Planeswalker Chronicles

Twilight stared up at Bolas in silent awe as she was introduced to him. Finding her voice, she respectfully bowed. "It's an honor to meet you, Nicol Bolas."

"The pleasure is mine," Bolas answered, his voice a deep one that seemed to pierce into Twilight's very soul as he regarded her. He then turned his gaze to Irene. "Why have you brought her to me?"

Irene kept her smile even under the elder dragon's gaze. "She's a planeswalker. And she has a problem she needs help with."

Bolas looked back at Twilight in curiosity. "Do tell, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight reached up to her cloak's clasp and deactivated the veil, gesturing to her horn's stump. "My horn was shattered on one of the neighboring planes. A world of volcanoes teeming with red mana. I normally regenerate when injured, but my horn hasn't since it was shattered. I don't know why that is, and Irene said you might be able to help."

Bolas was silent through Twilight's explanation, regarding her with an analytical eye. "The world you speak of is one of five shards of a fractured world called Alara. We are currently on Bant, and the shard you spoke of is Jund."

Twilight's eyes lit up. "I didn't think I'd find it so quickly! All I had to go on was a name and the knowledge that dragons live there! Wow! That is lucky." She withered under Bolas' silent, unblinking gaze. "Sorry."

Bolas nodded. "At any rate, Irene is correct. I can assist you. On the blue shard, Esper, exists a metal called etherium that can be molded into a prosthesis that will also have the benefit of enhancing your magic. But first, I need you to do a task for me." He groaned as he stretched his wings, joints creaking in protest.

Twilight noticed upon closer inspection that Bolas' wing membranes were tattered and his scales lacking in sheen. "Are you alright?" she asked in concern for the aged dragon.

"I am a very old dragon, child," Bolas answered. "I am feeling my age after so many millennia. The task I wish you to perform will go a long way toward easing my ails."

Twilight nodded. "Okay. What do you need done?" She may have only just met him, but she wanted to ease Bolas' suffering any way she could.

"I need you to go to the green shard, Naya, and activate an obelisk that is located there," Bolas instructed as he held out his claw and conjured an image of a bipedal lion. "This is a leonin. Seek him out for guidance to the obelisk of Naya. His name is Marisi. When you have completed your task, go to Esper and seek out my agent there." The image shifted to show a well dressed human man. "He will see to your prosthesis."

Twilight nodded with a respectful smile as she committed the faces to memory. "Alright. I'll get started right away." Just as she prepared to planeswalk, Bolas lifted his claw and slashed its palm before offering the bleeding appendage to Twilight.

"I have long preferred to seal the pacts I make in blood," Bolas said. "Exchange blood with me, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight winced at the thought of exchanging blood, but saw no harm in it considering her body's nature. Drawing her knife, she slashed her left hand's palm and placed the wound against the one in Bolas' palm, shuddering as she felt something flow through her for a brief moment. Thinking nothing of it, she pulled her hand away, idly watching the cut heal before putting her knife away and planeswalking off of Bant.

Once Twilight had departed, Bolas turned his gaze to his minion. "Is your task nearing completion?"

"By midday tomorrow, Giltspire Castle will be a pile of rubble and the obelisk of Bant will be producing mana," Irene reported with a grin.

"Good," Bolas answered with a small smirk. "Return to Hazid, and once the obelisk is active, make sure he is dealt with. Then assume your place among the sighted caste to play out the rest of your role."

Irene took a moment to curtsy before mounting up and riding back toward Hazid's camp, leaving Bolas alone with his thoughts, the dragon gathering his energy and leaving Bant.

