Forsaken

by Beware The Carpenter

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Princess Luna, Original Character, Random, Adventure, Shining Armor
Length: 27834

Twilight takes the train to Alkzum Mental Asylum to visit her younger brother.

Twilight takes the train to Alkzum Mental Asylum to visit her younger brother.

Secrets; every family has them.

Satellite story to Limits of the Horizon

Published 2014-11-04 03:00:08 UTC
Last updated 2016-02-14 01:59:34 UTC

1 - The Train Ride

The train was empty. That was good. It meant the ride to the asylum would be quiet, giving Twilight a chance to collect her thoughts before she arrived; it also meant that no one would see where she got off.

Twilight was a good pony. She worked hard, she helped people, she was polite; but she wasn’t honest. She had a younger brother who’d been born five years after she became Celestia’s protégé, and was confined to a maximum security mental asylum when he was four years old. She’d never told any of her friends about him for the very simple reason that none of them would understand, but that didn’t stop her from being a good pony, right?

She’d never known him very well; partly because she avoided seeing him. Twilight didn’t like looking at things she didn’t understand, with problems she couldn’t fix for reasons she couldn’t comprehend. She visited him once a month, out of duty, and would have gladly visited him more often if she thought she was having even the slightest positive impact, but two thirds of the time he wouldn’t even acknowledge she was there.

Enigma was a savant, in the purest sense of the word. He never showed any need for pony contact. He never spoke. He rarely looked at anyone, and when he did it usually wasn’t with interest. He never studied or read any books, and yet he seemed to know more magic than Celestia. It was as if he’d been born knowing thousands of different spells, or else had an instinctual understanding of the fundamentals of magic so profound that he could invent any spell as he needed it.

The other reason Twilight hadn’t known him well before the asylum was that, with Shining Armor living in the barracks with rest of the royal guard, she really didn’t have any other reason to visit home. Twilight’s family had never been close; with her parents considerably more interested in whatever they were doing at The Restricted Archives then they were in their own children. Shining Armor had been as much a father to Twilight growing up as he was a big brother and any deranged fantasy Twilight had entertained of one day having a family-like relationship with her parents, died six days ago, when her parents formed the nucleus of an experimental assembly spell.

Their entire chapter of The Restricted Archives; all their research, all their instruments, and every colleague who’d been involved in their work, burnt to ashes within a matter of minutes. Celestia assured Twilight that the fire wasn’t suspicious, but didn’t say anything more.

It was only fitting.

When they were alive, Twilight had never known about her parent’s work, except that it was secret, important, and was periodically interrupted with a few years maternity leave. To miss them now would be pointless as she couldn’t lose something she never truly had. Twilight was still debating within herself whether or not it was logical for her to feel sad, but apparently, Enigma had decided that it was.

Yesterday, Twilight had received a sealed letter from Enigma’s doctors saying that for the last two nights, Enigma had been stressing out and refusing to go to sleep. No one had told him about his parents’ deaths, but no one who knew him found it hard to believe that he knew anyway, and was going through some kind of grieving process.

After his first night without sleep, his doctors had tried comforting him using all the usual methods, and when those didn’t work they showed him pictures of the burnt archives and his parent’s funeral. That seemed to pacify him for the time being, but by nightfall he was worse than before, and now they were asking either Twilight or Shining Armor to come visit him; hoping that seeing a blood relative might help him stabilize.

Shining Armor was unquestionably unavailable. Celestia was on the western frontier, visiting families of those who died in the accident and had left Luna to rule over Canterlot alone for the first time since her banishment. There were still some ponies that held Nightmare Moon against Luna, and so Celestia had made Shining Armor swear not to leave her side.

Twilight however was almost as busy: teetering on the precipice of a breakthrough which could finally explain how The Everfree Forest was bigger on the inside than on the outside. Lives depended on The Manehatten project, and Enigma had had broken sleep before; once going for nearly two weeks without sleeping for no apparent reason and then, after five days of doing very little but sleep, had resumed his normal rhythm with seemingly no ill effect. Twilight had written back, saying she’d visit that weekend, but the next morning Twilight had received another letter. This one sounded desperate, and so Twilight had locked her laboratory and taken a train.

The train had just pulled out of the second last stop; it wouldn’t be long now.

Twilight watched the sun, shining in its midday radiance, before being blotted out by a tunnel of cold earth which swallowed Twilight as she descended into a tunnel through the cliff face of the Canterhorn. For her, the sun would come back in about three minutes, when the train reached the other side of the mountain; but because of a promise Twilight had broken as a teenager, Enigma had been swallowed by a metal cell, and for him the sun had never come back and probably never would.

Was Twilight still a good pony?

2 - Home Sweet Home

As Twilight counted down from two hundred, the train slowed and stopped. The sun had returned, barring before her the bleak reality of the Alkzum Asylum; hanging off the east side of the Canterhorn and away from Canterlot’s innocent eyes.

Seconds after stepping off the platform she was met by a pair of guards Brisk Blink and Barricade. They knew who she was, and that she was coming; but Barricade still scanned her for illusions and took a DNA sample to confirm she wasn’t using a metamorphic spell, while Brisk Blink searched her bags. Another pair of guards watched her from a distance, weapons ready, and for every guard Twilight saw, she knew five more watching her unnoticed.

As the inspection came to a close, the front gate opened and two doctors, a stallion and mare, came running down the stairs to meet her. The mare, Brace Wit; was white with a pink and green striped mane that made her resemble a younger version of Twilight’s late mother; possessing every bit of Starknight’s tenacity for research, but coupled with a mother’s tenderness which Starknight had never learned. The stallion, Cognastruct; was a golden stallion with a deep blue mane and a deeper sense of empathy and even deeper patience.

Both were unicorns in their mid-thirtys who’d married right out of college, both completing degrees in advanced psychology, and brought together by their love for difficult cases. For all intents and purposes, they’d been Enigma’s parents for the last seven years and, apart from Celestia, had the final say about what he was exposed to.

Although actual progress in Enigma’s development had been slow; Twilight knew that it wasn’t for lack of their effort, and nor had it dampened their hopes of one day developing Enigma into a functional member of society. Both were well aware that if they could ever truly understand how Engima was utilizing magic, it would change life in Equestria forever, and although both of them worked tirelessly towards this goal, Enigma was more than just a research project to them, he was their son.

When they first took Enigma’s case; they’d lived in the small but well planned living quarters next to Enigma’s cell, so they could be on call at any point of the day or night; but after their daughter Aureola was born, that needed to change. No matter anyone’s best efforts, Alkzum Asylum was no place to raise a child, if any other option was given, and so they now lived in a flat in Canterlot, with only special cases like this requiring leaving Aureola with Brace Wit's sister Nebula.

“Thank you for coming Twilight.” Breathed Brace Wits, embracing Twilight warmly with a smile fake enough to shatter any hope Twilight had fostered that the letter had exaggerated Enigma’s condition.

“What’s happened since this morning?”

“One hour after breakfast, he began teleporting frantically around his room,” Informed Cognastruct, “Sometimes two or three times per second. After an hour, he stopped as quickly as he began and hasn’t so much as twitched since then.”

Twilight nodded worryingly, as she followed them back up the steps and into the asylum. They passed three flights of stairs, each telling a dozen stories of lunacy, bloodlust, and despair as the most dangerous of the criminally insane, who’d avoided the death penalty, were kept under twenty-four hour surveillance. Twilight avoided looking down the dangerous alleyways and followed Brace Wits and Cognastruct deeper into the asylum to where the special cases were held.

Enigma wasn’t a criminal. He was an eleven year old child. He wasn’t violent or manipulative or hateful; he was just dangerous because what he could do and what he didn’t understand. Usually, when a unicorn foal couldn’t control their power, they were horn locked and given special therapies until they’d stabilized, with only the most extreme cases requiring horn castration; but with Enigma this was never an option. He was always sensitive about anyone touching his horn, and teleported either them or himself away if anyone tried. If someone ever did manage to slip a hornlock onto him as a child, he stopped breathing and began thrashing about as if he was in unbearable pain.

At first everyone thought he might just throwing a temper tantrum, like any four year old who doesn’t get their way, but the second time Enigma encountered a hornlock, it was left on until he’d passed out, and couldn’t be resuscitated until after it was removed. The last time Enigma saw a hornlock, the doctor who’d been holding it died. No medical reason was revealed by the autopsy.

The three unicorns passed another steel gate and stopped outside a cell which, by rumor, had been constructed as a contingency plan to contain Nightmare Moon in case The Elements of Harmony failed. Three suits of armor, custom forged from pure tylithium sat waiting patiently for them. Twilight instinctively tried to pick her armor up with her magic, only to watch her telekinesis slide harmlessly off the dull gray metal without even making it rattle.

Twilight let out a small grunt of frustration, and then followed Cognastruct and Brace Wit’s lead in wriggling into her armor using only her mouth and hooves for leverage. It took her nearly three times longer for her to fasten all the straps and buckles then it did Cognastruct and Brace Wits, who slid into their suits with the practiced ease of daily routine; but she caught up that time when it came to applying protective buffs.

For virtually every other magical creature Twilight knew of; magic needed to be applied to an entire person or object to be utilized. A select few wielders, like herself, could be vaguely selective; like in turning a page without moving a whole book or only moving a few branches of a tree. Enigma however, could be infinitely selective in what he took. If a normal child wanted an adult’s attention, they might grab a clump of mane, or a hoof, or a wing and try to pull the adult to where they wanted them. Enigma wasn’t any different except there was a small chance that he might grab a portion of someone’s left lung carotid artery, start pulling, and accidentally rip someone in half, trying to get their attention.

There were three main theories about how Enigma utilized magic and between Twilight, Shining Armor, and a professor at the school for gifted unicorns, they’d compiled a list of seventeen protective spells which, combined, should theoretically solidify someone into a single object which Enigma couldn’t disassemble. He’d still be able to move Twilight with normal telekinesis, but with her body covered from her head to cutie-mark in tylithium armor, his grip would be weak enough that she could break free if she needed to. Twilight didn’t know, and dreaded to think, what would happen if Enigma ever actually wanted to hurt someone but, so far, no one in his cell had been hurt while using tylithium armor and the mandatory list of spells.

When everyone was ready, Cognastruct took a key to a tylithium door; and opened it to a long, narrow, tylithium plated hallway, and they advanced single-file until they came to a second door. This door opened inwards into Enigma’s cell, and so although he couldn’t get out, sometimes he made a shield in front of the door, blocking anyone else from coming in.

He’d done this last night; after appearing to fall into a shallow sleep, Cognastruct and Brace Wits had retired to their own room to lay down, and then heard him screaming through half-inch walls of tylithium, and three feet walls of concrete which separated them.

They’d tried to rush in, to comfort him; but the door was blocked, meaning there was nothing they could do except stand, listening to him scream in agony and watch five sets of instruments indicate the internal temperature of the cell reach more than three thousand degrees.

It was three hours before the yelling stopped, and another two before he let anyone in. Every item in the room had been burnt to ashes, except for Enigma who sat, alone and unharmed in the middle of his devastation; weeping softly as blood leaked down from one nostril.

The key clicked into its locking mechanism, and Twilight held her breath, hoping for one selfish moment that the gate would remain closed, but the door swung smoothly open.

3 - Patient 197

It took a moment for Twilight’s eyes to adjust to the dim light; and another few to realize that they had. Ordinarily, Enigma’s room would have been filled with a constantly changing variety of books, toys, gadgets, musical instruments and anything else that Cognastruct or Brace Wits thought might get his attention.

Ordinarily, every inch of the walls would have been covered with posters showing landscapes, ponies, diagrams, maps, star charts and food; the only space that was left blank was the screen for the movie projector which Cognastruct used to display everything from nature documentary’s to children’s cartoons. By rule, if something was left there a month without getting a response it was taken out and replaced with something new. By tradition, most of the room was replaced on a monthly basis.

Now however, the room was depressingly bleak; gray metal walls surrounding a gray metal floor, covered in dirty gray ash that remained after last night’s escapade. Pale gray light fluttered between intermittent lamps, looking for something to do and – hurried hoofsteps caught Twilight’s attention as Enigma appeared.

He… came to her, close; until their noses were touching.

Twilight stared in amazement, he almost never came to anyone. As Cognastruct and Brace Wits stood well back, not making any sudden movements. She knew he had a face, and that it was gray with dark brown eyes; but right now all Twilight could see was a muzzle sticking out from underneath long black mane, kept in constant motion by static electricity, or something similar, creating an effect almost like the manes of the princesses. Cognastruct and Brace Wits tried to trim it occasionally, but he did not like it, and so they could only snip stray clumps when he wasn’t looking.

“Hello Enigma,” she said hesitantly, “Did you miss me?” he didn’t respond, Twilight raised one hoof to give him a hug, but Enigma instantly stepped back, and Twilight didn’t pursue it.

His greeting complete; Enigma trotted down to the corner of his cell and sat down, staring blankly at the wall and Twilight slowly followed him, sat down just far enough away that she didn’t threaten touching him and stared at a patch of wall of her own. “Are you sad because our mom and dad are gone?”

Enigma licked his lips, his breath coming in steady, soft pants; “Are you upset because you never had a chance to say goodbye?”

“…Are you angry at me because I haven’t visited you until now?” Twilight inched closer, and Enigma stopped his panting and turned his head just long enough to lock eyes with her for one, terrifying fraction of a second; and Twilight eased back to where she’d been sitting.

What did he see when he looked at her? Did he recognize her as his sister, or know she was the same species as he was? Did he see her as a single creature, or as a galaxy of cells or even molecules which he could take apart and reassemble as he wished?

After a few minutes; Twilight looked back to Cognastruct and Brace Wits who watched on from the distance. They looked tired, exhausted; neither of them has slept for more than a few hours these last few nights; and, for now, Enigma was only doing what, for him, was normal. If it was only at night that Enigma had problems, they needed to rest while they could. “Get some sleep,” Twilight offered, “I’ll watch him for a while.”

There was protest, but only light; and so after the typical reminders and requests to wake them if needed, they both retired, and Twilight was left staring at the wall with her brother. As usual he wouldn’t look at her, or respond physically, and so she talked to him.

She told him about Shining Armor and Cadance’s first foal Clastic Strain, who’d needed to be born C-section early last month. She talked about how Equestria was changing now that Celestia was giving more and more responsibility to Luna; causing mixed feelings among the population. She talked extensively about her work on The Manehatten Project, emphasizing the number of lives that rested on it and going into extensive detail about the complex calculations she’d been balancing and failing to balance. When he didn’t respond, Twilight even got some diagrams from her saddlebags, and held them in front of him, and tried explaining it in a different voice; all the while entertaining the ludicrous idea that Enigma might suddenly pipe up and explain to her where she was going wrong. As always, Enigma stared blankly ahead, in patient oblivion.

She knew he could hear her, but didn’t know if he had any comprehension of what she was saying… from her words. Twilight knew that telepaths had been extinct for hundreds of years, but Twilight, had inherited a tiny portion of mind magic; not enough to read or influence anyone, but just enough to help keep her own mind organized.

There were theories, unsubstantiated unproven, that Enigma was an actual telepath. Maybe he didn’t understand what she was saying, but there was a chance that he understood the thoughts behind those words, and so Twilight made a point of visually imagining each word as she said it; hoping he understood her, yet praying that he was not a telepath.

There were also theories, unsubstantiated, unproven due to lack of testable subjects; that tylithium did nothing to block mind magic. If Enigma was telepathic, there was no telling what his range was, and his ‘neighbors’ were Equestria’s worst collection of sadistic mass murders and serial rapists. If Enigma heard people’s thoughts rather than words, there was no telling what his developing mind had been exposed to. Twilight tried not to think about it, they were just theories; and, since coming to Alkzum, Enigma he hadn’t shown any violent, or sexual, tendencies.

After an hour Twilight stood up, and walked a few laps around Enigma’s room to get the blood circulating through her legs again. For being someone’s entire world it was small, but for a single room, his cell was massive; forty feet cubed, (the abnormally high celling adding credit to the theory it had been designed to provide a flying occupant with room to stretch her wings).

