Strangely, as she resolved to find her friend's sister, the thorns seemed to recede somewhat, and the path got a little brighter. “Psychoreactive landscape,” Twilight murmured, realizing in a flash what the changes meant, and she decided to keep that in mind as she continued. An agonized scream echoed from up ahead, and the Hedge rippled with darkness as Twilight felt a shiver of fear run through her. She ran forwards, as that was the only way she could go, and kept a wary eye out for changes or dangers. The paper thorns slowly became more sinister as she drew closer to the source of the screaming, with drops of blood falling from the sharpened canopy above and staining the books, coloring the cobwebs of words trailing off them. Another scream rang out, making the Hedge shiver and raining blood down. Twilight ran forward, knowing now that she must stop whatever horror was going on and burst through a curtain of soft vines that dripped with dark red ichor into a sudden clearing.

The clearing was small, with only brambles surrounding it, and two large stones in the middle. The whole clearing was awash with old blood, the grass of the clearing black with it in the dim lighting. A green, thin creature, vaguely unicorn-like in shape with its horn sharp and glistening, turned to Twilight in surprise, “My lady, I am the Warden of this grove, what is thy business here?” The creature had a burbling, swampy kind of voice, that went with its wavy, sedge-like mane and water-bloated flesh.

“What are you doing here?” Twilight attempted to keep with the appearance of authority that the Warden seemed to be expecting. The green creature smiled its swampy smile, showing several pointed, blackened teeth.

The Warden seemed perturbed by Twilight's appearance, it even bowed, trembling a little, “I'm afraid these ones are not for you, if you've come to claim them, I am simply preparing them for my master's customer. If you wish to speak with him about it, the Bloody Walker should be here soon.” A cough drew Twilight's attention back to the two stones. The stones were upright, with elegant swirls carved in, through which blood was running freely from the two figures chained to them. A white unicorn mare with a glassy blue mane and red, glowing eyes looked pleadingly at Twilight, glittering blood weeping from fresh wounds down her side, while a grey earth pony mare who seemed carved of stone, with veins of white marble running through her sides hung listless in her silver chains. She was barely breathing, with several deep wounds along her sides that wept red tears. The creature that had greeted her turned back to the restrained ponies, and she saw that the glistening on its horn had been from the blood dripping off it.

The Warden of the Grove never knew what hit him when Twilight's magic smacked him face-first into the space between the stones, wedging his horn there painfully. The creature wailed, thrashing, and Twilight walked was about to make life very unfortunate for the thing when the other side of the clearing burst open. Standing there was a vaguely ape-like creature with dripping, steel skin and glaring red eyes. He seemed surprised, for a creature whose humanoid appearance seemed as alien to Twilight as the dark side of the moon, but he advanced on the figures chained to the rocks. The Warden called out to the creature, “My lord! Be wary! The creature here is-” The Warden broke off with a scream as the chained white unicorn managed an awkward kick with a manacled leg and broke something in the green thing's knee. The humanoid figure ignored all this, and continued to advance until Twilight teleported her way between the ponies chained to the rock and the figure, the Bloody Walker she assumed.

“Stop!” Twilight asserted firmly, “You cannot have these ponies, I... I won't let you!” Something about the figure reminded her of the time spent in the Library of Burning books, and it seemed that the blood-soaked grass of the clearing was slowly becoming the familiar wooden floors, while books started appearing in the brambles around the fringes. The Walker stopped for a moment, considering, then lashed out at the unicorn with a lightning-fast strike of his fist. Twilight caught the fist with her magic, holding it still. She started to get angry, very very angry as memories of her nightmares came back to her, “You think you can just walk in here and steal ponies from their homes, to tear families apart, to give them reason to grieve?!” She snapped the Walker's arm with a flex of her magic, sending out a spray of blood from the snapped section, to her surprise, but the unicorn was too angry to care. She pulled herself to her full height, and her mane burst into wings of flame behind her, filled with burning words of condemnation and righteous fury. “YOU DARE STRIKE AT PONYKIND?!” Twilight's voice seemed to warp the clearing, and tendrils of vines snaked out to wrap around the Walker's limbs painfully, pinning the metal creature down as Twilight advanced. “WE ARE A KIND, LOVING PEOPLE AND YOU DARE PROFIT FROM OUR SUFFERING?! WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO YOU?! WHAT DO YOU GAIN FROM OUR LOSS?!” She walked up to the metal creature, now firmly entangled in vines and snarling alien invectives as it thrashed, seriously hampered by the vines and Twilight's magical grip. It lunged for her, but Twilight pinned down the outstretched silver claw with an iron-shod hoof, causing the thing to scream terribly, like a mad nightmare.

Twilight lost it about then, not seeing the Walker at all, instead the twisted, horrific visage of her captor, the one that still haunted her nightmares. She started stomping and kicking, blood flying everywhere while flames of rage burned the droplets to naught but vapor. The whispers in the shadows became shouts, and the clearing for a while became a reading room filled with smoke, where the books shouted encouragement to Twilight and sneered at the Warden, responding to her rage and fear. Twilight stomped the Walker into the ground, until at last the creature was no more. Upon its death, a wave of force blew out, scrubbing the clearing clean of ichor, launching Twilight away and returning the grove to its arboreal state. A tree grew quickly from the Walker's mangled remains, but seemed dead, its branches twisted and gnarled, but unadorned with leaves. Of all this, Twilight was only dimly aware in the aftermath of the battle.

Now that the Walker was dead, Twilight felt hideous. She was covered in blood and soot, she had just killed something, and for what? A whimper reminded her. Twilight ran over to the ponies chained to the standing stones and cut them free with quick bursts of magic, before lowering them gently to the grove floor. The white unicorn immediately crawled over to the grey earth pony, who seemed weaker, she was dying, her blood still seeping from fresh wounds. Twilight looked around for something to stop the bleeding, but the clearing had returned to leaves and sticks. She ran around the clearing, looking for anything, a scrap of cloth, something to keep the earth pony's blood in her injured body. It never crossed her mind that the ponies would die, she never once let the thought enter her mind. The shadows around Twilight whispered more urgently and she listened for a while, trying to glean some information that might save the two mares.

An apple landed next to Twilight, interrupting her train of thought, its glittering golden color brilliant in the dim clearing. The white unicorn noticed it and cried out, magically rolling the fruit towards her with a sputtering blue glow. Another landed, and another, and Twilight levitated them all over to the white unicorn, who had split the apple and was gently squeezing the juice into the earth pony's mouth telekinetically. She was muttering softly, “Come on Tavi, just drink the damn stuff, come on...” Twilight blinked and looked down at the earth pony's flank, which was healing slowly as the golden apple's juice seeped into her mouth. It was Octavia Pie, Pinkie's distant relative who had been playing at the Gala, though she looked somewhat different now: Her mane looked carved of stone, though it moved readily enough, and her whole body was covered in thin veins of faintly glowing white marble. She looked to the white unicorn with the mane like blue glass and saw the familiar note shape: it was Scratch, Vinyl Scratch, and this close she saw she was almost as different as Octavia. The white mare's mane seemed to be made of blue glass, and her coat shimmered softly whenever she made a noise, rippling with faint rainbows when she spoke or breathed, while her eyes glowed intensely with a crimson radiance. Twilight deposited the other apples by Scratch, and gently tried to take control of the telekinesis over the golden apple, which was faltering as Vinyl began to succumb to her own wounds. Scratch protested violently, “No! You're not gonna take her, no! Go away! I won't...” Twilight caught the apple half before it fell into the now-stabilized Octavia's mouth and choked her, while Scratch passed out from her own blood loss.