It was not like Celestia to be so… Informal… Twilight was worried, Celestia simply asked her to arrive at Canterlot Castle as soon as possible, something had the princess worried, and that sent a chill up Twilight’s spine. “Spike!” She shouted out, trotting into the sun-lit hall of her Canterlot home.
“Yeah?” The baby dragon said, pulling himself up from the pile of cushions he was lying on, right underneath the enchanted hourglass, “What did the letter say?”
“N-Nothing…” Twilight stuttered, “Celestia only demanded that we come to the Castle this instant!”
“Well, that can’t be good…” Spike said, half-curled, slowly pulling himself up to his clawed feet.
“Exactly! I… I don’t know what to do, should I go, of course I should go… But, what has her so worried, should I prepare, but I don’t know what to prepare for… Ohhh, is it some kind of emergency, why would she need my help, I-”
“Twi! Focus…” Spike shouted, breaking Twilight from her spell of paranoid mania.
“Y-You’re right, I-” At that instant, there was a flash of golden light, and Spike gasped as Twilight vanished before his eyes.
“Ah…” Spike paused… Then, in a blink of an eye, he was suddenly standing before Celestia, her golden throne sparkling in the dawn light filtering through the stained glass, “How did~”
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight gave an ear-piercing shout, “Forgive me for not coming right away, what’s wrong! What’s going on!” Twilight continued to shout, hyperventilating as she bowed before the sole monarch.
“Shhhh~ Calm yourself,” Celestia said, but Twilight wasn’t listening, her mind gripped with panic… Celestia rolled her eyes, then, channelling a small pulse of magic through her horn, her student instantly calmed, going completely still for a second or two, before collapsing to the floor and springing back up the next second.
“What was-”
“Just a small stunning spell, don’t worry, I just needed you calm and focused…”
“T-Thank you, Princess… But why am I here…”
“That was what I’ve been trying to get to, sorry for teleporting you in out of nowhere, but there’s a problem... “ She paused, sighing to herself, and whispering too quite for her student to hear, “This was not the test I had planned… Forgive me…” Then, regaining some composure, she stood up, walking down from her throne, “Come, Twilight, follow me…”
As they began trotting down the marble and gold halls, Twilight noticed that not a single royal guard was present, and the unicorn gave a look of concern and confusion to her teacher. After a few minutes of thought, Celestia began talking, “Twilight… Do you know the story of the ‘Mare in the Moon’”
“Yes, something about…” Twilight paused for a second, “Princess Luna... Correct?”
Celestia sighed again, “Yes, my sister… She betrayed Equestria, and I was forced to banish her body, and imprison her soul in the moon… But there is more to it than that… What do you know about dream magic… Have you ever read M. Neigh’s book about the occult?”
“Well, regarding the first question, not much I’m afraid, isn’t most dream magic in the restricted section of Canterlot’s library?”
“Yes… But just in general, I’m not talking about spells, just theory and methodology…”
“Oh… Well, I know it has to do with interfacing oneself with the dream realm, and that the dream realm is a magical pseudo-space underlying this reality, similar to the theoretical ‘Limbo’... I think it’s also mentioned that part of the magical current within the dream realm can take on consciousness?”
“Yes, the Tantibus and Ursa, but they aren’t important for what I’m talking about… My sister, Luna, was quite versed in dream magic, it was her talent.”
“Yes, so?”
“She knew that the dream realm was a portal into the minds and souls of every living creature on this planet, a realm where time and space meant little… There were plenty of ponies who believed that the dream realm was in some way divine, plenty of ponies who worshipped dreams, and the entities within, do you know of them?”
