//------------------------------//
// Sunset Wakes Up in Slime... Again 
// Story: Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam 
// by Daniel-Gleebits 
//------------------------------//

Return to Equestria: The Rise of Roam

Sonata Dusk


Sonata stood almost limply, blithely unaware any more of Loyal Stride’s now slackening hold on her. The only thing that she was truly aware of at that moment... was the taste.
She knew that taste. It was like eating sweets that tasted the way they did in one’s childhood, before the recipe had been changed, or sampling wine from that one particular year; that one vintage beyond compare. It filled her with nostalgia, and something approaching satisfaction. Something that was tantalisingly close to feeling full or satiated, but not enough to banish the clawing of need. Of desire. The salivating taste of pure greed.
She looked around, her eyes roving first the floor, and then the window. Her newfound preoccupation seemed to elicit reactions from those in the room with her.
“Hm?” she said, feeling a tap on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw that Loyal Stride had his shield on his arm again, and raised to face her. It seemed that he had tapped her with it. 
Why would he do that? Sonata thought, only vaguely interested. Then the nagging little itch inside of her reasserted itself, and she returned to searching around for more of the sparkling energy. A part of her, deep down in her subconscious, knew that this was not the full extent of the hunger she should be feeling. But it still felt good. It made her feel powerful, predatory. Something so large and tremendous that it had time to be idle, to take its sweet time looking for its next meal.
“Eh, is she okay?” the innkeeper whispered.
“You did actually hit her with the shield, right?” Script muttered to Loyal Stride.
“Yes,” Loyal Stride replied, his eyes on Sonata’s back. “No effect.”
“Try harder,” Script said darkly. 
Loyal Stride gave him a narrow look. 
“There’s no more,” Sonata murmured. She felt oddly discomforted by this, and wanted to rush outside to see if there was anymore. Eh, the window was closer. “There is more!” she cried, uttering a little squee of delight. 
“Wait!” Loyal Stride said, blocking her path to the door. “Where are you going?”
“To the street,” Sonata replied. “Obviously.”
“Why?” Script asked quietly, giving her a rather penetrating stare.
“There’s more down there,” Sonata said impatiently. “You’ve got none left. Fast food, fast food, it’s always fast food. I need something more filling!”
Script looked quickly out of the window. “Don’t you want to find Sunset still?” he asked, glancing back at her whilst keeping one eye on the road below.
Sonata paused in her attempts to politely push by Loyal Stride. The name had clicked something in her mind. The thought moved slowly through her head, as though it was mired in some mental swamp. Eventually, the image of a golden-skinned person slid laboriously into Sonata’s mind. As she added features to this person, the nagging itch inside of her, the almost quenched thirst, the nearly appeased hunger, receded slightly. It wasn’t gone, but it seemed to become less important.
“Sunset,” Sonata repeated. “She’s... gone. She’s gone.” She stood stock still, feeling the warmth of her pendant on her chest. It pulsed with the light of the energy it had drained from the air. “You’re scared,” she said slowly to the innkeeper. “And you,” she continued, turning to Script, “you’re afraid of losing something.”
“I said hit her harder!” Script snapped. 
“I’m not hitting her!” Loyal Stride barked back. “What is she babbling about?”
“You’re afraid of losing her,” Sonata said still in the considering tone. “And... a baby.”
Script’s head twitched. “Baby? What baby?”

CLANG!

“Ow!” Sonata cried. 
“It’s not working,” Loyal Stride said. “Her eyes are still red.”
“What’s this about a baby?” Script demanded. 
“This isn’t the time,” Loyal Stride growled. “Is she a danger? Is her curse getting worse?”
“Well of course it is,” Script muttered, still glaring at Loyal Stride. “Does this mean I’m going to be an uncle?”
“Focus.”
“Wait a second,” Script said suddenly, pulling Sonata’s hoof from her sore head and pulling her face around. “You said there was more... whatever, in the street?”
“More,” Sonata agreed. “No, but, Sunset... we need to—“
“Can you follow it? Does it leave a trail?”
Sonata blinked at him. “Uh, kinda. It’s kind of like a—“
“Can you tell where it’s coming from?” Script interrupted. “This could help us find her. Concentrate, you beautiful, cursed fish-thing!” he demanded, squeezing her face. “Concentrate, damn you!”
Sonata said nothing to that, but did feel the gravity of the situation, if not from what he was saying, then certainly from the urgency with which he said it. 
“The changeling hive mind,” Script said, letting go of her. “The changelings around here will all know that our dear landlord is in trouble. The ones holding Sunset will likely have guessed what’s going on, and will be afraid of being found out.”
“And I can follow the negative energy they’re giving off,” Sonata finished, feeling a small spurt of endorphins at being able to follow his line of thinking.
