Wànlǐ Chángchéng / A Great Wall

by Baal Bunny

5 - Wǔ

Fortunately, during his patrol that evening, Mèng Huàn sniffed out another spot in the dreamscape where the guǐ guài were beginning to bore their way through his barriers. So he was able to spend several satisfyingly crunchy hours concentrating on pest control rather than on whatever tomorrow's dawn might bring.

Not that he had lost faith in Twilight. In fact—and he tried not to think about this, too—he had perhaps too much faith in her. Because, yes, he had dealt with many a monstrous and disreputable character during his centuries serving Cōng Mǎ Guó, and yes, neither of those adjectives could apply to Twilight Sparkle in the slightest. But still—

No. That foul little voice in his head was absolutely and completely wrong. That she had appeared when Bómù had disappeared and had been followed almost immediately by Tiāngǒu and Yúhuī was utter coincidence. Of this, Mèng Huàn was more than certain.

Bringing his hoofs down smartly upon the final brace of squirming vermin, he couldn't help smiling at the thought of Twilight—

And a part of his dream sense tolled like a deep and distant bell: Twilight had just fallen asleep, he realized. The quiet gong went off again, and his ears perked up. She wasn't just asleep; she was also trying to direct her dreams toward him, her attempts to stir his realm shaky but not entirely without skill.

A conjured waterfall sluiced the bug guts from his shoes, and he whisked himself from the darker borders of his domain to the more hospitable portions near the center. Following her unmistakable lavender scent, he stepped through a shimmering wall into a dream of deep blue skies and white fluffy clouds only to see Twilight herself hovering with her eyes closed just to his left. Her head kept nodding, touching her horn to the pearlescent surface that in all actuality, she shouldn't have been able to sense in the slightest. Each touch made the whole dream waver, and each waver sent out the signal he'd been hearing.

Staring, he recognized it as a technique he'd taught to Xīng Xuán Wō more than a thousand years ago, though he couldn't recall the sorceress ever actually using it to contact him. He'd thought a few times about teaching it to Bómù, but Twilight's Princess Luna had apparently done more than just consider it...

Twilight's mouth went sideways. "C'mon, c'mon!" she muttered. Her eyes came open, and she started back. "Mèng Huàn! Is...is it you, or am I dreaming?"

Glad that his dark complexion hid his blushes so well—Tiān Shàng would surely have had something to say about how a gentlecolt shouldn't stare at a mare without her knowledge—he couldn't help cocking his head and smiling. "Am I the sort you're likely to dream about?"

That got her blushing, but she cocked her head and smiled as well. "I'll answer that if you'll tell me how long you've been standing there watching me." Her smile faded. "Seriously, though, I talked things over with Píng and Hóng and everypony, and while we're not entirely sure what we'll be able to do, we all agreed that we need to be there and ready to do something in the morning in case anything happens." Her smile came back more than a little sheepishly. "So I kind of commandeered the midnight postal express train, and we're all on route. We should be there just before dawn."

Something loosened in Mèng Huàn's chest, a tightness he hadn't even noticed till it was gone and he could take a full breath. "I shall look forward to your arrival," he decided to say instead of one of the more effusive sentiments he could feel lurking about on the back of his tongue.

"Me, too," Twilight said, and for half a heartbeat, Mèng Huàn thought she might say more. But she yawned instead, her ears folding and a hoof covering her mouth. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I just—"

"You need your sleep." He bowed to her. "You shall all have as pleasant a night as I can give you in the hope that you might be refreshed when next we meet in the waking world." He puffed a gentle breath over her; her eyes rolled closed, and one of the clouds around them drifted up so she could settle into deeper slumber atop it.

Tempted to lean down and press a gentle kiss to her forehead, Mèng Huàn instead leaped through the wall of her dream and out into the larger dreamscape, a troubling thought prodding at him for the first time.

If he was indeed forced to give up the moon, how would that affect his role here? All his duties were linked, of course, but the more he considered it now from his vantage point floating above the assembled and assorted dream worlds of his charges, he realized that he'd always seen his role as Night Bringer in a secondary light. Dream was his name, after all, and serving the ponies of Cōng Mǎ Guó as their Dream Guardian gave him a satisfaction nothing else in his long, long life ever had.

