Beheaded

Twilight Sparkle wiped the sweat off her purple forehead, trying at some difficult spells. She walked over to her creativity shelf, where paint, crayons, pencils, and more were set up neatly. Twilight accidentally bumped into the side, and two large cans of violet paint came crashing down on her. The can was plastic, so it didn't hurt, but she was extremely messy by the time she put the paint cans up.

She waddled over to her spell book, not wanting to touch the floor with messy hooves, although it was impossible. Small violet hoof marks were spread across the wooden floor. Twilight Sparkle groaned, trying to think of a spell that could clean everything up. But nothing could get into her head - so she took a peek into the spell book.

Twilight looked for the clean-up spell, and found it on page one hundred forty-three. Her eyes wandered from the top to bottom, and at the very bottom listed a clean-up spell. She cleared her throat and started to say the magical chant:

Oh may rah doh,

cleae up see..

Suddenly she couldn't remember and quickly filled in what was right before the spell's magic disappeared.

say doh...

As the magic evaporated into the air and spun around the room, it got closer to Twilight and made a large green zap before she appeared into a darkly colored library.

It was nothing like her library - it was vibrant with colored books and light brown. This was a dark and dusty library, but over in the corner near the large window sat a another Twilight Sparkle. Afraid, the real one stepped closer to the pony before it noticed her.

"Hi there, I'm Midnight Glimmer," she said, flipping through some pages of her books. She looked up to the clock and shuddered.

"Guards will be checking my room any time now for books! Hurry, get into my safe room," she said, pushing Twilight Sparkle into the bookshelf with her. It turned around to a musky-smelling and dark house. Right as they turned up against the new wall, three purple-armored stallions burst in and looked around the dark house with seriousness.

"Midnight Glimmer, correct?" asked the one with the most muscles.

Midnight nodded, pushing Twilight forward.

"This is Twilight Sparkle. She can stay with me for a bit," she said, looking to Twilight with hopeful eyes. Twilight didn't know what was happening and how she got to the dark library. She was amazed about how much Midnight Glimmer looked like her, except she was more dark. Instead of a violet mane color, it was black with dark purple streaks. Even though everything about Midnight was dark, she seemed relatively cheerful.

The guards exited the house suspiciously, staring at Twilight Sparkle for a few moments.

"Who are they? And why am I here?" Twilight asked, started to shiver because of her fear overcoming her thoughts.

Midnight rushed to Twilight's side. "They are the Ponyville guards, of course! Aren't you visiting from the Capitol of Equestria?" she asked, cocking her head.

Twilight shook her head simply and answered very briefly, "No. I was doing a spell one time and I suddenly appeared here.. my old home is so vibrant and bright. And by Capitol of Equestria, don't you mean Canterlot?"

Midnight laughed, but nodded as well. "It's called the Capitol of Equestria now, not Canterlot. But maybe you messed up a spell and went forward in time! I remember my mother named Twilight Glimmer telling me all about when it was very bright in Ponyville.. now since Discord's taken over, it's been terrible."

Twilight's eyes opened wide. She wanted to name her foal Twilight Glimmer. She loved that name and wanted to keep the Twilight part like her mother did. Was she really in a future, or an alternate universe?

Then she realized Midnight said Discord took over.

"How did Discord take over? Where are Princess Celestia and Luna?" she asked, worrying about her teacher and the secretly caring Luna.

Midnight turned, her tail sweeping the dusty floor.

"Discord teamed up with Chrysalis one day, and she disguised as Celestia as he took the real one and captured her. Then Chrysalis took over Equestria with Discord. They trapped both of the Princesses in a deep dungeon where nobody would find them. Discord felt like he should be leader, so he killed off Chrysalis and most of the changelings. Ever since he's taken over, guards check each house every night for any suspicious actions or disturbances."

Twilight couldn't believe what had happened in the future. Or this alternate universe. Everything was so dark now that Discord took over - her friends! What would they be doing? She had to check on Fluttershy first, to make sure she was okay.

"Do you know any pony around here named Fluttershy?" she asked, hopefully waiting for a good answer.

Midnight shook her head. "Fluttershy's daughter is named Skywing. Fluttershy.. died. She had run off after guards caught her having too many animals, and they killed her during the chase. It was very depressing."

Twilight couldn't mourn now that Fluttershy was dead - she had to find Skywing and ask her what happened to the other ponies. She wanted to find out if Applejack and the others were okay. Fluttershy was caught dead for something as little as too many animals, so her friends could be dead for even bigger reasons.

"I'm going to find Skywing, do you know where she lives?" she questioned.

Midnight nodded. "Yep. Down the road in a white cottage."

Twilight shot out the door and raced down the stone road towards Skywing's home. She saw a beautiful white cottage - the one Midnight was probably talking about. So she hurried down to the door and knocked with her front hoof. In a few minutes, the door opened and revealed almost a twin of Fluttershy, except with sad eyes and hanging wings.