Friðr's Guardian

by -Watcher-

Chapter 5 - When Plans Go Wrong

Spike was quick to make his way back to his chambers in the high tower. The day’s duties, along with the night’s events and subsequent discussion with Twilight, had left him with hardly enough energy to focus on anything other than sleep. That, and he had suddenly become extremely wary of the shadows that seemed to swallow the halls.

He was so swift, in fact, that he didn’t even ransack the kitchens as per usual. Nor did he acknowledge stairs that he so often cursed.

Scaled eyelids fell farther and farther, barely cracked enough to allow him to see. Normally limber and strong limbs hung limply at his sides, and the sizable pair of wings that clung to his upper back felt as though they dug into him.

With heavy feet, he rose to the top of the stairs and peered down the lone hallway that met him. Being that he was the only one who ventured here often, there were no lit candles or magelight lanterns, leaving the entire hall coated in the appropriate darkness. A cold shiver ran down Spike’s spine, temporarily shaking the fog of sleep from his mind.

A long, heavy breath left his lips, only to be brought back in forcibly. A comfortable burning arose within his chest, swelling to the farthest reaches of his limbs and warming them considerably.

Once satisfied, Spike brought a single hand to his mouth and exhaled a ball of green fire into it. It twitched and danced and flickered in his palm, with a few stray sparks flying. He held it there for a moment, letting the fire dance in front of him and bring light into the hallway.

Using the fire as a torch, he moved closer to the end of the hall and to what would be his salvation from the night.

The heavy wooden door creaked open under his offhand and he stepped in, hurriedly shutting the door behind and scanning the room. Once his eyes met the bed in the center, the ball of flame was smothered, and he rushed towards the comfort of fabric.

Leaping into the messy blankets and pillows, he situated himself under the covers. The aching his body treated him to only made the sleep that much more welcome. Soon enough, his eyes grew heavy once more, and he felt his body beginning to sink into a much-deserved rest.

Before being completely overtaken by sleep, Spike could feel something worm its way into his mind. It was like a streak of fog in his head that wasn’t there before. As he became aware of it, it seemed to move and the urge to sleep grew even greater.

Spike tried to open his eyes but was met with nothing as a response. The streak moved even more around his head, and the call of sleep became greater yet.

Eventually, he gave in and let sleep take him as the streak continued to prod around.

---

If somepony were in the room, they would most likely be able to hear a pin drop.

The study of one Twilight Sparkle was devoid of anything that could be called sound, save for the gentle hum of a charging horn. The air was frighteningly still, so much so that it almost layered the room in a thick, stuffy aura. The only air that moved was that around Twilight’s mouth, which moved rhythmically with her breaths.

She needed to be very careful now. The spell had been charging for a while, and it would take a lot to dispel it without using it. This much magical energy needed to be either used or released gradually to prevent any unfortunate accidents from occurring.

Twilight had watched Spike leave, her mind already made up. She had seen something in his eyes that she needed to see for herself. She had thought and planned about what to do and how to do it, and now it was time.

Twilight had learned many things in her life. It was something that she took pride in, and it had helped her in more ways than she could remember. Among those many lessons was recognizing when something needed to be done, even in the face of risks.This time was no different.

Her study was deafeningly quiet, but that was required for what was about to happen. Twilight had learned how to Dreamwalk from Luna, but this wasn’t just Dreamwalking, which had its own dangers. No, this was much more dangerous than that. Twilight was trying to delve into what Spike’s visitor had left with him. She could see it in his eyes, but Spike wouldn’t be able to explain what was seen, what hid away in his mind. It didn’t belong with him.

Twilight needed to tap into his memories and thoughts directly. Not through some medium like a dream since dreams were limited by the brain of the dreamer. Too much stress would cause the dreamer to wake up. No, she needed to tackle the source directly.

Such a process took time, effort, and care. One mistake could spell psychological repercussions for both herself and Spike. Absolute concentration was a must for this kind of spell.

