Author's Note

What you are about to read is a rejected prologue. One of the several I have written, but the only one that got pretty close to "complete" before it was scrapped.

On a mechanical level, it's mostly complete. But after looking back at it, my prereader for this prologue brought up a valid point: "After reading this, the last thing on my mind was mysterious magical mice." and that, "This would serve better as a side story than an actual prologue." Those were pretty valid points that struck this prologue to its knees. My editor's comments after that pretty much sealed the deal. In short, "this summary could be rewritten to better illustrate a moral or character growth. Would this prologue follow Yellow Belly and show that in times of desperation, the unassuming could overcome obstacles; or would you better focus on Green Mile's change of heart about his assumptions and feelings against Yellow Belly?" All-in-all, it seemed like too much work for too little pay-off.

So I dropped it.

Months later, I'm going back over my stuff in preparing for the sequel, and I find it. I read it again, and WOW did I think this was bad. Perhaps that's a sign that I'm improving as a writer.I'm glad I never published it--

--as an actual part of the story.

So, if you ever wondered what terrified the pegasi at the beginning of the story, continue reading at your own risk.

Bonus - The Rejected Tale of Yellow Belly and Green Mile

“I don’t know, it just seems really odd that the Castle of the Two Sisters would start floating like that. Haven’t you heard the rumors about the Everfree Forest and the things that come out of there? I bet whatever is causing this is something worse than Discord and Tirek combined!”

“Stop your whining! Look, we’ll go in, take a quick look, then leave and tell Princess Twilight we couldn’t find anything.”

Two Royal Guard pegasi flew side by side, high over the Everfree Forest. Their enchanted armor altered their appearances, turning their coats white and their manes and tails royal blue.

“I don’t like this, Green.”

“Oh shut it, Yellow, we’re just going to be in and out, no big deal.”

“But seriously, Green Mile, castles don’t float on their own. There’s probably some big, evil monster in there, and it’s waiting for us to come and it’s going to bite off our heads!”

“Yellow Belly, stop your bellyaching! That’s why they sent two of us. So that you would get eaten by the monster and I could go back and report to Princess Twilight about the castle. It’s probably just that Discord… thing... pulling another prank and wasting the Princess’ time.”

As Yellow Belly continued to mutter on about monsters and the Everfree, his breathing quickened. “But what about that farmer that got attacked by a giant beast this morning? Or the black shadow with the pony head on a spike!? I don’t like this, Green. There’s something evil in that place. It wants pony flesh, Green! It wants...”

Green Mile swerved into Yellow Belly and gave him a rough bump.

“AAAAAAH! HEY!” Yellow flailed his legs about before he regained himself. “Darn it, Green, stop it!”

Green Mile swerved again and hovered in front of Yellow Belly, who was looking every which way but ahead. The sudden obstruction scared a whinny out of him and forced him to pull back with several quick flaps of his wings.

Green glared at the panicking pegasus. “If you’re going to be such a big foal, why did you join the Royal Guard in the first place?”

“Well, I thought I’d just be stuck with patrol work. I didn’t think I would have to go out and do something actually dangerous!”

Green Mile jabbed a hoof into the hyperventilating pegasus’ chest. “Our orders are not to fight anything. We are just scouting. If we see anything, we are to retreat and report whatever we find to Princess Twilight. That’s it. So stop being a such a pansy. We don’t have to get close or anything. At the first sign of danger, we fly. Got it? Or, if even that is too much for you, you can always go back alone and tell the princess how you were too scared to do a simple reconnaissance mission.”

Yellow Belly sighed. “Okay… Okay… At the first sign of danger, we fly.”

“Right, now let’s get this over with...” Green Mile turned around and resumed his flight towards the floating castle. “...before I leave you behind in that castle,” Green said under his breath.

The two made it to their destination - the dilapidated Castle of the Two Sisters and the immediate grounds around it, which were suspended over a hundred feet in the air. The earth underneath the castle had also been torn from the ground, making the floating island look like an upside-down mountain. The two swooped around the castle and even underneath, but they didn’t find anypony casting magic, nor anything that resembled a magical artifact or any magical aura. The two were clueless as to what was keeping the castle in the air. Instead of flying straight into one of the many gaping holes in the roof, they made a few large laps around the castle.

