Visibility had hardly improved by the time Twilight set hoof on the academy grounds. In fact, she couldn't tell that she had reached the commons area until Professor Yorsets pointed it out. He motioned to the left, in the direction of the dormitory, and only then did Twilight barely make out a few of the building’s dark bricks through the surging snow.

For a moment the wind died as it changed direction, granting a brief, clearer view of the grounds. As far as Twilight could tell, the dormitory was in tact. The main hall, however, remained out of sight. Not even the calming breeze permitted a good enough chance to see its facade through the snowy fog.

“What should we do?” Twilight asked, shivering as her professor's warming spell had worn off.

Yorsets narrowed his eyes in careful examination. “At least one building seems secure. I only hope that all of the students have stayed put.”

Twilight recalled that the professors had isolated and gathered within the main hall. Gallant and Prim Rose had left the dormitory as well.

What if something happened to them?

Yorsets's gaze focused on the building in sight, and in a snap his horn started to glow.

“Prepare yourself,” he ordered, and Twilight knew another teleportation spell was in order.

With a bright flash the white atmosphere melted away and the cold lessened to a fluttering chill. Firm, solid ground formed beneath the two's limbs. The gusty winds died off in a snap. The pouring snow no longer piled high all around. Rather, upon opening her eyes, Twilight found a large crowd filling the dormitory foyer.

And not a pair of eyes wasn’t focused on her and Yorsets standing right in the middle of the gathering.

“Yorsets! Good to see you’re fine,” declared Coach Pony Dungy.

Professor Yorsets calmly wheeled around as his fellow instructor addressed him, and then inspected the students encircling him. Twilight looked around as well and noted that a number of her peers were lying down or stretched in strenuous positions.

“What is the meaning of this?” Yorsets asked, puzzled.

“Push-ups, warm-ups,” Coach Pony Dungy said with pride. “Keeping warm and staying active is key to surviving when the cold sets in.”

“You had them exercise..?” Yorsets began, but cut himself off. “No matter. Where are the others?”

“Not sure,” Coach Dungy replied. “Should be in the dining hall. They headed there when more students started barging in. Apparently that student of yours and the two buff ones - Prim Rose and... uh, that other one - set quite an example.”

Yorsets did not hesitate to explain himself. “Miss Sparkle will be helping us, Coach Dungy. We were at the southern field surveying the island, as one of the other two students you mentioned should have informed you. When we were out there, however, we heard a noise come from this direction and returned as quickly as possible. Can you tell me what that noise was?”

“I'm not sure myself,” the coach replied, squinting. “I was hoping it was one of the others with a spell or something. Celestia knows what you academic magic users resort to-”

“Well, ahem, thank you for your help,” Yorsets interrupted as nonchalantly as possible; but Twilight could sense the irritation in his tone. “Coach Dungy, I would advise getting the students to head to their rooms.”

“That's asking a lot of me,” the coach retorted with a smirk. “These students are an unruly bunch when they get uneasy; jumpy as a bunch of sheep-!”

“It’s for their own good,” Yorsets added firmly, after which Coach Dungy ceased his rambling. “I’ll return shortly to see how things are.”

Professor Yorsets looked at Twilight, who reciprocated the suddenly anxious stare he displayed. Before his student could react, though, he turned and headed for the door to the main hall, all expression erasing from his face in what Twilight assumed was an attempt to not startle the others that watched him.

“Follow me, Miss Sparkle,” Yorsets urged. “Your assistance may be needed yet.”

Coach Dungy raised his voice and addressed the crowd as the two made their way out. “Students! Grab your things and gather in your suites now! And when I say now, I mean NOW...”

As he went off, murmurs began to rise. Twilight could hear them clear as birds’ chirps outside her bedroom in Ponyville.

“Is the storm getting that bad..?”

“But why should we get in our rooms?”

Twilight gulped at the obvious awareness that was rising. She could sense the unease of her peers as the same agitation drove her mind into an endless state of wandering and wondering. When she looked to Yorsets for some kind of sign of assurance, none was given. In fact, he never acknowledged her stare. All he did was head for the main hall, and Twilight – without question – followed.

