The Rise of the Empress Midnight Sparkle

by Billy G Gruff

Rating: mature
Tags: Spike, King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, Twilight Sparkle, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Thriller, Drama, Changelings, Mystery
Length: 45555

In the Sombra timeline, Twilight Sparkle has failed her entrance test trying to open up Spikes dragon egg. distraught that her dreams were dashed and that harmonious magic had failed her, she concludes that disharmonious magic might be to her liking

Featured: 3/14/2017
Taking place in the Sombra Timeline:

Twilight has failed her entrance exam, and it has consumed her every thought. Her family had tried to comfort the increasingly reclusive filly, but they did not expect that she would vanish weeks later without a note or any sign that would indicate where she would of gone. They didn't know if she was kidnapped or ran away or anything of the sort.

In truth, she had one goal in mind. She had researched ways of augmenting her magic that had failed her so abysmally in the test and had tracked down a certain amulet to a pawnshop in Manehattan. With all of her lists and writings she had come to the conclusion that if harmonious magic did not resonate with her...

...maybe the corrupting disharmonious powers of things like the Alicorn Amulet would be more to her liking.

Cover art by Jekijet

Published 2016-04-15 22:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-04-18 16:20:15 UTC

Lost Filly (edit 2)

The cold rain of the night was as unforgiving as it was uninviting. Standing alone in the empty streets of Manehattan was a small, cloaked figure of a filly. Her body was steadily getting worn down by the torrential rain, which had been assaulting the city since she started out on this journey. She knew from how she had maintained her schedule, and from the estimated time slots on each meticulously written item on her checklist (in water resistant ink of course), that the journey had taken her approximately a day and a half to complete. Her teeth were chattering, her body was shivering, and her stomach was growling out for food as her appetite suppressing potion wore off. If there was one thing that living a pampered and fairly wealthy life as a foal had disadvantaged her for, it was running away from home.

She anticipated this though. She knew going through with this plan was not going to be easy, and that she simply could not go to her family (even her brother) to help her with her plans. They tried to comfort her. After she had failed the test for Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, a light seemed to have gone out of the filly's eyes. The first few days of her being back home were spent with her seemingly wallowing in self pity, wrapped up in a pile of blankets as she shut herself off from the world. Twilight had never been a sociable filly. She was known for being distant with others her own age, and she only seemed to talk to her brother with any warmth or friendliness in her voice. Even her parent's had to get used to a certain stiffness their daughter had towards them, almost as if she were forcing herself to interact with them out of a sense of obligation more than anything else.

Twilight's three family members took shifts speaking with the young filly, trying to work her out of her depression. They told her not to worry about the test. They told her that she could take it again when she was a little older. They told her that a lot of fillies her age didn't even get the chance to take the test, much less pass it, and that she should feel honored for being invited to it. They tried everything from placating kindness, to stern admonishments of her not taking care of herself, and even threats of getting a therapist involved if she continued to cut herself off in this manner. None of it had gotten any kind of reaction out of her. They were almost on the brink of calling for professional help when the filly had stepped out of her room, washed and smiling as she greeted them for breakfast. What they had not known was that while she was huddled up in those blankets, she had used every bit of her considerable brain power to figure out what she was going to do next.

That day had been such a source of humiliation for the filly. She had worked so hard to gain entry into that exam. While other fillies had stronger natural control over their own magic, Twilight had to force out her own power with visible strain on her face. She could feel its power deep inside her, waiting to be channeled through her horn, yet it seemed so unyielding to her mind. She suspected that it had something to do with the nature of Harmonious magic, the type of energy that ponies were naturally born with. Harmonious magic were the most pliable to ponies whom were harmonious of mind. Only issue was Twilight only saw value in the virtues of harmony in as much as it gave her access to her magic. Honesty was not always advantageous to practice. Kindness prevented certain experiments from being carried out despite their importance to finding new magic. Loyalty to friends and loved ones left a pony vulnerable to betrayal. Generosity was only useful when it had long term personal gains in one sense or another. Laughter, the most useless out of all these virtues, was the absolute hardest for her logical mind to wrap around. Since she had such a tentative, almost artificial connection to Harmony and its virtues, it was reflected in how much magic she had access too. Even with such restrictions however, she still had far more raw power at her disposal than most ponies at her age.

She pushed herself through these restrictions on her magic. While she struggled with things like harmony, her aptitude for magical theory was something to marvel at. She could see a spell performed only once and be able to mimic it with her heavily restricted magic. Even though it felt like she was only getting ice cubes out of her horn when she had a glacier of magic at her disposal, the things she was able to perform with what she could squeeze out was more than enough to land her a spot on testing day. Everything felt like it was leading to that moment. She felt like this test was going to be the day that her magic was finally going to spill forth and dazzle everypony with the power and skill she knew she had. Instead she could only let out meager sparks, and watch as judge ponies looked upon her pitiable display with expressions that communicated their disdain for having their time wasted.

She left no note for her family to find, nor did she take anything but the barest essentials for the trek to Manehattan. Anything too over the top would have alerted them that there was something up and they would have caught up to her days ago. Her whole plan would have been ruined. She had put too much time and prep work into planning out the route she would travel to this particular shop, accounting for every contingency and scenario she could possibly conceive that would halt her mission. She had mapped out how search parties would generally operate, how much time they would spend checking her usual locations that she frequented, and even devised subtle false leads for them to chase while she slinked about out of sight. Her parents were not extravagantly wealthy, but they were rich enough that she would have to put this much effort into running away to make sure one of the myriad of hired hooves did not find her. In that regard, this stage of her mission had been a complete success.

One of her saving graces on this journey was her extensive knowledge of potion-making. It was a type of magic that did not require horn magic, but rather a skilled meticulous mind with an eye for details and a willingness to experiment with volatile substances. She had made enough appetite suppressors to last her awhile longer, and some rations of dried food and water still left beneath her cloak. It hadn’t been ideal, but it had lasted her the entire trip. She had almost been impressed with how predicable the journey had been. She had practically predicted everything from the guards joining the search parties to the missing filly posters adorning the walls down to the hour on her meticulously crafted checklists. Her studies into the procedures of missing filly cases and the precedence set by thousands of reports proved to be quite valuable for this venture indeed.

Yet with all her planning, with even accounting for the hesitation she would feel about the next step of the plan on her checklist, she was still frozen stiff outside this shops door. She was dreading doing this next part. Her conscious was screaming in the back of her mind to simply turn around and let herself be caught. Up until now, she had not done anything all that wrong just yet. If she were to turn back now she would just be labeled as an emotional little filly who ran away for failing a test. Nopony would have to know what she had been planning. She could turn back now and it wouldn’t end in anything more than a grounding at the very most. If she went through with this next step though...there was no turning back from that.

Still, this is what she came for. She had formed this plan after going through an extensively long list of pros and cons, taking up an entire scroll of parchment. Normal ponies found their strength in harmonious magic. That was their calling. By rights it should have been her own calling as well, yet no matter how hard she tried using those types of spells, it felt like her body was actively rebelling against it. Yet there was one spell she had found that worked perfectly for her. A dark and fascinating spell that she had found in the restricted section of the Canterlot library. It felt so right when she performed it, the dark magic channeling through her with an ease that was entirely removed from the arduous, painful, infuriating slog Harmonious magic was to her system. That was when Twilight knew, if harmonious magic wasn't going to cut it for her, wasn't going to yield to her will, perhaps she should look into disharmony instead. Many of the most powerful magic users in history had been disharmony users. Perhaps she was destined to follow the paths of Sombra, or Catrina, or Grogar.

It didn’t make holding her makeshift blowgun in her hoof any less daunting however. Though it was such a light weapon, it weighed heavily in her hooves as she thought about what was inside it. She had tested these potion-tipped darts on mice over the course of weeks, refining the formula to make sure it worked perfectly. This concoction, one of her own making, would eliminate any real evidence and prevent her of getting caught. No one would miss a shady pawn shop owner anyway, she had rationalized. Besides, she simply did not have the bits, or the age requirement, to grab what she had came all this way for legally.

No. If she wanted that Amulet, it needed to be taken, and it needed to be taken swiftly.

The search parties that were looking for her were still in the Canterlot area, but she didn’t want to risk getting caught, so close to her prize. No matter how terrified she was feeling at this moment, standing on the edge of no return, she needed to act now. No matter how hard it made the filly’s heart thump in her ears, she had to do this to become the unicorn she knew she was capable of being. She was going to show the world that Twilight Sparkle is the greatest mind in magic they had ever seen, even if she would live in infamy instead of fame.

All it would take is one well aimed shot, and everything would be hers for the taking. She had been practicing so much with tiny scurrying targets that hitting a surprised Stallion would be like aiming at a wall to her. It would be so quick, she just needed to get it over with.

She steeled her nerves and rushed forward, forcing her chilled limbs into motion as she threw the door to the shop open. The tinging of the shops bell sounded as the thick door swung wide, though it lost momentum due to the lack of strength in the filly's limbs. The shop owner looked up from polishing one of his wares, adorning a smarmy smile as he did so. It was the kind of expression that one gave to simpletons that he planned on squeezing as much bits out of as possible. Puzzlement flashed across his face when he didn't see anyone at first glance however, and it wasn't until his eyes trailed downward that he saw the small damp cloaked filly standing in his doorway. His expression quickly lost all of it's civil veneer as he glowered at the child.

“What are you doing out this late kid, its dangeroHKNGK!” The dart barely made a sound as it flew out of her blowgun, silently cutting through the air as it stabbed straight into his jugular vein. His hooves shook as he gripped onto his neck, his face blanching at the lack of blood reaching his head. When he had pulled his hooves back they were covered in dust. It was no coincidence. His body was being converted at the cellular level to those untraceable little specs that fell to the floor. He wasn’t even able to scream as his throat muscles were rapidly deteriorating and falling away as little gray particles.

He looked at the filly in confusion and terror. She watched his mouth hung agape as he tried to form words. He tried in vain to hold his hooves up to his throat and face to prevent his body from leaving him, but doing so made his jaw fall apart like someone had kicked a sand castle. The shop keepers gaze grew glassy and lifeless as his head fell right off his body, hitting the ground with a plumb of gray dust. His body went limp and followed suit, the potion working faster now as it converted the rest of the stallion into nothing more than a pile that someone could sweep with a broom and dump in the trash without ever realizing it was once a living breathing creature.

The world had never felt as oppressively quiet too Twilight as it did in that moment. She sat on her haunches and grounded herself as she stared at the floorboards, trying to calm herself down. She had planned for panic and remorse. It was even on her checklist just under "take out the shopkeeper." She had researched dozens of coping mechanisms and exercises to calm herself down, even tested the effectiveness of them as she started her experiments on the mice. She counted the individual grooves of the wood planks, trying to hold back her tears and worked to get the adrenaline pumping through her veins down to a reasonable level. Now was not the time to freak out, her plans needed to happen, she could not turn back now.

She didn’t want to be in this shop any longer than she had to be. She knew it was irrational, but it felt like he was going to claw his way back up from the dust and take his vengeance on her. Her cloaked body had created a puddle of water from where she had been standing, and there was still much more water clinging onto her tiny body besides.

What would Shining say if she saw her do what she just did? What would Cadence say? What would her parents say? Would they be angry? Sad? Betrayed? Part of her wanted to go back home and curl up in bed and cry, but she had no time for that. Now was not the time for a guilty conscious. now was the time for action. Now was the time to be decisive.

She wiped her eyes with her fore hoof and shook her head to get some clarity before scanning the room for the amulet. To her surprise it wasn’t hidden away but out on display right on the counter with an exorbitant price tag on it. How had somepony NOT made a move on this thing already? It boggled her mind that it had been so easy to trace this dark artifact to this specific store on her own as a filly and yet nopony else had even dared look for this powerful item. Sure it didn’t have the most savory history, and it tended to bring out the most disharmonious elements of a pony’s character, but those were necessary steps for her much bigger scheme. She crouched on the ground, putting as much effort as she could to bunch up her muscles before bounding onto the counter like a cat. She almost hadn’t made it, but she had gotten a firm hoof hold on the surface and managed to clamber her back hooves and drenched cloak up onto the surface with her, albeit not in the most graceful manner possible.

Despite her better judgement, she peered over the edge to the other side and winced as she saw a clear imprint of the stallion’s body made with the mounds of dust, or rather that’s what she thought she saw. Perhaps her mind was just seeing it like that because it was telling her to stop what she was doing.

It was too late to turn back now though.

She had to act quickly. Eventually her family and the search parties would find her, and then everything she had planned for would of been for nothing. His death would of been in vain. She needed to do this now more than ever if she wanted to make this whole journey worth it. .

Her eyes fixated on the display as she slinked over to it like a cat. Its simple design and beautiful red gem called out to her. She wanted this thing around her neck. It made her mouth salivate a little just thinking about it. She needed it. It was hers for the taking. It was the best disharmonious artifact she could find that was in a relatively simple travel distance from her home. The rest of the artifacts she desired were overseas and resided in the most perilous locations. A normal filly would surely die on such a journey. Yet in just a mere moment she wasn’t going to be just a normal filly.

She lashed out violently and suddenly, smashing her hoof through the display, trying not to flinch too bad as the shards of it ripped into her flesh. She breathed through the pain and bit her lip as the blood from her cuts trailed down the length of her foreleg and onto the Amulet, which let out a little crimson glow of appreciation. She let out a nervous giggle as her hoof grasped onto it, gingerly pulling it out of the broken glass so it didn’t cut her any more than it already did.

Her leg silently protested in throbbing agony as she shakily used it and its sibling to fasten the amulet about her neck. To her surprise it moved of its own accord as it drew closer and adjusted its size to snugly fit around the young filly’s neck. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head in that moment. She sighed in ecstasy as she felt the Amulets influence flow through her body for the first time . She could feel its magic coursing through her now, filing every vein in her body and freeing up all that locked up energy that had been trapped away from her. The feeling was intoxicating, she wanted to feel like this forever. It made everything she had done to get here all the more worth it.

She held out her injured leg before her and glanced down at it as it dripped blood onto the counter. Her grin grew wide as she watched the injuries seal themselves up and make her leg brand new and healthy once again, twisting it about too and fro to watch the progress of the healing as it happened. That was advanced magic she had only read about, and it had taken no effort to duplicate its effects. No longer did she have to question if she truly understood the texts she had ravenously combed through, now she could tell for sure that her mind was built to understand magic, and the amulet had freed up her ability to use it.

This was a brilliant start to be sure, but this was only the beginning. If the rest of the artifacts on her list were as wonderful feeling as this powerful relic, then she was more than ready to follow through with her plan.

The Necronomicon of Grogar, The Varunastra of the Elephants, The true recipe of the philosophers stone of Scorpan, the Rauðskinna of the Umbrum, and so many more things besides. All of it was just waiting for her to claim it from the various places they resided throughout the world. A small filly might not of been able to do it, but empowered with this Amulet, she might just have what it takes to gather them all and achieve ultimate power for herself. She had been so lost in her revelry that she didn’t even notice the figure shadowing the door as he let himself in.
.

“What are you doing up there? Where’s the store owner?” A shifty looking stallion walked in through the open door with a bunch of useless trinkets in hoof. He was probably going to try and pawn it off for drugs or something.

“I’m afraid the stores closed mister.” she cooed as she stared off in the distance. The stallion felt a little creeped out by the filly’s aura. She didn't feel right. She felt twisted and strange. Then he noticed the smashed display of glass and that trinket the old stallion kept wanting to sell for an unseemly amount of bits gone from it. Nopony had wanted that thing. It had a dark aura that made the whole shop feel difficult to visit, yet the shop keeper insisted on keeping it out there on display, calling it a valuable relic.

“I...I’m gonna grab a...cop… and be right back...you stay right th..there…”

He froze as the filly’s head violently turned to his direction. Her face bore on it the most bone chilling expression he had ever witnessed. Her youthful skin seemed almost stretched to its limit with the psychotic grin, and her irises were the size of pinpricks. He stood stock still, blanching at the sight like a frightened little animal under bright light. He wanted to scream as her eyes flared with a crimson glow, but he couldn’t.

That horrifying expression on the purple fillies face was the last thing he saw, because his vision all of a sudden went entirely black.

The soft tissue of his eyes hardened into stone the longer the red glow of Twilight’s gaze stayed upon him. His hooves rushed to his face in a panic to find out why he couldn’t see. He made increasingly alarmed whinnies as he felt patterns of stone spiderweb across his face, converting even coat into little stone points as it went along. He tried to irrationally dig the stone out of him to make it stop, but it just kept spreading on his face, making him squeal even louder as it became harder to move his muscles and articulate himself. It wasn’t until the creep of stone had reached his brain that he finally toppled over, silenced but not quite dead as his hardened scalp hit the ground, shattering against the floor as he gasped for air like a fish out of water.

A staccato of giggles erupted from the filly as she watched the twitching stallion on the floor. Casually she pranced off the counter and alighted onto the floor. She levitated another of her specially made darts and stared at it a moment as it hovered before her with her crimson aura firmly grasping it. Twilight let it sail through the air and strike the suffering stallion, allowing his body to crumble into dust, leaving only the cracked head of him left with that pained expression forever frozen on his face.

Any sense of remorse she had been feeling moments earlier were being worked out of her by the amulet. It was such a useful little tool for her, and it was going to help her so much for the years to come as she made her little journey around the globe. It didn’t quite feel as daunting as it did when she had initially plotted it out. Some tiny part of her still wished that her test had gone right, that maybe things could of been different, but she would never stomach being just some normal pony living a normal life. She would gladly risk everything just to avoid that now.

She pulled out a map of the globe and peered over it in the dimly lit pawn shop by the dust and stone that had once been a bystander.

“Let’s see, twenty seven point three four five seven degrees north by thirty five point seven two four three degrees east should place me at least in the general area of where I need to be. I know the principle of teleportation, let's see if I can make that principle an actuality.”

She smiled under the red glow of her horn, loving the feeling of power brimming through her veins. It was intoxicating. It was exhilarating. It was everything she had ever wanted. Her time was coming soon, she could just feel it.

She stooped down and looked at the stone head of the dead stallion in his vacant eyes. She had snuffed his life out with the merest glance thanks to this amulet. Imagine what she would be capable of doing after she grabbed everything on her list. Now she had one final test to see if she was truly ready.

“...there is one other thing I need to collect before I leave Equestria.” she cooed to the dead stallion, not caring if he could hear her or not. Casually she focused her new found power to one destination. Right in front of the egg that had started it all.

Her body flared up and blinked out of the pawn shop in a glow of crimson light. The most ponies would suspect was there was some kind of botched break in or that the owner just up and left, and even if they did try to investigate, there wasn’t any evidence worth gathering save her blood on the counter. Even then she would be long gone before that came into question.

She didn’t even need to know the exact location to teleport to where she wanted to be, she knew exactly what she was looking for. After she had flared into her destination, the brief light that had came off of her teleportation revealed that she was in a treasury and the egg was sitting atop a pillow in the center of it. She fired up her horn to give herself more lighting and aimed it straight at the thing that had cost her her dreams.

“Let's see if you’ll open for me now…”

Her red magic snaked out of her horn and onto the Dragon egg, lifting it up and rotating it in the air with ease. It shook violently in her corrupted aura, the pattern on its egg darkening and twisting in unnatural ways before it started to crack open. The little baby drake inside was crying and twisting in the air as its scales darkened into a deeper shade of purple and its spines grew sharper and its body grew larger. The magic it had come in contact with at that moment had altered what he was and made him into something entirely different, something meaner.

She let it thump to the ground on all fours, its undeveloped mind gazed upon the filly before her and smiled a toothy grin at her. His instincts imprinted himself onto her. She was his leader now, he would follow her anywhere she went and do whatever she asked. It made him happy to do so.

The bond had been made, and Twilight smiled for it. She had done what she couldn’t do before, and now she had a dragon to call her own, a dragon that would prove to be quite useful in the coming years. The first of many followers to come.

Her ears twitched to the sound of hooves filling the hallway outside. They were yelling orders, something about an intruder. It was her signal that it was time to leave and very soon.

“Its time for us to make our leave my little dragon, we are not ready to reveal ourselves just yet after all...so many things on the checklist left to go before that.” Her voice had a slightly deranged tint to it, her young mind already being warped by the Alicorn Amulet.

The infant didn’t understand what she said, but his tail wagged in appreciation of her voice. Before the guards had burst into the room the two of them had already vanished in a flash of crimson light.

A duel for knowledge (edited)

It had seemed like another average day at her bar. Regulars to her establishment rolled from out in the seaside bazaar to get their midday hit of salt, while others conducted business dealings in more secluded parts of the building (for a small cut of the deal on her part of course). Both in her place of business and the bustling sand covered markets outside were the usual faces of Saddle Arabian locals, traveling minotaur merchants, and even a spattering of camels and rams. Only two creatures in this crowd were out of place.

The first was the bipedal Cat whom owned this establishment. The second was a little filly whom had ordered a glass of milk and was sharing it with a tiny infant dragon. It would of been an adorable sight, if it weren’t for the fact that this filly was shrouded in a very powerful glamour. It was an illusion spell that no one else in the entirety of the bazaar or the bar was able to see through. What was more unnerving was that this Cat knew if this filly wanted to, she would have made the glamour work for her as well, and the feline in all likelihood would have barely caught onto what she really was. The only reason why she was able to see the filly and the dragon as they really were was because the unicorn LET the cat see them. To everyone else, the stool was occupied by a stooped over elderly looking horse that had the kind of expression you didn’t want to mess with. They paid no attention to the illusion because it didn’t seem out of place among the many others whom held that same appearance. This filly was hiding in plain sight, and yet she had made herself known to the bartender.

Suffice it to say, this deceptively powerful filly had put the feline on edge.

The bartender stood at the height of a particularly tall Minotaur, and her paws were naturally adept at gripping things much like Minotaur hands. Her kind were not particularly common in this part of the world, which added a foreign exotic flavor to her bar, even though it was a firmly established place of business in this bazaar. She had set up shop there decades ago. Long time residents remarked, in both envious and admiring tones, on how she didn't seem to age a single day during this whole time. Given she was an entirely different species than all of the residents, they couldn’t quite prove their claim with comparisons.

She had played along with this filly's illusion at first. They both knew the cat could peer right through it, and given the aura around the tiny filly she had not wanted to stir up any trouble. For all she knew the filly she was seeing was just another glamour layered underneath the one of the stallion. One thing was definitely certain though. Dark magic permeated this filly's body. Powerful dark magic that was not to be toyed with.

“What would you like sir…,” She had asked her disguised customer.

“Milk please.” The glamoured unicorn chimed up cheerfully. At the same time, the glamoured Stallion she was pretending to be gruffly asked for some Whiskey. Much to the cat's surprise, when she had poured the milk into the mug for the filly, it took on the appearance of the beverage the stallion had asked for.

What kind of intricate illusion was this, that even a drink could conform to the lie presented so passively to the world? The air was tense for the feline as she walked back to the young pony, placing down the porcelain mug, which was nearly filled to the brim with the white liquid. She desperately tried to read the filly's expressions as she lifted up the mug. She needed to know how much this filly knew about her.

It was an agonizing few moments as the unicorn casually sipped the white liquid and casually brought it down to the tiny purple infants anxious little claws. The dragons little head cutely dipped into the mug, lapping its tongue in and out of the milk as it greedily drank away. The bartender almost thought that this filly was not going to say anything more when the purple unicorns little voice pipped up. Mirth filled her youthful voice that set the cat's heart thumping with adrenaline.

“How long have you had this little establishment….Catrina?”

She dropped her pitcher of Milk at that moment. It didn’t touch the ground however. She looked down to see it had frozen in the middle of the air. Milk was halted half way out of its escape from its container. Individual droplets now visible in this frozen segment of time. The deathly quiet that hit the world around her so suddenly was jarring to her feline ears. Before there were hundreds of voices at various distances away talking away about their various days and business deals. The bustling sounds of activity, breathing, of life itself halted as if someone had closed the door in a sound proof room. The world stood still as Catrina looked around. Everyone around looked like they were frozen in some kind of strange art piece. Mouths were open in mid conversation. Hands and hooves were extended in various gestures both friendly and agitated. Time itself had ground to a halt with a casual spell from this tiny filly.

“What are you? Even Unicorns can’t do this kind of magic…” Catrina hissed out.

