Chapters Prelude:
Blood moon
One hundred years ago…………….
A nervous unicorn approached a pool, deep in the Everfree forest. The pool was still, and it sat at the center of a semicircular clearing. Clouds always shrouded the clearing, and a rock face ran the length of the clearing, touching one of the pool’s edges. Painted on the rock face with molten gold were etchings, an artist’s relief of a golden spear, a weapon both great and terrible, in sharp detail cast by the flickering shadows of the candles surrounding the pool.
By the pool sat a large white alicorn, princess Celestia herself. She sat resplendent, in a strange set of polished gold armour. Etched into it’s surface were runes of power, bolstered by gems, with gold filigree and hammered silver inlay composing the breastplate, which was shaped like Celestia’s cutie mark. Inlaid into the center of this sun was a pale gray gem that seemed garishly inappropriate for the armour. On her head rested a multicoulored crown with three pointed, swirling spikes set into a jeweled base of gold.
As a final touch, a long satin cloak was draped over the princess to complete her ensemble. She sat, staring blankly into her own reflection.
“Are you ready, your majesty?”
Asked the unicorn, wearing the armour of the royal guard. His polished gold armour had been enchanted to change the coat color of the wearer to match that of the princess, and the gold hung low to obscure his cutie mark. The only part of his ensemble that deviated from the regular armour was the fact that his helmet was gone, in it’s place rested a simple gold hoop with a single cloudy, pale blue gem inset into it.
Celestia looked up at the relief of the spear and turned to the unicorn.
“ I am ready.”
The princess got up and her horn lit up. The flickering light of the candles lit only the pool, the sun having set hours ago. She began to ignite the small, clawed cauldrons that sat atop carved marble plinths obscured by the darkness, eight in all. The light cast from these beacons would make the following spell possible.
Lighting beacons as she walked down a carved marble path, the princess approached an altar, carved from the living rock of this mountain. The altar was square, three times Celestia’s length wide, and was encircled by a floor of smooth stones. Inlaid into this floor were golden lines, which were currently being enchanted as the base of a huge rune with the table at its center, by several unicorn guards. Pegasi carried enchanted torches as they prepared to fly in a pattern to help the rune reach full strength.
A deep boom filled the clearing, indicating that the spell was about to begin.
Three guards dragged three unconscious ponies up to the altar at the center. One was a unicorn, one was a pegasus, and the third was an earth pony. All three were secured to the table with thick ropes, as Celestia approached.
She stood at the focal point of the rune on the edge nearest the pool.
All the guardsponies took a step back.
Celestia took a single drop of her own blood and dropped it on the gold filigree before her. The blood soaked into the gold, before racing across the ancient lines. Soon the entire rune was glowing with a reddish sheen.
The princess bent down and, summoning all her magical energies, activated the rune with the power of the hidden sun.
The white fire raced along the rune, the blood and the gold mixing. The fire rose up from the lines and the whole thing began to spin, like a demented tornado.
The pillar raised upwards in a red column before tapering off, and lancing the column of fire- now a red laserbeam- straight into the moon overhead. The moon almost seemed to scream for a moment before it turned blood red.
This was actually the pressure release and stopped the spell from imploding and destroying Equestria.
The business end of the spell was a crackling red ball of flame, which engulfed the three ponies contained within. They had been forcibly wakened and their screams pierced the night like an arrow. As their shadows began to move and merge, Celestia dropped the neutral expression. Her face had gone from the saintly expression that everyone knew and loved, to a wicked jack-o-lantern smile that made one’s skin crawl and was befitting of a psychopath.
Then the shadows merged completely and the ball of fire transformed into a second pillar, which then jettisoned its fire into the sky.
As the smoke cleared from the spectacle, Celestia stepped forward. The gilded rune was steaming a bit, but as it resumed its dull glow three airborne pegasi upturned their bowls upon the altar, tracing three lines of gold, which connected to the rune, as Celestia stepped forward.
Before her sat a quivering alicorn with the coat of the earth pony, a flowing mane and tail, the wings of the Pegasus and the unicorn’s horn. Her eyes were unfocused, and she was unbound.
“What….why…. what have you done to us?” sobbed the alicorn in a voice that sounded like three at once.
“Why…..WHHYYY?”
Celestia only sighed. She’d heard this before. The begging, the pleading, yadda yadda yadda.
She nodded, and the guards came forward and lashed the newly-created alicorn to the table, spread-eagled on her back, before retreating to beyond the rune border again.
