The Night That Never Ended

by BronyCray

1. Aftermath

“The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us!”

Twilight Sparkle glared at Nightmare Moon, her five friends at her back. The shards of the broken elements hovered about them all, radiating with awakened power. Honesty, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, and Kindness had gotten them this far, and now all but the final element lay in their grasp.

“But you still don’t have the sixth element!” scoffed Nightmare Moon, with only a twinge of worry on her face. “The spark didn’t work!”

“But it did,” continued Twilight, “a different kind of spark.” She turned towards her friends and continued, “I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all are my friends!”
Nightmare moon stood visibly shaken, and as twilight turned away from her friends their eyes sharpened from humility to confidence. They knew now that the Elements of Harmony were in their grasp, and sure enough, another stone appeared in a flash of light above Twilight’s head. But as it lowered towards her, it became increasingly clear that something was wrong. The light that accompanied it began to rapidly dim, and the stone began fading as soon as it appeared. Twilight’s eyes became filled with fear as she realized that something was horribly wrong. The sixth element faded long before it reached Twilight, and the ponies turned their confused and terrified gazes upon Nightmare Moon, now looming triumphantly above them.

As the shadows began to billow around her, a thousand thoughts raced through Twilight’s mind. What happened? What could have gone wrong? Why had she come so close and then had the sixth element taken away? A thousand questions, but no time for answers as the enchanted smoke crashed down on her like a silent tidal wave.

Twilight was awoken by a crash, which was an all too normal occurrence in her library. She lifted her head in puzzlement, not because there was a crash at all but because it had come from the door leading to her balcony. Seeing the sun pouring in through the door, she realized at the same time both that she had slept in and that the door was no longer on its hinges.

“Bleh! Whatzawitz? Who?” cried Spike, shaking off his covers. His sleepy eyes frantically scanned the wreckage until he saw a blue flank lying beneath the remnants of the door. Rainbow Dash gingerly extracted herself from the debris, casting a sheepish look over at the pony and dragon in their beds, both with expressions that conveyed a lack of surprise, stern condemnation, and expectation of an explanation. In a world where body language required you to stand on three hooves, facial expressions became very succinct.

“Heh heh, sorry ‘bout that guys,” Dash managed with a nervous smile. “I was practicing a new trick and, well, you know how it goes.”

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. She certainly did know how it went by this point. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate you stopping by, Rainbow Dash, but this is the second time this month that you’ve broken my door like that. Fourth if you count the times you missed the door and came through the wall instead.”

“I’m really sorry Twilight,” Dash said, fluffing her wings out to test for injuries. “It’s just that when Applejack and I built that catapult, we didn’t actually think about where I would land, and now it’s too big to move!” She puffed herself up with an air of confidence, “Once I master this trick, I won’t crash anymore and you won’t have to worry!” Another glare from Twilight prompted her further, “…aaaand I’ll get that door fixed for you…again…heh heh.”

Twilight finally got herself out of bed and then walked downstairs to begin cleaning the mess Dash had made. She was still surprisingly tired considering that she had slept in, and Dash must have taken her exhausted features as annoyance. “Hey, is there anything I can do to make up for this? Besides cleaning the door up of course. I feel bad that this kind of thing keeps happening.”

Twilight automatically started to dismiss her out of hoof, since the last thing she wanted was someone even more accident prone than spike hanging around her study area. Before she could get a word out however, she remembered something that she did need help for. “Actually Rainbow Dash, I’m working on a bit of a new trick myself. You see, I’ve been trying to teach myself how to teleport ponies besides myself between my studies on friendship, and since the Grand Galloping Gala ended I’ve had a lot of free time on my hooves. I think I’ve almost got it figured out, but I need another pony to test it on.

Dash’s smile immediately jumped from embarrassed to nervous. “Oh, uh, I’d love to help! But uhm, wouldn’t it just be easier to use spike? Ever since the mustache incident he’s always eager to be your test subject.” An indistinct noise from his bed upstairs conveyed Spike’s reaction to being thrown under the bus by Dash, but both ponies ignored it.

“I normally would, but the point is to teleport ponies, specifically pegasi and earth ponies. Dragons are naturally magic creatures, so they are much more receptive to unicorn magic, much like cockatrices and certain types of owls. Pegasi and earth ponies are more resilient against outside magic, or maybe a better term is ‘less inclined towards’, since they don’t have any inherent magical-“

“Ok ok Twilight, I’ll help you out. I just don’t always mix well with magic is all, even with the best intentions.” Dash walked over to a closet and nudged the door open, rooting around until she found a broom and dustbin.

