The ruined castle towered in the middle of the forest. The castle seems to be towering above all, declaring it absolute rule into the Everfree forest. Luna slightly trembled at the sight of the cursed castle, though she put on a brave face. The very castle, that she must conquer, in order to save Equestria. Strong winds blew against her starry, starry mane, the determination on her face slowly building up. Most of the palace was in crumbles, after going through generation after generation of the wild nature of the Everfree forest. It was in a terrible state of decay. Moss and fern covered the palace, that took on a very, very dark, royal purple-like tinge. The only structure that a sturdy Earth pony could trot in, was the main tower. And right in the heart of the Tower was where the abandoned royal pharmacy lay. It was the first pharmacy that was ever built in the tower, before it was infested by parasprites, due to the abundance of herbal and food medicine of that time. The case was also applied to the royal kitchen. Another royal pharmacy was built in a separate place from the tower, far as possible from the parasprites, till the pest infestation was controlled. Yet, since the makeshift pharmacy was better of outside the valleys that is now the Everfree forest, the original pharmacy was abandoned, forever. But of course, she heard stories of unknown ponies going in there, from time to time, some of them to be trusted healers and wizards, others complete strangers. But she simply took them as rumors, and went on with her life. Perhaps her blissful ignorance was a blessing in disguise? She just had to find out.

"So, what are we in for?" asked Luna, needing to know every bit of information she could gather about the tests.

"Another briefing? Fine, fine. There's a dozen locks for the chamber built inside that pharmacy. First six ones are dead easy. Well, at least for Miss Forgetful Woona here. The other 6 are full of those puzzly, abstract stuff. Mhmm. If I were you, I would excel at them. There nice and abstract. You then might get 1-9 randomly generated tests, if your unlucky as you are now, you may get nine. They may be randomly generated, yet most of them seem to be on the physical side. Let's see if you can get your lazy fat arse over this course!" said Discord, seemingly excited. A question lingered in Luna's mind.

"How do yo-" she began to question, but the question absented itself from her mind, and immediately swerved her attention back to the ancient palace. She took a few steps forwards, and heaved a big sigh. The last time she was here, things weren't quite pretty. But she had to carry on. Perhaps this was redemption for all that she had done in her past. She wrecked Equestria in that palace. She was now going to save Equestria from a future possessed tyrant in the very same palace.

"Agh, my time's up. Too bad. I didn't have much of a chance to spread chaos all over the known universe. Perhaps the unknown universe, too. That would be fun. Cheerio!" said Discord, as he froze. A blinding light emitted from him, as he slowly turned back into stone. Luna rushed towards him, shocked.

"Well...this, was unexpected." thought Luna. She knew, by the likes of Discord, he would immediately whine about his apparent time limit. Why didn't he tell about it? Was he trying to be brave? To prove himself trustworthy? Or perhaps...was he trying to make Luna rush forward as quick as she could? She decided to entrust herself on her last reasoning, and carried on with her mission.

The approached the large hole in the wall, where once a door lay. But as soon as she put a hoof onto the wrecked stone grounds, sparks started flying. Blue, quick and deadly sparks. A humongous rune glowed on the ground. She spread her majestic, blue wings out, and she rose into the air, as quick as she could.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, there are Lightning Runes all over the place, even in the air. Some kind of recent addition. Tread or bump on any more of them, and you'll get even bluer than you already are!" smirked Discord's voice in her head. Confused, Luna stumbled. Of course. The turning into stone was just some dramatic scene to make her confused little mare, and expose that gullible side of her. In other words, Discord wanted her to do this on her own. But why?

Luna looked around for another way in. She tried to think as hard as she could-how would she evade the invisible traps? How can anypony possibly evade what they cannot see?

"Help me out here, Dissy." smirked Luna, frustrated. She could almost picture Discord scowling away at her.

"Don't call me that, Lulu! Oh, and-sorry, can't do anything. I'm a statue, remember?" said Discord cheekily. Luna, frustrated, threw her head up in the air, only to find something at the corner of her eye. The entrance to this wretched place.

Luna headed to the window of the third level of the main tower. Behind the window was where was the pharmacy lay. Hopefully, the whole thing would work, and her sister would turn back to normal.

