Broken Minds and Healing Hearts

It was roughly a half hour of panic before Twilight exhausted herself into unconsciousness. Once she finally had Luna was quick to pick up the far too light mare, the night princess made a mental note to send someone to go get a meal for her and headed back to Twilight’s room.

This wasn’t something an apology would be able to fix. Luna was sure that given time what had happened to Twilight would eventually get better, she may never be the same but she wouldn’t be forever broken by this, after all Luna had spent a thousand years on the moon and she had recovered given time and as an alicorn time was something Twilight had plenty of. No the question wasn’t ‘would Twilight get better’ the question was ‘could she ever forgive everyone for what they had done’. Luna wasn’t sure. Twilight had been a forgiving pony before but that was over a hundred years ago, before she had been betrayed by everyone, before she had endured torture.

The hallways back to the room, which was right next to both Luna’s and Celestia’s rooms, passed by in a blur. The night princess placed the emancipated pony in the bed and covered her with as much gentleness as she possessed. If there was one thing Twilight deserved at the bare minimum it was gentleness. Then Luna brought over a chair and sat vigil at Twilight’s bedside, determined not to leave until Twilight woke.

She knew Celestia was bound to come in as well, there was no way Celestia could live with herself if she didn’t try to repair the damage she had helped cause even if in the end the three of them were no longer friends, even if Twilight ended up hating them, she deserved nothing less then their best at trying to fix this mess that had been created. At the moment Celestia was trying to discover just how Twilight had gotten so thin. If Twilight had simply refused to eat or if the guards had stopped bringing food. The sentence had been no communication at no point was Twilight to have been starved as she clearly had been. Celestia was trying to figure out if it was self-inflicted or not and why they had not been notified about it if it was or if they had purposefully withheld food who was responsible. To Luna it made no difference, to her it was clear who was responsible for Twilight’s poor health and she was ashamed to admit that they were. They had never personally checked on her, relying on reports from guards and taking them as fact, the ones they had read at least.

The Night Princess hadn’t felt rage this bad since before her banishment. It had all been a ploy to get Twilight out of the way and they had all fell for it. It had taken the real culprit confessing right in front of them to realize they had imprisoned the wrong pony and to make matters worse he had gotten away.

**Flashback**

Both Luna and Celestia were in the Throne room, a rare occurrence unless some calamity was about to befall the nation. They had decided a few years prior that they would have joint sessions in the autumn since the time between day and night, also known as twilight, was longer at this time of year and they felt that it would help show ponies that they were indeed equals, that they ruled side by side. It was almost time for proper night fall the beginning of true night when it happened.

There, in the capital of Canterlot, just moments before the final rays of sun left Equestria for the night, a large explosion rang out, destroying the silence that had fallen over the city. The source had also destroyed several buildings, killing quite a few ponies, though at the time the royal sisters were unaware of this fact and simply knew something was wrong.

They quickly left the room and headed outside to determine the source, both extending their senses as much as possible to determine whether or not it was magical in nature. Neither could sense the type of powerful magic that would be necessary for this. Some of guards had already begun to act heading in the direction of the explosion the pegasus guards moving farther quicker since they could simply fly over any obstacle. The newest captain of the royal guard had finally appeared and saluted.

He was an earth pony and like all who joined the guard was wearing gold plated armor that disguised any real distinguishing features, the armor enchanted his coat to a pale white, the only thing that really gave away the difference between a regular guard and the captain was the engravings on his armor that displayed his rank. His name was Quick Shot and he was still getting used to the new position having just been promoted a week before. Still, no one became captain without a bit of experience even if Equestria hadn’t seen war in several centuries.

“Your Majesties, the explosion seems to have come from the market district.”

“Do we know what caused it?” Celestia asked concernedly.

“Not yet, the only reason we know what direction it came from is because a pegasus guard was doing patrol up in the air space above the castle and happened to be looking in that direction when it happened. He said it’s taken a few buildings down. I’ve sent a few guards to go ahead and check for more threats while the rest of us mobilize to search the area more thoroughly.”

“Very well, I shall accompany you. Something like this does not happen by accident in Canterlot. Surely this must be a trap of some kind,” Luna said decisively.

“Be careful Luna, we don’t know what we’re dealing with just yet,” Celestia cautioned.

Luna had nodded and then taken flight, first following the guards that had already left for the site of the explosion then outstripping them. She was the first to arrive on the scene and hovered in the air for a few moments before landing just taking everything in. About four buildings had been completely demolished, leaving nothing but rubble. Two more were severely damaged but not completely collapsed. Luna suspected this was because the two were further away and warehouses so each had taken damage to only one wall leaving the other three walls of each building to support the weight. The dust was still settling and it caused many to cough. Some looked fairly alright with only a few scrapes and bruises but many others were seriously injured.

