The King's Student

by That_brony_guy

Rating: teen
Tags: Death, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Princess Luna, Drama, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, King Sombra, Tragedy, Violence, Princess Celestia
Length: 34284

Evil is a flower that can sprout from good intentions too.

The Crystal Empire disappeared long ago during Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's quest to cleanse the land of Equestria from all forms of evil. King Sombra was a great threat to their entire world and when his defeat came about, at the cost of the Crystal Empire vanishing from existence, it brought nothing but a whole lot of good to the world.

What they didn't realise however, was that Sombra had survived their confrontation and was now plotting his revenge against them both in the one way he knew how.

Twilight Sparkle thought she was the luckiest filly in all of Equestria when Princess Celestia asked her to become her personal student, but she had no idea she'd be a pawn in a game nopony is even aware exists.

Source for art: https://www.deviantart.com/dipfanken/art/Domesticated-626423587

Published 2019-07-23 15:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-10-12 22:57:30 UTC

— Prologue —

Crystal gleamed and shadows shun their own black sun over the shadow realm, the place in which the crystal empire was frozen in time following the defeat of King Sombra. Ponies screamed as they were about to be slain by invisible enemies, screams that did not sound nor did they move. Frozen in time with the only one capable of moving being the minuscule fragment of Sombra's being.

That fragment would have to do for the time being.

Sombra opened his eyes for the first time since the princesses of Equestria forced him to fall back into shadows. He searched around the throne room, devoid of any motionless alicorn mares for him to torture. So the spell didn't work as well as he had hoped it would. Sombra stretched a hoof forward and connected it with the ground once more, that single click of his armoured hoof shrieked through the silence around him. He knew he wasn't whole, if he were in the physical world he'd be nothing but shadow and eyes. His soul was partial, broken, but he would regain the rest in time.

Everything was frozen in place, not a decibel of sound and not a single hairs worth of movement was made. He moved through the throne room and simply looked around with grimace on his face. The magic of the two sisters seemed to have caused the damage to the empire to repair itself, he specifically remembered sending Celestia through a wall that shouldn't be standing currently. Crystal walls intact and not even a scrape's worth of damage anywhere around him. That magic of harmony sure was a good cleaning service, he'd have to invest in some of it after his global domination and his revenge was had.

Several stallions stood in place, mouths agape and eyes wide. They weren't adorned with the weapons and armour he'd forced his minions to use, and the effects of his dark magic were apparent to the eye. Okay, harmonic magic maid would not be used in his new empire after all. He simply continued walking, resisting the urge to slice through the stallions he passed by as he approached the doors.

His horn ignited and forced the doors open as he trotted outside to see the light, or lack there of in this case. There was barely enough brightness produced by his horn and the lanterns around the empire for Sombra to see several feet in front of him. He scanned around the blackened night, eyes darting from lantern to lantern as he eyed the barely visible forms of petrified ponies. Gritting his teeth, screwing his eyes shut, memories of the princesses trapping most of his being in the ice floating his mind.

Then he screamed.

Sombra roared out in rage and sent a random pulse of dark magic out somewhere in the empire, paying not a moment of mind to the sound of destruction it made as he turned back to the palace doors.

"No, no, no!" Sombra roared, moving back into the castle and sending his horn through a stallions neck like a hot knife through butter. Crimson slowly dampened the stallion's neck and chest from the force Sombra's horn had entered with, but not a drop hit the ground. The dark time space magic wouldn't allow a single drop to fall below the wound. Sombra didn't know if the stallion could feel anything, but it'd be a long and tortuous death if he could, not that the crystal king cared in the slightest. "I'll have those princesses in chains for what they've done! Centre Tartarus around them!"

Sombra barged back into the throne room and looked around, pacing around the room as he tried to get a fragment of thought about what his next move would be. He was stuck here until he summoned his own return, but when would be the right time? Celestia and Luna would most certainly be on edge for a while after the war they'd waged on him, so he'd have to wait for a while. But how long? He couldn't just sit back and wait while Equestria changed around him, unknowing of its current state, and then just pop back up in the middle of a country controlled by those prissy pony princesses. He didn't have any way of seeing how things were going.

Wait! He did!

Sombra looked up to his throne, eyes shooting up to the crystal hanging over it. Eyes and horn ignited a mixture of green, black and purple, Sombra shot a blast of his magic up and hit the crystal square in its centre. Trotting backwards as the rippling effect tore the floor open into a perfect squared spiral staircase leading deep, deep down below the surface of the empire. Hopefully it had been taken through with the empire and hadn't been left behind.

Moving down the stairs with almost snake like speed, Sombra's mind formed a the outer etchings of a web as his plan came together. He just needed to confirm some details before a true game of revenge could be played. Games aren't very fun without rules after all. Far, far down below the throne room the stairs went. Twisting and leading straight downwards all the way down to the bottom where two doors sat, the second one only liquefying into existence upon Sombra's hoof passing the final step.

The first door, the one that had remained there the whole time, wasn't important right now. There wasn't much he could do with the heart right now. Not even a place as dark as this could destroy that beacon of love. He'd be destroyed all over again. So for now, his direction turned to the second door, the one that had appeared upon sensing his presence. The contents of this door would either make or break Sombra's entire game plan.

Casting his spell at the crystal atop the door, Sombra walking through the doorway as his personal study came into view. A warm crimson carpet and slightly darker shaded walls circled around bookcases and tables of ancient relics which Sombra had acquired from neighbouring nations. Crystal balls and crystal shards, armours and weapons, tomes and scrolls, all of these and more filled the shelves of Sombra's trophy collection.

So his study did survive the spell. Sombra's smirk grew as he looked around. Amongst the ancient tomes and powerful armours, Sombra's eyes glared around in search. Had to be here somewhere. The spell had left everything above ground intact, but his study was a mess.

It took him a short while to find it among all the scattered objects, but his grin nearly sliced his face in two when he did find it. A large black cauldron with winding serpents headed with pony skulls enamelled into the sides was levitated up from the mess, which Sombra then slammed down firmly in the centre of the study. He then took a large glass container taller than he and filled the cauldron up with the viscous black ooze that slowly slid its way out.

An extremely thick tome and stand then came from the king's levitation spell and landed beside the cauldron, the book opening to a specific page as Sombra pulled out the ingredients listed within. Dark alchemy was another of Sombra's talents in terms of the dark arts, one he was thanking Grogar that he'd actually studied it before his defeat.

"Eyes of colt, eyes of mare, eyes of filly..." Sombra listed off as he levitated three icy cold boxes up, opening them up and throwing the eyes within down into the ooze, sitting on the surface as Sombra continued. "Crystals of north, sands of east, grass of south and leaf of west. I give thee eyes in all directions and of all states of age, I ask in return for thine mighty gift of sight and effect in Equestria's entirety." Sombra then finished dumping his ingredients into the cauldron and ignited his horn, lighting a purple fire beneath, running itself around the basin and not burning anything around it.

As though in response, the cauldron gurgled vulgarly as the ooze swallowed the ingredients it'd been fed. Bubbling and spitting in a way that Sombra had to take a step back, the temperature of the cauldron's contents increased as a single large bubble swelled bigger and bigger as it began to bulge out of the cauldron. Seeing it as a sign the brew was done already, Sombra approached and jabbed at the swelling mass of oily black with his horn.

Like a balloon it burst upon contact with the king's horn, black turning colourless as every last bit of ooze cleared of all colour and calmed itself down greatly. It was like staring down into a bowl of water, though as the spell took effect it was more like a window.

Through this window he saw Canterlot, the gardens by the looks of things. Nothing out of the ordinary thus far. It was dark with the moon high above.

Then he saw her. Celestia trotted through the gardens and stopping once she'd reached the highest point of the gardens. She was talking to... herself? This did intrigue Sombra. Had she gone mad without the king's assistance? He listened in on what Celestia said, every word yielding wealthy information.

"Sister, I believe I may have found a way to bring you back to me. Back to your normal self once more." said Celestia, a sadness in her voice that Sombra could only dream of feeding from. "I have decided to take up a student, tomorrow I shall head down to my school for gifted unicorns and observe the newest students entering the school. Surely one of them could be magic. They'll channel the element of magic and free you, I just know they will."

Sombra's brow furrowed slightly. Celestia was saying something else but it didn't sound too important to the king, merely about the love and loss Celestia felt. Bring her sister back from where? What did Celestia mean by 'normal self'? Why was Celestia's eyes to the sky during the whole time she spoke? Curious, Sombra guided his window of vision toward the sky and he saw it instantly.

There seemed to be a mare's head in the moon. It didn't take an intelligence like Sombra's to put the pieces together, and the king began to laugh. He was fortunate the princess he was watching couldn't hear him, but in that moment he didn't care. Luna had actually been stuck inside of the moon, and judging by Celestia's words she had gone bad. Sombra's bellowing laughs echoed before silencing immediately.

Forget the plan he had before, he had a new idea. A better idea. One that would destroy Celestia if it went off perfectly.

So she wanted a student, eh? Well, he would give her one. Sombra, ignited his horn and his line of vision began moving, shooting away from the foolishly hopeful princess and heading towards a school. Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. Through the window and down the halls, through some doors and a desk came into view. A list of all the unicorn fillies who'd be trying to get into the school was laid out before him. He didn't even have to search through the drawer.

Reading the list, he was stumped to find only one name. Seriously, one name? Was this the one day of the year that students didn't flock to the school in hordes? Back in his youth hundreds of unicorn colts and fillies wanted to get into this school. Well, that was back when it was 'Platinum's Prestigious School for the Academically and Magically Powerful'. What had happened to the education system? He could already feel the presence of morons in this new Equestria.

Well, it didn't matter. He would have to take a chance with this 'Twilight Sparkle'. Hopefully she's a good enough unicorn that she catches the princesses eye. Hopefully she'd be able to hatch the dragon egg in order to gain entry, otherwise this next part wouldn't work.

Sombra turned to his alchemy stores and levitated a single item over to where he was. An egg no bigger than an eyeball, an eye which he tapped with his magically glowing horn. The egg shook and cracked, at the same time Sombra spoke to it.

"Hatch, creature, hatch into a second shell and steal the fate of the scaled flesh you awake beside," Sombra told the shaking egg, "you will guide the mare who sheds light upon you in the way I decree correct. Now... go."

Sombra then blew the hatching egg and it disappeared into the cauldron in a puff of smoke. Sombra then gasped heavily as he dropped to his knees, clutching his chest and breathing deeply. That had sapped a lot of his strength, he should rest and wait.

Lie and wait.

Sombra's creature burst from its shell and looked around, only to discover it was in another egg. Its king had spoken truth. It slithered upward to get a good look around and immediately saw the scaled flesh. An ugly shrivelled up purple creature with green spikes forming on its head. Still sleeping in the safety of its egg.

Or so the creature thought.

It opened it mouth, fangs primed before it lashed forward violently and with the speed of a viper, sinking teeth into scaled flesh. A whisper of a whimper came, but nothing more than an weak attempt to flail limps before stillness came. The throat Leaked red everywhere, which it drank up happily. Tearing chunks of flesh out, some to eat and some to soak up any blood pooling down the inside of the eggshell. Squelching and squeezing meat, crunching and crushing bone and scale, it feasted like his king had ordered him too. Gobbets of sweet scaled meat slipped down its throat.

It should be finished eating by morning for sure, just in time to meet the mare who'd shed light on him.

Twilight Sparkle was the most excited she had ever felt in her entire life.

She was also the most scared she had ever felt in her entire life at the same time.

Today was the day of her entrance exam into Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. To say the little lilac filly was terrifyingly excited would be a massive understatement. What was there to be scared of? Other than the eyes that would be staring directly at her while she did whatever it was they asked her to do. She should have studied more on the school and what the entrance exam entailed. Too late for that now, stupid.

Twilight took several deep breaths, attempting and failing to make herself more calm as she walked into the school's main entrance with her parents. Her mother whispering assurances in one ear and her father talking of how great she would be in the other. Her parents were excited and happy for their daughter having this chance, and her brother had wished her good luck for today and apologised again for not being able to be there to support her. Shining Armour's wish of good luck seemed to mellow Twilight's stress more than her parents' motivation ever did.

Twilight herself didn't know how to feel right now, or rather she couldn't describe the mass of feelings swirling around in her stomach like butterflies were swarming around wanting to get out. Quickening in rate as she trotted up the halls and towards the class room she was to either show off her talents as a unicorn or to completely screw up her chances and humiliate herself in front of a group of strangers.

Her mother knocked on the door, Twilight too nervous to raise her own hoof. After a short moment a voice from inside the room called, "Twilight Sparkle? Come in."

The door opened. Twilight focused herself as she saw the several adult unicorns rather smartly dressed. They eyed her up and now as she nervously trotted into their line of sight. Great blazing eyes burning into her as they levitated their clipboards before now. One of them then spoke, shattering the silence and startling Twilight from the suddenness of the somewhat squeaked voice of the mare standing.

"Twilight Sparkle, you are here for your entrance exam into this most highly prestigious of unicorn schools. For your test of entry we ask you to cause this dragon egg to hatch with your magical ability." said the mare who stood, her horn glowing.

Pushed along in the mare's magical aura was a cart which wheeled its way to Twilight's side. Straw had been placed on the inside of the cart, and in the centre of the straw was a purple spotted egg. Twilight felt her heartbeat quicken at the revelation of her task. She was to hatch a dragon egg with magic?

"Um...like, hatch it now?" Twilight asked the mare, who'd now sat herself back down.

"Yes." was the mare's answer, before she already wrote something down on her clipboard.

Idiot, Twilight thought to herself before her eyes shifted back to the egg. Hatch an egg, how hard could it really be? She'd just use a weak levitation spell to crack it... no! That would risk the life of the baby dragon. No, she'd obviously have to use an incubation spell. By Celestia, her nerves were numbing her brain.

Once she'd seem the supporting smiles of her parents Twilight then ignited her small horn, little sparks and glitter like magic twinkling and shooting towards the egg. Those same sparks of magic then immediately bounced off of the shell again and faded from existence.

More writing on clipboards from the ponies watching her. Twilight bit her lip nervously. Why wasn't it working? She'd followed the spell from memory right out of the text book, it should've hatched and there be a baby dragon right there. But no, just an egg. Twilight tried again, growing more nervous as seconds ticked by and another attempt at hatching the egg failed.

"Come on, Twilight, you can do this!" Twilight hissed to herself in a whispered tone that nopony else heard, at least she thought they didn't. She then ignited her horn again as she tried to strengthen the spell, pushing of fibre of her small filly body to try and do this. This was her dream, she couldn't let it go so easily.

Then, just as a third attempt was about to be made.

BOOM!

An explosion of rainbow coloured light exploded outwards in a ringed formation. In seconds it made its way across the sky and slammed into the side of the school with force.

Twilight was about to turn her head to see, but then the rainbow aura touched her. It seeped into her body, her horn, and her mind. Her eyes lit up un a while white blaze of something. Whatever that something was, it made the little filly feel powerful. Like she'd been supercharged or something.

Bursts of magic broke free from her horn, out of Twilight's control regardless of how hard she tried to contain it. A smash here, a crack there, whatever she was hitting it definitely was not the egg. This was it, she'd ruined her chances of being accepted. She was going to break everything around her and be referred to as 'that filly who accidentally flayed her teachers before they ever became her teachers'!

But then... everything stopped.

Twilight opened her eyes upon realising they were shut and then went wide eyed at what she saw. Stood before her, having saved the teachers and Twilight's parents from Twilight's magical surge, princess Celestia herself stood looking down at Twilight. Not with anger or disappointment as Twilight would've thought however. Rather she looked down at Twilight with a smile Twilight could only see as motherly. The same kind of kind and warming smile her own mother would give her whenever she had messed something up.

"You're a rather gifted young filly, aren't you?" said the princess, smiling as she trotted close the distance between the alicorn mare and the unicorn filly.

Then, before Twilight could even think of a way to respond, the egg in the cart beside princess Celestia shook violent and cracked down its side. Twilight, princess Celestia and everypony else in the room looked to the egg and watched it burst open. She'd done it! Twilight couldn't help but find a small smile form as she realised she had passed the entry test.

However, that smile faded when she saw it wasn't a dragon that crawled out... or rather, slithered out.

Out of the almost completely clean and broken eggshell emerged a small serpent. A black scaled snake slithered out of the egg, surprising all in the room. The ponies that had been testing Twilight had begun talking with one another, questioning the origin of the snake and about how it was supposed to be a dragon egg. Princess Celestia took a step back from the snake as it slithered out of the egg, then the cart, then finally landing on the ground and staring at Twilight with curious eyes.

Twilight was petrified at first, watching the winding serpent eye her small form for a few solid moments. Why was it just staying still? Shouldn't it be attacking? Snakes were violent in nature, why wasn't this one? It moved forward finally, cautiously sidewinding its way toward Twilight with its eyes darting back and forth between Twilight and Celestia, it also seemed to wearily hiss the princess's way as it approached Twilight's side.

"Uh... good snake..." Twilight said fearfully as she raised a hoof to make a petting motion to the scaled creature.

The snake, in response, suddenly coiled its body around Twilight's hoof loosely. A motion that earned a small surprised gasp from Twilight as the snake made its way over her body. Twilight's eyes darting up to Celestia, who was observing the snake's actions curiously. The way she was positioned suggested she was ready to cast a spell on the creature should it turn violent, an unspoken assurance that eased Twilight somewhat as she turned back to the snake.

Now, the snake had coiled around the upper part of her leg and around her body, positioning itself so that it would be looking over Twilight's shoulder alongside her. Twilight and the snake looked at one another, then the snake gave a sound which was the closest thing a snake would ever get to producing a purring sound.

"It would seem that he likes you." Celestia commented, ignoring the low hiss—of what Twilight assumed was distrust—that the serpent gave her.

"Yeah, but... wasn't a baby dragon suppose to come out?" Twilight asked to no one in particular.

"A baby dragon, a baby snake, regardless of what you hatched you still managed to show great skill." Celestia answered with a smile. She hesitated for a moment, as though in thought, before she said, "I was wondering, young miss Sparkle, if maybe you would like to study the mysteries of magic under me personally?"

Twilight's eyes widened as she looked up at the princess, wondering if she had heard that correctly. "Wha-what?" Twilight asked, looking at the princess.

"I'm asking if you would like to become my personal student." Celestia said, smiling warmly at the young filly.

Twilight didn't know what to say. The smile on her face grew as she looked at her parents and then the ponies who'd been testing her, as though they were confirm this all being some bizarre anxiety induced dream or something like that. Her parents smiled proudly at her and nodded their heads in agreement with whatever Twilight wanted to do. The ponies who were testing her merely stared at the filly and princess with wide eyes of shock and whispering to one another to confirm the princess and actually asked this child to become her student.

Then finally, she turned to her newly made snake friend. The snake looked to Twilight and then to the princess. And regardless of the snake's disdain toward the princess, the snake turned back to Twilight and nodded its head.

Twilight looked up at the princess and nodded profusely so. "Yes! Yes! I-I mean..." Twilight stuttered upon controlling her excited blurting out. The princess didn't seem to find however, just smiling at the young filly's enthusiasm. "I would be honoured to become your personal student."

As the princess spoke with Twilight's parents, both to congratulate them on such a gifted daughter and discussing how their tutoring lessons would work, Twilight looked down to her new snake friend and smile. "If I'm going to become the princess's personal student, I'll need an assistant. Would you be interested?" Twilight asked softly to the serpent, feeling more calm now around the creature.

The snake gave a scaly grinning smile and then nodded its head, a companionship being forged between a mare and a snake.

— Chapter I - The Mare in the Moon —

"Scales, are you listening to me?"

Scales opened his eyes upon the sounds of Twilight's voice awoke him from his slumber. He rose his head up from his nest and turned to Twilight, who had her nose deep inside of a book at her desk. Last time he was awake she was only just running off to the Canterlot library. He must've fallen asleep again while she was gone.

