Author's Note

Hey! So this chapter just got updated!
Yeah!

Chapter 0: The Ancient Prison

A figure was bound, suspended twenty feet above the cool, crystalline floor below. He hung from chains inscribed with runes, shackled to his wrists. A dull, green glow emanated from the runes. The massive chamber lay deep below Canterlot, unknown completely to the city above. The spirit of chaos himself remembered not the day the prisoner lost his fight.

The figure was an old man, who had sat in a purgatory of silence for far longer than he could care to remember. Only silence and the runic glow met his eyes and ears for what seemed to be millennia. The ancient man knew why he lay in purgatory. He was a warrior among the peaceful, and so his crimes were that of war. He had terrified the populace with his rage, so much so that they betrayed him, dubbing him "Wrath" and sealing him away.

Over time, his fury faded. He had trusted them, he had bled for them, he bet his life to save them from a fate worse than death. His methods were brutal, yes, but they were necessary. Still, he was deemed a monster and struck down. The ancient warrior did not understand or stand a chance against the weapon they used against him. He did know that it found its power from six artifacts, stone, crafted from the a tree of life. But how had the powers of harmony been utilized as a weapon? How had harmony struck him down?

The Alicorns had always hated him, though he knew not why. It was they who had brought him to this realm, torn him from his home in their time of darkness to save them. And when he did, they punished him. Only violence could match violence, he did what deeded to be done. He remembers still, their parting words, the faces that spoke them. The disgusted look on the Alicorn Queen's face and the holier than thou sneer on the King's were burned forever in his mind. Those faces were the last thing he saw, and the last thing he heard before he was confined was the King's final insulting remark-

"Think long and hard about what you have done, and what you are, Monster"

For so long, the warrior hung chained with near-complete sensory deprivation. When an azure light penetrated the gloom he thought himself finally succumbing to madness. Only when the light lay almost directly below him did he realize he was not hallucinating.

Cadence<<<<<<<<<<

Maddening laughter echoed across violet crystal as a dazed form slowly lifted herself from the hard ground. She looked about herself and saw her pink fur matted with grime, and her purplish mane tangled and disheveled. With shaky hooves she stood, and examined her surroundings.

Crystal of a dark purple hue surrounded her, glowing dully. A twisted carapace of a face, complete with serpentine eyes flashed across the crystal walls around her, a booming, taunting laugh causing her ears to fold and her eyes to shut. She clutched her head with her hooves and fell to the ground, blacking out once again as the laughter echoed.

Purple eyes opened and the pony who wore them clutched her head in pain, slowly the lance of agony receded to a dull throb. She climbed again to her hooves, firmly, with conviction, and saw again the circular room as it was before. She scanned for any kind of escape and, finding none, tried to remember how she got here.

"I was with Shining, we were on the train over to Canterlot for.......for..... our wedding! That's right, these are part of the caverns below Canterlot! I was on the train and, oh..." She grit her teeth and stamped her left fore-hoof to the ground as the small chamber echoed her words back to her.

"THAT BITCH" she yelled. She remembered clear as day now, the disgusting changelings and their queen, how they raided the train, she remembered it all. That's why she was here, the queen was impersonating her. She gathered her rage (and magic) into her horn and aimed at the nearest wall. Shouting a battle-cry.

"HYAAAAAAAAA!"

A blueish laser emitted from her horn, and shattered the wall into fragments. After the dust settled, she saw a crystalline path beyond the ruined wall. After looking again at the featureless room she decided it was her only hope to follow the path, and find an exit. She began her trek, and quickly made a strange discovery. Somepony has been down in these caverns before, and they made stairs. The stairs seemed to be formed out of pure magic, which intrigued her to no end.

Pure magic architecture dates back before the time of Starswirl! she excitedly thought. He had written (and she had read) many books on the 'Lost Alicorn Empire' and pure magic architecture is what he found in some of the ruins of the civilization. Realization dawned on her

"There are alicorn ruins beneath Canterlot?!" She shouted, surprised. The cavern walls murmured back the phrase. She folder her ears in brief shame before thrusting a hoof up into the air.

"It is my solemn duty as a Princess of Equestria to explore any remaining artifacts of the Alicorn Empire!" Satisfied with her proclamation, and in spite of her situation, she couldn't help but feel giddy. She elected to follow the stairs, as they may lead to untold knowledge, and an exit.

Especially an exit, she is in a hurry after all.

The pulsing light from the pure magic stairs had long since lost its splendor, and had begun to hurt her eyes. The stairs just kept going and going, endlessly. She had stopped and slept twice while traversing them, and the effects of hunger and thirst were taking their toll.

These stairs are endless! How the buck do you even build this many stairs! and why, why so MANY?! She thought bitterly to herself. She must have gone down more stairs in these caverns than she had seen in all her life. A stupor born of desperation began to overtake her mind.

"Why did this have to happen.... it was going to be perfect," she half-sobbed to herself, as she continued plodding down the gently humming steps, and then off of them, onto a strangely cobbled crystal floor.

"How did I get beaten so easily? What will that bug do to Equestria? What will she do to my wedding?! What will she do to my Shining?!?!" Cadance was so caught up in her panic that she failed to notice the stairs had in fact, ended. Replaced by massive crumbled stone columns on either side of a crystal corridor. After some time, and a little more half-sobbing, she looked around once again, and finally noticed her surroundings had changed.

The dim glow of the pure magic was long faded into the background. As she continued the corridor grew darker and darker, and the crystal changed from violet to a deep red. She looked back to see the ruined pillars, with strange runes etched into the stone. She didn't know what they were, but she supposed it was the language of the alicorns. The longer she stared, the stranger the runes seemed to become. Suppressing a shiver she turned her gaze to the columns on either side of her. They were twice as tall as she was (including the horn) and they lied on the ground long since toppled over, having likely been knocked down centuries ago. She finally looked ahead, towards the eerie darkness. After a moment's hesitation she made her decision, and began her descent into a red-lined void. Her need to find a way out overpowering her fear.

She anxiously looked about and gently trotted down the hallway, lighting her horn as she went. Her hoof-falls the only thing to be heard as she explored. The floor slowly changed from level to a steep decline. Darkness seemed to surround her, the glow of her horn failing to reach the ever more distant ceiling. Looking back behind her, she wondered.

How did this place come to be? Little Twiley and I studied the ruins of the old Empire as written by Starswirl more than anypony, so why is there no record of this place at all in the canterlot archives? Could alicorn ruins beneath Canterlot of all places really go undiscovered?

As she pondered the mysterious passage, the floor began to level out, and she soon noticed a strange grey form, barely illuminated by a dim green light that somehow pierced the darkness. She drew closer, and she saw it was suspended by a set of glowing chains, which appeared to be covered with green (presumably alicorn) runes. Once she reached nearly right beneath it she realized, it was a living creature! It appeared to be bipedal and hanging from its two arms. It had some kind of cloth wrapped around its midsection, and seemed to be covered in sparse hair that failed completely to hide the skin beneath, exposing its flesh, this was true everywhere except for its head, where she saw a large white beard spanning both sides of it's face connecting to long white hair upon its head, it had a face scarred and fierce, and wholly unlike anything she had seen before. And its expression was......confused? She flew up, testing her wings for the first time since she was trapped, and moved closer, looking directly into its grey eyes...

Her eyes slammed open in shock, fear gripped her body and she tensed from her tail to her muzzle (with exception to the wings) as it dawned on her for the first time.

That it was staring back