Dreams in Discord

Chapters

Chapter 2 - Rooting of Distrust
Chapter 3 - Fallen Leaves of the Past
Chapter 4 - Sprouting of War
Chapter 5 - Strangling Vines of Madness
Chapter 6 - Part 1 - Branches of the Mind
Chapter 6 - Part 2 - Branches of the Mind
Chapter 6 - Part 3 - Branches of the Mind
Chapter 7 - Part 1 - Blooming of a New Kingdom
Chapter 7 - Part 2 - Blooming of a New Kingdom
Chapter 1 - Seed of Doubt
Chapter 7 - Part 3 - Blooming of a New Kingdom

Chapter 2 - Rooting of Distrust

“Twilight! Twilight wake up!”

Spike was standing on Twilight’s bed, shaking her by the shoulders in a futile attempt to wake her up. Then suddenly, in a single move, she raises her body and sits on her bed, throwing Spike far enough to make him hit the wall with a fair amount of strength that he didn't even know she had.

Slowly and groggily Spike gets up from the ground, and rubbing the back of his head, trying to get his vision to focus once again. He didn’t know such a small unicorn had such strength. “Ouch, what the heck was that? Anyway Twilight is about time you got up, it’s almost midday and you’ve got to open the library! I’ve been trying to wake you up for at least 15 minutes and..” His voice trailed off. As he recovered the focus of what was in front of him, he could see the face she was making and remembered it well. Her pupils just two small dots in her large orbits, and, of course, that sociopathic grin, like a Cheshire cat.

He spoke again, this time as calm as possible, like a father explaining something to a very young child. “Twilight, you already sent a friendship report this week remember? No need to freak out on this, let us all calm down and be rational right?”

“What are you talking about? I’m not worried about that! No no no no, not the slightest!” She spoke fast and enthusiastically “I just remembered that I’ve got some research to do! Very important research you see! Veeery important! Got to finish it soon. No time to waste, let’s work!”

“ Well, if that’s the case, let’s have breakfast and get it done then!”

“No! Gotta do it by myself!”

“Then at least come eat something before...” She cut him and spoke as fast as she could, making it all sound like a single word, darting down the stairs right after finishing her phrase, leaving a very confused dragon behind. “Notimeforthatgottagotothebasementdon’tdisturbme”.

After that all he could hear was the sound of the large doors that led to the basement (and eventual laboratory) slamming shut. And for about five minutes all he could do was stand, dumbstruck, mouth partially open, processing what had just happened.

“This is gonna be bad”

“I think I’m getting too old for this”, Said Celestia to her sister. “What in the world are you talking about? We are immortal for Solaris’s sake! After all it was you that created these servants of yours so you could have something to play with”. “Here we go again” Thinks Celestia. “You know that is not the truth” She says in her regular calm tone “I had to leave a legacy behind, they are not toys, they are living creatures. The ponies and all the other creatures I’ve created have grown to a point where they can handle themselves. We are merely watchers. And after all these years I have finally found successors for the elements, and I can rest assured that they are all in good hands.”

“Are they alicorns by any chance?” Luna added with a slight sign of sarcasm in her voice. “Face it my sister, anyone that you choose will eventually pass away, and then you shall have to start your search all over again. After all in a land of magic such as ours there are always threats and grand beasts that require a great deal of power in order to be vanquished. You will have to be their eternal guide, until this race is extinct.”

“The way you speak of me makes it sound like there is no other alicorn in this realm to help me govern. Now that you are back to reason you should reassume your part of the royal duties and take control of the moon again” Luna frowned at that statement “Well, we still want to retake our role as the commander of the moon but a thousand years of fear are not so easily forgotten. They do not trust us yet. And also, Nightmare Moon still lives inside me. We cannot rule this land again” she finished with a saddened tone.

“My dear sister, time heals all wounds. And also if you show them that you care for them you can earn their trust as I did. But for someone who does not want to relate to the other ponies you have adapted to their vocabulary quite fast” Luna’s cheeks turned bright red. Celestia tried to keep a straight face but just couldn’t hold it back. As she started laughing Luna soon forgot her embarrassment and both of them just laughed together. This was a side of the Princess few had ever seen, just enjoying happy moments with a loved one.

As the laughter stopped, they returned to the former subject, and Luna stated. “It seems you have a lot of faith in the ones you bestowed the elements upon. I hope it is not misplaced”.

“I truly am happy that you are concerned about me but as you may remember, the Elements of Harmony were gifts from our father, not my creation, and I don’t choose the ones who possess them, the elements themselves are the ones who choose, and just by having them choose someone else makes me believe it is time for me to retire.”

“Yes, I know that, and for what happened in the Nightmare Night I met them personally. They seem to have a good character, but I have yet to properly judge them. I believe the purple unicorn Twilight is your student right? She seems to be the only one of them that doesn’t behave in a really childish way.”

“Now Luna let us not be too harsh on them, although they have done incredible things they really are just children, but they have great potential. And yes, she is my student and I have great faith in her. After all, she managed to hatch a dragon egg when she was just a filly” she smiled, recalling the events of that day, but then changed to a more serious expression “even though she almost killed her parents in the process.”

“Well, believe whoever you wish, I will support you, but be aware that even the most wise of ponies can become corrupt with the right influence, and as a kingdom grows, so grows its chain of command, but a chain is as weak as its weakest link, and rust may cut us trough, if we are not careful.”

Celestia put a hoof in her chin in a thoughtful expression “Yes, you might be right at some points, but there will be a time for us to leave, and when that time arrives, we won’t have time to ponder on philosophical questions. But let us not dwell on future matters. The royal duties call. It is almost time to raise the sun, and I think some farmers will be pissed off if I don’t attend to it in a few minutes” she joked, and with a playful smile the two royal sisters were off, not having the slightest clue of the nearing of a moment that seemed so distant, and by whose hooves it might come.

Toe to toe, Spike slowly entered the basement on the tree house. No sound could be heard inside, and he pondered if he would find anyone in there. The, as he looked around he saw the one he was looking for. Standing up, staring at one of the corners of the large room. He waited a few minutes, but she didn’t move at all.

“Twilight, I’ve brought you some apples, since you skipped breakfast and is been a few hours already.” No reaction. He stared for a few seconds waiting for an answer but received none. “TWILIGHT!” Still nothing. “Oh my god I knew this would happen someday! She studied to death!” He sprinted towards her, and as he got close he stopped, afraid of whatever that might have happened. But just as he poked her face with his finger, she jumped up, startled and with her horn glowing.

“Twilight! You’re alive!” He said as he hugged one of her legs. “Of course I’m alive. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s not like I’ve been doing anything strange. Or dangerous. That involved risking someone’s life.” He looked at her with a look that was of suspicion and worry at the same time. She was still talking and acting that weird way. And also tought that he just might be spending a bit too much time withk Pinkie Pie to overreact like that.

“Twilight what in the world were you doing?”

“Research of course. What else would I be doing here in the basement alone? Not like I would be planning anything, no, nothing like that.” That earned her another suspecting look.

“You were staring. At the wall. For quite a while now, and it looked like you had fainted in that position. What was that all about?”

“Research!” She answered quickly. “Research on what? The wall?”

“Why yes! Of course! Do you deny the importance of this wall? Do you want to make this place fall apart? Without this wall there would be no house! Do you want me to live on the street Spike? Do you?” He answered stuttering “N…NO! Of course not! Why are you asking me that?”

“Well you were the one to doubt the wall! Right now confusion wasn’t quite the word to describe Spike. He was..perplex, about her state. Almost “perplex” enough to call an asylum. But he cared way too much about her to think of doing something like that. He just answered, trying to carefully choose his words.

“Okay. I have no idea of whatever just happened. But let’s just forget about the wall for a bit..” She cut him off, nearly screaming each word “What do you have against the wall?!” He just nearly slapped his own face, speaking now even slower and as clear as possible “look, I brought you some food. You have to eat, you already skipped breakfast and lunch, and you can’t stay like that” He spoke as a father caring for a sick child. After all they were raised together and he always took care of her.

She looked like she was about to deny it but her expression suddenly changed to a calmer one as she looked at the plate that was sitting a few feet behind Spike down on the ground. It had about five very large and red, almost shining apples, clearly fresh ones from Sweet Apple Acres.

Then, in a quick motion, so fast that Spike barely saw her, she teleported behind him, grabbed the plate, tossed the five apples in her mouth and barely without chewing just swallowed them all.

“Here. Done eating.” And as she put the plate in Spikes hands, she levitated him to the door, saying “Now just leave me at it, it’s time to work”. As she finished talking she laid him down outside the basement doors and slammed them shut. As the shock faded away, Spike laid the plate on the ground and tried to open the door, but without much success. It was locked. “But the basement door doesn’t even have a lock on it!” He thought loudly. He punched the door repeatedly screaming for her to come out, but after a few minutes he simply gave up.

“Well, gotta take care of the library anyway, but I’ll talk to her later. She definitively needs some help.”

From inside the basement, It could be seen that the doors were blocked from the inside by two enormous purple pillars that seemed to be made of stone, but glowed with a strange wavy light. “Putting that spell I taught you to good use eh? You sure are a quick learner” Said a voice in her head as she was on her way to her position by the wall.

“Be quiet now Sid, I only did that because you told me to, otherwise I would have teleported him away and we would have no distractions. And he alone is already going to be a distraction, if you start to idle chat with me while I’m researching you’re going to slow me down, I don’t intend to stop to eat many more times.”

“Now now my dear I only told you to do it because I don’t want to see you starving to death, that would be ridiculous, and I told you to eat them, not gobble them up like a bloody chicken, you don’t have a gizzard.”

She stared deep into the wall. That was her study room now, she wasn’t sure why but that corner felt like a good place to do it. As she closed her eyes, her body relaxed and the world around started swirling like a hurricane of colors and shapes, and once again she was in the library of her mind, with Sid leaning upon a far away shelf, with an open book levitating a few inches from his face, standing only in his rear legs. Twilight had found that really weird at first, but by then, she just didn’t care.”

Just taking a look around anyone could tell that there was something off in there. There were books dropped all over the place, and a few short trees had sprouted in random places, putting some shelves in strange angles with the ground.

“I like what you’ve done to the place.” Said Sid without even taking his eyes from the book. Although she was a really organized pony she just didn’t fell that the place was wrong at all. She knew she should but she just didn’t. “Look, I know you have been helping me around but could you please stop reading everything in here? Many of these stories are personal; after all, they are my memories.”

“Nah, don’t mind me here, I’ve already read all that is interesting around here, these ones are just to kill time.” She gave up. Sometimes he just wouldn’t listen to reason.

Reason

Funny word. Right now, when she was inside her own mind, Twilight felt pretty reasonable. She could talk normally and think straight, as if her whole conscience was focused in there and staying there, although she was completely focused on the goal she had there, which was overthrowing the current princess, forgetting completely about the exterior.

But out there it was like she was half awake. Or drunk. Or both at the same time. She could barely form full sentences, and felt like her body wasn’t fully under her control, like her conciousness was imprisoned in her own brain until her goal was fulfilled.

“What do you intend to do about the dragon out there?” asked Sid. “What about him? He’s just really gentle and a bit too caring at times. Also, he can’t come in here and find about anything, and more importantly, he can’t see you. Now just let me get back to studying. This book of your is quite fascinating.” She said as she grabbed the book from the ground and positioned it behind her head, just high enough so it wouldn’t be blocked by it. Then she concentrated a bit and a large, tall, standing mirror appeared (it was her mind after all) and placed it in front of her. Once she gave it a bit of thought the riddle Sid gave her was a really easy one.

“A world where all that is left is right, but emulates all that you do. A doorway to this realm, can be found inside your dressing room.”

A mirror of course. It should be quite obvious that the words were mirrored if they didn’t change writing stiles so much.

The book was very uneven, even when it came to disposition of information, but was very interesting indeed. It spoke about the history of Equestria, the princesses and many other creatures that lived. It spoke of power struggles and of wars (a word that was barely even heard in the peaceful land they lived). It also spoke of magic and spells, many of them forbidden, such as the one she used earlier, the materialization spell. It was able to create any kind of object that the user imagined, as long as it was not living matter, and force it into existence through magic, as long as it had energy to keep it up.

And the more she read, the more she doubted, and the more she doubted, the more elaborate were the schemes that formed in her mind, schemes to make her rise to power possible.

And the more she planned, the larger was the smile on Sid’s face.

Chapter 3 - Fallen Leaves of the Past

The Origin of the World

In the beginning, there was a vast land, but in it, nothing but darkness. It was unlike the darkness is today, it was substance, and it was alive. It strangled the very earth and the sky, and tainted them.

But one day, amidst The Darkness, emerged another existence. It had neither shape nor color; it was merely a faint conscience. It was weak and afraid of the darkness, so it took refuge in the core of the planet, where The Darkness’s tendrils did not reach. In there, he found a faint source of heat and life, some sort of seed, and that seed was the very core of existence. Without it, the barely existing world would merely fall apart.

Of course, that only existence did not know of that, so it fed upon that seed. Upon ingesting that strange source of energy, it did not destroy it, they became one. And as a single being, they completed each other, The Existence in need of energy to survive amidst The Darkness, and the seed needing a mind of its own for it to thrive. And it waited, hidden, while its power grew, not knowing for how long, since time was yet to be.

Its power growing far too great for it to hide, The Existence arose from the earth. Upon feeling the presence of such power, The Darkness attacked it with all its might. But the creature had no physical form for it to destroy, as it was a mere conscience. Then, The Darkness tried to surround it and destroy it within itself. But as The Existence was too strong, it rose into the air, and far away from the land, and with great power, it burst in the form of a great ball of light.

The light was so powerful it was solid. It formed a large ball in the sky, and as it grew in size and strength The Darkness became smaller and weaker, but it was still alive. It ran away from the light in despair. So it tried to seek refuge in the land it once covered, and saw a part of it that was not covered in light.

The battle was over for the time being, but there was still a problem. The Existence hadn’t managed to destroy The Darkness. Its newly created light was grand and powerful, but unable to cover the entire planet. Half of it was still controlled by The Darkness, and The Existence was also weakened by the fight and unable to create another source of light such as the former.

And that way time went on. The planet always half dark and half bright. While The Darkness only tried to find a way to destroy the light source, and always with no success, The Existence tried to understand the world it lived in and the extents of its powers. As its knowledge of the world grew, so grew its self awareness, and it gave itself a name. its name was now Solaris, and its creation was the Sun.

“Wait, so what are these tales all about?” Asked Twilight.

“Oh for…” He paused while staring at the ceiling with a contemplating look “…any real god that may be there’s sake, have you been paying attention to me at all? This is the story of Equestria don’t you see? This isn’t a fairy tale, its reality.”

“So what you’re telling me is that there is a greater force there and that Celestia didn’t create the sun herself?” Sid sighed and proclaimed “That’s the whole point of my writings! Just finish the damn story and see for yourself, or you want me to spoil the ending for you?”

The word spoiler made Twilight shiver

“No, please, no need for that, I’ll keep reading, just let me continue. No spoiling okay?” Sid then said with a discrete smirk “And the murderer is actually..”

“LA LA LA CAN’T HEAR YOU, wait what?” Sid laughed “Just keep on reading. We don’t have all eternity do we?”

Outside of the heavy basement doors, now blocked by two large pillars made of magical energy, was Spike, in the front desk of the library, deeply concerned about Twilight’s mental health. She had been in that room for a whole day already, and hasn’t come out even to eat. He remembered that look she had from the previous incident with the reports, but it seemed like there was nothing out of date or anything like that. Then the little bell attached to the front door rang.

“Hey there Spike. What’s up?” Said a voice coming from below.

“Oh, hi there girls. Not much, I’m just taking care of the library again; Twilight seems to be busy with some research. So, what are you doing her…” his voice trailed off “Oh crap, I forgot” he thought.

“Mah sister said you’d be taking care of us tonight, an we had some new ideas to earn our cutie marks!” Said Aplebloom enthusiastically.

“Oh, about that, I’m sorry but I have to take care of the library here, so I can’t leave. Sorry girls but I can’t play with you today.” The three of them lowered their heads at the simultaneously, with saddened looks on their faces. Then, once again at the same time the three rose up their heads and Sweetie Belle said “Well you can’t leave the library to play but that doesn’t mean you can’t play with us right?”

“I don’t like where this is going”

“You know what this means?” .Then they all shouted precisely synchronized.“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS LIBRARY RESEARCHERS!”

“I guess Twilight is going to have to wait” Spike sighed.

Slowly, Solaris tried to create, in the bright side of the planet. He spread some of the energy from the seed in the air. What was formed was the wind. But it grew far too strong and destructive, so Solaris raised the earth and created mountains to weaken it. The wind slowly tore pieces from the earth, creating sand. Then, he took more of the energy from the seed, infusing it in the ground. What sprouted from it was water. The water flowed from the earth in large torrents, creating the oceans and rivers.

He stopped and contemplated. It was all new and beautiful. But what was lacking was a new existence. Then he took the earth and the water, and giving them energy, he created a tree. The tree grew, but soon withered and died away. Something was missing. He tried again and again, and although in many different shapes all of them eventually died.

Soon he came to realize. It was the Sun itself. It gave them the energy to grow, but it also drained them. Life needed the Sun as much as rest from it. So he saw what to do. He needed The Darkness.

At first he tried to reason with it. But it was hostile and only attacked. The only solution was to also make it part of himself, just as the seed. He couldn’t cover the whole land in light, so he couldn’t create another Sun. So he took a large piece of land and raised it to the sky. With the power of the seed, he linked it to the Sun, so it would still give the world light, but also allow it to rest. He named it the Moon.

The light weakened the darkness, and with nowhere to run, it curled upon itself, and became like a small heart, denying the light around it, but too weak to fight against it.

Upon seeing the grand force at such state, Solaris then consumed The Darkness, and as a part of himself, it no longer had a conscience, it was merely another force of nature.

Now, with the balance of light and darkness, the plants could cover the land and sprout freely, and as they grew, they shaped the land and grew towards the skies.

“Look, Twilight, I am proud to see your dedication, but time is of the essence here and you’re just taking too long with your reading” He then proceeded to take the book away from her with magic, seeing the look of disappointment in her face. “Sorry for that but you’ll have to go with the short version of the story.”

Sid then proceeded to grab a chair that was close by and throwing it under Twilight, which more fell than sat on it. She was pissed, but more because of having her book taken away. “Why won’t you just let me finish it? It’s not like I can’t try to overthrow the Princess at any time, she’s going to stay there as much as I need to, I mean, that’s exactly the problem here!”

“Yes she will, but can’t you see that someone has already started suspecting of something? You already told me that he can’t do a thing, but he can tell others. It’s only a matter of time, so get on along with it.”

She couldn’t deny it. It wouldn’t take much time before Spike would go on and tell one of her friends. That would be a nuisance she couldn’t allow. “So, let’s see, you were at the tree part right?” How did he even know? She just didn’t care anymore about all these details. She just nodded.

“So here’s how it goes: Solaris thought his creation was nice, but still too boring, it lacked conscience and a mind of its own. So he created the dragons from the earth and fire from the Sun. But the dragons were feral and destructive, so he had to create something to take care of them. And guess who it was? The two Princesses. Actually, they weren’t princesses at the time, they were just the babysitters for the dragons, so they wouldn’t destroy the whole creation that Solaris had worked so hard on.”

“Wait, so he never made them princesses? They just took over? Wasn’t he a God?”

