It was a peaceful day in Ponyville, just like most days in the quiet town. The afternoon sun filtered through the light cloud cover the pegasi had arranged, and a gentle breeze stirred leaves and manes alike. It was the perfect day to take a book to the park and relax, letting the world turn under you as the sun crept across the sky.

        Of course, it was a bit difficult for anypony to get a good book on this particular afternoon, because the only library in town was stubbornly closed.

        If a curious pony had approached the building and ignored the "Closed" sign to press their ear against the door, they may have heard hoofbeats echoing through the library. However, no one stopped to listen, so Twilight's nervous pacing went unnoticed by everyone except Spike.

        "Really Twilight, is it thatbig of a deal? It's just one book!" His eyes tracked Twilight as she trotted in circles around the room. "You're going to work yourself into even more of a frenzy if you keep pacing like that!"

        "Just one book?! Spike, you don't understand!" Twilight stopped her nervous canter to stare intently at the dragon. "It's not just any book! If I can't find my copy of Advanced Analytical Alchemy as Applied to Aerospatial Alteration, I might as well just give up on magic-based weather control completely! I need that book!"

        "I lost you somewhere around the "A" sound..." mumbled Spike. "Why are you so set on sculpting clouds with magic? The pegasi do a pretty good job of keeping the weather together, you know."

        "That's not the point!" Twilight yelled. "I want to learn how to do it for the sake of knowing how to do it, and that book is the definitive guide! Maybe I misfiled it? N's can look similar to A's in certain fonts..." She dashed over to one of the shelves, and began pulling book after book from their place. "No, no, no! It's not here! It's not anywhere!" Carelessly, she tossed the books behind her, where they began to pile against the door. The shelf quickly emptied under her frenzied search, forcing Twilight to stop.

        Spike popped up from where he had been taking cover from the rain of books and examined the haphazard piles. "Seriously Twi, it's just a book," Spike said. "We can probably request it from the Canterlot library if you want it so badly, but stop freaking out over it! You're making a mess, and I know you're going to make me clean it up!"

        For the first time, Twilight stopped to take a breath. She glanced sheepishly around her at the disheveled library. "Oops, I guess I did get a little carried away."

        "A little?" Spike said. He rolled his eyes at her and walked over to the nearest pile of books to begin replacing them. "Let's see, this one should be in the R's..."

        Twilight made to help him, but her hoof caught on a book in her path and she tripped. Her legs tangled and she slammed into the shelf next to her, rocking it and sending a thick volume crashing to the ground.

        Spike heard the crash and turned around. "You okay?"

        It took a second to untangle herself, but once she stood upright again, the purple unicorn nodded. "Yep, just fine," Twilight said, then did a double take at the book that had tripped her. "Hey, wait a minute! This is the book I was looking for! How did it get mixed up with the mysteries?"

        Twilight turned to pick up the fallen book with her magic, but as the familiar purple glow surrounded the volume, something went wrong. Instead of easily lifting the book, she had to fight to move it even a few inches, as if the book was much heavier than it looked. Blinking, she released the spell and paused a moment to collect her thoughts.

        Magic was a fickle thing. Some spells became ingrained in the equivalent of muscle memory, requiring as little thought to cast as lifting a hoof. Others needed more concentration to perform, but a simple levitation spell was not one of them. Twilight turned her whole attention to the book as she attempted to lift it once more. Again, it was a struggle to raise it more than a short distance. It was an ordinary book, but to Twilight, it felt as if the whole Apple family was sitting on it.

        With a burst of effort, she finally drew the book to eye level, but began to lose her grip on it as the magic melted away.

        Quite literally melted away. The purple light dripped away from the floating book like icing from one of Pinkie's treats on a hot day. The drops of molten magic hit the floor with a spark and faded, and the book dropped after them with a resounding thunk.

        Spike's mouth dropped open as he watched. "That's not supposed to happen."

        "Oh, you think?" Curious, Twilight picked the book up with her mouth. It weighed just as little as she expected. Why, then, couldn’t her spell pick it up?

        Twilight couldn't ponder her magic's failure for long, though. A piercing wail came from outside. Seconds later, Rarity burst through the library door, knocking aside the barricading piles of books, and tumbled to Twilight's feet.

        "TWILIIIIIIGHT!" She cried, staring up at her dumbfounded friend, tears threatening to leak from her eyes. "THE MOST HORRIBLE THING HAS HAPPENED!"

        "I doubt it's the most horrible thing," Twilight muttered as she helped Rarity to stand up. "What's going on?" She asked out loud. "Did you lose some ribbon again?"

        "No! You see, I was working on a new design for a Canterlot fashion show, and..." Rarity sniffled. "I don't even know what happened, but it's RUINED!" She burst out crying.

        "Did you, um, use the wrong kind of lace?" Spike asked awkwardly, handing her a tissue.

        "Oh, don't even joke about that kind of thing!" Rarity snapped. "Choice of lace can make or break an outfit! But no, my failure has nothing to do with lace!"

        "Then what happened? And why did you come to me?" Twilight said impatiently.

        "I was cutting out my pattern from the most expensive silk I have, and in the middle of the line, my magic failed, and I... The scissors... THEY CUT IT ALL IN HALF!"

        Twilight, who had been disinterested in Rarity's fashion problems, suddenly snapped to attention. "Your magic failed?"

        "Did it melt away from what you were holding?" Spike asked.

        "Yes, but how could you know that, dear?"

        "The same thing just happened to me," Twilight said. "Two unicorn's magic failing at about the same time... What could cause that?" She began to pace. "It can't be environmental factors. You were across town when it happened, so it's probably not isolated to a single location. Something we ate?" She stopped in front of Rarity and asked, "Did you try Pinkie's new cupcake recipe too?"

        Rarity snorted. "No, it looked far too sweet for me, and I've been watching my figure. Besides, don't you think a sugar rush would heighten magic, not dampen it?"

        "Well, it could be--" Twilight's pondering was cut off by a chorus of terrified screams and crashes from outside.

