Chapter I: Ursas in Everfree
The Dangers in Mortal Dreams
Chapter I: Ursas in Everfree
Twilight felt a bit like how she imagined Pinkie felt, she was nearly bouncing with glee as she trotted down the castle’s corridors, passing the stained-glass windows whose light reflected off the polished obsidian floors and ceilings, casting everything in blues and purples. This was Princess Luna’s wing of the castle, closed off following her banishment, and unfortunately left in disrepair, dust clung to every surface, and the silver and gold inlays that once formed intricate patterns had long since been tarnished. Twilight felt her mind wander as she wondered what this place must have once looked like during its use. “So! Where do we start!” Twilight yelled, perhaps a bit too loud, as the sound echoed through the cavernous corridor.
“I admire your enthusiasm, but honestly I couldn't help you there…” Luna muttered, “My sister and I were going to get this part of the castle repaired following my return, but between Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, and your ascension to Alicornhood, we were unable to find the time.”
“Well, at least you moved all your old furniture to your new bedroom, do you think we should start there, get your old bedroom back?” Asked Spike.
“No, I’m comfortable with my new room for the time being, though perhaps you do have a point Spike.” Twilight gave a short chuckle. “W-What’s so funny?”
“Well, you are right, Spike does have a point,” Twilight replied as she trotted ahead. Luna and Spike, both perplexed, followed without saying anything.
Luna returned to Twilight’s side, “And what of your other friend, Fluttershy… I was told she’s helping too.”
“Apparently there’s been a disturbance in the Everfree Forest, she and Zecora have been asked to figure out what’s going on out there… She’ll be here when everything’s done.”
“What do you think it could be? There are all sorts of creatures that inhabit the Everfree.”
“My best guess… Either a Dragon or an Ursa, whatever it was it was big, and last I heard the Hydra-”
“Ursa?”
Twilight paused, “Yes, there are only four inhabiting that forest, at least that’s what we think, they're elusive creatures for being so large.”
“Forgive me for my ignorance, but what is an Ursa, I’ve never heard of them.”
“Y-You’ve never heard of an Ursa before… Surely some have existed back before your banishment.”
“No… I don’t think so, unless it’s a new word for a previous creature… What do they look like?”
Twilight turned her head and gestured with her hooves, “Large, even the small ones are about three-times the size of you,” Luna nodded, “They look much like bears, save for having translucent flesh-”
Luna raised an eyebrow at this before another voice cut into their conversation, “Twilight! Twilight! Look what I found!” Twilight turned to see Spike gesturing to a now open door.
A lust filled Twilight’s eyes as she beheld the room, books lined the walls, hundreds of them, many unfamiliar, ancient, and in perfect condition. Luna snickered, “I see you’ve found my old library.”
“I-I’ve never seen some of these books!” Twilight shouted, darting from book to book, most featuring blank titles, simply a number and a symbol for identification. A few ancient texts she recognized, several covered spells, history, and various obscure and occult topics, there was an entire shelf dedicated to ancient pony religions.
“Many of these books are records, I used to write down all the details of the dreams I visited and nightmares vanquished, what they were about and who the dreams belonged to… That kind of thing. You can imagine how useful such records could be, particularly if a pony is having a recurring dream, magical vision, or other such problem…”
“They're all in perfect condition, is there some kind of spell on them.”
“Why of course, I wouldn’t want my own records to get lost or damaged, at least not on purpose, and many of my old spellbooks are also warded.”
“Spellbooks! You have spellbooks!”
Luna flinched, “Y-Yes…”
“Show me!”
“N-No, I will not, not yet… Many of the spells written down here are related to dream-magic, and as far as I’m aware, I’m the only pony who can enter other ponies dreams… Well, other than my sister… But even though she can enter the dream realm, she has little power once inside.”
“Well… Can you at least show me, I might be able to learn something from them, even if I can’t actually cast the spells myself.”
“Perhaps later, dream-magic can be very dangerous if improperly handled, and I’d like to help you with whatever studying you might do on the topic.”
Twilight gave a nod in agreement. “Hey, I’m going down to check the other rooms,” said Spike.
“I will accompany him, there is still much to do before we start getting this old place back together.”
“I’ll stay here for a bit, I want to browse some of these books… I promise to stay away from anything that looks too dangerous,” Said Twilight. Luna gave a nod before turning and following Spike out.
