-Deafening Silence-

        ‘... He is no longer the last ...’

                                                                                                                            [size=8]‘... Promise me that ...’[/size]

‘.͞.. ͟Y̛o͟u͡ ̶h͡áv̴è bee̶n͏ ̢a͟ ̨t̨h͟ǫr̕n͡ in̢ ͜my͢ si̢d̛e̡ ̕lon͡g enoúgh͝ ...’

‘... Please don’t leave ...’

                                                                                                                              ‘... Don’t you dare ...’

‘... And the world trembled...’

‘... Don’t make me do this ...’

                                                                                                 ‘... Feel her song in your bones ...’

‘... ͏Yo͝u҉r k͘i҉nd̸ w͡e̵re bo͡r̸n i̕ņ hat̷r̶ed, y̵ou ́a̧rè ca̸pable ͜of l͜ittl̴e͏ e͠ls͠e …̴’

‘... It happens to all like us ...’

'BE̶ ̧N̢͜O̴̧T̶!͡’

~~~

“Merletta,” Clean Cut said gently. The bird’s eyes opened as her name was called. The voices faded from her perception, the ears of ravens in planes of both the present and the future lost as her concentration broke. She shuffled her feathers in annoyance, the skewed order of events growing into a migraine the more she tried to piece it together.

She warbled out a grating noise in irritation, interruptions in her concentration one of her many pet peeves. She tapped the top of the unicorns head with her beak three times, drawing a small wince from him.

Her claws clutched carefully around the unicorn’s horn, the normally gentle incline added to by the slope of the trail that they marched. Clean Cut had taken a seat on the same cart that held Coalback, riding next to the Mayor-ling as the two stallions continued to pull it. The mountain’s rocky slope slowly trundled past them, glimmering with thin ice sheets in the afternoon sun.

“Sorry. I just wanted you to be with us when we get to the gates,” Clean Cut said, an uncharacteristic tone of seriousness underlying every word. “I can’t shake this feeling, a vibe. I think something is wrong in Canterlot, something very wrong,” he said quietly. A pony who hadn’t known the unicorn long never would have been able to pick out the signs of fear on his face, the slight tremble of anxious magic thrumming within his horn.

“I have seen nothing,” Merletta hissed angrily, leaning down and pecking his poll again sharply. Birds are even harder to read; nopony outside of the two would have realized how worried she was. Clean Cut’s mood was rare for a reason.

“There are very few ravens in Canterlot, none in the palace save for you,” Clean Cut argued, rubbing the pecked spot with a hoof. No matter what Merletta could say, his intuition had always been just as useful as her foresight. “I’m sure of it now.” That ‘vibe’ had also saved them more times than she would admit. It would be an act of foolishness to ignore it, not that he was a stranger to those acts.

“Shall we inform them?” Merletta asked, bending down to look into one of his deep green eyes. She filled half of his vision, carefully keeping her beak away from the delicate spheres.

“Only when Luna is awake, she’ll know better than us what to do,” Clean Cut whispered. “And we should refrain from telling Celestia. We have our orders,” he continued, squinting up at the raven’s beak. “Are you hungry, little bird?” he asked, his ever-present smile returning as he looked back up the path.

“One of the ponies gave me apple slices when we stopped. A bit too sweet for my tastes, but I am satisfied,” she said, returning to her upright position. She resumed to looking over the march, as she had when they started.

Carts and wagons stretched up the rocky path in front of them, a similar scene following behind. The path had bottlenecked their neat circular pattern, and now only a few wagons trundled side by side. The ice and snow made the path slippery and far more dangerous than the march across the plains, increasing chance of injury and slowing them even further.

Ponies huffed and hauled their charges up the mountain. Many yokes and harnesses were left empty, their ponies all but spent from the effort and now having to ride on the carts themselves. Their once fast-paced march had been reduced to a groaning crawl, sweat and pain filling the air around them. It seemed that the march would result in more casualties than the actual attack had.

“There are those pearly gates …” he mumbled, drawing her attention back up the path. Slowly revealing itself, the lowermost retaining wall of Canterlot came into view. The portcullis that separated Canterlot from the steep slopes just beyond, the golden bars drawn shut over the path. However, the shield that once stood over the city was strangely missing.

