The Magic of Animosity

A gleaming white pegasus flew swiftly, but urgently, into the Princesses’ throne room.  His eyes were a bright silver, and he was donned in golden Equestrian pegasi armor—he kind of looked like the average pegasus guard.  He appeared out of breath, and gave himself a moment before walking up any closer to the princesses.

Celestia smiled.  “Ah, Blanc Shimmer, hello.  Any news as of late?”

Blanc huffed a few more times.  “…Yes…but it isn’t…good news…”

Celestia’s warm smile vanished, and she quickly rose.  “What do you mean?  Is this about—“

“Appleloosa, yes.”  Blanc had finally regained his composure.  “The shadow has reached the town and has reportedly formed its nest.

“But certainly Twilight Sparkle has already taken care of the problem, yes?  If she met up with Sheriff Silverstar as I said, there shouldn’t have been any issues.”

“Well then, Princess, I suppose she didn’t meet up with your sheriff,” Blanc replied.

Luna stood up as well, and she leaned in close to Celestia’s ear to whisper, “If that shadow continues onward un-checked, it will level Equestria.  We have no choice anymore, Sister—we have to take the battle to it.”

Celestia calmed herself, and relaxed the tense muscles on her face.  Closing her eyes, she said coolly to Blanc, “I suppose we don’t have much of a choice.  Blanc Shimmer, I hereby put you and Ferrous in charge of the Crown’s duties; send for Dreamcatcher and each of her unicorn divisions, and enough of your pegasi to send them all off.  Tell Dreamcatcher to bring the soldiers to Castle grounds, and we’ll continue off from there.”

Celestia and Luna began to walk out the room, but then Blanc started up, “Celestia, you can’t be serious.  Have you forgotten Decree Twenty-Seven?  ‘The ruler(s) of Equestria cannot leave their duties unless the cause for doing so is for the greater protection of Equestria’s subjects.’  Your subjects should come first—just let Dreamer handle it all, she's capable enough.”

“Blanc, this shadow is one of the greatest threats Equestria has ever faced,” Luna replied behind her shoulder.  “If this does not qualify for Decree Twenty-Seven, I do not know what would.  We’re going to need all the firepower we can get, and that includes both my sister and I.”

On that, the two alicorns continued out the room to the Castle grounds.  Blanc stood still for a moment, then regained his energy.  “Don’t just stand there,” the shimmering white pegasus said to the soldiers around him, “Ferrous and I are the substitute kings—or princes, or whatever now, and I suppose that means you’re taking orders from us.  Now get out there, find Dreamer, and hurry up before this whole shadow business gets out of hoof!”

The guards scrambled out the room to find both unicorn Dreamcatcher and earth-pony Ferrous.  Along with pegasus Blanc, the three made up the second-ranking officials just below the Princesses themselves: the Head Captains of Equestria, who were powerful in their own right and often helped the Princesses with problems they faced.

For example, the shadow currently looming over Appleloosa.

The dark-green unicorn looked around at the one-thousand unicorns all lined up in rows and blocks, all squished into the large—but not large enough—Canterlot grounds in front of the castle.  The unicorn’s eyes were a light purple, and her fluent mane was jet-black.  On her flank was depicted a picture of a traditional feathered dreamcatcher.  Three guesses as to who this unicorn was.

When her wandering eyes landed on the two alicorns speaking between each other just below the castle balcony, she immediately ran up to them.  Luna’s face lit up when she appeared.

“Ah, there you are, Dreamcatcher,” Luna said with a small smile on her face, “Are your divisions prepared?  I know we didn’t give you much time to prepare.  Actually, we still haven’t briefed you, have we…?”

“We can do that on our way to Appleloosa, Princess,” the dark-green unicorn replied.  “I know whatever this is is urgent, so we should be on our way as soon as possible.”

Luna nodded, and Celestia flew up thirty feet to get a better view over the massive platoon of unicorn soldiers, all adorned in silver Equestrian armor—specifically made for unicorns and their horns, of course.  The brilliant white alicorn cleared her throat.  “ATTENTION, EQUESTRIAN SOLDIERS,” she spoke with her powerful ‘Royal Canterlot Voice’, “WHILE WE HAD HOPED THE NEED FOR MILITARY FORCE WOULD NEVER ARISE, IT HAS THIS DAY.  WE ARE TO FACE AN EXTREME THREAT TO EQUESTRIA, AND AS SUCH YOU MUST ALL BE PREPARED TO FIGHT TO YOUR LAST BREATH.”