“Oh, it’s negative energy you can see?” Script asked, rubbing his chin. “Fascinating. I should probably write something up on that.”
“Later,” Loyal Stride grunted, slinging his shield over his shoulders. “Let’s go, and quickly.”
“Ah yes, that reminds me,” Script said thoughtfully. Whilst Sonata stared out of the window, entranced by the negative energy swirling down the street, Script phased a coin-bag from thin-air, and fished out two golden bits. “For your trouble,” he said, winking confidentially at the innkeeper as he slipped the coins into other’s hoof.
“Oh,” the innkeeper said, bewildered, as his three captors swiftly exited the room. “Thank you, sir. I suppose.” He looked around, thankful for the first time in his life that changelings couldn’t die from the accumulation of blood in their skulls. “It’s very dusty in here...”





Even through her newfound determination, Sonata was vaguely aware of Script and Loyal Stride galloping next to her. Script made it difficult to ignore him.
“Come on, girl,” he called loudly. “What’s that? Sunset’s down the old well?”
“Will you stop that,” Loyal Stride chided as Script cackled. 
“Oh come on, just look at her. She’s like an infernal diamond dog!”
Sonata blinked. She blushed as she noticed that she was indeed holding her head close to the ground, rather like a dog sniffing a trail. 
“There’s a lot of negative energy around here,” she said defensively. “I need to be all concentrate-y.”
“Oh, please, don’t let me interrupt,” Script said amicably, putting on a surprisingly disarming smile. “Do go on. We’re right behind you.”
Sonata’s lips pursed. Even though she didn’t know how exactly, she knew he was making fun of her. Somehow...
What her real problem was, however, wasn’t that the trail was hard to follow; all of the various paths were clear as a primary-colour painting set in a cloudless noon-day sun. No, what was bothering her was the little itch in her head; the whisper in her ear.
Delicious...
She gulped. The greenish mist sparkled in a cheerful, attractive sort of way, enticing her. The pendant pulsed, moving involuntarily like a twitchy limb. Sonata could feel its desire to absorb the energy, could feel that same greed in her own veins. Under other circumstances she might have been tempted, but right now, with Sunset missing, the image of her marefriend burned clearly through the hunger like a harsh desert sun. And that made it easier to ignore the veritable flood of delicious, mouth-watering energy swirling like pistachio pudding around—
Sonata cleared her throat and focused her sights upon the tide she needed to find. Like rivers converging into an ocean, the energy flowed between buildings, over roads, sliding slightly up the sides of objects that got in their way, falling like slow-motion wave crests back into the sea of green. Sonata’s keen eyes roved across it, her nostrils dilating as she drew in lungful after lungful of the heavenly scented essence. It didn’t take her more than a second to determine which trail was the correct one. It reeked of anticipation, greed, and fearful anger. Sonata swallowed as she began to salivate.
“This way,” she said quickly, speeding off ahead.
“Keep an eye out,” Script said to Loyal Stride as they trotted in her wake. “It wouldn’t do to be caught out twice.”
“Where are we going?” Loyal Stride called to Sonata. “Can she hear me?” 
“Who knows?” Script answered inattentively. “A real life siren, though. Did you ever imagine us having such good luck as this?”
“There is no us,” Loyal Stride said in a routine sort of way. “And I’d hardly call it lucky. Good-natured mare though she is, you and I both know what will—“
“Oh don’t flatter yourself,” Script snapped. “You don’t know what will happen to her. Even I barely know what will happen.”
“Even you,” Loyal Stride grunted, rolling his eyes. 





In her previous stint as an emotion-draining, energy-leeching, soul-corrupting curse-being, Sonata had been much addicted to reading. Just as soon as she had learned how to read. Most people couldn’t back when she and her sisters had arrived on Earth. Before that, Aria would sometimes tell her stories when Adagio was running low on ideas for global conquest, and Sonata always enjoyed the wild tales Aria was able to make up, or perhaps remember. When Sonata had been freed of her plight, and been allowed to pursue her true talent once again, her many years of reading had been of great use in allowing her to come up with plausible subject matter for her drawings and paintings, even if they had eroded her social skills. She even wondered once or twice whether reading novels for much of the 19th century had dulled her brain a little; it had been a major concern at the time, much like music, television, video games, and public education had in later years.
As a veteran reader of some of the great literary works of modern times, Sonata fully expected to find Sunset in a dark, seedy area of town, possibly surrounded by individuals dressed in dark coats and trilbies. Or if not that, then perhaps a lonely farmhouse out in the fields, the sort of spot where one might retreat during gun fights, hiding from flocks of murderous birds, or the odd zombie apocalypse. 
