> The Tallmare (being reworked)
>  by hus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> ch1 The Everfree
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight stared out into the forest, looking at it from a far distance with a determined smirk. Twilight felt the adrenaline flow through her mind like a river as she wondered about what exciting things lied in the smallest of corners of the Everfree. Sure, she had explored the forest before, usually strolling with AJ or Fluttershy. But she wanted to be thorough in her cataloging of every plant, fungus, and fauna she saw during her walk.

She ambled towards the entrance of the forest, her young dragon assistant following behind her. The entrance of the Everfree forest was marked by an old wooden fence which was installed to separate a small playground from it. The towering canopy stretched overhead like a giant maw, and beyond grew a foreboding wall of smaller trees with leaves of fall orange and yellow. 

There was a reason why the forest was widely feared in Ponyville; it was beautifully huge, and yet, haunting. Its animals were another sight to behold, from the tame bunnies and the broad spectrum of birds, to the more vicious hydras and nocturnal cockatrices. This place was a demonstration of how the magic of harmony affected the evolution of the everfree’s ecosystem.

As Twilight continued to walk, Spike sheepishly shuffled closer to her and nudged her. "Uhh hey, Twilight, why do you want me to come with you?”The drake asked nervously, looking at his equivalent to an older sister. “I could just stay home with Rarity."

"Well, it's because you need to do something else than sit around the library and be alone." Twilight responded, looking back at her dragon assistant with a teasing grin.

The drake groaned before puffing up his chest. "But I wouldn’t be alone, I would have Rarity with me!" Spike retorted, blushing a bit as he thought about his older crush.

Twilight then just looked at him and groaned. “You know she only sees you as a friend right?”

"Ok, fine, I guess you have a point," he muttered softly before sighing and entering the forest with her.

Once they entered, Twilight's worry was  replaced with a sense of adventure and curiosity. The sheer number of things she could do overwhelmed her mind with possibilities. The weather was foreboding, with gray clouds covering the sky and a vast silence that usually accompanied rainy or cloudy days, but some ugly weather wouldn’t deter her.  

 A dirt trail crawled up a small hill. Damp leaves dotted  the ground, floating atop the slick mud and supporting little pools. Insects helped themselves to the fresh rainwater.

She smiled exuberantly as she crossed a bridge which extended over a thin river. Deeper into the forest, over undulating hills, the short oaks were overshadowed by  great, mature birch trees. They explored for hours, sketching curious insects, examining animals, and tasting plants and herbs and taking appropriate notes on their utility. 

They decided to stop when the clouds parted and the soil dried up. While they had enjoyed the little trip, they couldn't dismiss the feeling that something watched them from a distance. Though, seeing as how it wouldn’t have been an unusual scenario in the wild and unpredictable Everfree, they neglected to mention it. 

In the end, they recorded plants, birds, fauna, and insects. She skimmed through the pages, feeling satisfied with what they had recorded. While she was preoccupied with her book, Spike noticed something caught between the branches of a bush. It was a clump of cyan mane, apparently having been torn out as somepony got stuck and attempted desperately to escape. Spike didn't know why, but he felt unnerved.

Twilight turned her head and noticed the drake blankly staring into the bush. She inserted her book into her bag and approached him from  behind. "Hey, Spike, what are you looking at?" Her sudden unanticipated question seemed to startle him.

"Well...I think it's some hair from somepony's mane, but I’m not sure who it belongs to.” His brow narrowed as he felt unsure and confused. It was out of place to him, as if his mind was screaming that something was off.

"Well, okay, that seems a bit concerning. But who would catch their hair in a bush so… frantically…?  It looks like they were scrambling to get out. Look at the drag marks, and the leaves." She mused as she examined the bush and its missing branches. 

"We have to figure out who this belongs to. Okay Spike, grab the twig with the hair tangled around it as a sample,”  Twilight requested sternly, turning back to the trail from which they had come. Spike retrieved the sample and followed along. 

As she descended a hill with her companion, she glimpsed at a figure in the corner of her eye standing atop of a tall distant hill, gazing at them. Her eyes required a moment to focus on the blurry figure atop the hill, but she could see they were standing between the trees, watching without any distinct emotion or… obvious facial features.

The figure appeared to be an earth pony from the obvious lack of any noticeable feathered or sharp appendages. Her coat was white but, what was the most strange part, she almost seemed to lack a mane altogether. Her height was also challenging to determine due to the viewing angle. 

She blinked, and the mare vanished.

"Hey, is something over there, Twi?" Asked Spike, tapping her shoulder and attempting to look where she was staring. 

Twilight blinked and shivered  before looking back at Spike with a slight chuckle of denial. "Well, I thought I did, but it must have been a trick of my crazy old mind," she replied jokingly.

"Well, let's continue moving, then. We can't spend all day here, and you still have  to write about our findings to Celestia." 

"Okay then, let's move," She replied  nonchalantly, trotting at a brisk pace while occasionally glancing into the trees in an attempt to spy the mare lurking. "Who was that?"





When she arrived in town, ponies were going about  their daily business, but something was noticeably off. They all had a dark look in their eyes. Their conversations were casual, but they seemed to be avoiding something, like something terrible had  happened that nopony dared to mention again.

After a bit of wandering, and experiencing several cold-eyed glances from ponies,Twilight spotted Mayor Mare seated at a picnic table and eating a haybuger by herself. Twilight approached from the rear and lightly tapped the back of the chair with her hoof. Mayor Mare turned around.

"Hey, Mayor Mare, may I speak with you?" Twilight asked politely, but nervousness also pervaded her tone.

The mayor quickly swallowed the bite of food  in her mouth and set the burger down  before initiating eye contact again. "How may I help, Twilight?”

"Well, while we were out studying the Everfree’s ecosystem, we found this." Spike deposited the twig with the cyan hair coiled around the twig onto the table. 

"There were some drag marks and some broken twigs and leaves." Twilight explained with a note of worry and confusion in her low voice.

The mayor quietly gasped. She leaned in and murmured,  "dear Celestia, this is the hair of Lyra Heartstrings!"

"Lyra? But I thought she wasn’t that much of an outdoor pony! Do you think something happened to her?" 

"She’s  gone missing! Along with some foals and a few other adults.” Mayor Mare frowned as she quietly explained the dire situation, trying her best to ensure nopony could overhear their conversation.

Clouds of anxiety inundated her mind. "Wait, ponies are missing?! How did I not hear about this?!" Twilight shouted abruptly. Several passersby paused to look at her with confusion as her yell echoed throughout the street.

The mayor gestured for her to calm herself and sit and avoid attracting attention. "What’s important now is you learning the full story. Buzzwing was the first foal to go missing, and despite ponies being concerned and rousing search parties to investigate,  they turned up with nothing the next day. Then, a few days  later, Lyra went to investigate the Everfree with Ms. Cheerilee. Now here we are, clueless about what happened to all of these missing ponies, and panic is spreading like wildfire! Some ponies have already given up, but I know there's more to this." Mayor Mare finished explaining as she nervously scraped her hoof against the wooden tabletop. “Some teachers reported seeing the other foals as well as Buzzwing looking out at the EverFree, it was strange, like they were mesmerized by it.”

Twilight felt something deep stirring in her gut. It seemed she stumbled into something huge, something greater than even herself. More disturbingly, she had witnessed Lyra’s last known position, and she had the strain of her hair,and it had been ripped off.
> ch2 The crisis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight sat on her couch in the Ponyville library, lost in thought as she stared up at the end of a tall bookshelf lost in thought. She felt stupid about not hearing about the sudden disappearance of the 5 foals and Lyra and Miss Cheerilee. But what made her feel the most terrible was picking up that one twig with Lyra's hair; it felt like she had walked into some crime scene. She thought that whoever or whatever took them was still out there, but she felt it in a more fearful sense. Where Lyra got caught in the bush there were no hoof prints. It didn't sit right with her.

The Everfree had dangers before, and she knew that. Either it would be an Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, a hydra, or just a pack of timberwolves. But those only show up once in a while, and most of the time she and her friends would take care of them. But seemed far more calculated and planned for some animal hunting.

Then she thought about the mare she saw on the hill. Why was she watching her? Was the mare some serial killer seeing her witness interfering in her business?

No, that was far too ridiculous for her. She had seen many movies and she didn't want to attribute this to some fictional killers in movies. But then again that mare was acting suspiciously.

"Uhh hey, twilight, are you doing okay?" Spike asked, looking worried at her as he woke her from her daze.

"Oh, I'm doing fine... Well, actually no....What Mayor Mare told me is still stuck in my head," she rasped sadly before getting off of the couch with a nervous look in her eyes.

The drake blankly stared at Twilight with some empathy before giving a small sheepish chuckle and scratching the back of his head. "Oh... I get you... Sorry if I'm coming off as unhelpful-"

"It's fine, I can handle this, I can just move on and forget about it and try to continue my life," Twi cut Spike off, speaking to him in a quite mellow tone. The drake could tell that was affecting her, but he didn't want to invalidate her feelings because he felt the same sadness she felt, or at least he thought it was sadness.

Twilight then turned towards the door, slowly heading to it before turning her head back to Spike. "Spike, can you stay here? I’m going to check on my friends to see how they are doing,"

"Oh okay, that sounds good. Which one are you going to check on first?" The dragon asked while having a bit of excitement in his voice as he thought about his crush.

"It's going to be AJ. She has a little sister, and her brother was very close to Cheerile in a 'special ' way." Twilight explained with a slight cringe as she tried to shorten it for Spike's teen mind. 

"Okay, sounds good. And not to mention she's quite the looker too," Spike mused with a smug grin forming across his face as he saw the anger welling up in his step-sister's face.

"UGH, SPIKE!"

"Gahahah, sorry, just couldn't help myself. See you later!" He waved her off after letting out another small chuckle. He did care for her, just things still felt off, like the same feeling he had in the woods was still there, watching him.

With that Twilight trotted out of the door, taking looks at ponies as they walked as she continued to the barn. She felt glad that she was going to see AJ, but couldn't shake off the feeling of being watched.





Twilight walked her way up the dirt road that led to Sweet Apple Anchors looking at the big barn house as she went. She didn't know what Applejack or her family were at the moment but hoped they weren't that busy. When she came closer to the barn she saw Applejack and Applebloom sitting next to some large wooden crates with frowns across their faces.

"Uhh hey, Applejack," Twilight greeted awkwardly, waving her hoof with a forced smile.

"Hey Twilight, sorry that I ain't in the best of moods right now," The cowpony groaned as she laid her head back against the wood of the farm-house. 

"No no, it's ok, I'm just here to check on you, that's all," Twilight reassured before calmly walking up to the boxes and sitting next to Applejack with her sister. "I've heard about what happened to everypony,”

"Don't blame yourself for that. Besides, you ain't a foalnapper or some sort of serial killer," Applejack responded, joking lightheartedly while she did. She glanced up at the evening clouds as her somber frown returned.

"Oh okay, thanks for that... Do you have any idea who took the mares?" Questioned Twilight, glancing back at the two members of the Apple Family. They all looked disinterested in the whole event and seemed to be still taking the news in. 

"Well, I think it was some diamond dogs that took them as slaves," Applebloom gave her answer, wanting to join the conversation.

"I thought it would be something that lived in the woods," The purple unicorn added while rubbing her chin. 

"To be honest with y'all, I'm not certain what it is, but Granny and Big Mac think it's something else," Applejack suddenly mentioned as she picked herself back up and turned her head to Twilight, who looked visibly intrigued by this new mention.

"Okay, like... what? Come on, intrigue me! Who does Granny Smith suspect of doing the foalnapping?” Twilight egged her friend playfully in an attempt 
to make the mood less somber. Applebloom joined in as well as she lightly nudged her sister on the leg.

Applbloom already had known just as much as her sister did about what their grandmother and older brother had been bickering about for the past several nights. The 2 sisters shared a knowing yet annoyed stare before AJ rolled her eyes and broke eye contact as her sister smirked in victory.

AJ sighed and groaned, sliding down the box and leaning against it while standing on her hind legs. She then turned around faced her sister and twilight again. "It's an old legend that has been told for a long time. It may seem like some old mare’s tale to me, but to Granny and Big Mac, it's not,"

"Okay, then what's the legend's name?" The unicorn asked again. It sounded like some folktale she probably had never heard about, and she wondered what kind of crazy thing AJ's grandmother was thinking about.

"Well, we call her the Tall Mare. There's not much known about this myth that I'm gonna tell y'all because most of the details have been lost to the sands of time. Back when I was young, Granny told me about the scary mare in the woods: The Tallmare. She said that she was a tall mare with pale white skin and fur and super tall, as tall as the trees. She often told me what the Tall Mare wore differed from tale to tale—either some farmer's clothes, a noble's dress, or some dark hood. But what all tales have in common is that she has no face!" AJ, ending the physical description with an oooo. Applebloom lightly snickered at her sister meanwhile Twilight's expression stayed neutral.

"The joke was...a bit too corny for my liking but may you please continue to explain to me what this Tallmare is?" She face-hoofed having an impatience glare in her eyes. 

"Sorry, that was just too tempting not to do" She chuckled before sighing and returning to the subject. "Basically the Tall Mare takes foals away if they wander off too far. So yeah, just your average Bogeystallion tale,"

"Wait....Is that it? Aren't you going to tell more?"

"Not really, don't remember anything else that would be considered important," Aj then started to walk off back to the house before looking back at her friend "But Granny doesn't see it as fake. It's like she has seen the dame mare. Even Big Mac blames Cheerile’s disappearance on the Tall Mare. I don't know if they are just superstitious ideas or if things are just stranger in reality," She said before zoning off again, thinking back to her family arguing about the existence of the Tall Mare.

"Well, I'm leaving it up to you then, because I have to go. I'm sorry that I can't stay longer," announced Twilight as she trotted off, looking back as she did.

"No problem, see ya later." 





When Twilight got back to the library she noticed a box at her door. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked down at the package to see who sent it, but to her luck, the name and the address were scribbled out. 

"What? Who even sent-" She was cut off by a sudden throbbing headache and a ringing sensation In her ears, with the same feeling of being watched again. She looked back to see but, again, it was nopony. The headache and sound vanished.

"Huh... Strange. Maybe I'm just overstimulating myself," she told herself before walking in. Once she got inside, she stopped and stared at the sudden mess of her library.
> Ch3 The Box
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she entered the library, she noticed how quiet it was. The lights in the library were off, dirt blanketed across the floor, and it looked like something large had been dragged across the floorboards, or perhaps not dragged, but spilled. Her best guess was Spike, but, then again that only happened when fluttershy brought in some big animal. Some books were scattered across the floor, it looked like they had been knocked out of the shelves with blunt force. It was such a mess to clean up that it made her cringe at the thought of reorganizing the books back on their respective shelves.

The lighting especially annoyed her. The candles were burnt out and thrown off their hinges. The chandelier was out too and when she tried to activate the crystals with her horn they took much longer to glow. Well it clearly wasn’t spike but what kind of creature has the ability to null magic crystals to the point where they were their almost nullified?

"Spike, was this you!?" She shouted in the direction of his room as her voice echoed across the library, but there was no response.

"Of course, the little dragon must be sleeping in his room," she told herself mentally before trotting up the stairs with a tired and frustrationed scowl. She then slowly entered the bedroom and noticed the room was pitch dark. She then cast a light spell, lighting up the room in a purple glow, showing his room was also in shambles.

In one part of her mind, she worried, in the other she thought Spike did and was sleeping. She lifted the covers of his bed, but alas, he was not there. There was only dirt and a piece of paper next to his pillow. She then lifted the paper, seeing thick handwriting on the top of it and at the bottom of the paper. On it, a hastily drawn image of a forest with a crudely drawn pony without any facial features that hid behind the trees on top of a hill.

Twilight looked down at the paper and started to read the following

I see you have been meddling around in our affairs. Though our activity appears new, I can assure you we have been here long before you, Element Of Magic. For The Silent Queen has seen you, and we have too.

It wasn't a lot, but it made Twilight feel a deep dark dread flow through her body. It wasn't a prank Spike was pulling—the dragon wasn't that strong to knock all those books down. Plus, all of those dirt marks seemed inconsistent, like the dirt just appeared and smeared under someone's hooves.

all just made her uneasy. had to have been done by whoever was taking those foals. They had come to punish her for seeing something she wasn't supposed to see. But as she looked back at the letter, and with a shiver realized the we meant more than one pony.

This realization made her panic even more. There wasn't only one pony responsible, but rather multiple ponies doing it. This meant the foalnaper was part of some larger cult-like group taking these foals, and the group could be the most unsuspecting of the town folk, or even the ponies she knew. But how could a pony bust into her house without leaving any sort of trail or being seen?

But that question had to be answered later. There was one more thing that whoever took Spike left behind. And that thing was that box she brought inside.





She brought the box up to her desk, cutting the tape with her box cutter. She honestly felt guilty for leaving Spike behind again. Her negligence had gotten the better of her, and because of her complacence, Spike had been abducted. She should have stopped treating him like a little brother when she had the chance. He wasn’t young as she knew him anymore,and if he wanted to be with Rarity, then she should have let him.Then, she took a deep breath before opening the box.

Inside was a hard drive, a VHS tape with its reel sticking out haphazardly, and an old photo of Bonbon and Lyra with their colt. it was just them taking a picnic in a park near the Everfree Forest. But, in the background, there  that same mare she saw on the hill standing in the distance with some slight distortion around her body. Even though the weird distortion around the mare, Twilight could make out her features more clearly. She has a white coat, no mane, and a business suit like kind she had seen rich ponies wear before. The mare was incredibly tall, reaching up to the branches of the trees with very lanky legs that were just… wrong. But what made her freak out the most and instantly recognize her was another oddity: she had no face, instead just smooth skin where the face should have been. 

She was having a hard time believing what the photo had captured,  "Well... By Princess Platinum... I guess The Tallmare Applejack was telling me about is real... And I guess It took Spike... And has followers.....This is too much to take in."She noticed one last thing in the box she hadn't even bothered to pick up because it didn’t seem important till now. It was another piece of paper with a drawing of an eyeball with an X going through its pupil.

It has been amusing watching you react to my messages and puzzle over what you think are clues. Here is a hint for you, Ms. Sparkle: one clue is real. I am not the Silent Queen, rather, her speaker. Feel free to talk to our other prey, the ones you call your friend, about me. You can be sure I will listen. Oh yes, I am someone very close to you. I will greatly enjoy the fear you foster as you try to figure out who I am.

She had dealt with many villains before, but the threat was a new one. She didn't even know if it was evil or something more vague. Either way, she had to face this creature of unknown origin and get rid of it through whatever means necessary.
> ch4 The Harddrive
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight groaned as she woke up groggily. She was still at her desk where she had opened the box from the night before, the messages clustered lazily across it. There was also a small puddle of her own drool on the floor that looked like it collected overnight, which gave her a small smile.

She then leaned her head back and sighed. She had to get ready for the day, go to the much more modern library at the east end of Ponyville, and find a computer she could use. Then she also needed somepony who could fix the tape and have a tv she can watch it on. But then again she knew she was being watched, she didn't know who but they did not work alone. She had to be careful or she would have somepony try to intervene.

She got up on her hooves and slowly walked to her bathroom, before creaking open the door and walking in. Her bathroom was not that pretty looking compared to other bathrooms her friends had, except for Fluttershy who just did it in the bushes. It was small and had an average-looking sink on top of some dully painted white wooden drawers. The tiles were small clay squares that were dark blue that looked like if she were to punch them hard, most of them would break. Her shower wasn't impressive either, a small tub with plastic curtains and a dull fluorescent glow above the shower head. 

She turned on the faucet on the sink and put some toothpaste on her toothbrush before putting it in her mouth. It had that awful minty taste as usual that she didn't mind due to how good it was for her teeth, and how many cavities they got rid of. But she absolutely hated how some of the toothpaste crusted out on the sides of the sink when left out, making it also hard to scrape off.

She didn't take a shower the night before so she hopped in the shower and closed the current with her magic. She set the faucet to her usual warm temperature which took a minute for the water to warm up too. She put her lavender-scented shampoo in her mane and started dragging her hooves across her hair. She then went under the warm water for about 2 minutes before she felt the same throbbing pain from the day before returning to her head. She backed out of the water holding her horn as the headache refused to stop. She looked up at the ceiling lamp noticing it flickering rapidly which made her headache worse from looking at its light. She looked down from the light and looked to her right as she felt that same presence of being watched yet again. There was a tall blurry shadow in the far corner of the bathroom that looked like its pony-shaped body was pressed against the ceiling.



She could feel her heart beating faster as she stared at the silhouette. Twilight felt her fight-or-flight instincts activating as she prepared herself to open the currents. She held the bottle of shampoo ready to use as a projectile as she drew back the curtains, only to find nothing there. The lights were not flickering anymore like they were never flickering in the first place. Then she noticed her headache wasn't there anymore and it felt like abruptly stop only a cupel of seconds ago





The lavender unicorn opened the glass doors as she entered the library, taking in the view of her second time visiting. This library was a bit bigger than hers and was stretched in a square shape like a supper market. It only had a few ponies there who were just looking through the isles as they walked. White wooden shelves were laid about the library in lined sections that stood almost near the ceiling. There was also some black wooden tables to read at that had a small plant in little cute pots on them, these were to just make the pony sitting there more comfortable.

Twilight then started trotting down the isles at a medium pace as she looked for the internet cafe in the library. After about 10 minutes she finally found the cafe, resting at the far east end with a few ponies in their cubicles. The internet and the magical transport of info was a pretty new craze in Equestria and had even become a major part of Luna's infrastructure plan. The basic functionality of the magic was the new electronic scrying computers were all linked up to artifacle laylines that functioned as a highway for info. But most info was stored in big rune stones called runepillers to make the flow of info easier. But for those who couldn't buy a computer like the ponies in Ponyville, there were internet cafes in newer public libraries like this one. 

Twilight sat down in the cubical chair smoothly before turning on the computer and logging on with her library account. She looked at the hard drive in her hoof and then looked back at the computer's multiple sockets confused about where to put them in, better yet how to access the data from it. 

She was about to start randomly shoving it in the rectangular sockets before she felt a quick hoof tap on her shoulder and yelped turning around, to see a face she didn't expect to be in a library, Vinyl Scratch.

"Oh um hey Vinyl I didn't expect you to be here." She spoke up sheepishly as she looked at the blue-maned DJ.



The DJ simply nodded back with a soft and confident smile, before pointing back at the computer expectantly.

Twilight looked back at the computer then back at Vinyl raising a brow. "Soo do you want the computer?"

Vinyl frowned and shook her head before moving the element of magic out of the way and sitting in the chair. She placed the hard drive in its correct socket before dragging the mouse over to files and opened up the hard drive folder. She then got up and hoffed over some headphones out of her duffle bag to Twilight.

"Uhhh Thanks for the help I guess." Twilight thanked giving the DJ a weak smile.

Vinyl grinned before walking off and away from the internet cafe.

Twilight just gaped at that sudden and random encounter confused. How did she know that she had a hard drive? How did she know that she needed headphones? But that wasn't important right now, she had to view what the hard drive stored.

She looked at the hard drive folder to see what was on there and saw a small video file labeledEeverFree_Waterfall_Family_Trip. Oh, goddess was this some poor family's home video, and she was going to watch it?!?

She breathed in deeply and huffed before plugging in the headphones and placing them on her head. She clicked on the file and saw a black tab with a play button on it and clicked it.





The video started off with a zoom-in on a vanilla-coated mare looking into the camera as she turned it on before moving it back and readjusted to show the mare to be Bonbon. There was the sound of rushing water could be heard in the background and as Twilight looked closer she could make out that Bonbon was at a river and that this video was filmed in summer, meaning this was months back.

Bonbon moved closer to the camera and tried picking it up with her mouth before she was shoved out of view as Lyra came into frame.

"Don't worry Bon, I can carry this." Lyra assured before levitating up the camcorder in her cyan-colored glow and turned it around and uncovered the camera lens, showing a small waterfall. The waterfall was of course part of a river system and the section the mare couple found themselves was a slow-flowing creek that was fairly wide with small rocks at its coast. They also brought their adopted son Buzzwing with them, who was a pegasus that had a mostly brown coat with some white splotches down from his face to his front legs.

In Twilight's eyes, this was so far just a normal family outing, But then again she was sent this for a reason. 

The two mares walked into the water as their son watched their son examine a sea shell that must have been there way before Equestria was ever formed. 

"Sooo Lyra? How was that party Pinkie held?"

The camera shifted view to Bonbon in response to her question.

"Oh it was a Pinkie party as normal. The party itself was one of those night-only ones that she holds once in a while, which has a lot of booze."

Bonbon put a hoof to her face scoffing before sighing. "Please don't tell me you got wasted there, you know what kinda stuff happens when a lot of ponies are drunk, especially at Pinkies."



"Eh don't worry it was only about 2 shots before I left."

"Ah that's good to know since I don't want you coming home dru-

"HEY MOMS! MY FRIEND IS HERE!" Buzzwing shouted atop of the cliff that was next to the creek. The camera swiftly swung to the cliff and zoomed in on the trees.



“Ok now something is definitely off”. Twilight thought to herself as she narrowed her eyes on the screen.

"Ok Buzz Im coming, also what's your friend's name?" Bonbon asked as trotted around the cliff heading into the trees. The camera was still focused on the top of the hill, like Lyra was scared of something.

"Uhh she really doesn't have a name, just call her Ms. Longlegs."



"Oh that's a nice name! I can't wait to see-"Bonbon suddenly paused and Lyra moved in a little closer. Then the audio started to distort and the screen turned grainy with fuzz outlining Bonbon's shape. As she backed up.

"WHY ARE YOU STILL STALKING US?! I THOUGH YOU WOULD LEAVE US BE!"Screamed Bonbon in distress with a chippy distortion in her voice. 

Then some black tendrils rose above the tree, having a low slupering sound as they waved with odd color distortions shifting around them.

Mom what's wrong?" Buzzwing murmured with confusion and panic 

“I THOUGHT EVER SINCE WE HAD STUMBLED UPON YOU, THAT YOU WOULD GET BORED OF US! "

 Lyra shouted up at her earth pony spouse as the Tallmare got closer, still consoled with visual glitches that swarmed her like bees

"NO! Now just let me KICK YOUR FLANK!"

Before bonbon could even charge the media player crashed.
> Ch5 Finding Answers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight exited the library slouching her head down a bit as she sauntered her way out. She didn't want this, she didn't want this present scenario whatsoever. Though it had been a video, the fact it was from someponies she knew and encountered on a regular basis made it chilling. She could still feel the distant presence of being watched but could not discern if it was her paranoia, or if it was the real thing.

She huffed, picking her head back up and walking back to her house keeping her expression stern with caution and worry. As she headed back, halfway there she bumped shoulders with somepony that she only noticed out of the corner of her eye and came to see Fluttershy.

“Oh, hi Fluttershy. What are you doing out in town right now?” Twilight asked her in a casual manner, trying to seam normal 

In response Fluttershy gave an “eep!” and looked back at Twilight, her usual shy demeanor showing. But Twilight noticed something was off with Fluttershy. She was usually shy like this, but it almost seemed defensive. She smiled while She took care of her animals and usually acted calmer to show bravery or assertiveness before showing aggression to keep her little critters in line or shoo away any natural predators of the Everfree.

“Umm, I’m doing ok. I’m just fetching some food for Angel Bunny.” Fluttershy replied while she gave a soft smile.

“Oh, ok. I’m just getting back from the library you know. I was just checking in too see what modern literature ponies are into. Since that is a much newer library than mine.” Twilight trumpeted fakely giving a smile of confidence and pride obviously hiding the true nature of her research.

“Oh, ok. I guess, see ya later then.”
 Then the butternut pegasus walked off and Twilight continued her trot down to her home.

She creaked the door open with her glowing horn and lightly shut it before galloping off to the desk where she left all the other messages and set her haunches on the small stool in front of the desk.

“So, if I’m correct Lyra and Bonbon have met this Tallmare, or as her cult, or whatever it’s called, the Silent Queen, before all these disappearances occurred. That means whatever this Tallmare is has been around for quite a long time. Meaning, that she has a lot of history surrounding her. But I’m not going to just believe in some superstitions, from what I can tell this creature seems far off as legends of her goes. Meaning, I have got to do some research on her myself, which is very scary.”

Twilight then put her forehooves on the desk and shoved her face down and groaned.

“Why do I gotta deal with this?” Then she lay there, lightly tapping her hoof considering her next action. She knew she wasn’t safe and she knew that trying to warn ponies about this would make her sound like some tinfoil hat wearer. Plus, she still had to find someone who would fix the vhs tape for her and to have something to play it on.

Then there was the final matter at hoof, Bonbon who was the only nonmissing member of her newly found family left. She may hold some of the answers, but then again, Twilight still had to watch out for potential members of the Tallmare’s fan club. So she got up, grabbed the bag and put the small Polaroid photo in there along with a couple snacks and drinks so she could at least have some sustenance during the interview. But right now she was a bit too tired to start walking again so she trotted up to her bedroom turned the lights on and curled up in her bed and fell asleep.





A few hours later, Twilight drowsily opened up her eyes and slowly lifted herself out of the bed blinking as her vision readjusted itself. She stood there for a moment, letting her mind recollect and remember what it was doing before exiting her bedroom and heading downstairs. But, the thing was, when she was just about to make her way down she felt that same presence and that same painful ringing sensation in her horn again. She groaned in pain and frustration turning her head over to the far-right end of the walkway. There in the shadow stood something and it looked like a mare. She looked at it, trying to process what she was looking at before recognizing the immediate danger. Just then, manta black tentacles came out of its back and she began to run. She picked up the saddlebag with her mouth, busting the door, and out into the street.

