White Sun

Chapters

New Plans
Preparations
Speeches
Confused
Bonus: Green Sun
Digging
Supplies
Assistants
Dangers
Choices
Trip
Pursuit
Knowledge
Newcomers
Confusion
Screaming
Fights
Family
Hugs
Flight
Renewal
Unwanted Guests
Threats
Direction
Hesitation
Confrontation
Progress
Fury
New Search
Grand Skies
Air
Aid
Dry Sun
Colleagues
Glass
Reluctance
Tunneling
Leading
Green
Throne
Harmony
Release
Digging Again
Restarting

New Plans

"Pass me the larger scalpel and some forceps," Twilight asked her 'assistant'.

The undead fumbled along the table placed next to her, eventually pulling out a thick blade and two forceps. Twilight dug into her latest experimental subject with them and fried several bugs along the way with her magic.

"You got a little infestation problem," she said to the corpse. She stuck her tongue out in disgust. "They ate away at you! Pffff..." The unicorn started calculating and running theories in her mind as she observed the damage. "What are you most fond of in a body that you chomp on first, I wonder." She leaned to the side and gave a smile to the milky-eyed body. "Don't worry. This won't take much longer." She started cutting through the surface of the skin, causing fatty deposits to start leaking out. She pried the meat apart and observed the muscle and fatty tissue beneath. "There's more bugs in the meat than the fat? Interesting. Maybe..." Spike leaned forward, expecting an order. "Maybe I should look for more hefty ponies." She dropped a forceps into a surgical tray and grunted. "But I need civilian records. No way am I going to be able to get any of those."

The mare walked over to a heavy door she struggled to open even with her magic and unveiled a frozen land of ice and blue light. A large, blue orb was floating near the ceiling, slowly bobbing up and down as it dropped sparkles of ice and snow from its base. It would release a freezing wave every few seconds, preventing anything from starting to melt and rot. However, it also caused anything going in, whether living or dead, to instantly start freezing over when hit by one of the waves. Twilight 'restored' the orb, causing it to enlarge from a foal's hoof to just half the size of her head and quickly pulled out several limbs and torsos.

The unicorn slammed the door shut, shivering uncontrollably. "Th-th-th-therrrre. G-g-got th-them!"

Creating a ring of fire around, her, the mare waited that she defrosted and finally stopped shivering. It took a while, but Twilight was now free to do what she wanted. She started cutting off pieces of the limbs and placing them in the corpse she was working on and sewing the bits into place. Spike continued to watch her, immobile and emotionless, as its master toiled for hours on her project.

When she had finally accomplished her task, the unicorn wiped her forehead of sweat with a clean rag. "I think I've got it," she wheezed. "Now let's see if I was right."

With a glow from her horn, the body started to twitch and spasm erratically on the table. Spike pulled Twilight away just in-case. With a sudden 'jump-start' to itself, the zombie was standing lopsided, with its forelegs bent at wrong angles and head completely bent off to the side, making it parallel to the ground.

"Ha ha, oops," Twilight giggled sheepishly. "I forgot to check if there were broken bones." She watched as the zombie fumbled about, trying to walk, but failing due to its unfortunate bone structure. However, when the shards would bend apart further due to the strain, the zombie's remade muscles would force them back into place. "Fascinating!" Twilight said enthusiastically. She pulled out several sheets of paper and started writing her notes and theories meticulously. "Rebuilt muscle is stronger than regular for a zombie. Pushes bones back into place, although they do not heal." She tapped her lip several times with her quill. "Does the source factor in any way? Sex? Age? Mutations could be a beneficial addition. Does the amount of magic introduced do anything?" Twilight continued like this for several more minutes before gazing at the zombie in pity and dumping it down the same chute as all the others. "I'm sorry it didn't work out, but the others will help get you on your four hooves again! I'm always here if you need anything!" she shouted after the zombie.

The unicorn continued noting ideas and got ready to grab another subject from the pile when she stopped herself. She looked at the chute then back at the pile and became furious. She had been using the same subjects in the same region for years now. She needed new subjects from elsewhere. Errant magic in the air was never the same in other places, and they tended to change the state of the inhabitants in those areas unnoticeably. Well, unnoticeably to anypony that wasn't well versed in magic and spells.

Twilight paced about the room, thinking closely about what she should do. If she stayed around her home she would have an easier time getting subjects and evading capture. However, she would never manage to get more information on the changing variable concerning pony bodies in every region, and dissecting some kirin could be beneficial as well, but they were an odd bunch. The mare shook her head. She was getting off track. The first thing she needed to do was get information on any areas further away from her home and reagents for a teleportation medallion...or rune to carve directly onto her bones.

She winced at the idea. She knew many 'unsavory' elements that went about it that way. They wouldn't be able to get the medallions stolen that way, but if there was a magic disruptor around the prison, then the spell could go very awry. A medallion was safer, but if you couldn't hide or disguise it, it tended to give you away to everypony looking at you.

"I think...I'll just do the medallion. I'll be able to have it locked to here and change it whenever, and if I need to change it it'll be easy, and not painful!" the mare shouted. "What do you think, Spike?" she said with a smile. The skeleton did not respond. "You're right! We need to get you a disguise." She looked around impatiently and huffed. "Let's go back upstairs. Should be able to make you something."

Being unable to find much of anything, the mare grabbed an assortment of old clothes she couldn't wear anymore and linked them together with some basic threading spells. It wasn't as good as actual sewing and would wear off in just a few hours if not maintained, but it did its job in a pinch. Now Spike looked like he was draped in a faded, grimy quilt.

"Close enough!" Twilight cheered. "Let's get back to Silvery Gleam and ask him if he knows anything. You'll love Flarolina. I just need to get my saddlebags first then we can go."

Still doing her best to evade the looks of anypony by taking the least frequented streets, the two still got several looks when anypony spotted Spike, but nobody called out to them. They were too scared of the glowing lights coming from behind the hood of the giant creature accompanying Twilight. Unfortunately, things didn't continue this smoothly as the mare had hoped. Two guards noticed and called out to them, but if they approached, they would realize what Spike was. The chase had started. Even though Twilight was experienced with wandering the wastes, she didn't have the training the two pursuers had. They blew whistles to alert their fellows and anypony else around, realizing that these two were suspicious.

One rule of the underground city was to never lead the guards to its entrances. Anypony around that realized what you were doing would throw you to them no questions asked. Like a good citizen. Fortunately for Twilight, this wasn't her first chase. Twilight had Spike carry her and felt his bones dig into her body, but it was insignificant for the moment. She managed to dodge the guards in an alleyway, and with not a moment to spare, she began casting several spells in conjunction with one another. A spell of concealment to hide among the refuse piling up in the back alleys, a distraction spell that would create seven fake versions of her and Spike, and a quieting spell so the more astute ponies wouldn't notice her even if she were concealed.

When the two guards slid to a halt in the mud just in front of Twilight, she felt her heart stop, her blood freeze, and instinctively held her breath in fear. The two were befuddled and started looking around. Why did this part of the city only just start getting roads placed?!

"Could be they concealed themselves," one guard supposed.

"Could be, but we don't know how to dispel those," the other replied.

The first waved the statement off. "Pshh. You don't need a dispelling...spell...to find anypony hidden by a concealing spell." She looked at the ground and twisted her hoof. "They always leave something behind. Sloppy." The guard looked at the piles of garbage around and grimaced. "Disgusting. Broken wagon wheels, boxes, rotting food. Gross."

"Hey!" the second shouted. "They're over there!"

"What?!"

Twilight and Spike 'accidentally' slipped into view on the other side of the street and quickly ran away, chased by the two guards.

"Ha ha. Told you it would work," Twilight whispered to her assistant. "And look! Right where we need to be down there." She pointed across a large, open space where several ponies were walking about for one reason or another. "Try and rush past them and straight into that street down there. Straight across." The mare grunted. "I'll...keep the concealment going for as long as I can."

Spike obeyed and rushed across as fast as he could. A 'fast' that stunned Twilight. He was somehow going faster than a pony on just his two legs. She wasn't sure what the factor was, whether it be the helix 'muscles', him being a dragon, or something else, but it didn't matter all too much. It was just unfortunate that some ponies were in the way and he didn't bother to dodge them. It was a nasty sight for Twilight to see a pony flying into the air, spinning rapidly then landing limply onto the ground in front of horrified onlookers. The dragon slid in front of the winehouse Twilight used to get underground and dropped her. With a groan the unicorn released the concealment spell, allowing her and her assistant to go into the establishment.

The noises inside went silent when everyone saw the giant accompanying Twilight. Not one to ask questions, the older barkeep gestured to the usual location. Finally underground, Twilight gestured to Spike to remove his disguise. They were 'safe' down here, after all. He obeyed and passed her his makeshift cloak that she folded and placed into her saddlebags. Even though she was proud of her creation and trotting jubilantly across the dirty streets, the frequenters of the city were more than horrified. Several ran out of the way, some even screaming dramatically. A few griffins had even somehow made their way into the city, but even though they were known for their bellicose nature, they moved out of the way of the necromancer and her undead dragon when she neared them. She made her way back to the barrows and once again found her senses flooded by spices and, as she passed the entrance, moldy books and old parchment covered in decaying wax.

She looked around and started getting worried when she couldn't see Silvery Gleam anywhere. A few of the patrons picking out books or reading and taking notes stopped briefly to stare at Spike. They either displayed apathy, vague intrigue, curiosity, or outright fear. Those that perused the contents of this 'illegal' library weren't strangers to Twilight's craft.

The mare smiled when she heard Gleaming's strange accent loop around a corner. He was speaking with a tall pegasus covered head-to-toe in gray-blue armor that had been singed black in many places. The pegasus nodded to him and made to leave when they spotted Twilight and her assistant.

"Hi!" Twilight greeted.

The pegasus looked at her undead and gave her a nod of acknowledgment before continuing their way.

"Ha ha! Look at you!" Silvery declared loudly. "Ya yeer own assistant!" he said more quietly. "Didn't think yeed manage ta bag a big dragon from tha' tilly! Came here just ta gloat?" he teased Twilight with a gentle jab to her ribs.

Spike made to crush the stallion like it did to the farmer, but Twilight blocked it. "No, Spike! It's okay! He's a friend. That was just some fun, is all."

The dragon backed away and let its arm drop to its side, once again motionless.

"Hoo. Still havin' trooble controlling it, huh?" Silvery said nervously.

"He's learning. Don't worry," Twilight brushed the problem away. "I didn't come here to show him. I came here because I need some reagents for a teleporter medallion for me and Spike, and I want to know the best places to get samples outside of this region." The mare's expression went from lighthearted to serious. "It's extremely important for my research."

"Ya neemed it?" Silvery said in monotone. "Well, Ay can manage tha'. Come. We're goin' tee the resehrves." Twilight felt her excitement increasing once again. It was almost palpable. "Oh, and we haveen't managed tae find Celestia's body yet. They hid her tilly well, the bastards."

Preparations

Nervous, Twilight took in a deep breath and opened the armored doors leading further into the forgotten city she inhabited. Linked to the final basement floor of her home, the heavy doors screeched in protest from being roused from their long, long slumber. The rusted joints flaked bits of rust as they were finally made to work once again after so long. The unicorn normally just took the same chute that her test subjects would use and teleport back, but she really wanted to show Spike what the city looked like. She had used the doors once before, but that was years ago. Her curiosity led her down there after fleeing Canterlot and trying to find a home for herself. In the end, the mare chose the little 'cabin' she lived in now instead of disappearing into the catacombs of a forgotten civilization. It was more convenient that way.

The air coming through was heavy and dry. The amount of dust within absorbed most of the moisture into the surfaces and prevented it from staying in the air. When it hit the back of Twilight's throat, it immediately irritated her passages and caused a sputtering cough. She mitigated it by taking one of the former quilt pieces used as Spike's disguise and covered her muzzle with it. The mare would have to clean this passage up further if she wanted to go back down to the city more often. There were so many steps leading down that Twilight's legs already started hurting. It was a different beast to walk down and up stairs than it was to walk on a mostly flat plane. A final door at the end had collapsed under its own weight. Whoever lived here had only installed a wooden pair of doors at this entrance, and they had dissolved into mulch. Only vague pieces of vaguely solid lumber stuck out from the mushy, rotted pile.

Twilight brushed it all aside with her magic, freeing the way to a caved-in tunnel connected to a large, stone bridge overlooking most of the city. She stood on her hind legs to get her head over the damaged ramp to look around. She wasn't sure who exactly used to live here, but the bridge was wide enough that at least seventeen normal wagons could travel it side-by-side. It was just a prelude of things to come when she first arrived here.

"Spike!" Twilight called out. "Come see!"

The city she lived above dwarfed even Manehatten in size, according to Twilight's knowledge of that place. Most of the stone buildings were intact, but any trace of wood had long since rotted away or was in the process of collapsing under the weight of all they were carrying. The mountain range they sat under had engulfed most of the taller buildings, but even those that hadn't been taken always amazed the unicorn. Fifty stories tall at least. That was the height of highest buildings around, and they were all very large. They weren't simple towers or just tall buildings. The architecture pointed them to being hubs of some kind. Buildings with a complex purpose meant to house dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of ponies all at once on their various floors. Some sported half-cylinder roofs and were decorated with rows of 'pikes' on the edges. Others were angular and more bare. One thing Twilight really liked was a mixture of archways, pikes, floral decorations, and domes. It sported immense windows that were covered in thick layers of algae and other plant life illuminated by the tremendous walls of luminescent moss covering the near totality of the stone walls of the mountain.

Most glowed blue, but there were yellows and white mixed in as well. Zombies wandered the streets down below, unfortunate failures of Twilight's.

"Hi, everyone!" Twilight waved to the creatures.

They didn't acknowledge her existence. Most just wandered around and collapsed on their own or fell into the many massive sinkholes that formed throughout the city. Basements and dug-out zones had bored holes through the zone and, without maintenance, rendered the ground unstable. While the city was enormous, it wasn't hard to spot large swathes of it collapsing inwards. Many of the larger buildings leaned against each other, seemingly trying to keep each other from falling in. If Twilight wasn't the creator of the many wandering dead living in this dead city, she would be in more danger than this place already was. At any moment everything could collapse, taking the mountains with them. Its creators were masters at architecture, it seemed to the unicorn.

She watched as the mobile sources of light floated overhead, falling down towards and traveling through the city streets. Soul wisps. That's what Twilight called them. They only appeared after she started dropping her undead into the city far below. The mare worried that they were souls of the dead that she had accidentally trapped in the city at first, but she could feel no ill will nor harmful intentions nor anything from whatever they were. They simply wandered haphazardly every now and then. Twilight was certain there was a pattern to the wandering and time of appearance, but she paid it no heed.

The unicorn made her way to the end of the bridge and took a crumbling ramp further down, avoiding the holes and broken stone as best she could and traveling the damp streets that reeked of the dead. The zombies continued ignoring Twilight and Spike, allowing her to continue to her favorite spot. When she finally reached the elaborate building, she groaned in annoyance at the amount of steps she still had to travel up. The unicorn almost had to crawl through the only set of doors that still barely stood on their hinges. The others were made of chiseled stone but had fallen and broken apart.

Cold air buffeted Twilight's face as she entered. She could only see traces of what once stood in this immense building. Several doorways and stairs were dotted about, leading to various zones, but what Twilight wanted was just the main atrium.

Large and empty, Twilight could always feel an oddity coming from the wall directly opposite the entryway. There was something that used to hang there, but whatever got rid of it was thorough enough that there was barely even a shadow left behind. Other buildings still had walls hoof-chiseled with patterns and depictions of events long-past using creative figures, but this building held nothing. All Twilight could tell was that the algae-covered windows might be made from stained glass, but the effect caused by the luminescent moss outside and the green algae made figuring that out all but impossible, even with a spell. She could damage the material and would have to wash them all by hoof.

Regardless, she wasn't here to learn about the history of this place. Spike handed her a large bag full of reagents and started placing them on the cold, uneven floor. Plants with a yellow flower and orange stem; some more dried plants from deserts to the east that smelled powerfully of spice and burned Twilight's nose; A jar containing blue kirin fire. While exceptionally difficult to acquire, once you had it you could produce more whenever you needed, but not without specialized tools. Then came two hexagonal slabs. Twilight clenched her teeth as she ripped out a few strands of her mane and put them down onto one of the slabs with a smile and tears coming from her eyes. She took a small shard of Spike's ulna and placed it on the other.

The advantage of this place, moreso than anywhere else, was that it was saturated in magic. For whatever reason it flowed into this building and concentrated into the atrium, precisely where Twilight sat. She pulled out several more reagents, from stones inscribed with old ponish runes to bones to pieces from magical creatures. The spell she was going to perform was going to take her a long time to cast, and it was complex enough to require all these extra reagents. It was one of the more complex spells she had ever cast, and if she wanted it to succeed, Twilight would have to be extremely meticulous in her work and diligence.

"Okay, Twilight," the mare said to herself. She wiped sweat from her brow. "You practiced this for two days. It's just slightly bigger, is all."

She took out some charcoal and started drawing along the floor where to place all the reagents to interact with each other. Every circle, every hexagram, tetragram, septagram, pentagram. Every curve, old ponish, new ponish, minotaur or griffith. Everything she used in her rituals was designed to interact with each other and direct the magic through every item in precise intervals and quantities, just like when she worked on her chemistry. Not too much acid at once, let this part boil for a few seconds then redirect the vapor to drip and boil again in another solution for a minute while this part was mixed up. It all felt natural to Twilight and she couldn't help but let creep a childish smile and a sense of satisfaction when she did the runework. It was the most tedious part of rituals and complex spell crafting, but she loved it the most. Something other ponies never shared.

Even now she could recall an amusing memory as she worked her craft.

She was participating in her fifth class on spell-casting and the harsh teacher at the time was drilling in the idea of spell circle drawing and devising. Everypony was drawing a spell to create a puddle of water, but most of the other colts and fillies were groaning with impatience. As Twilight remembered, they all wanted to get to doing big, flashy spells to immediately become great magicians like Starswirl the Bearded and O'Connor the Thoughtful. While the teacher regularly passed by the others, she forgot to check on Twilight herself, leaving the young unicorn to become engrossed in her drawing and go from the canvas they had all been given to transcribing it on the floor and expanding it further. Then Celestia arrived.

"How are the students doing?" Celestia had asked.

"They are doing great, your highness," Twilight's teacher said with a bow. "Although their grumbling is somewhat of an irritant."

Celestia shared a warm smile and a look of understanding. "Well, they are young and very impatient. They will grow it of it, I am sure."

The teacher sighed and frowned. "I'm sure, but you didn't come here just to look at them, did you?" She looked around and shook her head. "And they're not grumbling anymore. Of course. Twilight!" the teacher called out.

"Yes?" a tiny voice responded.

"Wh-Twilight? Where are you?" The teacher walked around, looking for the tiny pony. "You were so quiet I forgot you were even in my cl--What are you doing?!" she bellowed in horror.

The simple bigram ritual had turned into an elaborate drawing covering the floor where Twilight was sitting and stretched across to most of the lower walls.

Twilight raised the charcoal with her hoof and giggled mischievously. "I made it bigger," she said with a low tone of voice. "But it's also better! Look!"

"Twilight, don't!" Celestia cried out.

Canterlot shook from the explosion that blew out the windows of the classroom, covering everything in soot.

The mare laughed at the memory. She learned that day that just because she made something bigger didn't mean it was better. In fact, it could make it worse. It took days to get the ashes of Twilight's miscast out of the classroom, let alone replace the windows.

"Alright, Spike!" Twilight clapped her hooves. "I'm ready to cast the spell. Stay away from the runes, please and don't worry if anything weird happens, alright? I know you're new to all this but you don't need to worry."

The unicorn started her casting, causing the traces of charcoal to immediately start glowing blue. Various colors flowed through the traces of coal and would change rapidly and quickly with every new set of instructions the magic had to follow.

The young mare almost instantly found herself being pinched by two, sharp objects in her chest and back. That wasn't something that was supposed to happen. Daring to open her eyes, she found herself face-to-face with thousands of vertical rectangles of orange, red, and yellow stretching, squeezing, then disappearing, only for more to reappear in the opposite way. Several black rectangles that followed the same pattern ran from the colored shape to Twilight's body, somehow holding her in place despite disappearing and reappearing. As her eyes adjust, Twilight realized that this was a singular entity. The mare had somehow found herself in some bizarre place of darkness where purple and black clouds roiled around in a spiral far above. The entity took up too much of her sight to allow the unicorn to make anything else out.

Twilight kept as calm as she could manage and tried her best to understand whatever this creature was. With her mind relatively appeased, she could somehow vaguely understand the intentions of this strange thing.

"I'm trying to bring back my teacher!" Twilight shouted. Her voice was almost drowned out by nothing, like she was yelling in a dream. "I'm only using this place to make teleporters for Spike and I! I mean no disrespect or enmity towards you," she assured it. The rectangles shifted to Twilight's left and somehow 'lowered'. Twilight could see a broken reflection of Celestia in the colored shapes. "Y-yes! That's..." She could hear the yelling of angry ponies filling her ears. The cries of despair of Celestia as she tried to appease the mob. "They...They took her from me..." Twilight scowled and held back her tears. "I'm working to bring her back." She felt the intention of the entity. It could bring Celestia back. Somehow. Twilight could see Celestia alive and well, but the reflection she was given... "N-no! That's...she doesn't look right!"

The image of the living Celestia became more intense, forcing itself into the mare's mind. She kept trying to focus on the medallion as her rite was still going, but this entity seemed to be tearing Twilight's mind open and peering at the exposed fruit inside. Another group of black rectangles moved in front of Twilight, covering her view, then she 'woke up', so to speak.

She was drenched in sweat and the building seemed to have some form of ethereal glow around it, like it was overlapping with another from a different plane. A glowing echo of itself wobbling around. Twilight realized that none of the reagents had been consumed in the ritual, but the teleportation medallions had completed all the same. Metal hexagons with pieces of Twilight's magic and Spike's presence burnt into the surface.

Panting from exhaustion, Twilight picked the medallions up and then looked at the wall where she always felt a strange presence. Three rectangles had come into view, but badly faded. What had happened?

Speeches

Twilight hadn't felt this comfortable in so long. She was lying down on a very comfortable bed, being tended to by Cadance after she had a nice shower. She missed showers so much. She had only used a basin filled with warm water she used for all her bathing needs back in her home.

"You know, Twilight," Cadance started. "We could get the crystal ponies to accept you, in a way."

"And how would you do that?" Twilight asked softly.

"Convince them that death would be too easy a punishment. We could have them accept that, if you stayed alive, then you would be able to help with the Crystal Empire's growth and the betterment of my people's lives."

Twilight frowned. "And why would they accept something like that?" She snorted. "They're ponies. They're all bloodthirsty."

Cadance sighed loudly but continued to comb her sister-in-law's mane. "Your experiences in Equestria have soured everyponyt there to you, but I can assure you they aren't all like that. Why, the Elements of Harmony tend to be very open about everything. They even stopped Celestia's sister when she returned."

"And how did that go?" Twilight asked flatly. "I'm sure they chased after her to try and beat her up or have her imprisoned in a dungeon somewhere."

The comment came off as odd to the alicorn, but she let it go for the time being so she could continue attempting to convince Twilight and pull her off the path she had taken. "Well, I'm not sure of all the details. I just know that somepony found where Nightmare Moon would return, went there, and met with the ponies that would become said elements. They never told me what happened when I asked them," Cadance lamented. "But, it is what it is. Luna is just 'poof'," she said while spreading her wings wide. "Don't know what happened to her and the Elements refuse to spill the beans."

Twilight shrunk down a bit in an attempt to get more comfortable on the bed. "That's too bad, I guess," she said dismissively. "I'm more concerned with Princess Celestia and bringing her back. Any 'long lost' siblings can wait until after," she added.

There was another awkward pause before Cadance spoke. "You have family here, Twilight. You don't have to blindly follow that single purpose of yours." She made long pauses between words to try and not upset the unicorn. One wrong word and all the progress the alicorn had made would disappear in a flash. "You can stay with us. Your parents could even come and visit you." She smiled knowingly when she saw Twilight visibly trying to make a decision. "Why, because you've been gone for so long, you wouldn't know, but you're an aunt."

Twilight's eyes shot wide open. "I'm a what?!"

"You're an aunt!" Cadance said. She bounced giddily in place. "We've left her in the care of a nanny while we try and take care of this...mess-" Cadance explained while gesturing to all of Twilight. "but I can let you meet her. She's a year old and very talented," the alicorn continued with a giant smile. "But we can't let you meet her if you're in a dungeon."

The lavender unicorn's thoughts were on fire. She wanted to bring Celestia back and had been working on that purpose for years already. She had gotten used to the loneliness and silence that came with that and her need to hide from others, but she still had moments where she missed her family and wanted to see them again. If she did as Cadance said, she would meet a niece she didn't even know she had.

Both were distracted by a gradually increasing disturbance coming from somewhere on the floor and stopped speaking altogether. They listened carefully as the sound of yelling, scraping, and very loud thuds became louder and louder. It came to a crescendo in front of the door to Twilight's room as the guards watching it started yelling at the source of the disturbance. The two mares heard two brief yelps from the soldiers followed by a deafening bang when the door exploded inwards, revealing Spike's outstretched arm. Caught off-guard, Cadance didn't have time to fight back against the undead dragon before it was standing next to the bed. She slowly started building magic in her horn when Twilight jumped up and accidentally struck her on the side of the head, interrupting the spell.

"Spike!" Twilight cheered. She hugged the undead's thoracic cage and nuzzled her face into its ribs. "This is very uncomfortable," she said with a smile. "They let you out?" she asked it. "But I thought you were supposed to stay down below." The mare became angry. "You didn't kill anypony again, did you? I told you not to do that!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs.

Cadance watched as Twilight chastised the dragon and it did not react.

"Cadance!" Shining shouted as he burst through the open doorway. "Are you okay?!" he continued in a panic.

The alicorn hopped over to him and put a hoof on his mouth. "Shush!" she whispered. "Ignoring how it escaped for now, that thing ignored me and went straight for Twilight. Now it isn't moving at all while she's talking to it," the mare explained.

Shining peered over his wife's shoulder and became perplexed. "The reports stated it tore apart the border guard."

"Is it possible the survivors omitted some details?" Cadance asked.

Shining hummed pensively. "It's not uncommon for there to be biases in place or confusion brought about by a sudden and completely unexpected event." He looked at the dragon looming over his little sister and deepened his scowl. "That's not something I really appreciate seeing, and from what I could tell while chasing it: It seems to ignore anything that isn't an active obstacle."

"Twilight had been captured, and then brought near the capital which is when it struck?"Cadance asked.

"Yes. Somewhere near the Equestrian border, meaning that they took a three or four day walk to get here depending on the conditions." The white unicorn looked back at his sister and the giant undead. "If it was with her the whole time, how did she not manage to escape? Its physical and combat prowess clearly indicate that it was a more than capable fighter during its life, and my little sister's magic enhances those capabilities even further."

Cadance nodded. "Meaning that something happened between her being alone and the dragon coming to her rescue to have created such an unfortunate scenario." She kissed Shining. "I think I have the solution for keeping her here without risking her escaping or executing her in front of the angry populace." She bounced in place impatiently. "I'm going to go alert all our messengers."

With that the mare rushed out of the room and past the woozy guards Spike had thrown out of the way. Now it was Shining who was all alone with Twilight. He wasn't made for these more emotional, personal moments. The last time he felt so nervous was when he wanted to ask Cadance out on a date, and that wasn't a feeling he wanted to experience again. It was...extremely unpleasant.

"Twilight, your dragon isn't going to try and get revenge for what I did to it, is it?" Shining asked.

The stallion moved to the bed's right side, directly opposite the undead's vision to gauge its actions and reactions. He didn't want it to suddenly start destroying everything, but he needed to know as much as he could about this odd creature if he needed to fight it again. He was pleasantly surprised to see that it couldn't care less about him if it wanted to.

"Why would he want revenge?" Twilight gasped silently. "What did you do to Spike?" she shouted. "Did you hurt my assistant?"

"Hurt him?!" Shining shouted in disbelief. He stomped a hoof onto the bed, making Twilight bounce ever so gently. "Do you even know what it did?" Spike leaned forward, carefully moving its arms the closer Shining got to Twilight after he hit the bed with her on it. "Hey, it's moving towards me!" he alerted his sister.

Twilight stood up and attempted to push the undead away. "It's okay, Spike," she coo'd. "It's okay. He's family. Family yells at each other sometimes, but he wouldn't hurt me."

Much to the stallion's surprise, his words 'calmed' the undead, as it were. To his absolute horror, his wife was telling the truth and so did his observations. His sister had made the undead passive in most scenarios, preferring to avoid conflict than engage in it, meaning that his soldiers accidentally incited its wrath and paid the price. He felt dizzy and sat down while the world spun around him. His sister looked so different and yet still acted the same way. How could she, a necromancer, not have become warped like all the others in the craft?

"Looks like we have a lot to talk about, Twilight," he heaved.

Several hours passed and Cadance was standing on the balcony overlooking everypony that had bothered to gather. To her surprise, a few thousand crystal ponies had done just that.

"Crystal Ponies of the Crystal Empire, I call you to speak of the necromancer that had been captured at the border a day ago. She is currently in our custody within the crystal tower." The alicorn paused to let some in the crowd voice their displeasure. "We are currently investigating her involvement in an incident that led to grievous wounds and the death of two guards. Signs point to the incident being accidental," she continued. "However, that is not relief to those who lost their loved ones. This mare will be detained, debriefed, and potentially rehabilitated." She let the crowd go wild with anger and waited before answering gain. "I fully understand your reactions, but I have a complete and justified belief that this necromancer is only just barely in the throes. The guards mentioned she attempted to flee the scene and did not actively seek to harm anypony despite her possessing the means to use magic.

"However, her magic is sealed, she roams the halls under the watchful eye of the guard, and any 'wrong moves' will be met with swift punishment." She rose up and placed her hooves on the balcony railing. "I will not, in good conscience, let anything put you in harm's way. If this attempt at rehabilitation fails...then there will be one less...monster in the world," Cadance managed to force out. "Consider this an experiment. After all, isn't death too easy of an escape from her crimes?" The angry crowd started to quiet down. "And leaving her to rot in a dungeon might keep her away from everypony else, but she will just be left there to wait out her death. That still isn't paying for what happened to those families. We have many ideas on what to do to make her contribute to you all for her transgressions, but until then, she will remain in the tower where, as I mentioned already, she will be under very close watch and given very limited movement." The alicorn bowed to the crowd. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I know these are difficult times for us all, but we'll make it out together. You survived Sombra and you can survive a pithy neophyte necromancer."

She stepped back and slowly closed the doors with her magic before slumping against the door and sliding down. "Pfiou. That was stressful. I thought they would go into a riot."

"Well, you did make some fair points, your highness," one guard commented. She stepped away from the balcony doors, leaving Cadance a lot of space. "But I can't help but feel this is still some form of nepotism."

The alicorn grunted and nodded.

She was right. It was a form of nepotism. Twilight, however, showed characteristics completely unbecoming of a necromancer. If she could impart her knowledge, that would push everypony further in a way to better combat any necromancers in the future. Additionally, Twilight's rehabilitation could be used for any captured necromancers in the future rather than simply executing them. Cadance didn't feel much when it came to doing such a thing due to their behavior and what they adored, but Twilight was clearly different. Regardless, there were things that needed to be done to ensure Twilight couldn't escape and the guards didn't end up dying or becoming crippled from antagonizing Twilight or the dragon. Being unable to keep it secured made everything far harder than it was already.

Confused

Unsure about where to go, Twilight decided that the best course of action was to explore the tremendous city and get her bearings. If she could find some taverns she might be able to ask the barkeep for information on this 'source' Silvery spoke of, but how would she broach the subject? Walking would help clear her mind. The city was more packed than those of Canterlot, and the ground somehow felt even harder despite being made of sand. The years of walking had compressed everything into its own stone-like material that intrigued the mare, but, again, she had a more important mission to focus on.

As Twilight and Spike continued through the streets, they often came upon a large opening in the street that led to what the unicorn assumed to be a temple sitting on an elevated piece of land. The architecture seemed to change with each and every one she spotted. One resembled the usual geometrical design of the city with the same bizarre haze as the one on the immense palace that made it look like it was underwater. Another showed creatures that seemed like a mix between ponies and griffins standing next to a pony with a fish tail as two statues standing over the large, bridge-shaped entryway with their forelegs outstretched over it. The temple was made tall and thin and resembled a fort at some angles, but other than the statues, Twilight didn't notice any significant ways for it to stand out. She just wished she knew what the statues represented.

More often than not, however, were the Saddle Arabians coming out of these temples grabbing something and mumbling under their breath the moment they spotted Spike accompanying the unicorn. Twilight thought they were abhorred by her precious assistant but quickly realized that these same equines were smiling or marveling at the dragon. Confused, she didn't want to look any further into their state of mind, worrying that this might become the same thing as in Canterlot, but inverted. There were many differences between being chased to be killed and being chased to be smothered. Worse still, she wasn't sure what would happen to Spike. The unicorn worried that they would take him from her and he wouldn't be able to find his way back.

"Miss!" a voice called out.

"Here it goes. They're going to do something bad, like the ponies."

"What is it?" Twilight asked as neutrally as she could manage.

The voice came from a young child that almost reached Twilight's full height. His body was completely black save for a tan spot over his right eye and his entire right flank. Standing behind him were his mother and father, but draped in so much colorful apparel Twilight couldn't figure out what they really looked like.

"Are you a servant of a death deity?"

Twilight slowly blinked, trying to register what she had just been asked. "What?"

"A death deity! You know! It bestowed to you one of its servants," The child continued with amazement. He passed by Twilight, marveling at the undead dragon that paid him no heed. "It gave you a dragon! That's awesome!"

"You must excuse my child," the mother apologized. "He wishes to become a servant of our God of the Dead, and seeing somepony accompanied by one is more than uplifting for him, I should say."

"W-wait, you all think I--"

The father stepped in and bowed his head. "Not everypony fears or despises the necromancers, but as with every gift, some become greedy." He looked up at Twilight, his eyes scornful. "But those that do tend to suffer the wrath of our god's followers."

The mare immediately jumped in front of Spike and raised a shield with her magic. "You aren't hurting Spike! I didn't come all the way here just for him to be taken away from me!"

Both adult Saddle Arabians looked at Twilight, completely baffled while the foal hurried back to them.

"But...it is your servant, is it not?" the mother asked.

"You named it?" the father added.

Twilight looked up at Spike staring at her and nodded. "Of course I named him, and he isn't my 'servant'. He's my assistant, thank you very much," Twilight said matter-of-factly.

The adults looked at each other, their eyes glowing with awe.

"Such a joyous occasion, to see one not corrupted by their own greed!" the mother celebrated.

The father approached Twilight and bowed once again. "You have come here from far away, I suppose?" he asked. "Do you have a place to stay?"

Twilight smiled sheepishly and raised her hooves. "N-no. That's okay. I still have much exploring to do."

"Of course. Is there anything we can do to help you, then?" the mother asked.

"Uh...I guess?" Twilight fiddled with some sand on the ground. "Somepony is supposed to meet me in the city, but I don't know who or where."

"Hmmm. Well, if you continue walking through the city, your 'assistant' should draw enough attention that whomever is looking for you will likely spot you personally or through an intermediary," the father explained. He smiled, as did his wife. "Thank you very much for inspiring our child, even if you did not do it on purpose."

Twilight smiled nervously and waved the family goodbye. It was the most uncomfortable and awkward moment she felt since the Crystal Empire. What exactly was their god of death, anyways? Equestrians had their own beliefs, sure, but they weren't as pronounced as what she saw here, and with the cultural mishmash she was certain that meant that other beliefs were here as well. Did everything combine into something new and these were the dregs? Or were they something new entirely? How did it work? Clearly not everypony here felt the same as some Saddle Arabians still looked at Twilight with disgust, but even then she still had more and more questions. Did they hate her because she was a necromancer or because of Spike? Did they hate her because she was Equestrian? Was there another reason entirely? Several?!

She shook her head, chasing some errant sand off. Twilight knew absolutely nothing about this place and it was causing her to come up with wild and fantastical ideas that were nothing short of paranoia and curiosity. A paradox if she ever thought so herself.

As Twilight continued moving through the streets, passing beggars and wagons, her head started to hurt. The words of the stallion kept echoing in her head, the unicorn felt like her head was collapsing in on itself and stumbled against a wall as her breaths cut short in her own throat. The world darkened as she looked upon an old, seemingly abandoned temple in the middle of a large plaza. It was completely made of gray-black stone and its ceiling and windows had all broken and collapsed. The only thing still standing was the statue of some sort of corpulent, bloated, bipedal giant with one disheveled arm contrasted by its other, massive and muscular limb that reached the floor with a mace in hand. Its body seemed to be twisted painfully as its torso almost snapped into a forty-degree angle towards its massive arm.

From the ground rose a black miasma that also contaminated the air and darkened the sky, and Twilight bore witness to two diamond-shaped lights coming from the statue's featureless head, staring down at her. Everything had become silent and she seemingly became the only thing left in the whole city as the buildings and ground around her started to crumble.

Words kept echoing in Twilight's ears as the lights came closer and closer, making it harder and harder to breathe or even move. "Succumb to greed and feel its wrath. Succumb to greed and feel its despair. Succumb to greed and join its flock."

The words repeated over and over as the lights grew closer and closer and everything around seemed to collapse and crumble around her. As the words became deafening and the lights had almost engulfed Twilight, her medallion started vibrating, and familiar rectangles emerged from it to stand in front of the lights. The oddities seemed to simply 'stare' at one another, if that was the right term Twilight could use. Whatever she was seeing was clearly but a mere fraction that her perceptions could even fathom.

She wasn't sure why, but the mare believed the entities were fighting, and it was harming her very soul. Did the rectangle creature lay claim to her in the city? Was it just tagging along because she amused it? Whatever it wanted was beyond her comprehension.

"Hey!" a voice called out.

Twilight was suddenly shocked awake, staring at the weird purple eyes of a yakilak. "What? What happened?!"

"You slumped against this wall and looked like you were having some sort of attack," the water creature explained.

The mare looked around to see that a small crowd had gathered, some displaying worry while others were just curious about Spike.

Grunting in pain and doing her best to stand up straight, Twilight rubbed her head and looked forward toward the strange temple. "What is that place?" she asked.

"The temple? It's a homage to a death god." Twilight shook her head again. It was throbbing. "Here. Let me hydrate you."

Not in a position to argue, Twilight felt a steady stream of cool water enter her mouth and somehow revitalize her whole body. "Thank you," the mare gasped.

"Looks like you were badly dehydrated." The yakilak looked in the direction of the port and grumbled. "You should have been given water to help you slowly rehydrate when you arrived." Her body sparked and steamed briefly. "I think I know who neglected their duties, the idiot."

"It was a hallucination?" Twilight mumbled to herself.

"What?"

"N-nothing."

Dehydration couldn't have happened that fast, Twilight thought to herself.

"It was that family that did this to you," a voice told Twilight. "They wanted to kill you and offer you up to their deity! Don't trust them."

"How did I get dehydrated so fast?" Twilight wondered groggily.

"Saddle Arabia does that to ponies like you who are neither dressed for the occasion nor used to the heat," the yakilak explained. "Your body goes crazy and tries to cool itself off faster than usual. You don't notice it much because of your fur, but you've been sweating a lot. I can tell." The creature grabbed two small, ceramic pots with wax lids and passed them to Twilight. "Here. Use these whenever you get thirsty. It's not normal water, so don't drink it all. It'll help your body adapt quicker to desert life."

Twilight looked at the pots with apprehension. "Are they going to prevent me from living anywhere else?" she asked.

The question was met with surprise. "What? Why would they do that? We give them to the merchants that come by. If we prevented them from going anywhere else then this city wouldn't last very long now, would it?" it asked with a laugh.

"Mmm..." The unicorn took a deep breath and tried to relax herself despite the heat. "Why is...Why is that old temple like? Is it supposed to be abandoned?" she needed to get her mind off the fatigue and pain she was feeling.

"It's not abandoned, at least not in the classical sense," the entity said with a shrug. When Twilight gave it a side-eye and groaned, the yakilak sighed and shook its body. "It's their way of giving homage to an old death god that some Saddle Arabians still praise. I don't really know how they work, but they like these temples to look disheveled and collapsed like that as a way to represent the inevitable end." The creature's body sputtered on the floor. "It's very morose a concept, but they adore the idea since their deaths are in its hooves, or claws, or hands. Whatever it's supposed to be. You know how it is: Most things that represent death tend to be either exaggeratedly evil or exaggeratedly good."

"I see," Twilight mumbled. She paused for a moment, taking the statue in. "So that giant thing is their god?" Twilight asked.

The yakilak shook its body again. "No no. Just one of its supposed guardians. The...The 'Tomb Guardian', I think it's called.," it explained hesitantly. "One of the 'big' things. I think there's a dragon, or at least something that looks like a dragon, that's also one of the big things, whatever they're called." Its body wobbled as it retook the shape of an equine. "Just keep that undead with you and you should be fine." It tapped the ground, the bottom of its 'hooves' turning to ice briefly. "There's water canals throughout the ground. If you still feel thirsty you can always get a drink from there, and don't worry about the quality. Everything is controlled extensively." Its body stretched out and it poked Twilight in the chest several times. "Just don't try to throw anything in or pollute it and all will be fine."

Twilight nodded and waved the creature goodbye when it left. The image of the lights approaching her and the words it spoke in her head disturbed her. Did she really hallucinate because of extreme dehydration or was she being attacked? Someone watched the mare from beyond a building corner, their body draped in thick cloth and their intentions unknown. The unicorn felt it and looked in their direction but there was nothing. It was a strange sensation that Twilight had, and she only recognized it from a hoofful of moments in her life. What was it?

Author's Note

For those that might know, that statue is a reference to a certain MMORTS that died in 2012 that I so adored (and that I pre-alphatested. Boy, that was painful...)?

Bonus: Green Sun

Author's Note

Remember when I said 'Restarting' was the last chapter?

This is a special chapter. A 'what if?' scenario of the elements failing to destroy Celestia.

Bonus: Green Sun

The rainbow magic of the Elements of Harmony engulfed Twilight and Celestia, much to Shining Armor's horror, but he couldn't do anything anymore. There was nothing left to do now but let it run its course. However, when the elements struck a perceived threat, they would usually take but mere seconds to fully affect them. Here, however, they had been lingering for quite a bit longer than that, making the bearers realize that something was wrong, and they were direct witnesses to the cause of that realization.

Twilight's medallion shook aggressively while engulfed in the magic, and multiple rectangles emerged from it, floating in the air. They eventually 'joined' each other into a wall on the side and somehow 'grabbed' the magic, crushing it. Doing something that wasn't really possible caused the spell to crash and collapse in on itself and send everypony but Twilight flying away in a surge of magic and power. The rectangles suffused the spell cast upon both Twilight and Celestia and corrupted it before throwing it at Twilight and fusing her with it.

Shining felt his heart sink and despair engulf him as the world around him seemed to vanish when Twilight started screaming from the infusion and multiple large pulses of unknown magic flew out of Celestia's body, crashing into several of the refugees of the outside world, immediately killing them and stripping them of their souls as their bodies immediately began to decay. The stronger ponies screamed in terror, not knowing what to do.

"What in Hades is that thing?" Shining whispered to himself. "It hurts to look at..." He put a hoof to his forehead and struggled to stand up as he was buffeted by the magic surges.

The stallion wanted to tell it to leave his sister alone, to disappear, but as Twilight began to transform, despair engulfed him, and the next surge did to him as it did to his fellow ponies. Now as naught but an extremely powerful skeleton, the new undead waited patiently for its master's bidding as its bones were wrapped in Twilight's magic as Spike's was. It was all that was left of Shining's love for his sister, and he hoped, in his final moments, that he could bring her comfort in the dark days ahead.

Moon Dancer awoke from her stupor and saw bits of something falling from her head. The other mares woke up in the same way and heard cracking and 'tinking' noises. The Elements of Harmony were cracked and falling apart in tiny bits, much to their shock and horror. Seeing what was happening to the survivors, the mares gathered everypony up as best they could and used the last of the magic left in the elements to teleport them away. From what pale yellow unicorn could tell, the surges were only reaching as far as the walls of the castle. She hated herself for not being able to save the ponies in Canterlot City, as did the five other mares, but there was nothing they could do. There was nothing they even understood of the situation.

Equestria soon became engulfed by the Green Sun and the walls between the living and the dead were irreversibly damaged. The weaker of the ponies or just the unfortunates being in the wrong place at the wrong time found themselves engulfed in necromantic energies and turned into undead. Worse still, they all turned into various types that were influenced by their environment. A notorious kind turned into dried, desiccated husks that wandered near salt mines where they were transformed, absorbing moisture around them and almost or outright killing anything that approached their 'territory'.

Equestria, as its inhabitants knew it, was no more. Little pockets existed here and there, fighting against the encroaching dead and eldritch entities that would peer through the cracks in reality and do whatever they felt like. At first, every country in the known world had sealed Equestria into its own lands, but Twilight and Princess Celestia's powers only grew as time went on, corrupting and destroying everything they could find. Eventually, the build-up of magic tore away at the seals to infect and expand beyond Equestrian borders.

Many communities fled underground, hoping to establish a new life for themselves and their loved ones, but those born in the light needed to see the sun every once in a while, and those who gave in to that hunger would eventually see themselves transfixed and warped by the necromantic aura exuded by the corrupted sun, seeing their bodies stretched, expanded, and burnt, turning into a tangled mess of flesh and meat ropes. It left many ponies mentally scarred and traumatized when bearing witness to such a thing.

As the corruption spread, it affected other lands, raising long-dead monsters from the lands and the sea and bringing back the long-dead victims of war and disease. Many undead dragons flew through the skies, trapped in their wars of the past and repeating their lives at those moments when anything broke their routine. The necromancers of Saddle Arabia could barely do anything to save the capital city. Too engrossed were they in their wants and needs that they hadn't trained themselves nor expanded their knowledge on the dead. However, they were still capable of subduing some of the dead, and by their very nature were immune to the waves of magic Celestia unleashed into the world. Luna kept hidden from everything, staying in the cave and eventually vanishing from everyone's minds as they were more preoccupied with this new life of theirs.

The Elements of Harmony, having their own family to care for, ended up breaking apart with their own, individual elements in tow but would eventually return to the Crystal Castle kept safe by the Map of Harmony.

The wildlife wasn't spared from the actions of Twilight. Many beasts ended up as warped as the ponies were and several of the larger monsters were possessed by the stronger spirits and eldritch entities, turning them into misshapen, slavering abominations that prowled the lands to crush and slaughter whatever their many limbs and detecting organs found. Fluttershy was especially affected by such occurrences, but Angel Bunny was far too angry and stubborn to be possessed. His sturdiness and bizarre effect of making spirits flee at his presence made the bunny a source of light for the smaller creatures in Fluttershy's care, but he was just a small bunny, after all.

Pinkie's family was almost entirely subsumed into a single mass of stone and outstretched rotting flesh, and only her father made it out alive, although both have since lost their splendor and wander the world aimlessly, glad that they at least still had each other.

Applejack's family was safe on the farm thanks to the insane amount of spirits swirling about the premises protecting it from even the horrors that peered through the cracks in the sky. It ended up bringing in outside ponies and creating a small community of farmers and harvesters which brought the foundation of the village of Applevinegar with it with Granny Smith as its head before Big Mac took over.

Rarity vanished from sight, becoming yet another missing casualty in the world under the shade of the Green Sun. Whether she was caught by the dead, took her own life, fell to some horrid event, or simply left the known world would forever be unknown.

Rainbow Dash became the first mare to guide the pegasi to better lives higher in the skies. With the magic from her element, it slowly began to mutate the pegasi into a brand new breed of pony, one that was exceptionally fast and able to breathe easily despite being in low orbit. Their sleek and smooth forms terrified the survivors of the world which confused them for hellish monstrosities like the rest. It would take time to be accepted in a world gripped by terror.

As for Moon Dancer, she poured herself into the studies of forgotten magic, intent on undoing everything Twilight had caused and refusing to stoop to the level that she had gone to. The greatest wizards of the past, be they pony or not, always utilized standard magic and even created hundreds of their own spells and schools of magic. There was no reason that Moon Dancer couldn't do the same.

The unicorn sat in a home dug into a mountain and peered through a reinforced window toward Canterlot. The sky was the most turbulent above the mountain: Swirling, cracking, crumbling, and wrapping over itself into a solid shape again before the events repeated. She was stuck in this refuge, helping maintain the wards that kept the spirits and undead out and hid them all from the prying eyes of the ones beyond.

Moon got back to transcribing old runes from old texts in her small room and sighed, relaxing. All things considered, this wasn't a bad life for her. She had regular food, was able to train her magic, and was given everything she needed to try and solve the world's problems. The mare had helped to create new, easier wards and spells that helped with growing food even with such a dark and infertile soil the survivors plucked from the outside.

Still, this wasn't a way to live. Moon Dancer needed to help get the ponies and other creatures out of the predicament they had found themselves in and quickly rushed to work. As she listened to the head of her quill scribble ink into the parchment, a thought occurred to her: Was this what Twilight felt like with Princess Celestia? Utterly consumed by her self-assigned purpose that nothing else mattered.

Moon would have to make sure this thought was always at the forefront of her mind, lest she fall into the same despair as her former friend.

In the end, she was lost, like everypony else, hoping for a better future and being disappointed when they woke up to see everything got worse. A lesson in tedium that brought more despondence to the survivors. They kept themselves occupied by digging tunnels deep underground and joining up with other refugees, much to their surprise. Everything gradually started to grow into a small society in the darkness below and ponies were grateful, but then came the non-ponies, and with the need for survival, tensions rose among the refugees, even among their fellow kin.

Everything was getting both worse and better as time went on, but the world hadn't died. Moon believed it had just been temporarily occupied.

The unicorn once again found herself looking at the castle, thinking about what became of Twilight when those rectangles changed the essence of the magic of harmony and infused it into her. Moon hoped that the mare died, making it easy to take out Celestia when they got through. Unfortunately, because the pale unicorn was one of the 'normal' ponies that didn't study forbidden magic, Moon Dancer had no idea that all of this would have instantly ended had the lavender unicorn died.

Twilight had survived the ordeal she was put through and came out significantly stronger. Boney wings coated in a membrane of purple magic had grown from her back and left a trail of purple, white, and gray sparks wherever she went. Her body had grown tall and bony as her magic surged from her hooves, mane, and tail. A thick, sparkling mane and tail dragged behind her as she walked, as though she were in the water. Her horn had grown long, but it had fractured in half and several parts of the surface were chipped. However, everything still stayed in its place, floating next to each other and impeding in no way Twilight's ability to use magic. Her eyes had grown dark with the magic coursing through her, leaving only her iris of bright violet burning like rings of fire as she gazed at Celestia in glee.

The former princess of Equestria was fully a skeleton consumed by the green fires. They imitated the way the alicorn looked like as they burned and often flickered away, leaving behind the burning skeleton. Twilight didn't register such a thing, addled and shattered as her mind was, and she just hopped about happily, often having 'conversations' with the former princess.

Spike hadn't moved since the day of the Green Sun, watching the mare bounce giddily around the corpse of Celestia and awaiting an order. The only thing left of Twilight's mind was her love for Celestia and the tremendous smile she bore at all times while dancing around her body and the throne, trapped in her illusions of a filly being praised by her hero, mentor, and beloved teacher.

Digging

Twilight threw dirt out of her way, grunting when she moved the shovel wrong and covered her face with some errant soil. She could only just barely make anything out with her magic spell outlining everything in white and giving everything a vaguely orange glint. The moon was completely engulfed by thick layers of clouds overhead, giving the unicorn the perfect opportunity to perform her nefarious-but-necessary deeds.

She paused a moment, pulled a handkerchief out of her black false-leather coat, and wiped her face with it. The mare cursed to herself when she put the stained, blue-gray cloth into the wrong front pocket and it fell out. She really needed to sow that hole back up, but string was hard to come by for somepony like her, especially when she didn't want to go back to regular pony society now. She grunted and started digging again but was immediately stopped by a loud 'thump'. Excitedly, the mare wiped the wet dirt away with her hooves, unveiling a brown, wooden coffin. She used the shovel to pry the lid off with some effort and lit up with joy. This was a recent addition to the graveyard.

"What luck!" Twilight cheered quietly in her head. "They're always decomposing or nothing but bones. This is just what I needed!"

Carefully, the unicorn lifted the pony's body out of the grave and set it atop a rickety, two-wheeled wagon waiting for her. Twilight hopped onto the ledge leading out of the hole and paddled her hind legs as she attempted to pull herself out, only to fail and fall back in. She took a deep breath and, with considerably more determination, managed to finally get out of the grave and pack all the dirt she had dug out back in. The night smelled particularly wretched, but it was at least generous in being cold. The bodies wouldn't stink as bad as they could have.

Dried plants cracked and crumbled underneath, and the various pests scattered at her approach. The cobblestone paths of the graveyard had been all-but-devoured by the errant vegetation, and even though it was regularly frequented, no pony had bothered trying to restore anything. The unicorn thought it ironic that they condemned her actions but preferred to let their fallen kin be lost to time. However, time was running short. She could see a lantern held aloft on a pole illuminating the distance and slowly approaching her location. The one inconvenience with winter times was the lack of foliage on the trees, meaning Twilight had to be extra careful of her activities since she couldn't just cover up her work and hide away.

She covered her wagon with a thick tarp she magically secured into place using the metal hooks underneath, put on the harness, and started hurrying through a little hole behind a few small mausoleums leading down a steep incline no pony would follow her. As soon as the old wheels started bouncing on the damaged trail, the lantern shook.

"Hello?!" the patroller called out. "Anypony there?"

Twilight clenched her teeth and started pushing her body harder than she usually did, burning her muscles and causing her skin to itch all over from the temperature differences.

"Hey! You there! Stop!"

The patroller's shouting woke up the other security ponies of the graveyard, and a loud brouhaha started growing in what should have been a place of rest for the dead. Several more lanterns came into view in the distance while Twilight hurried to her 'safe zone'.

"Shoot shoot shoot!" Twilight hissed. She looked behind her and noticed at least five ponies partially illuminated under the light of a swaying lantern approaching her. "Oooh...I don't want to...bah!"

The unicorn's horn started glowing a bright purple. She then lowered her head and let her horn skid along the ground, producing purple sparks that didn't dissolve when they hit the ground. Instead, once the pursuers got close enough, the sparks popped into large clouds of thick, purple gas that filled Twilight's path. The ponies quickly gave up their pursuit as the noxious fumes attacked their eyes, throats, and lungs.

The lavender unicorn hoof-pumped in her head and reached the gap. Her wagon smacked against the corner of a mausoleum and scraped against the walls in the mare's hurry, but it didn't collapse on her. The stone wall gave way to Twilight's safety, and she enveloped her and the wagon in a cushioning spell that would keep them protected once they hit the bottom of the hill far, far below.

"Ha!" Twilight laughed.

A few hours later, the exhausted pony found herself back home in the ruins of some long-lost civilization deep underneath a mountain. In the past, this discovery would have elicited joy so grandiose that the mare would have never been able to contain herself. Now, however...

Twilight parked the wagon in a small alcove dug out by water erosion from the dripping ceiling and looked at her residence, noting everything still being in place. Her wickerlit candles sparked with purple flames, dousing the area in dim light and revealing all the errant magic that floated in the air, creating a night sky underground. The rotted cupboards and shelves the mare still used sat uncomfortably slouched on the sides of the room, straining under the weight of thick books and multiple vials of various sizes holding organs, body parts, gems, crystals, and unknown anatomical segments.

Her bed, a simple wooden box filled with straw and covered with several thick sheets the mare pilfered from dumps across Equestria, had been placed next to an old fireplace still sporting the blackened burns of its past users from an age long past. Above it, Twilight had placed a poster of Celestia and Luna wrapping themselves around a half-moon and half-sun. She had enchanted it to be resistant to nearly all forms of damage and decay, but it was a spell from her youth. Well, her further youth. She would have to refresh it soon. The poster's place reminded Twilight that, although the ponies of bygone ages were no longer around, their influences could still be seen and felt by the future descendants even if they couldn't be recognized.

The unicorn sighed and rested her face in her hooves, lamenting what the world had become. What she had become. She wasn't exactly hungry, at least not yet, but her reserves were almost empty, and she would need to go back into the back-alleys of some nearby city. She hated it. She hated what ponies had turned her into. Of course, Twilight had the choice to just stick around but lose her position in Canterlot due to her affiliation with Celestia...she grit her teeth.

Because any and all association with the crown was considered a heinous thing, even though Twilight was relatively young at the time, no pony would have bothered to listen or employ her. She would have been forced to move to a nearby country, or somewhere very far away. The Zebrican continent might have been the better alternative, but then what? That wasn't her home, and she never knew what life outside of her precious library was like.

