(presented by myself and guest author Sonic Rainboom Dash)
Chapter 19
Corruption of a Hero

It was nearing the end of the first week of Eclipse having been adopted and brought to Canterlot to live. The Archiver was growing even closer to completing the program that would separate Souls from Nightmare Moon. A couple of more days had passed and it was now Saturday in the week. As everyone knows Eclipse had managed to watch Bahumat propose to Celestia and that was due to the fact that the parasite had finally managed to wake her up in time to see it. After the whole proposal from Bahumat, Luna had been so happy to see Eclipse awake and hungry. Things had gone on from there in a sort of blur.

Unfortunately Kiara and Swift Shot had ended up having to stay in the infirmary for the past couple of days. Swift Shot would be fine for the most part as some engineers had managed to fix his legs so he was up and walking again. His wings were fine as well thanks to the soul chip having taken most of the damage onto itself. He was able to make it back to Ponyville where he was forced by Rainbow Dash to take it easy for the past couple of days.

Kiara herself was nowhere near as lucky as Swift Shot. Kiara's wings were both so broken and messed up from her battle with Amaterasu despite her healing herself that they were both in casts. Then there was the fact that she seemed to be moving real sluggishly. This was due to the fact that a gryphon's internal magic reserves were far different from a pony's. Her magic reserves were actually bigger than a pony's but ran out rather quickly compared to a pony's. She had used so much energy with her last transformation coupled with the form's own power that she'd run out of energy and more. She'd ended up using her actual life force to pull off her last move. It didn't cause her to age but she would be weak for quite a while. So for the most part she had been sleeping quite a lot.

With all of the excitement that had gone on in Canterlot this past week, Luna felt that maybe getting away from the castle might help herself and Eclipse a bit. So she decided that she'd take a couple of days to vacation in Ponyville since it was nearby and relatively peaceful. Besides she figured that going there would give her an excuse to meet with her potential student's parents. She could get their answer directly rather than waiting on Rarity to send her a reply on what her parents had said. She knew that earlier that week she'd called the mane six to come meet her daughter.

She felt that Rarity had done an admirable job of acting as if she'd never met Eclipse before. Luna had ended up visiting Rarity in her dreams to ask her to act as if she'd never met Eclipse before so that the rest of the mane six wouldn't wonder how she'd already met Eclipse. She didn't want the rest of the mane six to know about how Rarity and her sister were involved in the incident earlier that week with the robotic monkey. And as for Eclipse she had told Eclipse to act as if she'd never met Rarity before. Eclipse had asked why but Luna had asked her to just trust her and do so. Eclipse had agreed to but not without reservations.

So all and all now would be a good time to go to Ponyville to relax after all the things that had happened. She just wanted a couple days of rest without something big happening. What she didn't know was that by going to Ponyville she was setting things in motion that would reveal the true evil in this world and bring her sorrow and heartbreak. But she didn't know that yet. Luna ended up leaving the castle Saturday morning with a contingent of her night guards as she headed for Ponyville after Celestia and Bahumat both bade her farewell.

It had been decided that Luna would take Solaire with her so that Solair and Eclipse could have more bonding time. Solaire had been having a blast with Eclipse the past couple of days despite the fact that Eclipse couldn't move around that much without the spell from Luna that took away pain. They had been able to bond and Solair had been able to grow closer to his cousin who he viewed as more of a sister than anything at this point. He'd actually grown rather protective of her after seeing just how easily she was injured now.

Luna rode on a chariot holding Eclipse in one foreleg while Solaire rode on her back happily chatting away just talking to quiet Eclipse. Eclipse just kept up her soft smile as her cousin chatted away about everything under the sun to her. Luna herself was smiling softly as she just let her guards carry her in the chariot all the way to Ponyville.

Finally they arrived high in the air above Ponyville near Princess Twilight's castle. She directed her guards to land on the ground behind the castle as she turned her attention back to the two young ones that had accompanied her. She spoke softly to them,"Alright young ones. We are here in Ponyville. We are going to be going into Princess Twilight's castle. We'll be staying here a couple of days before we head back up to Canterlot."