And so, Twilight sat in the middle of her study, on the carpet bearing her cutie mark, eyes shut in focus. Her horn had been alight for about five minutes now, charging with energy and showering the room in light. Twilight’s breathing was slow, calculated in a concerted effort.

Spike should be at least mostly asleep by now, she thought. It’s now or never.

Taking a few more deep breaths, Twilight sent yet another surge through her horn. Now there was no going back without taking a good portion of the castle out, but she had no intention of stopping now. That really wasn’t an option now anyway.

Closing her eyes, Twilight summoned images of her target. Memories poured in of her time with her closest friend, but these were muddled quickly as her magic closed in on his mind. Finding the target was always the easiest part, of course. Twilight relaxed considerably, content with the ease of progress that was befalling the spell.

Next was the hard part.

Twilight’s complacent demeanor quickly faded as she increased the power of the spell, calling for it to burrow into Spike’s sleeping mind. Again, this was easy enough, but finding and seizing the memories was a different story.

Spike’s mind was remarkably empty for a dreamer’s. Using her magic, Twilight peered around his subconscious but found nothing. Not just nothing of interest like embarrassing daydreams; rather, there was legitimately nothing to greet the spell. It was a void of . . . nothing.

Furrowing her eyebrows in confusion, she looked and looked and looked. Still nothing.

That is most definitely not normal, Twilight thought. There has to be something around here.

As if to answer her, Twilight felt something move, sending ripples through her own mind and sending a shiver down her spine. Locking on to the signal, she moved toward it. She could tell she was getting closer and closer, if the increasing frequency of the ripples was anything to go on. With each passing ripplet, Twilight could feel the room she was getting colder.

She shook her head, refocusing on the spell. She couldn’t afford to lose the connection before finding out what was wrong.

After searching for a little longer, the void that surrounded Twilight gradually filled with what she assumed to be Spike’s memories. They were seemingly normal enough. No trace of dark magic, curses, or anything that posed a threat to anypony or anything, really.

To add to her confusion, the signal that guided Twilight had stopped completely, leaving her drifting aimlessly through the now filled void of Spike’s mind.

Even still, Twilight pressed forward, wanting to be sure she didn’t miss anything. She even scanned a few memories, checking for any lingering presences that shouldn’t be there. Once again, she didn’t find a single discrepancy anywhere. The only force that wasn’t supposed to be here, as far as Twilight could tell, was herself.

Sighing, Twilight began drawing the spell back to her study, draining the power from it and letting it fade a little.

Before she finished extinguishing the spell, a ripple of energy much more potent than those before it tore through the medium of Spike’s mind, shaking Twilight’s spell as it did so.

Now that is more I like it, she thought, smirking.

Re-engaging the spell to full strength, Twilight locked herself to the signal, letting the ripples guide her spell to the source once more. This time, as she got closer and closer to the center of the ripples, Twilight found it increasingly difficult to hold the spell in a stable state.

Of course, she expected this. Foreign entities in the minds of others often had defenses against exactly what she was trying to do, but this was different. Whatever this was, it was strong. Really strong.

As she edged closer and closer still, Twilight began pouring more energy into the spell, sweat beginning to wet her brow. She continued ramping the magical output higher and higher than she had anticipated having to. Her smirk faded and a grimace of pain replaced it.

A minute passed; her knees buckled.

Another minute passed; her knees gave in completely, sending her to the ground in a heap. Yet, she continued running energy through her horn to the spell.

Her once calm breaths had long turned to ragged gasps for air as she strained to keep up with the invisible force in Spike’s head.

“What the hell is this thing?” Twilight seethed through clenched teeth, fighting to stand once again. After getting back to her haunches, Twilight sent one more burst of energy through her horn.

As quickly as the ripples had come to buffet her, they had left even quicker, almost giving in to the onslaught Twilight had returned. Sighing, but not relaxing, Twilight gathered herself on her hooves and focused again on finding whatever had lodged itself so securely in here.

