Friendship is Forever

by fabrosi

The Alicorn

Chapter 13: The Alicorn

In the cold, oppressive darkness, Twilight and her two companions dashed madly through the forest, guided only by a bright, wildly shaking light projected by Twilight's horn. Behind them was a creature so massive that each step it took sounded like a boulder falling from the sky.

"Almost there…" heaved Twilight, gritting her teeth. The three of them dashed up a familiar ridge, leapt across a familiar ravine, and broke out of the woods and into the wonderfully familiar open field adjacent to Ponyville.

They stopped running, turned around, and stared anxiously at the tree-line. A few seconds later, a pair of vicious orange eyes appeared between some of the high-up branches. Upon seeing the ponies, the owner of these eyes roared, and as he began to step out into the moonlight, Twilight recognized him as a black dragon. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

"This is it," she said, charging up her horn's magic. "I hope our plan doesn't turn out to be a terrible mistake…"

For a terrifying moment, this appeared to be the case. As the dragon drew near, however, there was a sudden flash of light somewhere about his face, causing him to screech in pain and stumble backwards. After sniffing at the invisible barrier and cautiously poking at it a few times, he decided that pursuing his pony prey any longer was no longer worth his time, and returned home, knocking over a few small trees on his way.

Twilight made sure not to lose track of the point in the air where the flash had appeared. Now that she had seen the enchantment with her own eyes (and detected it with other, stranger senses), she was able to feel her way through it, her magic probing at unseen curves and planes in space. To her astonishment, the enchantment turned out to be a massive barrier extending high into the air.

"I don't believe it," she said softly as she stared up into the sky.

"What?" asked Spike. "What's going on?"

"It's giant, invisible dome—I think it covers all of Ponyville. This is it, it must be. This is how they control the weather, make cutie marks, and do who knows what else…"

"Who's 'they'?" asked Fluttershy.

"Celestia, Luna, I don't know. Whoever it was, and whatever they had in mind when they created this thing, they hid it incredibly well. I'd have never even guessed it was there without seeing it in action just now. Spike, take some notes."

He pulled a notepad and a quill from her saddlebag and dutifully copied down a number of equations and statements as Twilight recited them, pacing circles around him in the grass.

"…and then close parens, that goes with the open parens right before S¬1. Everything inside those parens, you divide it all by… well, I don't know what to call it; there's no name for it yet and I still have to solve it."

"So what do I write?" asked Spike.

"It's a bunch of stuff you wrote earlier, but it's a quantity I might need later so we need a shorthand for it… y'know, I think it's a constant."

"Whatever you want me to write, I'll write it."

Twilight spent a few second racking her brain. "Well… it's crude, but for now, just call it mu, since we haven't used that yet."

"'Myu'? Like the sound a cat makes?"

"No, I mean the letter from the ancient pony alphabet!" Spike scratched his head. Twilight groaned. "Here, let me see what you have."

She snatched the notepad from him and read it with growing despair. "Spike, this isn't what I said at all! The different equations are all bleeding into each other, so many of the symbols are wrong, and—why is this part written diagonally?"

Spike crossed his arms. "I ran out of room."

"You know what? It's fine. I'll do it myself." She turned to a fresh page and scribbled furiously. Spike's shoulders sagged as he looked to Fluttershy imploringly. She shrugged.

"There!" declared Twilight as she put the notepad and quill away. "I can do a deeper analysis later."

"So… what happens now?" asked Fluttershy.

"The fastest way we can learn more about the enchantments is to try to recreate them on a smaller scale." She strode over to a gathering of rocks. "What I want to know is why something like this would need to be secret." She concentrated hard and began carving through the air with a sparkling dome which quickly faded from sight.

"Cheerilee said cutie marks can control our behavior, right?" asked Spike. "So maybe it's some kind of crazy mind control thing."

Twilight glanced at her flank. "Well, if that's the case, they're not doing a very good job. How is it we've managed to get this far if our minds are being controlled?"

