• Published 9th Dec 2012
  • 6,455 Views, 382 Comments

Succession - Helrael



Twilight awakens in a world beset by eternal night, caused by the death of Princess Celestia and Luna and the destruction of the Canterlot palace. Can Twilight bring back the sun, save Equestria, and bring history's most vicious murderer to just

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12 - Predator

Succession

Chapter 12 - Predator


I... I am sorry for your losses on this night of the night. I want to be with you... I do, but... I cannot. He is there... He... is always there... But I could have given you my aid nonetheless. I should have... I shall be more vigilant in the future and I shall pray that you may one day forgive me.

With a shuddering sigh, Twilight opened her eyes, finding herself near the entrance to the cavern that had saved her life. Every muscle in her body was stiff from both the exertion they had been put through while fleeing the dragons and from sleeping on the cold stone floor. Adding to her troubles, her nose was completely stuffed and she felt terrible in general.

Yep, winter’s here too, the unicorn thought to herself as she fought to stand on almost useless legs, sniffling pathetically. Oh come on, you galloped up a spiral staircase with two broken legs! A cold and some sore muscles won’t stop you now!

As if realizing the truth of her words, her joints limbered up, allowing her to rise to her hooves. After having stood for a moment and orienting herself, however, she ended up sitting back down on her haunches.

She was alone in a cave with a valley full of bloodthirsty dragons waiting for her outside. The manner of her escape would most likely have lead whatever pegasi had survived the attack to believe she’d been killed along with the other ponies in the chariot, assuming anypony had survived the attack.

Her horn sputtered and Twilight was sent into a painful coughing fit as she tried summoning her magic, her cold hampering her arcane focus with surprising efficiency. It only took her another try, however, before her horn started glowing, lighting up her surroundings.

The first thing she noticed were the scorch marks left behind by her pursuer’s fire, coating almost the entire cavern in soot except for the one corner Twilight had dragged herself to. As she studied the small cavern further, she frowned at the discovery of a trail of blood running from the far end of the cavern to beyond its entrance. Her worry and fear only grew when she realized that the crimson trail was on top of the soot, meaning whatever creature had shed its blood in the cave had done so while she was asleep.

Another coughing fit seized her, and the unicorn cancelled her illumination spell begrudgingly. After clearing her throat, she crept toward the entrance of the cave, the light of the full moon outside allowing her to see the trail of blood clearly as it continued out into the open. It didn’t do so for long, Twilight soon realized, the trail terminating in a splatter of blood three times the size of herself.

Something died there, that’s obvious enough. Twilight grimaced at the sight and turned her gaze back to the cavern she stood in, trying to follow the trail in the other direction through the pitch-black darkness of the cave. Whatever killed it must have dragged it in here. But what kind of predator was it? Too small to be a dragon... And... what was its prey?

Grunting with effort, then groaning at the fact that it was even an effort to her, Twilight lit her horn again, following the wide streak of blood running straight through the cave. It continued to the far end of the cavern, but instead of stopping, the trail crept up the wall, and as Twilight’s spotlight followed it upwards, she found a large opening in the top of the cavern.

“H-hello?” she called out in a hoarse whisper, trying to either determine whether the predator was still there or to get some kind of response from whatever had been attacked, provided it was still alive. Only now did she notice the dryness in her throat and how her cold had affected her speech. Wincing, she cleared her throat and called out again, this time a bit louder.

Receiving no response, Twilight decided to approach the opening, directing her beam of light up into it to see what might lie beyond. One side of the opening was dotted with spatterings of blood, and she could almost see the unknown predator scaling the vertical passage with the carcass in tow, slapping it carelessly against the wall as it focused on its ascent. Almost fifteen feet above her, the shaft opened up into another cave where Twilight had no doubt she would find the corpse of whatever had been dragged past her.

She hesitated for a moment as she stared up into the other cave, but finally decided that it would be a better idea to confront the potential threat above rather than sleeping in the lower cave and risk getting ambushed.

Her horn flared and made a frustrated whirring noise as she tried teleporting, causing Twilight to fall to the floor in exhaustion. She tried again, but without a better result. After a minute or so, she got to her hooves again and relit her horn, glaring up at the obstacle as she tried to think of a way to overcome it. A piece of wood near the edge of the other cave’s opening caught her eye, and with some effort, she managed to grab onto it with her telekinesis. She pulled it out into the center of the opening and found that it was a crudely constructed ladder. Curious as to who could have crafted such a thing in a valley full of savage dragons, Twilight tugged at the ladder, eventually getting it through the shaft and lowering one end to stand in front of her.

She put a hoof against the bottom rung experimentally, making the entire ladder creak dangerously. But as it held, Twilight soon rose to her hind legs and put both forehooves on the ladder, leaning heavily against it as she grew dizzy from standing up. Still, the wooden construction held, and so the unicorn started slowly climbing. The stench of blood grew stronger and stronger as she ascended, making her gag by the time she reached the top of the ladder.

The light in her horn had been extinguished once again while she climbed, but after poking her head into the upper cave and catching her breath, she managed to relight it. Twilight’s face paled immediately at the sight only seven feet ahead of her. The bloody trail seemed to have been shed very recently near its end, to the point where the blood was still liquid and slowly flowing back the way it had come toward the unicorn. The trail itself stopped at the corpse of a young teenaged dragon, roughly the same size as the ones she, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Spike had dealt with long ago.

The dragon before her, however, was unfamiliar to the unicorn, having scales that varied in color from dark purple to indigo. Furthermore, the dragon was very much dead. Blood still poured out of a gaping wound that almost constituted its entire underside, pooling around the mutilated corpse and trickling down the incline that led to the opening Twilight currently found herself in.