 It was late in the evening and only a few pedestrians wandered about the area. They saw the element of magic gallop through the streets but didn’t understand why she was or why she looked so afraid. Then after what must have felt like several minutes, it didn’t feel like the thing was chasing her anymore and she felt safe. She was near the far eastside of town where the residents of Bonbon was. She walked through the streets with her only source of light being her horn which illuminated the dark road with a dim purple glow.

She was then close to  the house facing it from a couple of blocks down. She smiled with gratitude before she felt herself stiffen as she heard a single rustle through the bushes next to the road. It wasn’t a loud rustle, like some deer walking through it, but faint and small like a rodent. So of course she shrugged it off, presuming it was just some squirrel and walked towards the house. The house itself was small but well-furnished, about two stories high, and made of birch and oak.

She gently knocked on the door and waited for Bonbon to answer. She waited three minutes, but no response. She knocked again, waited for another five but still, there was vacancy, which was strange considering the lamps near the front door were lit. However, the house in the home weren’t on. She pushed the door by its hinge. This was only greeted by the darkness of the house and utter quietness. She looked around, there was no one there. No one in the living room or the dining room.

She then went upstairs and noticed a silhouette in the hallway, she turned her horn to the figure and gave them a suspicious look. It was a stallion and his face was covered by a plain white mask,  the mask’s eyes only being a deep shadow. The stallion was sitting there on his haunches, looking at her with no visible emotion.

“Ok, if this is a prank just get it over with because you’re not scaring me.” Twilight groaned and gave an annoyed look at the stallion. Still, no response. Then, he stood up, slowly headed towards her and tackled her to the ground. Of course, the assailant soon would regret his decision and he was knocked back by her repulse of blunt purple energy. He rolled over flinching as he got himself back up before she shot another blunt bolt of magic at his body. She dashed into the former bedroom of Lyra and Bonbon and locked the door behind her before searching the drawers. Most of them were empty but at the very bottom of the right one were a couple of hard drives and a small portable camera. She picked them up with her magic and shoved them in a bag desperately as the stallion bucked at the door rapidly with inpony rage.

She opened the door again and bashed the edge of an old nightlamp into his nape. She came from behind him and ran out the house. She didn’t care to find out who this assailant was but already knew that this was a proxy with the Tallmare. Even if he was unmasked, would anyone believe her tale? Thus, she rushed and rushed to her house and closed the door entering her bed ready for a new day.  
> Ch6 The New Pain
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight woke from her bed yet again, still stressed as she remembered events from the night before. She had the camcorder and the extra hard drives piled up on her little bedside desk next to her. She picked herself back onto her hooves yet again and examined the contents of what was on her desk. The camcorder wasn’t that new or old, it had been around for some time and had become a popular type of camcorder throughout family households across Equestria. But this one looked like it had a bit of dust on it, as if the house and the device itself were left days before the incident. Luckily, she knew who it belonged to due to a piece of duct tape on the side of the camera with words in sharpie that read, “Homerecorder of Lyra and Bonbon”. 

On the other hand, the hard drives did have labels on them. But each individual name was a bit obscure. The first one was “oak tree” and the final and tenth one was “lovely school”. She didn’t know what to do with these and only thought that they were more clues to add on to her other unsolved mysteries, which made this a bit of a thorn in her side as she thought about having to watch all of the tapes as well as the vhs tape.  So, like any bored pony, she decided to use her recently acquired recorder for something else to pass her boredom. She turned it on and levitated down to the table and used the tip of her hoof to rotate it towards her.

From the camera’s perspective, it showed how utterly dark her library currently was. There were no candles lit and no lamps turned on. She had just recently started putting books back on their shelves, noticeable if one were to squint closely at the bookshelves they would see some slots were vacant. As she looked at the camera with a half smile her digital reflection showed that she was just as pretty as the disheveled library. Her usual braided lavender mane looked unkempt and greasy. It was moved sideways looking more like a lavender brush of grass rather than hair, with each tendril of her mane sticking out and pointing in different directions. There were also bags under her eyes and she looked a bit skinnier. In truth, she hadn’t fed herself that much over the past couple of days as a result of the stress and anxiety. After a solid minute of blankly staring at the camera, she placed her left hoof on her face and looked down giving a raspy embarrassed laugh. 

“Ughhh, why do I feel so stupid for doing this? I know recording things is meant to help me remember what I’m doing these days, but you know I record stuff on paper usually… not use a camera like this.” She looked back up at the camera, giving an exasperated sigh as she looked into its lens.

“You know, to whoever is watching this, just know I’m hunting the culprit guilty for the five missing foals and the teacher and ponyville resident Lyra, as well as my beloved assistant Spike. I think it all started when I found her hair, just walking through the woods collecting data. Then I saw her hair. I picked it up and examined it with Spike. Then headed back. But I swear I saw the most peculiar thing, a pale white mare. She was standing on top of a hill next to the twisted trees of the Everfree, she was just looking at us. I didn’t think she was that important until I came back and was informed of the disappearances.” she continued to summarize her story to no audience in particular. Looking very stressed while she talked, Twilight subconsciously began moving her body from left to right as she continued to recollect. 

Then after almost summarizing her most recent encounter, she heard a knock at her door. She stopped mid-sentence and turned the camera off and hid it. She trotted down the flight of stairs and opened the door to be greeted by the sheriff. 

“Hello, Ms. Twilight, may I speak to you about something?”

In response, she stared blankly at him for a bit before chuckling and saying, “Yeah, go on. What do you need to talk to me about?” 

“Well, there has been a report at the now abandoned residence of Lyra and Bonbon. Reports say that a local passerby saw your mane through the window, but couldn’t confirm if it was you or not. There is also the fact that you were running for your life last night, for some unknown reason.” The sheriff answered begrudgingly as while giving Tiwilight a dismissive frown 

Her haunches dropped to the floor as she looked up at the taller stallion, physically stunned by this sudden accusation of burglary. “That wasn’t me. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t attempt to steal anything. Plus I already I have a bunch of stuff in my house, plus a bunch of money from the princess you know?”

The sheriff just gave her a side eye and groaned before looking back at her with a stern frown. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m just checking. You see, recently, in the city of Canterlot there’s been a series of identical murders in the sight of some mare or stallion’s bed. We call this killer the Canterlot Somno Slasher and I was just asking about you, because who knows you could be the serial killer considering the disappearance of these foals and considering you’re the only one with a teleportation device and the only one who can use it. Some residents suspect you’re responsible because there are no hoofprints and no signs of previous entry with all of those crime scenes.”

Twilight gave a rasped chuckle out of stress and exhaustion before she responded to him.“I..I...I don’t know why you would think I would commit such heinous actions, Sheriff, because I didn’t! Heck, you don’t know the pain I've gone through, you wouldn’t believe if I described the pain I’m going through. I know there’s something in this town. It hides here. It lurks like some intelligent lifeform that just can’t get enough of people’s fear and confusion. Now it does sound like I’m going crazy. Maybe I am on some level of schizophrenia or dementia even. But according to all of my medical records, I’m not, but there is magical psychology to back me up. So sheriff, find another pony to nag. Everyone’s a suspect. There’s more than one.” then she abruptly closed the door in the sheriff’s face and headed back upstairs to her bedroom. 

She turned the camera back on and started going off on a tangent in front of it. But, only she could hear her words. The camera only heard high-pitched squeaks and low-pitched rumbles with auditory glitching. Through the elements of magic eyes's she was only looking at the camera in front of her and the desk next to her bed. In the camera’s view, some pony was standing and towering over the bookshelves next to her looking at her. The video continued to go on, her words being unrecognizable gurgles and squeaks as the Tall Mare stood still as a statue while its nonexistent eyes watched the distressed Twilight ramble and ramble. Then, as her body obscured the figure in front of the camera and moved out of the way, the Tall Mare was gone.     





There she was again, sleeping in her bed, hoping that her dreams would drown out the terrible reality she was going through. In her sleep Twilight found herself in the Everfree Forest once again, but due to the way dreams worked, it was different.

It had the same foliage and trees as the real one did, as well as its bumpy hills, but a lot was off with it. There were books scattered in piles and big blocky computers coming out of the soil as she walked. The sky was a blank dull grey with a large lack of clouds to be seen. The leaves were all papers with scribbled letters that formed words of incoherent meaning. The most eeriest of details was how devoid of sound the dream was and how the very forest seemed infinite with its expanse.  

She continued to walk for what seemed like a couple of hours until she felt 2 presences, one in the far distance, the other a few feet in front of her. The closest one seemed to be standing still in a small outgrove while the other seemed to be slowly moving in her direction. Twilight lowed her head and the rest of her body to a crouch as approached the bushes, wanting to see one of the intruders of her dream. She continued to walk each step until she crawled through the bushes then slightly peer through the other side.

"I know it's you twilight don't be shy." Announced the recognizable voice of the princess of the moon and dreams

"Luna? What are you doing in my dream?" 

"It's not of any ill intent young Twilight." Spoked Luna in a hushed tone as she watched the confused Twilight come sheepishly out of the brush. " Rather you and I have the same tall one we have to deal with!".

The pupils of Twilight's eyes shrank in surprise at the alicorn's confession, stepping forward with empathy in her eyes. "The Tallmare has been going after you too?" She asked as looked deeply into Luna's eyes.

"Well, more like I've been going after her." Luna then sat down next to twilight, giving her a somber look. "This thing is ancient, but not of this world. I and my sister had encountered it after we united the 3 tribes, hearing the tale from locals at the time. The creature is not on the same scale of physical power we have, but rather it's not its strength that makes it dangerous, but its metaphysical side. I don't know the full extent of the Tall Mare's power, but when I tried to kill it, it paralyzed me and teleported me back to my bed."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" Twilight voiced in, giving a frown of uncertainty. 

"What you are doing is a small amount of help. But it's the only help you can do right now. Im still one of the Diarches of Equestria, and as well as my sister. As one of the 2 rulers, I must continue doing my statecraft with my sister." 

"So your not helping me?" Twilight asked insistently while looking at Luna with bafflement.

"For now, yes." Then the presence of the other intruder was felt, and it was closer. Both Twilight and Luna looked in the direction of where it was coming from. "Well the faceless one is here, now you must leave."

Before Twilight could speak up, Luna flashed her with a silver glow before she woke back up in her bed. Her eyes were spread wide open and her chest heaved as she looked around her room. She felt fatigued and stunned by the spell. She then turned her head to her window to see it was already morning and groaned.  "FUCKING MONDAYS!"
> Ch7 Fluttershy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight pranced around her bedroom thinking of what to do next. She knew Luna was busy and that she couldn't help at the moment. Then there still were those new harddrives that she had to look at, which meant she had to go to the library again.

She really didn't want to go back there since she didn't wish to have somepony walking up behind her and seeing those videos. Wait, didn't Fluttershy have a laptop?

Then she remembered that she did in fact have one. She bought it to blog about her life with her pets and make documents to track their health. Twilight thought that what Fluttershy was doing as a good thing, taking up the job as a vet in her free time perfectly fitted her. Of course, she hadn't been to her house in weeks so she had no clue how Fluttershy was doing, or did she? She remembered that Fluttershy was acting off when they met 2 days ago, and not in her usual shy manner. Her happiness looked forced like she was under a ton of hidden stress.

Twilight suspected Fluttershy was going through the same trouble she was, or at least related to.  She had to talk to her so she could have more pieces to the puzzle and to have somepony else besides luna to aid her in this investigation.  So put the camera and the harddrives into her bag and trotted out the door.  As she walked ponies gave untrusting glances at her, still suspecting her of being the serial killer from Canterlot. They were wrong on that part, but the only thing Twilight would admit to was her breaking and entering by definition.

So she ignored the many glances and glares and just focused on her current objective.





Twilight cautiously looked around the forest that surrounded Fluttershy’s house as she walked into the view of the large structure. Her house was a tree, like it was before, except there was now an underground electrical system that connected the town’s electric system to her tree. Right now it looked like the house wasn’t busy with animals or anything so at this point Twilight took advantage of the fact, and saw this as the right time to softly knock. At first there was no response. Then after a few minutes, the sound of hoofsteps could be heard behind the door and the yellow pegasus opened the door with enthusiasm.

“Um, hi Twilight. What can I do for you today?” she asked in her normal quiet tone but with a spark of vigor and helpfulness in her voice. Clearly, she was expecting Twilight to be there as a customer.

“Oh, it’s nothing Fluttershy. I’m actually here to use your computer for these harddrives.” Twilight then levitated the ten harddrives out of her bag individually showing them to Fluttershy. Fluttershy in turn scrunched up her face as she inspected them while looking at the names in confusion before turning her eyes back to her friend.

“So why do you need these harddrives anyways? And why don’t you use the computer at your library?.”

“Oh, I’m using these for you know, research purposes. YOu know, I don’t actually have a computer at my house. I’m not into the whole technology thing yet. So I would like to borrow yours to inspect these.” Twilight replied casually as she clearly had true intentions towards her investigation.

“Um, ok… just don’t take too long on there. I can’t have my entire day be spent by you investigating these harddrives for hours upon end. Because I know these small little gadgets contain so much information. I even have some dedicated videos about my pets.” Fluttershy remarked, thinking about the animals she had taken care of.

Then the two walked inside and Fluttershy guided Twilight to her laptop. Whilst Twilight followed Fluttershy, she took notice of how much more empty her little veterinarian house was looking. Before the place had been full of customers but now it looked decrepit and almost lackluster. Weirdly, the animals she usually had weren’t there either, but containers were empty and pens were vacant. Even her entire house gave off the clear emotion of distress and crisis.

“Well right up this way is my computer. It’s in my bedroom.”

Twilight pushed open the door and entered Fluttershy’s comfortable bedroom. Unlike the rest of the house, the room had remained the comfy and homey feel with nourished plants next to the window. Twilight turned on the computer and logged in via Fluttershy’s passcode which was placed on a notepad right next to the keyboard. The computer booted up and revealed a default computer background that almost every pony had on their laptop. It was a well-photographed picture of a rustic valley in the middle of spring. There was a forest directly behind the farmland which the camera was focused on. Twilight didn’t exactly know why the photographer took a photo of the forest and neither did any other pony . During the interview of the said photographer, he refused to give any answer as to why he took the photo. He stated it was more of a personal reason.

After gazing at the picturesque background for another solid minute, Twilight put in the first harddrive titled “The Everfree Hospital”. When she plugged it in a video file opened with the first video frame being an abandoned hospital corridor. As the video started there was this seemingly distorted music playing in the background as the cameramare slumped their way down the hallway. Small fuzz filled the view. At the thirty-second mark words appeared that said, “We know that you’re searching for us. You do not know that the silent queen always watches. Including us. We watch too.” 

The camera view then switched to brief moments of static before going to a completely new angle. It was the same cameramare but this time the camera was zoomed in on someone familiar. It was Twilight and Spike. It was herself being recorded.  In the scene, the camera was behind a bush with the pony holding the camera up to watch them. Before the video ended scribbled words filled the screen and read “we have watchers”. Of course, Twilight pulled the harddrive back out before sitting flat on her haunches as she pondered the recording she had watched. They were watching her way before she even got to see the Tallmare.

Out of curiosity and concern for her friend, she opened the blog files that were most recently added of animals in Fluttershy’s care. It all started about a week ago and on the week before with the first blog, she read  “The animals were acting sickly. Specifically, Angel bunny.” Of course, Fluttershy with all of her medical prowess tried to cure them but it didn’t work out. The more Twilight read she found the animals were drawn to something. In later dates, from the present week, Fluttershy had started reporting on some people she was seeing in the woods. She said they were all looking at her and watching her pets and her customers’ pets. Eventually, she put most of them down and told the owners that they ran off. She knew their symptoms were abnormal and the fact that they were twitching so much was weird and how much they were drawn to something so far away made her feel bad for them. Of course, on that same day, she expressed she had been seeing the same faceless mare Twilight saw towering over her while filling her dreams with constant visions. Then as Twilight read, she heard the closet door open and looked behind her.   
> Ch8 Fluttershy part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight turned around slowly to see who was behind her, feeling her fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. It was the same masked stallion from Bonbon’s house. She didn’t know how he got in or how Fluttershy didn’t notice, but he was most definitely a threat.

But before Twilight or the assailant could do anything a blur of yellow and pink tackled the masked offender. Twilight watched as Fluttershy started to clobber while yelling words of pure mental anguish as she continued to pummel him.

“YOU FILTHY MOTHERFUCKER! YOU AND YOUR FACELESS FRIEND KEEP HURTING ME AND MY BELOVED PETS! NOW YOU ARE HURTING MY FRIEND?!? WHAT IN CELESTIA'S FLANKS IS WRONG WITH YOU?" She continued to trample him, causing swells under the mask with dark red blood to seep out under his mask.

A purple glow enveloped the raging pegasus mare, it soon lifted her up and slammed her against the wall. Twilight walked over to her with her still glowing horn and looked directly into her eyes. “DO YOU WANT TO COMMIT AN ACT OF MARE-SLAUGHTER?!”

“N-no I don't, h-he is one of the ones t-that hurt us..hurt the animal, hurt Spike!” Fluttershy squeaked as a response as Twilight was roughly punching her in the chest. 

“Don’t talk about Spike!” she yelled as she glared down at her. Then the stallion in the corner slowly picked himself back up with blood still leaking from his mask and tried to charge at Twilight again, but this time she was able to telepathically shove him against the wall.

She held him there with pure rage and tried to approach him slowly, but then the ringing came again. She let go of him and slowly turned her head while still wincing in pain and saw some manta black tendrils stretching their way up the stairs. The 2 mares knew what this thing was and froze as the Tall Mare appeared in a mere blink of an eye in front of the door. Twilight’s camera was still on and she from the recordings viewed the audio was a garbled mess with the visuals being a staticy grey scale. Before the mares could even make the slightest of noise or reactions, the mare was gone, and the midday was now midnight in a  mere matter of seconds. Both Fluttershy and Twilight looked around with shock and confusion as their mind tried to process the sudden change in time. Then Twilight remembered the stallion and turned around and saw he was already gone.

“D-did we just get time skipped??” Asked Fluttershy as she gave Twilight a long exhausted stare.

“Well….It appears we did, but luckily one of our suspects is going to be clearly injured thanks to your outrage.” Twilight said the last part in a snarky tone as she gave The Element of kindness a side-eye.

“Oh be quiet! I was only doing that to save your flanks! Not to mention I didn't know how he snuck in.” Fluttershy retorted giving a scowl

“Ok that's certainly very interesting, that lanky fucker must have had help with that, considering we saw her use that weird version of a teleportation spell. Better yet how does this thing even use that magic? Never in my life have I seen another thing besides the princess and Discord use such complex magic, meaning this thing’s methods of using magic could be very much different than ours and possibly alien.” Twilight trailed off as the analytical part of her mind speculated the very nature of the entity’s metaphysical abilities. 

“Soo what now?” As soon as Fluttershy asked this question there was a long pause that filled the room. Truth be told neither of the mares knew what to do after what just happened. Twilight was still deadset on finding spike and finding bonbon, while Fluttershy was much more confused and not as filled in as twilight was. 

“Maybe we should team up in order to help each other find out what we are dealing with?” asked Twilight, feeling just as confused as Fluttershy.

“Yeah, maybe we can pin who's a follower of the creature and look deeper into their personal connections.”

Twi nodded in response and then looked at where the hard drives were and saw they were untouched. “Huh, they just left those alone? I guess they wanted us to continue viewing them anyways.

“Hmm yeah, also can you inform me of how far is your investigation in the morning?” Fluttershy responded.

Twilight pondered that question for a while looking at Fluttershy questioningly. “By my standards we’ve gotten pretty far, well I mean. I got pretty far on this investigation, while you’ve just begun. What I’ve learned is that this creature has been seen by Princess Luna. I know this because Luna came to me in a dream and told me about said creature. I also found out this creature can have your dreams as well. I don’t know why it takes children or what it’s motives are or if it has attributes that folklore doesn’t really comprehend. “

“Meaning, you only have the basics down.” interjected the Butteryellow pegasus while wearing a frown and tilting her head in a puzzled manner. 

Twilight sighed and nodded her head as she accepted this as a truth and sat her haunches down at the chair near the computer. “Exactly. That’s why I need someone, who is not the second diarch of Equestria, to help me. So, how is your encounter doing?”

“Well, from those logs you rudely read without my permission, I’ve only been encountering Miss Slendy for about half of this week. AKA three days. And what’s today? It’s Friday. Actually, on second thought that isn’t half the week that’s more just three days. Anyways back on topic, I’ve only just started to notice the Tallmare after my pets got sick. I knew she was watching me. Or it. Or they. Or whatever the hell. It had been watching me and I could tell some of my customers had been acting abnormally to say the least. Same symptoms just almost psychological mood swings acting up. So hear me out. This is my theory. This is connected to the Tallmare. I say this because my pets have probably come close to said mare and I could not even find the singlest of germs in their bloodstreams. I’ve looked. So in closing, it must be some sort of magical energy, which you Twilight should know.”

Twilight just looked at Fluttershy, as she went on telling her story, with her mouth gaping open at the sudden proposal that the unexpectedly smart nurse had come up with. “Um sorry Fluttershy, but I’m afraid that the new detail you pointed out just adds more questions than answers to this mystery.”

“Oh... Ok, I’m sorry about that. It’s getting late. I have a spare room if you want it. It’s better to stay safe in company than alone, you know?” 

“Yeah, I know where you’re coming from Fluttershy. I will talk to you in the morning and probably plan and do some investigation of my own later which you can join if you want to.” Twilight offered while heading to a clearly labeled guest bedroom while looking back at Fluttershy. 

“Sure, just tell me when you’re leaving.”

And thus the two new allies slept in their separate rooms and dreamt of their morning to come, but in their sleep there was somepony. Somepony, so thrown out from society that he was driven made before he even left. Of course he didn’t kill them. Yet. He still knew that there was that strange feeling still haunting him. Plus he didn’t really like the city folk calling him the Sonofcantalot Killer, but he’d rather go by his own name: the Painted Smile. 
> Ch9 Involvement
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight woke again to another morning but in a different bed than her comfy one at home. She still remembered what had happened before and her conversation with Fluttershy. Fluttershy was acting so different from usual and she was a lot more aggressive. It was a complete change in her friend’s personality, which made Twilight concerned about her friend’s mental well-being. But she wasn’t Fluttershy’s therapist so she didn’t want to go snooping around her friend too much. After a couple of minutes of blankly staring up at the ceiling, Fluttershy opened the door to Twilight’s guestroom.

“Um, hey. So, I’ve been thinking. What if this masked stallion lives in town?”

In response, Twilight raised her brow in response and nodded, “go ahead”.

“Those marks I must have put on him must still be on the pony behind the mask. So, I suggest we start looking around town today.” She gleamed while her secret fascination with true crime sparkled within her brain.

“Yeah, let’s get going!” Twilight said with the same amount of enthusiasm that Fluttershy had.

After that, the two mares got themselves a quick little breakfast before brushing their teeth and heading outside but then they remembered that Twilight hadn’t had a shower in days. Twilight rushed back inside the house and took a shower. Once she was done Twilight headed back outside and took a big breath of air.

“You ready to go?” Twilight asked Fluttershy with a small smile and feeling happy about how the morning was going but still having that sense of looming paranoia in the back of her mind.

In response, Fluttershy gave the nod and they started walking. Their first couple minutes of the stroll through town were pretty normal but a lot of the bystanders seemed to be talking about something. Twilight, out of curiosity, walked up to a very frail mare with a red curly mane and pale yellow coat and tapped her on the shoulder. “Um, what’s with the commotion?”

“Oh dearie dear, you do not know? The murders aren’t taking place in Cantalot anymore. The Sleep Killer of Cantalot is here!” the mare said frantically in a panic.

“Please! Just look around, my husband was killed last night in his bed. His organs literally decorated the bed. I’m not the only one. There’s a killer in town!!! There’s a killer in town!!!” But then the mare was quickly cut off by a pale green hoof that covered her mouth.

“Step aside, you’re under too much stress to be talking to the element of magic.” said a very robust light green earth pony officer that had royal guards behind him which made Twilight’s eyes widen because she knew that those guards were only reserved for serious state affairs.

“Sorry for that unpredicted situation Miss Sparkle, I’m officer Mint Tea and right now we’re collaborating with the royal guards and her majesty of the night Princess Luna, under the investigation of the sleep killings and to catch the killer in Ponyville."

“Umm, ok. Thank you for that. It’s nothing wrong. And uh let me guess, Princess Luna wants to see me?” She questioned the stallion, knowing why Luna was actually there.

“Indeed Miss Sparkle and right now I’m going to try and interview a survivor of this possible killer to gather further details.”

“Wait, someone survived the killer?” Twilight asked hoping that this survivor could reveal who the masked assailant that Twilight and Fluttershy had both seen.

“Yep, but sadly she claims not to remember anything from the night before. All we know of the actions of the killer is that they left several hoof bruises on her face hinting that maybe one of Their methods is trampling through the face.”

That’s when Twilight’s heart dropped. This pony wasn’t a survivor of a serial killer, this pony was the pony that survived Fluttershy.“Can you give me a name?” she asked maintaining a smile that hid her obvious involvement in the beating of the stranger.

The officer lowered his glasses thinking for a moment before letting out a huff.“Sure, actually the mare who got injured is very famous around here. I believe her name is Octavia Orchard.” Mint tea told her clearly amused that somepony famous survived the killing spree.

Now it felt like her heart had fallen deeper and landed in her stomach. She found out who the proxy was but she just didn’t expect it to be a mare, or a mare of high social standing. Could she be overthinking?  She hoped she was but the description of injuries was to similar to the injuries she saw under the offender's mask. She didn't want Octavia to remember and suddenly tell the authorities

“It was nice talking with you officer now I’ve gotta go.” She then trotted off and the officer waved back at her.

“Nice talking with you Miss Twilight.” He said with a friendly wave of his hoof as she walked away.

As Twilight was walking away with her smile fading to a frown, she noticed the silent DJ of the town Vinyl blankly looking in her direction. And from her facial expression, she looked like she was entertained or amused by something Twilight had done. It just felt off.

“Twilight Sparkle you ok?” Luna whispered catching the unicorn off guard and causing her to quickly look back.

She sighed and looked up at Luna. “Yeah Luna, I am ok, just there’s been a lot happening since we last talked and I don’t feel safe talking to you right now.”

"Well, why is that? Certainly,  I’m the safest to be around. After all, I’m no ordinary noble. Even if some random thug came behind us, they will be surprised by how powerful my kicks are.” Luna reassured Twilight, trying to make her older sister’s young apprentice feel safe.

“Yeah, I just feel like we have two extreme dangers to juggle. Plus do people really want to know why you’re here?” To that Luna took a step back considering the words of Twilight and thought about the implications of what she meant. 

"Even though I see your point we got more important matters at hoof, so come along, we are talking in private." Luna said leading Twilight to where they would talk.
> ch10 A Chat And A Interview
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight followed Luna to the library and entered carefully while Luna placed several magic wards on the doors and windows ensuring no one entered. As Luna did magic, Twilight looked around the library. She noticed how messy the library was compared to Luna’s previous visit. 

“Wow, you should really clean up the place Ms. Twilight for I haven’t past seen a library as disordered and scattered as this one.” She scoffed as she placed her rump on a cushioned chair. 

“I will, as soon as this is over. And what did you want to talk about Princess?” 

“Well, first of all, how are you doing?”
 
“Well, I say I’m doing pretty meh right now Luna.” Twilight murmured as she grabbed herself a chair too. She sat with a groan. 

“So, pretty in between, I see. Anyways, the second priority on the matter is what have you come to learn about this thing’s ability?” she asked inquisitively
 
“Um, what I know so far is that it’s pretty unpredictable. First, it can teleport in a way I don’t even know how. Specifically, the method of its teleportation. Second, it can physically transport objects a small bit forward in time and leave them there. The other thing is, that from my understanding I do not get the full scale of its abilities or powers. According to my understanding, it isn’t on your level of power Luna." 

Luna didn’t say anything in response. She just fidgeted with a pencil with her telekinesis. “Tell me Twilight, why do you think I have gone to such lengths to find this creature?”

“Um, I don’t know? A personal grudge?” Twilight asked awkwardly. 

“The answer is that this creature may provide answers into why some things are unexplored.” Luna said placing the pencil down softly.

In response scooted her stool in closer to her, feeling integrated by her small explanation. "Please, elaborate further."

“We may be deemed as goddesses, even though a basic studier of the ways of magic could understand that we are more than just demigods. But, for the longest time I have been alive ever since ascending to alicornhood I have seen something like this but not in the way that folk legends say.  I know it originates forms somewhere, but I don’t know where. That place it comes from, I see as a threat. My sister doesn’t agree with me since she wants to lift the sun above our planet. However, I the princess of the night can see things, I have to deal with the nightmares of ponykind and griffonkind and all other intelligent species on this planet. And, I don’t even know what deaths this creature has come to or why it is here. So, to answer your many questions in one simple answer student of my older sister, I’m here because I’m curious.”

Twilight sat in her comfy stool lost on what words to say. She wasn’t shocked, but to see some pony as revered as Luna say she is just as clueless as the normal mare or stallion made her not entirely lose hope but to have doubt in the protective efforts of Celestia. “Well, anything else Princess Luna?” 

“Nope, that’s all. But I do have a request. I want you to interview Octavia at the hospital. I know from your conversation with the sheriff that you were likely the one to assault her. Even if you tried to hide the fact that you did, I want you to get some info on this henchmare of this tall creature.”

“Um ok, well see you later then Luna.” Twilight said as she got off her chair and headed towards the door. Luna politely undid the protection wards and exited the door as well. 





