"Twilight, you must come out of that dusty old study. You're worrying all of us again!"

Rarity's words were muffled by the heavy oak of the door between them, and Twilight responded only with the flick of an ear.

Another voice called out, confident and loud, "C'mon Twi! You know you can't read every book in existance, you gotta get out and stretch your wings once in a while!" Twilight heard the handles jiggle on the door, but it remained closed. "C'moooon just a quick flight around town? I can show you how to do that move you were asking about!"

Twilight sighed, "Rarity, Rainbow, I'm busy! With the princesses gone, I have to do everything I can to run this nation properly!" She rubbed her hoof tips against her temples, "why didnt they teach me anything about politics and the paperwork involved in ruling before retiring and leaving me the soul monarch of an entire nation?" She sighed to herself.

A new voice joined outside the door, this one much happier and louder, "we can help you Twi Twi! How's about we all take a book and read it, then we can summarize it to you! It'll get done 6 times as quick!"

Twilight smiled a bit, Pinkie was always the problem solver. "Thanks Pinkie, but I can't just have the summaries. There are so many intricacies to each of these topics. I have species relations to catch up on, business files to review..." she slowly trailed off as her eyes caught back onto the paper and her reading resumed.

Outside the door, her friends all sighed, Applejack stepped towards the door and spoke softly, "We get it Twi, this stuff is new and scary for yuh. But we can help you if you let us, friendship has gotten us this far!" She waited in vain for a reply from the door. "...Well just give a holler if you need us. We're always here for yuh. You dont gotta do this alone."

'But I do' thought the newly crowned monarch. 'You may be my friends, but I'm the alicorn, I'm the ruler. At the end of the day, this is one task that truly is up to me'.

Twilight sighed and continued reading, her hooves tucked comfortably under her as a book was held in her magic. Three books sat to her right; her collection of finished books for the day. Many more sat to her left; the ones she would need to read next. She sighed, never having felt so daunted by reading before. But this wasn't just for her studies, this was now for the fate of Equestria's future. Could she really do it? Could she really live up to the names of Celestia and Luna?

She had to. The purple alicorn shook her distracting thoughts away and continued on reading.
•••
Twilight awoke with a start, she had fallen asleep on her fifth book. Rubbing the drool from her lips, she peered outside. About an hour past midnight. She gazed at the moon, glowing intensely with all the glory of the night. Pursing her lips, she reopened her book, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and continued reading.

Her attention was cut by a shuffling from behind her book tower. The monarch slowly closed her book, not taking her eyes off the tower, and slowly rose to her hooves. One hoof at a time she approached the tower, craning her neck to peer around it.

The shuffling came again. Twilight's purple eyes spotted something small and dark, like a black mouse, shuffling on some loose papers. Suddenly wishing for Fluttershy's powers of animal communication, she opened her mouth shyly.
"U-um, hello there?" She tried. The creature stopped moving and peaked its head around a book, looking at Twilight. It was similar to a mouse, except black as night, with small, black horns instead of ears. It had no shape to its face, it all blended into the black expanse of its body, but two small pure white eyes looked into her purple eyes.

Twilight smiled at the creature, trying to show it she meant no harm. It peered at her suspiciously and stepped closer, climbing onto the book stack to be eye level with her. Twilight's eyes grew wide as she heard it's voice within her head.

'Greetings, your majesty. It is an honor to meet you.' The small creature bowed a bit as it's voice permeated her thoughts.

Twilight opened her mouth wide, her lips twitching as if looking for the right words to say. Finally, without breaking eye contact, she cleared her throat and spoke, "h-hello there! I uh... I haven't seen your kind before. A small creature that can speak telepathically that is, or one made of such... dark fur." The alicorn looked the creature up and down several times, as if she could not comprehend what she was looking at.

It stood unmoving and unblinking, the only sign of life being its swaying tail. For a moment Twilight thought she may have been having an exhaustion hallucination, but the creature spoke to her once more.

'I am what you may call... a knowledge sprite. We are helpful magical creatures, summoned from books when needed most. It has been some time since I have seen an alicorn, tell me, where are the other princesses?'

Twilight's eyes grew wider with each new word this creature spoke, her mouth dropping lower and lower. An ancient magical creature! How had she never heard of this? Was it rare? How often did it appear if it hadn't seen an alicorn for a long time? All these thoughts and more raced in her sleep deprived brain, but she had never felt more awake.

The sprite cocked its head to the side in confusion. The bookish mare snapped her attention back to it. "Oh! I-im sorry, I'm just... a teensy bit overwhelmed at this encounter. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am the monarch of Equestria. The other princesses, well they retired, leaving me and my friends as the rulers."

The shadowy sprite seemed to take a moment to absorb the information. It's tail stopped swaying altogether, the creature sat eerily still.

