A Fear that Came to Pass

by ChingKittyCat

Chapter 18

Staying in Baltimare was definitely a good decision. When the two unicorns entered the library, they were almost instantly astonished by the pure size of this library. Nevertheless, it looked incredibly big on the outside and it was incredibly big on the inside as well.

The walls of the library were dark mahogany, as columns of the same material reached to the ceiling of the library. These columns also held up the other floors, which could look down upon the floors below them. The way to look down at the previous floors was through the large, circular hole that cut through the upper floors (naturally, this hole was fenced off so visitors would not fall down it).

On the first floor, there were bookshelves everywhere. There was a complete lack of any sort of desk to read on. It kind of just seemed like you would read on the floor. Yeah, seemed like those rumors of disorganization were sort of true. Also, the bookshelves were incredibly tall. Though, some taller than others. That didn't matter, though.

They really seemed rushed in putting in all the furniture in this place (despite the fact is was constructed years ago). Maybe it was rushed and sloppy due to the fact that they had spent all their money on this dull, white marble floor. It must have been polished and shiny at one point in it's existence, but at the moment, this floor was rather dull. It's white shine was deteriorated down into a light gray.

The color of the floor was not their main concern though. What was their main concern was reading books (well, Twilight's main concern was). Twilight looked about for some sort of librarian. By the entrance, there was a large U-shaped oak desk. The desk looked like it was imported from the past. It looked all old and splintery.

This desk was up against the entrance wall, and the desk stood vacant. Not a single pony behind it (though there was a clock directly above it). The librarian must have been out doing something important. They might as well help themselves to all the books they could. Twilight looked over at her new companion, who was pretty much just doing this for the money and fame.

"So, what exactly do you plan to find here?"
Sunset questioned with a sarcastic tone in her voice. It sounded like she doubted they would find anything in here. It was very unlikely that they would find nothing in such a large library. It was famous for the variety of books. It was the third largest library in the entirety of Equestria. They were bound to find something.

"Anything that can help us. Alchemy books, tomes, research about changelings.."
Twilight went on and on. Twilight had not explained it to Sunset, but through the past couple of minutes they spent walking to this humungous library, Twilight had been formulating a plan. It was a very, very rough draft of a plan, but it was still a plan.

"Wait, why do you want research on those bug-pony mutants?"
Sunset sounded rather confused. She spat out bug-pony like it was a slur. If there were any changelings around here, one of them would have probably smacked Sunset upside the head for calling them such an insulting sounding term.

"I have a feeling I'm going to be needing their help."
Twilight answered, before starting to walk off towards the bookshelves. They might as well get started, this battle plan wasn't going to be making itself any time soon. Sunset quickly tailed after Twilight. From the look on Sunset's face, Twilight could tell that the orange mare had some more questions.

"And what makes you think that they're going to help you? Changelings are a literal pony sized parasite. They don't help anyone."
Sunset brought up. This was a good point, but Twilight knew there was going to be a reason for them to help her out. She helped out a changeling once. She didn't know if that changeling ever made it back to it's hive with that brown cat, whatever it's name was. They were quite the duo, that changeling and cat.

"I'll convince them somehow, trust me."
Twilight replied. Sunset wore a frown. She seemed to be regretting the decision to help Twilight out with this. Yeah, Twilight didn't really know how she was going to convince the changelings to help her out. Unless that changeling from before was some sort of important figure in changeling society, she doubted she was ever going to get their help.

"Your plan already sounds ridiculous, Sparkler."
Sunset rolled her eyes, and began to stomp off. She stomped off into the direction of another bookshelf. Twilight knew that looking through the designated book types would not help her whatsoever. It didn't matter what sort of bookshelf they looked through, they would always end up looking through a random variety of books.

Twilight grabbed a book off the bookshelf which was now in front of her. Her magenta aura dragged the book down for her viewing. The book that she had grabbed was how to properly create statues of stone. It had a picture of a stone dragon thing on it. Twilight couldn't help but feel a bit of deja vu when she looked at this dragon thing. What was it's name again? Something that started with a D, probably.