After several close fly-bys by some broken windows, Green Mile saw no sign of anything living in the castle. In fact, Yellow Belly noticed that the castle grounds around the crater below seemed to be devoid of wildlife as well, which fueled his ramblings that something evil was lurking within.

Green Mile made the motion to follow him and descended down onto the roof next to one of the larger holes. He poked his head in and saw a large hall, brightly lit from the mid-morning sun. Its tarnished and musty banners decorated the pale gray walls. On one wall, a few doorways led off in different directions into the castle. On the opposite wall, a row of tall, arched windows stood broken through years of neglect. Pulling his head back up, he turned to Yellow Belly.

“Okay, Yellow Belly, I’m going in first. You keep a lookout from up here until I call you.”

Yellow Belly gulped and nodded.

Spreading his wings wide, Green Mile glided down through the hole. With one powerful flap, he slowed his descent and landed on the stone floor. Moss and sunlight flooded in through the windows, and a light breeze blew through the castle and Green Mile’s fur.

In front of where he landed, at the center of the windowed wall, stood a stone statue of a large alicorn up on its hind legs, wings spread. Above the alicorn’s head was a large, round, stained glass window of the sun, surprisingly in good condition. It reminded Green of Celestia when she raised the sun during the Summer Sun Celebration. Green Mile smiled, a rush of comfort flowed through his body, he relaxed his wings while he took a deep breath and he straightened his posture.

Looking through each doorway, Green checked the connected halls. [Green looked through each doorway into the connected halls The stone walls were musty, adorned with broken torch holders, and one hall was lined with ancient soldier armor. [The musty stone walls bore broken torch sconces, and ancient soldier armor lined one hall.] Sunlight from the holes in the roof illuminated the halls, leaving only a few small shadows for creatures to hide in. It was silent except for the echo of his hooves. After nothing came barreling down the hallways at him, he looked up at Yellow Belly, who was still perched up on the roof as lookout, and waved him down.

Yellow Belly looked around, then slowly descended to Green’s side, stopping a short distance above the ground. “Okay, great, we’ve checked out the castle. Can we go now?”

“No. We let’s keep looking.”

“But we haven’t found anything.”

“Precisely! We can’t go back to Princess Twilight and report that we saw nothing. So we are going to search inside the castle. Look, there are plenty of holes in the ceiling and windows for us to fly through in case something comes charging at us. Now come on.” Green Mile turned and walked through the nearest hallway.

Yellow whimpered and trudged behind Green.

The deeper the two descended into the depths the derelict structure, the more their tension dissipated. What would have been odd was how clean much of the castle looked, but since their briefing had mentioned that Twilight and her friends had done some renovating and cleaning in the hopes of using the castle as the newest Princess’ home, the organized mess and semi-cleaned state of the castle raised no red flags.

They had also received a detailed map of the castle, made by the Princess herself. They had studied it intensely before going and checked off rooms as they visited them. However, despite being located in the dead center of the map and having multiple entrances on each side, one room remained unchecked - the throne room. Their frustrations began to overshadow their previous resignations about the place.

Green lay the map flat on the ground in one of the many outer halls and took another look out a window before looking back at the map. “This is ridiculous.”

“What is it? Still having trouble with the map?”

“Shut up, Yellow. I can’t figure out why we can’t find the throne room.”

Yellow turned his head away from watching the doorways. “Let me look.”

“No! Keep a lookout.”

“Come on, let me see.”

“Fine!” Green shoved the map towards Yellow. “Let’s see you find the way.”

Yellow smirked as he smoothed the map out. “Hhm! Okay, so we are here…”

“No kidding, Sherclop,” mumbled Green.

“...then it’s through that doorway, second corridor to the left. Simple!” Yellow rolled up the map and stuck it under his wing.

“Down that hallway? We’ve been down that hallway three times already and checked every corridor. None of them lead to the throne room, you feather brain!”

Yellow frowned. “I don’t like it when you call me names. Tell you what,” Yellow turned his frown into a smirk. “If I find the throne room, you polish my armor for a week.”

“Shut up, Yellow. Go.” Green pointed down the hallway.