Two towering turrets stood guard at the gate’s sides, large numbers of guards posted within them. The swirling metal decorations and inlaid murals, once cheerful and greeting, now seemed almost sinister in their nature. Like the guards hovering in the battlements above, they seemed to stare down at the approaching ponies with suspicion.

“Halt!” a guard commanded from over the gate as the first of the ponies drew near, his silver star- and wing-shaped breastplate identifying him as a commanding officer. The guards around him sprung to life, marching to positions within and without the turrets. Unicorns posted themselves behind archer’s loops, their glowing horns just visible behind the small slit. Earth ponies and pegasi held their spears at the ready, pointing them menacingly down at the refugees.

“Hold it! Hold it! Hold it!” Clean Cut yelled out, jumping up as all the carts skidded to a halt. Merletta was launched off of his horn, struggling to remain airborne as she flapped to follow. He ran as fast as his legs could launch him through the carts, dodging past frozen ponies as they started to murmur.

There was a spreading panic among them, growing with each whispered concern to their neighbor. The fact that the guards had immediately halted them when they obviously needed their help, it was extremely unlike the royal guard.

“I said Halt!” the guard yelled again, just as Clean Cut slid to a stop in the slush and ice as he reached the front. “The city has been sealed, by order of Princess Celestia herself!” he yelled, his voice echoing off the sides of the mountain. His face remained stoic and stubborn as Clean Cut began to walk forward again.

“I am Doctor Clean Cut, here by order of Princess Luna to escort the refugees from Ponyville!” Clean Cut yelled up to him, motioning with his hoof at the gathering behind him. “And it’s not just me here, either! The Elements of Harmony are here. And the Princesses’ personal emissary, Coalback,” he finished, eyes settling on Merletta as she alighted on top of one of the turrets.

“I’m afraid that I’ve been ordered not to open the gates, I cannot let you in,” the guard said, his eyes opening wide as he gestured toward the gate with his head.

“Oh come on!” Clean Cut said, his formality suddenly gone. “Can’t you open it this once, I mean seriously! Just look at these guys! They wouldn’t make it back down the mountain, for Sun’s sake!” he said, drawing a frustrated growl from the guard.

“I can’t!” the guard yelled back, one of his hooves reaching up to point down at the gate. “I really can’t open that gate. Those are my exact orders!” he yelled, motioning toward the unicorn and then the gate. Around him, the other guards stood down, retreating back inside and out of sight. “You’ll just have to go through … someplace else,” he finished quickly, walking away as Clean Cut slapped a hoof on his face in realization.

The sound of a lock moving out of place filled the air, the portcullis sinking ever so slightly into the packed snow as it was no longer supported. Clean Cut’s horn lit up almost as soon as it was released, the horizontal bars of the gate glowing with his aura. With a swing of his head upwards, the gate slowly rose, followed by a short cheer from the ponies behind him. Clean Cut’s hooves sank into the snow as a portion of the weight from the portcullis transferred into him.

As soon as the gate was high enough, the ponies started forward again. The first ponies started through, looking up with slightly nervous glances at the sharp points of the steadily rising metal gate. They tried not to think of the trap doors and pouring holes in the ceiling above them as they passed under, quickly working into a trot as they moved inside.

The Mayor’s voice lifted above the slight din as they started toward the first buildings in Canterlot. “Make way toward the castle grounds, the Princesses should be able to direct us from there!” her encouraging voice, calm as ever, led them on.

It only grated slightly on Clean Cut: he knew what she was, but as far as he could tell she was acting completely of her own will. He liked to think that anypony, and any changeling for that matter, had good intentions at heart. At least in the beginning.

He stood very still as the ponies parted around him, concentrating on holding the gate up. He knew that it had a chain mechanism that would have slowed it more than enough for him to catch it again, but he didn’t want to take the chance. He wouldn’t move until the last pony was through, and then he would go and let it fall shut.

Coalback’s cart began to pass, one of the wolves brushing past him as he walked with it. “Hey! Coalback!” he called out, hoping that the strange creature inside would be listening to him. “When you get to the castle, go immediately to Luna. Do not, under any circumstances, see Celestia first! Luna made it very clear that she wanted to see you, first thing!” he yelled, their cart disappearing as more carts and wagons passed him.

