• Published 31st Aug 2014
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A hidden message leads to two friends getting themselves stuck in Equestria. Meanwhile, a long-forgotten evil begins to make its move...

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Act 3 Chapter 26

Act III: Collision of Wills
Chapter 26: Double Take
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They searched high and low all day, but no matter where they looked, they turned up nothing. With hours having passed and the team growing weary from the day, Twilight, Rarity and Rainbow made the decision to end the search for now and rest up. They were the first to reach the library.

“I wonder if John managed to use his magic again,” asked Twilight as she and others entered the room.

“That answer your question?” Rainbow said, pointing to the very dragon sitting the center of that room. Everyone looked at him, sitting as still as a statue as his eyes glowed in a manner similar to Princess Luna’s. For a while, Rarity and Rainbow thought there was a chance that John was mistaken when he said he could do it. But now, the very proof was sitting before them. There was no denying it.

“Does he know we’re here?” asked Rarity, slowly waving her hand in front of him. It was hard to say. When Twilight saw John doing this before, he didn’t respond to a single word she said. If she had to guess, his consciousness had left his body entirely in order to enter the dream world. There was no telling when he’d manage to wake up. For a while, they all simply sat there, waiting for John to come back to the waking world, or for the others to arrive, whichever came first. After some time, it turned out that it was definitely the first option.

Slowly, the glow in John’s eyes began to fade. His regular eyes came back into sight. When the glow had completely subsided, he blinked his eyes several times. Eventually, he realized he wasn’t alone in the room.

“How long have I been out?” John asked.

“Hours, I’d guess,” Twilight said, “Any luck on your end?” John hunched over and rubbed his head, letting out a defeated sigh.

“I managed to find a way out of my dreams and into another’s. But I’m just opening random doors. I have no idea whose dream I’ll end up in, and I couldn’t tell if I was getting any closer to Kurama. I couldn’t even tell if he was in the dream realm to begin with.”

Recreating the spell had only created more problems. John could spend hours randomly searching dreams, and maybe he’d get lucky. But everyone that was present knew they weren’t in a position where they could freely spend their time. They knew there needed to be a more accurate way of doing this whole search, or else they’d probably run out of time…

“Maybe the others had better luck?” Twilight said hopefully.

“Sorry, sugarcube,” All eyes turned to Applejack at the entrance to the library, “But our search…”

Applejack paused as Pinkie entered right behind her.

“It could have gone better.”

Something was off about the two of them. They were down, which was to be expected if their search turned up empty. But there was something else hidden on their faces, something they weren’t exactly sure how to say.

“Hold on, where’s Fluttershy?” asked Rainbow as she rose from her seat.

Pinkie and Applejack looked at one another for a few tense moments before the farm mare let out a sigh. Both she and Pinkie stepped aside from the door, staring at the entrance with furrowed brows. Through that door, stepped Fluttershy.

Or was it? The other four stared at Fluttershy for several seconds. This was her, her body, her hair, and her wounds were just as they remembered each when she departed. But then everyone took a second look at her eyes, and it all clicked. Fluttershy’s eyes, eyes that were usually calm and caring, were now sharp and aggressive.

“You’re her, the one Fluttershy told us about, right?” asked Rarity.

“That’s right,” the other Fluttershy said, leaning against the frame. There was an obvious question floating around the room, one everyone was afraid to ask but wanted to know the answer to. After some more moments of total silence, it was Rainbow who chose to speak up.

“If you’re the one in control… then what happened to Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy’s alter ego looked down at the ground for a moment and let out a sigh. Then, she looked Rainbow directly in the eyes.

“He got to her.”
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Applejack was a jack of all trades so to speak, at least when it came to getting her hands dirty to get a job done. In her time as a farmer, there had been a few instances where she’d had to track something down. Over time, she’d honed that skill to perfection, and yet even with that skill, the search was proving difficult. When something or someone truly does not want to be discovered, Applejack knew they would cover their tracks as best as they can—something that was probably a lot easier if the one being tracked could use magic.

