Ponyvania

The forest was nothing but a foggy maze with no end. Pinkie pie was no help to the problem due to her consistent talking. The trees around them seemed to close in tighter and tighter going into a tunnel formation. Applejack could feel herself almost going insane until Twilight pointed out something ahead of them in her head, making Applejack rub her eyes in reassurance that it was real.

The opening at the end of the tree tunnel revealed a huge castle on the edge of a cliff over a Blackened lake. Bats filled the air and the only light was that of the full moon. By itself the castle gave off a tone of death: anyone could feel it, alive or dead.

The castle felt familiar to all ponies, but Twilight was the only one who realized why.

“This must be the old castle of the pony sisters” Twilight thought to herself.

“But how’s that possible?” Applejack asked, “Dat castle was old and broken down, this one looks as if it was just built, not to mention there was no lake or cliff”

She was right, THIS castle looked fairly new, but the landscape around it felt strange and cold. Unlike the forest that was foggy and cramped, the scenery seemed to completely change. There was no fog anywhere except the lake; the ground was also light gray instead of the brown they were walking in before and the whole area was wide open like the inside of a bubble stuck in time.

“Well I’m not entirely sur-“Twilight paused for a sec. “You heard my thoughts?”

“You were thinking?” Applejack asked.

“Apparently I didn’t think this whole combine myself with you thing”

Applejack grinned a bit at the fact that she could use Twilight’s own trick against her, but got back on track.

“Anyway, the only thing that could change a large enough area like this would take an advanced level of magic, dark magic.” Twilight explained.

“Well, COME ON GUYS” Pinkie yelled bouncing towards the castle

Applejack chased after Pinkie and stopped her warning her that anything could be in there, not seeing that they were close to the castle by the time they caught her.

A rectangular stone bridge covered a small gap between the area of land they were standing on and the entrance to the castle. On each of the corners of the bridge sat a stone gargoyle. All the gargoyles had sharp claws that hung over the pillars each of them were sitting on and eyes that stared off in the distance. Applejack and Pinkie started to walk (and bounce) across the bridge when the statues came to life attacking immediately with no warning.

Applejack avoided the barrage of attacks from the three beasts that were after her with ease, Pinkie had no such luck. One of the Gargoyles cornered Pinkie against the right pillar closest to the forest. With one swift swing of its claws, the gargoyle slashed pinkie on her right side causing a gash that was half a foot long. Pinkie screamed in pain as her blood started dripping down.

Applejack heard her and panicked knowing that Pinkie was in trouble, but couldn’t get away from the beasts that were already after her. She turnaround and swung her whip around the gargoyle to her left  and pulled to the right causing the one to crash into another and make both disappear in a pool of black smoke. Twilight noticed the monster behind them and ordered Applejack to buck NOW. Trusting in her friend she immediately lifted her back legs and destroyed the beast behind her with a blind kick.

Pinkie had tears going down her eyes from the pain she felt, and then she looked at her wound and saw the blood slowly going down her back and on her mane. She turned to the monster in front of her then at the moonlight above her…and changed. The sweet and innocent pony became a 7 foot monster that had sharped teeth, straight, darkened hair and muscles, BIG muscles. She turned back to the creature and glared at it with memory of the slash it had given her. The gargoyle knew its chances were slim and tried to fly away. Pinkie launched after her prey with her powerful legs and caught it almost immediately after liftoff; the gargoyle struggled trying to get away until Pinkie crushed its head midair making the body disappear in the usually black smoke.

After Applejack saw that the third gargoyle was gone for good she looked over and saw another…thing with dark pink hair and a sense of killing around it. Her first reaction was to attack, but a voice in her head told her to stop.

“Applejack stop, I think that’s Pinkie pie!” Twilight yelled after noticing the mane.

“Twilight there is no way that’s pinkie, she’s hurt over th-“Applejack started, but when she looked over there was nothing over there. “But, it can’t be”

“THE WOLF!” Twilight yelled suddenly “The wolf that pinkie found in the forest! It must have been a werewolf!”

All Applejack could think about was the giant beast in front of her until she saw Pinkie’s mane. It had been dark and straight before…just without the teeth eyes. Applejack stood in her place and looked back at Pinkie, who was breathing hard at the ground, and examined her for a while. She started walking towards Pinkie (against her better judgment) wondering if she could do anything to help. Pinkie turned to Applejack and snarled, making Applejack jump a bit.

“Uh, Pinkie? Are you okay?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie growled at Applejack and got into a pouncing position. The next thought of Applejack was run, but Twilight wouldn’t have it.

“Let me try to reason with her” Twilight said.

“And how do you suppose you’re going to that?” Applejack asked.

“I would need you to jump on her back so we can calm her down by magic. Because I’m with you my magic isn’t as effective unless its close range.”

“You can still you use your magic?”

“Almost, I can’t really do much for the moment”

“Which is why you couldn’t block anything with that shield you can usually make?”

“Precisely, now hurry!”

Without another thought Applejack rushed Pinkie, but Pinkie used her giant arms to smash Applejack back where she was before only on the ground. She got up and tried to get behind her time and time again in vain.

“She’s too strong!” Twilight yelled

“Oh gee you think” Applejack muttered sarcastically.

Pinkie looked ready to attack again when something burst out of one of the castle windows from the right side.

Rainbow Dash had been taken into the castle and thrown into a metal jail, alone. Nothing was getting her out of that jail, not yelling or bucking or flying. Life almost seemed gone, until one of the guards jumped back after being bucked at and dropped the keys to the cell. She noticed the keys after 30 seconds of silence. Luckily the keys were almost right next to the cell she was in. After sliding the keys into the cage, grabbing them with her mouth and unlocking she started flying through the large corridors of the castle trying to find her way out.