As Twilight walked around, she remembered the different furnishings it had had over the years; from building retaining walls across half the room and filling one half with enough dirt for an indoor garden, to filling it with a small petting zoo for a few hours for his last birthday. The only furnishings now were a bed and triangular table, surrounded by three chairs; not including the Tylithium bath that had been built into the wall along with a toilet which Enigma had never used.

Enigma had worn diapers until he was eight, at which point he decided that if Brace Wit and Cognastruct kept collecting his waste, they must want it for something, and tried giving it to them directly. Another year went by before he decided to cut out the middle ponies altogether; now whenever he needed relive himself he simply teleported his urine and feces from his bladder and bowels, directly into the toilet. (At least… everyone was fairly sure that he was sending it to the toilet. It was possible that he occasionally flushed the toilet for some alternative purpose, but if he was somehow teleporting his waste somewhere else, no one had found out where yet.)

“I got something for you.” Enigma didn’t bother to look at her, but when Twilight set two heavy bags onto the table, a firm clunk reverberated through the room and Enigma teleported to her side the same instant.

“Oh, now you want to play.” Teased Twilight, “You don’t care that I’m here but you still want your presents.” Enigma didn’t respond; his gaze never wavering from the bags and the twitching at the edges of his mouth brought a full smile to Twilight. “Well… alright then.”

To say that Twilight had never been able to play with her brother would be untrue; there was one game she had discovered by accident, before he came to the asylum. Twilight unbuckled the first of the two bags, and unfolded the lid, revealing a dozen large planes of glass.

“Ba… ba… ba… ba… ba.” Enigma began a low slow chant; that bordered between heavy breathing and an actual syllable. It was the only verbal sign he ever gave that seemed to have a consistent meaning; excitement.

Twilight lifted the first panel in her magic and turned it slowly in her magic, “Ba ba ba ba ba.” His hooves shuffling with anticipation as Twilight lifted the sheet of glass to the ceiling, “Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.”

Twilight cast a small shield to protect her eyes; “You ready?”

“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-” SMASH!!!

Twilight slammed the glass against the metal floor as hard as she could; shattering it into thousands of pieces which scattered to every corner of the room and Enigma went after them. He began at one corner of the room and walked in a straight line against the wall, collecting every shard in front of him with telekinesis until he reached the far side where he took one step to the right, turned one-eighty degrees, and repeated. When he reached the table and chairs he lifted them up in his magic and walked underneath, then set them back down behind him and when he reached Twilight he did exactly the same thing.

When he got to the opposite corner from where he’d started, Enigma turned around and began shuffling through his giant ball of glass. As always, it seemed completely random at first; but Twilight waited and after two minutes, larger pieces began to appear as Enigma inserted every piece into its original position; turning the broken glass into a mad ponies jigsaw puzzle.

Twilight had seen this played out a hundred times before, but it still never ceased to amaze her how he could pick up every microbe of glass while leaving dust, loose hairs plus anything else in his way completely undisturbed. Even before the asylum when they used to play this game outside, and Twilight broke the glass over a field of grass or tanbark, Enigma never failed to retrieve every piece, so long as nothing else moved them from where they had initially scattered.

If Twilight took one piece, no bigger than a grain of sand and hid it somewhere else, he would have a panic attack until the prodigal piece reappeared. Even if Twilight hid the piece in the same place every time, and showed him where she’d been hiding it the last few times, he never learned to automatically look in the hiding place when he realized that a piece was missing.

These were the only times that Twilight felt like she was connecting to her brother; watching him doing something that he loved… at least… Twilight thought he liked it. Enigma never broke the glass himself, making Twilight wonder if maybe he didn’t want it broken in the first place, but he never tried stopping her or anyone else from breaking it and he was usually extremely punctual in preventing things he didn’t want.

As Enigma came up on the eight minute mark, he completed his puzzle, sliding the last shards into the corner of the tortured plane of glass. He concentrated for a moment, causing the countless seams to glow, and the sheet of glass was restored as if nothing had ever happened. Enigma gave what could almost be described as a small grin of satisfaction and then teleported back to Twilight, waiting for his second round.

Breaking the same sheet again would be pointless as he never reassembled the same piece of glass twice, so Twilight laid it neatly beside the door, and raised two new sheets towards the ceiling.

“Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.”

4 - Night and Day

Twilight first met Enigma the day after he was born. Then, he’d seemed just like any other baby, except both his parents were in their late forties and… he was born with a cutie-mark. At the time Twilight had thought it might just be a fur discoloration of a pure white circle, coincidentally, mirrored on both sides of his flank, but as he grew older she became certain it was true.

When he was two months old, Twilight visited home for the summer holidays and was met at the door by her mother, looking more haggard than she’d ever seen her. This was explained a few minutes later when one of Starknight’s teats began glowing in the pale blue aura of Enigma’s telekinesis which began tugging, hard, in the direction of Enigma’s crib; unconcerned that there was a wooden wall in the way. Twilight had thought it was funny; her mother finally had a child that she couldn't ignore.

Next summer Twilight visited again; her father had taken time off work to help with the baby. Starknight less tired now, but more stressed; now whenever Enigma needed feeding he simply used a locater spell to find her, and then teleported her to a kneeling position over him in a position so he could suckle. Twilight was amazed and inspired; teleportation was abstruse, with even some of Celestia’s personal students never making a successful jump. If Enigma could master teleportation at one… maybe she could be the second youngest unicorn in Canterlot who could reliably teleport. She practiced and practiced, but Twilight never succeeded until she was eighteen.

Twilight visited home again when he was two. Enigma was bottle fed now, walking, and had moved into the basket of Shining Armor’s dog Morning Star, who he’d left behind when he joined the Royal Guard. For several weeks, Starknight tried moving Enigma back into his crib, but Enigma proved the more persistent and eventually got his way.

Morning Star seemed delighted by his new tenant and Twilight wondered if Enigma was making some statement about wanting attention; but that didn’t seem to be the case. So long as he had a milk bottle within reach, he indifferent to who or how often he was touched, regardless of whether it was from mother, father, Twilight or dog.

The next time Twilight visited, Morning Star was dead. At the time she’d been told that he’d fallen off the balcony, but much later she learned that after seeing dad pick Morning Star off the ground with telekinesis, Enigma had tried picking him up, by his eyeballs.

Enigma didn’t seem to understand Morning Star’s adverse reaction, but eventually tried giving Morning Star’s eyes back to him, unsuccessfully, and the dog was put down later that day. Like her last two holidays, both parents stressed the idea on Twilight that she shouldn’t tell anyone about what Enigma could do, especially Celestia.

When Enigma was four, Twilight visited him at home for the last time; and much of them were spent helping her parents look for Enigma after he’d teleported away to go exploring. The tracking device implanted in his coat made him easy to find, but reaching him rarely was as Enigma explored Canterlot, seemingly at random; entering stores, schools, businesses, factories and homes; including cloud houses – which he maneuvered without the slightest difficulty.

With three days left before she needed to return to the palace, Twilight, determined to keep his attention focused, bundled him up to her room and began demonstrating advanced spells for him, but Enigma was too busy staring listlessly at the neighbor’s cat, standing on a tree branch outside the window. His horn flashed, and when Twilight looked back, the cat had separated, seamlessly, into its skin, skeletal, muscular, organ, circulatory and nervous systems; all complete in themselves, rotating slowly in Enigma’s telekinesis as he ‘ba’d quietly in excitement.

After a few minutes he put the cat back together and let it go. When it fell down dead he picked it up and put it back on the tree branch but when it fell down the second time he lost interest and walked off. Twilight was disturbed; partially because she knew the neighbors, but mostly because nothing was preventing him from examining her in the same manner.

When Twilight got back to the palace, she broke her promise, and told Celestia everything. Celestia came back with her to visit Enigma, and after two days of observation, made the firm recommendation that Enigma be institutionalized. Twilight’s parents agreed and Enigma was transferred to the asylum later that week. Since then, these four grey walls had made up his entire world, invaded occasionally by aliens like Twilight who came attempting to make contact.

After finishing going through the first bag of glass Twilight had brought with her, Twilight and Enigma sat down for dinner with Cognastruct at six zero-three PM exactly for the kind of meal Enigma always ate at six twenty-three on Fridays. Everyone had one carrot stick - seven inches long, one hundred and thirteen peas, thirty-seven grapes, thirty-one beans, and eighty-three noodles; all counted out by Brace Wits who then excused herself so there would only be three diners. Having different numbers were OK, but there needed to be a prime number of diners, who all ate the same prime number of dishes, whose portions were always primes.

After dinner, everyone watched a short movie, filmed on the schoolyard of a class of particularly well behaved foals, who were about Enigma’s age. After the movie ended with a game of tag; Twilight, Cognastruct and Brace Wits held their own game, trying as hard as they could to encourage Enigma to join them. Unsurprisingly, he sat calmly on the floor, watching the three adults around him act like children, but at least he looked at them, and that was something.

Cognastruct and Brace Wits had always tried encouraging Enigma into physical exercise, but so far they’d failed. Enigma usually didn’t even walk to places, finding teleporting faster and more efficient, and everything in the room was easier to grab in his telekinesis then with his hooves. Thankfully and inexplicably, Enigma’s muscles did seem better formed then one would expect for someone who lived without physical activity, although no one would consider him to be fit. Twilight wondered whether or not this was connected to the fact that, in his entire life, Enigma had never once been sick with any conventional germ or virus.

When it became clear that whatever Enigma was going through, hadn’t changed his mind exercise, they finished the game, and Twilight, Cognastruct and Brace Wits each took a turn in reading to him. Twilight chose a chapter from an adventure novel, Cognastruct a book on advanced physics, and Brace Wits chose a cook book with lots of pictures. Sometimes Shining Armor would join them and they would each read to him simultaneously, from opposite corners of the room, hoping he might gravitate towards one of them and declare a preferred topic, but he never did.

After reading to him, the adults made the decision to ignore him for the next hour. A normal child wouldn’t have the undivided parental attention twenty-four seven an Enigma needed to see that their relationships with each other were just as important as their relationships with him. Brace Wits asked about how Twilight was dealing with the loss of her parents; personally Twilight would have preferred not to answer but she did anyway, emphasizing some of her uncertainty how she should feel losing her parents when she almost never saw them to begin with. Enigma was on the other side of the room, balancing loose hairs on top of each other, but out of the corners of her eyes, Twilight thought she saw his ears cock towards her.

After the therapy session; Twilight helped Brace Wits give Enigma a bath, which he accepted with a sort of contented pacifism that made Twilight think he enjoyed the feeling of warm, aroma-therapeutic water on his skin. Then again, maybe it was just the bubbles that he liked; Enigma always seemed to be giving them a great deal of attention as the mares rubbed sponges over him so, maybe he was counting them.

When the bubbles were gone, Enigma got out of the water and did something Twilight didn't understand which made him instantly dry. Cognastruct convinced him to take his medication and Brace Wits actually managed to brush his teeth. Usually, both these tasks would have been complex, stressful, or even dangerous; but whatever had gotten into Enigma had made him unusually cooperative.

It was now eight fifty-three PM. In ten minutes it would be time for Enigma to go to bed. Usually by this time Enigma would be acting sleepy; his eyes would get droopy and his mouth would start hanging open. Instead he was wide awake; fidgeting with Brace Wit’s mane and giving sudden jerks as though he was being stabbed with a needle from different directions. Occasionally he would teleport across the room and sit there, only to teleport back a moment later; like he was looking for the perfect spot and never finding it.

Cognastruct and Brace Wits both looked scared; this was how the previous nights had started, only now he was degrading even faster than before. Whatever good Twilight had accomplished there, hadn’t helped his affliction. “Enigma.” Said Twilight softly, “You need to go to bed soon, you know that. If you don’t sleep, whatever’s bothering you is only going to get worse.” Enigma tossed his mane, caught it in his mouth, and started pulling like he was trying to rip it out. “…If you want, I’ll lie down with you until you go to sleep.”

Cognastruct looked at Brace Wits and then said what everyone was thinking; “Twilight; we all love Enigma, but if the pattern he’s shown continues this room will be three thousand degrees or hotter by midnight. None of us can survive that.”

“You two can’t” correct Twilight, “I can. My parents died a few minutes past midnight, and you say that Enigma starts hurting around nine, peaks at midnight, and then calms down by about three or four. The time when he needs help the most is when he’s dangerous, and I’m the only person available who can take those kinds of temperatures.”

“Really?” skepticism and hope muddled together on Brace Wit’s voice.

“… I think so. When Spike attended The Great Dragon Migration I lost a chance to help him because I couldn't survive lava. When I got back I started experimenting with heat shields.”

“Experimenting?” growled Cognastruct, “Twilight; there’s nothing noble about suicide. Grief of lost loved ones often results in high risk behavior, especially if it isn't dealt with. If the room gets too hot -”

“I’ll leave.” Said Twilight, “It’s as simple as that. I can sustain a heat shield for about half an hour which is enough time for me to leave, even if Enigma tries to keep me here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Twilight should have known better than to lie to a couple of psychologists; she was about eighty percent sure she could take the heat, and about sixty that she could leave, but that still left her with a ninety-two percent chance of survival. “Leave me the keys to get out, a photo album of my parents, pen and paper to take notes, and some more glass for us to play with, and I’ll stay the night with him.”

Both psychologists stared at her; Twilight was sure they were both going to object and she wasn't sure she had the courage to insist on staying another time. She knew she was blinking and sucking on her lip, two tell-tale signs she was lying that they would never miss. Cognastruct opened his mouth for the objection that would talk her out of this, but before he could speak, Brace Wit’s rushed the narrow gap between them, and threw her hooves around Twilight, drawing her into a fast, desperate and grateful hug.

“Thank you!”

5 - Furnace

9:05 – Enigma still wasn’t in bed. Ordinarily his routine was more accurate than the clock; and even a one minute delay would have been unthinkable. He began pacing a perfect circle in the middle of his cell, silent save for his hoof steps; and Twilight sat on his bed, singing a lullaby she’d learned from Fluttershy.

9:30 – Enigma was still walking in circles, changing from clockwise to counterclockwise every seven laps, whimpering quietly. Twilight read to him from three books Brace Wits had recommended on deep sea marine life, astrophysics and pottery, but none of it made Enigma slow down or change course enough to miss even a single hoof beat.

10:30 – Enigma began hitting himself. They began as small slaps from his fore hooves to his face which became harder and more frequent until his muzzle began to bleed. Each hit was accompanied by a small yelp of pain, but rather than coming right after he hit himself, they came before, as if hitting himself was a response to the pain or maybe to distract himself from it.

Twilight tried to use magic to shield him from his blows, but his own magic countered hers. She tried to physically hold his hooves down, but whenever she got close he would teleport a few steps away, and kept tracing the circle on the ground. Twilight took the glass she’d brought and began smashing them one by one on the ground, but he ignored it.

11:00 – Enigma teleported to one corner of the room and walked in a perfect spiral towards the center of the room; glass crunching heedlessly underneath his hooves. When he reached the middle he teleported to another corner and did it all again… and again. When he finished spiraling in from the last corner he didn’t move; instead he just stood there, stone still, and Twilight hoped that whatever ritual he’d been performing was complete.

Then he began to cry.

It began as a low moan, gradually building to a pained wail, and as the first tear struck the floor, the room began heating up. Twilight sat directly in front of him, controlling her breathing body language to restrict any kind of fear. She inched closer to him, and then opened the photo album she had about them and their family.

“It’s OK to cry Enigma.” She said softly, “Maybe this is the first time you’ve ever felt emotion; maybe you’ve been feeling emotion all your life but denied it until now, either one is OK. For the longest time I shut myself off from the world because I was more interested in knowing magic than another person; but sooner or later I needed to join the rest of the world. Maybe you haven’t reached that point yet, but if this is you trying to understand what it’s like to feel sorrow, I want you to know, I’m here for you.”