Twilight continued to flip through a few of the unmarked books, but soon found Luna’s journals rather repetitive. After finding a few familiar texts, such as a copy of Starswirl the Bearded’s works regarding astral projection, Twilight happened upon a small leather-bound book atop a pedestal. Twilight’s gaze washed over the cover, blue with a silver plate shaped to look like a particularly thin crescent moon from which came a smoky alicorn, their chest marked with an eight-pointed star, was bolted to the cover. The edges of the book was also inlaid with silver, shaped like twisting flames or smoke.
“The Dream-Cults of North Equestria” Read Twilight. She proceeded to pull the book open to find the first page, inside was the drawing of a mare, silver-maned and blue-coated, with white points all over her coat reminiscent of stars, a larger eight-pointed star shape adorned her forehead, around where a unicorn’s horn should be… Twilight couldn’t help but imagine the patterns adorning ursas. Protruding from the pony’s side were wings, they had the same structure as bat-wings, but instead of being bear skin, they were covered in feathers like a pegasus.
Twilight’s horn started to glow as she reached to turn the page, but the sound of rapidly clopping hooves from outside caught her attention. “I’ll just ask Luna about it later,” She muttered to herself as she put the book into her saddlebag. Peering outside Twilight saw a yellow blur go galloping down the corridor, “F-Fluttershy, what’s wrong!”
Fluttershy skid to a halt and turned back to Twilight, “You were right! It’s an ursa!” Luna and Spike came trotting out of another room.
“What’s going on?” Asked Spike.
“Ursa Major! It’s gone berserk! It crushed Zecora’s hut, and I’m afraid it might start wandering toward Ponyville!”
“Did you try talking to it, that’s what you did to that dragon,” Spike replied.
“What do you think I did! But it wouldn’t listen! I don’t think It even understood me, talking to it… It was so… Alien,” Fluttershy yelped, tears building up in her eyes.
“I will go, see exactly what this Ursa is and what I can do about it,” Said Luna, her normally certain voice wavering with some strange sound Twilight couldn’t quite place. Twilight nodded anyway and galloped off, Fluttershy and Luna following quickly behind.
“W-Wait!” Called out Spike as he rushed to follow the group. In the distance there was the sound of displaced air as the trio vanished in bursts of light. “Or I could just stay here…”
The forest was a wreck, trees had been crushed, forming strange shapes from the broken wood, and rivers had been trampled, the paw-marks of some massive creature causing the water to pool and form small lakes. Accompanying the destruction came the growls of a bear… The trio landed at the edge of this destruction, and though its source wasn’t visible, it was easy to tell in which direction the ursa major was. Fluttershy was both angry and frightened, yet Twilight couldn’t help but be impressed at the mare’s courage at this moment. Twilight observed the ravaged forest, there was something strange about the wreckage, wisps of smoke, stained blue, purple, and black, aroze from the ground like steam from a volcanic fissure, and the air around the pawprints shone with little twinkling lights.
Luna was last to teleport in. She took in the forest before her, a mixture of horror and rage upon her features, she muttered something under her breath, “Damn it! Celestia, you stupid-”
There was another roar, and lumbering from beyond the treeline came the ursa, swirling purple and blue with rapidly twinkling stars throughout its translucent body… Twilight and Fluttershy paused as their eyes locked on the creature, this was not a normal ursa, it was melting. It’s flesh was warped and shifting like running sludge, and it secreted a thick cloud of the same multicolored smoke that could be seen rising from the ground… It was somehow less translucent and much darker in color, shining around the edges as if warping the light around it.
Luna didn’t waste a second before leaping into action, Fluttershy could only watch the creature in horror, and Twilight was stunned by such an alien sight. Luna aimed her horn and silvery-blue light shone around its tip, shooting out to strike the creature setting alight a colorless and heatless fire around the ursa’s raised foreleg. Fluttershy cringed as the creature let out a roar of pain as the spell started to eat through the ursa’s limb. Soon the fire vanished, but not before its entire left foreleg had vanished into multicolored smoke, leaving a warped wound at the base of the limb.
Luna proceeded to dodge a swipe from the creature's other forelimb before letting loose another burst of magic, this time however the creature dodged the shot and Twilight watched as the fire ignited a fallen tree, somehow not setting other things alight, simply consuming the tree, leaving not even ash behind. “Run ponies! Run! Another ursa has come!” A voice called out from the treeline.