        "What the heck was that?" Spike’s words fell on thin air, as the two unicorns had already galloped out the door. By the time his short legs let him catch up with the ponies, whatever had happened outside was over.

        The area outside the library was completely wrecked. Flower beds had been torn apart and fences were snapped like twigs. A few buildings had holes in the walls or broken windows, and even the ground was torn up. More alarming were the half dozen ponies laying on the ground, bruised and moaning. It looked like a rampaging dragon had come through town.

        In the midst of the damage, Twilight and Rarity were attempting to help a mare with a broken foreleg.

        "It was horrible!" The injured pony wailed.

        "Hush dear," Rarity said, "you need to stay calm and still until a doctor gets here."

        "What happened to you?" asked Spike, running up.

        Twilight glared at him for riling the mare up when they were trying to keep her calm, but the mare answered anyway. "I was just doing my shopping and those horrible things just appeared out of nowhere! One second there was nothing, then that huge shadow just started tearing everything apart!

        "I tried to run but it knocked me over here. I thought it was going to crush me like it did everything else, but before it could hit me again, it just vanished! Like it was never there!" The mare closed her eyes and shivered.

        Spike wanted to ask more questions, but Nurse Redheart trotted up and shooed the three of them away while she began attending to the broken leg. Feeling useless, the trio split up to find more information and render aid where possible.

        The rest of the ponies in the area had similar stories to tell: amorphous, shadowy creatures had blinked into existence, trashed the place without caring if innocent ponies were in their way, and vanished just as suddenly.

        “This can’t be a coincidence!” Twilight said as the last injured pony was carted off to the hospital. “Ponyville being attacked right after our magic failed! There has to be a connection!”

        “Yeah, but what is it?” Spike asked from his nearby perch on a fallen fence post. “These things were beating everybody up. That doesn’t seem very magical to me.”

        “What in tarnation happened here?” A new voice chimed in. Applejack trotted up to where Twilight and Spike were taking a break amongst the rubble. She craned her neck back and forth, awestruck by the damage. “I heard the ruckus all the way from the orchard. Did we get another stampede coming through or something?”

        Rarity shook her head and told Applejack what they had heard from the ponies on the scene.

        “Shoot, if I had been here when those shadows started raising a fuss, I would have bucked ‘em clear to Fillydelphia!” Applejack stomped a hoof to make her point.

        “I don’t think that would have helped,” Rarity said. She picked her way through the mess, carefully avoiding debris and dust. “Apparently, Caramel tried to kick one of those brutes, but it didn’t even notice him, much less slow down!” Her hoof dropped onto a chunk of splintered wood, and she recoiled. “Oh, it’s going to take forever to clean up after those things without magic!”

        “Whaddya mean ‘without magic’?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re a unicorn, can’t you just float some of this junk out of the way?”

        “I don’t think so,” Twilight said. “Just before those creatures attacked, both Rarity’s magic and mine stopped working. I can’t even pick up a book right now.”

        “Hey, if the creatures really were what was stopping your magic, do you think it would work now that they’re gone?” Spike asked.

        Rarity blinked, and her face spread into a grin. “Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out!” She focused her attention on a nearby chunk of brick, presumably from a hole in somepony’s house. A few seconds of concentration later, the brick was glowing and floating in the middle of the group, but her narrowed eyes and gritted teeth betrayed the effort it took. A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face as she struggled to hold it up. With a sigh, she released the spell, and the brick dropped exactly the way you’d expect a brick to drop. 

        Rarity took a moment to catch her breath, before saying, “That’s still a lot harder than it should be, but at least I dropped it by choice.”

“There’s only a few things that can affect a unicorn’s ability to perform magic,” Twilight said. “Shadow creatures popping out of nothing is not a cause I’ve ever heard of before. I wonder if Princess Celestia would know what’s going on.”

        “Maybe. Let’s go back to the library and I’ll send her a letter.” Spike said.

The ponies nodded their agreement, and the group walked back to the library, the one building in the area that had remained relatively undamaged.

        When the short letter describing the situation and requesting information was finished, Spike took a deep breath and exhaled a burst of green flame to send it. The fire enveloped the scroll as usual, but instead of vanishing the paper and whisking it away to the princess, it began to burn. Spike yelped, dropped it, and began stomping on it in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

        When the fire was out, the dragon looked up to see his friends staring inquiringly at him. "Uh, sorry about that," he said, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

        "Don't worry about it, Sugarcube," Applejack said. "Everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

        "Hey! I did not make a mistake!" Spike insisted. "I haven't accidentally burned up a letter since I was a baby!"

        "Technically, you're still a baby," Rarity said.

        "Details, details." He grabbed another roll of parchment and quickly rewrote the letter. Before he could send it, he noticed that Applejack had procured a bucket of water from somewhere. "Oh ye of little faith," Spike said. He carefully breathed fire onto the new letter. It too went up in ordinary, non-messenger flame, singing his hand.

        Applejack quickly tossed the bucket of water over him. A dripping Spike glared at the ashes of the letter, sucking his burnt fingers.

        Twilight floated a towel over to Spike, sweating a bit from the effort of levitating even the light fabric. "So, it's not just unicorn magic that's being affected," she said. "Spike's is too."

        "We can't contact the princess, so now what do we do?"

        "Don't be ridiculous, Spike." Rarity admonished. "Letters aren't the only way to get a message to Canterlot. Why don't we just ask Rainbow Dash to fly out there and tell her? She's the fastest flier around, surely she's the second best choice."

        “I’ll go get her, then!” Spike said firmly. “If I can’t send the message myself, I should at least send it off!”

        “Rainbow, hey, Rainbow Dash!” Spike called at the sky. He could see a streak of multicolored mane hanging off of a nearby cloud, and a gentle snore could be heard if he strained his ears. “Could she have slept through everything?” He wondered aloud. “RAINBOW DASH, WAKE UP!”

        Rainbow poked her head over the edge of the cloud and blinked sleepily. “What do you want? I’m napping he--” Her voice trailed off as she saw the damage to Ponyville. “Woah. What the hay happened to the town?!”

