Chapters “The moon is quite beautiful tonight,” the pony said aloud to himself, as he looked up at the thousands of sparkling stars in the nighttime sky that made it look like an exquisite piece of art. The street lamps of the outer parts of Canterlot shone a dim light, while the Nightmare Night decorations were lighting up certain areas of the streets as well. “Luna has certainly outdone herself this time. Too bad no one gives a flying feather about a poor beggar’s opinion,” he mumbled to himself. “Maybe I’ll get lucky looking through the alleys tonight and find a whole meal waiting for me with my name written all over it.”
The homeless pony had a grayish, dirty coloured coat with certain spots matted down. He obviously hadn’t had a good bath in months. He couldn’t even remember what his mane colour was anymore. It always looked brown and greasy with dirt and whatever else happened to stick to it when he slept. He had the idea of breaking the water pipes that were placed on the outside of some of the older buildings to wash himself, but thought that that would just get him into more trouble than he already was.
Beggars were looked down upon, mainly because it wasn’t that hard to find somepony that would provide work and plenty of coin to at least allow somepony like him to afford a cheap meal. It wasn’t his fault that he was just lazy and liked to get by with nopony bossing him around telling him what to do. He enjoyed other ponies doing work for him, and by that meaning, stealing other ponies’ belongings and food so he had to do less work. He also knew the alleyways like the back of his hoof, so if he got caught he could easily escape and hide in the alleyways and avoid detection.
“I bet Pony Joe has something good behind his store tonight. I think I’m going to head over there right now.” Talking to out loud was a way of making it seem like he wasn’t alone and he just liked hearing his own voice.
With Nightmare Night being only four days away, it was easy to find things amongst ponies’ trash, decorations to add to his “home”, and afterwards, scavenging all the candy that the little fillies didn’t want. Luckily he wasn’t a very picky eater.
Making his way over to Pony Joes he noticed that it was quieter than usual. Usually he could hear animals in the gardens, or ponies talking in their homes, but he heard nothing, which was quite unusual. As he made his way to over to the doughnut bar he hadn’t even bothered to notice that the moon became exceedingly brighter, but the resulting light had not brightened up anything. He had also not had the time to notice that rain clouds were starting to move in and cover up the night sky.
As he arrived at Pony Joes he could see that all the lights were turned off, except for some of the Nightmare Night decorations. “Off to the back. Then maybe I can sneak in and snatch a couple things from his storage room. Not like he’ll notice anything is missing,” the pony reassured himself with a chuckle. That’s when he noticed that a raindrop had landed on his head. “What the hay?” He looked up, now noticing that the entire night sky had vanished behind what looked like a single giant black cloud. Except for the moon, which seemed brighter than what it seemed to be? “Well is'nt that weird?” he asked himself.
It wasn’t pouring down rain, but only a single drop every now and then hitting the ground. “Going to have to speed things up a bit,” he started rummaging through the dumpster, throwing everything out of the bin all the while trying to be as quiet as possible. “What do we have here?” he asked as he pulled a paper bag out of the bin. He opened it up and emptied the contents into his right hoof. Pieces of different types of doughnuts fell out. “Jackpot!” he exclaimed happily.
He turned around to start heading back to his “home” when a horrible wave of stench hit him in the face like a ton of bricks. “Sweet Celestia, what is that horrible smell?” he said while burying his nose into his right leg while still holding the doughnut chunks in his hoof. Whatever it was, it was horrible. Other ponies often comment on how bad he smells since he hasn’t properly washed himself for a couple of months, or years, he had lost track of the date ages ago. He held the chunks of doughnut to his nose and wafted them. Nope it definitely wasn’t that. Maybe he smells worse than he thought; he began to think when he felt like somepony was watching him.
He quickly turned around and started looking around, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, except the moon, now even brighter than what it was two minutes ago, but still insisted on not lighting anything else around. Another raindrop landed on his head. “AHHH,” he jumped at the feeling of it. Startled, his sense of paranoia started to escalate with the fear of somepony still watching him.
CLANG
He turned around again at the sound of the noise and seen a can rolling across the alleyway. “Alright, I’m starting to get creeped out a bit. The moon is acting weird, it’s completely quiet except for cans deciding to scare me, and I feel like I’m being watched by,” he gulped, “…something.” He shook his head, angered that he was becoming scared like a little filly.
“What do I have to be scared about? I’ve lived out here in the alleys for as long as I can remember.” He assured himself.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what made the can move. So he decided to go give the event a closer examination to see what had caused the can to move. He started to move towards the can, his steps breaking the silence as he slowly moved along. After about fifteen steps he got to the can. He stared down at it and slowly picked it up and read the label.
It read Colt-a-Cola.
“The names they give these types of things nowadays,” he whispered while chuckling to himself. He put the can down and trotted over to the spot it rolled from. He didn’t see anything that could’ve caused it to roll. “Maybe it was just the wind.” Even though he didn’t recall any gust of wind or even the slightest breeze since he’s been here. He had decided to finally start heading back “home” when he could’ve sworn he had seen something, an obscured shadow of something moving at around twenty-five hooves down the alley, which seemed to be rummaging through something.
“What the…?” He was confused, scared, and curious at all the same time and for some reason found himself moving down the alley to find out what it was. The shadow made it seem like it was going through trash bins trying to find something in them. Maybe it was an animal or another pony just looking for some food.
SPLISH
He hadn’t noticed that the rain had picked up a bit and was now creating some puddles on the roads.
Whatever was down the alleyway now knew that he was there. He could sort of make out the shadows head. It some way resembled a dog’s head. It was probably a stray.
“Come here doggy,” he called to the dog. The shadow then turned and ran away from him. It obviously didn’t want anything to do with him.
“No, wait,” he called out again. He always wanted a dog since he was a filly. Something else to talk to and spend time with other then himself and that stupid volleyball he had back at his shelter. He started galloping after it, determined to catch it. “Wait,” he yelled, “I just want to be friends.” He didn’t want to lose it, so he kept on running through the alleys and across the streets until he actually lost his way and forgot were he was. He had made so many turns that he become lost. No, it wasn’t possible. He knew the all the back streets and alleys, and yet, he didn’t even notice were he was right now. Maybe he had made a wrong turn and had somehow made his way in the inner sections of Canterlot, which means that guards would be on him in a bit. He turned around to start trying to retrace his steps when the smell had hit him again.
“Not that smell again,” he muttered as he placed his hoof over his nose to try to block out the smell. The smell was so bad that it had made him vomit a bit in his mouth, but he was forced to swallow it. His eyes even started to water a bit. He knew the smell though; it smelled like a dog was drenched in water and then left out to air dry, which meant that the dog had to be close, but why did the scent of wet dog seem so strong to his nose. They usually didn’t even smell that bad.
He felt eyes watching him again and turned around again to face were he was heading to before.
Why am I still standing here looking at this thing, he thought. I should be running away, why am I not running away, he continued to think to himself.
Then water from an overhang that was about two stories up had finally filled up had broke and sent water barreling down towards the frightened pony, which had made him break free of his shock. He shook himself off and did a complete one-eighty and began to run as fast as he could.
He threw himself up against the walls as he made random turns through the alleys. He didn’t care which way he went as long as he could find the road and find another pony’s house and begin to beat on the door in hope they would open it and let him hide inside, but he couldn’t find the road. No matter which way he turned he just came to another T-section.
“Really!” he yelled.
There was a dumpster and a pile of trash a little bit in front of him. He decided to hide behind it. He ran up to it and crouched down behind all the garbage and slowly peeked his head out from behind his cover, looking for any sign of the creature that he had encountered. He sat there in the same position just waiting. He would come out when he thought it was safe.
I might just stay here for the rest of the night, he thought, that sounds good, he continued in his mind. He looked around him and started setting up the trash in a shelter type of format.
The smell had hit him again and suddenly he felt dizzy. His vision blurred and he suddenly felt a weird tingling sensation in his side. He looked down at the ground below him and seen a giant red puddle beneath him that continuously crept outwards more. His whole right side was slashed and torn. He stumbled a bit and held his balance by keeping a hoof up against the wall beside him. He turned his head and seen a giant, blurry four-legged figure standing behind him.
The whole world seemed to be spinning and turning, his vision just blurring even further. He stumbled away from the wall and fell to the ground in the pool of his own blood.
How had it gotten behind me, he continued to think, unable to think of anything else but that. That’s when he started to feel the pain, like he was on fire and he only wished to be back at his little home in his alley sound asleep.
Twilight Sparkle had woken up to the scent of food. She sat up in bed and sniffed at the air. It smelled like waffles or pancakes. Spike must’ve been cooking waffles for breakfast today.
Yum, she thought. She could really use some food right now to wake herself up. She had another restless night of tossing and turning because of a nightmare. She had had the same nightmare for about three nights now, but tonight’s lasted longer and was clearer this time around.
She stood in an endless labyrinth of dark hallways, running around trying to find a way out, but to no avail never finding the exit. She would always wake up after giving up in her dream, but tonight’s she didn’t give up. She couldn’t because an unidentifiable monster with several razor teeth and sharp claws was hunting her down. She came to a dead end in the maze and then turned around to only be quickly killed by the creature.
It got so intense that she was planning on writing a letter to the princess asking her for her help. But what was important right now was getting the library cleaned up and then checking on the Nightmare Night decorations and making sure the festival was planned and ready in three days. What was even more important than all that were those waffles that Spike was making. She was hungry.
She got out of bed and headed over to the bathroom. She at least wanted to make herself look presentable. She called upon her magic abilities to open up her cupboard and took out her hairbrush while simultaneously picking up her toothbrush and toothpaste to start brushing away the grime on her teeth, the purple glow emanating from her horn and the objects she was commanding. She continued to brush her teeth for several more minutes while thinking about her nightmares.
They have to mean something. She thought.
She spit excess toothpaste into the sink and then washed her mouth out with some mouthwash.
What if they’re visions that tell my future! No, that’s not scientifically possible. There’s no way that can be true. Ponies can’t see into the future.
She began to head downstairs, still thinking about everything. I’m just going to have Spike send a letter to the princess and she’ll definitely help me. I really just want to go back to having a good nights sleep again.
“Good morning,” Spike greeted Twilight, breaking her out of her thought. Spike then showed her to the table were he set everything up. “You woke up just in time to try my new recipe."
“Waffles have recipes?” Twilight asked puzzled. She knew waffles had to have the simple batter and such, but what else do they need?
“Yeah, of course,” he answered back, “Pinkie Pie showed me it. It has chocolate chips in them.”
He sat them in front her and she began to eat them delightfully. They tasted okay, but she didn’t have the kind of sweet tooth that Pinkie had.
After taking the first bite she said, “Spike, I’m going out around Ponyville to check up on everything for the Nightmare Night festival. I want you to stay here and get everything cleaned up and start getting our decorations up too. Don’t want to be the only pony and dragon in Ponyville to not have decorations set up, do we.”
“Don’t worry Twilight, I’ll have everything set up before you get back today,” he assured her while saluting.
“Okay,” Twilight chuckled, “If you do you’ll get the day off tomorrow okay?”
“Yep,” Spike replied, “Don’t worry Twilight, it’ll be done.”
Twilight picked up her plate and put it into the sink and headed out the front door to begin checking on things.
“Extra! Extra!” the mail mare, Derpy, was shouting out while flinging newspapers in the air for everypony to catch. “Strange occurrences in Equestria last night! Read all about it! Extra! Extra!”
Twilight caught one of the new editions of the Equestria Inquirer and looked at the front page.
She read the lead story out loud. “Equestria experienced some strange events last night when the moon began to give off an extra glow type of nature and then clouds began to move all by themselves and then began to rain heavily.” She was shocked at what she was reading. The clouds don’t move by themselves, and only Pegasus ponies could make them rain. She then continued to read. “Then at around seven-fifteen, a pony came up…dead…in the alleys of…Canterlot.” She was horrified at what she read.
A pony…dead? It just wasn’t possible. Nopony had been killed in centuries, and in Canterlot of all places. The whole newspaper was about it too. All the columns were about the homicide or the weird occurrences, and some of them were about both.
“Twilight,” a voice called from behind her.
She turned to see Spike running after her holding a letter.
“Twilight, Princess Celestia sent you a letter. I think it’s important.”
“Here, let me see it,” she quickly said and snatched it from his claws.
She opened the letter up and levitated it in front of her. It read,
My most faithful student Twilight Sparkle,
Sincerely,
Princess Celestia
It was even stamped with the Princesses mintmark. What was so important? Was it about the murder?
She face hoofed herself. Well of course it has to be stupid, she told herself. What else could it be, an exclusive tea party.
“Spike,” she said.
“Yeah,” he responded, “What is it?”
“I have no clue Spike, but there are some weird things happening right now and the Princess wants to see me up in Canterlot ASAP. So I’m going to finish my work here quickly and head on up there. You stay here, okay?”
“Alright,” Spike answered.
"Hopefully some of my other friends will be at Sugar Cube Corner too, so I don’t waste time running around Ponyville."
When she arrived at Sugar Cube Corner, both Pinkie and Applejack were there.
“Well ‘ey thar Twilight, I’m her’ deliverin’ all the apples to the Cakes so they can make all our tasty apple treats fer Nightmare Night,” said Applejack. Then her face got a little bit more serious and asked, “Did ya hear about the bad news up in Canterlot?”
“Unfortunately, yes, yes I did,” she replied. “The Princess has actually summoned me up in Canterlot so I’ll be leaving once I’m done checking up on everything.”
“Ohhhhhhh! You’regoingtoCanterlot?CanIcomeCanIcome?” Pinkie had gotten all excited and started jumping around Twilight. “Ihavn’tbeenupinCanterlotinlike…FOREVER!”
“Nope,” Twilight replied and Pinkie stopped bouncing around and asked,
“Awwww. Why nooot?”
“Because the Princess has requested that I should come alone. Sorry Pinkie, next time okay?”
“Do you Pin-“
“Yes Pinkie, I Pinkie Promise,” Twilight interrupted while she did the motions of the Pinkie Promise, pretending to shove the imaginary cupcake in her eye while smiling.
Pinkie simply smiled and then sped off somewhere to do whatever Pinkie does.
“Better keep that ther’ promise,” Applejack said. “I don’t want to see ‘er angry again.”
“Didn’t plan on breaking it,” Twilight reassured.
“So is everything on schedule?” Twilight asked.
“Well, we’re a little behind with the apple deliveries and the weird rain last night left our orchard a disaster, so all in all, we’ll be behind a day er so on account of havin’ to sort through even more bad apples now.” Applejack still sounded confident that she could get everything done.
“Alright, just a minor setback,” Twilight noted. “Just pick up the pace a bit, okay A.J.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it Twi. I’ve got Big Mac and AppleBloom helping me out too, so it’ll be done.”
“All right, good,” Twilight nodded. “Well, I’m going to head over to the Carousel Boutique to see how my costume is coming along.”
“‘Kay. I’ll see when ya get on the train,” Applejack waved goodbye as Twilight left through the front door.
After hearing more about the incident on her way to Rarity’s shop she was slightly disappointed.
“But why do I have to wait to see it Rarity?” Twilight asked. “Nightmare Night is only three nights away and I’m going to be spending some time in Canterlot before that, so…”
“You’re going up to Canterlot?” Rarity interrupted. Usually she always got so excited when Twilight mentioned that she was going to Canterlot. She would start packing her bags and then insist on going with her, but right now she seemed almost upset at the statement. “You do know that there’s something creepy going on up there darling?”
“Trust me, I know.” Twilight replied. “Princess Celestia has invited me herself. I think it probably has something to do with all this craziness.”
All right, well you better be careful up there anyway. Need any help packing your bags or anything? It’d be my pleasure to help you.”
“No, sorry Rarity, but I’m already packed.” She nodded her head to her satchel she had hung over her back. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”
“Well let me at least carry that for you to your ride. Taking the train?” Rarity already had Twilights satchel on her back and ready to go.
“Well hold on, we haven’t even finished our discussion about my costume yet.” Twilight had to remind her that she came hear for a certain reason.
“I already told you that it was going to be a surprise when you get back from your duties,” Rarity told her as she was walking out the door with Twilight’s satchel.
Twilight was slightly upset, but Rarity was only being generous in helping her getting ready to leave, so she quickly forgot about it.
The next train for Canterlot was leaving in around fifteen minutes, so she finished everything just in time. All of her friends were at the train station to bid her a farewell and a safe return, except Rainbow Dash. She hadn’t even seen her yet today which was odd because usually she was out practicing her flight skills to impress the Wonderbolts. Maybe she was just deciding to sleep in and be lazy today.
Rarity gave Twilight her satchel as she stepped onto the loading platform and she set it on her back. She had packed an apple for the train ride, some paper, two inkwells, a quill, and a book to read for the ride as well. She hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything.
“Willyoubringmesomethingfromyourtrip?” Pinkie asked excitedly. “I’dreallylikeasouvenir.”
“Sure, I’ll bring you all something okay.” Twilight said.
“You be careful ‘kay,” Applejack said.
“Yes, we will all be awaiting your return darling,” Rarity added.
Twilight gave them all a hug and boarded the train. She turned around to see them all waving, she waved back and gave a smile. The train blew its whistle and started to move. Twilight gave a final wave and they waved back while Pinkie was bouncing up and down. She let out a giggle at her friend being silly like always.
