Prologue: The Corruption of Twilight Sparkle
Prologue: The Corruption of Twilight Sparkle
The streetlamps in Ponyville usually kept the small town relatively well lit on the standard night, but this night was different. The flames seemed to flicker, sending the shadows dancing in the dim light. A small haze from a light drizzle obscured a dark figure moving from shadow to shadow. Glimpses of a grey coat and wild black mane could be seen moving towards Twilight Sparkle’s Friendship Castle.
Every once in a while, the shadowed figure would stop and peek through a window in the town. The slumbering town was blissfully unaware of his presence, and the disaster about to befall Equestria was not even tickling their minds. As they slept soundly, the dark figure’s grin broadened. With no witnesses, his job would be a lot easier.
King Sombra, formerly of the Crystal Empire, slipped in through the large double doors of the castle. After quickly checking his magically constructed map, he headed in the direction of the room of one Princess Twilight Sparkle. A ghost of a smile played across the dark mages’ lips as he silently slunk towards her bedroom. When he finally came upon it, his mouth cracked into a true grin, his fangs flashing in the dim torchlight. Slowly, he cracked open the door and slipped inside the Princess’ private retreat.
Sombra looked inside the darkened room and spotted his prey. Twilight lay, peacefully asleep, unaware of the intruder in her home. Sombra slowly inched his way into the room. Just as he was making decent headway, he tripped on an unseen stack a little ways into the room. A clatter of books startled Twilight out of bed. She immediately cast a Magelight spell in order to see her intruder. Upon seeing Sombra, she immediately hopped out of bed and into a defensive stance. “Sombra? How are you still alive?” she cried.
“I am not so easily defeated, little princess.” Sombra smirked. “The Crystal Heart can’t kill me. I will take back my kingdom, and you are going to help me.”
“I will never help you! I would never betray Shiny or Cadence like that!”
“I’m not saying you have a choice in the matter. Even you cannot escape my influence.”
Sombra’s horn produced a black aura, and a red beam shot from his horn straight at Twilight. She hastily erected a shield, but the first beam broke it. Sombra rapidly cast a spell, sending another beam at twilight while she was reeling. When this beam hit her, a pulse of Dark Magic pulsed inside the room. Black smoke crept up Twilight’s figure, soon engulfing the princess. After what seemed an eternity to Sombra, the smoke cleared, revealing Twilight, eyes oozing black smoke and mouth turned up in a wicked grin. Her newly acquired fangs glinted in the light of her spell, and her horn was sharp and curved like a saber.
Sombra’s own smile was much the same. He was proud of his handiwork. Corruption, a spell he developed himself, forced his state of corruption on foes of equal or greater power, and an alicorn was the perfect test subject.
“Well, I guess you got me, Sombra,” Twilight remarked. She smirked. “Guess we can do something…fun together.” She slid over to Sombra, raising her foreleg to brush her fetlock through his mane. The smug grin Sombra wore faded, replaced with a look of slight confusion. He had designed the spell to make the target evil, but she almost seemed to be coming onto him.
With a sudden lurch, Twilight brought Sombra’s lips to hers and darkened her horn. Unaware of what the youngest princess was planning, he found himself drawn into the heat of the kiss. Soon, however, he noticed something wrong: he felt his heart beating faster. Quickly breaking off the kiss, the former king scowled, preparing himself in a defensive stance of his own. Twilight’s wicked grin remained, and she slowly let her magic fade. “Well, I have to give you props. You prevented me from draining you dry. I guess that I will accept you as a subordinate.”
Sombra cocked his eyebrow. “Subordinate? I was going to take you as a partner. Why would you think I would let myself be a subordinate?”
Twilight laughed. “Simple. You need to get into the empire, and I want power. So, if I get you into the empire, you can help me gain more power. Trust me, I can make it worth your while.”
Sombra chuckled. “Very well. If you insist on helping me take over, then I can make you my Queen.”
“No. I don’t want to be just a Queen. I will be Empress. I will be the one in control, and you will work for me. If you don’t accept my terms, then I will kill you now and take over myself.”
Sombra relented, “Very well. Let’s go.” Twilight’s horn darkened, and she and Sombra vanished into the night.
* * * *
The sunshine lanced through a crack in Starlight Glimmer’s curtains. With a yawn, she stretched her forelegs and hopped out of bed, ready to start the day. Trudging towards the kitchen, Starlight began to worry. The castle was to quiet. It was one thing if Spike slept in, but usually sounds of Twilight’s cooking could be heard from the kitchen. Today, however, the castle was dead silent.
Upon her arrival in the Kitchen, Starlight’s observation was confirmed: no sign of food, coffee, or Twilight. Frowning, she headed off towards the libraries: perhaps Twilight had lost track of time studying in one of them. However, as she passed by Twilight’s room, she felt that something was off. Looking inside, she could feel in her core traces of some foreign magic. Whatever it was, it saturated the room and made her quite uncomfortable. The disheveled bed looked like it had been slept in and left in a hurry. Panicking, Starlight galloped off to the first library.
After her tour of the libraries, Starlight’s worst fears were confirmed. Twilight was missing. Whether kidnapped or fleeing, Starlight didn’t know, but she knew that someone needed to know. Just as she was turning around to find Spike, he opened the door. “Hey, Starlight, do you know where Twilight is?”
Author's Note
The beginning of a longer story. This is my first story, so comments would be greatly appreciated. I am planning to put out about a chapter a week.