The corridor of glass between the buildings hadn't itself been broken, but tiny fragments between layers of ice permitted a clear view – however small the window – through the once-clouded panels. There was not much to see, though, aside from the snow that continued to build like white sands forming dunes on the beach.

“Brace yourself, Miss Sparkle,” Professor Yorsets warned as they drew near to the main hall doors. “I would have told you to stay behind with the other students, but we both know that you're no ordinary student. You have been quite an asset for Princess Celestia, and so I expect that you may be of significant aid in a crisis like this.”

Twilight tried to downplay the compliment, but she knew that he was right; that, and it wasn't the time to act humble. She had dealt with plenty of disasters before – from a hydra to Cerberus itself. Still, she always had a teetering heart when the time came to face another mysterious – or sometimes familiar – monstrosity. Being asked to get ready for whatever was ahead did not put her mind at ease in the slightest.

Yorsets pushed the doors to the foyer open but then jumped away from the gap. Twilight flinched as well, prepared to duck, fight, or run, but the air went still for the next few seconds. The student waited for her teacher to move again or at least signal something, but his body was still as a statue. Twilight feared for a second that Professor Yorsets himself had frozen over.

“It appears to be safe,” he stated, though hardly with any kind of relief. “Let us continue to be cautious. Be sure to warn me if you see anything.”

The two slowly walked into the hall and hugged the walls, their eyes jumping from surface to surface. Things had fallen from the walls and ceiling – lamps and pictures especially – as though an earthquake had shaken the majestic structure. The great, pointed windows had even changed a little as cracks allowed tiny bits of the unblocked atmosphere outside to show itself. Unfortunately, just like in the glass corridor, there was little to see but a white blur.

“It can’t be,” Yorsets mumbled as the two made their way to the far corner. It didn’t take long for Twilight to spot the cause of his verbal grievance.

The dining hall doors were shut and had frozen over, ice spilling out from the cracks as though the door had been splashed with frost. The glossy surface sparkled as it reflected the white snow that cascaded outside. Yorsets did not hesitate to light his horn as he summoned a blazing chisel and sent it beating away at the freezing blockade with the speed and power of a jackhammer.

After a minute of driving the flames into the obstacle, Yorsets realized his efforts were all in vain.

“This again?” he growled, terminating his spell.

Twilight watched the fiery tool disintegrate and looked at the ice covering doors. Its surface was unscathed. “What do you mean ‘this again’?”

“You saw this same thing earlier with Princess Luna's doors,” Yorsets stated, wiping his forehead. “It’s frozen over by this mysterious ice. We tried to teleport past it to get into Luna's chambers, but we were unable to. We were and still are not sure of its cause.”

“We can still try to get inside, right?” Twilight suggested. “You don’t think there could be something in there, do you?”

Professor Yorsets walked as close to the door as he could and put an ear up to a section of wall close to the doorway. He ground his teeth and suddenly jerked his head away and began rubbing the side of his head.

His teeth clattered for a moment. “All I can sense is the cold just on the other side of this wall. I can't tell if anypony is inside, or anything at all for that matter. There’s only one way to find out.”

Twilight looked at the frozen doors to the dining hall, aware of the solution he was about to propose. Yorsets began a new spell, and in a flash the two disappeared from and returned to the inside of the building, only they found themselves somewhere different than where they had just been standing.

Twilight recognized the shape and size of the dining hall, but aside from its dimensions it had little in common with its typical appearance. Shattered glass spread beneath a grouping of windows behind where the headmare usually sat. From the aperture crept trails of ice all throughout the room. Snow drifted through the opening, piling high below where the broken window sat and otherwise scattering to make the once-dark tiled floor littered with flakes.

Huddled in the nearby corner was a sizable block of ice, both tall and thick, its surface like a glossy layer of glass. From a distance one would think it a giant, roughly-shaped ice cube, but up close – as the student and her professor soon discovered – it appeared more like a frozen casket, for trapped inside were three individuals.

Lonsdaleite? Windchaser!? VINYL!?