“Calm down, I’ll get to that eventually. So, as I was saying, the two of them were named after the two greatest creations of Solaris, but he gave them only the power to hold back the dragons. He just didn’t trust himself anymore as the; let’s say, creative director of existence,so in his last direct act in this world, he, putting it bluntly, blew himself up as a large wave of energy. Wherever it hit, it would create a new existence or force. Some of it rose to the sky, creating the stars and constellations, and what hit the land, oceans and the air, became a living creature. And, of course, what spread through the veil of reality, became the very forces that hold this world together. It still acts today as a link between our planet, the Moon and the Sun, and all other forces such as light, darkness and of course, magic”

“So he blew up? Just like that? Did he die?” Sid looked at her with a face that screamed “Are you really asking me this question?”

“Let me say this in a subtle way” He coughed as someone preparing for a speech “HE BLEW UP TO PIECES! My goodness, you really can be slow sometimes. Yes, he died, all that is left of him are the forces that hold this world together. There is no living god in this land. There was one but he died. A long time ago.”

“But what became of Celestia and Luna? How did they become our leaders?”

“Just think about it for a bit. No great power around, no kings, no lords, just a bunch of ignorant creatures that had just started to exist. They had magic power enough to hold even the dragons, but knew it wouldn’t last forever, that’s not what Solaris created them for. So they just had to trick the smartest life form at the time that they had a power so great that whoever challenged them would feel the wrath of gods.”

She was just dumbstruck. The princesses were just tools in the hands of a greater power, but continued to exist after fulfilling their purpose, commanding them trough lies and deceit. They couldn’t be trusted. But one problem at a time, she had to take care of Celestia first, for her anger towards her was now bigger than ever, for she rose her like a mother, but was actually fooling not only her, but an entire kingdom.

“Now that you seem to have made up your mind, let me show you something more interesting” He tossed the book to her. “Open it up”

“Which page?” He laughed “Doesn’t matter, well get to something good anyway” She opened it at random.

“How to Murder a Fake Goddess 101?” looking through the pages she could see a large array of spells designed to distract, fool and kill someone. “I didn’t even know this kind of spell existed! How come I never heard of any of these?”

“It’s pretty simple. We haven’t been at war for a long time, and all the books containing such spells were banned as a “precaution” as to avoid any “incidents”. That’s what they want you to think anyway. It is mostly to avoid any significantly powerful uprisings, such as ours. What else could it be?”

“Wait, what war? I never read about a war as far as I remember”

“Just as you never read about these spells. It was a very long time ago. It’s in the book, after we get rid of those two royal maggots I’ll let you read it as many times as you want. For now let’s focus here” as Twilight passed through a specific page, Sid spoke up.

“Oh that one in one of my favorites, you should try it, I think it would be most useful” She looked with interest . “Spear of the Anti-mage. Sounds promising. Well then, shall we get the training started?”

“As soon as possible, but first, we must attend to an urgent matter”. “And what might that be?” She asked impatiently.

“By my calculations, you’re probably reaching the breaking point from overuse of magic, so you should dispel that barricade of yours before you…

THUD

faint” once again he sighed loudly. “Crap. Well, let her be, the stone floor of this basement may not be the best bedding in the world but at least she didn’t die when she smacked her head on it. At least she will not die of exhaustion this way.”

Twilight woke up. In her bed. She didn’t recall walking up there, and she couldn’t by any means, since she had fainted from exhaustion. Then she heard a voice coming from the other end of the room.

“Oh, you’re awake! I was really frightened seeing you fainted down there at the basement, so I dragged you up here and was just waiting for you to wake up” He then grabbed a tray from the ground. It was filled with food. It had some apples, cookies and a bowl with salad “Here, eat up, you haven’t had any food in a while and it’s starting to worry me”

She opened her mouth to protest, but her stomach roared in disagreement. She just wanted to get out of there and go back to the basement, where she would have a nice place to finish her conversation with Sid. But it was then that Sid spoke to her. “Twilight, as much as I’d love to see you screw this up and get a good laugh of it I really don’t want any more suspicions upon us than we already have, so just let me take the wheel for now”

“Wait what do you mean by that?” She didn’t have time to complain, when suddenly she was just kicked back to the insides of her mind. She looked around and Sid was nowhere to be seen. But there was something new. There was a large window, floating in the air. She looked through it and she could see what she assumed to be what her eyes were seeing, but she was no longer in control of her own body.

“Sorry if I got you worried Spike. I am just a bit stressed, that’s all” Spike laid the food in front of her “Thanks for taking care of me”.

Spike blushed “Oh, it was nothing, really. I just thought that you had freaked out again. Are you feeling better?” Twilight could feel the taste of the food although she wasn’t really eating it. It felt really strange, but she saw that she not being in control that moment might not be as bad as she thought. “Yeah, I just have to rest for a bit, I think I’ll stay at in bed for the rest of the day”

It was only then that Spike really looked at her eyes. They were all red, and it looked like she hadn’t had any sleep in a while. Or…

“Please Twilight don’t tell me you’ve been using clover again. You’ve promised me that you had stopped” He said with a really concerned tone “What? Of course not, I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately, that’s all”.

Spike was still suspicious. “Well, I don’t want to doubt you so I’ll take that as the truth. You’re like a sister to me; I don’t want to see you ruining your life because of something like that. Anyway, the crusaders wanted me to help them with another one of their crazy experiments today, but it seems I’ll have to take care of the library so I’ll just tell them to go without me”

Twilight, inside her own mind, as a spectator, had her eyes full of tears. She felt bad tricking Spike that way, he was part of her family and a great friend, but it was all for the greater good.

“No need to worry about that Spike. When was the last time you took a day off?” Spike was in shock “A day off? Then who is going to take care of the library? Owlowiscious?”

“No need to worry about that, just don’t open the library for today. I believe that Ponyville can survive a day without these books” She smile playfully. “So…You wan’t me to… not open the library today?”

“That’s it. Take a day off, go play with someone. I’ll be fine here by myself” Spike answered while walking away with a terribly hidden scared face “Okay; not opening today, I get it so I’ll be going” He then vanished in a blur, sprinting down the stairs. Just as he opened the large doors leading outside of the library, he said to himself.

“That's it. Now she’s really gone crazy”

“Sid what was that all about? I can’t stay in here, I’ve got to try out those spells!”

“Twilight, just lay low for now, if that dragon on yours comes back, you’ll still be here, at the bed, and when he finally leaves for real we’ll have some time to train. For now you can just sleep and I’ll talk to you in your mind, or have you forgotten I can do that?”

And that’s how it went for a while, Twilight continued reading about the spells, and just as Sid said, he came back to check on her after about an hour. That was when she went down to the library and started her training. The library had many books into focus and energy channeling for high power spells she never had to use, and that was just the time.

Meanwhile, Spike was roaming around Ponyville, looking for someone to help him, and that was when he stumbled upon Pinkie Pie, by the entrance of Sugarcube Corner.

“Pinkie! You’ve got to help me! Twilight has been acting strange lately and I really need some help. I know something’s wrong with her but she just doesn’t speak to me!” Pinkie then let out an enthusiastic smile and said in a single breath “We could throw her a party! I mean if she is all sad and weird we could all hide in the library, and when she comes in we go all SURPRISE, and we all have a party together so she won’t be sad anymore!”

Those outbursts didn’t impress him anymore. “No Pinkie, no parties this time. I just need to get her to open up. Could you help me get the others and take them to the library for me?”

She looked a bit disappointed, but that kind of emotion never lasted more than a few seconds on her face so she smiled again and started hopping away while she said joyfully “Okey-Dokey! I’ll get them there in no time!” He just hoped that it would work.

In a less than a single hour, Pinkie had already gathered her other four friends in front of the library and Spike was explaining the situation to them.

“Wait, so tell me if ah got that right, Twilight told’ya not to open the library for the whole day today?” Applejack looked doubtful. “That’s right, and she was locked in that basement for the whole day yesterday, and when I entered she was just staring at the wall”.

“I think all that studying made her go crazy after all these years. I always told her that would happen someday.” Said Rainbow Dash, earning some angry looks from the others.

“I think we should come inside the library to check on her, I mean, if that wouldn’t be imposing, I wouldn’t want to be a bother, she said she would be resting after all” Said Fluttershy, hiding her face behind her mane as everyone looked at her.

“I believe she’s right, if half of what Spike told us is true, we better go check on her, it’s no use standing around here doing nothing” They didn’t have much more time to ponder after hearing a loud explosion inside the library that startled them all. Then simultaneously, they all hit the doors, opening them with a loud bang, and stared expressionless at the odd scene before them.

A few minutes earlier, inside the library

“Sid, I’m not sure if this spell is really going to work, I mean, it says in here that I need some catalysts that I just don’t have right now, and it requires quite a lot of preparation…” He cut her short “Just trust me right now. Those ingredients would take days to get, just try it out already”

Twilight was already exhausted. Spell after spell, she managed to learn many new ones, all of them directed towards infiltration or murder. But there was one last spell that she was afraid to try”

“Alright, here goes nothing”

She channeled as much energy as she could towards her horn. It glowed with a strange darkened-red glow, different from the usual gentle purple glow of her other spells. And in a single burst, she released it and solidified it in the form of a long spear-shaped object, that came straight out of her horn with great force, almost knocking her down. The Spear of the Anti-mage. A powerful weapon made of pure energy. She then looked at her horn through a nearby mirror and started hopping around in joy.

“It worked! It worked! It worked!”She sang repeatedly. But behind the large explosion noise of the spell, she didn’t hear the rough opening of the door, and the 6 pairs of eyes staring at her with weirded out expressions. She froze. She had no idea of what to do, until Sid said.

“I believe it is time for you to RUN LIKE HELL!”

She then darted away from them and hid inside the basement again, barricading the doors with the little energy she still had.

“What do I do?! They saw me! And how the hay do I dispel this thing?”she stared in panic at her horn.
“Calm down already! Just do as the book says. Slowly release the energy from it to the air around you” BANG “SLOWLY! Do you want to blow your own bloody horn off?”

As she finally managed to cancel the spell and calm down a bit, she noticed the banging at her door and the screams from the other side. “Twilight! Open up this right now! What the hay was all that?”

“Yeah, open this door or I’ll break it down” Said Rainbow Dash impatient.

Then it just hit her “Wait! I should tell them what you told me Sid! They would agree to help me if I needed right? They are also being fooled by the princess!” Sid then, materialized himself in a dark cloud, right in front of Twilight and stared deep into her eyes.

“Hey, how did you get here?” His eyes then started swirling around once again, and glow with that hypnotizing light. “Twilight, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Your friends are not so… Open minded as yourself. They may not take very kindly to someone plotting against their princess. Or did you just forget that one of them is the very element of Loyalty?”

Outside of the door, four ponies and a dragon were hitting the door as hard as they could. Then Rainbow Dash had an idea. “Stay clear of the door everyone, I’m gonna fly away for a bit and hit the door at full speed. If that doesn’t break it, nothing will.”

No one dared to go against that, as stubborn as she was, she wouldn’t give up on it. And as everyone walked away from the door, she got out of the library and started flying away from it. Then, with all the strength of her wings, she charged down flying towards the door in a straight line, going full speed. A little faster and that would have been another sonic rainboom, but she couldn’t hit something with that speed, or she was going to be in the hospital for a while.

As she was seconds away from the door, it suddenly opened. She barely managed to stop from falling on top of Twilight.

“Hey there girls. What are you all doing here?”

“What are we doing here? What were YOU doing in here? Spike told us that you had been acting strange all day and we get in here and see you with that hideous contraption attached to your horn, and I just can’t allow a friend of mine to wear something so unladylike”

Applejack gave Rarity an angry look. “That aint the point here. We’re worried about you, you are our friend, and you’re starting to get us worried” Twilight tried to smile but what came out was that mad scientist grin that worried them even more. “Why would you be worried about me? It’s not like I’ve been plotting anything right?”

“No one said you were plotting anything” Said Dash, after she finally managed to recover from the almost crashing.

“Oh, whatever was that, you don’t have to worry about me, I am perfectly fine and in fully control of my mental facult..”

Her words trailed off as for the second time she fainted.

“It’s about time she stopped doing that” Thought Sid annoyed.

Chapter 4 - Sprouting of War

Once again without remembering how the hay she got there Twilight wakes up in her own bed after collapsing somewhere. With a pounding headache and blurry vision, she tries to recall the recent events, without much success. As she moves around the bed she touches something soft with her hoof. Looking to her side she sees Fluttershy with her head laying on the bed as she fell asleep watching over her. She runs her hoof through her mane, which had fallen to her face as she sleeps peacefully.

She then remembered her mission. The reason why all her friends were concerned about her, and the reason why she allowed the presence of a strange creature inside her own mind. Seeing the way they worried and cared about her only motivated Twilight to unmask the fake goddess, since she was not the only one being toyed with.

Slowly awoken by Twilight’s caress, Fluttershy opened her eyes and seeing her friend already awake and well, jumped up to her and gave her a tight hug.

“Twilight! You’re okay! We were all so worried about you fainting like that and I thought you might be sick”. Once she calmed down from her little outburst and noticed what she was doing she immediately backed off from Twilight, red like a brick, with her head down and whispered “Sorry for that”.

Twilight was still not able to fully control her expressions, emotions or words very well, but tried her best to maintain a straight face and not sound like a crazed psycho. “I’m better now, I was just tired. Now that I could get some sleep I just have to get back to my research. Thanks for worrying about me”. Fluttershy didn’t seem to take that very seriously, after all she was really behaving strangely lately.

“Sorry Twilight but we can’t leave you like that. You really need help, so we... asked Spike to send a letter to the Princess, she wants to see you at the castle” The last part was barely audible as Fluttershy slowly shrank while she mentioned the letter, not wanting to make her friend angry for doubting her, but she was heard.

Seeing a look of fright form in Twilights face, Fluttershy slowly walked away while she spoke. “I’ll just let the others know you’re awake, please don’t run away”. She finished as she left the room closing the door behind herself.

“Sid what do we do now? The princess wants to see me and I still have no idea of what to do! I need a plan and fast!” She fell back to the inside of her mind to avoid anyone listening to her conversation. “You’re the smart one around here, QI gave you the book and the spells, improvise. I know you’ll come up with something”.

“NO! You don’t understand! I don’t improvise, I plan ahead! There’s no way I’ll just go in there and say ‘hey Princess why don’t you come with me to this isolated corner with no guards around so I can shove my horn up your chest!’ That would be just brilliant don’t you think?”

“Calm down already, the sarcastic jokes here should be my department. Look, just wait until you get there, wait for a moment when you two are alone and do it. Go with the flow of events. Easy as that”.

She had to leave her introspection for later as she heard the sound of many hoofsteps enter the room. As her friends entered the room she found herself surrounded by worried looks, and an awkward silence took place. Pinkie was the first one to manifest.

“Seems like she’s fine. Twilight are you sick? Because you fainted down there and we were really worried about you and you look fine now but if you’re sick we could throw you a party and you would get well faster!” . Twilight opened her mouth to say once again that there was no reason to worry about anything, but she was cut by Applejack.

“Look Twi, no matter what ya say to us, we know you just ain’t fine. We saw you acting all strange down there and Spike told us what you’ve been doing. We gonna help you you want it or not.” She seemed dead serious about it.

“Look, I may have been behaving a bit different lately but I just need some rest. No need to get the Princess involved or anything, I just need sleep, that’s all.” She lied once again, convincing herself that it was for the greater good.

It was Rainbow Dash’s turn to speak up. “Actually, we just came by to tell you to get up and grab a snack for the trip, she already sent a chariot to get you there, and also wants us all to go too. Seemed really urgent.”

“Don’t freak out, what did Sid say? Go with the flow of events. Right. I only have a few hours to come up with a plan. Argh, this pressure isn’t helping!” She held her hoof in front of her face, frowning, with a thoughtful look, ignoring her surroundings.

“Darling are you okay?” She quickly snapped out of her thoughts and answered quickly.

“Never felt better! Let’s go then.”

Going through the kitchen she grabbed a few apples, just to appear acting normally, and went outside the library. She could spot the chariot easily enough, since it was a very large one, similar to the one they used for the Gala, but even larger, and pulled by six pegasi instead of earth ponies this time around. It was causing quite a commotion in the small town and the area became quickly crowded around it.

As the six ponies and the dragon approached it, two of the pegasi forced the crowd to open up way for them to pass through and enter the chariot.

The flight to the palace was long and quiet, as Twilight quickly ate the apples and fell fast asleep, as the others didn’t want to disturb her. She used every second of the flight to try and build up a plan and account to all possible chains of events and discuss them with Sid.

“Why did you have them all come here to the palace? I thought that your student was the only one that had gone mad. Or, you could have just gone to Ponyville if you wanted to see them so much.”

“Whenever I leave this place I end up getting too much attention. I need to speak to them particularly, it is an important matter indeed, but this sudden outburst from Twilight gives me the perfect opportunity to do it” Celestia seemed really worried about her student. After all, she felt really close to her after all those years of tutoring.

“I really understand your worries but what is it that you need to discuss with such urgency?”

“I want to talk about my abdication of the throne” Luna was dumbstruck. “Here we go again with this! Look haven’t we discussed this already? You can’t hand over the crow to a mortal, we have duties that need taking care of that require power, power that no other has.”

“But I won’t be handing over the crow to anyone like this. I will hand it to another alicorn.” She smiled happily as she made that last statement. Luna was now even angrier than before. “My dear sister, there are no other alicorns in the world. Solaris created us, and only us. We cannot bear offspring since there are no other male alicorns and no other exists. Explain to me how would that work?” Her tone getting more sarcastic as she got angrier.

“You will see when the time comes. I have to go, they should be arriving soon.”

With that, she left the room and left Luna pondering to herself what she could have possibly meant by that.

The chariot didn’t take much to get to the palace. The pegasi were strong and fast, as they had to carry the Princess around quite often and had to stay in shape. Twilight woke up as the chariot hit the ground, and one by one all of the passengers left the chariot. All of them were amazed by the beauty of the palace itself, except for one that stared at the ground, contemplative.

They were guided by the guards through many vast corridors, and no one dared to break the silence that permeated the entire place. They arrived in a wide room with two very large couches and a table in the middle, filled with food. And once again everyone looked at it mouth watered, except for one that didn’t seem to realize she was alive. Twilight was sunken so deep in her thoughts that she looked brain dead.

What brought her back from her daydreams was the grave voice of one of the guards that announced. “Twilight Sparkle, the Princess wishes to see you at her quarters, I have orders to take you there. For the others, she will speak to you once she is done talking to her”.

His voice echoed through the large room. Twilight mechanically followed him. “She’s making this too easy!” Laughed Sid inside her head. “She asked for a private audience with you. Alone!. This is going to be a piece of cake.”

“Yes, and how do I get away after it? This isn’t easy for me and you’re not making it easier.” They both silence as the guard stopped before two very large doors and knocked. “Twilight Sparkle is here to see you” The guard shouted.

A calm and known voice came from the inside. “Send her in, and guard the door so that no one bothers us, and only enter upon express orders from me and thank you very much for bringing her so fast.” Slowly the door opened and the guard and Twilight bowed before the princess.

Twilight walked in with uncertain steps.

“My dear student, I have heard from your friends that you have been acting different lately. I wish to know if there is something bothering you, and I wish you would answer me sincerely.”

“If you’re going to trick her, this is the time to do it. Don’t waste the opportunity.” Sid had a wide smile on his face. “Trick her with what? You’re the conspiracy guy, say something”. She was starting to get desperate. Suddenly, a crazy idea came up to her. It was ridiculous but it sounded fairly good comparing her other ideas, that were pretty much nothing.

