Decay

1: A Crack in the Slab

>Neon red light enveloped you from beyond the glass barrier.
>It coated your clothes, your skin, your space, your precious solidarity.
>The vermillion light pervaded your metal cocoon and, apart from a set of dim ambient lights in front of you, was the only thing illuminating your being.
>Your back sunk deeper into your seat as you felt low vibrations resonate throughout your whole body.
>The cold air siphoned from outside your shell burned your eyes, yet you didn’t blink.
>All you could do was stare at the crimson luminescence.
>...
>...
>No, green.
>It was green.
>You snapped out of your haze and reached for the radio, eager to stop your bout of drowsiness from causing an accident on the highway.
>Simultaneously, you pressed your foot steadily into the pedal, and your car lurched forward and moved beyond the empty intersection.
>Your rotations of the dial brought about mostly static until it cleared up enough for a news station to break through, which quelled your exhaustion if only for a fleeting moment.
>“...fluctuations unlike anything the astrophysics community has ever recorded before…”
>You sighed, a hefty stream of air leaving your lungs in a hurry.
>All the major news outlets had been riding the propaganda train for weeks about some new findings that astrophysicists had made when looking out into the solar system.
>The world had been “on the brink of destruction” at least seven times, and you couldn’t give less of a shit that there was another scare popping up.
>The only thing you were concerned with was getting home and going to bed.
>The bags under your eyes grew heavier as you thought of being smothered by blankets and comforters until the sun came up again.
>With another sigh, you cranked the volume higher to keep you awake as you sped along the highway, eager to conclude the drive.
>The drone of the radio host filled your ears with noise that you didn’t care to piece together.
>A good ten minutes or so passed by before you spotted the exit in your peripheral vision, which prompted you to come out of your haze and head for the turn lane.
>As you switched on your blinker, you began veering into the lane with a heavy yawn and-
>A blinding light assaulted your vision from seemingly out of nowhere in front of you, brighter than anything you had experienced previously.
>It was akin to looking at the sun, if the sun were everywhere in front of you.
>You shielded your eyes as best as you could, deciding in the end to shut them altogether.
>Nothing could be heard but the sound of screeching tires, deafening winds, and your own scream as an enormous metal crunch dominated what was left of your ear drums.
>White turned to black.
>All was quiet.
>All was… nothing.


>You jolted upright from your bed with an almost pained yell, pawing at the covers like a dog as you regained your bearings again.
>Sweat steadily cascaded down your forehead, a matter only worsened by your sudden upright posture.
>You looked around your room, failing to focus on any one thing that might fully bring you back to reality.
>As you sat up in your bed, you shut your eyes as your attempted to ground yourself in reality.
>The swelling storm within your mind cleared as you recalled who you were out loud, as if hearing it would somehow bolster your mentality.
“I am Princess Luna.”
“I am the bastion of the night and the keeper of dreams.”
“I will not falter to any petulant nightmare’s senseless visions.”
>Before you could reopen your eyes, you heard your door burst open, followed by metallic hoofsteps and the clinking of armor plates.
>“Your Highness, are you alright?” the guard inquired frantically.
>You opened your eyes to one of your personal detail guards rushing into and scanning the room, wings spread and spear at the ready.
>Past him, you saw a couple of dignitaries peering into your room over your other guards as they were held back by them.
>You sighed to yourself and wiped the sweat from your brow, having fully returned to reality.
“‘Twas only a nightmare, Night Spirit. No cause for alarm.”
>Your magic peeled apart the curtains slightly to satisfy your curiosity about how long you had been asleep.
>The sun’s rays broke through the gap in the fabrics, illuminating your immaculate bedroom with their orange perversion.
>It seemed you had gotten a decent day of sleep after all, despite your bizarre visions.
>You made a mental note that your sleeping patterns had begun smoothing out despite the circumstance.
>“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, princess?” Night Spirit called out once more, which broke your train of thought. “We can perform a sweep of your room if it would ease your mind.”
>You waved him off with a hoof as you yawned away your drowsiness.
“Rest assured, I am quite alright. You may return to your post.”
>With a salute, he left your room, shutting the door behind him as he went.
>Left to your devices, you slowly slid out of your bed, dreading the thought of carrying on initiating your routine.
>You were a princess, and as such, your nightly schedule would be gone through in a timely manner.
>That being said, your pillow and blankets made conducting said schedule nearly impossible in the moment.