Twilight could feel the air escape and avoid reentering her lungs as she stared at the victim's faces. Lonsdaleite, though in front as though shielding the students, had the worst kind of expression on her face, one reflective of pure fear. The two behind her had their own fearful gazes, though Vinyl’s was more of a surprise and Windchaser’s filled with anger, ready to strike.

“W-What happened!?” Twilight managed to get out, though she could barely hear herself above the heartbeat pounding in her ears.

As she backed away, breathless, she bumped into something solid and cold, and upon turning around saw it was another bulk of ice. Within it were two more ponies: Doctor Ingrid Marie, posed as if ready to cast a spell, and Instructor Gearheart, covering her head and cowering helplessly. Twilight couldn’t even move anymore due to the horror that wrenched her shivering soul. Upon spotting another chunk of ice nearby with more instructors trapped inside, the mare ceased completel movement of her eyes as well.

A gust of wind gushed into the hall, bringing along with it a hefty load of snow and ice pellets. Yorsets did not hesitate in lighting his horn, which Twilight could see in the reflection of the ice before her. In a second the frozen container and individuals inside disappeared from sight. The white abruptly morphed into darker tones, and the cold lessened to a chill. Twilight found herself back within the foyer, and breathing hard as though just having escaped from a deadly trap.

That might as well be what we saw...

“I'm not sure what happened,” Professor Yorsets finally said, gasping for air. “I'm not aware of any creatures that would do this.”

A light bulb went off in Twilight's head.

“You don't think it could have been... Windigos?”

Yorsets shook his head slowly. “To my knowledge, they are ethereal beings. They have no physical attributes except for the cold and the storms that they bring.”

Twilight gulped. “You mean they couldn't have broken the windows?”

“Unless they had thrown a giant slab of ice, but I saw no evidence of such an incident.”

Twilight thought back to the only blocks of ice within the room, as well as the ponies trapped inside of them, their horrified expressions and frozen states.

“What about the instructors? What about my friends? What happened to all of them?”

“I could tell just by looking at that ice that its composition is similar to that covering Princess Luna's doorway upstairs. It's no ordinary magic that created it – we can only hope that such spells will not have extremely damaging effects on those trapped.”

Twilight felt her head spinning as though she had been twirling like a skater on ice. “What could have done such a thing? What monster uses ice spells like these? And why-?”

“I wish there was another way to say it, but we have more pressing things to worry about, Miss Sparkle,” Yorsets interrupted. “First, we need to round up all the others. From there we will find out what we need to do next. After the rest are safe, then we can worry about saving the others.”

As he took off for the glass corridor Twilight thought she could see pure, unadulterated fear in her professor's eyes. It was strange, thinking that even those in charge at the academy could be in such a panic themselves. But, then again, Princess Luna was missing, no longer present to reassure them all that she was coming to save the day.

And that means no pony is safe.

“If you wish to round up all the others,” echoed a voice throughout the hall, “they've all gone to the dormitory building.”

The two stopped dead in their tracks.

“Who goes there?” Professor Yorsets shouted. He turned a side to Twilight as though taking her under a protective wing.

“Gallant, professor!” came the sudden reply. “I've waited up here near the headmare's doorway for your return as ordered.”

Professor Yorsets rolled his eyes. “There's no need for that anymore, Mister Gallant, now come down here this instant!”

Quick steps patted like a quickened metronome as the gray stallion spiraled down the staircase. Once at the bottom he approached with a paleness added to his typical gray coloring, which prompted Twilight to enter into an extremely inquisitive disposition.

“What happened, Gallant?” she asked hurriedly. “Have you been here the whole time? What all did you hear? Why are all the instructors, even Windchaser and Vinyl, frozen solid in the dining hall!?”

Gallant paused as the shocked expression he displayed told the two that what he had just heard was news to him.

“A-All I know is that before the crash, Windchaser and Vinyl entered before a swarm of other students came barging in here. Lonsdaleite pulled the two aside into the dining hall, and soon enough the instructors left Coach Dungy to calm everypony down as they made their way into the dining hall. After Coach Dungy recruited the help of Prim Rose and forced every student back into the dormitory, it was only minutes before the sounds of shattering glass erupted.”