Straightening his back for the first time this morning, Yellow held his head high and walked ahead of Green down the hallway, another first for the evening. He turned around and saw that Green remained standing in the same spot. His posture sank as he found himself alone. “Uhhh… Aren’t you coming, Green?”

Green shook his head. “What’s the matter? We’ve checked every room and there’s nothing here. You’re not chicken, are you?”

Yellow pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows. “Sha…. Shut up, Green.”

“Tell you what, you somehow find the throne room, and I’ll put in a good word for you with my sister.”

Yellow perked his ears, his wings fluffed a little bit and the map slipped from under one. “Fine. The throne room is down this hallway, I get to the end of this hall and to the throne room and walk back, and you’ll get me a date with your sister.”

“Fine, whatever. Just go, you moron.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, promise! Just get on with it!”

With a smile and a salute with his free wing, Yellow snatched up the map and trotted down the hall and out of Green’s sight.

“Oh jeez, Cotton is going to kill me if he finds the throne room.”

“Cotton? You were going to set me up with Cotton! What about Allure!?”

Green whipped around at Yellow’s whining. “Hey! I didn’t say which sister I’d set you up with! Besides…”

His tirade halted. Green looked back at the hallway that Yellow had walked through, and then back behind him at the other far end of the hall where Yellow stood. “How did you…?”

Unrolling the map, Yellow took another glance at it and out the window. “Hang on… that… um… Okay, I got this now.” He snatched up the map in his teeth and ran back through the hall from which he came and made a right turn, leaving Green’s sight once more.

Green rustled his wings and scratched behind his ear. How did he get over there so…

“Aha! Here it is!... Wait.” Yellow unrolled the map again and stuck his nose in it. “What in blazes…”

“How in Tartarus did you do that?”

Yellow looked up from the map. “Do what?”

Green rushed forth and pulled the map over to him. The two halls weren’t even connected. “You went through there…” He pointed to the doorway behind Yellow. “...and then you came out there.” He shifted his hoof over to the doorway that was at the very far end of hall, at least a thirty-second trot. Then it hit him, so he smacked Yellow.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“You flew out the windows, didn’t you? Well, tough stuff, you aren’t going out with any of my sisters.”

“What!? No, I didn’t fly out. I’m serious, I just went down the second hallway to the right, and when I came out, I saw you. You are the one who’s messing with me!”

Green looked back down at the map. Everything lined up perfectly; Yellow should have arrived in the throne room. He reached over and plucked a feather out of Yellow’s wing. The color of the feather changed from white to a dull yellow.

“Hey! What in Tartarus are you doing?”

“Just making sure you’re not dreaming. Shut it.” Pulling aside a couple of rocks from one of the piles pushed into the corner, likely parts of the collapsed roof, Green made a small pile and wedged the long feather between the two top rocks right next to the doorway they were going to enter. He snatched up the map. “Alright, Yellow, show me which way you went. If you’re telling the truth, we should end up at the other end of the hall and see this marker at the end of the next room we enter.”

Muttering under his breath, Yellow led Green down the hall and through the second corridor on the left. The corridor was long, and unlike the others, quite dark, as there were no holes in the roof. The rows of ancient, dusty armor that stood silently on either side of the corridor didn’t make it feel any more inviting. It probably wasn’t the proper time at that moment for Green to be somewhat proud of what his sister Allure’s beauty could do: it could even convince Yellow to grow a spine.

Before he knew it, the two had reached the bright light at the end of the dark tunnel. The hallway they arrived in looked much like the others, but his first glance was towards the farthest door away from them. He did not see the markers. “See, I told you, you big fat…”

As much as he wanted to gloat, what Yellow was pointing at took precedence. There, right next to the door just as he left it, was the pile of rocks with the feather marker. They had come out the same door they went in.

His jaw lost its fight with gravity as he recognized all of the other details in the room they were in. The rock piles, the scenery outside the windows. This was the exact same room.

“But… how?”

“Oh, Celestia, this is just too weird. Let’s get out of here, Green.”

As Yellow took off, Green chomped down on his tail and pulled him back, stomped his hoof and kicked over the marker. “No! We are going back the way we came once more. Then, we can get out of here. I want to see something.” He turned around and marched back down the dark corridor. Yellow whined in protest but followed Green into the windowless, holeless, and lightless hallway.

