SAPR

by Scipio Smith

The Dream Maker, Part Four (New)

The Dream Maker, Part Four

The basement where he worked was somewhat insulated from the sounds of the outside world, so the first that Doctor Diggory knew of the commotion going on outside was the sound of Mrs. Macready’s footsteps running rapidly down the stairs and short corridor towards his laboratory.

Diggory had already gotten to his feet and was moving as quickly as his injury would allow towards the door when said door burst open.

Mrs. Macready stood in the doorway, panting a little and rather pale to look at. “Doctor … Doctor, you must come and see this. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years.”

Diggory pushed his spectacles up his nose a little. “Mrs. Macready, I’m afraid that we’ve all seen things the like of which we’d never seen before recently.”

“This is worse,” Mrs. Macready insisted. “Please, Doctor Diggory, you must come and see.”

“Of course,” Diggory said. “Lead the way — and please, try and calm down, Mrs. Macready; I’m sure it can’t possibly be as bad as all that.”

“If you say so, Doctor, and I very much hope you’re right,” Mrs. Macready said.

She led him out of the basement, up the stairs — he climbed them as swiftly as he could and tried not to wince at the pain in his leg — and into the hallway, to where she had uncharacteristically left the front door open.

The door being open, Diggory had only to walk to the door and stand in the doorway to see out into the village.

The village that had become a part of Mountain Glenn.

As a somewhat younger man, Diggory had not fought in the undercity — and as well for him that it were so, else he would not stand here now; he would have been trapped and died with all the other poor souls buried down there, no doubt — he had fought above ground, to try and stem the tide of grimm as they overran the defences and, when it was clear that the tide could not be stemmed, to try and protect those who could not or would not make it underground as they sought to escape by land or air. And yet, he had visited the underground parts of the city, before it fell; nobody could go to Mountain Glenn and not visit the undercity; it was, in many ways, the jewel of the kingdom, something that no other kingdom, not even advanced and mighty Atlas, had ever attempted before: to hollow out the earth and build a city there, a complete city, a city that could endure and sustain itself, even if the overcity above it should fall. A city possessed of all the things that made a city: power, water, entertainment, homes big and small, shopping, business. He had gone for a swim in the geothermally-heated public baths; he had marvelled at the glimmering ceiling, the artificial night sky that had been set into the rock; he had gone to see a rather unimpressive romantic comedy and left before the end credits, but even though the picture had left him cold, the fact that he had been watching it deep underground had impressed him very much.

He had doubted it had impressed those poor souls who had died there, trapped beneath the surface, abandoned, quite so much, however.

This was the underground city. It had appeared, here in Arcadia Lake, swallowing up the village whole. There was the ceiling, separated from them by the dome, but at the same time, unmistakable. And yet, at the same time, there were the things that Diggory recognised from his own battle above the surface: the barricades that they had erected, the lines of cars and buses turned side on to block the roads, the tall barriers of corrugated iron and wood and brick with which they had sought to stop the grimm in their tracks. He remembered those things as though they were yesterday, the futile measures they had adopted when the walls fell.

They haunted his dreams, and no doubt, they always would.

And so would the howling of the beowolves, sounding … not far off, per se, but from the edges of the village. They would soon doubtless be moving inwards.

With good fortune, the people of Arcadia Lake, his neighbours, would be moving ahead of them.

Diggory closed his eyes for a moment. He had hoped that such a sight as this would remain in his dreams. He had hoped that his days of battle were behind him. He had hoped that in Arcadia Lake, he would find peace, to potter about his house and attend to his plants and to his experiments.

It seemed that it was not to be.

Very well then. Only one thing for it, I suppose.

Not that an old man like me will be of much use — I hope those young ladies are alright; no doubt, they’re attending to things even now, but I hope they remember to take care of themselves as well as the village — but one must do what one can in times like these.

“Mrs. Macready,” he said, “may I ask you to go into the kitchen and start making some tea and sandwiches?”

“Tea and sandwiches, Doctor?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the fillings,” Diggory said. “Whatever we have in the cupboards will do. Tuna, ham, salmon, cheese; even jam would probably be welcome.”

“Doctor,” Mrs. Macready said. “I don’t understand.”

“I suspect — I hope —” Diggory replied, “— that a great many people will be coming this way soon. They’ll be frightened and shaken, and we must make room for them, and we must take care of them.” He offered his housekeeper an apologetic smile. “By which, I’m afraid, I mean you, Mrs. Macready. I’m sorry to impose on such short notice.”

Mrs. Macready stared at him for a moment. Then she swallowed. “Tea. And sandwiches. Right you are, Doctor; I’ll get started right away.” She turned away, but paused for a moment to ask, “And you, Doctor?”