'Hmm, that certainly is interesting. Much has changed since I was last summoned, this change of leadership comes as a big surprise. Though not unwelcome' the alicorn thought she detected a tiny smile on the black expressionless void of a face, but it was gone as soon as it came. 'That must be why I was summoned. You feel unprepared to rule, too much to learn but not enough time.'

Twilight smiled in relief, this thing was here to help her! "Yes! That is exactly how I feel. Oh the princesses left me with so much reading and learning to do, I'm worried I'll let the whole kingdom down!" The tall alicorn started pacing as she spoke, her long flowing hair waving restlessly as if sensing her turmoil. "But how can you help?"

The little sprite scampered down the book pile and took a look around the room. It skittered from one book to another, stopping to read the titles and quickly flip through them with seemingly no rhyme or reason. She didnt question the process.

Finally, the inky black creature sat upon one of her books and looked back into her eyes. 'I possess the ancient ability of incredible magical multitasking. Think of it like this. You have four hooves. With four hooves you can kick a ball while running, imagine instead you have 8 hooves. Now you can run and kick multiple balls at a time. That, in a sense, is the ability that I hold. You on your own can control your magic to do multiple things such as holding a book and sweeping the floor, but with my added help, you can hold and read all these books at once, absorbing all the knowledge that would take you days, if not weeks, in a mere hour.'

Twilight sat there dumbfounded. It sounded... so simple, so perfect. Is this little creature what helped Celestia to be so perfect in her rule? Did it help her out with seemingly impossible tasks? Celestia was amazing, but she wasn't perfect. This must have been the added tool to help everything run so smoothly!

The alicorn smiled toothily, "oh thank you! My, what great timing! I'm honored to receive your help, uh..." she trailed off.
The creature seemed to know what caused her to stop, 'Marlamew is my name. And it is I who is honored to serve the alicorns once more.'

Twilight held out her long hoof for the little creature to step onto, which it did. She held him up to her face and spoke again, "so how does this work?"

Marlamew sat up on his hind legs, 'touch your horn to me and state these words-' he waited for Twilight to touch her horn to him then spoke again 'I, Twilight Sparkle, invite thee in Marlamew'

Twilight shut her eyes and repeated him. "I, Twilight Sparkle, invite thee in Marlamew." If the naive alicorn had kept her eyes open, she would have been unable to miss the large, sharp toothed grin that spread across the black expanse of the creatures face. But it was too late. She had let it in voluntarily.
•••
Throbbing filled the head of the purple pony as she slowly regained consciousness. She blinked one eye at a time as her head spun and she tried to take in her surroundings.

Slowly sitting up, Twilight put her hoof to her head and groaned. 'What the hay happened? Where am I?' She thought silently.

All around her the sky was filled with watercolor splotches of black and gray, the ground was a shiny black which reflected her image back at her. She gasped at what she saw.

Her long flowing mane had turned black on the ends, along with the tip of her horn. Her fur was darker purple, and her eyes were tinged red. But worst of all was her cutie mark; the six pointed star was blood red and the shining stars around it were black.

She stumbled backwards gasping for breath, terrified by this image of her. In a fit of panic, she lit her horn and cast a teleport spell. She didnt know where she was, but she knew her magic was strong enough to take her home regardless. The spell fizzled out, doing nothing. But the sparks left by the failed spell were a sickly red instead of her usual purple.
The powerless monarch darted her eyes all around her, looking for some indication of where she may be, maybe even another pony. She whipped her neck around frantically.

"HELLO? IS ANYPONY THERE?" She called out loudly, voice shaky and uncertain.

Twilight braced herself as the world started to rumble around her like an earthquake. "What in Tartarus is going on?" She breathed unsteadily to herself.

The shiny black ground in front of her began to morph slightly, it appeared as if a hill was forming out of the tar like substance. It kept growing, becoming 3 times as tall as the Princess herself. Bumps began to protrude from the hill once it reached its full height, sharpening into what looked like claws. The top of it grew two long straight horns.

Twilight's pupils shrunk to pinpricks as two white, vacant eyes appeared on the mass. She recognized the being at once.
"M-Marlamew...?" She asked quietly.

The creatures toothy grin lit up its pitch black face, it spoke to her with this new found mouth instead of telepathically as it had before, "Ahh hello Princess! Thank you so much for letting me in! Oh it has been some time since I've inhabited a living form!" It clicked its long sharp claws together as if getting use to the new appendages.

The alicorn eyed the claws and gulped, stepping back shakily. She unconsciously readied an attack spell without even thinking about the failed teleport before. "Marlamew, wh-whats going on? Where am I? I thought y-you were going to help me?" She silently cursed herself for believing this creature so quickly. It really had been too good too be true.