The room kept getting hotter, and Twilight activated her heat shield, beginning at quarter strength. “It’s normal to feel upset when family members die, but that doesn’t make it OK to destroy yourself or other people. Cognastruct and Brace Wits love you, but when you heat the room up they can’t stay in here without getting hurt, and I won’t be able to stay very long. Driving other people away so you can hurt yourself won’t help you way to deal with loss, it only makes it worse.”

Outside Twilight’s rising heat shield, the water in the toilet was boiling; Enigma was shaking, and his guttural gasps becoming more frequent that Twilight had to raise her voice to even hear herself. “Our mom and dad always focused more on work than relationships; I know that, most of the time they weren’t for me either, but that doesn’t mean we have to become like them.”

Enigma’s bed burst into flames, a stray ember flying out and touching the photo album which burnt in seconds. The smoke rose, mixing with the steam in the air and contorting into a dark cloud that covered the roof of Enigma’s world. “It’s OK to show emotion, but for that you need to let others get near you. If you stop heating up the room I’ll stay here with you, but if you don’t then I’m going to have to leave. Please let me stay, let me help you.”

Twilight inched forwards a little more, drove her heat shield to maximum and placed her hoof on his cheek; and he combusted, launching into full scale mana-burn as his mane and tail turned to white hot flame and he collapsed, into Twilight’s waiting arms.

Even through a shield designed to withstand magma, he was scolding; but Twilight held on tightly. Enigma convulsed, he cried, he screamed, but he didn’t try to free himself from Twilight; who surged power into staying alive and cherishing the one moment in so many years when her brother had let another person hold him.

The light was blinding, but Twilight didn’t care; she held one hoof over her eyes while the other she ran through the blazing ball of fire that surrounded Enigma’s head. Her magic was running out, but she wasn’t ready to leave just yet; she may never get this chance again, she brushed his mane away, revealing his face and kissed him on the forehead.

When she pulled back, her magic was three quarters gone, the fringes of her mane were charring and pieces of glass she’d swept to one side of the room were melting, spreading over the room in a thin film of molten red glass.

She hadn’t even made it to midnight.

Twilight gave Enigma a final squeeze, possibly the last one he would ever let anyone give him and then she laid her brother, screaming in pain, on the floor and tried to walk away; when Enigma reached out and grabbed her mane. Twilight turned, she expected the resistance to be from his telekinesis, but it wasn’t, he was actually holding her, physically trying to pull her towards him, wanting her to stay. Her heart leapt, her mane singed, and her eyes gave off tiny rivets of steam; “I’m sorry… I love you.”

Her shield and will both wavering, Twilight felt dizzy for a moment, then gently released his grip turned and galloped to the inner door; kicking through the puddle of molten glass which froze and shattered under her hooves. The key slid home; there was a small rush as the hot air rushed into the tunnel, but by then Twilight was in, locking herself in the narrow tunnel.

Behind her, Enigma yelled in pain. Inside her, Twilight wrestled with guilt and hope. Her brother had shown the desire for company for the first time in his life and it had been denied him, but there was still tomorrow:

As her heat shield was put to the test, Twilight became aware of its flaws, the fire of Enigma’s mana burn was different from magma; she was expending vast amounts of energy on some spell lines she didn’t need, while feeding too little into others. Twilight could work on it today, and custom tailor her heat shield to withstand Enigma’s unique mana-burn; and tomorrow she might be able to last twice as long, and maybe get to the source of helping Enimga deal with his pain.

What if there was no tomorrow?

What if Enigma burnt himself out tonight and holding onto her was his way of saying goodbye?

Twilight locked that thought out of her mind. Either Cognastruct or Brace Wits had left her a flask of water on the ground, and it was well appreciated; Twilight drank thirstily as she waited for her conscience’s permission to leave:

So long as she stayed in the entry way of Enigma’s cell it didn’t feel like she was abandoning him. She was still here… but she wasn’t there for him. Listening at the door was so you could come in if someone needed you; he needed her and she wasn’t going to him. Listening was selfish.

Twilight downed the last of the water, and moved down the hallway to the outer door, which led to the foyer between Enigma’s cell and his parent’s living space. There was the soft click as the key fit into the door which then blasted open under the weight of burning plasma. The remnants of Twilight’s heat shield activated and shattered, holding just long enough for Twilight to generate a new one. In front of her, Enigma was withering on the ground in the center of his cell, burning like a miniature sun.

Twilight slammed the door.

Was that possible had she been so delirious she’d spun around without even noticing it? Twilight turned, and galloped twenty paces behind her; pushed the door open and stepped into Enigma’s omnipresent cell. The moment she was inside, the door slammed shut behind her, and when Twilight opened it, just seconds later, there was no hallway, there was a blank wall; forged from pure, magic impervious, tylithium.

“Enigma… how are you doing this?”

The room burned, Enimga yelled and Twilight shook. If she had to, she could use the calcium from her horn to fuel her magic, giving herself a final reserve that could preserve her life a little bit longer, maybe twenty minutes, but then that would be it; and even if she did survive, her magic would take weeks to recover, meaning she couldn’t stay with Enigma again for some time.

She had no choice.

Channeling her core energy into her heat shield, Twilight went to Enimga and shook him, trying to make sure he’d focus on her. “Enigma, I know you’re hurting, but if you keep me here, I will die! You have to let me go, or else turn off the flames.”

No response.

“Please, I’m begging you; turn off the flames!”

Enigma stopped yelling; like a switch. One moment he was deafening, and the next he was as quiet as he had almost always been.

The flames got hotter.

Enigma began convulsing uncontrollably on the ground; twisting into the vague figure of a fetal position. Twilight stood back; if she stayed there was a slight chance she could save him. If she ran, there was a slight chance that she could save herself. She was critical to the Manehatten Project, millions of lives depended on it. What if Enigma’s shift in behavior was him re-opening the door for her, but he couldn’t hold it for long?

Hating herself, Twilight galloped for the door and threw it open, hoping for a hallway; but only a blank wall confronted her, as impervious as ever. Twilight pounded on the wall, vainly hoping that it was only and illusion, but her hooves reflected off the metal without leaving a dent.

Now she was angry at Enigma; angry. She’d dropped the most important project of her life, and come here to try and help him, and now he was going to kill her because he either didn’t realize or didn’t care that heat killed things. If she killed him then maybe she could - no she couldn’t think like that, she was going to die, and without the Manehatten Project, so would Equestria in eight years.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?"

Enimga stopped shaking for a moment, and drew one massive breath; and the smoke that covered the ceiling began to shake and then gave way as the middle of the ceiling was pulled down. Metal groaned, as a great whirlpool of Tylithium, half an inch thick, lurched as if pulled by the wait of Enigma’s mind. For a moment, Twilight thought that the spike would impale him, but as it touched the tip of his horn it split open, pulling at least a yard wide. The cement roof that had covered the tylithium topside exploded upwards and outwards; and the full moon, hanging directly above, shone on Enigma in its deathly radiance.

Heat rushed from the room and up the funnel Enigma had created, dropping the temperature rapidly, but not enough to let Twilight live, only prolong her death; and Twilight didn’t have the energy left to teleport up the tunnel and onto the roof of the asylum.

One hope.

Twilight’s saddlebags were withered and cracked from the heat; she snapped off the flaps and inside was a pad of paper and a quill. The paper was fragile at best, and the ink was dry; so Twilight had to suck on the quill every few letters to make it moist enough to write, she was tired, and running out of time; she skipped details, she skipped words, but she wrote what was important.

Dragons had an inherent knack for telefire, needing only a fraction of the energy to send a package that it would take a skilled unicorn, but Twilight still had enough magic left to send one letter and Shining Armor always carried a homing crystal on him, to be used to contact him in emergencies. He also had a port-gem that led to Alkzum and, Luna would also be with him. Between Shining Armor and Luna, they had more than enough power to rescue Twilight.

She tore the unnecessary parchment away from the text to make it easier to send; cast what little magic she could spare into a protection spell over the desperate note and watched it disappear into smoke. If it didn’t reach Shining Armor as more than charred ashes; charred ashes is what Cognastruct and Brace Wits would find in the morning when they opened Enigma’s cell.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Response.

Twilight snatched the heavily protected piece of paper from the air the moment it arrived. It was long but for now, Twilight’s eyes fixated on the first nine words:

Twily

Luna’s been in a coma for three days

7 - The Circle

Author's Note

Enigma checks the date: 3/14/15

Enigma checks the time: 9:26:53

Enigma re-checks the date and time: 3141592653

"...This is the greatest moment of my life!"

7 - The Circle

Twilight fell onto… nothing.

Was she still falling?

If she was in a vacuum there wouldn’t be any air for her to fall through, and no way to know if she was moving. Twilight held her hoof in front of her mouth gave several hard breaths and felt the air on her arm normally.

The link with Shining Armor was only meant to go two ways, but the sheer mass of psychic energy passing between Enigma and Luna was… gravitating. There were five possibilities to explain where she was and none of them were good. She could be lost in the dreamscape, separated from her body to endlessly wander unless Luna came to find her, if she ever freed herself of Enigma’s mind. She could be in Shining Armor’s mind. She could be in Luna’s mind. She could be in Shining Armor’s mind, which was inside Luna’s mind, which was inside Enigma’s mind; or she could be in Enigma’s mind with Luna and Shining Armor.

Four of these weren’t really possibilities.

If she was in the dreamscape she would know it; Luna had explained to her how she’d used a technique similar to a mind palace to orchestrate the dreamscape into a fictitious night sky, with the dreams of equines across the world being represented by stars. If she was in either Luna or Shining Armor’s mind she would know it; because something would be there.

Here there was nothing; no life, no sound, no activity, only whiteness and Twilight wept.

Since he was a infant; Twilight had wondered what lay inside Enigma's head. For years she'd almost given up all hope, but still had tried to make sure it would be as intriguing a place as possible, even if it was only for him. Now she knew there was nothing. Maybe somewhere in this wilderness Twilight would find an instinctual understanding of the key to mathematics or the meaning of magic; but there was not a person.

She started yelling at the top of her voice; partially because she needed Shining Armor and Luna to find her, but mostly because she needed there to be something in this place besides herself, even if it was only her own voice. When there was no answer and so began running; searching desperately for an image of another pony, broken glass repairing itself, the innards of a cat; anything to not be alone.

She didn’t know what she was running on as it was hidden under a dense one-inch fog that covered the ground, but it felt solid under her hooves, and released a satisfying ‘clunk’ on impact as she galloped through the abyss, shouting and throwing out signal flares. Hours? Minutes? Days? She didn’t know how long she ran. She never got hungry or tired, but after running for what seemed a brief eternity, she saw what looked like a gray star in the sky.

It would be too high for her to grab in her telekinesis, though right now she wasn’t sure how her magic worked here; but she thought if she could just get under it she might be able to identify it. Maybe; what she was seeing was the top of a distant, high white mountain, and from there she could get a view of the rest of the landscape, if there was anything else to see. With nothing else to do she continued on; slower than before and noticed that the ground was sloping slightly upwards.

To test the theory she pulled out a clump of her mane (unsure if it would grow back), dropped it, walked a few hundred yards and turned around. Her clump of mane wasn’t lower than her… if anything it was slightly higher. She did the experiment again, this time dropping a second clump of mane, and walked back to the first clump. Now the second clump looked slightly higher.

To prove her theory she used the clumps as two points as reference points; and teleported herself as far as she could to make the tip of an isosceles triangle. At first she couldn’t see either clumps of mane, but then she looked up and spotted them apparently suspended some distance above her. She started walking towards them, surprised how far out she’d really teleported. She teleported back between her points of reference, and then teleported herself again in the opposite direction; with the same result. As a final experiment, she marked off about a hundred paces to each point of the compass, and in every direction she seemed to be going uphill; almost proving her discovery.

This… realm she was in wasn’t flat. She was on the inside of a giant sphere, miles and miles in diameter, which somehow generated an outward gravitational pull. She looked again for the gray dot on the horizon; spanning miles above her head but no longer beyond her reach and began galloping towards it; not brave enough to laugh in liberation, but daring to hope that her brother’s mind contained hidden beauty. As if in answer, a harmonic melody began echoing through the air.

‘Of course.’ Thought Twilight as the tune became words, and she recognized the libretto. ‘What else would Enigma sing about?’

If Twilight had needed to run the entire distance by hoof it would have taken days. Maybe it still did, but with teleportation eating up the miles under her and the voice drawing her nearer, she arrived in due course and found two ponies. One was Enigma, sitting cross legged on the floor with his back up straight in a pose that would have been almost impossible to hold in the real world; bobbing back and forth to the music around him with and indefectible sense of timing and balance. About five paces in front of him was… Derpy Hooves?

Twilight stared dumbfounded; trying to remember if she’d ever shown Enigma a picture of Derpy or told him anything about her. So far as she could recall, she hadn’t, though it was possible Shining Armor had. For whatever reason, Derpy was here dancing in front of Enigma; occasionally on all fours, but usually on her hind legs, keeping the same perfect timing and balance that Enigma had as he bobbed along with her.

There was nothing sensual or seductive about Derpy’s jig; and Enigma’s colthood remained un-protracted as he watched the pretty mare dance. Twilight was certain that this was the center of where the music was coming from, but she saw no source for it. Both Enigma and Derpy’s mouths remained closed in happy, relaxed smiles.

“Enigma.”

No response.

“Enigma can you hear me?”

Engima ignored her as he had always done; so Twilight stepped forward to put a hoof on his shoulder. The moment she got within three steps of him, the music stopped; while both Enigma and Derpy turned to face her, holding Twilight with silent emotionless stares.

“Enigma.” Began Twilight slowly, “I don’t know how much time has passed inside your room at the asylum; but last I knew, you were cooking the room to thousands of degrees with me in it and I was going to be dead in a few minutes unless something changed. If I’m still there, could you please turn off the heat?”

Silence.

“Luna’s been in here for at least three days and nights; a lot of people are worried about her and people need her alive… could you tell me where she is please? Maybe she and I could meet wherever Shining Armor is?”

Enigma didn’t answer, so Twilight turned to Derpy. She noticed Derpy looked younger than she was in the real world, and her blind eye had been healed; staring at Twilight in unison with its counterpart; but this didn’t make her responsive.

“I know.” Said Twilight furtively, “I was with Princess Luna and Shining Armor the other day; and we were all talking about how each of us would love to bring you a hundred planes of glass and break them for you so you could put them back together again. It’s such a pity we’re all are stuck inside your head, if you let us out; and let me leave your room, we could get you the glass we want to give you.”

Neither Enigma nor Derpy showed any sign on excitement; but maybe that was because they didn’t know what glass was. Twilight tried envisioning the clear, breakable substance that Enigma loved playing with; hoping that a sheet might appear out of thin air to accommodate her.

When that didn’t work, she mimed a glass was in front of her, then pretended to push it over at Enigma’s hooves, mimicking the sound of the glass shattering as best she could; and this was only the first of a series of attempts to bribe, beg, threaten or otherwise implore to Enigma to show her where the others were, or to turn off the flames in the cell. If Twilight touched either Derpy or Enigma it went unheeded and if she applied pressure they slid backwards, as if the floor was polished ice and their counterpart forwards at the exact same pace, so that the distance between Enigma and Derpy never shifted.

After several fruitless attempts; Twilight stomped back in frustration and instantly the music began playing again, with Enigma and Derpy resuming their capering as if she’d never been there. Twilight took one step forward, the music stopped and she was held with two flat stares. She stepped back again and the pageant began again without delay. Repeated experiments showed the same results, regardless of which side she approached the pair from, how long she stayed, or how many times she intruded.

“Is this really what you do in here all the time?” asked Twilight, not expecting an answer and receiving none, as she planned her final attempt.

Every time the music started again at the first digits of pi, and continued until Twilight’s next intrusion. Every number seemed to be indicative of a single position or dance move by both Enigma and Derpy. She practiced outside of Enigma and Derpy’s invisible circle, and when she thought she was ready she carefully crept to the edge and then hopped in, landing on her hind legs in imitation of the dance Derpy had been doing singing; “Three-point-one-four-one-five-nine-two-six-five-three-”

She fell over.

