When Friends are Said and Dun

by xenos29

Chapter 3

Instead of the castle, the ponies saw nothing but a giant mound of thorny vines which shifted around each other slowly, like a nest of snakes. The vines twisted together into a column, forming a thick trunk that towered over the rest of the trees. And at the top of the trunk, the vines spread out once more, creating a roof that blocked the night sky. For a moment, the ponies just stood there, their expressions combining shock, disgust, and terror into one. To her right, Twilight could see Fluttershy, shaking like a leaf.

Princess Celestia spun to face the ponies. “We must hurry. It’s worse than I thought. We don’t have much time.”

Without a second to lose, the group made their way to the front door of the castle, which was buried behind several of the vines. Immediately the guards got to work trying to pry them off, with a little help from Applejack and Rainbow Dash. It didn’t take long for them to realize that the vines weren’t going anywhere, with or without magic, until Princess Celestia stepped forward.

“Stand back, everypony,” she said as her horn began to glow a hot white.

A lance of blinding light shot from the Princess’s horn, singeing the surface of the vines. They trashed about before reluctantly retreating, allowing the guards to open the heavy doors.

Twilight and her friends entered the castle first, taking in the familiar space, now overrun with the vines. One didn’t have to be psychic to know what they were thinking about. It felt like forever since the last time they were here. Each wondered how things would turn out this time. They had come a long way since their last visit, and to see the castle like this was certainly strange.

As the princesses and guards entered, their attention shifted to a giant hole in the floor, which was located right next to the pedestal that once held the Elements of Harmony. It seemed that all the vines in the room, perhaps even the ones growing over the castle, originated from this single crater. As the six of them gathered around it, Twilight looked down and saw the vines disappear into blackness. She levitated a small rock over the hole, and with an ounce of hesitation, let it fall. The ponies waited for almost half a minute, but heard nothing.

Applejack waved everypony forward. “Come on, y’all. Let’s get down there.”

“How?” asked Rainbow. “This hole’s not big enough to spiral down, and there’s no way I’m going to fly head-first into the ground when I can’t even see where I’m going to crash! We don’t even know how far down it goes, or if it’s clear all the way to the bottom.”

“We’ll only know when we get down there,” said Twilight as she examined the hole. She spread her wings, comparing their width. “We might not be able to fly down safely, but there’s enough room for us to float down.” She quickly counted everypony. “And there’s enough of us to safely carry everypony.”

Hooking his front hooves with Smoke Jumper’s, the pegasus guard picked her up and hovered over the hole. Though the pegasus had to flap his wings furiously, he managed to slowly lower the two of them straight down. Princess Celestia did the same for Rarity, followed by Luna and Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy floated down alone, then Rainbow Dash carrying Applejack. As Spike tightened his grip, Twilight positioned herself at the edge of the hole and began to flap her wings with all her might. With a deep breath, she hopped off the edge and floated down into the darkness once more.

Thankfully, the vines stuck to the sides of the shaft the entire way down, giving the ponies a clear path. Strangely, as Twilight descended, the tunnel became brighter. When she looked down, she could clearly make out the silhouettes of her friends gliding below her, and further down, the princess and the guards.

As she emerged from the end of the tunnel, her view was taken up completely by a structure that resembled a gigantic birdcage. Twilight was mystified, for the structure was huge, easily five times the size of Ponyville’s town hall, and had an ancient air.

Twilight looked around and could see the cave was divided into two parts: the plateau where the ponies stood now and the island where the structure sat waiting. Behind the ponies was a collapsed staircase that must have once lead up to the castle. A worn-out stone bridge connected the plateau and the island, flanked by two rows of columns that stretched to the cave ceiling. A pair of enormous fires roared in front of the structure, on the roof of what seemed to be the entrance hall. They must have been magic to burn for so long with nopony watching them, Twilight thought. Like the castle though, the cave was also covered in vines.

“Wow,” said Spike, eyes glued to the building.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this before,” remarked Applejack.

“I don’t know, looks like every other ancient ruin we’ve been in,” countered Rainbow jokingly.

“Over here!” shouted Smoke Jumper from deeper in the cave. Everypony rushed over to see what she had found: the source of all the vines that had taken over the castle.

The seed sat on a pile of dirt and rock as if it were a throne. It clearly wasn’t a normal plant seed. For one, it was huge, larger than a filly, and when Twilight looked at the inside closely, she could see a deep red glow, like the one on a unicorn’s horn when doing magic. Everypony had gathered around now, trying to make sense of it, when Luna spoke.

“Sister, this must be what I saw earlier,” she said.

Celestia turned to Twilight, “We thought it might have been just a stray meteor, but all signs pointed to it being some plan of Blight’s to escape.”