Chapter 1: Where's Twilight?
On a normal morning, the kitchen of the Friendship Castle would be ringing with laughter and the sounds of a joyous breakfast. Today, however, the kitchen was completely silent. Meanwhile, in a normally silent library, the sounds of a panicked baby dragon rebounded off the walls. “What do you mean she’s gone? Twilight wouldn’t leave us like that!”
Starlight shoved her hoof in Spike’s mouth. “I just said that she must have been foalnapped. My core picked up an unfamiliar magic, and I bet the source of it is what took Twilight.”
“Unfamiliar Magic? What did it feel like?”
“It felt like insects were crawling across my body. It was really uncomfortable.”
Spike grew pale. “Dark Magic. That can’t be good.” He quickly pulled out a roll of paper and a quill pen to take down a letter. After some quick writing, he sealed the scroll and sent it on its way.
Starlight, however, was not about to let his last comment go. “Dark Magic? Who uses that?”
Spike sighed. “The only ones we ever came across were Nightmare Moon and King Sombra, but Nightmare Moon was purified and Sombra’s dead.”
“Well, I can still analyze the spell. Let’s drop by Twilight’s room before we go to round up the girls. We may need all the help we can get.”
Stepping into Twilight’s room, Starlight’s horn began to glow. Suddenly, before Spike’s eyes, several spell matrices appeared in the air. Starlight stepped forward in front of the first layout, which glowed red as she approached. Stopping, she levitated over a quill and scroll from Twilight’s desk and began to write down notes and observations. After finishing her observations, she moved to the next set, which glowed black. Finally, after observing one further black matrix and two that were Twilight’s distinctive purple, Starlight rolled up the scroll and walked back to the door. Spike scratched his head. “What was that?”
Starlight grinned. “That was a little something I cooked up when I was stalking Twilight. By combining the Analysis spell with minor illusions, I can make a detailed setup of the spell matrices used in any event. It’s significantly improves on the standard Analysis as used by the Guards because it gives the full matrix instead of just identifying the base spell and type of magic.”
Starlight’s eyes gleamed as she started to discuss one of her favorite topics: spell mechanics. “All spells have two components, the technical portion and the intrinsic portion. When a spell is cast, part of the power is derived from the cutie mark, creating a distinctive portion of the weave that is unique to each caster. For example, if Rarity casts any spell at all, her special talent adds a specific marker that powers up certain spells. I used this concept to develop a specific tool for the fights with Twilight during the time travel incident.”
Starlight began to smile as she continued to speak. “Through testing, I learned that removing the intrinsic part of the spell makes it collapse. So, if Rarity used telekinesis and I neutralized her particular intrinsic data, the spell collapses in on itself and does nothing, since it is missing a key part holding it together. Using this, I developed a bubble that, when touched, would automatically distort the intrinsic portion, destroying the spell from inside itself.”
Spike’s eyes slowly glazed over while Starlight continued to drone on. Eventually, he felt her hoof shaking his shoulder. “Spike? Are you paying attention?”
Shaking his head, he responded. “Not really, but basically, you know who cast what and what those did?”
Starlight nodded the affirmative. “Now, we can use illusions to determine what happened in this room.”
Starlight’s horn began to glow as two illusionary representations took their places. One was an illusion of Twilight, standing next to her bed. The other was just the standard unicorn body shape. “I don’t know who the other person is, so this representation will have to do for now.”
The illusions went into motion as Starlight began to theorize. “As best as I can figure, Twilight immediately put up a shield. Our mystery stallion used a shieldbreaker spell to destroy her shield and leave her vulnerable.”
Spike interrupted Starlight. “How do you know it’s a stallion?”
Groaning, Starlight said, “You should have been paying attention. The elements that make up the intrinsic part of the spell are gender, cutie mark, magic color and maximum possible magic reserves. Using that, I determined our culprit is a stallion.”
Starlight returned to her explanation. “After the shieldbreaker, the stallion cast a spell I can’t identify on Twilight. My best guess, based off of other evidence I’ll cover later, is that it was some sort of corrupting spell designed to force her into a state of Dark Magic Corruption.”
“Over here, the next spell cast has something mildly disturbing. This spell matrix shows that Twilight moved here.” The illusion walked to where the third black matrix was.
“Standing right there, Twilight used a Dark spell. And not just any spell, but Energy Drain specifically. It only works while the user is in physical contact with the target, and then absorbs energy from them. Since there is no corpse in this room, the victim must have recognized one of the symptoms and broken contact. Even if he did, by the time he realized what was happening she had probably drained about a third of his magic reserves, leaving him severely unprepared for fighting someone as powerful as Twilight.”
“After that, Twilight teleported herself and her mysterious visitor away. No idea where, but with her range they probably teleported straight out of Ponyville. Wherever she ends up going with this guy, it is going to end poorly. We need to gather our friends so we can save Twilight.”
Spike nodded in affirmation. “If we’re rounding up the others, it might be best to start with Applejack. She’s the one most likely to remain calm.”
Starlight replied, “Good idea. Applejack should also be able to help keep the other girls calm when we get to them. Come on!”
Spike hopped on Starlight’s back, and then she turned and set off at a gallop. Within minutes, they were out the door and headed to Sweet Apple Acres.
Author's Note
This chapter may be a bit rough. I didn't plan this story much, so I am kind of coming up with it off the top of my head. Feel free to let me know what I can fix up!