“That’s it! I can’t hide it anymore” Twilight said dramatically, looking like a bad actress coming from an equally bad soap opera. “What are you doing now?” Sid was perplexed. “Improvising”.

Celestia looked at her not knowing whether she should be really worried or amused by that, hoping for the second one.

“I have been violated! Oh what tragedy!” She screamed as she tried to fake a crying face, not really convincing anyone. Even Sid couldn’t really figure out if he was supposed to be laughing or worrying about the odds of her having finally snapped.

Twilight then walked until she was standing in front of the princess and cried. “I AM PREGNANT!” The Princess couldn’t hide a shocked face and barely had time to process that as Twilight quickly lowered her head and pointed her horn at her and channeling all of her energy towards it. With a loud bang, once again caused by trying to cast the spell without the proper catalysts, her horn turned into a scarlet spear that flew out of it, this time directly into Celestia’s stomach, even though she had aimed for her heart, but the strong explosion and the “recoil” of the spell itself made her lose her aim.

Something to be noted is why the spell even worked against Celestia. Being a powerful sentient magical creature, she always held up some sort of barrier around her, even though invisible to all. Equestria was at times of peace, but old habits die hard. But the Spear of the Anti-Mage had that name for a reason. The energy inside of it was twisted and corrupted by a kind of magic long forbidden, for it corrupted the user. It “vibrates” in a different frequency than normal spells, allowing it to not be blocked by them. And also the “spear” being made of pure energy, sends pulses of energy inside the target, efficiently knocking them down.

As Twilight pulled her blood covered horn from Celestia, her mane and face also tinted in red, could hear her talking in a faint voice. “Why Twilight? What happened to you?” She coughed a small puddle of blood.

Celestia couldn’t stand due to the pain and the shocks, from the spell and the sudden and unexpected betrayal. She was confused and desperate. Not for herself but for what could have happened to Twilight and what would happen now.

“You know why I did this! You have been fooling us for far too long, you fake princess!” Her voice sounded a little bit too enthusiastic “And I trusted you all this time! But know it’s all over!”

Twilight let out a maniacal laughter, but she was accompanied by someone unexpected. This time Sid was materialized right at her side, with his dark shapes twisted by following spasms of laughter.

“Sid! How did you get here? I did it, what do I do now?” Sid was in ecstasy, like he hadn’t been in thousands of years. “Now? Now we wait for the chaos! Now we wait for the mayhem! Now we just wait for war!” He shouted and his voice filled the room with desperation.

“Who are you? What have you done to her?” Asked Celestia, coughing more blood in the process.

“You know me too well Princess. It fills my heart with joy to see you like this, miserable, eyes filled with fear. And about her” He pointed towards Twilight, who just watched without really understanding “I just enlightened her on your “lies”” He finished with another loud laughter.

“Is it just me or it’s getting darker?” Applejack inquired.

“C’mon, we have been here for almost an hour, it is supposed to be getting later of course. Or is that your farmer sense tingling?” Dash remarked sarcastically, earning herself an angry look from the farmer pony.

“But it’s still not even midday” Fluttershy complemented. Hiding behind her mane as everyone turned to look at her.

“Still no clue of who I am? Wait a minute and I’ll show you. Not like you can get anywhere anyway.”

With that Sid crashed through a wall that led to the palace’s garden, and Twilight walked to the window. There she saw Sid flying up, higher and higher, and then descending fast as a bullet. He was heading straight down to a statue.

Discord’s statue.

Just as he hit it with an amazing speed, he vanished in a small black cloud, and the statue shattered from the inside out. Nothing inside. What the hay was going on there?

Twilight heard a strange noise behind her and turned to look, and she saw Discord, emerging from the ground, laughing nonstop.

“Discord! Was this all your doing?” Still down on the ground the princess muttered, not even being able to speak properly anymore. “Me? I did nothing. I only gave this one here a little bit of incentive. She was pretty easy to control, seeing as her little heart can become the very portrait of confusion and despair, given the proper “incentive”. I just gave a little push.”

Twilight was desperate. She wasn’t fully aware of what she had done, since she was still under Discord’s spell, but was still willing to get out of there as fast as possible.

“Look, Sid, Discord, whoever the hay you are, please just help me get out of here, if one of the guards came in here now I would be executed.”

With talon, Discord held Twilight’s head, and turned it to the window. “Just look outside my dear, do you think you have any chance of escaping here safely?”

The Sun was now reduced to a flickering light, still providing a fair amount of light but visibly weakening fast. And as the princess coughed a last puddle of blood she said, with tear filled eyes.

“I’m sorry Twilight”

And as the princess went silent, the Sun’s light flickered for the last time, and dimmed down to nearly full darkness.

“Okay, now I’m screwed.”

Chapter 5 - Strangling Vines of Madness

The room was silent for a few seconds. Twilight stared at the continuously bleeding body before her, the Princess’s hair becoming red with her blood. She did it alright, but how would she get away alive? Teleporting from the castle was out of the question since there would obviously be some sort of barrier around it, and who knows what would happen. What pulled her back to reality was a sequence of loud knocks on the door.

“Princess please open the door! What happened?” Shouted the guard that was blocking the door earlier, now accompanied by others. Twilight was desperate, and used all of her remaining energy to push the large bed on Celestia’s room in front of the door. That would only hold them back for a while, since she could hear the knocking become stronger by the minute. They were trying to break inside.

“Sid! You have to help me out here! If the guards get me I will get a death sentence for sure!”

Discord had finally stopped laughing and was now staring blankly at her. “Twilight please would you stop calling me by that name? And as much fun as it was seeing you get all freaked out and run around like a ping-pong ball in panic, it’s getting pretty boring already, I think it’s high time I just break the mind-control spell.”

“Wait but ping-pong balls are inanimate! And what s...” She barely had time to reciprocate before Discord snapped his fingers and the spell was broke, her face slowly returning to the usual, less maddened expression. Or so it would be.

Everything suddenly downed on her. Everything that she did while she was out of herself. All the plotting, scheming, use of forbidden spells and the worst of all: She had killed Princess Celestia. The one that lessoned her and cared for her like a mother since she began her studies. Now she was lying lifelessly on the floor in front of her, with a pool of blood around her.

She then touched her own horn with her hoof. It was covered in blood, blood that wasn’t hers.

She snapped.

As the realization sunk in, her legs grew weak and she fell to the ground. A half-smile stuck to her face, and her eyes open wide, not even blinking. She was the image of pure madness, an empty shell of herself.

She couldn’t hear the knocks on the door or see what was in front of her. In that moment she was far away from there, hiding somewhere in the deepest corners of her own conscience. She didn’t even hear the screams of Princess Luna.

“For whoever is in there, if you treasure your life, back off from this door immediately!”. Discord didn’t need to hear anything else. With no previous announcement, he jumped from the broken window, away from the crime scene. With a large explosion, Luna broke through the door, completely destroying the bed in front of it and taking some pieces of the wall along, using sheer brute force. Seeing the state her sister was, she jumped down to her side, eyes tearing up, and lifted her head from the ground.

“Somepony call a doctor! She is dying here!” Luna looked frantically around as she cried as loud as she could, looking around the room looking for the potential culprit. And she couldn’t help but feel her rage build up inside as she saw the purple unicorn with her blood covered horn, fallen to the ground.

“I’m going to kill you!” She started getting up but felt a hoof push her down in place. Celestia was barely breathing, but she managed to shake her head in negation, as she tried to hold down her bloodthirsty sister. Luna then lay down side to side with her once again, and as she hugged her sister she whispered. “Please, don’t try to speak, help is coming I promise”.

Just when the others that had come along with Twilight to the castle had finally managed to reach the room, there was a huge commotion around it, and the guards wouldn’t let them get even close to the doors. That’s when they saw the Princess being carried in a large stretcher, her wings tied to her sides and three ponies around her pressing a large hole in her stomach in order to stop a seemingly endless bleeding. But what really shocked them was what they saw afterwards.

Twilight was being dragged by the front hooves, which were chained to each other, eyes open wide, face and horn covered in blood. As she was dragged small bursts of light came from her horn, creating large cracks on the walls and the ceiling around her. Luna walked out of the room right after her, dismissing all the guards that had gathered around, her eyes still red from crying earlier but she couldn’t show weakness. She was turning away to leave as Rainbow Dash spoke up.

“Princess! Wait! What happened here? Where are they taking Twilight?” Her voice was full of concern. “Someone tried to murder the princess. We are pretty much sure it was your friend. The only thing that stopped me from killing her on sight was my sister’s pleading.” The words were cold and harsh, but they were the truth and they could see it, but didn’t want to believe it. “You will all also be taken in custody, since you could as well be her accomplices”.

The five ponies and the small dragon just stood there, trying to process what happened, as a group of guards walked towards them carrying shackles. “Wait, that makes no sense! We all know Twilight was loyal to the Princess, more than anyone else, she as much as adored her! She wouldn’t do something like that, it’s ridiculous!”. Rarity tried to deny, tearing up in desperation.

Applejack laid a hoof on her shoulder and spoke gloomily. “Please, Rarity, just go with’em. If this is really truth, then ah reckon we can’t do anything about it, but ah hope that this gets sorted out. Let’s act with dignity”.

So they were all locked away, each one in a small cell, in the same corridor of the dark dungeon of the castle, only lit by a few candles placed sparingly through the walls. They were all restrained by shackles linked to the ground by short chains. Rarity had a magic suppressing necklace placed on her, and Spike a pair of steel gloves, to make him unable to use his claws to lock pick the door.

All of them could barely believe, that one moment they would be taking care of their lives in Poniville as usual, and in the other they would be locked away in a cell, accused of plotting the murder of their princess. Spike was clearly the one that was suffering the most, seeing his only family being locked away, charged with an absurd crime, and at the same time seeing all of his friends being taken along. Fluttershy was trying to calm him down, speaking to him through the bars, as their cells were front to front, but she was almost as bad, feeling horrible for her friends and scared of the dark and claustrophobic cell they were locked inside.

“Princess Luna?” Called nurse that bowed in front of her.

“Is my sister alright?” She asked, her eyes even redder than before, her face still wet with tears of countless hours that she waited in the cold waiting room at the palace’s infirmary, hours made days by the worries about her sister’s condition.

“She is way better now, we managed to stop the bleeding but her current condition is bad. She is only managing through magic assistance, and it seems we can’t do much more. I’m sorry”. Luna just starred at the ceiling with a depressed look on her face. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she spoke up.

“Can she talk?”

“Yes, but we advise you would let her rest, we are doing everything we can”. There was no time for waiting. “I need to speak to her immediately, take me to her room.”

As the nurse led her inside, the sight before her made her eyes wet once again. Celestia was laying down on a large bed that was once white, now tainted in red by the enormous amount of blood she let out, in a situation no other creature would be able to survive. Around her stood 4 unicorns, horns glowing, as light enveloped the area around the wound on her stomach. She dismissed them, receiving some protests on the process, but she was more powerful than any of them, she could maintain the spell alone.

“Luna” Said Celestia with a weak and hoarse voice. “Shhh. Don’t speak too much, you are too weak.” If her state wasn’t enough of a confirmation, the barely lit up Sun in the horizon confirmed it. “I need you to tell me what happened, and why didn’t you let me do justice to that unicorn.”

“She…isn’t guilty. Discord is back somehow, he took control with her… I saw it myself” She said pausing between each sentence, trying to catch her breath.”It’s not her fault… and she is the only one that can stop him… along with the other Elements. Bring her to me; I have to speak to her.” Her voice now had a serious tone, but she was visibly drained. Luna could see that she was on her last breaths. “I can’t. She went mad; it seems like she lost control of herself, we had to lock her away before she hurt anypony.”

Celestia took on a pondering look. “She thinks she killed me. It hurts my heart to know what she is going through. But she still has her friends on her side, and you can help them help her” She stopped and coughed loudly “help her from the inside”.

Luna suddenly understood what she meant. With a sad look on her face, she started to slowly step away. “So it seems. I will go, please don’t leave me sister, I need your help now, more than ever. I will do what must be done.” She said decidedly.

“Wait…please” Celestia looked down to the ground “Stay with me for a bit”.

Luna laid down by the bed, as the only chair in the room was way too small for her. She then hugged her sister, and started stroking her mane.

“I’m scared” Celestia said as a lonely tear ran down her cheek. “Don’t worry, I’m here for you”.
A few moments of silence passed.

“And Luna?”

“Yes Celly?” She asked using a nickname she barely even remembered the last time she used.

“Please don’t hate Twilight…No matter what happens…Forgive her. This is my last wish for you.”

Luna spoke angrily. “Don’t say it like that, you’re not going to die, I won’t let you!” Luna hugged her tighter. Celestia laughed “Funny how we were discussing this not too long ago. Guess that destiny really has a sense of humor…as dark as it may be”.

She gave her sister a last smile before she fell asleep. Luna backed away slowly, gently laying her down in the pillow not to wake her up. She had work to do, and Discord wouldn’t wait for her.

“What do you think that happened?”

“Whadya mean?”

“Seriously, I just don’t buy this story; Twilight wouldn’t try to kill the Princess. This is crazy!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she kicked the wall. The Pegasus felt suffocated by the tiny cell and her wings were strapped to her back, which made her even angrier.

“Of course it wasn’t her!” Spike screamed with all the air he could actually get inside the stuffy cell “She loved the Princess, she was almost a second mother to her” He was still trying to hold back more tears from coming “Luna must be out of her mind!”.

“No I am not, and as much as I would like to discuss this now I have some news for you”. Proclaimed Luna as she walked through the tight corridor; one of the guards following her up close.

Spike opened his mouth to protest but she raised her hoof to silence him. “Discord came back. I have no idea how, but he took control of your friend’s mind. It is undeniable that she tried to kill my sister, but she was being manipulated, and now I need your help to set this right”.

None of them actually knew what expression to make. “So you will free her then?” Fluttershy spoke hopeful. “Well, I wish I could but currently, that is what I need your help for. She seems to have locked herself inside her subconscious after the shock of seeing what she did. I need you to “dive” inside her mind and pull her back to reality”.

“Ah don’t understand nuthin of that fancy stuff but if we are going ta help Twi, count me in”. Applejack looked more determined than ever.

“You can count on all of us of course” Rarity confirmed.

“The guard will then open your cells. Follow me now to where Twilight Sparkle is”. She hoped that it would work. “She is lucky to have such trustworthy friends. Not even one of them ever doubted her. I hope that bond is enough to save us all.” Thought Luna.

With all of them unbound, they followed Luna to Twilight’s cell. She was bound to the wall by her front hooves in a pair of handcuffs.

“What is that in her eyes?” Pinkie questioned the two pieces of tape in her eyelids. “She was holding them open all the time so we had to tape them closed, or she would be blinded soon. Also it was scaring out the guards. Anyway, time to get to work”.

“What are we going to do exactly?” Inquired Dash. “It is simple. I will cast a spell on all of you, so your minds will be transported inside Twilight’s. Inside there you will have to find a way to contact her and make her come out. Also, I will need an unicorn to keep the spell up, since I won’t be here so you” She pointed at Rarity “Will have to be the one. I need to confront Discord before he does anything dangerous”.

“Wait! I can’t do this; I don’t even use my magic for more than simple tasks, a complicated spell such as this one is impossible for me!” Luna sighed. “Look, I won’t say that I have faith in you or anything, I don’t know you or your skills, but there is no other choice. If it helps by any means, the most important part of the spell will be my doing, I will cast it, and you just have to keep it up”.

They all looked at each other, uncertain of what was about to happen. Pinkie was the first one to speak up, still shaken by the events, but still showing some of her usual energy to cheer everyone up. “Well, we have to get going then! No time to waste here, Twilight needs help. We can do this together; we already took Discord down once right?”

That seemed to help, as everyone’s expression lightened, and they all stepped forward towards Luna. “Let’s do this!” Proclaimed Rainbow Dash.

“So I want you all to make a semicircle around Twilight. I will cast the spell and then transfer it to…” She stared indecisive at Rarity “Sorry, what is your name again?”.

She looked back slightly offended. “Miss Rarity please”.

“Right, I’ll remember. So, I will transfer the spell to her and from then you’ll be on your own. And also, remember to be careful in there. The bonds between your body and mind are deep indeed, and wounds suffered inside will be felt in your real body. I don’t even need to tell you what happens if you suffer a fatal wound”. Everyone’s face turned serious again.

“What could possibly be inside Twilight’s mind that would be dangerous?” Dash asked tried not to sound concerned.

“One cannot know what might lurk inside another’s mind. But let’s make haste; we have no time to lose”.

As her horn began to glow, a cold, blue light enveloped the group, glowing slightly brighter around Twilight and Rarity. And so, their breaths started to slow down, as they were induced to a deep sleep, all of them lying down around Twilight, plunging to the depths of her mind.

“I guess it is all up to you now. Good luck” Said Luna as she walked away from the room, to prepare for the battle ahead of her.

Splash

“So, where the hay are we?”

“Applejack, I know just as much as you. All I know is that the ground is wet and is so dark I can barely see anything” Whispered Rainbow Dash.

“Let me light it up a bit” Spike said blowing a small green flame in the air. For a few seconds they could see a dense forest surrounding them, with thick vines hanging from the trees. Fluttershy was startled by the flame and the sight around them so she was hiding behind Applejack, shaking like crazy.

“So we are in a swamp. I think we should be going then, we better find Twilight, wherever she is.” Spike tried to sound as confident as possible.

“And why were you whispering anyway?” Asked Pinkie.

“I don’t really know, now that I think of it, it’s pretty silly right? It’s not like we should be hiding from anything.” Rainbow Dash smirked, speaking at a normal volume now.

Just as she finished all that could be heard was a loud buzzing sound. As they all looked back, they could see the shadow of a pony with something in his mouth. He was closing in fast and so was the noise. Spike spat fire once again, and they saw the figure of a pony with a large grey coat over his body, a hockey mask and a chainsaw in his mouth, holding it in his teeth Celestia knows how. He was getting closer and closer. In desperation Applejack screamed at the top of her lungs.

“RUN!”

Chapter 6 - Part 1 - Branches of the Mind

“What the hay was that?!?” Shouted Applejack to no one in particular, while still running, now faster than ever.

“I have no idea but keep running!” It was only then that she noticed Spike on her back, clinging to her mane with his claws.

Rainbow Dash was slightly behind them, Pinkie Pie next and Fluttershy almost not being able to keep up. I was then that Dash had the not so great idea of flying above the trees to see how far the swamp went. Just as her body started to gain height above the dense mass of trees, she heard a loud roar. A giant dragon with black scales and red eyes flew right above her, and just as he saw her, a large wave of fire left his mouth, almost hitting her, and burning many of the trees.

She descended just in the nick of time, suffering only from a few burned feathers. At least now there was a little more light and she could see the edge of the swamp.

Fluttershy wasn’t being so lucky, trying to keep up, being surely the slowest of them all, although fear fueled her as she ran until her legs hurt and her chest burned like a furnace. With the new source of light from the burning trees, she looked back to see if their pursuer was still close. Then she saw terrorized as he caught some other pony she couldn’t recognize, and proceeded to insert his chainsaw into his throat, and swing it around, ripping his head off. With a new boost of adrenaline, she ran with a speed she didn’t even knew she had. She wished she could have helped the other pony, but her fear got the best of her.

Applejack jumped out of the first opening amongst the branches, followed by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie, who looked around frantically. “Where is Fluttershy?” They stared at each other’s faces, before a continuous, high pitched scream slowly got louder and louder, and they saw Fluttershy being spat out from the dark swamp, as she tripped into a root.