“I … I will wait outside,” Diggory said. “And welcome our guests, of every sort.”

First, however, he climbed the stairs — forcing himself to walk faster than his leg made comfortable — and into his bedroom. He ignored the bed, of course, and what little else he had there that was not strictly functional — mainly class photos from his time as a professor at Beacon — as he walked across the room to retrieve Weedkiller from off the wall.

His weapon was a garden fork, or so it seemed to the eye from where it sat, hung on the wall; it was entirely made of metal, the four prongs of the fork and the shaft and handle. It was dusty, but rust hadn’t gotten to the metal, and it was perfectly functional.

Diggory hoped so, anyway, as he reverently lifted it from his place and held it in his hands.

He had not done so for many years now, not since Mountain Glenn fell and he had decided that the huntsman’s life was no longer for him. So he had come here, purchased this house, and hung up Weedkiller for good.

Until Mountain Glenn had found him again.

It had been many years, but he still found the button on the side of the shaft as instinctively as he had when he had been using this weapon every day. He pushed the button, and Weedkiller transformed in his hands, rearranging itself with a series of clicks and clacks into a blunderbuss with a great gaping mouth like a horn.

Diggory hobbled over to the bedside table, and felt his back protest as he bent down to open the bottom drawer of the bedside cabinet. There was a box of ammunition down there, old but not expired.

He supposed the fact that he had brought ammunition meant that he had never quite put aside the possibility that he would need Weedkiller again.

He loaded his weapon and stuffed his jacket pockets with as much of the rest as they would hold.

Then he walked downstairs, feeling the pain in his leg with every step he took, and walked out of the house to stand in front of it, Weedkiller raised to his shoulder, waiting.

With his leg, he could hardly go gallivanting into the village itself, to try and rescue people in the confusion. He was a few years too old for that. He would have to rely on the young ladies for it. All that he could do was wait, welcome anyone who wished to take refuge in his home, and make his stand if any grimm came so close.

He did not know what had brought Mountain Glenn here, but he sincerely hoped that this retelling of the story had a happier ending than the original.

---

Starlight pressed the stock of Equaliser into her shoulder and snapped off three shots in quick succession, three blue bolts leaping from the barrel to slam into three of the beowolves rushing towards her.

There were more of them, of course. There were always more of them. They just kept on coming, made worse by the fact that Starlight couldn’t even work out where they were coming from.

Or rather, she could; it was just that the answer was ‘they’re not coming from anywhere because they’re not real, they’re nightmares brought to life, and they’re just showing up like waves of bad guys spawning in a video game.’

She kind of didn’t want to think too hard about that, in the same way that she didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that she’d seen Blake’s dead body at least three times — in different poses, too — out of the corner of her eye since this fight started; knowing that this Sunset’s nightmare … it was understandable, but at the same time, Starlight couldn’t help but think that it was kind of messed up.

But Starlight didn’t want to think too hard about that kind of thing. She wasn’t averse to thinking, but in this particular circumstance, it was better to focus on what was right in front of her. Nightmare or not, Mountain Glenn or not, whatever strange and extraordinary things were going on here, she still had a horde of grimm in front of her, a village full of civilians behind her, and the job of standing between one and the other.

That was a simple mission, a huntress mission, the kind of thing that she’d started training to be a huntress for in the first place.

In the circumstances, everything else could wait.

As more beowolves charged at her, Starlight spread fire in a wide arc, squeezing the trigger again and again, snapping off shot after shot, bolt after bolt slamming into beowolf after beowolf. They did not turn to smoke and ash, they disappeared like that serpent grimm had on the lake, but they were gone, which was good enough for Starlight right now.

She fired two more shots and took down two more beowolves with unerring accuracy.

As a large cluster of them rushed her, pounding down the dark street in a dense multitude, their bone spikes tinted red thanks to the dome above, Starlight pulled her last grenade from her belt.

It was a cylinder, with a red trigger on top. Starlight pressed down on the trigger once with her thumb to arm it, then held onto it.

One, two, three. “Fire in the hole!” Starlight shouted, as she flung the grenade at the onrushing beowolves.

The grenade soared through the air towards the pack of grimm, exploding just in front of the face of the lead grimm. There was a great ball of fire, an explosion that blinded Starlight for a moment and obscured the sight of everything behind the flames, just as the sound of the bang obscured all other sounds.

Then the flames cleared, and a much diminished group of beowolves walked through the dying embers, looking this way and that, no longer certain of where their quarry lay.