Twilight walked over to an old metal stove, opened a hatch at the bottom and placed a few small bits of wood she had stashed between it and the fireplace. With a little magic, she managed to ignite the contents and let them burn up before closing the hatch. She thought deeply as she placed a dented, metal pot filled with water on the stove, sat down, and waited.

"I hate them all," she growled. Twilight watched the air turn hazy under the pot. "They had no reason to dethrone the princess...She didn't do anything. They just wanted more power because they were afraid of Nightmare Moon, or Celestia stopped them from doing whatever nasty thing they wanted."

Nightmare Moon. There was a name that Twilight hadn't thought about in a while. As the water in the pot began to simmer, the mare started to recall some information, if only to distract her mind from the interminable waiting. The Elements of Harmony had put a stop to her return three or four years ago...or was it ten? Time was hard to track when you stayed in a cave all day, doing research and reading books...The mare chuckled. That hadn't changed all too much from her time as Celestia's protégé. She sniffed and wiped her nose, doing her best to keep the tears from flowing.

Tales that the 'less-than-admirable' ponies shared suggested that Nightmare Moon had been 'purified' of whatever dark magic had engrossed her, but that she had either been banished from Equestria or beheaded like her sister. No pony could make a consensus on what had happened, but the fact that the current council kept it all under wraps was a clear sign they did something they weren't supposed to.

The water in the pot finally started boiling, letting Twilight remove it from the stove, smother the fire underneath it, and place the pot on a cool section instead. The mare sat at a three-legged table, pulled a cup from a hanging cabinet above the oven, filled it with a few shreddings of a plant in a nearby straw basket, then poured the water in. She took in the odor as she mixed it all up. She still hadn't perfected making tea, but she knew it was going to be the first thing that Celestia would want to drink when she was brought back.

Twilight shivered. The tea still wasn't right, but it at least warmed her up and slightly filled her belly. She looked down at the leaves floating in the cup, wishing she had a giant apple pie to dig her hooves into. The mare knew that one of the bearers of the Elements was an apple farmer. It was always possible to sneak into her orchard and take some apples for herself. They were always in short supply where Twilight was. Apple trees didn't want to grow in rocky, mountainous terrain.

The mare got up from her table after drinking the last of her tea and started chewing the leaf pieces. She kicked the wagon with her back legs, flipping it over and making the bodies all fall down a dirty chute into a place far below. Twilight was quick to follow through a door next to the oven and hurried down a flight of spiral steps five floors down into what she was certain used to be a massive pantry. She opened the room and lit the wickerlight candles all over what was now her laboratory. A swarm of flies was buzzing around it, annoying and disgusting the mare. She had forgotten to purge the bodies of fly eggs again. With a brief flash of light, the black, buzzing cloud turned into a silent, black cloud of ash that slowly fell down toward the ground, but Twilight was quicker than that. She grabbed a glass container sitting next to the entrance and used her magic to vacuum all the dust into it. She placed the cork back in and let the vase that was taller than her fall back. It was already one-sixth full. She would have to figure out a use for it or throw the dust out eventually.

With a clap of her hooves and a massive smile, Twilight reached into a box to the left of the entrance and pulled out a face-mask and some protective covers for her hooves. Her lab was filled with open shelves of toxic and dangerous products in front of vast tables, mountains of notes on old and flaking parchments sitting in a corner, bodies in various states of decomposition sitting in cells so Twilight could observe how it all worked and what product delayed the inevitable, and on her tables long enough to seat twenty-four ponies each: A veritable treasure trove of equipment she long-term borrowed from various academies. Florence and Erlenmeyer flasks. Ring clamps and pipettes. Mortar, pestle, and wire gauze. Funnel supports, beakers, and tongs! Graduated cylinders and test tube racks! Twilight could stay in here forever! Alas, her work required her to...leave into the world. She wretched at the idea. She didn't like the feel of grass anymore.

The smell of cut grass reminded her too much of--

"Alright. Let's see what the fresh newcomer has to show me," Twilight said to break her train of thought.

She rushed over to a pile of bodies and organized them into three containers enchanted with ice spells. Advanced decay, basic decay, and fresh. The first two were vaguely full, but the 'fresh' was still empty and relatively clean relative to the rest of her home. It filled Twilight with a feeling of pride that she hadn't delved down that route. Princess Celestia wouldn't approve.

The unicorn danced around with the body floating in the air. "I can't wait for you to tell me all about you! You'll be the best friend yet!" she mused.

Twilight placed the body on a wooden dissection table and angled it to make it easier for the short pony to better reach it. She pulled out some forceps, pliers, and a scalpel and clicked the forceps together.

"Tell me how I can bring Celestia back to life, my new best friend!" Twilight giggled to herself.

Author's Note

I decided to publish my non-pony books myself, accomplishing a dream I set out to do when I was 17. I currently only have Reverting Scales (book 1) out right now which you can get on Kindle for 5 dollars or in paperback for 12. If you can't or don't want to purchase it, I would be grateful if you could share it. I'm aiming for twenty sales before starting the second book. You can find it on every Amazon (I think. There's a lot of them).

The main character is a dragoness that starts out as a 'thing' developping in her egg and grows into a drake over the course of the story. It was partially inspired by Tui. T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire and E.E. Knight's Age of Fire books where dragons are the main characters.

Naydrus is a dragon born to immense parents who live with and serve humans. When the dragonling hatches, it is revealed that she doesn't look anything like her family and she has a passion for fighting. However, she also carries a deep hatred for the hominid 'caretakers'. This inspires her escape from the city through the sewer system and find other dragons that share her mindset. However, the world is a big place and very old. Much has happened and continues to happen without Naydrus being aware of it, causing her to cross paths with dangerous individuals and end up in hazardous locations.

You can find it through these links:

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UK Link
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Supplies

The body gittered and slowly rose from the table, exciting Twilight, but where she expected eyes full of life and a restored body, she only saw an empty husk. The mare slumped, disappointed.

"Darn. I thought for sure that I had it this time." She looked away and started mumbling to herself. "I guess I got the operation done correctly?" she said hesitantly as she eyed the undead up and down. "It's not slumping over, tilting around, or groaning." The undead pony turned around and walked forward, its movements stiff and unnatural. Twilight watched it curiously until it smashed into one of her shelves and almost destroyed months of research in one go. "That was close!" she strained. The unicorn held everything in her magic and painfully set everything back into place. "I guess I should have thought about the brain too," the mare grumbled. "There's always something I'm forgetting." She sighed and took the undead towards another chute and dropped it. "Have fun with the others!" she said before shutting the door.

Twilight made to rub the back of her neck but remembered her dirty gloves and thanked Celestia she had remembered. Using her magic, the unicorn removed her protective equipment and dumped them into a wooden box sitting a few steps away from her clean equipment. They sizzled when they made contact with the caustic, yellow fluids held within. Tired and weary, the pony decided that now would be the best time to go and get some more supplies at the nearby city of Flarolina. It was a little under an hour's worth of walking from her home, but Twilight could use some fresh air. She was almost blinded by the sunlight above when she left the tunnels, instinctively bringing a foreleg up to shield herself. Several beetles flew past her face, ignoring the giant creature stuck in place.

"Thank you, sun, but you don't need to be that aggressive," Twilight assured it. It never answered. "Safety check," she said to herself. The bushes and trees hiding the cave entrance were still there. They had grown even bigger than last year. Her saddlebags were on her back. Several of them, in fact. One of the bags was filled with... "Good! Don't have to push anything for-waaaah!" The mare yawned. "I should probably get some sleep after this."

With a hop and a skip, the lavender unicorn made her way through the thickening foliage of the forest. It wasn't quite spring yet, but the plant life thought it prudent to start budding already, not to mention the ones resistant to the freezing cold. A few predators were circumvented and some newly made holes in the ground were mentally noted by the mare. They could be used as traps for any pursuers later on.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the many, many buildings of Flarolina past the tree line. Despite its immensity, it wasn't walled nor regularly patrolled because the inhabitants had an uncanny connection with one another, aiding in spotting any would-be criminals. Twilight wished she could study how such a thing came about, what it meant, and how it worked, but she was too busy. When Celestia was brought back the unicorn would dive into it. Instead, as long as she didn't do anything that warranted suspicion, they would leave her relatively alone.

The roads were only just starting to be cobbled, leaving a well-used and muddy road leading into Flarolina's interior. Twilight greeted every mare and stallion she came across when they seemed amenable enough for an interaction. They lived in what were slowly becoming stone houses with tiled roofs. For an agricultural hub, Flarolina always impressed Twilight with how massive it was. Throughout the city were several trading centers where creatures from around the world would haggle fruits, vegetables, seeds, and even meat to the carnivores that lived in Flarolina's confines. It didn't smell very nice despite all the fruits that could be put on display, but that didn't really concern Twilight all that much. It still made her laugh when she saw some of the richer ponies pulled in fancy carriages cover their faces with powdered cloth in a bid to free themselves of the horrid stenches.

Twilight, however, wasn't going to haggle with these folk. She took several corridors that twisted and turned into the entrails of the city and came upon a rather sizeable winery currently being delivered barrels of grapes and yeast. When the mare went into the parlor, she was met with the acidic fragrance of alcohol clearing out any stuffiness from her nostrils. There was a loud brouhaha of the patrons drinking themselves under the rounded, wood tables. Several were sitting at the bar, chatting with each other and the bartender about whatever subject interested them at the moment. Above the bar hung ropes of garlic, onion, spinach, and multiple green and red plants the mare didn't recognize, all dried out.

The unicorn's entrance didn't cause any reactions by, but one of the bartenders: A gruff looking stallion that did his fair share of physical labor, nodded to Twilight and gestured to the right with a movement of his head. The mare nodded in return and walked towards a wine rack and pushed seven in a seemingly random pattern, opening up the room to a secret wine storage room. They filled the room with a golden hue and a fragrance that only a true alcoholic could enjoy, but Twilight wasn't here for it. She ignored the racks on the walls and reinforced shelves holding their treasure in rectangular, metal boxes sporting a tiny window for would-be purchasers and winemakers to observe their progress. Using her skills in magic, Twilight silently worded a spell, tracing sharp runes that pierced themselves in the air. She felt lightheaded for but a moment and found herself in yet another underground tunnel. However, it was significantly larger than the ones she took to reach her buried home and also significantly more rough-looking. It was like Twilight had jumped into a shadowy, flipped version of the Canterlot she preferred to keep in her mind. Ramshackle huts lined the 'streets', clashing with more grandiose buildings of white marble, golden trims, and jewel walls. The disparity in this underground city was more apparent than it was on the surface.

Several creatures walked back and forth, several carrying bags with something trying to get out of them. Even though it disgusted her as well, Twilight couldn't do anything about the creatures she saw being carted away in cages. If they were lucky, they had just been 'purchased' by one of the liberators that partially annoyed 'ingredient hunters' as some called them. These 'ingredients' would be hidden from them and inaccessible when spotted on the surface, but at least their captors were fairly recompensed for their efforts.

Twilight preferred to keep her thoughts to herself, otherwise she would never be able to come back to the only place she could get her food, drink, and equipment. Plus, to the untrained eye, this was a hole filled with very unsavory individuals. Ingredient hunters, illegal tradesmen, malpracticioners that lost their medical degree through one bad ordeal or some political event and could no longer get work, those who simply couldn't have an honest day's work if it was offered to them by Celestia herself, and those that went into the study of forbidden and forgotten magics. Twilight was one of the last ones, and she was a well-known frequenter of this underbelly of civilization. In fact, she was so well known that every creature that crossed her path would take a wide berth to avoid bumping into her. The unicorn couldn't figure out why. She never harmed anypony, at least not intentionally. At least, she always tried her best to be as friendly as she could.

The unicorn saluted several ponies draped in black robes and followed them into a simulacrum of a barrow where she got to take in several thick aromas of food and spices. There were even stalls selling gallons of fresh drinking water. It wasn't that these folk were selling tainted or rotten food, but being part of the seedy underbelly of civilization meant you would eventually become infamous and barred from any establishment that could supply you with just about anything you needed.

Twilight's eyes sparkled when she saw black flames somehow illuminating the dark walls of the barrow. "Black wickerlit candles!" she said with amazement. "Those are soooooooo rare!"

Said candles were thrice the height of a pony and sported the thickness of one's torso. Along their black bodies were various patterns that ran up and down in swings and sways. It reminded Twilight of the tribes from the islands north of Equestria that was always engulfed in fogs and primal magics. She would have to visit the many barrows that existed up there one day.

"I made 'em!" a voice responded. "Took farevah 'n took even longah tae get the ingredients."

The voice belonged to a short, stout stallion. His silvery coat gleamed in the odd light of the candles that accentuated the deep blue of his eyes. His red mane was combed in such a way that Twilight found he looked like a rooster. It even leaned to the right, like a rooster's crest. The rest of him was hidden behind a full-body cloak, much like the other ponies.

"Hey, Silvery Gleam!" Twilight greeted the stallion. They both embraced each other in a hug before resuming their conversation. "Getting a big muzzle?"

"Whach-nu!" the stallion sputtered. "I'm johst spakin' mey pride!"

"Big nose," Twilight insisted.

The stallion snorted, but his frown hid his amusement. "So, whet yeh be lookin' fehr tadey?" he asked.

The mare tapped her own muzzle. "Well, I just need food and water. I don't need anymore equipment right now."

Silvery Gleam raised a brow. "But yeh also wehnt teh see if weh got books?"

Twilight jumped up, dropping her hooves on Gleam's shoulders, and scaring him enough that he fell down. "You have new books?!" the mare asked with excessive enthusiasm.

Unnerved, the stallion brushed her hooves off. "Yeh. Just...kalm yehself, pla-ease." He gestured to Twilight. "This way, ma li''le necromancah."

Twilight felt herself twinge at the moniker. 'Necromancer'. She knew what that entailed, but her goals and actions were pure and true! That's how she was going to get her precious mentor back. She took in the moldy smell of old books and parchments reaching her nostrils.

"Oh, I got more research to give you as payment," Twilight was good to say.

Giant bookshelves of thirty or more layers rose to the ceiling above where lamps dangled to poorly illuminate the corridors. Several hooded ponies and griffins perused the contents of this forbidden library, and Twilight could have sworn she even saw a kirin. She passed some dangling bands of cloth into a smaller room covered with Saddle Arabian carpets, silks, and pillows, creating a strange mixture of colors and patterns.

"Here yeh go. The usual fer ya," Gleam said.

A pile of boxes and water jugs were waiting just for Twilight's hungry hand. "Even got yeh a small cookbook. 'L help yeh fer coo'in' pastries 'n such."

"Thank you so much!" Twilight exclaimed. "And what about the other books?" she asked as she levitated everything into her saddlebags.

The stallion raised a hoof. "Ah yes! Of course. You'll get to choose one, unless your research is more revolutionary this time." Silvery shuffled through a pile of old pillows and pulled out a box of books that had, judging from the state they were in, been pulled out of some royal archive somewhere.

Shuffling paper came from one of the unicorn's saddlebags, revealing a large amount of paper held together with a thick rubber band. Silvery removed it and started shuffling through the papers. While his expression was that of apathy, he quickly started showing surprise and enthusiasm and eventually became so engrossed in Twilight's notes that he had forgotten that Twilight herself was still there.

"Silvery?" she called out.

Hearing his name caused the stallion to jump. "Ah! Scared meh!" He leaned over the stack of notes again then waved it at Twilight. "Tell ya what, just cuz I like yeh 'n yer a good client." He placed the notes on a short table to his right. "Yeh went n discovered eh new way o' revivin' bodies 'en kepin' 'em fresh. Whach-nu! Yeh jehst revlutionized 'em!" He ran back into the library then came back a few minutes later with a book in tow after the librarian cursed loudly at him. "Been sayin' yeh ned an assist'n."

"But I--" Twilight tried to start.

Silvery shook his head. "Nah! Yeh keep takin' all of dem weighty things 'n get hert every time. Take this." He handed the unicorn a book on dragon anatomy and how magic affected them. "Yer one-a the best. Get yehrself a dragon assist'n."

"Ooooo," Twilight coo'd as she floated the book in front of her face."

"And din forget the book!" the stallion reminded her.

"But I don't need an assistant," Twilight said. "Just another mouth to feed and they'll backstab me," she growled.

Silvery wrapped a foreleg around the unicorn's neck despite the size difference. He was standing on the tip of his hooves. "Ya dun need a livin' assist'n." He winked.

"But they're always so stupid..." Twilight lamented.

Silvery Gleam shrugged and let her go. "Ya meed stuff leyk those notes. Yeh can get yerself a dragon assist'n. Now get goin'! Goht a tilly nearby full of 'em. Go'n peeck a good one." He stopped Twilight before she could take a second stop. "After droppin' all this off, yeh?" he suggested with a raised brow. "And takin' yer free book."

Author's Note

Naydrus is a dragon born to immense parents who live with and serve humans. When the dragonling hatches, it is revealed that she doesn't look anything like her family and she has a passion for fighting. However, she also carries a deep hatred for the hominid 'caretakers'. This inspires her escape from the city through the sewer system and find other dragons that share her mindset. However, the world is a big place and very old. Much has happened and continues to happen without Naydrus being aware of it, causing her to cross paths with dangerous individuals and end up in hazardous locations.

You can find it through these links:

US Link
UK Link
DE Link
ES Link
IT Link
NL Link
PL Link
SE Link
JP Link
CA Link
AU Link

Assistants

With considerable effort, Twilight found herself back home, gasping for air and exhausted. Perhaps now was the best time for her to go to sleep. Her head was pounding and her muscles ached, so with a shifting of her body, she let the saddlebags fall heavily against the floor. The book on dragon anatomy was the first thing Twilight grabbed before settling herself in bed, enjoying the quiet her own domicile gave her. If there was one thing that Twilight adored in this new life was having her own home and lying down in her bed. Aside from the occasional scurrying of pests in the walls and dripping water, the place was very quiet. It was perfect for those rare moments when Twilight would lay down on her bed, enjoying the relative softness of the straw and the warmth and weight her comforters gave her.

She set the book on her pillow and started going through it, learning about how a type of magic originated from dragons rather than being accumulated and reused as ponies did. Ligaments, joints, the type of bones, susceptibility to diseases and spells. Even pages on what the 'villains' would use their parts for when captured. Twilight felt her eyes start to droop despite her efforts to stay awake. Eventually, she succumbed to her fatigue. The unicorn didn't exactly enjoy her dreams when she slept, haunted by weird nightmares of Celestia and, more recently, what she believed to be Luna, though this 'Luna' just looked like a starry sky.

Twilight awoke with a start and wiped the drool from her mouth. How long had she been asleep? With some luck, she didn't sleep through the night and would be able to get to work finding a proper candidate for her spell. While she still had her doubts, a fully skeletal undead was always more useful than one with flesh still on it. That coat of slime and guts always slowed them down and made them incredibly stupid thanks to the brain becoming vaguely active due to the spell.

"I wonder if it's because the brain becomes damaged the more it's left deprived of oxygen..." Twilight pondered. She levitated a parchment and ink-stained quill and wrote down her theory. "To. Test. Later!" she said as she punched a dot onto the parchment.

She placed them on her unkempt bed and hurriedly looked through one of her crumbling shelves to find several old maps waiting to be unfurled. They were old and excessively outdated, but they were extremely helpful for find burial mounds, barrows, mausoleums, and, especially, old battlegrounds. Twilight had to go through three different maps of the area, but she found the 'tilly', as Silvery Gleam called them: An old battleground centuries old that pitted five groups of dragons against each other. A truly chaotic free-for-all because they were all too stubborn to decide when to strike.

The unicorn had no idea why they were fighting, and she wasn't interested in that. She was, however, interested in their remains. They would be a day's journey from her home if she didn't know how to teleport. Coming back, though, was another problem.

"I'll think about that later..." Twilight muttered to herself as she put on her saddlebags and strapped her shovel to her back. She took in a deep breath. "Let's go!" The mare turned to her crumbling shelves full of jar'd parts and waved a hoof at them. "Bye, everypony! I'll be back soon!"

Her trip through the land was as tiring as it had always been. The unicorn preferred to experience the path forth to better travel back rather than cheat her way and teleport precisely where she needed to be. Besides: If she didn't know the location personally then the chances of a teleportation mishap were extremely high. There were patrols of armed guards that Twilight had to hide from, and, much to her annoyance, they would always take the pathways she would use: Side roads usually engulfed by brambles or frequented by nasty beasts. It was a mental chore for her to not just immediately fry the guards, but she knew better than to harm someone just because they annoyed her. They were never the same patrol, and Celestia herself said that having the power to kill is why you don't use it. Well, Twilight was paraphrasing in her own head. As night turned to day turned to night again, the unicorn found herself on a large swathe of hilly terrain covered in many rocks and boulders.

The setting sun created a disturbing blood-red sky that all-too-well amplified the odd sensation that Twilight felt here.

"Yes! This is where they are!" The unicorn removed her shovel from her bag and held it in her magic. "Time to start digging randomly!" she mused.

Her random stabs into the earth almost instantly revealed dragon bones, but the majority she found were gigantic. There was no way she could use it as an assistant, let alone be able to control an undead of its size. The spells needed required precision Twilight didn't yet have, and she wasn't interested in creating a rogue undead dragon to terrorize the countryside and get an even larger warrant on her head. The council already had that covered when she fled Canterlot.

Twilight hummed joyfully as she dug into the ground, throwing dirt everywhere and stopping when she reached an excessively large bone. While she was disappointed to not find precisely what it was she was looking for, she was still enthralled by what she kept unearthing.

"I wonder..." A sinister grin grew across her face. "The princess will need an army to overthrow the council and get rid of all those traitors...equinly of course. Maybe, when I get stronger, I can raise all of them and control them."

Her fur stood on end when she felt something unworldly stare at her, but the unicorn shook it off and went back to work. It was common for spirits to hate ponies like her, and she knew she deserved it, but it was for a good cause, even if they didn't care. Besides, they were dead! Why should they influence her?! It should be the other way around!

After what seemed like hours of digging, and taking back some souvenirs for her lab, Twilight started coming upon smaller and smaller bones. She was unsure if they were infants or adolescents, but she could have at least taken care of these ones.

"Let's see..." Twilight mulled over as she looked over the many skulls she had unearthed. "Too round, too thin, too wide, too misshapen..." She looked back at the last one and shook her head. "No, no, no...Ah ha! Yes!"

She dug her shovel deeper into the ground and pulled out a crested skull missing several of said crests and sporting several fissures along its surface.

"The right size!" Twilight said to herself. "Can't go half-reared on this spell. Best get it done right rather than just doing one casually."

The mare pulled out a quill that, once dipped into a small inkwell full of a fuming blue liquid, started drawing runes and triangles around the dragon skeleton. It was followed by a single wickerlit candle, several colorful feathers, a jar full of gray clouds that sparked angrily. Last, but not least, was a perfectly conserved strand of Celestia's mane in a block of polished and sanded resin. It still glowed with the alicorn's magic, but it seemed to be fading.

"Oh no!" Twilight said with dread. "I have to hurry!"

She set the resin souvenir on the ground next to her and sat down on one of the corners of the triangle. The points had all been encircled, and several waves linking each corner and the center where the skull rested were drawn as well.

Twilight took in a very deep breath and steeled herself. "Let's do this."

As the mare muttered the incantation under her breath, the wickerlit candle lit up and its flame started sputtering more and more uncontrollably as time went on. At first, the dragon's remains stayed inert, then they trembled. These spasms lasted longer and longer as time went on and the magic of Twilight's spell started to seep in. Lights flickered in the empty orbits of the skull, like a gas stove trying to turn on, until a deep purple color stared at the void behind Twilight. The mare was too entranced in her spell casting to notice the results, but she could feel the ground shake as her spell weakened the soil around her prize, allowing it to casually pull out a clawed, boney hand from the soil and find purchase on solid ground further away. Fingers dug into the dirt as their owner did its best to pull itself out.

With two loud thuds, the undead dragon's feet were finally out of the ground and standing on it this time. Its head twisted left and right as dirt, rocks, insects, and worms fell out of every nook and cranny of its skeletal form. Twilight's magic coursed through its body, suffusing it with power and unlife. It wrapped around its arms and legs, creating a helix of magic that allowed it movement. Its wings became glowing, purple webs just as an orb of pulsating magic formed in its torso. The crests on its head were replaced by the same ghostly energy and ran along its spine and tail. Its claws and teeth followed the same concept of 'replacement', producing a gradient of yellowed-bone to bright purple at the tips.

The dragon stood over Twilight, silent and unmoving like a statue. When the unicorn's incantations finally ceased, she drooped heavily, exhausted by the effort.

"That...hooo. Haven't done anything like that before." She looked at the resin souvenir and hugged it closely when she saw the strand was once more glowing vividly and changing colors. "Just like when you were still around," the mare squee'd.

A glint of purple caught twilight's eyes, making her look up slowly from the three-toed feet to the four-fingered hands to the toothy skull. Her inner filly leapt more and more at the sight of her successful summoning, but she was skeptical.

"Hmmm...Hop on one foot," Twilight asked. The skeleton obliged. "Okay stop. Now spin around twice." It obliged once more. "Hee hee! Now, help me get all the ingredients back into my saddlebags, and carry them for me please." Twilight rocked in place, excited at seeing this bipedal skeleton doing just what she wanted. "Hmmm...You seem to be an adolescent, but I'm unsure of the age you used to have. What's your name?" The mare waited for answer, but the skeleton did not react. It preferred to pick the feathers and quill up and stuff them in one of the saddlebags. "Oooh. Shy, huh? Hmmm. What to call you what to call you..." Her eyes lit up suddenly. "I know! I wanted to call the dragon I was supposed to hatch 'Spike'. She chuckled nervously. "Hooo. What a fiasco that turned out to be."

Unpleasant memories cascaded through her mind, bringing her back to that day where she was going to pass the exam to enter Celestia's school for the most gifted ponies. She was meant to force a dragon egg to hatch. Where they acquired such an egg was a mystery, but ultimately unimportant. Twilight thought she wasn't going to succeed, and the stress caused her magic to bounce on itself and overflow, and with the ambient magic around Canterlot because of Celestia's mere presence and what laid dormant within the unicorn, chaos erupted.

The unicorn clutched her head as she tried to remember what happened to her parents. All she could truly recall was that they had to go to physical therapy for years after the fiasco, prompting Celestia to take Twilight in, albeit temporarily, to help reign in her magic. As for the dragon egg, it had been cooked thoroughly, and nothing came from it save a meal that egg eaters would have maybe enjoyed. That part of the school had to be quarantined while the errant, damaged magic was siphoned off and stabilized by experts.

It was a terrible tragedy for Twilight, but thanks to Celestia's intervention, it had become a mostly joyous memory, though Twilight wasn't sure what happened to her parents and brother when she fled Canterlot after Celestia's...Her hooves dug into the ground. 'Spike' responded to her agitated status and stood with its back towards her, looking around for any threats to its master.

Twilight couldn't help but giggle softly. "It's okay, Spike. Just memories reopening old wounds. Come on," she said as she sat back up. "Let's go home and figure out where I can put you when I don't need you."

Dangers

"Now comes the tricky part: Getting back home without anypony seeing us," Twilight told Spike. "Gotta be careful if there's any patrols. A few farmers or regular travelers won't cause much issue, but the patrols know how to fight." She looked up at the undead staring at her pathetically. "Hmmm. You're right. What if they're fighters, just not in uniform." She clapped her hooves together. "Well, that's why we're going to try and avoid everypony on the way! Come, come!"

Now it was going to be a long trek back, but this time with an undead dragon in tow! It kept Twilight's saddlebags slung over its left shoulder and kept itself just a few steps away from its master. The unicorn couldn't do anything about the glowing caused by her spell, an unfortunate side-effect of the ritual she used to create Spike, but it at least meant the binding magic was stable and powerful. Until she undid it or was...killed, then the bindings would never dispel themselves.

The travel back was taking longer than she had hoped, and with the exhaustion brought on by the spell, Twilight was starting to pass out from exhaustion. She couldn't just tell Spike to carry her home because it didn't know where 'home' was. Because of this unintentional moment of laxitude, Twilight fell out of the brush and into the open at a frequented road farmers were using. One was a graying earth pony stallion carrying a pitchfork on his back. His coat of tarnished gold vanished in the clay soil exposed by frequent passers, and his well-kempt mane and tail had been fashioned to look like a whip of cream on a pie. He was walking next to a wagon his much younger son was pulling, though not without considerable effort. Unlike his father who had a sturdy body built from years of toil, the son was still small both in musculature and size.

"Come on, son," the father encouraged. "When I was your age I was already able to pull the cart to my city and back home."

The young stallion grunted. "Yeah but...I bet you didn't...have to travel...five hours! I didn't know straw could...be so heavy!"

Twilight's shuffling and near-collapse on the ground caught the two's attention.

"Wait here," the father said. "I'll go check."

His son removed the harness, thankful, and sighed in relief at the chance to rest. His father helped Twilight up out of the piles of dead leaves and errant dried sticks and plants, brushing some off the mare's coat.

"Are you okay, miss?" he asked.

Twilight cleared her throat and pushed herself away from the stallion, stretching thoroughly. "I'm just really tired," she emphasized. "Did a reaaaaaally big spell earlier and-" She chuckled. "I did not expect it to use that much magic or required that much precision."

The stallion raised a brow. "Magic? So you're a scholar of sorts?" He looked towards the forest, his heart accelerating. "Can't say I've seen many unicorns around here."

"Well, forests are the best place to find reagents and such," Twilight said. "And places removed from the really big cities like Canterlot tend to have the best ingredients and als plenty that no pony knew about already."

"That's true..." the father agreed hesitantly. He didn't know why, but he felt extremely uncomfortable around this mare. Something about her presence and her casual attitude after coming out of what is considered to be a dangerous forest by many. "Do you want something to drink? We have some water we can spare."

Twilight waved the stallion off. "No! No. No need to dig into your own reserves. Everypony has their own needs, and I have some water with me anyways," the mare explained. "I just need to relax a bit and take in some spare magic to restore my reserves. If I wait a bit it should come quickly enough." She shifted in place nervously. "I just prefer doing that in the safety of my own home."

"I can understand that," the farmer said. He scratched his head and looked around again, unable to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling. "I don't feel safe out here, for example. Something...uncomfortable is lurking around the forest. You should come with us."

"No need," Twilight said with a smile. "My new friend is accompanying me." She leaned in to the stallion and whispered in his ear. "He's a bit shy so he doesn't speak much at all, sadly."

"A friend? Where is this friend?"

Before Twilight could answer, a glowing, purple light invaded the farmer's vision, and from the crackling branches of the trees and bushes came the skeleton of an adolescent dragon, standing three ponies tall. The lavender unicorn found herself getting pulled aside aggressively by the old stallion.

"An undead! Quickly! Get onto the wagon!" the farmer ordered Twilight in a rush. "Son, I'll be pulling the wagon from now on! We need to get to the city as quickly as possible and alert the guard!"

"Hey, wait--!" Twilight attempted to protest.

"What?! But your joints! You won't be able to move if you push yourself like that!" the son protested.

"Don't pull on me!" the unicorn continued. "Let me go!"

The farmer threw his child a glare and pushed him aside. "I'm not too old to pull a piece of wood with dry grass on it! Get the harness on me and get that unicorn in the wagon."

"I said let me go!"

With a flash of light the old stallion lost his grip on Twilight, freeing her from his misguided protection. The old pony had fallen to the ground, and when he could see again, the younger farmer rushed to his father's aid.

"I told you to stop!" Twilight said angrily. She massaged her foreleg with her magic before turning towards the undead. "This is the friend I was talking about," she said with a smile. The unicorn looked up at the undead that was looking down on them with its empty 'eyes' and bounced in place giddily, the forceful protectiveness of the old farmer having already disappeared from her mind. "Isn't he nice? He's helping me carry my things."

"Wh-wh-why isn't it attacking her?" the son asked his father.

The farmer's brows furrowed and slowly took his pitchfork off his back. "Get ready to gallop away as fast as you can."

"But the wa--" the son attempted to raise his concerns.

"Don't bother with some straw!" the father 'yelled' at him through clenched teeth. "Just get going when I start yelling. I'll follow you right after." The stallion clenched his pitchfork in one hoof and steeled himself. He took a very deep breath he was worried would be his last. It tasted so sublime all of a sudden. "Necromancer!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Necromancer! Guards! Guaaards!" he bellowed harder.

"No no no no! Stop!" Twilight pleaded. "I won't do anything! I just keep to myself!" she continued while trying to get the farmer to quiet down. The unicorn saw the son bolt off and let herself slump. There went her moment of peace and quiet. "Nooo..." she lamented.

"I'll get rid of you, abomination against nature!" the farmer threatened.

He galloped towards Twilight with the pitchfork in his mouth; Once close enough, the stallion spat it out into his hooves and raised his tool at the unicorn, ready to plunge the spikes into her body.

"Don't kill him!" Twilight shouted suddenly.

"Why would she say that?" the farmer thought briefly.

He quickly learned why.

A giant hand came crashing down from above, jettisoning the farmer into the ground so hard he could hear cracks rumble through his body and the air blowing out from his lungs. He bounced up, slowly flipped, then landed on his back. His makeshift weapon landed near him a few steps away, the clay absorbing the sound of the impact.

Twilight was panicking and bouncing around the body, unsure of what to do. "What did you do?" she asked Spike. "Is he breathing?" She watched the farmer's chest and sighed in relief. "Sir, are you still awake?!" Despite his now-glassy eyes being open, the stallion would not respond to any stimuli. "Ooooh!"

The unicorn paced around more, dragging a hoof through her mane. She would have to use a spark of some kind to garner attention, but then other ponies might be able to track her magical signature. Her reagents from the ritual at least absorbed errant magic for her to dissolve later, but something like this? If she didn't use the flare then anypony around would be none the wiser and the farmer would die. If she did then somepony might come around and help him, but then they might be able to track her.

"Why help them? You didn't do anything to them and they immediately attempted to kill you," a voice said to Twilight.

"But they were just scared," Twilight argued. "Everypony is scared of what they don't understand."

"But did they even try to understand you?" the voice argued. "Seeing how they acted, would they have even listened to you?"

The unicorn gnawed on her hoof, unsure of what to do. She looked at Spike who towered over her and remained as immobile and stoic as he was since his summoning. "But...Celestia wouldn't approve..." Twilight lamented. "What would she think of her precious pupil if they let somepony die when she had the chance to save them?"

"Don't forget that the other pony will be coming back soon anyways. It won't be that hard for him to come back with a horde of soldiers and city guards. Who knows what patrols heard his screaming as well?"

Twilight's eyes widened. The patrols! They would kill her on the spot and destroy Spike. She couldn't afford it when she was so close to her goals! At least, she was certain she was close. It had only been a few years. That was a lot of time. Surely there wasn't more.

"Spike! We have to go! Hurry!" Twilight said in a panic.

She dragged the farmer to the side of the road. Just close enough that somepony would notice him and just far enough that he wouldn't be crushed by a distracted wagon puller. To her dismay, Twilight could see large amounts of armed and armored ponies rushing past the foliage on the main road a half hour after fleeing back into the forest. She had to remain as quiet as she possibly could so they wouldn't hear her. This wasn't the first time she had to hide from patrols, but it was the first time she had 'baggage' with her. An army would be needed to chase off all these ponies, and the mare didn't want to deal with that. That would be far too much work.

It took two days for Twilight to finally be able to return to her home, having had to sleep in caves or little holes she dug out of the ground and kept supported with a spell. It was very unpleasant. She could still feel the uncomfortable, uneven ground underneath her and the humid stuffiness of the soil with worms, insects, and moles wriggling around her.

Now was different, however. Now she was home! Where it was dark and somewhat damp...but she had a straw bed and all her amenities!

And also the ground wasn't lumpy.

"Well, that was an unpleasant experience," Twilight sighed in relief. "You can place the saddlebags at your feet, Spike. I'll take care of everything." When she saw he was about to just let them drop, she panicked. "Carefully! Carefully place them down!," she insisted.

The skeleton acquiesced and bent down to place the saddlebags on the stone floor as slowly and carefully as it could conceive. Twilight felt herself relax again so soon after two days of constant stress. She walked to her rotting shelf holding all her maps and pulled one out from the top left corner and unfurled it in the air. Behind it sat a small clay bowl in which a piece of charcoal sat, and behind that was a piece of stale, dry bread.

"Hmmm. I can't go this way anymore," Twilight said. Her final words ended with a hiccup. She could feel her lips trembling but did her best to hold it in. She circled the road and the surrounding areas with the coal before looking around. "This one I haven't been to in six months." The unicorn paused a moment, pensive. "Okay. I'll put this one on a maybe and scout it out later." She drew a question mark on the road and used the bread to erase as much of the charcoal markings as she could. She had to be careful, because maps like this were hard to come by. Excessively hard, especially for somepony in her position. She yawned and flopped on her bed, exhausted. "Well, I'm beat." The mare buried her face in her pillow and grunted. "Spike, you can watch the entrance for any intruders. Wake me up if you see anypony trying to come in, okay?"

The undead did not respond. It simply did as it was commanded and moved silently to the door leading into Twilight's home and stared at it.

"Close enough," Twilight giggled quietly before dozing off.

Choices

Twilight drooped slightly at Silvery's news. "Oh..."

The stallion shrugged. "It is what it is, sohry teh say." He walked around Spike, taking in every little detail of the undead dragon, and whistled. "Quite the specimen. Even rehpleeced his missing bits with a bit of meegic hullabaloo," he mused.

The unicorn was quick to start digging through her saddlebags and pull out a few small dragon bones. "I've got these as payment this time. Genuine adult dragon bone."

Silver raised a hoof and took them. "Seems genuine," he stated while looking them over. "Pretty good quality. Surprised yeh even meeneged ta sneak these through anyp--" He stopped himself and smirked. "Ah. Right. Yer forced to circumvent eeveerythin'." There was an awkward silence as he put the bones away in his cloak and the two ponies had nothing to follow-up on. "Yeh eever wondah what it would've been leyk if Celeestia didn't...yeh know..." He drooped his head several times.

Twilight looked away. "I...try not to think about it." She smiled at Silvery, though her expression was clearly forced. "I'm just working to bring her back! Then I can stop all of this," she claimed.

The stallion nodded, not believing a word. "Theen come ohn. Leet's go see what there is."

The two entered the strange room again. Twilight never paid much attention to it, but there was a strange scent in the air. Whether it came from the decorations or not was a mystery that the unicorn wasn't too interested in delving into. The two ponies were surprised when Spike stepped into the room and the magic bindings started to spark and fluctuate wildly out of control.

"Get it out!" Silvery shouted. The two pushed the skeleton away and sighed in relief when Twilight's spell stabilized. "Hoo. Was close," the stallion wheezed. "Gave me a fright."

"There's anti-magic in here?!" Twilight realized.

The stallion nodded. "Yes. Good for negotiations, now teel yer skellie teh stay out."

Twilight didn't feel comfortable with leaving Spike alone by himself. After all, he didn't know much about the world at all, and his shyness would make him easy to take advantage of. Noticing Silvery's disapproving glare, the mare toughened herself up for Spike's benefit.

"You can wait outside, Spike," she ordered it. "Just don't talk to anypony you don't know, okay?" The skeleton did not respond. "Great! I'll be back shortly."

Silvery rolled his eyes. "Hey! Jam! We need you' eexpertise!" When there was no answer, the stallion became increasingly annoyed. "Jam! Don't make meh get in theere and turn make you' name an observation!"

Twilight jumped back when a wall slid off to the side, knocking over several pillows and piled up comforters and wall carpets.

"Whaaaat?" an angry voice crowed. "I'm busyyyy!"

"Need heelp identifyin' some good pleeces fer my client."

The unicorn tried to get a better view of the yellow light obscured by Silvery's body, but she was unable to even catch a glimpse of the source before the door was shut close by Jam. As she stepped forward, Twilight realized that every other step produced a heavy 'clunk' noise. It didn't take long to see why. She was a battered pegasus with stubs in place of her wings and a wooden left foreleg. It was equipped with joints and seemed to move with every flex of her shoulder muscles, but it was a stiff movement. Her fur was a vibrant pink color, and her mane and tail were both grape colored with three thin, vertical streaks of dandelion yellow going through them. The mare's rough, yellow eyes told Twilight that this pony wasn't somepony to annoy. There were years of hardships in them.

Twilight attempted to introduce herself. "H-hello! My name is--"

"Twilight Sparkle. Yeah. I know," Jam said grumpily. "Sunshine Sunshine, lady-bugs awake!" she mocked.

"How do--"

"You're the little necromancer that installed herself around these parts after Celestia got beheaded," she said while tracing her hoof across her neck. She laughed afterward. "What a mess that was." She leaned in close to Twilight and almost fell over because of her prosthetic. "You know, for the right price or a service, I can tell you what's happening in Canterlot right now."

The unicorn gulped. She was really, really curious to know what had happened to the castle when that awful day occurred. "I...I'm okay," Twilight said quietly.

"Stop tormentin' her," Silvery chastised.

Jam turned to him, shaking her head a bit and looking at him with bafflement. "What? It's info. Everypony loves info."

"Yeh, but thees is the first time I've called for yae. Could use some tact."

The pegasus grunted as she adjusted the latches of her prosthetic. "Yeah yeah. So how much gold is she giving? Or did she bring us some jewels or something?"

The stallion grinned. "Going with yer profeesion, I figured yeh wouldn't know."

Jam looked up slightly. "Know what?"

"Thees li''le pony's the one that's been geeving us all that research."

The uncaring attitude of the pegasus seemed to lighten as she looked at Twilight with a big smile. "Is she now?"

"Y-yes," Twilight said. She backed away instinctively as Jam approached her with her head slung low. "I can bring gold if you--"

"No need!" Jam said. "All that research you've given us has made us rich, rich, rich!"

Silvery's eyes shot open. "Jam!" he bellowed at the top of his lungs. Some spit flew from his mouth and landed near the vaguely annoyed pegasus.

"What? She's not going to stop giving us research, are you, filly?" the mare asked slyly. Twilight shook her head in response. "And we're busy searching for Celestia's body anyways." Her stubs shook a bit before the pegasus continued. "Tell you what: You've given us so much that I won't charge you this time for any knowledge. Why, I may not even charge you later either!" she laughed. "And don't mind Grumpo. He works on a businessman mentality." She tapped her head with her good hoof. " 'We've got to make mo-ney' type, you understand?" Twilight nodded quickly. "So what is it you want?"

The mare cleared her throat and straightened herself out, catching herself from looking at Jam's 'wings' several times. "I want to know if there's somewhere far away from this region where I could find some useful...specimens for my experiments. It's the same kind of magic saturation here and I realized that I need new specimens from elsewhere if I'm going to--"

Twilight was interrupted by a hoof shoved in her mouth. "Ponies or something else?"

"Prrners," Twilight responded.

"How far?" Jam asked. When Twilight couldn't respond, the pegasus chuckled. "Fine. I'll think of something," she said while turning around to go back to the golden room. "Two days of continual marching without resting should be a good distance for you." She spun around. "Although, I think you would find wild magic more efficient in your studies, I think."

"Wild magic? Why? Celestia--"

"Was an alicorn," Jam interjected. She gestured to her forehead. "Have those giant horns and their magic is unique. Uncontrollable to non-unicorns. Similar thing. Worth a venture, and I'm certain you'll find some ponies that died in these places."

"Yeeh. Okay. While yae talk about that, I'll geet the ingredients for yer meedallions," Silvery said with a hint of annoyance.

"Okay, thanks," Twilight said with a light smile.

There was a pause as Jam ran some knowledge through her head. "There's still some alicorn magic out there," she grinned knowingly. "Could try asking my employees--"

"No that's fine!" Twilight rejected vehemently. "I'm good." She pursed her lips in anticipation and worry. "So...what are--"

"Hold on," Jam interrupted her again.

The pegasus rushed off toward the golden room, pulling the wall back in the process and forgetting to shut it again. The temptation was grand and almost palpable, and Twilight soon found her legs moving forward on their own. Unfortunately, she still wasn't able to check what was beyond the veil as Jam popped back out with a huge, rolled-up parchment slumped over her back.

"Here," Jam said. She pulled a short table away from a group of couches placed in a half-circle shape and laid the parchment over it. It was a view of Equestria from far above. A consequence was the lack of smaller details which chased out many of the smaller towns and cities. The pegasus put her hoof on a spot surrounded by mountainous and hilly terrain as well as several small woods dotted about. "We're here, in Flarolina." She circled the area, covering a few larger cities including the graveyard Twilight had 'looted' atop a high cliff. "You've been snooping around here for a few years. Some places with wild magic that you might be interested in-" She briefly looked Twilight in the eyes. "which have ponies, of course-" Jam smiled. "would be places like the Terrestrial Nebula up here across the border into the Crystal Empire's territory." Twilight tensed up at the name. "It's a field of crystal-like structures that create an artificial nebula of colors and shapes using magic that the Empire is still studying now that they've returned. Its ecosystem is one of the best things you can see as a biologist," Jam mused. "The advantage is that it's only half a day's walk from here and there's an underground tunnel system that goes on forever, so even though it's not that far from the usual, you'll have plenty of time to explore and find what you want."

"Eeeeh. I don't feel comfortable going up there...yet..." Twilight said quietly. She shifted in place, clearly uncomfortable with the idea.

Jam immediately broke Twilight's imagination by slamming her prosthetic onto the table, startling the unicorn. "Aaaaaall the way down here, way past Canterlot, is a forest called 'Everfree'. Supposedly it's like its own little pocket world that doesn't follow what is happening outside somehow. Day and night cycles don't really follow the outside world, and strange critters live within."

"And it houses the Castle of the Two Sisters," Twilight said in awe. "That's...really tempting."

"Well, over here on the bottom left of the map, bordering the desert is the Golden Pin Woods. This place is...odd. The trees and plants look like they're made of stone, and much like the Everfree it's basically its own little place, but it grows from the sand and there's no seeds or anything that comes from it, so no pony knows how it's growing. Those that live there tend to trim it down every six months, so it can't grow far." Jam looked at the yellow, angular sticks drawn to represent it. "Pretty sure there's stuff underneath. They grow on sand so anypony that died there must have sunk underneath, so what could be there?"

Twilight's eyes darted between the two locations faster and faster before she closed her eyes and yelled. "Golden Pin! I'll go there!"

"Fantastic!" Jam said. She rolled up the parchment and stuck it in her robe. "I'll give you the instructions to get down there shortly. The rest is up to you." The pegasus hopped in place. "And don't forget that a trip like this will likely take you a week, if not more, on hoof. Better look for ways to go faster. Still, not as far as Everfree would have been."

After around fifteen minutes, Twilight was given the reagents and materials for her medallions as well as the instructions and a cheap copy of a map that would lead her down to the Golden Pin Woods. She waved the two goodbye, grabbed Spike, and immediately started mumbling to herself as she tried to come up with several plans for her trip. It wasn't urgent, but she couldn't wait to take the trip!

Jam bashed the stallion in the shoulder with a jab from her good hoof. "Hey, you heard about the Crystal Empire?"

"What about it?" Silvery asked angrily while rubbing his leg.

"Heard Empress Cadance and Emperor Shining Armor have been decrying the state of Equestria to the world, defaming the council that rules over us 'all'," the mare mused.

Silvery snorted. "That why you tried to get Twilight to go north? So she'd be stuck with those two?"

Jam shrugged. "Maybe," she said before going silent for a moment. "She's a strange one, that's for sure. Could have done her a lot of good to go there," Jam told Silvery.

"Yeah. For a neecromencer she's very 'pure' in a sense." The stallion rubbed the back of his neck. "Somepony like her, though..."

"Yeah yeah," Jam interrupted. "Necromancy isn't the best thing to be studying, but I figure, with her goals, she won't go power-hungry like the other idiots we get here."

"That's not it," Silvery said with increased worry. "A pony so weell-intentioned like her is more easily consumed bey their purpose 'n goal the loonger it teekes ta be accomplished."

Jam looked at the stallion sideways. "What are you getting at?"

The stallions expression grew somber. "I'm worried she'll geet so impehtient she'll becohm a lich."

Trip

Twilight was standing at the entrance of her home, her body shaking from nervousness. She had never left her home for days at a time before. At least, not purposefully. It brought up bad memories of times past.

"It's okay, Twilight," the mare told herself with every deep breath. "It's okay, Twilight. You can do this. Spike has the bags of supplies, you brought a book to tell you what you can eat when you're down there. You even got a water purifying spell and can just boil it and sift it through." She shivered. "Even if it's gross."

The mare readjusted her own saddlebags and checked her and Spike's medallions again. The anchor point was right in the middle of her home and only went one way, and after a few hours of testing, she confirmed that Spike would automatically follow her back. Twilight felt tempted to do more tests just to be sure, but she knew that was just her stalling for time. She was the only one who could help Princess Celestia, and so she had to push through her own fears to accomplish it.

"Well, Spike. We're going south. Far south..." She rubbed the top of her muzzle with a hoof. "I wish we could just take a train or a blimp there."

An idea filled Twilight's mind. A nasty one that made her feel bile dig through her throat. What if she brought back some ponies as skeletons and had them pull a chariot for her? he unicorn shook her head. They weren't there to serve as her vehicles or servants. She wouldn't dare do such a thing if it was to help her accelerate her work into reviving Princess Celestia.

She took a look at her medallion again and passed a hoof across its surface. Was it influencing her or was she just being paranoid and that was just her imagination. Millions of questions and theories about what she encountered in the city dug away at Twilight's mind. At least she would have something to occupy her mind during the travel.

"Let's go, Spike."

Free from her home, Twilight looked towards Flarolina and heaved a silent sigh. She adjusted her bags and got to walking through the woods and the cold wind cutting away at her fur. The first two days of travel were mostly uneventful. Twilight was still in the region she was accustomed to. It was only when she realized that the rocks decorating the ground started becoming sparse that it was apparent the unicorn was entering a new region. The air had already become warmer and the ground softer. Much of the plants she could see were mixing in with the hardy and stubborn mountain foliage, both finding common ground in a soil swirling with nutrients from two different worlds. The gray, gravely landscape became nothing but dirt and grass further down Twilight's personal route, and from then on she would be in regions unknown, or regions forgotten. The idea of being anywhere but near and around Flarolina was too distant and too unwanted a thought for the lavender pony. Still. She needed to get going. Her research wasn't going to wait.

At least the ponies that died in the desert tended to mummify instead of rot because of the heat and almost total lack of moisture in the air. If Celestia's body had been dropped into a place like this, then it would stand to reason to bring those desiccated remains back and figure out how to restore and reanimate them. After all, the desert was a harsh and angry place, and if Twilight wasn't careful, then she would end up like those she was looking for.

"Here we go. The first step outside of the mountains..." Twilight mumbled to herself. She started regretting not going north towards the Crystal Empire.

Twilight instinctively pulled back her leg upon the first step before slowly bringing it back down. There was no rough crunching from small pebbles grinding against her horseshoes and each other. Instead, the ground seemed to sink and mold around her weight. The softness was a feeling Twilight had forgotten, but she steeled her mind. She couldn't be distracted.

Being a space far from major cities, Twilight didn't have to worry too much about patrols around this location. That said, she didn't account for the lack of woods and thick tree lines. She and Spike were mostly trapped in the open, which prompted the few ponies they crossed to run or fly away in fear, prompting the duo to pick up the pace. In some areas Twilight could smell burning wood. There were lumber mills and charcoal kilns around the few forests that could be spotted, thankfully, but again: An impasse. The forests were being scouted and torn down by the lumberjacks, making it too dangerous to travel through even these wooded areas.

The unicorn reddened in frustration knowing she was being forced into the open. Her first day of walking had ended a few feet past a bridge cover a water stream. Unfortunately, there weren't any caves or forests for her to hide in, so Twilight went with plan B. She bored a hole in the ground with her magic and dug out a small burrow for herself and Spike. She used a fetish made from acorns and a Scorpio's stinger to pick up the errant traces of her magic after sealing up the burrow as best she could. It was far enough from the road that most ponies would ignore it, and a patch of bare dirt shouldn't, at least Twilight really didn't want it to, garner any attention.

She took out some dried lettuce and hardtack Silvery kept on hoof for long trips and ate both. With a bit of water the hardtack became softer and more enjoyable to eat. Twilight proposed one to Spike, but the undead simply gave Twilight the same, empty stare it had since it arose. The makeshift shelter became somehow 'extra cozy' to Twilight when she heard the pitter patter of rain above her. Scampering to her hooves, she pulled out two empty containers from Spike's bags and opened a small hole for the rainwater to funnel through and reach the containers. There was only enough drizzle to fill up one and barely affect the base of the second, but Twilight had her next task to accomplish later: Boiling and filtering the fluid.

On the fourth day of her trip, Twilight found herself in a small village that specialized in dye. Surrounding it were vast fields of plants the mare only vaguely recognized as sources of pulp that changed color when crushed. The 'sap' from their 'veins' was quite colorful even from where the unicorn was standing. From what the mare could tell, she had just stumbled upon a conflict between two rival dye makers that became bigger than it needed to be. One such fight had broken out right before Twilight arrived, intent on gathering some more supplies before she dug into her reserves. Everypony was distracted by the fighting among the simple 'hovel'-type buildings, giving the mare ample time to rummage through unprotected produce and shove them in her saddlebags.

"Hey now, what're y'all doin' here?" a voice called out. The unicorn turned around with a pear in her mouth to see that a newcomer had arrived. One with a weird southern 'twang' Twilight didn't recognize. "Y'all prefer ta fight than talk it out?"

This orange mare sporting a brown stetson hat produced a lasso she used on one group of five ponies to pull them away while the others were caught in an aura of blue magic. This newcomer was a white unicorn with a purple mane and tail cared for and soft to the eyes. They curled and twisted on each other, creating a fine contrast from the straw-like hair of the bulkier pony.

"Now now, Applejack. No need to treat these ponies so harshly. I'm sure their..." The white unicorn paused, looking for the words. "Comely ponies would be willing to be open to reason."

The orange pony chuckled and backed her head up slightly. "Oh yeah. 'N how do ya s'pose? Dang tree done sent us to some village nowhere." She looked around and her disdain slowly turned to respect then enjoyment. " 'N Ah can see that these folks take care of their lands. Would be perfect fer some farmin'."

"Hey! Dye making is a respectable pursuit!" a small colt said as he confronted the rough mare.

'Applejack' raised a hoof defensively. " 'Course it is. Any hard work is good work from where Ah'm standin'."

Twilight squeezed her eyes in an attempt to get a better look at these two newcomers. Almost instantly they had defused a violent situation and started speaking with the formerly fighting ponies. The mare's fur stuck up. There was something unnerving about the magic surrounding these two, like something else had latched onto them, but symbiotically. Both seemed to grow stronger off of each other rather than keeping each other healthy to begin with.

Already stocked up on necessities and dropping a few coins just in-case, Twilight tried to slowly sneak away with her loot in tow. She felt a shock to her neck slowly followed by something she didn't want to hear.

"Hey! She's stealing from the stands!"

Twilight cursed and took off with the two odd ponies behind her.

"Go away!" Twilight begged them.

"Y'all can't go 'n steal from ponies, thief!" the orange mare shouted. "Come back 'n we'll get this all sorted out!"

Twilight knew exactly what was going to happen if they caught her. If they didn't recognize her then she would be trapped in this village to work in the fields and she would never see her end goal accomplished. If they caught and recognized her, though...

With the acuity the lavender unicorn developed over years of ritual casting and surgical procedures, she was able to spot and cut through the lasso of the rough pony before it was able to wrap itself around Twilight's neck and lock her in place. Almost instantly afterwards, Twilight felt an aura of magic starting to form around her body and dissolved it with her own.

"Hoo! This one is talented in magic," the white pony complimented.

Twilight skid on the dry dirt pathway and drifted into another street, surprising her chasers and causing them to fumble and roll away briefly. The mare laughed but her mirth quickly devolved to panic when she saw the orange pony breaking through a bunch of old wooden containers carrying trash and sporting the most furious glare Twilight had ever witnessed. Well...second most furious.

Even though they had managed to get out of the village, Twilight wasn't able to get her pursuer off her back, and, even worse, the rough pony was catching up. It didn't help that the lavender unicorn didn't exactly do much galloping and was content with walking around to avoid attention.

"Ugh. I can't...keep this up...anymore...Spike!" Twilight wheezed as she started limping.

"Ha! Leave it ta a thief ta have no stamina. Never worked an honest day's work!" Applejack proclaimed. "Could've just waited 'n we would've just talked 'bout it!"

Those were lies if Twilight had ever heard them. She noticed a shadow right in front of her and just barely dodged her undead. In a fraction of a second, Spike had vaulted over Twilight and brought its large claws down to smack the mare's pursuer like he did the farm pony a few weeks ago. To the mare's surprise, Applejack managed to stop herself, standing on her hind legs to diminish the chance Spike's hand could reach her. Hooves stepped onto the undead's arm to gallop up it.

