’t really Luna,” the goddess told the imposter evenly.
As the alicorn continued to struggle, Rainbow flew over to shove her hoof in pseudo-Moon’s face. “Yeah, take that phony!” she taunted before looking over to the white alicorn. “But uh…how does you spanking your not-sister over there prove she’s a fake?”
The second Celestia took her eyes off Nightmare Moon, her hard expression turned to a smile. “That’s easily explained my darling Rainbow. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I am far above Twilight Sparkle in raw power, despite us both being alicorns. Why do you think that is?”
“Uh…cause you’re old?” Rainbow answered, and asked.
Both me and Twilight groaned. Celestia giggled. “I preferred the term experienced. But no. It is because my special talent gives me a connection with the sun through the magic of harmony that I am able to draw on an outside source of power to increase my magic’s potency,” she said before turning her attention back to the struggling Nightmare Moon. “This…thing’s magic crumbled like a cheap wall. And with the sun’s power flowing through my limbs, I can easily restrain its wings.”
With Rainbow’s question done with, I walked up with one of my own. “So…what is it then?” Considering Celestia’s experience, it was a pretty safe bet my big fat pony goddess had seen something like this.
“Let’s find out together, shall we?” she replied as Fake Moon stopped struggling. Fully subdued, Celestia glared down at the alicorn and moved her face inches from the creature’s muzzle. “What are you?”
Moony struggled in Celestia’s hold for a few moments, then matched the goddess glare for glare. “I am the rightful ruler of Equestria! Nightmare-OW!” the pseudo-demon said yelled as I blasted her in the cutie mark with a burst of pain inducing magic.
“Don’t toy with me creature,” Tia growled. “I find hitting a thing that resembles the monster that took my sister from me without actually hurting Luna to be a wonderful experience. So if you truly wish to cause me distress, don’t give me a reason to continue with our interrogation.”
Down on the ground, Nightmare Moon snorted. “Yes, you so enjoyed holding us down for all these years, didn’t you, sister?”
The jab did its work, and Celestia’s anger rose as she spoke through gritted teeth while her body started to heat the surrounding air. “Speak of such things again, and I shall find a much weaker foe to ask questions of after I cook you alive.”
I turned my attention on Nightmare Moon and Sniffed her to get a read on how close she was to breaking. However, with my attention focused on it, I finally realized what had been bothering me about Moony since she showed up.
She didn’t have a Scent.
I had only had the ability to Smell emotions for a few months, but it had kind of become second nature to me by then. Especially now that I was dealing with so many changelings on a daily basis. Our species communicated with clicks, screeches, and scents of the physical kind, all of it at the same general volume. Detecting emotions was how we read the tone of the conversation.
To find something that my senses didn’t work on was…weird. Even the damn mirror clones had a limited pool of emotional responses to draw from.
“Hey Tia, I’m not sensing any emotions from this thing,” I told her.
Celestia glanced at me for a moment, then looked back at Nightmare Moon. “Tell me what I want to know! Who created you? Where did you come from?”
“Are you so forgetful Sister? We did descend from the moon, born from the same mother as you,” the nightmare replied with a sneer.
Twilight walked forward and looked at the creature for a moment, then up to our big girlfriend. “Is it possible that she doesn’t know?” the little goddess asked. “If the theory we’ve deduced from Derpy’s description of events is correct, and this really is some Nightmare Moon made from a book’s information, then it’s completely possible that she doesn’t know anything beyond what’s printed about her in the book.”
Rainbow cleared her throat and floated over to the alicorn. “Uh Twilight, I heard the story of the Mare in the Moon when I was a filly, and it never mentioned anything about her being Celly’s sister. Just that she ate foals and caused bad dreams.”
Once again, MLP trivia creeped its way up from the back of my head while I wondered just how the hell Celestia had let them paint even the evil incarnation of her sister as a cannibal. “The book Twilight read in episode one-uh, I mean…the day of the Summer Sun Celebration did.”
“A book I brought with me to Ponyville to help with my research on Nightmare Moon and…never sent back to the Canterlot Archives,” Twilight said, blushing at the end.
“That was like what? A year ago?” Rainbow Dash asked before she started snickering. “Wow Twilight, and they made you a librarian?”