Celestia sent a single spark into the rune. It had all of the potential energy that one could glean from a candle. The rune glowed brightly now, and Celestia began sending out these small sparks in a slow and steady rhythm. The rune glowed and pulsed like a heart.
Celestia spread her armored wings and called upon her ancient, sacred weapon; the sun spear.
The pool near the rock face rippled suddenly. It rippled again and again, and as it rippled a faint glow could be seen from below the surface. The glow intensified, and then a point of golden light broke the pool’s surface.
The sun spear rose up from the waters, casting a glow as bright as day. But this glow was not one of comfort and warmth, as was the day. No, this spear cast an aura of evil, hate, malice and cruelty. A wickedly sharp tip, with a handle studded with gems, the sun spear cast a sinister pallor, which only intensified as Celestia telekinetically levitated it towards the center of the pulsing rune.
Small bolts of yellow lightning crackled upwards from the rune to the spear, as it passed over the golden lines. Finally it was next to its mistress who looked upon this twisted artifact as one would a newborn child.
Then Celestia stood on her hind legs. She reached out with a hoof and took the spear, in a special slot designed for a hoof. She spun it so that the tip pointed downward.
Celestia couldn’t contain herself. She really could not. Her face split into a wide, wicked grin, and her eyes held no warmth or mercy. She raised the sun spear above her head.
The pony on the table’s eyes grew wide. In her horrible mishmash of a voice she screamed, “MERCY! MERCY! NOOOOOOOO-“
“You shall be SILENT!” thundered Celestia, as she brought the spear down.
The air crackled with electricity. The rune was slowly losing its reddish pallor, retuning to normal unenchanted gold near the edges. The color was draining inward, and as it reached the table it collected in the impaled alicorn. She began to glow, and the table’s runes came to life in this last, critical component of an unholy spell from the darkest tome in existence.
The alicorn felt like she was slowly weakening. That was because, all her magical energy was being drained into Celestia, and the runes were leaching off a large portion, too. The sun spear and runes linked, and then, there was a flash of light.
The pulse of light was the final product of this spell. It linked Celestia and the alicorn to the very wellspring of magic itself for but an instant- but even so small a space in time was more than enough.
Using all the magic that floated around Celestia now, she harnessed but a fraction of it to create a gateway that would stay open for exactly sixty seconds. Celestia began to absorb ad much magic as she possibly could.
That volume of magic would have toasted celestial into a pile of ash- except that it was being routed through the impaled pony instead. The pony screamed and howled as an insane volume of magic stampeded its way through her fragile little body, up the sun spear, and was absorbed by Celestia.
Sixty seconds. For the newborn alicorn, it was pure torture. Every second lasted an eternity, and all the while the heat and pain increased two-hundred-fold. It was a relief when Celestia removed the spear and allowed the magic to incinerate her victim.
With the ceremony over, Celestia telekinetically levitated the sun spear back to the pool. Its job complete, the spear’s aura now cast a pallor of......remorse? Yes, as strange as it sounds, the sun spear now seemed like it was regretting. The spear slunk back below the magically enchanted depths, not to see the light of day for another hundred years.
The light faded from the rune, which returned to its original state as just decorative gold lines. Celestia removed her armour and levitated it, too to the pool. It too sunk below the surface, to wait in a flooded cavern until Celestia needed it again. The guards packed up everything that was not nailed down and loaded it onto the royal chariots. As Celestia boarded hers, she swapped out her armour crown for the one she normally wore, and placed that in the cavern with the utmost care.
Unbeknownst to her, a single gem from the crown had come off and fallen at the bottom of the chariot.
With a nod from the princess, the beacons were extinguished and the convoy of chariots took off.
Celestia felt energized. She had not felt this good in one hundred years. The sheer power that flowed through her was indescribable. She would hoard this power, as the spell could only be cast once every hundred years. As she had hoarded the power from the past eight times she had done this. And the tenth time? The tenth time would be the last time she need ever do this. For on her tenth sacrifice, she would not need to create her own alicorn. Luna would do very nicely.
Chapter one:
Double-0 muffin
Canterlot castle. Chariot parking. One week prior to the grand galloping gala.
The janitor hummed merrily to himself as he magically swung his mop to and fro. His job was to ensure the royal parking garage was in tip-top shape, and he also cleaned and maintained the chariots. After Luna ‘s return a year ago, Luna' s scary chariot at parked next to the golden, filigreed vessel that was Celestia’s. The janitor treated them like his babies, cleaning and maintaining these ancient artifacts with the utmost care.
Today he had to simply re-grease the primary wheel axle on celestia’s chariot, and then swab out the interior. He set to it with a passion.