It was 11pm when Twilight was sitting in the lounge and waiting for the nurses to get permission to let Twilight in Octavia’s room. Twilight sat next to a stallion and his little filly as they played on a magically electric game system that emulated a somewhat cubelike game of survival and crafting. "Technology and magic sure do work hoof and hoof."  she mused as mused as she watched the filly build a dirt block home.

“Ms. Twilight Sparkle your appointment is approved.” called out a nurse with a ruby red coat and curly green mane with bags under her eyes. 

“Oh, thank you very much for telling me. Also, may I ask what’s your name?” Twilight asked as she walked up to the door to the patient wing. 

The middle-aged earth pony groaned and rolled her eyes before saying, “It’s Red Hot Chili Pepper, please don’t ask anything else I’ve been dealing with a lot of patients. Just give me a break.”
 
“Ok, sorry, I will leave you be now. Bye!” Twilight carefully trotted down the hall as she looked for the room. She delicately held a piece of paper that had the room number she was looking for on it and looked back and forth between each consecutive room. “Ok, room 0-9-6 where are you?” Then she found it. 

She slowly creaked open the door and saw Octavia resting on her hospital bed. Her face was covered by some minor bandages that were waxed on the wounds inflicted by Fluttershy. Octavia looked very tired and drained of any emotion to give. “Oh, so you’re Miss Sparkle huh? Funny that Vinyl told me about you. She said you were coming. Please sit down. I know why you’re here. You’re doing your own little investigative journalism.” She spoke to her in a smooth yet soft accent while she lay on the bed. Twilight walked forward and sat on her right. 

“So, what do you remember of the night when you got hit? Or got hit several times, not to be rude.” Twilight said nonchalantly as she looked down at the bruised mare, pretending that she wasn't talking to the assailant that Fluttershy had attacked the night before.

Octavia smirked softly before giving a light-hearted chuckle. “Funny that you mention that because I don’t remember anything. All I remember is a dream. It almost felt like I was sleepwalking you know a dream where you feel like you’re walking but you aren’t. I just remember being in a forest, foals and colts were running around a stone and singing a song which was, well I really couldn’t understand.” Octavia paused and took a deep breath as she remembered more about the dream. “I remember walking up to those children but they didn’t respond but just kept running around that damn stone. Then, I don’t know why, but then my brother joined in. It may just be my grievance of him dying in the war against the nation of Stalliongrad or whatever psychological thing my therapist could say, but he was there. And I know Miss Sparkle you don’t want to hear any sob stories from me, but I remember my original home is situated near the front of where Chrysalis attacked. My brother died in that very brief skirmish at the Stalliongrad border, way before those changelings brought their tanks and infantry to my little town. I didn’t know what to do, I mean I did try to learn the way of the Equestrian rifle and tried to escape the horrors of the war but I will not discuss my war stories. Just in that dream, all I saw was the townsfolk I lived with that joined in too. Then Vinyl, oh sweet Vinyl she tapped my hoof then pointed me to a clearing in the woods. I don’t remember what I saw but it froze me. Then I woke up, badly bruised. "

Twilight looked down at the mare as she retold her dream, seeing the clear distress as she retold her memories. "Ok besides from the dream and the sudden bruises, anything else that would be considered out of the ordinary happing in your life?"

Yet again Octavia took a pause, thinking about what else would be worth mentioning. "Well that same feeling I had in my dream, the feeling I had when I saw whatever I saw in the clearing, it's there when I'm awake sometimes. Like I could feel it was there even before the dream! The last time I felt it was 6 days ago when I was eating at a cafe with Vinyl, She decided that she was going to bird-watch a young stallion and his marefriend, being the pansexual prev as she usually is.  But I still felt the same gut-tugging feeling of fear from off to the woods in the distance, like the feeling was so familiar and yet so distant. But of course she nonverbally told me it was nothing, but it felt like she was lying, like she knew it was there." Octavia told her with an uneasy tone as she looked down at her blanket.

Twilight mentally noted the description of Vinyly's strange acknowledgment of the Tallmare's presence, concluding that Octavia had less control and memory compared to her marefriend "Anything else Octavia?" 

"Nope, you can leave now Ms. Sparkle." Octavia dismissed, letting out a sigh of melancholy.

Twilight exited the room and headed back down the hallway, but then she stopped. The feeling was there again, but why? She turned her head back and saw Vinyly standing behind her, with that same all-knowing smile of what Twilight was doing. Twilight ignored the mare behind her and continued walking down the hallway before opening the pushable doors and entering back into the lobby





Twilight contained her walk down to Fluttershy's house while looking at passbyers talk about more details of the killer in town. The killer often stabbed their victims in the face several times, or kill them by carving a large hole in the victim's chest letting them bleed out in bed. Twilight continued walking as she heard many discussions and rumors of who was doing it, they ranged from the killer being the same one that took the foals and 2 adults, others claiming it was a vengeful changeling killing for his hive, but those really didn't matter to twilight since she had more clues than the rest of the populace.

Fluttershy then walked up in front of Twilight, looking a bit urgent. "Umm..Twilight...Someone wants our help."

Twilight looked surprised at the news and small intriguing and hopeful smile formed across her face. "Oh! ok, who wants help?

"Applejack"
> Ch11 Brutal Honesty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The current time was 12:30 pm when the unicorn and the pegasus arrived at Sweet Apple Achors. The midday sun beamed above the farm while the wind blew against the branches of the many apple trees with their autumn leaves flying in the wind. Twilight looked over to Fluttershy with an uncertain grimace, the pegasus looked back with a more serious look in her eyes and looked more informed about why the very air seemed troubled as the farm mare who they were about to visit.

They trotted with uneasy movent in their hoves as they approached the barn. The barn and the house of the Apple family had an unusual silence as they got closer, non of the lights were on and it seemed like the life of the house had vanished. "Umm Fluttershy, why does this seem like AJ  called us here for a more serious matter?"  Twilight looked at the house as she asked, a nervous shiver running down her back as she saw aj looking out of her window.

Fluttershy looked up at where her friend was looking, feeling the same feeling of dread, like an encroaching storm was in front of them. "She didn't say much, just said she knew what we were doing."

Twilight continued to look at the house that loomed over them, sensing that something bad had happened there. The 2 slowly started to walk to the house again, and as they arrived at the front doorTwilight knocked on it. They waited for a couple of minutes, before hearing hoof steps heading downstairs before a familiar country mare opened the door and looked at them with a scowl.

"Get the fuck inside." AJ demanded before walking back upstairs and leaving the door open for them. Twilight and Fluttershy glanced at each other and shrugged, both equally clueless. They headed upstairs to follow her, then as soon as they reached the second floor they saw her standing still in Applebloom's bedroom with a frown of anger. 

Twilight, being the more reasonable one walked into the empty bedroom
"Look Applejack, we can't fix loose, but we can help with-"

"DON'T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME! I know what your meddling with." AppleJack cut Twilight off with pure anger and rage in her voice.

Twilight slowly backed with confusion. "AJ, I don't know what you mean? what do you mean meddling?"

"Don't get me started. After your little spike dissaperiead, you started acting all suspicious and shit." She said, walking in circles around Twilight with hate. "I didn't know what the fuck was up with you and your fucking brain, but I knew it was related to those disappearances."

"You only know half of the story, so shut up," Twilight said with anger, not happy about the eavesdropping

"HAHAHA, Oh you think I know half?!? Oohhh boy! What if I told you I saw what you fuckers are seeing too! Thats right! I was farming apples 2 days ago and I thought I saw a tall mare, a Tall Mare!! And oh then I found a threatening note on my tree with some wired magick shit on it, before I found that faceless bitch right behind me and I FUCKING RAN!" at this point the tan mares emotions were erupting out her like a toxic volcano of grief.

Both Fluttershy and Twilight looked at their friend who raved with laughter and tears rolling down her face. "Be honest, are you hurt?" Asked kindness.

"NO SHIT! Twilight you were only going down this rabbit hole because of your little sibling, how fucking selfish!" AJ yelled mocking Twilight, trying to deflect the blame to her friend. 

The only unicorn in the room felt great offense to the insult and punched AJ hard in the snout. "How about you calm the fuck down! yes the tallmare is real and we have been trying to figure out what it is!" 

AJ got up and laughed blood covering her muzzle. " Yeah, and I know it's real. PLUS! I am the element of honesty so let's BE FUCKING HONEST! Luna is here probably here for the same reason you have gone sherlock-hoofs on this bitch, and it's making you sooo self-centered! And my honest emotion is PAIN! I tried all of the wards grannysmith taught me about, and they don't work! So ya'll are going to help me kill this BITCH!"

Both Twilight and Fluttershy stared with concern at their distressed friend. there were silent for a long amount of minutes, not knowing what to do or say.

"So are you going to help me or sit on your flanks and gawk?"

Twilight took a deep breath before walking up calmly to her friend. "Where is the rest of your family? Are they safe?"

"Yeah, they are in a hotel, why you ask?"

Twilight sighed and looked down at into her friend's emerald eyes. "I'm asking because we don't know the scope of this thing's capability. And sorry to say but you are just as helpless as we are, were lost and there are no clear directions. Then there are the dangers of this cult-like thing, or whatever you call it, heck they're probably watching us right now!"

AppleJack looked at Rwilight with weary eyes, seaming to take her words in carefully. The mares stood in that room while looking blankly at each other. Their emotions were uncertainty and caution and they didn't even need to speak to understand what they all were thinking. 

What now? 

"I think we should stay close to each other just in case things go wrong." spoke Fluttershy

"Yeah but who else? Rarity and Rainbowdash are doing their own thing and we don't know how Rarity is dealing with Spike being gone thing. I mean I get her, he is quite the charming little cutie but she is such an ass about it!." AJ explained her thoughts while going on a small rant at the end.

Twilight made a slight awkward chough at the mention of Spike's awkward relationship with The element of generosity. "As Spike's guardian, I would say Rarity is only doing this out of kindness for him and I still have to consider who is a good candidate and actually cares about him." She finished while scowling at aj.

Honesty groaned and slumped her head against the ground. The other 2 looked at her and sighed feeling why she was frustrated. Sure dragons reach their equivalent to young adulthood than ponies, but Twilight didn't want his emotional insecurities to be exploited. Then after another moment of silence, both Fluttershy and Twilight got up and started to leave. 

"Well AJ, we can meet tomorrow if it's, uhh, safe." Fluttershy said softly as she looked back at the emotionally disheveled mare on the floor.

AppleJack raised her head slowly and nodded. "yeah..sure ya can."

then the two left the house and heard back down the dirt road. They had many things that would happen and affect their life, they may have fought great villains through the arcane principles of harmony and friendship and a great war, but this threat was personal. As they walked they all felt like eyes were on them, indeed there were, one being the mare in the woods, a serial killer behind an apple tree and oh such more. But they continued to walk as they got their time to decompress
> ch12 The Threat Rises Up
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight laid in her bed with the lamp on with a big smile on her face. Finally, a day when she had the upper hoof in this metaphorical chess game, a day where she wasn't alone on this investigation. She had 2 of her best friends with her on this and they were dead-seat on stopping this threat with her. The rest of the day had been pretty normal and it seemed like the mare in the woods was giving her a break. She knew that she and her friends had been friends with her for a while, but she and them had been caught up in their own personal matters and thus became distant. This was a normal problem in most friendships.

Reality calls for one to deal with the challenges life throws at their life. She remembered that quote from Starswirl's The Nature of Harmony. LIke many harmonists like her believed in the great flow that guided magick and possibly karma to many parts of nature like a river. Of course, she did question it like she was now currently, but she knew it existed and there was evidence to prove it. It was a deep feeling in her gut that harmony wasn't the full extent of it, she thought about it because of the way the Tallmare used her form of magick.

Most treaties and textbooks on magick told that there were many ways to channel magic. An example would be that unicorns and pegasuses both use their life energy to use to some extent. But they were extremely different on how their parts function, The unicorns use their inner magick to interact with other natural energies in the area and make a more diverse range of spells, and the pegasusia use channel it from their wings as a boost but use the properties of the air to actually fly.

What she was trying to get at was that there were many types of magick that all functioned in their different uses. Friendship was a type of magic generated from the emotions of different things and culminating into a very effective force, but the Tallmare's was different and unknown. It seemed very complex in function and relied on many different magickal forms of activating a completely unknown energy. But her mind didn't have time to focus on such intriguing questions so she had to head to sleep.





She dreamed of the woods again, but she couldn't feel Luna's presence there anymore, she was alone. The forest was different though, there were several ravines around her that seemed to lead to nothing below, and then was the sound of weird music. It more sounded like a trombone that had rusted and had a popping sound that rattled with each pop.

She turned around and saw that there was somepony standing behind her, but she was obscured in black. The figure was a mare and she had braided hair that was slightly uneven with the edge of her mane's hair spiking out, and her glasses glowed like some floodlights and were clearly outlined by the light. As Twilight looked closer at the mare she realized who she was looking at.

"What are you doing in my dream Vinyl?!?"

In response, Vinyl let out a chuckle that echoed with a chippy tone like her very voice was recorded on an old record player. "yeah yeah it's me Twilight, the local DJ of Ponyvile and lover of Octavia." she said with a mock tone as her glowing white mouth smiled at Twilight. 

"Please answer my luna damed question." 

"Ooo saying a princess's name in vain, I like it and sure ill answer your question. I'm here to send you a message since you aren't listing to our hard drives." Vinyl chirped and booped Twilights snoot.  

Twilight raised a brow at this and backed up. "What is the message you want to send? I don't get it because I don't even get why your after me."

The shadow-covered DJ groaned and smacked Twilight.  "The message is don't fuck with The silent queen. Sure some of us are unwillful participants like my love dumb bitch. And then we have people like me, saved by their/her mysteriousness and cheated death-"

"EXCUSE ME?!? CHEAT DEATH!?" Twilight interrupted while gawking at the reveal.

Vinyl groaned yet again and slapped Twilight yet again. "PAY ATTENTION! Anyways, besides the main 2 types of us, there's another you will be encountering. He was driven mad from one of the silent queen's attempts to make a new pawn."

"Ok but can explain who he is?" Twilight questioned  feeling uncertain about the vague hints about who she was dealing with."  

"Not telling, you know who I'm talking about soon enough." Vinyl said evasively while leaning up against a tree.

Twilight scrunched up her muzzle with a glare and approached the DJ while eyeing her. "Ok then what am I supposed to do with this pony you're talking about?" she said with frustration and annoyance that could be seen in her eyes. 

Vinyl turned her gaze in her direction and scoffed, though Twilight couldn't see that she was because her eyes were just glowing pale white. "kill the defect."

Twilight slammed her hoof into the DJ's chest, but when she hit her chest it felt like she punched a bolder. "OW! SHIT! how did you do that?!" 

"You are in a dream idiot!! You should know that you can do anything you want here! sadly I'm in control here." Vinyl jeered before laughing at her pathetic attempt.

"Im. Not. A. Murderer!" 

"Trust me, it would be for your own betterment if you did. But I guess he could be called that too." Mused the shadow mare.

"What do you mean?"

"Not explaining, we want you to find out for yourself. After all, it would be too easy for you in our game if we gave you an answer." Vinyl jeered one final time before disappearing. 

Then the world faded around the lavender mare and she stood next to the tree as she watched. Then as soon as it drew near her she closed her eyes.





Twilight slowly woke up with drowsy eyes. She could remember the dream clearly and the warning Vinyl gave. She looked outside of the window next to her, it was still night and she estimated it to be 4am. She didn't feeling any form of tiredness so she laid back down on her bed and tried to get back to her sleepiness, but it failed. Again and again and again she couldn't get sleep, like her mind was telling her to be awake. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about things besides sleep. The light from her lamp covered most of her bed but due to how dim it was it made the rest of the room dark. Many ponies and mares asked why she even had a nightlight,  she told them the honest answer which was her nyctophobia. Her reasoning behind it was that darkness made you feel isolated and alone, or possibly vulnerable to something.

As she continued to look out into the darkness she saw something, a silhouette. She didn't know why but somepony was in her room, and their figure was covered by the darkness. She didn't know why but her body was feeling sleepy and stiff again, lit was like her mind was split between alertness and sleep.

"I know, tough struggles ain't it." The voice spoke calmly with a raspy reassuring tone. "You may not know me personally but right now that doesn't matter, just let your worries go. Let your mind, drift away to thoughts of another world of your subconscious." The way this stallion talked to her was almost therapeutic and caring, like somepony finally understood what hell she was facing.  "Yeah, I can tell your struggling but then maybe the thought of sleep makes you calm. So you better just close your eyes and wake up tomorrow and present that nothing happened." A part of twilight brian was convinced at his advice, but the other detected deception. "So just close your eyes and go to sleep." 

She started to close her eyes, but her mind stayed awake. She heard soft hoofsteps approaching her bed slowly while only making the slightest indication that he was close. "Yeah just sleep."

Then Twilight quickly opened her eyes and tackled the stranger, pinning him to the ground with a glare. While she looked down she noticed how disfigured he was. His face was unrecognizable and his fur was missing in large patches with only small bits of brown on his muzzle which had burn marks on it. Both of his eyes had their lids missing and looked bloodshot, like he lacked the joy of sleep. His horn looked deformed as if it was partly melted and his muzzle had long scars tracing up about 1/3 of his muzzle in a smile pattern that had been cut a while ago, showing many exposed teeth and gums. 

"Your one ugly motherfucker." Twilight spat as she tried to telepathically wrestle the hunting knife out of his arcane grasp.  

"I know I am." The stallion said as he then kicked the leg of the mare on top of him and broke free, but his knife had landed a couple of feet away from both of them. The 2 unicorns looked at each other before charging for the knife and shoving one another in a desperate attempt to grab it. Twilight charged a burst of light into his face that illuminated most of the room showing the curved hunting knife with purple light reflecting off its blade. She rushed to it and grabbed it with her mouth since a big chunk of her magick was drained, which made her a bit dizzy.

She looked around and saw that the stallion was not where he once stood and had seemed to vanish. Twilight looked around the room as her vision readjusted with a weary look on her face as she held his hunting knife in her mouth, still not seeing him. Then out of the corner of her vision, a hoof slammed into her face and the knife flew out of her mouth and landed back onto the wooden floorboards. 

Twilight's horn dimmed and revealed the stallion approaching out of the darkness, it was like he didn't come out of the darkness but rather his body martilesed out the darkness itself. "Such a tough sleepy head. One should not be this vicious when sleepy. But at last, I leave you be! For a rather tough victim you are and such a strong-willed element wielder. But now I wish you a fair well till next time!"  

Twilight got up to tackle him but as soon as she leaped onto him, the darkness made him vanish into it. She slowly got up onto her forehooves and looked out into the darkness, and she took in the moment that she was safe now. But she knew she still wasn't and this game of tag will go on until someone won the game. She walked back onto her bed and looked back up at the ceiling with a soft smile, thanking herself for surviving.

She had a lot of stuff to do the next day and one of those things was to give a description to the police and possibly get a sketch for the newspaper to talk about. She also had to meet with her friends that were on the same boat as her and discuss on what to do. She felt exhausted but victorious, she hadn't killed the ugly  motherfucker but she had beaten him in a fight and the next morning she was going to expose him.

As she gloated at her victory and slumped back into her bed, she started feeling tired again. As she thought more, the more relaxed she became, then she fell asleep. In her bed, she dreamed her normal dreams that had no interruptions.
> Ch13 Headlines
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight sat in the conference room at the Ponyville police station with a smug look on her face. Currently the police were doing a sketch on the serial killer she saw last night, which is the killer who has been the local craze of late. The skinny stallion who was drawing with his mouth looked very horrified at the description and his co-officers had the same expressio on their faces. If Twlight was dumb she would think this was something out of some horror movie or that this random pony was a liar. 

“So Ms. Twilight, I’m not sure how much of the truth you’re telling me. But we already had somepony claim she saw the suspect as well and claims she took a photo of him. However, we’re not sure how accurate your description is compared to the photo.” the beige-yellow stallion with a pencil in his mouth said while the pencil moved along with his mouth. Honestly, that was probably the most entertaining thing Twilight could look at. Because looking at someone who could draw, while she couldn’t, was really boring. But seeing a pencil awkwardly move while they talked was mostly comedic. 

Then a unicorn mare with a maroon red coat and braided purple hair tapped her fellow officer with a file holder.  “Mr. Carrot Cake, this is the photo from Ms. Rarity. It seemed to be taken in a quick haste, but I would consider this important evidence for the case.” The mare took off her police cap and pulled out the photograph of the photo and placed it next to the drawing. The photo definitely matched what Twilight saw last night, and the camera was definitely angled at a point where it definitely seemed like the pony holding it was curled up on the bed while cowering.
 
“Yep, that’s Rarity for you. A bit of hotty totty fashion and cowardice when confronted with danger. But I must say, she was bold enough to take a photo of that ugly bitch.” Twilight jeered with a smirk on her face as she looked at the two photos. All the officers in that room looked at two different illustrations with shock in their body language and bemusement in their pupils. 

“Well, Chrysalis steal my wife on Friday, that be him alright.” a charcoal black pegasus said before taking a long sip of his coffee 






The rest of the policeponies had been arguing about whether to show this to the public or not due to the fear of mass hysteria and possible scarring of a young colt/foal minds. But that conversation was given an answer in the form of the moon princess herself, Luna, saying that the photo was important for her investigation and would be important for her ponies to stay informed. this in turn made most of the officers move around in a panic frenzy.

Now Twilight was sitting on a bench at the northern center of town as she watched ponies read the newspaper and talk amongst themselves. Many different producers of those articles gave very different commentary about the photo of the killer. Most of them did comment about the possible danger and some that had their own political takes on it varied the most. One from a news outlet that seemed to pander to those who didn’t like the technological development of Equestria said this is what Arcane study does to your foals. They warned of many other scapegoats to blame as to why this clearly is not a foal who became what he is. Others, such as little internet talk shows now known as “podcasts” that were focused on true crime were absolutely enthralled with such a photo.

Over the next seven hours, Twilight received normal attention than normal. Sure she was already had celebrity status as a sun princess, but being a mare that was a firsthand suspect was certainly eye-grabbing. Most of the paparazzi she told was a half-bit true. She didn’t mention the mysterious disappearance of the DJ in her dreams or that she had tried to kill the killer but merely made herself look like she was a tough mare with a tough personality, which most of the outlets gobbled up. And boy oh boy she hated this.   She now didn’t just have to worry about some folklore entity with questionable origins that made her question the very nature of her belief in Harmony, she was also watched by every single pony in this town that was on the “who is the killer” bandwagon. 

An hour after going to the local coffee shop she sat back down on the bench with a little coffee in her telekinesis as she drank it entirely. Thankfully, the two other ponies who weren’t paparazzi but rather her two friends that were suffering from the same entity. Both gave each other uneasy glances knowing that their smart unicorn friend was feeling distressed and on edge. They walked up to her while she looked at them sternly before they sat on both sides. "Sooo ya feeling ok today? I mean ya did just encounter the killer last night, or Jeff as those outlets are calling him." AJ asked as she looked at the wandering pedestrians as they went about their daily lives.

Twilight took another long sip before looking back at aj. "Yup, I have and it was very strange. I saw Vinyl Scratch in my dream and she told me to kill him," she said nonchalantly as she took another sip.

The cowpony raised a brow at the odd confession and gave a look that she was confused about what she was talking about. "Uhh are ya sure your not hallucainating? Like in full honesty that don't make sense."

"Look its obvious that Vinyl has some form of connection to the Tallmare. She told me that The Tallmare didn't like me not viewing its tapes, which I don't know why I would at all. She then said that she cheated death by one of the Tallmare's powers."

"Ok how in the Tartarus does that makes sense?" aj implored as she took a sip of Twilight's coffee without permission.

Twilight looked down at the dirt road in compilation to the question with a confounded frown. She generally felt a bit lost at the question and had to work with the small amount of observations she had. "I have one small possible theory, that this mind control thing works like a virus with multiple variations for each individual affected with it. Like Octivia sounds like she has a more common variant where her brainwashed state is subconscious. Then we got the Killers case where he isn't really doesn't even have it in him but was mentally damaged by it, also given those wired shadow powers as well."

"Wait so Jeff has dealt with it before?" Fluttershy asked speculatively.

Twilight face-hoofed. "Yeah, that's what I'm saying! Also, why do keep calling him Jeff? I mean its such a stupid name. like can the news make another-"

"Are you talking about something?"Luna asked as she stuck her head out of the bush behind them. The 3 non-alicorns jumped back in surprise and looked back at the moon princese who gave them a friendly grin. Aj got up and was the first one to look at Luna.

"Luna, why were you in the bushes?"

Luna gave a light chuckle and flicked her mane. "I thought it was funny to hide in the bushes and give you a good scare, but that's not why I'm here." She ended with her voice becoming more serious. "We got stuff to talk about, and you two twilight are going to have this talk tonight."
> Ch14 Looking At The Evidence
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The princess of the moon and the trio of mares following behind her entered Twilight’s house for the second conversation that Twilight would have with Princess Luna. Twilight hadn’t forgotten about the ten harddrives she hadn’t watched, but with the obvious situation going on for the past couple days she didn’t really have time to. Now here they were, flanked by Luna’s royal thestral guards holding their bolt action rifles as they sat outside the door and stood with the mares inside the house. For a while the four mares were silent anticipating the others to speak up. Then with an abrupt cough, Applejack slowly raised her hoof. “Uh, question Ms. Princess Luna, why do you want us here again?” 

In response, the dark blue alicorn only smirked and took a sip of her lavender-scented tea, and placed the miniature teacup down next to her flank. “Well it’s simple, haven’t you guessed it? The answer you’ve been looking for is simple but is surface level compared to what I want? I’m here because I’m curious. I’m here because of the unknown that’s been plaguing me and my sister’s thoughts for a thousand years. I won’t go into full detail on it but even Twilight can guess that we have seen the horrors of the Tallmare. The silent queen. The operator. Or Güßergriff as the Griff’s of Griffonia call her. Also, I’m here to inform you that due to recent events transpiring, as I could hear you guys talking, it is apparently obvious that these things are connected. And so I’m here to study.” Luna said plaintively as she picked up her tea again and sipped it while she gave the cowpony a calm unreadable stare. Applejack looked visibly weirded out by the moon princess’ tone. It was as if her intentions weren’t in the best in favor for her subjects. Suddenly Luna’s telekinetic grasp wrapped around Twilight’s duffle bag and pulled it close to her. 

“Now tell me, what inferences or ideas can you make from the clues bestowed on you through destiny?” Then again there was silence as the three of them, including the guards, didn’t know what to say. Then Twilight raised her hoof. 

“We couldn’t view the videos on the harddrives your highness. This was because of the ever-present danger of the Tallmare and her followers as well as the other anomaly. But my princess, we also didn’t view the tapes because we didn’t want to bore ourselves by watching stuff that could lead us to dead ends. This is merely a game of cat and mouse or whatever complicated game that fits our narrative. It wants to trick us, it hands us truths and it hands us lies.” Twilight honestly was telling a half-truth but it was the best she could come up with and it sounded reasonable and convincing enough for anyone with empathy to understand. 

Luna then gave her sister’s apprentice an understandable nod as she levitated the harddrives to a female thestral that lightly placed each ten of the drives into a small wallet. “Well what you gave was a very understandable reasoning and my little thestrals will investigate more of the matter at hoof. Most of them took their new profession of websurfer in due part as a procedure proposed by me and my sister to observe the behaviors of the citizens of our nation as well as others. Of course, what you just said does sound a bit like nightmare moon or the lesser-known Daybreaker, who I’ve as well as my sister hidden from our subjects. But it isn’t about political control. Lets just call this large group procedure the Cantalot Anomaly Defense Force.” Luna said as she raised a paper up with a symbol of the agency. It was a simple mark of a black horseshoe with three arrows on the left side, right side, and on top pointing inside the hoof. 

“Now let’s get to the real reason we all came here for- the clues and the answers.” The princess cued as she laid her back against one of Twilight’s chairs causing it to creak under her massive weight. Fluttershy was the next one to raise her hoof and everyone looked at her. 

“Well I have a small theory, it’s not much but I got it from my animals and the behavior of the ponies around me. I think how these followers are formed is entirely based on a possible disease that the mare in the woods emanates. Twilight has seen it with Octavia, our assailant, who has been identified with memory loss but I’d rather not question Octavia’s personal life. I see it as a mental trauma and as a doctor of animals and technically speaking we all are animals, I have to say this disease is quite abnormal.”

“Well partner, I have another theory,” AJ said just as Fluttershy finished speaking. “My theory here is that this thing is extradimensional in nature. I ain’t no egghead like Twilight but that thing don’t act like it’s from around here. It invades like a plant infecting every single thing around it like a parasite. Hear my idea out. What if there is another thing that came along with it? Sure we may have dealt with strange creatures like Discord, but he stuck out like a sore fuckin thumb and he WAS from here. I don’t know what to tell you Miss Moonflank but I am certain you know jackshit about whatever it is we’re investigating. And possibly you and your sisters could possibly be connected to it, Is that correct? Because if it were then that would explain why you’re so intrigued. I mean it’s glaringly obvious from the talk of you and Celestia always being curious about the creature not like it’s a childhood fascination but like it’s a threat to your existence is a blaring sign of obsession.” 

Luna’s soft expression immediately turned to the type of sour that could taste like sewage. Her very face scrunched up like a raisin. With a glow of her horn, she shoved the element of honesty back into the wall and approached her. “Well excuse me, Ms Appleass but you don’t get to dive into my personal motives like that. For all I know you may be a speciest and you would be honest about your clear opinions. But then again, as the element of honesty that you are, you won’t shut your fucking mouth. Plus you still have a missing sister I heard. Without the help of me and my sister, you won’t be able to find your sister and we won’t be able to exterminate this metaphysical parasite in our world. To exchange honesty for honesty I think the sickness turned me into the nightmare I was!” She shouted aggressively into the orange earth pony's face.