        “She really was asleep...” Spike mumbled in disbelief. “We need you to fly a message to Canterlot!” He called as Rainbow Dash flew to the ground.

        “Why can’t you just flame it over there?” Rainbow asked. “And what happened?”

        Spike briefly explained the creature’s attack, the failure of unicorn magic, and (reluctantly) his own inability to send a message.

        “I’m on it! I’ll get to Canterlot in a flash!” Rainbow said. “If anyone can help, it’s gotta be the princess!”

        “Be careful!” Spike called.

        “Will do, Spike!” Rainbow leapt into the air and sped off in a rush of wind.

        “Rainbow, wait!” The little dragon yelled, chasing after her. “Canterlot is the other way!”        

        With Rainbow dispatched to Canterlot, all the remaining ponies could do was help with the cleanup from the attack. Unicorn magic was still incredibly weakened, so Twilight and Rarity found themselves helping out in the Earth pony fashion, pulling carts full of debris or making repairs by hoof and hammer. Spike elected to stay behind at the library, ostensibly looking for information on the creatures and not because Pinkie Pie had happened to comment on his “stubbly little arms”.

        Speaking of Pinkie Pie, the normally bubbly and happy pony was remarkably sobered by the damage to the town. “I just can’t believe someone would be so mean to do this!” She had said. “Hurting so many ponies and wrecking everything! What kind of a nasty monster does that?” Rather than bouncing everywhere, she had put on her “serious face” and was doing her best to help. All of the energy usually reserved for her antics went into moving heavy debris. Her presence was speeding the process remarkably.

        “Whoo, that Pinkie Pie sure can get things done if she puts her mind to it!” Applejack commented while catching her breath, watching Pinkie and a team of colts shove a chunk of broken wall out of the road. “I guess all of that sugar is good for something after all!”

        Pinkie overheard Applejack’s comment and grinned tiredly at her friend, before focusing her attention back to her work.

        Applejack decided she’d had enough of a break, and began looking around to see where she could be of the most use next. As she cast her vision around the street, her line of sight suddenly blacked out. She blinked, wondering if some dust had gotten in her eye, but the street stubbornly refused to reappear. Then, the darkness that had blocked her sight shifted slightly, and Applejack became aware that ponies all around her were running and screaming.

        The monstrous, four-legged creature in front of her was at least twice as tall as Big Macintosh, and incredibly wide. Its roundish outline was blurred, as if it was viewed through crossed eyes, and its form was subtly shifting, so that from one moment to the next, what appeared to be a mouth would morph into something resembling an ear, or the next second, a sharp claw. Its skin, or coat, or whatever it was covered in, was pitch black and reflected no light, making it appear to be a giant, three-dimensional silhouette.

        The large leg moving in her direction reminded Applejack that this thing was alive and quite nasty. She jumped to the side as the creature stepped where she was moments before. A thick tail she hadn’t noticed before swept from side to side behind it, tearing a great gash in the street and knocking a fence aside like toothpicks.

        “Hey, you great big varmint! I helped put up that fence!” Applejack yelled. The creature did not acknowledge her. “Ay, I’m talkin’ here!”

Furious, Applejack began to chase the monster down the street. She thanked all of her rodeo training as she jumped, ducked, and dodged around its sweeping tail. A burst of speed allowed her to get close enough to its legs to kick. A quick motion shifted her weight onto her front hooves, and Applejack swiveled around to deliver a strong buck to the back of the creature’s knee.

        Her hooves didn’t make contact, though, and Applejack flailed for a moment, regaining her balance. “Oh come on!” she mumbled, and galloped back into position to try again. Figuring that the creature’s featureless form could make it difficult to gauge distance, she risked getting even closer to the creature’s knee before trying again. This time, she was able to watch as her hooves made contact with its skin, then passed through as if it wasn’t even there! Her legs vanished into the blackness for a second, then reappeared as she regained her balance. The creature was still making its way down the street, not causing much damage because it was in the middle of the road, but still being a dangerous nuisance.

        “Oh, horseapples,” Applejack muttered as the creature’s tail shattered the front porch of a home. “How come I can’t buck it but it can buck up everything else?” Shaking her head, she continued to follow the creature, trying desperately to think of a way to stop it.

        Meanwhile, a few streets over, Twilight and Rarity were having creature problems of their own. The monster they were facing was smaller, but more agile, and it was hopping around like one of Fluttershy’s rabbits, crushing anything in its path.

        The unicorns winced as a chimney collapsed under the creature’s weight. “We’ve got to stop it before it lands on somepony!” Twilight yelled over the crashes.

        “I know!” Rarity called back. “I’m trying to find something to throw at it! It’s rather unladylike, but what choice do we have?”

        A paving stone, dislodged by the first attack, caught Rarity’s eye. “Ooh, this would make a delightful frisbee!” She attempted to pick it up, but her magic fizzled, dripping from her horn onto her face instead of coalescing around the stone. Blinking sparks from her eyes, she stopped the spell and turned to see if Twilight was having more luck.

        “Rarity! Look out!” Twilight yelled. She was running directly at Rarity, and tackled her out of the way as the bouncing creature crashed to the ground nearby. When the creature bounced in a different direction, she stood up and asked, “Are you okay?”

        Rarity nodded. “I take it your magic didn’t work either?”

        “Nope. It looks like we’ll have to try this the earth pony way!” Before Twilight could channel her inner applebucker, though, an eerie silence fell. The crashes and thumps of the bouncing monster could no longer be heard.

        “What in Celestia’s name...” Rarity whispered. Twilight turned to see what she was staring at, and saw nothing.

        The creature had vanished.

        “It was like that mare said, it just vanished in the blink of an eye. I was staring right at it, but after a second it wasn’t there anymore!” Rarity blinked a few times and shook her head. “What on earth were those?”

        “I don’t know, but at least they’re gone.”

        “Yes, but for how long?”

