The Manehattan Anomaly

I pressed a hoof to my forehead as the argument continued.

Luck Steady waved off the suggestion. "We don't know what force the guard would face-"

"We don't know anything!" Cherry rebutted, pounding a hoof on the table. "That's why we should send them in. Wring some intel out the old-fashioned way."

"And the citizens, the infiltration teams, the rescuers, will they be 'wrung out'?"

Cherry smirked. "A little law and order never hurt anypony."

Luck Steady's mouth hung agape, and he looked around the room. "Are you all hearing this? This is Manehattan, marshal! Our city, with our ponies-

"What do you think we're here for!?" Cherry shouted over him. "Manehattan is no more ours than... Seaddle. Past time we face the fact that we're dealing with a second invasion-"

"Enough," I said. "It's not happening."

Throughout the dim, smoky room, all eyes turned to me - including my sister's. "Well there you have it," she said, cutting through the stiff silence. "To Tartarus with the Royal Guard."

"You are not helping," I groaned, again holding my forehead.

She just shrugged.

War meetings. I always hated war meetings. Even in those grand golden eras when the threat of war was a distant memory, the meetings persisted, and I hated them still.

Nevertheless, there might still have been a chance to bring things back on track. "Too many unknowns, marshal. We cannot justify such a mission, and we cannot afford such losses if the anomaly swallows them, too."

It took some effort for Cherry to steady her tongue, but she did, and simply nodded. "Of course, your majesty."

Other than that," I continued, "is there anything new? Quarantine, mitigation, ah..."

"Scrying reports," Luna added.

"Yes. Scrying reports. Let's hear it."

"In the last twenty-four hours, no change..."

I sighed.

Luna shrugged again. "That is not nothing. Little movement within the city means the situation has not worsened."

"Without the city, then. Quarantines?"

That gave Cherry another opportunity to be useful, and she straightened as she reported. "Exclusion zones are clear and secure, your majesty. Nothing has crossed the bridge, and the seaways are monitored twenty-four-seven." She hesitated as she flipped to the back of one of her documents. "We could, uh, use more all-terrain carriages. The coastline was never developed for military deployment..."

Before I replied, I glanced at Luna. She nodded subtly. "Consider it done. And good work, marshal. What about the, the, you know..." - it was slipping my mind. Beyond the exclusion zones. Where the survivors were headed.

"The stations? Summerfield, Clear Skies... Dappleshore?"

"Exactly."

Cherry looked over to Luck Steady this time, who was paging through a stack of reports. He idly answered, "They're a mess. Will take weeks to process every refugee at this rate, but the estimates we're getting are good. Could use more clerks to work the backlog."

I waved away the request. "Fine, that's fine. Good meaning... what? What estimates?"

"They are..." He had to stop and flip through from the start again. "I had something here just a moment ago."

"A rough number is fine for now," Luna added.

Luck Steady produced a specific letter, somehow, from that indistinct mass. "Here. From my deputy in Clear Skies. If you're looking for a rough estimate, it's around ninety percent."

A happy murmur went around the room. Even Luna joined in, bumping elbows with our advisors and expressing optimism that the number was so high. And they were right to. It was higher than we thought even twenty four hours ago. But it did little to loosen the knot in my stomach.

Ninety percent left ten percent unaccounted for. Over a hundred thousand assumed dead, if I was being... generous. It sickened me to even think of it in such terms. Each one a sacred soul, a child of our kingdom; each one a mother, father, son or daughter, friend, comrade, or lover; each one desiring and deserving of life; and each one a tragic, unbearable loss.

And in this room, they became only a number.

Was Twilight a number too, now?

I hated to spoil the mood, but I had to ask: "Have we heard from any infiltration teams yet?"

Quiet frustration spread through the room once again. Even Luna had nothing to say. Or at least nothing good.

The knot tightened. I stood up. "I need some air..."

Just then an aide passed some reports to Luna and whispered in her ear, and she perked up. "Wait a moment, sister."

I glanced down at her papers - one of them had a chart of concentric circles superimposed over a city map. Manehattan, I guessed. "Must I?"

"Hm. Yes. While I explain, at least."

