When the Everfree Burns

by SpiritDutch

Prologue 2: Second Verse

In the dark, the forest seemed an endless maze. The watery, silver moonlight barely reached through the canopy, and the underbrush swallowed the rest, so that it seemed at times one was trapped under the surface of a black ocean.
Miles of forest were hard going for even the most resilient of ponies. The Everfree Forest, the graveyard of two princesses, a principality, and an empire. The bones of ponies and nightmares had nourished the plants in twisted and malignant ways, and at times they seemed to possess a mind of their own, beckoning hauntingly to passers by with twisted limbs, tearing at their clothes and fur when not being watched. Even more cunningly, they masked the fearsome predators who made the shadows their home. Dwindling in the rest of Equestria, vicious chimeric beasts prowled in the endless twilight of the forest unimpeded.

The Everfree Forest must have been feeling playful and generous to let one cross through, or perhaps particularly devious.

For a trio of fillies, the journey through the rain, itself thunderous as it beat and tore through the layers of obscuring leafy canopies, was almost deadly exhausting. With wordless determination they pushed through the deepening mud and around the vines and sharp litter whipping in the wind. Every half-hour or so, the little unicorn at the lead would stop and consider a landmark she remembered, a particularly gnarled tree or small moss-covered stone ruin, before pushing on. The pegasus would try striking up a conversation on occasion, then trail off when she was only replied to with silence. The earth pony sneered and kicked at the plants in the way, daring them to try and stop them.

Sound and light more terrifying than any lightning unified the sky and earth for a brief, blinding moment. The shockwaves bowled them over, but they persisted while the storm overhead did not. The sun rose, was eclipsed, reappeared, disappeared, raced the moon towards the earth. The fillies were not intimidated, not the least reason being that they did not understand the fatal cosmic game.
After a lul, while the sun yet lingered, the cloudless heavens let loose dozens more of the awful lances of light down on their destination. They pushed out from the trees into a cleared, to see unobstructed how that lance of came down into the crownless skull of the decrepit Everfree Castle, like a guiding finger pointing them to destiny.
The three fillies worked their way around the dry chasmic riverbed, catching glances and hearing echoes of the brutal fight through the growing cracks in the decrepit castle. This is what they had come for, for reasons they could not fully articulate. They'd come to remind the forces that'd wronged them that they were alive, ready and willing to stand up where their sisters had failed. Ponykind's natural sense of justice, undiluted by fear, antipathy, or politics, shown through of the three fillies.

The threshold of the throne room greeted them with the last, most vicious vision. The translucent ghost of Twilight Sparkle recoiled from her inert physical twin, turning and begging Celestia’s lifeless body for answers with wide confused eyes. The stricken ex-pony faced the wall, leaned her head against the abused stones, but did not cry. The world be damned if it tricked a single tear more from her.
Not that she could. She was mist, the suggestion of a pony drawn in between metal.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were fixated on the distorted and perverted forms of their sisters, unable to move under the weight of the scene.

“Oh man, girls!” Scootaloo pointed to the slumped white alicorn “That’s the princess! Like, Princess Celestia! Lady Twilight killed the princess! That’s why the sun disappeared.”

“Keep it down.” Apple Bloom murmured. Despite her sister’s unnatural height and abyssal coloration, the pony now consoling Twilight was clearly Applejack. “Why’s she doing her fancy accent? That’s weird.”

“What’s weird is Mis Twilight’s a ghost, kinda.” Scootaloo whined in fear.

“Will our sisters help us?” Sweetie Belle wondered. She’d seen nightmares in storybooks before, villainous and absolutely evil creatures. Only in the stories, the princess won. “What if they’re on her side?”

“They’re your sisters. They wouldn’t eat us, would they?” Scootaloo cowered at the thought. “Oh, this is sooo bad.”

“Are you still feeling brave Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle watched her sister and the other two nightmares guide Twilight to Nightmare Moon’s brutalized body. It was a horrible sight, for a pony to be so battered and destroyed. It was unmistakably dead. Rarity hovered over the black and red body, hunching sullenly. It reminded Sweetie of Rarity hunched over her books or little rituals, though now pony and sacrament were much more horrible. "I'm not feeling brave. Not at all."

“What was our plan anyway?” Scootaloo asked, subdued. “How could we do better than the princess?”

“We’ve gotta try.” Apple Bloom said firmly. “There’s no way I’m loosin' another sibling.”

“Let’s wait please. I’m...” Sweetie paused, chewing her lip in reservation. “I’m not ready.”
She said a little prayer to herself like Rarity had thought, though now that she thought about it the lady her prayers usually flew to was lying dead on the rubble.

"When all else fails, run in screaming." Scootaloo gulped.

Standing in a semicircle around Moon, the nightmare ponies were discussing in tones just shy of arguing. The pegasus nightmare repeatedly pointed to Twilight’s body, while Applejack and Rarity seemed to insist on Moon’s and Celestia’s respectively. The translucent shade Twilight did not contribute, her ghostly eyes focussing on something very far away, while she whispered to herself.