The two walked briskly down the corridor, passing a suit of armor with every two or three steps. However, the light at the end of the corridor never seemed to get closer. The corridor was alive with the rattling of Yellow’s armor. The clanking and creaking grew louder and louder. No longer could Green just idly trot next to this cacophony of fear and gnash his teeth.

Green swiveled around and shouted, “What in Tartarus are you doing, Yellow? Stop that racket.”

“What racket? I thought that was you.”

At that moment, neither of them were moving, but the sound of rattling armor continued. Movement behind Yellow caught his eye. He leaned over to look behind Yellow. Green felt his heart stop and he gasped at what he saw. Seeing his reaction, Yellow turned his head to look behind himself as well. Both of them were met with many hollow stares. Every suit of armor they had passed had turned to face them, while some had even stepped off their podiums and slowly creaked their way to the uninvited guests. Their rusty joints cried out from ages of misuse. Now that they had been seen, they all reared up on their hind legs and screeched in a discordant cry that sounded vaguely like: “We’re gonna kill you.”

Yellow Belly shrieked and took off down the corridor, abandoning Green, who was stuck in a defensive pose in the dark. “Darn it, Yellow, you chicken!”

Green flared his wings and growled at the approaching armor. Not a single one of them hesitated in their pursuit.

Then again… he may have the right idea.

Green turned around and saw that every suit of armor Yellow had passed had come to life. Flying as close as he could to the roof, Green jetted down the corridor towards the light, which was being swallowed up by darkness. He didn’t see the shadow flying right at him until it was too late.

Shaking off the daze from the mid-air collision, he was able to make out Yellow between the spots in his vision.

“A door, Green! The end of the corridor has been shut with a door and it’s bolted shut! I can’t get it open!”

As his breath grew ever more rapid, Green searched the darkness for a way out. The way they had come from had been blotted out as well, and it was probably sealed too. It was then, after a bit of squinting in the dark, that he made out a breakaway corridor that they must have passed twice before, conveniently unguarded by the living armor.

“There! Go that way. Move!”

The duo charged down the corridor over the heads of several suits of armor and made their mad dash into the unknown. Passing several more sets of armor, the two saw another wooden door. Unlike the other two, this one was ajar, and light creeped in through the crack. Green slammed himself into the door, and it flew open. Landing on the ground with a tumble, he scrambled to his hooves and reached to close the door. From the shadows in the hallway, he could see the armor for only a moment, their sluggish pace had turned into a steamed charge. Green slammed the door shut and pushed against it with all his might. His wings spread as he braced himself for impact.

The door bent under the pressure and a burst of metal against wood echoed loudly in the room. The clanging of metal on stone resounded behind the pony barricade, and then all fell silent.

Minutes must have passed as Green continued to push against the door. Silence had overtaken him and the corridor beyond the wooden door. In the absence of any resistance, he slowly backed away from the door, his wings still fully spread and his chest heaving under his armor.

“We… we’re alive…”

Green slowly turned and looked towards the sound of the voice. Behind him, halfway across the expansive room, was Yellow Belly. He was on his side, his chest rising and falling with each heave. His forehead drenched and sweat dripped into his wide eyes.

Green swallowed hard. “Yeah, we’re alive.”

“Can we leave now?”

Green looked back down at his hooves before nodding. “Yeah, I think we’ve seen enough.”

Yellow got back up on his hooves and looked around the room they were in. He moaned at the lack of any windows or holes in the roof, then he gasped. “Green... “

His partner noticed it too. The expansive room with many doors leading off in every which way; the tattered banners that bore both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna; and the two thrones, located at the very back of the room.

“This is it… we’ve found the throne room.”

Green only let his awe knock him off his guard for a second. He braced himself and scanned the room for anything that moved. The only other thing that moved about was Yellow Belly, who flew from doorway to doorway. Each one of them lacked an actual door, but was sealed off by darkness. Trying to peer into each hallway or corridor, Yellow was peered into each hallway or corridor to try to find the safest way out.

Yellow trotted in place next to the last door. “Oh man, I can’t see anything! What happened to the light? What happened to the holes in the roofs? Why is it so dark in here? I want to get out of he-er-er-ere.”