“Last I checked, cats don’t live for thousands of years either. I guess we are both defying our boundaries today aren’t we?”

Catrina hissed as her tail swished in agitation. Catrina leaned back against the wall behind her, folding her arms casually as she looked down towards the seated filly. The unicorn had dropped her glamour now, and she continued to look at her tiny dragon lapping greedily at the milk while she gave it a little pat on the head with her hoof. Perhaps she hadn't hid herself from Catrina's gaze because she had known who she was, and perhaps figured that she'd have been able to see through her disguise anyway.

“What do you want filly, if that is indeed what you are. If you know who I am you also know I no longer have my powers.”

A smile grew on the filly’s face as her gaze left her tiny dragon and locked onto Catrina's eyes. It wasn't an innocent childlike smile. It was the cold vulpine expression of a sociopath, complete with eyes that held no light or warmth in them. She had only seen a look like that on very few occasions, and one of them was from a Necromancer that had even terrified her back in the height of her power. Seeing such a look from a filly made her blood run cold. The filly held her gaze for an uncomfortable amount of time before she piped up in her childish voice, saying her next few words in a disquietingly melodic way.

“That’s not true Catrina. You have knowledge. Knowledge is the greatest power there is. Though I am curious… how did you lose your powers? None of the textbooks I’ve read about you ever mentioned how or why you vanished. I only figured out you were in this area after piecing the testimonies of several dozen ancient scrolls together. You predate even Equestria it seems.”

“Tell me how you gained your powers first filly.” The cat’s tone was sharp and aggressive.

The purple mare raised an eyebrow before broadening her smirk. The hairs on the back of Catrina's neck began to stand on end as she tried to hold contact with the filly's cold unfeeling eyes.

“Would you care to rephrase that?” there was an undeniable threat hidden under the syrupy sound of her young voice.

“You can’t kill me, I’m immortal even with my loss of power.”

“I may have to test that theory for my studies later, but for now I’d like to keep this relatively civil.” She drew her hoof over her neck, pulling away the glamour to reveal the Alicorn Amulet. Catrina’s blood ran even colder than it already had been as she stared at it and then back up at the filly.

“Do you have any idea what that thing is? You can’t control….”

“I can, though just barely. It’s been clawing in my head telling me to kill everyone in Saddle Arabia since I’ve been here. It’s rather irritating and bossy for such a useful amulet.” She sounded as if she were speaking of a pet whom occasionally tore up the cushions and peed on the floor, instead of a terrifying amulet that warped the minds and wills of those who wore it.

Catrina sat down on a nearby seat and stared at the filly like she was a bomb waiting to go off. Every single individual who wore that amulet be it pony or otherwise eventually became a psychotic mass murderer until they were somehow tricked into taking it off. Once they did the guilt over their actions would almost invariably lead to suicide or a prompt execution. The most mundane of incidents involving it still had torture and enslavement heavily involved. The only reason those individuals only went that far was because the idea of murder had been so utterly foreign to their minds that they couldn't even think of doing it under even under the amulets sway.

Catrina had a gut wrenching feeling this unicorn was not one of those exceptions.

Yet here this filly was, barely using its magic at all and keeping a relatively calm expression despite its constant drumming in her head to murder and torture everything in the given area. How long would that last before she snaps under the pressure of its influence? How many voices were clawing in the back of this purple unicorns head right now, each trying to one up the other voices in the kinds of horrific things they demanded of their bearer. Just the thought of it made the cold, unfeeling smile on this filly's face that much more disturbing.

“Where did you even find…”

“Would you believe me if I told you it was in a Pawn Shop of all places?” It was surreal how conversational her tone was. Catrina was so caught up in the moment she couldn’t help but give a nervous smile at this.

“A pawn shop? For the Alicorn Amulet? That’s… how’d that even happen?”

“Apparently most ponies are so harmonious in their magical energies that they don't even want to try touching it, the most corrupt pony who ended up getting a hold of it that the amulet could find just wanted to sell it for what he thought was a ridiculous sum of bits. Poor idiot didn't even know what it was.”

Silence fell between them in the world that was frozen in time. Catrina slowly pushed herself off of the wall and regarded the pair like a wild animal. She stood still, trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation before she really had to put her own immortality to the test against the power of the Alicorn Amulet.

“So…” Twilight said with a wave of her hoof, signalling the cat to give her her desired information “I held up my end, tell me how you lost your power.”

Catrina gritted her teeth. She didn't like thinking about that day, but she wasn't exactly in a position to argue with this disturbing pony. Hissing out a breath she collected her thoughts on how she was going to tell the story before beginning.

“It was the thing you ponies call the Tree of Harmony. I had traveled across the ocean with an army to claim new lands for my own. I had never been as powerful as I had been then. That….that thing, it wasn’t even a sprout compared to my sheer size at the time, and yet it cast me down like I was a mere kitten. It stripped me of all my power, but it left me with my immortality. I had all the knowledge how to use my former powers, and I had eternity before me, but the ability to use my own magic was stripped from me. I was wielding far more magic in one of my claws than your amulet could ever dream of producing at it still proved to be nothing against that damned twig.”

To her surprise, the former goddess of a cat looked down to see that the filly was taking notes of all things. She didn’t even react when she said that her amulet wasn’t anything compared to her original power, in fact she seemed like she was expecting such a statement out of her.

“Would you say then, that this Tree of Harmony was the most powerful thing you’ve ever come across?”

“I don’t think it could even be categorized in the same scale as anything else on this planet… there was no end to its power, it decided it didn’t want me to have magic anymore and it just did it. There wasn't even a struggle, it just happened and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.” She had thousands of years to get over her utter defeat, but it still stung even to this day. She was revered as a Goddess among mortals, the few that dared challenge her swiftly perished. She had been so sure that she was the most powerful thing in existence, until she was made humble by a crystal plant whom couldn’t even move or talk.

“Well then, we have a common enemy.”

“What do you mean?” The cat was getting more creeped out by the filly by the second. Her Dragon had finished his milk and was staring at her as well with a slightly turned head, kind of reminding the feline of an owl from the wide eyed and curious expression his sideways face had.

“Simple, Catrina. You and I both know I can’t wear this Amulet forever. It's merely a crutch until I gain the knowledge and control to wield disharmonious magic without it. You no longer have your magic, but you have the knowledge that had come with it…”

“And you want me to teach you. You come in here with the Alicorn Amulet and you expect me to just teach you? How do I know you are even worthy enough to handle the knowledge of magic I possess. If you think I’m going to help an upstart filly for no reason you have another thing coming.”

Twilight pulled out a giant scroll from underneath her cloak and rolled it out, promptly checking off another box.

“What is…”

“My checklist. I have it all planned out you see, right here is the item listed as ‘Accept challenge offered by Catrina’ “

The feline hissed. She was playing right into the filly’s hooves even when she outranked her by thousands of years. What in Tartarus was she?

“I, Twilight Sparkle, accept your challenge to prove that I am worthy of your knowledge. I stake my Alicorn Amulet on it. If you prove that I am incapable of learning from you without a shadow of a doubt, I will relinquish my Amulet to you at which point you can do what you want with it…,”

Catrina looked between the amulet and the filly with confusion etched on her face. No one, pony or otherwise, could remove the Alicorn Amulet except for the one who put it on. She couldn’t just take it. However with such a wager, Catrina could find herself with access to magic once again after all this time… it was far too tempting to pass up. She didn’t really have much to lose anyway.

“And what if you win, Miss Twilight Sparkle?”

Catrina’s breath hitched as the broadest grin she had ever seen in her life stretched across the filly’s face. Her features contorted with it, warping the innocent looking filly’s features into something resembling a demon straight out of the darkest of nightmares. Her face darkened as she bore into the slitted eyes of the cat, making her smile so huge her gums started to show, making the cat squirm under her gaze. The filly's voice remained the same however. It was just as light and melodic as it was when the conversation started, and that dissonance between her face and her voice just added to her intimidating aura.

“Oh that’s simple. You will teach me everything you know. Everything. Not half the things. Not most of the things but keeping the good spells to yourself. EVERYTHING. The theory behind it, how you wield it, the pros and the cons, what you would of done differently against the Tree of Harmony, I want it all. You would also leave this miserable life behind and join me on my little adventure. I’ve got my eyes on quite a few items you see. Including a fabled book from your old pal Grogar.”

“You...you’re insane if you are thinking I’m setting one paw in Grogar's crypt… “

“I’d advise you to win our little wager then…. Do we have a deal? Are you not tired of drowning these mortals in salt and alcohol? Are you not better than their ilk? Or have you given up on achieving your former glory entirely?”

Catrina slammed her claws onto the table in that instant , a growl uttering from her throat as she sliced into the wood, glaring daggers into the filly's eyes. Her fangs bared as she snarled at this filly who dared to try and play her like this. She hated even more that she was going to accept it as well.

“You have my attention filly… how exactly are you going to prove you can handle my magical knowledge?”

Twilight raised a hoof to her forehead and tapped it.

“Simple Catrina… I seem to recall reading about powerful magic users who didn’t want to have their duels in real life would create mental landscapes to have their battles instead. It’s sort of like the difference between playing chess with physical pieces and hosting the game inside your head as you call out your moves.”

Twilight gestured with a hoof to the feline “Since one of us does not possess their proverbial set of pieces, we shall engage our duel in the mind instead.”

It was Catrina’s turn to grin demonically. “Do you even know what you are challenging me too, miss Twilight? You would be facing me at my peak if we were to have such a duel. Do you honestly think your mind will survive such a battle with someone with thousands of years more experience than you? I INVENTED that type of duel!”

“I know.” Twilight cooed out before leaning closer to the predator before her “ Come on Catrina, don’t you want to feel that power once again? Don’t you want to put little old me in my place?”

The world was silent around the three creatures as they stared eachother down. Time was just as frozen as it was when Twilight had casted the spell.

Catrina licked her fangs “If I win, you aren’t making it out of here alive, you know that right? It’s not going to be a simple death either. I’m going to make it as painful as possible.”

Twilight shrugged and assumed a simple innocent expression that seemed even more disturbing to the cat than her frightful grin had been “And if I win you will be at my side till the bitter end. Either way sounds pretty good in my book don’t you think?”

Their eyes were locked in with each other now, the jaded eyes of a purple filly meeting the ancient slits of a former feline deity whom once had the world quivering in their hooves.

“Let's do this filly, Let me show you the mistake you have made challenging a Goddess to her own game…”

Twilight’s eyes flared red at that moment as her grin broadened to its unnatural size once again.

“Gladly.”

Author's Note

If you aren't familiar with Generation 1, Catrina was one of the villains from that era re-imagined for this fic.

The Might of a Goddess (second draft)

The playing field that manifested before Twilight in this mindscape was pretty much what she expected. The arena's formation for participants of such a duel would structure itself based on the experiences and memories of each participant. considering how young and new she was to the world, it would make sense that the mindscape would lean heavily towards the mind of the Goddess thousands of years her senior. Catrina was the one who constructed this type of dueling as well, which made her ability to assume dominance over how the playing field was initially set up that much more effective. There was also that she had controlled a massive portion of the planet back when she was in power, so the types of locations and cities she had to draw from was innumerable. This particular arena's construction was in the vain of what looked like one of the more northern regions of the planet, probably a facsimile of her capital city if Twilight could hazard a guess. Though she possessed an affinity for Pyramids and Arabian architecture, she also loved the cold and snow, which led to a dissonance in the way her former civilization constructed their architecture back in those ancient times.

Many of the towering buildings that surrounded Twilight had impressively ornate onion like domes, crested with jewels and gold that shimmered through the snow that clung to their surfaces. They peppered the skyline in all shapes, sizes and girths, some times dozens of them extending from one single structure. The buildings themselves, though made of stone of various colors, seemed to almost grow out of the ground and spread out like a cross between trees and mushrooms. In all likelihood they possibly were considering magic was abundant in Catrina's kingdom at that time. It gave the feeling of both being inside of an expansive city and a forest that stretched to the sky, made of a variety of gold, stone, and precious jewels, all of which had a thick layer of snow caked overtop of it.

The silence that came with this massive mental construct felt oppressive and off-putting for the filly, despite feeling mentally prepared for this conflict. A city this large and grandiose, meant to have inhabitants bustling within it by the millions. It's a place meant for governments and guards roaming the ornate cobbled streets. It's a place meant to have shop owners advertising their quality goods to the passers-by to illicit new customers. All of that noise and ambiance that would have come with a massive city like this was simply gone, replaced only with the cold and silence of the winter that Catrina placed in this mindscape. Twilight braced herself where she stood. There were far too many windows and places to hide in a city like this. She could come from anywhere and it would be very easy to catch the filly unawares. She needed to remain vigilant.

The silence became interrupted by a rumble in the ground underneath her hooves. That rumble grew stronger and more intense until it turned Twilight's vision into a blurred mess and threatened to knock her off her hooves entirely. She had heard of quakes like this as a foal, but Equestria wasn't known for such occurrences since the tectonic plates beneath it were particularly stable. It made it very difficult for her to adjust and brace herself against the jarring vibrations rattling her immature bone structure. Her teeth clattered against each other as she gritted them, trying to keep herself focused for whatever attack Catrina was planning. In a Mindscape battle, you were restricted to the capabilities and knowledge you have in your prime. There would be no exploiting the illusion of the world in front of them in ways they could not do in the real world. It would defeat the purpose and spirit of the game.

It wasn't until something new began to loom over the skyline that Twilight realized what Catrina was up too. Twilight watched in awe as her opponent loomed over the bulbous towers and continued to grow before her eyes. She had read about how Catrina was capable of manipulating the scale of her body at will, but she hadn't fully grasped what that meant until she saw the sheer scale of the giant feline goddess before her. Her bar uniform was gone, replaced with the ornate and brightly colored armor and crown the filly had seen crude sketches of in the few books and scrolls about her that existed in Equestria. Each Jewel on her ever-expanding crown was probably worth enough bits to feed the entirety of equestria for lifetimes considering their scale. Before long, Catrina's body loomed over Twilight like a mountain that had spontaneously materialized in the city. It gave the filly pause, realizing just how massive this arena was since the disruption that her growth had caused was still quite far away, even though the titanic feline felt distressingly close to where she was due to her proportions. In a single relatively small step Catrina could easily be on top of her with the way their height differences were at this moment. She was like a mere insect that was about to take on a minotaur.

Twilight peered up at the massive cat through the atmosphere that nearly obscured her head and shoulders, adding to the sense of depth her unnatural scale had, and watched as Catrina lifted her mountain sized limbs experimentally. The growing joy on her face as she flexed her claws and her power. It must have been so liberating to have her power again, even in this facsimile of reality. She lifted her arms high into the air in a strangely regal pose, nearly making them vanish from Twilight's sight entirely in the bluish atmosphere above before she began to drag them slowly back down. Duplicates of her arms morphed out of her originals and remained in place, giving a cascading array of her now numerous limbs that were all held in different poses symmetrical with their opposite, all coming to a stop as she brought her immense hands together, delicately posing her fingers in an intricate symbol. Twilight could see why so many bowed to her Majesty back when she was in power.

Twilight took a deep breath and lowered herself to the ground, spreading her legs as far as they could and bracing them for what was to come. Her goal was not to beat this colossal deity, but to merely prove to it that she could learn her magic. Those were the rules that they had agreed upon, and it was the adherence to this stipulation that was saving her from losing her nerve entirely. Even with the Amulet holding back her weaknesses and helping to keep her immature mind from giving into fear, she could still feel the individual hairs on her body standing on end in fright. It even gave the voices of the Amulet momentary pause as she watched the silent figure intently, waiting for her to make a move.

The magical pact they had made would keep Catrina following her to the ends of the world and back for the rest of Twilight's time alive. Keeping herself in check and not screaming in terror at what was before her was the best thing she could with such a prize on the line, and with the stakes being so dire if she failed. Twilight opened her mind, drawing on her pool of knowledge that she had at her disposal, and she prayed that her intuition was enough to keep herself from utterly failing in this conflict to come. The anticipation, the calm before this storm she felt, it made everything about this challenge that much more daunting.

Twilight watched as Catrina breathed in through her nose, expanding her chest as she filled her now gargantuan lungs with air.

Twilight almost didn't respond in time when the tops of the buildings began to break off of their foundations. The filly made herself even smaller against the ground, binding her hooves and body to the cobblestone as the powerful suction of air finally reached her body. Her muscles screamed out in protest as she hung on for dear life. She suddenly found it difficult to breathe in the intense updraft that the suction was causing, and it made keeping her eyes closed very difficult. Her ears were in so much pain as the world around her began to rip apart by a simple intake of breathe. Her skin felt like it was going to rip straight off her body as chariots and anything that wasn't firmly bolted to the ground spiraled through the air towards the Goddess. She was a singularity in this moment, a place where everything in the immediate area drew towards. This was not a duel between a potential teacher and student, this was a filly facing down the living embodiment of a natural disaster.

Even the larger buildings were beginning to buckle under this deep breath's intensity. Catrina looked so at peace as she breathed in, the destruction happening beneath her barely registering to her own senses as she just enjoyed her power once again. The Ground that Twilight had clung too was beginning to crack. If this kept up she would be sucked into that vortex above her faster than she would have been able to react. She was going to fail before Catrina had cast a spell.

The world grew still suddenly. All of the chaos that had ensued from that simple action from Catrina seemed to halt, leaving only the reverberating echoes of destruction in its wake. Twilight's blood ran cold and her ears flattened against her skull as she realized that Catrina had held her breath. She looked up in time to see the debris that had collected in a spiral in the sky above her slowed their assent and stopped in the sky, momentarily hanging there in the sky above until they slowly began to fall back down to the battlefield below. Twilight let out a strained noise of fright as she let herself free from the magic holding her in place and began to gallop as fast as her tiny legs could carry her. She helped herself along by creating crude constructs of acceleration magic that made her body momentarily pickup speed before needing another strategically paced glyph to keep up the pace. It was a dangerous method of fleeing that did not offer much in the way of maneuverability, but she was able to aim her trajectory away from the falling hunks of building that crashed into the ground with the same intensity as a hail storm. She was like ball being bounced around a pinball machine of her own design, intuitively bouncing herself away from each new hunk of a building that nearly flattened her down into alleyways and into other streets. Catrina could see her movements as she held her breath, watching the tiny creature darting about beneath her in what looked like a jagged purple streak of light. she smirked at this and tapped one of the particularly hefty portions of building, sending it careening where the filly was speeding towards.

It was everything Twilight could do to halt her momentum and prevent herself from getting smacked by that building that crashed down into the street in front of her. Her body floundered as she tried to weave spells fast enough to get her out of the dead-end she found herself in. She met with near death as the other end of the street closed itself off by falling debris as well, leaving her trapped inside of the street. Her ears flattened again as the rest of the jagged hunks of buildings honed in on her from a wave of one of Catrina's hands. Catrina had spotted her now, and had her trapped right where she wanted her. Twilight was going to get buried under tons of ornate stone if she didn't react soon enough. The amulet's voices showed her a spell in her mind's eye, and out of instinct she gripped the street, using the spell. This trust in her amulet awarded her with a dome of impenetrable glass that formed around herself just as the debris met her, dulling the sounds of roar of the crashing debris as they piled on top of her. With a flex of her magic she expanded the size of the dome to force the pile of rubble from her, pressing it into the buildings around her as she got her bearings and locked her eyes back on Catrina.

The cat goddess looked downright mischievous as she looked down at the already haggard filly whom was catching her breath inside her temporary defenses. Her massive face puffed out in an almost comedic manner, showing twilight that she was holding her breath and keeping back a ton of air that she built up in her lungs, enough that it puffed out her cheeks. Twilight's eyes dilated as she realized the implications of what that could mean. If her breathing in and holding her breath had caused this much destruction and mayhem that even the Amulet had to find was to preserve itself under its onslaught, how much more would her blowing out air cause?

Her mind was a garbled mess of fight and flight reflexes as she watched Catrina release the air she had held back with her pursed lips.

Fly up! Flee! Teleport! We shall die if you stay! Don't stay! Teleport! Fly Into the sky! Into the sky pony! No refuge on the ground! Flee!

Her voices were in accordance, mentally slapping her into focus as the wall of air crashed towards them. It was everything she could do not to completely lock up in terror, seeing the buildings miles in front of her be shattered into powder as Catrina lazily blew downward, taking her time lifting her head as she brought her torrent of breath over to Twilight's destination. The buildings didn't just collapse under the gale of wind, the buildings became pulverized into nothingness, leaving only a growing scar in the ground in the exhalations wake.

Twilight dug deep and used the teleportation spell that the Amulet was flashing at her repeatedly, it's alarming voices drowning out her own thoughts as she flashed from her place on the ground into the sky above. The shift in perspective was jarring going from ground level to miles in the air. From high up in the sky she was only somewhat higher than the cat herself. Below her the surreal path of destruction that she was in now was a distant rumble on the ground below. Catrina's breath carved out a perfect wave of destruction, creating a scar in the otherwise pristine and ornate city around her, the buildings around the cat's feet were likewise destroyed from when she had grown into the titanic size she was now. All this destruction that Twilight had seen unfold had been down without Catrina using a single visible spell. If things kept up like this she had no chance of passing this test.

Catrina straightened her posture and glanced up at the filly as she began falling from the sky into her line of sight. Twilight was instinctively clinging onto her amulet for dear life as the ground below her gradually was rushing up to meet her, as well as flinching away from the gaze of the goddess that felt like two celestial bodies were locking their sight one her minuscule, insignificant body.

All sound seemed robbed from the fillies senses as Catrina's eyes flared to life with green energy. They glowed with the intensity of twin suns, causing Twilight to throw up her hooves to shield herself from the sudden intensity of the emerald light. Out of instinct Twilight teleported again, this time up and over to the west by several miles to get out of the way of the blast, though she didn't feel like she had moved much in relation to Catrina's massive form that still felt close. She had warped away just in time to miss two massive beams of green energy that arced across the sky without a single sound. It was almost like this magical lasers sucked all ambient noise out of the world as they careened off into the snowy horizon. That silence persisted until the two beams of magic touched ground far into the distance near the horizon line. Two giant clouds in the shape of mushrooms issued out from where they had struck, and the filly could feel the twin shockwaves of where those intense blasts had issued even from her position hundreds of miles away and falling through the sky. The force of those blasts knocked her off-balance in the air, making her tumble about for several precious seconds before she had regained a more aerodynamic posture made for sky diving like she had read about.

Mother of Luna! Those kinds of attacks would be enough to wipe Canterlot off the map! I had read of her power but this is insane! How could one being have this much raw magical power!? Even the Alicorn's haven't been recorded using magic like this! Can Celestia do that? Can anypony? Is it even possible to get that level of prowess without being born with it? Am I going to die!? Why am I smiling!? Why am I so excited?! One wrong move and I'm finished!

Despite her fears and doubt, Twilight's body was rushing with adrenaline and she had a massive grin plastered over her face. Despite all logic to the contrary, she was getting a thrill out of narrowly escaping death from this goddess. Her body was craving more of this. It loved being on the brink of death like she was playing with right now. She wanted this feeling to last, even if it meant her certain and inevitable doom.

“Come on little gnat! Show me how you are worthy of MY knowledge! MY POWER!”

Twilight burst into laugher as she fell through the sky, embracing the insanity of the situation as she extended her limbs out with glee, even as Catrina raised one of her monolithic hands out above her head. Demented mirth and determination formed Twilight's expression as she watched the immense glyph forming in Catrina's palm, taking note of every little detail she could as it was woven before her. For every one symbol that Twilight knew, there were a hundred that she had never seen before. She was eager to see this new magic in action, to see what it could do. She put the pieces of what she did know together like a puzzle in her mind, parsing out as much information as she could, much like she would when she tried to reverse engineer languages. Twilight grin broadened as she began to understand the intensely glowing glyph, connecting it with the drop in temperature that was surrounding her. Her horn flared and she warped out-of-the-way of the radius of the attack, openly letting out peels of laughter miles higher in the air even as her lungs craved thicker atmosphere instead of this thin air she was in.

Twilight's dilated pupils watched as her suspicions be confirmed, and saw a deadly glacier erupt from where she was going if she had remained. The spiked glacier of ice would have utterly crushed her where she was, ending their little game immediately. She felt like she was playing chess, and her opponent was able to get her in check with every turn she took. It was only her wit and her quick movements that kept her proverbial king piece moving out of danger just long enough to mount a counter attack. It was exhilarating parsing the magic she had just witnessed, her mind putting each new piece of data in new and interesting combinations with the magic she already knew.

