Tales of Valor - Part 2: Web of Deception

by Scribble Script

5 - A Light in the Dark

5th: A Light in the Dark

Valor kept up his determined persona as they went on. And determined he was. All that now counted was that there was still time to save Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. Even at the cost of his own life if that meant he’d bring all the others home safe and sound. Their rescue party was now led by Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie who already had been to the Mirror Pond before.

Well, actually Pinkie Pie was more busy with acting as if she was a real ninja. Including a creeping and jumping and hiding behind bushes and her friends.
However, Twilight seemed to keep her eyes on the track and focused. She had casted an illumination spell and now her horn emitted a gentle magical light; since night had fallen it was pitch-black around them.

“This is no ordinary darkness”, Twilight suspected. “What do you think, Valor?”

The stallion looked around, speaking in military terms, he checked the perimeter. The magical light made him look tired as it casted deep shadows beneath his eyes.

“I know little about magic. And even less about this forest”, he punted, so Pinkie Pie made her own suggestion:

“I know, I know: This is advanced darkness! Woo-hoo-hoo!” And she made a ghostlike howling.

“Please be serious, Pinkie!” Twilight requested but Valor considered Pinkie’s words. His look wandered over the overgrown path.

“No, I think thou are right, Pinkie Pie”, he said. “Look at all those spider webs!”

Indeed, all the brambles, all the shrubs around them, even the branches and twigs of the crippled, old trees over their heads were laden all over with cobwebs. The threads were woven on over another, so thick they seemed not only to block out the moonlight but to somehow advance the darkness even further. And once Valor had drawn the ponies’ attention to the spiders they could all virtually feel hundreds of unfriendly eyes watching them. The ponies now made their way even more carefully. Valor Edge’s eye darted from one side to the other, he was expecting a trap. His thoughts trailed around Zecora’s prophecy.

For then it hunts, in darkest wood, shrouded in a web of scare… He began to know the meaning of these lines; he was to experience it first hand: The darkness oozed from the threads of the spider webs like a toxic mist. It made the air damp, crept into their minds and weakened their hearts. Everything in Valor called, no, screamed to turn around and run for his life. But he did his best to cast aside his fears. He was sure, his friends could feel it, too. In Twilight’s magic light they all looked as sick as Valor felt himself.
On their own, any of them certainly would have given in to the impulse to flee. But none of them was alone. Valor’s staunch determination gave them strength, so even Fluttershy was able to carry on. And in their faith in him Valor in turn found the strength to carry on himself. Together they were stronger than the creeping fear.

Then came the voices. At first they weren’t any clearer than wind in the treetops. Valor, still checking the way for traps, strained his ears but wasn’t able to sort out, what exactly he was hearing.
Not until suddenly, Applejack cried out: “Apple Bloom? Apple Bloom? That was her, Ah heard her voice!”

Valor spun around on his hooves his expression changed to utmost concern. All eyes turned to Applejack.

“I didn’t hear anything”, Twilight objected. “Are you sure, you’ve heard her voice?”

“Apple Bloom? Apple Bloom?” the farm pony kept calling for her sister, ignoring Twilight’s question and also Valor who pleaded her:

“Please, Applejack. Listen not to the voices. It is not thy sister, hear me?”

But as he was trying to reason Applejack, Rarity began to call out for her sister as well.

“Oh no! No, no, no!” Valor exclaimed in frustration. Then his voice fainted; he had heard somepony calling his name. Not ‘Valor Edge’; no he had heard his first name he had been given at his birth, which nopony in this world should know.

“Oh no”, he repeated but this time his voice was raw with shock. “By the bones of the Black Dragon, no…”

He had thought to have expected any kind of trap and spell, but hadn’t considered this one. The webs were magical, of course and they DID inflict fright. Apple Bloom for Applejack. Sweetie Belle for Rarity... But the spell wasn’t meant to shroud the creature’s lair or to scare off intruders. It was to catch new victims, to ensnare them in their own personal nightmare until their will was broken…
Valor realized the true nature of the curse, the moment it really started to affect him. But to know, what would run him down, didn’t help one bit. He was about to face his own, darkest fears. Contrary to most other ponies he had a pretty good idea what he was about to come; but that made things even worse.

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Pinkie Pie knew that they were in trouble as Applejack started to call her sister. And then Rarity joined in, yelling for Sweetie Belle as well. She could only stand and watch in horror as her friends one after another suffered a breakdown.

