Tyranny of the Sun

Chapter 4

I was dead

At least it felt like death. What I experienced during my time in darkness was everything one would expect if they had died and awoken in Tartarus. When I first saw the darkness begin to part, I rushed toward it, believing that perhaps this was a way back to the land of the living. All I was met with though was torture.

I entered into the Hall of the Elements, from where I was not sure. I was standing at the far end near the sealed door, and before I could question how I had got here, the doors on the opposite side of the room opened. In walked a gray stallion wearing a cloak made of dark blue and purple hues. Underneath the cloak I noticed his mane, a tangled yet short mess of light blue with a dark blue highlight running from his bangs down to where the mane stopped before the base of his neck. He wore armor of a similar color to his cloak and as he walked in to the hall, I couldn't help but feel I knew this stallion. The strange pony walked into the hall slowly scanning the room. Before I could call out to him, he turned toward the door and said "All clear."

In walked Twilight, looking just as she did that night I had failed to protect her. Forgetting that I had just seen her taken away, I began to run toward her, but was stopped by what she said next to the cloaked stallion.

"This makes no sense, the note said to meet here. Perhaps they left?" I felt I had heard those words before, but I wasn't sure where. I looked at the cloaked stallion as they talked and realized that this strange stallion was me! I would have laughed thinking how funny it was I had thought of myself as so strange, but any chance of that was ruined when I realized what was really going on.

In walked the five sun-like pegasi creatures and their fake Celestia, the final piece of evidence to tell me what was happening. I was watching the night I had died. The night I had failed...

I watched in horror as the entire scene played out in front of me, finally ending with watching myself fly out the window. Just as my body left, darkness surrounded me once again, matching the feeling I felt. Just as I thought I had been left to my pain, I looked up to see the darkness part, and once again I was in the Hall of the Elements as my clone walked into the hall on the other side, cloaked in my armor.

The scene played before me an innumerable amount of times. Sometimes I would try to stop what was happening, only to find that running toward the creatures got me nowhere. Other times I tried to cover my eyes and ears in my hooves, but whatever force was making me watch this was not going to let up and whenever I covered my eyes and ears, the darkness I had created would simply part just as before and it would start again.

I don't know what the afterlife is really like, but if it is anything like what I had experienced during that time, than it gave me all the more reason to continue living.

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After darkness covered me yet again, I sat there looking down at my hooves, angry at my failure. But there was another emotion I felt. It was sadness, and I had no idea where it was coming from. Was I sad that my life was over? That wasn't it but before I could ponder it further, I felt the presence of someone else in the dark with me. Looking up I came muzzle to muzzle with Princess Luna.

There she stood, the princess of night herself. Her mane flowed just like her sister's, but the coloring made it look as if it had been part of the night sky itself. Her fur was the color of shadows, except around her moon cutie mark which was instead pitch black. Although shorter than her sister, the once evil tyrant still stood tall over me, looking down at me with a face that showed concern.

At first I brushed it off as another image and looked back down at my hooves, waiting for my personal play to continue once again. After a few seconds though, I felt something physical on my shoulder. Shocked at the sudden touch after not feeling anything but emotional pain for what seemed like days, I looked back up. Luna had placed a hoof on my shoulder, as if to show that in this world of images, she was not amongst them.

Finally finding words once again after so long, I asked the lunar princess a single word. "Why?"

Sighing lightly, Luna took her hoof off my shoulder. "I'm afraid I can't explain everything right now, but know this. What you believe this place to be it is not. You are in a horrible nightmare that I can not awake you from. Unless you wake yourself up soon, all of Equestria may suffer."

"You mean Twilight?" I said shakily.

Princess Luna turned away from me. "There is more to this than just the kidnapping of a princess, but I can't stay here for much longer. You must search your memory for an exit, and once your find it, I will explain everything to you in the physical realm. Until than, farewell Sleight-of-Hoof." With her good bye, she vanished, as if she had been a mirage the entire time.