The train was now moving at full speed and Ponyville was starting to become smaller and smaller. She went into the main cabin to find a seat. She took a seat that didn’t have anypony else sitting in it. She sat down and looked out the window. The beautiful landscape quickly going by as the train kept moving along.
It was going to be a six-hour ride so she decided to get comfortable and find something to do. She started to name off certain plants and animals she seen in the fields, using all the knowledge she had learned out of the books that Fluttershy had let her borrow. She hadn’t seen her either, probably to frightened to come out of her cottage with all the scary things going on. She thought of getting her some kind of new friend for Angel Bunny to play with. She continued to look out the window and admire the scenery as she slowly dozed off to take a nap.
This is my first fanfic about ponies so I would enjoy constructive feedback.
Comment in the below section for questions or comments.
She was running, running, and running, but it seemed she was running in an endless maze of darkness in which she would never find the exit of. Twilight didn’t even know what she was running from, only that she knew that she had to escape from whatever was chasing her. She could only look up at the moon and stars and try to use her knowledge of the constellations to find the way out.
She turned a corner and seen something in the distance, something lying on the ground. It looked like another pony so she quickly decided to see if he or she was okay. It was definitely a stallion, but as she got closer she noticed that he wasn’t moving or breathing at all. That’s when she noticed that there was a pool of red liquid underneath him.
Twilight stared in disbelief as she noticed that the dark red liquid was blood. Her eyes widened as she looked at the dead stallion. He had a matted grayish coat that was soaked in blood and a brown dirty mane. His whole right side had been ripped to shreds by something. His head was also bleeding a bit.
She had never seen a dead pony before, how was she supposed to react. She got closer to the body and looked at the ponies’ face. His eyes were completely gray, like they had been glazed over. His mouth was slightly open and even more blood was dripping out of it.
She looked behind her, she couldn’t see anything since it was to dark. She felt like something was watching her, but didn’t know what exactly, it was a creepy feeling. She looked back down at the dead pony, which was still there in the same motionless position.
Then she looked up and didn’t like what she seen. It was a pitch black night sky, no stars, and no moon, just darkness. Twilight was starting to panic. She was surrounded in complete darkness, except for the light that seemed to follow her with an unknown source. She could only see about five hooves around her and that didn’t compensate for the walls that were at her sides.
She looked behind her again, she had heard something, something walking, footsteps.
“Who’s there,” she shouted at the darkness. The noise had stopped. It had to be her mind playing tricks on her, that’s all. She heard something else behind her again. She turned to look, the body of the dead pony had changed position, and it seemed to be looking at her.
She let out a whimper and wanted to run, but she couldn’t summon the courage to do it.
RUN!
It was talking to her without moving its mouth. She started to panic again, but realized that the dead pony was giving her advice. She took the advice quickly and started to run as fast as she could down the alley, into the darkness. There always seemed to be a five-hoof radius of light around her at all times.
The wall came too quickly, she couldn’t see it coming since it was so dark. She slammed head first into the wall and bounced back a couple inches and then proceeded to fall on her flank. She only heard a ringing sound and she was now seeing doubles. She tried to get up on all fours, but she only started to sway and then fell back down.
She tasted something in her mouth. It was warm and utterly bitter. She spat onto the ground and saw the color of red spray onto the floor. Her teeth had broken when she slammed into the wall and she had bitten her upper lip. Her vision cleared and she started to regain some of her hearing.
Twilight heard fast paced sound behind her, like something was sprinting towards her, but they didn’t sound like hooves, they sounded quieter. She decided to get up and start running again but then noticed that she had run into a dead end. Twilight began to panic even more and started to cry.
She let out a shriek, “HELP,” but knew that nopony was going to hear her. She just stood there and waited for whatever was coming towards her. She could hear it coming closer and closer. It seemed like forever before it seemed like it was right on top of her, she could only close her eyes and wait for whatever it was to get to her.
The sound had stopped. She opened one of her eyes and looked out into the never-ending darkness. She didn’t see anything, only black. She opened both eyes and then realized she hadn’t been breathing. She started to take deep breaths and only kept looking out into the darkness.
She straightened herself up and took a step forward.
She didn’t understand what happened afterward, only one second ago she had been walking and then she had been slammed into the wall. The wind had been knocked out of her and she could hardly breathe. She tried to stand up but felt something tightly wrap around her midsection and soon felt herself lifted up into the air.
The thing that had grabbed her was about twice her size and covered in black fur. She could feel it breathing on her. It looked like a wolf, but was much bigger and had bigger claws and teeth. One of the claws was holding her. Its dark yellow eyes just stared at her and seemed to examine her. She tried to break free but the creature only tightened its grip. She could hardly breathe from it crushing her.
She bit down on the things hand and applied as much pressure as she could. The beast let out a howl and then threw Twilight across the alley and into the wall. She hit the wall with a loud crash and then landed on her side on the ground.
There was so much pain now that it was unbearable. She quickly looked up to see the mouth of the beast bite down on her neck. She let out a shriek of agony and quickly began to try to fight back, but she only heard a loud crack and then her vision clouded and faded to black.
She woke up in her seat on the train while sweating and breathing heavily. She looked around at the few ponies that were staring at her like she had done something weird.
She looked out the window of the train and noticed that they were still moving.
The brown colored stallion looked down at his pocket watch and replied, “About five hours,” then he looked at her and asked, “Are you okay? You were making noises and thrashing around like you were having a nightmare or something.”
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” Twilight looked back out the window to admire the passing landscape. It was only around one hour before the train would stop at Canterlot. She decided to use this time on thinking about her nightmares.
She had got a clearer version this time around and didn’t like it. She again was being chased through the never-ending maze of darkness. She had had her neck snapped by some animal that hardly gave her a fighting chance. There was also a dead pony that also had seemed to be killed by this creature. What she found really weird though was that there was no moon or stars in the night sky, why were there none? When she got to Canterlot, and once the Princess shows her to her room, she was going to write down all the important details from her dreams so could remember them all.
For now she needed to find a way to pass the time to Canterlot. She opened her satchel and took out the book she had packed. It was about dreams and what goes on during the mind while asleep. She might as well read up on it so she could try to figure out anything about them and if they can affect you later on.
She opened the book and started flipping through pages, skimming them to try and find anything useful. She got to the nightmare section and started reading to herself:
A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, which usually has something to do with fear or horror, with the exception of sadness. These nightmares usually contain situations of danger, psychological or physical terror.
They were definitely scary all right. She turned a couple of pages to try to find anything about a cure, but there was nothing, only that they were common and everypony experienced them throughout their lives. She kept searching, determined to find something. She stopped on a page that mentioned something that seemed important.
Ponies who experience reoccurring dreams usually are always thinking about that topic of the dream.
That could be bad, she thought. Does this mean that she could slowly be going insane? She wanted to ask the Princess about it, but at the same time, she wanted to keep it a secret and not let anypony else know about it. She was sure she would make the right decision when it came down to it, she hoped.
She continued reading the book, about how dreams always had something to do with your emotions at the time and how that could affect them. She missed having those kinds of dreams, dreams of her friends or a dream of becoming a teacher and being awarded the “Smartest Pony” award. Instead she is stuck with these horrible nightmares.
She wasn’t even having emotional problems so that wouldn’t be the cause. She only hoped that the Princess would be able to answer her questions about these problems and all the events that had been happening as well.
The train whistle blew. Twilight looked up from her book and seen that the train was beginning to slow down. They had arrived at Canterlot.
Wow, she thought, time sure does fly when you’re reading a book.
The train had come to a complete stop and the train conductor was now letting ponies onto and off the train cars. There actually weren’t a lot of ponies getting off, only getting on. Twilight thought that it probably had something to do with the killing.
She got out of her seat and made sure she had everything in her satchel bag still, some paper, an inkwell, quill, the book, an apple and a couple of bits. She took the apple out and decided to eat it while heading to the castle. She bit into the red fruit and savored the sweet taste as she started heading towards the exit.
When she got off the train she noticed that there were hardly any decorations for Nightmare Night, it seemed they were being taken down, some of them anyway.
These ponies must really be shook up from all this, she thought. There were still some lights and pumpkins here and there, but for the most part it was pretty normal looking and all the buildings that did have decorations looked like they didn’t belong there.
Many stores had the “Closed” signs up as well, so it would probably be a little while before she could go shopping. With hardly any ponies on the streets though, it made it quite easy to maneuver the streets. Normally it was extremely crowded and took a while to get to and from somewhere.
She continued to eat her apple while the sounds of the train became faint in the distance. It was now almost completely quiet with only the sounds of her hooves breaking the almost complete silence. It was going to take some time for the city to forget about the death, of course it will never be forgotten, but until everything goes back to normal, nothing will be forgotten. She hoped that it would all end as soon as possible and everything could run its daily routine, all of this will set everything behind and become unorganized, it bugged her.
When she got to the castle gates there were of course guards stationed everywhere. Pegasi on the roof and flying around, Earth ponies and Unicorns marching around on patrols, the security had definitely been buffed up to the extreme, they were even armed.
When she went up to the gate, the white stallion that was clad in golden armor looked down at her and said, “The Princess has been waiting for you,” his voice was sort of gravely and deep. “I’ve been told to escort you up to the throne room so your royal highness can speak to you.”
“Thank you sir,” Twilight replied.
The guard gave a nod to the other guard behind the gate, in which that guard nodded back and opened the gate for them.
“Follow me Miss Sparkle,” the gravely voiced guard said. He led her through the gates and up to the castles front doors, where there were even more guards stationed. It was sort of ridiculous how many that there were, but you can never be too safe.
The guards gave each other nods and the doors to the castle opened. She was then led through the castle and up a couple of flights of stairs until they arrived at the Princess’ private quarters.
The guard turned and looked at Twilight, “The Princess will see you now.”
Twilight thanked him and entered the room. The only light source in the room was from an open window.
“Thank you for coming Twilight,” a familiar voice said from the other side of the room. Princess Celestia was looking out the window, frowning, her vibrant colored mane flowing in the breeze. “I’m so happy you made it.”
“I’m happy that I could be here,” Twilight said, “I have so many questions...,” Princess Celestia turned and held up a hoof for silence.
“I’m sure you do. I will answer all of your questions soon enough. Just let me explain why I called you here.”
“Sorry Princess. Please, continue.”
“I am sure you are aware of the problems we have experienced during last night.” Twilight nodded. The Princess continued, “The moon acting weird, clouds moving on their own and raining without the Pegasi telling them to.” She closed her eyes and sighed, “And the murder,” she cringed at hearing herself say it.
Twilight nodded again.
“I’m sure you have read up on history enough to know that there hasn’t been a pony killed in hundreds of years. The very last time was during the battle to seal Discord and end his rule. Not one pony has been killed ever since my sister Luna and I became rulers of Equestria. I hoped it that it would never happen again, but I suppose it was only a matter of time.” She started to pace around around the room. “I know that what I am about to say will certainly stun you and you might not believe me, but you must promise that when you leave this castle you will not mention to anypony what I am about to tell you.”
Twilight nodded.
“I need your word,” the Princess said.
Twilight replied, “You have my word Princess.”
“My sister Luna has lost control of the moon,” she said it with extreme sadness, “She no longer has control and can’t make it rise or go down.
Twilight was surprised with what she heard, “But...but...,” she didn’t even know what to say. “Is this even possible? It has to be Discords doing.”
“It is not Discord, we are not sure what exactly is going on. If it was Discord then more things would be wrong and he would’ve contacted me by now.” Celestia told Twilight. “It is best to not mention anything to her as well, for I fear it will only put her in her deeper depression than what she already is in."
Twilight asked, “Do you have any idea on what could be going on?”
Celestia started to pace back and forth and replied, “No, I don’t.” Then she looked back at Twilight and said, “This is why I have called you here. I want you to investigate in what could be going on. You are my most faithful student Twilight Sparkle, so I am sure you can figure out what is happening. If you find anything, come report it to me immediately. All of my guards have been notified that you are my personal assistant right now and you will have access to all areas in the castle.” She stopped pacing and looked at Twilight, “Can I count on you?”
Twilight didn’t even give herself a chance to think about it, “Yes Princess, you can count on me.” Something this important couldn’t have second thoughts. “If I may ask though...,”
“Go on,” Celestia said.
“Why did I have to come alone? Wouldn’t this be easier with all the Elements of Harmony here to help?”
“I didn’t want to release the secret to anypony else. They might be your friends, but I don’t know any of them personally. Though if I feel that we are in danger, I will call them here for protection.”
Twilight nodded once more and said, “I understand Princess.”
“I am also assigning you one of my personal guards to help you. He will be outside this door waiting for you when you leave. He will follow your every order and protect you with his life.” She gave Twilight a reassuring look and said, “I’m sure you will not let me down.”
Twilight smiled at Celestia and went out the door saying, “Don’t worry Princess, I won’t let you down.”
After Twilight left, Celestia let out a whisper, “Be safe Twilight Sparkle.
“Hello Miss Sparkle,” a gravely voiced guard said. It was the guard that escorted Twilight to the Princess. “I’ve been signed under your leadership by the Princess.” He stood straight at attention and said, “Corporal Archie reporting for duty.”
“Thank you Corporal Archie,” Twilight said.
The Corporal looked at her and asked, “What is the first matter of business?”
Twilight started to walk toward the entrance of the castle and replied, “I want to go to the murder scene and see if I can gather any information.”
Archie seemed unnerved by what she said. “Okay then Miss, right away. Would you like an escort?”
“Yes please.” She was going to take her time on this to help the Princess, but she wanted also to get back to her friends in Ponyville so she wouldn’t miss Nightmare Night.
“Alright then, follow me,” Archie said and went out the onto the castle grounds.
They were walking down the Canterlot main road when they overheard some ponies talking to each other.
“I say we shouldn’t stay here, but if you want to then I’m fine with it,” said the mare to the other. She was wearing an expensive outfit that Twilight would never be able to afford, so was the other one. “Fancy Pants is no longer going to be here until everything is sorted out and it’s safe here again.”
“But what about the Princess...,” the other mare started to say but was then interrupted.
“She’ll be fine. Look at all the guards she has, nothing will ever break into that castle.” She reassured.
The other ponies’ eyes looked away and she looked like she was trying to decide to stay or leave. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”
The other mare motioned the other to start packing her bags and get ready. Twilight began to think if there would be anyone left in Canterlot by tomorrow. She supposed that that would make things a little bit more simple in the investigation, but those were ponies that could have information. She trotted up to the mare that was left outside and asked, “Do you know anything about what happened last night?
The mare looked her up and down and replied, “Not much. All I know is that some pony was killed last night and that all the clouds were acting weird.”
Twilight already knew this and asked another question, “What about the pony. Do you know who he was?”
The mare looked like she was becoming impatient now. “No. Like I said before, I wasn’t told much.” She looked toward the door of her house, the pony she had been talking to earlier came out with a suitcase.
“I’m all packed and ready to go.”
“Good, start heading to the train station and wait for me there,” the mare said. She then looked back at Twilight and said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off now.”
Twilight just stepped out of the way and let her pass. She thought about how uninformed everypony was, how she knew more about the situation than anypony else, except the Princess of course.
“Shall we continue our way to the scene?” Archie asked.
Twilight nodded her head yes. That was horrible, she thought, if only ponies weren’t afraid of everything right now.
“So, where did this tragedy happen?” Twilight asked.
“We’re heading over to Pony Joe’s, that’s apparently where it happened.”
“Pony Joe's?” Twilight was surprised at what she heard. She used to go there all the time with Spike to waste time when she wasn’t studying. Of all the places that it could have happened at. Pony Joe was probably quite upset with everything, no sales at night.
When they arrived at their destination, there were just as many guards there as there were back at the castle. They obviously didn’t want anypony getting through to see the body. Twilight saw Pony Joe inside his bar and decided to go talk to him. The guards let her go inside, Archie following close behind her.
Joe was arguing with the guards about what he knew and didn’t know about the dead pony behind his bar, when he had seen that Twilight came in.
He sighed and said with relief, “Twilight Sparkle,” he chuckled, “The last time I seen you was after the Grand Galloping Gala last year. What brings you here on such a horrible day?”
“Princess Celestia has entrusted me with figuring out what is going on.”
Joe rolled his eyes and said, “They got you on this too? So I expect you are going to bombard me with questions as well?”
“I only have a few,” Twilight said, “All I need you to tell me is what you know about what is going on.”
Joe sighed and said, “Look, I’ll tell you what I told these guards here just now. All I know is that when I got here this morning there was a dead pony behind by my dumpster when I took the trash out. I called for help and that was that.” He looked annoyed at having to explain everything again.
“Alright, but for now you will remain a suspect.” Twilight had read up on some terms she could use to make herself sound more professional. She wished she’d never have to use these terms.
She turned to Archie and asked, “I wish to see the body please.” She didn’t want to, but she knew that she would have to eventually.
Archie motioned her to the back door and opened it for her, “After you ma’am.”
Twilight walked out and was greeted by more guards.
“She’s Twilight Sparkle, guys,” Archie told them. “She has clearance from the Princess.”
The guards looked at each other and apologized for the inconvenience. They stepped out of the way and let them pass. Twilight was starting to become a little unnerved and she started to sweat. She really didn’t want to see the body. She started to think twice about what she had gotten herself into, but quickly accepted that she was here and not going anywhere else until this was solved.
She could see the body before they got up to it, surrounded in a huge puddle of blood and accompanied by a smell that was horrid.