Grixis, lair of Nicol Bolas

Bolas soon arrived back in his lair on the world of death that was Grixis, silently contemplating what he had seen in Twilight's mind. While the girl's naivete had cost her dearly, those other two could be problematic down the line. Pinkamena Diane Pie. The one being to have withstood his touch with sanity unchanged. Difficult to predict, but not impossible to manipulate. Rodin Vulkis. A true wild card with no care for any besides himself, and a talent for artifice that Bolas had yet to see rivaled. He chuckled in respect for his fellow ancient. Truly Rodin was almost as cunning and ruthless as Bolas himself. His thoughts turned to Twilight next. So utterly filled with power. So wholly lacking in vision. Content to study and gain knowledge. Would Twilight continue to be naive and malleable? Or would she live up to the hope of the Simic Combine as the so called 'ultimate life form'? It hardly mattered. For if she dared face him, destroying her would be his... pleasure.

Ungula, one year earlier

Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Spike watched helplessly as the hydra swallowed Twilight whole, tears streaming down their cheeks as they grieved.

Pinkie Pie's mane and tail had fallen flat and her colors muted somewhat, even her Pinkie Sense had fallen silent. That is, until a bright glow appeared in the throat of the hydra head that swallowed Twilight. Bringing the attention of the others to it, they watched as the glow traveled down toward the hydra's stomach, Pinkie beginning the full body shake that heralded a doozy again as the glow reached the hydra's stomach and suddenly exploded outward, leaving a gaping hole in the hydra's belly as it keeled over dead.

When Twilight didn't emerge, the four went over the rocks to the carcass and looked inside the hole made in it. They didn't see Twilight, but burned into the wall of the stomach was a symbol that had a single prong on one end, and five side by side on the other. Pinkie stopped shaking as her mane and tail poofed up again. "TWILIGHT'S ALIVE!!! So that was the doozy!"

"Pinkie Pie what in tarnation are ya talkin' about?!" Applejack demanded in confusion.

"I gotta find Ditzy Doo!" Pinkie exclaimed before hopping in the air and taking off toward Ponyville.

"What does Ditzy Doo have do with any of this?" Spike asked before Pinkie reappeared, the wall eyed mailmare in tow and looking very confused.

"Pinkie Pie, why did you drag me away from work to come look at a dead hydra?" Ditzy asked before laying her eyes on the symbol burned into the hydra's stomach. "Who did this hydra eat?"

"It ate Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed as she floated for several seconds. "You know what this means! Twilight's a planeswalker!"

"What's a planeswalker?" Spike asked, looking on in confusion and hope that Twilight really was alive.

Before Pinkie could start talking, her mouth vanished in a flash of light, causing the rest present to gasp in shock. Both at the mouth removal and the fact that Ditzy Doo's eyes were glowing white.

"Why don't we gather the rest of Twilight's friends, her family, and the princess before I start explaining?" Ditzy offered to the mute Pinkie as the glow in her eyes faded, revealing that both were now looking in the same direction.

It had taken much pain, a lot of yelling, and a few bouts of hitting ponies over the head with a thick book, but at last, Ditzy Doo, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spike, Princess Celestia, Twilight's elder brother Shining Armor, her old foalsitter Princess Cadance, and her parents Night Light and Twilight Velvet all stood in the Golden Oak Library.

"Now then, Ms. Doo, would you care to explain that mark in the hydra's stomach and Twilight's disappearance?" Celestia asked in her calm, motherly tone.

Ditzy nodded. "Of course, Princess." Her eyes then glowed blue and an image of several spheres appeared in the air, each containing at least one smaller sphere within. "Our world of Ungula isn't the only reality," she began. "It is but one of an uncountable number of worlds in an endless Multiverse that float in an ocean of primordial Chaos that we call the Blind Eternities." The spheres around her floated in a slow orbit as she spoke. "The planes are home to countless mages that, for all their mastery over their craft, are bound to their own planes, blind to the true vastness of the Multiverse. But some mages, like Pinkie Pie and myself, are born with the potential for more: the Spark. This gift, once ignited by a near death experience, immense psychological strain, or a moment of true meditative enlightenment, allows the mage to travel between planes at will." The spheres faded as Ditzy's eyes ceased to glow. "We call ourselves planeswalkers, and very rarely do we reveal our nature to those lacking the Spark."