Everyone could tell that Luna was offended by AJ's comment and they all felt afraid, or instead the princess had spread her fear. The fear was a desperate fear, the type of fear that was determined to survive and to do anything to get rid of danger. It wasn't magic that spread her emotion, but rather her own words read it out like a poem.

She took a couple of deep breaths before getting up and letting go of Applejack and looked at the rest of the ponies in the room with guilt as she realized her wrongdoing. "Oh...please forgive me for the outburst, I'm sorry applejack...just you touched something personal about me and I did the same...I'm sorry..."

The rest of the group continued to stare at her as she walked back to the center of the group while Applejack picked herself back up while wheezing. "I-I forgive you, Luna.. just I'm concerned for my family ya know."

Luna sat down on the carpet and had a long moment of silence as she thought. The theastrals and the 3 mares gathered the moon princess as she stared deeply at the floor as she recollected herself, then she got up and tapped one of the male thestrals on the shoulder. The thestral in question who had ruffled up hair under his helmet handed her a deck of cards which she then levitated the cards in the deck out and hoofed them over to the 3 and one to herself.

They looked at their each of their respective cards with speculative glances. Twilight’s was a drawing of a mare bathing in a pound and looking up at the bright white northern start with a look of hope. Applejack’s was a stallion carrying 10 heavy branches on his back with an exhausted yet determined grimace as he carried them. Fluttershy’s was an elegantly dressed mare walking through a garden peacefully as she passed a tree with 9 golden coins that had stars on them hung like apples. Finally, Luan’s had a thestral mare dressed in a priestly fashion sitting on a stone throne with a symbol which was a golden circle with 2 crescents on either side facing their respective directions.  

“Now I must inform you that there will be another one joining you, he will help you find a mare known as The hermit. She lives in the everfree and she has knowledge we want.” She said as she pulled out another card and levitated the card towards the stallion that originally handled her the deck. The card was called the magician and it had a stallion unicorn holding a sword and cup at an altar, looking confident in his ritual.

Then something surprising happened, the thestral grabbed the card in his own magickal grip, which was impossible because he was a earth pony. He then looked at Twilight with a smug smirk and green flames washed around him as he shed his disguise.

“Hello twilight, long time no see” Thorax said as he held his card  

   
> ch15 Throax
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was an absolute silence in the living room as Twilight stared at the outcast changeling appearing right in front of her. The other two mares had the same reaction, except for the princess of the moon and her contingency of guards. Thorax gave a light smile as he stared at the elemental wielder. He inspected her with his emerald-green eyes while combing his tall purple fin on top of his head. 

“I see you’re still processing my sudden appearance, but don’t worry I’m not alone. Sure you must have heard about my death there in the newspaper during the Great War, as you call it. But, alas, my death is fake.” he said as he swung himself on top of a cushioned chair with an elegant and proper posture. “I must say Twilight, your civilization has certainly revolutionized technologically during this past decade. Also, how’s Spike? I know he’s a slight tinge older than me, but you know he’s my type. Please don’t say he’s still looking at that whore of a unicorn.”

Twilight groaned with a disinterested side-eye as she sat next to the young adult changeling. “No, he’s not looking at Rarity anymore. Plus he’s gone. So can you politely shut your trap and get to the point of why you’re here?” Thorax’s smug smile soon turned suddenly into a frown of shock and he leaned his head back into the chair as his nonvisible pupils focused up on the ceiling.

“Well shit, I forgot that abomination has taken him. Well, at least Rainbow Dash is still single if the rumors of her preference aren't true then I can certainly snatch her up. But as you said, I must cut to the chase my little neurodivergent mare. So, you may be asking yourself, what the fuck is this insectoid trash talking about? First of all, if you’re thinking that, go fuck yourself because I don’t have six legs, are you a speciest? I know you’re not because we changelings are empathic, and I cant tell you aren't. Also to answer your question, I’m here because I’m a little tour guide if you will, with documented information. Well, it’s not that much, but still it’s useful for your investigation.” He ended with a sneer as he lightly booped Twilight on the snoot. 

“Ok, you little fly you gotta start getting to your shit before I shove my hoof so far up your carapace-made flanks that I would start feeling your squishy organs.” AJ abruptly threatened him with no sense of impulse control as she slammed her hoofs on the ground. 

“Fine fine fine, ok, sheesh. These documents are about an encounter during the war with this mythical entity that you call the Tallmare or some shit. We just called her, back in the day, the faceless bitch because we don’t see her, or they, or whatever pronoun in any other language to call it. But you may be wondering why isn’t this fully concrete. Well, you may not have been thinking that but I’m just going to say anyways. The hermit knows a deeper spiritual understanding of the Tallmare and you Twilight, with an interest in the Arcana and metaphysical would appreciate learning about some of the esoteric secrets of the Tallmare. And who’s to say, maybe this so-called ‘hermit of the Everfree’ may actually come to use or she may be as clueless as you are but has a better understanding of her spiritual concepts.”

“Um, who is this hermit exactly? I don’t know anyone who goes by that name.” Fluttershy chimed up while she nervously inspected her card as a distraction from the argument. 

“Sheesh, hell if I know who she is. It will probably make sense when we meet her, I have a guess who it would be, and that somepony is quite the sexy mare. But I won’t tell you who, you’ll be surprised that the mare in question is my type.” Thorax jeered with enthusiastic snarkiness as he picked up a champagne bottle from his satchel and immediately started chugging it in front of the nonchangeling audience.

“Ugh, Thorax can you just take us to this hermit already? You probably know where she’s located right? We don’t have to waste the rest of the day in my house without doing any of our objectives.” Twilight demanded. 

“Ok Ms. Sparkle burp let’s head to the forest hermit! Let the magician guide you to the hermit!” 





Twilight followed her group under the cover of the trees as the sun dimmed down on them with its light shining through the many leaves of the Everfree. Twilight looked at her mentor’s holiest object like she was some devout follower as Celestia’s sun second by second slowly went an inch lower. The walk to the entrance of the forest had been an awkward one since Thorax really didn’t want to disguise himself as the same stallion he had dressed up as before. This time he wanted to look more magnetic per se. In simpler terms, he made himself look like an earth pony stallion with a greased haircut that was to the side and had a coat that matched his eyes. Obviously, the changeling was trying to fester up some love to feed off and also to chat up some random townsfolk as he passed. All the while as he did this on the walk, Twilight was deeply cringing watching the very flirtatious changeling attempting and failing to lure in various mares and stallions alike. 

Now in the present, Twilight didn’t have to deal with that. Thorax’s disguise was shed. Her two friends had fallen behind him as he guided them down a secluded pathway. While Twilight walked she held out the folder Thorax had given her before the walk, the file contained several photos of the city of Baltimare during its famous siege. Many were photos of labor unions turned into local militias fending off against the many assaults and blitzkriegs. Others showed the many corpses that littered the street as they decomposed in many different ways, either from plant life burned into their skin with bugs making homes out of their flesh. Or the bodies slowly mummified like a dill pickle. But amongst the many photos that documented the many hardships and horrors of the sieges, there were the important ones. Those that circled an irregularly tall-looking pony behind forest lines as they stalked the various different soldiers in the collection of photos. Then there was one that really any soldier at all, but more of a militia fighter and his family. It was a young teenage stallion next to his mother and father and his older brother on his right side. The brother and the stallion labeled as ‘Iron Spade’ all sat together in an old dingy family photo with the same ominous entity behind the trees. This photo was also special because it had a small document attached to it. It discussed the sudden disappearance of the stallion and his brother as well. It was also noted that his parents were strangled or mutilated in their sleep. 

After reading that document, Twilight put the folder away with its contents as she was already filled with mental images of the war she had never experienced. They continued walking taking note of their slowly darkening surroundings while their hooves crunched against the lush grass and various wild herbs that littered the forest.

Soon they came across a small clearing in front of a small cliff on top of the hill which the night sky shined upon. It was quite a beautiful view and the whole group was easily admiring the clear shining sky above with the moonlight shining off against the leaves of the trees of the everfree. Normally the sky would be pitch-black with nothing but a void filling the sky, now far from civilization near the countryside, the light pollution was only minimum at best. Then Twilight realized something, why did they stop here? This surely looked like the place where they should meet this hermit. But why here?  

"Uhh Thorax are you sure this is the place? I mean we an't sure who this hermit is." Applejack questioned the changeling with uncertainty.

"Yeah yeah, I know it is because I've been to this spot so many times before, plus Moon Ass told me this is where they would meet us. got it?" growled Thorax with a groan as he looked at his map.

Then there was a sound of leaves crunching under hoofs. The group turned their head toward the direction of the sound, it came from their right, the pony obscured by the cover of the trees. Then the pony in question walked slowly out of the cover of the trees, revealing a mare that wasn't a pony, but rather the local zebra of the woods. She smiled at the group and then looked at Throax who smiled back. 

Thorax rushed over to Zecora and hugged her tightly. "Well well! I didn't know my mare friend was this hermit we were called to!" He said letting go of the hug and looking her in the eyes with a grin.

"WAIT EXCUSE ME!? YOU A-ARE DATING! HOW- oh platinum this is so unexpected." Twilight yelled with a lowered jaw and a look of bewilderment.

The Hermit just chuckled and looked at the gawking ponies in front of her. "Well love is a very unexpected thing as you see, we have been doing this for a very long time. Now come here love bug, let's have a war of mouths!" Then they started to kiss each other with passion and hums while the unfortunate mare watched them make out.
> ch16 The Hermit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The three mares waited at Zecora’s hut while the sound of changeling on zebra echoed throughout the woods. Twilight and the rest of her friends shared the same look of discomfort as they listened to the bizarre couple makeout behind the shrubs. 

“Err, you know what can these two just get a room far away from us? I mean sure, Zecora has a nice flank, but can you at least slap it fifty miles away from us.” Applejack said as she cringed and leaned her back against a tree. 

“Applejack, I didn’t know you were into mares,” Twilight said as she turned her eyes to the cowpony. 

“Well I ain’t, but I got the knowledge from my brother. He stares all the damn time. Plus, I can easily see Big Mac getting jealous over a changeling, like Thorax. Speaking of which, Twilight you’ve never stated your sexuality. Like I assumed you were into mares and stallions do your behavior around some, but you seem less active now. Something changed?.” Applejack said with a huff as she walked away from the tree and looked in the direction of the noises. 

“Well, AJ all I have to say is that I don’t have a preference. I lost that long ago. Yes, I was into both at some point, just the idea of a one true love started to seem very fictional to me. I also started to realize why some of the relationships I had sucked, me and my partner expected a pony to give them endless affection and drive their worries away. I think that's when I stopped looking for somepony to love me, and started to love myself. I mean why would I want to suffer the hardship of love again and give shared false promises?” Twilight smirked as she joined Applejack as they stared at the shuffling of the branches. 

“So, wait. You don’t like anyone at all?” Fluttershy asked while she gave Twilight a confused look.

“Well, not currently I don’t like anyone. It’s called I’d rather wait until someone can love me in a way that we both understand.” The trio continued to look out into the woods as the couple continued on with their business. A couple of minutes later they came back out with devious smiles while they nuzzled each other. 

“Ohh, that was good babe. Anyways, are you three ready to talk now after waiting so long for us to stop wrestling? I mean we were literally wrestling, no dirty thoughts. Especially you Fluttershy, I think you must have a dirty part of your mind hidden from us all.” Thorax said as he pointed to the pegasus who looked frightened at the accusation of unsolicited thoughts. 

“Sorry, I’m not thinking that. Can we just talk now?” 

Zecora brushed up against Thorax while rubbing her tail against his hind legs and then looked at Fluttershy with a soft smile, “Yes, we will. Now come you have so much to discuss with your sexy hermit and swaggy magician.” she said as she guided them into her hut and closed the door behind them. 

The group gathered around the wooden table while Zecora grabbed some herbal drinks for each of them. “So, Zecora, do you know anything about this Tallmare?” Twilight asked as she took a sip of her citrus water. 

“Well, yes, I do know but it’s not in the most simplest of terms if you will. She is the one to dwell in one’s mind and has been around as long as there have been princesses. Her nature is that of a parasitic fungus that grows. I’m pretty sure you already knew that. She’s attributed to the secrets and to the mundane esoteric nature of something beyond this world. I got this knowledge from my tribe before we had to seek refuge in your nation from the nation of Colthage as they sought to establish plutocracy.  We had talked about tales of an entity similar to her but others as well. We talked about a smiling hyena that drew any zebra mad when they looked into his eyes. We discussed our interpretation of the theory of harmony and about the metaphysical nature of the guidance to a better future. Through our versions of magic and studies of it, my theory is the natural flow of nature does not orbit around this planet but goes into another plane of existence itself. You see changeling magic is highly defined by its practice of connecting to the subterranean. I’ve seen my love bug meditate in these caves and he’s said he detected stuff differently than before. If you’re curious about what I’m meaning dear element of magic, I’m saying that the flow of harmony may also be the flow of disaster and this creature is another fish from an entirely different river. And it’s magic operates on different laws and is much more flexible and nonphysical.”

“So it’s energy-based magic?” Twilight questioned while giving the zebra an intrigued lower brow. 

“Yes, this is what I mean but I’m not a unicorn so I don’t know. All I know is that it’s something that operates on the presence of thought and feeling. It’s like electricity connected to metals and water, it seeks, it permeates when it seeks contact.” Zecora explained as she took another sip of her own drink while sitting her flank on Thorax’s left hind leg. 

“Ok. That makes a lot of confusion then. But for a non-unicorn, you certainly know a lot about the nature of harmony. And how did you guys meet and become, you know?” Twilight asked as she looked at the couple as they snuggled up against each other. 

“Well, long story short. I found him in the woods panting and all that, he’d come up from the river. We started living for each other and taking care of each other. Then I saw the Tallmare too. Then here we are. We’ve been together for five years.” The zebra cooed softly in her natural accent as she lightly brushed her flank on Thorax's leg which did get a blush out of him. In response, Applejack rolled her eyes with a grunt of annoyance.

"Ok I have another question Zecora, are you going to tell us something important about the Tallmare? Im asking that because while we talked I was hoping you would give us an ultimate answer to she/it works but you've been only giving us only talk about how mysterious she is and bits of info that only give us a surface-level understanding of it. So please tell me Zecora, what are you going to tell us?" Twilight felt like she was wasting her time talking to her but also still felt that Zecora did have something to say, even if it could be not a lot it would be very vital for their quest to rid the tallmare from this town.

Zecora let out a light chuckle as she stared at the ground in frustration as the 3 mares looked at her for answers. Throax could tell that she didn't like Twilight's impatience for the answer as well as how impotent she was acting about the nature of what they were dealing with, so Thorax got Zeccoras flank off of him and sat away from her.

"So you are really desperate for an answer. You need to understand that this truth is merely a truth, is an answer but not an answer that would whisp her away." Zecora sipped out of her cup with a serious look in her eyes that told them that they should be careful on what they do.

After a bit, she put the straw back down and sighed. "She is the thing that was born as a bastardized reflection of something else. She is something that hides between this place and somewhere else. She has siblings and they are not known. She sees the flow of harmony and uses it to her aid. She knows what we are doing and she has eyes in the woods."
> ch17 The Hermit Part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The hut was silent after Zecora gave the ominous warning. Thorax, her lover, slightly tapped a candle in the room as he looked back and forth inspecting the three mares’ reactions. Twilight was obviously shaken despite her confidence. Fluttershy’s usual shyness was now a look of caution. And Applejack looked defensive. “So, Zecora, what shall we do now?” Twilight muttered with her throat tightening as panicked welled up inside of her. 

“Leave. That’s the best I can offer. And you go to Thorax.” The Zebra spoke pointing her hoof to the three mares and to coltfriend. Thorax looked at her with a clear frown as his black ears perked up. 

“Uh, babe why are you staying?” Zecora’s expression was somber as she looked down at the table as the dim candlelight overcast a shadow on her hooves.

“I’m not doing this out of a hero complex, but out of the fact that I am a liability. They know that I understand so much about them, yet so little. I am the one that gives off information that sparks ideas. Isn’t that why you needed me? So my wisdom could give you advice on your future actions?” Her voice was monotone with dread that drained out like a waterfall. 

Twilight gave a slight reassuring smile as a droplet of sweat rolled down her mane. “Well, yes, but you could still live-"

“No! I don’t want to live. Why should I constantly be haunted by this legend with people I care about next to me? Why should I be a risk?” The zebra pulled out a long hoofgripped semiautomatic rifle from underneath the shadow of the table. Thorax recognized that rifle as his old one and tried to grab it from her. But Zecora simply put a hoof on his chest and looked him in the eyes. The changeling’s ears perked back and he walked away to the exit. The other three followed him as well and opened the wooden door that loudly creaked as it’s metallic hinges grinded against each other. 

The forest was silent as usual but the three knew that somewhere amongst the shrubs there was something watching. As soon as the group reached the top of the forested hill that overlooked Zecora’s hut, a bang echoed out of the house and stopped as soon as it started. The three didn’t want to look back because they knew the results and danger. But Thorax sincerely wanted to go but his imagination wandered to the large hole at the bottom of her jaw that went through her head. They turned around, ignoring the urge to go as they walked through the woods. 








Twilight stared at the stars that shone through the gaps in the tree cover. The forest could be described as a pitch dark that only had the stars above as the source of light. None of them brought a flashlight so the only unicorn in the group used her horn to illuminate the woods in a dim purple glow. The trail they walked on was long and it felt shorter the last time they walked on it. Now with nothing but the night and the obstruction of darkness. It felt like a longer trek. 

Fluttershy suddenly stopped with a weary look on her face. “What are we going to do now?” Applejack’s eyes looked at the element of kindness sternly but had a sense of drowsiness from the red in her eyes.

“What d’ya mean?” 

the pegasus looked back at her friend with a shivering sigh that matched her wide-eyed hopeless frown. “I mean we’re running in circles. We’re chasing something we don’t know how to get rid of and we’re doing this for what? Like I’m not this good around danger. Sure I may have met some Timberwolves once or twice but… we’re playing a twisted game that has no clear goal. We’re wasting our time discussing the threat rather than solving it.” Tears visibly ran down her yellow fur that trickled down to the leaf-covered ground. 

“Fluttershy we gotta stay focused on what we can do best right now. We can not resort to hopelessness.” Twilight reassured, unaware of the slight rudeness in her tone. 

“No, no, of course you have to keep moving because we’re going to die. We’re going to die in a much more peaceful place of course. I’m only doing this to help my animals and you’re doing this to help Spike? You know he’s probably already dead so why search if you know the fucking answer.”  Fluttershyes voice was calm but her words hinted that she truly meant it as an insult.

Twilight backed a hoofstep away from her raving friend. Twilight in all honesty felt something internal that she had buried in order to fix a threat. She missed Spike. He was like an adopted brother to her, and yet her friend dared talk about him in such a way that made Twilight reconsider calling her friend the element of kindness. So then Twilight sucked up in the natural magic that flowed amongst the forest and blasted a concussive bolt at the pegasus in which she tackled upon. “Fluttershy I usually don’t tell you this, but shut your mouth! Shut it before I make you look like Jeff! Before you join those fucking foals in the woods!”

 Now the only ones standing with any sense of reason were the earthpony and the changeling. They stared at their friends gawking as they seemed to lose their grip on their mental stability. Thorax could especially feel this. It was like the two mares’ pain and anguish burst open like a toxic volcano that destroyed themselves and the people that they loved. He could tell that Twilight’s internal grief was her motivation for fighting and ended to the entity. But then with those same rageful tears she and Thorax turned up to see as the purple light illuminated the tall silhouette that stared down at them emotionlessly. 

The two mares struggled to get back on their hooves as they attempted to dash away from the thing they swore to destroy. The pegasus followed behind her friend while her friends waited at the other end. Twilight’s horn was flickering deep and in pain as she continued to run. The mare in the woods was following them at an otherworldly pace that it seemed like she wasn’t even walking. Thorax was in pain as well as he felt the thing’s emotions, emotions which were too complex for something below the creature’s intelligence would understand. As the two magic users hyperventilated with deep panic the other two didn’t. Their natural magic stemmed from their soul and only assisted them when it came to physical force. 

The group quickly jutted to the other side of the trail as they attempted to outflank the otherworldly pursuer. But then, a throwing axe launched itself between the bark of a tree next to Twilight’s head. Then out of the bushes a stallion, younger than Twilight’s age, looked at her with a mask obscuring his muzzle and orange goggles glaring down at the group. Thorax then stepped in front of the mares and looked at their mortal assailant. The changeling flew up in the air and soared above the ground until he could plummet into the attacker. But the stallion only stepped out of the way, Thorax couldn’t fully make his plummet his pale green magic reared his back leg into the assailant’s face. But in return, the assailant wrapped his four hooves around Thorax’s leg and slammed the thrown axe into Thorax’s flank. 

The two wrestled while the other mares ran. Twilight had only seen the stallion’s fighting style once before on military training grounds when Celestia gave tours to her and this fighting style was only used in special gorilla forces of the Equestrian military. Now Twilight wondered how the Tallmare got a hold on such a skilled fighter. Thorax ended up retreating with green squishy blood leaking out of him onto the grass as they ran. 

The pain in Twilight's horn seemed distant now as they saw the lights of the town in the distance. They were so close, yet they still felt the Tallmare's presence following them. The grass shuffled behind Applejack as the proxie with goggles caught up with them. Applejack kicked him down from the legs and trotted closer so she can give 3 more kicks to his chest before running again.

The young stallion coughed as he looked up at the retreating group with a glare behind his orange goggles. "T-t-they are f-f-fucking l-leaving. T-THEY A-ARE F-FUCKING L-LEAVING!" His yell echoed as his voice ticked as it normally did, even if no one could tell the stranger's motives, he was enraged. 

As the group was almost out of the woods a sudden flash of dark blue flashed at the entrance. Luna waited for the group to catch up to her before teleporting away. When they appeared back in the library Luna's head slouched down in pain from the pain of being near the horror. casting that spell while  under the influence of the presence  of the Tallmare  clearly made her brain ache, and all she could think of is pain
> ch18 The Hound With The Cheshire Smile
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight looked at her friends as they looked around the library with wary eyes while Luna lay on the floor panting heavily as her brain tried to recuperate from the trauma. Twilight and Thorax didn’t have it as bad as Luna did, but their horns still hurt. The pain was probably from the magic being near the Tallmare, it took a lot of effort for the moon princess to cast. Thorax was still in shock from his lover’s death and Twilight could tell that even if the changeling just blankly stared at the ground without any response to a hooftap on the soldier.  Fluttershy was sobbing at Twilight’s forehooves looking remorseful about her comment to her unicorn friend. Then there was Applejack who stood next to the panting alicorn. AJ’s face was that of worry. She didn’t know what to think of this journey now. The room was just as dark as the moment with only the light of Twilight’s horn filling the room. 

“So partner, Twilight, since I think you’re the leader of this group. Is there any advice you would like to give us?” Twilight sighed solemnly as she walked towards the window and looked out into the darkness with hollow eyes. 

“Applejack, we all want something back. You just want your sister back. Fluttershy wants her safety back, and I as much as I try to hide my internal sadness, I miss Spike. Even though I may not seem phased about it I miss him, but I choose not to show for all I know we’re in danger. I just didn’t feel like I had time to mourn or that I had to mourn at all. Maybe he is alive or maybe he’s not, maybe Applebloom and Spike are both or maybe one is alive or one is not. I know you think we are strong heroes that can fix almost any problem that a villain causes but we aren’t some comic book hero that fight off some corny villain that always gets defeated in the end. We had one time before, and that was because of perseverance and we need that again now. We’re facing something so far beyond our grasp that we need more strength than we can handle.” The very tone of Twilight’s voice could be described as grim for everyone who listened in that one part of her house. 

Thorax understood it the most. He remembered seeing the tall one during the war and after it. He couldn’t remember exactly when he had seen it but all he could remember was confusion. Then after his death was faked he still saw it. It wasn’t going after him like before but it just watched almost like its blank face felt curiosity for the changeling living the life of a zebra. Maybe now they had to toughen up. Twilight grabbed the blanket off the couch with her magic and placed it over the alicorn. 

“Luna’s clearly having a seizure, whatever the Tallmare’s magic is it overwhelmed her brain and now her circuits are temporarily fried, metaphorically speaking. Fluttershy since you’re the medic here can you watch over the princess? Thorax, you’re coming with me. I still think the guards are here and they won’t leave their princess. So, I think the guard who has those hard drives is still in the building. He’s probably viewing the files right now.” The changeling just nodded and he could tell that she clearly wanted him so she wouldn’t be by herself out there. 

Twilight and Thorax slowly walked up the steps and noticed a dim light coming from Spike’s room. They both moved to the door with slow placements of their hooves as they then budged the door open. The thestral guards who were there were dead and mangled now. The female’s muzzle was ripped off while she was bleeding out and leaking out warm liquid like a pipe. The other three who were in the room looked like their napes had been chewed off and flung against each other. Then they came across the guard in front of the small laptop and saw he was not injured but still dead. Twilight’s heart rate started to pick up as her eyes cautiously looked around the room for whatever had done this. She knew it wasn’t Jeff. In most descriptions of his murders they were sleep killings. This looked like the Thestrals were awake during the end of their lives. The changeling shivered at the sight of the bodies as he stepped away from the stained carpet. 

“Twilight, uh are you sure about going in here? I suggest we just leave and take the bodies with us, or at least their nametags so we can honor them right?” 

Twilght sighed and looked over to him. “Remember what I said Thorax, no mourning for we are in danger. Now let’s look at the computer shall we?”
 
Thorax and Twilight stepped closer to the bed and looked at the computer. It was only opened up to the wallpaper which was an earthpony mare in a suggestive pose on top of a hill. Twilight moved the cursor to the files tab and opened it. Currently, it was open to the very last hard drive that was opened and it only had an image happydog.jpeg. Thorax looked for a loaded rifle while Twilight waited for him. He then picked up one that was next to the mouthless mare and lightly held it close to his chest as Twilight looked back at the pc. This type of pc was only able to access the interwebs when it was plugged in somewhere that connected to the many webs of info-sending magic, which luckily Twilight barely had plenty of that. She then tapped her hoof on the mouseboard and it opened up with what looked like a normal image of a smiling husky in the woods. 

“Hmm, I wonder if this is a clue to something,” Thorax said as he looked at the image with Twilight. They continued looking at the photo for a bit just admiring the fact it was just a cute dog. But then there was a croaking noise from behind them. 

The thestral was still alive and looked to be weary with his breath. “Spread the word. Spread the word. Spread the word. Spread the word. Spread the word.”

The two then turned their heads back to the pc and noticed the dog’s eyes seemed to be looking at them. Now, inch by inch, the dog slowly started to close its lips like the photo was changing frames. Then the hound’s mouth fully opened again and it’s mouth twisted into a mouth filled with almost equine teeth and sharp molars. The skin on its mouth started to tear away as its smile grew slowly bigger with each new frame. The image only grew darker in color as it continued to look at the two onlookers. 

Twilight and Thorax dashed out the room and slammed the door behind them. “Ok everypony, we need to leave right fucking now!” Twilight was in clear panic and everypony could feel her panic rising. 

“Uh, what is it Twilight? Do we have the Tallmare at our door… in our house?” Fluttershy questioned as she rubbed Luna’s head with a wet cloth. The alicorn was looking better now. 

“No. No. This is something completely different. We have another threat on our hands and I don’t kno-”

Then there came a cackle, not a villainous one but a cackle of one’s nightmares. It seemed to crick and creak with each interval like the thing that was laughing had a hard time breathing. Then out of the floor, something rose. It was houndlike and looked just like the husky on the jpeg. Its fur was now matted a charcoal gray. With its yellowish-white fur pricking up, it looked at the equines hungrily. Its twisted mouth leaked out blood out of its gums like it had a severe form of gum disease and its eyes looked like they belonged on a pony rather than some hound. The thing kept cackling its head shaking and vibrating as its jaw opened and shut with its teeth hitting against each other. 

“Food… food… food… so much food in this room! Oh sister have you blessed me with food! You have blessed me so well with this food!” Its raspy male voice screeched as it foamed at the mouth at the sight of its next victims. 

“Alright, quick question, what in the actual fuck are you?! Like seriously... How the fuck did you git in here?! We were just chillin'!” Applejack started rearing up to the houndlike entity as its head moved and twitched in unnatural ways.
 
“Ohhh you haven’t heard! Ohh such fools! Such arrogant, blissful idiots!! I was stored in one of those tablets made of stone and steel that are powered by thunder! Those tablets don’t contain what you’re looking for! My sister’s children have done well at fooling you! Now that you have seen me and the prey I spared has said the words. I am here.” It started to laugh yet again with its cackles taking in quick breaths of air like it was panting. Like it was a smiling hyena. 

“You’re the smiling hyena Zecora told me about, aren’t you? And your sister is the Tallmare, I presume? Quite surprised that I would meet a sibling of hers so close.” The unicorn grabbed the bolt-action rifle from Thorax’s grasp and held it tentatively at the hound’s face. 

“Haha haha chk-ha-chk-ha! No shit Sherlock! No shit smartass! Now let me feed!” It started to charge at the element of magic with a high-pitched wail as its jaw unhinged. Twilight quickly tapped her hoof on the trigger four times, quickly injecting all four rounds into the thing’s head. The bullets carved through the creature’s head and expanded the wound as it traveled through like fish through water. Yet, this thing only shook them out and then they dropped to the floor like nothing. All her friends quickly ran out of the front door as they left Twilight in there with the hound and with recovering Luna. 
> Ch19 The Hound With The Cheshire Smile part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight growled as she held the rifle’s barrel between the beast’s teeth as it tried to gnaw at her. Luna was still in the process of picking herself up back up onto her hooves. 

