The G.E.A.: Victor in Equestria

Chapters

Intro
Starfall
Chase
Possession
Help...
Doctor
Awaken
Guard

Intro

Real

Just four little letters. Such a simple word. Or is it? Everyone knows what real is. If I were to tell you that something was real or fake, fact or fantasy, you would know just what it is that I’m saying. But can you define the word “real”?

How can you tell what “real” really is? I’ll let you in on a little secret – you can’t. “Real” doesn’t exist. “Real” is just an abstract concept, created by the ignorant masses to try and protect their fragile sense of reality, lest the truth of the world around them drive them insane. The truth is that “real” never existed in the first place. For “real” to exist, it would mean that there was also a “fake”. That fact and fantasy were separate.

And that’s just not the way things are.

There is no such thing as fantasy, everything you thought was just a good story, or a nice book, or a cool movie, has actually happened. Out there, somewhere, somewhen, in some other reality, it was all a factual occurrence. Every errant thought, wild imagining, and impassioned daydream, somewhere out there is a corresponding reality where it is all true.

There is a vast multitude of distinct realities and alternate dimensions, all of them just as tangible and “real” as the last.

But there’s more.

You see, these universes aren’t exactly separate. They are all connected, joined by the few truly universal forces. There are plenty of names for these forces, Good and Evil, Chaos and Order, Yin and Yang, etc. And they are all in a precise but delicate balance. But they didn’t get that way on their own, and they sure don’t stay that way without help.

And that’s where the GEA comes in.

The GEA, or Genesis Equilibrium Agency, is tasked with keeping, monitoring, and maintaining that precious balance. We’re always there, watching from the shadows and making sure the balance never leans too far one way or the other. We’re the things that go bump the night, so that when you wake up in the morning everything’s alright. We’re the best of the best, but don’t worry if you’ve never heard of us; if we’ve done our jobs right you won’t know we’ve done anything at all.

Only the elite of The Enlightened – those who for some reason or another became aware of the truth of the world around them – ever end up joining the ranks of the GEA. Great people (and quite often some that aren’t people at all) from all walks of life and backgrounds, all sorts of worlds and realities all comprise the GEA. I am one of those people.

I am Vita Umbra, Viador trans Astra ad Ultra Sidera, but I usually just go by Victor Umbra. I’m sort of what you might consider a “freelance agent”. I tend to simply observe the happenings of the multiverse, but I’ll interfere if it’s necessary. Or if I feel like it.

Most would be honored to be in my position, traveling across the various dimensions, protecting the balance wherever I go. But honestly I’m just in it for shits and giggles.

Long story short, I’m immortal. And eternity can be pretty boring. So I thought joining the GEA would be a good way to spice things up a bit. And considering my *ahem* rather interesting background they were more than happy to have me.

So here I am, hopping between realities, maintaining the balance, and basically just doing whatever the hell I want. But I’m here right now for a reason. I’ve got a story to tell you. A story about ponies.

I am Victor Umbra, and this is the story of when I went to Equestria.

The air was thick with the scent of physical exertion and thrummed deeply with the frantic pounding of the massive bass; multi-colored strobe lights and lasers played over the sea of jumping bodies and glow-sticks. I had just managed to finally lose myself to the pounding rhythm when I felt it. The tell-tale buzzing from my coat pocket and pressure at the back of my mind left little room for doubt. Cursing HQ for their horrible timing, I carefully extracted myself from the writhing crowd and stepped out of the club, so that I might better hear the message. Ducking into a side alley, I looked around to make sure that I wouldn’t be overheard and withdrew my Badge.

Flipping open the square device I was greeted with more or less exactly what I had expected. The upper portion, as always, clearly and prominently displayed my personal insignia, identifying me to anyone who knew how to read it. On the lower partition however, in place of the usual symbol of the GEA was a small blue vortex, swirling in a listless clockwise pattern, indicating an awaiting message. I activated it with a small wave of my hand, causing the vortex to flash red before a young feminine voice with slight synthetic undertones emanated from the device.

--Greetings Special Agent Umbra. Is your location secure?—

I cast one last look around me before responding, “Location is secure.”

The little blue vortex was replaced with a simple green wire-frame that projected to cover both me and the immediate area inside the alleyway as the voice spoke again.

--Scanning… Scanning… Confirmed.—

The probing lines retracted back into the small screen-like surface and the voice continued.

--Location is secure. You have a new message. Would you like to play it now, Agent Umbra?—

“Yes.”

--Acknowledged. Commencing message playback.—

The bright green grid faded away and was replaced with a three dimensional projection of a woman’s head. Her features were fierce and lithe, somehow both shapely and sharp simultaneously. Her flowing raven tresses perfectly framed her acute facial structure, from her thin jaw to her high cheek bones and up to her curved brow. Her piercing green eyes cast a dis-approving glare at me as her pointed ears twitched in irritation.

[“Victor. I know what you did. A rave? Really? What could have possibly made you think that was a good idea?”] She released a deep sigh and shook her head before going on. [“You’re lucky the Director was in a good mood. We’re getting tired of covering for you every time you do something stupid. And playtime’s over anyways. You’re being called in. We’ve detected an anomaly, most likely Ceal’ith in origin. It’s been marked as a Point of Interest; the Director thinks you might want to see this. I can’t go into details on this channel, but it looks like we found another one. Head to HQ immediately. Cie’ara, signing off.”]

--End of message playback.—

Silently, I stowed my Badge back into my coat pocket and sighed heavily. “Dammit. I had tickets to Aerosmith tonight,” I muttered angrily under my breath. Irritably, I reached up to the ever-present toothpick in my mouth and flung it away so that I could replace it with a fresh one.

A sudden gust of cold air and a sound akin to the rustling of fabric filled the alleyway, and by the time the discarded toothpick had hit the ground I had already disappeared.

Starfall

Twilight sneezed. Shivering, she wrapped the thick blanket around her body more tightly in an effort to ward off the chill of the night air. Soft lavender light emitted from her horn as a similar hue enveloped the telescope in front of her, and she adjusted it for what seemed like the umpteenth time that night. Levitating the mug at her side up to her lips to take a sip, she grimaced as she felt the now no-longer-hot chocolate slid down her throat. She was starting to regret using the top of a hill as her vantage point.

She began shuffling her hooves beneath her thick covering, both in an effort to keep warm and out of impatience. “It shouldn’t be much longer now,” she thought to herself. “It’s already past midnight. It should appear any minute now.” After a few more empty moments she let out an irritated huff and grasped a nearby large blue book in her magic and held it at an angle with which it would better catch the moonlight and thus be easier to read.

“Astronomical Astronomer’s Almanac to all thing Astronomy,” she read aloud off the cover before opening it and flipping to a well-read passage. Carefully, she read it again for the seventh time that night.

Ceario’s Harvest Star

Despite its name, Ceario’s Harvest Star is not actually a star at all, but instead a rather unusual, and somewhat rare, astrological phenomenon. Named after its discoverer, the famous astrologer Ceario, Ceario’s Harvest Star is a bright object of an unknown nature sighted on occasion in the southern sky during very specific times of the fall season.

Very little is known about the object, by its very nature it is difficult to study. It only ever seems to appear during the autumn equinox, when the moon is highest in the sky. And even then, it is only visible for a short while. But perhaps strangest of all though, is for the short duration that it is in the sky, it emits a strange energy. This energy is unlike that of magic, gravity, magnetism, electricity, or any other known energy type. Some scientists believe that if the nature of this energy were to be discovered, it would dramatically increase our fundamental understanding of the universe around us.

Ceario’s Harvest Star appears most often around midnight of the autumn equinox, in the southern sky near the constellation Leo. As bright as a category three star, it usually lasts for approximately twelve to seventeen minutes. After it fades a meteor shower known as Ceario’s Harvest Shower has been known to occur.

Sighing, she closed the book with a dull thump, and gently tossed it to the side. Her head hanging low, she looked up to the sky with pleading eyes and thought to herself, “It’s already after midnight. Where is it?” Dis-heartened, she let out a sad whimper. After several more minutes of waiting, she sighed disappointedly and began to grudgingly stow away her supplies into her saddle-bags, when something caught her eye.

There, on the telescope. A single gauge seemed to be in a suspiciously odd position. Squinting her eyes, Twilight tapped the thin acrylic covering, and the needle began to spin wildly before settling in a ludicrous position. Eyes wide, she began to franticly adjust the angle of the telescope, only to note with dawning horror the gauge pointedly remained pointing the wrong way.

With a gasp, she rummaged through her possessions for her astrolabe. Holding it against the backdrop of the night sky, she used it as a reference to make the correct adjustments the telescope. Looking through the eye-piece, she found exactly what she was looking for both to her joy and dismay.

There, hanging in the sky like a shimmering orange topaz, was Ceario’s Harvest Star. And it was already fading. Even as she watched, the celestial object became dimmer and dimmer, eventually fading to black and becoming just another speck against the endless dark velvet of the night sky. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as her ears splayed back against her skull and she sniffled dejectedly.

Falling to her haunches, her bottom lip began to quiver as she thought to herself, “I missed it. All this time, all this waiting and I missed it. I was going to be the one to finally unlock the mysteries of Ceario’s Harvest Star! And I missed it, all because I was too stupid to notice a broken gauge in time.” Slowly, she took a deep, shuddering breath to calm herself. In silence, she dis-assembled her portable telescope and stored it in her bags along with the rest of her equipment. With slow hoofsteps and a heavy heart, she turned to make her way back to her library home when something caught her eye and made her stop walking.

There, originating from the same point in the sky as the missed opportunity for astrological discovery was a small flash of light. Intrigued, she turned to examine the area of the sky more closely. A few seconds later, a small streak of light shot from the same spot and speed towards the opposite horizon. Twilight’s eyes flew wide as she realized what she was seeing. “Ceario’s Harvest Shower,” she thought as she smacked a hoof to her forehead, “I almost forgot about it!”

Making her way back to the top of the hill for a better view, she sat down and observed the stellar light show. Brilliant streaks of light of every color shot, zoomed, zipped, and crossed the sky in every direction, always appearing from the same spot. The meteorites became increasingly frequent; eventually one would still be making its way through the air when the next would appear. Soon, the whole of the night sky looked as if it were some massive wheel, hundreds of radial spokes of light connecting the horizon to a single point of origin somewhere in the constellation of Leo. Sitting under the beautiful night spectacle, she couldn’t help but smile. “I guess tonight wasn’t really so bad,” she admitted to herself aloud.

It didn’t last forever though, after several minutes the rate at which the meteorites would fall became lower and lower. After twenty or so minutes, only one would fall every dozen or so seconds. After it seemed that the last meteorite had fallen, Twilight rose to her hooves to walk home once more, this time with a smile on her face.

She had made it half-way down the hill when she felt it. Involuntarily, her horn lit up brightly, and she a sharp tug shot through her mind hard enough to make her head to physically jerk to the side. There was a strange sort of static tingle in the air, one that was incredibly familiar and yet somehow completely alien. She had felt something like this on many occasions before, whenever she would cast a really powerful spell it would often leave a residual magic charge in the air, usually manifesting itself as an electric tingle and faint scent of ozone. This feeling was definitely similar, yet it was somehow fundamentally different. It felt more like large amounts of magic and some other kind of energy had been suddenly and violently ripped from the area. The sensation only lasted for split second in total; Twilight doubted that if she weren’t so magically adept she would have felt it at all.

Curiosity piqued, she turned to gaze in the general direction she had sensed the strange feeling coming from. To her surprise, she saw what looked like another shooting star, but something was very strange about it. For one, it was moving incredibly slowly, seeming to almost coast through the night sky. Instead of the usual off-white of the other meteorites this one was a golden color, almost radiantly bright. But most unusual of all though, was that it actually seemed to be getting bigger as it fell. Twilight stared at the strange object in open-mouthed wonder as it grew ever larger and came closer and closer to the horizon.

As it got bigger, she could see more details about it, like the string of golden flames it left across the sky in its wake. And then, to her amazement, Twilight realized something – the shooting star was falling. And not only that, but it was falling right towards her. Twilight mentally screamed at her legs to run but they wouldn’t respond, her entire body was locked still with panic.

And then, as if by some kind of divine miracle, when the stellar object was just a few hundred feet above the ground, its course veered sharply. In a matter of seconds, the meteorite made contact with the ground somewhere in the Everfree Forest with a small, hollow boom. Just as her franticly pounding heart slowed to a normal pace and she recovered from her fright, the same strange sensation rippled through the air again, causing her horn to light and her skin to tingle.

For a small while, she simply sat at the top of the hill, biting her lip indecisively. She wanted to run after the meteoroid and study it intently, but it had landed in the Everfree Forest and it was the middle of the night. She knew it was dangerous but she couldn’t help it; who knew what sort of secrets the fallen stone could hold! After a few more moments of indecision, another small wave of the strange static sensation shot briefly through the air, this time from the direction of the Everfree Forest.

That decided it for her. Without another thought, she rushed off to find what would assuredly be the most important scientific discovery she ever made.

*~-/^-~*

“Ow.”

Slowly and carefully, I crawled along the ground until I had made my way past the lip of the small crater I found myself in. For a while I just laid there, waiting for the agony of impact coursing through my body to fade. It felt as if my entire body was somehow being boiled, crushed, ripped, burned, and cut apart, all at the same time. It was a mildly unpleasant sensation.

After a while I was able to form some coherent thoughts and tried to stand, only to fall flat on my face and land on a flat outcropping of rock. I both felt and heard the sharp *crack* as my nose decided to try and be a hero and take the fall for the rest of my body. “OWW.”

It was then that I noticed the rather unusual state my body was in. Namely, that it was gone. Or, at least, my normal one was anyway. “Oh great,” I muttered, my face still in the dirt, “I’m a quadruped. Again.”

I definitely had one more pair of legs than I was used to. And my arms seemed to be missing as well. At least I hadn’t grown any extra appendages this time. With a shudder, I suppressed the unpleasant memories.

With excruciating slowness, I rose to all four legs and stood shakily as I tried to gain my balance. After a few minutes my knees stopped trembling beneath me enough for to take a step. Putting one foot in front of the other, I allowed my new bodies instincts to take over and soon enough I was completing a small circuit around the fresh crater.

Now that I had the whole “walking” thing down, I took the chance to take in my surroundings. I had landed somewhere in the middle of a forest, that much was clear. Large, ominous trees spread as far as I could see in every direction. Thick foliage covered the ground between their impressive trunks, chocking the ground save for a few small game-trails. It seemed I had landed in a rather large clearing, breaking away the thick canopy above it to let in the light of the crescent moon and stars. Other than this, there wasn’t much to see.