Much like Valor, Pinkie Pie knew about her fears. A deep fright of losing her friends, of being utterly and completely alone. She had faced that nightmare before, back then when she had thought her friends wouldn’t like her anymore. And that was exactly what Pinkie now saw herself confronted with: To be alone in the darkness, with no warmth, no laughter; doomed to an empty existence without any meaning or purpose. She could feel tears shooting into her eyes.

“Think again, Pinkie”, a thoughtful voice told her. It wasn’t any similar to the evil voices surrounding her.

Apparently, the gentle voice came from a green baby alligator right in front of her. A glowing, slightly transparent baby alligator. An alligator she knew.

“Gabby?” Pinkie was wondering. “How did you get here?”

“I’m not Gabby, silly”, the gator replied. “I’m your subconsciousness trying to tell you something elementary in a moment of peril by taking a familiar, beloved shape.”

“So my subconsciousness is a genius, now?”

“Nope.” Subconsciousness-Gabby shook his head. “But you do often talk to Twilight. All these scientific terms have to stay somewhere, you know?”

The alligator cleared his throat (which was actually a bit weird because it wasn’t moving his lips when talking) and continued.

“Anyway, back to the basics: Remember what happened when you thought your friends had abandoned you?”

That was right. In the end she had overcome her fear. The moment she had realized her friends were just planning a party surprise for her birthday she also had realized that her fears of loss were just silly!

Imaginary Gabby showed Pinkie Pie a heartfelt yet toothless smile that revealed his rosy gums. “Now you got it” he said and then disappeared.

Her friends would never fail her, just as she would never fail her friends. To be afraid of losing them was about as silly as being afraid of ghosts! And what did Pinkie Pie do with ghosts?

She giggled at them, right as she now was giggling at the dark. She still heard all the mean voices telling her terrible things and saw all the painful images that appeared in the blackness, trying to break her.

But Pinkie didn’t break. Oh, shut up you meanies! You’re no fun at all. And you’re lying: My friends wouldn’t let me down. And I won’t either, that’s a Pinkie-Promise! Done and dusted! And she flat-out silenced the voices as they grew too pushing.

Alongside with the whispers, the unnatural darkness was gone, or more precisely, it had never been there. The black mist had just been an illusion, created to trick their minds, to wear them out for the curse to hit them even harder. Princess Luna’s full moon shone brightly upon Pinkie Pie and her friends. And upon hundreds and hundreds of ashen-pale spiders with glowing red eyes that were slowly roping down on them.

The other ponies were in a bad condition.
Fluttershy had broken down right on the spot, her eyes sealed shut and wasn’t moving at all. Rainbow Dash had covered her ears with her hooves and was rocking back and forth like a madpony, tears streaming from her closed eyes. Twilight Sparkle sat in the middle of the road, sobbing silently while Applejack and Rarity had even managed to entangle themselves in the thick webs aside the path. They were crying in competition for their sisters. From their grief, Pinkie guessed they were seeing them dead. The spiders were already trying to spin a silky cocoon around the two ponies.

“Ew, ew, ew, gross!” Pinkie exclaimed as she realized that the arachnids already were crawling over her, too. She fuzzed with crewing them out of her mane and fur. Then her eyes fell on Valor Edge and she called his name. Right now he was probably the only pony that was able to help.

The stallion was in no good state either. He was fighting to stay on his hooves but stumbled around and seemed to be about to fall, tilting his head like he couldn’t see clear. Pain and sorrow was in his wide open, right eye and Pinkie could see a trail of tears on his cheeks. And yet he hadn’t given up the fight.

“Pinkie Pie?” His voice sounded hoarse and somewhat distant. He tried to make his way to the pink pony but tripped like a sleepwalker.

“Pinkie… Pinkie… Pinkie…” he muttered but his wandering eye didn't meet her look.

“Yes, Pointy, Pointy, Pointy?” Pinkie replied, a bit worried he was about to lose it, too.

Valor Edge reached out with a hoof like a blind pony and touched her.
“It is hard for me to see through the shadows, Pinkie. It is good to hear thy voice…The only friendly voice…”

He grimaced and pressed his hoof against his temple as if he was suffering from the worst headache ever.
“I am trying to blank out the voices, but… But I have issues to focus”, Valor drawled between his clenched teeth.

