8 When I Bring My Wrath Down Upon You

"You like it? Abstract art isn't really our forte but we think this was a good first attempt" our vessel phased into existence next to the throne, only to warp away from it as Celestia blasted at us. "Now Celestia, please be civil about this,"

"Civil? Civil!" we felt gravity lose its grip on us as Celestia slammed us against the wall with a muffled thud."You are going to tell me what you have done and fix it before I gut you like a fresh trout!" Here we were slowly being crushed to death by an enraged lesser deity while remaining the voice of reason, it was good to be in control.

"Only on one condition," our mind reached out to theirs and pulled at them, "no magic" we immediately fell down to the ground on our hooves, we looked at the equines standing before us, Rainbow Dash had fallen to the ground, Twilight face was a burning red from multiple futile attempts to cast a spell while Pinkie Pie was in a state of panic, her mane having straightened out and lost its capacity to store objects. Applejack's legs bent inwards ever so slightly almost as if her body had gained some phantom weight. Fluttershy on the other hand had not changed in the slightest seeing as she had been able to jump behind her friends in the hopes of using them as flesh-walls as per the norm. With everyone incapacitated we slowly walked down the stairs leading from the throne, "Now that I have your attention, I'll answer some of your questions,"

"What did you do to Luna?" Celestia snarled through clenched teeth as her knees buckled beneath the weight of her own body. We lifted Luna's husk in our magic towards us.

"She stared into the void, and we stared back," we replied.

"What. Did. You.Do?" Celestia said with a glare that could melt glass still trying futilely to cast another spell on us. A small smile appeared on our face.

"Why are you so angry? We've merely prevented another Lunar Rebellion, after all nightmares are not so easily forgotten," Luna's coat shifted from a muted shade to an ebony shade through a simple illusion. The mares standing before us was to put it lightly deeply shocked by what we said. Twilight's first victory, her moment of triumph had accomplished nothing. Though few of her adventures really did. "If she was so devoid of darkness as you thought she would be alive, now," our form shifted growing taller growing wings and our coating changing into a deep blue while our voice became more feminine , "She lives forever within us," our appearance shifted to the element of generosity "As so many others do," our appearance changed again and again to faces from a forgotten empire, faces and names no one remembers.We turned our attention to Twilight Sparkle who stood staring at the husk of one of the fallen guards, his armour and weapon untouched on the floor of the hall. She looked up at us and asked the question she had asked only a few days ago.

"What are you?"

Shifting back to Luna's appearance we knelt down so that we were eye level with her"We've know each other for a while, we guess we'll tell you about ourself" we held out a hoof and a small white ball, roughly the size of an orange appeared with lines matching the shapes of the planet's continents, "Now imagine that this is your world," we watched as the orb rose into the air until it was halfway to the ceiling. Behind it another image formed, a deep purple projection of our true form who's wingspan stretched from one end of the room to another its head tilted downwards at the small sphere before us. "That, dear Twilight is us," we gave her a short moment to drink in the image before we continued "We have been known by many names in many tongues. The Bringer of Nightmares, The Father of Dragons,The Forgotten Sky,The Lord of Order and Death even the Queen of Night, these are only the names given to us by the denizens of this world. But the name we identify ourself by...Is Sator Ni'Mad," The others showed signs of confusion but Celestia, we could see in her eyes that she feared for her life.

"But...Your supposed to be-"

"Dead? That's what your sister said when she invaded our dreams," we said as we trotted slowly towards her lifting her head to face us with a hoof. "And we all know how that turned out for her," we said with a small smile, we slowly lifted her and the element into the air in our magic and watched as she struggled in vain.

"Wha-What are you doing?" Fluttershy said as she finally found the nerve to speak.

"Removing threats," we replied before dropping them again, all except Celestia. "Its been so long since we've harvested souls, we believe that a little...Practice is in order" we pulled Celestia closer to ourself "How long has it been Celestia? ten-thousand years now? Our face creased into a frown Ten-thousand years trapped in our own body, ten-thousand years left to watch worlds grow and fade unable to do anything but speak into their minds," the blade we had used in our duel the previous night formed before us moving closer to her face as a small smile crossed our face "Ten-thousand years waiting for this moment," but before we could do anything we felt a strange...Feeling piercing through our chest. A sharp cutting sensation that stung our thoughts and clouded our mind.

Pain we thought as we looked at the sword tip protruding from our shoulder . Its been so long since we've felt your sting. We looked towards the door of the room to see the prince of the Crystal City State, murder on his mind and meeting our gaze with a burning glare. But he had a weapon, we had observed him and the guard before, dual weapons were not part of their armory only individual blades were employed, it couldn't have been him. Then who? we turned our gaze towards the hilt of the blade.

Only to see it held in Twilight's jaws. A mixture of anger, fear and shock danced across her face as she looked into our eyes. Odd...This is unlike her, an anomaly...A weakness. A weakness that could be exploited, she may still be of use after all we thought.

"Well...We guess congratulations are in order Twilight, you've surprised us yet again, what an odd anomaly you seem to be," we said with an almost affectionate smile. "Sadly," we began as we slowly pulled the blade out of our chest "We don't have any more time to converse," we walked towards the open door, Shining Amour still stood there brandishing his weapon as we walked past, stopping to look back at the six equines behind us "After all, we have an apocalypse to plan,"

"W-we'll s-stop you! You won't get away with this!" Twilight yelled at us. We smiled warmly at her.

"Your always welcome to try, but for now we're sure you have bigger problems to deal with," and by some great twist of fate a sound of screaming from outside the castle and what sounded like a mob heading towards it. "After all most of your citizens won't respond well to the death of a monarch," small parts of our body began to break away an fade from view as we walked away only to be blocked by Twilight's brother.