“Anythin’ on your end, Pinkie?” Applejack called out. A moment later, the bark of the nearest tree to her opened like a door and Pinkie stepped right out.

“He’s not in any of my usual hiding spots,” As bewildered as Applejack was after what she’d just saw, she found it would be a waste of time to ask about it now. When it came to impractical—no, impossible, hiding spots, Pinkie was as far out of the box as they came. But even she couldn’t pinpoint where Kurama could be hiding.

“We’re talkin’ about someone who managed to give Princess Luna the slip for a while. No way this was gonna be easy,” True as that may have been, Applejack couldn’t deny that it was nothing short of frustrating. But while they can’t seem to find a trace of him on land, she thought that perhaps a bird’s eye view would turn out better results.

“How about you, Fluttershy?” Applejack asked, calling up towards the skies. There was no response. When Applejack looked up to check, she realized there was nopony in sight, “Fluttershy!?” She called out to her again, thinking that maybe she’d just dropped out of her sight. There was still no answer and no sign of her anywhere.

“I don’t see her!” said Pinkie. It was the same for any of the guards around. Slowly, it began to sink in. Somewhere along the lines while they were searching for Kurama, they’d somehow managed to lose track of Fluttershy.
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She wasn’t one to complain. She always went with what everyone else wanted so she wouldn’t cause any conflicts. But in reality, Fluttershy was tired, more so than she’d ever been in her past. This was far from her first sleepless night; the incident with Talon had been keeping her up at night as well. On top of that, she was still injured from the battle at the Ghastly Gorge. Even now, she was technically supposed to be in bedrest, healing.

Still, she’d pushed herself, training with Rainbow to try and make herself stronger. But this also served to add to her fatigue, and stressed her wounds more. In a nutshell, Fluttershy was close to her limit. She thought that maybe she could handle a mild search, but it was clear now she couldn’t handle this in her condition.

“Sorry everypony, but I don’t think I can…” Fluttershy turned around, thinking that she’d see the others were searching behind her. But all she managed to see was total emptiness; the field around her was barren of ponies.

“Hello?” she called out, but she got no response. Now, she wondered… in her fatigue, in her dreariness from lack of sleep, did she wander away from the group unnoticed? The reality of such a situation sunk in, and panic set in shortly thereafter.

This is bad, I have to—Fluttershy tried to flap her wings, to see if she could find the others from the skies. But she could barely manage one flap before her back wound flared up in pain, and knew that wasn’t going to be an option. However, Fluttershy could still walk, and hope that backtracking was enough to find the others.

But as time went on, Fluttershy found something else was wrong. Each step was growing more and more difficult, heavier than the last. Her eyes burned, pleading to be closed, desiring the rest they so desperately needed. And Fluttershy was finding it harder and harder to not give in to their desire. She fought as hard as she could, but she’d been fighting against her body’s needs for a long time. Much as she tried to rise above it, much as she tried to push beyond it, Fluttershy was faced with no other choice but to accept the truth.

She had reached her limit.

“I’m sorry… everyone,” Fluttershy fell to her knees as the world began to fade away, her eyes slowly closing, “I tried…”

Fluttershy’s eyes closed completely, and she was now flat on the ground, asleep.
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Fluttershy’s dreams were always pleasant. They always made her feel relaxed after a stressful day. But this time, when she looked upon the field of flowers, when she watched the butterflies fly by, listened to the songs of the birds… she couldn’t find happiness here. She knew what had happened, and knew exactly where she was. The only real question now, was just how much time she had before he would appear. And as the warm summer air suddenly began to turn cold, she knew she didn’t have long.

Well, well, well…” A monotone voice echoed from around the field. Slowly, Fluttershy turned around, and sure enough, there he was: a blurred figure standing in the field, a small pitch around him beginning to wither and die.

“The lowly butterfly enters the spider’s nest,” he said, beginning to walk forward. With each step, the field changed, the plant life withering into a black mass from the contact alone, “Admittedly, a bold strategy, but ineffective if one should stray from the pack.”