The greasing took no time at all, meaning he was free to swab the interior. As the janitor used his dust-lifting spell, he noticed a small gleam in one corner.
Crouching down to get a look, the janitor lifted out a diamond-shaped gem. The gem was ruby red, but cloudy like milk. It sparkled beautifully in the light.
The janitor’s telekinesis was sending the smallest amount of magic into the stone. The polished gem then seemed to come to life with a red glow of it’s own, and suddenly, the janitor felt a lot more…. Powerful. The magic, the arcane magic that flowed through him now was… indescribable.
He suddenly felt very thirsty.
His work had been completed, and it was almost six. That meant that Canterlot’s finest coffee shop, pony Joe’s, stopped serving coffee and the shop became a pub for the evening.
Joe was not very fond of the janitor, due to the fact that he rarely, if ever, followed through on a promise of payment following a binge. But this gem was just the thing to smooth over those wrinkles.
The janitor grabbed his lunchbox and charged out of the castle.
Pony Joe’s coffee shop pub; two hours later.
Pony Joe was treating himself to a cup of coffee as he kept an eye on the regular crowd. The ponies that arrived at his place at this hour had been working hard all day and wanted a chance to unwind and have some fun. But if they ever got too rowdy, Joe had a ‘one-strike’ policy. First he would ask nicely for them to quiet down, and if that didn’t work, the Pegasus pony with biceps the size of footballs that Joe employed as a bouncer would step in.
Joe looked up as the small bell on the door tinkled.
“Hey, welcome to pony Joe’s pub, what can I getcha- HEY!” hollered Joe. “YOU! You deadbeat- get outta my b-”
“Relax, Joe, I’m good for it. I’ve got your payment and a little something extra.” The janitor said.
He strode up to the counter and hopped up on a barstool, taking out the gem from his pocket.
“Here’s your payment. Now gimme a brew and keep em’ coming.”
Fifteen minutes of heavy drinking later…
“An- HIC! - And sh-sheleshtia bleshh ya, Joe! HIC!” the janitor slurred in a drunken stupor. “shee ya later Joe…HIC!” And he stumbled out the door. Joe sighed to himself. The gem had been well worth six barrels of apple cider, even if he just wanted to pawn it. Over the next few hours, Joe pumped small sparks of magic into the gem, only to be rewarded with a bigger pool of magic to draw from. That old soak had revealed the secret of the gem- thankfully, while heavily inebriated. Nobody else in the bar understood him, but Joe had become rather proficient in drunkese. In return, Joe had promised him free drinks on the house whenever he came round.
But Joe was not a greedy pony- he had no want of too much power. He had his shop, he had his family, and that was all he needed.
Then Joe got an idea.
******************
Pony Joe’s coffee shop- one week later.
Twilight sparkle was enjoying her evening at last, after the fiasco that had been the grand galloping gala. Her dress was ruined, her hair was a mess- but it didn’t matter. She was in her favorite café, with her mentor and best friends. They chatted and laughed into the wee hours of the morning.
After many hours, the princess said she had to leave on royal business to clean up the mess of the grand galloping gala. She left, and the friends decided that they had to go to.
As they were walking out, Joe called to twilight. “Hey, twilight! C’mere a second.”
Twilight spun around and looked at Joe curiously.
“what’s up Joe?” she asked.
In response Joe levitated the gem over the counter and into twilight’s pocket.
“and that,” he said, “is for being my best customer all those years ago. Have fun with it, kid!” twilight smiled and thanked Joe before leaving the shop.
*****************
NLR secret headquarters; three hours later……
For secret agent Black Clops it was just another slow day at the office. When he’d signed up to fight celestial tyranny, he’d expected something a lot more glamorous. But paperwork was an important, if boring, part of being a spy. His current job was to review all the Intel for the past 100 years, a job he was not looking forward to in the least. But with a grim resignation, he set to it, sorting and filing and reading and rereading. Black needed to find any intel that was still valid in the pile of ancient, yellowing reports. It was a long and arduous task, one that took many hours.
Then Black found something.
It was the report at the very bottom of the stack, no more than half a page, penned in hasty scribbles. Of course. what was on the report was enough to make black’s blood run cold.
black panicked as he read the report. The case file detailed an incident called the ‘blood moon’. Every hundred years a bright flash of light is seen around the Everfree forest, and then the moon goes as red as blood. at the time of this report, one hundred years ago, a spy for the NLR had been planted in the squadron of guards brought to help execute the spell. The report detailed the gruesome and highly illegal nature of the spell, down to the last detail. Three ponies transformed into one alicorn, and then subsequently sacrificed?