Starlight, who hadn’t moved a single step, gunned them down with more well-placed shots from Equaliser.

She checked the battery on her rifle; it was getting kind of low, forty-eight percent power. She ejected it, swapping it out for a fresh pack. If she had to, she’d come back to the half-depleted battery if she had no other choice, but she was hoping this battle would be drawn to a close by then.

If only she could have been sure that the grimm would eventually run out of numbers.

More beowolves emerged out of the darkness — or should that have been ‘more beowolves appeared’? — to run towards her, but they were distracted by the sight of Tempest Shadow dashing across the village, skidding to a halt right in their path.

The grimm stopped, staring down at the huntress who had suddenly thrown herself athwart their progress.

Tempest stared back at them silently, her Mohawk like the crest of a helmet, her staff held in one hand, her prosthetic hand clenched into a fist.

The beowolves began to encircle her, growling and snarling.

Tempest made a run for it; still, not a sound emerged from her lips — nor anywhere else either; she ran without making any noise at all — as she ran, moving not backwards towards Starlight but sideways, in the direction she had been moving before.

The grimm gave chase, ignoring the way that Starlight’s fire raked the flank of the pack as they turned; they followed Tempest with a single minded determination, pursuing her down a blind alley where, silent still, she turned at bay.

The beowolves bore down upon her.

And Tempest Shadow disappeared as though she had never been.

Because she never had been here in any case.

The beowolves stopped, coming to a ragged halt, growling and snarling in surprise.

They barely had time to look up before they were caught in the inferno that erupted from Trixie’s wand as, from her vantage point on the roof of one of the houses backing onto the alley, she rained fire down upon them all.

And, if she did not quite turn them to ashes, she did at least get rid of them all.

Trixie — who had created the illusion of Tempest Shadow using her semblance, Misdirection — ran one hand along the rim of her hat, before throwing out her arm in a dramatic gesture. “Gets ‘em every time,” she declared.

No sooner had she said that then even more grimm appeared, charging out of the netherwhere from which they spawned to bear down upon the huntresses.

Trixie leapt up into the air, a flying leap that carried her off the roof and in the direction of Starlight Glimmer. Her cape billowed out behind her, and though there was no light to reflect off the gold and silver stars, nevertheless, they seemed to glow regardless as she hung, suspended in the air, and hurled down ice dust crystals upon the beowolves beneath.

The crystals burst as they struck the ground, blossoming like flowers into explosions of ice, great spikes of ice in complex patterns blooming forth to eliminate all the nightmare beowolves that they caught around them as they burst.

Trixie landed nimbly upon her booted feet, straightening her cape out with one hand.

“Nice work,” Starlight said. “How are you fixed for dust?”

Trixie winced. “Trixie will be fine.”

Starlight glanced at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Trixie assured her. “Trixie thinks so, anyway. You?”

“I’m okay for power packs at the moment,” Starlight said. “But I did just use up my last grenade.”

“Catch.”

Starlight half turned to catch the grenade one handed. “Where did you—?”

Trixie held up her hat.

Starlight shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a rotary autocannon or a cruiser in there, have you?”

“It’s magic, Starlight, not miracles,” Trixie said. “Besides, what need do you have of a warship when you have the Grrrreat and Powerrrrful Trrrrixie?”

Starlight grinned. “A great question,” she said. “In every sense.”

Trixie chuckled. “Hey, Starlight?”

“Yeah?”

“You notice that there haven’t been any more grimm since I took out those beowolves?”

“Now that you point it out,” Starlight murmured. “Maybe they’ve run out?”

“Of nightmares?”

“We can hope,” Starlight said.

Or maybe this is like a videogame, and we’re going to get some more powerful grimm in the next wave.

Five ursai emerged out of the darkness and started lumbering towards them, making the ground shake with their tread.

You had to think it, didn’t you?

Starlight fired at them, but these were big ursai — if not full ursa major, then pretty close to it, with bone plates armouring them and spikes of bone protruding from out of their bodies — and the blue bolts of Equaliser either bounced off their bony armour or else seemed to just be absorbed by the black flesh of the grimm.

Trixie whimpered.

“Trixie?” Starlight asked, continuing to fire even as she risked a glance at Trixie.

Her team leader’s body was trembling, most notably her hand; it looked as though she were about to drop her wand, while she was mumbling something so quietly and so quickly that Starlight couldn’t make out the words.

“Trixie!” Starlight cried. “Snap out of it!”

Trixie raised her wand in her trembling hand, but although Starlight hadn’t seen Trixie swap out the fire dust cartridge for lightning dust, it was lightning that sparked at the tip of the wand.

