Petrified

Applejack stumbled back, a gasp working its way out from her throat. The smell was overwhelming, so much that she dared herself not to breathe. Bile quickly rose up in her throat, burning its way up her esophagus. She took a calming breath and forced in back down, but her throat stung for a short while.

“What the buck is this?” She croaked at nopony in particular. She couldn’t see her friends, having been at the front of the group with Escuro for most of the trip.

“Hold on, everypony just stay calm. Let me try something.” Escuro said loudly. He stepped near the river, and his horn bubbled with that strange magic once more, but nothing happened. The river of blood remained.

“Escuro, what—”

There was a wet, blast-like sound, and Escuro stumbled back as if knocked over. Applejack’s eyes widened in horror as she looked up at the creature rising from the depths of the river. It looked like a shark twisted into the form of scorpion and completely skeletal. Applejack could see its innards through the gaps of its bones. The blood streamed down its body, over its organs. The creature gave a deafening wail, and Applejack’s skin crawled at the unpleasant pitch, like something sharp on a blackboard.

“Run!”

She didn’t know who shouted it; it may very well have been her. All she knew was that she was not going to stick around to find out all the ways the creature could kill her. She turned around, seeing her friends already a distance in front of her.

“AJ, RUN!” Rainbow screamed, glancing behind her and seeing the farm pony frozen in place.

Applejack shook herself out of her stupor and ran. Quickly, she caught up to where Rainbow Dash was, hovering in the air and waiting for her.

“Where’s Escuro?” Rainbow shouted.

Applejack opened her mouth to respond.

But she never got to, because at that moment there was a muted blast, and her vision swam with a dark magic aura. She was picked up and thrown backwards as if she weighed as much as a feather.  Her body collided with something solid, most likely the ground, several times. Like a stone being skipped across the surface of the water. Her vision swam as her head slammed against the ground, and then everything was black.

Movement was the first thing Applejack registered when her senses started to come to. Yes, there was something moving against her stomach in a repetitive pattern. Something hard was rubbing itself unpleasantly against her ribs. She scowled and tried to move away from it, aggravated by the disturbance of her sleep.

“Hey, she’s awake!” That was Pinkie Pie. Applejack could recognize that screechy voice anywhere. Idly, she wondered what Pinkie was doing inside her bedroom and then sighed in contentment when the movement against her stomach and ribs stopped.

“AaayyyeeeJaaaayyy.” Pinkie cooed, very close to her ear. Applejack flicked the ear, a small smile coming to her lips against her will. “Get up!” Pinkie chirped, and nuzzled her. Applejack sighed again. That was really nice.

“Just dump her on the ground, Pinks.” That was Rainbow Dash. Applejack scowled.

“Oh, please don’t, she’s suffered an injury.” Fluttershy.

“Y’all quit talking,” she groaned, “’M tryin’ ta sleep.”

“Applejack, darling, you have to get up so that Fluttershy can check you for concussion.” Rarity’s voice told her matter-of-factly.

Concussion?

…Oh.

Memories swam back to her. Twilight, Spike, the Cockatrice King, Escuro, and the shark scorpion.

Finally opening her eyes, Applejack found herself looking at the ground, where a pair of pink hooves stood. It took a while, but her brain finally registered her position: she sprawled across Pinkie’s back like a second skin. The rubbing against her ribs must have been the pink pony’s shoulder blades.

“Hey, uh, lemme down.” She said, startled and embarrassed by the suggestive position. Pinkie made no indication that she felt the same way, wordlessly crouching down until Applejack could slip off her back and onto the ground gently.

Immediately, the faces of her friends clouded her vision. Applejack groaned and closed her eyes, not liking how colorful they all were. Why had she not noticed how colorful they were before?

“You hit your head pretty hard, huh?” Rainbow Dash said, not even masking her worry.

“I’m fine, sugar.” Applejack smiled, not knowing if it was reassuring at all, but looking back at the pegasus found her a bit more calmed.