“We must keep moving,” urged Luna.

The ponies quickly crossed the bridge, following vines which traveled over the bridge and forced apart the heavy wooden doors at the other end. The ponies passed through these doors into a small, circular chamber. For some reason, the torches in this room had gone out, making it hard to see where to go next. With a wave of her horn, Princess Celestia lit the torches, revealing the contents of the chamber.

There were statues of five ponies arranged around the far reaches of the room- three on the right, and two on the left. Covering the walls were dozens of flags: Equestria, the Crystal Empire, the Griffin Kingdom, one with a dragon Twilight didn’t recognize, and several others.

Before anypony could get a good look at the statues, Luna hurried them along, especially Rarity, who seemed fascinated by the outfits the statues wore. There was another open door at the far, shadowed end of the chamber, and the light coming from beyond it suggested they were about to enter the cage part of the structure. As the group walked on, Twilight stole a quick look at the statues. There was something frightening about them. They were wearing armor like the royal guards, but theirs was plain-looking and less bulky. Instead of fancy horseshoes and metal plates, they wore boots and heavy capes on top of what looked like a shirt made out of tiny chains.

It wasn’t their outfits which troubled Twilight, however. Except for one, each statue had an expression of either pure hate or sorrow. The one who didn’t stood out, for not only did the pony look like she was happy, but her statue looked brighter and cleaner than the others. Because it wasn’t covered in moss and dust like the others, Twilight also caught a glimpse of the name on the pedestal: Tawny Timbre. A picture was also engraved next to the name: music notes coming from reeds on a sandy river bank. A long stone box laid at the foot of this statue, but there wasn't time to figure out its purpose, as Twilight was quickly forced to catch up to her friends and the princesses, who had just entered the main chamber.

Somehow, the cage looked even bigger from the inside. There was no time to admire the architecture however, as the ponies’ attention was immediately drawn to the center of the room, where yet another statue stood in the dim light. He was dressed like the others. His head, completely encased in a blocky metal helmet, hung low to the ground. Behind the statue was a large box covered in strange symbols, connected to the statue's neck by a chain and shackle. A clump of vines snaked around the box, the thorns making awful scratching noises against the stone surface.

Before they moved even ten feet into the room, something else among the vines moved. From out of the tangled mess, a large crimson flower stretched out before the ponies. Its petals were closed, and it bobbed back and forth as if it were studying them.

“That ain’t like any plant I’ve ever seen,” said Applejack.

“So this guy’s master plan was a giant flower?” Rainbow laughed. What’s it gonna do, give us allergies?”

Fluttershy finally spoke up, “Um Rainbow Dash, I think we need to be more careful…”

Then, without warning, a vine from further back shot past Rainbow Dash, wrapping itself around Princess Celestia’s legs and dragging her towards the center of the room.

“Princess Celestia!” cried Twilight, who rushed to her teacher’s side, using her magic to cut the vine as quickly as she could. Spike leapt from Twilight’s back and pulled against the vine reeling them in.

The next several minutes were chaos. Dozens of smaller flowers, similar to the first, sprouted among the vines on the floor and immediately attacked the ponies. Thankfully, these ones were much weaker than the ones that they had encountered already, but there were so many of them. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and the pegasus guard were able to simply tear off the vines or stomp them into mush, while Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy distracted the menacing plants from Luna and Rarity, who were blasting away with their horns.

“This isn’t as fun as it looks!” shouted Pinkie, as she tied several vines into a neat little bow, rendering them harmless.

Applejack leapt through the air and tackled a vine behind Twilight. She stomped on its flower several times before shouting “How the hay do we stop these things?!”

“I have no idea, we don’t even know what they want,” said Twilight, as she finished cutting the vine around Celestia’s leg. “Princess, what do we do?”

The princess pointed towards the flower: “We can’t let it open that box, no matter what.”

The first flower was probing examining the lid of the container, as if looking for a weak spot. From where the ponies stood, it looked miles away.

Twilight rallied her friends, “Come on, girls, we have to stop them from opening it!” Together, they sprinted for the center of the room towards the red flower, which took notice of the ponies once again. A ring of the smaller flowers grew around the first, forming a wall that blocked the ponies’ view of their goal. The flowers and vines spewed forward like a wave, ready to crush Twilight and her friends, who continued to run.

Twilight readied her horn, but stopped when she saw a brilliant light forming around her and her friends. She looked back and saw Princess Celestia and Luna, their horns interlaced, creating a barrier around the girls. Flowers bounced off the shield, vines snapped as they tried to wrap around it, and after what felt like an eternity of running, the ponies were finally in reach of the box.

It was too late. The flower’s petals glowed red, and with a blinding flash, the lid of the box flew open.