>Against all odds, though, you slid onto all four hooves as the last of the sheets fell off of your withers, causing you to shiver as the silky material stimulated your more sensitive nerve endings.
>Your horn came alight with magic as you opened your bedside drawer and pulled out your favorite hairbrush, going to town on your unruly bedhead as you made your way to the bathroom.
>Upon reaching the mirror, you took a moment to look over yourself.
>Dark circles, even darker than your fur, adorned your lower eyelids and highlighted your lack of proper sleep for the past several days.
>That same, persistent nightmare had been plaguing you without end every time you closed your eyes to fetch even a microcosm of rest.
>It was always the same length, with the same sights, feelings, even the same smells, though all of them were alien to you.
>Never in your nearly two thousand years of life had you experienced anything akin to it.
>As you stared into the mirror and combed out the last few knots in your hair, you began to wonder, for the first time since it started recurring, whether it was a nightmare or some cryptic vision.
>The first time it had occurred, you brushed it off simply as a rogue bad dream, unbothered by the strangeness of it.
>As it went on, however, you steadily became more wary about the otherworldly vision, no longer able to write it off as one of many ordinary nightmares.
>You started research on it the third time that the vision had come to you.
>In only a few days, the desk in your solarium was overflowing with sheets of parchment, all covered top to bottom in your musings and hypotheses hastily scrawled down in ink.
>All of it, despite nearly all of your time awake being spent conducting tests in the dream realm and revising your notes, was inconclusive.
>Not much phased you in your line of work, but the recent developments unnerved you a tad.
>Initially, you had believed that Nightmare Moon planned on returning, but a quick self-check ruled out the possibility of your alter ego rearing her ugly head.
>When searching inward failed, you looked outward.
>Skyward, to be more specific.
>For countless nights, you studied the heavens, hoping for some oddity that would somehow make sense of your plight.
>Your enlightenment eluded you, though, no matter where you turned.
>As you broke out of your trance, you realized that you’d been staring at your reflection for what must’ve been five minutes, absentmindedly brushing the knots out of your mane the entire time.
>You snapped yourself back to attention as you put the brush down in favor of a toothbrush and toothpaste.
>With your mind momentarily clear, it didn’t take much longer for you to finish your nightly routines.
>You cast your gaze to the mirror one last time, surveying your appearance for any glaring issues before you headed to the dining hall.
>Unable to find anything, you flashed yourself a grin in the mirror as a practice run for the night.
>Though your slightly lidded eyes did wonders to enhance your smile, the dark circles under your eyes did not.
>You dropped the gesture with a sigh as you began to depart from your room.

>One winding path through the castle later, you rather dispassionately swung open the grandiose door to the dining hall, inviting the seductive smell of breakfast into your nostrils.
>Tracing the scent to its source, you eyed an untouched plate of pancakes sitting at one of the seats, accompanied by a fork and a knife to either side of it.
>Across the table sat Celestia, gently chewing on her own pancakes and staring off into space.
>She looked exhausted as well.
>While they were less noticeable than yours, you saw that she had dark circles of her own, no doubt from what she had been working on with her advisors and scientists well into the night for the past week.
>You walked over to her and offered her a grin that she eagerly returned, her cheeks full of pancakes.
“Long day, sister?” you inquired, taking a seat and digging into your pancakes.
>“The longest I’ve had in awhile,” she replied as she finished her mouthful, her fatigue ever present in her voice.
>You’d never seen her in such a state.
>She was extraordinarily adept at masking how tired she was, and you usually got to see this side of her whenever the interchange between the two of you took place.
>Something was off this time, though. Almost as if she had been broken by something.
>You decided to get straight to the heart of the matter.
“You look troubled, sister,” you prodded as you took another bite of pancake, catching a blueberry in the mix as well.
>“Our science division made some alarming discoveries today,” she replied after finishing the third pancake in her stack of five.
“More so than the past few days?” you inquired.
>She nodded her head, eyes locked on her food out of exhaustion more than hunger.
>“Remember when I told you that the aether was behaving strangely a couple days ago?” she queried, which drew a fervent nod from you.
>She sighed, her gaze meeting yours as she did so.
>“Well, we found out why,” she said as she set down her utensils and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “For lack of better phrasing, there’s a hole in it.”
>You frowned, bewildered at the development.
“A hole…?” you mused, pondering the implications of such a thing.