---

If there was ever a place in the palace that ponies avoided, it was the Lunar wing. It wasn’t because of Luna herself, or the thestrals that made their home as her guards there. And it wasn’t because it remained perpetually dark, all the window’s curtains drawn shut. It was simply the feel of the place.

The halls still held a dark aura within them, the feeling of being watched looming around every corner. Tapestries and displays from the Nightmare’s rise were still presented along its walls. Thestrals wandered the darkened halls, midday sentries posted whilst the Night Guard slept. Their eyes glowed with any light that made it into the halls, standing out harshly in the dark.

A set of seven Night guards had been sent to retrieve the Elements once they’d arrived, hooded against the midday sun. They’d insisted that Coalback, the Doctor and even the ‘Mayor’ come as well. Three of the thestrals, each lacking wings and bearing a wickedly sharpened horn, had lifted Coalback from the back of the cart to a rolling bed designed for Minotaurs.

“I don’t remember any of this when we went to see Luna before,” Rainbow said, looking warily at a tapestry depicting Nightmare Moon. The slitted eyes seemed to bore into her, following her every move as their group passed. She stepped closer to Coalback, one of his hands moving to the back of her neck reassuringly.

Clean Cut had quickly caught up to them as they’d entered the castle earlier, dutifully following as they took turn after turn into the darkened halls. “To find a place that doesn’t exist, we’ve gotta get lost first,” he said with a chuckle, trotting along behind Coalback’s bed as it rolled around another corner.

Rainbow huffed in annoyance, ignoring the doctor’s unfitting enthusiasm. Even Pinkie looked uneasy in this place, and he acted like they were taking a walk in the park. Her eyes wandered over the others, trying to distract herself as another bust’s eyes bored into her skull.

Coalback’s bed trundled along at the rear of the group, pulled by two of the winged thestrals. Rainbow and Clean Cut followed it, staying close to the injured human. Ahead of them, another guard carried Fluttershy on his back, the yellow pegasus having frozen in fear almost as soon as they’d entered the halls. Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, and Twilight walked ahead of that, taking in the dark decor with wary eyes. A single unicorn thestral remained, leading the group at the very front through the halls with a miniscule light glowing at the tip of his horn.

“What do you mean by ‘a place that doesn’t exist’?” Coalback asked warily, turning his head slightly to eye the doctor with a questioning look. It seemed that even he was thrown off by the environment, the frown that seemed permanently plastered on his face attesting to that.

“Not much,” the doctor said with a shrug, a small squawk from Merletta punctuating his short sentence. “It was mostly a joke. We’re going to see Luna in a place that’s rarely used nowadays, though. I like to call it ‘The Chamber of Madness,’” he finished, chuckling darkly as he donned a nostalgic look.

“Why do you call it that?” Twilight asked carefully from the front of the group, taken aback by the ominous name.

“Well, let’s just say that after I spent a day in there, they did a remodel and now it’s completely maddening as well as being almost indestructible,” he said, his laugh bouncing off the walls hauntingly. “It shouldn’t be so bad with so many ponies in it however. Just be careful not to be left alone in there,” he said with a shrug, waving off any concern that might have been associated with that.

“What happens when you’re alone in there? Are there ghosties? Do they try and play with your mane and blow in your ears?” Pinkie asked, suddenly popping up beside the doctor. He shook his head as they turned around another corner, a ramp leading down another level underneath Canterlot yawning out in front of them.

“That room will drive you mad in less than an hour,” he said with a wide smile, shaking his head. “Luna put me in there to test my loyalty once, all you can hear in there is … well, yourself,” he said ominously, finishing by making a spooky sounding “ooooh …” that echoed off the walls again.

“That doesn’t sound so bad, I listen to myself talk all the time!” Pinkie added, bouncing down the ramp and quickly gaining speed. She ended up passing all of them, effectively abandoning the conversation.

“You’ll see ...” he said, smiling to himself. He barely flinched as Merletta pecked his poll, a peeved expression on the bird’s features making itself known.

“This place is creepy enough,” Rainbow mumbled, rolling her eyes as the doctor only continued to laugh. “Now Luna’s got rooms that make ponies go mad just by standing in them? I wonder what’s in there …” she said, drifting off as images of torture devices flitted through her mind’s eye.

