As damning as the ponies herd mentally could be, it did manage to save quite a few lives on the day of the timber wolves's attack. It was that inbred urge to follow which brought so many panicking ponies to the safety of the crystal castle. With so much disarray, there was no telling which streets in Ponyville would be safe. One wrong turn and… lunch.

Mayor Mare placed herself by the mouth of this flooding river. Setting atop the back of the construction worker she had recruited, the Mayor was shouting instructions to the massive herd through a megaphone.

“No pushing! Children first! There’s plenty of room, everypony!”

She would carry on like this for minutes more, but little of what she said would make any impression on the herd. Ponyville was an aquarium rolled over on its side. The fish were helpless to do anything more than ride the waves to safety. In the midst of the all that bedlam, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that one little fish swimming against the current went by unnoticed.

Through the rainbow colored throng of ponies, a speck of black was staggering deeper to the heart of the town.

Though the stallion wheeled forward, he never bumped into a single pony. The crowd parted around him without even realizing they did so. Two calm eyes, the color of raindrops, glared wearily into the chaos.

****

The lone stallion was a Koi pond of sensation. On the surface, pain and fear wrinkling his face like stones cast into water. Gazing deeper into his faded blue eyes, one might gleam the hundred or so darting entities in the depth of his mind.

When he stopped to collect himself, he was on an empty stretch of cobblestone. Though he was nowhere near the ransacking beast assailing Ponyville, the screams of the unfortunate were still ringing painfully in his ears. It made the stallion’s heart, as well as his eardrums, ache to hear so much suffering.

~Berry, you have to get up now! They’re coming, Berry, I can hear them!~

~No fighting, please! Children first!~

~Keep pressure, Bloom, we don’t need the bandages slippin’. I don’t care if it smells, she’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig!~

Midnight Dreary not only heard the growing chaos, but he felt it. His entire being had been pressed to the throat of the town, and now the ringing of its vocal cords shook him to his core.

Even standing was becoming a chore. Though he was still, the earth seemed to sway beneath him. He reeled a step or two before catching himself.

Shivering and whimpering, tears began to roll down the stallion’s cheeks… down Midnight Dreary’s cheeks...

So much death... can I be sure that Whisper and Alabaster are even alright?

The thought seemed to release a nest of cold, writhing eels into Midnight’s belly. All the while, nearby shadows continued to cry out in the voices of the afraid and dying.

Midnight’s face contorted in a effort to wrench the voices free from him mind. Skull thumping and legs shaking, Midnight slunk to his stomach as he began to hyperventilate. It felt as if the weight of that noise was crushing him. Maybe it was...

“I can’t do this,” Midnight rasped, “I can’t! I’m… gonna faint…”

It was within the throes of his desperation that a defiant mote rose up from the chorus of agony.

~“That’ right, scream for me, you mutt! Howl while I turn ya into a whittling stick!”~

Midnight’s eyes flew open. The voice was distant, but distinct. It was accompanied by the rapid percussion of snapping wood.

It was Alabaster. Though Midnight couldn’t see him, the picture held within his divided mind was vivid… It was an image of Alabaster, standing before the mountainous Dozer in some far away cantina. Midnight listened in awe as Alabaster fought whatever creature dared to stand in his way.

“He’s not even afraid, is he?” Midnight’s teeth gritted. “He’s fighting for his life, and here I am… groveling…”

~So you’ve already surrendered then?~

Midnight’s gasped, his skin breaking out in gooseflesh

Swiveling around, Midnight's eyes darted about. There was no one else with him. No one who could’ve possible heard, let alone speak, to him. This did nothing to calm Midnight’s racing heart.

That voice… it sounded like…

An image flashed in Midnight’s mind. It was the image of an eye blotting out the night sky.

No.

When the voice came again, it came from directly below him. Midnight’s skin felt as if it might crawl right off him and scurry away.

~I did not call you into our fold to have you shrivel up at the first hint of resistance, Midnight. You wanted control… and we’ve offered it~

Midnight wanted nothing more than to shut his eyes and never open them again. Though most of the previous night was a smudged blur, he remembered the pain in his throat, the ice pool in his belly… and the terror of a great unknown.

~No,~ Midnight’s head shook with the word. ~There will be no more terror. We will not tolerate fear any longer. Now, gaze upon us again, Midnight~

“I won’t!” Midnight cried out.

