The first thing Thunder registered when she began to come to was that her body hurt, a slow pulsing ache running through every pore of her being sharpening to a thick throb at her temple. The next thing she noticed as that wherever she was now was cold the only part of her that wasn't in pain was the frozen tips of her hooves. As she lay there with her eyes shut trying to orient herself again she heard a pair of voices whispering back and forth among themselves.

"Where do you think she came from?" one voice, sounding like a young stallion, whispered as Thunder heard a set of hooves walked past her.

"I don't know but I heard she came from that old cursed basin by the castle" another voice, deeper than the first, responded walking toward Thunder a moment before following the first.

Thunder felt a tickle in the her throat, but despite her best efforts to hold it in, she let out a loud rasping cough that shook her entire body and made her groan in pain. She heard the owners of the voices coming closer to her again and she slowly opened her eyes. What she saw in front of her was baffling: they look like black ponies but their legs were filled with holes, one even had a hole in the middle of his tail they both had large light blue eyes with a white blue color acting as the pupil they had short smooth horns and sharp fangs, Thunder even noticed that they had a dark blue piece of what looked like armor on their backs with see through light blue wings attached one even had a matching helmet on his head giving it a look of a military officer. Looking around she realized she was in some sort of cell: thick black bars blocking her from walking more than five feet in any direction she was laying on a small cot and, thankfully, had not been chained to the wall despite the silver chains being close to her right side attached to the wall. The rest of the room was even darker than her cell so dark it was impossible to see very far into it, the only things she could make out from where she was standing was a small table, probably where the guards sat to relax while watch the prisoners, and a large door on the other side of the room probably the way out of this dark dank room, the shadows so thick that not even the gleaming red crystals lining the wall could cut through them.

She sat up slowly, noticing a small square window with three thick black bars the moonlight bleeding through them proved that the sun had set while she was sleeping though she was not quite sure for how long it had been set for. Sliding off the cot caused more fresh waves of pain to pulse through her body "Where-" she began, clearing her throat to try to clear the rasp from her tone "Where am I?" She asked the odd-looking ponies limping to the bars.

"In our dungeon ma'am" the younger sounding one answered "Your yelling would've alerted Celestia's troops so you were ordered to be shot down by the King" The pony in the helmet smacked him upside the head silencing his loose jaw.

"But now that you're awake, the King will want to speak with you himself" the helmet pony said, walking over to the table picking up a small bronze key that Thunder hadn't seen before then walking over to unlock her cell door. It slid open with a slight rattling sound and the pair of strange ponies flanked her leading her toward the door The helmet pony then lead them up a large black stone spiral staircase. The stone had aged well, those they were cracked in some places it still held strong against her hooves as she climbed them. The walls, also black, were lined with more red crystals which gleamed brightly to light their way Thunder looked along the walls spotting windows every few feet but what really caught her attention were the paintings that lined the walls on the opposite side of the widows.

The paintings seemed to tell a story, the first showed four unicorn fillies: one dark grey with orange eyes, one blue with blue eyes, one white with purple eyes, and one black with green eyes playing in a garden in front of a large crystal castle they looked very happy playing together in the bright colorful flowers the dark grey filly was in the middle of hitting a bright green ball toward the other three fillies all of them smiling and laughing joyfully. The next painting still showed the same ponies, but they were older now, young ponies, the grey, blue, and black ponies seemed to be facing off against the white one which was surrounded by black magic cracking the ground around it. In the third painting the dark grey unicorn pony had his back toward whomever was painting, looking up high above the skyline from the top of a large crystal platform watching the sun, which seemed to have a sort of pattern imprinted on its fiery surface. The grey pony seemed to be sad, his ears were down and his horn was chipped. The final painting rested near the door and other than the first one it was the happiest: the blue, black, and grey ponies were together the blue and black one flanking the grey one on either side facing a colorful mass of ponies underneath a flag of three large connecting triangles one grey with a red crystal, one dark blue with a white moon, and one black with three green feathers. The helmet pony stopped at the door, unlocking that one with another key and stepped into the room beyond then off to the side to watch Thunder walk inside. The pair led her through the large throne room to another door hidden off to the side stopping on either side and flanking it standing at attention as she walked inside.

