Prologue : Of Pawns and Kings
Prologue : From An End to a Beginning
Late-spring,1021 - The Era of Harmony, Canterlot.
It was a calm day, a perfect day...
Birds were singing soft tunes, tree leafs were swaying in the gentle breeze of noon. Flowers were blooming in a bright spectacle of colors that gave life to every garden they found themselves in.
But, the greatest show was in the Canterlot's royal gardens where the flowers were placed in such manner that they formed a natural painting depicting the sun and the moon, both radiating in the light like precious diamonds, they were surrounded by various 'living sculptures' carefully shaped by the royal gardener to look like ponies...happy, playful ponies, young and old, big and small...they were all smiling, laughing and having a good time. The sight was like a good memory, meant to last forever.
Not far from the frozen scene, under the shadow of a tree, at a table, enjoying tea, sits a stoic figure. She loves days like this, when she gets to enjoy the small things in life. A beautiful sight, a good cup of tea, maybe some company... but, unfortunately its not one of those days. She turned her soft gaze towards the sky and smiled. The sky was beautiful sight as well, if not a bit unusual. For the sun was at it's peak... so was the moon.
It wasn't the first time when both the sun and the moon shared the sky at the same time, but something wasn't quite right. While the moon shine as bright as it ever did, if not even brighter, the sun was but a faint light... but not for long.
The figure, mostly to herself than to anypony in particular, whispered in a soft, sad voice, as she closed her eyes, her whisper only heard by the wind itself. The sun then shined brighter than ever, it's blinding light enveloping the entire world.
When the light faded, both the sun and the moon slowly descended to their own corners of the horizon as a new day began. The figure that once occupied a chair at the table disappeared, leaving behind nothing, but an empty cup of tea and a lost memory.
Early-winter,1542 - The Fifth War, Vanhoover's Outer Ring
A clap of thunder shook the windows of a lonely maintenance office, at the end of the badly lit hallway of the second floor of the Vanhoover's power station.
The office had a small workbench on next to the door leading into the badly lit hallway, a tool cabinet on the far end just next to a window, on the left side the there was a door with a door sign that read 'Parts & Scraps', to it's left was a tool rack filled to the brim with tools of all kinds the right wall was empty except for an intercom directly opposite of the workbench.
The door near the tool cabinet cracked open and out of it comes a unicorn mare,her fur was a pure white stained by dust and grime, her mane was a light blue with hues of a darker blue, her tail was short. She wore a dark green jumpsuit with grey stripes on the sides. She shakily makes her way to the window, her breathing fast, but slowly calming down, her dark blue eyes peering through the glass window to the display of nature's power outside.
"This storm is getting worse by the hour." the mare said, a slight tinge of fear in her voice,but this felling was quickly washed away by a familiar buzz, a buzz she prayed she won't have to hear today.
The intercom on the wall was neatly polished, it's metal radiating and it's red button glowing brightly red with each buzz. The mare raised her hoof to press the dreaded button.
"Y-yes?",she responded, hesitation clear in her voice. Out of the intercom's speaker came a voice, a tired and slightly annoyed female voice.
"Pack your toolbox,Firefly,you're needed at power junction forty seven.", the transmission then cuts off, leaving the mare sighing in defeat.
"I hate my job", she whined, then proceeded to the tool cabinet and retrieved from it an orange construction helmet and a toolbox. She opens the toolbox and takes and I.D card and checked the information on the I.D card:Aurora Firefly, Vanhoover's Outer Ring Power Station's Maintenance, Security Clearance Epsilon. "Just about right.", Aurora tucks away the I.D car in her left chest pocket of her jumpsuit, she then puts on her helmet and with a faint white aura of magic she takes her toolbox and leaves.
Aurora always found walking through the badly lit hallway of the power station's lower levels scary, she was afraid of many things, darkness being among the least of her fears, she was more afraid of what could lurk in the dark.
She likes to read a lot, one day she came across a book containing many horror stories, she found them intriguing, especially when she came across the phrase 'if you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you'. She understood that, in the context of the story, was meant to emphasis the thin line between fighting the monsters and becoming one, but she ran across the same phrase in other more scarier context,in a story about a creature that feed of pony blood, whom very being was the abyss itself.
It was said that the beast only attacked those who dare stare at it, it was supposed to be easy to avoid, but were there was a shadow, there was the beast as well. Since then she always feels like she is constantly watched by a creature of pure malice.
But such thoughts were washed away as Aurora finally reached the elevator at the end of the hallway. It was just a matter of time before she leaves the darkness behind... just to head out into the storm.She tapped the elevator's button and waited. Five minutes had passed, but the elevator had yet to come, she once again taps the elevator's button, still nothing. Out frustration, Aurora puffed her checks and hit the button again, hard, once, twice... success.