With Princess Luna gone, the darkness parted and began again. This time I did not shy away though. With renewed spirits, I began to look around the hall, looking for something out of the ordinary that could show the way out of this nightmare. As the battle played out in front of me, it only strengthened my resolve to find the way out so that I could make right what I had failed to do that night.

I searched for about five repeats with no luck. As far as I could tell, the entire room was just the same as the Hall of the Elements. I even tried leaving the room through the door or out the breaking window, but even though my legs moved below me, the room did not. Frustrated, I turned around and walked over to the sealed door. I banged my head against the magical case that once held the most powerful magical objects in Equestria.

Suddenly I realized something. I had WALKED over to the door. Unlike the rest of the room, I was able to actually move here. Looking up at the ancient carvings, I tried to discern why out of the entire room was I allowed to approach this. I searched the door with my eyes, following the intricate carvings, each one meeting at the center where a small hole sat. The door had been built so that only Celestia herself could open it by putting her horn in the slot and charging it with magical energies.

Looking at the lock, I had a random thought. Reaching out to the door with my magic, I found what I had hoped to find. Tumblers. Although I imagine the original door did not have a physical lock, this one had been given quite a complicated one. The puzzle lock required me to not only push the tumblers into their places, but in some cases I had to pull them back out so to make room for another.

Not wanting to make a mistake and break the lock, I worked slowly. My hopes of finally leaving this place rose as each tumbler fit itself into its special place with a satisfying click. As I finally finished the lock, I began to wrap my magic around the door so that I could open it. However, as soon as the last tumbler clicked, the door threw off the field I had placed around it and began to glow. The carvings lit up one by one and pulled away from the center. Behind the door came a blinding light that pulled me in. Before I could react my once dark world was replaced with light.

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My eyes jolted open as I became conscious once again. The first thing I noticed was that I was on a sheet laying on my left side in what looked like an old fortress. The stone had many cracks in it, and where larger cracks opened up plant life had grown in between. Four pillars stood opposite of each other, three of them still standing as if the roof they once held up still existed. At one end stood what appeared to be the entrance, the other a hall that must go deeper into the building. In the center of the room stood a strange pedestal. Five arms branched off from the center of it, each stopping with a cup, as if it had once held an object in each. Although the place seemed abandoned, the lack of debris on the ground suggested that someone had found this fortress after it had crumbled.

The second thing I noticed was the immense amount of pain I was in. I lifted my head to look at my wounds, which only served to bring me more pain. Most of my body had been wrapped up in linen bandages, my left eye blocked by those used to cover the cut just above it. The linen smelled strange, as if someone had taken a variety of Rarity's mane care products, mixed them together, and rubbed them into my wounds.

Taking another look around, I could not see who had brought me here and tended to my wounds. Determined to figure that out, I pulled my hooves underneath me and tried to stand. Each inch I rose, huge amounts of pain throbbed through my body. Just as I was about to stand up straight, my left forehoof slipped and fell back onto my side with a loud thwomp. I groaned in pain, knowing I wouldn't have the energy to try that again for awhile.

Just than, I heard two voices coming from down the hall. I lifted my head once again, struggling to hear. One voice had a strange accent to it, and though I couldn't make out any words, it sounded as if whoever it was rhymed when they spoke. The other voice sounded familiar, as if I had heard it in a dream once.

The two voices stopped just before entering the room I was in. From where I stood, the first pony I saw walk in was not even a pony, but a zebra. She wore a lot of jewelry around her neck, left leg, and on her ears, though all of it was just simple gold. Her mane was done in a mohawk, and on her flank where a cutie mark would normally be was a spiral shape surrounded by small triangles. In a way, it reminded me of the sun.

The second voice belonged to somepony I had seen before. Princess Luna looked just as she had in my dream, only now instead of looking at me concerned, she smiled at me. The two of them walked over to where I laid immobile.

"Hello Sleight" the princess said, welcoming me back to consciousness. "I trust you wasted no time after our conversation?"

I replied with a groan. "How long have I been out?"

"You have not been out very long, only two days unless I'm wrong." rhymed the zebra.