All of them looked behind as they saw a pair of red eyes stare at them from between the trees, not ever coming into the light, slowly backing off after staring at them for a few seconds. Pinkie approached Fluttershy, who was still down on the ground with her hooves in the air, protecting her face.

“Here let me help you up” Rainbow Dash extended a hoof to her “Please don’t hurt me!” She shouted back, her eyes wet with tears. “Hey, calm down I just want to lend you a hoof” She answered gently. Calmer now, Fluttershy accepted the helping hoof, got up and wiped her face from the tears.

As each one of them took a few moments to regain their breaths, the landscape downed onto them.

As they looked into the sky, it was bright as a summer evening, the Sun starting to descend, but still the Moon could be seen, as well as all the constellations, all of them amplified many times. I was a beautiful spectacle, although something else grabbed their attention at the skies.

Dragons.

Dozens of them, filled the air, many different kinds and races, many different colors and sizes, all of them magnificent but still fearsome. Flying amongst the dragons small dots could be seen moving fast and spinning between each other, small bursts of light being shot between them. One of them suffered a direct hit from the balls of light, and flew right into their direction. It crashed a few feet from Applejack, causing her to jump to the side. As they looked at it they saw that it was a pony, holding to what seemed to be a broken broom, and in its mouth a small and thin piece of wood. It was most certainly dead by now, the broom broken in half and one of the ends sticking out of its neck.

“So ah guess there ain’t gonna be no flying for the two of you”.

It was too much for them to take in at once. Twilight’s mind was a warzone. An absolute mess. “Are you sure that spell really worked? I mean this can’t be inside her head! It’s crazy!” Everyone else nodded in agreement to Rainbow Dash’s statement, except Spike, who quickly jumped out of Applejack’s back.

“Nope, pretty sure we’re at the right place” He confirmed pointing to the distance. Before them was a pathway that seemed to go through a not very dense forest. It would be quite a normal forest if it weren’t for the fact that many of the trees were floating in the air, carrying along in its roots large chunks of the ground. A few of them floated freely, although most were still attached to the ground by pieces of roots. The trees weren’t very tall so they could see that the pathway led for quite a distance before disappearing in the forest, and inside of it the only discernible object was a large round building, made of marble, very far from them.

In the middle of all that what tipped them of that this was the place were the books and the bookshelves. It was hard to notice at first, but many of the trees were hollow, and inside them many books could be seen. Also, there were books spread everywhere on the ground, broken shelves tossed around, ripped pages and covers.

“Hey guys look! This is gold!” Pointed Pinkie gleefully to the small stones that composed the path. They all stared at it, and Fluttershy whispered to herself smiling.

“The Unicorn of Oz”.

Applejack looked at her and giggled. “Toto, ah have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” She said staring at Spike, who seemed quite displeased with being called a dog. “So we going down this road or what?” Mentioned Applejack ignoring Spike that stared at her seeming quite pissed of.

“Of course we are, it’s a golden road, there has to be something good in the end of it, I bet Twilight is there!” Pinkie said happily quickly forgetting the fearsome incident earlier. As she started hopping towards it, she bumped into a book that was over a small log. She didn’t have much time to see it but she saw the letters “D&D” in the cover, right before it fell down and opened.

From the open book came a bright light, and the words on the page started to swirl around, rising from the book. They all backed off quickly from it, Fluttershy letting out a squeal and trying without much success to hide behind Spike, holding him in front of her.

What appeared before them was much less frightening than what they expected. It was a short earth pony, brown coat and a white mane, wearing a red and yellow robe. His cutie mark was 3 dices forming a triangle, each one with a different number of faces.

“Settle down young ones, and do not be afraid for I am here to help you” They relaxed slowly, and approached the unknown pony. “Who are you?” asked Pinkie.

“You may call me Dungeon Master. I know who you are and why you are here. You are here to free a friend from the claws of madness. Your journey will be dangerous, but I believe you can succeed”.

“I don’t believe, I am sure we can do it!”Said Spike enthusiastically. The ancient pony smiled. Although he was not much taller than Spike, they could see that he was really old. “I admire you willpower young Spike, but that alone won’t suffice” Spike opened his mouth to protest, and also ask how could he know his name, but he continued quickly “But I can help you. Follow the road before you” He now spoke looking at all of them “And you will reach your goal. Be cautious for it is filled with danger, but there may be others willing to help. For you my young and enthusiastic friend, I have something that will be helpful” He produced from his robe a small hourglass attached to a chain, and laid it down in front of himself. Spike walked towards it and picked it up. It had some engravings in a strange language and as he flipped it the sand did not move.

“Wait what is this for? What does it do?”

“When the time comes you will see. And a last prevision for all of you. You start this journey together, but only one will reach the end, for you to be then reunited once more” He finished walking behind a rock not much larger than himself.

“Wait Dungeon Master! What does that mean?” Rainbow Dash asked following him to the rock. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Am I the only one that gets the feeling that this isn’t the first time he does that?” Asked Pinkie.

At Canterlot, the situation was the one to be expected. Chaos reigned absolute as Discord had chosen a new playground. The citizens were absolutely terrorized by the situation and had no idea what to do. At Ponyville things went bad but this was even worse. After being imprisoned a second time, right after managing to break free, he was absolutely furious. And this was reflected directly in his “pranks”, that were a bit too brutal to be called that way.

Instead of the former chocolate rain, each little water drop was now turned into a sharp spear. Discord dodged his own projectiles and laughed as he watched the small clouds impaling dozens of confused ponies. Large spiked roots grew from houses, destroying them completely. Some of the ground turned to ice and the ponies slipped directly into the thorned messes that their houses had become. And to top it all it was night. A constant night induced by Luna, since her sister no longer had the strength to keep the Sun lit, and the Moonlight was sparse, making the only decent illumination down at the streets be a few large torches that were kept lit by using some unfortunate ponies as fuel, ponies that were pretty unlucky to be near Discord when he decided to play basketball with said torches as baskets.

The princess herself had to come down to the city, bringing along the entire royal guard. Since most of the commanders had been strangled by a strange plant that sprouted into the tent they had made as provisory HQ, she was the one in charge.

“I need you to evacuate the entire town! No pony is to be left behind, for I shall face Discord alone and I wish no more losses!” She was having relapses with her speaking slowly returning to the old way, but she couldn’t care less. Her sister was dying and she had to take care of this mess. She could only hope that Twilight Sparkle would recover before Discord did something even worse. Behind her two pegasi could be seen pulling a large carriage, visibly exhausted by its humongous weight.

In the distance she could spot Discord, sitting upon the roof of a house which he had bent in order to be shaped like a throne. He was calmly admiring his work, all the desperate ponies running around, when he spotted a little foal running desperately screaming for his mother. He smiled deviously and drifted towards it.

Luna took flight and signaled for the two pegasi to follow her.

“C’mon kid! The floor is lava what are you going to do now?” Discord asked sarcastically as he had surrounded the kid in molten rocks. He cried and screamed his mother’s name. “What now? I thought you kids liked this game!” Then a blue blur passed flying in front of his face, and the kid was gone.

“What the…” He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence, as he saw the blue alicorn, he couldn’t help but give a wide smile.

“Run child, find one of the guards and ask him for help!” Luna said hastily, turning around to face Discord, anger filling her eyes and thoughts.

“Well, look what we have here. The Princess of the Moon came here just to appreciate my new playground. I thought you should be somewhere crying over a certain corpse?”

“He thinks she is dead?” She thought to herself “You fool! My sister is not…” She stopped. If she told him, he might go and head straight to the castle to finish the job. Her sudden pause earned her a puzzled look from Discord.

“…not one to leave her subjects to die, and I will carry that as her death wish!” She quickly made up. “If you want to die that much so be it. Don’t you remember that it took the two of you to take me down the last time? What makes you think that you stand any chance alone?”

“I have grown much in power since our last encounter Discord. I need neither my sister nor the elements by my side to defeat you” Of course this was a bluff. She was just gaining time for them to come. “And with the Moon in the sky my magic is even more powerful”.

“Is it night already? I can’t really tell without there being much of a Sun anymore” He smirked.

Luna could feel her heart beating faster and the adrenaline flowing. She had to hold him for as long as she could, but talking to him was proving a bit more than she could handle. She couldn’t let her anger get the best of her. She then remembered the carriage behind her and the two pegasi.

“The two of you! Be gone. I do not wish to see any unnecessary deaths here, just leave the carriage”

“But Princess you can’t take him alone, it’s suicide!” one of them protested. “I not only can and I will. You would only get in the way. Now go!” They left with their heads down, but still flying as fast as they could.

“I believe that wasn’t your smartest decision” Discord slowly moved one of his hands in a circular motion. All of a sudden appeared in the air a large club. It was curved like a bow, with a thick tip that became smaller until it formed a long hilt. It looked like it was made of some sort of bone. When it touched the ground it formed a crater around it, showing the absurd weight of the weapon.

“Do you remember this? It is the dragon tooth I used in our last little duel. I find it quite ironic for me to use a weapon that comes from a being so similar to me. You can tell that the dragon in question was pretty fond of this tooth. He already had a bunch, why couldn’t he give me just one fang?” He burst into laughter once again.

“I find it ironic that you want to use the same weapon that already led you to defeat once” Luna attempted a taunt.

“I am still trying to understand why you refuse help. You think you can defeat me alone but I can see that you are weaker that before. I believe your banishment had something to do with this am I right?” She looked down “I’ll take that as a yes. Anyway I believe you should summon some of your guards. If you had a little army with you this would be a lot more interesting”.

She couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“Army? I NEED NO ARMY!”

With a powerful shout, she raised her front legs in the air, her horn glowing intensely, and as she stomped them both into the ground, the carriage behind her exploded into thousands of pieces, revealing its contents. Dozens of blades were lifted into the air, all enveloped by the same glow of her horn, many blades of different shapes and sizes, but all of them black as the night sky. And in the middle could be seen an enormous hammer, just as big as her.

Discord licked his lips and grabbed the club, his smile impossibly wide.

“Let the games begin!"

Chapter 6 - Part 2 - Branches of the Mind

After their strange encounter with the Dungeon Master, the small group decided to follow his advice and kept on going through the trail before them. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash lead the way and the first one bounced happily as usual. Fluttershy couldn’t leave Applejack’s side and Spike was side to side with them. They kept on going for about fifteen minutes before the entrance of the forest could no longer be seen.

Spike looked down to the ground and saw a thick book that was open down on the ground. He picked it up and browsed through a few pages, which were all completely blank. He then closed the book and looked at the cover. “The Complete Encyclopedia of Dragons; Collector’s Edition”.

“Well, I guess I just found out where the dragons came from” He said waving the book around to show the cover to everyone. “So ah reckon we better avoid opening any books round here”

They all nodded in approval to Applejack’s statement. They followed the golden brick road for a few more minutes, and everyone looked down to the ground as their steps started to make a strange sound. Before, they could hear the clanking of their hooves to the gold but now it echoed. It sounded like they were stepping on a large and hollow glass ball. As they proceeded forward they saw that the forest reached a perfectly circular clearing, and the pathway stopped, continuing in the other end of it. The floor was really made of glass, and they couldn’t see under it, for it was completely darkened. In the middle of the circular space, there was what looked like a giant bolt, that held together three large metal arms with spear like tips, each one with a different size, the longer and thinner one as long as the clearing itself and the shorter and thicker one reached a bit more than half of it. Each one of the three arms pointed to a different direction, forming a y in front of them.

“So are we going or are we staring at it all day?” Rainbow Dash was the first one to take the initiative and to walk upon the glass. The others followed right after. The two thicker metal arms were impossible to walk under, so they had to go around them, having to nearly walk around the entire clearing. Neither Rainbow Dash nor Fluttershy dared to fly over them, fearing the beasts that roamed the skies above them, even though they wouldn’t have to fly higher than a few meters. At least the thinner one could be walked under.

When they passed under the last arm, a strange and rhythmic noise, loud as a dragon roar could be heard from beneath. “What the hay? Is that a bell?” Shouted Applejack under the ground shaking noise. Then the glass beneath them suddenly lit up, revealing what was under it. They could see thousands of gears, nuts, bolts and pendulums that moved at different rhythms, and in the far side of the clearing they could see huge numbers under the glass. The noise stopped.

“I think we better get out of here” Said Fluttershy shyly. “Hey this is just a clock, what’s the worst that could haaaaaaa...” A large trapdoor opened right beneath her, swallowing her body into the clock as her voice slowly vanished in the distance. It took her a few seconds to realize she was falling and a few more to remember that she had wings, which she spread quickly and glided down to a large gear. Looking up, she saw the hole that she fell through, and darted towards it, barely dodging many of the gears that oddly enough seemed to be flying around attached to absolutely nothing. Right before she got close enough to it, the door slammed.

“Rainbow Dash! We’ll get you outta there!” Screamed Applejack barely being heard through the thick glass. “No! Go ahead without me! I can get out of here before you can scream my name again!” She seemed to be trying to comfort herself more that the others, not being very certain if there was actually a way out.

“Rainbow Dash!” She screamed again. “I was being sarcastic!”She shouted with a displeased expression. Fluttershy pointed terrified towards something behind her, and Rainbow Dash could barely dodge a flying gear that came towards her spinning to the side. “Anyway get the buck out of here, I’ll catch up!” She turned back and flew further down the clock.

“Don’t you die on me!” She could barely hear Applejack scream.

“Yeah, don’t worry about that” She said to herself with a chuckle. Anyway, she had to find a way out. The clock seemed infinite and she saw nothing but more and more clockwork as she moved down. At least there was some light coming from the walls, but only up to a certain point, and then nothing but complete darkness.

“Late again I see!” Came a thunderous voice from below. She looked down but saw nothing under the thick wall of darkness. Then, the walls and the ground bellow her trembled. She wasn’t on the ground but could feel the air move just as much. A large metallic hand came from bellow, grasping the air where she was just seconds ago. More and more of the strange creature came from beneath as the trembling became stronger.

“You know what we do to late students? WE PUNISH THEM!” The phrase finished with a large cracking noise as the torso of what seemed to be an enormous clockwork golem emerged from bellow. It was made completely of the same materials as the clock itself, and had a humanoid shape. In the middle of its chest a glass wall could be seen, and inside of it, was a pony, whose body was made completely of book pages. He had a long ruler in its mouth and worn what seemed to be a lab coat, also made of book pages. He stood upon a metal disc, with a large console in front of him.

“Late? Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m the fastest flyer of Equestria, I’m never late; that is the same as slow” Rainbow Dash screamed angrily at the creature, earning herself a puzzled look from the creature.

“Well in my classroom you are no one! I demand you stay shut and be quiet now!” He tried to catch her again with the large metal hand, and once again she dodged in the last instant.

“Were the teachers at that unicorn school that bad? And I thought the guys at flight school sucked” She thought to herself. That was Twilight’s mind after all, even thought it was a bit messed up “She must have hated this guy”.

She didn’t have much time to contemplate, as the gears around her started to move on their own and fly towards her. At least the clock was that big and gave her quite a large space to maneuver. She dodged them all and the metal hand came upon her from above, this time faster than before. As it started closing upon her she managed to squeeze between its fingers right before being crushed.

“Damn! I gotta get out of here”

“No running inside the classroom! I command you to stop!” The voice thundered again “TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

“Do you think she’ll be fine?” Fluttershy and the others had barely left the clearing and she was already worried sick about her. “Nah, don’t worry about her, Dashie is the best flyer ever! She can get out of that dumb old clock” Pinkie said continuing to smile and bounce through the road.

“Ah’m not that optimistic but ah reckon she can look after herself, don’t go worrying over nothing sugarcube” It seemed like Applejack was trying more to calm herself down that Fluttershy, but it ended up working both ways.

They passed through a small opening between a few trees, and Applejack could hear the voices of a few ponies, that seemed to be discussing. She walked back to the opening, looking through it. She could see a small group on ponies sitting around a round table with a shiny object in the middle.

“I will take it! I will take the ring to Mordor!” Shouted one of the younger ponies.

Applejack just ignored it and walked away, noticing that the others had stopped too, and were staring at her.

“What was that about?” Asked Spike “No idea, but it seemed important, let’s not bother them”.

The battle between Discord and Luna continued fiercely. The storm of blades charged towards Discord unrelentingly, but he dodged them with ease, using the many buildings around him for cover, moving through the air like a snake with an impossible agility while carrying such massive weapon. The blades whistled around him in a deadly tornado, but he didn’t block even once, dodging them all. When he found a small opening he charged through it and slammed his club upon her.

Luna managed to dodge in the last instant, redirecting the flying swords to block the attack, but only managing to slow it down a bit, breaking a few of her blades in the process. It slammed into a house that was right behind her, completely destroying one of its walls. Luna was glad that the soldiers could evacuate the city so fast, otherwise there would already be many dead just from their quarrel in the city streets.

Just before he managed to recover from his blow and raise the weapon again, Luna brought down her own hammer upon him. He put his club in the way just before the hit, taking flight once again, this time being pursued by Luna, followed by her wave of blades.

“I believe it is about time I spice up this fight of ours don’t you think?” Suggested Discord deviously. Just as he snapped his fingers, large pillars of fire erupted from the ground, high enough to get to them. It seemed as not even Discord was really controlling them, as he had to dodge a few himself. “You don’t mind a little obstacle course do you? Just for fun?”

Luna was too focused, having her own problems to give a proper answer, dodging the pillars of fire as the fight resumed “I just hope they get here soon, in this rhythm I won’t be able to keep this up for much longer” she muttered.

“Whoever you are waiting for will do you no good, not even a miracle can help you now” Discord, having teleported right above her head said, having heard her wish, and bringing down his club once again.

After a long walk the four reached a rope bridge that passed above a large river with a strong flow. They only looked at each other, not even asking about the obvious only path trough. Just as Pinkie was about to step on the bridge, a voice came from her side.

“None shall pass” Said the voice. Looking to their side they saw a pony fallen to the ground, wearing a black armor. He was leaning on a tree trunk on the ground, and his four legs had been cut clean off, apparently not too long ago, seeing as they still bled.

“Beg ya pardon?” Asked Applejack. “None shall pass” Repeated the black knight. They just stared at him.

“I’m sorry sir but we really need to get through this bridge” Said Fluttershy politely.

“Then you shall die”

They kept on staring at him for a few seconds. “You’re gonna stop us? You have no legs, you can’t even stand!” Spike was puzzled by the strange figure before them.

“Tis but a flesh wound. I’ve had worse!” The knight proclaimed. A few more seconds of silence fell upon them.

“So, to the bridge then?” Asked Spike. Everypony else nodded and they kept going.

“Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!” The knight shouted, getting no attention.

The bridge was too thin and seemed far too weakened for them to cross at the same time so they had to go one by one. The river was thin enough for them to cross it quite fast but it wasn’t possible to jump over it, as the bridge rose to a higher level.

Pinkie went first, hopping through the bridge against better advice from Spike, who followed right behind, and then Fluttershy. Applejack had started to cross the bridge when a strange rumbling came from beneath. From the water right under the bridge emerged a long tail, that snapped through the bridge, Applejack still on the other side.

“Wait there Applejack, I’ll grab the rope and fly to your side” Fluttershy tried to scream without much success. Before she could take any initiative, a snake-like head emerged from the water. Right behind it came a body shaped like a dragon, but with the skin of a snake. The long neck and the head looked disproportionally small compared to the body. It looked right at Applejack and opened its mouth, revealing a pair of fangs that were almost as big as her.

The creature spat a green liquid at Applejack. She jumped to the side and dodged it, just to see the spot where it hit melt down. She looked around for a way to run or fight. Then she remembered the knight. She ran towards him and saw the sword right beside him.