Marlamew took notice of her horn lighting up and kept his smile even. "My, my~ this was so much easier than I thought it would be. Such perfect timing too... the rulers of Equestria leave a new, foolish, completely trusting alicorn ripe for the taking in charge of their kingdom!" His form grew longer and her coiled around himself in a seemingly smug manor. "Oh how wonderful. I've never possessed an alicorn... I tried over three thousand years ago, but of course the sun and moon princesses were keen to demons. They knew all about what I am."

Twilight kept taking steps back, sweat forming on her face. Her breathing grew ragged and hard. She didnt take her eyes off the behemoth of tar as it spoke, slowly realized just how fucked she was. She whined and aimed her horn down at Marlamew, channeling all the power she could and shot it out. But once again, it fizzled out and left sparks of red falling from the tip.

When that failed, she made eye contact one last time, then turned tail and fled.

The demon of tar lifted its head and let out a loud cackle, using its long clawed appendages to yank itself from the ground. It pulled its large body completely out of the ground, it's full form being revealed. It had a long torso like a Chinese dragon, that ended in thick dragon like hind legs. It's tail was long and thin, ending in a puff of fur. This creatures entered body was made of a pitch black material.

Once released, it scrabbled towards the fleeing princess, it's claws seemingly having trouble gaining traction on the shiny floor. But once it got a hang of gripping the ground, it was after her like a bat out of hell.

Twilight was far ahead, but the demon was gaining on her quickly, making large leaps towards her with its long disgusting limbs. The whole time, it's sharp disturbing smile never left its face and it's eyes bore into her fur like a laser.

Twilight pumped her hooves wildly, going as fast as her adtenaline fueled body would let her. She unfurled her wings, getting ready to take off and leapt into the sky-

-Only to stumble and roll over herself several times as her wings failed to catch air. She lay dazed for a few seconds before slamming her hoof on the ground and lifting her sore body back up. Her eyes were wide with panic, her mouth trembled in fear as tears pricked her eyes. She pushed forward once more as she heard the thumping of Marlamew gaining on her.
Her breath stung in her lungs, completely unused to exerting herself this much, but she didnt dare slow even as her muscles begged for her to stop.

She wasnt fast enough though. The demon was gaining on her quickly, and as it did, Twilight could her its eerie, unnatural laughter. Like a foal playing tag mixed with the stereotypical cackle of a witch and a boar snarling. She turned sharply right, hoping to throw the creature off and give her a few more precious moments to run, but as she did so she noticed the complete lack of change in the environment. The splotchy sky didn't move with her, and the shiny black earth never seemed to dip or rise. It was like she was running in place, making no progress.

Her mind froze, unsure of what to do. She skid to a hault, panting with exhaustion and turned to face her demon-literally. Sweat dripped down her face as her neck hung low as if unable to support the weight of her head.

Marlamew slowed his approach as he caught up with her, each heavy clawed foot still shaking the ground. He seemed completely unfazed, not panting in the slightest. Twilight knew that wherever she was, she would be no match for this demon.

"What... do you... want from me?" She panted between breaths. The mass of black just stared at her for a moment, seeming to enjoy her fear and defeat.

He lifted a claw to her and gently ran it down her sweaty face as she trembled, then lifted it to his own maw. Opening his large toothed mouth, a blood red forked tongue slithered out and licked the fluid from his claw.

"You ponies have had it too good for too long. Now, it's my time. Everything you represent, I despise. Friendship, love, trust, it's all so disgusting and it's been the pillar of your existance." He neared his face to her own, but the alicorn didn't flinch, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. "I plan to knock down each and every pillar has held you ponies aloft. And I'll do it, starting with you; the ruler of the nation. The princess herself." He lifted his giant tar-like head and let out an earpiercing cackle, causing Twilight to clench her eyes shut and shove her hooves to her ears. "Oh you sniveling little fool! I've been trying to worm my way into your society for so long! Everyone has seen right through me though... the princesses, the scholars, the nobles, they've all caught on and promptly banished me back to Tartarus, just for me to claw my way back out. But you... the most powerful and influential being in the kingdom... you let me right in without a second thought!"

Before Twilight could even get a word in, Marlamew darted towards her and clawed his way into her mouth. Her jaw stretched wide until it cracked under the force. She let out a muffled scream and shoved her hooves to her face to try and pull him out, but he kept sinking deeper causing her throat to bulge. The princesses eyes filled with tears and rolled back in her head as his body wormed into hers. The whites of her eyes flashed blood red before returning to white.

When Marlamew was gone inside her, the princess stood motionless for a few moments, before gently smiling. Her horn flashed blood red, and then she was gone, leaving the black and gray dimension in silence.

Author's Note

This story may evolve to contain sex/rape in the future so if you arent into that id recomend checking chapter tags frequently