“This isn’t what I expected to see,” Ivy commented, a frown growing on her face. “I expected tears. I expected for Cam to attack us as soon as we appeared. I expected her to be a corpse.” Glaring at Tranquility, she let out a soft growl. “I don’t understand why none of that came true.”

“Honey, you can’t always get what you want,” Cam said, a smirk spreading over her face. “You take what you get and you don’t throw a fit. Didn’t your parents teach you that?”

“Shut your mouth,” she growled, her paws starting to glow dimly as she curled them into fists. “Something’s not right.” Growling once more, she moved her glare to Reed. “Perhaps someone’s getting a little too loose with his tongue…?” she asked, her last word trailing off into another growl.

Reed didn’t answer with words. Instead, he stuck out his paws. A thin wall of shimmering magic interposed itself between the four of us and her. “I’ve gotten a little too loose in more ways than one,” he said, a small smile adorning his face.

A small thrill of excitement ran through me, potent enough to actually make me shiver. Reed was standing up to the other Mages, truly taking our side- and it was absolutely thrilling. Tranquility felt the same way, it seemed, and she pressed up against my side.

Ivy’s eyes widened slightly, the other Mages showing similar reactions of shock, and that excitement vanished, replaced by fear. In she past, they’d showed that they had no qualms against using lethal force against us, and the thought that they might do it again crossed my mind. My ears turned back slightly, and I stepped a little farther away from them, certain a fight was going to break out at any second-

And then Ivy smiled. It was a genuine, warm smile, one of satisfaction and contentedness. That single expression ground my entire train of thought to a stop, confusion flooding through me. Out of all the reactions that she could have given, that was the one I had least expected.

“Ash,” she started, “you owe me fifty slash when we get back to symphony.”

“I don’t believe it,” the aforementioned Mage gasped. “I thought there was no way he’d actually turn against us!”

“But he did, so you’re gonna pay up,” she said smugly.

Ash let out a grumbling sigh. “I’m sorry for not questioning the loyalty of one of our members,” he growled. “For believing in him.”

“Belief only gets you so far in life,” Ivy said. “That’s something I’ve realized.”

“You’re kidding me,” Reed said, breaking his shocked silence. “You bet on whether or not I would break my loyalty to the Alpha?”

“Yep,” Ivy answered, not a shred of remorse in her voice. “And it seems I won. That is, if you’ve actually changed sides and become one of them.”

“I have,” he confirmed. “I’m rogue now. I’d turn in a letter of resignation, but it’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she said. Then, to my surprise, she sank into a deep, respectful bow. “Thank you, Reed.”

I tilted my head to the side, more confusion running through me. What? I thought. Why isn’t she mad? Why was there a bet in place? What’s going on?

“Thanks for what?” Reed asked suspiciously. He tried to hide it, but he was just as confused about the situation as I was. Nothing was adding up, and it set me on edge.

“For doing exactly what we needed you to do,” she answered, her smile morphing into a sinister grin.

I actually didn’t fully register what she said for a few seconds. It gave more time for the implications to build up force, and when my mind caught up to my ears, they hit me like a speeding cart.

Ivy was suggesting that Reed had been a spy of sorts, conducting a subtle operation to make the Mage’s jobs easier.

I didn’t want to believe it. Ever since we’d captured him, Reed had been growing more increasingly doubtful of his philosophy. A few dimensions back, he’d even said that he was unsure about which side he was on. And just half an hour ago, he’d broken down those barriers between us and saved Tranquility’s life. What Ivy was suggesting… was unthinkable.

But as I thought about it, doubt started to fill my mind. He’d only been with us for a few days, and to change lifelong beliefs on such a short notice…

Cam rounded on him as I shakily stumbled away, Tranquility sticking by my side, small trembled running through her. “Was it all a ruse?!” she growled, lightning starting to run up and down her paws.