There was a massive cheer from the unicorns, and the few pegasi that were coming along.

“THEN LET US BE ONWARD, TO APPLELOOSA!”

“Everypony prepare for takeoff!” Dreamcatcher shouted to her magical militia.  They all bustled into long, bus-sized carts parked behind the grounds; each cart could hold twenty ponies, and required two pegasi to pull it along in the air. With all of Dreamcatcher’s one-thousand unicorns, and Blanc’s one-hundred pegasi, it was a perfect ratio.  Within half a minute everyone was stationed in or in front of a cart, and the soldiers were all ready to go.  Dreamcatcher shouted again, “Princesses Celestia and Luna shall guide the way; pegasi, follow them in flanks of three, side-by-side.  Be prepared for anything as we round Appleloosa.”  She turned to the alicorns on the other side of the large field, and they took off into the pale-blue afternoon sky.  Dreamcatcher jumped up onto the front of one of the carts.  “ONWARD!” the unicorn shouted.

The pegasi gained momentum as they charged across the flat grass, both them and the carts taking off the ground by the time they ran halfway across the field.  Immediately as they got into the air, the pegasi arranged themselves into three cart wide rows, and a minute later Princesses Celestia and Luna were gracing the bright blue sky, followed by a massive convoy sixteen long and three wide of wooden carts, with one extra heading the group just behind the Princesses; it was also the one that Dreamcatcher was stationed at the front of.  The dark-green unicorn motioned for the pegasi pulling the cart to move up closer to the two princesses flying on either side of them.

“Would the two of you mind explaining exactly WHAT is going on now?” Dreamcatcher yelled over the rushing wind, trying to catch either Celestia’s or Luna’s attention.

“…We have no idea where it originated from,” Luna began, talking over the air whistling past her and the other ponies, “but there is this…creature…that was recently awakened in the mountains to the north of the desert region…”

“The HELL you doin’, Grind?!” the burly earth-pony yelled at a unicorn standing in front of him who was lifting up a sizeable chunk of rock with his magic.  The rock looked like a type of sedimentary shale, with alternating layers of grayish-black and dark-red, though it was somewhat hard to tell the colors from the yellow-green aura surrounding it, from the unicorn’s magic levitating it in the air.

“Sorry, sir!”  The pale-green unicorn colt called ‘Grind’ immediately lowered the rock to the ground.  “I—I saw it falling out the corner of my eye, and—it was just instinctual!  I didn’t want it to fall on the ground—”

“Dammit, I knew it was a foolish idea t’ let unicorns into my mine!” the earth-pony yelled out again over the constant sound of chisels and drills.  “It would’ve been better if that ore’d fallen from the damn SKY and make a big ‘ol crater in the ground, than have some magic touch it!”  He walked over to the shale; the bands of color on it had turned into a neutral gray.  Scowling at the rock, the earth-pony picked it up and tossed it as far down the tunnel as he could, nearly hitting one of the other miners in the process.  “Don’t you dare let me catch you doin’ that again, boy.  That lump uh rock there—you just destroyed all value it held.  Hope yer happy.”

The unicorn was small, and he had a meek build.  He was practically crying after having been chewed out.  “I said I’m sorry, sir…!”

“Dammit, boy, get yer act together!  This ain’t the place where you can make mistakes without any consequences!  Were ya even payin’ attention during the seminar?”  The burly stallion walked over to a nearby mine cart filled with similar rocks, all a moderate size and having the same pattern of red and black, and picked up one to examine it.  “This ain’t no simple shale—this here’s what the chemists call ‘comoinium hypocarbonite’; only rock to have ever been found with naturally occurring ‘comoinium’, dat weird element with no protons ‘r whatever.  Extremely magic-potent, this stuff is; refined ore can be used fer jus’ ‘bout anything you set yer li’l unicorn mind to, boy.”  He tossed the rock back into the cart and began to walk away from the colt; he didn’t look back as he said out loud, “Around here, we jus’ call it ‘rake’—cause it rakes in the dough!  Now don’t eff stuff up anymore!”