"Wha-? Oh yeah, I was listening. Just resting my eyes is all." Scales said before stretching his jaw open into a ghastly yawn. His voice would be described by some as ratty and dry while oddly elegant in pronunciation at the same time, but Twilight found no such problem with his way of speaking. "Just say it again to be sure I understood everything."

Twilight rolled her eyes and sighed, gesturing for Scales to come over. The snake complied and slithered over to Twilight's position. Scales had grown a bit in terms of size since his hatching years prior, as had Twilight grown from a small filly into a young beautiful mare. But he could still coil around Twilight's body in fluid fashion and comfortably for both of them as well, and that's just what he did in order to peer over Twilight's shoulder and look at the big open old book before her.

"The mare in the moon." Twilight stated as she pointed to the page as though Scales knew what she was talking about. On the pages Twilight was pointing to was a rather evil looking black and midnight blue alicorn on one page and a picture of the moon on the other. There were also a lot of words in between the pictures, but Scales wasn't interested in reading them.

"That old mare's tale? What about it?" Scales asked with an arching of his head to get a better look at both the book and Twilight's face.

"Don't you see? The mare in the moon is Nightmare Moon! Princess Celestia locked away in the moon a thousand years again with something called the 'elements of harmony'. And the stars are going to aid her escape!" Twilight stuck a hoof out to the air as though that conclusion were obvious, "Nightmare Moon is going to return!"

"Riiiiight." Scales nodded his head slowly, before looking back to the pages opened before him with squinted eyes, "where's the part that says it's our problem?"

"Scales! It's everypony's problem!" Twilight exclaimed, following it up with a sigh at Scales' attitude towards this. "If Nightmare Moon returns then according to legend she'll banish the sun and bring about everlasting night!"

"Ah, yes, now that is our problem..." Scales nodded in agreement, pointing the tip of his tail at her like a limb, "so what do we do? We can't fight a constellation, can we?"

"No, I'll have to warn princess Celestia. I'll write her a scroll, be ready to send it." Twilight said, placing the book down and levitating a quill, ink pot and page of blank parchment before her. Spreading the page out flat and dipping her quill into ink, Twilight began to ponder on how to word her letter to the princess, then after a moment she began writing with Scales peering over her shoulder at what she wrote. "And the moon isn't a constellation." Twilight then corrected Scales after a moment of silence.

"You sure you should write to her? Should you really bother her during all those preparations for the summer sun celebrations? The celebration is in like, two days." Scales pointed out.

"Exactly, two days away until the one thousandth summer sun celebration! That will be when Nightmare Moon returns for sure!" Twilight insisted before she continued writing.

"If you say so." Scales nodded with a small roll of his eyes.

The letter Twilight wrote to the princess read:

Dear princess Celestia

My dearest teacher, my continuing studies of pony magic have led me to discover that we are on the precipice of disaster! For you see, the mythical Mare in the Moon is in fact Nightmare Moon, and she's about to return to Equestria, and bring with her eternal night! Something must be done to make sure this terrible prophecy does not come true. I await your quick response.

Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

Upon finishing the letter Twilight levitated the parchment and rolled it up into a scroll, tying it shut with a red ribbon. Placing the scroll back down on the table, she nodded to Scales and moved back a little. Scales stretched his head forward and made a small hissing sound with his mouth before venom dripped from his fangs and onto the scroll. The second the first drop touched the scroll, the entire letter was enveloped in green flames. But no ashes remained however, the letter disappeared in a puff of smoke. A useful spell Twilight had discovered, primarily intended for use on dragons but she managed to tweak it so it work for Scales.

"There, once the princess gets that she'll know exactly what to do." said Twilight, tapping her hooves together in impatience.

"Will she? It's not everyday you're told an alicorn demon is going to return so she can screw over everypony." Scales stated, positioning his head so he was in the forefront of Twilight's view.

"I know, but she's got a plan for everything. All the villains she's faced in the past and defeated, I bet she's seen it all." Twilight said.

"Yes, but has she told it all?" Scales queried with a tiny pointing flick of his tail.

Twilight's eyebrow raised as she looked at Scales. "What do you mean?" she asked, looking to her serpent friend and assistant.

"Well, nopony can be one hundred percent perfect and unbeatable surely. She's bound to have some big screw up she's keeping hidden." Scales answered as he slithered his way back onto Twilight's shoulder and back, "like that Nightmare Moon you were talking about, she couldn't have really defeated her if she's going to return."

"Why would she lie to her subjects about something like that?" Twilight asked, neck turning so she kept her eyes on Scales.

"I don't know." Scales shook his head in place of a shrug, "maybe she doesn't have any secrets, maybe she is as perfect as you say. I'm just saying don't always put your hope into other ponies being able to save the day. Sometimes, you can only rely on yourself to set something right."

Twilight thought about that for a moment, but before she could retort Scales quickly slithered off of Twilight's body and onto Twilight's desk. He clenched his jaw for a moment before bearing his fangs. Celestia's response was going through, great! Twilight leaned forward as the same greenish venom dripped down and made a scroll suddenly appear accompanied by green flame disappeared as quickly as it had came.

Scales tore the ribbon with his fangs, causing the scroll to unravel itself. He then began to read the letter from Celestia while Twilight awaited for him to read it aloud. "Well? What does it say?" Twilight asked, just knowing that Celestia would know what to do.

"My dearest, most faithful student Twilight. You know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely." Scales began reading the letter.

"Mm-hm!" Twilight gestured for Scales to continue.

"...but you simply must stop reading those dusty old books!" Scales held back the urge of laughter, whether it was from the princess's letter or the resulting gasp Twilight gave he didn't know.

"My dear Twilight, there is more to a young pony's life than studying, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year's location: Ponyville. And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends!"

Twilight only gave out a sigh and a groan, while Scales chuckled wholeheartedly at the letter. "It's not funny, Scales!" she said, the words having no effect on the humour Scales found in the letter.

"Come on, it's a little funny. Even the princess thinks you're a loner." Scales chuckled, his laughter swiftly dying out when he saw the droop look on Twilight's face, "come on Twilight, learn to laugh at yourself. Besides, you have friends! Like that... blue pony, I think she was blue, or that one with the glasses. What was her name?"

"Moondancer?" Twilight suggested.

"Maybe, but that doesn't matter right now." Scales said with a shake of his head before he made his serpent body stand to meet Twilight's face in height, "what matters is that the princess doesn't think that mare is leaving the moon anytime soon, she thinks you need to live more in the moment and spend less time in a book. That's something even I can agree with."

"But—"

"No buts, except the one you're sitting on currently. We have a pegasus chariot to catch and ponies to meet in this...ah..." Scales leaned down to read over the scroll again to remind himself of the town's name, "...Ponyville! So get ready, unless of course you want to tell princess Celestia herself no?"

Twilight sighed, but couldn't help but smile at Scales. "Alright Scales, you win." Twilight said as she rose from her desk.

"I'll fetch your accessories." Scales said as he slithered down off the desk and across the room.

"I don't think I'll need them for this trip. Ponies in Canterlot have grown used to them, but won't small townsponies think that kind of stuff is a little... weird?" Twilight said with a shy tilt of her head as she levitated several things into a bag. Nothing much, just some light reading. Five books should be enough for a trip from Canterlot to Ponyville.

"Weird? What's weird? Something that's different, or something that's different from you?" Scales asked as he wrapped the end of his tail around a somewhat large box and began to slither his way back over to her, "the prissy elites of Canterlot got used to it, so the townsponies will have to get used to it as well."

"Well, I guess you're right." Twilight said. After a moment she nodded and levitated the box from the snake's grip and opened it.

Inside was a pair of long black earrings that ended in circles with red gemstones at the bottom along with a black choker with a strap shaped like a silver snake with its mouth opened. They were a gift from Scales a little while back and she'd worn them most days ever since. She honestly never thought it'd be her kind of thing, earrings and a choker, but she felt so comfortable in them whenever she did wear them.

Levitating them up, she carefully attached the earrings into the base of each ear before moving on to the choker. She fastened it around her neck, making sure it was on properly, before she posed for Scales. "Look good?" she asked him.

"Just as good as you do normally." Scales answered with a friendly smile, "who knows, you may make more than friends in Ponyville if you keep your good looks up like this."

Twilight's cheeks went a rosy pink under her coat at the serpent's comment. "W-what do you mean by that?" she asked with a small splutter to her tone, turning her head back to her bag in an attempt to hide her blush.

"Me? I don't mean anything, it's just..." a grin spread across Scales' face as he jested, "you know how ponies used to celebrate the summer sun celebrations in the days of old. All that drink, all that dance, all that—"

"Don't even go there!" Twilight squeaked out, pointing an accusing hoof Scales' way.

"—debauchery, I was gonna say debauchery." Scales teased with a smirk, raising his tail like a pony would raise defensive hooves.

Twilight sighed, smiling as she shook her head at him. She then turned to continue with her packing, the chariot wasn't going to wait for them all day.

The chariot drawn by two pegasi soared over the beautiful clear blue skies above Equestria, nothing but beautiful lively fields below as they travelled from Canterlot to the town of Ponyville. Twilight's parents and her brother had waved her off and said their goodbyes until Twilight returned from her royal duty. She smiled upon thinking of her family. Her parents and her brother had been most supportive of her and thought only of her best interests, even if Shining Armour was a little overprotective of her.

Twilight sat in the chariot, still not thinking she needed to be making friends when there was a chance of great world threatening danger occurring in just a few days time. Scales On the other hand was just leering his head off the side of the chariot much like a dog out the side of a wagon. His tail was wrapped tightly to the chariot door as not to risk the winds blowing him out of the chariot.

"Do you have to do that?" Twilight asked, watching the snake flail in the wind like a crumpled flag.

"I'm embracing my inner flying snake." Scales called back to Twilight.

"Well don't, it's making me nervous that you'll fall out." Twilight told him.

Scales looked out off the edge of the chariot for a long moment of silence before doing as Twilight said, slithering back inside of the chariot and to Twilight's side. "You should relax. You know the princess made arrangements for you to stay in the local library, the 'Golden Oak' I think it was called. So if the whole making friends thing doesn't work today you can flee back into your little book den." Scales said.

"Exactly! This is the perfect opportunity to prove I'm right. We're here to supervise the summer sun celebration preparations. That first, then I'll head back to the library and find proof of Nightmare Moon's return and see what I can find out about these 'elements of harmony'." Twilight stated her intent clearly and proudly. "The fate of Equestria doesn't depend on me making friends."

"Right..." Scales said before he peered his eyes off the edge, "looks like we're here."

Upon hearing that Twilight peaked off the edge of the chariot as well, looking down at the moderately sized town that was beginning to come into view. It was a fairly pretty little town with all the things you'd expect to see: town hall, a farm off to the outskirts of the town, buildings of all varying sizes dotted about the place. Nothing stuck out that much and it appeared to be a rather simple and regular village. It made Twilight wonder why such a boring little hamlet was selected to host this years summer sun celebrations, usually it was larger cities like Manehattan, Vanhoover or Trottingham that would hold the celebrations. What made this place special?

The chariot landed down along a stretch of road outside the town before coming to a complete halt. Twilight stood up and turned to Scales, waiting patiently as the snake coiled himself around her body comfortably. Around her fore hoof, around her chest carefully before finally peering over her shoulder. It may have looked unsettling or even scary to some other ponies, but to Twilight it was as comfortable as a scarf or a scaly blanket. Twilight and Scales exchanged smiles before the lilac mare dismounted her chariot.

Several ponies in town had noticed the outsider dismounting her chariot, whispering to one another though Twilight didn't know whether it was about her sudden appearance into their town or the snake wrapped around her body. Twilight could feel her heartbeat quicken slightly, but she calmed herself as she saw those same ponies turning back to continue on with whatever they were doing before she came.

"So good so far, nopony has chased you out of town yet." Scales teased.

"Ha ha, very funny." Twilight said dryly, a small smile forming on her face as she trotted along into the town. She continued walking through town while Scales reached his head around to look at Twilight's face.

"Why don't you give this friend making thing a try? Just try talking to somepony." Scales said as he spotted a pony coming their way, "like that one."

Twilight looked in the direction of where Scales' tail was pointing to, and she saw the pinkest pony she had ever seen in her entire life. Pink coat, a thick puffy pink mane, pink everything except for her blue eyes. She had a smile on her face and happiness in every step she took. Twilight assumed that her cutie mark, of three balloons, had something to do with happiness or rather bringing happiness to others.

Once the mare was close enough to hear, she stopped walking when she heard Scales' comment and looked to Twilight. "Just say hello." Scales said to Twilight.

"Umm..." Twilight looked at the pink mare, giving an awkward smile, "...hello."

The mare's reaction was far, far off from what Twilight or Scales were expecting. Like a sentient spring, the pink mare bounced several feet off of the ground and gave out a gasp so sharp and long that Twilight thought for a moment that the mare was struggling to breathe. She then bolted off away from Twilight and Scales with lightning fast speeds, zooming away faster than Twilight's eyes could follow.

"Okay..." Scales said slowly as he looked up to Twilight, "maybe we can leave making friends on the back-burner for now."

Twilight trotted on toward the sight of a large farm, Scales holding onto her as he read the list of things they had to do. The farm was of impressive size for sure, clearly having taken serval generations worth of hard work to achieve.

"First thing on the list: food from Sweet Apple Acres," Scales read off the list, "should be a farmer around here somewhere."

Twilight looked around for a moment but all it took was the sound of some southern sounding mare hollering "yeehaw!" for Twilight to quickly pinpoint the origin of said holler. An orange coated mare with a blonde mane wearing a light brown stetson hat rushed toward a large apple tree and bucked it with enough force in her back legs to knock every single apple out and perfectly land into wooden buckets lay down beneath the tree prior to the bucking. Twilight couldn't help but be impressed by the mare's strength, must come in handy.

Twilight approached the mare with a friendly enough smile. "Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm here to—" Twilight began, only to stop upon the orange mare taking Twilight's hoof and shaking it with such vigor that Twilight thought her foreleg was going to pop out of its socket.

"Well, howdy-doo, Miss Twilight, a pleasure makin' your acquaintance. I'm Applejack. We here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do like makin' new friends!" said the orange mare.

"Friends? No, well actually—" Twilight blundered out before saying, "I'm here to oversee the food preparations for the banquet."

"Ah, I see. Taste testing and the such? Well come right along now." the mare called Applejack said as she gestured for the mare to follow her. "We got all sorts of things for y'all to try: apple pie, apple fritters, apple tarts..."

"Actua—" Twilight was about to say before being tapped on the shoulder by Scales.

"Come on Twilight, five minutes can't hurt. Think of the pie." Scales reasoned, drooling over the idea of pie.

"Fine, but let's make it quick." Twilight said as she began to follow the orange mare, "we do have a schedule to keep."

Applejack looked back at Twilight for a moment and then said. "Umm...I don't mean to alarm you, is that your snake? Or do I have to get granny's shovel?" Applejack asked Twilight.

"Oh, no he's with me. This is Scales." Twilight introduced her serpent friend to the orange mare.

"Pleasure to meet you." Scales said to Applejack, the act of talking seemingly causing a small shock to dash across the orange mare's eyes.

"Oh, you talk? I've never met a talking snake before, least not one I could talk to. Animals are usually Fluttershy's thing." Applejack said with some thought. She then gestured for them to follow, "well, I suppose you can taste test too if you're interested?"

"Of course, lead the way." Scales answered, gesturing for Twilight to follow.

Twilight sighed and began following after the orange mare, having a strong feeling that this was going to be a really long day.

"Uhh...I ate too much pie."

Twilight groaned as she slowly trotted back through town with Scales, who looked completely fine from their encounter with enough food to feed all of Canterlot. Her stomach felt like it would burst after all the delicious foods that'd been tasted by the duo. It was possibly some of the most delicious food that had ever passed her lips, though she had an idea that she wouldn't be touching another apple based food for a little while. On top of that this seemed to be the day that Applejack's many, many relatives had come to town, because she got to meet every single one of them.

"Foods done with, next up is weather." Scales read the list as he looked to the skies, "apparently a pegasus named 'Rainbow Dash' should be clearing the clouds."

"Clearly she isn't good at her job." Twilight commented, looking up at the many dozens of clouds in the sky.

But then, as though she'd summoned bad luck her way, a big blur of rainbow and cyan came crashing into Twilight. Scales had been fast enough to lunge himself away from Twilight mere seconds before the blur came crashing down, making Twilight wish she herself had the same serpent speeds. Scales landed gracefully enough on the ground and turned to see Twilight, who was not as fortunate in her landed.

She lay in a puddle of muddy water with what Twilight could now see was a cyan coated pegasus with a rainbow mane lay on top of her. The pegasus brushed herself off as she stood up. It would seem that Twilight had broke the other mare's fall as shown by the lack of mud on her and the copious amounts of mud on and in Twilight's mane and coat.

The cyan mare chuckled sheepishly as she stood up. "Uh, 'scuse me?"

"Nnnn." was all Twilight replied with, looking at the mud on her body.

"Lemme help you." the mare said before dashing off into the skies again.

The next thing Twilight knew she had returned with a large cloud. A rain cloud. But before Twilight could object to the cloud of rain being dumped on her, the mare bounced up and down until the rain came pouring out and onto her. She was completely free of mud, but was now completely soaked from head to hoof. Twilight could only groan in response, having a feeling that if she did speak the words that came out would be less than pleasant.

The mare laughed sheepishly again. "Oops, I guess I overdid it. Um, uh, how about this? My very own patented Rain-Blow Dry!—" before Twilight could interject, the rainbow maned mare darting about Twilight with speeds Twilight believed could rival the speed of the pink mare she'd 'met' earlier. By the time the mare was done she was completely dry, but her mane was a thick poofy mess. Twilight's patience was really being tested with this one. "—no no. Don't thank me. You're quite welcome."

The rainbow maned mare then burst out laughing upon having seen the current state of Twilight's hair. Then Scales joined the cyan pegasus in laughing, all the while Twilight had an unamused look on her face. "Let me guess. You're Rainbow Dash." she said.

"The one and only. Why, you heard of me?" said the mare, now confirmed to be Rainbow Dash, as she hovered above Twilight with the aid of her wings.

"I heard you were supposed to be keeping the sky clear." Twilight stated, adding a sigh onto the end before saying, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, and the Princess sent me to check on the weather."

"Yeah, yeah, that'll be a snap. I'll do it in a jiffy. Just as soon as I'm done practicing." Rainbow Dash shrugged off.

"Practicing for what?" Twilight questioned curiously.

"The Wonderbolts! They're gonna perform at the Celebration tomorrow, and I'm gonna show 'em my stuff!" Rainbow stated proudly, flexing her fore hooves as she hovered above the pony and snake.

"The Wonderbolts?" Twilight inquired.

"Yep!"

"The most talented flyers in all of Equestria?" Twilight continued, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"That's them!" Rainbow confirmed with a nod of her head.

"Pfft! Please. They'd never accept a Pegasus who can't even keep the sky clear for one measly day." Twilight scoffed. She had come to the conclusion that the only way she'd be able to get this sky cleared in time for the raising of the sun was to appeal to the throbbing mass that was this mare's ego.

"Hey, I could clear this sky in ten seconds flat." Rainbow gave a scoff of her own.

"Prove it." Twilight told her.

Then, without a second wasted, Rainbow Dash took flight like a speeding bullet and began to assault the clouds with all the speed and strength she had in her. Seconds was all it took for all the skies over Ponyville to become completely cloud free. Twilight's mouth went slightly agape at the sheer speeds she had just witnessed as Rainbow landed back down, panting with exertion.

"Loop-de-loop around, and wham! What'd I say? Ten. Seconds. Flat. I'd never leave Ponyville hanging." Rainbow said as she wiped the sweat from her brow. "I'm the fastest here in Ponyville."