All of Catrina's arms were weaving that spell countless times over. With each repetition of the spell and each glyph that hung in the air, Twilight was able parse out more and more data from it. The adrenaline and excitement she was feeling now was putting her mind to work in a way it never had before. She felt thousands of times smarter, relishing in the challenge that seemed almost insurmountable mere moments before. Not only did she grow to understand much of the inner logic the constructs of magic had, she was confident that she had found a countermeasure for it.

Twilight teleported again, this time to the utmost edges of the mindscapes sky so she had more than enough time to fall to the ground and enact her plan. She had long since achieved terminal velocity, so she did not need to worry about miscalculating just how long she had before she hit the ground. She had seen the flaw in Catrina's spell, and now it was the time to put her plan into action. It was reckless and dangerous, but her mind felt more alive and functional than it ever had before in her young life. There was something about field experience that she had never fully understood until this moment. It was so much more exciting to learn on the fly like she was than being huddled in a library with a mountain of books.

At the moment of truth, Catrina pointed one of her fingers forward, simultaneously forming the glaciers in midair and sending them hurtling towards where Twilight's trajectory was going to have her. Twilight was laughing as she skydived into place, she was ready and prepared for what was to come.

Twilight's eyes flared red and her body halted in mid-air, forming a glyph around herself that radiated the telltale crimson glow of her Amulet. Catrina could see this glyph the filly had made, filled with novice mistakes and was entirely freeform. It barely held its shape as she poured in magic from her body and her amulet to maintain its irregular design. It was not efficient, it was not perfect, in fact it was terribly flawed, but it was the product of a gifted and intelligent mind none the less. It was a prototype, a first draft of what the spell could be instead of something entirely finished. The goddess was going to think of it as a merely valiant effort until she squinted her eyes, seeing that it was far more complex than just at first glance. This glyph, laced with another type of magic that repeated its shape throughout the macro-structure of its design, each one perfectly formed and condensed inside of the unstable glyph, keeping the design of it intact and amplifying its efficiency. It was the same type of magic that the Amulet used to amplify and multiply the fillies own powers. She had learned the nature of amplification magic and used it to her advantage with this spell.

Catrina didn't alter the course of her Glaciers or mount a counter attack against this new structure of magic Twilight had made, she merely let the events play out to see what the filly had come up with. Catrina, intrigued now, more than she had been when she had started this little exercise with the filly, watched in puzzlement as the jagged glyph condensed down to a point on the unicorn's horn. She thought at first that it had failed to maintain its shape, but the glowing angry red dot over Twilight's horn and became a super condensed version of the spell. The filly had made the seemingly unstable glyph for the purpose of being collapsible, to take advantage of the amplification magic as it condensed onto the focus of her power, her horn. It caused an impressive upsurge of magical power from the filly that the goddess couldn't help but feel impressed with.

The goddess to a partial step back as a shockwave issued from Twilight, halting the trajectory of Catrinas glaciers in their tracks, some of which were dangerously close to striking the filly before she had made her move. Normally they would have been impervious to magical attacks and shields and would have just ripped her mental body to shreds.The cat had figured she’d just try to shield against the onslaught and fail. Instead this wave of glyph infused magic unraveled her own patterns in the ice and converted the massive projectiles into steam. Twilight wasn’t done however, as she rapidly rearranged the ambient symbols still left in the air and used them to churn the towering plumb of steam into a formidable storm cloud. She was sweating bullets after these two spells, but it was more than worth it to see the look on the cat Goddesses face. She used the wind from the storm to keep her aloft as she pointed a hoof at Catrina, the second spell nestled right on its surface. Lightning issued out of the storm and struck the cat goddess in rapid succession.

Catrina didn’t even flinch as the bolts struck her. The lightning was far too feeble to actually harm anything but her pride. However that was the point. Twilight, with much less raw magical power, had managed nullify her spell and turn the remnants against her.

The point was to proven that Twilight could learn her magic.

With a disgruntled expression Catrina raised up one of her hands to signal a cease-fire. Twilight gladly obliged her, releasing the draining magic as she allowed herself to fall to the ground. She used the barest minimum of magic necessary to slow her descent and land safely in front of the gradually shrinking cat.

Their perception of reality shifted from the mindscape back to the bar still frozen by time. Everything remained exactly as it was before the mental altercation. The only difference being Twilight's shaking and sweating body from the magical exertion she had just been through. Catrina, unfazed by the affair, hadn’t even begun to use her scope of magical knowledge, but a deal is a deal. This filly had proven she could learn her magic. In fact she hated to admit how much of a natural she was at it. It took Catrina ages to learn free-from magic like that. This filly may not pack the power just yet, but with her intellect Catrina could see her ascending to another level. This filly could become something truly formidable with or without the Amulet in her possession.

“You have won your bargain filly, as much as I hate to admit it.”

Twilight bent over the counter and panted, grinning up at the Cat. “You are amazing. The scrolls do not do you justice in the least. One way or another, I’m getting your power back. I would kill to have even half your power at my side.”

Catrina couldn’t help but laugh at this. This filly had seen what her magic was truly like, and yet she was certain that Catrina would be working on HER Side? Still, if there was any being in the world that the cat believed could do it, it was this insane filly. It was enough to spark her interest at least.

“Don’t disappoint me Twilight Sparkle. I will not be slowing my lessons down for a mere filly, you best pay attention like your life depends on it.”

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

Order of the Sun (Edited by AleaJactaEst)

It was late into the night when they had decided to make camp. The desert had finally cooled down to a reasonable level under the light of the moon and they had created a temporary oasis for themselves. Creating a small lake with fruit bearing plants and trees was a simple feat for Twilight with the power of the Alicorn amulet. For every rune and trick that Catrina showed the filly, the more she was able to theorize and craft spells on the fly as they were walking through the desert. It was fascinating, watching the little filly's mind work with each new piece of information that was given to her and seeing how she can piece them together. It was crude and reckless, the way she threw them together, the kind of things that would make Catrina's old teachers balk with distaste at the lack of formality to her crafting. But to Catrina? It was like watching a naturally gifted artist learning to paint with a new medium.

Still, she had to make sure that Twilight knew that the magical power she was using was borrowed from something, and wasn't her own natural ability.

"Eventually, you will reach a point where either you will have to get rid of that Amulet, or someone will remove it from your person for you."

Twilight glanced over at Catrina while settling back against the base of a newly formed palm tree, taking a bite of some unknown fruit that had grown next to her. She handed it down to her baby dragon as she replied to the former goddess.

"This Amulet can only be removed by the pony who is wearing it. If they managed to get me to remove this source of my power so soon, I'd deserve losing it."

Catrina chuckled and slumped down parallel to the young filly, grabbing some fruit and leaves of her own to eat as she looked the young thing over in the moonlight. Despite her youthful appearance, the tinges of jadedness that came with experience were already clouding her big youthful eyes. Catrina also knew that another major part of Twilight's expression stemmed from the constant tug of war she was experiencing with the Amulet. The former goddess could practically hear the chorus of demented whispers demanding that Twilight go on a murderous rampage, yet the filly was able to resist its powerful influence somehow. She was a confident one to be sure, but Catrina could tell forced bravado when she saw it. Young Twilight was indeed nervous, terrified even, of the journey ahead of her, but she had shown the feline that she was willing to fight past that fear as well as any other obstacle in her way.

Catrina's ear twitched upon hearing movement. It was far too subtle for even a pony to pick up, especially with how the sand dunes muffled the sounds of hoofsteps even further, but it had just managed to catch her attention. She held still for a moment, focusing on the sounds and trying to discern what they were.

Catrina could read three distinct sets of hoofsteps: two quadrupeds and one biped; two of them female, one male. She reflexively sniffed the air, swishing her tail as she tried to collect more data. They were purposefully standing in a spot where she would notice, letting the wind carry their scents to her location to give her just enough warning. The way they moved told her that they were not bandits or raiders - they were far too trained and methodological in how they placed each step to read as such. No, these individuals were here not for looting, but for the two of them specifically.

It didn't surprise Catrina too much. The Amulet on the young filly would be like a beacon of disharmonious energies to any keeping an eye out for such magics. Her feline eyes darted over to the filly, whom seemed to have picked up on the former goddesses tenseness and alertness. Twilight didn't move except for gently stroking her hoof over the infant dragon’s scales, like he was a cat, but the tension that had filled their makeshift oasis was getting more and more palpable by the instant.

It was only mere moments later that the three figures arrived. Whereas Twilight could not quite see them beyond being shadowy forms in the distance, Catrina's near glowing eyes were able to see them almost as clear as if it was day time.

"There is a Ram, and she is flanked by a female Minotaur and a Zebra. From the feel of the magic emanating off of them, they appear to be harmoniously aligned."

Twilight nodded, not saying a word as these new individuals stepped forward.

"Greetings, travelers. My companions and I were wondering if you would have any objection to sharing this lovely oasis for the night. We've traveled a long way, and it’s nice to see some water out in these cursed dunes."

The Ram sounded friendly enough. Her voice was smooth and rather deep for a female, yet it did not give off a masculine air. However friendly she sounded and how genuine her smile seemed though, the thick armor that she and the zebra were wearing belied that they were far from just ordinary travelers. Under the light of the moon and of the fire, Twilight could see stylized emblems depicting the sun on all three of them. Both on the armored plating of the two quadrupeds and on the loosely fitting attire of the female Minotaur. While the Minotaur was not wearing armor like the others did, her well honed body was clearly defined under the multiple dim light sources. She gave off an air of grace and agility that seemed almost unnatural for someone of her species. She wasn't wearing armor, because she didn't need to wear armor. The zebra’s limbs were adorned with needlessly thick shoes, which were clearly designed for powerful bludgeoning attacks, while the Ram had a simple war hammer draped over her back.

Seeing those stylized suns had sent the voices from the amulet into a frenzy, demanding that Twilight slaughter them immediately. However, she maintained a calm demeanor and forced them down as she watched the events unfold.

"What is the Order Of the Sun doing out under Luna's moon so late at night?" Catrina asked calmly, taking a bite of a citrus filled fruit with her teeth, letting the juices flow down her chin as she looked them over.

Twilight's ears perked up at that as the clues fell into place. She had read about the Order Of the Sun during one of her many studying sessions in preparation for that ill-fated entrance exam. They were a religious order that originally started in Saddle Arabia. They regarded The Sun and Celestia as the closest thing to an absolute deity on the planet, mostly due to their lack of interaction with the princess and the fact that she held sway over celestial bodies in the sky. Equestrians had a similar reverence for the princess, but it was more in the sense of respecting royalty than it was in the religious zealotry that the Order had towards her. Celestia never made an effort to dissuade their reverence of her and celestial bodies either, as the Order was a great ally in the very few conflicts Equestria had on a global level. The Order was filled with particularly strong fighters if this trio was any indicator.

"We are on a patrol my feline friend. A dark power has drawn our attentions once again," the Zebra said with a deep and slightly gravelly voice. Though his body did not hint towards it, his voice carried with it the flavors of age and experience. Despite Twilight and Catrina not giving their agreement to it, the three new individuals settled themselves down around the fire calmly, looking at the two of them as the tensions rose ever higher. Now, that they were in the light of the fire, more of their features became visible. The Ram was almost snowy white, and her horns were perfectly symmetrical and bunched together. The female Minotaur, on the other hand, had one horn broken, but her well honed body was even more pronounced now. It didn't look like a single muscle on her body was put to waste beneath that brown coat of fur. The Zebra, however, was quite stocky, with large legs that spoke to the fact that he wore those weapons on his hooves often, if not all the time.

"I don't believe I said you could sit down."

The chill that came down upon every individual around the fire was palpable at Twilight's words. Her voice sounded friendly and cute, yet it made the hairs on the back of even Catrina's neck stand on end. It was worth noting, that the three warriors whom had seemed so calm moments ago had become rigid and tense at the sound of the filly's voice. From the looks on their faces, it seemed like they were expecting Catrina to be the source of the dark powers they had been tracking, and the fact that the dreadful feeling was coming from a filly had set them off balance.

"O...Of course my dear...What is your name if I may ask? That is a lovely amulet you have on your person," the Ram spoke in almost a motherly tone to her, her pink eyes flitting down to the Alicorn amulet on Twilight’s neck before going back up, to look into the filly's large eyes.

Twilight almost missed it, but the mention of the Amulet was a discrete tip off to her companions that she had spotted the source of the dark energies. Twilight looked over the Ram and the other three casually, watching their hooves and hands ever so slowly getting into defensive positions as she responded lightly.

"My name is Twilight Sparkle..." she was going to continue but the Ram interrupted her.

"That is a very pretty name Twilight Sparkle. That is a name that sounds like it was meant to be on the side of Harmony and The Sun. Are you with Harmony young Twilight?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," Catrina said, breaking the staring contest between the two of them. The Zebra responded by getting in Catrina's face, clearly trying to put himself in between of the feline and their obvious leader.

"My name is Galia, and yours is Catrina," the Ram spoke out without turning her head away from Twilight. She continued, "We were content to let you live out your days depowered, but it seems you've roped a poor young filly into your disharmonious ways."

All three jumped at a peel of laughter that came from Twilight. Even Catrina had felt her blood run just a little colder at the sudden and violent staccato of notes that came from the young one. Her youthful face stretched out into a massive grin and her eyes contracted into slits as she looked Ram dead in the face.

"I assure you Galia, Catrina did no such thing." The albino Ram, despite her best efforts, was having a hard time not showing signs of being unnerved by the presence this filly gave off. Her mind raced as she looked at the Amulet, seeing it as the main reason why this otherwise friendly looking pony was the way she was. The three of them could also now feel that the source of this power was far stronger than they had initially estimated. The dense disharmonious energy wafting off of the young filly's person was almost triggering their fight or flight responses, and she had not even moved from her resting place against the tree.

The Minotaur spoke up, getting into a defensive stance that said she was quite a capable hand to hand fighter, "Galia, the filly is possessed by that amulet, we have to act..."

"Titania," the ram said curtly as she waved the Minotaur down with her hoof. She made sure to maintain eye contact with Twilight.

"Young filly, I know you think this power you have is a good thing, that it makes you feel strong, but if we don't get it off of you, you will go insane. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Twilight's face adopted a cruel smirk as she met the Ram's gaze, "Galia, I think what's making you even more nervous, is that you know I am hearing a myriad of voices telling me to kill you right now. They are screaming in my mind to turn my powers on everyone around me, yet here I am, calmly sitting and having a conversation with you." Her soft voice sent shivers down the spines of everyone present, setting them on edge to the point they were ready to attack her at any second.

"You are doing a fantastic job not listening to the amulet, too." The Ram sounded so much like a concerned mother, trying to coax her child away from a dangerous ledge with her voice, "You don't have to continue down this path Twilight. All you have to do, is take off the Amulet and we'll make sure you will be safe and protected. We aren't your enemy here."

Twilight's malevolent grin broadened till her gums were visible, while the whites of her eyes filled with an inky blackness. The ground began to shake violently as Twilight slowly lifted off the ground, her floating body coming up to the Ram's level as she stared her down. The jarring tremors of the desert were causing their footing in the sand to become far less secure, making standing too long in one spot liable to have a hoof sink into the sandy depths below them.

"You are correct. You are not my enemy. That would require you to be a threat to me."

With a glow of Twilight's horn, she sent a beam of energy over to Catrina, whom doubled over from the impact. She began to laugh, as she too lifted off the ground and then grew in size. Though she was nowhere near as large as she was in their mental battle, Twilight had granted her an enlarged body and the temporary ability to fly to aid her in combat, as well as defensive wards on her fur.

"Prepare for combat!" Galia roared out, but it was almost drowned out by the earth below them yawning and cracking apart at the wave of Twilight's foreleg. The Minotaur was the quickest to react to the splitting ground, leaping through at impressive speeds and grabbing the Ram and Zebra before nearly flying out of the gaping hole that had just opened up. Sand flooded into the fissure, creating difficult footing for the Minotaur to stand on as she tried to prevent herself from being sucked into the rapidly shifting sand.

The Zebra yelled out, staring at Twilight as his voice took on an echoing quality to it.

"Remove the Amulet!"

Twilight had only just managed to stop her hoof from going to her throat when she had realized what the Zebra had tried to do. He had some type of magic that could compel someone to do something. When that something was as simple as removing an amulet? It made him that much more dangerous. If that had worked, she would have lost her power in an instant. Twilight did not know if she was capable of refusing a command like that again, as It seemed to attack a part of her that the Amulet had not magnified.

Rage filled her eyes as she reeled her hooves back in retaliation, powerful glyphs forming around her as she summoned her power.

"You dare trifle with my power Zebra?! Die!"

Green energy condensed into a flaming liquid, which formed into a tight sphere above her head before she sent it towards the three of them. When it landed in the sand in front of them, it exploded, making them shriek out in pain as acidic flaming liquid washed over them in a corrosive wave. Only the Minotaur was able to dodge the sudden and devastating assault, leaping high into the air for safety while the other two were reeling from burns across their entire bodies. Their armor began to melt and drip off them as they struggled to find footing on the super heated sand that was turning into jagged glass.

Twilight was surprised as to how far into the air the Minotaur got with just one leap. She was a speck against the moon from the way Twilight saw it. However, it was even more shocking when Titania rushed back down like an eagle sniping for its prey. Before Twilight could even react, a large hoof crashed into her face from a flying downward kick. Even the shield that Twilight had thrown up in haste to defend herself had not stood up to the might behind that hit. Still, despite the power behind the strike, it was not enough to knock the filly senseless. The durability she had been afforded by the Amulet prevented that from happening. Without it, though, she would have been knocked out, if not killed outright.

The Minotaur performed a pose and slowed her descent to a crawl as she bounced off the filly's head, barely budging her from the air. The now floating Minotaur swung in for a quick succession of attacks. The first two were not strong enough to get past the barrier that Twilight had, but the third punch to the filly's gut managed to break its way through and knock the wind out of her tiny body. Unable to maintain her focus for flying she plummeted to a dune below, flopping down its slanted surface as she attempted to catch her breath from the devastating slam she had received. This Minotaur seemed to have realized with her first strike that the brute force wasn't injuring the filly like it was supposed to, so exploiting her need to breathe seemed to be the next best option.

Through her bleary vision, she could see the acid burned Zebra and Ram glowing with power while facing each-other. She watched with varying degrees of blurriness as muscle, skin, and fur grew back from the scorched states they were in, restoring almost to their original state. They were breathing hard and looked extremely unnerved at the kind of power the filly was able to conjure so rapidly.

Catrina descended from the sky with her large form and tried to land a punch on the Minotaur, but the smaller biped danced around her attacks effortlessly. If she had access to her magic, this would have been a whole other ballgame. But as it stood? The warrior's agility was far too great for her massive limbs. Swiftly, the creature leaped over one of Catrina's swipes and dashed up her arm, before landing a decisive blow on the felines chin - making the large cat see stars in her vision - one, that Titania followed up with a powerful jab to Catrina’s throat. It wasn't enough to stagger Catrina, but it hurt enough to make her clench her throat and gag as the lithe creature landed on the sand below.

"Titania! Fall back!" Galia called out towards the Minotaur. Twilight appreciated the distraction the panicked Ram have given her. The filly's small hooves slammed into the sand behind Titania, summoning forth a glyph that encompassed them both for the briefest of seconds before a thunderous boom fired off. As dexterous as Titania was, she was not able to get out of the blast radius in time, sending her flying forward with a cry of pain as she tumbled across the desert. Twilight pressed the attack, drawing on a quick charge of magical energy and firing off an arc of lightning from her hoof toward the careening Minotaur. The beast was only just able to slam her muscular arm into the ground to knock herself out of the way of the blisteringly hot streak of lightning that scorched the sand on impact. By the time her momentum halted, she had flopped onto the ground next to her compatriots, shaking violently from the impact the sound made against her body.

Twilight rose into the air again, wiping her mouth of spit with the back of her hoof as she gazed down upon them. All in all, besides the uncomfortable feeling of getting the wind knocked out of her, she was largely unscathed and had tons of magical reserves to throw around. These three, on the other hand, had come close to dying multiple times in the conflict already.

“See what I mean Galia? Not even a threat."

The Zebra caught her eyes again and she saw what he was going to do. In a rage, Twilight reached into her reserves. She was going to turn this entire desert into glass before she let him utter another word. The sky itself was starting to turn red from power she was going to unleash upon the square miles of desert, just to make sure these three were gone. Her resistance of the Amulet's influence was entirely gone for this brief moment, and it was pushing her to destroy as much as possible while it had the chance.

"SLEEP!"

Twilight hadn't been able to defend against it this time. She, goaded on by the amulet and her own rage, had put all her focus in building up the magic to erase these fools from existence. As a result of that, she could not fortify her mind against the command. Her body suddenly felt very heavy, as did her eyelids. Still she tried to hold on, rage fueling her with just enough willpower to stay awake, but not enough to maintain the spell she was going to unleash.

Titania stood, stilling her muscles and bracing herself against the glass that entrapped her companions’ hooves before leaping straight at Twilight. The Minotaur rushed through the air at a blinding clip, delivering another punch to Twilight's stomach. This time, however, it was covered in a glow of energy that seemed to come from the core of her body itself, and out, through Twilight's small frame. The effect was instantaneous, bypassing Twilight's defenses and knocking spittle and bile right out of her gaping mouth. With the combined effects of the command to sleep still lingering and this attack, the young filly slumped in the large hand of the Minotaur, entirely unconscious.

Catrina, seeing that her body was shrinking and she was gradually losing the borrowed ability to fly now that Twilight was knocked out, raised her hands in surrender before she even touched the ground. She did not have the power to take these three on in her present condition. Her eyes went towards Twilight as she put her hands behind her head and got on her knees. The little filly had a lot of potential, but she was still grievously untrained.

"Bind her! Do not let her have any chance to use magic until we can find a way to get that amulet off of her! We do not know how long she is going to be unconscious!" Roared Galia as she stomped over to Catrina, her nostrils flared and her pink eyes bugged out in rage and panic as she said her next part to the former cat goddess, "What have you been teaching her?! Are you insane!? That spell she was brewing would have leveled cities miles away from here with that blast radius! Do you understand that?!"

Catrina laughed. "I've only shown the filly a handful of my tricks - she's the one who took those little slivers of information and turned them into destructive masterpieces. I do not envy what will happen to your little team when she wakes up."

Twin horns flared with magic as a war hammer levitated off of Galia's back, swiftly ramming the butt of it into Catrina's forehead and knocking her out.

Author's Note

Major thanks to AleaJactaEst for editing this chapter for little ol' me.

Where is Spike? (edited by AleaJactaEst)

Twilight regained consciousness, feeling particularly snug in whatever was holding her. The voices of the Amulet were severely muffled, but their rage was still itching at the edges of her mind. She tried to move her limbs - maintaining the steady breathing of a pony asleep - and found them held in place by a form fitting stone. She was upside down from what she could tell, floating inside a casing of stone that sealed her entire body up to her neck. She shifted her head slightly and smacked her lips, maintaining the visage of sleep as she brushed her legs against the interior of this stone casing.

She felt the indents of runes along the stony interior. Layers upon layers of magic suppressors, from what Twilight could gather. The average pony would be entirely powerless inside something like this. Ever so slightly, the filly opened her eyes and looked around to see where she was. She smiled broadly at the sight. She was quite happy that she had read up on these types of mobile prisons in her various studies.

Twilight had been shrunk down to the size of a Breezie while she had been unconscious. The Order of the Sun had a type of clay that they could use on their shrunken captives; a substance that would suppress their captives magical abilities as it hardened into a type of stone. Once fully hardened, it had a tensile strength comparable to that of steel. Not only was it extremely tough to break for a normal sized pony, the fact that the prisoner was shrunk down to such a minuscule scale, meant that they would have even less strength to attempt such a feat. To add redundancy to this prison's security, they had arranged Twilight’s limbs in such a way, that she could not get enough leverage to exert strength against her rough confines. Orbiting around her floating casing, was a growing succession of rotating rings, each of them progressively larger than the last and turning on a slightly different axis. They were also working to dampen her magic, and the fact that there were so many of them made Twilight feel a bit of pride at the fact that they had taken so many precautions against her.