It might not be considered very surprising, therefore, that she was understandably disappointed upon reaching their apparent destination. Trotting along like a Jack Russell terrier following a scent, her nose came into sudden and painful conjunction with a door. A terribly mundane, ordinary looking door. Pink, with little heart shapes cut into the wood.
“Huh?” she said, squinting at the door disbelievingly. She looked quickly around. The train station, a quaint little wooden building, stood beside a row of equally rural-looking – and Sonata noticed, empty – shops, which stood opposite a row of fairy-tale houses. The one Sonata stood before, second from the end of the row, looked so unremarkable, that for a second or two Sonata was sure that she must be mistaken.
“Why have we stopped?” Script asked. “Are we here?”
Loyal Stride glanced around. “Odd,” he commented. “No pony around shopping at this time of day?”
“Yep, we’re here then,” Script deduced.
“Like a showdown in the Old West,” Sonata added.
Sonata pushed on the door. “They’re in here,” she grunted. “I. Just. Know it!” She punctuated each word with a sharp shove of her shoulder against the door. “I think this door is—“ She leapt back as a length of heavy steel thrust into the wood, cleaving it like facts through a political debate. “Geez!” she shrieked. “Warn me first!”
“I don’t think you made enough noise that time,” Script said, rubbing his beard. “Maybe if you bellow some war chants at the same time, you can make sure the entire street hears you.”
Loyal Stride ignored them both. Hefting his sword from the door and sheathing it, he reached forward, and gave the door a tap. It creaked open, the lock dropping to the floor with a thunk.
“I’ll take point,” he said, stepping into the house.
Sonata gave Script a raised eyebrow, but Script merely looked amused.
Despite her anxiety for Sunset, and her preoccupation with the negative energy flowing around her hooves, Sonata still felt a natural tug of unease at the idea of breaking into somepony’s house. There was just something so... opprobrious about it. Opprobrious being a word Sonata had heard Rarity using to describe a slight crease she had observed on her newly stitched dress. Sonata had said the word in her mind a few times to see how it sounded, and then had immediately forgotten about it.
Just as she came to the end of this small memory, she was nearly frightened out of her skin as a voice hissed out of the dark.
“Halt!” 
Two figures appeared out of the gloom. They stood either side of what Sonata could just make out was a comfy-looking sofa, glints of gold reflecting off their armour. 
Loyal Stride was already on his back legs, his shield raised and his eyes hard. Script gave the two royal guards narrow looks. Sonata on the other hand had her eye on something else. 
“Who are you?” the second guardspony demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask the same of you,” Script said quietly.
“This is an official investigation,” the first replied in a hard tone. “Leave immediately. Whatever reason you have for breaking into this house, we’ll forget it this time.”
“What do you think?” Loyal Stride asked, not taking his eyes off the two ponies.
“Oh please,” Script scoffed. “This story is so full of holes, I could cut a slice off and make a grilled cheese out of it.”
“Leave now!” the second guard snapped. “We will not warn you again.”
“So this is an official investigation?” Script asked, stepping forward suavely.
“Yes, which you are interrupt—“
“Under the authority of...?” Script asked, looking politely inquiring.
“Princess Luna,” the first guard said, frowning at Script.
“Very well, then tell me something,” Script went on, waving a hoof vaguely. “How did you get in here?”
The guards frowned even more. “What?”
“How did you get in here?” Script repeated. “The door was locked. We just had to break it down. How did you get in?”
“Through the back door,” the second guard said promptly. 
“I see,” Script said, bowing his head. “So two royal guards on an official investigation... come in through the back door.”
The guards looked at each other briefly. “Yes, there’s a perfectly—“
“And investigate the house in the dark?” Script interrupted.
“We find it simpler—“
“In the house we happen to know our friend is being held captive in,” Script finished. “Odd that.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?” the first guard asked, giving Script a cold glare.
“You’re changelings,” Sonata said clearly.
The first guard’s face twitched, but the second guard gave a short, somewhat contemptuous laugh. “That’s enough of this nonsense,” he said, stepping forward. “You’ll leave now.”
“I can see your fear,” Sonata said, glaring at him. “Anxiety. It’s pouring out of you. Where is Sunset?”
“We told you to leave!” the guard shouted.
“Tell me where she is!” Sonata cried back.
She and the guard might have come to blows. Certainly Sonata was willing; her legs bent ready to spring, she felt a corrosive desire driven by Sunset’s absence to make the guard tell her everything he knew. It seethed inside of her, growing stronger the longer she stared, imagining the insectoid face of the changeling she knew the guard to be. But it never came to that. Taking advantage of the guard’s distraction, Loyal Stride leapt from the side and struck the guard in the flank with his shield. The guard was sent sprawling over the sofa, a brilliant green light momentarily illuminating the room as its limp form shifted into that of its true form. 