“Is this what death smells like?” Twilight said aloud.
“Apparently so,” Archie responded.
What happened next left Twilight staring at the body with fixed eyes and her mouth agape. The pony was a dirty gray colored stallion that had a greasy blood-splattered mane, his eyes glazed over. Twilight couldn’t believe what she was looking at. It was the pony from her nightmare.
I would like to thank my friend Rush for proofreading and helping me out with some things.
Twilight just stared at the body, unable to comprehend that the dead pony from her nightmare was the one on the ground infront of her. She thought about screaming, but had second thoughts on how the guards would react. She only let a few tears through her eyes.
Archie only nodded his head at the mangled body before him, “Such a shame,” he said, “What pony could even do something like this?” He walked over to the other side of the body and looked at its expressionless face, and stared into the clouded eyes, unable to see into them.
Twilight took a few steps backward and leaned against the wall to give herself balance.
She thought about how this was even possible, how her nightmares seemed to becoming real somehow. Was she seeing into the future? She didn’t like how everything was starting to turn out, and she’d only been in Canterlot for about two hours now. She felt like she was going to be sick.
Seeing the body and the thought of nightmares was like a combo, breaking her mind, trying to send her into a mental meltdown. She wouldn’t give up so easily though, she promised Princess Celestia that she would help her no matter what, she wouldn’t let the madness catch up to her and fail. Failure was not an option.
She was going to have to ask someone about the nightmares sooner or later though, so she settled on asking Celestia and Luna, if Luna could help her now, that was.
She was just going to have to muster enough willpower to examine the body. Most of the guards either looked sad, angry, scared, or mixtures between the three. Archie seemed to be more upset than anything. He was looking at Twilight with a look that asked if she was gonna be okay. Twilight assured him that she was fine and could handle it.
“Do you know who he is?” Twilight asked. Maybe knowing who he was would help her nightmares. One of the guards gave her a folder with papers in it.
It was a file that had all the information on the pony that she needed. It gave his name, age, birthday, relatives, even his cutie mark (which had written down n/a). She wondered if the Princess had files on every pony in Equestria. She would like to read her own.
“Well,” Twilight began asking Archie, “Have you found out anything?”
Archie looked at her and replied, “Not much, no. Just that whoever did this must be pretty strong.”
Twilight took out her notepad she had with her and a quill and began to take notes. “Why is that?” She asked.
Archie placed a hoof on the body's head and said, “The whole skull is crushed and completely beyond repair.”
Twilight thought about and said, “But most ponies can crack walls with a buck of our hind legs, and knock apples from trees with a single buck.” She thought about Applejack. She was the strongest earth pony she knew.
“Yeah,” Archie replied, “I thought that at first, but,” he pointed to multiple puncture wounds along the pony's head. “These puncture wounds say otherwise. He didn’t get kicked in the head, his skull was crushed by a bite.”
Twilight took a second to absorb that into her brain. “So somepony grabbed him by the head with their mouth and broke his head?” She wrote that down on her notepad.
Archie shook his head, “No,not somepony, something.”
Twilight looked at him puzzled and asked, “What do you mean?”
Archie pointed his hoof back at the head and said, “Look at the bite marks on the head. They are not from a pony, the shape is different. They seem more more circular.”
Twilight got closer to the wounds and inspected them closely, while slightly hesitating and gagging a bit. She crossed out “somepony” and put above it “something/animal”.
“So it was an animal of some sort?” She asked Archie.
“Possibly. Do you know any type of animal that has sharp teeth?”
Twilight thought about it for a bit, but couldn’t come up with anything. Fluttershy would probably know, but she couldn’t make a trip back down to Ponyville to just ask a question and then come back up to Canterlot.
She tried to recall any animal that had sharp teeth. “What about a Timberwolf?”
Archie thought about and said, “It’s a possibility, but they live in the Everfree Forest. They couldn’t have gotten up to Canterlot.”
They were out of ideas. Twilight was going to make a trip to the Canterlot archives tonight anyway, so maybe she could find something of some use there. She only hoped for everything to be over soon now, anyway.
“Alright,” Twilight began, “If this is all we can figure out, I’m going to head over to the Canterlot library to see if I can find anything usefull.”
“What should I do, Miss?” Archie asked. He had to have some kind of orders.
Twilight thought for a second and told him to investigate the surrounding area and the alleyways around them. There were probably more clues around them that they haven't seen yet, but Twilight didn’t want to stick around anymore because she couldn’t handle seeing the body anymore.
Archie saluted and replied, “Yes ma’am.” Then he turned to another guard and they started walking toward the alleyways.
Twilight let out a sigh and thought to herself, Good, I won’t have to deal with him for some time. She didn’t want someone following her around when she went to the doctor to ask some questions about her nightmares.
She started heading off to the library, but when the crime scene was out of her sight, she turned a different direction and headed toward the hospital.
When she arrived at the hospital it was rather empty. It was a good thing that there were no hurt ponies, but there wasn’t even anypony at the reception desks or guarding the back doors.
She walked up to the front counter and rung the bell that had a paper next to it that had written “ring for assistance” on it. She pushed the button on top of it down, and at the same time it let out a ringing sound the back doors opened and a pony in a white lab coat came out and asked, “May I help you.”
Twilight nodded her head and asked him if she could ask a few questions concerning something important. The doctor led her back through the doors and showed her to his office.
He sat down on a chair behind his desk and said, “Now, what are your questions?”
Twilight then proceeded to tell him all about her nightmares. How they kept recurring and how she usually always died in them. She specifically left out the one she had on the train though. That question was for Celestia when the time was right.
“Well, it certainly is weird,” the doctor clearly stated. “But nothing out of the ordinary.” Twilight looked at him like he was insane.
“What do you mean by not weird,” Twilight asked, confused at what he said.
“Isn’t it obvious? The events that have been happening lately are starting to take a toll on your psychological well-being.” It was slightly true. She did have a headache from all the craziness going on.
“What should I do?” She asked.
The doctor then gave her a piece of paper he was writing on the whole time she was talking. It had listed all her problems and what she should do.
“For now, all I can tell you to do is drink plenty of water and get some rest.” He walked over to a shelf that had medications on it. He picked up a bottle and gave it to Twilight. “Here, these will help relax your mind and make you fall asleep at night if you can’t do it yourself.”
Twilight thanked him and asked him if she should pay him anything. He promptly said no and told her that she could be on her way.
Twilight looked around for a clock and seen that she had been here for a total of two hours. She got a little panicked and ran out the front door and turned in the direction of the library. She had to get there before Archie does so she doesn’t get caught up in a bunch of questions that she was going to have to painfully answer for.
The doctor just watched through his window as she ran away towards the castle, with a slight grin on his face.
The door to the library slowly opened, Twilight peeked through the crack and didn’t see anypony in the main room. She went in and closed the door quietly behind her, careful not to make any noise in case someone else was in the library.
The last time she had been in this library was when she still lived in Canterlot. She had so many memories here with Spike while studying. This is where she learned about Nightmare Moon, from which she ended up meeting all her friends in Ponyville.
She wondered what her friends were doing and if they were doing okay with what seemed to be the worst thing to ever happen in Equestria. She was sure they were fine, she’d be back home in Ponyville before she knew it and visiting her friends before she knew it.
“Hey,” a voice said from behind her.
Twilight jumped a bit and turned around, startled. It was Archie.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.” He said. “Where were you? I got here about half an hour ago, but you weren’t here.”
“Yeah I was off looking for something,” Twilight lied.
Archie looked at her and asked, “What were you looking for?”
Of course he’d ask that question, Twilight thought. She continued the lie, “I couldn’t find what I needed so I came over here.”
Archie just looked at her and replied, “Okay, did you find anything in your research here?"
Twilight shook her head, knowing that she didn’t find anything because she wasn’t even here to find anything. “What about you?”
“Some of the guards and I found some clues around the surrounding area, but we would have to go back so I can show you everything that we found.”
Twilight told the corporal that she would most likely be staying at the library tonight and that she would go back to the scene in the morning. Archie thought it was a bad idea, but Twilight convinced him everything would be fine.
“You can sleep back at the castle with all your friends. You’ve earned it.” Twilight told Archie. He just saluted her, relieved that he was actually getting a break. The sudden work all of a sudden had left him tired.
After Corporal Archie left, Twilight spent half the night searching for books that might be relevant to the investigation, but she couldn’t find much of anything. She picked out some books about Canterlot history, Equestria history, a couple different animal guides, and some detective books to get herself in the mood to be an investigator.
She read some of the history books first, learning stuff she pretty much already knew, The Mare in the Moon tale, Discord, but none of it seemed to add up, she was stumped for the time being. Then she started to read the animal guides, but they only listed all the peaceful creatures such as bunnies, birds, and deer. Nothing about dangerous animals except for Timberwolves that haven’t actually been seen outside of the Everfree Forest for a couple decades.
She had gotten nowhere, books were failing her for once, which she thought would never happen. She started reading some of the fiction mystery books, but was too tired to try to read anything anymore.
She walked down the spiral staircase and set up a blanket on one of the desks in the reading area. When she lied down and started drifting off to sleep, she started to think about the nightmares again. Was she going to have another one? She was suddenly awake again. She sighed and turned over, but couldn’t find a comfortable spot anymore.
She had to get her sleep or she wouldn’t be focused in the morning to do more research. Then she remembered the pills the doctor had given her. She opened her saddle bag that she had laid next to her and took out the medication. She read the dosage amounts on the label and decided that two pills would be enough to make her sleep the rest of the night.
She went to the library's restroom and let some water from the sink run into her mouth, then she put one of the pills in her mouth and swallowed, then did the same with other.
She had let some of the last pill stay in her mouth for too long and it left a bitter aftertaste. She rinsed her mouth out with water and then drank some.
“I hate it when that happens,” she said out loud. She looked at herself in the mirror and giggled a bit at how her mane was already a bit messy.
I won’t need to fix it till morning anyway, she thought. She exited the restroom and settled herself back down at the desk. She put her head down on the desk and before she knew it, she was sound asleep.
Twilight woke up feeling well rested and extremely happy. She didn’t even remember what her dream was, but it was better than a nightmare. Although something still seemed off, why was she so cold, and why did she feel like she hadn’t bathed in a couple days. She looked up and noticed that it was still dark, then noticed that she was lying on the ground in the middle of an alleyway.
She quickly got on her hooves and looked around. She was starting to panic and quickly realized where she was. Pony Joes.
The moon had hardly moved at all, she had only been asleep for an hour at most.
She glanced over to the dead pony who was still in the same position, then looked beyond the body and noticed another body. She was confused, there was only one dead pony. She started to walk over to the other body when she noticed another one next to it, and another farther to her left, and a few more by the back door of Pony Joes. More ponies had been killed.
At this, Twilight entered panic mode and her head started to hurt. How had these ponies died? When did it happen?
They were all wearing gold plated armor and all had either white or dark gray coats. They were the royal guards.
She couldn’t move her legs at all, she was frozen in place, scared out of her mind. She looked down at her hooves and told them to move, yet they still wouldn’t move. Her eyes widened as she continued to stare at her hooves. They were soaked in blood. Her hooves, her legs, her stomach, her back, her face, were all soaked and splattered with blood.
“No,” she began to let out a tear, “No, no, no.” She couldn’t have killed these guards, she would never do anything as horrible as killing a pony. “This can’t be happening.” She took a step back and turned around to run, but was stopped by another dead guard that was behind her.
His whole midsection was torn open and his insides were falling out onto the ground. Twilight vomited almost instantly at the sight and fell over on the ground where she continued to empty the contents of her stomach. She buried her face in her hooves and proceeded to cry silently. She didn’t want to accept that she had killed the guards, how would she possibly even do that anyway, her body wasn’t built for fighting, she was only a bookworm.
She was going to have to get back to library before Celestia rose the sun and everypony started getting up and about. That also meant cleaning up this mess so she didn’t leave any evidence behind that could lead to her. She stood up and looked around, but there was nothing to clean up. There was no nothing around that was hers or resembled that she had been there, except for her puke puddle, but that didn’t matter.
She thought about how she was going to act in the morning around the guards. She wouldn’t be able to act normal now knowing that she had done this. Archie will probably know something’s wrong and report it to the Princess.
Her eyes widened again as she realized that she had pretty much failed the Princess. She had committed treason against all of Equestria. She wasn’t Princess Celestia's most faithful student anymore, she had failed her. She would never be able to approach her anymore with this in mind.
She slammed her hoof on the ground and thought, NO, I won’t let this ruin me. I must get back to library and not look conspicuous in the morning. I’ll just have to be quick and think about every question that can be asked of me when the time comes. I should think of every outcome and figure out a way to make myself not seem like I’m a suspect.
She started walking toward the street, carefully stepping over and around the bodies. She looked both ways down the street and didn’t see any pony else around. She continued to walk down the street and quickly began to pick up the pace. She felt like she was being watched by something behind her. She didn’t want to look for a fear that something would actually be there, but her curiosity got the best of her.
There was sudden darkness all the way down the alley. It darker than the black night sky.
She continued to walk backwards and then quickly turned around and galloped as fast as she could back toward the library. She could’ve sworn that she heard something growling at her.
Twilight ran into the bathroom of the library and began to splash water all over herself. She had to wash all the blood off, she couldn’t leave any blood or dirt on her coat stay. She plugged the sink and let it fill up till it was almost overflowing.
She dipped her whole head in the sink and then shook the water out of her mane. She scrubbed the remaining blood out of her coat with her hooves and let the sink start to drain. She checked herself in the mirror. She might’ve gotten the blood out, but she still looked like she hadn’t bathed in days. It was just going to have to do for now.
She walked back out into the reading area where she had set up her sleeping area. She sat down, put her head down, and used magic to lift her blanket up and cover herself back up.
She was going to have to go back to the doctor with the pills she had been given. They surely hadn’t done anything good for her, only bring some of her nightmare to reality. What scared her the most was that she felt happy in her sleep when she had apparently been killing ponies. That made her feel horrible. How was she going to even act normal when the morning came? She was going to blow it and she would be discovered. Maybe she would get lucky and only get banned to the Everfree forest.
She lifted her head up. Once again she felt like she was being watched. She turned her head toward the balcony above her but didn’t see anything. Then she looked over at the front door. There was something in the window next to the door, like a shadow staring at her. She couldn’t make out what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a pony.
Two yellow dots appeared in the center of the shadow and began to blink.
Twilight rubbed her eyes and looked back at the window. Nothing was there.
Great, she thought, now I’m seeing things. She put her head back down and tried to go back to sleep.
Somewhere in an abandoned building, two shadowy figures were talking to each other.
“Well,” a female voice said, “Is everything going according to plan?”
“Yes,” a male voice said, “The plan is moving along quite nicely. Couldn’t be any better.”
“Good,” the female figure said. “Does she have any clue what is going on?”
“No ma’am. She completely clueless right now, but she does think that she’s the one who killed the guards just like you said it would happen.”
“Her mind is slipping from reality, and she will eventually be able to kill without hesitation.” The female figure said. “We must now take the next steps before it’s too late.”
The other male figure asked, “What should you have me do next then, ma’am?”
The shadowy figure waved her hoof at him and said, “Take your friends and clean up the mess you and them made. We must make Twilight Sparkle’s mind as unstable as possible.”
“As you wish my queen.” The figure walked away while four other shadows materialized and followed him out onto the streets.
After they left the female figure started talking to herself.
“I will break thee Twilight Sparkle. The nightmares and guilt are starting to seep in, and when they do, I’ll be waiting for you.” With a slight grin on her face she laid down on the floor and continued talking to herself. “Princess Celestia,” she said the name like she was evil, “Will not be able to stop this unstoppable force of events.” She just started to laugh at the idea of the mighty Celestia failing her subjects and losing power. Soon, oh so soon."
Twilight Sparkle health analysis: All is good.
Many thanks to the glorious proofreader Rush fo helping me out.
Twilight hadn’t slept all night. She didn’t want to have another nightmare, or worse, have another experience like last night. As the sun started to rise, Twilight stood up from trying to sleep on the chair in the reading area. She packed her saddle bag and went to the restroom to clean herself up a little bit.
Her mane was messy like it always was when she got up. She turned the sink on and splashed some cold water on her face, it felt refreshing. Then she started to drink from it. She stayed up the whole night trying to fall asleep in one position and got dehydrated. The water had a nasty metallic taste to it and she had a hard time swallowing some of it.
She looked in the mirror at herself again to make sure she at least looked presentable. She seen some blood still on her face, just below her nostrils. She quickly washed it off and walked out of the restroom.
She was going to make sure she had everything and put some of the books she had taken out back on the shelves. She was keeping the Canterlot history book, one of the animal guides, and the book about dreams and the sleeping pony. She also packed her notepad, the quill and the inkwell. She didn’t think she was missing anything.
When she picked up the inkwell though, something seemed off about it. Twilight weighed it with her hooves, it felt lighter. She opened it up to see that it was completely empty.
“What,” she said in surprise, “but that doesn’t make any sense. I hardly used any of it yesterday.”
She looked around and noticed that there was only one inkwell, when she had packed two.
Twilight started to think if she accidentally brought some with her when she woke up in the middle of the night on the street. If she left some there, she could get caught when they revisit the scene later today.
She was about to panic, but then she looked down and saw ink on the floor before her. She looked at the puddle puzzled as she began to relax. She looked to her right and seen more spilled in a streak type of pattern.