"Not while I'm here." Scales muttered out of earshot of either mare.

"You should see the look on your face. Ha! You're a laugh, Twilight Sparkle. I can't wait to hang out some more." Rainbow commented before speeding off again through the skies.

"Rrgh." Twilight groaned once the mare was gone, her mane still a complete mess.

"Decorations. Bleh..." Scales faked a gag at all the bright and friendly colours around him. They had entered the town hall now where they saw all the various decorations that adorned their surroundings, all of which would be visible to all the ponies attending the celebrations. To say they were impressive would be a total understatement.

"Yes, the décor is coming along nicely. This ought'a be quick. I'll be at the library in no time. Beautiful indeed." Twilight said as she took a look around.

"That looks like the mare we're checking up on." Scales pointed to the only other mare in the room they were currently in.

Twilight looked on ahead and immediately caught glimpse of the alabaster coated mane with a pristine purple mane. "No, no, no, oh! Goodness no." the white coated mare listed off to herself.

"Good afternoon—" Twilight began before being cut up.

The mare raised her hoof Twilight's way, an effective silencing motion. "Just a moment, please! I'm 'in the zone', as it were. Oh, yes! Sparkle always does the trick, does it not? Why, Rarity, you are a talent. Now, um, how can I help yo—" the mare calling herself Rarity then gasped in horror as she had turned to look at Twilight "—Oh my stars, darling! Whatever happened to your coiffure?!"

Twilight and Scales exchanged glances each other's way. It took Twilight a moment to understand, before she remembered the current state of her mane. "Oh, you mean my mane? Well, it's a long story. I'm just here to check on the decorations, and then I'll be out of your hair!"

"Out of my hair? What about your hair?!" Rarity exclaimed as she began to drag Twilight off somewhere. Scales had already jumped ship as it were as he watched Twilight be dragged off.

"Wait! Where are we going?!" Twilight asked before she looked back to Scales and called, "Help!"

But he didn't help. Scales chuckled to himself as he slithered after the two mares. Twilight found herself being dragged across town and into a boutique by the looks of the outside. She would've objected completely if she hadn't of realised that this Rarity was going to fix her mane up for her.

As she straightened Twilight's mane again, Rarity stopped for a moment to marvel at Twilight's earrings and choker. "I must say, you have quite an interesting choice of accessories" Rarity said as she gently touched and admired one of the earrings, "too black for my taste, but it looks great on you. Is the snake theme for your pet?"

"Who you calling a pet?" Scales asked.

Rarity jumped slightly at the snake's speech. "Oh my! My sincerest apologies, I wasn't aware that there were snakes capable of speech." Rarity said before she turned back to Twilight. "Anyways, you were saying where you were from?"

"I've been sent from Canterlot to—" was all Twilight got to say before she was cut up.

"Huh?" Rarity's eyes seemed to gleam with marvel and wonder. "Canterlot?! Oh, I am so envious! The glamour, the sophistication! I have always dreamed of living there! I can't wait to hear all about it! We are gonna be the best of friends, you and I." Rarity then dashed away as fabrics and gemstones seemed to find their way over to her. Twilight immediately this fashionista intended on making some kind of Canterlot themed dress or something.

"Quick! Before she decides to dye my coat a new color!" Twilight whispered to Scales as she made a beeline for the door. In response Scales only chuckled as he followed after Twilight, slinking his way back into Twilight's back.

"What's next on the list?" Twilight asked Scales as she was now trotting down a pathway quite rich with beautiful greenery.

Scales peered down at the list once more. "Oh, uh, music! It's the last one!"

As though on quite, Twilight and Scales heard the sounds of birds singing fill the air with brilliantly timed melodies. Quickly after they spotted the line of birds perched in a tree with a yellow coated pegasus with a pink mane. But before they moved any closer, Twilight shot a look back at Scales.

"Don't so much as think about eating those birds." Twilight told him. It may have gone unnoticed in Canterlot, but this pegasus would surely notice a few birds missing.

"Hmph." Scales grumbled before saying, "fine." After that the pair began to approach the pegasus.

The pegasus then flew up to the birds to stop their singing, choosing to speak to one specific bird in particular. "Oh my. Um, stop please, everyone, umm. Excuse me, sir? I mean no offense, but your rhythm is just a teeny-tiny bit off. Now, follow me, please. A-one, a-two, a-one two three-"

"Hello!" Twilight greeted in a friendly manner. In response the pegasus yelped in fright and her birds flew away with the same level of fright. "Oh my, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to frighten your birds. I'm just here to check up on the music and it's sounding beautiful," when she didn't get a response she continued, "I'm Twilight Sparkle," once again no response, "What's your name?"

"Um... I'm Fluttershy." the pegasus answered, so quietly that Twilight couldn't hear.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Twilight asked.

"Um... My name is Fluttershy." the pegasus said, somehow managing to come out quieter than the last time."

"Didn't quite catch that." Twilight said, meaning no offence as she raised a hoof to her ear. All she got in response then was a nervous squeak, but on the bright side the birds had returned to their perch. "Well, um, it looks like your birds are back, so I guess everything's in order. Keep up the good work!" Twilight offered a smile, only to get more nervous squeaking in response. By Celestia this pegasus was 'meek' as Scales would put it.

"Oookay." Twilight then turned to Scales. "Well, that was easy."

"What species of snake is that?" the pegasus said with a gasp, darting over and looking at Scales with bright eyes. "Oh, I've never seen a snake like that before. He's sooo cute!"

"Well, well, well..." Scales sent a smirk Twilight's way.

"Oh my, he talks. I didn't know there were any snakes that could talk. That's just so incredibly wonderful I, I just don't even know what to say!" the pegasus was growing more excited and giddy by the second.

"Well, in that case we'd better be going." Twilight was so close to making her getaway only for the pegasus to begin following her and talking to Scales, who was on her back currently. Great so now she wants to talk, Twilight thought to herself.

"Wait, wait! What's his name?" the pegasus asked.

"I'm Scales." Scales introduced himself.

"Hi Scales, I'm Fluttershy. Wow, a talking snake! And what do snakes talk about?" the pegasus, Fluttershy, asked.

"Well, what do you wanna know?" Scales asked.

"Absolutely everything." Fluttershy said, earning a groan from Twilight.

"Well... I started out as a cute little purple and green egg. I was expected by nopony. I'm a heavenly gift even on the day of my birth you see..."

"...and that's the story of my whole entire life! Well, up until today. Do you wanna hear about today?" Scales asked. Okay, Twilight now knew he was doing this on purpose.

"Oh, yes, please!" Fluttershy said with a nod, eyes gleaming in wonder at the talking snake.

But before Scales could continue, Twilight cut in upon realising they'd reached the library. At long last! She could do what she wanted to do this whole time. "I am so sorry, how did we get here so fast? This is where I'm staying while in Ponyville and my poor snake needs his sleep."

"What are you talking abo—woah!" Scales began before Twilight managed to knock him off balance.

"Aww, wook at dat, he's so sweepy he can't even keep his widdle bawance!" she began to grit her teeth at the end as she glared daggers at Scales.

"Poor thing, you simply must get into bed..." Fluttershy stated with a look so cute even Twilight steely exterior melted for a few moments.

"Yes, yes, we'll get right on that. Well, g'night!" Twilight bolted into the library and slammed the door shut, expressing a loud long sigh.

"Huh. Rude much?" Scales said.

"Sorry, Scales, but I have to convince the Princess that Nightmare Moon is coming, and we're running out of time! I just need to be alone so I can study without a bunch of crazy ponies trying to make friends all the time. Now, where's the light?"

Then the lights flicked on by themselves apparently. Then Twilight's eyes opened in shock as possibly every single pony in this town was inside the library, shouting "surprise!" The sounds of kazoos, music kicking up and Twilight prolonged groans filled the library. The universe obviously hated her and was kicking her in the teeth at every hurdle. Why couldn't the summer sun celebration have been in Manehattan? Nopony likes making friends there.

"Surprise!" was called again, but this time by a single pony. That pink pony. The pink pony that had sped away from Twilight upon her first arriving in Ponyville. She then blew a party whistle before continuing.

"Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie, and I threw this party just for you! Were you surprised? Were ya? Were ya? Huh huh huh?" the pink pony, Pinkie Pie said. She was the most child friendly and energetic pony Twilight had ever seen in all her days alive.

"Very surprised." Twilight admitted. "Libraries are supposed to be quiet."

"Well, that's silly! What kind of welcome party would this be if it were quiet? I mean, duh, bo-ring! Y'see, I saw you when you first got here, remember? You were all "hello" and I was all—" she made a deep gasping noise "—remember? Y'see I've never saw you before and if I've never saw you before that means you're new, 'cause I know everypony, and I mean everypony in Ponyville!"

Twilight only groaned as Pinkie Pie continued. "And if you're new, that meant you haven't met anyone yet, and if you haven't met anyone yet, you must not have any friends, and if you don't have any friends then you must be lonely, and that made me so sad, then I had an idea, and that's why I went—" she made the deep gasp noise again "—I must throw a great big ginormous super-duper spectacular welcome party and invite everyone in Ponyville! See? And now you have lots and lots of friends!"

Right now Twilight was wishing that Rainbow's cloud that'd rained down on her earlier was stuffed full of lightning, but alas she was stuck here in a library she could relax in while surrounded by ponies she didn't know and didn't care to know. She had a point to prove, the sun itself was at risk! Nightmare Moon wasn't going to dissolve into a puddle of rainbows just because Twilight made friends.

Seeing her opportunity, Twilight eyed the upstairs of the library and made a beeline before anypony could stop or even notice her escape this madness. She closed the door and found herself in a bedroom.

Finally, peace and quiet. Twilight sighed as she lay on the bed, looking up at the moon with craters shaping together a mares head. Princess Celestia didn't think Nightmare Moon was a problem, but what if she was wrong? As much as Twilight hated to think it, it was possible for Celestia to be wrong. What happened then?

Well, like Scales said, she'd have to rely on herself if Celestia would not see what was happening.

They were still partying. Twilight had officially come to the conclusion that this entire town was full of crazy ponies. She had tried to read up on Nightmare Moon or the ever mysterious elements of harmony but the music from the party kept making her loose focus. She was never going to accomplish anything with all this racket.

Scales then slithered through the door, a wide grin on his face as he emerged from Ponyville's party central for the night. "You know you're missing one good party, right. As grotesquely bright and colourful as these ponies are, that Pinkie Pie sure knows how to party." Scales said to Twilight.

"We didn't come here to party. I'm trying to prove that Nightmare Moon is going to return, and the ponies in this town are driving me crazy!" Twilight called to Scales.

"Well, can you really blame them? None of them have your intellect." Scales said to Twilight, slithering up to her position. "They don't understand dangers until they're staring them in the face."

"No, nopony ever does until it's too late. That's a common pattern with all the old stories of villainous creatures rising up and being struck down again." Twilight sighed as she looked to Scales.

"If only there was a way to change that." Scales thought aloud. "I mean, princess Celestia's way of rule is kind and loving, but it gives chance to the lowlifes of Equestria to take advantage."

"What else could she do? Go full blown dictator just to control the bad guys?" Twilight laughed at the idea.

"Technically she's only one step away from being a dictator." Scales pointed out, "all that power she holds, all she'd need to do is get rid of the nation representatives and poof! Dictatorship."

"Hmm, I never really thought about that before." Twilight said, curiosity in her tone before she shook her head slightly, "but princess Celestia would never do something like that, she values democracy more than anypony."

"Does she?" Scales questioned idly.

The words seemed to stick with Twilight for a good few moments. While he didn't despise her, Scales never seemed to fully like Celestia, but Twilight assumed it was just a primal instinct or something. Fear that which is totally different from you or something like that. But he didn't seem to have a problem with her, as much as he did her rule. Twilight could understand from an outsider perspective that one pony having the power of a nation as large as Equestria could be seen as a bad thing, but that didn't mean the rule itself was bad merely because someone said it was. Does it? She let the ponies of Equestria have their say, but she still had the final say on things.

Scales could see the thought in Twilight's eyes and lowered the smirk on his maw from her view. "How about we head down to town hall now? The ponies are starting to head down there so that they can watch the sun rise." Scales suggested.

"Yeah, okay, let's go." Twilight nodded in agreement, looking up at the moon one last time before she stood up to let Scales slithered onto her body.

please let me be wrong, Twilight hoped.

The ponies of Ponyville gathered together in preparation for the raising of the sun on this longest day of the year. The bright and beautiful decorations were hung around, showing off Rarity's impressive handiwork. The delicious foods were being eaten, showcasing the quality of Applejack's crops that had gone into making them. The skies were clear thanks to Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy was getting her birds into position ready for the princess's arrival. Drinks were drunk, friends were met up with, and everypony was relaxed and happy.

Almost everypony that is.

Twilight looked around the room, on edge as she was expecting Nightmare Moon to smash through the ceiling at any moment. But everything looked fine, like Scales had told her it would be on the way here. He seemed to believe her about the possibility of Nightmare Moon returning, but he was more focused on keeping Twilight relaxed. There were six royal guards here as well, the princess's escort, but six guards wouldn't do much against an alicorn now would they?

Then that pink pony, Pinkie, starting talking again though Twilight wasn't really listening properly. "Isn't this exciting? Are you excited, 'cause I'm excited, I've never been so excited— well, except for the time that I saw you walking into town and I went—" she inhaled deeply "—but I mean really, who can top that?"

Twilight looked ahead and saw a pony trot up into a small stage. By the looks of her, Twilight assumed she was the mayor of the town. "Fillies and gentlecolts, as mayor of Ponyville, it is my great pleasure to announce the beginning of the Summer Sun Celebration!" the mayor announced, earning cheers from most of the ponies in the room. "In just a few moments, our town will witness the magic of the sunrise, and celebrate this, the longest day of the year! And now, it is my great honor to introduce to you the ruler of our land, the very pony who gives us the sun and the moon each and every day, the good, the wise, the bringer of harmony to all of Equestria..."

"Ready?" Fluttershy whispered, readying her birds to start singing.

"...Princess Celestia!" the mayor gestured to a curtain that had been drawn open.

No pony was there.

Ponies began chattering nervously and looking to one another as though one of them held the answer of where the princess was. "This can't be good." Twilight concluded. Then she looked up to the moon as though it were responsible. She prayed the mare would still be there, the mare in the moon. But the mare was nowhere to be seen.

The mare, Nightmare Moon, had escaped.

"Remain calm, everypony, there must be a reasonable explanation!" the mayor attempted to calm the crowds.

But the crowd's shocked gasps only increased as a mass of dark purple, swirling and churning about, appeared in the spot that princess Celestia should have been in. The mass took shape as a pony, an alicorn roughly the same size as Celestia give or take a few inches. The shock and horror only increased amongst the crowd.

"Oh no... Nightmare Moon!" Twilight said frightfully, too focused on the threat before them to even notice Scales' look of intrigue at the demon alicorn.

"Oh, my beloved subjects. It's been so long since I've seen your precious little sun-loving faces." said Nightmare Moon, pride and envy and hate all in her commanding voice at once.

"What did you do with our Princess?!" shouted Rainbow as she went to take flight and charge the dark alicorn, only for Applejack to snag Rainbow's tail in her mouth.

"Whoa there, Nelly..." Applejack said, voice muffled by rainbow hair.

Nightmare Moon chuckled darkly. "Why, am I not royal enough for you? Don't you know who I am?"

"Ooh, ooh, more guessing games! Um, Hokey Smokes! How about... Queen Meanie! No! Black Snooty, Black Snooty—" Pinkie said before finding Applejack's hoof covering her mouth.

"Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?" Nightmare Moon queried to the crowds.

"I did. And I know who you are. You're the Mare in the Moon – Nightmare Moon!" Twilight declared, earning shocked gasps from the crowd.

"Well well well, somepony who remembers me. Then you also know why I'm here." Nightmare Moon stated, lowering herself down from her elevated platform, the crowds scattered away from the alicorn as she lowered to their level.

"You're here to... to..." Twilight found herself growing more afraid by the second.

"Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever!" Nightmare Moon boomed with laughter, her horn beginning to glow as the guards in the hall charged her with weapons drawn.

The guards charged with spiked tipped weapons aimed at Nightmare Moon, but with all their bravery came nothing as Nightmare Moon outmanoeuvred them with complete ease. Twilight and the other ponies in the hall could only watch in horror as flesh and metal were torn by the sheer brutal strength of Nightmare Moon's telekinetic energy. The red and pink insides of two guards were paved across the halls before any could react, screams of horror emerging from ponies who made to flee.

Twilight was frozen still with fear, unable to move from the spot she was on as she saw the blood of ponies spill and stain. Eyes widen and only things she could hear was screams and that alicorn's laughter, not even Scales' attempts at getting her to move were able to get through.

"Twilight! Come on!" Scales slithered down to the floor and considered slapping Twilight around the face with her tail, but got another idea when he saw Nightmare Moon growing closer to them.

Nightmare Moon moved toward the remaining guards as they now shifted their focus onto keeping ponies safe. Nightmare Moon trotted forward, destroying any decorations depicting the sun or anything including the day at all. At this point Twilight had finally built up the courage to begin moving back away from the dark alicorn.

"If you wish to see my everlasting night for even another hour, then bow before your que—argh!"

Nightmare Moon wailed out in agonising pain, breaking Twilight from her fear induced trance. She looked on ahead to find Scales, sinking his fangs deep into Nightmare Moon's leg just above the base of the armoured boot she was wearing on that leg. Twilight had never seen Scales bite a pony before, but she was glad he had done it now even if a small part of her felt pity toward Nightmare Moon as she wailed out. The alicorn was acting like her leg had been set on fire, raising it off the ground before Scales finally pulled away and slithered back to Twilight's side with enough speed to avoid the screeching alicorn currently in pain.

"You foul creature! You dare—argh!" Nightmare Moon wailed again when she tried to walk on the leg Scales had bitten.

Nightmare Moon's horn glowed as she broke down into a purple mass once again and escaped through the opened window in the roof.

"Did your snake just bite the mare in the moon?" Applejack asked, scared of what consequences would come about by this.

Twilight didn't answer, instead she shot around on the spot and began running out of the town hall. Scales caught up in a matter of seconds and leaped onto Twilight's back, holding on as she ran towards the library. Her mind raced as she attempted to come up with a plan, any plan. She had spent so much time trying to prove Nightmare Moon's return but she hadn't spent any time planning in case her return actually happened.

What was she going to do?

— Chapter II - The Elements of Harmony —

Twilight hurried towards the Golden Oak library, almost breaking down the door with the speed she entered the library at. She couldn't believe it. She knew that Nightmare Moon was going to return, but she still couldn't believe what had just happened before her very eyes. The brutality, the bloodshed, she could've prepared. She should have prepared. Now princess Celestia was gone and Nightmare Moon was on the loose.

"What's the plan?" Scales asked as he held onto Twilight's back.

"Get to the library and see what I can find about the elements of harmony. They're the only things that can defeat Nightmare Moon." Twilight answered. She then began levitating books off of bookshelves, eyeing their covers and pushing the irrelevant ones to one side as she tried desperately to find what she needed.

Then as she was rummaging through bookcases and books, the library doors opened again as several ponies entered. Twilight only shot her head to the door for a second, and that was long enough for her to see the five ponies she had met today. Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Fluttershy all entered the library and looked at Twilight. They all had varying degrees of horror stuck on their faces, Applejack being the most calm and Fluttershy the most panicked.

"Hey, you know more about what just happened back there than you're letting on, don't you?" Applejack asked Twilight, the other four mares following behind her.

"Should we bother telling them?" Scales asked Twilight.

"You don't have a choice, scaly, so spill." Rainbow crossed her hooves as she hovered, eyeing Scales cautiously. She'd clearly seen what he had done to Nightmare Moon and didn't want to end up like her with a bleeding forehoof and possible blood poisoning.