"Ha! Gonna have ta do better'n that ta-Grf!"

Spike still had the left arm it used to grab Applejack, wind it back, then throw her as hard as possible through the air and back into the village. The undead quickly slung its master over its shoulder then made for the south, giving a wide berth to the village. It held threats to its master and, thus, could not be approached nor could they remain in proximity, and so it pursued the direction the tired unicorn was taking before stopping.

The ride was quite bumpy and very uncomfortable, but at least Twilight was relatively safe now. She still had the nagging feeling that she crossed ponies she shouldn't have messed with. She wanted to go home, sleep in her bed, then wake up in the hopes that all of this was a bad dream. The temptation of using the medallions was strong, but she was already so close to her goal. It would be extremely aggravating to have gone all this way for nothing just to get caught by annoying ponies. At least she escaped her problems...this time.

Pursuit

Twilight's whole body ached. She hadn't pushed herself to that extent for quite a long time. Fleeing from Canterlot was just as grueling a task. As she bounced in Spike's arms while directing him, she recalled that horrible year when she ran away from those who took her teacher from her, stumbling around the land and seeing the crazed gazes of the ponies all around her. Those in Canterlot proper were the worst of the lot. Slavering, blood-hungry brutes and barbarians who jumped at the slightest bit of discomfort, blaming all their problems on others rather than trying to find the source or asking for help. If it wasn't for the griffins visiting the city then it's possible Twilight wouldn't have been able to get out with all the inhabitants and guards wandering around the streets every day.

They, minotaurs, and Saddle Arabians all managed to shuffle Twilight through various parts of the city until she managed to smuggle herself out of Canterlot proper. Not with the help of her own. Traitors. The mare thought she could live in small villages, expecting them to be remote enough, but the inhabitants always ended up recognizing her or some errant guard or soldier was back from a long deployment to the corners of Equestria and recognized Twilight immediately, forcing her to galop further and further. She was going southeast to the sea, hoping to take a boat and go to the continent east of Equestria, but a thought had crossed her mind: No pony ever really talked about the northern regions of Equestria itself. The areas bordering what used to be a frozen wasteland before the Crystal Empire simply 'apparated' back into existence.

It was during these many trips that Twilight eventually learned how to survive on her own, but not without many setbacks. Learning to build your own shelter and checking for dangers at night. Food was determined by imitating other mammals and seeing what they ate, and she already knew how to boil water. Almost a year into her disappearance from Canterlot, Twilight had, essentially, become a savage mare: Extremely dirty with her mane and tail in horrific knots. The only thing that kept her sanity intact was the strand of Celestia's mane that Twilight kept tied and hidden in her own. It was always clean and straight compared to her own, but she was always worried she would lose it.

During her travels north, the mare was fumbling through the forest, looking for some fruits she could eat or herbs to harvest to boil herself some salves. That's when she came upon the cave and decided to take shelter for the night. It was the entrance of her new home. Well-hidden, covered, and a veritable maze inside. It was all she could ever hope for. Even better were the guards and soldiers hunting for her had thinned out when going to the northern mountain ranges until they vanished entirely and only the local patrols that didn't know nor care about Central Equestria's problems were left.

The mare pursed her lips. She was probably going to attract their attention again if those two ponies blabbed about her to the guards.

"Why didn't you kill them all?" a voice asked Twilight. "Now they'll know you're still around and come chasing after you again."

"They won't find me again. Not this time. Not after everything I've worked hard for," Twilight stated.

"All it takes is one misstep and you're through. All those years of research, all those notes. You can't trust the ponies in Flarolina. They're all part of the 'under hive'. They're all out for themselves."

"I know!" Twilight thought. "But they're the only way I'll find Celestia and finish my research."

As the trip went on, the natural disasters seemed to multiply. Mudslides blocked a quicker way to the desert, adding a few hours of travel time, and a terrible storm akin to a typhoon forced Twilight and Spike to dig a shelter at the base of some trees and hide there for a whole day. It was a miracle that the storm hadn't brought in flood waters again, or Twilight would have been forced to use the medallion and flee to her home empty-hoofed. It reminded her so much of the early days of her initial flight, but she had grown accustomed to the strain of hunger and the sponginess that thirst brought to her mouth.

Some strange winged monstrosities also swooped down to 'yoink' Twilight from the ground the closer she got to the desert, but thanks to the presence of Spike, the avian monstrosities found themselves snatched from the air and their spindly necks broken in barely a few seconds of action. Twilight was becoming more and more grateful for bringing Spike to 'life'. Without him, she would have been caught unawares multiple times and captured, or worse.

Then finally, after nine days of travel, the humid air started to dry out and heat up intensely. Plants became sparser as the climate became arid, dotting the landscape with blackened bushes breaking under the lightest of breezes and sand fighting against stubborn grass to claim as much land as they could. Twilight gulped when she saw the desert stretching out far before her. She had Spike show her the water rations and wiped her forehead. She had enough to last a few days in the desert if she hurried up and rationed herself. Her fur insulated her skin somewhat, protecting her from the sunlight and mostly keeping her safe from the chance of overheating and dying there. Even Spike wouldn't be able to save her then, and he would disappear with her.

It was a terrifying thought, but Twilight had more and more terrifying thoughts lately and they did nothing but increase in volume, so, once more, she steeled herself and got ready to step into the boundaries of something she didn't know and didn't want to. Because of Spike's escapades, the two had found themselves off-track by a few hours of travel per the unicorn's assumption. She looked around, trying to find some potentially recognizable landmarks and be able to direct herself to the Golden Pins. The mare facehoofed. The pins were an hour of walking from where she stood on the left, and they were far bigger than she had anticipated. Gigantic crystalline spikes jutted out from the ground and the desert sands, reflecting golden sunlight in every direction and making their 'branches' sparkle from the various angles their surfaces sported.

It was a bizarrety of nature that Twilight couldn't even understand. Some kind of oddity unique to Equestria and which acted as its own sort of biome. The temperature remained consistently high, and the unicorn almost felt like she was cooking, but just seeing these 'trees' growing high in the air tickled her researcher's soul fiercely. The surface of the crystal trees was lukewarm at best, contrasting the environment they sat in and the sunlight above. The mare took a swig of water from her supplies when she spotted several tiny, insect-like creatures wearing shells seemingly made of the same crystalline substance as the rest of the trees. Six legs, disc-like bodies, and very long mandibles that would likely hurt if they pinched you, but these creatures fled on Twilight's approach. A tripodal creature, as big as a fox, peered around a corner to look at Twilight with its singular eye possessing three golden yellow pupils that seemed to rotate and lock in place at regular intervals the longer Twilight looked at it. It was carrying something in its mouth that dripped with a yellow liquid that ran down its chin. Its legs were thin spikes that it used to quickly break apart the ground and dive into the free sand with its catch, showing Twilight that its crystal body vibrated rapidly, allowing the strange creature to swim through the sand and redirect itself.

It was like Twilight was visiting a zoo for the first time in her life again, and everything in the 'woods' was so fascinating to her. Well, it was fascinating until she bumped into and tripped over something. Spike, increasingly on alert the longer they stayed here, put Twilight back onto her hooves and continued to scan the area. The mare uncovered a desiccated pony corpse that had been sitting there for who knew how many years. The fur had disappeared, leaving behind a prune-like body with not even the eyes left. It was like the pony's own skin had strangled them to death with how tight it had become.

The mare immediately got to work working on the corpse and taking as many notes as she could, but she found herself having to spit into the ink to get it humid again. The subsequent notes quickly dried in the hot sun intensified by the trees, but the mare was already garnering a ton of new information she absolutely needed. Twilight had already amassed a large stack of forty-nine pages in small font. All of a sudden, all her concerns had gone away and only the mare's research mattered.

Focusing on the true reason for the experimentation, Twilight poured her magic into the body to see how it would react to being brought back to life. At first, the corpse didn't move, but something similar occurred with the unicorn's first zombie a few years ago. Her ears perked up when she heard a nasty cracking sound, endemic to something like a thin film of melted sugar or grease being moved from a surface. Twilight watched as the corpse started to shift and move around, revealing the dried, slightly reddish muscle underneath. Its movements were stiff, like it was fighting against its own body to get its articulations to animate, but with every success came a nasty shredding noise and bone popping from the years of gas build-up finally being released.

Its lips, long since turned to dust, snapped off to reveal retracted gums just barely holding onto sharpened teeth eroded by sand and wind. A lot of them were missing, but it was still an unnerving sight for Twilight to handle. Still, she quickly jotted down everything she could about how this undead was rising from its long slumber. All the data she was getting was pure gold! It reminded her of old tales of mummies, but what the unicorn considered to be more 'realistic'. It was somehow able to navigate despite lacking any form of eyes and slowly shuffled towards Twilight, its entire skeleton snapping and cracking the whole time. Once it was a few hoof steps from its new master, it looked to its right and shuffled away. It was easily more mobile and capable than regular zombies, but its flesh was very badly damaged.

Twilight dry-heaved when she thought of her precious mentor in the same state as this poor pony, but this only served to improve her resolve, and so she continued to wander the 'woods' with Spike, leaving the mummy to wander around and eventually be destroyed by whatever large creatures lived here. Unfortunately, with the amount of sand that kept blowing in and what already existed, Twilight was only able to find three more bodies. The sun was also starting to set, and the air was getting unusually chilly as a result. There was no way to pitch a tent, the crystals weren't trees, so the mare wasn't certain that she could place a tree house without them collapsing under all the weight, and there were no stone outcrops sticking out from anywhere.

The unicorn dragged a hoof across her face. She was going to have to dig again. If anything went wrong, she could always use her medallion, but she would hate to have to make the trip back again. Twilight surrounded herself and Spike with several barriers of protection that would grant her a bubble of air and protect her eyes and ears from sudden pressure changes or sand getting in them and went to work. The sand was surprisingly compact thanks to the 'roots' of the trees that seemed to go down deeper and deeper than Twilight initially thought. Inspired, the mare kept going until she found herself in a sand cavern created by the fake trees above. Sand ran down everywhere in rivers and streams along the 'walls' and pockets surrounding the single piece of solid, albeit pockmarked, ground. The unicorn and Spike had managed to dig through one of the few bits of wall that weren't covered by a seemingly infinite flow of sand, and to Twilight's morbid delight, she could see many mummified remains sticking out of the walls and flowing down with the sands, be they pony or other. What she hadn't noticed was an enormous, sapphire-blue eye looking at her from the walls.

Knowledge

"Wow," Twilight marveled. "Look at all this, Spike," the mare said to her 'dragon'. "It's a sand cave, and it's full of mummies!" She looked Spike in the eyes, her own gleaming with excitement. "I can't wait to take them all back with us!"

Twilight backed up in the tunnel and used the extra space to gain momentum and hop through a falling current of sand and land on the solid 'island' of blackened rock. On her way she ended up colliding with a falling body and got her brand new test subject to play with. She wasn't going to bring them back to life right away, though. That would be a waste in a place like this. She wanted to be able to observe the mummified remains in her laboratory before freeing them into the city below. It felt wrong to bring these ponies back to life and then keep them trapped in some kind of pen for her entertainment.

Spike landed right behind her, its claws digging into the stone to prevent it from slipping off. It watched Twilight look at it with glee and pull out surgical instruments from her own saddlebags.

"Spike, could you grab any mummies you find and bring them to me?" She patted a spot with her hoof to her right. "You can plop them here, please." The mare grimaced while looking at her assistant. "And don't fall into the sand. I don't know if there's a limit to how far these medallions can reach." She rubbed hers with a hoof. The image of that thing filled her mind. "I don't know what it did, but we can't play with distance. You'll be lost forever."

The mare returned to her enamored pursuits, cutting apart, peeling back, and digging into every mummified body she could find. Because she had come with supplies, the mare estimated she could stay there for at least three days before needing to return home. Three whole days of picking up whatever errant bodies appeared and three days of experimentation in a place literally no pony else would be able to reach! If it weren't for the impending chance of the 'roots' breaking and all the sand collapsing, burying her alive, then Twilight would have considered moving here, or at least making it a secondary base. The heat was a slight problem, but it was barely noticeable when compared to the surface.

Twilight gleefully conducted her experiments, comparing the state of decay and desiccation between bodies and placing them in designated piles to be marked for later. She had so many more theories to work on in the future and test their truthfulness or falsehoods. This part of the 'job' was what Twilight adored the most. She sometimes wondered what she would have done had Celestia not been...temporarily incapacitated, but it was too late to wonder about that anymore.

The mare paused. The same thoughts crept through the recesses of her mind every time she worked on what she was sure she loved, and reason as she might that she shouldn't dwell on the past, she still wished, deep with her, that none of this had ever happened.

Twilight pursed her lips. "Come on, Spike. Let's set up camp then go to sleep," the mare said with a yawn. "We've had a long week and today has been exhausting."

Her modest home had been stitched together with random assortments of cloth and destroyed clothing, but it did its job, especially in this environment. With a modest meal taken in and other business resolved, the mare checked outside of her temporary shelter, suspicious of any strange creature that could be lurking in the ever-flowing sands then sealed up the tent.

The next day was extremely enjoyable for Twilight. She hopped up and bonked her head against Spike's. The undead had been keeping watch over her throughout her slumber. Without the sun to guide her, the mare couldn't determine what time it was. She wondered if it wasn't better to just leave after the second day so her circadian rhythm wouldn't get destroyed.

Regardless, she and Spike fished out new bodies from the depths of the sand and got to work. It was only by the third 'operation' that Twilight froze in fear. Her skin grew goosebumps, her fur stood on end, and her blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Her primal instincts were telling her to run, but she was stronger than the baser savagery inherent to all living things. She forced her stiffened body to turn, feeling every one of her muscles fight against their host. The mare well and truly froze when she discovered what it was that caused these problems.

In a wall of sandstone was a single, giant, blue eye that sparkled like a sapphire. It had been watching Twilight the whole time, unblinking and silent. Twilight made for her medallion when the rock around the eye started shifting. Every movement was a sudden jolt then lock, like a machine. It moved twice to its right, then once upwards, revealing the smallest portion of a crescent-shaped mouth.

"What is this that comes before me?" it asked. Its voice was loud and rough, like somepony was rubbing marbles against each other. "A living pony? Why do you disturb my eternity of imprisonment and reflection?" it asked. Twilight was dumbfounded. "What ails you, pony? Is my existence so grandiose that it has caught you blind, deaf, and mute?"

"Wh-what?!"

"My mere existence baffles you quite a bit, I see," it continued. Its head turned to the right twice, revealing another eye under its triangular maw. Try as she might, Twilight couldn't see said maw move when the entity spoke.

"What are you?!" Twilight asked in terror.

"I am what I am," it responded. "Cast down from my place and stuck here as punishment, my mind full of knowledge."

The mare raised her brow. "Why would you specify knowledge?" she asked it.

The whole wall shifted, revealing the outlines of four arms akin to a minotaur's, or at least what seemed to be arms. Everything of this creature seemed to rotate in some manner in the walls, unable to exit them.

"Because I saw your experiments with the desiccated unfortunates of the sands above," the entity continued. "I enjoy the practitioners of necromancy and their art, but you aren't the first to have come here, looking for sources of knowledge." Twilight blinked slowly, still attempting to process the situation. "Your work is sloppy on these deceased," it chastized. A hint of frustration seemed to come from afar then hit Twilight's ears. She wasn't sure what was happening nor what kind of sensation that could be. "It is obvious you are only used to working with the dead in the wetlands," it continued.

"That's why I'm here," Twilight growled. Her fears had subsided almost instantly. "I came here to learn how to restore and reanimate the mummified."

"And you will have much more work to do." Its head raised once, allowing it to just barely open its maw, revealing it was comprised of three segments, and the shine of the crystals above ran around the gums like an odd webbing. "I can grant you the power you seek. The ability to evolve as a necromancer."

Twilight sat down and crossed her forelegs. "No."

The cavern trembled. "What? No?" the entity said. "You baffle me. The few creatures who came here seeking treasures, and the fewer still that were practitioners of your branch jumped at the opportunity I proposed." Several large chunks of the wall shifted and rotated, like the entity was getting more comfortable. "Do you seek, rather, immortality?" It paused. "You skittering beings pay heavy prices for such a thing."

Twilight waved her foreleg. "No. I'm only trying to learn how to bring somepony back to life."

The entity stared at Twilight, silently analyzing her and her words. The cavern glowed with the sunlight on the surface and the roots seemed to flow and grow as though enthused by whatever this visitor had said.

"Those who died by Death's hand are not so easily taken back when their hour has ended. Whatever aspect of Death holds your beloved's essence is--"

"She didn't die of old age!" Twilight blurted. "She was murdered! By traitors! All of them! They blamed all their issues on her, but she did all she could for a thousand years and didn't even fight back when they brought her down!" Twilight's eyes filled with tears as years of pent-up anger and frustrations flowed out. "I was her student! I looked up to her and she took me in as her own, personal student! I was so excited! I wanted to show her that I could surpass her expectations, and she never once looked down on me!" The mare shifted to the side. "I was chastised if I didn't do my work or I wasn't studying well enough, but that's normal as a teacher, and it pushed me to do better..." Twilight's ears drooped and she did her best to cover her hiccups. "Now I'll never know what she had planned for me and I'll never be able to impress her again with my magic development and knowledge, and no other little filly who almost had her hopes crushed will be brought up by her again."

The cavern echo'd with a grumbling, grinding noise that Twilight could only equate to some form of raucous laughter.

"Look upon me and see my fate, cast from my spot above those you could call 'gods'. Higher still than that, and see that my body has been interred within this land by those of my own stature," the entity said. "I grow yet on this plane, enticed by this existence I could not truly perceive, but your skittering kind breaks us apart on the surface, and so the world grows with me."

Twilight, through tear-filled eyes, looked at the wall the entity was embedded in and slowly realized the crystals were all flowing from its body and position. Even when it shifted the roots would not break, and it didn't seem to actively be trying to break them.

"Y-You're the Golden Pin Woods?" Twilight asked with her mouth agape.

"Is that what I am called above the sands? Very well then."

The unicorn paused. "Wait," she said before dragging her foreleg across her dripping muzzle. "How do you speak my language?"

"I peered within the brains of these dead." Its maw shuddered. "What existed when the soul was within was left behind in the body when they died. I partook in that knowledge." Before Twilight could get a word in, the entity shifted itself again. "You are unique among magic practitioners. Those who seek more knowledge tend to only want more power which would enable their needs in the future, but you are amusing. You simply seek more knowledge to accomplish a life goal, and if you increase in power then that is just a benefit you pay no attention to." There was yet another pause. "I can guide you and teach you what I know of the mummies, if you so choose, otherwise I will leave you here." The unicorn weighed in the pros and cons of such a thing, but she had yet more weight placed onto her collapsing thought processes. "If it took you years for the wetlands, then it will take you just as long for these," it mused.

Twilight groaned and covered her face with her hooves. "Fine!" she said. "But I want to know something."

"Am I not going to show you?" the entity asked.

"No, not the necromancy. You've been trapped here, per your own words. How do I know this isn't just a ploy to play a game with me or something and then kill me? What happened to the others who visited you?" she asked.

"Those that came before were trapped here with me," the thing explained plainly. "Some vanished, but I suppose they escaped." It shifted again, shaking the sands loose. "You worked upon some of them," it explained calmly. Twilight paled at the thought for a reason that eluded her. "To the first query, immortals that find themselves trapped and unable to pass on have a few outcomes to them. Mine is to simply stay here, relaxed, head empty. A bit of stimulation is not unwelcome, but I do find it somewhat irritating to have my relaxation broken by intruders," it complained. "It takes a while to recede thought processes and be stuck in my own mind."

The mare furrowed her brows and shifted her shoulder. She could propose to free this thing, but she didn't know what it was nor what prospects that would bring with it. The mare still felt strapped for time, but that didn't mean she had to do everything this...thing wanted. If it asked too much or somehow threatened her, then she would teleport away with Spike, and without...without the bodies. She internally gawked at the prospect.

Newcomers

"What are you doing?" the entity asked Twilight.

"I'm applying moisture to the meat," Twilight explained through grit teeth.

"The flesh is like a blighted soil: The water will not take. You must punch holes into the meat and insert the water into every microscopic section, else the effort will be for naught."

Twilight was being taught by this entity for hours now and it was aggravating. Every action she did, no matter how minute, was met with reproach and judgment. She had almost run out of paper for her notes thanks to what it had taught her so far, but that didn't excuse how aggravating it was to listen to its complaints nonstop.

The mare decided to apply what her makeshift 'teacher' told her and use a scalpel to cut multiple thin slits into the dried flesh and start pouring the water into all of them at the same time, being careful not to use too much.

"Yes. Very good. You learn fast," the entity said.

"I've been doing this for years," Twilight rebutted.

"You have been cutting into the wet, not the dry. There is an extreme difference between the two corpulent states," it continued. "Just know that bringing your precious skitter back to life means that you must also rehydrate their blood."

Twilight smacked her forehead and wrote that down along with several other things that came to mind following that simple line. She continued to 'ply her trade' under the guidance of this entity, finding interest in the irritation of its mere existence. It was like it didn't know how to properly interact with anything. The mare wondered if it didn't simply forget due to the isolation it had been suffering from. Though she didn't like the idea of keeping this thing imprisoned, she felt something holding its body in place that she could not identify, and she didn't know the context for its imprisonment. Whatever it said would only be the truth per its testimony and nothing else. That wasn't a trustworthy source, and Twilight didn't have even a semblance of a molecule close to the power needed to dispel whatever entombed it here.

"Now try bringing it back to life," the entity said.

Twilight paused. "But...But I'll lose a valuable experimental component!" she panicked. "I-I-I won't be able to observe it and--"

"You have been writing notes," the entity interrupted. "Just observe what transpires now and enjoy the benefits of a more controlled environment later." The entity shifted again, the mechanical clicking filling Twilight's ears. "This is part of the tutelage you require."

The mare was deep in her mind when she stood up from her test subject. "Why are you helping me, really?" she asked.

"Because it is a form of entertainment and stimulation," the entity responded flatly.

Twilight furrowed her brows further. "That's not possible. No pony just helps out of the goodness of their heart when it comes to magic."

"You just used the word that explains it anyways. No pony. I am not a pony."

Twilight shook her head. "N-no, that's just an idiom-You're telling me you're just doing this because you're bored?"

"Yes."

The mare paced about under the gaze of Spike, trying to comprehend everything happening. She couldn't engross herself in her experiments, but leaving this creature meant losing a treasure trove of knowledge. It wasn't impossible to return, but the trip would be excessively exhausting. At least it wasn't deeper into the desert lands. She didn't want to think about how many days, or even weeks of travel that would have added.

Twilight poured her magic into the corpse, watching it rise and its body swell slightly. Its muscles had been rejuvenated somewhat, but they still appeared mostly desiccated, although the skin still flaked and the eyes were lost. It demonstrated far better flexibility and movement compared to the mummy left on the surface. Unfortunately, it still wasn't near a living creature's abilities. The stiffness, while lessened, was still an obvious factor in the mummy's existence, but this one seemed to groan with every movement.

"Wh-why is it making noise?" Twilight asked.

"That is simply the muscles contracting and pushing air out of the throat," the entity explained. "It is neither alive nor breathing and is just a consequence of these improvements. Let it not infect your mind." Twilight stared at the mummy wandering aimlessly and watched its throat contract and relax. "Although the wandering is concerning. Do you not bind them to your will?" the entity asked.

Twilight appeared repulsed. "No?" she said. "Why would I do that?"

The mare's 'teacher' was less than amused. "So, then, you can't control them?" the entity responded.

"W-well..." the mare kicked an errant piece of sandstone on her 'island'. "I can. It's just that I don't want to enslave them."

The creature's two visible eyes shrunk. "They are the corpses. Your magic takes the place of their souls. You are enslaving nothing when you bring them back to life."

"I know," Twilight was quick to respond. "I learned that necromancy ties souls to a body and puts them under one's thrall, but I never saw a reason to keep them imprisoned. I don't want them to feel like they owe me anything or they need to suffer under my experimentation," the mare explained.

"I see...And what about that one? The skeleton?"

"Spike?" Twilight chuckled. "He's my assistant. He's extremely helpful." She pat the undead's legs. "I couldn't have asked for a better assistant, and he gives me suggestions sometimes when I'm confused."

"Does he now?" The entity closed its eyes. "Let me rest a moment. This activity in this form after such a long wait has been tiring."

Twilight agreed, but just as she was going to lock the mummy in place, it wandered off the platform and was engulfed by the sands. The mare immediately felt her connection to it sever, undoing all her work. While terrible, at least it wouldn't be stuck down there, swirling for eternity."

The mare sat down and pulled out her rations, realizing that her experimentation cost her a significant amount of water. She would have to go back home today, sadly, or else die of thirst.

"I've been wondering," the mare said as she bit into some dried fruit. "How is it that you know so much about necromancy?"

The entity groaned but responded without opening its 'eyes'. "I was an aspect of death to some. I hold secrets of my own craft afflicting reality." Twilight paled. "But there are many like me. We all approach the concept differently. I was more interested in seeing how the skitters would react to the idea of defying death or reanimating the expired. Even some 'deities', as you called them, were intrigued. Oddly enough it was those affiliated with life that were more intrigued with such a thing, though the reason eludes me."

Twilight raised a shaky hoof to point at the resting entity and gulped. "S-so you're a g-god of d-d-death?" She heard that weird, echoing sound reaching her head again.

"I said before that I am not a God. I am to a god what they are to you, and there are those above even I, though the higher you climb the more abstract things become." It shifted slightly. "I am more connected to you because of my ejection, thus am I forced to exist in this miserly plane, but things are quite relaxing despite my state." A contented sigh reached the mare's ears. "It's not so bad when you get used to it, and I will not be trapped here forever," it added. "So I just wait and enjoy the relative silence this new existence affords me."

Doubt crept through the unicorn's mind. She wasn't sure what this thing was saying was true, but it would explain the strange feeling coming from it. The aura surrounding it felt far too abstract for Twilight to properly comprehend.

"Well, this was extremely fun," Twilight said. "But I have to pack up and bring everything back home with me."

"Very well. If you are able to leave then I wholly invite you to return whenever you feel like it. If you feel like it."

"Ha ha, yeah..." The mare said with a fake smile. "That's not happening any time soon," Twilight mumbled to herself while packing up her tent.

She laced the stock of mummies to herself and pulled out her amulet to start her return spell. It was possible to activate it instantly, but the sensation of being completely drained of your magic on your return was not a pleasant one."

The eyes of the entity shot open when it felt Twilight's medallion, and the unicorn fell to the ground, clenching her head.

"What is that?!" the 'teacher' shouted. "It exudes something far detached from here!"

"I-it's a teleporter medallion!" Twilight screamed. The crushing pain in her head slowly receded, leaving her a panting mess. "I just...It was built by something I encountered under where I live."

"I see..." The mare wasn't certain, but she thought she could see the crystalline roots above trembling. "On your way, then. I want to see what becomes of you in the future now." Its maw squeezed itself back, revealing the glint of roots inside.

Unsure of what it was trying to portray, Twilight cast her spell and became engulfed in a swirling vortex of purple magic and sand. In a few seconds she and Spike, along with some extra cargo, found themselves back home. All the stress that had accumulated within Twilight almost instantly dissolved, leaving her to finally relax and her whole body to lose tension. As one final unfortunate gift of her trip, the relaxing also brought with it searing muscle pain. Without getting the chance to put the mummies in place, the mare dragged herself to her bed and wrapped herself up in her sheets as she did her best to try and sleep. She was wracked with pain and fatigue and felt like she was dying.

From all the efforts and magical expenses she endured, Twilight now found herself sickly and unable to do much except barely wander around the first room of her home, read, and take in liquids and simple foods. If it weren't for Spike then it could have been so much worse. It aided her in her movements and kept her from falling to the ground and just staying there. With Twilight's guidance, the undead dragon took all the mummies and plopped them in a corner of her lab. Twilight just had enough strength to create an orb of searing heat to place above them.

She was so sick and delirious that she was seeing hallucinations of Celestia everywhere, bringing her tears and joy at the same time. With no one around to help her aside from an undead, Twilight was unable to be taken out of her reverie and placed back into bed with some medication. While it was a good assistant, Spike could not do anything Twilight did not tell it to. It did not have the capacity for thought, let alone comprehension outside of set guidelines, so it watched Twilight mutter incomprehensibly and wander around in her delirium before seeing her collapse and bringing the mare to bed to hold her down until she finally fell asleep.

When Twilight finally came to, she was still far too weak to work on her experiments, let alone get extra supplies. She sighed in relief, realizing she still had an ample supply but that her water was running low. The mare looked at her assistant and smiled. He had kept her hydrated the whole time, just as she wanted. While she still had her wits about her, the pony was tired and needed her rest. She would bathe and work another day. Realizing the medallion was still stuck to her chest, Twilight pulled it off her, gazed at its strange surface again, and then placed it on the table next to her bed before finally dozing off. She would start her experiments soon, get more supplies, and then get ready for her trip to the Crystal Empire. This time she would be prepared for the backlash that her body would suffer. The more Twilight went through this, the stronger she would get. It was only a matter of time until her expeditions caused her neither physical nor mental anguish.

Confusion

Twilight was fortunate enough that she only spent a little over a week knocked out. What was less fortunate was the state of decay of the bodies she left behind. Her spell had been meant to keep them in stasis for about two weeks. With the addition of the time it took to reach the Golden Pin Woods and her sickness, the spell had dissolved, leaving the corpses open to the elements. She unleashed a cleansing spell and burned away every single insect that had invaded her lab in a swarm of black. Seeing the state of her reserves, the mare reluctantly dumped the rest down the chute into the city below after sterilizing them further. Her other spell had protected the mummies, but due to the lack of water in them, the insects steered clear anyways. Only a few bits of black ash were lying near the desiccated corpses.

Upset at the loss, Twilight made sure to value every single one of the mummies as much as possible. She pulled stacks of paper, quills, and ink pots from her supplies and got to work applying everything her teacher had shown her. Wanting to catch up on lost time, the mare was quick and meticulous. Every cut, every incision, every moving of skin and flesh was jotted down and recorded. Every mummy that came up was more mobile than the previous, but the issue always became the skin. Damaged beyond repair, Twilight could only think of bringing it back by using a regeneration spell, but if that worked then she wouldn't need to do all this work. Healing didn't work on the dead, after all, and she didn't want to bring Celestia back skinless and furless. What if the spells still didn't recognize her as a living being and she was stuck that way? What kind of consequences would that have on her psyche? Would that even still be Celestia or would the state her body be in cause her to change into something else?

The mare shuddered at the idea, that she could warp and mutate her teacher into something not entirely pony. Something not entirely natural. Pushing those thoughts behind her, Twilight continued her experiments day after day after day. She acquired a significant amount of very helpful data in her progress to bringing Celestia back, but she was starting to feel melancholic. Going back outside for so long brought back something from the recesses of her mind that the mare did her best to let flow over her so she could concentrate on her work. She started wondering if she should really go into the northern tundra instead of staying here and working with the mummies she still had on hoof.

Looking at her pile, Twilight sighed and leaned against the empty surgical tray. She only had two mummified corpses left, and not much sleep to show for it. Had anypony been there with her she might have been interrupted during her experiments so she could rest, but an inspired mind is a mind left unaware of its surroundings.

The mare leaned back on the ground and smiled at the mounds of notes she had made. There were around thirty-seven mummies in total that she was able to bring back with her, and the last one almost had the entirety of its musculature and cardio-vascular system restored, but looked...off. There was just the barest glimmer of tiny eyes in the empty sockets it had where the skin tightened and pulled back into nothing. It made no sound, unlike the others, and seemed similar to Spike in its unmoving behavior. Twilight gave it a big hug, talked with it, and then sent it down the chute with the others. She was eager to see how it would interact with the others.

For now, though, she would need to go back to Silvery with her notes. She needed a lot of supplies, and not just food and drink. Twilight put on her medallion, gathered everything into large bags that Spike slung over his shoulders, and with a fake coat covering his whole body the two hurried over to Flarolina.

"Twilight!" Silvery exclaimed. "Yeh were gone for so long! I got worried." The stallion looked up at Spike staring at him through its cowl. "I see the spooky dragon thing is still here as well." The undead slung the bags over its shoulders and let them land hard on the ground, causing the pony to jump in surprise. "That startled me!" he exclaimed. "What's even in those?"

"My latest research on mummified bodies!" Twilight declared jubilantly in the library.

Several of the other patrons started peering around the bookshelves to get a better look at the mounds of research notes and theorems Twilight had concocted.

"I see that some of these are cohvered in sand," Silvery said while shaking one group of notes loose of particles. "At least that eenhances the validity of these."

Twilight was shocked. "I'll have you know that I never falsify my research! There's nothing in it for a scientist to lie about their findings and research!"

Silvery grinned and looked upwards at Twilight without moving his muzzle from the notes. "And what if you're offered something you truly desire? Money? Positions? Homes?"

Twilight thought deeply but shook her head. "Grand temptations lessen the value of my research."

The stallion scoffed and went back to reading. "If yeh seey so..." He paused his reading and started comparing other bound notes with what he was reading. "These notes seem awfully advanced for somepony just now starting the work on a sobject they knew nothin' about before. Got some help?" he asked with suspicion in his tone.

The mare smiled sheepishly. "Nope. Just worked really hard and used what I already knew."

"I see," Silvery said. He was fully unconvinced but still took the bags with him to the decorated room in the back and emptied the contents onto the floor. "Tell you what," he told Twilight. "Yeh've been bringin' oos a ton of useful information, 'n thees is beyond mey weeldeest eexpectations. Yeh cen consider yehr supply needs ta be weell over a year's worth with all of thees. Of course, I mean neecessary things like food, water, clothing, hygiene, etcetera. Any other requests will be deducted from this 'debt' we're owed yeh," he explained.

"I understand," Twilight said. She became despondent and put a hoof to the side of her head. "I'll need to go and get some more bodies, though. I got...sick when I came back, and my stasis spell dispelled before I could recover," she lamented. "They all rotted past what I could work with."

"Isn't that why you're doing all these studies?" Silvery asked. Intrigued, he continued. "What if we find Celestia's body and she's in such a state? How are you meant to restore her afterwards if you only work on barely or partially rotted bodies?" The stallion took on a shocked look. "You...You weren't planning on letting her rot all the way down to a skeleton first, were you? What if you botch whatever form of restoration you discover and she comes out looking like something else?" He laughed internally at seeing Twilight's face twist in horror.

"B-b-but I--"

"It's fine," Silvery interjected. "Do everything on your own time, Twilight," he said. "You have plenty of it, after all."

Twilight took several deep breaths to calm herself from the pressure Silvery had just put her under. "I was planning on going to the Crystal Empire next to that night-time outcropping or whatever it was called."

The stallion pulled out a map and a list of instructions. "The Terrestrial Nebula. I knew that was the next place you'd go to."

The mare stared, dumbfounded, at the pegasus. "You knew?!"

Silvery chuckled. "Whach-nu. Our little informant jahst gave me both ta up north and tae the forest doon south-weest."

Twilight ripped the documents out of the stallion's hoof while glaring at him. "Gimme that," Twilight spat.

She peered at the map and ran calculations through her head as she tried to figure out the steps to take. She would need warm clothing and cold-resistant drink containers to go up north into that eternal tundra. There were monsters and strange spirits she would likely have to chase off, and the risks of being buried by an avalanche were mitigated by her medallion. However, she felt her blood freeze when she thought of the one thing she didn't want to meet up there. She learned of it through the news that Silvery relayed to her, but it was still an uncomfortable prospect. Provided nothing crazy happened, it was unlikely that she would have to worry about anypony finding her.

The trip would only take three days this time from her home to the border, but from there it might take a day or two to find the nebula. From the extra notes Silvery had added, it seemed that, while the nebula remained in that area, it regularly moved somehow, and no pony could figure out how or why. A massive blizzard would always obscure observation, and anypony that was staying in its vicinity or within its boundaries would vanish along with it. No one left wanted to tempt their fate, so the mystery remained unresolved for the time being.

Twilight pursed her lips and tensed up. Unlike the Golden Pins, this one appeared to have a time limit. She hated time limits. It had last moved four days ago, and its frequency of mobility was every four to eight days. The mare would have to use her medallion immediately if she saw signs of it getting ready to move. It was far more dangerous and stressful to her than the walk to the desert.

Silvery pulled Twilight out of her thoughts when he spoke. "Heard you had a run-in with the Eelements of Hermony," he said.

"Who?"

"The eelements?" the stallion repeated. "I told yeh about theem." Twilight shrugged, prompting the pegasus to facehoof. "The orange and white ponies you met."

"Oh. Ooooooh!" Twilight said in sudden realization. "That explains why I couldn't figure out what the magic around them was."

"Yeh. Figured you'd reecognize theem," the stallion added. He sneezed and wiped his muzzle. "Coy!" he exclaimed. "Anyways, I think you should steer clear of theet eerea for now. Doubt theey'd do anything for a common thief, but your dregon likely spooked 'em."

Twilight nodded. "I'll be careful. I'll grab my supplies now and get what I need for my new expedition."

"Okay," Silvery stated flatly.

Twilight had grabbed everything she required in advance and returned home using her amulet this time. She didn't want to risk losing anything from any unfortunate chases, leaving the stallion behind and lost in thought.

The necromancer was hiding something from him. He knew her long enough to be able to recognize any odd physical or vocal quirk she had. She was far too honest for her own good, and the stallion knew that she was only still alive because of her stubbornness and the research she supplied him with. Being dragged down into the old undercity by accident just because she was looking for some books brought her right into his lap and supplied him unexpectedly with necromantic research he never would have dreamed he would acquire during his time. All other necromancers were always so obsessed with immortality that they never brought him anything other than their path to lichdom which always gave the stallion all he needed to know about their phylacteries.

Twilight, however, was something else. Like every other necromancer she was focused on a single goal, but she didn't fear the inevitable, or at least not in the classical sense. If she died then Celestia wouldn't ever be revived, so she always went the extra mile to ensure her research and experiments would be as productive as possible. Silvery sat on a pillow and leaned to the side while reading through one of Twilight's booklets.

Her medallion came to mind suddenly, and the stallion found himself realizing it hadn't used any of the reagents he gave the young pony. The dragon also had one, and the two emitted a nauseating aura about them. How he hadn't noticed and Twilight didn't react to it was disconcerting, at best. He put a hoof to his chest, feeling his heart beating faster. Had Twilight stumbled upon things this world tried to forget? Or were they things that were always there? Silver gulped audibly. He didn't like how Twilight's sudden activity was bringing to light things he wished he wasn't alive to witness. Perhaps it was paranoia brought on by his line of work, but he wasn't going to take any chances. He would have to keep a closer tab on that lavender unicorn.

Screaming

Twilight was fully kitted in cold-resistant gear. She was wrapped in a thick, pale blue coat with white fur lining the edges. Thick boots of the same blue covered her hooves and most of her lower leg up to her hocks and knees. She was so afraid of the cold that she had even decided to put on a thick wool mask. She didn't regret it all considering nature was punching her in the face with strong and very cold winds since she entered the territory of the Crystal Empire. Visibility was quite poor outside of the light coming from the massive city and spire in the far distance, but even its white light seemed like a blur. The winds also deafened the 'explorer' in her attempts to find the Terrestrial Nebula, and had she not possessed a magic connection to Spike then it wouldn't have been able to follow her through the white wall that impeded movement more and more for every millimeter taken.

Even though it had taken only five days of walking due to the need to rest, finding the destination was harder than normal. Usually, the blizzards would have dissipated around the nebula, but Twilight had no luck there. She found a large cliff covered in snow and set up camp there, using the stone as leverage for her equipment. Snow was too fragile to use as a makeshift tunnel, especially since Twilight had no idea how solid or powdery it was. Instead, she pulled out a small map she borrowed from Silvery and started to try and figure out where she was precisely. Somepony had drawn a detailed map of the area near the border for about ten kilometers away from its limits and did this for around seven kilometers in width. Likely a researcher trying to uncover the secrets of the Terrestrial Nebula.

She eventually noticed that the winds were finally starting to settle down the further in she went and felt her heart race. After a quick look at the horizon, Twilight sighed in relief. She wasn't approaching the Crystal Empire itself but potentially what she was searching for. After a few more hours of trekking, Twilight finally made it through the blizzard. The mare shook Spike's leg from surprise and slowly took everything in. These weren't crystals or simulacrums of trees that sat here. These were entirely new things. The towering 'things' that comprised the Terrestrial Nebula were spires of night blue, almost impossible to see from afar. They reached high and multiple 'branches' seemed to sprout out from them to catch and fuse with those coming from their neighbors. It created a spiderweb of night blue throughout the air that only seemed to go on forever. Peering closer at the spires, Twilight realized that looking at them was like looking into the night sky. It hurt her eyes and brain to try and comprehend the disjointed mess of night sky and land around her, but it was intriguing all the same. Some branches had stretched out but had not managed to meet with any others, causing them to dangle loosely on the side of the spires and become pale and white, like bones. The area resembled a sizable quarry of a sort, with various-sized holes here and there going from a hoof's depth to being large enough to be classified as a small lake if filled to the brim with water. The strange pillars grew along the walls at various, strange angles, and while most of them would bend themselves to reach the sky, others would grow perfectly horizontal from the walls.

The mare could feel a strong magic in this place and an oddly familiar one coming from the dead branches. While she hadn't come for them, she still took several samples, each the size of a full-grown pony's legs, and placed them in Spike's bags. They broke off like icicles. As Twilight searched for any frozen bodies, she realized that the night skies in the webs would converge into each other from their respective spires, collide, and then erupt from the surface of the strange material, creating colorful, star-filled nebulae in the air.

It was pretty, but it wasn't getting her any closer to the bodies she was searching for. It took a couple of hours of constant searching before Twilight finally found one. It was likely the body of one of the researchers that stayed behind. They looked like they were in a panic and froze instantly. Whoever they were, their features had become white and icy as all the liquid in their body turned to ice almost instantaneously.

Twilight rubbed her hooves eagerly and started to pull out some notes and a clipboard. This was it! The moment she waited for so long: An expedition with nothing but the elements as an obstacle rather than other ponies. Using her magic, the mare heated up the ink in one of her ink pots and mixed it up with a wooden stick as it slowly melted with the heat. She felt very comfortable here for some reason, but her scribbling stopped. The mare looked around, suspicious of her environment. Two bizarre entities she couldn't comprehend popped out of nowhere since she started her expeditions. Why was she to believe that this was any different?

"You could harness their power, Twilight," a voice told the mare in her head. "The one in the sands was obnoxious but very helpful. What if there's one here?"

The lavender unicorn patted her head with a hoof. "No no. That's a naive notion. The second one was helpful, to an extent. If I didn't have the medallions or that tunnel I would have never been able to get out of there." She paused and put the quill to her lips. "Did the tunnel collapse? It was still sand..." Twilight cleared her throat and went back to scribbling. "I need to focus instead of focusing on 'what-ifs'."

"And what about the thing in the city beneath your house?" the voice insisted. "It could help you. It made the medallion."

Twilight bared her teeth angrily. "No!" she shouted. She started to chisel away at the ice with her magic, carefully taking in the flow of cracks and the various densities of the block of frozen water surrounding the unfortunate pony. "That thing was ripping my mind apart! I don't want to deal with it again." She coughed from the cold air scratching her throat. "If I go back down there to use that magic focused in the giant building, then I need to prepare many, many wards. Too much work for such a massive, unpredictable unknown."

"Your exam was also a massive, unpredictable unknown. Had Celestia not been there then you wouldn't have been able to enter the school or even stop your magic going haywire. Your parents--"

Twilight bit her lower lip to break the thought pattern. She didn't want to relive those parts of her life. The mare readjusted her clothing and got back to work. With careful chiseling and melting, she managed to free the mare still wearing a brown, false-leather coat filled to the brim with wool. Her boots were also still intact. Whatever the Terrestrial Nebula was made of, it seemed to take the creatures within its confines and keep everything intact during the transitions. Twilight could see a few foxes and birds down into one of the 'quarries' further away. They, too, were frozen solid.

The mare wasn't sure where to start with this. If she revived it immediately then the body wouldn't move at all. If she defrosted it instantly then the body risked breaking apart altogether from the sudden temperature change. As her very first test on a frozen body rather than just a limb or organ, Twilight filled it with multiple heat spells and watched it thaw. She still heard audible crackling and popping, but until she revived the body, she wasn't sure if it was just gas in the body finally becoming free or the interior disintegrating. She carefully jotted down the results and readjusted her stance to get a firmer grip in the snowy tundra.

Purple and teal light enveloped the body, surprising Twilight. Her magic never produced a teal light, but she was unsure if it was the ambient magic inherent to what she assumed was an earth pony or the magic of the Nebula that infused into her when she became frozen. Twilight watched in awe as the strange zombie's limbs snapped and bent in unnatural angles before righting themselves. Its movements reminded Twilight of the creature trapped in stone under the Pines, but with the ability to move. Even though every contraction and relaxation of the undead's body caused it to move in an instant, angled positions, it was still able to move forward. If anything it reminded Twilight of robots some ponies would draw and 'animate' with flipbooks. Every new position of the limbs was faster than the eye could see. It was further perturbing to see its head dangle upside down and take various other positions every time it moved. The unicorn still took notes of the situation and realized that she might have created a new form of undead. The idea somehow lit up her brain like a Hearth's Warming Eve tree and pushed her imagination into overdrive. Unfortunately, this wasn't the time she would be able to think of a name.

The whole area started trembling violently and the pillars started to expel more and more of the 'night sky' into the air, accumulating into a display of space filled with stars, galaxies, and a giant orange 'scar' that reached the entirety of the Terrestrial Nebula's length. Twilight couldn't admire it as she had just realized what was happening. She grabbed for her medallion but the land started bouncing and collapsing violently.

"We have to go, Spike! I can't focus on the medallions!"

She and the undead started running as fast as they could, hopping over rising blocks of ice and collapsing land beneath revealing dozens of frozen bodies hidden within. A veritable treasure trove for a necromancer or a surgeon. The mare looked behind her to see the new undead casually standing in place as the land broke out from underneath it and engulfed it whole. If only Twilight could have taken it with her. That was a nasty way to end a second time. The blizzard started swirling around the Nebula as its moniker above grew brighter and wider and started lowering itself. It was well on its way to engulf the whole area Twilight was trapped in.

"I'm not going to make it!" the mare panicked. She suddenly felt herself being lifted up. Spike had grabbed her and started pulling back as it continued to run. "Spike, no!" Twilight yelled.

The next thing she knew, she was soaring through the sky at breakneck speeds and landing in the snow several feet away from the colors as they crashed into the ground and snow was blasted up high. The mare was quick to scamper to her hooves in an attempt to go back for Spike, but it was too late. The Terrestrial Nebula had left. What a moment for it to disappear.

"Spike," Twilight sighed. A spark flew off her horn, and the mare, in a panic, tried to focus on said appendage. "Spike?"

He had reappeared somewhere nearby with the nebula, but Twilight could feel that he was frozen solid. Overcome with joy, the mare poured as much magic as she could into the undead to give it the strength to free itself.

"What's this?" a gruff voice asked.

Twilight was broken out of her trance and hesitantly turned around. She was face-to-face with crystal ponies equipped with brass-colored body armor. Several of them were sporting spears while others had retractable swords in their foreleg armor. The mare could see two armored wagons and around fifteen soldiers in total.

"N-nothing," Twilight said. "I was just going."

The soldier pushed her back down. "You jumped out of the Terrestrial Nebula. The first in a while. Normally we would celebrate such a thing, but we came here because our security teams detected some rather..." The stallion looked up while clicking his tongue. "disgusting forms of magic. You're the only one here, so you're going to be coming with us. If you have nothing to do with that, then you'll be free to go."

The mare started hyperventilating as she realized what was going to happen. She might not have been in Equestria, but she was still in the company of ponies no matter how different they looked to her. She called out to Spike in a panic and couldn't help but feel the world spinning around her as the soldiers around started to take threatening stances.

"You have to do it, Twilight! You have to do it if you're going to escape and save Celestia!"

She still had the medallion. Spike would be taken out of the block of ice, but was he too far? She just knew he was near, and she couldn't concentrate with all the pressure.

"Twilight!"

"No...No...No!" Twilight's magic went wild and blasted the soldiers around her back. Only the one pushing her down was thrown away, and a large bowl of snow was taken out from under the lavender unicorn. "You can't stop me! I have to do this!" the mare screamed.

The guards looked around as purple wisps started appearing in the air and dove into the snow. Massive snow golems started to rise, easily towering over the ponies and being thrice their length in width. Other wisps seemed to expand into odd creatures with immense maws that stretched far beyond the capacity of their bodies, pulling skin and muscle away from their skulls. Rags took form around their bodies, seemingly made from their own flesh and flapped in the wind as they flew around. The soldiers made out griffins, ponies, and reindeer among the spirits. One of them flew next to a guard and screamed at the top of its lungs, sending her careening backward from the force of its voice alone.

"She's the necromancer!" one of the soldiers shouted. "Take her down!"

Fights

Taking advantage of the sudden summoning of the undead, Twilight galloped as fast as she could in the high snow reaching past her ankles. She felt that her best option was to go in the direction of Spike, and with the undead attacking the guards, the trip would be relatively easy.

"She's getting away!" one of the guards said.

He was engulfed in one of the snowy arms of a golem and thrown into another guard trying to dodge several howlers. The unicorns that were there were erecting barriers to push the howlers away, but the spirits were surprisingly tenacious. Their screams were strong enough to make the magic shields rattle and harm the horns of the unicorns projecting them, irritating the group significantly. While their body armor protected them against average magical powers, they realized that whatever the necromancer had done had empowered these entities beyond normal.

"Why is she fleeing?" the first guard wondered aloud. "We need to catch her and knock her out!"

"Is that really going to-Gh!"

The second guard got crushed under an arm of ice that immediately remolded into snow when she was left in the crater. Another soldier engulfed himself in fire magic and, with the help of two earth ponies, flew threw the air in a corkscrew fashion, melted through the necromantic monstrosity, and tended to the wounded.

"She's alright!" he yelled. "The armor took most of the damage."

The first guard slammed his hoof against his armor, scaring off some howlers. "We need to get our antimagic weapons out."

"Why didn't we do that in the first place?!" a soldier shouted. He used his armor to grip onto the head of the snow golem trying to crush him and slammed it head-first into the growing white landscape. "That would have saved us a lot of trouble!"

"Later! I need support against these howlers! Get me a barrier and lace it to two others!" he ordered. "If she's running away then that means she can't use that magic of hers so often regardless of its power!" He furrowed his brow and focused on the shrinking lavender dot on the horizon. "Necromancers always get full of themselves. Push her hard enough and she'll be the same," he grumbled. "A sergeant can still get things done."

Four of the unicorns hopped next to each other, cutting through several howlers with sword and spear and struck their horns together, forming a shimmer barrier around the sergeant and his two accompanying soldiers. They checked their magic limiting cuffs hidden in their armor and rushed forward. As howlers rushed close to them, any attempt to scratch and slice the armor off of their would-be victims was met with the shimmering barrier exploding against their touch and causing them to dissolve on the spot. Unfortunately, with every touch the barriers started to dissipate faster and faster. Their boots had been fitted with small 'plows' on the fronts, so while it didn't give them better traction on the snow, it still allowed for slightly better movement, and with their trained bodies it made the efforts almost negligible.

When they finally reached Twilight, they had to barrel through a newly formed snow golem. One of the sergeant's comrades still had her barrier up and used it to tackle Twilight, causing the magic within it to burst outward against the unsuspecting, panicking mare. She was sent flying, but the impact was lessened by the snow.

"You got her!" the sergeant praised between pants. "Well done!"

"All...in a day's work," the mare stated with a grin.

"Cuff her quickly, in case the spirits are being channeled through her magic," the sergeant ordered. He looked back when he heard the first click around the necromancer's horn and saw the howlers fade out of existence and the golems collapse. He nodded in approval and watched the soldiers start tending to each other and immediately stomped toward the unconscious unicorn. "Thought you could get away with bringing back the dead, huh? Why don't you bring back my parents and use them to torment me?!" he bellowed at Twilight before swiftly kicking her in the stomach.

"I thought you hated them," the mare soldier mused.

She was met with a smirk by the sergeant and the three started dragging Twilight back to the carriages. Of the fifteen that had accompanied him, everypony was injured in some way, although four were too injured to move.

"Alright, everypony," the sergeant started. "We weren't expecting this outcome, but we'll have to make do. I want those too injured to be placed in the first carriage with a medic. Two more will be in the other with...this," he spat as he gestured to Twilight. "The rest of us will walk alongside those pulling the carts. We don't have time to waste and we don't know the extent of our comrades' wounds. They'll be dropped off at our outpost to be stabilized while we continue to the capital. Hurry up and get ready to move out as fast as possible. Am I understood?!" he bellowed.

The capable soldiers slammed their breastplates twice with a hoof. "Yes, sir!" they yelled in unison.

Going all the way back to the Crystal Empire would take days, the sergeant lamented. Their outpost was hidden nearby and their proximity to the event was, at best, a form of 'chance'. He just didn't expect this 'chance' to be so brutal. Fortunately, no pony had died. Yet, and he wasn't about to let that happen. It took about three hours of walking to reach their outpost hidden in a black stone buried under the blizzard of ice and snow, and offloading the wounded was a stressful and tedious process. He was worried that one of them, a young stallion, would lose his leg, but the sergeant didn't have time to think about that now.

He immediately took extra medical supplies and rations with him for the trip back to the capital city and grunted with every freezing step he and the others took. They had to take breaks every few hours to warm themselves up or risk frostbite, but it was worth it to see the face that his rulers would make for delivering him a necromancer.

"Maybe they'll bring out a public execution?" he mused quietly to himself. He shook his head. "No. They're not Sombra, and we're not barbarians, but that still doesn't tell me what they'll do," the sergeant thought to himself.

However strong the barrier was, it had somehow knocked Twilight out for two days. Her awakening was a groggy and painful one, and she clenched her stomach and head in great pain.

"What happened?" she mumbled.

"She's awake!" one of the guards watching her announced.

"Make sure she doesn't try to escape or do anything...uh...stupid," another outside responded. "You know the drill."

Twilight struggled to move but found that her legs were bound together and her magic was being suppressed. She kept trying to escape, thinking that 'just a little more' would snap her bonds. With her magic suppressed, she also wasn't able to activate the medallion, and chanting wouldn't do anything either, unfortunately. As the realization of what had happened to her slowly started to set in, she began to hyperventilate again.

"No! You have to let me go!" she pleaded. The guards looked at her silently. "You have to let me leave! I'm trying to bring back Princess Celestia!"

The pair looked at each other and laughed in unison. The black metal interior of the cabin seemed to rock with the movement.

"Yeah. Sure you are," the left guard mocked.

"Maybe she'll find where Luna fled to as well," the right mused. She lowered herself to Twilight with large, pleading eyes. "Oh, please do. We soooo miss her," she teased.

"It's not a joke!" Twilight cried. "My research! It's important!" Her hyperventilating caused the magic in her body to start going haywire and the ring around her horn to start glowing orange with heat.

"What's going on in there?" the sergeant yelled. A loud 'pop' followed by Twilight collapsing as smoke rose from her body was the response the stallion got. "Oh. Carry on," he said plainly.

After another day, Twilight was physically woken up by one of her captors and looked at him with groggy eyes. "We're a little over an hour to reaching the capital of the Crystal Empire," he said with a smile. "Aren't you excited?"

Twilight's pupils shrunk in horror. Not the capital. Not there of all places! "No! Let me go! Please! I don't want to go there!"

The two guards laughed. "I think she's excited," the second guard said.

"Guess that makes three of us!" the first added.

The immense crystal spire and the light brought by the Crystal Heart at its base brought some relief to the sergeant and his fellows. With its magic the blizzard that once ravaged the land had been focused onto its borders instead, making it all but impenetrable to unprepared outsiders. He couldn't wait to finally get back home, put his hooves in front of a warm fire, and have a nice, warm meal to defrost his bones.

His reverie was interrupted by something catching his attention from the corner of his eyes. It was hard to see with all the white snow reflecting light off of it, but something was coming towards them. Something unaffected by the snow. Something just barely sinking into the cold depths.

"Something is approaching us!" the sergeant announced.

The carriage stopped and the soldiers all jumped out, looking for the threat before following the sergeant's gaze. They didn't want to exhaust or distract each other with questions and so kept quiet. Only the freezing winds flowed between their bodies, nearly freezing them rigid. At first they believed it might have been a polar bear, but the closer the unknown object got, the more apparent the purple colors on its body became.

"It's another undead!" the sergeant announced. "Destroy its c--"

He was unable to finish his sentence as he was kneed in the face by a skeletal dragon, denting his helmet and sending him flying. Stunned by the sudden burst of speed, the others took a second to react when the new undead went directly for the carriage and attempted to pull the doors off without hurting what was inside.