A trail of ink, she thought. Wonder if it leads to the other inkwell. She started to follow it, out of the reading area and up the spiral staircase. From the top of the stairs, it led into another room to her left. She looked at the door puzzled, and said, “I don’t remember that door ever being there.” She trotted over to it and began to slowly open it. There were stairs that led down to another door. She went down the stairs and pressed her ear up against the door. She listened carefully to hear if anything was on the other side.
She didn’t think she heard anything, so she opened the door a little bit and peeked through the crack. All she seen was darkness. She opened the door completely and let the light behind her shine the way forward. She couldn’t see much, but it seemed to be an extension to the library. An extension she never knew about.
She looked over to her side and saw a lantern lying on the ground. She levitated it up into the air and lit it with her magic. The room lit up to reveal a giant room, shelves that were stockpiled with books, books that she had never seen before.
She started walking around looking at the books, completely marveling at the fact that this was hidden and being held a secret. Why did the ink lead in here?
She went back to the door to find the ink trail again, but when she got to the door, she couldn’t find it anywhere, it had disappeared.
Twilight was confused and looked closer, still not being able to see anything. She made the flame in the lantern brighter and, but still couldn’t see anything.
Maybe it was like that invisible ink, she thought. After Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash pulled that prank on her, she started researching the mysterious ink, determined to find a way to make it able to be seen. After a couple of days, she had found out a way to counteract the so called “invisible ink”.
She focused her magic into the flame that was in the lantern and turned its color into a dark purple. The room darkened again, but the ink showed up as a bright blue on the ground. Twilight giggled at how it worked so well.
She began to follow the bright blue trail that appeared before her. The purple light reflected off of everything around her, which made all the books look purple and everything else around her as well.
The trail was leading her back farther in the room. She was surprised at how big the room actually was. It was much larger than the base of the library, it probably went underneath some of the other houses.
When she got to the end of the trail, there were books that were knocked off the shelves and scattered all over the floor. Twilight walked over to the bookshelf and started to pick the books up and reorganizing them and putting them back where they belonged.
That’s when she noticed the inkwell sitting on the bookshelf at her eye level, on top of another book. She levitated the inkwell up with her magic and lightly shook it. It sounded like it had something else in it rather than ink. She popped the cap off and turned it upside down. A small crumpled up piece of parchment fell out and landed by her hoof. She put the inkwell back down and picked up the piece of paper, unraveled it, and then began to read what was written on it.
She read it aloud to herself, “This book should prove to be an asset for you.” She lowered the paper down and looked at the only book that was on the shelf in that region. She hadn’t even noticed that it was covered in the “invisible” ink and showed to be bright blue.
She looked back down at the paper, read what was written on it again, then folded it back up. She was going to keep this with her. She picked the book up looked at the cover. There was nothing written on the cover. She turned it over and saw that there was nothing written on the back either. She looked at the spine, no words there either.
She opened it up and saw the title on the first page.
“Lycanthropy”.
She didn’t know what the word meant. It probably has something to do with fiction, she thought.
She was about to turn the page when she heard a faint noise somewhere off in the distance. It sounded like a door being closed.
Twilight quickly levitated all the things she needed into the air: lantern, mysterious paper, and the book. She followed the trail back to the door and threw the lantern aside, which broke it and sent oil spilling all over the ground.
She went up the stairs and out into the library, while closing the door behind her. She put the piece of paper and the book underneath one of the desks.
She ran over to the railing and looked over it. She saw Archie standing by the desk with all of Twilights belongings on it.
Archie was instantly alerted to her presence and looked up at her.
“How was your night Miss Sparkle?”
Twilight lied, “Good. I slept like a filly.” She started to try to calm herself down so she wouldn’t look guilty of something. She went down the spiral staircase and started to pack her things.
Twilight asked, “So what are we going to do today?”
“Don’t you remember? We’re going back down to the crime scene so I can show you what the guards and I found.”
Twilight was afraid he was going to say that. She chuckled a little bit and said, “Are you sure we have to go there now,” Archie looked at her seriously. “I mean, can’t we wait a little bit?”
“The Princesses have asked us to pick up the pace,” replied the corporal while walking toward the door. “We must not disappoint them.”
If the Celestia and Luna wanted them to be quicker, than she was just going to have to pick it up. She was just going to have to prepare herself for the worst.
“Alright, well you start heading down there. I’m going to finish packing and then I’ll catch up with you.” Twilight told him.
Archie just saluted and continued to walk out the door.
Twilight packed her stuff and went back up the stairs. She picked up the book she found and the piece of paper, packing them in her saddle bag. She looked back over to where the mysterious door should’ve been, and was discouraged at seeing it not being there. She walked over to the wall and inspected it. There was no sign at all that it was ever there.
Twilight simply scratched her head.
“I’m going insane, aren’t I?” Twilight asked herself, and strangely answered back. “Yep. I must be.”
She walked down the stairs and out of the front door. She was just hoping that everything that was about to happen, would go as well as she hoped it would.
Twilight was starting to sweat, if she got caught killing royal guards, then her life would be ruined. She was just going to have to act calm when they arrived at Pony Joe’s. If she did get caught, she was was just going to run as fast as she could away from Canterlot. She’d probably have to live in the Everfree Forest for the rest of her life. She couldn’t stop sweating though.
Then she thought about the secret room in the library she had stumbled upon. The note that she found must have been written by somepony that knows who has caused this mess. The one that had written the note can’t be the murder, otherwise they wouldn’t be helping her. This pony would also have to know that she would be able to see the invisible ink in the darkness. There were only two ponies that she could think of; Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. She didn’t want to doubt them, but they had to be suspects now, unless the pony didn’t know and she just got lucky.
Twilight shifted her saddle bag as they were walking to make sure that the book she had found was still there. Whatever pony was “helping” her had lead her to that book, in hoping that she would take it and read it. Of course she had never seen any of those books before, so she wanted to get back in there to read some of them.
“Lycanthropy” was the name of the book she had been lead to. She had never heard that word before, at least she thought she hadn’t. She was going to get the trouble that was about to happen in a couple of minutes over with so she could look into this book.
“What the,” Archie sounded confused. “Where are all the guards? They were supposed to stay stationed here all night.”
Twilight put her head down and tried to hide behind the corporal. Archie marched forward, mumbling something about the Princesses kicking the soldier’s flanks.
Twilight followed him slowly and was surprised to not hear him start panicking. Twilight looked up and was taken aback by the streets being completely empty. Not a dead guard anywhere. Only the original dead pony.
Twilight’s headache started to increase, but luckily she stopped sweating.
Where were all the dead guards from last night? She thought to herself. Was it just another messed up nightmare? It couldn’t have been though, otherwise she would’ve woken up from it during the night, but she remembered staying up all night.
She wanted to know what had happened, but at the same time she didn’t want to know. She could use this opportunity to play it safe and hopefully not seem suspicious.
Twilight continued walking with Archie, while observing her surroundings, waiting for Archie to see a dead guard that was just hidden from their view. Nothing happened though. The corporal only rambled on about how the other guards were being lazy and weren’t doing their job. Twilight didn’t care, she only wanted to know more about the book and note that had been left for her to find, and if the guards getting killed was only a dream and she had slept walked to the alley.
“Well,” Archie interrupted, “Enough about that matter. They will get what’s coming to them eventually.” He turned and looked at Twilight. “I’m sure you want to know what I found, right?”
Twilight levitated her notepad and a quill dipped in ink out of her saddlebag and replied, “Yep. Tell me everything you found.”
He trotted over to the body, which surprisingly looked like it did before. “The unicorn guards cast a spell on the body to keep it from decomposing. Without them here, the spell will become progressively weaker.” He pointed his hoof down the alley and said, “He was running around in circles. He left a trail that was hard to pick up, but it didn’t escape my sight.”
“What do you mean he was running in circles?” Twilight asked.
Archie shook his head and told her, “It confused me at first as well.” He pointed toward the trail and started following it. “He was trying to escape from his attacker, but he only ran through the same spots over and over again.”
“What’s the trail composed of?” Twilight asked. It would be an important piece of evidence.
“Traces of sweat and garbage odor, some blood, tufts of his coat and mane, and slight nicks in the cobblestone from him running too hard. The rain must have washed away most of the evidence that night. That’s why it took me so long to figure this out.”
“If most of the trail was washed away during the night, then how do you know that he seemed to be running in circles? Twilight questioned.
Archie looked back at her and said, “I don’t exactly know. I’ve been sorta...guessing on things.”
Twilight just put her hoof over her face and sighed. “So you’re saying that you could possibly be wrong?”
Archie nodded his head yes. “If we can find any more clues that could sufficiently change my theory, then I’ll tell you.”
Twilight wrote everything down and asked him, “Do you think you can find anything else important?”
Archie shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’ll try ma’am. Is that what you want me to do for the rest of the day?”
Twilight shook her head and replied, “For now, yes. After you spend a little bit more time on it, then head over to the castle. I’m going to tell the Princesses what we discovered so far.” She looked at the corporal as he saluted her. “Could you please not salute me. It makes me feel like I’m more important than I really am.”
Archie apologized and went off down the alley to find more clues.
Twilight had to go back to the hospital and return the medications that they had given her, otherwise she was going to encounter another problem. She was just going to ask for a weaker drug that won’t keep her from obviously hallucinating.
She didn’t even remember what her dream was about. All she knew was that it wasn’t about running through an endless dark labyrinth, and eventually dying at the end. She wondered where all the guards were at when they arrived. It was way too coincidental, the fact that she woke up in the middle of the night in the middle of an alley with a bunch of slaughtered royal guards beside her, then going there in the morning and seeing absolutely nopony there what-so-ever. It creeped her out and made her head hurt.
She took her notepad out and looked through her evidence to see if she could come up with a different theory than Archie’s. Having more ideas can extend the variety of thoughts and possible outcomes of the pony’s death. She had written down some good evidence and things that she would tell the Princesses.
She was also going to ask Celestia if she could ask Luna some questions. It had been a day and that would have hopefully given her some time to calm down and want to talk to other ponies. She had been controlling the moon for a while now, so how could she just lose control of it? Twilight’s head hurt from just thinking about it.
She put her notepad back in her saddlebag. She made sure that the book she had found was still there. She was thinking about asking the Princess if she knew that that library was there and, if so, why it was hidden. She remembered not being able to read most of the texts on the covers of some of them, if they had a title at all. She was going to see later tonight if she could find a way to get back in that secret room and “check out” some of the books and scrolls she had seen. Some of them had looked interesting.
For now she had to worry about the hospital and what she was going to tell the doctor about the pills. She was just going to tell him that they hadn’t worked and that she still hadn’t gotten any sleep.
She starting picking up the pace to the hospital, it looked like it was going to rain again. If Princess Luna lost control of the moon, then the pegasi must’ve lost control of the clouds. She didn’t want to get soaked by a downpour, so she started galloping to the hospital.
She was right about the rain, it was raining so hard that it appeared to be raining sideways.
She was sitting in the lobby of the hospital, reading the current newspaper, waiting for the doctor to call her back so she could return the pills he had given her.
She just sat on one of the chairs and watched out the window at the rain. She couldn’t even see the street outside that was only five hooves from where she was sitting.
She wondered if Rainbow Dash was throwing a fit over the rain not doing what it’s supposed to do. She hadn’t even seen her at the loading station when she left, so where had she been?
She would wonder about that later, for now...she took the book she had found out of her saddlebag. She had to read some of it and figure out why somepony had left it for her.
She opened to the first page where it said “Lycanthropy” and nothing else. No author, no side notes, no addendums, nothing else. The following page was aligned with texts on both pages. She marveled at the writing, she had never seen anypony write quite like this before. The parchment was old and yellow as well, so she was careful while flipping through the pages.
There was no table of contents, she took a quick look in the back of the book and didn’t see an index either. She went back to the first page with text on it and started reading, it was time to find out what lycanthropy was.
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The weather had not cleared up at all, it was now thundering to no end. Everytime Twilight tried to start reading, a flash which was quickly followed by a large boom would startle her out of her reading.
Twilight’s horn glowed purple and a magenta bubble formed around her. It made everything on the inside of the bubble soundproof. She could finally read the book in peace.
She took a quick glance out of the window at the pouring down rain and thought about how all the pegasi in the weather patrol were most likely throwing a fit at not being able to control the clouds. She seen a flash of lightning,but didn’t hear any thunder. She was pleased with the effectiveness of her spell.
She used her magic to turn the pages of the book and started to read.
Lycanthropy- the term in which a pony is able to transform or gain wolf-like features. The term derives from ancient pony language Λυκάνθρωπος. Sometimes used to associate ponies turning into any animal, although the correct term is Therianthropy which in ancient language is θηρίον. see Therianthropy for details on the subject.
Twilight was confused, this was all just legends, myths, not actually real. Whoever led her to this book must be crazy. The book was even telling her to find another book that would give her information on the other word. She didn’t know what the other word was anyway, it was written in a language that was around a couple hundred years old.
So why would somepony lead her to this book when it was obviously a fiction story, even though it seemed to be written like a reference guide then an actual story.
She kept on reading, but it only gave causes, like if it was a disease. It had written that dark magic was used to transform ponies as well. It also kept mentioning wolves and ponies taking on a wolf form or ponies gaining features that were similar to wolves.
She started to just flip through the pages and not really care anymore what the book had written down, it was all just make believe anyway. Then she seen a picture in the book that had caught her eye. She quickly flipped back and when she finally got to the picture, she was stunned. She had seen this picture before, it was of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna atop a cloud with rainbows behind them. Luna’s head turned, looking away from the Princess of the sun. It was the picture from her Elements of Harmony book. She wondered how this had anything to do with anything. She began to read the text beneath it.
Everypony knows the legend of the mare in the moon, the night goddess being sealed away in the moon for a thousand years. Upon her return, all of Equestria will experience everlasting night.
Some believe that after she was imprisoned, a group of ponies that called themselves the Night Templars, which worshipped the goddess of the night with a passion, threatened to overthrow the sun goddess and bring the night goddess back. They were immediately banished to the Everfree Forest for their treason. Most of the ponies that were banished had extreme training in the different schools of magic, which mainly consisted of Conjuration and Alteration. The cult started using their knowledge to perform dark magic and tried summoning the hideous nightmares of Tartarus. Some believe that Timberwolves were caused by their practices.
Twilight only shook her head and thought to herself, This is ridiculous. There is no way that there were ponies that tried to overthrow Celestia.
She couldn’t help but think though, if the book was telling the truth. Nopony knew about Nightmare Moon until she had mentioned her when she actually was set free. The book that told her that was dead on too, with how she would escape and what she would do, even how to defeat her. She also remembered the look she received from the Princess when she told her she had read it from a book. It seemed she was confused on how she gained possession of the book.
She was definitely going to have to ask Princess Celestia about all of the things she has discovered, a whole nother library underneath the library, this odd book that was starting to scare her just a bit, and her nightmares.
She looked up at the clock that was across the lobby. The minute hand moved and shown to be two-thirty five in the afternoon. Her mind instantly switched over to food. She hadn’t eaten anything yet today. She decided on going to get something to snack on after she left the hospital, if the rain would let up that is.
She looked back down at the book, found where she had left off and continued to read.
Around three hundred years after the goddess of the night had been sealed in the moon, the Night Templars attacked Canterlot. Their goal was to overthrow the Princess of the sun. A battle had started in the middle of the capital city. See “Battle for the Night” for details.
During the battle the Night Templars had transformed into beasts that took the lives of many citizens and royal knights. The beasts moved with the night and hunted down any pony involved in the battle. Some say these ponies had learned magic from a Nightmare and took the form of wolves.
In the final hour of the battle, the goddess of the sun used her magic to raise the sun which changed the vile creatures back into their original form. The ponies were then banished to the moon alongside Nightmare Moon. This hybrid...
Twilight caught something out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and seen the doctor standing next to her bubble, knocking on it.
She let the spell dissipate and looked at the pony.
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for around five minutes now,” he said.
Twilight apologized and packed the book into her saddle bag. She stood up and was let back into the office where she and the doctor spoke last.
“Please, sit down Twilight,” the doctor pony said. He looked exactly the same as he did last time when she came. He was wearing the same white overcoat, the kind that you always see doctors wearing, with a black and red pen tucked into his shirt pocket.
Twilight sat down as the doctor asked her, “Did the medication work well? I take it that that’s why you’re here.”
The lavender unicorn nodded and replied, “They didn’t exactly work.”
The doctor looked at her with a look of confusion. “That’s one of the strongest Benzodiazepine we have here in the hospital.” He looked at her like she was crazy. “The ingredients in those pills are extremely rare in these parts of Equestria. You should have had a nice night sleep with nothing being able to interrupt you, except the sunlight to wake you up.” He leaned back in his chair and started scratching his head. “How much did you take?”
Twilight took the bottle out of her saddlebag and gave it to the doctor. “What it says on the bottle. The instructions are pretty simple. “Two pills with water.”
The white coat wearing pony kept scratching his head in confusement. “Well then, I don’t know what to tell you so, try them again tonight is all I can really say.” He stood up and went over to a filing cabinet, opened one of the drawers, took out a manila colored folder, opened it and began skimming through the papers inside of it. “Alrighty, Miss Sparkle,” he began while pulling a paper from the folder and sliding the piece of parchment across the table to her. “If you would just fill out this form,” he paused and stared into the unicorns eyes, “Truthfully.” He looked over at his desk and picked up a quill with ink on it and let her take it from him with her magic.