“Ah’l just borrow this for a second” She grabbed it with her mouth. It tasted of moss and blood but she tried to ignore it. She looked at the beast before her, who was charging towards her. It seemed to be more of an aquatic creature since it ran awkwardly. When it got close enough it started trying to bite her, moving its large neck back and forth like a spring.

Applejack kept on jumping from side to side, and when she had the chance to, she jumped behind a large tree trunk on the ground. The creature then proceeded to spit on the log. As it began to melt down Applejack became more desperate.

“This ain’t real. This ain’t real. This ain’t real. This ain’t real.” She muttered to herself again and again.

“Applejack watch out!” Spike shouted and she barely had time to turn and jump down as the snake head passed flying right above her own, breaking through the corroded log and sticking into another one. Before she managed to pull out Applejack took the courage to raise the sword and cut of its neck, screaming in desperation as she did it.

She spat the sword and sat down sighing “Whew, glad that’s over”.

“I doubt it” Said the fallen knight, bursting out in laughter as the headless body rose from the ground and two more heads grew where there was once just one.

“Ah horsefeathers”

Chapter 6 - Part 3 - Branches of the Mind

The hydra rose from the ground, its two heads staring straight at Applejack, who looked back terrified. The black knight spoke once again.

“Nowhere to run now eh? What is the coward going to do now?”

The large beast now turned its attention to him, and with a quick movement it grabbed the crippled knight by the head with one of its mouths, the second biting the other end of its body. Seeing where this was going, Applejack shouted.

“Fluttershy! Look away!” But the damage was already done. Each of the heads pulled to one side, breaking the body in two. Then, each one of the heads proceeded to swallow its own half.

“Get out of here! Ah can deal with it mahself! Twilight needs your help!” Applejack kept on screaming as once again the hydra turned its gazes to her. Fluttershy was dumbstruck; all she managed to do was stare at the small pool of blood that had formed right under the creature’s head.

Spike tried to get her moving. He pulled her and screamed at her, but to no avail. Applejack had already grabbed the blade once again and prepared to fight. Spike opened his hand and stared at it. Closing his eyes and with a pained expression he slapped Fluttershy’s face. She broke out of her trance and stared at him still in shock, tears filling her eyes.

“Come on Fluttershy, Twilight needs us and we can’t do anything else here” He stated, trying not to look her in the eyes.

“But she can’t fight that alone!” She pointed towards the beast.

“Of course she can. She’s the strongest pony we know and she can handle anything. Now let’s get going, Twilight needs us” Pinkie seemed to be unaffected by the entire situation. Fluttershy gave up. She couldn’t do anything by herself; she couldn’t even fly to Applejack, her wings being glued to her sides in fear. She looked down to the ground and walked towards the golden bricks that continued right after the end of the bridge.

They walked for a long time, losing track of it completely since the Sun, Moon and all the stars were on the sky at the same time. The forest seemed to close on them as they walked, and Fluttershy was still avoiding looking Spike in the eye, while he fiddled nervously with the hourglass pendant.

“Sorry Fluttershy” Spike spoke in a barely audible volume.

“S-Sorry for what?” She wasn’t used to be the one receiving the apologies.

“Sorry for hitting you back there. I just panicked! You suddenly froze and I didn’t know what to do!” He noticed he was raising his tone. He took a deep breath and sighed “Look, I’m sorry; I’m just worried about Twilight. We’re like brothers you know? I can’t be calm knowing that she is in danger.”

Before she could retort, their walk reached an unexpected halt, as they reached a large waterfall. Looking down they could see that it flowed into a large lake hundreds of meters bellow. The deadly fall and the many rocks confirmed that they couldn’t just jump down without suffering a few big and probably deadly contusions.

As they stopped Fluttershy looked at Spike and took a deep breath, before answering him.

“Spike, I should be the one saying I’m sorry. I couldn’t be angry at you, you just did what you thought was the right thing. I’m just sad that I feel like we’re abandoning our friends to their fates, and I feel useless because I can’t even help them and I’m always too scared to do anything!”

For the first time Spike and Pinkie had seen Fluttershy raise her voice like that. It was far from screaming but they could see her nervousness. She was shaking frantically. When she stopped and noticed the stares aimed towards her she hid behind her mane and lowered her head.

Pinkie’s voice took on a calm and gentle tone, as she walked towards Fluttershy and hugged her. She trembled in surprise before accepting and returning the hug herself.

“Look Fluttershy, I know our friends and I trust them. I know they won’t lose. After all we already did together you still doubt that?” She loosened the hug and stared deep into Fluttershy’s eyes, with a warm smile on her face.

Fluttershy began to cry once more. “How can you be sure? How do you do that? I mean you’re never scared from anything and you’re so strong and...” Pinkie put a hoof in her mouth.

“Of course I get scared silly. I just don’t sweat over the small stuff. I know our friends are strong and I know you are too. I mean, you faced a dragon all by yourself to protect us! I am scared too but just being scared doesn’t mean anything. Giggle at the ghostie remember? Now promise me that you will be strong and believe in us. I don’t want to see you crying anymore okay?”

Fluttershy giggled and nodded. “That’s better! Now let’s find a way out of here, I’m getting hungry already and I had a few cupcakes in the chariot before all of this mess. When this is over we'll all eat together” Pinkie said still smiling.

“Not wanting to break the mood or anything but how do we get over the waterfall? Even the road disappeared. We better get going if we want to get around it” Spike stated.

“I must agree, idling around is not going to take you anywhere” An unknown voice came from above. It was rasp but still carried a tone that was somewhat ironic. They looked towards the source of the voice.

“Oh poor kitty, wait we will get you out of there” Fluttershy seemed to forget her previous frightened state and opened her wings to fly towards the cage.

“Oh poor kitty, wait we will get you out of there” Fluttershy seemed to forget completely her previous frightened state seeing a distressed animal, and opened her wings to fly towards the cage.

“You’d have better luck fighting a jabberwocky with a butter knife. Twilight’s new “friend” made sure to lock me here and weaken me to such a point that I can barely move. Seems like I was in the way of his plans for Celestia. Well, that’s what she gets for not listening to me” He didn’t sound much concerned with Twilight’s condition, he even sounded somewhat amused.

“Who are you anyway? We need some help here to get through this waterfall to help Twilight, think you can give us a hand?” Spike just wanted to get out of there as fast as he could; he couldn’t be less interested in the cat’s story, but was at least trying to sound polite.

“It isn’t who but what I am. You could say that I am what was left of Twilight’s sanity, her rational side. Pretty ironic from her subconscious to choose my current form if you ask me. From my situation you can probably see how bad her state is right now.”

Fluttershy shivered at the memory. “Sorry to say that but he’s…kinda…dead” Spike tried to break it to him as smoothly as he could but he felt that time was too important for them to worry with subtlety.

The cat laughed, eliciting a few puzzled looks from them “No, he isn’t dead, we cannot die, we just change forms. I, for example, would be really glad to die right now just to get out of this cage, but it seems I don’t have the energy to even bite my tongue of. But still I might be able to help you”

“We would be really really happy if you could just help us, we need to get to Twilight as fast as we can” Pinkie was just as eager to get going as Spike, but she couldn’t help but be amused at the cat’s smile, trying to mimic it herself.

“Yes yes I heard it the first time. There is no way to get past here from above, but I can help you travel below the waters. I think it could save you quite some time. But remember, I’m not the only trace of Twilight’s conscience around here. Being pretty much her logic, I know that helping you will help me, but there might be others that are not so eager to help.”

“So you expect us to swim under it? We can’t just jump down there” Spike tried to make sense of the car’s words.

“Swim? Oh I also don’t expect you to. But I better show than explain, I believe your time is short”

The ground bellow them shook for a few seconds and then stopped “Oh, and before I forget, if you happen to meet the princess down there, just run, she is one you can’t reason with” added the cat.

“Why would the princess be here?” Asked Fluttershy. The ground trembled once again and a large hole opened bellow them. Before they fell, they could hear the last of the cat’s remarks.

“Twilight’s feeling of guilt is stronger than you think”

And with that they plummeted down. The cat laid down and curled into itself, closing his eyes but never the wide grin.

“I hope they can handle this”

From outside of the hole three different voices could be heard. A loud and constant laughter, a high pitched scream and another one in an even higher pitch. The laughter of course belonged to Pinkie Pie, but it was hard to decide which one of the other two was screaming louder.

They just fell without any obstacle at all, for what felt almost a whole minute. The only sign they had that they were actually going the right way was the golden road, that swirled around the hole, spiraling through its entire length.

“PINKIE WHAT THE HAY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?” Spike couldn’t hide his desperation.

“This is so much fun! I wish I had one of these holes in Ponyville!”

“NO YOU DON’T BECAUSE IF YOU HAD ONE YOU’D BE DEAD! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

Spike had finally regained his senses and was thinking about a way of reaching the bottom without being crushed like a puppy under a steamroller. He imagined the scene and pushed the thought away, wondering why he had thought about that in the first place. He looked to the side and noticed that Fluttershy hadn’t stopped screaming. She had an amazing set of vocal chords for such a small pony.

“Fluttershy, why don’t you just open your wings?” Spike asked thinking about how she could possibly forget that. She happily obeyed, but her face quickly turned to one of fear, when even with her wings fully open, she didn’t slow down at all.

“Spike it’s not working! It’s like there is no air in here, I just can’t stop!” She was starting to become desperate. They looked down and saw the ground quickly coming closer. Fluttershy flailed her wings like mad but to no avail. Once again the choir of screams and laughter started. Looking down once again, Spike could see a large and round red object, covered in white dots. That was where they would land. They braced for impact, expecting the solid ground. But to their surprise, they fell onto a rubber-like surface. They bounced up from it and gained height, only to fall and be throw once again into the air. They slowed down bit by bit, until they stopped completely and could jump out of the object.

“Can we do it again? Please please please please?” Pinkie begged with a smile that had finally managed to outsize the one of the cat.

“NO Pinkie, I never want to do that again” Spike was sweating, the adrenaline rush of the fall still in effect. After a few moments, they all calmed down and looked around. They had landed on a cartoonish huge mushroom, and there were many others around it. Some of them even emitted light, allowing them to see in the deep cave.

Before them they could see a single corridor, covered in the same mushrooms, that branched into many others before them. Even though there were different paths, they knew which ones to follow, for the golden bricks still went on even there.

The light coming from the mushrooms was pale and cold, wrapping the area in a strange and ghastly aura. They walked along the cold hallways, never losing track from their trail. They walked and walked for what seemed like hours, not finding any exit. Pinkie of course, tried to maintain a conversation for as long as possible, although it was more of a monologue most of the time, jumping from topic to topic in a way no one else could keep up with.

A loud bang echoed through the caves, silencing her. They all looked around and then at each other, waiting. Then once again, the same sound. And again and again. It sounded like a series of explosions, and it came from the direction their path followed. Since they had no choice, they kept on going, and the sounds only became louder.

After two more bifurcations they arrived at an open area with a much higher ceiling. In the middle of it, was Princess Celestia.

Or something that slightly reminded her.

Although the general shape was the same, the creature was more of a monster than anything else. Its coat was covered in blood, the wings like the ones of bats and its cracked horn was almost twice as big as the ones of the princesses. The creature had its back turned on the group, so they couldn’t distinguish more of its features, and they wanted it to stay that way.

It seemed that the loud noises they had heard earlier were large rocks being raised from the ground by the creature, not with magic but with pure brute force, and thrown into the ceiling of the chamber. Apparently the cave was some sort of prison for it.

Spike signaled for the two mares to follow him around the room, in an attempt to get around the rampaging “Princess”. It was going well so far, their own sounds being muffled by the banging rocks and the savage screams of the beast.

They were only a few meters away from the door, when one of the stones hurled towards the ceiling bounced of it, and fell towards the group. Fluttershy let out a loud squeal as Pinkie jumped towards her and threw her from the boulder’s trajectory and bucking Spike in the other direction in a single motion.

That attracted the attention of the creature, that now stared straight at the group. A large hole could be seen where the stomach was supposed to be and a red flow tainted the ground beneath her. But the most fearsome feature was her eyes. Instead of the gentle and caring look that was commonly seen in the princess’s face, there were two rage filled black orbs, that were surrounded by a equally dark halo. Staring into them was like staring into a bottomless pit.

Fluttershy and Pinkie were still close enough to the passage to make a run for it, but Spike had been bucked into the opposite direction, finding himself not too far from the beast, right between her and the mares.

The beast roared.

“Run Spike!” He stood still. The creature took another rock in its hooves and prepared to throw it towards the mares, but ended up dropping as a surge of pain went through one of its hind legs, where now was located a small dragon’s mouth.

“YOU INSOLENT VERMIN” She didn’t seem to shout, but her voice was so powerful that it echoed and made the walls tremble. She bucked the air with the leg, sending Spike flying towards the side of the cave opposing the exit, right into the wall. “SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE EAGER TO DIE TODAY”.

He got up slowly, moaning in pain from the wounds. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s gotten into me” he smiled, noticing a few teeth missing and seeing how they were still stuck into the “Princess’s” leg.

“Get out of here, I’ll buy you some time!” He shouted to the mares.

“No! Spike come here right now! You don’t stand a chance!” Pinkie had lost her smile, knowing that the baby dragon had bitten more than he could chew. The attention of the creature was now onto them. Its horn started to glow and they could see she was going to attack.

A large bolt of magic came from her horn, but she raised her head and screamed, firing into the ceiling right above the exit, cracking the rocks. The agonized expression on the creatures face quickly turned to anger, when she looked down to see one of her legs on fire and the small dragon laying on the floor next to her. In the heat of the moment, Spike had managed to crawl behind her and spit a small flame on her leg, but it was more than enough.

“I’m the one you’re fighting, don’t turn your back on me”

“SO BE IT!” The enraged scream was enough to bring down the weakened rocks above the exit, starting a small cascade “Get out now!” The shout from Spike encouraged the mares to jump through the opening, right before it was sealed by the rocks.

They ran without looking back, following the path before them. They could only hope for the better.

“He’ll be fine right?” Whispered Fluttershy.

“O-of course! Dragons are strong, and Spikey is the smartest dragon ever!”

It was very discrete, but Pinkie Pie had stuttered. She hoped that Fluttershy hadn’t noticed, but she did. They didn’t have much time to ponder on it, as they had finally reached the end of the tunnel. Right before them there was a short staircase, leading to a small trapdoor. From behind it, they could hear thousands of voices crying in unison.

“A-chi-lles! A-chi-lles!”

Rarity was sweating. The fashionista never had to use her magic for much more than carry fabrics and tools around, and a spell as complex as the one she had to maintain was already taking its toll. Her horn ached and her body felt heavy, but she knew the importance of her task, and kept her horn lit lit.

Before her were her six friends, five of them being held in the air with their heads up, enveloped by a blue halo, and from each one’s forehead came a small energy flow that traced to Twilight’s head. She was the only one that was still on the ground, with her front hooves still chained to the walls.

After the first hours, Rarity noticed that if she focused a bit more into one of them, she could see through its eyes for a few seconds, although the vision was quite blurry. Rarity was worried about her friends. Seeing as their bodies suffered all that their minds did, she saw the results herself, without being able to know fully what was happening, and that was driving her mad.

Each small cut or bruise that appeared into their bodies got her wondering about what kind of situation they were in, and focusing into one of them for too long could break the spell accidentally.

Suddenly Rainbow Dash started shaking around and clenched her teeth tight. Apparently she was flying, probably running from something dangerous. Rarity couldn’t resist, and focused onto her, almost losing concentration when she saw her charge with incredible speed, with her hooves pointed forwards, into a large glass wall, and right into what looked like another pony.

Right before the impact she came back to reality, only to see that now Rainbow Dash’s body was covered in hundreds of small cuts, visibly caused by the broken glass. It wasn’t lethal but she could see that she was in great pain.

A few minutes later and it was Spike’s turn to start moving. He was trembling and moaning in pain. She couldn’t see any clear injuries in his body, but his face contorted into a pained expression time and time again. With one last spasm, his body stopped and he coughed. A small stream of blood could be seen coming from his mouth.She looked and saw that his leg was bent to the side, in a way that it clearly shouldn't be.

Rarity pushed away the worried thoughts that flooded her mind. If she let her mind wander too much the spell would be broken and she had no idea what that would cause. Luna apparently forgot to tell her that part. Right now all that she could do was trust in her friends and hope that they would be okay.

The baby dragon was being tossed around the room like a ragdoll. The demented alicorn threw him again and again at the walls, laughing uncontrollably while she did. Spike was powerless before her, fighting just to stay conscious while being once more slammed into the wall by the magic grip.

“WHERE IS YOUR FIGHTING SPIRIT GONE TO? I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE MY OPONENT” She taunted as the dragon hit the wall again. “I wasn’t expecting much of a challenge from you anyway. Maybe I should just let you bleed to death right here while I go and murder that worthless apprentice of mine” The anger had left her voice, only to be replaced by disgust.

“Don’t you dare touch Twilight!” Spike had managed to get up and face her. He breathed heavily, and was forced to lean on his left leg seeing that the right one was clearly broken, the lower section bent into an odd angle.

Spike let out a howl of pain as she grabbed him by the wounded leg with her magic and floated him upside down towards her, stopping when he hanged face to face with her, only a few inches away. “AND WHAT IS THE LITTLE VERMIN GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?”

He took a deep breath and a torrent of green flames left his mouth, straight into her eye. She threw him to the wall and fell to the ground, wriggling and screeching in pain as the black globe was consumed by the flames. When she recovered, she slowly walked towards Spike, who leaned on a wall on his back. Her expression was now of pure hate, somehow made even worse by the charcoal ball that adorned her face.

He saw the large hoof being raised before him. She was going to kill him. The monster shouted something but he couldn’t hear anything. Time seemed to slow down as the menacing hoof came down with a force that could split open a rock.

He smirked. “So this is it. This is how I die” He thought, not even having the energy to speak anymore “Well, at least I will go doing something useful to the others” He took the hourglass that hung from his neck in his hand and looked at it and wondering how it didn’t break through the fight “Well, thank you very much for the help. What is this piece of crap supposed to do anyway?” Twilight would have smacked him with a book if he spoke like that near her, but he just didn’t care anymore.

“If only I were stronger, this wouldn’t be happening”

A lonely tear ran down his cheek.

Chapter 7 - Part 1 - Blooming of a New Kingdom

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy pushed open the trapdoor above them, and heard the cries of the crowd become even louder. They found themselves in the middle of what appeared to be a large arena, probably the large round building they could see from the entrance of the forest.

In front of them, two ponies fought fiercely against each other. One of them was a tall red-coated earth pony, wearing a heavy set of armor and wielding a battle axe in its mouth. The other one was a white coated unicorn. He had a yellow mane and his cutie mark was a bow crossed with a sword. He wielded a thin but very long sword and a shield, carrying both with his magic, and his armor set was composed of simple leather plates strapped around his torso and legs.

The battle was going far better for the unicorn, since he used a much lighter set of armor and was able to move around much faster, using his speed to dodge or block every incoming blow from the heavy axe. He waved his sword around with ease, despite its great length and weight.

By the looks of it, the battle was already nearing its end. The earth pony was visibly exausted and his swings were slow and predictable. Several small cuts could be seen between the metal plates where the flesh was exposed. He swung his axe down onto the unicorn, which blocked his attack with ease using the shield and with a single move, turned around and bucked the earth pony right in the chest. Before he could manage to get up, he saw the shining blade being placed at his throat.