“Great! I’ll start getting everything prepared! Oh this is so exciting, my first spell that I’ve made! Well, I guess it’s still technically a subsection of teleportation, but if this works imagine the doors that will be opened! Mass transport of goods, instant travel between cities for everypony, and Celestia will be so proud of me! And then to consider the implications of the ensuing mass magical radiance….”

Dash rolled her eyes and began cleaning up the mess, letting Twilight continue on. Knowing he wasn’t getting back to sleep with all the noise, Spike climbed down and helped her, making the task go much faster. Dash still had time to think about what she was getting into though, and she didn’t like it at all. Normally she really didn’t have a problem with magic, it was just when she was being tested on that she started to draw the line. Just look at the last time Twilight had experimented on somepony: Rarity and the Wonderbolts had almost died. Still, her being a little uneasy was no reason to turn down a friend’s request for help, especially after she rudely awakened Twilight this morning. By the time Rainbow Dash had reconciled herself to playing guinea pig for the day, Twilight was already flipping through books two at a time getting everything prepared, talking all the while about her egghead nonsense.

“Ok, we’ll start off small of course, just from this side of the room to the other. Spike, could you get me some yellow chalk from the other room? Rainbow Dash, could you please stand right over there? No, I said stand, not fly. Ok I’m almost ready! Spike, where is that- oh, thanks. Ok, I just need to trace out the fluxation pattern on the floor and account for Rainbow Dash’s mass. Aaaaaand that should do it. No Dash, go back to that spot. Ok, ready? Wait, Spike, I need you to get Owlalicious out of here, rogue magical factors aren’t accounted for in this equation. Ok, now- Dash, stop hovering! You look nervous, this is a simple spell. It’s just never been tried before is all. Well, not succesfully anyway-”

“Woah, wait, what do you mean-“

“But I’ve accounted for everything, so we shouldn’t have any problems. Even if we do get teleported somewhere random like off the ground, you can fly us both to safety.”

“Twi, look, I don’t know-“

“And I’ve been working on this for so long and I’m so excited that I finally get to try it! Oh think of how much easier everypony’s life will be once this spell is tested! This could be the biggest contribution to pony society since apple farms!”

Twilight gave a dreamy sigh as her daydreams unfolded before her, and Dash sighed in defeat. If it meant that much to her friend, Dash could certainly buck up for one simple spell. Yea, she thought as she picked her head up and regained her composure, what kind of loyal friend would I be if I can’t even help Twilight with one favor?

After just a few moments Twilight snapped out of her wishful thinking and bounded next to Rainbow Dash. Side by side, they focused their gazes on the circle scrawled on the floor at the other end of the room, both licking their lips in anticipation. Slowly, Twilight’s horn began to glow, dimly at first and then brightly as she concentrated. Dash could see her strain her neck as she mentally willed them forward, and as her horn flared like a beacon the world began to slip away.

Dash had seen Twilight teleport plenty of times, and it always seemed very sudden. This, on the other hoof, seemed to be taking a long time. Twilight’s horn shined so brightly that most of Dash’s vision was obscured, but she could see the floor below her stretching and compacting beneath her. Fighting the urge to leap into the air, she concentrated on Twilight’s face until she began to feel herself move forward ever so slightly. It was slightly nauseating, but also interesting. Twilight began straining even harder, and Dash began to feel something pull her backwards. No, not backwards, more like…sideways? Inways? Not in a direction exactly, but she was also moving forward, and another glance at the ground confirmed that the distance between their starting place and target area was significantly smaller. In fact, it looked like she could just step from one to the other, but before her eyes they closed further until they overlapped and became simply the target space. They were at their destination, but Twilight still grimaced in deep concentration and her horn flared repeatedly with magical energy. The sense of moving forward ceased, but the other tug remained, increasing in tension until with a snap, Twilight opened her eyes and let her horn fade.

“Di…did we…?” Twilight muttered, barely coherent from the ordeal. She could feel her legs quivering underneath her, and let herself collapse onto the ground as she let out a cough.
“Uh, I’d love to tell you, but I can’t see anything.”

Twilight opened her eyes again, and to her surprise couldn’t tell the difference between opened and closed. There was no light at all, not even enough to see her hoof half an inch from her face.
“Ow!” yelped Dash as she tried to put that to the test, followed by a stumble and rustle of pages as Dash fell over a file of books. Books! That meant they were in the library! The spell might have worked after all! Twilight concentrated enough to make her horn emit a dim glow, the limit of her abilities following the taxing teleportation spell. As her horn illuminated their surroundings, she and Dash both drew in horrified gasps.