The alicorn rolled her eyes and ignored Dash in favor of Celestia. “Quick! Ask her something only the real Luna would know, that was never written in any book, ever. If she doesn’t know it, it’ll prove her knowledge base is limited and we can’t get anything out of her.”
Celestia glanced back down at the other alicorn. “Like what?”
A blue hoof came up from behind me to point at the black alicorn. “When was the last time Celly wet the bed?” Rainbow demanded.
Not-Luna’s face scrunched up at the question, and Twilight’s voice rang in my ears. “RAINBOW!”
One of Celestia’s wings shot out in Twilight’s direction in a stopping gesture. “Actually…that’ll work,” Celestia replied before she turned back to glare at Nightmare Fake.
Twilight actually flapped her wings to get over Celestia’s wall of white and in the face of the pegasus. “Say what? How in the hay is that a question you ask anypony, EVER?”
“There are no written records of myself or Luna before we became princesses whatsoever,” Celestia told her. “If this creature is indeed a copy of my sister from the book detailing her fall, none of its information should go back that far. If it has any information at all, that is.” Then, Celestia turned her attention back to the fake, and glared. “Well? I know for a fact that my sister never forget anything embarrassing about me. So, what is the answer to the question?”
Fake Moony glared at Celestia for a few seconds before relying. “We refuse to answer such foolish-”
“I’ll take that as an I don’t know,” Celestia replied before her horn alit with a golden light that brightened to an almost blinding intensity before she dropped her head and blasted the creature’s chest with her solarbeam.
My eyes widened as I watched the monster take the attack and completely freeze. Nightmare Moon’s body lost its color and became nothing more than a mass of black. Then, whatever magic was holding the thing together finally gave out, and the black mass just poofed away in a cloud of smoke.
As the black gas cleared, I managed to see that Celestia had something in her magic. “What the hay is that?”
“What is it?” Twilight asked almost at the same time as she descended to get eye level with Celestia and froze with eyes that widened in horror at what came next.
To answer Twilight’s question, Celestia raised a book for the alicorn to see. And…it was something from Twilight’s worst nightmare. The book’s pages were torn, there was a hole in the center, and it looked as if something had actually eaten some of the pages. “It would appear to be Predictions and Prophecies, or what’s left of it. Apparently, the construct was indeed drawing on it for everything from its knowledge base as well as using it like a mold to shape itself,” she said before letting out a relieved sigh. “At least it wasn’t a full self-aware construct, just something acting out a script with limited ability to improvise.”
Twilight gasped, breaking out of her stunned silence, and might have gotten a little creeped out. “Celestia. You thought that thing might have actually been alive?”
As the big goddess turned to look at the smaller one, Celestia’s face became a little apologetic. “After Omnifarious told me he could feel no emotions coming from it and our interrogation, I was almost certain it was not truly alive my dearest,” she assured Twilight. “Still…I’ve lived long enough to know that sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way you expected it to.”
Celestia took one last look around, with her gaze lingering on Rainbow Dash for a few seconds that I could Smell her worry go up before she took a deep breath. “Now come along all of you, we need to get to Ponyville and assess the situation,” she told us before glancing to the changelings. “And Omnifarious, bring your changelings. If your emotional senses can tell which is a construct and which is a real pony, it will help with target identification. While I’m sure we can pick out the epic ones, if slice of life and murder mystery villains are also in the mix, I’d rather not need a detective sort of hero to sort things out. They always take forever to get the job done.”
The first stop on our trip into town was of course, Fluttershy's house. But, in the few seconds it took for us to get there, we did have a few theories about what could cause a bunch of fictional characters to come to life and run amuck.
“My money’s on Discord,” I theorized. It fit his style. I bet he would even try and get out of scaring the crap out of everyone and burning down half the town by saying ‘oops my bad’ and promising not to do it again. While I was all for forgiving the reformed criminals like Sunset, they actually had to do some reforming first. Discord didn’t even seem to be trying.
Celestia looked over to me with a frown. “Omnifarious, you shouldn’t let your grudge against Discord influence you so. He’s getting better,” she chided me.
I resisted the urge to smack Celestia, and simply settled for a little glare. “Yeah, his last attempt to ‘annoy’ every pony nearly wracked up a body count in the way of Rainbow and Twilight. Next time, he might actually manage to kill one of them,” I replied in a dark tone.
“Okay Fairy, tone it down a notch,” Rainbow told me.