Fluttershy gulped lightly as she took a few steps back. She already knew full well what Kurama was capable of. He was on a completely different league to Talon. But she couldn’t run, no, she wouldn’t run, not after what she’d put herself through to overcome her limits. Finally, she’d stopped taking steps back, and instead began to step forward.

“You intend to fight back?” said the blur, letting out a lackluster sigh, “Always so unwilling to accept the inevitable… but very well.”

From the blur, two large hands of magic formed, each extending out towards Fluttershy at great speed. As the first came bearing down on her, Fluttershy was able to jump out of its path in time for it to slam into the ground. But the second continued forward in a straight path. Fluttershy quickly landed soon after, seeing the other hand coming closer to her. She looked down at the flowers below her and an idea quickly came to her. At an alarming speed, the flowers around her began to grow, shielding her. The hand struck this wall, having the same effect on it as anything else Kurama had touched. When the flowers had wilted completely, however, Fluttershy was nowhere to be found. Kurama began to search for her in the field, but as he did, he noticed it began to change. All the flowers around him began to grow, shielding his vision.

“Many, many before you have tried to stall as well, including your friend… thinking they’d be capable of waking before I found them,” Again, he created two hands of magic, waiting, “They were wrong.” The hands began to slice through the flowers, clearing a path for him to move.

He searched for any signs of Fluttershy hiding in the large field around him. As he searched, he began to hear something: buzzing, and it was growing louder. And it wasn’t coming from just one source; he could hear several of them. But there was something off about it. Though it definitely sounded like bees, it was far too loud compared to how bees usually sounded, unless they were buzzing directly into one’s ear. The flowers began to move as gusts of wind around him, and he looked up. That’s when he saw them.

They were bees, alright, and all of them were as large as a house. Standing on the back of one of the gargantuan insects, was Fluttershy. Without saying a single word, Fluttershy pointed down at Kurama, and the bees began to move. Kurama jumped back at one that dived down at him, causing its stinger to stab into the ground. In retaliation, Kurama sliced the bee in two with a wave of magic, and it vanished from sight. But there were more to replace the one he had destroyed, and they were coming in strong numbers.

Kurama backed up as quickly as he could, countering the bees with every chance he had. But he was eventually forced to stop when he backed into something solid. Turning his head, he saw that there was a wall of vines that formed behind him. Looking back at the bees, he saw that they had formed a line in front of him, leaving no way to escape…

Or so it seemed.

To Fluttershy’s caution, Kurama’s body began to glow with an eerie purple color, and he reached out to the wall of vines behind him. When he touched it, the vines began to change color, but unlike all the other times he’d touched the plants, they weren’t blackening and rotting away. Instead, they began to unravel, surrounding Kurama and pointing themselves towards the bees, now the same color as his magic.

“False hope, allowing one to truly believe they have an advantage. It’s when they are at their weakest…” Kurama said, waving his hand. The vines shot forward, slicing through the army of bees with little trouble. The one Fluttershy stood on tried to avoid as best as it could, but soon, it too was struck down and Fluttershy was sent into a free fall. But she didn’t fall long, for a vine snatched her out of the air, wrapping itself around her. She struggled against her bindings, but found she couldn’t overcome it.

The vine soon moved again, down to the ground where she was slammed against it. She let out a grunt as she reeled from the impact. But it wasn’t over as the vine rose again before repeating the assault, only stopping when Fluttershy’s head hung limp from the constant impacts.

“Some come to the conclusion that no harm can come to them in their dreams. For the most part, this is true,” Kurama began to walk around the vine holding Fluttershy, hands behind his back with his eyes to the sky, “Your body cannot be harmed here, but your mind is a different matter. Your body is an extension of your mind in this realm, and anything that is done to it causes a strain on your psyche.”

“And what you feel now… a numbness, a lack of strength,” Kurama said, “That’s the stress on your mind taking its toll. But fear not, it will all go away,” Slowly, Kurama extended his own hand, a purple glow of magic engulfing it, “In a few days, that is.”

Kurama came very close to making contact with Fluttershy’s head, but something made him stop. The ground behind him suddenly jolted and caused him to fall back.