The original attack now looked like petty vandalism in comparison to the town’s current state. Before, a few holes had been knocked into walls or windows broken. It was nothing that couldn’t be fixed in an afternoon or two, if enough ponies helped. Now, though, entire buildings had collapsed under the creatures’ onslaught, and wisps of acrid smoke from an unseen fire stung everypony’s noses. Certain roads were nearly impassible due to either damage or debris, and the terrified screams had faded into sobs and moans.

Here and there, a footprint as large as a filly left a reminder of the creatures that had wreaked such havoc on the peaceful town.

If there was one thing Rainbow Dash loved more than a good nap, it was a good flight. After Spike got her pointed in the right direction (in her defense, she had just woken up), Rainbow was able to relax into the familiar rhythm of a speedy flight. The wind rushing past her face as she sped towards Canterlot whipped the last traces of sleep from her mind. Despite the urgency of the message, she found herself enjoying the sheer adrenaline of going as fast as she could.

        Slipping into a glide to duck under a cloud bank, Rainbow considered the situation in Ponyville. She desperately wanted to stay behind and help fight off those monsters if they returned. On the other hoof, how much could one more pony, even one as awesome as herself, help against the creatures Spike described? If it had to be one pony, it may as well be the princess. All the sonic rainbooms in the world could never compete with someone who could raise the sun!

        Rainbow was so distracted imagining the princess laying a royal solar smackdown on the monsters that she failed to notice what looked like a large thunderhead had appeared, far too close to the ground to be an ordinary cloud. With a solid thunk, she ran into the side of it and tumbled backwards, falling a bit before she could catch herself.

        “Ow! Since when are thunderclouds solid?” Rainbow cautiously flapped closer to the cloud, only to discover that the big lump of blurry shadow in front of her was not, in fact, a cloud, but one of the monsters that had attacked Ponyville. Suddenly, she was regretting her desire to fight off one of the monsters.

        Before Rainbow could move, the monster swung a thick arm at her and knocked her aside. She lost control of her wings and dropped to the ground, the impact knocking the breath from her with a woosh.

        Gasping for air, Rainbow watched helplessly as the monster raised one of its wide feet, taking a step that would end directly on her. She tried to scramble to her feet and get out of the way, but she still couldn’t breathe properly and the world began spinning around her. The foot lowered, and Rainbow closed her eyes, bracing for what she couldn’t prevent.

        The foot never dropped. A garbled shout echoed over the plain, and an earsplitting crack followed it. Rainbow laid there for a minute, waiting and shivering, before she cracked open an eye. The monster wasn’t there any more. In its place stood another pony. The pony grinned at Rainbow Dash’s astonished expression, and said, “Welp, that was close, huh?”

         Hours later, Ponyville had switched from cleanup efforts to defense. Everypony was bracing for the next attack.

        Some confident colts were trying to rally offensive forces to combat the creatures, but Applejack quickly caught wind of their plans and told them how she couldn't even touch the creature she had been fighting. They were reluctant to abandon their heroic dreams, but her stubborn insistence convinced them to help with defense instead.

        No one was quite sure how to defend the town when the threat had appeared twice in the middle of ordinary streets. Putting a wall around the town was one thing, but how do you defend against something that can appear anywhere, any time? The mayor decided the best plan was reinforcing the remaining, undamaged buildings in an effort to protect the children, elderly, and those injured in the attacks.

        As workers nailed boards to the walls and shored up the roof of the hospital, Pinkie Pie did her best to keep the patients' minds off of the situation. A crisp bandage was wrapped around her forehead because a chunk of roof had fallen on her earlier, knocking her out for a second. She insisted that she was fine after the doctor had stopped the bleeding and bandaged her up, but he wouldn't let her go back outside to help with heavy lifting after a head injury. After several minutes of silly faces and nervous jokes, he allowed her to help with basic first aid, if only to keep her from (quite literally) bouncing off the walls.

        Pinkie smiled at the yellow filly whose shoulder she was bandaging. A small chip of stone had cut the youngster, and while the injury wasn’t serious, the small pony still looked ready to start crying.

        “Don’t worry, Sugar Song,” Pinkie said, “you’ll be up and around in no time! I Pinkie swear!”

        Sugar Song sniffled. “What if those scary monsters come back?”

        “No fear! Auntie Pinkie will protect you! D’you know, monsters are no match for laughter!” Pinkie crossed her eyes and twisted her mouth into a goofy grin. “And who’s better at laughs than me?”

        Sugar Song giggled, and Pinkie finished tying the bandage. “There you go, good as new! Now we match! We’re the Bandage Brigade!” Pinkie continued to babble, as much to keep the filly’s spirits up as her own. It was better than wondering what would happen next.

        In the library, hoofbeats echoed once more, but they were considerably more urgent than those of a frazzled scholar seeking an elusive volume. Twilight bustled from shelf to shelf, frantically searching for clues as to what the monsters were.

        “Twilight, I already searched that section earlier!” Spike called across the room as he climbed a ladder to a different set of shelves.

        “But what if we missed something?” Twilight paused to tug a book from the top shelf with magic, breathing hard from the effort. “Remember where Advanced Analytical Alchemy was? What if some Curious Compendium of Creatures got mixed up in the gardening stuff? We can’t leave any stone, or page, unturned!”

        Spike watched Twilight struggle to catch her breath from even the simple spell. “Twilight, why don’t you let me handle the top shelves?” He asked. “Your magic isn’t back yet, and you’re just wearing yourself out yanking random books out.”

        “You’re right, Spike... Maybe I should take a quick break.” Twilight said. She sank to the ground, still panting, and nosed open the book she had grabbed. It was an ordinary, dry history book, but Twilight found comfort in simply having an open book in front of her.

Twilight loved the written word. She loved the intricacies of language, and how an author's choice of words formed hidden shades of meaning in one passage or another. Words could be sharp and cut into your heart, leaving you sobbing at the end of an emotional novel. Words could be gentle and soothe the soul. Some words could change the way you viewed the world, either by teaching you something new or simply giving you an insight into someone else's perspective. Sometimes, words were just words, but the act of reading them could calm Twilight's mind when she started to overthink the world.

        The words in the innocuous history book did none of these things.

