Sins of the Mother

Present day

Las Pegasus, Equestria, Equus

The city was as alive as ever, despite the hour. One would suppose that such a city would never sleep, and one would be correct. The lights of the city filled the skies with an artificial sun, blocking out the stars and the warmth they’d bring on a cold night such as this.

Had somepony sober enough and smart enough to recognize the difference noticed, they would have seen a pillar of light momentarily pierce the heavens like the beam of light emanating from the tip of the Luxor Building. They would have tracked this light to a place just outside the urban quarters of the city and found a rather strange sight: an alicorn darker than Princess Luna’s coat and no larger than Princess Twilight in size.

But nopony did notice these changes. Instead, this alicorn stood up on solid ground for the first time in his life and immediately noticed the change in gravitational pull.

Taking to his wings, the Alicorn pulled his cloak over his body before he turned off towards the edge of the nearby city, hoping for some answers.

***

“I swear to… somepony! How long does it take to retrieve their son from the moon!” I hissed under my breath, my wings working overtime to keep me aloft in this increased gravity. My body simply wasn’t adapted to such a heavy pull and I was forced to stop and rest a while before continuing.

“I suppose I don’t necessarily know how long it’s been since mom disappeared, but it seems like she may have actually succeeded in conquering Equestria and plunging it into eternal darkness!” I noted, looking up at the skies above me and the lack of a sun. “Or she failed, was captured and imprisoned and it’s just the middle of the night cycle. Would certainly explain the lack of rescue for me.”

Standing up shakily on my hooves, I cast a simple strengthening spell on my body to ensure that I could at least walk further than a few hundred steps before collapsing back down again. This weakened state was going to pose a problem for me if I couldn’t fix it soon.

Eventually, through a combination of trudging and bursts of flight, I managed to reach what looked to be some sort of simple, domestic domicile. Climbing the few steps -which seemed to be a task in of itself- to the door, I took a breath and held a hoof up to knock.

“What? What is it? What time- oh fucking Tartarus! Fuck off!” a burly sounding male demanded from within and above me. Probably in a bedroom. “Who the fuck goes knocking on someponies door at this time of night!”

“My apologies sir, but I just need to know a couple things then I'll be out of your mane!” I called back, trying to sound cordial and relieve the dweller’s fury.

“Then go bother somepony else! You’re wasting your time here!” the male demanded, shutting off the lights that I hadn’t noticed had been turned on.

“Fine, sorry to disturb you!” I shouted back and half stepped off, half fell off the steps as I retreated from the yard. Looking across the street, I noticed what appeared to be firelight in a basement and figured I might have a better chance there.

Crossing the street with difficulty, I gradually approached the door and repeated my previous action of knocking.

“Hello? Who is it? Nero, is that you?” a female voice demanded, sounding eager for this Nero character. Suddenly the door was flung wide open and a young mare in a black cloak stood at the door, staring at me. “You’re not Nero.”

“No, no I'm not. My name is Eclissi and I just need some information and I'll be out of your mane.” I replied, sitting back in the darkness of the planet while the mare’s body was dimly backlit by the firelight from within.

“Mmm, very well. It would not be very kind of me to turn away a lost, weary traveller. Please, come inside!” The mare grinned graciously, stepping aside to let me in.

“Thank you, though if you don’t mind I’ll just remain here in the lobby.” I replied, carefully stepping inside to try and hide the fact that I was about ready to give up the ghost from the mere task of walking.

“Very well, I'll go fetch you a cup of water.” the mare replied quickly before zipping off to do just that. I had no idea water was something to be drank… I thought to myself as I tucked my wings under the black cloak, only now noticing that my wings and the fabric were of a similar shade; save for the faint red of my wings of course. Mom and I only ever even ate for something to do. According to mom, she’d survived for at least several hundred years before growing so bored that she began to eat.

“There we go, here you are.” The mare suddenly appeared again with a cup on a small saucer, held between her teeth. Her cloak also remained up and over her face.