The word had no more left his mouth when a cool hand slipped up the nape of his neck. Sharp fingers nestled into his tousled mane, burrowing down into his spine. Midnight felt his head being pushed.

There would be no resisting. His muscles moved on their own accord. Midnight saw what was beneath and quaked.

Where there should’ve been cobblestone was instead a puddle of some tenebrous sludge. Bubbling and popping, it looked as if the pool was boiling. It looked like hot tar, yet Midnight’s felt neither an iota of heat, nor its viscous embrace.

Just when Midnight thought this was all too much, something broke the surface…

It was an eye… it's iris was the same faded blue as Midnight's.

“I don’t understand,” Midnight said, whimpering. “What have you done to me?”

The pool shuddered. It dawned upon Midnight then that the shrieking and crying which had nearly torn his mind asunder had dampened to a whisper. The quiet was a relief, yet somehow ominous.

~For now, that doesn’t matter~

“Then what the heck does?”

~Are you willing to set aside your fear and stand? To stand as your friend does?~

Midnight blinked. Since his awakening only hours ago, his entire being had ached with the death and loss of those in Ponyville. Alabaster was out there, doing his best to protect ponies he hardly knew. While Midnight was sure the pegasus could knock down whatever he set up, he was only one pony.

The decision was made in an instant.

“I want to help Ponyville,” Midnight said, almost as determined as he was afraid. “I want to help my friend. Tell me what I need to do, and… I’ll try.”

The murky puddle sloshed and swirled. Before Midnight knew it, a second blue eye popped up beside the first. A second later and it was joined by another. More appeared by the second.

Moments later, Midnight found himself lost within the black gaze of some mighty being. More than two dozen eyes stared up at him expectantly. Midnight’s mouth felt dry and papery. It was as if the world around him was a silky veil ready to be snatched away.

A hundred voices spoke in tandem. It was as if the entire city were speaking to him now, both in the voices of the dead and the dying.

~Listen to us. You neither walk alone, nor fight alone. The children of the Unseen walk with its vessel. But before you wield our might, you must first harness the apathy of our being~

An icy dagger tip pressed itself to Midnight’s forehead, slowly driving itself forward without even a hint of resistance. Only once before had he felt something so cold and empty.

~Give yourself freely, and wholly~

Midnight remembered what to expect. He opened his mind and fell onto that cold sickle, impaling himself on that sharp nothingness.

****

They weren’t going to make it, the castle was still half the town over. Trying to duck into one of the buildings would be suicide. The timber wolves were hot on the family’s heels and would be upon them before they could even turn a doorknob.

The stallion glanced over his shoulder, and immediately regretted doing so. Rows upon rows of stone teeth were feet away from his backside. The timber wolf snapped once, almost playfully, spurring the panting stallion onward.

The two mares next to him were in a ragged state. Their lungs burned and their muscles screamed. It would only take a cramp or an upturned cobblestone to send someone sprawling.

The timber wolf, however, was tireless. In fact, the wolf was having the time of his doggy life. Sure, running these puny sacks of meat would get boring before too long, but the chase was only part of the fun.

The timber really wanted to see which pony fell first: the big pony, or one of the two sweet smelling ones.

Drunk with the blood crusting around its maw, and the timber’s vision narrowed down to an arrow’s point. It saw only the juicy flanks of its pray… and not the flicker of movement at its feet.

CRACK!

The wolf stopped dead in its tracks.

The family continued to flee. Within seconds, they were around the corner and off of Maple Street. It wouldn’t be till they made it to the courtyard of the crystal castle that they would dare slow down.

Wood groaned as black icor splashing across the timber wolf’s paws. There was a hot sliver pain radiating from its chest. The wolf craned its head down to see what appeared to be a spear.

The black pike had materialized from the ground some four feet away and it ran the wolf through as cleanly as a shish kabob. Growling and thrashing, the wolf clawed at the spear, but to no avail. He was stuck.

Moments later, dust flew as a pair of timbers came skidding up to their comrade’s side. They had been running drogue encase any of their prey managed to circle around them.

The two timbers studied their forerunner, puzzled. One stretched out its neck and gave the spear a sniff.

The impaled wolf’s eyes widened. A lithe, equine shape strode towards them. The pony was a few yards from the pack, yet it didn’t carry even a hint of a scent. Even amongst the odors of death and destruction, a ponies scent would ring through like a bell toll.