>“That’s the scientists’ interpretation of what it is, at least,” she replied, her eyebrows raised in her own form of confusion. “In laymare’s terms, the essence of our magic is leaking out at some point in the aether, and it’s causing changes in it.”
>She shut her eyes for a moment and sighed.
>“They’re hypothesizing that it’s going to start negatively interfering with our magical capabilities soon, and possibly the environment as well.”
>You quietly ruminated on the issue at hand, opting to stare headlong at your pancakes while you did so.
“Has a solution been reached yet?” you inquired, refocusing on Celestia.
>“No,” she reluctantly replied. “To put it bluntly, nopony knows where to even begin, science division or not. According to the team, it will take weeks to gather data on the aether to even know how to approach the problem.”
>What little composure she had left all but broke as she stopped eating and laid her head down on the table with a sigh of, presumably, defeat.
>You had rarely ever seen your sister like that before.
>In your time back on Equestria since your banishment, you had picked up a few social skills that had been beneficial to you when addressing distraught citizens in the occasional session of night court.
>For the moment, you swallowed your fear of the situation.
>You left your seat and slowly made your way over to your sister, whose head remained down, eyes shut with stress.
>You stood beside her and draped a wing over her, which garnered another, heavier sigh from much deeper within her being.
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned,” you began with an air of lightness in your voice. “But if there’s anypony I know that can overcome impossible odds, it would be you, Tia.”
>As her head rose from the marble tabletop, a thought crossed your mind that you couldn’t simply disregard anymore.
>Could what’s going on with the aether be the cause for your errant nightmares?
>Though there was little correlation between the two beyond similar time frames, the question still troubled you.
>Nevertheless, you cast aside your uneasiness so as to not overload your sister with stress.
>She grinned at you as she halfway faced you, seemingly relieved to hear your words of encouragement.
>“Thank you, sister,” she said as she began to rise from her seat. “If it weren’t for your listening and words of encouragement, I doubt I would have been able to get any sleep tonight.”
>You chuckled to yourself as she stood fully, leaving the cover of your wing as you retracted it back to its resting position.
“You certainly weren’t hard to convince,” you jested.
>“I find that the quality of one’s words far outweighs quantity,” she responded as she pulled you in for a full-on hug.
>It lasted for some time before you both pulled away, ready to both go about your business.
>“I must retire for the night,” she mused, pushing her seat in with magic as she began walking toward the door with you.  “I wouldn’t want to worry my little ponies by looking as if I were deprived of sleep.”
“I’ll ensure you have a peaceful sleep,” you added.
>She nodded her head in thanks, a smile cast your way as you both entered the grandiose hallway.
>The subtle clinking of metal horseshoes against marble echoed slightly throughout the hall.
>“I leave the night to you,” Tia said as she faced you one last time for the day. “Would you mind checking in with the science team once or twice? Some of them are going to be monitoring the situation overnight.”
“You can count on me, sister,” you replied.
>Exhaustion seemed to completely take over for your sister at that moment, as the bags under her eyes became much more pronounced, and her stature lost its rigidity.
>She hummed in acknowledgement as her eyes became half-lidded, finally giving in to the fatigue.
>“I’ll see you in the morning, lulu,” she drowsily muttered as she sauntered away towards her chambers.
“Goodnight, sister,” you called out after her as she disappeared around a corner.
>With your nightly meeting concluded, you headed for the observatory balcony to raise the moon.
>As you trotted through the many ordained hallways leading to the spire, your thoughts danced between the alarming developments and your nightmares.
>Could they have been connected…?
>Dreams did not often constitute as omens, though you had seen some exceptions in your long lifetime.
>One such case being the omen of Tirek that your sister had received, although her nightmare had been much more rooted in reality.
>After extensive research following Tirek’s capture, her team of sorcerers and scientists had reportedly found that the vision had been caused by the world itself reacting to his nefarious deeds.
>Less elegantly put, the aether had supposedly reacted to a massive shift in the natural balance of magic, and gave Celestia her nightmare.
>At the time, their hypothesis was based more in the realm of speculation than in anything else, since you hadn’t been in the dream realm at the time of her vision.
>Now that you’d been having visions of your own, though, it brought some credence to their conclusion.
>The realization drudged up some questions that you worried about.
>The foremost question being…
>What exactly was your nightmare an omen of?
>When Tia had her visions, they were clear and succinct, leaving no room for interpretation.
>Your nightmares, though, were almost entirely foreign to you.