Solaire piped up,"Ok Aunt Luna." He just looked around the place with a sense of wonder and curiosity.

Eclipse spoke up softly,"Yes mommy." She went silent herself as her eyes started to droop. For some strange reason she just felt really tired. Probably because it was the day and her sleep schedule had been messed with yesterday.

Luna directed her guards to follow with the few suitcases that she had packed with the things she needed for herself and the two young ones. She walked towards the entrance to Twilight's castle with a grace only an alicorn could have. The two night guards who had pulled her in her chariot set about getting the luggage in the back of the chariot. They quickly grabbed the suitcases and rested them on their backs before they caught up to Princess Luna and started walking behind her like they usually did.

Luna walked around to the entrance of the castle and on up the steps to the door. She stopped for a moment at the doors as the fur on her back rippled as she shivered. It felt like someone was watching her but she didn't know why she was getting this feeling. She looked all around the area to see if she could find someone that could be watching her only to frown when she realized that there was no one there. Solaire himself was curious as to what his Aunt Luna was looking around for so he looked around as well. He saw nothing himself and shrugged before he went back to chatting with Eclipse.

Luna used her magic to open up the door of the castle knowing it would be unlocked because Twilight hardly ever locked anything. She moved inside of the castle with her guards following right behind her. She called out,"Hello? Twilight Sparkle are you here?"

There was the sound of hoof steps coming from behind a door in the hall. The door opened and Spike the dragon popped out from behind the door,"Oh hey princess. Twilight's in her library at the moment. I can lead you right to her. We have a room ready for your use when your ready for it."

Luna nodded her head,"Thank you Spike. If you could please lead us to Twilight right away that would be appreciated."

Spike smiled,"Sure thing. Right this way Princess Luna." He waved her along with a claw as he headed on down the hall towards another door.

It took them upwards of 5 minutes before they finally came to the door that lead to the library. Spike stopped outside of the door before reaching up with a claw to the handle as he turned his head to Luna,"If you wouldn't mind waiting a minute princess. Twilight's deep into her research at the moment. She's trying to find a way to get in contact with her friend who hasn't been seen all week since she rescued Eclipse there. I need to be the one to pull her out of her research otherwise something bad could happen."

Luna frowned but nodded her head,"Very well then. But please hurry. I do not know how much longer I can keep Solaire occupied. He wishes to be outside so he can play. I do not think Eclipse will be a problem. Normally she is sleeping by this point and I know that she will probably fall asleep fairly soon." She looked down at Eclipse to see how close to falling asleep she was.

Eclipse was lying in her foreleg with her eyes only open a crack as she fought to stay awake. Luna chuckled as she looked down at her daughter before turning her attention back to Spike. "It would seem that she will be asleep in only a moment,"Luna said warmly." She turned her attention back to Solaire who looked disappointed that Eclipse was going to sleep.

Spike nodded his head,"Right. Well I'm going in." He pushed open the door and slipped inside through the small crack that he had made.

Luna had to wait for about 10 minutes as she proceeded to hear Twilight yelp inside of the library followed by what sounded like an argument. Twilight sounded really panicked and stressed out as she argued with spike. Eventually it sounded like Spike had managed to calm Twilight down before she could hear him walking back over to the door. After he opened the door a crack, he popped his head out with a strained smile.

"Well Princess she is ready to see you now. Um please don't ask about her friend right now. She's stressed out enough as it is and it's a bit of a touchy subject for her,"Spike said in worry.

Luna nodded,"Of course. Thank you young spike." She walked inside the library once Spike had opened up the door.

Once Luna had walked inside, she looked around to find Twilight. She spotted Twilight sitting at a desk towards the far side of the room with a huge pile of books on either side of her. Her mane was frazzled and individual strands were sticking up out of it. She looked up from the book she had been pouring over to give Luna a strained smile. Luna gave her a gentle frown as she walked over towards Twilight.