He stopped as he his eyes dimmed as he relived the horrible incident in his mind.

“And then what?” Professor Yorsets urged.

“That's it.”

“What? Nothing more?” Yorsets inquired. “You didn't bother to see what had happened, or see what Coach Dungy was doing!?”

“You specifically told me to wait here until you two returned,” Gallant replied. “An order is an order, sir. What should we do now?”

Yorsets shook his head and continued, “Miss Sparkle and I have seen what happened inside, but we are not sure of the details. Regardless, if we act quickly we may be able to save everypony else as well as the others. For now we must take extreme caution and develop a plan to keep you and your fellow students out of harm's way.”

Without another word he headed for the glass corridor, with Gallant and Twilight on his tail. Nothing inside the icy hall had changed since they last passed through earlier, except that anticipation brought Twilight to look to the sky through the fragmenting layers of ice around the glass.

Where’s Princess Luna? And what was that thing I saw in the sky?

Loud murmurs could be heard from the dormitory entrance hall even halfway through the connecting segment. The panic and fear emanated in the intensity of the crowd's speech, their every word coated in worry for themselves and for each other.

The second the doors opened, the talking ceased. Twilight, Yorsets and Gallant found themselves face-to-face with a company of exasperated characters. Nearby was Coach Dungy, his face beet red with frustration, and around him the crowd of students whose faces were red with embarrassment.

“A moment,” Yorsets whispered to the two following him as he headed for his fellow overseer.

The crowd went utterly silent to listen in, but the two instructors kept their voices low. Once in a while one would raise his voice enough to hear, but no bits or pieces gave the listeners a taste of just what was being planned. In time the two nodded, and Yorsets lifted his as he stared every student in the eye.

“Coach Dungy shall take care of you all for the time being,” said the professor reassuringly. “I need more time to think of a plan-”

“What about the other instructors?”

“Where are they?”

“And where's Princess Luna?”

It was the last straw for Coach Dungy as he roared, “If she Princess Luna here, we wouldn't be panicking-!”

Once more the foyer went silent. Eyes fell on the coach, whose eyes went wide with horror at the revelation. All eyes of those around her looked no less alarmed.

“Princess Luna is missing!?” came a cry.

“We're doomed!”

The student body suddenly began to run rampant, but Twilight and the teachers composed themselves. Professor Yorsets began summoning a spell, one that took longer than just a few seconds.

The whole building began to shake; rock rumbled, glass shuddered. Every pony stopped dead in their tracks. Twilight looked to Professor Yorsets, assuming the work belonged to him. But the professor's spell-casting had halted; his golden eyes scanned the foyer in confusion.

“Everypony follow Coach Dungy, Prim Rose, Gallant or myself!” Professor Yorsets shouted as he grabbed the three he had named with a magic grasp and pulled them in close. “Listen: we need to spread out. From what I understand, this creature can freeze an entire chamber in seconds. Coach Dungy, take a group to the main hall training basement. Prim Rose, head for the student lounge, and be sure to put out the fire so as not to draw attention. Gallant, see if you can find a classroom that has its blinds shut and hide there for the time being. I'll head for the performance hall. Expect me to contact you through telepathic communication. Now go!”

Professor Yorsets turned, split off a chunk of students with a magic barrier, and slid them closer to himself like a rake grabbing hold of an assortment of shaky leaves.

“We're headed to the performance hall,” he announced. “It’s one of the larger rooms with the least amount of windows. Do not lose sight of me and do not stop until we are there. Follow me!”

He darted back into the glass corridor, and Twilight found herself dragged along with him. She felt as though he had done so for a reason, but she didn't have time to think about why. She simply obeyed and galloped toward the foyer they had just come from minutes ago.

Little had changed in the entrance hall over the course of a few minutes, but Twilight could sense something odd. The windows were covered in ice, the doors up above and leading to the dining hall were frozen shut, and the hall overall was freezing cold, but more so than before. Twilight could tell that that was the difference: the temperature. With nothing else changed, she wondered why.

