The Everfree forest was a strange place. Experts couldn't agree if it was because it completely lacked the magic present in Equestria, or if the opposite was true, that it's magic was far stronger. Not even the Princess's Celestia and Luna could decide which was the truth.
But it didn't matter. Not anymore. When a thick smoke started billowing out of the forest, all that mattered was that something was happening in the Everfree. Something dangerous.
xXx
Zecora ran, speeding down the track that led out of the wild forest she called home. Had called home, she corrected, though fire had now given her reasons to roam.
Passing aside the Poison Joke, the Zebra took a moment to pause, and look behind her. The flames that had come from nowhere were visible at a far distance, but spreading fast. There was maybe an hour at most before it reached the edge, and that was if she was lucky.
She had to warn Ponyville. Turning from the destroyer of her home, she ran from unnatural flames towards the gap of light she could see up ahead. Her hooves pounded on the ground as she raced against the smoke and the flames, until at last she emerged from the Everfree's Edge.
She was slightly surprised to see most if not all the town gathered up, and slowed her pace, catching her breath as she was surrounded.
“What's going on, Zecora?”
“Is there anything wrong, Zecora?”
“What's with the smoke, Zecora?”
“Ponies, please give me room, for I unfortunately must bring Tidings of Doom”, she voiced loudly, piercing through the noises of the crowd. “I cannot lessen your feelings of fear, for there is a Fire in the Everfree that is nearly here!!”
The crowd fell silent, the black smoke filling the town with a dark miasma suddenly a lot more sinister. It came from the Everfree forest, where nothing works the same as it works outside of it.
“Any Pony with Fire Duty, get to work!”, shouted the mayor, spurring everypony to action, “Everypony else, prepare to evacuate if need be!”
xXx
Applejack wiped a hoof across her face, smearing dirt and sweat. Fire Duty entailed putting out the fire and containing it, and currently it was just plain physical work to prevent it from reaching Ponyville. Catching her breath, she looked out at the handy work of the dozens of earth ponies clearing a wide path between the town and the forest of anything that could burn.
Grass, sticks, strange fungus, bushes...everything was removed and shoved out of it, and for once she was glad for Rarity's obsession of everything being attractive. After all, rolls of grass and sticks and such were easier to transport out of the danger then messed up piles, and their was the fact that she was doing the work alone save for Big Macintosh carting the rolls aways.
Every other Unicorn was bringing water. Every Pegasus was gathering clouds to rain on the fire. Every Earth Pony was clearing the land to form a barrier against the fire's spread. Applejack paused. Every pony in the fire patrol, that was.
She wasn't sure where Twilight was, only that she had run off once news of the fire had spread, but chances are she was planning something. Fluttershy was helping load the injured or the elderly into carts in the slim case the fire got around their preventions. Pinkie was spreading word of the fire to anypony who may have missed it, and Rainbow Dash was helping the weather patrol get the little anti-fire storm together.
It wouldn't be long now before the fire's came. She could feel it in her bones, and could smell it in the steadily increasing smoke. Sometimes, she believed she could see the flames racing towards them. Hopefully, everything would work out.
Sighing, she got back to work.
xXx
A candle lit up, and abruptly went out.
xXx
Fluttershy was afraid. The smoke coming from the forest was getting thicker and thicker, to the point that it was only distinguished from the storm clouds of the pegasi by the fact that it burned the eye's. The sky looked like it was ready for a storm, and she knew for a fact that only the only clouds were the one's over the forests edge.
She shivered. It was nearly enough to render her flightless with fright, which was perhaps why she had been sent to watch from the top of the hospital, to keep an eye on the situation.
And then it happened. The fire breached the edge of the Everfree, flames dancing higher then she could ever expect. She eeped in fright. It was so different from the itty bitty flame on her candles. That one was a friendly light that always seemed to be saying hello. This one...it was different, like it wanted to consume everything.