The other guard hissed and erupted back into its natural form. With a sudden burst of movement it vanished into the shadows before Script’s horn-light could illuminate the room.
“Ahh,” Script said hastily. “I don’t think so.”
“Put me down!” Sonata raged. “Let me go!”
“Feel free to explode into full curse-mode just as soon as we find exactly where they’re hiding Sunset,” Script said, moving around Sonata’s flailing hooves and examining the false-guard. He was out cold. “Evidently we’re not getting anything out of him for a while.”
In the ghostly-blue light of Script’s horn, they could see all corners of the room. A perfectly normal looking Equestrian-style home, with comfy chairs, a colourful carpet, pictures on the walls, and the splish-splash of happy heart shapes everywhere they seemed able to get away with it. Floating in mid-air, fuming, Sonata looked around in hopes of finding where the changeling had fled to, when something in her artist’s brain nudged at her. Despite not being able to draw or paint anymore, it seemed that not all of Sonata’s talent had quite left her, for as she looked frantically around, she noticed a half-perceived oddity.
“Look at the pictures,” she said, squinting. “None of them are the same.”
“Not the brightest creatures,” Loyal Stride commented. “Their various disguises, no doubt.”
“Yeah...” Sonata said slowly. But that wasn’t the only oddity that she’d noticed about the room. As she bumped gently to the floor, she blinked, and looked down. “Does the floor sound right to you?”
Loyal Stride frowned, and looked down as Script popped his head around the corner of a window into the kitchen. “What about it?” he asked, tapping the carpet.
“No, no, over here,” Sonata said, giving the floor a firm stamp. Unlike the dull thump of wood evidently being held up by something solid, like stone or cement, where Sonata stood came the deeper sound of wood hanging over empty space.
“Do you think that perhaps the bad-luck accompanying being cursed causes some kind of quantum-level vacuum-effect that needs to be balanced out by an excess of good luck in those around you?” Script asked. 
“I’m not unlucky,” Sonata responded robustly, trying to ignore the little pang in her chest.
Script brought his hoof down on the section of carpet where Sonata had tapped. There came a loud cracking sound.
“Are you okay?” Sonata asked, cringing and trying not to chuckle.
“I’m fine,” Script muttered, nursing his ankle. “Strider, could you...”
Loyal Stride stepped forward, and pausing only a moment to give Sonata a knowing side-glance, smashed the floor-boards with absurd ease. Sweeping aside a section of the camouflage carpeting, the three of them peered down into the darkness. Script’s horn light illuminated an earthy passageway, parts of the wall covered in solidified, shiny-green... something. 
“Let go!” Sonata complained as Loyal Stride held her back. “We have to get Sunset!”
“That’s not where they’re hiding her,” he replied. “That’s part of the underground network. If you tracked their energy here, they won’t be down there.”
Sonata knew that he was right. As she fought the pull of the energy like a hungry child trying to abstain from a fresh meal, she found that her ability to see the energy dimmed as she fought the desire to consume it. Nevertheless she could see that the green mist swirled around, but neither into nor out of the hole. The changelings, and presumably Sunset, were not down there.
“Well then, where are they?”
“Hmm, let me think,” Script said in a mock-thoughtful voice. “Duuuh.” He put on an offensively ridiculous slurred voice and walked drunkenly into the kitchen. “If we make hole in living room, den maybe hole in kitchen work good!” His horn flashed, and the entire floor lit up as though a wave of electricity had surged across it, leaving a neon-glow flickering over everything. Sonata’s eyes jumped to the centre of the floor.
“Wow,” she said, scraping her hoof against the glow of what was plainly another trap-door. “So, like, do all changelings have trapdoors in their houses?”
“I’m going to be honest with you,” Script said with his eyebrows raised. “Up till a few months ago, I didn’t know they lived in houses.”
“They usually live underground,” Loyal Stride muttered, his sharp eyes trailing across the fading lines. “Living in these houses is simply a part of their disguise. They probably feel more at home in these underground areas.”
“Hmm...” Script hummed, redirecting the magical glow. “It looks like this isn’t a tunnel at all,” he said, as like some bizarre X-Ray, the glow shifted downwards, visible through the floor as though it were transparent. “It looks more like a—“
“What are you doing?” Loyal Stride snapped, giving Script a shove. “They’ll sense your magic.”
“So? They already know that we’re—“ he paused as something caught his eye. Sonata looked down, and noticed an ominous green light flare from below. “Oh fu—!“ Script exclaimed. With a sound like a pylon exploding in a storm, the green light surged upwards, tracing across the pale blue glow, looking to Sonata like the competing colours motif from Tron. Before Script could even finish swearing, the green light surged upwards, converged upon him, and hit his horn like a bolt of lightning. 