Twilight stared at the picture, trying to figure out who this dragon-serpent-thing was. The name was on the tip of her tongue, it really was. Whatever, it didn't matter. Twilight shoved the book back into the slot it previously occupied. Twilight took out the next book. Even from here, she could tell that book wasn't going to be any help to her.

Twilight repeated the process of judging books by their covers, titles and authors until she found something that seemed to be decently interesting. She scanned over the title again as she brought it closer to herself.

"Lost Artifacts from Old Equestria, huh.."
Twilight whispered out loud. The cover was a illustration of some sort of golden statue, or something (looked a bit like a totem pole). Twilight flipped open to the table of contents. To her surprise, this thing had about three of those tables filled with contents. Each table of content showing off a different name to some artifact.

There were such colourful names like 'The Mirror of Missed Opportunity' and 'Orb of the Tartarus Serpent'. How very charming. Some of these things sounded decently useful, like the ever infamous 'Cloak of Invisibility'. Such a cloak would completely block out any use for changeling help.

Twilight had planned to learn the art of changeling magic in order to sneak her way into the empire. She still didn't know how she would get past the forcefield, but she was still figuring that out. If this cloak actually did exist though, she would be having a very easy time getting into there and killing that stallion who has her friends captive.

Now that she thought about it, if she made peace with the changelings, her name would be remembered for generations by not just one species.. Her name in the history books, bringer of peace in Equestria. Not just once, but twice. Yeah. That sounded awesome. If she had the chance, Twilight would try to make peace with the 'bug-pony mutants'.

Twilight closed the book, and put it off to her side. She decided that this book would be pretty important, just in case she needed a backup plan if the changelings refuse her offer to help them. Twilight continued on through the row of books she had to go through. Something told her she wasn't going to find anything truly important.

Yeah, no, nothing. Twilight had literally only found two useful books in this entire bookshelf. One being the artifact book and the other being a book on how to cast foreign magics. The foreign magics book seemed rather strange. It sounded like it was written by some loon in a mental hospital, but it was still something.

Twilight took a quick glance over at the other bookshelf, where Sunset was. Sunset was in a pile of books, as she was quickly looking through every single one of them. She had deshelved the entire bookshelf, and was just sitting in a pile of all those books. It was a rather smart idea. It wasn't like they were pressed on time. Celestia was probably giving them a lot of time, seeing as how her army is a lot bigger than his.

"Have you found anything?"
Twilight stated just loud enough for Sunset to hear over the sound of pages flipping. Sunset suddenly stopped her train of progress and looked up from looking at the book.

"No. You what would make this a lot faster?"
Sunset questioned from the pile of books.

"What?"
Twilight replied back. Sunset should have everything that would make researching a rather easy task. Though, what was peculiar was that Sunset was using her hoof to flip through pages.

"Giving me back my Faust-damn magic."
Sunset growled. Oh. Twilight sort of forgot, she didn't put on the magical binding spell. Sunset sort of had all the access to the magic she held. What was weird was that Sunset still thought Twilight had the binding spell on her.

"Sunset, you already have your magic. Just use it."
Twilight responded. Sunset poked at her horn, as her light blue aura shot on. Sunset put a decent amount of her pile back into the shelf she was currently in front of. She didn't bother to organize it. This place was incredibly unorganized already, she wasn't even going to bother.

Twilight was kind of surprised that Sunset didn't just take that amulet off of Twilight's neck and just run. Yeah, the amulet was still around Twilight's neck. The thing looked decently pretty, she wouldn't lie. Though, she didn't plan to use it for any of it's functions. Twilight had gotten some pretty dirty looks from wearing this amulet and she did wonder why. Twilight wasn't really too educated on enchanted amulets, as shocking as it may seem.

