The sponge

It was a late Summer evening in Ponyville, quiet and warm. After a long day of work, almost everypony had gathered on Bronco Hill, a popular knoll overlooking the whole city and its neighborhoods, to observe and celebrate the Tears of Ourania, one of the most spectacular shooting star showers of the year. Pinkie Pie had brought star-shaped cakes and beverages; Rarity a precious tablecloth enriched with umpteen minute splinters of gems, colorful and marvelously shimmering in the sunset; Applejack had hauled a crate full of juicy apples; Rainbow Dash had rehearsed the almost complete gamut of her new flying routine, pretending to be a meteor; Fluttershy had come escorted by thrushes and nightingales, and Twilight, of course, with a book about astronomy and a telescope.

As the gloaming was slowly receding before the night, amidst the earliest glimmering stars the first streak sprung up; everypony then lay on the rich grass and enjoyed the spectacle of those flitting, unexpected ephemera dashing in the empyrean. After the shower had gradually died out, all lingered for a while, enjoying freshness and a silence barely disturbed by faint whispers and the soft, unmistakable sound of furtive kisses; then, with the wee hours, the assembly reluctantly split up, each one dawdling back home to get some rest at last.

⁂

The next day was a bright and sunny Sunday. Everypony had gone out to relish the weather, meander through the various parks, gossip about the latest news or savor the toothsome pastries freshly pulled from the oven of Mrs Cake. Twilight Sparkle, however, was busy with her favorite pastime: cleaning up the library.

“Are you really sure you don’t want to have a break and spend some time outside?” asked Spike. “It’s such a wonderful Sunday!”

“Spike! I’ve told you we’ve got to get this over with. Once it’s done, I promise I’ll let you go gadding wherever you want!” protested Twilight, huffy.

“All right, all right, Twi’,” sighed Spike. “You’re the boss.” As he stooped to pick up another book from the clutter, somepony knocked at the front door.

“Don’t move Twi’!” shouts Spike. “I’ll get it.” He scurried to the door and opened it; the familiar face of a young filly greeted him with a large beam. “Hey! Apple Bloom! Howdy?”

“Not bad, Spike, thanks!” answered Apple Bloom cheerfully. “Is Twilight inside?”

“I suppose,” shrugged Spike. “Twilight! It’s Apple Bloom, she wants to talk to you!” he shouted.

“Coming!” Twilight climbed the stairs down. “Nice to see you, my girl! What can I do for you?”

“My sister has requested your assistance. Apparently she has unearthed something weird in one of our orchards, and she’d like to have your opinion,” explained Apple Bloom.

“Something weird?” repeated Twilight, suddenly intrigued. “What is it?”

”I don’t know, she won’t let me approach it,” Apple Bloom replied glumly.

“Okay!” said Twilight. “On my way! Spike! Good news, you’re dismissed. Chuck your broom, go out and have fun! We’ll resume our chores later.”

⁂

Trotting lightly, Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom emerged from a thick grove into a clearing where Applejack and Big Macintosh were chatting softly; as the muffled clop of the two newcomers reached their hears, they turned around.

“Hey! Twilight! Nice you’ve been able to come!” Applejack greeted Twilight. Pointing at a small excavation in the ground, she carried on: “Peek into this hole. Discovered this mornin’. Never seen anythin’ alike before!”

Inching forwards, Twilight reached the brink of a tiny shallow crater, not a meter wide; in its center lay an odd, ball-sized object. But definitely it was no ball: its surface was drab and it appeared to be covered in irregular protruding scales, interspersed with furrows of a slightly lighter color; not unlike a giant truffle.

“Twi’, d’ya know what in tarnation is this?” asked Applejack, puzzled.

“I don’t have the slightest clue,” admitted Twilight, obviously flabbergasted. “But you’re right, this is uncanny. Did you try to hoist it?”

“Yup!” replied Applejack. “With a shovel. Didn’t budge. And look!” She bent and grasped the shaft of a shovel, whose blade was partially cut, as by a saw blade. “That daern thin’ has somehow eat’n the blaede away. Ah reckon it must be sweating acid, that’s why it made this hollow ’n the ground. When Ah saw this, Ah gave up the idea of raisin’ it with my bare hooves and sent Apple Bloom to seek ya out.”

“And you did well, Applejack,” nodded Twilight. “This is a really peculiar… thing. It may even be dangerous. The best thing to do is to leave it alone for now. I’m going back home and will skim through my books to see if I can find something relevant. I shall be back tomorrow at dawn. Meanwhile, just relax: given its size, I don’t think it can do much damage.”

⁂

The Sun had not yet risen when a disheveled Twilight rushed into the clearing. Applejack was already waiting for her, pacing back and forth restlessly.