"... Alright." I sat down again. The walls pressed in on me, but I'd had worse.

She cleared her throat, as if she were about to give a Pronouncement. "We all know your position on this, sister, and loathe am I to argue otherwise. But I feel it is unwise to overlook any solution without understanding the potential along with the risk." She put her hoof down on the chart. "We must have a real discussion about it."

I shook my head. "About the bomb?"

"About the filament bomb," she replied. "Its reputation as a mere explosive device is half the problem."

"The other half of the problem is what it does."

"It may have been envisioned for destructive ends, yes, but through experimental use, as Arrowhead can attest," - she gestured to a mage-scientist near her - "it has shown immense promise for other purposes. Consider stasis, sister."

Luna always knew how to browbeat me. But I was still listening, wasn't I?

"Stasis?" I asked.

"Stasis. An absence of flux, of activity, of life, and of entities which possess these qualities. But these qualities are only effectors of a more fundamental thing - change over time."

It was my turn to shrug. "Okay?"

She brought her hooves together. "What if we could stop something from changing over time" - then she drew her hooves apart - "by detaching it from time. Excise it from the flow, thereby achieving stasis more potent than any magic evoked heretofore."

I looked around the room wondering how many here were hearing this for the first time, but there didn't seem to be much reaction - other than Arrowhead, who appeared enamored with Luna's elegant explanation. None were shocked at the enormity of the subject. Was that good? I didn't know anymore.

Still, how much did they not know? Had they all been privy to the experimental history of the filament bomb? Had they heard, over the years, of the first uses? Of the scars left behind? Of the dead zones? I wondered if the maps had accounted for them yet. I wondered if the maps even could account for them.

I began with my trustworthy reply: "There are still too many things we don't know, sister, such as whether anything can be recovered from this 'excision'."

"We are working to answer that," she said, though I caught a hint of frustration in her tone. "But permanence is a risk. I do not deny this. I simply wish to bring to mind the potential. It could buy us time - months, years, perhaps as much as we desire - to study what lies in that city. To mitigate and expunge it on our own schedule."

"On our own - what? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying... With consensus of the council, and your approval, it can be deployed to Manehattan in less than three hours."

She just-

Three hours.

I stood up. "No!"

Luna closed the cover on her bomb report.

"Not when -" Not when Twilight is still out there. "Not when we know so little of what's out there! How many thousands - trapped, starving, awaiting rescue - do we thus condemn?"

She raised her hooves, as if in defeat. "I made my proposal, and I have your answer. It is settled."

"Okay. It's just - this is something I cannot do. We cannot do. Maybe if we knew Manehattan was empty but for concrete and- and demons, or what have you, but not otherwise. Not without knowing."

"I understand. And I feel the same way, truly."

I breathed. Breathed this humid, stale, smoky war room air. Wondered if my own sister was lying to me. And nodded. "Thank you."

She looked around the room at the many quiet, stiff ponies, awkwardly waiting for the tone to change, and stood up as well. "I think that is good enough for this evening. Make your orders ready, and we shall have them reviewed and signed before nightfall."

The scrape and clatter of horseshoes on tile was piercing, but as punctuation it was unsurpassed. A dozen ponies stood, saluted, repeated some honorifics and pleasantries, and found their way out through opened doors and unsealed wards. I longed to leave with them. If I stepped out of this room and walked the halls of the open city, I could breathe free once more. But there was business here still. My sister obviously wanted to talk.

She stepped around the margins of the room, coming to my side of the table, and leaned in to whisper, "How long has it been since you slept?"

Three days. Or was it now four? "A while."

"The kingdom will survive in the meantime."

I smiled, I thought, as an act of rebellion. "If it does not, will you darken my dreams to let me know?"

"If it would help."

"T'would be a bit late, now that I think of it..."

That got a chuckle out of her. "Indeed," she said, though her expression fell when a pony in a lab smock appeared on my periphery with an aura of bad - or at least dire - news.

"Speak," Luna said. She was at my side.

The besmocked pony spoke. "There is a letter for you in quarantine, your majesty."

I repeated, "For me, specifically? Not the Crown?"