Luna fired off another blast of magic, this one burning away a good portion of the creature’s side. “Luna! Y-You’re killing it!” Shouted Fluttershy.
“No, I am not! You cannot kill what never existed in the first place!”
Zecora burst through the trees, skidding to a stop in front of Twilight, “Zecora! What’s going-” There was another roar as an ursa minor came bursting through the woods. Twilight instinctively lit her horn, casting a shield before the two equines. There was a loud scraping-buzzing sound as the ursa jabbed its claws into the shield, to Twilight’s surprise the creature wasn’t stopped by the shield, but instead it was slowed to a crawl… The claw punctured a good dozen centimeters, but continued as it dug deeper and deeper with each passing second. “T-That isn’t possible, this field blocks all physical matter!” Twilight stammered.
The shield held for another few seconds before the ursa major slammed its paws into the ground, the earth bucked beneath them all, and with her concentration broken, the shield fell. A loud wet smack and a pained gasping shout followed as the ursa minor’s paw slammed into the exhausted Zecora, who limply flew through the air before slamming into a tree with a loud thump and the crack of bone. “Zecora!” Shouted Fluttershy as she dove for the fallen zebra.
Luna twisted, flying right up to the ursa major, barely avoiding being swatted out of the air. She rammed her horn right into the creature’s belly and with a burst of whitish light, the beast was burst into magical flames and fell over in pain. Twilight reached out for her magic as the ursa minor lunged at her, roaring, without any other choice Twilight’s telekinesis grabbed out randomly, looking for something to hit the ursa with. There was the sound of flesh being cut as the ursa flew over twilight’s head, she turned to see what she had done, only to be surprised as she held nothing in her grasp… Her telekinetic field was a thin diamond-shaped plane now dripping with twinkling goo.
The ursa minor had fallen over, missing a paw… The paw that had once been attached to the creature was now starting to dissolve rapidly into magical smoke, then to Twilight’s horror, the stump where the paw had been started to grow, shift, and extend outward. That same dark and starry goo formed itself outward, extending into four digits, three in the front of the appendage and one in the back, then the creature lifted itself back to its legs as to Twilight’s surprise, it didn’t generate a normal paw, but rather the claw of a griffon.
Luna lifted herself from the burning pile of muck that was now the ursa major, then rushed off in the direction of the remaining foe. Twilight dispelled the telekinetic blade, realizing the futility of physical weapons, instead she pulled her power into a bubble and wrapped the spell’s core around the charging ursa, with another roar of scraping and buzzing, the creature was trapped inside a shield-sphere, though it started to pull itself through. “Good work, hold it there!” Shouted Luna.
Luna trotted up to the trapped ursa and started to mumble something as power reached down her horn, she built up energy for a few seconds before letting it go, there was a loud pop, and the ursa dissolved in an instant as if atomized. Leaving behind nothing. Where the ursa major fell there was nothing left, and the smoke around the battlefield started to grow thinner.
Luna turned in an instant and faced the three equines, “Fluttershy! Take Zecora back to Ponyville for medical support,” Zecora nodded in agreement before coughing, a little splattering of blood staining Fluttershy’s coat. Fluttershy was quick to pick the zebra up and start flying away as quick as her wings could carry. “Twilight, where did these creatures originate.”
“I-I don’t know exactly, I know they lived in a cave, not far from here.”
“Then we shall go, but first I must decontaminate this area…” Luna’s power grew as silvery light shot from her horn like dragonfire from a dragon’s throat, she passed the rays over the ground, ursa-sludge and magical smoke dissipating as they burned away, though most matter was left untouched.
“W-What exactly did you do? To the ursas I mean?”
“Banished them, those creatures didn’t originate from this world… I have encountered many in the dream-realm.”
“I don’t see that many ursas in my dreams, and none of them are… Like that.”
“Like what?”
“Smokey and goopy and black, most are exactly like bears, save for being mostly transparent.”
“Y-You mean… They aren’t usually this way?”
“What! No! This is the first time they’ve done that, and they were never this aggressive!”