And then black saw the bottom.
Next potential victim: princess nightmare moon
Skimping over the fact that the report was rather outdated, and signed off with the “for the eternal night” manifesto of the days of old, the fact of the matter was that Luna’s life was in danger, and that meant that the NLR would have to put their best pony on the case.
Black snatched the report and flapped his coal-coloured wings all the way to the NLR’s main control center: the situation room. He passed by a multitude of his coworkers on his way there, knocking over the office water cooler on the way. As he approached the situation room, he felt a lump forming in his throat. The situation room had formidable defenses, and could probably withstand the destruction of equestrian itself. A squadron of armed guards didn’t hurt either.
He rushed into the room, and every pony in the room stared at him.
The room’s walls were lined with banks of great magical machines that calculated and monitored and computed. The main table was of craved ebony, with a massive sculpture of Luna’s and nightmare moon’s faces, back to back.
“ we have a problem!” shouted black. He trembled as he placed the paper on the table, and then gasped as THE BOSS picked it up. The boss was Luna’s second-in command, and as he read the report, his eyes narrowed.
“ we’re going to need to put our best pony on this one.” He said.
“call in- agent double-O muffin.”
Chapter 2
Black Clops charged down the hallway to one of the old escape tunnels. The one he wanted headed straight for the telegraph office. In the office, a dun earth pony sat on a chair and tapped out secret messages in ‘morse code’- a code that had been developed to be unusable by anyone except earth ponies. Due to the fact that earth ponies shared a special connection to the land, it also made their hooves sensitive to the slightest vibration. It would take unicorns or Pegasi YEARS of training to learn how to receive those messages.
Training the NLR kept very much a secret, thank you.
Another thing that was helpful was the solar armada would NEVER employ earth ponies. This ranked as another of celestia’s crimes against ponydom- bigotry. As an added line of defence the messages themselves were encrypted, using a special substitution code generated fresh each time. This was cutting-edge stuff, this was.
The dun pony had one hoof on a special bar with which he was sending, and another on a plate hooked up to some wires that sent the messages. He was quietly muttering to himself as the messages came in.
“oi, SS! Got a message for ya!” Black hollered.
SS- (or Supper Surprise) remained stone-faced and ignored Black.
Black facehoofed.
“OI! SS! I. HAVE. AN. INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT MESS-“
“I know.” SS replied.
“I had to finish that message. Looks like the Neigh Team has finished their mission and is ready to roll again.”
Black looked relieved. “thank luna. I need you to wire this to….to….” black gulped. “to 00-muffin….” He whispered.
Everyone in the surrounding area froze and looked at black.
SS read the message with awe. He hit a button marked “pause” to reroute all other incoming transmisions to the other telegraph stations while he gave this message full priority.
“ dear luna….. lemme guess. We’re screwed.” Said SS as he wired the message, tapping it out on the little bar. “Do you know her HISTORY, lad?”
black nodded. “who doesn’t? she’s the tops in our agency. I’ve read her mission reports cover to cover and never ceased to be impressed.”
SS finished tapping out the message. “done.” He said, before resuming his tapping and muttering.
Black left the room. He had another message to wire to their number two agents- the neigh team.
Ponyville dojo- ten minutes later…..
“hey, mister training dummy- I BROUGHT YOU A LETTER!”
the pony leaped and snagged the training dummy with a hoof before spinning it straight into a brick wall. The wood-and-steel dummy shattered like glass.
Grunting, the pony spun round, pivoted, and ripped through another dummy behind her like it was made of wet paper.
Thus the pony proceeded to decimate FIFTEEN more dummies in the same brutally strong fashion, before turning and bowing to her sensei and the only spectator in the room.
The spectator clopped her hooves together in delight.
“WOW! Mommy, that was AMAZING!” squealed none other than dinky doo, the little unicorn pony running over to lean against her mother.
Her mother, agent 00-muffin, was none other than Derpy Hooves.
Derpy smiled and gently hugged her little filly. Brutally destroying training dummies was certainly cathartic, but her family was what made her truly happy.
Derpy bowed to her sensei and then trotted into the changeroom to get out of her karate gi and black belt.
Derpy and Dinky lived in a small apartment directly above the town smithy with her husband, Flare. Flare was a bright red unicorn pony with an orange-yellow mane and tail. His cutie mark was an I-beam surrounded by a fireball. He wore a thin gold hoop in one ear, which was his wedding band. His forelegs usually had gauze bandages wrapped in places from several accidents around the smithy due to his slightly crossed eyes.