“Y…Yeah, sir…” the unicorn finally uttered, after the earth-pony had already left his sight.  The tunnel was dimly lit, as the mining crew had ended up going down much deeper than they had expected, and hadn’t brought sufficient lighting for it all.  Grind wasn’t used to not using magic at all—that was the policy here, since any magic that came into contact with ‘magicade’—that was its 'real' common name, anyway—would immediately turn the enchanted shale into a simple gray lump.

Grind picked up his pickaxe again, with his mouth, about to dig at the vein of ore rich in red and black streaks that was in front of him, when someone down the tunnel caught his attention.

A pony came from around the tunnel’s corner and said to Grind, “Hey, I heard the foreman around here—is he still around?”

“I’m afraid you just missed him,” the pale-green unicorn replied with a shrug.

“Well, perhaps you could take a look at this instead,” the colt said, tugging at the unicorn’s arm, “It’d be better if we had a unicorn anyways; could probably figure it out better than the foreman, anyways.”

‘What a stereotype.  Just because I’m a unicorn doesn’t automatically make me a super-smart bookworm,’ Grind thought as he was being dragged along by this colt that he didn’t even recognize—well, he knew his face, sort of, but he’d only seen the guy around once or twice.

The colt stopped suddenly next to another, stronger-looking and older pegasus, standing next to a tunnel branching off the main mine shaft.  Grind took a single look at the extra tunnel, turned to the two ponies in front of him, and said, “We’re not supposed to dig branches from the main tunnel.”

“I know that,” the first colt snapped.  “Drillbit here just unearthed this tunnel, ‘twas already here.  Go ahead,” he stated, matter-of-factly, “take a look inside.”

With a bit of hesitation, Grind slowly trotted into the small cave.  It definitely wasn’t one of the mining crew’s tunnels—the stone was much too smooth and rounded, like it hadn’t been chiseled, but rather carved over time with running water.  He also noticed, even in the near pitch-darkness of the tunnel, that all the magicade that should have been surrounding him was instead a smooth, gray stone.  “The heck happened in here?” Grind called out from inside the small tunnel.

“We were hoping you’d know,” the first colt replied from the entrance, “Looks to me like a unicorn had a bit of a magic rampage around in there.”

“How far does this go?”

“Dunno.  Neither of us’d even gone inside it yet.”

Grind stopped suddenly, and his expression mellowed out to an irritated frown.  “So, what—I’m your guinea pig or something?”

“Hey man,” the pegasis replied, “nopony ever said you HAD to go in there.”

Grind was mumbling something under his breath, but he continued forward—out of interest, if not anything else.  He stopped again, after the tiny bit of light from the tunnel’s entrance left him, and he couldn’t see anything.  ‘I suppose magic won’t hurt, given that all this magicade is already a lost cause.’ His horn glowed a yellow-green to illuminate the way, and ahead of him he saw what looked like a larger room; he picked up his pace to investigate.  He halted abruptly when he reached the edge of the tunnel, which was a drop-off with a very steep curve down; it was a spacious, capsule-shaped room, circular in width, taller and deeper than it was wide.  Grind’s eyes slowly moved down to the bottom as he took in the view; his eyes widened when his light revealed a massive black ball resting at the bottom of the cave.  It had to have been at least one-hundred feet wide, and it was a perfect sphere, too.  Even in the terrible lighting, Grind noticed near the bottom of the cave a wispy black tail coming out of the ball, and upon a very close look and a very hard squint from his vantage point, he saw some small kind of light-gray round stone where the tail ended.  It was as if the tail was going into the small rock, or maybe originating from it.

Hesitant at first for obvious reasons, intrigue eventually took over the unicorn and he decided to pick up the ball that was dozens of feet down near the cave’s bottom.  The rock became encircled with his yellow-green magic, and then the tail on the stone broke suddenly.

And then there was a loud groan.  It sounded like a giant yawning after a decade-long slumber.  The whole tunnel shook, and Grind had to brace himself up against the tunnel’s wall to keep himself from falling down the steep angle of the cave.  He continued to bring the small rock closer, except now he was doing it much faster so he could get out of that place as soon as possible.

“The heck was THAT?” the colt’s voice echoed from the tunnel entrance.  Grind finally brought the gray sphere close to him, and he made a bolt for it down the tunnel as the rumbling became louder.