Derpy and Enigma remained unamused.

“Fine” muttered Twilight, climbing back to her hooves and nursing a skinned knee. “Keep your music.”

Luna said that dreams always seemed longer on the inside; sometimes compressing days to a single minute, but they were never timeless. In the real world, Twilight had only minutes to live, and no way of telling how many of those she’d already used up. If the singing Derpy and Enigma here couldn’t help her, she needed to find something that could; the magic flares she’d shot off earlier implied some sort of fog cloud in the center of the sphere, meaning there could potentially be other resources in here that she hadn’t found yet; she just needed to – something tugged her mane.

Twilight turned around, she’d left Enigma and Derpy’s circle at least a hundred yards ago; now Enigma had disappeared, and Derpy was hovering behind her, tugging on her mane slightly. Twilight took a step towards Derpy, and Derpy moved back; Twilight took two steps towards Derpy and, seeing that she was being followed, Derpy released her and took off in a different direction to where the circle had been.

Twilight followed, occasionally using small teleports to keep pace with Derpy’s effortlessly rapid flight until she stopped suddenly after about three miles, landed, reached her hooves under the layer of cloud, and pulled open a wooden trap door. Derpy looked up briefly to make sure Twilight was watching her, and then disappeared down the hole without a word. One final teleport brought Twilight to the mouth of the hole which resembled the wooden hallway of a ship; complete with the crowing of sea birds, and the smell of salty ocean spray.

8 - How Enigma Got His Cutie-Mark

Jam on toast.

Jam on toast!

Crunchy, gooey, yummy, crumbly, sticky, slimy jam on toast!

Enigma wanted jam on toast; was that really so hard to understand? Enigma was pregnant with three people now, but not one of them had listened to a single word he’d said. That made him sad. Whenever Enigma got sad he tried to think of things that made him happy; like jam on toast! All that fructose, sugars, fibers and yeast wobbling around as he chewed and getting all over his taste buds before sliding down his trachea and into his stomach. That was where the real fun began; watching all those friendly little people who lived inside him getting all excited as they ran up and began turning the sugars into magical energy.

Those people were nice. Enigma liked them. If they didn’t live inside him, he would die. Enigma used to try talking to them but they never talked back; but it was still fun to count them and give them names. It was very sad however that they only lived for an average of 15 days, 7 hours and 12 minutes; because that meant the number was always changing too fast for him to count exactly how many there were. Right now Enigma thought there were between 27,974,674,153 and 32,432,427,223 of them; but that was only a rough estimate.

Enigma did not like estimates.

3 years, 12 weeks, 6 days, 14 hours and 11 minutes ago Enigma had wanted to see if he could have every one of them named at once, and started naming them as they were born. Keeping up with naming an average of 1,613,571 of them per minute was very difficult; and he only managed to keep it up for 13 days, 2 hours and 13 minutes before he passed out, and then slept for 2 days, 14 hours and 1 minute.

That was when Enigma decided that he had way too much free time.

Enigma had cut back the time he spent to counting bacteria to 2 hours and 11 minutes a day, and began filling his schedule with more useful things, but when The Fat One came to visit him he tried sharing his favorite game with her. He put her in a giant stomach with 23,445,753,112, 635 nice immortal bacteria so she could count them without any of them dying on her, but The Fat One didn't count them.

Then Enigma remembered that bacteria were small and easy to miss unless you knew to look for them, and wondered if maybe The Fat One didn't realize she was inside a stomach. To make sure The Fat One knew she was inside a stomach, Enigma brought her out of that stomach, and then put her in front of The Goose Hydra.

The Goose Hydra had 7 necks, each neck had 7 heads, each head had 7 beaks, each beak had 7 tongues, each tongue ate 7 ponies. Each pony had an average of 40.74 organs; each organ had an average of 898,634,397.13 bacteria. The Goose Hydra had 784 organs; each organ had an average of 1,781,221,583,374,957.57 bacteria; before it ate the ponies. The Goose Hydra lost 22,153.58 gallons of saliva eating the ponies, each gallon of saliva had an average of 69,094,726.44 bacteria that can no longer be counted. After The Goose Hydra ate the ponies, it pooped 12,538.41 gallons of poop. Each gallon of poop contained an average of 1,157,837,947.41 bacteria that can no longer be counted.

After The Goose Hydra pooped it ate The Fat One who was was as fat as 2.81 ponies and had 3.14 X as much bacteria which meant she needed to be divided up between 6 tongues from 5 mouths of The Goose Hydra. 8.13% of The Fat One's bacteria got spilled on the ground and did not get eaten by The Goose Hydra. The Goose Hydra lost 2.17 gallons of saliva eating The Fat One.

How many bacteria were then inside The Goose Hydra?

The Fat One did not find the correct answer.

She didn't even try to count the bacteria. Even though Enigma had split her into 6 even parts, so she could count 6 X as fast and find the answer before time ran out but she didn't appreciate that. She just wriggled around inside The Goose Hydra looking for her other parts, and then poked a hole through The Goose Hydra's 34th stomach with her horn so she could crawl out. She spilled 17.54% of the bacteria in that stomach as she made her way out, and gave heart burn to The Goose Hydra's 5th heart. Enigma decided that maybe she did not like counting bacteria as much as he did; so he asked her a different question:

21.39 of ponies have golden tooth fillings. 61.35% of these ponies have two or more fillings. 41.76% of these ponies have three or more fillings. 36.77% of these ponies have four or more fillings. 21.09% of these ponies have five or more fillings. Only three ponies have six fillings. No ponies have more than six. Each golden tooth filling contains 4.59% of an ounce of gold. How many ponies will The Goose Hydra have to eat before it can lay a golden egg weighing 251.98 pounds, which it can bring to the marketplace so that it can afford singing lessons for its 7 daughters?

The Fat One did not answer that question correctly either.

Finally, after 8 hours and 23 minutes; Enigma decided that The Fat One must not like The Goose Hydra since she kept trying to poke its eyes out; so he put The Goose Hydra back inside it's box and decided to give The Fat One a completely different game:

1 year, 11 weeks, 3 days, 14 hours and 46 minutes ago, Brace Wits had shown him a piece of curved glass through with Enigma could see smaller. He now saw that cells were made out of proteins, and proteins were made out of amino acids and amino acids were made out of molecules and molecules were made out of atoms.

Enigma wanted to know what atoms were made out of, but Brace Wits wouldn't tell him so he asked Cognastruct, but he wouldn't tell Enigma what atoms were made of either. Enigma decided to find out for himself.

He took the curved pieces of glass Brace Wits had given him, found an atom and then tried to cut it apart to find what was inside. He tried, and tried, and tried, and tried; but he could never get his magic small enough to cut anything smaller than a protein. He'd asked The Fat One if she would help him pull an atom apart so he could see what was inside, but she didn't answer, so Enigma decided that that meant she'd said no. So then he made her his bitch, and whistled for her to round up his herd of fractals into the endless barn to began infinite sheering, but she just barked at him, then ran and hid in a pile of hay.

Since then Enigma had shown The Fat One all 23 of his top 23 favourite games of all time, but she hadn't wanted to play any of them. She hadn't wanted to taste any of his poetry, she hadn't wanted to measure the camels used to power The Mighty Bean Crane, she hadn't even wanted to count pi with him. Finally Enigma decided that The Fat One simply wasn't very intelligent; so to give her a game at her own level he put her inside The Meat Fountain of Lies to see if she wanted to count the snakes that he kept there. There were only 10,431 but she hadn't even wanted to count those.

The Fat One wasn't very fun to play with.

Now however, Enigma was also pregnant with Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor. He wondered if they would like any of his games, but he didn't think that it would be a good idea to try. When he was only pregnant with The Fat One it was easy to play with her, while keeping her safe. Now that he had 3 babies inside of him, he needed to think 3 X harder to make sure nothing bad happened to any of them, and none of them wandered into any of the dangerous parts of his brain.

There were things in Enigma’s mind that should never have existed. Abominations born from the vain hubris and venal lusts which had infested Enigma during his selfish and uncontrolled youth. They were really scary. When Enigma stopped feeding them they shrunk some; but they were still in there, lurking, and if those naughty ideas found Enigma’s babies then Enigma wasn’t sure what would happen.

Maybe his babies would all run away and then get even more stuck in his imagination. Maybe they would all lie down and not want to move ever again. Maybe they would get gobbled up by Enigma’s memories and become naughty.

Enigma didn’t want to find out.

The very worst of them came from when Enigma was only 38 weeks, 6 days, 14 hours and 23 minutes old, and he was discovering circles. He liked circles. He wanted to keep them for himself.

ALL OF THEM.

Then one night Enigma had a dream that he had become The Pi King. All the numbers came and gathered around him on his geometrically perfect throne, bowing down and kissing his hooves as he counted the first 627 digits of pi. But when the 70th 1 came to him, he dropped it on the ground and broke it and then all the circles in the universe died in agony.

It was horrifying.

Enigma apologized to The Pi King for trying to take his job away, and then The Pi King put two circles on his butt for him to take care of. It was the happiest day of his life. Then Twilight Sparkle came along and got stuck inside one of them, and took 1 hour, 43 minutes, 45 seconds to get out.

Silly Twilight Sparkle.

None of his babies had found each other yet; they kept bumbling around by themselves and bumping into things; but Enigma didn't think they would stay that way for long. He had a plan on how to help them find each other. It was clever.

Author's Note

I'm just going to admit that there are far more bacteria in any stomach than what Enigma is listing, and I'm not sure if any digestive enzymes can live for 2 weeks. I will point out however, that Enigma is only counting the friendly bacteria which convert sugars into magical energy, so they can be as numerous and long lived as I want.

9 - Dreaming Dreams of Day-Dreams

Twilight stared down the hole in perplexion, hesitated, then lay down on her belly and crawled forwards, stretching her front hooves into the wooden hall. A painful sensation ran through her hooves as soon as they touched where the two worlds seemed to meet, which ended as quickly as it came and passed into her wrists, then elbows as she moved her arms deeper.

As expected, gravity seemed to be pulling her arms sideways, towards the ‘floor’ of the hallway, rather than deeper inside. Why she was expecting this, she wasn’t sure; at any other time she would have found gravitational distortions fascinating, but right now it appeared simply and perfectly reasonable.

She took a breath, and teleported herself near the end of the hall, rearing onto her hind legs and steadying herself on an oil lamp for balance just in case gravity decided to change its mind again; but it stayed true to its word in that the wall was now the floor and she was standing right-way-up in the bowls of a ship, rising and falling with the passing rhythm of the waves.

Derpy was nowhere to be seen.

Twilight had only been on a ship once before, and had spent almost the entire time in her family’s room; partially to avoid the passes that kept getting passed to her by one of the cabin colts, but mostly because she was immersed in the pages of an adventure series of Star Pearl, sailing in a stolen pirate ship in search for her lost prince. That said, she had studied shipbuilding and sailing from books; and even without that it seemed fairly self explanatory that the stairs at the end of the hall should lead to the top deck.

Unsure whether to expect rapacious pirates, zombies, peaceful traders, sea monsters, royal navy men, or nothing at all; Twilight cast a series of precautionary defensive spells and then slammed the trapdoor open. Silence and sunlight flowed quietly down to meet her. Twilight took three cautious steps forwards, fell flat on her face when the boat rocked, picked herself up and continued onto the deck.

For now she had no aim except to find Shining Armor and Luna. Shining Armor and herself had entered Enigma's mind only recently, meaning they should logically be closer together than Luna, who had had three days to travel and get lost. This means she should look for him first; but she had no idea where to begin, the deck was empty except for, – “Twily!”

Shining Armor came cantering towards her from the other side of the ship. He was sporting a bandanna, leather vest and several pirate tattoos, but it was definitely him, and as Twilight ran to meet him she realized that she was now wearing a corset, golden earrings, and a seashell necklace.

“I thought I'd lost you.” He said, embracing her in a warm hug.

“Thank goodness I found you.” breathed Twilight, pulling away from him; “We need to find Luna and get out of here before it's too late.”
Shining Armor smiled back at her playfully, “We don't need to find her.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm up here.” Luna's disembodied voice called from the prow of the ship. Twilight paused, wondering if Luna was hanging off the edge of the ship somehow, and didn't realize until she was on the prow herself that Luna had become the figurehead of the ship they were on. Her back half and wings appeared to be made of wood, fusing directly into the ship while her head and arms dangled pitifully over the waters edge. Twilight couldn't help but smile, earning a disdainful look from Luna causing Twilight to break into a full throated laugh at the half-ship princess. “This isn't funny.”

“Yes it is.” giggled Twilight, leaning over to tap Luna's wooden wing with her hoof, gaining the certifiable 'clunk' as if it were normal wood. “How did you get there?”

“Don't ask me.” growled Luna, gesturing half-way to the stern deck; “He is probably trying to use me as a navigation tool; either that or else he thinks this whole thing is one big joke.”

Twilight turned around and blinked; under the billowing sails, stitched from jam on toast, she saw a unicorn she recognized instantly but still took several moments to fully take the sight in. It was Enigma, all grown up yet maintaining every bit of his boyish innocence about him; dressed in the regalia of a Royal Navy Admiral, with a sharp cutlass strapped to his side. Twilight took a few steps towards him, but was stopped by Derpy who had re-appeared blocking her path with a mop she should have been swabbing the decks with.

Twilight stepped to the left, and then the right; and was in both instances countered by Derpy who then pushed her in the direction of a pile of barrels. Having had enough of this, Twilight teleported to Enigma and took a closer look at him; noticing first that the serial number on his jacket happened to be the first six prime digits of pie, and secondly that underneath the flowing ball of black mane that encapsulated his face, she could have sworn she spotted at least one eye patch.

Admiral Enigma scanned the horizon, and then withdrew from his carry case a map unlike any other in the world; comprised entirely of overlapping numbers, chasing each other back and forth across the parchment. Twilight stared at it, hoping to make heads or tails but only growing more confused as she looked on; but that was OK.

Here, they were in Enigma's dream. There was life, there was beauty, and all those dozens of hours Twilight had spent reading to him from adventure novels hoping desperately that at least some of it might be getting through to him was not in vain. He was living out one of those adventures right now, navigating a ship over the high seas using a map that only he could read. “Where are we going?”

“Home.” answered Shining Armor, appearing beside her, “Where else? Enigma collected us all out of the sea of his consciousness which was too dense for us to breathe; now he's sailing us in the ship he made to where we can all get back to where we belong.”

“Just like that?” asked Twilight amazed.

“Just like that.” affirmed Shining Armor.

Twilight was... disappointed. She'd spent years hoping to make some kind of meaningful connection with her brother. Now she was seeing his mind from the inside, and now it was almost over. She knew they needed to be getting back to the physical world soon; but she couldn't help wish that she could stay, just a little longer and share in one of Enigma's adventures.

Lightning cracked on the horizon, making the sea churn violently.

Twilight stumbled as a wave washed over the sea deck; then tripped on some loose ropes, and saw Derpy lunging towards her, holding an open barrel above her head with her wings. Twilight wasn't sure but she thought she saw the beginnings of a forest through the barrels mouth before it was knocked out from Derpy's grasp by a blast of Shining Armor's telikinesis, who then tied Derpy to the mast before she could escape. “Sorry!” he yelled, barely audible over the gale-force winds buffeting Enigma's ship, “Rogue memory, it won't happen again!”

Twilight nodded, or she tried to; the ship was swaying too much to know if she'd communicated, so she tried to shout her reply; only to be drowned out by the howl of something much louder than the wind; and tremendously more terrifying.

She looked over the edge just in enough time to catch a glimpse of a fin or a tail, as tall as the deck of the ship sink back into the water. She staggered to the edge, vision blurred by thick sheets of rain that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. The water was black, but something blacker was under it, larger than the ship by far and swimming with lightning speed away from them, turninng itself for another pass.

“Enigma! You need to get us out of here!”