The room filled with a blinding light; Sonata shut her eyes instinctively, looking away from its epicentre as the sound of screaming and the crackle of electricity filled the air. It lasted for barely a second, but left Sonata’s vision blurred with a fading light for a good few moments. When she’d blinked it away, she found to her surprise that nothing seemed to have happened. That was until she looked a little closer at Script.
His mouth hung open, his jaw rigid, and his eyes were bulging; the left one was actually pointing inwards at his nose. Very little exterior damage seemed to have been done, except that his horn was blackened and smoking – which Sonata took to be a bad thing – and his coat and mane seemed to be standing on end. After a few seconds, Sonata heard the faintest, most pitiable groan, like the sound of a mouse being stepped upon, and then Script toppled like a tree.
Sonata cried out.
“Don’t worry,” Loyal Stride said in his usual imperturbable voice. “He’s just out cold. He hit a surger.”
“A-A what?” Sonata asked weakly.
“Think of it like a magical mine. Changelings dot them around areas where they dwell; unfriendly magic hits the surger, and it sends back an equal amount of magical force in the form of a magical discharge. He’s just lucky he was using a fairly minor spell.”
“Will he be okay?”
“From that? Yes, he’ll be fine. But he’ll be out for a few minutes at least. Possibly several hours. There’s nothing to be done but wait until the magical static fades of its own accord.” 
“That sounds painful.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that it is,” Loyal Stride said, concealing a small smirk. “The changelings will assume that we’ve been discouraged from entering their hidey-hole for the present, so now is the best time to attack.”
“A-Attack?” Sonata asked nervously. “Shouldn’t we try to move Script somewhere safe?”
“It’s best that we don’t touch him. Also I don’t particularly care if he’s safe or not. I shall descend first, and divert their attention. Hopefully their focus on me shall distract them from your presence. Make your way unseen to Sunset, and try not to feel any strong emotions, or they’ll notice you.”
“And you think that’ll work?”
“It’s a plan,” Loyal Stride replied. Sonata took this instance of not actually answering the question as somewhat ominous.
“Okay. So I just go down after you and find Sunset?”
“Wait for me to get their attention. If necessary I’ll hold them off whilst you get Sunset clear. Make your way back up here and wait for me. Hopefully Script will have come around and he can help you.”
“What if you can’t hold them off? What if there are too many?”
“Then we die with honour,” he replied flatly. Then he seemed to rethink it. “Well, I’ll probably die with honour. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing down there, you and Sunset at least will die ignominiously as they slowly drain the love from you.”
“I’d really like to not die ignomninus— Ignomini...” 
“Ignominiously,” Loyal Stride provided. “Follow after me when you hear me engage them. And remember to remain unseen.”
Sonata stood by as Loyal Stride pulled up the trap door, unable to prevent her hooves from tapping occasionally on the tiles. An earthen passage straight down led into pitch darkness, with only a number of crude ledges evidently meant to be footholds. Sonata couldn’t help but observe how, as somepony who had until recently been a human being, this looked like an awkward thing for a pony to traverse. But in fairness, Loyal Stride managed it quite well. Indeed the only real obstacle he encountered was that his bulky armour, sword, and shield made the passageway a little tight.
Despite what Loyal Stride had said, no sooner had he disappeared into the darkness, then Sonata almost instantly tried to suppress her nervousness by focusing on Script’s predicament. She almost found that she could ignore the clouds of green mist in the corner of her vision when she poked Script in the side. 
“Ouch!” she squeaked, as a small arc of energy like a static shock jumped from Script’s coat onto Sonata’s leg. “Even when he’s knocked out he’s mean to me...” 
Whilst Sonata waited for sounds of Loyal Stride below, she thought about Script. She thought about how he had exchanged his help in an impossible pursuit for their taking him to see Princess Luna. Somepony that Sonata herself didn’t even know. Script didn’t need her, Sonata, for this bargain, at least not directly. The only practical reason for wanting her, Sonata, around, was to act as a part of the bargain with Sunset. So why did she get the unaccountable feeling that Script was being... not protective. No, that wasn’t the word... Something like protective... Watchful perhaps? He seemed to care that Sonata should come with them.
But why? If it was anypony else, Sonata might think that it stemmed from simple compassion and empathy, but Script was a different sort. Sonata was sure he possessed these qualities, but there were other aspects of him that would always trump any softer predications. No, Script’s motives had to be selfish in nature. Or if selfish was too strong a word, then certainly self-serving. There was something that he could gain from being watchful. 
That was, if he actually was being watchful, and it wasn’t just Sonata’s overactive mind seeing patterns where there were none. That was always possible.