"And you think Twilight is one of you?" Shining Armor asked, rubbing his head. "This is a lot to take in."

Ditzy nodded and conjured another image: the symbol from the hydra's gut. "This mark is always left scorched onto a surface when a planeswalker ignites their Spark and planeswalks for the first time. So we've adopted it as our emblem."

It was at that moment that Pinkie's mouth reasserted its existence, allowing the party pony to speak once again. Something she proceeded to do with gusto. "The real problem is that there's no telling where Twilight ended up! She's probably scared and doesn't know how to planeswalk yet! She could be anywhere! Ravnica, Innistrad, Zendikar, Tarkir, Theros, Dominaria, the list goes on! And all those planes are really really dangerous!"

"So what do we do then?!" Rainbow Dash demanded as she frantically flitted about the room. "Isn't there something we can do to track her?!"

"All of you can only sit and wait," Ditzy calmly explained. "Without Sparks, you can't enter the Blind Eternities without being torn apart mind, body, and soul. So Pinkie and I will make our preparations and go look for her."

Pinkie nodded as she stopped bouncing. "We'll find her. We'll find her and bring her home."

"Then all we can do is trust in the two of you," Celestia said. "May you find her soon."

Ditzy looked down at Spike as he approached her and Pinkie. "Please bring Twilight home soon."

"We will," Ditzy promised.

Bant, present day

Irene took in the sight of Giltspire Castle from the shade of her umbrella as she idly tossed a knife up and down, catching it by the hilt every time it came down from a flip into the air. It was a simple weapon, but deceptively deadly. Its blade was black with red accents, specifically designed not to reflect light, and its hilt accommodated a slight bend of around 20 degrees, allowing it to fit more comfortably into Irene's palm for better control of the blade and a tighter grip. And she found it infinitely more beautiful than the castle. Looking to the guard that rode next to her and Hazid's wagon on horseback, she spoke. "Ready the chanters."

"Yes, ma'am."

Taking in the castle's design in detail only reaffirmed to Irene how its symbolism of social order, while superficially pretty, paled when compared to the humble implement of death she was still tossing up and down.

"Sir, Ma'am. A contingent of knights approaches from the castle," the guard to Hazid's right informed them.

"The status of the chanters?" Hazid inquired.

"Ready, sir."

"Then tell them to get started," Irene ordered. "Hazid and I will handle the knights." She stowed her knife in its hidden sheath and looked at her reflection in her mirror to color her lips as her eyes glowed a faint blue, casting an illusion over her attire that made her look like a particularly attractive merchant's wife. "Moment of truth, hubby," she teasingly purred at Hazid as the knights drew closer while the rest of the caravan began circling the castle and surrounding it.

"Halt, please, sir and madam," the lead knight, a young woman that looked to be in her early twenties, ordered.

"Hello!" Irene greeted with a cheerful wave as Hazid stopped the wagon. "Oh Giltspire Castle is so much more beautiful than the last time we visited Akrasa! Isn't it, dear?" she asked of Hazid.

"It is indeed, my love," Hazid answered with a smile. "Have the Amesha blessed the citadel recently? The shine on the towers is intoxicating."

The knight held out her hand. "Manifest, please."

"Of course," Irene said as she passed the knight the manifest. "Signed and stamped by Sir Hadadir."

"Sir Hadadir was recently murdered," the knight said as she looked over the manifest.

"Such a tragedy," Hazid said. "My deepest condolences. He seemed like a good man." Though he was calm outwardly, Hazid couldn't resist a sideways look at his smiling partner, wondering if she'd had yet another lapse in control.

The knight looked out at the rapidly expanding caravan as it kept forming a circle. "Please tell your caravan drivers to stop their wagons. According to records, you were the last people to see Sir Hadadir alive. We need to question your employees for statements."

"They're deaf and willful," Irene said. "We can't stop them no matter how much we want to." Hurry up! she thought. If we mess this up there's no telling how mad Bolas will be! I will not have a blemish on my record!