Next, I searched the immediate area for my Badge, which I seemed to have dropped on impact. It didn’t take me long to find it, and when I did I wasted no time in activating it. Flipping it open with my mouth, I was greeted with the usual display – my insignia up top, the symbol of the GEA below. “Jenny?” I inquired as I tapped the lower half.

--Yes, Special Agent Umbra?—

“Run a diagnostic scan. I want to see just what I look like and what the hell’s wrong with me.” No sooner had I spoken the words than did I become covered in a projection of a neon green wire-frame. A translucent wall of a similar color formed in the air in front of me, sweeping across my body and disappeared once it had touched every inch of me.

--Scan complete. Processing data……………. Processing is complete. Projecting three dimensional render of your new body now, Agent Umbra—

The green grid lines covering me faded away as a semi-transparent figure appeared in the space above my Badge and began to slowly rotate. The hologram produced its own light, and even though it was the rather dark outside, I could still easily make out all of the details.

The first thing I noticed was the most blaringly obvious thing about me: I’m a damn pony. But not just any kind of pony, a freakish, cuddly, adorable, cartoon pony. Like, giant eyes and everything. Hell, I had a freaking outline. That just wasn’t normal. I sighed in exasperation. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though, the Director did explain that they were the primary sentient life-form in this world.

The next thing I noticed was just what kind of pony I was: the large, curved horn jutting from my forehead made it pretty obvious. I reached up and tapped it with one of my hooves. It was kind of soft, velvety almost, but still strong and sharp. The weirdest part though was that I could actually feel with it. It was kind of sensitive actually, almost like a big finger.

After that I saw more of the details of my body. All of my skin had been covered in a light tan colored coat of short fur, stretching from the tip of my muzzle all way down to my hooves, which an ashen gray color. My long hair had been replaced by an even longer mane, still styled in its usual pony-tail (I couldn’t help but snicker at the new double meaning to word) and curling around the left side of my neck to rest on my chest. It at least had retained its normal dark-brown-nearly-black color, but I had grown a matching tail.

My (devilishly handsome) beard was still in its place, as was my ever-present toothpick (how I managed to hold on to it during the fall I have no idea) and my black rimmed glasses, which had miraculously survived the impact. My various bracelets, rings, and necklaces however, had been transformed into two separate earrings on my left ear.

The last thing I saw gave me pause. Pointing to the flanks of the projection, I asked, “Um, why the hell do I have a tattoo on my ass?” Sure enough, my personal insignia could be seen on either side of my rump in big, bold, black lines.

--Analysis indicates that it is what is locally known as a “Cutie Mark”. A distinctive mark every child of the species receives when they discover their life’s calling. Lack of this “Cutie Mark” would have raised suspicion—

“Oh,” I said, blinking from just how ridiculous such a thing was, “well then. Anyways, please display the damage assessment as an overlay now.”

Several sections of the projection took on an orange or red glow, and small lines of text appeared next to arrows indicating specific points on my body. I took one look at it and cringed. No wonder I felt like I got hit by a truck. “Activate the Regeneration Matrix,” I commanded.

In response, the floating pony projection faded away as a large, glowing blue circle of light appeared on the ground in front me.

--Regeneration Matrix activated—

Gingerly, I stepped into the lit portion of grass. A soft blue glow crept up my limbs, spreading across my entire body as the matrix did its job. The various aches and pains that had persisted through the entirety of my time here were slowly pushed away, replaced with a pleasant warmth in my bones. After a brief bout of discomfort when the bones in my nose readjusted themselves I let out a contented sigh as the process finished. The blue light faded away as my Badge spoke again.

--Regeneration complete. Deactivating matrix—

--Records indicate an Alpha-Omega anomaly of unknown origins was detected approximately 1.35872 miles south by south-west of your current location—

Without another word, I trotted off into the night-time brush, eager to get my latest adventure underway.

I didn’t know it at the time, but it was to be my greatest adventure yet.

Chase

Branches seemed to reach out and snag at Twilight’s skin and coat with an almost feral intent as she galloped down the dark pathway among the trees. Heart beating franticly, she paid no mind to the small scrapes and bruises they left as she rushed by, to engrossed in her mad dash to notice. Horror at dangers both real and imagined drove her ever onwards.

Had she been in a right state of mind, Twilight would have most likely been regretting her rash decision to charge off into the Everfree Forest in the middle of the night all alone. Another part of her would have argued that the amazing scientific discovery that lay just ahead was worth it.

But as it was, Twilight Sparkle was not in her right mind at the moment, and so she continued running. To a mind as muddled as her own, the time she had spent running was entirely unknowable, and as such she had no idea how long it was before an overzealous root reached up from the forest floor and cut her frightened flight short.

The sudden loss of forward movement from her legs forced the momentum of her upper body to send her tumbling end over end, rolling down a slight incline and landing in some bushes where she came into rather forceful contact with the concealed trunk of a tree. Dazed, she simply lay there, completely still and unmoving for several moments.

When she came to, the sound of heavy padded foot-falls could be heard just outside her impromptu hiding place. Her fear immediately took hold once again, and her heart began to palpitate wildly as her breath caught in her throat. The sound of sniffing was the only break in the tense silence as the footsteps grew closer. Twilight held her breath and cowered as close to the tree trunk as she could, careful to be utterly and absolutely silent. A twig snapped in the distance. Slowly, she heard the beast turn and walk away.

Trembling, and with shaking knees, Twilight stepped out of the bushes once she was sure the coast was clear. When nothing jumped out of the shadows to devour her she let out her pent up breath and breathed a sigh of relief.

Stepping back onto the path, she continued onwards, this time with a more careful eye and a manageable pace. “The sooner I find that meteorite and get out of here the better,” she thought to herself with a shudder.

***

Thankfully, after another several minutes of un-eventful walking later, Twilight had stumbled on to a small clearing. The canopy of leaves and branches had been cleared away and all around, small sections of grass still smoldered from whatever had caused the crater in the center of the clearing. The strange static tingling of unknown energy was heavy in the air here, and with it was an unpleasant sense of foreboding. Instinctively, the fur on the back of Twilight’s neck stood up straight.

But the worst part of the whole situation wasn’t apparent until closer inspection of the crater itself. “Where’s the meteorite?!” Twilight exclaimed once she noticed the profound lack of the very object of her foray into the forest. Franticly walking in place, she cast her gaze in every direction in search of her target, all the while rapidly muttering her denial of the situation. After a moment’s hesitation, she jumped into the earthen depression and search closely for any sign of the stellar stone. She quickly sorted through various more mundane rocks and even a few crystals, but nothing she found was nearly exotic enough to be what searched for. Silent tears of frustration fogged her eyes as she fell to her haunches in disappointment. After a moment of self-pity, she slowly rose and turned to head back the way she came empty-hoofed, when she noticed something wet against her hoof.

Bending low to see the source of the moisture better, she found a dark liquid coating a small flat stone near the edge of the crater. Dabbing her hoof in it, she lifted it closer to her face to better see it in the light of the moon. Upon recognizing it, she recoiled, and loudly voiced her disgust, “Blood!” Hurriedly wiping her hoof on the grass to try and remove the foul substance from her body, Twilight’s analytic mind couldn’t help but notice the small patterns that presented themselves now that she had found their start. Starting by the blood covered stone she could see tufts of trampled grass, overturned sods of earth, snapped twigs, and various other signs of recent trespass. In fact, she could actually detect the faint lingering sensation of a healing spell that was cast in the area not too long ago. The obvious conclusion of this dawned on Twilight.

“Somepony’s already been here,” she realized aloud. A small spark of hope welled up inside of her. If somepony had already been here, they had probably seen the meteorite. Maybe the celestial rock had simply been taken, instead of lost as she had thought. Whoever it was that had gotten here before her probably had no idea the true value of what they had, they most likely just that it a pretty rock that fell from the sky. If she could catch up to them, maybe she could explain to them its true importance and they would let her have it. They’d have to.

Optimism restored, Twilight quickly searched for signs of where the recent visitor could have gone. After a few minutes of investigation, she managed to locate a small trail of snapped twigs and trampled stems winding through the bush, heading in a general south-west direction. With a sense of purpose in her step, and a mission on her mind, Twilight Sparkle set out after the mystery pony.

*~-/^-~*

The serrated tip of the barbed tail passed close enough to rustle my mane with the wind of its passing as I cocked my head to the side to nonchalantly dodge the strike. This caused the manticore to scowl even more fiercely and retract its tail to pose for another strike. Quick as a striking cobra, it whipped the poisonous appendage forward in a graceful downward arc. I simply scooted about three inches to the left, causing the attack the attack to miss me by a hair’s breadth and the tail to bury itself into the soft loam. Looking the beast dead in the eye, I cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Is that really all you have? I’ve literally fought slugs more dangerous than you,” I taunted.

Rather displeased with the way its next meal was casually berating it, the manticore redoubled its efforts to shut me up.

Without bothering to dislodge its stinger, the massive feline swiped at me with one of its front paws, forcing me to skip backwards to avoid its sharp claws. Before I had even completed my evasion it whipped his tail along the ground, knock one of my front hooves out from under me and causing me to lose my balance for a split second. Taking advantage of the opportunity, it pushed off with its hind legs and pounced on me.

It was only thanks to my sharp reflexes that I was able to bring my hooves to both of its jaws fast enough to prevent them from closing on my neck as it bowled me over onto my back. I could have sworn it was smiling as it released a hiss-growl noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Despite the danger of my precarious situation, my smirk grew into a full grin as I spoke again, “Now that’s more like it!”

Still holding the large fangs at bay with my fore-hooves, I used one of my rear legs to deliver a sharp and rather forceful kick to the beast’s ribs. Surprised by my bold move and the sudden pain, it reflexively recoiled slightly. Pressing the attack, I pushed its head away with a burst of strength, unbalancing the creature. Wasting no time, I quickly rolled to the side and on to my hooves as it made a lunge to try and pin me again.

Realizing that I had escaped the reach of its fangs and claws, it resorted once again to the appendage its species was famous for. Still grinning like a maniac, I once more side-stepped the strike, this time tightly grabbing hold as the limb was retracted for another blow. Using the extra momentum of the manticore’s tail I leapt, twisting in the air and pinning the toxic barb beneath me as I landed on the monster’s broad back. Before it could react and possibly throw me off, I wrapped my fore-hooves around its neck.

It trashed and struggled as I squeezed my grip ever tighter, depriving it of its much needed oxygen. It did its best to dislodge and buck me from its back, but I held firm. Soon, its struggles grew less fervent, and it fell to the ground as the strength to keep itself upright left its legs. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth and its eyes rolled back in their sockets as I calmly dismounted its limb body.

--Special Agent Umbra, lethal force has not been authorized, this act clearly…--

“Relax,” I interrupted, “it’s only asleep.” Sure enough, the manticore chose that moment to release a loud snore. “Just tell me how much further it is to our destination. All this walking and fighting and what not is starting to annoy me”

--After calculating the distance already traveled, my maps indicate that the site of the Alpha-Omega anomaly should be just over the next hill—

Stepping carefully to avoid a patch of suspiciously bright blue flowers, I crested a small hill and saw that my Badge wasn’t lying. What I saw though, caused me to groan and slap a hoof to my forehead. “Really?!” I shouted, pointing an exasperated hoof. “A freaking ancient castle?! That couldn’t be more stereotypical and clichéd if it tried!”

In front of me, just on the other side of a deep gorge, was indeed an ancient and decaying castle. Its crumbling masonry was overgrown with thick layers of ivy, covering almost every inch of the lower half of its walls. At least where the walls had not completely fallen away anyways. The once elegant carvings and decorations that had once graced the structure had long since faded away. Despite its rotting and decrepit appearance I could tell that it had been a beautiful piece of architecture once. Small pieces of stained glass could still be seen in the corners of some of the more tucked away windows, and through them I could see the grand structure and proud pillars of the rooms beyond. The original color of the stone and bricks had long since faded, but they still held a faint purple hue as they formed great and impressive spires that reached up to the sky like jagged fingers.

--Site of the Alpha-Omega anomaly located. Local records refer to the site as “The Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters”. Sensors are detecting trace amounts of malignant magical energies. Caution is advised—

With a sigh, I descended from the hill. “Alright, let’s just get this over with already,” I said as I began to cross the raggedy rope bridge from one side of the gorge to the other.

*~-/^-~*

Huffing and slightly out of breath, Twilight continued her arduous pursuit of the unintentional thief of the meteorite. It had been almost twenty minutes since she had found the fallen stone missing from its crater and before that she had been scared out of her mind and running for her life. In addition to all of this, it was already well past midnight, almost so late that it was early, and her exhaustion was starting to catch up with her. Regardless, she soldiered on.

In an effort to try and keep herself awake, she began to contemplate what the pony who had taken precious scientific discovery must be like. The simple fact that they were in the Everfree Forest at this time of night already discredited them from possibly being a simple citizen of Ponyville or the surrounding area. Seeing the way their path just cut through the brush, instead of taking any of the many game trails, discounted the possibility of being a native of the dark woods as well. That only really left that they were a visiting stranger, which was disconcerting in as well. After all, what kind of pony would come all this way just to visit the Everfree, especially at this time of night? The fact that the trail looked to be heading in the direction of which she remember the ancient castle of the pony sisters wasn’t doing much to allay her suspicions either.

Twilight was so wound up in her wonderings that she did not notice the wall of fur in the path until she walked into it. Stepping back and rubbing her sore muzzle, she almost screamed when she saw what it was she had carelessly collided with. There, lying right in the middle of the path, was an unconscious manticore. Twilight had to clench her jaw hold her mouth shut block out the frightened yell that clawed at her throat. She began hyper-ventilating as she waited, paralyzed with fear, for the great beast to rouse from its slumber and make a meal of her.

After several moments in which the large feline continued to sleep on undisturbed, Twilight calmed down enough to move her legs and form rational thought. Not questioning her good luck, she carefully and quietly tip-hoofed around the monster, doing her best not to disturb it any further. Once she had made it over the small hill beyond, and out of sight of the lethal predator, she ran full tilt across the rickity rope bridge, and didn’t stop until she had found refuge in the great, ancient castle beyond.

