As we stepped through the unguarded doors of Canterlot castle I couldn’t help but grimace, “Well that was… odd.”

Rarity shuddered as she and the rest of the girls stepped up beside me, “I’ll say. Have you ever heard of a train that gets up and walks around on spider legs? Ugh, it was absolutely dreadful.”

“Ya know, somehow I don’t think that was somethin’ that’s really happened before in the first place Rares. Though I also get the feeling that someone here might know more about what’s goin’ on than he’s lettin’ on.”

Before I could respond to Applejack’s comment Twilight spoke up in my defense, “Applejack, Aaron already told why he can’t give us any details, if he does- “

“If he does then there’s no telling what kind of damage could be done to the time space blah blah blah. I’m sorry Twi, but I’ve got to side with Applejack on this one.” Rainbow’s frustrated tone cut through Twilight’s explanation as she flew through the hall, clearly eager to get moving. “Whatever he knew was going to happen has obviously happened already, so what could he actually hurt by giving us more information?”

“Oh! What if by telling us what he knows he somehow-“I shot my hand out and grabbed Pinkie’s muzzle, making the rest of her statement come out as unintelligible mumbles. With a sigh I let go and glanced over at Fluttershy, half expecting the poor mare to comment as well. Unfortunately, she was still too shaken up by what had happened to her animals to do much more than follow along mutely. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one to notice her distressed state, and not a moment later I saw Rarity move over to her and give Fluttershy a shoulder to lean on.

Shaking my head, I turned back to Pinkie, “Sorry, but if by some coincidence whatever you were about to say was correct, I don’t think I could hide that fact from all of you. I’m not exactly good at lying.”

Applejack snorted, “You can say that again. You lie worse than’ Ah do.”

I was about to reply when I saw that we had managed to make it to the throne room while we were talking. As Twilight opened the door I paused, briefly wishing that Chrysalis hadn’t been forced to fly off to help her own people. Even though I knew who we were up against I wasn’t exactly sure what might be different in this world compared to what I knew from television, and extra power in the form of Chrysalis would have been comforting.

Unfortunately, it was just the elements and myself, or really just the elements. I somehow doubted that alchemy would be able to help me fight off a nigh omnipotent being of mischief.

With that sobering thought I followed the rest of the girls into the throne room, only a few steps behind them as we walked up to the throne where Celestia was seated. It did not escape my notice that the Lunar throne next to hers was empty though.

“Thank you all for coming so quickly. As you’ve no doubt noticed chaos has begun to spread throughout the land, and as much as I wish I could say this was the result of a powerful spell gone awry or some other more easily dealt with event, the truth is much more sinister.”

As Celestia rose up from her seat I frowned. It wasn’t terribly obvious, but Celestia was exhausted. She had slight bags under her eyes, and her legs shook just a little bit as she walked. The elements and I shared a worried glance, Celestia had literally thousands of years of experience in keeping up a stoic mask, the fact that we could see any signs of her exhaustion at all spoke volumes as to the toll that recent events were taking on her. Especially since it had been barely twelve hours since this had all started.

Our concern did not escape unnoticed however, and as she led us through the castle Celestia let out a small chuckle, “Do not worry yourselves over my wellbeing my little ponies. Keeping the chaos in Canterlot under control has admittedly been quite taxing, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle. Besides, my sister is valiantly fighting against the worst of the chaos as we speak, leading squadrons of soldiers against the various monsters that have been stirred into a frenzy by all of this.”

Twilight looked torn between her curiosity and her concern for her mentor, but in the end, she decided that if Celestia was devoting her entire self to dealing with this problem then so would she. “Princess, what exactly is all of this?”

Celestia was quiet for some time, but as we turned the corner into the corridor that led to the vault of the Elements she finally sighed. “All of this, my dear student, is Discord.”

Above us Rainbow laughed nervously, “Discord? Yeah right, he’s just an old mare’s tale, right?”

Celestia shook her head, “Unfortunately not. He is very real, and very dangerous. Thankfully you six were able to awaken and bond to the Elements of Harmony, as without them I doubt that any of us would be able to stand up to him.”

At this point we had reached the door to the main vault, or at least we assumed it was the main vault. I had trouble believing that there would be a more important vault inside the castle given the grandeur of the door itself. Made of metal that looked just different enough from steel to convince me that I didn’t know what it was the door was inlaid with expansive gold etchings showing various scenes from Equestria’s past, much like the various stained windows that lined the hall we were in. The surface of the door was interrupted by a single hole at the perfect height for Celestia to insert her horn, which she promptly did.

As the door began to glow and the thrum of heavy enchantments being undone began to echo around us Celestia spoke up, “Unfortunately we have been required to place the elements in this vault as the more secure one that Luna and I have designed is still under construction. However, with the enchantments that we’ve placed on the door I’m certain that they’ve remained safe.”

Finally, the doors cracked open and with a thought Celestia was brought out an ornate box wreathed in the golden glow of her magic, and presented it to us, before proudly opening the lid, “Once again I must ask you all to- “

“It’s empty”

Celestia blinked, caught off guard by my statement before she whipped the box around, seeing it’s barren interior for herself. As the elements began to mutter she spoke in a shocked tone, “Empty? But that doesn’t make any sense.”

Suddenly a sinister laugh echoed through the hallway as the light at the end of the hall began to fade away, leaving a darkness that quickly rushed towards us and in an instant we were enveloped in an inky blackness that made it seem like we were floating in an empty void.

As the laughter continued the windows that had lined the hall began to slowly glow, shedding no light on the surrounding area, yet becoming clearly visible, only these windows didn’t depict the scenes of Equestria’s various triumphs. Instead the windows showed images of Ponies, Griffons, Dragons, and all manner of other creatures fleeing from various forms of encroaching chaos, from giant marshmallow monsters to sentient houses scooping up their former inhabitants each window showed increasingly bizarre scenarios that left us all feeling incredibly uneasy.

Without warning the laughter abruptly cut out and from each scene of chaos silvery strings began to extend towards what we could only assume was the no longer visible end of the hallway, and as the strings from each side of the hall reached two points in the dark one final window appeared in a bright flash.

The window was huge, easily towering over us and every other window floating in the darkness and depicted a strange, and for Celestia and myself familiar, figure. The creature had a long serpentine body divided into three parts, the tail of a cockatrice, a torso covered in brown fur, and the neck of a strangely distorted horse. It stood tall on two mismatched legs, one seeming to belong to a dragon and the other to a goat. It’s two hands, one the paw of a lion and the other an eagle’s claw, held the silver strings that had extended from the other windows, showing the beast as the puppet master of all that we were seeing. Finally, our eyes were drawn to the monster’s pony like head, assuming said pony had had its face stretched out like taffy. Just above the beast’s goatee a single fang extended from its mouth.

However, this all paled in comparison to the creature’s eyes. Its pupils placed firmly in blood red irises set against the whites of its eyes which had turned a sickly yellow. Those eyes held no kindness, only a kind of sick joy in the suffering of other that only the truly mad could experience.

Without warning the depiction of the beast moved, grinning as it pulled on the strings in its hands, “Sense? My dear Celestia, what fun is there in making Sense?” And with that the windows shattered and light returned to the world.

Author's Note

How's that for a villainous entrance?

Hey everyone, I know it's been awhile, but as my excuse I have only this to say: I'm officially a college graduate!

Anyway, part 2 is already in the works, and after this we finally get to the meat of the story, so expect updates much more frequently.