        A lifetime of reading did nothing to prepare Twilight for a day when the words on the page became illegible.

        The words were there, true, but the combinations of letters made no sense to Twilight. If she concentrated, she could follow small sections by focusing on one word, or even one letter at a time, but when her gaze wandered the pages as a whole, the text turned to gibberish.

        “Spike?” She called shakily. When she had the dragon’s attention, she said, “Can you read what’s in this book?”

        Spike gave her an odd look, but climbed down to peer over her shoulder at the pages. His eyes widened. “That’s new!” He exclaimed. “Woah, this looks kind of like if I try to read in a dream or something.” He experimentally pinched his arm a few times. “Nope, as far as I can tell, I’m awake.”

        Twilight and Spike blinked. The writing had snapped back to normal, thankfully, but now something new was laying on the open book. “Where did that come from?” Twilight asked. “That wasn’t there a second ago.”

        Spike craned his neck to look at the ceiling. “Is it raining compasses now? Maybe we could throw them at the monsters if they come back!"

        Twilight, who had been peering closely at the object, frowned. “What are you talking about? What compass? All I see is an empty jar.”

        “You’re kidding me, right? That compass, there on the book!” Spike pointed at it.

        “Spike, there’s nothing on this book but words and a glass jar! See, the bottom is magnifying the text right there! How can you not see it?”

        “Twilight, do you need glasses?” Spike threw his hands up in frustration. “That. Is. A. Compass.”

        “Your friend sees a compass, and you a jar, yet you are both blind to a friend from afar.” A new voice said.

        “Zecora!” Twilight and Spike exclaimed.

        “What are you doing here?” Spike asked.

        “That question also had occurred to me, when I found myself here and not in Everfree,” she replied.

        “Sorry, what?” Twilight said, pushing the book and compass/jar off to the side.

        “I found myself here in the blink of an eye, when I did not walk, run, or even fly. It seems you have some trouble in town, is that why I see on your faces a frown?”

        “You could call it trouble,” Twilight said. “Some kind of shadow creatures popped out of nothing and started destroying everything. Magic doesn’t work around them, and now I don’t know if I can open a book and read it, or even tell if it’s me or Spike who’s crazy about that jar!” She hung her head. “I don’t like not knowing anything, but I don’t know what to do or what’s going on.”

        “Attacking monsters that appear from thin air, and other mind problems make you despair.” Zecora thought for a moment. “To me it seems there may be ahole, through dimensions these problems roll.”

        “Through dimensions? What does that mean?” Spike asked.

        “You know, that makes a strange amount of sense...” Twilight muttered. “If something is traveling through the sixth dimension...” She glanced around the messy library, then trotted to a nearby stack of books. “Where is it? I know my copy of Dimensionality for Dunces is around here somewhere... AHA!” She pushed aside a few volumes in the pile and retrieved the book she was looking for. Returning to her friends, she nosed it open and began scanning for the page she wanted. “There was a great explanation of the different dimensions somewhere in here, if I can just find it, maybe we can make some sense of things...” She trailed off and read the book for a few minutes while Spike and Zecora waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts. Finally, she found the chapter she was looking for.

“We’re used to thinking in three dimensions. You know, length, width, and height. You can think of time as the fourth dimension, duration. If we could see our lives completely in the fourth dimension, each of us would probably look like some kind of snake that winds everywhere we’ve ever been. But, we only see three-dimensional cross-sections of that fourth-dimensional life.

        “If you think of the fourth dimension like that, it’s easy to imagine a fifth dimension that contains not only our current lives, but every possible path we could take. Like if you come across a fork in the road, you have to choose which direction to go, but in the fifth dimension you went both left and right. If you could get to the sixth dimension, you might be able to travel from a world you went left to a world you went right. And the seventh dimension is where things really get interesting and complicated...”

        Spike, whose eyes had glazed over somewhere around the fourth dimension, stopped Twilight. “All this dimensional stuff gives me a headache. All that means what exactly?”

        “Creatures from another world, into your town have been hurled.” Zecora said.

        “What, like aliens?”

        “Not exactly, Spike. More like residents of a parallel universe,” Twilight explained. “If that universe is far enough away from our own, it could even have different laws of physics, which could explain why magic doesn’t work around things from that universe. Maybe magic works a lot differently for them. Still, why would alternate-reality creatures attack us?”

        “And why can’t we hit them back? You heard what Applejack said, she couldn’t touch them!” Spike said.

        “Perhaps they did not all come through,” Zecora said. “Just a part playing peek-a-boo.”

        “If they’re only partially crossing dimensions, that could explain why we just pass through them! And maybe they don’t even know they’re causing damage here, if they think they’re still at home!” Twilight exclaimed. “If we can figure out a way to communicate with them, maybe we can stop them from wrecking Ponyville!”

        “The forest is where the epicenter lies, to waste time here would be unwise. Find your friends of purple, pink, and orange--”

        While Zecora was speaking, a large, heavy door hinge crossed the dimensional plane and popped into existence just above her. It was apparently not from a dimension where door hinges float, and it quickly dropped onto Zecora’s head and prevented her from finishing her sentence.

        The timing of the dimensional event made Twilight and Spike stop and exchange a bemused look, before they dashed to Zecora’s side to make sure she was okay. Spike ran outside to find Applejack and enlist her help in carrying the dazed zebra to the hospital, where the doctor pronounced her to be alright.

        “You’re just fine, Miss Zecora,” the doctor said. “Zebras seem to have pretty hard heads. I’d like you to rest at home for a while, but you should be just fine in a few days.”

        “Gosh Zecora, now our heads match!” Pinkie said brightly. She leaned her forehead in close to Zecora’s so everyone could see their matched bandages.

        “Thank you doctor, for fixing my head, but today I will not stay in bed.” She smiled at the doctor. “When there’s trouble, how can I rest? I’ll stay where I can help best.”

“Er, on second thought, maybe you should stay here for observation.” The doctor mumbled. He backed out of the room mumbling something about getting a cranial scan. Everypony chuckled at his reaction to their rhyming friend.