The world outside of the most distant ring seemed a bit distorted, speaking to a fact that this entire prison was sealed inside what looked like a clear hollow crystal ball. From the position of the moon, she could tell she had not been unconscious for very long, meaning that they had to construct this little prison in a hurry. That was information she could use to her advantage. The miniature Twilight twisted her head to the side and peered down below her. The crystal that encased her mobile prison was placed on the top of what looked like a towering rod of metal, but in actually was probably just a staff.

A massive head moved into Twilight's view, revealing the gigantic visage of an albino Ram. From Twilight's perspective, Galia seemed almost as large as Catrina was in that one battle.

"Hello young filly. I see you've awoken. I hope you understand why we have to take these precautions until we remove that Amulet from you. We know you are not thinking clearly right now. We want to help you. Do you understand?"

Her voice sounded slightly deeper and louder now that Twilight was so small, but it still carried that motherly tone to it. The Ram seemed convinced that Twilight was simply some lost little filly whom was way over her head in trouble. Perhaps that had a ring of truth to it. However, it was this uphill battle, this struggle to break through the confines of normal mortal limits into that of legend that drove her onto this path in the first place.

"Oh, I understand Galia." Twilight started to giggle mid sentence at how high her voice sounded at the moment - it sounded like she had breathed in a large quantity of helium due to how utterly tiny she was - and that mirth carried on into the rest of the sentence, "I am going to kill you after all."

Galia let out a patient sigh as she continued walking. Twilight bobbed her head around playfully with a childlike smile on her face, discreetly scanning her prison with her studious gaze. She had seen diagrams of earlier versions of these prisons before, but this one was clearly a more advanced version of it. A prison like this had been used on Grogar once in his earlier days, and to this day he had been the only one to escape from its clutches. She relished the idea of not only being the second, but putting the necromancer's record to shame.

Still, she needed time to come up with how to get out of her current predicament, and what better way to pass the time than with conversation?

"Where is Spike?"

The Ram's jaw clenched at how happy the pony sounded. It unnerved her and her comrades how she had not reacted the way they had anticipated. Normally, the creatures they capture would thrash about, yelling and cursing as they tried in vain to force their way out. They knew how to handle that. This chillingly calm filly whom had almost killed them several times over though, she wasn't like that at all.

"Do you mean the infant dragon dear? He is with us. Don't worry, he is unharmed. I've never seen a dragon quite that young before. Wingless to boot."

"Uh-huh, he sure is an interesting little guy," Twilight said a bit absent mindedly as her brain constructed a working blueprint of her prison. In her mind's eye, she saw the crafty prison broken down and reverse engineered, testing out theories as to how Grogar managed his feat of escape the last time. Naturally, the details of how he escaped were not granted to textbooks, lest others use and exploit them to their advantage. That's probably where the advancements in this particular prison had came from.

"May I see him?"

Twilight watched in amusement as the comparative giants exchanged glances with each other outside of her spherical prison. The nervous shift of the Zebra had told her who had the dragon.

"Maybe when we make it to our base. You'll be able to have your dragon back when we get that Amulet off of you, okay?"

The Zebra hissed towards the Ram. "This monster tried to murder us, scorching us with magic. If we killed her right now, I would not think it so tragic."

"D’aww, I feel the same way Mr Zaddock,” Twilight piped up with a mirthful grin. The Zebra thrusted his face towards her prison, his nostrils flared in rage as he glared down at the tiny prisoner.

"Speak one more threat to me little mare, keep on goading me if you dare!"

"Zaddock! Enough!"

"I like him, he's spunky. Catrina? Are you here as well?"

There was a muffled sound of assertion from behind her. Twilight swiveled her head till it was upside down and saw the Cat draped over the shoulder of the Minotaur, bound and gagged.

"Ah there you are. You holding up?" Twilight had to yell to have her small voice reach the Cat's ears, but she nodded in a bored manner. Being immortal, Catrina felt no sense of danger. Alas, that didn't make her bounds any less difficult to get out of.

"You are awfully jovial for someone who is our prisoner," Titania growled out as she adjusted the weight of the cat.

"Its nice to have the voices quieted down. Gives me a lot more room to think. I appreciate that, by the way. They can get quite agitating sometimes. Like a beehive, except the buzzing is replaced with demands of blood and death."

Twilight's hooves ever so slightly began tapping inside of her prison, each one in sync with a different ring floating around her prison, keeping track of their rhythm. Ponies were naturally musically inclined. They were known to burst out into a citywide songs sometimes, complete with choreography that none of them really practiced. It made finding rhythms and patterns far easier for them to do than other races. For a mind such as Twilight's however, this preternatural skill was put to the extreme.

She would have one shot at this before the prison's defenses clamped down on her, amplifying their restraints even further. She'd have to make sure it counted

"You didn't hurt Spike, right? He's just a baby after all."

"No. Like I said, he is fine. Just pacified until we figure out what to do with him,” Galia responded over her shoulder as she continued walking along under the moonlight.

"So, you are not going to let me have him after you, supposedly, get the Amulet off of me then."

Twilight grinned as she heard the Ram curse under her breath. They had clearly wanted to use the dragon as a bargaining chip, and now, that the fact they weren't going to give it back was on the table, they had lost that particular tool of persuasion. Twilight swayed her head to the light rhythm of her hooves and the rings around her, carefully constructing the notes she was going to use in her head. Musical magic was mostly used for entertainment purposes. Party Ponies could use it to raise the spirits of a crowd, though they couldn't really explain how they did it most of the time. Musical theory when it came to magic however, had many more applications than just making others feel good. The carefully arranged melody, infused with magic, could have nearly as many effects as her potion making, but it took a particularly practiced throat and ears to achieve the effect properly. She was still a novice in that regard, but she figured she had just enough skill. All she needed was the right arrangement, the right rhythm. Like feeling around for the right combination on a lock. In fact, exactly like that in this case.

"So tell me Galia, what is an Albino Ram doing in the Order of the Sun?"

"What does being an Albino have to do with my membership in the order filly?" Twilight grinned at the tinge of annoyance in the Ram's voice.

"Albinism makes it quite difficult to be outside during the daytime, of course. It's painful for their eyes. I'm sure that's why you take on these night patrols, hm?"

"What is your point young filly? My patience is starting to wear thin."

"Oh, I know: it's rather delightful to hear that doting mommy persona you're trying on me crack. That saccharine stuff must be so difficult to use on somepony who tried killing you earlier."

"By Nightmare Moon, may this filly be silenced soon," The Zebra growled as his eyes shot daggers at Twilight.

"See? The Zebra gets it."

"I know this is just the Amulet talking. Once it is off of you, we can rehabilitate you." Each word was strained out of the Rams throat, as though she was saying it more to herself than for the filly's benefit.

"So here I am, floating here the size of a baby carrot, wondering what someone who can't be out in the sun would want to do with an order dedicated to it. It makes me think that, maybe, there is something drawing you to this order, something that is stronger than the pain of Sunlight's rays. Guilt? Shame, maybe?"

The Ram's ears flattened for the briefest of seconds and her head bowed slightly. She did not have a good poker face.

"Now, what would an upstanding Ram of justice like you have to be ashamed of? I doubt you've done a naughty thing in your life."

"You're damn right filly. Galia is one of the most respected members of the order." The way Titania said it was a bit too forceful, like she was trying to cheer up her team captain and silence Twilight at the same time.

"It is shame, though. Not shame for her own actions. Maybe a father? Grand father. Even further back, maybe?"

"Enough of this filly. I will fly into a rage if she is not gagged and quickly!" The Zebra looked like he was about to follow through on that threat, too.

"Zaddock! Calm yourself, move yourself and the dragon further ahead so you do not hear her. She cannot do anything inside the prison."

So it is certain, the Zebra had Spike. Twilight paid special attention to keep an eye on where Zaddock ended up as she continued to goad the Ram. She would need to enact her plan soon if the Zebra ended up getting too far away from her.

"So, judging from your reactions, I'm on the right track with my line of reasoning. Someone from your family's past brought a whole bunch of shame to your family, and you feel obligated to repent for that Ram's actions..." Twilight paused her sentence and then began to laugh in realization. The Ram's friendliness fell away as she succumbed to shame and anger.

"Yes! You figured it out. I am a descendant of Grogar. That vile, disgusting Necromancer that brought shame upon my entire family tree. Are you happy now? Do you feel satisfied in goading me?"

Twilight said her next word in a very particular way, holding each syllable in a clear resonating note.

"AB-SO-LUTE-LY!"

Her voice held in the air of the crystal, reverberating unnaturally off of the Crystal barrier until it was shaking violently, making a dissonant note of its own. Galia's eyes contracted in fright as she tried to turn on the Prison's defenses, but Twilight let out a rhythmic whistle before the Ram's horn could flair up with magic. The magically infused notes of the whistle shattered the crystal. The sound waves did not behave normally though, snaking through the air towards the Zebra, or rather inside of the Zebra's backpack.

The masculine Zebra squealed as something burst out of the pack, the mass of it swelling and swelling, pushing the muscular equine back as it grew in size. The Minotaur cursed out in anger and fright as she looked up at the rapidly growing monster, it's purple scales glistening in the moonlight as it let out a bone rattling roar into the night sky.

With the rings falling to the sand below, the voices slammed back into Twilight's mind like a tidal wave. She didn't want to argue with them though; if anything, they were in complete accord with her aims at the moment. The magic dampening clay vibrated violently, heating up and growing soft as it lost shape. Twilight grew slowly, grinning in the Ram’s face as the world seemed to scale back down to a normal size.

"Galia! Help me bring this dragon DowAGGGGHHhh!!" The Zebra screamed his last as a jet of green flame forcefully fired out of the engorged dragon's throat. Galia let out a pained cry as she yelled out the Zebra's name over the roaring sound of the fire breath. The Minotaur gave a roar of her own as she tried to leap after the dragon, but her momentum was halted in mid air by a glowing red force, splaying her out. Spike turned his hunched body around, stooping low and roaring menacingly, shaking the sand at its foundations as his powerful voice rang out throughout the desert. Twilight would not be surprised if nearby cities could hear her pet's cry.

Twilight whistled sharply, a single resonating note that fell in rhythm with dragon’s magic, making it even larger and more muscle bound. Its maw grew even larger and its teeth looked like they could rend through buildings.

"I call it The Melody of Greed. Do you like it Galia?"

Spike’s smoldering eyes were like two extra moons in the sky as they glared down at the comparatively tiny Ram. She swore uncontrollably, tearing up despite herself as she looked up at the floating filly as Twilight’s menacing smile gazed down upon her, her body silhouetted against the muscular belly of her titan of a dragon.

Catrina stared up at the filly, her eyes looking at this young creature in a whole new light. Before, the feline had thought the girl just an amusing pastime. When she had been captured and placed inside that prison, she had thought the adventure was over. She had been disappointed a bit that it had ended so quickly. Yet, looking at the triumphant mare as she was now, she had to concede that if anyone was capable of achieving her objectives, it would be this terrifying demon of a child.

"You...you won't get away with this, you vile dog!" Galia wretched out, screaming through tears as she reached for her magic. Or at least, she tried to. Suddenly, she couldn't feel her power anymore. She looked at her body, and saw that moving along it were little nullification runes, creeping along her fur.

"I am so happy I met you Galia. I got so much valuable research in on binding and nullification magic while I was in there; I have so many notes I need to write about it, it just makes me giddy with anticipation. Right now though, we have other business to attend to."

The Ram fell backwards as Twilight rushed towards the warrior in a blur, going from high in the air to muzzle to muzzle before the Ram had a chance to speak.

"You, an ancestor of Grogar, and you are a part of the religious order that fought him the most? For some strange reason, I think you know where his crypt is. Is that correct Ms Galia?"

"Don't tell her anything! Don't give this bitch the satisfaction!" Titania roared out as she was held suspended in the air.

"Ms Titania! It's rude to interrupt a conversation!"

The Minotaur let out a primal cry of pain as she felt her hip bone snap in half, grinding against active nerves as it nearly turned her brain off in agony.

"STOP! DON'T HURT TITANIA!"

"Oh, don't worry, I can heal her." The hip bone reformed back to how it was before harshly snapping again, hitting the Minotaur with a fresh new wave of agony, "And I can do it again! Thanks for that healing spell by the way, brilliant stuff. Way better than what I was working with."

"No...I won't tell you where his crypt is, you will have to kill me. No way I'd let something like you inside there."

Every single nerve in the Ram's body flared into action, giving her the sensations of burning and freezing at the same time. She gritted her teeth against the onslaught, her eyes nearly bulging out of her sockets as she tried to not break under the pain. While she was distracted, Twilight had casually let Catrina loose from her binds. She didn't seem all that keen on getting close to Twilight while she was working though.

The Ram collapsed to the ground as the pain was released, giving her a feeling of warmth and the feel of blankets as she recovered. She knew what the filly was doing. She was trying to make her feel good just to make the pain that much more unbearable.

"I… I really had believed… you were innocent..." she gasped out.

"I know, it was precious. Now, chop chop, where is the crypt."

"I'm not telling you."

"Maybe I'm not saying it right. How did that Zebra do it again?"

Galia blanched as she instantly knew what she meant. His spell of suggestion. She could not have figured it out so quickly. In her hooves, the devastating effects would be catastrophic. The Ram kicked up to her hooves and started to gallop as fast as her hooves would carry her. She needed to warn the order. She wasn't thinking clearly anymore. All she knew was panic as she tried to flee. Twilight watched her with a grin, bobbing her head from side to side as she let her pray get just far enough away that she could have hope.

"Stop!"

Tears fell freely from the Rams eyes as her legs slowed to a stand still. She couldn't fight against that single word. She wanted to die. She was going to doom the world with her knowledge and there was nothing she could do about it. She winced as she heard her friend scream in a mix of terror and rage. She struggled with her neck, forcing the locked muscles to move just enough to look back. In the periphery of her vision, she could see the minotaur in the claw of the gigantic dragon, just in time to see her body bitten in two.

"NOOOOO!" Her heart was thumping so fast as she felt the filly drift towards her through the air. She screamed her protest over and over again, fighting her own body with all her might as she struggled to even take a few steps forward. She had never known fear quite like this until that moment.

"Ms Galia~," Twilight sang out in her childish voice. The ram looked up at the filly as she drifted into her line of sight, pressing her muzzle into the Ram's own. The Ram could see the horrified expression on her face in the reflection of the filly's eyes, coaxing out a fresh new wave of tears.

"I have a little question for you...before you go… Like I said..." she leaned into the Ram's ear as she whispered, her voice distorted into a deep rumble as she repeated, "I am going to kill you after all…"

Author's Note

Special thanks to AleaJactaEst for editing this chapter.

Grogar's Crypt prelude

Grogar's Crypt prelude

Training sentient creatures to do what you want is not that much different than training a dog. Living things by their very nature seek out two primal things almost above everything else. The first thing is they avoid pain. Pain is the bodies response to danger. When that sense of danger comes in the form of trying to deny an order, they will eventually carry out that order one way or another. For example, dogs are sometimes given a type of magic that gives them a dull shock to their body whenever they try to leave the borders of their owner's property. They learn that whenever they walk around the areas they are supposed too, they feel perfectly fine, while going towards the outer limits of the property is painful, and by extension "dangerous." The dog is in no real danger of being harmed by this spell, but it is just painful enough that it is something that the dog would want to avoid. It is because of this that the dog then learns that staying where he is supposed to is good and safe, and he will avoid going other places because that is bad and dangerous. The owners will reinforce this by treating them kindly while they follow these prescribed rules, and reaffirming that "bad" feeling whenever they get shocked. In so doing they further solidify the sense of pain as something to be avoided.

"Where is Grogar's Crypt?"

The second thing is they seek out pleasure. Anything that feels good, that feels euphoric, that feels right in that moment is something that a living creature will gravitate towards even at the cost of their own life and moral compass. The reason for this is because pain and pleasure do not interact with the more developed parts of sentient creatures brains, but rather their more primal, instinctual areas. For example; lab rats, when are given a choice between a receptacle that dispenses drugs, and one that dispenses food, the subjects would almost invariably choose the drugs once they discover the euphoric feelings it delivers. They will in fact forgo food even at the cost of their own lives, tossing away any sense of self preservation to continue nursing that feeling of pleasure even as they starve to death. Ponies and other sentient creatures are no different in this regard. While their more developed minds can resist the influence of addictive substances at first, the euphoric high and release of pleasurable chemicals in their brain eventually override their ability to think and preserve their own health in favor of temporary bliss. Drugs in fact carry their own intrinsic training techniques in the form of withdrawal, teaching the sentient creatures whom partake in them that resisting their pleasurable influences will ultimately lead to maddening levels of pain and discomfort.

"Where is Grogar's Crypt?"

Twilight had always found the research into such subjects was fascinating to read about, however carrying out her own research on the topic during her interrogation of Galia yielded even more data on the subject. The ram for example seemed quite adept in resisting physical pain. As much as she shrieked through her teeth at hot metal being pressed into her skin, branding her with glyphs that reinforced the suggestion magic being used on her, she still would not utter a single word in reference to where her ancestors crypt was located. It took a lot of pain to even get her to bare her teeth at the filly even! It was quite impressive to watch.

That had comprised the first twenty minutes of Twilight's interrogation, materializing intricately shaped molten metal in the air as she calmly carried out the questioning, taking notes on the Ram's reactions as she tested the glowing metal on various parts of the larger creatures body. The filly made sure to heal the nerve endings that had died during this. It would be counterproductive to carry out physical torture if the subject lost her ability to feel it. The filly tried other tactics as well, like summoning up bugs that crawled around the Ram's body and face, biting and stinging her in various sensitive areas. Even this seem to prove ultimately ineffectual, even as Twilight kept her just healed enough to continue to feel it without blacking out.

Galia had now been enduring this for about an hour. Her eyes were red and irritated, and her body was covered in burns and welts from Twilight's interrogation techniques. The filly thought she'd have to up her game even further until the ram let out a determined scream. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her sockets as her tongue stuck out as far as the horned creature could get it to extend, and Twilight watched in a mixture of amusement and interest as the Ram drove her teeth down and cleaved off her own tongue. Blood pooled into the subjects mouth and spilled down her chin as her crazed eyes stared defiantly at the filly, trying to express to the little purple unicorn that she would not be able to break a warrior like her.

Catrina said nothing during all this. Spike had shrunken down back to his normal deceptively harmless looking form and had fallen asleep curled up in the felines lap, listening to the screams of the ram as if it were a lullaby. The former goddess wondered what the filly would come up with as she watched the quill jot down line after line of notes on the floating scroll. The unicorn looked almost cute the way she tapped her chin with her hoof, with a facial expression that married enjoyment and perplexed concentration together into one deceptively innocent looking visage.

She let the ram bleed out for a moment. It gave the warrior hope that she might just die there, defiant till the end and defending the world against the evils of Grogar's magic. Her defiance as she bled out was replaced with a growing horror and helplessness as she felt her tongue regrow back to its original state, and felt her blood filling up her veins once again. Despite herself she had begun to shed a stream of tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to hold back the flow. She could not show weakness in this, she had to keep it together. Twilight however had found her opening.

Catrina watched as the filly's face change from cruel and sadistic, and evolving into a gentle, almost motherly expression. She watched the floating equine move forward and begin to hug the shaking Ram's head with her entire body. The Warrior flinched at the gentle feeling, growing disturbed and horrified as she felt tiny hooves stroking her muzzle and gently scratching her behind her ear.

"It's okay, let out those nasty feelings bottled up inside you. No one here will judge you for shedding some tears. let it all out now. That's a good girl."

As Twilight comforted her, she felt an inexplicable warmth that pervaded her strong body, slowly loosening up her tense muscles as she found it harder and harder to resist crying. She felt so small under the gentleness of the filly, leaning into the feeling of her voice whispering in her ear as she gave into her sorrow. It felt good to cry. It felt right to cry. It wasn't until she had begun her decent into letting out her emotions that she realized that all the layers of suggestion magic that had been placed on her were beginning to take over her thought processes. Twilight's young, whispering voice that placated her and made her feel like it was okay to show weakness was in actuality shattering her defenses and resolve in the way physical torture just wasn't able too.

Even as Twilight gently rubbed the Rams head, nuzzling her with her own muzzle and cheeks, her quill continued to take notes on her active experiment. While the Ram was quite adapt in resisting physical pain, emotional comfort was something that her body wasn't readily trained against. Emotional manipulation, Twilight theorized in her notes, was effective in more developed creatures because it could masquerade as the higher functioning parts of their brain while still communicating to their more primal instincts. Whereas Galia was actively aware of and resistant to physical pain, her developed mind able to override the instincts they induced, this type of gentle comfort and placating whispers spoke to a time in her life when she was a little kid, where she was allowed to be more vulnerable. She liked those feelings and times in her life, which meant she instinctively listened to the suggestion magic that drove her down that path. In so doing, she knew in the back of her mind that giving into even one of Twilight's orders would make it that much harder to resist the ones that followed.

" You are doing such a good job Galia. I am proud of you for listening to me." Twilight cooed, kissing the top of the Ram's forehead as she continued to comfort her. It felt good to be praised by her. It felt right. She wasn't crying as much anymore as her sobbing released more and more chemicals in her brain that made her feel better. The suggestion magic helped these feelings along. If she could see herself at that moment she would have been even more ashamed than she already felt. Twilight let her fall down to a sitting position, her body now pliable and limp under the unicorns doting hooves. It felt wrong to the intellectual side of her brain, but her body and instincts rebelled against her thoughts.

"Can you touch your muzzle for me Galia? Can you touch your muzzle for Twilight?" The gentle request tickled the rams ear as she sniffled on the sandy ground. Her mind screamed in protest, but her cloven forehoof found itself shakily pressing into her dripping nose. Her muscles did not tense against the action, nor could she have summoned up any strength to attempt it now that she had sobbed so hard. What was worse, performing that action had filled her with an inexplicable feeling of pride and accomplishment. A feeling that was reinforced by the filly gently telling her how good she was for doing that simple task. She liked it when Twilight praised her. It made her feel warm and happy when Twilight was happy with her.

"Good girl! do you like listening to me? Do you like the way it makes you feel? Nod and tell me you like that feeling."

"I.....I.....I like that feeling...." Her voice cracked as she spoke the words, nodding like she was ordered to do. Her mind threw up so many red flags, a sense of emergency flooding her conscience as more and more of her mind and body rebelled against everything she believed in. She needed to fight back, she needed to reclaim the ground she had lost before she doomed the world. Where she had resisted saying a single word before she now was admitting her weakness freely to the filly, causing the quill hovering above them to scribble across the scroll with a renewed vigor at the success the vile monster was having, now that she changed her tactics.

"Good girl! You are doing so well." Twilight said in a happy gentle voice, alighting on the ground in front of the ram and looking up at her with a deceptively adorable expression. "Now look in the direction of Grogar's Crypt."

At the mention of Grogar she had tried to steel her muscles like before. However her body was now so weak and pliable from her crying that it did not listen effectively enough to her own command. The most resistance she could muster now was just turning her head slower than she would normally been able too. This meager resistance was met with a new kind of pain. Not physical pain like Twilight had been employing earlier, but the emotional pain that came from guilt. Twilight, like she had been theorizing in her notes as she had comforted the warrior Ram, crafted a wordless variety of the suggestion magic that was able to influence what types of emotions Galia experienced.

The ram's thoughts were now chiding her for not turning her head in that direction fast enough. She didn't want to make Twilight sad did she? She didn't want to disappoint her right? She wanted to feel those happy feelings when Twilight praised her, but that was only going to happen if she was a good girl. These types of thoughts and more began to ring out from her subconscious, pleading with her to stop resisting even as she knew the ramifications of giving into this she demon on an intellectual level.

Twilight could see the Ram's mind slowly snapping like a twig as she watched her dilating eyes, enjoying her self thoroughly as the ram finally caved into her and stared into the direction she wanted. She even marked the moment in her notes the time in which the light seem to go out from her eyes and gave up on trying to fight the filly's magic.

The defeat and loss on the Ram's face was an intoxicating sight for Twilight. What the Ram croaked out made it even better.