Only sparked, no lightning erupted out of lash at the grimm; it just sparked on the tip of Trixie’s wand and then fizzled out as though it were out of dust or broken.

“Trixie, fall back!” Starlight yelled. She fired five more shots, which did no more good than before. She considered using the grenade, but wasn’t sure how much good it would do against such large grimm.

She reformed Equaliser from gun mode into glaive, taking a step forward, putting herself between Trixie and the ursai.

“Maybe I can’t shoot you,” Starlight growled. “But let’s see if I can’t cut you down.”

The ursai closed in on her.

Starlight heard the sounds of running footsteps behind her, heard a wordless, high-pitched battle cry, saw a flash of light which resolved itself into Ditzy, fist drawn back to slam into the face of the leading ursa with a punch hard enough that the ursa simply disappeared from view.

Ditzy landed on the ground, offering Starlight a grin and a cheery wave. “Hey, girls, sorry I’m late. I had to—” Her words were cut off as an ursa swiped at her with its paw. She leapt over the onrushing claws, landing upon the paw itself and dashing along it to deal a one-two punch to the ursa at the end and knock it onto its back.

Starlight charged forward to her aid, silent save for the thudding of her boots upon the road’s surface as she closed the little remaining distance with the surviving ursai.

As an ursa reared up onto its hind legs, Starlight sliced clean through its midriff with the glowing blade of her polearm. She pulled the trigger, and a beam of energy leapt from the blade which she used to eviscerate a second ursa with the same continuous slashing stroke.

Two more punches from Ditzy finished off the grimm she’d already put on the ground, and when the last one tried to bring its paw down upon her, she leapt up, doing a backflip as she went, and brought her foot down upon its head instead.

It was gone before she landed.

“Thanks for the help,” Starlight said.

“It was nothing,” Ditzy said. “I’m sure you would have handled it. Are you okay, Trixie?”

“I … am now, more or less,” Trixie muttered. “I … had a bad experience with an ursa once. I was cocky, and I ran out of dust, and I … almost died.”

“So then … that was your nightmare,” Ditzy said.

Trixie was silent for a moment. “I guess so,” she admitted. “In that case, I’m glad it’s over with, provided they don’t come back around again.”

Starlight glanced in the direction from which the grimm approached, but fate was not so unkind to them at this time.

“It’s okay,” Ditzy said. “We all have to help one another out, right? I was late because I was helping out Sunset. It took me a little bit to take care of. She’s got some scary nightmares.”

“Do we want to know?” Starlight asked.

“I’m not sure I should tell you,” Ditzy replied. “Oh! But I can tell you I ran into the sheriff on the way here, and he told me to tell you that the next couple of streets have been evacuated!”

“Great,” Starlight declared. Everyone was evacuating towards Doctor Diggory’s house in the centre of town. “Trixie, are you up to doing the honours?”

“Of course Trixie is up to it!” Trixie snapped as she swapped out the fire dust cartridge in her wand for a blue ice dust cartridge.

She strode forwards, cloak flapping behind her, until she was just ahead of Starlight and Ditzy. Trixie waved her wand, flourishing with her wrist as she did so, sweeping it before her, and as she did so, a wall of ice rose up in front of the three huntresses, bursting out of the ground to reach towards the crimson dome that held them captive.

“That ought to hold them for a little while,” Trixie said.

“Yeah,” Starlight agreed. “For a while.”

And so they fell back to the next position.

To await the next attack.

---

Sunset was silent for a moment as she took in what Professor Scrub was asking of her. Clearly, he wasn’t going to go to Equestria — or anywhere else — himself to look for his nephew. Oh, no. That would be too much for a man of his years and state of health. No, he expected Sunset to do it. With nightmares engulfing the village and a tantabus growing stronger, he expected Sunset to disappear for a little bit, pop over to another world, and rescue a stray boy.

Well, Sunset was going to … possibly do just that.

She was tempted to tell him no. If he was worried about his nephew, then good! It might teach him a little forethought and consideration in future if he had to stew in his nerves for a bit. Meanwhile, it wasn’t as though anything bad was going to happen to Malmsey while he was in Equestria. He was in Equestria, for crying out loud! When Sunset had sorted out everything else here and gotten back to Beacon, she’d write to Princess Celestia and ask for the boy to be looked out for — and looked after when he was found. He could visit the princess, he could visit all the princesses; he could see Canterlot, he could be taken to Cloudsdale, he could watch a Wonderbolt race, he could experience all that pony life had to offer.