So what would happen to the dreamscape should Tiāngǒu and Yúhuī succeed?

Gritting his teeth, Mèng Huàn plunged through the aethersphere to the outer reaches of his realm. In his heart of hearts, he had to admit that he expected the next day to be fairly ugly despite all Twilight's efforts, so the best use of his time now, he felt, would be in reinforcing the boundaries and barriers around here. No matter what happened, he swore that he would return, but, well, his previous absence had lasted a thousand years, and while his brother had done what he could, Tiān Shàng was too connected to the waking world to enter here with any more force than a simple daydream. Mèng Huàn had in fact only gotten things back up and running correctly in his realm within the last dozen moons...

Time flew, Mèng Huàn circumnavigating his entire domain. At one point, he felt a rustle of something from Twilight, but when it vanished before he could begin turning his attention in that direction, he realized that she must've woken. Rising a bit closer to the waking world himself, he sensed the time for dawn approaching—

And further sensed a disturbance, something as rough and uncomfortable as sand against his inner eye. With a snort, he brought himself to full consciousness, leaped from bed, perked his ears, and held his breath.

Alarms clanged somewhere on the palace grounds; concentrating on them, Mèng Huàn let his magic carry him vapor thin and lightning fast to the guard barracks. Lights blazed from the windows, ponies inside quickly pulling on their armor while those outside loaded the emergency carts with rope and sandbags and other equipment. And with the sun not yet up, all Cōng Mǎ Guó was still under his jurisdiction.

Mèng Huàn coalesced beside the burly pegasus directing traffic from a perch above the barracks gate. "Report, captain," he said.

The captain saluted but didn't, Mèng Huàn was glad to see, cease from his duties. "Dam collapse, Your Highness, between here and Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng. Washed out the train tracks and a nearby settlement of farmers. Good thing this new Princess Twilight was right there with Prince Bómù's friends: the message we got says they're pulling folks out, rescuing cattle and sheep, and doing what they can to hold things together till we arrive." He cast a sideways glance at Mèng Huàn. "So if you'll pardon me, Your Highness?"

"Yes, of course." Mèng Huàn refused to let his voice falter and stepped back. "Carry on."

With another quick salute, the captain flapped to the top of the lead cart. "Company! Move out!" he shouted, and the ponies in harness pulled the entire convoy out of the courtyard at nearly a gallop.

His internal clock chimed; not letting himself think, he whisked away to the balcony outside Tiān Shàng's apartment.

"Brother?" Tiān Shàng asked, his brow wrinkled. "Did I hear emergency gongs?"

"You did," Mèng Huàn answered.

But before he could continue, a gruff voice said behind him, "A tragedy, really."

Whirling, he blinked to see Tiāngǒu and Yúhuī, the two of them sitting at the end of the balcony, the big dog's eyes glowing in the light from Tiān Shàng's room. "Except," Yúhuī said with the smallest of shrugs, "it could hardly be called a tragedy. Those poor farmers did nothing to bring their misfortune upon themselves."

"True." Tiāngǒu shook his head. "Perhaps an investigation of the construction company who built the dam will be in order." His smile spread jaggedly along his snout. "I'll look into it once I take my rightful place as steward of the night."

"Dam?" Tiān Shàng's mane puffed out. "Has there been an accident?"

"No." Mèng Huàn took a step toward the two and could barely keep from shouting. "If you know about it, then you were there. And that means it was no accident."

Yúhuī merely shrugged again. "I'm sure Tiāngǒu's investigation will be both complete and thorough, but for now"—he nodded toward the eastern horizon—"perhaps we could have the dawn and bring this farce to its conclusion?"

The crystal blue of Tiān Shàng's mane was absolutely bristling, something Mèng Huàn didn't think he'd seen in a dozen centuries. "What have you done, Yúhuī?"

Tiāngǒu growled, a rumble of thunder under his words. "That doesn't matter, Tiān Shàng! What matters is that I've been the very soul of patience these past two days! But I have rights under the agreements we signed, rights that you will honor!" His voice dropped. "Or you and this entire world will pay the consequences."