"Please...just kill me.... please.... I don't....I don't want....," Never in her life had Galia felt so utterly hollow, so devoid of hope. The kind of emotional state that Grogar had created in his victims before they had taken their own lives, just to become twisted versions of themselves that systematically killed everyone they ever loved. She knew in that moment that this Filly was almost the spiritual successor to her ancestor, and it made the fact that she wanted to go to his crypt even more horrifying to think about.

Even as she thought about this she leaned into Twilight's embrace as the filly hugged her around her neck, stroking her head as she whispered in a placating tone into the Ram's ear once again.

"Oh I know." Twilight said in such a sympathetic voice, one that sounded so deceptively real to Galia's foggy mind, patting the Ram's head affectionately as she planted little kisses against the welts and burns she had made, making them feel so much better. Galia's vacant eyes and lost expression cracked into a pitiable smile as she was reminded of her mother doing the same for her when she was young, kissing her little scrapes to help her calm down. This positive association was affirmed by more wordless suggestions Twilight made on her, coaxing her mind into oblivion one prod at a time.

"It must be very difficult for you to do this, but I'm afraid you don't have a choice." The filly said this it in such a gentle and inviting way. It made the ram feel a little better just listening to her speak. "One way or another I'm getting to that crypt and you are going to get me there. After that, you will have my permission to die. Do you understand?"

Galia hated herself as she nodded, feeling so small and helpless under the gentle voice of this filly. She felt so disgusted with her own body as it nodded, feeling hope at the prospect of death at the end of this horrible betrayal of everything she loved and believed in.

"Excellent!" The filly clapped her hooves together in excitement before pointing in the direction Galia was compelled to face towards. Galia's face grew a quivering smile, loving the feeling of being praised by Twilight, even as her dead eyes continued to release streams of tears. "Now I want you to run as fast as you can towards the crypt. We'll follow behind, don't you worry."

Author's Note

This was going to originally be part of a larger chapter that is Grogar's crypt, but I think i'll leave this here as a little prelude for what is to come.

Next chapter, Grogar's Crypt.

Grogar's Crypt part 1

The sun was starting to raise for the new day. Saddle Arabia was heating up as its rays draped across the desert, though not to an unbearable level as it was going to become in an hours time. While the natives and long time residents of the country were used to the blistering heat, it was known to bowl over visitors to their nation. The Order took advantage of this reprieve from the heat to march at a near gallop towards the source of the roar. A company of holy warriors moved with confidence across the sand. Their armor light and arid to account for their environment, yet strong and durable between the materials it was made from, and the shielding spells woven into the fabric.

One of their best squads had responded to a disharmonious surge of magic during the evening of the day before. Galia, the leader of that particular squad, was known as a first responder for disharmony signatures like this. Her ancestor was no secret to the Order, even down to the newest of recruits. If she had been born to any other family line, she probably would have been a top ranking member of the Order. Her dedication to their mission, and the myriad of medals and accolades she had earned over the long years she had been with them were more than enough to earn her place. It was not as if there were any doubts to where her loyalty lay. At first they believed the Ram to be a spy, a plant to lower their guard. She had accepted so many restrictions, so much scrutiny, and so much mistrust as she worked her ass off for them. She threw herself at the enemy, dedicated herself to their teachings, and even earned the respect of any who worked with her. Part of the reason Galia was not a higher rank than she was, beyond her ancestors infamy, was her own dedication to working on the field. She felt a drive to stop any rise of disharmonious magic in Saddle with impunity.

Her reputation had spoken for herself so much that they had assumed that the disharmonious surge, that had that had triggered a blip on their specially designed maps, was as good as dealt with. Her track record spoke for itself after all, and the soldiers that were with her had been by her side on the field for nearly as long as they had been in the Order. When the disharmonious signal vanished off the maps, they had even stopped monitoring the situation, assuming that Galia's company would come back and speak of their latest victory.

That was a grave mistake. In the middle of the night a roar had been heard echoing through the desert. Even miles away it had shaken the walls of nearby cities, waking up fearful children and triggering the barking of dogs whom moved to defend their families. It was the roar of a dragon, something they were not used to in Saddle Arabia. The Order scrambled to respond, checking the maps they had on their person to see that the blip had returned, larger and more menacing than before and joined by what they assumed to be the dragon.

By the time the Order had arrived, the first responders came over and briefed them on the situation. The mangled legs of what had been Titania were surrounded by some soldiers, and a super heated patch of sand turned glass had another group around it. The skeleton was that of a Zebra, half sticking out of the thick slab of glass as the skull's jaw, opened in what had probably been a scream. Those were not what the Company Major was brought too however, but an unassuming pile of broken crystal and stone rings.

Fear jolted through even the most hardened of their ranks as they looked down at their miniature prison broken before them. In centuries there hadn't been a single escape from their famous constructs, not since Grogar. The fact that whatever had was captured by Galia had broken out so quickly after being captured hinted at the danger the situation posed. What worried them more was the absence of Galia's body.

A sagely Zebra oracle came over to the Major when he made a gesture with his head. The Major was far taller than the elder equine, his build and stature common among the horses of Saddle. They had a different evolutionary path than the ponies of Equestria. They were taller and sturdier than the Chosen of Harmony, but their magical aptitude was far lower than their smaller kin. They did not have unicorns and pegasi variants like they did, nor the Godly Celestia whom controlled the celestial bodies in the sky. Most ponies did not leave the borders of Equestria, so the closest thing they had to their kind were the Zebra, the only other creatures known to have Marks of Harmony, or as it was known in Equestria, a "cutie mark."

The Mark of Harmony directed the flow of magic in a creatures body, giving the creature a preternatural gift in a particular field of magic and skill set, a "Special Talent" as it was referred too by Equestrians. This sagely Oracle was no different, given a gift by Harmony to glean truths about the past, present, and future from the most minuscule of clues. Her body was shaking not only from age, but from being in the vicinity of these crimes. The powerful stallion looked down at the old mare and asked in a deep voice,

"What do you see Zuwena? Where has Galia gone?"

"Galia had tried to calm the little one. She had not realized what the filly had become."

The major looked quizzically at the Zebra as her head bowed, suddenly looking very sickly as her body began to shake violently. Her voice took on an echo to it as her eyes began to glow. Sorrow and fear filled her as she tried to form the words.

"What do you mean a filly? A Saddle Arabian did this?"

"No. She is Equestrian born.
Barely above a foal, with an undeveloped horn.
She had been meant for greatness, under Harmony's guide,
but something had changed, and her destiny has died."

"What destiny? What are you talking about? Where is Galia?"

"This world has gone so terribly wrong.
The filly had escaped, with a dissonant song.
The Ram had been broken, under her voice,
She leads them to the crypt, for she no longer has a choice."

The Zebra's chest was heaving now. The Major felt his blood run cold as he heard mention of the crypt. If he was reading what the Zebra was saying correctly, then this supposed Equestrian filly was making Galia take her to Grogar's Crypt.

"How is this the work of a mere filly? Where did the dragon came from?"

Zuwena's voice echoed through the air now as she hovered above the sands. Her face contorted on sadness as she spoke out to those who could hear.

"The unicorn's destiny has gone from my sight,

Her path is now gone, snuffed out by misguided spite.

Weep now, for the death of Harmony's Twilight.

She who remains, has now become a blight

Fear now, for the world, at the coming of Midnight."

The stallion rushed forward, catching the Zebra as she fell unconscious. Nervous murmurs rose up from the soldiers upon hearing the mournful prophesy, but the Major maintained his cool as he brought the Zebra over to their clerics. He rose up to his full height and addressed his company, his strong and powerful voice silencing their discussions.

"We need to send word to the Order. Time is of the essence here. Galia has left a means to track the movements of Grogar's crypt in case of such a situation. If this supposed filly manages to acquire whatever it is she wants from that cursed Ram's crypt, we will be there in force to stop her in her tracks! This prophesy is not set in stone, we can stop this before it even begins! This is what the Order trains for!"

His company stood at attention now, their fears temporarily quelled at his words.

"FOR SUN AND HARMONY!"

"FOR SUN AND HARMONY!" They yelled out in response.

Catrina shuddered awake as her fur and lungs were hit with a sudden sheet of cold, damp air. Her body had fallen asleep in the dry air some time during the night, and had subconsciously prepared itself for another round of unrelenting heat. Instead the air had decided to throw her body a curve ball, and her body had made its protests known by lurching her tired body awake to figure out what was going on. As the felines eyes and ears adjusted to being awake, she began to notice that something else was wrong besides the atmosphere of the desert.

Flying a few feet away from Catrina was Twilight Sparkle. Her little body was contorting and writhing around in unnatural angles while the filly was cackling maniacally. She was frothing at the mouth with each new peel of laughter and her face was strained to its limits against her fit of mania. It didn’t take long for the wheels to turn in Catrina’s mind and figure out that Twilight was under a mental assault by the Alicorn Amulet. The only thing that indicated to Catrina that Twilight hadn’t completely lost was the fact that Spike, Twilight and herself were still flying through the air and trailing behind their Ram Escort.

Twilight’s body nearly folded in half as she bent backwards. Her chest was heaving as her eyes bulged out in pain. Drool dripped down her strained cheeks as she spasmed through the air. If this kept going, Twilight was going to die, or at least fall unconscious and cause the three of them to fall down to the dunes below.

Catrina braced herself for the fall that she believed was going to happen. Twilight had other plans however. A youthful yet raspy roar tore out of her throat as she snapped herself forward. The young filly’s voice grew louder, screaming with more and more rage as she glared at the ground below her. By the time she was done, her chest was heaving and her lungs were working overtime to get oxygen back into her bloodstream. Catrina almost instinctively reached out to rub her back to help her calm down, though she was held too far away by twilight’s telekinetic hold. Twilight’s hooves were shaking violently as she brought the twitching limbs to her face, wiping off the saliva that had drooled out during her laughing attack. It took her several moments before Twilight could even croak out a sentence.

"I think we are getting close to our destination."

Her words were laced with raspy giggles. It was clear that her body threatened to burst back into an attack of mirth at any second. Catrina raised up her paws as she looked at the panting unicorn, trying in vain to somehow prevent such an attack from happening.

"What is going on? What is the Amulet doing?" Catrina asked, trepidation lacing every syllable.

“The voices usually pull me in different directions. At the moment they are all working together towards the same goal,” Twilight spoke in a tired voice. Her head was thrown back again violently, her face pulled tight in another manic grin. She looked like she was teetering on the edge of sanity, but then all at once she violently shook off the second attack far quicker than she had before. Her lips were pursed into a small line, fustration creasing her brow before she continued.

"They are all terrified. They want to flee, and it's put more of a strain on my mind than I've been used too."

"We should land then. We cannot have this happening while we are in the crypt."

Twilight wiped some more spit off her mouth as she shook her head in protest, "I'm getting a feel for it now. They had caught me by surprise; however now that their advantage is gone I have them under control again."

“Twilight, we need to slow down. Get that Ram to take a break. We have so much to go over before we enter Grogar’s Crypt.”

Twilight pointed a hoof down at the Ram, drawing the feline’s eyes to where she directed.

“We are already here Catrina.”

It was then that Catrina noticed something severely wrong with the desert below them as well as the horizon. Though she had not noticed this when she was paying close attention to Twilight, the color in the world seem to be bleeding away into shades of gray. Even the sun was being sucked of its color from their perception. Once brilliant reds and oranges of the sunrise was turning into what looked like a brilliant black and white painting. She remembered tales of Grogar that had mentioned how the world seemed to lose color whenever he was around, but she had never taken it to be literal. The fact that his crypt radiated such an effect this far out did not bode well.

She was mesmerized by the Ram’s movements as she continued to gallop. New textures in the ground began to radiate from where Galia was galloping. The dunes of Saddle Arabia began to morph and transform before their very eyes, replaced by a flattening expanse of a bog. The mire seemed to spill out from each of the Ram’s foot falls, flattening hills of sand as each new ripple kept radiating out to replace it with murky, almost black water. Dead trees and thorny vines grew out of the ever-expanding swamp before them. Soon their jagged branches and sharp thorns were reaching up to where they were. Within minutes the new terrain had spread across the desert like an infectious virus, taking up the previous expanse of sandy heat and replacing it with the monochromatic mire before them. Whatever their senses were telling them, it was obvious to their logical minds that they had stumbled into some kind of pocket dimension. Instead of a door bridging the two realities together, it was instead some kind of huge area of effect that the Ram led them in.

Flying became more and more of a chore now that trees were growing up into the sky all around them. It also made it that much harder to keep an eye on the Ram. On top of this, a fog began to spill profusely out of the thick mire Galia was effortlessly running though. It was as if an unfathomable amount of dry ice was poured into the swamp from horizon to horizon, producing the thick white mist that billowed beneath them. With all these factors affecting their vision, they ended up having to leave the heights of the sky and descend into the swamp, following very close behind their unwilling escort.

Catrina wondered how many desert dwellers and merchants ended up wandering into this mire by mistake? How many had wandered in the desert, dying of thirst and heat, only to find themselves in this disturbing murky swamp mere moments later? Would they think that it was really happening, or that they had gone mad from being out in the sun too long? The air was thick, humid, uncomfortable and chilly all at the same time. It made their fur feel uncomfortable and gross. It felt like something was fundamentally wrong about the fog that seemed to almost cling to them. Even Spike looked uncomfortable wrapped in his blankets and inside his pouch.

Twilight began to nervously giggle again as she watched the Ram run. It was not nearly as intense as the manic fits she had in the air. It was just a slight nearly imperceptible chortle that barely left her throat and only slightly curled her lips into a grin. Catrina wasn’t entirely convinced that she would have noticed it at all if it wasn’t for the unnatural echo that carried it. Instead of the echo coming from the filly and fading away into the trees, it instead came from the trees and towards Twilight, gaining intensity until it almost had the same volume as the chuckle itself. It gave a distinctly opressive feeling to the already unsettling environment they were in.

"How has this place not been discovered by others before now?" Catrina breathed out. The question had tickled her ears before she had spoken it, her own voice sounding alien to her as it drifted in from the trees and voiced what she said before she had spoken it.

"Look around you Catrina, this place has been discovered by many creatures," Twilight replied. She spoke loudly this time, so the strange reverse echo the bog seemed to have been made all the more clear. Twilight grinned at Catrina as the feline took the time to look through the fog at the blackened trees as they sped past them. It was only after intently looking at the blackened trunks when she saw it. Minotaurs, ponies, camels, even other felines like herself found their faces and bodies imprinted against the bark, hinting to the fact that they were trying to force their way out of the trees before they had finally died. Some of the knots that grew out of the trees were eerily similar to cloven hooves and paws, and was parallel to the impressions of limbs against their surfaces. It wasn't just the trees either, the murky swamp had reflections of pained and fearful faces fading in and out of their murky surface. Even the fog itself seemed to form the faint impressions of bodies as it churned around them. Catrina could just envision entire caravans being caught up in this strange place, before slowly being absorbed into it one victim at a time, never really understanding where they were to begin with.

The world became more defined as they continued to follow their escort. Where oppressive silence was around them before, now they were being inundated with irritating noises. Distinct sounds of flies buzzing about their ears could now be heard. It started off sounding like one or two of the insects doggedly harassing their twitching ears. They reflexively swatted the air with paw and hoof alike to wave away the offending bugs. The gesture was in vain however, because there were no bugs to swat at. Soon the occasional buzzing had turned into the deafening roar of a swarm. Their bodies could almost feel the insects around them, but it was soon very evident that it was the fog itself that was making the ungodly noise. Distant sounds of crying infants and weak voices calling out for lost loved ones could be heard beyond the trees as well, though when they looked there was no one to be seen. All there was an expanse of murky water and dead trees bearing the faces of the poor souls who happened into there. For all Catrina knew, these were just delayed echoes of the victims who wandered in here long after they were absorbed into the swamp.

As the pocket reality became more defined, Catrina began to notice that the blackened trees were moving when they were not directly looking at them. She could hear the groaning of branches of wood as they jerked towards the party. The sound abruptly ended when she turned around, but the trees that were reaching for them only made her want to turn around more often. The Trunks of the trees themselves seemed to bend and twist to get closer to them in those brief seconds when they weren't being observed. Even when Catrina merely blinked her eyes they seemed to use that brief instance of not being observed to jerk that much closer towards them.

Twilight on the other hand was watching her Ram escort to notice the jerkily moving trees like Catrina was. Now that they were so much closer to their escort, Twilight noticed something was off about her. Before, Galia was still trying to resist. Sure that resistance was weak and she was broken at her very core, but it was still resistance. However Twilight was growing aware of the fact that her movements were not only compliant with leading them, but confident and sure of herself in a way she wasn’t even before Twilight had broken her will. Pairing this observation with the fact that her hoof falls had not once tripped over a stray branch or even sank into the bog, it led her to the conclusion that something else was guiding her movements now.

Twilight, led by her own curiosity, left Catrina’s side and drifted forward fast enough to catch up with their suspiciously acting guide. As she got closer the ram’s head jerked to the side, locking eyes with the filly. Her suspicions were confirmed and the glassy unnatural expression Galia had. With the way her facial expression was, she almost look like an entirely different person. Galia was gone, leaving behind this world-weary thing who dryly smirked at the unicorn. She did not turn around to look where she was going, rather the rest of her body simply continued to gallop unabated, knowing exactly where to go without the need of sight. Twilight held Galia’s gaze, or rather, the gaze of whatever had her body. She did not break eye contact with the ram even as she floated back to where Catrina was, tapping her shoulder with her hoof without breaking the staring contest.

"Galia's possessed..." Twilight said. Her words were prefaced by the now familiar reverse echo this bog had. She didn’t sound stressed or worried as she stated this fact. In fact she didn’t sound worried at all. At best she sounded faintly curious, hinting at how she wanted to see how this turned out. Catrina turned around to glance at the Ram before keeping her eyes on the trees behind the fast-moving group. As she kept her gaze on the trees she spoke to Twilight’s ear.

"Can we trust that she's leading us in the right way now? I haven't a clue how to navigate this place, and these trees..."

Galia's gaunt face was smiling now as her glassy eye stared at them. Her mouth began moving quite suddenly, causing Twilight to look down at the disturbing way she mouthed out words. No voice came out of Galia’s throat, nor did her galloping slow down any. She just kept silently speaking, not making a sound as her lips repeated their motions over and over again. Twilight could parse out some of the words, but it was her amulet that ended up filling the blanks on what Galia’s body was actually saying.

"Welcome to Tambelon. Welcome to Tambelon. Welcome to Tambelon. Welcome to Tambelon. Welcome to Tambelon. Welcome to Tambelon....."

Each and every voice repeated those three words in time with Galia’s mouth, however they all had different degrees of panic in the way they repeated it. With each refrain, her Amulet tried to pull her away from continuing down the path. Their fear over this situation was deafening, but she had steeled herself against their influence now. It made everything that much more difficult for her to do, but it was still worth it in comparison to the weakness she had as a simple normal filly. She didn’t even have a cutie mark yet, so she did not have the vaunted “special talent” to help guide and control her magic. She had the distinct impression that those marks only helped in regards to harmonious magic as well, so perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that it hadn’t revealed itself yet.

It wasn't long before the walls of a city in the bog were barely visible through the fog. Galia and the voices repeated themselves over and over again, Catrina wasn’t speaking, but concern was clearly evident on her face. It was beginning to really irk Twilight with how passive the feline was. She was more of a spectator than anything else. She had barely even begun to show her magic as well. Twilight figured she had learned more getting captured by the order than she had so far with Catrina.

Galia continued to move faster and faster, even as the spiked gate of the city came into view. She kept staring at Twilight, grinning broader and broader as she pumped her legs towards the spiked door. It was almost comical for the filly the way the Ram finally skewered herself into a jagged spike, running herself through with the gate’s defenses.

Her body fell limp, held in place by the sharp hunk of metal that ran through her torso. Her mouth spewed blood as her head fell limp. Her face looked almost relieved as her life faded away from her. No more suggestion magic or possession holding her down. Twilight had the distinct impression that if souls existed, that Galia’s wasn’t going to leave whatever this place. That relief may be very short lived.

The gate jerked to life after Galia died, seemingly activated by her blood. Loud clanks of thick metal chains sounded off as the huge gate groaned out of its resting place. The spiked gate jerked with each tug of the twisting chains beyond its entrance, dragging up Galia’s body as it moved upwards at an agonizing pace.

Absently Twilight took the now awoken infant dragon and tied off his comfortable pouch onto Catrina while simultaneously manifesting a sword for her to wield. It was a simple thing, but it was sharp and it would service the need for allowing Catrina to defend herself well enough. Twilight could feel that the feline wanted to restart that conversation they were beginning to have earlier, about not being ready for Grogar’s crypt, and just the feeling of that topic caused her jaw to clench.

Twilight gestured her head as she walked through the now opened gateway. Catrina moved to follow the filly, however she was halted by an invisible force where the gate had been. Twilight turned and looked quizzically, and Catrina demonstrated that there was an invisible barrier in the way. She even used her sword to clang against its surface for emphasis, though it merely bounced back like it was more of a membrane than a solid surface. Twilight put her hoof out towards it, only to jump at the sound of the enormous gate being released. Twilight responded instinctively, lighting up the entirety of the gate with her magic and halting the several tons of steel mid fall. Catrina backed away from the gate as it glowed red with Twilight;s magic, and the filly visibly strained as she forced the enormous weight back up to the ceiling above them. As she held up the massive gate she put her hoof out again, feeling the invisible force barricading her from her companion and her dragon.

Twilight looked at Catrina and raised her eyebrow as she pointed towards the barrier, wordlessly asking her if she had any recommendations for this. The feline responded by pulling out a scroll and a quill, her paw darting quickly around its surface in what was clearly muscle memory. She turned it around and revealed a glyph that was almost unfamiliar. Almost, though i had recognized some of its components involved sight from what few things she had taught Twilight on the road. Through a bit of intuition, Twilight focused her magic onto her eyes, creating the glyphs on the surfaces of both of them.

What resulted was an inundation of information that nearly bowled her over. Intricate patterns of magic coated everything, weaved into the very air itself a dissonant patchwork that she could probably stare at for a year and still find new things to learn. It was a dissonant cacophony at first glance, and brilliance incarnate the more she stared. Twilight could not marvel at the sheer magnitude and density of the magic at work in this dimension and focused on the barrier. What she saw startled her.

Amidst the complex patterns in the barrier itself, there was a message scrawled in modern equestrian.

"YOUR FRIENDS STAY OUTSIDE WITH THE TREES"

Twilight released the magic detection spell and felt a cocktail of emotions. First and foremost was frustration with Catrina holding out on a spell like this until now. Second was a mixture of trepidation and excitement at the dimension communicating with her in such a way. Twilight relayed the message to Catrina and she looked far more worried than the filly would have preferred.

Another few quick motions and Catrina had drawn out another glyph. Showing it to Twilight spiked her irritation again. From what she could tell it bore some resemblance to the mindscape magic she had used on their first meeting. Upon focusing on the glyph with her magic, she felt a tendril of thought extending out of the horn. It was some type of mental communication spell. The barrier halted its movement, but after lacing it with amplification magic Twilight was able to force its way through it, almost puncturing it like a needle before snaking to Catrina.

"We need to turn back."

That was the first thought relayed on this pathway from Catrina to Twilight. Twilight took in a sharp intake of breath and fired off her own thoughts back at her.

"What in Nightmare Moon's name do you mean? We are right here?! Our escort died and I don't even know if we could find this place again, assuming we can even get out!"

"Twilight, I can barely hear your thoughts over the screaming voices of your amulet. This is going far too quickly, you aren't ready for this yet."

Twilight's jaw clenched as she stared across the barrier at Catrina. The stony quality her features took made her almost look older.

"Again you are talking about turning back? When I am this close? I have bested every magic user and trap I have come across. There hasn't been a single thing that has stood against me so far that has been able to out think me!"

"Grogar is different filly, do not be a fool. You need to plan and prepare for this! You need to learn much more magic before you even try to move any further."

Twilight audibly snarled and slammed the several tons of steel hovering above them into the ceiling, making the chains connected to the gate clang about in protest. Catrina jumped slightly at that, apparently the sounds of the gate carried to her end even if their own voices didn’t.

"You? Telling me that I should prepare for something? You who was stripped of her power and did NOTHING to try to claim it back after all this time?! You? Who only NOW decides to show me how to see to see normally imperceptible magic? Do you have any idea how this spell would have been helpful before now?"

