Chaos's Librarian (Twilight)
Pre-chapter Author's Note: I'm fairly sure that you all have seen the way I made the title. 'Chaos's Librarian (Twilight)' and are going WTF? Inside your head…if you care at all. First of all, this chapter's title was a toss up between this and Satan's Library. This won, obviously. Second, in parentheses behind every chapter's title there will be the pony's (ponies') name that the chapter will be told from. Thank you, and remember to check the actual authors' notes section.
—Shadow Shard
Twilight sighed in relief. Her forty-two page essay for the princess was done. Sure, the princess had said 'short report', but she still wanted it to be of fairly good quality, didn't she? And what kind of paper on the Cosmosis magic tree didn't break down the Lunar and Solar branches? Both were, after all, parts of the tree. She had even gone down to some particularly useful specific spells, such as the heating spell from the Solar branch, under the lesser branch of Fire; and the cooling spell, under the lesser branch of Water on the major branch of Lunar magic.
She smiled, but her face split in a yawn and she forced it back down. I think you overdid it again, her mind commented sarcastically. You still need sleep like any normal pony, even if you're the alicorn goddess of magic and've pulled more all-nighters than Princess Luna.
Twilight sighed again, before inhaling sharply and blowing out the candle beside her. In the darkness, her lavender magic did some last minute tidying up, restacking the papers in order from the introduction to the bibliography, lining up her quills, and snuffing out the other candles keeping the house level of the library clean.
Then, with one last sigh, she turned and flopped into her bed. "G'night, Spike," she mumbled as the world went black, unconcerned about the flash of brown she'd seen at the window from the corner of her eye. S'prolly Owlowiscious, her already half-asleep mind slurred, You will sleep now.
And sleep she did.
"Now this…this is just perfect. The Princess of Magic didn't even know she was being influenced by an outside source!" a roughly Germane-sounding accent whispered to itself in the dark, "And I think I'll do her first. Say hello to your precious pony friend, dear brother." The voice spat the word 'friend' like one would spit out a drink after one was told it was posioned.
Then an arcane symbol blazed to life above the bed, lighting the room and its four occupants in a blinding white light. The light soon turned spectrums, though, darkening slowly to a festering gray. The figure controlling it was a monstrous one: jet-black horns curled out of his auburn-furred head, his peridot eyes blazed with a sickly light, and his mismatched body parts clashed horribly.
Finally the glyph made one more flash and died, falling to the ground with an audible thunk. The figure bent down to pick it up and turned it over in his talons and claws. It was a velvet bag of a fine shade of purple, held shut by a silver cord. Smiling as evil as possible with an overbite, the figure took a palmful of the contents out of the bag–a purple-tinted black dust that resembled ash–and sucked in a gentle lungful of air, before exhaling and blowing the powder around the sleeping alicorn below him. The dust settled on the sheets without a sound, completely covering Twilight and the bed.
For a moment, He stood awkwardly. "I'm fairly sure that wasn't one of my brother's idiotic joke recipes," he muttered to himself as he scratched his short brown goatee. He made to slice the air with his claws, but stopped as the powder began to glow with a sickly lavender light. "Yep, knew I got it right."
The glown surrounded the mare on the bed and lifted her into the air, wrapping around her in a cyclone of magic and power. It seemed to be a raging storm, yet the room was as still as ever. Not a single quill, piece of paper, or speck of dust had been knocked out of place the entire time.
Meanwhile, inside the tube, Twilight Sparkle began to change. First came her horn, lengthening to double, then triple, then quadruple it's previous size. Then came her head, her round muzzle and soft jaw becoming more angular and elegant. Her body followed suit, her legs stretching and her chest strengthening, until finally her wings flared out and grew until they matched the rest of her. The very last thing, her mane and tail, were revealed as the twisting energy tunnel was gently setting her back onto the bed and dissipating: they had become long, ethereal, and wispy, as if they were made of pure magic.
Grinning in triumph, the mysterious figure who still has no name turned to the small basket at the end of the bed, where he drew two more copies of the same glyph and repeated the steps on the baby dragon and the young phoenix he found there. Satsified as he watched the firebird become a shadowbird and the dragon's scales change color, his spines becoming more like spikes, he turned and clomped back over to the bed, where the alicorn was now sitting up regally and watching him calmly with flinty red dragon-like eyes that resembled rubies set in a cliff of dark amethyst.
"Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle, you're awake." Said the Figure with No Name, watching the mare intently. Said mare rasied one dark purple hoof to her face, inspecting it, and shrugged. "I suppose I am. But…" she paused, "Call me Dusk Requiem."
"Very well then, Miss Dusk. I do suppose you've got a plan in mind for your latest endeavor?" Figure said, cocking his head to the side. "Indeed. It will take a lot of planning to seize the Solar and Lunar thrones, and the resources needed are monumental."
"Well, might I suggest an alternative?"
"And what would said alternatice entail, hmm? And what do you want in return?"
"Ah, my dear Dusk–I believe I will call you Deadly Dusk–I want nothing more than to help you. You see, the alternative involves me empowering your fellow alicorns with the spirit of my brother, just like I did with you. Then they will be more likely to see the light of your ways–or the dark of your ways, I suppose. Whichever you prefer."
"Who is this 'brother', you speak of?" Dusk prompted, "And what is your name?"
"Always two steps ahead, eh? My brother's name…was Discord. And my name is Dischord," Dischord stated proudly.
"Discord and Discord?" Dusk repeated, thoroughly confused.
Dischord facepalmed. "Our parents weren't all that creative," he explained blandly, waving his paw around for emphasis. "Hell, our sisters' names are Plague and Pestilence."
"Anyway, we're getting off track here. I trust you want to know my motives?" At Dusk's nod, he continued. "I just want to help. You know my brother's mindless chaotic actions, right?" Another nod. "Well just like he lives to ruin lices with cotton candy and chocolate milk, I live to root for the underdogs. You'd never have been very important to Celestia before my interference, you'd have just been a trophy. Representing a successful experiment that could've easily gone volatile and killed you. It was only your powerful grip on magic and all planes of reality that allowed you to survive that experience, not the Elements of Harmony. The same power that she's keeping you in oppression for. So what do you say, Deadly dear, will you take my offer and become a goddess of darkness?"
Dusk's jaw tightened, and she thought. Hoof to her chin, she thought harder than she'd ever thought in her entire life, all twenty-seven years of it. "What about Spike and Peewee?" she finally asked, letting some of her good side show through, "What happens to them?"
Dischord shrugged. "Whatever you want, I suppose. They could be your lackeys or they could be dead, I don't know. It's all up to you."
"Well then, I think I've made my decision. May I try out my Evil-Queen-Giving-Orders voice?" Dischord rolled his eyes in his hand and nodded. Dusk's voice took on an ethereal tone that sounded like six of her speaking at once, all the voices intertwining and at the same time drowning the others. "Go forth, my compatriot, spread the transforming darkness. I will deal with them when they wake up."
"With your blessing, my lady," he said, sweeping a grandiose bow before disppearing. Dusk waited. No fanfare, no 'I'm just joking!', and most certainly no poof of cotton candy to announce the departure of the draconequus.
"Wait a minute, this guy's for real?" she gaped, wondering what hell she'd just condemned herself to burn in when this whatever it was finally blew over. But in the meantime…
"Where did I leave the book on conjuring and creating armor again?"