Luna asked her in concern,"Are you feeling well Twilight Sparkle? It looks as if you haven't slept for the past couple of days."

Twilight ran a hoof through her mane as she replied as normally as possible,"I'm just fine Princess. I've just been into my latest research project as you can see. I just can't stop researching and studying. So much to do and learn."

Luna sighed,"Twilight Sparkle you need to go and lie down. I know that you are concerned for your missing friend but you won't do any good for your friend if you are a nervous wreck. And as far as I can see that it what you are right now."

Twilight looked back up at her,"I can't do that princess. He has to be found. He hasn't been seen in a week by anybody. He hasn't sent a message to anybody least of all me. He's probably out there still badly hurt and unable to send a message. He could have been captured by some villains or something. I have to find someway to contact him."

Luna shook her head,"Not right now Twilight. Go and sleep for now. The solution should come to you once you've had enough sleep." Luna was looking down at her sternly.

Twilight sighed as she looked up at her fellow princess,"Fine princess. All this worrying won't do any good." She got up from the desk as she used her magic to quickly put the books all back in their proper places.

Luna nodded her head,"I will be retiring to my room for a bit before going outside to let young Solaire play. When I have time I will see about doing what I can to help you find your friend."

Twilight gave her a more genuine smile,"Thank you Princess. I can use all the help I can get right now."

Luna gave a tiny nod before she left the room herself. One of her guards came over to her,"Princess, we have found the room that has been prepared for you. If you would follow us we can lead you to it."

Luna simply replied,"Thank you private." She followed behind the guard and his partner as they lead Luna to the room that had been prepared for her.

Once in the room she set about adjusting it to make it more comfortable for herself and the two young ones. She set up large draperies in the large windows of the room so that the sunlight was blocked out completely. She also used her magic to make actual glass windows appear in the long archway like window holes. She also used her magic to make sure that locks appeared on them which she latched shut. She followed all this up by using her magic to teleport a crib into the room for Eclipse to sleep in while she took Solaire outside.

She looked down at Eclipse to see if she was still awake. Eclipse was actually fast asleep in her fore leg with tiny snores emitting from her muzzle. She had a small smile on her muzzle while Luna held her. Luna set her down into the crib gently while she hummed the lullaby she normally did for Eclipse. Eclipse's small smile grew wider as the lullaby was hummed to her. After setting her down, Luna looked down at Eclipse for a moment before leaning down and kissing her softly on the forehead.

She whispered quietly,"Oh my little moon. I'm so sorry for all the suffering you've had to go through. I promise I will find a way to heal you. I will help you regain that which was taken from you by the parasite."

She then quietly moved out of the room to let Eclipse sleep in peace while she went to go outside with young Solaire. Solaire looked at Eclipse from his Aunt's back as they moved across the room and out of it. His eyes slowly became filled with determination to make sure she stayed safe even while they were out here in this supposedly safe place. He turned back to his Aunt after they left the room and stayed quiet.

Luna took them outside to the ground behind the castle before carefully setting Solaire down using her magic. Solaire looked up at his Aunt as Luna smiled gently down at him. "Ok young Solaire. You may play to your heart's content for a few hours. I will be watching you while you do so. Don't leave my line of sight as I don't want you running off where I can't see you."

Solaire listened quietly to his Aunt as she said her piece,"Yes Aunt Luna. Thank you for letting me come with you and Eclipse."

Luna continued to smile warmly at him,"It was no trouble at all nephew. Now go ahead and go play. I believe one of my guards will play with you if you just ask nicely."

Solaire's eyes started to sparkle a bit after Luna said her last statement,"Really?"

Luna chuckled,"Yes nephew. I am certain that the guard you asked would be happy to play with you if you wanted."

Solaire grinned happily as he raced over to one of the guards who was standing at attention the way guards always seemed to do around here. He looked up at the guard who was actually a mare. The armor just made her look like all the other guards because of all the enchantments that were on the armor. "Excuse me. Would you play with me please miss?"

