Umbral Souls

A cold shiver raced down Sunset’s back as she beheld the state in which this universe’s Starlight Glimmer was: Years in captivity had rendered her an unkempt, foul-smelling mess, all the while her sanity had clearly been pushed to the brink: Glazed pupils glared in a most unnerving blend of spite and unmatched sorrow, fresh streaks of tears leaving noticeably purer pink-purplish lines down her dirty cheeks.

“Sensory deprivation?” uttered Twilight. “What kind of woman is this world’s Cinch?!”

Sunset looked about the bars for a latch or lock. Whatever this caged space had been used for before it became a prison, there was indeed a padlock… Make that three padlocks, lined vertically to the right between the frames. “Twilight; can you use your magic on these?”

Twilight stammered for a moment, no doubt the utter inhumanity on display having had a great impact. With the pocket-light pointed upwards in one hand, she clenched her other around her geode, the inherent power priming. She then grabbed hold of the first padlock, her palm covering most of it, with her fingers grasping around the metallic hoop. Her forehead crinkled ever so slightly; having some time ago divulged the secret of her new talent by ostensibly feeling around the inner mechanisms with her mind, and with a mental twist, there was a faint click. On letting go, the first padlock dropped from the frame with a clatter.

As Twilight worked her literal magic, Sunset knelt down to Starlight’s level. The gaunt face of this Starlight Glimmer eyed her past the bars with undecipherable emotion: Her breathing sounded uneven, all the while her hands remained gnarled around the bars. She glared quietly at Sunset, no utterances escaping her lips. Almost as if she were wary.

“Who? Who is it really under that illusion?” she rasped, her lips parting waveringly into a toothy grimace while her right eye twitched.

“W-what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Starlight muttered with hostility. “I know, oh, how well I know Cinch’s tricks. Lulling me into a false sense of security, yes. You’re going to feign letting me out, only to push me right back in the moment these bars open when I’d try to make a run for it. You want me to think I’m being rescued, yes you are…”

Sunset stared in abject horror at Starlight’s words. The assaulting stench emanating off her was enough to make the bile rise in her throat, but she refused to show such disregard. Before she could utter a word, Starlight banged her shackled hands against the bars, the clanging and rattling of iron spooking the lot.

“And you have the gall to take their faces!” she screamed, eyeing Sunset madly. “Divines’ mercy, are there no depths to which you won’t sink to anymore, Abacus?!”

“Starlight!” Sunset called out, leaning forward. “Starlight, we’re not illusory! We’re real!”

Starlight pressed her forehead against the frame of the bars, her teeth gritted and her mouth huffing in barely restrained anger, “Stop…” she rasped. “Just stop…” she blurted, her voice wavering. “I beg you; just end it. She’s doomed us all. I don’t…” she sniffed, “I don’t want to be left here for the Umbra to claim me. If there’s any goodness in you, just please-”

“No!” Sunset blurted, reaching past the bars to grasp at Starlight’s head. “Starlight; we’re real, we’re here to save you!” Her eyes locked with Starlight’s, pulling her own head closer until almost nothing but the frame of iron separated their foreheads.

Starlight’s hair felt absolutely filthy, with the accruement of oils and grit and other substances, and her skin was clammy and rough, and Sunset couldn’t care less right now. She was not the Starlight Glimmer she and the girls befriended not too long ago, but all the same, from bearing the exact likeness, it was downright instinctual to show affection to a dimensional counterpart, just like the rest did with the counterparts to their kin. Sunset felt a pair of cold, gnarled hands grasping at her wrists inside the cage.

“There’s… There’s no ripple…?” uttered Starlight, staring back at Sunset, holding tightly to her wrists like they were the one thing holding her together. “You’re not fading… It…” A wavering gasp escaped her lips. “S-Sunset…?”

Sunset nodded. “Yes, Starlight. I’m here. I’m really here.”