She shuddered at the grotesque sight, but forced herself to remain calm. With all the noise she had made in the cave below, even the dullest predator would have noticed her presence by now. Since she had yet to be attacked, she could only assume that she was alone. She tore her gaze off the body and looked around, finding herself in a large alcove of a cave that, judging by the light ahead of her, connected to the valley outside just as the lower cave did.

She remained where she was for some time, slowly redirecting some of the magic she spent lighting the cave to instead ready a defensive spell should the need arise. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she climbed the final rungs of the ladder and entered the upper cave. She scanned her surroundings once again, her light sweeping over the walls immediately within sight in search of any hiding places for the missing predator. Still nothing.

She left the alcove and entered into the main part of the cavern, finding it to be roughly the size of the main reading room of her library. In a corner to her right, as she had expected, another opening connected the upper cave to the rest of the valley, bathing half the cave in the relative brightness of the full moon outside.

As she walked along the wall to her left, she spotted a set of footprints leading away from the pool of blood surrounding the dead dragon and out the opening ahead of her. While she was fairly certain the footprints belonged to a quadruped, she was unable to determine whether the predator had hooves or claws.

She reached the moonlit part of the cavern and slowly made her way to the opening, hoping that no dragons would be there to spot her. There was no ledge beyond the opening, only a sheer drop leading straight down to the entrance of the lower cave. Just below her, Twilight saw the enormous spattering of blood where the trail had begun.

Frowning, she returned her gaze to cavern, and on the wall just opposite the opening, she now noticed another, lighter spattering of blood as well as a web of thin cracks spreading out from the bloodstains.

“So the dragon was up here,” she said to no one in particular, trying to make sense of the situation, “got smashed up against that wall by something very powerful, then thrown out the opening here.” She gazed down at the spattering of blood beneath her. “But then got dragged back through the cave and up here again?”

A chilling breeze whistled through the opening and ruffled the sick unicorn’s fur, forcing her to retreat further into the cave as she began shivering uncontrollably. An altogether different kind of shiver went down her spine, however, when she heard something akin to a growl or groan coming from yet another alcove of the cave which she had somehow overlooked. She hurriedly directed her beam of light at the source of the noise and found a dragon, the same size as the dead one, curled up in sleep.

Fairly certain that it had yet to notice her, Twilight slowly approached the dragon, dulling the light in her horn as she studied it closer. No blood stained its claws or its jaws, suggesting that it wasn’t the missing killer. Its scales were a light lavender, very much similar to her own fur, while its underbelly was a pale lime and its spines were bright green. Twilight’s eyes widened as she took in the dragon’s very familiar appearance, and her horn sputtered and went dark from her sudden loss of focus, leaving the cavern lit only by the dim moonlight.

“Spike?” she murmured, more to herself than to the sleeping dragon. “Is that really you?”

As she approached, it became more and more apparent to her that the dragon three or four times her own size was indeed her old number one assistant, having somehow grown monumentally over the course of the two and a half years they had been apart. Another cold breeze blew over the two when Twilight reached him, and Spike shivered along with the unicorn, emitting another low groan of displeasure. Twilight’s lips curled into a faint smile at the dragon’s antics, unchanged even though everything else about him seemed to have.

Her smile vanished when something above the two caught her eye, however. Clumsily scrawled across the wall in the other dragon’s blood was a message written in the Equestrian alphabet.

OH, HOW I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO DEVOUR HIM, TWILIGHT

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO VERY

VERY

EASY

Twilight threw a wild-eyed gaze at Spike, then looked at the message, and then back to Spike again. Panic easily overcoming the limitations the cold had put upon her, her horn flared to life, and the large dragon flipped around and uncoiled in her magical grip, exposing his underside to her. She sighed in relief when she found no blood, and after inspecting the rest of the dragon, she put him down again, confident that he hadn’t been hurt by whatever had killed the other dragon. The exertion of levitating the dragon catching up to her, the unicorn simply fell down upon her friend, pulling him into as tight an embrace as she could muster.

“Oh... oh thank Celestia!” The unicorn panted, trying in vain to chase away the idea that Spike might very well have been killed only hours before she found him. “You’re okay! Okay... We’re okay.” Her hoof brushed against a strange protrusion on Spike’s back and only now did she become aware of the fact that he had managed to grow wings during his time amongst the dragons.

“What in the world happened to you?” she whispered in amazement, taking in the elongated shape of his head, his fangs, the hardened, more bone-like spines on his back and his all in all more lizard-like appearance. Elation finally overcame the short moment of heartwrenching fear, and she felt the sudden urge to laugh. “Look at you! You’re huge! A-and you’re okay...”

“Whuh... Twilight?” The unicorn lifted her head in time to see Spike slowly open his eyes, blinking a few times before adjusting to the darkness. “What’s going on?” he asked sleepily.

She hesitated for a moment, not quite knowing where to begin. “Uh, well, I came to make sure you were okay. I heard the dragons here were growing restless, maybe even insane. A couple of them have attacked Equestria. I came here to find out why and get you out of here.”

The large scaly body beneath Twilight shifted a fraction of an inch, and Spike’s eyes went wide. He flipped onto all fours and immediately fell over, knocking back a confused Twilight roughly. He threw a panicked gaze at one of his claws before bringing it to his face, gasping in shock as he touched his elongated jaws. “Gah! T-Twilight, quit putting spells on me!” he exclaimed accusatively, craning his long neck to take in the rest of his body.

“I... haven’t put any spells on you,” the unicorn answered, puzzled by Spike’s alarm. “Wait, are you saying all these changes happened just now!?”

“I-I don’t know!” Spike stuttered, grabbing onto his tail which began waggling uncontrollably. “I guess! I-I mean, I w-was re-regular old Spike when I fell asleep!”

“Well, how long have you been sleeping?” Twilight inquired, almost just as curious as to what had happened as Spike. “Maybe someone else came by and cast a spell on you.” Her eyes were drawn to the letters of blood above the two as she said this, but she quickly returned her gaze to the dragon, who was now trying to stand on all fours.