Without missing a step, Yorsets threw open the stone doorways of the performance hall on the main floor and ushered his followers inside. Awaiting them was a cold and scentless air, and up front were thin windows that had little to see through them, though they themselves - colored and forming wonderful historical designs - were a sight to behold. Not one of them appeared to be broken. Yet.

Professor Yorsets closed the doors to the chamber and the group took a moment to breath. Twilight felt as though her lungs were ready to burst; not because of the running, but because of the situation. She had run into trouble before, but never had she been in the thick of things with so many others present. It almost made her nervous just to see others so frightened.

“W-What's going on?” came the voice of Lyra, a familiar face that had been caught in the fray.

Professor Yorsets shook his head. “We're not entirely sure, but something is lurking outside.”

“Something? Like what?”

The professor took a moment to breath. “Something unfriendly. Something that favors all this snow and ice.”

“Where's Princess Luna?” asked one of Twilight's suite mates, Lemon Hearts. “Was it true what Coach Dungy said, that she wasn’t-”

“We don't know,” Professor Yorsets stated forcefully, warning the others to watch their questions. “She must be nearby, though. She must know what is happening.”

“Have you tried to contact-?”

“Yes, yes! We've tried a variety of things,” Yorsets replied, irritated, as though he were quickly growing tired of all the inquiry. Twilight could imagine the questions he was asking himself; the relatively calm demeanor he put on could not completely disguise his hard-pressed mind.

Lyra shook her head as she approached Twilight, groaning under the weight of all her bags that she still had strapped on. “Oh please, please tell me this is just a bad dream!”

Twilight wished she could, but there was hardly any chance that the panic she felt, along with the cold and other tangible elements that had thus far signaled a most realistic day.

“Wait a minute!” Professor Yorsets exclaimed. “A dream, that's it! Miss Sparkle, did you not say that you heard the headmare in your dream last night?”

Twilight nodded. “She told me to call her if we were in trouble! Wait, but I already tried to contact her, remember? It didn't work-”

“But she contacted you!” Professor Yorsets pointed out. “And this was not done by ordinary means as we tried, but through your dream. Yes, that must have been what she was saying to you!” The students all exchanged puzzled looks except for Twilight, who understood exactly where her professor was going. “Princess Luna has a special magic that allows contact through dreams.”

Whatever the magic barrier might be, it must not block out any connections made through dreams!

Twilight felt her heart racing again. “If I can just get back into my dream state, then maybe I'll be able to speak with Princess Luna!”

“Yes, it's the only way! Be sure to tell her everything,” Professor Yorsets advised. “Also, be sure to ask as many questions as you can. Can any of you students cast a sleep spell?”

“What? Why can't you?” Twilight asked.

“You very well know that sleep spells require fair amounts of concentration,” the professor replied. “I need to keep my mind ready in case things go wrong. If something happens while you’re not conscious, I may get too distracted, thus severing your tie with Princess Luna via your dream.”

“No worries, I gotcha covered,” remarked Colgate as she trotted into the scene.

Twilight couldn't help but grin. “Using a spell on me that I taught you, huh Colgate?”

Her friend smirked as she started casting, turning her horn a dark blue. “You never did let me try it out on you. I guess this’ll be payback for Linky, Berry Punch, and the other passers-by you had me try it out on.”

Twilight frowned, “I don't remember making you do that-”

But her words began to slip, losing their coherency, as Twilight began drifting off into a daze. The world began to slowly fade as blackness took over. Her senses slowly lost track of everything, from sight to sound, until Twilight could no longer hear her heartbeat calming to a restful rhythm.

---

It was hazy. There was no evidence of exactly where she was. Not a surface beneath her hooves, nor a visible inch of sky above her head. The time and place were both mysteries. Twilight felt stuck in some kind of mirror-like room with walls painted black but dyed white with a translucent cloudiness.

“Heeeeeeeeelp!” she cried.

The feeling of confinement quickly dropped as the mare’s voice trailed off into the distance. The echoes carried along like a train whistle fading away.