Or he could get eaten by a manticore, or burned by a dragon, or attacked by one of a dozen other monsters that Sunset could think off the top of her head because, as much as she liked to pretend otherwise, Equestria was not a universally safe place. It pleased her to recall it differently; it suited her purposes and salved her ego to look down upon Remnant from a position of cultural superiority, and part of that was to think that Equestria was devoid of peril, a place where all ponies lived lives of utter peace and plenty and prosperity. And, to be sure, it was not entirely false to think of things that way; there was nothing in the history of the pony races that even came close to the barbarism that humans had inflicted upon one another in the name of nation, religion, or ideology. But Equestria … Equestria was not a tame land, not completely; the fact that Miss Pole had visited there and returned home as the unwilling host of a tantabus proved that. Malmsey Scrub might learn that lesson too, if he lingered in Equestria too long.

He might already have done so. But Sunset couldn’t leave him there on the off-chance that he might already be beyond saving.

There was a boy who might be in trouble, and she couldn’t leave him there, not even for the greater good of Arcadia Lake.

Certainly, she couldn’t leave him there because she didn’t want to go, although she very much did not want to go. These magic rings … the very sight of them repelled her. They pushed her away as though they were imbued with telekinesis. She did not want to take one step closer to them.

She was not worthy to return to Equestria after what she had done. The weight of her actions stayed her hooves and ought to bring her down, incapable of rising upwards to the shining land that she had left behind.

She did not want to go; she was afraid that if she went, she would not want to come back again.

And yet she must go. In this instance, she really was the best pony for the job.

She raised her hand; it glowed green, and that green glow was matched by the green aura of her magic as she grabbed a ring of that same colour and pulled it telekinetically into her hand. Sunset grabbed it and held it between her forefinger and thumb. It looked to be a perfect fit for her; she supposed that was the magic at work; there would have been no point in making magic rings if they either fell off people’s fingers or else people couldn’t get them on in the first place.

Which raised a question. Sunset frowned. “How did they get these rings on to come back?”

Professor Scrub frowned back at her in his turn. “Whatever do you mean? Malmsey simply put the green ring on Miss Pole’s finger, and another on his own.”

Sunset stared at him. “They didn’t tell you what happens when a person goes to Equestria?”

“No,” Professor Scrub replied. “What happens?”

“Well, if they didn’t tell you, I certainly shan’t,” Sunset said, out of pure spitefulness. But considering what he’d done, she felt she had a right to be a little spiteful with the man.

His birthright, indeed. He is no more worthy to walk Equestria’s fields than I am.

She might not take the rings for herself — she would not do so; she did not deserve the right — but she would certainly not allow him to keep them either. Once she was back with Malmsey, she would destroy them.

As for the question of wearing the ring, she would put it on her horn; that was the traditional place for a unicorn, after all.

For now, however, she slipped the green ring into her jacket pocket before summoning a yellow ring over to her with her telekinesis. It hovered in the air before her for a moment; Sunset could feel a ringing in her ears, an incessant humming sound that seemed to be getting louder and louder. The ring itself appeared to be glowing brighter than before, as though it were conscious, as though it desired to be worn.

Sunset felt the urge to throw the thing aside, but instead, she pulled it onto her finger.

Absolutely nothing happened.

“You’ll need to take your glove off,” Professor Scrub explained. “It has to touch the skin, or else it won’t work; that’s how I was able to handle the rings without being transported away. So long as I wore gloves, I was perfectly alright.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Sunset muttered. She pulled the ring off with magic and held it in the air; fortunately, the ring finger came off these bridal gloves, so she was spared the need to take off first her vambrace and then the glove itself, but could simply pull back the silk from the ring finger, exposing a single finger of bare skin.

Bare skin onto which she slipped the yellow ring.

Everything went black.

The next thing Sunset knew, she was lying on her belly on cold stone.

Her eyes were closed. She opened them, seeing a pair of gloved forehooves sticking out in front of her.

Her forehooves. They moved when she moved her arms — or rather, legs, she should say in the present context.

She felt … she felt the same. No, wait; no, she didn’t; she couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. She couldn’t feel her fingers for the very simple reason that they weren’t there any more.

It felt strange. Of course, when she’d first come to Remnant, it had felt strange to have fingers, to have these weird little wiggling things on the ends of her hooves — and toes too; she’d hadn’t been able to get the point of toes. It had been strange, being some kind of hornless minotaur. But now … now, it felt as though her appendages had been severed from her. She felt strange without them, vulnerable almost.

On the other hoof, her magic felt as though it had gotten a lot stronger; it felt as though a dam had burst inside her, everything that had held her power back in Remnant now gone, her full strength unleashed, the prodigy of Canterlot returned.