Inside the room, which was a tea room hurriedly changed to a makeshift war room: an odd clash of fancy upper-class style and hardy middle-class endurance. There were dark blue crystals glowing at every corner of the room and a larger blue crystal hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier leaving the room easy to see but not bright. The room itself was covered in maps some of them as small as counties, others as large as the entire known kingdom of Equestria marked with grey and orange flags and matching colored lines but most were put on the wall because the tables were too small to support the bigger maps. The only thing in the room that was neatly arranged was the armor and weapon racks lining the walls but they could've just simply been moved from one room to another the way they were. Curious at the glowing crystals she walked over to touch one, her just about to graze its surface when a calm voice made her jump.

"We'll have to double the patrols- please don't touch that, they are very sensitive and you might break it" Thunder turned to find herself staring at the very three ponies that she had seen from the painting on the wall, the grey stallion was flanked by the blue one, a helmet hiding her face, on his right and the black one, filled with holes like those two odd ponies guarding the door, was on his left. "My name is King Sombra, who are you?" the grey unicorn addressed Thunder when the silence stretched between them, the black pony was watching her suspiciously while the blue one was nearly impossible to read, but her body language was relaxed so with an uneasy glance toward the black unicorn Thunder began to tell him all she knew of what happened to her.

"So you say your aunt dragged into the basin and you wound up here? Curious....I've had theories about that old basin of course" Sombra explained his distant eyes focusing on Thunder again as he spoke "But I've never been able to study it close enough, because of Celestia's forces" the scholarly stallion shook his head sadly. "Now tell me about your mother we may be able to find her, and she may be able to lead us to your aunt and perhaps a way home you seemed very distressed when we shot you down, with my apologizes, it was for all of our safety, we couldn't chance one of Celestia's drones finding our headquarters.

"But sir that's the part I don't understand..." she began frowning doubtfully "Celestia is my aunt my Mom is Princess Luna, she controls the moon, I was with her before I got pulled into the basin we were talking with Fancy Pants in the garden when I heard Celestia calling for help"

The trio exchanged a glance the blue pony stepping forward to study Thunder a moment before speaking, her voice muffled by her helmet "You're mother is Princess Luna?" she questioned after which Thunder nodded quickly to confirm "Well that is impossible" taking off her helmet the pony revealed her face, a face that Thunder knew well, "Because I've never had a foal in my life" Princess Luna looked at Thunder with a raised brow.

Thunder frowned, not understanding, "Yes you did, when you became Nightmare Moon you met my dad and...." she blushed shrugging letting the obvious hang in the air the grey and blue ponies blushed a little themselves at her implication but the black pony looked unimpressed.

"Sombra you can't be believing this" she scoffed "it's the worst cover story I've ever heard" the black pony stepped forward baring her jagged black horn at Thunder, sending the dark blue back a few hoofsteps before Luna stepped between them.

"Hang on Chrysalis there is a simple way to figure out what's going on here" Luna assured her own blue horn sparking with magic before she turned to Thunder, pressing her horn to Thunder's forehead. At once Thunder heard a loud noise, like water rushing through her ears and pressed them down against the invasion groaning as it made the pounding in her head reawaken. She closed her eyes memories coming to her mind at lightning fast speeds a few she could see clearly: learning about tools from her father, making mother’s day gifts for her mother, her first day of school, the wing weights, her parents deaths and taking on not only the farm but foal Red as well, meeting the element bearers and her birth parents, her flying lessons, talking with Fancy Pants, and then hearing Celestia’s voice calling her into the maze and through the stone basin she didn’t even realize she was crying through it at until Sombra gave her a handkerchief to wipe the tears away.

“I think that clears things up nicely” Sombra said, for the moment finding something interesting on the wall to study so that Thunder could gather herself once again, she hadn’t even known that the others had been watching her memories as well. “Now Miss…” He began, blinking in surprise when he realized he had forgotten to get her name.

“Thunder Mist sir, but you can just call me Thunder” Thunder replied with a quick dip of her head and a small grin, she liked him she decided he kind of reminded her of her grandfather.