Patience is a virtue Aurora values, but her boss doesn't, therefore she can not afford the luxury to take it slow, but she does detest waiting when the waiting is provoked by a technical issue.
The elevator arrival was announced by a loud ding followed by the sound of metal grinding as the the elevator's door slowly opened, she carefully stepped in as the wooden floor cracked under her weight, the noise made her gulp, "Please hold.", she whispered out, afraid that talking too loud would crash the elevator. She taped the ground floor button, the elevator was going slow, screeching ever so often , but in the end it reached it's destination.
Aurora's office was on the second floor of a five floor building so there was no problem taking the stair, if only they were available. Yesterday the entire staircase was closed,even now the access to the staircase is restricted, Dominion Security even showed up, Aurora didn't get too many details on what happened, only that there is now an open spot in administration. Given the circumstances and how everypony acted she assumed the worst, but chose not to think about it, it was none of her business.
She was just a lower class, a worker and nothing more, as everypony is told: 'In the Dominion you do what are you told and never ask questions'. Aurora hated that fact, but there was nothing she could do about it, all she could do now is to go to the power junction forty seven and fix it... tomorrow maybe another junction and so on until the day she will be too old to work.
A sad existence, even sadder when she knew that she was stuck forever in this cage, but now she also realizes she is not only stuck metaphorically, she is also stuck literary, by her calculation, somewhere in between the first floor and the ground floor.
She drops to her haunches, facehoofing and sighing in frustration, "For the love of... ", she begins to say, but her words were cut short as the elevator free falls just about one and a quarter meters, finally reaching the ground floor. The elevator's metal door's slowly screeched open slowly and out of the elevator Aurora bursts out as fast as she could and with no more time to waste she quickly makes her way to the entrance of the power station.
Without a second thought, out of the door she was, in not the rain she expected. This was the first surprise she found pleasant today, she smirked, "I guess today isn't that bad after all.", she then took in her surroundings. An old beggar at the corner of the street, a distant barely audible cry and the small chatter of two drunks sitting on a nearby bench. Of course, reality begs to differ.
Vanhoover's Outer ring, 'The Slum' is still the 'The Slum' as it was called by those in the middle and central rings, was were all the poor were allowed to live a life of misery under a blanket of mud.
Vanhoover at the time, was under the control of the Dominion, a monarchy lead by Queen Silver Blood, her majesty living, of course, in the central ring, were all the important ponies lived, in the middle ring is for the middle classes and the outer ring is were they trow trash.
In a military perspective this would be called a layered defense, if the outer wall falls, the enemy enters the outer ring, from there they have to go through the middle ring, all the way to the central ring, each ring being, of course, strongly fortified.But, in a social perspective, it is a literal division of the social classes.
From the front of the power station, Aurora crossed the street, turned left, took a shortcut through a park, passed by few more houses, until she found an office building, enter and then go down in the basement and there it was, malfunctioning as always. Aurora knew the path to power junction forty seven by heart, mostly because it had the most issues, but this time around something wasn't quite right. First of all: why there was a security force guarding the door? and second: Why they were so heavily armed?
They were both big earth ponies, almost a head above her, they wore black nano-fiber suits over them they had blue colored hard steel plates covering their torso, neck, sides and back, knee braces and on their heads they had completely enclosed helmets with red visors. Strapped to their sides hanged guns, Aurora didn't quite recognized, but remembered only one detail, they had something called a pump-action... guns were not her thing.
At the first glance they were terrifying, but Aurora had a job to do. Aurora carefully approached the guards at the door, when the guard noticed her approach, one of them moved forward to intercept her while the other rose his right fore hoof from the ground, on which he had a band wrapped around it, when he touched it, the band began to glow a faint purple light, the guard then reached with that hoof to his gun, the gun handle now being wrapped in the same purple glow as the band, when the guard pulled back his hoof the gun followed with pinpoint accuracy his motions, he then rested the gun on his shoulder.
Meanwhile the guard that began to walk towards Aurora has stopped about two meters in from of her and in a demanding voice he asked, "Identify yourself and state your business.", his voiced was crackling from the speaker in his helmet, but his demand was loud and clear.
"I...um...i'm Aurora Firefly and i-ugh...i was sent here to fix a problem w-with the power junction located here.", Aurora responded, her voice trembling, then she lit her horn this made both guards shift, Aurora levitated her I.D card out of her pocket and give it to the guard.
After a moment too long, the guard in front of her, turned his head to the other one who, nonchalantly, sat down, his gun still resting oh his shoulder. "Take her to Nova." , the guard then sat up and saluted after holstering his gun.
"Aye,sir."
