“Princess Luna! Princess Luna, please wake up!”
Twilight sat on the cold stone floor, listening to her voice echo in the dark, empty chamber beyond. She was exhausted, hungry, scared and in pain, and her companion would not awaken.
She stood up and wobbled uneasily into the large, open space.
“I don’t know where they went, Luna! I can’t tell if they’re still around, or if they went back to the surface, or what!”
Twilight slowly made her way over to the mirror alcove: “There seems to be residual magic here. I don’t know--maybe they went through this mirror?”
She stepped forward, peering intently at the mirror’s hazy, cracked surface: “I’m not even sure if this would still work, damaged like this!”
She walked slowly back toward Luna, looking from side-to-side, searching for signs of a struggle, or heavy magic use, or anything of note.
“I’m sorry I was mad, Luna,” she said loudly, trying to keep her mind occupied, as well as in an attempt to arouse the still-sleeping Princess. “I was just so happy there! I know it was an illusion, but it felt so real!”
“It can feel that way, sometimes,” Luna replied, pushing herself wearily off the floor, into a reclining position.
“Oh, thank Celestia!” Twilight cried, trotting back to the chamber’s entrance, where Luna now sat, rubbing her eyes and stretching her wings behind her back.
Twilight knelt down next to Luna, and looked at her face: “Is everything OK? I guess he knocked you out, too! How could he do that?”
“He surprised me.” Luna said, coolly. She stood and looked around the great, dark space for a moment.
“What can we do now?” Twilight asked, stepping back toward the mirror. “I don’t even know where they are!”
Luna glanced down at her breastplate, and adjusted it, then paused, noticing a dark spot on the floor. She bent down and reached out for a moment with a thin band of magic.
She straightened up, and stepped through the entryway: “You can stay here or leave as you see fit. I must go.”
Twilight spun around, facing Luna with a look of alarm: “Go?! How can you go? They could be back any second!”
Luna looked back and nodded curtly: “Nevertheless, I must go. I will return.”
Twilight furrowed her brow: “I don’t understand!”
“You will.”
Twilight slid a small, heavy box into the doorway to prevent the door from closing, and wandered, dispirited and exhausted, through the shelves and stacks of Grey Thorn’s study, pulling various volumes off the shelf, flipping quickly through the pages, and dropping them on the floor in two separate piles.
“'Concerning Pony Longevity, Vol. 3'...so where are volumes one and two, I wonder?” she mused, pulling the book off its stand and placing it atop a pile.
She turned back to the long shelves, filled with multicolored notebooks, scanning for anything black or dark brown.
“He is organized, I’ll give him that!” Twilight muttered, pulling several red notebooks down, “I just wish I understood the organization better! Where would he keep his current research…?”
She glanced over her right shoulder at the sunken study with a pensive look, and began to move toward it: “Ugh--that place!”
She sighed heavily: “Yeah, that’s where I’d keep active stuff too, I guess. Though it doesn’t look very active anymore!”
Twilight walked warily back down into the study, avoiding looking directly at most of the devices, specimens and plans spread out over the various benches and tables.
“Books, books--looking for books,” she muttered under her breath, glancing from side-to-side, scanning with her peripheral vision. She spotted a likely target.
“Ah, finally--a book that just sits there without being all weird and wonky!” she exclaimed, stepping up to a low workbench.
Twilight reached out with her magic and lifted the thick, hide-bound diary from the bench’s surface, turning it over, peering intently at its dark grey exterior: “I wonder what this cover material is?”
She stepped out of the study area, and set the diary down on a large box: “I suppose I should start to sort some of this.”
She walked back toward the two piles, and began to levitate several volumes toward her, setting them atop the diary.
Suddenly, a flash of light appeared in the entry to the large chamber, accompanied by a low, whistling sound.
Twilight rushed to the doorway, several books trailing behind her, and stepped through, being careful not to dislodge the blocking box.
She cleared the entrance just in time to see Grey Thorn tumble out of the mirror, with Reaper hard on his heels.
He shouted, “Twilight! Take cover! His Void’s going to come into full bloom again in a just a second, and it really needs to feed!”
She glanced around the floor along the wall, looking for a place to deposit the books she’d inadvertently brought with her. She noticed multiple small fissures and potholes scattered all across the chamber’s floor, and dropped the books in one, just to the left of the entrance. She slid a rock over the hole, and turned to face the two combatants.
As Reaper indicated, Grey Thorn and the Void had recovered their native strength and form, and were now positioned along the back wall, over the remains pit.
Reaper swept out his blade and threw up a bright blue web, shielding himself, and momentarily trapping Grey Thorn against the rough-hewn wall.
He took a step back, and looked over his shoulder at Twilight: “Don’t take this the wrong way--I’m glad to see you up-and-around--but where the fuck is Luna?!”
“I don’t know!” Twilight replied trotting forward toward the fray, “She woke up, barely said two words to me, then left!”