The thestrals led them around another turn, revealing a surprisingly small door at the end of the short hallway. The door itself was surprisingly simple for one within the palace, where over complicated decorations were most commonplace. It was a featureless, flat slab of grey, the only indication of the smooth surface being a door at all was the indented handle on one side of it.

Surrounding the diminutive entrance, intricate carvings transitioned from ebony at its farthest and marble just around the door. Lines, swirls, stars, and ponies hid among the indentations in the wall. No consistency seemed to dominate the artwork, as if each detail held no purpose other than to fill the space.

The thestrals walked them to the door, stopping outside it and turning sharply in place. Applejack took Fluttershy from one of the guards, muttering a “Thank ya kindly,” to him as she took the now-quivering pegasus’s weight. Just as the transfer had been made, the thestrals moved quite suddenly. With a clap of black armor connecting with itself, the thestrals snapped to attention with a strong salute. The thestrals looked past the group of ponies, drawing the ponies to follow the their gazes.

Each of them turned, trying to find the source of their attention. Once they’d turned to the hallway behind them, however, they stared in awe at the strange sight. The hallway twisted in on itself behind them, shrinking and flexing as the hallway itself sealed the path they’d come from and revealed a new one of similar design.

As the hallway settled into place, a few creaks and groans leaked out of the walls, twists in the wood and stone shuddering back into place. The source of the thestral’s attention came into view as the floors and walls moved out of the way, Luna’s gilded hooves falling just behind the twists in the floor as they settled.

The ponies turned and bowed toward her as she approached. “No time,” Luna said quickly, stepping through them toward the door. “We should not tarry, lest the door move again,” she said, her horn glowing with magic. The group followed the sound of her magic humming as it moved through the air.

Blue swirls of magical light traced their way through the intricate carvings around the door, the sounds of metal sliding on oiled tracks slithering out from behind the door. The door slid open a moment later, splitting down the middle and disappearing into the wall beside it.

“Hurry,” Luna said quickly, ducking through the door and into the room beyond. “Quickly now, Clean Cut! All of you,” she said, urgency shivering through her voice. It sent sparks of uneasiness through all who heard it, spurring them into motion.

Without a word of warning, Clean Cut’s translucent dark green magic wrapped around Coalback and lifted him into the air. He grunted out a surprised sound, swinging his arms out to unnecessarily try and right himself. Clean Cut silently levitated the man through the door, quickly followed by the others. The ‘Mayor’ hesitated just outside, jumping into motion when one of the thestral’s eyes snapped to her.

Once all eleven of them had entered the room, the door slid shut and locked itself. It was small, almost too small to fit all of them properly. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made from a grate: it was thin but seemed more than capable of holding their collective weight. Behind the grates, spikes of a spongy material covered every surface.

Once the door had sealed itself, silence fell like a blanket over them. They had never noticed the ambient noise that was present outside, but with its absence it became surprisingly blatant. The silence was absolute, the only sounds being that of the ponies shuffling their hooves around on the grate floor.

They shuffled about the room, settling into place to fill it as comfortably as possible. It wasn’t small, but certainly not big enough to fit as many of them as there were comfortably. Coalback floated across the room to one of the corners, Clean Cut sighing in relief as his magic faded. Luna took reign of the rear wall, pacing in the limited space as the rest of the ponies settled around her.

Rainbow pushed through the others, edging her way over to Coalback. She settled with standing near his feet, careful not to bump his wrapped leg. She switched her gaze between the silently pacing Princess and Coalback, who sat silently as he watched the Princess pace as well. Whenever she glanced at him, she couldn’t help but notice the anxiety growing on his face.

The Princess continued to simply pace, indecision clearly frustrating her. Her steps dominated the sounds in the room, echoing out metallically through the room. But as Rainbow’s ears adjusted, more and more sounds came to her attention. Sounds that made the fur on her withers stand on end.

Every breath in the room became louder, as if everypony in the room had leaned in to breath in her ear. Her own breathing became more evident, even the sound of her ribs moving slightly came to her. Next she heard her heart, and slowly the other’s as well. They filled the room with the rushing echo of blood moving through their chests.