Possession

The quiet clip-clop of my hooves echoed repeatedly through the vast and empty stone chambers as I walked the ancient corridors. The stone hallways were utterly silent save for the sound of my passing. Stillness hung in the air, a testament to the ages these great halls had weathered. Instinctively, I tread as lightly as I could, doing my best to respect the almost hallowed reverence that seemed to hang in the air around me.

Dust that had remained untouched for years came away from the floors and walls, coating me in a thin layer and coloring my fur in gray a shade lighter than my hooves. I sneezed, kicking up a cloud of the stuff around me. Snorting in annoyance as it somehow managed to find its way up my nose and into my eyes, I carried on. Another few minutes later I broke the silence, “Jenny, what’s the status of the scan?”

--Scan was interrupted before completion. Lingering traces of powerful Universal Forces in the area are interfering with my sensors.—

Scowling, I stopped walking and took off my Badge to address it more directly. “What do you mean there’s too much interference? What could possibly overpower the remains of an Alpha-Omega anomaly?”

--Sensors are indicating remints of extremely potent forces. Analysis indicates they are of “Evil” and “Chaos” classes. Both have faint traces of a Ceal’ith signature—

Something my Badge said caught me off-guard. I was sure if I had still been walking I would have stumbled. If this place had strong amounts of both Evil and Chaos Ceal’ith energies than that changed things. Quite a bit actually. “How potent are the energies?” I asked in a restrained voice.

--Both are detected to be from Alpha level sources—

That was bad. Very bad. I hastened my step. If there were two Alpha level sources here than I had no time to lose. “What’s the status of the sources?” I ask with a false calm.

--Both sets of energy seem to be residual. I cannot detect the sources in the vicinity—

I sighed in relief. That was good. After all, I really didn’t feel like fighting for my life today. Or ever. Never the less, I didn’t slow down. The faster I got this done, the better.

***

Eventually, I came to what could only be the throne room. Separate from the rest of the castle by a long and winding (as if they’re ever anything but) staircase, it was large, imposing, and opulent. Or, at least, it had been. The years had not been kind to it. The entire roof had long since fallen away, leaving it completely open to the elements. This in turn had further eroded the many stone pillars that lined the walls, many of which were crumbling and covered in ivy and other vines. A large Dias sat at the far end of the room, just in front of massive hole in the wall where a no doubt beautiful piece of stained-glass artwork once stood. Most interesting of all however, was something much less tangible.

To the average person it would have been completely indistinguishable, buried beneath meta-physical layers of reality. But I was no average person. To me, it was all readily apparent. And it definitely put me on guard.

All around the room was various lines and remnants, clumps and voids of various Universal Forces. Several of them co-mingled extensively, become difficult to tell apart even to a trained eye like mine. And they were all powerful. Very powerful. Much too powerful to not have the hand of a Cealdus behind the scenes. I was going to have to be careful here.

With cautious steps, I made my way to the Dias at the far end of the room. I hadn’t made it more than half-way when I heard something that caused me to stop dead in my tracks. A cold, hollow, eerie, and most definitely sinister laughter began to echo about the room, coming from no real direction but instead from all around at once. The cold laughter quickly died away and was replaced with a voice.

“Greetings, little pony. I’m surprised you have made it this far. After all, the Everfree Forest can be quite the dangerous place,” the voice spoke. It was weak and quiet, barely even there, sounding like the rustle of cloth in a chill wind. It was frail, but beneath the surface was a deep strength, not to be underestimated.

Keeping my cool, I called out to whatever it was that was speaking, “Where are you? Show yourself!” Yeah, it’s a clichéd line, I know. But hey, it works.

With another sickened cackle, the shadows along the walls began to undulate and swirl, like smoke in a breeze. They crept along the floor and up to the Dias, congealing to form a vaguely equine shape. It was tall, almost my size and a half, and disturbingly thin. If it had one I was sure it would have been little more than a skeletal structure. Wispy outlines of frail, leathery wings hung at its sides and a large, spiraling horn extended from its featureless face. Most interesting of all though, was that it was entirely ethereal and incorporeal, comprised only of flowing, smoke-like shadows.

“You are quite interesting, pony. Many would be terrified of my voice and my visage, and yet there you stand, clam and un-afraid. Tell me, pony, why have you come here?”

“That’s none of your business!” I shouted, pointing a self-righteous hoof, “I should ask you the same thing. Just what are you anyways?”

The fell creature simply laughed harder. “Ahaha, now this is amusing, first you berate me, and there you make demands of me? Very well, if you truly wish to know, than I will oblige you.”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the light from the stars and moon in the room began to dim as the shadow spoke.

“I am a darkness. I always have been. I am all the dark imaginings, hateful feelings, and greedy thoughts that have plagued mortals since time immemorial. But that is not all I am. I was defeated once. Ripped away, cast aside like a parasite, or a disease. But I have been made whole once more. Not long ago, something came to me. Something chaotic. And it rebuilt me. So now I am chaos as well. I am your darkest nightmare, and I am your maddest ramblings. I am your greatest fear, and I am your most insane thoughts given form. I am Lunacy.”

This wasn’t good. It wasn’t lying; I could see as well as sense the lines of Evil and Chaos forces that threaded through its smoky form, giving it shape and structure. This thing could be really dangerous if it wanted to be. I had to keep it talking until I could think of a plan.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked as I opened up mental communications with my Badge.

“Jenny, what can you tell me about that thing?”

The shadows that comprised the shade’s facial area flickered and wavered in what I assumed was some sort of expression of amusement. “I told because you asked and I felt like answering. Have I need for any reason other than that?”

“Keep an eye on it, and let me know if you notice anything else,” I thought back.

“What’s your plan then? Are you going to kill me? In my experience, the villain never monologues and reveals their origins if they expect me to leave alive,” I inquired, pointing an accusatory hoof and the solid shadow.

The being tilted its head, and in a genuinely questioning voice, asked, “What makes you believe that I am the villain? Have I done something that you would call ‘villainous’?”

Needless to say, the question caught me by surprise. Sputtering, I managed to stammer an answer, “N-no, you haven’t. But it’s only a matter of time! I mean look at you! You’re an amalgamated shadow of Chaos and Evil at the site of an Alpha-Omega anomaly, how can you be anything but a villain?!” I was panting slightly from my accusation, and still pointing my indignant hoof towards the dark being.

For a long while there was silence, in which the shadow-being tilted its head and appeared to be in deep thought. After a time, it straightened itself and spoke. “I see. Very well, if I must be villainous, then a villain I shall be. Prepare yourself.”

Out of instinct, I rather stupidly asked, “For what?”

“Death.”

Without warning, the shadows lost their consistency, and began to flow along the ground like a black, misty creek. But instead of charging straight at me, like I had expected, they retreated to one of the far corners of the room. With an ethereal tendril, it plucked a spider out of one of the many cobwebs, and drew it into the dark depths. To my amazement and horror, the darkness actually seemed to be seeping into the spider.

I watched in silence as the arachnid began to grow, its body expanding and mutating as it struggled to host the alien force. It simply grew and grew, getting bigger and bigger. Chitinous plating formed all across the front its body, forming a sort of natural armor and even making a crest of spines that ran down its back. All eight of its eyes popped from its head and grow upwards on stalks, turning a glowing, sinister red as they did so. Its fangs lengthened and thickened, turning into something more akin to small swords than a set of mandibles. Its abdomen almost exploded, ripping itself into three separate tails, all tipped with venomous stingers and projectile spinnerets. Its legs lengthened, tapering off into sharp points as it grew four entirely new ones. All through the transformation the beast continued to grow, until by the time it was done it was already three times my height.

--It appears that it has the ability to possess and enhance others—

“Duly noted,” I snapped, “now send a request to authorize level 3 combat abilities!”

--Acknowledged. Sending request now. Please stand by for response—

At that moment the twelve legged beast rushed towards me, moving deceptively fast on its pointed appendages and with fangs dripping a bright green substance.

“Crap.”

*~-/^-~*

Twilight Sparkle was rather uncomfortable. All around her the air was thick with dust and wild pollen, making it somewhat difficult to breathe. In addition to this, her legs still ached from the unusual amount of running she had done tonight (the fact that the majority of it had was when she was frightened for her life didn’t exactly help either) and each step was languid and sluggish. It was still a few hours until dawn and she had not slept even a moment all night, and her exhaustion was starting to catch up with her. She just wanted this night to be over already, to find the pony she was looking for, take her precious extra-terrestrial rock, and go home.

Fortunately, at least one thing seemed to be going her way tonight; the thick layer of dust that coated the floor and walls held the hoofprints of her query rather well, leaving an easy to follow trail. And follow it she did, through the large entrance foyer and the twisting passages beyond. They seemed to be going about the hallways in a random pattern, take a right here before immediately doubling back and taking the last left. It was all rather confusing and tiring, and eventually it began to frustrate Twilight. After walking around the same corridor in circles for the third time, she was about to give up in frustration when the trail at last came to an end.

The layer of dust had mostly been blown away from the very familiar room she found herself in, due to its exposure to the open elements from the many holes in the walls and roof, as well as the missing windows. Her search momentarily forgotten, Twilight walked to the five-armed pillar in the center of the room and placed a gentle hoof on its surface, a small smile on her face.

The Altar of the Elements of Harmony looked exactly as she had seen it last, still standing strong, a bastion of resplendent white marble in a room full of rotting stonework. Being here, touching the Altar, it filled her with a sense of calm. Something about it just felt right to her, and for a brief moment, the stress of the night faded away, and she felt vaguely at peace. It was an inexplicable and not un-welcome sensation that she felt whenever she came here. Out of idle curiosity, she had tried to research it once, only to come up empty on every lead. Instead of looking a gift-horse in the mouth, she had simply chalked it up to being another one of the many things that she just couldn’t explain, and had to choose to believe.

Contented with the warm, soothing, peace that filled her due to her proximity of the Altar, she let out a satisfied sigh, just enjoying the peace and the quiet of the night around her.

And then the wall exploded.

With a massive thud and a shallow boom, the far wall exploded inwards, spraying a barrage of stones in every direction. Snapping out of her reverie, Twilight couldn’t help but notice the battered, tan-coated pony the fell among the raining rubble. His flight through the air was brief, and he hit the ground with enough force and momentum to roll and tumble on impact, skidding along the ground and smacking into the base of the Altar.

Frightened for the health of the mystery pony after such a blow, Twilight immediately rushed to his side to see if he was still conscious. Before she could even make half-way, he was already rising to his hooves, a look of fierce determination on his bearded face. Twilight stopped walking to him, in truth his appearance somewhat frightened her. He was a full head taller than her, and his tan coat and brown mane were both torn and matted, stuck to his skin with the sweat of physical exertion. On his ear were two metallic earrings, from his gritted teeth hung a wooden toothpick, and on his chest was a strange metallic device that she didn’t recognize. Most shocking of all though, were his golden eyes. They positively glowered from behind his black rimmed spectacles, seeming to almost glow with the fierce intensity of his gaze. She took in the sight with a slight gasp; his appearance reminded her of the disheveled drug-running ponies she had seen on detective shows on late-night television.

Startled by her gasp, he turned towards her. Upon seeing her, his eyes flew wide and the force behind his stare snuffed out like a candle in the gale. “What are you doing here?! This place is too dangerous for civilians!” he shouted, his voice and expression displaying an urgent fear. Before Twilight could process what he said some…thing follow him through the rather large hole in the far wall.

It crawled on far too many legs and flailed its multiple stinging tails in the air above its eyestalks, spraying thick webbing all across the walls and floor. With its massive fangs salivating bright green venom, it crawled up the wall and coiled its legs beneath itself. With a large push, it launched itself towards where she stood, weaving a thick tether of silk attached to the wall as it flew through the air. She stood there, frozen with fear as the disgusting chitinous monster came at her. Just before contact, she was roughly shoved to the side, tumbling along the ground. Coming to a stop, she saw that the strange pony had pushed her away, just as the hideous beast flew through the space she had occupied. Almost immediately, he scrambled off of her, turning to face and stand between the abomination and her. “What in the name of Tartarus is that thing?!” she shouted, doing her best (and failing) to keep the fearful trembling out of her voice.

“Dangerous!” The stranger replied in a surprisingly melodic voice. “Much too dangerous for you to be here! Leave now, while you still have a chance!” he commanded while lowering his stance to point his strangely curved horn towards the eldritch horror. “Get out while I distract it!” he called as he pawed the ground and charged, the fell beast doing the same.

Completely stunned by the sudden unusual turn of events, Twilight’s brain worked overtime to try and make sense of the situation. Unfortunately, it simply could not cope with the stress being put to it, and she just sat there, gawking like an idiot.

The two foes meet in the middle of the room with a flurry of limbs. The great monster swung unyieldingly with its finely-honed front four limbs, but due the fast reflexes (and, more often than not, sheer luck) of its opponent its strikes were met each time with the sharpened point of a horn or a strong buck. Sparks would often fly whenever chitinous leg met curved horn, casting sharp shadows as the silvery light of the strange unicorn’s magic flashed across the room.

Growing quickly frustrated, the horrid monster reared up on its hindmost legs, and brought half of its hazardous appendages down in a powerful slash. Taking advantage of the opportunity, and moving almost too fast for Twilight to see, the crazy pony lunged forward and buried his horn up to the base inside of the beast, just below its mandibles. The monster loosened a piercing, keening screech of agony, and jumped backwards off the horn, batting the unicorn across the room with one of its tails.

As he sailed from the force of the blow, he managed to twist in mid-air, landing on his hooves and skidding a few feet, knocking up small clouds of dust as he slid. Grimacing, he fell to one knee, coughed, and spat out a small amount of blood. Turning to see Twilight staring at him in open-mouthed shock, he screamed, “What are you doing, you idiot?! I said run!”

Snapping to attention, she shook her head to clear it before heeding his words and making for the nearest exit as fast as her legs would take her. It didn’t matter though, as soon as the horrid creature saw that she was attempting to get away it raised its tails and unleashed a torrent of sticky thread, coating the doorway in a wall of adhesive webbing. Angered at her insolence and attempted escape, the hideous thing charged at her, its terrible fangs gleaming in the soft light.

Before it had even gotten half-way it was roughly tackled by crazed unicorn, sending it toppling onto its side. Flailing its dozen limbs to try and regain its balance, the monster managed to land a lucky hit on the unicorn, cutting his cheek open and even going far enough to split his ear in two.

