That evening Twilight received a letter from her teacher, the very ruler of Equestria. In it she thanked the elements for their perseverance, and apologized for the physical pain they were enduring but had confirmed several bureaucrats had been similarly attacked and forced into taking sick leave to avoid utter nervous breakdowns.
"But, she says." Read Twilight, letter hovering in the air in front of her. "That most of this one pony's efforts have been spent trying to waylay us and the princesses feel confident they will triangulate his position in Equestria within a few more days." Setting the letter down she triumphantly turned to her friends. "That means we may not even need to fight him we just need to keep him busy."
"Because playing the role of bait is so rewarding." That sarcastic remark came from Rarity, as Applejack and the Jack who wasn't a pony laid another thin circle of flour. Setting her glass of eggnog down and laying a hoof across her forehead she proclaimed "Riding on Dash's back while my beautiful coat became permanently blood stained. Simply dreadful." Now waving her hoof in frustration she declared again, "Dreadful!"
Dash nearly did a spit take of her black tea before promising "I'll finish bleeding Rarity, before I offer to carry you through the sky again. By the way does your dream body weigh as much as your physical one? In which case you might consider cutting back from the holiday cheer." Dash used her tea cup to point to the glass in Rarity's hand again. Rarity rolled her eyes.
Twilight's enthusiasm could not be suppressed. "Girls we've done fine so far. It's been harrowing but I can say for sure it's been less painful than what we had before." Laying her body carefully on the line of flour and levitating a blanket over her back, she turned to the rainbow mane'd mare still finishing her tea. "Dash don't you agree? You lost a wing but you were free the whole time would you rather have an insane reflection performing self mutilation while you watched or whatever your normal nightmare was like?"
Twilight saw several sets of ears rotate to the pegasus, to catch her nuances of feeling in that answer. As the weather patrol mare set her tea cup down, she nodded as she looked first at Pinkie Pie, then back to Twilight. "Two thoughts, really. One was that every time I noticed my heart was in my throat, I meant it metaphorically instead of several times when" On this note Dash noticed the loss of color in a few of the softer mares as Fluttershy and Rarity blanched in silent, subtle horror. "Right guess I don't need to elaborate but the other is that those times were just a part of the whole trip. The rest was just a trip like any other dream."
Circle complete, Jack said "We are driving the enemy back. But we started late this evening; the moon is already up." Settling into his place at the head of the circle he looked at each of his friends. probably assessing their readiness to be knocked out Twilight thought, and readied her half of the spell. "Perhaps we will meet the princess Luna. Let us begin." Jack took a deep breath, and laid back, his tail crossing the white line, now swishing it to touch it to either side of his legs. Exhaling he said "Twilight, when you are ready. We shall meet again in dream."
Twilight released the sleep spell, which she had refined over the day and within seconds everypony and Jack were dreaming. She was affected last, and thought she saw some shadow move in the corners of her eyes but then she noseplanted and knew no more of her library.
A hot wind blew across her face, static charge building across the hair on her back. Twilight was some distance from the train now, and nearly standing on one of the tracks that disappeared behind her into a pony's dreaming. To her left were all her friends.
To her right was Snips. Looking lost and confused, he glanced every which way but did not move his legs. "Uh." was eventually heard escaping his mouth.
More confused than upset, Twilight couldn't guess if this barren desert had generated a Snips of normal dream, or if somehow Snips had been sucked in. Trying to calm the colt she said to him "Don't break anything for a minute, OK Snips?"
Applejack spoke first among her friends. "What in tarnation are you doing here. Are you even here Snips?" Twilight noticed the colt didn't look Applejack in the eye. In fact he barely responded to her question.
Again looking like an alicorn, Jack walked up and tried to get the colt to look him in the eyes. "Kid. You're an awake pony dragged into dream. I can see that." Still the colt would not respond, and now he was backing away from the train as if frightened of it more than the brightly colored alicorn.
Trying to understand his fear, Twilight looked again at the double decker train, and saw Luna walking towards them. "Princess Luna! Thank you for visiting!" Too late she remembered this was actually Luna's mind that her friends were visiting, but continued regardless. "Can you help us figure out why Snips got pulled in?"
The colt had stopped backing, looking angrily at the regent of the moon. Luna quickly flew up to the group, landing just beside Twilight to look at Snips. This time, Snips met the pony's gaze, and Twilight saw Luna's expression darken into fury. "This is not the pony Snips that you see before you."
Rainbow Dash lowered her goggles and promptly squeaked. Lightning bolts were arcing between Luna's wingtips as they sat folded over her back. Jack flared his wings and mumbled something. Snips, in response, looked at Jack. Jack's response to the eye contact was to inhale sharply, then comment "You're outnumbered here, you know."
"Numbers don't always win wars." Snips voice, but a confidence and even arrogance that was so unlike the young colt's normal speaking voice.
Again Jack's response was minimal; a raised eyebrow, followed by "They help."
Amidst Twilight's confusion was Snips' defiant defense. "Look it was a mistake. I didn't really mean to be here, OK?" the colt said.
Not looking away from the yellow-brown colt, Jack asked the princess "Chase him off or hold him for questions milady?" Twilight inwardly cringed at the incorrect honorary term, the more so since Luna still considered herself from a time when there were more layers of semi-royalty to intervene between herself and the peasants.
But the true alicorn was too busy being angry at Snips to waste energy on the false alicorn. "Twas already tried Jack. This thing is not even in Equestria holding it still is of limited value." Twilight saw the lightning stop arcing as the princess' expression faltered. "Jack, that spell I saw you use. Once, a long time ago." She looked over to him, almost afraid to speak it seemed. "I know 'tis not his body, nor yours. But would it work?"