“It did seem like the appearance of the worm was an accident Fae,” Twilight added. “He did get sick because of it after all.”
Which in turn lead to him being carried back by Twilight, not cleaning up Ponyville, and getting pampered by Fluttershy for twenty-four hours. All the while one of the ponies under my protection had lost her house and sense of security. I had checked up on Berry after my coronation and offered to fund any relocation she wanted, but by then she had decided to stick around the town like I had predicted.
I made a mental note to look in on her again after everything was done. Single moms that actually cared for their children like her and Derpy needed all the help they could get.
Once we got to Fluttershy’s cozy cottage and headed inside we found the news was both good and bad.
The good: AJ, Rarity, Fluttershy, Sunset and Trixie were all there to greet us. Thankfully, a purple alicorn had come up with several emergency procedures back in the days when she had been a unicorn. One of which was to quickly gather at Fluttershy’s house if the town was under attack by wild animals, dragons, or unidentified creatures. As Ponyville was currently under siege by all three, Twilight’s plan had more than met its criteria.
The bad: the cause of the problem was also at Fluttershy’s house.
“Hey!” Discord said as I glared at him very accusingly while he sat on Fluttershy’s couch as if nothing was going on outside. “I didn’t do this!”
The fact that he was already trying to defend himself before I even started pointing fingers at him was just further proof of his guilt. Beyond that, there was also the fact that he was in town the same time as this crap.
“I just came here for Tuesday Tea,” he said, trapping himself in a lie that put the last nail in the coffin.
With that, I pointed my hoof at the monster. “It’s Monday you idiot!”
Discord sniffed and jerked his head away from me. “As if I would stick to a planned schedule like the Princess.”
“Alright that’s enough,” Celestia said as she stepped forward. “But as long as you’re here Discord, you can lend us a claw in cleaning up this mess. Considering the fact that we are under assault by so many fictional and historical characters, it’s safe to assume that whatever is causing the disturbance is at the town library. We should-”
“What? Oh, nononononono!” Discord said before held up his freakish hand in front of Tia’s face. “I make chaos. What’s going on out there is causing chaos. Ergo, I can’t fix it. Sorry, but it’s against my religion.”
I seethed at the bastard. “You piece of-! Ponies could get KILLED out there!”
Discord frowned at me for a moment, and nodded. “Well, okay…I see your point. I should do something about that.”
For a moment, for the tiniest fraction of a second, a nearly infinitesimal measure of time, I actually thought Discord was going to do something halfway decent. Then he reached down to pick up the yellow pegasus standing next to him and smirked. “Come on Fluttershy, let’s have our tea somewhere else.” And with a snap of his fingers, Discord was gone.
“Has he done anything for Equestria since you let him out?” I asked Tia with a frown.
The alicorn sighed and shook her head. “Change takes time Omnifarious. He’s…learning.”
I rolled my eyes. “Considering the lesson is ‘don’t let bad things happen to good ponies’ Discord must be the biggest idiot in all creation,” I grumbled.
Celestia cleared her throat. “Well, standing here talking isn’t going to help anypony. Let’s get moving,” she said before relaying instructions and leading us out into the town.
The plan was a simple one. After we exited out of the house, the twenty five changelings I brought with us spread out around the town with orders to deal with any normal-looking ponies that didn’t have an emotional Scent. The rest of us would make a B-line to the library to find out just what was causing all this weird shit and put an end to it.
Sure, we could have just teleported there, but just stopping everything at the source was only really half a solution. With all the crap that was already running around Ponyville, certain things had to be done to mitigate the damage…
“I. AM. DEATH!”
…like stopping the giant talking lizard that breathed fire from turning everything in the town to ash.
As we raced through the streets, Rarity looked up with a frown. “Oh great! Somepony just had to return the Princess of the Horseshoes prequel the day before a monster that makes literature come to life appears in Ponyville.”
I looked over to the marshmallow unicorn running beside me. “So who the hay is that thing?”
Rarity turned her head to face me for a moment. “And here I thought you were into such books. You know, Smog, Greatest of all Calamities? He’s got a few other titles, but…well, I haven’t really read it since I got out of school.”
“Lord of the Rings,” Sunset translated for me from her spot on Celestia’s back. Apparently, the alicorn figured things were safer with her rather than at a house that lacked most of the security measures that nearly every other home in Ponyville had. “Don’t ask me how you humans got that from our version.”