Starlight’s lips quivered, her eyes looking like they’d changed, “Divines’ mercy…” Gone was the glazed madness. For the first time in a while Sunset dared not even imagine, Starlight Glimmer saw hope.

“H-how?” asked Starlight, her hands refusing to let go. “Y-you were… But…”

“We’ll explain everything later. Right now, we need you in saving Moonlink. Everyone else is currently rescuing the civilians.”

“E-everyone…?” Starlight stuttered.

“The Umbra Hunters, Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie are out there buying us time to save you. Neighsay is convinced your voice will win the guard to our side,” Sunset divulged encouragingly.

A fresh streak of tears slid down Starlight’s cheeks, “Everyone… They’re alive…?”

“I got the last lock,” informed Twilight as the clatter of the third padlock emanated through the basement.

Managing to get Starlight to release her for the time being, Twilight swung the door open with a wave of telekinesis. The next dilemma was getting Starlight’s hands unshackled: To their misfortune; the iron cuffs around her wrists showed no signs of a keyhole, just rivets driven into holes on one side, too tight to try to remove by hand or magic. At the very least they needed to get the link tethering her to the floor cut. The blasted thing had been driven into the floor with a ringed iron stake; too firm for any of them to dislodge with their bare hands or even Twilight’s telekinesis.

“If we had a pole or something to slide into the hole, we could wedge it out using leverage,” said Twilight, her mind immediately finding an answer to the figurative riddle.

“If only we’d figured to bring AJ,” muttered Sunset, fruitlessly yanking at the chain. “Look around. Maybe there’s something we can use.”

“Here,” peeped Fluttershy, presenting a long wooden pole, possibly for a hoe or polearm or the like. The fact of its wooden make was concerning whether or not it could withstand trying to pull the stake out, but the fact it didn’t look at all worn added with the distinct hue of lacquer in the illumination of Twilight’s pocket light did somewhat alleviate the concern, if only slightly.

Getting to work, Sunset slid one end of the pole into the eye of the stake, the thing barely managing to fit through with the link. Sliding about a foot’s worth of it through, she them began to steadily pull the pole upwards, uttering “Don’t snap,” incessantly in a hushed stream. Twilight proceeded to envelop the stake in her telekinetic aura and began to mentally pull.

“For the love of Celestia, just don’t snap…” Sunset grunted, applying more force, all the while Twilight’s brow furrowed from the increase in her own mental force.

“Keep going, I think it’s moving a little,” called Fluttershy, joining Sunset in pulling on the pole, which was starting to bend forebodingly. Even Spike proceeded to help, squeezing himself under the pole and began to push with his back.

Sunset pursed her lips as she and Fluttershy pulled harder, holding her breath for what felt like the inevitable outcome of their improvised lever snapping at any moment. The thought of their mission failing on account of something so small and simple felt foreboding at the forefront of Sunset’s mind, to which they’d need to find something else to free Starlight, thus wasting more time, all the while their friends were out there, possibly-

No! She dared not think of them falling, let alone when they still had no idea what happened to bring them to Equis. Why? How? They needed to survive if they were to see their home again, to see their friends in Equestria, who Sunset knew were looking for them too, she just knew it…!

With a heart-stopping “plink”, the stake popped out of the intersection the stones making up the floor. Praise be to Celestia and whatever other greater power was out there in the multiverse, was what Sunset was thinking as Twilight floated the bothersome piece of iron to her hand and wound up the excess chain. For the time being Starlight would continue to have her hands bound, but at the very least she was no longer tethered or locked up.

“Let us make haste,” said Starlight in the more archaic inflections as she tried grabbing for the pole to use as support, “we need to rally the people and stop Cinch before she knows.”

“Hang onto me,” said Sunset, bringing Starlight’s bound hands over her head to allow the reeking High Priestess lean against her for support.

“Shouldn’t we try to save the other prisoners?” asked Fluttershy, taking point with Twilight, all the while Sunset slowly, but surely helped the weakened Starlight to the stairs out of the basement.