As she was trying to infuse the dome with a simple enchantment, the sound of approaching hoofsteps diverted her attention. She looked up.

"Applejack? Rarity? What are you two doing here?"

"We're gonna have to regroup early," said Applejack with a glance over her shoulder. "There're guards lookin' fer us, and they're bein' much more persistent than last time. We need to round up everypony and get out of Maneheart with our hides intact."

Twilight nodded and set off towards Ponyville with Spike atop her back and the three ponies by her side. They all skidded to a halt as they saw four guards patrolling the streets, all carrying flashlights.

"I got Applebloom hidin' in the barn," whispered Applejack, "but the boutique is closer, so we can go there and find Sweetie Belle first."

They slunk through the darkness, approaching the building from behind. Rarity gently tapped on one of the windows. After several seconds, she turned to Twilight and whispered "I don't think she's coming to the window, but I don't want to go in through the door. There's light shining on it from that window across the street."

Twilight squinted through the window into the dormant boutique. "I have an idea. Spike, jump down. All of you wait here."

In a flash, she was on the other side of the window. "Sweetie Belle?" she asked the shadows. She repeated the name softly, glancing from side to side as she made her way upstairs. Something small, white and silent slunk out into view, a shapeless blur calmly abstracting towards her.

"There you are. Come on, we need to"—Sweetie Belle rubbed up against Twilight's legs and started purring, at which point she realized it was not Rarity's sister at all but rather her cat, Opal. She resumed her search, this time with her horn dimly lit. There was no one in the closets, behind the fabric, under the stacks of unfinished dresses…

She slowly reached her head under a bed only to be blindsided by a hard poke to the cheek.

"Ow!"

"Twilight?"

Sweetie Belle crawled out from under the bed, stumbling off her sleepiness. "Sorry, I thought you were a guard."

"It's alright. Come along, we need to get out of here."

As they were walking downstairs, Twilight froze, blocking Sweetie Belle with her hoof. Outside, right where her friends had been standing, there were now two armored guards. Twilight put out her horn and ducked down.

"…can't have been out of town, at least not for very long," said one guard's muffled voice. "We've talked to plenty of ponies who've seen them around."

"And yet, our searches always come up dry," said the other. "It makes me wonder if they're still in Ponyville, just hiding from us."

"It's sure starting to look like it. Come on, let's try to be a little more thorough this time. If we see any of them, try to drag them off without waking the town."

Twilight and Sweetie Belle were just starting to inch back up the stairs when the door swung open and a flashlight was staring them in their faces.

For a moment, the two accosted ponies stumbled in the glaring light as the guards stared at them. Then, there was a rush of approaching hooves, and Twilight instinctively reached for her magic…

…She materialized outside, still disoriented by the jarring transitions between light and dark. As she fumbled around, however, it was immediately clear that something had gone wrong.

"Sweetie Belle?"

She cursed herself as she realized she'd left the filly inside. Then, there was a flash of light in front of her, and Sweetie Belle fell onto her side, legs flailing. Twilight pulled her into a standing position, and together, they galloped up towards the forest.

"I didn't know you could teleport," said Twilight as they skirted the trees, making a large circle around Ponyville.

"Me neither. It just happened by accident, right as they were grabbing me."

"Grabbing you?" Twilight shuddered. If the guards had been willing to kidnap a child to use as leverage, then and her friends could very well have the same standing as wanted criminals. There's no turning back now, she realized.

…

Applejack, Spike, Rarity and Fluttershy had made their way to Sugarcube Corner after narrowly avoiding a pair of guards. Pinkie Pie was waiting for them at the door, and together the five of them took a winding, roundabout path through Ponyville, towards Sweet Apple Acres.

As they pressed up the hillside, Spike looked down at Rarity, upon whose back he was perched. "What do you think happened to Twilight?"

"She can handle herself," she said, though her voice was tense. "She and Sweetie Belle are probably looking for us by now."