“Oh no,” Ivy said, her grin growing bigger. “It isn’t. I suspect that he is well and truly on your side. It just so happens that that is exactly what we need.” She threw her arms up into the air. “It’s amazing! I don’t even have to sow discord between your ranks to know that this whole debacle will be over before the clock hits noon in Paradise!” A small chuckle wormed out of her lips, and her paws glowed. A golden aura lifted off herself and the other three Mages. “We don’t even have to fight you as one! It’s been forever since a joint assignment was this easy!” Her chuckles grew into full-on maniacal laughter as she doubled over, holding her sides. I felt a twinge of fear, and started to move away from her,

“That’s enough of that,” Reed grumbled, twitching his paws. The shield he had created flashed brightly, and the laughter went dead silent, but we could still hear the other Mages whispering to each other. He turned to us. “I don’t know what she’s on about, but don’t let it get you down. I think it’s a bluff, to try to undermine our stability.” At that, Ivy actually fell over, her cackling appearing to overwhelm her sense of balance. Reed grimaced, and the barrier flashed again. “You don’t need to hear this... “ he mumbled, seemingly addressing her, before turning back to us. “But we need to talk. This is going to end in a fight. That, I know. When it begins, Cam needs to cover the three of you in her strongest shield possible.”

“Come on!” she yelled. “We just teamed up. We should take them together! I’ve been able to hold them off before-”

“No,” Reed said, his voice carrying a finality that broke her off without a single noise of protest, similar to how he’d broken up our shouting match earlier, except even more intense. “I’m not letting you join in on this. I’m going to be blunt- the only reason that you were able to hold them off was because they let you. In a real battle, you would’ve been knocked out, dead, or splattered across the floor like a rotten fruit before you could have even blinked.” Cam’s eyes widened in shock. “In this… it’s likely I’m gonna go all out. And if I do, the excess magic flowing off of our attacks might kill you. If that’s the case, you need to hunker down under a shield, protect yourselves until I can find an opportunity to warp us out-”

“Reed?”

That whisper cut through his lecture like a hot knife, bringing his speech to a sudden, abrupt halt. A thousand emotions seemed to cross his face in the blink of an eye, starting with shock, ranging from anger and denial to sadness and hopefulness, and ending on resignation. “Yes, Willow?” he said back, turning towards the Mage.

To my surprise, she had tears in her eyes, displaying exactly how upset she was over this development. “Are you really gonna go to their side?” she asked, her voice surprisingly clear despite her distress.

Reed let out a soft sigh. “Yes,” he answered. “And I’m not sorry.”

That served as a blow to her resolve. “Why?” she asked, a hint of a tremor in her speech.

“Because I want to do the right thing,” Reed said, walking closer to the edge of the shield. “We all do. After spending time with our enemy, seeing how they acted, hearing their cause and actually thinking about it… I realized that fighting them was the wrong thing. You would’ve done the same thing if you were in my position. I know that to be a fact.”

“S-so be it,” she said, her voice actually hitching. “I didn’t expect our friendship to end this way, Reed.”

“It doesn’t have to!” he protested quickly. “All you have to do is respect Cam’s decision to go off on her own and not pursue her anymore. You don’t even have to join our little group- you just have to abstain from the fighting. If you and the others do that… I’ll come back to Paradise.”

The silence in the area became palpable, the world seeming to hold its breath for us. Willow remained quiet for some time, appearing to actually consider the offer… and then Ivy said something, having recovered from her fit of mirth. A visible wince crossed her face, and she sighed. “I can’t…” she mumbled, letting her head fall to her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” Reed said softly.

The two of them remained silent for some time before Willow looked up. “Can I have something from you?” she whispered. “It’s stupid, trivial even…”

“Just ask,” he responded.

“One last hug?”

Reed sighed, dropping his paws and letting the shield he’d created vanish. “Of course,” he answered, stepping towards her. She did the same. They met each other in the middle of the island, stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, and tenderly embraced each other. Willow rested her head on his shoulder, shutting her eyes and sending a few small tears dripping onto his fur. Reed whispered something in her ear, closing his eyes as well… and tightened his hold on her.

I almost missed the dim flash that came from his paws.

They remained like that for a few moments more before Reed pulled away, letting Willow’s motionless form crumple to the ground.

And in the next instant, all Tartarus broke loose.

Cam barely had time to scramble towards us and cover our area in a thick dome of magic before the attacks started flying. Ivy opened by unleashing a roaring torrent of dirty-golden flame, melting the ground the instant it came into contact with it. Reed stuck out his paw, a golden aura shimmering around it, and when the fire hit, it split the wave in two, parting it around his body. It seemed that was only the warm up, though, as Ash and Cypress quickly moved to join the fray.

It became a blur after that, not because of time, but because the air began to distort slightly because of the amount of power being exerted. What I could see, however, was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever witnessed in my life.