Despite the fact that I was pretty sure Tolkien pre-dated MLP, I kept my mouth shut and kept going toward the town while making sure to call the big nasty monster when it came time to assigning targets. But since our main concern was the populace, we had to deal with the smaller things that ponies had a harder time running from than the really big stuff that got all the attention.
For instance, after we broke into pairs to deal with some of the smaller stuff on the way there, Lyra got zapped by some skinny unicorn in a robe with a crooked-looking horn and fell over paralyzed while she was gazing up at a fiery mass of rock shooting up from a cocoon that slowly formed into a centaur version of Peter Jackson’s interpretation of a balrog.
I glared at the thing that attacked my favorite minty unicorn with some sort of paralyzation spell…even if she had been following Sunset around WAY too much over the past week for my liking, and addressed our resident expert on fictional characters. “Hey Twilight, just who the hay is that?”
“Oh, judging by the horn…I’d say it’s He Who Shall Not Be Named,” she mumbled.
With that means of identification, my smartass-ness took over. “Oh, so any pony with a messed up horn is a bad guy now, huh?” Although my sense of propriety stopped me from shouting about how Twilight was being racist.
Unfortunately, that was all the time a unicorn needed to point his horn at us and start casting a spell. “Avada Keda-ulk!”
But on the other hand, as we were facing a fictional unicorn that thought magic worked the same way in the real world as it did in his book, the bad guy took an extra few seconds to yell and open his mouth. Which turned out to be a fatal mistake for him, as a tiny ball I thought had come from a silenced musket or something flew past me and the purple alicorn to land somewhere in his throat.
“Gulk! Ulk! Gurk!”
And from the sound of things, block his windpipe.
Then, there was a feral scream of rage from behind us before a tan earth pony sporting a pink and blue mane with a tail that matched practically flew past us to crash into pony-Voldemort using some kind of pony karate, judging by how her hind hoof rearranged his face anyway.
As soon as the dark overlord was laying on the ground, Bon-Bon went to work completing his de-facial by using her front hoof to hold down Voldy’s head by his horn, and another to do the work while adding a verbal assault to the mix. “TEACH YOU NOT TO HURT MY LYRA!” she shouted while continuously socking the fictional character in the face. “Not so tough when an earth pony’s got your horn, are you?”
Finally, Bon-bon slammed her hoof into Voldy’s face one last time, and he disappeared in a poof of smoke, leaving behind a half-eaten book.
Twilight let out a scream and landed next to the destroyed mass of paper. “T-That was my first edition of Hairy Trotter and the Half-Breed Prince!” she cried before looking up into the sky. “Whatever's causing this, YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS YOU MONSTER!”
“Ah, excellent work Ms Sweetie Drops,” Celestia spoke as she landed beside us a second later, making Bon-Bon freeze solid with a look of fear on her face, and me frown in confusion. “Now, while I think you would be an asset at this time of crisis, perhaps you had best take your friend to your house’s emergency shelter and wait for us to deal with everything.”
Bon-Bon unfroze and went into a nervous bow. “Um…it, uh…y-yes Princess Celestia,” she said before standing on two legs long enough to toss Lyra up onto her back.
“Bon-Bon,” Lyra managed to say despite a paralyzed jaw. Her words came out a bit muted. “Why did she call you Sweetie Drops?”
Instead of answering, the earth pony just let out a loud sigh and shook her head. “I am so sleeping on the couch tonight if the house doesn’t burn down.”
After we watched the earth pony open the door to her nearby house, then not bother closing it after she opened a trap door in the middle of the living room that led to the usual kind of fallout shelter that everyone in Ponyville possessed, Rainbow cocked her head to the side. “Uh…wait, I thought they were just good friends.”
Rarity giggled. “They are darling, just like you, and Celestia, and Twilight and Omnifarious are. Really good friends.”
Although we made our way to the library as quickly as possible, I couldn’t help but take notice of a few things. Like the bearded unicorn who wasn’t wearing any bells facing off against the balrog-centaur. “YOU. SHALL NOT. PASS!”
And then there was another unicorn dressed in a long leather trench coat and hat that never appeared in the stories with a pentangle for his cutie mark leaping towards a bald earth pony whose shadow was moving on its own. “PARKOUR!”
