Penn and Stone: Dynamic Duo

by Pennington Inkwell

Finding Secrets

"Stupid Full Sails..." Delta muttered, storming his way up the tunnel to the surface. "Oh yeah, make the hostage exchange without any hostages! Easy as pie! After all, it's my fault the guards are too incompetent to keep one stinking unicorn prisoner from getting out for SIX HOURS! I deserve to have my life threatened for that!"

I get the impression this is sarcasm.

"Oh, hush, you little tattletale..." Delta sighed. "You weren't exactly helpful, either!"

I am not on your side. I am on the side of destroying Cha'Qued.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever..." Delta unceremoniously bumped his saddlebag against the wall in an effort to rattle Ravia's mask form. "I guess that this is going to be our last time working together, anyway, so we don't have to like each other."

Indeed.

"Just be ready when Inkwell inevitably sees through all of this and we have to take Cha'Qued by force."

Delta's body was coursing with adrenaline, leaving every muscle tight and his heart pounding. At first he thought it was excitement at having nearly completed his mission, but as he placed his hoof on the door leading to the surface from their mountain base, a familiar chill ran down his spine.

It was the same chill that had raced through him just before every bad thing that had ever happened to him. He'd felt that sense of foreboding when he'd decided to take an impromptu vacation from his mind-numbing work in the Crystal Empire. It was the chill that had run down his spine when he'd chosen to gamble everything on a roll of the dice. The tingle that had tried to warn him when he'd tried to ambush a stranger for the first time in a dark Las Pegasus alleyway. Three broken ribs, a fractured foreleg, and a sprained wing later, Sails had offered him a job in the Old Lunar Republic as a way to pay off his debt.

Delta had never believed in premonitions, but that feeling had accompanied every horrible thing to ever happen to him in his life, and we wasn't about to disregard it a third time.

"Seriously, Ravia... Be ready for anything."

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As Luna finally made her way back into Inkwell Commissions, she took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. Her trip to the spa with Rarity had been relaxing, but Rarity's insistence that she hardly raise a hoof for herself for the rest of the day had left her feeling somewhat frustrated. Quill's insistence on her disguise suddenly made much more sense, and she'd quickly set it back into place.

She quickly and quietly locked the door to Pennington's shop, closed the blinds just as she'd been taught, and made her way into the homely portion of the building. She made an effort not to cringe at the kitchen, where practically every conceivable surface was covered in dried-out cups of instant noodles, and nonchalantly picked up an envelope that was waiting for her outside the door of his study. She paused for a moment, silently tearing it open and viewing the check inside. Rarity had obviously given her a generous amount, even by her standards, and Luna made a note that she would likely refuse to cash it, given that she had earned none of it.

Admittedly, her days hidden among the citizens of Ponyville had been stressful, but she had secretly delighted in it. The time away from her royal duties and the constant care of the castle staff had been invigorating, allowing her to simply live one day to the next. She had made leaps in her speech lessons that she couldn't wait to display for Quill when she returned the next morning, and she was eager to see the look on his face when she would walk into the room, flash him a chipper smile, and ask him what was "up."

Perhaps I could finally start making inquiries regarding his own life? Celestia has been pestering me for details, and I continue to arrive empty-hoofed time and time again...

As she stood in the center of the hallway, her eyes wandered to the multiple locks on the study door. In all of this time, her host had still remained locked inside.

"Tonight IS my last night in Ponyville..." Luna whispered to herself. Moving gingerly towards the door, she pressed her ear against the heavy oak wood. "T'would be a shame if I never got to see my host..."

Inside, Luna could hear the gentle rise and fall of a sleeping pony's breathing and the soft crackle of a dying fireplace. Her host was most definitely asleep, and soundly so.

Luna had always had more of a mischievous streak than her sister, even when they were small fillies. While Celestia had enjoyed practical jokes and manipulative ruses, Luna had been out getting herself involved in anything that caught her eye or looked exciting to play with. Age and responsibility had tempered those impulses, of course, but she still held a few tendencies that could get her into trouble from time to time.