“I don’t know!” he replied again, one of his back legs giving away beneath him. “Wandered around the valley for two and a half weeks before finding this cave... Uh, must’ve been the twenty-second by the time I fell asleep here.”

Twilight gave the dragon an incredulous stare which only made him panic more. “Are you telling me... the last thing you remember is falling asleep here two and a half weeks after we said goodbye?”

“Yeah?” Spike answered uncertainly. “Wh-why? What day is it?”

Twilight sat down and breathed a long sigh. “I don’t even know anymore. But... it’s been... Spike, it’s been two years and seven months since I came with you to Dragoncrest.”

If possible, Spike looked even more shocked for a few seconds, before a nervous smile spread across his lips. “F-funny... You’re joking right? I can’t have slept for two years! That’s ridiculous!”

“I’m not joking,” Twilight insisted. “Maybe it’s some sort of dragon thing,” she suggested. “Older dragons occasionally take those century long naps. Maybe you did something similar.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” Spike tried to counter. “Just went to sleep! Like I always do!”

“Except you slept for two and a half years,” Twilight said. “Must’ve been some reaction to you spending time with other dragons.” She swept her gaze across the empty cave. “Unless of course you’ve been hoarding things again.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious I haven’t,” Spike defended himself. “But, if you really say so, I guess I must’ve been gone for that long... Still a lot of growing, though.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Twilight attempted, forcing a smile despite all the blood surrounding them which Spike somehow still hadn’t seen. “I mean, before you left, you were always going on and on about how you hated being so small.”

“Yeah...” Spike agreed, his features brightening. “And look at me now! I’m twice the size of you, Twilight! I’m finally a real dragon!”

“More like, three or four times my size!” Twilight laughed. “But you know you've always been a real dragon, Spike,” she insisted comfortingly. “Now you just look the part, I guess.”

“Can't wait to show Tacker!” Spike laughed, feeling up the spines on the back of his head. “I bet I'm bigger than him now!” He turned his head toward the entrance Twilight had come from, but thankfully didn't see the body hidden in the shadows. “Did you see him? He should be around here somewhere.”

“Tacker? A-a dragon? That was two and a half years ago,” Twilight answered nervously, trying to convince herself more than Spike that the dragon near the entrance wasn't anyone he knew. “He... he could be anywhere by now, right?”

“Naw, I'm sure he's here,” Spike insisted. “Maybe he’s just out looking for something to eat.”

The dragon turned away from her and started toward the cavern exit but was stopped by Twilight. “Spike! Wait!” The exclamation triggered yet another coughing fit which almost brought her to her knees, but it was enough to distract Spike.

“Whoah, you alright?” The dragon turned back to her and helped her to her hooves as she recovered, giving her a concerned look.

“It’s just a cold,” Twilight assured him. “Slept in the cave beneath us before coming up here.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “Look, Spike... A lot of things have happened since you came here. A lot of bad things.”

“Is... is Rarity alright?”

Despite everything, Twilight smiled at her friend’s persistent infatuation. “She’s fine, Spike. She moved to Manehattan because of some financial troubles, but she’s doing alright now.”

Spike frowned at the last part. “She’s having trouble with money? I thought Fancy Pants was one of the richest stallions in Canterlot!”

“Things didn’t really work out between them,” Twilight explained hastily. “They broke up a few weeks after you left, actually, and Rarity came back to Ponyville.”

“Oh,” Spike responded, looking a little crestfallen. “Makes ya feel kinda silly for leaving Equestria for two and a half years...”

“She’d be very happy to see you,” Twilight encouraged him, then tried her best at a teasing smile. “Couldn’t find any dragonnesses around here?”

“Ugh, no way,” Spike replied, grimacing at the thought. “The dragons around here are all jerks! Tacker’s the only nice guy I met in this place. He showed me this cave he’d found and let me sleep here. Heh, hope I didn’t overstay my welcome...”

Twilight sighed as she forced herself to tell Spike what he needed to know before it was too late. “Tacker... he’s a blue and purple dragon, right?” Spike nodded, and Twilight pointed her horn at the wall behind him. “The wall was like that when I found it. Something was here right before me.”

“‘Him’? who’s ‘him’?” Spike asked nervously as he read the blood scrawled across the wall.

“You. That thing must have been practically standing on you when it wrote that.” She bit her lip, then looked toward the entrance to the cave. “And... Tacker’s dead, Spike. I’m sorry.”

The dragon turned toward where Twilight was looking, and the unicorn cast a soft magenta light to reveal the body of Tacker. Twilight could only watch helplessly as her friend was overcome with anguish, waking up to nothing less than his first draconic friend being brutally murdered. “What happened to him?” he asked, his voice shaky as tears welled up in his eyes. “Who did this!?”

“He got thrown out the opening there,” Twilight answered, drawing close to Spike and putting a comforting hoof on his shoulder. “And then he was dragged back in here for some reason. As to the ‘who’... I’m starting to think it’s Nightmare Moon.”

“N-Nightmare Moon?” the dragon stuttered in confusion, trying to tear his gaze off his dead companion but failing. “Wh-why would she... Wait, Nightmare Moon!? Since when did she come back!? What about Luna!?”

“That’s the bad news,” Twilight explained, trying her best to hug the large dragon standing beside her. “The really, really bad news. Nightmare Moon came back more than half a year ago. We haven’t seen the sun since.”

Spike was struck dumb for several long seconds, simply staring at the body ahead of him. “But... how come she’s still around? Y-you beat her way back during the Summer Sun celebration, right? Luna wouldn’t..! A-a-and if Nightmare Moon really is back, then how come you haven’t stopped her yet? You have the Elements of Harmony! And Princess Celestia! And Cadance and Shining Armor!”