        “Zecora, darling, are you alright? I rushed right here when I heard you were in the hospital!” Rarity entered the room, concern etched into her face. “What happened? Did one of those awful creatures get you?”

        “No, my injury is quite mundane, though the doctor worries about my brain.” Zecora replied. “Truthfully, it could have been much worse. I was only struck by something from another universe.”

“‘Only?’” Rarity choked on the word. “Zecora, that is far from mundane! How on earth did that happen?”

        “The same way those monsters got here,” Spike said. “I still don’t really get it, but apparently they’re from some other world.”

        “And since magic works differently in that other world, when they come into ours, some kind of anti-magic bleeds through,” Twilight said. “That’s why our spells keep failing.”

        “Knowing where these things are from doesn’t get us much closer to stopping them,” Applejack said.

        Zecora spoke up. “Applejack, that’s not quite true. Everfree forest is where the hole poked through.”

        “So, we’ve got to find this dimensional hole-thingy in everfree to stop these things? Sounds like a plan to me!” Pinkie said.

Spike asked, “What does a dimensional hole even look like?” Twilight began to explain something about space folding, and Spike groaned and cut her off. “Nope, too complicated. My head is hurting again, and I wasn’t even the one who got bonked!”

        “I see you’re still confused, Spike. I’ll explain dimensions, if you’d like.” Zecora said. “But while we talk, the others must go. If it’s not stopped, the hole will grow.”

        Twilight looked inquiringly at Spike. He sighed and waved dismissively at the ponies. “Yeah, go take care of this dimensional thing. Maybe I’ll actually know what you’re talking about by the time you get back.”

Under the leafy canopy of the Everfree trees, the small group picked their way towards the center of the forest. The late afternoon sun poked through the leaves here and there, lighting their path but casting other parts of the forest into shadows. The whole area was eerily silent.

        “I’ve never heard the forest this silent,” Rarity whispered. “Usually, something’s howling and raising a fuss. There aren’t even any birds chirping today. I rather regret occasionally complaining about the noise.”

        “Welp, I take it that means we’re on the right track.” Applejack replied, equally quietly. “It’s a bit spooky, but at least it clues us in that there’s something not right here.”

        Twilight said nothing, but every so often she attempted to focus some magic through her horn to light their way. As they traveled through the forest, the sporadic glows grew fainter, indicating they were getting closer. A few times, the vague path led them away from their goal, but they quickly learned to use the fading magic as a guide. Her horn sputtered and faded, until finally Twilight couldn’t call her power up any more.

        “We must be close to the dimensional rift,” she said. “If something comes out here, all we have is our hooves.”

        “Nothing wrong with that!” Applejack said.

        “Are you okay, Pinkie Pie?” Rarity turned to look at the pink pony following her. “You’ve been oddly quiet since we got into the forest.”

        A small shudder ran through Pinkie’s body and she halted. The rest of the group stopped too, confused.

        “Is your Pinkie sense a-twitchin’?” Applejack asked.

        “No, it’s not that.” Pinkie said in a small voice. “I’m just... Really, really scared.”

        “We all are, Pinkie,” Twilight said, “but if we’re going to protect Ponyville, we have to work through that fear and stop this at the source.”

        The normally optimistic Pinkie said something that shocked them all. “But, what if we can’t?”

        “We will, Pinkie, we always save the day!” Applejack said. “What’s all this about?”

        Pinkie looked at her hooves and pawed the ground a bit. “It’s just, earlier in town, no one could do anything about those monsters, and they hurt so many ponies. Applejack couldn’t buck them, magic didn’t work, and even giggling at the ghosties just got me conked on the head by a brick!” She sighed. “If we do find this dimensional whatsit, will we be able to do anything about it?”

        “Well, I can’t answer that question,” Rarity said, “but I do know this: We certainly won’t be able to do anything if we don’t try!”

        “I guess...” Pinkie sniffed, and seemed to pull herself together a little. “At least I’ve got my friends with me!”

“That’s the spirit! Come on y’all, I see a clearing up ahead!” Applejack took the lead, and the ponies came out into a small space free of trees. “This looks like a prime spot to take a breather. We’ve been walking a while, let’s catch our breath before we go on.” Her friends chorused their agreement, and Rarity sank down to rest.

She didn’t have much time to breathe, though, because deep in the Everfree forest, something shifted.

The space in the middle of the small clearing began to bend and warp, making the trees behind it twist into odd shapes. A deep rumble shuddered through the ground and the pony's legs, rattling their bones.

        "I'm no expert, but I'd say something big is coming!" Applejack yelled over the rumble.

        "Get to the treeline! Take cover!" Twilight said as she struggled to keep her balance.

        Seconds after they vacated the clearing, something snapped. It wasn't a sound, or anything that could be identified with the five senses, but merely a feeling, deep in their bones. Before any of them could process what had happened, the rumbling stopped, and a huge monster stood in the clearing.

        The clearing itself had abruptly become bigger. Whether that was because open space had come through the dimensions or because the monster was so wide that it had crushed the trees at its edge, nopony could tell. The monster itself was the largest that had come through the rift yet, towering far over the treeline. Stubby legs supported its body, and three incongruously long arms dangled around its neck. The monster was the same featureless black as the smaller ones that had attacked the town, but when it opened its huge mouth to roar, the silhouette of sharp fangs could be clearly seen.

        “Yikes! He looks nasty!” Pinkie exclaimed.

        At the sound of Pinkie’s high pitched voice, the monster turned. Its eyes were not visible in its black form, but the ponies could feel its gaze on them.

        “I think this one came all the way through!” Rarity gulped. “It can see us!”

        “Well, maybe it’s friendly! Maybe it’s normal for its world, like their equivalent of a pony!” Twilight said. “Hello, tall sir!” She called up.

        The monster looked down at Twilight. Twilight looked up at the monster. Neither moved for a moment, then the monster raised one of it’s thick, long arms, slowly clenched its hand into a fist, and slammed it into the ground next to the group. The ponies scattered, running for cover under the trees.