“Let me gnaw at you Twilight! And let me gnaw on Hecate as she is recovering.” The hound screeched as it yanked the rifle out of her telekinetic grip and slammed the butt of the rifle into her head. This caused Twilight to be knocked back. The hound quickly approached Twilight wailing an unearthly screech as it unhinged its jaw toward her. Twilight grabbed its mouth with her telekinetic grip and magical grasp as it was mere inches away from her horn. With a yell of pure rage, she flung the fiend across the room by its head causing the neck to snap two times as its body slammed against the bookshelf like a ragdoll. The element of magic panted with a face full of rage as she picked the rifle back up and aimed it steadily at the hound with the Cheshire smile. 

She waited a bit and held the rifle for a couple more minutes. The dog picked itself back up. It twisted its head towards her with a demented glare.

“So tell me, you hound creature, why you call Luna whatever that name was?” Twilight’s tone clearly indicated she was pissed off with this entity. She still had the bolt action focused on it while the crosshairs occasionally swayed. 

“It’s only a nickname I give her. Like you Twilight, isn’t your cutie mark on your flank stylized after Venus in the night sky? The morning star. So tell me Morning Star, what will you do when you uncover the answer to our existence? What will you do with said truth? Will you curl up into a ball, muzzle near your rear? Or would you do something unexpecting? All I’m asking is why would you trust Amaterasu or Tsukuyomi?  You Amaterasu can turn into Lucifer and you know Tsukuyomi can turn into Hecate.” The smiling dog taunted with a chuckling-like sound of ticks and chitters. 

Twilight still held her rifle firm but her stern frown turned into a wary one. She knew that from the transpired days with Luna that he had constantly hinted that there was a secret history. Even before this current moment, in the back of her mind, she questioned the two diarchs’ transparency. She was now seeing their honesty as glossy at best. 

“Before you ask, my little pony, I am not related to the thing nicknamed Discord or as I’ve named it Mathmet, for I am the smiling dog a hound with a silent coup for the name Cerberus. Now let me feast!” The hound started to gallop again and Twilight started to fire again with the top of her hoof on the hoof-compatible trigger. Each shot was either a flimsy miss on trying to focus on the rapidly approaching fiend or Twilight’s missed reaction time as it continued to charge. Even though the bullets pierced through it like gelatin, it still moved and Twilight dodged as it lunged at her. She gave the gun a couple more taps of the trigger into the dog. Twilghts reloading was quick due to how her arcane grasp moved objects more swiftly. The hound continued to charge at her but she did rapid jumps backwards to keep her distance from the creature. 

Then something dark blue pierced through the hound's chest cavity which lifted it up into the air. Luna, the divine princess of the moon,  Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto of the night, roared with pure divine fury as her eyes glowed like the brightness of the moon as she held the canine on top of her horn. Magic from the deep tides of the moon poured into her horn like a twister of sheer metaphysical energy all of which poured into the dying hound. Its flesh suddenly contorted and shifted as it tried to fight for its life but to no avail. Its twisting flesh faded out into dust particles and its bones dissipated into nothing as its form died in front of the alicorn and the apprentice of the sun princess. 

The alicorn reopened the front door and sauntered out limply with tears rushing down her eyes before collapsing on the dirt road with the hairs on her elegant starry mane began to shag out, curling and wrinkling from the pulsing metaphysical static coming out of her horn. 

After watching Luna fall asleep, Twilight turned her head back to her friends as they swiftly trotted to the scene. “Well partner, is Luna ok?” the farm filly asked with concern as she stared at her friend and at the exhausted diarch. 

“She’s ok, just not in a good place energy-wise.” She said looking over at the heaving Luna as she lay on the ground panting vigorously. Twilight never seen  the alicorn so exhausted before, she was even astonished at how much the Silent Queen had affected her magickly. She knew the moon's spiritual properties were powerful, allowing spells of the subconscious to even work in the first place. The moon itself represented the obscure and as well to the unveiling of the obscure. This was why Luna was so good at traveling through ponies dreams and her masterful intuition.

Throax slowly walked up to her and placed his hoof on her head and moved her mane away and looked at her reassuringly, almost like he was keeping his oath to her. 

"She is exhausted right now, she needs to be somewhere else than here." Throax grimaced as he turned back to Twilight's library, remembering that the bodies of Luna's guards still lay there without a proper burial or even having their mess being cleaned up.

"But ain't leaving twilights house with those bodies a bad idea? Some random pony might as well wonder near that accursed scene and smell the foul of those souls left behind?"Aj pointed out which every pony seemed to agree upon. 

Fluttershy let out a small cough and stepped forward. "But then where should we go? Your house is clearly a danger Twilight and The Tallmare could head back here looking for you."

Twilight groaned and then started prancing around the group in circles. She knew she had to clean up the bodies or else she would look like some serial killer that hated thestrals and killed them out of bigotry. She also had to carry Luna to whoever would be the most trustworthy pony that wouldn't question what they were doing.

after a bit more trotting in frustration Twilight stopped and smiled and looked back at her friends. The changling and the 2 mares looked at her waiting for a response and to see where they would go from here.

"I know a mare we could head to." Twilight finally said with a proud hoof flick of her mane.





After digging a hole for the bodies and mopping up the blood and meat, their group carried the heavy alicorn through town as they headed towards their new safe spot. The night was still young with the moon being in its waning form with barely any stars in the sky with the only light being the the tiny street lamps throughout the town 

All 4 of the friends carried the unconscious alicorn on their backs as they got closer inch by inch to the front door of the small fashion shop. Twilight lowered the alicorn down by a large decorative flower pot and knocked the door enough to wake up her other friend.

after a couple of minutes, a drowsy face of a white unicorn slowly peaked her head out of the door and opened it. 

"Oh my goodness who is deciding to wake me up this- Oh! Twilight what could I-...Question..Is Her highness Luna ok?"
> ch20 Generosity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the other three of Twilight’s companions heaved the princess of the night onto a plush burgundy couch, Twilight sat at a small tea table with Rarity looking at her with discontent. The two unicorn's expressions slightly conveyed their differing emotions at the mere presence of seeing the other. Twilight stared at the bourgeois marble-white unicorn as she poured her tea slowly into a cup looking like she was unpleased with seeing the mere existence of the Element of Generosity in front of her. 

Meanwhile, Rarity had a calm smile that also had her drowsiness shown through the bags under her eyes as she smiled weakly at her discontent friend. The two other mares could read what their facial expressions conveyed. But Rairty had an eyebrow raised, not knowing the context behind why Twilight seemed so disdained for one of her friends. It seemed odd and quite new to them. But Thorax, he could taste their emotions. It certainly did give him a better understanding of their disharmony. It certainly wasn’t romantic feelings, obviously, but rather seemed like Twilight seemed offended by some violation of friendship. The fashionista had slightly crossed a line Twilight had established beforehand.

Twilight’s eyes wandered around the clothing store, looking at all the fancy dresses and outfits hoofmade tirelessly and passionately like the clothes themselves were sculptures made of cloth. Then her eyes narrowed and focused back on the mare before her. Obviously, Rarity could feel the disappointment coming off the Element of Magic’s stern look and slouched posture. 

“So Twilight, uh, how have things been going? I know you’re not in the happiest of moods, especially seeing me. I know what I’m doing is considered taboo, and I’m trying not to cross too far into that line of things and I know you care much about him too and I can tell you’re searching for him. Just, forgive me. I can tell you’re in some trouble. Here have some cinnamon tea, I made it myself with Sweetie Bell.” Rarity nudged over the small delicate teacup to Twilight with a sympathetic look in her eyes that had a sense of hospitality and understanding. 

In response to the off of the tea, Twilight lifted her hoof and gently nudged it back and sighed softly as her eyes focused on the steam coming off the water. “Rarity, I just don’t want you around Spike. You don’t seem like you really understand that he is learning his boundaries.”

Rarity smiled and lowered into a frown of guilt as the topic of the conversation finally settled in. “Twilight, you and I both understand that dragons when they, as you put it, reach adulthood, which frankly dear I view as a nonexistent social form of status and expectation, it takes longer for them to reach it. They live longer, they have multiple stages of life, unlike us ponies. Our age and social normative age of -well eighteen seems small compared to theirs. Not saying that dating an infant, of all things, is good.” 

“Why the fuck are you still hanging out with him and giving him this fucking attention?” Twilight’s fist slammed into the teacup, shattering it, and spilled the sizzling tea onto the expensive tablecloth. It soaked into the cloth made the skin on Twilight sting in pain. She seemed to ignore it. 

Thorax sat his flank down as he tasted the differing emotions that the two elements gave off in simultaneous reaction to each other's response, as if they themselves were two atoms colliding and bouncing off each other creating sparks that the changeling could feel, which made him feel tense on the inside. 

Meanwhile, Applejack and Fluttershy had left the room as the long moment of silence continued while Rarity internally sulked. “Twilight I was never prepared for the life of independence and living on my own free volition. I have always expected some mythical stallion of flawless beauty to wander into my life like some romance novel, but my young mind was stupid. Harmony has an unfair side-effect that all creatures must endure. Some stallions exploited me just to take out their pain and suffering or to fuel their narcissistic self-gratification. Why, by princess platinum’s vomit I even ignored some fillies and colts that needed a hoof lent to like I did. Even as I stand at this age of mine I feel like I’m below. Why I’m friends with you Twilight is because I can tell you view yourself in the same manner. You don’t seem content with this idea either and from the conversations I’ve had with you in the past, you seemed to only have differentiations of your past years compared to now. And I don’t feel any emotions for Spike but I am merely trying to make him feel the affection I so desperately dreamed of receiving when I was younger. There will be no other dragons in this town, there’s a bunch of incapabilities with this stepbrother of yours with all the other mares and stallions in this town. You can not expect him to get it on with a different species or to understand the “adult norms” of Equestrian culture.” Rarity ended sternly on the last part as some slight tears ran down her eyes of the taboo she was trying to justify or at least redefine what her age meant. 

Twilight growled and smacked Rarity across the face with her hoof. Then with a glow of her horn she shoved Rarity down to the ground with a snarl. “Ok Rarity I get your perspective, but what matters now is that he’s missing! I don’t care about your personal age regression or how you view yourself. You are my friend but Spike has to learn. Heck, most likely he will do what I did! Meaning he will try both options of each common gender and realize they aren’t worth it and that maybe being by yourself is a good enough option. Have you ever considered that your good intentions to make him feel good would make him feel like he’s being lied and manipulated? I can’t believe I’m even going on such a debate on this when we have some extradimensional thing, this tall fucker stalking us, teasing us, and sending its brainwashed subordinates after us! It’s trying to kill us! I want Spike back. He is the closest thing I have to family, besides my older brother who is now distant from me. And now Spike, who reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger, is now missing. Do you get what I’m saying!” Twilight’s barrage ended with her heaving her nostril breath into Rarity’s teary eyes. 

Thorax had always hated seeing stuff like this happen and he, as a changeling, had a hard time dealing with the differences that ponies had with changelings mentally. Usually, changeling broods reached adulthood in two weeks, which made Thorax find the concept of a childhood lasting years very strange. He understood where Rarity was coming from. If what she was doing was not so ethically correct, he could tell she was a mare in pain and he didn’t know what to do. After all it wasn’t his problem, it was theirs to deal with. 

After about fifteen minutes the two unicorns seemed to calm down. Twilight just laid on the floor feeling just as tired as Rarity. “Twilight, are you saying that the legend of the Tallmare is true?” Rarity rasped as her baggy bloodshot eyes gazed up at the decorated ceiling that was decorated in little paint murals that looked like flowers. 

“Sadly, indeed I am. It’s not been a good effect on my psyche but this thing certainly exists and it’s affected Luna.” Twilight chuckled as she smiled at her own anguish with a humorous outlook on her morbid experience. 

“I can help if you want, Twilight. If you need my generosity it will help you. After all, I am the one who took the photo of “Jeff” as the papers call him. And I’m not afraid to fight off whatever you’ve been facing. After all, what was it that Star Swirl said, you quoted?”

“Friendship is magic and in everything you can think of, spiritual, arcane, ritual, personal, and political.” Twilight quoted thinking back to the many theses of harmony that Star Swirl had written back when he was alive and in ancient Equestria. Still Twilight questioned his methodology. The scientific method combined with the magical understanding of harmonic flow had really changed how Twilight saw magic worked. Most of the current understanding of how ponies came into existence is solely based on the fact that harmony guided many different species as they are now. Unicorns and alicorns are the byproduct of magical interference. Even now she was questioning it. Whatever that hound thing was had hinted at things and the understanding of what the Tallmare was and what her sibling is. This showed her that maybe the understanding of the metaphysical arts is understanding that which is below the surface. She knew it would be likely that this knowledge would show itself as her journey into the unknown continued. 





The group of 4 mares, 1 Alicorn, and the changeling walked around the boutique as the sun's rays of light seeped through the windows, lighting up the lightless lounge that they slept in. Twilight and Thorax were sitting at the kitchen table while looking outside at the forest in the distance, reminding themselves about the thing that still haunted them. They still felt on edge as both of them shared the same concern that this derailment of this journey only put them at risk of being steps behind the entity. Personally Twilight didn't really care about the argument that happened the night before, or she did in a sense but that was not important to her in the current moment. She wanted Spike back with her, she hadn't really paid attention to the emotions that she buried in the back of her head until now. Someone she felt linked with had been taken away, severed from her life as if an organ had been removed from her body. The worse thing was that the thing and the ponies that took him were now a threat to her life as well as her stepbrother's. Did she feel fear?: yes she did. Did her mind tell her to push onwards with rage?: It did as well.

Thorax took a long sip of the tea Rairty gave him and looked back at Twilight solemnly as sunlight refracted in his fly-like eyes. "Sooooo do you have an idea of our next course of action? Im asking because you seem to be the one in charge of our little investigation, well besides Luna."

"No fucking clue, I'm curious about how many ponies are this hivemind that the Tallmare created. Then again I don't know what is up with Vinly, she seems like a special case, and quite the abnormal creepy one. I just can't answer those questions because yet again, we are at a dead end." Twilight was visibly lost when it came to deciding what they should do next. She felt exhausted, mentally drained and clueless. 

Rarity then abruptly scooted one of the chairs that sat in the middle of them and sat down."May I suggest something to you Twilight? I know I'm not as knowledgeable about your current dilemma as you, but it's just a suggestion. Do you know about that cave in the Everfree near the waterfall that has cave paintings that dated back way before the sisters? I had been hearing some gossip about that cave, I know it's connected to an unexplored cave system and the local gossip I've been listing surrounds something, strange about that cave. Ponies have been telling me that there is some group of ponies seen just, staring at the waterfall, from the stall that told me about it he said that were looking down from a hill, they were hard to make out at such a distance but they were there. Now I usually just see this as some crazy tall tale told for attention, but from what you have told me it sounds like this may be more than a tale. Does this hold any potential importance to the problem you had been dealing with?" Her tone was blunt and she obviously hinted that she wanted to be involved. Rarity felt sure this tidbit was of importance In helping her friend, and possibly earning back her respect.

Twilight knew of the mixed reputation of the cave, its historical and archeological importance, as well the local legends that surround it. If the cave was unexplored then it must mean some importance on what the Silnet queen is, but how much?
> ch21 The Cave part1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight walked through the weed covered trail with bagged eyes and with a concentrated look in her eyes as her mind was set towards the cave ahead. The early morning sun pierced through the leaves and its light felt irritating to Twilight’s eyes. But she continued forward to her destination even as the light of the sun irritated her tired eyes.

The trail that led to the cave was quite a long trail. Far longer compared to the one that led to Zecora’s hut. Occasionally there were overgrown vines and weeds that were glazed over by ponies whose job was to trim these very plants. The Fall air seemed to calm her down as she breathed in its coolness while she continued to trot forward. The Fall leaves in the trees seemed so elegant in the sun’s rays, but yet, her mind still had her focused on the cave even if the scenery distracted her. 

She continued to walk along the hilly and bumpy path until she could make out the cave in the distance. The cave itself was a big dark mouth with just as big of a waterfall that had a cascading volume to the sound of its rushing water that seemed to smoothly echo throughout the forest. On top of the waterfall was a plateau that was connected to the mountains in the distance. Geographically the river ran down the mountain and through the perfectly flat plateau to the waterfall, then down to Ponyville, and the rest of Equestria.

Of course, its cave and waterfall’s immense size wasn’t the only thing that attracted its visitors. As mentioned by Rarity before Twilight arrived here, there were cave paintings that were inside the cave that dated back to before in the time when the ponies of Equestria were divided into six tribes. The discovery of these paintings seemed to give a glimpse into that prehistory and resolve the mythical nature of the nation’s founding. The cave by itself was massive, a labyrinth of cave systems unexplored and of which the certainty of the creatures who inhabited the cave were just as unknown. Probably also being another factor as to why it wasn’t explored. 

Twilight climbed up the limestone stairs and passed the rusty iron bars that protected visitors from the cliff’s edge and cast a light and made her horn glow as she entered the mouth of the cave. The sound of the waterfall seemed to echo off the cave’s walls like it was the sound of white noise or static on a t.v. making Twilight’s perked-up ears shiver a bit as the sound uncomfortably bounced against her eardrums. She walked down the ledge of the stairs and looked past the gaping mass of the cave walls that seemed eroded and spongelike. She walked down the tunnel and entered a smaller tunnel that was very cramped and eventually led to said paintings on the walls. 

The paintings in question seemed to depict a 2D outline of a battle. The ponies were throwing spears at the other and prancing around one another with those same crudely drawn black arrows. As Twilight went further down she saw some of the art pieces that were most famous. A massive 2D painting of what the mythical wendigos of old looked like, which made her believe they did not look anything like the hearts war play predicted. Even though they were certainly deer-like and seemed to be bipedal in nature with the art depicted of having big bushy fur, it was something that Twilight has been ever so intrigued by when photos were first taken of it. It made her imagine wonder about what they actually looked like if she were to ever see one. 

She continued walking and eventually, she came to a section of the cave where there was a massive hole. This hole was dark and looked endless, but what took her interest the most was there seemed to be a trail of fresh hoofmarks that seemed to be coming up from the hole. Like a pony had just exited it with something on their hooves. She didn’t have time to look at it or figure out a way to get down, so she continued moving right along. 

Then as she entered the famous stalactite section of the cave she felt her horn and ears start to ring in pain. The lights that lit up the stalactite section started to strobe rapidly. As her hooves dashed along the limestone, she could make out the tall figure amongst the flickering darkness. The mare’s dark tendrils seamlessly stretched out and slithered around the stalactites and stalagmites like dark snakes. In her desperate mind, as she continued to dash throughout the cave as the cave was lit up to pitch black in a matter of seconds, she found a small little cracked crevice that was gated off from her. With all of her effort, she jumped over the iron fence and crawled into the hole. It was cramped but she could see that it led somewhere. She urgently crawled through the cramped stone tunnel while her mane brushed against the limestone ceiling that nearly touched her horn. 

She looked back with her flickering horn and her head screaming in pain and saw that somehow the Tallmare had wiggled itself behind her into the cave and seemed to move through the cave with ease, like its body was boneless. She could see its tentacles reaching out to her from far behind. She scampered through the tunnel quicker as her breathing grew heavier and the air pressure made it harder for her to breathe. She knew she had to find a way out but didn’t want to cower out of this cave. She didn’t want to die alone and was stuck in some cramped tunnel. So she continued, even if the amount of air she breathed in was shorter as the tunnel walls soon were cramped enough to brush against her horn causing more pain to her already aching head. She then saw a fork in the tunnel that seemed to lead to another part of the cave so she pushed through, breathing heavily and panting as she pushed herself up the slope and into another section and through the smaller tunnel. She landed on her stomach as she exited the tunnel breathing heavily as she could feel much more oxygen within this part. 

The pain was gone and her horn was glowing normally again. As soon as she recovered her breath she picked herself back up and put more energy into her light. The dim purple glow showed that this section seemed to have no signs of prior pony interaction. There was no cave lighting, there were no little iron bars, and no clear trail. Instead, there was only the cave wall all around and one big lake in the middle that was enormous in its size. She realized she had reached an unexplored part but this wasn’t one she had in mind to go to, or in this case, end up in.
> ch22 The Cave part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight looked around the old damp wet underground lake.  Cold water dripped down from the ceiling above into the shallow water below. She brightened her horn seeing no other exit, only that on the other side she saw surprisingly intact paintings despite the wet conditions of the cave. She looked down at the water and lightly put her hoof in, feeling the immense cold temperature stinging her hoof. There was no way around the lake. So, she leaped into the lake and her hoof landed on solid slate rock. She noticed this and she looked closely down at the transparent surface and noticed the water where the big slate ended just a couple feet in front of her. So she galloped towards the deeper part of the edge. The sound of her hooves splashing against the water reverberated echoes off the walls until she felt her body sink in. She lightly paddled her way to the surface with deep heaving breaths as the icy cold water touched her chest. 

When she reached the edge she could see the black paintings even closer. The first painting depicted five black circles each close to the other but one remained undamaged. The others depicted had cracks in them. The second one depicted black spurts of paint coming out the sides, vaguely resembling fire, obviously what the pre-civilized Equestria artist had intended. The other appeared to be hit by a sludge of green paint while the other green paint was sprinkled about the circle with little gems waxed in between the green paint. The final fifth sphere was blue with tiny bits of green and brown paint on it. 

Twilight looked above the painting of those mysterious spheres and saw that the painting above it there were creatures she didn’t know how to describe. One appeared insectoid with multiple heads and it appeared to be spilling goop out of its top. Another was a solid black swirl with crystals waxed into it. The final one appeared to be a golden fire with an oddly drawn face and head of a mare screaming. Twilight didn’t know what they were, but they all seemed to be bickering about something. 

She didn’t precisely know how these paintings survived. Maybe it was the fact that the cave was only wet on one side. That could have been a likely answer. And before she got back to swimming in the cold water again, she found her answer to how these tribal ponies got to this side of the cave. She did indeed notice there seemed to be eight old rotted wooden planks submerged into the muddy sand of the surface she was currently on with some nasty cave crustaceans crawling around blindly as they got disturbed by the foreign substance known as light. And there were rusted-away metal studs in the wall that were chipped away to an unrecognizable state and could only be noticed from the angle Twilight was currently in. 

After taking another swim through the water and arriving on the other side she looked down at the hole she entered from. She surely didn’t like the claustrophobic feeling of crawling through the tunnel again. Or the fear of falling down another tunnel and falling into some dark inescapable chamber. But she had to navigate, she didn’t want to an unfound corpse in a cave.  

So she crouched down onto her legs and cramped herself through the tunnel again. When she arrived back at the fork in the tunnel she saw the other options of where next. One option she really didn’t want to go down was the one that sloped down into an infinite darkness of no return. The other two was one that sloped up and one that was conveniently straightforward. 

She chose the one in front of her and crawled straight through it. Oddly enough this tunnel didn’t seem to be made by erosion. She guessed, that somehow, the ponies of old must have found this naturally formed tunnel and evened out the spaces like some elaborate miners and stonecutters. She continued to shove herself through that tunnel until she saw the exit. She carefully climbed out and lifted her head cautiously as she took in her new surroundings. 

It was another stalactite-filled area, but it wasn’t as closed off as the previous section. It was wider and it seemed to be more sloped. As she walked forward she could see old dirty bones that looked not too fresh, more like a thousand years dead. There were old iron spears that had their metal tips corroded to a rocky form. And there were arrowheads that seemed unrecognizable besides their basic shape. As she continued to walk she noticed a den with an old but more recent campfire put into place. She walked up to the small den and noticed a huge mural. Flocks of miniature hoof-drawn ponies gathered around two of the mysterious beings she had seen in the other part of the cave. Their heads seemed to be turned in confusion even though their faces were turned even their posture was confused. Then on the other side of the wall, it seemed that the monsters had changed into something she shockingly recognized. Two alicorns, one a stallion and one a mare. Princess Galactica and Prince Cosmos of the Void of Space. 

The drawings seemed to be now in a jumping position as if they were filled with glee. Twilight was questioning what the hell were those first two alicorns? She had only heard stories about how they were the mother and father of Luna directly or in other stories of how they adopted the two sisters and made them alicorns. They were not ponies for sure. Now that Twilight was thinking about it more a more dreadful thought came to mind. What were those black spheres and that one blue sphere? Worlds. 

She moved away from that mural and saw another one on the wall. It was a circle. Inside that circle were many beings and many things. Apelike creatures crawled up to the ceiling to get out. Some other creatures of indescribable shape were attempting escape as well. They seemed to walk to another scene where a forest was. There, a bunch of what she expected to be warrior stallions,  fought them off. Then on the bottom right of the huge circle was a broken sphere with little drawings of ponies floated up to the circle and entered. At the center of the circle was a black dot that seemed to form all these creatures. The creatures seemed to fight and escape on their own volition. There were many different scenes outside the circle. Some scenes depicted creatures pointing their fingers/claws/tentacles at each other and sending pony warriors to their death. Then there was one that she shockingly recognized. It wasn’t Equestria related but a continent away. She recognized this as the griffonian deity Mar. The crow of the wild. The griffon in black seemed to eat something similar to discord in its mouth. Said creature was almost a combination of a goat and a yeti. But unlike the yeti, it seemed to have no hair. 

She didn’t know what she saw and what it meant, maybe the underworld? Or some old pony religion. When she was done looking at it she turned her head slowly to see Vinyl. She was there just laying on the floor. She looked malnourished and her eyes were unmoving and bloodshot. She ran over and placed her head on her chest. No heartbeat. While her ears rested on her unmoving chest she saw Applebloom alive. There were bitemarks on her legs and a tight rope placed between her mouth seemed so tight it made her cheeks bleed. 

“Applebloom are you ok? What happened to her? What happened to Vinyl?” She said as she inspected the small earth pony filly with concern and anxiety. The filly only whimpered while her eyes looked to Vinyl. Twilight didn’t understand a word she was saying and didn’t have any tools to cut the rope around the filly’s mouth. The filly kept whimpering and got louder as if she were trying to warn Twilight of something dangerous. As Twilight scrambled and looked for an arrow that was still sharp even after thousand of years of eroding she felt a tap on her shoulder. A tap that was so unusually cold it seemed dead.

She slowly turned, then there was Vinyl smiling. Her eyes were still bloodshot like she was still dead. Twilight didn't even notice the large pimple-filled rash under Vinyl's fur on her leg.
 
“I say Twilght, I see you have discovered my hidey hole. My little place I can go and wait.” The DJ said chuckling to herself as Twilight stared at the unicorn horrified. 

“Vinyl how the fuck are you still alive??” Twilight stammered as she held the filly close to her while backing up. Twilight’s horn started to dim and Vinyl’s eyes glowed in the pitch dark.

“I see Twilight you’re feeling fear. Your horn is dimming probably because your brain is moving all of that magic in order for your animalistic fight or flight instinct to kick in. But I can assure you you are safe, she’s not. To how I am still alive, well the silent queen’s resurrection was flawed." 

As Twilight brightened her horn, the DJ’s lips curled upwards and old yellow snake-like fangs protruded from the top of her gums and the flesh above those fangs were filled with tumors, like her own body was revolted at her accursed form. The undead mare twisted her head and bit the young filly’s neck and started sucking vigorously, the sucking caused a lump to move down Vinyl’s neck while the rash started to heal inch by inch. Her body pulsated and shook as if she was having a seizure. Then once the filly was dead and dry the DJ looked back with the skin of her eyes stretched back and her mouth was stained with red sizzling blood. “I can not stay in the sun too long Twilight, my body burns with every inch like an allergic reaction. I don't even recognize the mare who  I was before the death of me. And yet I still live. My body is immune to so many stuff like cancer and to any magical or physical disease that is thrown at me. It all just costs some mare or stallion’s blood or some poor unfortunate life form in my way. After all, the Tallmare takes care of me. I never was the DJ that you knew before I died, that DJ was a dumbass and wasted her life without learning the beauty of the dark. I hate that mare and I hate that I have her memories.” 

“So let me guess, you’re a Celestia damn vamppony? To be honest, through all my reading of fiction I thought that you guys never existed but then again I thought that wacky old story that Applejack story wasn’t real either. But here I am with a creature of the night. More hideous in pony and I guess I got to run.” And so the element of magic did. The DJ shrieked and galloped after her while crawling on the floor like a centipede. Twilight quickly crawled through the floor and scooted desperately as the vamppony followed chase. Twilight in response fired a couple of rounds of solidified magic into the accursed mare's face as she continued to crawl. 

The vamppony continued to shriek and crawl through the tunnels whiled Twilight crawled desperately, navigating her way through the tight uncomfortable crawl space. As she continued to drag herself she felt her horn starting to throb in pain again, she looked toward the direction of where she entered te tunnel and saw the head of the faceless mare poking out of the darkness.

She turned her head back to the tunnel sloped upwards and started to desperately crawl towards it. In response Vinyl started to move towards her quicker as she saw her prey trying to escape, The DJ wanted her prey cornered and she could easily sense the sweat and heavy breathing coming off her prey. Twilight quickly scooted around her before the vamp bit at her flank, causing Twilight to groan in pain as she continued to drag herself to the other tunnel.

even with the tight air, throbbing pain in her horn, and the actual vamppony sucking her flank, she pushed herself up through the tunnel. She bucked and bounced her flank up to the ceiling of the cave to get Vinyl off, which did work and she smiled as she continued to crawl through. Vinyl still continued to crawl after her through the dark cave and Twilight noticed that the headache was vanishing.I guess the silent queen is leaving me alone so her little vamp can catch her prey she thought as she threw a magic bolt behind her and hitting Vinyl again.