This time it was Catrina who snarled, revealing her sharp teeth in indignation as she thought back at her, seemingly yelling out the words at the same time for emphasis.

"Listen to me you ungrateful brat, I am trying to help you!"

Twilight used the pathway she had created with her magic to shoot out kinetic force past the barrier. Catrina became shocked as her neck glowed red and she began to choke. Twilight lifted her up into the air, having the felines legs dangle uselessly as her hands tried in vain to grip her throat, dropping her sword as she did it. Calmly Twilight moved a calm spike off of her body before slamming the feline face first into the muddy ground, maintaining her choke hold as she sent her next thoughts, making sure her mental voice was that much louder than her Amulet.

"Do not think me so foolish as to think you are doing any of this out of a sense of good will? Don't think I did not notice how utterly pathetic you were in that fight against the Order.? I KNOW you didn't even try. I let it slide though, because I know you have magical knowledge I need."

The pressure on Catrina's throat became harder, making her eyes bulge out as she glared at the filly, forcing her head out of its face down position to lock eyes with her. Twilight continued.

"It fascinates me how you choose to entice me with these useful spells, when you were showing me that basic nonsense on the road. It's almost like you are afraid I will go back on my word about restoring your power... or that you think once I see what Grogar has to offer that I won't even NEED your magic."

She had emphasized this last point by taking Catrina into the air and slamming her body against the barrier. The feline had rage broiling in her eyes as she stared down the filly, even as she continued to choke. Catrina's mind was still being filled with the screaming voices of the amulet, but Twilight's voice was so much louder than them in her mind. The filly floated over to the choking cat, looking her eye to eye from the other side of the barrier.

"The Catrina I respect is a Goddess, a powerful being who knew what she wanted, and was able to command and be worshiped by entire civilizations. The Catrina I see is an aloof bystander who is scared to lose what little ground she has. So which one are you Catrina? A goddess, or a bystander?"

Catrina’s jaw jutted out as she glared down at Twilight, trying not to give her the satisfaction of visibly choking even though she could breathe. She emphasized herself with a growl in her mind as she thought towards the filly.

"You better pray you are more powerful than me by the time I get my power back," Catrina mentally said. Twilight grinned broadly at this, satisfied with seeing that fire igniting in the feline like it had been when they had fought in the mindscape.

"That's my Goddess.” Twilight let her go, “I expect to see more of that drive when I get back. Watch Spike, and keep an eye on those trees. It would be exceedingly embarrassing if they consume you two while I'm gone."

"You are really going into his Crypt alone?"

"But of course Catrina," Twilight whirled around and looked out into what looked like a fog covered kingdom, what she assumed as Tambelon.

"This is a test after all, a test I've been personally invited too," Twilight released the tendril of magic from Catrina as she spoke out her next words, growling them to herself as she glared into the obscured distance.

",....And this time, I will not fail."

Grogar's Crypt part 2

Grogar's Crypt part 2

Twilight alighted on the cracked cobblestone, releasing the magic keeping herself aloft. She was going to need every ounce of her magic to get through Tambelon, that much was certain. The filly had visions of zombies and other undead abominations rushing her at her position at any moment. She had been working on a game plan for any number of scenarios since she had first begun scheming to move down this path. She had very little that described what Grogar's personality was like, not like Catrina, so it made anticipating what he had in this place that much harder to make contingencies for. The only records about him just described him as various grades of evil and sadistic. It was a shame that most simply could not see the nuance in how sentient creatures operated. They could not see the value in the work of someone who had been an enemy. His work was simply tainted to them, unusable, and not worth recording.

All the more reason to claim his Necronomicon and all the knowledge it contained.

Twilight took a deep breath and stepped forward, only to have her sense of balance waver. The fog flooded in around her before she had time to react, and the voices of her amulet snuffed out into silence. Her vision was now filled only with the dim white of the fog. She could not even see her muzzle in front of her eyes. The fog began to move and form in her sight, taking on blotchy colors that were hard on her eyes after being in a grayed out world for as long as she had. Within moments The fog had moved and shaped into a blurry visage of a throne room. She looked down and saw a tiny, blue creature with two horns barely protruding out of its head.

Sitting on the throne were two Rams, one male and one female, in royal attire. The male was a sturdily built with an air of authority about him. His coat graduated from a deep shade of red to shimmering tips of gold. His body and form was muscular and regal, with a powerful intimidating air about him as he sat straight up on his throne. His golden eyes stared down coldly at the little blue creature before him, snarling in distaste that the feeble creature. The Queen on the other hand had shades of pink and white. Her horns were dainty and curled and distinctly feminine in how she held herself. Sadness and confusion was on her face as she looked between the little Ram and her husband.

Twilight meanwhile was still devoid of color, standing off to the side in this illusion of a throne room and merely watching this scene carry out. She kept magic at the ready, but she felt her ability severely dampened in this vision. She was simply supposed to watch this scene play out.

"You are a mistake. My mistake," The crimson Ram intoned coldly as he looked down at the blue child. The feeble blue thing brought his head low, looking into the finely knit rug as the Ram, whom Twilight assumed as its father, continued.

"Normally I would rectify my mistakes by making them go away, snuffing them out before they sullied my good name," The Ram's voice went on dispassionately, each syllable curling his mouth in a snarl as his eyes burrowed into the tiny creature, "Yet my wife, whom I had hurt by having her find out about your existence, decided that she did not want your blood shed. She is a good woman you see, she cares about life and children. Even though you are nothing more than a bastard, she still believes you should be allowed to live."

The red Ram breathed in deep through his nose, rubbing his temple with his cloven hoof before continuing. "So I am left with a bit of a conundrum. I cannot have my blood sullied by being in some orphanage or out on the streets chewing on garbage, or even living as some commoner. I also simply cannot allow a Bastard like you to be in line for the throne in any capacity either. My dear wife has assured that I will not have you executed for existing either."

A female biped moved in, a pig-like creature with long dreadlocks mingling with her servants outfit. "I have arranged a small Villa on the outskirts of my kingdom. You are going to spend the rest of your days there. You have two lines of destiny before you, little bastard. One destiny is where you stay in your guided cage, making no waves and drawing no attention to yourself as you live a life most commoners would kill for. You would stay out of my sight, and you would keep your name from being uttered in my presence by keeping your actions as quiet and uneventful as possible. If you are lucky, your life will be so uneventful that even my own sons will not care about you and your villa when they take power, after my passing. Your second destiny is one where you squander this gift that my exceedingly forgiving wife has given an undeserving bastard like you, and you step out of these simple boundaries I've laid out for you, at which case all privileges, and your life, will be forfeit, and you will immediately be executed. Your life is a gift, bestowed to you by my kind hearted wife. Thank her."

A small voice croaked out, sadness and meekness etching his voice as he did so, "Thank you, my Queen."

The king waved his cloven hoof dismissively "Vadoma, Take the bastard Grogar to the villa, ensure that I never hear his name again, or it will be your head as well."

The pig-like creature curtsied and led the little child out of the room. Twilight looked down at the little creature and to her surprise the young blue creature had her gaze, smiling broadly at her. His small, youthful voice had an echo to it now as he stared into her with his blood-red eyes, causing her coat to bristle slightly as the words brushed her ears.

"Head's up Twilight."

A fettered creature violently burst forth from where the thrones location, rushing towards Twilight at blinding speeds. She barely had enough time to throw up her shield when it was on top of her. Twilight grunted as the scene vanished entirely and she was back in the cobblestone pathway of Tambelon. The rotting corpse of one of those pig-like creatures was on top of her now, biting and slamming against her shield in a feral rage. It was frightfully strong despite being rotten, and it had no sense of self-preservation. It rammed its face into the magical barrier over and over like a hammer, its long gangling arms pounding on either side like a drum. It was jarring going from the calm scene between Grogar's parents to the grayed out Tambelon with a Zombie ruthlessly trying to kill her.

On top of this sudden attack, the amulets voices had returned in full force, hitting against her brain like a tidal wave and threatening to break her concentration. The pig-like zombie jumped over to a building and rebounded off the wall, slamming both its long arms down onto her shield with an unnatural force behind its swing. The stone beneath her cracked under the force of the attack pushing the filly's shield down.

Now that Twilight had a look at the zombie thing, noting the tattered armor barely hanging onto its body, she saw that it was a soldier of some kind. Now that she had a feel for its attacks she through out her hoof and summoned out a forceful kinetic blast while it was leaning back for the next attack. Its strange feet dug into the stone as it careened backwards, its arms flailing around as it tried to find purchase on something. Twilight didn't let it have time to recover focusing her magic into materializing a ball of flaming acid. She twisted her neck and sent the attack forward through the air near where the creature was. It struck and exploded, dousing the area in corrosive liquid. The creature's festering flesh began to eat away to the bone as it burned under both the acid and the magical flames. It struggled for a few brief moments, then fell apart into a blackened sludge.

Twilight brushed dust from the cobblestone off of her coat as she casually looked around at her surroundings. She recalled the name of these creatures between seeing them in that vision as well as the zombie that had attacked her. It was a species that went extinct some time ago by the name of the Trogals. They were one of the few biped species to have sentience in the world. She had very little knowledge about them aside from the fact that they worked for Grogar. From what this vision had told her, these Trogals were subjects of this Ram kingdom long before Grogar came to power.

That tiny child version of Grogar gave her pause though. She was unsure if this were the work of the spirit of Grogar or some very convincing illusion magic laid down before his passing, but it had a bead on her and it added another layer of danger to this place. It was a thinking entity, not just a place that had a series of traps. It was probably going to gauge her abilities, if it hadn't already, and then build its defenses around her strengths and weaknesses. If this place retained Grogar's intelligence and experience, then she would need to watch every single move she made.

Her eyes caught on a glowing blue creature peering around a run down shop. Twilight had only seen it for a second before its grinning face pulled back. The little version of Grogar was clearly wanting her to follow, and with how maze-like the place was she saw little reason not to indulge him. If he wanted to kill her, he would not have warned her of the attack. Not that this wasn't probably riddled with deadly traps, but her own diligence would keep her safe. She was confident of that much. Still, she had to remain vigilant.

With every corner she turned she managed to just spot the grinning face of the kid Grogar. It seemed to take a certain amount of glee leading her through the foggy alleys and ruined marketplaces. Corpses riddled her pathway as they walked along. Some of them were Trogals, some of them rams, and some of them looked like some strange primitive variety of unicorn. Their heads and bodies were all wrong, and their eyes were far smaller than the modern variety she knew of. It unnerved her how she always seemed to catch his gaze with every turn. His face was in exactly the same juvenile and yet sadistic smile, his eyes glistening with mirth before darting around the corner.

Some part of her felt like this was a game she was playing with someone her age. The youthful part of her, the immature side of her that was held back by the Amulet. She was being toyed with and did not like being on the receiving end of this little game, but she had the distinct feeling that if she stopped following the young Grogar she would find herself accosted by all the bodies she had passed along the way. He wanted her to follow, and she was willing to oblige if it meant getting the Necronomicon in the end.

As she turned around another path she found herself face to face with the blue creature. The Ram was smaller than her, gazing up into her eyes and grinning broadly for a long uncomfortable moment. His body formed out of dense, colored fog, its form moving slightly as it retained the kid's shape and appearance. The world around them began to gain color again as the fog took shape around the two of them. Twilight said nothing, staring the apparition directly in the eyes as she fought to control her heartbeat. It would not due to show fear right now. She knew if she showed weakness right now that this place, this Tambelon, would not be forgiving of it.

Grogar began to move, his eyes snapping away from Twilight as he began to play out a scene in front of her. he wore a cloak now, heading to a graveyard while a figure of a familiar female Trogal. She was stooped over the fresh graves before her with some bells chiming as she moved her hands. The dissonant melody and her faintly glowing body slowly but surely began to coax out the bodies others like her. It was then as the bodies were slowly rising that Grogar spoke up.

"Hello Vadoma,"

The Trogal maid jumped a bit at the use of her name. She didn't turn around, but she put her hands to her side and silenced her bells, halting the undead from its struggles to get out of its grave. She spoke up over her shoulder towards her young master.

"I knew I would be found out one of these days, though I did not think it would be you young master."

"You aren't as discreet as you believe I'm afraid. I do take notice of your absence when you are not in the Villa, and it seemed to correspond a bit to conveniently with those zombie attacks on the outskirts of the villages."

"I see..., did you come here alone young master?"

"Depends, would you try to kill me if I said yes?"

She turned to face the small blue Ram staring at her in the moonlight, her face looked troubled and conflicted in what she should do. Grogar capitalized on this in a way Twilight would have in his place.

"Why is it that you do this Vadoma? What compels you to raise the dead?"

Her face took on a crazed, almost doting expression as she looked down at the rotten dead beneath her, "Undeath, it is the most beautiful form that life can possibly take. There is freedom in it that is just not given to those whom fear deaths embrace."

the young Grogar nodded at this, and Vadoma's face grew almost mournful as she looked at her young master.

"I'm sorry my lord, I don't know if I can let you leave here alive. My work is not done you see."

Grogar smiled at her, a smile that reminded Twilight of herself, "You assume I do not share your vision Vadoma."

The clearly mentally deranged maid seemed to brighten up at this, her voice hopeful as she asked, "Do you, my lord?"

"Vadoma, you know the two paths my father dictated for me. Either I remain, in my quiet little world, doing nothing of importance and fading away without a whisper, or I do something stupid and get my head into the Guillotine. These are the options afforded to me by the King."

Sadness came across the maid as she began to raise her hands and continue her ritual. Grogar continued, "I would like to take option three."

"Option three?" confusion hit Vadoma's face, staring through one of her dreadlocks as she froze in place. The youthful blue Ram grinned towards her as the scene started to fade away. Every step was calculated as he played on his maid's affection for him.

"Yes, The option where I learn your magic and take this wretched kingdom for my own. They want to stifle me, call me a mistake, supplant my brilliance into obscurity as they go about their petty traditions. Your own life is tied to this fate as well, and it is in that sense we are almost like family,"

Grogar moved right up to her as he kept talking, his youthful voice masterfully lowering the Trogal's defenses. The pig-like creature got on her knees next to her undead, and they shared a meaningful glances between them, hers hopeful and unhinged, and his smooth and calculating even in his youth.

"Show me your magic, Vadoma. Lets show them the beauty of Undeath and reveal just how meaningless their status in this society really is."

She nodded, her eyes glistening tears of happiness as she hugged her little lord.

"Of course master, I knew you were like me! A kindred spirit! I'm so happy!"

Grogar turned to Twilight as the scene faded away, his grin sharp and demonic as his red eyes flared, their glow remaining even after the white fog consumed the vision before it faded away. In the place of the graveyard was an ornate Mausoleum, opened up to reveal a steep flight of stairs that went down into a black void. Twilight was now before the entrance of his crypt. She was sure of this.

"I had assumed this would be a test Grogar. Why are you leading me to your crypt? Not that I don't appreciate the help, but this feels a bit too easy."

She stepped back as the blue figure formed again, but this time it was not that of a child. This was him at his prime. His body as tall and muscular as his late father, with twisted horns that radiated with power. Sharp teeth grinned menacingly down at her as he hovered over her. The smokey fog did not see fit to form his legs, gradating his blue into the white of the fog.

"Oh young Twilight, the test hasn't even begun yet. Go on and try to step into the Crypt. You'll see what I mean."

Twilight nodded and did as the apparition said and tried to walk down the steps. Something halted her movements, something that made her blood run cold. While she could put her hooves and other parts of her body past this invisible barrier, there was one distinct part of herself that could not pass through this invisible force. Her Amulet's screams were reaching a crescendo now as she finally grasped what they were so terrified of. If she was going to go any further, she was going to have to leave it behind in this pocket dimension.

A deep laughter echoed through the air from behind her before the large blue head formed right next to her ear.

"If you want to go in and get my knowledge, you are going to need to do it under your own power little filly. Leave the fancy trinket behind and see what your really made of. Or, perhaps, are you afraid that all that guilt and shame that has filled your little pony soul from your actions might be a bit too much for your young mind to handle? Don't think I don't know that his amulet represses those kinds of emotions."

Twilight was frozen in place. Everything she had done, it was because she had the power enhancing and empathy repressing capabilities of the Amulet. She knew that most if not all who ended up taking off the Amulet ended up killing themselves from the onslaught of painful emotions. It was enough to have her hooves shake violently as she teetered on taking it off.

"Let me ask you little filly; Why follow down the path you did? With your brains you could have been any number of notable figures in history."

The fog formed into different versions of her, each one in little vignettes of what could have been. One showed her in a lab coat with a cute ponytail, working happily on her newest breakthrough. Another showed her revealing a new invention to a board room of stallions that had bags of bits waiting for them. Yet another had her in front of a Jury, giving a rousing speech in a dapper suit, pointing at her defendant as she made her case. Still more showed her teaching college courses, or inventing time machines, and a host of many other little windows of the possibilities she had had before this.

" Any number of suitable jobs and passions for one such as yourself. Yet it was a failure of one test," He materialized the testing room where she failed so miserably, showing her flickering, pitiful magic as it failed to open the egg, "of one school, ran by one Alicorn, that drove you into this reckless, wretched path? A bit of an overreaction, don't you think?"

She tried to pull away from the opening, but her amulet remained stuck in place now. The only way she'd be able to move now was if she took it off. She felt vulnerable for the first time since she had acquired the amulet, the power it afforded feeling hollow then.

"It was my destiny." She said, staring straight ahead. "I was supposed to pass that test. I was supposed to be her student."

"And I was supposed to live out my days in some villa, never to be heard from again. Yet while I had distaste for my destiny, you simply lost yours. Now you want to fill that void with something your young pony mind thought was similar. Your conviction is false in comparison to when I had when I stepped down this path. You are just following a childish checklist, grasping for a destiny that no longer exists. Pretending to be a demon when you are actually some lost little filly whom Harmony abandoned, during what was supposed to be the start of her blessed life of friendship and harmonious magic."

"You are wrong. I have conviction." Twilight felt naked before the spirit. Its gaze burrowed through her, reading her as easily as she had read Galia. It was in this moment she felt like a novice before the master.

"Do you? You're not just trying to fill some hole in your soul where that mark should have been? You may be able to trick the feline, but you are an open book to me, little pony. When you take off that Amulet and try to run back sobbing to the kitty, my undead will eat you alive. You will not be able to stop them, because you'll just be a normal little filly then. You won't have his trinket to make you feel bigger than you are. "

His a pillar of fog jutted out and formed into his muscular forelimb "Or, you can prove me wrong, and try to take on the trials waiting for you on your own merit, and pray that little horn of yours doesn't fail you like it did during your first test. That is, of course, if all the emotions that his little trinket is holding back doesn't drive you to off yourself first. Your doting parents and brother must be so worried about their little girl, wondering where she could have gone? I wonder how long it will take before they find out the naughty things their little child's been up to? I wonder how they would handle such news?"

"I don't care! This is the only thing that matters!"

"Then take off the Amulet filly, show me what you are really made of, and not this sham egged on by his trinket!"

Twilight let out a roar of fury and put her hoof to the amulet. She did not want to relinquish its power, not in such a crucial juncture, but she was not going to go anywhere. Every attempt to force herself out of the barrier was swiftly dispelled by the force holding her amulet. The only way she was going to move, forward or backward, was by removing the source of her augmented power. Grogar had trapped her effortlessly. Twilight tugged with all her might, wrenching the amulet off of her neck.

So many sensations happened all at once. The voices that were screaming for her to stop fell silent, and now the amulet hovered immovable in the air before her. In their place was a flood of memories that were lit in an entirely new light. Flashes of bodies and tortured screams filled the theater of her mind, causing violent emotions to rise up inside her. Her throat nearly closed up with a lump in her throat as tears streamed down her face. She was shivering in shock at her own actions, the full gravity of what she had done finally catching up with her as the grinning blue demon looked down upon her. Her mind felt so much younger now, trying to cope with things that someone her age was never meant to see or experience. She wanted to throw the amulet back on, to make these terrible feelings stop, to end this horrible pain that racked her body. She wanted the shame to leave her. She wanted to go home, back with her brother and her parents again.

"Just like I thought. You're just a little filly who thought that trinket would give you the resolve you need to go down this path. You are just a pale imitation, a fake, you do not have what it takes to walk where I have."

"No." Her voice shook as she stared at the ground, counting the cracks in the tiles. The first wave had passed, and while the feelings still hurt worse than even the voices, she did what she could to distract herself from it. She had prepared for this after all. It was on her checklist.

"No?"

"If I can contend with the constant bombardment of thousands of screaming voices, I can handle this!" Her voice was raspy as she screamed out into the air. She glared up defiantly at Grogar, even as her eyes continued to stream tears.

"I will not break! No voice or sense of guilt will drive me away from this! Do you hear me!? I will pass your tests, and I will claim the Necronomicon! With or without the Amulet! Do not underestimate me!" Her voice sounded wretched, filled with unbridled emotion, but it didn't take away from the forcefulness of her statement. Her body was shaking from every feeling that was cascading through her, yet somehow her mind had remained in tact. Perhaps it was the constant tug of war that she had with the voices, or perhaps it was something else even deeper that she didn't understand that held her together where others had given up and killed themselves, but she remained resolved.

Grogar's grin grew even wider before busting into laughter. It was loud and deep, echos distorting it and making it deeper as he continued to cackle. His body faded away as he continued, filling the air with his mirth even as he faded into the white fog.

"You have my attention filly. Proceed."

Author's Note

Now the fun shall begin. Stripped of her teacher, her dragon, and now her amulet, Twilight heads into Grogar's Crypt to face the harrowing trials he has in store for her.

Grogar's Crypt part 3

The world trembled as her entourage moved through the sky. Her Pyramid, where her throne resided, blotted out the sky as it made its way across the world unopposed. To the lowly mortals below, it looked as if a the sky itself became eclipsed by the sheer splendor of her flying fortress. Each massive segment of the magically bound structure rotated at a different speed in alternating directions, and swarming around it were entire flocks of soldiers flying in formation.

Griffons, Purrsians, and Sun Cats mounted on Chimera flew through the sky with a purpose, maintaining an eye on the world below them for any sign of retaliation for their presence in these foreign lands. She liked surrounding herself with feline races like herself. While she had other species under her rule, it was the catlike races that held the highest positions in her Absolute Monarchy. They had all the political positions, the highest ranks in military, access to the most luxurious amenities, all because they shared similarities to their ruling goddess. Normally she would not be personally going out to a battle, nor would she have so many felines in her invading force when she could used the lesser races for this. However the Goddess felt like this particular Skirmish required her to put her best foot forward. She was going up against the being who had defeated Lord Tirek after all. That had to account for something.

For the longest time, the dragons had been under the rule of the Minotaurs and Gargoyles, the head of which was Lord Tirek. Their kingdom was allied with Catrina's own, and they had a very lucrative trade agreement. Slaves, food, armaments, precious metals, all of it traded hands regularly between the two nations that seemed to hold sway over much of the world. When the news of the Dragons rebellion had reached her throne, she had been astounded to hear of the effectiveness their attack on Lord Tirek's capital had been. In one night they had utterly ransacked the powerful Centaur's capital city, and the Dragon Lord himself had taken on his former master, defeating him utterly in one on one combat. Such a powerful creature was worthy of being her opponent.

The Goddess Catrina reclined in her throne as they continued towards the mountains. They had flown across the ocean for this confrontation. Her Pyramid was flanked by hundreds of Sphinx warships, and the sky itself darkened by the myriad numbers of her forces once they had reached the shore. They flew in massive skeins, forming a v in the sky that comprised of thousands of her minions. Those that did not have wings of their own straddled onto Chimera, guiding their mounts with expert paws as they soared through the air. Each and every soldier was heavily armored, both physically and magically. The forces that were not out soaring in the sky were inside the Sphinx warships and her Pyramid, getting into formation to discuss battle strategy and to do checkups on their weaponry. She could feel them all moving about intuitively, noting the practiced ease they went about their jobs while she sipped from her massive chalice.