Looking around once more, Twilight spotted what she presumed to be the source of this ordeal: in place of where the ripples had retreated, there hovered a small, solid black sphere of undulating energy. Twilight tilted her head, confused as to how such a small . . . thing could cause so much trouble.

Reluctantly, she extended her magical grasp to touch the orb. As her aura enclosed itself around the orb, she could feel the heat radiating from it reaching out to meet her. For a small moment, she thought about pulling back as a sickening feeling filled the bottom of her stomach. It was like a premonition of danger that she was unfamiliar with. She had never felt anything like this while conducting this type of spell.

What the . . . what are you? Twilight thought, edging closer despite the feeling of dread as her own curiosity drove her.

Usually, sensations were dampened as security precaution, but she felt everything here as if it were there with her. The moment passed too quickly for her to change her mind. The orb shifted suddenly, sending its own aura crashing into Twilight’s.

Startled, she tried to pull away, but the orb held her in place. Panicking, Twilight began powering down the spell to escape and regroup, but she found her own spell was unresponsive to her commands.

“No no no no no, this can’t be happening!” she fumbled, physically recoiling from her own spell, her eyes still forced shut.

All the while, the orb advanced on Twilight’s aura, expanding to encompass it entirely. This sent a sharp bolt of pain through the space behind her eyes, once more bringing her to her knees as she grasped her head in both hooves.

Twilight’s horn was still expending massive amounts of energy into a spell that was no longer hers, and she could the consequences start to make themselves known. Pressure at the base of her horn began building as the orb shifted once more, carrying with it Twilight’s magical energy.

Panting, suddenly exhausted, and incredibly freightened, Twilight fought to regain control of her own horn as it continued to charge. As the energy continued to mount, Twilight realized it was not building from her own input; rather, the orb seemed to be pumping as much energy as it could into her horn, overcharging it.

Through the pain and mounting pressure that threatened to blind her, Twilight noticed the orb was now carrying her spell out of Spike’s mind and towards her study.

Twilight then realized something even more terrifying as a sound began reverberating against the walls of study. It was a sickening sound, one that filled Twilight with a new sense of fear and pain. It was a sort of cracking sound, not unlike that of breaking bones. The catch?

It was coming from her horn.

This realization was followed by another wave energy wracking her horn, finally sending her sprawling to the floor in pain. It was as if the energy being channeled through her horn was driving it through her head like a railroad spike.

Twilight opened her mouth to scream, to plead, to do anything to stop this barrage from the orb, but nothing came out. Only the choked gasps of agony wormed their way out of her. Tears filled her eyes as the assault continued to mount and the pain continued to rise as more and more power stormed its way through her horn.

Finally, she threw her eyes open, letting out an ear-shattering cry as the pain reached an apex, accompanied with a sickening crack akin to shattering glass.

And the world went quiet and turned to blackness.

---

“Wake up . . .”

Twilight stirred slightly, a voice and hoof tugging at her slightly. The pain, thankfully, was gone for the most part, though a dull throbbing still tinged her horn. She didn’t respond to the voice or the hoof nor did she open her eyes.

“Come, sister. This is no place to die. We must fight on! ‘Tis our duty!”

This time the voice wasn’t as urgent; it was actually joyful. Determined, even.

Slowly, Twilight shifted her weight to sit up. Holding a hoof to her head, she allowed whoever this was to help her to her haunches. As she did so, she could feel the movement of dirt and the clattering of metal reached her ears. Confused, she cracked her eyes open and the sight stole the air from her lungs.

The sky was a nasty, blood-red twinge of mockery of its normal blue hue. Smoke and dust filled the air, catching in her eyes, nose, and throat. Screams of pain, victory, and heartbreak echoed throughout the divet of dirt she sat in. The screeching and clattering of metal accompanied this in a sick symphony of pain and misery that brought a lump to Twilight’s throat.