Almost immediately, Twilight broke into tears, and it soon became Spike’s turn to comfort her. He turned away from Tacker and sat down, wrapping his arms around the smaller unicorn as she pressed herself up against him, sobbing violently and heaving for air. “What? Sh-she took the Elements!?”

“No!” Twilight sobbed, coughing into the dragon’s chest a few times before continuing. “I-I mean... ye-yes, but...” The coughing turned into convulsions and she gasped for air, not knowing how to deliver the news to Spike. “She’s dead...” she finally managed, so quietly that Spike almost didn’t hear.

“Who?” the dragon breathed, obviously afraid to know the answer.

“Celestia. And Cadance. Even Shining Armor!”

The grip around her tightened. “W-what?”

“Nightmare Moon blew up the Canterlot palace,” Twilight explained amidst wracking sobs, finding it somewhat easier to continue now that she had told him the worst. “Everypony inside got killed. The entire royal family was wiped out, and the sun’s been destroyed.”

“Celestia’s... dead?” Spike whimpered, sounding both like he didn’t believe it and that he didn’t want to. “A-and Shining Armor?”

“I saw her die,” Twilight said, sensing the other’s disbelief. “The moon’s been stuck on the sky ever since it happened.”

“She... No, that can’t be... No!” Spike’s breathing grew ragged as he started panicking, and it seemed the unicorn in his arms was the only thing preventing him from leaping onto his feet again. “Celestia’s immortal, Twi! S-she can’t..!” He fell unto his side, pulling Twilight with him and just lay there on the cold stone, shaking his head in a state of disbelief and horror. “She can’t die...” he whispered, grasping the unicorn even tighter.

She, in turn, buried her head into his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Spike. I’m sorry you had to wake up to this. And... I’m sorry I’m like this. I mean, I’ve known about this for seven months; I shouldn’t be the one crying!”

“‘Course you should cry!” Spike exclaimed in a voice on the verge of breaking, and Twilight felt the first of many tears fall onto her mane. “If she’s... if she’s really... I mean, no reason we can’t... both be sad.”


Twilight awoke to the sound of a loud grumbling right next to her. She was about to flinch away from the sound when she realized it was just Spike’s stomach. The large dragon lying next to her grimaced as he too woke up.

“Ugh... so hungry,” he moaned, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Don’t suppose you have any gems?”

Twilight shook her head. “I could try a Gem Finding spell, but I’m not sure I can cast it properly when I’m like this.” As if to emphasize her point, she sneezed loudly, falling back against Spike.

“Could you try?” the dragon plead, his stomach rumbling loudly again. “I haven’t eaten in two and a half years!”

“You’ve been doing nothing but sleeping for two and a half years,” Twilight grumbled as she rose to her hooves, her horn flickering on and off. “Just... ugh, give me a moment.” Her horn finally flared up properly, and her head automatically jerked toward the large opening leading out to the rest of valley. She walked over to the precipice and looked down upon the dried-out spattering of blood marking the spot where Tacker had died. Right next to it, she saw the semi-transparent image of a large cluster of gems buried a few feet under the ground. “Some just outside the cavern,” she informed Spike, who walked up next to her on all fours. “Just to the right of the, uh, bloodstain.”

“Thanks,” Spike sighed, leaning out over the edge experimentally. “Think I could make it out this way?”

“It’s fifteen feet, Spike,” Twilight warned him, terminating her spell. “The last thing we need is either of us getting hurt in a valley full of insane dragons.”

“Right,” Spike surrendered, forcing himself to turn back toward the entrance.

“We’ll have to do something about him sooner or later,” Twilight told him, following the dragon’s gaze. “We’ll find something to eat, then I’ll see if I can’t carry him out of here so we can bury him.”

“Has she done a lot of things like this?” Spike asked the unicorn, trying not to look at the corpse that had only gotten more grotesque while the two had wept and slept in each other’s arms. “Murdering ponies for no reason?”

“Apart from The Great Tragedy, no,” Twilight sighed, shaking her head. “Not as far as I know, at least. Looks like all she’s been doing is drive the woodland creatures insane for some reason.”

“To get rid of Fluttershy?” Spike suggested, moving the ladder he and Tacker had built into place so that he and Twilight could get down.

“I guess...” Twilight muttered. “She could have easily kidnapped her herself, though. She could have blown up her cottage if she wanted to, or just marched straight into Ponyville and destroy everything. But I suppose there’s some kind of irony to having animals attack Fluttershy. It’s just... the way she went about it with the Canterlot palace, you’d think she’d just kill Fluttershy if she wanted to get the Elements of Harmony out of the way.”

“But then we’re lucky she hasn’t,” Spike offered as he reached the lower cave, helping Twilight down the ladder.

“Except Nightmare Moon has Fluttershy!” she stressed. “I’m tired of her being in control. She’s gonna use Fluttershy as a hostage before this is all over, I know it. I’m starting to think she hasn’t taken the Elements of Harmony. That must be why she’s holding Fluttershy captive, to have some kind of bargaining chip in case we find them before her.”

“And the Elements are in, what, Canterlot?” Spike said, trying to make sure he had properly absorbed the loads of information Twilight had bombarded him with last night. The unicorn nodded as they both set off toward the cavern entrance. “And Canterlot is too dangerous to visit now, right?”

“That’s what the council says,” Twilight sighed irritably. “And yet they’re willing to send me into this valley full of crazy dragons! Honestly, how much more dangerous can Canterlot be!?”

“Doesn’t make a whole lotta sense to me either,” Spike concurred. “But you said you’d convince them to let you go there anyway?”

“I’m afraid Nightmare Moon will be doing the convincing. Gems are there,” she said, pointing at the spot next to the giant bloodstain. As Spike set to digging, she continued. “The day before yesterday, just after I fell out the flying chariot and landed here, she told me she’d be attacking Equestria soon.”