"It's okay, Scales, we can tell them." Twilight told Scales with a small sigh, seeing that the snake was about to respond to Rainbow with something that most likely would make Fluttershy faint. She then turned back to the group of five ponies and began to explain. "I read the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and now I'm looking for the elements of harmony. They're the only thing that can stop Nightmare Moon. But I don't know what they are, where they are or what they even do!"

"'The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide." Pinkie said as she pulled a book from a shelf, reading it's cover.

"How did you find that?!" Twilight asked as she levitated the book from Pinkie's grasp.

"It was under "E"!" Pinkie replied in a sing-song voice.

Twilight then opened the book and began to read aloud to the group. "There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery. It is said, the last known location of the five elements was in the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters. It is located in what is now--"

"--the Everfree forest!" the five ponies native to Ponyville collectively gasped at the sight of the enormous forest on the edge of Ponyville.

"Probably the nicest place we've seen so far in this town." Scales commented from his position on Twilight's back.

"Whee! Let's go!" Pinkie said as she made to move forward.

"Not so fast." Twilight said, standing in front of everypony else. "Look, I appreciate the offer, but I'd really rather do this on my own."

"No can do, sugarcube. We sure ain't lettin' any friend of ours go into that creepy place alone. We're stickin' to you like caramel on a candy apple." Applejack stated as she began to trot into the forest, the rest of the group except for Twilight trotting after her.

"Especially if there's candy apples in there." Pinkie said, looking back at Twilight before trotting into the forest. "What? Those things are good."

Twilight only sighed as she looked back to Scales. "I think it'd be best if you stay here in Ponyville. Nightmare Moon might want to get some payback for that bite you gave her." Twilight told Scales.

"Come on, I'll be fine. She tries anything I'll bite her again." Scales replied.

"Please Scales, I don't want to risk you getting hurt." Twilight said warmly. She wasn't going to back down from this one. That was a nasty looking bite Scales gave Nightmare Moon, and the response would most certainly be even more volatile if Nightmare Moon were to get her hooves on Scales.

"Fine, but if you ain't out of there in a few hours, I'm coming in." Scales stated with a small smile as he slithered off of her body.

Twilight nodded and gave the serpent a hug before turning around toward the forest. She galloped forward a few feet to catch up with her newly found 'friends'. Friends, it was weird to say that word in the way she just did. She was never interested in making friends. Scales was the only friend she really needed, he understood her and always had her back. It was like he was made specifically for her.

Twilight and the others then began trotting their ways into the forest, while Scales watched the group of mares making their way into the Everfree in search for the elements of harmony. The elements of harmony that'd sealed many a foe away long ago.

"Follow them to the elements. Be sure you are not seen." whispered the ethereal voice of his king, a voice that'd spoke to him many a time in places of shadow.

Scales didn't even waste a second to answer. He slithered with speeds impossible for any other serpent into the nearest tree and scaled up its height in mere moments, camouflaged in shadow and beside tree bark. Leaping from tree to tree as silently as could be, not a single decibel of sound was produced by him as he followed the ponies from afar. Carefully slithering overhead, his listened in carefully.

"So, none of you have been in here before?" Twilight asked. Scales couldn't help but smile at the sound of Twilight's voice, the only comforting thing he had in this town.

"Ugh, heavens no! Just look at it - it's dreadful." Rarity said, cringing at her surroundings as she did. Scales knew this wasn't the kind of place for a pony like her, hard to believe her ancestors might have possibly once fought against the king.

"And it ain't natural. Folks say it don't work the same as Equestria." Applejack stated, a chill running down her spine.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Nopony knows. You know why?" Rainbow said, making spooky gestures with her hooves as she hovered above the group.

"Rainbow, quit it." Applejack said, noticing the scared looks on several faces.

"'cause everypony who's ever come in has never come out!" Rainbow called out, earning frightened squeaks from several members of the group. Foolish mare, Scales thought to himself, she shouldn't rely on outright screams to strike fear even in jest.

"Hmm, interesting..." Twilight muttered to herself as she trotted along. Always the scholarly type finding interest in everything worth being interested in, Scales smiled again.

But before anymore could be said, the ground beneath the group of ponies shook and crumbled. Scales made out the fleeing purple mass, dripping every so often with black venom as it worked its dark intent on the nightmarish mare. She thought she was strong and powerful, she would know otherwise by the time his bite had left its mark.

The cliff side the group ponies were stood on shifted and broke beneath them, crumbling as the pegasi of the group took flight and made to save their friends. Scales almost leaped down himself in order to save Twilight, but knew he shouldn't give away his position. It wasn't even about the king's orders, as much as he didn't obey them. He wanted Twilight safe but able to look after herself. She wouldn't be able to do anything if he was always there to help.

But she didn't save herself anyway, as Applejack had caught Twilight and then dropped her into the grip of the two pegasi. Scales would continue to watch over the girls from afar, slithering overhead and making sure that no harm came to Twilight.

Fortunately through the entire journey to the castle, no harm did come her way.

After nearly falling off of a cliff, taming a manticore with kindness, Rarity cutting off her own tail to help out a sea serpent with a moustache problem, a test of Rainbow's loyalty, and a musical number from Pinkie Pie, the six ponies finally managed to reach the ancient castle of the two sisters. Twilight looked up at the place with awe and wonder, her nerdy side showing only for a mere second before she reminded herself of why she was there. The elements of harmony.

The five mares behind Twilight followed her into the castle's main room where some kind of a strange statue or something stood with circular stones placed on it, each with a symbol carved into them. Twilight knew they had to be the elements of harmony. The group as a whole galloped over to the statue holding the elements but their hopeful faces soon quickly dropped as they brought the elements down off of the statue.

"One, two, three, four, there's only five." said Pinkie, looking around the room in hopes she had missed a sixth.

"What? Where's the sixth?" Twilight joined Pinkie in looking around.

But as the group separated, leaving on Twilight with the elements, they were all caught off guard as a large purple mass swirled around the elements while simultaneously and accidentally sucking Twilight up with it. "Twilight!" was all Twilight heard from the shocked voices of her friends before she vanished in a mass of purple smoke.

Twilight shortly reappeared in a different room entirely, though she could tell she was still in the castle of the two sisters by the decay of the place. She also saw the five elements situated around the swirling purple mass which took the form of Nightmare Moon once more. Though she wasn't as intimidating as she was back in Ponyville, nowhere near. She was now limping on three legs with her four leg raised and no longer adorned with a metal boot, and that was when Twilight saw her leg.

The leg that Scales had sunk his fangs into.

In mere hours it had become gangrenous, rotting away enough that edges of leg bone was barely exposed amongst rotting meat while blackened blood tried in Nightmare Moon's coat. Veins around and running from the wound were risen and throbbing even when she wasn't standing on it. It looked like Nightmare Moon was in agony and was trying her hardest to not show it. It also looked like the wound was also leaking... purple?

Twilight whispered out a gasp at the sight. She had no idea that Scales' bite was even venomous at all, nor did she think it would be that potent. Her leg would surely fall off if it rotted anymore. But before she had a chance to speak or do something, Nightmare Moon beat her to it.

"You fool! You dare come after me all alone?" hissed Nightmare Moon, limping a step forward on three legs.

"Please, let me help you." Twilight tried to reason with the alicorn, "your leg is in no shape to—"

"Your creature of dark magic is to blame for my wound! Sombra's tainted sorcery seeps from that serpent's very heart!" Nightmare Moon's voice boomed over Twilight's own.

"Who's... Sombra?" Twilight asked, confused by the alicorn's statements. She had never heard of anypony called Sombra, no books nor even Celestia had ever mentioned any Sombra before.

"You speak like you do not already know his shadow! Liar!" she hissed in response, coming close to stomping her hoof down but wincing upon the pain that struck up her rotting limb. "Nonetheless! A wounded limb will not stop me! I will rule the night forever!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Twilight stated, dragging her hoof cross the stone ground as she readied to charge..

She knew she wasn't going to get anywhere talking to her, so her eyes then shifted to the five stone elements at Nightmare Moon's hooves. She ignited her horn ready to cast a defensive spell should she need to and charged forward. Nightmare Moon laughed at this and ignited her horn ready for her to attack. Twilight assumed she would've gone on the offensive were it not for her horribly rotting wound.

Twilight ran and attempted to teleport her way past Nightmare Moon, only to been struck by a spell hurled her way by Nightmare Moon's horn. She was sent flying through the air and crashed against a wall, grunting in pain as she attempted to get back on her hooves. Nightmare Moon was limping her way towards Twilight, horn ignited and ready to flay the lilac unicorn.

Twilight rose up only to find herself being struck in the mouth by Nightmare Moon's opposite front hoof, the action causing the alicorn to loose her balance and stumble back. She struggled back to her hooves as Twilight wiped the blood from her own lip.

"When Scales bit you, I should've told him to go for your neck." Twilight grunted out as she rose to her hooves, spitting out the blood that'd found its way into her mouth.

Nightmare Moon snarled at that comment, pulling herself back up off the ground and standing right before Twilight. Twilight knew she couldn't defeat an alicorn head on in a battle, so she had to cheat. She raised her hoof and threw it as hard as she possibly could, punching Nightmare Moon directly in the centre of her gangrenous wound.

Nightmare Moon howled out like nothing Twilight had ever heard before as drops of black and purple leaked onto Twilight's own coat. Twilight quickly wiped the spilt fluid off of her body, scared it might burn and rot her like it did Nightmare Moon, before she ignited her horn and teleported past the wailing alicorn and in front of the elements themselves.

Not wasting a moment, Twilight ignited her horn and enveloped all five stones with her magical aura. She just needed some kind of a spark to reveal the sixth element, whatever it was, then she could defeat Nightmare Moon. She focused all her magic on the stones. Straining herself as she attempted to get something, anything from them, but nothing would come. Why wouldn't it work?

But before she could push on anymore with her failed attempts, Nightmare Moon teleported herself in front of Twilight and practically head butted Twilight back. Nightmare Moon's horn barely missed the smaller unicorn as Twilight was sent flying back with only the dark alicorn's maniacal and pained laughter echoing through the castle. Twilight looked up just in time to witness Nightmare Moon raise the five elements up into her telekinetic grasp, the stone orbs beginning to crack more and more until finally they shattered into small pieces.

Twilight stared at the shattered elements of the small pieces hit the ground at Nightmare Moon's hooves. The elements of harmony were gone. Destroyed. Nightmare Moon's laughter bellowed, forcing its way through the pain in her voice from the rot on her hoof. Twilight didn't say anything, she was in too much shock to even react to what had just happened.

Twilight stood up slowly as she watched Nightmare Moon shoot a victorious glare Twilight's way. But before anymore words could leave Nightmare Moon's lips, Twilight heard the sounds of several familiar voices galloping close.

"Don't worry Twilight, we're on our way!" called Pinkie Pie.

"Just hold on!" Applejack said.

Twilight focused on the voices of those five mares. The voices of her friends as the five ponies burst into the room. She smiled softly, like a spark had lit up the darkness.

A spark!

"You think you can destroy The Elements of Harmony just like that?" Twilight stated with newly found hope. "Well, you're wrong, because the spirits of The Elements of Harmony are right here."

"What?" Nightmare Moon asked in shock and disbelief as the shards of stone about her hooves began to shake and glow.

"Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of... honesty!" stated Twilight, causing several pieces of stone to begin to flow around the farmpony. "Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of... kindness!" More stone circled around the somewhat frightened Fluttershy. "Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of... laughter!" Another round of stones circled the party pony. "Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift represents the spirit of... generosity!" The same stones circled around Rarity. "And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire represents the spirit of... loyalty!" Finally a ring of stones found their way to Rainbow Dash. "The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us." Twilight stated proudly with a smile on her face.

"You still don't have the sixth Element! The spark didn't work!" Nightmare Moon stated, the nervousness on her face showing through both the pain and now fading victory.

"But it did! A different kind of spark. I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I cared about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realized that you all... are my friends! You see, Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the... the spark, that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the sixth element: the element of... magic!"

Upon those words leaving Twilight's mouth, a strong magic surrounded all six mares as they gently floated off the ground from the sheer power it held. Nightmare Moon limped backward in fear, trying to figure out whether she should run or fight. But she had no time for either of those choices to be put into action.

Gemstones like no others found their ways about the necks of Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash, held in place by gold necklaces. A golden crown adorned with a purple gemstone landed down upon Twilight's head just as all six stones glowed and spat magic out into the air, creating a stream of rainbow colours that burst forth into an arc and came crashing down upon Nightmare Moon.

"No! Noooo!" Nightmare Moon howled as the blast of pure magical energy crashed and swirled around her before closing in and enveloping her entirely.

The light produced was so bright all six mares left in the castle had to shield their eyes else they'd risk going blind. In a flash the magic disappeared as did Nightmare Moon. In fact it seemed that it was getting brighter outside of the castle as well. Twilight smiled as her hooves touched the ground again. They had done it. They'd defeated Nightmare Moon and brought back the sun to Equestria.

"Ugh, my head." Rainbow groaned, rubbing her temple with a hoof.

"Everypony okay?" Applejack asked.

"Oh, thank goodness." Rarity said happily, seeing that whatever they had done had managed to grow her tail back as well.

"Why Rarity, it's so lovely." Fluttershy commented.

"I know! I'll never part with it again." Rarity nuzzled her own tail.

"No. Your necklace. It looks just like your cutie mark." Fluttershy said, pointing to the necklace around Rarity's neck.

"What?" Rarity looked down at her own necklace to see Fluttershy was right. "Ooh. So does yours."

"Look at mine! Look at mine!" Pinkie bounced happily as she showed off her cutie mark shaped necklace.

"Aw yeah." Rainbow said, having shook off the effects of the magic easily.

"Gee, Twilight! I thought you were just spoutin' a lot of hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the elements of friendship." Applejack said to Twilight.

"Indeed you do."

The six ponies turned their heads to the origin point of the voice, toward the sun as the shape of a tall pony appeared. Princess Celestia herself appeared before the six mares, immediately causing five of the six mares to bow down to their princess.

Twilight smiled upon seeing her mentor, gasping happily also. "Princess Celestia." Twilight said as she trotted toward the white coated alicorn princess.

Celestia trotted froward and extended her wing down to hug the smaller unicorn. "Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. I knew you could do it." Celestia smiled.

"But... you told me it was all an old pony tale." Twilight looked up to Celestia.

"I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her, but you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart." Celestia explained as she rose back up again and looked over to the spot Nightmare Moon had once been. "Now if only another will as well. Princess Luna!"

The six mares looked over to where Celestia was looking, gasping quietly at what they saw. Shattered pieces of Nightmare Moon's armour were shattered around an alicorn mare. A midnight blue coat with a cosmically flowing mane that reminded Twilight of the night sky. This princess Luna let out a sharp strong gasp, as though it were the first time she had breathed in centuries.

"It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this. Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister." Celestia said as she trotted towards Luna.

"Sister?" Twilight and Rainbow both questioned to each other.

"Will you accept my friendship?" Celestia asked the shorter alicorn.

Luna didn't answer at first, rising to her hooves and practically throwing herself at Celestia and as she hugged her older sister. "I'm so sorry! I missed you so much, sister!" Luna said, pressing her face into her sister's chest as sobs of mixed feelings broke out.

"I've missed you, too." Celestia smiled warmly and hugged her sister in return.

Sombra observed his cauldron's swirling contents as it produced the sight of Twilight Sparkle and her newly found friends, accompanied by Celestia and her newly reunited sister Luna began to make their way back to Ponyville. Nightmare Moon was no more, and Luna remained behind. Perfect. Sombra wanted to kill Luna, not a shadow of the princess's former self. No point killing a pony if they can't fear the act happening to them, after all.

But that wasn't what was at the forefront of his mind currently. The elements of harmony had been found and he had been able to witness their power and be able to analyse it, and it was every bit as interesting as he knew it would be.

Honesty...kindness...laughter...generosity...loyalty...

...and magic.

"So...that's how they work." Sombra said, intrigued as he raised a hoof to his chin in deep thought. He then focused onto Scales' mind yo contact with his undetected spy, whispering, "return to town."

This was very valuable information to possess, it was even worth Twilight's backtracking from the path he wished her to follow down. He knew not only how the elements functioned through a spiritual link with their bearers, but he now knew the sixth element of harmony. The barrier between Equestria and the shadow realm was growing weaker, and his resolve stronger than ever.

The crystal empire would soon return to the Equestrian north, and he needed to be sure Twilight would do her part when the time came. For now, he needed to teach more lessons of his own to teach his unaware student. Perhaps it was time she do some studying, perhaps it was time for the teacher to give his student some homework...

Twilight, her friends and the princesses trotted back into Ponyville, where they were greeted by practically everypony in Ponyville. Scales emerged from the crowds and slithered his way from the town to Twilight's side. Twilight trotted forward and hugged Scales happily. As Scales pulled away he noticed Luna walking alongside Celestia.

"Who's the mare?" Scales asked curiously, watching her and Celestia as they walked with each other.

"Princess Luna, formally Nightmare Moon before we used the power of the elements of harmony to bring her back." Twilight answered, quickly adding, "it's a long story."

Twilight then turned back to princess Luna, and noticed her leg that had been bitten by Scales previously. It was no longer rotting away like Nightmare Moon's leg was, in fact the elements seemed to have completely healed the rot itself. But the veins running down that leg were still raised, purple and throbbing, and Luna was limping whenever she walked on it. Twilight hoped that it it would heal for her sake, it looked painful enough when she was Nightmare Moon.

Twilight couldn't help but think about that, about how even the elements of harmony themselves had struggled with completely healing Scales' venomous bite, that made Twilight wonder how venomous Scales' bite actually was.

Princess Luna looked up at Twilight, seeing the unicorn's cut lip and slightly bruised body from their previous fight. She looked like she was about to begin apologising for the actions of Nightmare Moon, but Twilight raised her hoof kindly. "There's no need to say anything, princess, you weren't you back there." she offered a smile.

Luna smiled gently at Twilight and nodded. "Thou is too kind after all we've wrought this day." Luna replied with her head low, her gaze falling onto the snake slithering its way onto Twilight's back.

"Hey princess, no hard feelings about me biting you, right?" Scales said to Luna, looking at her injuried leg.

"No, of course, we would have done the same in your position, if we had fangs that is." Luna answered with a nod, but her eyes showing suspicion of the serpent. She then raised her hoof and looked at the damage it held, scars were the bite marks had been as well as the raised veins. "Though we may have trouble walking properly for some time yet."

"And I will be there to help you until you are able to." Celestia placed a hoof on Luna shoulder, offering her a smile. Luna smiled back at her sister in response.

"Umm, princess Celestia?" Twilight asked as a thought crossed her mind, "can I ask you something?"

Celestia could tell by the way that Twilight asked that she meant in private. "Very well." Celestia agreed before looking at both Luna and Scales. "If you'll excuse us." She said politely to them both.

Luna nodded her head and began to trot into Ponyville. Scales eyed up Twilight and Celestia for a moment curiously before lowering himself off of Twilight's back and following Luna into Ponyville. Now only Celestia and Twilight remained outside of town.

"How can I help you, Twilight?" Celestia asked.

"Well, I was wondering if you happened to know somepony. Somepony that Nightmare Moon mentioned back in the castle." Twilight explained.

"That depends, what is this pony's name?" Celestia asked.

"Sombra." Twilight answered.

The name alone seemed to earn a mixed amount of emotions yo swirl across Celestia's face. Fear, anger, passive reassurance, and then finally concern. "Sombra was a unicorn king, cruel with a heart as black as night. But he is dead now, even if his magic still stains the world today," Celestia answered, "nothing you should worry yourself about now."

"But—" Twilight began before looking up at Celestia, who had a look that said more than any words ever could, a look that was telling her to relax and stop worrying. "Alright." Twilight nodded with a small smile, earning one in return by Celestia.