"Your not just going to walk out of here after what you've done! Turn yourself in!" emphasizing his point by moving his sword closer to our face. We don't have time for this we thought as we slapped him across the room into the throne where Luna's body once sat. There is still so much to do

We appeared in the centre of a collection of circles, each circle surrounded by another and the spaces between them lines with even more all carved from black stone with runes and carvings of events from our past but four in particular caught our attention , carvings of dragons flying away from the mainland, images of maremaids building under the watch of a siren-esque creature, and a twisted monstrosity made from a thousand creatures bursting from the body of a serpent. But the largest of them all was on the opposite wall, a large stone tapestry of us diving towards the Princesses, elements armed and glowing, pointed at our avatar in all its dark glory, all engraved upon the ebony walls.

Our attention was sadly redirected elsewhere by the sound of metal boots heading towards us. "Silver, how goes the construction project?" we said turning to face her she wore the garb of our cult, a black robe with silver patterns on its edge with a silver necklace bearing our mark and a simple headdress, a tiara in appearance but with its point pointing down towards her brow. She stopped before us and bowed.

"The walls have been raised and the runes carved," she replied before lifting a rapier to us. A silver gray weapon with a chamber containing what appeared to be a crystal between the handle and the blade with runes carved into it, "Interesting ," we replied as we slowly swung the blade back and forth , a combination blade and casting tool, the battle mages wouldn't have to depend on ranged attacks and all non-unicorns could cast basic offensive and defensive. We placed the blade in silvers hoof "Make sure everyone is outfitted with these,".

She gave us a look of confusion in response to our command "But my lord, we haven't even completed the temple! The walls are the only thing-"

"That we need for now," we interjected. "We've already bought you enough time to prepare an army, but there is not enough time to waste building the temple. Celestia will be attcking with an army by the end of the month and we need a standing guard by then, not a palace for them to tear down," we said with a hint of annoyance at the reality of it all, they might have been loyal cultists but they were still only mortal ponies, and we needed something to fight off whatever Celestia could throw together. We looked outside the temple, and saw the great rocky plains of death that were the Nightmare Wastes, we looked to the west and saw the mummified body of dragon, left untouched over the centuries when a grin curled its way across our face. We teleported ourself along with Silver to a nearby hill overlooking our temple. "Tell me Silver what do you see?" we said sweeping a hoof across the landscape before us.

"Clouds, rocks and a lot of dead bodies," she replied instantly.

"You see dead bodies, we see an army waiting to be raised" we smiled at that adorable look of understanding that appeared on her face. We teleported back to the walls of the temple "Raise the dragons first then work on building up some foot soldier and maybe some golems if possible" we stretched our wings and prepared to take flight.

"Where are you going?" Silver Script asked.

"You seem fully capable of raising keeping everything in order, after all we did choose you as our High Priestess," she replied with a blush and some mumbling so we took off to the west back towards Equestria.

It took most of the day but we managed to make it to our destination before sunset, we could have just used a few long distance teleports to get there but we found that flying was more relaxing. We turned our gaze downwards to see the mountains north of the Crystal City State.

The snow storm had died down giving us a clear view of the ice scarred ruins of the Old Kingdom. The Frozen North that was what the Equines called it though few knew it even existed 'an old pony's tale' they called it, just like us. We touched down on a terrace on the castle, ancient unicorn architecture if we remembered correctly making sure to clear away the corpses before sitting down. We looked to horizon and saw the sun dip in the sky, its descent turning the sky a burning orange in the process, we let out a content sigh Its all so...Calming. Too bad we're going to destroy it all. It had been a while since we had been quite this happy...Then he came.

"Oh look! You still know how to smile," we heard as with a flash Discord appeared. "So, Annie" he said as he put us in a southern bell dress, we tried our hardest not too kill him right on the spot "What seems to making you so happy?"

"Just enjoying the first feeling of serenity we've had in a hundred thousand years. Why, pray tell are you here?"

"Because I enjoy you company" he said with an insultingly fake smile an squee. We raised an eyebrow in response. "Fine," he flashed again and returned as a judge looking over a scroll "The defendant has been charged with twenty counts of murder, one account of count of regicide one account of assault, grievous injury, causing twenty thousand bits worth of damage to private property as well as inciting rebellion in the capital, and according Shining Armor you hit him" he said looking over the glasses he didn't need.

"Is it really regicide if her body's still alive? After all we only took her soul,

"I would be of the mind to agree Annie, but old Sunbutt," he said materialising Celestia's wings and crown "Isn't exactly over the moon about it, no pun intended,"

"Did Celestia send you here hoping she could get her precious sister back by asking nicely? Cause if that's the case she's going to be sorely disappointed " we replied with a small grin.

"What she's asking for is your unconditional surrender," he said holding out a treaty asking for our imprisonment That got a genuine laugh out of us.

"Celesta wants us to surrender? You cannot possibly be serious, Discord did not flinch making us stop laughing "You're actually serious...Well then, tell Celestia that if she wants to stop us she's going to have to get off her royal posterior for once and protect her people now that her go to weapon is broken,"

"I don't think you understand which ponies your dealing with,"

"And we don't think they know either," we replied with a steely glare "Now leave, we don't have any more time to converse nephew,"

"Fine the-Wait, what was that about neph-" we teleported him away and looke back to the horizon only to see that the sun had already gone and with it any sense of peace we had left. So we spread our wings and took flight again.

After all we had a war to plan.

Author's Note

What did you think you could evacuate THREE NATIONS without anyone dying on the way or simply refusing to leave?