“Right, the whole ‘staining the sky with blood’ thing,” Spike said, worry plain on his face as he dug out the gems. “What’re we gonna do about that? We need to warn somepony!”

“I know,” Twilight groaned, frustrated at the situation. “But I’m the only pony in this entire valley! The ones just outside probably think I’m dead, and after what happened to the latest expedition, they probably won’t come looking for me anytime soon. I can’t teleport with this cold, so unless you know to use those things,” she gestured at Spike’s newly acquired wings, “we’re not going anywhere soon.”

“Huh, maybe I should try ‘em out,” Spike commented, retrieving the last of the gems.

“Probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to fly straight into the Sword’s camp,” Twilight pointed out. “I’m not sure they’d recognize you.”

“So what? We just sit here and wait for you to get better?” Spike asked critically.

“I’ll think of something...”

Spike was about to shove the first of the gems into his mouth when he thought better of it and nodded at Twilight. “So, uh, what’re you gonna eat?”

“I’m not sure I should stray too far from the cave,” Twilight replied, gazing out at the dark valley that undoubtedly held the dozens upon dozens of dragons waiting to devour her. “I was hoping you could go out and find something once you’d eaten. I guess... grass would be okay.”

“I’ll see if I can find any of the flowers you like,” Spike assured her, shoving the entire cluster of gems into his mouth. He tried rising to his legs, but ended up falling back on all fours. “Gowwa geth the hang of thath...” he muttered through his mouthful, then went off in search of the nearest patch of unburnt grass.

“Thanks, Spike! Be careful out there!” she called after him as he left. “We don’t know what those dragons will do to you if they see you!”


A few hours later, Twilight awoke to the sound of a crackling fire, smiling at the warmth permeating her body. She opened her eyes and found Spike sitting across from her, a large fire between them.

“Hi Spike,” she greeted the dragon sleepily. “What took you?”

“Sorry, I, uh, ran into a dragon.”

“A-a dragon!?” The unicorn rose to a sitting position to get a better look at Spike. “Are you alright!?”

“I’m fine,” Spike assured her. “Turns out that, well, I don’t think the dragons have gone insane, they just... really have it out for ponies right now.”

“Why? Do they think we did something to them?”

“Apparently, somepony’s been slashing up their wings,” Spike revealed, still looking rather confused himself. “All of them. I mean, every single dragon in this whole valley, except me, have had their wings ruined. They can’t leave this place, and they’re really not happy about it. They think ponies have declared war on them or something.”

“Ponies attacked a valley full of dragons?” Twilight asked incredulously. “Who? How many?”

Spike shrugged. “They didn’t exactly see who did it. That’s kinda the problem. Whoever cut up their wings did it while they were asleep. Those who woke up only saw a shadow or a silhouette. Pony-shaped, they all agree.”

“Nightmare Moon,” Twilight guessed. “So she’s not allied with the dragons. But why would she trap them here?”

“She used... ‘foul magic’ to cut up their wings,” Spike explained, shrugging at her question. “The one I met had these huge gashes across his wings, all black and nasty around the edges. He said it’d take years before he could fly again. Before any of them can fly.”

“I guess that’s for the best,” Twilight replied reluctantly. “For Equestria, at least. Not for the dragons. Or us.”

“Huh?”

“Coup de Grâce will be sending in scouts,” Twilight explained to him. “They’ll be careful, so careful that neither we nor the dragons will see them. No doubt they’ll discover the dragons’ wounds sooner or later and when they do, they’ll decide they aren’t a threat. Once that happens...”

“They’ll leave,” Spike finished, realizing the problem. “Took us almost a week to get to Dragoncrest two and a half years ago.”

“Making the same trek during the night won’t be easy,” Twilight agreed. “I wish there was some way we could get those scouts’ attention!”

“I’ve got nothing,” Spike admitted, then gestured at a huge pile of grass and assorted flowers beside Twilight. “There were a lot of weird flowers I didn’t know what was, but I did recognize some of them. Found a bunch of daffodils.”

“Thanks,” the unicorn said, straining for a moment to activate her magic before grabbing hold of a mouthful of grass and flowers. “Must’ve taken you several trips to get all of this. You got food for both of us and built a fire.”

“I also got this,” Spike revealed holding out a thin sheet of bark for Twilight to see. “I figured we could try and send a letter.”

“But... Celestia’s dead,” Twilight objected when she had gotten past her first mouthful. “I don’t think that spell of yours will work anymore.”

“We could always try,” Spike argued. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? A piece of bark getting burned up?”

“It might get sent to Nightmare Moon,” Twilight suggested. “But I guess that wouldn't really hurt either. If there’s a chance it gets sent to anypony in Equestria, it’s worth a shot.”

“Good. We don’t have anything to write with, though.”

“Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” the unicorn assured him as he handed her the piece of bark. She spread it out in front of her and, while she ate, a thin beam of light shot out of her horn and struck the bark, leaving blackened furrows wherever it went and slowly forming letters and words as she continued. “I noticed something while I was waiting for you,” she told the dragon. “The moon is waning.”

“Is that weird?”

“The moon hasn’t changed since Nightmare Moon returned,” Twilight explained. “But now all of a sudden, it’s waning. It got me thinking... When I met her, she didn’t just tell me that thing about staining the sky with the blood of innocents, she specifically said we’d meet each other under the full moon.”

“So she’s withdrawing her challenge?” Spike suggested, to which Twilight only shook her head. “I don’t think so. The moon will continue waning, and when it’s dark, it’ll start waxing again until it becomes full. I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of countdown. Once it’s full again, she’ll strike.”

The dragon left the fire behind and went to the opening in the cave to look at the moon. “It’s turning dark pretty fast,” he said with a worried frown. “What if we don’t make it out in time?”

“We will,” Twilight insisted stubbornly, finishing the rest of her meal and the letter. “She said she would meet me... wherever it is she’s going to attack.”