Enigma seemed not to hear her; he was meticulously busy studying the map in front of him which seemed to rotate in different directions. He put his hoof inside his mouth, and then held it up in the air for a few moments, as if he was trying to gauge the wind direction on a calm day, then grabbed the wheel and spun it hard to the right.

Twilight couldn't see anything in the storm that surrounded them, and then a flash of lightning lit up the sky and showed what looking like a mountain rising up out of the ocean in front of them. A whale... or a shark of some kind, only vastly larger then any sea creature could ever be, opening it's cavernous mouth to receive their tiny ship as Enigma sailed directly into it.

“No! You need to be steering us away from the the monsters mouth! AWAY!!!”

Enigma didn't listen, and even if he had it would have been too late. The ship and the monster sped towards each other into a acicular embrace; and Twilight and Shining Armor linked their magic together to form a shield around their boat, which shattered at first impact from the endless rows of razor-sharp teeth.

Author's Note

Sorry for cutting it here; originally this was meant to join with the next chapter, but I it's late, and I won't have much chance to write tomorrow. Hope to continue soon.

For the record though I planned this chapter well before I discovered Engima's fetish naming bacteria. That's not why Admiral Enigma wanted to look for inside the whale's belly.

10 - Don't Blink

The thesterals had come, and Canterlot was in flames.

When news of Luna’s unexplained death reached the thesteral city of Iskewrel; dark hordes of thesterals had poured forth from of their ancient forest, slaughtering anything and anyone who could not escape their path. Celestia heard too late of her sister’s death, tried to return to Canterlot and made it to within sight of the city walls before they caught her. The thesterals hurled her mutilated corpse against the city walls as their only message; and began circling high above the city as they waited for the night to fall.

Sky Lunge had insisted on taking the pegasi on a preemptive strike on the thesterals while there was still an hour of light. Shining Armor had forbidden it, knowing that the only possible chance for victory would be for the pegasi to provide low altitude air support for the unicorns and earth ponies who could cover them with spells and bolt fire. The fiery pegasi captain had defied his orders and led the pegasi into battle anyways. A brief chorus of screams, and a shower of pegasi blood being the total reward for the deaths of Equestria’s finest as the thesterals feasted on blood, strengthening themselves for the next push.

Shining Armor’s shield had broken in a matter of minutes with the thesteral’s enchanted obsidian blades cutting and distorting the ley energies he used to maintain it; and Shining Armor had let it drop rather than pour more energy into a battle he could not hope to win.

Those foolish enough to try to escape down the open sides of the mountain were caught and slaughtered. The rest of the civilian population ran for cover in the network of caves that spiraled through the depths of The Canterhorn, to the base of the mountain and into the surrounding countryside. It was a desperate measure, the caves had been kept secret for centuries, and not all of the paths were marked or stable, but they provided a last resort to evacuate the city.

Some of Canterlot’s citizens would find their way through the tunnels and escape, possibly collapsing them behind them to prevent the thesterals from following. Others might hole up in one of the caverns with enough food and water to survive until they were rescued when Equestria re-took the city. Many, many more would get crushed to death by their own families in the rush to escape, or buried in a cave collapse. Most would be lost in the blackness and found by thesterals who would take savage delight in a carnal buffet.

Cadance would not be one of the ones who escaped; she was too kind, she would waste her own chances to get away trying to guide others through the tunnels. Shining Armor had given her two vials of poison before sending her into the caves; one for her and one for Clastic Strain, in case capture was inevitable, and he prayed she would have the sense to use them.

Shining Armor told her that he would follow close her, but he’d lied and she knew it. He needed to stay behind, to give them as much time as he could to run, and to light the city on fire. It seemed incomprehensible, but it was the only way to generate enough light that the thesteral magi couldn’t douse the flames. He knew there were ponies trapped in the building he incinerated, but if the battle for the city was fought in complete darkness, no one would survive.

Great plumes of smoke lurched into the air, as Shining Armor focused them as weapons against the advancing thesterals, slowing their advance as they came at him in waves. Each wave was beaten back be him and his defenders, but with each wave, more of his friends fell, and each wave drew further than the last until only he remained; dashing through the burning streets of a city he’d sworn to protect.

Above him can an agonized scream from a pegasi mare trying to escape the carnage. A thesteral stallion had just bitten off one of her wings, but rather than letting her spiral to her death he sliced her tail off at the dock and then began wrapping his hind legs around hers; eagerly intent on raping her before letting her die and Shining Armor did nothing to stop it. Even if he killed the thesteral, the mare would never escape alive, and in the opposite direction was a young family with a pair of thestrals closing in on them. Cold logic determined who he tried to save.

Barreling across the street, he cut through the first thesteral with a beam of light; melting its armor before burning a hole through its chest. Its partner hurled a poisoned obsidian dart at him which buried itself into his steel breastplate, and didn’t get a chance for a second shot. Shining Armor teleported the family into the caves beneath them and gave them simple instructions to keep going down. Most likely they would die anyway, and Shining Armor had wasted precious energy to simply prolong their fear.

The situation repeated itself; killing thestrals, helping refugees reach the tunnels and leaving the wounded behind. His horn and body ached, his magic was failing; and yet he always pushed on, always hoping that saving just one more life he might somehow redeem himself. Skidding around the next corner, Shining Armor saw one more life: a filly, barely on the verge of marehood, surrounded by thesteral stallions.

Shining Armor yelled at the filly to run, and then charged at the thesterals who changed their attention to him and flew around the filly as if they didn’t even see her. He grabbed the fore-fliers in his magic and battered them against the second rank; followed by a hail of missiles. Three fell, four continued towards him, blades and teeth primed.

Shining Armor generated a shield around himself and barreled into them, knocking two of them back but doing little real damage. The thesterals dug their obsidian blades into his shield, cracking it as their enchantments dispelled his defenses. He let his shield break, and they all fell forwards, the angles on their blades shifted slightly, and Shining Armor created a second shield which he expanded rapidly. The blades weren't at the right angle to penetrate, and the thesterals were smashed into the stone walls around him, causing one of the buildings to collapse.

The immediate threats were gone, the filly hadn’t; she was still standing there, frozen in terror. “You need to run.” Gasped Shining Armor, “Get to the tunnels and keep moving!” The filly didn’t respond… she wasn’t even breathing, but her head was raised so she couldn’t be dead. Shining Armor approached the filly and put his hoof gently on her shoulder, which appeared to be made of fabric as she stared ahead with dead button-eyes,“…Smartypants?”

Shining Armor didn’t know why his sister’s doll had grown and was standing in the middle of the burning city; but it didn’t matter. He gave Smartypants one hard shake and found her as stiff and immovable as a statue; and then the cries of a thesteral in pain a short distance away caught his attention, giving him hope that someone besides him still gave Canterlot their protection.

At the other end of his teleport he found two live thesterals who had stormed into a house to check for survivors when the roof caved in on them. The mare was trapped under a burning rafter as the stallion tried to lift it off her and Shining Armor made short work of both of them. He ran out of the house instead of teleporting, painfully aware that the last few hours was taking its toll on his magic, and galloped onto an empty street.

After a moment’s uncertainty about his next course, the stone wall across the street exploded from being struck from the inside. Jets of white flame shot out of the opening as oxygen met the fames, followed by a white unicorn mare who casually walked out of the blazing inferno; wearing sunglasses and an oversized stereo strapped to her back, blaring electro-dubstep.

Shining Armor remembered seeing her before… at his wedding… DJ-Pon3. Then she had seemed completely focused on the music table to pay attention to anything else; now she was even more so as she sauntered up to him, reared onto her hind legs, pulled her stereo onto her right shoulder, put her left hoof inside her mouth, and began beat-boxing.

Shining Armor opened his mouth searched for an appropriate rebuke or warning, then closed his mouth and blasted the stereo to smithereens. The mare continued bobbing up and down on her hind legs as if nothing had happened; and the music Shining Armor had thought was coming from the stereo continued without missing a beat.

Shining Armor stepped back. He didn’t know if he could protect this mare or if she needed protection. He did know that the music she was emanating had caught the attention of another squad of thesterals, swooping down for the kill. He shot two of them down before they closed in, and then generated a shield around himself and DJ-Pon3; reflecting the remaining three thesterals and causing them to overshoot. Shining Armor spun to get ready for their counter attack, putting himself in front of the DJ who still continued her senseless ratchet, and saw at the end of this street there was another Smartypants statue.

The leader of this band was an alicorn, his curved horn sucking the light from around it, causing the pressure inside Shining Armor’s shield to fluctuate, as if it was being pushed apart from the inside. Shining Armor’s power far outstripped the opposing alicorn, but he was exhausted and wasn’t used to defending against thesteral magic.

His shield wavered, just for a second, but that was enough to allow an obsidian dagger hurled by the alicorn to penetrate his defenses; slicing open his left cheek as it whizzed past him before bouncing harmlessly off DJ-Pon3. Shining Armor retaliated with a volley of missiles which scattered the thesteral formation and missed, save for the one that burnt a hole through the alicorn’s leather wing. The thesteral hissed in agony, and when his guards swooped in to catch him and carry him to safety, Shining Armor killed them together.

Shining Armor checked his surroundings, the impossible DJ who beatboxed obliviously, then turned and cantered down the road in search of his next target, DJ-Pon3 following close behind. He made it about eight steps before something grabbed his leg from behind.

By reflex he dropped, swiveled and hurled a laser behind him, powerful enough to melt a thesteral in its armor; but the thing that had him wasn’t a thesteral, and it didn’t flinch when Shining Armor’s blast hit it square in its cold button-eyes. The Smartypants ‘statue’ that had been at the end of the street was gone; and was now poised behind him, gripping his metal greaves in its extended hoof.

He tried twisting himself out, but the doll’s grip was like steel; he tried another laser, focusing into the dolls mouth which had twisted into an avaricious grin; but his magic did nothing. He unfastened his greave and pulled away from Smartypants. A colt screamed from somewhere behind him, causing Shining Armor to take his eyes off Smartypants for one instant; and in that instant Shining Armor felt a cold hoof clamp down on the exposed flesh of his knee.

Smartypants had come forwards; and her which had been sewn shut before was now gaping open. A death cry of the colt he’d heard earlier caused him to blink, and in that fraction of a second, Smartypants moved again; now it was almost on top of him, with its chin and neck splitting down to the chest into an enormous mouth, lined with hundreds of tiny sewing needles for teeth. “...I don't suppose you could do anything to help me out?” he asked the DJ nervously, “Is there?” DJ-Pon3 stopped beat boxing for a moment, looked at him, and then started beating a far more ominous tune.

“…Alright.” Muttered Shining Armor uneasily, as he gathered his energy and then teleported a few paces away; freeing himself from Smartypants. He took one last look at the doll and DJ, then teleported several blocks away, and then over a wall and across a long row of densely, highly combustible factories that now stood as a thick wall of flame; hoping that that would be enough to shake off any pursuit.
Thesterals flew over him in tight formation; at first Shining Armor thought the smoke must be hiding him, but then one of the thesterals looked down at him, and hurled a poisoned dart from its sling, but then continued on with its set course, followed by another squadron… and another.

Shining Armor took off in earthbound pursuit, and as he drew nearer, the sound of a thesteral drum began riveting through the air. He saw another squadron of thesterals approaching from the east, triangulated the point where the two squadron’s trajectory’s crossed and teleported to the remains of a nearby tower. He slashed the throat of the already wounded scout who was meant to be guarding the tower before he could raise the alarm, then clenched his teeth at the sight beneath him.

There were six entrances into the caves from the city’s surface, each was guarded by a battalion of his best who was to hold the entrance open for refugees for a long as they could, then retreat into the caves themselves and collapse the entrance. The battalion left to this opening had failed; the armor and limbs of its former members strewn in heaps along with the bodies of civilians as scores more thesterals poured into the open gate, hungry for those trying to escape.

Shining Armor closed his eyes and breathed deeply, gathering the last of his strength for a final act to avenge the city he had failed. He opened his eyes, and narrowed them on a vast formation flying towards the open tunnel; and knew that he looked on the elite vanguard of the thesteral army.

Until now; he hadn’t believed the rumors that such a unit existed, or that any fighting force could rationalize their reputation for lethal savagery, but the markings of the dreaded Jamgobblers were unmistakable. These were thesterals whose fanatical loyalty to Nightmare Moon was so great; they had willingly torn their own wings off as sacrifices to Nightmare Moon and replaced them with enchanted pieces of jam on toast.

With a shout, Shining Armor struck the base of the tower, causing it to buckle and fall forwards over the cave entrance just as the first line of jamgobblers tried to get in. Shining Armor jumped into the air, and teleported through the mouth of the tunnel as the tower fell, covering the gate under hundreds of tons of rock. His horn shining as brightly as he could, Shining Armor looked past the startled thesterals and hurled the remains of his magic deeper into the caves; knowing there was a secondary set of charges five hundred feet inside the entrance of each cave, in case the first row could not be detonated.

He dived behind a boulder, more from instinct then expectation of survival; and the air around him exploded in fire, screams, smoke, blood and jam. His magic spent, his ears ringing and his eyes nearly blind; Shining Armor fought to regain control of his senses, and ducked an instant before a set of fangs clamped down on his mane.

Shining Armor turned and threw his elbow into where he guessed the jamgobbler's neck would be, and felt a collision the shoulder. The jamgobbler reared, pulling him off the ground by his mane, he tried to buck but missed, and was dropped onto his side.

Twice the jamgobbler kicked him savagely in the ribs. The third time Shining Armor caught it's leg and twisted, collapsing the jamgobbler down to the ground and pulling himself on top of it. It's sugary wings beat savagely, goring him with their talons, but Shining Armor trapped one of them between his hind legs and wrenched, tearing the jam on toast directly off of the jamgobbler's back. A shriek of pain emanated from the blackness, and Shining Armor now had a confirmed location of it's head, drove his horn through the base of it's skull.

After the jamgobbler's death throes had ended, Shining Armor rolled off it; expecting the teeth of another jamgobbler to dig into him at any moment, but he was alone. A long moment passed, and then a minute; the adrenaline started to wear off and Shining Armor realized he was bleeding from his gut. He tried to stem the tied with his arm, only to realize that that was bleeding as well, as was his neck.

Shining Armor sighed and leaned back; and gathered the last of his energy for a simple light spell; making a feeble glow just bright enough for him to see the carnage around him:The cave had collapsed at both ends, leaving him in a bubble between the thesterals and the refugees. They might dig through it, but that would take hours, maybe days and maybe, just maybe; Cadance and some of the other refugees who used this tunnel would survive. He’d done enough, and he felt tired.

Shining Armor laid his head down for his final sleep, and then the sound of hoofsteps echoed throughout the dusty blackness. He closed his eyes, ready for the end, and then heard the soft babble of beat-boxing coming from over his head. He hit his horn and stared up at the white unicorn who continued as oblivious as ever and at Smartypants whose head was just emerging from the stone wall in front of him.

He blinked unsure of what he was seeing, and Smartypants’ chest and arms appeared, reaching out of the stone. DJ-Pon3’s beating grew harsher as Shining Armor tried not to blink; but his magic was fading, and each time his horn flickered, Smartypants came closer.

Author's Note

So the first time I got snagged on writing Twilight searching for pirate treasure with Enigma, I left the whole story alone for a few months. Then I decided to move one of the 'Enigma' chapters before where I'd originally intended it, wrote half of Twilight's pirate adventure, and then got stuck again; so I'm thinking I might just skip it.

Maybe I will go back and put it in later (requests will increase this chance), but all you really need to know is that everyone is having their own dream right now. Twilight is wishing that there will be fun/ adventure/ singing in Enigma's mind, so that's what she sees. Shining Armor has spent the last three days in a room crowded with angry, hungry, suspicious thesterals; he gets this.

Jam on toast is appearing in all their dreams (for now I'm saying Engima's ship's sails are Jam on Toast), and they all have a guide sent to bring them to Enigma's meeting place. Too bad Twilight and Shining Armor are ignoring theirs.

Onto Luna!