“Ha!” Grey Thorn shouted as he sent multiple dark tendrils at Reaper’s barrier, tearing holes and gaps in it, “She’s wiser than either of you! Clearly she recognized the futility of this battle, and has decided to flee!”
“Never!” Twilight shouted in rage, firing bolt after bolt of magic at Grey Thorn and the Void, seeking to press him back, away from Reaper’s tattered barrier.
“She would never abandon her friends--not now!” Twilight continued, “She isn’t that dark, evil pony you knew anymore!”
Grey Thorn rose several feet higher and spread out his forelegs. His horn glowed a deep coppery-red, and the skeletons in the pit below began to rise and assemble themselves, shambling forward, passing through Reaper’s shield.
“Excuse the distraction,” he said mockingly, “but I need some shock troops to loosen your grip on this annoying barrier! It won’t take a moment, then we can get intimate again!”
Reaper stepped back another pace, and began firing bursts of crimson magic from his horn: “Shit! Combat’s not really my forte! Twilight--can you do something about those?”
Twilight grinned wickedly: “I can do better than “something”--two can play at this game!”
Her horn shimmered with an oily black radiance, and ribbons of dark magic surged forth, touching the skeletons and desiccated corpses, turning them against each other.
“Oh, very nice, Princess!” Grey Thorn teased, “I’m sure your mentor would be delighted by your new-found skills! Even Starswirl avoided animating the dead!”
Twilight flushed angrily: “I’m not animating them--you did that! I’m simply taking control of them!”
“Well, speaking of animating,” Grey Thorn replied, waving a hoof over the heaving pile of bones and tattered flesh, “perhaps you would prefer to control this one! I picked her up on my way back from Appleloosa, near the castle!”
Twilight focused on the pony shape, shambling awkwardly out of the scrum, not a shriveled corpse, or skeleton, but a whole pony: broken and bleeding, but not ancient.
She squinted, then recoiled in horror as a pale bluish-grey unicorn mare advanced, her white and violet mane and tail in tatters.
“Oh, Celestia, NO!” Twilight screamed, “MOM!”
She staggered back several paces, bile rising in her throat, vision blurred by tears.
“To her credit,” Grey Thorn teased, “she fought more valiantly than many others! Her vigorous essence aided me greatly!”
“It’s a trick!” Reaper shouted, sweeping aside several skeletons, regenerating his bright blue shield, avoiding a dark tendril.
“Oh, Reaper!” Twilight cried, her voice breaking, “How can you know that! If he really did absorb her, you wouldn’t have even known that it happened!”
“Dammit, Twilight--death is my business!” Reaper replied, “I know a real dead body when I see one! This is just an illusion! Haven’t you seen enough totally-believable dreams lately to understand how good some ponies are at this?”
Images of her passionate embrace with Moondancer flashed through her mind: “I--I don’t know…”
Reaper pivoted to his left and tossed his head back, then down in a swift nod. A brilliant golden flame flared out from his horn, like a sword blade wrapped in a phoenix wing.
The energy band swept out and down, slicing through "Twilight Velvet’s" body, severing it in two, just behind the shoulders. It fell to the floor and crumbled back into tattered hide and dry bones.
Twilight gasped and jumped back, then she laid her ears down flat against her head, spat out the bile, and turned back to Grey Thorn, eyes ablaze.
“How dare you, you son of a bitch!” she raged, power surging to the tip of her horn, sparks flying.
“Don’t worry, child,” Grey Thorn replied smugly, “that vision will come to pass, soon enough!”
Twilight screamed in fury as a ball of swirling purple and black energy exploded from her horn, racing toward Grey Thorn, wreathing him in sheets of magical flame and lightning, dissolving dozens of animated skeletons and corpses in the process.
Grey Thorn dropped to the floor, stunned, as the Void shrank back for a moment: “Wha--what was that?!”
Reaper pressed his advantage, stepping forward, reforming his barrier: “You keep underestimating your opponents, G.T.! This young one possesses an ancient power the likes of which I’ve never seen!”
Grey Thorn rose again from the floor, held aloft by the Void’s shrouding nimbus: “And I shall relish its incorporation into myself!”
The Void suddenly towered above Reaper and Twilight as Grey Thorn put forth all his effort, and poured all his native power into it. A solid wall of tendrils hit Reaper’s barrier, shredding it, and throwing him backwards. He rolled across the chamber floor, sliding to a stop, and hopping back up immediately.
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold him back, Twilight!” He shouted, sending a fresh wave of blue shield magic forward, snuffing out the Void’s advance, briefly.
“I know!” Twilight replied breathlessly, pouring out a burst of bright, violet energy as she staggered to her right on the uneven floor, “I’m trying!”
“I know you’re tired! I know you’re injured! Try harder!” Reaper urged, sending surge after surge of barrier energy forth, using them as active attacks on the Void’s tendrils, “We can’t let him overcome us and break out! This has to end here!”
From behind him Nightmare Moon’s cold, cruel voice cut through the din: “I agree. This will end here!”