“Then what?”

“That’s up to me, apparently. Which means she’ll probably just be looking for an excuse to kill me.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Spike observed, even more worried.

“I want to fight her,” Twilight told the dragon. “She’s been avoiding me for seven months now, hiding in the shadows and taunting me. It’s about time we faced each other.”

“But you can’t defeat her, Twilight!” the dragon argued, returning to the fire. “She killed Celestia!”

“They used to say nopony can defeat an ursa major!” Twilight countered. “But I did! Twice! I defeated the dragon outside Dragoncrest, and I defeated Inferno and sent him back to Tartarus! I’ve defeated Discord, who was defeated only by Celestia and Luna, and I defeated Nightmare Moon once, I can do it again!”

“You had help all of those times,” Spike pointed out. “It sounds a lot like you’re thinking about facing her alone.”

“I’m stronger this time,” Twilight insisted. “I’ve proven I can take a hit. Few unicorns can survive depleting their magical reserves completely. I did that. Nopony can survive falling out of a three hundred foot tall tower. I did that! And not even Celestia could survive that miniature supernova that destroyed the Canterlot palace! I made it through all of those things! Nopony else should risk their lives if I can deal with this.”

“It’s still not a very good idea,” Spike persisted. Twilight didn’t answer, and after sitting still and shivering for a moment, the dragon plunged his hands straight into the fire and sighed contentedly. “It’s so cold outside! What time of year is it!?”

“Autumn,” Twilight sighed. “At least, it should be. But it’s started to snow all over Equestria lately. I don’t think we’ll be able to wrap up this winter without a proper sun.”

“And those council ponies really think Flim and Flam’s gizmos will work?” Spike asked skeptically and Twilight sighed in response.

“Thank you! It’s as if everypony’s convinced it’s a permanent solution!” Twilight exclaimed frustratedly. “I mean, sure, it prevents all of Equestria from panicking, but that won’t help us when the entire continent freezes over and we starve to death!”

“You really think it’ll come to that!?” an alarmed Spike asked worriedly, removing his hands from the fire to rub some warmth into his legs.

“No... No, I’m not going to let that happen,” Twilight declared with determination. “I’m going to find the Elements of Harmony, I’m going to find Fluttershy, and I’m going to bring back the sun. Somewhere along the line I’m going to defeat Nightmare Moon too. I can’t help but think this is why I was chosen as Celestia’s protégé. Maybe I’m supposed to be her successor or something.”

“You think she knew she was going to get killed?” Spike asked again, disbelief tinging his voice this time. “By Nightmare Moon? Wouldn’t she have done something about it if she knew?”

“I don’t know!” Twilight defended herself. “Nopony knows how she really thinks, do they? Perhaps there wasn’t anything she could do. Maybe it was the best of the available options.” At the confused look on Spike’s face, Twilight decided to elaborate. “As far as I remember, there wasn’t really much of a fight. Only the deathblow, and that alone wiped out the entire Canterlot palace and killed hundreds. What do you think would have happened if they had actually fought? How many ponies would have been killed by the collateral damage of such a battle? I’m not saying she gave up, but... I don’t know...”

“I know what you mean,” Spike assured her. “There’s something fishy about her dying. Maybe she didn’t?”

“The sun is gone, Spike,” Twilight reminded him. “Her corpse disintegrated while I held it... I don’t... I don’t think she’s ever coming back.”

The two friends were silent for a long while, both struggling to keep the grief they had only so recently fought off at bay. “So... a succession, huh?” Spike finally offered, giving the unicorn a small smile. “You gonna be a princess?”

Twilight chuckled. “I don’t think it’ll go as far as that. A lot of honorary titles and all that for saving the world, but I’m going to take Celestia’s place as the bringer of the sun, not Princess of Equestria.”

“Aw, c’mon, Twilight! You could totally pull it off!” Spike encouraged her teasingly. “You’re the personal protégé of Celestia and Luna, you’re pretty much Celestia’s adoptive daughter, and you’re the sister of a prince!”

“Still a no,” Twilight replied stubbornly. “I would have a nervous breakdown if I was responsible for something as huge as Equestria. I’ll leave that to the council, thank you very much.”

“But they sound so dumb!” Spike lamented, plunging his hands back into the fire along with his feet.

“They’ve kept Equestria from falling apart after Celestia died,” Twilight pointed out. “They might’ve made a few mistakes, but they probably know what they’re doing.”

“Well, maybe...” Spike conceded, growing quiet again as he stared at the flames. Twilight scooted closer to the fire as well, the movement eliciting another painful coughing fit from her.

For a few moments, the dragon and pony simply stared at the fire, lost in their own thoughts whilst enjoying the company of one another after two and a half years of separation. The silence between them, broken only by the occasional snap and sizzle of the burning wood and gust of frigid wind outside, was a welcome change from the noise of Manehattan, Twilight found.

“Thank you, Spike,” she suddenly found herself saying, breaking the minutes-long silence.

“Huh?”

“For... well, being you. For taking all of this the way you do,” she tried explaining. “I grieved for weeks and weeks and could hardly bear to talk about Celestia for months. And yet here you are, having been told only the day before yesterday, and you’re laughing and joking as if nothing’s wrong.”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve quite... understood it yet,” Spike admitted, frowning into the fire. “It’s hard to relate to the rest of the world when you’ve been in this valley for... what, two and a half years?”

“Let me know if you need to talk about it, alright?” Twilight told the dragon and gave a little smile. “If you finally do flip out, it can’t be worse than me.”

“I’m not gonna run away from Rainbow and travel back in time, no!” Spike replied with a laugh. He pointed at the piece of bark lying next to Twilight. “You done with that?”

Twilight nodded, and the dragon grabbed the makeshift letter. “It’s a little lacking in details, but if this works, I guess we can always elaborate.”