“All the more reason to find their origin…”
Luna finished casting her spells, soon there was no trace of the magical smoke, nor anything remaining of the two ursas. Twilight leapt into the air, followed by Luna, the two then flew over toward the ursa’s cave, following the trail of contaminated land and destruction. The two arrived at the cave, the normal stone that formed the cave walls looked warped and blackened, as if magically turned into liquid onyx, shiny and slick and speckled with little luminescent purple dots, as if the cave was obsidian embedded with glowing amethysts. There were pools of a pitch black liquid that shined with points of magical light, like stars inside the darkest void.
Twilight came down to land at the cave entrance, the dirt was turned a dark and pale magenta, and the plants were blue instead of green. “Wait! Twilight! Don’t lan-!”
Twilight screamed in pain as her hoof touched the mutated grass, a little bit of bone turned a deep black and started to run like water, spreading its blackness across her hoof rapidly. Twilight shouted again as white light washed over her leg, the black bone started to break apart and dissipate, soon vanishing and leaving a little chunk missing from the tip. “Ow… Ow…” Twilight moaned, trying her best to keep herself flying.
Luna rushed forward and took a hold of twilight with her hooves, lifting her up and embracing her in a hug. “Be thankful that I managed to stop it before it reached your flesh, you don’t want to know what happens to ponies that are consumed.”
“B-But how do we get in…”
“I know spells that can prevent you from being harmed, but those will take time, for now I can clear a path.” Luna descended to the ground, burning away the corrupted land with that spell of hers, she cleared a path and gently let Twilight go, “I won’t let you get hurt again.”
“Thank you Princess…”
The pair trotted into the cave, the black stone dissolved away into crushed slate, meanwhile the black goop turned into water vapour, slowly the cave was turned back to normal, except for the thick rock dust clinging to the cave floor as stone was atomized… “That spell of yours seems rather… Inefficient… If I had a sample of whatever this ‘corruption’ is, perhaps I could find a way of clearing away the damage without causing further destruction.”
“You do have a point… I could have saved your hoof…”
“It’s just bone, with a little magic it’ll grow back, I’m more concerned about any corruption deeper in the cave walls, or underground, and even if there isn’t, much of the forest will be destroyed in the attempt to clean this… Disease.”
“Always thinking ahead Twilight… Still… It is my fault that you were hurt, I should have informed you of the danger before we arrived.”
The two continued through the cave before arriving at a wall somehow untouched by the magic that consumed the rest of this place, made from bluish-grayish stone it possessed no obvious entrances. “This is what we’re looking for,” Luna said. Her magic shifted from a silvery white back to its more natural blue color, as she passed telekinesis fields across the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Searching for a button, lever, someway of opening a secret door.”
“Oh, let me help,” Twilight’s horn lit up as she grabbed the air next to her, folding the telekinetic field down to a paper-thin diamond-shape, forming a blade. She approached the wall and jabbed the telekinetic knife into the stonework, passing it up and down and back, then with a hardy telekinetic push, a rectangular segment of brick wall fell away.
“Interesting, where did you learn that?”
“Oh, just now, back when we were fighting the ursas… I was being charged down and couldn’t shield myself, nor did I have any way of dodging quickly enough, so I grabbed whatever I could use as a weapon... Apparently air makes a good weapon."
“Show me later.”
The pair entered the structure, inside was a long rectangular room made from the same bluish stone, pillars held up a vaulted ceiling, and ancient tapestries, gold, purple, and black, depicted the moon, stars, and fire. It was dark, but lit by hornlight the pair explored the ancient structure.
“I’ve never seen any ancient structures like this, I wonder who built them… It’s clearly inspired by ancient pegasi architecture, but these symbols are similar to those used by unicorn priests before Princess Platinum the First disbanded the pre-celestial religions.”
Around this central room there were numerous archways leading deeper into the structure, however a small glimmer of light at the end of the hallway stole their attention. Carved into the far-side of the room was a large relief depicting a smoky, gooey, alicorn within a crescent moon, an eight-pointed star situated above the figure. In the middle of the room, just below the relief, was a well or pool of some kind, a stone basin in which was the same twinkling black liquid from the cave… However there was something different about this sludge. It moved and twisted on its own accord, bubbling and pooling, moving erratically as if something inside was thrashing about, at one point a tendril of liquid started to form and reach outward, only to collapse back into the pool.