“I dunno, but we’d better get the heck outta here!” he yelled, jumping out of the tunnel to meet up with the two other colts.  The entire mine was shaking and the lights were beginning to flicker.  Behind him, it sounded like something was coming up the tunnel.

Grind began to run from the branch tunnel’s entrance, but the other colt and the pegasus only stood there, scowling at the unicorn.  “What in Equestria did you—”

He never got to finish his sentence.  Grind turned around and saw nothing but an amorphous blob absorbing the two ponies.  Grind faced back in the direction he was running and picked up his pace, the other miners in the tunnel only giving him weird looks as he yelled at them to make a run for it, and seconds later they got hit with the black claw snaking its way up the tunnel, trying to get a hold of Grind and the stone he was carrying; every second, the claw got closer and closer and closer…

“…Only a few made it out alive,” Luna said.  “One of the ponies brought forth a peculiar item he found that the black sphere had been connected to.”

“So this ‘shadow’ is the black sphere that was found in that mine?” Dreamcatcher asked.

“Yes.  After having been woken, it proceeded to make its way through the old mine tunnels, going from town to town, each time attacking the citizens and turning them into its henchmen.  Magicade is an ore that was only recently discovered, but mining efforts for it has skyrocketed.  The abandoned tunnel systems span out far and wide throughout the vast desert, and it stops right around Appleloosa.”

“But what of the black walls you mentioned?” Dreamcatcher asked.  “And the clouds?”

“That creature feeds off of two things and two things only: willpower, and magic,” Celestia replied solemnly.

“…Care to elaborate?”

“We don’t know why, but anypony that becomes covered with the shadow turns into its personal puppet—it feeds off of their willpower and energy, turning them into a lifeless doll that it then manipulates to do its bidding.  They aren’t killed, though,” Celestia quickly added, after seeing Dreamcatcher’s face, “the shadow has to keep them alive, actually.  The brain of any creature is constantly working, and as such will continue to try to regain consciousness, to regain willpower to fight back, but the shadow only uses this to continue to feed.  As for the clouds and the barrier, it gains greater and greater magical power as it advances through the unearthed sections of the mines, converting the magicade ore straight into pure magic for its own use.”

“It’s attacked three cities so far, not including Appleloosa,” Luna said.  “We had believed that we’d found a way to counterattack it, but it seems Celestia’s plan to have Twilight Sparkle handle it herself didn’t exactly go as planned.  With each city the shadow attacks, it brings along all the citizens there to the next destination, and so it continues to gain more and more slaves.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do about that?” Dreamcatcher asked.

“Hopefully.  One thing we do know is that that big black sphere has to actually use up part of its own body to overtake a pony.  Though it isn’t much—just enough to give its victim a thin coating—the numbers eventually add up, and the shadow is less than half its original size by now, considering all the ponies it has possessed.”

No one said a word after that.  No one had anything to say.  The sun was already on its way down the horizon; the platoon had started its nonstop flight at noon, and it was now two o’clock.  Appleloosa was getting close.

“Sister, I see it, on the horizon!” Luna yelled suddenly, pointing far ahead with her right hoof while shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun with her left.

“Finally,” Celestia sighed.  The town couldn’t be seen, but it was quite noticeable with the massive cloud high above, and the four black walls coming down from the cloud all the way to the ground around Appleloosa.  “It appears the shadow isn’t finished with the town.  If we’re lucky, nothing bad has happened yet.  Dreamcatcher!” the alicorn announced suddenly; the unicorn sitting on the cart straightened up her posture and looked straight ahead.  “If could, please try and scan the ponies behind that wall as we approach.  Hopefully you’ll be able to pick something up.”

Dreamcatcher nodded confidently.  “You can count on me, Princess.”

Every unicorn had a specific forte of magic.  In Dreamcatcher’s case, this was just about anything involving the mind.  Memory charms, electroencephalographic enchantments, and even invasive-thought spells made her a very formidable unicorn foe for any enemy of Equestria.  Not even Celestia and Luna had as much ability in mind magic as Dreamcatcher.

As the black walls became close enough to overtake a majority of one’s view, Dreamcatcher started up her magic, and her horn became surrounded in a sparkling white aura.  Her eyes shone pure white as she started to scan the town beyond the barrier.  She could see them, much like how a shark would ‘see’ its prey with its ‘sixth sense’; the brainwave activity going on in each of the civilians’ brains shone as an oblong white orb that slightly flickered in junction with a pony’s thoughts.  “It appears the Appleloosians have yet to be overtaken by the shadow,” Dreamcatcher said, still glancing around the town with her endowed eyes.