        “I don’t think that it wants to say hello!” Applejack yelled.

        “Okay, so it’s mean! What do we do? I don’t think any of us are a match for it!” Twilight said, covering her head with her hooves. “We don’t have magic, and that thing is a lot bigger than four ponies!”

         "Hey you big lug! Leave my friends alone!"

        A streak of blue and rainbow shot past the cowering ponies and directly at the towering hulk of the monster. The group cheered as Rainbow Dash zoomed past it, then made a tight turn and began circling its head. The monster tried to keep an eye on her, but her whirling made it dizzy and it began to sway slightly.

Rainbow widened her circles and, slowly, a tornado began to form. The monster tried to swat the pestering pegasus out of the sky, but she was far too fast for it. The tornado started to suck up dust and debris, and the monster vanished within its confines. An unearthly wail rose from its chest as it flailed uselessly at the dust in its eyes and the sticks striking it.

        Rainbow edged out of the tornado and eyed her handiwork. "That'll hold it for a minute!" she crowed.

        “Not that we ain’t grateful, Rainbow,” Applejack said, coughing a bit from the dust in the air, “but what in the hay are you doing here?”

        “I thought you were en route to Canterlot,” Rarity said.

        “Well, I was, but then one of these shadow things came out of nowhere and started knocking me around!” Rainbow punched the air a few times in imitation of the monster. “I thought I was done for, but it just went poof!”

        “Poof?” Rarity looked unconvinced.

        “Well, not poof all on its own. This pony just came out of nowhere and got rid of it! She was so cool!” Rainbow flew a loop-de-loop in excitement from the memory.

        “So, where is this randomly appearing pony, then?” Twilight asked, eyeing the tornado. It was still holding the monster, but without a pegasus to power it, it was beginning to wind down.

        “Oh, she’ll catch up, but she said she could probably do the same thing with this monster. Looks like it’s up to us to keep this thing busy until she gets here! No problem!”

        The monster chose that moment to challenge Rainbow’s statement of ‘no problem’ by shaking off the last vestiges of the tornado. It reached out a massive arm and seized a nearby tree, straining to pull it from the ground. Leaves and twigs scattered everywhere.

        "Okay, but how can we keep it busy?" Rarity cried as she delicately dodged falling twigs. “Twilight and I can’t use magic, and I don’t think five tiny ponies are much of a distraction!”

        "Distraction? I'm on it!" Pinkie said, pulling a huge roll of streamers out of nowhere.

        "How in the world..." Rarity had no chance to wonder where the streamers came from, as Pinkie began shouting instructions to Rainbow Dash.

        Rainbow swooped down and grabbed the end of a streamer Pinkie threw at her, and flew back up again to begin wrapping it around the towering monster. At its feet, Pinkie was doing the same thing, dashing to and fro around its legs and tangling it in the thin material.

        "Pinky! Are you crazy! A streamer won't be enough to hold it!" Twilight yelled.

        "We won't know until I try it!" Pinkie replied. “It’s better than nothing!”

        “I hope this works! Twilight seized a dangling streamer and began imitating Pinkie’s movements, guiding the streamer to form makeshift restraints around the monster’s limbs.

        Amazingly, the streamers were effective in slowing the movement of the monster’s sinewey limbs. It rocked from side to side, testing and stretching the limits of the party decorations.

“Uh oh, out of streamer!” Pinkie said, though it sounded more like “owh uh fweemuh” because she held the end of her strip firmly between her teeth. The monster howled in rage at being tied up and jerked the arm Pinkie’s streamer was attached to. “Wuh oh!” Pinkie was yanked into the air and started swinging around the monster.

“Rainbow Dash!” She screamed, the act of speaking releasing her hold on the streamer and sending her flying towards the trees.

Rainbow let go of her own streamer to dive for Pinkie. She caught her and lowered her to the ground unharmed, but the rescue left Twilight trying to restrain the monster on her own. Before Rainbow or Pinkie could take up their streamers again, the monster managed to snap one of the thin strips.

“Wow, I’m surprised they held up that long!” Pinkie said brightly.

“Got any more tricks up your sleeve, Pinkie?” Rarity asked desperately.

“I don’t even have sleeves!”

“Well, that’s because you never let me design anything for you!”

“You never want to put enough balloons on it!”

“Guys!” Applejack cut in. “Can we talk fashion later?”

"Wait up!" An unfamiliar voice yelled. "You go too fast! I told you to wait for me!"

From the direction Rainbow had come, a new unicorn galloped into the clearing. Her chest was heaving with the effort of trying (and failing) to keep up with rainbow dash, and her dark brown coat was slicked with sweat.

“Streamers. Huh.” The brown unicorn glanced around, taking in the situation. “Unorthodox, but it works, I suppose.” She stared up at the monster, grinning a bit at the sight of it. “A bit of color looks nice. Hello up there!” The last sentence was yelled. The monster ignored her.

“I said hello! Can you hear me?”

The monster stopped straining against the streamers. It turned its head to look at the new arrival.

“Uh, we already tried that, it didn’t really work,” Twilight said.

“Hush Purple-y. I’m talking here.” The unicorn replied. “Hey, Bluey? Come down! Your fluttering is distracting!”

        “Hey, I do not flutter, Brown-y!” Rainbow glided to the ground anyway and stood with her friends.

        “Yes, hello! There’s been a bit of a mix-up!” ‘Brown-y’ was saying to the monster. “I think you and your friends may have caused some trouble for these fine ponyfolk! It’s okay, though, they’re not mad! How could you have known what was happening? It’s not like holes through time and space happen every day!” Her voice cracked, and she coughed a bit. “Sorry, just not used to all of this yelling. Anyway, would you care for some help getting back where you belong?”

        The monster stood still, seemingly pondering the unicorn’s offer. It slowly and deliberately raised one of its arms above its head, snapping the remaining streamers. Brown-y smiled at it.

        Rainbow realized what was about to happen, and dashed towards the oblivious pony. “Look out!” She cried, and slammed into Brown-y’s side, knocking her out of the way just before the massive fist slammed into the ground. She landed on top of the brown unicorn, and they both lay wheezing.