“I believe this is the source of the damage, if we destroy it then the rest of the corruption should die away on its own.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve done this before Twilight… Now watch the pool and make sure nothing happens while I prepare the spell.”
Twilight nodded. She watched the pool writhe, and stared at the intricate patterns carved into the stonework… A sense of familiarity washed over her as she observed the alicorn in the bas-relief, and Twilight started to pull Luna’s book from her saddlebag. While there were dozens of tiny differences, the placement of the wings, the positioning of the head, and the placement of the star, ultimately the book’s cover and bas-relief were one and the same. “Hey Lun-”
Out of the corner of Twilight’s eye she caught movement, and turned to stare down one of the corridors. It was a deep blackness, hornlight not reaching far enough to illuminate the distant wall, yet despite this Twilight saw tiny points of light in the distance, like minuscule stars in the distant sky, or the points in Luna’s mane as seen from afar.
Twilight’s attention was stolen back when she heard Luna’s voice, “Twilight, we are done here,” Luna’s horn flashed white as an expanding bubble of energy erupted from the pool, and with that the liquid vanished. A sudden weight was lifted from Twilight’s mind, an alien pressure she hadn’t noticed until it was gone, and with the loss of that pressure mental clarity returned, as if everything she had just experienced was a dream. She looked around, noticing the air was much clearer than before, she had failed to notice the haze in this place until it was seemingly banished along with the psychic weight.
“W-What-”
“We should return to Ponyville, Zecora was injured and I’d hate to leave her alone.”
Twilight simply gave a nod in agreement, and the two trotted out of the temple. Back on the surface, the plant life around the cave looked… Sick. Twilight noticed the leaves, once green, then blue, were now starting to change a sickly shade of brown. The trees started to droop and rot, Twilight stared in awe and confusion as the trunk of a tree started to dissolve, rending a chunk from its side. “Without the magic from that temple… The corrupted flora is starting to... Break down... As if the magic was the only thing keeping it alive.”
“Good observation Twilight, this is why it’s important to destroy the source before more is consumed.”
“But, what was all that, the temple and this magical corruption…”
“I will explain tomorrow, it’s… A long and complicated story, and I have more important things to do.”
Twilight gave a scoff, “Like what! This… Whatever this is, is a danger to Equestria, and damn it I’m a princess too!”
“Yes, you are, and trust me when I say I will not allow you to go without an explanation, but as you said, this is dangerous, and thus I must take precautions… We will talk tomorrow.”
The visit to Zecora was a stressful one, though thankfully she had only suffered a few broken ribs and a punctured lung, a few medical unicorns were looking after her now… Twilight limped back to the library, the chunk missing from her hoof still somehow stung, though it had steadily faded over the past hour. Twilight was about to push open the door to her home when it swung open on its own, “S-Spike?”
“Twilight… You’re back,” Spike muttered… Twilight rolled her eyes, he was still bitter from being abandoned back at the castle. Twilight moved her hooves to trot into the library, but the moment she placed her hoof down a jolt of pain lanced up her leg.
“Ow! Ow, ow, ow.”
“T-Twilight,” Spike’s tone changed in an instant, “A-Are you ok, what happened.”
“N-Nothing… I just had a chunk of my hoof destroyed, must have hit a nerve.”
“Well, just get some sleep, I’ll go talk to Zecor-”
“No, Zecora was injured, she won’t be able to help me for some time... “
“Z-Zecora was.... What happened to her?”
“She got swiped by an ursa, she’ll be alright.”
“That- That’s a relief, but still, you need some sleep.”
Twilight nodded, and seemingly in response she gave a yawn. Spike helped her up and escorted her through the library toward bed, keeping her stable as she limped up the stairs with only three hooves, finally Twilight found her bed and collapsed in an instant. For all the exhaustion of the day, she found herself unable to go to sleep for the first few minutes, instead her mind wandered toward something Luna had said before they went their separate ways. “Dreams are dangerous,” She muttered to herself, before she finally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note
I was waiting to get this fic edited or at least proofread before uploading it... But after a few days of waiting I decided that I'd rather read through it myself before getting it out, since I have a patience of a hummingbird.
Hope you enjoy... This will (hopefully) be the fic that I actually manage to finish, after this is done I'll either continue World of the Triad, or rewrite Kriegbats, or perhaps start another short story.