Clutching his face, he backed away while the disgusting beast floundered on its back, and he yowled in pain. Still yelling his agony, he twisted around and delivered a powerful buck to the monster’s side, sending rolling away to smash into the far wall. Slowly, he managed to walk over to Twilight’s position, placing himself in front of her as the demon-spawn got to its feet. “Stay behind me,” he commanded simply, in a gruff voice.

“You’re hurt!” was all Twilight could say as looked at the terrible state he was in. She wanted to help but the whole situation was too much for the poor girl; she felt like she was going to pass out from the amount of fear, adrenaline, and exhaustion at the moment.

The dangerous unicorn just chuckled darkly as closed one eye to prevent the blood flowing down his face from getting in it. “Don’t worry; I’ve had much worse than this before.”

Before she could make another comment or even dwell on just frightening his words were, unholy abomination he was fighting rushed him again, screaming some sort of chittering battle-cry as it raised its fore-limbs above its head; poised and ready to strike.

Immediately, the strange stallion lowered his stance and tensed his muscles, pointing his wickedly sharp horn at the charging beast. Although Twilight did not notice this; she was far too distracted by the grotesque vision straight from her worst nightmare heading right for her. Instinctively, she threw herself to the ground and covered her head with her fore-legs, simultaneously erecting a solid wall of magical energy between her and the horrid monstrosity.

The beast smacked into at rather respectable speed, making a loud thud and dazing itself for a few moments. This earned a surprised and incredulous look from both it and the fighting stallion. “Where the hell did you learn that?!” he exclaimed.

Still more scared than she had ever before been, Twilight could only sit there and tremble in fright as the monster now turned its sights on her. It took one look at her with its eight red eyestalks, each brimming with a look of un-rivaled contempt and malice, and decided she was standing between it and its goals. Without a second thought, it whipped one of its legs towards her at speeds too fast for her eye to follow.

“No!” came the simple shout as she felt herself being pushed forcefully to the side. Turning to look back she saw something that made her breath catch in her throat.

There, right where she stood not even a second ago, was the strange stallion. And so was the scythe-like limb. Stabbing into his body in his stomach, it passed straight through and emerged from his back, coated in crimson. Blood dripped to the floor in a rapidly forming pool beneath where his body was suspended by its impalement. His eyes wide with surprise and pain, he coughed, spraying a copious amount of red fluid on the ground in front of him with wet splat.

Twilight stared in shock at the grisly scene in front of her, guilty tears spring to her eye for the pony who had just sacrificed himself for her. The creature lifted him even higher, emitting a skree-skree noise that sounded far too much like triumphant laughter. Its celebration was cut short however, at that moment the strange metal device on the pony’s chest flashed blue and a strange female voice echoed about the chamber.

--Message received. Level 3 combat abilities authorized. Neutralization of dangerous hostiles is now within acceptable mission parameters—

At this, the mysterious stallion amazingly and miraculously smiled. “Oh, it’s on now,” he said as he slowly and deliberately grabbed the leg currently buried in his organs, and gave a sharp, hard twist. With a sickening pop and crunching noise, the limb was ripped right off the monster’s body. Viscous green ichor gushing from the wound, the beast backed away, screaming its pain loudly enough to shake dust from the eaves.

Pulling the now severed appendage from his body, Twilight could see the damage it had caused; the rigid bones as well and the squishy organs were clearly visible through two hoof wide hole. Even as she watched, the flesh began to slowly writhe and roil, flowing over the gap to cover it in new flesh. Right before her eyes, all of his injuries were glazed over with new flesh, fading away complete and looking as if they had never happened at all.

Very calmly, and with a maniacal grin spread from ear to ear, he marched up to the still trashing monster and struck it with the severed limb. The sheer force of the blow caused the makeshift club to shatter, and the beast to go flying across the room once more, smashing into the wall hard enough to crack the exo-skeletal plating on its chest.

All around the frightening unicorn, static charge began to build in the air, releasing flashes of silver light as arcs of electricity danced about. In a far corner of her mind, Twilight dimly noticed that it was identical to the strange, not-quite-magic tingling in the air she had felt when she had first seen the meteorite fall. Turning to her, the stallion spoke in a voice deeper than she remembered, strangely resonating throughout the chamber, “You might want to cover your ears.”

As he spoke, the eldritch abomination that he was fighting had made its way back to its feet, and was rushing full-tilt towards them in a last ditch effort to kill. All the while the static charge was growing in intensity, focusing a point in space directly in front of the stranger. Twilight did as she was told, and even closed her eyes tightly for good measure. It was a good thing too, because at that moment, the world exploded.

A thin beam of pure energy lanced through the air from the small point in front of the stallion, ripping through his opponent and super-heating the air as it passed. His foe’s body was charred and blown apart in an instant, its entire right side missing as what was left fell to the ground as a blackened husk. The super-heated air cooled immediately as well, collapsing in on itself to create a thunderclap so loud that it rattle the stone work around them and even caused one of the more structurally unsound pillars along the edge of the room to crumble.

Twilight could only stare in awe of the display of power as the mysterious pony collapsed to his knees from exhaustion. Panting and sweating, the strange unicorn still cracked a smile, “I…*pant* I think I got ‘em.”

His smile fell almost as soon as it had started. A cold sinister laugh echoed throughout the room, coming for nowhere and everywhere at once. “You think you have won already, little pony? You will learn; if I am to be a villain, than I will not be defeated so easily.” As the eerie voice spoke, a strange black mist began to rise from the burnt carcass. Before she could even react, it sped towards, and engulfed Twilight.

Immediately, her eyes began to water, and her lungs began to burn. Breathing was becoming difficult, as if the air around her was thick, wet sand-paper. Her head felt both light, and as if somepony were driving a red-hot iron poker between her eyes. She tried to scream in pain, but her cries came out muffled as the dark mist raced down her throat. The malignant substance seeped into every pore, somehow absorbing into her skin and leaving behind the sensation of burning agony. The last and thickest part of the black cloud managed to force its way in through her eyes and ears, her nose and mouth, making her brain feel as if it were in a vice-grip. The pain eventually became too much for her, and just before she blacked out the last thing she saw was the enigmatic stranger rushing to her side.

Help...

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch-a twitch-a twitch. Flop. Twitch, shake, jerk, pinch, twitch, shake. Bolt upright in bed. Whole body, shaking. Cold sweat. Heavy breathing. Room is dark. Everything is dark. Can’t think. Pinkie sense tingling. Something bad. A doozy. Something bad. Something very, very bad. Can’t think. No time to think. At the hospital. Something bad. Have to go. Have to go now. Get out of bed. No time to think. Have to go. Scared. So scared. Run. Need to run. Have to get to the hospital. Pinkie sense. A doozy. Hospital. Have to go. No time to waste. Must go. Running. Air’s cold. No thought. Just running. Have to go. No time. No time. Scared. Worried. So worried. So, so worried.

Something definitely wrong. Something very, very wrong. Please let it be ok. Please be ok, please, please be ok. Please, please, Celestia please, let it all be ok. But no. Something’s wrong. It’s not all ok. Pinkie sense won’t stop. Won’t stop. So very wrong. Want to help. Can’t help. Why is it so bad? Why? Who? Who is it? Can feel it. Don’t want to. Can feel the tears falling. Oh Celestia, why? Please be ok, please be ok, please be ok……

“Twilight…”

*~-/^-~*

All was quiet. The only noises to break the silence were the soft hum of fluorescent lights and the gentle rustle of paper as the intern behind the counter flipped through a magazine. Many would have found the silence and slight scent of antiseptics un-nerving, but to one particular white pony, it was comforting. As much as she enjoyed the company of her friends and neighbors, her place of employment was one place Nurse Redheart sincerely hoped she wouldn’t see them.

It had been a slow night tonight, just as it usually was, and for that she was thankful. A slow night meant that everypony was safe and sound, not ill or injured. And now it was coming to a close, another shift without a medical emergency. She had a soft smile on her face as took off her hat and replaced it on its storage hook.

She would have gone so far as to say that it had actually been an especially slow night tonight. In fact the only ponies she had seen all night were her fellow co-workers and a few of the slightly more pressing patients that had needed some sort of attention in the middle of the night. Most of her visits had even been to the same room. The little colt in room A-113 was having a small relapse again, poor thing. It was because of ponies like him that she took this job, despite the crazy hours and low pay.

And the hours were indeed crazy. Just last week they had asked her to start working the night-shift, and here was, already putting in a 16 hour shift. But she didn’t mind. She was helping ponies, and that’s all that mattered. She’d do just about anything to help pony in need. And besides, taking care of her patients was what she liked to do, what made her happy.

Knowing that she had helped those around her allowed her to leave for home with a sense of accomplishment and a smile on her face, much like the one she had now. Stepping lightly so as not to make too much noise on the linoleum floor and possible disturb the sleeping patients, she made her way to the lobby. With a wave and quiet goodbye to the new intern managing the counter, she stepped through the lobby doors and into the cool night air beyond. Suppressing a slight shiver and absently wishing she had brought a coat, Nurse Redheart began the commute back home.

She didn’t make it far.

When she was not even fifty feet away from the door, just at edge of where the light from inside the building held the darkness of the night at bay, something emerged from the bushes on the right of the path. Instinctively, she tensed up, expecting some sort of trouble. When the figure stepped closer to the light however, her stance immediately relaxed and she let out a startled gasp.

Standing on the path in front of her was a pony. He was a tall pony, almost a full head taller than her. Beneath his tan coat were bunches of corded muscle that rippled when he moved, and when combined with his gruff facial hair and piercing golden eyes was rather intimidating. Or at least it would have been, if not for the terrible state stallion was in.

Every inch of him seemed to be covered in some sort of cut, bruise, gash or laceration. His black-rimmed glasses were cracked, a broken toothpick hung from teeth that he gritted in pain, and a large V of flesh was missing from his right ear. Patches of his fur was matted, singed, or missing all together. Blood seeped from innumerable points all over his body and even from a trickle in the corner of his mouth, leaving a small trial of the fluid behind him as he walked. Everything about him looked battered and beaten. Even the strange metal square pinned to his chest had a few dents and scrapes.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Nurse Redheart rushed to his side, desperate to help. He nudged her away, his strangely curved horn coming a little too close to her left eye for comfort. Not understanding, she just eyed him questioningly. In response, he rolled his shoulders and motioned towards his back, grimacing in pain. It was then that Nurse Redheart noticed something that made her gasp a second time. On his back was another pony, one she recognized instantly; it was Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s resident librarian.

She was unconscious, twitching fitfully as she lay draped across his broad back. Gently, and with great care, he lifted her up and set her on the ground in front of him. Swallowing dryly, he managed to pant out a few words past the agony he was enduring, “Please… help…”

Immediately, Nurse Redheart lifted the unconscious pony and carried her into the hospital, shouting from assistance as she ran.

Satisfied that he had gotten his charge to safety, the wounded stallion allowed a tiny smile to cross his face, just before the last of his strength left his legs and his quivering knees collapsed from beneath him. He was unconscious before he hit the dirt.

Doctor

The hallway was unusually quiet. Normally, the space slightly amplified the various noises of activity from the many rooms and offices throughout the rest of the building, but not now. All was eerily silent; the only sound was the faint echo of her footfalls of Cie’ara walked briskly down its length. It was as if the very space around her was holding its breath in anticipation of what would happen next. Eventually, she reached the end of the hallway, and paused in front of the large mahogany door. She began to tremble lightly as a mixture of fear, apprehension and worry briefly overtook her.

She knew what she was supposed to do. Protocol was pretty clear, and this wasn’t the first time this had happened. She’d done this before. So why was this time any different? Why was she so nervous? Sure, the Director never liked to hear this kind of news and was most definitely a scary man when he was displeased. But she was used to that. And besides, he never took it out on her, or anyone else for that matter. He was strict, maybe even a little harsh, but he was also kind and just. He never punished the messenger for this sort of thing. But then why was she so anxious? What was different this time?

.....

Victor. It had to be. Victor was what was different. Yes, he had done this sort of thing before, but never quite like this. This time was different. She’d never seen him do this before, and it scared her. It scared her terribly. She’d stories, just rumors really, of him doing something similar before, long before she had come to work for the GEA and become his handler. It hadn’t ended well.

The person he’d helped almost couldn’t cope. The strain it put on them was too much, and they just couldn’t handle it. They’d survived the initial stages, but not unscathed. Afterwards, they quickly grew unstable and out of control, going on a rampage. They even turned against Victor. He almost didn’t make it. He had to fight them, even though he was still weakened from helping them in the first place. It was a long and destructive fight, but in the end he managed to escape off-world, barely getting away with his life. The rest of the realm wasn’t so lucky. In a final, desperate attempt to kill Victor, they unleashed all of their power, destroying both themselves and the world they were on. Billions of innocent lives, all lost. Victor was never quite the same afterwards. Not as trusting, more secluded and aloof to those around him.

Shaking her head to push such dark thoughts out her mind, Cie’ara raised a trembling fist to knock on the door. She rapped her knuckles three times in quick succession just beside the small golden plaque announcing whose office this was. After only a momentary pause, she was answered by a smooth but strong voice, “Enter.”

She did as she was instructed. The heavy door opened silently on well-oiled hinges, spreading small amounts of light from the hallway into the dark room beyond. The only other light in the room came from a small brass lamp that sat on the Director’s desk, the angle of its blub alighting upon the desk’s various contents and somehow throwing the man himself even further into shadow. In fact the only part of him that was visible was his eyes, which always seemed to glow with an eerie inner light. Those eyes regarded her as she entered the room, carefully following her movement. “Yes? What is it Cie’ara?” he asked in a silken voice.

Cie’ara couldn’t help but nervously fidget in place as she answered, “I-It’s Victor, sir. He’s gotten into trouble. Again.”

The Director closed his eyes and sighed. Looking to her once more, his eyes betrayed a small hint of the weariness he carried. “What has he done this time?”

She gulped audibly before she replied, “It seems that he bestowed the Blessing.”

Immediately, his gaze turned steely, and the Director was silent. When he spoke again, the smooth charm of his voice was gone, replaced by a firm and commanding tone, “Are you absolutely sure of this, Cie’ara?”

“Positive, sir.”

The Director leaned forward onto his desk, the dark fabric covering his elbows becoming visible in the light of the lamp as he clasped his hands. In a stern voice that brooked no argument, he spoke, “Very well. Initiate Hidden Hand Protocol. Victor will head the operation. I will be sending in back-up within the next 24 hours, local time. I want a status update report on my desk by then. As of this moment Victor has Code Siri authorization. Make sure that he is aware of all this as soon as he is conscious. Do you understand, Cie’ara?”