“There’s no time,” urged Sunset. “You heard what Soarin said; we need to get her out pronto.”

“Sunset,” Starlight uttered, “your vernacular sounds most unusual…”

Sunset clutched at the priestess’s bony wrist firmly as the two of them started to slowly, but surely, make progress going forth, “It’s a long story, my friend. We’ll explain everything once things are settled. Right now, we need you to… Oh…”

Sunset looked up the flight of stairs they’d come down. It was going to be awkward trying to clamber up the stairs with Starlight clung to her and her weakened legs. Clenching her lips, she was just about ready to carry Starlight up the stairs if she had to, when the faint tingle of magic wafted against her, finding Starlight enveloped in a familiar telekinetic aura. It took but a moment for Sunset to follow the gently rising Starlight up the stairs and sling her arms back around her neck and shoulder before Twilight’s magic dissipated, Starlight, looking at an almost reverent gaze at her bespectacled savior.

“It’s okay, we’ll make sure to get you out unscathed,” assured Twilight, a hand clasped around her geode. “I say we just take the way through the cathedral nave. I saw from the map the main doors lead directly down to the square.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” asked Fluttershy, as the four of them ascended the next flight of stairs with Twilight once again floating Starlight safely up, letting her lean onto Sunset for a moment as to not strain her mind too much. “Couldn’t there still be guards or- Wait!” she let her rat friend Winifred climb onto her palm from her shoulder, the rodent looking up at her attentively. “Winifred and I can check. Wait here.”

The animal caretaker ascended the last flight of stairs, stopping just at the top. From what Sunset could make out she set Winifred down and was surely following the rodent go down the hallway. She quietly whispered something to him, after which she just waited. When Sunset began to fret it was taking longer than she’d liked, she saw Fluttershy urging to follow suit.

With one last flight of stairs covered, they began to make their way back down the cold, stony hallway and took the first turn to their left, down the passage leading to the cathedral nave. Despite the urgency of the situation and the coldness, Sunset could not help halting herself in amazement at the main hub of this place of worship:

Structured in a manner more befitting an auditorium than a standard church: The four of them stood in a wide opening, faced by arcing rows of pews in a low elevating slope before them, enough to fit hundreds of people for whatever gatherings they held in this world. Added with a grand mezzanine above them, suspended by four great gneiss beams at the front, up on which were more rows of pews in a similar upward curving slope to let everyone in attendance see in the direction the four girls occupied.

Unable to keep herself from taking a peek, Sunset beheld the altar. It was situated not at the very end of the great space before the pews, but rather half-way: Built up from the marble floor, an elegantly curved design, currently seemingly bereft of any items of religious or ritualistic significance: Cold and bare, before a much grander sight that seize her attention immediately.

Up above, built atop a sturdy, four-sided embossment protruding from the wall stood a statue: Easily five times the size of the average human: Her body composed of a polished, dark stone, standing on four, elegantly slender legs, a swan-like neck, and a grand pair of wings furled out that broke the very moonlight beaming in through the bare glass windows even further above. A flowing, undulating mane spread out behind her, a simple, silvery tiara holding the stone hair out of the eyes of the serene, equine face that could witness all seated before her in worship.

It’s Princess Luna. I wonder what she might think if she were to see this. Here, Celestia and Luna always held equal reverence. Very unlike back in Equestria, where it was the younger sister’s jealousy of not having her nights appreciated that led to the birth of Nightmare Moon. Here, it was the monsters this Luna sought to help that corrupted her unto bringing the eternal night upon Equis.

“What’s wrong?” asked Starlight. “You’ve been through here many times, it’s-” she choked on her words as the sound of footsteps, none of their own, echoed through the enormous open space of the nave.

“It would seem we’ve rats scurrying about our place of worship…” came a voice from up on the mezzanine, accompanying the clacking of shoes against stone tiles.