Snips was growling now, squirming under whatever compulsion was being applied to him. Jack spread his brilliant white wings parallel to the ground, the leading edge pointed as far down as they could rotate, before speaking. Without looking away from his quarry, "You hold him down milady and I can but try the spell. Worst case I'll be a prince and he'll be both ticked off and not in your mind."
Twilight felt thoroughly lost but as Luna's horn began to glow, Twilight heard her mumble "Then win soon, king under the mountain." which hearkened back to the sergal invasion when Jack, using a sergal magic user's recently dead body had sucked so much power he had created a new regent, and called himself what Luna just did: King Under the Mountain. The spell she spoke of now must have been the one that closed their door and ended the invasion.
Twilight tried to follow Jack's spell as she felt it build, but it was complex as well as strong. True this was Luna's dream, but Twilight's perception was almost identical to when she was awake. She could discern there was a spell of searching, and now she knew those rough edges were what Jack called "hooks" that interacted with his imported magic that came from wherever the thing inside the once dead sergal actually lived right now. Still dead, technically. Otherwise it would wake up like Sweetie Belle back when she was his host.
Snips was howling now, but his hooves were bound tightly to the dusty ground beneath the unicorn colt. He squirmed and bellowed but was unsuccessful in any of his endeavors. Jack shouted a few words in a foreign language that sounded like it had too many vowels and not enough coughing to be the sergal language, and his spell discharged. Watching the finished product lash out at what the alicorns seemed sure was not really the young colt Snips, Twilight felt dumbfounded that Luna would ask for such a thing. That looks like it would rip apart his very soul looking for a specific piece of his soul!
Snips' dream body was freed for a moment, as he raised a hoof to point menacingly at the once-prince. "You're next small fry!" but as he spoke, his back half began blowing away in an invisible hurricane. Not like, he had been converted into dust, and the dust was blowing away, but flesh and blood and bone was pulverized and the brown and red gritty gore was blown away.
The ground where Snips had been standing was black now, the charcoal lightening in a fan shape on the far side of where Jack stood, a mute testament to the power Jack poured into his spell.
Jack turned his head to face the very concerned looking regent of the moon, but all he managed to say was "my laaaa" before collapsing.
"At least I don't have to put up with this clumsy oaf occupying alicorn magic space again, thank Celly." Luna looked a little nonplussed but not angry or surprised, thought Twilight. Her horn glowed and the still-quasi alicorn was levitated into the air. "Alright everypony if you please. I'll load this smelly piece of cargo and he should recover not too far into the trip. Have you all decided where you're going tonight?"
Rainbow Dash seemed the least shaken by the show of raw power and fury they all had witnessed seconds ago. It was her that spoke up, raising her goggles to look at the princess. "Yes ma'am. Twilight's dream. So, say. What on earth was that thing? It was ugly like I can't describe."
The group all started walking towards Luna's double decker train and Luna tried to answer. "I don't know, young warrior. I have never heard of anything shaped like that but we were seeing a dream projection and there may be other factors too. I have seen what I thought Jack's true form to be several times, but each one was different from the next, as well as all being no pony. Even here he looks like a sergal but I doubt he truly is."
Fluttershy hovered over to the unconscious pony, and glanced quickly at his still breathing form. "Princess, I don't think the train has medical supplies or anything so will we need anything or can you summon some dream thing for us to help him if he, you know" she tried to fly backwards to stay next to Jack but look Luna in the eyes. "wakes up with a headache or something."
Luna chuckled gently, and replied. "Oh softest of my dream warriors, no. You can summon what medical supplies you feel you need, but they will only heal as much as the recipient will believe you, and they, can provide for." Rotating her ears for emphasis, she continued, "Likewise you can regenerate as fast as you think a dream body can, if you believe you are dreaming, and should feel better now." A broad, mischievous grin stole across her face. "And if you're right of course. About being asleep."
Pinkie giggled. Rarity asked if they still needed go through with this. And Rainbow Dash, goggles still up Twilight noticed, if the spell had worked. "And do you know why it chose to look like Snips of things?"
Luna shook her head sadly. "I won't know until much later tonight if that shadowy figure can still return, so you must assume there will be another attack on your party tonight." Hooves clattering on steel, Luna boarded her own mind and set the still unconscious slate gray lump gently against a wall where no one would have to trip over him to board or operate the train. Walking back down the boarding platform she finished with "And that blasted interloper has made a mess of our guards during the day. Several will be needing therapy for some time to come before they can be allowed back into service. I dare not shirk my duties in the waking world, my sister would have my tail docked if I went with you tonight, as much as I dearly would love to see another's dreaming tonight." Flying straight up, the wind from her powerful wingbeats started a small dust storm around the mares on the ground. "Fare thee well element holders, and good luck!"
On the next downbeat, her wingtips touched below her hooves, and there was a flash as she teleported away. Twilight hesitated, looking at the place where Luna had just been. "I don't really want to be attacked by that thing in my deepest desires." she mumbled to herself.
"T'aint much we can do about it sugarcube." Came the equally quiet murmur of the farmer, proudly wearing her hard won implement of destruction as she put a hoof to the first step.
Dash, still floating above them all, apparently had heard her too but didn't feel a need to be all that quiet. "Hey look at the bright side, you're fine the next day." Dash pointed at her wing that had been missing yesterday. Twilight just nodded; she had never intended to back down, she just wanted to whine a little.
Seemingly reading her thoughts, Rarity said "That's not whining. No, dear THIS IS WHINING" but had not only used her 'I hate you make it stop' voice, but magically augmented its volume like the princesses sometimes did.
As Twilight boarded, smile returned to her face, Pinkie giggle snorted somewhere in the background.