As she started to crawl again she lifted her and bumped her head on the ceiling and felt it was, softer. Then as her horn brighter she saw that there were roots and dirt dangling above her, which made her smile even wider as she pushed herself up wards. Dirt covered her and blocked her vision as the hanging dirt and roots compared into the crawlspace. She desperately climbed out of the heaping mass of dirt and saw it was midday. She pushed the rest of herself and saw Vinly trying to climb out as well, but unfortunately for her, the light s made her eyes extremely irritated and Twilight could tell that it could've been less extreme if she wore her glasses. 

Twilight quickly galloped through the woods with so many thoughts rushing throughout her mind. She felt happy she escaped the cave but the fear in with her still lingered, then there was Appelbloom who she promised that she would bring back. But probably what haunted her mind more was the paintings, soo deeply tucked away down in the crawlspace Nopony has explored, with a history that seemed to contradict all she had been taught. But now she needed to head back to her friends, this little horror story wasn't over
> ch23 A Return
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity sipped on her glass of tea with Applejack in front of her as they waited for Twilight's return. The entire boutique was filled with a dull silence that had been there for the past four hours and it just never stopped. Luna was busy reading some stallion’s wear magazine to just admire the stallions in the pictures, which she liked the nimble innocent ones the most. Fluttershy was casually staring out the window with anticipation, meanwhile, Thorax had his chin lumped down on a pillow as he lamented about the spicy memories of Zecora. 

Applejack looked around her awkwardly before looking back at Rarity. “Sooo…umm…Do you actually care for Twilight?” she asked nonchalantly as she lifted the teacup up with her hoof and took a sip. 

Rarity, in response, just raised a brow. She lightly put her teacup down and sighed. “To be honest with you, Applejack, um I do care for her a bit. But let’s just say she is a bit of a nuisance."

“Well, what do you mean by that?” Applejack’s eyes seemed to focus onto Rarity’s body language, noting the unicorn’s uneasy eyes and the light tapping of her hoof. 

“By that I mean, she just seems to pry into my business, even if I have good faith in our friendship. I get that she doesn’t like me thinking Spike’s a cutie and all but, darling, I just can’t understand why she is so speculative of me. She goes on and on about all the things she hyperfixates on and always seems so obsessed and to be fair I am solely obsessed with the art of fashion. But then, her curiosity does seem to get down to the personal level of inquiry that is disheartening for me and almost annoying.” Rarity’s distress and annoyance at her friend seemed to all pummel out of her mouth like a tsunami, showing Applejack just how much she had begun to detest Twilight. 

Applejack scrunched her muzzle. Rarity usually whined but this was just getting insulting almost to full on inconsideration, which was ironic considering Rarity was supposed to represent generosity itself. But Applejack unscrunched her muzzle and came back to normal. She did something that the Element of Honesty would not do: dishonesty. She didn’t want to start a fight with her friend. Her mind had already calculated how chaotic it would be. So now there she was, a sinner looking at a fellow sinner. All just silent. Funnily enough, Rarity could see through this. She always recognized Applejack’s annoyed expression. The pent up ears, narrowed eyes, and stern emotionless mouth gave it all away. 

“Well, I want you to know that even if I consider Twilight an annoying little shit I still give her my generosity of taking care of her and Spike. Perhaps she is more important, because she is a freaking customer of mind always admiring my techniques of the craft of the cloth.” That’s when Applejack lost her shit.  With a lunge and a strong hoof to the face, she pinned down the posh Element of Generosity and slammed her chair against her throat. “Don’t you ever fucking talk about my friend that way! You’ve got such a big mouth for such an ungenerous mare such as yourself. You’ve got to shut the fuck up before I whoop your flank in front of all your friends as well as my own to teach you a lesson! Don’t think of Twilight as a nuisance!” 

Suddenly a strong force grabbed both of the arguing mares and pushed them against the wall. Luna lightly trotted over to them with her wings out, knocking over a mannequin with a cherry pink dress on. Her eyes examined them, feeling deep shame for their behavior.  “Calm down. You two need to calm down. Your life does not need this argument. Be the elements you’re supposed to be, even if this creature and other creatures seek to drive us mad.” 

Then a knock on the door alerted the entire boutiques attention. Fluttershy lightly opened the door to see a dirt covered Twilight with a prideful smirk on her face as she walked in trailing behind a bleeding leg as she sat down on a chair and took a sip of the tea Fluttershy had left out on the table. The princess of the night looked over at Twilight wide eyed before dropping the two mares. “Twilight, what in my sister’s asshole happened to you?”

“Well, I escaped the cave. That’s the simple answer, Luna. Next question’s for you, how do you know what your sister’s asshole looks like?” Twilight retorted with the same smirk on her face as dirt dripped from her hair onto the table with fall leaves coming down. 

Fluttershy walked over to her and grabbed a small bandage out of Rarity’s medical box and wrapped it around Twilight’s puncture wound. “So Twilight, did you find what you were looking for in there?” Fluttershy asked with concerned eyes as she looked into Twilight’s own. 

In response, the Element of Magic let out a light laugh as she brushed dirt and twigs out of her mane. “Well, certainly more than I expected. First of all I have to say, I found a NEW section of the cave that is unexplored. Honestly it really changed my perspective on Equestrian history, you know. Some ancient creation myth about four worlds then three previous ones being destroyed but ours prospering. Then these unknown figures apparently became Princess Platinum and King Cosmos, isn’t that funny? Those two horrifying drawings revealed a possible truth. A possible history of your parents Luna.” Twilight stated with some sarcasm, not really noticing the current mood in the building.  

Luna looked shocked. The lips on her muzzle trembled as she thought of words. She struggled to think of what to say to such an accusation. “Wait, wait, wait this can’t be true. I remember them. I don’t remember them anything like that. They were normal alicorns, they were there right after our parents died, they were like me and my sister’s new parents. Please Twilight, please say these are lies, please tell me you’re making this up.” Luna’s stutters were cold as snow and seemed to almost be offended. The shock type of offended that a foal would experience when they realized that the stallion in the North, who brings presents, wasn’t real. 

Twilight nodded and took a big chug of Fluttershy’s drink before slamming it down on the table with her magic. “Well, I’m not lying. Tales of stories of horrid creatures from the innermost layer of Equestria came to live their life as other creatures do. Also, have I mentioned that Mar was one of those creatures? Yeah, Mar the Gryphonian deity of death and the primeval.” 

“Alright, slow down Twilight. Slow down. Tell me, what else did you see down there? What else did you see?” 

Then Twilight felt her stomach sink, remembering the death of the filly she had seen down there. The filly she was supposed to bring back. “Well, shiiiit. Sorry about that Applejack.”

“Sorry about what. What are you sorry about, Twilight?” Applejack asked nudging Twilight’s shoulder with her hooves as Twilight’s eyes blankly stared off into space with a grimace forming on her face.” 

“Well, I saw Vinyl down there. Dead. Then her sister…she was tied up… tightly… I tried to help her and tried to get her out… kept murmuring about something from behind the rope in her mouth and sadly I couldn’t understand a single thing. That’s when Vinyl woke up from death, monologued to me… killed sister… drank her blood. Then I just—” 

“Vinyl did what now!? You let my sister die?!?! You let her die to some vampony?! Some abomination that has been living amongst us?! You couldn’t even bother to just, oh who am I kidding? You wouldn’t die a martyr down in those fucking tunnels, you are just too important. Of course you couldn’t just let the DJ dry you up down there while my sister rightfully returned to me! But no, you just had to let her be consumed.” Applejack blurted out in disgust, feeling extreme mixture of grief, betrayal and rage strom around her.

Twilight only stared at her with guilt, she had nothing to say, nothing to undo the loses and the promises she broke. So she continued to watch her friend huff and glare at her with grittied teeth.

A few minutes latter Applejack flenched herself away, and trotted good distance from twilight as tears rolled down her eyes. “Im sorry twilight..i shouldn’t blame you.. I-I should blame..IM GOING TO KILL THAT FUCKING DJ! IM GOING TO RIP HER FANGS OUT AND HANG HER HEAD ON MY WALL!! HEAAAAARR!!” she then went over to a potted plant above rairtys fire place before knocking it down and sincelessly stomping on its shards and leaves.    The rest of the ponies and the one changeling in the boutique watched as the cowfilly screamed and pounded on anything she could take her frustration on. Now they knew, that the toll that they were taking was who they were.   
> ch24 The Killer Was Caught
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was now 8pm in the afternoon. The setting sun loomed over the east side of Ponyville as its residents walked around doing their afternoon activities. There was ponies relaxing at local cafes, and others just walked around and shopped. Of course, this was different for the six friends who were different than the six main elements. 

Fluttershy briefly visited her house, which was now strewn with paper and dust. The papers all seemed to depict a crude drawing of a tall faceless pony with seemingly threatening words on them. The words had different styles of hoofwriting on each individual sheet

Meanwhile, Thorax decided to go around town and try to blend in with the other standards as he feasted on the scraps of love that he could find. As he walked he could still sense a presence watching him from beyond the trees. He knew what it was but he ignored it and continued to trot through the plaza and browse the different shops. 

Twilight and Applejack made a similar decision to Fluttershy’s by visiting their own evacuated homes.  Applejack’s farm was barren of any signs of life that were there, besides the apples and squirrels. She perused around her house and saw stuff was still intact but with some uncollected dust and one single half-chewed apple on the clothed table with a letter next to it. She opened it with a grimace as she fought back to Twilight’s announcement of her sister’s death. The letter read: 
To the Element of Honesty, 

I knew you would come back here.  I’m not one of them. If I was, I would not be writing this but sulking around and attacking random ponies with no control over my actions and with no sense of consciousness within my thinking either. You may not know who I am, but yet you would know the face behind the pony who is writing this letter if you ever saw them. I’m close to you, but you may not know who I am. I’m here to say that I’m here to prevent you from putting yourself into harm’s way. I’m not taking your side nor trying to help the creature amongst the tall trees and shrubs of the Everfree. I’m merely here to get you out of this rabbit hole before it’s too late. 

Sincerely, 
A Stranger 

The letter ended with a red frowning face at the bottom that didn’t have its usual circle to contain the face. She really didn’t know who this pony was nor why they knew that she was coming here. The handwriting was very neat but wasn’t too stylish to be that of Rarity’s handwriting. Plus, the frown looked like it was drawn with a red marker and it almost looked like it had had effort put into its slow dragging lines across the paper. Applejack placed the paper back down before trotting out the door as the sun glared against her face. 

Meanwhile, at Twilight’s place, there wasn’t that much special. It still looked relatively the same but it was very dark inside. She didn’t know if she wanted to go back in there, they knew where she was and her being in that one single isolated place and it made her feel vulnerable to her current threats. So she walked out, mentally prompting herself to come back when this was all potentially over. 

Then the group came back to Rarity’s boutique when the sun started to set and immediately noticed something different upon arrival: the absence of Luna. Rarity was sewing together one of her dresses under a chandelier that lit the room. She looked back at her confused friends who looked around the boutique and saw they were utterly confused. “Oh darlings, what seems to be the problem?” she asked apprehensively as she continued to move through needle through the dress with her magic. 

“Well, we’re wondering where did our princess go? Because she was a very important pony amongst our group and we noticed her sudden absence.” Thorax explained plaintively as he walked up to the burgundy-maned unicorn while inspecting the stitches of the dress she was making. 

“Oh! I can answer that. Well, you see, while the alicorn was sitting on her rump and looking out the window I decided to hand her a glass to drink. You know have a little mare-talk with her and see what was up. She just took the drink and then dropped it. And then she announced that she was going to the old castle she and her sister owned. I didn’t know why she wanted to go to that place, when I asked her she replied with ‘Finding answers’.” she said with a groan as she whipped her hair back with her right forehoof.

The changeling looked back at the rest of his friends and looked at them with an equally blank and confused stare as the one they gave him. Thorax shrugged and moved past Twilight and sat down at the dining table and slammed his head between his forelegs as they rested on the table. “Welp…we are certainly more vulnerable now.”

Twilight looked at the changeling somberly and walked up to him and rested her hoof on his shoulder and sighed. “Throax…I can tell…I can tell you are going through a lot. I’ve been noticing that you have been quite.. observant to our emotions to say the least and I bet it's taking a toll on you.”

“Well…no shit sparkle butt, shit has been really traumatizing for me. Can we talk about this privately somewhere?” he lifted his head up and looked Twilight deep into her eyes, his stare felt like it was filled with trust towards her and this felt really abnormal to Twilight, because she really didn’t know him that much.

“Well I got a guest bedroom for you two. Sorry that I didn’t mention it early, just I don’t want you darlings to bicker about who gets it.” Rarity announced with her usual high-class flare as she walked around the two as they stared, a small smirk forming on her lips as she guessed why the changeling’s stare was so intense.

Thorax turned his head back at Rairty with an uncertain frown.“Uh..is there 2 beds ooorrr-”

“Nope! It's a queen-sized bed fit for 1 or 2 or 3 ponies. I just really want my guest to feel special.” Rarity proudly answered as she sat down between them smirking at them, smirking wider as she noticed their confusion as they didn't catch her motives.

The pair looked at Rairty for several minutes before looking back at each other with a shrug before getting up and heading to the direction of the bedroom which Rairty was kindly pointing towards. “Just up those stairs dear. The one that spirals up towards the 2nd floor to be more exact.”

Once the Element of magic and The exiled changeling disappeared into the second floor, Applejack groaned as she looked at Rairty’s smug expression. The marshmallow white unicorn whipped her head back to the cowpony with a prideful sparkle in her eyes. “Is something wrong AppleJack?”

“Well I can tell you’re shipping them and you ain’t even know Throax had a lover.” AJ responded egregiously as she took a hard gulp of cider. 

 Rarity dramatically gasped and leaned her head on the back of her hoof “Oh Applejack! Why shouldn't I? Besides it's almost practically almost dark and I just see the tension they have and are probably in complete denial of it!” She then layed down on the couch with a laugh as looked at AJ. “Twilight needs a stallion like that bug. He is practically foaming at the mouth for her and looking at her like some puppy!” she squealed rolling around laughing at the thought of an adorable romantic relationship between them.

“Ya sure he isn’t looking for some closer? He probably is traumatized by all this shit that's been happening to us! Maybe he sees her as a healer to his recent mental wounds? Just saying because you’ve got a very skewed view on relationships.” AJ grimaced at her friend as she lightly put the cider bottle down on the clothed surface of the dining table. 

Rarity got up and walked to the window closest to her and stared out at the darkening sky as the quarter moon slowly got raised up by the Lunar princess. “Well, at least we are getting a break from our little horror story for now. Plus I personally don't think Twilight’s cynical view on relationships isn’t true in my opinion and I believe tonight is the night where she might re-think her perspective.” She said with resentment as she dragged the tip of her hoof on the glass slowly.






It has been 16 minutes since Twilight and Thorax had entered the bedroom and those past few minutes had been spent just blankly staring at the purple queen-sized bed that lay down in front of them as they realized what Rarity was up to.

“Welp…she wants us to have sex doesn't she.” The changeling spoke first while his non-existent irises looked at his unicorn companion. He did kinda like her but felt really uncomfortable with this setup and he could taste her discomfort as well.

“Hughhhh...She does...I know she is a bit of a perv but this is just crossing my boundaries!” Twilight shoved her face into a pillow and groaned with annoyance. The bedroom was quite small with a hexagonal layout with only a set of drawers, a mirror, a large wardrobe, and a decorative crystal ceiling light above the bed.

Thorax sheepishly walked over to her and stared down at her nervously then after a bit before he cleared his throat. “Can we still talk? Like about my pain and what nor?”

She rolled on her side and looked at him with bags under her eyes, he could taste her grumpiness and visually could see how tired she was. “Well I’m not really in the mood for that tonight since we both figured out that she is shipping us. Also im just tired and really sick of sleeping on the floor." 

“Well, on the topic of the bed situation, are you ok with me sharing the bed with you? You know, the normal type of sharing the same bed. ” He asked trying to make the question sound less awkward than it already was, but Twilight still grimaced while he gave a sheepish smile.

Twilight groaned and gave herself a face-hoof before quickly got herself under the covers and looked at him.“Ughhh! Just get in the bed already! I don’t care that I can clearly tell that you like me, which I can tell because you are acting way too shy around me. I just want to get some sleep alread!-” 

Twilight then noticed that Thorax was now staring intently at the wardrobe rather than her. The changeling could feel some emotion coming from there, it tasted like laughter, concentration, some rage, deep-rooted envy and murderous intent. He slowly walked up to the wardrobe with caution as the floorboards creaked under his shiny black hoves. As he slowly opened the dobble doors by their hinges, light shone through the crack revealing clothes that were already there, as well as a bugged-out eye of somepony hiding between the clothes. 

Before Throax could move the clothes out of the way, the stallion in the wardrobe tackled him and stared down at him with those bugged-out bloodshot eyes staring down into his insect-like ones. Twilight immediately lunged out of the bed and shoved a bolt of solidified magic into the intruder’s barrel before freezing as she felt a chill run down he spine as she looked at the intruder's recognizable face.

It was the same dam burnt-up face, same carved-up smile, same half-melted horn, and the same tiny splotches of brown fur that remained. The stallion she only knew by the moniker of Jeff stared up at her with unrecognizable emotion glaring in his dilated eyes and chuckled and hefted up a coughing fit as he did. “The princess and the bug! Such a classical tale, Honestly I expected you to take an interest in him, But im wrong as your friend down there. Also sorry for coming into her humble abode, really just wanted to end a future alicorn monarch before she takes the reigns to exploiting the common pony and hiding an unwanted truth. Oh by the way! The name is not Jeff, It’s Iron Spade.” He tortuously mocked as he cowered in the corner as the bug and the unicorn surrounded him.  
> Ch25 The Killer Was Caught part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight continued staring at the stallion as Thorax tied him up with one of the blankets from the bed. The name Iron Spade rang a bell in her mind. It took a while for her to remember where she had heard his name before. Until she remembered the documents Luna had given her. He was that stallion that went missing with his brother and the mysterious death of his parents. “Thorax, I think this is the stallion from the document that I was reading. I believe Iron Spade fought in the Great Changeling War in Manehattan. Iron Spade, what happened to you and your brother? And what killed your parents?” 

Iron Spade’s disfigured face whipped up to look at Twilight. He huffed and he breathed deeply as if enraged by this personal detail that was only meant to be known to him. “How do you know that?! Who told you this?!”
 
“Well, your name was in a folder Princess Luna gave me on matters of this investigation. And it so happens that your case seemed to be a point of interest to me, because of a disappearance of a stallion and his brother, who were proud soldiers of this war, suddenly vanishing with their parents dead and the Tallmare being spotted in photographs in the smallest of details, sounds very off-putting to me.” She looked down at him suspiciously and raised his blood-caked chin with her hoof as she glared down at him. 

Iron Spade’s eyes seemed to turn to pinpricks as he took in this new revelation with painful catharsis as the mare he tried to kill and opposed stared daggers into his very soul. “No. NO! No! NO!! You didn’t tell my squadron that they hid those spies amongst our group. Oh let me guess, they’re probably expecting us to overthrow these corrupt, lazy-ass business owners that sat on their flanks while we fought outside of their homes protecting them from YOU bugs from their lives. And oh, let me tell you more. Let me tell you more bitch of magic, that faceless thing made this whole experience worse. It all started as some old yip yap, then got out of hoof. Then things started getting crazy when we found out that a small celebrity by the name of Octavia happened to be in the city while it was being seized down. What was worse was that I had to protect this pathetic musician who barely had any training, any rifling, despite the clear fact that she seemed to not need our protection. Of course, my parents being some traditionalists in me and brother's experience in this world, they tried to bust our union militias and send some officers to watch over us.” 

“So, wait, you are from Manehattan and the siege happened kind of while you were there and your parents didn’t really help keep your morale and sanity in check?” Thorax asked as he inspected the white hoodie Iron Spade had, realizing it was a wartime trench coat. 

“Yeah, what do you think insect? Things then started to get even more crazier when I saw the tall creature itself, and it was amongst some changeling prisoners of war. Of course, only one of them unfortunately died and I got some evidence of the silent queen’s existence through something that was then a pony. And to quicken things up, I can quickly summarize the events before my fleeing of the battlefield. That Vinyl mare came to the rescue Octavia and we heard reports that she died while trying to save her. Don’t know how she’s still alive, but she is. And the day of reckoning… the day when those changelings brought their special tanks out of the forest outside of the city and gassed our trenches. I could feel my face and my comrades’ faces all boiling up from the noxious gas. I believe you guys call this event the “Attack of the Dead Ponies” and that makes a lot of sense. I was the one to actually lead the charge. I saved my comrades from dying slowly and painfully. Once they thought we were dead, despite our faces being covered by the back of our hoods, we attacked them. I remember my comrades relishing the anguish, suffering, all of it was taken out on those bugs. I was practically almost dead when a changeling decided to briefly spray my face with a flame thrower. Then, in short, for some fucking reason, the silent queen decided to heal me.  Then I decided to bring my brother with me and dispose of my parents and attempted to dispose of the rest of the bourgeoisie in Manehattan. Of course, we fled and concluded that attacking the heart of this corrupt system would properly liberate the common pony from the wrath of this false goddess. And I just felt more enraged as the little sickness that the faceless mare gave me, gave me revelations that you may be surprised about.” He said with a gleeful chuckle as his two captors stared at his monologue intriguingly. 

Twilight gave a self-satisfied smirk at him as she felt like she and Thorax were actually getting answers. “Alright, tell me of these revelations you have seen.”

“Well,  I suppose I should simplify it for you. The world is created by these gods that are equally insane in nature. We had three worlds destroyed and created again and-”

“I already the story Iron Spade. You don’t have to tell me again. I saw it all on the cave paintings in the local cave in Ponyville.” Twilight said as she dismissively interrupted him with an uninterested roll of her eyes. 

“Umm, umm, ok…. So what now?” Iron Spade looked around the bedroom with wary eyes as he spoke, clearly clueless on what else he should talk about.
Thorax could tell Iron Spade felt quite fumbled by the two companions foiling his plan and current predicament of being at their whims. Thorax kind of smirked at the realization and just continued to stare blankly at Twilight as the three shared awkward glances at each other before Rarity barged in. 

“Oh Darlings, it seems like you’ve had quite the fun time in there. I didn’t know you were into that violent stuff but… dear Celestia! You’re friends with that creep?!?” Rarity squawked as she saw Iron Spade also known as Jeff. 

Twilight whipped her head towards Rarity and glared at her before trotting over as Iron Spade started cackling.“Oh my fucking Luna, we did not do what you think we did! I’m not even into Thorax or this random fucker right here! Jeff just happened to be in the wardrobe planning to get us if we tried to stop him before he did!” 

Rarity flinched back as Twilight stared daggers into her eyes. “Oh… that’s rather unexpected. I just thought you were done but apparently, you weren’t doing what I thought you were doing. I mean, I did think you had been eyeing each other but then again it was rude of me to barge in. Just, I also would like to announce that Applejack wanted me to tell you to come down here because of a ruckus downstairs. She’s concerned that there is something in here with us. So I just want you guys to come down and check with her.” 

“Uh.. ok. Just, we’re going to go check real quick, leave Iron Spade in the room, then we can go back to sleep.” Twilight ended with a grumble as she and Thorax followed Rarity downstairs. 

All the lights in the boutique were turned off and the only source of light was the shimmering blue light of Luna’s moon creeping through the window. The Element of Generosity then turned to a simple nondescript white door and turned the knob revealing a massive storage closet of mannequins and dresses all scattered about and Rarity’s diamond blue light cast shadows throughout the room. The room was spacious and it looked quite old. It looked like it went through recent renovations with freshly painted walls and a plastered ceiling with one single broken light bulb above in the center of the ceiling. 

Rarity took a small breath before releasing it with a scoff as her expression turned to that of annoyance. “AJ said that this was the room where the ruckus was coming from. Ugh! It must be somepony like Filthy Rich trying to steal one of my fine dresses and sell it in their family shop. Those buggers have got to stop their poor excuse of a burglary before I file a lawsuit on their flanks!!” she screamed as she slowly guided her two friends to the center of the labyrinth of mannequins. As they started to enter they intertwined with various mannequins with their various clothes. Twilight couldn’t help but feel an odd sense in her gut as they scooted in between the standing mannequins while their eyes looked around the room, checking for any mannequins that happened to fall over or signs that hinted at somepony touching Rarity’s outfits. 

As they continued to trot in a single file line they reached the right side of the back of the storage and stopped. Twilight couldn’t tell what Rarity was staring at since her view was blocked by both Thorax and Rarity standing in front of her. 

“Huh, I don’t remember making any formal modern businesswear or ordering a mannequin so abnormally tall and skinny. Oh my goodness and I hadn’t realized until now that my horn is flickering. And is the ringing in my ear supposed to be this loud?” As Rarity started to whine and desperately rub her horn, Thorax and Twilight started to pick up on it too. That’s when Twilight and Thorax both grabbed Rarity by the mane and tried to pull her along. Rarity shrieked from the pain of her mane being pulled and when she started to see the mannequin stepping over the other ones. Its legs made long stilted strides towards her as her horn glowed with pain and overwhelming sensation. They continued to pull Rairty along while mannequins got pushed over as they blindly ran to the door and closed it as they got out.

The trio stared at the door in silence as Fluttershy and Applejack rushed over to the door to see what was up. They could all feel it, the pain in the back of their heads, the ringing in their ears, and the presence of something there. Throax could taste the undescribed emotion of that creature behind that door and it only vaguely tasted like rage but like something so much more than that, something he couldn't he put a hoof on.

Then suddenly the group of friends heard a voice echo through their heads. It sounded like a mare, a stallion, a foal, and all 5 of them, like they were allmelted together. "Well hello my little ponies, It seems like you finding out what this world is and understanding what I am better."  The voice spoke with a hint of annoyance in its voice as its hoove-steps could be heard behind the door.

"Let's make a deal, I shall greet the Princess Of The Night at her old castle and help her remember her repressed memories. Then in the morning, please meet us at the abandoned Everfree Military Sanitorium where we make peace."

"WAIT TILL MORING?! THAT ANI'T FARE YOU SACK OF HORSE-APPLES! COME BACK HERE SO I-" Before Applejack could even speak there was an intense feeling of something, something like the feeling somepony gets from staring down and endless hallway. Then as the feeling left, it was day.
> ch26 Luna part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna gently pressed her right hoof into the leaf covered ground in front of the old castle with a soft crunch. The full moon gently shone through the gaps between the branches and through the shattered windows. She felt cold around her and she felt nostalgia that was as cold as the air itself. It was one of those nights where crickets wouldn’t sing or any other critters make their noises. It was a pure blissful silence, the only noise being that the soft fall breeze brushing against the shrubs and trees of the forest around her.  She let out a breath that she had been holding in and slowly started walking towards her old home. 

There were memories. Memories that were so few in number that it seemed like her childhood was nothing but an incomplete puzzle that she hadn’t finished in many many years. She stopped at the entrance to the castle with the pale white light of her horn shining onto it as she somberly looked at it. It was much more damaged than she expected it to be. It was almost halfway gone with age and seemed that somepony had busted through one of the doors leaving a small hole on the right side of the double doors. She slid both doors open with the glow of her magic and looked down the empty hallway with a feeling of disconnect and familiarity. 

The main entrance of the castle had been a fond photographic memory stuck in her head, she always remembered sitting outside and occasionally glancing back at the door. But there was always one memory that just seemed half-complete. She remembered there was arguing behind those doors and that’s where the memories stopped. She took a couple of steps inside before stopping at one of the old suits of armor and examined it respectively. She and her sister, when they were younger, partly converted this castle into a scare contraption for the average pony to wander through and get scared off by. There were hidden doors and little secret passages that she couldn’t remember at the back of her head.  It was a fun piece of engineering effort and seemed to be one of the memories Luna had of Celestia that was positive. She let out a quiet chuckle to herself as she stared at the set of armor before bumping it on the bearer plate and causing one of the secret passage entrances to open behind it, but stopped midway. The Lunar princess groaned with irritation and thought the old door disguised as part of the cobblestone and tried to enter the tunnel. Of course, she didn’t fit into the small tunnel and realized this tunnel was mostly meant for an average pony or for her younger self and her sister when she was younger. 

She turned herself around and walked down the long carpeted hallway that had withered away with moss and mold covering it and looked up at the twin banners that hung above the stairs. Those stairs were what modern ponies called a liminal space, and this liminal space was hers. The stairs brought nostalgia with them but then also reminded her why she was here, there had always been a feeling that there was something missing from her mind, like there were memories that seemed so important but just seemed incomplete. Those last few horrifying nights with her sister's protege filled her suspicion even more, that name that hound spoke of, Hecate, It was an epitaph some ponies of dead culture gave her long ago, but then again she couldn't remember who they were besides that they didn't like her. She remembered leaving a diary here, maybe that would bring back some memories.

With slow hoofsteps she climbed up the eroding stone stairwell as the moonlight shone through the broken glass window near the door at the top of the two stairwells. She slid open the two wooden doors with her magic and stared down the main hallway that led to the living area of the two sisters. The area she was in before was actually not part of the living quarters of her and her sister but for guests to wait. This hallway lacked the moonlight. It stretched out into darkness like it was a catacomb. The old wax candle fixtures were still remaining with their candles but unfortunately, they looked like they were already used up about a century ago.

The alicorn treaded down into the pitch black with the silver light of her horn dimly guiding her to the doorway. She opened the door yet again and was greeted with the dying area that was only illuminated by two windows that somehow remained unshattered. Luna examined the table with a sense of sadness before stopping as she felt a pain in horn again. That creature was there with her. She didn’t see it there but  she now realized it was waiting for her. The alicorn of the moon fumbled around on the ground as she tried to find her footing as the light on her horn dimmed and brightened again and again. She continued to stumble around with a feverish headache and a loud ringing in her ears until she saw the void black tentacles of the silent queen protruding out of the faceless pony itself who abnormally grew taller than the alicorn below it. 