>The dark, industrial feeling that the surroundings conveyed made you wonder if they were even based in Equestria.
>If that wasn’t enough, whatever you viewed it all from definitely wasn’t a pony, nor was it any sapient species you were familiar with.
>All of it shrouded the purpose of your visions in a thick veil, and it began to trouble you greatly the more you thought about it.
>Which is precisely why you were delighted to finally arrive at the balcony and focus on your moon for the moment.
>You traipsed through the observatory, eyeing your moon through the glass ceiling all the while.
>You practically swung the doors open with your magic, calmed by the presence of the heavenly body you presided over.
>Wasting no time, your horn began to glow something fierce as you felt the moon being hoisted into its cradle.
>It felt a bit more hesitant to move than usual, but you chalked it up to your exhaustion taking its toll on you.
>...Until it kept becoming more difficult to ease along.
>You felt the resistance steadily increase as you heightened your magical output to match it, but even as you kept giving it more effort, it kept slowing.
>Soon, you began to feel sweat beading up on your forehead.
“W-What in the name of Tartarus..?” you muttered, much louder than intended due to the strain you were under.
>You shut your eyes and put all of your willpower into raising the moon, circumstances be damned.
>The sheer force of magic emanating from your horn was giving you an intense migraine, and before long, you felt that it, too, was beginning to wither in the wake of this anomalous occurrence.
>You nearly collapsed when you finally gave up, but luckily you caught yourself on a railing before falling over completely.
>Admittedly angered, you thrust your gaze in the direction of the moon, where you witnessed the root of your problem taking shape.
>...Holes.
>Not the kind that were caused by space debris, though.
>These were different; they didn’t lead anywhere.
>They didn’t lead to anyTHING, for that matter.
>There weren’t any clear edges to any of them, no clear stop or start to the holes that were discernible.
>It unnerved you immensely.
>Shuddering, you did your best to stand, albeit weakly because of your fruitless endeavor.
>You ran, dazed and confused, to rouse your sister from slumber, shouting at guards you passed to wake the sleeping scientists as well.
>The omen loomed in the forefront of your mind all the while.


2: Unnatural

>You strode into the science lab’s in-mountain chamber beside Celestia and looked over the railing that gave you a sweeping view of the expansive room, a quiet murmur from the recently-awoken scientists and sorcerers filling your ears.
>The guards had done their part in ensuring that the entirety of both teams were well awake; those who had been away on assignments or vacation had letters sent to them requesting their immediate return.
>Within a measly fifteen minutes, all on-site staff had been awoken and were relocated to the chamber in an utmost hurry.
>The guards closed the massive doors behind the two of you once you had both stepped in, drawing everypony's attention to you.
>“Is Doctor Golden Comet among us?” your sister asked of the crowd, taking a couple steps further toward the railing so as to direct all eyes to her.
>A single stallion, presumably in his sixties, with amber fur and auburn hair stepped forward, donning a lab coat with a “Head of Research” pin.
>“I am, Your Majesty,” he replied, bowing halfway out of respect. “Our irregularity scanners have detected strengthened fluctuations in various locations across the planet. We were going to send word to you, but it seems you’ve already been made aware of the situation.”
>Tia gestured to you before replying.
>“It’s in no small part because of my sister and her firsthoof experience with this anomaly,” she responded as she looked over at you, a hint of concern betraying her features as she waited for you to address your observings.
>You nodded gently to her as you stepped forward, turning your attention to the personnel.
“A short while before we gathered you all here,” you began, “I attempted to raise the moon, as is per usual every night. However, when I attempted to move it across the sky, it came to a halt, try as I might’ve. When I looked skyward to see what was wrong with the moon, I saw numerous holes bored into it, as well as the night sky, seemingly leading to nowhere and harboring no clear start or end point to the hole itself.”
>You held back details that would’ve been too superfluous for them.
>Like how they seemed endless, as if you were staring into an abyss that nopony should ever bear witness to.
>How the holes themselves seemed to defile and contort the natural face of the moon into some twisted amalgam.
>It was…
>Unnatural.
>You surveyed the faces in the crowd, curious to see how they would react to your firsthand experience.
>None of them held anything less than dread in their expressions.
>Some of them rushed to different lab equipment, while some simply looked as if they had just been sentenced to death.
>“You’re certain it was holes that you saw?” inquired Golden Comet.
>His tone was serious and composed, but shifting your gaze over to him, his posture and wide eyes betrayed fear.