“Where to begin …” Luna said quietly, her voice driving back the sounds of the bodies around her. “There are so many questions, concerns …” she muttered, pausing in her pacing and hanging her head dejectedly. “So much to explain. So much to ask!” she continued, her voice rising from a whisper and filling the strange room hollowly.

“Where are we, Luna? I’ve never seen a room like this before,” Twilight interrupted quietly, turning her gaze from the Princess to the grated walls around them. There were no lights, yet the room was filled with an even yellow light. “Is this an … anechoic chamber?” she asked carefully, unsure of whether she should have interrupted the Princess’s thoughts.

“Indeed,” the Princess said distantly, her voice heavy. “I chose this place so that our conversation would not be overheard. My own design from many, many years ago; it was meant to be for secret meetings. No magic or sound can leave this place,” she explained, seeming to have taken control of herself for the moment. Rainbow could see the turmoil that held onto the Princess’s heart, her normally hidden emotions revealed once she had left the company of her guard.

“We will ask first of the attack,” Luna continued, turning to Coalback as her resolve returned to her. “How was it that the wall constructed? And what did you do to Discord?” she asked carefully, warily watching Coalback for his response. Her hooves had stilled, gingerly holding her above the fine grate on the floor as if she were afraid of damaging it.

Coalback hesitated, slightly taken aback that the Princess had decided to ask about Discord himself. “I made the wall with some help from a recipe for thermite that I had memorized. It’s a self-oxidizing fuel, and burns extremely hot. I needed a larger source of power for the scale of the spell, the heat let me use around half of what I would normally need for that,” Coalback said quickly, swallowing a lump in his throat as the Princess nodded thoughtfully.

“And Discord?” she asked, her eyes staring intently at him. Rainbow could practically feel the delicate frame of tension that was holding the Princess’s words. Whatever was bothering the Princess clearly had nothing to do with the wall, and seemed to extend far past Discord as well.

“I … Uhm …” Coalback said, one of his hands clenching as he cleared his throat. His anxiety seemed to have grown, and muscles in his arms had tightened enough to start revealing his veins. Rainbow didn’t know if it was the room, or his own perception of the Princess’s gaze that was bothering him, but she could definitely tell that he was struggling to maintain a sense of calm around himself.

“I think …” he started again, his eyes refusing to meet the Princess’s. “I think that I’ve managed to confine him to a single shape, and I might have slowed him down a bit. But I can’t be certain what exactly I did,” he explained, taking a deep breath as he finished and seeming to relax slightly.

Luna hummed thoughtfully, dropping her gaze from Coalback and drifting back into her own thoughts. “That is good, you have performed remarkably well. We did hear about your struggles in Ponyville, it would seem that dangers present themselves from both sides of this fight,” she said consolingly, turning to slowly continue her pacing. Her hoofsteps no longer dominated the air, stepping with less energy than before.

“Princess, what ever has put you in such a state?” Rarity asked, staring horrifyingly at the her as she paced. “Just look at your mane, and your coat!” Rarity continued, nearly crying out as she watched the Princess shake her head sadly.

Rainbow hadn’t noticed it before, but Rarity was right. Luna’s coat, once shining and well groomed, seemed dull now. The dark saphire fur didn’t flow in gentle waves as it once did, mussed and rough as if it had been left without grooming for weeks. Her once flowing mane of ethereal starlight now seemed limp, some strands even seeming to have lost their magical quality.

“We fear of what will come from revealing this … But we still hold hope that we will be incorrect in our assumptions,” Luna said sadly, continuing to pace slowly. “We had hoped … that with his travels in lands far from here, that Coalback would perhaps be of help …” she said, pausing to look at Coalback again. Her eyes swam with sadness, a deep rooted fissure of fear making them shake.

“You’d be surprised by how little I actually know … your majesty,” he said, hesitating at the last moment as he watched her. “But I suppose you’d have to explain further before I could offer any help,” he finished, nodding shakily up to her. Rainbow watched him carefully as he shifted his weight further onto his uninjured leg.