Despite only having a vague idea of what was going on, she wasted no time in nodding vigorously. He was starting to scare her.

“Good. See that it is done. Now leave me, I have much work to do.”

She did as she was told immediately. As she walked briskly down the hall she muttered darkly under her breath, “Dammit Victor, if you don’t make it through this I’m going to kill you…”

*~-/^-~*

*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*…*Beep*

The incessant beeping of machinery reached me even thorough the thick darkness of unconsciousness. The tell-tale tone that sounded in time with my heartbeat told me that I was in a situation that I had found myself in many times before. As I slowly roused myself to consciousness, an anti-septic smell reached my nostrils, further affirming my suspicions.

I attempted to open my eyes, only to close them again as they were invaded with far too much white. Instead, I focused on my other senses. The scent of sterility and harsh cleaners overpowered anything else, leaving only the almost iconic smell of anti-septic to reach my nose. The constant noise of the heart monitor was the most prominent of sounds, but beneath it other things could be heard. The faint sound of someone breathing softly in the next bed was apparent. The faint buzz of fluorescent lights was absent, indicating that it was most likely either too early or too late for them to be necessary. The soft gurgle of water in pipes within the walls reached me as well.

From all of this I reasonably deduced that it was still night-time, perhaps even early morning judging from the soft light alighting from the window on the far wall. With a sigh, I tried to roll out of bed, only to fall back into the sheets with a soft grunt as pain shot through my body. The pain was sharp, harsh and insistent, flaring to life just behind my ribs whenever I tried to move. As uncomfortable as it was, I welcomed the pain in a way. It was definitely better than the alternative.

My movements did not go unnoticed however, for just as soon as I attempted to rise I noticed someone else in the room, and they noticed me.

She, (and it was most definitely a she, I didn’t need my new body’s natural gender differentiating instincts to tell me that) was lacking in any sort of horn or wings, unsurprisingly. I don’t know why I expected anything else. What did surprise me though was her strange coloration. From what little I remembered about the briefing before I took this mission, the native inhabitants came in all shades and stripes, quite literally in fact, but even so, I was sure that she was at least somewhat unusually. I mean, come on, she was pink. And not just a regular pink, or a subtle pink, or even a whiteish-red, she was pink. Her whole body screamed it, from head to hoof, in a way that was almost painful to look at with my currently sensitive eyes. Her mane was pink too, thankfully a darker shade at least. Just one look across her brightly colored body to her strangely pretty blue eyes told me that she was nothing if not a big ball of optimism and energy. Her actions in the next few seconds did nothing to disavow me of that assumption.

Almost as soon as our eyes met, she let out a loud gasp and somehow crossed the distance between my bed and the waiting chair across the room had occupied in a single bound, wrapped her fore-hooves around me, and squeezed me in an unnecessarily tight hug (I swear she creaked one of my already bruised ribs) as she spouted off words far too fast for me to follow. After a few moments of me flailing about in her grasp and gasping for breath she seem to get the hint and let go of me, standing back and looking at me with small tears in the corners of her eyes as she said one more thing in a (thankfully) understandable speed, “Thank you.”

After a few seconds of coughing and catching my breath, I managed to wheeze out a simple question, “Who are you?”

“I’m Pinkie Pie,” she responded, “and you are the one who helped my friend, aren’t you?” She pointed a single hoof towards the other bed in the room as she spoke, and I now realized that it was indeed occupied by the same purple unicorn I had seen in the castle when I had fought Lunacy. She continued to look at me with her large blue eyes, and I realized she was expecting me to answer.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am,” I said, wincing as I rolled over and actually managed to get out of bed this time.

Having calmed down enough now, she walked over to me and hugged me lightly around the neck, again whispering her thanks into my ear. From her proximity, I couldn’t help but notice that she smelled faintly of cotton candy and strawberry icing. Blushing, I gently pushed her away and stammered, “I-it was nothing.”

Undeterred, she continued speaking, “But it wasn’t ‘nothing’! You saved her. I don’t know what from, or why, but my Pinkie Sense says you saved her from something dangerous, and my Pinkie Sense is never wrong.”

“Pinkie Sense?” I inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Without missing a beat, she explained, “Sometimes I get little strange feelings, like my tail twitching, or my ears flopping, and they supposedly predict the future. I call it my Pinkie Sense, and it’s never been wrong before.”

With a small frown I pushed my way past her and made my way to the other bed, mentally face-palming (face-hoofing?) as I walked. “Oh great,” I thought to myself, “a clairvoyant.” Taking my mind off the pink pony, I looked to the lavender mare in the bed.

At first glance she appeared to be simply resting. Her expression was peaceful, her breathing was even, and the slightest nudge seemed as if it might wake her. But all one had to do was look a little closer to see the real depth of her malady. Every so often her breath would hitch the slightest amount, and the corners of her mouth would twitch into the faintest semblance of a grimace of pain. If I looked closely enough I could even see a thin layer of cold sweat forming on her forehead, just around the base of her horn. But even this did not convey the true extent of her illness. All of these symptoms could easily be mistaken for something as mundane and harmless as even a common cold. There was only one sure way to find out how bad her state really was; examine how she looked not on the outside, but on the inside, and not only that but look closely.

All throughout her body, invisible to the naked eye were laylines, channels for magic energy. The intangible matrix acted like her physical circulatory system, allowing her magical essence to flow all throughout body, from the bottoms of her hoofs up to and out of the tip of her horn. Much like its physical counterpart, this system also had a center from which it flowed: the Carbuncle. Directly attached to a pony’s spirit, the Carbuncle generated all of their innate magics and forced them through the body. In a perfectly normal, healthy unicorn, the Carbuncle was located directly in the pony’s center, was a color similar to the pony’s individual aura, and would thrum occasionally, up to ten beats a minute.

Unfortunately, Twilight Sparkle was not a healthy unicorn. Do to her recent ordeal, her Carbuncle had been moved out of place, close to her chest and almost outside of her body completely. The entire lifestream of energy in her laylines had been tainted, small streaks of black running throughout the otherwise magenta material. Worst of all though, were the several shards of pure corruption, poised and ready to sink deeply into the heart of her Carbuncle, destroying her as the Lunacy took over her mind and body and twisted it to suit its own unknowable purposes. The only thing holding them back was a glowing, silver nebulous of utterly alien and incredibly powerful energy sitting just outside of her chest: my blessing.

It was a single foolish act of desperation on my part that had led to this situation. When Lunacy had tried to possess her, I had done everything I could think of to save her. I wasn’t about to let another innocent suffer because of my mistakes and weakness. If I wasn’t strong enough to protect her in the first place I would have to be strong enough to save her then. But all of my efforts were in vain. After hours of struggle to contain it while it slowly seeped into her, I did the only thing I knew could save her: I gave her the Blessing of the Stars, at a great cost to myself.

I was careful not to use too much power, I had already made that mistake once before. The consequences still haunt me today. I only made the Blessing as strong as it needed to be to hold the Lunacy back, and save her from whatever awful fate she would otherwise suffer. As desperate as the action was though, it had most assuredly saved her life.

I just hoped that it would all be worth it. I hoped that this young unicorn would be strong enough for what lay ahead. As difficult as the coming transition would surely be, I would at least be by her side to help her. After going through so much to save her I felt somewhat invested in her continued survival.

Before my thoughts could continue down their current path I was interrupted by an immediately recognizable buzzing coming from a small table adjacent to the bed in which I had been laying, as well as a faint pressure at the back of my mind.

Ignoring the curious look from the pink pony that had been following my movements as I walked about the room, I made my way over to the table. Opening my Badge where it lay, I was greeted with the familiar sight of my insignia above a small blue vortex. Keeping my current company in mind, I switched the device into “Text Only” mode and opened the waiting message.

One new message received. Relaying message now.
Special Agent Victor Umbra, we are aware of your recent breach of protocol and have taken appropriate action. Effective immediately, you hereby put on level Siri authorization. In addition, Protocol code named: Hidden Hand has been activated. You have been assigned as head of the operation. Over the next twenty-four hours please expect----

Before I could read any further I was interrupted. My Badge flashed brightly as the message on its screen changed and began to blink with urgency.

Warning! Warning!
Absence of a sufficient energy source detected. Energy reserves at critical level. This device will now shut down in order to preserve critical systems. Do not re-activate without an adequate source of power.

After few seconds -- just long enough for me to read the message -- the screen went blank and the internal crystal matrix became idle as my Badge went into full shut-down. Cursing my bad luck, I closed the Badge and stowed it away, all the while silently berating myself for forgetting the loss of my Badge would be another one of the consequences of bestowing my blessing.

Turning around, I was greeted by a faceful of pink pony as she leaned over my shoulder to try and get a better look at the device.

“Gah! Don’t do that!” I screamed as I instinctively jumped backwards, only to crash into the small bedside table, knocking over the lamp that rested on it with a loud crash. Grumbling, I bent down and picked up the small brass lighting fixture with my teeth and replaced it in its rightful spot. Pinkie Pie just wore a sheepish but apologetic smile.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked irritably, and with a bite of sarcasm.

Either Pinkie was completely oblivious to my sarcasm, or she intentionally ignored it as she answered, “Yeah, there is! Can you tell me what that thing is?” She pointed an inquisitive hoof at my Badge as she spoke.

“What, this?” I asked as I held the device aloft, and Pinkie rapidly shook her head. “This is… well it’s…” I floundered as I attempted to come up with an explanation that wouldn’t arouse suspicion from the hyperactive pony. After several moments I still came up with nothing and simply said, “You know what? Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing special. It doesn’t even work anyways.” From the somewhat suspicious way she eyed me, I could tell that my answer wasn’t exactly satisfactory. Thankfully, she chose not to pursue the issue though.

“If you say so…” she said slowly, the suspicion evident in her voice. After several seconds of her eyeing me unblinkingly, I began to feel nervous. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be one to linger on anything negative. With a loud gasp and a shocked look on her face, she leapt into the air a good several feet and somehow hung suspended there for a few impossible seconds. Surprised, I stumbled backwards once more as she landed and squealed, “I just realized something!”

“What, what is it?!” I asked loudly, put somewhat on guard by the hyperactive pony’s sudden spike in energy.

“I don’t know you!” she exclaimed. The triumphant look on her face was more like that of someone who had reached a great epiphany, instead of stating the obvious.

“Yes? And?” I inquired with my eyebrow cocked, somewhat put off by her rather strange actions.

“If I don’t know you, then that must mean you’re new here! And if you’re new here then that means you probably don’t know anypony! And if you don’t know anypony then that means I have to throw a party and invite everypony and introduce you and we can all have funandmakefriendsand…” She ranted until her words started to blur together. Her eyes lit up with joy as she spoke, becoming more and more wrapped up in her party plans. Finally, her seemingly inexhaustible lungs ran out and she took a deep breath. Realizing that she had been rambling, she shook her head to clear it before speaking again, in an understandable way this time. “Anyways, what’s your name?”

Having been eyeing her strangely while she practically bounced up and down in excitement, I was slightly caught off-guard when she spoke in an understandable manner. “M-my name?” I stammered.

Not even attempting to stifle her giggle, she just repeated herself, “Hehe, yeah silly. What’s your name?”

“Well, my name is---“Before I could finish my sentence, I was interrupted by the door to the room being opened rather suddenly and forcefully, startling both me and Pinkie Pie.

In the doorway was a rather unhappy stallion. His coat was a light brown, only slightly darker than mine, and his spikey mane was a dark, chocolaty brown, similar to my own. Judgeing from the white coat he wore and the stethoscope around his neck, I assumed that he was the doctor. The intensely disapproving glare that he shot Pinkie Pie caused her to fold her ears flat against her skull and offer a small apologetic smile. “Pinkimena Diane Pie, what did I tell you?” He asked in a strangely familiar voice.

“N-not to bother Twilight and her friends while they’re recovering…” She mumbled, sitting on her haunches and twiddling her hooves.

“That’s right. Now do you know what I’m going to ask you next?”

“To stay and help make them feel better?” She ventured optimistically. The venomous glare the doctor continued to give her killed any such hope.

With a sigh, Pinkie rose to her hooves and sulked out the door with her head held low. “OK. I’ll just be going then.”

Satisfied that she had gotten the message, the doctor allowed his expression to soften as he spoke again, this time much more gently, “Thank you, Pinkie. Maybe you can come back later, during visiting hours, alright? They should be well enough by then.”

Pinkie picked up her head and gave him an appreciative smile as she walked past. “Ok. I think I will.”

He allowed himself a small smile. “Good, I’m glad that’s settled. Now stay safe, you hear?” He called out to Pinkie as she retreated down the hallway. Pinkie just waved as she walked away.

Having finished his talk with Pinkie, he walked into the room and shut the door softly behind himself. Turning to me he spoke, “So you’re awake, hm? I’m glad, that was quite the beating you took.”

Snorting nonchalantly and chuckling, I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve had much worse than this before.”

“Oh, I know. But this time is different. You’re usually not this stupid,” He rebutted, walking over to the bed of the room’s other occupant and checking her charts.

Narrowing my eyes, I stared at him suspiciously, “I’m sorry? What was that?”

The brown earth pony didn’t even take his eyes off the medical charts as he spoke, “Don’t worry, you heard me correctly Agent Umbra.”

Immediately, I dropped into a defensive stance and pointed my horn at the strange stallion. I pawed the ground and readied myself to charge at a moment’s notice as I spoke. “Who are you and how do you know who I am?” I ask in an even and measured tone.

This reaction caused the doctor to look up from his clipboard eye me strangely and slightly disbelievingly. “You really don’t recognize me?” he asked as he raised one eyebrow, “Well, I suppose that’s only natural with this new body. Hell, I wouldn’t have recognized you either if I hadn’t already known it was you.”

Lowering my horn a fraction of an inch, I incredulously asked, “Just who are you?”

This only served to earn me a smirk from him as he spoke, “Oh, come on. It can’t be that hard to figure out. Honestly I’m somewhat surprised that you haven’t guessed it already.”

As he spoke, I took the chance to examine him more closely. His voice, unkempt brown hair and were all incredibly familiar. It wasn’t until I sawed the hourglass on his flank that it finally clicked. “Doctor?! Doctor Who?!” I exclaimed.

“Bingo, mister Umbra. Although in this world I’m known as Doctor Whooves. You’d do well to remember that,” he answered, smirking.

Instantly, I perked up. “What the hell are you doing here? And Doctor ‘Whooves’? That has got to be the one of the worst puns I’ve ever heard.”