Facehoofing at Yellow’s blubbering, Green was weighing the pros and cons of punching some bravery into Yellow. After the decision of not exerting any extra energy until after they escaped this deathtrap, Green walked up to Yellow to calm him down and start finding a way out. However, as he approached Yellow, a shadow formed behind him and crept up from the dark hallway behind him.

Green froze. There was a two-legged creature, covered in blue and gold from head to hoof. It stood upright like a minotaur, its fur was as white as death, its ears were large like a death bat, a single red eye glowed in the darkness on the right side of its head, standing a hoof taller than Yellow, it was in prime ambush position.

It opened its mouth under its upturned, timberwolf-like snout, bearing its pointed teeth. “Ich konnte ihn nicht finden.”

Yellow screamed and bucked behind him. The buck hit the creature square in the the jaw and the head snapped off with a resounding pop before bouncing back into the darkness from which it came. The body stood still momentarily before collapsing to the ground.

Flying laps around the room, Yellow continued to scream bloody murder. Green, on the other hoof, remained frozen as he processed what just happened. Shaking the shock off, he took a few careful steps towards the headless body.

Looking it over, the body was covered in clothes. There was a blue cape over a blue shirt of some kind with golden buttons. The dark golden pants were also in fine condition. A long, hairless, pink tail came out from a hole in the back. The weirdest thing he noticed was that the tail had small diamonds embedded in it, as did the hands, underneath the white fur. He poked the headless body, but it didn’t move.

Green looked back up at the shrieking and spinning Yellow before looking back down at the decapitated, and yet bloodless corpse, then back up to Yellow. “Oh Celestia, please don’t kill me!”

No way.

A regally dressed monster with a clear obsession for diamonds in a floating castle with lots of soulless minions? This creature must have been King Sombra, Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Changeling Queen all rolled up into one, and Yellow Belly just punted its head off like it was a hoofball.

“I haven’t even kissed a mare ye-he-he-heeeeet!”

No bucking way.

Green snarled and looked up at the panicking pegasus, still bouncing off the walls with his face wet with tears.

“I have a partner! Eat him instead!”

There is no bucking way.

“DAMN IT, YELLOW BELLY, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!”

Tangled up in one of the banners, Yellow Belly looked down at his partner. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks were wet. Probably just like the fur on the inside of his thighs. The little pissant. “What… what…” Yellow saw Green standing next to the lifeless body.

“Did… did you do that? Did you stop the monster?”

Green flinched, looked back down at the body and then back up to Yellow out of the corner of his eyes. “...Yes?”

“Hoho! Alright!” Yellow cheered as he wiggled his way out of the banner. He flew close to the body and pointed. “You got the monster? You saved me!?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Green with a roll of his eyes. “Now come on, let’s get out of here.” He turned towards the closest doorway, but stopped when he heard the taunts.

“You see that monster!? You don’t mess with the Royal Guard Pegasus Patrol!”

Green turned around and saw Yellow jabbing a hoof at the headless body; chills creeped down his spine.

“Shut up, Yellow. It’s bad form to taunt the dead.”

“Yeah, you thought you could just give us the scare, huh? Like where a bunch of chickens. Well, look who just got their head chopped off, like a chicken!”

“Shut up, Yellow!”

Yellow strutted about like a rooster in a henhouse. “Bawk bawk-bawk bawk bawk!”

“Darn it, Yellow! Let’s get…”

Violent coughs terminated Yellow’s taunting. He fell down on his knees while hacking and wheezing. Green ran up to his side and started pounding on his back.

“See? This is clearly karma kicking your…”

Yellow puked all over the floor.

“...plot.”

Taking deep breathes, Yellow struggled to get back up on his hooves. “Oh dang… This job has been to much for…” He froze in place.

“What? Got another sick fit coming on? Should I get a bu…” Green stopped his jovial jabs when he caught a glance of Yellow’s pile of sick. It wasn’t the partially digested remains of the daisy sandwich he had this morning, nor was it anything a pony would likely consume. There, just inches away from Yellow’s snout was a wriggling mass of bugs.

Worms, beetles, centipedes, all squirming about in puke.

Green jumped back and stared at Yellow, who slowly turned to his partner, a worm was hanging out of his nose. Tears filled his eyes as he whispered, “Am I going to die?”

