The Collapse

by Lightwavers

Chapter 16

Twilight awoke in a tent.

“Gah! What happened?” she said, bolting upright in a second.

She looked around. It was one of Rarity’s fabric tents. The multicolored insanity that surrounded her made it so she didn’t see the runes attached to the walls for a few seconds.

This must be what Gilda felt like, Twilight thought, rubbing at her forehead with a hoof. What could have happened? The last thing she remembered was the professor activating his secret shielding artifacts. He’d been extremely confident in the things, so Twilight didn’t think they’d been attacked. Perhaps the shield had reacted badly with one of the spells she’d had active? She tried to think. It was hard. She’d just recovered from being unconscious for an unknown length of time, and her brain was fuzzy.

Let’s see. It had been just after the unfortunate incident with Fluttershy. Maybe she’d had a shield on. A low-level detection spell? Yes, she’d had one of those on to heighten her reaction times, though she couldn’t see how either of those would have interacted with professor Radiance’s artifacts. Twilight shook her head. If only she was able to sleep…oh.

Hoof met face with an audible thud and she slumped to the floor in embarrassment.

“I can’t believe I was so stupid,” Twilight said with her face pressed against the tent’s fabric.

She’d had her anti-sleep spell on for more than a week by now. Eventually feeding it had become routine, and even when she’d regained her ability to cast spells she’d kept it active without thinking about it. Radiance’s artifacts must have operated by nullifying the magic from an area. If she’d known...well, she couldn’t blame the professor. The same thing would most likely have happened.

And now she’d have been sleeping for weeks. How was she not dead of starvation?

Oh. Right. She had friends now. It was still odd to think about, especially since none of them knew much about magic, except the professor, who was still a professor. If she’d ever considered having friends, she would’ve thought they’d be like-minded individuals, ones who could discuss the finer points of magic for hours without getting bored. Showed what she knew.

Wind rustled against the tent, jolting Twilight back into the real world.

I have to find everyone! she thought, scrabbling at the ground until she got to her feet. Then she realized what she was thinking. They were friends now. And her friends wouldn’t abandon her. They’d put her in a tent and somehow kept her alive for however long she’d been out for. She stuck her head outside and looked at the moon. Time to tell the others she was ready. They’d delayed for too long.

“Twilight’s awake,” Gilda called out, lounging on a low-hanging cloud right above her. Twilight flinched at the sudden noise, then relaxed her face into a smile.

“Hi Gilda. How long have I been...out?”

“For us? A few hours. For you, I don’t know. More.” Gilda lapsed into silence, looking content to sit in her cloud forever.

“Right, I’ll ask Radiance instead. Know where—oh, there they are,” Twilight said, abandoning her attempts to regain Gilda’s attention on spotting the other five members of their group trotting toward them from the direction of the Everfree.

Twilight decided it would be best to have everyone in one place, so she waited next to Gilda. The griffon seemed to decide that now that Twilight wasn’t talking, it would be a great time for conversation.

“You ever been on a cloud before?” she asked, leaning over the edge and looking down at Twilight.

“Nope,” Twilight said, laying down on her belly in the grass. It was so much warmer by the Everfree, almost like summer.

“Why not? Unicorns can do it if they use magic, can’t they?”

It looked like Gilda was just going to continue to pester her until she provided a good enough answer. Twilight sighed. “Yes, we can walk on clouds in extremely specific circumstances using extremely dangerous spells that fail if your concentration wanders for even a second.”

“That’s too bad. You should do it anyway, just to feel it,” Gilda responded, rolling around on her back. Her feet sticking off the edge were the only part of her that was visible.

“We can’t feel it. To cloudwalk, we have to infuse the cloud in question with our magic. It apparently feels much different, and many books have described the experience as ‘not worth it for the effort.’”

“Huh.” Gilda said nothing more, and Twilight had to resist the urge to elaborate. The griffon wouldn’t appreciate the lecture anyway. No one did.

“Finally! Now we can finally go,” Rainbow Dash said, actually pawing at the ground in her eagerness to be off.

“Um, I think we should maybe wait a bit to make sure Twilight’s okay...” Fluttershy said, gently tapping Rainbow’s shoulder.

“Oh. Of course. Er, sorry Twilight. You okay?” Rainbow Dash said. She really did look sorry, which was surprising. Then again, she’d just accused Twilight of attacking Fluttershy and then saw Twilight fall unconscious.

Twilight shook herself as if to rid her body of water. Nothing hurt. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

That was a flat out lie. If she could only rebuild all the spells she’d written down on her list...but the professor’s artifacts apparently lost power over time, not to mention they had to free Equestria from the Everfree before the forest took over the entire continent. They had to go now.

“...Right,” Radiance said, looking at her. “If any of you feel anything out of the ordinary, tell me immediately. I should have realized...but the past is past. Gather around.”

Twilight and the others clustered around the professor, who took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and went still.

Then everything lost its intensity. An entire dimension to how she perceived the world was suddenly cut off. The others winced too, but they were used to it. Gilda was the only one who looked completely unaffected.

“I can’t feel my magic,” Twilight said, more out of shock than anything else.

“Good. Means it’s working. Anything else?” Radiance asked.

Twilight shook her head. “Wait, professor? How did you wake me up so quickly?”

Radiance eyed her. “Not planning to make that spell a regular thing, are you?”

“No! Of course not,” Twilight said, rearing backward.

“Settle down, Twilight. I’m just making sure. Rarity and I used runes to put you in a sort of time bubble. Many healing spells use the same method; speed up time for the afflicted area and it heals on its own. Of course, that’s too complicated for us to accomplish, even together. Thankfully, it’s quite easy to just speed up everything in a small area.”

“You messed with time?!” Twilight shrieked.

“Yes. Any other questions?”

Twilight just stared at him.

“Then let’s get moving. I can’t hold this forever.”

Everyone trotted with professor Radiance to the edge of the forest, Twilight lagging slightly behind as the implications of what he’d said swirled around in her mind. Then they crossed it.

Twilight was instantly distracted. Nothing felt any different, but if she could still sense magic Twilight knew she would be seeing the green magic of the Everfree pressing down at them from all sides.

“Woohoo! Further up and further in!” Rainbow Dash said, prowling around everyone else in quick, jerky motions.

Twilight snorted without meaning to. She looked ridiculous.

“What?” Rainbow straightened up defensively.

“Nothing! Like you said, further in. Rarity, direction?”

“Just forward for now, darling,” Rarity replied, focused on the round metal sheet she held in front of her.

The group entered the Everfree proper in a more sedate manner, every footstep a calculated maneuver.

Their quest had truly begun.

Comments

[EverfreePony]

I was wondering when that spell will catch up to her... Still, I think Twilight could be happy it didn't occur under more dangerous conditions.
Also, I wonder what other daring feats does the earth pony magic contain...
And, um, by the way, I noticed some typos in the later chapters here and there. I can go back and comb for them if you'd like, but maybe getting a pre-reader would be a good idea.

[Lightwavers]

8385260
Thanks for the heads up. I'll probably go back through this after it's complete and look for errors.