Still, the weirdest sight was a fictional changeling that had a pair of scimitars floating above his head battling a pegasus assassin armed with a long sword that had a hilt made of bone and jeweled dagger… Those two didn’t actually talk as they tried to kill each other.
But even with the battlefield that was Ponyville, we made it to the front of library in short order.
“Okay girls, we just need to head inside and-” The rest of Twilight’s comment was cut off when she got ten feet from the door, and an oversized black pegasus zoomed down from the sky to land in front of her, with several small branches that had been neatly sliced from the tree falling to the ground in her wake.
“Not one more step mortals!” the new threat challenged.
“Consardit! How many of these critters are gonna keep poppin’ up?” Applejack demanded. “And just who in the hay is that anyway?”
I was wondering that before the question was even asked. The pony in front of us was much larger than the average pegasus, almost as big as Luna. But what was even more odd were her wings, which rivaled Celestia’s in size despite the fact that they were way too big for her.
“Um…I think it’s Maleficent,” Sunset spoke up from her place atop Celestia.
I frowned at the new pony. Pony versions of classic heroes I could get, maybe even a few contemporary ones, but…the creature in front of me just didn’t fly. Pun intended. “Since when does Maleficent have wings?” If anything, I would have expected another Nightmare Moon kind of villain, just as a unicorn.
“It’s the rewrite version of Sleeping Beauty that paints her as a tragic anti-hero,” Twilight explained. “We got it last Tuesday.”
Celestia let out a disgruntled sound. “Ugh. I hate these rewrites of the classics. What was wrong with the character originally?”
“Whatever it’s supposed to be, I’ll take her,” Rainbow Dash said before she zoomed forward at her usual breakneck speed.
A second before impact, the mystery pony let out a martial cry and twisted slightly as she swept out one of her wings towards the head of the smaller pegasus. I heard Celestia call Rainbow’s name, and then Dash disappeared in a flash of light before Maleficent's turned so her wing sliced into the ground like her feathers were miniature blades as the blue pegasus reappeared in the air next to Celestia.
“Wha-Hey!” Rainbow yelled before she looked over at the big alicorn. “What gives?”
“While I am more than willing to let you fight your own battles Rainbow Dash, getting killed in them is another matter,” Celestia told her simply, shutting Rainbow up as she indicated where the fictional character’s wings had almost took off Rainbow’s head. “Now, somepony restrain that thing.”
Then, the other blue mare of our little group stepped forward. “Trixie shall deal with this villain. Behold the results of Trixie’s magical training on how to deal with the dark arts!”
I raised my eyebrow and was about on how her magical study at CSGU hadn’t really been all that useful before she blasted pony-Maleficent head on with her magic. The fake pegasus looked just about as confused when the attack didn’t seem to do anything. At least until she was obscured by an explosion of smoke.
When it cleared, two large globs of glue held the fictional pony’s wings down on the ground, making her struggle to try and get free. As for Trixie, she let out a mocking laugh. “HA! That is what happens when you go up against the Great and Powerful Trixie! You may now all begin the beat downs of retribution for her attempts to harm one of our number.”
Without even wasting a second, Pinkie launched herself forward, with Applejack coming up from behind to back her up. “Here’s some Pie in your eye!” the pink party pony cried out before she nailed the fictional pegasus in that particular spot a second before the orange farmer followed it up with a buck from the other side of Maleficent's head.
The inside of the library was a mess that had Twilight clutching her chest as she worked to breathe evenly. Rainbow stood beside the alicorn, holding a bag that Trixie had conjured to help Twilight with her hyperventilation. As for me, I simply looked around, staring at the devastation.
Violated and abused books, missing pages, pieces of pages, spines, covers, with their interiors destroyed lay everywhere. In some places, there were simply pages that had been so mutilated they couldn’t even stay in the books and had fallen to the floor.
Then, one of the books began to glow. The strange occurrence actually made Twilight get her act together, and the ten of us watched as the level of brightness increased to the point where nothing behind it could be seen before it shot out the window like a comet to crash into the house across the way. When it did, there was a flash, and a cocoon had appeared at the landing site.
“Huh…so that’s how it works,” Rarity mumbled before she looked back to all the rest of the books. “But, just what’s causing them to do that?”