She didn't tell Celestia what Nightmare Moon said about Scales, how his very heart had Sombra's magic in it whatever that meant. Perhaps it was nothing, perhaps Nightmare Moon was just saying things. Strange things to say though, what made her say that in particular? Should she tell Celestia? No, she wouldn't want to bother the princess about something that probably wasn't anything worth mentioning anyway. Scales wasn't bad, he was the nicest guy so long as you were in return.

Twilight shook those those thoughts from her mind and began to trot back into Ponyville. The ponies of the town were celebrating both the longest day of the year and the return of the lost princess of the moon. Scales slithered her way back over to Twilight with a curious look in his eye.

"So, you saved the princesses of Equestria as well as Equestria itself? Quite the achievements you have." Scales said with a smile.

"Yeah, turns out that princess Celestia knew about Nightmare Moon's return this whole time." Twilight explained to Scales as he slithered back up onto Twilight's body comfortably. "Princess Celestia just needed me to make friends in order to wield the elements against her."

"So, princess Celestia risked the safety of all of Equestria... just so that she could test you?" he narrowed his eyes curiously.

Twilight made to respond, but closed her mouth as thought took over again. Testing her? Twilight hadn't thought about it like that before. Now that she was thinking about it, she couldn't help but think of how all of Equestria could be facing an eternal night right about now if Twilight hadn't of been able to release the power of the elements. She had the cuts and bruises to prove that Nightmare Moon would have possibly killed her and her friends back in the castle if they had failed. Twilight frowned for a moment, but wiped the look from her face as she turned to look at Scales.

"Princess Celestia must have know what she was doing." Twilight said.

"What, can she see into the future now? Can she choose which destinies will and won't happen?" Scales inquired rhetorically. Twilight thought about it but no answer offered itself up in her mind, the longer she thought about it making the likelihood of an answer become more unlikely. "Let's just go celebrate now, shall we? Pinkie Pie might still have some of those cupcakes left over." Scales suggested, smiling.

"Yeah, okay." Twilight nodded, smiling back at Scales as she nuzzled him against her cheek.

Twilight then galloped back into town as to join the celebrating ponies while Scales wrapped around her body like a scaly scarf. For obvious reasons, the town hall was now off limits until all the carnage that Nightmare Moon had caused was no longer there to be seen. The summer sun celebration was in full swing, not a sad face in sight except for Twilight. She looked at her five new friends and realised that now she would have to head back home to Canterlot, away from her new friends.

"Why so glum, my faithful student?" Celestia asked as she approached Twilight again. "Are you not happy that your quest is complete and you can return to your studies in Canterlot?"

"That's just it. Just when I learned how wonderful it is to have friends, I have to leave them." Twilight explained.

"Scales, take a note, please." Celestia asked Scales, who seemingly managed to pull a quill and paper out of thin air as he began writing with his tail. "I, Princess Celestia, hereby decree that the unicorn Twilight Sparkle shall take on a new mission for Equestria. She must continue to study the magic of friendship. She must report to me her findings from her new home in Ponyville."

Many ponies in Ponyville cheered at this declaration made by Celestia. None cheered more than Twilight's friends as they made their ways to her side. Twilight's glumness was completely gone as she smiled too. She was going to be staying in Ponyville with her friends, she couldn't be more happy than she was right now. She would have to move a few of her things she had left in Canterlot here to Ponyville and say her goodbyes to her parents, but that could wait until tomorrow.

She didn't know what kinds of things she'd be doing now in Ponyville, but she was glad that she was going to be doing it with her friends.

Hours had passed by oh the longest day of the year, and the two princesses had arrived back at Canterlot. Ponyville wasn't the only place holding celebrations, it was merely the place where Celestia rose the sun from. Ponies in Canterlot would be partying for another few hours yet, every year had confirmed that as fact to Celestia.

Luna herself was still marvelling at the sheer size of Canterlot, Equestria's capital, and how so much had changed in a thousand years. She was impressed by the size of the capital, not really that bothered at the moment by the noise coming from the various points where partying seemed to be their loudest.

But to Celestia, today always seemed to give her more time to herself. She had more time so that her time to set up defences for the elements of harmony here in the castle, inform Twilight's parents about their daughter's plans upon Twilight politely asking her to, and now she could be helping Luna to reintegrate into modern Equestria.

Currently, Celestia was informing Luna of all that had changed since her imprisonment on the moon. Quite a lot had occurred so they would probably be talking for quite some time yet, not that Celestia minded. She would have spoken with her sister for all week long if she could. She had missed her so much, and was glad that her student had managed to free Luna from her corrupted state. But one thing still rang curiously in her mind.

Sombra.

The king in the north of Equestria at one time, king of the no longer existing crystal empire. The king who had waged war with the Equestrian south in an attempt to siege power and control over all Equestria, the only thing standing in his way being the two alicorn princesses waging a campaign against all that was dark and evil. He caused more problems than any other threat the sisters had ever faced before, proving himself deadly on both the battlefield and in the arena that was the political world. He tested their steel more times than any other, but they prevailed and destroyed him. Didn't they?

"Sister, is something the matter?" Luna asked Celestia, pulling the older sister from her trance like state of thought. "Thou seems distant since thou had spoketh with Twilight Sparkle."

Celestia looked at her sister for a moment, considering just saying that nothing was wrong and leaving it at that. But keeping things hidden and ignoring Luna was what caused Nightmare Moon to break loose all those years ago. She wouldn't make those same mistakes again.

"Do... you remember what you... what Nightmare Moon said to Twilight back in our old castle?" Celestia asked.

"No, we doth not remember anything apart from shadows and screams," Luna answered, "why dost thou ask?"

"So you don't remember anything mentioned about Sombra?" Celestia asked slowly.

"Certainly not." Luna asked, growing concerned by Celestia questions. "Why would we? Sombra is long since deceased, his icy remains shattered in the north."

"It's probably nothing, I must just be thinking too much into things." Celestia said. "Sombra may be gone, but his magic still is lying dormant in various places across Equestria. It just—"

"—makes thou wonder what was destroyed all those years ago: the shadows and the crystals, or the king himself?" Luna finished Celestia's thoughts.

Celestia didn't respond to Luna's question, instead she trotted out onto the balcony in her room and looked out at the ponies below. Luna joined her side as both hoped that all of Sombra had been destroyed all those centuries ago. What was she thinking anyhow? Just because Twilight heard that name from Nightmare Moon's mouth, that doesn't mean she should automatically assume the worst case scenario.

Sombra couldn't possibly still be alive, right?

— Chapter III - Crystals —

"Do we really need to take the books with us? We're going to be living in a library, you know that right?"

Scales asked Twilight as he hung from one of the book cases as he eyed up several books. A week had passed since the day of the summer sun celebration, and now Twilight and her friends had traveled to Canterlot in order to collect the rest of Twilight's belongings from her home there. Twilight had tried saying that she and Scales were fine on their own, but they insisted on helping out their new friend. Right now Applejack and Rainbow Dash were taking care of the furniture while Rarity, Pinkie and Fluttershy helped to pack the smaller things they had. They had a moving chariot waiting outside so the move would be rather easy.

Twilight rolled her eyes and turned to face Scales, giving an answer for his question. "The library doesn't have all the same books as I do, so I'm taking just a couple extra books for me to read."

"Just a couple? Right..." Scales said, turning his gaze to the two full boxes of books and a third box roughly a quarter of the way full.

"No, Rainbow, you're meant to be pushing it not pulling." Applejack told Rainbow from the next room along, holding the couch that the two ponies had managed to get wedged in the doorway as Rainbow was trying to move it from the other side in Twilight's room.

"It's stuck! See this is why I said we should've thrown it out the window." Rainbow stated.

"We are twenty stories off of the ground!" Applejack pointed out as she leaned over her side of the couch.

"Height is just a number." Rainbow said with a shrugging motion.

"And a jail cell is just a room if this couch hits somepony on the way down." Applejack retorted.

"Not if the moving pegasi and I catch it before it hits the ground." Rainbow said, as though it were the greatest idea in the history of Rainbow Dash ideas.

"No, Twilight and her folks managed to get it in here, so we'll get it out of here." Applejack said, sighing as she tried once again to move the wedged piece of furniture.

Twilight and the rest of the group couldn't help but chuckle softly as they watched the earth pony and pegasus battle with the couch. This felt nice, having friends to laugh with. She and Scales had their laughs, but it was nice to have a change like this.

Fluttershy and Rarity were carefully filling a box with a crystalline table lamp as well as Twilight's various notebooks, sealed ink pots and fresh quills, and other objects that needed to be placed into a box labelled 'fragile'. Fluttershy then carefully picked up Scales' bed, a wooden basket filled with dead grass which seemed to be rather warm on the bottom. Most likely some kind of spell Twilight had cast on it.

"Hey, Scales, you never answered my question the day we met," Fluttershy remembered, her voice catching the attention of the scaly serpent hanging from the bookcase, "what species of snake are you?"

"I can't exactly answer that, my dear Flutters." Scales replied as he lowered his head down to pony height, still clinging to the bookcase. Fluttershy blushed at the nickname as Scales then said, "I don't actually know what species I am."

"He was hatched during my entrance exam for Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. It was supposed to be a dragon egg but Scales came out instead." Twilight said as she stroked Scales' chin, earning a soft purring hiss of content from the snake. "He immediately warmed up to me and we've been together ever since. He's the best assistant, and friend, I could have asked for before I met all of you."

"Wow, it's like he was made for you." Fluttershy commented.

"Yeah, it is." Twilight smiled as Scales slithered back up the bookcase and began taking more books and placing them into boxes.

"It does sound a tad bit peculiar though, doesn't it, a talking snake of unknown species emerging from an egg that's meant to be a dragon?" Rarity wondered aloud.

"Yeah, that's what everypony who's heard the story says." Twilight told Rarity.

"Have you ever wondered about where you came from, Scales?" Fluttershy asked the snake.

"Oh, well, maybe once or twice but never in much detail..." Scales answered vaguely, giving a small flick of his tail as though in thought.

His tail moved and ended up knocking into one of the shelves of the bookcase, dislodging it and causing it to topple down off the bookcase and crash into the ground extremely close to where Rarity and Fluttershy had been stood. Books were sent everywhere across the floor and the two mares who'd almost been hit by the falling books let out short sharp squeaks of fright.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, are you both okay?" Scales asked the two mares as he lowered himself down to see the two mares.

"Yes, we're fine, don't worry. Accidents will happen." Rarity said as she brushed off some dust off her hoof that'd flown her way from the fallen shelf.

"I'll clear this up." Twilight said, levitating the shelf off of the ground as she raised it to place it back on the bookcase.

"We'll pack the smaller boxes." Rarity said with a nod as she moved with Fluttershy and Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie seemed to have remained rather silent since the mention of Scales' mysterious origins. She was eyeing the serpent slyly, not in a way that suggested anything other than suspicion. It wasn't noticeable unless you were looking directly at the pink party pony like Twilight was. It wasn't worth Twilight addressing as Pinkie turned back around and happily bounced to Rarity and Fluttershy's sides to help with packing, seemingly having pushed the suspicion out of her mind for now.

Twilight turned back to Scales and helped with the scattered books, carefully closing them up again and being sure no spines were bent and no pages were crumpled. Moving books into either the boxes for moving or back onto the shelves, Twilight examined the covers and remembered which books were and weren't in the Golden Oak library back in Ponyville. She had taken some time to read over the covers of some of the books in the library in order to see which she did and didn't own already.

Then as Twilight reached to place a book on the bottom shelf, she noticed that the book didn't slide completely into the back of the bookcase. She tried to gently jammed it back, the book in her hoof bumping against something wedged into the back of the bookcase. Twilight placed the book down and crouched down, staring at the back of the bottom shelf with curiosity.

There was a book stuck in the back, thick with both layers of dust and with pages. It was lay on its side pressed against the back wall of the bookcase, having been completely hidden from sight previously. It looked like the book had been there for years, collecting dust while going completely unseen by Twilight or any others. Twilight's brow furrowed as she reached out and took the book, feeling the dust rub against her hoof as she pulled it out again.

Using her magic to clear the dust from the rather large tome, Twilight looked at the cover and knew this book didn't belong to her. She was pretty sure she would remember purchasing or borrowing a book like this. The book's cover was black with colours of green and lilac decorating the spine. There seemed to be an image of a strange kind of a red unicorn head with sharp wings sprouting from the stumped neck. There was no name displayed on the cover, but it was there to see upon Twilight turning the first page.

'Mastery of the dark arts: volume 1'.

Twilight read the title of the book a second time, making sure she had in fact read it correctly. Dark arts? What dark arts did it mean? Twilight looked back to her friends, seeing they were all busy, and then curiously took a peek at the table of contents to see what the book was about. There were well over a thousand pages in the book, something Twilight had already guess judging by the sheer size of the book.

Runes, rituals, ancidnts sorceries of tongue and hoof and horn. This was a book of magic. Twilight turned to a random page and read it quietly to herself. "The art of producing offensive crystals from pure magic is an art of sorcery first discovered by the crystal ponies of the northern crystal empire. Crystal spires, capable of being as thick as castle walls or as thin as needles should the caster decide as such, are an easy method of distraction, mutilation or even execution of ones foes or can simply be used to ensure an easy path of escape from danger..." Twilight muttered silently so no pony could hear her.

There were images and every accompanying the text. Images of the crystal spires and diagrams of unicorn's casting the crystal spells, showing a step by step guide of how to do it yourself. Twilight wasn't sure whether she should be curious to read on or whether she should be concerned with the nature of these spells. This crystal spell seemed to be magic created for warfare and killing. Twilight flipped several other pages and saw spells that had different purposes to them, it would've been a truly fascinating read if it were so grisly.

And what was this crystal empire that it mentioned? Or these crystal ponies? She had never heard of either of those things. There were no ponies in the north, just yaks and ice monsters. She most likely wouldn't be able to find anymore out about this empire, as this book focuses on sorcery, runes and alchemy among other things.

"Whatcha got there?" Scales suddenly said, almost causing Twilight to jump out of her coat in pure fright.

"Scales! Don't sneak up on me like that." Twilight whispered to Scales, who was now leering over her shoulder.

"Why are you whispering?" Scales asked in a mocking whispered tone, before he spotted the book in Twilight's hooves and peeked at the contents. "Hmm... I don't remember this book."

"Me neither, I don't remember ever reading this." Twilight said as she closed the book. "Where could it have come from?"

"A book sale, when you were younger?" Scales suggested.

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember a book like this." Twilight said as she showed the cover of the book to Scales.

Scales looked at the cover, his mouth slitting up a curious smile before he turned back to look at Twilight. "Maybe it'd be worth a read, seems oddly curious that you'd have that in your room and yet you've never read it." Scales said.

"I don't know, seems a little bit dark for my tastes." Twilight said with a scratch of her head.

"I didn't know you had a specific taste for books." Scales said.

Twilight looked at Scales and then down at the book, thinking about it for a few moments. There was no harm in a book. There was no harm in reading one either, regardless of how dark the contents of its pages may seem on first glance. Twilight looked to Scales and gave him a small nod. "Alright, put it in the box." Twilight said.

Scales grinned softly and nodded as he took the book, wrapping his tail around it and slithering over to the box of books coming with her to Ponyville. His placed it down, but Twilight noticed that he had placed it underneath another book as to hide it from view. Twilight didn't think anything of it in the moment and finished up with clearing away the books that had toppled over.

Once Twilight was done clearing up, she stood up again and turned around. She then had to hold back the urge to chuckle upon seeing the couch that was still wedged in the doorway, with Applejack and Rainbow Dash lazily slumped on it in defeat.

"Do you really need the couch?" Rainbow asked Twilight.

"We could buy ya a new one." Applejack offered with an outstretched gesture of her hooves.

"My word, what's going on here?"

Twilight, Rainbow and Applejack turned their heads to the other side of the blocked doorway, where Twilight's mother stood with a tray of drinks balanced perfectly on her back.

"Oh, miss Velvet, we were just trying to move the couch," Applejack said, "though we aren't exactly getting very far."

"Oh yes, that thing was a pain to get in the house when we bought it," Twilight Velvet said understandingly, "in the end, Night Light ended up having to get some of his pegasi friends to throw the thing through the window."

Twilight could see Applejack's eye twitching as Rainbow's widening grin threatened to cut her head in two. But before Rainbow could begin her bragging and sign her own death warrant, Twilight cut in. "We weren't making too much noise were we, mom?" Twilight asked her mother.

"Oh, no dear, I just came up to offer your friends some refreshments. You've all been working so hard." said Twilight Velvet said she levitated the tray of drinks into the room.

"Anything to help our friend out." said Rainbow as she stood up, taking a drink from the tray.

"I'm just so glad that Twilight has finally managed to make some proper friends," Twilight Velvet said, before noticing the look she was receiving from Scales, "proper pony friends, that is."

Twilight Velvet made her way into the room, with the help of Applejack and Rainbow, and looked around the room at the various things that had been moved and the things that were remaining behind before she looked back at Twilight. "I can't believe my baby girl is finally moving out into a place of her own." Twilight Velvet smiled warmly at Twilight, "you'll be sure to visit, right?"

"Yes, I promise that I'll visit." Twilight nodded, smiling at her mother.

The two mares pulled forth into a warm hug. Twilight was as surprised as her mother was at how things had turned out. She had been living with her parents her whole life, now she was moving to Ponyville. She wouldn't have it any other way, but she would miss her parents. She would visit like she said she would and she would write to them whenever she had the time, but being so far from home would take Twilight some getting used to.

"Oh! That reminds me, your brother is coming to see you before you leave for Ponyville," Twilight Velvet said, "your father should be back with him any minute now."

"Honey, I'm home! And Shining Armour is with me."

As though on cue, a stallion's voice called out upon the opening of a door downstairs. Hooves trotting into the house let Twilight know her father and her brother had returned. "We're upstairs, having a little problem with the furniture." Twilight Velvet called downstairs.

"Bet it's that Celestia-damn couch." Twilight could heard her father say downstairs before he began to make his way up to them.

Two unicorn stallions trotted up the stairs, Twilight's father and Shining Armour. Then Twilight noticed that a third stallion was following behind them who she didn't recognise at all. He was a pegasus who had a light orange coloured coat and a short spiked dark blue mane. He was rather handsome as far as stallions went, Twilight had to admit. Though judging by the way Flash looked at Twilight, he was interested in her.

"Alright girls, cavalry is here." Night Light jested as he appeared in the doorway. He then placed a hoof on the pegasus's shoulder and said, "oh yeah, this is Flash, one of Shining Armour's army buddies. He offered to come help with the packing."

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am," said Flash Sentry to Twilight Velvet with respect in his tone, "you have a lovely home."

"Why, thank you." Twilight Velvet smiled.

"it's good to see you, Shining," said Twilight before she turned to Flash Sentry, "and it's a pleasure to meet you Flash Sentry."

"Please, just call me Flash." said Flash, his face heated up slightly as he gave the unicorn mare a smile.

"Alright then, Flash." Twilight gave a friendly smile to the pegasus stallion, earning a faint and barely noticeable blush from him. But Twilight did notice it.

Shining Armour noticed the mutual looks between them and butted in, placing a hoof on the shoulder of his pegasus friend. "So, Twily, you need this couch moving?" Shining asked Twilight, patting the furniture in question.

"I'd be thankful if you can just get it out of the doorway." Twilight answered.

"Did you try teleporting it out of the doorway?" Flash spoke up, "pardon my insolence if there be any, but I've heard many stories of how talented you are with magic and thought you'd be able to move such a large object easily."