“Ya got a good idea Scootaloo. We'll charge 'em.” Apple Bloom said. “When they ain't payin attention.”

“If we stop Twilight Sparkle, are we sure that will fix everything?.” Sweetie Belle asked. “Apple Bloom, I’m not so sure this is a good idea.”

“Apple Bloom is right. This is for Ponyville.” Scootaloo, though terrified, stood resolute with Apple Bloom. “Sparkle will go back and turn more ponies into nightmares. Even if your sisters can’t be helped-”

“Don’t talk like that. We’re gunna save then.” Apple Bloom stomped.

Finally Twilight Sparkle roused from her malaise. The metal horseshoes dragged along the ground as she approached the nightmare ponies. She pointing up into the night sky, where the moon flew alone, and to the horizon. Whatever she had said, the other three mares stopped their arguing. The three mares listened for some minutes as Twilight explained something, but her voice was so weak as to be inaudible to the hiding fillies.
After several more minutes of consideration, everypony was in silent agreement, and gave Twilight some space.
Purple magic ignited and swirled around Twilight’s incorporeal horn. Nightmare Moon’s body was pulled up into a standing position, and the foals had full view of the totality of the injuries inflicted upon her.

“I think I’m gunna be sick.” Scootaloo retreated away from the threshold to throw up in the hall.

Twilight’s ghostly body shimmered and dispelled, as the six pieces of armor expanded in different directions. They slowly floated to their corresponding positions on the black alicorn cadaver, and with another burst of magic snuggled against her. The body jerked forward, stedying itself on its hooves, as a feint purple light emanated from its bloody eye-sockets. It seemed that by moving the armor around, Twilight puppeted Nightmare Moon’s body in a jerkily unlifelike way.

“We need to get closer.” Apple Bloom said, and without warning she skittered out from the cover of the doorway and moved to the next closest pile of rubble. Eyes wide with apprehension, Sweetie Belle bounded out after her.

Twilight’s voice was emitted from the air. “...and you have to be lucid. I can’t get the necessary energy by hunting you without my nightmare bolstering me. Not entirely, at least. I learned a good amount of dream magic, but there is a dangerous margin of ignorance here. You should know what you're getting into.” The black alicorn corpse shifted, trying to face the mares

“Then how?” The nightmarish visage of Rarity asked, rolling a pebble under her hoof nervously. “Darling, that demon could only do it with Celestia providing her ray of sunshine, and that will not be happening again. Where will the magical energy come from?”

“The Moon.” Nightmare Moon’s hoof, guided by the steel blue horseshoe that bound it, pointed skyward. “Once I begin to take control of her I should be able to draw from it.”

“Is the moon like a battery or something?” Dash asked.

“Um, not quite. It is a gate, but it does have some small sources of magic on it.” Twilight was obviously reluctant to disclose this. “There's a lot of them, but I’d lose some energy over the distance. A lot of energy, actually, focussed through the moon.”

“Them? They’re alive?” Applejack asked. Hearing the voice without the familiar accent made Apple Bloom quiver.

“They are monsters, of a sort.” Twilight was quick to say. “A whole civilization of lunar creatures, engulfed by Dark magic for a thousand years. The moon denizens, I think Nightmare Moon called them.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about this.” Rarity kicked her pebble away. “We should wait, and recover our power. There may be somepony who could help us. We need to rest after... after this.”

“Who could help us, Rarity? Who is left in Equestria who can understand any of what’s happened to us?” Twilight sighed, and the corpse shivered. “Who knows how long I can exist like this! I'm on a timer and if we hesitate, it may be too late for me. And that means it is too late for you. I told you the risks, but if we're going to do this, it should be now.”

“I feel very strongly that we should wait,” Rarity began. “but I trust you to do what’s right for us.”

Sickness subsided, Scootaloo scrambled to join the other fillies behind the rubble pile. They shared a last hug, and prepared themselves.

“I can’t thank you enough.”Twilight sounded emotional. “To go through this torture again, when you should never have had to once.”

"Yes." Applejack's gaze slid to Rarity, like she was not quite sold on the nightmare unicorn's motivations. "I agree. We do this."

The last nightmare, the pegasus, nodded her accession. "If it's the first step of reversing what's happened to us... I should feel what I'm feeling. It's..." She lifted her head, to stare solidly at the dead alicorn. "You're going to make this up to us, Twilight Sparkle. Go back on this, and I'm going to indulge every scream for pain and death I'm feeling in me."

"You are all more understand than I would have been. What happened to us, I am-" Twilight drew off. The mares were looking at her impatiently. It was not the time for words anymore. "Form a square, girls. I'm going to start casting.

The alicorn corpse bowed its head, and Twilight harnessed what magic she could. The armor glowed bright purple, and a buzz filled the air.
It was hard to describe at first, but as Twilight's concentration grew, the chaos resolved into a distant, ungraspable melody, pulling one's attention to a place both far away and uncomfortably close, perhaps even overlapping. For Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who had suffered the same thing less than two hours earlier by Forlorn Spark, all they could do was brace themselves for the experience.