“It is Our sister …” she said reluctantly, causing the others in the room to grow deathly silent. It seemed as if even the sounds of their breathing, once so loud they were hardly able to be ignored, had dulled in the wake of Luna’s words. “It seems she’s … changed …” Luna continued, her voice shaking as she resumed her pacing. The words seemed to pain her, each syllable a heavy weight for her to bear.

“What do you mean?” Coalback asked carefully, following her pacing with his eyes. His arms tensed again as he waited for her answer, the veins in his arms and his neck on display. Rainbow knew that something was grating on him, some sort of fear stirring inside him. She knew that he was shaking it off, dismissing his worries. She could see him fighting that fear in his eyes, something stirring in the back of his mind.

“She is distant, cold to Us,” Luna started, shaking her head as if to deny the thought even as she spoke it. “She speaks, but she holds no love in her voice. And it’s gotten worse since you’ve come to Equestria, she’ll barely even speak to our ponies at all! She doesn’t eat! It seems she never sleeps! And she has grown paranoid of even the smallest things,” Luna listed off, gaining speed as she spoke, as if she’d opened a floodgate.

Tears grew in her eyes, shimmering at the bottoms of her eyes as they fought to overflow through the grate on the floor. Her voice shook with every word she’d spoken, taking its toll on her resolve to keep speaking.

“I assume that is unusual, especially with what good I’ve heard of her,” Coalback said slowly, his eyes narrowing as he began to think. “What do you believe is wrong? This could simply be the result of stress …” Coalback tried, carefully trying to bring reason to her concerns. Rainbow clearly saw suspicion in his eyes, a suspicion that rang of fear even to untrained eyes.

“We fear that … We fear that she has been enchanted,” Luna said shakily, her head falling as she halted her pacing. “But she cannot have been replaced, that We know. So her actions have either been altered, or they are her own,” she said with a choked sob, a few tears falling from her eyes and soaking into the spongy spikes beneath their hooves.

The ponies in the room stood silently, watching their Princess weep for her sister. All the while, Coalback’s eyes shifted from one side of the room to the other in rapid thought. If he ever could have appeared more tense than before, it was in that moment. Rainbow didn’t have to see it to know that Coalback’s thoughts had brought him back to the past. She knew he’d fight it, but he was weaker now and wouldn’t be able to for long.

“Perhaps I know of something that can prove this is wrong,” Coalback declared quickly after a moment, drawing attention back to himself. “Twilight will cast a spell that I know can detect nefarious enchantments and spells, if you’ve been near a spell like that it will show,” he said, motioning toward Twilight with his hand to come over to him.

Twilight moved toward him with nervous steps, balking slightly as she came near. It seemed that she was almost afraid of his touch, the memory of the violent ‘borrowing’ of her magic only the other night jumping to the front of her thoughts. Coalback motioned her forward again, impatiently waiting for her to near.

When Twilight was close enough, he pulled her head toward him so that he could whisper into her ear. He spoke so quietly that even in this room only Twilight heard him. Her reluctance disappearing among a look of intrigue, one that quickly let her relax into a common look of a scholar. After a moment, Twilight hummed and nodded in thought turning back to the Princess.

Her stance squared on the floor, her magic humming to life in her horn. “Alright, Princess, just hold still,” she said firmly, waiting for Luna to square her own stance. “If there’s nothing wrong, it shouldn’t have any affect on you,” she continued, the light of her horn intensifying slightly and growing more consistent in its glow.

With a small grunt from the purple unicorn, a wave of magical light spread outward toward the Princess. It eddied out toward her, catching on some unseen friction in the air and flowing past the Princess harmlessly. It hit the grates around and behind her, fizzling into nonexistence as it came into contact with it.

Twilight simply stood there for a few long moments, brow furrowed in concentration. She locked her eyes onto a singular point just above Luna’s head, examining the point of space there as if it would reveal some long sought secret to the universe.

“Well?” Coalback asked after a moment, tilting his head to the side in an attempt to look around the back of Twilight’s head. He wanted to gauge her reaction for himself, unsure if what she’d found had been too much for her. If his fears had been confirmed, then he would have little time to hesitate in his own actions.

“Nothing …” Twilight said after another excruciating moment, the rest of the room sighing explosively as the tension that had been building dissipated suddenly. “But there was a trace, she’s been around something … funny,” Twilight finished, turning back to Coalback with a small frown.