“Hey, first off, I don’t really like the name either. But regular names won’t fly in this world. And secondly, I’m here because of you,” he clarified.

“Me? What about me?” I asked.

“I’m sure you’ve already heard that Hidden Hand Protocol has been activated. But that’s not all; the higher ups aren’t exactly happy about that stunt you pulled. Not only are you now on Siri level authorization but they’ve also sent in some backup to watch your ass. That’s where I come in. I’ve been called in to watch over you and report back to HQ about your actions and make sure you don’t do anything else incredibly stupid,” he explained.

“Oh great,” I said, hanging my head dejectedly, “so you’re here as a glorified babysitter.”

This drew a chuckle from the Doctor as he went on, “Oh don’t be like that, it’s not all bad. The only reason the Director ordered this is because everyone is honestly concerned about you. I heard that Cie’ara hasn’t slept a wink since this whole assignment started. And she’s not the only one. Hell, even I’m worried about you. And besides, I’m not here just to babysit you. You’ve been made the operation and I’ve been ordered to assist you in any way you deem necessary.”

“Thanks,” I said with a small smile.

“Don’t mention it,” he said nonchalantly as he waved it off with a hoof. He looked me over and spoke again, “You should probably go back to sleep. Word travels fast around here so you’ll most likely have a lot of visitors tomorrow. You’re going to be in for a busy day and you should be 100% for that.”

“Are those doctor’s orders?” I asked with a sly grin.

“You know it,” he said with a smirk.

Deciding to follow his advice I made me way back to my own bed, wincing as I place a little too much weight on a sore leg. He was right; I definitely wasn’t in peak condition right now.

“Get some rest Victor. If my guess is right – and they always are – you going to have some very important ponies visiting you tomorrow,” he said quietly as he left the room and softly shut the door.

Closing my eyes, I did just as the doctor prescribed. I was asleep within moments.

*~-/^-~*

Celestia found her sister exactly where she had expected she would be. Luna had found the particular balcony shortly after her return from her lunar exile, and even after so much time had passed she still spent many a night watching over the kingdom from the high perch. Even during the depths of the Autumn and Winter season such as it was now she continued her self-imposed night-time vigil. Celestia supposed that in a way her younger sister was just trying to do whatever she could help and atone for her past sins. Celestia just wished that she would realize that there was nothing left to atone for; all had been forgiven.

Calmly and quietly, Celestia walked out onto the balcony and sat down beside her younger sibling. For a long while neither of them said anything, just admiring the scenery and looking out across their kingdom instead. After several moments of silence Celestia opened her mouth to remind her sister that the time to lower the moon and raise the sun was drawing near when she was interrupted.

“Can you feel it, sister?” Luna asked quietly, her expression unusually grim.

“Feel what, Luna?” Celestia asked out of genuine curiosity.

“The stars, dear sister. They cry out, but in joy or sorrow I cannot tell,” she replied as she turned towards the sky.

“What do you mean?” the white alicorn asked, becoming a little concerned.

“I… am not sure,” Luna said, shaking her head “Although I cannot imagine when such a thing has happened before, it feels strangely familiar. It is as if the very heavens themselves quiver in anticipation. I am not sure why, but it makes me feel frightened… and excited.”

“Luna… I don’t know what to say,” Celestia spoke, becoming somewhat frightened by her sisters words. Desperate to change to topic, she latched on to the first thing she could think of. “Besides Luna, it is time to change the night into the day.”

“You are right,” Luna said with a sigh. Softly, she spread her dark blue wings and lifted gently into the sky. Celestia wasted no time in spreading her own wings and joining her in the air.

Slowly, they allowed their inner magics to channel down the length of their horns as they each reached towards their respective celestial bodies. There were none to watch the intricate dance this morning and so the two sisters felt no need to make any sort of show of the daily phenomenon. Still, it was impossible to perform such a miracle completely devoid of any sort of beauty and any who might have caught a glimpse of the ritual would have likened it to nothing it to nothing less than exactly what it was; the dancing of the very heavens themselves. With a firm and incessant strength, the cool winter’s breeze of Luna’s magic pushed against the rocky surface of her charge, lowering from sky and out of the sight of all who dwelled in Equestria. The warmth of Celestia’s magic, almost in a direct contrast to her sister’s, gently prodded and guided the sun, coaxing it above the horizon so that it could take its rightful place among day-time heavens. As one final act, the two siblings set the Celestial Wheel in motion, so that the sun could trek its way across the sky without any further intervention.

They both landed gently, alighting on the same balcony from which they launched, the subtle clink of their ornate shoes the only sound in the otherwise silent morning air. For a good while the two sisters sat side-by-side, quietly enjoying the sight of the sunrise over Canterlot Mountain. Once the bottom edge of solar body had made its way above the horizon, Celestia rose to her hooves. Gently, she wrapped her younger sister in a fleeting embrace with her wings before turning to leave, “Good day, Luna. I’m afraid I must go now; the day court beckons.”

“Farewell sister,” Luna responded without turning away from the spot.

Before the older pony could make it more than half-way across the room however, she was halted by an audible pop and a flash of green light. Instinctively, Celestia reached out and caught the newly materialized scroll with her magic, simultaneously opening it as she did so. Intrigued, Luna turned towards her sister and waited for some sort of reaction. After several silently moments in which she read the letter, Celestia released a small sigh.

“What is it, sister?” Luna asked, honestly curious.

“It seems,” she said as she indicated the parchment, “that my faithful student has done something foolish and gotten in over her head. As such, she is currently unconscious within Ponyville’s Hospital.”

“I see,” Luna responded. “And what is it you intend to do?”

With another sigh, Celestia continued, “Well, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t concerned, but I can’t—“

“Let me,” Luna interrupted.

“What?”

“Let me go and visit her. I know you are concerned about her, but you have your duties you must attend to. Mine have finished with the night. Allow me to visit her in your stead, and I will make sure that all is well while you do what you must.”

“I… thank you Luna. I appreciate this.” Celestia said with a smile.

“It is no trouble at all. And besides, I have been meaning for some time to meet once again with your student. I just wish it would have been under better circumstances.” Luna responded, mirroring her sister’s smile.

“I will have a chariot prepared immediately, you will be able to leave as soon as you wish,” Celestia said as she turned towards the door.

“Please, do not bother.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“There is no need. It is not far to Ponyville, and I have not had the chance to stretch my wings in a while,” Luna spoke, indicating the feathered appendages, “besides, I would rather leave right now if I can.”

With a smile, Celestia hugged her sister one more time, “Thank you again, Luna.”

“You are welcome, sister,” she said, nuzzling into the embrace. Spreading her wings, Luna lifted into the sky with ease and grace. “Farewell, I shall see when I return,” she said over her shoulder as she flew away with considerable speed.

