"Lookit that, Rainbow!" Applejack exclaimed, seeing two very odd yellow figures begin to emerge from the distortion. The creatures were standing upon their hind legs as they wrestled a large red box out of the magic opening.

"Wow! They're the ugliest brutes I've ever seen!" Rainbow Dash complained.

Just then, a large, glowing blue crystal fell from a side wall alcove and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

Instantly, the magical doorway closed but the lightning continued for a few seconds before momentarily stopping. There was a muffled yell as one of the creatures suddenly knocked the other down just as the lightning restarted again for a few seconds. Then, finally the lightning ceased and plunged everything into darkness. Fortunately, the ponies' night vision quickly recovered from the assault on their retinas.

There was another muffled yell by one of the creatures before they got to their hind legs again, and they both produced some sort of magical lighting to look over their surroundings. Then they began pulling at their head skins and it got creepier as the skins pulled away!

"Looks like we got through the tunnel just in time," one of them clearly said after ripping off its outer face. "Vibrations must've been working the crystal loose. I guess it was about to shut itself down and we never even knew it."

"So, there's no way back?" The other creature asked as it completed removing its skin. Oddly, it seemed like it was still wearing clothing when it was finished.

"Hey! Wouldn't Rarity be willing to kill to know how they pulled off that trick!" Rainbow Dash chuckled. Applejack quietly snickered.

"Not with this in a billion pieces, no," the one that was slightly heavier built said. "So—let's take care of that nuke you brought along, since we no longer need it to blow up this end of the tunnel." It turned to see the other was pointing some object at it. "What?" it asked. "You thought I wouldn't be able to tell there was a nuke tucked in the bottom drawer as I was moving it about?"

"Now, from here…was it Left, Straight for three, Left, then Right, then Straight for five, then Right again? Or was it Right, Left, Straight for five, Left, then Straight for six, Left, then Right? Or was it Straight for four, Left, Left, then Right, Left, then Straight for two? Oh! I can't understand why they had to make this place so complicated!" Rarity complained. They had gotten lost and after three times of trying to find their way back to the others, they managed to backtrack to a point from where Rarity insisted that she recognized.

"Oh, and please stop shaking so, Fluttershy! You have no idea of how distracting that is!" she said to Fluttershy who held close to Rarity's rear as the nervous mare kept a wide eye on the passageway behind them.

"It-it's-there's s-s-something ou-out th-there!" Fluttershy whispered.

"Really, Fluttershy! You absolutely must stop letting your imagination get the better of you! These hallways have been empty for years!" Rarity scolded. "Now, let's go. I'm sure it's Straight for three, Left, Straight for four…" Rarity recited as she stepped forward, while Fluttershy let out a surprised squeak as the pegasus mare momentarily lost her balance.

Several seconds passed after the light from Rarity's horn faded from the corridor, several figures crept from side alcoves to resume their stalking of the two mares.

Twilight sighed, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the task at hoof after taking time to look over her handiwork. There were literally a couple tons of books ready for transport that she had sorted as priority, and she hadn't even scratched the surface of how many books there were. Not to mention that almost all of them are more than a thousand years out of date, although that did have the advantage that many subjects that had been forgotten over the centuries and left out of modern collections might still be found in this set. But the fact that so many were out of date meant their replacements would have to be scrounged from other sources to bring the developing library at the Tree Castle into some semblance of respectability. Plus, there was the desire of making another library to be available for use of the ordinary populous as replacement for the destroyed Oak Tree Library. She did wish she had brought Spike along, but the young dragon was busy arranging the last acquisition and preparing the areas to receive this shipment, and it was impossible to duplicate him.

She suddenly perked up. Well, not entirely impossible, she slyly thought.

Then her vision caught Pinkie Pie entertaining herself by bouncing over each stack of books to land between them as she progressed through the chamber, and Twilight violently shook her head to try ridding herself of that thought.

"No! One encounter with that thing was more than enough!" she growled at herself.

"Did you say something?" Pinkie Pie loudly inquired.

"No, Pinkie," Twilight replied. "Just thinking to myself." Then Twilight suddenly got a new idea that brought a smile to her face. "And thank you, Pinkie Pie!" she suddenly blurted out.

Pinkie Pie suddenly jammed on the breaks, vibrating as she came to a halt, and looking confused.

Yes! Twilight thought, hoofpumping in triumph, just as she had planned.

"Thank me for what?" Pinkie asked.

"For reminding me!" Twilight answered and left it at that, leaving Pinkie Pie blinking. Then Twilight silently counted, One, two, three, four, five…

"Okie, dokie, smokie!" Pinkie finally said and resumed her self-entertainment.