Sunset could not prevent the smile returning to her face as she got to her feet. Magic flowed through her now, like a roaring river, she could … she could do anything! Anything she wanted, anything at all!

Anything except find Malmsey Scrub just by casting a spell.

“Malmsey?” Sunset called out as she got to her hooves. “Malmsey Scrub?”

The words ‘Malmsey Scrub’ echoed off the walls, reverberating back at her from a hundred different places.

Sunset turned in place, her horn flaring bright emerald as a dozen balls of magelight emerged from the tip of it, fluttering forth to land in different places, sticking to walls and floors, illuminating her location. She stood in the middle of a room, a great stone chamber, built of stone, not hewn out of it like a cave. It was square, with slightly slanted walls rising up towards a point. Could she be in the middle of some kind of pyramid or ancient temple? There was no natural light coming in; she was completely enclosed, but not sealed off; there were corridors leading away from the central chamber.

Upon the walls were etched pictograms, and Sunset’s eyes flickered over them, trying to find where they started, trying to parse the images. She thought that that picture of ponies lying down might be sleeping, and that one of them sitting up screaming referred to nightmares, but she couldn’t be certain. Nevertheless, from looking, from studying the order in which they came, the way they climbed up the walls, she thought she got a rough idea of what she was looking at: a unicorn had created a tantabus — why was unclear; it was hard to convey in pictorial form; possibly they just hadn’t liked the target very much and wanted to get back at them — which had then proceeded to get out of hoof, spreading into the nightmares of other ponies; before it could get too powerful, before it could start to influence the waking world, or perhaps just as it had begun to do so, they had exorcised it, trapping it in this place and locking it away, and then they had moved away, escaping its influence.

Until one day, a traveller from a different world had found itself in this temple, in this chamber — and the tantabus had found them.

You were right, Professor Scrub; you could meet absolutely anything travelling to another world. Some people might have considered that a reason not to do it.

“Malmsey Scrub!” Sunset yelled, louder this time, although once again, she got no answer but the echoes.

One advantage of this temple being sealed up to keep the tantabus in is that he shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Although there are a couple of routes to choose from.

Sunset looked down at the floor. It was, as you might expect, incredibly dusty.

The dust had also been disturbed, and more than once. There were hoofprints in it, leading out of both exits from this central chamber.

But one set of hoofprints looked fresher than the rest. It was those prints that Sunset followed, moving with surprising quiet — surprising to herself, at least; she’d forgotten how quiet she could be when she wasn’t wearing shoes — out of the central chamber, turning right just as the hoofprints did. Her horn glowed brightly, and she cast magelight ahead of her to offer additional illumination, not that there was very much to see. The corridors were barren, dark brown stone devoid even of the pictograms that had enlivened the central chamber somewhat. She wasn’t entirely sure why it had been built in this way, why the single chamber had not sufficed to contain the tantabus, but perhaps by building a bigger complex, they could keep ponies further away and, thus, out of the creature’s influence.

It was the best explanation that she could come up with.

Regardless, she followed the trail of hoofprints, which eventually became the only hoofprints, following them through twists and turns in the corridors until, at last, she came to a dead end.

A great pile of rubble blocked her way, stones that come crashing down from the ceiling above; there were chinks of moonlight shining down from high above, where the collapsed roof had partially opened this place up to the world, but there was no way through.

And yet, the hoofprints definitely led this way.

Sunset frowned. She opened her mouth and yet thought better of shouting. She didn’t know how stable the rest of the ceiling was.

And yet the hoofprints led this way.

And there was something else too, something which Sunset didn’t notice immediately but which she caught sight of the more she looked: a green glow coming from underneath some haphazardly fallen rubble. Sunset lifted the rubble easily, her horn glowing as she encased the stones in her magical aura and hauled them to reveal a green ring lying on the ground.

Sunset levitated the ring up. It was definitely a twin to the one she had in her saddle bag.

Which meant… which meant she was in the right place, or she was already too late.

Let it be the first and not the second, Sunset thought, as she doused the magelight and brought all her magic to bear upon the pile of rubble that confronted her. Her horn burned as bright as dragonfire as she reached out for it. She might have no fingers, but she could feel her magic as though it were her hands; she could feel each rock and all the gaps between them; she could feel their edges, almost feel their weight. She grabbed every stone, every chunk of rubble; she grabbed everything that stood in her way; and she even had enough power left to devote some to holding up the ceiling above her. She missed having this much magic. If she could do all this in Remnant, then…

Best not to think about that. She would only be sour about it when she got back to Remnant. Best to focus on the job.