The mare smiled as she pulled off her helmet and set it on the ground,"I'd be happy to prince Solaire. Just give me a minute to take off my armor."

Solaire smiled,"Ok." He waited as patiently as he could for the guard to take off her armor. It didn't take her long to do so and soon she was chasing him all over the area in a friendly game of tag.

Luna watched on happily as she used her magic to cast a spell that made a tea kettle appear with a small teacup. She poured herself some tea before she slowly started sipping it. Heaven knows that she need the caffeine from the tea in order to keep herself awake throughout the day. If she didn't then she would most likely fall asleep which is not what she wanted right now while she watched Solaire. So she relaxed into a lying position as she watched Solaire play with her guard.

Corruption himself was currently in his lair in a far away place looking through a crystal ball into different worlds and dimensions. He was currently searching for the next creature or villain he'd bring to Equestria to unwittingly do his bidding. After the failed attempt with the summon creatures of the Final Fantasy Universe, he decided that maybe smaller and smarter would be better. He finally came upon a universe that seemed to be filled to the brim with different superheroes and supervillains.

He searched across the universe till he settled upon one particular city within it that seemed to be teeming with all sorts of villains and only one super hero that single handedly kept them at bay. His gaze settled on one villain in particular that seemed to be the biggest rival for the super hero of the city. This super villain was normally dressed in a suit but his face seemed to be painted like some sort of clown. He seemed to be completely deranged at times but completely sane at other times.

This villain could possibly be what he needed in order to fulfill his plans but at the same time he seemed incredibly dangerous and might just throw things askew. So he set his crystal ball to look at the hero of the city where the villain was located. What he saw pleased him because he realized that this hero would be able to contain and neutralize the villain he had found just in case things got out of hand. So Corruption decided that this villain would be the one he would use for his plan this time. But before he would go about bringing that villain here, Corruption would check around to see just what his foes were up to at the moment.

Corruption refocused his crystal ball to find just where Princess Luna was at the moment. After it had refocused on Princess Luna, he could see that she was laying down in a grassy field watching a young half dragon hybrid playing with two of her royal guards. He looked to see if young Eclipse was with her and was rather pleased to see that Eclipse wasn't with her. He refocused his crystal to see where exactly young Eclipse was at that moment in time. A malevolent grin spread across his muzzle as the shadows continued to wrap around his skeletal bones and form skin for him at the moment. This is what allowed him to smile like he was at the moment.

The gears in Corruption's mind turned as he watched little Eclipse who was sleeping in the crib at the moment. Maybe instead of going with his original plan of using the villain he could corrupt the young princess and turn her to the side of evil. He was unaware that Eclipse was actually the fusion of Nightmare Moon and Shattered Souls. Corruption gazed upon Eclipse through his crystal ball for a moment later before he turned from it and moved to his work area. It was here in his work area that he performed his many rituals and other spells to spread corruption and darkness throughout the land.

Corruption moved around his work area as his horn glowed with a black light as he grabbed materials in his magical aura. He brought all the materials he needed over to a circular area of his work area. The materials he had grabbed were just clay and stone which he set down on the ground a little bit later. Then his horn glowed with even more power as he fired off a spell which shaped all the stone and clay into the shape of a pony. Once that was done he cast all sorts of illusion spells on the stone pony to make it look like a real pony. He had basically made a really high end stone golem that he would be able to control just like a puppet.

After he finished making the golem, he used his magic to open up a shadow portal into the interior of Twilight's castle right into the room that had been given to Luna to use. He was pleased that there had been plenty of shadows for him to use in the first place to open the portal. He could have done the job himself but he didn't want to take a chance that he would be caught in the act and attacked if such a thing happened. That is why he decided to use this golem instead so that if his golem was discovered it wouldn't be able to be traced back to him. He had made sure to include spells in the golem that would erase his magic signature and mask it while he was controlling it.