“Lay still, Applejack,” Fluttershy ordered gently, and set to work checking her for any larger injuries than the brow to her head.

“There was a scorpion, shark, thing.” Applejack gasped out when Fluttershy was done checking her over and allowed her to sit up, declared her mostly unscathed.

“I took care of it.” Escuro was sitting off to the side, away from most of them. He gave Applejack an extremely guilty smile that resembled a wince more than anything else. “I had to use a pretty advanced blasting spell to get rid of it. I’m afraid I contributed to your injury.”

Applejack waved him off. “It’s fine. You got rid of that thing, whatever it was.”

“It was a channelback. A demonic creature created from the souls of ponies who died in a stage of furry.” He informed her, trying not to sound too eager to share his knowledge, then his smile turned into a contemplative scowl. “The river of blood and the channelback were an actualization illusion.”

“What does that mean?” Rainbow asked, only a little impatient.

“It means they were a simple illusion—not real—until they are shown to a certain individual. Or, individuals, in our case. At that point, the illusion becomes real. It means that the Cockatrice King knows we’re after him.”

“Well, yeah.” Applejack rolled her eyes. “He turned our best friend to stone.”

“But there’s another factor to it. When I tested the river for an illusion spell—right before the channelback appeared—I felt somepony else’s magic signature. Somepony else created the actualization illusion.”

“An accomplice?” Rarity gasped.

“Yes. And an extremely powerful one. Actualization illusions are some of the most advanced dark magic there is.”

“Fan-bucking-tastic.” Rainbow groaned, slumping down on her hunches.

“Hey, it’s no problem.” Escuro assured her. “I’m better than anything this mage can put together, so you’ll all be safe with me.” He flashed them a coltish smile.

“Right.” Rarity said flatly, in a rare moment of unladylike dry humor. The rest of them howled in laughter.

Applejack stood up when their giggles subsided, and then stumbled a bit, dropping down on her hunches again as she was hit with a slight case of vertigo. She chuckled and waved Fluttershy off when the other pony started coming towards her with a concerned look on her face.

"Just a bit dizzy, Shy. Nothing to be worried about." She assured her friend, and then stood up to back her claim up. She wobbled a bit on her hoofs, but managed to stay upright. Encouraged, she took a step forward, and then found herself on her hunches again.

"Oh, my, maybe you should rest more, Applejack." Fluttershy suggested. Applejack shook her head.

"I'll be fine." she nearly snapped, frustrated. "We need to help Twilight."

"But we won't get very far if you're hurt, dear." Rarity reasoned.

"Don't y'all know any sort of spell to magically heal me?" Applejack huffed at Escuro.

The maroon stallion shrugged, looking a bit apologetic. "I'm an expert in dark magic. It... focuses on bringing pain, not healing it. But, I'm sure I could find a simple curative spell that I know."

"Great." Applejack said flatly when he didn't move. "Then why don't y'all get on it so we can get a move on? I'm not about to spend the night in the Everfree Forest."

"Oh. Right. Of course." he said, a bit startled, as if he didn't expect her to want to follow through on his offer.

He stepped up to her, and his horn glowed in a familiar way, the way most unicorn's horns did. The aura was a blood red, however, just like his eyes, and didn't exactly put a pleasant feeling in Applejack's gut at how bright it was. The fact that when it surrounded her she felt cold instead of warm and tingly like all the descriptions in the story books she had read as a child didn't put her in an easy state of mind either.

Finally the magic subsided, and she regained warmth and feeling to her body.

"There." Escuro huffed, pleased with himself but out of breath again. "That should do it. I... maybe I should revisit my normal powers once in a while. That took a lot out of me." he seemed strangely embarrassed to admit the fact.

Applejack hopped up, feeling no dizziness. The vertigo didn't return, even when she took a few steps. "Hey. It worked. Thank you kindly, Escuro."

"No problem."

Eventually they climbed up a pile of fallen brickwork and into a chamber roofed by remaining missionary and vines. The vines ran down the sides of columns, rose out of statues of ponies like bizarre mane braids, explored crumbles and cracks and dark ends of holes, looping and twisting like snakes.