The corpses mouth fell open, and a sound like a scream broke into the delicate melody. Tendrils of magic, sparkling blindingly with shapes and colors, surged out of its black horn, entering the ears of the three mares. Crypic magic, indecipherable knowledge, nonsensical chaos bound the cursed ponies together, surging back and forth in a revolting call and response. The nightmare ponies' enthralled minds, try as they might to reject the chaos, applied their personal magic to decipher and provide to the spell. Out of three interpretations of the melody, there came forth a harmony.

For Twilight, a mere soul at that point, the sudden jolt was a match for any pain that night. There was no time to admire the otherworldly beauty of the ritual, for all attention was on bearing its upkeep and torture. it felt like a smith was welding her essence to the corpse her shade overlapped with.
With a jolt, Twilight's consciousness was plugged in to Moon’s body. Under the progressing dictate of the spell it became an extension of her just like a natural body. It was half numbed and clammy, and half burning with pain as nerves reignited. Layer by layer, she sewed the components of her own consciousness to the corresponding parts of the body’s brain. What parts were too damaged, she repaired. Twilight was faced with the additional struggle of taking as little energy as she could from her willing victims, stretching the magical power they provided as far as it would go to reconstruct herself and Moon.

It was like time was reversing for the black body. It writhed and screamed, but crushed limbs reformed, bright purple eyes arose from the bloody viscera, disjointed wing bones went back into sockets and began to agitatedly flap. It had all the pain and wonder of birth.

I can't destroy it, Apple Bloom admitted to herself. But seeing her sister, willingly though she suffered, renewed Bloom's resolution. "Now, gals. We gotta make a stand.” Apple Bloom set her jaw and tried to ignore the tortuous pain her sister was in, setting her sights on Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight tried to keep the skin and fur intact, but in the magical crucible flesh blew away like sand in the wind, scattering and reforming along her muscles. Bones and sinew and muscle were exposed long enough to spasm before Twilight reallocated flesh to it’s protection.

But Twilight needed more magic for the last part of a living being, and try as she might to reach out, Twilight could not grasp the surface of the moon with her magic in the slightest. It was almost like it was slippery, rejecting her control like a soapy bubble to a stream of water. Something was defending it against her.

'I have to...'

the alicorn corpse sunk to its knees, its skin beginning to dissolve again. Desperately starved for energy, Twilight could not face the choice of aborting the ritual spell. She felt the body, its furtive heartbeat, the blood just begining to run again. She was bringing two ponies back to life, and she only had a little farther to go, if only she had more to take! If she continued as she was, Rarity, Applejack and Dash would be reduced to lifeless husks, and it still might not be enough. She had no idea if the half completed spell would dwindle if cut off, or react violently.

Seeing the alicorn fall to its knees, the fillies decided their moment. “Now.” They vaulted over the rock chunks, and charged eyes closed, screaming shrilly.

Suddenly there were more to take. To Twilight’s panicking mind they registered only as more energy, or perhaps new foci for the progressing spell. They were three in number, two of them very alike to Rarity and Applejack, and the third not unsimilar to Dash.
Desperation had driven Twilight this far, and it reigned over her decision making once again. She shifted her draw to the three new ponies, and split the load of the magical draining among all six. Bolstered, the spell wrapped itself up cleanly and rapidly.

The sound and buzz in the air died, as did the whipping magical wind. Things faded back to the somber quiet of moonlight night.

The black body collapsed to earth. The pain receptors along Twilight’s side lit up, alerting her to their functionality. She breathed, in first, taking in a lungful of dust, but it did not set her coughing. She opened her mouth and tasted the dust: Dust flavored.
'I'm alive. I came back. The princesses have died and I came back'

Her muscles refused to release their tension, so Twilight waited. Like an awakening dreamer, she tried to hold on to the feelings from during the ritual, but they refused to stay. Her new ears, recovering from the ringing brought on by the roar of the spell, were introduced to the world by the high-pitched screams of a filly.
The grip of eternal night was still too bright for Twilight’s young eyes, but when she finally managed to open them she was met with a terrible scene.

Four ponies were unconscious, the strain of the magical drain knocking them out. Applejack and Dash made sense to Twilight, but the sight of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo sent Twilight mind into a tailspin of confusion.

One pony was screaming at the last. Sweetie Belle, shaking and heaving with sobs of horror and fear, was pushed against Rarity. The unicorn, who had once been white with an illustrious and elegantly styled purple mane but now whose visage was black and velvet, was not moving, and not breathing,

Author's Note:

Act 2 is off to a frightful start. As you may have gathered, it is chronologically before the epilogue of Act 1. But this is where I warn my readership that this act is, from start to finish, a story about horror. The Eternal Night was, for how relatively brief it was, a dark and terrible turning point in the history of the world.

Comments

[TheCommunistDog]

oh shi