She flew up to the window, that was strangely quite intact and unusually opaque. Taking the factors into consideration, Luna tried to open it with her magic. Strangely, no matter how much magic and effort she put into opening it, it didn't work. A purple aura glistened around the window, seemingly absorbing any magic that came into contact with it. She jerked back, surprised. After realising what happened, she proceeded to use her wings and hooves to, rather awkwardly, open the window, but of course, but no avail. With little options left, Luna sighed.

"Lazy bum's not going to help me, huh." thought Luna. As her frustration grew, an idea popped into her head. A ludicrous, desperate, stupid yet brilliant idea. Luna flew back quite a bit, taking a few short breaths. Suddenly, she flew, more like darted herself towards the window, eyebrows furrowing. She streamlined her body, her long, blue horn completely parallel to ground below her. She easily fought against the wind resistance. The window became clearer and clearer, as Luna got closer. The fog slowly cleared. Everything around her was thrown into oblivion. The glass panes shined slightly, as a bit of light shot towards it. A blue, magnificent bright light. The princess of the night's mane shone a little bit, shining upon Luna's pearly, pure white teeth, as she smiled.

Luna's horn made contact with the window. Time slowed down, as if a Slow Time spell was cast. The window shattered into millions of pieces, erupting in crystal showers, each glistening like purple-tinted, deadly-sharp jewels from the brilliance that shone from the princess' mane. A few pieces of sharp glass lodged itself into the princess' midnight blue skin and horn. Her lips were badly cut, gashes and streaks of cuts covered her body, and a large piece of sharp glass made home on her left scapula. Blood oozed out of her at an alarming rate. Her teeth was stained crimson red, a few of her gums burst.

"Darn it. Forgot to close my mouth." exasperated Luna, frustrated with herself, as she muzzle-hoofed. She had completely forgotten the factor that she would get hurt. Why did she do such a stupid act? Before she could wonder anymore, the importance of removing the shards of glass out of her clouded her mind, as she immediately located every single shard and pulled it out with her magic. Her horn started to hurt, for crashing into the window had rendered her horn slightly impaired, yet able to dispell half-charged spells. She then immediately put in a Healing spell over her afflicted areas, unable to put the more advanced spell 'Fast Healing' and sighed. The pain from her left scapula just wouldn't stop, no matter how much she improved on the painkiller factor of her spell, which wasn't much to begin with. She gave up on it, and she used her left wing to balance herself as she walked into the abandoned pharmacy.

The room was consumed with darkness, a plume of dark currents swirling around the princess of the night. Luna's pupils widened by quite a bit, yet she couldn't see the contents that laid about in the darkness. Just as she started to contract her pupils back, A blinding, white light shot through the still darkness, almost rendering her eyes useless. The light lasted for less than a second, not enough time for Luna to see anything at all. Luna recovered gradually, the darkness easing her way back to the sense of sight. Just as Luna recovered, the light struck again, this time, it was much dimmer, but enough to see the contents in the room-a maze, with a button at the end of the maze, that had only white light over it. Strangely, the area where Luna stood, and the inner perimeter of the room wasn't illuminated. A second went by, and the light disappeared again. Luna waited impatiently for the lights to come back on, for she wasn't able to cast a Magelight spell, and a Candlelight spell was a waste of time. The light shot out again-this time, permanent. It was now a shade of amber that was more towards the yellow side, and the occasional white popping out here and there. The inner perimeter stayed pitch black. Luna's eyebrows furrowed, an expression best explained as 'Are you kidding me' formed on her face.

"Darn, they must think I'm stupid." thought Luna, as she flew through the dark perimeter, and dipped down to the white light and touched the button. Luna raised her eyebrow and smiled slightly, as the floor opened beneath her, remebering how Discord described the first six tests to be 'Dead Easy'.

"Yay, you're through the first test. The next test is pretty easy too, if you know what to do." smirked Discord's voice. Luna simply rolled her eyes and flew down into the dark hole. It suddenly focused a huge amount of gravit at Luna, rendering her unable to fly, and causing her to fall into oblivion. Luna, recognising the bottomless, endless pit all too well, knitted her eyebrows and shook her head.

"Oh great." she muttered, as she fell into the darkness.

Author's Note

I'm so, so sorry that I didn't update in a while, I had recently finished my exams. I'm sorry if this was badly written and rushed. Anyway, look forward to Luna and lasers on the next chapter!