Rats filled the chamber, not in a smooth sea but rather in little puddles of brown fur, constantly shifting according to whim.The rats retreated from their groups when the six ponies approached, disappearing into innumerable holes and cracks in a flurry of naked tails.

Light came down from above in a pair of shafts, large and small, through some kind of half clogged well in the roof. In the middle of the remains of the circular room, stood the pillar with it's six arms extended out and empty of the circular orbs it once contained, and a thick mass of moss growing on top like a strange manedo.

It was exactly how Applejack remembered it. Well, maybe except the rats. She didn't remember any rats in her last visit to the crumbled castle of the two princesses.

"Quite the fixer-upper." said Escuro, looking around.

None of them commented on his rather obvious and needless observation. Applejack thought that maybe they were all reminiscing of the events that transpired in their last visit here. She knew she was.

Was it just a few years ago that they stood here, facing Nightmare Moon herself, and, in the process, binding together on a level deeper than normal friendships could ever hope of reaching? So much had happened since then. They'd grown so much as individuals, and as friends.

"So, where's the lair?" Applejack asked, shaking herself out of her evocative stupor.

"In this room. My guess would be that pillar there." Escuro informed her pleasantly.

"Naturally." Applejack muttered under her breath, more about his cheerful demeanor than the obviousness of her answer.

"So how do we open it?" voice Rainbow, trotting up to the structure. The rest of them followed, easing in closer.

"Like this!" Escuro chirped, and his horn shot a ray of darkly colored magic at the large circular tip of the pillar, where the moss rested.

The moss disintegrated, and the tip glowed the same dark color as Escuro's magic, but it was strangely bright and lustrous. The glow spread to the rest of the statue, and Applejack had to step away, flinching from both the brightness and the power of Escuro's magic. A part of her wondered how powerful this unicorn was, exactly. She had never felt Twilight's magic, even when she had casted big spells, and Twilight was one of the most powerful unicorns Applejack knew.

Suddenly, Escuro canceled his magic. The pillar started moving, its six arms folded so that they were pointing up at the ceiling, and it spun where it was, sinking into the ground with every turn until it disappeared and the only thing left of it was a gaping hole.

"What we would do without you, dear." said Rarity appreciatively.

Escuro beamed in return. Rainbow Dash whooped and trotted up to the passage, peering down the hole.

"Cool." she said enthusiastically. Her voice echoed dramatically. "Cool!" she shouted again, like a child discovering echoes for the first time.

Applejack chuckled at her friend's antics, feeling relieved at their first success. Her ear twitched, picking up an unfamiliar sound from somewhere in the room. She paused, listening closer. It sounded like laughter, high pitched and low at the same time, and there was a lot of it. She looked at her friends, seeing them not noticing it yet.

"Do you guys hear that?" She asked in a low voice, folding her ears on instinct. A chill ran down her spine, and the laughter grew more numerous still, louder and louder until the rest of her friends could pick it up and easily.

"What is that?" Fluttershy whispered, trebling. She shifted closer to Pinkie Pie, who stood beside her.

The laughter reached a crescendo then, and a sea of rats poured into the room, moving faster than Applejack was sure rats could move. The rodents were on them before any could blink.

A sharp yelp vibrated, echoing through the room. Applejack turned her eyes toward the sound and found Rarity flaring her front legs. A massive black rat was hanging onto the underside of her neck, it's teeth sunk into the soft flesh there.

Before Applejack could make movements to help her friend, a sharp pain turned her head to her own flank, seeing a brown rat hanging on her. Applejack gritted her teeth and tried to shake off the rodent, but it hung on and sunk it's teeth deeper. Applejack yelped and tried to bite at the rat to get it off, but couldn't quite reach. She felt another bite on her chest and then several more.