Twilight began to fill the form out. It mainly asked about personal information such as, allergies, other hospitals you’ve been to, and family medical history. She finished by writing her signature at the bottom of the paper and the form to the doctor. She figured it was just so the hospital could register her in their system. She handed him the form and asked, “So what should I do now.?”
The doctor pony looked at her and said, “I would suggest taking three pills instead of two,” he scratched at his chin, “But I don’t know the kind of side effects from taking an extra.” He looked at Twilight and frowned, “Wouldn’t want you overdosing by accident and killing yourself. You have to remember that this is some pretty strong stuff and can cause some serious harm to your body if not used correctly.”
Twilight nodded her head and replied, “Okay.” She put the bottle of pills back into her bag. “I’m not going to do anything stupid like that.”
“Good,” the doctor said, “I don’t want anything like that being put on my record.” He walked over to the office door and opened it. “Well, I believe we’re done here now correct?”
Twilight couldn’t think of anything else that she wanted to tell him.
She thought to herself, I’ve been having nightmares where I’ve killed multiple innocent ponies and then I get torn to shreds by some monster and then it seems that my dreams sort of come true. She wasn’t going to say that though of course. She didn’t want the doctor to think that she was crazy or anything, if he didn’t think that already.
As she walked out of the office, the doctor said, “If there’s anything else that bothers you and that medication doesn’t work again tonight, then just come back here and we’ll see if we can do something else for you.”
Twilight nodded her head and thanked him for the assistance.
The doctor smiled and said, “No problem Miss Sparkle.”
Twilight Sparkle walked out of the office and back out into the hallway. She stopped and checked her saddle bag to make sure everything was still situated and that she had everything.
The rain had let up a little bit, but not by much. Twilight cast a waterproof spell on herself, so that the rain would simply just slide of her body and she would be left completely dry.
As she was leaving though, she thought she felt something prick her neck. She brought her hoof up to her neck and itched at it curiously and then looked at her hoof and the ground around her. She didn’t see anything in her hoof or on the ground. She looked around to see if there was anypony else around, but didn’t see anypony else.
She just turned back around and began walking to where she was going in the first place, to get something to eat. Her stomach started to grumble just thinking about food. She was going to stop at the first restaurant she seen.
It only took about a couple minutes before she got something to eat, luckily, there was no line. Canterlot was even more empty than before, Twilight only seen one other pony on the streets, and she had been moving quite quickly, most likely to avoid being outside. She wished that more ponies stayed so Canterlot didn’t feels so abandoned, it made her feel somewhat depressed not seeing all the ponies around doing their daily jobs and having fun.
She would ponder on those things later, what was important right now was the Daffodil sandwich she had ordered. The waiter had just just brought her the order and before the waiter had asked if she needed anything else, she was already about halfway done. Rarity would have thrown a fit at how she scoffed the food down and left crumbs all over the place. She didn’t care, she hadn’t eaten in a day and this was probably the only chance she would get to eat anything.
As she ate, she thought of what she was going do next, was she going to go back and find the Corporal and help investigate the alley some more, or go talk to the Princesses on what she found so far and then have an honest discussion about the nightmares that she was having, but then Twilight thought about the room that was hidden beneath the library. It seemed like it was larger than the actual library, running underneath the entire city. It was most certainly interesting.
The purple unicorn looked out the window and noticed that the rain had stopped to nothing but a minor drizzle. There were giant puddles in the middle of the street though, slowly draining somewhere that she couldn’t see from where she was. She hoped that the downpour hadn’t caused any undiscovered clues in the alley to wash away.
“Of course,” Twilight said, “Why didn’t I think of that before.” She couldn’t believe that she overlooked something so important. She took out her notepad and quill and quickly began to write things down and talking to herself while she did.
“If it had rained the night of the death, then things that would have been there had to wash away,” she continued to write everything she was saying down, “But, those things that were washed away just wouldn’t have been disappeared, they would have followed the water flow and gathered up somewhere.” She was quite pleased with herself now. She was going to have to revisit the alley again and find out a way to test where the water goes in different parts of the alley.
She picked up what was left of her sandwich and stuffed it in her mouth, then left a tip for the waiter. Then she quickly ran out the door and started heading back toward the alley.
The next thing she knew, there was sort of a fog creeping in around her. Confused, she stopped and started looking around her. The fog wasn’t even the normal grayish color, it seemed to be an orange that glowed brightly. The fog started to creep in even more and now she couldn’t even see what was ten hooves in front her. She tried to take a step forward, but quickly found the ground rushing up to meet her face.
She started to get back up, almost losing her balance. Tasting blood in her mouth, she started to panic.
“W...what...what’s going...on,” stumbling over her words, she stared off into the fog as her vision began to distort. She could see the buildings closest to her begin to wave back and forth as everything started to turn a bright orange color. She didn’t even know she had vomited before she smelled it on her now yellow coat. Taking a few steps forward and stumbling a bit, she found herself unable to even walk in a straight line. Unable to tell where she even was anymore, she fell up against a wall and slid down it, resting her head on the hard, wet cobblestone.
“I’ve been waiting for you...Twilight Sparkle,” an ominous female voice said.
Twilight was too exhausted now to lift her head, so she only moved her half closed eyes around, looking for the source of the menacing voice.
“Don’t bother looking for me, save your remaining energy for the times ahead,” Twilight’s head started to throb as the bodiless voice continued. “It’s been quite some time since we last spoke Sparkle. Now that I finally have the chance, you will listen to what I must say.”
Twilight started to groan as blood trickled out of her mouth and nose. “Who...who...are you?”
“That is not what is important right now. What is important is letting me finish what I have to say,” the voice scolded at her. It seemed to not have any patience. “Now, you will not tell...Celestia...anything that you have discovered nor will you tell that guard that has been assigned to you either.”
Twilight’s vision began bending even farther, as she couldn’t tell where she was anymore and all she seen was a vibrant orange.
“Princess...help,” Twilight tried to call out, but couldn’t muster anything more than a slight muffled noise.
“Celestia isn’t here anymore and won’t answer you anymore either. All there is left...is me,” the voice told her.
“Please...stop...it hurts,” Twilight could feel tears forming underneath her eyes. “What do...you want...from...m-m-me?”
“When you wake up, you will know what to do. I’m the only one that you can trust now. The Princess is now your enemy, the guards are out to get you, and your friends in Ponyville are not at all your friends.”
Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, slowly closing them and slipping into unconsciousness, the only thing she heard was an echoed dark voice saying, “Trust me.”
The Corporal stood in Princess Celestia’s personal quarters, called by special summons.
“You wanted to see me Princess?” Archie asked. He was wondering why he was called down, usually he gets his orders directly from his commanding officer.
The Princess’ brightly colored mane flowed in the breeze produced by the open window. Her head hung low and a depressed look on her face.
“I know how things have been going right now and how we are possibly in extreme danger,” her head turned to look out the window, “But we must endure through these now troubled times,” she turned to look back at Archie, “I believe you were the one that was assigned to guard my most faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. Am I correct?”
“Yes ma’am. I was told to guard and help her with anything that she needed.” He wasn’t quite sure what this was about, but he was sure that he would be told here very soon.
The goddess of the sun stood up from her pink pillow and started walking over to Archie. “I feel that something is troubling her right now and I want you to make sure she’s okay.”
Archie saluted, “Yes Princess. I won’t let you down.”
“I know that something is troubling her. If she won’t tell you what’s wrong, than bring her to me so we can talk.” Celestia thought that Twilight was going to be able to solve this case easily, but it seemed that even her most faithful student was having a toll taken on her by the murder and unnatural weather. “Just make sure she stays safe, okay?”
“Don’t worry my Princess,” he saluted again, “She’ll be perfectly fine.”
The Corporal started to walk out of the room, when Celestia called for him again. “Wait.”
Archie turned around to face the Princess and was handed a gold star with the Princess’s insignia on it. “Is this a promotion ma’am?” he asked.
Celestia shook her head and replied with a simple no. “In the Guard you are still but a Corporal, but by wearing this badge on your chest, your officers will know that you are on mission given to you directly by my and they won’t think twice of trying to stop you or giving you an order of any kind.” Her bright multi colored mane still continued to flow beautifully. “You are to not be stopped by anypony else until you have completed this mission. Do you understand?”
Corporal Archie actually never wanted to join the Royal Guard, he only did because his older brother did, and he wanted to be just like him. He thought he’d be able to find his own special talent by himself, but didn’t know what to do with his life. Being the only blank flank unicorn in his class all the way throughout his school experience never really gave him a break, constantly being made fun of. He hardly got any recognition from his parents when he was little and he never loved any mare. His childhood wasn’t at all perfect.
Yet, when the only pony he looked up to, his big brother, signed up for the Royal Guard and was soon accepted, he wanted to follow in his hoof steps and become a Guard. Of course it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t physically built for the type of endurance training he had to do. He nearly ruined himself from breaking both his hind legs, his front left hoof, his nose, and jaw. He had certainly went through a lot, but when his brother was a Sergeant in the Royal Guard, he could get through some loopholes and dodge some complications that he would’ve had.
In only two months, he had been accepted into the Princess's personal Royal Army, and as a Corporal too. He didn’t have much authority and mainly served as a Quartermaster on most days and did a lot of guard duty, but it was worth it, because he had finally earned his cutie mark and he couldn’t have been more thrilled. His parents still hardly cared for him and thought that he was a failure for having the army be his final choice. He told them that this was his destiny and that he would live like this for the rest of his life if he had to. They moved away from Canterlot and went to Manehatten shortly after he had enlisted. So not having any parents to irritate him meant that he didn’t really have anything holding him back.
He was a good at what he did, because he was good at following orders and was able to do what he was told with little to no problems.
He thought that he looked good in his golden clad armor that shone off his bright white coat, really complimented his dark blue eyes and his bright red mane. Being in the Guard had its advantages of having a free living quarters, even though it was a barracks, and not having to really pay for much gave him time to be able to keep himself looking really nice. He even had free dental. He knew that he would be able to find a mare soon enough. That had yet to come true.
Now, he was receiving special assignments from the Princess to protect an important pony. If he could get through all of this, he might just get promoted.
Twilight didn’t even really seem like that bad of a pony, besides asking too many questions, she was already easy to handle, but now he wasn’t just escorting her, he was now her personal bodyguard and couldn’t let anything happen to her. It couldn’t really be that hard.
He had checked her room in the castle and she wasn’t there, so he was now going to the library to see if he could find her. He had just arrived at the library when it started to pour down rain again.
“Hello,” he called out as he entered the library, “You here Twilight? Hello...” Where could she have possibly gotten to? He could’ve sworn she said that she was going to the library to find more research.
Ka-Boom!
The Corporal jumped a bit as he heard the lightning bolt sizzle and crack, which was answered by an echoing thunder.
There was nopony in the library but him. He didn’t want to have to go out in the storm, but he had to find Twilight. So he left and started heading to wear the crime happened. Maybe she had just gotten trapped by the rain while looking for more clues in the alley.
He could feel the rain hit him in the face as he ran through the storm. It stung a little bit, so he cast a spell to keep the rain from hitting him. Now the rain was coming down so hard that he could hardly see what was in front of him. He would eventually get to the alley, and he sure hoped that Twilight was there.
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This was bad, oh so very bad. Archie had spent two whole hours trying to find Twilight, but to no avail, couldn’t find her anywhere. He checked the library three times and went to the alley twice, checked back at the castle to see if she was in her room, but just couldn’t find her. If he didn’t find her here soon, then the Princess would have his coat on her wall for sure.
He didn’t know were else to look. He was all out of ideas and was sweating heavily. He was going to lose the only important thing to him because of some girl, it was funny how the world worked some times.
He tried to think of what she last said when they saw each other. He drew a picture of Twilight telling him what to do, he had to remember. “Spend some more time trying to find some things in the alley,” she had told him, but he knew she had told him where she was going to go. He started to dig deeper into his mind to find what she had told him. “I’ll be going to the Princesses to tell them everything we discovered so far and ask them if they need anything else to be done.”
So had she gone to Celestia? She didn’t seem like the type to lie, she was the Princess's’ personal student, so she wouldn’t do anything like that...he hoped.
He had to think about this logically, the Princess had said when her and Twilight talked is when she thought there was something wrong with her, so she could’ve actually gone to the Princess and told her everything, but didn’t say where she was going after that.
Archie was tempted to go ask the Princess if she had told her where she was going, but quickly thought twice about it, for he was afraid he’d end up getting Celestia angry at him for losing her. He didn’t want to lose his job. Now it was almost time for the stars and the moon to come out.
Then an idea had entered his head. What if Twilight had gone to the Princess of the Night, Luna, to speak with her and figure out why she couldn’t control the night anymore. It was a chance that he could take, but it was possible for the same thing to happen to him if he went to Celestia.
Scratching the back of his head he decided on trying it, since it was the only option left without major consequences, so he started heading over to the castle. What was the worst that could happen?
A pony opened a thick wooden door and walked into the room where his Queen slept. It was dark as always, she loved the dark and tried to never enter the bright scorching light of the sun.
“My Queen,” the dark shadowy pony said. “I’ve followed your orders and the target has been placed where you wanted her.” He bowed to the tall dark figure that was instantly towering over him.
“Do not call her a “target”, the Queen corrected him. Her voice had a hint of impatience in it. “You will soon start calling her Princess Sparkle, so start addressing her as so.”
“Sorry my lady,” the pony quickly apologized. “What will you have me do now?” He was ready for his next assignment.
The Queen slowly walked over to a cabinet and started rummaging through it. She took out a bottle of Hard Cider with her levitation magic and popped the cap, which she then proceeded to then drink it straight from the bottle. “Monitor her for now,” she finally ordered after taking a couple swigs from the bottle. “Be sure she doesn’t go anywhere else then where I want her to go. If you have to do it by force, then so be it,” she turned her head to the pony and glared at him, “You will not cause any physical harm to her at all. We need her as healthy as possible when she arrives. Failure to do any of these things will result in your mutilation, understood?”
The pony in the shadows nodded his head in reply. He could feel his stomach become heavier and felt sweat forming on his brow.
“It will be done. You have not a need to be doubtful.”
“Good. Now go,” the dark Queen pointed towards the door then looked out the skylight that was above them. “Night will fall upon us in a few hours.”
The minion pony bowed his head and quickly left through the door, which was followed by two other dark figures.
The Queen licked her lips, enjoying the sweet taste of alcohol. It would taste even better if had blood to go along with it. She was going to enjoy Twilight meeting her for the first time. Her reaction would be priceless and she would remember it for ages. Once she rules all of Equestria with Twilight by her side, her revenge will be finally completed. She couldn’t help but grin at that fact.
She took one last sip of her drink and started to giggle while staring at the wall while it started to sway. Tonight is going to be fun.
Twilight tried to force open her eyes, but was immediately greeted by pain. She was only able to keep them halfway open. From what she could see, she was in some brick tunnel with a cement floor, she could see the only light she was receiving was from candles mounted on sconces. The bricks seemed to be soaked with water and were covered in mold and other grimes.
A purple aura enveloped Twilight’s horn as she used up what little energy she had left to cast a healing spell on herself. It was going to take a couple of minutes for her to regain all of her stamina back, but she would soon be fresh as a daisy.
She started to examine herself. She didn’t have any injuries as far as she could tell, only that her coat looked horrid. She was going to need another bath once she was able to stand and find out just exactly where she was. Most of the pain felt like it was inside of her body anyway, she hoped that she didn’t have any broken bones, of course she would’ve probably realized it already if she had any.
Now it was time to think about what had happened. She had no idea what caused her to faint, but whatever had done it made her feel like she hadn’t slept for a week and made her head throb like crazy. Was it what she ate at the restaurant that had something to do with it? She didn’t think that she would have an allergic reaction to a sandwich, unless...it wasn’t an allergic reaction and it was poisoned. No, that couldn’t be. She wouldn’t have woken up if she was poisoned. She was really starting to get confused at all the things that were going on, which only made her head hurt more. The lack of sleep probably finally caught up with her and she just collapsed due to exhaustion. She was just going to go with that for now.
Did she fall asleep though? If she did then she didn’t remember even having a dream, or a nightmare. She stopped thinking about it and focused on herself recovering.
She could now open her eyes completely without feeling any pain or resistance, so she felt a little happier. She felt a little happier that her healing spell was working as fast as it was with how much energy she had left.
She stood up and started to observe the rest of her surroundings. There wasn’t much to look at, her eyes must not have been as messed up as she thought. It was just a cylindrical, brick tunnel. There were lit candles on sconces every few yards down the tunnel on both sides of her, which led her into even more confusion. She was just in the middle of this tunnel. She couldn’t see a room on either ends of the long tunnel. It looked as if to go on forever.
Somepony had to be here before though, otherwise the candles wouldn’t have been lit and there was no spell on them to keep them lit.
Twilight stepped up closer to the wall, now not feeling any pain at all now, and observed it. There was a grimy dirt like substance all over it that stuck to her hoof when she touched it. She looked a little her left and seen a dark green moss growing out of cracks and seams of the bricks. This place was definitely not very well kept for living. Twilight thought about how Rarity would most likely be throwing a fit over how dirty it was.