“Show it to me, like I told you how,” Coalback instructed, lifting his hand in a gesture for her to proceed. His face had gone stiff, all emotion driven away from it as he waited for Twilight to perform the second spell he’d told her.

Twilight nodded, turning around and squaring her stance again facing him. Her horn glowed again, a cloud of magical light drifting into the air between them. Inside the cloud, hanging like rags on some infernal breath, were strange shapes, shifting in geometric patterns that changed erratically, just beyond natural perception, always a shape just beyond description, dark ripples through existence.

“Damn the gods!” Coalback hissed, his hands clenching shut into fists as his whole body stiffened. Twilight’s spell dissipated in the air, the images of the strange shapes disappearing with it. “It can’t be that! Anything but that!” he groaned, his hands coming up to his throat and holding tightly there as if to block some unseen attack.

“You do recognise it?” Luna asked quickly, a flicker of hope shining in her eyes. It faded quickly as she saw Coalback shiver, his hands suddenly moving to his arms and rubbing over them as if to clear them of cobwebs.

“I wish I didn’t!” Coalback protested quickly, a childlike denial permeating his features. “I- I mean it’s a- a little different, not quite the same. But close enough that it might as well be!” he stuttered out, pressing himself against the grate and looking about the room like the spikes could come down and crush him.

“What is it? What’s wrong, Coalback?” Rainbow said, carefully stepping over him and pressing against him. His arms wrapped around her, a relieved sigh escaping him as he pulled her into his chest. He was still breathing faster than normal, nervously refusing to keep his gaze in one place.

“I recognize those shapes,” he choked out, shaking his head slightly to banish an image only he could see. “They’re like the sparks and shapes that you see on the back of your eyelids when you press on them, but more specific. They’re the only sign of its presence …” he said, his voice growing weaker as he spoke.

Rainbow recognised what was happening, she knew that his memories were starting to crowd in on him. She knew that he needed her as an anchor if anything was going to be answered at this point. A look of grief overtook him, but more than that, he seemed overcome with fear. She could practically feel it, the way his chest shook like a ratcheting gate closing, the way he held to her like she could simply vanish.

Whatever it was that Coalback recognized, he was afraid of it. Terrified.

“Coalback, if this is as grievous as you make it out to be … We must know what it is,” Luna said gently, her own anxiety set aside in the pursuit of answers. Luna still wore the expression of distress that had plagued her before, but now she had tried to find a more comforting tone.

Coalback slowly calmed, his face scrunching up as he simply attempted to stop moving altogether. “It got inside them,  it took them and twisted them … it almost got me too,” Coalback finally said, his voice quiet and weak. His chest still shook against Rainbow, despite Coalback’s efforts to reign in his emotions. “I stopped it though ... I saved them …” Coalback muttered gravely, his eyes blank as he tried to ignore the memories. “Every one of them …”

Rainbow paused, eyes opened wide as she simply watched him. The paralyzed stillness in the room around her was the only indication that her friends had, too, remembered Coalback’s words only so many days ago: 

‘... I killed them, all of them ...’ Coalback had said, spitting the words out so that he couldn’t feel them cut into his tongue. He’d told them that only a few days after he’d come with them to Ponyville, and even then it had been hard for him to say. But he’d never elaborated on what was truly the cause of their ‘sickness.’

“And it was in me, too …” he continued shakily, almost in a trance as he spoke. “I fought it with the wolf, I forced Fenrisúlfr to fight it!” he spat, the name tearing at him and bringing back horrible images to his mind that made him flinch in Rainbow’s embrace. “I made him use me to kill them so that they would be saved, and then I tried to kill myself … I set the house on fire, and waited for it to fall on me so it could crush me …” he sobbed, tears welling in his eyes and gently overflowing.

“For nearly a week, I was trapped under a huge, burning beam. I nearly died of thirst, and I forced myself to drink the blood that was pooled around me. They tortured me, filling my head with images of Hellfire and things I never knew could be as horrible as they were to me … Only then did that thing stop whispering in my ear …” he said quickly, nearly wailing the words out of his mouth. His head leaned down, burying his face in Rainbow’s chromatic mane to try and hide the sorrow that was etched onto his features.