After 1 hour of flying around she started become tired and stopped for a second on the ground. She looked around her and noticed that there was another corridor to her left with a window up high. FREEDOM, it was so close, she flew as fast as she could towards it and was almost there, but she didn’t notice the rock the size of her head coming towards her…fast. The rock had come from one the rock golems of the castle, masters of the earth with precise aim. Rainbow Dash was struck by the rock on her left side slightly grazing her wing causing her to lose balance and speed. She rammed in the wall, something she was used to, slid down the wall to the bottom, turned around and faced her enemy.

Rock Golems are giant earth beings that can crush most anything with a swing of their arm, and Rainbow had one right in front of her. Rainbow gave an angry stare at the huge pile of human shaped rubble, half of the stare was given to cover up the fear she was feeling. She was so close to being out of this place and something much bigger was keeping her from doing so. Thoughts ran through her head about what to do, run? Fly? Fight? It didn’t seem worth it, how do you beat moving rock? It did seem pointless until she noticed glowing spots around the shoulders and knees of the monster, weak Spots.

Rainbow rushed the golem at a blinding speed and ran into the monster’s left shoulder, the glowing spot burst and the left arm came off. Rainbow, thinking the monster had had enough, rushed the window again. The golem wasn’t letting Rainbow go without a token of remembrance from him. It aimed its arm to where Rainbow was going and shot another one of its rocks. Rainbow was hit again with a rock in the stomach; she crashed through the window with the rock and started to lose altitude while out of breath

Applejack got up from being hit and saw the familiar rainbow mane falling from one of the high windows in the castle. She quickly forgot about Pinkie and went after Rainbow Dash running fast in order to save her dropping friend. Pinkie lost interest and let the small thing run along till she saw the brightly colored chew toy coming down. Applejack saw Pinkie rushing towards her, eyes fixed on Rainbow; she couldn’t let Rainbow get eaten by her own friend. She turned around to face her but was tossed aside by the rampaging beast. Pinkie was right under where Rainbow was falling and was about to get her toy when she looked into the eyes of Rainbow Dash at the last couple seconds.

Images of her friends rushed through Pinkie’s head. The times when she was happy with them and sad, but they were always with her. She knew that worried look on everypony’s face when they were scared and she tried to cheer them. She then remembered her name what she was doing…AND RAINBOW DASH WAS FALLING TOWARDS HER.

Pinkie Pie let out a roar and shrunk back to the size she was before with a worried look on her face. She adjusted herself perfectly under Rainbow and caught her on her back. Pinkie’s tail twitched and she jumped out of the way before the rock slammed into the ground. Meanwhile Rainbow finally caught her breath and exhaled with relief. Applejack trotted over to find both her friends okay.

“RAINBOW!” Both Applejack and Twilight yelled as Applejack jumped on the Rainbow manned daredevil.

“OUCH. Still hurting here” Rainbow mustered with a laugh after being jumped on.

“What in Equestria happened?” Twilight said out loud.

“Well,” Rainbow started to explain “It was an epic battle of-“She stopped suddenly. “Twilight?” she asked,” Where are you?”

Applejack had almost forgotten that Twilight was dead. But before she started to explain what happened, Twilight jumped in and started to explain herself.  When she was done, Rainbow’s mouth was open and she was staring at Applejack, when she noticed what she was doing she quickly got rid of her look.

“We still haven’t heard your story Rainbow” Applejack remembered

Rainbow Dash’s face lit up as it was her turn to talk. She explained the jail and golem (with a few details added in about throwing a rock back at the golem and making him run into the wall) and crashing out the window because of a “cheap shot”.

“Well we could use your help on getting Rarity and Fluttershy back if you’re still okay to keep going” Twilight told Rainbow.

“Count me in, I can never leave a friend behind” Rainbow said in a brave voice. “But there is something I don’t understand”

“What?”

“How can we all hear you if you’re a ghost Twilight”

“Just because I’m a ghost doesn’t mean I can’t use magic to send my voice to your head. It’s just that sometimes if I get startled or excited, I send my voice to everypony around me”

Rainbow just accepted it; she did anytime magic was involved because she never understood magic in general anyway. The Ponies, after getting caught up with everything took a second to rest and talk for a while. Eventually they were relaxed and ready to continue. The group walked over to the bridge ready for anything else that might jump out.

An abnormally large metal gate blocked the entrance to the exceedingly menacing dark castle. An engraving covered most of the gate, almost like a seal.

“How do we get past that huge big door?” Pinkie asked, “Its looks like it’s locked up good.”

“I’ll just fly through another window and unlock the door from the other side” Rainbow said.

At that moment, as though the castle heard her, Metal bars appeared on all the entrances.

“Oh that’s just not fair” Rainbow pouted.

“This door doesn’t look like it’s barred at all actually” Twilight said, “Applejack, could you move closer to it?”

“Sure I guess” Applejack said with a shrug.

Taking a closer look at the seal Twilight came to the conclusion that it needed to be removed in order to get the door open.

“Applejack, hit the seal a few times with your whip” Twilight said

Rainbow Dash was interested to see her friend in action. Applejack took her whip and cracked it against the seal. For a second the huge door shook and almost seemed to explode on the inside causing Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash to back a bit before the next attack. Once again, Applejack leapt up and struck the door and the shaking seemed to be worst this time. Trying with all her might this time, she cracked the whip on the door causing the door to burst open with a violent force revealing a lobby that appeared much bigger than what the castle could seem to hold.