“Thank you again.” I replied, magically taking the dishes and lifted the cup to my mouth before letting the surprisingly cold fluid run down my throat. This shocked me and made me choke on it, nearly dropping the cup and saucer in the process if it weren’t for my wing shooting out and catching it.

“You- you’re an alicorn?” the mare demanded in surprise as I recovered and lifted the cup back up with my red flavoured magic.

“Uhm, yes?” I replied, slightly concerned about the need for surprise. Were alicorns something rare or illegal? This was not going to be good.

“That- that’s-” the mare trailed off before jumping on me and tackling me to the ground. “That’s blasphemy against the true princesses! Everypony, come here! I need help to deal with this false Alicorn!” she shouted into the house. Suddenly a group of ponies appeared from downstairs and joined in on the piling and restraining of me.

“What is this about? What are you talking about, blasphemy? My mother is Nightmare Moon herself!” I shouted whilst wriggling around as best I could to free myself. A large face appeared before my own, surprisingly a mixture of black and white stripes across his face.

“Did you say, Nightmare Moon?” he demanded in a deep, husky voice.

“That’s right, and you’d be wise to release me!” I growled back, no longer struggling as I was more focused on the strange face before me.

“Does this impostor not stop with the lies?” The male declared as I was picked up and carried downstairs. I was rather unceremoniously dropped onto my side before what looked like some kind of altar or something, candles illuminating pictures of two female alicorns. Looking them over I only barely noticed my mother from the vaguely similar colour of the coat.

“What is this? Who are you ponies?” I demanded, fighting to stand up though a pair of hooves were pressed down on my wings rather excruciatingly to keep me down.

“We are Purity. We celebrate the four legitimate Princesses and we protect them from impostors like you.” The female who’d offered me shelter and a drink announced, stepping up onto the plinth on which the stone altar sat upon.

“Technically there’ll be five once Princess Cadenza gives birth.” A random male pony spoke up before returning to silence.

“Right, five legitimate Princesses once Flurry Heart is born.” the mare rolled her eyes before turning back to me. “That being said, can you see why you are an impostor? Take a good look and think about it for a moment.”

“I’ve got nothing.” I admitted after staring at the photos for some time. “What’s your point?”

“They’re all female! Never in the history of Equestria has there ever been a male alicorn!” The female shouted angrily, throwing her hooves up around her head dramatically.

“Now I know that’s not true. I’ve studied Equestrian history in depth and I can tell you there were exactly three alicorn stallions. The last of which was my grandfather, Princess Luna’s father.” I remarked, earning a swift buck to the chest by the male with the strange fur markings.

“Then tell me, if you were born to Nightmare Moon, how did she manage to become impregnated on the moon and why don’t you have the same eyes she did before being defeated?” the mare demanded. These were actually decent questions, both of which I’d tried to bring up on my own but were never answered.

“Mom never told me either. My theory is that the eyes are because I was very likely the result of artificial, magical self-insemination or I was conceived before she was Nightmare Moon and banished.” I announced, still clutching my chest while the ever present heavier gravity continued to bear down on me.

“A likely story. Now, given you have magic I have to assume that you were originally a unicorn and somehow grafted a pair of wings onto your body and somehow got them to work like pegasi wings.” the mare began pacing back and forth on the plinth, thinking out loud for all to hear. “I shudder to think what you did to the pegasi you took the wings from.”

“I can answer that right now, these are my wings! I didn’t steal them from any pegasi nor was I a unicorn!” I yelled back furiously. Way I saw it, somepony would be leaving here bloody.

“You tell me another lie like that and I'll cut out your tongue as well as remove your wings!” The striped male scowled as he bucked me in the ribs, knocking the wind from my lungs and some blood from I'm not sure where.

“What?” I wheezed, looking up wearily at the stallion now holding what looked to be some kind of scissors. “What’re you doing?” I demanded as the blades neared my outstretched wings. “Stop! What do you think you’re doing?” I began to struggle again, though this just pulled on the joints in my wings rather painfully as the blades rested just over the tendon in my wing. “Stop!” I screamed as the blades dug into the flesh and promptly severed the tendon.

