Princess Celestia paced the meeting room in her castle quickly, trying to keep her composure. Many disasters had befallen Equestria since she had become its ruler, and often they had come back. But the treasure of Equestria, The Elements of Harmony had always stopped it, no matter what happened. This though… this she wondered what she could do.
A sound a hoofsteps came from the hallway, and a pony entered the room. Much like Celestia, she was an alicorn, however unlike her she had the build of an ordinary pony. Her pelt was a bright green, and her orange mane and tail moved slightly, looking almost like a slow fire. Her cutie mark was composed of a black and grey heart with a hammer over top of it. “You look nervous.” She said casually.
Princess Celestia looked at the newcomer. “Administrator Hammerheart.” She addressed the other alicorn formally “it’s good to see you.” Hammerheart smirked and went and sat down opposite the Princess.
“Let’s save the chit chat and formalities.” She said “I know why you called me here, so now you need to tell me what to do about it.” Celestia smiled. That was Hammerheart for you. The administrator was always rushing into things, never could sit still.
“I’m sorry to say, but the audience doesn’t know.” Celestia said, and Hammerheart groaned.
“Figures, I should have checked the 4th wall.” Hammerheart said with a sigh. “So, where do we start?”
Celestia looked out the window “as you know, the seal on Monochrome is weakening. “ Hammerheart nodded.
“Course, I’m the one who did most of the sealing.” She said “it’s a fact that when you seal something it’s bound to break out eventually, though. You should know that better than anyone, Princess.”
“Indeed I should.” Celestia responded “but you do know that if he escapes, all of this world we have worked so hard to protect will be gone. He has the strength to destroy it all.”
“Of course.” Hammerheart looked calm “he is the Alicorn of Magic. He has a big weakness though: he turns it all into a game. If we can just win-“
“I know about his games, Hammerheart. But we don’t know where any of our pieces are this time around.” Celestia sighed “for all we know, he could have broken out already.”
“Unlikely.” Hammerheart looked at Celestia. Despite her appearance, Hammerheart wasn’t a young alicorn. She was younger than Celestia, sure, perhaps Luna’s age, but she was also the Master of Chaos and Order. That was her title, as each alicorn was put in charge of something, hers was the balance of chaos and order, something the laid back Administrator took awfully seriously. “We would have sensed it if he was out. Still, what do you expect me to do about it?”
Celestia looked at her old friend “You can sense Monochrome and those connected to him, as I can sense the last of Spectrum’s power, or The Elements of Harmony. I need you to use this ability to track down Monochrome’s descendants in Equestria and make sure he doesn’t get to them.” She looked down “seal them, imprison them, kill them if you have to…”
Hammerheart smiled “that’s it? Well, that won’t stop him, but it will cut him a few pieces… strong pieces too. Alright, give me a second.” Hammerheart closed her orange eyesand focused, then opened them, smiling wider “we’re in luck. There are three out there, and two are in Ponyville. I’ll go there and make sure there’s no problems and be back in a jiffy.” She walked over to the window and spread her wings “oh and Princess? Be sure to tell Luna this time. Don’t want a repeat of last cycle, do we?” she grinned, then took off.
Celestia nodded and waved. Though she would never say it to her face, Hammerheart could be just as bad as Monochrome sometimes. Neither every took anything seriously, seeing things like universal destruction and wars as nothing but a game. Celestia stared after her friend and shed a single tear. She knew who was in Ponyville that Hammerheart had sensed. “Forgive me Twilight…” she uttered as she walked away from the window, preparing to raise the sun for the day.
Twilight Sparkle had been organizing the library one evening after Spike had gone to sleep, when she found a strange book. She had never seen it before, in all her year and half of living in the library, and was intrigued. It had a grey colour with a few dusty jewels resembling the Elements of Harmony set in it. She dusted it off and opened it, beginning to read aloud.