Rainbow picked up one of the books and closely examined the pages. “Well, from the looks of the pages, I think something may be eating them,” she said drawing everyone’s attention. When she noticed everyone looking to her, she held up the book and pointed her hoof to where chunks of the edge were missing. “See? These look like bite marks. I’m no Fluttershy, but…if I had to guess, it looks like something close in size to a caterpillar.”
Behind the pegasus, Pinkie actually looked through one of the holes in the books. “Wow, talk about your voracious reader.”
Sunset groaned and picked up another totaled tome of knowledge and entertainment. “Pinkie, please tone it down on the puns when we’re having a life-threatening predicament,” she asked before flipping through the pages. A second later, the human’s face twisted in revulsion. “What the hell?”
“What is it Sunset?” Celestia asked.
“Hey Twilight, come take a look. I think it’s what’s been causing all of this,” she replied.
That comment was all Twilight needed to complete her recovery. The young alicorn tensed, and then zoomed forward at a speed that would have made Rainbow Dash proud before she snatched the book away from Sunset. The alicorn started at her ruined book for a few seconds, then threw it’s open pages onto the ground and surrounded it with a containment field. “Alright you book destroying monster, PREPARE TO FEEL MY WRATH!”
I blinked at the sight as Twilight floated up into the air and began to gather enough magic to level half of Ponyville. As I in the half she was fixing to blow up, I quickly flew up to her and placed my hoof on her shoulder. “Uh, Twilight. I think you need to calm down. It’s just a…” I paused and looked back down at the book to see…
The sight made me pause, and brace myself for the pun I knew was coming.
Although Rarity, being the kind and gentle soul that she was, walked up to look at the book behind the small purple shield and saved me from saying it. “Huh…it appears to be a bookworm,” she said while looking down at the fat green worm gobbling up bite after little bite of paper.
“It’d say it looks more like a caterpillar,” Pinkie Pie commented as she pressed her muzzle on the edge of Twilight’s magical field.
Up in the air, Twilight gave out her correction as her eyes that blazed with power. “No! It's COOKED MEAT!”
I tensed and looked over to my maddened girlfriend. “Twilight stop! You’re going to-”
The light in her horn flew outwards despite my attempts to tell her to stop. I could only watch in horror as Twilight’s blast of miniature nuclear atomization flew past her shield to explode inside the dome, and cause a flash so bright that I had to look away while dropping my disguise so that my armor could soak up some of the damage.
Only, Twilight’s blast didn’t do anything other than cause a bright flash. And when that died down, I was looking around in confusion. “Uh…what just happened?”
Twilight let out a sighing growl. “Hey, you’ve killed things much less deserving than that thing since we came to Ponyville,” she grumbled barely loud enough for me to hear. “So don’t start lecturing me about morality. I’m going to hear enough of it from Celestia and Fluttershy later today.”
“I think Omnifarious was referring to the fact your attack was contained within the confines of your shield my dearest,” Celestia informed her. “And if you’re worried about the moral ramifications, don’t be. The creature has yet to expire.”
My comments about not putting her friends in danger was put on hold by that info, and I just looked down at the book that was still intact, as well as the little green pest that was running around on it. It really contrasted with the blacken splotch of tree that the floor had been turned into by Twilight’s attack. “Huh…the book didn’t blow up either?”
Applejack scratched her head. “How in the hay does that work?”
Back down on the floor, I saw the worm suddenly disappear into an orb of green light that flew out of Twilight’s shield like it wasn’t even there to land in another book on the shelf that looked untouched. A few seconds after he did, the book that was left on the ground began glowing, and left through the window before generating another cocoon.
“Ah crap, it’s quasi-ethereal,” Sunset mumbled as she crossed her arms.
Celestia nodded. “Yes, that is my thought as well.”
With everyone else just looking at the two of them in confusion, I manned up and asked the obvious question. “And that means…what?”
The book on the shelf we had seen the worm fly into was picked up in Celestia’s magic, and brought over in front of us. A second later, she flicked through the pages to find the miniature monster and gestured for us to gather around her. “It means the worm isn’t really here. What we’re seeing is something akin to a shadow, with colors. More than likely, as it eats the book, it creates a pocket dimension based off whatever book its reading and then sends a construct based on the creature from literature inside the book. Much like what we do on Friday in class Twilight.”