Up on the mezzanine, emerging from an entry they had not noticed, came a tall and sleek feminine silhouette, the voice emanating from her dreadfully familiar, if not almost sickeningly so. Stepping into the light of the moon shining upon the edge even from the distance, there was no mistake:

With a head of neatly kept hair with a most discernable curved plait framing the left side of her face, and despite the more rudimentary rounded glasses on thin metal frames; there was no mistaking her. Wearing an outfit much more regal than she’d deserved: A dark shirt reaching well up and around her neck underneath a fine overcoat or robe with pronounced shoulders, the light of the moon sparkling off the gilded embroidered patterns. Arms held formally behind her back, she looked down upon those beneath her over her nose in clear-defined arrogance.

She brought out one arm, grasping in her hands something thin and silvery, and with a flick of a wrist, something small and bright flung off it and flew up the grand ceiling of the cathedral. The speck of light settled in place and began to brighten, illuminating the nave further with a pale blue light. Sunset almost mistook it as one of the common illumination spells she herself had used back in her home dimension. Under the light, Cinch seemed puzzled, actually turning to look down proper, even adjusting her glasses. Sunset herself felt like smirking; she thought they were the Scions returned.

She could not help but boast, perhaps even talk her down to surrender, “This has gone on far enough, Abacus Cinch. Do not try to stop us and we will show mercy once the real High Priestess has addressed the people of Moonlink!”

She saw Cinch’s lips lining as she spoke. Just as Sunset was certain their presence had begun to unnerve the false priestess, Cinch soon smirked in what might have been amusement.

“Cute trick, but amateur,” spat Cinch.

Before Sunset could discern what was happening she felt her body sting and convulse when Cinch pointed whatever she was holding towards her, a bolt of lightning launching towards her. Sunset screamed from the flaring of her nerve endings as magical lightning raced through her, further panicked as everyone else screamed with her. The bolt had bounced from her and Starlight to Twilight and Fluttershy like chain lightning out of her RPGs.

The convulsion made Sunset collapse on her knees, the added weight of Starlight pulling her down effortlessly. Feeling Starlight’s shackles against her neck made it even worse, until the High Priestess herself pulled herself off Sunset, rolling onto her back beside Sunset. With her nerves settling from the abrupt jolt to the system, Sunset tried getting on her knees, enough to see Twilight and Fluttershy trying to get back up from how they’d slumped to the floor, Spike fretting over Twilight with a whine. Just then Sunset let out another scream, seeing the electricity arc from her to Twilight, to Spike, to Fluttershy, electrocuting all of them all over again.

“What’s this?” called Cinch from up on the mezzanine, seeming puzzled between looking at what was evidently a wand of some kind and her targets. “The illusions aren’t wearing off?”

“We aren’t-” Sunset was shocked a third time, unable to keep herself from screaming as she felt like the voltage was stronger this time. Slumping prostrated to the ground, she could feel her fingers and even her whole leg spasm.

“Stop it, Cinch!” yelled Starlight, the malnourished priestess managing to clamber up to her knees. “They are not illusory! Imprisoning a High Priestess was heretical enough, but to strike out at our Scions?!”

“Impossible,” Cinch spat, thankfully ceasing to strike everyone with whatever magic this world possessed, “the Scions all fell. None could survive the Umbra this long without precautions.”

Sunset grunted angrily, reminders of her own world’s Cinch and the pettiness that almost cost Twilight her humanity, and possibly the very borders between two worlds flooding through her memories. With a forceful yank, she managed to unsheathe her rapier and wobblingly stood back up on her feet. What she could do against a ranged foe, one possessing magic like that, with but a sword and none of the magic she’d have at her disposal as a unicorn, she was not so certain.

“You have to stop this!” called Twilight, the genius rising to her feet, albeit a twitch of her leg almost sent her toppling right back down, but she managed to pull though. “Resorting to tyranny at a time like this: It’s helping no-one, not even you! We need to work together to fight back against the dark. If you keep this up, there will be no-one left to save, not even you!”