"Stop those wagons!" the knight ordered. "Kill any who refuse!"

"Now or never," Hazid muttered before he and Irene jumped onto the leotau hooked to their wagon, Irene cutting it free and allowing Hazid to send it galloping toward the wagons, the droning of the chanters filling the air. As they passed each, Hazid whistled, signaling the throwing aside of tarps to reveal magic circles carved into each wagon, which the mages used to channel the spell.

Irene smiled serenely as she watched the castle begin to crumble, Hazid too distracted by his success at first. But as the castle collapsed with a great tremor that reverberated across the field and a cloud of dust passed them by, he stopped their mount and dropped the reins as he stared at the ruin, which lay around a massive, conical white obelisk. "What have I done?" She kept smiling at Hazid's muttered question, silently drawing her knife and burying it in his back, relishing his choked gasp as some blood flowed from his mouth. She gently rested her left hand's fingers on his face as she leaned forward and put her mouth next to his ear. "You've done exactly what you were meant to do," she purred as she twisted the knife in the wound. "Shame that you won't be getting that throne you were promised." She giggled as his breathing faded and he fell limp, like a puppet with its strings cut. In one fluid motion, she shoved Hazid from the saddle as her knife slipped out of the wound in his back. Her task complete, Irene planeswalked off of Bant right before the knights crested the hill and saw the abandoned leotau and Hazid's corpse.

Grixis, lair of Nicol Bolas

Irene whistled a tune to herself as she strode into the lair of her master, paying no heed to the invalid being led out of the chamber by another of his low level functionaries. She was more focused on cleaning the blood from her knife.

"Well?" Bolas demanded in an impatient tone.

"Giltspire Castle is rubble and the obelisk is active," Irene reported. "Killed Hazid when he expressed regret. No loose ends, right?"

"Of course," Bolas replied. "Now. Return to Bant and assume your role among the sighted caste."

Irene rolled her eyes as she inspected her knife. "And this is why I hate fashioning identities whole cloth. I had to actually marry that tool of a knight. Can I please kill him when this is over? He's unbearably naive."

"I don't care what you do after my machinations come to fruition," Bolas answered. "Now go."

"The things I do for my payment," Irene muttered as she planeswalked off of Grixis, leaving Bolas alone once again.

Bolas tented his claws and silently pondered how well his plans were proceeding. And thanks to his hidden work in the ungulan's mind, the Obelisk of Naya would soon be active as well.

Bant, home of Rafiq of the Many

Lilith sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom brushing her hair, clad in an elegant white robe that was accented with gold. Around her neck was a gold necklace, and her wrists were adorned by gold bracelets inlaid with diamonds. Gifts from friends. She set her brush down and turned to the opening door with a smile as she saw who it was. "Welcome home, dear." She stood and strode over to her husband, embracing and lovingly kissing him.

"It's always good to return to you, Lilith." Rafiq said as he leaned his head on Lilith's after the kiss was broken. He considered himself truly fortunate to have met a woman like her. She was always there for him, always supportive. He had never loved another woman like he loved Lilith. "I missed you."

"And I you, Rafiq," Lilith answered before sharing another brief kiss with him. Resting her head on his shoulder, she gently traced patterns on his back, which was uncovered by his armor. So foolish, she thought. The knights of Bant couldn't even conceive of a foe that would strike them from behind. A weakness she had every intention of taking advantage of once he had outlived his usefulness. She found herself imagining different scenarios while caressing a particular spot on his back. The spot she had long ago decided would be where she stuck the knife.

Naya, Qasal

Twilight calmly walked toward the outer gates of Qasal alone, having been informed by Marisi that he wasn't welcome there for reasons that he refused to elaborate on. An arrow striking the ground near her left foot caused her to stop walking and look upward. She had her cloak on with the veil active and her hood pulled over her head. "I'm not hostile," she called to the guards.