Was she even in Canterlot anymore? She didn’t understand how she ended up here or how she was going to find a way out. She hoped that she could just find an exit. She had to get out and find the Princess right away. She was finally fed up with her nightmares and all the crap that had been messing with her. Hopefully Celestia and Luna could help her out.
A magical aura surged from the lavender unicorn’s horn and enveloped one of the sconces and unhooked it off the wall. She would use it to search the dark spots in the seemingly never ending hall.
She stopped and looked around. There was a scratching sound that seemed to be in the walls. Twilight trotted over to the noise and pressed her ear up against the dirty bricks.
…
The sound had seemed to disappear. Twilight pulled her head away and shone the light on the bricks. There wasn’t a bug or anything so she had no clue what she had heard. Judging from the quality the bricks were in now, it was no question that parts of the tunnel were probably structurally unsound and just waiting to collapse. That was more than enough for a reason to get out of there as fast possible.
The healing spell had certainly done its job. She felt her stamina returning to her and she felt like she could use more of her magic abilities now. In a bit she would have enough stamina to sustain a light spell and she would be able to get rid of the candle.
She heard the scratching once again. Twilight turned back toward the wall and began inspecting it again. The sound didn’t go away this time and seemed to be behind her. She looked down the tunnel in the direction she came and stared into the darkness. It sounded more like somepony was walking toward her now, but it wasn’t a pony. The floor was made of cement and her hooves made a loud clunking sound with every step. Was something following her?
‘Wait,’ Twilight thought. ‘Why is it dark behind me?’ There was no longer any light resonating from the once lit candles. Twilight’s breath started to quicken as she started to take steps backward.
Twilight’s horn glowed purple and a small light ball shot forward from it and slowly floated into the darkness. The noise stopped, Twilight just stared as the ball of white light continued to float down the tunnel. Her breath started to slow as she began to calm down.
‘I’m just hearing things,’ she thought.
Two dark, yellow, glowing eyes appeared not to far from the light ball. Twilight had to blink to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. The eyes were staring right at her as far as she could tell, they didn’t seem to have any pupils. They blinked as the orb of light reached whatever it was, revealing the creature’s head. It was the head of a wolf, but about twice as big.
Twilight started to breathe heavily again and tried to run, but couldn’t find the will to be able to do so.
The creature showed its teeth and began to growl. Taking a step forward, it moved into the light and showed its whole body. It was covered in black fur and had claws on its front paws sharper than anything she had ever seen. It had canines that were the size of her horn and it had extremely large muscles that obviously made up most of its body mass.
It then stood up on its hind legs and let out a howl that echoed down the entire tunnel that sent a chill down her spine. It returned back to standing on all fours and began growling at her again. Twilight’s mind was screaming at her to run away, but she knew that if she tried it would chase after her, and it definitely looked like it could run faster than her.
It took a step forward and reached its paw out to the orb of light and grasped it. Then looking at Twilight, it let out a deafening roar as it crushed the light and the whole tunnel became dark. Even the candles that she hadn’t walked by yet were now out.
Twilight decided on the idea to turn and run.
In the Princess Luna’s private quarters, Archie was consulting with the Princess of the night. Luna’s mane flowed in air without even without a breeze, it was dark blue like the night sky and seemed to hold its own star systems.
“Can thou run that by us a second time Corporal?” she asked with a bit of annoyance in her voice.
‘Uh oh,’ Archie thought, some sweat started to break over his brow. ‘I knew this was a bad idea. I’m in for it now.’ He didn’t want to explain the whole thing again so he just got to the point. “Twilight Sparkle has seemed to...disappear.”
Luna’s eyes widened and she replied, “We thought ye said as much.”
‘There just went my job,’ the stallion thought.
“We must refrain from letting our sister catching wind of this grave news,” Luna said.
Archie was surprised. Keeping secrets from one of the royal sisters. That was sure to end up going down the drain. He asked her, “Why must Princess Celestia not know...,” he was quickly cut off by Luna grabbing him and covering his mouth with his hoof.
“Shhhhh. Dost thou want somepony to hear thee?”
Archie shook his head no, hoping that she would release him so he could breathe.
“If our sister hears us, then she shall take possession of both our heads. Are you positive that thou checked everywhere?”
Archie let out a gasp for air as Luna removed her hand from his mouth. “Yes...I’m sure...Princess,” he said between breaths. I...checked everywhere in the castle, the Canterlot library, the alley where the crime happened, and everywhere in the streets.”
Luna looked out her window at her sister’s beautiful sun starting to set. Right now she would be lifting her moon in the sky, but it wasn’t her moon anymore, she had lost control of it for reasons unknown.
“Have thee checked checked our royal garden?” the Princess asked curiously
Archie hadn’t thought about the gardens, why would she go there? “No ma’am, I haven't.”
“Then you haven’t checked everywhere, have thee?”
Archie was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be there, but just in case, and because Luna suggested it, he was going to check. “Should I...uh...go now?” Archie asked confused.
Luna stared at him like he was an idiot. “Yes, quick, you need to locate Twilight before the sun rises and our sister finds out something is going on and takes us both in for questioning, and trust me, she won’t go lightly on anyone who lost her favorite student.”
Archie quickly saluted and headed out the door. ‘I’m so going to lose my job,’ he thought.
When Archie got to the garden he was hoping that he would find Twilight, but to his dismay, she wasn’t there. He sat down on the ground and sighed. “I’m so screwed.”
Dark clouds were starting to roll in and it was sure to storm again. Archie was most certainly going to get yelled at have to go back out on his own. His parents didn’t like him and now the whole royal family were sure to dislike him. He had let Princess Celestia down.
He took the badge that Celestia gave him and threw it on the ground. He didn’t want to wear it anymore since he wasn’t going to be working for the Princess anymore. Where had he gone wrong?
He seen a flash followed by thunder and his coat was soon drenched with the pouring rain that followed. The rain made a loud sound when it hit his metal armor. Nopony knew what the clouds were even doing anymore, the Pegasi sure weren’t commanding them anymore. He wondered if they were like this elsewhere, he was already making plans to go to Manehatten or Fillydelphia.
He didn’t know why he was this upset actually, he knew after he lost his job he would have almost nowhere to go, but it seemed like something else was on his mind. The fact that another pony’s life could possibly be at stake pulled at his heart too. Not to mention that it was a mare, an okay looking mare at that.
‘What,’ he thought to himself, ‘Listen to myself, it sounds like I got a crush on her or something.’ He chuckled to himself and shook his head. ‘Mine as well enjoy all the weird jokes and odd ideas before I’m banished,’ he thought.
A flash of lightning struck the ground next to him and made him jump. He could hear the sizzle of the bolt before the thunder deafened him. Jumping up made him notice something though. Somewhere in the palace labyrinth, somepony shot a purple laser up into the sky.
Twilight quickly created a light with her horn so she could see where she was running, while also leaving orbs of light behind her so she could see behind her as well, even though she didn’t want to see if it was chasing her.
She took a quick glance behind her and didn’t see anything, good, but for how long. She turned her head back around to see a turn ahead of her and stopped just in time to avoid slamming her face into the wall. She looked down both ways and couldn’t decide which way to go.
‘This is no time to ponder Twilight,’ she told herself. She looked down the left path and noticed a light at the end of it that clearly shown that it was a dead end. ‘Nope,’ she thought. It was clear to her that this was some sort of labyrinth and that it was possible for her to get stuck at a dead end. If she did get stuck, then she was obviously not going to make it out.
She shook her head, ‘Don’t think like that Twilight.’ Looking down the right side of the tunnel, the only thing she seen was just complete darkness.
Hearing something behind her, she turned and looked. The monster was running on all fours and was only a few paces behind Twilight. Opening its mouth and letting out a roar, it lunged at Twilight, ready to slam its whole body into her. Twilight reacted quickly and dove toward the tunnel without any light in it.
The wolf creature slammed into the wall and let out a shriek of pain, it shook its head and looked at the wall. It had a few cracks in it now and the bricks looked loose enough to just pull out of the wall.
Twilight scrambled to her feet and started running into the darkness. Diving out of the way had broken her concentration on her light spell, so she had to slow down a bit to recast it. Recreating the purple light she looked behind her and seen that the creature had regained its stance and had started running back after her, its eyes blazing with anger.
Twilight kept only running, hoping that she could outrun it, even though that sounded impossible, or find another wall to trick it to slamming itself into. She felt like something was wrong though, she couldn’t hear it running after her anymore. Then she figured out why. This was a dead end as well.
“NO,” Twilight screamed. “This can’t be possible. No, no, no no no no.” She started frantically hitting the wall with her hoof. “There has to be a secret door here or something, there has to be. There’s always one in the books.”
Unable to find a button to open a secret door, she turned around and her eyes became watery. She could see the beast coming towards her, not running, but just slowly taking its time getting to her. Brandishing its teeth it stood up on its hind legs and continued to walk forward.
‘I’m not going to die a coward,’ Twilight thought. ‘Even if I am to die here, then I shall go down fighting.’
The beast got back down all fours when it was in striking position of Twilight and just stood there, staring at her with its yellow eyes. A trickle of blood slid down the wolf’s face and dripped onto the floor. The head was cracked open from it slamming into the wall so hard.
‘So they can atleast get hurt,’ she thought. ‘Maybe I’m not doomed after all.’ She was going to have to be quick though. She started to analyze every possible way to avoid dying, there were only two options, and both didn’t utterly guarantee her survival.
She could wait for it to pounce and then quickly dive to the side and start running, but it would surely catch her for sure. The other choice was staying and using every spell she knew to wound it so she could escape. Of course neither of her plans guaranteed her survival, she was going to have to get real lucky.
The wolf creature slowly bent backward and readied itself to pounce. Twilight’s horn began to glow as she readied herself as well. Twilight didn’t know much about fighting magic, but enough to defend herself.
It all happened so quickly, the wolf lunged and Twilight dived to the right as she shot a laser from her horn. It connected with the wolf’s chest which was replied with a sizzling pop.
The beast let out a shriek and started to thrash around in Twilight’s direction. Twilight didn’t have any time to get out of the way as the creature’s claws met with her side and left two giant gashes all the way down her side and down her left hind leg. She gasped for air as she hit the floor and blood spurt all over the wall and and the rest of her coat. She hardly felt any pain as the beast picked her up and threw her down the tunnel like a wadded up paper ball.
She bounced down the tunnel and continued to roll until eventually coming to a complete stop. She lied on the spot she landed and could hardly get enough air to sustain the pain. Her left side was soaked in blood as the pool of dark red blood reached her head and connected with her tongue. The taste was enough to make her lift her head so she didn’t have to taste it.
She tried to stand, but was quickly greeted with pain in her left leg. Not only was the flesh torn from the bone, but the bone itself was fractured. For some reason, she couldn’t get herself to cry.
She seen the creature was running down the tunnel again. It sure wasn’t going to toy with her this time, it was going to kill her as quickly as possible. She quickly stood up, ignoring the pain that erupted from her leg and blood began to spray onto the ground beside her. She looked over and noticed the now broken down wall that the creature had run into before. The creature was closing in and would be on her in less than a couple of seconds.
She summoned as much magical power as she could and shot another laser above the cracked wall. The bricks that were hit directly exploded on contact and made the rest of the area collapse. The ceiling of the tunnel fell on top of the wolf beast and rendered it unconscious. Twilight began to limp and stumble away from the falling bricks and rocks to avoid getting crushed.
Then, it was silent. The tunnel was filled with dust and dirt that it made it impossible to see anything and caused Twilight to cough. Once the dust cleared, it was obvious that she was safe for now. The whole tunnel had collapsed and made it impossible to get to the other side or anything to get to her side, which was more important.
Limping over to the light source, she was thrilled to see that it was a grate that led out onto the surface. Water was pouring through it and she could hear the sound of thunder in the distance. The cold rain water felt relaxing when it touched her body. It calmed her down some and soothed her muscles. It might have only rain water, but in her situation, anything would help.
She wasn’t sure that she could get it open though with what little energy she had. She focused her reserve magic into firing another magic blast that blew the grate right off its hinges and into the air, she could see purple blast still flying into the air.
The easy part was now over, now it was just getting up there that was the question. She had to think fast, because the rain water had started filling up what was left of the tunnel. It was already up to her knees, the water becoming stained with red.
Her vision started to blur as she tried to think of a way to get out. She was losing too much blood to just be standing around doing nothing. So she started levitating rocks from the now ruined tunnel over to her and set them down like stairs. Putting her front hooves on the boulders she pulled herself up, feeling a sharp pain every time she did so.
Once she was high enough to reach the opening, she put her hooves out and tried pulling herself up. It took some time, but she was eventually able to pull herself up and out of the tunnel. The rain and fresh air never felt so much better.
She looked around to see if she could figure out where she was, and she quickly figured it out. She was in the Castle Grounds Labyrinth. The same place where she and her friends tried to solve Discord’s riddle.
‘This isn’t good,’ she thought. If she was in yet another maze, then she would easily get lost once again. She wasn’t out of the fray just yet.
She started to limp as she began to try to find her way out, but there was just no way she could. She already had too much blood loss and her vision was starting to fade. She fell down on the wet muddy ground, which caused even more pain to stab at her leg, letting the rain cover her face as her vision started to blur and go out.
She could see something though, hard to make out, but it had to be another pony, and they seemed to be running toward her. She would’ve gotten up, but she couldn’t even move anymore. Whoever it was, they were right by her now.
She could hear him talking, the voice of a stallion, the voice was muffled, but she could still make out what he was saying.
“Twilight, Twilight, oh no,” he was saying. She couldn’t make out who it was, everything was too blurry and it felt like she had something stuck in her ear. “Come on, I have to get you out of here.”
She blacked out for a couple of seconds as she was lifted into the air and set on top of something. Her vision returned and she seen nothing but the moving ground beneath her. Then she completely lost consciousness.
“You failed me,” the Queen said.
“I am sorry your majesty, I had every intention to...,” the pony tried to say, but his face was quickly met with a hoof strike across his face. He flew a couple feet across the room and hit the ground. He raised his hoof to his nose and felt that it was broken.
“Do not even speak, you have proven yourself to be no more than a mistake.” She paced over to him and stood glaring at him. “I said specifically to lead her here and if having to frighten her then so be it, but I clarified on the fact that I didn’t want a scratch on her.”
“But she fought me your majesty,” the pony tried to turn the odds in his favor. “I had to fight back somehow.”
The Queen didn’t like what she was hearing...at all. “If you can’t follow simple orders, then you will start a domino effect as everypony else thinks that they can get away with things as well. Well that’s not going to happen. To prevent something like that from happening I must terminate the source.”
Her dark blue aura enveloped around a horn. “No, please, I can make it up to you, just give me another chance,” the pony begged.
“Too late for that now isn’t?” she scolded him with a hint of laughter in her voice.
The pony’s head glowed and he started to scream. He started shaking while a dark red fluid poured from his nose and mouth. He tried to scream again, but couldn’t for some reason. With a loud crack, his brain hemorrhaged and his eyes popped.
The limp body was levitated into the air and inspected by the Queen. “Seems like the rest of you get an early feast,” she laughed as she threw the body in the corner and within seconds, four other wolf creatures were fighting over it, tearing it to shreds. The Queen just watched and laughed, “Play nice now, wouldn’t anypony else getting hurt now.”
She knew that she was in a dangerous predicament now. It was all just a game and she was now losing. If they were discovered at this time, then everything would be ruined and she couldn’t fight Celestia just yet.
If she had to do everything herself, then so be it.
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Twilight’s head felt all fuzzy as she woke up. She winced in pain as she held a hoof up to her head hoping that it would soothe the pain, but it didn’t really help. She was back in the library; was it possible that she had only been dreaming again? She stared at the ceiling thinking about what happened. It could’ve been a dream, but it seemed far too real.
“What happened last night?” she said aloud.
“Well,” a voice answered back, “It’s kind of a long story.”
Twilight’s head shot up. She wasn’t expecting somepony to be in here with her. It was, of course, the Corporal. She rubbed her head and felt a lump on the back of her head; that must have been the cause of the soreness.
“You scared me,” she chuckled, “I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”
“Sorry. Are you feeling okay?” Archie asked.
“I suppose,” Twilight said. She looked down at her leg and noticed that there were bandages wrapped all the way around it. She also had patches on the left side of her torso. They were all stained a dark red. “So it wasn’t a dream; all of that actually happened.”
Archie stood up from the chair he was sitting on and walked over to the bedridden Twilight. “I think you’re going to have to explain.”
Twilight glanced back at her wounds. Archie reassured her, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I don’t know much about restoration spells, but I did my best with what I was supplied with. Your left hind leg was fractured and the flesh was ripped down to the bone as well as your abdomen, in which you suffered a couple rib fractures. Once you’ve gained a bit of your stamina back, I’m sure you’ll be able to completely heal yourself.” He leaned in closer to Twilight and asked, “Now, what were you doing in the palace labyrinth all beat up?”
Twilight shook her head and replied, “I don’t know. All I remember is that I woke up in an underground tunnel.”
“Well, what happened when you were down there?” Archie asked.
Twilight’s mind went wild. She remembered the darkness, the terror, the running, and the thing that had tried to kill her. She laid her head back down and tried not to think about it.
“Well?” Archie asked.
Twilight had forgotten that he had asked her a question. “There was something down there.” She shook her head and tried to recall what it looked like. “It looked like some kind of giant wolf or something.” She noticed her heartbeat and breath were quickening, so she closed her eyes and tried to calm down.