"Correct, your majesty."

Luna asked, "Why would-"

"Show me," I ordered.

We were deeply enwarded. I knew not the specific convolutions that enveloped us now, but the feeling was that of the center of a chasmic void. Such deep suppression of the outside world would not be forgotten so soon as in the war room, but it did serve to clear my head somewhat. Just not of the thoughts that most disturbed me.

There were generally two categories of ponies who would send a letter addressed directly to me. The first was young foals who didn't know any better. The second was alicorns. Considering all the alicorns were here, most of them in this very room, that left the former.

So, if it was just a foal who didn't know any better, why had it been intercepted, neutralized, decoded, and thoroughly analyzed by a dozen crypturgeons?

I knew why. And that was good, wasn't it? Why was I so afraid?

A crypturgeon with no name tag pointed us to a desk with a glass plate under a chemical lamp. A sheet of parchment was pressed flat under the glass.

"This is the letter?" Luna asked.

The crypturgeon nodded. "Yes, your majesty. We intercepted it about an hour ago, and instantly recognized its significance."

"I should hope so," Luna growled. "It says it's from Twilight Sparkle. From Manehattan."

I rubbed my eyes. "How can you read it from so far away?"

"It's not that far," she said, "but don't change the subject. I thought you said you would handle her."

"Ah."

Now I understood my trepidation. It wasn't that I'd find out. It was that she would. She still wasn't in the habit of liking ponies much, but she had a soft spot for that one.

So did I. I wondered how much she knew.

"... She wanted to go," I finally explained. "I told her the risks. She insisted. I told her it was already being handled. She begged. I told her that she was not to go under any circumstances. And..." I shrugged uselessly. "That seemed to convince her."

"But it didn't." Luna said.

"Nope."

"I would have suggested wards, or inhibitors, or some such, but."

"Indeed."

Luna sighed. She still seemed disappointed with me, but she knew perfectly well the filly was impossible to control.

"So..." I began again, turning to the crypturgeon who'd been waiting patiently for her turn to speak. "What has Twilight Sparkle sent me from Manehattan?"

She cleared her throat and approached the glass plate to point to the letter. "Well, your majesties, it appears ordinary enough. The scroll is standard writing-paper; the message was written in iron ink with a steel pen; and its author was practiced with a quill."

"You're telling us it is an ordinary letter?" I asked.

Luna smiled. "She is telling us it looks like an ordinary letter."

The crypturgeon nodded. "Correct. The author clearly went through great pains to make this appear genuine. I would invite you to read it, your majesties, with the understanding that it is a deception."

In the time it took me to step close enough to read the words, Luna announced, "Done." I could only grumble at her superior eyesight. After all, t'wasn't my fault I was stuck doing all the paperwork for the last millennium.

Nevertheless, I was still a quick reader of words I could see.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I hope you can read this letter before it's too late.

It is an ingenious act of sabotage. I cannot say by whom, but you know their names. Only so many could have woven such hideous perfection. Strike now while they believe your attention focused elsewhere and they will be caught by surprise. It may even dispel the calamity. Not an illusion, I know, but its self-propogation may be cut off. Only way to stop it.

Sorry, running out of time. It knows I'm here somewhere. May not escape again.

Subterfuge and shadow are its weapons. Daylight is its anathema. I can only hope Canterlot proves a more difficult target than Manehattan or Dappleshore. Be on guard, and keep your eyes open.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

"... Well, it's a good thing that's not real," I said, "otherwise it would be terribly unhelpful." And depressing.

"Indeed," the crypturgeon replied. "Though the materials and the penwork are fairly convincing, the writing style doesn't match, and some details in the message are false. For example, Dappleshore has been unaffected by whatever befell Manehattan, and the first reports came out during local daylight. This-"

Luna interrupted, "It is possible we are mistaken, and this message relays the truth, is it not?"

"Well, yes-"

"And if young Twilight was under duress, her writing style may not match more typical examples."

"...Yes, your majesty."

I arched an eyebrow at Luna. "You're not saying it might be genuine."

She stared at the crypturgeon, who now averted her eyes. "No. Of course not. But we wouldn't be here if this was some simple fake; and if its veracity was questionable, we would not have been told otherwise. I wish to - how do you say - cut to the chase?"