"Take it down!" one of the soldiers shouted.

Spike pushed against the door, giving it some distance over one of the guards trying to stab it with her spear. It promptly brought two fists down onto her back, drilling her into the snow. It sidestepped a sword swipe and twirled around, grabbing the soldier by the head and throwing them into two others that caught the stallion and lessened the damage. Finally aware of what they were up against, the soldiers started fighting together rather than individually.

Two of them tried to stab Spike several times with their spears at random intervals from two different sides, preventing him from moving. This allowed a unicorn to be thrown through the air at its head with her sword outstretched. The undead dodged two more spear strikes and bent its torso to the right, throwing the mare's aim off. Spike brought his body back into its previous position in a flash, bringing its tough head against the soldier's left foreleg and head and sending her slamming into the armored carriage.

Spike stomped on one of the spears, caught the other, and pulled its user towards itself. It whipped the soldier's hooves with its tail then brought a knee to his stomach, paralyzing her. The other one was struck by the dragon's heel when it flipped itself around in the air to create momentum and strengthen its strike.

"We need backup," the sergeant groaned.

He pulled out two red crystals from small pouches in his armor and slammed them together, breaking them apart. The destruction produced a tremendous red flare the size of a two-story house that sparkled wildly several dozens of feet in the air. He smiled and then collapsed into the snow.

Seeing another major threat popping up, Spike changed its attention towards the sergeant lying motionless in the distance. The undead made to catch him but found itself being tripped and slamming face-first into the carriage, denting the surface. This continued for around fifteen minutes of the soldiers taking a different approach to the fight: Keeping their distance.

They realized their hard work had paid off when a pink ball flew past them and struck the undead in its chest, pushing it far back.

"Empress Cadance!" one of the soldiers declared with joy.

Another armored figure, this one fully covered in silvery armor rather than just partially armored with his face exposed, rushed past the two with a halberd on his back. He headbutted the undead that responded by grabbing the stallion's head and attempting to crush it against its knee. It was countered by two hooves striking down and throwing off the dragon's method of attack. Its opponent dropped to the ground and pulled out his halberd, slamming it directly into the undead's skull. He was met with a swift kick and pushed away.

The fighting lasted for several minutes as the undead did not tire and the dragon's opponent dodged and weaved attacks while stabbing and slashing the entity repeatedly with his weapon. Tired and fed-up, the soldier slammed his hoof against his chest and charged into the undead dragon. With all the damage he caused, the magic coursing through his armor disrupted whatever was animating his opponent and caused it to collapse to the ground.

"Tough bugger, isn't it?" the soldier mused. He poked it with the tip of his weapon and hummed. "The magic is still working." He nodded in admiration. "Quite a find, this." The stallion turned towards Cadance looking through the window on one side of the carriage, her face twisted in disgust. "I'll take this with us. Should provide valuable knowledge against the undead in the future."

Cadance wasn't registering anything the soldier was saying. Her contingent of guards was recovering the wounded while she tried to identify who was imprisoned within the carriage. All she could make out was the curled back of the necromancer.

She hummed in disgust. "So this is the one that was causing such an issue that you needed the death threat flare." Cadance focused her eyes, thinking she could see just a strip of color in the mane of the necromancer but brushed it off. "Bring them back to the tower and have them ready for us in the throne room."

"Yes, Your Highness," one of the new soldiers said.

Family

Cadance and Shining Armor awaited on their bi-seated throne carved and polished out of the very crystal that made their tower. The back of their throne was carved with a wave pattern meant to imply that their thrones had been merged together, but it also created the unintentional effect of making those looking at them see a heart. Four leg rests were present on the sides in case either of them wanted to sit on their rear for whatever strange reason and potentially intimidate anypony coming to see them. The walls let in the white light filtered through the gray clouds outside, creating a sparkling effect on the crystal that reminded everypony there of ice. A long, pink carpet ran from the large crystal doors to the base of the throne and was decorated with weavings of the Crystal Heart and the previous ruler of the Crystal Kingdom before Sombra had taken over. The royal purple alicorn was standing over the heart in some spots and holding it above her head in others. Several bits had been sown over for reasons that the current emperor and empress didn't want to talk about.

There were several balconies covered in floral patterns and inlaid with gold overlooking the throne room where several ponies were sitting. The velvety seats and floors made any waiting slightly less irritating for the attendees who were metaphorically foaming at the mouth after hearing of the existence of a necromancer captured beyond the borders of Equestria. Paranoia and rage bled forth from the attendees' mouths as conspiracies ran amok, accusing Equestria of everything from humiliation to attempting to weaken the empire to invade it.

On their side, the two rulers were infuriated that their guards would be so severely wounded. Two were already pronounced dead when they arrived, and the stress of having to announce it to their loved ones was a weight the two didn't want to bear. Unfortunately, the weight of their crown pushed their heads into their shoulders and threatened to shatter their spines. Shining pulled his halberd from its resting place on the side of his throne and slammed the hilt into the ground. It created a resonating echo that put an immediate stop to the brouhaha.

"Bring in the necromancer!" he ordered loudly. "And make sure to restrain her well! We don't want any accidents!"

A guard rushed to the throne to his side to share some information. It turned out that the undead they had restrained and kept in one of the lower floors was already fighting the spells holding it down and several unicorns had already burned out from the effort it took to keep the binding spells in place. Shining was starting to get cramps in his stomach and leaned over to his wife to share the news. She furrowed her brows in response as the heavy doors creaked open, pulled by six armored ponies waiting in the throne room.

Silence remained as the crowd above looked at Shining burning with a hither-to-unseen rage. Three guards escorted the necromancer forward underneath the stallion's glare and pulled roughly several times on the prisoner's chains just to cause further distress.

"Necromancer," Shining started at the top of his lungs. "You have been brought before the Emperor and Empress of the Crystal Empire. You were caught utilizing forbidden magics in the tundra, summoning the dead as your thralls, and employing a dragon wight to savage the garrison of an outpost." He watched as the mare was dragged further forward and started to fight against her bonds. Why did she seem so familiar all of a sudden? "Had they done nothing then it is likely no pony would have been harmed, but a necromancer is a dangerous and disgusting thing, and it comes to no surprise that my wife and I came to the conclusion--"

"That your continued presence would have likely led to the eventual kidnapping and murder of our citizens or any travelers in the region," Cadance continued. The necromancer was thrown violently at the foot of their throne. The alicorn stood up to glare down at the prisoner and apply her magic for intimidation. "Your ilk brings back the dead and torments families by using those corpses as soldiers and servants," the alicorn said in a hushed tone. "Raise their head," Cadance ordered.

The necromancer fought and grunted against the two guards trying to do as they were commanded. Annoying, one grabbed the mare's head and slammed it against the floor, eliciting empathetic gasps from the audience. When her head was raised, the two rulers paled. Cadance fell back in her seat with a hoof to her mouth and eyes wide while Shining's lips pursed and his body grew stiff. The deafening silence started concerning the crowd and the guards who began looking at each other, worried but not confident enough to speak up.

"Twilight?" Shining wheezed. "But...where...how?" He slowly walked down the steps, letting his halberd fall limply to the floor and used a hoof to raise the mare's head more gently. "You vanished years ago..."

Twilight smiled sheepishly, trembling from pain and fear. "H-hi, big brother..." she muttered.

The words 'big brother' caused a storm of outrage from the crowd that broke Shining Armor out of his stupor. Furious, he waved a hoof in the air.

"Guards! Escort these ponies out of here!" he commanded. "You three stay," Shining ordered the soldiers already watching Twilight.

The order reassured said guards as they forcefully expelled everyone from the throne room and closed the doors. Shining dragged a hoof across his face and started pacing about. Cadance was still in shock, but Twilight wasn't sure why.

"Twilight, you look terrible," Shining lamented.

The unicorn didn't see herself as anything particular. She had all the food she got from Flarolina's undercity, drank mostly water with the occasional fruit juice, and kept herself active. While she didn't really go outside much, she worked on the corpses, and the need for precision cuts and surgical procedures was an exhausting experience. Twilight never ate much and didn't have time to enjoy any sweets like pastries or hard candy. Her purpose in life was too important to waste on luxuries that wouldn't help her purpose.

Shining and Cadance saw the reality of the situation, however: Twilight was an emaciated wreck. She had large bags under her eyes and her mane, tail, and fur were in shambles. Her once smooth, flowing mane and tail were now clumped up, knotted messes, and her fur was stained all over. Her hooves, especially, had been worn down from the years of traveling and digging and were cracked and misshapen in several spots. It was obvious she tried to chisel them herself and was doing a very poor job.

The two rulers were further perturbed by the amount of magic flowing through her and trying to burst the lock around her horn.

"Soldier," Shining shouted. "Why is that medallion still around her neck? You were meant to confiscate everything on her!"

"Th-that's...We can't take it off. Four guards have tried already and came out comatose."

Ignoring the warning, Shining grabbed hold of the amulet and found himself floating in front of an entity that took up the entirety of his vision. Orange rectangles fading in and out of existence seemed to grow in size with every second that passed. It felt like he was being held in place by some unknowable force, but while his body was locked in place, his mind wasn't. Using his willpower, the stallion managed to let go of the medallion and be pushed backward. Several tiny black rectangles followed him a few centimeters from the medallion's surface before fading back into the metal.

The stallion was looking at his hoof and staring at Twilight's 'jewelry', panting heavily from the effort. Seeing that he was too stunned to say anything, Cadance stepped forward.

"Guards, take her to a guest room and keep her under watch. Make sure to erect more barriers around it to prevent any physical means of escape," the alicorn ordered.

"Are you sure?" one of the guards asked. "She's a necromancer and killed two of us."

Cadance sighed. "I know, but I know her personally and want to know exactly why she has done everything she has." She leaned forward and tried to make eye contact with the unicorn but Twilight would constantly look away, embarrassed. The alicorn felt some form of disgust, pity, confusion, and relief to see Twilight again. "She's obviously been through a lot already. I doubt the discomfort of the dungeons would affect her tone."

The guards shrugged. "Alright," one of them said. "If you're sure and you're still assigning us to watch her."

Twilight was shoved into a small guest room and left to her own devices once she heard the clicking of the lock. It was a modest room with a vanity mirror on the left of the single window decorated by two, plain, blue curtains. A bathroom was through the door immediately to the right of the entrance, and a plain bed rested against the wall opposite the vanity mirror. It was covered with a comforter that had the same colors as the curtains and hid half of two massive white pillows. The soft, pink carpet covering the whole floor was something of a relief to the battered mare who didn't have to feel the toughness of the crystal floors underneath her. Today had been a very long, very exhausting day, so she slowly waddled to the bed, pulled the comforters back with her magic, then laid down in it with her head resting comfortably on the pillows.

Her eyes shot open in shock. She hadn't felt this comfortable in ages. The mare suddenly realized she missed all of the creature comforts that had made her life so easy in the past when she was still Princess Celestia's personal student. She missed the beds. She missed the food. She missed the tremendous libraries full of books. She missed her magical research. Worst of all, Twilight started to think that she missed her family. All these years of avoiding the Crystal Empire just to prevent this scenario. The memories of what was and what could have been flooded her mind and made her start sobbing quietly in the room. Her tears eventually made her fall fast asleep relatively quickly, leaving the pillows stained with her saliva and tears.

The throne room was less relaxed, however.

"Twilight! It's Twilight!" Shining shouted in disbelief. "She vanished years ago after Celestia was executed by those idiots!"

"Shining" Cadance chastised. "Getting angry and pacing about is just going to stress you out even further!" She lied down, dropping her head onto the seat of the throne. "We haven't seen her and I also thought she might have been..." The alicorn cleared her throat. "Or that she had fled overseas, but she stayed behind. Why?"

"That's what I want to know," Shining said. "I haven't heard a peep of her since she fled Canterlot. Nothing. No pony had even seen her, and then she pops up out of nowhere as a necromancer of all things!"

Cadance rubbed her chin. "Well, she has always been a practical pony. If she became a necromancer she must have a good reason for it."

Shining grunted in agreement. "The reports are a bit contradicting in telling what she did." He looked at his wife in bemusement. "A lot of bias in there, but they all have one thing in common."

"And what would that be?"

"She ran away the moment she encountered the garrison," he said firmly. "Meaning she wasn't trying to actively harm anypony."

"But she did, and two ponies are dead because of her," Cadance said.

Shining exhaled, sat down, and rubbed his temples. "I can't tell what is completely true or not, but after they cuffed her, they were attacked by that undead dragon we spotted several days later." He hummed pensively. "It didn't go away like the other undead, and the danger it posed told me that whomever that body belonged to, they were a terrifying fighter." The stallion paused and then looked at his wife. "That's how that works, right? The undead?" He groaned when Cadance shrugged.

"Regardless, whatever she created, it's trying to tear about the Crystal Empire."

They both sighed in unison, the image of a young, excited filly loving books and teasing the two about their feelings for each other filled their minds. She was now replaced by a necromancer who had killed their soldiers and popped up literally out of nowhere.

"You think we could call the Elements of Harmony?" Cadance wondered. "They aren't bound to anypony, let alone the Council. They might be able to help her."

Shining chuckled. "Yes. I'm sure some random ponies will be able to solve this problem. No. This is a family matter." His stoic exterior melted when he thought about his little sister again. "Oh, Twilight. What happened to you?"

Hugs

"She appears to be sleeping," one of the guards in front of Twilight's room told Shining.

The stallion nodded and gestured to Cadance to approach. She rolled her eyes in response.

"Honestly, Shining. I can handle myself, especially if it's Twilight," the alicorn grieved.

"We don't know what she's capable of anymore." Shining pointed down. "She's summoned some kind of near-unstoppable undead beast that tears through everything it encounters." He approached Cadance to 'whisper-yell' in her ear. "It's doing it now! It keeps burning through the unicorns trying to hold it down."

The alicorn pushed Shining's face away with a hoof and gestured to the guard to move out of the way. "And I have the power of the Crystal Heart plus my own power." She smiled smugly at her husband. "I can deal with both of them if it really comes to that."

Shining huffed angrily. "Fine. Let's just go in and see what's up."

Cadance entered Twilight's room, her nerves on edge, followed by her husband who felt the same. They peered around the corner to see Twilight lying down in the bed breathing slowly but surely and drooling on her pillow. They both tensed up when they saw her cheeks stained with tears. They were unsure what to think in this situation. She clearly hadn't attempted to get out of the room. There was no damage to any of the furniture, she wasn't hiding in wait to ambush somepony, and she certainly wasn't actively trying to break the seal on her horn, unless she could control her magic even when asleep. The two rulers became further perplexed.

Shining slowly approached his sister and gently started shaking her awake. "Twilight. Twilight wake up," he coo'd.

"N-no. Studied too long. Tired," the unicorn mumbled.

"Twilight, this isn't the dream world."

The mare opened her eyes with difficulty and eventually sat upright, her whole body cracking and snapping from the sudden relief it was given after so long.

"Hm?" the mare wondered while rubbing her eyes.

The relief immediately fled when Twilight realized what was happening. She looked around for an escape and found it behind a pink mass her panicked and tired mind had yet to register. The mare made a break for it, jumping off of Shining and making for the door, but she found herself stopped by a surprisingly strong foreleg.

"You're not leaving this room, Twilight," Cadance stated firmly.

"Huh? Cadance?" Twilight wondered aloud.

Realizing who it was, the unicorn let herself get pushed away and found herself getting crushed under the glares of her former babysitter and big brother. After letting the awkwardness infest the air, Shining Armor stepped forth.

"So. Twilight," he started. "What in Hades have you been doing?!" he shouted. "What happened?! Where were you? I thought you had been killed with Celestia!" He dragged his hooves across his face. "I was worried sick about you. Mom and dad even had panic attacks after what happened and only clung to the hope that you had somehow managed to survive the riots in Canterlot."

Twilight twiddled her hooves nervously. "I, uh...didn't want to see you," she muttered.

"What?! Why not?!"

The unicorn looked up at her brother trying his best to understand the weird mind Twilight had. "Because I'm trying to bring Celestia back."

Shining cracked his neck and walked towards Cadance before turning back around. "You can't just bring Celestia back as your thrall, Twilight."

Twilight was appalled by what she just heard. "I wouldn't ever do that!" she yelled angrily. "I want to bring her back because those foals stole her from us because of their unjust anger!"

"Then tell us what happened," Cadance said as she moved forward. "What happened to you and what pushed you into necromancy?"

Twilight took a deep breath and started explaining everything to her 'only' family. She explained the horror she felt when she saw Celestia be decapitated from the observatory after hearing loud noises outside. The two listened very carefully and intently, trying to piece together everything the mare said with what they knew. Twilight shared how all the non-ponies in the capital ferried her out of there, keeping her hidden from the angry ponies, letting the two piece together that the unicorn might have developed a seething hatred for her own kind. Their suspicions were further developed when Twilight explained how she tried to keep to herself in remote villages but everypony there always recognized her and called the guards.

She continued with her going to a city near the border instead of the ports to Equestria's southwest where they expected her to go to flee the continent. Twilight's tale of surviving in the wild and discovering the undercity after trying her luck with a 'shady looking diamond dog' and breaking a taboo to learn necromancy and revive Celestia brought the two great discomfort. Hearing Twilight speak of her pillaging morgues and cemeteries to further her knowledge of bodies as well as studying surgical tomes of varying ages caused the two to become further despondent. The unicorn was showing an unusual level of excitement with how she raised everypony and they helped her out with her own issues.

"She's talking like they were properly alive," Shining whispered to Cadance.

"I know. I think her brain melted from being alone and running for so long," the alicorn respondent between clenched teeth.

As Twilight continued, sharing her discoveries and the excitement each evolution in her craft brought her, her audience realized something: There was no mention of any major events in recent Equestrian history.

"Twilight," Shining interrupted her gently. "What did you do when the changelings invaded Equestria?" he asked.

Twilight tilted her head. "The what did what?"

The stallion's eye twitched and Cadance's brow furrowed. "The changelings. They attempted to take over Equestria," he continued. "I'm certain they had some agents up here." Shining's eyes shot open when the mare shrugged. "Wh-They emerged with their queen to take over Canterlot and subdue ponykind!"

"And how were they stopped?" Twilight asked.

"The Elements of Harmony and the increased contingent of soldiers the Council recruited after deposing my Aunt," Cadance stated. "From what we learned, they had the soldiers spread around Canterlot to watch for something."

"For me..." Twilight whined.

Cadance had to physically restrain her eye muscles to prevent said organs from rolling. "You don't know that." She pursed her lips when Twilight glared at her 'knowingly'. "Regardless, yes. There were a lot of guards stationed around the city in outposts and guardhouses. Queen Chrysalis' information must have been outdated somehow because she didn't expect the immense amount of guards around the city." She hummed pensively. "With Celestia still around I'm certain that she would have been expelled far faster than the weeks of warfare that followed their emergence. Ponies all around Equestria were armed to the teeth and ready to defend themselves."

"But where were you two?" Twilight asked.

The two rulers looked away. "I was in exile," Cadance lamented. She rubbed her foreleg but smiled when Shining pressed his head against hers. "But your brother refused to leave my side the whole time."

Shining scratched his head in confusion. "That we know more than you is concerning," the stallion grunted. "Do you know how we became the Emperor and Empress of the Crystal Empire?"

Twilight shrugged. "I was told the Empire came out of nowhere with some baggage and six mares came in with a pink alicorn and former guard captain and chucked that baggage into the ocean." She paused. "I put two-and-two together for the last two descriptions." The unicorn ribbed her brother. "I always knew you two would be together," she mused.

The stallion rubbed his side, frowning. "Yes, well, that doesn't really explain how you were caught here."

"I was looking into the Terrestrial Nebula," Twilight explained. "I wanted to figure out how to restore a body if it's been frozen," she continued. "I was told the Nebula has a lot of bodies hidden inside."

Shining smacked his lips several times. "Is that where the undead dragon came from?"

"Undead dragon?" Twilight wondered. Her eyes brightened. "Oh, you found Spike?!" she shouted in excitement. She stood up on her hind legs and put her hooves onto her brother's shoulders. "Where is he?" the mare asked. "He gets antsy if I'm not around."

Twilight standing up further demonstrated the emaciation her body had somehow endured from her years of isolation and neglect. Her stomach, while not completely concave, was starting to fall inwards, and her ribs were starting to poke out from her fur.

Horrified, Shining pushed Twilight off of him aggressively. "You named it?!" Shining shouted.

"Well, yeah," Twilight said matter-of-factly. "He's my apprentice and he's pretty young." She chuckled silently. "He's a silly dragon."

"Your silly dragon killed two guards and critically injured seven others!" Shining bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Shining--" Cadance attempted to intervene.

The moment Shining pronounced those words, Twilight's comfort and amused look immediately dissolved into horror as she paled further and further. To the alicorn's eyes, she was beginning to resemble the ghosts she could summon.

"B-but...I told him not to kill anyone. He was never supposed to do that!" Twilight shouted. "H-h-h-he d-d-d-d..." The mare's body started shaking violently and she grabbed herself in the process. "K-k-killed s-s-s-somep-p-p-pony?! I-I told him n-not to. Wh-why?!"

Shining's rage immediately quelled. He was taken aback by his sister's extremely averse reaction to knowing she had killed and severely wounded so many. "Twilight, haven't you killed before?" The mare didn't register anything that Shining had said. Instead, her body decided to completely shut down, making her pass out onto the floor. "Twilight!" the stallion screamed.

"It's okay!" Cadance said. "She just passed out." The mare tapped the carpeted floor with a hoof and briefly stretched her wings. "That was an unexpected reaction."

Shining lifted his sister with his magic and placed her back in bed. "No pony can put on an act that extreme, even the most psychopathic," he continued. "I'm shocked. I thought for sure she would have regularly started killing ponies to get 'fresh test subjects' or 'supplies' he said."

Dumbfounded, the alicorn spoke. "Then she was being serious about only ever working on the already dead?" Cadance said. "At least now we know what happened with that undead dragon and why it's so hyper-aggressive."

Shining stared at his sister resting in bed and held back a small grin from finally seeing her and the relief that came with it. "Assuming what she said is true, that means that it struck the sergeant because he was in the way and not because Twilight ordered it to harm all of them." He paced about, pensive. "So it was trying to free her and escape."

"Then all of this could have been prevented if the guards let the dragon reach the wagon?" Cadance wondered.

"That's too easy a solution," Shining said. "They couldn't have known, and they're not supposed to let escape those that practice forbidden magics. They're forbidden for a reason."

"Regardless, that thing is actively trying to reach Twilight," Cadance said. "What if we show Twilight to it?"

"It doesn't have a mind!" Shining said with exacerbation. "It's just given a list of instructions to follow. If it's standard instruction is to stay next to Twilight, then it's going to try and stay next to her as much as possible. Getting in its way is only going to make things worse." He dragged his hoof through his mane. "We need to figure out how to break the spell keeping it active and what to do with Twilight." The stallion sighed. "I don't want to have to execute my sister. I just got her back."

Cadance rubbed the slumbering mare's back while listening to her husband. "I know, sweetie. I don't want to do it either, but we can't let her go free. She'll be hunted by everypony, and then she'll be forced to run away again, and this time we'll likely never be able to find her," the mare lamented.

"I'm going out to reassure the troops and our 'audience'," Shining said. "I don't want anypony to try what happened in Canterlot."

Cadance heard whimpering when the door closed and readlized the sound was coming from Twilight. Whatever was happening in her mind was causing her a lot of anguish.

Flight

Shining sat on an outcrop outside, tapping his hooves against the solid crystal pensively. The people didn't take too kindly to him telling them who Twilight was, although others were understanding. It was a strange mish-mash of opinions and thoughts that appeared before him. While he tried to figure out what to do with his sister, Cadance had plans of her own. She had returned to her room and brought hygienic supplies for Twilight, surprising the guards. The alicorn had also brought several books on magical history and one on the history of the Crystal Empire that she was going to read herself while she waited for the unicorn to awaken. She saw the lights outside the windows start to dim when Twilight stirred in her unwanted slumber.

"Twilight," Cadance said with a warm smile. The mare squished herself under the covers, trying to hide as much of herself from Cadance as she could manage. "No need to panic again, Twilight."

"B-but Spike Spike, he he--"

Twilight found herself suddenly unable to move, trapped in the magic of Cadance. She was forcefully lifted up and then laid down on the bed. The weight of the alicorn's magic applied to the unicorn's body made her gradually feel strangely calmer and more relaxed as time passed.

"Twilight. You've gone through a lot. Spike will be fine where he is. We'll think about that later. Now let me take a look at your mane," Cadance said as she pulled up combs, brushes, and scissors.

As Cadance worked on Twilight's mane, she found that her work was extremely difficult. There were so many knots and split ends that she couldn't figure out how to disentangle everything. It was so bad that the only solution would have been to shave Twilight's head completely, but the alicorn of love wouldn't take such a defeat lying down. She would fight her way through it all even if it took her several days of hard labor.

"Have you not been taking care of yourself, Twilight?" Cadance asked.

Twilight shivered. "I have..."

"Uh huh," Cadance responded with bemusement. "That's why you smell like an open casket left in the sun for too long and why you're more knot than pony?"

"Hey..." the unicorn grumbled.

There was a long moment of silence while Cadance worked her magic, and her alicorn magic as well. She was meticulously pulling at the knots and used the scissors to snip through the tighter spots so she could pull the strands apart without having to sacrifice huge clumps of Twilight's mane. It was a very uncomfortable time for the two of them, but Cadance was getting a sort of satisfaction from it. Any bits or strands that were damaged beyond repair were either clipped just above the destroyed areas or outright pulled out of the unicorn's scalp, prompting a pained yelp every time.

Twilight felt herself reminiscing about when Cadance babysat her and did this exact same thing. They would talk about what Twilight wanted to do in the future, whatever new passions Twilight had discovered, and what Cadance and Shining were doing. Of course, at the time they hadn't yet gotten together, but it was still evident even to the socially awkward filly the feelings the two shared for each other.

"You've been running away for too long, Twilight. You can't keep doing this," Cadance said.

"Easy for you to say. You were just banished from Equestria and then you managed to become an empress," Twilight muttered.

"That isn't fair, Twilight," Cadance rebutted. "I wasn't just 'banished'. I was stripped of my chance to see my home again, and my aunt was killed as well, leaving me with no family." She sighed and stopped digging through Twilight's mane. "If your brother wasn't there, I..." She cleared her throat and continued her work. "I'd rather not talk about it." The alicorn looked at Twilight with a strange smile. "You could have looked for us, you know. We would have gladly taken you in."

Twilight stared at Cadance, her expression that of disbelief and fatigue. "I was on the run from ponies actively hunting me. I didn't exactly have the luxury to be able to look for you and Shining Armor," Twilight explained aggressively. "Plus, I can tell that you wouldn't have approved of me trying to bring Princess Celestia back!" Her eyes widened in realization. "If I-when I finish it," Twilight corrected herself. "I'll be able to bring back those two guards that Spike k..." She frozen in her attempt to say the word. "Um, well, I'll be able to bring them back is all I'm trying to say," she ended with a nervous smile.

Cadance sighed. "Twilight, you can't bring ponies back from the dead. When they die, that's it. They're no longer of this world."

"That's what they always say!" Twilight said aggressively. "But I've proven with my magic that it's still possible!"

The alicorn snorted and accidentally tugged on a knot, hurting Twilight. "I don't think them being rotting corpses or rousing their souls from their slumber is 'bringing them back to life'. If anything, you're pulling them out of the next life and forcing them to stay in a world they can no longer interact with." She leaned around and looked at Twilight from the side of her eyes. "Now does that sound like something anypony should do?"

"No, but they still tell me what to do and help guide me along," Twilight protested. She shifted in place, trying to free herself from Cadance's grasp. "I never leave them there as test subjects to watch and torment in order to learn more. I learn what I need when they awake, I take notes, then I let them live their lives."

Cadance froze. "You let them out into the world?!"

The unicorn shrugged. "I mean, the underground world is still technically a world. Like that they don't hurt themselves or anypony else," Twilight explained with a smile.

The alicorn couldn't fully understand what Twilight was talking about, but she had the inkling that the mare might have accidentally let out information about herself that she didn't otherwise intend to.

"Twilight, if you were able to start over, what would you choose to do?" Cadance asked.

Twilight frowned. "I would still be trying to bring Celestia back."

"Okay, consider this hypothetical that you didn't have the ability to do so," Cadance spurted impatiently. "Tell me what you would do."

There was a long pause that the unicorn couldn't break no matter how much she thought about it. All the theories and moments she thought about when she was going to fall asleep in her bed. The one moment of comfort and solace she felt during the day.

"I...I don't know," Twilight said. "I guess I just always saw myself following Princess Celestia and trying to work to gain her approval and have her be proud of me."

The alicorn smirked softly. "You really looked up to her, huh?"

"Of course," Twilight said quietly. "I just never thought that she would be assassinated by the ponies she took care of for so long."

Cadance started working on Twilight's tail before she could give another response. "Famine and politics can render anything unstable."

"But that's just the thing!" Twilight said. "Princess Celestia had a mount of reserves for just such an issue, but all the food ran out in a few years? And what even caused all the food in Equestria to go bad in the first place?" She started thinking more deeply. "I don't understand."

"Twilight, it was happening long before that. Ponies aren't strangers to famines. It's just that many ponies were starting to become dissatisfied with the crown, and I think that Princess Celestia was starting to become lax when the prison she put her sister in was starting to dissipate. Maybe the ponies felt she was putting Luna before them?" Cadance shrugged. "They know familial ties but can't understand why one would care for a member of their family even if they've fallen far." The mare's face became somber. "Ponies can do wild things in life when it comes to their family."

The lavender unicorn thought long and hard about what Cadance just said and felt like something in the back of her mind had somehow figured out what happened, although it had yet to be transferred to the front for her to 'see'.

The alicorn spoke again, breaking Twilight out of her thoughts. "Well, that's all I'll do for the time being," she said. "I've gotten some shampoo and soap ready for you in the bathroom. Go clean yourself up and then I'll fix you up a little more, alright?" She smiled and stepped off the bed.

"Could you at least undo the spell around me?" Twilight asked.

"I had already undone it a while ago," Cadance said with a wink.

Twilight's cheeks puffed up from annoyance when she moved and realized that her sister-in-law was speaking the truth.

Spike, however, was not having as 'fun' a time. The instructions given to it were pushing the magic coursing within the undead past its intended limit, which, in turn, pushed the unicorns trying to hold it down. The undead dragon found itself in a cylindrical pen of white crystal meant to keep it contained if the unicorns all fell from exhaustion. It was a small, cramped, decagon-shaped room where two doorways with no doors led into the chamber where the dragon was imprisoned. It saw ten obstacles focusing on restraining it, and every so often one or two would collapse, be taken away, then others would be brought in their place. These obstacles were draped in white robes covering their whole bodies and even hiding their horns.

The dragon knew only that it had to rejoin its master, as it was instructed. Unfortunately, it was only imbued with the ability to do as it was told and employ the memories its body possessed when confronted with a threat. This was one such threat. When the unicorns would collapse, the grip on it weakened significantly, especially when it was two of them. The instinct it had been imbued with told it to start struggling harder and harder to make the unicorns get weaker faster and overwhelm them, but there were always more waiting around. It couldn't free itself before so why would now be any different? What had changed was the frequency with which the unicorns were being swapped around, although Spike could not hear them nor understand them even if it could, it could at least interpret fatigue coming from even the newcomers.

It was now that it started struggling harder than before, making the magic animating it glow in response to the circulation it was doing throughout the undead's body and the ambient magic it was taking in the air to fuel its own animation. The ponies started screaming from pain as their horns fizzed out and they collapsed one by one. Loud ringing noises somehow penetrated the glassy cylinder Spike was in when an armored guard came upon the scene and fled the room. The bindings had all-but-vanished now, allowing the undead dragon to headbutt the container multiple times until it shattered and it was able to push through the fragments with its body.

It felt that Twilight was far above it and did its best to reach her as quickly as possible. It avoided as many guards as it could when running through the wide, sterile corridors where several ponies wearing simple white or black coats wandered the halls. Soldiers burst out from several rooms along the way Spike took and attempted to stop the undead, but it found that leaping over them was a more valuable effort than wasting time fighting them. It continued to speed through the floor it was on, following traces of Twilight's magic until it came upon a set of stairs and braced its arms above its head, blowing through the armored hatches meant to hide the floor. It ended up inside a large room where a lot of furniture, such as couches, tables, and desks were located. Most of them were occupied for a short period when Spike appeared. Said occupants ran away screaming while Spike continued on, sending tables, heavy couches, and plant-filled pots careening through the air and against the walls or elsewhere on the floors. More guards appeared as it followed the fleeing ponies, unable to understand what was happening with them.

The dragon jumped up, piercing the crystal ceiling with its fingers and using said ceiling to move forward quickly above the guards, stunning everyone. It continued like this for many, many floors until it started approaching higher ones where the throne room rested.

"What is that noise?" Shining shouted angrily as he came back from the balcony. His face paled into a gray when he saw the undead dragon headbutt its way through the doors, pulling multiple guards with it and sending them sliding across the floor like hockey pucks along with pieces of wood. "Not this again. How did you even escape?!" Spike locked eyes with him, but while Shining readied himself for a fight, the undead turned its head and ran off in the opposite direction, throwing the stallion off. "Get back here!" he ordered it as he gave chase.

Renewal

"You know, mom and dad would be ecstatic if they knew you were alive," Shining said. He twiddled his hooves a moment. "I'm sure they'd want to know that you're still alive and where you are."

"I'm sure they would," Twilight trailed off.

She took in a deep breath and exhaled and repeated the process several times afterwards when Shining heard her belly growling.

"You're hungry?" the stallion asked. He tilted his head slightly when Twilight nodded and continued her breathing. "Why are you doing that? We can just get you food."

"It's how I dealt with hunger when I was on the run and when I ran out of supplies and couldn't get back to the city to get more," the mare explained. "It's not that great but it helps stave off that sensation." She smirked. "I guess I've grown used to the feeling of hunger," Twilight continued. "Doesn't hurt like it did during the first few months?"

"Months?!" Shining shouted in disbelief. "You were starving for months?" His brow furrowed when Twilight shrugged casually.

It explained to Shining the state of his sister and the bags under her eyes. He turned to see Cadance coming in with a smile on her face and a sweaty forehead.

"I delivered a speech and had the cooks prepare a small meal for us all," she announced.

"Um, enjoy your meal?" Twilight said sheepishly.

The alicorn frowned. "All. That means you as well, Twilight."

The mare started to panic again. "B-but I don't want-gh!"

She found herself headlocked by Shining and gently dragged off the bed. The stallion didn't take his eyes off of Spike. "Now now, sister, let's feed you properly. You're quite malnourished and I shan't have any such maladies afflicting my youngest sibling," he said with a 'high brow' accent.

With some struggling and pulling on Shining's foreleg, Twilight managed to free her mouth. "Why are you talking like that?" she strained to say.

Shining chuckled. "You used to talk like this sometimes when you were a filly." The lavender unicorn didn't say anything. Realizing this, the stallion dug deeper. "You thought that Princess Celestia spoke like this, so you kept practicing with Smarty Pants in your room with the door closed." Twilight's eyes widened and she turned red when she saw Cadance covering her mouth and muffling her laughter. "Mom and dad found it hilarious."

"Shiniiiiiing!" Twilight strained. "Stop talking about thaaaaaat!"

The stallion stuck his tongue out and let go of his sister to push her forward through the door. Shining had the reflex to spin around and lower himself when Spike's feet stomped onto the ground as it followed its master. He growled, upset, and continued to his future meal.

"Now, pfff." Cadance was doing her best to speak, but the image Shining created for her was distracting. "We're going to go to our own, personal dining room," she said. "It's not as big as the royal dining room with a table long enough to be able to handle a hydra, but it's the best one for our little family to eat at. You'll love it," Cadance told Twilight.

"I'm sure I will..."

The mare felt herself being crushed under the gaze of the guards and various servants who prowled the hallways of the spire. Of course, when they noticed Spike the ponies would either flee as fast as their legs could take them or try and remain perfectly still. An ingrained reflex to not move so as to not attract the attention of a predator. An unfortunate time for them to start up again now of all times. It was an unpleasant sensation that was telling her to get out of there as soon as possible.

"You have to get out of there," a voice told Twilight with urgency. "They're going to betray you at some point. They're probably just having their fun with you," it continued. "Some animals like to play with their prey before killing them. Maybe they're doing that too." Twilight became tense. "Keep Spike with you at all times and make sure he can break the ring around your horn," it finished.

The voice had helped pass enough time for the small group to arrive in front of a white door that Cadance pushed open, revealing a small room with a single, large window directly opposite it that overlooked the capital. In the middle was a simple wooden table carrying multiple bowls of fresh vegetables and plates sporting steaming hot dishes. The smells alone made Twilight salivate with anticipation. The floor was mostly bare save for three plain cushions set about the table. The walls were sparsely decorated outside of a few tapestries with varying shapes, patterns, and colors woven into their forms. A few framed pictures could also be seen, but Twilight didn't recognize anypony in them. The room was just big enough for a pony and a half to make it past the sides of the single bit of furniture present.

A mare with her grayish-pink mane combed over her face to hide its left side looked up at the royal couple with a big smile. Her pale-pink coat was in a mess and the strange sheen that Twilight had witnessed up to this point on all the crystal ponies was duller. She was trying to entertain a young filly kept in a foal seat next to the table with a little pony plushy.

"Your Highnesses," she greeted. "I've gotten Princess Flurry Heart ready for her meal." She exhaled a large amount of air and tipped over slightly. "It wasn't easy to get her here." She chuckled, and Twilight could see her going mad. "She's a hoofful."

Shining patted her on the back. "Thank you for your hard work." He leaned to the side to see his daughter patting her plastic to a beat only she could hear. "Take the rest of the day off." He pursed his lips. "Perhaps the next few days, actually. We know how exhausting Flurry can be."

The exhausted mare bowed happily. "Oh, thank you so much, your Highness," the mare said.

She rushed past Twilight, ignoring her completely and letting herself disappear within the halls of the spire. Cadance shook her head and sat down next to her daughter at the same time as Shining. The two were filling their plates when they noticed Twilight hadn't moved from her spot and her dragon stood behind her, menacingly.

"Twilight, you need to sit down if you're going to eat," Cadance said. She lifted a bottle of milk and started warming up its contents with her horn. "Even Flurry is sat down."

The unicorn couldn't help but stare at her niece, like she was some kind of magical discovery into finding and reviving Princess Celestia. She hesitantly sat down at the table and did her best to reach out and grab bowls of whatever she could. Cadance and Shining watched her silently, seemingly judging every movement she would make. Looking between all three of her observers, Twilight carefully grabbed a large fork and placed some salad, tomatoes, and onion slices into her mouth and bit down. Her eyes immediately watered from the flavors. There were seasonings she either didn't know or had completely forgotten about due to their rarity and cost of acquisition in the undercity. A hoofful of salt alone would have cost her three months of supplies. Apparently, it was more difficult to acquire such things than it was to grow regular food and have it shipped and carried beneath.

"Is it good?" Cadance asked with a knowing smile.

Twilight nodded, her mouth full. She didn't speak at all while she ate, taking in as much food as she could and realizing what her body was lacking in nutrients this whole time. The rulers of the Crystal Empire had even brought in some fruit juice which Twilight greedily inhaled by the box. The delicious, rare taste of sugar.

"I only ever got to eat dried fruit," she lamented. "I missed fruit juice."

The two smiled to each other and leaned over the table.

"You know, Twilight, if you stay here you can eat like this every day," Shining said.

"And you wouldn't be alone anymore," Cadance added. "Plus, you would get to know Flurry Heart more." She gestured to Flurry who was holding her milk bottle and draining its contents slowly. "She's a growing filly and will likely need a tutor for her magic. You could be that tutor."

Shining coughed and slammed his hoof several times into his chest to free whatever got stuck. "But no necromancy," he said as he pointed a fork at his sister.

Twilight seems confused. "Why would I teach her necromancy?" she asked. "That's not for foals to know." She swallowed another mouthful and started listing things off by tapping her fork onto her near-empty plate. "You need to know the intricacies of magic, how they flow through the body. You need to know how bodies work, what goes where, what works with what, what does what. Then you need to know how to push magic into the bodies to reanimate them instead of making them explode." She took another gulp of what she believed to be a mix of strawberry and kiwi juices. "More importantly you need to know the spells to take out any and all parasites infesting the bodies or the bugs that fly around all over the place when you forget to do that." Twilight cleared her throat. "That's way too much for just a small foal to be able to learn, and the magic needed is quite extensive."

Shining dropped his fork and brought his hooves up. "Wait wait wait. You know how the bodies work?" He balked when Twilight nodded. "So you could teach at a medical facility, provided you passed the tests to become a doctor?"

The mare bobbed her head left and right, unsure. "I mean, I would be better off as a surgeon if we're making such comparisons, but yes."

The stallion tapped the table and hummed pensively. "So you have several alternative routes open to you."

"Oh no!" Twilight protested. "I'm not giving up now! I've almost figured out how to bring her back!" she said.

"It's okay, Twilight," Cadance chimed in. "No pony is telling you to stop. We're just saying that you have alternatives available to you. However, you won't get all these benefits if you remain a necromancer, you understand?"

The lavender unicorn nodded reluctantly and sat back down. She looked again at Flurry and couldn't help but feel a little smirk form at the corner of her lips.

"Not sure what we can do with your dragon, though," Shining Armor said. "Thing scares everypony after what it did to those that captured you."

"Here it comes. He's going to tell you to undo the spell you used to bring Spike back to life as your assistant. Your first success at imbuing something with the strength it had in life and he wants to take it all away."

Cadance noticed the storm brewing in Twilight's mind and chimed in. "Of course, as long as it doesn't do anything to anypony you can keep it as...what was it again?"

"Spike is my assistant," Twilight said. She looked at the two ponies with suspicion and continued to eat. "He was the first one who stayed with me and has been a great help in my research and keeping me safe."

The magic coursing through Spike's body glowed brightly momentarily, potentially as an intimidation display by Twilight, Shining thought.

"Well, as long as he doesn't bother anypony I suppose we can keep him around," Cadance said. "What do you think, Shining?"

The stallion waved his idea away and rested on a foreleg. "Bah. Whatever," he grumbled.

"Bah! Bah!" Flurry babbled.

"Oh, you want to meet Aunty Twilight?" Cadance mused.

She picked the foal up to place her on the table and cover the sides with a short wall of magic to block her from falling on the sides. The only spot still open was the one Twilight was sitting. The mare was more focused on her meal, shocking Shining with how much she could eat. Cadance and Shining reflexively took on a combat stance when Flurry approached Twilight. Not because they feared Twilight might harm her niece, but due to the strange aura of necromantic energies that seemed to rush out of the unicorn subconsciously the closer Flurry got to her. The discomfort the two grown ponies felt seemed to either be canceled or ignored outright by the young foal. The couple looked at Spike, fearing the worst, but the undead did not react.

Twilight was so focused on the delicious flavors assaulting her weakened tongue that she didn't even notice Flurry sitting next to her plate, so when Twilight put a fork down, Flurry put her two significantly smaller hooves on Twilight's babbling in amusement. The sudden contact caused Twilight to freeze in surprise.

The lavender unicorn looked at Flurry Heart and, after several seconds of debating with herself, finally decided to speak. "Hello, Flurry Heart," she said nervously.

"Let's call the Elements of Harmony," Cadance whispered to her husband.

"That's a terrible idea! This is a family matter!" the stallion protested.

"We need them to assuage the public and help rehabilitate Twilight. They're the best at this sort of thing." She scooched forward. "She's literally the former student of Princess Celestia and your sister, which makes her royalty by proxy even if unintentional. That brings a lot of weight to it, and danger. Plus, with all her knowledge she could do so much better for herself than what she's been doing now."

Shining mulled the thoughts over and hummed pensively. "Fine, but they have to do this extremely delicately." He looked at Twilight trying to carefully move her niece away so she could keep eating. "I think she's a bit fractured upstairs, and she's already on edge. One wrong move and they'll ruin everything."

Cadance's face paled and she leaned over. "You're right. I was just so excited. It's better that we deal with this ourselves, then. I've never been afraid of a bit of hard work!" she proclaimed quietly. "Let's just...keep a very close eye on her and Flurry."

Spike gently picked Flurry up, walked to the other side of the table, and placed the filly back in her seat, making her throw a tantrum.

"Right..." Shining sighed. "I don't know what's what anymore."

Unwanted Guests

Twilight was left to her own devices in the guest room with Spike. Night was starting to fall and it was soon going to be time for slumber. Twilight, however, had no intention of sleeping. Supplied with a quill, ink, and some sheets of paper, the mare was allowed to write whatever pleased her. As she had done for years, the unicorn decided that she was going to mark down her theories on how to resurrect Celestia and how to restore her body regardless of the condition.

Twilight was interrupted in her task by the door opening and an angry guard chucking something at Twilight. She yelped and reflexively covered her face when a giant, boney hand emerged from around the corner to catch the projectile. Spike peered around the corner, its eyes glowing in the ambient darkness and terrifying what was a proud soldier mere moments ago.

"Uh, th-the Empress wanted me t-to give this back," she stammered.

Spike took a step, shaking the ground and causing the pony to run screaming.

"Could you close the door and show me what it is they threw, please?" Twilight asked.

The undead complied and passed her the item, delighting its master. It was the frozen hair of Celestia that still glowed with the magic that used to course through her body. The mare hugged it close to her and put it next to her papers to better illuminate what she was writing. A single tiny oil lamp wasn't enough to properly illuminate her room. With her inspiration and goal next to her, Twilight found herself compelled to write and rewrite all her theories, proving and disproving constantly as she worked through the night.

Or, that is how it would have happened had Cadance not come through the door and pulled away Twilight's tools.

"Hey!" the mare protested. "Give those back! I need them!"

"Twilight," Cadance started as she looked over the notes. "You need to sleep."

"No, I need to work," Twilight said. "If I don't write everything that comes to mind then I'll forget it when I wake up."

"Uh huh." The mare tucked the supplies away with guards hiding in the hallway. "Have you been doing that this whole time?" she asked incredulously.

The unicorn shrugged. "Yes? What's the problem? I haven't had many-" Twilight yawned unintentionally. "I haven't had any problems yet."

Cadance rolled her eyes. "Go to sleep, Twilight," the alicorn said firmly. "Don't make me treat you like a foal."

Grumbling, Twilight crossed her forelegs and puffed up her cheeks. "Fine," she said reluctantly.

The alicorn screamed mentally and shut the door, leaving the guards to watch it.

"What will we do if the undead attacks us?" one of the soldiers asked.

"We gave you that for a reason," Cadance said as she pointed to a glowing red 'badge' on the chestplate of the guards. "Press that and all the spire will be alerted to the necromancer trying to escape." She made to turn but stopped herself. "Don't get in the way of the undead," she added. "It'll only attack you if you impede it or try and attack its master, alright? It's less dangerous than you think."

"She says with the dead and wounded left in its wake," the guard whispered to her companion.

The night slowly turned to day, bringing Cadance and Shining Armor up with it. Flurry was still sound asleep in her crib at the foot of the parents' large bed. The two got up and stretched, cracking their joints in the process.

"Good morning, Flurry!" Cadance coo'd. Flurry yawned and shifted in place as her mother lifted her up. "Ooo. Still so tired. You already got tuckered out playing with Twilight yesterday? But you didn't play that much."

Shining pulled apart the emerald-green drapes covering one of the three large windows of their room and looked upon the growing capital. The crystal ponies were starting to become active themselves and bringing life back into the sleepy city. The new train station was also seeing its first arrivals, judging by the armored vehicle belching out thick plumes of smoke. The stallion still wasn't sure about its presence, but it helped link everypony up with the griffins and yaks to the east and the ponies over the mountains to the west. Of course, that line had yet to be finished.

As the Emperor stared outside, taking in the sunlight to wake himself up, his eyes shot wide in horror.

"Oh no," he gasped.

Cadance turned to him with Flurry on her back. "What? What is it?" she asked him.

Shining pointed at the window as he looked at his wife in horror. "Three of the Elements are here," he said.

"What?!" The alicorn hurried over to the window and looked around. "Where? I can't see them."

"Down there between the two pastry shops and next to the part of the street that was taken apart for the new water pipes."

Cadance nearly smushed her face against the glass but refrained from doing so. Her horn could destroy the window. "Where?! I can't see-Oh." She paled. "Why three? And why are they here?!" She turned to her husband, panicked. "We didn't call for them!" She started to pace about nervously, making Flurry laugh. "A message would have taken at least five days to get through to one of them!"

"Were they already on their way?" Shining couldn't find a reason for it. "What for?" He smiled in sudden realization. "Maybe it's just a visit, then!" he said. "Nothing wrong with that. We did say they could come whenever they felt like it." He nuzzled his wife's cheek. "Might not be as bad as we think it is."

Cadance whined. "I hope you're right. I don't want them to see Twilight. She's not exactly in her right mind right now."

"And with 'Spike' back, it might be able to break the lock on Twilight's horn." He exhaled, feeling his heart starting to race. "If she's pushed far enough then she'll probably order it to try and break that seal, then she'll be able to use her magic to escape...maybe." His brow furrowed in thought. "The Crystal Heart prevents any dead from being raised while it's under our control. Kinda wish it undid any that are already raised," he complained under his breath. "Even if she gets free, she can't raise any like she did at the border."

"Shining, honey. We don't even know what kind of spells Twilight knows, or even if she really has offensive spells at all." Cadance smiled nervously. Her attempts to calm her husband down weren't working very well, but at least she tried. "I'm convinced she would have used those spells when she got captured if she knew any."

"Let's hope you're right," Shining said.

"They're coming to the Spire," Cadance said.

The two hurried with Flurry in tow. The young foal was kept on Cadance's back by a magic harness, something she enjoyed as her parents flew down the steps until they realized they could just teleport to the first floor. Calling themselves idiots, the rulers teleported outside in front of the three elements, startling them.

"Girls! You're here!" Cadance said happily.

"Oh, gosh! You startled me!" one of the elements said.

"I'm so sorry, Fluttershy," the alicorn apologized. "I didn't expect you to be at the base of the spire so quickly."

"So it's the Elements of Laughter, Kindness, and Honesty that are here, then?" Shining noted. "What brings you three here? We don't have any celebrations in the works yet. They're still a ways off," he continued.

"The Map of Harmony directed us here!" a pink mare stated excitedly. "It called for three of us this time. Can you believe it?"

"Pinkie's raght," an orange earth pony added. "Dern thing only calls on us one 'er two at a time. Couldn't quite figure out what fer, just that we needed to come here ta the Crystal Empire." She huffed and took her stetson off to pass a hoof through her blonde mane. "Thing never tells us what we gotta do, just where we ought ta go."

"Sounds...upsetting," Shining said.

"It's enragin' 's what it is," the mare added with a scowl. She sighed. "Just a month 're so ago it sends Rarity 'n me out ta some village in the countryside." She smiled. "Pretty good place if'n ya like ta garden 'n whatnot. Really good soil, but not fer apple trees, so ain't no interest ta me." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, took us 'bout three days ta finally realize why we were there. We'd been tryin' ta fix everypony's problems and didn't fix the main one." She sighed. "Ah tell ya, we need a vacation from time ta time."

Shining and Cadance shifted in place. "So, why did you three come here?" the stallion asked. "Nothing wrong here," he said. "I mean, outside of the blizzard, but the Crystal Heart is responsible for that."

Fluttershy nervously stepped forward, her long pink mane covering most of her face. "Well, I don't mean to impose, but I think the map brought us to the spire," she explained. "The magic binding us to the elements seems to have dragged us here, after all."

"That's right!" Pinkie declared while throwing random confetti into the air. "I thought it might be you two, but I'm glad I was wrong." She waved to Flurry excitedly. "Hi, Flurry!" she cheered. She squeed when the foal exchanged the greeting.

Cadance had to adjust herself to the suddenly shifting weight of her daughter when she was about to speak. "Mmf. Well, I'm not sure what the problem might be. We haven't noticed anything wrong."

Applejack sighed. "Well, the map ain't never lied ta us 'afore. Can't go back or the map gets plum darn angry. Last time Rainbow came back it started howling like a siren, forcing her to go back."

"That was a dreadful day," Fluttershy said. "Ooo. My ears ring when I think about it."

"Turns out she was lookin' in the wrong place and it wasn't with ponies that she needed ta work with." Applejack pulled her mouth down and shrugged. "Who'd'a thought?"

"Well, feel free to enter the spire and ask around, then. I'm sure that the problem won't be too big."

"Thank ya kindly," Applejack said with a tip of her hat. "Ah'd rather not stay in yer manes fer too long. Rulers is busy folks, after all."

The two watched them with a smile as the three climbed the stairs into the Spire. Once the elements were out of sight, the rulers started to panic.

"Did the tree direct them to Twilight?!" Cadance panicked.

"What do we do? How is a map cantankerous? They'll never leave if they see her!" Shining said.

"We haven't even gotten to get Twilight through a day here!" the alicorn continued. "Hoooo. What do we do? We can't redirect them and tell them they can't go somewhere forever! Applejack is a smart pony. She'll eventually put two-and-two together and realize that they have to go where Twilight is."

"Not to mention that Twilight will have to get out at some point, and she's under constant surveillance by guards."

Flurry was laughing while her mother bounced around nervously. She wanted to have more fun like this and pouted when her mother stopped.

"The guards!" the two ruler said together.

"We haven't told them to keep quiet!" Shining squeezed through clenched teeth. "What are we supposed to do if one blabs?!"

"The best we can do is try and catch them all and have them spread the word through the floors," Cadance explained.

The two nodded to each other and did just that. Shining teleported to the lower floors and worked his way up while Cadance did the opposite. They weren't going to let something bad happen to an already unstable Twilight Sparkle, especially since she had just returned into their lives. Both worried for her mental well-being, and with how nosy the Elements tended to be, there was no doubt in either of their minds that the three mares would push too far.

After several minutes of rushing, the two met back up three floors below Twilight's, both gasping for air and suffering through the strain of pushing one's muscles past their limit.

"Okay," Shining said. "I told everypony not to talk about Twilight."

"I did the same," Cadance said with a grin. "Not just the guards, but the servants as well."

The stallion giggled. "Good. Normally we shouldn't have to worry too much...Unless Twilight decides to leave herself...Oh no."

"Don't worry," Cadance said assuredly. "I told the guards to bring Twilight a bunch of paper, ink, and quills to her room. She'll be too occupied writing those...awful theories on bringing the dead back to life." The mare shivered.

"Well, at least she's just writing them, and necromancers never figured out the solution to that," Shining said. "We can at least find some comfort in her being occupied." he shrugged. "Could be worse, I guess?"

"Oh, y'all're here?" Applejack said.

"What? Oh, yes. Hello, Applejack," Cadance greeted.

"You're pretty fast," Shining commented.

The mare stood up proudly. "Farm work toughens ya up. Fluttershy 'n Pinkie 're behind."

"I see," Shining said. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"No..." Applejack sported a look of suspicion. "But Ah think the ponies here're hidin' somethin'. Call me crazy, but they seem ta want ta say somethin' but it might be too much of a dilemma. Ya got 'ny guests 're somethin' from abroad? Could be a political thingy." She exhaled loudly. "Hate politicickings 'n such, but if it's fer harmony Ah figured 'why not?'."

"Can't say we have any," Cadance said. "I--"

She froze. Both she and Shining felt the red alarm go off and alert the spire. They didn't have time to react when they heard a familiar voice cry out from the stairs.

"Cadance? You forgot to give me back my writing supplies," Twilight called out. "I just want that then Spike and I will go back."

"Who's that?" Applejack asked.

"A non-political visitor," Cadance responded with a very unconvincing smile. "Those stupid guards didn't do what I told them!" she growled at Shining.

"What?!" He looked at Applejack and grinned nervously. "Those stupid idiots! I'm going to make them run a hundred laps after lunch. Around the city!"

"We'll be right back," Cadance said. "Wait for us right there, please."

"Alright?" Applejack responded. The farm pony narrowed her eyes at the two rulers as they rushed up the stairs with a laughing Flurry in tow. "Should they be gallopin' around with that foal on her back?"

The two found Twilight wandering with guards following her but keeping a significant distance from Spike.

"Twilight!" Cadance blurted out angrily. "What are you doing out of your room?"

"I wanted my writing supplies, is all," the unicorn explained casually. "I didn't want to be too much of a bother since you have this empire and Flurry to take care of, but the guards didn't want to listen to me, so I had Spike escort me while I looked for you. I know that you know where everything is since you took it from me last night," Twilight huffed.

Cadance dragged a hoof across her face. "I told the guards to bring you some new ones. I would've brought yours back afterward."

"Is Flurry alright?" Twilight asked.

Cadance gasped in horror and brought Flurry into her forelegs. The foal had turned green from all the excitement and was swaying left and right. "We were so distracted that we forgot Flurry was here! Oh, my poor baby!"