“Miss Thunder” He amended with a bashful grin “We know very little about that basin though now it appears to be some sort of portal to another world” he added to himself and based on the look on his face, one Thunder saw on Twilight a lot, he was making a mental note of that discovery “But in our world Celestia was consumed by dark magic and wishes to control all of Equestria” Sombra gestured and Thunder took a seat ready to listen to his story, surprised when the Luna of this world took a seat at her side. “We, that is to say Luna, Chrysalis, Celestia, and I grew up together here in the Crystal Empire we were the best of friends and at one point Celestia and I were betrothed to be wed” Sombra offered her a cup of tea which Thunder accepted hoping it might ease the throbbing in her head and the ache in her throat. “We were a bit younger than you are now when Celestia found the dark crystal, it was deep inside the castle but being young and foolish we wanted to see what was locked away. We wanted to leave but Celestia was reluctant, she was drawn to the dark magic oozing from it and though we dragged her away she must have returned to it. She gathered a small army and tried to attack the citizens, it took all three of us together to subdue her and rid our ponies of her threat, she had been banished from our land and had her magic taken but that leads to a greater question, why did she take you instead of a unicorn?” Sombra studied her with a scholarly orange eye but for once Thunder knew, or at least mostly knew, the answer.

“Well sir, it’s because I can use dark magic” Thunder paused expecting more accusations but when Sombra merely nodded for her to continue she shrugged it off mentally “In my world like I said before it was Princess Luna who had become enthralled with dark magic, and she was banished to the moon for a thousand years, but before she had been sent to the moon she met my father Discord in the dream realm and…” she trailed off a second time rubbing the back of her neck “But my world’s Twilight Sparkle has theorized that it’s my father’s chaotic powers that allows me to use dark magic and that it was my dark mother's plan to try and use my powers to overthrow Celestia and the sun itself, that’s the theory anyway…” Thunder trailed off awkwardly “I don’t really have control of them yet, I’ve been working on it with Twilight but mostly I’ve only managed to activate them so when I had gotten mad, and they don’t really listen to me anyways” she sipped her now cold tea smiling at little as it ease her sore throat just as she wished.

“Interesting… we had an agent named Harmonious who might be your world’s Discord, he went missing nearly a year ago he must have been taken by Celestia in an attempt to make a foal like you, but something must have gone wrong if she had to fetch you through the basin” Sombra stood suddenly “Could I try a small test, judge the power of your magic I’d like to see just how much potential Celestia sees in you” he floated the tea away without a thought ready to move to wherever as he turned back to Thunder. Thunder opened her mouth to speak, surprised into silence when Luna stepped forward moving as if to block Thunder from a blow and began to speak instead.

“Sombra, maybe it wouldn’t be wise testing not only dark magic but wild dark magic at that” Luna kept her tone polite but there was an undercurrent of worry that seemed to catch the stallions attention.

“Don’t worry Luna, I have the perfect room for this, the castle won’t be harmed” He tried to sooth but the blue alicorn merely cocked a brow at him.

“It isn’t the castle I’m worried about being harm Sombra” Luna cheekily replied making Thunder blink perhaps watching Thunder with her real mother made this world’s Luna feel a bit of kinship with her?

“It’s alright ma’am” she said with a polite nod to Luna in thanks for her concern “as long as the room is protected strong enough with magic, my magic shouldn’t be a threat” she stood as well squaring her shoulders and following Sombra, at once being flanked by Luna and Chrysalis, who had been watching the entire exchange with suspicious eyes.

The room Sombra led her to after climbing up almost 3 dozen identical sets of black stairs wasn’t anything impressive, it was merely a plain white room only having an equally plain bed inside “It’s a quarantine room, we have several more on this level of the castle it’s protected against all sorts of magic related illnesses and is probably the strong set of rooms in the whole castle, perfect for testing your magical claims” Sombra puffed up with pride at his words opening the door wide so that Thunder could walk inside “We’ll be able to see you through the window there” he pointed to the window near the door “and if you need us we’ll be able to hear you through the intercom here” He pointed to a small shiny grey device next to the bed “If you need anything just call us and we’ll come running” he smiled kindly then backed out of the room.