"Humans rarely visit the Cloud Nacatl," a guard called back. "State your business."

"I'm looking for something," Twilight explained. "And a reliable source directed me to this city."

Twilight found herself seated across from a gray-furred nacatl wearing multiple layers of fine robes in ochre and maroon, and silver rings on his fingers. To his right was an elderly female with blind eyes. "Ambassador. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Twilight Sparkle."

"I am Banat, and this is Ruki, my adviser," the ambassador answered. "You have been given an audience because you cooperated with the guards, but if you cause a disturbance, we will not hesitate to act."

"I will kill you," Ruki muttered.

"Understood," Twilight answered with a nod.

"You say you are looking for something, and your search brought you here?" Banat inquired.

"Yes. An obelisk made of golden stone," Twilight answered. "I was told it can be found in Qasal. Is that true?"

"There is no golden obelisk in Qasal," Ruki said, her voice sounding very much like rusty hinges. "Unless you refer to the Tower of Qasal."

"My source said the tower is a symbol of Cloud Nacatl culture," Twilight said. "That right?"

"Indeed," Banat confirmed.

"Well then... That's all I needed to hear," Twilight muttered as she stood, her choices of words and actions influenced by nudges in her mind that she neither noticed nor questioned.

"What do you mean?" Banat asked, suspicion in his voice.

"I mean I'm going to kill you, and destroy the Tower of Qasal," Twilight answered.

Silence reigned for several moments before Ruki made the first move, lunging at Twilight with surprising speed and slashing her claws across her face. As Twilight was staggered and turned her back to Ruki, the aged leonin straightened her clawed fingers and lunged, punching a hole straight through Twilight's back and out her chest. "I warned you."

Twilight ignored the blood trickling from her mouth as she chuckled and reached up, gripping Ruki's wrist in a vice grip. As her hood fell from her head, she craned her neck and smirked at Ruki's shocked face. "Nice try." Her free hand shot up and grabbed Ruki's head, swiftly twisting and rending the air with a sickening crack as she snapped Ruki's neck and flipped her behind her, letting the dead leonin's arm slide out of her torso before she yanked Banat over to her with telekinesis and took a chomp out of his face, killing him instantly.

Allowing her cloak to fall, along with a few of the bandages of her sarashi, Twilight stepped outside with her true appearance revealed, blood covering her chin and face as the Cloud Nacatl scrambled to surround her. Drawing on some of the mana bonds she'd made with the mountains of Jund, Twilight lifted her left hand as magenta flames burst to life around it. "No survivors," she muttered to herself as several of the surrounding leonin burst into magenta flames, screaming in agony before being silenced as they were reduced to ash.

Twilight calmly strode through the city burning all in her path with a calm expression as she walked toward the Tower of Qasal. Sensing a great deal of red mana coming from the tower, she began drawing on that mana to fuel her conflagration. Whenever a leonin drew too close for her liking, she turned the attack against the assailant and killed them. She idly snacked on a particularly beefy warrior as the tower began to crack and fall apart. With one final, massive conflagration, the tower fully crumbled, revealing the golden Obelisk of Naya within.

Twilight nodded in satisfaction and dropped her snack to the ground beside her. Taking a new cloak from her throat tattoo, she secured it in place and activated the veil on it before stepping into the Blind Eternities, leaving a burning city surrounding the obelisk.

Out of sight of the city, Marisi watched in horrified awe as Qasal burned, and the Cloud Nacatl with it. "My word... Such fearsome power in one being..."

Twilight dropped to her knees after landing on Esper. After sparing her surroundings a glance, she clenched her head as she panted. "Why did I do that? Why did I slaughter those leonin without provocation? It... It doesn't make sense." Hearing the approach of footstep on the metal rooftop she'd appeared on, she took cover behind a taller part and cloaked herself in an invisibility veil.

"I know I sensed the arrival of a planeswalker," a male voice said, sounding annoyed as something impacted sharply against the roof. A cane? "Where is Lord Bolas' latest pawn? Do you see anything, Tezzeret?"