“Alright, here goes,” Spike declared, then pursed his lips and blew a large green flame across the sheet in his hands. Contrary to Twilight’s expectations, the piece of bark didn’t burn to a crisp, but dissolved exactly as her letters to Celestia always did, transforming into a sparkling mist. The letter, however, didn’t travel particularly far, zipping over to Twilight and reforming just in front of her.

“Uh, are you sure you did it right?” Twilight asked, grabbing hold of the piece of bark with her magic to make sure it was unchanged.

“What do you mean ‘right’?” Spike grumbled. “There’s only one way to do it.”

“So the spell got transferred to me somehow?” Twilight asked, discarding the letter.

“Looks like it. I guess that means she really is dead...” the dragon murmured sadly. “Maybe the spell passed on to you because you were standing right next to her?”

“Or because I originally hatched you,” Twilight suggested. “Might be some sort of connection we share. Or because I’m her student or something. Could be anything, really.”

“Either way, it looks like we’re stuck here,” Spike concluded with a sigh. “So, I guess you need a lot of rest if you’re going to teleport us out of here. What do I do?”

“Practice some flying,” Twilight told him. “It’d be easier if I just have to teleport myself.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Spike replied somewhat uncertainly. “Think I’ll take care of Tacker first, though.”

“Need help with that?” Twilight asked, getting to her hooves.

“Uh, well... If you can, it’d be nice if you carried him out of the cave. That dragon I met told me I should burn him instead of burying him. He said dragons usually catch fire when their heart stops beating, and they just burn away to nothing.”

“What? Does that mean Tacker’s heart is still beating?”

“Well, no, of course not. But... that’s kinda the weird thing,” Spike explained. “There’s been five other murders besides Tacker, all of them young dragons. None of them caught fire, which the dragons think is because of this ‘dark magic’ the murderer used.”

Twilight shuddered at the thought as she grabbed hold of Tacker’s corpse, carrying the stiff body out the opening leading straight out to the valley and gently lowering it to the ground fifteen feet below. “I’m starting to think Nightmare Moon has gone crazy. Not crazy with jealousy or with power, but just plain, out-of-her-mind crazy. Like she’s possessed or something.”

“What’s the difference exactly?” Spike asked, climbing down the ladder and once again helping Twilight descend as well.

“Her goals,” Twilight replied. “She seemed pretty straight forward when we met her the first time. She interrupted the Summer Sun Celebration, did who knows what to get rid of Celestia, and then tried stopping the girls and me from getting the Elements. Same goes for what she did a thousand years ago; she overthrew Celestia and made the night eternal. She’s not exactly subtle. And yet we haven’t seen her since The Great Tragedy. She’s been all over Equestria and randomly killing or maiming everything she meets, including the dragons here, as if her only goal is spreading misery wherever she goes.

“I just don’t see what purpose that serves,” Twilight continued with a shake of her head. “I know Luna, and I know she’s not like that. And neither should Nightmare Moon be. She’s not a sadist, she’s a tyrant, and tyrants don’t go killing off their subjects and destroying their own kingdom without reason.”

“Then what do you suppose she’s doing?”

“That’s the thing that’s been driving me crazy!” Twilight exclaimed in annoyance. “Nightmare Moon is the agent of Luna’s... not so savory subconscious desires. She does the things Luna’s sense of morals won’t usually let her do, but... ugh, I don’t know. I don’t see how any of this helps Luna achieve any of her goals! If it weren’t for the fact that the moon is still here and that I saw her with my own eyes, I’d think we were dealing with someone completely different! Which is why I think something is... wrong with her. Either she’s contracted some sort of disease or been struck by a spell that affects her sanity, or she’s been possessed by some kind of spirit. Hopefully I’ll find out when I meet her.”

“Still doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Spike murmured as they reached Tacker. “Facing her, I mean.”

“She’s going to kill innocent ponies, Spike. I need to do something. The least I can do is show up and accept her challenge.”

“If you say so...” The dragon and pony were silent for a while as they simply stared at the dead body in front of them. “I didn’t really know him,” Spike offered, nodding at Tacker. “But... I wish I had. He took me in when no one else would. He didn’t mind I smelled like ponies or that I didn’t act like other dragons. He even didn’t mind me falling asleep for two and a half years inside his cave. He was generous, and that’s not something you see in a lot of dragons. I’m glad I met him, and... I’m glad he was my friend.”

Twilight put a comforting hoof on his shoulder as Spike arched his long neck and blew a sweltering blast of fire straight into Tacker’s open wound. For a few seconds, the flames only washed over the still body, but when Spike finally stopped, it flared up on its own, the green flames turning bright blue as the fires took hold.

Twilight’s heart caught in her throat as the dragon became lost in the blue flare and she hugged Spike closely. “It could have been you,” she whispered. “It could’ve so easily been you. Don’t ever leave me, Spike. Promise me that.”

A scaly arm wrapped around her, and Spike sat down to better hold her. “I promise,” he whispered, gazing at the pyre. “As long as you don’t ever leave me.”


Twilight spent the next day trapped in the upper cavern, her cold serving to immobilize her completely as it hit its peak. With the warmth provided by both the fire and Spike himself, however, she pulled through, and after three or four days of drifting in and out of sleep, she finally started to regain proper control her higher magical faculties.

Spike, when he was not caring for the unicorn, practiced his flying as instructed by Twilight. Much to her amazement, the dragon went from having little to no muscle control in his wings to being able to glide through the air when he leapt out the opening in the upper cave, learning the basics of flight in only six days.

Meanwhile, as the days passed, so did the moon darken, until only a thin sliver remained visible on the sky by the eighth day of Twilight’s entrapment within the valley. On that day, both she and Spike strode out from the cavern, gazing up at the sky as they waited.