Now it was my turn to stare at the crypturgeon.

"Th-that is a good point, your majesty," she stammered. "I only wished to make a thorough - ah, but no matter. In truth, the written message is of little import. There is another message on the letter."

"Ahhh," I groaned, "Surely my eyesight is not so...?"

"No," Luna said, "I did not see it either."

"It is well-hidden," the crypturgeon said. Her horn lit up a shade of blue, mirrored by blotches of blue above the glass.

My sister and I both took steps closer, then closer still, and still I glanced at her and found her glancing at me.

"Well-hidden indeed," I said. "Even with an outline, I see no-"

"Aha!" Luna shouted. "Translocation! Sister, I will grant you grain-sight."

The spell washed warm over my eyes, and at first all I could see was a scattering of harshly-contrasted snow. But mere seconds later my perception had adjusted and I saw pleats and fibers through a striated membrane - paper behind glass. The paper was streaked with dusty ink and stained with hoofprints and, in small segments which still glowed with a chromatic highlight, the fibers were discontinuous, as if they had been cut with a razor and inlaid somewhere else. An inlay here matched a cutout there and vice versa, leaving the disturbance totally undetectable by normal means. Four secret messages had thereby been written, and I read them letter-by-letter:

guard is subsumed

will go to our spot

need a quick opening

hope this works

I read it. Then I read it again.

Our spot. Only she would know what that meant.

Luna watched my eyes trace and retrace the message, and somehow read my mind, as she was wont to do. I'd barely raised a hoof before she arrested me with, "Not so fast."

I kept turning towards the exit. "She's waiting, sister. I have to go."

"I know. But this may not..."

I shot a look at her.

She shook her head and sighed. "At least take a squadron with you."

"What use? They would get in the way."

"Then take the guard captain!"

A better suggestion. I nodded, then flew.

There was an oak tree in the garden. It had erupted from the manicured lawn a time ago, and now rebelled against cuboid hedge rows and exotic flowers with its lumpy brown leaves and hailstone fruit.

Here, and not down in those deep tunnels, the world was near and great. Things were still dampened by the big shield, which rumbled low in the distance, but at least I could feel the sun and the sky, feel connected again. Connected to the world. I felt sadness for all the pain and suffering in the world, especially now - but so was there great comfort and joy in the world, and I felt happiness for that, too. It all washed over me, first slow, then seemingly all at once, making up for all I'd missed under the wards. And I let it pass.

I tried to, anyway. It had become so intoxicating that I had almost forgotten to summon my escort. But now Shining Armor was coming, so I wiped the moisture off my face.

He looked up at the tree, then down - well, less up - at me. "Majesty. We shouldn't stay out here for too long. It may be dangerous outside the walls."

Always so professional. I nodded. "Yes, and it's about to get much more dangerous. I'm opening the shield."

Shining was practically hit by the words. "Opening it? What in the world - why?"

"Do you know who planted this tree, captain?"

It took a moment for him to remember we were, in fact, standing next to a tree, and he looked it up and down a second time. "I haven't the slightest idea, your majesty, nor do I understand-"

"You misunderstand my question," I told him. "The one who planted this tree is one you know quite well. And if we are to bring her back from Manehattan, we need to give her an opening."

I watched his confusion turn to realization, then hesitation, then resolution. Finally he met my eyes and nodded. "Your word is my command."

"Good. Now, I will actually need help with this..."

Turning from him, from the garden, from all my physical surroundings, I focused on the big shield. It was a chromatic construct of monstrous scale and ancient design. Not inviolable, but still hardened, and thus structurally complex.

"I will help stabilize it while you unfold it," I pointed my hoof east, "starting there."

His horn glowed, and I felt his chroma reach out to where I'd pointed. I in turn set a chromatic bubble to inflate to the inner edge of the shield. There was a polarized current flowing through the inner edge that felt subtly like a checkerboard pattern, which must have matched the shield's cells. I directed my bubble to match its inverse, keeping it stable.

"About to open it," Shining Armor said. "How wide?"