Thunder looked around the room “What do you want me to do?” she asked sitting down facing the window, watching as Sombra reached for something under its frame a moment later his voice sounded through the room.

“Just try and activate your dark magic, think of things that make you mad or scared so we can see how strong you are” Sombra’s voice said before with a quiet beep the room was silent once more.

Thunder screwed her eyes shut and tried to focus on the memory she always used in her lessons with Twilight, but though it still upset her, the memory didn’t push her hard enough to using her magic.

“Hurry up!” she heard Chrysalis growl through the intercom breaking her focus Thunder’s eyes blinked open slowly and she her gaze burn through the window as she pressed the button of the intercom a second time.

“Miss. Chrysalis, I can’t just flip a switch and use it” She rubbed her temples where her headache was once again beginning to make its presence known again “I’m trying as best as I can the memory I usually use isn’t quite working anymore and this headache isn’t helping matters either” she blinked an idea coming to her “wait, my headache, is there anyway to make it worse?” she looked toward the trio hopefully.

Thunder watched as Sombra exchanged a confused glance with Chrysalis but nodded, his horn lighting up a second time and after a moment she felt as if her head was going to split in two. Thunder sucked in a sharp breath but smiled focusing on the pain, trying to turn it to anger, she felt it the moment that it worked. Felt the chill of darkness echo through her and watched in slow motion as the energy gathered around her and pulsed out, cracking the window. She felt the pain in her head leave her and the dark magic petered out as her anger turned to worry “Are you guys okay?” she asked through the intercom waiting to hear an answer.

“Yes we’re fine, don’t worry” Luna’s voice replied after a few moments “Sombra’s graphing the power level now… are you alright?” her voice continued after a long pause, as if she wasn’t sure it was her place to ask or not.

“Yes mo- ma’am, I’m alright, a little hungry and I wouldn’t say no to a bit of water but I’m unharmed” Thunder corrected herself quickly reminding herself that though that pony looked like her mother and was her she wasn’t her mother… not really.
After a few minutes of silence the door opened again and Sombra gestured for her to once again follow him, assuring her that the window could easily be fixed by magic. “You’re magic is fascinating, it has no horn to focus through so it just kind of leaks and explodes through your body, but only when it’s urged to the surface it lays dormant until you are in pain or angry like some sort of last minute rescue attempt” Sombra’s voice softened until he was merely mumbling to himself rather than the three ponies following him not that Thunder was really listening anyways.

Twilight had figured out the same thing through her tests and honestly even though they had been very nice to her, other than blasting her out of the sky mind, she just wanted to go home. She missed her friends, her mother, Red, and this world just didn’t make enough sense to her but at least now her headache seemed to have finally left her for good. Thunder would’ve run into Sombra’s legs if Luna hadn’t tugged on her tail to make her stop, she hadn’t realized that Sombra had turned to look at her, his eyes strangely unreadable, and she blushed “I’m sorry sir, I was lost in thought could you repeat what you said” she said shyly.

“I just asked if you’d like to get some rest dear magic is an exerting process, you can rest here and then we’ll see about sending you home in the morning” something in Sombra’s tone didn’t settle quite right with her, he was still using that gentle warm tone but she felt as if he wasn’t telling her everything...

“I’d like that sir, thank you for you offer I’m sorry I’ve been such a burden to you and your troops” she walked into the room he indicated but didn’t try to go to sleep or even bother to look around. She leaned against the wall near the door and tried to hear what he was talking about only hearing three sets of hooves walking away from the door. Perhaps she was just being paranoid so he looked at her a little funny that didn’t mean he was an enemy, maybe he was just surprised at her magic… Still she was unsettled she laid down on the bed hoping that it was all in her head, willing herself to sleep.