It was different even from the controlled burns other forests went under somehow, having a malice those other flames lacked. From a distance, she saw the Pegasus get to work, kicking the clouds they had spent so much effort gathering.
Some sections started pouring immediately, while other's were missed in the confusion the dark smoke was causing, needing a second, or even third and forth kick. Sighing in relief that everything seemed to be in control, Fluttershy felt her fear lessen...until she saw the Flames advancing despite the heavy rain, despite the buckets of water the fire patrol had.
The fire surged forward, vaporizing the water before it even touched it, and igniting the dirt in exactly the way fires shouldn't. Dimly she could hear screams as the fire broke through, and Ponyville itself started to burn.
She nearly tripped over her own hooves as she ran back down. They needed to get out of here!
xXx
A candle lit up, and abruptly went out.
Xxx
Pinkie kept a smile on her face, though she wasn't feeling even remotely happy as she carted a wagon with several foals in it.
“Don't you worry! Auntie Pinkie's got you”, she voiced as she hopped along. She wasn't alone, as others around her pulled bigger wagons with those who couldn't fast enough on their own, as well as other necessity's.
She couldn't believe it. That the Everfree-is-on-fire evacuation plan would ever have to be used! She'd thought it up a few years ago as a joke, as the idea that the Everfree would even be able to catch fire seemed impossible.
Trying to keep up her spirits, Pinkie contented herself with making a few silly faces at the little ones. Abandoning Ponyville...she felt like she could cry, but then the babies would start crying and they wouldn't be able to get anywhere.
So many memories would be lost...but then again, she reasoned, so many memories would be able to be renewed after the town was rebuilt.
Better to dwell on what needed to be done and not could be's and has been's, she concluded, and with a cheerful expression broke out into song.
As always, she just came up with it on the spot, and as it came to a close, she could see a renewed determination in the other evacuee's eyes, a renewed hope where before there was only despair.
Pinkie would never now how important she was to Ponyville, but she didn't need to know. While at times she was annoying to some, she would never know that her antics were more then spontaneous things to make her friends smile.
Humming as she bounced along, she let her mind wander back at the fire, and wondered if tossing mud at it would have more of an effect then water did. She would have to tell that to the Fire Duty Ponies when they met up with them.
xXx
A candle lit up, and abruptly went out.
xXx
Rarity was streaked with soot, and smoke, and for once it didn't matter. She was in a town that was on fire, a massive blaze that burned that which shouldn't and resisted even magic's touch to put it out.
She disregarded the thought. It was enough that it was true. She could think on what happened after it was over. “This way, Everypony!”, she called, pointing down the road Applejack had led her group through, clearing the way.
Rainbow Dash suddenly swooped out of the sky. “That ways no good. The fire just jumped to Sugercube Corner. This way is still clear”
Nodding to her friend, Rarity turned to the one's she was trying to lead to safety, the slower Unicorns and Earth Ponies, a few young volunteers as well as a few pegasi who had been injured. She suppressed a wince at the thought of the burns some of them had.
“Actually, this way is better!”, she called out, pointing the direction Rainbow had indicated, before flinching when she realized it would take her past her boutique. All those dresses, all those designs...she shook it off.
They could be remade. Lives could not, and delaying here only made it more difficult to save them all. Following the new route, Rarity resumed her place at the head of the group, pointing the way, as the heat climbed and the fires closed in.
Her home was already in flames when they came within sight of it, and it was almost like the fire was trying to trap them in the town, as the building across only street available was moments away from going a blaze as well.
Falling back slightly, she urged the others to keep going, to not give up...when disaster struck. A full half of the group had made it through when her store finally gave in, collapsing and nearly sheering her tail with burning lumber. Miraculously, no pony was hurt.
Unfortunately, a full half of the group were still inside the town. She froze for a moment, not sure what to do, until a voice of a friend broke through.
“Keep going! I'll try to lead them another way!”