“Once there were two siblings who ruled over Magic… one of Colour and Harmony and the other of Shadows and Chaos…. Their names where Spectrum, the elder, and Monochrome, the younger. When the world was young, they created magic so some ponies, which they dubbed “Unicorns” could have the convenience of bending the worlds laws to suit them.” In the early days, all unicorns could use magic as they pleased, and the siblings would use their magic to keep the balance of power. But Monochrome grew bored with this, and over time, devised a plan to take his sister down and steal the worlds magic for himself. He almost succeeded, stealing magic from the unicorns of the world to attack Spectrum, but she had seen this coming and split her own power into six pieces representing the virtues he would never have… this power was soon named the Elements of harmony, and was used to seal Monochrome away, only for him to awaken every thousand years and attempt to destroy our world and recreate it in his image… he cannot be truly defeated, for without him there is no magic in our world… since his rebellion, unicorns may only use a minimal amount of magic, for he stole the rest.” Twilight read “I’ve never heard this legend before…” she muttered.
Twilight yawned. The whole thing sounded like a fairy tale to her, nothing but a theorists interpretation of pre-Equestria. She headed off to bed, careful not to wake Spike. It was getting late after all. Taking the book with her, Twilight snuggled under her blankets and went to sleep.
That night, she had an odd dream. There was a barren wasteland, with statues of all her friends around her. she appeared to be lying on the ground, and standing above her was a grey stallion… an alicorn.
Twilight snapped awake the next morning. She had been having that dream for the past month or so. Disregarding it for the moment, she went to brush her mane and noticed the book she had been reading last night sitting on her nightstand. Using her magic, she lifted the book over to her and opened it to the page after the one she had been reading, which showed an illustration of two alicorns facing each other. One was white with a multicolored mane, the other was grey with a black and white mane. The grey one seemed familier…. Twilight shook her head and went downstairs to make some breakfast for her and Spike.
Twlight spent the morning finishing her cleaning. Everyone was busy today, so she really had nothing better to do. But the picture of that grey alicorn haunted her....
“Hey, are you ok?” Spike asked as he came around the corner. Twilight turned to look at him.
“Of course, why do you ask?” she said. Spike looked at her worriedly.
“You’ve been dusting that same spot for ten minutes.” The little dragon pointed out. Twilight shook her head and looked at the clock
“I was just thinking.” She said “you want to go out and get some lunch?”
Spike grinned “alright!” the two headed out into Ponyville within the next few minutes.
The café was filled with different ponies that day, including a few couples and a hooded figure that made Twilight slightly nervous. After making their orders, Spike looked at Twilight. “So seriously…” he said “whats got you so jumpy today?”
“jumpy?” she responded, glancing around “I’m not jumpy!”
Spike rolled his eyes “suure… so are you going to tell me or not?”
Twilight sighed, then started to explain her dreams and the book she found. Before she could finish, she was approached by a dark purple unicorn with a black mane and gold eyes, the image of a spotlight on his flank.
“Excuse me…” he said with a faint Trottingham accent. At first Twilight couldn’t tell if he was male or female, with his dainty figure and girlish face. His voice, however, was clearly male.
“My name is Spotlight Wish.” He said “but most call me Spotlight. I couldn’t help but overhear your description of your recent dreams…”
“What about them?” Twilight asked. A green unicorn mare approached them, her messy red brown mane streaked with blonde fell a little in front of her hazel eyes, her cutie mark showing a colour wheel. “Spotlight…” she said, but he held up a hoof.
“You see…” Spotlight said “I have been having the exact same dream as you for the same time.” Twilight’s eyes widened.
“The same dream? Are you two long lost twins?! That would be so cool!” Spike exclaimed. The green unicorn facehoofed.
“We should talk about this somewhere else.” Twilight said and Spotlight nodded.
“Well hey I’m coming too!” the green unicorn exclaimed. Spotlight turned to her.
“Mood Ring…” he said and she glared.
“Don’t “Mood Ring” me! This sounds cool, and I want to hear more about it!” the unicorn, likely named Mood Ring exclaimed.
Spotlight facehoofed “fine…”
Twilight led the other two and Spike back to the library, although she felt like she was being watched…
When they got there, Twilight immediately showed Spotlight the book. “well I’ll be…” he said “that grey pony looks just like the one from my dreams.”
And then it clicked for Twilight. That grey pony DID look like the one from her dreams. “The pony from my dreams is Monochrome…” she stated, dread in her tone.
“That’s right.” A voice from the doorway said, Twilight turned to see the cloaked pony from the café standing there. She threw off her cloak, revealing a fiery maned green alicorn who summoned a hammer with magic which floated in front of her. She stared the stunned group down “shame those dreams will be your last.”