He quickly moved back over to his crystal ball as he fired off another series of spells directly from his horn. One of the spells hit the golem he had just finished creating, while the other hit the crystal ball he was standing beside. The spells that he had cast connected the golem to his crystal ball so that Corruption would be able to control the stone golem through it. He decided to test the crystal ball to see if he would be able to successfully control the golem with the spells he had just cast. Corruption issued a couple of basic commands to the golem to have it move around the work area. He was pleased to see that it followed his commands perfectly as he looked into the crystal balls and saw things from its perspective as it moved about the room.

Satisfied that the golem was working perfectly, Corruption commanded it to move through the shadow portal into the room belonging to Luna. The golem moved into the shadowy portal with soft thumps that impacted the ground due to its stone hooves. After the golem had moved through the portal, Corruption closed it with a quick spell from his horn. Then he turned to the crystal ball so that he could start controlling the golem through his crystal ball again.

While Corruption was just starting to control the golem, the sleeping Eclipse awoke with a start. Something had alerted her in her sleep, whatever it was had told her that great danger was nearby. But she just couldn’t think of what had told her that there was danger. She had a foggy memory of a pony’s silhouette in her dream but that was about it. She frowned and concentrated on her foreleg and with a flash of light her Archiver appeared. A beeping sound emitted from the device as a message flashed on the screen. She read the message which said, “Warning! Warning! A great evil presence has been sensed nearby. This unit recommends immediate Soul Fusion for further action.”

She scowled at the message and swiped it away only to blink as the machine beeped yet again with another message. This was a system message the machine had for her. She quickly looked at it and frowned in thought. What it said was, “Separation program has been completed. Modifications for the separation program have been completed as well. Would you like to engage the original program which will cause subject Shattered Eclipse to disappear or engage modification to allow Shattered Eclipse to remain.” She frowned at the message and what it could mean. Obviously she didn’t want to disappear but this separation program had her curious. She pressed on the button that would engage the program along with the new modification that had already been made for it.

The Archiver hummed with power as it drew on her magical energy. Soon enough it started to glow and so did Eclipse who closed her eyes. Soon enough she was surrounded by a bubble of energy that was colored midnight blue. She felt something inside of her give way and then seperate from her. She kept her eyes closed but wondered what was going on. Physically she had been encased in another orb of energy that was half the size of the bubble of energy. And it was separating into two different orbs of energy. All this while Corruption’s golem was getting closer to its goal unaware of the fact that something new and wondrous was happening.

Soon enough the larger orb had separated completely into one bigger sized orb and one smaller sized orb. Both orbs disappeared leaving behind Shattered Eclipse and Shattered Souls but the biggest difference was that due to the special separation Souls was different from before. He now sported a pair of ice blue wings at his sides which had not been there before. He was the first to regain consciousness and looked around with wonder. He spotted the smaller alicorn that had fallen unconscious during the seperation. He lashed out with a hoof and destroyed the bubble around them which shattered into pieces and left the young Shattered Eclipse still in her crib. She shifted from unconsciousness to a peaceful sleep. The biggest thing was that the Archiver was no longer on her foreleg and instead back on Souls’ foreleg.

Souls was subconsciously aware of motion, but otherwise unresponsive as his body moved on autopilot once the separation was completed, so he could not detect the presence of another in the room along with him and Princess Eclipse, her memories of the Soul Archiver replaced with fake memories.

Unaware of the danger, yet sensing that something bad was about to happen, Soul subconsciously tapped into another hidden program set into the archiver itself and pressed the blinking button and lost consciousness. The message that appeared read “Initiating archiver backup: Complete. Registering new user: Shatter Eclipse.” A beam of Midnight blue light emitted from the Archiver and connected with Eclipse’s foreleg. The machine spoke up with a electronic female voice, “ Registration of Shattered Eclipse, Complete. Storing Shattered Soul’s personality in chip…” a soul chip floated out of Souls bag and started glowing a deep purple color, indicating that it was unbreakable, but also not very powerful. Appearing on the cover was an image of Soul standing over a pony protectively in his his human form. “...Complete.”