I admitted, "She didn't say."

"Okay. Well, I'll start small, and widen as needed."

A sharp disturbance in the shield near where I'd pointed began to throw the pattern off. It took more focus than I'd have thought I could muster, especially since altering my inverse pattern would upset the balance of the inner layers, but in a few moments I had it matched again. I could further match the pattern as the disturbance widened and the shield thinned under Shining's focus until, finally, there was an opening.

The subsequent flood of emotions was minor and easy enough to handle, but I found my focus drifting still. Now I wondered: Are we too late? It was a poisonous, unproductive thought, but one I could not extinguish as the opening in the shield widened.

Shining voiced a question of his own: "How will we know it worked, exactly? Will she just... appear?"

"We will know it when it happens," I guessed.

As the opening grew, a faint shimmer of some nature formed in the air around us. Multilayered, green and red, it hung in the air and moved as if carried on a breeze. If Shining Armor could perceive it at all he took no notice of it.

I couldn't name the phenomenon, but I knew it had to be a consequence of the isolated aether of the palace mingling with free aether from outside. Something similar had occurred the last time the shield was up - hundreds of years ago, that was. Luna would know more, and not just because she'd had more sleep.

I tried to focus on matching the pattern, keeping the shield stable, but a flicker in the shimmer caught my eye. Shining noticed that, this time, and looked around us.

He mumbled, "Fireflies?"

There were no fireflies around. Perhaps he simply saw it differently. Whatever the case, something about it was changing. There was another flicker, then another, though it became dimmer each time.

Then something else happened. We both felt it. A sudden presence. Our eyes turned to a mossy patch near the trunk of the oak tree where a crack formed and split the air.

I ordered, "Start closing it!"

"On it!" he shouted back. As the crack grew, the hole in the shield shrank.

The crack opened into a circular portal through which I could see a different scene - dark stone, a cave or a tunnel maybe - and the body of a pony I could barely recognize. It slumped weakly onto our ground before the portal snapped shut faster than it had arrived.

I tried not to panic. Shining Armor was closing the shield. I still had to stabilize it. Match the pattern. Just a few more seconds. I felt the shield reach a steady state and the aether dampen, and Shining let his horn dim. Mine was dim just as soon.

We both moved to Twilight's side. She was bloodied and bruised, and had rough bandages all over her body, especially her head and left forehoof. Even her mane was cut differently, though in a manner I guessed wasn't intentional. Less obviously, her aura felt thin, and she showed signs of dehydration. But she was alive.

Thank goodness.

Shining cried, "Twilight!" and put a hoof on her shoulder. She flinched, but didn't seem particularly lucid.

I spoke, trying not to let my voice hitch, "Calm yourself. She needs medical transport. Until then, we shouldn't move her."

He shot a betrayed look at me, but soon understood and agreed. "Of course." Only with reluctance did he pull his hoof away.

I used a simple spell to signal for emergency medical assistance at our location. I also signalled my sister just to let her know that Twilight was okay. She responded instantly with the message, 'Thank goodness.' I couldn't help but smile as I wiped my face again.

Shining seemed about to say something, but there came a groan from Twilight. She arched her back and tried to put her hooves under her, but her left forehoof couldn't hold any weight, and she only succeeded in rolling onto her back with a pained gasp.

"Shhh, don't move," I said. "You made it. You're safe."

"Yeah, just take it easy, sis," Shining added.

One eye opened. Its narrow pupil focused on Shining Armor.

"What-?" Her voice was unsteady. "You're... I'm..."

Then all colour drained from her face.

"Oh no."

Shining took one of her hooves - the good one - in his own. "We're gonna take care of you. Don't worry."

She yanked her hoof away. "No, no, I'm not - this isn't happening. It's a trap."

"What's a-"

"Get away from me!" she shrieked, kicking away from her brother, who looked on dumbfounded.

This wasn't the Twilight I knew. Something terrible must have happened to her in that city, more than just physical wounds. I couldn't help my voice this time, but I tried to strike a gentle tone in saying, "There's n-nothing to be afraid of, my little pony."