It was because of those tendencies that Luna started poking at the locks on the door with her magic. She wasn't going to bother Pennington, or anything, she just wanted to see the face of her host.

To Luna's surprise, the door pushed back, causing her magic to disperse and fizzle out.

His study door has magical wards on it? What kind of author needs that? Luna thought to herself, stepping back and raising an eyebrow. She took another attempt at unlocking the door, but quickly realized that if she wanted to force her way into the study, she would have to break several obviously costly enchantments with raw magical strength.

I suppose... he truly does value his privacy above all else, doesn't he? Luna felt a prick of guilt for her halfhearted attempt to break into the pony's sanctum, and turned to leave. She was a princess, after all, she was above such pettiness in the name of her own curiosity! The small prick of guilt quickly grew into a ripple of shame at her childish actions. Thankfully, there had been no harm done, and she had learned her lesson and could continue upstairs without another thought.

H-help me!

Luna stopped in her tracks, her focus tightening to a singular point. Alicorns were gifted with exceptional senses, including hearing, but she wasn't certain what direction the voice had come from, or whether it was even spoken aloud.

She closed her eyes and spread the influence of her magic over the area, trying to feel out whether there were any sleeping ponies nearby whose dreams were crying out to her. It wasn't common for a nightmare to reach out to her without her purposely focusing on entering the dream realm, but it wasn't unheard of if the pony was close by.

Somepony, please! Wake me up!

The voice was clearer this time, and the words affirmed her suspicions: somepony close by was having a nightmare, and an awful one if it was enough for their pleas to come to her unbidden. It took only seconds for Luna to narrow in on the pony in question, feeling the fear radiating out from the foul dream. To her surprise, she could feel that the dreamer was only a few short feet away: in Pennington's study.

Luna didn't waste time, opening her mind to the Dream Realm. Before her stood a double of the door to Pennington's study, this time a representation of the pony's own mind. This door gave her no resistance, allowing her to pass through easily.

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"Hello? Pennington?"

Luna looked around, trying to get her bearings in the strange pony's dream. To her surprise, her surroundings were uncanny, but familiar.

It was her fillyhood castle, the same one that she and Celestia had been raised in, but decrepit and overgrown. Walls were crumbling and there was little of the upper floors or even the ceiling left.

This place was ancient even before my banishment. I suppose it is to be expected that it would fall into disrepair after our migration to Canterlot...

Her ears perked as she caught the noise of movement from above. Looking upwards, she caught a glimpse of a pony running about at the top of the walls, a flash of blue fur that lasted only a moment before disappearing behind the remains of the roof. Following quickly after them were multiple other shapes, flapping wings and long, scaly tails that Luna recognized in an instant as one of Equestria's more dangerous creatures.

Cockatrices? It would appear that this pony is indeed having a nightmare... Spreading her wings, she took to the air, hoping to find a better angle from which to address him.

"HI-YAH!"

Princess Luna had been raised to be a proper princess, full of grace and dignity, and never caught without a prim and proper response to any situation.

"OH, SH-"

Which was why she was very happy Celestia was not present to see her get absolutely nailed in the face by a flying cockatrice.The two of them tumbled through the air, finally landing on the ground in a heap of feathers and rage. upon getting its feet back on solid ground, the cockatrice turned on her, locking its petrifying gaze on Luna's eyes.

"Oh, please," Luna muttered, blowing the apparition into stardust with a thought as she rose back onto her hooves. "In the words of the younger generation: get on my level."

This time, she was much more careful flying up to the roof, watching two more cockatrices fly over her head as she raised only the top of her head above the roof to get a better look at what was going on. It would have been a simple matter for her to dispatch whatever threat appeared and simply call the matter resolved, but destroying a nightmare without some investigation into the root of it left a high possibility for the bad dreams to recur. For the moment, it would be better to observe what was troubling Pennington and assess the root of his problems.