It was now Twilight's turn to blush. Why hadn't she thought about that herself? And Flash had just called her talented, that ounce of flattery had added to the heat in her cheeks. Applejack and Rainbow however, were just staring at Twilight with looks of irritation that neither of them had even thought to ask one of the unicorns in the room to move the thing. "Right, I'll do that now." Twilight offered an awkward smile as she ignited her horn.

With a quick purple poof, the couch was teleported out from the doorway and into the hallway next to the three stallions. Applejack and Rainbow looked at one another and then to Twilight.

"You couldn't have sent the thing outside?" Rainbow asked.

Several ponies in the room chuckled, Twilight and Rainbow included.

Collective sighs of satisfaction come from several members of the group. The moving chariot had almost been fully loaded up with Twilight's things with only a few small boxes left to go. Twilight passed some boxes to Flash, who took them and loaded them onto the chariot.

"So, Flash, how did you and my brother meet?" Twilight asked the pegasus, striking up a conversation.

"Oh, we met in the guard academy." Flash answered. "We were sparring partners."

"Oh, right." Twilight smiled and nodded, trying to look interested while also having no idea of what sparring actual was.

"Yeah, you're brother's a good guard, he deserves everything he's earned." Flash stated with a smile.

"Yeah, he tries his hardest at everything he does, and always has his friends' backs." Twilight confirmed.

"I'm sure that must run in the family." Flash complimented.

Twilight blushed faintly and gave a small chuckle. Why was she blushing? Twilight would've slapped herself around the face there and then if she could. It was at that point that Rarity appeared behind the pair, with a smile Twilight could only conclude meant that Rarity was up to something. "So, Flash, being a royal guard must get you a lot of praise from everypony." Rarity commented.

"Yeah, I guess it does." Flash said with a nod.

"And a lot of that attention must be by mares who just love a guard in uniform." Rarity followed up.

Flash's cheeks turned pink at the comment. "Yes...?" he confirmed.

"Have you ever thought about... reciprocating such feelings with any mares?" Rarity queried. Twilight's own face couldn't be any redder right now if it tried, but she couldn't bring herself to speak up.

"No, why? Are you..." Flash looked at Rarity, the look on his face showing mixed feelings.

"Moi? No, no, no." Rarity waved her hoof before placing it on Twilight's shoulder. "I was merely inquiring for a friend of mine."

"Oh, right." Flash said before quickly adding, "I'm gonna go check to see if we forgot anything so it won't be left behind."

With that Flash used his wings and hovered away from the two unicorns. Twilight looked at Rarity with a red face and asked, "what was that?"

"I was helping you find out if he was available, in a subtle way of course." Rarity answered.

"That was about as subtle as a brick to the head." Twilight responded.

"Well you weren't getting anywhere with him on your own." Rarity said.

"Maybe I don't want to go anywhere with him." Twilight suggested.

"So you're not interested in him?" Rarity asked.

"No..." Twilight said with too much thought behind it. She didn't need to think on it at all. She wasn't interested in Flash, she'd know if she was.

"Mmhm." Rarity hummed slowly, eyeing the unicorn, "not your type then?"

"I don't have a type." Twilight answered. "Or if I do, I don't know what it is."

"Oh, Twilight dear, don't worry about a thing. I'll help you master the arts of romance." Rarity said, rolling the R in romance.

"Isn't the stallion supposed to be the romantic one?" Twilight asked. She hadn't a clue about actually socialising or anything like that, but she had read a few books.

"If you want to be traditional, maybe darling, but sometimes it's up to a mare to... take the reins as it were." Rarity explained.

"You sound like you have a lot of experience." Twilight commented, raising a brow ever so slightly.

"I've... some experience." Rarity said, flicking her mane back stylishly. "Once we've got time back in Ponyville then I shall teach you how to impress your suitor while making sure to remain yourself."

"Thanks, but I don't think I'll be needing any romantic advice for now." Twilight shrugged off Rarity's offer.

At that moment, Fluttershy hovered over and landed in front of the chariot and two mares carrying a small box. She may be Twilight's friend now, but Twilight knew she was struggling with that box. Fluttershy was pathetically weak for a pegasus and for a pony in general, but Twilight found her to be too cute to be mad about that fact. "Here, Fluttershy, let me help." Twilight offered as she mare a helping hoof.

"Oh? N-no thank you, I can manage..." Fluttershy said, clearly not managing with the box.

"I know. But it doesn't hurt to get some help with things." Twilight said as she ignited her hoof and gently levitated the box from Fluttershy. The action alone made the yellow pegasus blush profusely, and Twilight could've sworn she heard something be whispered silently from the mare but Twilight chose to ignore it.

"Umm... thank you." Fluttershy said quietly as she trotted to Twilight's side. "Hey, Twilight, I was wondering..." Fluttershy began, only for the rest to come out as mumbling not too unlike the mumbling that's come out when they'd met.

"What?" Twilight asked, cocking her head to the side slightly.

Fluttershy took a sudden deep breath in and then exhaled again, looking up at Twilight. "I was wondering if you'd like to come up to my cottage sometime soon?" Fluttershy said, her blushing face and eyes alone showing that the little pegasus was mentally scolding herself for how she had worded it. "For tea... or something like that, I mean." Fluttershy added, doing her best to hide behind her mane and still keep some semblance of eye contact.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'd love to. When's good for you?" Twilight said, smiling.

"Oh, well anytime is fine... but how about tomorrow midday?" Fluttershy said, looking to Twilight.

"Sure, I'll see you then." Twilight nodded as she placed the box down onto the chariot.

"Great, I'll see you tomorrow then." Fluttershy nodded, with a look that Twilight couldn't tell whether it was absolute horror or positive excitement.

Fluttershy then turned back around to trot away, presumably to get the last of Twilight's things. Then Twilight noticed Fluttershy stop and speak with Rainbow Dash. The two pegasi exchanged words before Rainbow supportingly patted Fluttershy on the back, making Twilight raise an eyebrow curiously.

"Looks like Flash isn't the only pegasus swooning over you." Rarity commented with a small smile.

That made Twilight's subsiding redness of the cheeks return very swiftly. "I'm sure it's not like that." Twilight said, shaking her head. "It's just two friends having tea."

"Tea with plenty of sugar." Rarity teased, smirking. Twilight in response buried her face into her hooves to hide the blush threatening to melt her face off. Rarity chuckled before continuing. "I'm joking of course. Fluttershy isn't like that. Into that sort of stuff I mean, I don't know if she likes mares..." Rarity said with a hoof to her chin, "I never thought to ask, mainly because the question would probably make the poor dear faint. Anyhow, I've got some things to discuss with your mother. She wants me to make her a dress, and we may as well discuss the details while I'm here."

"Alright." Twilight nodded.

Meanwhile. Night Light, Shining Armour, Applejack and Rainbow Dash had almost completely shirked their duty and were currently engaged in hoof wrestling on one of Twilight's bedside drawers while sitting on chairs they were also supposed to be moving, with Pinkie Pie acting as the one who'd make sure no cheating occurred. Pinkie was even wearing a referee hat and had a whistle around her neck, neither of which Twilight knew where they'd come from. Currently, it was Night Light verses Applejack.

"3. 2. 1. Go!" Pinkie made a cutting motion with her hoof and quickly pulled away. Immediately, Night Light and Applejack began trying to force the other's hoof down onto the table. Farm pony verses... whatever Twilight's dad worked as. Earth pony mare verses unicorn stallion, evenly enough matched up in strength.

Both ponies grunted roughly as each attempted to slam the other's hoof on the table. Shining Armour was backing his dad's corner and Rainbow had Applejack's. Shining and Rainbow cheered on their chosen arm wrestler, Night Light and Applejack focused primarily on winning. Edging closer and closer on both sides, a struggle of strength until finally Applejack slammed Night Light's hoof down on the table. Shining Armour groaned and looked down while Rainbow hoof pumped the air.

"Aww yeah! Hand 'em over, Shiny." Rainbow jested as she held her hoof out.

"Fine." Shining Armour grumbled, handing over the fifty bits he and Rainbow had betted. "Should've know not to bet against an Apple."

"Lesson learned." Applejack chuckled as she looked at Night Light. "You got some strong forehooves, sir, almost as strong as my brother's."

"Thanks, and you're quite possibly the strongest mare I've ever met." Night Light responded, smiling as he leaned back in his seat.

"Come on, let me take her on." Shining said, flexing his muscles as he did.

"Shouldn't you lot be helping me pack?" Twilight asked the group rhetorically.

"Yeah, Twily, we're just taking a little break." Shining replied, the others nodding in confirmation.

"Right, okay then." Twilight nodded as she trotted back into the building. She then sat down on some steps that led up into the actual home area itself. If they were going to take a break, then so was she. She sighed as she took the weight off her hooves and lay back, watching the group of ponies hoof wrestling outside as she heard the sound of a slithering serpent coming up behind her.

"Slacking off, are they?" Scales asked as he appeared in front of Twilight's field of vision, watching the same group Twilight was.

"Yeah." Twilight confirmed with a nod. "I don't blame them though, they've been doing most of the heavy lifting."

"Yeah, still must be annoying. So close to being finish and all." Scales replied before whispering, "think there's a spell to fix that in that little tome of yours?"

"What, like some kind of high functioning and self sustaining mind control?" Twilight asked, looking down at Scales.

"Yeah, so much more stuff could be done if a little mind control was used now and then." Scales explained. "Obviously there's the obstacle of ponies wanting their free will and not taking kindly to it being taken from them. But the point is still valid from an emotionless standpoint."

"Yeah, I suppose it is." Twilight agreed semi-absentmindedly as she thought about the spell book.

The book seemed so mysterious. She never remembered owning, buying or borrowing such a book, and Celestia certainly wouldn't give out a book of dark magic. Not even to her personal student. She should really turn the book over to Celestia and Luna, have them decipher its origins and whether or not it can be trusted. But it was already packed away in the moving chariot and it would look most suspicious if she were rummaging around the chariot for something she had been planned on keeping secret from them.

So, she takes it with her to her and Scales' new home. Then what? Did she just... read it like she would any other normal book she would read? It was a spell book with the potential to house great power, a great power that was practically at the tip of her horn. She couldn't really cast a spell from the book, could she?

There was only one way to really find out.

The moving chariot set off, leaving another satisfied customer with all their furniture and other things ready to be moved into their new home. Twilight and her friends had quickly made about moving the boxes and furniture into the house, with Applejack and Rainbow quickly eyeing up the library windows for certain reasons Applejack preferred not to say. They had managed to finish with the packing in just under an hour, given that several of Twilight's friends had called for help from some of their friends as well.

Now, all her friends had gone back home for now after having offered to help stack Twilight's books onto the book shelves once more. Twilight had refused the offer politely, not wanting any of them to see the tome she had been waiting patiently to study. She knew they would surely question whether reading a book of dark magic was safe, but Twilight knew better. The words in a book can't corrupt, and this was simple curiosity about the darker sides of sorcery.

"Now then, which box has that book in it?" Twilight asked nopony in particular. Nopony answered as she began searching through the boxes and the books within.

As though luck itself was on her side, the book was in the first box she checked. It stuck out like a sore hoof when among the other books, making Twilight think of Scales' good call to place it under another book to be sure nopony saw it. She and Scales looked at the book's cover once again.

"Should I really be reading this?" Twilight wondered to herself.

"Why shouldn't you? It's what books were made for." Scales said over Twilight's shoulder.

"Perhaps if I just asked princess Celestia about it—"

"Then she would just tell you no and take the book away, its secrets never to be told." Scales countered before adding, "how about if the book turns out to be bad mojo, then we'll hand it over to the princesses then?"

Twilight thought about Scales' proposal for a moment and then another, looking to the book and then back to the serpent before nodding. "Alright." Twilight agreed.

Scales smiled as he watched Twilight open the book as she trotted over to her couch, using her magic to flick on her crystalline table lamp on. Scales and slithered off of her body and was now lay out over the back of the couch, still peering over Twilight's shoulder at the book. Having gotten comfortable, Twilight looked back to the page she had been looking through in Canterlot. Offensive crystals.

"A simple spell that any unicorn can cast, but which takes an above average intellect to keep control of..." Twilight read aloud as she read on.

"Well then, you should be able to cast that spell easily." Scales remarked.

"What? No, I couldn't cast any of these spells. They're far too above what I study." Twilight said before adding, "besides, even if I could cast it I shouldn't. Dark magic is called 'dark magic' for a reason surely."

"Maybe it's called that just because it was discovered at night time." Scales quipped. He then followed it up by saying, "magic is magic, there is no good magic or bad magic. No black or white, just a whole lot of grey."

"Maybe...maybe one spell wouldn't be that bad." Twilight pondered the idea and looked back to the book, completely unaware of Scales' almost victorious grin.

"For beginners, it may seem a bit strenuous. But it will become easier the more the caster uses the spell..." Twilight muttered to herself as she read through the paragraphs. "...feel the raw emotions of negative events in your life, feed into them and focus on them. The stronger the feelings, the easier the spell. Imagine crystal emerging outwards in your mind. Your mind ablaze as an imagining becomes a reality." Twilight pursed her lips in thought at the instructions, reading on as she began to understand what to do.

"So if I just focus on something like...anger or hate, then I'll be able to cast the spell?" Twilight said as she put the book down and looked at Scales. "Still think magic is a whole lot of grey?"

"Of course, what's a positive emotion without a negative one?" Scales replied. "You can't love without hate and you can't be happy without being sad. All the kinds of things we feel and do are necessary regardless of whether we like them or not. Love and hate, happiness and sadness, mercy and murder. Opposites are not all bad, per se, they're merely...different."

Twilight listened to Scales' explanation. Scales may have joked and laughed with the best of them, but one thing he was not was an idiot. He listened to Twilight's intellectual speeches of information, he listened and remembered it all if it was fascinating enough for him. He had a great understanding of many things and even used to do some reading of his own whenever she and princess Celestia were having one of their lessons. To Twilight's surprise when she first found out, anything about philosophy and crystals seemed to be among his favourite reads.

Twilight then considered the idea of using anger to fuel a spell. She knew love, and now friendship, had powerful influences on magic and how well the spell is. But she never even dreamed of channeling hate into spell form, it always seemed so ludicrous. Equestria and its magic was a place of love and kindness. But this book proved that it was at least a possibility for magic to have a darker side to it.

"It's a curious thing to think about, isn't it, 'are anger and hate truly evil emotions?'." Scales thought aloud, "that'd be a interesting thesis for somepony to write."

It would, wouldn't it? Twilight looked down at the book, still open to the spell page in question. Twilight nodded and rose up out of her seat. "What's the harm in a simple spell?" Twilight said to herself. She read over the instructions again and focused her eyes on her horn, igniting it in magic.

Negative emotions. Hate, anger, Twilight focused and thought about these emotions. Twilight thought back to her fight with Nightmare Moon, how she wanted to beat her into the stony earth beneath them with all her strength and keep going. She wanted to break her and make sure nopony could ever be hurt by her again. Blow after blow after blow...

Twilight felt it. She closed her eyes as it felt like the eyelids were on fire, yet no burning sensation occurred. She felt something touch her horn but kept going. No pain, so she continued. She pushed on until she heard a sound like breaking glass. Cracking, cackling, shattering and crunching. It didn't feel nearly as bad as she thought it would, it felt strangely... right to her. It was a pain to keep a hold of, but with time she could be able to control it. If she ever chose to use this dark magic again that is.

Twilight lost her focus and the spell dissipated entirely. The burning sensation was gone and Twilight opened her eyes, gasping at what she saw.

Her crystalline table lamp had grown, broken outwards into a jagged mess at least three times the size it was previously. A messy uneven and impossible to use abomination of dark purple crystal that seemed to swirl beneath the surface of glass. Black, lilac and crimson battling within jagged uncut gemstone that looked as sharp as knives.

"Incredible..." Scales muttered out as he smiled, smiling a devious smile that Twilight failed to notice.

"What happened? I was just trying to summon a bit of crystal..." Twilight said, shocked at what had become of the lamp.

"Did you think of a spot where you wanted the crystal to appear at?" Scales suggested, peering his head down to look at the book before Twilight had turned to face him.

"What? No, I didn't think..." Twilight trotted over and looked down at the book, seeing it written clearly that a location must be specified for controlled crystal. "Oh, by Celestia..." Twilight groaned.

"Hmm, if this is what happens when a mistake is made, imagine what this magic could really do." Scales commented.

"Yeah, imagine..." Twilight said with a small nod, thinking about it as she looked from the book to the crystal mass. Then she snapped out of her fascination and shook her head. "No, I shouldn't. This is... far too dangerous to use."

"Powers are only dangerous if they aren't controlled." Scales replied.

"Nightmare Moon had control of her powers." Twilight pointed out.

"Only after princess Luna lost control of hers." Scales countered.

"But what if I loose control? I don't wanna be some kind of Nightmare... Twinkle!" Twilight said.

"Nightmare Twinkle?" Scales chuckled.

"You get what I mean!" Twilight huffed, her cheeks reddening.

"Yeah, I get what you mean." Scales confirmed. He then slithered up to Twilight and spoke with a more sincere voice. "You're worried you'll become evil because you used some magic that Celestia doesn't know about. But, Twilight, trust me... there's no chance of you ever becoming anything remotely close to evil."

"Yeah, but..."

"But nothing." Scales cut in, shaking his tail slightly. "Magic is magic. It has no effect on how you feel in terms of morality."

Twilight looked at Scales and smiled. She then went to speak again...

...only for a loud knock on the door to be heard.

Pinkie Pie and the others were currently in Sugarcube Corner, getting a sugary recharge after all the lifting they'd just done to help out Twilight. Twilight had told them she could handle the rest and sent them on their ways, a little too insistently so Pinkie had noticed. She couldn't help but feel like Twilight was hiding something, and that Scales had something to do with that something that Twilight was hiding.

Pinkie didn't trust Scales at all. She did at first, but now she wasn't so sure. She was completely fine with Twilight, but something about that snake just didn't sit with her the right way. She couldn't even joke about it to herself, which was a major Pinkie Pie sign that something was amiss. She knew her friends wouldn't quite understand her worries. To be honest she wouldn't if she was in anypony else's shoes, which alone would be weird since ponies don't actually wear shoes all that often but that's a whole other thing altogether.

"Pinkie? Are you listening?" Rainbow asked, waving a hoof in front of Pinkie's face.

"Are you alright, Pinkie? You seem a little... distant." Applejack commented

"Are you internally monologuing again, darling?" Rarity asked, taking a small elegant bite out of her pastry.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, sorry, the plot in my mind was forming together. But it can wait." Pinkie brushed off the question in the same happy-go-lucky attitude that nopony ever found suspicious before, before digging her face into the chocolate cake she had in front of her.

"Anyway..." Rarity said with a slow nod and a look that pretty much said 'it's Pinkie Pie, don't question it'. "What were you saying, Rainbow?"

"I was about to ask Pinkie if she was going to throw a moving in party for Twilight and Scales." Rainbow said, turning to Rainbow.

"Of course I am!" Pinkie said proudly upon having pulled away from her chocolate dessert. Then a small thought dawned on her and she added, "I just don't know what foods you would give a snake. Don't they eat...animals?"

The mares all paused upon realising this fact and then looked at Fluttershy, who had a clear cut look of fear on her face. "I'm... going to head home, check on Angel and... every creature else." Fluttershy said, shivering slightly at the thought as she rose from her seat.

The group of mares allowed Fluttershy to leave, speeding out of the bakery with speeds that caught even Rainbow's attention. "You don't actually think Scales will... eat any of Fluttershy's woodland friends, do you?" Rarity asked once Fluttershy was gone.

"Well, it's possible." Applejack said. "Don't tell Fluttershy this, but I remember finding a snake in the orchard... swallowing a badger whole." That alone got disgusted gasps from Rarity and Pinkie. "Still saw the poor critter's back legs moving." Applejack shivered.

"Well, let's hope Twilight has something to feed Scales with. For Fluttershy's sake." Rarity said before turning to Rainbow.