After a few unsettling moments in the open, with no cover in reach, they made their way to the barn. "Applebloom!" hissed Applejack. "It's time to go!"

Applebloom emerged from a pile of hay, rubbing her eyes and yawning. "Where exactly are we goin' again?"

Applejack frowned. "We'll figure somethin' out."

As they moved along the edge of Ponyville, Applebloom started lagging behind. "We gotta bring Scootaloo with us," she said. "She knows too much. If the guards catch her, they'll lock her up so she can't tell anypony what happened in Sustria."

They froze as they heard somepony galloping towards them from the edge of the Everfree. "Stay close to the trees," whispered Applejack. As a dim, nearly imperceptible light slowed to a stop before them, they relaxed at the sight of two familiar ponies.

"Sweetie Belle!" said Rarity. She embraced her sister momentarily, but Twilight started nudging her onward.

"The guards are close behind us," she explained. "We have to keep moving." Rarity nodded, and together the eight of them forged on, led by Applebloom.

As they approached Scootaloo's house through an alleyway, Twilight looked over her shoulder. "We need to make sure we lose the guards before we pick her up. Otherwise, we'll just make her a target."

They ducked behind some barrels and waited for the dreaded lights to pass by the alley. Then, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle tentatively tapped a few times on Scootaloo's window.

Sweetie Belle looked at Twilight. "You should probably go in." Twilight nodded. A moment later, she was inside the unfamiliar house, weaving around furniture and hoping her intrusion wouldn't—

"Ow!"

Twilight stumbled from the sudden blow to her hip, flailing her hooves in front of her face while feeling around telekinetically. After enduring a few more slaps, she snatched someone small and squirming from on top of her, levitating Scootaloo in the air as she growled menacingly.

"Scootaloo, it's me, Twilight!"

"What? Oh."

` Twilight glanced out the window, confirming that her friends were still safe. "Listen, you and your friends know too much about what happened in Sustria, and the guards may come after you, so we need to get you out of Ponyville until the danger is sorted out. We're not sure how long we'll be gone—it could be months. If you want, you can go wake your parents, and they can come along, but we have to leave tonight."

Scootaloo glanced towards the stairs. "Uh… my parents are on, y'know, vacation. They won't be back 'till… later."

Twilight sighed. "Then we'll just have to leave right now." In a flash, they were back outside the house, and the party was complete.

"Alright," said Applejack, "now that we're all set, let's"—

"Freeze!" They whipped around to see four guards bearing down on them from the end of the alley. As they turned to run, however, another four appeared on the opposite end.

"We're… trapped," whimpered Fluttershy.

"Then we'll have to fight," snarled Scootaloo. She hopped onto a trash can, flaring her wings out so as to appear larger. "We're not afraid of you!" she shouted at the guards.

Twilight conjured a barrier behind her, blocking half of the attack. Meanwhile, the other four guards charged, blocking kicks from Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. Applebloom swung herself up onto one's back and covered his eyes, allowing Applejack to kick him in the chest. The other three guards swung their flashlights, and one of them connected with Fluttershy's jaw, eliciting a cry as she crumpled against the wall, holding her face in her hooves.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. As the four guards behind them pressed against the barrier, causing it to shift and wobble, Twilight risked a second, simultaneous spell which flung the other four onto their backs. She dragged Fluttershy up and shouted "Run!" As she and the others rushed past the fallen pegasi, the magical wall collapsed, and the eight guards dashed after their quarry.

They zigzagged through town, narrowly dodging closed stands, barrels, and rosebushes as they made their way towards the open fields. Twilight realized there was no way they could manage a sustained chase, so as they fled the town, she charged a single, powerful spell, making sure this time to encompass all of the ponies around her…

A burst of light erupted and they were placeless, flung from gravity, falling without direction, and then a moment later they stumbled and crashed back into the physical plane, into trees and ferns.

Twilight scrambled to her hooves, lit her horn, and managed a quick head count. To her relief, everypony had made it.

"Where are we?" asked Spike. He grabbed onto a fern for balance, but ripped off its leaves and fell sideways.