“We must do something” Pinkie tried to stress the urgency of the situation. “It got them!”

Valor nodded. His voice gained back a bit of strength.
“Right… Right... Just let me think of something… What can we do…? What can we do..?”

“Use your Vortex-thingy” Pinkie Pie provided. “Or your super-special hero-talent!”

“Pinkie Pie…” Valor moaned. “There is no such thing like a ‘super-special hero-talent’. Forbye it is difficult enough for me to focus without… Wait a minute!”

He squinted his eyes. To concentrate, to lock out the voices the curse casted in his mind.
“Did thou just say ‘Vortex-thingy’? Oh, Pinkie Pie thou brilliant girl… That could actually work. Maybe I am able to… SHUT UP!” He suddenly roared, tilting his head back. Apparently he was trying to silence the evil voices or perhaps at the evil figures of the curse, thought Pinkie Pie, because she hadn't said anything. After that sudden outburst, Valor’s look had turned absolutely clear again. He took a deep breath and then continued:
“Now I am better. So where was I? Oh, right. I am not experienced in magic but maybe I figured out a way to destroy the spell! But I will need thy help, Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie beamed at Valor. “What do I do?”

Valor Edge fetched his golden lighter from his saddlebag. He held it up in front of him and a well-known dangerous smile appeared on his face.

“The spiders bring darkness and despair. The curse drowns our friends in their own, worst fears until they will ultimately lose their will to live. But we are about to bring the very one thing that tears each despair apart: Hope. Thou are the most cheerful pony I know, the Element of Laughter in fact, and that is exactly what we need. Thou must think Pinkie Pie! Remember a bright moment in thy life!”

“Okie dokie lokie, Pointy”, Pinkie confirmed happily.

“But not just any bright moment”, Valor Edge adjured her. “Recall the brightest memory you have. Recall the happiness, the warmth and the glee thou have felt that day, and then cling to it!”

“Oh, I’ve got one” Pinkie exclaimed. “Do you think the Sonic Rainboom will do?”

Valor screw up his brow. “I know not. Is it a bright memory?”

“Sure as a smile!”

Valor zipped open the lighter’s lid. “Alright, then let us give them a piece of our mind! Literally!” He hold the golden lighter out for Pinkie and she touched it with her hoof.

"Got the memory?", Valor asked and Pinkie nodded. “Now look into my eyes!”

Pinkie Pie caught Valor’s gaze and the stallion slowly opened his left eye. And it was like the sun was rising in the middle of the night. A star seemed to burn right in Valor’s eye, shining with a gentle, golden light. It was hard to return this gaze, the light seemed to reach into Pinkie’s very soul, but she couldn’t look away either.

Pictures from Pinkie’s past appeared in front of her mind’s eye and shortly afterwards she began to see also pictures she couldn't sort in. Amazing pictures and strange pictures, maybe from Valor's past... Or his future?

“Focus on the Rainboom! Trail not off!” she heard Valor’s voice.
It was tempting to dig a little deeper into her own and also Valor's timeline, but Pinkie Pie clung to the day of Rainbow Dash’s first Sonic Rainboom. The memory now began to shine in the golden light, as clear is it was back then. All the emotions came back, all the joy and amazement, Pinkie had felt that day.
Simultaneously, a second golden star awoke above the lighter in their hooves.

“Let there be light!” Valor exclaimed.

And the golden star burst. It exploded in a blinding flash of rainbow-colored light as a full-fletched Sonic Rainboom detonated in the middle of the Everfree Forest. The shockwave shook the tree’s like a storm, let them creak and crackle, tore apart the cobwebs all around and, like nothing, wiped away the pale spiders.
An eerie, distant screech echoed through the forest, then there was silence.

The golden light wore off, leaving only the full moon to shine. Yet there was still a little of the warm shimmer in Valor’s left eye, as he shut it again. He pressed a hoof at the eyelid and looked around. It seemed his friends were about to awake from their nightmares. At least they had stopped crying and their eyelids started to flitter.

But now Pinkie Pie was letting out a strange sound, a whistle like a pressure cooker boiling.
“Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!” The pink mare started to rapidly bounce up and down. Then she rattled on in excitement: “We did it! That was amazing! I mean your eye was all shiny and glowy and I was so whaaaaat and then it all went whooooosh and we made an actual Sonic Rainboom! And I’m going crazy, how can I get an eye like that ?”
Valor still had his hoof put on his left eye. And again he was a little swamped by Pinkie’s enthusiasm.