Archie put his hoof on her shoulder, being careful not to touch any bruises. “Well, you’re fine for right now,” he assured her.
Twilight looked up at him and thanked him for the comfort. “I just don’t understand how I got down there.”
“What were you doing before you woke up in the tunnel?” Archie asked.
Twilight rubbed her head as she tried to think back at what she was doing before she passed out. “I was at a restaurant,” she said slowly. “I hadn’t eaten in a while and my stomach was begging for food.” Her stomach growled at the thought of eating.
“Then I remembered something about the crime scene that we may have overlooked before,” she told Archie. “Then as I was on my way there, I threw up and became very dizzy.”
Archie levitated a cup of tea he had made and asked, “Then you woke up and you were in this...underground labyrinth?”
Twilight thought about telling him about the voice she heard. There was no point in hiding anything from him anywhere, he would be too curious from now on and would always be asking questions.
She closed her eyes and told him, “Well, before that, I heard a voice talking to me, but there was nopony there with me.”
The white stallion put his cup down and gave her a confused look.
“I tried responding, but it hurt to talk and before I knew it, I woke up in that tunnel.” Twilight shifted her weight to relieve some pressure off of her hind leg.
“So...” Archie began, “You passed out and heard somepony talking to you?” He shook his head and asked, “Seems a bit outlandish.”
Twilight looked up at him, about to tell him that it was the truth, but before she could say anything, Archie said, “I do believe you though. It seems crazy, but seeing how you disappeared for a whole night and ended up in the castle labyrinth with all those wounds, I don’t see any other logical explanation.”
Twilight smiled a bit. “Thanks.”
Archie nodded to accept the thank you. “Now,” he levitated a second cup of tea towards Twilight, “Would you like some tea? I made it myself.”
Twilight managed to conjure up enough of her magic to be able to lift the cup, but that seemed to be testing her limits.
“I’m no tea making expert, so don’t expect it to be the best you’ve ever tasted.”
Twilight took a sip and coughed a little bit. It wasn’t like Fluttershy’s tea, but it would have to do for now. She took another sip and continued her story. “I started looking for a way out of the underground tunnel, and shortly afterwards was when I started getting chased by whatever that...thing...was.” She had to reposition herself again due to a pain in her back.
“I caused a small section of the tunnel to collapse and crush whatever that thing was.” She looked down at herself, “But it had already done all of this to me. I found a water drain and managed to break it open and climb out.” She drank the rest of her tea and gave the cup to Archie.
“Well then,” the Corporal grasped Twilight’s tea cup and set it down. “I suppose that the rest of what happened is me just finding you?”
Twilight nodded and finished her story by saying, “Then I woke up here.” Then the thing she feared the most ran through her mind. The Princess! What would she think of all this? She had to ask Archie.
“Does Princess Celestia know about all of this?”
Archie looked down at the floor and and took a deep breath. “Yeah, about that.” A serious came across his face and he said, “Celestia doesn’t know about any of this.”
Twilight closed her eyes and groaned, “Oh no. This is bad, this is really, really bad.”
She started to sit up, but was quickly stopped by Archie who told her, “No, no, no, lay back down. It’s not that simple.” Archie started to tell her what Luna had ordered him to do. “Princess Luna is the only one besides us who knows that you went missing. I’m supposed to talk to her today about anything that happened last night. I’m going to have to bring you with me and have you explain everything you just told me here.”
“Why only Luna?” Twilight asked. “What does she have to do with this?”
“I was ordered by Celestia herself to watch out for you. As you can sort of see, I failed on the first day.”
The Corporal began to pour himself some more tea and asked, “Would you like some more?”
Twilight shook her head, “No thanks, I’ve had enough. Please, continue?”
“Alright, sorry,” he apologized for briefly straying from the main topic. “I tried looking for you, but I couldn’t find any traces of you anywhere. I began to panic and thought that you may have gone to Luna so you could talk to her, but you weren’t there and Luna demanded to know what was going on, so I sort of had to tell her you went missing.”
He drank more of his tea, sipping at the cup little by little. “We should start heading there in a few hours once you’re able to stand and walk.”
Twilight shook her head in disagreement, “No, not yet. There’s something we have to check first.”
“What would that be? There can’t be anything more important...”
“Yes, there is,” Twilight cut him off. She used some of her magic to summon the healing spell she had used before, hoping that it would speed up her healing. “We need to go back to the alley. I have to check something that we didn’t check before.”
Archie sighed, “I suppose there’s no talking you out of this?” He got a head shake in reply. “Okay then, you can lead the way.”
Twilight sat up and got out of the bed. She took off some of the bandages and wrappings that Archie must have patched her up with.
“Can you help me get an extra bandage wrapped around my hind leg?” Twilight asked. “It’ll help the healing spell work faster if there’s nothing else touching the wound.”
Archie nodded, “Okay.” He picked up the medkit he had sitting on the table and took out the roll of bandage wrap. Twilight took off the old wrappings and and held her leg up so the new ones could be applied.
Archie looked at her now unwrapped leg, specifically at the huge gash down to the leg bone. Even though it looked nasty, it was looking much better than it had a couple hours ago. Her magic was certainly strong if she was able to heal herself at this rate.
Twilight watched as he examined her leg. She felt sort of awkward for some reason, but she didn’t exactly know why.
Archie let her wounded leg rest in one of his hooves. He then began to gently wrap the medical tape around the wound. He was careful not to cause her discomfort in any way. For some reason, he felt a little weird.
He looked up at her to ask her a question, but their eyes met and he stopped what he was doing. He felt his face turning red and quickly looked away, while Twilight did the same thing.
“I guess I should thank you for saving me,” Twilight said. She closed her eyes, “How did you even know I was in the palace labyrinth?”
Archie kept wrapping her leg with the tape, “I saw a purple laser blast shoot up into the sky that came from somewhere inside the maze. I ran towards it and eventually found you at the source.”
Twilight nodded her head as she remembered shooting the grate out of the ground, so that she could escape the labyrinth, “Yeah, that was me,” she told him. “So thanks for taking care of me tonight, I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” the white stallion replied as he finished wrapping her leg up and tightening it, so that it wouldn’t come loose while she trotted around. He walked back over to the table that had all his belongings on it. Putting away the medical wrap and levitating his helmet back onto his head.
“You need to keep the tea bag in longer, by the way,” Twilight told him.
Archie looked at her with a confused look, “What?”
“The tea you made,” the purple mare reminded him, “You have to keep the tea bag in the hot water longer otherwise the flavor isn’t as strong and it doesn’t taste very good.”
Archie smiled and said, “Thanks for the advice, I’ll try that next time.”
“No problem,” she couldn’t help but smile as she went off topic.
“So what do you expect to find back at the alley Twilight?” Archie asked. He had thought he had found everything before. Guess not.
“Well,” Twilight began to explain while she walked around the library, making sure she would be able to walk on her leg for an extended period of time, “While I was eating yesterday, I remembered something that we both overlooked.”
Archie was listening intently.
“We completely forgot about the pouring rain,” Twilight said while looking for her satchel bag. “We never took into account the rain washing anything away. If there are any other clues that were near the body, then they would’ve followed a current and piled up somewhere else, like a drain,” Twilight explained.
Archie nodded his head in agreement, “Right, right, I didn’t think of that at all. What do you think we could find?”
Twilight was still looking for her bag, “I don’t know, but it could very well help in telling us who killed that poor homeless pony.”
She continued searching for her satchel, but couldn’t find it, “Um...Where’s my bag?”
“You didn’t have one on when I found you,” he told her.
Twilight looked around again and mumbled, “Well pony feathers. Everything important that we need was in my bag.”
She began to think where she could’ve lost it. “Alright, here’s the plan. First, we’re going to search for my bag close to where I passed out, it’s important that we find it. Second, we’ll go to the alley and see if my assumption was correct, then after all of that is said and done, we’ll go to Luna and tell her what I encountered,” the purple mare had to take a deep breath.
“Well,” Archie said, “Let’s go.”
Twilight made sure she wasn’t forgetting anything and trotted out the front door along with the Corporal.
It looked as if it was going to rain again anytime now. The dark clouds were rolling in and the faint sound of thunder could be heard from miles away. The wind began to pick up speed and made the trees sway back and forth.
“This spot has got to be it,” the purple mare explained. “This has to be the place I passed out at, because that over there is the restaurant that I ate at,” she pointed her hoof at the building she had ate at yesterday.
Archie looked around and asked, “You said you thought you passed out in an alley right?”
“I’m most certain,” Twilight said with a little hint of annoyance.
They had checked almost all the alleys except for one so far. “This is the farthest you could’ve gone out while you were drugged, or poisoned, or whatever happened to you,” he wasn’t quite certain what could cause a pony to lose their mind on such a level.
“Well this is the last one in our estimated area,” the Corporal told Twilight as he walked slowly through the alley, examining a dumpster as he walked by.
“We’ll never find it,” complained Twilight. “All the clues that we collected were in my notebook. Those were really important.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to mention the book and note to him that she found in the secret floor in the library, but she’d burn that bridge when she got there.
“I know this is going to be nasty,” started Archie, but was interrupted by Twilight shaking her head.
“No, no, no, no. Please don’t tell me that you’re going to climb into the dumpster.”
The stallion shrugged his shoulders and gave her a look that said “might as well check anyway”. He dived in and began rummaging through the trash, while Twilight held her breath and kept walking.
“Boys will be boys I suppose,” Twilight whispered to herself. She was sure that her satchel wasn’t in the dumpster, so she kept walking down the alley in hopes of finding something. For some reason she felt like something else was in the alley with them, watching.
“Hey,” she heard a voice come from the trash bin. Twilight stopped and looked behind her. Had he actually found her bag?
Archie poked his head out of the garbage bin holding a music record. “Cool, a Foal Fighters album. Who would want to throw this out?”
Twilight eyed him and he quickly threw the record behind him. “Right,” he grinned and disappeared once again in the pool of garbage.
Something was definitely watching her now. Twilight swung her head back just in time to see movement at the other end of the alley. She caught a glimpse of a pony wearing a dark colored cloak disappearing around the corner.
“What the...” she said quietly. She glanced over at Archie who was still digging through the trash. She headed to the other end of the alley quickly, but at the same time being quiet so Archie wouldn’t see her heading off.
“Whoah. Look at this,” Archie said excitedly, as he lifted his head and hooves out of the dumpster holding some sort of toy. “The things people throw out, you know?”
He looked up to see Twilight at the other end of the alley. He hopped out and started to follow her.
Twilight peeked around the corner and saw nothing, except for a lone bag with a six-pointed purple star laying on the ground.
She stared at it with a look of confusion, “Is that what I think it is?” she asked herself quietly. Slowly walking over to it, her nose was filled with an unpleasant smell that almost activated her gag reflex, but she forced the nasty fluid back down to her gut and quickly covered her snout with a hoof to protect her nostrils from the horrid stench.
She grabbed a hold of her bag with telekinesis and began examining it. It still possessed everything that was stored in the bag previously, except for one missing item. Her journal.
She let out a long sigh and closed her eyes. She had only recorded her notes in one thing and now they were gone. Luckily, her mind still remembered everything, and she would write them all back down on the way to the palace.
“What you got there?”
“Aaaahhh!” Twilight dropped her bag and spun around to the voice.
It was just a filth-covered Archie.
“You don’t just sneak up on other ponies,” Twilight glared at him. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Since you got over here,” he replied.
Guess that explains the smell, the frightened purple mare thought.
“Is that your bag?” the dirtied royal guard asked.
Twilight grabbed it with telekinesis and fit it over her back. “Yep.”
Archie nodded, “Figured. It has your cutie mark printed on the side.”
“Only,” Twilight began, but was interrupted by an echoing crack.
Both ponies flinched and looked up at the sky. A dark ominous cloud was moving toward Canterlot. Frequent bright flashes could be seen from the heart of the oncoming storm.
Archie gave Twilight a glance and said with a worried tone, “We’d best hurry and get to shelter. This storm looks stronger than all of the others that have hit us.”
Twilight nodded, “I think that would be best. We can continue this after the storm passes, or at least lets up.”
“To the library then.”
The Corporal took a look at the pocketwatch he had stored in his chest plate. Letting out a long sigh he put it away and said, “It’s only three in the afternoon, but this storm is making it seem like it’s midnight.”
A short flash lit up the parts of the room that weren’t already lit by candlelight. The rumbling that followed lasted around half a minute and shook some books off of some shelves.
With a gasp and a quick flailing of limbs, Twilight was putting the books back where they were supposed to go. Archie just watched as the overly compulsive mare put everything away nicely.
When everything was normal and put away, Twilight trotted over to her satchel and slowly pulled a coverless book out with her telekinesis and hoofed it to Archie.
He looked it over without opening it and asked, “What is this?”
“A book.”
“Indeed,” he said as he scanned the first page with text. “I can’t read this,” he remarked. “It’s Ancient Equine.”
Twilight’s face scrunched up into a confused look. “What?”
She swiped it away and looked at the text. “But I can read it perfectly fine.”
“Didn’t know you could speak Ancient Equine. I didn’t even think this library had any books written in it; thought all that stuff was kept in the Royal Archives. Why didn’t you say something?” The Corporal said while resting his helmet on a table.
“As far as I’m concerned, I can’t,” Twilight responded while scanning more of the pages. “I’m seeing it as English Equine.”
It was Archie’s turn to look confused. “What do you mean? Are you casting some spell to be able to read it?”
“No,” shaking her head. “Ancient Equine is something that I’ve never been able to completely wrap my mind around. I never learned it completely and I don’t know any spell that could help me with that task.”
“Okay,” Archie mumbled while scratching the back of his head. “Still doesn’t explain why you can read it and I can’t.”
The fact that one pony could read something that another couldn’t made sense, but what baffled both of their minds was that their eyes were seeing something that the other saw completely differently. It seemed like something out of a Daring Doo book.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I’ll think about it later, but for now,” she set it down on the closest table and sat down to read, “it’s important I tell you the stuff that I found this book.”
Archie nodded and sat down beside her. “Okay then.”
Twilight read as clear as possible so Archie could understand. To him everything was new, but Twilight had read these parts the day before and still the passages word for word. About the term Lycanthropy and how a cult of ponies that called themselves The Night Templars tried to overthrow the Princess, but were eventually banished to the moon alongside Nightmare Moon. The bloody fight that had ravaged Canterlot for more than three hours before Celestia had stopped them.
The Wolfequines.
They were abominations that shouldn’t have existed. Corrupted minds caused by Nightmare Moon that experimented with an unknown magic more evil than the darkest magic in history. One should not be able to alter their body’s with magic and summon beasts from the flaming pits of Tartarus, it’s just wrong. At least, that’s what Twilight thought. Others may not be so hesitant when offered extreme amounts of power.
Twilight now knew first hand what it’s like to face one of these beasts. She could hardly even phase it with magic, her hooves weren’t exactly strong, she didn’t have combat experience whatsoever and she didn’t have the guts to kill anything.
But she did. She had killed the Wolfequine. It was crushed underneath all the rubble; surely nothing could survive something like that. Hopefully. Twilight didn’t want to think that she had killed it though, did she? The rubble is what did it, not her.
A psychological battle was the last thing she wanted right now. She made a mental note to consult the Royal Sisters the next time they met and ask about this, along with all the other things she wanted to ask.
Archie was absorbing everything he had been told. When he was done processing his thoughts he asked, “So are you implying that something that technically hasn’t existed existed for a thousand years has just decided to show up out of nowhere?”
“Yes, I know it sounds crazy,” Twilight stated. “But it’s what I saw last night.”
“Alright,” the Corporal agreed while holding up his hooves. “I believe you. Considering the state you were in last night, there’s no reason I shouldn’t,” he looked at her still bandaged leg, “And I can’t think of anything that could’ve done something to you as violent as this other than what you just explained.”
He started rubbing his head and a confused look found its way onto his face. “I only have one question.”
“Shoot.”
“Where did you even find this book? Was it just lying on a random shelf?”
“Oh,” Twilight smiled, “There’s an entrance in this library that leads to a giant secret room that runs underneath Canterlot full of ancient books,” she finished with a smile across her face. Her purple eyes wide and unblinking, staring at Archie, waiting for his response.
He blinked. She grinned. “Yeah,” he finally said, “I can buy that. I’m just going to go put my head down and rest for a bit.”
Twilight giggled, “I know, I know. It’s a lot to take in all at once. Trust me though, something led me to this book.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was invisible ink, I cast a special light spell to reveal it, and it acted like some sort of fluorescent or phosphorescent trail. It led me to this book and...” she rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small piece of paper, “This was in it.”
Archie took the piece of paper with his telekinesis and read it aloud, “This book should prove to be an asset for you.” He gave the paper back to Twilight and closed his eyes. “So, somepony, or something,is helping you out and giving hints while not revealing themselves?”
He received a nod in reply. “I don’t really care who it is and what their intentions are, but I would like for them to continue doing things like this; it would help quite a bit.”
Suddenly, every object in the library seemed to have the color sucked out of it as darkness overwhelmed everything. All the candle lights were blown out by a gust of wind that seemed to come from nowhere. The lightning flashes were the only source of light until both Twilight and Archie used their own light spells.
“What in Equestria is going on?” Archie shakely said, “Why did all the lights go out?”
Twilight caught sight of a figure outside one of the windows during one of the flashes. She became terrified and wanted to hide, but suddenly found herself consumed by a freezing cold that left her lips chapped and skin numb.