"No," another man, Tezzeret likely, answered. "Probably for the better. Etherium is hard enough to come by without the boss using it as a bargaining tool with some naive little ungulan that's too stupid to realize when she's being used, don't you think, Ren?"

Twilight's eyes widened when she heard that. Used? Just what kind of person was Bolas?

"It hardly matters as long as she completed her task," Ren said. "Lord Bolas' plans are moving along smoothly and he will soon regain the power that was stripped away from him by the Mending. Once the shards join back into a single world, it's only a matter of time before he regains his power and we can destroy Alara."

Twilight barely suppressed a gasp when he said that. Closing her eyes, she gathered her mana and quietly planeswalked off of Esper, heading away from Alara altogether. She needed answers, and there was only one person that could supply them.

Ren lit a cigar as he looked around the corner of where Twilight had been hiding. Frowning, he began preparing his own planeswalk. "Inconvenient."

Dispensing with subtlety in favor of speed, Twilight flew straight to the Dirgir Stronghold, bursting into Rodin's shop. "Rodin! I need to talk to you!"

The drunken blacksmith looked up from the sword he was working on, eyes widening when he saw her broken stump. "What happened to your horn?" he asked as he set the unfinished blade aside and ushered her into the back, away from prying eyes.

"It was shattered on Jund," Twilight said as she sat down in one of the chairs, head in her hands. "Rodin? What do you know about a dragon named Nicol Bolas?"

Rodin's gourd stopped mere inches from his lips at that question. Slowly, he turned to look at her. "Did you say... Nicol Bolas?" When Twilight nodded, he took a huge pull from his gourd. "Nicol Bolas... Is the oldest living planeswalker in the Multiverse. He was ancient when I was born, and he's incredibly ambitious. Nothing less than complete domination of the entire Multiverse will satisfy him. I've tangled with him a few times over the millennia, most recently was during the time rift crisis. He completely dominated Teferi before sealing one of the rifts and leaving Dominaria in attempt to outrun the Mending."

"He was definitely showing his age," Twilight said as she looked up Rodin, which alarmed him further.

"You saw him? Spoke with him?" Rodin asked.

"Yeah. He sent me to Naya to activate some obelisk there," Twilight said. "Offered me a horn made from etherium in exchange. But I didn't meet his agents on Esper. I overheard them talking about his plans. Something about the shards coming back together and Alara being destroyed."

"Well that clenches it," Rodin said, putting his gourd down and retrieving a metal flask, taking a swig from it before putting it in his pocket. "I need to get to Alara and start wrecking his operation. I am not letting the only source of etherium in the Multiverse get destroyed. That metal is damn useful."

"Etherium?" Twilight asked incredulously as she stood. "What about the people that live on Alara?!"

"Twilight, those shards have been isolated from each other for centuries, and have developed vastly different cultures. Once the shards recombine into a single plane, those cultures are gonna go straight for each others throats. It's gonna be a planewide bloodbath, something that I would have no hope of preventing even at the height of my power," Rodin explained. "So instead I'm going to focus on preserving my resources." Going over to a cabinet sealed by magic, Rodin opened it and pulled out an angular octahedron that had arcane runes covering all of its faces. "Gonna need this," he muttered as he sealed it in a rune tattoo on his chest.

"Even if it will be a bloodbath, we have to at least try!" Twilight argued, glaring at Rodin as he turned to her.

"How about this?" Rodin offered as he started his planeswalk. "You do your thing, and I'll do mine." With that, Rodin vanished into the Blind Eternities.

Twilight growled and took time to fix her sarashi before putting her cloak back on and activating its veil. "Can't believe this. I make friends with a planeswalker and find out he's selfish enough to ignore the danger to innocents." Pulling her hood on, Twilight too vanished from Tarkir to return to Alara.

"Rody!" Pinkie's call echoed through the Dirgir Stronghold as she flitted about, looking in the most random of places for her old friend. "Rody? Rody?! Rody! Where are you?!"