"That would make things awkward between them. Fluttershy trying to go out with Twilight while Scales' is swallowing a ferret in the background..." Rainbow chuckled shortly, before her eyes widened in shock at what she had just blurted out.

"I knew it!" Rarity declared with a pointing hoof.

"None of you are to say anything about this to anypony!" Rainbow told the group. "I promised Fluttershy I wouldn't say anything!"

"Well, looks like Fluttershy might have some competition. You see the way she and that Flash Sentry were looking at each other?" Applejack said.

"Yeah, but that's nothing special. Flash Sentry isn't nearly as good looking as Fluttershy." Rainbow commented. "Fluttershy will get with Twilight easy."

"If Twilight swings that way, that is." Applejack pointed out.

"Details, details." Rainbow waved her hoof.

"Pretty big 'details', dear." Rarity said.

Pinkie listened to her friends talk to one another, licking the chocolate off of her own face as she did. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Twilight had gained the attention of two ponies in a matter of days, and yet barely any news on Scales. He didn't share anything about himself, and Pinkie was sure that he had knocked that shelf over on purpose. She couldn't prove it and she didn't know why, but she had a strong feeling. A stronger feeling than even her Pinkie senses could muster.

She knew she had no reason to be thinking too deeply into this, but she couldn't help it at all. Maybe if she just spoke with Twilight, then she could finally get her worries put to rest.

"Well, I'd better be going." Pinkie got the group's attention. "I got some shopping to do! Bye all!"

Pinkie said her byes to her friends and then exited Sugarcube Corner. She did have shopping to do if she was going to be throwing Twilight a moving in party, but Twilight's house first. She trotted across Ponyville and arrived rather quickly at the Golden Oak library. Approaching the door, Pinkie knocked on it.

"Twilight? You're not busy are you?" Pinkie asked from the other side of the door.

Twilight's heart was beating heavily and was practically in her throat upon hearing the door knock. She looked at the book, the deformed lamp and then at Scales hoping he had an plan on what to do. She had to act fast. Twilight levitated the book and closed it, placing it on a table underneath several other books. Before Scales could comment on the hiding place, Twilight shushed him and turned her attention to the ugly mass that had once been a lamp.

"What do I do about the lamp?" Twilight asked nervously to no one, and no one answered as she fiddled around on the spot like a filly needing to use the bathroom.

"Just say it's normal magic." Scales suggested. "A regular magic spell that went wrong. What difference would an earth pony know?"

Twilight looked back at the door, which was knocked on again by Pinkie. She looked back at Scales and then to the door once more, before she trotted over and opened the door. Pinkie looked at Twilight and smiled, her eyes darting quickly at Scales inside the library before returning to the lilac mare.

"Hey, Twilight!" Pinkie greeted happily. "How ya doin'?"

"Pinkie, I'm doing good. You only saw me like twenty minutes ago..." Twilight answered as the pink pony came inside the library.

"Yeah, but a lot can happy in twenty minutes. Other worlds can tell you that." Pinkies chimed before turning to face Twilight.

"Uh..." was all Twilight could say in response to that. Instead she shook her head and asked, "was there something you needed, Pinkie?"

"Yep-a-roony!" Pinkie nodded, bouncing on the spot as she did. "I was wondering if you'd want... a moving in party?!"

Twilight raised her brow slightly at how Pinkie spoke. Same happy tone, yes, but she had come up with that excuse on the spot. Twilight's eyes darted to Scales, who was watching Pinkie with suspicious eyes, before he looked back at Twilight and nodded as though answering an unspoken question. "Uhh...yeah, sure." Twilight said, showing a smile. "When were you thinking of throwing it?"

"Well, how about tomorrow?" Pinkie suggested as she and Twilight trotted into the library.

"Yeah, but it'll have to be sometime in the afternoon, Fluttershy and I are going to be having tea at her place midday." Twilight informed Pinkie.

Pinkie's eyes shifted in a way that suggested she knew something, before speaking. "Yeah, that's fine!" Pinkie bounced on the spot and turned to face Scales. "And don't worry. I'll make sure I find something for you to snack on, Scales."

"Hmm? Finally, a pony that doesn't cringe in disgust at my dietary needs." Scales nodded and offered Pinkie a smile, which Pinkie returned after a moment.

Then, the moment Twilight was dreading finally happened. Pinkie's eyes went as wide as dinner plates once she saw the 'lamp' on the table. The tangled and jagged mess of crystal that bubbled with an unknown something beneath the surface. Scales didn't seem that bothered by Pinkie's discovery, but Twilight was struggling to contain her panic. What did she say? What if Pinkie had seen this before? What if—?

"What's this?" Pinkie asked as she trotted closer to Twilight's failed crystal experiment.

"Oh, it's a... lamp." Twilight muttered slightly at the end, still loud enough for Pinkie to hear.

"A lamp? You mean that teeny tiny little thing we packed into a box back in Canterlot?" Pinkie asked. Twilight nodded in response as Pinkie looked at her. "What happened to it?"

Twilight's eyes hovered to Scales for a moment before she spoke. "Spell gone wrong." Twilight shrugged slightly. "I was trying to unpack everything with magic, but instead it... well you can see." Twilight gestured to the crystal mass.

Pinkie didn't look like she was convinced. She looked at the lamp, Twilight and then Scales. Her eyes showed great thought before she offered a smile. "Oh well! Better luck next time!" Pinkie smiled and patted Twilight on the shoulder. She then turned back around to the lamp and trotted a bit closer, raising a hoof to touch it. "Looks kind of cool like this if you ask m—OW!"

Pinkie jumped back away from the crystal, stumbling back into the table and knocking its contents off of it. Blood leaked from an open hoof on the base of her hoof, which still had a shard of crystal stuck it in. Twilight acted fast and went to Pinkie's side.

"Oh my Celestia!" Twilight panicked to herself. "We need to get you to the hospital."

"No, it's not that bad." Pinkie winced upon moving her injured hoof. The shard was stuck in deep, though Twilight was internally happy it wasn't a piece that contained that swirling substance inside. Celestia knows what would've happened if that dark filth was in Pinkie's bloodstream.

It was also at this point Twilight saw Pinkie's eyes had landed on the book. The book of dark magic. Twilight had to get her out of here before she questioned it. "No arguments, I'm taking you to the hospital." Twilight said as she helped Pinkie to her hooves, making sure the pink mare didn't move her injured leg. "Scales, get the door."

Scales nodded and slithered towards the door, pulling it open with his tail and letting the two mares out. Pinkie looked back at the book and then to Twilight, deep thought in her mind.

What are you hiding, Twilight? Pinkie thought as Twilight helped her walk.

It didn't take long for Pinkie to be seen by a doctor. It took some time before they could remove the piece of jagged crystal, which doctors and nurses almost managed to cut themselves on it was that sharp, and now they had treated and bandaged Pinkie's wound.

"Alright miss Pie, you should be good to go now." the doctor informed Pinkie. "I don't know what you could've been doing to get such a serious injury, that crystal was like a knife."

"I caught it on a lamp, actually." Pinkie explained.

"Well, I suggest you get your money back." the doctor commented before saying, "stay safe."

Twilight helped Pinkie up onto three hooves and out of the hospital, Scales following close behind them. After this, Twilight knew that the spells in that book were too dangerous for use here in Ponyville. Ponies could get hurt, never mind the risk she was putting herself and Scales in. If she was going to ever use one again, she'd have to be extremely careful and do it in isolation.

— Chapter IV - A New Moon —

Princess Luna felt as though she had been stood alone in her high tower for years and years, being paid no mind whatsoever atop Canterlot Castle the same as she had on the moon for so long. Only this time she was wait for the sun to set. The waiting. The insufferable waiting was what she missed the least of this world, as though some great otherworldly being held her like a toy in its hoof, stony and looming with inaction. But nevertheless, it was necessary inaction for what she intended to do in just a few moments.

Out on the balcony branching off from her new bedroom, the Princess of the Night watched the few ant sized citizens move between alleyways and cobbled streets as the day was nearing its end. Some were business ponies heading home from work, some were ponies working night jobs, and some were petty crooks already reported to the guard by Luna herself. The benefits of alicorn eyesight were that with enough focus one would be able to see a spec of sand on the head of a pin, never mind a stallion with his hoof in a mare's purse.

The world had changed so much since Luna's banishment, and she didn’t just mean the moonlit street lamps running on this strange 'electricity' substance that had replaced torch poles beaming with raw fire. There were so many discoveries, so many peace loving ponies, so few villains if any at all beyond herself and the odd petty thief, and a land completely at peace with itself. Peace that she violently threatened in her state of corrupted hubris.

Regardless of Celestia's insistence that Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna were two separate entities, Luna still couldn’t get the faces of those she had killed out of her head. The two guards at the Summer Sun Celebration being, a farm of innocent peasant ponies a millennia ago, her own Lunar captain when he had dared question her senses upon being ordered to attack the largest settlement in all of Equestria without any clear reason. So much needless death and pain she had reaped over something as small as a crown of silver, bejewelled with the hideousness of pride and a quartet of gems bitter with the envy of a younger sister.

Luna had sought to indirectly harm the very subjects that she and Celestia had sworn to protect. Now that her mind was clear, she realised the foolishness of an eternal night. A ponies diet mostly consisted of flora, a vast majority of which needed sunlight to grow. A nation of starving ponies was not one to last a thousand years, or even a single generation, and the madness that believed otherwise deserved to be left on the moon and forgotten for all time. She deserved that fate too some may argue.

Even a week after the return of her senses, Luna still felt great blows of guilt strike her like a spiked cudgel to her stomach with ruthless persistence. Her head dropped momentarily in shame at the thoughts of isolation and brooding that befell her for so long. Jealousy became hatred, hatred turned to madness, and madness… well, madness was all consuming. Her damaged memories could be a testament to that. A hungry beast terrified of being starved for even an hour. But had the beast been inside her, or was the beast simply her?

Was she a risk? Luna lowered her gaze for a moment as the blank patch in her mind plagued her attempts at finding some sort of clarity. Whether it was her lunar madness causing her blotches of memory, or the entity Nightmare Moon ceasing to exist and taking the memories with her out of spite, she could not say for certain.

She had tried to remember herself before finding purity, but nothing complete and clean would reveal itself to her. She had managed to make out mere glimpses since the foul darkness had been purged from her body, specs of dust in the cosmic wind of her mind. The harder she tried to remember the day of the Summer Sun Celebration and before it, the more her mind refused to comply. In fact she couldn’t even remember what she had done during the Celebration.

When she had learned about her little display in the town hall, what she had done to those guards who were only serving their country, a small part of her had died inside. Later on when she personally saw the shades of liquid crimson that stained the floor being cleaned away, and the scarred looks in the eyes of both young and old alike, the families who would be burying them very soon, only one thought came to mind: Luna had been the one to cause that. She murdered them without thinking and with no memory of it. To Luna, that spelt more than mere risk. Those were the actions of a monster, a devil! A devil who had escaped punishment, and had no choice but to try and make things right.

Even though she could not undo what had happened, more out of fear that she may cause more harm than good rather than an unwillingness to search for the means to do so, what she could do was whatever she could to insure that it never happened again under any circumstances. Even if her methods were more than a little questionable to most, she wouldn’t let that stop her. Nightmare Moon had been silenced for now, but others like her may rise again.

As her horn ignited with its silvery blue glow, Luna knew that her sister would not approve of this one bit. Celestia had voiced her disliking of this particular spell that Luna was about to cast long ago, about how it was a violation of the rights of their citizens and so on. But it was better to receive some complaints than to be sorry for doing nothing and paying the price with innocent lives.

Luna had been the first one to discover it, to cast it, and to use it to uncover many threats across Equestria following their defeat of Lord Discord the Mad. Changelings scouts harnessing villages on the farthest point of the southern boarder, the arrival of a pair of brothers hailing from the centaur kingdom, highborn ponies of the nobility conspiring to overthrow the two sisters, a bloody war with the ancient Dragon Lord who sought to conquer the eastern shoreline due to its rich gem deposits, and a King of Crystal concocting his wicked plots to conquer all of the known world with a slave army, to name but a few. That last one was partly why she was doing this.

Sombra. Princess Luna would be lying if she said that he hadn't been on her mind ever since her return to sanity. Why would he, of all beings, have been referenced to by name, during the confrontation with the unicorn Twilight Sparkle and the entity Nightmare Moon when neither of them had ever encountered the dead Shadow King? Of all the foes Luna and Celestia had faced over their century spent purging the land of evil, why would that particular stallion be the one that was mentioned in passing before a battle between harmony and tyranny came to its conclusion?

Ever since her sister had revealed this fact to her, Luna found her old self taking over. Not Nightmare Moon, no, but the curious mare with an endless hunger for knowledge and for ways to use that knowledge to her advantage. She didn’t just want to know why, she needed to know why. There are no accidents. Everything happened for a reason, and the reason was usually bad where these matters were concerned. She needed to find the reason, in order to be ready for anything that may or may not occur.

Instead of a flare of energy bursting from her horn, the entire world bent to Luna's will without anyone being any the wiser about what was happening. All around Luna became overrun with an auburn glow and a scene of glittery orbs, tens if not hundreds of thousands of them each with their own pony inside. The citizens of Canterlot, all of them, as well as any pony that may have simply been visiting the city.

From the richest noble to the poorest beggar, Luna could see them all as though she were within an endless room of one sided mirrors. She could see everything they did, everyone they spoke to, everything they’d rather keep hidden about themselves. Everything. A waking version of the dream world one might say.

At least that’s how it would have been a thousand years ago, when she was at her full strength. She would’ve stared right into the heart and soul of anyone she suspected of treasonous behaviour and read then like a novel. But now… now it was like she was squinting at ink blots on a page of rotted paper. Bright colours with barely a outlined shape to them. It seemed that the closer they were to her physical body, the clearer they became. But it was still a great strain on her part to make out even a single pony.

It seemed that her powers had drained immeasurably more so that she had thought during her lengthy imprisonment on the moon, or perhaps that damned bite had something to do with it. Regardless, even the simplest of spells was a struggle for her right now. She was just lucky that this spell did not require much of her alicorn magic to perform. Only her focus, something she was rich in.

Regardless, she pushed onward in her endeavour. Luna would never improve herself again if she did not push and test herself time and time again. A pair of glistening spectral wings left Luna's physical body, and Luna painless shed her corporeal flesh and ascended to the heavens as a spirit of the night.

The ivory and gold of Canterlot left Luna's line of sight as she moved like a sliver of midnight. The weightlessness of having no body to haul around was comforting, especially given the injuries she’d received during the Summer Sun Celebration, and allowed Luna to find a sense of peace she hadn’t known since she was but a pegasus filly so very, very long ago, playing in the back of her mother’s home. That was long before she ascended from mortality, before she had even learned she had a sister. Oh how she longed for a chance of experiencing those day of ignorant bliss once again, playing in mother's garden and hiding from the town guards after pelting them with snowballs. Sneaking away with friends while carrying a cup of spiced wine in her teenage years, and getting caught tipsy an hour later.

The innocence of youth she'd never experience again, replaced with a duty most cold and a fear of losing what little she had left.

But the past was exactly that. History, nothing more. The future was all that mattered now, and preventing the past from repeating itself. She shook her head lightly and ascended like a phoenix.

Once she was higher than even the clouds, higher than the pegasus city itself, Luna stopped her ascent and looked straight down. She could see Canterlot and the miles of green and grey that surrounded the mountain it was built upon. She could see distant skyscrapers in the corner of one eye and the multitude of other pony cities in the other. The world was a map in three dimensions, and Luna would normally be observing every crumple in the page. Right now she was quickly scanning out of a worry that her energy would dwindle too fast for her to finish.

This world was like a child's toy city rather than a real place full of real ponies. The orbs that were so large and in Luna's face before were now no larger than the head on a pin. When she focused on one that peaked her interest, it would enlarge itself on command so that the scene occurring within could be viewed without a thousand others getting in the way.

She then carefully began sifting through various lives as the amber skies diluted the colours of their homes and places of work while their coats and manes were clear to see. She moved on immediately from the harmless ones, children mostly, and lingered on others for a few moments before her suspicions of them were disproved one way or another.

Her eyes flashed over thousands of ponies over the span of several minutes, time being nothing more than a hindrance of how long she’d be able to do this for before she had to withdraw back into her physical form. She saw muggers being thwarted in the act, she saw con ponies making off with bags of gold bits, she saw a stallion beating up another stallion after finding him in bed with his wife, she saw all kinds of petty encounters and squabbles that the local law enforcements could easily deal with soon enough. But she did not see what she was looking for.

Evil. Evil that only the cleansing light of the Elements of Harmony could obliterate in its entirety. Evils that dwelled in places that even Luna felt uneasy about. Places that… were better left undisturbed in the depths they’d been banished to so very long ago. Places ruled by beings that made the likes of Nightmare Moon and Sombra seem like children in a world of cruel twisted depravities. Beings that deserved no redemption, only a cell in the deepest depths of Tartarus. That, or death.

Have drawn her gaze away from Canterlot City and it’s closest territories, Luna slowly turned on the spot as she planned to move from city to city, mountain to mountain, and pony to pony if she could. But it was mostly a blur, she couldn’t see anything, and her head was beginning to pound like a yak war drum. The corners of her vision were flashing, and Luna knew she couldn’t hold it much longer before she began to do harm to herself. Then again, a small bit of mental trauma was nothing compared to what Luna had done. A plague of the mind seemed like a fitting enough sentence.

As a migraine threatened to kick in, and Luna pondered on the mare that Celestia had taken on as a pupil. Twilight Sparkle, and her little familiar. Perhaps Nightmare Moon was referring to someone who Twilight had spoken to on that day? Or maybe someone who had been with her on the night in question? As this thought entered her already tiring mind, Luna slowly moved her eyes over towards Ponyville. In an instant everything began to go wrong. Flashes of unnatural light risked blinding Luna as a whirlwind of emerald and amethyst swirled at the centre of the princess's ring of focus.

That’s it! That is exactly the kind of thing Luna was searching for! She knew this peaceful world was too good to be true! There was something hiding in Ponyville, or under it maybe, and it was something that she would confront. She attempted to move in closer, but the more she did that the more unstable her vision became in this plane. Orbs were shattering, Luna's strength waning, but she pushed on toward the source of the disturbance. She needed to know, she needed to see, just as she had a thousand years ago in order to protect the land.

By the time she was able to find an image, it was distorted beyond all recognition. She couldn’t see a face, only the vague grey outline of a unicorn. Colour was bleeding into nothingness, and not even a mane style was visible to her. She wasn’t even able to tell the unicorn's gender as androgynous blobs shapes replaced anything that looked even remotely alive.

A scene was attempting to unfold for Luna to see, but irregular shapes replaced equine shapes and a growing buzz in Luna's ears thwarted her attempts:

There was shock…

…a book of some kind…

…fresh blood dripping…

…lies leaving lips…

…and crystals!

The sound of crystal piercing flesh was the straw that broke the camels back. The astral plane fled back into the realm of imagination and Luna was forcibly dragged back to Canterlot like an overstretched spring. She crossed miles of land in seconds, and crashed into her physical body were a struggling gasp seeking the sweet taste of air in her throat. Her injured leg gave in under the weight of her body and Luna tumbled to the ground.

In between pants, Luna wiped the sticky sweat from her forehead before looking to the skies of Equestria, gritting her teeth knowingly. "Accursed heretic! Traitorous worm! We will have thy horn ripped away for this!" She hissed with an ancient ire in her voice.

A knock on the door grabbed Luna's attention, and with the mood she was currently in she felt ready to fire a warning shot of magical energy straight through the hallway outside her door. She restrained herself however, or rather her exhaustion beat her to it, and she was brought back to her senses as a mare's voice called.

"Your majesty!" Said the mare, before a pause came followed by a more muffled voice. "Wait, do we call her 'your majesty'?"