“What of Twilight Sparkle?” Celestia asked hastily.  “Can you locate her?”

Dreamcatcher stopped using her spell and turned around to look at the princess.  “Do you mind if I get invasive?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Celestia paused for a moment.  “Whatever works,” she said after swallowing.

Dreamcatcher looked back at the city and worked her magic again.  This time, she zoomed in on a mind’s white light at random and entered it.  She quickly and efficiently scanned each major memory or thought in the past three hours, back to when the barriers had first formed.  Dreamcatcher’s mind spells were something, but her own mind was something else entirely; taking in all the data from the Appleloosian, Dreamcatcher went over each and every bit, storing what was relevant into her own memory and tossing out anything unrelated or personal, completely forgetting the unwanted information in the process.  Within ten seconds, the past three hours of thought that that pony had experienced had been fully examined by the Unicorn Head Captain.  Dreamcatcher did this another two times with another two ponies, to get more reliable info.

After about half a minute, Dreamcatcher stopped her spell and faced the alicorn sisters.  “Twilight Sparkle is currently in the mines as we speak,” she said in a serious tone.  “But she is not alone.  Another unicorn—don’t know who she is, never seen or heard of this ‘Trixie’ mare—is accompanying Twilight down into the tunnels.  They apparently had left roughly an hour ago.”

“Do you think you could try and detect Twilight and the other unicorn underground?”  Celestia was trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.

“It’s worth a shot,” Dreamcatcher replied, and looked down at the dirt ground of Appleloosa, her horn and eyes once again streaming white.  She continued to look around, trying to make something out, all the while Luna and especially Celestia leaning in anxiously at the unicorn.  “…I’m afraid I don’t see anything.  I’ll continue to look, but do not get your hopes up.”

Celestia slumped down onto the bench of the cart next to Dreamcatcher and sighed hard.  “Well, I suppose we should ready the troops.”  Luna nodded at her sister and flew up above everyone.

“Everypony,” Luna announced, “let’s settle down to the ground and form ranks.  Soon enough, the shadow shall rise from the ground of Appleloosa, and that’s when we strike.”  Luna hovered down to Celestia and talked, much softer, “And how are we going to go about taking down these walls?”

“Just about everything’s been tried on them, apparently,” Dreamcatcher said without looking back at the alicorn, her magic-filled gaze still glancing around the town.  “Even the other unicorn mare had given an all-out attack and didn’t leave a single dent, according to what she said, at least—I still haven’t detected her nor Twilight Sparkle.”

Celestia put her face into her hooves.  “I've sent Twilight to her doom,” she said softly.

“Don’t worry, Sister,” Luna said reassuringly, putting an arm around Celestia’s shoulders, “I’m sure everything will turn out just fine.”  She took a step back and landed on the ground slowly, along with the carriage, which Celestia was still moping on.  Luna smiled to her sister and cleared her throat a little, as if she were to start a large speech.  “While I know that there is much that—”

“Hey, I think I see something!” Dreamcatcher shouted, her head leaning in a few inches to try and get a better look at the two distant orbs of brainwave activity.  A second later, a few dozen more orbs appeared in her view, but they were just extremely dim—whoever they were, their minds were about as active as a pony who has just been knocked unconscious.  “I see them, both of them, and if I’m not mistaken, I think the shadow’s grunts are hot on their trail…”

Celestia leaped off the bench and stepped next to Dreamcatcher, as if being closer to her would somehow allow Celestia to see them as well.  “Where are they?!”

“They’re quickly reaching the surface, and there’s enough zombified ponies right behind them to take on a good portion of the town’s civilians.  We should get in there.  NOW.”

Celestia jolted up into the air a few stories to get the unicorns’ attention.  Not everyone had even gotten their hooves back on the ground yet.  “The shadow is fast approaching—we NEED to get through this barrier!” Celestia yelled to the soldiers.  “Ready yourselves, and prepare to attack the wall!

“…Prepare to attack this menace, head-on!”

Even through the thick black magical walls, the soldiers could hear what sounded like a house shattering into a thousand pieces of wood and splinters.