The Goddess Catrina herself sat upon her throne, her legs draped casually over the other as she quietly prepared her spells for combat. Her ornate garbs of gold and gemstones of all sizes were not just for show, but stored massive amounts of magical energy to draw from on a moments notice. Even her silken cape had been woven with so much defensive magic that it would be a miracle for an attack to even get near her much less do any damage. This wasn't even taking into account her absolute immortality, which had served to make her one of the most formidable beings on the planet. Even warlike lords like Tirek did not want her as an enemy. The only creature to ever give her pause was that disturbing necromancer, that tiny blue Ram whom seemed to bring death and despair wherever he went, the one whom plunged his own kingdom into darkness before spreading his gospel of nihilism throughout the world. He was not her target this day however. No, her target was this Dragon Lord that sought to rise up from servitude and wished to rank among the gods of this world.

She almost jumped from her throne at the feeling of a sudden surge of power. Her minions parted and circled around to the back of her floating Pyramid as a massive blade of metal seemed to cut through the very air itself and tear upwards. In the wake of this slash of this blackened blade stood a jagged rift right in front of her Pyramids trajectory. With a tap of her finger on her throne, the Pyramid halted in the air, as did her Sphinx Warships. Her flying battalions and herself watched as a massive claw covered in royal purple scales gripped the side of the rift. From behind the opening in the sky Catrina could see rivers of Lava and a gargantuan anvil, no doubt used to forge his armor with.

The Dragon whom stepped out of the rift was at a scale that even dwarfed her Pyramid. He had significantly grown since the reports about him it seemed. His scaled body, covered in ebony armor, glowing with green runes made of flame. Dragon scales were already a formidable defense unto itself, but the thick plates of armor that heavily padded his shoulders, chest, and forearms in particular was quite imposing as well. He was a wingless dragon, and was said to draw his power from greed itself. At her present scale, she was barely a kitten in comparison to his height that rivaled the mountains themselves. His helm was intricate, yet also deeply black in appearance, almost to the point where it lacked definition in the light. From within it his smoldering green eyes could be seen, as well as his teeth that were at the scale of particularly tall buildings. The parts of his body that were visible were a brilliant shade of purple that glistened in the sunlight, including his partially armored tail which kicked up powerful winds as it swayed through the air his arm lifted up a massive sword about the same length as himself, a blade that could cleave an island in two in a single strike, and rested it on his shoulder casually as he looked down at the Pyramid before him. Catrina could see how Lord Tirek was defeated by this creature.

"My my my! How you have grown! Last time I had visited Tirek's Capital city you were barely taller than a Minotaur and serving drinks for your betters." Her tone was more jovial than she felt. She had the beginnings of sweat forming on her brow from looking up at this being before her. She had not quite anticipated him gaining this massive power boost in a few months.

"Why are you here Goddess? Do you seek war with The Dragon Nation?"

Catrina languidly put down her chalice and floated up from her throne. Her body swelled and grew in size, gradually matching the Dragon Lord's stature. To the two caped behemoths, the mortals that flew around them were nothing but gnats in their gaze. Their massive forms stood in striking contrast to one another; Catrina, adorned with wealth and splendor befitting a goddess, shimmering under the light of the sun. Her armor looked more for show than anything else, though it was laced with more than enough magic to be effective at their job. The Dragon Lord by contrast was utilitarian and militaristic in his armors design. It told of efficiency in its well honed plating, and the densely forged in runes told that it also made for excellent conduits of his particular brand of magic. Even his crowned helm was more out of necessity to show his rank than a show of splendor and wealth.

They leveled a stare at each other, Catrina's reflective eyes meeting the glowing emerald gaze of her opponent. She had to admit he carried the air of royalty about him. It suited him quite nicely.

"It doesn't have to be a War, Dragon Lord." She spoke his title with open condescension, giving him a wry grin as she looked down her muzzle at him. "You could simply swear fealty to me and I could claim these new fertile lands for my own. It would be a quite lucrative agreement for your dragons if I do say so myself, though you'd have to offer penance for what you did to Tireks kingdom. He is my ally after all."

"I do not have time for your games Cat." The Dragon Lord snarled at her, "I have far more pressing matters to concern myself with."

"I come to you with an army and my power and you tell me I am not a concern? What pray tell would be more pressing than a Goddess on the warpath?"

The Dragon lord responded to this by hoisting his massive sword off of his shoulders effortlessly and leveling it towards a forest far into the distance. His eyes never left her own as they smoldered with power. His face was calm, but deadly serious as he spoke his next words.

"Within that forest, lies a being more powerful than anything else that is wandering this planet, ourselves included. The only reason I can surmise why it hasn't completely taken over the world, is because it is immobile, and has not acquired subjects to enact its will yet. I have tried to make preemptive treaties with it, however, it refuses all forms of communication. Dragons are not what this being desires for it's plans it seems, and every day I wonder, if this would be the day it strikes me down where I stand."

Catrina looked both puzzled and bemused at his statement. What could intimidate this creature? Even she had her doubts that a fight with this Dragon Lord would be a landslide on her part, now that she was standing before him. Whatever "It" was was truly a worthy adversary if it gave this Dragon pause. Reaching for her power she looked for the weaves of magic in the air around the forest to see what she was dealing with.

The Goddess covered her eyes at what she saw. The sheer density of the harmonious magic packed into one tree like being was enough to shine brighter than a thousand suns. Using her power to try to read it was painful and blinding. It infuriated her that something that strong existed, and she felt compelled to face it.

"It is powerful, but I do not believe it could stop me. I am absolutely immortal. A Goddess. What is that thing to me?"

The Dragon Lord shook his head lightly before turning on his heel back towards the rift his sword had made, sheathing his massive blade as he did so.

"If you truly believe you are capable of besting it, then go to the Tree and do so. I am in no mood to play with your army."

Catrina seethed at that, how dare he brush her off like this? How dare he treat her like something not to be concerned about. She called out as he stepped into his rift.

"Once I topple that Tree, I will come for your supposed kingdom as well, and I will bring the dragons to heel, like they are supposed to be."

The Dragon Lord let out a snort of derision as he stepped inside his rift, to the volcanic chambers on the other side.

"If you do manage to topple that thing, I will swear my fealty to your Holiness unconditionally. Do not say I did not warn you, when you lose."

Entering that cursed land was the worst mistake of my life. If I had never had gone across the sea and just had remained content with what I had, I would have stayed in power as a Goddess to this day. Now look at where I am. This is what stupid decisions get me.

Catrina had not thought about the day she had lost everything in a long while. However, staring down a forest full of snarling undead trees that moved whenever she wasn't looking at them really drove home how far she had fallen. Her mind was quickly losing its nerve as the trees around her made a move with each instance she wasn't looking at them. The bog was so expansive and filled with the sounds of swarming insects that made her fur stand on end, and everywhere she wasn't looking and every instant she gave into blinking was another chance for these cursed trees to reach its branches forward and get closer towards them. The victim faces that were in the trees were now snarling and silently screaming in fury at them. Their collective faces were all staring at Catrina with vacant eyes, baring sharp teeth made of bark as they waited to move that much closer to them. The incessant sounds of buzzing were not helping either. Even though she knew that there were no flies around her, the phantom sounds of them swarming so close to her made her want to flail about to make it stop. Her tail was swishing in agitation at the constant droning sound, and she could practically feel little insects crawling all over her body.

As she maintained eye-contact with the bog, a fresh new concern was bringing itself to her attention. A little bundle of swaddling in her arms was growing restless, and soft moans of the infant dragon could be heard issuing from beneath the cloth. She had seen Twilight handle the tiny dragon enough to know that these movements meant he was getting hungry. Normally the filly took care of the baby, and she was surprisingly efficient at it as well. She seemed to take notes when she handled Spike, creating an ever revised checklist on the infants feeding schedule as well as his other needs. Twilight was a surprisingly doting caretaker when it came to this infant, and it bore a stark contrast to her usually sadistic self when it came to her enemies.

Catrina felt around the sacks that Twilight had outfitted her with and found a rather thick scroll next too a few bottles. She lifted the scroll out of its pouch and unraveled it, gawking a bit at what she saw.

Care and Feeding of Spike The Dragon

By Twilight Sparkle

In the event that I, Twilight Sparkle, am indisposed and am unable to feed Spike the Dragon, I leave this instruction manual in the care of whomever I have deemed trustworthy of his care. Follow these simple instructions and his health and happiness will undoubtedly be assured until the time of my inevitable arrival. Contents within are subject to change depending on further discoveries made regarding dragon physiology.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Spike's Appearance

-Scale care 3-7

-Limb checkups 8-11

-Head and face 12-15

-Eyes 16-18

Section 2: Basic Care of Spike

-Bathing 19

-Claw care 19

-Changing 20

-Feeding 21-24

-Sleeping 25

-General Interaction 26

"When, in Nightmare Moon's name, did you have time to write all this?" Catrina gawked at just how many sections and chapters there were even beyond section 2. Twilight had boiled her care for Spike down to a science, and she was quite literally writing the scroll on the subject. She had seen the filly working on several scrolls at once, but to think one about taking care of a baby would be this in-depth. It was jarring for her mind to wrap around. She was half-tempted to disregard this expansive guide and just feed Spike one of the bottles, but out of a pure curiousness she decided to unravel it further, keeping an eye on the wooded bog around her as she did so. As she rolled out the parchment she revealed dense paragraphs and little checklists within its myriad of chapters. This was an ever-expanding archive of everything Twilight did to maintain the health of this dragon, even more than she had supposed when she glanced at the pair.

She had to maneuver the scroll to keep it from touching the ground by the time she got to the section about feeding. It was astounding just how much she had found to write about this little creature. So astounding in fact that it distracted her from the Trees, and her inattentiveness had earned her a section of the trees moving far closer than she would have liked. She juggled the Scroll, the infant and keeping an eye on the wood as she read the section.

This is my life now. Dancing about in Grogar's haunted little dimension while I read the instructions of some demon filly about how to care for her wingless dragon. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Section 2:
Chapter 5: Feeding

Within the chapter detailed everything from how to hold Spike to how to properly position the bottle in his mouth. The bottles she had in the bag, filled with formulas designated for different parts of the day, and was magically maintained at perfect temperatures. She was apparently experimenting with the nutrients supposedly found in Gemstones and Crystals, finding ways to brew up synthetic varieties of it to maintain the babies health. It didn't take her long to find the right bottle and get to feeding the dragon just before he had started to wail. His doe-like eyes were staring up at her with a contented happiness sparkling in it as its little claws gripped around the bottle. She had to admire the little thing for not showing any kind of stress or concern for the environment it was in.

Somewhere along the way getting him to feed however one of their lovely trees had managed to sneak up behind Catrina. She had an eye on it now, but she didn't like the fact that it was behind her now, hugging into the walls of the city as its monstrous face silently roared at her. It being behind her meant that whenever she kept her eyes on the rest of them it had ample chance to get in close. She did not want to get devoured by one of these things, as she knew she would not die inside of it. It would be far worse, she'd just be inside it at the brink of suffocation, never given the release of death as she lived out the rest of eternity buried in her wooden prison. Such was the downside of total immortality.

Spike had grown fussy as he drank from his bottle, his stomach lightly inflated by what was probably air bubbles.

After consuming three to four ounces of the formula, Spike will most likely require burping. When doing so, make sure to have him facing in a direction where there isn't anything of value. Careless attempts at burping the infant can, and will (according to my regrettable experience), result in heavy property damage, and at the very minimum, third degree burns on your person via magic resistant fire. When performing this action, have Spike face away from your body and preferably into the air. Though this position is not exactly desirable for a babies health, it is a compromise one must make when dealing with infants with firebreath.

Catrina had a devilish idea in that moment, looking over at the tree that had maneuvered behind the two of them.

"So you want to eat us huh?" She draped Spike over her arm and pointed his head towards the tree as she kept an eye on the rest of them. She patted and rubbed his back, coaxing out the air bubbles inside Spikes little stomach, until the desired effect happened. She nearly keeled over from the sudden recoil of the dragon's blast. Green flame shot out into the grayed out world, punching straight through the demented tree's face and into the wall on the other side of its trunk. His head threw back, burning the tree in half with the adhesive flames as they ate away at any bark and wood they touched. Within a few seconds the tree was a smoldering pile of glowing green ash. She could only begin to wonder what was in Spikes fire to allow it to have color while everything else did not, but that was not an immediate concern.

Spike giggled and clapped his claws at the sight of the smoldering pile he had made. Catrina meanwhile was on a rush of adrenaline as she wheeled around to the rest of the wooded bog, wielding the happy infant like one would a crossbow, using his undeveloped spines as a line of sight as she peered at her adversaries.

"You see that! You useless piles of tinder! You come near us and Spike here is going to do the same to you as he did to your friend! Come near us and be made into ash you decrepit looking yule logs!"

Though Spike didn't understand what she said, he understood her tone. He adopted a cute reflection of his mommy's face when she spoke like that, grinning and leering out at the trees and he gave a little attempt at a threatening growl. Catrina grinned at the rumble she felt in her hands, at the power hidden within this tiny dragons body. She didn't feel as nervous being in the bog anymore. In fact, she was rather excited to feel some semblance of power again.

"When Twilight comes back little dragon, we are going to have ourselves one HELL of a bonfire."

Both Catrina and Spike giggled at that, preparing for the next tree that dared get close to them.

Oh Celestia what have I done? What have I been doing? Why am I here? Why did I kill those ponies? Why did I....what did I do to that poor Ram? What in tartarus's name possessed me into thinking this was okay!? Oh Celestia, Oh Celestia I can't take it! Their screams, they are so much worse than the Amulet! I can see their faces! Oh Celestia What did i do to her mind! I took, I took pleasure in it! It made me happy! What kind of freak am I!? Somepony please help me! Somepony stop me from doing this! Shining! Where are you!? I want to go home!

Bile erupted from Twilight's mouth and nostrils as another panic attack took over her body. She had to lean against the cold grimy surface of the crypt's wall to maintain her own balance as she hacked up more and more of the contents of her stomach. Tears pooled from her eyes dilated into pinpricks from what was playing in her head on repeat. Visions of Galia begging for her death juxtaposed to her talking to the filly in a motherly way, trying to talk her away from the path she was on. Now that she did not have the Amulet to filter the guilt and horror she had felt while doing what she did, it all crashed over her like a tsunami. In the last few minutes she had pulled herself together and subsequently fell apart while staggering down the steps of the crypt. Her willpower was the only thing keeping her standing, and even that was eroding fast under the pounding thoughts of unbearable shame for what she had done. She had not fully understood why ponies killed themselves after wearing the Amulet until these agonizing moments.

Galia was screaming out in defiance, biting off her own tongue to prevent herself from saying where Grogar's Crypt was. She had tried so hard to get through to Twilight, but that just made her want to hurt the Ram more, to break her under her hooves. She had let the ram bleed just long enough to get hope, taking sadistic satisfaction in the dark hope that filled her subjects eyes, a hope that wanted death to take her from this moment. A hope that she gleefully stripped from her as she healed her wounds and replenished her blood.

No! I don't want to do this! Stop! Let her go! She's innocent! She doesn't deserve this! She only wanted to help me! She only wanted to make me better!

Twilight adopted a gentle expression as she floated over to the Ram's face, stoking her muzzle and gently scratching behind her ear like she was some dog.

"It's okay, let out those nasty feelings bottled up inside you. No one here will judge you for shedding some tears. let it all out now. That's a good girl."

Twilight vomited again, collapsing onto her knees and nearly tumbling down the stairs as she sobbed harder than she ever did in her life. This was horrible! She didn't anticipate her body to react to this so badly. Now that she was in this cycle of traumatic memories it was everything she could do not to slam her head into the wall until she died. She needed to get it together, she needed to focus, to use the calming strategies she had recorded back when she was home to cope with this unbearable agony.

"You see! This is why temporary sociopathy just does not work in the long run. He knew that of course, that's why he crafted his trinket the way he did, but still. When you wear that thing you feel like you have the stones of a giant. That you can commit any atrocity that comes to your little noggin without consequence. However, after you take it off, you end up vomiting all over my stairs, internally begging to die. Quite sad really."

Twilight struggled to get to her hooves as Grogar manifested himself next to her, grinning down at the tormented creature.

"If you ever feel the need to off yourself, my zombies outside this Crypt will be more than happy to oblige you. However, you should know," Grogar leaned into her ear as he spoke his next words, whispering them into her with a patient, rumbling voice, "Whatever way you die in my domain, that is what your soul is going to experience for the rest of eternity. Just keep that in mind."

Twilight shook her head violently, wiping her muzzle with the back of her hoof before she found the strength to keep going down the steps. She had ridden out that wave of guilt, but who knew how strong the next panic attack would be, or how long these attacks were going to last. She would need to rectify this if she ever hoped to achieve her plans. The last thing she needed was to have a panic attack in the middle of one of Grogar's tests.

"Oh you are getting your bearings again are we? Well then why don't we move to our first test!" Grogar tapped a cloven hoof to the wall, opening up to a chamber inside of it. The shaking filly stepped forward into the room, noting how dark it was. It wasn't until a single light turned on that she saw something she had longed for this whole time since she had removed the Amulet.

"Twilight?" His voice sounded so nice in her ears. She ran up and hugged him, crying profusely into his white coat as he hugged her with his familiar foreleg. "Twilight! We've looked everywhere for you. I've been so worried."

"Big brother." She croaked out into his strong body, "I'm scared, I want to go home."

"You are home Twilight. What's the matter? Why did you leave? Please don't cry Twilight. You're safe now"

The door closed behind the two siblings, leaving them alone in this room.

"Your first test Twilight, is you are going to have to let go of the things that are holding you back from achieving your full potential."

Shining Armor didn't react to Grogar's voice. The empty room was turning into her own bedroom now. Everything looked exactly like it was supposed to. All her toys and stuffed animals were in the places they were supposed to be. Her secret compartments in the floorboards remained undisturbed. Even the way she had left her bed was exactly the same as when she had set off on her journey. Everything felt so much like home.

"I want you to do what you did to my great grand-daughter, Twilight. What you had done on my Galia was a masterwork, and is pretty much the only reason I guided you here. I want to see if you have the gall to do that again, but this time to the one you love most in the world. Can you drive your big bro into killing himself Twilight? Do you have it in you?"

She pulled back from Shining and looked around her bedroom, frantically trying to rationalize this situation. "He's not real! He's just your illusion of him!"

Shining looked confused at his sister yelling out at the room. "Who's not real Twilight? Come on, talk to me. You're scaring me sis."

Grogar chuckled at that, making her shiver with panic as he leaned into her ear once again "I know that, and your mind may know that, but your body? Your soul? Your emotions? They cannot tell the difference, little filly, and that is what you are going to be fighting against."

"Twilight please tell me whats wrong. Why did you go away? Everyponies been trying so hard to find you. We thought we had lost you forever." He sounded so much like Shining. Looked like him. Smelled like him. She didn't want to hurt him, even if it was a fabrication.

"You have ten seconds to begin, afterwards zombies will come in and devour you. Good luck little Twilight."

Grogar began to count down in her mind as she shook in place. Shining kept talking to her, trying to ask her what was wrong, gently questioning her about where she had been. Every part of her wanted to believe she was back home, that she could just let go of this stupid plan she had concocted and do something else. Now there was no going back. She would either need to go through with this, or die and be tortured for the rest of eternity. She rested in his hooves for the precious few seconds she had left before pulling away from him.

"Shining! Stop moving!" She had tried to amplify her power with the magic she had learned from the Amulet, but it didn't have nearly the same power as it did before. Shining slowed down and stopped talking, but he could still move his legs. He looked hurt and confused as he reached out for her, making her heart sink into despair as she repeated her command, layering the effect on him.

"Twilight... what are you doing? You are my sister? I love you."

Tears rolled down her face as she looked up at her big brother, smiling through the pain she felt as she slowly summoned glowing red metal in the shape of an amplification rune.

"I love you too BBBFF, but I have to do this. This is the test big brother. Don't you see? I can't fail a test like this again. I couldn't live with myself if I failed twice."

"Twilight please! What are you doing? Mom! Dad! Somethings wrong with Twilight!" He sounded so panicked as he stared at the molten metal. She had never seen her brother scared before. It made it easier to hurt him, now that he had a face she couldn't recognize.

Twilight could hear her parents coming down the hall.

"What? Twilight's home? That's great news!"

Twilight forced the door closed and barred it with magic as best as she could, it took everything she had to amplify her magic enough to do even a sliver what she could do without the Amulet. Everything was slower now, more sluggish, that much more difficult to complete. Her mother and father banged on the door now, asking them to open it for them with growing worry in their voices.

"Twilight? Open the door please. We want to see you! Its been so long since you left."

"Mom, she has hot metal, and she's holding me in place with some kind of magic. Help me out here. I think she's going to hurt me. She saying it's some kind of test!" His voice grew louder and more strained as she hovered the metal glyph closer to her brother, her grin growing as fast as her tears were falling.

"Oh my Celestia, Kids, don't move okay? We're going to open the door and everything's going to be fine!"

Twilight began to laugh. This was absurd. This whole thing was absurd. It wasn't real! She didn't care what happened if it wasn't real right? Her laughter grew more frenzied as she forced the hot metal forward. What a silly test this was! She thought Grogar could do better than this!

"MOM! Help me! Something's wrong with Twilight! Please for the love of Celestia get me out of here!"

Their parents were banging on the door so hard now, trying to use magic to force it open. Twilight unraveled their magic as they tried it though. She giggled as tears streamed down her face, finally forcing herself to scream out in triumph as she shoved the hot metal into the side of her brother's neck. His ragged squeal sounded so real to her. It sounded just like him as he writhed about as much as he could held by her magical suggestions, letting out a blood-curdling cries that only made their parent's redouble their efforts at trying to get inside. Twilight was laughing maniacally now, growing louder and more out of control as she listened to her brother's delightful, serenading voice. She did it! All by herself! She had hurt her brother without needing the Amulet! She shoved it into him again and again, making him redouble his squeals of agony as she continued. She didn't need the Amulet! She could do this! She could pass this test!

This wasn't real after all, right!? She wasn't really doing it to her brother, so it was okay! What an easy first test Grogar had given her!

"I have a request for you BBBFF, I'm going to need you to listen real closely to this one."

His eyes were wide now, gritting his teeth in agony as he was held there in his sister's magic.

"I want you to kill yourself, right here, in this room, with our parents listening." Each word punctuated by a giggle from Twilight. She had to do this while her adrenaline was keeping her going. If she faltered she was going to die. She was hopping about in excitement now, like she was waiting for her Hearths Warming eve presents. It felt so good to hurt her brother. It felt so right.

"Oh Celestia, Night get to a window or something, Call the guard, we need to get in there! Twilight Please stop doing this! Please! Listen to Mommy!"

"Come on Big Bro, you can do it!" She sounded like a rabid animal as she goaded him on, straining to grow his nerves back, forcing her horn to work to make him feel the most pain. "Kill yourself! Kill yourself for your sister! I know you can do it! Kill yourself for me! You'll do it if you love me! Help me pass my test brother!"

Shining didn't last nearly as long as Galia had. Now that he was covered in brand marks and layers of her suggestion magic he couldn't resist her anymore. He rushed to her dresser, screaming and crying like a little foal as he began to bash his face into the corner of it. The first time drove the corner into his eye, causing it to burst with the force of his head bashing into it. He did it again, crying so very hard as he repeated the action once again. Twilight watched as he did it repeated it over and over, laughing louder and louder as he slowly painted the walls and her brightly colored bed with his blood. She waited until his body slumped to the floor before she let the door open.

Her mother screamed such a delightfully horrible way.

"Hi Mommy!" the metal molded into a rod and forced itself into her mother's mouth and down her throat. She watched her writhe as her blood pumped with adrenaline. She felt like she was walking on clouds, eagerly twisting the molten metal in her mothers throat and watching her writhe about in the funniest ways. Her daddy rounded the corner and saw the blank stare on his sons face, and the desperate way his wife crawled towards him, spitting up pools of blood as she did so.

"Why? Why are you doing this?"

"Because Daddy, I am going to be a great magic user one day, and you are standing in the way of my greatness."

Shining Armor woke up screaming. He had a nightmare about Twilight again, but this time it was far different from the others. Sometimes he had dreamed of finding a ransom note detailing how she was going to be chopped into pieces if her parents didn't offer up money. Sometimes he dreamed of the guard informing them that she had been found in some gutter, starved to death. Still other times was when he found her hanging herself, or leaping from a tall building before he could catch her, all over her failing the entrance exam to Celestia's School for gifted Unicorns.