After she's done I already have the next 3-4 chapters mostly written. I know it's been a long time and thank you for being patient with me, but we're getting close to the good parts. :pinkiehappy::pinkiecrazy:

11 - Dropping Books

A dozen pieces of jam on toast hovered around Luna. Some followed placidly, keeping a polite distance. Others flapped like mutant butterflies and landed gently on her back. Those remaining, which unfortunately happened to be most of them, battered up and down her sides, smearing her up and down with jam that never ran out.

One of them touched a sensitive spot on her shoulder, triggering a reflex she couldn't control as her right wing shot forwards, bashing the infernal toast away from her. Like every other time she had struck the jam since it appeared, there was exactly a three second delay, and then another piece of toast spattered against the left side of her face with twice the force of her right wing. Her eyelids didn't seem to exist on this plane, meaning she had jam in her eye. Fortunately it didn't hurt or impede her vision. Bewilderingly, her eye could taste the jam.

Luna hated the taste of jam.

The piece of toast she'd battered away returned unharmed and resumed hovering over her, while two more pieces nibbled at her heels. Despite this; Luna was in a surprisingly good mood.

To start with; for the first time since getting lost in Enigma's mind, she seemed to have all her body parts in one place, and in the right order. Until recently she had been physically abstract; often noticing her hind legs were running ahead of her, even though she was walking forwards, while her torso felt as though it was in a different century from her head and her teeth rolled along beside her, arguing with each other about which one of her nostrils they liked best.

Their arguments always began peacefully at first, until they grew fists and began boxing each other until a particularly ruthless band of molars agreed that the left nostril was superior, and beat her other teeth into submission. The battle won, all her remaining teeth jumped back into her mouth with a shout of triumph, only to jump out a few moments later and start the war all over again.

This drama repeated about three or four times until Luna finally started paying serious attention to Smartypants who'd been following her around. The more Luna chased her, the more Smartypants seemed to be leading her somewhere until finally, the laws of natural physics began restoring themselves, and she caught sight of Armor and Twilight on the horizon. They were not the rescue party that Luna was expecting, but they would be adequate.

Luna had not enjoyed being in Enigma's mind, she had not found what she came looking for, and yet she wasn't entire certain she regretted being here. Some of the things she'd seen here she would surely spend the rest of her life contemplating, and yet failing to understand. Others she was already doing her best to forget. Either way, she was quite ready to leave.

A piece of toast slapped her across the face.

Armor and Twilight's dreams were still separate, though close enough to overlap, so the power of their subconsciousness held Enigma's at a two to one advantage, meaning their dreams would be almost normal. When Luna had joined them, three quarters of the astral plane around them would be be comprised of of consciousnesses that Luna could understand, and then, so long as the three of them could remain focused, she should be able to create a way for all three of them to escape.

As Luna made another lunge forwards, her eye stopped tasting the jam and it began to sting painfully; causing Luna to smile broadly. Now that she could see where she was going, she didn't need Smartypants anymore and had sent her on ahead to fetch Shining Armor; while she herself would collect Twilight. Several pieces of toast bit her on the wing, but Luna shook them off, grit her teeth, and soldiered on.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Enigma followed 3.46 ideas behind The Fat One as she bumped and bumbled her way down his memory lane. 1 more time he asked her if she would bring him some jam on toast when she was gone, and 1 more time she completely ignored him, making Enigma sad and a little angry.

The Fat One wobbled as she jumped 18.47 ideas closer to Twilight Sparkle, and as she did so another book fell out of her bookshelf and landed on the floor in front of Enigma. Books were weird. Until now Enigma had always kept the things he knew inside his ideas, and only used the bookshelf that Cognastruct had put in his room as a place to exile naughty bacteria and watch them die of starvation after counting them. Now however, ever since he'd gotten pregnant with Twilight Sparkle; The Fat One's ideas started showing up in books, which then fell off the bookshelf she was carrying around on her back.

Enigma picked up the latest escapee and read it.

Did you know that there was a forest that was bigger on the inside than the outside?

Enigma wasn't sure what a forest was, but anything that used inter-dimensional widening sounded like it would be fun. Maybe one day after he left Alkzum he would take a vacation there, and visit The Glass Man who lived in the middle. Enigma could lift the Glass Man 3,643.15 feet in the air, smash him on a big rock, and then put him back together again.

That would be fun.

Enigma tried to give the book back to The Fat One, but she didn't take it. Another book just like it was already growing out of The Fat One's bookshelf; meaning she didn't need this one back. Enigma wondered what to do with the book he was holding, and then put it in the pile with the others.

So far he had collected 31 books that no one wanted back. 16 of them were dropped by The Fat One, 6 of them fell out of Shining Armor and 9 more were dropped by Twilight Sparkle. His favorite 1 was dropped by Twilight Sparkle which had 5 chapters telling him about 5 people she'd become friends with. That book was heartwarming, but Enigma wondered why none of Twilight Sparkle's 5 friends had never come to visit him.

He would especially like to meet Pinkie Pi.

She sounded like fun.

Even if he never met them however, Enigma was encouraged by what her choice of friends showed about maturity of Twilight Sparkle. It warmed his heart with pride knowing she wasn't racist and willing to make friends with people who weren't the same species as she was. Until now, Enigma had thought he was the only one who made friends with circles.

Another book fell off The Fat One's bookshelf. It only took Enigma 16.83 seconds to read it, but when he looked up he realized The Fat One had already moved 22.46 ideas ahead of him, that was fast. He jump ahead of her and offered her the book back, but she didn't take it. Enigma decided to add it to the pile, then realized that the other 31 books he collected weren't in a pile anymore. They were on a bookshelf.

Enigma stared at the bookshelf that had appeared on top of his back, and watched it write his name on itself and then start grabbing the ideas off the ground and putting them into new books. It was creepy. Enigma wondered if he should stop this madness now before it went any further and then decided to ask for jam on toast again.

12 - Lost Together

Shining Armor, Twilight, and Enigma sat in age order at a table in Doughnut Joes. All of them had been reduced to approximately one third of their real ages leaving Shining Armor about twelve, Twilight seven, but still had the cutie-mark she wouldn’t get until she was eight, and Enigma four; sitting in a diaper on a high chair. Luna was relieved that at least their minds seemed intact and continued sewing the fragile dream more closely together before trying to enter it herself, least her mass rip the dream apart.

Little Twilight stared intently at the menu, trying to make heads or tails of what seemed to be pure numbers. Occasionally she glanced up at Enigma on the other side of the table like she was waiting for him to say something, but overall she seemed relaxed and happy about being there. Shining Armor on the other hoof sat heavily, occasionally staring at his reflection in the mirror or running his hooves over his cheek and neck; intermittent with long periods of inaction before leaning over and nudging Twilight on shoulder; “…Am I dead?”

Twilight looked up at him bemusedly, “Why would you say that?”

Shining Armor looked at himself and then at Enigma drooling on his napkins, “I feel like I’m dead. Why else would I be here?”

“… You were hungry?”

“Twily look around you!”

Twilight did so; it was the diner Shining Armor had worked as a teenager, mostly clean, dim light coming in from the windows though no street view in sight. Twilight waved at Derpy who was eating burgers and chips across the room; Derpy waved back and then returned to her very animated, but completely silent conversation with Vinyl Scratch. Smartypants didn't have any food and walked from table to table, wishing she had a waitress and a stomach. “Everything seems all right.”

“Twily, Canterlot was burning! I was about to get eaten, and then suddenly I’m here.”

“How could Canterlot burn?” Twilight scoffed, “It’s underwater. Enigma took us to see its lost ruins in his submarine after we found the pirate’s treasure and then we were hungry and so we came here.”

“...That doesn’t make any sense.”

“We’re in Enigma’s dream.” Reminded Twilight, “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“Enigma passed Shining Armor a napkin with the memory of Twilight's brief telepathic contact with him on it. He stared at the napkin for a long time, as if he was trying to recall a dream from long ago. He looked at his reflection one more time in the mirror, then looked back to his sister, “I’d say my body is about twelve right now. That means you shouldn’t be born yet, or be an infant; and he shouldn’t be here for another nine or ten years.”

“Well maybe Enigma feels bad that he never saw us when we were foals and so he’s turning us all back to be the same age.” Suggested Twilight like it should have been obvious.

Shining Armor looked like he was going to protest again, but at that moment the food they hadn’t ordered yet arrived. The waitress gave them one burger each, then pulled an unmarked bottle from under the floorboards and then squirted a small amount of sauce onto Shining Armor’s burger, a slightly larger squeeze onto Twilight’s, then held the bottle over Enigma’s burger and squeezed hard, completely smothering it until the burger overflowed and was buried underneath the torrent of pinkish sauce. The waitress popped the cap back onto the bottle, tied her white and pink mane back into a bun and trotted away.

Luna tried to enter the dream, but the door to the diner was locked.

The sauce on Shining Armor’s burger absorbed into the meat causing it to grow wider and thicker. Twilight’s burger also absorbed the sauce; it didn't grow as big as Shining Armor's did, but the taste was far more intense. Twilight invited Smartypants to watch her eat it and imagine she was eating a burger of her own; which Smartypants accepted. Enigma’s burger grew expedientially until it was bigger than he was; struggling to accommodate the seasoning that had been heaped on it. Enigma stared hungrily at his plate which was more sauce than anything else, then pulled it closer to himself.

Shining Armor and Twilight both bit hungrily into their burgers; not caring that the patties were made of raw pony meat. Shining Armor enjoyed his at an easy pace, while Twilight attacked hers ravenously, while staring jealously at both of her brothers, and anyone else she thought had more food than she did. Luna tried calling Smartypants to unlock the door from the inside, but the doll couldn't hear her over the happy laughter that was coming from the kitchen.

Enigma took one small bite of his burger, and winced his face as the overwhelming magnitude of sauce overwhelmed every other flavor. He crunched loudly several times, drawing the attention of the other patrons of the diner, before managing to swallow then opened his mouth for another bite when the waitress came running back from kitchen. Without saying a word, she scooped up Enigma with his plate and carried him into the back room where he could finish his meal alone.

Twilight stared after the waitress with her mouth open, comprehension just starting to creep into her face when Luna braced her shoulder against the door and forced it open, parrying her attention at the risk of shattering the shared dream and needing to gather the two unicorns all over again. Luna walked across the floor, folding up the dream as she went and hurling it into the nether, leaving only the bare essentials to keep her, Shining Armor and Twilight in the same place. Twilight looked around herself furiously, then turned on Luna, “Where did Enigma go? Bring him back!”

“It's nice to see you too Twilight, your concern is touching.” said Luna, trying to distract her, “Enigma was never there; he was another projection from your own mind.”

“Are you OK Princess?” asked Shining Armor, reflexively standing to attention like a good little soldier.

“I've been better, but I'm alright and am quite ready to leave. I'll need both of you to focus if I'm going to make an exit for us all.”

“Princess wait.” swallowed Shining Armor nervously, “... What happened? I remember being in your room with the doctors after you fell into a coma, and then Canterlot was being attacked by thesterals with...” he trailed off, “and then suddenly I'm here.”

Twilight rolled her eyes irritatingly, “I sent you a letter explaining what was happening right before we got here.”

“I never received it.”

“But you wrote back! You completely ignored me saying that I was minutes away from death, and asked me to do a series of tests on him which would have taken hours.”

“Actually Twilight,” explained Luna, “He didn't. You never sent Shining Armor a letter, and he never responded. You dreamed both.”

Twilight's ears perked forwards, “You mean I was already inside Enigma's head?”

“No. But you were dreaming; or hallucination, or in a trance, or falling victim to illusions. Before my exile there were thirteen words for seeing that which is not, all with extremely specific connotations; now Celestia has allowed the language on the matter to become impossibly jumbled. You never left Enigma's cell, but if you had he could not have bent the tylithium hallway to bring you back to him, and neither could he have broken the roof. You've been lying unconscious on Enigma's floor ever since he looked you in the eyes.”

“So Enigma gave me an illusion of getting stuck in his room and the door disappearing?”

“No.” corrected Luna, “I did.”

Twilight's face fell, “... Why?”

Shining Armor cleared his throat expectantly and Luna turned her attention towards him, “Shining Armor, tonight I attempted to visit Enigma's dreams and got more than I bargained for. His mind is like nothing I've seen before; like a maze that stretches in nine dimensions instead of just three which I could not escape by myself.

I knew I could dilute the potency of his madness by adding more aether to the dream, by adding more dreamers; and so I tried to get a message out by triggering Enigma's vocal cords, causing him to scream.”

“What!?” yelled Twilight, her mane almost breaking into a mana burn of her own. “Enigma's been yelling in agony like he's being eaten alive and you're telling me you did that to him?”

Luna grit her teeth irritably, “If your brother was in terrible pain, it would never occur to him to scream because of it. I merely triggered a response that should have been linked to pain but never was, in order to give my position, and it worked.”

“You made him bleed.” hissed Twilight quietly. “Whatever you've done in here has made him hit himself until he was spurting blood.”

“A bloody muzzle?” scoffed Luna, “I've been torn apart and eaten, multiple times by-”

“My brother's mind is not your play pen. What gives you the right to come in here and hurt him?”

“I was trying to help him.” said Luna softly, “That's why I came, I knew his parents had died, and I hoped that I might be able to reach him and comfort a grief which no one else could.” Those were both lies of course, but Luna needed to ease Twilight's anger and justify her presence here.

Twilight looked like she was going to cry, “Is Enigma upset that his parents are dead? Does he even know?”

“Yes to both.” Luna lied again, “But I've already done anything I could do to comfort him.” She turned back to Shining Armor, “After Twilight entered Enigma's cell, I spun an illusion around her to plant the idea of calling for more help; and then managed to use some of Enigma's magic to allow her to establish a link with you. Then the mass of my greater link with Enigma drew you and Twilight into a four person dream. Now that the two of you are here, our minds outnumber Enigma three to one and the laws of physics of a typical dream are restoring themselves. With your focus I will be able to form an exit and we can escape, leaving Enigma none the worse for us being here.”

Shining Armor nodded slowly, “So... if this is a dream, “Who are they?”

Luna looked behind her to where Shining Armor was pointing and saw Derpy, Vinyl Scratch, and Smartypants standing in a line, staring at them intently. “They... are projections of Enigma's mind that he sent to gather us together. I think he wants us to leave.”

“... But why do they look like... that?”

Luna said the first thing that came to her mind, “Those were the last people who's dreams I touched before coming here.”

“And Smartypants?”

“... I also visited one of Celestia's proteges.”

“... Alright then.” Nodded Shining warily, “How do we escape?”

“Firstly we need to envision our bodies where they are in the physical world. Where am I?”

“You're in your bedroom.” Answered Shining Armor, “Surrounded by your doctors and thesteral bodyguards.”

“Which doctors and bodyguards.” interjected Luna, “Be specific.”

His pronunciations of the thesteral names were terrible, but despite not knowing every one of their names, he was able to list at least twenty other ponies in the room, including descriptions and the positioning of equipment the doctors had moved into her chamber. It was more than enough. “The last thing I remember,” finished Shining Armor, “I was standing by your bedside. None of us were sure what to do to help you, and then you sprang out of bed and leaped on me.”

“Well then, I suppose you're lying on the floor of my bedroom, with me on top of you, and my doctors and thesteral bodyguards are standing around us wondering what they should do.” Shining Armor's face turned a conspicuous shade of pink.

“What about me?” asked Twilight anxiously, “When I was in Enigma's cell, my magic was running out, and if I didn't escape soon, Enigma's fire would kill me. How long do I have left?”

“That is one thing we don't need to fear.” smiled Luna, “By now, our four magics are combined, and though you and I have used a great deal of our reserves, you will have magic to maintain your heat shield for as long as Enigma has energy to burn; but that doesn't mean we have time to tarry. I need both of you to envision your bodies, unconscious, where they lay. Think of the floors under you, the smells that surround you, the sounds of Enigma and the hushed doctors. Imagine a doorway separating you from your bodies, and-.”

“Wait!” shrieked Twilight suddenly, causing Luna to tense, “You said Enigma wanted to gather us?”

“Yes.”