Remembering one of Twilight's stories, I believed I recognized the zebra. "You are Zecora, correct? Twilight mentioned you."

"Ah, the book worm mare remembers me, after becoming one of royalty?" Zecora had come up in multiple of the stories Twilight told me on the train. Once feared by the ponies of Ponyville for looking so strange, she became a friend after Applejack's sister showed everyone that she was normal. Later on, Zecora had cured the same filly of cutie pox and helped Twilight when Trixie had come back with the alicorn amulet.

"I suppose I have you to thank for the strange-smelling bandages?"

"Tis a special concoction that I brewed, to help you heal quick and true."

Although I didn't want to be rude, the rhyming was getting on my nerves. I looked to Princess Luna in an attempt to change the conversation. "So what is going on? Last I heard you had turned back into Nightmare Moon and were plotting to bring darkness to the world."

Luna looked at Zecora, a silent message to leave so we could talk. As the exotic mare walked away, Luna sat down next to me. "I'm afraid that is not true. The only darkness I seek to bring to the world is the natural night."

"But Celestia told me that a few months ago you had changed, and that she was calling Twilight and her friends to Canterlot to help bring you back. Are you telling you didn't send those... things to capture her?"

She turned her head left and right. "No, I'm afraid everything my sister told you was a lie."

Now I was really confused. "Why would she lie to us about you?"

"Because I'm the only one who knows what she is really up to. If what I'm about to tell you were to become public, there would be rioting against her."

I pushed up on my forehooves so that I could sit up. Out of a hundred questions, only one stood out in my mind. "What does your sister want with Twilight?"

"I will show you." She leaned forward as her horn began to glow. As soon as I felt her horn touch my own, the world around me melted away. I felt like my spirit was leaving my body.

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When everything came back into focus, I was back in Canterlot castle, walking down one of the many halls. I tried to stop and look around but my body was not my own. As I walked by a mirror, my head turned to look at my reflection, except it wasn't mine. Instead I saw Princess Luna in the mirror. As I stopped in front of it, both me and the reflection rose a hoof up to our heads to adjust our manes.

I was watching one of Princess Luna's memories! I had heard of such spells before but they were extremely uncommon. Only unicorns with experience in mental spells could accomplish such magic though I should have assumed no less from a princess who could walk into the dreams of sleeping ponies.

After I, or rather the princess, had finished fixing my mane, I continued down the hall and around the corner. At the end of this hall was a door unlike any of the ones I had seen before in the castle. Where most of the doors were made of thick oak, this one was made of metal. A sun had been etched into the door by magic, leaving burns around the edges. In comparison to the rest of the castle, this door seemed out of place.

I walked up to the door and pushed it open with my head slightly to peek through. I felt words in my throat as if I was just about to say something but than I saw what was in the room.

Celestia stood in the room standing before what looked like a pool of shining gold. Around the room, several magic glyphs were etched into the stone, pulsing with orange power as Celestia muttered words in an ancient dialect. The rest of the room was sparsely decorated with a desk and what appeared to be the release for a pulley.

Following the chain from the pulley up to the ceiling, I saw that at the end of it was a mare being held above the pool. She looked as if she had been imprisoned for weeks, and was absolutely terrified of the gold swirling around below her. Just before I was about to say something, Celestia stopped chanting. The glyphs around the room flashed white as she put her hoof on the pulley release. The mare began to beg, pleading for her not to pull the lever. All of her begging appeared to fall on deaf ears as Celestia released the mare into the pool.

As the pony sank beneath the ooze, the white glyphs began to pour their power into the liquid, turning it from gold to a blinding white. Once the last of the energy had reached it, Celestia began to mutter once again. As she spoke, the pool began to move and bend, taking the shape of a pony! As the body formed itself, a mane of fire sprung from the back of its neck, armor began to shape itself around it, and wings sprouted from its back. As it finished taking shape, the goo began to return to its natural color. The strange pegasus opened its empty eyes for the first time.

Before me stood one of the very creatures that had been sent to kidnap Twilight and kill me. Before I could truly take in what I had just seen, I stormed into the room.