Tiān Shàng seemed ready to continue arguing, but Mèng Huàn lit his horn. "The rescue efforts, brother, will go much more smoothly in the light of day." He reached out, pushed the moon downward—

And felt it slip from his magical grasp like ice beneath his hooves. "Ahhh," Tiāngǒu said, his eyes slitting halfway shut. "That's what I've been missing."

The suddenness of the loss struck Mèng Huàn so squarely in the chest, it stole his breath and made him gasp. "Damn you!" Tiān Shàng shouted. "We know Yúhuī took those letters! If Twilight were here—!"

"She's not," Yúhuī said, Mèng Huàn unable to stop a shiver. "And what you know doesn't matter in the slightest if you can't prove it."

The whole world seemed to freeze then, Tiān Shàng's eyes narrowing to slits. "This is my domain," he whispered, yet the building seemed to shake.

A grin stretched tight across Yúhuī's muzzle. "You admit it, then? Should we call you Emperor Tiān Shàng now? Or perhaps you'd prefer the title of Tyrant?"

"Brother." Mèng Huàn concentrated and managed to gather enough air into his lungs. "Follow the law. Raise the sun. And trust."

For another long moment, nothing continued moving anywhere around Mèng Huàn. Then with a sigh that was very nearly a snort, Tiān Shàng bowed his head. His horn began to glow, the eastern horizon did as well, and Yúhuī gave a chuckle that to Mèng Huàn's ears contained more than a little nervous relief. "So predictable," the unicorn said, and when the first ray of morning light washed over the balcony, Yúhuī's fiery coat seemed to grab it and hold it suspended. "And as you cannot prove you ever cancelled the contract with my friend Tiāngǒu, I believe the power of the night will now devolve back to him."

Something lurched deep inside Mèng Huàn's chest, and for all that he knew resistance would prove useless, he couldn't keep from trying to clamp his teeth shut as the burning, wriggling sensation forced itself upward along his throat. The pressure built and built, his head pounding until he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't stop his jaw from popping open. Thick tendrils of silvery light spewed from his mouth in a twisting rush and burst across the balcony to smack straight into Tiāngǒu.

The dog's smile grew, the silver flow vanishing into his black hair and giving it a shimmer like oil on water.

Mèng Huàn refused to let himself collapse. "We will...appeal this," he managed to say, wincing at how hollow the words sounded.

"Of course." Yúhuī stepped toward Tiāngǒu, his horn flaring with the beginning of a spell. "But without copies of those letters or some other proof, I can't imagine you'll have a leg to stand on. Speaking of which"—lightning arched from him to Tiāngǒu—"why don't you sit, boy?"

The foul stink of Yúhuī's horrible magic made Mèng Huàn gasp—

But the lightning fizzled as it stuck Tiāngǒu. "Ah." The big dog turned his grin toward Yúhuī. "Sweet treachery." He smacked his lips, reached a paw up to his own neck, and made a jerking motion.

A tube of light suddenly appeared squirming between Tiāngǒu and Yúhuī, Tiāngǒu holding one end of it and detaching it from himself with an audible pop. "Speaking of predictable," he said, and flexing his foreleg, he whipped the tube of light into motion, cracking it out to wrap several coils around Yúhuī's neck.

The unicorn's gasp choked off, and Tiāngǒu wrenched the coils tighter, hauling Yúhuī partly into the brightening air. "Astonishing." The dog shook his head and turned to face Tiān Shàng. "In all my long, long life, I've never come across any being—pony, minotaur, griffon, or otherwise—who has hated another as much as this one hates you." He raised the tether a bit further, Yúhuī's eyes bulging and his front hooves scrabbling at the glowing coils. "He even cast a concealed siphon spell on me about two minutes after we first met, I assume in anticipation of this very moment when he planned to betray me."

Yúhuī's face turning redder and redder, Tiāngǒu shoved his snarling snout into it. "You truly thought I wouldn't feel such powerful and grotesque magic, fool? And now that you've actually activated it, you've rendered the agreement we signed null and void under the 'partners attacking partners' clause. Which means I have no further obligations to follow our contract's strictures either." Exposing most of his teeth, Tiāngǒu tossed his end of the glowing tether over the balcony rail. "A pleasure doing business with you, Yúhuī Yì Yào." The rest of the tether followed, yanking Yúhuī off his hooves; without another sound, the unicorn was hauled over the edge and vanished from sight.