With a nod, Rarity turned away, confident that her friend could save those still inside.
xXx
A candle lit up, and abruptly went out.
xXx
The air was hot, and the smoke was thick, but at the very least it gave Rainbow Dash plenty of lift to guide the last of the Fire Crew away from a nasty end by fire. She had meant what she said, and she would try to save them all, but...
Fire was everywhere, and smoke made it difficult to navigate. Nowhere was safe from flames. Nowhere. Not the river, not the town square...even the dirt burned...
An idea formed, half planned but it was the only one she had. The library was fireproofed, right? Twilight had said something about that, didn't she? Otherwise wouldn't it have been too dangerous to have Spike live there?
Scanning the town, she was pleased to note that it wouldn't be that hard to get to the as of yet untouched Tree. “Everypony head to the library!”, she cried, “It should be safe there”
The entire group stopped, staring at her as if she was crazy. Maybe she was, but this was the only plan she had. “It's fireproof, ok? Just go already”
It was a desperate decision. But this was a desperate time, and she hoped that it wouldn't lead to their deaths. It was a quick journey, with only a detour or three around paths no longer safe, but soon Rainbow Dash was able to soar into the main room, slamming the door behind.
What greeted her wasn't what she expected. Her group wasn't the first to seek shelter in the library, and some of those that did had foals. It was a silent and brooding atmosphere, broken occasionally by a flicker and a hiss.
A candle lit up, and abruptly went out.
Turning, Rainbow Dash was surprised to see a certain Purple Unicorn, bent over a table, her horn glowing with magic.
A candle hovered dangerously close to some books, surrounded by a red glow. It lit up, and abruptly went out. The pegasus narrowed her eyes as she saw what was happening.
“What are you doing, Twilight!”, shouted Rainbow Dash, “we have enough troubles with fire already, or haven't you noticed!”
The Rainbow Mare was ignored, the candles continuing their cycle of light and dark, the unicorns face blank, her eye's only slightly narrowed as she worked.
Every time the candle slit up, the foals and even some of the adults flinched back, a painful reminder of the flames raging just outside.
“Answer me, Twilight! Your scaring the foals!”
“Almost...almost...done”, whispered the unicorn, a sheet of parchment flying towards her, and a quill scribbling something on the page. Another page flew through the air for her, and quickly the pen got to work on it. It was obvious that either she hadn't heard, or was again ignoring her.
Rainbow Dash had had enough. Enough of the fire, of the smoke, of the flames, of being in danger. With a cry of frustration, she tore the page away from her friend, crumpling it beneath her hooves.
“Rainbow! That was Vital Research!”
“Vital research? Vital research! Ponyville is in flames, Twilight! Ponies are struggling to survive, and all your concerned with is research?”, she growled, her wings flaring menacingly. “Get out”
“What?”, shouted Twilight, wondering if her friend had really said what she thought she had said, not noticing shocked voices of the others in the room. Quite frankly her friend was scaring her, fear making her take a few steps back.
“I said, get out!”, repeated the pegasus, “Your research is endangering every pony in here, and it's obvious that it's the most important thing to you. Just teleport somewhere safe or something! We don't need you here!”
Around her, others rose in agreement, accusing voices blaming her for this, for that, for starting the fire in the first place. It was overwhelming. Intellectually she knew that they had let fear control their actions. Emotionally it hurt all the same.
“You don't understand! I- stop yelling at me and let me explain!”
Twilight took a few more steps back, the door suddenly pressing against her rear, the wood hot from the fires. Another unicorns magic pushed it open, and suddenly all that was keeping her in were her own hooves, braced against the door frame.
“Please, let me explain!”, she pleaded as Rainbow Dash, good old Rainbow Dash, most loyal of all pony's stepped forward.
“There is nothing to explain”, snarled her friend, and with a mighty kick slammed both back hooves into her.
Bone gave, and with a sickening crack Twilight tumbled out of the library, one leg broken, helpless as the door slammed shut behind her.