The corridors in the basement were lit by few emergency lamps, but their faint red light barely pierced the thick darkness. Aurora had her trusty flashlight with her, but even then the light seemed to not push back the darkness the way it supposed to. This was weird and creepy, but Aurora push forward, she had a job to do and if she failed she would lose it. It might not have been the ideal workplace, but it was all she had. No time for that, you're at work, keep your head on., Aurora shakes her head slightly, to regain her focus on the main task ahead.
The door of the maintenance was just two hoofsteps away and wide open, inside was an orange pegasus mare, she wore the same nano-fiber suit, but instead of hardened steel plates she wore just a blue ballistic vest. She worked on a mobile frequency scanner, it was mostly a glorified mobile computer, but the things it was hooked to made it a very useful tool.
"Hey, Nova, gotcha' a new friend.", the guard that escorted Aurora called out to the mare, she raised her head from the computer, bright ember eyes locked onto blue eyes, she smiled.
"Finally, somepony to fix this blasted power junction.", then she looked at the guard, her seemingly friendly gaze as well as her smile were replaced by a glare and a frown "Don't you fucking dare, Rust.", the guard whom facial expression is obstructed behind the helmet most likely grinned.
"Ah'll let it pass, for now.", he turned to leave "But, ya can bet that ah ain't goin' to forget about it.", he left laughing.Aurora didn't quite get what was going on here, but she really didn't want to know. Nova, returning to her friendliness from before she asked.
"So, you got a a name?"
"Aurora, Aurora Firefly, but just Aurora will do."
"Nice to meet you, i'm Nova.", the mare introduced herself, she then resumed her work at the scanner, that left the conversation in a rather awkward end. With nothing more to say Aurora looked around the room, the electric panel on the her left had all the power switches for the junction and the building, on her right was Nova, working, behind her was a portable generator for the frequency scanner, next to Nova was the junction's control panel and next to it was another panel that contained all electrical wires and the cause of the junction's malfunction.
"So, why would Dominion Security be all the way here checking for frequencies, i mean, what you got there is for communication, not electricity.", Aurora asked out of curiosity then added, "If its ok to tell me."
"Eh, well you could say we picked some unusual stuff and let's leave it at that.", Nova responded. Seeing that the conversation died again, Aurora proceeds to open the problematic panel, while thinking about what 'unusual stuff', Nova could talk about, 'Unusual'... like what?... sabotage?..., Aurora puts that thought to the side, it was none of her business, after all, security was on it already.
Aurora opened the junction's wire panel and was hit by the familiar smell of burned electrical wires. She inspected the first layer of wires which were neatly laid out for a technician to find the problem easily, but the problem was further back, she moved aside these wires to check those behind them and just from a small glance she saw at least seven wires in need of fixing.
She opened her toolbox, from it she retrieved a one meter wire, a cutting tool, a long rubber band, a roll of duct tape and a hair tie. She took of her construction helmet as it mostly got in her way, her many now hanged all over the place. She took the hair tie and tied her mane behind her back into a small pony tail, leaving few locks hanging on the sides. A pony tail on a pony..., she found that paradox funny for some reason.
Aurora was half inside the wire panel, the count of damaged wires being about forty two by now and still counting. The damage was severe and that made it a pain to fix, it didn't help that her jumpsuit was getting in the way, especially now when she was almost done. She pulled out of the panel and took of her jumpsuit, then she jumped back into the panel, it was way easier for her to move through the wires now. The problematic wire was so far back that she was almost entirely inside the wire panel. But she did it.
When Aurora came out of the pane she noticed that Nova was still working as before, yet her wings were unfolded and stiff as a rock, her face was red as the emergency light. Aurora was about to ask if she was alright, but her intent was cut off when out of Nova's computer came a wave of incoherent sound. Nova quickly made adjustments, in a matter of seconds the sound was clear.
"We can't just kill the Queen and expect the change in the leadership to no be questioned by her subjects. They will know we are responsible for her death in a blink of an eye.", a female voice on Nova's computer said.
"Trust me when i say. ", another voice came in, this one being male, chuckling it continued "If things go as i planed we will have her head on a silver platter and not only that, we will also have the Union begging on it's knees and as for those self righteous idiots." a small laugh containing so much a malice it was impossible to belong to a pony, "They will get what is coming for them. And no one will suspect a thing."
This conversation left both Nova and Aurora mortified.
"On the matter of no witnesses, as you indirectly put it, how about the 'rats' you mentioned.", the female spoke on again.
"They won't be a problem,now if you excuse me i'll have to go tie up some loose ends.", the transmission the cuts off, leaving both Nova and Aurora with their eyes widened and their jaws hanging. Nova tried to say something, but the computer dying of cut down her words, so did the sudden explosion of any emergency light that was in the room or in the corridor. This left them in complete darkness.