They didn’t fight using magic bolts like they had against us. Instead, it seemed like they used a combination of pure, unstructured magic and the world around us, with snake-like tendrils of energy lashing out like whips to strike the islands around us, sometimes breaking and even shattering them. Once, Reed actually used that to his advantage, grabbing the shattered chunks in his magic and hurling them at the others, driving them back.

It also gave some insight into how the Mages worked together. Ash, Ivy, and Cypress were clumsy, with their attacks often smashing into each other, knocking them off course or cancelling each other out. It was the only reason Reed was able to hold his own against them. I’m sure if they had the time to re-cast that mind-linking spell that Reed had told us about, they would be able to crush him, but he didn’t give them the opportunity. It was a startling revelation that I was surprised I actually noticed.

I realized that all later. In the moment, all the chaos surrounding us was absolutely terrifying.

After the first attacks began to fly, I shrieked and fell to the ground, covering my head with my hooves. Cam did the same, starting to sweat from the exertion of maintaining the shield, and Tranquility fell on top of me, wrapping her hooves around me. I rolled over and did the same, and we held each other through the terror, trying to seek some measure of comfort in each other. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and a terrible, primal fear pervaded my mind. What I was caught in had the potential to kill me, and that hit me like a cannonball.

I didn't want to die so soon after rekindling my friendship with Tranquility.

Eventually, though, the other Mages began to get a feel for each other’s fighting style, and the scales began to tip in their favor. With each new attack, Reed was driven back further, sweat starting to pour down his face. He glanced back at us and threw his paws up into the air, the pads flashing bright gold. The surface of the island warped, and a wall rose up between us and the Mages, causing a lull in battle. Before it could resume, though, Reed lashed a paw out towards us. To my surprise, a whiplike rift seemed to sprout from it. It pierced through our shield and swallowed the three of us, and the strange warping of dimensional travel beset me once more. This time, though, it seemed subdued, more controlled.

We emerged in the middle of a flat, purple-and-white striped area. It seemed to curl up at the horizon, wrapping up and over our heads to come back around behind us, like we were inside of a giant sphere. I felt my hooves touch a carpet-like surface, reminding me of the more expensive homes I’d been to when Tranquility and I were moving.

Reed landed upright, but immediately fell into a sitting position, gasping. “Jeez,” he wheezed, holding his side. “I’ve gotten rusty. Do you see why I didn’t want you in that?”

“Y-yeah,” Cam whispered. “How did you d-do that?”

“Years of training,” he answered.

“It was really cool!” she said, a smile growing across her face. “Teach me, please?”

“If I ca-”

A warping sound echoed through the area, and a black seam opened next to us. Ivy fell out of it, an unconcealed grin on her face. A thrill of fear ran through me, and I scrambled to get behind Tranquility, who spread her wings defensively and bared her teeth.

“Sorry that took so long,” Ivy said cheekily. “I had to get Willow up and moving again. That was a jerk move, by the way. She’s probably crying.”

“She had her chance,” Reed snarled. “One which you ruined. I am not responsible. And I am not dealing with you right now.” Before she could respond, he extended another whiplike rift, swallowing the four of us once more.

This time, we landed in a strange, flashing world, the ground and sky flashing through a host of colors so quickly that it gave me a headache just from looking at it. I shut my eyes, but it didn’t stop my body from feeling the world twist as another rift opened up a second after ours closed.

“Going somewhere?” Ivy asked coyly, emerging from the rift.

Reed let out a startled exclamation and created another portal, sucking us through. When we landed in the next dimension, one that I didn’t fully have the time to look at, it didn’t even take a second for Ivy to catch up with us.

“Reed, this is disappointing,” she said. “You should know running is pointless by now.”

He raised an eyebrow, staring at her for a second, before his ears fell flat against his head and his eyes widened in shock. “No,” he whispered.

“Oh yes,” Ivy responded, a seductive tone in her voice.

Fear started to build in me. I didn’t know what was going on. I had no idea how Ivy was able to find us instantly, and from Reed’s reaction, it wasn’t good. I felt like I should know what was happening, though, like it had slipped my mind.

“What’s happening?!” Cam yelled. Instead of answering immediately, Reed created another rift, dropping us into another dimension, one filled with a flexible, glass-like material.

“She’s got my signature!” he yelled, sending a bolt of shock and realization running through me. “My magic signature! She’s track-” he was cut off as another rift formed next to him. Before Ivy could come out, he created another one, pulling us into a swelteringly hot, orange landscape. “I’ll drop us in a place where we can hide,” he said quickly. “When I do, take my magic away again! It’s the only way-” A black seam opened next to him. “Do it in the next one!” he yelled, creating a rift and pulling us through.

