The sun rose above Equestria, its shining warmth covering the land in sunlight. From under the covers of her bed, a purple Alicorn rose with excited eyes. This was the Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, and she was quite ecstatic about today.

"Wake up, Spike!" the pony exclaimed, startling the poor dragon who had been peacefully sleeping. "We have got to make this place spotless for when Starswirl arrives!"

Twilight rushed out of bed, not even stopping to fix her mane, in order to prepare for her idol's arrival. It had been almost a year since Twilight had rescued Starswirl from Limbo with the help of her friends, and this would be the first time he would come visit her without a world-ending threat on the horizon!

Spike yawned, visibly irritated by Twilight's interruption of his dreams.

"Hmph. Ok, I'm up," the dragon stretched his arms and then his wings, and flew up to help Twilight clean the top of her bookshelves.

About 3 hours later, the library was spotless with every book in pristine condition.

KNOCK KNOCK

From the castle door came a brief knocking, to which Twilight rushed to answer. Standing at the door was an elderly Unicorn, with a blue cloak and a wizard hat. His long beard flowed in the wind.

"Greetings Princess Twi-"

Twilight squealed with a thunderous excitement, interrupting Starswirl, as well as knocking his hat clean off his head.

"Uh, sorry."

"Its fine, Twilight," Starswirl said as he levitated his hat to his head. "Anyhow, I have been looking forward to visiting for some time now. After all, I do need to catch up on the past thousand years, and what better place to do it than at your library!"

"Well, that's great! The library is over here, come on!" Twilight bounded to the library in a remarkable speed, a joyous yet nervous smile plastered on her face.

The library was a giant room in the castle, with hundreds, if not thousands or even millions, of books everywhere. It was truly a remarkable sight.

"Well, since you've been gone for the past thousand years, I've thought that we should start our history lesson at the time just after you and the Pillars vanished," Twilight stated, looking for an old book from her shelf. "Let's see, oh here it is! 'A Brief History of Equestria: Volume 1'. About 20 years after you vanished, the spirit of chaos, Discord, took over Equestria. Under his reign, ponies were subject to cruel pranks and changes to gravity at any time! It was utter chaos! Luckily, after three weeks of searching, Celestia and Luna used the Elements of Harmony to turn Discord to stone!"

"Ugh, Discord," the old stallion muttered after drinking some chocolate milk that Spike had served. "That prankster was always causing problems for the Pillars and I. Still, he certainly was a clever one, so it makes sense that he would try something like this in my absence... What happened next?"

"Well, about 20 years later, the Crystal Empire was overtaken by a Unicorn named King Sombra. He enslaved the kingdom, and put a curse so that when he was defeated, the entire kingdom vanished to thin air! It came back only a few years ago, as well as Sombra though he was killed shortly after by the Crystal Heart," Twilight stopped, looking at her idol, whose face had suddenly turned pale. "Are you alright, Starswirl?"

"Wha- Oh, yes I'm fine," the bearded Unicorn said, shaking his head to return his mind to his surroundings. "The deeds of that 'King Sombra' fellow reminded me of someone."

"Who?" Twilight asked.

"He is not important," the old wizard abruptly said. After calming down, he then told Twilight that the person he was referring to was "a creature best left forgotten by the world."

"Well, will you look at the time," Starswirl said as he pointed his hoof at a clock sitting on one of Twilight's bookshelves. The hands pointed to 9:30. Twilight and Starswirl had somehow spent the whole day studying. "I am afraid that I must be going, Twilight."

"Oh, alright then," Twilight remarked with a small sense of disappointment on her face. "Shall we continue your history lessons tomorrow?"

"Very well, tomorrow at 5:00 will do well. Goodnight, Princess Twilight."

With that, Starswirl traveled back to his little cottage in the woods and went directly to bed.

Starswirl awoke in a field. Colored in a fine gold, the field spread across the horizon in all directions. Looking to the north, Starswirl spotted an old cabin, which he then traveled towards.

The cabin was small, the walls made of dark oak, with slightly rusted iron securing the top and bottom of the wall to the rest of the house. The roof was made of what looked to be the same material that the field was producing. Starswirl was about to knock on the door, when it opened as if it was expecting him. Slightly alarmed, Starswirl entered the cottage with caution.