The cheers at the arena stopped and everypony looked up, at a large balcony located at the top of the arena. In it, two guards could be seen standing at the sides of a small earth pony, wearing a laurel wreath. He raised his hoof in the air and brought it down, eliciting even louder cheers from the crowd.

The two mares had no idea of what was going on and decided not to interfere. The unicorn took one last look at its opponent’s eyes and with a movement of his sword cut open his throat. Then he turned towards the mares with a look of disappointment.

“So, which one of you is going to be my opponent?” He asked without much enthusiasm.

Fluttershy was hiding behind Pinkie with a terrified look on her face. Pinkie, still smiling asked the unicorn.

“Why do we have to fight anyway? We just want to help our friend, we won’t bother you I promise” The gladiator stared annoyed at her.

“Why must we fight?” He laughed “I fight for glory! I am a gladiator; I need no more reasons to it. The crowd demands blood and the only ones I see that can quench that thirst are you”

The crowd screamed in joy, and once again the name of the stallion before them.

“A-chi-lles! A-chi-lles! A-chi-lles!”

“So, which one of you will face me? I wouldn’t mind fighting the two at once if that would be the case” He said arrogantly.

Pinkie stepped forward. “I guess that’s me” she sounded gleeful as always.

“Wait Pinkie! You can’t go; he is going to hurt you!” Flutteshy pleaded.

“Don’t worry about me; just go on, Twilight is waiting. You trust me right?”

Fluttershy nodded without much enthusiasm, her eyes beginning to get wet. “Don’t do that Flutershy, remember, you promised me that you wouldn’t cry anymore”

She wiped her face and put on the most determined expression that she managed. “That’s better. Now just run past him, I can hold him until you get to the gate” She pointed at the large metal gate that exited the arena, which had been left open.

“Are you done already? Look, whoever chooses to fight, just know that I am honorable enough to let the other one pass through. One of you will be enough to entertain the crowd, and I wouldn’t backstab someone in a duel”

Fluttershy then ran as fast as she could without even looking back. She knew that if she did she would probably go back and try to help somehow, and would end up getting in the way. No matter what Pinkie told her, she still felt like a burden to the others, and now she was alone.

The unicorn kicked the axe from the fallen body towards Pinkie. “I don’t fight against an unarmed opponent, but don’t expect me to go easy on you just because you’re a mare”

“Thanks! What’s your name?” The unicorn was taken aback by the question.

“Didn’t you hear them shout my name?” He pointed around “I am Achilles, son of Peleus. Tell me your name your tombstone won’t be blank”

“I’m Pinkie Pie, nice to meet you! And I don’t think you’re going to need that. I can’t die here because my friends would get sad and if I’m dead who would throw them a party to cheer them up? And if I appeared there then I would be a ghost and they would be scared of me and wouldn’t want to be my friends anymore” She finished in a single breath.

“You are quite…unique, I must say. Let’s see you put all that breath to good use!” She quickly grabbed the axe from the ground and Achilles charged towards her, sword pointed forward.

Spike felt time slow down as the large hoof went into collision course with his skull. He closed his eyes and waited for the worst. And waited. And waited. He opened his eyes and saw the hoof frozen in the air. Apparently, time had indeed stopped, and he also couldn’t move.

“Wow, this is just great. Looks like this thing really has some utility. Now I can be frozen here forever staring at this hoof in my face. Just great.” He complained to himself, remembering the hourglass, not even being able to speak.

“What do you seek young one?” Came a powerful voice from below.

“What do I seek? You could say that I “seek” a way to get out of here alive” He answered without giving it much thought, not even caring about who he was talking to.

“So you seek power. Very well, time shall grant you power”

“I don’t know who you are or if you noticed that I don’t exactly have much time” He answered motioning towards the hoof with his eyes as they were the only thing that he could still move.

“Then I will give you time” And with that last remark, the voice went silent. Very slowly, Spike could see time move again, as the hoof gradually regained speed towards him. Just as it was about to hit, a loud crack coming from his chest and an explosion blasted the Princess away from him. The hourglass had exploded and the sand was now swirling around Spike forming a small tornado.

The sand started glowing and moving faster, increasing the size of the hurricane. With another explosion, louder than the first one, the cave fell apart. The river above started trembling, and from it emerged an enormous purple and green shade, that dashed towards the sky. Spike was now a full grown dragon, his wounds long gone. Unlike the unforeseen event in Ponyville, when he quickly matured through greedy behavior, this time he looked like a true ancient dragon. His body was slender and powerful, with claws as big as a buffalo and wings that could cover half of Ponyville. He looked down to the water, hoping that the other creature was killed in the explosion, but he felt that he could take her now. He let out a loud roar that shook the ground around the entire forest and made even the other dragons that roamed the skies flee in terror.

A third explosion could be heard, and the creature rose from the river, following the opening made by Spike. She was visibly wounded, one of her hind legs cracked, exposing the bones, and a large gash across her face. But she didn’t seem to mind, for her face had a wide smile plastered on it.

“Finally! I’m free! And it is all thanks to you. I’m sorry but I’ll have to kill you now”

“You’re welcome to try!” Spike said firing a large fireball towards her, that she deflected into the river with ease using her horn. The water where the green flames landed quickly evaporated, creating a thin fog around them.

The creature’s horn started glowing, and a dark light surrounded her, taking the form of an alicorn, nearly as large as the dragon before her. Even though it was made out of pure energy, it still carried the same wounds as the alicorn inside of it. She grinned, and the avatar did the same.

Her voce now echoed like it came from two creatures at once, and was much louder than before, as she asked calmly.

“Shall we get started?”

Once again the large bell inside the clock could be heard from afar, but this time it suddenly stopped, followed by the sound of breaking glass. None of the two creatures heard it, but a scream came from the same direction, although too distant to be comprehensible.

Rainbow Dash stared straight at the face of the pony piloting the clockwork golem. She had been in there for over an hour looking for a way out, and there was no sign of any. Her wings and muscles were burning and she was exhausted.

Up to that point, none of the gears or the golem had managed to hit her even once. Her ability as a flyer and her endurance were being put to the test, as she rolled around the air and charged away from punches and flying metal pieces.

It seemed like the only way to get out of there would be breaking the glass on top of the clock, but that was out of the question. The glass wall was thick as a tree trunk, and even if she managed to break it, the shards would surely impale her.

She looked at the mechanical creature. The glass that protected its chest and the pilot seemed to be thin enough. It was not like she had a choice.

She flew away from it, going as high as she could until she was back to back with the glass dome. Then, she placed her rear legs against it and bent them. With a quick motion of her legs, pushing her body like a pair of springs, she charged down towards the glass. The distance wasn’t big enough for her to reach sonic speed, but being charged with adrenaline, she managed to hit the glass with enough strength to shatter it, covering her body in small cuts, the worst one being right above her left eye.

She barely managed to dodge the control panel and with her hooves pointed forward, she tackled the pony inside, ramming him on the wall behind. The impact was so great that she could feel it hitting back at her shoulders and sending a surge of pain through her body. But the paper pony took the most of it, blowing up into a storm of pages and ink.

Rainbow Dash, now covered in blood and black ink walked towards the console and saw the dozens of buttons.

“Alright, I can do this, I can do anything” She pushed a button, and the golem began to ascend, almost breaking her balance. She was too weak and wounded to fly now, so she clung to the console before her with all her strength. It wasn’t long before it reached the top of the dome and stopped. The bell started ringing again. Inside the clock the noise was deafening.

Rainbow Dash protected her ears with her hooves, but lost her balance in the process, and ended up falling onto the console, hitting many buttons in the process. The golem smashed its fists against the walls repeatedly, breaking both the bell and the glass dome in the process.

“Oh, well, that works too” She analyzed the panel before her. Each button had a small inscription below it, mentioning its purpose “This is going to be easier than I thought” she smiled. Armed with something like that there was nothing that could stand in her way. She drove the golem out of the large clock and shouted.

“WAIT FOR ME GUYS! I’M COMING!”

Applejack was running away. The hydra had already grown eight more heads, that she had no choice but to keep cutting. Applejack’s strength had never been planning ahead, so she thought that eventually the heads would stop growing. Now she was being proven wrong in the worst way possible. She ran back the way they came, still with the sword in mouth, in a feeble attempt to outrun it. The hydra was clearly an aquatic creature, but she was far larger that Applejack and that made up for it.

“At least ah managed to beat it up a bit” She thought to herself proudly. She had a large cut at her side from one of the attempts to cut a head off, when she tricked it into breaking down a tree that fell right on two of its heads, crushing their skulls. She didn’t account for the large branches on the tree, and one of them opened a large cut on her back.

She looked back and noted that the crushed heads weren’t regenerating, and that no others had grown to take their place. Something clicked inside her head.

“Ah’l be damned! Ah just have ta find a way to crush it!” She smiled proudly of her newly devised strategy. She looked behind again at the creature and her smile disappeared.

“How the hay do ah crush that!?” A loud crashing noise dragged her out of her inner debate, and she heard Rainbow Dash’s voice screaming something she just couldn’t make out. She ran towards it.

A series of rhythmic smashing sounds coming from the direction she was going made her flinch for a second but the creature running right behind her encouraged her to keep going and the noise only got louder.

A few minutes later, a gigantic humanoid creature could be seen walking towards her, casting its shadow above a large portion of the forest. Applejack didn’t know what was worst, getting crushed or getting eaten by the beast behind her so she just stopped running and faced it.

She didn’t have much time to contemplate, as the foot of the giant smashed over the hydra, crushing all of her heads at once. Just its foot was half the size of the hydra.

“Hey Applejack! Need a ride?” She looked up and saw Rainbow Dash’s head poking from the torso of the giant. Before she had a chance to answer, the metallic hand grabbed her and brought her in front of the “entrance” Rainbow Dash had made.

“Hop in” She motioned with a hoof.

“What in tarnation is this thing? How did ya get it anyway?” Applejack looked around mesmerized.

“Isn’t it awesome? I got if from the clock back there. C’mon! Let’s go show this off to the others” She smiled.

Fluttershy left the arena, expecting to come out at the forest once again. She gasped at the sight before her. She stood by a narrow passage that led straight to a small, two-storied house. In front of it there was a small garden, covered in herbs and dead leaves. The house itself seemed abandoned, with cracks on the walls and a rusty metal fence, leading to a small gate. In front of the gate there were two knight statues, made entirely of jade, detuning completely from the rest of the place.

But what actually made Fluttershy gasp was the area around it. There was absolutely nothing around the house. Looking behind, she could see that the whole place had turned into nothingness. The house was basically, placed into an endless ocean of white, and Fluttershy had no idea of how everything else had disappeared.

She looked down to the small path leading to the house. The golden bricks were gone but she knew she was going to the right place. She walked towards the house, only to be stopped by the statues, who crossed their arms in front of her as she was about to open the gate.

“Halt. Who goes there?” the thunderous voices startled her, causing her to jump back.

“I-I’m Fluttershy” She whimpered at a barely audible volume. The statues didn’t move.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and announced properly.

“My name is Fluttershhy” She said, sounding calmer now.

“Very well. What do you wish?” The voices thundered in choir once again

“I want to pass, if it isn’t much trouble” Her voice began to return to the usual volume.

“If you want to get through you must first answer this riddle” She raised her head with curiosity. She had heard many of those from Twilight, as they eventually played together. Twilight always won, but she was quite good at it.

“I have four wings, but cannot fly, I never laugh and never cry; On the same spot I'm always found, toiling away with little sound.”

Fluttershy sat down in the ground. She looked at the statues, which didn’t move or give any sign of life, just standing still in their eternal guarding duty.

“A dragonfly?” She stopped for a second and facehoofed at her own stupidity. DragonFLY. A plant? But plants have no wings! What could it be?

It suddenly hit her and she smiled to herself as the answer became obvious.

“A windmill” She said confidently. The statues before her lost their green color and crumbled as if they were made of sand. She stepped inside the house and opened the door.

Inside, the house looked was completely different. It was lively, the walls were painted with bright colors and the fireplace was lit. She jumped at the sound of a voice behind her.

“Hi there dear. Are you Twilight’s friend?” Asked the voice unknown voice, with a gentle tone. Fluttershy turned around to look and saw a strange pony that seemed to be covered in book pages. Upon closer inspection it could be seen that it was made out of paper, and it had no features, no eyes and the only discernible part was the mouth, that moved naturally.

“Oh…hi I’m looking for her. Is she here?” she took a few steps back from the paper pony.

“She’s upstairs in her room, you can go see her. I’m glad that you came. I wasn’t sure if Twilight had any friends, she studies all day you see, we were beginning to get worried about her”

Fluttershy thanked the strange pony and started making her way upstairs, while thinking about what she heard. That could be Twilight’s mother. She never spoke about her parents with her friends so she didn’t know how they were. Apparently Twilight had a pretty lonely childhood, being sent to a gifted unicorn’s school so young, and being Celestia’s student nevertheless!

Her trail of thoughts stopped as she made her way towards a white door with a small sign hanging from the middle of it that said “Twilight” written in large purple letters. She could hear crying from the other side of the door. She put a hoof to the handle and opened, not sure of what to expect inside.

The room was a simple children bedroom. It had a bed, a wardrobe, a small table covered in writing instruments and droplets of ink, and a short bookshelf, covered in books and a few toys. The walls were covered in pages, all coming from the same book and all of them had the letters mirrored.

In a corner opposing the door, Fluttershy saw what she wasn’t expecting. A little purple unicorn filly, lying by the corner sobbing uncontrollably. Her heart sunk at the sight and she knew she had to do something. She approached the filly and spoke as gently as she could.

“Hi there little filly. What happened?” The filly looked at her and she stared in daze. It was unmistakably her friend, Twilight. Her small face was covered in tears and she had a devastated look.

“I hurt someone” She muttered between sobs. Fluttershy understood what happened.

“But I bet it wasn’t your fault”

“It wasn’t!” She raised her voice “But I can’t just apologize!” Fluttershy came closer to her and held her in her hooves, looking straight into her eyes.

“Why can’t you apologize to her? I bet she will forgive you”

She started crying openly this time “Because she’s gone. That mean Discord made me hurt her and now…and now…” she didn’t manage to finish, and burst out in tears again.

Fluttershy hugged her tight, slightly surprising the filly. “Shhh. It wasn’t your fault, I know that, but you can’t just run away all the time” She stopped for a few seconds, thinking about it herself and how dumb that sounded coming from her “But I’m sure she is still there, waiting for you to apologize, and I know she’ll forgive you Twilight”

She looked up “How do you know my name?”

“I’m your friend. I’ve been for a while now”

“My friend?”

“Yeah, me and the others came here to take you home and help beat Discord. We need your help Twilight. Celestia needs your help”

Flames and bolts of magic flew through the sky as the battle between spike and Celestia’s doppelganger went on. Both of them flew low above the forest and danced through the air, while avoiding the other one’s projectiles.

Spike charged towards the alicorn, breathing a wave of fire while he did. She projected a magic barrier in front of her magical form, stopping the flames but not the impact as he flew upwards and slammed his spiked tail right in her chest.

She reacted quickly by firing a bolt of energy towards the dragon’s head, that was barely dodged with a spin to the side, slightly scorching him on the side. They flew towards each other, and the battle became a furious dance of hooves, claws, fangs and horns.

While the two of them were entangled in the fight, the mechanical giant driven by Dash was going their way.

“So, Applejack, what happened to the others?” Asked Rainbow Dash.

“Beats me to it. Ah was separated from’em right after you. That dragon-snake thingie you smashed attacked me and ah had to stay behind. Ah’m not really worried about’em, they can handle themselves but Fluttershy must be frightened”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. We’ll probably meet up with them anyway; I’m still following the road. What about that cool sword there, where did you get it?”

“Oh, this? Ah got it from a weird guy with no legs” She answered with disdain.

“What do you meaaahn” she was cut by a stranded bolt of energy that hit the golem in the head, making him shake around a bit before regaining balance.

“What was that?” Asked Applejack.

“Looks like someone is fighting over there. We’ll have to get through, but with this thing” She hit the wall with her hoof “It’s going to be easy.

They moved towards the fighters, who were entangled in the air, Spike attempting to bite her throat without much success. He saw the golem approaching and who was inside of it and moved away from the alicorn, but not before letting out a large wave of fire.

“Hey girls! Are you alright?” He tried to smile, but seeing a 10 stories tall dragon smile is not something very hearth warming, especially when each one of its teeth are as big as you are.

“Spike? Is that you? What happened?” Inquired Rainbow Dash.

“Sincerely? I have no clue, but now I need your help here. That thing over there that looks like Celestia is trying to kill me, I need you to…” He was cut off by a large bolt of magic that hit him in the back. The mares screamed his name but he just stared at the creature with angry eyes. The last flame he spat had hit her in the face, leaving half of it completely scorched, bone tissue being exposed.

“I guess you know what to do” Spike said before setting off to fight the creature once again.

With the aid of the golem, the balance of the fight tipped towards Spike, who could focus completely on attacking relentlessly as the metallic monster also attacked her, leaving no room for her to breath or fight back, sending waves of punches at the large avatar, while Spike unleashed a blazing inferno upon her. All that she could do was block as many attacks as she could with magic.

As one of the punches connected with the avatar’s face, breaking its jaw, and consequently the alicorn’s, she used the last of her forces to make it explode completely, sending her two foes flying away, but also leaving her body defenseless.

She stood in the air, flapping her wings as the golem tumbled down and the dragon was sent away by the blast wave. Without a second thought, Applejack grabbed her sword and ran to the broken window, jumping towards the alicorn.

Being taken completely by surprise at the unexpected move, the alicorn didn’t have the time to defend herself from the blade that was thrust inside her skull from above, gravity granting the blow enough strength to pierce the skull and reach her lungs. Applejack released the sword inside of the lifeless body, both tumbling down towards the river.

A few meters before she hit the river, Spike dove down from the air and grabbed her with one of his claws.

“Nice catch Spike. Let’s see how’s Rainbow doing, ah think she’s gonna be mighty pissed now that her toy’s broken” The two of them laughed and flew towards the fallen golem, to find Rainbow Dash standing on its torso yelling at the broken panels.

“Is the princess still alive?” Asked Twilight, the foalish voice now completely gone, and the tears replaced by hope.

“Yes, she is hurt but still alive. Luna sent us here to get you back”

Twilight smiled, and tears of joy flowed from her eyes “You came here for me? So you don’t hate me now?”

“Of course not. You’re our friend and Celestia knows it wasn’t your fault. Come on, the others are waiting for you”

Twilight got up and cleaned the tears from her face. Her friends still trusted her and came to help her, even after what she did. She tried to hold back, but the tears wouldn’t stop, she was happy for everything, the princess was still alive and her friends still had faith in her.

“Come on Fluttershy, this is my own mind, let me get us out of here” Her horn started glowing and a warm white glow enveloped them, shooting out towards the sky.

Pinkie looked up to the sky where a white beam of light traveled through the sky, dividing into four smaller ones, one of them going towards her.

“Looks like Fluttershy did it! I’ll have to throw her a party later. Aren’t you happy for her too?”

She looked down towards the wounded unicorn. She was stepping on the torso of Achilles, with one of her hooves over his snout, who was fallen to the ground with a large cut on his stomach and a deep gash on one of his back hooves, where her axe was stuck.

“I’m going to kill you for this!” He tried to shout over the hoof on his mouth.

“Why are you guys so obsessed with killing? It’s not even that fun, you should have a party! I would make one for you but I have to go, sorry” She finished as the beam of light hit her and took her away.