“Long story” he answered evasively, hiding behind hasty activity, trying to give Rainbow Dash a leg-up. “Kind of boring. I will explain later.
Everything alright, Rainbow?” he then addressed the cyan pegasus. She bit her lower lip and nodded.

“Yeah…Just… Just let’s never ever talk about that again…” She weary stated but trying a brave smile. Valor Edge was glad Rainbow Dash was recovering quite quickly.

“Be strong, Rainbow”, Valor gently said. “The shadow will not persist. Now come on, we need to get the others up. It must be close to midnight. Think thou can help them?”

Happily, the mare who resembled the Element of Loyalty accepted the task that kept her from thinking too much about what just had happened to her. And Valor Edge, who feared they all could run out of time eventually, went to comfort Twilight. To get her up on her hooves again. Then he gave her the same task as Rainbow Dash and turned back at their trail again.

Then he heard the voices of three fillies. This time for real.

“Help…! Help…! HELP…!”

Their cries for help came from the left from just where the scream from earlier had come from.

Casting all precaution aside Valor at once rushed into the bushes, drawing his sword. Perhaps not the cleverest thing to do, but ‘action’ was the word of the hour. Not far from the pathway was a clearing, lighted by the full moon, a bold cliff rising at the opposite end.
But in the middle of the clearing was a pitch black cloud, like black cloud, like a spot of midnight without moon or stars. And three fillies cuddled up in fear of death, screaming out for help.

Valor jumped over the fillies and right into the darkness he dove. His sword seemingly brought a slice of moonlight with him into the black, the blade sung as it cut through the air.

With force, the sword met with a resistence. The cold-silvery blade was incredibly sharp, rumor had it was able it could cut through almost each and every material in the universe. But not this time. The impact was so strong, it almost broke Valor’s teeth out as the sword suddenly stopped dead.
The stallion wasn’t able keep the grip and had to let the hilt slip. The sword fell to the ground. His teeth ached. His had seem to shake rapidly. And, still unharmed, whatever the dark cloud was veiling was now right in front of him.

Not steel and not stone, dammit!
Valor instantly backed down again and braced himself for the inevitable counterattack. But it didn’t come. Instead the darkness shrunk, backed down itself and then disappeared.

Behind Valor’s back, Applejack and the others came to Valor’s aid but then soon rushed to the fillies lying on the ground, now unconscious. Applejack and Rarity cuddled their sisters, crying again and begging them to wake up while Fluttershy was trying to nurse the fillies with Zecora’s potions.
Valor Edge quickly checked the heart rate of Scootaloo, who currently had Rainbow Dash at her side. Weak, but constant. She will make it. The three fillies looked more than little green around the gills but seemed fairly unharmed.

“We have made it just in time”, Valor expressed his relief. “Nopony died. This could have gotten a lot worse…”

He got up again and paced over to his sword. He shoved it back into its sheath. It wouldn’t be of any use here. Valor knew there was only one way to defeat his enemy. However he would carry it out…
Now that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were safe, Valor Edge briefly considered to just head back to Ponyville with them. He probably had if he had been a mere mercenary. Mission accomplished, let the creature get away with that lesion to never ever mess with ponies again.

But monsters never learned their lessons. It would return another day and hunt fillies and colts again. Valor wasn’t the stallion to leave a bill unpaid or a business unfinished. Even at the risk of his own life, he would go all the way through and make sure this creature would never pose a threat again to the ponies.

“Applejack? Rarity? Fluttershy?” he requested. “Please stay with the fillies. Make sure no harm happens to them, will you?”
The three mares confirmed. Valor turned back to where the darkness had disappeared. Previously unseen, in front of Valor, at the end of the clearing was a crack-like entrance to a cavern. From inside came an unearthly blue-green glowing, like from a lake illuminated from underwater that painted waves of light on the rock surfaces.

“This play has been going on long enough”, he said, fire in his eye but his voice perfectly calm. “No more illusions. No more fooling around. This will end. Right now!”

Valor looked from side to side, seeing Pinkie Pie lining up with him. Then Twilight, then Rainbow Dash. The three ponies slowly nodded as they returned the sworstallion’s look. Then they entered the cavern.

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