The sound of a hiss from below nearly sent Sonata tumbling headfirst into the hole as she jumped. Clutching her heart, she peered into the hole, where what had previously been the blackest of darkness was now being filled with a dim, spectral light. Voices distorted by echoes of themselves warbled upwards and rang through the kitchen.
“That’s my cue,” Sonata said, trying to pump herself up. “Get. Sunset.” She muttered, breathing deeply. “Get. Sunset. I just have to get Sunset.”

Given the earthy walls that began the descent, it was a little surprising to Sonata that when she touched floor below, she heard the distinct ‘tap tap’ of hooves on a hard, smooth surface. Looking down, she saw a white sheen across a green surface from the kitchen’s light above. The floor appeared to be at least somewhat translucent, for as Sonata’s eyes adjusted she found that she was able to see that the surface was not solid like glass, but full of small air bubbles, and in some places dark masses and shapes. It was as though the floor was made out of green amber or solidified emerald honey.
Sonata licked the floor and recoiled. It wasn’t honey.
“What is this stuff?” Sonata wondered aloud until the sound of a grunt from ahead of her jarred her thoughts back to the task at hand. By a combination of acoustics and the outlines of walls made by the dim spectral light, Sonata was able to make her way forward down a perfectly straight corridor large enough for at least two ponies to walk down side-by-side. The walls and floor, and Sonata presumed the ceiling, were made of the same, solid green material that to her great distress, tapped loudly as she walked across it, no matter how light her tread. Before long however, the echoes began to die away, and she heard the distinct sounds of voices ahead.
“This is your last warning!” snarled somepony. “Get out now, or we attack all at once! You can’t stop us all!”
Sonata pressed herself as much against the wall as she could and peered into a sort of chamber. Although she couldn’t be sure in the insubstantial light, she felt a thrill of recognition as she noticed the room’s layout: It was the same hexagonal shape as the one where they’d discovered the giant, dormant changeling crystal. The floor changed at the end of the passageway, shifting from the green surface to the tiles like in the other chamber. Instinctively, Sonata looked directly ahead to see if there was a crystal there as well, but instead saw an insubstantial mass, glittering as though made of glass, but looking far too ungainly and bulbous to be a statue or crystal.
A clatter of metal, and Sonata’s gaze shifted instantly to her left. Loyal Stride, stood upright on his hind legs, had his sword levelled at a black mass. The mass gleamed with multitudes of blue eyes that all blinked independently of each other, several patches of it glowing with the eerie, ghostly light filtering into the passageway. 
“Just leave,” another voice said falteringly. “We don’t want trouble.”
“Then release our companion. That is not negotiable.”
“Impossible!” hissed another voice.
“Never! So pure!”
“We can’t...”
The multitude of voices confused Sonata for a moment, until she realised that the black mass was in fact an assortment of changelings all herded to one side of the room. Sonata’s respect for Loyal Stride’s authority and guile increased at least a tier or two at this. The changelings clustered tight together, some clinging to the walls and ceiling, all of their brilliant blue eyes fixed on Loyal Stride. Then she realised a problem: Where was Sunset? She didn’t seem to be anywhere in the chamber.
Was there another passage, maybe? Sonata wondered, peering around at the faceted walls. There didn’t seem to be. And nothing stood in the room except for the changelings, Loyal Stride, and the strange mass at the back. 
“We will not let her leave!” a changeling barked. “The love is too pure, so undiluted! We have never tasted a love so—“
“You don’t need her,” Loyal Stride interrupted sharply. “You parasites have other victims to feed from.”
Perhaps Sunset was behind the thing at the back of the room, Sonata mused. I have to look. Sunset would leave no stone unturned! She’d find me!
With the utmost care, Sonata lowered herself down to a crawl and, hugging the wall, tried to look inconspicuous. Sonata didn’t know if the changelings could see in the dark or not, but if not she should have been practically invisible to them. Reaching the mass without having made a sound, she felt a small amount of pride rise up inside her. That is until she caught sight of the mass up close. Illuminated by the magical glows being given off by the more jumpy-changelings, she could see that the mass was green and at least partially transparent, like the floor and walls of the passage, and that a large mass was suspended inside of it. This puzzled Sonata.
“We starve on them!” a changeling groaned.
“You don’t understand,” said another. “She must stay! Bring us the other one as well!”
“Yes!” another cried eagerly. “Together, they could sustain us!”
As Sonata peered at the dark mass within, she began to notice a few oddities about it. Things like, how it seemed to be about the same shape and size of the average pony. How it seemed to have something that might have been a head surrounded by a flurry of hair. How it had four distinct growths coming out of what might fairly be called its body.