Archie was running around the library trying to relight the candles, but instead was bumping into tables and knocking things over. “Why did it get so cold all of a sudden?”
Twilight could hardly hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the front door of the library. Something was on the other side, about to enter. It was dark, cold, and she was scared out of her mind. Had the monster she met in the labyrinth come to finish the job?
The door swung open, followed by a new chilling breeze that seemed to freeze her very soul. She shivered and opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t bring herself to make a noise. Archie paused what he was doing, looked at the now opened door, shivered and froze.
A giant cloaked figure strode in, lightning flashes reflecting off the eyes underneath the hood. The door glowed with a light blue aura and was shut. Just then, all the candles were lit and the light revealed the being. It was the Royal Alicorn of the Night Sky and Moon, Princess Luna.
Twilight felt her legs return under her control and suddenly felt warmer. “Princess Luna.”
“Greetings Twilight Sparkle,” Luna’s booming voice echoed through the building and shook a few books off of their shelves. “We have some questions for thou.”
“So do we Princess,” Twilight and Archie said in unison. “So do we.”
Author's note: Hope you enjoy the chapter. Many thanks to my pre-reader Talix
Lightning flashed, thunder echoed for minutes, gusts of wind made it seem like buildings were swaying, and the constant downpour of rain was starting to form hoof deep puddles.
It had been three days since the mysterious death occurred and everything started going downhill. Luna losing the ability to raise and lower the moon, the Pegasi unable to control the weather, and Canterlot more or less being deserted.
Twilight Sparkle, Corporal Archie, and their newly arrived guest, Princess Luna, were in the Canterlot libraries’ study room on the first floor, preparing to discuss the recent events.
Even though Luna had lost her most precious power, her appearance hasn't changed from the last Nightmare Night when Twilight saw her. Her ethereal mane and tail were decorated with sparkling stars here and there, resembling the night sky. It billowed in the air, even though their was no breeze in the building.
This was when Twilight took notice of one minor detail. She wasn’t wearing her dark colored tiara. She assumed it was because of of her predicament of not being able to control the night sky and she wouldn’t touch on it, for a fear of making her feel uncomfortable. It would certainly limit the questions she could ask, but hopefully Luna would bring it up herself. For now she would work with what she had.
“It is most joyful to see that thou ist fine Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said after she glanced at her hind leg. “We were most certainly worried.”
Twilight chuckled and thanked her for her concern. “The Corporal here is the one who got me back here and bandaged me back up.”
Luna eyed Archie and boomed, “Indeed. We thank thee kindly, but what ever happened to you coming to inform us of Twilight Sparkle’s condition? We weren’t supposed to come to thee.” If she was angry, she didn’t show any sign of it.
“Heh heh,” Archie chuckled and replied, “I am deeply sorry Princess. I had every intention to come to you, but I wanted to make sure Twilight was still okay.”
“And I thank thee for that. But thou could’ve still told me if thou was okay.”
“It will not happen again Princess,” Archie assured as he gave a courteous bow.
The Princess walked over next to a table and asked the other two with her booming voice to be seated, “Now, thou may asketh these questions that thee have, and we will answer thee as best we can.” Luna kept her regal appearance and waited for the first question.
Twilight started off, “Well, I don’t know really know what to ask first. I would go through my diary of notes we collected, but I seemed to have misplaced it.”
“How does one lose their diary?” Luna asked with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“I didn’t lose it,” Twilight put to rest, “I misplaced it.” The cloaked figure she saw right before she found her satchel dashed across her mind. She didn’t want to make assumptions, but it was definitely suspicious.
A sense of doubt graced Luna’s face, and it seemed like she was trying to stifle a smile. Losing a journal is no laughing matter. Twilight quickly lost any sense of anger or irritation because she knew Luna had been going through a tough problem lately, and anything that would make her smile sure would help her situation out as well.
“Well,” Twilight began while she pulled an object of her satchel. “I didn’t lose this.” She hovered “Lycanthropy” out in front her so the Princess could see.
Luna’s face instantly showed change in emotion. She no longer seemed to be calm or trying to hide her emotions. Her pupils dilated and her jaw slightly dropped. Her horn glowed a dark navy blue and the book was torn from the young unicorn’s telekinetic grip and she began to read immediately.
“Where did you find this?” she demanded while not even looking up from the pages.
Twilight glanced for a second at Archie and responded, “A secret library underneath this one.”
Luna’s eyes peeked up from the book at the two and quickly went back to reading. “Interesting. A secret library that neither my sister or I knew about. Can thou show us this room Twilight Sparkle?”
Twilight nodded and gave her a gleeful smile, “Sure Princess.” Twilight remembered exactly the point of entry and trotted up to one of the many bookshelves. She heaved the tall object with her telekinesis to reveal...nothing?
Twilight was lost for words. She moved another bookshelf, and another after that, but the hidden entrance was no longer where it was before. She didn’t understand. She was sure that it was right here. It had to be a trick. It couldn’t just up and vanish.
It was about twenty seconds later when Twilight realized that she hadn’t been breathing. Her lungs were screaming. Letting out a loud exhale, she took in a long inhale and looked at Luna like she had been defeated by Rainbow Dash in a game of chess.
“I’m sorry Princess. I could’ve sworn it was right here, or at least on this wall,” she apologized.
Luna kindly accepted her apology. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. This is the only thing that matters at the moment,” as said as she held up “Lycanthropy”. “We are not very surprised by the fact that a copy still exists after all so long. And with such detail to everything.” She hoofed it to Twilight and asked, “Do you know what this is?”
Twilight nodded and replied, “Yes, Princess. I’ve read some of...”
She was cut short by Luna’s gasp, that seemed to be louder than what any other pony could muster. Twilight felt a grip over her body as she was lifted into the air and brought close to Luna’s widened eyes. “THOU DID WHAT?”
Twilight wasn’t sure how to feel. She decided on feeling shocked, since she could feel her heart pounding in her ears. “Take it easy Princess. I don’t feel like passing out again anytime soon.”
The Corporal just watched, waiting for the Princess to say something.
The Princess closed her eyes and set her down on the floor. She took a deep breath and cleared out her throat. After regaining her regal composure, Luna asked the still dazed purple unicorn, “You are able to read and comprehend the words in this here tome?”
Twilight slowly nodded. “Yes, Your Highness, I… I can.”
Luna’s posture did not change, but Twilight could see in her eyes that she was struggling on what to say next. She didn’t understand what was so surprising about being able to read it, unless Luna thought that she didn’t know how to read… Nah.
A dark shade of blue enveloped the mysterious book and floated over to Archie. Luna’s voice soon followed, “Read a paragraph out of this would you please.”
Archie nodded and flipped opened the book. “Um…” was all he could say, completely confused. “I don’t get it. None of this is even legible, if it was ever meant to be legible, looks like a bunch of scribbles.”
The soldier doesn’t know how to read. Of course. Twilight thought.
“Just as We expected. Twilight and I are the only ponies who are able to read anything from its pages. To any other pony, it appears nothing to them but mere scrawl.”
Hoofing the book back to Twilight, the pages were opened. “Thou can read it right?”
A nod.
“Only two types of ponies are able to understand the text from this here tome,” Luna began. Only Luna’s voice could be heard, along with the distant rattle of thunder and the sound of rain lazily beating up against the outside walls of the library.
Twilight was listening carefully to her words, and for some reason, she could feel a slow dread rising from her inner body. One part of her wanted to know the rest of what Luna was saying, but another was telling her that she didn’t want to know.
“Only two types of ponies are able to understand the text from this here tome,” the Princess of the Night repeated. “Either ones whose minds are too great for this world.”
Twilight gulped.
“Or those who have had both their mind and body corrupted by an unspeakable nightmare.”
A rumbling could be heard for the next minute and a half that shook the library and even shook some books off the shelves, sprawling out over the ground.
Memories began flashing in Twilight’s head. Ones that she didn’t want to remember. Dark, twisting, turning corridors. The sound of nothing, not even of air flow. Only her breath and voice to accompany her in the dank underground labyrinth.
The monster she had seen down there. Huge, almost three times her size, with razor claws and a snout filled with teeth made for shredding and tearing. Its growl was like the rumbling of thunder and its movements were as quick as the lightning flashes.
She had outwitted it though. She escaped and trapped it underneath rubble, and maybe it was still down there. Twilight didn’t want to think about it anymore. It almost had her. She didn’t want to know what would've happened if she had been caught. Nothing good obviously.
The Princess was intently staring into her eyes. Should she tell her what was under the palace labyrinth? She didn’t want to, but she should right? For some reason though, keeping it to herself sounded like a better idea.
“Dost thou have something to tell Us Miss Sparkle?” Luna broke the silence.
“I don’t know what you mean,” was Twilight’s reply. Archie raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “I’m not sure I quite understand what I’m supposed to say.”
Luna blinked and let out a sigh. “You should understand everything. Have you not read the book?”
Had she read it all already? How could she finish it with all the things going on recently?
“Not all of it yet,” was what she settled on saying.
“It is important that you finish it. Learn all that of which you can from it. You will need it.”
Twilight gave a quick single nod, “Okay Your Highness, I will.”
“Remember that if thou hast anything important to tell me, about the case or thou well being, you can always come consult Us for advice. We will help in way We can,” Luna had a look that told Twilight she knew she was hiding things.
With that, Luna was walking out the door. “Also remember to report to me tonight soldier.”
“Ah- yes- yes Your Majesty,” Archie said while stumbling to get his hoof up to salute.
The Princess of the Night gave a smile to Twilight and actually whispered, in her own sense, “Be safe Young One, Nightmare Night is tomorrow after all.” And with that, the door closed behind her. Only then Twilight had noticed that most of the storm clouds had disappeared and light was starting to shine on the ground once again.
She glanced at Archie and asked nervously, “I guess we should be trying to find out what to do for the rest of the day huh?”
A shrug in reply.
They had gotten news shortly after Princess Luna’s visit. Horrible news. Another victim had been claimed. Every time it started to pour down rain, trouble seemed to soon follow.
A messenger guard had come to tell Twilight and Corporal Archie the news saying, “They need you two down on 1st Pony Boulevard, in front of the cafe. There’s been another kill.”
They were out of the library as quickly as possible with everything they needed packed. It would take them as long as five minutes to get to their destination on foot. With most of Canterlot abandoned or off the streets, it’s easy to maneuver without constantly running into ponies and having to give a mumbled, “Sorry,” or, “Excuse me.”
“It seems more problems keep stacking themselves onto our current problems,” Archie said as he and Twilight rounded onto the next road to their destination.
“Yeah, well, lets just get to where we need to go, or I’m afraid even more things will become problems and we won’t be able solve the ones we have now at all,” Twilight responded.
When they entered onto the next street, it was almost a complete scene change. Guards were everywhere, making a perimeter around an alleyway next to a cafe named Ponies and Coffee. There were even a few civilian ponies trying to get a look, but the guards were keeping them from getting any closer than a few meters, giving the ones who needed to work their space. The pair were let through without a second thought. Archie’s special mission badge wasn’t even questioned.
Twilight wasn’t sure how she was going to react to the dead pony, but for some reason, she didn’t feel the slightest bit dazed. Almost as if she had seen a dozen already. She didn’t notice it all though.
The body was leaning up against the side of the cafe. A light blue coat that was still wet with speckles of red, matted fur around the neck. A single pool of blood a couple of hooves wide underneath the head. Other than that though, there wasn’t anything else bad about the body. It seemed to be in perfect condition.
Twilight took a fresh notepad out from her satchel and flipped it open. Written in it was all she could remember writing down on her old notes. She wasn’t going to lose this set of notes, she was going to make sure of it.
Archie nodded toward another one of the guards, “Give us a couple of minutes.” He got a salute in return.
They began with the body.
A major difference is to be seen right away in this body and the first, Twilight noted down. This one doesn’t seem to have been mauled. This one is more easily identifiable.
Archie pulled the pony from its leaning position onto the wet cobblestone so it could be closer examined from all sides.
Male, Unknown eye color (eyes completely glazed over. Black) Light blue coat, darker blue mane and tail.
“Do we have a name?” Twilight asked.
Archie shook his head, “No. No witnesses either. We’re pretty much blind with this one.”
With over three quarters of Canterlot’s population abandoning the city, it was going to be hard to get any information.
Twilight turned back to investigating the corpse.
The right side of the pony looked slightly indented in the chest area and was slightly discolored, so Twilight pushed in on it.
Multiple broken ribs on the right side of the body and heavy bruising. Something hit him hard, most likely knocking the wind out of him and rendering him incapacitated.
As Twilight was writing down as much as she could, Archie nudged her and nodded towards the sky beyond Canterlot. Looks like there was another storm coming their way. They had at least another hour before they’d need to take cover.
Turning her attention back to the investigation, she began examining the head.
The eyes looked extremely black, like tar had filled the entirety of his eye sockets. What she found more interesting was the hole in the back his neck.
A single puncture wound to the back of head. Appears to be angled up towards the brain. Probably the main cause of death. Flesh looks burnt around the outside edge. Nothing else to note except for the smell, it’s pretty bad, reminds me of rotting fruit.
“He seems to have been killed cleanly,” Archie noted
“There’s nothing clean about it,” Twilight said with an eyebrow raised.
“Well, the body isn’t all mangled I mean. Sorry.”
“Yeah I know. It’s fine,” she replied.
After double checking her notes to make sure they were accurate enough, she put the notebook back and her satchel and asked, “Are we allowed to use magic on the crime scene?”
Confused, the Corporal shrugged and called out to the guard overseeing the area. The pony came galloping over and asked what the problem was.
“Not really a problem, my partner just has an important question,” he said, nodding his head to Twilight.
“I would just like to know if I could use a spell on the body?”
The guard looked at her, confused, and gave the answer, “As long as you don’t change the body permanently in any way.” He looked at the two as if he wanted to know what it was she had planned, but shook his head and decided to get back to writing his report.
Archie turned his head back to Twilight to see the tip of her horn start to glow a faint lavender. “What is it your planning?” he asked. As soon as he ended his question, it was answered, as a dim light shot from her horn over the poor, dead pony. After a few seconds, a bright blue substance appeared around the body.
Twilight let herself smile and replied, “I used this same technique to reveal the invisible ink trail at the library.” Her smile grew larger and she held her head up proudly. “Except I slightly modified it to show possible areas where blood may have been before it was washed away by the rain.”
“Impressive,” the Corporal said. “You seem to be getting a hang of this a lot faster now.” He started following Twilight who was now walking down the alley with her horn pointed to the cobble.
The bright blue splotches of liquid led into a single streak of deep blue. “I was kind of guessing that it would be like this,” said the still smiling Twilight. “He wasn’t killed at the entryway to that alley, but was indeed dragged to this location.” She stopped and turned her head to Archie, which stopped as well. “We just simply follow it and eventually we’ll find the source. Piece of cake.”
They proceeded to follow the trail. None of the other members of the Royal Guard had even noticed they left the area. The sound of distant thunder could once again be heard from the ominous looking cumulonimbus clouds that were approaching all too quickly.
“Hey”, Archie broke the silence that had enveloped the alley.
Twilight responded with a simple, “What’s up?” She kept her head pointed forward as she continued walking.
“I just wanted to know if you were doing alright.”
A slight chuckle came from Twilight’s mouth. “Why wouldn’t I be? Why? Does something seem wrong?” She said everything as if the questions were already answered.
Rhetorical or not, Archie continued, “You just seem to be handling everything a lot better right now,” Twilight ceased walking and was now giving her full attention to the white stallion behind her. “Before, you both appeared and acted like were a nervous wreck, but now you seem completely collected and calm. Did seeing the Princess help instill some sort of hope for you?”
“I don’t really know what it is,” Twilight said quietly, “But I know now that I can fix this problem.” She closed her eyes and breathed deep. “So yeah, I guess talking to Luna and seeing that she’s doing fine even in her situation made me think, my own selfish problems can be put aside for the time being until everything Canterlot is reverted back to the way it used to be.” She glanced at Archie, who was now beside her, gave a smile and said, “That’s good. Your well being is one of the things that matter the most.”
“Thanks for the assurance,” Twilight whispered.
Then she noticed something. The trail had disappeared, or rather it had ended. They started looking around for anything that could be of aid to them. Twilight found something of note pretty quickly.
“Wait,” she began, “Notice anything off right here?” Archie gave the area another quick sweep with his eyes and shook his head. “This roads on an incline, and yet there’s a sewer grate right here,” pointing her hoof at the single grate beside them. “This doesn’t belong here, it should be farther down the road where any rain would start to gather. Therefore,” she began trotting over to it, “This isn’t a drainage grate at all, but a passage to an underground tunnel.”
She rested her hoof on an emblem that was engraved on the middle section of the grate. It seemed to resemble a crescent moon.
“Great.”
Twilight stared at Archie. “Was that supposed to be wordplay?” She asked.
“I guess if you want it to be,” he retorted.
Twilight smiled. “Well, good one then.”
“Think we’ll be able to check it all out before the rain comes?”
“Sure,” Twilight assured, “We’ll just have to be quick and thorough.”
They both dropped down the hole they just opened, and with a quick light of a horn, began investigating the underground.
Author's Note
Well, well, well. It has been quite a long while hasn't it? I will be finishing this, I don't know how long it will take me to finish, but it will be done this year. I promise.