Rainbow wasn’t sure how she could help him, he only seemed to be falling farther into the fit that had started. The first time, she’d been able to calm him just by being there and refusing to leave when he tried to push her away. But that hadn’t worked the last time, and it didn’t seem to be able to help him by itself this time either. She had to do something now though, she couldn’t stand to see him breaking down like this.

Her mind raced, searching for something that she could use to keep him there with her. She grasped at the first thing that sprung to the fore of her thoughts, nervously sputtering out her reply before she could doubt it. “But- But you beat it before, right?” she asked carefully, using a hoof to lift his head up so that he would look at her face. “And- And you’ve got us now. You’ve got me too. There’s no way we can lose,” she said, her conviction growing as she spoke, “Look … I don’t know what you went through before, I don’t know what this thing is, but if it did what I think it did … your family … One thing I know for sure is that we can kick it’s damn flank this time! You just watch. I know you can do it.”

His face slowly grew out of the sorrow that had overcome it, a flicker of hope showing there. It stayed there for only a moment though, a look of doubt flashing across his face and dashing away the hope that had grown there. “It’s too risky,” he said hoarsely, shaking his head slightly. “It might not work, I don’t even know how we would do it,” he said, the fear slowly receding under a niggling doubt that showed so clearly on his face.

“What do you mean?” Luna spoke up, her voice shaking slightly. “If something has hold over Our sister, We need to know what to do to save her,” she said carefully, drawing a frown from Coalback as she tried to press for answers. His head shook from side to side, a weak scowl covering his features.

“I’m not sure if we can,” Coalback said despondently. Rainbow nuzzled him for a moment, trying to lend him what strength she could, but he stopped her briefly. She jerked back, searching his face, and surprised at what she found. Coalback stared up at Luna, his features set, his eyes sharp as flint. “I don’t know how we can break it this time. If Celestia herself has fallen to it, who knows how powerful it is? Ponies know light, and happiness. Friendship and peace the like of which I’ve only ever dreamed of. But this thing, this Nemesis? It knows fear, it knows pain. It knows how to bring the walls crashing in on you and laying bare everything you ever thought you stood for from within yourself. Those who dare stand against it? They die. They fall. I fell. Only so much of me survived that burning week of hell. Burning from the inside. Now you want to face it down? Can you stare at your own fears and stay calm as still water? This I ask you all, if you want to fight a true demon.”

Coalback was back. Around the man, eight ponies and a changeling stood in rapt attention. His question hung in the silent air, broken only a sharp breath from the impersonation of the Mayor standing amongst them.

“I am a changeling. You may not know this, you may have guessed. But … I watched my hive be destroyed, I was controlled by queens and tyrants, and the closest to peace I know is here, with you. I’ll fight for that, no matter the end.”

Coalback nodded, but his attention was quickly taken by another voice.

“Of course we’ll fight.” Twilight snorted. “We’ve fought monsters before. We’ve fought our nightmares and our own demons.”

“We’ve fought Discord before, too.” Rarity quipped.

Applejack nodded to Fluttershy, saying, “An’ the quietest o’ us has fought dragons, ain’t that right?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash sat just a little taller, “You’ve got the truest ponies Equestria can offer. We’re up for it.”

Every creature in the room looked to another, conviction growing through all of them. The Doctor’s brow furrowed, before he walked forward and bowed low to Princess Luna, “I am at your side no matter the hardship, Majesty, loyal to your decision.”

Luna scanned the gathered ponies, all of them looking to her. Finally, she locked eyes with Coalback, strength seeping back into her voice as she said, “Coalback, for a thousand years, I traced the world through hate-laden eyes. I wished to end that which I loved through spiteful vindictive anger, but it hurt nopony more than myself. If you believe there to be a way to rid my sister of her curse, as I myself was freed, then you have my fullest strength to achieve it.”

Coalback nodded again, a grim smile twisting his lips. “We fight then. But I must warn you … You wish to break the evil that binds Celestia herself? Then you must come as near as breath to breaking her as well.”

And in the silence that shadowed his words. Merletta screeched.

Twilight glared at the bird, before turning resolutely back to Coalback. At a nod from the Princess, she blinked and whispered, “Tell us.” The bird’s beak opening to take a deep breath before she spoke.