With that done, Soul’s archiver went dark. All power shut-down as the device completely stopped working. Finally, as if to finalize the process, a hidden clasp came undone and the archiver fell off Soul’s forearm. The Archiver slipped to the ground from off his forearm before it slowly floated up into the air. A soft light blue glow emitted from the Archiver as it slowly floated over to Eclipse and reattached itself to her foreleg again after downsizing. The machine rebooted itself as the main power was restored and the screen came alive again.

Shattered Souls regained consciousness a few minutes later as he groaned in pain while rubbing his head. He winced as he tried to remember anything from the last time he blacked out but there was nothing but a blank space. Unfortunately for Souls the separation had three side effects that the Archiver had not anticipated. The first was the fact that Souls had lost all recollection and Memory of having been a pony in the first place. The separation from her had not gone completely as intended due to the modification in the program having a few bugs in it due to it being rushed. These bugs just so happened to erase his memory of his time here so far and instead replace it with fake memories. Memories of having entering this world as a human and having made friends with Twilight and the rest of the mane six before some magical disaster had happened which caused him to black out. The second side effect was of course that he had become an alicorn as all that magical power from the separation had a bleeding off effect that he had absorbed in order to stabilize himself. The question of whether or not he was an Alpha alicorn or a Beta alicorn had yet to be seen. The third side effect was that Souls had gone from a he to a she again because of the bugs in the program. It had overlaid Eclipse’s physiology over his old pony body’s which is another reason why he had become an alicorn. As such it had overridden his old body somewhat and turned him into a girl. Unfortunately Soul’s couldn’t remember ever being a guy in the first place anymore. Souls believed and thought she had always been a girl.

Problem was that even though he was an alicorn now, he still only had the memory of the first two days in Equestria… and a timberwolf? Soul frowned in confusion as to what the significance of the memory was when she had been her for a week already. Why was she thinking she had only been her for two days and not the week she remembered, and why was she thinking she was a he. Shaking her head, Souls tried standing up only to fall back down as her center of gravity had shifted. She tried again and fell a few more times before looking down at her legs and let out a yelp as instead of seeing her human legs, she saw they were a pony’s legs instead. She yelped as she looked towards where her hands were supposed to be only to see forelegs ending in more hooves. She whimpered for a moment as she looked herself over and found she had a long tail and a mane that seemed to flow in its own non existent wind. The aura of the mane seemed to have snowflakes in it along with balls of light that moved around here and there all over as if under their own direction. Her coat was a light ice blue and her tail color was a frosty white. The flowing mane was a color of blue that let the snowflakes be seen along with the moving balls of light. She looked back behind her to see if she had a cutie mark. And she did indeed have a cutie mark. This mark consisted of a pony image that was shattered into smaller pieces and she frowned at what it could mean. One thing she could recall was her name which was Shattered Souls. Strangely she couldn’t recall her human name at all or most of her human life other than that she’d been a huge fan of the show known as My Little Pony friendship is magic and all the episodes in the show. She whimpered and looked around for something to explain all this. She looked around and spotted the still sleeping Eclipse in her crib and backed away slowly. She frowned and looked at her forelegs feeling as if something should be there but there was nothing.

She looked herself over again and noted that she had wings and a horn along with her flowing mane. This caused her to frown as she said out loud, “How can this be? I’m an alicorn now when I was human before. This doesn’t make any sense. And how long has it been since I arrived here? I can’t seem to remember.”

That’s when the golem finally showed itself to her. It strode into the room with heavy thumps from its stone hooves and caused her to look up startled. She looked at it uneasily and felt something dark radiating from it. She backed up a bit which caused her hindquarters to bump the crib a bit as she whimpered, “What are you and what do you want?”

“Hehehe. So the secret behind the luner diarchs brat was you’re magic,” A sinister sounding voice said from the open balcony window.

She stayed backed up against the crib as she shivered in fear. She replied in a scared tone, “I don’t know what your talking about.” She had turned to the balcony where the voice was coming from while doing her best to keep an eye on the stone golem at the entrance to the room. “What lunar diarch’s brat? You’re not making sense.”