“‘Tis what I witnessed, you have my word,” you replied.
>He breathed deeply as his own stare shifted to a wall and seemed to pierce through it as he muttered incoherently to himself.
>“Doctor Comet, what’s going on?” your sister interrupted, drawing his attention back up to the both of you.
>He snapped his attention up to both of you, looking almost…
>Crazed.
>“It’s worse than we imagined,” he said, voice wavering slightly. “So m-much worse.”
>“What do you mean?” Celestia inquired, Comet’s dread seemingly spreading to her.
>He ushered the two of you to follow him as he turned and made his way to an intricate machine in the center of the room.
>The both of you obliged, descending down the steps to meet him.
>The crowd parted for the two of you, every one of them frantically flocking to their machines in a collective, hushed panic.
>When you caught up with him, you watched as he began to frantically skim through an entire book’s worth of what you assumed to be data they had all collected prior.
>“We were made aware of the existence of these anomalies just a few weeks ago, when we were studying the aether’s behavior out in the observable parts of deeper space,” he began in an out-of-breath manor. “We had no visuals of them at the time, only data from scanning instruments. Until your firsthoof account, we had no reason to believe that the anomalous holes were anything more than openings in the aether itself, steadily leaking out magic.”
>He left the book open on a page, bookmarked it by folding it, then pushed the book off to the side before using his magic to grab another one even thicker than the last.
>You exchanged a look of concern with Celestia, worried over how his hypothesis could get much worse than that.
>“But your description carries…” He paused for a moment to take a deep, shuddering breath.
>“Grievous implications. There is a very strong possibility that these holes aren’t simply within the aether, your majesty,” he admitted, turning to face you two after finishing his skim reading.
“What do you believe these holes are within?” you interjected, unwilling to bear with this needless suspense any longer; you wanted to help, but you couldn’t without first knowing the gravity of the situation.
>With one last pause of anxiety, he addressed you directly.
>“There is a very strong possibility that these are holes in space-time. In r-reality.”
>...
>...what?
>How-
>“How is such a thing even possible?” your sister inquired, her tone grave.
>She beat you to the punch, it seemed.
>“That’s precisely why we’re panicked,” Comet replied, his tone ever the more worrisome. “It shouldn’t be possible. It should just be these unobservable anomalies in an imperceivable plane, not these holes devoid of anything!”
>“And on top of that,” he continued, “we had thought that it was only ONE anomaly. Now, they’re multiplying, and we don’t have enough time to try to come up with any feasible countermeasures, and-”
>You gave him a good nudge with your knee, cutting his overly pessimistic rant short.
>Though you, too, were frightened about what could possibly be happening, you couldn’t afford to let it show.
>Not in front of your subjects.
“I know things seem bleak, Comet, but you must remain calm,” you reassured him, giving him a fake smile that he seemed to buy. “How often do these ‘fluctuations’ occur according to your data?”
>“Every few days, but it’s inconsistent,” he shakily replied. “The shortest span between days so far is three.”
“Then gather as much data as you can until then,” you gently commanded. “If you find anything conclusive about how we can stop the spread of whatever this all is, then report your findings to either Celestia or myself after consulting your team. If these anomalies haven’t encroached on our position by then, keep researching. Understood?”
>“Yes, your majesty,” he offered in response.
>Nodding for him to go ahead, he turned and began to gather his associates for a consensus meeting.
>Content with his change in outlook, you started turning back to your sister to continue formulating a game plan.
>Idle hooves are Tartarus’s tools, as they said back in your younger days.
“I hope that was enough to settle them for now,” you began. “If we haven’t already we should gather-”
>You stopped mid-sentence, off-put by your sister beaming at you with a massive grin.
“What?”
>For the briefest of moments, a glint of pride shone in her eyes.
>“Nothing,” she said, her grin remaining for a tad longer before her expression slowly returned to one of urgency. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
>You cleared your throat, dispelling how awkward you felt in the moment.
>“Have we sent for Twilight and her friends yet?” you asked, looking back at the now much more subdued science team.
>It seems your words did have an effect on them after all.
>“Not yet,” your sister replied. “I’ve been waiting to involve anypony else in this, but it seems the situation is no longer neglectable. I’ll send letters to each of them so they’ll gather at Twilight’s castle. Take a chariot and pick them up from there; I’ll remain here to oversee operations.”
“I’ll see it done,” you replied, starting a confident stride toward the exit.