        “I take it that’s a ‘no’?” Rarity said. She fidgeted, trying to figure out what to do. The monster took a lumbering step towards Rainbow and Brown-y. “Stop! Get away from them!” She screeched. “Don’t ignore me you big brute! I AM TALKING!”

        The monster stopped, unsure of whether to continue on its original path or to deal with the new screeching nuisance.

        “That’s it! Keep it looking at you and I’ll buck it in the knees!” Applejack called.

        “No! Wait! No violence yet!” Brown-y had recovered and gotten out from under Rainbow Dash, and was trying to get the monster’s attention once more. “Please! Listen to me! We can solve this! There’s no need to let this get out of control!”

        With so many voices addressing it from different directions, the monster became confused. It did not seem to like being confused, and let out an earsplitting roar. It stomped its stubby legs, sending shockwaves that rattled the ponies’ teeth.

        “Okay, maybe Orangey’s plan might work a bit better!” Brown-y conceded.

“Hey, ugly!” Rarity shouted. “Don’t you know black isn’t in season? You have no sense of style, you hideous lump! How did your parents dare to let you out in public looking like that?”

The monster made up its mind: It was Rarity being the biggest nuisance.

        “Huh,” Rarity said as the monster directed its attention towards her. “I wasn’t expecting that to actually work. I suppose insults to fabulosity are quite universal.”

        “Keep talking!” Applejack said. “Get it to follow you, and I’ll hit it!”

“Uh, okay,” Rarity said uncertainly, then raised her voice again. “Black does not go with everything!” She began running across the clearing, away from Applejack. The monster turned its huge body and began following her, footsteps shaking the ground. “You might as well be wearing plaid!”

“Keep it up!” Applejack galloped behind the lumbering monster, thanking her lucky stars that this one didn’t have a tail she’d have to dodge. “Alright ya big ugly thing, take this!” Unlike the ghostly monster in Ponyville, her strong buck connected. A jolt ran up Applejack’s back legs; it felt like bucking a solid rock. Applejack couldn’t tell if the monster even felt it, so ignoring the pain, she bucked again. When her hooves connected with the same spot she had hit before, the monster howled. A third buck and it collapsed to its knees, then began to fall forward.

Rarity ran out of the way of the falling monster and dove for safety just as its head hit the ground. “Ugh,” she said, picking herself up and attempting to brush dirt from her coat, “couldn’t the monster have attacked in the middle of a giant bubble bath?”

        Brown-y approached the monster’s head. “Sorry. I wish we could have sorted this out differently.” The monster didn’t acknowledge her words. She sighed. “Out cold.”

        “Wahoo! We did it!” Rainbow took off and flew a victory lap around the monster. “That was awesome, Applejack!”

        “Hey guys, what’s that?” Twilight was gazing into the air above the monster, where something was happening. First the air twisted, then a light haze seemed to gather and focus in one area. A puckered shape, radiant and vaguely oblong, began to form. Soon, a long tear in the fabric of space hovered above the monster, slowly lengthening with every passing moment.

        “Oh, that’d be the hole this guy tore between dimensions.” Brown-y bit her lip. “Pretty big to be seen by the naked eye. Not good.”

        “How can we close it without magic?” Twilight tried an experimental spell, but couldn’t summon even the energy to lift a pebble. “It’s not like Rarity can just sew it up with a needle and thread!”

        “The dimensional bleed prevents magic from this universe from working. It doesn’t affect magic from the other!” Brown-y grinned. “And that’s where I come in!”

        She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. A low hum filled the clearing, making everypony look around for the source, until they realized it was the brown unicorn herself humming. Her horn began to glow with a soft, white light, and a thin tendril of light separated itself to begin surrounding the unconscious monster. Brown-y’s eyes squeezed in concentration, and the circle of light split into many rings, caging the creature. When it was fully encircled, she changed the pitch of her humming, raising it like a singer reaching for a high note. As the note raised, so did the monster, and inch by inch it began to float.

        When the ground and the monster were separate once more, Brown-y opened her eyes and guided it into the dimensional tear. There was a flash of light as the monster contacted it, then it was gone. Brown-y smiled, then tensed her haunches, preparing to jump through herself.

“Wait! Brown-y!” Pinkie ran up. “We probably made him really mad! If you go back now, you’ll have to deal with a cranky monster, and I don’t think he’s a morning person! And what about all of the other monsters? You’ll be back with them too!”

Brown-y smiled and waved Pinkie away. “Don’t worry about me, Pink-y. I do this all the time! If it wasn’t for this guy breaking through dimensions, this would have been a pretty normal day for me.”

Rainbow spluttered in astonishment. “Y-you mean you have to fight monsters every day? But that’s--”

“Normal, like I said. I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to worry about me.” A wry expression crossed her face. “This isn’t even one of the bigger ones.”

“There’s bigger ones?” Pinkie’s jaw dropped. “And hey, how did you know my name, anyway?”

Brown-y shook her head and ignored the dumbfounded stares. “I wish I had a chance to get to know you all, or at least have proper introductions, but I can’t.” She gestured at the widening rift behind her. “I have to get back and fix this from the other end before it breaks things more permanently! Take care!”

With that, she leapt backwards into the rift. A bright flash blinded everypony for a moment, and when their vision returned, the brown unicorn was gone.

The clearing was silent as the group watched the tear in space stop growing, start shrinking, and eventually blink out of existence altogether.

“I hope she’ll be okay.” Pinkie said after a while.

“I’m sure she will be,” Twilight assured her. “I think for her, this was as easy as baking a cake is for you. She seemed pretty confident.”

“I guess we’ll never know for sure.” Rarity said.

“We’re going to have a lot of cleaning up to do in town. It’s going to be a while before life gets back to normal.” Applejack looked around the wrecked clearing. The creature had left many huge footprints, but there was no sign that the brown unicorn had ever been there. “Then again, I guess normal isn’t the same for everypony.

“Come on, y’all, let’s go home.”