Her eye found its way to me, and she backed away even further. "You don't understand," she breathed, "it's everywhere, it's everyone, it..." Her throat caught, and she brought her hooves to her face. "It has me!"

I couldn't bear seeing her like this, but I didn't know what I could do about it. All my recitations of late had been in defensive matters, and I barely had enough rest for that. I didn't trust myself to remember any spells to calm the nerves, let alone to cast them safely.

So my emotions got the better of me. I demanded, "Calm down, Twilight Sparkle!" And she froze, but her breathing slowed down after a tense moment. It had actually worked? Good.

I continued, "Just tell us what you know. What is... it? What's everywhere?"

"It's everywhere," she repeated, though more conclusively. "It doesn't have a name, at least it never told me, but it's alive. It's..." Her eyebrows knit together in a pained expression. "I can't describe it. Not in a way that... makes sense with words."

"That's okay," I lied. "Just tell us the important bits. It had you?"

"It has me. It took me. It takes ponies, takes control of them - only that's not it, it doesn't just control them, it - it is them. And not just ponies. Anything." She wasn't looking at anything as she spoke. Just over my shoulder, or down at the ground. I got the sense she was trying to explain things to herself more than to us. "Anything," she repeated.

Her message did speak of a guard being 'subsumed'. I hesitated to ask, but it couldn't be avoided. "Is it controlling you now?"

Shining looked over at me. "Princess..."

Twilight shook her head fiercely, which only made her dizzy, and brought her head between her forehooves. "No, no, not now. It got what it wanted. Threw me away. Threw me back..."

She looked back up.

"The letter. That's how you knew."

"Yes, we got your letter. Your plan worked."

"It wasn't..."

Shining Armor's horn was glowing, and he faced east. "Celestia, the shield..."

His use of my name got my attention, but it wasn't important right now. I briefly flashed my horn to check the stability of the shield. "It's fine," I told him. Then I turned back to Twilight. "What else can you tell us?"

"The letter," she explained, "wasn't mine."

"Your secret message, I should have said-"

"That was it. Not me."

Shining shouted this time, "It's still open!"

"What!?" I cried, looking up at him, then east, where he stared. Again there was no visual indication that the shield was open, except that the air still shimmered faintly. I thought that was an after-effect.

Hoofsteps from the other direction transitioned from stone to grass. Medics from the palace.

Twilight shuddered and held her head between her hooves.

Too many things were happening at once.

First things first. "Why is the shield open?"

Shining Armor shook his head, then grimaced. "There's some kind of obstruction. Like a tube. I can't remove it."

A tube? I felt out with weak telekinesis. Indeed there was something round blocking the shield from closing, right at the center of where it had been opened, that refused to budge or buckle. I couldn't tell if it was a tube because I couldn't find where it opened. It was absurdly long.

I was about to tell him to just plug it with something, but before I could speak, something changed. I had never felt its like. Twilight shot up to look directly into the palace as she shrieked, "No!"

I and Shining Armor both asked, "What was that?"

"It's here," she said. "It's here - ah!"

The same feeling came over us again, the feeling of something changing, then again and again, dozens - no, hundreds of times. It quickly became an indistinct nauseating flood. Thoughts spilled into next. Shining Armor fell to his knees. The incoming medics were knocked over.

Twilight grit her teeth as she glared up at the palace, as much hate in her expression as fear.

I asked her, "What do we do?"

"Close your eyes," she spoke, quietly. I almost couldn't hear her over a growing rumble. "It can't take you if you don't look."

That's when things finally clicked.

I almost wished they hadn't.

I closed my eyes and sent out an emergency order as fierce and voluminous as I could manage to all in the city: 'CLOSE YOUR EYES.' My subsequent order, to regroup in the palace redoubt, may have gone through - but there was interference. The network was breaking down, and the aether was roiling with spellwork.

The redoubt was deep within the mountain and more strongly enwarded than even the dungeon that was the crypturgeons' office. I wasn't sure how much difference it would make, but I had to try.

Next I fixed a battleshield around us. This was something I had drilled many times, so it came easily despite the confusion, stress, and lack of sleep. A multi-layered membrane surrounded us - myself, Shining, and Twilight - and the air within was calmed and refreshed with airfonts and minor aetheric daemons. Immediately the nauseating aura coming from the palace became much easier to bear, and the young ponies both made sighs of relief.