Inside, Rainbow Dash leaned against the door as every pony else resumed their fearful brooding. Deep breathes shook her body, and to anypony else, it would look like she was trying to control her anger.
She wasn't. The anger had faded as soon as she had slammed the door shut on her friend, betraying her because of loyalty to everypony seeking refuge in the library. Suppressing another sob, all she could do was hope. Please, she thought, please stay safe, Twilight!
Xx
Twilight hit the ground, hard.
The heat was almost unbearable, and the impact had her writhing on the ground as she fell on the broken front leg. Rainbow Dash had kicked her, had broken her leg, had looked so angry...she couldn't believe it. Was she only her friend when she needed her? Was she!
Pushing the thought aside, Twilight rose unsteadily from the ground, the smoke thick around her, burning her eye's and throat as she tried nearly in vain to breathe. Her research...was incomplete. But now there was no time! No time at all, and she didn't know if her plan b would work or not, but she had no choice.
She couldn't do it here, and she needed to see the extent of the project. She needed someplace above the flames. Someplace above the smoke...and someplace not so far from here. Originally she had planned to have a pegasus take her to a cloud but...that was no longer an option.
Coughing, she forced herself to focus, forced herself to vanish.. Popping back into existence, she immediately stumbled and fell, her broken limb not capable of holding her weight at all anymore. Forcing herself back on task, she lifted her eyes and gasped in horror.
Everything burned. Everything. Sugercube corner, Sweet Apple Acres, the lake...everything, and growing larger. As she watched, embers jumped the gap, and the tree, for all it's fire proofing, started burning.
There was no time. She had to act, now! Her eye's hardened, and with a deep choking breath, she closed her eye's, concentrating on her magic, gathering it, focusing it to the most condensed form she could manage. Inaudible in the sound of the flames, she whispered, “Candle goes on”
It was a pity she wasn't able to complete a plan. A pity she wasn't able to complete a spell that would give her an advantage. A pity she had been betrayed, and cast out, the pain of which was difficult to cast aside. But there was no time to dwell on it. No time to do anything but act. Lives were at stake, and even if they hated her...she would give her all to save them.
Her brow creased in concentration, as she focused on what she had been working on since the fire had begun, and traditional means had failed. Around her, the flames rose, as if in challenge to the power that was building.
“Candle...”, she voiced, finishing the words that had been repeated countless times since she heard of the fire, the very air shaking from the buildup, “Goes out!”
The flames eating at the library suddenly went out as she released not a spell, but the absolute nature of fire going out. She opened her eye's, power shining through as a glow of sheer white light as she forced her will on that which threatened her home.
It spread like a shockwave detectable only by harsh winds, and the terrible flames ceasing. But the fire, cruel and chaotic, fought back, a great amount of effort sapping her strength for the smallest of gains.
Five seconds passed, and she was gasping for breath, sweating and struggling to maintain her focus. Ten seconds passed, and it was as if she had sent off an Ursa Minor again. Fifteen, and still she pushed, pushed with all her might against the cursed flames that still engulfed a full half of the town, forcing her to dig ever deeper into her magic.
She put her everything into it, all her strength, all her will, all her magic...but she was running out.
Xx
Fear ate at the ponies within the library. The library was burning. Fire on the outside reaching inwards...
Rainbow Dash looked out of the window in despair. Guilt ate at her, for assuring that the library would be a safe place, for kicking Twilight out of the safety that wasn't. The crack of bone haunted her, and the fear, the very real fear...that they were all doomed.
What made it worse was that nopony was blaming her. They trusted her, even now when she had failed them.
Around her, ponies cried, and waited for their inevitable fate. She herself closed her eyes tightly, tears falling as flames erupted into the main room, waiting. A moment passed. Then another. There was no screaming, there was no pain. If anything, the heat decreased.