She continued stumbling as she continued stepping back before stepping on an old pressure plate under the cloth of the table. She forgot about that little thing she and her sister put under there. It was only now that she remembered it as the wall and the floor started to rotate to the other room. As the floor continued to slowly turn she felt the frustration building inside her as the headache continued. 

“Why are you here?! Why are you here in my old home? Have you come here to just mock me? You’ve been around me and my sister for almost our entire lives. Yet you’re still here to torment us, to torment me. I’m not the same filly that you knew a century ago,  I’m an alicorn now. So please, leave me alone!” Luna screamed as she let out a small ray of her energy into the Tallmare. But yet, it didn’t do anything. She continued staring at that thing from her past before the wall eventually brought her to the kitchen. She crawled back onto her legs and went to one of the old pots and vomited inside. She felt humiliated. For such a lesser creature to overpower her felt blasphemous, considering how she perceived herself. This thing from the past was supposed to be not as terrifying to her anymore. She was supposed to grow up like her mom told her. “Wait a minute”, she thought as she lifted her head slowly out of the cooking pot with tears drying on her fur, “I don’t remember Platinum telling me this. Who is this other mom that I’m thinking about?”  
> ch27 Luna part2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna walked around the kitchen as she recollected herself and she tried to think of her next course of action. Her mind was still focused on this supposed “previous mother” of hers. She remembered what this mother looked like, a pegasus with ultramarine fur and a mane that drizzled down her face. It was just one scene that played out in her mind that seemed almost like a mental photograph of a tragic event. She could only remember that whatever this moment was it had to relate to something bad, something that her small filly brain couldn’t understand. The dark gray eyes of her mother almost looked apologetic or perhaps guilty. The type of guilt that a guardian would feel for not trying hard enough. 

She remembered this single moment happening in some forest and it was early in the morning. The sun shone through the green leaves in that solid instant of time. From looking around the surroundings, it looked like they were deep in a pre-civilized Equestrian forest and she could visibly see her mother’s bones showing through her malnourished skin. That’s all she could remember, just that one scene. All of the context was gone. 

As she continued to pace around the row of the oven for the twentieth time she noticed a piece of paper underneath one of the pots. She located the pot before levitating the paper with it. The paper was old and its normal white had turned into a tree-bark brown but the words were still intact. It read as follows: 
 Today I asketh mine mother, “who is’t the mare I keepest seeing in mine headeth?”  The lady hath said yond oth'r moth'r wasn't yond imp'rtant in the grand'r scheme of things.  The lady toldeth me yond mare gaveth me to h'r fain.  I still und'rstand not wherefore the lady hath seemed so disgruntl'd by the mention.  I knoweth not wherefore but the bethought of h'r continues making me feeleth a c'rtain emotion, the emotion yond a young foal wouldst feeleth at which hour those gents exp'rience a traumatizing nonce.  But who is't am i kidding? i haven't exp'rienc'd aught lacking valor with mine own new moth'r, well at least i bethink i didn't. 

The Princess of the Night didn’t understand why a piece of her diary had been left out in the kitchen like this. The placement of it seemed intentional, almost like that faceless abomination was playing with its prey. But why? She never knew the answer to that question, like so many questions she asked herself about this creature that she had been fascinated with since foalhood. This thing was truly an enigma in her eyes. Or maybe it wanted her to understand. Her mind focused back on the old words on the paper. The old Equuish she used to speak made her chuckle, the thought of how the modern Equestrian language was much more understandable compared to its past form. 

The old language was so simplistic and in retrospect very hard to read with the current accent she had adopted. Then her mind suddenly shoved those things away. Her eyes were now focused at the exit of the kitchen as the thought of the ancient Equestrian language was replaced with the voice in the back of her head telling her find more. 






Luna was now at the west side of the castle where the ancient pool lay. She had taken a route that the castle’s staff did had access to, it was tough to get there, and was a small tunnel which they walked to get out to the old pool. She opened the rotting wooden door, which promptly fell off its hinges as she opened it. She toppled herself out of the small cramped tunnel and looked at the once beautiful pool. The elaborate walls had vines that had grown over them and some of the old statues lay in the overgrown grass with other small chunks of stone. The walls had small Gothic spires that reached up towards the skies, or at least they did. Now the spires were mere rubble and dirt in the ground. Only the skeletal structure hinted that they were even spires to begin with. In the pool itself was now a pond. A pond that was overgrown with algae and had turned many shades greener. She walked around until she stopped at the center of the bottom corner of the pool with her hooves crunching in the vibrant Fall leaves. Under the light of her horn, there laid another piece of old paper. She lifted it up and it read: 

So the present day, me and mine own sist'r hadst seen the weird mare again.  This timeth we did get to seeth a bett'r behold at t rath'r than a m're glance from a distance.  T hadst the most strangest of robes and t barely hadst any visage on t.  I wilt sayeth yond t did act intrigu'd by us and oft wast fixat'd on the peasants than about us.  Our fath'r hast been insistent on us staying hence from t.  The creature hast been consistently harassing the villag'rs and making foals disappeareth coequal some griffin envoys has't recount'd tales of seeing such a creature in their landeth.  T intrigues me yond such a creature couldst beest seen in m're than one continent.  And yet… t remains a mare.  T doesn’t seemeth to beest did shape by the whisp'r'd w'rds of intelligent sentient creatures liketh ponies n'r doest th're seemeth to beest any variety on compliment extern 'r behavi'r, it’s too consistent to beest fake. 

Luna remembered the letter clearly and her thought process while writing it. She didn’t even know at the time what this creature wanted from her, nor did she know this in the present. It hadn’t been written down but she felt suspicious about her father. She remembered her father staring at it from the backyard, almost like he knew the creature. She still felt like something was missing from the picture and that she couldn’t really remember what she did remember something. Something that was more like a fill-in that she remembered, a feeling about context: it was a certain type of fear that seemed to be a theme that made the world of her foalhood fall apart, like her little self had discovered a horrendous truth that would break her young mind. And yet, she didn’t know. 

She turned her head back to the main entrance to the pool and opened the intricately carved wooden door and closed it behind her. As she walked down the halls with the old stained glass depicting the various different creatures and their place in the natural magical ecosystem she gained a memory. The memory was of her apprentice Star Swirl the bearded lecturing her on how the study of zoology related to the study of the nature of harmony. But then there was one phrase that he said in this regained memory that made her stop in her tracks at the center of the hallway, “Well, mine own booketh on the nature of harmony may not totally beest c'rrect.  Mine own studyeth of this feareth of charm may beest partly inc'rrect and wherefore i consid'r this the case is yond the magical floweth seemeth to leadeth these malintend'd spirits wh'rev'r t flows.” 
> 28 Luna part3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those words rang in her head like several hundred temple bells ringing all at once. She didnt move a bit as thoughts rushed through her head at its mere implications. It didn't make since when she was young but now with her current predicament it made her question her basic knowledge of harmony and it’s relation to the entity she had been chasing for most of her life. This universal understanding of magic was obviously flawed from her knowledge but there was something missing as to why it was there. Why it was there was an unanswered question by itself, but why such a creature like the Tallmare would be connected to it was entirely different. Now as she stood in the dimly lit hallway with the light from the most holiest moon shining through the broken tinted glass, she felt as if the creature wanted her here. 

She slowly resumed her cautious trot through the nearly dark hallway before taking a turn to her right. She pushed open the two double-doors of her sister’s room but as she pushed them open they slowly collapsed to the ground with a reverberating thud as she stared at her sibling’s old room. The light colors of the curtains that draped her sister’s bed had gotten grayer from over the years. As Luna lit her horn up even more, she could see that somehow her sister’s room was still intact. Luna instinctively walked up to the old bed and ripped the curtains with her magic and moved them aside as they crumpled against one another. On the pillow rested another page. The princess of the night picked it up with her magic and began reading her own words:

I has't been exp'riencing m're mem'ries of this moth'r i hadst bef're mine own current moth'r.  I rememb'r the clay house with twig and leaf roof yond we hadst.  I rememb'r mine own fath'r, who is't hath seemed to beest on his deathb'd from some vicious animal did wind.  That gent wast quite the skinny stallion, belike malnourish'd from the want of food that gent hadst.  His coat wast similar to mineth and his mane wast damp from reeking and t cov'r'd most of his visage.  That gent wast a pegasus and the col'r of his mane wast black.  Nothing else too remarkable about that gent.  The hut wast only did light by a bawbling candle while that gent writh'd in teen.  I clearly don’t rememb'r much, but i couldst bid we w're struggling.  I shouldst eke mention about this strange dreameth i’ve been having.  I wast in some s'rt of city and the buildings w're huge, those gents w'ren’t cramp'd liketh the ones i’ve seen and those gents hath reached all the way up to the sky.  Those gents w're solid slabs of stone and solid panes of glass.  Oth'rs w're did connect by bridges and some did look m're unique than oth'rs, as if 't be true the architect intentionally design'd those folk to behold liketh a diamond.  I wast looking out at the flote, i guesseth this wast a p'rt city and t hath seemed the most fanciest of these strange toweth'rs hath built by nobles.  Then i did see a phenomenon, yond i’d only readeth about in books, befall in broad daylight in this dreameth: an aur'ra b'realis hath seemed to sweepeth ov'r this strange city and the ponies with their strange dresses hath seemed to gaze in awe.  Their collection of greens and blues did start to descend and then consum'd the buildings liketh those gents w're a waft from a most wondrous flote.  I did see these lights scatt'r and englut the solid stone and steel rods liketh those gents w're nothing.  The ponies hath seemed to has't their skin and flesh m'rph'd into unimaginable shapes as those gents too w're consum'd by this aur'ra b'realis.  Then in the cent'r of this unnatural st'rm wast this alic'rn, the lady glitt'r'd liketh all the stars and wast bright yellow and did look as if 't be true the lady wast wailing liketh a h'rrific banshee.  The lady glid'd 'long with deep sunken eyes as an unnatural stream of lighteth did push h'r 'long as if 't be true the lady wast a comet.  The lighteth wast quite quaint but h'r visage wast hideous, t wast fusty and rotten with the deep sunken eyes of a madmare.  I wast entranc'd and h'rrifi'd.  Such a nightmare with so much beauty but so much h'rr'r, t madeth me waketh up.  I did notice mine own cov'rs w're did wet from mine own owneth urine.  I toldeth mine own moth'r about this dreameth and strangely enow h'r eyes did turn to pinpricks, as if 't be true the lady rememb'r'd yond dreameth liketh the lady wast th're  

The moon princess felt a chill run down her spine as she read the last words of the entry that was written in her ancient tongue. Why were the buildings described in this dream seem so modern? Why did that horrific alicorn almost look like her second mother Princess Platinum? The fact that her 2nd mother and that alicron looked so similar had her almost not believing herself. Maybe this dream wasn't a dream after all. Nothing seemed quite right about this. Luna knew that The Silent Queen gave ponies unnatural dreams that taunted and tormented them, but was this dream from It? 

She turned around and started to exit her sister’s old room before stopping where the doors once stood when she saw something, somepony in the corner of her right eye. Before she could turn her head the figure lept on top of her back before she felt a deep cutting pain in her shoulder blades. She screamed in agony and anger as she thrashed around as she tried flinging the attacker off.  She turned her head back and lifted the attacker off of her and slamming them into the ground. She pinned them down and glared down into their eyes. 

She could see it was that masked pony with goggles that fought thorax, but she started to recognize the colt behind the goggles as she looked into his fear-filled eyes.  He was part of the 11th Airborne Pegasus Ground assault division. She remembered meeting the young stallion when she paid the air academy a special visit. She had to admit she liked him when she saw him at the academy, she liked how nervous he was around him, and those brown eyes just made her smile back then, but that memory only lasted a second.

She started to slam her hoofs down into his chest while grunting in rage. He DARE to kill her, he DARE to come back siding with the FIEND. His chest started to cave in as his screams echoed throughout the castle halls. The moon ailicron was screaming as well, but with rage.

As she slowly stopped trampling him to death she looked down at him her pinprick eye. She lifted off the goggles and bandana and stared down at his face. The once youth-filled face looked aged from the stress of war and part of his cheek was torn off, probably from a stray piece of shrapnel. She lifted her head up and looked down at the mess she made with a tear-filled chuckle. She got off of him and slowly started to wobble with pain. The blood and her hoofs started to cake and her laughter started to intensify.

She leaned against the stone wall and she started to cackle and sob while her fresh wounds scraped against the stone wall. Pain was all she felt, pain was all her mind felt. Her past betrayed her, her present betrayed her, now all she could do was laugh.

“FUUUUUCKKK!!” The Half Nightmare screamed.
> ch29 Luna part 4 (end of Luna arc)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna still sat against the cobblestone wall with the two wounds dripping blood ontostones that made up the segments of the wall. She stared down at the ground while taking deep heavy breaths. She hadn’t focused but was now back. The little tiny bit of nightmare moon was now slightly poking its head out and announcing its presence to her. The rage had summoned it, but she still felt in control. She felt herself shivering with fear as she thought about her past transgressions against her sisters and Equestria. She didn’t want to let it come back. She slowly stood back up on all fours as her legs trembled with pain. 

“Your false mother hurt you.” the Nightmare’s voice sneered in the back of her mind with empathetic spite, as the moon princess sauntered down the hallway to the stairs that lead to her room. “You, sure as Tartarus knows, what that dream was. You’re coming back for more? Even after finding out a segment of pain, you had forgotten? You know what your mother is now since you pieced it together so neatly. But are you willing to learn more and to put yourself back into those painful memories that you had forgotten long ago?”  The Nightmare screamed shamefully as Luna opened the door to the stairs that led up to her bedroom. “I wouldn’t be ashamed if you did, after all, you would have me back to help you.” Luna stopped in hesitation as she thought about what she was going to do. She knew that her mother did those terrible things, but what about the rest? 

What other things she did not know yet? How much have her false parents hidden from her? Why did it want her? She slowly climbed up the stairs while gritting her teeth in pain. She continued to climb before reaching the door to her old bedroom. Inside the bedroom looked almost as intact as her sisters, well almost. The floor was covered in bird dung and there was a large patch of brow mold growing on the curtains of her bed. She turned away and cringed at the sight of the mold before turning back to her desk. The dairy was still on the desk like it was before, except now its cover was covered in bird feathers and dust. She looked out of her window and spotted a falcon nest perched on a nearby branch, which seemed to not be in use anymore. “ the birds seem to have visited my old room when they still lived in that nest.”

She turned her head back to the old dairy that rested patiently on the desk, almost begging her to read it. Her shoulder blades still ached from the fresh wounds and her breathing was tense and deep. She wanted to open the book but the fear of what forgotten traumas awaited her made her hesitate. Luna then with a frustrated groan opened the book and blankly stared at the first page. The blank first page didn't help stop her mind from screaming to not read it, but she really wanted to.

She turned several pages trying to find where the pages had been torn off, before reaching the 116th page where the 3 other pages were absent. She didn't want to read the words but she had to. She could feel her eyes trying to move away from the page and her anxiety taking over. She didn't want to know what happened, she didn't want to remember, all she wanted was not to re-

“READ THE FUCKING BOOK ALREADY!” The Nightmare’s scream echoed in her mind with anger, which caused her to yelp before turning her eyes to the old ink-written words.

Her mind started to panic more and spiral down further as she read the following words:

“i haven’t realis'd t.. Until anon.  I finally did found out who is't those gents w're, who is't mine own current parents art.  Those gents art monst'rs, not metahp'ricly but did light'rary.  I did found this out in the most undis'rbale of ways.  I wast with mine own fath'r in the garden, i wast sharing mine own dreams with that gent.  That gent hath seemed fell at the dreameth i wast telling that gent about, that gent hadst the same expression of recognition as mine own 2nd moth'r.  Aft'r that gent shew'd me out of the garden i hath returned to mine own cubiculo, but i couldst feeleth a ringing teen in mine own headeth and h'rn at which hour i did lay th're.  Yond dame creature wast beside mine own sleep chamber bef're t hath sent me into a rest.  But then.  I rememb'red… i rememb'r'd what mine own life bef're and what cameth of t.  I did recall who is't mine own family wast, we w're nomads just liketh in the st'ries.  We w're at each moment running, running from tribes did rule by hideous beast.  Some times these tribes combated, their monstrous leadeth'rs did compete f'r landeth, ponies w're did treat liketh pawns and i remb'r the feareth in a warri'rs eyes at which hour that gent hath tried to killeth me.  Mine own fath'r kicked the bucket from a did wind in the barrel, we w're po'r as rats.  Then. moth'r kicked the bucket.  The same f'rsaken mare yond appread in mine own oth'r dreameth, the dreameth of the strange city, the lady wast th're at our hut.  The lady hath carried 'long c'rpses of fellow villig'rs and oth'r feinds in h'r that from which we speak.  The lady did stare at me with thoes hallow eyes, drooping the c'rpses at h'r f'r hoofs.  Th're wast eke this black mass of fog with thousands of chaps and stars in its corse yond hath followed h'r 'long.  Mine own moth'r hath tried to guideth me into the hut bef're yond monst'r of a mare did snatch h'r in its chaps.  T consumed with unbevilbly hot fangs twist'd and turen'd 'round mine own moth'rs flesh, h'r screams w're fearful and i rememb'r'd mine own corse shaking.  Then.. thats all i recolet'd bef're i did wake up.  The mare yond hath killed mine own moth'r is mine own curent moth'r; platnium.  The black thing wast mine own fath'r; king cosmos. ”

Luna slammed her head against the desk and screamed with emotional angony. Her tears dripped off the edge of the desk as she continued to sob uncontrollably. The pain of abandonment filled her chest as the missing pieces slowly slid into place.

“You remember now don't you?” The nightmare sneered. “You and your sister were just a pawn in their little game. Your sister and you along with your teacher had finally removed them. But now look at you, you bow to your sister who is refusing to put this world out of its misery. Now let me have my control back!” It screeched as Luna felt the dark shadow taking over her chest.

She quickly gave a strong punch to her own face before collapsing to the floor. After falling down she slowly looked up and felt that familiar ringing headache as she slowly looked up. She could see the black tendrils slowly creeping through the door through the corner of her vision. She coughed and she panted as she tried to get up, but she couldn't. She could hear the nightmare screaming in pain as the silent queen got closer. She felt like it would kill her, but then again it probably didn’t want that to happen. 

“GET UP! I SAID GET UP!” 

She didn't want to, she didn't want to be back on that moon. She could see the tendrils wrapping around her vision and the ringing getting louder with each passing second. She was willing to accept whatever The silent queen had planned for her

“You will not die foolish child.”  Soothly said the Silent Queen
> ch30 A Big Problem
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mares stared around the hallway of Rarity’s house as they slowly started to recover from the brief moment of vertigo. The sun was already up in the early morning sky, and yet their minds felt like it was at night. Twilight slowly walked over to the window and stared out at the Everfree Forest with pinpricked eyes. Luna hadn’t returned and this was immediately alarming to Twilight.

“She isn’t here… she isn’t-where’s Luna?!?” Twilight yelled with panic as she turned her head back to the rest of her friends. 
“What you mean Twilight? Who isn’t here? Tell me Twi, who isn’t here?” the farmmare demanded as she pressed her hooves onto Twilight’s shoulders with equally intense eyes. 

“Um, Applejack I believe she’s talking about, you know, Luna” Fluttershy spoke up with her usual shyness mixed with reassuring reasoning as she tried to de-escalate the situation, unfortunately, that made Applejack glare back at her slowly. 

“Alright now, what the fuck you mean Luna hasn’t come back. She outta be back right now sitting on her royal flanks. You’re telling me that a literal alicorn somehow went missing by her own. If that’s the case, well shit, well I don’t know what happened with that weird from that faceless bitch. But that’s besides the point, we don’t even know if we fell asleep. Hell, you guys practically look the same as you did last night. We all gonna have to figure out what the hell to do. Now since we’re all basically left clueless” Applejack finished before bucking an expensive vase off of one of Rarity’s pedestals. 

“Alright, can my guests stop destroying my belongings? First, it was Luna and the mannequin and now it’s you Applejack destroying one of my expensive vases” Rarity gawked in disapproval.

Twilight backed up into the center of her friend group as they all stared at her for answers. She knew how vulnerable they must have felt now. Their place of safety now had been invaded. Twilight wasn’t exactly sure what to do nor where she would find Luna. They had fought a creature such as Discord before, they were supposed to be heroes that eliminate any sort of evil. They just felt so weak. 

While Twilight continued to stare into the void, Thorax went upstairs to check on their little prisoner. Unfortunately, Iron Spade was nowhere to be seen, only a sticky note that read, “I don’t know where you guys went but I’m going now. See ya!” The changeling crumpled up the paper with his magic and threw it against the wall before walking back downstairs. 
“So bad news my fellow pony friends, Iron Spade is gone. It appears that there isn’t any trace of him” Thorax said grunting as he laid his back against the sofa outside and sat next to them with tired eyes. 

Twilight wasn’t exactly sure what would come next on this journey due to how much stress she was currently facing. As she slouched her head back on the sofa’s armrest, she remembered the words that the Tallmare told her about the old abandoned military Equestria hospital, it told her to meet it there. It seemed like an obvious next course of action, but she truly didn’t know why it wanted her to meet there. There was no possible way that they could have peace, this creature is known for taking little foals in the woods afterall. Twilight could feel the apathy weighing her down and her tired eyes blinked up at the ceiling as she could feel the hours of sleep that she missed kicking in. 

“Wait, the Tallmare, didn’t it say there was a military hospital it wanted to see us at?” Fluttershy spoke up causing Twilight to raise her head back up in surprise at Fluttershy taking the initiative before groaning. 

"Well I was going to say that but I honestly think It doesn't have the best intentions for us. Its most likely a trap and nothing good will come of it."

Her friends looked at her with an equal amount of hopelessness and glanced at the ground, 
coming to terms with the inevitable action they really didn't want to partake in. Throax was the only one who didn't have his head down, he just stared up at the ceiling as he thought about this dire situation, he knew of its necessity and knew it had a possibility to bring spike back, well hopefully it could return him. 

Thorax lifted himself off the couch and looked down at the element of magick and put a hoof and her shoulder and looked her in the eyes strinly. 

“I can not let you sit on your flank and mope around all day about this. It really doesn't matter that this is a huge danger to us. Whatever it has to offer us is worth the risk, I know you feel like there's nothing The Tallmare has to offer you but this seams to be legit. I want spike back, you want spike back, AJ wants revenge, and...Uhh I guess Fluters wants it's sickness to stop infecting her animals. We all want this to end and even though we don't have moon flanks here we could still take on its brainwashed servants. Now get your ass up and let's get moving." He ended with determination in his glossy green eyes as looked back at her as he started walking off.

The other mares started following him along, he had given them enough convincing to remind them that this could very well put an end to this shared horror story.  As Thorax and the 3 mares started to leave, Rarity looked back at her friend who was still resting against the armrest of the couch. She quickly galloped towards her put both of her hooves against her and started shoving her to get up.

"Twilight I may have been not as a generous mare as I usually am for these past couple of days, but please get up! I know you are exhausted and hopeless but PLEASE! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OUR LEADER! OUR MORAL SUPPORT! please get up and save the day like you usually do.  We need it and if spikes still out he will need you too." Rarity was being desperate about this now. She hated how she was treating her friends and wanted to make it up to them, but she just felt so stupid, so weak, so useless. 

Twilight looked up into Rairity's eyes, seeing her tears flow out her eyelids like a winter river. She shoved the elegant fashion designer out of the way and followed the rest of her friends out of the door. Twilight still had bags under her eyes, yet she had this look of forgiveness in her eyes, almost sympathy,

"I know you haven't been as kind as I know you recently but you're still a good pony. You had done many good things with us and you're still a good pony. You still try to take care of the ones you care about and have been the most sympathetic with me even if we don't agree. So right now this is my goodbye for now, if I do return please welcome me back." 

Twilight turned back to her friends and trotted off to the woods. Throax quickly shifted into her disguise as they ran and chose one of his more handsome disguises. Twilight felt a mix of optimism and dread as they trotted to the Everfree. She had had no idea what fate lay for her or her friends in the woods, nor what would happen after. All she knew is that they would arrive at that building, and they may or not be harmed.
> ch31 Forward
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group so far had been walking through the Everfree for about 40 minutes. They were about another mile away from the old military hospital. As Twilight walked across the dried dirt path that slowly climbed the hill, she took in the current moment where she was standing as if she was taking a photo of a core memory. The Autumn sky still had Celestia’s sun trailing with a few clouds in the air. The air was cool as it was days before and in the area she was in had two large patches of thick grass that formed a small clearing on the part of the trail they were on before briefly ending where the tall crooked trees met the luscious grass. Twilight took in the brief moment of peace with gratitude, feeling some temporary relief from what she had been going through. She could only stare up at the sky as the wind brushed against the trees and feel the bliss that had waited for her to just come here. She was glad that it greeted her and yet she knew it told her that she would be here only for just a moment. 

“Twilight, Twilight are you there??” Applejack nudged her friend who continued staring off into space. 
Then the lavender unicorn got snatched back into reality and looked back at Applejack.

“Oh, I’m doing ok, just needing some time to reflect, you know?” 

Twilight continued staring out into the sky for a bit before heading back to the trail and resumed walking. Applejack knew there was something off about Twilight. She had been acting so stern over the past couple of days but yet was she really doing ok at this moment? 

Applejack trotted quickly back up to Twilight and gave her a firm serious glare, poor Applejack couldn’t speak, she stopped herself. There was no way of knowing what consequences would come to her if she forcefully questioned her friend. It was obvious that Twilight wasn’t doing fine, but at that moment Applejack had realized that trying to talk to Twilight about her state of mind was a hornet’s nest that she dared not to touch. So instead, she continued to walk with the element of Magic.   
As Twilight continued walking up the hill towards the large gap in between the trees, Thorax joined in with Applejack on walking with Twilight and gave her the same concerned look Aj gave her as he tased a mix of unease and determination.

“Soo about the night before, do you like me?” Thorax asked in an awkward manner as Twilight and aj whipped their heads towards him, they both looked flabbergasted at his question and AJ even had her jaw slightly ajar.

“Thorax…did I look interested? OF COURSE NOT! I'm clearly not interested in anypony and rather just see you as a friend, plus you still have a zebra to grieve.” Twilight added dismissively as she turned her head away from him.

“Thorax you got a dragon you like, plus we gotta look ahead because we’ve got a bigger problem on our hoofs.” Aj pointed out as she rested a hoof on the back of Thorax's neck.
 
Thorax sighed and turned his head back to the road ahead. “Yeah.. I got a potential dragon bf that needs saving after all…well if he can be saved that is.”

The group resumed walking and re-entered the shadowy veil of the twisted pine trees of the Everfree. Fluttershy felt an uneasy presence as they walked across the pine-needle-covered trail, she felt it watching them, expecting them, observing them. Few glimpses of daylight slithered through the leaves and covered the ground, the forest seemed expansive and different from the rest of the everfree region. Wildlife was sparse and the birds barely came down from the trees. The trees twisted upwards and reached so high that they almost blocked out the sun. 

This area of the Everfree seemed more ominous than the other parts that Twilight was familiar with. She heard that this area also had some unique wildlife in it and that the creatures in this area rarely wandered into the other parts of the Everfree. As they continued to walk Thorax saw somepony resting near a stream. It looked like a mare and appeared to have her mane brushing against the tide as she laid down. The others caught on as well and Fluttershy approached the mare with caution. 

When the element of kindness got closer to the stranger she noticed that it was a mare she recognized. Octavia slowly picked her head back up and turned her eyes back to Fluttershy, her face looked full of wariness, confusion, and despair. She still had that mask with her that was resting next to her flank. Eventually, the musician fully turned her body around and pitifully stared into Fluttershy’s eyes. 

“Fluttershy, what’re you doing so far into these woods? How did you even know where I was?” 

Kindness merely puckered her lips inward as she thought about how to respectfully talk with Octavia, “Well, I was gonna ask you the same. Me and my friends are just taking a little hike, you know?” 

Octavia looked away and slowly stared out at the forest, her eyes filled with comprehension and calmness. It was like Octavia was mentally telling herself that she was safe. Fluttershy could tell because she had seen other ponies do the exact same thing. “Well, I don’t know why I’m out here… I was just sleeping and now I’m here… It’s like this almost every night. I always think I am in my room or doing something else until I just look up in these woods with dirt on my hooves and bruises on my fur, yet I don’t know, I don’t know what I am doing here. Lyra keeps telling me I’m doing ok but, I keep seeing that creature…. That faceless pony staring at me from behind the trees. I just keep having these nightmares about…. I actually don’t know what they’re about, I just know that they don’t seem to fit, they don’t seem to match anything related to me. It’s all just black, white, black, white, black, white; over and over again. I don’t even know if I’m safe anymore. I just don’t feel like I have control.” Octavia started to cry into the water as she gritted her teeth and placed her hooves on her dirty and matted mane while she knelt down into the stream.

Fluttershy tightly hugged the sobbing violinist, almost as if she was hugging an injured animal that she was taking care of. “You can come with us you know, you don’t have to stay in the woods all day and be alone.”

Twilight and the others watched on as Fluttershy compassionately held the distraught Octavia with her forehooves. Twilight remembered the night where she first saw Octavia wearing the mask in Bonbon and Lyra’s old home. She thought that Octavia was doing this consciously, but now it appeared that Octavia was just as much a victim of the Tallmare as she was. 