The alicorn looked up from the book and at Celestia with a confused frown. “Wait…we?”
Just then, Pinkie jumped in to save Celestia from having to out herself. “Oh! Oh Oh!” she said while raising her hoof. “You mean, it’s like when we all went into that comic book and I brought out those cupcakes that just turned to paper when we bit into them?”
Celestia blinked, clearly not understanding the explanation. “Well…yes.”
A second later, Twilight shook off her confusion. “Okay so…all we have to do is cast a LARPing spell to follow the worm into the book, and then drag him out. That sounds simple enough.”
The other alicorn in the room gave her a cautious moan. “Careful Twilight. In all my years, I have never heard of a creature such as this one,” she told our shared girlfriend. “It may very well come from outside our realm.”
That one made me tense.
I had learned several weeks ago that the dimensional barriers between Equestria and whatever else was out there had gone into a thinning period, as they apparently did every five hundred years or so. While I hadn’t heard of anything big happening five-hundred years ago…as of yet anyway, the timing lined up to the unexplained appearance of a possessing entity that seduced Luna one-thousand years ago…as well as my own rebirth in Equestria this year. Not to mention the kidnapping of a bunch of children (with me among them since I was less technically less than a year old) by a demon who did it through pulling us into his own little sub-dimension.
“Okay then…who’s going where?” I asked while looking around the room, and then outside the door to Ponyville. Although we had only been in the library for about five minutes, and there were a good amount of fictional heroes running around to help deal with the villains, half the town looked ready to fall over. “Some of us will need to go after the worm, but a few of us will need to stay behind and help every pony get to safety.”
Celestia nodded in agreement. “Although I no longer wear a crown, I will not allow anypony within this town to come to harm. I will stay here and protect Ponyville,” she said before pausing for a moment to look out the window. “And with two gigantic creatures roaming around, Luna should be here with the guard in short order as well.”
“Guess that means I’ll be leading the worm hunting team,” Twilight mumbled.
A blue hoof was laid on Twilight’s shoulder. “Wherever Twilight goes, I go,” Rainbow added. Then she hesitantly looked up to the bigger alicorn. “Uh…no offense…Celly.”
“None taken Rainbow,” Celestia assured her before her smile became a little strained. “Just…please don’t go charging into dangerous situations on your own. Your friends are there to help you, as you are to help them. That is where the real strength lay for ponies.”
As Rainbow was left blushing in embarrassment, another blue pony stepped forward. “Trixie shall also venture into this fantasy land. It is what we have been training for after all.”
“Yeah,” Sunset reluctantly agreed. “This is what we’ve been doing every week. Makes sense that we’d be the ones to go.”
That made the sun goddess’s eyes widen. “What? No!” she cried out. “You need to remain here Sunset. Go down into Twilight’s lab where the defensive wards can protect you, and-”
Sunset shot Celestia a glare that shut the alicorn up before the human even started speaking. “So now you’re treating me like your sister?” she asked. “Just going to lock me up here I can’t do anything?”
The question made Celestia wilt faster than any flower. “No, that’s not…Sunset…I just don’t want to see you get hurt again,” she explained in a pathetic voice. “I don’t think I could take it. And I can’t protect both you and everypony else in town if you’re riding around on my back.”
“Then I’ll go with them,” Sunset told her mother while pointing to Twilight’s group.
As Celestia paused, her face showing the obvious battle of wills that was going on inside of her, Twilight stepped forward. “Celestia…I promise, I won’t let anything happen to her,” she told the bigger alicorn before clearing her throat. “And…Sunset apparently knows a bit more about interdimensional creatures than I do.” Considering what had happened to her, it was a pretty obvious research topic that the girl would have been drawn to.
Finally, Celestia let out a sigh and nodded her head. “Take care of each other, all of you.”
“Well, Ah figure Ah’d best be stickin’ ‘round here,” Applejack said.
Rarity spoke up as well. “Indeed. What with all these monsters running around, I’m a little afraid Sweetie Belle might go after a heroic cutie mark.”
“Well, guess that just leaves you and me Fae-Fae,” Pinkie spoke up before sitting down and tapping her chin while she stared ahead. “Of course, if I pick here, you have to go there to keep everything even and our party down to a manageable size so…you pick! Journey Through Imagination Land…or the Battle of the References…what do you think it should be?”