The rats attacked her vigorously, jumping on her back and head, clawing at her nose and eyes. The pain was unbearable. And still more rats latched onto her. She screamed, feeling the worst pain yet at her shoulder, and at the corner of her eye she saw a rat rip a thick chunk of flesh off of the area. Blood flowed in a thick, fast stream out of the wound. As if following example, several of the other rats started ripping at her flesh.

Her vision quickly grew blurry, blood loss taking over. She knew she would be out in seconds.

Sorry, Twilight.

Numbly she fell onto her stomach, blackness clouding her vision.

The last thing she heard was the screeching laughter of the rats and the bloodcurdling screams of her friends.

Light.

The first thing that registered with her was light, peaking into the narrow slits of her eyelids, and glowing so brightly that it made her wince uncomfortably, and she didn’t even have her eyes open yet.

Sound.

Sound was the next thing that registered. Her hearing was muffled, like she was underwater. Nevertheless, she heard things. Not many things, granted, but she did hear someone pacing, hoofs briskly clopping on stone.

She groaned and the clopping stopped for a short second, only to pick up once more and louder this time, as the hoofs approached her.

“Hey, Applejack.” She was only vaguely familiar with the voice. Smooth, rich and deeper than even her brother’s, but the owner of the voice obviously knew her name, so they must have been acquaintances or something.

She tried to ask the pony questions, tried to open her eyes, but the only thing she accomplished was another groan.

“You don’t have to wake up yet. Go back to sleep.” The voice cooed.

But… no… there was something… there was something she was trying to accomplish. She had to save—

“Twilight…”

And finally, her mouth formed words. Well, one word, but it was something. A hoof glided through her mane gently.

“Shh.” The voice told her, and she nearly growled. Didn’t this pony understand? She had to get up! She had to save Twilight!

Biting her tongue in concentration, she pried her eyes open. It was bright, and light made her eyes water, but when they adjusted she found a grey ceiling made of masonry and cracked in many places. Vines explored the ceiling, and light streamed in through several gaping holes, revealing blue skies of mid noon.

“Where am…?” words where hard to form, still. Her mouth was so dry, like she hadn’t drunk anything in several days. She tried to sit up and look around, but couldn’t move an inch.

“Hey, easy, Applejack. You’ve lost a large amount of blood. Don’t move too much. Here, drink this.” A figure loomed over her, blocking the sunlight graciously. A stream of water, levitated and surrounded by a blood red aura of magic, hovered in front of her mouth. She opened her chapped lips and the water glided inside easily, and settled in the back of her throat. She swallowed, a tiny part of her uncomfortable with having a pony’s magic inside her mouth.

Once she had drank her full, she focused on the figure. She didn’t know this pony. Had never seen him before in her life. It was a stallion, big and bulky, with a pine green coat and a dull yellow mane falling into his eyes. He wore a doctor’s coat. His blood red eyes shone.

“Escuro?” Applejack asked cautiously. She sat up, feeling her strength return a bit now that she was properly hydrated.

“Oh!” the stallion looked embarrassed. “I forgot to change back.” He smiled at her apologetically, and then the shadow tentacles surrounded him, like he was about to shadow step, but he didn’t sink into the ground. Instead, his form reemerged from the darkness, back to the way he was before, or, usually.

Applejack groaned and closed her eyes. “I’m too tired for your weird shadow powers.” She informed him. “You can change shape and color?” she asked anyway.

“I’m a shadow being. Things like color, shape, and even gender is quite fluid to us.” Escuro’s voice informed her.

“Wonderful.” Applejack growled, not meaning it at all. “What happened?”

“Another actualization illusion.”

“Rats.” She opened her eyes again and looked at the shadow being for confirmation.

“Yes, rats. Ate you up pretty good.” Escuro winced, but in disgust.

Applejack remembered the pain. Remembered the rat taking a chunk out of her shoulder. She looked to her shoulder, seeing it whole and unscratched. Escuro must have healed her up. Had the rats started to eat the others too?

“How’s everypony else?” she nearly gasped, but it came out a whisper.

“They’re fine. Rats didn’t hurt them that bad.” Escuro winced again. “Or, as bad as you.” He corrected.