“One of you notify the hospital that there are injured on their way.” Luna instructed one of the guards. To the others she said. “Begin rounding up the injured and transport them to the hospital as quickly as you can. Those of you with the ability to cast healing magic focus on the most injured first and try to stabilize them for transport.”

The guards quickly did as instructed while Luna herself began to inspect the site more closely. She had just begun to search the rubble of the first building when a flash of magic caught her attention. A bright ugly orange spell was headed straight for her! With a practiced motion she brought up a shield and the spell broke upon it but it soon became a battle of attrition, the spells came at her with such speed she was unable to do anything but shield herself and so could not switch to the offensive.

Some of the guards witnessed the coming spells and searched for the source. There stood something they never thought they’d see. Another alicorn. The fact that there was now another alicorn was something no one had ever thought they’d see but the guards lived in the castle with two of them (three if you counted the prisoner) what really stunned them was the fact that it was a stallion. No one had ever seen a male alicorn before and they were frozen in shock.

The alicorn stallion had a completely black ethereal mane. Unlike the two royal sisters whose mane seemed to flow in a non-existent breeze, his mane and tail struck violently into the air behind him like a flag waving in the middle of a tropical storm. He was shorter than Princess Celestia but taller than Princess Luna. His muscles were slight but well defined, more pronounced than the sisters but by no means bulky. His eyes were a cold gold that had further orange mist surrounding them making them look even more sinister. He, unlike the princesses who only wore regalia for protection from an attack he was in full body armor, making it impossible to determine what color his fur was. What stood out most though, besides his gender, and caused shivers to run down the spines of just about everyone there was the pure maniacal grin he wore as he attacked Princess Luna.

One unicorn guard, incredibly foolish but completely devoted to the princesses he had sworn to protect, sent one of the strongest spells he knew at the one attacking his charge. It barely caught the male alicorn’s attention. He effortlessly conjured a shield to protect him but the spell did it’s job. In that split second Luna was finally free to bring down her shield and go on the attack.

Spell after spell the two alicorns tried to get one over on the other trying to defeat their opponent. Luna was trying to keep the damage away from her subjects but there was only so much she could do, and there was clearly a threat before her. Resounding explosions rocked the entire city and the two alicorns took to the sky to continue their battle.

During the entire fight no matter what Luna said or did he refused to say a word. He just kept that unnerving grin on his face. Right up until Celestia had appeared in a flash of golden light and joined the battle. Only then did the strange alicorn back away an show the slightest bit of fear. Luna didn’t know if it was the idea of fighting both of them at once or if it was Celestia in particular that he didn’t want to fight but it was gone before either sister could press their advantage. Then the grin was back only this time it seemed to say ‘I know something you don’t’.

“I didn’t think I would be facing both betrayers at once,” He said.

“We have betrayed no one. Who are you? Why have you attacked us?” Celestia demanded.

He laughed as though he had heard the funniest thing in the world. “Betrayed no one? You imprison an innocent pony for years and someone you claimed was a friend, but you betrayed no one.”

“What are you talking about?” Luna inquired. He was lying, trying to trick them so he could defeat them while they were distracted, but something cold began to settle in her stomach at what he was implying. No one openly spoke of Twilight these days, over a hundred years and most who knew her were dead. It was mostly the guards, the sisters, and Cadance who knew of Twilight by now, not because they had erased her from history but mostly because everyone simply referred to her as ‘the betrayer’ or ‘the fallen princess’.

He gave a cruel grin that told them exactly how much he relished what he was saying, “Twilight didn’t kill all those people. I did. I needed her out of the way while I worked on ascending and then increasing my power. I had to make sure she wasn’t around to stop me before I killed you. I was trying to get you to execute her, after all the only way to guarantee she wasn’t involved is if she wasn’t alive. I made sure to kill them slowly and painfully, I wanted her to try to save them to erase my magic and then I suppressed most of the memories from the colt she managed to save. Of course I couldn’t risk him waking up and remembering the truth so after Luna came to search for the truth he ‘succumbed to his wounds’.”

He was a true villain, monologuing and everything only while the sisters were struck with horror at the implications of what he was saying he had used the time he was talking to perform a teleport. It spurred the sisters into action, preparing for an attack and searching for where he had gone. After half an hour of searching they had found no sign of him.

They met at the spot of the initial attack and they needed to share no words. Luna would remain to watch of the evacuation of the rest of the injured. Celestia had something more important to do: Free an innocent mare.