"We're in the Everfree Forest," said Twilight, "and probably not far from Ponyville. We can't stop yet."

They pressed on deeper into the woods, too tired to run. "Fluttershy," said Twilight, "are you okay?"

"I don't know. I think so."

Twilight shone her horn-light on Fluttershy's face. There was a moderately-sized bruise on her jaw, but nothing looked out of place.

"What did we do to deserve this?" asked Rarity. "We didn't break the law. We aren't thieves, or hooligans, or murderers."

"It ain't that we're murders," said Applejack grimly. "It's that they are."

…

An hour or two into the woods, Sweetie Belle collapsed. "I'm too tired," she moaned. "Need to sleep."

"We'll sleep in shifts," said Twilight, "and I'll stay up first."

Sweetie Belle heeded the command almost instantly, rolling onto her side and snoring softly on the wet moss. "I wished I had a blanket to put over her," yawned Rarity as she curled up next to her sister, joining her in slumber. As everypony else settled down, Twilight secretly resolved to stay awake for the rest of the night.

…

Twilight knelt before the massive statue, the noble alicorn standing watching over the tomb. He had lived before Celestia and Luna; before ponies and Equestria; before time and space. Giver, Peacemaker, All-Father.

The tomb itself was nearly as ancient, filled with crumbling stone giving way to the dirt around it. High up in the air, the domed ceiling peaked in a tiny aperture which let in a thin ray of ethereal light tinged with drifting dust. Twilight opened her mouth, letting a stream of black-and-white static trickle out. Pray, she thought, a sense of peace swelling in her soul. Angel.

The statue's eyes shifted, and it looked down at her. Suddenly something was wrong, the praying stopped, she backed away, shaking her head and spraying static everywhere. It crackled on the ground, spinning away into space.

"Be not afraid of the dead god," spoke the alicorn in the most terrifying voice imaginable.

Twilight started crying, her tears indistinguishable from the substance pouring from her mouth. Prayers, tears, pleas. Don't Let Me Go Away. Let Me Shiver Afraid Forever.

"I know it hurts, Twilight. The pain is your everything; the fear is your heart and soul. You have wholly occupied your epistemology with that shifting, nebulous space between the edge of your skin and the rest of the universe, wherein all of your worst anxieties dwell. Life is fear, fear is life. But, Twilight, I'm here to save you. You need to open yourself, let in the light. There's a wonderful sense of adventure just waiting for you to experience it."

Twilight thought she was surely going to drown in static. His voice was too awful to bear.

"My voice upsets you because you have learned to hate and fear the truth, and I can speak nothing else. You must overcome, you must make the great leap before you can find the freedom to live."

His voice grew dimmer. She writhed on the ground, bleeding black and white, her limbs jerking about as her soul bled out. All her life she had been, and now she was not. Her final thoughts were of loathing that awful, glaring, unforgiving light which shone through her, her worst secret of all suddenly translucent before the King, before herself. The space she'd occupied, the construction of her very self, was draining out, dissolving, shooting off into space…

The alicorn shook his head in disappointment.

…

"I still have a copy of the photo," said Rarity. "We could show it to her when she wakes up."

Applejack glanced briefly around the sunlit campsite—the two of them were the only ones awake. She raised an eyebrow. "Now?" she whispered. "It'd drive her insane. She's been through so much… we have to wait until things get better. I"—

They froze as they heard somepony yawn. Pinkie stretched and shook herself awake as she walked over to them. "What's going on?" she asked softly. "Did I miss my shift?"

Rarity shook her head. "I think Twilight went to sleep without waking any of us. I suppose I can't blame her… after all, we are all still in one piece."

Pinkie examined her hind legs, which were still attached to her hips. "What were you talking about just now?"

"The photo," said Applejack. Pinkie's ears drooped.

"I'm just worried," said Rarity, "that things are going to get worse before they get better. We need to show it to Twilight at some point—if not today, then soon."