"Hello?" Starswirl asked as he entered the cottage. "I don't mean to intrude, but I am a bit lost-"

He stopped what he was saying, for he was in shock over what he saw. Hanging on a table near the room's center was an amulet. It was the width of a hoof, and was in the shape of an Alicorn. Starswirl immediately recognized it, and he felt a sudden urge to get as far away from the cottage as he could.

"Oh, I wouldn't say you are lost, Starswirl."

His pupils shrinking in fear, Starswirl turned around to face the direction of the ghastly voice and he saw... nothing. His fear intensifying, Starswirl left the house and trotted out to the open field.

Feeling a chill down his spine, Starswirl spoke to the voice. "Show yourself demon! Enough hiding in the shadows!"

A sinister laugh echoed through the field, and in the sky a hole of darkness emerged. Spreading from around the hole, the sky turned a dark shade of red, and the crops in the field withered away. Falling from the hole came a skeletal figure. It had the proportions of a large pony, but atop its head were two large, curled, dark blue horns. Then, the skeleton started to move.

In a few seconds, red muscles, shortly followed by fur the color of cobalt started forming over the skeleton's charred black bones, starting at the hooves and making its way to the head. Where the eye sockets were, a shadowy mist clouded the eyes, with a red light emitting from both sockets. Despite not having any support, the skeletal jaw moved as the creature spoke.

"Here I am."

It's voice was like that of shadows, gravelly yet calming. Vile yet beautiful. Demonic, yet sophisticated. He circled Starswirl, a sinister smile forming on his face.

"I must say, it is a surprise that you are still alive, young one," the demon chuckled in amusement. "Well, you aren't so young anymore, now are you?"

"H-how are you here?" Starswirl said, his voice trembling. "You were killed!"

"Killed?" The demon let out a ghastly cackle. "I can't be killed by pathetic mortals such as yourself, or your wretched teacher! Her 'deadly' spell only sent me to the realm of darkness! I will admit however, the blast was stronger than I anticipated..."

The demon let out a huff from his nose, and drew closer to Starswirl. Starswirl tried backing away, but his legs were petrified with fear.

"It has been countless centuries since my rise... And soon, your new home, this 'Pony-Land', will fall to my darkness."

"You will never get the chance, Grogar!" Starswirl exclaimed to the demon before him, his courage slowly returning. "I may be old, but this world has more protectors than it ever has before! You will never be able to rise again!"

"Really? And where are those protectors? Asleep, unaware, unprepared. These heroes do not know of my presence, and even if they did, they are already too late to stop what is to come!"

"What do you mean?" Starswirl asked, worried as to the future's fate.

Grogar chuckled, and his eyes glowed a pitch black. In a monotonous voice, he spoke a prophecy.

"When the Moon rises, and the Sun falls;
When Chaos reigns above them all;
When Kingdoms rise from the mist;
And Shadows return to the abyss;
In the prison of the devil's spawn;
Will come the return of Tambelon."

With that, the ground opened, and the sky fell. The sun and moon were engulfed in shadowy flames, and a dark mist rose from the cracks in the ground. Then, the world was consumed by a dark void, as Grogar let out a maniacal cackle.

Starswirl awoke from his nightmare, sweat dripping from his head. Immediately, he went to his desk, and wrote a letter:

"Dear Princess Celestia,
I request that you and Luna meet me with the Pillars and Element Bearers in Canterlot at once. I fear a dark evil has begun to return. I will explain more when everypony is there.
Signed, Starswirl the Bearded"

With that, Starswirl sent the letter and rushed to Canterlot.

Author's Note

Welcome to MLP:TR Chapter 1!
In this Chapter we learn the identity of the Last Warrior! (It was probably obvious)
By the way, how is everypony doing?

Anyways, on to the ideas and scrapped plot points!

• The Study Session was a bit longer, with Starswirl explaining the tale of Tambelon to Twilight. I scrapped this since I felt that it didn't fit 100% well in my opinion. Also, it repeated a lot from the Prologue.
• The Nightmare was loosely inspired by a specific scene from the show 'Gravity Falls'.
• I was going to add some darker horror elements to the Nightmare, but not only would it possibly make me up the age rating on this, but also I am extremely frightened by horror.
• If you are having trouble picturing what Grogar sounds like in this, it is supposed to sound like a mixture between Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War, the Emperor from Star Wars, and Scar from the Lion King.