After about a solid minute of sobbing, Octavia then stared down at the ground, her body tingling as she started to consider the offer. Her velvet eyes looked back at Fluttershy’s friends, then looked back at Fluttershy. “I’ll come with you, I just don’t want to be sitting here looking like a mess all day by myself.”   

Fluttershy started to walk back to her friends as Octavia got back onto all fours and followed along weakly. She didn’t even seem to mind that there was a Changeling in the group, not out of tolerance but as if her mind was in her own personal world. 

The group of friends could tell that Octavia was going through something but neither of them wanted to ask her about it. Twilight felt like she could understand Octavia, but she didn't know why. Maybe it was her own experience, but no she was totally fine. But was she really?


“No…I'm ok, I’m a brave and intelligent mare and I’ve been pushing through this. I’m strong, I’m brave and I’m-...Im safe…Yeah, I'm safe, just really really safe.”


When they reached the summit of a hill, Twilight felt a voice in her mind speak to her. It told her to move forward, push through, and then stop when her burdens were finished. She stopped briefly on the hills summit as she took in her mind’s words, before catching up with her friends. She could tell that there was a challenge ahead, a challenge meant just for her. She didn't know what it would be but…But she hoped it would be the end of this.
> ch32 a trap to a test
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was about 7 am when they arrived at the old dilapidated military hospital. They came out through a clearing amidst several twisted pine trees and stared in astonishment at the abandoned building. It towered over the forest with an ominous presence. Its layout was star-shaped and its main entrance loomed over the group of ponies. On that entrance there were two statues of diamond dogs looking down at all who entered, it truly was an ominous sight, but yet splendid in its presentation. Beyond the five-story star-shaped building lay an old and cracked cement road that once saw military vehicles delivering patients to the building. Now grass filled the potholes and trees sprung out through the concrete with physical signs of unkept erosion withering away the road. 

As Twilight stared up at the building, she noticed that their new party member wasn’t so amazed by the structure. Instead, she remained at the back of the herd looking at the building with paralyzing fear. 

“How do you know this place? Why are you taking me here? Is this just to mock me? Let me guess, some towns ponies saw me here and are now there little jokes behind my back about waking up here… is this some sort of mockery of my sanity?!” The violinist screamed in anger directly into Twilight’s face as she rushed up to the element of magic.

“Octavia we’re not trying to make fun of your situation but we’re just coming here for something important. That thing is…” She desperately tried to think of some way to convince Octavia that she was in good hooves without telling her the truth. 

“The thing is what? To lecture me about about my mentor’s condition? What do you think you are, some sort of therapist of mine? You smartass lavender bitch, I don’t know what in Celestia’s fucking ass you’re trying to accomplish here but I’m not falling for it” 

“Octavia wait I’m not trying to do that, I’m trying to… you know what I’ll just tell you, we’re here because the Tallmare told us to come here.” Well, she finally told the truth, but it didn’t seem to help Octavia in the slightest.

“You think I would believe that some folkmonster told you to come meet at the hospital? You think I’m some sort of gullible filly, don’t you? Let me guess, your bug friend is sensing my emotional state and trying to use that information so that you can lie to me better!”

The changeling, in response, galloped to Octavia and bucked her in the face before pinning her to the ground. “Listen here, we’re not trying to do that. You should know that this thing is real, you must have seen it during the war, haven’t you?” 

Octavia laughed again, “You think I don’t remember the war? I bet you have experienced it too you insect. Don’t try to bring up memories I choose not to remember and even when I remember them I don’t recall anything of the sort revolving around that monster.”

As Twilight watched the ensuing argument she and her friends looked back at the abandoned military hospital behind them, the sun was setting and the front entrance beckoned them to come in with one of its doors missing. Twilight then looked back at their friend who continued to glare up at Thorax with disdain. Eventually Twilight decided to grab Octavia with her magic and drag her to go in with them. 

“Wait wait wait, you’re not taking me! You’re not taking me! You’re not taking me in there! That place gives me nightmares. I don’t want to! I don’t want to! I don’t know what it is about that place that makes it so chilling, but I don’t want to be there, I don’t want to be there!” 

As Octavia got dragged to the torn-down front doors of the hospital, Thorax felt genuine fear in her as she desperately clawed at the ground with the front of her hoves. This type of fear was one of unfamiliarity yet he could tell a small part of her mind was warning her of something she didn't remember.  The cocktail of her emotions tasted strange, Thorax didn't understand why Octavia had this deep-seated fear for the structure but yet had no idea of what about it she feared. To the changeling she was an anomaly, to herself; a victim of something she had forgotten. 

As Twilight reached the foreboding entrance, she was only greeted by an entire room of darkness with sunlight seeping through broken windows. She then saw a table in front of her and realized that this was the front desk. She had lit up her horn as she dragged the violinist in while her friends followed suit. On the right side of the front desk was a hallway that was covered with black mold and had dust bunnies and cobwebs hanging off hospital doors or where hospital doors once were. The fading sunlight showed the room still holding old stains from wounded soldiers that used to be treated in the many rooms and the medical cabinets looked perfectly intact. As Twilight continued to walk with her friends she noticed a plaque on the wall with a printed piece of paper that was presumably a fire escape plan for the first floor that they were on. 

The map was consistent with the star shape of the building and so far the plans showed that the floor and probably the rest of the other floors had rooms laid out like some sort of labyrinth with multiple rooms dedicated to multiple purposes and massive food storage occupying the entire bottom right triangle of the star with a little pool resting in the center. At the very top of the star was a cafeteria and next to it was a firing range, which Twilight thought that whoever designed the hospital intended the soldiers to recover and train again before heading immediately back to the field of war. This made sense because Twilight remembered the war ended with a lot of pony power, especially during the changelings blitzkrieg near the Crystal Empire. The other side of the triangle was mostly for living accommodations and then the upper left was something labeled as “Vehicle Parking” which was probably used for the wounded patients to be transported in. Then in the bottom left was labeled as “Morgue 1” which morbidly enough was also where the fire exit was. 

“Well sheesh, I knew the ponies' experience in the world was bad but, this is just fucking cruel. They might never been to this hospital before, but whoever had been here before I feel sorry for them.” Applejack mused with horror as she peeked over Twilight’s shoulder. 

“Yeah, they were just on the first level. No wonder this building was abandoned, it didn't just get abandoned out of lack of use but rather, because of how horribly designed this place was. Not just in the architectural sense but the soldiers who went there was probably a nightmare to navigate…especially trying to reach the fire exit which is in the morgue.” Twilight immediately looked away from the map on the wall and looked back at the winding hallway in front of her. 

The sun was now rapidly disappearing and the true darkness of the hospital started to settle in. Octavia had started clawing at the ground and Twilight let go of her. Octavia picked herself back onto her hooves and followed Twilight on her left flank while her eyes moved around the many hospital doors as if she suspected something. As they continued to walk down the winding hallway with Twilight’s dim purple light guiding the way. They eventually reached what was presumably the pool room. The water from the entirely circular pool was completely drained and when Twilight and Thorax stepped close to it they saw how incredibly deep it went. 

As Thorax activated the light on his horn he felt Twilight and him share a similar feeling, a feeling of something following along with them. The group walked around the pool’s edge and eventually found what appeared to be an elevator shaft, which was obvious because it was a triangle-shaped wall that went up to the ceiling. 

“Well, I don’t know how to get up there. Especially since this building is obviously out of power, and to be honest I don’t know why the Tallmare wants us here. Does it want to kill us?  Or does it want you Twilight?” Thorax turned his head to look at Twilight who looked away nimbly, understanding what the changeling was getting at. 

Then suddenly all the horns started flickering and that familiar pain came over them that they were all dreading. One of them, the key outlier in the group, started twitching and fretting around on the ground screaming. Immediately, Applejack and Fluttershy tried to restrain Octavia so she wouldn’t fall into the pool. As they restrained her the flickering purple and green light appeared and a shadowy black tendril wrapped around Octavia’s leg as another one with was wrapped around her torso and pulled her into the gaping darkness. As Applejack and Fluttershy looked into it their heads ached with pain with the others. They suddenly ended up in another room along with the others. Applejack couldn’t see and neither could Fluttershy, as each one of them called out and stumbled onto broken wooden chairs they couldn’t see, they realized they had been separated. 

As for Twilight, she sat down on her flank completely alone. For some reason there was a  campfire in front of her and all around her were ponies with masks that were from Nightmare Night which had been about a year ago. There were about ten of them, all just looking at her. They didn't seem to move. They all were staring at her like a bunch of statues. Twilight had probably guessed that they were in a similar state as Octavia had been and didn’t really have any say in their participation nor even knew about their participation. 

As Twilight turned her head back and lit her horn back up all she could see was bones upon bones of the skeletons of foals and fully grown adult ponies from years ago. Amongst them, that was the freshest, were two bodies which were all covered in a black mold that seeped from their eyes and all orifices which had eaten away at their skin and left blisters in their flesh. They were very recognizable, that of Ms. Truly and the child of Bon Bon and Lyra, Buzzwing.
> Finale part1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight stared at the bodies and filled with dread as she started to realize her situation. There had been some bones of long past victims there as well with the newer victims laying down in front of her with their mold-covered flesh and with swarms of tiny black flies moving in and out of tiny openings in their bodies. Twilight turned over to a group of masked ponies that sat with blank featureless expressions as they stared at the campfire. None of them seemed to look at her but it just stared blankly into the flames. All of their nightmare masks were worn with age and dust. Twilight knew these were Ponyville citizens but she didn’t dare to take the masks off. Twilight’s breaths were getting more shaky and ragged by each minute as she slowly started to feel trapped. She looked at the darkness beyond the light of the fire then at the group of strangers with a weak trembling smile. 

“I…I get it. If you’re here to test me, then test me. I know why you’re presenting this” she rasped before chuckling at the fire. “You want to prove that I have limits. I know you’re presenting me with the bodies I was looking for, but you got me… You got me really good” she walked over to the corpse of Lyra and lifted her head up with magic before slamming it with a glare of frustration and a chuckle of instability. “YOU GOT ME, I’M ALONE NOW. I know you’ve been slowly chipping away at my shell of perseverance and see my true state. So now you see it. You see it, how deeply afraid and frustrated I am. Are you happy now?! Are  you happy your tall slender bitch?! YOU SLENDERMARE!” she cackled again and levitated out a piece of wood before bashing it against the ground in a hopeless fit of rage. 

She continued smashing the wood as little splinters and embers flicked off of it until she felt the pain in her horn again. The fire started them as tendril-like shadows moved in the darkness. Twilight yelped with recognition as the ringing in her ears and the throbbing ache in her horn started up again. She crawled to the very edge of the room as the fire quickly faded and she was left with nothing but the sight of the tendrils surrounding her. Each strobing blink she saw the consuming black shadows surrounding her but yet they weren’t enclosing. In her fetal position, she wept and wept. 

She was alone again. Friends separated and the same creature that haunted her now looming over her as it tested her. She could tell that it was standing over her now as a headache had reached its most extreme point. As she screamed from the burning sensation from her brain and horn she heard the slightest whisper. 

“I understand you. Now understand me.” 







Applejack moved around in the darkness bumping into tables she didn’t see, pushing metal chairs that she didn’t see either. Her voice echoed through the darkness but yet no response. The farm filly continued to blindly move about only relying on her sense of touch and smell. AJ knew she was in a cafeteria, but what floor? And what side of the star? She continued feeling about the room before touching a wet and slick tile wall. It felt nasty on her hooves, but at least she had a point of reference. She continued to walk while feeling around it and sometimes tripping over a chair leg that she didn’t see. She then, after a bit of fumbling and stumbling, reached what seemed to be where a door once was and with her other hooves she felt a lightswitch. She flicked it on and only two of the plate-shaped lights turned on. This cafeteria was smaller than what the first floor portrayed. The foldable metal chairs were missing their stuffing and the tables were splattered with old military meals that rotted under the light. Applejack looked down at her hooves with a flinch as she checked each one of them for signs of rotten schmuck. When she saw indeed, she did step in some, she entered a panic frenzy and started smearing her hooves on the dirty squared-shaped tiles on the wall. This only made things worse because now she got dirt and dust on her fur. The ick was gone but now she had little pieces of dust and grime covering patches of her orange fur. She quickly walked out the room and slammed her hoof into the old wooden floorboards.

“Damn it! Why did I get left here? I should’ev told Twilight about my thoughts about this whole journey, honestly, I hate what we’re getting into. My farm has been disturbed. My sister eaten by a damn vampony. But now I’m stuck by myself! Honestly, I haven’t been honest. I haven’t been honest about my cluelessness, about how I don’t know what my life will be after this. I know Twilight and probably Fluttershy has a plan for moving on but I just feel lost. Granny and Big Mac left. My friends and even the damn changeling are ignoring me… probably because I’m blubbering my mouth too much. Maybe I’ve been too honest about things.” She slammed her hooves into the floorboards again, which caused them to crack. “I’m alone and everypony ignoring me! Why can’t it just be like back in the days when we defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Chrysalis?!!” 

Suddenly AJ heard soft hoofsteps really close to her flank. In her rage-state mind she turned around to punch whoever was behind her but before she did she felt the powerful forehooves of the pony she was about to punch slam into her ribcage and toss her against a wall. She groaned in pain and winced up to see the attacker be illuminated by the cafeteria light. The figure was taller than her and wore a wornout yellow hoodie with a large black piece of wool clothing obscuring its face with a crudely painted frowning face. Strangely enough, it resembled the same frowning face that was in the mysterious letter AJ had received. Was this perhaps the pony who sent it? 
“Are you one of them!? Are you here to end my life? Damn it, if you’re gonna kill me just kill me!” 

The stranger didn’t answer as the element of honesty glared daggers into its painted red dots. Then the stranger trotted up and looked down at the seething Applejack. 

“Ehhh, nope!” 

Applejack’s eyes and muzzle shifted from defensive fear to one of somber recognition. “Big…Big Mack don't tell me you’re one of them. Please tell me you’re not, just tell me you’re here to help.” She started to whimper mid-sentence as she spoke, her words sounded caught in her confused emotional state and almost matched her whimpers. She felt as if she was drowning in a large pool of grey dirty water, with the only thing she knew being her suffocation and that there was something waiting for her down below. This emotion was called despair.  

“Neither, sis I care about you. I know you shouldn't be chasing things that you can never beat, speaking these words as your big brother. Granny and I are waiting for you to come back. We know ya’ll got a vendetta for this fuck’n thing, but ya’ll be none the wiser if keep trying to stop it.”

The younger apple farmer nibblely slammed her hoofs into her larger brother’s shoulders, only getting a minor flench out of him. “HOW ABOUT YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP! APPLE BLOOM IS DEAD AND YOU’RE NOT BOTHERED BY IT?! Huh, I thought you had a fuck’en heart, but you an’t batting a single fucking eye.” she huffed with a smirk as she continued staring into the red dots,

Big Mack then swiftly turned around and bucked her in the ribs, making her fly back to the dirty tiled walls.” you think that I don’t care! A couple of minutes ago you were just blabbering on about your hidden pain, hopelessness, and fear. I’ve thought you would be reviled by my offer to head back, but instead, you just continued your suicidal quest, and also caught this bitch in the halls.” The stallion then walked back into the darkness and dragged out a limp Octavia who had her forelegs tied to her barrel with a long and thin rope.

“Mack…. that's our frien-”

“I DONT CARE! She helped in this, she an’t nothing but a rabid dog, bitting and foaming around in the dark with fear, Saw her during the war, she was nothing like this back then.”

The violinist turned slowly turned her head towards Aj, her mask was already off her face and there was clear confusion in her eyes, then there was fear. “I-I did it again..d-did I try to hurt him?? No no don't tell me I tried to, don't tell me, no no I'm sorry. Not again not-” 

Big Mack then slammed his hoofs into her back, she screamed in agonizing pain as the force of his shock through her lungs. 

“Fucking stop it, Big Mack! She dosent desver your rage!” Applejack quickly started to get onto her hooves before rushing to one of the chairs in the cafeteria before stopping as Octivia started to sniffle.

“He is right, I am cursed. Im tired of it all. Im tired of hurting ponies in my sleep. Just end my suffering here ok!” She screamed up to him with tears flowing down her eyes as she took in her self-hatred. 

Applejack then bit around the chair’s hinges and charged at her brother with a muffeled battle cry as she slammed the side of the chair into his muzzle. The larger stallion fumbled back with blood leaking out of the cloth that covered his face, before he could recover she slammed the chair into his neck, causing him to limply fall to the floor. Before AJ could prepare another swing into her brother’s face, she could hear skittering hooves rapidly approaching down the hall. The sound stopped 13 feet in front of her before a bloody crimson light of a horn glowed, revealing the python-like face of Vinyl, with her jaw unhinged with nothing but darkens in her gapping mouth.

“LEAVE MY LOVE ALONE! LEAVE MY FOOD ALONE!”








    Thorax awoke inside the darkness like everyone else, but he felt under his hooves the creaky soft surface of a mattress. As the violet glow of his spiked horn dimly illuminated the surrounding area. You could see that he was in the living quarters where all the wounded had originally rested. Dirt and grime had covered the beds with old leaves covering the floor that drifted in from the cracked window behind him. By the looks of things, he was on ground level again but forgot which side of the star he was currently located. As he slowly stepped off the bed he felt a presence of territorial hunger and heard the creaking of wood. In the darkness, four pairs of the fiery yellow eyes glared at him as they rose. The timberwolves appeared to have made this room their den. The wispy snarls echoed off the walls as they circled around the changeling. Thorax felt he understood their need to protect their plantlike cubs, but at the same time, he had places to be. As his mind focused on the energies in the area and the mathematical components as well, five metal glowing velvet disks slowly started to coalesce around him. The first timberwolf took the opening and opened its mouth as it charged at his forelegs before the sound of its wooden body splintering and cracking as the first disk glided through it. The second and the third backed up with caution as their eyes switched between the changeling and the thaumaturgical disk he weld. Thorax had a hard time maintaining and forming the disks. Their energy had to be tapped into a perfect shape as his mind kept trying to balance out the energy whilst creating new disks. He then threw the two that had already shaped into the other timberwolves as one cracked in half like the first one and the other at its backside sawed off as it tried to dodge. Thorax then turned his eyes to the last one as it stood in front of the cubs with anger and fear. Thorax disarmed the spell and walked away from the remaining timberwolf.

  But, before his hoof could press down on the lever of the door. The hoofs appeared to manifest before his bug-like eyes before slamming near said eye as he got knocked to the ground. He held the side of his face with a grunt of pain while squinting with his oily carapice lids. Out of the darkness, the scorched and twisted face of Iron Spade smiled down at Thorax with vengeful glee. 

“You know, it’s kind of disappointing that I couldn’t kill the princess of friendship but I guess I’m standing in front of a suitable replacement for my rage. And don’t worry you insect, I’m not one with that faceless bitch. I just need some alleviation, something to satisfy my anger since the pony I was targeting prevented me from getting my way. You on the other hoof, I remember from the war and ache in pain from the past. I hate your kind and I hate that we’re in the same position as fugitives. So let me put you out of your misery before I do the same to myself.” 

Before the serial killer veteran could thrust his combat knife into the Betrayer of the Hives head. The changeling tackled into his lower barrel with buzzing wings as Iron Spade’s back slammed into the wall from the momentum. Thorax smirked into the killer’s veiny red eyes. 

“You know, for a changeling-hating specieist, you are somehow my type. I remember I had a crush on my brother’s thranxs even if he wasn’t the most accepting about and was a down right asshole about it. Somehow I just happened to find stallions of a “common shittiness” attractive, but for you, you’re anger fills me with even more joy because now I can taste my own victory with your anger. As the foals of Equestria put it nowadays, seethe and cope my friend.” Thorax reared back his head before slashing down his horn into Iron Spade’s head, or at least that’s what should have happened. Instead, the changeling slammed his head into the wall as the rest of his body hit the ground. Thorax let out an agonizing groan as he felt his horn still vibrating from the thud and the dent he had placed into the wall. As Thorax continued to rub his horn, he felt the moist hot stinking breath of Iron Spade brush against his fins. 

“You forgot something bug, you ever wonder how I get around so quickly? Due to the partial infection from the silent queen. I got some of their symptoms. I can now physically become part of shadows in the darkness. Fortunately, there’s lots of darkness in this room. So, little bug, the odds are in my favor right now.” 

Thorax then whipped a spell back at Iron Spade but yet, the kinetic bolt merely glided across him before its light showed that Iron Spade was seven beds down, laying down on one them as the light disaped.

“Have your fun catching me!” 





 Fluttershy was alone like the rest. She couldn’t really tell where she was at, but when felt the walls they felt metal and bendy as she pressed her hoof down on them. As she looked in the direction of her hoof that pressed down on the wall she guessed that the part of the building she had been teleported to was very narrow, this was confirmed when she placed her other hoof on the other walls and felt the same cold bending metal. She then decided to start moving her hoof across the walls while walking forward, as she did she the tips of her hooves landed on a softer surface before landing on cold steel. This happened about 16 times before she felt her face bump into a glassy surface. She groaned wearily as she rubbed her nose as she stared into the empty blackness in front of her and then tapped on it. It sounded like very hard glass and it was cold like the rest of the room. Her hoof then glided down the glass and felt a thin piece of sealed and bent around the glass with bumps of metal bolts nailed into it. She was in front of a door, she was in front of a locked door that she only knew was there because she felt it.  She then kicked at it and felt only the hardwood vibrate from the kick. She turned around and stared back at where she first appeared. Her wings slowly flared out and as they did one of her feathers grazed against a light switch and suddenly her vision was flooded with light. She closed her eyes from the sudden burst of light and as her eyes slowly settled to the brightness she slowly opened them. Her vision was greeted with a morgue, a morgue that had been left untouched and clean for the last 10 years or so. She then turned back to the door and started out at the glass into the darkness. Even though if she was trapped she felt safe from whatever awaited her friends, But the thought of her being the only one in safety while her friends suffered made her cry. She hated the thought of her being the only one of her friends coming out of there alive. She didn’t want this, she didn't want to feel responsible for leaving her friends to die, this was going against who she was and the element she embodied. It then dawned on her that this safety wasn’t a blessing, it was an act of mockery. She cried and yelled as she scraped her hooves across the wooden surface of the doors with the fear of her friends' lives rather than her own.
> Finale part2: a city of distant memory
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight still felt the darkness and the throbbing headache spazzing through her as she waited for death to take her or, by some miracle, to live. Her eyes were clenched shut but she felt like she was being dragged through the sky, yet, there was no feeling of clouds in her mane or the rising altitude. That, or the air pressure seemed to shift abnormally from deep underwater levels of pressure to high altitude levels. The heat also seemed inconsistent, from feeling flashes of icy cold to volcanic hot and then to lukewarm. She didn’t know what was happening or where she was going, but she felt uncertainty and fear. The headache soon stopped as well as the constant shift in air pressure and temperature. She slowly opened her eyes and was greeted with a sunset. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the light of Celestia’s sun as she opened them a tiny bit and then closed them before opening them and repeating for what felt like ten minutes. Her eyes took in the steep shoreline that she stared in front of and looked down at the small hill she was lying on. Honestly, it was quite the scenic view for the suffering mare: a tall cliff that faced the ocean with a large beach of sand underneath. But Twilight wondered, where was she? And why wasn’t the sun moving down? She got back onto all fours and looked around the picturesque valley around her when her eyes stumbled upon a city she didn’t recognize. The city looked like one giant art piece. The skyscrapers weren’t like the ones in Manehattan but rather, were twisted cylinders that had their large windows spiraling upwards and other buildings looked mushroom-shaped with the domes on top being connected by garden bridges. In Twilight’s eyes, this city looked utopian but had unrecognizable architecture. The flag of it was strange, it was the head of a mare with her eyeballs falling out with two bundles of flowers growing out of her mouth.   

She then decided to step down a bit from the cliff and noticed a highway entering the city. She decided to follow it and noticed that despite it looking somewhat close to modern in its design, there were no cars on it. Instead, wagons and travelers were walking about it. It was narrow as well, not meant for the smoke-belching vehicles that the current Equestria had. It appeared that the use of concrete at this point in Pre-Equestrian history was much more different than its modern usage. While the development of motorized vehicles in Twilight’s time led to large cement paved roads, this civilization on the other hand had already had it and used it for the construction of old-fashioned roads. As Twilight continued to saunter into the atypical city she noticed how the streets reminded her of Manehattan a bit, but there was a difference. Architecturally, the buildings were not blocks nor were they triangles or any shape that would be considered flat or linear, rather, they were curved with bent twisted metal pillars holding their entrance roofs high with the rest of the building twisting up into the sky as if the builders had sloppily built upwards. The inconsistent layout plans, the metal that made up the buildings, as well as the rooms twisted around several windows that were just randomly scattered about. She could even see, on one of the windows, that the metal melted onto the glass probably due to some builders sloppy metal working. The advertisements were different as well, but she couldn’t tell if they were advertisements at all. Each of them had that same creepy head of a mare with flowers sprouting out of her eyes and mouth, the very same head that was on the flag. As she looked at both of them closely, she heard this echoing in her ear. It was a voice- but whose? 

“Praise be our martyr who has blessed our sacred dirt. May the inferior tribes be looked upon with shame. May our lady of the bloodied garden shine upon us-”

Twilight looked at the sign with a cringe as she started to realize the voice was reading the words to her. The cult-like vibes of these words were all over the same posters that littered the streets. She could tell this because every time she would flick her eyes to a different one the same voice repeated it back to her. Then she noticed a different one next to the ones previously read. It had a black background like the other ones but this time it illustrated one of the main buildings she had seen. 

“The Tower of Our Blessed Lady stands tall amongst our city, blessed is her skull amongst the many tapestries of our kin. For many of our kind that thrive in this city offer tribute to the Lady of the Flowers. Henceforth we name our city after this blessed tower. Thus this city is known as Babel.” 

Twilight’s eyes slowly focused back onto the tower with awe. She could now start to hear the haunting melody of an organ playing at the very top of the tower. The choir of speaking an incomprehensible language joined with the haunting symphony. The sound of the organ’s notes was long and dragged out and so were the vocals of the ponies that sang from high above on the tower. 

As she continued to listen with strange wonderment her scenery changed. She was now looking up at the clouds and the music was now coming behind her. Her head slowly turned back to see a temple with a giant ornate golden pedestal sitting in the middle. Around the temple laid murals depicting the horrors of tribal warfare and cannibalism. As she continued looking at them she started to realize the murals must have been portraying the so-called inferior tribes in a negative light. The others seemed to focus on the familiar-looking mare picking up flowers into a small basket, it was the same mare on the flag but alive and well. Each mural of the mare depicted her with innocence, ritualistic piety, and serenity. The final ones depicted her death on a battlefield with flowers subtly growing out of her eyes. The soldiers surrounding her were all consumed by unnatural roots that jumped out of the earth and ate and tore at their limbs. The very last one showed her first followers offering the so-called enemy her head and slitting their throats with mournful tears in their eyes. When Twilight’s eyes focused back on the shrine she noticed the same offerings repeated. The blood of the recently captured was being mopped up by a stallion in priestly robes as pilgrims muttered mournful prayers to the skull. The horrified eyes of the captured stared back into Twilight’s. There was a form of fear that Twilight felt as she stared into those eyes. She saw confusion, fear, and hopelessness in the dead filly's eyes. They killed her without remorse, they killed her because of the blind hate that consumed their mind.

She turned away from the sacrifice to look back at the city but noticed she wasn't entirely alone. There was a mare with a long braided mane and moss-green coat, She had a plain business suit on and was looking at what Twilight assumed was a list of pilgrims who were visiting.  She looked unremarkable yet Twilight felt as if there was something familiar about her, the only thing Twilight could note about her was that she was quite a tall mare.

As she and the mare stared into the sunset s sudden flash of green, purple, blue, and yellow filled the sky. As Twilight slowly opened her eyes again she heard Luna's archaic accent whisper out a single thing, Aurora Borealis. That was what was indeed happening in the sky, Twilight hadn't seen one before-hoof but now she was. The lights danced around the city and seemed to swirl around the city. They looked as if they were right above the towers and almost looked like they were going to brush against the skyscraper’s metal surface. 

Twilight Then saw in the center of the lights a glowing orb. As she continued to look at the orb she realized there was an alicorn inside of it. The alicorn then flew down and the lights followed with her. As the lights followed the mysterious alicorn skyscrapers got chewed up as the lights consumed them, Twilight could see the steel being melted off the buildings and could hear screams echoing from the other strange buildings. The prayers behind her soon turned more desperate as the lights swept closer. The mare in a business suit was now sobbing as the glowing alicorn bolted towards them. Twilight now saw the alicorn’s face, its hair was web gray and its eyes were sunken to the point where Twilight could only see the pupils.

The lights enveloped The tower and Twilight with the rest of the long-since-dead ponies. Pain beyond her imagination screamed through her body as she felt the light burning her body away. She couldn't scream, she couldn't cry, all she could do was stare into the lights.

Then the pain stopped, she was in darkness yet again. She felt like there was nothing beneath her hooves yet she was still standing. Far in front of her was the same mare in the business suit, wearing the skull that was in the shrine. Twilight ran towards the stranger with tears running down her face as other strangers walked out of the darkness. She didn't know why but she kneeled before the stranger as she sobbed. The screams of the others, the ponies of the city filled the void as she continued to cry. There was a ringing in her eyes and a headache in her horn as the stranger approached closer. The screams and cries then suddenly sounded like they had moved in front of her before it was quiet again. 

She looked back up at the Tallmare as its lack of face looked down at her with what she guessed was pity. She let out a horse laugh as she shakily lifted herself and slammed her hoof into the entity's barrel. “just..Fucking..Give me Spike back! Just…give him back you stupid dead city!”