“Even the stars have dimmed,” Twilight said worriedly, returning her gaze to the ground which had turned utterly and completely dark. The mountains surrounding the two friends were just as black, and the unicorn shook her head at the sight. “Are you sure you can climb in this light?”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Spike pointed out. Even though he was standing right next to her, Twilight found it hard to see whether he looked nervous or determined. “And as you said, we might as well take advantage of Nightmare Moon’s countdown.”

“It definitely doesn’t look like they’ll be able to see us climbing out of here,” Twilight replied. “With any luck, they won’t get too suspicious of of the flashes of light from my teleportation.”

“Let’s hope so,” Spike agreed, grabbing onto the nearest handhold on the cliff right next to the cavern entrance. Flapping his wings to provide a small amount of lift, he started scaling the wall at a surprising speed, vanishing out of Twilight’s limited field of vision within seconds. A moment later, a small burst of green fire from above signalled that he had found a place for her to stand.

Her horn sprung to life and she smiled at the ease with which she could now call upon her magic. With a dull pop and a flash, she closed the gap between herself and Spike instantly, finding herself on a narrow ledge more than thirty feet above the cavern entrance.

“Sorry,” Spike said, steadying her with an outstretched claw before she toppled over. “There’s not much room up here.”

“It’s fine, Spike,” Twilight assured him with a smile. “What’s important now is getting out of this valley.”

Spike nodded and half-flew, half-crawled up the mountain, marking ledges for the unicorn in the dark, who in turn followed after him, slowly making her way up the steep mountainside in a rough zigzag pattern. After half an hour of this repeated process, the two friends finally found themselves standing atop one of the rocky ridges separating the valley from the rest of the world.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Twilight remarked, slightly out of breath as she gazed back at the valley they had just escaped. “Doesn’t look like any dragons noticed us, so I guess we’re clear.” She returned her gaze to what lay in front of her, taking in the enormous mountains and pitch-black valleys that stretched out before the pair with mixed emotions. “Now it’s just us and miles and miles of... wait...” The unicorn pointed toward something bright below the two, and Spike followed her gaze, squinting into the darkness to identify the source of light.

“A fire?” he suggested, and Twilight’s features lit up.

“That’s where we landed! The Sword of Equestria! They’re still here!”

“That one little fire?” Spike asked dubiously. “I thought there was a hundred ponies with you.”

“Well, not all of them, obviously,” the unicorn replied, her horn lighting up again. “But it looks like someone stayed behind!” With a flourish of her horn, she sent forth a brilliant beam of magenta, easily visible for anypony below.

The pony and dragon waited for a few minutes before the shape of a pegasus became recognizable against the darkness surrounding them. “Twilight! Captain!” a somewhat familiar beige pony called out to the unicorn as she landed next to the two friends. “I-I can’t believe it! They said you were toast!”

“Almost was,” Twilight admitted with a smile.

“Oh! Oh! You can’t believe how relieved I am to see you! Most of the Sword thinks you got killed! I mean, after all of those warnings we got from the council about not letting anything happen to you, not letting you out of our sight...” The pegasus looked close to hyperventilating but carried on nonetheless. “Oh boy! Whew! I-I-I had a feeling you’d made it, but after a whole week, I was starting to think we’d gotten Princess Celestia’s protégée killed!” She looked behind Twilight to stare at the large dragon, who only waved at her awkwardly. “Is that Spike? I thought he was a lot smaller!”

Was,” Spike chuckled.

“This is Pale Pass,” Twilight introduced hastily, motioning for the two others to follow her as she started down a path that lead at least some of the way down the mountainside. Safely out of the valley, the unicorn finally found it safe to keep her horn lit, illuminating the deep darkness surrounding them. “You’re the one who almost got eaten by that ursa major, right?”

“Must’ve been inside its mouth!” Pale Pass breathed, shuddering at the memory. “Don’t wanna think about what could’ve happened if you hadn’t been there! Felt I owed it to ya to at least stick around here for a while.”

“Hadn’t really expected to see any of you here,” Twilight admitted, then gave the pegasus a pleading look. “You do have a chariot, right?”

“Amber Vane insisted he should stay behind,” Pale Pass said, nodding. “Even if you hadn’t come back, we still would’ve needed one for him!”

“So, what exactly happened after that disaster?” Twilight asked curiously after a sigh of relief. “Did anypony make it out?”

Pale Pass nodded again. “Night Flight is an amazing flyer! I mean, not only did he make it out of there without a scratch, but he saved Horizon Bloom after she got grazed by a blast of fire and carried her outta there! Nopony else came out, though, and none of the other scouts Coup sent in found any survivors. The day after you, uh, went missing, they found out none of the dragons could fly. Coup decided to leave with most of the Sword. Night Flight and Horizon wanted to stay behind, but since they were the only survivors and all, they kinda had to go. To report to the council.”

“Makes sense,” Twilight replied. “Ugh, looks like I’m going to have a whole lot of explaining to do once I get back to Manehattan.”

“Well, what did happen?” Pale Pass asked curiously, looking first at her then Spike. “You were gone for a week. A lot of us were starting to think you really were dead.”

“I’d rather wait until we get back to camp,” Twilight answered. “Might as well tell all of you at once, right?”

“Oh, right... Uh, I should, uh, probably tell them the captain’s alive!” Pale Pass said, laughing at her own forgetfulness. “Stay right here, I’ll be back with someone to give you a lift!”

As the white pegasus vanished in a bright blur, Twilight felt her eyes drawn to the moon, which had already started waxing, the thin sliver of light growing ever so slowly even as she watched. Can’t be much more than a day or two now, she thought with worry. And then I’ll have to fight Luna. Maybe even... Twilight shuddered and tore her gaze off the moon, giving Spike a small cheerful smile to comfort him. The worried eyes carefully watching her only grew more concerned, mirroring Twilight’s own growing nervousness at the trial ahead of her.