The darkness of the cavern was broken only by the pale sickly green light that shone from a orb suspend between twin curved horns which adorned the furry head of a black goat. Finally after years of rest, Grogar's power was returning, though without substance of stolen souls his returned would be slow. Still as he focused as much of his magic into the orb that steadily grew above his head.

The shadow's danced around his rocky haven bouncing between the stalagmites and stalactites. A shallow pool filled one side of the cavern and strange sightless fish meandered in the crystal clear waters. An astounding variety of gems could be seen in the walls making a mesh of rainbow hued reflections.

“Go, my eye,” Grogar commanded. “Find me the safest of sources for me to feed, the fresher the better.”

Hearing it's command the orb which had been gathering above Grogar's head shot off, snaking through the caverns and passageways towards the surface. Faster than a pegasus, save maybe a certain polycromatic mare, could fly the orb speed towards civilization.

~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~

Time not counted passed before the orb returned to it's creator. The orb fell into the head of Grogar and for a second his eyes glowed the same sickly green as the orb had once been. Smiling he gathered the last of his energies. The ritual would take him days to complete but soon he would be feasting on a meal more mighty than his wildest dreams. Thousands a day would be his to consume, and best yet the naive royal sister's would be none the wiser.

Sleep was of no concern to him and soon his efforts paid off as slowly the rift opened and he could feel the untouched souls just there for the harvesting. Gleefully he consumed, and his strength quickly returned. Given enough time he would finally be able to rid the world of his nemesis, Celestia. But first he would need an army, and he knew just where to gather such a force. Still such numbers would be impossible to hide from his ever vigilant enemy, he would need assistance in it's creation to finish before their watchful eyes fell on his work. An assistant. He would have to make them first, and with such an abundance of souls he could spare a few to such a task. After sorting through the masses he found the perfect soul, strong and pure, which would be most enjoyable to corrupt into the perfect lackey. Though they would require a body. Temporarily Grogar pried a small ruby from the wall of his temporary home, and fused the gem with the soul for safe keeping.

Four more times he found the perfectly innocent souls and four more times he trapped them in a gem each. Younglings were the most pure and often least damaged, perfect for his needs. As much as he hated to let perfectly fine food go to waste he grabbed a soul from the masses and tore it asunder gleaning information about it's prior form from it's limited memories. Several times over, he ripped from his meals the information needed to create a body like those the souls once inhabited.

With the information at hand Grogar gathered from the walls all of the smaller and less useful gems and shards. Soon he had a pile nearly the same size as himself. It would not due for his assistant to be larger than himself, for propriety sake but also any larger would make them an easy target on the battlefield. Slowly he filled the gems with his dark magic, knowing the ritual to create a proper vessel for his assistant would take more than he would otherwise be able to muster quietly. Days went by and the pile of gems shone with a slight sickly green glow. Transmutation was not Grogar's forte, they lied in Necrothurgic arts and enchantments, but with an over abundance of power from his endless meals the task would still prove trivial, though lengthy. Still more days passed and soon the pile of gems were no more and in its place lay a strange naked ape creature. Taking the five soul gems, he drew their contents out and weaved them together fusing them as one, tossing aside the extra unneeded memories and pieces. With a much more practiced art, Grogar infused the freshly created form with the amalgamation and imbued it with a breathe of undeath. A strange unlife fluttered through the form, sending spasms down its length. Still the form held and the eyes flashed open.

“Wake now,” Grogar called to his freshly created assistant. “Wake and learn, Libra Mortis.”

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Pop. A sudden weight pushed Celestia firmly into the cushion of her throne. She was preceding over day court, tending to the needs of her subjects. One of her many supplicants whose request of the day was as meaningless as the one he had the day before, sat before her attempting to stifle a laugh, and failing miserably.

“What is it that you need, Discord?” Celestia asked, hiding any annoyance she felt from the sudden intrusion well. “I remember asking you to not bother my Day Court unless it was of grave importance.”

“I believe you have, my dear,” Discord started as he snaked his way around her neck in the most awkward of positions with his head upside down and twisted. His face shifted to become skeletal. “I believe that this one is quite grave.”