“How are you unhurt?” she asked sharply, passing her eyes over his body and seeing not a scratch.

“I’m a shadow. Not very substantial.” The stallion shrugged. He made a motion with his hoof. “Fall straight through me.”

Applejack scowled. “But ponies have touched you before. You shook tons of hoofs in Ponyville.”

“I can control how solid I am. Duh.”

“Of course.” Applejack said flatly. “Can I see the others now?”

“Hey, you asked. And I’m not stopping you.” Escuro shrugged again, as he was obviously fond of doing around her. He started to trot away from her, but stopped. “Call me over if they start stirring, alright?”

Applejack nodded absentmindedly, getting up on her hoofs and surveying the area. Everything seemed to be unchanged. The hole of the lair was still present, and the rats were gone, as if they had never appeared in the first place. Her friends were laid out all over the room, probably not moved from where they had fallen.

She trotted over to Rarity, simply because the unicorn was the closest to her, and examined her.

Like Applejack, all of her major wounds had been healed, and she looked as peaceful and relaxed as she did in sleep. Absentmindedly, Applejack ran a hoof through her completely ruined mane with a private smile. There would be more than an hour of complaining and general carrying on about the subject when Rarity woke up, she knew.

Applejack didn’t think. Didn’t allow herself to think, about how close she had come to losing her friends two times today already.

She would have to thank Escuro profusely one of these days. Probably when they’d captured the Cockatrice King and fixed Twilight. No doubt the shadow being would save them several times at each of their destinations, and thanking him repeatedly would sound insincere.

She left Rarity and trotted over to Rainbow Dash next. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Escuro doing round like she was, pausing at Fluttershy’s form and checking her forehead, probably for fever. She reached Rainbow Dash and did the same, frowning at what she found.

But before she could call out to Escuro, Rainbow groaned and stirred, blinking up at her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out except an alarmingly gurgling, loud cough.

Escuro shadow stepped right next to Applejack, appearing out of the shadows even faster than usual with a concerned look on his face. He checked her forehead, just like she had moments before, and sighed almost to himself.

“Fever. Infection, most likely.” He muttered. “It had to be rats. Those stupid things carry everything.”

He stepped back and his horn glowed red. “I’m going to check you for Lassa fever.” He said to Rainbow Dash, who only moaned in return as she was enveloped in the magical aura. "Go check on the others." he muttered to Applejack, closing his eyes in concentration, beads of sweat already forming on his forehead from the apparent strain of using his normal magic.

She bit back her argument, thinking it not wise to disturb the unicorn when he was working so selflessly to help her friends.

Begrudgingly, she trotted to Pinkie and checked her forehead, finding it a normal temperature. As soon as she took her hoof off of the pink forehead, however, blue eyes opened and looked up at her, catching her gaze in an unbreakable hold.

"Hey, AJ." Pinkie's voice was startlingly gravely and weak, but her eyes twinkled with mirth and an easy happiness like always. Applejack swallowed, feeling her throat dry for some reason.

"Heya, Pinks." she croaked back, smiling weakly.

"I had the weirdest dream." Pinkie continued dreamily, her eyelids falling closed in a seemingly half-aware state. "I was at the dentist. And then, you came, and we talked."

"Oh, really?" Applejack asked, not sure how she should feel about one of her best friends dreaming about her.

"Yeah." Pinkie's brow furrowed. "I was mad at you, for some reason. I don't remember what either of us said, though. I think you said something—"

“Applejack.” Escuro’s voice drifted easily from the small distance away, where he still stood above Rainbow Dash. “Can you c’mere a second?”

Shooting an apologetic smile to a seemingly snoozing Pinkie, the farm pony trotted back to the shadow being, stepping around her friends and trying not to make too much noise.

“What’s the problem?” she muttered when she was close enough to be heard.

Escuro sighed, motioning to Rainbow. “It’s nothing serious, thank Luna. But, it’s also something I can’t really pinpoint, and therefore can’t cure.”