Cracking and eye open, She couldn't help her jaw dropping in disbelief. The fire...the very real threat moments from obliterating them...was gone. Flames were gone, as far as the Town Hall, and retreating even further.
Flames which had resisted every attempt to stop them...were receding. Rainbow Dash shook her head wildly. Just because they were safe now didn't mean that they were out of danger. “Quickly! Everypony go out the back, and get away from the flames. I'll make sure the way is clear!”
Nothing else was needed to be said.
It was a quick and easy job, the most difficult part getting every pony out of the building, and keeping them together as they ran along the burnt land towards and through the growing gap in the flames.
Soon, they were with the rest of the ponies who had escaped from the fires, distance and thrown mud doing what water and wind couldn't and keeping the flames barely at bay. Flames that had gone out just moments ago.
xXx
Fluttershy sighed in relief as she saw Rainbow Dash fly in over a group, as Pinkie Pie squealed that it left every pony accounted for.
After the fire preparations had failed...she had been so afraid for her friends as the fire spread impossibly.
Now, she was just so happy that she didn't even care what others thought, and tackled Rainbow Dash as she landed, squeezing her with a hug.
“I'm so glad your safe”, she whispered as she let her go, happy that all her friends had made it out.
“Yeah...”, grinned Rainbow Dash, before sighing regretfully. “Um...I kind of need to talk to Twilight. Do you know where she is?”
Nodding, the shy pegasus opened her mouth to answer, and froze. She hadn't seen Twilight since before the fire.
The other Elements of Harmony just looked at each other fearfully. “You guy's do know where she is, right?”
Their silence spoke more then anything they could have said. Twilight was still in the fire, and, now that she thought of it, was probably behind whatever subdued it! And...
“I've got to go back...Twilight's still in danger!”
Before her friends could say anything, she was gone, a rainbow pointing straight at the smoldering wreckage and the flames beyond it.
Racing back to the library, Rainbow Dash braced herself for something gruesome, or even worse, nothing at all...and almost missed the very pony she was looking for. On the top of the tree was Twilight Sparkle.
Sighing in relief, she hastily landed, and turned to her friend, her stomach doing a flip flop as she took her in. Twilight did not look good. Unable to move, or even stand with her broken limb, her entire body was slumped in deep exhaustion, sweating heavily, the force of her magic around her nearly grounding Rainbow Dash, and definitely weighing her down like another gravity or three.
And yet, she turned eyes boiling with sheer power towards her, still fighting, though in her features the pegasus knew she wouldn't be able to do so for long...
This is what the experiment was for. This is what her research had been for. And...and she had cast her out. Guilt, heavier then before , weighed down on her. “ Twilight...I...I'm -”
“No time!”, hissed the unicorn, “Fly me after the flames! I can end the threat...but not for much longer!”
It was more then the unicorns appearance that made the decision instantaneous, it was the desperation in her words, an urge that didn't take more then a second for her mind to agree to it.
A deeper fear that if the flames weren't put out in their entirety, all of Equestria would burn might have had something to do with it.
It took even less time to burst into action. Lifting up her friend with care, Rainbow Dash launched into the sky, chasing the fires still burning the land. Through the smoke filled sky's, she raced, watching as the flames slowly receded at her approach.
Soon, Ponyville was no longer a blaze, but the fires continued to rage from the source, and Twilight's magic field had dramatically fallen.
“Almost done, Twilight!”, lied Rainbow, the section of the Everfree forest burning far larger then Ponyville itself was. Far larger then a dozen Ponyville's. “You can do it”
xx
Twilight could no longer see, her vision, hopefully temporarily, burned out from the massive power she was forcibly channeling. How much longer? How much more. It hurt. Oh Celestia, did it hurt. She wanted to stop, to give in to blissful unconsciousness...but failure most likely meant doom.
Beyond the pain, she could dimly feel the wind blowing past her, and flames, always the flames. She couldn't do it! She couldn't keep up! It was to much! She felt her magic sputtering under the demands she was placing it, could feel the flow slowing down and weakening with every second. Was there any hope at all?