“Morning, Twi’! Ah’m sorry, Ah don’t want to stress ya, Ah just couldn’t sleep peacefully,” explained Applejack. “Ya know, if somethin’ goes awry with my orchards, Ah can’t help but frettin’.”

“Well, Applejack, I can’t blame you for that!” responded Twilight mellowly. “But I have no good news for you: I have spent almost all my night leafing through every zoological reference I own, and found absolutely no record of a – thing – like this. Either I’ve missed something, or it’s a new doozy.”

“Can’t we get rid of it? Ah mean, no big deal, but it keeps niggling aet mae. Besides…” She broke off, scrutinizing intensely the hole despite the gloom. Then, shaking her head: “Ah wouldn’t bet, but Ah’m pretty sure it is slightly bigger than yesterday. Somehow Ah have a bad feeling about this.”

Twilights pondered for a while. “You know what?” she finally said. “I’ll teleport this whatchamacallit in my laboratory. It’ll be easier for me to examine. And safer, too.”

She closed her eyes, lowered her head and focussed. Her horn began to shine with a faint reddish glow, that quickly increased, climaxing in a sudden dazzling white flash.

“Twilight! Watch out!” screamed Applejack. She rushed to the unicorn and shoved her violently.

“What? What… has hap… happened?” stuttered Twilight, teetering. “Where am I?”

“Ya almost slept into the hole!” explained Applejack. “If Ah hadn’t jostled you, you’d probably be dead by now, your guts dissolved by this – big berry.”

Twilight opened her eyes, blinked and shook her head in disbelief. “But, I shouldn’t be here! The spell should have borne me and the darn thing home! Why has it failed?”

“Don’t ask mae, Sugarcube! Fact is, you still here, and our big berry also!”

“It’s just outright impossible: this spell is so simple it works flawlessly. At least it always has; nothing can go amiss. It appears there’s more to this strange freak than meets the eye,” added Twilight, still dazed. “I’ll have to use a stronger magic, such as…” She broke off, suddenly reeling. “I’ll be back later. Forgive me, Applejack, but I didn’t sleep a wink last night and I badly need some rest before studying further.”

“No worry, Twi’!” replied Applejack. “You look downright frazzled. Have a naep. I can wait.”

⁂

Twilight eventually reappeared at the end of the day, followed by a strange shining cage that was gliding freely about one meter over the ground.

“Hey Applejack! It took me some time to tackle our problem, but I think this time I worked out a solution.” She pointed at the cage: “I have cast a repulsion spell on the bars of this cage: it creates a force field that repels all dense matter that approches within a few centimeters; that’s why the cage floats. I’ll levitate the thing into the cage, lock it in, then tow it home,” detailed Twilight.

“Ah wouldn’t be thaet optimistic, Twi’,” retorts Applejack somberly. “Look!”

Once again, Twilight cautiously padded to the brim of the crater. Inside it, the strange berry had – this time undoubtedly – grown larger: it was now about the size of a small bale of hay. The crater looked deeper and wider, too.

“That thing must somehow feed on the organic substances contained in the ground,” put Twilight forward. “In which case, my blueprint still holds! Cooped up in the middle of the cage, it will not be able to assimilate anything anymore. Maybe it will starve and wither? Bah! Enough prating, let’s do this.”

She cocked her head and the upper part of the cage slid open; gritting her teeth, she shut her eyes. A bright blue ray sprung from her horn towards the hole. She groaned, tried to raise her head, which seemed somehow stuck; grunting again, she strengthened her will. The shaft became blinding with power.

“Twilight, Twilight!” squealed suddenly an alarmed Applejack. “Stop! STOP! BACK UP!” Her voice rose to a panicked cry: “BACK UP! STOP! WITHDRAW!”

The beam of light faded out, and the unicorn opened her eyes. A few steps in front of her, a dark mass was now towering over the whole clearing: the – thing. It had bloated unexpectedly ten, hundred, thousand times, becoming a huge sphere, almost five meters high; not able to fit anymore in the comparatively tiny crater, it swayed slightly before starting to roll down the slope. Barely in time, the two ponies leaped aside as the giant ball slowly trampled by, reaching the first trees that collapsed under the weight with a crash. Acquiring momentum as it moved on, the big rocky freak cut a wide groove amidst the orchard; soon it disappeared from the sight of both fillies, living behind only desolation and a now distant smash, gradually muffled as time went on.