“There is no fighting back against the Umbra, you idiot!” retorted Cinch brusquely, with what seemed to be hints of fear in her voice. “I don’t know who you are, but with both Celestials and the Scions gone, there is no salvation to be found. Just as it’s written!”

“So, you decided to give up and live it up on a power trip while it lasts?” asked Sunset.

Cinch looked at Sunset confoundedly, possibly due to her choice of wording. “Idiots. A Scion would especially know that without either the Celestials or the Sigils to keep the dark at bay, there is no stopping it! The Umbra grows in power every day and will eventually consume us all. Of course, I’m not so shortsighted: I am not living out… Whatever balderdash you spouted about power: I need time and privacy to adapt.”

“Adapt?” asked Twilight.

Cinch began to pace as she spoke, her eyes focusing on the silvery wand in her hand. “With these sycophants to a fallen deity still holding to some false hope that something will simply come and bring us salvation, how could anyone hope to prepare accordingly for the inevitable?”

“What is she talking about?” asked Sunset, hoping to stall just enough to find some means to get out of the line of fire this Cinch was capable of before formulating some form of escape.

“She imprisoned me underneath the façade that I had fallen,” Starlight spoke. “She’s been corrupting the teachings of the Divines, that by embracing both Sun and Moon we lost vigil. Since then she’d barred anyone but her guards from the cathedral while forcing me to teach her more about light sorceries. Apparently being an archivist was not enough…”

Cinch slammed a fist over the mezzanine barrier, “I did not come all the way from Geodis to have such a paltry position, whelp!” She huffed exasperatedly, managing to resume some air of dignity, continuing to peer over her nose. “If the order of the world is dying, then I refuse to go down with it. You will not interfere, High Priestess, and whomever you three really are.”

Cinch promptly brought two fingers to her lips and let out a loud, tinny whistle. The notion of being swarmed by guards was first to dawn on Sunset, but then remembered that most of them, barring two currently in the wine cellar, were likely still occupied outside. For a moment nothing happened, until the sounds of uneven footsteps(?) emanated from somewhere nearby. The lot of them barely had time to respond when something big came barreling into the nave opposite the entry they’d taken.

“Holy Toledo!” cried Spike as whatever Cinch had beckoned stepped into the nave with them.

It wasn’t particularly large, nowhere the size of Twiggy or whatever that abomination they’d encountered at the fishery was: It wasn’t even tall enough to stand over your average human, but it was the girth and length that was the concern, on top of the two growling mouths at one end. Indeed, for while Sunset had never seen one herself, she could never mistake a creature so iconic and exotic: An orthros.

Indeed, like being back in Equestria: The creature Cinch had summoned was a near ursine-sized canine amalgamation: Brown fur with darker splotches dotting its body, a body in the manner of some large dog breed, with the most distinguishing trait being the two heads side-by-side at the front end of its body, each with its own neck adorned with spiked leather collars: One belonging to what she could only describe as Alsatian, while the other seemed to be that of a St. Bernard.

Sunset managed to drag Starlight out of the way of the rushing magical beast, pulling her amidst the pews before rushing back out into the open, rapier brandished out in front, just like back in fencing club, trying her best to not show fear. One never showed fear before an ornery orthros, not unless somepony wanted to end up mauled.

“What is that?!” bellowed Fluttershy, peeking from behind the safety of the altar, with an equally scared Twilight following suit with Spike clutched in her arms.

“It looks like Orthros: A Skyrosian mythical creature said to be brother to Cerber-” Twilight was quickly pulled down to cover when the orthros rushed forth and came dangerously close to snapping her with the jaws of its Alsatian head.

“Get away from them!” roared Sunset, attempting to lunge at the beast with a honed thrust. She was quick to regret it when the beast turned its attention squarely on her and lunged. All she could do was leap out of the way onto the cold, hard stone floor, her lack of protection sending webs of pain throughout her forearms and sides on collision.