Shining groaned and tapped the sides of his head. "There's too much stress lately in too short a time. If I wasn't already white I'm sure my coat would've turned that color by now."

"You?! What're you doin' here?!" an angry voice cried out.

"Oh no..." Cadance whimpered.

Threats

Twilight grumbled and hugged her 'treasure' close to her as she hid under the thick comforter with Spike keeping watch over her. She didn't want to go to sleep. She wanted to keep theorizing and to eventually put her knowledge into application. What was the point of doing everything if she couldn't test her ideas and concepts out? That was the best part of research! She let the ideas continue to flow through her mind, hoping she wouldn't forget them as she gently started to drift away into a deep sleep.

Once more Twilight found herself with Princess Celestia as a young filly, happy and joyous that the princess was reviewing another project of hers and finding it grand. The little filly couldn't quite remember what it was she had done for the school project, but at least Celestia was reviewing it in the classroom. The young unicorn waved to her parents standing amid a black wall of other adults that she couldn't quite make the details of, but they weren't important. Her mom and dad looked so proud!

Something caught Twilight's eye briefly, darkening the sky outside the window for just the briefest moments. She looked but saw nothing and continued waiting to hear what else Celestia had to say. Another shade passed by the windows, and when Twilight made to smile at her parents, she realized that they were emaciated things collapsed in piles on the floor. She could see broken casts, crystals, leaky pouches, and broken surgical utensils spread around them. Twilight started to panic and wanted to run to them, but she couldn't. She was being held back by the mob of adult ponies that her parents were standing with just mere moments prior.

The unicorn begged and pleaded for them to let her go, but the adults would not relent. They held her in place as her parents slowly wasted away until they were just dried out husks like the mummies. Crying uncontrollably, Twilight turned to Celestia, tears drowning her vision, hoping that the alicorn would help her parents, but the white pony had no head with which to respond. Her body, it turned out, was held out by spikes going through the legs and linking up with a black iron frame above it. The windows outside turned dark again as the adults started moving Twilight to the door and opened it to reveal a crowd of ponies cheering angrily at a guillotine comprised of two blades enchanted to fuse together in a head-spinning amount of magic. They crackled and glowed with the magic made to keep them charged and sparkled with flecks of burning red Twilight knew the origins of.

Try as she might, the little filly couldn't get out of the grip of the adult ponies nor was her magic potent enough to escape the monsters the closer she got to the guillotine, the deeper and greater the feeling of despair became. Her little hooves ground against the wooden flooring leading up to the magical guillotines glimmering in the dim light shining through a black miasma of a sky. She could see that several non-ponies were in the crowd trying to reach her, but the mob was far too large and imposing for them to get through in time. The unicorn started screaming when the crowd did the same. A strange figure had emerged from the sky and descended upon them. Twilight could only watch in baited breath as it ripped and tore through every pony there. Its very presence obliterated the indistinct city around the execution plaza of Canterlot. The ponies holding Twilight down were themselves pulled away one by one, screaming and flailing their legs until they disappeared within the black smog that served as a sky.

Little by little the dream started to break apart and lucidity started returning to Twilight Sparkle until she remembered who she was, where she was, and what she was. She found herself standing on a platform, floating in a dark space filled with eclipsed suns of varying size. The mare jumped in surprise when she saw a giant hand reaching for her and stopping just short of her face. The entity standing before her seemed to only be made of a tapered lozenge for a body that widened the higher one went. It sported four 'arms' made of three different lozenges that possessed wide lozenge hands that ended in lozenges for fingers. Through its body flowed multiple strips of cloth that looked similar to black lace she could see the strange space through. The mare couldn't quite make out the shapes they represented. All she knew is that it hurt to look at them.

The figure pointed at Twilight, and attempted to grab something, but couldn't quite seem to reach her despite floating just a few feet away.

"What are you looking for?" the mare asked. She reached down and pulled out the strand of Celestia's mane. "This? It's mine! You can't have it!" she protested.

The creature seemed upset and started looking around angrily, searching for something beyond Twilight's understanding. It tried to reach for her again, but a pink light popped up when the entity made contact with whatever was 'protecting' the mare. It grew brighter and brighter until Twilight saw something blue spark off the strange lozenges. It briefly looked like a deep blue ink stain with white specs within it, but they dissolved fairly quickly.

Twilight was awoken by the increasing brightness of the pink light in a cold sweat. She dragged her hooves across her face, groaning miserably. She had that dream with the guillotine so many times by now that it had become ingrained in her memories, but the lozenge creature was new.

Grumbling, the mare had gone to the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face and approached the door with the guards. She had asked her 'keepers' if Cadance had brought her back her writing supplies, but after asking several times and being ignored, the guards told her to shut up. Annoyed, Twilight waited impatiently for a few minutes until she went back and they threatened her, calling her a 'vile necromancer' or some such name that she couldn't register very well. Although she knew she was supposed to wait in the room, Twilight had Spike pull the door open, ripping off pieces of crystal the door lock had inserted itself into and causing the guards to panic when they saw the undead monstrosity duck through the doorway and look around.

Her searching and calling out to her sister-in-law brought her face-to-face with a familiar orange pony she didn't have good memories of.

"Oh no," Twilight squeaked.

"Y'all're harborin' a thief, ya know that?" Applejack shouted accusingly. "She's the one what escaped when Ah caught her stealin' food from a stall when everypony was distracted!"

"You stole food?" Shining said in disbelief. "Oh, Twilight," he said with disappointment.

"I was keeping my rations up!" the mare said. "I couldn't eat them all by the time I reached the desert!"

"Then why didn't ya just buy 'em?!" the orange mare protested. " It's hard work ta grow that food, ya know!"

"Well, it's harder to live on the run and have to keep hidden from everypony!" Twilight snapped back.

The orange mare paused. "On the run? What's that meant ta mean?"

"Applejack, can you please not harass my sister?" Shining asked. "We only just got her back after several years," he said.

The mare's eyes widened in shock. "Yer what?!"

"What's wrong with Flurry?" Twilight panicked.

She rushed forward, accompanied by Spike. Still working on reflexes, Applejack made to catch Twilight when she got too close, but Spike spread his arm out, covering Twilight from above Twilight like a shield.

"Applejack!" Shining yelled.

"Ah'm sorry! It was a reflex!" the orange pony apologized.

Twilight checked Flurry and examined her as best as she could without the use of her magic. "Looks like you've been constantly jumping all over the place and teleporting," the mare said. "She's still too small for all of that so her body is suffering from adverse reactions."

"Th-then what do I do?!" Cadance panicked.

"I-Ugh." Twilight patted at the ring around her horn and snorted. "You need to help recirculate the magic she had through her body. That should take care of the teleportation sickness. As for her stomach, well, she's likely to vomit if you give her anything, if she hasn't vomited already. I'd also just place her in a bed to rest under somepony's watchful eye and keep her from drinking too much milk or eating any food paste for a few hours. She should recover soon after."

"Are you sure?" Cadance asked.

The unicorn shrugged. "Ask a real doctor if you don't trust me. Her life isn't in danger."

Cadance placed her horn against Flurry's and started forcing her magic to begin flowing through her body again. The alicorn found herself becoming increasingly aware of the 'knots' of magic that had formed inside of her daughter's body, and as they slowly came apart and the magic resumed its free flow, the green on her daughter's face slowly faded away, returning the pale-pink of her coat.

"We're here!" Pinkie wheezed. "I...hoo. That's good exercise," she wheezed. She pulled Fluttershy up by her tail and chucked her across the floor to slowly come to a halt on her back. "I don't know how you do it, Applejack."

Fluttershy responded with a 'bluh' and her tongue dangling on the side of her mouth.

"You said it. Uh-Woah!" the pink pony exclaimed. "Careful, Applejack," she whispered loudly. "There's a giant, undead skeleton next to you."

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Ah know, Pinkie."

"Oh, good,. Ha ha. I thought you might've missed it," Pinkie mused.

Fluttershy lifted her head up and saw the gigantic creature staring down at her. It shifted about, apparently blocking her friend from moving, and she couldn't have that. "H-hey!" she called out to the undead. "Please leave Applejack alone." When she realized the creature was not responding, she took in a deep breath and stood up taller. "I'm...demanding you leave my friend alone," she said firmly.

"Fluttershy, it ain't gonna move," Applejack said. "Thing's an ornery skeleton. Ain't gon' do nothin' 'til that unicorn tells it what ta do." She grunted when she tried to move and the dragon's giant arms continued to block her path. She tried to buck it in the skull but only succeeded in hurting herself. The mare expected the undead to attack back, but it did no such thing.

Furious, Fluttershy flew in front of the undead's face and started glaring at it with her eyes.

"Oh, she's doing the stare!" Pinkie wheezed in amusement.

"Now, you're going to let my friend go and sit in the corner and think about what you've done, mister!" She looked the undead up and down and became confused. "Or miss. Whatever you are!"

Her loud voice attracted the attention of Twilight and Shining as well as the guards still around. Pinkie seemed to enjoy the face-off, but the three Elements deflated when Spike grabbed Fluttershy's head, squeezed it gently a few times, then underhand threw her away onto Pinkie.

"Spike isn't going to listen to what you have to say," Twilight explained. "He's my assistant and does what I need his help with," she stated proudly. "Isn't that right, Spike?" the mare asked.

Spike didn't respond.

Exasperated, Applejack called out to Twilight. "Well, could ya tell it ta leave me alone, then? Ah ain't gonna attack you none," the farm pony asked.

"You can let her go," the unicorn told her dragon.

Spike backed away, letting the farm pony stretch her limbs and crack her neck. "That's much better," she said. "But...Ah still don't know why we're here."

"I don't care," Twilight spat. "Cadance, can I have my writing supplies now?" the mare grumbled.

Cadance was taken out of her reverie of rubbing her face against her sickly foal, horrified of her parental negligence. "Oh! Yes. Of course. Shining," she called. "Can you accompany Twilight to the office supplies? I don't trust your guards anymore."

Shining growled. "Neither do I at the moment." He gestured to Twilight. "You stay here. I'll bring everything up."

"Thank you, Shining," Twilight said with a smile.

She moved away from the crowd and stayed with her undead dragon with whom she spoke in hushed tones, ignoring everypony around.

Fluttershy used her wings to try and straighten her mane back in place when she rejoined the farm pony. "Applejack, you think we were brought here because of her?" she asked. She looked at Cadance and frowned. "You said you met her before, right?" Applejack nodded. "Well, I don't know her connection with the emperor and empress of the Crystal Empire, but she must be important to them if they're leaving her here."

"She's the sister of Emperor Shining Armor," Applejack explained. "Told me she'd gone missin' fer years 'n she just got back."

Pinkie gasped. "Really?!" She waved to Twilight. "Hey, creepy undead summoning lady!" she called out. Twilight glared at her from around Spike's legs. "You want to throw a party for your return with your family? Or just any party at all?!"

"No!" Twilight shouted back. "I hate parties! Leave me alone!"

Pinkie almost deflated, but she took on a stern expression. "A tough cookie, huh? Well, some milk always softens even the hardest of that tasty pastry." She stared Applejack in her eyes. "She's the reason we're here," Pinkie proclaimed. "Let's get her happy again. No pony hates parties, so she must be suppressing something. We should try and get through that."

The farm pony rubbed the back of her head. "Ah dunno. If she's really the Emperor's sister, then Ah think we might just have ta leave this fer the family ta deal with."

"Ooooooor, we ask them to help us," Pinkie said with a smile. "The quickest way to a pony's heart is through their family!"

Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Provided the family is good, of course."

Pinkie nodded. "Right." She narrowed her eyes and looked around, suspicious of everything. "I wonder why they're keeping a necromancer here, though. They aren't exactly the nicest ponies."

"Well, guess we're gon' find out on account-a the map not wantin' ta let us go unless somethin' awful happens, Ah guess." She took her hat off and used it to fan herself briefly. "It'd be best that nothin'-a the sort happens, Ah hope."

Direction

"Perhaps I should try?" Fluttershy suggested. "I don't mean to be rude, but you're too, um, invasive, Pinkie," she explained.

The pink pony shrugged. "I like to be loud and energetic, but I guess she's not made for that." She smiled and patted her friend on the back. "Alright, Fluttershy. Try and make friends with her." She started vibrating. "But please hurry. I can't stand knowing somepony doesn't like parties and I can't throw them one to show them how great they are."

Fluttershy smirked and shook her head while rolling her eyes. Pinkie was always so silly. She carefully approached the unicorn under the watchful eye of Cadance and her friends and took a deep breath.

"Excuse me," she called out. Twilight didn't react and instead continued waiting in the shadow of Spike. "Excuse me, miss?"

"What do you want?" Twilight spat out angrily. "Going to try and lasso me or tackle me to the ground like everypony else?" she asked aggressively.

"Oh, goodness no!" Fluttershy exclaimed. "That's a horrible thing to do. I could never do something like that." She waited to see Twilight's reaction before continuing. "Could you imagine if I did such things to my animals?" The pegasus balked at the idea. "I could never look them in the eye ever again." Twilight grunted in response. "Would it be too much if I were to introduce myself?"

"...Fine, if you insist," Twilight relented.

"I'm Fluttershy," the pegasus said. "I'm the Element of Kindness." She looked to her friends, worried. "I would introduce my friends, but I think it would be better if they introduced themselves." Fluttershy smiled sheepishly. "May they?"

"No," Twilight stated firmly. She peered around the leg of her undead. "What do you want, anyways? Are you trying to lure me intro a false sense of security? Going to try and get me into a trap and break my hind leg?"

Fluttershy paled. "Wh-what? Why would I--"

"They tried doing that to me in Canterlot. "I almost fell for it several times, too! Luring me into a false sense of security and then trying to trap me!" She grit her teeth. "The minotaurs taught me how to break them if I was caught in them." She grumbled. "Said they're the ones who came up with them first to catch prey." She squished her lips back. "One of the things I don't like about them, but that's not something I can really judge seeing as they need to eat meat."

The pegasus perked up. "You know minotaurs too?" She didn't want to delve deeper into what she assumed was a bad moment in Twilight's past, not that she was very wise to the happenings of the world. The mare simply assumed that Twilight was in Canterlot during the 'uprising' and got caught in the crossfire. "I know one too." Her ears flattened. "He's...something. He means weeelll buuuut...He's a bit too aggressive?" She cleared her throat. "And who is this...lovely, um, dragon?" she asked with a forced smile.

"He's Spike. My assistant," Twilight said. She patted his leg. "I was convinced to get one, so I did. Was tough work though, but the best feeling in performing a ritual is seeing it succeed." The unicorn fiddled with the medallion around her neck. "Even if, sometimes, the ritual goes weird but you still get the result you wanted in the end."

"I see." Fluttershy paused and looked up at the undead who stared at its master. "He looks like a very big and strong assistant."

"He is!" the unicorn stated proudly. She puffed her chest out slightly, seemingly unaware of it. "He helps me carry ingredients I found, items for my rituals, and supplies for when I travel around." Twilight looked up at Spike and gave it a big, warm smile. "He doesn't need to eat or drink so I don't have to worry about stocking for two."

Fluttershy nodded softly. "Oh. Well, I suppose that could always come as a great advantage, especially if he's helping you so much." She looked around momentarily, trying to let her conversational partner have a moment of 'rest'. "I was just wondering if you at least wanted to talk with me a bit about other things? We could go outside, maybe get some fresh air and--"

"No," Twilight answered flatly.

"Oh..."

"Twilight!" Shining called out. "I have everything here."

He startled Fluttershy, having seemingly popped up out of nowhere behind her. Twilight popped out from behind Spike, a giddy look on her face and used her magic to take everything in place.

"Hoooo! You brought so much!" she exclaimed in joy. "I'm going back to my room. Call me if you need my help with anything," the mare said.

The stomps of Spike became quieter and quieter as they disappeared up the stairs into the floors above. Shining and Cadance both heaved a loud sigh of relief.

The farm pony looked between the two and raised a brow. "Y'all wanna explain ta me what's going on?" Applejack asked the rulers.

"I suppose it's okay, considering you're the elements," Cadance said hesitantly.

"I'll explain to them," Shining said as he approached. "I had to contend with that gigantic abomination anyways."

The stallion explained everything to the three, from a necromancer's discovery and capture to the damages 'Spike' caused, the reaction to discovering that the 'necromancer' they had found was actually his sister he had seemingly lost years ago. He also shared the little that Twilight shared with him while clearly keeping a lot hidden away and what to do and not do -that they've understood- around 'Spike'.

"That's a doozy of a reveal," Pinkie said.

"It's relatively passive around everypony and doesn't seem to care when it's getting attacked," Shining added. "I figured it's because it has no self-preservation instinct or that it only reacts to something that can actually wound it."

" 'N what about that necklace she's wearin'? Thought ya'd take it away," Applejack said.

Shining shook his head. "No pony has been able to remove it. It's the strangest thing. Twilight is unaffected, but everypony else can't even touch it. The worst part is that we've all tried to dispel whatever she used on it, but nothing seems to work. It almost like there's no magic on it."

"That's because there isn't, silly," Pinkie said. Everypony turned to her, wide-eyed and confused. "What?"

"Then what is it?" Cadance asked. "I'm worried she might have something very dangerous with her."

Flurry was resting in her foreleg, her magic still being circulated by her mother.

Pinkie shrugged with a big smile. "I don't know. It's just something weird and icky on it. Like..." She put a hoof to her chin and looked at the ceiling while she was trying to find a good comparison. "Liiiiike it's made from the opposite of our world?"

"What? What does that even mean?" Shining asked.

The pink pony shrugged again. "I dunno. It's the best thing I can come up with for an explanation."

"And how would you know what that is?" Cadance wondered. "Seems very specific and arbitrary."

"Well, that's because there's plenty of things like it underneath my family's rock farm," Pinkie said casually. "Sometimes Maud and Limestone have to bash them with a rock to make them go away." She huffed and crossed her forelegs. "They're very annoying and persistent. Don't even want to leave when you tell them to, and they always make the farm look weird." She gave a great, big smile. "But they make the best rocks grow so we deal with them. It's like farmers and wasps. Wasps are mean but they eat all the pests that eat the crops. Same thing here."

"Ah don't think that's the same, but alright. Good 'nough Ah s'pose," Applejack accepted.

"I don't like what you said about those things under your farm," Shining said with apprehension.

Pinkie just smiled in response. "They're harmless. A good bonk on the head and they go away, like any problem!"

Applejack looked at her sideways. "Ignorin' what she just said, Ah can't believe the map would send us here ta help her." She noticed the rulers looking at her negatively and was quick to try and 'reword' her statement. "Ah mean, she's a necromancer. What makes her so special compared to others that have existed 'round the world? Ain't they all obsessed with gettin' immortality and becoming an embodiment of death 're somethin'...or so Ah've heard."

Shining stifled a chuckle, leaving his wife to answer. A very disappointed wife.

"It's true that most that practice necromancy get an unhealthy obsession with the aspects of death and what it can both be and accomplish, but as far as we've seen, Twilight is focused on bringing Auntie Celestia back."

"She wants to bring the princess back?" Fluttershy asked. Her face was flush with empathy. "But isn't she gone?"

"Yes, but that isn't stopping Twilight." Cadance looked at the stairs her sister-in-law took and concern filled her. "Considering Spike, she might be getting closer to that than we all think, but I'm worried that Twilight might not even succeed in her endeavor."

The group became silent until Flurry yawned and made a small burp, a sign that her belly was doing slightly better.

"Ah heard there's necromancers studyin' sum'in' called arbo...arb...arber...bah! Tree necromancy!"

"Tree necromancy?" Shining repeated. "How would that work?"

"Ah have no idea ahdea. Makes no sense to me, but it's apparently sum'in real rare. Here's ta hopin' yer 'Twahlaht' ain't gonna try studyin' that next ta reincarnate Princess Celestia inta a giant shrub er sum'in'." She heaved a sigh and massaged her neck. "Even Ah know what happened ta the princess was unspeakably terrible, but what's done is done. Too late ta change the past, and ain't nopony gonna be able to stop nature. As a farmer, Ah should know." She readjusted her stetson and kept her hoof on it for a short moment after. "Ah'd do anythin' ta see mah folks 'gain, but ya cain't fight death. Bad things happen when ya try ta."

"No one is saying anything against that," Cadance sighed. "But Twilight has been through a lot. We just think that, with her, erm, experience in dealing with dead bodies that she would be better suited for something like medicinal work."

"We hope that she gives up on Celestia and utilizes her talents in something other than necromancy," Shining added. He pretended to chew something as concern gripped him. "She seems fine right now, as much as she can be, but I'm still afraid she'll be consumed by the magic of necromancy." He looked to Pinkie whose smile slowly faded. "Pinkie Pie, you yourself said that there's something weird attached to her medallion."

"Yes?"

The stallion audibly gulped, seemingly too terrified to ask. "Do you think it's something that's trying to drag her into those dark recesses?"

"I told you I don't know what it is. I'm sorry I can't help you more, your Highness. I'm a party planner, not a weird-thingy-majingy identifier," Pinkie said.

Shining sighed and dug his hoof into his mane. "I really thought you might be able to at least identify whatever it was specifically, or at least figure out what it wants."

Applejack nodded. "Ah think a better question is 'where'd she find it'? Somethang like that ain't gon' be waltzing about all casually."

Fluttershy looked to the stairs, concerned. "I think we should just leave it be," she suggested. "She hasn't done anything with it and it hasn't done anything to anypony yet."

As the group continued to discuss the intricacies of necromancy and the strange entity that touched Twilight's medallion, the unicorn herself was impatiently tapping the head of her quill against the paper. She had already filled out eight pieces front and back, but the ninth remained devoid of any chicken scratches save the dot of concentrated ink Twilight created as a result of her block. She had already considered if Celestia's body had been dissolved in acid or what effects salt could have on a body, but what she never took into account was: How would she get Celestia's soul back? Was the princess lying in limbo, waiting? Was she tethered to the sun? Was her soul in one of the many afterlives that seemed to exist across the world?

Twilight looked at Spike and felt her concerns deepening. The dragon didn't seem to have a soul, but he was there, wasn't he? If Celestia was brought back, would she be like Spike? The unicorn didn't want a subservient princess as an assistant. She just wanted Celestia back. She leaned over the desk and angrily ran her hooves through her mane. Those three ruined her concentration! If the guards had brought the supplies then Twilight would have already gone over the idea several times already! It was still morning and Twilight wanted to go to back to bed. Seeing the orange mare again pulled her out of the false sense of comfort she had developed knowing that Shining and Cadance were close by.

The mare fiddled with the lock on her horn and Spike leaned forward slightly. Should Twilight ask him to break the ring off? It felt like it had been burning ever since she got captured, and she didn't like the idea of staying in a place where the guards who beat her up while she was down were still all around her. Then again: Shining said he missed her and wanted Twilight to see her parents again. She could do that after she brought back Celestia, too. It would just take longer. Why bring in the Elements at all as well?

So many questions, so many possibilities. She could always just have her lock broken, use the medallion, and go home...

Hesitation

Applejack tapped the ground, lost in thought. The three had been placed in a guest waiting room and served fruit juice that was left in a pitcher on a small, wooden table. Four blue-gray couches were present which could sit two ponies each, but they were also long and deep enough that, if one wanted to sleep until they could attend to whatever they were waiting for, they could.

However, more important matters wracked the minds of the three elements. What were they going to do with Shining's sister? She was all about forgiving, but that first encounter with her wasn't exactly a good first impression. That said, she was a necromancer but didn't do anything to her, and that's twice the mare tried to run instead of using her magic. In fact, it was twice already that her undead dragon didn't actually directly harm her or her friends. It just threw her away when they first met and pushed Fluttershy away.

"How're we gonna do this?" she asked her friends. "Ain't got not idea how ta approach it."

"Why not ask around the empire and see if somepony is willing to show Twilight what they do? She might find inspiration somewhere," Pinkie suggested. "I know it's how I found my interest in baking when I left the rock farm."

"Huh." Applejack nodded to herself and faced Fluttershy. "And, uh, how'd you find yer callin', Fluttershy?"

"Um." The pegasus looked around nervously, unwilling to make eye contact. "I just didn't really like to be near others, so I just followed the feeling I got when I was surrounded by butterflies as a foal and started to take care of the animals," she said.

Applejack stared at her friend. "That ain't healthy, 'shy'." Fluttershy smiled sheepishly at Applejack's response. "Well, maybe we can try and ask the rulers about that plan?"

Pinkie side glanced the pitcher and pursed her lips. "Well, even though they're real neat and all, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Oh raght," Applejack realized despondently. "The necromancy thing. No pony'll want her ta be near 'em or corpses of any kind." She heaved a sigh and scratched her side. "This cold air is hurtin' mah skin sum'in' fierce," she complained. "Ah really just want ta go home at this point. Ah ain't one ta back down from challengin' work, but this all feels like a bit much."

Fluttershy cleared her throat. "Maybe we could disguise her?" she suggested. "Could ask to have her mane and coat recolored." Her vague eagerness dissolved rather quickly. "Oh, but Rarity isn't here. She would have been the best at applying make-up and redoing a mane and tail's styles."

"No no, that's a real good ahdea, Flutters," Applejack praised.

The pegasus seemed to perk up immediately. "Really?"

"Yeah!" Pinkie shouted. She started fumbling through her mane and pulled out eleven small cans of paint. "They have artists and stuff in the spire. Could even give them some of my paint supplies just for that." The mares stared at her paint, dumbfounded. "What?"

"Why do ya have paint with ya?" Applejack asked.

"In-case there's a party emergency and I have to paint a bunch of decorations and drawings and stuff, silly!" Pinkie answered while shoving the cans back into her mane.

"Oh, ha ha! Of course!" Applejack pretended to hit her head with her hoof. "Ah shoulda known." She turned to Fluttershy and rolled her eyes. "We're gonna have ta find either Emperor Shining Armor or Empress Cadance."

Fluttershy hummed pensively. "Well, Empress Cadance should be in her quarters with the foal considering she looked very sick, and Emperor Shining might be training with the other soldiers."

Applejack weighed in both options. "Both are occupied but the easiest one to reach right now would be Empress Cadance, I guess."

"Then it's time for me to use my Pinkie charm to get through the guards," the mare said while moving her eyebrows up and down.

"Lower them bros, missy!" Applejack ordered.

"But I was just going to--"

"Start a pastry or confetti fight. Y'always end up creating a pigsty when you use the 'party charm'," Applejack whipped.

Pinkie seemed upset. "But it's not the party charm, it's the p--"

"Renamin' it ain't changin' what it is. Y'ain't gettin' it past me," Applejack said sternly. "We're just talkin' calmly 'n trying' ta reason with 'em. We'll see what can be done."

Twilight, on her side, had set aside her concerns with Celestia's soul and had already begun working on her many other theories for restoring bodies to their pre-dead state. She had two full stacks of fifty papers each and grew upset that she couldn't just stack them all atop of one another. However, the mare took a short break to look outside the window of her room and observe everypony wandering through the streets. Far to the right she could see the smoke of a train getting ready to enter the city's limit and offload whatever cargo it possessed. Ponies coming and going, the quietness of the room due to its distance from the capital's existence, and nothing to worry about outside of her own work.

She couldn't take it anymore. Twilight was grateful that Shining and Cadance didn't immediately reject her and took her in, but Twilight couldn't stay in the spire for the rest of her life. It's exactly the reason she did her best to avoid getting caught: Being trapped and imprisoned for the rest of her life, or killed. This was a situation that was worse than anything she could think of when it came to solving her greatest dilemma concerning Celestia. However, it was also extremely difficult to let go of the luxuries she had been denied for so long. A warm bed, a clean showering space, readily available and rich foods, and a roof over her head that remained warm and relatively dry. Back in the cave, Twilight had to employ multiple spells within the rock itself to redirect water flow in the stone around the little house she found. She didn't want everything to collapse due to erosion or to get black mold everywhere.

The mare was getting angry and the lock around her horn was starting to burn again. She kept it on for her brother, but now...

"Spike, could you remove this lock from my horn, please?" Twilight asked. The undead took two steps forward when the door swung open, revealing Cadance. "Hold on," Twilight whispered. "What's wrong?" the mare asked.

"The Elements gave me a great idea: We'll disguise you and have you visiting a few places to see if you might find interest in them. You could use your skills for a..." The alicorn tried to find the right words. Telling Twilight that her endeavors were 'bad' in any way would likely already break the trust she developed in them. "A different sort of purpose. Maybe one that will help you relax when you're stuck on your...projects?" she asked with a giant smile.

Twilight pondered the idea. "And what if I don't like any of the things you propose?"

Cadance shrugged. "We can't force you to do anything, but staying cooped up in the spire isn't very good for your health."

Twilight dusted her mane and looked at Cadance with suspicion. "Let's say I accept. The guards that you assign to me are going to give my identity away, and no pony wants to deal with the 'icky necromancer' that you captured," Twilight stated derisively.

Applejack excused herself as she pushed through. "Well, that's where we come in."

Fluttershy flew over the pair and gave Twilight a warm, yet nervous, smile. "We'll be accompanying you and making sure nothing bad happens whether it's to you or somepony else," Fluttershy explained quietly.

"And we'll just say that you're somepony who fell on hard times and needs help with her rehabilitation into having a good, honest day's work!" Pinkie added from the side of the wall. "Y-y'know, but that's...technically the truth." She chuckled nervously.

Twilight leaned to the side and realized the pink pony had placed suction cups on her hooves and was using them to walk along the walls. "Where did you get tho--" She was distracted by Applejack shushing her and shaking her head. "But she doesn't have a bag. Where--"

"It's a Pinkie thing," Fluttershy interjected. "We find it's best to not think about it."

A confused Twilight looked back at Pinkie and reeled back in horror when she realized an unnatural smile was growing on the pony's face as her eyes looked into opposite directions at the same speed.

"Pinkie!" Applejack yelled.

Startled, the pink mare stuttered and shifted in place, causing her suction cups to detach and letting her fall to the ground. "What happened? I lost my train of thought and was imagining a bunch of stuff." She looked up at her friends and shrunk away. "Was I making faces again?" She chuckled nervously then cleared her throat and looked away as her ears flattened. "Sorry."

"Then where do you want to take me to first?" Twilight asked.

"First we need to figure out what to do with Spike," Cadance said. "We can't have it following you around everywhere, and disguising it wouldn't work because ponies would ask a lot of questions that it can't answer."

"That's easy." Twilight said with a dismissive wave. "Spike, wait here for me. If I'm in any real danger, I need you to come and help me like you did last time." She fiddled with the lock on her horn and grunted. "You'll know if I'm in danger or not." The mare waited a moment then looked at Cadance with a weak smile. "There. He'll, uh...he won't move from here," Twilight said nervously.

Applejack immediately picked up on the almost instantaneous loss of confidence but remained silent. She wasn't sure if the other three had or if even Twilight noticed it herself. Regardless, they had work to do.

"Well," Cadance started. Twilight felt her blood run cold for some reason. Then the pink alicorn pulled out a large, tweed box and opened it, revealing countless make-up products. "Time to put on your disguise."

Annoyed but ultimately powerless to stop them, Twilight relented and allowed the mares to work on her no matter how irritating and uncomfortable it felt. More importantly, she worried that Spike would physically assault them if she showed any immediate distress outside of her magical surges. It felt like hours had passed, but the light outside was stronger than ever. Pinkie and Fluttershy brought a small mirror up to Twilight for her to observe her new appearance and check every change made.

Her coat and horn had become bubblegum pink, and although her mane and tail were now pure white, they still both had a single vertical streak of purple running through them. Even her cutie mark had been disguised as six, five-pointed stars with five on the outside and one in the center.

"Huh?" Twilight scratched herself. "This stuff is really itchy."

Cadance held her hooves down and looked Twilight straight into her eyes. "You'll get used to it quick, but don't scratch. The powder will fly off." She clapped her hooves together, chasing off the errant powder. "Now, since Flurry Heart is being watched by a doctor, I think I can quickly bring you four to the guard barracks next to the spire."

Applejack groaned internally. She knew they couldn't have gone to the soldiers directly, but it was still a kick in the guts to be going directly to them immediately afterwards.

"Before we go, can you take this lock off of my horn?" Twilight asked nervously. "I don't feel comfortable with being unable to defend myself."

The mare's once 'proud' stature and derisive tone directed at the Elements had suddenly vanished. Now she was a nervous wreck that spoke meekly. Both Applejack and Cadance could see that, without the assurance of Spike being around nor her magic to defend herself, the pony had started regressing. Fluttershy herself recognized further issues that she had seen with the mistreated animals she had brought in.

The pegasus even noticed that Cadance's features had grown more severe when seeing the unicorn in this manner. There was deep-seated trauma wedged within this mare's mind, but she didn't know how to approach it without knowing the exact cause or source.

"Don't worry, Twilight. These three will keep you safe at all times, right, mares?" Cadance asked with a smile.

The three answered in affirmative tones.

The lavender unicorn, on the other hoof, groaned nervously. "If you say so."

"I'll ask Shining to take you to the barracks' infirmary," Cadance continued. "Should be able to use your talents with...Well, you know, to spotting and helping heal the wounded soldiers." The alicorn's smile faded. "Provided the ones Spike hurt aren't there," she realized in horror while passing a hoof through her mane.

Confrontation

The barracks were much closer than Twilight had anticipated, being only about ten minutes from the spire and occupying a large chunk of the capital itself. It seemed more like a military base than a simple barracks and training ground. She could see several armories with active ponies inside working on new weapons to add to the stockpile and taking in materials from delivery carts. The unicorn wasn't exactly sure why all these weapons were being made, but she didn't quite care. There were more important things to worry about. The guards at the metal gates saluted Cadance and pulled the doors open, allowing the visitors to enter into a very busy ground where soldiers were running left and right with materials in small carts, wagons, or just training outright. Spears, swords, crossbows, javelins, and even unicorn spell casting. They were doing everything. They ignored the visitors until Shining popped out of one of the pyramidal buildings lining the walls on the right and greeted his wife.

"What's going on?" he asked Cadance. "What are you all doing here?"

Cadance smiled. "The elements suggested we bring Twilight here to see what is done in the infirmary. We figured that it would be a great opportunity for her to show off her knowledge."

The stallion grunted and looked around, frowning. "Well, I can't say I really approve coming here after what happened," he said in a low tone of voice. "Still. You're already here so might as well make the most of it." He cracked his neck and waltzed around the ponies. "So where is she?"

"I'm here," Twilight declared.

Shining jumped back in shock. "You startled me, Twilight!" he exclaimed. His fear quickly turned to curiosity. "You're Twilight?" He nodded in approval. "Not bad. No pony would recognize you, even if you still have the same mane style," he complained.

"Oh, stop fretting about every little detail," Cadance chastised. "There's only so many mane styles to go through. She's not unique, and with no pony knowing her name, she doesn't need to hide it either." She kissed Shining on his cheek and turned back towards the spire. "Take good care of her, okay?"

The stallion smiled then glared at Twilight. "Why are you hiding back there?" he asked her.

The mare seemed to be trapped within her own world as she gazed at the innumerable amount of ponies surrounding her. Even though she was in an open space it felt asphyxiating to be here. She really just wanted to have the lock on her horn removed so she could teleport back home.

"Ah, Ah think she's havin' a panic attack," Applejack said with worry.

Fluttershy floated over to Twilight and patted her gently on the head. "There there," she said. "Don't worry about what's around you. Just focus on us. We're the only ponies you need to worry about." Fluttershy flinched slightly when Twilight's eyes shot to her and appeared filled with terror and a deep, unquenchable hatred. "It's okay," she continued hesitantly.

Twilight blinked several times then took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay. Let's just hurry up to wherever you wanted me to go," she squeaked.

Her change in attitude concerned Shining immensely. She seemed far more unstable than when she was first recovered. "Alright, Twilight. This way," he said. "There's several infirmaries here, so I'll have you go to the one that the minor injured aren't at." The lavender unicorn gulped at the emphasis her brother made.

The Emperor returned into the prior building then came back out and bid the four mares to follow him. Soldiers filled the 'barracks' in their every nook and cranny. With all the tasks necessary to keep everything running, Twilight couldn't help but find that she was getting trapped if they figured out who she was. Her heart was beating hard and fast and it felt like a vice was squeezing her head.

"Here," Shining said.

They had all stopped at a trapezoid-shaped building with a red X above the entrance. Like most buildings in the empire, it was made from a white material Twilight could only identify as a mix between wood and stone. She had no idea what they used to build anything. However, the moment Shining pushed open the single door leading inside, the three elements immediately covered their muzzles.

"Blazes!" Applejack cursed. "What in tarnation is that stink?"

Pinkie coughed several times into her hooves before speaking as well. "I have to agree with Applejack. I've messed up recipes in the back and they were really stinky, but this? Hooo. It smells like Carrot and Poundcake's diapers times a thousand!"

Shining sported a devious grin, finding amusement in their reactions, but his face flushed of all emotions when he noticed Twilight wasn't reacting.

"Nothing to say, Twilight?" he asked his sister.

"About what?" Twilight asked.

The stallion sputtered his words at first. "The smell coming from the infirmary!"

"Oh. That." Twilight leaned to the side to get a look at the hallway covered in plain, tan-colored wood. "I don't know. Just smells like medication and dying ponies in there. Nothing special."

She shrunk away from the baffled, questioning gazes of the other ponies and remained silent.

"Uh...okay then," Shining said awkwardly. He cleared his throat and invited every pony inside. "Let's go meet one of the medics," he said.

He took the second door on the left and entered a room full of beds covered in clean, white sheets placed at regular intervals from each other. There were some ponies on them, but most were sound asleep.

"These ponies are here due to a simple disease or maybe from just overexerting themselves for one reason or another." He frowned and tilted his head. "Usually because they want a promotion," he said in a deeper voice. "Anyways." He waved a hoof at the stallion checking on one sleeping patient. "Doctor Orange Butterscotch!" Shining called.

The pony looked to the side and was quick to take his stance and salute. He was draped in a white coat that covered most of his deep, orange coat. His mane and tail were a paler, more buttery orange decorated by a white swirling stripe that started at the center of his head and the base of his tail. His mane was an unkempt mess that went out in multiple different directions, although Shining didn't seem to be bothered by it. Butterscotch's eyes were a faint blood-orange that stood out compared to the rest of him and attracted the attention of everypony meeting him for the first time. They thought his eyes were bloodshot.

"What do you need, sir?" the stallion asked loudly.

"At ease," Shining said softly. "I have a project for you." He gestured to the three to bring Twilight forward, and Applejack was the one that pulled Twilight into view. "This mare is a criminal."

The medic's eyes grew cold and he started to look down on Twilight. "Is she now?"

"Don't worry. She's not one of those who are guilty of heinous crimes," Shining reassured. "She was caught stealing enough times that I've decided to try my hoof at rehabilitation. You know, give her the chance at plying an honest trade that she was denied since her foalhood." Applejack snorted at the stallion's comment. "She has a knack for understanding the bodies of ponies and has dabbled a bit on the subject in the past. I want you to show her what you do and see if she might have some compatibility with medical work."

"I understand, sir," Butterscotch confirmed.

"You will be accompanied by three of the Elements of Harmony who will act as her parole officers, if you will," Shining continued.

Pinkie hopped forward. "That's right! We'll make sure she doesn't do anything naughty, and I will make sure everypony is supplied with cupcakes to keep morale up!" she said as she pulled a tray with eight cupcakes on it out of her mane.

Butterscotch looked at the treats with disgust. "We aren't allowed any sugary treats outside of resting periods and lunch, m'am," he explained. "But thank you for the offer."

Pinkie's cheeks puffed up and she hid the tray back into her mane. "Pfff. The ponies around here are all so stuffy. They definitely need some laughter in their lives. They don't get enough of it."

Applejack chuckled and patted her upset friend's back. "It's alright, Pinkie. When this is all done we can ask the Emperor 'n Empress tya give ya the chance ta make a gigantic party to celebrate Twilight turnin' over a new leaf," Applejack said.

The pink earth pony's eyes sparkled in joy. "Yes! I should start planning that already!" she realized. "I need to invite everypony in the city."

Ignoring the pink pony's ramblings, Shining spoke to the medic. "I trust you will perform your duty well?"

The stallion saluted Shining again. "Yes, sir!"

"Then I'll be back in my office. I have some things to...sign," he groaned.

"'Life as the head of the Crystal Empire's military getting to you, sir?" Butterscotch teased.

Shining gave him a side-glance. "Get to work, you."

When the stallion had finally left, the medic stood in awkward silence before mustering up the courage to speak. "So, you're supposed to learn about what I do here?" he asked Twilight.

The mare shrugged and avoided making eye-contact. "I guess?"

"Well, just don't touch anything around here unless I tell you to," the stallion said. "You wouldn't get a good price for any of this anyways."

"Y'all needn't worry none about her stealin'," Applejack said as she stepped forward. "She ain't gettin' past our eyes."

"Is that so?" the stallion asked. He stepped up to Applejack. "I trust you're a purveyor of honest trade?" he pried.

"Part of a long line of apple farmers," the mare responded.

"So you know how to spot any potential theft?"

Applejack flicked the back of Twilight's head. "I sure do."

Twilight rubbed the back of her head and glared at Applejack. She was just going to check on the mare in the bed next to her. She looked dead. Why couldn't she check then?

The group were interrupted by several ponies carrying in a screaming stallion bleeding from his left hind leg. The bleeding was copious enough that a large trail was forming as he passed across the wooden floor.

"Medic! There was an accident during sword training!" one of the guards said.

Butterscotch pulled off the covers from one of the beds and had the ponies drop the stallion on it.

"Why didn't you try and apply a tourniquet?" the medic complained.

"We tried!" a guard said. "It wouldn't stay!"

The medic cursed loudly as he and the other guards tried their best to stymie the bleeding and force the body to begin coagulating. Unfortunately, both he and Twilight knew that it was a pointless endeavor. The wound was too deep to be stymied so easily. Butterscotch quickly applied a tourniquet and, with the help of the guards, started frantically cleaning the wounded area. The doctor tried to apply some white powder Twilight didn't recognize, but the flowing blood would just wash it all off.

She ignored the increasing frustration of the doctor and the guards and started searching around for surgical supplies and found a very small needle, some string, and small clamps. She pushed everypony away and tightened the tourniquet excessively, almost completely cutting off the blood circulation.

"What are you doing?" Butterscotch complained. "You'll cause his leg to necrotize!"

The mare grabbed a large magnifying glass and used it to look more closely at the wound. Using the skills she developed over the years, she used the clamps to pinch the veins and prevent the sectioned parts from bobbing everywhere from the blood pressure. It took several attempts, but she managed to successfully get into the veins and start sowing them back together. It took several hours of work, and she had to frequently loosen the tourniquet to allow some regular blood flow to prevent the leg from dying.

"There," Twilight said. "That should hold him until you get him to an actual hospital." She wiped her forehead. "Get him there carefully and slowly loosen the tourniquet on the way. The unicorns there should be able to handle proper surgery like that," she explained. The mare seemed confused when everypony around her looked stunned. "What?"

"How do you know how to do that?" Butterscotch asked.

"I've had practice," Twilight said with a proud smirk.

Progress

"Experience? How?" Butterscotch asked.

Twilight started sweating nervously. "Uh, well, when you do what I do you have to know how to clean and bandage your own wounds and fix yourself or any 'friends' you have along the way that get any...nasty wounds."

The medic glared at Twilight but shrugged his suspicions off. "As long as you saved one of my patients I have no reason to pry further," he said.

The mare breathed a sigh of relief internally while Applejack gently patted her on the back.

"Well done, Twah," she congratulated. "Looks like yer talents came in handy after all," she said with a smile.

Pinkie jumped into view, a big smile plastered on her face. "Thanks to you I can throw my first 'You're still alive!' party when he gets all better. I get to plan so many new kinds of parties thanks to you." Her eyes sparkled with joy. "I love doing first time things! They're always so much fun. And then you get to improve upon what you already did and create a bunch of side-projects to make even funner parties! And then-- "

While Pinkie started to ramble loudly, Fluttershy approached the medic and, with a great mustering of courage, very hesitantly tapped him on the shoulder. "Um, excuse me," Fluttershy started.

"What is it?" the doctor asked. He was handed a clipboard with some documents on it and started filling everything out. "I'm busy with this patient."

"Oh, I didn't mean to bother you during such a difficult moment, but I was curious if this sort of thing happens often." She looked at Twilight briefly. "I think that this kind of work would benefit Tw--The prisoner."

The stallion scritched a little more onto the documents before answering, a scowl on his face from focusing so much on his work and the stress that was brought by the wounded soldier coming in so suddenly. "Accidents during training happen, yes, but most of the time they're just getting cuts and bruises." After every few words he would fill out more of the documents while the guards waited patiently. "The more experienced soldiers stupidly ignore the training weapons made purposefully for training!" he bellowed at the guards around him. "They claim that using fake weapons doesn't help them with learning how to use their weapons. Not the same weight and so on." He removed the documents and handed them to a unicorn guard who rushed out of the infirmary. "As for you, my little prisoner, I have plans for you." He walked over to a large, sterile closet that reeked of bleach and pulled out a white coat and chucked it at Twilight's head. "Put that on and follow me. I want to see the extent of your knowledge."

The mare pulled the coat down and put it on despite her confusion. "Okay?" she agreed hesitantly.

The four mares follow him to another room, this one smelling more like rot and bitter medicine than the previous one. Several other medics were working in there, treating several ponies whose limbs had darkened, despite the efforts made. The mares and stallions in the beds were agonizing and various parts of their bodies were draped in bandages soaked in medicine, but Twilight didn't know what kind.

"These are victims of frostbite or icerot caused by the denizens of our tundras." Butterscotch wiped his nose and shook his head. "We've been progressing with conquering all this land we lost because of Sombra, but it's a long and arduous task. We only managed the south because your Council wanted to open trade relations with us and help us prosper." He snorted. "Or so they claim."

Applejack raised a hoof. "Let's not get inta politics, doctor. Ain't the time nor the place fer it."

"You're right. Sorry. Just...Well, you know how personal biases can leak out at times," the stallion said.

The farm pony suddenly thought of Granny Smith and groaned. "Yeah. Ah do know."

"All these ponies look so down," Pinkie said. "Could I bake them something to help them out? A cake? A pie? A kie?"

"No," Twilight interjected. "They don't need sugar. They need simple nutritious foods and a lot of hydration." She rushed over to one mare lying on her back with her left foreleg bent downwards, seemingly unable to move. "Her frostbite is causing necrosis."

"We're aware of that," Butterscotch said with irritation. "We can't do anything except attempt to help in relief before the inevitable."

Twilight frowned and looked back at the blackened leg. "What if I told you that it's possible to save all their afflicted parts?" she asked.

Butterscotch raised a brow and looked at Twilight skeptically. "And how would you do that?" Twilight lowered her horn to the limb but cursed when she remembered that her magic was locked. "I can show you as best as I can, but it'll involve a lot of time and precise, subcutaneous work on the afflicted flesh."

"Are you sure?" Fluttershy asked. "Wouldn't it be better if you did it yourself?" she asked.

The unicorn flicked the lock on her horn. "I would if I could."

She started to show the doctor what to do and how to do it. The light show being created started attracting the other medics. While Butterscotch was a unicorn and could apply the techniques Twilight showed him, two of the other medics were only earth ponies. It was a technique that couldn't be used without a horn, but Twilight thought that, if they knew how to do it, they would be able to guide any other medics in the field to perform the tasks. It would be less efficient but that was fine.

Butterscotch was sweating profusely throughout the process, and the pain to the delirious mare patient was so severe that the other medics had to force her into a medically induced coma. They were all shocked that she was able to feel anything in her necrotizing limb after a few hours of work. Each and every individual cell had to be repaired and restored using the natural resources present in the mare's body. Because the effort was so extensive, the ponies were forced to attach iv drips that fed the mares body vitamins, minerals, and other necessary materials like iron and proteins. The other unicorns started to slowly start assisting Butterscotch in his task and found themselves just as exhausted. Twilight's theory was that they 'only' needed to restore a large enough percentage of healthy flesh that the necrotic ones could be removed without too much damage to the recovered and healthy cells. With the recovered cells, the veins would be included in that task and blood would flow again, resupplying nutrients and oxygen to the flesh and muscles. It would facilitate healing and prevent any accidents caused by the increasing fatigue the ponies were feeling from their work.

After several hours of work by the medics, everypony slipped onto the floor, panting from the effort. Horns were sparking, fur was getting damp from sweat, and lungs were working overtime to supply oxygen to the unicorns' bodies. The leg of the mare had switched from a black color to a vaguely yellow shade. It still contrasted with her vibrant yellow coat, but it was a far better shade than the alternative.

"Alright. She recovered, mostly," Twilight noted. "All that's left now is to repair the nerves and make sure you didn't miss anything else.

One of the medics threw her hoof into the air. "Alright!" She let it drop hard onto the ground. "Just...Just let us catch our breath. That...I never had to do anything that exhausting before."

During the whole process, Applejack had become skeptical of the technique Twilight was showing the medics. "Ah ain't too sure, but Ah feel like she usin' necromancy," she whispered to her friends.

"Well, she used it to help them, no?" Pinkie asked.

Fluttershy nodded. "She figured out how to use it to benefit hurt ponies. I think that's something to be celebrated."

Applejack pondered their words and nodded, a small smile growing on her face. "Yer raght. Ah was worried fer a moment there, but Ah guess it ain't got the same kick to it if the pony's still alive. " She lost her composure to shock after thinking about it more deeply. "Ya can use necromancy on the livin'?!" she whispered. "But that's fer the dead!"

Fluttershy seemed confused and Pinkie remained empty-minded.

"So?" Pinkie asked. "It's just dead cells," she said. "Doesn't seem like that big a deal to me."

Applejack pulled her friends out and into the single hallway. "Pinkie, there ain't nevah been no necromancy what can affect the livin'!" she said. "That mare is advancin' necromancy by leaps 'n bounds." She shook her friend briefly. "We can't let anypony 'cept the rulers know about this!"

"Whw-hwh-whyyy-y-y-y?!" Pinkie stammered.

"Twi' could create somethin' awful with that magic if we don't find her a new purpose in life." The mare looked into the distance, feeling herself getting increasingly stressed. "Ah ain't no scientist, but Ah think the medical world would go mad!"

Fluttershy put a hoof to her muzzle. "Oh my."

Pinkie's brow creased. "Yeah. I can see everypony going mad and trying to approach Twilight if that got out. That's not fun for anypony to get swarmed like that." She tapped her chest lightly. "Even I need somepony to help me take a step back when I get too consumed by my love of parties and start invading personal spaces."

"About that," Fluttershy said.

Instead of taking her elsewhere, Twilight was left in the care of the medics in the infirmary. After learning of her affinity for necromancy even in these cases, Cadance and Shining decided to keep it quiet and hidden even further than they already were. Shining was even required to approach the medics who bore witness to Twilight's feats and keep it between them. The excuse was he was afraid of foreign spies stealing the knowledge or targeting Twilight for a kidnapping. He even stated the fear that, if doctors heard about her ideas, that they might swarm her and cause disruptions and a panic attack. She wasn't very good with many ponies, Shining had told them.

While unhappy, the medics did as they were told. The two rulers thought that, with time, Twilight would eventually lose any progress she had made with her necromantic techniques, but every day she seemed to come up with new ones as strange and odd as the previous.

"I don't know about this, Cadance," Shining said as he looked anxiously at the barracks from the throne room. "Ponies are starting to become suspicious of her." Cadance worried when she saw her husband shaking. "The medics don't think about it because they're learning of new ways to save their charges, but the soldiers? Healing necrosis? Reinvigorating dying cells? Replacing dead flesh?"

"I can see how that would be a problem," the pink alicorn said. "How long has it been again? A week?" She adjusted herself in her seat. "The elements are still around?" she asked.

"Surprisingly, yes," Shining answered. "They said that this is one of their longer 'quests', as the pink pony put it, but they've had longer." He nodded, tilting his head left and right. "They've gotten quite comfortable in the empire. Apparently, Pinkie Pie made friends with a lot of bakers around here."

Cadance nodded, concerned for her husband. "That's good to hear, at least."

"Fluttershy and Applejack work around the barracks as well, I think, but they're mostly watching Twilight." Shining's brows furrowed. "They've kept her away from trouble, but I don't know. I feel like something bad is going to happen." He rubbed the back of his neck, the muscles cracking in tandem the lower he reached. "How is Spike?"

Cadance cleared her throat. "It hasn't moved from her room since she told it to stay there," the mare explained. "It's just there, looming over anypony that goes in. It's let Flurry play around and on it, too." Shining looked at her, immeasurable confusion eating at him. "I don't get it either, but it just doesn't seem to react to anything around it without Twilight being there for it to follow."

"Well, at least-Hold on." Shining peered outside the window to see a small crowd gathering at the entrance of the barracks and felt his heart sinking. "We have to get down there, now!" the stallion bellowed.

"What? Why? What's going on?!" Cadance asked.

"I think they figured out who Twilight is, but I'm uncertain."

Fury

"What's going on?" Shining asked as Cadance dropped him into the base.

One of the soldiers saluted both him and Cadance. "Y-your hignesses! It's about that prisoner you asked us to watch during her reformation."

Cadance rushed in front of the guard, her face flush with worry. "Did something happen to her?!"

"W-we're not sure. There's a group of ponies here asking about the medical discoveries she's managed to do, b-b-but then there's anoth-another group that is claiming she's the necromancer that caused the deaths of two soldiers just outside of the capital with her undead monster."

Shining and Cadance cursed under their breaths.

"Who blabbed?" Shining wondered to his wife.

The mare shrugged. "The only ones who knew about what Twilight was doing were the medics, and they were under oath to not speak of anything."

Shining grumbled. "Being under oath doesn't mean you leak things out or not. They aren't machines but ponies." He looked at the crowd breaking down the gates of the barracks. "If we can't solve this then who knows what will happen to Twilight?"

In the spire, a few ponies had gathered outside of Twilight's room with cleaning equipment in hand. They gulped nervously from seeing the immobile undead paying them no heed.

"Why doesn't it move? Doesn't it need to?" one of them squeaked quietly.

"I don't know, but that room hasn't been cleaned in nearly two weeks. It's becoming super dirty."

"Then you go in and clean it! You're our senior!"

"You're right, so you should clean the room to father experience in this profession!"

"What experience?! It's just cleaning!"

They flinched when the undead's joints cracked and it very slowly began to move.

The rulers found Twilight cowering behind a group of soldiers and Butterscotch. Fluttershy was petting her head, hoping it would relax her while Pinkie and Applejack stood guard, worried out of their minds.

"What's wrong with her?" Shining asked Orange.

The medic shook his head. "I don't know. It's like she's completely shut down from trauma this event has caused." He dragged a hoof across his face and let it fall limply. "I don't know who leaked what she was doing, but this is clearly not going to end well for anypony involved," he lamented. "And she was trying to figure out how to reattach limbs lost to gangrene or other injuries."

Cadance walked over to the unicorn and tried to gather her attention while Shining spoke with the Elements. "Twilight?" she called out calmly. "Twilight? Can you hear me?" She waved a hoof in front of the unicorn's face.

Twilight could hear Cadance. In fact, she could hear everything, but it was a muffled mess. She could perceive the sounds, but not their meaning. She found herself in the Canterlot Observatory again with an angry crowd storming the castle and getting rid of anypony in their way. Her heart was beating uncontrollably and she couldn't manage her breathing. Celestia was going to solve everything like she always did and get Twilight out of this mess. She would need some rest after this excitement.

"She's not reacting," Cadance said to her husband.

"She just shut down when the ponies all popped up and started calling for her," Fluttershy explained. "At first we thought it was going to be okay, but then they started banging on the gates."

"And the sounds turned her into this," the alicorn finished. Her brows furrowed. "Has she done anything since?"

Applejack stepped in when Fluttershy shook her head. "Can't say she has," the farm pony explained. "Just plum went stiff like a tree 'n has been sittin' there with her eyes wide as the moon." She readjusted her hat and shook her head to loosen her ponytail. "Thought we could get her insahd, but the mare starts screamin' a' soon as ya trah 'n pick 'er up."

Wanting to test that theory, Cadance wrapped Twilight up in magic and began to lift her carefully, but as soon as her body started lifting from the ground, the screaming came. The alicorn was quick to place Twilight back down and heaved a sigh of relief when the screaming stopped.

"Oh dear," Fluttershy said. "There there. It's going to be okay."

Fluttershy spoke softly to Twilight in an attempt to reassure her, but the unicorn was starting to hallucinate. Her body didn't know how to react and was making her feel like she had a terrible disease. High fever, tongue dry, breaths scalding. Her dream was becoming a reality.

"Told ya," Applejack said matter-of-factly.

Cadance stood tall and looked at the crowd. "I'm not letting this continue any longer."

"I'll rally the soldiers," Shining added. "I'm not losing my sister again, not after all that has happened."

The alicorn forced herself past the soldiers and stopped at the gate. "What's going on?!" Cadance bellowed at the top of her lungs, startling everypony. "Why are you trying to destroy the doors of this base?"