“I see,” Celestia said quietly to Discord. Raising from her throne and stealthy stretching her ever so slightly sore legs Celestia addressed her court. “Today's proceedings must sadly be cut short.” -Many of the nobles, still waiting for their turn, faces turned sour.- “We shall have to reschedule a private meeting for any whose issues require more immediate attention, that or our sister's court shall be held latter this night for any who truly can not wait.”

Celestia turned and retreated down a side hall away to her personal study, the weight on her back long since gone. As she passed the guards posted outside her office she stated, “No one save another princess of Equestria is to enter.”

The guard nodded in typical military fashion. Dusty Sword, was new to the post and had yet to loose some of his hesitation around the princess.

Inside her office discord sat spinning on the chandelier turned office chair, though still suspended from the ceiling. He slunk down to the floor after Celestia sat on her own chair, which had made the most unladylike noise. Pulling a small rubber deflated sack from under the cushion which she quickly tossed aside, she asked, “What mater is it that requires a personal visit, Discord?”

The enigmatic chaos god sat sipping his cup of tea in a faux sophisticated way. He sighed for a second before speaking, “Someone else has breached the world's veil, someone not in Ponyville. I can't tell where they are, their portal is too small and has been open for too long now to pinpoint but as you asked when Lyra first opened her spell I figured this would be important to know.”

“Yes, it is important,” Celestia said in a very monotone way. “Though this could have waited till after court.”

“Well, of course if that was my only news,” Discord stated slyly. “It could have waited, I guess. But at I can feel a presence of magic growing somewhere in the same direction, and they are growing fast. But most importantly it has a sort of green sickly icky feel, like death, to it. I think our other escapee is starting to make his move.”

“That is grave news,” Celestia stated. “Can you be more specific in location of these incidents? Maybe we can deal with him before he grows too strong?”

“Sadly no, he is underground somewhere out in the badlands,” Discord stated. “Those lovely crystals from the area are just the best at disrupting magical signals.”

“Well we will simply have-” Celestia started to say.

Pop! A small purple alicorn appeared in the room. Twilight's face was contorted with worry as she rushed over to her mentor. Twilight stated at near a yell, “Princess, please I need your help back in Ponyville. I can't heal them and I need your help to save them, please.”

“Of course,” Celestia said gently to her manic student. “Discord, we shall have to postpone this conversation. I will talk to you later this evening, if you are going to be around.”

“Oh don't worry,” Discord said. “I want to watch.”

~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~~~~:~

Gasp! I pulled air into my lungs, and exhaled, to pull again. Still no relief was felt, and panic ate at my mind. The world was dark and black. I continued to ravenously try to pull air in, to lull my growing panic to little avail. Something was wrong, but I couldn't remember why. I needed air, or at least I think I did.

“Good,” a strange gravely voice said near me. “Still has muscle memories, I won't need to try again.”

Slowly my panic receded and my vision adapted to the minute light available in the strange cavern I woke to find myself in. Small glistening crystals lined the walls, and each reflected a small amount of sickly green light. The light source stood behind me, casting a shadow of my form which felt wrong for some reason though I couldn't figure why. Turning I looked to the light, only to be greeted by a large monstrous goat, whose eyes glowed with the sickly green light, and a large orb of the same light sat floating between its large curved horns. He dwarfed me, standing nearly two feet taller. It was hard to be certain due to the green light, but he had dark blue or grey fur that was ragged and unkempt and a large collar on with a silver bell that hung just over his collarbones. His eyes though were what drew my attention most, filled with a hatred that seemed unnatural, they were blood red and lacked any pupil. His eyes had a strange depth to them as well, and I found myself lost, in a strange trance like fear, looking into them.

A green beam shot out of the orb between the goat's horns and struck me in my forehead. Burning it filled me with pain, not just where it contacted but sending spasms of pain through out my form. Three pulses of such pain traveled through me, and left me shivering sprawled out on the floor.

Leaning over me, the goat said, “You will obey me, my student, and do as I say. When you have gathered yourself, we shall start your lessons.”

Author's Note

So yeah, here is chapter 1 of my latest story. For those who are wondering, this at least starts durning the same time as one of my other stories, and is set in the same world. This story and that one are not going to overlap much but I did want to put the slightest bit in this chapter so as to set a time for when these events occur. Also pretty certain that this shouldn't be a spoiler of the other story, Broken Then Healed 2, but if you find it to be too much of one, or for that matter one at all, let me know and I can try to reduce that.