She pulled, the feeling from every piece of stone flowing through her mind. It was like playing Jenga; you wanted to pull the pieces out without the ones above coming down on you; you wanted to lift everything to miss nothing, to do nothing that would risk another collapse.

Slowly, gradually, the stones began to move. They ground against one another, they rumbled ominously and forced Sunset to stop and start again, they grunted and resisted, and there were times she had to give them a solid hard tug with her magic, but they moved. They moved.

They moved out of the way for her as Sunset raised them overhead and dumped them down behind her — she didn’t need the way out as long as she had her green ring — to reveal that a very small piece of the sanctuary wall had also fallen in.

And a young earth pony colt was sitting near that chink in the wall, with one leg bent at what looked like an uncomfortable angle.

“Malmsey Scrub?” Sunset asked.

His coat was green, grape green, with eyes that were a sort of golden colour, the colour of white wine, while his mane was straw yellow and tufty. His eyes widened as he said, “How did you know?”

“I’ve come from Remnant; your uncle was worried you’ve been gone too long.”

Malmsey blinked. “Uncle Andrew was worried?”

“Surprised?” Sunset asked.

“A little,” Malmsey admitted.

Sunset snorted. “I can’t say I blame you, having met the man,” she said. “I’d ask if you were hurt, but I think I can guess.”

Malmsey winced. “When I saw this place, where the wall had fallen in, I thought that I could break through the rest of the way and get out. But then the ceiling came down; I got out of the way, but … I got hit by a rock. And I lost my green ring.”

“I’ve got it right here,” Sunset said, levitating it out of her saddle bag. “I don’t know if you managed to put it on before, but I think if you just touch it, you can go home.”

Malmsey shook her head. “I can’t go home, not yet.”

“With that leg you’re in no position to go anywhere else.”

“But I can’t,” Malmsey insisted. “You don’t understand—”

“Don’t I?” Sunset replied. “You’ve been coming back here, again and again, looking for something that will wake your friend up, right?”

Malmsey nodded. “That’s right.”

“Only you’ve given up on finding anything in here, probably because there isn’t anything in here, so now you want to get out and see if there’s a cure out there, am I right?” Sunset asked.

Malmsey was silent for a moment. “I have to,” he said.

Sunset sighed, and sat down beside him, giving his injured leg a wide berth. “Kid, Malmsey, there are a lot of things that I could say to you right now. I could tell you that what has happened to Miss Pole is not a disease and that you’re not going to find a cure for what ails her here or anywhere else. I could tell you that I think that I can fix her, because everything that I’ve found out has only made me more convinced in what I think has become of her. I could tell you that, and I hope it made you feel a little better to hear it, but the most important thing that I’m going to say to you … well, actually, there are two important things, the first being that this: that what happened to Miss Pole is not your fault. It’s absolutely your uncle’s fault, but that’s not a reason you should feel guilty.”

“She wouldn’t have come if she hadn’t been my friend,” Malmsey murmured. “If she hadn’t come around to play, then Uncle Andrew couldn’t have tricked her—”

“'Tricked her'?” Sunset cried. “He tricked her?”

Malmsey looked up. “He didn’t tell you that he offered to let Plum take one of the yellow rings without telling her what it was or did?”

“No, he did not,” Sunset growled. “But, I repeat, that isn’t your fault.”

“But if she weren’t my friend—”

“Then she would have been miserable, from what I understand,” Sunset said. “She doesn’t like it here. Not here, she doesn’t like Arcadia Lake, does she?”

Malmsey shook his head.

“Then I’m sure that she was glad to find a friend here — there!” Sunset said. “Now, like I said, I think that I can make her better—”

“How?” Malmsey asked.

“By entering her mind and doing battle with the creature that dwells there,” Sunset declared. At least, she hoped her semblance would allow her to do so. If it didn’t … if it didn’t, they would cross that bridge when they came to it. “Now, when she wakes up … maybe she will blame you. Maybe she won’t want anything to do with you. I don’t guarantee that everything will be as it was, but whatever Miss Pole’s reaction, even if she does blame you, that is no reason you should blame yourself. You did nothing wrong, and while it is fair enough that you should blame yourself for the mistakes that you’ve made, to hold yourself responsible for mistakes that you haven’t made is…”

Malmsey waited a moment. “Is what?”

“Arrogance,” Sunset told him. “The same as…” She could not restrain a chuckle. “The same as thinking that you can do it all on your own, fix all the problems on your own, something that … that wouldn’t be true even if you’d created them. What were you going to do, search everywhere, potentially a whole world, all by yourself until you found what you were looking for, without telling anyone? Without knowing what you were looking for?”