"Close your eyes," I reminded Shining, as I moved to pick Twilight up. "Use blindsight, if you can, or follow my steps if you can't. We're leaving."

Twilight groaned as my chroma surrounded her, but that turned to wry laughter by the time her weight was on my shoulders. "Doesn't matter," she said. "We lost."

I started moving towards the medics, who still writhed on the grass. "We haven't lost. This is a terrible attack, but-"

The rumbling outside air suddenly split with a crack of thunder, and there formed above us another flat portal, but vast. The largest I had ever seen - if I had seen it. It emanated a feeling of wrong that threatened to knock my legs out from under me.

Twilight's reaction was only more laughter.

Something immense came through the portal. Rather than ramming the palace, it split apart into branches - some extended up to wrap around the towers while countless others dropped to slither into halls and windows, spread over the grounds, or plunge into the earth.

There were also hundreds of ponies, griffons, and other creatures streaming through. Too many to distinguish with blindsight. Some headed this way. They spread out to fill the sky and flew in uneven patterns, refusing to provide any good targets, and some of them had shields of their own. I even detected traces of concealment magic.

Saturation. Nowhere to go. Even the downed medics now felt out of reach.

I loathed to abandon them, but nevertheless, I prepared a teleportation spell-

And the chroma dissipated as Twilight wrapped a hoof around my horn.

"What are you doing?" Shining yelled. "We have to get out of here!"

She hissed, as she shook the pins and needles out of her hoof, "It knows how to intercept those. If you finished that spell..."

A branch burst out of the ground behind us and lunged towards the shield. I didn't wait for it to hit - a blast of condensed sunlight left it a burning crisp. At least Twilight hadn't jumped in front of that, too.

"What do you suggest?" I asked, as another branch turned to ash. Soon the ponies would be close, and I was less willing to dispose of them so thoroughly.

Twilight seemed to honestly think for a moment about her answer, before she shrugged and rolled off of my back, landing with a yelp. She was quickly up on three legs, loping away from us - towards the edge of the shield.

Shining Armor easily caught up to her and got her under his hooves, though she still moved to crawl away. He asked, incredulously, "What in Tartarus has got into you?"

"It had me," she said, a repeat from earlier. She was clearly in immense pain, but she kept struggling against her brother regardless. "It knows - ah - what I know. It has what I have. Doesn't need me." She shouted back to him, to me, "But it still needs you!"

Creatures surrounded us. Ponies, among others, all with cold, dead faces. Some looked like teachers and students, or mothers and daughters. Others looked like soldiers, warriors, with dangerous equipment. Military-grade weapons that would make short work of a battleshield.

Twilight's horn began to glow. I recognized the spellwork. Explosive. In such close quarters, there was only one way that would end.

Shining recognized it, too, and put his own hoof around Twilight's horn. They both yelped, and the spell dissipated, but Twilight kept trying.

I was frozen. "Why are you doing this?" I asked, feeling more like a schoolfilly than a princess.

"I told you," she growled, failing to keep Shining off of her. "It threw me back. Sent me here. Why?" A fell laugh emerged from her throat, and she opened her eye. "Wasn't done with me. Wasn't done. It wanted you, so it used me."

Something almost imperceptible changed outside the shield, and the soldiers readied their weapons.

"Now it's gonna use you, too..."

Chromatic fire swallowed us. The shield dropped. I heated the air and waited for the rush to begin, but it didn't. Everything was as it was.

Except for a wimper ahead of me. Shining Armor covered his mouth. He'd let go of Twilight. Blood spilled onto the grass.

I looked. Thorny black vines had sprung up from the ground and pierced her hide. They wrapped around her and forced her to stand upright. One even went through her jaw, its tip emerging from inside her mouth.

She looked back at me with her one good eye. Her tongue wagged, and her lips formed words, but I couldn't hear them, couldn't read them. All I knew was the light in that brilliant indigo eye was beginning to fade, shaded by a red glow amongst the thorns.

That's when everything changed.