“Farewell, little sister,” Celestia said, more to herself than anyone else. She watched her sister fly away towards the west, rapidly becoming no more than a small blue speck. All too soon, even the small blue speck faded from her vision as it headed towards the town of Ponyville. Without a word, Celestia turned and began to make her way towards her throne room, so that she might begin her day.

~~~A/N~~~

To all of my readers... I apologize. My absence has been far too long and I have no excuse. I do have reasons though, some of which I mentioned in my blog, in addition to the occasional power outage. But basically just suffice it to say the RL was being a needy bitch and was keeping me all to herself so I wouldn't do, well, pony things. But anyways, I've ranted long enough and I have a quick word about the story before I leave.

First off, I will not be returning to the once-a-day/once-every-other-day chapter release schedule. The reason for this is that rushing myself like that just kills any sort of flow the story might otherwise have. As a trade-off though, the chapters should be generally longer and of better quality. Thank you for your understanding.

One last thing before I go. Have some art for your trouble. It's a full-color version of Victor Umbra's pony form that I made in MS Paint. Enjoy.

Awaken

The nothingness was absolute.

All around was an utter and endless blackness, impossibly cold and dark. This was no mere nothingness, not in the classical why in which Twilight Sparkle understood it. It was not as if something were simply missing, it was more than that. It was… was… an absence. An utter absence of everything, of anything. No light, no space, no warmth, no time, no magic, no anything at all, as if it weren’t even there in the first place.

How exactly Twilight found herself in this not-place she would not have been able to understand even if thought had been possible. Had there been a mind of hers with which to ponder the circumstances she would have considered the philosophical question of whether she was actually here at all, if by its very nature there wasn’t a “here”. This place couldn’t be real, because real didn’t exist here. Hell existence didn’t exist here. So that would mean there was no “here”. But if there was no “here” then how could she be here in the first place? If the not-place had been capable of allowing her to sustain emotions she would have been grateful she didn’t have a brain to hurt with the infinite logic loop.

After countless eternities, all of which happened in no time at all since there was no time in which for it to happen in, the nothingness ceased to be. Instead, it began to exist. And once its existence simply was, the absence of reality was broken. Things were now, time began to flow, space started to become, and all of Twilight’s thoughts, emotions, memories, spirit and everything she was coalesced together in a single-minded consciousness. And then Twilight was again.

She was not alive, nor was she dead, she simply was and that was it. She just existed, and nothing more. But slowly, she became more. Her thoughts came to her first. Her thoughts were basic, and raw, without language to structure them, and so she was able to do little else than wonder. Wonder about where she was, who she was, what this place was and plenty else.

But she was interrupted when her memories came, and with it her language. Before she could put words to the strange concepts of which she was imagining, she was distracted as the emptiness around her dispersed and became filled. But filled with what she could not say.

All around her were… things both utterly alien and entirely incomprehensible in nature. Everything she saw completely and openly defied everything she had ever known. Up was down, in was out, everything that shouldn’t have been was and everything that should have been wasn’t. Every part of her being rebelled against the sheer, utterly profane wrongness of everything around her. She could actually feel it as her sanity slowly left her in the face of this new and utterly alien reality. Her very soul was being ripped apart as she beheld these things that she was never meant to know. But even as it cracked and splintered, Twilight’s mind, in one last desperate attempt to save itself, did its best to reconcile what it saw around it into a form that it could understand.

And suddenly, everything was fine.

Looking around, now with the self-imposed veil pulled over her eyes, Twilight no longer beheld an eldritch landscape. Instead, she beheld something of sheer awe, and incredible beauty. All around her were stars, and everything that came with them. Stretching out beyond sight in every direction were points of light, glimmering like immaculate diamonds set against a gentle and infinite sea of inky-black velvet. Accompanying them were visions of beauty so extravagantly amazing, Twilight could do nothing but weep as she beheld them. They were like nothing she had ever seen before, not even in her wildest imaginings: swirling spiral structures made of the light of the heavens themselves, balls of crystal and ice that shot across her vision in the blink of an eye as the caught and reflected light in a dizzying spectrum, enormous, billowing pillars of dust and ice that towered above her, glowing with the gentle light of infant heavens and reaching up to the very vaulted ceilings of creation. Not even the beauty of the night-time sky could compete with the sheer resplendence of everything within her sight.

She felt like she could have sat in this very spot, simply observing the goings on around her for the rest of eternity, and never be happier. However, as much as she did not want to, she was forced to tear her gaze away as something else began to fill the infinite space.

At first it was un-recognizable, just the resplendent space around her had been, but before she could slip into madness just from seeing its form her mind did its best to protect itself once again, and allowed her to see something she could understand.

At first she thought that it was still incomprehensible, or that her mind was playing tricks on her. But then she realized that her mind was playing tricks on her, that everything she saw was technically a trick of her mind, and that it was only because of this that she was still sane. But still, even with her mind doing its best to comprehend what it saw, the thing before her made almost no sense at all.

She tried to make reason out of it, to describe what she saw before her, and perhaps it would make more sense if she could put words to it. But for the first time in her life, her words failed her. Even with her vast intellect she could find no way to accurately convey what it was she beheld.

Somehow, it seemed to both be and not be at once. It was indistinct, indirect, unintelligible, and utterly unknowable. Honestly, it hurt her brain just to try and imagine how such a thing could exist in the way it seemed to. Her eyes would ache as they followed the lines of its form as they flowed from one point to another, weaving into and out of time, existence and the fabric of whatever counted as space in this place. Its color was unlike any she had ever seen before, just as alien and perverse to her as anything else she had seen since being here, and she found she had no name for it either. For a while, she simply writhed in the pain of her ignorance as she gazed upon it.

And then, quite suddenly, it just sort of… shifted.

It didn’t move, or blink, or flash, or change in any way, at least not as far as she could tell, but it just simply… wasn’t the same anymore. And suddenly, she could understand it now. And almost immediately, she sincerely wished that she couldn’t.

The first thing she saw was the most obvious: it was enormous, utterly and absolutely so. Somehow, it seemed to almost fill the entirely endless and infinite space around her. She realized that she saw only a small part of it, even as she tried (and failed) to peer along the length of its body as it disappeared into the infinitely distant horizon. Any sort of physical scale she was familiar with was utterly useless for such a being. Just the thickness a single one of the lashes on its eyes was greater than the distance between Ponyville and Canterlot. Its size could only be measured in nothing less than a literally astronomical scale.

Once her brain had gotten over sheer, mind-numbing hugeness of it, she noticed other things about it, such as its composition. To her no doubt addled eyes, it seemed to be made of the very space around her, given life. Its body was an endless expanse of black, coating in the twinkling of far distant stars. Its legs were made incredibly similar to the pillars that held up the space she found herself in, holding up the great vastness that was its form. Its breath glowed, like the nebulae of distant stellar nurseries. The galactic spanning wings on its side, as well as the great monolithic horn upon its head were both somehow even darker then the blackness around them, seemingly made the dark void between stars. But strangest of all, were its eyes. Its eyes positively glowed, alight with the golden luminesce of the heavens. Staring into them felt like looking into the face of creation itself.

The more Twilight stared, the more awe-struck and enamored she began to feel, until all that she could conceive of was It. And then, right before her eyes, It stirred. Once more, it shifted, but It did not change this time. Instead, It created.

Twilight was not sure exactly how, or why, or even what exactly, but now, right there hanging suspended in the space before It, was a globe. And a strangely familiar globe at that. It was large, spherical, coated mostly in blue but with patches consisting green, brown, and white spread across its surface. And almost as soon as she noticed its existence, Twilight noticed something else about it: it had life on it.

Exotic creatures running through emerald glades, verdant savannas patrolled by roaming beasts, deep sea trenches inhabited by bioluminescent creatures, almost far too much for Twilight to take in at once. Everything about was just teeming, and vibrant, and alive. And then, almost as soon as the living globe had appeared, something else found its way to this strange space as well.

Somehow, another great being appeared, almost completely filling the endless space Twilight was in. It was almost entirely identical to the first one who had appeared, save for a single distinguishing feature. Instead of a gentle and reassuring gold, the eyes the second great being possessed were a dull and listless gray, seeming to suck out and drain the brilliance of the space around them.

For a long time, the two simply regarded each other. Neither of them spoke, or even moved. But then, without warning, a look of anger spread across the endless expanse of the Second’s face. In what seemed to be a fit of rage, it reached out and shattered the globe between them.

The First looked down at the wreckage of the globe. At first there was nothing, but slowly, its face began to betray a mix of emotion. Chief among them were sadness, and loss, mixed with a large amount of grief. Finally, anger came into its continence, and it turned to the Second. Without any further warning, they both lunged at each other.

They collided in the part of space the living globe had occupied, with such force and ferocity that they lost the delicate mask that Twilight’s mind had put on them. For an instant, Twilight beheld their true forms as they fought with enough force to shake the very fabric of reality. And it was then, just before the madness could set in, that she realized the true meaning of fear, and of awe.

An instant later, everything ceased to be once more, and Twilight was thrown back into a black nothingness. But this time, the nothingness was a little less absolute. With great relief, Twilight allowed her mind to drift off, into the depths of unconsciousness.

*~-/^-~*

I awoke gentle and easily. The soft light of the sun filtered in through the shuttered windows and the sound of chirping birds reached my ears easily, even though the pane of glass. I smiled softly. Compared to many of the other situations I had found myself in, this was definitely not a bad way to wake up. Stretching, my limbs popped in a satisfying staccato, just as a sharp pain in my chest jolted me the rest of the way to consciousness. Doing my best to muffle a pained cough I held a hoof over my mouth, clutching my chest with the other. Grimacing, I held my hoof there until the pain faded. Thankfully, it was over almost as quickly as it began. I rolled my way out of bed, now fully awake and needing to stretch my legs.

Almost as soon I rose to my hooves, I felt a rather familiar sensation, one that brought a wry smile to my lips at the absurdity of it. Despite the massive beating I’d been through recently, the fact that I was in strange new world the for all intents and seemed to be that of a cartoon, and even despite the fact that I was in an entirely new body, one fact remained true; I was a man and it was the first thing in the morning.

Quietly, so as not to unduly disturb the room’s other tenant, I made my way to the room’s conjoining bathroom. After a brief moment of confusion over the nature of the alien plumbing, I managed to relieve my bladder, much to my own relief. Once my business was taken care of, I proceeded to wash my hooves in the sink, only to catch sight of myself in the mirror.

Needless to say, I wasn’t pretty. I had been through quite a lot since I got here, and it showed clearly on my face, neck, shoulders, and well, pretty much my entire body. Most of the wounds had closed and the bruises faded over-night thankfully, but dried blood, dirt and sweat matted my coat of fur over at least half of my body. My mane and tail weren’t much better, both of them completely frizzy and beginning to clump together in places; my mane was even starting to escape to confines of the ponytail I usually kept it in. My eyes were blood-shot, with heavy bags beneath them, despite the relative comfort in which I had slept last night. Perhaps most alarming of all however, was if I looked a little past all of the filth and grime I could make out a faint scar on my cheek where the possessed spider monster from last night had gotten a lucky hit, going all the up to my ear, which was now missing a triangle of flesh at the tip. It even appeared to still be bleeding slightly.

Having gotten a good look at myself, I decided against returning to the room. Instead, I turned around and began to run myself a shower. Undoing my hair from its usual style, I let it fall around my shoulders, and I noticed that it was becoming a little greasy as well. After giving it a few minutes for the water to adjust, I slipped a hoof into the rain of droplets. Suppressing a shudder, I tweaked one of the knobs slightly and stepped in.

I made no effort to restrain a small sigh of bliss as the warm water struck my skin. The gentle caress of the soothing liquid washed away the filth and grime from my coat even as it relaxed various muscles that until that moment I hadn’t even realized were sore. For a brief minute or so, as the water dug into me and washed away the stains the floor was colored brown and red as I once more became clean. Moving slowly and deliberately so as not to disturb the gentle and comfortable daze the warm water had put me in, I reached for the soap, and began to work it into my matted coat.

The process of actually bathing was slow going; being somewhat used to having opposable thumbs I found it rather difficult to manipulate anything with my hooves. In addition, whenever I would come into contact with one of the cuts that had yet to close all of the way with the soap it would cause a sharp stinging pain, forcing me wash area gently and carefully. Once I was finished washing my body though, my hair presented a whole new challenge, especially when it came to my tail. I was no stranger to having excessive amounts of hair, but I was somewhat accustomed to it only being on my head, not my ass. Simply reaching it in order to work up a good lather was proving somewhat difficult, a point that was made pointedly when I managed to slip and smash one of my knees against the side of the tub. Hard. Grumbling, I settled for sitting on my haunches and wrapping my tail around me in order to reach it.

About twenty minutes after I had gotten into the shower I was turning off the water and stepping out. This was not entirely my first time being a quadruped, and thankfully I was able to shake the water from myself fairly well, but unfortunately, it left me rather… fluffy. I was thankful nobody could see how ridiculous I looked as I patted my fur back down with the towel as I finished drying myself off. My mane was still hanging about my shoulders, dripping into and re-wetting my coat, so I threw the towel over my shoulders and to rub my hair as I stepped out of the bathroom and back into the room with beds.

A shiver ran up my spine as I came into contact with the comparatively chill air of room after having gotten used to the steamy air of the bathroom. Shaking slightly, and with my eyes still half-closed in a vain attempt to hold onto any piece of the mellow comfort the shower had given me, I made my to my bed. With a practiced motion that was far more deft then hooves should have allowed, I picked up the small rectangular box of toothpick I allows kept with me, knocked it against my other hoof so that a single round stick extended out of the box, and grasped the small splinter of wood with my teeth. Setting the small box down, I continued to dry my hair, feeling much more comfortable now that my toothpick was in its rightful place. A polite chough however, alerted me to the fact that I was not alone. Placing the towel round my shoulders, I turned to face my guests.

In addition to The Doctor being back in the room in order to check on Twilight, as I had expected, there were two other mares I didn’t recognize.

The first of them was a white unicorn, with an elegantly styled royal-purple mane and a trio of diamonds on her flank. From her the way she held herself and her general grace, along with her immaculate appearance, I deduced that she was a pony of some class. Despite this, I could still hear her utter a soft, “Oh my,” as she held up a hoof in a vain attempt to hide her face. Her cheeks were flushed a bright crimson, so much so in fact, that I could have sworn that her face was radiating some small amount of heat. One look at her quickly darting eyes told exactly why she was blushing so profusely. Despite holding up her hoof, I could easily see her bit the corner of her bottom lip as she drug her eyes all over my body, drinking in every curve of my wet skin and lingering perhaps a little over-long on my (apparently) well-muscled flanks. I couldn’t help but grin a bit smugly. It was nice to know that even in a new body I could still turn the ladies’ heads.

The second mare was much more composed then the first. She was taller too, but only slightly, and still nowhere near as tall as me. Her coat was a gentle indigo color, save for the area around her flank, which was covered in inky-black splotches around a silver moon. Her mane was a soft, lighter blue, like that of the sky just before the sun began to rise or set, and hugged the side of her neck in a soft curl. Her posture was somewhat timid, but bespoke no small amount of regality. Perhaps most interesting about her appearance was that unlike any other pony I had seen since I’d been here (as admittedly few as that was) she was the first I’d seen with both wings and a horn. She too had a small blush as she looked at me, but only a light dusting on her cheeks, instead of the full-blown tomato impersonation that her companion was attempting, and it seemed due more to the perceived awkwardness of the situation than anything else.

I made over to Twilight’s bed and stood next to them, where the white mare held out her hoof in greeting. “Well hello there, darling,” she said, still blushing (albeit not as badly) as she traced her eyes up and down my frame while she spoke, “it certainly is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Rarity, may I ask yours?” As soon as she spoke, any remaining doubt I might have had about her being anything but a high class pony was washed away.

Smiling deviously, I decided that it might be fun to play the part a bit. Taking her proffered hoof gentle, I dipped my head deeply before kissing the back of her hoof lightly, careful not to jab her with my toothpick. “Of course you may, Lady Rarity,” I said, adopting a silky quality to my voice. “My name is Vi-Dusk. Dusk Script,” I said, narrowly catching myself before remembering what The Doctor had said about names here. Rarity of course didn’t notice my near slip – she was far too occupied with the positively massive blush that had graced her continence the moment I kissed her hoof. I could swear I almost saw steam rising from her ears do to the sheer force of her blush.

“Ah, uh, y-yes, very good, my, uh, good g-gentlestallion,” she managed to stammer light-headedly.

Chuckling at the spectacle, I turned towards the other mare. Dipping my head deeply once more, I gently took her hoof in my own and lightly kissed the back of it as well. “And what, may I ask, is your name, my lady?” I asked, looking into her teal eyes.

Surprisingly, she was proving to be somewhat resistant to my charms. “Luna. My name is Luna,” she said with small smile. I couldn’t help but smile a little wider when she did; it seemed I was having at least some small effect. “Tell me, is it true that you are the one who rescued Twilight from the Everfree Forest?” she asked, looking me squarely in the eyes as she did.

Dropping her hoof, I answered, “Yes, Lady Luna, I am.”

“Then you have my thanks,” she said, smiling more deeply now, “it is most likely because of you that she still lives. My sister and I both would have been devastated should anything have befallen her.”

“Please, it was nothing,” I spoke, waving off the issue nonchalantly, “I couldn’t very well ignore a lady in need, now could I?”

“Regardless, you have my gratitude. Should you ever visit, you will always be welcome in my halls, Dusk Script.”

“I appreciate it. Thank you, my lady.”

“You are welcome. I apologize, but I can tarry no longer. I came only to check on Twilight’s condition and there is business to attend to in Canterlot. I must be on my way,” she said, turning around and leaving through the door, leaving me alone with Rarity, a slumbering Twilight and an otherwise occupied Doctor.