There was something different about this jump, though.

About halfway through, I felt a sudden yank on my side, and the stretching and warping of dimensional travel became borderline painful. The bluish-white patterns that surrounded us took on a reddish tinge, and a spike of primal terror filled my soul. Before I could truly comprehend it, we dropped out of the rift.

The first thing that I noticed was that everything was pitch black, the kind of darkness that could make a pony go mad. The odd thing was, I could still see everyone else as if the had a spotlight trained on them. It lent the area a surreal, spooky atmosphere, one that sent my heart racing.

We fell for a moment before landing on a dark, hard stone, the impact sending bolts of pain lancing up my legs. A feeling of nausea overtook me, and I gagged, hearing Tranquility do the same. I didn’t vomit, though. When it passed, I stood up straight, feeling a chill sink into my bones.

Cam rushed over to Reed, her paws glowing with magic, but he shook his head. “Wait,” he said. “This isn’t where I was aiming to go.”

“What?” she gasped. “Where are we, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows. “I’ve never been here before. Let me check if it’s been discovered.” He closed his eyes, a small shimmer of magic running across them. He was silent for a few seconds.

Then, all the color drained from his face, leaving him looking like a pale-white specter. His eyes shot open, wide with panic, and he scrambled to his feet, starting to furiously slash at the air.

“What is it?!” Cam yelled.

“Help me!” he screamed back. “We HAVE to open a rift, NOW!” The sheer amount of distress and panic in his voice startled me, making me reel back as if I had been physically struck. I’d never heard him sound so horrified. He was usually so calm, and if he had been struck him this deeply, something was seriously wrong.

“Why?!” Cam yelled, sprinting toward him and starting to claw at the air as well. I felt panic start to rise in me, my instincts screaming something was wrong. Suddenly, I felt as if I was being watched.

“HAS’ROU!” Reed screamed, putting more and more effort into his furious slashes. “WE JUMPED INTO HAS’ROU! IF WE DON’T GET OUT NOW, WE NEVER WILL!” With an animalistic roar, he brought both of his arms down, and I felt the sensations that came with dimensional portal descend upon us. “GO! GO NOW!” Tranquility and I scrambled to our hooves and sprinted towards it, while Cam and Reed sped our travel with their magic…

And then an ethereal screeching sound echoed through the dimension. The rift glowed a bright blue, highlighting its jagged shape… and closed, shrinking down to a sliver of light before vanishing altogether. A spike of terror raced through me, and I slid to a halt, feeling despair sink into my gut.

“But where’s the fun for me in letting you go?”

Instinctual fear spiked in my mind, rooting me to the ground. The grating, buzzing, and unbelievably loud voice somehow touched a chord in my soul, sending paralyzing, heart-stopping terror coursing through me. The others weren’t spared, as Tranquility let out a strangled gasp, Reed yelped, and Cam sprinted towards me with her box in tow, grabbing onto and hugging my leg. But that was only the beginning.

A deafening wet, sliding sound echoed through the area, emanating from behind me. I spun around, my fear compounding, and felt my jaw drop open.

A blood-red eye was staring down at us, streaked with darker blood-vessel like structures. There was no difference between the iris and the white. The pupil was even darker than the vessels, bordering on black, but it seemed to cast a red spotlight on the four of us, and when it looked at me, an urge to curl up and start sobbing from sheer terror descended upon my mind like a dark storm

“After all,” the voice said, a hint of amusement pervading the buzz, “I get visitors so rarely. It wouldn’t be good if they left the party as soon as they showed up. It’d be best if they never left at all!”

Author's Note

Remember Has'rou, the dimension mentioned back in either Chapter 10? Yeah, that wasn't a throwaway detail. I've been getting better at using those.

So yeah, everything went to crap again! Whoopie ding! To be completely honest, I've had this idea since day one, and I'm SO happy I finally get to execute it. Yes, I'm cruel. No, I'm not changing this.

I have a feeling that this isn't gonna go over too well, so I ask you to bear with me once more. I think I know what I'm doing with this development, and I can say that this serves two, yes two purposes.

I look forward to your loving reviews of this decision in the comments section.

~Pyrepinna

By the way, the next chapter might take a little longer to come out. I need to make sure that I do it right.