Before she could get away, the orthros’ St. Bernard head latched onto the sole of her boot with its powerful jaws. Uttering a panicked stream of “Nononono” whilst it dragged her closer, no doubt ready to pounce and maul her, Sunset tried desperately to claw away to no avail.

“Stop! Now!” called Fluttershy with a surge of magic emanating from her form, the pink flash of her geode’s power drawing all focus towards her, including that of the orthros. Sunset still had the undignified status of having her foot in the orthros’ mouth and dangling off it like a ragdoll.

The animal caretaker had clambered atop the altar, her eyes locked onto the giant canine beast with her infamous stare, amplified by her geode. “Put her down, gently,” she ordered, pointing in Sunset’s vicinity, which the beast acquiesced. Upon clambering back on her feet, she could only thank the stars they had Fluttershy with them, able to pacify even magical beasts.

The orthros’ two heads began to yowl meekly, staring at Fluttershy in what could only be described as something between fear or respect. Fluttershy held up and open palm, urging the beast to cease the unintelligible whining.

“One at a time, if you please,” said Fluttershy less sternly. The Alsatian head started, the orthros getting down on its haunches submissively as it communed with Fluttershy. The caretaker gasped a tone discernible only as shock, hopping off the altar and slowly approaching the placated canine, “She beats you if you do not comply…? Oh, has her men beat you? Even when you do your best?”

With Cinch’s ace in the hole currently docile, Sunset was just about ready to rush up and give her what for. To add to her relief, Starlight Glimmer had managed to crawl her way to the back of the pews, having almost made her way to the exit door in her weakened state. Seeing Cinch looking on in disbelief how Fluttershy had managed to placate her orthros, now was their perfect opportunity. She motioned Twilight to follow.

“Listen, you don’t need to stay here, with her,” said Fluttershy, close enough to the orthros to touch, the once fearsome beast having quickly lost all signs of threat under Fluttershy’s words, coupled with her powers. “Out there, I’m sure there’s someone who could really use a hardworking, good orthros like you, and who would treat you with much love and kindness. Why don’t you follow us outside while we get this whole mess sorted out and-”

An enraged growl emanated up from the mezzanine. “You worthless beast!” This caused the orthros to reel away and looked to try and hide behind Fluttershy to no avail. “If you won’t obey, then you’re just another experiment!”

Cinch unveiled something else on her person: It didn’t seem anything special at first glance: It was something small and round fitting in the palm of her hand, difficult to make out even under the slowly fading magical lighting. What concerned Sunset more was the intensifying glow around the silver wand in her other hand; she was casting a spell of some form! Twilight managed to snag Fluttershy and pull her out of harm’s way with her telekinesis, just in the nick of time when Cinch fired an arcing bolt from her wand. Specifically, bolts of pitch blackness that felt like it drained the very colors from the air around them, almost like the opposite of light illuminating the dark. The bolts struck the orthros, causing Fluttershy to collapse on her knees, screaming and holding her head.

“Cinch, what are you doing?!” cried Starlight from her position as she too bore witness.

“If anything is to survive the end, it is only thanks to the Umbra,” said Cinch, watching with cold dismissal as the orthros, writhing and crying in what could only be agony, was subsumed by blackness carried by Cinch’s magic. “I have toiled these past five dayless years trying to discover a way in which I could survive it all. While I have not yet unraveled this conundrum, I’m certain you and my pet will make perfect test subjects…”

They could only watch as the very semblance of color dissolved from the orthros’ form, leaving it but a slumped mass of blackness on the floor, continuing to seemingly drain away at the very light in the vicinity. The first signs of any life were heavy paws clacking against the cold stone floor, a black mass standing back up on all fours, when the two heads, almost indistinguishable against its very body, snapped their lifeless, white-eyed gazes straight at Sunset, Twilight, Spike and Fluttershy. With a lifeless, rasping snarl, black smog erupted from its maws and the former orthros lunged for what it was stripped of, now hungering.