Tiān Shàng reared back on his hind legs, unfurled his wings, shouted, "Yúhuī!" and leaped off the balcony after his former student.

Tiāngǒu either didn't notice or didn't care, those hungry, glowing eyes never straying from Mèng Huàn's. "And now for the rest of you," Tiāngǒu growled.

Summoning his remaining strength, Mèng Huàn leaped from the material realm into his true domain. Of course, ponies were waking up all over Cōng Mǎ Guó, lessening the dream world with each departure and thinning the power he could draw upon. Still, he could perhaps gather himself together here, then return to—

A huff of breath behind him, and something large and solid swept his hind legs out from under him. Trying to roll, he ended up tumbling instead, exhaustion making his wings flail rather than flap; he sprawled sideways, the cloudscape rough as gravel against his hide, and when he looked up, all he could see were Tiāngǒu's white teeth and red gaze. "Oh, yes." That voice, also rough as gravel, ground into his ears. "This is the tastiest part of all."

"How?" was all Mèng Huàn could squeeze out.

The dog shrugged his big shoulders. "When Tiān Shàng gave me the night to run, I sensed this realm just beyond my grasp. I tried to take more of your power so I could enter here, but Tiān Shàng fired me before I could manage it. For centuries, I brooded, then that fool Yúhuī appeared with the letters he'd stolen and asked me if I wanted another chance." Fire licked from Tiāngǒu's eye sockets. "And once I've taken over their dreams, the ponies will either make me the sort of god you and your brother so stupidly refuse to be, or I will destroy them."

Planting his hooves, Mèng Huàn pushed himself up, lowered his head, and gave the only possible response: "No."

Somehow, Tiāngǒu's grin widened even further. "Good," he said. "The meat's always sweeter when it tries fighting back."

"Go!" Píng shouted below her. He gave the rope holding the retaining wall in place another tug. "We got this!"

Water thundered past, the flood deflecting off the barricade Twilight had thrown into place using chunks from the shattered dam. A quick glance upriver and back down again showed her the immediate threat was over—the amount of water still left in the reservoir and the height of the makeshift levees they'd constructed made her almost certain the town was safe—but still she hesitated. "You're sure?" she called back.

"One hundred percent!" Hóng swooped in to hover beside her, either sweat or water dripping from his mane. "Whatever's happening with Mèng Huàn, it's happening right now, and you're the only one who can get there in time! So buck those jerks in the teeth, and we'll be along quick as we can!"

Nodding, panting, her horn already buzzing with low-level exhaustion, Twilight closed her eyes, visualized the tower of the palace at Yuè Mǎ Jīng, and cast her teleportation spell.

Her ears popped at the change in altitude, but it was the magical turbulence in the area that nearly spun her around. Focusing on the center of the roiling waves of energy, she dove for what had to be Tiān Shàng's balcony, the construction and position reminding her of the spot back home where Luna and Celestia got together every morning to lower the night and raise the day.

Two figures lay sprawled across the balcony: one large and white, the other smaller and golden-yellow. Fear drove her to steepen her dive, questions bursting through her, but when she pulled up to land, she saw the glow of Tiān Shàng's magic surrounding Yúhuī, angry red burns all around the unicorn's throat.

Without another thought, Twilight rushed forward, added her magic to the mix, and slowly the marks faded, Yúhuī's ragged breathing smoothing out.

Only then did Tiān Shàng settle back, everything about him as brittle as ancient porcelain. "Twilight," he said, his voice hollow. "The dam collapse. All's well?"

"As well as we could manage." Twilight could barely keep from yelling. "Where's Mèng Huàn? What happened?"

"Tiāngǒu." Tiān Shàng nodded to Yúhuī, motionless other than his sides rising and falling. "Yúhuī did exactly as you thought, but Tiāngǒu was prepared. He...he strangled Yúhuī in his own spell, threw him off the balcony, then leaped for Mèng Huàn, and I...I—" Tiān Shàng's ears folded, and Twilight realized he was trembling. "I didn't even think. I dove off after Yúhuī and left my brother to that...that—"

"Why?" a quiet and rasping voice asked. Twilight snapped her head over and saw Yúhuī pushing himself into a sitting position, his expression wavering every bit as much as Tiān Shàng's. "Why would you—? After everything I— You should've let me—" He put a hoof to his throat, his eyes wide and locked on Tiān Shàng. "Why?"