When derpy came home, flare was still working. The smithy was open to the air and the street. The home resembled a two-storey house with a massive garage. Flare leaned against his anvil, delicately forging a small trinket with a massive hammer. Bizzarely, lady rarity was there too, watching flare work with a look in her eye that bordered on amourous. Flare was too wrapped up in his work to notice, but derpy was noticing alright- and she did not like it one bit.
Rarity opened her moth as if to start flattering Flare, only to freeze as she felt a strip of cold steel pressed against her neck.
Rarity slowly turned to meet the hardest stare she had seen in her life. Derpy was glaring daggers and though she said nothing, her cross-eyed gaze seemed to say, “just give me a reason.”
Rarity gulped.
Derpy slowly lowered the katana from rarity’s neck, only to snag her mane and press the sword against that instead.
“spoken for.” She hissed, before lowering the sword and entering the house.
Derpy hung her katana on its peg in the mudroom. Next to it hung her earpiece, cool glasses, and brown badass Stetson. With her derp eyes it was essential that she wear sunglasses. There were very few ponies with her condition, and coupled with eye colour it could jeopardize her life if the solars found out.
Outside of the pegs in the mudroom, the home was actually fairly normal. Dinky sat at the kitchen table doing her homework. She was just learning how to use her magic, and according to Twilight she had a lot of it. All that magic made it more likely for her to destroy the cup she was practicing on than fail to lift it. While derpy mused, another piece of cheap crockery shot straight into the ceiling and smashed.
Dinky immediately started apologizing, only for derpy to nuzzle her gently, get another cup, and encourage her to keep going.
While dinky practiced, derpy went upstairs to her room. She dumped the mailbag on the floor. Derpy was an incredibly efficient mailpony, and was so good at her job that they let her work her own hours, as long as she met her quota of letters. She normally surpassed it. Derpy had another reason. She retrieved her telegraph receiver from her secret box in the closet. The receiver was a complicated tangle of wires and metal, but that was irrelevant. All that mattered to derpy was the piece of paper with row upon row of gibberish. She took her codebook from its secret spot in the room, and translated the gibberish into the text of a telegram. Telegraphese was a confusing language for anypony but, added security. The telegram read as follows:
To: Agent D
From: CLASSIFIED
Highly classified STOP
Classification level COLON burn after reading STOP
Do not read unless sector 7 or higher STOP
Agent D COMMA
Requesting assistance immediately STOP on high alert STOP
threat level code BLACK STOP
report to NLR headquarters ASAP STOP
further orders given there STOP
ignore all other duties STOP
the letter was brief and to the point as all transmissions were.
“DINKY!” hollered derpy.
“yes mum?” called dinky from the kitchen as another cup hit the ceiling.
“tell your father I’ve got a case of ‘pegapox’ and I’ll be bedridden until further notice!” shouted derpy.
Derpy flapped up to a shelf in her room and grabbed a pencil and some paper.
She wrote:
Flare,
I have an AWFUL case of pegapox and will be bedridden for at least a week. Please take dinky to school and feed her decent meals. If I catch you two eating junk all week ther’ll be hell to pay. And kindly tell my boss I will be sick until further notice. I do have a doctor’s note excusing me; it’ll be on the counter. EAT MY MUFFINS AND I WILL KILL YOU.
Love,
Derpy
P.S. don’t worry about dinky’s ‘practice’- just get her another cup and tell her to keep going, I’ll scrub the ceiling when I’m better.
Derpy rolled up the note and placed it on the counter along with a forged doctor’s note.
“dinky!” she called, “I need your help!”
“coming mom!” dinky ran up the stairs to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, derpy was pouring coloured dyes into the family bathtub. She gave it a good stir with a spatula from the kitchen until it made just the shade of teal she wanted. Meantime dinky had retrieved her paints and a book full of cutie marks that a pony might have.
Derpy jumped in the tub, and closing her eyes, submerged herself in the coloured dyes.
When she stepped out of the tub, she was a bright shade of teal. The dyes had covered her cutie mark, her flank appearing completely blank. Her mane and tail were the same colour as her coat- a rarity in pony society. Derpy pulled the plug on the dyes, allowing the tub to drain. As she rinsed it down, dinky had found a cutie mark that tickled her fancy- a black belt.
Dinky showed it to her mother. With derpy’s approval, flare was summoned, and her husband began the delicate task of painting an identical cutie mark on each flank.
After flare had finished and returned to his work, derpy had dyed her mane and tail blue, and was currently getting mission-ready.
She put on the sunglasses, screwed in the earpiece, hung the katana off her chest harness, and was ready.
Derpy took off into the setting sun without detection.