Sonata reached forward a hoof, wondering if she could perhaps lean in and get a closer look, press her eyes to the surface to peer in. Her hoof touched the surface... and then sank inches into thick, viscous slime. Her entire body went cold and ridged. Before she realised what her throat was about to do, her mouth opened as wide as it would go.
Loyal Stride, and every changeling present, spun around at the sound of Sonata’s scream. Belatedly, Sonata clamped her free hoof over her mouth, stifling the sound, and stared around at the eyes pointing at her.
“Err...” she squeaked.
No pony replied. But after a second or two, several of the changelings seemed to recover from their shock. Far too late, Loyal Stride turned back around, slamming the first changeling with his shield. But the other four were too quick for him; they leapt upon him, almost bringing him to the floor. The other changelings piled in as well, hissing and shouting as they swarmed forward.
Sonata stood indecisive, unsure of what to do. She stared as Loyal Stride fought back, swinging his sword and thrusting with his shield. The swipes were erratic, fending off approaching changelings, whilst the shield sent any unlucky enough to be close reeling back with stars in their eyes.
“Get Sunset!” he roared, sending one changeling flying back into another.
“Oh!” Sonata squealed. “Right!”
She looked back at the mass within the slime. Understanding what was going on didn’t make the inevitable task any more inviting, but she had to do it. Bracing herself, she pressed forward, and seized hold of Sunset through the goop. The entire cocoon ruptured, spilling out copious amounts of foul green sludge, Sunset’s limp form falling with Sonata into the spill. 
Sonata almost vomited; it was a very near miss. The sight, smell, and sound of the foul liquid sent her gag reflex into overdrive. The taste of it on the other hand made her stomach feel as though a hand was reaching up and squeezing it tightly.
“S-Sunset...” she gurgled. “Come on, wake up. We have...*urp!* we have to go.”
Sunset didn’t move. 
“Come on!” Sonata urged, shaking Sunset’s limp body. “Wake up! We have to go! We have to—“ She froze, feeling over Sunset’s body. A terrible dread seeped through Sonata like poison until, with relief, she felt the pulse in Sunset’s throat. She was definitely alive, just unconscious. But how to wake her up...
Just then the room was filled with a brilliant blue light. From the direction of the passageway came an orb of brilliant sky-blue light, filing the space with a shimmering radiance.
“I’m not coming down there,” echoed a voice from above. It sounded groggy and put-upon, like someone with a hangover. “Does anypony have any asprin?”
“Take them!” shrilled a changeling. “We can’t let them go!”
“Both of them! They’re both here!”
“Try the cabinet above the stove! That’s the medicine cabinet!”
“Thank you,” Script called down. 
“Sonata!” Loyal Stride barked, backing up as the horde pressed down upon him. “Pick her up and go! I can’t keep them back—“
“Don’t leave!” a changeling rasped, bypassing Loyal Stride and leaping at Sonata. It bowled her over, away from Sunset’s body.
“Please don’t leave, we need your love,” another said pleadingly, trying to press itself passed Loyal Stride’s shield. 
“We’re so hungry,” another groaned, pawing longingly at Sunset’s prone form. 
Sonata’s skin crawled as she and Sunset were set upon, eager hooves and faces pressing in from all sides. She felt herself being lifted from the floor, dragged towards the wall. She saw Sunset being dragged up as well, being tugged back to the ruptured cocoon.
“No!” Sonata cried out suddenly. “No! Stop it! Get away!”
“We’re so hungry!” they repeated. “Always so hungry. Please stay, you can save us.”
“Let go of her!” Sonata shrieked, as Sunset’s face began to sink out of sight into the ooze. “Stop it!”
“So delicious, just a taste of it.”
“No!”
“Delicious. So long since we tasted it.”
Sonata fought, kicked, twisted, and cried out. The blue light illuminating the scene threw everything into a parody of black-and-white, sharply outlining the changeling’s black forms, glinting off of Loyal Stride’s armour so that he appeared to be radiating a celestial light, and sparkling off of the walls in vivid aquamarine so that they appeared to be fighting beneath the ocean. 
At first, Sonata thought that this impression was what was making her vision blur, making it seem as though she was seeing underwater. But then she realised that she wasn’t seeing the fuzziness of water, but that of mist. Thick, green mist tinted blue by the glare of the orb, sparkling invitingly. And all of a sudden, Sonata’s resistance to the call was gone as her panic engulfed it. One thought penetrated her mind like a spear through thin plywood: 
Get Sunset!
Sonata opened her mouth. Everything stopped.

It took Sonata a long time – or so it seemed – to open her eyes. When she did, she first noticed that the orb above them was emitting a low hum, not unlike that of a light bulb. Her eyes adjusted gradually to the almost harsh light being given off by it, but when she was finally able to see fully, she almost leapt out of her skin. She was surrounded, literally surrounded, by changelings, all of whom were sitting down, and staring blankly into space. Not one of them was looking in her direction, or even seemed to notice that she was there.
