Ancient evils

Chapter 21: Ancient evils

Twilight found herself in Hoofington, along with some other survivors of the blast, thrown across the world. She was unfamiliar with the city before the explosion, and even more lost now. Some buldings remained intact, one of which was the library. Twilight was living there, if anything just to feel at home. The Hoofington library was quite large, almost as big as the one in Canterlot. She had to find out a way to stop Sin. She scanned the bookshelves for quite a while trying to find anything remotely useful. She found many books, most of which either seemed promising but told nothing, or simply made brief refrences. But one book, The Discord era, proved to be quite helpful. It covered history during the Discord era, and even a bit of the history before Discord.

"This book must be ancient!" said Twilight.

She checked for a publishing date, to find this was simply a re-publish of the original. That makes sense, considering how rare books from that long ago are, they are probably well protected if intact at all. Twilight began flipping through the pages,and managed to find some very interesting information. She found the first page mentioning Sin, and began to read.

"Discord ruled Equestria for many years, up until our magnificent Princess Celestia overthrew him. Most were purely chaotic and random, as he liked it. But one day, a young Alicorn challenged his rule. Discord thought of this as a mere joke, this Alicorn stood no chance. At least, not alone. This Alicorn, now known as Sin, raised an army to fight Discord. He was the leader of the oppressed ponies, and fought for good and righteousness. Few were willing to help Discord, so he forced his will upon them with chaotic magic. The war raged on, pony against pony, until the Alicorn and his armies captured Canterlot, or as it was called at the time, Pandemonium. He liberated Canterlot, and banished Discord for a time. The Alicorn was declared king,  and ruled benevolently. But it was not to last. In this complete control, the Alicorn started to go mad with power. He began to command his subjects to conquer smaller, peaceful countries, and enforced heavy laws and taxes on his people. Where Discord was chaotic, Sin was evil. He was relentless in his fighting, and even sent in young children to fight. Never satiated, he began attacking Zebrica, which was a longtime ally of Equestria. This was the breaking point for the Equestrians. They began to riot, and assaulted Canterlot castle. Sin was not amused by this. He began slaughtering citizens, which only further intensified the riots. Discord saw his chance, and while Equestria was in chaos, he sealed away Sin in a strange dimension of his creation, and retook the throne. He would rule on for another 500 years before the birth of Celestia and Luna, and the two of them defeated Discord years later, and took the throne."

This told her a lot about Sin, but not how to defeat him.

"Discord is the only one to have ever defeated Sin, and-"

That was it! Discord was the answer! If the two of them fight it out, they may weaken each other enough to defeat them both! This could also horribly backfire, but Twilight was willing to take that risk. She knew her way back to Canterlot from here, where the statue should still be. She wasn't about to release Discord without her friends, however, as she needed them to stop him if need be. She began her long trek to Canterlot. She followed the train tracks, as they were an easy to see guideline between the cities. A while down the tracks, a train was stopped, but still looked in working condition. She went to check it out. She couldn't believe what she saw inside, it was too good to be true.

"Spike!" she yelled joyously at the purple dragon hiding out in the train car.

Spike lit up at hearing her voice, and ran to her.

"I was so worried!" said Twilight.

"I thought i'd never see you again!" said Spike. "So now that makes three of us."

"Three?" said Twilight.

"Twilight! Is that you?" said a voice coming from the back of the train.

"Rarity?" said Twilight.

Twilight followed Spike to the back of the train, where Rarity awaited, her mane still as fabulous as ever.

"We're on our way to Canterlot." said Rarity. "We're looking for everypony else, you just happened to find us first."

"I think I know how to defeat Sin, but i'm going to need your help Rarity," said Twilight

"What about me?" said Spike.

"I don't want you being in anything so dangerous." said Twilight.

Spike was disappointed and a little bit angry, being once more left behind. But he understood, and agreed.

"So what's this plan?" asked Rarity.

"I read in a book in Hoofington that Discord and Sin hated each other, and fought over Equestria in the past." said Twilight. "I figure we try to convince Discord to help us fight Sin!"

"Release Discord!" shrieked Rarity. "But we barely managed to seal him away last time!"

"That's why we need to find everypony else first." said Twilight

"You do know this is insane, right?" asked Rarity.

"Maybe, but it's our only shot. said Twilight.

"I guess we really don't have a choice." said Rarity. "We're going to check Canterlot tomorrow, so we should all get some rest."

They each picked a room of the train, locked the doors, and went to sleep for the night.