"Sister! What is this?" myself/Luna accused.

Celestia turned her head to look at her sister. The warm feeling I once got when I saw the sun princess would never return after how I saw her during this memory. She had dark rings below her eyes as if she hadn't slept in days. Her mane, instead of flowing softly, had become frazzled and no longer moved naturally like before. But what disturbed me the most was the look she had in her eyes, as if she had gone completely insane.

Celestia spoke with a smile in the same motherly tone that she spoke in the day Twilight and I met her, but with her crazed appearance it only served to make her appear even more insane. "Oh, this? Why it is the answer to our problem, my dear sister."

"What have you done to that poor mare? What is all this? Answer me Celestia!"

The princess stood there for a moment, simply smiling. "I've found out how we can finally assure that Equestria is safe!"

I took another step into the room. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it! Nightmare Moon, Discord, the changelings, even Sombra! I could do nothing about any of them!" Despite talking about how she had failed, she continued to smile. "I was forced to send Twilight to fight these battles, and each one was won by mere chance. But now," she looked toward the gold creature "now I have found a way to protect Equestria without the need for the Elements of Harmony!

"After months of searching through ancient tomes I have figured out how to create sun pegasi! With each filled with my own power, they will be unstoppable! Nothing will ever threaten Equestria ever again!"

I spoke in a calm tone, perhaps hoping to bring Celestia back to sanity. "But at what cost sister? Sacrificing the very ponies you seek to protect? We will find another way to protect Equestria, but this magic is unnatural!"

Celestia turned back toward me, her crazed happiness replaced with insane rage. "I knew you wouldn't understand this Luna! You have always been my opposite! The sun and the moon will never see eye to eye!"

Still speaking low, or maybe it just seemed so by comparison, I spoke again. "Celestia, if you continue down this path, I will have no choice but to strike you down!"

Celestia laughed insanely at this declaration of war. When she finally calmed down, she spoke "Oh, but you will be quite busy I'm afraid!" Laughing some more, Celestia horn began to glow dark purple, a color different from the gold she normally had. As her horn glowed, a surge of energy surrounded me as a glyph on the floor activated below me. I suddenly began to feel weak as I felt what seemed to be a tremendous burden be placed on me.

When the spell finally ended, I looked back up weakly at the crazed princess. "What... have you... done?"

"I've forced control of the sun onto you! Now with you holding both celestial bodies, I am free to use my full power!" As she said this, her horn began to charge with multiple layers of the same dark magic, preparing to cast a powerful spell upon me. Just before she was about to release all this power on me, I felt a smirk come across my face.

"I don't think so." As I said these words, I felt my own magical power cover my entire body and before I knew it I was no longer in the dark room with the crazed alicorn, but in the very same fortress I was in now.

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As the memory ended, I felt my mind snap back into my body. My stomach did not enjoy the sensation though and I turned to throw up on the stone floor.

"I apologize, I had forgotten that the feeling of entering another ponies memories can be disorienting at first, but you had to see what I had to truly understand the situation."

Wiping my muzzle of stomach bile, I turned to address the princess. "No... no it's fine. You did what you had to. I'm glad you did to be honest. It's just... when Twilight and I were there, she seemed so normal. How could I have missed... that?"

"My sister seems to be quite the actor." She was looking down at the floor, clearly saddened by what we had both just relived. "The memory you saw happened about three months ago. I knew that she could quite easily convince anypony who asked that I had simply reverted to Nightmare Moon so I did not return without being prepared. However, before I was able to enter the castle and tell the guards of my sister, I saw you fighting Celestia's sun pegasi through the window."

As Luna mentioned it, my feelings of anger and sadness rose up again. I looked down at the floor, gritting my teeth in an attempt to not let my emotions get the better of me.

Luna spoke to me in a calm voice. "It is alright. I saw your nightmare, remember? I know how much that moment must of hurt for you." I had forgotten about the night princess' ability to see dreams. "Anyway" she continued "I was going to help but by the time I could even see what was happening, Twilight had already been captured and you were about to be executed by the sun pegasi. Although I knew ways to defeat them, I was in no condition to fight five of them along with their commander."