Pinkie nodded. "That's right. Twilight has a right to know that Princess Celestia's done something so awful." Suddenly, she flinched, shaking her head.

"What's wrong?" asked Applejack.

"It's my Pinkie sense." Applejack's hair bristled.

"What do ya think is gonna happen?"

"It's hard to say. See, for a long time now, I've been feeling this rumbling, like a really loud sound that I can't quite hear, and it gives me this sad, scared feeling. Now, though, it's like there's also this light that's really, really bright, only I can't quite see it because it's the wrong color."

"How can you tell there's a bright light if you can't even see it?" asked Rarity.

"I don't know. I guess that's just how my Pinkie Sense works sometimes… I really wish I knew what this meant. I can't even tell if it's something good or bad."

"We'll find out eventually, I s'pose."

One by one, the others rose, breakfasting on the natural vegetation around them. Birds chirped, wind swept gently through the trees, and life buzzed all around—amorphous, flowing, complete.

Before long, they were ready to start moving again. "We should head to Zecora's," suggested Applebloom. "Maybe she knows somethin' about the forest that'll come in useful."

After a few minutes of being lost, they made their way to Zecora's hut and knocked on the door.

"So many of you have come today," she said as she answered them. "Might I help you in some way?"

"Well, y'see," said Applejack, "things ain't exactly safe in Ponyville for the time bein', so we were wonderin' if… y'know, you could tell us what might be on the other side o' these woods."

Zecora raised an eyebrow. "The Everfree stretches far and wide. I have never seen the other side." Applejack sighed.

"Well," said Twilight, "we could always trek further out and just hope for the best."

"And put these fillies in danger of ferocious beasts?" asked Rarity, looking at Sweetie Belle. "I should hope there's some other option."

"My hut is safe," said Zecora, "so they may stay here. That way, they would have nothing to fear."

"Of course!" said Twilight. "They can stay here while we look for the safest way through the forest. Once we find it, we can come back and pick them up."

Everypony nodded except for the fillies. "We can handle any monsters," said Scootaloo. "We took care of those guards, didn't we?"

"Y'all got lucky back there," said Applejack. "Yer stayin' with Zecora, and that's final."

With that, the six of them set off, ignoring the fillies' protests.

…

A few hours into their foray, the forest became strangely silent. The wind held its breath, the trees bristled like crouched animals, and Twilight felt as though she were being watched.

Suddenly, she heard a series of odd cracking sounds in the distance—as of something moving rapidly through the canopy. Everypony stopped walking as they heard the thing moving closer, lower, like some ruthless, efficient killer that nature had made simply to spite itself. Twilight knew her timing would have to be perfect, and as soon as the thing broke through the branches above, she pinned it to the ground with her magic, crunching a thick patch of dead leaves, and then she saw that it was—

"Rainbow Dash?"

"Twilight! There you are!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, it started when I—hey, would you mind letting me up?"

"Oh. Sorry," said Twilight, embarrassed, and she released her mental grip on Rainbow Dash.

"Thanks. Anyway…" She described her foray into Sustria, her escape from the murderous Wonderbolt, the colossal storm, her discovery of the village of ponies without cutie marks, and her capture in the hidden town.

"You were captured?" interrupted Twilight. "And they were going to take you to the Princess? How the hay did you get out of that one?"

"Here, I'll show you." She laid down a smooth, metal plate that had been strapped to her back, and tapped on it three times, producing three clear ringing sounds. After a few seconds, a glimmer of light appeared above the plate.

"You should all stand back," advised Rainbow Dash. As they did, the glimmer expanded and contorted nebulously until it burst, sending out bright rays of light.

All around, jaws dropped as they recognized the figure before them. "This," Rainbow explained, "was the princess they were taking me to."

Suddenly growing self-conscious, Twilight dropped into a bowing position as quickly as she could without tripping, prompting the others to follow suit.

"Come on, now," said Princess Luna with a light, tinkling laugh. "There's really no need for that."