Twilight burst into tears. “What have I done?” she muttered, cowering as if she was going to be thrashed. “I should have guessed from the start that this… organism does not feed on matter, but on energy. That’s why my teleportation spell did not work in the first place: it absorbed its magical power. Somehow that… doozy can transform matter into energy when it has nothing else to guzzle, but this is obviously an inefficient process. Instead, the blockhead I am has given it a full ration of luscious food… Twilight, you nitwit! Now, it has wreaked your orchard havoc, and who knows what else…”

“C’mon Sugarcube,” said Applejack warmly, hugging the blubbering unicorn tight. “Don’t be too harsh with yourself: there was no way you could know. You’ve done your best. Braece up, this is not over! Let’s go and see where this durn thing ended up…”

Twilight calmed down a little, stifling her sobs; she stood up, fighting to keep her balance, like a newborn foal. Having more or less recovered, the two fillies cantered downhill along the deep trench, amid a spectacle of devastation.

“If we cease to use magic against this… sponge,” Twilight reflected, “it will have to eke out its food from the soil, and will certainly stop to grow madly as it did. That can save us some time to figure out a way to get rid of it. I think –” She broke off and gulped, as a vast and dark shadow swept over the area.

“Look, LOOK!” screamed Applejack out, cringing. Twilight glanced up and froze. The huge sponge had somehow managed to take off, and was now gliding well over the treetops. It circled around, like a hawk ready to swoop down on its next victim and, unexpectedly, swerved and vanished with a swoosh.

“Which way did it go?” asked Twilight, almost hysterical.

“Ponyville, I fear,” answered Applejack. “Hurry, we don’t have a minute to lose.”

“Oh no! For Celestia’s sake…” blurted Twilight.

Both galloped away as fast as they could, rushing towards the city.

⁂

Slowing down as they arrived in sight of the first houses, Applejack and Twilight immediately noticed the closed shutters and the doors left wide opened, as if the inhabitants had fled away in panic. As they headed towards the center, a rumor, first remote, then louder, rose. They eventually reached the Grand’ Place and halted, panting: a raucous and restless throng had mustered there, that the mayor was desperately trying to control and silence: “Please, please, quiet please!” she shouted, but nopony seemed to care.

“Twilight! Applejack! We were so worried!” squeaked Pinkie Pie, emerging from the crowd, followed by Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Spike.

“What happened here?” inquired Twilight, still breathless. “Did you see a big black ball in the sky?”

“You saw it too?” asked Rarity in return.

Twilight answered by another question: “Did it land here?”

“No!” responded Rarity. “We saw it hovering over the city, especially right atop the Sugarcube corner. Brrrrr… It was dreadful, like an ominous big ballon, almost as large as this place –”

“Balloon, balloon, baloney!” Pinkie Pie cut in, hopping around.

“Pinkie! Please!” supplied Twilight. “Carry on, Rarity.”

“Well, it remained poised in the air for five minutes or so and, all at once, it drifted away towards the Everfree forest,” concluded Rarity.

“It whizzed over my house!” added Fluttershy. “And frightened all the animals!”

“Rainbow!” hailed Twilight. “Did you follow… it?”

“Not after it entered the forest. I don’t feel flying over that creepy jungle. You know, the clouds move on their own and you can sometimes meet freaking strange birds over here,” confessed Rainbow Dash.

“If you seek your spooky flying thing,” declared a voice behind Twilight’s back, “you will find it by the forest hot spring.”

Twilights spun around. “Zecora! You’re safe!” she exclaimed with a large grin. The zebra had seemingly lugged part of her stuff all over to Ponyville, fleeing the danger. “Getting rid of the thing quickly we must, lest all Equestria soon becomes dust,” she added.

“Zecora,” said Twilight sternly, “are you sure the… sponge has landed in the bubbling lake?”

“Definitely.”

“It must be using the heat as source of energy to slake its hunger,” pondered Twilight. “At least we can bet for a letup of a few hours. I hope…”

“But, Twilight, what is that thing?” Fluttershy inquires.

“I don't know,” conceded a nonplussed Twilight. “What I know is that this organism that eats matter and drinks energy, even magic. It gnaws and grows, gnaws and grows, becoming hungrier and larger each time. I am afraid it will not stop until it has devoured… all Equestria.”

“Good Celestia! Does that mean… that we are doomed?” squealed Rarity, almost fainting.

“Not yet,” Twilight affirmed.

“But where can such a thing come from?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“I have no clue, Rainbow. Although I wonder if –” With that word Spike belched off a message; he grasped the parchment, unrolled it and turned it over to the seven ponies that had gathered anxiously around him. It bore a short and blunt sentence: Twilight Sparkle, meet me at once in Canterlot. Princess Celestia.

“Guys, I guess I have to go. Celestia will surely trash me in the deepest dungeon of Canterlot and throw the key away in a bottomless pit," lamented Twilight, distressed. “Farewell, my friends. I hope the rest of you can devise a plan to get rid of this intruder. Because as long as it lurks around, we are living on borrowed time.”