“Yes princess, vaguely, I don’t know all that much I’m afraid…”
Celestia was silent for a minute or so, then spoke up, quietly, “When I banished my sister… There was something… Different about her… Something darker, a blackness, a living blackness within her, and I knew that whatever that thing was, it wasn’t my sister. In the thousand years since I’ve been doing research, and I think, my sister encountered something in the dream realm… And I have proof…”
Twilight shivered at Celestia’s suddenly dark tone, and stood up a bit straighter, “W-What is it…”
Celestia was silent, simply guiding her student through the castle, through places Twilight had never seen before… Eventually, they entered a small room filled with tomes, scrolls, and a single glass sphere atop a dais. There was a magical pressure in the room, strongest at the center, “Twilight…” Celestia spoke up, “A century ago, I found… For lack of a better word… A cult, within the town of Hollow Shades… They were worshipping something, a darkness, something that I could feel growing stronger within the tides of the dream realm. I recognized their dark magic, it was the same power I felt while combatting my sister… I, killed, the cult…”
Twilight gasped, she knew Celestia was a great warrior in the past, but to actually hear that her mentor had… Killed another living pony… Shocked her, but Celestia continued, “I had to, I had to seal away what evil they were summoning into this realm, I made a sphere of enchanted crystal and channelled the darkness into it, and placed it under many arcane shields and wards to keep that… Thing trapped within.”
Twilight’s eyes moved to the crystal sphere in the middle of the room, something was swirling inside, Twilight could almost see a forest, large trees, and rabbits walking through the woods, and… Something, a presence within that woods, no, above the woods, like something looking down on the world from above. “You can feel it, can’t you,” Celestia said, her tone icy cold, “I made a world inside that sphere, a fake reality to fool the creature, but I feel my spells weakening… That thing is growing closer to escaping its glass prison every day.”
“W-What do you want me to do?” Twilight asked.
“I need someone to go inside that world, find the creature, and slay it…”
Twilight was silent… “Why me?” She finally asked, “Can’t you send one of your battlemages, or some other powerful wizard?”
“Because I trust you, Twilight…” Celestia said. “You’re the only one who I know would be able to get this done, if you fail…”
“I know…” Twilight replied. She sighed, “Alright, send me in…”
“Now?”
“Yes, if this thing is as dangerous as you say, I need to be as quick as possible…”
Celestia nodded, “Alright… Stand still.”
Twilight nodded as she stood up straight, staring deeply into the sphere, it was some kind of magical terrarium, a world within a jewel, the magical energies flowing through it was impressive… Then, her body slowly went numb, she could feel the power of her master flowing over her, intertwined with the sphere… She closed her eyes, and a minute later, she opened them to the sound of birdsongs. All around her were the woods she had seen, large open grasslands dotted with groves of trees, tall trees, with round tops and little bushy puffs of leaves growing off their branches.
Author's Note
A Terraria Crossover... I'll be uploading this for the time being... Not really into RWBY right now, so don't expect any new chapters for Fillies and Monsters for a while.
PS. You may have noticed, but this takes place before the first episode of MLP
Twilight’s head hurt… Bleary, she got back on her hooves, the sun was steadily moving across the sky it was surprisingly yellow compared to Celestia’s sun… Songbirds were chirping in the air, it was early in the morning, and it took Twilight a few moments to remember why she was here, and what she was supposed to do. Then it clicked, and she leapt to focus, giving a bit of a yelp, and looking around frantically, “W-Where are you! You’re somewhere here, I know it!” She shouted… But there was no reply, just the sound of birds and rodents and other forest-dwelling creatures.
She was in a clearing, there was a sparse forest all around, tall puffy trees extending high into the sky, like green candy on a stick, Twilight gave a sigh, of both relief and disappointment, “I guess Celestia’s ‘evil spirit’ is somewhere else…” The mare took another look around, “But, where should I look first… Spike, any suggestions…” She muttered, then paused, “Spike?” Then another moment later, a clopping sound rang through the woods as Twilight face-hoofed.
After a few seconds of waiting, Twilight finally decided that waiting around was getting her nowhere, so she grabbed a stick in a telekinetic glow, and started off east, it was the only way she could think to go, and an easy way to remember if she ever needed to get back here. Her trip was short-lived, as only a few minutes out of the clearing, a small plop-plop-plop noise came from the bushes, and the mare paused.