"Barracks," Shining whispered to her.

"You know this thing is too big to just be barracks," the mare snapped back.

One of the ponies, a mare, pushed past her fellows. Her grape-purple face was stained with tears. "I know that white unicorn in there is the one who killed my son!" she explained. Every word was filled with sorrow and malice. "I want her head on a pike!"

"Demanding bloodshed won't solve any issues you have with her!" Cadance said. "We need to stop this madness and--"

"And what?!" another asked angrily. "You said you were going to try and rehabilitate a necromancer, but then they disappeared soon after. Now we see this mare here that looks similar to her suddenly pop in out of nowhere and is adept at surgery?"

Cadance became confused. "How did you learn about--"

The previous stallion was shoved by a mare, prompting his group to catch him and hold him up.

"So?! Even if she is a necromancer, it's obvious she can do more than just kill and raise the dead with that knowledge." She stepped towards the gate, pleading. "She cured necrosis. You can't cure necrosis! She needs to enter the medical world and share everything she knows with all of us." The mare pointed accusingly at the others. "Even if she's a necromancer, her knowledge is invaluable."

A mare with a prosthetic foreleg raised a hoof. "Many ponies suffer from issues that cause them to lose limbs. Why should our children and our fellow ponies suffer like many like me have? We need her knowledge!"

The mother was appalled. "Are you kidding me? Just because she's working now doesn't mean that she hasn't killed hundreds in the past!"

Shining watched the whole issue unveil and saw that the fighting was starting to push against the gates. "They're too engrossed in their ideas that Twilight is a necromancer regardless if it's good or bad." His eyes widened in horror when he saw the stonework holding the gate's hinges in place was starting to cede. "Soldiers! The gates!"

It was too late. The more aggressive ponies broke down the gates, letting a veritable tide of equines flood in and push against the struggling soldiers.

"Samhill!" Applejack exclaimed. "Y'all're crazy!" she shouted. "Quit shovin'!" She looked back at Twilight who was getting worse. Her eyes were shooting in every direction and her mumbling was getting louder. "Ah wish we could just move her somewhere!"

A dome of pink energy surrounded them, cast by Cadance. She looked back and smiled. "I covered the Crystal Empire in a dome of magic when it came back. Something small like this is nothing."

"But I don't think Twilight agrees," Pinkie regretted. "I really wanted to throw her a party," she said. "A quiet party can always work in the future. She might like that. Somewhere far away and quiet."

"Just try and keep her calm," Cadance begged. "As calm as you can, at least."

As the crowd gathered, some were starting to push through the soldiers even as more came in to reinforce their comrades. It was becoming a three-way battle between those trying to lynch Twilight, those trying to protect her from the lynchers, and the soldiers trying to push both away. The more aggressive were pounding on the dome while Shining and his guards did their best to pull the ponies off and away from Cadance's spell, but the banging was having an adverse affect on the lavender unicorn.

"...ia...help..." she mumbled.

Fluttershy leaned in. "What?"

"All this fer a single pony! Can't believe this nonsense," Applejack cursed.

"Need Celestia!" Twilight muttered. "She'll stop this. She always stops it. Nothing wrong in Canterlot."

Fluttershy's eyes started to water when she looked at Cadance. "Sh...She's calling for Princess Celestia."

The alicorn's face paled. "Oh no. Shining!"

The stallion turned around to see the ring on Twilight's horn starting to warp from the magic it was holding back. His stern and aggressive face quickly faded to fear.

"Spike!" the necromancer shouted.

One floor of the spire exploded outward, showering the city in crystal shards and damaging everything close to the base of the royal tower. The smoke produced was pulled down in a trail by something small that created an audible 'thoom' in the air.

"Oh no," Shining said.

The crowd gradually started to quiet down and look in the direction of the explosion as more and more resonated in the city, each becoming louder and louder as whatever was producing that sound was getting closer.

"You idiots!" Shining shouted. "What have you done?! She was recovering! Now your greed and selfishness is going to destroy the city!" Several larger buildings had started collapsing from the approaching abomination. "Get out of the way if you don't want to be killed!" Shining commanded the crowd and the soldiers. "Keep away from the unicorn on the floor."

Those that bore witness to Twilight panicking and crying on the ground, holding herself in the fetal position felt a tremendous wave of guilt and pity wash over them, even those that wanted her death. Fluttershy didn't want to leave her, determined to help her recover, but it was too late. Applejack and Pinkie had to pry her off the unicorn as Spike erupted from the walls of a house and continued in a straight line to Twilight.

Unfortunately, because the crowd had become so condensed, many were unable to move away in time, and several were injured by the debris. Spike, however, did not care what was in front of it. It trampled ponies underfoot and swiped others away it thought were actively trying to impede it. Cadance dissolved her barrier and hopped out of Spike's way as the undead tore through the guards.

"There. She's safe," Shining said. "Keep her that way. We can handle the rest."

Shining hoped that Spike being next to Twilight would help her regain confidence in herself and give her the feeling of being safe. It seemed to be working because she almost immediately started to breath more softly. Unfortunately, his hopes were dashed when Spike reached for the mare's horn and cleanly snapped the warped ring off, letting her magic finally go free.

"Twilight! No!" Shining cried out. He immediately started pushing through his soldiers and the debris to try and reach her. "Don't leave! We can fix this!"

But it was too late. Twilight had tapped the medallion around her neck and immediately vanished with Spike, leaving behind an empty space like reality had just been pulled into an opening before being pushed back out.

Twilight collapsed on a very dusty ground in her home and coughed from the powder burning her throat and lungs. Any attempt at shifting that she attempted failed. She had used up all her magic to teleport instantly, rendering her immobile. Spike gently lifted her up and placed her next to her bed while it shook it free of any bugs, arachnids, and dust that might have taken residence there. By some miracle, there was no damage to her home, and only the typical cave denizens had decided to take up residence in what they thought was abandoned space. The mare continued trembling violently, trapped within her waking nightmare.

The undead placed her in her bed and covered her with several layers of comforters to apply weight to the mare. Her panic and bulging eyes both gradually started to recede until she found herself drifting off into a dreamless sleep, finally safe under the glowing gaze of her undead assistant.

New Search

Twilight spent several days staying in her home. Most of the dried food she had was still intact, but she had to throw out the rotted, previously 'fresh' food. Everything was so silent for her now. She had the impression she couldn't feel anything and that her whole mind had been overtaxed. Every so often her body would shake uncontrollably and she'd find herself curling up into a ball on the ground. The mare didn't want to relive that horrible event again. She grit her teeth. The build-up of magic in her body left her feeling sore all over, and her horn burned as the excess was dispersed into the air a little bit every day. She went back to work studying her hypotheses and planning how to resurrect Celestia, hoping that she would finally come up with a solution.

The mare sat in her bed, groaning and burying her face in her pillow. It wasn't as soft as the one in her brother's spire, but it was better than having nothing. Memories of living in the wild slowly started returning to her after she had been taken in by Shining Armor and Empress Cadance, reminding her of where she came from and facilitating the loss of creature comforts, but she still regretted it. If only she could have at least taken a pillow. Twilight looked up at Spike and smiled. As long as he was there she felt safe. She was never going to go anywhere without him ever again. The ponies couldn't be trusted at all. Only Celestia could be trusted.

Burying her face back into her pillow, Twilight wondered what to do next. Now the Elements were aware of who she was and they'd likely start looking for her. Sure, she had her home and the labyrinthine maze that separated the entrance from her 'house', but that didn't mean it would work forever.

Then a thought occurred: Even though she didn't want to interact with them, the orange mare mentioned something about a table directing them to her. How precise was it? It didn't tell them why they were in the Empire. It didn't guide them directly to her either. They were just looking for Shining and Cadance. Twilight started shaking again and Spike put its hands onto her back as she had asked it to whenever her 'moments' got worse.

She was going to have to leave her home and ask Silvery if he could help send her overseas, just the time for everything to die down and allow her to relax and focus on her research again. She took in several deep breaths and hesitantly put her hoof outside of the 'door', only to retract it and stay inside. The mare had to muster up the courage to go outside again, and just in-case, she clutched the medallion around her neck and sighed in relief that it was still there. In the end, it took Twilight two more days and the threat of starvation to finally leave her home, and she made to rush through Flarovina with Spike in tow. Every pony made her blood turn cold and her terror shaking to resume. Even the barkeep was shocked by her rush through the secret doors.

The undead dragon pushed through anyone blocking their way, shoving them aside aggressively and inciting the ire of many. One minotaur shoved back and found himself keeled over on the ground after a strong punch to the gut. Twilight, however, wasn't registering anything going on around her. She was hiding under her hood and doing her best to reach the barrow and get to the room in the back. The regular patrons of the library paid her no heed, but the mare burst open into a conversation Silvery was having with a griffin sporting two fake eyes made from aqua-green jewels.

"Do yee meend?!" Silvery shouted furious. "Ey'm heeving a-Twilight?!" The stallion smiled at his client and pushed the mare out. "Stay here. Read some books. E'll geet to yeh soon."

Twilight did as instructed and waited, but she did not move from her spot. She was almost as motionless as Spike, letting her mind wander as she waited. A short while later, the griffin walked out, papers gripped in his claws. He spotted Twilight staring into the void and growled, approaching her. Spike stomped angrily, causing the whole library to tremble and making several books fall from the shelves. The griffin hurried away without removing his scowl.

Silvery pulled a handkerchief from his robe and rubbed his forehead with it. "Come, Twilight." The mare buried herself in a pile of pillows and looked up at Silvery with large, sunken eyes. "Uh huh..." the stallion said warily. "You haven't made a face like that since you first came here."

"Th-they tried to k-kill me," Twilight stammered.

The stallion pushed against his head with a hoof and groaned internally. He didn't want to deal with her psychological troubles. "Yes. In the Crystal Empire. We know you were caught."

Twilight seemed furious. "Why didn't you save me, then?!" she bellowed furiously.

Silvery raised a brow. "Eend why would we do theet? Hm? Yee geet caught, ein't our problem." He leaned forward, an aura of irritation and danger coming from his being. "We are not freends, Twilight Sparkle. You are a customer. A valuable customer, but a customer nonetheless."

The mare creased with every word the stallion spoke but didn't talk back. He was right. She had no friends or family here. Once more she felt the weight of loneliness crush her under its weight and sharp talons. Twilight just wanted to curl up in her bed and sleep for the rest of time.

"Now, Ey'm shocked to see you here. Honestly E thought you were deed," Silvery said as he leaned back. "Couldn't geet anythin' about you after you were caught."

"I, uh..." Twilight cleared her throat. "I don't want to talk about it."

Silvery shrugged. "If ya see so." His face lighted up with excitement when he remembered a valuable detail. "Say, your latest bunch of reseerch peepers got us swimmin' in dough!" he cheered. "E would've prefeered that you not come back ta geet your due, but hey, yeer here and E can get more money that weey."

Twilight grumbled. "Can you get me out of Equestria?"

Gleam's sparkling face dimmed like a fire had just been extinguished. "Do what now?"

"Get me out of here," Twilight repeated. "The Elements of Harmony know of me now and now I'm being chased by Equestria and the Crystal Empire!"

Silvery rubbed his chin and silently raised his hoof. He walked back to the wall hiding the golden room and called Jam out. The wall slid to the side after a few minutes and the battered pegasus stepped out. She seemed more than a little enthusiastic that Twilight was there.

"You're still alive!" she cheered. "That's great!"

"She wants ta leave Equestria," Silvery explained.

"Does she now?" A large smile started to form on Jam's face. "I've got good news for you, Twilight."

"Is it something bad for me again?"

Jam shook her head. "No. We might have found where Celestia is," she declared.

Twilight felt all the stress and worry she had accumulated over the days almost instantly vanish from her body. A lighthouse in the dark sea she found herself floating on. "What?" she said softly in disbelief. "Y-you do?!"

The pegasus tilted her head from side-to-side. "We have an approximate idea," she corrected herself. "It's gone from 'anywhere' to around twelve locations." She sported a toothy smile. "I have it on good authority that somepony in Saddle Arabia might know the precise details." Before Twilight could ask about the source's validity, Jam put a hoof on her mouth. "I don't know if they're valid or not. I just know they're in Saddle Arabia." Her smile didn't let up when she pulled her hood back. "And I heard you want to leave Equestria for a bit." She pulled some papers from her robe and started fiddling through them while mumbling to herself. "The best option for you is to go to Griffonia and take one of their airships there. The next ship you can get to in time would be one slated to leave in ten days." She rolled the paper up and rolled it back into her robe. "If you hurry now you should be able to get there on time."

"Teek this," Silvery said. He gave Twilight a letter made from brown, grainy paper. "Give this to the captain of any ship and they'll know of their payment."

Twilight looked at the tiny letter with skepticism. "How would that even work?"

"There's instructions inside," Jam added. "You just need to pass it to whomever's ship you plan to take and get going."

"And yee ceen get that thing there too. Griffins aren't too peeky about what goes on-board," Silvery explained.

"Just try not to start anything. They might be lenient on who gets aboard their airships, but the griffins won't hesitate to gut you or throw you overboard if you cause a stir."

"Considering the time it'll take to climb the mountains, I suggest you leave now," the stallion suggested. "There's not going to be a seecond cheence at this." He grew dour as he continued speaking. "We won't be so geenerous if you continue like this."

Twilight gulped. "I'll need some supplies," she said.

"Already taken care of," the stallion said. "You can teek the boxes at the eentrance of the barrow."

"Have fun," Jam mused. "Oh! Oh!" She interjected. "Your contact will be in the palace," the pegasus added. "That's all I know. It's up to you to figure out how to find them."

As Twilight passed the curtain, her body still shaking, the two ponies frowned.

"Why deedn't yee tell her?" Silvery asked.

"Tell her what?" Jam asked.

"Don't feign ignorance in your 'cutesey' weey." Silvery Gleam snorted in anger. "You treein' to geet her lost ageen? We just got our money minter back."

"Because she needs the time away from here." Jam hopped onto several pillows and nuzzled herself in them. "So good," she sighed contentedly. "If she goes crazy like every other necromancer then 'bye bye bits'." She paused, thinking. "Besides, I like having her around. She's fun to talk to and see her reaction to things."

Silvery rapidly and impatiently tapped the forelegrest of his chair. "I don't see why you couldn't just teell her whoeever this 'contact' of yours is," he grumbled. "Yeh didn't even tell me!"

Jam shrugged and widened her almost permanent smile. "What can I say? This one is way too valuable to give even to you."

The stallion glared at the pony that ignored him as she went back to the golden room and pulled the wall shut, leaving Silvery to fester in his curiosity. Who could it be that Jam didn't want him to know about? Was it the ruler of Saddle Arabia himself? Was there a spy of some kind that used to be in Equestria? Maybe it was a magical artifact in the hands of somepony that helped them find what it was they were searching for?

Gleam chuckled to himself. That was going into the fantastical and the stupid. Jam wouldn't hide something so trivial, meaning that it was a creature that would be giving Twilight what she needed. He wanted to leave it be, but his curiosity was devouring him from the inside. He just had to know! Unfortunately, he would also have to wait until Twilight came back. If she came back

Meanwhile, he was going to have to wait to get information about what happened in the Crystal Empire to have left what was a once mostly stable necromancer into this trembling wreck. It also didn't bode well that her undead dragon, who was always so passive, had started to show signs of extreme aggression. The stallion would have to look over the ritual he had given the mare and wondered if the undead wasn't just reacting to Twilight's emotional state. Regardless, he would have to get somepony to keep a close eye on her when she reached the desert sands and report back to him regularly about her endeavors. Silvery was still worried about her, but only as far as pony empathy could force him to be.

Grand Skies

Shining Armor tapped the legrest on his side impatiently. So great was his fury that it seemed to singe his mane and burn the very air around him. Twilight had vanished a few days ago and the stallion's grief had not abated in the slightest. It took his guards and wife to hold him back to prevent him from slaughtering his own subjects that had gathered around the bubble Cadance had made. Well, slaughter whomever was left. The devastation that Spike caused had leveled almost forty houses and a few office buildings, not to mention the damages to the spire. Even though his wife was also in grief, she explained to the ponies what had happened and why everything led up to the point it had. Many spat at the idea of what they considered nepotism, but discussions with the other ponies who at least had a passing understanding of the situation calmed their hatred, at least by a bit.

Shining, however, did not consider such actions to be tolerable nor excusable with just a slap on the wrist. Instead of trusting their rulers and coming to them to voice their concerns, the idiots preferred instead to try and bring justice into their own hooves. Rather than try and learn as much as they could and pass judgment later, they let their baser instincts take over them like foals. Since they wanted to act like foals, Shining was going to treat them like foals. Because of the dangers they caused and the potential concept of 'treason' they could be forced into this scenario, the stallion passed a punishment for all those that were present. All monthly payments would see a taxation of fifty-five percent for three months. The ponies were obviously furious, having to pay such a high tax rate, but the even angrier Emperor reminded them, quite loudly, about what they had caused and how it all could have been avoided. The guards also didn't agree with the punishment, but they understood its purpose. The crowd, be they for or against Twilight, had caused tremendous damages, and they would help fund the repairs and reconstruction.

A curfew had also been put into effect for the same amount of time. It was one thing that Cadance did not truly approve of and voiced her concern in public, but Shining ignored her council. It took many hours of discussion for him to agree to at least reduce the curfew to six weeks instead, but he still didn't want the ponies that took his sister away from him and potentially caused the deaths of innocent subjects to wander freely. Losing soldiers was one thing: They were there to fight and give their lives for the protection of their people. It was another to cause innocents to be caught in the crossfires.

And so the grieving stallion cogitated many ideas and concepts in his head in the, perhaps vain, attempt to find a solution to recovering his sister. She was still a necromancer, and he would still make good on his word to find her, but he wasn't going to execute her this time. He had multiple testimonies that indicated that the mare was more than willing to help contribute to the medical world, even if she was a bit too eager to work on corpses. Everything was going fine before they showed up!

Shining rose from his throne and stepped down, concerning Cadance.

"What are you doing?" the mare asked.

"I'm going to form a small team to recover Twilight," he explained.

"A small team for what? Finding Twilight?" the mare asked.

"She was caught near the borders of Equestria. It means that she probably lives around there."

Cadance was perplexed. "She could have just traveled there."

The stallion shook his head. "I know her better than anypony save our parents. She doesn't like leaving anywhere that has books or all her scientific equipment." He started moving forward, gesturing to one of the guards to follow him. "If she travels around it's just to get some form of information and knowledge for her to read through for hours on end."

Cadance jumped off the throne, frustrated. "Shining! We can't go into Equestria! If you get caught it'll be seen as an insult to Equestria, or worse!" She exhaled loudly. "We don't have the means to defend ourselves yet against the Equestrians. We've only just started expanding into the tundra and weakening the blizzards here. It's only been two years that the farmers have managed to get strong food for us all."

Shining looked back at his wife, and for a moment his stern expression weakened. "Doesn't matter. They haven't been able to muster a proper military since the changeling invasion." He shook his head in disappointment. "It's already been a few years and they still haven't recovered."

The alicorn reached out to the stallion and was devastated when Shining recoiled from her touch. "I don't mean to harm you, Cadance, be it physically or emotionally, but this is something I must do." He took a deep breath to try and calm his anger. "We both saw what happened to Twilight's horn seal. It melted from all the magic she had. You remember the entrance exam?"

"I do," Cadance said.

"Then you'll remember what happened that day. She clearly has a tremendous amount of magic within her, and I'm afraid that whatever she's doing is making her stronger and stronger every day and she doesn't know it." He paced about a bit, much to the confusion of the guard who was meant to accompany him. "If she eventually succumbs to the temptations that necromancy brings...I'm terrified of what will happen. With the potential she wields, she could raise an entire legion of undead and flood the world with them. She needs a purpose when she fails at resurrecting Celestia, otherwise she will be consumed with her obsession." The stallion proceeded to the gates and opened them, revealing a large line of ponies that shrank away when they revealed who was in front of them. "And I have much planning and work to do to find her." He ignored the now-silent crowd and continued through the castle with purpose in every step. " I just hope the trauma she went through didn't break something in her or make her go even more deranged than she already was."

"Aaaaaah! Smell that fresh mountain air, Spike!" Twilight said with a smile. "They were right. I needed some space in the open away from ponies to feel much better." She looked at the undead, her weak smile unfazed. "What's that? Yes. Of course we're still going to the griffon aerial port. I'm not staying in Equestria if I can help it." She frowned at the silent dragon. "No, we're not going to charge through everypony there. They're more civilized than..." Her cocksure attitude dissipated almost instantly when her recent trauma resurfaced. Spike patted her on the head once, breaking her from her trance. "Oh, thank you, Spike."

Mountaineering had never been easier with Spike. Its claws, reinforced by Twilight's magic, were able to easily cut through stone and hold themselves in place, allowing for easy climbing. The mare expected to only find stone and snow, but she was pleasantly surprised to find grass, foliage, and even some thin flowers of white, gold, or crimson. Even on the steepest inclines they were able to grow. The mare had taken six days of traveling and eating what was given to her by the mountain. She didn't even need to dig into her supplies the whole time, and she enjoyed it.

When the rancid stench of roasted meat reached her nostrils, she couldn't help but pull back in horror. It meant the griffin aerial port was nearby, and it was proved by a small path the mare had found dug into the mountain itself. At its end was a small city of wood and stone whose architecture resembled spiraling huts. They twisted and turned with twirling pathways seemingly holding the interior building in place. The larger ones saw the twirling paths dig into the building itself before other paths emerged. It was a bizarreness to the mare that couldn't understand how anything seemed to work. Weren't they cold all the time?

The entrance wasn't walled up and no one was watching it. Instead, the usual griffin inhabitants wandered around and flew every so often either onto a perch or into the mountains. Most, however, were concentrated on the very large port that easily dwarfed the city itself. Where the city might have been able to house around three thousand inhabitants or more, the port itself was wide enough to be able to house ten thousand on a bad day. Such was the immensity of its size that warehouses were dotted about everywhere and goods were being exchanged, registered in a ledger, or very legally loaded onto one of the many ships waiting at one of the floating piers overlooking a very steep and sudden drop. A white mist flew up on many occasions from the dizzying depths, imitating the crash of waves against the bricks of a city's pier. It was easy to see everything, even from where Twilight stood when she observed the city from the outside.

Twilight noticed that while some griffins took note of Spike, most didn't seem to focus on it too deeply. They were too busy with their routines and enjoying the wealth the status of a trade port afforded. No one could attack them in the mountains, and the pathway was far too narrow to bring an army up. It wasn't a mystery to Twilight how they were even able to keep the peace where they were. She was followed very closely by several heavily armored griffins sporting leather armor beneath plate covering their heads, torso, and back. While they seemed aloof, Twilight could feel that it was all a lure to get the most rowdy of the city's visitors to let down their guard. They let out a disgusting atmosphere about them that made the mare realize what they were: Mercenaries.

If there was one thing all the books that Twilight knew about the military world, it was to never cross a mercenary unless you were one yourself or a well-trained soldier. Her brother's council on the matter was a fortuitous bit of foresight on his part. Worried that they might go after her, the mare ignored the main, large path cutting through the city and went down a side alley where griffins plied their trade or worked on the buildings. Scaffolding was dotted about here and there, but most annoying of all was all the abandoned crates and refuse hanging about everywhere. There were even bottles that had been emptied of their treasure days ago that were left to the rats and insects crawling about the streets.

Going through one alleyway avoided by the inhabitants saw Twilight stopped by a few ne'er do well griffins. They were unable to do anything after pulling out some clubs and poking the mare with one. The unicorn left the alleyway in a joyous gait, glad to be reaching the actual port itself. Confused, the inhabitants looked behind her and paled when they saw the bloody pulp the would-be-extortioners were left as. They were still alive, sure, but barely. No one came to their aid.

"Don't worry about them, Spike," Twilight said. "There's po-creatures like that in every city. You don't need to be scared anymore." She approached a griffin checking a clipboard and correcting some of its contents with a piece of coal stuck in a stick, the whole thing wrapped up with white string. "Excuse me," the mare called out.

The griffin turned around, a scowl on their face. "What is it?" she asked. "I'm busy with this manifest." Her eyes slowly trailed up the white shape standing behind the pony, and her mouth dropped. "A necromancer?"

"Y-yes," Twilight acknowledged nervously.

"You want out of Equestria, I take it."

"J-just temporarily," Twilight corrected.

The griffin scoffed at her. "You probably realized that none of us care much about what comes through here."

"As long as I keep to myself, yes," Twilight acknowledged. "I was told that I could take an airship here to Saddle Arabia."

She was met with suspicion. "You have money?"

"In a way," the mare trailed off.

The griffin shrugged and used the writing tool to point at a large, red ship sporting multiple red balloons wrapped in golden string floating above. They all seemed connected by strange pipes that dangled slightly when the balloons moved. A central chimney of black iron ran from the desk to the largest balloon in the middle, and Twilight could see the metal heating with a fire burning inside it. As the balloons inflated, several flaps were pulled open near the top of the chimney, revealing the orange light within and letting out hot air.

"That 'way' better be cash or you aren't going anywhere." Twilight gulped and made for the airship, but the griffin caught her shoulder and tightened her grip. "I feel I should warn you if you do get on: Do anything that annoys them and the sailors will toss you and your undead creature off the side of the deck into the vast emptiness below."

Twilight started to shake again and cursed under her breath. "I don't want to cause anypony any trouble. I just want to Saddle Arabia."

The griffin snickered. "The other necromancers that passed by here had similar ideas and words, but theirs was filled with more arrogance, and they ended up annoying the crews. Even with their power, there's no dead floating in the sky, so they were promptly chucked over." She pointed at Spike. "Even if that thing can take out everyone on the ship, you'll be left with a vessel you don't know how to pilot or land." She let go and gestured 'goodbye' with her claws. "Have fun," she mused.

Author's Note

I feel like I could've done more with this chapter. If my readers agree then I might revisit it very quickly and add some details.

Air

A large griffin wearing a black coat with a white, buttoned undershirt and a red fore-and-aft bicorne with golden trim. There was a strange pattern on its left side that Twilight didn't recognize and whose meaning eluded her. It looked like two picks with the edge of their blades at the base of each other's handle. His head feathers were black but the ones around his eyes created a sky-blue mask of sorts. The same blue coloration could be found around the feathers above his claws and at the tip of his tail.

"What about the canned goods? Last time we ended up having to leave the ship and hunt in the forests," the griffin said. "Not eating those things again," he murmured while rubbing his belly.

The sailor he spoke to groaned. "Yes, captain. We've taken enough supplies this time to last four whole months, and plenty of fresh water and silt. We'll be drunk and fed at any moment."

The gaudy griffin pointed to a thinner member of their species aggressively. "Everything loaded up? I don't want to end up at a dock and learn that we're missing a shipment."

"They...Uh, captain." The griffin pointed behind him.

"What is it?" The captain turned around and came face-to-face with an undead dragon. "An undead dragon? That's new." He looked down and saw a smiling pony. "And you must be the necromancer," he concluded.

"Yes." Twilight fumbled in her saddlebags and pulled out the letter she was given. "I was told you were going to Saddle Arabia."

"Aye? And what's it to you?"

"Would you be willing to take me there?" she asked.

The captain folded his wings. "Depends if you have money or not." He stopped Twilight before she could extend the letter. "And no bits. We don't use Equestrian money." The mare extended her hoof and passed the letter regardless. Seeing its contents, the griffin looked up briefly at Twilight with wide eyes and tucked the letter into a pocket. "Got friends in high places, it seems. Odd for a necromancer. Very well."

"What? But captain--"

The sailor was interrupted with a claw. "I take it you were told what happens if you annoy us."

"Yes, sir," Twilight responded.

"Well, just because everything is paid for," the captain said as he patted his pocket. "doesn't mean that you can just sit underneath the deck and do nothing for the whole trip."

"Oh, of course!" She looked at Spike whose eyes glowed. "I can have Spike help you out with whatever you might need," the mare said. "Well, anything regarding lifting, of course."

The captain grabbed the tip of Twilight's horn and hummed pensively. "You can use your magic powers as well to help as well, but no necromancy."

The unicorn tilted her head to the side, curious. "Okay? I wasn't going to use any on any of you anyways. You aren't dead, and I need all my magic for my research."

Whispers came from the two skeptical sailors, but the captain smiled, ignoring their concerns. "Welcome aboard the ship of Captain Killikle, miss pony."

"Oh, my name is--"

"Not important," Killikle interjected. "You're just goods being transported on our way to Saddle Arabia." He leaned in, a scowl on his face. "It'll take us at least a month to get there. Still faster than by boat, but we aren't being pushed by magic," he mused. "You'll be sleeping in one of the passenger cabins below deck." He put a claw to his beak and shot out a plug in his nostril. "Sorry about that. Anyways, the cabins haven't been used for a long time since we have only ever acted as a goods transport. Are you alright with that?"

"Of course!" Twilight responded. "I didn't expect this to work anyway, so I'm glad I can at least have a cabin."

"Then we set sail when everything is in order!" Killikle announced.

The deck of the airship was a polished, brown-orange metal that Twilight assumed was copper. Unfortunately, she couldn't be sure or look closer because the sailor guiding her forced the mare below deck where a strange stink resided. She passed several sailors transporting barrels and crates to and fro, many giving her and Spike vitriolic glares. The small cabin, located near the aft of the ship, was decorated with a table, a chair, and a bed hanging off the wall. It was held up by two chains under stress from the weight. It wasn't very big and could barely house Twilight and her undead, but it did its job perfectly. No one would be able to get through the door while Spike was there, and none of the griffins would dare try and attack them.

Tired from her mountaineering, Twilight dropped her saddlebags, yawned, and started dusting everything with her magic. There were cobwebs and thick sheets of dust everywhere. As she worked, the mare took in the natural 'fragrance' of the vessel and furrowed her brows in an attempt to understand what it was. A toxic, pungent odor that burned her nostrils, but it felt like she knew it from somewhere. It wasn't a rotting corpse nor was it a toxic product. It was a mystery that gnawed at the confines of Twilight's already damaged mind, but the effects were minor. It was a minor annoyance, trying to identify the smell. She only knew that the odor reminded her of 'height' for some reason. Something from very very high in the sky.

Using the same spells to clean her own home, the mare was able to teleport small mounds of dust and detritus outside the hull of the ship to be taken by the winds and annoy someone else after they just cleaned their home. Feeling satisfied with her work, the mare checked the pillow and sheets on the thin mattress and sighed in relief: There were no bugs or hidden 'surprises' that she didn't want to see. She was quick to tuck herself into bed and drift off to sleep. When she woke up, she would have to contend with the sailors and the captain and would have to walk on eggshells around them. They might look for any excuse to throw her overboard, and while she could easily just teleport her and Spike back home using the medallions, it would be tedious to go all the way back through the mountains just to find the city again.

It had only been a few hours when someone started knocking on Twilight's door. The mare moved groggily to the door, her eyes still stinging from slumber. A sailor was waiting for her.

"Captain wants to see you," he said. "Follow me."

The mare did as told and moved onto the deck where Captain Killikle waited for her with baited breath.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked.

"I need help getting coal into the coal pit next to the furnace," the captain explained. He pointed to the tremendous chimney sitting in the middle of the ship and linked to the balloons above. The mouth of the machine was devouring shovels of coal gluttonously, its appetite seemingly never sated. The sailors feeding it shut its 'mouth' using a long hook and wiped themselves of coal dust. "Get at least three crates from below up here."

Twilight looked around nervously. "But...we don't know where the crates are," she said.

"And that's why you have my sailors here to help you," the griffin mused.

He jerked his head to the side, forcing the sailor to show them where to go.

"I don't understand why we don't just throw you overboard," the sailor said. "Necromancers are always loaded and get on everyone's nerves." He smirked. "I wonder how long you'll last until you annoy everyone enough. A month can be a long time." The unicorn ignored his comments, annoying the mariner and boring him. The trio found themselves a second deck lower where all the cargo was stored. "They're there," he said.

There was a pile of around twenty crates each marked with several black circles and sporting the logo of a 'Mark's Coal Mines" on the wood. Each crate was large and wide enough to hold three ponies atop each other when lying down. Before she could even be told, Twilight directed Spike to grab one of the boxes which it did easily. It grabbed another, placing both on its shoulders while Twilight levitated the last one with her magic and followed her assistant to the deck where one haughty captain and irritated sailors looked in awe as the boxes were carried with surprising ease by both passengers. They landed with a violent thud next to the furnace, causing the ship to shift slightly before righting itself. The silence following the shocking display was broken when Twilight asked what she could help with next. Several of the griffins rushed forward, asking her to help them clean which she did with relative ease. She couldn't conjure up soap out of nowhere, so she used a similar spell she used at home and wiped everything clean of grime. Of course, she didn't think the consequences through and, while the ship was shiny on the outside, it also became very slippery. If it wasn't for the natural railing, the griffins would have likely fallen overboard. Twilight quickly corrected the mistake and smiled sheepishly at the partially annoyed crew.

"That's enough, sailors," the captain chastised. "You'll become lazy and complacent if we rely on magic too much, now get to work," he ordered them. Killikle shook his head in disappointment. "I really didn't think that you were going to be helping us at all, but seeing your undead somehow carry two of those heavy creates and seeing you casually levitate one alongside it was...a stunning surprise."

"How so? It's just levitation magic," Twilight said. "Any unicorn can do it."

"Exactly!" the griffin said. "But the necromancers many of us have freighted were hardly capable of even levitating a barrel. Most of the time they depend on their undead for anything and everything and use their magics to create or summon more."

Twilight repeated the words silently to herself while trying to make out what the captain had said before coming to a sudden realization. "Ooooh. That's how you're able to throw the others overboard even when they're using their magic."

"I didn't say all of them," the captain corrected. He looked up at Spike and circled the undead, taking everything in. "This creature of yours is quite imposing. An undead dragon." He tilted his head to the side, his mind stuck in full contemplation. "Wouldn't it have been better to summon a full-grown dragon? The power must be spectacular."

Twilight shrugged. "Yes, but I'm not strong enough to have them listen to me, and they're too big to be an assistant." Killikle looked at Twilight suddenly then burst into laughter. "What?!" Twilight shouted.

"You're the funniest necromancer I've ever come across. An undead dragon as an assistant. That's the best thing ever," he continued. "Oh, I wish the trips were always like this. It becomes tedious to always see the same landscapes and do the same things over and over again, believe me."

"Pirates!" the sailor in the crow's nest announced.

The captain groaned and pulled out two armored gloves that ended in bladed claws from his coat. "And then there's moments like these that break the tedium but aren't wanted."

Shining and ten guards wandered through the snow of the Crystal Kingdom, the natural magic of the Crystal Heart protecting them from the worst of the weather. Shining made sure to walk behind everypony until they reached the border of Equestria. He was the most used to the weather and was the most protected by the Crystal Heart and so used both his training regiment and the benefits of his position to watch and aid his soldiers when needed. It took several days to get through the thick, snowy tundra and tall mountains that shook themselves to cover everything in their freezing tears. The stallion was determined to get his sister back, but he wasn't foolish enough to believe he could find her on his own. It was always beneficial to have more eyes and weapons at your side.

"I'll find you, Twilight," Shining thought to himself. "You need help, and your BBBFF is here to give it."

Aid

"Get the cannons ready! Bring up the shields!" Killikle declared. "We'll show these idiots why no one ever attacks my airship!"

"Aye, captain!" the sailors all declared loudly.

Twilight watched as the griffins formed chains and started bringing up sheets of black metal they would lock into place by way of wingnuts screwed into the deck. Puckle guns were set up through small holes in these shields as well and held up via two arms locked into the black metal plating. She could hear the rumbling of heavy wheels below and the telltale sound of rusty metal screaming as the hatches are forcefully moved aside.

"What's happening?" Twilight asked. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Killikle shook his head. "No. Just sit back and let us do our job."

The pirate ship was smaller than the captain's and more maneuverable. Additionally, the balloon it sported was seemingly armored judging by the thin sheets of metal covering it, but the mare was unsure how that would work. Before she had time to register what was going on, the pirate ship had spun around and launched a bevy of cannonballs at its target. Twilight screamed in fear when they hit the hull, producing loud banging sounds similar to thunder cracks. Noticing Twilight's distress, Spike stopped staring at her and gazed at the ship flying around through the air taking potshots at its vessel.

Plumes of smoke emerged from the side of the vessel, bringing with it the familiar stinging of its form in the nostrils. It was quickly followed by burning orbs of slag that cut and sliced apart the pirate ship in small bits and pieces, but it wasn't enough. It was clear that they were experienced in this kind of warfare and the captain knew their maneuvers well enough to be able to minimize damage to their vessel.

"They're tenacious bastards, I'll give them that," Killikle said. He rushed to the helm and pushed the helmsman aside. "I'm sailing the ship. Keep me appraised of where they're going."

Curious, Twilight followed him and watched the pirates fly away in an arc to dive bomb the captain's ship.

"Why don't they go underneath?" she asked.

"Mistake of new airship sailors. The balloons are the most important parts of the vessel. Going underneath means they could scrape their prey and pop, letting them plummet to their doom." He watched the pirates stay just high enough that his own cannons wouldn't be able to reach them. "If they still go through with that then it means they're desperate and want to capture the ship for future usage. Unless...Take cover!" the griffin shouted.

The sailors yelled the warning to their fellow, several screaming as the pirate ship dropped multiple bombs onto the deck, denting and scorching it, and throwing several sailors in all directions. Several pirates, ranging from ponies to kirin to other griffins had made landfall and were grinning ear-to-ear at their soon-to-be victims.

"Kill them all and take the ship!" a kirin ordered. "Captain wants us to capture this ship and all its treasure."

Killikle slammed his claws on the steering wheel and brought his gauntlets to bare. "Get these parasites off my ship with broken wings!" he ordered his crew. "Let them plummet to their deaths and make sure it's slow enough that they have the time to regret their decisions."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Twilight asked.

The griffin pushed her back. "You stay up here." He looked up at Spike and grimaced. "I'm pretty sure your creation will end up doing something eventually."

Twilight didn't understand what exactly Captain Killikle meant by that and watched as he jumped from the railing to land, with his claws dug into the heads of two pirates on deck. She instinctively put a hoof to the top of her head and felt herself starting to shake again. She didn't like hearing the sounds of battle. The clanking of metal, the screaming of battle, the tension of life and death. Her assistant put a hand on her shoulder, and she leaned her head into the massive limb, doing her best to try and tune out everything going on around her. The fighting continued, and while the pirates were stubborn, they were losing ground. Their crew was larger than they expected and Killigan's airship was stronger as well. That's when one of the ponies let loose a flare that brought in a second ship hiding behind a misty mountain. The extra threat rushed straight for the vessel, not bothering to deal with any cannon fire. Its bow was armored like a ram, and when it crashed into Killikle's ship, it threw everyone to the side but didn't penetrate the thick, metallic hull. Still. It gave the pirates the bridge they needed to board the vessel and help their fellow outlaws.

While Twilight watched, a few decided to climb the steps to reach the wheel and end up face-to-face with the lavender unicorn after striking down the helmsman trying to keep the ship stable. The mare expected witty banter, but they made for her directly. Of the five, Twilight managed to incapacitate two of them using her magic. She had destabilized the connection their souls had to the physical plane, producing a repeating, transparent image of themselves overlayed on their body before collapsing on the ground after yelling loudly for several seconds, foaming at the mouth. Spike took care of the remaining three. One strange bipedal avian creature with colorful plumage attempted to stab it, but the undead crushed the blade at the same time as it crushed her arm, incapacitating her. A pony was grabbed and launched into the docked pirate ship, flying clean through the hull and out the back.

The last was a minotaur wielding a large, two handed mace. It rushed the undead and swung the weapon at its head, only to miss when Spike ducked right before it hit and thrust a fist forward, hitting the minotaur in his solar plexus. The pain and impact caused the bull to drop his weapon, but minotaurs were stubborn beasts, and he recovered from the impact even if he was sweating from the pain. He and Spike locked hands and started pushing against each other, but although the minotaur had an imposing physique, Spike didn't have to worry about stamina. The exchange went as Twilight expected: With her assistant overpowering its aggressor. The pirate grunted in pain, struggling to push back and failing miserably. He found himself falling to a knee, then both, as Spike pushed harder and harder and its face got closer to its opponent's.

It started with several grunts and multiple successive snorts, then a strained squeal, then an outcry of pain. The minotaur's knees had broken and he had collapsed in a slump onto the deck as Spike picked him up by his hands and threw him against a group of pirates. Spike hopped over the railing in front of the wheel and landed with a thud on the deck, denting it with his weight. Twilight popped in next to him and gulped nervously.

"E-everypony," she started. "Could you please stop this? There's no reason to fight, and I just--"

A loud bang reached Twilight's ears, interrupting her. The whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion as she turned her head towards a spark of light that caught into the side of her vision. A metal ball was quickly approaching her, ready to carve her into small pieces. Instead, Spike pushed her out of the way and caught the cannonball in one hand, but even an undead has its limits. The dragon found itself flying backwards through the sheer strength and weight of the metal orb.

"Spike!" Twilight cried out.

When the dragon flew off the deck, Twilight concentrated harder than she had ever done before and teleported the dragon back on deck. She did this several times in a row until the kinetic force that the cannonball had dissipated enough for the undead to be able to push against it.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked the undead. She patted his legs and looked at his arms, terrified. "I don't know what I would do if I lost my number one assistant," the mare panicked. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Spike ignored her and tightened its grip on the ball. Under the gaze of the sailors and pirates, Spike threw the cannonball back at the other ship still flying around taking potshots at its vessel. After a few seconds, the ship exploded, leaving behind a black cloud and showering the mountain in wreckage and shrapnel. The undead had managed to hit the internal furnace of the annoying sloop and caused a rupture that engulfed all the coal on the vessel. The pirates watched, dumbfounded, as the coal within blinded everyone from the flashes of light they produced every time they ignited in the air. All heads turned to Spike and Twilight actively looking over it for any 'wounds' that it was 'hiding'.

"I'm not fighting anymore," one of the pirates said.

He turned tail, accompanied by several other pirates in their attempt to get onto the ramming vessel and escape, but Captain Killikle wasn't about to let their aggression slide. He and his crew tackled as many of the pirates as they could and invaded their ship, taking everything over and getting a bunch of personal 'loot' to go with their prize.

Killikle laughed jubilously as the crew looked over the other vessel before deciding to either sink it or capture it to sell later. "That was the best attempt at boarding I've ever seen!" he cheered. "Thank you very much, necromancer." He looked to the pirates being rounded up with a large grin. "I wonder what we should do with them now?"

"We could break their wings and throw them overboard," one of the sailors mused. "That's always good for a laugh."

Killikle nodded in agreement. "True. If it were any other situation I would have agreed, but we have a unique scenario presented before us," he said. "Could do more with them than just throwing them overboard."

Twilight hummed pensively. "You could have them work in place of the sailors," she suggested. "They'll fix the ship and you can tow theirs with you."

The captain's smile grew larger. "That's an excellent idea!" He approached the weeping minotaur being watched by two sailors and poked at his knee, inciting a pained grunt. "They'll be able to pay us for the damages, and..." He looked at Spike who was staring at Twilight again. "They wouldn't want to incite the ire of that undead creature now, would they?" he wondered aloud. The pirates all shook their heads in unison. "Good." The captain's amusement faded almost instantly when he looked at the damages to his vessel and his wounded crew members being set aside. "I'll need the medics on board to take care of them." He scratched his neck and cast a side glance at the pirates. "I would be extremely irritated in normal circumstances, but we at least have voluntary labor for my ship."

"I can help with healing," Twilight said.

The captain scoffed and waved her off. "I don't need undead crew members. This isn't a ghost ship."

"No! I was learning how to be one when..." Her eyes started going wide and she began to drift into her fears when Spike shook her 'awake'. "I mean, I was learning and teaching the doctors how to reattach and restore lost limbs."

The captain faced Twilight completely and listened to his crew mumbling to each other. "I suppose that means we need magic."

Twilight nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. I only know how to do it myself." She paused, deep in thought. "I can always show your medics how to do it, and if you find out how to use magic or a tool that does the same thing, then they would be ready to do everything already. That would be valuable, no?"

Killikle was starting to be overwhelmed by the mare. She already voluntarily tried to make herself helpful and helped them fend off a pirate attack. Now she proposed to aid them with their medical recovery. It was such a bizarre contrast with usual necromancers that the griffin wasn't entirely sure if she qualified as one anymore.

Twilight, however, never felt more comfortable. The only ponies she had encountered during this brief trip were aggressive pirates, and she and Spike helped to demoralize them completely. She felt this would be an interesting trip. Would it be possible to grab the corpses of the pirates and perform her experiments on them, however? Twilight hadn't forgotten the reason she was taking this trip and absolutely couldn't let her skills rust. She had already suffered a major setback when she was at the Crystal Empire, after all.

Dry Sun

Unfortunately for the unicorn, Killikle denied her the chance to experiment on the dead. Instead, they were all thrown overboard, much to her dismay. As the days went on, she aided the on-board doctors as best she could and instructed them on what she did to prevent things like gangrene. Even if it required unicorn magic, or any kind of magic as Twilight surmised, it didn't change that the magicless couldn't use her talents. So, much like the earth pony medics in the Crystal Empire, these griffins would be left with potentially valuable but ultimately useless information they could not make any use of.

The days rolled by without incident since the pirate attack, and while Twilight believed that it was planned due to the speed of the execution, Killikle brushed it off and told Twilight to keep the letter with her until she was safely in Saddle Arabia. Knowing Silvery, the unicorn supposed that he somehow knew the attack was going to happen, but Jam said she could take any ship heading to Saddle Arabia. Her head started to spin when she thought about the contents of the letter and the paradoxes it held, but she kept her curiosity at bay and left the letter unread by her. She didn't want to know what had been written about her or her trip nor how Killikle and his crew were going to be paid.

As the days continued to go by, the air went from freezing to temperate, to salty when floating over the sea. The ship could not avoid a few light storms, and with Twilight's help, the damages were kept to a minimum while Spike stayed below. An undead could not fight nature despite its mere existence being an affront to such a thing. Unfortunately, Twilight ended up getting air sickness thanks to the violent rocking caused by the storms and often spent time above deck expelling her insides overboard.

With the travel distance came clearer skies as the heat of the planet pushed away the clouds and cold air of the ocean. Despite being above the mass of water below, the air was starting to get drier and hotter. Being so used to the cold, Twilight couldn't help but start sweating extensively from the minor heat surrounding her. She was stuck in her cabin, doing her best to hide from the heat, but metal couldn't be a better oven material. If it wasn't for the wood interior, everyone inside the vessel would have likely roasted alive.

Needing fresh air, the mare headed back topside and slouched against the sides of the deck, panting with great fatigue. She was brought out of her torment by a familiar laugh.

"Having issues dealing with a beat of heat, necromancer?" the griffin teased. "Well, if you can't handle this while we're still above the sea, you'll probably cook alive in Saddle Arabia."

"I...didn't think...it would be...so hot..." Twilight whined.

Killikle picked her up and put her back onto her hooves. "The Saddle Arabians have solutions for that, you know, but it's just to make sure you survive," he explained. "Why not look overboard and see where we're going to land?"

Twilight took a deep breath and turned around, looking to starboard, when her eyes widened in amazement. The sea was filled to the brim with boats of varying sizes and origins. She recognized the smaller Equestrian vessels mixed in with the massive, bulky ships used by the minotaurs. They looked like floating fortresses of wood and cannons dwarfing everything around them. There were some kirin ships as well, many being quite long compared to their fellows. Where most of the other ships used regular cloth sails, the kirin vessels used stiff, rigid sails that possessed support beams going horizontally through their bodies. It made it easy to recognize them from afar, especially as the hulls curved upwards in the back and front into thin points like a fruit bowl. The wood also sported a different finish, but the unicorn could only make out sections of dark brown wood contrasting with tan from where she was.

One group of ships looked like eggs floating horizontally along the sea. While they were still made of wood, Twilight could see a chimney coming out of the covered hull belching out black smoke into the air. It was a design she didn't recognize at all.

Following the direction of most of the ships, her gaze came upon the coast that was engulfed in buildings as far as Twilight could see. There was a plethora of off-white buildings coating the beach that made way for far bigger ones further away. Even though they reflected a lot of sunlight, the inhabitants decorated their homes with tons of colorful cloths and rugs either on the roofs or dangling off the sides of the wall. Some buildings even held up shared banners and flags together. It was like a festival wherever Twilight looked. She couldn't help but feel giddy when looking at it all, and she wasn't sure why.

She noticed that the buildings bordering the sea were simplistic in design: Being mostly cubical without much else as decoration. However, the further into the city one went, the more ornate the buildings became. Arches and pillars started becoming more common, followed by increasingly large gardens with surprisingly green grass and colorful flowers filling them out. The buildings started rounding out more and more and the roofs started taking on more ornate, dome-like designs. She could see one dome carved with geometric shapes and inlaid with gold leaf that reflected the sunlight in seemingly random directions. Twilight realized that the reflections were consistent. The further away she got, the more another group of shapes began to shimmer brightly. Sitting atop the roof was a red gem that glowed dimly in the afternoon sun. Other buildings had similar gemstones atop them, but the mare wasn't exactly sure what they were for. One of the roofs sported five of them: Four yellow stones acting as the tip of four thin pyramidal spikes surrounding a single, much shorter and fatter one tipped with a blue gem.

A few of the larger buildings had strange shapes, looking like domes overlaid into one another while another looked like a blooming flower covered in a plethora of thick grass blades and a lot of flowers and trees. In the center of it all was a gigantic palace that gave Canterlot Castle a run for its money: It looked like it was at least twelve stories tall and was surrounded by thirty monoliths tipped with sparkling, white stones. So massive was the palace that Twilight couldn't accurately count how many buildings' length it was. She just knew that size surpassed her expectations. The roof was decorated with multiple smaller 'spears' of white stone, more geometrical shapes that seemed to swirl around each other like a water show, and a central 'temple' that shimmered in the heat. She furrowed her brows when she looked at the temple. It was so engulfed by the haze that she couldn't make out its details at all, like it was buried underwater. The one detail she could tell was that it seemed to let flow an infinite amount of water from its interior along small canals built into the roof that flowed in every direction. She hadn't noticed at first, but Saddle Arabia had tiny canals of water running underneath the city that the inhabitants would access by opening metal grates on the floor.

Armored ponies would grab anypony polluting that water and drag them off to who knew where. Some were just clonked on the head and thrown into an alleyway, however. Whatever decided the penance was beyond Twilight's understanding. The ship lowered further and further until it finally locked onto an airship tower that was but one among dozens at the port.

"We've docked!" Killickle declared. "Prepare the merchandise and get the dockmaster!" He looked at Twilight with a smile. "As for you, this is where you get off."

"Ah, yes! Of course!" Twilight realized. Spike passed her her saddlebags that she dug the letter out of and handed to Killickle. "Thanks for the trip," the mare said.

"And thank you for helping us out during the trip." The griffin clacked his beak several times. "I wouldn't mind taking you on as a passenger again if you're this helpful...but bring money next time." He wagged the letter in front of the unicorn's face. "I don't think your friends will give you a freebie like this again." Killikle chuckled as he hid the letter in his coat. "Passenger services are quite expensive nowadays." He turned to his crew on deck. "Today we've received our pay, and everyone is getting a hefty bonus for their hard work!" he yelled.

The crew cheered. Well, most of the crew.

"What about the pirates?" Twilight asked.

"They're going to be delivered to the port authorities," the captain explained. "The Saddle Arabians of Tasaniyy take extreme offense to the existence of those that would disrupt trade." Twilight gulped when she noticed Killikle becoming dark and foreboding. "No need to worry about yourself, though," the griffin said.

"Why?"

"Time to leave," Killikle said.

Twilight was pushed off the ship with Spike and left on the dock covered in crates being loaded and unloaded from the airships. She didn't get her answer and went towards the center where stairs waited. The workers used large elevators on the sides of the dock to lower and raise merchandise, but Twilight couldn't use it.

Exhausted after taking so many stairs, the unicorn rested in the warm shade of the tower and looked at all the Saddle Arabians around. While they looked like Equestrians and were a close cousin, they didn't share many of the Equestrian traits. They were all taller and leaner compared to the short, squat form of Twilight's kind. Additionally, where ponies came in a rainbow of colors and patterns, these equines only came in shades of black, brown, white, and tan, and a lot of them were either a single color or covered in splotches of said colors. To make up for this, it seemed, was a large assortment of clothing sporting a plethora of different colors. Some just wore as many colors as they could while others tried to make everything match and compliment each other. Coats, sheets, covers, hoods, multilayered dresses, a wide variety of turbans. There were so many layers of clothing that Twilight wondered how they didn't die from heat stroke. One thing that struck her as odd with these equines: Despite being close cousins to the Equestrians, those she could see the flanks of possessed no cutie marks. That brought the question of what those marks really were to the mare's mind.

Lost in thought, Twilight smacked her lips drying in the heat, only to be taken out by a sudden flood of water out of nowhere. The locals saw the scene and a few laughed before carrying on with their tasks.

Spitting out the water, Twilight wiped herself off as best as she could and tried to find the culprit. "Who did that?!" she asked angrily. "Why would you even waste water in the desert?"

"Because we make the water."

The unicorn thought she was still underwater when she heard the voice. Wiping her eyes of excess water, the mare saw that what was standing before her was a creature made of deep blue water with red, glowing pearls swirling about within it. Two bright lights glowed from above staring at Twilight. Spike remained motionless through the whole affair, letting the mare realize that she wasn't in any immediate danger.

"What are you?" the mare asked.

"A yakilak," the creature said. "We make the water around here to prevent anyone from dying of thirst."

The yakilak's body started to compress itself, taking on the vague shape of an equine, but closer to Princess Celestia's body type. The red pearls settled themselves in what could be considered the joints on a living being. Its 'mane' became a flowing river of white water that dripped on the ground and evaporated almost instantly. While it had no tail, its hind legs seemed to stretch abnormally further back to seemingly compensate for the lack of a balancing limb. Its eyes were the most remarkable to Twilight: Two red pearls served as the pupils, but the surrounding eye was completely black. Every time the yakilak looked elsewhere, four sections engulfed the pearl before parting to reveal it had moved elsewhere. It was like a camera shutter, and the unicorn was certain she could hear the distinctive shuffling noise of said shutters every time it 'blinked' or looked around.

"I've...never heard of that."

Twilight shifted uncomfortably when the entity's body shifted next to her, stretching like an amorphous goo. "Water in Tasaniyy is free, but food isn't. Better find a job quickly or get your money out," it suggested.

The mare watched it shift away and moved toward a group of locals holding up a large amount of ceramic jars that the yakilak was more than happy to fill up. Twilight was further disturbed by many of the locals looking at Spike with intrigue and amazement. A few pulled something out from beneath their layers of colored clothing and whispered to them.

This was a land and culture she was going to take a long time to get used to, especially if she was drowned every time she became thirsty.

Shining and his soldiers looked around the land, still trying to find where it was that Twilight could be hiding in. In their month of searching, they hadn't gotten any closer to finding her hiding spot and had set up camp next to the mountain for the night.

"Your Highness, are you sure she's even around here?" one of the soldiers asked as she set up a tent. "We haven't found any sign of her and you need to go back to the Empire and help Empress Cadance rule."

The stallion watched the bonfire grow in brightness as he continued to feed it wood, His expression dour. "I know we're getting closer to her home. She wouldn't travel that far for no reason," he grumbled.

Wind blew and pushed out some foliage from a cave a few dozen feet away from the crystal ponies, and a few animals escaped the entrails, but the soldiers didn't notice it yet.

Colleagues

Not much happened while Twilight traveled through the city. She was becoming increasingly upset at being unable to find any traces of whomever she was meant to meet, and even with Spike out and about, she couldn't get any attention outside of those enamored by the undead dragon. On a few occasions, the mare happened upon more crumbled temples with the strange, bipedal entity standing guard in front of it. Every time she saw it, the unicorn would flinch, expecting herself to go frozen in place while the two lights approached her again. Fortunately, it never did, but the first event stuck to her soul like glue.

After what felt like hours of walking under an eternal sun, she eventually stumbled upon a food stall and grabbed a fried corn cob filled with a white sauce mixed with other fried vegetables and what the cook called 'tofu'. Something from the far east, the equine claimed. Twilight sat on a public bench carved from brown clay and took several bites of her meal, finding it bizarrely flavorful. She proposed some to spike, but the undead continued its task of staring at the mare instead. The Saddle Arabians around took note of the mare's behavior and seemed to display concern at the sight. Why would a god of the dead give such a servant of its to a pony so...unstable?

"There she is," a voice said.

Twilight looked around to see two ponies covered in thick, black robes looking at her. "Can I help you?" the mare asked with a full mouth.

"Yes. You see, I believe that you were called here by somepony?" the first hooded figure asked.