“There we are, sister! We thought we had lost you like the others there,” the voice rang again. Twilight at last focused on its source. It was a pegasus mare, clad in heavy armor that concealed everything except the mare’s eyes, which shone with a bright sky blue. She was gesturing to something behind Twilight.

Following her hoof, Twilight peered behind her. There lay five others, presumably dead, scattered around the divet. Gasping, Twilight’s eyes went wide, and she turned away to face the still alive mare. The lump in Twilight’s throat rose slightly.

Oh my Celestia, what happened here? Where am I? she thought, fighting the urge to empty her stomach onto the blood-soaked dirt.

Seeming to catch on to Twilight’s thoughts, the unknown mare’s gaze softened a little.

“Rookie, eh? I get it, you don’t have to say anything.” She paused to put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, her voice straining to remain reassuring over the sounds of war around them. “We can’t help them now, sister, it’s too late. But we can help keep others from sharing the same fate,” she said as softly as possible. She turned her head to look around before continuing, “Their deaths won’t be in vain if we can get the bastard king’s head! Now let’s get back out there!”

Finishing her speech, the mysterious mare took to the air with enough force to push Twilight back from the displaced air. Though the mare’s peptalk did comfort Twilight a little, she was still in shock from the battle that continued to erupt around her.

She knew she couldn’t sit there for too long. Even if this was some sort of dream the orb induced, she didn’t want to risk finding out the hard way that it was real. So, forcing herself to her hooves despite the soreness that accompanied every move she made, she readied herself for flight.

Twilight jumped straight up as she had done many times through the years to take off. However, the expected result of climbing into the air was instead met with her flank becoming reacquainted with the lifeless earth.

Grunting from the impact, Twilight looked behind her to find that she did, in fact, not have wings anymore. Her eyes went wide with fear, rage, confusion, and self-pity.

“No no no no, that’s not good. This is not a good time for this,” she half-screamed. Turning to look in front of her, she opted to crest the incline of her little divet to assess just how bad the situation was.

Scrambling to her hooves, she quickly trotted over to the incline and began making her way up, the roar of the battle growing as she did. As she rose to the top, Twilight peaked only her eyes over the crest. Before her lay a battlefield that was more akin to a wasteland. Bodies of the fallen were scattered every-which-way, their weapons littering the scorched earth. Just beyond this, about 100 meters away, two massive armies clashed in a battle that would make any of Twilight’s fights seem like child’s play.

In the air, pegasi from both sides tore at each other with fairly advanced wingblade technology. A few of the larger pegasi bombarded the ground with arrows and flaming balls that exploded on impact, sending massive shockwaves across the field that almost knocked Twilight down into the divet.

Earth ponies, clad in thick, heavy armor and helms, were armed with hoofblades, pikes, and various other forms of weaponry that they wielded with equal ferocity as the pegasi. The worst of it all were the unicorns that took up the back of both sides. With power that Twilight had rarely seen in even the most well-trained unicorn guard, these unicorns launched massive balls of pure magical energy that impacted the ground with sickening thuds accompanied by concussion waves that brought both sides to a pause for a few seconds. Each blast kicked dust and other debris into the air that shrouded the entire scene in a thick, red foggy mist.

Twilight thought she had prepared herself enough mentally to witness this before she climbed this incline. She had not. Not even close.

Taken aback with the sight of ponies tearing each other limb from limb, almost literally, Twilight shifted herself just below the crest and out of sight, for now. Confused and dazed, she racked her mind with plans on how to get out, how to figure out where she was, and what in the world had happened to . . . well, the world.

“Come on, Twilight, think!” she whispered to herself, gently tapping her hoof to her temple. “You’re a smart pony; just need to be calm and think things through.” She held a hoof to her chest and breathed deeply, counting as she did so. Finally calmed enough to think clearer, Twilight peaked over the crest once more, spotting a secluded area behind an old stone structure about 150 meters away from the battle.

“There we go! If I can get over there, I should have enough time to come up with a way out of here without risking getting killed in this stupid divet,” she said hopefully and began to charge a teleportation spell.