One thing she did know about enchanted items was that it didn't matter what the item looked like, it could hold any sort of enchantment. Even a shard of wood, when enchanted, could light somepony on fire with a single prick off the pointed end. You could put literally any sort of enchantment onto things, though it wasn't very wise to put a Catching Fire enchant onto a piece of armour. Enchanting was about common sense. Also your connection to magic. Twilight just never took up enchanting in her studies, it kind of seemed a bit boring compared to her other courses.

Whatever. Enchanted items didn't matter at the moment. She would have to sell this thing eventually. Sell it to a pawn shop or something like that. Perhaps a magic shop. Meh. The extra money would help, she guessed. Even though she was decently rich from Sunset's bounty, Twilight still kind of needed more money.

If she wanted all the things she needed for this plan, she needed to have money. Money was usually the end goal of every single stallion and mare in this world. Ponies were rather greedy like that, weren't they? It didn't matter, though. If she met the end of her goal, she would restore peace to Equestria. Now, to be greedy to do such a thing? There was nothing wrong with that, was there?

Twilight moved herself to the other side of the bookshelf, where a whole new world of books stood before her. She thought about it. Fame, money, glory, a solidified place in the Equestrian history books as one of the greatest heros of all time.. Yeah, that sounded good. She would impress the Princess again. Yes, she would earn back her mentor's respect! That is what she would do.

With that thought in mind, Twilight was now determined to find some good books. Oh, look here! This was a.. a.. uh.. Yeah, this probably belonged in the adult section. Twilight, now a bit embarrassed, put the book back into where it previously was. She wasn't going to bother with that sort of book. She wasn't here for that sort of book (it was really more of a magazine).

Twilight never got bored of books. Never. Though, she did find the task of just looking through shelves without even reading the contents of the majority of these books to be a rather boring task. It seemed as if Sunset agreed, because she was asleep on a pile of books. How could Sunset fall asleep at a time like this?

Twilight guessed that Sunset just wasn't into books like Twilight was. Maybe Sunset just got a bit more bored from the task of looking through books. Though, Twilight will admit that Sunset had found some pretty good stuff. Stuff like 'The Complete History of the Changeling Empire', 'Alchemy for Beginners' and other things of that sort.

Twilight picked through Sunset's books which she had picked out. Yeah, Sunset was having a lot better luck than Twilight was. Sunset had about seven or so good books while Twilight was stuck with four. Maybe it was from the lacklustre job Twilight did, but she did go back to check the other books for anything valuable and found nothing of the sort.

Twilight didn't know how long she spent looking through the useless books, but it seemed like a pretty short amount of time. Though, it was kind of strange that all the lights in the library had been shut off. Perhaps there was some sort of power outage or something. That was a thought.

Twilight decided to look around for a clock. Perhaps there was a clock on one of these walls.. Ah, there was one by the librarian's desk. She remembered there was one above the desk. It would be a tad bit hard to read, but it was there. So, moving out from the area between the bookshelves, Twilight headed for the librarian's desk.

Upon arrival, nothing seemed different about the desk. Still, nopony behind it. The clock was still up there, though. So, squinting her eyes, Twilight made out the following numbers. 11:56. Twilight could only reason that it was 11:56PM because of the lack of lights being on and the severe lack of anypony else.

Well, since it was almost midnight, Twilight figured she would find a place to sleep. She might as well find some sort of closed off section of the library to stick around in. So, within a couple minutes (and two flights of stairs) Twilight made her way up to the third floor of the library. It seemed decently dusty, so she figured nopony had come up here in a decently long time. Plus, it would take ponies a longer time to find them if they were up here.

Twilight looked down on the first floor from the third. She focused on the books that she had picked out. She got a mental image of them out, as she couldn't really see them from here. Her magic grabbed onto something, as she tugged it up. Luckily enough, the mental image was good enough for her magic. The books she had thought of had flown up to the third floor.

Twilight set the books off to the side, as she was about to find a place to sleep. Then, she thought about her new companion. If she left Sunset down there, chances were that when the first ponies to come into the library would see her. Then, chances were that the two of them would be forbidden from this library.