"You mean the alicorn?"

"Yes, the... alicorn." She seemed disgusted to even call it the same species as her own. "So I made a choice to rescue you as you fell. Unfortunately, I fear this has made my mission to stop my sister all the more harder."

"What do you mean?" I couldn't think of anyway this could get worse.

"Are you ready to see more?" Clearly she meant to show me another memory.

I quickly checked my stomach to see if it had calmed down. Once I was sure I could take it, I told her. "Yes"

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As the world melted away once again, I found myself in a crowd outside of Canterlot Castle. A large platform had been built in front of the castle with the intention of someone making an announcement to the crowd. I looked down at a puddle I was standing in to see that I did not look like Luna but like some other mare. My fur was a light blue, with a long mane and tail of orange. As I looked back up at the stage, I questioned if all memory bodies felt the same or not as this memory felt just like the last one. Before I could think much more on the topic, a royal guard stepped onto the stage and turned to the audience.

"Ladies and gentlecolts. It is with great honor that I present one of our fair princesses. Princess Celestia!" the crowd roared as their ruler took the stage. After seeing the previous memory of the princess, it felt wrong seeing her in this natural state. She looked to the crowd with concern as she addressed them.

"My little ponies" she began. "I'm afraid I come here today with terrible news. Our newest princess, Twilight Sparkle, has been captured." This sent the whole crowd into a fuss as they muttered with each other, but Celestia did not stop speaking. "Now I know this is troubling, but that is not all. I believe that the culprit may be my own sister, because a few months ago, she turned back into Nightmare Moon and now is hidden somewhere in Equestria plotting to bring darkness to this land."

Now the crowd was truly upset. I few people screamed out while another pony fainted. Unrest spread throughout the crowd. The guards struggled to keep order in the crowd.

"Please everypony!" Celestia begged. "I know these are troubled times, but we must remain calm! There is one more thing you must know about Twilight's kidnapping." The crowd calmed down to listen once again. "Although we are sure Twilight was kidnapped, we have not seen any trace of the stallion who was once her bodyguard, Sleight-of-Hoof. Since he swore to protect the princess no matter what the cost, and since no body has been found, we can only assume that he had something to do with the kidnapping and is still at large."

At this time, a large banner rolled open behind Celestia. It was a giant version of a wanted poster with my face on it!

"If you see this stallion, report to the new sun guards posted in each city and town immediately." As she finished, ten sun pegasi flew down and landed behind her in a perfect line. The people in the crowd cheered at the sight of these monsters as the body I inhabited turned around and left the crowd. As I turned the corner into an alleyway, I felt a surge of energy go through me. As I struggled to call on more magical power, I looked down at my hooves to see that I had changed into Luna. Before I could question what was happening, everything began to blur as I left the memory.

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Snapping back into reality, I felt my stomach rock a bit, but I was nowhere near throwing up this time. As I readjusted myself to my own body, Luna explained what I had just seen.

"That memory was from yesterday. Using my ability to change my shape, I snuck into Canterlot and saw what you just witnessed. My sister must have not been able to find your body after sending her sun pegasi to kill you and assumed you had gotten away somehow. Knowing she couldn't take any chance on you coming out with the truth behind Twilight's kidnapping, she implicated you in the crime and made me the mastermind. We are now the most wanted criminals in Equestria. Even though we know what Celestia is really up to, no one will believe us."

Finally feeling normal again, I looked up to speak. "There is still one thing I don't get. Why would she kidnap Twilight?"

"I believe she wanted to make sure that her sun pegasi were the only true defense in Equestria, and in order to do that, she had to make sure the element of magic was out of the picture. Her entire plan was perfect."

"Almost"

Luna looked at me confused "Excuse me?"

"Her plan was almost perfect. She made one fatal flaw."

"And what is that?"

Making eye contact with the princess, I said only one statement with all of my being. "She didn't succeed in killing me."