As she floated back up to get a better look, however, she was greeted with a familiar pony, one covered in blazing red fur and furiously batting away the cockatrices with his eyes closed.

SCORCHING QUILL? Luna barely contained her surprise, taking a moment to look around for any evidence that the dream had been tampered with or invaded. She had met ponies capable of lucid dreaming before, but never one capable of invading another's dreams to lend aid outside of herself.

But... where did the other pony, Pennington, go? This isn't an invasion, it's a transposition! But where is- LOOK OUT!

Thankfully for her hiding place, Luna didn't cry out loud when Quill took a step back and off of the roof. For a moment, his eyes opened, but his expression was one of determination, not surprise. Using the wall of the castle for a momentary hoofhold, he kicked out with his back legs, knocking the final cockatrice up and into the sky, where it disappeared in a twinkle of light.

Luna considered catching Scorching in her magic, but decided to remain an observer. If this was a nightmare, there should have been no way to fight back so effectively... So what could have been enough for his cries to reach me in the waking world? And what is Scorching DOING here?

KA-CRACK!

Luna was caught off-guard as the portion of the roof just above where Quill had fallen broke off, falling after him in a chunk of masonry much bigger than any pony. In an act of pure instinct, Luna finally intervened, wrapping her magic around the boulder to stop it from plunging down on top of him... only to watch helplessly as it fell through her aura as though it didn't exist.

"NO!" Luna dashed forward, helpless and confused at her inability to stop the stone. Peeking over the edge of the roof, she cringed as she saw only a single hoof peeking out from under the rock. Once again, however, she found herself in an unprecedented situation.

If a pony dies in their nightmares, the shock is always enough to wake them up... so how can this dream still exist?

Slowly, carefully, she began to float down towards the ground, trying to make sense of the puzzle. Perhaps Scorching's death wasn't enough because Pennington is the dreamer? But in that case, where did Pennington go? Could he have- is that hoof still moving? Pulling her wings against her body, Luna dropped to the ground as quickly as she could, free to ignore the consequences of gravity in a dream.

There, poking out from underneath the boulder, was a blue hoof, tapping and scratching vainly at the ground, as if in some attempt by the owner to pull themselves out from under the rock.

"Oh my stars... HOLD ON! This should only take a moment!" she cried, trying once again to magic away the stone... only to find that it did not budge. Her magic had no effect. Throwing herself at the object, she tried to push it away with raw strength, empowered by her dominion over the dream realm, but still it refused to budge. It was almost as if...

"It's real... or a manifestation of something real, at least..." she whispered, looking down at the pony's red hoof, still struggling harder and more quickly, as if beginning to panic.

Wait, wasn't it blue a moment ago?

As if to answer her question, the fur changed color before her eyes, returning to the blue coat he had to assume was Pennington's.

Luna had no time to think about the meaning of the colors, however. If this rock crushing and suffocating him was a manifestation of something in the real world acting on his body, then it meant that this pony was in REAL danger... and she was mere meters away from him, sleeping standing up in the hallway.

"Wake up! You MUST wake up!" she cried, summoning back the door out of Pennington's dream. "You are in REAL danger! I shall be there momentarily to assist you!"

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As Luna snapped back into wakefulness, she wasted no time, turning back the REAL door to Pennington's study and lowering her horn. This time, she did not poke or prod at the enchantments on the door, taking her raw power to them like a sledgehammer to a glass window. There was a moment of pitch-black darkness as her true power snuffed out all light around her. After only a second, the light returned to the hallway, and the door had been rendered to a small pile of ashes at her hooves.

Without waiting for an invitation, Luna barged into the room, horn at the ready to deal with any threat or intruder.

The room was empty of any other pony than the author, now slumped over at his desk with his face buried in his hooves. Luna rushed to his side, checking him for injury but finding nothing. Reaching over, she gave his shoulder a gentle shake, trying to awaken him.

His body was completely limp, slumping over to the side and turning his head to face her. It was only now that the sound of his rapid breathing was no longer muffled, bordering on hyperventilation. His eyes were open, but sightless, darting from side to side rapidly. A short glance to the side revealed a soft twitching in his hoof, an echo of his movements in the dream realm.