The unicorn's eyes brightened and she quickly swallowed her bite, coughing from the sudden influx of corn. "Yes! Are you my contact?" she asked eagerly.

"I believe so. See, we're like you, and we think it would be prudent to take you somewhere more...quiet. You know, away from prying eyes."

Twilight scampered to her hooves and almost dropped her meal when she finally got off the bench. "Alright! Lead the way!"

So engrossed was Twilight in the need to find Celestia and her being in another world entirely that she let her guard down and didn't think very far about who might approach her. It was too easy for the person she was looking for to just pop up out of nowhere almost instantly, and while this thought did nag at the unicorn's mind, she didn't give it much attention. Instead, she followed the hooded figures through abandoned alleyways and ended up going through several crumbling buildings until she ended up surrounded by black stone and collapsed walls. Several other ponies were there, having set up several different areas to work at. One was mixing a bunch of different products together in vials and pouring the contents into several pots filled with dead plants, but nothing seemed to be occurring. A group of four were pouring over a pile of books they had and exchanged their thoughts, albeit reluctantly, with each other. There wasn't much natural decoration already present, like whoever had the building constructed stripped it of any and all personality. It was also eerily quiet. The hustle and bustle of the city barely even reached the open interior, letting the quiet murmurs of the other ponies around act as ambiance for this surprisingly 'dead' area.

"What is this?" Twilight asked as she shoved a mite-eaten banner covering the 'entrance'. "Is the pony I'm meant to meet here?"

"You're looking at them!" the first hooded pony declared.

Instinctively looking toward the sudden explosion of noise, the ponies pulled back their hoods to get a better look at Spike. They looked like ordinary ponies to Twilight, but something was also off about the magic suffusing them. They gathered around the undead, poking and prodding at it in an attempt to understand it.

"How did you get an intact dragon skeleton?" a stallion asked Twilight.

The mare was taken aback. "Um...I just went to an old graveyard filled with them."

"But dragons hide their own!" the stallion rebutted.

"They even chuck them into their volcanoes and lava streams when they die," a mare added. "There can't be a graveyard full of them."

Twilight furrowed her brow and backed away. "I didn't come here to talk with ponies. I came here to talk with the one I'm supposed to meet with in Saddle Arabia's capital."

The first hooded pony, a mare, became confused. "Aren't you the necromancer from Prance?"

"Who?" Twilight asked after a long pause.

The group cursed and groaned loudly.

"That's another we're not seeing," one of them complained.

The first pony sighed while another pulled out a sheet of paper and crossed out a name written on it. "Well, we still got another necromancer with us, at least, and one with an undead servant."

"Necromancers?"

The mare leaned forward. "How much mana are you using to keep it up like that?" the mare asked as she looked Spike up and down.

"I'm not using anything. I summoned Spike using a ritual, and now he's alive again," Twilight said.

The mare gave her a side-eye but kept herself hooked onto the undead dragon. "Alive. Yes. Sure." She nodded to herself. "A ritual to summon an adolescent dragon, it looks like. I'm surprised you can even control an adolescent. I expected it to break out of your control and become a rogue undead."

Twilight hugged her assistant's leg. "Spike would never do that! He's my most trusted assistant!"

At a loss for words, the mare heard somepony whistle and looked at the source: A stallion making a circling motion next to his head. She snorted in response. "Yes. Well. There are many of our ilk that attempt to use rituals to summon mighty beasts and end up overwhelmed by strength of will left behind by their departed souls."

The lavender unicorn sighed and looked at Spike again. "Well, I didn't want to do anything like that. I didn't need something big, and an adult dragon is too big. Plus, I don't think they would listen to me if I brought them back anyways, so I left them where they were." She shrugged. "Maybe later, but I don't see a reason."

"Later?" The necromancer cleared her throat. "You could stay with us and help us find more skeletons like that, no?" she asked. "It wouldn't be too hard to help your fellows, would it? We aren't asking much."

"And you have a dragon with you anyways. Best to share," one of the others commented.

Twilight shook her head. "N-no. I have a lot I need to do first. Maybe later."

The necromancer's mouth creased. "We're both necromancers," she started. She gestured to everypony else. "All of us have fled to Saddle Arabia because of the persecution of those close-minded fools in Equestria." Her muscles tensed and released several times. "Any one of us could become an alicorn of the undead with all the power we could get. A new kind of lich!" she said in amazement. She grabbed Twilight's shoulders and shook her energetically. "Could you imagine what all of us combined could accomplish? Controlling the dead! So many possibilities! Having control of our own cities where the ponies work forever, enriching us and allowing us to improve our research and eventually raise dead and forgotten gods as our thralls! The world they could take us to! The enlightenment that might occur." She let go of Twilight when Spike shifted towards her and put a hoof to her forehead, grunting in pain. "I've been at this for a century now, but I'm no closer to my goals. I took out whole villages to get subjects for testing and to help me recover vital materials to progress my purpose."

"A century?" Twilight repeated in shock.

The mare was barely out of her twenties by the lavender unicorn's deduction.

"Yes. How much longer must I wait?!" She grabbed Twilight again, pressing down and inciting a grunt of pain from the mare. "Work with us and you'll also be able to-!"

Spike grabbed the mare and casually tossed her several feet away, surprising the other necromancers and making them laugh at their colleague's misery.

"If anypony is going to succeed at anything, it'll be me. I have much more to discover and learn in life, and my lichdom is but a stone's throw away," a stallion declared. This one looked far older than the rest, with a decrepit body, thin, gray hair, and most of his teeth missing. "Then I won't have to worry about all this pain I'm living through anymore." He moved his neck to the side and caused a loud crack. "Ow!"

"You should just look into Necroboreomancy," the stallion working on his plants said. "Even if you die, you'll come back as a creature infused with the immortality of plant life. No souls, no body to fight for occupation, and no diseases. Only the good stuff"

A colleague of his working on trees scoffed. "Plants still have diseases, you idiot," she berated. "Plus, you can just bring their souls in the plants and animated those twisted things afterwards."

The first necroboreomancer shrugged. "There's more to do than just shoving them into the dead plants or simply reanimating them. You have to reshape them to your needs. Get the angriest thing you can!"

The others started going on their own tirades about their own pursuits into necromancy and the goals they have, and the more they talked, the more Twilight realized that they were going too far into their craft. The necroboreomancers had their plants dig into the living and drain them of their life force so that they could live longer. Others went to dead foals and used magic to dig out whatever life they would have had before their situation and used that as a new form of power to empower themselves and their spells without even working on strengthening themselves. They all took from others to give to themselves and didn't bother doing anything to reach their goals without harming others.

Twilight started shaking again, feeling another form of fear. It was like looking at a dark mirror of herself. Did she really just stay in the dark all the time and work on her experiments? She never wanted to harm anypony alive even in her pursuit of reviving Princess Celestia. She didn't see a logical reason to, but these ponies did it without a second thought. She didn't like it at all. These weren't the ones she was looking for.

"Let's try and sneak out of here," Twilight whispered to Spike.

The necromancers started fighting with each other, completely unaware of Twilight sneaking away, and as she did so, the words she heard during her supposed hallucination echoed again in her mind:

"Succumb to greed and feel its wrath. Succumb to greed and feel its despair. Succumb to greed and join its flock."

When she got past the tattered banner, she met face-to-bronze-mask with an equine clad in black clothing whose surface seemed to replicate the night sky. It put a hoof to Twilight's mouth and spirited her and Spike away, back onto the main street where water flowed under.

"Who are you?" Twilight asked. "I don't want to deal with more crazy ponies!" she stated angrily.

"There is no need for concern. I am no mind worm," the equine said. "The dancers of the dead fear no dread and see no red. Their hooves are stained in blood and their minds are gone. Leave them be. See them quartered and drawn."

"Why are you talking like that?" the unicorn asked.

"A bit of training told to me, by my teacher of fifty-three," the equine mused. "Very hard to speak like this, but it is as easy to learn as breaking a stick."

Twilight snorted. "Uh huh."

"'Leave me my amusement and see to the sands your summoning culprit," the equine declared as he pointed far beyond towards the sand dunes. "The one you seek lives beyond those sand peaks in her humble abode away from the dangers of the road. Gather drink, or you won't survive long while you think."

Twilight grinned despite herself. "You reached for that one."

The equine shrugged. "I do my best. It is not a test."

He looked down one of the alleyways and saw the necromancers spot Twilight. They made to pursue, but a brief tilt of the masked equine's head and several more dressed like him appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and standing in the shadows or hanging on the walls. One excessively tall one stepped in front of them, its body thin and lanky and towering over them. After what the unicorn assumed to be a brief exchange, the creature pointed in the opposite direction, telling them to leave.

"Necromancers are beloved by the people," the equine started. "But they are wild and unpredictable. Stuck in their whims, greed, and fables. We keep watch, that's it," he sighed. He patted Twilight on the shoulder and backed away. "Your contact is waiting. She sent me. Don't do the same. Please hurry."

The masked equine bowed to Twilight and walked away casually, not bothering to hide himself in the crowd. The mare felt he had more to tell her, but being stuck with rhyming as a way of communication felt extremely limiting. Still, she now had a direction to go toward, although she felt unusually tired.

"Your Highness," one of Shining Armor's guards called out. "We found a city called 'Flarolina' to the north-west."

"And?" the stallion asked.

"The guards there confirmed that they have often seen a mare draped in a cloak going there frequently enough that her arriving recently with a giant, quilted figure stuck out like a sore thumb." She took several deep breaths, having galloped all the way to camp. "She always came in from the south."

Shining was startled when the bonfire crackled suddenly by one of his guards throwing a stick in it angrily. "Well, that brings us closer to where she is for sure."

The white unicorn was about to interject when another of the guards spoke up first. "No. That narrows it down extremely."

"How so?"

The stallion grinned with his teeth bared. "They've seen her enough that she's become a regular. There are no other villages or cities for miles and miles down south, meaning that she lives close enough to be a regular at Flarolina."

A mare with a fake eye of enchanted crystal mumbled to herself. "Which means she does live near the border, like Emperor Shining Armor said."

"And there are no houses or anything around, otherwise she would have been easily found during her necromantic experiments."

"So we have to look for natural shelters," Shining contributed. He nodded. "With the smell that corpses give off after a while, it's obvious she can't be too close to the surface."

The mare nodded. "And there have been no sightings of wandering undead, so she's either destroyed them after they were made-"

"-Or she's been keeping them where they'll never be seen," the guard stallion finished.

Shining groaned and rubbed his temple. "Let's go spelunking for caves, then," he regretted.

Glass

When Twilight approached the edges of the city, she realized that it had been surrounded by a very thick, brown wall. They were crenelated by what Twilight could only describe as 'teeth' with very thin slits between them. These teeth curved upwards and over a large section of the wall they were at, granting the patrolling equines cover from light ranged weaponry. Even though the mare couldn't see it, she could hear the grinding of gears on and in the towers built within the perimeter. Whatever they were holding was heavy enough to require gears to move them. She assumed they were catapults and ballistae, but she didn't know what was used in Saddle Arabia. The gates leading into the desert were wide open, and four guards were stationed on both sides.

The guards were dressed in brown, rounded armor covered by white sheets of cloth supposedly meant to reflect the sunlight. Their armor looked like it was made from several stretched, oval-shaped slabs of the same brown metal and held in place by red strings, but seeing as they didn't budge even slightly when the guard approached Twilight, the strings appeared more decorative than anything.

"What are you doing here, pony?" the guard asked. "No pony can leave Tasaniyy without proper guidance and water supplies."

The mare cleared her throat. "I was told that somepony wanted to speak with me outside. There's a house or something out there away from the main path?"

The guard looked at Twilight then Spike, and his mouth took the shape of an 'o'. "You're the one I was told about. You must understand, the necromancers that live here tend to be...eccentric with their creations. I thought you were one of them. Very well. There's a wagon outside parked along the wall to the right."

Twilight paused, perplexed. "How do you know I'm not one of them?"

The guard leaned in, his voice quiet. "Because only those of us that work for their Highness the Lugalik know of that particular spot in the desert." He smiled as he stood back up. "Now get going," he said. "The desert gets worse at night. You shouldn't have trouble finding it."

What the guard had claimed was true: There was a wagon with three large barrels of wood waiting in the shade being guarded by two Saddle Arabians. They let her leave after seeing the undead dragon and confirming Twilight's identity. Spike grabbed the wagon and started pulling it as the two wandered reluctantly into the desert. The path mentioned was a long strip of near-white sand in the yellow sea of granules that the mare had to traverse. Looking behind her, Twilight could see the city shrinking away little by little and started having second thoughts. She didn't like the idea of traveling this vast wasteland on her own, but it was similar to the frozen landscapes that made up the territory of the Crystal Empire.

Plus, she was so close to her goal. This time it was the guards themselves that approached Twilight and her contact was supposedly linked to whatever it was that lived in the palace at the capital. To her surprise, while the desert was essentially empty, the dunes did not rise very high, leaving her able to see some semblance of a town or village in the great distances beyond, but their images were blurry. The mirage of something nearby reflecting off the sand. A few desert animals skittered about from the mare's approach, like serpents, furry mammals Twilight couldn't identify, and some arachnids. With the heat and the sand came strong gusts of wind that pushed the desert away from some large, very smooth outcrops of stone that had been polished by the winds and the grains that buffeted them for centuries. Twilight was amazed by the idea and hoped she could replicate it for Princess Celestia when she came back. A nice statue made from this stone would be perfect. Plus, they wouldn't just be pure white like all the others had a tendency to be, and no pony seemed capable of painting those they got their hooves on.

As time passed by, Twilight continued to drink from her barrels and felt a slight relief from the gusts of wind hitting her and the sun's gradual descent. Did the council's mages lower the sun here too? It was the other side of the world. They couldn't have just been left like this when Celestia was around. It was something else, wasn't it? As she mulled over the concept, Spike punted away a black scorpion that was about to sting her and drew her attention to something in the far distance just barely hidden by a dune. Moving slightly, Twilight made out exactly what the rhyming equine had told her: A small house sitting just outside what she believed to be a pretty big oasis. It could have been a small lake if the amount of foliage and trees were anything to go by. A veritable ring of emeralds in an ocean of gold.

"That way, Spike!" Twilight declared.

The trip took several more hours, and by the time Twilight had managed to get with a few dozen feet of the simple house, night time had already started to fall and the night was beginning to break through. The mare was engrossed with the art of the sky: Seas of white dots resting on semi-transparent beds of color as white streaks soared across them to vanish into the void. Large, twinkling spots of yellow, orange, and red making themselves known among their peers and demanding attention be focused solely on them. It was quite a sight that the mare never got to see when the mountains exhaled their mists into the skies constantly, blocking everything outside of moonlight.

Cold winds started blowing across the black sands, digging deep into Twilight's body. Shivering and unwilling to deal with this problem further, she went to the house and knocked on the wooden door. It was made with old, eaten-through lumber that left a bunch of holes and gaps, but it was still easy to accidentally push open.

"Hello?" Twilight called out. "Anypony here? I was told you knew the whereabouts of Princess Celestia?"

While the house wasn't much to look at from the outside, it was even less to look at from the inside. The exterior had been made with clay or mud likely assembled using the nearby oasis and had no fancy details to it like those in Tasaniyy. It was just a cube, and the interior was barren. A pile of straw as a bed and some wrapped with a few strings to act as a pillow. A few dented pots and pans resting on a primitive oven and stove with an opening charred black by fire, and a single window to the left of the entrance. Even Twilight couldn't live like this.

"Does a hermit live here?" she asked aloud.

"I am here," a voice seemingly called from afar. "Approach the stove."

Twilight hesitated. "Is this some kind of trap?" the mare asked.

"You want answers, don't you?"

The mare gulped nervously and steeled herself. "Alright, Spike. Let's do this," she said with a trembling voice.

The moment she did as she was told, Twilight and Spike were warped somewhere unknown. However, the mare recognized the dampness and odor of stagnant air anywhere: She was in a cave system. A cave system that replicated the night sky almost perfectly. The ground had been polished smooth and acted as a small 'plate' of pristine water that reflected the night sky floating above. Something had caught in the corner of the mare's eye, revealing that source of the glint was several astrolabes and telescopes of varying sizes and shapes placed to the left of where Twilight had arrived and were sitting there, shining with the oil used to polish their frames. Several more were sitting in pieces strewn about the cave floor but placed meticulously for reassembly and easy recovery. To the right, Twilight spotted several significantly better items of furniture compared to what was above: A proper bed with a large, comfy mattress covered in thick, blue comforters replete with a few pillows of varying sizes and colors. There was a metal stove sitting against the wall that whomever lived here used for cooking their meals and heating water. There were three tables of different sizes and heights placed meticulously around the area as well. A short one sat alone, surrounded by thick cloth for somepony to sit at. Another, slightly higher one, was several feet away and was accompanied by large couches. A few books were strewn about haphazardly on the table. A third was sitting on its own against the wall next to the bed and held a halfway-melted candle on its dark surface as well as an old quill and several inkwells in tiny shelves built into the table itself.

"What is all this?" Twilight wondered aloud.

"It's my work," a voice said.

Twilight spun around, unable to see the source and beginning to stress. "Please, don't tease me," Twilight begged.

"Fine, fine. I never get many visitors outside of a few of the same Saddle Arabians that work at the palace." The voice snickered. "They love their astronomy."

A shape fell through the night sky above and landed in the water, deforming the carefully tendered reflection. The pony that showed herself was almost completely night-blue. Her mane and tail resembled a flowing nebula with white edges and reddened tips, and her cutie mark depicted a glowing crescent moon in parting clouds. Better yet, she was an alicorn.

"Wh-wh-wh-p-p-p-Princess Luna?!" Twilight stammered. "Y-you're my contact?"

The mare nodded, her cyan eyes glowing faintly in the darkness of the cave. "Yes." She unfurled her wings. "This is where I've been hiding this whole time," she said. "After I was cleansed of the Nightmare by the Elements of Harmony, I was not privy to my sister's presence. Even when I returned I could not find her." She grit her teeth. "And then I learned that my sister was executed like a common criminal by the rabble of Equestria. The Element of Magic, whatever her name was, told me the 'council' expected the elements to eliminate me and that I should flee, so I came to Saddle Arabia in exile after..." She paused, her eyes growing wide. "After much searching." The alicorn walked over to Twilight and looked up at Spike who continued to stare at its master. "And I see that my sister's former apprentice really did become a necromancer." Luna looked back at Twilight and hummed. "And what will you do after you've accomplished your task? Dig ever deeper into necromancy?"

Twilight shook her head. "Oh no, of course not! It's all to bring Princess Celestia back," she announced cheerfully. "Once she's back I'll stop it since there's nothing else for me to need to learn."

Luna's brows furrowed, curiosity and confusion filling her every fiber. "And your research?"

The unicorn coughed nervously and tapped the ground with a hoof. "W-well, I don't want it to be lost. I hate knowledge disappearing. I'll keep it stored somewhere. Hidden. Safe!"

"I see...And your purpose afterward? Since you were my sister's prized subject, I imagine that you would want to go back to learning in her school."

Twilight chuckled nervously and waved a hoof at the alicorn. "I'm too old for that now. No. I...I think that...maybe...I could be a doctor of some kind? I could specialize in...necrosis and other ailments that kill parts of the body."

Luna pursed her lips and looked around her home, trying to parse what Twilight had told her. "And so you are here to learn of the whereabouts of my sister."

She was taken aback by her guest's eager nodding. "Of course!" the unicorn declared.

"Well, being sisters, and alicorns at that, we have a certain...connection, especially with what we were meant to do with sun and moon." She cleared her throat and flew over to the depiction of the night sky and started redefining the colors somehow. "So you were right to come to me and I was right to tell them to send you to me," the alicorn stated.

"Then...where is she?" Twilight asked.

"You won't like the answer."

Reluctance

"But that's for later," the alicorn mused.

Twilight turned red. "But I need to know where she is now!"

Luna smirked and went over to the couches. "You've been working for years on this, as I was told." She looked harshly at her guest. "You can wait a few more minutes. Surely you have questions."

Twilight's eyes darted about the room rapidly and the red of her face started to flush away. "Maybe..." she muttered.

She was invited to one of the couches by a wing. "Then come. Sit. Have a moment. No pony will find you here."

Hesitant, Twilight did as suggested and joined the alicorn at her reading nook. The two remained there in awkward silence for a while as the unicorn didn't want to bring anything up and Luna was just waiting patiently.

Finally, Twilight decided to break the ice after being unable to handle the silence anymore. "Why did you leave? You could have come to Canterlot and taken over from those...monsters" the mare cursed.

Luna leaned back on her couch, enjoying the softness of the fabric. "As much as I would have enjoyed that, I had just been freed of my hatred and envy and didn't have the power I needed. Plus, the council thought I would be completely destroyed by the Elements of Harmony." Her expression turned somber. "They didn't want a direct relative of my sister coming back to try and take power, especially one that threatened to bring eternal night with her." She sneezed and wiped her muzzle with a foreleg. "No cloth...bugh...I don't know what went through the mind of the holders when they came to me."

"They just wanted to kill you," Twilight growled. "That's what all the ponies always do!"

Luna tilted her head slightly. "And yet you're a pony and you partake in necromancy. Is that not just as negative a trait?" Twilight looked at the alicorn, surprised. "I don't just sit here, waiting for the end of days, Twilight. I'm often invited to the palace of the Lugalik and he teaches me about the outside world while we also have philosophical debates." She snickered. "It was fun to have somepony to talk to, especially one that appreciates the night as I do. They also had to teach me proper Equestrian, unfortunately. I still spoke the old dialect from a thousand years ago."

Twilight scratched her head. "I suppose that makes sense, but you could have come after you recovered," the mare said angrily. "You could have helped me find Celestia's body sooner and helped me preserve it and bring it back!" She paled. "Wh-what if they destroyed her body or chopped it into pieces?!" she panicked.

The unicorn started pacing about nervously, sweat drenching her coat.

"Twilight," Luna called. The mare didn't react. "Twilight!" The unicorn found herself frozen in place and levitated into the air by the alicorn's magic. "She cannot be burned, for obvious reasons, and I think that parts of her body strewn about would lead to some 'treasure hunters' looking for strength." She lowered Twilight back onto the couch. "Alicorns are beings suffused with an extreme amount of magic, and that magic tends to linger." She pointed to Twilight's saddle bag. "I can feel my sister's lingering power within your bags, for example."

The unicorn pulled the mane strand kept in resin out of her bag and looked at it with deep melancholy. "It's all I have left of her."

The alicorn stared at the glowing strand of hair silently. She also didn't like being reminded that her sister was gone, but if what she had been told was true, then maybe...

"If I went to Canterlot now I would likely destroy everything and everypony there, and I know my sister wouldn't have wanted that," she trailed off. She leaned forward, trying to hide her face, but her flaring magic coming off her body like toxic fumes gave away her true sentiments. "I would love to do nothing more than just go there and rip them all apart...Eternal night would have been too good a fate for them...Taking away all the light for them to regress into monstrous, cave-like creatures..." She noticed Twilight looking at her in horror and readjusted herself. "Of course, I don't do that and I stay here."

"Okay..." the unicorn said hesitantly. "So...what do you want me to do before you tell me where Celestia is?"

"I'd rather know what you can do," Luna said. "I was told you've been trying to find a way to bring my sister back to life and have been experimenting with the dead since leaving Canterlot."

Twilight grew furious. "I didn't leave it. I fled it! Everypony going mad and destroying everything! I was left all alone without knowing what was happening! Instead I get to see a horde of angry ponies storming the castle grounds and tackling the guards and grabbing any of the 'nobles' around and taking them who knows where! When they broke into the castle and reached Celestia, she didn't do anything! She just let it happen!" She hid her face in her hooves and started hitting her forehead lightly several times with them. "She could have stopped them all but she didn't! She just let them take her away and...and..." Her words caught in her throat. "I had to sneak out while they were occupied with her. I couldn't do anything..."

She expected Luna to be livid, but the alicorn looked at her with remorse and understanding instead. "I can see why you hold the ponies with such contempt," Luna said. She looked at Spike and felt that it was drawing its magic from the surrounding area to power it. "I can also see why my sister was so fond of you. Brimming with magic power and the intelligence needed to improve yourself and your craft with your own ideas and concepts." She smiled weakly. "Do you like magic, little pony?"

Spike put its hand on Twilight, causing her to jump briefly. "Yes. I always wanted to make the princess proud and learn as much as I could about the world. I could base myself off the work that other, more intelligent creatures had made in the past to help me improve myself, learn, and experiment using what they themselves had discovered."

"I see," Luna said.

Twilight cleared her throat. "It's just...no pony talks about necromancy, so I couldn't really find anything useful on it. I found a book, but it was torn and damaged." She exhaled and kicked an imaginary stone. "I've been stuck trying to build up my own theories and acting on them, and I've learned a lot this way, but it's still way harder to do than just taking what has been done before."

Luna chuckled. "I understand the sentiment fully. Even as foals my sister and I dreaded the tasks we were given. I'm unsure what she would have thought on the matter, but for my part, I grew to love working on the night sky." She flew over the puddle and used her magic to float on its surface without modifying it too badly. "Adding constellations, rearranging stars, discovering nebulae to show my little ponies!" Her serene smile turned into a frown, and she kicked the water. "But no pony wanted to see my work. They were always sleeping or hiding away in their homes, and none would ever come to me in my court." She grumbled to herself. "No pony appreciated anything I ever made, but the Saddle Arabians do, at least," the alicorn added. "I can make my craft here and modify the night sky, and they always see everything in awe."

The unicorn shifted in place. "I don't know what else to talk about. I don't want to ask how the princess was when she was younger. I just want to know how to bring her back now."

Luna nodded. "Well, I've delayed the inevitable enough. I suppose I can tell you, but would you be willing to come visit me after? You're always welcome here."

Twilight smiled weakly. "I can try, but coming here takes a month, if not longer."

"I see..." The alicorn thought deeply, holding her chin up with a hoof. "I can potentially solve that problem for you to come and see me or I you, but I suppose it will have to wait. For now," She stood up and deployed her wings. "I want to see my sister one last time. I have...so much to tell her."

Trembling from nervousness, the unicorn stared at the alicorn of the night standing before her. "So you'll tell me where she is?"

Luna nodded. "As I have told you, my sister and I have always had a sort of connection, making us sensitive to each other's magic. That's why I can tell you with utmost certainty that the entirety of her body lies somewhere within Canterlot castle." Twilight's colors flushed. "Why are you so surprised? I did tell you that alicorn bodies are so overly saturated with magic that they can serve as an artifact to the foolish?"

"A-are they u...us..."

"No. They are not using her body. They cannot incinerate the body of the alicorn tied to the sun. Heat does not phase her. They cannot cut her up because they would have to find where to store her pieces and keep them under lock and key. That would take time and resources. Their only option is to sit on her and wait."

Twilight gulped audibly, but even with Spike pressing down on her back, the mare wouldn't stop trembling. She didn't know if it was because of anger or fear or something else, but she couldn't stop it. It wouldn't go away. Luna wouldn't look away, her eyes seemingly boring a hole into Twilight's skull until she looked up and saw the alicorn's face damp with tears.

"Princess?" Twilight managed to squeak out.

"I was consumed by my own vitriol and was banished by my sister for a thousand years. I wanted to get my revenge on her after coming back, but she was nowhere to be found." She wiped her eyes using her wings, but the tears continued. "Then I learned she was executed and didn't even bother to defend herself. Just...find a way to get her body back. Please," Luna pleaded. "It is all I ask."

The lavender unicorn stood up and stomped on the ground. "I'll do better than that," she started. "I'm bringing her back to life!" she declared. "And now I know where she is!"

"And how will you reach her?" Luna asked.

Twilight grew dour. "I know how."

She muttered to herself, ignoring Luna's panicked words as Spike blocked her from intervening. Then, in a flash, Twilight was finally back home. It was worse off than when she was stuck in the Crystal Empire and finally returned, but she didn't care about that anymore. She brought a blank parchment from her damaged shelf and unfurled it under the light of a wickerlit candle. The mare immediately went to work on devising a way into the castle and figuring out where Celestia's body was. If anypony knew Canterlot it would be her, and so she used this intimate knowledge to experiment with her plans as she furiously scribbled draft after draft of what to do and how to reach the castle, but then, how would she find Celestia? It was unlikely that the ponies there would be keeping her corpse out in the open after what Princess Luna told her.

A light flickered in her mind. The strand of her mane. If Twilight enchanted it, then she wouldn't have to worry about searching high and low for her beloved teacher. That said...she would have to sacrifice what she had left of Princess Celestia for the spell to work. Once she found Celestia, it would burn up from the magic...What if she failed to reach the princess? What if it was taken from her before she could finish?

The mare continuously tried to reason with herself but eventually gave up and sat on her bed, lamenting her inability to come up with a plan.

"Why not use the ponies in the city below?"a voice suggested. Twilight's eyes started opening. "They're all grateful to you for bringing them back to life. Imagine how happy they would be if you brought Princess Celestia back to life."

"That's...not a bad idea..." Twilight said to herself. "And...and I can bring them back and heal them if they get injured." She furrowed her brow. "Time to use the tunnels and dig our way to Canterlot," she growled. "But first, I need something made from the inspiration Saddle Arabia's architecture gave me."

"Look over here," a guard called out. "It was hidden behind an enchanted bush."

Shining and his soldiers hurried over to see a cave opening and peered at the ground. It was frequently traveled enough that the ground had smoothed somewhat.

"This must be where she is," Shining said. "Keep together and keep your light spells on at all times. We can't afford to be ambushed."

Tunneling

The soldiers ended up traveling through the caves for three days before they even managed to find a vague trace of non-cave dwelling life. The cave tunnels twisted and turned every few feet, making it extremely hard and extremely dangerous to get through. While the group was worried about ambushed, they hadn't taken into account the intricacies and randomness that a cave's layout could give. On many occasions the soldiers had almost fallen to their deaths, only to be saved by their quick-thinking comrades at the last second. It was starting to take its toll on them, making them doubt if the necromancer actually took up refuge in this location at all seeing how dangerous it was.

Exhausted, the soldiers wanted to return home. Even Shining Armor was feeling his determination fading and was about ready to do the same and resume his duty as emperor, but another scout group returned from one of the many tunnels with news: They had found a safe passage past a bunch of collapsed walls held in place by millennia of tectonic shifts, and something was at the end. Eager, Shining Armor followed them and came upon an old building fused into the stone.

"What is this?" Shining asked aloud. He pressed his hoof against the bricks lining the walls as they approached the construct at the end of the tunnel. "Did Twilight build all this?"

"Unlikely, sir," a guard said. "This stuff has been here for a long, long time."

Another leaned in and grunted. "Doesn't look like it was built into the cave. Looks more like the cave grew around it," she commented. "How would that even work?"

"Stop talking," Shining snapped. "I smell something rotten coming from the building. Keep your wits about you."

The ponies did as told and slowly approached the building at the end of the tunnel, but when they finally reached it, they all ended up covering their muzzles. No doors blocked them entry, and after placing a small filtering spell over their faces, the group entered the necromancer's home.

"It's...more quaint than I thought it would be," one of the soldiers said.

Shining nodded in agreement. "Spread out and look for anything. I don't think anything is in here."

Shuffling and movement filled the dead air of the building as intruders went through the necromancer's belongings, curious as to what they would find.

"A lot of old books on this dilapidated shelf," a guard announced. She took one out and started flipping through its pages. "Lots of theories on magic and some medical books," the mare continued. "Why would a necromancer have medical documents?"

"And over here there's a bunch of map scrolls," another said in excitement. He unfurled one and gasped.

"What's wrong?!' Shining asked as he rushed over. "Is it trapped?"

"No!" the guard squeed. "It's a map from before the princesses! I think it's a thousand and seven hundred years old! Where did she even get this?"

The emperor was about to get angry when the question hit him. Where did Twilight get something like that?

"There's more! They're all so old!" the guard said giddily. "Why would she even have these? They would help her navigate anywhere."

He was approached by another guard who pushed him away and started looking closer at the maps. "Because she's not using them to navigate," she explained. She tapped several parts of each map with a hoof. "See these spots?" she asked. "They look like burial mounds or the spots where battles and wars have been fought."

Shining lifted up three of the maps with his magic and furrowed his brows. "She was looking for places to dig up bodies," he realized. "If she only ever really focused on places like this, then it would partially explain how she never garnered the attention other necromancers got when they started going on murder sprees."

"Aside from a few tables, a shoddy bed, and some writing stuff, not much else here," a soldier in the back declared. "Doesn't seem like there's anything here to hold corpses and the like," he added.

"Keep looking," Shining ordered. "There's more to this place. I know it."

More searching revealed a staircase hidden in the shadows that brought the group downstairs to a bunch of chemistry equipment and surgical tables. Next to the door was a box full of surgical tools sitting in a strange, brown, acidic fluid that stung their nostrils even through their masks. As they explored it, they came upon mountains of research papers by Twilight and started sharing them between each other.

"Lots of stuff on how to sow back cut lips, reattach the nerves, replaces for rotted blood vessels," one soldier said.

A soldier read through every sheet as fast as she could and started to worry. "Hmmm. Also, she's been trying to resurrect them fully. I don't get it. A necromancer trying to bring ponies back from the dead? I mean, I know some tried to bring back their loved ones, but they always ended up going too far."

"Yes, it's tragic," Shining said absent-mindedly. "There's more to her laboratory here than just sheets of paper."

"Well, there's all these papers theorizing on how to bring Celestia back to life and what to do depending on the state of her body." The soldier handed around twenty pieces of paper to Shining and let him go through the scribbles. "She's also got a bunch of stuff on dried out corpses," she added. "I think she went and visited the deserts down south." The guard smirked. "She's been traveling. Might have traveled again."

"Even so, we can't just leave this place alone," Shining said. He walked up to a large door and forced it open, buffeting him and his team with freezing air. "What is this?" the stallion wondered. "A freezing room?" When he saw the orb floating in it he blocked his soldiers from entering. "Don't touch that. It'll freeze you dead," he instructed.

"Yes, sir," the ponies said in unison.

As they explored the contents of the frozen chamber, the guards were shocked and disgusted. Body parts, organs, blood. All frozen and organized on shelves built into the walls. It was a disgusting and horrific sight for Shining Armor, to know that his sister had all of this sitting here.

"So, she did butcher ponies," one guard said. "I know she couldn't be trusted."

"We can't be too sure about that," another opposed. "All her maps only showed her going to burial grounds and cemeteries, and if she had gone mad like many others then she would have been worse when brought to the Crystal Empire. Don't forget that she didn't use her magic to attack our comrades."

"She killed two of our own!"

"After that weird thrall of hers was blocked and attacked by them." He looked to the ground and grimaced. "After that incident at the barracks and how it behaved when in the spire, we know it only reacts to threats to her. She never told it to hurt anypony despite having the power to do so."

The mare groaned loudly and snorted. "You're right. Fine. Could've broken the lock on her horn too and she never did."

"I'm not saying she couldn't have," the stallion added. "But her behavioral pattern is too abstract to be as simple as killing ponies to harvest their bodies, especially with all those notes of hers trying to bring ponies back from the dead. Killing them, stealing their parts, then bringing others back to life seems counter-intuitive."

Shining walked past them and explored further, noticing the chute Twilight always used that was caked in dried, rotting matter. "Necromancers like that haven't always been of sound mind, and when things take too long they tend to want to do anything to speed things up." He leaned over to see a dark abyss at the end of the chute and hummed. "Could be that she went to that extent...or whoever has been supplying her has also given her these parts...Considering how timid she is that seems very likely."

"Timidity wouldn't dull the greed of a necromancer," the guard mumbled angrily.

The group continued to explore the lab, discovering diagrams of pony anatomy rolled up and hidden between two tables and the storage area Twilight would place bodies before experimenting on them. She had forgotten one body that had rotted into a skeleton with the time that she took to get back, leaving a nasty, blackened outline of what once was and a significant disgust and anger from the observers.

"You think she's down there?" one of the soldiers asked as he leaned over the chute.

"I dunno. I'd rather not touch it, though." The stallion waved a hoof in front of his face. "Even with this face protector is smells rank."

"I don't think we'll need to." Shining struck a giant metal door with his hooves. "I think we can go down through here."

"There's more?!" a guard realized in horror. "What are we supposed to find? A hole full of undead ready to eat us?!"

"We don't know, which is why we're going down there. So far everything has been going smoothly, hasn't it?" Shining reasoned. "We're still fresh and ready for any combat encounter, so let's get to work."

Reluctant, several of the guards helped open the gate and went down the dank, dusty steps. Reaching the end opened them up to a collapsed tunnel and much darkness. However, reaching the other side left them speechless.

"An...an entire city?!" one of the guards gasped. "And in such a good state."

"There's parts that have collapsed though. See over there?"

"I...Twilight could not have done all of this," Shining said.

"It's an architectural marvel," another soldier realized. "Imagine what we could learn from this place."

"Hey, down there," a guard whispered. She pointed far below them. "Is this what you wanted to see, your highness?"

Shining leaned over and grew furious. A veritable ocean of the dead were going somewhere beyond their sight, seemingly disappearing into the rest of the stone by themselves, but as they moved forward and started to shrink, more came from the city to join the group with every loud 'bang' coming from beyond the soldiers' view. Several dead would come out and walk alongside the outer edges of the column and drop dirt away from their fellows, beginning the foundation of a new road.

"What are they doing?"

"Is there a tunnel down there?"

As the guards tried to figure out what was happening, Shining was lost deep in thought. Twilight had this entire city all to herself, but the passage to reach it was so dusty and unused. What exactly had she been doing the whole time? Was she even fully aware of it? He looked out to the massive buildings still standing and felt himself crease at the sight. There was something nefarious about it and what it represented. He was afraid that there was a reason a city like this had been forgotten and he didn't want to linger too long to find out. If his sister didn't want to explore it then it was clear that there was no reason for him to stay there longer than needed.

"What do we do, sir?" a guard asked.

"What? Oh!" Suddenly taken out of his thoughts, the unicorn cleared his throat and stood tall. "There's no way we can take all of those undead head on. We don't know what they're doing nor why they're there. I think it prudent that we watch from afar and try to stay out of trouble. This might be far worse than I initially thought," he worried.

"Should we explore the city?" a guard asked. "The necromancer might have hidden something in there."

Shining and the other soldiers peered out into the dark abyss and shivered.

"No," Shining Armor responded. "We don't need to. We're not archaeologists and I don't want to discover whatever is exuding this...off sensation."

One guard looked at him with wide eyes. "You can feel it too?" she asked.

Shining nodded. "Yes, and it's best we stay on the trail of the dead." He looked around the damaged bridge and kicked some debris away. "Let's wait here while I write some reports. I need to keep Ca--Empress Cadance appraised of everything going on here."

"She won't like what you're about to tell her."

Shining grimaced. "I know, and neither will I."

Leading

It was hard to breathe in the tunnel as the undead continued to dig through and remove the collapsed sections that had rested there for who knew how long. Thanks to the fact that the undead needed no rest, they could work forever without rest, and Twilight made great use of that. Often she would ask them if they wanted to rest because they had been working so much and for so long, but the undead never answered. Instead, they continued to take what had been excavated back to the city and leave the detritus there. It had been two or three days since the excavations began, and the tunnel had become bigger than Twilight initially thought. Whoever had built these built them with something like an adult dragon in mind. Spike's immense strength and speed helped accelerate the process of digging to Canterlot significantly, but the mare started to worry that they would be able to dig underneath the castle, and then...Then she would have to go through the city itself.

Twilight gulped and started shaking. The memories were starting to resurface, but she did her best to suppress them, even if it hurt her and made her sweat profusely in the process. On occasion she would have to direct the undead into digging in a specific direction, and when she finally reached the end of the tunnel, she brought in her 'inspiration' to do the heavy stone demolition and clear the way further. The mare wondered how much longer it would take to reach Canterlot, and without her spells opening passages to the outside world, she would have joined the ranks of her patients. Soon, though, she would be able to get underneath Canterlot, free her former teacher's body, and bring her back right away. It hurt her back, but her overstuffed saddlebags were chock full of the immense amount of things necessary to bring the princess back. She looked behind her to see the twelve undead also carrying overstuffed saddlebags, though five of them carried large metal containers that exuded a freezing cold. If they were living, they would have been frozen dead in mere moments from contact.

The mare paced about nervously, taking out her maps to calculate and recalculate multiple times in just a few minutes. Her stomach was tightening painfully from the stress she was feeling. There were so many things to think about that Twilight felt like she was about to implode. After what she assumed to be a few more days of work, and sleeping in little nooks the undead would dig out for her, they finally happened upon what Twilight assumed to be just beneath Canterlot castle. To her relief, the rock and soil was thick and sturdy enough for her work and she at least recognized the composition of said soil from a school project during what felt like so long ago.

"It's time..." she said reluctantly to herself.

The ponies above certainly heard and felt the tremors beneath them, meaning they would be on high alert. However, they wouldn't know where the source is coming from or if anything was going to happen despite it. Twilight could wait now and go later, when everything would have calmed down, or she could go now while the castle is still confused and hurry over as quickly as possible, destroy the first floor of the castle, dive underneath and grab Celestia, then leave with her undead and collapse the tunnel behind them every few feet they went. She didn't care about the 'inspiration' however. That was just a spur of the moment. A tool needed for her work. She would rather it be put to rest once all was said and done than let it wander the city to suffer.

She couldn't wait.

The Royal Guards, now the Equestrian Troops, were scampering around the castle grounds. Several of the older ones got stuck in what used to be the garden that now held a large, two-story building meant to house and tend to any political guests. The statues had been hidden in a storage room off-site. The more affluent in history did not want to lose such artifacts of their past, but they were too tainted with the memory of the princess. They would be brought back soon enough, but likely not in the lifetime of the current council.

The guards that grumbled with that thought were reminded of what they were doing with the castle on high alert and hurried, with spear, halberd, or sword in hoof to the walls and the watch towers built into them. The policing forces and the civilians ran about Canterlot City, doing their best to pick up broken items that had fallen on the ground and pull out anypony still in the vicinity of damaged houses and buildings. A few of them had already partially collapsed, prompting a great panic from those that had never experienced what everypony assumed to be an earthquake. Sure, a tremor would occur every now and then, but it was always just a little bit of shaking.

"What's going on with the city?" one of the soldiers atop the wall asked.

Their armor had still retained the golden coloration and the white fur enchantment of the past. The council had been obligated to bring them back out after the Changeling War and awaited their armories to be restored, but it mattered little to the every day ponies as long as they didn't see them. Several cannons had been brought up the wall with the help of some pulleys and loaded up by the suspicious soldiers. It cost them very dearly the last time they didn't trust their instincts, and they were not about to repeat that same mistake. So they waited, kept a watchful eye, and reported back to each other, ready to flood the city at a moment's notice if anything life-threatening risked happening to the ponies of Canterlot.

Unfortunately, they were right. A little over an hour after the greater tremors had started, a gigantic mace burst out of the ground just downhill from the castle's gate. The mace head itself looked as big as a house, and the blood of every witness froze in place when it moved forward and slammed into the ground, revealing a tremendous, meaty gray-blue hand hanging on to the handle of the weapon. The owner pulled itself out of the hole, revealing itself to a be an immense bipedal creature with a bloated stomach, rotted skin, immense legs, and a vestigial right arm that curled against its side. The limb oozed with a nasty, scarlet fluid that sizzled when it touched the ground. It had its back turned to the castle, prevented the stunned soldiers from seeing the creature's face.

"What is that thing?" one of the soldiers gasped. "It's...enormous."

A sergeant yelled as loud as she could to get everypony's attention. "Don't just stand there gawking like idiots! Start firing the cannons! Take it down!"

Lighting the matches of each cannon, the weapons unleashed an uneven cacophony of noise and light that struck the giant in the back and the legs, inciting a minor grunt of annoyance as its rotted skin sloughed off and revealed the purple muscle fiber and tissue beneath covered in corpse wax and melting grease. As it turned around, the soldiers got to see its face: Two, almost fully brown eyes save for some white splotches. It had no nose, only a sown patch on its face that crumpled its skin unevenly. Its rotting brown and green teeth were of varying sizes and going in varying directions because of the shoddy patchwork done. No hair grew from anywhere on its face, and only its left ear remained hanging on, but just barely. It grumbled, looked down, and started kicking the ground slowly, but the strength this tremendous beast with legs half the width of a house possessed made these simple 'punts' into the ground dangerous. Dirt and rocks were jettisoned toward the castle and its walls, denting the brickwork and destroying what windows the debris touched.

"Return fire!" the sergeant ordered. "Stop gawking at it just because it kicked the ground a bit!"

"But m'am! Its feet!" one of the soldiers shouted.

"What about them?!" The mare leaned over the wall and paled. Only one word came to her mind. "Why?"

Undead flooded out from the hole, slowly followed by an undead dragon and a lavender unicorn.

"There! A necromancer!" a soldier declared.

"Then take her out! We don't have time to worry about the hows and whys!"

"No!" Twilight complained. "I was off! We're at the foot of the hill..." She looked at her horde pouring out of the tunnels and starting to gather. "Quickly, everypony! I need you to get into Canterlot Castle up the hill and help me find Princess Celestia!" she shouted. "Don't worry about getting hurt. I'll get you out of there and back to the city as quickly as I can!" She looked up at her 'inspiration' and grimaced. "Tomb Guardian, act as cover for them and tear down the walls! Just try not to kill anypony, please!"

The towering giant groaned and moved forward, taking the brunt of cannon fire that could do nothing to slow its seemingly slothful advance. Every step made the ground tremble as it moved forward inexorably, gradually terrifying the soldiers watching it. It easily outpaced the smaller, groaning hordes getting peppered with cannon fire and spells that would almost instantaneously disappear in a flash of light. Twilight watched in both horror and joy at her ponies going to help the princess come back to life and bring light back into the lives of ponykind. They needed it! She needed it.

The soldiers on the wall were swiped away by the gigantic mace of the tomb guardian that also destroyed the cannons, throwing them down toward the horde and crushing a few of them. There were hundreds of undead that would not relent in their advance, and it always seemed like more were coming even if they were starting to thin out in number. Seeing that a large number of its kin were bonking themselves against the walls or clawing at them, the giant swiped them all away with its feet and raised its disheveled hand to its mouth. Using it to focus the flow of air, the abomination exhaled a horrific smog of scarlet and deep purple onto the bricks, melting them gradually as the fetid air consumed the stonework. It left a significant breach in the defenses, letting the undead flood into the castle grounds. Twilight, Spike, and the loaded undead entered after most of the horde had done so already and torn down the doors leading into the entrance of the castle. The white marble floors and the oak stairs covered in blue-green were still the same, but all the portraits and statues had been removed. Ponies ran screaming from the undead, leaving behind vast swathes of documents that Twilight didn't care about.

The mare pulled out her strand of Celestia's mane and realized it was glowing closest to the ground. This was the place. She called to the tomb guardian with her magic, and it squeezed through the breech it had made in the wall to stop toward the castle entrance and blow it down with its mace, producing a significant amount of dust and debris. The mare pointed to the ground, making the giant raise its mace with the head pointing down and start pounding at the marble aggressively. Spike protected Twilight with its body, but she had already raised a magic shield to protect her and her cargo. With this moment of 'peace', barring the fighting going on in the courtyard, Twilight turned around to see Canterlot City. She was so engrossed in her goals that she hadn't paid attention to her surroundings. She trembled when looking at it and her shield started to falter. Spike's presence calmed her and helped her stabilize the spell, but now a furious rage burned within her. She wanted to destroy Canterlot so badly, but Celestia wouldn't approve. The alicorn was already going to yell at her student when she got back after what Twilight did to her castle, but that was okay. It was easy to rebuild a castle? It wasn't at all easy to rebuild lives.

From the hole the giant had created, Twilight could also spot her old observatory on the left. Its glass dome and giant telescope were dead giveaways of what she once had and what she wanted again. After they ruined everything! It was right there! So close yet out of reach. The mare grit her teeth and breathed erratically several times in an attempt to hold back her tears. She needed to focus. If she lost her composure now, then everything would be lost.

The entryway was completely destroyed by the time the giant had finished its work. The stairs were now just a bunch of shards of timber and the walls looked like they had been gnawed through by thousands of stone-eating insects. There was now a large hole in the ground that led to a spiral staircase a few feet lower that could have been reached if Twilight had found the door leading there. Using her magic, the lavender unicorn formed the debris into a makeshift stairway that led down the dark spiral where nothing could be perceived. It was time to go down there. She would have the Tomb Guardian keep watch for her and prevent anypony from following until she was done. The undead would block most of the soldiers and Spike would keep her and her ritual ingredients safe. Everything was going to go right. Everything had to. Twilight hadn't spent all those years studying and experimenting for everything to fail now, even if this was a resurrection spell that was far more extreme than anything she had ever done before.

Author's Note

I feel like I'm skimming sections lately.

Green

It was a very familiar sight to Twilight Sparkle to climb down a spiral staircase engulfed in darkness and stale air. Checking the metal door that was meant to act as the proper entrance to this area, she realized that it had been sealed shut and likely walled off. The ponies really didn't want the princess' body to be found, but that wouldn't stop her former student. Spike walked in front while the mare illuminated everything with a few wisps of light that revealed the gunk and grime that had built on the walls over the years.

Little particles of dust floated about, revealed only by the wisps' intense light. As Twilight and her undead continued to descend, the sounds above became quieter and quieter, but the tomb guardian was still able to cause tremors with its stomping and mace, shaking loose errant bits of debris and congealed dust that had accumulated over time. Several cobwebs also decorated the staircase and often got tangled in Twilight's mane, making her panic silently and quickly brush the strings out in a panic.

"I don't want to stay here any longer than we need to, Spike," Twilight said. "Let's get to Celestia and then leave this place," she said eagerly.

The group continued their descent, going lower and lower until Twilight's strand of Celestia's mane started glowing wildly and trembling within its resin prison. She brought the wisps forward, revealing multiple dark tunnels and used the strand to navigate through them. Everything here was dark and musty, drying out her sinuses and the back of her throat and prompting fits of coughing. There wasn't much here save for the leavings of some critters that had scurried away when Twilight had approached them. Finally, she reached an opening and let the wisps loose within it. She now found herself within a tomb of sorts with a pyramidal ceiling. The mare could feel that the walls around had been inscribed with multiple spells meant to hide the presence of Celestia's body seeing that the strand was reacting violently to a black sarcophagus in the middle of the room.

Twilight scoffed. Whoever planted the spells in this tomb had done a very poor job, and it explained a lot to her as to why she never found her former teacher or why Luna never felt her until now...unless there was another reason? The mare shrugged it off. She was literally at her goal and didn't need to waste her time theorizing about unimportant bits of information. With her heart pounding wildly in her chest, the mare slowly approached the sarcophagus, and when placed a hoof on it, her precious treasure burst into flames and disintegrated in her hoof. She felt an extreme sense of loss and felt herself tear up at seeing what happened to what kept her company for so long. The mare grit her teeth and pushed the lid off her teacher's sarcophagus and almost collapsed if Spike hadn't intercepted her and held her up.

She was right there. After all this time. All that searching for so long, and her teacher was right there. Her head lay next to her body, eyes closed and face serene, but a lot of her flesh had disappeared, leaving behind sections of skeleton. Because of the inherent dryness of this place, the corpse had only partially rotted before drying out. Twilight wiped her forehead of sweat and gestured her undead aides to bring her everything. The mare had them lay out a large, thick sheet of resin-covered parchment onto the floor and placed both parts of Celestia there as she fully illuminated the room with dozens of wisps. She didn't have time to be exhausted. She had her teacher to resurrect, and went straight to work. She analyzed the damage, saw what was missing or had to be replaced and wrote it all down. As she did all of this she struggled against her own fears lashing out at her. The screams from that day, the heavy thuds of hooves hitting the stone floors as the revolution thundered through the halls. She could hear it all in this deathly silent location where even her breathing sounded like cannons firing their round shots into the air.

On the surface, the undead continued to pour out of the breach and the ponies couldn't do anything about it nor the tunnel that had been dug due to its distance and their cannons being destroyed by the giant that was swiping around randomly as a distraction, destroying everything with ease and ignoring any attack against it. The ponies were growing exhausted while the undead felt nothing and continued to move forward further and further to block anypony from reaching the spiral staircase. Hours flew by as the undead overwhelmed the attackers and continued to invade the castle grounds until no pony was left near the stairwell, causing them to go passive and wait in place. The troops had pulled further back, far away from the dead, and several of them had been shaken up. In the undead hordes they had spotted and recognized members of their own family: Cousins, aunts or uncles, grandparents, and even their children and parents. A few of the level-headed guards had found it curious that a necromancer wouldn't use foals as so many had already done in the past.

The soldiers barricaded themselves using magic to force the roots of bushes that had been pulled out to form into barriers that blocked them from the undead, leaving them time to regroup and plan a new strategy. Meanwhile, Twilight was hard at work digging into the body parts and organs she had and evaluating their value and compatibility with Celestia's body. It was grueling work, but she had to be very meticulous about this. One wrong step could jeopardize everything. She restored the tissue that was already present and the cardiovascular system to see where everything went before digging into her replacement veins and arteries and meticulously sowed them in place and reattached them strand by strand until the blood present was flowing freely, but loosely, through the veins. Next was a heart since a false heart of magic would never last long. She grew it to fit the alicorn's needs and placed bits of Celestia's now-living tissue onto the heart, using spells to slowly replace all the native tissue into that of the alicorn's and forced it to grow.

Twilight's work continued like this easily for three days while the undead above continued to lay siege to Canterlot Castle and sow panic in the ponies of the city below. It was a great contrast to the bright and sunny sky above filled with just a hoof full of clouds. When there were no more of the necromancer's dead coming out of the tunnel, Shining and his soldiers peered out to see what was happening. They couldn't do anything since they were in the heart of Equestria, and if everything blew over there would still be an international incident, so against their better judgment and for fear of what was going to happen to the Crystal Empire, the ponies abstained from moving from the tunnel entrance. Besides, they had no way of getting through that many dead let alone the giant thing they could see keeping guard.

"What do we do now?" one of the guards asked.

Shining sighed and sat down. "We wait. Twilight didn't have them destroy the entirety of the castle, so she isn't there for revenge, but what would she be wanting in the castle of all things?"

After waiting around for a few hours and writing down reports to send back home, the group noticed the sky vaguely changing color before returning to its usual hue.

"What is happening?" Shining asked.

"What do you mean?" one of his guards asked.

"I just saw the sky change color."

The ponies looked up and flinched when they, too, saw it happen. Twilight was doing something she wasn't supposed to.

The mare had completely restored Princess Celestia and was still running on her adrenaline, even if it was just fumes at this point. Now the alicorn was sitting back in her sarcophagus as it was in the center of the room, and she had drawn over the entirety of the tomb: Floors, wall, and even the ceiling. The ritual items were placed at the locus points of the spell and were kept in place through even more magic, but this was it. This was the final moment. The penultimate spell to undertake, and it would require a lot of time to do right. One of her aides gave her a very long parchment covered in ritualistic text that she couldn't fumble or everything would be ruined. It was a good thing she was so good at studying and repeating everything. The mare could recite everything by heart now.

Hours and hours of reciting, pooling in the ambient magic into Celestia's corpse, reigniting her horn with magic and filling it with life again. The walls trembled and the entirety of Canterlot shook as the sky started to change from Twilight's ritual, prompting the soldiers of the Crystal Empire to start panicking.

"We can't just sit here!" one of the guards shouted.

Her comrade grabbed her and locked eyes. "And do what? You have a way to grind through hundreds of the dead? What about that giant?!"

"But we don't know what she's doing!" the mare continued. "I don't want to sit behind in some kind of post-apocalyptic nightmare and say that 'I was there but did nothing'."

"Neither do I," Shining interjected. "But if we go in now they might overwhelm and kill us. Twilight commanded them to storm the castle, which is exactly what they did and likely why they ignored us in the tunnel, but she's clearly unstable now more than ever. Dying wouldn't serve a purpose and would likely feed her horde," the stallion lamented. "There's nothing we can do but prepare for what comes next."

The tomb glowed brightly with the golden light that was characteristic of Celestia's own magic as her body filled with so much of her magic that had permeated the walls and broken every spell placed around her corpse. Twilight felt her body aching from the extreme fatigue, screaming at her to rest, but she couldn't. Not yet. Just a bit longer and Celestia would be back. She restored her body, converted the parts to match the alicorn's needs, and got her magic back. Now it was just a matter of bringing her soul back.

The unicorn was so focused on her ritual that she didn't realize that the light had slowly shifted to a neon green and was damaging the surroundings and overwhelming the light of the wisps that dissolved under it.

"It's okay...princess," Twilight thought "I'm...I'm almost done with the ritual, and then...Then you'll be back with us! With me!".

She continued the ritual, finally nearing the end, and collapsed onto the floor when the final words were spoken.