“Luuuuuuunnnaaaaaaaa!” Twilight shouted.

The echoes resounded again, but this time as they died out, a new sound quickly approached. It sounded like a tempestuous roar, its volume tremendous like that of a dragon. It boomed like an explosion and its echoes only grew louder. All of a sudden a strong gust hit Twilight from behind, knocking her off of her stable stance and into flips, horn over hooves.

The mare spun in circles until whatever resistance there was made her body stop, and before her violet eyes could settle they could make out something hovering before her.

Tall, proud and dark like the night was Princess Luna, her teal eyes fixed on something off to the left. Her extended wings and lowered head indicated that she was anything but motionless, though in fact she was not moving in any direction.

Without losing a single ounce of intensity from her dashing pose, she asked, “What is it, my student?”

Her words came out so calmly, they did not seem fitting to come from the alicorn who appeared to be flying with tremendous wing power.

Meanwhile, Twilight stuttered to find her own. “I-I, well, something's gone wrong at the academy.”

Princess Luna continued to fly, but the span of her wings began to spread as though she were slowing down.

“What dost thou mean by this, Twilight Sparkle?” she asked, curiosity piqued. “Dost thou refer to thy restless dreams?”

“No no no, Princess Luna, not my dreams,” Twilight urged. “There’s something at the school right now! In real life! Professor Yorsets and I found a number of instructors and some of my friends... frozen.”

Princess Luna's flying figure suddenly came to a screeching halt. Her eyes continued to follow something in the distance, and with every passing second Twilight could see her focus slipping. The young mare tried to look off in the distance to see whatever it was Luna watched, but with the mist it was to no avail.

“What dost thou mean, 'frozen'?” Princess Luna suddenly asked.

Twilight felt as though she were actually speaking with Princess Luna then as the alicorn stopped her flying and turned to face her. The confrontation made Twilight stumble over herself for a minute as she tried to gather everything important that she could remember.

“A terrible storm is trapping everypony inside the buildings; there’s no way out unless we teleport. However, when Professor Yorsets and I left to go outside to see if we could find you with a telepathic spell, we heard a noise come from the main hall. When we investigated, we found that the dining hall windows were broken, and inside were most of the instructors and a couple of my friends frozen by a mysterious ice.”

“Mysterious ice?” Princess Luna asked, her eyes glowing white to signal her rage. “What else? Tell us everything!”

“Nothing else has happened, except that it - whatever it is - may still be around,” Twilight said. “I think we just heard it hitting against the dormitory before we all evacuated-”

“IMPOSSIBLE!” Princess Luna muttered, though it sounded like a shout, for Twilight heard it clearly enough. “WE HAVE BEEN CHASING IT FOR MILES! WE SEE IT NOW LIKE A SHADOW WITHIN THE SEA! I CAN SENSE A TRACE OF HIS ANCIENT MAGIC!”

Unsure of what she meant, Twilight could only watch as Princess Luna looked up to the sky and took in a mighty breath. When the headmare looked back down, her eyes had returned to their normal state, but the intensity in her gaze had not yet subsided.

“It seems I may have been tricked,” Princess Luna stated, collecting herself. She still seemed hesitant to turn from whatever it was she had been tracking far away as she constantly looked off into the distance. “Twilight Sparkle, I am far away from the academy, but I shall return soon enough.”

She prepared to take off at the speed of a cannon, but Twilight shouted, “Wait! What am I- er, are we supposed to do?”

“Hold off until I return,” Princess Luna commanded. “I shall recommend that you all conceal thyselves in chambers with no exposure to the outdoors. Never lose contact with one another, and shouldst any receive the opportunity, find thy way safely to the academy library. There you must search for an ancient book on dragons. Be sure to read and remember as best you can about...”

But her voice suddenly faded away, as did her the color and shape of her figure. Twilight felt something pulling her from the dream sense by sense as reality began setting in again.

No! I need more time!

“Princess Luna! What do I need to look up? Wait, waaaaaaait-!”

Next Chapter: Chapter 34 (Episode 9, Part 2): Game of Hide and Seek Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 21 Minutes