"Spikeeee...Hey Spike" Twilight yelled as she bounded into the room. Spike was always at the library, why isn't he here she pondered. Oh that's it he went to Moondancers party, as she triple checked her schedule. Since her #1 assistant was out for a few hours she decided to do some pleasure reading. Her pleasure reading tended to be made up of ancient manuscripts overflowing with spells that had been forgotten to the ages until Princess Celestia rediscovered them. She was browsing a few old spell tomes when something caught her eye, she had browsed this section of the library countless times before and she had never come across anything out of the ordinary. But right in front of her smack in the middle of the bookcase was an opening.
Twilight paused and starred at the opening. This must have been here all along, but the opening must have been closed. I wonder why it was hidden, maybe there is something so important in there they had to hide it away. But why is the door open then? Twilight went through all these questions in her head and came to the conclusion that the only was she would find out was if she checked. Using her magic to pull one of the torches out of its alcove, she went inside and wondering what she would find.
What Twilight saw confused her greatly, in the centre of the room there was an alter and sitting upon it was nothing but dust and cobwebs. The alter looked like it hadn't been touched in centuries but what was strange was if there was nothing on the altar then what was the point of having it in a secret room. Her studies at magic quickly kicked in, she then remembered that ponies would often hide valuables with invisibility the same she did with her research notes. The thing with this type of magic is that each individual spell is different for each person who casts it. So after thinking for a while she realized that it was as simple as examining the flow of magic from the pony who cast it, using a spell Princess Celestia taught her she attempted to examine the complex web of magic that had been cast in the room. After an hour of weaving through a complex web of magic she figured out the counter spell. Muttering the necessary incantations along with the counter spell the air on the altar began to shimmer, a spike of pain suddenly hit her it felt as if someone was shoving pieces of glass into her head. Someone must have added tampering spells onto whatever is on this alter. She tried to fight the magic but even with her new alicorn abilities she wasn't able to prevail.
Twilight lay there only half conscious of what was going on. She hurt, a dull ache in her head told her that she was still alive, but for what she hurt so much, she just wanted it to go away. "Twilight...Twilight...where are you?" She thought she heard a voice, it was like a faint whisper in the back of her head. "Twilight whe- sweet Celestia, Twilight are you okay?! Speak to me!" Spike yelled as he rushed to where Twilight was sprawled out on the floor of the room. "Don't die. Twilight I need you" Spike was now crying as he held her. But death now felt so comforting to Twilight like she wrapping herself in a warm woolen blanket. Spikes mind was racing he didn't know what was wrong but he knew someone who might. "Help! Help! Princess Twilight is hurt!" he yelled hoping one of the royal guards would hear him. A few moments later he heard hooves hitting the castle corridor. Knowing the royal guard would soon be here he knelt down and held Twilight in his arms as his tears poured down his face and settled on Twilights fur.
The royal guard clambered into the room, "step aside" one of the guards coarsely said to Spike. Spike did as he was told not wanting to make any trouble. The royal guard quickly got to work seeing if anything could be deduced of her condition, they checked her breathing which was slow and in short ragged breaths. She was not responsive to any external stimuli so they thought she must be unconscious. After seeing if her neck or any of her bones were broken did they decide to move her. They picked her up and quickly shuffled out of the room, Spike waddling along beside them.
The guards quickly took her to Princess Celestia, who at the moment they walked in was relaxing in her study. When the guards walked in carrying Twilight, Princess Celestia dropped the cup of tea she was drinking and ran over to her student. "What happened?" Celestia demanded. "I am sorry your highness, but I do not know." Princess Celestia used her magic to examine Twilight Sparkle. Upon further examination in turned out that Twilight had been cursed. “Where did you find her asked Princess Celestia?” “We found her in an abandoned part of the archives, your highness.” Thinking to herself she wondered what could have possibly happened to Twilight, she then remembered.
Centuries before, shortly after she had banished Princess Luna to the moon using the elements of harmony another evil appeared. This evil didn't have a physical form, it instead possessed the bodies of ponies and used them to commit horrific acts such as cannibalism and rape after the evil left these ponies they would wither up and die. Countless numbers of her subjects died before she figured out what was happening and how to act. She sealed the evil away in a book protected by powerful enchantments that it would never be able to break, she then hid it away in the Canterlot archives thinking that it would never break free. But over time it seems that the evil imprisoned inside the book had eaten away at most of the enchantments and corrupted many more. But when Twilight tampered with the invisibility enchantment that had been put over the book, it must have used this slight weakening in its magical bonds to lash out at Twilight.
Celestia knew that the only thing she could do was seal it away again, the evil that resided in the tome was to powerful to vanquish even with all four alicorn princesses and the elements of harmony. Her train of thought was interrupted when Spike asked "will Twilight be all right?" Princess Celestia pondered his question for a moment, because Twilight had only briefly come in contact with it she would remain comatose for up to a month and her sanity might be slightly affected but she probably would make a full recovery. After thinking her answer over she said to Spike "she may be in a comatose state for a while and she might be a bit different when she wakes up but other than that she should be back to normal in about 3 months.
But there was one thing Princess Celestia didn't tell him, that someone attacked or possessed by this evil who survive sometimes gains an affinity for dark magic. That is what happened with King Sombra and the Crystal Empire.