It was only now that Luna recognized the symptoms. A dreamer caught on the wrong side of lucidity, whose mind was wakeful but body remained asleep, leaving them trapped. Many considered it to be the work of witchcraft or fae curses before Luna's banishment. Since then, medical science had advanced greatly, especially in the area of sleep studies and dreams, which Luna had eagerly devoured in her spare time. Now this malady had a much more mundane name: sleep paralysis.

The physical body being paralyzed causes the mind to create a matching scenario... that explains why I could not catch the boulder. I could try harder to wake him, but I know no remedy other than to wait for his body and mind to come back into-

Pennington's entire body seized and shuddered as he desperately gasped for air. Without noticing Luna, he leaped out of his chair and began to trot around the room, shaking himself from his head to his hooves several times over.

unison.

"I- I'm alive... I'm awake and alive..." He repeated the words to himself like rehearsed mantra. "I'm awake and-" For the first time, he finally seemed to notice Luna, glancing back and forth between her and the pile of dust that was formerly his reinforced doorway.

It was only now, getting her first good look at her host's face, that Luna finally understood the reason for the constant transpositioning of Scorching Quill in "Pennington's" dream.

"...Scorching Quill?"

Pennington's eyes slowly moved around the room, as if inspecting it for some flaw or mistake.

"... No, I'm definitely awake this time, huh?"

"SCORCHING QUILL?"

Pennington sighed, his horn glowing with blue light to move a new log into the tiny furnace that served as his fireplace.

"Your highness... I can explain."

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Moonstone watched carefully from the treetops, her heart pounding in her chest with anxiety. Penn had insisted on facing the Old Lunar Republic's negotiator on his own, allowing her and Lily to take up tactical positions and watch that he didn't get flanked.

They had also failed to pull together any kind of disguise for Pennington's new false horn, which meant that he was going into negotiations quite clearly disabled. Up until now, his loss of his magic had been kept a secret due to his high standing in the New Lunar Republic giving him numerous enemies that would gladly take advantage of it. Now he was risking that carefully crafted illusion for Twilight.

"I'm starting to wonder which one of them has the worse luck..." she muttered, fidgeting nervously with the tidal wand. "Twilight for getting captured, or Pennington for the timing..."

Suddenly, she caught a new scent in the air, carried on the wind. The scents of ponies, three of them. Narrowing her gaze, Moonstone spied a hole opening in the snow, revealing a hidden passageway that three ponies emerged from, a single pegasus and two unicorns, all wearing black armor. Moonstone could see that the two unicorns were armed, one with a long polearm of some kind and the other with a short sword. The pegasus carried no weapons, but had a large saddlebag. Every place that he stepped, the snow dispersed and fresh, green grass sprung up.

"What on earth-"

What in HEAVEN, little one.

"WAAUGH!" Moonstone jumped into the air, clutching at her chest with both hands as her feet kept a tight grip on the branch below her. Glancing over, she saw Cha'Qued's mask balanced on the branch beside her, glaring in the direction of the oncoming ponies.

"Could you NOT DO THA-"

That pony carries an unearthly power with him... something DIVINE. Cha'Qued continued, ignored her completely.

It makes me... HUNGER. More than I have in centuries...

"Wait, you're telling me that pony has some kind of GOD on his side?" Moonstone hissed, glancing back at the oncoming party. "Who? What kind? What do we DO?"

YOU do nothing. I do nothing. We wait. Should Inkwell find himself overwhelmed, he will know that he needs a GOD to fight a god. And when that time comes, I will be ready to take my rightful place with him as my host... and I will FEED AGAIN upon the flesh of GODS!

Moonstone took a moment to examine the mask's precarious position before leaning to the side and bumping her shoulder against the other branch, sending the mask plummeting down and out of sight, landing in a Cha'Qued shaped hole in the snow.

"Never gonna happen, teeth-for-brains."