Tiān Shàng shrugged, the normally elegant motion jittery. "I've failed you so many times before, Yào Yào, I...I couldn't let myself fail you again."

Yúhuī's jaw dropped, and as much as Twilight didn't want to risk trampling the first budding blossoms of rapprochement she could practically smell flowering here— "Mèng Huàn," she said, forcing herself not to stomp the floor with all her might. "Where would Tiāngǒu have taken him?"

"The dreamscape." Yúhuī's gaze darted back and forth between Tiān Shàng and Twilight. "When I...I stole the paperwork from the archives and tracked him down to...to start all this, he said getting control of the dreamscape was his ultimate goal." His breathing began speeding up. "I didn't pay any attention since I planned to steal Mèng Huàn's power from him as soon as he took it in, but if that cur actually does take over the Realms of Dreams..." For the first time since Twilight had met him, every bit of smugness drained from Yúhuī Yì Yào.

Anger began darkening Tiān Shàng's face. "The dreamscape. Of course. The one place I cannot follow."

"I can." Twilight leaped up, her knees wobbling just a bit at the plan that sprang into her mind. "Kind of. But listen." She took Tiān Shàng's front hooves in hers. "You need to get to the scene of the dam collapse and get my friends—I mean Bómù's friends—I mean—" She shook her head quickly. "You know who I mean. Bring them back here as fast as you can so they can be standing by to use Rainbow Power or whatever you call it here." If we can even do it, she pointedly didn't say out loud: Tiān Shàng was looking unstable enough without bringing that up.

Another shake of her head, and she turned to Yúhuī with a swallow. "The only way I know to get into the dreamscape is by going to sleep. So when I confront Tiāngǒu there, the first thing he'll do is lash out to attack my body here." And for all that Twilight wasn't sure that this was the right way to go, she really didn't have any other choice at this point. She took a deep breath, her tired muscles twinging. "You're the only one who'll be strong enough to stop him from getting to me. Because if he so much as wakes me up, he'll have won, and none of us wants that."

"You—" Another layer of astonishment plastered itself over Yúhuī, then he blinked, and all his shivering firmed up. "I will not fail," he said with a nod.

Wishing she had time to think of something else, Twilight instead nodded back and turned to Tiān Shàng, the alicorn's scent a strange mix of sour and sweet, of fear and hope. "Then go," Twilight said to him, and pushing aside her doubts, she cast the dreamwalking spell Luna had been teaching her.

She'd almost gotten used to the initial swirl of disorientation—she could feel her physical self slump into a sleeping heap at the same time as she felt her immaterial self whisk away through the latticework of atoms and energy and into the tenuous uncertainty of the dreamworld. Forcing her inner eyes to open, she found herself standing on a cloud in the same infinite blue sky she always visualized at the beginning of any dream spell. With a focusing breath, she slid deeper into the magic, opened her inner eyes a second time, and saw the wall of her own personal dreamspace right beside her, the usually invisible partition curving now like a pane of glass up, down, and all around.

Tapping on this surface would get Luna's attention—and Mèng Huàn's as well, she'd discovered earlier. But attention wasn't her goal this time; the breath she took quivered in her lungs, and she had to take another before she could focus enough to sink even deeper into the magic. Opening her inner eyes a third time, she watched the glass soften and shimmer till it became something much more like a gigantic soap bubble enclosing her.

One more breath, and spreading her wings, she sparked her horn and threw herself with all her strength at the bubble's surface.

It popped, and so did the whole world, darkness crashing over her. Driving winds slammed her first one way, then the other, but following Luna's directions, she didn't tense up, didn't fight, didn't try for any sort of control. Instead, she imagined her muscles turning to butter, to ice cream, to flowing hot fudge—they'd been having dessert when Luna had explained this part of the spell to her the first time....

The memory made Twilight laugh, let her relax even further, and the winds were suddenly gusting through her rather than against her. Breathing the tumult in and blowing it out, she lowered herself along the slope into the last level of the spell.