>“And Luna?” she called back to you, causing you to spin back around to face her.
>She was upon you before you realized it, wings and forelegs wrapping around you tightly.
>“Please, be careful.”
>You returned the gesture, squeezing her just as tight as she was squeezing you.
“I will,” you replied, breaking from the hug. “Love you, Tia.”
>“Love you too, lulu,” she said warmly before turning back toward Golden Comet and his team.
>Filled with vim and vigor, you stormed out of the mountain lab and back into the elaborate halls of the castle.
>As you ran down the halls toward the chariot landing, you cast your gaze out of a window and caught another glimpse of your moon.
>You couldn’t focus on anything but the holes.
>Darker than the blackest of nights you’d ever made.
>Ordinarily, the dark of the night brought you a certain level of comfort.
>Dark in general did, as a matter of fact. Being the princess of the night had that sort of effect on you.
>But the blackness you stared into at that moment gave you no peace.
>It gave you nothing.
>It WAS nothing.
>So why did you feel like it clawed at the inner sanctum of your soul?
>...
>You looked around to realize that you had stopped in front of a window to gaze at the holes.
>Shaking your head, you broke out into a full sprint, eager to wash the stain of their presence in the world from your mind.
>Several hallways later, you finally came upon the chariot landing, a full detail of pegasi waiting for you.
>They were always on call when a state of emergency was declared, either within the castle or without.
“We leave for Ponyville at once,” you shouted, trotting into the chariot as the chariot pegasi strapped themselves in.
>You looked up at your moon once more, defiled and decaying.
“...We have no time to waste.”

>An hour straight of flying later, your pilots began a steady descent, rousing you from your idle thoughts.
>Looking out of your chariot, you laid witness to Ponyville and its citizens, all up and about.
>Most of them were staring at the moon; others were panicked and ushering their friends and families out of town.
>Your heart ached for each and every one of them, knowing that they had no idea what was going on.
>They would learn in time, though. Celestia and yourself would see to that while ensuring their safety.
>Refocusing your line of sight forward, you saw Twilight’s castle in approach.
>If you squinted, you could just barely see the faint outlines of six ponies sitting in a circle on the castle’s chariot landing, although doing what you could not discern.
>Your determination grew further upon the sight of them, and it took every ounce of restraint not to leap out of the carriage and fly to them yourself.
>Those six had proved to be indispensable in the years that you had come to know them after your reformation, saving the day countless times; you hoped with every fiber of your being that they would fit the mold once more.
>Before long, the chariot slowed for landing and glided smoothly onto the platform, with almost no turbulence on landing.
>Your Night Guard were talented in whatever they did, that much was for sure.
>Before you even stepped out, you heard six voices shout out in unison.
>“Princess Luna!”
>Exiting the chariot, you cast a warm, but hurried, smile at them, which they gladly returned.
>“What’s going on with the moon, Princess?” Pinkie energetically quizzed, quite literally bouncing over to you. “Is it turning into swiss cheese?? I’ve always wanted to try moon cheese, you know!”
>”For the third time, Pinkie,” Dash interjected, “whatever’s going on, it’s definitely not turning into cheese.”
>“Princess!” Twilight called out to you from the back of the crowd, trotting up to you for a hug which you eagerly returned. “What’s going on? I got a letter from Princess Celestia saying everypony would meet here, but it didn’t explain what was going on. I’m assuming this has to do with what’s happening with the moon?”
>You nodded in agreement.
“You are correct, Twilight,” you began, “but this is no time to be idle. I’ll explain everything on the way back to the castle, Celestia and her team of scientists are wai-”
>You were cut off by a piercing headache, one which threatened to topple you entirely.
>You groaned out in pain, a similar sound from everypony around you filling your ears.
>While they weren’t in as much pain as you, it still seemed to be some sort of shared pain you were all experiencing.
>When the pain began to subside, you looked skyward.
>To your horror, the holes in the moon amalgamated into each other, twisting and morphing into a bigger nothingness that encompassed the center of your moon, swallowing all but a few pieces of the moonscape.
>As if that wasn’t enough, a monstrously loud metal crunch rang out from the grass plains behind Twilight’s castle, accompanied by the shrieks of the girls, and one of your guards, caused by the sudden development.
>When your headache subsided, you stood once more, as did the six ponies by your side.
>You cast an admittedly frightened gaze out into the plains.
>A metal crunch…?
>...
>A metal crunch.
>Your heart threatened to stop.