The injured timber made a sort of choked squeak. Its comrades glanced up, then noticed the newcomer. While they also noted his lack of scent, none of them noticed the eldritch webwork beneath him. At the stallion’s hooves was a sludgy, churning black pool. A thin tendril extended out from its frothy lips and drew a straight line to the shaft of the spear.

The timber wolves bared their teeth. The leftmost wolf started forward, murder gleaming in its dull eyes. The pony before it might not have a scent, but it was still a pony… and ponies were prey...

Midnight's face twisted in an effort. The cold sickle planted in his skull curled into a hard, knotted rope.

The impaled timber felt the spear inside him shift. Suddenly, it was alive and moving. The wolf managed a hurt yelp before the world fell away from his paws. The spear grew like a beanstalk, hefting the timber wolf high into the air. The advancing wolf glanced up, gnarled jaw hanging agape.

Midnight cried out as that invisible rope snapped taut.

The wolf was swung like a yoyo. The tendril lassoed it around before dropping anchor. The wolf came down right on top of its gaping comrade. The ground shook with the collision.

Midnight turned away as chunks of cobblestone and slivers of wood peppered his face. A small cut was opened just beneath his eye.

I can’t believe that worked, Midnight thought, blinking the dust from his eyes. How is this even happening?

In Midnight’s amazement, he had completely forgotten about the third wolf. Before he could reign in his focus, it emerged from the cloud of carnage like a fiery eyed specter of vengeance.

Slicing through the babble in his head, Midnight’s head exploded.

~Look out!~

Instinct took over as the invisible knot of rope evaporating into a storm of knives. The pool of shadows beneath Midnight responded thusly.

As the wolf leapt, the pool rose like wave to intercept. It peeled itself back, revealing a half a dozen black spears. The timber realized its mistake, but only a second too late. It fell, thrashing, upon a bed of spear heads.

For a moment, Midnight could do nothing more than stare at the wolf suspended above him. It was like some kind of gravity defying marionette show.

~Steal yourself. We can’t afford to break our connection~

Though he didn’t understand, Midnight complied. His focus was quickly brought back to the wintry sword tip digging into his skull. The battle was not only for his concentration, but also his rising gorge.

The stench of the wolf was that of an open sewage tank. Curds of black slime oozed from its wounds and splattered onto the surface of Midnight’s shadow. His stomach turned into a den of wrestling snakes.

“What kind of trash heap did you crawl out of?” Midnight’s asked, tasting bile in the back of his throat.

~They’re getting up, Midnight. Be weary~

This was punctuated by the rattling and popping of living wood. Midnight peered through a curtain of spears and witnessed the same spectacle as Alabaster and Little Whisper. Wood crept like organic tissue as the wolves slowly pulled themselves together.

Midnight’s brow furrowed. “What the heck am I supposed to do about that?”

~Nothing right now. There are still others searching for safety. We will help them~

Midnight nodded. Looking back to the wolf in his grasp, the stallion’s brow furrowed. Those glowing eyes glaring down at Midnight suddenly went wide. With a quick jerk, the tendrils ripped the wolf to pieces.

Midnight stumbled back from the rain of wood chips and icke. With a toss, the remains of the wolf were sent flying.

~Just run~

Midnight did as instructed. Turning tail, he sprung into a full gallop. Shattered bits of ceramic crunched under hoof.

Midnight had made it nearly half a block when he heard the bumbling crashes of his pursuers. It wouldn’t take long for them to catch up, even with a head start.

“What now?” Midnight asked.

Though his pulse thundered in his ears, Midnight’s breathing remained surprisingly even.

Midnight made it a few more steps before his question was answered. The swatch of ethereal night racing beneath him contracted, becoming as dense as a swatch of obsidian. That's when Midnight felt the shadowy pool grab hold of him.

In one second, Midnight was sprinting along and the shadow was following. Now it was the other way around. The pool sped forward, moving like the shadow of some bird of prey, and Midnight had no choice but to be drug along. He cried out as he felt himself accelerate.

Wind whistled in his ears and buildings passed by in a sickening blur. Midnight chanced a look down. Though his hooves remained motionless on the black bed, the cobblestone was sliding away rapidly beneath them.

Midnight gritting his teeth. “This is weird. I don't like this!”

~Keep calm and trust us. All you need to do is keep our connection strong~

“Calm. Right.” Midnight swallowed.

Though Midnight knew not where the shadow was taking him, he did know one thing… the screams in his head were getting louder.