The winds wheeled around once more until they were traveling with her, and opening her inner eyes the fourth and final time, she saw a world of silver, gray, and black, clouds like the palest possible cotton candy mounting to unimaginable heights and plunging to unfathomable depths.

And directly ahead, in a space that seemed to be both empty air and limpid water, two dark figures lunged and circled, spun and attacked: Tiāngǒu as black as the bottom of a mine shaft, forest fire red streaming from his eyes and snarls bursting past his bared teeth; and Mèng Huàn as black as a winter midnight sky, the starlight gleaming from his mane and tail as sharp as pinpricks.

Mèng Huàn was obviously lathered as well, his silver shoes striking the big dog but with less force each time. Gritting her teeth, Twilight rushed toward them, her horn protesting after the workout she'd already given it this morning, and fired the crystal entombment spell she'd learned from Starlight Glimmer at Tiāngǒu.

The spell flashed but not fast enough, the fight shifting so that the blast just grazed Tiāngǒu's left rear paw; the sudden weight of the crystal that formed around his leg, though, threw him off-balance, and Mèng Huàn's next kick flipped the dog over and sent him sprawling across the cloudscape.

The relief that gleamed in Mèng Huàn's eyes when he snapped his head around and his gaze met hers made Twilight want to start singing, and when he called her name, she drank it in as thick and nourishing as hot soup. She didn't dare let herself get lost in the sensation, though, and taking her stance beside him, she turned to where Tiāngǒu was climbing back to his paws.

"Princess?" The big dog's lips curled back. "You're a fool to come here." He stomped, and a shock wave roiled the thick air.

With a wince, Twilight tensed, hoping she'd read Yúhuī right. And when she didn't wake up—or get dragged screaming back to her squished and burning body—she let the hope she'd kept banked in her heart flare into a brighter flame. "Maybe I am," she said. "But you're the bigger one if you think you can get away with this."

Tiāngǒu roared and leaped, Twilight lighting her horn at the same time as Mèng Huàn. Their magic twined together, and it was like nothing Twilight had ever felt. Yes, she'd shared magic before with Celestia and Luna and even Tiān Shàng not too many minutes ago. But the silken smoothness of Mèng Huàn's power seemed to caress hers, seemed to touch parts of her nopony had ever touched, and her exhaustion fled, refreshed by the wonder that surrounded her.

"It's over!" she couldn't help crowing, directing their combined spell like a meteor straight at Tiāngǒu. "Yúhuī admitted to stealing the documents, so you've no right to Mèng Huàn's moon! No right at all!"

Her words seemed to strengthen the blast, and when it slammed into Tiāngǒu, the dog howled like an avalanche. The spell smacked him backwards, tumbling head over tail, and crashing into the invisible wall of the dreamscape, he smashed right through, the dimness shattering to the light of early morning.

With a gasp, Twilight sat up, a flickering dome of protection magic around her, Yúhuī hunkered down on the balcony floor next to her with his eyes clenched, his horn sparking, and sweat streaming down his face. Beyond the dome, she could make out ponies in motion—two large, five regular-sized—and one figure that had to be Tiāngǒu. "We're out!" she shouted. "Yúhuī! Drop your shield! Hurry!"

Yúhuī started back, his eyes snapping open, and the dome crumbled to sparks. Pushing herself to her hooves, Twilight sprinted for the others. "Hóng! Píng! Everypony! Rainbow Power! Now!"

"You got it!" she heard as well as "Yee-hah!" and "Whoo-hoo!" and "I should say so!" and "Oh, my!" Sliding into a spot between Fěn Hóng Bǐng and Lín Láng, Twilight gasped as light struck her from above, and while the multi-colored stripes and sigils that spread over the stallions beside her didn't look exactly like the ones she was used to, strength still flooded into her every bit as invigoratingly as it did back home.

Feeling grateful and angry and powerful and right, she rose into the air, her new friends who were also her old friends rising along with her. "Tiāngǒu!" she called in a voice that reverberated as if from unseen mountains. She turned her attention to the big black dog just climbing to his paws at the far end of Tiān Shàng's balcony and pointed a hoof at him. "You've got as much to unlearn as you do to learn, so how about we start you over from the beginning and see if you'll maybe turn out better this time?"