The same happened to the other three, all of them being surprised by the blinding light that surrounded them, until in a flash; they were kicked out of Twilight’s mind.

Rarity gasped in surprise as she saw her friends falling to the ground with a loud THUD as the spell was broken and they fell out of Twilight’s mind.

Twilight still had her eyes taped, and with a painful pull she removed the two pieces of tape.

“Is everyone alright?” She asked looking around. Upon seeing the state of her friends, Applejack having a wide cut on her side, Spike fallen unconscious to the ground with one leg clearly broken and Rainbow Dash covered in cuts, she broke her shackles with a loud magic explosion.

“Oh Twilight, you’re awake” Muttered Rarity, before fainting from exhaustion.

That was the last straw. Twilight’s horn lit up and in a flash of magic, they were all gone and reappeared in the palace’s infirmary.

“Please someone help! These ponies are wounded!” Twilight shouted around, attracting the attention of the nurse in charge, who upon seeing the scene before her lit her horn up and with a spell amplified her voice.

“Call to any doctors available! We have many wounded ponies and one dragon in need of urgent treatment ASAP!”

Twilight became calmer knowing help was coming and allowed herself to relax a bit. She looked at her friends and smiled when she saw the group of doctors arrive.

Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie sat at the waiting room of the hospital, along with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, both now covered in bandages. Rarity had fainted from extreme exhaustion and probably wouldn’t wake up for the next two days, but her situation wasn’t grave. What truly worried them was Spike. He had many fractures all over his body, a broken leg, a few broken ribs and one of them had pierced one of his lungs.

Two of the guards entered the room.

“Which one of you is Twilight Sparkle?”

“That would be me”

“Follow us, the princess wants to see you”

Twilight’s eyes lit up. She had wanted to talk to the princess for a while, and was worried about her condition. She followed the guards to another, larger room in the infirmary. The guards stopped at the door and motioned for her to go inside.

Before her, the princess laid on her side at a large bed, her wings closed and her face even whiter than usual, with two black halos surrounding her eyes. She was very weakened, it was plain to see. Twilight felt horrible about what she did, and seeing the princess in such a state didn’t make her feel any better.

“Twilight? Is that you?”

“Yes princess”

“Please, don’t do that” Twilight was confused.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t blame yourself for it. I can see that the guilt is eating you inside but I know it wasn’t your fault. Please come closer, I need to tell you something” Twilight stood at the side of the bed.

“My time is coming, and I need you to help me now, more than ever” Her voice was now serious, and Twilight felt herself tear up once again.

“Please Celestia don’t say that! You can’t die like this, we still need you! I need you!”

“Twilight, you were always like a daughter to me and I know I’m doing the right thing. I don’t have much time left, I have been fighting with all my strength just to be able to tell you this. I need you to wield the Elements once again and fight Discord”

“But princess, Rarity is in coma, we can’t use only five of them, we can’t fight without all the elements!” Her tears traced lines in her face.

“No Twilight. What I meant is that I want you” She pointed a hoof at her “to wield them. The Elements of Harmony aren’t just a magic catalyst. They were created by my father and even I don’t fully understand them, but he told me they would be a tool to choose the rulers of this land, and I have faith that one day, you will be a better one than I have ever been, and so I choose you as my successor” Celestia’s voice was just as calm as ever, despite her wounded and weakened state.

“What do you mean? I’m just a unicorn! I can’t take your place like this, I don’t know if I can do this!” Twilight broke down as she heard what seemed to be the Princess’s final words.

“Twilight, I’m sorry for this, I wish this could have happened upon better circumstances, but this how it was. My time here has run out, you will understand everything soon enough” As she spoke, she touched Twilight’s horn with hers, and a blinding white glow covered the room.

The light embraced them both, and Twilight felt something change in her body, but she couldn’t tell what. Although she could feel her body change, it wasn’t painful, and she embraced the warmth of the light. At some point in the process she lost consciousness.

When she woke up, her entire body felt numb, and her head ached. When she managed to stand up, she looked down at the bed where Celestia once was, and the only thing left was her necklace and the blood stained sheets. The strangest thing was that everything looked different… smaller maybe.

She took the necklace in her mouth and walked out of the room, still confused and stumbling on her own legs. She didn’t know why but every single passerby looked at her with a look of confusion or fear. She just wanted to get back to her friends and try to find out what happened.

After almost half an hour of trial an error walking through dozens of corridors she finally found her way back to the waiting room. As she tried to enter the room (she had to lower her head in order to pass through the door), all of her friends stared at her in disbelief.

“What is it? Why is everyone looking at me like that everywhere I pass through?! I woke up like this and the princess was gone and now I feel weird and everyone keeps acting weird around me!” She took a deep breath after finishing, wondering how Pinkie did that all the time without fainting.

Silently one of the nurses dragged a small hand mirror and handed it to her. She grabbed it with her magic and seeing herself she had the same look as her friends.

As she had noticed before, she had become taller, nearly as tall as the princess, but not only that. Her horn had grown to more than twice the original size, and she grew a large pair of wings. Her hair, although still the same color, waved in the air despite the lack of wind in the room, and had also grown longer.

It all made sense to her when she looked at her cutie mark. The five stars were still present, but now, instead of surrounding a larger one, they orbited a large Sun.

Just like Celestia’s.

She fell down to the ground, in shock. The princess had turned her into an alicorn. But at what cost? She had sacrificed herself in order to give Twilight her powers. She felt the weight of it all. She was now one of the rulers of Equestria.

“Where is Princess Luna?” She asked to no one in particular.

“She left to fight Discord, just as we entered your mind. She wanted us to go help her with the Elements after we brought you back” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Then I’m going” Twilight said with newfound determination

“Where?” Asked Fluttershy worriedly.

“I’m going to beat Discord”

Chapter 7 - Part 2 - Blooming of a New Kingdom

Luna was exhausted. The battle against Discord had stretched into long hours and chases through the tall buildings of Canterlot. She felt drained and her wounds ached and burned. Discord’s club was absurdly heavy but he waved it around like a twig, and was fast enough to land a few hits on her, breaking ribs and rendering her left wing useless. The former wave of flying blades was now reduced to three short swords that swung erratically in the air in a feeble attempt of hurting the agile draconequus, and a long blade, as long as an adult pony, was held in her mouth with difficulty.

“C’mon Luna dear, I thought we were fighting here?” mocked Discord, while motioning towards himself with both “hands”.

Luna emitted an indiscernible grunt in a failed attempt to retort through her panting and the sword in her mouth.

“Such an unmannered child. Didn’t your mother teach you not to talk with your mouth full?” Another fit of laughter came from Discord as he dodged the few flying blades with ease.

“You know, it has been fun while it lasted but it’s about time we put an end to this, I believe the winner is already clear”

With all of her remaining energy, Luna charged towards him with no hesitation in one last struggle. Much to her surprise and frustration, Discord also dashed towards her, closing in their distance far faster than she had predicted, not giving her time to swing the large sword.

Before she could react, Discord dropped his club and grabbed her forelegs in his hands and looked at her straight in the eyes. Luna tried in vain to break free, far too exhausted to release herself from the grasp of her captor. She tried swinging the blade towards his throat, but before the arc of the swing met its target, Discord gave her a swift strike with his forehead on her own, making her drop the sword and scream in pain.

They just stared at each other’s eyes for a few seconds, Luna with pure anger on her face and Discord with a delighted smile. He was the one to break the silence.

“Do you have any idea of what it is to be trapped for a thousand years on a statue?” his smile disappeared “I’ll tell you what it’s like: It’s boring and frustrating. No one to talk to, nothing to twist and deform into chaos, etcetera etcetera. But worse than that, do you know how I felt being trapped once again; the same way, right after breaking free? Know that just made me mad. But now” his manic grin came back full strength “now I’m going to show you all what chaos really means”

“You know you deserved every day of it Discord. Your ways brought only misery and suffering to all ponies in Equestria. That is all you are capable of, and that’s why you will be stopped! My sister will stop you once again!”

“Now Luna my dear, you shouldn’t lie like that. Your sister died along with that overgrown star of hers; I saw it happen, and so did you. And if she didn’t anyway, I’d still get to show her the end of her pathetic little kingdom.”

Discord looked towards the sky as if he was thinking about something. “Once, I said that I don’t turn ponies into stone if I remember it correctly” Luna stood terrified, still in his grasp as he turned his gaze back towards her “You’re not quite a pony; am I right?”

“Wait Twilight! You can’t fight Discord alone, it’s crazy!” Said rainbow Dash far louder than she intended.

“I know

Everypony in the room stared at her in disbelief.

“I know it is madness and every single cell in my brain has been telling me to stop and think about it, but somehow, I also know that I can do this. Celestia gave me her powers for a reason and I respected her until the last second. I still do.” She tried to sound calm but her voice showed her fear.

“But what are you going to do without the elements? Rarity is still unconscious and you can’t just take them all and use them by yourself, you remember what happened the last time” Fluttershy added, thinking about the failed attempt to give the element of loyalty to Spike.

“Sorry girls I don’t have time to explain. I can do it alone, Princess Luna is out there fighting by herself and doesn’t have much time left” Barely in time for her to finish the sentence, Twilight’s horn lit up and in a flash of purple light she was gone.

With a second flash she reappeared at one of Canterlot’s main streets. She looked around in shock and for a while, believing that she was at the wrong place. But taking a closer look at the deformed and thorn-covered houses and stores, she recognized a small bookstore where she used to go when she still lived there. She was indeed at the right place.

She remembered her goal and thought about what to do next. She needed to find Princess Luna, but she had no idea where she could be. Canterlot was a huge city and she couldn’t run blindly through the streets. But then, she felt something. It was a strange sensation, like a sound coming from far away, but she could feel it on her skin. Without any better ideas she decided to follow it, and as she got closer to the source it intensified.

What Twilight didn’t know was that the “sound” she was hearing was actually one of the perks of being an alicorn. Being all types of pony and none at the same time, alicorns had the connection with the earth that the earth ponies had, but were still able to channel magic, turning them into natural sensors; capable of locating any magic sources, and right now, the only one in the entire city of Canterlot was Discord.

Twilight galloped as fast as she could, and soon she found what she was looking for. Discord stood in a plain deserted area that used to be a small marketplace before the events of the day. His back was turned on her, and he was playing with what seemed like a statue. He juggled with it and dropped it down repeatedly, laughing like a child as he did.

Twilight looked at the statue. It was exactly like one of the statues in the palace garden, one depicting the two Princesses in scale. But this one was unbelievably realistic, and the terrified expression on the statue’s face seemed out of place.

“This is getting boring already without the screaming and begging for your life. You really are no fun you know that?” Discord held the statue in his hands as he spoke. He stared at its face and once again burst out laughing “Okay, I admit, this is quite entertaining, but if what you told me is true, then I still have another Princess to take care of”

And with a powerful throw, he sent the statue flying nearly a hundred meters above them, and prepared his club like a baseball bat. Twilight finally realized what was going on and as the statue started its descent, she teleported it away from him and to her side, leaving Discord staring at the sky with a wondering look.

“Finally someone else to stand up against me, I was starting to get really bored here. Now would you please show yourself and give me back my statue? I was about to find out what it looked like inside, it’s purely scientific I can assure you”

A large purple ray of magic bolted from behind a few wrecked stands, and in a few seconds, the Sun began to ascend on the horizon. Discord looked puzzled towards the source of the spell.

“Celestia! Good to see you again so soon, I was starting to wonder if you were really alive. I can’t wait to show you what I did with the place” He spoke cheerfully, pointing at the burning buildings.

Twilight slowly walked from her hiding place and into the light, turning Discord’s face of joy into one of disbelief.

“What the hay happened to you Celestia? Did you fall in a bucket of ink or what?” He mocked, not yet fully understanding the situation.

“I’m here to stop you Discord; you’ve caused enough suffering already”

Discord fell down to the ground laughing, after recognizing the voice. Of everyone, every single pony in Equestria, Celestia chooses her? The weak bookworm, so insecure as to allow him to bend and twist her mind like a paper clip, was now the successor of Celestia. This had to be a joke.

“You’re joking right? If you are good one, I almost choked here” Twilight stood still with a blank expression on her face “you’re not joking. Right. What makes you think you have the slightest chance of defeating me? Chaos makes me stronger and if you just think a bit, this place is a complete mess right now. Half the population already knows their princess died and that I’m back, and the other half is dead. I can feel the panic and fear, and if I’m lucky we’ll soon be in the brink of a civil war. I am nearly as strong as I used to be before the whole being-trapped-in-a-stone thing”

“Celestia trusted me, and I know that I can defeat you. I can’t let you bring any more suffering to the ponies of Equestria”

“Wow, spoke like a true Princess. I guess that you can talk just as fancy as the other two. Let’s see if you can fight just as well” And without giving her time to retort, the club swung down towards her.

Twilight dodged as fast as she could, jumping to the side. She wasn’t prepared for this. She had never fought before and she didn’t even have a weapon with her! She had just charged blindly into the fight without any kind of plan and was already regretting it. She hadn’t even brought the elements with her and they were probably the only weapon she could use.

Out of sheer impulse, she cast a spell and out of nowhere she pulled a large, purple glowing sword and blocked Discord’s attack with it. She held it in the air with her magic, glad to have at least one weapon. It was a long and thin blade with a wing pattern on the grip and runes written all over the blade.

Just as fast as she blocked she did a wide swing with it as Discord was about to strike her from the side with the club, managing to cut him in the chest. The cut was long but too superficial to do any actual damage.

“Oh my, the ever politically correct Twilight Sparkle using one of my forbidden spells to create a weapon. Where is this world going to?”

“Shut up Discord! While I was trapped inside my own mind I studied that book of yours completely and learned all of your spells! And also, you are in dire need of a proofreader”

Discord’s book was full of combat spells and offensive magic. Twilight found one of them very convenient at the time and cast it upon herself. It was the foresight spell, a spell that allowed her to foresee her opponent’s movements seconds before they were performed.

Their battle raged on just as the former, and for hours they swung their weapons, erratic bolts of magic flying through the air and in complete disregard for the surrounding city. Twilight’s knowledge barely made up for her lack of combat experience, but she dodged and attacked with predictable moves, easily dodged by Discord, but also managed to dodge all of discord’s attack’s due to her spell.

“Twilight listen to me” Called a voice from inside her head. A voice she would always recognize.

“Princess Celestia!? Are you alive?”

“Sort of; but there’s no time to explain right now. Twilight, you cannot defeat Discord in combat, he is absolutely tireless and you will eventually run out of energy. Our first battle lasted nearly four days, and that was at the peak of my power. You must use the elements or you won’t stand a chance”

Twilight tried to focus on the princess and the fight at the same time, without much luck. With a loud roar and a stomp on the ground, she created a magic shockwave, throwing Discord nearly half a mile away.

“There, we have some time now. I need your help Princess how am I supposed to use the elements? They aren’t with me right now!” Twilight was starting to panic as she heard Discord shouting in rage in the distance.

“I can’t explain this properly right now Twilight, but the elements aren’t just pendants or jewels, they are a force, a force you can use and summon if you have the will to. But you will need time to do it and I think that just pushing Discord away won’t work”

Discord was flying towards her like a bullet. Twilight waited until he was close enough and just as he stopped and used his momentum to perform a powerful swing sideways, she lowered her body into the ground and barely dodged.

The sheer force of the blow created a shockwave that crumbled various building behind her. Twilight needed to find a way to restrain Discord long enough for her to summon the elements; however she was going to do it. She could only think of one way out.

Before Discord could react, Twilight focused all of her energy on her horn and cast the spell that Discord taught her. Out of thin air, came dozens of chains and shackles that locked onto Discord’s limbs and sinking deep into the ground. Upon the spots where the chains sank, fell large pillars of what seemed to be steel, holding them down, and a large cage formed around Discord’s body.

“Talk about overkill” Mumbled the voice.

Discord raged and pulled against the chains, and Twilight could already feel the weight of the spell on her. Her magic powers had increased dramatically but that spell had made her faint form exhaustion.

She thought about what the Princess had said. She could summon the elements if she wanted, but how? She took a deep breath and focused. She thought about the pendants, and concentrated on them, trying to teleport them to her. It didn’t work.

Then she remembered the element’s significance. She thought about her friends and how their personality reflected into the pendants, and the link she felt with them when she used the elements. The pendants were not important, as Celestia said; the elements were a force, not an object. She then focused on the idea of the elements. On the memory of her friends. And slowly, six spheres of light began to form around her. Five of them took the form of ponies, each one a spectral representation of one of her friends, and the sixth glided towards her chest, and took the form of a necklace similar to the one the princess used, only with a purple stone in the middle.

Discord stared in despair. He wouldn’t go back to the stone prison again. Not without a fight! Mustering all of his power he created a large shockwave that broke through all of his restraints. Without even bothering to take his weapon, Discords charged towards the alicorn with rage in his eyes.

But before he could get close enough, the five spectral figures took to the air and began to fly around him, creating a perfect sphere of multicolored light, holding him in place.

“Give up at once Discord! I have the elements with me now, you have lost”

Between the flying specters Discord’s face could be seen, twisting in pure rage.

“You can’t keep me locked forever! I am one of the primordial beings! I reign over chaos! There will always be chaos and I will break free once again!”

“I’ll make sure that this never happens again myself”

For the first time, Twilight took flight. She flew right above discord and closed her eyes. The magic of the elements enveloped her and she floated gently in the air, even without flapping her wings. A thin beam of magic left her horn and flew towards Discord and the other elements. Their glow intensified, and with a blinding flash of light, they were gone. What was left was once again, Discord’s statue, this time, its expression more enraged than ever. Twilight almost felt pity.

Almost.

Back at the palace, the four ponies still in the hospital waiting room were overjoyed to see their friend teleporting back to the castle, bringing along a statue and Luna, now freed from the stone prison. The four small ponies gave her a group hug, relieved after seeing her friend’s safety. Flutershy was the first to speak up.

“Is that him?” she pointed at the statue.

“Discord, yes, it is him” Answered Twilight.

“But how did you do it? I mean; without the elements?”

“Look I know it is all very touching and you have a lot to catch up on but, Twilight Sparkle, I believe it is already time for you to speak to the people. The refugees from Canterlot are all here and are disoriented at the present situation. I think that now would be a great time for you to present yourself. And also clear any kind of misunderstanding, after all the population doesn’t fully trust me and some are spreading rumors about Nightmare Moon once again” Interrupted Luna.

“Wait I can’t just make a speech like this! I haven’t prepared anything and the people don’t know who I am, how would I…” She was cut off by the voice in her head.

“Calm down Twilight. I know you can do this. You just harnessed all the elements alone and defeated Discord. Are you afraid of a bunch of scared ponies now?”

She raised her head, now with newfound determination and headed towards the large gardens, where hundreds of tents were set to shelter the now homeless ponies. She looked down to the crowd from the makeshift podium that was set for her in a rush. And looked at them. Many didn’t even noticed her presence, others stared at her with a mix of curiosity and fear. Twilight massaged her temples with a hoof.

She raised her head, now with newfound determination and headed towards the large gardens, where hundreds of tents were set to shelter the now homeless ponies. She looked down to the crowd from the makeshift podium that was set for her in a rush. Many didn’t even notice her presence; others stared at her with a mix of curiosity and fear. Twilight massaged her temples with a hoof.

“This is going to be awkward”

Chapter 1 - Seed of Doubt

It was just another summer night in Ponyville, almost no sound could be heard on the streets and inside Twilight’s house (a huge hollowed tree located by the center of the small town) except by the snoring of a baby dragon sleeping soundly in a small basket, a few mosquitoes flying around and the groans of a not-so-soundly-sleeping unicorn.