“Hello?” She asked. More squishing and plopping sounds, like wet gelatin, came from the woods… “Hmm, noth-” She began, when a large ovoid of thick green gel came leaping from the thicket, soaring a full four meters into the air, and squishing to the ground right next to the mare, who gave a startled yelp. Twilight frantically backed away, tripping over a tree’s root, and falling flat on her back, the slime-creature leapt upward and came falling down, right on Twi’s underbelly. It was heavy, and she gave another yelp, this one from the sudden shock of having something land on her, knocking the wind out of her chest… And it stung, each second the creature clung to her the stinging worsened, and Twilight kicked forward with her front hooves, dislodging the sludge from her underside… A quick glance revealed what Twilight feared, the creature was corrosive, her underside now had a perfect circle of slightly-patchy fur with ruddy burned skin beneath.
The slime leapt at her again, but Twilight spun over, giving a hiss of pain as twigs brushed against her belly, adding abrasions to her chemical-burns, and with fury behind her magic, Twilight picked up the slime and flung it with all her might backward into a tree, where part of it went splat… Little chunks of green goo splattered the tree, but what remained of the slime thing wiggled and started to make little hops back in her direction…
That was the least of Twilight’s concerns as another living goo blob came plopping toward the sounds, this one blue, and a little bigger. Twilight let loose with magic, a field of telekinesis made thin and sharp, but not much power behind it, the slime seemed to absorb the cutting strike, even as the spell made marks on the ground and sliced the grass.
Twilight backed away, avoiding another pounce from the green slime, but the blue one smacked into her side, but she kicked it away before it started burning her.
Twilight gave the green slime a hard buck, and it splattered against the ground, it didn’t seem to move anymore, so she turned toward the blue slime, who was jiggling and preparing to lunge again it seemed… Then a whistle flew through the air, and with a streak, and a loud splat, an arrow, long and sharp, impaled the slime, who seemed to deflate and fall away into smaller blobs, all ceased to move. “What…” Twilight began.
“Y-You can talk?” Came a voice, male but light, and Twilight turned, expecting a younger stallion… What she saw instead was a tall, bipedal creature, lightish tan skin, and a messy mop of brownish-blonde hair atop his head… That was the only hair on his body it seemed, the rest was covered in some kind of dress, a brown tunic of some kind with blueish pants and black boots. A bow in one hand.
“Y-Yeah,” Twilight muttered, being careful what she said to this creature, “What are you… Exactly?”
“I could ask you the same thing… Hmm...” He muttered, pulling out a book from a satchel, after a few seconds of flipping through it, he said, “I’d guess you’re a unicorn, but there hasn’t been a single unicorn seen in the entire world, not since… Well… Not since He was banished… But that was thousands of years ago.”
“Well, I am a unicorn, my name is Twilight,” Twilight said, a little miffed, “But you didn’t answer my question, what are you…”
“M-Me… Well, I don’t really have a name, I’m just a wanderer… As for what, I’m a human.”
“Hmm, well, you need a name, I can’t just call you ‘wanderer’... What about… Ooh, Brownbook!”
“Brownbook?” He asked, perplexed.
“Yeah, you have a brown mane, and you love flipping through that book, Brownbook, nice scholarly name…”
“I guess… So, Twilight, what are you doing out here?”
“I-” She paused, “I don’t really know, I suppose I should be looking for a place to rest, a place with more… Humans… Is there a town near by?”
“Sadly not I’m afraid, most towns don’t last long, last village I visited was torn down last blood moon, most don’t survive those nights… Less so outside of shelter… There aren’t many humans left I’m afraid…”
Concern grew in Twilight’s chest, and she stood up a bit straighter, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing really, just the same as ever… I suppose you can come with me if you want, there’s a cave, not too far, it’s where I hide during the night, you don’t want to be outside when the sun sets…”
Twilight nodded, “I suppose that’s fair, which way is it?” She asked, meanwhile, this human, Brownbook, was ducking down, filling small glass jars with the remains of the slime-creatures.
“Just south of here, follow me…”
“Alright, you’re my guide… I guess…”
“Just, when we get back, I have some questions for you…”
“And I you…”
Author's Note
Sorry if my writing isn't the best.