Much to her dismay, her attempts to draw in any energy to her horn were met with nothing in response. In fact, it only amplified the dull throb into a sharp prick of pain. Looking to her horn, Twilight immediately noticed what the problem was.

Though she still had her horn—something to celebrate, given the wings situation—but there was another problem: starting at the apex of her horn, a large fracture spiralled down, following the natural curve. In a moment, Twilight’s calm demeanor broke into fractured pieces of panic-fueled anger.

Sliding back into the divet she took sanctuary in, Twilight screamed and bucked the dirt wall repeatedly.

“Are you kidding me! First my wings, now my horn. Are you trying to get me killed!” she yelled at nothing in particular as she continued bucking the wall of steadily loosening dirt as hard as she could.

“Uh, Rookie? Are you okay? You seem . . . tense.”

Twilight did not know how long she was there bucking the wall of dirt, but by the time this interruption came along, her throat was raw from screaming and her legs ached. Still heaving from the effort of her episode, she turned to face the voice behind her.

It was the same pegasus from before, only now her helm was missing, leaving her face completely exposed. Twilight was taken aback from the sight.

The mare had numerous scars scattered across her teal cheeks and muzzle, but there was a rather large one stretching from her right eye to the tip of her muzzle. Despite the injuries, the mare’s face shone with a vibrant aura of hope, which her golden eyes mimicked.

After studying the mare for a little too long, Twilight realized she had not spoken yet. Blushing slightly, she tried to formulate something resembling a coherent response.

“No, no, I’m not tense . . . just warming up?” she finally croaked out, uncertain of her own words.

An awkward moment passed between the two mares as the pegasus looked at Twilight with confusion, tilting her head slightly. A massive energy blast no more than 25 meters away ripped the two away from their silence.

“Right, okay, whatever,” the pegasus began, shaking her head, “What the hell are you still doing here, Rookie? Do you have a death wish? The enemy is not about taking prisoners, and playing dead won’t help either. They’re burning everything they can get their hooves on,” the mare said sternly, a small glare working its way onto her features.

Twilight couldn’t think of anything to say, flustered in the face of mare’s sudden authoritative tone. When she could offer nothing but nonsense bumbles as attempts at an explanation, the pegasus cut Twilight off with a wing.

“Never mind. Fact is that we’re retreating farther into the valley; their forces are too strong without the extra reinforcements, so I suggest you get a move on and get that horn of yours ‘warmed up’,” the pegasus stated plainly, turning to take off once more.

“Wait!” Twilight said, desperation entering her voice. “I can’t use my horn, see?” Twilight pointed to the fracture, flinching as she accidentally tapped it with her hoof.

This seemed to stop the pegasus just in time as she looked to Twilight’s horn, squinting before rolling her eyes in annoyance.

“Of course, that explains quite a bit,” she said, pausing for a moment as she looked to her own hooves in thought. “Okay, well, my name is Thunder Wing. Figured you should know, just in case,” she said finally, offering Twilight a hoof and a smile.

Confused at first, Twilight slowly took Thunder Wing’s offer, stepping closer to the mare.

“What do you mean, ‘just in case’?” Twilight asked.

Thunder Wing looked at Twilight, perplexed, before she playfully punched Twilight’s shoulder.

“Well, duh, Rookie, in case we die!,” the mare said with almost too much enthusiasm.

Twilight stared at her with a blend of surprise, confusion, and dread. This went unnoticed by Thunder Wing.

“Anyway, Rookie. Here’s what we’re going to do . . .”

Author's Note:

Well . . . sorry for the wait. Hopefully, this was worth waiting for . . . I hope.

Anyway, I'll do my best to be better with updates.

And as always, comments appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Comments

[Arzoo]

I wonder how serious horn damage is in this setting. It ranges from needing days of recovery to being permanent in most stories, so it's always hard to judge. Twilight didn't completely shut down, so I assume it's at least not a permanent injury, unless she thinks that the damage is limited to in the dream...