Before Green could reassure his partner that they would make it out alive, a loud cracking of stone followed by colossal boom echoed from the bowels of the castle. Helping his partner stand up on his wobbly legs, Green smacked the worm out of his nostril with a wing tip before he ushered his partner to the nearest exit. “No, you’ll live. Let’s get out of here now, hmm?”

The two thanked the goddesses that the path chosen wasn’t crawling with hollow horrors they’ve encountered before. In fact, the fates must have been smiling on them as the arrived the corridor of their choice took them back to the first hall they checked. Everything was as it was before. Celestia’s sun shined in through the windows and holes in the ceiling. All they had to do was fly out and they would be free of this cursed place.

However, there was one thing different.

“Green? What happened to the statue?”

The stone alicorn no longer stood proudly over the mossy, sunlit room. Broken at the abdomen, the lower half of the statue remained in place, the upper half was nowhere to be found, but scratches on the ground lead from the statue through one of the biggest doorways.

Green shook his head. “That is a mystery best left unsolved. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

The two of them took wing and flew towards the closest window. Green closed his eyes sighed in relief as he no longer had to stay in this place. His front legs hung as he relaxed his shoulders.

“Green! WHAT IN TARTARUS IS GOING ON!?”

Jostled, Green flapped about in the air, opened his eyes and was greeted with a wall. Smacking hard face first against the solid stone wall, he fell down and tumbled on the cold, mossy hard floor. After clearing his eyes of tears caused by the hard smack onto his sensitive snoot, he looked up and saw Yellow panicking and smacking a hoof against the wall.

“It’s gone! They’re all gone! The windows disappeared, Green!”

Indeed, Yellow’s outlandish claims were correct. All of the long, arched windows had disappeared; and with them, so did much of the light in the room and the pleasant breeze. Jumping up to his hooves, Green looked around and saw that there was still light coming in from the holes in the roof.

A monstrous roar bellowed from deep within the castle, echoing through the halls and corridors before shaking the very foundations of the pegasi’s psyche.

Nope.

“Quick! To the roof!”

The two bolted towards the ceiling, but as they got closer, the holes healed over and got smaller and smaller until they disappeared.

“No! No! NO!” cried Yellow as he clawed at the roof.

The rush of adrenaline pushed Green. His mind was racing, thoughts overlapped as he tried to come up with a solution. He could only think of one. “Quick! With me! We need to find another way out!”

He dived down and soared into one of the corridors, Yellow on his tail. The corridor was long and narrow, a turn was up ahead and there was a light at the end. Possibly a way out. Then a screech shattered their concentration and a large hoof jutted out from around a corner further down the corridor.

A stone hoof dug into the ground and pulled. From the shadows came the top half of the alicorn statue. It’s wide, pupil-less eyes bored its prey as it dragged itself through the corridor. Its stone wings unfurled and blocked the corridor above it. It opened its mouth and screeched again as it dragged its stone body across the floor, the scratching of stone on stone echoed in the pegasi’s ears.

“Back! Back! We can’t get past that thing!”

The two retreated back into the room they came from. Yellow took to the air, but Green swooped around and tried to find another exit route. Much to his dismay, all of the other doorways had also disappeared.

The scratching of the stone alicorn grew closer and closer. Green joined Yellow up near the ceiling and the decaying rafters when he saw the stone alicorn’s front hoof extend from the darkness.

Up in the sky, the two were safe for the time being, but the screeching terror below hounded them from the ground. Dragging it’s torso on the ground, the stone pegasi tried to get as close as it could without taking its dead gaze off of them. At the same time, it wouldn’t stray too far from the doorway to the corridor.

“Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, oh Celestia, oh Celestia…”

As he looked back and forth between the hyperventilating Yellow, the skulking alicorn statue, and the doorway, he came up with an escape plan. He just hoped it wouldn’t be his last. He zipped around the statue as close as he dared and started screaming. “Hey, ya’ big rock! Come and get me! Come on!”

The alicorn took long swipes at Green and even tried to chomp on him more than once, but it never came close and each swipe and chomp only got air. With gusto, he kept the act up; and the irritated alicorn torso followed him away from the doorway. After it had scooted itself a fair distance away, Green snapped his eyes back up to the roof where an open-mouthed, flabbergasted Yellow Belly stared back at him.