Outside, everypony bore witness to the sky growing a sickly green as the sun, in enlarging spots, changed a sickly green shade and its flares were slow and visible to everyone. They watched in horror as the air seemed to become heavy and thick, like wading and breathing gelatin. The ground in Canterlot burst apart as the lost changelings and ponies dead from the war emerged, destroying the streets and damaging the foundations of many buildings. Specters gradually became visible to the naked eye and, worst of all, tangible. Realizing this they started harassing and attacking the living to sate their broken minds full of hatred. More strange spirits started to emerge throughout the land, each with a more twisted and otherworldly figure than the last. Around Canterlot mountain was a strange, two-tailed entity that seemed excessively stretched downwards like a crossbow bolt's head, with two dead eyes pulled too far back to blink. Its three-digit hands gripped the mountain tightly as it gazed at the green star and found itself dissolving almost instantly while the air became filled with its shrieks that harmed even the specters.

"I knew we should have gone in!" the previous mare said as she stomped around.

Shining looked up in horror, feeling his heart sink. "Twilight...what have you done?!"

Twilight started to bawl like a young foal, unable to contain her emotions when she saw Celestia standing in front of her, having flown out from the sarcophagus.

"I thought I was never going to see you again! All these years of being terrified and hiding, and learning necromancy to bring you back!" The mare jumped at Celestia and hugged her legs, her tears still flowing and her voice getting caught in hiccups. "I'm so soooorry I couldn't help you!" The alicorn statically placed a foreleg over Twilight's head and remained silent.

Through Twilight's eyes, Celestia was back, but through Spike's 'eyes', he saw something else. While the alicorn was indeed standing, her eyes had been burned out by green fires, her mane and tail were three rings of green light that turned brighter at the smaller rings around the edge. They flickered like ghostly fire that left behind little wisps of green light that reflected the same light coming from within her. Even her cutie marks hadn't returned, leaving green imitations grown into her own skin.

But she was back now. She was back.

Throne

Twilight let go of her teacher with the biggest smile on her face. It was making her cheeks hurt. "I'm so happy you're back, Princess," the mare said. "There's so much you've missed!" She paused and her ears drooped. "Yes, I know. I used a taboo magic, but it was for a good cause!" Another silent pause. "I did, but they're fine now too, although I still need to fix them up properly." She cleared her throat and smiled sheepishly at the princess that looked straight ahead, its body unflinching. "I..."

A familiar sensation hit Twilight, freezing her in place, but wasn't it just a hallucination? The mare slowly turned around after a white light caught the corner of her eye to see two large rectangles of light slowly approaching her from a distance that didn't exist in the tomb.

"No! You can't take her! I brought her back!" Twilight pleaded. "Leave her alone! She's not meant to be dead! That isn't fair! You-urk!"

Now the rectangles were attacking Twilight, and the closer they got, the more constrained her body became and the harder it became to breathe. She could even feel her blood being too constricted to move throughout her body. Spike immediately went to action and jumped at the rectangles, but its fists hit nothing. It was like the rectangles were on another layer of existence and overlapped the dragon's which found itself collapsing to one knee when Twilight's magic started to flicker. Feeling that she was about to die, the mare smiled, knowing that her teacher was finally back and she had done her duty. She regretted that she wouldn't be able to live with her teacher anymore, learning from her, making her proud, and maybe even teaching her a thing or two. It was always fun to see when your teachers still loved to learn as much as you did.

The mare's death would not come to pass, however. Celestia's head instantly turned to the rectangles and her horn started becoming engulfed in purple fires that undulated like semi-liquid gelatin. She forced her magic onto the owner of the rectangles, forcing them off of Twilight and eventually pushing them back to wherever it was they came from. The unicorn coughed and laid on the ground, exhausted and waiting for her numb limbs to refill with blood, but she still had the strength to look weakly up at her teacher.

"Thank you...Princess," she whispered.

Everypony outside not embroiled with the newly visible spirits at Canterlot Castle watched in horror as the ground gradually cracked apart and a green light emerged from the fissures, imitating the sun above. Dead plant life started growing again from desiccated roots, dotting the landscape in the brown, skeletal remains of undead plants unaware of the rest they were meant to have. Shining and the guards could see old vines crawling up the ruins of the castle, digging fearlessly into the glass of the windows even as the shards cut them apart. The dead fear no death, even when they are plants.

The employees of the castle, trapped by the undead outside were stuck in the former throne room of Princess Celestia where several, lengthy tables sat in rows in front of a single podium atop the former throne area. A few had been struck by the damages the tomb guardian had caused and were groaning in pain while they were tended to with emergency first aid kits. They trembled when green light seeped in through the plain windows, coating everything in its horrific radiance and gradually revealing the presence of hundreds of tiny, semi-transparent wisps swimming casually through the air. Their becalming appearance helped relax some of the dozens of ponies hiding away. A few were sitting in front of the barricade of chairs, benches, and tables they had just set up, expecting the troops to overcome the horde and free them from their entrapment.

Grunts of pain and quiet whispers served as ambiance to the refugees of the castle when the large doors that reached high to the ceiling moved forward slightly, pushed by something on the other side.

"I think it's stuck, Princess," a voice behind them said. "Maybe you should push harder?"

The doors started to screech painfully as the barricade kept them stuck. Everypony watched with bated breath as the doors kept stuck. At first they felt excited to hear a voice, but hearing 'princess' set off alarm bells in the minds of everypony hiding away.

"Huh. They're really stuck there."

The speaker went silent for a moment, and the ponies at the barricade hurried away when they heard an ominous crackling behind the doors. In a flash of light, the doors and the barricade were blown away into splinters, leaving behind a thick cloud of dust and debris from which a lavender unicorn emerged.

"There we go!" she said as she looked around with a big smile on her face.

One of the stallions at the barricade got up and glared at Twilight. "What are you doing?!" he yelled angrily. He raised a brow as Twilight's appearance and voice started to reawaken a part deep within his brain. "Wait...I know you...Twilight Sparkle?" The mare turned to face the stallion and immediately paled. "You're alive?! I thought you died! We all did!" He smiled with relief, seeing the sickly mare instead of the undead. "Thank goodness," he sighed. "Did you come back to rescue us? Ah..."

He and the other ponies bore witness to a green gleam shine through the calming debris, followed closely by purple lights. As the cloud settled, everypony there got full view of Spike and Princess Celestia, and Twilight didn't take her wide eyes off her interlocutor.

"P-P-P-Princess Celestia?!" he gasped. "Wha-But...But I saw you die! You-!" He looked to Twilight, and several of the ponies there fainted in response. "Twilight? What did you do?!"

"I did what none of you did: Rescue Princess Celestia!" Twilight bellowed angrily. Spike and Celestia surveyed the room, keeping watch for any signs of danger. "I spent years learning necromancy just so I could heal her and bring her back to life because none of you cared about her!"

"I-is that what you think?!" the stallion shouted. "I helped everypony flee from the castle when those revolutionaries flooded in..."

Twilight's cheek dampened and the fiery mane and tail of Celestia flared as she moved past the unicorn and toward the podium. "You all betrayed her! Not one of you tried to help get Celestia away!" the mare shouted in return. "Princess, tell them! Tell them that's what happened! You were there. You know better than anypony!"

The alicorn, guided by some old instinct remaining in her body, moved to the podium, ripped it off with her magic, and sat down on the hardwood floor. Twilight was quick to rush to her aid while the terrified ponies eyed the doorway, only to see Spike standing there as an unintended obstacle.

"Princess!" Twilight panicked. "You can't just wander around like that," she said as she checked her teacher. "I know you want to get back into your position at Canterlot, but I only just revived you. We have to wait for you to recover properly. You need your rest." The mare looked at Celestia looking straight and frowned. "No, I know you have a lot to catch up on, but..." The crowd stared, baffled by Twilight's display. She was talking to no one. "N-no! I have to put my hoof down!" the unicorn protested. "As your..." She pointed her hoof at Celestia, waving it slightly as she tried to think of the word. "As your necrodoctor, I say that, as my patient, you need your rest." Her warm smile immediately turned to fury when she looked around the assembly room and grit her teeth. "Where's the council?!" she yelled with a voice crack.

"They're not here!" a mare said. "They disappeared when the undead came out."

"And what happened to the castle?!" Twilight walked along the walls, looking at the stained glass now replaced with soulless, transparent material. "The history...everything they talked about..." the unicorn whimpered. She turned to the crowd. "Why?"

"Because it reminded us of Princess Celestia!" one of the employees yelled angrily. "We didn't want to be reminded of the famine and poverty she put us all through for decades!" She was pulled down by her fellows in an attempt to keep her quiet. "No! I'm not going to keep quiet! I-"

The mare immediately shut up when the windows burst apart as a black, spiraling, serpentine entity with no head flew into them and out the other side. It warped the stone around it, making the material look like twisted, disheveled raisins. Celestia's presence also thoroughly corrupted everything she existed near, charring the wood black and causing the planks to reshape into awkwardly positioned trees. The husk of insects that had been folded into the material started to wiggle out as they reformed and ended up stuck in the wood, horrifying the ponies. Other ghostly spirits, long since trapped in the realm of the living and having forgotten what they looked like, came into 'focus' and started snapping at the employees with various mouths across a mishmash of shapes and limbs.

"Us having all left isn't entirely true. I'm still around," a voice announced.

Twilight looked at the doorway and watched a councilor squeeze past Spike. He was an elderly stallion cloaked in a blue vest with an exposed, tan-colored, buttoned undershirt and pants matching his vest. His vanilla-colored fur almost meshed into his undershirt, but his black mane with two, thin, vertical strips going through them created a deep contrast to his colors, as did his green eyes. The elder pegasus swiped his mane away from his face with a hoof and cursed quietly at it no longer being pulled back against his head.

"I..." He froze when he saw Celestia, the left side of her face burning with green fires and exposing her skull beneath. "Celestia?" he gasped. "Who did this?"

The counselor grunted in pain when Twilight lifted him with her magic and threw him across the room to slide to Celestia's hooves.

"It's your fault that the princess had to go through this!" Twilight screamed. "It's your fault that everything went wrong!" She started crying uncontrollably as memories of her past life started to resurface, as did her dreams of the future. "But I worked hard!" Twilight said as she poked her chest eagerly and angrily. "And I brought her back! She still needs her rest, but when she's all healed up she'll be back and ready to guide everypony again like she used to!"

"You...what have you done?" the counselor asked in horror. "You used necromancy to bring her back?!"

"Yeah!" Twilight spat out. "And now I won't let anypony hurt her! Not this time!" The old pony struggled to his hooves, realizing that Celestia wasn't reacting to anything around her. "No! Princess! They should be punished for having killed you! You can't just let them off with a slap on the ankle!" Twilight protested. The counselor looked at Twilight and then to Celestia whose body continued to be slowly consumed by the flames. "Put him on the chopping block like everypony else!"

"Who are you talking to?!" the counselor asked Twilight.

"Wh-To the princess!" Twilight said. She shook her head like he had said a stupid question.

"She's dead," the counselor said. "All you did was raise a thrall so powerful it's corrupting the very values of the pony herself."

"No, she isn't!" Twilight protested. "That's just a side-effect from me bringing her back! I can fix her just fine, but her magic needs to settle!"

"You stupid foal!" the elder shouted back. Twilight backed away, shocked. "We killed that tyrant for a reason, and now you raised her as an undead thrall?! Are you that obsessed with power that you want to control Equestria through this abomination?!"

Twilight put her hooves to the side of her head and started stomping her hind legs on the floor erratically as she fought with conflicting emotions of information stimuli. "She's not dead! You're just trying to kill her again because you don't want to fix your own problems! I don't want to hear anything from the murderer of Princess Celestia!"

Everyone but Twilight was pushed slightly back when another wave of corrupting magic was emitted by the undead alicorn. The sky cracked apart in small sections, letting strange, monstrously gigantic things peer through and start trying to get through the breaches.

"Everypony is always obsessed with using Princess Celestia as a scapegoat!" Twilight yelled erratically. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Author's Note

For those wondering about the typos and using wrong words in the chapters, I do fix them by passing the document through Libreoffice. However, I had a second method which was to use grammarly which I can no longer do since they require an account for the free version now, and I don't want to make one.

Kryostase has been reading through the chapters and spotting what I can't, but only after the chapter is already published, so the errors you see might be gone by then, unless we both missed something.

Harmony

Shining cursed under his breath. "We can't just stay here," he said. "You were all right. We have to stop whatever Twilight is doing." One of the guards rolled her eyes in response. "But the most important question is: How do we get past the undead and that giant?"

The group continued to debate the solution while the green sun shined overhead, drowning the world in ghostly magics. Shining didn't know what he was going to do with his sister if he managed to catch her. Even the ponies in the Crystal Empire weren't likely to accept her after what she did today, whatever it was. Shining punched himself mentally after he realized that he had the hubris to think that he and Cadance could help her recover, but they didn't know the underlying issues Twilight had, and it blew up in everypony's face like a lit keg of gunpowder.

The group stepped out of the tunnel and made their way partially up the hill so they could get a better understanding of what they were up against. Shining knew the castle's defenses better than the crystal ponies, but even he didn't know if there were any secret entrances or not. The stallion wracked his brain in an attempt to try and better understand what they were up against and get a quick and clean solution to blow through the obstacle, but he couldn't think of anything. Even with their magic a measly eleven ponies wouldn't be able to go through hundreds more.

"I can't think of anything!" Shining said angrily through clenched teeth. "Anypony have an idea?"

The soldiers looked at each other, defeated. Many had suggested to go in, swords sharpened, but none of them had a solution behind that.

"What in tarnation's happenin' here?" a familiar voice called out. Shining's eyes widened in surprise, and he turned around to see Applejack glaring at the castle. "The dead's gone 'n taken Canterlot too?"

"Too?" Shining repeated. "It's happening where you are?"

"Darn tootin'!" the mare growled. She grabbed her stetson and shook it at the stallion. "Buncha weird wispy things been harassin' mah fields." Applejack put her hat back on and grunted. "A'course, fer some reason, got a whole heapin' 'a others gone smacked 'em 'round. Show 'em what fer. Reckon' they're mah ancestry 'r whatnot."

The guards's eyes wandered down to something shiny: An element of harmony.

"Wh-You're an Element of Harmony!"

"Sure am."

"And you're all that came?!" the stallion yelled in exasperation.

Applejack shook her head. "Nah. Ah came with mah friends." She tilted her head down, looking smug. "Who also happen ta be the other five elements, thank ya very much."

Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie popped into view with big smiles on their faces.

"Huh? We're missin' one," Applejack said. "Where is she?"

Rarity groaned. "She doesn't want the crystal ponies to see her."

"She's still shy," Rainbow said with a smile and a shrug.

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Fluttershah, if ya would?" The pegasus nodded and moved further down the hill. "Thought we got that outta her," the mare complained.

"You have to understand, darling," Rarity started. "Being in front of so many screaming ponies and a bunch of the living dead can push anypony past their comfort." The fashionista shivered. "Even if I'm also disgusted at seeing those rotting things."

"I can see them coming up," Shining said.

A pale yellow mare with an amaranthe mane and tail striped with two vertical stripes of gray-violet and faint purple popped up alongside Fluttershy. Her eyes were a deep purple and her cutie mark portrayed a crescent moon with a six-pointed star next to it. While the other ponies were wearing thick, golden necklaces depicting their cutiemarks in the middle, the newcomer's was a tiara with a blue moon and white star front and center.

"Moon Dancer," Shining said. "Glad you could join us."

The mare chuckled nervously and readjusted her glasses. "Sorry. I, uh...I don't do well with scary things."

"It's okay, Moon Dancer!" Pinkie said as encouragement. "Remember: Ya just gotta giggle at the ghosties!"

Rainbow crossed her forelegs and shook her head in disappointment. "I don't think that's going to work this time," she sighed.

The pink pony puffed up her cheeks at Rainbow and frowned. "Now don't be like that, you grumpy grump. Giggling at them always works."

"Can we please focus?!" one of the soldiers bellowed. "We sorta have a horrific situation happening here!" he added.

"Of course! The...The zombies," Moondancer said. Both she and Rarity shivered in disgust. She analyzed the situation and frowned. "Girls, I think we might have to use the elements early. We can't get through all of that just with us, even with the soldiers."

Fluttershy looked at her necklace and became concerned. "I know the table sent us all here, but do you think the elements will really help us get through all of that?" she asked.

Applejack rubbed her face with a hoof. "Gotta agree with Fluttershah, Moon. They've always been a bit capricious." She flicked hers with a hoof, frustrated.

"I know, but this is the fate of Equestria and the rest of the world now," Moon Dancer said. "We just gotta..." She exhaled and inhaled deeply multiple times. "Just gotta get through our fears and disgusts and find whomever is causing this."

Shining's head drooped and he had a look of guilt. "As it turns out...It's my sister."

"The one from the Crystal Empire?" Applejack exclaimed. "How'd she manage ta do somethin' like this?"

"Hey wait," Pinkie interrupted. "What're you doing outside of the empire?"

"Heeey, she's right," Rainbow realized as well. "Were you in cahoots with her? Sounds awfully convenient for the one causing all this to be part of your family."

"Rainbow," Rarity sighed. "Don't go accusing everypony just because you want to start a fight."

The pegasus raised her hooves up in protest. "I wasn't going to start a fight," she explained calmly. "I was just trying to understand what's happening here."

"As it so happens, we were tracking down my sister," Shining said. He looked to the castle and grimaced at the undead horde. "As it so happens, we weren't able to find her in time."

"Her hiding place was insanely well hidden," one of the soldiers added. "Anypony not determined to find her wouldn't, even if they went where she was hiding."

A stallion chuckled. "Yeah. We almost turned back until we accidentally found a really well-hidden path leading to her home." His chuckling turned to curiosity. "How did she find it, actually."

"Now's not the time for that!" Shining shouted. The soldier bounced in fear and stood to attention immediately. "Our only option is to trust in the Elements of Harmony. With some luck, they'll get through the horde and we'll be able to go wherever that giant doesn't want us."

Moon Dancer looked at her friends and stood tall. "Well, nothing more to do than at least try to get them away from the castle," the mare said hesitantly. "Let's...go," she said.

The group of ponies approached the partially melted wall separating them from the castle, and everyone looked at the Elements, their lungs still. The Elements themselves seemed hesitant to get closer, but with some motivation by Pinkie, managed to force their legs to move forward toward the undead horde waiting around inoffensively.

Moon Dancer took a deep breath. "Never thought we would be finding the undead," she said. "It's like a horror story."

"Yeah, a bad one," Rainbow said under her breath.

The six waited impatiently as they joined hooves for the Elements of Harmony to activate and clear a path, but initially, nothing happened. As they were about to stop and move away, their cutie marks started flashing, a clear sign that the Map of Harmony was intervening in the situation, prompting the Elements to activate. The six mares rose high in the air as their bodies filled with magic before reaching a crescendo and flooding the horde with rainbow-colored magic, vaporizing a large swath of them and flooding over the giant.

"They did it," one of the crystal ponies realized. "They did it!"

"No, they didn't! The big one is still there!" Shining interjected.

Moon Dancer looked on in shock and horror. "What?! But the elements have always cleared away bad things!"

"Maybe it doesn't see it as bad?" Rainbow panicked.

The monstrous undead raised its mace and let it drop toward the mares, crushing the ground they stood on as they dove out of the way. They were getting ready for a fight when Shining Armor jumped in, followed by five others, and jammed swords into the creature's arm and neck simultaneously. It didn't react to the damage inflicted to it and raised its arm, chasing the soldiers off.

"Get into the castle!" Shining ordered the six mares. "The light is getting stronger from the back, so she must be in the throne room!"

"Right," Moon Dancer said hesitantly. She readjusted her glasses and felt her friends put their hooves onto her back. She smiled as she looked at them all. "Right. Let's get in there as fast as we can."

While racing through the damaged and spirit-infested halls, Moon Dancer's mind raced. She didn't let it bother her because things were more pressing at the moment, but Twilight Sparkle had really become a horrific necromancer that was going to drown the world in the dead, breaking the barriers between living and unliving. A more pressing matter occupied every part of her brain, however. How did that giant undead resist the Elements of Harmony? The changeling queen couldn't when she tried to attack the very heart of ponies. Tirek couldn't absorb their magic, instead finding himself burned from the inside out. Even the Storm King, in his bid to take over Equestria and use the elements for his future conquests found himself turned into little more than a burnt matchstick.

Then, an epiphany. Even when the changelings gathered together they were swept away by the magic. That was always against individuals. Every use was against individuals. The mare became queasy. Did that mean that the giant was made of several different bodies stitched together and the elements didn't know how to affect it? How to judge it? Only Twilight would be able to stop it now.

"Hey look!" Pinkie said as they passed a window. "The sky broke!"

As the six approached the throne room, they ended up seeing multiple eyes peering through the cracks and felt their bodies clench in fear.

"We ain't got time fer tryin' ta push the doors open," Applejack shouted. "Rainbow 'n Ah'll slam inta them!"

"I don't think we'll need to do that!" Rainbow announced as the six mares approached the doorway.

The apple pony noticed Spike standing in the way and furrowed her brow. "You," she growled. "Don't worry everypony. That giant thing ain't gonna harm ya so long as ya don't do nothing' ta Twa! She's a purple unicorn. Hard ta miss."

They slid past the undead dragon that remained as stoic as always and nearly felt their hearts sink when they saw Princess Celestia, back as an undead staring into the abyss as her body was consumed by raging green fires. The mares thought that Twilight would be sitting triumphantly next to her crime against nature, but instead found her on the floor, hitting the sides of her head with her hooves.

"Everypony is always obsessed with using Princess Celestia as a scapegoat!" Twilight yelled erratically. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she shouted.

"Twilight!" Moon Dancer cried out. She didn't know what was happening, but she knew she had to do something to get her once 'friend' back to her senses. "Somepony pull her away from there!" the mare begged.

As none of the terrorized employees moved, the old counselor nodded. "With pleasure," he said.

The elder tackled Twilight but found he was too weak to fully hold the mare. His act of bravery inspired three other ponies to come to his aid and successfully hold the unicorn down.

"No! Let me go! Princess Celestia needs me!" She reached out to Celestia just to have her foreleg held down. "Princess! Be careful!" she cried out.

Seeing that the situation was too dire to waste time speaking, the six mares immediately joined hooves and found that the Elements of Harmony activated almost instantly. Twilight was powerless to stop them as she watched a white light surround them and a rainbow of colors emerge from their bodies to swirl about them.

The lavender unicorn couldn't think straight anymore. She had finally reached her goal after all these years, and it hadn't even been a day yet that she got to enjoy having her teacher back.

"No!" she cried out.

Her magic surged, launching the ponies holding her down away, but instead of spirits being summoned, Twilight teleported instantly in front of the princess and erected a barrier.

"D-don't worry, Princess," Twilight struggled to say. "I-I know that you're still drowsy. It hasn't been that long. I don't blame you for...for anything!" Her eyes widened in horror as she saw the rainbow magic cracking her barrier mere seconds after making contact. "No! Not after all that hard work! All that studying! All that research!"

It seemed to happen in the span of a second. Shining Armor rounded the corner, his body beaten and bruised, seeing his sister being attacked by the magic of the elements and crying out to her. Twilight herself feeling her spell fail and shatter helplessly as the Elements of Harmony made a beeline for Celestia.

Twilight jumping in front of the magic to take the full brunt of it for Celestia's sake, much to the horror of her brother and the six bearers.

Release

Twilight found herself in a strange, dark reality filled with lands of sharp, black rock that seemed to grow at every angle and regularly crashed against each other while drifting in this liminal, three-dimensional space. The mare wanted out and to get to Celestia as fast as possible, but she could neither move nor use her magic. Her horn would fizzle out with every effort she used and made everything hurt at the same time.

She grunted in pain. "I need to get out of here," she said to herself. "Spike!" she cried out. "Help me!" She flinched and looked around in a panic when her voice started echoing back at her from everywhere at once. It was reflected multiple times at uneven intervals, and some words were either spoken first or completely omitted from the echoes.

Twilight found herself shrinking in fear when the sky showed her in her predicament at various angles that were displayed in varying sizes and overlapping each other before they dissolved back into strange discs of blue spinning rapidly and both expanding and shrinking at the same time. The unicorn tried to make out what her surroundings were, but she had never seen or read about anything like this.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight called. "I'll save you! I won't let them take you from me again!" she declared. As she struggled against the rocky ground that had enveloped her hooves, her growing frustrations and fears caused her to start tearing up again. "Come on! Let me go!" She started cursing as her efforts were proven unsuccessful by this place. "Let me go! I have to save her, otherwise no pony will! She just woke up and is lost!"

She froze when a familiar pressure came upon her. The floating islands around seemed to fold in onto themselves and were jettisoned far away to the sides, like something was effortlessly crushing them to get to the lavender unicorn. Twilight started struggling faster in a panic and grit her teeth when the pain of her limbs being overstretched reached her brain. She didn't know what it was that was coming after her, but she didn't want to stay around and find out. Unfortunately, it was too late for her.

The mare looked on in horror as a familiar pair of rectangles started closing in on her from an axis she could properly perceive. She started to panic even further and, despite her best efforts, started to cry like a young filly again at this thing approaching her.

"Spike!" she cried. "Help me!" The mare tugged and tugged at her restraints, but it was no use. Her body was tiring and the terror filling up every fiber of her being was preventing her from thinking straight. "Princess Celestia! Heeelp!"

The lights now engulfed her vision, and as they moved to engulf her, the mare screamed in terror. It felt like she no longer weighed anything, like her mind was a bed of sand and starting to get washed away by the current. Was this oblivion? Was that what the Elements of Harmony were giving her as a reward for all her hard work? All those years living alone in a cave with no one to talk to? Years of sheer terror that a pony might spot her and take away everything she had worked on?

"Twilight," a soothing voice called out.

The unicorn paid it no heed. She would join oblivion. A fitting end for somepony so engrossed in the fears that the world had given her.

"Enough of your theatrical dramatics, Twilight," the voice admonished much less softly.

Twilight opened her eyes to see a world of white, yellow, and sky blue. Everything around her almost seemed like it was underwater, and the light bloomed off almost every surface, yet it did not harm her eyes. What was this place? She looked down and felt her hooves grind against white stone placed on the surface of a cloud. Looking around, the mare could only register how alien the location was. Everything seemed to spin and sit at odd, impossible angles in the air. What she saw was either made of white stone mixed with static clouds, or shifting clouds mixed with warping stones. She had troubles focusing on anything at all. Even looking down, she just barely caught glimpse of an angular world of green that registered in her mind as nothing but farmland.

"And I thought you would be excited to see me again," the voice teased.

"Huh?" Twilight turned away from the alien geometry and started tearing up again. She fell to the ground and buried her face against the bit of cloud that hung over the white stone pathway. "No! Princess Celestia! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to have you killed again! I did my best! I studied for so long! For so many years! I did things I hated, like digging up graves to experiment on the bodies so I could bring you back as you were!"

The alicorn placed an ethereal hoof on the mare's shoulder. Celestia took a moment to try and formulate the words correctly. "Twilight. You didn't bring me back to life," she explained. "I've been here the whole time."

Twilight looked up, her face drenched and her eyes swollen. "Huh? No. I saw it. You got up, like everypony else. You were alive again!"

Celestia scrunched her face up. "My dear student, as much as I am loathe to admit it, you did develop a form of necromancy that does not rip the souls of the deceased from the other world or pull in wandering spirits to act as your puppets. Perhaps an unintentional side effect of what you were attempting, I'm sure."

The unicorn slowly got up, shaking her head. "No no no no no. I saw it. You were alive again."

"The magic of an alicorn is an incredible thing, Twilight, but it is unstable." Celestia sighed and walked around, her body leaving behind a wispy trail of color and light. "From what I was told, you did revive my body, yes, and in doing so brought back the magic I possessed, but in doing so, you corrupted what was in it with your ritual."

Twilight started to hyperventilate, both wanting to refuse to accept what she was told and wanting to accept what her teacher was telling her. "That's not possible. I was very meticulous. You should have been brought back into your body, too. Everything was supposed to go back to normal and the ones who did that to you were supposed to be punished." Her eyes lit up with an idea. "I'll go back, flee, restore your body, and try again! Science never succeeds the first time!" The mare laughed maniacally. "That's it! I should have experimented more!"

Celestia put a hoof to her forehead and shook her head in disappointment. "Oh, Twilight," she sighed.

"What? I can--ah! Wh-watch out!" Twilight warned. Celestia turned around, her eyes half-lidded when the sun split into two and rushed down for the two of them. The unicorn tackled her teacher to the side, saving her while her own tail was burnt away, causing severe pain. "I can't lose you again!" she cried.

The lights came back and Twilight stood firm in front of them, putting herself between it and Celestia. They stopped in front of the unicorn while Celestia lifted Twilight up in her magic and placed her to the side.

"You needn't worry, Twilight Sparkle," Princess Celestia reassured. "It is not evil..." She rubbed her chin. "Nor is it good, either."

"B-but it's been harassing me since Saddle Arabia!" Twilight accused. "It wants to kill me!"

The alicorn shook her head. "No, Twilight. It doesn't. It's difficult to explain to somepony still alive, but think of it as the level of an aspect, of sorts." She smiles and points at the immobile lights. "This one is one such aspect of death and life, as we understand it."

Twilight grimaced. "I don't get it."

"I know you don't, but it has been trying to dissuade you from your actions since you went to Saddle Arabia," the alicorn explained. "That being said, I'm very di..." Celestia caught herself. "I'm very sorry that you had to live through all that happened, Twilight."

"Then come back with me!" Twilight pleaded. "We can make everything the same again! I had so much more I wanted to do with you! There was still so much time left!"

"I know, Twilight, I know."

The mare pressed against Celestia's chest, her eyes consumed with fury. "Why did you let them kill you?" she asked angrily. "You could have just chased them all off! Punished them! Anything!"

The alicorn huffed. "Well...You've certainly heard all the reasons that caused this uprising in the first place."

"They were accusing you of a bunch of problems!" Twilight exclaimed. "Food, money. That's their fault! They keep blaming everypony else for their issues!"

"No, Twilight," Celestia stated firmly. "They were right. I was starting to be overwhelmed by the progress the world was making. All these nations suddenly opening up with new ways to trade. New technological inventions working in ways I never heard of. It started affecting my ability to rule, causing me to make very poor judgments. I didn't get enough seeds here because this place had always worked out for centuries, I thought of reinforcing the economy here because it had issues with something or another for decades." She rubbed the back of her head. "It's...complicated, to say the least." She shrugged. "The ponies were tired of it all going on for decades. So many famines..." she sighed. "Their anger was understandable."

"But there were other solutions to the problem!" Twilight said. "You could have just retired, then!"

"I'm immortal, Twilight, or at least I was." Celestia chuckled. "If I had opposed them I would have been seen as a tyrant by everypony in Equestria. If I had left they would have feared my eventual return in the future and the more paranoid would have sent assassins or caused other disturbances to affect the lives of those that were around." She scratched her head. "I know this isn't the explanation you wanted to hear, but I didn't want to harm my little ponies." The alicorn pulled Twilight into an embrace using her wings. "There's so much more I want to tell you, to help you understand why I let them take me, but this isn't the time for you, my most faithful student."

The unicorn nuzzled herself into Celestia's chest as the alicorn's wings tightened.

"I don't want to leave," Twilight said. "I can just stay here. With you."

Celestia looked down at the mare with worry. "Twilight, you still have a life to live."

"No I don't," the unicorn protested. She hugged Celestia. "I don't have anything left. I lost my home at the castle, my own brother wants to keep me imprisoned, and I can't even go back to Equestria. I don't want to go back there."

Celestia pushed Twilight away to lift her up and look at her at eye-level. She was drenched in tears and her eyes were red and swollen. "I'm so sorry, Twilight, but this is how it is. You must let go of me," she said softly. "I'll always be here, watching over you, and I need you to watch over my sister," Celestia explained. "She is also a filly lost in the new world like you. I'm certain you two would become great friends, if given time."

Twilight found herself as a tiny filly again looking up at Celestia in the exam room after her magic surge. Her parents were healed up and the judges were doing just fine as well.

"But...if you go...what will I have left?" Twilight asked. "I worked so hard to bring you back. It's not fair that all of that was for nothing."

The filly felt a hoof press onto her head. "I know. Life never is. If I was able to understand and follow all of this progress, then I probably would have left Equestria in a better state than it is." She sighed. "So many towns abandoned. So many ponies in the streets." There was a moment of silence as the alicorn lamented the consequences of her actions, but seeing Twilight as a filly looking pleadingly at her warmed the mare up. "You need to live your life, Twilight. A proper life. I want to send you out into the world and explore it. Make friends. Even if you can't or simply don't want to set hoof in Equestria, don't forget that the world is enormous. You just might discover things that no creature ever has before," she said with a wide smile.

The lights started approaching Twilight again, growing larger in her sight. The mare held onto Celestia as hard as she could, refusing to let go.

"No! I'm not going! I don't want to!" she protested.

"I have no say in the matter," Celestia said without losing her smile.

The lavender unicorn hung onto Celestia's fur for dear life, refusing to let go even as the aspect pulled at her with enough force to deform the world around them further.

"Princess! Come back with me! Please! It'll work this time!" Twilight begged further. "I promise!" She looked up as her hooves phased through the alicorn's body, seeing tears streaking down Celestia's elegant face. Even in this situation she still held her warm, radiant smile. "No," Twilight whispered as the alicorn became smaller and smaller.

"Magics aren't inherently evil, Twilight!" Celestia shouted. "Your talents can be used for other things as well!"

Twilight tried clinging onto the clouds while the lights pulled at her. "But...but!"

Celestia waved the mare goodbye. "Take good care of Luna for me! She needs the company."

Twilight saw the outlines of two, large equine figures sitting behind her teacher before everything went dark again. All was silent again until the mare was stirred from her slumber by a male voice calling to her.

"Twilight! Thank goodness you're okay," Shining sighed in relief. "She's okay!" he said with a panicked laugh.

"What? What ha--Princess!" The mare pushed her brother away to see the burning effigy of Celestia still standing. She heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that it was all a bad dream. "Oh. I was so worried tha--" Her words caught in her throat when the body turned gray and started to dissolve into dust, making the unicorn scream in horror. "No no no! Princess! I can fix this! I can fix this!"

She tried using every spell in necromancy that she knew, only to see her teacher continuing to turn gray and dissolve. Twilight was watched silently by everypony present who bore witness to a broken mare that only wanted one thing in the world and was pushed beyond her limits to get it.

"Oh! Oh wait!" Twilight jumped forward, successfully grabbing a strand of green hair from Celestia's mane as she dissolved away into a pile of dust and landed on her belly. The green fires flickered in her hooves, warming the mare up. "I can bring her back with just this," Twilight said gleefully. Her joy flushed out of her when the strand turned to ash in her hoof. She not only lost her treasure, but now she had nothing left to remember Celestia by.

The unicorn was frozen in place, her eyes locked onto the pile of ash in her hoof while everypony looked at her in silence, an instinctive pity coming from deep within them. All was gone as the world gradually healed and the spirits vanished.

Digging Again

With the crisis averted, everypony was able to mostly recover from the incident and start to better help each other from the debris and their wounds. The only counselor that had stayed behind frowned when he saw Shining Armor.

"Why is the Emperor of the Crystal Empire here?" he asked.

Shining snorted. "I had been searching for her."

"Why?" the elder asked with a raised brow.

"That's for me to know, and we have more important things to worry about than your pride," the unicorn hissed.

The elder looked at Twilight. "You're right. I'll have her executed at once for having brought such devastation to Equestria."

"You can't do that!" Shining rebutted angrily.

The elder was taken aback. "This kind of behavior is unbecoming of somepony in your position," he noted. A realization came to mind and a smirk occupied the corner of his face. "She's somepony you know, isn't she? Somepony personal."

"That don't matter none," Applejack interjected.

"The Element of Honesty?" the elder said. "We appreciate your contributions, but step aside."

"We don't follow your orders," Moon stated firmly. She and the other five mares stepped in front of Twilight. The unicorn was frozen, staring at the dust on her hooves. "And we can't have you punish somepony who is...clearly wounded."

Moon was met with outrage by the counselor. "Have you seen what she caused? She destroyed the castle and its walls, brought up some kind of undead god that almost destroyed the world! And I should let her go?!"

"It's your fault in the first place!" Rainbow Dash accused. "You got rid of Princess Celestia!"

The counselor was disgusted. "Did you even see what she was causing to everypony? The decades of suffering we endured while she stayed in her lofty castle?" He snorted. "No. Of course not. You just lived in the clouds."

"You--"

"Enough!" a voice bellowed.

A blue figure flew in from the broken windows and landed between the bearers and the counselor. He was shocked.

"She's alive?! You assured me that she was dead!" he yelled at the bearers.

"We maybe kinda sorta probably fibbed a little ittle teensy weensy itsy bitsy tiny winy bit?" Pinkie said with a sheepish smile.

The elder pegasus snorted and stepped up to the alicorn, looking her straight in the eyes. "If I am to be killed and my position usurped, then I will do it standing proudly."

Luna rolled her eyes. "I am not interested in the seat stolen unjustly from my sister and I." She turned around and pointed at Twilight. "I am here for her."

"What?"

The alicorn flew over to a frozen Twilight and frowned. "You have gone through a lot, Twilight Sparkle," Luna said. "It is time you retreat from all this. That you get your head into fresher air," she continued. "I am unsure myself of how to properly help you, but I can put you on the same path I myself took to become who I am today."

"You can't do that!" the counselor shouted.

Luna's muscles clenched and she spoke in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "We shall do as we please! We did not come here to usurp a throne that no longer has value! I know that there are loyalists that loathe you all for your actions, but what's done is done!" The castle stopped shaking when Luna quieted down and spoke normally. "I will see my sister's protégé taken under my wing and helped on a path to recovery."

"But...Princess," Fluttershy spoke up. She shifted nervously, unsure of how to proceed. "What if she starts accidentally summoning undead?" she asked.

Luna became perplexed. "Accidentally?"

Shining stepped forward, wiping the sweat from his head. "Yes. I've seen it before. When under too much stress her magic surges and it seems to summon the dead and the damned to her aid." He narrowed his eyes when he looked at Spike. "The only thing that seems to calm her down is that undead dragon she summoned, and I have no clue as to why." Luna rubbed her chin and gestured the undead to approach, which it didn't. "It also only obeys Twilight." He looked down at his sister, feeling his heart tighten. "Considering the state she's in now..."

Luna thought deeply and hovered her hoof over the unicorn, intently watching the reaction of the undead dragon. She gently 'hit' Twilight, making the unicorn move slightly, prompting the dragon to rush forward, knocking away ponies in its path so it could shoulder bash Luna. The alicorn brought up a shield of magic and let herself get pushed away by the undead. Seeing that she was now away and no longer a menace, the undead looked down at Twilight, waiting for its next order.

"Such strength," Luna said promptly. "She knows how to create undead," she said. "Then I supposed I will be taking them both with me."

"I'll make my way back to the Crystal Empire with my soldiers through the tunnel that Twilight created and we'll collapse it. There's..." He shut his mouth, remembering that the counselor was there. "There's a lot of undead still there, but with their numbers so diminished, they should be easy for us to handle on our own. Otherwise whatever animated them should, hopefully, dissipate on its own." He tapped his chest armor. "I'll have a room prepared for you both in the spire," Shining added.

"That won't be necessary," Luna rejected. "We will be going back to Saddle Arabia," she explained.

"What?! She's my sister!" Shining declared angrily. "I will not have you take her away from me again!"

Luna looked down on Shining, crushing him under her imposing presence. "You are free to visit when she is of sound enough mind," the alicorn explained. "I am not about to cut her off from the whole world. That is what caused her to end up where she is in the first place. She needs the guidance and aid of others, and staying with her own mind likely pushed her further and further into whatever 'world' she lived in." The mare's lips twitch a moment. "I would know."

The counselor, in his paranoia, spoke aloud. "I see. Saddle Arabia," he repeated quietly.

Luna heard him and smiled widely, her eyes bright and open. "Yes, Saddle Arabia, counselor. Being a special guest of their lands, any attempt on my life would not be seen well by his majesty the Lugalik." She focused on the stallion glaring at her. "I'm certain that any potential repercussions could be resolved fairly easily between the still mighty Equestria and the trading center of the world," she taunted. Her face immediately flushed of color. "Oh, but, your army still hasn't recovered from the changeling war has it?" she realized.

"Insulting me with--"

"And I'm the only thing standing between Saddle Arabia invading Equestria for its resources and territory. Hmmm." She looked at the stallion with false despair.

His body trembled in rage as he realized there was no way around her threats and threw his wings into the air in defeat. "Fine. You win," he said calmly. "Well played, Princess Luna. We will make no moves against you whether you're in Equestria or not."

Luna smirked. "Thank you, counselor." She picked Twilight and Spike up in her magic and made to take to the skies under Shining's worried expression when the counselor, with his back turned, spoke up.

"If it's any consolation, I was of the mind to simply banish Celestia." He huffed. "Her death was an unnecessary loss."

"Of course it was," Luna stated firmly. "Everything is always unnecessary in hindsight when it happens and we see the consequences of our actions." There was a moment of silence as the mare took to the air with her charge. "And it is no consolation. You still participated," she said firmly.

Luna flew back through the broken windows and disappeared out of sight of the survivors. While flying through the air, the alicorn looked down at Twilight, melancholy filling her. If she couldn't help Twilight, then she might end up becoming like her, or worse. Even if she felt something clinging to the mare's very soul, Luna couldn't count out the chance that she falls to her despair and tries to destroy Equestria for it.

"Oh, Twilight. Had I known this is what you would have done..." the alicorn lamented.

She gazed upon Twilight and Spike's medallions that somehow survived the Elements of Harmony and felt her skin crawl at their existence. It was like reality itself was shifting and warping around them, and she didn't know what that meant. While she would have adored to rip them off and toss them into the sea, she didn't want to gamble on the effect these things could have on the ocean life itself.

"How did you make these, I wonder?" Luna thought aloud. "This isn't something even somepony like you could accomplish." She felt her curiosity growing. "What exactly did you find on your quest to bring my sister back?"

Twilight remained immobile, having passed out from the stress. Luna looked forward and opened a portal to her home underground and started her plans. It would take a very, very long time for Twilight to recuperate, if Luna was successful in her endeavors, and she would have to keep a close eye on her. The mare of the moon worried that her sister's protégé would commit a horrid act upon herself that could never be undone. For anypony else, that would be an exhausting task, but Luna was an alicorn. Spells came naturally to them. So would one that told her what Twilight was up to.

The unicorn was placed in the alicorn's bed while Luna waited on the side and Spike stood overhead, looking down at its master as it always did. Unfortunately, Twilight did not move for days, remaining unconscious. Luna did her best to try and peer into Twilight's mind, but unfortunately, she never found anything. Being unconscious didn't mean that one's bodily functions ceased, and so the alicorn had to utilize her magic to clean everything almost instantly.

"Ugh. It's like being a mother," Luna joked to herself.

"Celestia?" Twilight groaned. She immediately sat upright and started looking around in a frantic panic. "Celestia!"

Luna stared at the mare, baffled. "A joke woke her up?" She shook her head and stood up to grab Twilight's head and force her to focus on the alicorn's. "My sister is gone, Twilight."

"No! I still--"

"She's gone!" Luna yelled in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "You might feel pain but she was my own blood, Twilight. I'm also in mourning and have been since I came back."

Twilight's eyes shook as she tried to assess what was being told to her. "No..."

"Yes, Twilight," Luna insisted.

The unicorn clenched her eyes shut and teeth tightly and started yelling at the alicorn. "That can't be true! I spent so long working on everything to bring her back! It should have worked perfectly!" She glared at Luna. "What would you even know about spending years studying and per--"

"-Fecting my craft?" Luna finished. She lowered her head to Twilight and looked her straight in the eyes with wide, furious eyes. "Yes. What would I know about working for decades on something I love and to have everypony ignore it in favor of something else? To see all my hard work going down the drain and my frustrations increasing ever more! It's quite the mystery!" she finished through clenched teeth. "No, Twilight Sparkle. What is that like?!"

The mare shrunk away under the anger of the alicorn and felt immense guilt starting to crawl itself up, making her feel even worse. Twilight looked at her emaciated hooves and felt her tear ducts swell, but they were dry. Even the dust was gone. "Why am I here?" she asked Luna. "Why didn't you just let them execute me?"

"That isn't how I operate, Twilight Sparkle," Luna stated firmly. "I will not allow the last bit of my sister's history be wiped clean from Equestrian minds."

Hearing that last line made the unicorn immediately look at Luna, as though it was something she never expected to hear. "Wh-what?"

"You're the last pony who was close to my sister. You knew her better than anypony else in this time." Luna smiled warmly. "Why would I allow those memories to be tarnished and destroyed?"

Luna's warm smile hurt Twilight, making her heart ache, and even though she was dehydrated, the mare immediately covered her face with her hooves, trying to hide her sorrows from the princess who was quick to jump onto her bed and delicately wrap her wings around Twilight. "It will be alright, Twilight," Luna reassured. "We'll get through this," she said as tears streaked down her own face. "And we'll be all the better for it."

Restarting

Twilight fiddled away at dozens of pieces of paper and parchment, writing and working on theories while Luna worked on the floating piece of night sky hovering above the mirror of water.

"I could put this here instead," Luna thought aloud. She dragged her hoof across the cloud expanse, creating a trace of red, purple, and white. "Place this here as well."

Sitting next to Twilight's table were multiple stacks of paper as tall as Celestia, and the mare only added to it. It had been a week since Luna had taken her in and done whatever she could to help the unicorn readjust to her current predicament and what she had just gone through. The mare had been very apathetic to everything until Luna forced her to do something. While not the best approach, it reignited Twilight's brain, but she was too invested in her ideas to stop now.

The mare peered over toward Luna's location, dipped her quill in ink and started scribbling away at her sheet of paper. "I wonder if I could pull the princess from beyond the veil and recreate her body here?" the mare thought quietly to herself. "Gah!"

Twilight dropped her quill and grabbed the top of her head. Luna had just smacked it with the arm of her wing. "I told you to stop doing that," the alicorn chastised. "Just because I'm over there doesn't mean I can't hear you."

"Then I just won't say anything," Twilight pouted.

"I can still see you," Luna specified as she burned the sheet of paper in her magic.

Luna tolerated Spike's presence thanks to it being Twilight's only source of mental comfort for reasons that seemed to escape her and everypony, but she would not tolerate the unicorn raising more undead, let alone attempting to resurrect her sister a second time. There was nothing left of her anyways, and, considering Twilight's mental state, it was obvious that she would likely cause a catastrophe worse than when she resurrected Celestia's body. This was a reoccurring event with Twilight where she would either sneak off somewhere to try and find ways to resurrect Celestia again or do it in plain sight when she thought Luna was occupied. After all, one isn't doing anything wrong if they act 'natural' in plain sight.

The alicorn eyed Twilight. "Have you been eating?" she asked her.

The mare cleared her throat and shied away. "Yes?"

Luna shook her head. "So you haven't, but you have been gaining weight," she realized. "Better that you start with eating a bit instead of nothing at all, I suppose, but don't make me force-feed you like the hippogriffs do to tuna." She leaned in close to Twilight, unsettling her. "You're not a tuna, are you?"

"No!"

"Good. Then eat regularly. You need to strengthen yourself properly," Luna ordered her.

"But I have so much to write, still. The ideas keep coming."

Luna shrugged. "Then eat while you're writing. There's nothing stopping you, and you have magic to hold up your food or your quill. I do it while working on the night sky," the mare explained. "It's not that hard."

"But I'll dirty my papers if I do that," Twilight protested.

"A bit of dirt on paper is not something that we can't clean with our magic, especially with somepony as meticulous as you are."

Twilight looked at her sheets and then back to Luna. "But Princess Celestia told me that using our magic for something so frivolous would make us overly dependent on spells and leave us exhausted when we actually need it."

Luna nodded, pleasantly surprised. "So my sister really was a good teacher. I'm shocked."

"Hey!"

"Don't take it personally," the alicorn teased. "She always had a tough time teaching anypony anything when I was...not imprisoned." She cleared her throat." Anyways, I didn't say that you should use your magic to do everything," Luna explained. "You can still use it when you try to clean things you consider extremely important. It's not a waste of magic then, now is it?" the mare asked with a raised brow.

Twilight hummed pensively. "No. I suppose not," she mumbled. "But are you sure? What if Princess Celestia was here? I don't know if s--"

Luna put a hoof to the unicorn's mouth, shutting her up. "You need to learn to think for yourself at some point, Twilight? Heeding the warnings of teachers and elders is always important, especially when they've lived through similar 'catastrophes' in a given situation, but you still need your own context to formulate." She removed her hoof, letting Twilight wipe her lips clean. "Make your own decisions. No pony can make them for you." She grabbed one of Twilight's notes from a pile and purposefully coated it in mud, horrifying the observing unicorn. "What will you do now?"

Twilight stammered, shocked at what Luna had done. "B-b-but why?! I-How could you?!"

"Will you need your magic later or can you afford to expend a bit of it now?" Luna asked.

The unicorn's eyes shook as the stress of the decision was eating her away. She wanted to listen to Luna and make her own decision, but what if Princess Celestia didn't approve? What if?

The alicorn leaned down to Twilight and spoke softly. "My sister isn't here anymore, Twilight," Luna insisted. "You have to make the decision soon or your notes will be lost forever."

Twilight shut her eyes tightly and clenched her teeth before finally pooling magic into her horn and coating the stained note with it. In just a small flash of light, the paper finally found itself fully clean of any and all mud and liquid, giving her back her notes on parasitical fungus and how their roots could serve to replace lost or damaged nerves. The unicorn hugged it close to her body.

"See? That wasn't so hard," Luna added.

"To you it wasn't," Twilight grumbled. "You weren't the one struggling to decide with something so valuable to you in hoof."

The alicorn shrugged. "And yet I am certain that you've had to make decisions like this on your own to further your knowledge of necromancy."

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came. "Maybe," she finally managed to blurt out.

Luna laughed and returned to her night sky projection and continued expanding on her craft, leaving Twilight to ruminate on what she was just told.

The days went by, and Twilight became comfortable enough to send letters to her brother and step-sister. The first few letters inquired about Twilight's well-being and how Luna was behaving which eventually shifted to asking about how the Crystal Empire was doing since Spike tore it up, to Flurry's wellbeing and development. Things were starting to go well for the outside world as everyone slowly but surely recovered from the Green Sun, and almost everyone had now become aware of the existence of spirits and other crazy entities roaming the world unseen.

One of Luna's visits to the Saddle Arabian palace gave her the knowledge that ghost hunters and spirit slayers have started appearing in the country and likely in Equestria where the event occurred. Most were con artists taking advantage of the newborn fears of the people to make a quick buck, but a few others had successfully caught some rather terrifying creatures. Knowing Twilight's experience with the dead, Luna wanted to ask her for her expertise, but letting the mare work on her theories was enough for now. Any further stimulation might have her devolve into trying to bring Celestia back, as always.

There was always the risk, and with Twilight's progress, no matter how mediocre given the span of time, it was too early to expose her to the world again, especially with everypony now acknowledging the existence of spirits everywhere rather than them being the pure and distinct creations of necromancers. Luna pondered this fact and grumbled to herself. While she knew nothing of the dead, she knew that messing with them and antagonizing the larger and more dangerous ones could lead to severe issues, even if she didn't know what they were. Attack a bee hive and the bees get mad. Attack their queen and the bees want your death. What happens with spirits? Is there a balance with all of them or was there something else involved?

The world had changed once when Celestia was killed, and it had once again changed indirectly because of her again. Luna found it somewhat ironic that she was the one imprisoned in the moon but her sister had almost caused the destruction of everything both directly and indirectly. Regardless of these thoughts, Luna didn't like the idea of Twilight staying cooped up in her cave, no matter how beautiful and illuminated it was. A mare her age needed to go outside and get fresh air, but every time Luna suggested it, Twilight would open a tiny portal to the outside world and get her 'fresh air' from there while continuing her work.

"I wonder if I shouldn't have told her that she can expend her magic in any capacity," Luna regretted.

Lowering herself to the ground near the dilapidated shack, the alicorn stepped on the teleportation rune and activated it, sending her back into her cave where Twilight was now regrouping and reorganizing all of her notes. She would give her newly joined books to Spike who set them on a newly built shelf of white stone the Lugalik had gifted Twilight indirectly for sharing her theories and studies into medicine. Although he cared not for Twilight, he found a modicum of respect for the mare through Princess Luna and decided that he could contribute to her betterment by gifting her things she might require instead of just granting them to the alicorn at her request. It was a win-win situation for the two in a way, and the Lugalik thought it amusing to mock the current Equestria with their scientific and artistic advancements. It seemed easy for the alicorn to bring up his ego over such things rather than to goad him into showing off his military since that would aggravate the other nations around, and Saddle Arabia was already treading a thin line thanks to the envy of their position as a center for trade.

Three more weeks had passed since the Green Sun, and the alicorn of the night had a new gift in tow for the studious mare.

"Twilight, I've brought new maps," Luna shouted. She pulled seven maps from the holder hanging off her right side and let Twilight gluttonously grab them and look them over.

Luna looked to the side, seeing the enormous collection of old maps that the unicorn had collected over the years. She had confiscated the medallions Twilight held when she arrived unconscious, but, with the progress the unicorn had made, allowed her to teleport back to her home. Shining and the soldiers had left everything as they had found it, preferring to let everything disappear for good rather than take it with them or destroy it all.

While the alicorn was disgusted at the state that Twilight lived in, she made sure the unicorn focused only on taking back all of her notes and the maps she had collected, leaving behind all of her scientific equipment. The Lugalik promised to give her brand new and much cleaner ones if she continued to provide him with her research, to which Twilight excitedly agreed.

Luna, however, was completely confused as to how a recluse had acquired all of this. Even if Twilight interacted with the 'underbelly' of society, the maps she had acquired were all so bizarrely old and well taken care of, to an extent. Maps that held secrets that modern ones didn't, things that had been forgotten or simply never known, and worst of all: A couple of the maps were older than Luna herself. They should have crumbled to dust long ago, but there they stood in their wrinkled, aged beauty. When asking Twilight about where she got them, all Twilight would say was 'I found them'. She either refused or simply couldn't elaborate where they came from, and bringing in some of these very old maps to the cartographers at the palace left them all lost. They recognized some bits of Equestrian terrain, but the rest was completely unknown to them. The oldest of the lots was almost three thousand years old, leaving even the oldest and most experienced cartographers confused as to how they were still solid enough to touch and not crumble into dust.

There were more mysteries to Twilight Sparkle than Luna initially thought, and the alicorn knew she would likely learn about them as time went on. There was no reason to hurry. However, today was different, especially when the alicorn noticed Twilight seem lost when looking at two of the maps.

"I don't recognize any of this," the mare said.

"You shouldn't," Luna replied with a smile. "These are maps from far, far to the east."

Twilight looked up at Luna with awe then peered behind her, looking in the wrong direction. "What? But...isn't it just the lands of the griffins and hippogriffs?"

"And minotaurs, but no. I'm not talking about the known lands," Luna specified. "We are going on a trip for exploration. We're going to see what is over there, if anything," she said with a grin. "Who knows what kind of creatures there are over there? The knowledge? The books?"

Twilight's ears perked up at the last word. "Hmmm. I...I'm not sure," she said, hesitantly. The mare looked back at her notes and rescued maps, worried.

"You needn't worry, Twilight. No pony can enter this place without my express permission. Everything is safe, and we will be bringing Spike, so you needn't fret either."

Twilight looked up at Luna holding a wing next to her and gulped. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and her head felt constricted.

"Do it. What is there to lose?" a voice told the unicorn. "There's more necromantic knowledge to be found in such a place if it exists!"

Twilight shook her head, chasing the voice away. She looked at Luna with a weak smile. "Okay."

Luna smiled in return and led Twilight to the teleportation rune to lead them outside. They would need to get supplies from the Lugalik financing this 'expedition'. The alicorn giggled internally. Thanks to the grapevine, she knew that there was an exorbitant amount of 'loyalists" still in Equestria, and they had learned of Luna's existence. Even if she was the mare in the moon, they still trusted the sister of Celestia over the usurpers. They were just waiting for her to make the call to go to a new land. There were plenty of territories in the world that had not been claimed by anyone yet thanks to the time and resources it would take to establish a new home and country, or even simply extend territory.

For now, however, Luna just wanted to explore with Twilight and continue to help her grow and recover. As they teleported outside, they both grimaced from the sudden light hitting their eyes.

Twilight shielded herself and moved away. "So bright!" she complained.

Luna recovered faster and realized that the color was off. The sun was far 'cleaner' than it had been before, and the warmth it gave off despite the desert environment was soft and just warm enough to feel comfy while cool breezes regularly buffeted the landscape.

"A white sun," the alicorn realized with a smile.

Author's Note

There we go! I finished it! Just a little under 100k words, but I managed to poop out this much once every day. Still more than my self-published book Reverting Scales, though (82k words).

Did you enjoy it at least?