"I think so?" Whispered another pony, who Luna assumed to be a stallion.

"Your majesty, are you okay?" The mare beckoned with a more appropriate sense of urgency.

Luna did not answer. She rose to her hooves as gracefully as she could. She stared down at her bandaged leg and showed a sense of weakness she hadn’t allowed anyone of this or any other age to witness. It had been years since she had felt a pain as strong as that bite, and even a week after the injury was suffered the bandages were stained an unpleasant shade of yellowish brown. It was an improvement from the black blood she was letting from the wound days earlier, and for that she had modern medicine to thank. Her alicorn rate of regeneration would have likely saved her from a small yet potent wound such as this, but to have almost been brought down by it to begin with was… concerning.

But that was for another time, for she had a task to deal with here and now. Inquiries into that topic were for another time. For now, she limped toward the door to her bedroom right as the ponies on the other side sounded as though they were about to try and force entry. She grabbed the handle with her magic and opened it before they had a chance, and the pair of golden clad guards stared wide eyed and cautiously at Luna as though she were a half starved ursa major that had been let loose in the castle.

"We are well, and thou shall return to thine posts." Luna told them.

"Y-Yes, your majesty." The mare nodded, while her partner merely nodded his head silently.

They both saluted more out of fear than respect, and Luna walked passed the pair of them before using her magic to close the door she’d exited through. Luna would have normally reprimanded them for daring to question if her authority was genuine, even if they had thought their comments had gone unheard, but right now she needed to find Celestia. Luna paused at the top of the stairs leading down through her tower, turning back to the guards. They tensed up at her gaze and even more so when she spoke.

"Our sister, where may we find her?" Luna said.

The two guards looked to one another, and this time the stallion took his turn to speak. "Princess Celestia may still be in the Starswirl Wing with Captain Shining Armour, your majesty." He said.

Luna nodded with a half hearted hum of acknowledgment before continuing on her way. She descended the steps with a rhythmic clicking of her silver shoes as her mind conjured up more thoughts.

She had noticed that the Equestrian Crown did not have the impressive military might that it had under its command a thousand years ago. In fact upon looking into the matter she found out that the only places left that had Royal Guards patrolling were Canterlot and the city of Trottingham, that had apparently served as a temporary capital for twelve years while Celestia mourned the banishment of Luna. There had once been a time when every city and town had a barracks, and every village had at least twenty guards stationed there. Now, she questioned whether the number of soldiers under her sister's command spanned into the low thousands or not. An era of peace had dealt a heavy blow to their country's strength.

At the bottom of the stairs, a maid carrying a feather duster froze in her tracks and fearfully stepped aside to keep out of the lunar princess's path. She heard a cautious whimper barely leave the mare's closed mouth as Luna glided by like a phantom through the halls despite her limp. Servants and guards alike watched Luna as she moved by, some of the braver ones mumbling to one another when they thought she wasn’t listening to them.

She was listening, and she heard every word.

"So that’s Nightmare Moon?"

"The princess said she’s good now, but how can even she be sure about that?"

"She’s even scarier than the stories from Ponyville say she is."

"She murdered how many ponies, and the princess let her walk free?"

"Prince Blueblood has the right idea about her. Banish her to Tartarus and leave her to rot."

"I thought she’d be taller."

Her face hardened like steel, resisting the growing urge to punish the blatant disrespect that these lowly servants and soldiers were showing her by gossiping about her practically to her face. But then she remembered the fact that barely a week ago she was the bloodthirsty tyrant that sought to plunge the land into a state of perpetual life threatening darkness, and to slay anyone who stood in her way. It would be quite a journey to prove she truly wished to change from that monster and back into someone who only wanted to protect them.

After several long minutes of walking and multiple hallways later, Luna approached the building she recalled as being the Starswirl Wing within the Canterlot Archives. The guards on either side of the double doors watched Luna cautiously, and one of them looked as though he may be brave enough to prevent her from gaining entry.

"Our sister is expecting us." Luna lied, her cold glare daring them to question her word.

"Understood, your majesty." One of them said, saluting toward Luna before pushing one of the doors open.

His comrade followed suit, holding the other door open and allowing Luna to enter the most respected part of the royal archives. The doors closed once she was inside and she immediately heard the sound of hushed voices over the clank of the doors behind her. Her sister's graceful tone was recognisable even at such a low volume. She stalked the lanes of books as she listened out for speech, honing in on it like a predator in the wild.

Fortunately no other ponies seemed to be in here at the moment, so she could find her sister and the captain she was conversing with rather easily.

"…I respect you, Shining Armour, I really do. Not just as my student's brother, but as both a sworn bodyguard and hopefully a dear friend." Celestia's voice came from one of the library stalls, the door ajar as the sound of pouring liquid could be heard. "And if you are both serious about this relationship, then you have my blessing wherever it may take you."

"Thank you, Princess." Said the stallion known as Shining Armour. "That means more than words can say."

A small polite chuckle came from Celestia. "We’ve been over this, Shining, you can just call me Celestia when we’re alone." The solar princess corrected politely.

"Of course, Celestia." Shining said after a moment, the smile on his face apparent even before Luna pushed the door open a crack.

"That’s better, although there is one more thing I’d like to make clear. I am aware that you’ve been seeing each other for quite some time now, and there is no doubt that the love between you blooms true. However..." Celestia said with her trademark motherly tone, conveying natural understanding with every syllable, before her tone began more neutral. "…my niece means more to me then words can describe, and I know how she feels about you. If this is what you intend to do, you need to be certain about it. I do not wish to intimidate you, but I also hope that you will not hurt her in any way. Intentionally, or otherwise."

"Gah!" A sound Luna couldn’t quite name left the stallion's throat, like a bag of cats and frogs all trapped inside of an oil drum that had been set on fire. "Celestia, I-I would never dream of doing anything like that! I respect Cadence far too much and—!"

At that point Luna decided she had heard enough, having grown tired of waiting. When Luna entered completely unannounced, she observed the surroundings before her with a well hidden sense of bewilderment. The sense of familiarity between them had already come across to Luna as inappropriate, but now that she saw that the pair had been making themselves truly comfortable in this chamber of learning. A small tidy platter of delicious and delicate pastries and cakes sat in the middle of the table, flanked by various other items. A pair of teacups and matching saucers, a teapot that had been placed upon a doily as not to mark the wood, a small cup of sugar and another filled with milk.

She then noticed that Shining Armour's helmet was rested up against the seat he was sat in, rather than on his head where it should be when addressing royalty, and it glimmered with the surrounding candle light along its cold face.

Celestia and Shining Armour both turned their heads to face her, and Shining Armour's look of relief at the distraction faded as quickly as it had come when he saw who had interrupted them. Celestia on the other hand had a look more resembling concern than anything else.

"Luna, is something the matter?" Celestia asked.

Luna was about to speak, but eyed Shining Armour momentarily. Was he not the brother of Twilight Sparkle? Yes, if she recalled correctly then that was exactly who this stallion was. Luna hoped that wasn’t the sole reason he became captain of the guard, but more so at the forefront of her mind was the familiar protectiveness of close siblings.

If there was dark sorcery in the village where Twilight Sparkle was now making her home, then this Shining Armour would likely wish to head down there personally and investigate. Or worse he may panic for his sister’s safety, and then the element of surprise would be lost as soldiers and servants alike would piece together what had happened. There was already those 'news reporter' ponies lurking outside the palace gates wanting an audience from the two sisters, they didn’t need anyone else poking their nose where it didn’t belong.

There was a big enough problem already, she didn’t need anymore of them.

"Leave us." Luna commanded bluntly.

Shining Armour hesitated, turning to Celestia for guidance as he subtly reached down for his helmet. Celestia looked to her sister momentarily before facing Shining Armour once again and nodding.

"We can continue our chat another time, we’ve discussed the most important aspect already." Celestia assured Shining Armour. "Besides, I think I’ve kept you from your patrol for long enough."

"Yes, Princess." Shining Armour saluted awkwardly, fixing his helmet upon his head and then trotting towards the door. Luna stepped aside so he could leave, and Shining Armour slid by her effortlessly.

Once he was gone Luna closed the door fully and allowed the two alicorns some privacy. The double door loud echoing clank as they shut let Luna know he was gone, and she wasted no more time in revealing her findings.

"We believe we may have uncovered something sinister in the farming village of Ponyville." Luna immediately stated before Celestia had a chance to speak.

Celestia frowned in response, not liking the clear implication in Luna's tone. There was no anger, merely a sour and all too familiar cocktail of disappointment, disagreement, and concern. That damned concern of hers. "You’ve been casting that astral projection spell again." She said calmly.

"Indeed." Luna saw no point in lying. "But you can criticise our methods later, right now we request to lead a detachment of soldiers to Ponyville in order to commence with a search for practitioners of dark magic."

Celestia was silent. The words that had been prepared to leave her mouth dried up as it dawned on her that Luna was not jesting even remotely. Dark magic? In Ponyville of all places? Whatever disappointment was in her eyes before was replaced with serious concern.

"Dark magic? Are you certain sister? You actually witnessed a spell being cast?" Celestia asked for clarification. "Because these days there are all manner of fashion movements that could be mistaken for it. I remember the shock I felt from the first time I encountered a goth, I thought the poor mare was a member of the living dead."

Luna did not humour Celestia's anecdote with a response, even if she wondered know on earth a what a 'goth' was, but acknowledged the logic that lay within her prior statement regarding easy mistakes. Mistakes. She hated them, or even the suggestion that she could make one. With a deep breath taken in and then released, Luna continued on.

"It is true, our vision did turn up shrouded by the weakened state of our body, and that a thousand winters have passed since we were able to view the world." Luna nodded curtly.

Why do I feel a 'but' coming? Celestia thought to herself.

"But this is more than misunderstanding. For we belief that this was a spell straight from the ancient texts of Tambelon itself, or at least a paraphrasing of such a spell from a more modern author." Luna stated firmly. "We saw a figure, in the act of practicing the summoning techniques surrounding crystalline matter."

That wiped the unsure expression from Celestia's face for but a moment. She did not speak for what seemed an eternity, pondering her words carefully. She knew what her sister was implying, from their previous conversation following Luna's return, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t come to mind herself when she’d heard it just then. It had probably already crossed Luna's mind, she had no doubt.

Sombra. The Crystal King. The dead king now, surely that was the case. No pony could survive what the two sisters did to him, the sheer raw power of the Elements of Harmony combined with their own alicorn magic. Not even the twisted ram himself would be able to survive such a blast at near point blank range without a shield spell cast. Besides, Sombra was many many things, but a fool he was not. If he did somehow survive, as unlikely as that that may be, then he wouldn’t be casting magic in someplace so close to the capital of Equestria in plain view of the sisters. He would choose someplace far far away from here, outside of Equestria even, or at the very least somewhere with a natural cloak for magic to hide him from prying eyes. The Everfree was such a place, was it not? If so, then maybe…

As concerning as it may have been to Celestia, she did not have enough proof to begin foolishly declaring an old enemy as having been resurrected. No, of course not! The dead don’t rise again, at least not as Sombra would have liked to. More likely it was just a clueless child using an old book to try and find their special talent, without knowing the truth behind the spell they were casting.

Finally, as what felt like a lifetime of consideration, Celestia spoke. "While I do believe that this matter must be looked into, I do not believe that this has anything to do with what occurred the other night—"

"Thou cannot be serious!" Luna snapped. Celestia remained calm, having grown used to butting heads with members of the nobility. "Crystals, sister! Crystals! Mere days after Nightmare Moon spoke of Sombra by name! Surely that cannot be dismissed as a mere coincidence, Celestia?"

"And what would you have me do?" Celestia retorted, rising from her seat. "Sent a fully armed battalion to a countryside village, almost certainly terrifying the inhabitants, and hold them all against their will. All in order to search for a spell caster who we don’t know actually exists and, if they do exist, may of may not even be there by the time our soldiers arrive?"

"You had no qualms with such matters in the past." Luna said. "You used to say a healthy dose of paranoia kept a nation alive."

"Yes, but those were different times. Times when war was not a maybe, but a certainty." Celestia explained. "But now the land is at peace and has been for almost a thousand years, and the common ponies have far more freedom now than they did a thousand years ago. One such freedom is no unnecessary military occupations of their homes."

"'At peace'? We are sure that is what many ponies did believe before we returned from the moon? Peace can be broken before you even know it is at risk." Luna scoffed indignantly at her sister's words. "So do you suggest that we do nothing in regards to this matter?"

"I didn’t say that." Celestia clarified, as calmly as ever, for her sister. "I’m merely saying that a more… restrained and mindful response should be put into action in response to your suspicions. I will speak with some of my court wizards in the morning, and have them leave for Ponyville with a disguised escort as soon as possible."

Just as Luna was about to voice her desire to accompany them, Celestia spoke first in order to address the topic. "And I need you to remain here, Luna. We must prepare for your reinstatement as a Princess of Equestria, and for our arguments against the leaders of Equestria who would seek to prevent that. The hearing is only days away and we’ve wasted enough time already."

"Reinstatement." Luna spat the word out in disgust. Now at her sister, but those who would question the legitimacy of both sisters. "Am I not already the ruling body of the moon?"

"Yes, but it’s the ponies down here that we need to persuade. They know about you being the one who controls the moon once more, but they are still afraid that one day you won’t lower it again." Celestia said as she trotted toward her sister, sympathy etched on her face. "A moot has been called, with many planning to attend. I’ve even found out that all three pony tribe leaders all plan to oppose your reinstatement, as well as the Duke of Trottingham. We need to be ready for anything they’ll throw at you."

Luna was about to object, but even in her irritated state she knew Celestia was right. As important as this was, she would not be able to do anything without a throne to command from. With none of the resources a royal had at her disposal, she wouldn’t stand a chance out in the modern world. All these ponies and their differing opinions, it was all far too complicated sounding to Luna. Everyone had a say, but only certain ponies could say what their slice of the majority were saying? Just thinking about it made the usually in control princess feel so naive and confused.

"We thought the days of the tribe leaders were long gone? Even before our rule had began." Luna said.

"They are, for the most part, but their legacies carry on. While their roles are mostly for traditions sake these days, there are still some who look to the three tribe leaders for guidance. Like wise elders, in a way. Even if there is little wisdom to be found in their words." Celestia explained, a small part of her wishing that these tribal remnants were left in the past. "But unfortunately for us, the Chancellor of the earth ponies, the Commander of the pegasi, and the Prince of the unicorns have all united in their displeasure at your lack of a punishment. As though what I did to you was not enough torture for anypony."

"Thou had… you had no choice, sister, we were beyond saving at that point in time. The Nightmare had taken ahold of us, and refused to let go. There was no other way of protecting Equestria from the madness." Luna placed a hoof on her sister's shoulder, the fire within her cooling into mere kindling when she had seen that look of guilt on Celestia's face. "Rest assured, dear sister, we shall remain here. We will sway all those who would still view us as Nightmare Moon to our side. Including our own nephew, if needs must."

"Ah, so you found out about that?" Celestia said, smiling a small smile. "Blueblood is… well… he’s quite shortsighted. His opinions typically stay with what he believes is right for the immediate future rather than the long term."

"Shortsighted? Is that the word used these days to describe a traitorous sewer rats these days?" Luna asked. "Blood relation or not, his sort would have surely faced the headsmare's axe over a thousand years ago."

"Oh trust me, there are a rare few times he pushes me to feel the same way about him…" Celestia muttered, shaking her head and chuckling softly. "But, even if we do not agree as often as I would like, he is family. I will let him have his say no matter what, as I would with any pony, it is simply a question of whether he will repay that respect in kind. His upbringing has left some sizeable cracks in his integrity."

"Indeed. His immaturity may prove valuable to us." Luna agreed. "But regarding the Ponyville matter, there is one more thing that we wish to recommend."

"Yes?" Celestia said, prompting for Luna to continue.

"If your desire is truly for a more scholarly approach, then might we suggest your personal protégé be informed of the arrival of your wizards." Luna put her thoughts forth. "She may be able to aid them in their affairs where needs be."

"Twilight?" Celestia said curiously. "I know you warmed up to her rather quickly upon your return, but I don’t think I recall you ever suggesting someone's aid by name. Is there something you aren’t telling me?"

"If there is, we do not know what it is yet. There is simply something about her… something that reminds her of ourselves at her age." Luna said. "We believe she may be quite reliable."

A half truth at best. While what she said was how she felt, there was more to it than she cared to reveal right now. She also wished to see if Twilight Sparkle could land on her hooves when thrown into uncertainty. To see if she could live up to her role as student to the Solar Princess, without having to rely solely on the Elements of Harmony or advise from her mentor to get things done as the two sisters had during the dawn of their reign. This was a test that couldn’t be affected by her sister's softened approach to matters.

"Very well, I was already planning on writing to her about her invitation to the Grand Galloping Gala in a few weeks from now. I will put that on hold for now, and send a letter to Twilight requesting her to help with the investigation." Celestia agreed. "But, I do hope you are not raising your expectations too highly, sister. On your lead or on Twilight."

"We rarely do. We are not expecting another Tirek or Sombra to suddenly arise from this matter. Not yet at least." Luna told her, shaking her head. "We merely wish to punish those that would selfishly threaten the stability of the peace that you have managed to bring about."

"That we managed to bring about." Celestia corrected. "There may have been a small dragon invasion some decades after, but we defeated the last of the great evils together."

"Truly?" Luna asked, to which Celestia nodded. "Then we shall work together once again, in order to keep this peace. Like the old days?"

"Like the old days." Celestia agreed.

While Luna hadn’t gotten exactly what she had been hoping for when she had first approached her sister, she was mostly satisfied that her word seemed to be more valued than it had been before. Back when Luna felt like a child caught in her older sister's mighty all encompassing shadow, but those days were hopefully behind them. It would take time before the citizens of Equestria saw her as their ancestors had once viewed her, a flawed protector and far from a monster. But she would do everything she could for them regardless. Even if she stumbled a few times along the way.

As for this Twilight Sparkle, her courage and intelligence would hopefully prove itself if her sister's judgement was as true as it had been in the past. Twilight and her familiar may have both been shrouded in too many uncertainties for Luna's liking at first, but she had a feeling in her gut about them.

Luna hoped that feeling was a good one. They may just end up turning out to be more than they appear in the near future.

Author's Note

So… it’s been a while.

First of all, I want to apologise to anyone who had been waiting for the next chapter to come out. As I already said in the comments, I had been hit with an awful case of writer's block. It’s a problem of mine with any story I come with that I know what key events I want to happen (even to the point that I know the ending already) only for me to struggle to fill the gaps between those events. I know where I want to be, I just don’t know how to get there right away.

Once I finally managed to overcome my writer’s block, I decided it would probably be best to delete the half a chapter I’d written up back in early 2020 since I didn’t remember what I’d typed in it and I couldn’t be bothered sifting through nearly ten thousand words just to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes or anything like that. After that was done and I typed out the chapter again, I realised that maybe the chapter was getting a little too big, already exceeding ten thousand words once again despite only being about a third-ish done. So I split it in two, so this chapter and the next chapter were originally one big chapter. Splitting them was probably a good call seeing as the next chapter has already passed the ten thousand word mark on its own.

Long story short, I deleted and rewrote a lot of stuff! I faced many issues, due to simply having little free time because of real life stuff getting in the way, but I finally managed to get something done. Once again I’m sorry for taking so long! This story isn’t dead, it’s just been on life support.

Also you will probably have noticed that I lowered the rating from M to T for the time being. After thinking about it, and reading stories that have an M rating, I’m not sure I rated this story correctly when I started. I’m not entirely sure on the rating but for now it’s a T.

Also also, HOLY HELL I wasn’t expecting seventy six upvotes on this story just four chapters in! Thank you so much for reading, and hopefully the next chapter won’t take several years to post!