Applejack frowned, gazing at her friend. Rainbow Dash had fallen back asleep, but her breaths were raspy and short, accentuated by a small cough every now and then. She shook where she slept, as if cold. She didn’t look very fine, but then again, Applejack was not at all a medical expert.

“So what do we do?” She asked very slowly.

“We need to move on.” Escuro said, very deliberately. “But Rainbow Dash needs to heal. We’d be carrying dead weight, basically, if she doesn’t. And who knows what other surprises the King has laid out for us down there.” He gazed pointedly at the hole in the ground. He turned back to Applejack. “You’re the leader of this operation, what do you think we need to do?”

Leader?

Applejack blinked at the shadow being. “I ain’t the leader. You’re the one who knows where we’re going.”

“But I have basically no relationship with anyone here. I’m the guide. You’re the leader.” Escuro argued. “So it’s up to you.”

Applejack wanted to argue more, but a pitiful, loud groan from Rainbow Dash followed by a husky cough cut her off. Silently, Applejack moved closer to the athlete and felt her forehead again. Her fur was slick with sweat and clammy to the touch and she muttered incoherently when Applejack touched her.

“Is she gettin’ worse?” Applejack asked, glancing apprehensively at Escuro.

“Most likely. Fever fluctuates like that. It’ll break, probably faster than usual since she’s getting worse so quickly. I’d give it a day or two. She’ll be fine.” Escuro said, with a casualness that grated on Applejack’s nerves. She stroked Rainbow’s brow absentmindedly.

“I really want to move forward.” She admitted. “But it ain’t an option. She needs to get better.”

“This will put us behind.” Escuro argued gently, almost as a reminder.

“I know that.” She snapped, scowling at nothing.

“The King could move again.”

“It don’t matter. We’ll run across him one of these days.”

Escuro held his hoofs up, almost as if saying he gave up. “You’re the boss.”

"My lord."

The connection broke with an overwhelming, almost unbearable pain. He brushed the pain away, and glared at the offensive perpetrator.

“What is it, Worm?” he growled, and then privately chuckled as his voice echoed. He could see why the blue one thought it to be ‘cool’.

“M-my lord, forgive me, but, shouldn’t we be moving?”

He was a nasty thing. Slimy, with a long, snakelike body that bled when nervous, and clear, almost invisible skin, giving view to all of his organs. The trench coat he wore, several sizes too big, slid down his body, not fastened correctly and weighed down by his bloody sweat. His tongue slithered out of his mouth, a long, reptilian thing, and ran over his face like a wipe, cleaning it of the blood.

He scowled in disgust at Worm, but said nothing about that particular subject just yet. Instead, he leaned back in his throne.

“I don’t know, Worm.” He said contemplatively, almost teasingly. “They won’t go anywhere for a while. I rather like it here.”

“But, my Lord!”

“Oh hush.” He snapped, still playful. “Let things sort themselves out. We’ll move soon enough. No need to be so anxious.”

“But, my Lord,” Worm almost whined. “They’re right up there.”

Growing agitated; he reached out with his magic and gripped Worm by the throat, bringing him to hang limply in front of his own face.

“Hush, Worm.” He growled meaningfully.

Worm’s eyes hazed over, turning green. “Yes, my Lord.”

He smacked his lips slightly, feeling around the curves and rough edges of his victim’s mind.

“Your mind is very weak, Worm.” He informed his victim. Growing bored, he dropped Worm from his magic.

The creature, whatever he was, splattered on the ground in a puddle of gore. His heart rolled a few feet away, spewing blood as it continued to beat. Several other organs spilled out too.

Worm didn’t move for a short period of time. Then, the ruined creature picked himself up and inhaled deeply, bringing his gore towards himself. He picked up his partially spilled out intestine casually with his tail—the only limb he had—and stuffed it inside himself again, as if he had no skin at all. He slithered over to his heart, picking it up and blew on it, putting it back in and twisting it around until it was in the correct position.

Nasty, he though with disgust, watching as the creature put himself back together. Fascinating.