This dream however. Something had changed his sister. Something had twisted her into a crazed homicidal maniac, forcing him to kill himself right there in her room while saying she loved him. That dream had felt so eerily real, like he was actually there feeling every second of agonizing pain she put him through. Wasn't ponies supposed to wake up when they felt pain?

He had known something was wrong with her, but he hadn't said anything to his parents. Now he felt to guilty to share what he had found out. She used to talk to him, to share every little worry and concern she ever had with her brother that she loved so much. He was the only pony she could talk to like that, she cut out everypony else from her personal life. His parents told him that she'd get over that phase, that she'd learn to be friends with other ponies besides him. In a small way it had been a source of happiness for him that she trusted him with everything like she had. It hurt that much more when she had cut herself off from him after she had failed the test.

He would catch her in her room, pouring over strange books with now titles on them, filling scroll after scroll with notes at a feverish pace on her bed. Scrolls he could never find in her room when she was outside of it for those few moments out of the day. He knew she was planning something, and that she'd been keeping it a secret, but she had been so cut off from their parents that they hadn't caught on to what she was doing.

His mother screamed in the other room, making him jump from his bed and gallop to his parents room, throwing open the door. His mother was sobbing into her hoof, shaking violently with each racking intake of breath. His dad was tumbling about on his side of the bed, cringing and writhing in silent agony as he breathed out Twilight's name.

Shining Armor rushed to his mother's side, hugging her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Twi, Twilight she...Oh Celestia where is my baby!? Why is this happening?!"

Shining's dad jolted out of bed, and for the first time in his life he saw his father crying.

"Did... did you guys have the same nightmare I had?" Shining tentatively asked his parents. Their faces blanched as they all looked at each other, realization dawning on all of their faces. They had experienced the same dream, and had woken up when each of them were murdered in it by Twilight's magic.

"We need to see the Princess. We need to report this. We need to find my baby! Something horrible is happening to her!"

"Something serious is going on, I'm sure the Princess will know what to do."

"Night, it was so terrible, she looked so...evil... she scared me so much."

"It's okay honey, we'll figure this out together. We all will. We have to be strong for Twilight. I'm certain whatever that was, that wasn't our little filly."

Shining didn't feel so certain of that. None of them did as they huddled together in that hug, trying to comfort each other.

The young unicorn shuddered as he remembered his sisters words, still so vivid in his mind, so real to him, even now as he knew he was awake and safe.

"kill yourself big brother... you'll do it if you love me."

interlude: The days after her failure

interlude: The days after her failure

Four Days After Twilight's Failure at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns

Twilight's life used to make sense. There used to be a sense of order to it, a sense of purpose that drove her forward. There wasn't a day that went by that she didn't have a meticulous plan laying out what she would be studying and how long she would be studying that thing. The filly knew with every day that passed that she would be in front of those judges, pass that test, and join Celestia in her School for Gifted Unicorns. Everything in her life was telling her this was the case. Twilight's parents and brother encouraged it, she grasped the nature of magic faster than any other filly or colt her age or even older, and the filly had a drive to read and a passion for the subject that was simply intrinsic to her very being. The young unicorn's whole life led her to that moment.

Then it just stopped. The tugging, the prodding, the encouragement, the determination, the threads of destiny itself were cut from the tiny pony right in the testing room, shutting down her magic entirely as confusion and despair slowly overwhelmed her. Something dreadful happened to Twilight four days ago. There is an inherent rhythm that all ponies share with each other that they aren't even totally aware of. Its a rhythm that can lead the entirety of Canterlot into song at the slightest provocation some days. That internal harmony, that drive to fulfill their individual destinies for the greater good of all, Twilight wasn't connected to any of it anymore. She felt like she lost her place on the music sheet and no matter how she tried to catch up with the symphony going on around her, the young filly couldn't find where she fit in the song anymore. Twilight was a dissonant note in the melody, an unwanted spice in the dish, a cog in the machine that fell out of place.

Now that Twilight was outside of the harmony of ponykind, its harmony was jarring for her. They weren't making their own decisions. Not really. They were following their path that was laid out for them, calmly following the tugs of fate as surely as a well trained dog on a leash. What was worse, Twilight felt naked without her own proverbial leash on herself. In a sick way she wanted that tugging sensation back. She wanted to claw her way back to that point where she failed, and fix it so she never lost contact with this intrinsic force that gave her life meaning. Without it, the world Twilight was in felt so alien, an expanse of directions with no map to guide her where to go. It had taken her four days to even come up from her room and give her racing thoughts a reprieve. Twilight needed to learn more about this dissonance that she felt. She needed some guidance, anything that could help her relieve this feeling of being utterly alone in a sea of ponies whom were all connected and happy. Even Twilight's own parents and brother were part of this collective herd, and she could tell they felt something was wrong with her now. Somehow they could feel Twilight was separated from their harmony as well as the filly did.

It felt even more obtrusive after Twilight had stepped out into the streets of Canterlot under Celestia's morning. Ponies seemed to notice her more than they did before. Twilight was something out of place to them, the little unicorn didn't move with the same rhythm they did. There was something wrong with her. Fillies snickered at Twilight as they walked by, brandishing their new cutie marks on their flanks like a badge of pride, and looked upon Twilight's bare coat with derision that only children could summon for each other. Their leader Bitter Berry made a pass near Twilight, bumping into her, stopping Twilight with a hoof as she whispered in her ear.

"Hey Blank Flank, heard you choked big time at your test the other day. I guess that's to be expected from a dumb little unicorn that can't even use her defective little horn. Should have been born a dirty earth pony instead. Then at least you could do something useful with your life, like playing in the mud, or growing fruit for us real unicorns."

For the first time in Twilight's life, she considered killing a pony. As that smug brat sauntered off, laughing with her friends, she considered all the ways she could do it. A simple sharp object aimed straight for her jugular, a direct magical attack, poison, all of it sounded just lovely to her. Still this isn't why she came outside today. To many complications if she actually went through with such a thing. Worst of them being she'd never be able to research this dissonant feeling she had and how she had become disconnected from the other ponies.

Twilight had left with a plan to research this phenomenon at the library, to find a solution for it, but the stares, whispers, and the words of Bitter Berry were draining her of her will. She felt so pathetic, a filly who would never get their cutie mark, a failure whom couldn't even fulfill her own destiny. No wonder they whispered about her she thought. What else would a herd so in tune with each other have to talk to each other about except the one that didn't belong.

Then Twilight began to pick up on the word Zebra, and the name Zeb, and It made Twilight raise her head quizzically. Walking some distance away was an ancient Zebra that looked as sullen as he did wrinkled. His skin was so loose on his rail thin body that it looked as if he were wearing a morbid costume instead of his actual flesh. Twilight could tell looking at him that he had once been a physically powerful Zebra, and his thick frame still hinted at untapped strength beneath those old bones. Her eyes trailed over to his decrepit flanks, and she saw where he had disfigured himself all those years ago. Old scar tissue rested where his cutie mark once was, a patch of angry pink flesh where fur had once been, stretched and faded with time. Theories surrounded why he had scorched off his own cutie mark were always spoke in hushed silence, and she never cared to listen to them as a foal since he scared her so much. Now however, the old stallion caught Twilight's eye in a whole new light. Something was off with how he moved about the crowds and grunted at ponies when he purchased various strange items. He wasn't a part of harmony's rhythm, just like Twilight herself wasn't.

Twilight didn't have any sound reason to want to talk to this zebra, much less follow him, but this feeling of sameness with this decrepit old Zebra was a feeling she couldn't just ignore, not when she felt so disconnected from the ponies around her. Out of everyone in this crowded street, she had a feeling that this Zeb was the only one who was truly qualified to answer her questions on what was going on with her and where to go from here. Her thirst for knowledge was well known for being unquenchable, and she did not see this instance as any reason to make an exception. She resolved to tail him, as stealthily as she could, and find the opportune moment to speak to him directly.

To the untrained eye, it looked like the old Zebra went about buying the strangest things from various stands and shops. Strange dried up herbs here, lightly glowing leaves there. The stranger plants and herbs he had acquired were off to the side of a booth or quite literally under the table, and nearly always these transactions were done with non ponies. I recognized some of the ingredients as items used in particularly advanced potion making, the kind of potions that required months of prep time just to create an vial of the desired material. However, for every one I did know there were others that made me take notes to find out about later. He wouldn't just take them either, he inspected them, smelled them, looked at them with magnifying lenses, even tasted in certain cases. He was inspecting each and every herb, spice, and plant as if he were a jeweler looking over the cut of a jewel. These items were not standard issue material for these booths, they were set aside specifically for him. Maybe plants he couldn't grow on his own location? Ingredients that required specific environments that he wasn't able to supply?

Rarely did he speak to these merchants. Most exchanges that Twilight watched were near silent grunts that the filly probably wouldn't have noticed save for the subtle movements of his head and neck. They didn't haggle on prices or anything so obtuse as that, the arrangements had clearly already been made long before he had arrived at the various stands and shops. Each visit took less than a minute at the most, yet he did not appear to be in a rush. This Zebra was moving with the practiced ease of routine, lightening his pouch of his bits with each new transaction. He hadn't seemed to notice Twilight yet, but she suspected that the Zebra was aware of the little pony following him and either decided he didn't care, or was luring her into a trap while expertly concealing the fact that he knew she was there.

Twilight was mesmerized with the care he took with each new ingredient he purchased. There was no careless shoving into a pouch or reckless handling of the substances, each one was handled with a practiced and steady hoof that only shook with age when they were being used for walking. His own youth and vitality seemed to return to him whenever he handled the growing collection of supplies he was gathering up, like he could summon up the stillness of his younger self for just as long as he needed to inspect the things he needed too and move on. After that point he was like a rickety bundle of dried wood attempting to walk down the street from inside of his own baggy skin. Even through this frailty that his age brought however, he had a sense of strength, cunning, and sharpness of mind that none would contest.

Twilight felt her heart beat as two guards approached the Zebra. They looked highly suspicious of the ancient stallion, and although Twilight was too far away she could hear enough to know they were demanding to look in his bag. Zeb looked irritated, but resigned to the unwarranted search, clearly used to such inspections. To Twilight's mild surprise, when he revealed the contents of his bag, it did not resemble the vast assortments of ingredients he had been buying, but rather a wild bouquet of flowers. Twilight edged closer to the three and managed to catch some of what they were saying.

"They are flowers for my late loved ones,
Would you deny an old Widower a gift for his wife and sons?"

The guards looked decidedly uncomfortable now, and with a curt nod they let him pass into the dingier sections of canterlot that Twilight's parents told her not to go into, and with the Guards standing idly by the vague entry way to the place, she didn't think she'd be able to slip in unseen. Not that she was forbidden by the government to go into a primarily non pony area, but the guards would surely ask questions, and her family wasn't exactly unknowns in Canterlot. She was surprised she had managed to follow this far without too many heads turning even. She needed a distraction, something to grab the guards attention and get them away from their positions and let her go through undetected. The first smile she had in days crossed her face as she thought of a juvenile spell she read in her brothers prank spell book, one that would work wonders in this instance.

The "Want it Need it Spell"

It was a relatively simple incantation, and had a stronger radius and intensity of effect the more magic you put into it. The spell would make an object of interest desirable and distracting to anyone who happened to be within the radius of the effect. She scanned the area and noticed Bitter Berry chatting with her friends, no longer paying attention to the lavander filly. The smirk grew wider as Twilight saw how she could settle two problems with one stone. She decided to focus on Bitter's bow tied at the base of her tail, something she'd not easily be able to take off especially with how it was knotted on there. It didn't even require a second thought before she reached for her magic. There was an anger bubbling inside her as she focused on her reaching for her magic, and it came much easier to her than it did at the test. The magic flowed much more freely into her horn, allowing her more access to it as she relished in her own anger and indignation. Peering up she saw her magic had taken on a reddish hue as supposed to its usual lavender. That was something she would need to look into, but until then she discreetly sent the magic over and infused the filly's little bow with the spell.

The effect was nearly instantaneous and stronger than Twilight had anticipated, and Bitter quickly caught onto every one of her friends and adults around her safe for some particularly magically resilient ponies getting swept up in the want it need it spell. They all began moving towards Bitter, and she was getting uncomfortable with all their leering glares at her tail, where the affected bow was.

"Uhh...why are you all looking at me? Hello? You're scaring me."

"Give me it!"

"By order of Celestia, relinquish it to us at once!"

"Come on Bitter, share it with me!"

"Share what!? Leave me alone!" Berry's voice cracked in the funniest ways as her fear peaked and she made a break for it.

Twilight snickered into her hoof as she watched the formerly smug filly run away in fear, drawing more attention onto the ribbon on her tail as she did so. It didn't take long before chaos ensued and a small stampede took off after her. Twilight never used that spell with that much power before, she didn't even think she could. She'd definitely have to look into this red aura she accidentally used. With the mob disappearing off into the distance and the delightful screams of that brat leaving her ears she rounded on her hooves and walked into where Zeb had gone, a new spring in her step from her little victory. That is until she bumped face first into what felt like a bony wall.

Her ears flattened against her head as Twilight looked up and saw Zeb looming over her. While he had looked tall in the distance, he seemed like a giant to her now that he was standing right before her, looking down at her with a glare that could freeze lava. As wrinkled and aged as his face was, his eyes were sharper than she had ever seen before, boring into her eyes as if he could stare directly into the filly's soul.

"First you spend your time following me.
Then you cast a spell with magic of disharmony.
What kind of pony do you happen to be?"

This was not a compliment, this was an interrogation. Twilight felt for her mouth to speak but she found herself struck speechless by the presence this Zebra was exuding. Zeb groaned and rubbed his temple with his hoof before turning and beginning to walk off.

"I suggest you leave this area while you can,
I hope your rash casting of disharmony had came with a plan,
cause if they find the one who casted that spell,
well lets just say what punishment would come even I could not tell."

"Wait! I have questions for you! Can I please ask you them Mr. Zeb?" Twilight was walking quickly behind the Zebra as she said this, trailing behind Zeb like a second shadow. He looked visibly irritated as he rounded on her.

"Do not speak my name as if you know me filly,
Now please, go home and leave me be!"

Rhyme, Zebra speak in Rhyme. It's a matter of mental discipline for them to be able to naturally convey their thoughts in that manner, maybe I should do the same.

"I seek a path to change my fate,
To forge a path anew.
I seek knowledge with great haste,
For a greater knowledge of potion and brew.
And for this knowledge I somehow trace
A path leading straight to you."

She fumbled with her words as she said it, fighting with her brain to get the words to fit together as she spoke them out to the Zebra. He stopped in his tracks and raised his eyebrow at this, further wrinkling his forehead as he did so.

"If you continue to speak only in rhyme,
you will have my attention and my time.
Now let us move, I have work to do,
involving the afore mentioned potion and brew."

Fourteen Days after Twilight's Failure at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns

Although Bitter Berry had suspected that Twilight had somehow been behind the spell that had caused the attack, she hadn't been able to prove it. Her tail to nearly be ripped off her rump from how ravenous the ponies had gotten trying to get her bow from her, and it hadn't been until strong unicorns had shown up onto the scene that they were able to dispel the spell and get the ponies to back off of her. The bruises and the bandages around her bottom, as well as the indignation on the filly's face had almost broke Twilight into a fit of laughter, but she had managed to use the mirth to make it look like she was upset at the accusations.

"I can't even use my horn right now, how could I cast a spell like that daddy?" She had even demonstrated as such by releasing pathetic sparks of harmonious magic, her eyes watering as she did so, pouting out her lip in the most pitiable way like she had practiced in the mirror before the confrontation started. Her ruse had worked perfectly too, as all suspicion was taken off of Twilight and went to others in the area who could have done it. As she hugged onto her father though, she chanced a devilish smirk over at Bitter Berry, who bristled at the expression in the most delightful way. Though Bitter would hem and haw that it was Twilight that was the culprit, none would believe her now. With all suspicion off of her, Twilight was free to leave early in the mornings to the non pony side of Canterlot.

Most non pony sections of Equestria were in various states of disrepair, and this one was no different. It wasn't from a lack of trying, though many ponies in Canterlot seemed to believe so, but rather from lack of ability to do anything about it. Most non ponies had no magic to speak of in their bodies at all, and the ones who did had negligible amounts at best. That meant they couldn't even handle a tool with their hooves like ponies, whom could exert a form of tactile telekinesis over an object they touch and it gave them the ability to manipulate it. Ponies tended to prefer using their mouths for finer tasks such as writing, but most of what they wanted to accomplish was easily accessible with their hooves. Donkeys, sheep, goats, and Cows, the majority of the non magical creatures whom took up residence in Equestria barely had dexterous enough mouths for tasks. Not only were they disadvantaged in this area, but the preternatural strength that all ponies possessed far exceeded their non magical neighbors. A reasonably in shape Pegasi was known to be able to lift near one thousand pounds with just their wings, which, on a non magical creature, would be far to fragile for such a feat. Earth Ponies had members of their kind that possessed frightful levels of strength, capable of shattering boulders with a mere strike of their hoof. This wasn't even taking into consideration the versatility offered by a Unicorns horn. Pile on top of all of these advantages the additional daunting prospect that Ponies have their talents and future occupations laid out for them by their own cutie mark, making them that much more qualified for whatever job that happened to be than their non pony counterpart.

The result of all these factors was a disturbingly high unemployment rate among non ponies. Most Cattle and Sheep had long since made feudal pacts with earth pony farmers, exchanging their wool, milk and anything else they could produce for shelter and protection from magical creatures whom wanted to eat them. The Earth Ponies became something of a ruling class in this regard, herding non ponies and running their everyday lives with impunity. The critters,as the Earth Ponies derogatorily referred to them as, were free to leave their various farms, but the dangers of monster attacks, general social stigma, and the lack of employment opportunities, kept the majority of them from leaving their lives huddled together in fields and in barns. While they were not technically "owned" by ponies, the living conditions of these non ponies whom spend their days living as virtual farm animals did nothing to assuage the idea of pony superiority in Equestria.

All this added up to Twilight having rather disgruntled stares from residents as she walked through their streets early in the morning. Seeing not only a Pony in their midst, but a freshly clean filly unicorn with a striking purple coat, reminded them of their own financial woes and living conditions. Zeb had vouched for her, so they didn't immediately harass her, nor would it do them any good to do so, but she wasn't winning any friends with the locals with her presence. No matter, she wasn't there to make friends anyway. She was there to learn everything she could from the Zebra. Her drive was revitalized further after the end of their first session ten days earlier. He spoke his words as if he had waited to say them his entire life. They sounded almost unbelievable, but the conviction in his voice and the seriousness in his eyes, along with just how old he looked, made every word he spoke radiate truth.

"I tell you the truth, I am thousands of years old,
I remember a time when Zebra were free and bold.
Then a chieftain made a decision without consulting us,
To form a pact with a Tree so powerful and harmonious
Many were happy with the surprise,
Finding their passions and talents they gained were worth the price.
I knew the truth, that the marks invaded our minds,
Telling us what to do, keeping our mind in binds.
I removed my mark the day it appeared,
I would not let my freedom be commandeered.
I wanted to save them, my own Zebra kind,
but they turned me away, and left me behind.
So I traveled the world, learning as I went,
and found a recipe written on a certain parchment.
I had thought it to be the recipe for Scorpan's Philosopher Stone,
Which granted eternal life and all the wealth you could possibly own.
Alas, this particular recipe was incomplete,
And while longevity was granted, it was youth you could not keep.
Each brew extends your life by thirty days,
And that's thirty days more that your body pays.
I am tired, and my bones ache for release,
Its time for me to go, Its time to get some peace.
With my last weeks on this world, I'll teach you what I know,
I care not what you do with it, I care not where you go.
Learn what you can from me, during this time,
For I tell you I still have all my knowledge as if I were in my prime.
In four weeks time I will breathe my last,
Lets hope, within that time, you are up to the task."

The ten days of study she had spent with the Zebra had been the most informative time in the filly's life. The books, the scrolls, the concepts he had to tell of were a wealth of restricted knowledge that was only cooperated with her various attempts to sneak into the restricted sections of Canterlot's libraries. This wasn't just history lessons or instructional's about potions, this was eye-witness testimony of history that predated Equestria itself. He had detailed information on Dragons that she had never heard a single pony scholar utter a word about. He knew of Disharmonious spells and encouraged experimentation with potion making. He had even been impressed with a brew she was working on that could would theoretically turn living tissue into dust. He would not give advice on improving it, rather he wanted her to hone it on her own.

Though he had been rather irritated with her presence at first, which had in part to do with his distaste for ponykind, he had grown quite fond of the little filly and the way her devious mind worked. It was on the tenth day that she had shown up to his store with a the first of many drafts that would eventually become her master checklist. The audacity behind the goals she had set for herself in the future after her studies with him were over had made him laugh harder than he had in centuries, so hard in fact that Twilight feared he'd keel over and die before the thirty-day mark.

"Filly, you are nuts."

"What no rhyme? I thought we were meant to keep this up all the time?"

"Just writing this list shows me you have guts."

Thirty Four Days after Twilight's Failure at Celestia's School for Gifted unicorn

They continued on their days, from that day going over every piece of information that the Zebra could think of being relevant, either in text or his own recollection. What he didn't have Twilight found on her own through her independent research. Zeb had lit a fire under her, a passion for disharmonious magic that he said he hadn't seen since his early days millenniums ago. Twilight grew bolder and more cunning by the day. When he had first met her she had been petty and passive aggressive at best, by the time the twenty-ninth day rolled around, he had before him a little mastermind whom had crafted the most ambitious plan he had ever seen. She was something that if he were even a little younger, he would have eagerly have drunk another swig of the imperfect elixir of life to see come to fruition.

During that time Bitter Berry had been looking to confront the little filly again with her friends flanking her. Her searches were in vain however, as Twilight was habitually nowhere to be seen. Twilight had her eyes on far bigger fish than a little bully like her however, and her constant snooping for Twilight was getting rather irritating. She chose a very simple untraceable potion to deal with the filly. All it did was rob her ability to sleep for three days and make her hear little auditory hallucinations. That's it, simple stuff in comparison to what she had learned from Zeb up till that point. The results however were highly amusing. Within two days Bitter Berry had forgotten all about Twilight, now it was her waking self induced hallucinations that were all she was concerned about. Though the potion had nearly run its course, her young little mind simply didn't survive the strain. She had gone from a snooty upstart Unicorn, looking down on everypony and creature in her presence, to screaming in never ending terror while being carted off to a mental asylum. Twilight almost felt bad for her. Almost.

"The Alicorn Amulet resides in some Pawn Shop Display? Tell me you are kidding, it is not as you say." His tired voice sounded so amused even through his final breaths, Twilight sat beside him, holding his hoof with her own as she gave him a sad smile.

"It is true,
I would not lie to you.
And with that knowledge, Grabbing it will be the first thing i do."

"It has driven many a pony mad, perhaps leaving it there would not be so bad." Zeb coughed after saying that, a bit of blood coming out of his mouth and onto his dingy coat. She held his hoof harder, staying strong and holding back her emotions as she watched him slowly fade.

"If anypony can handle it, it would be me, and I'll need all the strength I can get if I am to stand against Harmony."

He let out a weak chuckle and put a decrepit hoof up to Twilight's face. They both knew she had more selfish goals in mind besides that, but it had been his life ambition, so she felt the need to emphasize that goal on his death bed. With his elixir entirely gone, every ounce of strength had practically faded from his body. He was truly a Zebra living on the last seconds of borrowed time he had.

"In all my time in this world, I never had a foal,
Power and life eternal had been my only goal.
Now that I see you, as I fade away like this,
I think you're time with me has filled an experience I foolishly decided to miss...."

Twilight watched as the light faded from his eyes, and she took the time to close them gently with her hoof. She had a suspicion he had been lying to the guards about that, he had never mentioned them in all his stories and lessons. She had held out a vain hope that it was true however, that he had once had a family at one point. Knowing that he had not, and that she, somepony he had known for a mere thirty days, had been the closest thing he had to one, made her sadder than she cared to express. Try as she might though, she could not keep her own tears from flowing as she sat next to the body of Zeb.

"I'm about to have a kid of my own, in a strange little way,
And he or she will hear the tales of Grandpa Zeb one day."

Author's Note

Zeb is another Gen 1 villain for those of you who are interested. He's been heavily, HEAVILY altered for the purpose of this story.