"I don't think he's here, Pinkie," Ditzy muttered from behind her hyperactive companion, wearing a veil that disguised her as a human while she followed the pink pony, who apparently was known among the Jeskai for her association with Rodin Vulkis. Ditzy didn't have a personal familiarity with the planeswalker that apparently called Tarkir home, but Pinkie had said a lot about him. Like him being a blacksmith, thousands of years old, and a former, as Pinkie put it, 'meanie mean pants'.

"Aw man! I was sure he'd be able to point us the right way," Pinkie complained, pulling a map from her mane and looking over it. "We've been to Segovia, Diridin, Zendikar, Regatha, Theros, Kaladesh?! But Eldritch Moon isn't out yet!" Ignoring the strange look that Ditzy was giving her, Pinkie stowed the map back in her mane and turned to Ditzy. "Alrighty then, Ditzy! Time to split up! You check Innistrad, and I'll check Ravnica."

"I got strapped to a dissection table the last time I visited Innistrad," Ditzy pointed out, not eager to relive the memories. "I'd rather avoid that place."

"You're better at looking human, and I've got friends in the Rakdos and Gruul," Pinkie pointed out. "Just trust your Auntie Pinkie."

Ditzy was about to point out that they weren't related, but the pink pony had already vanished. Sighing, Ditzy found a secluded spot and dropped her veil, concentrating as she vanished from Tarkir.

Pinkie hopped through the back alleys of Ravnica, her destination in sight as she emerged from the alleys at last. Grinning, she hopped through the entrance of the district's Rakdos pleasure club, taking in the music and dance, plus the performers. Feeling something drip onto her muzzle, Pinkie crossed her eyes and saw a drop of blood. Looking up, she saw a man holding a pig's head aloft on a chain above the floor. Grinning, she raced up to the other end where the chain's start ladder was. "Me next! Me next! The blood landed on me!"

Never one to question somebody seeking a good time, the woman standing by the ladder grinned and handed over a fresh pig head to Pinkie, who took it in her mouth and climbed up to the chain. Rising onto her hind legs, she began walking across the chain, the pig's head wobbling about and dripping blood at random as Pinkie surveyed the room from her bird's eye view.

As she reached the middle of the chain, she spied a familiar head of white hair on a pale man rocking a leather coat and sword on his belt, a glass of wine in his hand. Sensing a lead, Pinkie fell from the chain into the crowd, only to mysteriously vanish from sight. "Tada!!!" she cheered from where she appeared at the bar, reared up with her forelegs spread wide. Soaking in the cheers and applause for her performance, Pinkie hopped down and closed the distance between herself and the yellow on black eyed vampire. "Sorin! You old count you!" She wrapped her forelegs around the self-proclaimed Lord of Innistrad in a tight hug.

"Hello, Pinkie." Sorin Markov could never be said to be one for genuine physical affection even with his extremely small circle of friends, hence getting out of Pinkie Pie's grip with a quick transformation to and from mist, not even spilling a drop of his drink. "So after all this time, we cross paths again. What's the occasion?"

"I'm looking for my friend Twilight Sparkle!" Pinkie answered. "She's like us and me and Ditzy have been looking for her for a whole year, and we're getting so worried! I saw you here and thought you might know something!"

Sorin sipped his drink throughout the explanation. "As it so happens, I heard an interesting story from a Simic Biomancer that I fed from when I first arrived. He told me that a krasis escaped six months ago. It butchered scores of people on a rampage toward the Izzet league's guild hall. It attacked Niv Mizzet's right hand man, then vanished, never to be seen again. He also told me that it was sapient. A purple, equine dragon creature that could adapt and evolve at a moment's notice."

Pinkie gasped. "That sounds like Twilight! I've gotta find her even faster now! And now I know who to talk to!" She tightly hugged Sorin and smiled. "Thanks, Sorin! Now I just need to track down Ral Zarek!"