“And with us together, the language of the aether is more universal. We can understand each other better, but it could also work two ways! Enigma can understand us more clearly, and we can understand Enigma!”

“It's... highly unlikely.”

“But it's possible!” shrieked Twilight, bubbling over with excitement, and running straight to Derpy and yelling in her face, “Enigma! Can you hear me! Raise your right hoof if you can understand!”

Derpy did nothing, causing Luna slight disappointment and immense relief; “Twilight.” she said evenly, “I know this is hard to accept, but I've spent hours in here, which has become days in the dream scape; and I do not not believe that Enigma has the ability or even the desire to communicate.” This was mostly true; but staying here was dangerous, and Luna had other places she needed to be.

Twilight looked up at her defiantly, “You said yourself you didn't understand what you'd seen; Enigma could just want communication, but not know how to say it. This is the best chance we have ever had of communicating with him. You've already been in here for three days so what's a few more hours if it means we could-”

“Three days!” bellowed Luna, “I've been in here for three days!?!”

“It's Friday morning,” informed Shining Armor, “a few minutes past midnight, at least it was when I got taken here.” Luna's wings flared behind her in their own private temper tantrum. “Don't worry, there wasn't anything on your schedule that couldn't be delegated or moved to a later date. State affairs are running fine and your orchestra has been rehearsing in your absence.”

Impudent fool. He knew nothing about her schedule except what she had told him. He had a general inkling of what she did when she was awake but, figuratively speaking, Luna spent more time on the astral plane than she did in the physical world, and during her time there, she was accountable to no one. “We need to leave.” Luna hissed. “Now!”

“Why?” asked Twilight resistantly.

“Because we do!” answered Luna angrily, “Envision your unconscious bodies. Think of the floors under you, the smells that surround you, the sounds of Enigma and the hushed doctors. Imagine a doorway separating you from your bodies, and-.”

“But why?” Twilight argued. “Is there only so long you can be in a dream before getting trapped forever?”

Luna tensed, inhaling sharply; "Don't say those words.”

Twilight rebutted with another stubborn question, but it was too late. Luna was already trying very hard not to think of the location of her missed appointment. The fact that Luna had dwelt for a thousand years, believing she would most likely be 'Trapped There Forever,' made those words the final nail in a coffin.

By the time Twilight's careless question had pole-vaulted itself out of her mouth, the scene around them was already changing to an all too familiar gray; stretching solemly towards four desolate horizons; each dropping off into the blackness of space as the earth spun endlessly through the sky above them, self-absorbed in its own troubles.

They were not alone.

Author's Note

Merry Christmas Everyone! :scootangel::scootangel::scootangel:

13 - The Dark Side of the Moon

Clinging to the quiet lunar air over and around them, was the sound of a foal, weeping as only a child could; a child who had given into complete and utter despair. True to nature, Shining Armor’s first thought was to huddle protectively next to his sister who, true to nature, abandoned herself to curiosity. “Is that Enigma?”

Luna winced as the crying suddenly stopped. It heard her. From inside a nearby crater, Luna heard the sound of someone shuffling to their hooves and a voice, suspended half-way between male and female, “Luna? I-is that that you?”

“Run.”

“Luna where have you been!?” Luna didn’t wait for the unicorns to respond, the seconds it would have taken them to overcome curiosity may have proven too great, she turned them in her magic and hurled them away from the sound; both of them catching themselves as she joined them in a headlong flight. Twilight tried to cast a curious glance behind her as she ran, but Luna spread her wing, blocking her vision and forcingher head to look straight ahead; meanwhile the voice gained speed behind them.“Luna come back! I’m sorry!”

Keeping her wings spread to block both Twilight and Shining Armor’s vision would have slowed her down too much, so Luna struck the dust behind them with a cyclone, enveloping their pursuer from view yet doing nothing to impede it’s pursuit as it came after them on short, desperate legs. “Luna come back! You promised!”

Enigma's phantoms were nowhere to be seen. “Shining Armor,” She breathed, “The apparition of Vinyl Scratch, call her back.”

“How?”

“Do it!”

Shining Armor's horn glowed momentarily and Vinyl Scratch appeared, twenty paces ahead of them; looking very pleased with herself for being there until Luna shot a bolt that burned a hole into her right leg, causing her to fall to the ground screaming, unable to run.

“LUNA YOU PROMISED!”

When the unicorns slowed down when they neared the writhing figure of what might be a part of their brother's mind, Luna shot small bolts of lightning at both their fetlocks to kill any ideas they had about stopping. She then redoubled the storm behind them into a impenetrable blizzard of dust and listened, but the pursuit had ended where Vinyl Scratch had fallen.

One hot tear of shame dripped down her face, as she silently vowed, ‘I will sing to you later, Nightmare Child.’

Author's Note

Wow, short chapter.

Normally I would attach this to the chapter before or after it, I expected this one to be bigger, and I just figure I'll let this sit for a little while before giving explanations.

14 - Luna's Apprentice

Since her return from exile, Luna had made many promises. She’d promised Celestia, aristocrats, scholars and foreign diplomats to attend certain events, fund projects and meet with more people who would all want something from her. These promises mattered absolutely nothing to her, and she kept them only because the rewards for their keeping were greater than the costs to breaking them.

In the last millennium she had made one promise, an only one, which meant anything to her. It was the only one she had not made out of selfish reasons; and it was the only one that she had been unable to keep.

Every night, until now, she had kept her promise to visit him; slowly but surely repairing the damage that had been done to his being. They would talk if there was anything to be said, they would play together, she would feed him, and then she would sing him back to sleep; keeping him calm and relaxed until it was almost time for their next meeting. Then, just when Luna thought he might trust her enough allow himself to be vulnerable to her, this happened.

How much time had passed for him since her last visit? Without Luna to monitor the time distortions of his dreams, carefully rationing him out a few hours of unsupervised activity each night, there was a chance he felt he'd awaited her for no more than three days, but it was entirely possible it could be much, much longer. Even if it was only three days, by now he would be starving, panicked, desperate… brooding.

It would take months for her to regain the trust she had fought so hard for, months which she no longer had. The solar eclipse was coming in just under six weeks, and could not be denied.

Luna counted her victories, and found them ruthlessly few. She reminded herself that inside the astral plane, he had no body or physical entity an so his grief was incapable of hurting anyone, including himself. Neither Shining Armor nor Twilight had seen him, and despite her subconscious mind conjuring an image of him, her conscious mind had been able to make it call her “Luna”, rather than her name.

The background around them flickered once, and Luna forced these thoughts out of her mind before they brought conjured another phantom like the one she and the unicorns had only barely escaped. If that happened, it risked not only exposure, but staying even longer in Enigma's mind, and so for the sake of her ward, she did not let herself think about him waiting for her. She did not wonder how much time he had experienced, she did not worry about how she was going to apologize, and she did not let herself dwell on the fact that he did not forgive easily.

Author's Note

Another short chapter; sorry. If short chapters are just annoying, feel free to tell me to stop posting until I have more.

The next part is virtually finished, I just can't not feel it needs a little more something. Shouldn't be long.

15 - The Fat One Tells Lies

“What was that!?” snarled Twilight, standing in front of Luna, blocking her path.

Luna cocked a casual ear and smiled innocently at the little unicorn, “What was what?”

“That-that thing! The one that chased us on the moon!”

“That.” said Luna firmly, “Is a personal matter. One which I am not motivated to discuss.”

“Not motivated!?”

“Yes.” Answered Luna calmly, “You can go back to the moon if you wish, but you would do so alone, and there will be nothing there except what your subconscious mind imagines.”

Twilight's ears pulled fearfully, but her angry glare never left Luna, who looked to Shining Armor for help, but even he seemed hesitant. Celestia had explained the critical difference between Shining Armor and his sister was that if he was ordered to guard a book of black magic for a week, it would remain unopened, whereas Twilight might last fifteen minutes before deciding to read 'just one page'. He could be relied upon to follow orders, which was why he had considerably higher security clearance than his impetuous little sister; but this was not the same as being stupid. “What threat level does that entity pose to us, or Equestria?”

“None.” assured Luna, “Except for the power you give it to hurt you. It is like anger: the more you dwell on it the more powerful it grows. Such things are best left ignored.”

“Now that it's here... could it hurt Enigma?”

“The chances of it already having infected your brother's mind is small, but grow larger every moment we waste; which is why I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Imagine yourselves in your physical states. Now imagine a doorway that separates you from yourself.” Shining Armor closed his eyes, trying to focus and using an exorbitant amount of mental will. Twilight closed her eyes, and then her eyelids fidgeted.

Group invasions of a single dream were difficult, because everyone needed to mutually focus in order for anyone to escape. It only took one wandering mind to keep everyone there, and Twilight's mind was a wanderer. After three minutes she had shifted her weight eight times, scratched an itch, rotated her ears, and licked one side of her mouth before finally sighing in defeat and opening her eyes. “I'm sorry.” she whispered, “I just can't focus.”

“You have to Twily.”

“I know, and I've been trying.” whimpered Twilight, “I just can't make myself forget what I saw. There has to something you can tell me without... Luna are you crying?”

“No.” Luna shook her head, quickly turning one side of it away and wiping the tear away with a stroke from her wing. “What you saw.” she whispered reluctantly; “Was a shadow of my past: the jealousy and anger that drove me to become Nightmare Moon. It is... very painful for me to talk about... that's all I can say.”

Twilight nodded understandingly, seeing a reasonable answer that explained the chase on the moon, and which Luna would prefer not to talk about. For a moment it looked like she would actually try to comfort Luna through some trivial words or display of emotion, but a swift gesture from Luna brought her mind back to the task of escape. Twilight closed her eyes, and actually began focusing the way she'd been told, and Luna smiled to herself as the three ponies thought in near-unison, and a porthole began forming.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Fat One had lied.

Enigma knew that.

But that didn't make her any different from either of the other two, because all three of them lied to each other, and themselves constantly. They were just like Brace Wits and Congnastruct who had lied to Enigma since the day they met him, telling a total of 248,127 lies over a period of 7 years, 18 weeks, 4 days, 9 hours and 23 minutes; making an average of just over 3.85 lies per hour. The lies were endless, and Enigma would often need to count pi just to cheer himself back up after a particularly hurtful one.

6 days 8 hours 18 minutes ago at dinner, Brace Wit had told him that everyone had 427 grains of rice for dinner. That was a lie. Cognastruct's plate only had 426 grains on it, but Enigma hadn't said anything because if Congnastruct hadn't seemed to notice yet; and if he realized he'd been shorted, it might make him and Brace Wits fight. Enigma did not want that.

9 weeks, 4 days, 13 hours, 44 minutes ago Shining Armor had visited him for 1 hour and 59 minutes and then told him that he needed to go away, but would return to visit him again in 4 weeks, 2 days and 1 minute. That was a lie. Shining Armor returned 4 weeks, 2 days, 3 minutes and 39 seconds later. 2 minutes and 39 seconds late.

2 days 4 hours and 11 minutes ago, Cognastruct had told him very sadly that both his parents were now dead because they had had a wild party with their friends. He said everyone started stacking numbers on top of each other to see how high they could go. Up and up the tower went until someone was silly and knocked the tower over; making it collapse on everyone in the room and lighting them on fire. That was a lie. Enigma knew that his mommy and daddy had been very naughty. That’s why The Weeping Child came and gobbled them up.

Gobble. Gobble. Gobble.

He wasn’t meant to tell anybody about that though; it was a secret.

Not that anyone would listen to him if he told them anyway.

7 hours, 45 minutes ago, Twilight Sparkle had told him for the 243rd time that he lived in a cube. That was a lie. Enigma's room averaged 40 feet and 0.16 of an inch measured left to right, 39 feet and 11.92 inches backwards to forwards, and 40 feet and 0.05 of an inch measured up and down. The corners were even worse liars than the walls. There were only three right angles in the entire room, and they all sat together in the north-east corner; as far away as they could get from the imposter angles, which was why Enigma spent 316.74% more time there than he did with any of the other corners.

So many lies.

Enigma used to wonder if his room was meant to be a cube, and everyone else thought it was because that's what they'd been told and they had never bothered to check. Or maybe it used to be a cube and had since broken before he lived there. He'd told Brace Wits and Cognastruct 687 times that his room was not a cube, thinking maybe they would send someone to fix it, but no one ever came. Now Enigma thought this might be some kind of test and they would only let him out if he would say his room was a cube, showing he would deny his own senses and believe a lie if it was told to him frequently enough; but Enigma would not say what he knew was not true.

Besides; he liked it here.

It was warm and cozy, and there were always bacteria to count, and circles to talk to and things to think about; and despite their endless, lies, he was quite fond of Brace Wits and Cognastruct. There was somewhere however where he would prefer to live; a place he had just read about in one of The Fat One's books about a place called Moon Camp.

They said that on Moon Camp You didn’t need to eat or sleep or any of those annoying things, but could still imagine food if you wanted it; and the bacteria inside you stopped growing and dying meaning you could finally get an accurate headcount and name each one of them individually. On Moon Camp no one ever bugged you. No one ever came to steal bits of your hair when you were distracted; and you could just sit back and think about things all the time.

It sounded wonderful.

Enigma had thought about asking The Fat One if he could go live there for a while, maybe forever, or until the world needed him. He hadn't asked her yet however because he wasn't sure if that would be the best move for him; because he didn't have enough information to make an informed decision. Would he be able to get his own room; or would he need to share one with the guy who already lived up there?

That would not be fun.

That would be like sharing a room with a very noisy spider who would leave his noises all over the place and then it would be too noisy. ‘Boom! Bang! Ratta-tat-tat! Ratta-tat-tat! Boom! Bang! Ratta-tat-tat! Ratta-tat-tat! Bang-bang-boom-boom-ratta-boom-bang!’ Too Noisy!

It wouldn't always be like that though. The Very Noisy Spider was scheduled to leave in just 10 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours and 31 minutes; so if there was only one room, he could still ask The Fat One to send him to moon camp after The Very Noisy Spider was gone, and when someone had cleaned it.

Enigma needed to ask if he could have his own room on Moon Camp. If that answer was no, the he would need to ask if he could have Moon Camp after The Very Noisy Spider was gone. Those were two very important question Enigma needed to ask The Fat One before she went away. He supposed this meant he would need to keep his 3 babies from leaving until he came up with a way to ask his questions politely.

16 - No One to Play With

“What's brown and sticky?”

Luna's eye's popped open at Shining Armor who seemed to be directing the question to his sister. Twilight fidgeted and then looked at him bewilderingly, “... What?”

“It's a riddle.” he said smiling, “What's brown and sticky?”

“Lots of things... most of them disgusting.”

“Err.” beeped Shining Armor, still smiling, “The correct answer was... a stick!"

Twilight deadpanned and then cracked up laughing, “That's terrible.”

“It was obvious.” Shining Armor protested, “Come on Twily, you're meant to be smart. I thought you would have gotten that one.”

“May I ask;” growled Luna irritably, “What you are doing?”

“Twily's curious about something; telling her not to think about it will just make her want the answer more, and so you need to make her wonder about something else, give her the answer to the other question, and then she can focus on something totally unrelated. Cadance and I figured out when she was a filly that riddles work fairly well for this.” He cleared his throat and looked Twilight in the eye, “What can be cool but never cold, sorry but never guilty, spooked but never scared, sweet but never friendly, and flammable but never burn.”

Twilight pursed her lips and looked down, ears twitching in small circles while Shining Armor waited patiently. Luna was still anxious to escape, but they had made three failed attempts to make a porthole, meaning a chance in tactics was necessary. At the very least, Shining Armor's game was taking the focus off her ward. “Words with double letters.” smiled Twilight triumphantly, gaining an approving nod from her brother.

Luna took a turn, “I am the first in earth, the second in heaven, and at the start of everything. I appear twice in a week but you can only see me once a year although I dwell in the middle of the sea?”

“The letter E.” said Twilight, only after a moment's pause, “You're not meant to give two riddles in a row revolving around their spelling. It's the rules.”