Sonata made to say something, but then noticed that her mouth was wide open. She closed it, and then with a leap of her heart, looked around for Sunset. 
“Ugh...” Sunset groaned when, for the second time, Sonata pulled her from the slime with a squelch. “Sonata...? That had better be you,” she said feebly. “Were you singing just now?” She looked down at herself. “Um... why am I covered in slime? Again.”
“Are you alright?” Sonata asked, ignoring Sunset’s questions. “Can you walk? I don’t think we have much time.”
“What?” Sunset looked blearily around, wiping a dollop of green ooze from her chin, and then nearly leapt backwards back into the pile as she spotted the changelings all around. “What’s going—“
“We can explain later,” Sonata interrupted. “I don’t think this’ll last long. I’m not entirely sure what I did.”
“What you did?” Sunset repeated, sounding awed as she peered closely at a nearby changeling who was swaying vaguely from side to side, as though to some slow melody only it could hear. “Hang on, what about Loyal Stride?”
Sonata looked around and cursed inwardly. As was to be expected, Loyal Stride was also sitting down and staring into space. With his massive frame and bulky armour, it looked incredibly strange to see him sitting so meekly.
“Can you wake him up?” Sunset asked.
“I... don’t know,” Sonata mumbled. “He should wake up eventually.”
“Yeah, but unless you’re up to carrying him back up to the house, we need to wake him now. Where’s Script?”
“Up there,” Sonata pointed upwards. “That’s his spell lighting the room. I haven’t heard from him since I...” Her words tailed off, as the full impact of what she’d done hit her. In a single act of desperation and panic, she’d allowed herself to once again give in to the pendant’s power. And what was more, she’d lashed out at everypony; changeling and ponies alike, everyone around her had been caught in her attack, whatever it was. The thought of it chilled her blood. The only thin ray of fortune to breach this gloomy realisation was that, immersed in the slime, Sunset had not heard her, and thus had not been affected.
Bounding around the stunned changelings, Sonata reached Loyal Stride. 
“Can’t you bring him out of it?” Sunset asked, squelching over to her.
Sonata stared into Loyal Stride’s face. His deep blue eyes were wide, the pupils tiny, as though something terrifying and invisible were pressed nose-to-nose with him. “I...” Sonata began feebly. “Um... don’t know how.”
“What do you mean you don’t know how?” Sunset asked, sounding dumbfounded. “Just... I don’t know, order him to?”
Sonata had no better ideas. “Loyal Stride. I, um... command—No, I... order?” Sunset nudged her impatiently. “Okay, okay!” Wiping ineffectually at the residual slime on her shoulder, Sonata cleared her throat. Directing her focus onto Loyal Stride, she said in a confident, commanding voice “I command you to wake up!”
Nothing happened.
“Is that how it’s supposed to work?” Sunset asked, frowning.
“I don’t know,” Sonata said, going red. “I don’t remember releasing anypony from hypnosis before.”
“What?” Sunset asked incredulously. 
“Somepony either released them, they broke the spell themselves, or the spell wore off. Our spells were never permanent, we needed to maintain them.”
“Well how did they break the spell?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh... well, couldn’t we knock him on the head? Would that shake him out of it?”
“Maybe?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
Sonata wasn’t sure. “Maybe if I sing at him again, that’ll make him—“
Sunset reached up and thwacked the side of Loyal Stride’s helmet with her hoof. The helmet made a muffled gong-like sound that could barely be heard, at least on the outside. By the look of Loyal Stride’s face, it seemed like he was being deafened; his eyes wobbled in their sockets, and his white face seemed to tingle as all the small hairs that made up his coat rose up like goose-bumps.
“Did that do it?” Sunset whispered, looking into Loyal Stride’s still wide eyes.
“I don’t know... maybe?” 
Sunset narrowed her eyes. “What’s—“ She caught her breath, which made Sonata look at her in surprise. Following Sunset’s line of sight, she looked up closer into Loyal Stride’s face. In the gap at the front, where his chin was clearly visible, rested several glistening drops of sweat.
No, that’s... not sweat. 
Sonata’s heart clenched in her chest as she looked back up to his eyes, and saw just what the drips of moisture really were. And it suddenly became clear what she had actually done.
Slowly, tremulously, she looked around her. Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the tears flowing all around her. Eyes cast high like starving people reaching for proffered food, tears trailed unrestrainedly from every face. Every changeling was crying silently, trails of tears running down their glossy cheeks. Sonata knew exactly what she had done, and whatever horror she’d felt before tripled within her.
”I’m sorry,” Sonata breathed. “Please... I’m sorry.”


-To be Continued