Aurora only felt her heart beat getting faster and faster, her breathing was heavy, she was going into a panic when suddenly she felt a touch on her shoulder, she would have yelled, but she was swiftly pinned against the floor with a hoof covering her mouth.
"Shh! Shh! Aurora don't, its me Nova.", Aurora lit her horn, the faint light washed over Nova's face, Aurora's breathing slowed to a normal pace, but her heart was still pounding. "Listen, we need to keep quiet and get out of here, fast. We need to keep our calm, alright?", Nova whispered, Aurora only nodded. Nova helped her get up, "How many flashlights do you have?"
"One." , Aurora responded, still catching her breath.
"Damn... listen we need to stay close at all cost." , Nova said, the fear was clear in her eyes, but she kept it in check, that's what she was trained for, but Aurora on the other hoof was not. Nova grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her into the eyes. "Listen, we will make it out of this, i promises."
Walking down the pitch black corridor felt as if they were walking through Tartarus itself, each second turning into an eternity, each meter closer to the exit was one hopeful hoofstep towards salvation, yet the distance remaining brought nothing, but dread. It was quiet, the only sound Aurora could hear was her's and Nova's hoofsteps and her own heart pounding. The light of the flashlight barely piercing the darkness for no more that two meters in front of them, this wasn't natural.
It was a nightmare, but it was a nightmare that will soon end, they finally reached the stairs to their freedom and at the top of them stood one of the guards that were outside.
"Rust? ", Nova called out, but she received no answer, no verbal answer, when Rust, came tumbling down the stairs covered in blood and dead, Nova took not a single second to react, she took Aurora on her back , spread her wings and flew up the stairs. She was almost was out of the door when a wave of pure darkness rose grabbing her in mid-air, the dark abomination dragged Aurora back into the basement and slammed Nova hard on a wall, knocking her unconscious and tossing her out the building's door.
Aurora doesn't know where she is, but a thing is certain, she got no way out of this. Her eyes got used to the dark, but she still can't see a thing around her, but she can hear. Ignoring her rapid breathing and her frantic heart beat, she could hear the breathing of another, she could fell its presence, it was watching her. A dark grey glow caught her attention out of the corner of her eyes, suddenly the entire room was flooded by light, this made Aurora shut her eyes tight. After few second, she opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, but it slowly got clearer and what she saw left her speechless. It was a sight out of this world, it... no he, was like nothing she ever heard, seen or read about.
He approached slowly, with every hoofstep the steel plates of his night blue armor grind against each other, his sharp saber horn glowing with a dark grey magical aura, his piercing yellow slit pupils fixated on his prey and bringing forth a grin barring sharp fangs.
Aurora would have backed up if not for the wall she had her back against. He stopped in front of her his eyes starring into her terrified gaze.
"Oh, my , what do we have here?" he said, pinning Aurora against the wall, lifting a hoof to touch her cheek running it down to her chin, he then lowers his head to her neck taking in her scent "Mmm, my dear, you are truly a delight, but i'm afraid i'm not here to enjoy your...", he trailed off and with a chuckle he continued "...'Company'.", in the meantime Aurora could do anything, she couldn't move, her mind and body refused to work, all she could do was cry. He pulled back from invading Aurora's personal space and added "Such a shame, but i got to prioritize, don't i?"
Aurora was released of her restrains, tears still flowing "Say, my dear, what are you willing to do to get out of this, alive?", he asked, Aurora took a bit to register his words, he let her calm down to respond as he just waited like he had all the time in the world.
"Y-y-you wa-want m-m...", Aurora tried to speak, this only earned a sigh from him.
"Yes, i do ,want you to do something for me." , he rolled his eyes "And since this seems to take a little too much than i thought it would, i'll cut to the chase.", he paused to make sure Aurora was listening.
"I am a rather busy individual, so i will need somepony to collect something for me", he levitates a small pale pink crystal to Aurora, "There are five other of these out there. I want you to go and find them.", he levitates to her a piece of paper. "This is a map, you will need it."
"Wh...wh...why m-me?", Aurora asked, the fear she felt slowly being put aside.
"Hmm, i don't really know.", he smiled, "Call it ... destiny. And by the way if you happen to tell anypony about our... 'deal', i'll.. well, let's just say you almost knew what will happen.", his malicious smile got even wider.
Aurora was about to ask something else, but she was cut out when darkness began to shroud her entire body, out of panic she closed her eyes shut, until she felt a cold wind washing all over her. Aurora opened her eyes and was at a lost for words at what she saw. She was in the middle of a green field, a forest in the distance and when she turned around she saw Vanhoover's outer wall as the moon slowly peaked over.
She was outside, for the first time in her life she was outside, she couldn't believe it, or could she, from all that happened today. Aurora laid down and did something she did almost all her life, she starts weeping, she was always alone, no family nor friends, but she was safe, she had a home, now she had nothing.