Five seconds! A new record! Twilight thought giggling. It wasn't often that anypony could pull a 'random' on Pinkie Pie and get away wi…

"You know, Twilight? This would all be a whole lot easier if you used that duplicating pond to make copies of Spike!" Pinkie Pie called out, happily bouncing along.

"D'oh!" Twilight exclaimed, facehoofing.

"Oh dear! Another dead end!" Rarity exclaimed looking in disappointment at the result of their latest attempt to get through the maze that was the castle.

"Eeeek! Whatwasthat!" Fluttershy exclaimed, backing away from the route behind them and bumped against the wall. Suddenly, the wall spun about and whipped Fluttershy into the space on the other side. Fortunately, Rarity saw this happen to her friend.

"FLUTTERSHY!" she screamed and ran to the same spot where Fluttershy disappeared. But the triggering mechanism was too well hidden and try as she might using her hooves, she couldn't get it to trigger again.

"Oh! Hold on, Fluttershy!" she anxiously called. "Think, Rarity! Think! There must be a way of digging her out…of course!" she cried out in triumph as the solution came to her.

Modifying her innate gem-hunting spell to look for whatever must be there for the mechanism she focused the magic through her horn and was rewarded by one of the small stones set in the wall began to glow in response. Rarity carefully reached out to press it with her hoof…

"WHOOOooo!" she yelled as she was whipped about and flung across the floor only to collide with something. Or somepony, as it turned out when Fluttershy let out a formidable scream of panic and shot straight up into the air, only to slam into the low ceiling and fall back down on Rarity.

"Ooof!" Rarity exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Rarity," Fluttershy said, still shaking. "Did I hurt you?"

"I-I-I'm fine. Thank goodness you're okay," the white unicorn replied shakily getting to her legs.

"Wh-wh-where are we?"

Rarity lit up her horn to provide them lighting and they looked around.

"Oh! This is that hallway of torch bearing hooves! Now we're getting somewhere!" Rarity happily exclaimed. "We'll be back with the others in a jiffy!" she said, getting up to lead her friend.

There was a thump from the wall that had thrown them there and Fluttershy squeaked and jumped.

"What was that?" Fluttershy nervously asked.

"Oh, just the thunder from the storm, for sure!" Rarity confidently said. "Come along, now. The exit is just up the spiral staircase at the other end of the hall."

In the corridor they had just vacated, four figures stalked the dead end space, searching for how their prey had escaped…

"Ya know, Ah'm starten ta gettin' a bad feelin' about those two," Applejack whispered.

"You 'n me, both!" Rainbow Dash whispered back. "You run back and warn Twilight. I'll stay 'n keep an eye on these two critters."

"Hey, don't jyu go gettin' all hero on us'n all!" Applejack hissed, getting angry.

"Will you knock it off?" Rainbow Dash hissed back. "You know I'm quicker than anything. If they start gettin' squirly, I'm outta here lickety split! But somepony's gotta go warn Twilight before things get that far—"

They were interrupted when they heard a metallic crack, and they looked down the corridor.

The one that still wore most of its yellow skin had walked past the skinny creature and squatted to look at something at the bottom of the red box they had brought with them.

"Did you even consider the effects that would've happened if we didn't shut down the warp field before the nuke went off?" the big yellow one demanded.

"Th-the g-gate at-at this end would be destroyed of—did you just use telekinesis on my gun? How is that possible?" the now skinny one nervously asked.

"For your information, we're more than fifteen hundred light-years from Earth," The other said. "Do you have any idea of what warp accelerated nucleonic plasma would do from that distance when it got to the other side? I'll tell you: Colorado would be a crater three hundred miles across and a hundred-fifty miles deep."

"Impossible!" Skinny protested. "This is only a ten-kiloton device—"

"The tunnel we walked through was more than fifteen hundred light-years long!" the bigger fellow interrupted. "Yes, the blast would destroy the warp coils at this end, but not before the blast managed to get all the way back to your base! But that's not the worst part. When the gate at this end would be destroyed, the warp tunnel would collapse from the center and the restored space-time fabric would rush toward each end at millions of times the speed of light, which includes ALL that nucleonic plasma that'd be filling the tunnel! Both Colorado AND this place would be big ass holes in the ground, each punching well into the mantle of both planets, thank you! Do you feel like the mass murderer that you've tried to be, yet?"

"Yer right! Somepony had better warn Twilight!" Applejack whispered, nervously gulping. "Be careful, Rainbow!" she said, silently crawling away to where she could start galloping.

Rainbow Dash watched Applejack depart for a few moments to ensure she was on her way before turning back to the activities at the end of the corridor, seeing the big bulky one set up several magical lamps about to light up the space.

This is sure gettin' to be a creepy situation! she thought.