Screaming out did nothing as the blades came back out covered in blood and quickly moved to my other wing before repeating the process, making me scream out once more.

As though reacting of it’s own accord, my horn fired up in a crimson red glow and a steady gale of wind began swirling around within the basement. The ponies around me backed away as far as they could as I began to levitate off the ground, my regularly red/orange eyes now glowing a fierce white.

“I think we’ve fucked up!” A pony shrieked before I magically reached out and took hold of the scissors used to mutilate my wings and ripped them from the grip of the stallion holding them. They quickly spun in the air and plunged the blade into the chest of the stallion before ripping along the horizontal line and let spray the life of the victim.

Turning my weapon to the next pony, the mare who’d accused me of being an impostor, I didn’t even give her a chance to protect herself as the blades of the weapon dug themselves into her eyes; one blade for one socket. With a firm squeeze of the handles, the blades cut through the bridge of the nose before plunging in, handle and all, into the mare’s cranium before wiggling things around a bit.

Extracting the scissors and small gobs of brain matter on the tips, I let the bodies hit the floor before turning to the ponies who’d restrained me and made quick work of them; drawing the blades across their throats to let them scramble to staunch the flow of crimson.

Turning to the remaining three ponies, conveniently a pegasus and two unicorns trying to throw up a makeshift shield, I levelled my glowing horn at the first unicorn and thrust it into the shield, dispelling it through sheer force of will.

With the shield now shattered like glass, I took hold of the pegasus’s body and held it aloft, stretching his own wings out like mine had been.

“Wait, wait please don’t! I'm sorry, I didn’t want to be a part of this! I’m still new to Purity! I didn’t know any of this would happen! I’m sorry!” the sincerely young sounding stallion wept as the scissors plunged into his wing and clipped the tendon before doing the same to his left. Dropping the scissors and the stallion as one -I didn’t even pull the weapon from his wing- I turned to the unicorns and lifted them aloft.

“Please, don’t…” One mare sobbed through blurry eyes. I pulled the first one up close to my face, letting the light from my eyes illuminate the tear stained teal fur and the blurry golden eyes. “I promise, I’ll go home and never do anything like this again, I swear! Please, just don’t kill me!”

“Relax.” I whispered, my voice otherwise would have blown out the windows and exploded eardrums had I not. Was a skill I’d learned from my mother on a boring day some time back. “I'm not going to kill you.”

“Oh thank you!” The mare tried to throw her hooves around my neck, but I pulled her away just enough that she was out of reach of me.

“But that doesn’t mean you’ll get off scotch free.” I added, lifting a candelabra from the altar and floated it over. “Make sure you remember this lesson whenever you look in the mirror.” I grinned as the base of the candelabra came down and shattered the horn of the unicorn before me.

Tossing her aside I grabbed onto the tail of the remaining fleeing mare and pulled her back screaming before bringing the base of the blunt weapon down on her own horn, breaking it off and knocking her out as well.

Dropping both the weapon and the pony, I began to settle down as my hooves became damp in a mixture of bloods seeping out from the bodies around me. My eyes returned to normal and my horn glow receded into nothingness for a moment before taking hold of a nearby cloak to tear off a large strip of material to hold my desiccated wings against my body.

Tying the knot I pulled my own cloak back over my body, grimacing from the faint touch of the material on my wounds as I began to slowly climb the stairs up and out of the grisly scene behind me.

As soon as I was out of the domicile I turned away from the city, noticing that I seemed to have adjusted to the new gravity if enough to at least walk slightly quicker and a bit further without winged assistance. As soon as I reached the grass, I did my best to wipe off the accumulated blood before stepping onto the street and continuing to flee the crime scene.

I only made it half a block before the blood loss of my own wings got to me and I embraced the cold cobble road.