Souls couldn’t make out what the other figure looked like due to the sun's angle entering the room, making the other pony stand out as nothing more than a silhouette. “Hehehe, so not only do i get to corrupted that brat of the luner whorse, i also get to corrupt her protector as well. I always love two for one specials.”

Souls whimpered as she looked at the figure she couldn’t make out and then back to the golem that had started moving towards her again. She then looked back down at the still sleeping filly who the figure was talking about harming. As she gazed down at the sleeping filly time seemed to slow down considerably and she felt feelings of protectiveness and determination fill her. She felt her fear becoming distant even though it was still there. She turned back to the figure as she spoke in a quivering but determined voice, “I w-won’t let you h-harm this young one.” She then charged the golem knowing she wouldn’t be able to do much damage to it but she could at least delay it as she called out in a loud yell, “Somepony help! Please help! There’s a foal here in danger please help!”

Her shout managed to ring out through the windows and down to the base of the castle where Luna was still watching her young nephew play. Her ears pricked up as her head shot up to look back up at the castle with alarm. It sounded like her daughter was in trouble and someone was trying to protect her at the moment. She nodded to her guards subtly to watch after her young nephew as she shot into the air completely forgetting she could teleport and heading for the balcony to the room. By now The silhouetted figure had vanished, leaving the corruption Golem to do his bidding. Souls was already panting from trying to break through the golem’s tough exterior, only making little taps as opposed to the attacks she had been able to do before. It wasn’t long before the golem gained the upper hoof and landed a massive buck to soul’s body, causing her to fly towards the open window right as Luna landed.

Luna reacted on instinct and reflex alone as her magic became active and she caught the mare flying towards her through the air. She gently set the mare down on the ground as she looked down at her. She gasped in surprise to see that the mare was an alicorn like herself but not only that she was barely conscious as a large purple bruise appeared on her chest and one cheek. The mare looked up at her through blurry eyes and spoke in a pained panting voice, “Please…..save…..the….foal…..I….failed.” With that she went unconscious even as something black started to move up from her hooves to the rest of her body. This was the corruption from the golem which had passed into her slowly corrupting her. Luna nodded sadly at the mare but moved into the room just as she saw the golem approaching the crib of her daughter. She growled and teleported from her place by the balcony entrance and reappeared in front of her daughter’s crib, “Halt intruder. I won’t allow you to do any harm to my daughter. Stand down now and you might be spared!”

Luna barely had time to blink, for in the very next second, a stone hoof was mere inches from her face, spreading the same black substance that was slowly spreading over the unconscious mare, who now that she looked at her a bit longer, resembled a grown up version of her daughter, at least it you looked at her from a distance. Squaring her withers, Luna shouted in the RCV, after placing a sound proof barrier around her foal and the room. “FOUL BEAST! YOU DARE TRY AND LAY A HOOF ON THY PRINCESS! I WILL REMOVE YOU FROM THIS PLACE BY FORCE. PREPARE THYSELF FOR THE COMING STORM!”

The golem remained impassive as it backed up a few steps before lunging forwards again with a stone hoof. It was intent on landing at least one hit on the lunar princess to try to start corrupting her. And if it only knocked her out of the fight then that was just as good. Its stone hoof gained momentum as it put its weight and force behind the swing straight at Luna’s side. Luna managed to put up a thin, but flexible shield in the spot, with knowledge gain from the invasion of the changelings a few years back that a rigid shield did little when a stronger force was applied. So by making the shield flex and bend, luna caused the stone hoof to not only bounce off the shield, but the momentum of the swing sent it right back into the golem’s own face. Luna let out a mocking chuckle as she said, “Stop hitting thyself.”