"What nonsense—?" Tiāngǒu started to shout.

But Twilight's idea had already rippled out through her connection to the others, all of them agreeing instantly—especially Wēi Fēng Fǔ, the veterinarian clapping his hooves together and declaring, "That'll be perfect!"

With one motion, they let the power of the rainbow arch upward, over, and down to inundate the still sputtering Tiāngǒu. "—is this?" came a squeakier voice, the colorful stripes swirling away to reveal a tiny black puppy running in circles. "No, no, no!" A silver mist drifted up and away from him, the puppy leaping on stubby legs and flailing his paws at it. "Mine, mine, mine!"

"Now, Tiāngǒu." Wēi Fēng Fǔ stepped forward and scooped the puppy into the crook of his foreleg. "You'll be coming with me to my house, and we'll see if we can't teach you some better manners."

The puppy gave a high-pitched growl and started gnawing on the tip of Fēng's hoof, but Twilight was focused more on the mist hanging in the air at the end of the balcony. If that was the power Tiāngǒu had taken from Mèng Huàn, why wasn't it going back to him?

For that matter, where was—?

Spinning, Twilight felt her throat constrict at the sight of Tiān Shàng standing as still as a marble statue over the collapsed form of—

"No!" Twilight crossed the balcony with one flap and slid to Mèng Huàn's side. Some of her panic puffed away when she saw his sides fluttering with his breath, but— "Why is he unconscious?" She tore her gaze away and looked up at Tiān Shàng.

The air around Tiān Shàng seemed to tremble. "His injuries," the elder alicorn said, his voice like the faintest breeze rustling a pine tree. "When Tiāngǒu tore his power from him, and whatever happened in the dream realm, he—"

"No!" Cradling his head in her wings, Twilight touched her front hooves to his muzzle, his eyes closed, much too much gray in his hide. "'Cause we won, Mèng Huàn! We stopped Tiāngǒu! Your power's right there! You just have to...have to wake up and take it back!" Not wanting to risk shaking him, not sure what to do, not able to see clearly with so much water filling her vision all of a sudden, Twilight leaned closer, Mèng Huàn's slightly parted lips right in front of her.

Without another thought, she pressed her lips to his, bent to touch her horn to his, wrapped her forelegs around him, willed the power flowing through her to cross over into him by any available method.

He stirred beneath her, and she pressed herself closer. "Mmmm," came a gentle growl from his throat, then his lips were moving against her, his forelegs and wings embracing her, drawing her even closer—

After that, she seemed to lose track of things for a while: how many minutes went by before she drew back to take a breath, she couldn't begin to imagine. All she knew was that her whole body tingled as she looked down at Mèng Huàn smiling up at her. "Good morning," he said, his words sweeter than cherry custard. She felt his hoof fluffing her mane where it spilled along the side of neck. "I've never cared for this 'rainbow power' look." His wings brushed hers, and she never wanted them to stop. "I must admit, though: you pull it off much better than Bómù does."

Giving him about a quarter of a glare, Twilight leaned forward to meet his lips again, the air around her alive with the whistles and woops of her friends.

Comments

[Baal Bunny]

Huh:

I guess it did take me a month...

The next and final chapter's a short one, though, so hopefully we'll have the whole thing wrapped up early in June.

Mike

[FredMSloniker]

Her head kept nodding, touching her horn to the pearlescent surface that in all actuality, she shouldn't have been able to sense in the slightest. Each touch made the whole dream waver, and each waver sent out the signal he'd been hearing.

And would that signal sound like 'doink'?

[Baal Bunny]

7243649

I was hearing:

Something more crystalline and ethereal, but y'know? "Doink" is even better!

Mike

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ever since I read the original, I was wondering about this moment. Now I know, and it is vastly more awesome than I had ever imagined.

Also, magnificent punishment for Tiāngǒu, even if it is a bit horrifying.

[M1Garand8]

Can't wait for the epilogue! :3

[Greatazuredragon]

"I've never cared for this 'rainbow power' look." His wings brushed hers, and she never wanted them to stop. "I must admit, though: you pull it off much better than Bómù does."