“Almost done, Twilight!”, came Rainbow Dash's voice, almost surprising her. She hadn't realized she had followed her request, and now that she was aware of it could feel the hooves holding her up by her fore legs. “You can do it”
It didn't matter that moments ago she had been kicked out, that moments ago she nursed the hurt it left her...all that mattered was that a friend was there who believed her. Who needed her. And there was no way she would let that be in vain.
Twilight reached deeper, and deeper, into reserves she didn't even know she had beneath the near empty reserves she didn't know she had before this whole thing began. Pain screamed through her, but she forced herself to remain calm and focused.
All around her, fire quickly and suddenly died as she poured more and more of herself into the magic . Pushing and pushing and pushing andpushingandpushingand-!
And then it was finished, and she smiled.
xx
The last of the flames had vanished as the sun rose, the great ball of light shining through the vanishing smoke, as the magic, finally, was finished. It was really over. The threat of the fire was no more, leaving behind only the scorched remains of what had been a town and a massive portion of the Everfree forest.
But they had survived, and with a whoop of Joy, Rainbow observed the beautiful sight, not of a ruined wasteland, but of a land no longer burning with fiendish flames.
She grinned. “You did it, Twilight! You did it! I could just...”
The pegusus stopped, looking down at the friend she was holding up.
She hung limp, her head hanging awkwardly to the side, and a light smoke billowing off her, hissing softly into the cool air as her legs dangled uselessly, one at an awkward angle. And she was paler then she'd ever seen her, her breath weakly steaming up air that wasn't even that cold.
Without a second to lose, a rainbow streak blasted back to Ponyville.
Several days passed.
Rainbow Dash quietly pushed open the door, revealing Twilight, laying in the hospital bed, seemingly sleeping, the old ragged Smarty Pants Doll held in her embrace. Not that she could tell if her...friend...was sleeping, or not, what with the bandages covering the unicorns magic scorched eyes.
Saying nothing, she walked, her hoof steps echoing off the walls of the otherwise silent room. She finally stopped beside Twilight's bed, unable to look her after what she had done.
“Twilight...I...I'm so sorry”, she confessed, not receiving or expecting a response. The doctors said she might never speak again, or not remember anything, or...the doctors had said a lot of things, not sure, having never encountered a Unicorn who had undergone such an event.
The only thing they were sure of was that she would never cast magic again.
“I...I let my fear control me. I think we all did...except you. No Pony died. You saved so many and I...I just want you to get better”, she continued, pausing to pull her saddle bag off. In it were two books, books Spike had assured her were Twilight's favorites.
Trying to piece her thoughts together, she threw one of the books onto the table next to the bed, smiling to see Pinkie's balloons, and the get well card all of Ponyville had signed, amazingly started by Fluttershy.
Her other friends had also given gifts. She knew that the Doll had been fixed up, a gift from the entire apple family, and that Rarity had insisted the hospital use a blanket she had made just for the occasion, finishing it before she even started rebuilding her house.
She...she couldn't give anything like that. Like any of those.
Pulling out the second book, she said, “I brought you some books. I...we all know how much you like books. I mean, yeah, you can't read them and chances are you can't hear me at all, but I'll read them to you”
Flipping open the book , she grinned. “I've been told I'm pretty good at reading to others”
Clearing her throat, Rainbow Dash begun. “Daring Doo and the Infinity Complex. It wasn't often Daring Doo was called to Canterlot Castle, but when she was...”
As she read, Rainbow couldn't help but partially act out the scene's, her voice rising and falling dramatically as she herself became engrossed in the story.
Unnoticed, Twilight's head shifted slightly as if she was trying to focus in on Rainbow Dash, something the doctors would have said was highly improbable, a small smile growing on her face.
In the library, noticed only by an owl, a candle lit up, and abruptly went out.