“My apologies.” hissed Luna quietly, unsure what rules the two siblings had placed on each other.

“My turn.” smiled Twilight. “What reflects like a mirror but never shows itself?”

Both Luna and Shining Armor paused, and a few moments passed before Twilight gave a small tap on the ground with her hoof, causing Luna to perk her ears forwards and - “An echo.” Answered Shining Armor a fraction before Luna got it; annoying her to no end. She really had figured that one out on her own.

Shining Armor took another turn. “You pick it. You peel the outside. You cook the inside. You eat the outside and throw away the inside.”

Luna knew this one, and was tempted to give the answer but restrained herself. The point was to distract Twilight from what she'd seen, and this one seemed to have her stumped, “Give me a hint.” she muttered after several long minutes.

“Applejack might get it.” coxed Shining Armor gently, tightening the crease on Twilight's brow, “Or another earth pony.”

Luna smiled, knowing Twilight's mind was now truly distracted and going nowhere. After this riddle Luna would give her one more, and then they would make another effort to escape.

“I give up.” sighed Twilight finally, “What is it?”

“Corn.” answered Luna before Shining Armor had the chance, “You peel the husk, cook the ear inside it, eat the kernels which are the new outside, and throw away the cob which is the new inside.”

“I have one!” shouted Smartypants suddenly at the top of her cotton lungs; shocking the rest of the party as began talking very quickly: “What creature has four legs when quiet but eight legs when noisy; looks white when it's glad, red when it's sad and transparent when scared; acts like a mare when it's lonely, a fox when it's angry, a leech when it's empty, but pretends it's a bee; sleeps through the night yet hides from the sun, won't give its name but is looking for love, throws fish off cliffs, doesn't eat much, enjoys rollerskating, and always stays in it's own sound-proof room where it and it's noisy messes never bother the person living respectfully across the hallwa-?”

Luna decapitated Smartypants.

She hadn't meant to; all she wanted to do was shut the infernal doll up before she finished a riddle that could only have one answer. She didn't even know where the sword had come from, but one had appeared in the grasp of her telekinesis; and before she knew it she had stabbed it through the doll's mouth, cutting out its tongue and sticking out the back of the mane, before flicking through the right cheek. Smartypant's head flipped to the left and hung there, upside down, from the only remaining piece of fabric from her left cheek and uttered.

“...Why Luna...why?”

Realizing the doll could still speak, Luna finished the job; quickly slashing the doll to pieces with a sword that was now wreathed if flame, leaving only a few crumpled crumbs of burnt cotton of what used to be Smartypants.

Then occurred to her: Twilight and Shining Armor were watching... and had heard the doll's riddle. Luna looked up slowly, checked the fabrics of the dream around them; then split her sword into two flaming weapons, of equal size and weight to the original, and swung them towards the unicorn's necks.

…...........................................................................................................

What had he done wrong?

Had he been rude?

Enigma did not think so. He had simply been trying to talk to his babies when The Fat One dropped a book that talked about encoding words inside of vibrations of vocal cords. It all seemed like horribly inefficient nonsense to Enigma, and he threw the book away but it did give him an idea of how he could get a message through by borrowing The Fat One's idiom and throwing his ideas into it, and then feedingwhat came out to his babies.

He tested his idea by taking his babies' thoughts and putting them in the 'out' hole and seeing what came out of the 'in' hole. From the raw ideas he got out, it seemed like his babies were asking each other questions, and so it seemed like the perfect time to ask whether or not he could have his own room on Moon Camp. He passed his question through The Fat One's idiom and gave what came out to his babies, but they did not answer his question. Then The Fat One had cut his head off and lit him on fire.

Enigma sighed, and put The Fat One's Idiom back on her shelf, thinking it must not work as an effective translator.

Now his three babies were playing a completely new game with each other. It seemed like tag. Enigma stood on the sidelines and asked if he could also play. First he offered The Fat One to help catch Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle and hold them down for her to tag them; but she did not answer. Then he offered Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle to help them run away; but they did not invite him to play either.

Author's Note

Hint: If you read Limits of the Horizon ; you will have seen Luna's 'ward' running around in the background, but probably didn't think he was important.

You now have enough information to recognize him... though I doubt you will.

6 - Inside Out

Author's Note

Thesterals are the ‘bat ponies’ who serve Luna. Full backstory of their origins will come later in the Limits of the Horizon series.

6 - Inside Out

Twily

Luna’s been in a coma for three days.

To enter the dreamscape, she flies to high altitudes, begins gliding, and induces a trance where she uses the solar radiation and changing air pressures to navigate. Last Tuesday at ten PM, she left the palace to enter the dreamscape and was expected back at three AM Wednesday. At eleven thirty, she crashed into the palace wall.

She didn’t seem physically injured from the crash, but she’s been unconscious ever since and no amount of drugs or magic have been able to wake her up. From what you say, Enigma’s hysterics started about the same time.

Did Enigma go to sleep on Tuesday, wake up, and then refuse to go asleep again, or did he begin acting hysterical before going to sleep? If he didn’t sleep, do you know the exact time his behavior started?

Has Enigma slept for any amount of time since Tuesday? If so, did that make his hysterics better or worse?

For anyone else, lack of sleep causes increased appetite. Has Enigma seemed abnormally hungry since this started?

I’ve spoken to the thesteral physicians trying to treat Luna, and they say ponies who’s dreams Luna is visiting may seem awake and often sleepwalk or sleeptalk, even if they have no history of it, but won’t react to physical-world stimuli. I know it’s hard, since Enigma usually doesn’t respond to us anyways, but has he interacted with anyone since his hysteria started?

Try to find out as much you can; I’ll keep talking to the thesteral physicians on my side. Now that we have a lead on what’s wrong, we might be able to cast a ritual that can draw Luna back to her own body, curing Enigma in the process. Write me back as soon as you have some answers, or if Enigma’s condition changes.

Shining Armor

P.S. Please also include a list of the medications Enigma is currently taking, especially any changes Brace Wits or Cognastruct have made over the last few days to deal with the situation; psycho reactive drugs could easily be what are preventing Luna from withdrawing from Enigma’s mind.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Twilight stared at the letter in disbelief; read it again and then dropped her protection from it; letting Enigma’s flames burn it to ash within seconds. Had she really not communicated how little time she had left? Did Shining not understand that she was locked in Enigma’s cell and couldn’t ask Cognastruct and Brace Wits anything? She had minutes to live, and Twilight didn’t even know if she had enough strength left to send another message, telling him she needed him now.

Twilight dragged herself to the farthest corner of the cell, tried to steady her breathing and attempted to scrape enough magic together for another letter, but after a few seconds of futile effort, she knew there wouldn’t be enough. There was nothing more she could do. Twilight glared at Enigma one final time, wishing she had never come here, wishing -

… Was he…

There was a flicker; for a moment Twilight thought he had cast a spell over her eyesight, or maybe he had changed the way her brain perceived what she saw, or maybe she was dead. Maybe all three were true. For now, Twilight took it for granted that she could see through the walls of Enigma’s cell.

She could see Brace Wits lying in bed a few meters away, worrying about her and Enigma, feeling helpless, and jealous of Cognastruct that he was able to sleep in a time like this… No, she couldn’t. Twilight couldn’t see Brace Wits, but she could see her worry, helplessness and jealousy.

Beneath her was a volatile sea or anger, lust, and loneliness - spotted with intermittent dots of remorse or self-righteousness of the Alkzum inmates, separated from each other by cold, discipline of the asylum guards; but she barely noticed them. Enigma had transformed into a swirling mass of energy that was breaking apart as another force, equally immense and incompatible, buffeted it from the inside. There was a connection, a rope of consciousness which spanned from Enigma’s horn, through the walls of the asylum and disappeared into the translucent Canterhorn in the direction of the palace.

It was incredible… and useless.

Maybe she was seeing her brother for the first time, but it couldn’t save her, and neither could it help him or Luna or Equestria in – The spell began to wear off, or maybe her eyes adjusted to it, and Twilight could see naturally as well as mentally. Enigma was standing up, and staring at her and with his hooves – no, his mind – he was making her a gift:

Twilight had spent countless hours attempting to learn mind magic; and one of her most stubborn failures had been a spell that linked two minds together, allowing instantaneous communication over vast distances. Twilight never came close to getting it right, but she understood it well enough to recognize the flawless display Enigma was crafting. It took enormous amounts of energy to establish, but virtually none to maintain. Enigma forged it, and then he passed it too her. He wanted her to talk to Shining Armor, he wanted her to get help, and he was communicating!

One end of the thread attached itself to Twilight’s horn, and the other she hurled towards Canterlot. Passing through the other side of the mountain, a sea of desires, worries, passions and imagination sang and bellowed beneath her. If she’d needed to start looking for Shining Armor blind it would have taken weeks, but she knew Shining Armor would be with Luna, and so she followed the glowing rope connecting Enigma and Luna straight into Luna’s chambers.

Inside was a dense swarm of melancholy, worry, failure, suspicion and despair. Twilight could only assume the room was filled with guards and doctors fretting over Luna’s unconscious form. Luna herself seemed completely absent, with the glowing cable ending abruptly in the middle of a ring of protective worry.

Twilight looked around the room for Shining Armor, knowing she only had one shot. Impending failure of responsibility were everywhere; the room must be full of soldiers, she needed to think of what was different about Shining Armor? She looked around for a mind that was racing at just having received her letter, but it wasn’t there.

Intelligence? There were a lot of doctors in the room, with extensive interest in the sciences, and there were soldiers with discipline and courage; but not many people had both. That narrowed it down, but there were still several – there!

Clastic Strain had been born premature and although he and Cadance were out of danger, he was still weak. There was a father in the room who wanted to be there for his wife and son, but who hadn't left Luna or slept in three days, and it was eating him alive, augmented by the guilt of past failures when duty had overridden family.

Twilight edged closer to him, and felt an immense power that could only have been him. Twilight hit herself against the corner of his mind, and he noticed it, opened his senses, and she made a link.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Luna?”

One minute the room had been filled with sound, sweat and anger. When Luna got sick, her thesteral guards had been quick to mutter about a ‘sun pony’ conspiracy to murder ‘The Queen’; believing Celestia’s absence to be a pitifully disguised attempt to clear her of suspicion since she’d be out of Canterlot. This, of course, led to the conclusion that Shining Armor was the assassin, left to poison Luna while his Princess was away.

Words were useless to calm their accusations, and trust was non-existent; but if he ran now it would only confirm his guilt in their eyes. Things had been helped, slightly, by Shining Armor’s choice to follow the thesterals in fasting from everything but water out of respect to Luna. Today, for the first time, the thesterals had finally allowed a team of pony doctors to examine Luna, but they’d had exactly as much success as the thesteral physicians had been. None.

Any and all attempts to contact Celestia on the western frontier had been futile, with lightning storms blocking telefire communications, and none of the messengers he’d sent were back yet. Ironically, the thesteral city of Iskewrel was about the same distance, and the thesterals had had ample time to rush in additional teams of physicians within the first twenty-four hours; as well as start arming the rest of them for war in the event that Luna died.

Then there was the nudge on his mind, subtle but unmistakable.

Shining Armor hoped with everything he had that Luna was reaching out to him, to tell him what was wrong, what to do, or how to call off her thesterals. He’d lowered all his mental blocks and that had been… an indefinite number of seconds ago. Now everything around him was white, quiet, except for the faint echo of a waterfall whose source he couldn’t identify, and some obscure smoke taking the shape of, “…Twily?”

She looked like she was angry, because she was too scared to be furious, “I don’t have time to wait, or answer any of your questions.” She snapped, “I have maybe ten minutes left before I die; I need you to come get me now!”

“What? Where are you?”

Twily stomped her hoof; seemingly on nothing but still managed to make a clunk that was audible above the increasing volume of the waterfall; “I’m in Enigma’s cell! He’s locked me in and his flames are going to kill me unless you help because he’s been going crazy for the last three nights. The roof is blown open, so if you stand by the hole you can lift me out!”

Three days? “Twily, Luna’s been in a coma for-”

“I know!” shouted Twily, above the deafening thunder that had enveloped them, “You already told me in the letter!”

“What letter?” Shining Armor’s question was enveloped by the thunder which overcame everything and everyone. The next thing Shining Armor was aware of, he was a thread, reaching between two horns. A few inches away from him, there was a rope, thicker and stronger than the one connecting him to Twily, and they were getting drawn in, like asteroids drawn by a planet’s gravity.

He tried to pull back into his own body; but it was too late. The last thing he knew was that Luna’s body, which had lain dormant for three nights, launched out of bed, and was pinning him to the wall with her hooves, horn and eyes.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Twilight kicked, trying to break free but, there was nothing she could do. No matter how hard she pulled, she and Shining Armor were being drawn into the link between Luna and Enigma, whose discombobulated babble of ideas formed the cannonade around them.

Funnily enough, she knew that in Enigma’s cell, it was almost perfectly silent. Enigma had stopped screaming, and was standing in the middle of his cell, wreathed with flame, watching her quietly with blazing white-hot eyes. He jumped; covering the twenty-eight feet between them in a single bound, and consumed her.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Enigma was busy thinking. Thinking was something he did a lot; he liked doing it and thought it was something he did better than other people. These last few days Enigma had been particularly busy thinking about what was happening to him; and now, after 3 days, 1 hour and 21 minutes of contemplation, he’d come to a conclusion.

He was pregnant.

Enigma had never been pregnant before, but 6 years, 36 weeks, 4 days, 8 hours and 48 minutes ago, pregnant was something that had happened to Brace Wits, and Enigma had learned all about it then. Pregnant was when you had another person stuck inside of you and you got weird food cravings:

For the last 2 days, 21 hours and 5 minutes, Enigma had had an insatiable craving for jam on toast. Usually Enigma only got jam on toast on Mondays at 8:44 AM; but he couldn’t stop thinking how nice it would be if he had some right now. He’d asked both Brace Wits and Cognastruct for some 4 times each, but neither of them would give him any.

Those were the only 2 symptoms that mattered. There were others that didn’t seem as important, but Enigma had them anyways. When you were pregnant, you felt nauseous and bloated. You got weird muscle cramps; you felt cranky all the time because you were always tired, and you needed to pee a lot.

Yup. He was definitely pregnant.

When Brace Wits had gotten pregnant, she’d seemed terribly excited about it. She and Cognastruct had come and talked to him about how they were going to be a mommy and daddy with a baby, but that this wouldn’t mean that they’d love him any less. Enigma had asked Brace Wits if he could bring the baby out to look at it, but she didn’t answer and so Enigma decided to leave the baby where it was.

Enigma did not like being pregnant.

When The Fat One had first came to visit him, Enigma had thought it would be fun to make a new friend, so he let her inside to play; but The Fat One was too fat and now she was stuck somewhere in his imagination. Since then she’d been more and more irritating; bumping and bumbling about, knocking over all of Enigma’s nice neat rows and making a dreadful mess of things.

Enigma wanted her to go away, but she was thrashing around too much to listen to him when he showed her the way out; instead she just kept on banging around until 1 day, 16 hours and 43 minutes ago, she had found Enigma’s throat, and began poking his vocal cords saying that help would come if he turned them on.

Enigma let her vibrate his vocal cords, and then 1 days 3 hours and 15 minutes later Twilight Sparkle came to visit him. At first Enigma wondered if she was the help that The Fat One had promised, but she had not brought any jam on toast, so Enigma had concluded that The Fat One must have been lying.

Now he was also pregnant with Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor. He’d eaten them.

Shining Armor tasted like 1s and 19s. Twilight Sparkle tasted like 2s, 5s, and 7s. All prime numbers. Yummy. But they weren’t as fat as The Fat One however and so they wouldn’t get stuck as easily. Maybe Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor could go find The Fat One, and help push her out. Maybe he could even get them to bring him some jam on toast after they were gone.

That would be nice.

Then Enigma could get back to the busy schedule he had planned out before getting pregnant. If they couldn’t push The Fat One out however, he’d need to keep all 3 of them, and Enigma wouldn’t like that very much.

He didn’t think any of them would like it either.