The golem’s hoof swung back with the same force and momentum right back into its face with a loud cracking sound as it connected. The golem’s stone hoof ended up splitting right down the middle with a large crack as a few chunks of its face fell down onto the ground from where it struck itself. The dark sinister voice emitted from the golem which stopped Luna cold as she recognized it, “You have learned much since we last met princess. I am impressed! Sadly, as much i would just love to catch up, I have a new pony to train in the ways of corruption.” with that said, the golem fell to pieces, leaving a smoking pile of rubble in it place. The dark wisps of corruption dissipating as the lingering spell faded. Before Luna could breath a shy of relief, her eyes widened when she recalled that vile creatures words. She looked over the the unconscious mare to see that the corruption had nearly reached her heart, the last place that would lock her in a corrupted state. Before she could even take two steps, a bright flash of light happened, and the same creature she had met over a thousand years ago was standing over the poor mare, smiling it’s widest, creepiest smile. “Thank you so much for being gullible.”

But then something happened that the creature had not anticipated happening at all. There was a loud cry of, “Hyaaaahhh!” as from behind him a cloaked figure wielding a sword swung a sword down towards him even as another silently cloaked figure approached him from the side. Activating his foul black magic on instinct, Corruption let loose a small sinister chuckle. “I can see I’ve overstayed my welcome, Princess, but allow me to leave you a parting gift.” An orb of tainted magic flew from the tip of his horn faster than the party in the room could react and dove into Eclipse’s chest. “Hehehe, Have fun trying to purge the corruption this time.” with that a bright flash of light, Both Corruption and the unconscious mare were gone, along with the pile of rubble that had been the golem.

One of the cloaked ponies had attempted to jump in front of the sphere, only to miss it by mere inches. What none of the ponies noticed was the strange device on Eclipse’s foreleg start emitting a soft alarm as an almost invisible glow surrounded the sleeping filly. “Warning! Warning! Device Corruption imminent! Purging all non essential files… complete. Backing up registered user’s mind….”a small blue beam fired from the archiver and wrapped around Eclipse’s head, before turning to a forest green, “complete.” by now the corruption and all but reached her mind despite the rest of the ponies trying to stop it. As the last traces of corruption seeped into Eclipse, another message emerged from the device, “Warning! User completely corrupted, initiating corruption purge, scanning nearby lifeform susceptible to hold corrupting influence at bay. Scanning...scanning. Scan complete. Match found. Purging corruption.” As bright glow form around Eclipse, taking everypony in the room by surprise, most of them tensing up, thinking that the foal was about to attack, but instead that same black, tar-like substance oozed out of the young filly’s body and flowed onto Night Shade, one of Luna’s new night guards.

This was the same Night who had accepted the job to be Eclipse’s bodyguard in the first place and had already served one night on duty as her guard. He had decided he wanted a full job so he had applied for Luna’s night guard and was easily accepted into it due to already being Eclipse’s bodyguard and having field experience. Now the corruption flowed into him instead of Eclipse and surged through his body. The bad part of this was that Eclipse’s Archiver had messed up in its assessment because Night was actually very vulnerable to the corruption. It flowed through him easily as his Archiver appeared and desperately tried to purge the corruption from him. But Sadly it failed and it quickly claimed him as it reached his heart. It turned his eyes red to show his corruption as he laughed darkly and bowed, “I thank you for the employment princess but my new master calls me to his side!” And with a flash of light he disappeared as Corruption’s dark magic showed itself again and teleported him to Corruption. The only thing the was left of Night Shade was a slightly sparking Archiver, one final message appearing on the screen before it went dark for the last time. “User, Night Shade. Status: Corrupted. Chance of recovery: 0%. Failsafe activated: Complete.”

Author's Note

Hey guys. Sorry for taking so many months before posting this. But life has been very busy for me since the last chapter what with my job and other life things. That and I was stuck with a large case of writer's block as I just didn't know how to go about a certain part in this chapter. So I had some good old help with this chapter from my good friend Sonic Rainboom Dash. Thanks Rainboom. So feel free to leave comments about what you liked in the chapter or any constructive criticism. That would be appreciated. Also if you have an OC you'd like entered into the story then just pm me. With that I hope you all like the chapter.