She blinked her eyes open in her dream looking around in confusion trying to identify where her mind had taken her. It looked like Ponyville, taking to the sky she hurried through the familiar streets and buildings until she reached home. “Red?!?” She called bursting inside so hard that if it had been real the door might’ve cracked with the force. She hurried upstairs when she didn’t get an immediate response, finding Red fast asleep in her bed “You’re safe… at least in my dreams you’re safe” she mumbled sitting down beside the bed. “I wonder if they’re worried for me, do they know where I went? Do they even know about the basin?” She looked over as Red began to fret mumbling to herself and kicking her bed spread off. “Don’t worry yourself over me little sister I’ll hurry home as fast as I’m able” she got up tucking the spread over Red running her hoof over the filly’s mane “Even if it’s just a promise in a dream… I’ll be home before you know it” she leaned down pressing a kiss to Red’s brow smiling sadly at the grin blooming on the filly’s face. Suddenly the dream seemed to ripple, and Thunder knew she wasn’t alone any longer, she looked back seeing the tall graceful form of her mother walking toward her and tears filled her eyes. “Mom!” She cried hurrying over nearly knocking the blue mare off her hooves in her haste, she buried her face in her mother’s fur breathing in it’s familiar scent.

“Thunder, you need to wake up” Luna said, gently running her hoof through Thunder’s mane like Thunder had done to Red “Sombra is worried about your magic, he thinks you may be a threat he wants to imprison you you have to run… run to the basin and go home” she didn’t resist when Thunder moved to look up at her, but kept her close in her hooves nonetheless.

“Wait… Sombra? The basin…? You aren’t my mother are you?” Thunder’s eyes narrowed a little but the moon mare only smiled hugging her close and despite Thunder’s misgivings she felt herself relax.

“For now I am...” The mare whispered into her ear “now wake up Thunder Mist, wake up and run…” With her voice echoing in Thunder’s ear, the dark blue mare jerked away stumbling out of her bed as fast as she could, hitting the floor with an ungracious thump. She could hear hooves coming her way she noticed in a moment of wild clarity that her bed spread was black and red matching the room and reminding her for a moment of Sombra himself. She noted a small window, it wasn’t wide enough to fit comfortably, but she should be able to squeeze through she rushed over locking the door and pushing a small side table in front of it shaking the small gem on it and shattering it on the floor but she was unconcerned for Sombra’s belongings at the moment. She knew that her little barrier wouldn’t hold against magic and as the hooves came close panic began to swallow her, she hurried to the small window and flapped her wings sliding into the window until the frame hit her wing joints, folding them down just as the doorknob jiggled. She took a deep breath and began to pull herself through the window she felt feathers and fur alike beginning to tear out as she forced herself through the window. Finally she felt herself go free her skin tearing and blood flowing from her sides but a sense of victory filled her as she dived hoping to find a hiding place.

She found sanctuary in a small hole, it was shielded from sight of Sombra’s castle by half a house she laid down in the hole and leaned back to assess the damage, she was missing three secondary feathers in her left wing and one primary feather in her right her sides were covered in scratches but the bleeding had already stopped missing a few clumps of fur… all and all not that bad, flying would feel strange for a while but they’d grow back in a few months. She looked out of her hiding place the smoke making her throat ache and looked around, she must have been near the castle when she was shot down, maybe if she hurried she could get to the basin…

She didn’t have anymore time to waste she stood slowly shaking out her hooves and taking off in run that would’ve made Applejack proud, praying to any pony who would accept it, she hoped she wouldn’t be spotted by Sombra’s guards as she ran through the barren landscape ducking behind what little cover she could find in the wreckage of their war, she was panting when she finally made it to the basin and that is what she would blame on what happened next. She had just began to climb onto the basin stepped when a magical net of some sort surrounded her and dragged her down to the ground with electrical sparks coursing through her.

“Well hello there my little pet, I knew you’d come back here soon enough, I just had to play the waiting game… I’m good at waiting” the voice sent chills down Thunder’s spine she knew that voice… with great difficulty Thunder turned looking into cold purple eyes, eyes that were both her aunt’s and this dark beast before her… The beast that had finally gotten it’s prize and Thunder didn’t have any pony to help her this time.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long wait guys, I wanted to take a bit of a break and I didn't mean for it to be so long but life caught up with me and I had so much to do but hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter and not hate me for it XD until the next chapter gang, stay awesome!