During the last few weeks Twilight Sparkle had been haunted by frequent nightmares, being barely able to sleep at all, waking up covered in sweat but remembering none of them. But this one was different. It was vivid, and she was fully aware of every event.

She was standing in a dark and foggy room. She could only tell it was a room due to the high ceiling, since the walls were so far away she couldn’t even see them. The room was covered in bookshelves that seemed to go as far as the room itself, but with gaps between them, allowing free passage through the ample corridors that they formed.

The place looked familiar, especially the books that filled it, and upon closer inspection she could see that most of them were books she had read throughout her life, although there were many unknown to her. She dared to grab one of those with her magic; one named “The Ticket Master”, and opened it at a random page.

…“Well, ah challenge you to a hoof wrestle, winner gets the ticket!” Saying that, Applejack and Rainbow Dash darted to a nearby log and started wrestling with all their might. “They’re at it again, oh for Celestia’s sake!” you think. As you run up to them, you force them apart somehow, despite them being far stronger than you, and try to end the pointless competition. “Girls! These are my tickets! I decide who gets to come with me thank you very much!”…

“Sleeping well tonight my dear Twilight?” Says suddenly a voice coming that seemed to come from all directions and no specific direction at the same time, startling her and making her lose concentration, dropping the book to the floor.

Still trying to recover herself from the scare, Twilight tries to form a form a proper sentence, without much success. “Wha; Where am; Who?” The voice bursts out in laughter, making her cheeks turn bright red. After taking a few deep breaths she manages to speak.

“Don’t scare people like that; my heart is still trying to jump off my throat! Anyway could you tell me where I am?”

“Oh please, can’t you recognize this place? Just think about it for a bit, I think you’ll see that everything in here will be quite familiar to you.” She stopped and thought about it for a second. The book she read showed events from her life, seen from her own point of view. No one else could have written those books, but she also didn’t write them, and also it would be an enormous coincidence for there to be a library with the exact same book she read throughout her whole life.

“I can tell it just by looking at your face. Still no clue right? Well then, solve this riddle for me. Factory of dreams, poems and schemes of war. Grows strong with old age as the body grows sore”

As one would expect, Twilight loved this kind of challenge. She thought for a minute before answering intrigued. “Wait, so you’re telling me this is my mind? Is this whole place inside my head?”

“Exactly! Wouldn’t expect less from you. And as an answer to your question, yes we are inside your mind, since trough these dreams is the only way I could find to talk to you, for I have a matter of utmost importance to discuss with you”.

Those words caught her attention, but there was still something bugging her.

“Yes we may discuss whatever you want but could you please show yourself? It’s not very polite to speak to someone without looking at its face, and trying to talk to a voice that seems to come from everywhere around me is making my head spin.”

“Well if I must” Said the voice in displeasure.

Then, suddenly, the air started swirling around right in front of Twilight, condensing the fog and much of the darkness itself of the room, and forming a small tornado, dropping many books in the process (somewhat pissing off Twilight with the idea of someone cluttering up her mind).

When the wind stopped, she could see a dark form in front of her. Well, “see” is not quite the word for it. It looked ethereal, barely tangible. It was a pony-shaped creature, with two large wings of different sizes. It also had a horn. Or two she couldn’t really tell, it seemed to change shapes every passing second, only keeping its size. Even though it had about the same size as her, it had a really imposing presence. That was probably due to the only discernible feature in it: its eyes. It had a pair of bright yellow eyes with red pupils that both scared and mesmerized her.

“Here. Better now?” No answer. It spoke again in a louder tone. “Hello? Still there? You’ve been staring at me for quite some time”.

She snapped out of her trance, once again ashamed and her cheeks turned red. “Sorry for that, I’ve never seen anyone or anything quite like you, and trust me; I have had my share of strange encounters. So, what should I call you, mister…miss?”

It answered with a visibly offended tone “Well, I think that was supposed to be quite insulting, but I’ll let it pass. What and who I am is not important, but for the time being, you can call me Sid for short, and let’s keep it that way. And I am CERTAINLY a male individual.”

Twilight was now starting to understand better how Fluttershy probably felt and just how much a pony could possibly embarrass itself. Desperate to change the subject she asked nervously “So, Sid, what were the important matters that you wanted to discuss with me?”

“Well I was getting to that, after all the distractions. Pay attention for it is a matter of great importance to you, and everyone in this land of yours that you mortals call Equestria”

“Mortals?” She wondered what he meant by that. He kept on going and gesticulated continuously with his hoof-like appendages while he spoke. “Tell me Twilight Sparkle, do you know who the one that rules this land is, and what she is?”

She rose an eyebrow to this question, after all everypony knew the answer, but she answered it sincerely anyway “Of course it is Princess Celestia, our most gentle and fair ruler, and she is also my mentor and has been since I was very young” She said it like she had already prepared the answer beforehand, and was very proud of her answer.

Sid retorted with a sign of anger in his voice that he wasn’t succeeding (or even trying) to hide. “No my fool little pony, I meant what she really is”

“Oh, that, she is an alicorn, an immortal creature with enormous magical abilities, but of course you knew that, she raises the sun for us every day after all”.

Sid slapped his “hoof” in his face, making an audible noise. “So you don’t know” he said sounding really disappointed. “What do you mean?” She asked. He kept going without even worrying to answer. “Well, that is to be expected from someone that grew under the wings of the royalty, being so blindly loyal and all that. But!...” He proclaimed and in the blink of an eye disappeared and reappeared with his face just a few inches away from hers and staring deeply into her eyes, his own glowing slightly with a glow similar to the one that comes from an unicorn’s horn while executing a spell. “I do not blame you for it. That’s how you were raised. But you must see underneath her godlike exterior, her shell of lies and deceit”

She wanted to protest but she couldn’t find the will to do it. His voice was filled with sarcasm, but yet so convincing, even though he was throwing accusations at her object of adoration.

“You probably know how she came to be Princess right? It is said that she and her sister created the world and ponykind itself, and ruled it together. Until then the story adds up. Then, she sealed her sister away and had been taking care of everything, including the control of the sun AND the moon, which previously required the strength of the two alicorns, and everything goes as normal”.

He spoke fast, and moved around way too much, almost as much as a certain pink pony Twilight knew, but the strange thing was that every time he stared into her eyes, it was like a jolt of electricity went through her body, and it was going numb. She was still aware of all that was said, how could she not? The voice now sounded like it was coming from inside her head, and sounded less like a sugestion and more like absolute truths.

“Then, her sister SOMEHOW manages to come back from the moon. And guess what? You’re sent to take care of it. You and other 5 clueless ponies, to endanger themselves to correct something your almighty and righteous princess messed up. Are you following?

She could only nod in agreement.

“She then forgives her sister of all her crimes, no punishment at all. Isn't that lovely? And nopony complains. Funny thing isn’t it?”

She was now trying as hard as she could just to think critically about it, as hard as it were. “No, it couldn’t be her fault. She had a reason to send us to that mission right? And her sister was being controlled by something. But what? Why didn’t she defeat her? And how did she escape the moon in the first place? Wait, how did she survive in there anyway? No, stop this nonsense; the Princess wouldn’t do something to harm us, would she?”.

And he just kept going.

“Then, a powerful monster is revived, a draconequus that had already been sealed by her, and who she sends to defeat it? Can you guess?”

She barely manages to mutter “Us” groggily, and holds her mouth half open like someone under the effects of a powerful anesthetic

“And then, one by one, the creature takes control of your friends and turns them against you, brilliantly I must say, and makes you go through some of the worst moments of your life, just to seal him back up, something that, theoretically, the princess could just redo by herself, saving you much pain don’t you think?”

“Maaaybe this is a bit too much for you to handle at once” he thinks and then snaps his fingers, making Twilight jump up and knock down a few books.

“No that can’t be truth the Princess looks after us there must be an explanation she always looks after us and takes care of everyone there must be a reason why she didn’t help us or why she didn’t seal discord by herself even after I found the elements again and she knew it..” She said without even pausing to breathe “then…why…didn’t she help us?” She asked to herself, noticing what conclusion she had reached.

The seed of doubt had been planted

“Don’t you think it’s high time you stopped worrying about that fake goddess of yours? She is not almighty, she is neither perfect nor fair, she is just an old walking fossil that refuses to die, she is like a child that refuses to let go of a toy that it is too old to play with, she does not deserve your loyalty”.

“No, no, no, let’s not rush conclusions here, we must be rational, there must be a reason for all this.”

“Need any more proof? I’ll give you some. Do you recall an event in which a friend of yours, let’s say, “Borrowed” that bird from the princess to take care of it. What did you say it could happen to her? What would the all forgiving and fair princess would do to an innocent little pegasus with only the best intentions in mind? In your own words...” He said mimicking her voice with scary precision and making a fairly good impression of a frightened pony.“She might banish you to the Everfree Forest! Or lock you away in a cage! Or banish you to a cage in the Everfree Forest!” He laughed out loudly.

“And that time when you almost snapped when you thought that you would be; what was the word you used? Oh yes, “tardy”, with one of your friendship reports? That was priceless. So, what makes you so afraid of her? I really don’t blame you on that one. She just tries to display her power as much as she can. Why? So everyone of you will be so frightened that you wouldn’t try anything, lets say, “stupid” against her. Just think about it, what if that sun raising ceremony of hers is just a lightshow? Just the biggest display of magical strength that could ever exist? She wants you ponies scared. It is easier to control you that way."

Twilight dropped down to the ground with an audible noise. The weight of his words pushing her down. She was on the verge of tears. What if all that were the truth? Well, that would mean she had been lied to her entire life.

Sid stood by her side and put his “hoof” (that now possessed fingers, something she didn’t care or notice). “My poor Twilight Sparkle. Toyed around in the hands of a greater power, with no control of her very own life. Trust me when I say, Celestia has outlived her usefulness. This place needs a new princess. A new ruler. “

“One like you”

She looked at him with a look of fear, the most pure fear of challenging something that was way beyond her capacities.
“I just can’t do it! Are you mad? She would kill me if I tried anything like that!”

He smirked at the mention of the world “mad”. He gave her a last deep stare in her eyes. His own eyes started glowing and twisting more intensely that before. “It is up to you whether to ignore all you heard today, but you are no longer ignorant about it, so if you just stay idle and something happens because of the princess’s actions, maybe even to one of your friends, the guilt will eat you up from the inside” They parted their looks and once again Twilight bounced back like she had been pinched out of sleep.

“Your course of action will be your decision only, but this might change your mind. This is a book I wrote. Believe me I had plenty of time to write it, and it has everything you need to know about the princess”. He twisted his hand/claw/hoof/whatever in the air and a black book materialized in front of him. It then levitated in front of Twilight, who grabbed it with her magic and opened it. “I currently lack a physical copy of it so this one will have to do. It will only exist here, inside your mind.”

“Wait, what does this mean? I can’t read any of this!”

The books pages were black and the ink was white, but what was really odd about it was that the letters were recognizable but impossible to read due to a very strange disposition, and changed writing stiles almost every word.

“So here’s another riddle for you to read it: “A world where all that is left is right, but emulates all you do. A doorway to this realm, can be found inside your dressing room.”

She liked riddles but that was just pissing her off already. “Why do you keep on doing this sort of thing? Why don’t you just say things straight? That makes no sense!”

"Make sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?"

Chapter 7 - Part 3 - Blooming of a New Kingdom

Twilight stood at one of the corners of her room at the palace. Somehow it didn’t feel right for her to take Celestia’s room, but certainly her old one wouldn’t fit her now that he had grown considerably larger, and Celestia’s bed was the only one that was large enough to fit her properly.

She stared at the wall and focused. It worked with Discord and it would probably work this time too. Soon, the shape of the room twisted and disappeared, and a large throne room took its place. The walls went on indefinitely and it was covered in bookshelves. It had changed much after her transformation, but that was still her mind. At least this time there weren’t any crazed murderers or rabid dragons roaming around.

She walked towards the center of the shelf maze and there stood a large throne. Sitting on the ground and leaning against it was Princess Celestia. Once she saw Twilight approach her, she got up and came to greet her. Twilight bowed down, and much to her surprise, Celestia let out a heartfelt laughter.

“Rise my dear Twilight, there’s no need for such formalities here, especially now. I should be the one bowing down”

Twilight didn’t care, for her Celestia would always be the Princess, someone she would look up to and respect before anything else, and seeing her mentor once again filled her heart with joy.

“Princess I…” She stopped as Celestia gave her a slightly annoyed stare “Sorry again, Celestia I’m so glad that you’re here with me. I thought you had…you had….”

“Died? But Twilight, I can assure you that I am most certainly not alive either”

“Wait what do you mean? You’re right in front of me now!”

“Twilight, what is in front of you is what is left of my psyche, when I gave you my powers, our bodies and minds fused together, but I made sure that you would be the dominant one and that I wouldn’t alter your mind beyond the absolute necessary. I might have helped you in the battle earlier but I am not truly here. Soon I will fade into your own mind and be incorporated by you”

“But Celestia, I want you to stay! I need your help to govern Equestria, I can’t do this on my own!” She started tearing up. Celestia walked towards her and wrapped a wing around her.

“You won’t be alone, my sister will guide you and help you, and after all you have all the time you need to learn. And you also have your friends. They will always be there for you. Don’t worry, you will learn in due time. But for now, there is someone I want you to meet. I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty of bringing him here”

Celestia folded back her wing and turned around, Twilight following her gaze. It fell upon a large, white alicorn, taller than both of them. His mane and tail were made of fire, and his cutie mark was a spiraling galaxy.

Twilight knew that she was before a greater being, and bowed down, followed by Celestia, who spoke respectfully.

“Father”

“Wait what!?” Twilight proclaimed in shock. The two other alicorns chuckled, and Twilight felt more at ease.

“I will leave you two to speak in private” Celestia got up and walked past the throne, disappearing amongst the shelves.

“So you are my daughter’s successor” It wasn’t a question. His voice was deep and powerfull, but still gentle and caring, like a father who speaks to his young children.

“Yes. And you must be Solaris right? I read about you in a book”

“Discord’s book I presume? It was the only written register of my existence in this world, and yet, filled with lies ant mad tales”

Twilight didn’t answer; she just lowered her head in shame.

“Now hear me child, it wasn’t your fault, I know you were tricked by him, it’s what he does after all. And that is why I came here. I came to bring you the truth about the story of Equestria”

Twilight looked at him with great expectation. She knew that Discord’s stories were false, but she didn’t know to what extent, and seeing the same god that was depicted in the book right in front of her made her even more confused.

“Discord’s story was very close to the actual story, and that’s what makes it so dangerous. A lie must be as close as possible to the truth in order for it to be convincing, and Discord excels at that. As far as it goes, my struggle against The Darkness was true, I absorbed it within myself and with my powers I created the land and the trees. But that’s where the lies began. I created my two daughters beforecreating the dragons. I gave them the powers of creation and both of them shaped the entire planet the way it is by themselves. Although they alone were quite enough to handle everything, The Darkness still lingered inside me, and tried to influence me. It implanted an idea into me, the idea that I needed to create another powerful being, one to govern the laws of the universe. And that was the day I created Discord. He was even more powerful than my daughters, and so, he took over, bringing chaos and destruction to their creation, and especially, to the ponies. That was when I created the Elements of Harmony, a force to be wielded and guided only by the pure of heart. Then, with the power of the elements, my daughters fought him bravely. But right before Discord was imprisoned for the first time, he managed to use all of his remaining strength to create two eggs and teleport them to the core of the planet, where I hid myself once. Two dragon eggs. They would only hatch many years later, and then the ancient dragons would be born, triggering an important chain of events that would lead to the First Draconic War, but that’s a story for another time.”

Twilight absorbed every detail of what she heard. She was not only hearing the true story of the world, but was actually hearing it from the only WITNESS! She couldn’t be more excited.

“Wait, Discord spoke about a war, I thought he had made that up. And what about the part that you were supposed to be dead?”

Solaris laughed “Certain things are better forgotten, war only brings disgrace, and this one was no different. And as a matter of fact, I was supposed to have ceased existing, but even I didn’t know the extent of my powers. A god wouldn’t just die like that right? After seeing Discord trapped, I could no longer trust myself to creat, since the darkness would always be there, whispering in my ear, and I couldn’t destroy Discord, for he was now part of the balance, having received the power over chaos, so I just decided to become part of the world and hold its laws together myself. So yes, just like Discord said, I “exploded”. But I didn’t die, only my power and consciousness were so spread over that now I can’t interfere, only watch”

“Then you are the forces of the world now? Like gravity and energy?”

“Precisely, I see that my daughter made a wise choice for a successor. I don’t mean to sound rude but I believe my time here is ending, I can’t stay much longer without compromising the time-space continuum, I believe you understand me. I hope that you can rule this land with justice and selflessness, and know that I am watching you, although I can’t really do much. Farewell young one”

Solaris lowed his head and closed his eyes as his body began to slowly fade into the air, as he left twilight’s mind. Suddenly, he raised his head and spoke up fast.

“And please tell Luna that I haven’t abandoned her and that I’m sorry!” And with that, he disappeared completely. Twilight looked around and saw that she was alone. She walked towards the large, marble throne and sat on it.

“Why is just everyone leaving me today?”

Luna walked into Twilight’s room, two guards by her sides. I was almost time for her to raise the Sun but she hadn’t shown any sign of life. She looked around for her and saw the purple alicorn’s facing into a corner of the room.

“Twilight Sparkle? What is it that you are doing?” Twilight jumped up and turned around quickly.

“Me? Well I was talk; I mean thinking about a few things”

“Must you really “think” With your face on the wall? You are freaking out the guards. Also, it is almost time for you to raise the Sun”

“Oh, sorry about that” Twilight looked around nervously. She took a deep breath and looked at Luna “Please Princess Luna, could you please call of your guards? I have a message for you”

Luna motioned with a hoof towards her guards and they quickly left the room. Twilight closed the door with her magic.

“Please Twilight Sparkle, you may call me Luna. And who is this message from?”

“Solaris. He said that he hasn’t abandoned you and that he is sorry”

Luna smiled. For the first time Twilight saw Luna smile with sincerity, and a lonely tear left her eye. She spoke before Twilight asked anything.

“Father always blamed himself for the Nightmare Moon incident. He accidentally infused me with some of The Darkness as I was created, and that created a second mind inside of my own. But now she is part of who I am, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m not going to ask how he spoke to you or why; I know he has his reasons. And now shall we go? It is about time for the Sun to rise.”

Twilight smiled and followed Luna through the castle corridors, the two guards now following close behind them.

“So, Twilight Sparkle, what did you decide to do about the problem of Discord’s statue?”

“Actually, I already solved it. I couldn’t destroy it because it would break the balance, after all chaos is also important, but I couldn’t have him near any living creature so that he would break free again seeing any conflict, so I followed the wise actions of my mentor”

“And what would they be?”

Twilight looked away from Luna, avoiding eye to eye contact.

“I kind of… sent him to the moon…you don’t really mind do you? Hey Luna what’s the hammer for? Do you want some tea?"

“No, I’m fine, I just think I’m going to dig my sister out of your SKULL! Get back here Twilight Sparkle!”

Thanks to everyone who read my story! I had a lot of fun writing it and it turned out better than I actually expected. Please comment and tell me what you think, this is my first fic and any kind of constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. And for those who liked the story, I am going to start working on a sequel as soon as possible, I’ve had the idea since I started writing the previous chapter, the focus is going to be different but still it will be a sequel.

Thank you all and if you enjoyed reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing, then my work here is done.