“What??” he wondered, the ground once again jolting a second later.

“I almost forgot,” said Fluttershy, “If… if I was awake… then I would have been alone,” Again, the ground jolted, the sky becoming black with clouds, “But here… I’m not alone.”

Not far from where they were, the ground erupted. Something came out of it, something massive. Kurama watched as another Fluttershy stood tall from the ground, staring down at him through glowing red eyes.

“She doesn’t appreciate…bullies…” the large Fluttershy brought up her massive leg, never once breaking eye contact with Kurama. With a powerful roar, she brought it down above him at a great speed. Kurama tried to defend, using the vines to form a barrier, but it may as well have been paper. Upon contact with the vines, they shattered under the force instantly, the ground cratering under the massive Fluttershy’s foot. She stood in that position for several seconds before retracting her leg and standing straight again.

The glow in her eyes began to fade away as the skies began to clear, the large Fluttershy walking towards the original. With each step, she shrunk until she was standing right next to Fluttershy at her original height. Reaching out to the vine, Fluttercruel tore it off, freeing Fluttershy and catching her before she could fall.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Fluttershy hummed weakly, the only sound she was really able to make in acknowledgement.

“What am I going to do with you…?” Fluttercruel said with a sigh, though she was relieved Fluttershy was okay. Picking her up, Fluttercruel began to carry Fluttershy through the field. In the distance, Fluttershy’s cottage began to form. Through the opened door and up the stairs, Fluttercruel eventually put Fluttershy back down on her own bed.

“I’m sorry…” Fluttershy said weakly with furrowed brows. She wished she could do more, try to help Corey and the others, but this was as far as she could go.

“Don’t be,” said Fluttercruel, “You did what you could. Now it’s my turn.” Turning around, Fluttercruel walked away, her body fading from sight the moment she stepped out the front door.
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“After that, I took over the body, and then I came here.”

They were all on the edge of their seats by the time the story was over. The thought of Fluttershy coming so close to joining Corey in the room upstairs sent fear through them. But to know that she just barely managed to get away thanks to her other side, it was relief enough.

“Is she going to be okay?” asked Rainbow.

“The fight put a lot of stress on her mind, and truth be told she already wasn’t in the best state after her fight with Talon. It’s going to take some time before she can take over again, but she’ll be safe as long as we share the same mind.” Another relief, even if they couldn’t talk to Fluttershy directly. At least they knew this other side to her was keeping her safe, and that was more than enough for now.

“You said you confronted Kurama,” said John, “Any chance you managed to deal some damage?” Aside from when John first encountered him, this was the first time anyone had managed to put up a fight against him.

“I wish I had,” said Fluttercruel, “But the coward got away before I could do anything.” Just as when Kurama fought John, he ran soon after knowing there’d be too big a risk of continuing.

“He’s smart… the moment the ball leaves his court he’ll back away to fight another day,” This tactic wasn’t new to John by any means, but it was the first time he was up against it. Fact was, Kurama was biding his time as long as he needed to, and while he certainly had the time for that, they did not.

“Twilight, you know more about magic than any of us can hope to know. Is there any way you can help track him?” Twilight rubbed her chin for a moment, mulling it over.

“I did do some research on Princess Luna’s dream walking for a while, but shelved it not long after. I can dust off what I saved, and go through it again, but it will take some time.” John let out a small sigh. There seemed to be no way around it.

“Do what you can,” he said. There was nothing else to say. Reminding her of what was at stake wasn’t going to help anyone. Twilight nodded and began to move towards the door leading downstairs. But a knock at the door was enough to stop her and catch everyone else’s attention.

“Come in,” The door soon opened, and it turned out that it was one of the guards. And from the look on his face, he clearly did not come bearing good news.

“Forgive my intrusion,” the guard said, “But there is something you all must see.”

They knew they wouldn’t like the sight, but also knew there was no avoiding it. Choosing to see what it was, rather than being told now, everyone followed the guard…

Author's Note:

And here's where I leave off for another chapter. Yeah...

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