“Oh, how heroic,” the white unicorn cooed as I turned to face her. “A handsome stallion, bravely dashing off into the Everfree Forest in the middle of the night to rescue a damsel in distress. And not just any damsel, but our own Twilight no less! Oh, it makes me shudder just thinking about it,” she said as small tremors did indeed shoot up her spine. “Oh, you simply must tell me all about it sometime, darling.”

“I would love to, Lady Rarity, but I’m afraid the details of that particular escapade are a tad too, ah, ‘gruesome’ for a lady such as you,” I responded, chuckling lightly.

“Very well, if you say so I’ll take your word for it, Mister Script,” she replied with a hint of pout on her lips.

“Please, call me Dusk, Lady Rarity,” I said, chuckling a bit more heartily.

“Only if you will call me Rarity,” she quipped, smiling slyly.

“Very well, Rarity,” I replied, returning her smile.

“Good. Now I’m afraid I cannot stay much longer either, I only came to check on my friend Twilight before the business day started, and I have quite a few orders to complete before days end,” she explained as she walked towards the door. Stopping in the doorframe, she turned to me. “Oh, and Dusk? Please feel free to stop by Carousel Boutique after you are discharged, alright?” she said, fluttering her eyelashes vigorously.

“I will be sure to do just that, Rarity,” I responded, waving her off as she walked down the hallway.

Smiling smugly, I shut the door and finished drying my hair with the towel I still had draped across my shoulders. Once I had done so sufficiently, I carelessly tossed the used towel onto to my bed and gathered my hair to put it up into its usual style. Having done so, I turned to find the Doctor finished with whatever it was he had been working on and glaring at me disapprovingly. “What? What’d I do?” I asked, honestly not knowing.

“Do you have any idea who it was you just smooth-talked, you shmuck?” he inquired exasperatedly. “Those were two of the most famous and influential ponies in all of Equestria! One is an actual god-damn princess for pete’s sake!” he exclaimed angrily.

“Huh, really? I thought that white one was pretty regal,” I replied calmly.

“I’m talking about the blue one, you dolt!” he fumed. “If you don’t start thinking before you act I’m going to have to report you to HQ!”

“Geeze, just calm down,” I said, flicking some water at him with my still somewhat damp tail, “I didn’t exactly offend them or anything did? If anything I’d say I was on their good side now.”

“Well, yes that’s true, but the point remains, you can’t keep going around and doing whatever you want without thinking about the consequences anymore. You’re on thin ice as it is, one more major slip up and—“ Before The Doctor could finish his sentence he was interrupted by a loud commotion coming from Twilight’s bed.

I turned towards her immediately, only for my heart to leap into my throat when I saw her. Her entire body was twitching and shaking violently; she seemed to be in the throes of an intense seizure. I rushed to her side in an instant, reaching her at the same time as The Doctor and we both did our best to hold her down and prevent her from hurting herself. She kept shaking and shaking, and after several minutes in which she didn’t let up in her spasms, The Doctor turned to me and asked, “Victor! What’s wrong with her?” Gritting my teeth from the strain of holding her violently bucking body, I leaned down and touched my horn to her own, and scanned her magically. I didn’t like what I saw.

The best news was that the small streaks of corruption already in her laylines seemed to be driven out and cured. The bad news was why. Her carbuncle was reacting to the Blessing, and in an incredibly strong manner. It was actually beginning to deform from its natural shape, and mold to a shape more accommodating to that of the raw energy sustaining the Blessing. As a result, it was beginning to reach towards the Blessing, forming tendrils of auxiliary laylines in its direction and closing the distance between them. Unfortunately, it was doing this all while the shards of pure, dark corruption were still suspended between them. There was only one way to fix this without killing Twilight.

Jumping onto the bed, I lay on top of her and instructed The Doctor to try and hold her down. Without waiting for his confirmation or even any sort of reaction, I closed my eyes and once again my horn against her own. Both my horn and her entire body lit up in a silver corona, casting the room into a light pall, as I preformed immediate magical surgery.

Gently, but with a firm insistence, I grabbed ahold of the nexus of my Blessing, and began to twist it. Softly at first, but with increasing strength, I changed its shaped, splitting it into two conjoined halves. The first half was definitely the more complex of the two, I began to feel the sweat drip from my brow as I poured all of my concentration into shaping a crystalline lattice of energy networks, in hyper-geometric shapes not yet even conceived of one this world and using it to trap the Corruption Shards in a sub-dimensional magi-stasis field within. Once that was done however, making a 5-dimensional network of energy to match what Twilight’s Carbuncle had already formed naturally almost disappointingly easy. With a subtle amount of pressure I was able to merge the tapered ends of both energy networks together. My Blessing was now both holding the corruption at bay and connected to Twilight’s natural energy. Satisfied that I had done what needed to be done, I withdrew from our connection and allowed myself to become aware of what was going around me again. Thankfully, Twilight had stopped thrashing.

Gingerly stepping off of the bed and back onto the floor, The Doctor immediately began to shout. “What the hell was that?! Tell me what just happened to her, Victor!” he demanded.

With a sigh, I began to explain. “Her body was taking much better to the Blessing then I thought it would, Ok?”

“But wouldn’t that be a good thing?” he inquired skeptically.

“Normally yes, but because of the very dark magic I was trying to save her from, her Carbun—“ Before I could finish my explanation, we were once more interrupted by a noise from Twilight’s bed.

We both turned towards her instantly, prepared for and expecting the worse. Instead, there was only a loud gasp as her whole body bucked once, and then fell still. Slowly, tentatively, she began to open her eyes. But something wasn’t quite right, I didn’t remember her eyes glowing a solid white when I saw her in the Everfree Forest. Before I could take notice of the massive magical field gathering around her body, the whole world exploded.

And then everything went white.

Guard

Celestia continued to hold the strained facsimile of benevolent concern and interest upon her continence; even as the long-winded speech about the kingdom’s most recent crop-yield of barely from the rather boring and tiresome pony in front of her began to approach its second hour. “And with an additional week of heavy rains scheduled in the south-eastern fields to make up for last year’s drought, I believe that we can increase next season’s crop by almost 12.7%, which could help with…” The wizened gray stallion continued to drone on in an in-variably monotone voice. Eventually, even the princess’s legendary patience wore thin, and she began to tune out the droning of his voice, lest she be lulled to sleep by it.

As her mind wandered her eyes did the same, and soon her gaze fell across the small town just down the mountain and to the west. The delicate and gentle smile she had carefully held for the last several hours fell slightly, and a near-imperceptible sigh escaped her lips. Her mind at once turned to her student and not for the first time since she had opened her court that morning she was filled again with a deep-seated worry and concern. The simple thought that her little pony could be lying in a hospital bed, injured and in pain, while she sat here listening to the inane propositions of many of the most insipid ponies she could think of instead of being by her side caused her no small amount of un-ease. Once again she found herself slightly regretting taking up Luna on her offer, and not closing court for the day and flying off the Ponyville herself. And once more, she reminded herself that it most likely wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed, and she was just getting worked up over some small and meaningless injury sustained in another of her students all-too-common escapades with her friends and the other citizens of Ponyville. Honestly, sometimes it seemed like that entire town was just one giant magnet for misfortune. But then again, maybe something awful really did happen to Twilight. If that was the case then she really should be at her bedside and not here listening to presumptuous ponies who thought they could run the country better then she could. Silently, she willed her sister to hurry and return soon with word of Twilights condition. Admittedly, it was the simple fact of not knowing how bad the situation really was that was driving Celestia crazy the most.

Turning her attention towards the elderly earth-pony in front of her, she realized that he had fallen silent, and had been for at least half a minute while he apparently awaited her response; having taken her silence and thoughtful gaze out the window as contemplation. Suppressing a small blush of embarrassment, she mentally berated herself for not paying attention. Fortunately, she hadn’t ruled for as long as she had without learning how to recover from awkward situations. Drawing her benevolent smile about herself once again she spoke, “Yes, I believe that will work quite well Mr. Harvest. You have my full permission to commission Cloudsdale for—“ Whatever Celestia had been about to say was cut off as a large tremor shook the castle, causing more than one of the ponies present to nearly lose their balance and topple over. Following not a moment after was a hollow from somewhere to the west the echoed sharply around the chamber. Her mind immediately jumping to the worst conclusion, Celestia turned once more to look out the window she had been gazing out of not seconds ago.

In that instant everypony present was witness to something that had not been seen within Equestria in many, many years; the princess’s face twisted in true, unmasked and unbridled fear.

There, just beyond the window and to the west, was an enormous mushroom-shaped cloud of pure, raw magical energy, rising up from Ponyville in the exact site Celestia knew the hospital to be located. Eyes wide and jaw agape, she stared disbelievingly at the intense discharge of unfettered magics. Her pupils shrinking to pinpricks, she whispered a single word, hardly audible to even herself, “Twilight…”

A bright golden flash filled the room, momentarily blinding everypony, and when they could see again Celestia was gone, nothing but the faint scent of ozone and the warmth of sunshine in her place.

*~-/^-~*

Pale grey eyes were visible even through the oppressive darkness surrounding them, glowing with an inner malice. They gazed far over the countryside, through hills and vales, past emerald coniferous seas, and over roil plains of amber grain, all to fall on the sight of a small rural village. Normally such a place was insignificant, far too unimportant to even draw a fleeting glance. But at this moment, something was different.

Rising up from the center of the village was a great white plume, mushroom-shaped and radiating far more magical energy then should have been possible. Such a sight was unusual in this land of Technicolor equines, ruled over by their peaceful little pretty pony princess. It was enough to turn some heads.

A simple, single taste of the air was all it took to determine just what the explosion was. There was hardly room for doubt; this was indeed a Reser-Stella event. Which ment that things were about to get interesting.

“Storm Chaser,” the owner of the eyes called in a booming voice into the darkness, “report.”

No more than a few moments passed before a sliver of light vaguely illuminated the darkened room as the door opened. The ruffle of feathers was heard as another body entered the room, shutting the door behind it and returning everything once more to darkness. Undaunted by the lack of light, the pale grey eyes easily witnessed the pegasus dropped to his knees. “Yes my lord, what is it you require?” he inquired, his smooth voice cutting through the darkness like rich velvet.

“I am giving you a new assignment,” the hidden figure announced. “There is a small town called Ponyville, to the west of Canterlot. Something very interesting has occurred there tonight. I want you to find the one responsible and bring them to me.”

“Of course, at once my lord,” the pegasus stallion responded in his honeyed voice before rising to his hooves and swiftly exiting the pitch blackness, eager to be out of his liege’s presence and the sinister aura he seemed to emit.

The pale grey eyes watched the charming stallion leave and shudder slightly once he thought he was out of his master’s sight. Confident that the servant would get the job done, the eyes turned once more to the rural town to the west of Canterlot. A deep throated sigh broke what would otherwise have been silence.

“Victor,” the owner of the eyes said aloud tiredly and with a small tone of trepidation, “what are you up to now?”

*~-/^-~*

Pain. Joy. Fear. Agony. Ecstasy. Twilight Sparkle felt it all within the space of a single moment; stretching on to eternity. These feelings consumed her, leaving no room for thought as she floated listlessly along in the endless white void. Her perception was hazy; faded and obscured whilst some far corner of her mind fought valiantly to shake her from her complacency and return her to awareness. Unfortunately, the rest of her had no objections to the horrifying, agonizing pleasure currently electrifying her mind, and it was a long but un-knowable time before she was freed.

Snapping into a state of sudden understanding, and she was no longer content with these feelings, and at once realized just how afraid and in pain she really was. She cried out, begging for it to stop, even as she desired it to go on forever. Had there been room left in her befuddled mind for surprise, she would have been taken aback when it seemed that her screams were answered.

She came to a stop as she floated along, and slowly sunk down until her hooves met resistance against an unseen surface in the endless whiteness, and she was able to stand under her own power. Immediately, she fell to her knees, clutching her in pain and flailing in ecstasy. Her wails only grew louder as the out of control pain/pleasure grew more fervent. So engrossed was she with her own purgatory of joy and despair, she didn’t notice even in the slightest the growing and thickening mist all about her. Soon the mist grew thick enough to obscure anything else, leaving only it and Twilight in the empty expanse. A voice rose up then, speaking in a language alien and un-comprehensible to the writhing unicorn.

“Huc sou drad? Kron toc mir vestood. Pech ti, vepe kuun-sa moch?” The voice asked, reverberating through the timeless mists and shaking the lavender pony’s very core; still somehow going completely unnoticed by her as she still shook in the burning tumult she was forced to endure. “Huc sou drad?” the lilting voice repeated, speaking more clearly as its ghostly whispers echoed loudly about the blank expanse. Again, Twilight paid no heed, knowing nothing but her own delicious, delirious fervor. “Huc sou drad?” it called yet again, its impatient tones apparent. The only response it received was a loosened moan from Twilight as shivers of heat rippled down her spine.

With a harsh edge to its tone, the voice called out in an angered soprano, “Drad sou peta mir ton-das! Eada kèss! No kranda hiti muuc tan pell poor nag!” Yet again, the voice’s frustrations were met with nothing but a shriek of pain as the young unicorn clutched her head in her hooves. With its patience worn thin, a primal, angry roar erupted from the space around her, and the mist pushed against her body. A stiff and incessant breeze blew across Twilight’s form; physically insubstantial, doing not much more then ruffling her mane, but still somehow freeing her from the feverish haze that had clouded her mind, snuffing it out like a candle in the gale.

Quite suddenly, Twilight became only all too aware of her surroundings as she felt some unseen force constrict around her throat and lift her into the air. In an instinctive panic, she scratched her hooves at her neck in a futile attempt to pry away whatever it was that had her in its grasp. Frightful tears slid down her cheeks as the hollow voice that she was only just now aware of spoke once more with evident anger, “Pele deert mir kons! Mir vestage sou kuut pata, aad mir reeti mir nu. Nu surm att… huc sou drad?” Twilight only scraped piteously at her throat and whimpered as the incomprehensible foreign words reached her ears. Her continued silence only seemed to anger it further, as the force around her neck tightened and the voiced screamed, “Huc sou drad!?” Not understanding, Twilight could only attempt to shake her head in denial. Becoming enraged at having its questions go unanswered, the invisible force constricted ever further and voice positively roared, “Mir kons donna! Huc sou drad!?”

Desperate, and with her vision beginning to fade and her eyes mist over, Twilight barely managed to gasp out, “I… I don’t know… I don’t understand!”

Whatever it was didn’t seem to be pleased with her answer. “Pala dont! Huc. Sou. Drad!?” It bellowed as it squeezed tightly enough to completely constrict her airway. In a fit of blind panic, she released a blast of raw magical energy; somehow thankfully knocking away whatever it was that was holding her suspended. As she feel the few feet to what counted as the ground in the white expanse she noticed that instead of usual uniform magenta she had come to associate with her magic, it was deeper, more royal purple, shot through with wide swathes of bright, rippling silver. Unfortunately, it seemed that whatever the voice belonged to noticed as well.

A sudden force impacted her chest, hurling her almost a dozen feet backwards. As she skidded along the ground she felt the same force push on her again, pinning her to the ground and restricting her movement. “Theff! Sou maka pall kitt Ceal! Hoon sou Cealdus ga!?” the voice demanded in what almost seemed like righteous indignation.

The force continued to press against her body, driving out her breath and causing Twilight to panic all over again. “Please! I don’t understand! What do you want from me?” she pleaded, weeping in unmasked terror.

Unfortunately, her words didn’t seem to be what it wanted to hear; metallic clatter reached her ears as four chains as black as midnight emerged from seemingly nowhere and snaked through the mists, slithering up to her and wrapping around each of her limbs as she lay prone. With a single swift movement and a sudden bout of vertigo she was whisked into the air, her limbs pulled spread-eagle as she hung suspended from her bindings. Pulling desperately against her sudden manacles, she couldn’t keep the terrified quiver out of her voice as she pleaded, “P-Please! Just let me go, I don’t understand!”

The chains only pulled tighter, almost to the point of pain. The voice spoke again, no longer with anger but sheer contempt instead, “Niita pill sou? Poka kuuc shiti!” She felt herself being lifted up even higher, and the mists around her began to swirl and undulate.

Twilight had never been quite so frightened before. She offered silent prayers to Celestia, her friends, her brother, anypony to save her, but it all went unanswered.

Slowly, the mists just in front of her began to dissipate slightly, revealing a sight that caused hot, frightened tears to spill down her cheeks all over again. There, hanging suspended just before her was an immense, wicked, impossibly sharp blade. Disbelievingly, her eyes followed along its honed, jagged edge, falling on its double-pronged and gleaming tips. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks and she began to hyper-ventilate as the floating blade drew closer, alighting softly against her cheek. Without even thinking of it, she turned her head to follow the blade’s movement.

In response the flattened side of the gleaming instrument of bloodshed pushed lightly against cheek, forcing her to face forward as the swirling mist parted once more. What she saw emerge caused whatever semblance of rational thought that might have persevered in the face of her blind panic to flee her. Rising up from the roiling depths was… something. The closest then she could liken it to was a… a face but… it was all wrong. Her every instinct, every fiber of her very being screamed at her that the thing in front of her should not be.

It was long, slender, and almost entirely blank. It had no mouth, no muzzle, no snout, no eyes, no anything, just two empty, hollow and glowing pits where its eyes should have been. Its cranium was smooth, bulbous, and extended way further then it should have, tapering off into what almost looked like some sort of tail that whipped around slowly and listlessly, almost like a flag in some unseen, steady breeze. Instead of a muzzle, its lower half sloped down and outwards, ending in a rounded point and giving the whole thing a look like an inverted tear-drop. Its dark, leathery, matte-black skin was pulled taut over its gaunt, skeletal frame and reflected no light, instead seeming to cast an ethereal shadow into the air around it. The whole thing sat atop some sort of long, thin appendage that extended back into the mists, hugging it close and using it like an opaque cloak to conceal whatever else there may have been.

Despite its utterly alien nature, the face-thing almost looked as if it were staring deep into Twilight’s eyes as the silver blade pressed against her cheek. “Sou nag? Pitt. Mir chu kon heca seeb,” the voice called, full of pity and… disappointment? “Fon kussha dona sou theff Ceal. Pelln tikk oan ei peaninc…” the spoke in a serious and authoritative tone as the floating blade pressed further against her face, opening a thin cut that spilt crimson droplets amongst the tears already streaming down her face. The blade lifted away, much to her initial relief. Her relief quickly turned to newfound terror as it instead hung in the air above her, calling to her mind all-too-vivid imagery of an executioner’s axe, as the voice issued a final proclamation, “… Deeath.”

Twilight’s keening wail of fear pierced the air as the blade came down.