With a thump Twilight and Spike landed next to the map. Once again Twilight had been beaten by Starlight Glimmer, once again she had failed to restore the timeline. Twilight's eyes were closed, she couldn't bear to see what terrible being had taken over Equestria this time. Slowly she opened them, only to see nothing. All around her and Spike was a vast, deserted wasteland. No life could be seen in the expanse, the few plants that dotted the landscape were all dead, even the soil itself was dust and ash. The sky was dark, no moon, sun or stars. The air smelled of death and was choked with smog. The only thing that had any life to it was the map, which still glowed very dimly with magic, a weak hologram of Equestria visible. Twilight sensed that the Tree of Harmony's magic was weaker here than it had ever been, as if the map was all that was left. The hologram showed that the waste covered all the land, ruins stood where Canterlot, Ponyville, the Crystal Empire, and all other settlements once were. Twilight grimaced as she saw what was left of Everfree, the forest had been petrified, the trees stripped of leaves and left to rot. The cave where Harmony stood was dark and silent. The map really was all that was left, the Tree itself was undoubtedly dead, the last of its magic just barely hanging on within the map. All life on Equestria, all life on the planet, had been obliterated in some terrible event, leaving nothing but an oppressive silence. Tears flowed from Twilight's eyes as she surveyed the devastation displayed on the map. All her friends were gone in this Equestria, everyone she loved was dead because of one small change in the past.
"What happened here?" Spike whispered in disbelief as he stared in horrified awe at the dead land.
"Something unspeakable," Twilight quietly replied, "We have to stop her... we have to stop this."
"But how could this have happened? Every bad guy you stopped wanted to conquer Equestria, destroying everything doesn't help anyone."
That was true, Twilight had no idea what force would have been powerful enough or reckless enough to kill an entire world. All she knew was that if she stopped Starlight she could undo all of this. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a chill went up her spine. Some instinctive urge was warning her that she was in danger, some gut feeling told her to hide as fast as she could. Obeying the terror welling up within her, Twilight grabbed Spike and hid behind the remains of one of the thrones surrounding the map.
"Oof! Twilight what gives?! You didn't ne-mmph!" Twilight covered Spike's mouth with a hoof. One look into her eyes, and Spike immediately knew to be quiet. Seconds rolled by as the only sound was the wind, then... a shadow passed over the cowering pony and dragon. They held their breaths. Something was flying in circles high above them. It grew closer, and Twilight instantly recognized the feel of something scanning the landscape with its mind. For one horrifying heartbeat, something touched Twilight's mind. She immediately cast a quick spell to conceal herself, Spike, and the map from the magical probe, an illusion to make it all look like a rock formation. The pony's heart felt like it would explode out of her chest. In that brief instant she was in telepathic contact with whatever that was, she felt only two things radiating from it, hunger, all-consuming hunger beyond anything she had ever experienced, and malice, a profound malevolence so strong that it tainted the very air with decay. It reveled in its own evil, hating for no other reason than to hate. It flew just a hundred feet above, circling, searching. Spike's eyes were shut tight, the poor dragon was shivering in fear, reduced to a baby cowering in Twilight's forelegs just like he used to do as a hatch-ling when afraid. Twilight, slowly, carefully, dared a glance upward to see what was stalking them. She saw part of a silhouette, that's all she needed to see before immediately looking back down and holding Spike tighter, sweat dripping down her face and her heart thumping out of her chest. She would recognize that anywhere, she had only seen it once before in a vision shown to her by Discord, back when they were fighting Gloom, but the feeling of fear that some primal instinct within her associated with it was unforgettable. There were eerie similarities to how she felt when near the Tree of Harmony. The sense of awe and mystery was there, as was the feeling that she was in the presence of something impossibly old, vast, and powerful. A creature that walked among the mighty spirits as alicorns walked among ponies. However, where the Tree comforted, this made uneasy, while the Tree soothed, this inspired fear, while the Tree strengthened and supported, this drained and undermined. The Tree could be heard as a soft music, as bells chiming quietly in her head, but this felt like harsh whispers, buzzing at the back of her skull, saying unspeakable things. This was the Tree's counterpart, its opposite, and in this world, it had won.
Seconds went by as it searched for any speck of life that could satiate it, any spark of magic left in its dead world. But, as always, its search came up empty, there was nothing left to consume, it had already taken everything there was to take. And so it moved on, continuing its endless search, its thoughts focused on one thing, more.
Twilight and Spike waited in silence for another minute, then finally stood up again. It took another moment for them to recover and pull themselves together.
"Twilight, was that.."
"Yes, Spike, it was. We have to stop Starlight, we can't let the world belong to that, we can't."
"But how do we stop Starlight? She's just as good at magic as you, and she won't give up," Spike pointed out.
"We bring her with us on the next trip, we will probably end up here again since I can't imagine a worse timeline than this and they seem to get worse each time we go. She needs to see what her actions will do to Equestria, if she has any shred of decency, she will stop," Twilight's voice has a sharpness to it, a determination and grim resolve Spike had never seen before.
"And if she doesn't?"
"I'll stop her."
"But you couldn't beat her before."
"I wasn't shooting to kill," Twilight uttered those words with disturbing calmness and finality.
Spike remained silent, there was nothing he could say. They walked back up to the map and Twilight prepared to cast the spell on the scroll. The map glowed as a new time portal opened.
"So that was Erebus," Spike whispered just before they were sucked back into the past.
Author's Note
A spur of the moment one shot from an idea I had. To be clear this is not the old mlp character Arabus, the smoke monster. This is Erebus, named after the primordial Greek god of darkness.
5/15/2016: minor edits in the descriptive language to paint a better picture of what Twilight is facing.