“Well, what are you waiting for!? Get out of here you dumb buck!”

That was all the push he needed. Yellow charged down into the door and disappeared into the darkness. No longer needing to distract the alicorn, Green shot up out of harms reach and tried to make it for the doorway himself. But before he could make it, Yellow reappeared, screaming bloody murder as a mob of armor came chasing in after him, jumping up and snapping their helmet visors at his tail. The two quickly retreated back towards the ceiling and watched as the alicorn statue dragged itself over in front of the doorway again, this time, surrounded by a bunch of its jittery metallic chronies.

Yellow pawed at his own face and flew around in circles. “Oh buck me! Game over, dude! Game over!”

Before Green could collect his thoughts to formulate another plan, a loud rumbling shook both pegasi. The door behind the alicorn torso grew smaller and smaller. It’s arched shape sank into the ground.

Celestia, no!

Other features on the walls were sinking too. The banners inched their way towards the armor infested floor, and it seemed as if the monsters were rising up. Getting closer and closer as the rumbling grew louder.

Then Green looked up.

The floor wasn’t rising! No, the walls were sinking into the ground, taking the ceiling down with them!

The banners touched the ground and began to fold onto each other. The sinking ceiling forced the pegasi to fly lower and lower, closer to the jumping and snapping armor and the screeching alicorn statue.

It seemed as if there was no hope left as the light coming in from the one window grew dimmer and dimmer… wait! The window! That’s it!

“Yellow! Follow me! We’re not done yet!”

Green dove down and pulled up, lining himself up to barrel through the stained glass sun. At the last moment before impact with the sinking sun, he tucked in his wings, closed his eyes, and braced himself for impact, until he hit a snag that nearly ripped off his tail

The stone alicorn had pushed off the ground with all it’s might, launching itself into the air, and bit down hard on Green’s blue tail.

He screamed in shock as he tried to pull away, but the alicorn slowly dragged him down closer to a bunch of waiting, hungry, snapping metallic jaws.

Tried as he might, he couldn’t break free from the alicorn’s stone grip.

“Get your teeth off him you damn, dirty art!”

A blur of purple and white whipped by in the air and knocked the alicorn on the side of the head. The statue jostled, let go of the struggling pegasus’ tail, and fell over after being sucker punched. Green was catapulted through the window and collapsed on a heap. Hitting his head hard on the ground.

Everything went black.

“Green Mile? Green? Buddy? Wake up, Green!”

He felt the grass tickle his skin. The cool, mid-morning breeze whispered into his ears and felt cold against his sweaty hide. He opened his eyes, but had to shut them again because it was too bright. He felt something push up against him.

“Come on, buddy, we gotta get out of here!”

He opened only one eye this time, and it took a little bit for it to focus, but there was Yellow Belly. Green couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him; there was a first for everything.

“Can you get up? We’ve got to get out of here!”

Focusing his eye again at the scenery, he saw the Castle of the Two Sisters looming over Yellow Belly. Oh right. The death trap.

Rushing to get back up, Green slipped on the dewy grass, but was able to give himself a running start before he jumped off the flying island and soar as fast away as he could. Yellow was beside him all the way.

The two of them were silent for most of the flight back to Ponyville. Green knew they had to get to Princess Twilight and give her the bad news that the castle was infested with some kind of evil. He hoped they weren’t too late to inform her before she started the emergency town meeting she organized much earlier that morning after the sightings began, however, he had lost track of time back in the castle. If the high position of the sun was any indicator, he was already too late.

He slowed his pace and let his wings relax as he stopped his frantic wing beating and settled into a calm glide. Yellow followed his example and slowed down too, bringing himself closer to Green.

“Um… Green, how are you feeling, buddy?”

Green turned to Yellow. “Did you tackle a giant alicorn statue and save my life?”

Yellow opened his mouth to respond, but quickly swallowed whatever he was going to say. He didn’t take his eyes off his partner. “Oh Celestia, I did.”

Green laughed. “After what happened today, I feel like doing something crazy.”

“Like what?”

“I’m going to get you a date with Allure!”