Malmsey bowed his head. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds…”

“Well-intentioned,” Sunset informed him. “You meant well, and that counts for a lot. But you … well, you ended up here, and I … if my friend hadn’t insisted that I bring company, I wouldn’t have made it here to find you. We can none of us do it all by ourselves; we’re not that special.” She smiled. “But it was very brave of you to try.”

Malmsey said, “Can you really save her?”

“Yes,” Sunset said, and hoped it was true.

Was it lying if she thought she was probably right?

“Then … then we should probably go home, so that you can,” Malmsey said.

“That’s the spirit,” Sunset said. She levitated him up into the air, so that he wouldn’t land on his injured leg, and levitated too both green rings, his and hers. She held them close, ready to touch her horn and his hoof. “Are you ready?”

Malmsey nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay then,” Sunset said, and brought the green rings into contact.

Everything went black.

The next thing Sunset knew, she was back in Professor Scrub’s study, with Malmsey Scrub cradled in her arms.

“Bravo,” Eve said, clapping. “Bravo! How was Equestria, Sunset Shimmer? Was it the same as you remembered it? Somehow, I doubt it will be the same as I remember it, but I’ll soon fix that.”

“Eve?” Sunset asked. “What are you doing here? What are you talking about?”

Eve smiled as she peeled herself off the study doorway. “Perhaps I should reintroduce myself,” she said. “Or rather, perhaps I should introduce myself, since Eve Viperidae is not my real name. The name my mother gave me is Evenfall Gleaming. You might have heard of me.”

Sunset’s eyes widened. “No, that … that’s not … you can’t be the Last Unicorn.”

“'The Last Unicorn'?” Eve repeated. “Is that what they call me?” She tittered. “Well, I can be, and I am, and because I am, I’m going to take one of those rings, and the tantabus, and I’m going to go home. I’ve been away for far, far too long.”

Comments

[Kiue Jin]

I feel like we're missing some cultural context here.

[Lancerguy]

Not sure I like that people who use the rings turn into ponies. The whole point is that the rings are an unnatural forced way to travel, so they don't have the same magical properties of say, statues or wardrobes. If the rings kept people as people it would have enforced the unnatural nature of them.
Also, don't give Hasbro any ideas, we have enough Twilight derivatives running around as is thank you very much.

[Mastermind4892]

I’m going to need a bit more context on who this ‘Last Unicorn’ is, since she’s not from canon. Can someone fill me in please? But what I do know is that she’s clearly playing the role of the White Witch from “The Magician’s Nephew.” Which cannot be good in any way.

I’m especially curious about Malmsey Scrub’s own potential about who he could become. The character he’s based grows up to become the Professor, but that role is now taken by Diggory here. Even Ms. Macredy is present.

Also, up until near the end of this chapter, I just felt bad for Professor Scrub. The character he’s based is a sad and pathetic coward. After all his hard work, he didn’t take the rings because he was too afraid, whereas Professor Scrubs at least has the perfectly legitimate excuse of being too old. He also believed in his great-grandmother when her family didn’t, even when it earned him their disproval, and wanted to learn everything about the wonderful land of Equestria she came from. He was positively eager to hear it from Sunset.

And ultimately, when the original Uncle Andrew met Aslan and all the magical creations he had been seeking, he denied it all and closed his ears out of willful ignorance until he couldn’t hear the animals talking anymore. I found that painfully tragic. He literally deafened himself to Lion Jesus

Overall, I can’t help but find that this version is already a substantially better man (so far) than the original. However! None of this is any excuse for him to trick a young girl into crossing worlds!

[Scipio Smith]

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Who Eve is and why Sunset reacted the way she did is going to be explained next chapter, out on Monday, so everything you don't get will be revealed then, worry not.

The character he’s based is a sad and pathetic coward. After all his hard work, he didn’t take the rings because he was too afraid, whereas Professor Scrubs at least has the perfectly legitimate excuse of being too old.

It's interesting yuo say that, because that stuff about 'a man of my years and state of health' is actually Uncle Andrew's dialogue; it's what he says to Diggory when he explains what's going on to him.

[Wysteria]

Sunset’s eyes widened. “No, that … that’s not … you can’t be the Last Unicorn.”

What immediately came to mind...

[Raul]

I need to reread the Chronicles. It is really weird both how much I do and don’t remember.

[Luviere]

On the other hoof, her magic felt as though it had gotten a lot stronger; it felt as though a dam had burst inside her, everything that had held her power back in Remnant now gone, her full strength unleashed, the prodigy of Canterlot returned.

YEEEES!! This is what I'm talking about. She is powerful, she is a prodigy, if she had her full power, Adam would be nothing but a joke to her.