They were still in the library, and had even appeared at their teleportation target. But instead of the shelves of books lining every wall and the leafy boughs of the tree poking through in places, they stood in the center of a charred trunk with no ceiling. Fire scarred pages littered the ground, with larger piles of soot and paper marking where piles of books had been burnt. Twilight let out another cough as the kicked up ash entered her lungs, and she could hear Dash hacking away behind her. She turned around in horror again and again, until Dash finally composed herself to ask, “Twilight, where the hay are we?”

“I...I think we’re in…the library” Twilight replied absently, still trying to catch up herself.

“We can’t be! We were just there and it was fine! Teleportation is instant right? Maybe this is a different library. It’s all dark outside and everything, so we must be somewhere else!” Twilight could hear the edge of panic in Dash’s voice increasing with every sentence. Oh, why had she dragged her friend into this? For that matter, how did this happen? She was sure she checked and rechecked everything, though there were always unpredictable factors when dealing with untried magic. Twilight dimly became aware of her friend speaking again, and snapped out of her own thoughts to listen. “…to the others? The ponies that have tried this spell before? You said it was never completed successfully, right?”

“Oh, uh, I… I don’t really know.”

“What, you mean you didn’t research it? They weren’t found in trees a mile away or anything?”

“No, I mean that nopony knows. They, uh, were never found at all.”

Twilight looked guiltily at Rainbow Dash, who had only a look of shocked betrayal on her face. Twilight hadn’t exactly tricked Rainbow Dash, but under her hurt look she felt like she had. But Rainbow Dash would have never agreed to come along if she knew the whole story, and there shouldn’t have been any danger anyway. She didn’t even know that there was any danger yet, only that they were in a library that had been burned down a long time ago, that it looked very similar to her own home, and that there was no light. Not even the moon or stars, just an empty black void from a few feet away into infinity.

As Dash’s eyes narrowed and she drew in breath to reply, a hissing noise sprang up from behind the burnt husk of a wall, softly at first, then louder as a familiar pink shape came tiptoeing from around the corner. With exaggerated sneaking on her two hind legs, Pinkie Pie crept up to the two ponies, glancing left and right as she did so. “Ssssssshhhhh!” she finished at last, glaring at both Twilight and Dash. “You aren’t supposed to be talking. I told you to go away. Mr. Slide even kicked you out, so what are you doing back here?”

Twilight and Dash looked at eachother dumbfounded, then to Pinkie, then back to eachother. “Err, Pinkie?” Dash ventured, “Do you think you could explain some things to us? I’ve got a list of questions here, like where the hay we are and what the hay you are doing here and what the hay is going on!?”

Dash’s yells faded into the blackness surrounding the three ponies, eagerly eaten up by the heavy shadows. Twilight frowned at this and redoubled her horn’s glow, noticing that she had let her concentration slip in the confusion. Their circle of light expanded about a foot, but Twilight’s fatigue kept her from getting much more illumination out of it.

Pinkie Pie stood frozen for a few moments, her face an unreadable frown. Dash’s stomach dropped as she began to recognize the slight eye twitch and particular frown that Pinkie wore when Dash had tried to fetch her for her surprise party a few weeks ago. Pinkie had crazy written all over her, the particular Pinkie kind of crazy that made rocks talk and friends into enemies. Her hair was straightened and her eyes didn’t look in quite the same direction. Most alarmingly, she looked as if she hadn’t bathed or groomed her fur in weeks and her snout was covered in soot, but Dash had seen Pinkie looking fine just the day before.

Pinkie slowly began looking around, stepping carefully over the clumps of charred wood. After a moment, she stopped and looked at an empty patch of wall, replying, “Okie dokie, but no more questions after that. But not here, I’m just here for the pages. Help me gather them up and come with me. And no more talking, ghosties shouldn’t talk.”

Comments

[mythfan12]

do what

[Shadow Scryer]

Hmm. Didn't see this anywhere but Google docs 'till recently. Ah well, I love it and this gives me a chance to comment.

There shouldn't be any danger. ... Everyone who ever attempted this spell was never seen again, and Twilight thinks there was NO CHANCE OF DANGER?! Did it even occur that maybe there could've been something wrong with the spell? Wow! What an idiot!

Then again, she wouldn't doubt anything written down, like the very first episode. Go figure.

[amacita]

“I’m really sorry Twilight,” Dash said, fluffing her wings out to test for injuries. “It’s just that when Applejack and I built that catapult, we didn’t actually think about where I would land, and now it’s too big to move!”

Great attention to detail! That is a really good explanation for something I never thought of before. Details like this are one of the things that make fanfic fun to read in the first place.

[raven618]

Trees. a teleportation expert's nightmare.
Pinkameana is scaring me