Twilight could see Sunset from here. Well, that orange dot seemed like her anyways. So, focusing onto the pony on the first floor, Twilight levitated the orange pony all the way up. Due to the fact that Sunset was indeed a pony and she was also pretty heavy, it was a little harder than levitating books.

After retrieving the sleeping mare, Twilight tried to remember what books Sunset had chosen. For some reason, she just simply couldn't remember. Great. So, with a huff and a puff, Twilight teleported herself back down onto the ground floor. She was going to be going to sleep soon, so she could use all the magic she wanted.

Twilight eventually found the books that Sunset had picked out. They were all rather colorful, though one in particular was a bit questionable. It seemed more like a personal choice, so Twilight wasn't going to talk about it. The book was titled 'How to make good Villains 101'. It was a bit strange, but no questioning. Yup.

Another teleport lead Twilight back up to that third floor. Now that she was back up here, she would go put Sunset's books over by her. Done and done. Alright.. Everything was in order. The two of them should be hidden up here. So, without a further need to halt, Twilight got herself situated. The floor wasn't very comfortable, but she did have her cloak to cushion her head.

It took her a decent while to get to sleep.

Twilight was now fully aware that she was dreaming. She didn't have a dream in a while, but that wasn't really a problem seeing as how he loved to just invade on almost single dream that she had. He would come in here, give some vague comment and then she would wake up. It had already gotten obnoxious, and Twilight was decently sick of it.

So, in her dream, Twilight just sat. Where did she sit? In her treehouse home. More specifically, she sat on the balcony. She was just staring out into the night sky. She could tell that he was going to pop up. She knew. She was one hundred percent positive. So, she sat. She waited.

The moon in the sky suddenly descended, as the sun rose up into the sky. It didn't even give the sky enough time to make a hue of pink for dawn. Twilight didn't care. She really didn't. He was going to show up, it was obvious. Twilight was just waiting. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind. She really did.

Sure enough, he did appear. Not in front of her face, but his stupid black cloud was now blocking out the sun. A spire of smoke descended from this cloud, shooting directly at Twilight. Twilight just sat there. She was just waiting for this stupid dream to be over. His presence was getting a tad old now.

All she wanted to do was get rid of him, not listen to his vague prophecy or whatever it was. Twilight couldn't really remember what he had said before, it had been a while.

The black smoke surrounded Twilight, as she felt a cold sweat begin to form. Just a bit of a chill. She didn't really want to admit that she was still a tad scared of him. Maybe it was because of the fact he knew a lot more about controlling fear than she did. Chances were that she was being forced to fear him. Yup.

Twilight felt her heart inside of her throat. No, she wasn't scared. Nope. Nope, nope. She was getting better in resisting the urge to scream in his face and run the other way like a madpony. Nope, not scared whatsoever. She swallowed her bravery, and stared that smokey illusion straight in the smoke. She couldn't really detect any sort of face.

"And the day it escapes, that day will be the end of you."

Twilight woke up with a startle, like she did all the time with his stupid prophecy dreams. What was the point of those stupid dreams anyways? They were kind of just unnecessary. Well, that dream was useless, seeing as how Twilight couldn't remember any of those other stupid riddle prophecy things. It had been over a month, was she expected to remember it? No. She didn't even think it would be important anyways.

Twilight could see that Sunset was still asleep, and the lights of the library were still off. This meant she had more time to sleep. Oh, goodie.

Twilight debated on going back to sleep because she might have to listen to more of his "that day will be the end of you" sort of riddle. Twilight could care less. Chances were that if she went back to sleep, she would have a dream that was just about pure blackness. So, with that thought in mind, Twilight shut her eyes (and tossed and turned a bit) before falling back to sleep.

Turns out that she was right. When Twilight fell back asleep, all she was met with was the peaceful atmosphere of blackness.

Comments

[Crystal Static]

If you put the choice of the Changelings or the cloak in as a choice, I would do changelings, as that would have a lot more potential down the line.

~Crystalline Electrostatic~